A second case of a 2013 Hyundai Sonata fire surfaces in the US. American driver seeks redress from Hyundai Motor America.

Two photos of the American back seat fire in a 2013 Hyundai Sonata. 

Clearly this is a seat heater fire. Note the three burns that the driver put out 

with a bottle of water. The second picture shows a child's toy that almost 

ignited. Also please note the child seat still in place next to the fire source.

2013 Hyundai Sonata car fire story back in the news. New US case and interest by Korean broadcaster KBS.

Readers may remember stories I did in early 2014 about 2013 Hyundai Sonata car fires. These fires start in the back seats of these Hyundai Sonatas. In the case of the first car fire I covered the flames consumed the inside of the car leaving it a smouldering wreck  on the side of the road in about 20 minutes. The engine compartment was left intact.

That fire was the result of an alleged general computer failure. Before the fire burst out the entire car came to a halt. All dashboard warning lights lit up and then went out when the system crashed leaving the seat heater gate open to start the fire. 

Forensic reports done many months later on the hulk left at a wrecking yard during the Canadian winter stated that no firm cause of the fire could be ascertained but the seat heater switch was open. There is no doubt in the driver’s mind that the fire started in the rear seat.

The point is these cars are dangerous to their drivers and passengers and so far Hyundai and their dealers say nothing probably because they fear liability claims. The general system failure of the first fire locked the back doors and as a result the driver lost her lap top computer and some school records because the doors would not open.

She was on her way to pick up her teen age children at school. Had they been in the back then it is anyone’s guess whether they would have been able to escape when the electric doors locked. 

Questions that I raised at the time about taking the car back to a heated garage to try and read out the car’s computer was never attempted. It sat in the wrecking yard subject to the extremes of a Canadian winter for any weeks before the forensic examination finally took place.

Recently on 2 November 2015  I was contacted by an American driver of a 2013 Hyundai Sonata after a similar seat fire experience. Photos provided show a hole in the seat and another smaller hole where a second burn was starting. A child’s toy was also burned as the second photo indicates. The driver in this case put the fire out with a bottle of water. ( see the photos above)

The driver of this Hyundai Sonata smelled smoke and stopped the car before the fire got going. The  back seat heater was on. The driver’s dealer indicated that they could see no reason for the fire and repairs were initiated. The driver is reluctant to accept a repair when the safety of children is in doubt. This driver through a lawyer has now contacted Hyundai Motor America who have suddenly gone silent.

The American driver has a lease and won’t accept the car back. At this point the driver is renting cars ( from 15 September 2015) until a satisfactory resolution is found. 

This story is now finally taking hold. I have also been contacted by a Korean broadcaster KBS who has also read the original blog story and wants to interview me about what I know about these Hyundai Sonata seat fires. 

© Copyright 2015, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

Globe and Mail leaders debate really regurgitated propaganda messages. Where is the election meat?

Still too close to call. We know their stories but how

 does anyone break out?

Globe and Mail economic debate was a disappointment because the moderator allowed the all three leaders to spout their usual campaign stories.

I was hoping that moderator David Walmsley, the Globe’s editor-in-chief would tighten the screws on all the leaders with more acid questioning. That didn’t happen Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau were allowed to stay on their propaganda messages. Walmsley allowed continual regurgitation of their standard messages without checking them for real answers. I expected better of my favourite newspaper.

Walmsley’s misfire was too bad because before the debate started Globe staffers had an excellent 15 minute discussion. They should have been part of the debate and been allowed to engage the leaders to get them off their standard messages. The editor-in-chief was more the managing editor of the paper which was his former job. I think anyone of the Globe’s columnists could have done a better job than the editor-in-chief. My choice would be Geoffrey Stevens as moderator.

Did anyone win any ground? Harper did his steady state message stuff about being a good economic manager. Trudeau managed to get his fairness for the middle class messages out but most of the time he fought with Mulcair instead of getting at Harper. Mulcair revealed a swarmy aspect of his character when he enjoyed his eye rolling zingers too much about his balancing budgets platform. 

There is something about NDP self indulgent rhetoric that has a self-righteous air that is obnoxious especially when it comes from a political chameleon like Mulcair. And when he invokes Tommy Douglas I can only wince that he would dare to compare himself to that important and principled Canadian.

Trudeau’s performance was a bit too hot for television but I suspect that if you heard him on radio or audio alone he would come off well. I watched the debate on CPAC which I get at 420P so Trudeau’s hot argumentative performance was softened by low resolution. Comments by a panel after the debate went from calling him the debate winner to “just not ready” which shows the power of that Conservative destruct commercial. 

I have to say that Harper is steady and a good television performer. He allows the opposition leaders to attack him and he never flinches. He is cool for television even when he is righteously indignant or in a state of denial. In fact he can be effectively dismissive of their attacks and get away with it. However, his steady state story is not really true and is wearing thin. His record is not quite as free from fiscal foibles as he would have us believe. Both opposition leaders made good points about Harper’s economic record.

The bottom line is we got a propaganda debate. It bordered on boring and was very repetitive with each leader’s standard story going without serious challenges. In advertising telling your message over and over is seen as a promotional dictum to register enough times to make a difference. Sadly our political encounters with all three parties is stuck on that level.

Trudeau from a promotional point of view is trying hard to differentiate himself from Mulcair and Harper by running deficits which is a risky strategy. That is risky when two parties create promotional messages that promote balanced budgets. That means Liberal promotion is fighting on two fronts simultaneously. The Liberal plan over the next four to five weeks has to be very special to break through the glut of steady state thinking.

Harper can show a smoke and mirrors surplus. The Liberals will need to show how that surplus is at a cost to programs and hurts people. They need to show that provinces and municipalities and fiscal experts endorse their plans for infrastructure spending. In short we know the plan to run deficits. Now they have to show how Canadians benefit from this plan. That is a lot to do before 19 October. 

Strategic voting is the only way to release Stephen Harper's right wing grip on Canada.

Only the electorate know this for sure. They will have to vote strategically for it to happen.

The electorate understands Stephen Harper’s divide and conquer approach to Canadian federal elections and they don’t like it. Expect Conservatives tired of Harper to switch their vote. Their natural home when discontent with their own party is the Liberals. That is why the New Democrats are looking more like the Liberal Party.

Conservatives of a more socially aware Tory bent are tiring of supporting the right wing ideology that Stephen Harper has attempted for the last decade to impose on Canadians. He has done this with his base of 38.7 percent of voters that in 2011 election that gave him his current majority. 

Tory Conservatives natural home when they are irritated or at least concerned with their own party and leader is the Liberal Party. If enough disenchanted Conservatives do this then Liberals will elect more members for the new parliament in a tight three way race.

Conservatives of this kind often cannot bring themselves to vote for The New Democrats (NDP) unless the NDP looks more Liberal and shrugs off its socialist veneer. That may have happened in the recent Alberta provincial election. The current stance of the federal NDP is to look more like Liberals which could be their way of trying to siphon off traditional Liberal voters. They have a much harder time getting Conservatives to switch but they try by saying they will balance the budget one of Harper’s current election mantras.

In this tight race something has to happen of this kind for any party to get even a minority government. All parties say they will not form coalitions so it is up to the voters to create the government they want. That means a clear shift for Conservatives to either the NDP or the Liberals. In many ridings where the vote is close it will mean strategically voting against Stephen Harper’s view of Canada.

As an example in my own riding Bay of Quinte where the tight race continues. The battle at the moment is between the Conservatives and Liberals although still close with the NDP behind the Liberals by five points. Polls indicate the chances of the riding going either Conservative or Liberal is now 50-50. NDP supporters have to move to the Liberal  to beat out the Conservative candidate. It is like this in many ridings across the country. Conservatives who find Harper too much to take have to also change from their normal voting patterns to the Liberal candidate who at this time is the one who can beat the Conservative in my riding.

The tightness of the current election race indicates that there are many undecided voters who normally have allegiances to one of the three major parties. I believe we are in for a major switch of these allegiances if the election further polarizes to rid Canada of the Harper Government. In those circumstances party loyalties will become less important than the task to stop Harper.

Then there are the voters who are unaligned and with no party affiliations. Their depth of political understanding of the election and what’s happening to Canada may be superficial. They may respond to party propaganda such as the intense He’s just not ready campaign of the Conservatives against Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. Equally they may be influenced by Liberal and NDP propaganda. These voters could hold the balance of who forms the next government.

The next five weeks of this campaign compounds because of its 78 day length the perilous outcomes that could happen for Canada. Literally anything can happen. The Conservatives have been beaten back as the front runners by the Duffy trial, migrant refugee issues, the economic news and their stance on the war in Syria. Can they rebound? Can Stephen Harper’s steady state message break through again?

The upcoming five debates may change the tone of the campaign. However, the likelihood of any one pulling away from the other parties with majority numbers seems very remote. The steam has gone out of the most expensive Conservative campaign in recent memory and despite their spending seem at the moment to be going nowhere. 

Can the NDP or Liberals pull away? Only when the electorate marking their ballots vote strategically can we expect a change that will not mean a minority government and then another election to settle the direction of Canada issues. This election is about curbing the right wing direction of Harper and restoring a more humane centralist government. Given the tight race that means voting strategically to stop Harper or to content yourself with perhaps another four years of Harperland.

Harper's glacial responses to the refugee crisis in Syria and his commitment to the $500 million air war against ISIS demonstrates the Conservative's priorities.

A mean spirited campaign or is the Harper Government just plain tired and without ideas anymore? The Duffy trial evidence showed plainly that moral judgement was suspended in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). Now our pitiful response to Syrian refugees is stolid and without direction. Recent polls show change is in the air but also to a hung parliament where  the Liberals and New Democrats will have to work together. Just one bright spot. If Elizabeth May is re-elected the NDP and Liberals need to invite her to be the next Environment Minister. The Spirit of the Harper Election Campaign is Mr. Status Quo and a direction for Canada that is a disturbing  move to the right of centre.

Harper Conservatives say they are good economic managers. The test will be as the unannounced recession we are in deepens during the election campaign.

The Harper Conservatives have not balanced a budget until the 2015 

election was called and then only because the election was called. 

Is it possible for the New Democrats, Liberals and Greens to take back Canada? Stephen Harper's Conservatives can be beaten by forming a National Coalition Government backed by 60 percent of the electorate.

It can be done with a National Coalition Government.

Forming the National Coalition Government of NDP, Liberals and Greens. This election is shaping up as a major opportunity to stop Harper.

Harperland is a term I coined to examine Canadian politics from a right wing perspective.  In 2011 it attracted 39.7 percent of the electorate kicking out Liberals and New Democrats in many ridings by first by the post vote splitting.  Harper’s policies are opposed by 60 percent of voting Canadians who vote Liberal, New Democrat or Green. 

It is always the politics of first past the post division where progressive politics and policies are placed on the political back burner every five years by the Harperland right wing agenda. 

I keep thumping away at Harper because I find where he is taking my country is to a bad place. It is a place where as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his right wing ideology is always right. He believes the right wing mantra that less government and less taxation is always a good thing. As a result he has run up $150 billion more debt during his decade in office for Canadians to pay back in the future long after he is gone.

Harper ignores the Liberal balanced budgets are good fiscal management that was the hallmark of the Chretien and Martin governments before him.

Harper believes that Liberals are soft and wet and the New Democrats and their ideas are pie in the sky pure orange mushiness. He runs attack ads about Justin Trudeau that assert that he isn’t ready to be Prime Minister.  He attacks the Wynne Liberal government in Ontario with contempt never recognizing that Ontarians gave Kathleen Wynne a majority. 

The new Notley NDP government in his home province Alberta gets no slack as they take power they are already making mistakes and descending into socialist mushiness in Harper’s view. Harper believes that ideas other than his own, die in some kind of political natural selection that only lets the strong survive. In his mind Harper’s views are always correct. He doesn’t learn from other experiences that are different from his own.

These attacks are not based on facts they are ideological propaganda without foundation and designed to build a right wing Canada operated by fundamentalist ideologues like himself such as Paul Calandra, Pierre Poilievre and Jason Kenny. They are propaganda to reinforce the 40 percent who vote for Harper’s Conservative agenda. A good proportion of these 40 percent would elect a post if it was painted blue. His weakness may be the more centre oriented Conservatives who will eventually balk at Harper’s view of Canada.

And in the recent budget he “balanced” the books of the country mostly for optical election reasons and while a recession is brewing and very likely here. Stephen Harper is convinced himself that he is a good fiscal manager. The truth is Canada is slipping into more national debt amplified by low oil other commodity prices worldwide. A recession is probably started.

His notions of security basically restrict people’s rights and freedoms with the likes of Bill C 51. This pernicious legislation expands surveillance while it erodes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms with new powers for judges to break the law for national security reasons. He has also created crowded prisons, longer sentences and less ability to rehabilitate those who run afoul of the law. 

People with security certificates are left to rot even when there is no evidence or terrorism. Conservatives of a Harper bent want to be perceived as a hard lot tough on anyone who disagrees with them. That of course includes those who support the Liberals and NDP.

In addition during the election campaign Stephen Harper announced vague travel restrictions to places where terror organizations are or may be operating. This idea is to stem Canadians going abroad and serving with ISIS and their ilk. Will a commonwealth country like Pakistan be on the no-travel list if it is known that they tolerate the Taliban? How will these restrictions work with business arrangements? No one knows how these new restrictions on travel will be implemented by the next parliament.

In all his security legislation there is nothing that builds positive relationships with immigrant groups at home. There is nothing to educate youth in these communities who might be or have been radicalized towards jihadist ideas. There is nothing for those who went abroad and then decided that they would not finally join the jihadists. Their anti-terror ideas are all punitive and never rehabilitate. That would be a wet Liberal idea that could not be fathomed by the right wing Conservatives base.

The good news of course is the polls show the election is currently in a dead heat. Support for the Conservatives has dropped to about 31 percent at the moment from the 39.6 that elected their majority in 2011. When polls are analyzed it is clear that the country is split three ways at the moment. The NDP and Liberals both say at the moment that they will not work together or create a coalition. That could ensure a Conservative minority government.

My modest proposal to the NDP, Liberals and the Greens is to work together in parliament for a national coalition to undo the decade of right wing Harper ideological view of Canada. If the numbers hold that would make Tom Mulcair, Prime Minister and Justin Trudeau deputy prime minister. Mulcair and Trudeau should also ask Elizabeth May of the Greens to take on the Ministry of the Environment. There is enough talent on the Liberal and NDP benches to build a cabinet of national coalition. After all that what 60 percent of Canadians wanted in 2011 and seem to want this time by the parties they support.

Nigel Wright's squeaky clean image tarnished by Duffy trial testimony. Why didn't Stephen Harper know about the $90,000 cheque? He knows about everything else the PMO does.

Mike Duffy's cheque to the Government of Canada after receiving this 

amount from Nigel Wright. It all looks like Duffy paid it himself. Note the 

Prince Edward Island address on this cheque a transparent 

attempt to establish his principal residence in that province when it 

is common knowledge that Duffy lives permanently in Ottawa 

and has done so for over 30 years.

Duffy trial: Nigel Wright testimony sullies the Harper Government and calls into question Wright’s squeaky clean straight shooting reputation.

Nigel Wright is that kind of person who projects that he is above the fray and tensions of normal life. His ascetic devotion to running a half marathon each morning and his crisp persona as he enters court for the Duffy trial belies a political operative whose main operation with Duffy was to make an embarrassing problem go away.

When he quotes the New Testament that good works are to be done but not seen that hides the fact that he ponied up over $90,000 of his own funds in the service of Stephen Harper. Such loyalty is surely designed to be rewarded in heaven. Instead of being grateful, Stephen Harper hung Nigel Wright out to dry with either a resignation or a firing. We still don’t know which it was.

The Teflon around Stephen Harper is wearing off. The machinations of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to make this Duffy thing go away is over the top. Memos, back biting, control of Senators and what is worst the Prime Minister’s own lawyer Benjamin Perrin in the thick of it all, makes for a turgid lack of perspective by a lot of people operating for Stephen Harper.

If Benjamin Perrin knew about the Duffy cheque from Nigel Wright he was obligated by his professional lawyer-client relationship with Stephen Harper to tell him what was going down after Nigel Wright decided to financially buy Duffy out of his troubles. Perrin should be disciplined by the Law Society. The whole affair smells of too much power concentrated in the PMO. It is now obvious that they couldn't see the wood for the trees and in the process lost their moral compass.

The PMO is no nine to five job. People serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. They serve long hours and in a tense environment. In short they play with political power and they wield it in this case in Stephen Harper’s name. They are adjutants to the Prime Minister. Their job is to control information, put out fires, tell a consistent message and keep members of parliament in the House of Commons and the Senate on the same page as their boss.

The reputation of the PMO is that they are sharp young things who work unreasonable hours seven days a week 24 hours a day to impart the Prime Minister’s narrative to Canadians. They are politicos and in a word propagandists. One of their key jobs is to protect the Prime Minister from criticism. 

When the Senate scandal broke and Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau became a problem over their expenses the Prime Minister needed to be distanced from the fray even if he appointed these three to the Senate and had used them widely to fund raise and for the Conservatives and to spread his right wing agenda for Canada.

The way Stephen Harper works is if anyone gets off message, or creates embarrassments for him they have to fall on their swords. Nigel Wright returned to the private sector after Harper fired/accepted his resignation. Onyx sent him to mange their operations in the United Kingdom.

Mike Duffy who seems confused by what the Senate told him could be expenses and the optics of his expenses in the PMO and the potential embarrassment to Stephen Harper. Normally these expense wrangles when they happen can be ironed out by the Senate itself. However in this instance, the PMO and Nigel Wright got involved and not only for Duffy but also Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau. 

The PMO influence from the beginning of this sad affair meant that the routine became a Stephen Harper priority which could only be satisfied by a very public suspension of these three Conservative notables. These operations by the PMO on Stephen Harper’s behalf were done partially to show that the Government is on top of the Senate Reform file something they promised to do over 10 years ago when they came to power.

Stephen Harper’s current stance on the Senate is not to fill over 20 vacancies. This must be his Senate reform policy for the moment since his appointees Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau have left such a bad taste in the public’s mouth that no one wants to open this can of worms further except the New Democrats who want to abolish the Senate a policy designed to create a Constitutional crisis.

One of the reasons why this kind of thing happens is the PMO has lost touch with the purpose of government which of course is to serve Canadians. They see Canadians, even members of Parliament, even Conservatives, as an enemy to be manipulated and controlled. They have a nasty message that anyone who counters their point of view is an enemy. 

The PMO is not made up of democrats. Democratic ideas for this group is now seen as weak, wet and without substance. They hold that whatever is needed to stay in power is what they do. They are pragmatic, mean and loyal to Stephen Harper’s right wing ideas for Canada. 

When Nigel Wright testifies as an alleged man of rectitude in court this week remember who he agreed to work for and who he agreed to protect from the Senate expense scandal. He thought he could buy Duffy and that didn’t work. He thought he could distance Stephen Harper from the fray and that hasn’t worked either. His testimony this week has supported the defence of Mike Duffy because under oath there is no spin on what happened. 

The bottom line: The PMO is out of control under Stephen Harper and only his defeat at the polls this fall can rectify this sad fact and his attack on Canadian democracy.