Heart of Canada

Results: Give 'Em The Boot Bingo

The NDP posted a bingo game on their site to play during the leaders' debate tonight. The game was entitled "Give 'Em The Boot Bingo." The strategy was psychologically brilliant because the game encouraged listeners to pay more attention to Martin's catch phrases and trite expressions than to what he was actually saying.

Interestingly, Martin seemed to utter fewer catch phrases than usual, which made me wonder if he had a little list to remind him of what he should avoid saying, lest too many people win at giving him the boot. So, I marked off the catch phrases I heard (or those that were very close), but I also ended up keeping track of the very many times he said something else instead. By the way, last I heard, over 38,000 people had downloaded the game prior to the debate.

Here are my results on tonight's Give 'Em The Boot Bingo.

Martin's Liberals Getting Spanked

I thought this election campaign was going to be boring...all nastiness and reiterated rhetoric. However, it seems that the Conservatives and the NDP have both gotten their respective roles right this time. The Conservatives needed to lay out good policies, and the NDP need to attack the Liberals, their fiercest competitors for votes.

Heh, heh. I liked what Layton had to say today, according to CTV news:

Martin has nothing to show for all his bluster about softwood duties, said Layton, who favours recovering the money by slapping an export tax on Canadian gas and oil shipped to the United States.

"Otherwise, we're just leaving our people completely helpless,'' Layton said.

"It may sound firm, but I think what's appreciated in international relations is a firm and clear position. I have to say we haven't been getting it from our current government....''

Layton also accused Martin of electioneering by calling on the U.S. to join the Kyoto accord on climate change when the Americans have actually done a better job of reducing greenhouse gases than Canada.

"He thinks he can stand up and wag his finger at George Bush and somehow impress somebody,'' Layton said. "It's time he started delivering results. That would allow Canadians to be able to speak to the world.''

Martin has also taken a verbal spanking from U.S. ambassador David Wilkins for criticizing the country that's supposed to be Canada's greatest friend and trading partner.

"Canadians have known that the Liberals will say anything in an election to get elected,'' Layton sniffed. "I think now the ambassador has discovered the same thing.''

Right on.

 

Cutting The GST

"The government has money to waste, the government has money to steal, the government has money to spend on benefits for a few .... It's time for benefits for mainstream Canadians, hardworking people who pay their taxes, who play by the rules."
-Stephen Harper

"...this approach to the GST may be good politics..."
-Ralph Goodale

Link

Right Thinking From Jack Layton

Rarely do we hear politicians make speeches based on reason and logic. Given the fear mongering and bombast of the past few election campaigns, I have to admit how refreshing it was for me to hear Jack Layton giving an actual rationale for why an election campaign should be held in January, not the least of which was that the House doesn't sit for those weeks anyway. Rather than giving Mr. Martin an opportunity to bankroll his electioneering at the taxpayers' expense and then produce a budget in January that will be tantamount to an election platform, Layton suggests we call it a day and just wind down this entire mess of a parliament now. I couldn't agree more. What should happen over the next eight weeks is an election. For those of us who celebrate the birth of our Lord or other religious holidays during January, I'll expect us to take those particular days off. The rest are working days, even for politicians, as for everyone else in Canada.

Here's Layton's entire speech from Hansard, plus a little addition to amuse you in the form of how Jack Layton responded to Roy Cullen, who ratherly feebly tried to fend off Layton's historic words:

Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP): Mr. Speaker, this is a historic day in this Chamber in that a proposal is before the House that could bring all parties together in a spirit of compromise in a minority Parliament to achieve a number of key shared objectives. When that happens it is a salutary moment in this chamber. It is one that we need to consider very seriously. We need to examine the arguments why such a course of action is not only sensible, in the sense of being very much a common sense proposition, but also serves the interests of Canadians which is after all why we are here.

The objective is to get things done for Canadians over the next number of weeks and then move into an election after the holiday season in January for a voting day in the middle of February.

Three parties in the House have indicated that spirit of compromise in coming forward with this proposal. The only party so far that has refused to exercise that spirit of compromise, that sense of working together to find a common sense road ahead in order to achieve important objectives for Canadians, sadly is the very party whose unethical conduct has created the situation that we are in today.

The fact is that nothing, but nothing, prevents the Prime Minister from setting an election date on the advice of Parliament. It is, if I may say so, typical Liberal arrogance that a majority vote of Parliament is seen somehow to be irrelevant or an obstacle.

Just because something has not been done before does not mean that it might not be in fact a very good idea. The Prime Minister promised transformative change and suggested that it was required in order to fix the democratic deficit. We agree. However, now he refuses to compromise even though a majority of the House is going to be voting in favour of this advice. In other words, the Prime Minister will not be respecting the will of Parliament.

That does not sound to me, nor do I believe it will sound to Canadians, as though the democratic deficit is being addressed in a positive way. In fact, what it does is it leaves us with a sense that the democratic deficit is growing. We have a political party that received only 37% of the vote wishing to ignore the views of the House as expressed by parties representing almost two-thirds of Canadians. That, I would submit, is not the appropriate conduct for a Prime Minister of this country or for his political party.

Let us examine some of the issues here. First, we have been told by the Prime Minister and members of his party that what we are talking about is “only eight weeks”. In other words, the difference between the date that the Prime Minister has already set. He has already taken the view that there needs to be an election to determine whether his party can carry on in government as a result of the findings and recommendations of a respected justice who has examined a scandal and reported on it.

The Prime Minister has said that Canadians need to have the opportunity to judge on the findings, the recommendations, and the political party about which the investigation was conducted. We agree. The only question is when.

His proposal is on or about March 1. Our proposal, which will be coming from the majority of members in the chamber when we see the vote next week, suggests the beginning of January. Those are the eight weeks that we are speaking about.

What is to happen in those eight weeks? First, the House is not sitting for five of those weeks. In other words, the democratic process of members rising in the House to propose actions on key issues affecting Canadians, the process of questioning the government on its actions and holding it to account, the idea that we should be considering spending or legislation to correct the many unsolved problems that have been left to fester for 12 long years, is simply unable to be conducted during five of those weeks.

Is the Prime Minister suggesting that somehow those five weeks in particular are irrelevant to Canadians? We submit that by having the election in March those weeks are lost as working weeks for parliamentarians to work for Canadians. Therefore, there is no effective and good argument not to be having an election because during those five weeks we are literally shut out of this place in any event.

Of course, there will be something going on during those five weeks. We can be sure that vehicles such as the Challenger will be regularly booked, that there will be a number of press releases and announcements, probably from coast to coast to coast in this country, all paid for, by the way, by the taxpayer. These announcements and spending decisions will already be made by the House of Commons. As a matter of fact, what will be happening during the five weeks that we are talking about is a public relations campaign, not the actions of anything relevant to this particular House.

We will be having a publicly financed public relations campaign. Then the House will return for three more weeks. What is to take place in those three weeks? A budget will be tabled on which a vote will not be able to happen because the Prime Minister has said there will be an election on or about March 1, a budget which will not precipitate or produce any positive action whatsoever and will dominate the three weeks.

Our proposal is simply that this business of the eight weeks being somehow significant or relevant to addressing the issues of Canadians is false. The work that needs to be done by the House should take place between now and the holidays, and that is what we want to see.

[Translation]

There is a solution to the situation confronting Parliament today. It is a matter of common sense.

In the spring, we managed to keep Parliament going because the Liberals agreed to some of our good ideas. This fall, we submitted proposals, but unfortunately the Liberals chose to not work with us to obtain results beneficial to people.

The Liberal Party cannot decide when it will be judged. The people did not elect a majority government, and all parties must be prepared to make compromises.

I believe there is a reasonable solution. There are options other than an election during the holiday period, which no one wants. In addition, no one wants a Liberal Party that thinks it alone can decide when its comportment should be judged.

With this motion, we are requesting an election be called in early January and the vote held in mid-February. This proposal will thus permit Parliament to pass housekeeping legislation, including some very important bills, and will make it possible for the first meeting between first ministers and native leaders to be held. It will also provide an opportunity for the clean-up in Canadian politics that is needed in order to get back to basics, to produce specific results of benefit to the public.

[English]

The difference between last spring and this fall is this. In the spring Liberal corruption created a parliamentary crisis. When the NDP offered good ideas to get things done for people, the Liberals were forced to agree. In the fall, Liberal corruption again created a crisis, but this time the Liberals refused to get things done for people, as the NDP suggested, such as protecting public health care in this country.

This minority Parliament is unusual in that the governing party's unethical conduct has hung over it throughout its life, creating an artificial limit to Parliament's life as established by the Prime Minister. Nothing will happen after the holidays except an expensive taxpayer-funded Liberal pre-election campaign. Let us just formalize when the election will begin. It will be underway, at taxpayer expense, so let us have it conducted under the rules of Elections Canada, with a formal initiation of the electoral process in January.

In the meantime, let us get Bill C-55 passed, a bill to protect workers' wages and pensions when there is a bankruptcy, something our party has urged for many years. It is a bill that three straight Liberal majorities did not produce. It only has come forward in the context of a minority Parliament because the NDP gets things done for working people.

Let us get Bill C-66 passed to get energy rebates to people. Parties from all sides have called for action from the government dealing with the energy price crisis.

Let us let the public transit money and energy efficiency money flow. I remind the House that this money is only there because of the NDP proposals with regard to the budget last spring. That is when we took out the corporate tax cuts and replaced them with precisely these investments that people need.

Let us allow the first ministers meeting with the aboriginal leaders to occur. Twelve years of Liberal government have left aboriginal people often living in third world conditions, and it is about time something was done about it.

The culture of entitlement to which Justice Gomery referred is, unfortunately, alive and well. The Liberal Party thinks that 37% of the support of Canadians entitles it to 100% of the power. There is no sense that there is any need to work with the representatives of Canadians from various other parties who, collectively, have the support of 63% of Canadians.

The common sense compromise that we have proposed would allow people to hear the second Justice Gomery report, which will arrive before voting day. This would enable Canadians to incorporate the recommendations in their thinking and parties would be speaking about those recommendations. In fact, some parties already have advanced proposals for reform. I am very proud of the proposals that have been brought forward by the member for Ottawa Centre, just to name an excellent example of what is before us.

However, the proposal from the Liberal Party to set the date on March 1 essentially establishes a timeline that is in the hands of the Liberal Party to be in charge of pretending to fix its own scandal and then graciously allowing people to vote.

It is true that the common sense compromise is exactly as originally promised by the Prime Minister last spring. He was under the impression at the time that Justice Gomery would deliver his final report on December 15. Our proposal would have an election taking place exactly when the Prime Minister promised Canadians it would.

The Prime Minister is taking advantage of the fact that Justice Gomery has asked for some extra time to prepare his recommendations, and the House will not be sitting during this extra time period. This simply would provide a free opportunity for Liberals and their cabinet ministers to fly all over the country, at public expense, and talk about how terrific they are. There would be no work done in that period because the House would not be sitting.

It is shameful. What we call for is the spirit of compromise.

I ask this simple question, and I have asked it in this House before. Why, when three party leaders of the four in the House are willing to compromise, as one should in a minority Parliament situation where no party has a majority of the support, is the fourth party is withholding that consent and sense of compromise?

It is not that the Prime Minister cannot compromise because of some rule that exists. We hear this spurious notion that somehow the motion is not constitutional. Those who would take a look at it now that it is written and before the House will realize it is. I can cite some sources. Members do not have to take my word for it.

Julius Grey, a prominent constitutional lawyer, says that there is nothing that prevents this from happening.

Here are some quotes from Hugo Cyr, a constitutional law professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

[Translation]

I quote:

There is nothing unconstitutional in this motion.

Parliament may be dissolved for a number of reasons following a vote of censure, a vote of non-confidence and a decision by the Governor General, on the advice of the Prime Minister or simply because the end of the five-year period has been reached. In other words, loss of confidence is not the only reason for the dissolution of Parliament.

Since nothing prevents the Prime Minister from announcing ahead of time the date he will ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament, something the Prime Minister has done on a number of occasions, nothing prevents him from stating ahead of time in a motion put before the House the date on which the request will be made.

Nothing prevents the House from telling the Prime Minister what it considers the appropriate time to ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament.

[English]

I also can quote a law professor from the University of Alberta, one who is also the former attorney general of the country, now the Deputy Prime Minister of our country, who indicated that there was no obstacle to the Prime Minister accepting such advice.

I simply draw the attention of the House to the fact that we have an historic opportunity in a minority Parliament to do what Canadians and the Prime Minister have said that they want to see happen: first, get work done during the fall; second, avoid an election over the holidays; and third, have in the hands of voters the findings and recommendations of Justice Gomery about Liberal corruption. All these things are worthwhile objectives.

There is much work that can be done this fall. It would be better for Canadians not to have to participate or pay attention to electioneering in a season where their children are at home and they are able to spend time with family, thinking about values and about the future in ways that are celebratory and important.

The compromise suggestion respectfully submitted in the House would accomplish those objectives. The only objective that would not be accomplished is one that has never been stated publicly. The government has never referenced or submitted the business it would do in the wintertime. This is period of time when the House would not sit and when no meaningful business could be conducted. The only plan we have had is a plan for the fall. We propose that we work on that plan together. The Liberal Party and its leadership has suggest they do not want to participate. They would rather simply be on their own in January to sell themselves at our expense. We will not have it.

We want this compromise adopted and we call upon Canadians to urge the government to abandon its arrogance of 12 years and to begin to work with the members of Parliament whom they elected.

Hon. Roy Cullen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.): Madam Speaker, the member for Toronto--Danforth began his remarks by citing this as an historic occasion in the House. That is somewhat grandiose. It might be historic because the motion before us is flawed in many respects.

The member for Toronto--Danforth knows full well, or he should know full well, that our government could not possibly accept this motion. The Prime Minister and our government have been profoundly clear that Canadians need an opportunity to see the second and final report of Justice Gomery. On the basis of that Canadians will decide. The government has said that it would call an election within 30 days of that happening.

How could our government now conceivably say that we have reconsidered, that this motion avoids a Christmas election, when we have said, on a matter of principle, that we have to hear the results from Justice Gomery before we call an election?

The member for Toronto--Danforth talks about all the legislation and the good work the House could be doing, which could be forfeited. He knows full well that the government cannot accept the motion, at least he should know that.

A woman cannot be half pregnant. The government either has the confidence of the House or it does not. If those members have the courage of their convictions, they would put a motion before the House asking whether it has confidence in the government. However, they have not done that. They put forward a wishy-washy motion that is an insult and an affront to Canadians and the House.

I ask the member for Toronto--Danforth this. Why should we not wait for the good work of Justice Gomery to be completed so Canadians can judge that fully and then go into an election?

Hon. Jack Layton: Madam Speaker, this might surprise some members, but putting aside all the rhetoric that we just heard and coming to the nub of the point, which was why we would not agree that it would be appropriate for Canadians to have the second Gomery report available to them in an election, I agree with the member. Our motion would ensure that happened.

There is one thing the motion would not ensure. The Prime Minister said, and the hon. member has just repeated it, that Canadians needed an opportunity to see the Gomery report before they voted. However, that was not exactly what they meant. What they meant was they needed an opportunity to permit members of the Liberal Party to take a considerable stretch of time, at their expense, to sell themselves, to cleanse themselves, and to offer all kinds of excuses and pretended actions following the Gomery report. They are counting on the fact that Canadians will have largely forgotten about the report before the vote takes place, or distracted. How could Canadians be distracted?

One way would be to send out a phalanx of cabinet members, at taxpayer expense, with their various assistants and staff on planes provided by Canadians. They would cross the land at a time when the House was not sitting and when members of the opposition parties would be unable to rise in the House and call the government to account for this behaviour. The Liberals would be unfettered in their capacity to spend the public's money during that period. That is what is being sought here, and it is wrong.

It is right that Canadians should have the Gomery report. It is wrong that the Liberal Party should be given a blank cheque advertising budget to sell itself. We have seen what happens when the Liberal Party begins to sell itself with our money. It is called the sponsorship scandal, the very one that the Gomery report is talking about and the very reason we are having this discussion.

Decisions, Decisions

Hmm, what do I feel like reading about today in the news?

Let's see...

more anti-climactic blather about obvious Canadian political corruption

or

scientists discovering that mice can sing?

corrupt politicians? singing mice?

elected weasels? intelligent rodents?

hmmm...has to be

singing mice

Visible Arithmetic

"Unfortunately, the complexity and the volatility of the market means you can see a change of five or 10 cents at the pumps in a matter of hours. A tax break of two or three cents a litre would rapidly become invisible."
- Ralph Goodale

Let's see:

5 - 3 = 2
10 - 3 = 7

115.9 - 3 = 112.9
108.9 - 2 = 106.9

I don't know about you, but I don't believe anything's invisible here. Lower prices mean lower prices. It is that simple, Ralph, or are you saying that seemingly worthless pennies to us is the same as worthless millions to the government? Worthless millions...is that going to be a new campaign slogan? Liberals...leering watching over your worthless millions.

The more things change...

Oh, look, is it going to be Martin's version of the NEP? Talk about your "fuel" for the fire.

"Mr. Trudeau knows or believes that a court will always find that the federal power has more authority?"
- Barbara Frum

"The NEP is often cited as an example of federal government discrimination, which increased feelings of western alienation and led to the creation of many western separatist groups." [Link]

Then there were those two bumper stickers Albertans slapped on their cars in the 1980. I can easily see all that happening again.

UPDATE:

Oh, now things are really heating up [Link]:

Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, who railed against the National Energy Program nearly 25 years ago, warned Friday his province should be on guard for battles with Ottawa over Alberta's resource wealth.

"We should not let our guard down and we should be aware that there will be elements within the federal government that will be considering some sort of, well, they would use the phrase 'balancing measures,' " Lougheed said.

Go Peter!

Assigned Reading: Conservatives

Summer reading suggestion for Stephen Harper: John Milton's Areopagitica.

How great a virtue is temperance, how much of moment through the whole life of man! Yet God commits the managing so great a trust, without particular law or prescription, wholly to the demeanour of every grown man.

Read entire text and reflect on implications for national "morality laws." Discuss and review in preparation for a better performance at summer bbq's. Test next election.

(Yes, I'll still be out of town for the remainder of the week.)

More On McVety

A brief follow-up to my post the other day on militant Christian political strategy. SDA points to this news story claiming that McVety has his sights set on Liberal ridings without incumbents and has already helped a number of incumbent Liberals in past elections. Thus does extremism find its roots wherever fertile soil exists.

By the way, yay to Pat O'Brien for crossing the floor but not jumping the gun by joining another party just yet. Smart move, strategically speaking.

Really, This Isn't Very Christian

Under the auspices of defendmarriage.ca, The President of Canada Christian College, Charles McVety, seems to be cybersquatting on MP domain names and telling people to contact these MPs regarding their vote on the same-sex marriage legislation. Don Boudria whined about it in Hansard:

Mr. Speaker, two days ago I rose in the House on a question of privilege to talk about the fact that there had been tampering with electronic equipment in the offices of members of Parliament, namely the telephone systems hooked up to fax lines. Six or seven MPs at least have been affected by this situation. I want to add to this today by bringing the following to the attention of your honour. We now have a situation where people are engaged in what is commonly referred to as cybersquatting. People have now taken over the websites of members of Parliament in much the same way....

Finally, in about 15 such cases of the 50 that I have just enumerated, the members of Parliament are now subject to this actual cybersquatting. In other words, it is not only that the sites have been taken over, and many of them were previously held by the members and were paid for personally and otherwise, but now some of them have already been converted to these right-wing religious organizations.

Wonder if Charles learned to do that at CCC or just had his IT department look after it. Apparently, CCC offers "specialization beyond basic theology into areas such as religious education, christian counselling, sacred music and business communications." Indeed.

Click to enlarge image:

I guess there's no "thou shalt not cybersquat" commandment.

Is The Alliance Destroying The CPC?

I'm at least a foot deep in paperwork, and I'm also dealing with the legal settlement-that-I-thought-was-a-settlement but now might not be (for those of you wondering and asking about what's happening with that). So, instead, I offer you this poll. Vote now, vote often!

Are the tenacious remnants of the Alliance destroying the current CPC?
	Yes, I wish they'd crawl back to their own extremist roots.
	No, I pray to the leader of the Alliance.
	Yes, but we shall overcome.
	No, I'm an eternal optimist.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Will Harper Ever Listen?

When the Calgary Herald starts saying it, you know things have got to be bad. If political socializing isn't at the top of Harper and company's list this summer, they can forget about having much future for their party beyond what Manning ever achieved caused.

A Grit-Eyed View + (N = 1)

This post is a good example of why I like reading Calgary Grit.

Also, I'm really starting to like this single-case study in blogging. Who else, besides me and Cosh, would use a word like "mendacious"?

Imagining with Canoe

Canoe News illustrates for Canadians the type of humor American Idol was staging during its finale:

Imagine if the Liberals took out ads showing Paul Martin rolling naked in a giant vat of money. American Idol has set some new standard for Teflon TV, wallowing in any dirt anybody can hurl and laughing all the way to the bank.

Truthfully, I don't really want to imagine Paul Martin naked at all, let alone wallowing in money; nevertheless, it certainly might give new meaning to the word martinized.

*shudder*

Walking Your Talk, Or Not

David Orchard denies that he's part of an effort to get rid of Harper:

A "dump anybody" movement is one of insiders and, in the case of Harper, Conservative party members. I am neither, and was even denied the opportunity to attend the party's first convention as an observer. A movement to "dump Harper" may well exist in the Conservative party. I know nothing of it.

While I can't be counted as the biggest fan of David Orchard, neither would I have denied him observer status at the Conservative convention. You can't have an open, transparent, national party but also require secret passwords at the door.

Accountability For Our Money

Monte Solberg puts the NDP budget deal into real-money perspective for Canadians:

Many Canadians support the passing of Bill C 48, otherwise known as the NDP Budget Deal, which advocates a $4.6 Billion increase in government spending. In effect these people are saying that the government should spend that $600 per family of four on their behalf even though that same family would NEVER voluntarily give that $600 to the government to spend on their behalf....A few trusting souls might hand the money over if the government provided a very detailed account of how that money would be spent and how it would benefit their family or their community, something the Libs and Dippers have so far refused to do....Most people however would say something like, What did you do with the other $21,000 you take from me every year to spend on behalf of my family? (The federal government spent $5207 per person in real inflation adjusted (1997) dollars in 2004/05).

Good question, Monte. I'd like to see MPs from other opposition parties asking the same question.

Canadians Wanted Me To Do That

The Toronto Star publishes an interview with Tim Murphy, who says:'

"If you want to get a bill passed, you want to get a motion passed, you want to get a budget passed, you want to get a government agenda passed, you've got to garner a majority in the House," he continues. "That means you've got to accommodate other views. The criticism is nonsensical! That's what Canadians asked us to do! They said `We're not going to give any of you a majority! Work together! You have to accommodate other viewpoints!' What the hell else can it be?"

He and David Peterson apparently found a place for, as Murphy describes her, "politically homeless" Belinda.

Who's Your Daddy?

Angry in TO alleges, based on an examination of previously disclosed data, that one of the biggest contributors to PM PM's leadership campaign was Magna and its group of companies.

Via SDA

Harper's Image

Adam Daifallah recently posted about Stephen Harper's leadership. Laying aside that he introduces the main thrust of his argument with the Paul Martin mantra "let's be clear," his argument is worth at least considering:

Let's be clear: The Conservative Party is no further ahead today than when the merger occured. Amazing, but true. I'm at a loss to explain it other than to say the problem must be Harper himself.

Sure there are other things: the Conservatives' constantly negative tone, their lack of presentation of an alternative vision, etc... But leave the party's amateurish communications shop and questionable strategical decisions aside for a moment.

Harper just doesn't seem to appeal to voters in central Canada. And no, I don't think it is because he's from Alberta. It's just that he's not an appealing person. He comes across as cold and uncaring. Call him charisma-deprived.

Daifallah's characterization of Harper isn't novel or even particularly insightful, but it contains grains of truth about public perception, if not about Harper, himself, that are worth finding amongst the chaff. Let's get straight to it, then.

I completely agree that the CPC's communications shop is amateurish. Although they've grasped the essentials of communication technology, they haven't seemed to capture the right angle on their party's image yet. They haven't managed to use mass communications to capture a sense of the one-on-one in their message. To make things worse, some within the CPC have a belief that frequent communications via call centres will make their members feel like they belong. Call centres have their place, but they can never take the place of that sense of the one-on-one in politics. If you don't convey that every single member you have is important, you won't have every single vote possible at election time.

When the Alliance and the CPC merged, some grumbling occurred, mostly from those in Camp Orchard. However, many were eager and willing to make the new party work. Some even bought memberships after having stayed away from any party for years. These were signs of hope. Then the federal election came, far too soon for any new party, to the credit of the Liberals, who know how to kick hard when a party's down. What I observed during the election was quite different from the many, many elections I've been involved in during the past. I saw a shortage of volunteers, over-reliance on people pulled in from outside the electoral district, and that dreaded over-reliance on telemarketing.

Let me tell you how impactful over-reliance on telemarketing can be. I remember receiving this one call about a candidate in the election, during which I asked the caller what she thought of the candidate. She said she didn't know the candidate, paused, and then said something about I heard she's good. Wow, talk about your underwhelming endorsement. The caller was somewhere in Atlantic Canada, and, quite frankly, didn't give a rhino's ankle whether this candidate won or lost. Let's say it wasn't exactly a good example of Talk-to-a-Tory.

Then there are Daifallah's criticisms that the CPC has made questionable strategic decisions. I also agree some decisions have been very questionable, like flip-flopping on the budget. Very Kerryesque and the kind of decision that suggests uncertainty in one's course. Then there's been the inability of the CPC to shake a certain image of rigidity, which is interesting because even some individual MPs probably feel uncomfortable with that from time to time. Politics is about values, but it's also about cooperation and compromise. You give a little; you take as much as you can get and then you spin that victory over and over.

The current CPC has been negative, I'll agree with Daifallah on that. They have to present alternative visions of Canada that people can get excited about because talking solely about scandal and corruption makes us all feel ugly. Without letting up on the pressure, the CPC has to add in even one or two paragraphs in every speech about what kind of Canada it wants to see -- with details. People will see, are seeing, through the veneer of rhetoric without policy backup. Now that the CPC had its policy conference, it should be pushing forward with a vision. There are no excuses for not doing so any more.

Then there's the Belinda affair. Basically, the CPC was duped, right from the start, in my opinion. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once pointed out, rich people are different from you and me. They're not ideologues, unless it comes to saving their own hides, I believe, at which point they will help each other out. It's the way of aristocracy: the only thing thicker than blood are stacks of money. One of the problems having a leader from the West is not about geography; it's about genealogy and circles of influence. It's about breaking in and having the right backers. If you don't have those down East, you're not going to make it. It takes a savvy politician to please backers but not betray roots. It's not that easy.

So, when people like Daifallah say that Harper doesn't have what it takes in terms of appearance, socialization, and charisma, I translate those words into a neat combination of chic, wealthy, and connected. It's not the appearance of Harper that's the problem. It that he's wearing the wrong jacket to the country club. If Daifallah thinks it's about charisma, he's wrong, you see, because the person down East lacking the most in charisma is actually Paul Martin.

Martin doesn't have those boyish good looks that Harper has, nor the physical presence and winning smile. Nevertheless, I don't hear anyone (but me) complaining that Martin doesn't look people in the eye while he shakes hands. Notice that I said "while" he shakes hands. Sure, he looks at you on approach, but as soon as the connection is made, and you expect a warm grin and a nod, you realize he's looking somewhere else. Very annoying. Superficial, even.

On the other hand, shake Harper's hand. He looks right at you and listens to what you say. One time, I was talking to him while he was having a microphone removed from his jacket and several other people were hovering around doing various things to do with him. No matter. He kept his attention focused right on me attentively and warmly. Plus, he remembered who I was from the last two times we'd spoken. Impressive. No, it's not about charisma, although I will say that Harper should look at the camera more when on tv. It's okay to attend to the people around you, but take a lesson from Paul Martin who, especially during election debates, barely takes his eyes off the camera. He knows it's engaging.

Harper might be from Toronto originally, but he's not from Toronto now. Harper's having problems, in my opinion, because he's hoping for a shift in power to come his way. Shifts in power don't come at election time: they're only realized at election time. Shifts in power come in the four or so years between elections when you line up your team and give it the right resources. Influential backers and personally attended to volunteers make a winning combination because they're all based on one-on-one recruitment. Influential backers bring influential buddies and a strong base of power in the nation. A strong volunteer base brings in masses of support -- family, friends, entire neighbourhoods. It takes an entire party to elect a Prime Minister.

Right now, things do seem top-down in the CPC because people are thinking about policy and strategy. They don't seem to be thinking about relationship, which is the third crucial pillar of a strong team -- connection on all fronts to the right people. However, you hardly ever see Harper with people, and you barely ever see his family. You see him at rallies, speeches, public events. How about living rooms? Back in the day, leaders would meet much more personally with people. How did I meet leaders in the past? Invitations -- to Maz's farm, Elzinga's ranch, and various important and unimportant living rooms around town. I also sat in community rooms, halls, backyards, and gardens meeting with leaders, MPs, Senators and more. They came to talk with us. They came to win our support, not just at election time. They remembered our names.

If Harper wants my support, he's going to have to come and get it. He's going to have to reach out in a very personal way to people within their spheres of influence, whether that's in their communities at home or in Baystreet boardrooms. MPs are going to have to go to local events more often, and they're going to have to call their supports -- not via telemarketing lines. That way, when voters read media gurus like Daifallah saying that Harper's scary, they're going to say, "No he isn't," and they'll dismiss what they read as vapid tripe, which is what it is. Under-analyzed, vapid tripe, I might add. Of course, if they don't have any experience to speak from, they won't be able to recognize tripe when they read it.

The last change Harper's going to have to make is to establish a firmer whip within the CPC. MPs need a certain degree of independence, but they should be warned that if they trample on the Party's image, they're out. Period. Better to have fewer MPs and use the fallen as a lesson to others than to have to fight against an image that says you're ignorant and intolerant. The same has to occur at the local level, but MPs have the job of doing that. If an MP has a base of supporters who are too radical, the MP has to fix that problem.

When I pointed out to my own MP certain indelicate problems of racism and sexism that were occurring with the constituency board in our electoral district, coupled with a tremendous over-focusing on religious issues, nothing happened and nobody cared. So, I didn't go back. If they don't care about the CPC image, why the heck should I? The media (and the Liberals) know about these kinds of situations, and that is what drives the "Harper is scary" bandwagon. Frankly, those kinds of issues are scary, and Harper has to get control of them. Sure, embrace your base, but not the parts that are off-base.

What are the Liberals going to say about Harper in the next election? The crux of it was in CTV News today with regard to Fletcher's ill-chosen words: "The Liberals said Fletcher's outburst is yet more evidence that the Conservatives are an angry party led by people with narrow views." That's what Harper has to battle, but he can't actually do that alone. On the other hand, he is the leader, so if he doesn't take off that suit-jacket, roll up his sleeves, and get down to it first, nobody else will.

Ah, Yes, Our Friend The Audio Tape

So, from MP Grewal, we are reminded of two important bits of Canadian information:

1. you can tape telephone conversations to which you are a party; and

2. nobody cares about the admissibility of the tape in court if the information on it is so explosive or riveting that the tape makes headlines in at least one major newspaper.

I knew point one already. Point two is just a useful lesson, especially if someone's trying to be Prime Minister or President or Pope or something. Once the entire nation knows what you're made of, well, they know.

I've excerpted for you the crux of the alleged Grewal-Liberal Staffer discussion from a transcript published by the Globe and Mail, based on the 8 minutes of tape that, to date, have been released. At one point in the following conversation, the Liberal, allegedly from the PMO's office, comments that the process to obtain Grewal and his wife's support is "much like Belinda."

Fascinating.

It's kind of like a cheesy movie plot: I now have more respect for cheesy movies, based on what I see in Canadian politics, as well as experiences I've had in my own life over the past few years. There's no point in writing fiction when the most interesting parts of a story are just plain fact. Oh, yeah.

Here's the excerpt (my emphasis; the Liberal Staffer's name has been changed to LIB):

LIB: So one of the proposals I have is this, that, tomorrow's vote is, let me phrase it in the abstract. If two members of the Conservative Party abstain from that vote... don't vote against their own party, right? Don't have to. But equally don't vote to bring it down tomorrow night on the two/ I think there's two key votes. And that can be done on the basis... those members can do it, on the basis, well, you know.

Look, my riding doesn't want an election. Doesn't want one now. Thinks it's the wrong time to do it. But equally, you know, to vote the opposite way is to vote against the party I'm a member of, the leader of the party, and I'm not prepared to do that. But I don't think an election's the right thing — I don't want to say that won't create some...

[interjection by Grewal, unintelligible]

... some flak, but it keeps freedom, right? Allows someone to go back home in the right circumstance and it also allows someone an opportunity, right? So if there is an abstention. If someone then, though, in my view, if someone then abstains in that environment, who has exercised a decision based on principle, it still gives the freedom to have negotiating room.

On both sides. Both going back home — then it's actually the freedom to have discussion is increased if someone has made a decision that doesn't preclude any options based on principle. Then you can come and say, "Well look..." — then you can have an explicit discussion. And then in that environment, you know, a person can say, "Look, I obviously abstained, and that created some issues, and now I'm thinking hard about."

You can say, "I'm thinking hard about what's the right thing for my riding and the contribution that I could like to make."

Then we can have a discussion that welcomes someone to the party. And then in that environment we know if those two votes continue to vote, either the one vote switches, or one switches and one abstains, or both abstain, from now until the end of the session the government will survive, right?

We know that. And then we get through to the end of the session, right?,

And then, if one person wants to switch and make the contribution, then that makes a lot of sense. If the other wants to switch and then serve until an election, or some time in advance of that, and then... and then... and then... you know, something would look to be done to ensure that that person...

Grewal: Oh shit.

(It appears that Grewal's BlackBerry goes off, and the conversation is briefly interrupted.)

LIB: That's quite all right. These things go off all the time.

Grewal: I have it switched off.

LIB: All of which is to say, that in advance of that, explicit discussions about Senate. Not Senate. I don't think are very helpful, and I don't think frankly can be had, in advance of an abstention tomorrow. And then we'll have much more detailed and finely hued discussions after that with some freedom. And I think what that allows is negotiating room for you, in either direction. You can easily, say, "Look. Yeah, you know, if you don't like it, you can stay home, stay back with... where you are. And if you do like, we can make an arrangement that allows you to move.

Now look, I don't expect, you to react to that right now. Think about it. Please talk to Ujjal. Ujjal knows this is the discussion I'm having with you. Please feel free, and say, you know, he knows. And then, if that proposal is of some interest to you, then I will talk to Volpe and get something happening.

(Pause. Grewal starts to speak. LIB interrupts.)

Well, I have talked to Volpe, already. So —

Grewal: Is he manageable?

LIB: Yes.

Grewal: What happens is…..[unintelligible] you know how we came together. There are some common friends. He approached me. [unintelligible]

LIB:  No, it's a bit... it's the same. I understand. Sorry.

Please accept, I understand completely.

It's much like Belinda, where there is a third party who is independent of both sides. You didn't approach, we didn't approach.

Grewal: They did approach me.

LIB: The independent party played the role, like we didn't approach, you didn't approach.

Booooos All Around

I was going to write an analysis of The Vote, but Colby Cosh has already raised most of the questions I was going to, so go read what he wrote and know that I agree with it.

I will say the following as a close to this otherwise ugly week:

To Chuck Cadman for supporting corruption in government after ostensibly getting into politics because of his concerns about law and order: Booooooooooooooo

To Joni Mitchell for not at least SPEAKING to the crowd at the gala: Booooooooooooooo

To the gala organizers for not dropping any balloons or confetti, using large-screen projection during the show, or giving the crowd even one little souvenir in exchange for those incredibly pricey tickets (and what the heck was with that couch tomato behind the screen?): Booooooooooooooo

To Belinda Stronach for supporting corruption in government: Booooooooooooooo

To Anne McLelland for publicly commenting on Belinda's choice of shoes: Booooooooooooooo

To Credit Union Centre for making hundreds walk through deep pools of mud in their parking lot: Booooooooooooooo

At least the long-weekend weather looks like it's going to hold up for once.

UPDATE: Nope, I was wrong. It's rain, rain, rain.

A Bouquet For Peter

I've told you how I feel about Belinda's Stronach's subterfuge. It was politically savvy but cutthroat overall. What I haven't talked about is Belinda's betrayal, not of the Conservative Party, but of Peter MacKay. I watched the CTV interview with him earlier today, and I can't help but feel bad for him.

Although she achieved a political coup, Belinda's created an interesting situation here. While preserving an image of power and prestige for herself, from another perspective, she's also crowned herself Ice Queen. Peter MacKay, on the other hand, down-to-earth Peter MacKay, spoke to Canadians from his father's farm. Fresh from planting potatoes in the garden, Peter talked to us, with roosters crowing in the background, like a real person. It was raw.

"I never wanted my personal life examined or broadcast in this way." He sounded genuine. Honestly, what person would want their partner to betray them on national television? Belinda might think she won Liberal admiration, but she's gutted more than Peter: she gutted her own public image as a youthful, eager enthusiast. Now we know she can be ruthless.

A stark contrast to Belinda's self-righteous criticisms of Stephen Harper, Peter MacKay talked to CTV about his thoughts -- his feelings -- in response to her choice of behavior. He wished her and her family well. He deflected comments about details of his personal life, but no matter -- his feelings came through nonetheless as shock, confusion, grief. Likely without planning it, Peter showed us something that Belinda didn't. While she appeared as rigid, even as incensed, as Stephen Harper can be, Peter MacKay appeared more like the walking wounded, which makes him essentially one of us.

I've always had a kind of soft spot for Peter MacKay. Now I feel like sending him roses. Let Belinda jetset and eat with a silver spoon. Peter's talking about what's real. Whom would you rather have representing your hard-earned, middle-class interests every day in Ottawa?

Judging by what he said today, Peter recognizes that healing takes time, but he's attempting to stay on course:

"I'll get back to business....That's what I intend to do....I don't walk away from things. This problem, as far as national unity is concerned, can be blamed squarely on the Liberal party, solely at their feet, nobody else's. And to suggest somehow that the Liberals can clean up their own mess is like saying that the inmates should run the institution. That doesn't work."

Buck up, Peter. She was mean, but you're clean, and your party's waiting for your return.

Perhaps We'll Be Voting

This just in from David Kilgour:

"At some point, you say to yourself, 'Does the government have any competence? Does it have any sense of what the correct thing is for the correct reasons?'

"And finally, when you get enough reasons like this, you say, 'Mr. Martin isn't a serious person.'"

Kilgour said he was horrified by Martin's decision to appoint former Conservative MP Belinda Stronach to cabinet Tuesday. [Link]

We can only hope. I want an election because this Parliament has lost my confidence, and the Liberals have had a long enough stretch in power, which they appear to have abused. If Ontarians can manage to vote any way except Liberal, we might have a hope of a functional government, without having to resort to regional blocks. I don't have very much hope, though, that Ontarians will turn their backs on Martin.

Building Bloc(k)s

I'll give credit to Belinda for helping me to think about this post idea tonight. With Ontario consistently voting Liberal, and the rest of Canada always waiting for Ontario to decide whether other provinces' issues are worth supporting, some people have been talking about Western separation again. It's doubtful, to me, whether a majority of Westerners really would go along with that idea and actually separate.

On the other hand, it is possible to consider a Parliament divided not along party lines but along regional lines without separation actually occurring. We already have a Quebec Block, so I don't see what could stop other regions from forming other regional blocks. Here are two scenarios. I think the numbers are correct -- let me know if I've not added properly somewhere.

Here's a Prairie Block scenario. I put the northern regions in with the prairies because they already share a lot in terms of bureaucratic support with Alberta and Saskatchewan. The block isn't very effective, and there's always a chance Manitoba would go with Ontario rather than join a less-than-effective regional coalition.

Here's a full Western Block. The seat totals are much more effective, and it's not inconceivable that these provinces could work together for each other's benefit. The government (the Ontario Block) would be in an ongoing minority position, and regions might be able to help each other get their various needs met more effectively. In this scenario, Quebec wouldn't have to separate, and the Liberals could still claim to be the natural governing party at least of most of Upper Canada, where they "naturally govern" already.

There's another scenario I was thinking about -- one in which Manitoba contributed its 14 seats to the Ontario Block, but that would still leave the Ontario Block in a minority government position. Looking at this scenario, we might surmise that the Liberals would want to keep BC very happy in order to prevent a Western Block from forming.

I'm not sure exactly what Anne McLelland would do in any of these scenarios, but we know she and Ralph Goodale already have the following scenario going on anyway.

If they joined the Western Block, they'd be much more effective as voices for the West, instead of just being from the West. I think I'm up for a Western Block. Anyone else?

Jim Bobby Sings A Ballad O' Belinda

It's hard to describe...just go listen and laugh.

Where's Belinda's Blog: Redux

During her bid for the Conservative leadership, Belinda had a blog that became defunct. After she won her seat in Newmarket-Aurora she put up a website that, as of this morning still worked. Now, it's just a front page, and the rest of the website, the one that had all those stories and posts criticizing Paul Martin and the Liberals, is completely gone. Some of the info is cached on the web, but that will be gone soon, too. Quick transformation. I wonder when she's going to get rid of the Tory blue and don Liberal red.

Um, should I have capitalized "don"?

Stron-knifeintheb-ack: Redux

March 2004, if you remember, I questioned Belinda Stronach's Liberal heritage:

I'm left wondering...what's Belinda's real agenda?  I mean, how far can the apple fall from the proverbial tree?  Here's what else I'm reading:

"Brian Tobin, former federal Liberal cabinet minister and premier of Newfoundland, has been named chief executive officer of the real estate, gambling and racetrack company controlled by Magna International Inc.'s Frank Stronach."
[March 4, 2004; Link]

"Magna has a unique corporate culture, reflecting the entre-preneurial views of Mr. Stronach, who ran as a Liberal in the free-trade election of 1988 and who stood at his daughter's side in January as she announced her bid for the leadership." [Link]

"...Belinda is spending tons of her father's money on buying organizers and memberships in Quebec in what is an obvious holding up of democracy..." [Link]

Hmmmmm.

Is she really Paul Martin in a cocktail dress?

So, is anyone really that surprised that she's now crossed the floor (and instantly become Minister of Human Resources)? How do you like your democracy, flipped, scrambled, or easy-over?

UPDATE: By the way, I've been wondering for a while now which post of mine would end up being the #666 post. Turns out it's this one on Belinda's act.

Here's some hindsight from Maclean's Magazine, May 3, 2005:

OTTAWA (CP) - The Liberals are engaging in squalid horse-trading in a bid to forestall their defeat in the Commons, the opposition Conservatives said Tuesday.

The Tories say at least four of their MPs were offered plum government jobs to remove their votes from a coming showdown in the House. The Liberals denied the charge and no evidence was put forward by the Tories who made the claim - MP Inky Mark and deputy leader Peter MacKay....

All MPs have publicly rallied behind Harper. But some skittish Tories used a closed-door caucus meeting Monday night to warn him they might lose seats in Ontario if they cause an election now, sources said.

Former leadership candidate Belinda Stronach expressed those doubts publicly. She has no regrets, said one aide.

Stronach's chief of staff Mark Entwhistle said she plans - for now - to support her party by being present for a confidence vote.

"As of now, for sure (but) the thing about politics is that 'ever' and 'always' are dangerous words," he said.

Wells-poken Insight

Paul Wells puts forth an interesting consideration for Independent MPs, coming up to Thursday's confidence vote:

Knowing everything you know about Paul Martin and everything you've seen him do since April, do you think he will take victory in Thursday's vote as a mandate to govern responsibly and diligently until Judge Gomery reports — or as a ticket to campaign for free, from coast to coast on the taxpayer dime, for six straight months at incalculable cost to the public purse, starting on Friday? [Link]

An excellent insight, if you ask me, but definitely rhetorical in nature, given that the answer is so noticeably obvious.

Protests On The Hill

Autonomous Source has great pics and coverage of agriculture protests on Parliament Hill.

Calgary Wit

Calgary Grit posts a prediction of daily happenings in the impending election. Once the election's over, we should do a post-hoc analysis on it. I'd say his humor and conclusions were over-the-top, but given events in politics recently, maybe they're not. Anyway, the post's definitely worth reading.

Non-significant Change Over Time

Goodale and Calvert agree on an extra 300 million, a small increase over the 5.7 billion to which they previously had agreed amount compared to the 5.7 billion Ontario previously received (typo corrected: must have been wishful thinking on my part). The 300 million will be trickled out according to a currently non-existent schedule over the next five years. They must think that we think this is a great deal: we don't. They must think they've impressed us: they haven't. They must think we're stupid: we aren't. In the context of a five-year federal budget, the 300 million is chump change, especially compared to the effect an actual energy accord could have.

The way the Liberals are trying to buy people off with bags of money is pretty disgusting; however, to think Saskatchewan could be bought off with a paltry 300 million, well they must think we've never even been to a big city before. Shee-ucks.

Who's Working Harder For Canadians?

I heard some Liberals complaining that Opposition parties are adjourning Parliament instead of putting in "a full day's work" on behalf of Canadians. Later in the day I saw this:

Meanwhile, for the third day in a row, the Conservatives helped push through a motion to shut down the House of Commons again. The vote passed 138-57. [Link]

I seems to me there were a lot more Opposition members than Liberals in the House of Commons today. It also seems to me that the CPC Bloc are putting in a full day's work -- holding the government to accountability for its actions.

Crisis Reveals Character

Crisis brings out the best in some people and the worst in others. Today, we have learned something about Jack Layton -- he must be an honorable man. The NDP has offered to sit one of their MPs down during next week's confidence motion if Darrel Stinson can't vote due to his upcoming surgery for cancer. According to the Conservatives' communication officer, the party is accepting the NDP's offer. We also hear allegations today that the Liberals were calling contacts in BC trying to find out just how ill Mr. Stinson is, only to then set the confidence vote for the day after he is to have surgery. How crisis reveals character.

I heard another interesting comment today. A caller in to the John Gormley radio program saying that he used to like Ralph Goodale, that Ralph never used to talk like he did on yesterday's show (see post below) and that, given Ralph's new "political lingo" it sounds like the Liberals are doing a cover-up.

See Ralph? I told you.

Ralph Speaks Out

Live blogging Ralph Goodale on John Gormley's radio show this morning:

Ralph says this is a minority parliament "acting out" and that there are "tense patches." No kidding it's tense.

He says this is what happens when "hormones take over rather than common sense." 

Hormones?

Ralph thinks most people want the work of the country to go ahead in the hands of reasonably responsibly adults (I'm guessing he doesn't mean the Liberals?)

John: Why did you let Paul Martin rewrite your budget? (good question!)

Oh, Ralph's whining about Stephen Harper withdrawing his support of the budget and trying to link him to the Bloc. Sad.

Tsk. Tsk. He's touting the budget and calling opposition concerns over the government a "hissy fit." Way to minimize people's concerns about his party's way of doing business.

A question about common sense and whether the Liberals' spending has any. The caller says the Liberals are "proverbial pranksters" throwing money around and dangling $100 bills in front of people before jerking them away.  Ralph answers: blah,blah,blah we planned all this before blah,blah...We're fighting the pine beetle!

Ralph's defending his jumping into bed with Jack Layton... something about new spending on education, health, foreign aid and the environment changing the "profile" of the budget but not the principles. Uh-huh. I didn't know they had any principles.

Oooh...a question about whether they're giving Lorne any money. Ralph answers: "We're not there yet." Referring to himself, Ralph says he  has a "constructive point of view" towards what Lorne wants, and then he goes on about, well, "progress" that has not crossed the "finish line" yet. Whatever. That's a good example of using a lot of words to say nothing at all.

Caller: "That sounds like a no, he's not coming home with an energy accord this week."

Ralph: Something about having big hats and no cattle and scribbling numbers on the back of envelopes. Lots of nothing, here. No equalization deal. He keeps talking about "an economic development issue." Basically, he's saying no.

A question about how they're going to get our money back because government or Liberal coffers (I love the way she equated those) are getting low vis-a-vis sponsorship: Ralph starts talking about housing and how to spend the surplus. WTF?

Oh, now he's acknowleged that she's really talking about sponsorship. He's trying to distance the Liberals from "the wrongdoers." Nice try. He's using words like "safeguards" and "internal audit" strengthening. He's breathing quickly. Interesting.

They cut to commercial. I wonder if he appreciates the break. I wonder if John will show him the e-mail I sent in asking Ralph to cross the floor.

More calls...

Commentary from a caller about Ralph's earlier "hissy fit" comment. The caller grounds the "hissy fit" to the corruption of the government. The caller acknowledges that the budget shouldn't be done on the back of an envelope but that the Liberal way of doing things seems to be to just stuff the envelope full of cash. The caller asks about Paul Martin's connection to sponsorship.

Ralph says Paul Martin is "clean as a whistle on this one." Oh, my. He says Globe and Mail readers are the most informed about this issue because the Globe dug into it all first through access to information. Really. Maybe the Globe should form the government.

Next caller wants to know how many millions are in a billion. He answers her. She asks how many billions of taxpayers money he's used to buy votes. She doesn't want a long, political, confusing answer. He says, okay, they have fiscal flexibility in the budget of 9 BILLION. *choke*

The next caller wants to know if, when Ralph was minister of natural resources, did he know about sponsorship. First he says no. She questions that. Then he says yes, just like everyone else, but not about the wrongdoing. She asks why an ad agency in Vancouver would be in charge of a $50,000 contract in Saskatchewan. He apologizes and mentions that a fire truck is going by him on parliament hill. Indeed, I believe that. Then he starts taking credit for throwing out sponsorship agency contracts. He forgot to say something about that being too little, too late. Stamping out fires, here, ineffectively.

Next caller: Why didn't you support Darfur before and are now doing it just to get Kilgour's vote? Ralph denies this and says they're making decisions based on the best advice from a variety of people. I wondering if he means their election strategy team too.

That's it. John says there were callers "even meaner" waiting in the wings who didn't get on the show. Ralph, you're defending your own political doom here. Defend Canada. Cross the floor.

UPDATE:  One of my readers has asked about Ralph's current answer regarding Darfur in comparison to Paul Martin's statements about Darfur during the last election, as reported on this blog. Good point. Here's my coverage of Paul Martin's Sudan comments from last year:

A student from the Sudan who has been in Canada for five years asked PM why Canada won't do more to help the Sudanese people.

Obviously drawing a blank, PM turned and asked where the next question was coming from. When he was told who would be asking the next question, he turned to that student and said, "I'm going to ask you a question." Then he turned back to the Sudanese-Canadian student and answered his question by saying something like "the world is not ready yet" to help Sudan.

The answer to this very difficult question was lame and hollow. He could have given an answer that was much more realistic and accurate. However, then PM was not going to let the issue go. Rather than graciously moving on, he started asking student after student, standing at the mics, whether they believed it was right for a country to interfere with the civil affairs of another country. The first student answered him by saying yes it was right if the conditions in the country were exceptionally bad and the leader was committing acts of genocide like Hitler. The crowd agreed and applauded heavily in response to her answer.

He didn't get the answer he was looking for so, after PM let her ask her own question, he moved on to the next student and asked this student his opinion on whether a country should interefere in other nations' civil matters if there's no genocide going on, "just oppression." This student said, yes, if the people of that country want you to interfere. PM challenged that student about how the rest of the world was supposed to know whether the people want you to come in if they're oppressed and don't have a free press. The student suggested to the PM that he look for signs of dissent and revolution. Clever answer.

Still not getting the answer he wanted, he asked yet a third student about her opinion on the matter. She said, "I don't know." Obviously this is what PM was looking for because he made a big deal of saying, yes this is how the UN feels, this is how the world feels, we don't know if we should do this or not. Then he turned back to the girl so she could ask her question. Before she did, she looked at the PM and told him something like this, "What I can tell you is that, if I were living in a country where I was being oppressed, I'd want someone in the world to come and help me. Now can I ask you MY question?" Brilliant.

You can read the full post here. Notice that Paul Martin used the words "just oppression" instead of "genocide" during that discussion. Obviously they didn't get it last year. What seems to have helped them to get it this year is their need for David Kilgour's vote, not their concern for genocide.

Sponsorship Ad Exec Wanted

Have you seen the ad for Jobboom that Cnews is running? Check out these two alternating banners:

Heeheeheeheehee.

The Jig's Up

The Globe and Mail and CTV released a poll today on Canadians' attitudes regarding political honesty and the impending election:

perhaps the most stunning finding shows that 61 per cent of Canadians surveyed believe the prime minister is the federal political leader most likely to tell a lie if it would help him politically. Only 26 per cent believe that of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.
[Link]

The numbers get worse:

When asked which party leader is the most hypocritical, 54 per cent chose Mr. Martin, compared to 29 per cent for Mr. Harper. In a similar vein, 63 per cent thought Mr. Martin the most dishonest, compared with 20 per cent for Mr. Harper.

The main impact of the public thinking Paul Martin is dishonest is that the Liberals' favorite campaign strategy, scare mongering, won't be nearly as effective in a national campaign. Let's be honest, contrition won't carry much weight with a public as angry over sponsorship as Canadians are, particularly in the months immediately succeeding tax season, when we've all thought about just how the government does plan to use that money we just borrowed to pay our taxes.

The poll is most serious, perhaps, for Ralph Goodale, who has a reputation for honesty and forthrightness. I can't imagine how a politician with his reputation can abide speaking on behalf of a government as nefarious as this present government has become.

If I were Ralph, I would walk across the floor and keep my own reputation for truth and honesty intact. RIght now, it looks like Martin isn't respecting Goodale's position as finance minister anyway, cutting deals behind his back with the NDP and all, not to mention internal slings and arrows from the likes of Warren Kinsella (I won't even mention what he's been calling Ralph in public, it's so astonishingly rude).

To my way of thinking, at this point, taking that all-important walk is the only right thing to do for Ralph Goodale. It  would be an important vote of non-confidence in the government, and it would show that he really does speak for the people of Saskatchewan, not just for the Liberal Party. It would abolish his growing reputation as a yes-man, and it likely would preserve his seat in the next parliament.

Red rover, red rover, let's call Ralphie over.

The Power Of One, Redux

At the tail end of last year's election, I wrote the following:

Finally, who would have thought the balance of power could fall to one Independent from Surrey-North, BC? If these are the final election results, then, much to Ontario's chagrin, in the next session of the House, what Chuck Cadman says, goes. [Link]

It appears I was quite correct about Cadman's influence in the House. James Bow agrees. More discussion of his post is on the E-Group, where it's cross-posted.

Yes, Mr. Coyne, There Is A DSM

I will avoid the obvious insensitive jokes about Svend Robinson's announcement that he is mentally ill, and proceed straight to the less obvious ones. Kidding. Just some thoughts:

* Throughout the Globe piece, neither Robinson nor his interviewer is able to say the words "mentally ill," let alone crazy. Rather, it is said that he "suffers from a mental illness," or in Svendspeak, that he is "living with mental illness," rather like a room-mate. This is a euphemism, a kind of linguistic prophylactic intended to shield the speaker, no less than the listener, from the harsh reality to which it refers. Like all euphemisms and some prophylactics, it will eventually wear out, requiring the substitution of some new euphemism in its place. In time, "living with mental illness" will be seen as a grievous insult, much as "coloured people" is to people of colour. (Except, of course, for those working at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.) [Link]

After reading Andrew Coyne's take-down of Svend Robinson, I'm wondering if I would have preferred Mr. Coyne just to have gone forward with the insensitive jokes instead. It would have been more honest, I think, and straightforward. True, insensitive jokes would have been openly degrading, but they would have spoken more poignantly to the real attitude informing Mr. Coyne's words.

I believe Mr. Coyne is one of those very savvy writers, the kind who likes to get down to brass tacks quickly, the kind who likes to separate the wheat from the chaff. Yes, that's the kind of writing for which people pay top-dollar and that wins you a place as a nationally revered correspondent. Good take-downs are what the media thrive on and what so many bloggers live for on a daily basis. Yes, Coyne does it again, this time taking down Svend Robinson and all fat women with the ruthless rat-a-tat of snappy keyboard strokes, pelted out like Mr. Invincible.

Like I've said before: there's no coy in Coyne.

While the Coyne-takes-down-Svend parade passes by, with rah-rahs from bloggers and the blaring of the wind section in the parliamentary core, I'm going to pull back a little and speak quietly on the sidelines -- to anyone who'd care to listen -- about mental illness. I'm going to ask you, privately, just what you think it's like to live with a mental disorder.

Mr. Coyne seems to think the phrase "living with mental illness" is euphemistic. He would prefer telling adjectives to those elusive prepositional or adverbial phrases, I suppose. After all, adjectives are like brass tacks; they stick right into the foundation, don't they? They penetrate right to the heart of the person.

Perhaps Mr. Coyne would like to have a big M-I pasted to the front of a mentally ill person's chest or plastered across that person's forehead, for all the world to know "This person is Mentally Ill." Maybe he'd like an armband. No euphemisms, please, in the presence of Mr. Coyne. No "suffering" from mental illness, just "mentally ill." Maybe just plain "mental" would work better from Mr. Coyne's point of view.

Better yet, let's be real, hey? Perhaps Mr. Coyne would like us to stick to those tried and true terms: crazy, cuckoo bird, nutty, bonkers, screwball. Look, over here at dictionary.com: you can check out a whole bunch of adjectives. Choose any one you'd like -- they apply equally to people and animals -- no discrimination. After all, if we're to use the word "stupid," as Mr. Coyne does, to describe people's intellectual capacity in all seriousness, why not use something like "unhinged," too?

One in five Canadians will experience a mental illness during their lives. Is Mr. Robinson one of those people? I'm not his doctor, so I can't say; on the other hand, he's saying he is, so why would we want to berate or degrade him? Mr. Coyne smells political opportunism in the air around Mr. Robinson. On the other hand, we wouldn't want to accuse Mr. Coyne of capitalizing on Mr. Robinson's mental health condition to sell more newspapers, of course, or boost his own ratings in blogdom, would we?

A lot of words fly loosely around the blogosphere, where, on a daily basis, bloggers accuse politicians and each other of various mental and characterological shortcomings. The thing is, if someone, such as Mr. Robinson, says they actually do have a mental disorder, would it be prudent -- would it even be ethical -- to attack them publicly and accuse them of political opportunism? Worse yet, would we want to accuse someone of poor judgment who just announced that, without proper treatment, they have a disorder that could cause them to have poor judgment? Where's the actual sport in that, Mr. Coyne?

If you've read Mr. Coyne's entire post, you'll see he ended it by questioning whether Mr. Robinson is fit for public office, and he suggested that nobody will vote for someone who's experienced mental illness (our very first Prime Minister notwithstanding, of course). After reading Mr. Coyne's piece, I think it's abundantly clear that stigmatization of people who do suffer from mental illness is alive and well in Canada, with the charge now apparently led full-force by Andrew Coyne. I wonder how other politicians, journalists, editors, readers, and even bloggers who might have experienced a mood disorder felt after reading Mr. Coyne's post. Certainly they won't be mentioning their personal mental health experiences to him any time soon.

I realize it's tempting to do a take-down of a long-standing political adversary the second that person admits a weakness, but, honestly, talk about kicking a person when he's down. The entire nation witnessed the humiliation Mr. Robinson endured, and now he's talking about his mental condition relatively openly. Really, must we snigger on our blogs?

That's a silly question, for the most part, since some bloggers relish how their traffic peaks on days when they've done their best sniggering. There seems to be a strong positive correlation between juvenile humor and increased site stats, at least for some blogs, and here I am, the spoilsport, throwing cold water on everyone's great party. Yes, that's me...the keeper of the cold shower. Sober up.

Mr. Coyne's column disgusted me. I don't really care if Mr. Coyne doesn't like Svend Robinson. I don't really care if Mr. Robinson does or doesn't run again in politics. I do care if he has a mood disorder, and I do hope he's able to bring it under control with treatment. I feel the same way about the other 20% of Canadians who suffer from the same kinds of conditions -- I hope they access help, too. People develop mood disorders. Yes, Mr. Coyne, it happens.

I don't believe a person who has a fine talent for writing should use it to degrade persons who suffer from, live with, or otherwise experience mental illness. Just in the same way people can suffer with rheumatoid arthritis or live with lupus or battle a disease, so they can suffer from, live with, or battle Depression, Dysthymia, Bipolar I Disorder, Cyclothymia, Bipolar II Disorder, or the many other kinds of mental conditions that can affect the quality and the reality of a person's life.

Perhaps the only way Mr. Coyne will be able to appreciate the gravity of degrading Mr. Robinson, and others who have a mental illness, would be to experience one himself. I hope he never does, but he has at least a 1 in 5 chance, just like the rest of us, of finding out.

New Blogging Alliance

I've finally found a blogging community I can comfortably join. All the credit belongs to James Bow, who came up with the idea of the Blogging Alliance of Non-Partisan Canadians. While many who read my site might think of me as Conservative, actually I don't belong to any political party anymore, and I don't feel like I really have a political home -- not right now, at least.

Over the past while, I've found my self admiring or criticising aspects of all the major parties and, finally, rejecting them all. So, I think I've finally found a group I can feel good about joining. You can check out the other members' sites on my blogroll to the right.

The Cost Of Crime

CTV News is reporting that the Gomery inquiry could end up costing as much as $72 million dollars:

The federal government has confirmed with CTV News that the bill for the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship program could run as high as $72 million....

In February of this year, it was estimated that the cost of investigating the sponsorship program would be about $60 million. That's nearly three times the $21 million originally approved by the federal government; and more than half the $100 million in questionable payments allegedly doled out during the sponsorship program, including some to Liberal-friendly ad agencies.

My opinion about the matter is that this is precisely why recreant abuses of the public purse are so serious. While CTV predicts that the $72 million will make taxpayers' blood boil, this taxpayer's blood boils not because the inquiry is so expensive but because the criminal actions of some very power people resulted in the swindling of us all.

Instead of complaining about the cost of the judicial inquiry, we should be complaining about the cost of crime. As I have said before, Adscam didn't cost $100 million; its cost is $100 million plus the cost of Gomery.

Jim Goes Green

Jim Elve, the owner of the BlogsCanada site, explains why, after years of not belonging to any political party, he has made a mid-life decision to become Green. Here's an excerpt:

The current state of Canadian politics has descended into partisan bickering which threatens the very existence of our great nation. Corruption, obstructionism, regional advocacy and a near-total neglect of the wishes of the electorate soured me on all of the old-line parties.

Many readers and commenters on this site have "accused" me of being a Liberal. It's an understandable mistake. I consider myself as liberal-minded. While I can identify with many Liberal Party ideals, I cannot support the current incarnation of the party.

AdScam is just one of my problems with the Liberals. Government waste as evidenced by the cost over-run of the gun registry is another. Recently, I learned that a program developed to compensate victims of the Native residential school system has run up expenses of $34 million while making compensation payments of less than $1 million.

Under the Liberal leadership, Canada has fostered a bureaucracy that has grown out of control. I have been a self-employed small businessperson since 1975. I understand the bottom line and I've managed to start and maintain business operations on a shoestring. I see and resent a mentality in the ruling Liberal Party that is reckless in its use of the money entrusted to government by the taxpayers. [Link]

The entire post deserves careful reading and might explain why the Green Party appears to have jumped in the polls recently. As a small-business person, I can relate to Jim's feelings about understanding the bottom-line. Why shouldn't we expect our goverment to run itself at least as well as we run our own personal businesses?

While Jim has found a place for himself in the Green Party, at this point in time, I remained unhitched. This is what I need in order to join a party:

1.    strong support for social programs that is grounded in sound fiscal management and capitalism

2.    strong leadership

3.    STRONG leadership

While the Conservative Party is making claims about being unified and having strong leadership, the news I keep reading about them turns me off.

For example, yesterday I read that MacKay and Stronach are thinking of supporting the Liberal budget. What a fatal error in strategy. If they're saying this just to allay Liberal fears, then, in the end, if they don't support the budget, they'll look like liars. If they actually do support the budget, they'll look like traitors. What a stew they've put themselves into, quite needlessly. I like my MP, but my MP doesn't run the party.

I don't like the opportunism of the NDP in making a deal with Martin, while holding their noses over sponsorship.

I don't like the Liberal's way of courting support with money and appointments. To me, it looks like bribery. Then, of course, there's Adscam.

So, realistically, I have a choice between political ignorance, opportunism, and corruption. Which do you think I'd vote for? If that's my choice during the election, perhaps I'll register an official NO vote. I've never done that before, but maybe I will this time. Can you still do that?

Jim probably would say, what about the Green Party? At this point, I'm saying show me real balance between concern for the environment and concern for economics and employment. At this point, I'm more content just to sit on the sidelines, shaking my head in disgust.

Rage, Papered Over

Superficial self-effacement ineffectively papers over certain rage. Kinsella shows us the perfect example.

Of course, as myriads have previously noted, Kinsella has no permalinks, so antediluvian, verbally guided linking is in order: check out the May 3, 2005 post starting with "Good old Ralph...." Wow, talk about your slinging mud! If the cause for The 2005 National Liberal Implosion^TM weren't so shockingly serious, all the Liberal infighting would be almost amusing.

Actually,forget it. Notwithstanding sponsorship, The 2005 National Liberal Implosion^TM is rather amusing, after all.

Identity Theft For A Cause

Jim Elve posted a rather disturbing bit about a new, surprising kind of identity theft:

In a blog post yesterday, Jonathan Dursi describes a disturbing incident. In Equal Marriage: One Victory and One Question Mark, Dursi tells of a 5 page letter he received from his MP explaining why the MP was going to be voting in favour of SSM. Jonathan thought it odd that he would receive this type of letter since he had never written to his MP on the matter.

In following up, Jonathan discovered that the letter from his MP was in response to an anti-SSM letter the MP had received purporting to be from Mr. Dursi. In at least this one case, a forged letter was sent to a Member of Parliament on behalf of a constituent.

Yikes, yikes, and yikes. You can read the rest of Jim's post here.

Keeping Us Entertained

Monte Solberg provides a good chuckle:

Chretien, in traditional scoundrel fashion, defended the sponsorship program on patriotic grounds. Martin broke virgin territory when he revealed that actually the Liberal Party was victimized by the, uh, (mumble this part) Liberal Party. Who knew?

Heehee. Read the rest here.

Dumb Righties Versus Smart Lefties: The Monger Rants

I'm mulling over what happened at the Conservative Policy Convention. I'm not a member right now, so the party obviously won't care a whit what I think, if they ever did, especially all those men who seemed to be populating both the Conservative Caucus on stage and the delegates in the audience (across the most pathetically narrow tables I think I've ever seen). At least someone had the good sense to make Rona Ambrose the M.C., although window dressing only takes a retailer so far.

I have to read the resolutions in detail. I know I already don't like some of what's happened, but I'm still mulling over events. In the mean time, you've really got to read The Monger's Rant. It's long. It rambles. Really, it's quite exhausting, but it's definitely worth it. Here's an excerpt:

Until Friday, I thought Harper was a cynic. Now I'm not so sure. He may be a cynic, or a squish, or perhaps just a cynic who's a poor manager. But the leadership team of Harper and MacKay, and the caucus including Scott Reid, has failed worse than I thought possible. How is it even imaginable that the big story out of the first day of the first CPC convention is: can the right be united?

Forgive me for wanting to throw my hands up in the air and curse a blue streak. These guys remind me of that line P.J. O'Rourke used to describe Republicans--something like "the party that says government is incompetent, and then gets elected and proves it." Except that with the current lack of management skill and good sense, I cannot see how the CPC is electable at all. And what makes this extra-super-duper-with- a-cherry-on-top frustrating: it's not even the IDEAS which are making the CPC unelectable. It's the freakin' day-to-day management. I guess the old saw really is true: all the smart capitalists go into business, and all the smart socialists go into government. Which means, at election time, it's the dumb righties against the smart lefties. And smart will beat dumb most of the time.

I truly don't know what to do.

He's at least captured how I'm feeling about the party at this point in time.

Go. Read.

Controlling Politically Affiliated Blogs

Here's yet another reason for my steadfast belief that bloggers should remain independent from official affiliation with political parties:

This month, the Federal Elections Commission will take a stab at defining the blog and whether it is free speech, political speech or a new form of the press. While bloggers claim journalistic freedom and certain lawmakers tout the blog's democratization of the increasingly consolidated media, a serious discussion has opened about where the blog fits in the scheme of politics and the press.... when websites begin acting like other media - advertising on other sites and invading unrelated content with their political message - the distinction and the freedom it affords no longer hold.

Blogs also lose distinction when they simply become another arm of the political machine. Like PACs and 527 groups, blogs should not be permitted to coordinate their maneuvers with the political parties. Where blogs are operated or directed by a party, there should be a clear disclaimer, like on a campaign's television ads. When a blog become the tool of a political party, rather than a tool for discussion and the dissemination of information, it becomes simply another form of advertisement. [Link]

The excerpt is from an editorial in Boston University's online student newspaper, The Daily Free Press. While the quotation above refers to the American political process, certainly Canadian bloggers eager to have political parties recognize them might see how the already existing Canadian legislation about third-party influence could open the door to regulation of political advertising via blogs. On the other hand, if third-party influence remains tied to a dollar value, its usefulness in controlling political advertising on blogs becomes reduced to nil, as most blogs cost, well, pennies a day or less.

Harper Liberal

Cosh explains why Harper is the only authentic liberal in Canada. I might have used "libertarian," but Cosh, as always, makes a good point, nonetheless.

*cringe*

What he said. Yes, I winced.

Love Your Enemies

The man and I might have somewhat different politics, but I hardly think this is called for by any stretch of the imagination. Talk about your casting stones. A note to the anti-WK blogger, self-appointed defender of the faith: first and foremost, love one another. That doesn't mean you can't disagree or submit each other to appropriate correction but, come on, saying the man isn't Catholic? Creating an entire run-him-down blog? I don't think so. I pray you reconsider.

UPDATE:  The Warring-Kinsella blog has now been deleted. Excellent decision.

Blogspin

Warren Kinsella, who recently testified at the Gomery Inquiry into the loss of $100 million Canadian dollars, has a plethora of posts up on his blog regarding former Prime Minister Jean Chretien's testimony. He even has pictures of golf balls.

This got me to thinking about the value of a blog as spin. You see, I think that if you read Warren's blog regularly, you can learn from the master himself, as it were, about how to spin a story, Ottawa-style. Seeing all those golf balls on his webpage and reading this comment made me wonder whether the golf-ball strategy wasn't his idea in the first place:

I've worked for and with this guy for 15 years, and he never ceases to amaze me. Golf balls! Bye bye, Messrs. Gomery, Roy, Travers, Spector et al. Bye bye. Have a nice trip. Don't the door hit you on the arse on the way out.
[Excerpted from Warren Kinsella's Musings, February 8, 2005 http://www.warrenkinsella.com/musings.htm]

He's so elegant and gracious with his words.

I suppose the golf ball incident achieved a certain kind pithy drama; however, I don't really care if the government had golf balls imprinted. You see, it's not really this rather run-of-the-mill type of memorabilia that is problematic; it's who skimmed the money as it travelled from point A to point B to pay for memorabilia (and other things) that's the problem.

In addition, Kinsella has been highlighting in giganto-font the inquiry cost as 60-no-80-no-60 million. When people talk about how much money was misappropriated from the public purse via the Sponsorship scandal, they should add to that figure the amount it's costing to get to the bottom of the entire problem. The cost of the Gomery inquiry is only further proof of just how damaging the Sponsorship scandal is to our nation.

So, what's the real cost of the Sponsorship scandal?

100 million + the cost of the Gomery inquiry.

By the way, have you checked out the excellent blog-wit of Monte Solberg? I hope he keeps it up. Very refreshing.

Child Care or Daycare?

When I heard announced on the radio today a new StatsCan finding that a whopping 53 percent of Canadian children were in child care as of 2001, I was very surprised. Timely announcement, I thought, given that the government is about to introduce a budget which ostensibly will include new funding for socialized daycare.

Then, the researcher part of my brain got to thinking: what do they mean by "child care." Later, I went and looked up the study findings. Yup, just what I thought...child care includes babysitting both inside and outside of the child's home by relatives and non-relatives. What concerns me about the way the findings were announced is that many people, upon hearing the sound-bite, might assume "child care" = "daycare," which it doesn't. The Liberal strategy was dubbed a "child care" program during the 2004 election, but it read like a daycare initiative for working parents.

In fact, a CBC Radio 6pm news announcer actually used the word "daycare" in association with that 53% statistic (I phoned and corrected them, asking them to announce the correction on air -- they probably won't).

StatsCan said this:

In child care: refers to care a child received that was not from their mother, father or guardian. At each time period, the reporting parent (or guardian) responded to a question that asked whether or not they used child care while the reporting parent (and/or spouse) was at work or studying. Children were identified as being in child care if the reporting parent replied "yes."

As a result of this definition, they noted that an increase in "child care" occurred in nearly every province. However, they also noted this:

...in some provinces there was a move towards increased use of daycare centres as the main child care arrangement, while in others care in the child's home by a relative increased in popularity.

You see, use of daycare didn't necessarily increase in all provinces -- in most provinces, daycare use actually stayed the same, statistically speaking. In other words, in most provinces, the usage numbers went up or down a little, but now with any kind of statistical significance, meaning that the daycare usage really hasn't changed. Only in four of the 13 provinces and territories did usage actually increase.

I got to wondering about that 53% stat I heard on the radio today, so I investigated futher. It turns out, as I had surmised, that, of the children who are being cared for by someone other than a parent, only 25% of those children are enrolled in an actual daycare program. The rest are babysat in their homes or in someone else's home by either a relative or non-relative. 

I summarized the data in this handy-dandy chart:

(click to view*)

From the chart, we can see that daycare usage increased somewhat. However, we also see that the greater majority of children whose parents work or study are being care for in someone's home (their own or someone else's). If the government puts a lot of resources into daycare, this will not be of benefit to most Canadian families, unless they decide to put their children into institutionalized care. One question remains outstanding for me. I am assuming that StatsCan would have categorized licensed dayhomes as daycares (which they should); however, I didn't see anything on their site to clarify that issue.

While Icertainly am not opposed to daycare, particularly for children who would be at-risk without it, I do feel that parents should have a right to choose the type of care that best suits their particular family. Judging by the chart, the parents who seem most keen on socialized daycare are in Quebec, and there appears to be great variability between provinces on this matter. Opening up daycare spaces (a provincial responsibility) could improve access to daycare for families; however, families in some provinces might be more open to this idea and, therefore, benefit more from the strategy, than families in other provinces. I also heard a rumor (just a rumor at this point) that the "national daycare strategy" will not mean "free daycare" by any stretch of the imagination.

I would like to see the federal government increase funding to Head Start programs and other kinds of early intervention programs for the most vulnerable children in our country. If the government wants to have all families benefit from a national child-care strategy, then it seems to me that the money might best be given to families individually in the form of a benefit so that each family can decide for themselves what type of child care most suits their approach to parenting and their children's individual needs.

*The chart I included in this post is adapted from Statistics Canada's Internet Site, http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050207/d050207b.htm, February 7, 2005. Statistics Canada information is used with the permission of Statistics Canada [i.e., for educational purposes]. Users are forbidden to copy the data and redisseminate them, in an original or modified form, for commercial purposes, without the expressed permission of Statistics Canada. Information on the availability of the wide range of data from Statistics Canada can be obtained from Statistics Canada's Regional Offices, its World Wide Web site at http://www.statcan.ca, and its toll-free access number 1-800-263-1136.

How Will Canada Compare?

Rana cleverly dumped the American budgetary figures into Excel and came up with this rather striking chart:

(Click image to see a larger version.)

With the Canadian budget coming down soon, I'd be interested in doing a comparison.

Reply To An Otherwise Exhaustive Debate

I've been following an extraordinarily long discussion over at Kate's site about same-sex marriage. It's worth reading the original post and the comments, although they are quite exhausting. I have contributed to the conversation now and then, but now I would like to provide a longer reply. Rather than jamming up Kate's comments, I'm going to post my thoughts here, instead, and ping Kate's commentary for those who would like to come here and read mine. Other posts I have written on the topic of marriage may be found under the Canadian Politics II and Religion categories (clickable at right see below).

Posts with more of a political focus:

The Great Policy Robbery
Reverse Political Psychology?
The Civil Union Warranty: Three Years Or One Child
E Bets On Free Votes
Belinda and Me: A Party Unto Ourselves
Reply To An Otherwise Exhaustive Debate

Posts with more of a religious focus:

Non-Sacramental Marriage, A Catholic Oxymoron
You'll Know We Are Christians By How We Treat John Kerry

________

Kate, it's not so easy to make the leap from an argument based on physics to one based on metaphysics. You appear to be arguing that gender identity is based on a person's genotype alone, while simultaneously arguing that there is a metaphysical (as opposed to "social") aspect to gender that remains unchanged even after hormonal treatment and surgery.

Gender identity is based on much more than your genotype, and how you are working in "metaphysics" here (as opposed to religion and morality) is a bit of a mystery in itself. I see that you leap to (false) dichotomies -- things that are (women) versus things that are not (gender reassigned women) -- but the larger issue of metaphysics remains, of course, a nondisconfirmable, faith-based argument. That's fine, as long as you realize that people are free not to believe what you are saying. Or would you like to mandate people's faith?

Your thing-not thing argument is unsatisfying because, in the first place, we are discussing people, not "things," and, in the second place, people who have experienced gender reassignment are very real and entitled to every protection under the law. Furthermore, arguing about gender identity is quite misleading in the context of the same-sex marriage debate because gender identity is distinct from the issue of sexual orientation (and also marriage), although the two issues, of course, are not orthogonal in relation to each other.

If someone has gender-reassignment therapy and surgery, it's not "nobody" who will accept them. You said,

honey - [i]f you were born with a Y chromosome, you ain't female. And it doesn't matter how many legal hoops you jump through (and force others to accept), nobody is going to consider you a woman. [Link]

Rather than saying "nobody" will accept a person who as gone through gender reassignment, I would like to comment that it might be you who doesn't accept them, but others will. Thus, your arguments regarding gender identity, sexual orientation, and marriage have come down to the issue of acceptance: the idea of X is unacceptable; therefore, X is wrong and should be illegal or banned.

Is that the kind of nation you want to live in, Kate? I find your morality-based argument more compelling, although even those kinds of arguments fail in the face of true democracy. Besides, even if X were morally wrong, the question remains whether people in our society should be free, under the law, to commit acts that are morally wrong. Some morally wrong acts are illegal in our society, often because they violate security of the person, but others are not. For example, last I saw, there was no law against adultery or covetousness. In fact, our entire society seems to be based on covetousness. Tsk, tsk.

Regarding the issue of language, while you say that the same-sex debate does not involve a change in language, it most definitely is a linguistic change -- one based on semantic denotation and connotation, but not on syntax.

In addition, saying that persons who are gay or lesbian are not being discriminated against because they presently have the right to marry, as long as they marry someone of the opposite sex, is grossly misleading in terms of rights-based reasoning. An equivalent analogy might go like this: the government bans Catholicism but says to Catholics...oh, it's okay, you have equal access to worship and are free to worship just like everyone else; you just have to worship in the way we tell you.

Don't think the analogy works? I agree, mostly because the church analogy is so much less impactful compared to the ridiculous notion that the government could orchestrate personal, mutually consenting, adult relationships. Really, how much democracy are you willing to sacrifice so that your code of acceptability can be imposed?

The government and churches got themselves into this mess by saying that the government has the authority to sanction personal relationships in the first place, instead of limiting its role to the regulation of individuals' and couples' access to health, welfare, and other social benefits.

Unlike religions, the Canadian government doesn't have a formalized moral code other than civil law.  Without the sacred element, marriage is simply a civil contract. Lawyers could draw these up, no problem, for couples who choose to formalize their relationship beyond that other way we recognize spousal relationships in our society -- through establishment of common-law status.

We had marriages, and we had common-law relationships, but we confused the issue by creating marriage according to the JP system. You see, the same-sex issue isn't even about churches against secular society, anyway, because many churches are willing to perform same-sex marriages.

Presently, we're reaping the effect of that oh-so-long-ago decision to allow the government to marry people. Without a formal moral code, the government must rely on the only thing it has: its laws, legal precedent, and the Charter. Certain acts should and must be banned -- for example, incest, marrying too young, marrying close relations. I'm imagining that some people in this nation would like to see sodomy laws in place again (assuming they understand the impact of restricting these types of sex acts on both heterosexual and homosexual relationships), but that battle also was lost long ago in this country. "Acceptability" is not the driving force in a democracy, even if you want it to be so, even if others see your stance as blogworthy.

Therefore, unless you intend on relegating some types of citizens to unequal status specifically because of their sexual orientation, you should ask yourself whether you want to live in a theocracy or a democracy. Being Catholic, myself, I would choose the latter and then fight the good fight to protect religious freedom for everyone, not just for Catholics.

Finally, as I have already posted on your blog comments and just to add a little levity for other readers, here is George Bernard Shaw's definition of marriage:

"When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition until death do them part."

If only he had known how the future debate about marriage would depend so crucially on whether we used the word "people" in our definition instead of "man and woman."

The Great Policy Robbery

I never wanted to live in an oligarchy, nor would I support one forming government in my home country. I remain moderate in my politics, which means that many political parties don't suit me well, nor I, them. I value self-determination while agreeing that the state has a basic responsibility to provide a social safety net for its citizens, particularly in the areas of infrastructure, wellness, and public safety.

While I recently held a Conservative membership, a few of us contemplated whether to renew. Some did. I did not, not that anyone asked me to anyway. The year end came and went, with nary a whisper from a membership recruiter. *shrug*

Today, I'm glad I didn't renew that membership, because I don't believe in oligarchies. After reading what I have been reading in the news today (with salt shaker in hand), I am content that my money isn't going towards what apparently is happening at the upper ranks of the federal Conservatives:

Mr. Harper acknowledged on CTV's Question Period on Sunday that he launched the ads without consulting members of his caucus.

"No, that was a decision that I took," he said. "I should say that I mentioned to caucus that we were certainly looking to vigorously promote our position. But I made these decisions in consultation with the party's fund."  He also launched the ads without consulting his deputy leader, Peter MacKay. [Source: Globe and Mail]

I would not expect a Conservative leader to use the royal We, but here we have it, or so it would appear. You see, the CPC party does not have a final position on marriage, at least not until its policy convention has concluded, and "the party's fund" most certainly is not the leader's piggy bank. I have said before that I value transparency in government. I can't say that Mr. Harper has failed in that regard. On the other hand, transparency is nothing without democracy.

My opinion is that Mr. Harper and his Ottawa heart-to-hearts saw what happened in the American election and are trying to bankroll the same rallying stance against gay marriage as we saw in some American states. The difference between American and Canadian politics Mr. Harper needs to remember is that, unlike the directly elected American president, only Mr. Harper's constituents vote directly for him. He needs to rely on campaigning by and votes for other MPs all across this country in order to win an election.

In a newly blended party, the one real faux pas a leader can make is to assume everyone will agree with you. Not all of us are, or ever were, Alliance. What the Conservative head office seems to be lacking are conservatives of the more progressive variety, or at least ones with a much better sense of strategy for winning elections.

Swaggering like a maverick with the party's kitty swinging over his back and a six-gun pointed at the constitution isn't going to win a leader much -- not much east of Manitoba, anyway, where political leaders need to deliver the votes. In the face of MPs and members (or former members) who expect greater consultation, Mr. Harper would be advised to recognize that he's steering a team, not spurring on his own pony, or his hobby horse.

Thus I return to my partyless status, for now.  You see, like the majority of Canadians, I don't need a party to be a citizen. On the other hand, that CPC policy convention surely will prove to be interesting, a real political turning point for many people, if I do say so myself.

Now, I crawl back to bed to continue my recuperation.

For further amusement, you've really gotta read Calgary Grit's recent contest. Let fly the hermeneutics. Check out Doug's dynamic drivel, too, on the topic of needless-confrontation- that-makes-you-want-to-bang-your-head-against-a-wall.

Oh yes, and one other point. I find it amusing that the nation is becoming fixated on the idea of polygamy, yet nobody seems worried about polyandry.

Okay, now I crawl back to bed to continue my recuperation.

Reverse Political Psychology?

In my humble political opinion, what's the best way to take a hit at a national adversary, maintain your carefully cultivated base of political power, and help your personal friends by ensuring that everyone will do the exact opposite of what you're openly telling them to do? Become, for the hot issue of the year, the one radical spokesperson -- the wedge, the point of discrimination, the just noticeable difference -- whom few want to be seen supporting on the issue.

"I have friends who are gays and friends who are lesbian and they're wonderful people," Klein said Monday. "I do feel that gays and lesbians ought not to be discriminated against in any other form other than marriage because I think that marriage is a sacred thing that exists between a man and a woman."
- Ralph Klein

Going against Klein would mean Harper would have to either (1) support the opposite of what Klein is saying, thereby flip-flopping on his own position, or (2) agree with Klein, effectively admitting Klein is a stronger and more dynamic leader on the matter than himself.

Very, very interesting. A stroke of political genius, really. Politics is so much like chess, and Alberta politics is second to none on the playing field. I know -- I was weaned there.

Harper better sharpen his game, as this is the second round lost to Klein. A more animated presentation style would be welcome, too. Where's the passion, Stephen? Call me.

[Via Captain Flynn, who also made some interesting points.]

Party Boosting At H & W

Hacks and Wonks replies to my post about the value of renewing a CPC membership. I like the wonky hacking over there. In fact, Hacks and Wonks posts 10 steps for how to be a Party booster, which pretty much describes how I spent a considerable portion of my years here on Earth. I don't honestly know if I have the energy to do all that again. If I'm going to put that much effort in, it would be as a candidate, not as a party member. I'll recommend you to read the post over there, but, um, I'm compelled to tell you that you can do without the substance abuse.

Oh, right, and welcome to my blogroll, H & W.

To Renew Or Not To Renew

Shannon's considering whether to renew her Conservative membership:

So I’m feeling a little disillusioned and I’m thinking I can find a better way to spend $10 than renewing my membership. Ten bucks would buy me three Starbucks grande hot chocolates, or those cute pink wool socks with snowflakes on them I saw at the Gap the other day, or the National Post every Saturday for a month, or two pints of Haagen-Dazs (on sale at Loblaws this month!) or maybe even a bargain-priced CD or DVD or something. [Link]

After talking about same-sex marriage and the importance of much better Aboriginal policies in Canada at my local Conservative policy committee meeting, I have to admit that I felt much like Shannon, especially when one of the other party members asked me in front of everyone else whether I actually belong in this party...PLUS there's a new Starbucks in town.

I think the reason CPC members are feeling jittery is that the first session of Parliament went by with Mr. Harper saying, well, very little, and the whole stripper-gate thing went on just a tad too long.

Mr. Harper's gotta stand up. However, I heard on the news tonight that, after Christmas, the Conservatives are going to propose amendments to the Liberal legislation to preserve the traditional definition of marriage. So, is that to fit Mr. Harper's personal beliefs or is the entire Conservative caucus so so-con that they really did have a hidden agenda in the last election? I thought he was all in favour of a free vote in the House of Commons on this issue, or is that just on legislation that fits with his personal morality? I think he wants to have his cake and eat it too.

May I have your attention please?
May I have your attention please?
Will the real Stephen Harper
please stand up?
I repeat, will the real Stephen Harper
please stand up?

We're gonna have a problem here....

I'm CPCs leader, yes I'm the real leader
All you other house leaders are just imitating
So won't the real CPC leader please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?
- based on Eminem's The Real Slim Shady

Mr. Harper, are you trying to be a democratic leader or a small-M minister? Come on! We need your voice to be strongly democratic. You can see Harper's comments about his proposed amendments on CTV.

Come Next Election, Will Harper Eat Crow?

Captain Flynn makes a valuable comparison between the idea of "civil unions" and Jim Crow laws. Jay Currie realizes that the CPC is risking what I said before and will repeat here:

The fact that nearly the entire Conservative caucus seems intent on voting against the Liberal legislation makes me wonder two things: (1) are the CPC MPs voting as a block, with only token "free votes" being cast; or (2) is the CPC as socially conservative as the Liberals and the NDP were making them out to be during the election.

Neither situation is positive, from my perspective. If they are voting as a block, for the most part, can they not see that doing so makes them validate all the "so-con" fears that were thrown around during the election? I'm seriously wondering just how big (or small) Mr. Harper's tent is. I hope it's larger than it now appears.
- me

I realize Mr. Harper personally supports the traditional idea of marriage, as do I, by the way, for myself, but does he really expect the entire rest of the country to do so, as well? 

Doesn't he want me in his party? *sniff*

The Civil Union Warranty: Three Years Or One Child

Jay Currie brings up a point I've been making for a few months now, which involves whether the government should have the authority to say who can and can't become married. For me, a few obvious exceptions to non-governmental involvement exist, which include, but are not limited to, incest and marriages involving minors. You see, for people who believe that marriage is a sacrament, it doesn't really matter whether the government says you can marry (unless, of course, it says you can't); what matters is whether your church says you can marry.

Jay, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, suggests that anyone be able to perform a marriage, with the government only recognizing the relationship after certain milestones have been achieved, kind of what I would call a civil-union warranty:

And, here's a thought, just for fun, if the State does feel it necessary to register unions of whatever sort, let's save some time and say none can be registered which have not passed the three year mark or produced children? [Link]

I think Jay's point nicely highlights what is important about marriage, as compared with "unions of whatever sort." Marriage is a genuine benchmark, unlike civil unions or common-law relationships, which do not carry the same today-we-pledged-official-vows-to-each-other kind of impact as marriage does. You might see from this why marriage is so desirable to some people, rather than "civil union."

Jay's suggestion of whatever comes first, three years or children, obviously wouldn't work because people do not necessarily become married to procreate, and three years is just arbitrary. There's no bean-counting standard to determine whether the parts are starting to wear at that point or whether they're good for another few years after that. Having a child might make you feel like you've gone 100,000 miles in a relationship, but the comparison doesn't hold. Relationships and children are not like cars: they don't come with return policies, trial periods, or warranties. Plus, the three-year ruling would raise havoc with people who see marriage as a sacrament, valid at consummation (i.e., having sexual intercourse with each other), assuming both parties took their vows with proper intent in the first place.

Where Jay steers off the path, I think, is when he insidiously changes the focus from "who can get married" to "who can perform marriages." If the state no longer has a say (again, with some notable exceptions) over who can become married, it still can have a say over who can perform marriages. Marriage can occur after licensing by an agent of the state qualified to perform a marriage or after publication of banns. If the state were no longer involved in the act of solemnizing marriages, then reversion to publication of banns would be possible, with exceptions being allowed, in much the same way that public notification can be waived in the case of name changes when people have a good reason for not publicizing their name change.

If the state no longer has a say in who can become married (with exceptions noted), then the state probably should not be involved in solemnizing people's marriages either. In this case, marriages could take place in recognized churches or by registered marriage agents (i.e., privatization of the marriage system), resulting in an entrepreneurial form of job creation as well, Vegas style.

For me, marriage is a sacrament, so civil and other non-sacramental marriages are not sacramentally valid anyway. Of course, my perspective isn't the only one that counts in this country, which is why I don't run around telling people their marriages are invalid when, in fact, from a non-sacramental perspective, they are. This is also why I am not against same-sex marriage. The phrase that might best describe my stance is "religious tolerance" or, better yet, "freedom of worship."

I think we still have that in Canada, don't we?

Postscript: Cosh points out J. Kelly's insightful comparison.

E Bets On Free Votes

For me, a free vote hardly is a free vote if it has the words "except the cabinet" attached to it. Apparently, some Liberal MPs are threatening to quit if they are forced to vote for equality in non-sacramental Canadian marriage. I'm thinking that the only thing that possible could save Ralph Goodale's behind on this on is a national referendum, and that's not going to happen any time soon. I'm laying e-money down, right here, right now that he's going to do what Martin wants.

E$50.00

Any takers? Winners get a special blogpost announcing they are Ridiculously Insightful Geniuses on Hot Topics (and the e-money, which can be spent only in your dreams). Plus, you'll be able to use the letters after your name and tell people, when it comes to hot topics, that you are RIGHT.

Belinda and Me: A Party Unto Ourselves

"Of the 99 Conservative MPs only one, Belinda Stronach, has said she will vote in favour of the same-sex legislation." [Link]

The rest, apparently, feel that it's okay to legislate bigotry. I was going to go to my local Conservative policy meeting in January and propose this:

The Conservative Party of Canada respects the right of every person to be treated equally before the law and will uphold, in its policies, the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of gender, race, age, physical or mental disability, religion, or sexual orientation.

but now I see that it would be quite pointless. I would be but a voice crying in the wilderness, saying "Evangelization, not legislation." Of course, it's not like the CPC is going to win any elections this way. CPC: Canadian Political Catechesis.

Update:  Other CPC MPs reported to be supporting equal ability to marry the partner of one's choice include James Moore and Bev Oda.

What? No Whine With That Crow?

A kinder, gentler Carolyn Parrish appeared on CNN as the US president visited Ottawa.

The outspoken MP, who was turfed from the Liberal caucus two weeks ago, has attracted attention for her anti-American comments. But she softened her stance yesterday during an interview with news anchor Wolf Blitzer.

When asked if she thought George W. Bush was an idiot, Parrish told Blitzer "the coalition of idiots I was referring to, I think, were mostly the politicians in my own government."

She said "how could he rise to the top job in the country by being an idiot?"
- NP

How interesting. I don't remember Parrish claiming that "idiots" referred to Canadian politicians. Oh, well. Since she seems to have gone entirely too far down the wrong path, we should probably let her backpedal now, in the interests of American-Canadian relations.

The Coronation of Love and Din-chilla

Calgary Grit blogs what I've been thinking about Klein and Love, except that, as a Liberal, he claims Dinning is the right choice for Tory leadership. Maybe from a Liberal perspective, Dinning is. However, far from being a Tory outsider, as Calgary Grit claims, Dinning brings with him what I would describe as a lot of baggage from former days.

Forgive me my opinion in this regard, but long-time Alberta premiers have not been noted for crowning the strongest successors. As a result, I doubt that Dinning (and Love and Danchilla, of course) should feel excited by Klein giving him (them) the nod, which hardly seems a compliment.

The real shame, however, is not so much that Dinning seems to have been given an inside track. It's that the actual threat to the premiership is now sitting in Advanced Education, a far cry from Justice (pun intended). No matter. He'll do fine.

Parrish the Thought

Writing about 2PM's recent decision to Liberate Carolyn Parrish, Colby Cosh points out what stands out, from my perspective, as the red flag on the play:

He keeps wringing his hands over "those kinds of comments"-- he did it when he "rebuked" her in August, and he did it today when he showed her the door, emphasizing that her words had been "demeaning" and "disrespectful". So is this an etiquette thing, then?

In other words, right action but for all the wrong reasons.

Cosh points out a few things 2PM could have said in order to maintain his credibility as a leader and nurture a reasonable relationship with the American administration. Of course, as Cosh points out, 2PM made this a lesson in Liberal etiquette rather than international leadership. What 2PM should have done was to stand up for the dignity of our neighbours, but perhaps he'd rather Parrish that thought.

Pass the Tissue

Carolyn Parrish has been removed from the Liberal caucus.

*sniff*gasp*sniff*cough*sniff*

It's hard to blog sincerely when you're so choked up...with laughter.

On another note, The Reasonable Tory has called the Alberta election, which is in a few days:

83 seats in total
2 NDP
4 Alberta Alliance
8 Liberal
69 PC

Maybe. I'm more for 10 Liberal and 2 Alberta Alliance, but, then again, I'm not living there. Oh well, I can still campaign for the one person in Alberta politics who truly is capable of replacing Ralph:

Flip. Flop.

Lord Voldemort, as we affectionately call him, is now defending bloggers. Heh. Well, he's defending himself, anyway.

"Patrick McClarty is a Canadian blogger who has recently been receiving threatening email messages from someone claiming to be me....This kind of crap is contrary to the Criminal Code, in more ways than one.  I've told Patrick I intend to make a complaint with the Toronto Police Service."

I like Patrick's site, despite the fact that you can't comment on it unless you have a blogger account. Even if there's really next to nothing interesting to report about the Alberta election, he's making a valiant effort, so I blogrolled him quite a while ago. Of course, he didn't write a fancy post about me blogrolling him, like he wrote about Voldemort's giving him a plug on his, er, blog website.

*shrug*

God Keep Our Land Glorious And Free!

Cross-posted to the E-Group

Canada's in a moral crisis. While Canadians make fun of American "Jesusland," we don't realize that we haven't, ourselves, surmounted the kinds of obstacles that make countries fully mature in their national identity. Nowadays, we make speeches about everything but do nothing. We have yet to cut our teeth on a mature sense of morality, and I don't think, as a nation, we really appreciate what that means.

We don't know who we are.

Moral relativism that includes a healthy respect for atheism is great and all, but it means we'll have to rewrite our national anthem. Now, in Saskatchewan, we're way ahead of the game. We've come close to calling the Bible hate literature, and we've successfully banned prayer from public school classrooms. We've evolved. We're practically Scandinavian, but not quite so socialist. Yet.

In Canada, our moral outrage at marijuana use has slipped, with so many people now wanting pot decriminalized, you'd think the stuff had absolutely no effect on the developing human brain or adult psyche, not to mention what decriminalization will do for American-Canadian relations. Bah.

Then there's that whole quaintness around Remembrance Day. Hey, it's great to remember, but does that really mean we have to back up our sentiments with funding? Nah. After all, we're liberal. We don't need a military -- but it's nice to reminisce isn't it? Who cares if even Sweden spends more on defense than we do? We'll just make sure our official chaplain keeps giving anti-war speeches, and we'll be fine.

We want equal rights for everyone, but who cares if women lag behind in job status and pay? Does it really matter if 51% of the students in college are female but, oh, I don't know, about a quarter of the professors are women with tenure? Nah, as long as Macleans magazine doesn't think that's an issue.

We want people in the world to be healthy and free, but we won't actually fight for their rights like we used to. We want to be known as peacekeepers for others, but we're afraid to protect ourselves. It's great to want peace, but we've forgotten that, sometimes, you have to fight for it. We assume we're doing right by future generations.

We want to do what's right, but we have no idea whatsoever of what that means for us as a nation.

We have lost our moral compass.

We buy our sailors junk.

Caption This

I don't usually put up captioning posts, but who could miss this opportunity, so...caption this:

Photo: Jacques Boissinot, CP

Why Phone Kerry?

According to CBC radio news, Paul Martin phoned George Bush today and congratulated him on his win of the presidential election. He also apparently mentioned issues of importance to Canada, including cross-border cattle shipments and soft-wood lumber.

He also apparently phoned John Kerry.

Why?

Did he phone Ralph Nader or any other presidential candidates?

Why not?

Kerry's still a USA senator -- a powerful person by any stretch of the imagination -- however, that leaves me wondering how many times Martin had previously called Tom Daschle, if at all.

The only reason I can see for Martin to call Kerry stems from Martin's own, personal political preference. I suppose, if he wants to, he can call Kerry any time. I'm just hoping it wasn't an "official" call on behalf of the people of Canada, not, at least, if he wants to remain on good terms with the very Republican American government.

On another note, it was mildly amusing to see Pierre Pettigrew talk, in the House of Commons today, about "some obscure MP" who says negative things about Americans.

*snicker*

On the other hand, Carolyn Parrish was found to be dumb dumbfounded by the American election results, claiming that Americans were psychologically damaged by the 9/11 attacks, thus explaining their overwhelming support for Bush. Is there no end to her disrespect for our neighbors, that she would stoop so low as to call more than 55 million people psychologically damaged? Plus, how would she explain NY, PA, and DC -- areas under direct attack on 9/11 -- going Democrat?

Well, then again, Carolyn Parrish isn't a psychologist, is she? For ostensibly being such a strong advocate of human rights, she surely doesn't seem to care about the rights of people with whom she doesn't agree...another intolerant, small-"l" liberal, it seems. I doubt if she even gave the election results any thought at all before opening her very large chomper.

Bloggers -- That's Us

Ira Basen of CBC has come out with a commentary on the role and value of bloggers, particularly in the political arena. Here's an excerpt:

     The blogs, on the other hand, deliver exactly what they
     promise. On the issue of "bias", the cardinal sin in the
     world of Big Media, the blogs plead guilty as charged.
     It's entirely possible that some of the people who actually
     work inside Big Media still consider their reporting to be
     "unbiased", but surveys consistently show that the
     audience simply doesn't believe it. Political blogs wear
     their bias on their sleeves. A good blog is a reflection of
     the bloggers' voice, attitude and passions. So is good
     journalism. It is just not supposed to admit it....

     The most important development to come out of the
     coverage of this campaign is that bloggers, and others
     such as the intrepid "reporters" at The Daily Show, have
     pulled back the curtain and revealed Big Media to be a
     shrunken skeleton of its former self. Now is the time to
     begin rebuilding. And the mainstream would be wise to
     see the blogosphere not as an enemy, but as an ally in
     the process.

My bit of advice for politicians, mainstream media, and, well, any other public figure, really: ignore or antagonize the blogosphere -- especially a good blogger -- at your own peril.

[Link via Occam's Carbuncle]

Dennis's Deeply Disturbing News

I really don't know what the federal Liberals are thinking. I know! They must be thinking we're complete idiots.

How does Newfoundland feel about this?

The People's Liberals

Cross-posted to the E-Group

Today on John Gormley Live, a Rawlco news-talk radio program, Sheila Copps talked about her new book, which I have reviewed here. In my review and in my subsequent comment to the review, I pointed out that I think Sheila Copps is Marxist and I think there's a split in the Liberal party between Marxists and capitalists. Today, on John's show, Sheila made a distinction between "the people" Liberals and "the business" Liberals.

According to Sheila, "the people Liberals" have "the values of people," and they've "lost almost all of the people Liberals" in the party. Assuming that "the business Liberals" are, actually, human beings, Sheila's rhetoric must, I guess, refer to political ideology and not biology. This kind of dichotomized, black-and-white thinking sets up a dangerous polemic. If business and capitalism become associated with being somehow against Canadians or bad for Canada, we're going to find ourselves on the road to communism pretty darn fast.

I was so very tempted to call in and ask Sheila to expound in detail on what she meant by "the people" Liberals. I'd love to really push her on that question. I think she's gone past being a social democrat and is heading in a democratic socialist direction. I also think that use of the terms "left" and "right" in describing the political landscape in Canada is covering up the real split in Canadian politics, which is between genuine capitalists and genuine socialists. At best, the split is between social libertarians and social democrats. At worst, it's between communists and anarchists.

Many Canadians might be willing to say that they're socialist, but socialism is a very broad concept. Branches of socialism exist, and, if you listen to some of our political leaders, they espouse Marxism. When politicians start using rhetoric like "the people Liberals," I start worrying about something much worse than Marxism, which is communism.

I think Canadians should realize what kinds of politics exist on the left and right of the political spectrum and not get fooled by politicians who have a radical social agenda, whether it's intentional or unintentional, informed or uninformed. People (left, centrist, and right) should be aware of the ideologies they're espousing. We all need to recognize the implications of those ideologies, as well. I don't believe in Marxism and communism as political frameworks for this country. Do you?

Remember, if it looks like, walks like, and talks like a duck, it probably is a duck. If you don't want to be called a Marxist, then don't espouse Marxist philosophy and don't use Marxist rhetoric in your political speeches, interviews, and policy.

It's Not That Easy Being Green: A Review of Copps' Worth Fighting For

After reading Sheila Copp's new book, Worth Fighting For, I realized that the title was a double-entendre. Intended, perhaps, to mean that Canada is worth fighting for, the cover layout reveals the second, more pointed meaning: Sheila Copps is worth fighting for. Going through the text, I was having a difficult time identifying what the main point of the book was, other than to overtly attack Paul Martin. The timelines in the book are difficult to follow, and the tales selected strategically. Then it occurred to me what the real intent of the book probably is: the book is a campaign for Sheila's idea of Canada and, ultimately, a campaign for Sheila. Ultimately, the book is political show-and-tell, which helped me to sort out something puzzling about her passion for Canada. Sheila Copps is passionate about her vision for this country, I think, because I believe Sheila Copps is a Marxist. She never says that in her book, but, indirectly, she does, and that is what frightens me about Sheila's vision for Canada.

Throughout the book, Sheila made a clear distinction between parliament and government, politicians and bureaucrats. What she should have made is a distinction between political strategizing and ideology. Essentially, the main point of Sheila Copp's book Worth Fighting For can be summed up in one abridged quotation from the text: "Here we were in a fight to the death for Canada, and...the...geniuses in charge of the campaign were playing some silly tactical game of their own."

Reading through the text, I noted that Sheila kept saying she was fighting for Canada, and she described a number of personal achievements during her time in office. However, half way through the book, the thought hit me, "Whose version of Canada is she fighting for?" The answer: Sheila's version. Never was that more clear than in her approach to leading the Canadian delegation to the Berlin environmental conference: "Nothing, nothing was more important than emerging from Berlin with a common objective of reducing greenhouse gases." Nothing, including betraying your allies, ignoring your own national delegation, and working against your party in order to achieve your, personal, vision for how the world should work. Yes, some came out of the meetings ecstatic; others, including some of our allies, were furious.

Sheila's motto could easily be described as "Either the state or the United States," and her modus operandi is to build alliances with other nations in order to make the USA look isolated in the world. No wonder the Americans look isolated when politicians from allied nations deliberately attempt to make it so, which shows off Sheila's chief strategy: rally as many little guys in order to counterbalance the big guys. Fight the rich. I don't know why she's a Liberal and not a Green or an NDP, although my political instinct makes me wonder if she's planning to overtake the Green Party leadership. It's feasible, and her book read like a look-at-me-I'm-Green advertisement. She wants a political home.

She's not just Green, though. She's appears idealistic and claims to be naive. While Sheila was fighting for her idea of Canada, she seemed repeatedly surprised to find other people working against her, "playing some silly tactical game of their own." There were points in the text when I seriously wondered just how naive about politics and political strategizing Sheila could be, when finally, she, herself, made the statement, "I suppose you could ask why someone with my years of political experience could be so naive." Indeed.

Apparently Sheila thinks politics should be like a well-run daycare, where everyone gets an equal turn, the rules are clearly defined, and you take a time out if you've been bad. Nice as that sounds, it's just not reality, so there's no point wishing it were. Politics is ugly and cut-throat. It's dirty, which is what, to date, has made me resist running, despite encouragement in the past to declare. Now, however, I'm older and not nearly as nice. I did get a laugh, though, out of her descriptions of how Paul Martin was allegedly working against her during international environmental discussions. She made the PMO sound like Mordor, and Paul Martin like the evil Sauron. Very amusing.

Sheila's supposed naivete comes out at several points in the book, along with a touch of melodrama here and there. I started writing "G's" in the margin every time I saw a statement that made me gag, like this one:

     The prospect of working in bilingual Ottawa was like a
     dream come true. What an opportunity to put the
     principles of duality and diversity into action!

Or this one:

     To this day, seventeen years later, lots of women
     come up and ask about my daughter because they
     remember the day she was born, the fact that I
     breast-fed her at the office, the fact that my struggles
     represented their struggles and my victories
     represented their victories.

That just didn't grab me, even though I'm a mother and have struggled a lot. So has my husband, a dad. I just didn't feel connected to her story. In fact, when I read that she had to break away from an important political speech to hoof herself up four flights of stairs and breastfeed her crying baby, I wondered why she didn't just take a mat leave. When my baby was born, I couldn't take a mat leave, and I couldn't breast-feed at work. I just struggled. Sorry Sheila. We're not kindred. Besides, I don't think she's as naive as she let's on. I think naivety is a crafted part of her strategy to win over the little guy: it's old-fashioned charm, except it's not working on me.

To be fair, I also wrote some P's in the margin for times she made statements that were pithy. M's for moralizing, A's -- a lot of A's -- for her noting her own achievements, and N's for naive dreaming. I also noted I's for interesting political stories, like the Bishop of Montreal not being able to rearrange a concert so that Trudeau could lie in state at the Montreal cathedral. I didn't like her "put some water in your wine" metaphor, with its weird religious overtone, or her name dropping -- big and little names. At points, I was left wondering, "Sally who?" She dropped a lot of names. I'll wager she wants these people in her corner.

On the other hand, she took direct hits at others, like this one:

     Nothwithstanding Paul Martin's public support for the
     environment, he was working directly with two western
     colleagues, Justice Minister Anne McLellan of Alberta
     and Natural Resources Minister Ralph Goodale of
     Saskatchewan, to ensure that Canada's input at the
     Berlin Conference was as weak as possible.

Paul Martin was a clear target in the book, but, honestly, I was left feeling ambivalent about his reported behavior. Yes, he came across looking like the evil Sauron, but he's a politician at the highest level of government. What exactly did she expect? What do Canadians expect? To me I was amazed that it took him 20 years to enact his coup over the PMO. What took him so long?

Sheila devoted considerable attention to her interpretation of Canadian culture. Although she sometimes confused the concepts of culture (arts and entertainment) with culture (familial heritage), and society (organized citizenry), she did a good job of delineating the importance of intercultural interaction and cultural well-being within the nation, especially for children and youth. This also is the section of text where "Either the state or the United States" not only was stated overtly, with reference to the CBC's founding, but also was driven home as the ideal behind Sheila's genuinely anti-American MO. She barely had a good comment to make about our neighbors to the south, and she organized what could only be described as a world-wide, anti-Hollywood committee ("Are you, or have you ever been, a capitalist?"), without a word in support of how much trade goes back and forth between our two nations, including in the film industry. I began to wonder whether the word economy was in her vocabulary.

In addition, although I come from an invisible minority, myself, I just couldn't resonate with her brand of Canadian cultural protectionism. While she expressed her belief that the state should actively preserve and fund people's cultures, she often confused this concept with state interference in trade and marketing of cultural products and technologies. In addition, she left me cold, quite frankly, when she implied that the government of the land is responsible for ensuring that people's cultural heritage should be directly funded to be preserved. My people came to this country and built what they had with their own money, of which they had precious little, I can assure you. Nobody paid for our churches or halls. We sold perogies, donated lumber, and took out our own mortgages. We didn't look for handouts from the state, and we didn't become the United States.

To make matters worse, Sheila lumped First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples into her version of Canadian culture without whispering the word treaty, as if multicultural policy could make up for and take care of the entire horrid history of Indigenous-Government of Canada relations by funding a few aboriginal television programs. That's definitely naive, in my books. At times, I thought she was claiming Indigenous culture is Canadian culture. At other times, I thought she was making the concepts ethnic, multicultural, and indigenous synonymous. In short, her version of culture seems to stem more from anti-American protectionism than it does from understanding the long history of the many cultural groups in the land. I didn't even see the words "third force" uttered in her discussions of Trudeau, but we all now know that she's Acadian.

Ultimately, the most valuable piece I took away from Sheila's book was her discussion of gender bias in Ottawa and her confirmation that there definitely aren't enough women's washrooms in the House of Commons. When we get around to making structural changes, attitudinal changes might come about. People tend to follow where the money goes. I enjoyed some of her anecdotes and admired her tenacity, even if I can't agree with her apparent underlying philosophy. It's great to support the little guy, but I'd rather support the little guy into a job involving economic prosperity than a position in a government bureaucracy. The question is whether we can have more Sheila with less state, and I think she's telling us that the answer to that question is a resounding no.

Sheila's Sheaf

Quoting Murray Dobbin, Sheila points out in her new book, Worth Fighting For, "Martin's role gave him great power not only over his own department, but also over the direction of every other federal department." She then goes on to say "It also meant that Finance, aware of all government expenditures and proposals, could use that information to curry favour with journalists who were always hungry to get the scoop."

The statement, "aware of all government expenditures and proposals" takes on a unique kind of meaning in today's political scenario.

I'm making extensive notes. Review of book pending.

Check back soon.

Postscript: Here's my review of her book.

Climb to Pee, You Secretaries!

Recent observations from a woman MP in Canada:

You have to climb floors of stairs in the House of Commons in order to reach a women's bathroom, but men's bathrooms are readily available.

You get asked a lot by security staff which minister you work for when you come in for the day.

What was that about wanting more women in the House of Commons? I thought they meant more women MPs!

Postscript: I started reading Sheila Copps' new book, Worth Fighting For, and what's one of the first things she complains about? The location of the women's washrooms in the House of Commons. Heh. [You can read my review of her book here.]

Here's my House of Common's story from the first time I was in Ottawa. It was hot out. Late-spring, Ottawa hot. I was sitting in the house and feeling really, well, hot. Being from the West, I thought I'd pass out from the humidity. I wandered out of the house and down the corridor, where I saw these large, leather-upholstered chairs in this very quiet and cool rotunda. Relieved, I sat down.

A few minutes later, a security guard approached and asked if he could help me. I said no, so he walked away.

A few minutes after that, he came back and asked me again if he could help me and which senator was I waiting to see?

I said none, and, thank you, but I'm fine. He went away.

Finally, he came up again and told me that I wasn't allowed to sit there unless I was waiting to see a Senator. Not sure why he didn't tell me that the first time. That was about 25 years ago. I hope security's increased since then.

Storming the LL.B.arricade

Shannon charges ahead with a full-force volley. Lord Voldemort, thus dubbed by Damian, will never be the same.

Heh. [eeeeevil laugh] Another victory for the W League.

Next plan of attack: Google Bomb. Right now, it appears that Ralph Fiennes is Lord Voldemort!

Postscript: Shannon points out Patrick's Liberal Satire Day! He couldn't possibly be describing our Voldemort?!?

The W League of Blogs

You know, Warren, when you tick off the male conservative bloggers, that's one thing, but ticking off the female ones, well that's a whole other issue. Now you've been noticed by the W league of blogs -- spoken, of course, by 'the W', the eeeeeevil Dr. W, in fact.

The W league. We're women. We wallop wankers.

While you're over at Shenanigans, check out her attempt to rock the vote!

UPDATE: The W League has become such a hit, that I've opened it up to many more women bloggers who boldly write about politics and social issues. If you're listed in the W League blogroll, you're welcome to use the W League icon.  If you want to be in the W League, let me know by commenting here.

If you'd like to recommend a blog to the League, leave a comment.

Rock on!

Canadian Corruption

Andrew posts something worth pondering.

Um, didn't the Liberals come into office in 1993? And when did PMPM take over the reins?

Gee, Thanks WK

I am now known (affectionately?) on Warren Kinsella's site as "the woman" for this post. That's Dr. Woman to you, Warren.

I guess I should be honoured...?

He doesn' t have permalinks, so check out his post from Oct 22, 2004 starting with the words "ever kick over an old log...."

Yes, I'll link to him for that. He seems to like the attention.

Postscript: So it turns out, days later, that WK just can't stop reading our blogs!

Kinsella's Game of Blog

Cross-posted to the BlogsCanada E-Group

Like it or not, Warren Kinsella won his recent spat with the Canadian blogosphere. Now, if you're reading this and you're a blogger, read through to the end before you become completely apoplectic. The simple fact is, Kinsella won, although he took some enormous risks and could have made some serious errors in strategy. In the end, however, we're all still talking about him and that constitutes a win in the media -- even in the blogosphere -- by any spinner's standards, and he knows it. Even this article scores points for him.

Think about what happened, for a minute. Kinsella allegedly threatened to sue bloggers over the kind of statements that Kinsella writes on his blog on a regular basis. The man's not stupid, and he could have used his own blog to battle back quite handily, especially given that he doesn't allow commenters, who might counterspin his effect. Kinsella's world is constructed very carefully, I think.

Kinsella reacted to the kind of blogger comment that insults but does not overtly accuse. The question regarding his parents, for example, amounted to a kind of "yo mamma" statement that anyone with any savvy in current affairs would have seen right through. Instead, Kinsella used that opportunity, as well as others, to provoke the blogosphere. He laid down the gautlet in a way that directly focused scrutiny at his blogsite and kept his name spinning at center ice for days beyond the life of a normal blog-yarn. The thread went on and on. Then, just as discussion was waning and becoming somewhat ridiculous, he gave the blogosphere another proverbial poke, claiming self-righteous victory over his detractors in a way that he must have known would inflame them all over again.

The second poke scored Kinsella an even greater victory than the first because he succeeded not only in keeping his brand front and center; he also appears to have leaked a story to the blogosphere that he perhaps tried to leak earlier but that, ultimately, wasn't picked up very well. In order to show his more seemingly machiavellian side, bloggers jumped on a post that showed Kinsella at his simultaneous worst and best, as a Gritty spin-doctor, political strategist, par excellence.

You've gotta hand it to Kinsella, really. He's not a very good blogger, in my opinion. He hasn't really mastered the etiquette of blogdom, and his blog reads like a jar full of random buttons -- you have to pick through to find consistency and value. In fact, if you really want to understand his blog, you have to read it nearly daily, because trying to find any one topic later on is nearly impossible, due to what I would describe as a strategic lack of permalinks to his posts. To do this article, I had to slog through every month of his archives. After about five months, honestly, I could hardly endure it.

In terms of blogging etiquette, he prints entire news stories like he's the gateway to the subscription-less masses. Does he reprint entire blog posts from other bloggers' sites? I hope not *shudder* but I've heard an unsubstantiated rumor that he has done that, instead of excerpting and linking. He links to news stories without describing the links or giving them a meaningful link-word, rendering many of his posts useless once the original sources move the stories to archives or delete them altogether. Plus, he's kind of vengeful, it seems: he'll post private e-mails sent to him without having a warning on his site that he'll do this, at least not one I could find. He'll even stoop to the most heinous of all blogger acts: publishing a person's private e-mail address on line, while inciting people to send their opinions to the person about some, usually derided, opinion they e-mailed to him or published.

Yes, Kinsella really is the self-admitted irritating smart-aleck who says "I told you so" a lot and claims to value readers' opinions but never allows public feedback on his blog. He name drops, a lot -- whom he knows, gets to interview, met on the street, and whether the PMO is reading his blog. He'll even name drop whom family members have met. It's all shameless self-aggrandizing, if you ask my opinion. He can be downright churlish.

The thing of it, though, is that Kinsella really does know a lot of people, and he's fully networked into the Canadian political scene. Yes, he claims he's a Liberal in exile, but everyone knows that it's just political hibernation, and, trust me, when political spin-doctors hibernate, they don't sleep very much. In all likelihood, that's probably one reason he started his blog: can't let the brand name disappear, and I don't mean the Liberal brand. I mean the Kinsella brand.

His blog is a mix of the political and the personal. It gets smarmy sometimes and shows off a boyish, endearing side that cleverly contradicts the cut-throat political know-how that lurks just under the surface. This man's a thinker, no doubt. So you have to ask yourself, if you're a blogger, why Kinsella would freak out at a insult to himself or his parents or any other accusation, especially given the horrific ones he dishes out himself.

I think a one-word answer will suffice: strategy.

Last April, Kinsella posted a power-point file, which he used during a presentation at a media relations summit in Toronto. He had posted some of the material on his blog the previous February, in the form of Kinsella's Four New Rules of Media Management™. In a nutshell, he has a party leader/protect the boss rule, a crisis mangement rule, a 'don't do stupid things' rule, and a public servants rule, later adding a 'be nice' rule, plus a bunch of suggestions regarding being credible, counterpunching instead of hugging the hangman, landing your punch hard on the first swing, managing dialogue and communications, as well as sticking to your story. The man knows what he's talking about.

The question is whether (1) he followed his own rules in launching an attack on the blogosphere and (2) whether his rules play out in the blogosphere like they do in the mainstream media. I think he did a pretty good job, by his own rules, but the spin won't play out in the long run like he might have expected. He counterpunched -- hard -- and didn't foment the crisis at its peak. He managed his own communications on his blog well and stuck to his story. A couple of the rules don't apply well to the blogcidents in question, such as protecting your leader, and he used the 'be nice' rule very creatively. Just when the blogosphere was in a rabid froth over his actions, he relented and made a gentleblogger's gesture in the interests of peace.

However, perhaps just to show how easily the blogosphere can be provoked, he violated his own 'be nice' rule nearly immediately, posting a kind of "nya, nya, I won" post, which only served to stir up blogger indignance yet again. You'd think he was doing this as a political experiment to demonstrate just how to manipulate the blogosphere come election time. Very clever, but not clever enough.

Like I said earlier, his rules won't play out in the long run in the blogosphere principally because bloggers have something that the mainstream media and the Canadian public, in general, don't seem to have: long memories. Long, long memories. And archives. And more transparency than exists in any senior bureaucrat's worst nightmare. Seeded spins can backfire easily, and networks of information can be confirmed or disconfirmed nationally, even internationally, in less time that it takes to say Wiz Bang Blog. For example, Kinsella's alleged seeded spin about Gomery's family connection to the sponsorship inquiry raised the kind of ire that could result in official complaints outside blogdom, in the real world of Canuckistan, as Kinsella affectionately calls it.

Although some bloggers claim that they can, quite effectively, silence another blogger by delinking and refusing to comment on that blogger's posts, it's never quite that simple. Organizational chaos in the blogosphere rivals the order Mad Max's world, so these kinds of situations can change rapidly. In Kinsella's own words from his January 19, 2004 post, "Today's heroes are easily transformed into tomorrow's zeroes" and vice versa, I'll add, when it comes to blogdom. In that respect, the blogosphere is just as fickle as the mainstream media, and it can be manipulated.

Sure, blogger alliances of sorts exist, but they're fluid. Besides, if someone in blogdom keeps poking at you, it's pretty hard to ignore them, even if you have successfully refuted and delinked them. You can ignore them and get put down/smeared without defence, or you can reply and put even more focus on them. It's the blogger's catch-22. On top of that, small bloggers, if they work their links and stories right, can be as effective as large bloggers on the occasional post, especially if they succeed in getting Insta-lanched or Slashdotted, and, for Kinsella, it's all about telling the right story, making it real.

I get the impression that Kinsella's using self-generated blogcidents to see just where the pay-off is in manipulating blogdom. Sure, in the long run, he's likely burned a few blogger bridges, for now, but everyone knows in politics that it's not the long run that really matters. It's the moment-by-moment grind, the next scrum, the insightful new blogpost that really makes the difference.

Does long memory win out over moment-to-moment alliances? I'll say no, not unless somebody breaches some basic tenet of humanity, and that is what makes the blogosphere so political, not unlike Ottawa, itself. Sure we have archives and long memories, but we also have shifting alliances and grand chaos which can change on moment's notice, and what, my bloggy friends, could be more appealing to a grandmaster spin-doctor than that?

Kalan Porter for Prime Minister

Cross-posted to the BlogsCanada E-Group

Did you snicker when you read the title of this post? Well, you shouldn't. Do you know why? Because when I watch Kalan Porter sing, not only do I feel great, but I feel great about being Canadian. Kalan Porter's voice gives me hope, and listening to him makes me realize that we have amazing, genius-talents in this country, both young and old, who have a tremendous amount to offer us and the rest of the world.

I don't know of a politician in Canada who makes me feel this way.

Sometimes I listen to American politicians speak for just that reason -- many American politicians are inspiring. Like motivational speakers, they get you excited about what they're saying, but more than that: they get you excited about who you are and how you might tap into some of their energy and vision.

That's how I feel when I listen to Kalan sing. He gives me a vision of greatness and hope for the future. I can only imagine the amount of passion, vision, and love for his work that he must have, in addition to his incredible talent and expertise. Our politicians need those qualities. So, until I see that kind of energy coming out of a national leader, I'll just be reserving my vote for Kalan.

Copp's Coup

Cross-posted to the E-Group.

I imagine that, with her extensive experience, Sheila Copps has a lot to say about political workings in Canada -- but is she a writer?

Browsing through the Friday version of the National Post, I saw that Copps has won the honour of becoming a newpaper columnist. Swell.

A short while ago, I had lamented a lack of women in Canadian media, so how could I possibly complain about Sheila's coup? What's more, how could I possibly do that without sounding like I'm seriously gnashing my teeth on little metallic bits of envy? I'll give it a try.

First of all, she used the "c" word without even attempting to define what she means by it: "What really counts in culture is the content." Worse, she used two "c" words without defining what she means by either.

"What really counts in culture is the content." Sounds nifty. What's it supposed to mean? Apparently, it means having things like a prime minister, winters, hockey and beer. Somehow, I'm guessing, culture is something more, and I think it also involves people, some of whom don't even drink beer.

But, "Enough about beer and culture: What about the Cabinet?" as Sheila writes. Wow. Check out the powerful linkage in those two sentences. Never. Saw. Anything. Like. It.

No. Really.

Next, Copps throws a left at Barbara Yaffe (I do mean a left) and a right at Ken Dryden for being a hockey player. She rams Canada's national sport, takes a run at Ralph Klein, invents a new territory, seems to trash all men, slips in a little about the cabinet, and then expects us to consider the question she poses in medias res: "Why are experienced women and minorities losing ground while hockey players rule?"

In her new territory, Canadonia, "We would have to leave our men behind. And I for one know that, without Ken Dryden, Canada would never have beaten Russia in the only Canadian game that really counts - hockey." She must realize, of course, that we have a truly great women's hockey team and that, in Canada, geography juts out as a rather important concern.

I had to read the article a second time because the first time through I missed the point. The second time through, I realized, sadly, that it was pointless. If she wants to take on the crucial issue of gender imbalance and unfairness, she'll need to sharpen her pencil a little more.

Here's my question: "Why are experienced writers and creativity losing ground while political stars rule?"

Political Trends

Since Canadian politicians have been perpetuating American-style political attack-ads, I wonder if this use of media will appear during the next Canadian election too [via grrrl]. But, um, if you're offended by political parody, don't watch it!

Transit-ion

Brian Mason wants to throw Ralph Klein off the bus. The former city transit driver-turned-alderman has taken over the leadership of the Alberta NDP party. He said this:

"Mr. Klein, there is a new kid on the block, and he is looking for a scrap. We are coming. Get ready, because the heat you have felt so far is nothing compared to the heat you are going to feel in the next few months." [Link]

Imagine sittings in the Leg: "Hey you! Down in the back!"

Congratulations to you, Brian. Alberta needs good representation in all its parties.

21st Century Campaigning

Cross-posted to the Blogscanada E-Group.

I wouldn't want Jean-Pierre Kingsley's job right now. Given recent changes to the Canada Elections Act, he now, as Chief Electoral Officer for Canada, must find himself in the rather awkward and unenviable position of having to decide exactly what constitutes third-party election advertising in this country. In light of section 350, third parties are now restricted from spending a total of $150,000 during an election period, with not more than $3,000 of that total spending any one electoral district in order to promote or oppose the person's election. That includes naming the candidate in an ad, showing the candidate's likeness, identifying a candidate by political affiliation, or taking a position on an issue with which a candidate is associated. I'd be tempted to say that the largest amount of third-party money spent during the 2004 election was actually put up by the Liberal Party advertising about the Conservatives, except, of course, that advertising was all negative, a kind of anti-advertising in the form of Liberal attack ads.

Despite rather explicit rules and monetary limitations, the Act doesn't really clarify what specifically constitutes election advertising. We're witnessing a odd kind of phenomenon in modern electioneering, namely the use of non-traditional media to campaign for or against a leader or party. In past elections, television ads, radio spots and print media were the norm. Then, in creeped third-party commercials, billboards and the like.

Now, however, we're seeing an increasing blurring of the lines between election advertising and entertainment, the most blatant example of which is Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. The film works like a grand attack ad for the American Democratic Party. If you think the film doesn't have specific political intent, then drop by Moore's personal website to see his a nation-wide campaign organizational strategy, called "Rock the Vote," and his “voter information pages, all specifically designed to unseat Bush. It's not often you see people lining up and paying to watch a paid political ad, of course without the "official agent" stamp of approval needed anywhere in the credits.

In Canada, we've seen attack ads, but we have yet to see any attack movies on the scale of Moore's doctored-mentary. However, Canadians have seen the boundaries beginning to blur already. For example, consider the nasty anti-Conservative war Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Sum 41, Avril Lavigne, Treble Charger, Sarah Harmer, Sarah Polley and other Canadian entertainers waged on their Stop Harper website. The site became the hub for press announcements, e-mail list activism, button distribution, pamphlets and disinformational political statements, such as calling Stephen Harper "a Canadian version of George W. Bush" or "Prime Minister George Bush."

The internet is a relatively low-budget way of disseminating information and materials that can make a large impact on a election. In addition, orchestrating carefully planned media releases backed by big-name stars can ensure that free advertising shows up on the front-page of every major Canadian newspaper through articles disseminating their message in the name of journalism. Of course, it is journalism, but is it a form of advertising? That depends on how the message is reported. News can be easily become manipulated into an advertising agent for or against a particular political party. Using this sophisticated form of publicity management, activist groups can come out with a strong message, even one that people find offensive, and then count on mainstream media to carry that message to every corner of the nation for free through news coverage.

Once Canadian entertainers came out with their anti-Conservative campaign, the Liberal Party immediately started promoting it, making press announcements and linking to it from their national party website. These entertainers-turned-activists had a direct political intention like that of Michael Moore, whom they quoted extensively on their Stop Harper site:

“Reagan and Mulroney start to look good when you think about Bush and Harper.” (CTV June 20, 2004)

“We don’t want this country Canada to become like Bush’s America.” (CTV Newsnet June 24, 2004)

"I hope this doesn't happen. Bush is going to throw a party. He's going to be a happy man. (Harper) has a big pair of scissors in his hand. He wants to snip away at your social safety net. He'd like this to be the 51st State." (Toronto Star, June 19, 2004)

Other public, election-related statements were made during the period of the writ, such as when Sam Roberts and Hawksley Workman showed up at the Much Music Video Awards wearing Stop Harper buttons in their shirts. Were all of these entertainers making personal, independent statements, or was this part of an organized campaign? Was the accumulated value of the statement worth more than $150,000? I don't know. How much is a spot on the Much Music Video Awards worth? We need to know where the boundary is between walking down the street wearing a political button and showing up on a national television program wearing that same button. Also, is there a difference if a non-famous person does this as opposed to a famous person? Fame, itself, guarantees publicity.

Here's yet another example. I attended a comedy night at Yuk-Yuks during the election. At the end of one comic's routine, he made an overt, anti-Conservative political statement that gave specific direction to voters. Is that a form of advertising? How about constructing a stand-up routine that takes an active political stance for or against a particular candidate, party or leader? Where is the line between advertising, op-ed and entertainment? Maybe it's only advertising if you pay for making the statement instead of making money by making the statement.

Mr. Kingsley has his work cut out for him. In attempting to enforce compliance with Canada's election laws, he will be forced to make judgments between what is allowed and what is not. If we're not careful about how this is done, we might find ourselves in deep water with few ways back to shore. We don't want to curtail freedom of speech, but we also don't want to be naive about the impact of certain kinds of paid-for, organized or high-publicity forms of political expression during the period of the writ.

The cleverest move a political party might make before the next election would be to create informal alliances with various actors, singers and comedians in order to get the message out in a way that people pay to see, instead of paying for advertising to get the party's message out. In turn, the parties could do nifty things like use a song from a singer's repertoire as the leader's campaign-stop music or find another way to promote an artist in return -- how about some post-election goodies or performances at party rallies? Better yet, have a political supporter produce a pre-election movie.

The potential for marketing cross-fertilization are enormous without any of it looking like election advertising. What's more, nobody would really be paying an artist for delivering an election impact message; instead, ordinary Canadians would be paying -- to see the entertainer and have the message seeded into their brains. This is what I see happening with Michael Moore's film. Why doesn't he care if people download his movie off the internet for free? Because making millions off the movie was only one goal; the other was open dissemination of paid political advertising. The people who went to the theatre paid for the ads. The people who download the movie and show it to their friends disseminate the message even further, and that is 21st century campaigning.

On the Lighter Side

The setting is an established place to dine out in Ottawa called Strategists, with its savvy backroom pub, The Agency. In walks a man who sits down at his regular table.

"I noticed you have a special on wings tonight."

"Yes, .25 per wing," the waiter said, smiling broadly. It was his first night on the job.

"That's great, but I'd like only the left wings, please," the customer replied.

"What?"

"The left wings. Please only give me left wings in my special -- and I want a whole platter."

Casting a glance around to see if he was on some sordid candid punk show, the waiter turned back to the man and said, "I'm sorry sir, but we don't differentiate between left and right wings."

"That's outrageous!" shouted the customer. "Have you no ethics? Do you not care about your country? Have you any idea what those right-wingers are plotting? They're extremists!"

The waiter stepped back and looked longingly around for a supervisor to no avail. In haste, he thought up a plan.

"How about if I check with the chefs who cook all this stuff up? They know a lot more about left and right wings than I do."

The waiter rushed back to the kitchen and approached the Chef of Strategists, who was deboning a large prairie chicken. Feeling silly, he explained his predicament, and then asked about left and right wing party platters.

"Oh yes," said the Chef, "We do specialize in left and right wing deals. Each one has a flavour all its own, but the real trick is in the presentation. We can do either one, depending on who's asking and what they pay us. We serve them on these nice stone platters that can we wiped clean in a jiffy. Normally, you can have a full slate of left or a full slate of right. Right now, we're doing some of each, an unusual speciality that we call 'the minority parliament.' It comes served atop a very expensive platform that's supposed to please everyone."

Not knowing whether to smile or frown, the waiter gingerly asked, "But they're all from the same kind of animal! How do the customers know which wings are left and which are right? This guy thinks the right ones are extreme."

Grabbing the front of the hen and turning it in an about-face, the Chef said, "It's all a matter of perspective. It's not where the wing comes from; it's how we tray the game! Besides, it doesn't really matter much to you and me, as long as someone pays us to serve it up. To us, it all comes out the same in the end. Sometimes we do get a left mixed in with the right, or vice versa, but nobody ever really notices."

The waiter, suitably trained, headed back to the customer's table. "I'm sorry sir, although you wanted the left wing party platter, it turns out, we only have enough to form a minority parliament."

"Damnation!" exclaimed the customer in disgust. "Does that one cost more?"

Thinking on his feet, the waiter replied, "Only if you insist on us making it extra saucy. "

Political Catastrophizing

Ian, over at Tilting at Windmills, apparently wants to open up the abortion debate again. He's arguing that more Canadians won't vote for Conservatives until the Conservative party, in a blanket statement, refuses to allow individual MPs the right to table private member's bills.

This is an incredibly dicey issue. On the one hand, many Canadians do not want to see any changes to the state of abortion non-legislation that we currently have in Canada and would go so far as to limit MP authority in order to prevent any legislation from being enacted, pro or con. On the other hand, some Canadians feel that MPs barely have any independent authority as it is, and they know that private members bills, if they even get to a vote, rarely pass.

Witness: capital punishment, junk mail, pro-euthanasia and other private member's bills that have gone down in flames most of the time. Jim Pankiw tried to introduce an abortion bill, but he, of course, was excluded from the Alliance caucus for his controversial views. As a corollary, in the UK, well over 1000 private members bills have been presented since 1992, and 90% have failed. Most bills are presented as a vehicle to bring forth debate on an issue anyway, rather than actual legislation.

"Very few bills are actually defeated in the sense of being negatived at second reading. Most fail because they are either 'talked out' at 2.30 pm on a Friday or are called after that time and are objected to. However, this does not mean that all that is required is more private Members' bill time; many bills are objected to by the Government and it is likely that they would still be opposed if more time were available; if many more bills received a second reading, they might well be talked out at report stage (resulting in more work for standing committees but no greater output). " [Link]

An example of a private member's bill that did pass was Svend Robinson's Bill C-250, which added sexual orientation to hate crime legislation. While the bill received House support, it was disappointing in that hate crimes based on gender, physical, or mental disability were not also stipulated. When the bill was put forth, Mr. Robinson commented in the press that he was particularly concerned about the views of some Alliance and Liberal members who did not appear to support the legislation. The bill passed with a vote of 143-110 the day after an Alliance private member's bill to preserve the traditional definition of marriage was defeated, despite 50 Liberals voting in favour of the Alliance bill at the time.

It seems that some Canadians have little faith in Canada's legislative system or in elected MPs. It's almost as if they believe that the second a private member's bill banning abortion were put forth, all abortions would be banned, a kind of political catastrophizing. In actuality, my hunch is that this kind of bill wouldn't get to a vote and, if it did, it would be doomed to certain failure -- most MPs would never let it pass. What's more, Canadians would initiate protest, after speech, after legal action making sure that the legislation did not go through. I'm quite certain about that. The reality is that, in the last House of Commons session, a bill to preserve the traditional definition of marriage was defeated, and a bill to prevent hate crimes based on a person's sexual orientation was passed. For many Canadians, that's a good record.

Paul Schneidereit, of the Halifax Herald put it this way:

     "Let's look at the history of this debate. In 1988,
     the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the
     country's old abortion law, saying it violated the
     Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That legal ruling      upheld a woman's right to choose, but at the same
     time invited Parliament to introduce new abortion
     legislation. Brian Mulroney's Conservatives did
     just that, but their bill died in the Senate.

     Since then, there have been a number of private
     member's bills on abortion, at least one introduced
     by - gasp - a Liberal MP. The last to be voted on was
     M-83, sponsored by an Alliance MP in October 2003,
     asking that the standing committee on health report
     on the medical necessity and health risks of abortions.
     It was defeated by a vote of 139-66. Seventeen of
     the bill's supporters were Liberals." [June 15, 2004]

However, rather than trusting our legislative system, Ian seems to want a guarantee from Stephen Harper that nobody will put forth a private member's bill. Maybe he'd even like Harper to promise that no Liberals will do that, either. You see, as much as Paul Martin says he would discourage such a bill from coming forth, in reality, he can't stop it. For the last session of the House, a Liberal was the co-chair of the Caucus Pro-Life Committee, and it would be equally likely that a Liberal could bring forth such legislation. I doubt if Paul Martin would boot such a person out of his caucus, especially now that he needs every seat he can get. Maybe some Canadians would just prefer the Prime Minister had veto-power.

I'll be honest. I like Stephen Harper's pragmatic approach and his profound respect for the democratic process. He's demonstrated that he's not willing to lie and say he can prevent what he can't. He's also shown that he's not going to lie about his own, personal positions on these kinds of issues. Furthermore, he overtly stated that a government led by him would not table abortion-related legislation. However, for some, that kind of stance is tantamount to distrust. Instead, some people would prefer to hear each leader say he'd never allow such a bill when, in reality, the leader couldn't make that promise or guarantee anyway.

You'll notice how evasive Paul Martin was during the election when pressed for his personal beliefs on the matter of abortion. He even made flagrantly contradictory remarks during the campaign, depending on the audience he was addressing, at one point answering a Catholic high-school student's question about abortion thus:

     "It is a huge problem. The issue is obviously one
     of consulting and of comfort, of setting example and of
     of essentially, doing all of those things in terms of
     prevention that I know that here at this school that they
     are trying to do."

I didn't see any headlines about Mr. Martin's comments, unlike what happened to Mr. Merrifield. Regarding abortion without counselling or informed consent, given that about 20,000 abortions are conducted in Canada every year for the 15-19 age group, it's possible that teens in Canada might benefit from access to as much professional help and support as is practicable.

So what works better in Canadian political campaigning, false promises or forthright honesty? It appears that it's the former, although I, myself, prefer the latter.

The Vote that Wasn't

Practically every day since the election, I've read a newspaper article or blog post that said "don't blame Ontario." Methinks Easterners doth protest too much. Today's installment comes from Diane Francis in her National Post column, "Ontario Didn't Kill Tory Chances," in which she writes about the election that didn't happen. Well, she doesn't say that, but that's my take on the column. It's the old, don't blame us, blame the people that didn't show up ie., low voter turnout, which was much lower in BC than in Ontario, by the way. Higher voter turnout in Ontario seems to have done in the Conservatives quite nicely.

Anyway, the funniest aspect to Francis's column is her trying to convince the readership that a lower popular vote in the West had something to do with the Conservatives not forming government. I was wondering if Ms. Francis saw the election results for the West. Popular vote notwithstanding, the Conservatives seem to have done quite well.

So, according to Diane Francis, don't blame Ontario for handing over most of their province to the Liberals because, yet again, the Westerners are to blame.

Well, I guess nobody ever said an op-ed piece had to be logical.

Campaign Nationally; Promise Locally

During the election campaign, people kept saying that Canada would not be the same after this election. If you listened to the Liberals, you'd have thought that Canada was either going to change valiantly for the better or spontaneously combust, depending on who got elected. As it turns out, the situation in Canada is already different, even just a few days post-election. The difference could be for the better, if it fosters positive change, but it might also be for the worse, and only time will tell the outcome.

Over the past few days, I have been mulling over what happened during this election, reading people's commentaries and following radio and television talk about national and local events. I've searched my own heart.

This is what I see.

The image would be valid except for the fact that the Eastern side should be much bigger -- they have more seats after all, and, for that reason, the two sides of the maple leaf (and the country for that matter) remain unequal, with no balancing force present in Ottawa.

Once the election results came in, many Westerners were, understandably, disappointed and frustrated. I'm sure people who voted Conservative all across the country -- even in Ontario -- felt largely the same: we struck out with the bases loaded.

Or did we?

I started this article with the claim that something in Canada was already different: we're not sheep anymore. We've become snipes. The demagoguery of the Liberal election campaign whipped many Canadians into a frenzy and made some feelings overt that may have been only covertly held in the past relating to regional hostilities. Feelings of regional hostility were prevalent during the Conservative leadership campaign, with Tony Clement claiming that an Ontarian should be leading the party, ignoring the regionalism of his own perspective. However, that microtest of regional disparity is now being witnessed on a national scale as people express their thoughts and feelings about the election outcome.

Fuelling regional hostility in some commentary that I have read is a sense that, in a national election, you have to pander to Ontario, especially to Toronto. In his July 2, 2004 National Post column, "Don't Blame Ontario," Adam Radwanski objected to what he described as the Western agenda of the Conservative party. Radwanski wrote:

"You could see it in his focus on themes like provincial autonomy and the elimination of the federal gun registry to the exclusion of urban renewal, the environment and other issues that matter to voters in the 40-plus seats in and around Toronto. You could see it in his campaign team, made up mostly of fellow Westerners, many of whom have gone on record in the past -- as he has -- bemoaning Alberta's raw deal from the rest of the country. And you could see it, particularly, in his decision to spend the final days of the campaign rallying the troops on his party's home turf, proclaiming that it was time to 'bring this part of the country into power in Ottawa,' and in his election night vow to 'ensure that the voice of the West is someday heard and accepted.'"

I didn't actually hear much "west wants in" talk from Stephen Harper until he returned to Alberta the night before the election, where he gave a "west wants in" speech to local supporters. Excerpts of the speech were, of course, carried on national news, focusing particularly on these words. I was sure some folks out East would overreact to them, and they did. In their minds, they probably thought, ah-HAH! He does have a hidden agenda -- bring the West to power in Ottawa. The immediate reaction of those who thought this would have been "no way," and that is how they voted. No to the West.

Yet, some of us out West didn't necessarily see the party this way. For the first time since the eighties, I saw the Conservative Party as representing national interests. I had never really supported the Reform Party or the Alliance -- both of which I saw as too far right for anyone's good. Of course, the NDP are too far left for anyone's good in my opinion, too. I like moderation and balance.

However, Radwanski insisted that this was not the case: "In more than a decade of trying, the Reform-Alliance-Conservatives have yet to fully shed their image of a Western-based protest party." One wonders what would satisfy him. Radwanski went on to say that the "west wants in" is an okay stance to take, but we shouldn't then expect Ontarians to just jump on board and vote for a party that is focused on Western concerns.

That is the notion that stopped me in my tracks. Western concerns.

I wondered which plank in the Conservative platform Radwanski meant. The Conservative Party had identified a number of key issues in its platform, but I couldn't really find one that was focused exclusively on the West. The problem was, however, that I also couldn't find one that was focused exclusively on Ontario either, and that was a problem for Ontarians.

You see, while Stephen Harper and his advisors were promoting their nationally oriented campaign platform, Paul Martin was making specific promises to Ontarians. The situation reminded me of what we saw in Saskatchewan's provincial election last year, when the provincial NDP kept saying that the Saskatchewan Party was going to axe crown corporations. The result, particularly in Regina, which is filled with crown corporation headquarters and employees, was to vote sweepingly for the NDP -- in my opinion, to protect their jobs and financial interests.

Paul Martin spoke directly to Ontarians. While Stephen Harper was talking about corporate welfare bums, Paul Martin was making statements like this:

"It is the responsibility of the government of Canada to ensure that these jobs stay at home and that the expansion stays at home. When Stephen Harper says this is no role for the federal government to play, what he is essentially saying is that he thinks the job of prime minister is to watch the world pass him by and I'm telling you I will not let the automobile industry in this province lose its jobs," vowed the PM."

Paul Martin also appealed to the motion picture and recording industry in a similar manner, claiming that Conservatives were a direct threat to their interests:

"In simplest terms, they would destroy the CRTC, making it a shadow of its former self and open up our skies to American satellites," said Ms. Scherrer, adding that "Stephen Harper's economic philosophy is that the state has absolutely no role in issues like foreign ownership. I can guarantee you today that Canadian programming interests will not be sold to or controlled by foreign interests. Ask Stephen Harper or your local Conservative candidate if they can give you the same guarantee."

These industries, based largely in Ontario, would have reacted to the threat of job loss and done everything they could to "stop Harper." In this sense, the Conservative campaign was attacked continually based on what it didn't say rather than what it did.

When Stephen Harper tried to allay fears, many people simply were unwilling to believe him. Other online writers took stances similar to Radwanski's. Ian Welsh, from Tilting at Windmills, mimicked Liberal rhetoric, claiming that the Conservative Party "won't say anything more than 'whatever a bunch of MP's who can't even keep their mouths shut in a campagain [sic] feel like doing is okay by us on social issues or any other damn thing that isn't covered in our Platform?' Do you realize how crazy and dangerous this sounds?" [Link]

It's crazy and dangerous to identify an entire party with a handful of candidates who clearly speak against what the leader is saying. If we take this example as practice, we'll have to assume Paul Martin thinks Conservatives are a bunch of rednecks because Scott Brison said so.

Kevin Brennan, also from Tilting at Windmills and speaking to the "guys" (and obviously not to the likes of me), said the following:

"Guys, the problem isn't Ontario. Ontario will elect Conservatives. Ontario is the province that elected Mike Harris--twice. Ontario has been ruled by Conservatives for most of the last 60 years. The problem is that Western-based Conservatives keep constructing platforms that are designed specifically to solve what you see as Alberta's problems, and then try to find ways to sell them to the rest of a country that you think has fundamentally got it wrong. Not surprisingly, those platforms don't do us any good whatsoever, and so we keep rejecting them....Harper lost because he failed to present a vision that Ontarians can get behind. Harper's platform was built around increasing the power of provincial governments and reducing the ability of the federal government to impose decisions on the rest of the country. How does that help Ontario? How does it help the Maritimes?" [Link]

Again, lack of detail on how the Conservative Platform targeted Alberta. If Harper wants respect for provincial jurisdictions and strong provincial powers, I would question how that wouldn't help Ontario. Ontario doesn't have a problem with the federal government imposing its will on provinces because the federal government tends to give Ontarians what they want rather than risk losing seats the next time around. Even concern for the sponsorship scandal wasn't as high in the East as in the West. Then, again, I wonder where the bulk of the sponsorship money ended up -- in the East or in the West.

People get worried when they think they might lose something immediate, like money, jobs, or required services. In comparison, the loss of the sponsorship money didn't affect anyone that personally. What's worse, government corruption and waste, or finding out that you could lose your job if the government turns off the flow of federal money to the automotive or entertainment industries? Survival dictates the latter, the one that affects the contents of your wallet most directly, just as it did in Regina. Feeding into this was anti-Americanism and the demonization of Stephen Harper as an evil zealot with a radical religious agenda.

What would seem to satisfy the people who claim that the Conservative Party has singularly Western-based interests? My admittedly jaded answer to this question is "promises that are of specific benefit to Ontarians." Brennan even made the case that it's specifically Toronto you have to please. Not even a leader from the East would necessarily make the difference, although, if they had a leader from the East, perhaps that leader would be more likely to make specific promises to them. If that isn't regional self-interest, I don't know what is. The Conservative Party isn't too Western focused: it's too under-focused specifically on Ontario, and that is what fuels regional hostilities in Canada from both directions.

Earth to Ontario: Blame the Voters not the (So-Called) Doofus

My Parody of Response to Ian Brown's Article in the Globe and Mail, Saturday, July 3, 2004 - Page F8 (with much better punctuation)

Dear Hothead:

How are you? Some of your Eastern pals out there in Automobileland seem pretty bloated about the election, even talking the S word -- Superior as opposed to Stelco or Six Flags. While you chow down on Alberta steaks (but cancel your tickets to the Stampede) since your boy Paul Martin, um, sort of won, I thought I'd write and tell you how my personal election went here in the West.

This fit of post-election superiority gloat some of you Easterners are acting out? It makes you look like a kid who goes and slap-backs with his gang after spreading rumors and making threats in order to get the game to go his way.

I mention gangs intentionally. The wrenching fallout of the election will last exactly four years (or as long as the government) at the café where I stop each morning. A middle-aged computer progammer looked at a picture of ecstatic Paul Martin and said, "How many times does the East have to get screwed before they get it right?"

A girl in her teens, refusing to wear any apron, looked at another picture in another newspaper. "Of course he looks happy."

"Chickens."

"Can I tell you something?" the teen said, and it was clear she felt she possessed insight that might introduce immense calm into the programmer's life: "Those Liberals, they're all the same."

Then the conversation continued on until it was a veritable rant against people intimidated by Liberal fearmongering and all too willing to attribute the views of a handful of candidates to their leader, while ignoring the damaging and scornful rants of Liberal candidates under Paul Martin.

I commend the wisdom of the teen to you. As for me, I survived the election by following every poll, newspaper article, television broadcast, blog, candidate speech, brochure, platform and all-party forums I could possible follow. Political punditry is interesting, but ultimately more information from as many sources as possible means I can make up my mind better.

As a college graduate with a firm grasp on my country's interests, I refused to restrict my political intake to newspapers like the Globe and Mail or Toronto Star and saw value in taking in all media, as well as getting direct quotations from the candidates, themselves. I would make up my mind after putting my ear as close as I dared to the horse's mouth, and I resisted calling any of them an ass.

My astonishing discovery? My mind, open and broad like the prairie sky, decided upon who to vote for, resolute and able to differentiate between all platforms and candidates when heading into the voter's booth.

Like most Canadians, I entered the campaign with no desire to vote for the corrupt, frayed Liberals. I had no Liberal incumbent in my riding but was aware of the long history of corruption in the Liberal government, the balancing of the books using Mulroney's GST, the strengthening of the economy with free trade and the ability to finally pay down the glut of debt left by the Liberal administration decades before. So when Paul Martin said and did absolutely nothing that struck me as original or insightful in the course of the entire campaign, I had two additional reasons not to vote Liberal.

Here, my Queen's Park friend, I will reveal the dirty secret I share with many Westerners: I actually considered voting other than Conservative. I wanted to be sure I was voting for the right party to help refresh the Canadian political atmosphere, which these days smells much worse than a car after an eight-hour ride with three drooling St. Bernards.

And I did exactly that. Unfortunately, someone decided to dig up an old interview of Randy White, the Conservative MP from Langley-Abbotsford, two days before the election and make it look like he single-handedly robbed his party of as many as 30 seats. Ralph Klein certainly didn't help on health care, nor the Liberals, campaigning by dividing the country.

It was the voters of Ontario. Mr. White, a former justice critic and therefore someone who ought to know better, speculated about his own desire to use the notwithstanding clause in the constitution to override hate-crime laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

"To heck with the courts, eh?" Mr. White, (let's not call anyone a doofus), actually said. "I think most people are getting sick and tired of judges writing the laws to suit themselves."

Some Conservatives like to say it's only the Eastern media who would buy into Liberal rhetoric enough about abortion and gay rights to make them an issue. Yet, there are a lot more people who actually would block any so-called doofuses from repealing the country's anti-hate laws -- among them Conservative MPs and a lot of people even in Alberta. Those who think otherwise remain peristaltic in their beliefs.

It's funny they couldn't see that Mr. White's remarks were opinion, pandering and immoderate -- and did not represent the views of the Conservative Party or the potential prime minister, who even said so, himself. One only has to look at the close advisors around your boy Paul to see how differently advisors can think or act relative to their leader, who refuses to change his team now that he has the country.

Remember, this was something I figured out while observing all of Paul Martin's negative ads, as well as all the other campaign ads I watched. It was simply logical, and therefore obvious. Even in Ontario nearly 60 per cent of your electorate didn't vote Liberal.

I mention all this only to give you, my gloating Ontarian ally, some evidence of how we so-called unprincipled Western cowboys muddled through an election that was a write-off for lots of us, for sure.

But the result doesn't seem so bad now that it's over.

The Liberals abused our collective trust as Canadians -- and together we (the West and Ontario) took them down a peg. Ontario alone took 20 seats away from the Liberals, and gave as many to the Conservatives. You reduced their careless-majority arrogance to what better be a much more responsive minority. At the same time, we re-established the Conservatives as a federal party, despite the Liberal attempts to paint every Conservative as a hillbilly.

Although you'd like to believe that it was cool-headed reason, restraint, and collective tolerance that decided this election -- you have no evidence whatsoever that it was the intelligence, restraint and tolerance of a national, multi-regional middle class that has finally, after 15 years of one-party rule without a viable opposition, taken a step beyond the confines of ideology. I don't believe in the power of elites; out West, we see everyone's vote as counting.

I suggest you stop belly-aching and join us. It's our only hope. In the meantime, take your spills, and take care.

Where's the Bible Belt?

Here's something interesting for you to chew on this weekend. According to the 2001 Census, Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon have the surprising distinction of being the areas in Canada with the highest number of people who declare themselves as having no religion.

Now, BC never really was in the Bible Belt, but certainly Alberta was, and the province tends to have a reputation for right-wing religious extremism.

Check out these stats on people who say they have no religion:

Alberta: 23.1%.
BC: 35.1%.
Yukon: 37.4%.

Now check out these stats:

Quebec: 5.6%
PEI: 6.5%
New Brunswick: 7.8%
Nunavut: 6.0%
NF-Lab: 2.5%

The other provinces in Canada hover between 11 and 17%, with the Canadian average being 16.2%

What do you make of that?

Postscript: If you're really interested in this topic, consider investing some time reading this article. Saskatchewanians might pay particular attention to the section on the United Church, which doesn't show the same kind of membership loss in this province (where it is around 19%) as it has shown nationally (now at 11%). Other points of interest in the article are the sections on Quebec "cultural" Catholicism, which explains left-leaning voting in Quebec quite nicely, as well as the section on evangelical hopes for a moral "right" majority as exists in the USA. This is where fundamentalism might appear to creep into Canadian politics; however, as Janet Epp Buckingham noted in her insightful post, Evangelical Christians tend to vote across party lines, and the Liberal party, itself, has what has been called a "God Squad" in its midst, despite its use of religion as a wedge issue in this past election (as Buckingham and others had predicted).

Sure You Didn't

Adam Radwanski's licking his wounds. In his National Post column today, he took a few swipes at Alberta and then ran around shamelessly waving the Toronto municipal flag. Apparently a few people took notice. To me, it looked like Ontariocentrism run wild, and the column fit with a number of other posts I've been gagging over lately on various blog sites. The whole affair prompted me to write a blog post which ended up being an article-length piece. So, instead of posting it, I sent it around to a newspaper editor -- if he doesn't want to run it, I'll post it here.

On the National Post blog later on, Radwanski wrote:

"Now I know what to do if I'm ever feeling starved for attention: Write something critical of Albertans. Of course, that's only if the sort of attention I'm looking for is something akin to standing in the middle of the Calgary Stampede and presenting an open target to a few of the horned participants.

Actually, I really don't think my column in today's Post was anti-Alberta or anti-West. My point wasn't that it's wrong for Albertans to foster the growth of their own political movement, nor that it's wrong for the party that emerges to identify more closely with its home province than with Ontario. I was only saying that, if Albertans and other Westerners regularly reject what they consider a Central Canadian party, it's not surprising that Central Canadians are inclined to do likewise with what they consider a Western Canadian party."

Moo. Run.

Chortle

One of my regular readers, The Chort, sent me this:

Funny, but also not funny!

As an aside, Cosh has a good post on, among other things, why knives are out for Ralph in Alberta.

One more aside...check out Bruce's comments on Canada Day. Very Canadian, I'd say.

Here's an excerpt:

"Canada day for me is like that video. It tries too hard. It's insecure. It's embarrassing. All that government-sponsored flag-waving is flat-out Orwellian. It gives me the creeps."

Go read the rest. Very amusing.

On an interesting but less amusing note, read the UK Economist paper's rather insightful version of the Canadian election results. [Via Miltsfile]

BC's Voter Turnout

CTV television news reported this evening that voter turnout in BC was considerably lower than in the rest of the country. I wonder if watching the Liberal sweep of Ontario and Atlantic Canada, and the Bloc sweep of Quebec, prompted people to just stay home, saying "My vote won't matter anyway."

The lifting of the media blackout on election results could have severely altered the course of this election, causing a kind of "group effect" on the election results. In effect, the lifting of the media blackout may have contaminated the election outcome by influencing people's behaviour in a manner that it otherwise wouldn't have been influenced.

Some people will say that the media blackout should never have been in place at all, arguing for freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and the ability of adults to make independent decisions free of media influence. On the other hand, if advertising didn't work, companies wouldn't use it. People are affected by what they see.

I think the media ban should be reinstated. Mr. Martin, will you use the notwithstanding clause?

Fall Agenda

In the mean time, it's summer!

Don't Start Sharpening Your Knives

In the early days after a divisive and exhausting campaign, it's easy to start pointing fingers and sharpening knives. Today, some media outlets made a big deal over Stephen Harper's brief answer to a question about stepping down, not that they were hoping or anything.

He said, "I'm always willing to serve, so I'm going to take a little time with my family... And obviously, I'm already talking to people across the country, but my sense is people are pretty happy with where we've come in a short period of time." He spoke without arrogance, but they started hacking right away. [Link]

Stephen Harper's been campaigning since the start of the Conservative leadership race. Soon after that, he led his party into a federal election campaign, and the spotlight, as well as the pressure, has been on him ever since.

Some people have already begun their criticisms of Harper, perhaps hoping to sow divisions within the Conservative party as in days gone by.

I say this. Stephen Harper is a strong, gracious, and intelligent leader. He has a fine, calm personality for the job, unrivalled statesmanship, and more savvy than many other leaders before him. Every leader comes from somewhere but, if one thing can be said for Stephen Harper, it is that he fulfills his mandate in whatever job he does. Put him in a position to protect provincial rights, and he will do that. Put him in place as a national leader, and he does that too. He knows how to do his job, and he does it well.

I think Stephen Harper deserves a well-earned rest. Then, when Parliament is called again, he should come back as the Conservative leader and do just that -- lead. Later, the party can have a policy convention, which will be an opportunity to develop the platform even further.

So, Stephen, have a holiday with hard-working Laureen and your kids, but let us know the minute you return and are ready to head Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. You have a lot of supporters across Canada who are loyal to you. Together you will propel this united party forward, the voice for fiscal accountability and responsible social programming in Canada.

Turned Off

Canadian voter turnout was at its lowest point since Confederation. My take on this is that people were turned off by negative campaigning and unsure of how to vote.

During a press conference earlier today, Gilles Duceppe said Quebecers want sovereignty because they are confident enough to have their own country. Just then, the Bloc Quebecois sign behind him fell -- a bad omen. Maybe his pushing the sovereignty agenda will be the downfall of the Bloc...or of Canada.

Paul Martin said today that creating fear and using personal attacks were not the right way to conduct a campaign. He then went on to say that he was happy the Liberals had conducted a campaign of ideas, not fear and attack.

The Liberals obviously did run a campaign of fear and attack. So, no matter if Martin says they didn't, their behaviour speaks louder than words. As Forrest Gump says "stupid is as stupid does."

Welcome to the Prairies

The Liberals won a minority, but at what cost?

I said the other day that Paul Martin has gone further than anyone before in terms of sowing division and breeding feelings of opposition in this nation. As a Western Canadian, I recognize that Martin won his Liberal minority government by demonizing what I, and many other Westerners, am concerned about and value. He won by setting up Alberta as a land of evil and Conservatives as everything from bigots to liars with a hidden agenda. At a very basic level, he was saying those things about Stephen Harper, but he was also saying them about us -- me and every other Canadian who supported the Conservative platform.

We didn't run to end abortion or take away anyone's rights, but Martin won by making us look like The Enemy. Ontario, the Conservatives are not public enemy #1: they're a Canadian political party made up of Canadian people.

Conservatives are not the enemy.

A lot of Westerners are not going to forget what Paul Martin said about us. Every time Paul Martin gives money to the automotive industry in Windsor, we're going to compare what he's giving to us in the West. Every time he hands out arts grants in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, we're going to compare what he's giving to us. Every time he funnels more money into Quebec, we're going to sit up and take notice and compare what he's giving to us. He may have won the election, but, out West, he hardened our hearts, vilifying us to gain power in the East. More than ever before, this country is regionally divided.

Quote of Note goes to Gille Duceppe: "Quebecers gave their support to a sovereigntist party."

Boos to Anne McLellan who, standing in the middle of Conservative country, said, "Canadians generally like what we're doing."

Finally, who would have thought the balance of power could fall to one Independent from Surrey-North, BC? If these are the final election results, then, much to Ontario's chagrin, in the next session of the House, what Chuck Cadman says, goes.

How about that for the power of one?

Table from CBC.ca

Postscript: I see Andrew Coyne also has considered at what cost the Liberals win their minority.

Stron-knifeintheb-ack

Chantal Hebert of The Star makes my point (almost) exactly.  Need I say more?

Regressive Conservative

What kind of Conservative is Belinda Stronach?  I ask this question in all sincerity because, lately, every time I have seen news coverage about the Conservative leadership race, there's something negative about Belinda and the Conservative party.  Let me elaborate.

I've heard Belinda air the laundry of parties that no longer exist -- by-elections won or lost, past media statements, whatever, raising the spectre of right-wing fanaticism within the new Conservative party (show me a party that doesn't have its extremists, by the way).

I've heard Belinda bash the political experience of her running mates, calling them professional politicians and suggesting they can't be trusted.

I've heard Belinda trot out what she sees as the policy failures of past PC and Alliance strategists.

I've heard allegations about Magna bosses strongarming workers into become Conservative party members.

Now I'm hearing Belindites complain loudly and publicly that the Conservative party voters list is grossly inaccurate and that her campaign has had particular problems.  Hello Sheila. 

Now Belinda apparently wants the leadership vote delayed. 

Feh.

Her campaign manager, John Lashinger, has been quoted as saying:

"thousands of members were improperly registered because of problems with the computer software used by the party to compile the list.... It seems our campaign is having more problems" [Link]

Is this the same John Laschinger who made the following statement in a book about backroom campaign strategies -- his "eighth commandment" for dealing with political polls?  Check it out:

"One recourse is to leak to the press their internal polls, if they are more favorable, than the public polls. If they are not, another recourse is to fib about (or quote selectively from) the findings of internal polls. A favorite device is to leak results from polling in selected or target ridings and to claim it is a national or, in a provincial campaign, province-wide sample. When all else fails, the final recourse is simply to make it up, to invent a poll." (Geoffrey Stevens & John Laschinger, Leaders and Lesser Mortals, p. 95)

I'd connect you to a link for the book, but it made such an impact on the field that it's now out of print.

I'm left wondering whether someone's trying to dupe us with a ploy to create Conservative in-fighting and hammer a national wedge between Canadians and the new Conservative party.  I mean, what does she expect negative campaigning will do except drive voters away from the Conservatives?  It worked for Gary Doer in Manitoba, and it worked for Lorne Calvert in Saskatchewan.  However, those politicians were trying to drive votes towards themselves by negatively attacking other parties.  Belinda seems to be attacking from within and creating divisions where Harper and McKay have healed and unified.

I'm left wondering...what's Belinda's real agenda?  I mean, how far can the apple fall from the proverbial tree?  Here's what else I'm reading:

"Brian Tobin, former federal Liberal cabinet minister and premier of Newfoundland, has been named chief executive officer of the real estate, gambling and racetrack company controlled by Magna International Inc.'s Frank Stronach."
[March 4, 2004; Link]

"Magna has a unique corporate culture, reflecting the entre-preneurial views of Mr. Stronach, who ran as a Liberal in the free-trade election of 1988 and who stood at his daughter's side in January as she announced her bid for the leadership." [Link]

"...Belinda is spending tons of her father's money on buying organizers and memberships in Quebec in what is an obvious holding up of democracy..." [Link]

Hmmmmm.

Is she really Paul Martin in a cocktail dress?

Postscript: On her website, Belinda claims that Dr. Joseph Fernando, "Riding President of Edmonton Southwest," endorses her bid for the Conservative leadership.  Doesn't Belinda know who the Riding President of the Edmonton Southwest Conservatives currently is?  See what I mean about her focusing on parties that don't exist anymore? 

Where's Belinda's Blog?

Via Jim Elve at the Blogs Canada E-Group, I find that "Belinda. Blog." is now gone from the blogosphere.  Jim writes,

"What began just a few short weeks ago as the most innovative feature of the most professional candidate site among the three Conservative leadership rivals has fizzled ignominiously into oblivion."

Too bad, so sad (not).

If you're going to put up a blog, you should, at least, know what a blog is and how it works. Plus, you have to be able to write like a blogger (or at least have a great ghostwriter who can write like a blogger).  There's nothing more insulting to bloggers than politicians who act like pseudo-bloggers and use the blogosphere to image-manage.  These blah-gers fill the blogosphere with ideas about as interesting as the rants of an earthworm under ten inches of dirt.  Mind you, a ranting earthworm actually might be interesting, so I do worms a disservice here.

Generally speaking, it's probably not a great idea to jump onto the A-string playing field and go toe-to-toe with a bunch of eagle-eyed pundits not subject to any editorial censoring except that of their own scintillatingly creative minds.  Did Belinda forget that the pen is mightier than the sword?  I mean, look at Jim Elve.  You've gotta congratulate that man for coming up with the phrase "Magnaficent Heiress."  Brilliant. 

Well, maybe it's for the best.  Remember what I've been writing about all along:

Belinda. Blog.
Belinda. Blech.
Belinda. Buy.
now...
Belinda. Bye.