The "Prince of Pot" a Step Closer to Returning to Canada

Marc Emery may soon be back in Canada. He's been serving time in a US federal prison since being convicted in 2010 of selling marijuana seeds, but it appears as though the Americans have approved his prison transfer request:

Vancouver’s Marc Emery was given a five-year-prison term in Seattle, Wash., in September 2010 for selling cannabis seeds to U.S. customers over the Internet.
He’s serving his sentence in a medium-security prison on YazooCity, Miss.
But a July 9 letter from the U.S. Department of Justice obtained by The Canadian Press says Emery’s transfer has now been approved.
...the issue is now in the hands of the Correctional Service of Canada and the federal public safety minister, an office that was filled by Vic Toews until his retirement Tuesday.

How sadly ironic that Marc Emery sits in a federal prison while adults in Washington and Colorado can now legally purchase marijuana. Of course, that was the very scenario that those who went after Marc were trying to avoid.
And this is all to Canada's shame, as well. If what Marc was doing was illegal, we should have arrested and charged him. If we had no intention of doing so, then we had no business letting the Americans come in and get him.
Marc's wife Jodie joined us on the program Wednesday evening:

Auditor General: Yep, This Budget is Confusing

When the Alberta government tabled its latest budget back in March, there was a great deal of criticism that the changes to the way they were budgeting actually made the document more confusing in that it was more difficult to ascertain what the true deficit really was.
But when I interviewed Finance Minister Doug Horner on Budget Day, he actually asserted that the changes made the budget "easier to understand":
 
Well, I'm going to suggest that if even the Auditor General is having trouble making sense of the changes, they are certainly not "easier to understand":

The way the Redford government reports on the province’s finances and deficit is so complicated it’s hard for auditors to figure it out, let alone Albertans, auditor general Merwan Saher said Tuesday.
The auditor general said 2013-14 budget documents have been made "exponentially more complicated," obscuring the size of the actual deficit.
He questioned whether the new format for releasing fiscal data enables Albertans to hold the government accountable for its spending.
"I can tell you the very best minds in this office have found it challenging," Saher told reporters in a media teleconference after releasing a 158-page report that questioned government actions and omissions on a broad range of subjects.

More here - you can read the auditor general's latest report here.