blogging a dead horse

It’s all gone quiet over here (and the last word on Canada's Liberals)

2010-03-23T22:00:00.007-04:00

Astute observers of the internet in general, and equine-themed politics blogs in particular, will have noticed an eerie silence from this site of late.

Canadian politics has rarely been as interesting as it is now. Minority governments have treated Canadians to greater transparency of their legislative process (when the legislature is permitted to meet that is) and given more relief between the parties’ approaches to issues and impasses.

But while there is more to write about than ever, there seems to be less and less time to write – at least anything worth reading that is. And as the very first post to this site said, the problem with blogs is quality. Do your research, make tight arguments, avoid the ad hominum and with any luck, you will write the kind of blog you would want to read. But in short, if you aren’t trying, don’t try.

All to say that for the next little at least, it’s all going to get a whole lot quieter around here.

But instead of leaving it like this, let’s leave it like this …

The Liberal Party of Canada will never be an alternative to the Conservatives, precisely because so many Liberals agree with Stephen Harper.

The evidence of this is legion, but the most recent is right here.

Today the Ignatieff Liberals pushed the biggest, ugliest, loudest, hot-buttoniest political hot-button Canadian politics has to offer on the right / left divide … and members of the Liberal caucus pushed it right back.

In their attempt to entrap the Conservatives on abortion, the Liberals exposed their own two-facedness on this touchstone issue of social conservativism when John McKay, Paul Szabo, and Dan McTeague voted against their party’s motion, while other right-wing Liberals Albina Guarnieri, Gurbax Malhi and Derek Lee abstained.

This isn’t the first example of Liberals pretending to stand for something only to show they stand for the opposite; it is only the latest.

Today, if you want women to have the right to choose, there are Liberal MPs for that. But if you want abortion outlawed and returned to back alleys, there are Liberal MPs for that too.

If you are in favour of public health care, there are Liberal MPs for that. But if you want private for profit delivery, there are Liberal MPs for that too.

Does this sound like a party that is an alternative to Stephen Harper?

This Red/Blue convergence is borne from the fact that the modern federal Liberal Party, bereft of leadership, has taken the aggregation of interests to the bizarre extreme of aggregating opposite interests and calling it a party.

The sum of it is that there is no greater unity of opinion on any issue in the Liberal Party of Canada than you would expect to find on a city bus. The difference is, at least the people on the bus know where they are headed.

So, just like they have years ago in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, British Columbia, and most recently Nova Scotia, Canadians looking for a change from the old politics will look past the tired and confused Liberals, to Jack Layton’s New Democrats. The change will come.

"Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world." - T.C. Douglas

Do-nothing Tories take a bold stand in favour of doing-nothing

2010-02-03T13:37:00.007-05:00

Aaron Wherry follows-up on the New Democrats' call for a commission to study increasing violence in sport. He notes the un-surprising Conservative un-response.

"A spokesperson for Sports Minister Gary Lunn said it is up to the various leagues to police themselves. ”We feel it’s a question best left to the leagues and the role of the federal government is to support players and athletes in their development and to support their coaches to make a good training environment for youth,” press secretary Vanessa Schneider said."

So let's break it down for hockey moms and dads: not only do the Harper's Conservatives not share your concern about Manhunt III-levels of violence on the same ice as your 7 year-old, but they also plan to make you pay more for the privilege of agonizing over it through their HST on rec hockey fees.

And this is supposed to be Harper's base?

A swing and a miss for Stephen Taylor

2010-02-02T15:44:00.001-05:00

Once again, careless Aerosmith fans are struggling to understand the latest content emanating from Stephen Taylor’s primordial blog.

Featured is a Dion-quality video of New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen being interviewed by what appears to be a less rugged Adam West from the original Batman series.

On the basis of four and a half minutes (blessedly edited) of childish questions, Taylor has seen fit to declare Cullen politically wounded – so much so that he compares the affible MP to right-wing footnote Randy White’s unfortunate running of the mouth circa 2004.

Now let’s take a step back and evaluate shall we?

Cullen answers off-color questions from some buffoon in a plastic suit with appropriate awkwardness.

Randy White was taped as part of a documentary saying he favored governments and legislators using the notwithstanding clause to overturn court cases he disagreed with … including extending rights to gays and lesbians.

Not only is the equivalence lost, it's afraid to ask for directions.

But keep up the … um, work, Mr Taylor.

Support growing for New Democrats' call for Senate abolition

2010-01-28T10:22:00.003-05:00

The Toronto Star's Bob Hepburn has penned this well-argued piece today in which he aligns with Jack Layton and the New Democrats' long-standing call for the abolition of the unelected, unaccountable Senate.

In it, Hepburn points to the growing political will for this common sense reform that was first put forth by the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) back in the 1930s:

“Support for abolishing the Senate is fairly strong in Canada. Provincial governments in Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba favour killing it and it has been NDP policy for a long time. Also, an Angus Reid survey last August found 33 per cent of us back such a move.”

In 2010 should Canadians still be forced to pay $90 million a year for the privilege of mainitinaing the jet-set lifestyles of party hacks parroting the party line while masquerading as legitimate legislators?

Canada's Senate: Don't fill it, kill it! ... and it's about time we got on with it.

"I’ll see your proposal, and raise you Ned Franks"

2010-01-26T10:28:00.006-05:00

Liberals badly misjudged the public mood against push-button prorogation. Appearing every bit as wedded to the old politics as Harper, Ignatieff declared last week that there should be no limits on the Prime Minister's prerogative to shut down the House of Commons whenever the mood strikes.

New Democrats on the other hand, directly addressed the public’s desire for change with a proposal to limit the prorogation power. The absent Liberal response did not go down well.

So yesterday, Ignatieff backtracked, jumping on the NDP’s bandwagon while exposing their nagging insecurity over the whole matter by suggesting to the media that their 7-point proposal had “trumped” the New Democrats’.

Enter, Ned Franks, Canada’s leading expert on constitutional and parliamentary procedure to take the air out of Ignatieff’s “Keep it Complicated, Professor” approach …

“Franks was not keen on the Liberal proposals, which he found unnecessarily complicated. He said history has shown that there's often good reason to prorogue after only a year or for longer than a month. He preferred the NDP's more straightforward proposal.”

But for his part, Layton has kept to his high-road approach, by welcoming Ignatieff's support and pledging to work with Liberals and the Bloc to put the breaks on future prorogations.

UPDATE: And then there's Coyne ... with a 369 year old word for the cynics.

Conservatives on party allowances: full coffers and empty words

2010-01-22T09:36:00.003-05:00

Over at National Post, is this story about Harper’s oft-unhelpful former advisor Tom Flanagan. Flanagan is suggesting that the publicly funded political party allowances that the Conservatives have pretended to hate since November 2008 are now so entrenched in the system as to make them impossible to eliminate.

To prove his point, Flanagan need only look as far as his own party to find irrefutable evidence.

So convinced are the Conservatives that the $1.95 per vote allowance is the stuff of pure evil and “a waste of taxpayer’s dollars,” that they haven’t failed to cash all $40 million worth of these subsidy cheques since they became government. Seriously, has it not occurred to anyone in Harper’s HQ that it’s more than a little absurd to argue against the subsidies while gladly pocketing $2.6 million worth of them every quarter?

It’s not unheard of for parties to willingly disadvantage themselves to in the name of principle. There is no reason why Roy Romanow, Ed Broadbent or any other of a long line of New Democrat politicians shouldn’t have been appointed to the Senate. Past prime ministers have asked them to. Indeed the advantage of having sage NDPers organizing fundraisers and recruiting candidates from their perch in the Senate would be as big an advantage for the party as it is for Liberals and Conservatives. Yet, New Democrats, long opposed to the undemocratic Senate have denied themselves this perk. Indeed Harper’s Reform Party said they were so opposed to MPs pensions that several of them opted out in the 1990s … only to opt back in later.

So, where is this kind of principled opposition when it comes to the Conservatives and the $1.95 subsidy? Seriously, if they are opposed to it, when will they stop cashing the cheques? Until they do, they have zero credibility on the matter and are just playing the same old politics as the Liberals. Until they do, they should stop complaining about something they are as much a party to as any other.

No fair! Liberals were about to call for a Blue Ribbon Task Force on Democracy!

2010-01-21T08:05:00.003-05:00

Paul Wells links to Liberals unhappy with their party's most recent example of being inable to stand for anything unless the New Democrats stand for it first.

A ray of hope for our politics: Peggy Nash to return to Parliament

2010-01-15T10:46:00.006-05:00

Some welcome news for all Canadians this morning at PunditsGuide.ca: former New Democrat MP Peggy Nash has announced she will be making her return to the House of Commons.

As the invaluable website reports:

“Nash announced this morning that she will run again in the next election and try to reclaim her Toronto seat of Parkdale – High Park from Liberal M.P. and former leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy, the Pundits' Guide can exclusively report.”

The accomplished and personable Nash narrowly lost her Toronto riding in the last election owing in part to the over-hyped campaign of the disappointing Gerard Kennedy. Sympathy from a dirty tricks campaign in the riding next door buoyed Liberal fortunes as well (Which reminds: cutting brake lines and vandalism are pretty serious charges. Whatever became of those charges? One can’t imagine they were just dropped after the campaign, now were they?)

Nash, who has made history as the first woman to negotiate across from the big three auto makers, will make a strong addition to a House of Commons that now perhaps more than ever is badly in need of strengthening.

Give your Hedz a shake.

2010-01-12T21:25:00.004-05:00

Over on her "Hedz Sayz" Facebook page, Hedy Fry, the spelling-challenged Liberal MP has taken the unusual step of doing something. Unfortunately, her latest action since helping Gordon Campbell with his HST is to attack New Democrat Libby Davies who is on a hunger-strike against homelessness.

In assailing Davies, who is unquestionably one of the leading lights on homelessness in Canada, Fry makes the baffling suggestion that New Democrats are responsible for the absence of a national housing program.

Um, just one second, Hedz.

For the record – your record as a matter of fact - it was the Liberals who killed the National Housing Program that New Democrats built with Pierre Trudeau. Don't take this Horse’s words for it, read your own budget:

"Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation will phase out its remaining role in social housing except for housing on Indian reserves." - Source: Paul Martin, Minister of Finance, Budget in Brief, 6 March 1996, p. 11

But buried in Fry’s spleen venting is enduring evidence of how little the Liberal Party has changed since Canadians sent them packing four years ago. The demise of Paul Martin’s clumsy and amateurish Liberal government came not at the hands of the New Democrats, as Fry insists. It came from the ballots of millions of Canadians who finally said “enough” to Liberal arrogance and their culture of entitlement.

Four years on, and Liberals at the highest levels still haven’t clued into that simple fact. That kinda says it all.

Liberals respond to prorogation with the same old partisanship

2010-01-12T10:53:00.003-05:00

The Ignatieff Liberals have once again poisoned the well of cooperation among opposition parties by putting their tired partisanship first.

The Conservatives never counted on a reaction like this. Weeks after Harper turned off the lights on the House of Commons, not only has the outcry and criticism continued – but it now appears to be snowballing. From Tim Hortons to call-in shows, Canadians – particularly small c-conservatives - are venting their disbelief with how indifferent Harper has become towards our national institutions. Today, a group of academics are weighing in with 200 of them slamming Harper’s heavy handed decision to silence parliament.

Now it’s the opposition’s turn. For their part, the Liberals have decided not to work with the New Democrats and Bloc, but instead have planned to gather in Ottawa to hold hearings with “experts” this month on what House Leader Ralph Goodale calls “an agenda that would guide a future Liberal government”.

It’s so typical that it barely needs mentioning, but yet another national crisis is upon us, and the Liberals have defaulted to deciding that this about them and their nostalgia for government - not the broader public interest. Why on earth would New Democrat or Bloc MPs want to participate in hearings to "guide a future Liberal government”?

But Liberals don't care about that. On their chess board, their entitlement beats every other piece. Just like they did in the coalition period a year ago, Ignatieff has seen the opportunity to work with other opposition parties, but is rejecting that to instead focus on himself and tinkering with his broken political machine.

They are missing the point that it's precisely this hyper-partisanship that has been killing our federal politics. It is this this hyper-partisanship that has gotten us to where we are. It was Harper's own partisanship that resulted in the Conservatives shuttering parliament in the first place. How does Ignatieff responding with even more partisanship help?

It doesn't, which is why more and more, the Liberals aren't the answer to Stephen Harper.

"A culture of cover-up": Prorogation backlash sticks to Harper

2010-01-08T12:03:00.007-05:00

Process doesn’t matter.

That’s the conventional wisdom in the Conservative backrooms. The strategists who whisper earnestly into the ear of Stephen Harper believe that Canadians aren’t inclined to remember how we got from A to B, only that “the Conservative government is delivering on B.”

And that’s certainly the lens through which prorogation must have been viewed at the planning stages. The strategic braintrust in the PMO collectively concluded that closing down parliament for more than 60 days would be viewed as a yawner for most. The majority of Canadians could care less about parliamentary procedure, or Harper’s weak-as-dish-water reasoning for it.

Those strategists seem to have miscalculated, as today's Angus Reid poll concludes.

The second prorogation in as many years isn’t the story. Instead, the story is that a majority of Canadians are growing into the perception that the Conservatives are being led by a uncompromising autocrat who routinely puts his political fortunes ahead of the country -- in the current example, engaging in a cover-up over what his government knew about detainee abuse in Afghanistan.

Much like the Liberals' "cluture of entitlement," a "culture of cover-up" is the kind of impression that can stick to a party.

Stephen Harper ends 2009 the same way he began it: on the run

2009-12-31T09:55:00.003-05:00

Like most things that happen in Ottawa, this had been predicted.

The rumours of prorogation were rampant weeks ago. That’s when the New Democrats put out this release calling 2009 “Stephen Harper’s Year on the Run”. The clever release contains a few examples - like the PM skipping-out of questioning on detainee abuse to attend an apparently urgent photo-op with lacrosse players - that a lot of observers may have forgotten.

With only a total of 141 House sitting days, the first two sessions of Stephen Harper’s second parliament have been among the shortest in Canada’s history. Indeed, one has to go all the way back to Louis St. Laurent’s 1949 parliament to find two opening sessions of shorter duration.

But unlike St. Laurent, Harper is leading a minority parliament. And in this context, Harper has taken to overusing prorogation the same way sports teams are inclined to use up all of their time outs at the end of a losing period – to regroup and hopefully throw the winning team off their momentum.

The irony of course is that once upon a time, Stephen Harper was an avowed defender of the supremacy of parliament. He doted on every way in which the Liberals had weakened the ability of MPs to effectively represent their constituents. He loathed the concentration of power in the Chretien / Martin PMOs. When Chretien moved to prorogue in 2003, then opposition leader Harper blasted:

"What we are also learning once again is that the Liberals apparently want to prorogue the House … They want to run out of town, get out of town just one step ahead of the sheriff. Is the Liberal government committed to staying here as planned throughout the month of November so that it can be held accountable in the House for its actions?'' - Stephen Harper, Canwest News Service, 20 October 2003

But all of that was before 2006 -- before Harper found himself in the Prime Minister’s chair and transformed himself into a power - and prorogation – addict, just like the Liberal leaders he once loathed.

But as we end 2009, there is some good news. Yesterday, Nanos put out their year end leadership numbers which show a larger number of Canadians are turning to the New Democrats’ Jack Layton. Honest, approachable, and the one leader with experience to work across party lines to get results, 2009 has solidified Layton’s position as the anti-Harper.

Happy new year, Canadians.

The narcissism of small Liberal and Tory differences

2009-12-15T12:37:00.005-05:00

This kind of thing has become sadly predictable. But, reassuringly, not so predictable that it doesn’t merit the criticism it is receiving.

In fairness, let’s first acknowledge that Canadian politics has always been home to its share of baseless and tasteless attacks. But let’s also accept that recent years have also witnessed a spike in both the number and viciousness of childish political attacks – particularly between the Liberal and Conservative teams.

Who can forget these rhetorical high-points? ...

Conservatives forced to remove image of bird defecating on Liberal leader

Conservatives accuse Liberal MP of bring “anti-Israel”

Liberal MP apologizes for calling Conservative MP “fat”

Liberal MP calls Conservative an “idiot" who should "go back to making tea"

Liberals demand apology for Prime Minister’s slur (Incredibly, Liberals made this their lead in question period for about a week, if memory serves)

So, why has debate between the Liberals and Conservatives become so poisonous that a photo of the PM being gunned down is deemed “okay” by the professional communications staff running the Liberal website?

Consider this: Speaking about student politics at the University of Toronto, the Old Bob Rae once famously opined that “the reason it was so acrimonious and so divisive is because the stakes were just so low.”

In other words, when what you are debating are matters of such small difference – bringing in the HST tomorrow or next week; appointing 17 Senators instead of 18; torture versus “torture-lite” – the tone of the debate becomes the only thing you actually control.

Unlike New Democrats who can put real differences on the table between them and Stephen Harper, Liberals find relief in the ad-hominem. It’s all they have left.

How to Write Liberal Party Policy

2009-12-08T14:40:00.004-05:00

If imitation is the fondest form of flattery, then what is the higher virtue in flagrantly ripping-off someone else’s ideas?

That’s the question being asked about Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff’s pension reform package today.

The man who haas spent his more productive years chiding hapless undergrads for not properly citing Heidegger ‘s Identität und Differenz has today passed-off as his own a re-tread of the ideas New Democrats have been pushing for months -- if not years.

But rather than throwing Harvard’s plagiarism policy at him, New Dems are instead having a bit of fun at Ignatieff and his top staffer Peter Donolo …

PR-091208-Iggy-pensions2

Where were these 28 Liberal MPs?

2009-12-03T16:46:00.006-05:00

So this afternoon, Liberal MPs voted with the Harper Conservatives to pass the first stage of their unpopular HST legislation.

And while New Democrats could be counted on to oppose new higher sales taxes on BC and Ontario families, 28 Liberals failed to show up at all!

They didn’t vote with Michael Ignatieff in favour of higher taxes. But they also didn’t defy their leader to vote with up with New Democrats against the tax hike either.

These Liberal MPs - including 16 from BC and Ontario just didn’t show at all. If they don’t believe Ignatieff is right on the HST, shouldn’t they say so? And if so, shouldn’t they vote against it?

THE 28 MISSING HST LIBERALS

Scott Andrews - Avalon
Navdeep Bains - Mississauga—Brampton South (Ontario)
Mauril Bélanger - Ottawa—Vanier (Ontario)
Maurizio Bevilacqua - Vaughan (Ontario)
Gerry Byrne - Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte
Denis Coderre - Bourassa
Stéphane Dion - Saint-Laurent—Cartierville
Mark Eyking - Sydney—Victoria
Hedy Fry - Vancouver Centre (BC)
Mark Holland - Ajax—Pickering (Ontario)
Marlene Jennings - Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine
Jim Karygiannis - Scarborough—Agincourt (Ontario)
Lawrence MacAulay - Cardigan
Gurbax Malhi - Bramalea—Gore—Malton (Ontario)
Keith Martin - Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca (BC)
David McGuinty - Ottawa South (Ontario)
Dan McTeague - Pickering—Scarborough East (Ontario)
Joyce Murray - Vancouver Quadra (BC)
Robert Oliphant - Don Valley West (Ontario)
Massimo Pacetti - Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel
Bernard Patry - Pierrefonds—Dollard
Yasmin Ratansi - Don Valley East (Ontario)
Geoff Regan - Halifax West
Michael Savage - Dartmouth—Cole Harbour
Mario Silva - Davenport (Ontario)
Michelle Simson - Scarborough Southwest (Ontario)
Paul Szabo - Mississauga South (Ontario)
Bryon Wilfert - Richmond Hill (Ontario)

Ignatieff to help pass sales tax hike – rewarded with lame talking points

2009-12-02T10:05:00.001-05:00

Never one to miss a chance to appeal to his well-connected friends, Michael Ignatieff announced yesterday that he will be backing Harper’s sales tax shift in Ontario and BC.

Liberal MPs from those two provinces are already greeting the news that they will be voting for higher taxes with predictable enthusiasm.

They are right to be worried. Consider that in the last election Liberals lost 16 MPs from Ontario and 4 MPs from British Columbia just for considering a tax hike. Imagine what it will cost them when they actually help Harper / McGuinty and Campbell bring this tax hike in!

But don't worry! Dalton McGuinty is here to help. In exchange for Liberals offering up their 38 Ontario seats and five BC seats to the New Democrats, McGuinty’s crack communications team has offered panicked Liberal MPs these 14 irrefutably lame talking points:

There, that ought to do it.

Subject: 14 Irrefutable Facts on the HST
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:25:58 -0500

14 Irrefutable Facts on the HST

1. We are implementing the largest tax cut package in Ontario history.
2. We are cutting income taxes for 93% of Ontarians starting January 1.
3. 90,000 low income Ontarians will be removed from the tax rolls on January 1.
4. We are cutting taxes for businesses to make them stronger, especially in the manufacturing sector, so they create jobs.
5. These tax reforms will actually cost the government money. $3.4 billion in the first four years alone. The HST is not a "tax grab." Individuals who refer to the HST as a “tax grab” are either playing political games, are uninformed, or they are insulting your intelligence.
6. 130 other jurisdictions have a single sales tax (value-added tax)and none of them have ever reversed it, including the NDP in Nova Scotia.
7. In the Maritimes, they saw a 12% increase in business investment after they brought in the HST.
8. Economists on both the right and left support our tax reforms.
9. Poverty groups and business groups support our tax reforms.
10. The Institute on Ontarios Competitiveness and Prosperity supports our tax reforms.
11. The Conservatives supported the HST just 7 months ago.
12. The Conservatives and NDP do not have a plan to turn the economy around and create jobs.
13. We have a plan that experts say will create 600,000 new jobs.
14. The opposition wont commit to undoing a single tax change in our package.

This Horse is in the Running

2009-12-01T22:15:00.002-05:00

The worst kind of blogging is blogging that is about blogging.

The very first post here way back set out that there would be none of that in this lonely corner of the internet. There's just too much else going on in the wacky and deadly-serious world of Canadian politics to get all self-referential and navel-relevant.

That said, excuse this tiny exception. Seems some nice soul has nominated BaDH for a Canadian Blog Awards '09, along with some other amazing blogs.

So, um, just sayin' is all.

Now back to regular non-blogging blogging.

How well do you know the Senator you never voted for?

2009-11-27T11:42:00.006-05:00

Canadians already rely on Consumer Reports’ rankings to avoid taking home the cappuccino maker most likely to squirt searing milk in their eyes.

So isn’t it time we applied the same rigour to something far more expensive than tooth whiteners and Shamwow-knock-offs?

For instance, Canadians spend $81 million a year on 105 high-flying, canapé scarfing, unelected, unaccountable pretend legislators in the Senate. Shouldn’t we know more about them?

New Democrats think so …

Today the party awarded their second “Senator of the Week” award. This time to the Senator who charged the most in travel and perks for the least days worked.

The "winner"? Raymond Lavigne. The independent Liberal Senator, it turns out, charged over $50,000 for each of the TWO days he attended the Senate last year! But as the award notes, Lavigne “has a good excuse: the Liberal-appointed Senator is on leave while being investigated for 'alleged use of Senate resources for personal gain'.”

I-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-e!

Incidentally, the Senator of the Week from last week – the most expensive overall - can be found right here.

Iffy still re-thinking Thinkers' Conference

2009-11-24T14:45:00.013-05:00

Remember Michael Ignatieff’s big thinkers’ conference? You know, the one that is supposed to fill the chasm-like void in Liberal Party policy with ideas befitting the modern era?

Hey, wouldn’t it be funny - so as to put a poke-your-eyes-out like point on the problem plaguing Iffy and his team - if they couldn’t even settle on a date for the damn conference?

Well, um, here’s this then …

First there was this:

“Sometime this summer or fall, Ignatieff said he also intends to hold a 'thinkers' conference' that will address some of the 'big long-term questions' facing the country over the next 25 years, going well beyond the more immediate scope of the campaign platform."

Then there was this:

"A much touted 'Thinkers' Conference' expected this fall has instead been postponed until next year, possibly in January."

And, um, then this:

“The federal Liberals will hold their much-postponed 'thinkers' conference' in Montreal in mid-January, leader Michael Ignatieff says.”

And today, with all the fanfare owing a process resembling five pre-teen girls texting back and forth to decide when to meet to try out a new hair straightener, there’s this:

“I am pleased to announce today that the Liberal Party of Canada will host a special conference in Montreal, March 26 to 28, 2010, 'Canada at 150: Rising to the Challenge'.”

So now, here's the obvious question: what does this say about Iffy’s willingness to defeat Harper when Liberals have now parked their scheduled and re-scheduled thinkers’ conference right in the middle of where a spring election is supposed to go?

The Choice: Is the progressive wing of the Liberal Party readying to walk?

2009-11-22T12:35:00.005-05:00

Janine Krieber appears to have signaled that a segment of the Liberal Party is readying to part ways with Michael Ignatieff and the party’s current leadership.

In her now widely reported Facebook message, Stephane Dion’s wife tells Liberals “the time has arrived to make a choice” between a party led by Ignatieff “that risks winding up in the dustbin of history” and “a dedicated party, one that doesn't challenge its leader with every dip in the polls.”

By now, it is no secret that the Liberal Party is more accurately two parties. In brief, one segment of the party is of a progressive-reformist bent, committed to thinking big thoughts on matters of the day and working towards the unfulfilled goals of previous generations. The other party – and the more influential of the two – is an establishment bloc based out of the cocktail parties of Toronto's social elite that is just as conservative in its tone and tempo as the Conservatives.

Perhaps tellingly, it was just about this time last year that the hopes of the “progressive” side were dashed as the “establishment” side reasserted itself. The hasty installation of Michael Ignatieff as leader confirmed that Stephen Harper would get his second chance. All the promise of the historic Liberal-NDP accord was over.

Since then, Ignatieff has overseen a collapse in Liberal support from 37 percent and a lead over the Conservatives to a miserable 24 percent in the most recent poll. Krieber’s diagnosis is that the illness which has stricken her party under Mr. Ignatieff is fatal.

The challenge to progressive Liberals looking at the future in front of them is whether they are prepared to stick with a party that has lost its heart and faces disaster in the next election under a leader plagued by his own contradictions, or as Ms. Krieber urges, are they ready to make another choice?

And is that other choice - “a dedicated party, one that doesn't challenge its leader with every dip in the polls” – a none too veiled allusion to Jack Layton’s New Democrats?

Where’s Iggy?

2009-11-19T11:48:00.008-05:00

The Conservative ranks are reeling today.

Richard Colvin’s testimony that senior officials tried to silence his warnings about Canadian government complicity in the torture of prisoners in Afghanistan is the most serious indictment the Conservative front-bench has faced in its four years.

In response today, New Democrats have rightly called for a public inquiry.

Peculiar though is the complete absence at this time of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff -- not just from the file, but from Ottawa.

According to the Canadian Press, the Liberal leader is about as far from Ottawa as you can get:

KENORA, Ont. _ Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff attends town hall with local Liberal candidate. (7:30 p.m. at Cascade Room, Best Western Lakeside Inn, 470 First Ave. S.)

THOMPSON, Man. _ Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff meets with students from the University College of the North, and then takes part in Q & A session. (11 a.m. at University College of the North, Room P4-100, 494 Princeton Drive)

At the time of unparalleled controversy in Ottawa and accusations of Conservative complicity in torture, why is Ignatieff not in Ottawa?

Liberals say Ignatieff is out of Ottawa reconnecting with Canadians. But the reality is that even Liberals realize Mr. Ignatieff has zero credibility to be appalled by torture given his own appalling position on the matter:

The Liberals and their leader can expect to be lost in the wilderness for some time.

Liberal sling mud over patronage straight from their own trough

2009-11-19T10:49:00.007-05:00

The Ignatieff Liberals have decided that the Conservatives' patronage is the soft underbelly to erode their public support.

They may well be right. The names Husakos, Manning (Fabian that is), and Finley all speak to the growing pile of patronage in Stephen Harper’s fiefdom.

But have the Liberals really thought this through? Are they really in any position to credibly lecture anyone on using public positions to reward their partisans after their years of doing exactly the same?

These questions should be put to the strategists behind this line of attack ...

You know, brand new Chief of Staff Peter Donolo and his pal Director of Communications Mario Lague. The two former Liberal staffers who came back to the fold after cooling their heels as the Liberal-appointed Consul General of Canada at Milan and the Liberal-appointed Ambassador of Canada to the Republic of Costa Rica.

Your contractor is on the line, Mr Ignatieff. Something about cracks forming in your glass house.

Good ship Dono-OLO springs an early leak

2009-11-18T17:49:00.002-05:00

It seems it’s plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose for the federal Liberals.

Peter Donolo’s mission to tighten-up the badly listing Good Ship Liberal took an early blow today.

Seems yet another chapter in the interminable feud between Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff was acted out in the Liberal caucus today. Caucus meetings are ultra-secret of course, yet we Canadians are privy to details of the Liberal bun-fight over Ignatieff's decision to not whip the gun registry vote courtesy of Jane Taber and a reliable anonymous Liberal source.

Some will argue that one leak on his second day is too quick to chastise Mr Donolo. But let’s face it, this one man's return to the ranks of Liberal staff has been more overhyped than the putrid final three Star Wars clunkers (even though the rumored Donolo collectors glasses at Burger King have yet to materialize).

In short, the criticism Donolo will face as Liberal fortunes continue to slide under Ignatieff comes in direct proportion to the hype that has accompanied his arrival.

And once again, Liberals only have themselves to blame.

Ignatieff fails the better-than-Dion test.

2009-11-10T10:54:00.007-05:00

First off, congratulations are due to Fin Donnelly, the newest New Democrat MP who won handily the New Westminster-Coquitlam seat vacated by legendary New Democrat MP Dawn Black.

But the story on E+1 is that Michael Ignatieff failed his first electoral test. To be fair, the nugget of truth in Liberals’ spin is that no one expected them to win any of the four seats. That’s correct. But no one expected Ignatieff to do worse than Stephane Dion either. Yet that’s precisely what happened. Ignatieff failed the “better than Dion” test.

In British Columbia, where the Liberals convened only six months ago to anoint Ignatieff leader, Liberals lost 9 percent of the popular support Dion had managed to collect – despite Ignatieff and no fewer than seven high-profile Liberal MPs campaigning there.

In Riviere du Loup, Ignatieff lost 14 percent of the popular vote Dion had eked out of voters there in 2008.

And in the Hochelaga riding in Montreal, where Liberals traditionally compete with the Bloc for seats, the Liberals lost 31 percent of their vote share, coming third behind the New Democrats.

Ignatieff has done the unthinkable. In these by-elections, he managed to do worse than the worst leader in the worst election in Liberal Party history.

Taken together, (with thanks to Pundits Guide) the election results look like this:

Con = 35.7%
NDP = 24.4%
Bloc = 20.8%
Lib = 14.8%

As the hacks and flacks say, the only poll that matters is on election day.

Dead Chamber costs explode 220% - 3 times more than program spending

2009-11-05T16:30:00.003-05:00

You never hear from them (except as spam). No one ever cast a ballot in favour of them. And there isn’t a soul in the land who could tell you which one is supposed to represent their part of the country.

Yet we are all obliged to pay $81 million dollars a year to have partisan hacks in the Senate masquerade as legislators on par with elected MPs. Obliged because, unlike New Democrats, a succession of Liberal and Conservative Prime Ministers haven’t had the courage to say “enough.”

Today the NDP’s Peter Stoffer exposed the exploding costs of Canada’s unelected, unaccountable Senators. Anyone who believes in democracy will find the details appalling.

In the past 14 years, the overall costs of government program expenditures has increased only 73 percent and the cost of running the House of Commons has increased even less: 69 percent.

Yet Senators – including those appointed by Stephen Harper racked up $19.5 million in travel and office expenses – 219 percent more than in 1994.

Senators have no constituency offices, they have no case work, and they sat only 61 days last year. Yet Stephen Harper thinks it’s A-Ok for partisan hacks to spend an average of $187,000 each on travel and perks last year.

Stephen Harper used to say “An appointed Senate is a relic of the 19th Century.” But that’s before he gave up any shred of accountability in favour of doing politics just like Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien used to.

The full details of how 105 strangers are spending your money on their lavish lifestyle are here, courtesy of the New Democrats:

091105-Senate-Costs-FY2008-09

Ignatieff hits sour note with Canadians: poll

2009-10-31T17:28:00.002-04:00

Less than a week on the job and already Peter Donolo’s supernatural powers are at work.

In response to news that Michael Ignatieff has plummeted to a miserable 15% approval rating among Canadians – 11 points below NDP leader Jack Layton - Donolo’s communications team are scrambling to put together their response.

So far, this may be the best they’ve come up with.

Telegram to Kevin Page: TORIES RUNNING LOW ON DITTO PAPER [STOP]

2009-10-30T14:56:00.007-04:00

What if you held an Economic Action Plan and nobody noticed?

That's kinda what the Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page has been asking. Seems to him you can't talk about what the stimulus is or isn't achieving, or where it is or isn't going (hear that Gerard Kennedy?) unless you can analyse the raw data.

Realizing that "the secretive Conservative Government" was beginning to appear "the paranoid Conservative Government", Harper finally relented by providing the data Page asked for in the paper format preferred by accountants of 40 years ago.

The New Democrats' finance critic zinged the Cons on their retro-style of transparency in question period today:

Mr. Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have the ability to secretly record another party's caucus meeting. They can get HD copies of the Prime Minister's audition tape on every government website. They have even found a way to turn Mike Duffy into spam.

However when it comes to providing the parliamentary budget office with details of stimulus funding they are still in the Diefenbaker era.

Does the minister realize that providing boxes containing thousands of pages of untreated information without so much as a synopsis, much less a spread sheet, is less than useless?

Even with all the brain tonic the Conservative front bench had consumed, they weren't able to provide much in the way of an answer.

Hubris or narcissism? You decide.

2009-10-29T14:00:00.004-04:00

Especially in light of today’s apocalyptic poll results that show Iggy reaching sub-Dion levels of popularity, no one will deny that Liberals really (like, REALLY) need a pick-me up.

But this is just way too much. He’s just a chief of staff, kids. You’d think Liberals hadn’t just churned through four of them in the past year.

Way to manage expectations, gang.

Welcome to the abattoir, Mr. Donolo

2009-10-28T12:22:00.010-04:00

It’s fair to say that Peter Donolo arrives to replace Ian Davey as Ignatieff’s Chief of Staff with expectations on him as high as those that were on … well, Ian Davey.

In recent years the Liberal leader’s office has become something of a political abattoir, as senior staff said to hold great promise one day are disposed of with a shrug the next.

So, in walks Donolo at a time when Liberals, tumbling in the polls, plagued by perpetual integral fights, and directionless on policy are openly asking “what happened to Michael Ignatieff?” In their rush to replace Dion, did they actually make matters worse for themselves?

This part of that Macleans story is telling:

"In March 2005, when Ignatieff, not yet a declared candidate for ofﬁce, addressed the national Liberal convention, he was all potential. He was touted as another Trudeau—a dashing ﬁgure of intellectual vigour. He spoke then of liberalism, social justice, national unity and education. The subjects and themes were not far from what he touts now. Perhaps something has been lost."

It reveals more than Liberals intend that for many of them, the moment they set their sights on Ignatieff as a potential leader was his keynote speech to the 2005 Liberal convention.

Sure, just like then-State Senator Barack Obama, Ignatieff appeared to come out of nowhere with a great speech at a convention. Just like Obama, people began to expect great things of him. And just like with Obama, faced with a devastating election defeat, partisans, through their own despair and nostalgia, hoisted that speech to Churchillian heights to leverage the political future of a relative unknown.

Unfortunately, that’s where the comparisons end and Liberals are forced to face the superficiality of their choice.

While both men gave a fine speech, Ignatieff doesn’t have the benefit of 12 years running for elected office. It’s only been in the last three years that he’s had any experience of being challenged on his positions by ordinary people. Instead Ignatieff has the record of a man who, as a fine intellectual, has taken controversial positions on issues like torture and the invasion of Iraq. A man who has shown every appearance of having no interest in running to be Prime Minister of Canada.

So is it any wonder that within days of challenging Harper to a duel, the party Ignatieff heads disintegrated from its own internal turf battles while Jack Layton walked away as the parliamentary power broker on EI and now pension reform?

Michael Ignatieff’s problem is his lack of experience in politics. Yet he allowed himself to be convinced he was ready to be a party leader – a job he never prepared himself for and is proving inept at.

For its part, the Liberal Party’s problem is cohesiveness. With no consistent policy, and factions within factions posturing for advantage, it is a party that makes no sense unless those factions can be silenced, crushed together and held that way by a force more powerful than its parts.

The un-leader and the party that makes no sense. Welcome to it, Mr. Donolo.

UPDATE: Though with a funnier analogy, Paul Wells reaches the same conclusion.

Liberals and Conservatives: Two parties, same problem

2009-10-22T09:39:00.003-04:00

How about that. It was only four years ago this month that the inquiry onto the Sponsorship scandal wrapped up its first report. A report that damned the Liberal Party as an institution for its culture of entitlement. For "clear evidence of political involvement" in the sponsorship program. For kickbacks and illegal contributions. For treating public money like their own.

The punch line is that Stephen Harper pledged to be different. He promised to do away with the old politics. But the second he became PM he jettisoned the very principles of accountability that got him there.

Liberals and Conservatives: two parties, same problem ...

Voters giving Layton a closer look

2009-10-14T11:41:00.003-04:00

While Iffy has had to fight back challenges to his leadership, the New Democrat leader has been making parliament work ... and Canadians like what they see from Jack Layton.

All that, as depicted by the Sun's Sue Dewar:

Are you kidding? Are we back to doing THIS again?

2009-10-14T08:14:00.005-04:00

The last time we had political parties walking around town passing-off taxpayer money as if it was their own, it ended with a whole bunch of people going to jail and this guy getting involved.

Oh, and as for you, Gerald Keddy, "I would absolutely do it again," sounds awfully Jean Chretien of you don't you think?

Mr Harper? Alphonso Gagliano on line one.

The Liberal Party: Making family holidays even more awkward since 2008

2009-10-10T10:21:00.006-04:00

Rocco Rossi’s got your back.

That is if you are one of the few Liberal supporters left who would dare to admit as much among family, let alone try to defend Michael Ignatieff’s spectacular flame-out of the past few weeks.

You see, Rocco knows better than most the new damage Ignatieff’s implosion on CBC Radio’s The House this morning was going to inflict on the flagging morale of paid up Liberals. Which explains this blog post in which Rocco writes:

”dinner table discussions are a great opportunity for you to cut through the spin and get to the meat of the matter (so to speak) with family and friends. In other words, don’t let recent headlines put a damper on dinner. Here are three things everyone at the table should know before dessert.”

Like handing a Shamwow to a tsunami survivor, Rocco’s thoughtfully prepared talking points are intended to defend hapless Liberals against even more eye-rolling, finger pointing and high-velocity bun throwing than most holidays, with such winning lines as “polls don’t matter” and “read Michael’s speeches”.

But the saddest part of all isn’t that anyone daft enough to heed Rocco’s advice will be eating their pumpkin pie on the stoop. No, no. It’s that Rocco’s predecessor sent out the exact same advice to party members last Thanksgiving as Liberal leader Stephane Dion was cruising towards the worst election result in Liberal Party history.

Witness ...

Date: 11 October 2008
Subject: Talking Turkey

Dear XXXX,

If you watch TV news programs, you will often see spokespeople advocating on behalf of their political party. Sometimes they will be engaged in one-on-one interviews, other times they are part of a panel discussion, with each party represented.

These spokespeople make use of what we call “talking points” – concise statements on the issues of the day, which they hope will effectively make their case in the debate.

This weekend, millions of Canadians will gather with their families and friends around Thanksgiving dinner tables. If you are one of them, and if your family is anything like mine, the conversation will turn to politics. And like mine, your family probably doesn’t always agree on everything.

So I thought you might like to have your own set of talking points, to help you be a Liberal spokesperson – at your dinner table, at least, if not on a 24-hour news channel. Who knows, though? If you do a good enough job around the dinner table this weekend, you might be ready to sit in on a network news anchor’s roundtable during next Tuesday’s election night coverage.

Have a great weekend. Happy Thanksgiving.

Greg Fergus

National Director, Liberal Party of Canada

Er, Happy Thanksgiving, Liberals.

You stay classy, Gerald Keddy.

2009-10-08T10:12:00.013-04:00

Fear makes people do strange things.

That’s the only plausible explanation for the Red Bull-fueled ramblings that Nova Scotians woke up to in their Chronicle-Herald this morning.

Rounding out four paragraphs of half-baked accusations against Jack Layton and the NDP, Conservative MP Gerald Keddy charges that New Democrat MPs abstained from the vote to give $1 billion in needed EI improvements for the unemployed last month.

Hmmm. That’s curious. Because the record shows every NDP MP was in their place and voted in favour of the $1 billion at second reading.

Keddy, who on occasion has been known to represent Nova Scotia’s South Shore riding, says he was there. You’d think he would have noticed the New Democrats voting in favour of the bill.

But fear makes people do strange things … like flying off the handle with attacks on your political opponents based on make-believe and fairy tales.

So why is Gerald Keddy afraid?

Likely because his South Shore riding, which looked like this in 2008:

Now looks like this following last spring's provincial election, which swept Darrel Dexter’s NDP to a historic majority government.

You stay classy, Gerald Keddy.

Iggy Liberals wrong on human rights

2009-10-07T09:58:00.003-04:00

Lately, the Ignatieff Liberals have invested considerable political capital on international affairs. They are banking on Canadians becoming so furious over fellow citizens being left to their own defences abroad, and the country's reputation being tattered and soiled on the world stage that they can transform Ignatieff's "just visiting" into "worldliness" to make him an attractive electoral alternative.

Regardless of what one may think of a advisability of strategy posited on making foreign affairs a vote determining issue, the Liberals have clearly not considered their own vulnerabilities on foreign affairs.

The Star's Linda Diebel points to one such example. In deciding to back the Conservatives controversial free trade deal with Columbia, the Liberals - led by a renowned (albeit badly flawed) human rights scholar - are deliberately glossing over horendous human rights abuses in that country.

Diebel takes issue with Liberal Scott Brison's assertion that "To say that paramilitary forces are murdering union leaders today is false."

Diebel in response:

"don't whitewash the actions of a government led by a president accused by Colombian human rights groups of sanctioning death squad activity when he was governor of Antioquia (where Apartado is located) in order to sell free trade. Rights groups claim workers trying to organize on [Colombian President Alvaro] Uribe's own family ranch were assassinated by the death squads. He is very well-known for his tirades against human rights organizations and the slick operations of his sales team."

Note to “Chainsaw” Kinsella: Keep up the threats - they are really working

2009-10-05T11:53:00.008-04:00

Two weeks ago, one-time Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella offered this morale booster for fellow Liberals who dared to offer candid and unflattering details about Iffy’s flagging electoral prospects to the media:

“I intend to find out who you are, little Hill Times source weasel, and I intend to take a chainsaw to your political ambitions, however modest they may be." – Warren Kinsella.com

But rather than instilling a new sense of pride among the Red Team, “Chainsaw’s” berserk rant appears to have had the opposite effect, as Legions of nameless “weasels” appear to be lining up to air their leader’s soiled laundry:

"The people who thought that the Liberals were an alternative, a substantial number across the country, are saying, 'Well, Jesus, is that what we have for leadership?' [What happened in Outremont] impacts negatively on every Liberal candidate. It's a problem on a much wider scale for the whole party," - The Liberal who did not want to be identified, Hill Times, October 5, 2009

"We're going to hell in a hand basket. This is like the time just before the election of 1988, with [John] Turner," - one Liberal MP who spoke to The Hill Times on condition of anonymity, Hill Times, October 5, 2009

“The MP said Mr. Ignatieff's staff has limited political experience, which is why the dispute with Mr. Coderre was so clumsily handled, and the leader has done a poor job of reaching out to experienced people who know the ridings the party is trying to target.” - one Liberal MP who spoke to The Hill Times, October 5, 2009

New Democrats will match your party’s record on fighting sales taxes any day, Mr. Harper.

2009-10-02T12:06:00.005-04:00

As the Globe and Mail reports, this week the federal NDP has taken dead aim at Harper’s plan to hike sales taxes in Ontario and BC.

Yet in response to a question from Jack Layton on the HST, Stephen Harper recounted this heart-warming childhood anecdote “when I was a boy, my father used to say that I should work on things that I am good at. The NDP is not good at fighting taxes.”

Well, that ends all that, doesn’t it? Um, no. Not really. Primarily because it’s not true.

Let's review the facts, shall we?

FACT: It was the Conservative Prime Minister who Harper had worked for in the 1980s who introduced the GST. It was New Democrat MPs who voted against it.

FACT: It was the Conservative Premier of Saskatchewan who signed a deal to harmonize that provinces’ provincial sales tax with the GST. It was the New Democrat Premier Roy Romanow who killed that deal dead.

FACT: It is the New Democrat Premier of Nova Scotia who today fulfilled a promise to take the HST off of home heating for families in that province.

FACT: What Jack Layton's NDP are fighting against today is a Conservative Prime Minister’s plan to pay $6 billion to the Ontario and BC Liberal governments so they will agree to hike the federal sales tax by 8% and 7% respectively. The very same Conservative Prime Minister who way back in December 1996 said:

“We need another way. This harmonization of the GST, this tax collusion between provincial and federal Liberal governments, is not the way to reverse the economic decline of this country.”

Far from being “not good at fighting taxes,” it’s been the New Democrats - and only the New Democrats - who have demonstrated the most consistency and courage fighting regressive sales taxes.

It’s a shame that the PM’s pater hadn’t also imparted the virtues of being correct on his doe-eyed progeny.

Shorter Jack Layton: "Hey Harper and Iffy: Nut-up, or shut-up!"

2009-09-30T22:19:00.003-04:00

Finally, some adult supervision ...

If he can’t run his own affairs, why should anyone expect Iffy to run a government?

2009-09-29T14:18:00.004-04:00

Just when you think the Ignatieff Liberals can’t possibly stumble any further, they find a way to tear the floor out from under them and go crashing down yet another flight of stairs.

First, Ignatieff said EI reform was his top priority. But now that it appears that $1 billion in extra help will happen thanks to Jack Layton, Liberals say they want an election instead.

Iffy bragged he would go to China to fix the relationship Harper had messed up. Then he cancelled that because he wanted an election instead.

Then Iffy said he didn’t want Martin Cauchon to run in the NDP’s Outremont riding. Now he says he does -- and has lost his Quebec lieutenant amid charges that Ignatieff is being manipulated by the party’s base in Toronto.

Now Liberals have had to cancel a much ballyhooed $1.6 million Toronto-area fundraiser because it falls on the same day as their ill-fated vote of non-confidence.

Canadians were told in May that the Liberal Party was more united than it had been in history. Ignatieff along with Alf Apps and Rocco Rossi were the managerial dream team who would make the other parties tremble.

Instead as Jane Taber reports in blistering terms, the Liberal Party under Iffy is the one doing all the trembling -- still favouring its divisions and sorting out which end is up.

And we are supposed to believe these guys are ready for an election … let alone be able to win one? Get real.

More on the “media correction”

2009-09-28T08:09:00.004-04:00

Sometimes it happens that the punditocrisy over-indulges on spin. In doing so it loses perspective and with it a certain amount of credibility. It’s easy to do so. Spin is often made to be more interesting than the real story.

When investment advisors and the market pundits on TV oversell a particular stock or fund only to have it bottom out on them the next week they call it “a correction”.

Siminarly, there is something of a “media correction” occurring right now, as pundits and columnists are being reminded – by each other – that they collectively over-bought and over-sold the Liberal party’s spin on the NDP of late. Columnist Ralph Surette makes such a case in the Halifax Herald ...

"The scorn heaped on Layton’s head, mainly by national media pundits, especially those on those TV talk panels, has been gleefully relentless. According to the narrative, Layton, the sanctimonious pinko and prototype of his ilk who was always berating the Liberals for propping up the Tories, is exposed as a hypocrite at last. The guy who piously preached making minority government work but two-facedly voted relentlessly against the Tories, is now back to co-operating because he’s freaked by the prospects of losing seats in an election. How juicy. But second thoughts have kicked in about the worth of Layton and his works, showing that maybe even the media are marginally redeemable. There’s the obvious, of course: that Layton spared the country an election it doesn’t want, and that there will be some improvements to EI."

Layton Unplugged: "It's not about us"

2009-09-27T11:10:00.003-04:00

There are times when doing the right thing isn’t enough.

As Lawrence Martin reflected upon intelligently this week, nobody knows this better than New Democrats. Indeed, if political success was measured by how often our political leaders demonstrated sound judgment, New Democrats would be peerless.

However, the party’s decision to support $1 billion in new support for 190,000 unemployed workers has been different. Unlike in the past, the initial canned criticism from the Liberals, the elites, and the punditocrisy has been muted and short-lived. Indeed only the Liberals are still left griping.

The reason: unlike some other decisions the NDP has taken in recent years, the vast majority of the public is already on-side with what Layton and his MPs are doing. What the NDP has done in this instance is another demonstration of what makes Jack Layton the best leader Canadians have at the federal level. Better than any other leader the country has seen in a generation, Layton has a real passion and ability to bring people together to get results. At a time when name-calling, silly games and brinksmanship dominates our politics, genuine pragmatism right now is deserving of respect.

Layton provides some from-the-heart insights into his way of thinking in today’s Star:

In the end, as we debated whether we would support the $1 billion for the unemployed or give Harper the election only he and Ignatieff seem to crave, I kept coming back to the faces of the many people I've met who asked me to help them. For them, the financial support will make a big difference.

I feel anguish right now, but it has nothing to do with the criticism that has been levelled at us. No, it is that we haven't been able to help more hard-working Canadians who are in need. It's going to be a hard, hard winter for far too many of them.

Liberals default to backstabbing and infighting

2009-09-22T10:07:00.005-04:00

It may be time to update the old joke - something along these lines: “Conservatives come together to drink, New Democrats come together for pamphlets, and Liberals? Liberals come together to beat the living snot out of one another.”

Despite every real piece of evidence showing the contrary the Red Team persists in saying they have never been happier. All the while they are reaching towards Dion-era levels of discord and malice:

Leading Liberals openly praise the NDP and Bloc for crushing Ignatieff’s election strategy.

One-time Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella goes berserk over “unnamed Liberals” for daring to tell journos that all is not well in La-la-Liberal land.

And now, because they’re getting rather good at it, Liberals are in open revolt against Ignatieff for decreeing who shouldn’t run in the NDP riding of Outremont.

Less than a month ago, Michael Ignatieff boasted of how the party had turned a corner under his leadership …

“We’re more united than we’ve been in a generation. We’re ready to fight in every riding in the country.”

In less than 22 days, events have completely swamped his boasts of unity. Liberals are now literally on their way to fighting each other in every riding in the country.

The Absent-Positioned Professor

2009-09-20T19:52:00.006-04:00

It has been a bad week for the Ignatieff Liberal Party.

In a span of seven days, Michael Ignatieff has absented his MPs from ever casting a deciding vote on any matter in the House. Absented the Liberal Party from ever making parliament work for Canadians. And now, most stunningly, absented himself from the obligation to ever have a position on any matter of public policy.

In relation to his inconstant stance on the HST, Ignatieff told reporters that he, as leader of the opposition, “doesn’t have to have a position”. The implication being that if we lowly Canadians ever want to know what Ignatieff would do as Prime Minister, we would have to elect him Prime Minister first. (Fortunately, most aren't that interested.)

As Hill watcher Kady O'Malley rightly concludes:

Really, when you get down to it, it goes to credibility — Ignatieff’s, that is, and not just on the HST, but in general.

Who's got the hidden agenda now, Mr Ignatieff?

EXPOSED: Rift grows over Ignatieff’s puerile election posturing

2009-09-18T22:00:00.006-04:00

The whispered suggestion that the Liberal caucus is fracturing over Ignatieff’s “show down” strategy is no longer a whisper.

Sources close to your favourite equine-themed politics blog report that Martha Hall-Findlay, for one, is quite pleased that Ignatieff’s stratagem has failed to produce the threatened election.

Following an Ottawa fete this week for the Hill Times newspaper at one venue, the high-ranked Liberal MP and one-time leadership aspirant, it is said, was heard at Hy’s restaurant praying with colleagues and hangers-on that Ignatieff’s scheme would fall flat.

Attendees to the impromptu after-party report Hall-Findlay telling assembled guests that she was praying there would be no election – loudly thanking the NDP and Bloc for standing up to make parliament work instead.

Shouldn’t the Ignatieff team be concerned that elements in the Bob Rae camp are publicly rejoicing in his first big strategic misstep?

SATURDAY AM UPDATE: Jane Taber’s column in today's Globe confirms both the soiree at Hy’s (evidently it was in honour of MH-F’s 50th … er, happy birthday, Martha) as well as their being much rejoicing that the Ignatieff team failed to precipitate an election.

Iggy got a panel which he walked out on. Layton got a billion dollars.

2009-09-17T13:29:00.001-04:00

This just in ...

On “propping up” ...

2009-09-16T15:15:00.005-04:00

If you go to the store and pay the $1.99 posted for a loaf of bread, are you “propping up” the store or just getting the bread you came for?

Similarly, if the NDP supports the EI reform don't they get something in return ... something called EI reform?

Most would see it that way, but it’s clearly in the interests of some to see it the other way.

It’s not propping up if you get what you came for. It’s not propping up if you make parliament work in the same way that parliaments work in every developed legislature on Earth: through principled pragmatism and collaboration to improve the lives of Canadians.

Jack Layton said it best on Monday: he spent the summer listening to the people for whom an extra five weeks of EI is the difference between losing their home, car and dreams. Not helping them if you can is irresponsible.

There is no parallel to what the Liberals did since the January 2009 budget. Under the questionable leadership of Michael Ignatieff, they passively handed over the votes of their 77 MPs for a shopping cart full of nothing.

Layton's caucus is making parliament work by getting results: $1 billion worth for the unemployed. For their part, the Red Team is buying time for a Liberal leader who still doesn't know what he's doing (see: Iraq, torture, Employment Insurance and Harper's HST on Ontario and BC families).

Say, does this looking like "propping up" to you?

2009-09-15T21:41:00.003-04:00

Jack Layton weighs the second election in two years against $1 billion for the unemployed as depicted by the deft eye (and pen) of Globe cartoonist Brian Gable ...

If Elizabeth May still mattered ...

2009-09-08T13:59:00.006-04:00

... the overwhelming response to this story in the MSM and the alt-media, would be howling cries of hypocrisy based on this ...

But to be fair, it's not that May is entirely irrelevant. Clearly people voted for her and her party in the last election. It's just that her inexplicable antics, propensity for internal scraps and unsubstantiated claims have alienated many of those voters as well as many respected GPC stalwarts.

On that basis, the need to hold her to the same standard of seriousness and consistency as the other leaders is just not there. And in politics, that's as brutal a condemnation as you're likely to get.

Liberals put a man on the moon … and left him there.

2009-09-04T08:47:00.008-04:00

Is an accomplishment still an accomplishment if you have to promise you will never, ever do it again? Federal Liberals are saddled with that question today, given John McCallum’s sharp repudiation of his party’s record on fiscal responsibility.

Since the late 1990s, the Liberal Party has hung their vaunted fiscal credibility on one thing: having eliminated the $42 billion deficit left to them by the Mulroney-era Conservatives. No matter what criticism they faced, Liberals could (and continue to) boast that they brought Canada’s fiscal house in order; and for that, we should be grateful.

But as accomplishments go, slaying the deficit the way Jean Chretien and Paul Martin went about it, is roughly equivalent to boasting of having put a man on the moon -- with no way of getting him down.

That’s certainly the way provincial premiers remember it. They (including Today's Bob Rae) remember the federal Liberals unilaterally hacking $25 billion out of transfers for health care, education and welfare beginning with the 1995 budget. Cutting these transfers had catastrophic impacts for provincial budgets which were still struggling from the recession of the early 1990s. The response in many provinces was to reluctantly pass Chretien and Martin's cuts along to hospitals, universities, colleges, and municipalities, who in turn passed the cuts along to patients, students and taxpayers through tuition fee hikes, hallway medicine, co-payment fees, municipal downloading, property tax hikes, and increased homelessness.

Happy to have enjoyed the parade, but ignorant of the mountain of tickertape in their wake, it has been the consequences of their having “slayed the deficit” which Liberals have steadfastly refused to acknowledge.

That is until now. By finally denouncing their having savaged provincial transfers as “a mistake,” Liberals are a decade later, a bit closer to finally recognizing that the way they “brought Canada’s fiscal house in order” was a hollow accomplishment.

As for their promise to never cut provincial funding again? It should sound familiar. Try page 80 of the Liberal Platform that preceded the 1995 budget.

Adding to Iggy's list of failures

2009-09-02T09:13:00.005-04:00

So, yesterday Ignatieff told Stephen Harper: "You’ve failed to protect the most vulnerable. You’ve failed to create jobs. You’ve failed to defend our health care. You’ve failed to restore our public finances."

It's all true. But that's because Liberals failed to force him to.

"On probation" turned out to be "on vacation".

Liberals owe it to themselves, and the Canadians they are elected to serve, to examine closely why their strategy to prop Harper up in exchange for nothing but a set of worthless reports and a Blue Ribbon panel with Pierre Pollievre on it was such a failure.

The Old Liberal Party

2009-08-17T11:03:00.004-04:00

Lost in the coverage of the New Democrats' uber-successful convention in HFX09, is this very strange editorial that appeared in the Toronto Star on Friday.

The most baffling part comes in these concluding lines:

"Lately, the overarching strategy of the federal NDP seems to have been to destroy the Liberal party. To that end, the New Democrats have combined with the Conservatives to defeat Paul Martin's Liberal government (thereby consigning a national daycare program and the Kelowna aboriginal accord to the trash bin) and to demonize Stephane Dion's proposed carbon tax (thereby setting back the cause of containing greenhouse gas emissions).

The chief beneficiaries of this strategy have been not the NDP but Harper's Conservatives. Time for some new thinking, not a new name."

Really? Paul Martin? Are you for real? You mean the guy who was Prime Minister for a couple of weeks four years ago? Is anyone actually lamenting the loss of a guy who spent most of his life aspiring and conspiring for a job that he couldn't make any sense of once he got it? Anyone??

How is it precisely that anyone in the New Democratic Party should be responsible for rehabilitating the tattered memory of what is universally regarded as a hapless Liberal government / leader? Liberals still have their own soul searching to do.

It's rich for Liberals and their messengers at the editorial board of the Toronto Star say others are in need of "new thinking," when it is so clearly they who are living in the past.

23 is the crassest number

2009-07-16T17:15:00.003-04:00

Here’s a hypothetical: Imagine the next time you open your door, a neighborhood kid is there to ask you for money. You’ve seen him before and given before. Only this time there are no candy bars, no magazine subscriptions or even a chance to win a 50/50 draw.

The kid with the weird grin doesn’t know what the school will do with the money. He doesn’t know if it’s to fight a disease or to get a 108 inch flat screen for the teachers’ lounge.

He doesn’t care about that. This isn’t about you or some problem in the world that might need some attention -- it’s about him!

He HAS to win, he exclaims. He has to do better than all the other kids so he can get the awards and get the recognition! And he’s counting on you caring enough about that – about his ego and his bragging rights. So fork it over!

That kid at your door is the summer fundraising pitch from the Liberal Party. It is the crassest of all appeals: “give us cash so we can make our guy the 23rd prime minister in an election we have successfully avoided by propping up Harper over two-dozen times since the last election.”

Compare that to the New Democrats’ Blueprint for Change. It’s a lot easier to move people to donate to something they care about. New Democrats clearly get that. The NDP effort this summer is based on VALUES … getting action on your values, on delivering for everyday people being left behind in the recession.

The letter from party president Anne McGrath talks about the tangible benefits people can count on in the coming weeks when they make a donation to the NDP ... not just Michael Ignatieff's vanity project.

"you’ll help us build the biggest New Democrat campaign in history. This summer, we’ll train more campaign workers and engage more volunteers than ever. And at our Convention in Halifax, we’ll learn from winning New Democrats like Premier Gary Doer and Premier Darrell Dexter as well as key members of Barack Obama’s inner-circle, eager to lend a hand to those standing up for working families."

You heard it from Rocco: “Summer is no time to rest. As the Liberal Party's National Director, I know an election can come at any moment. That's why on July 23, I'll be launching our 'Up the Creek WITH a Paddle' fundraising expedition.”

Wha? Thanks anyway Rocco. We’ll wait for the kid with the chocolate almonds.

Harper v. Ignatieff: The fight for who has the better conservative ideas

2009-07-09T10:09:00.004-04:00

At first they won’t admit it. But over time – and usually over drinks – Ottawa Liberals are starting to confess a deep concern that their current leader may be their most right of centre yet -- and that this will have a very real consequence in the next election.

His cosmopolitan and intellectual aura aside, on the environment, the Iraq war, violence as a means to an end and on things ordinary people actualy care about, Ignatieff's opinions are almost indistinguishable from Harper's. New Democrats have already begun to seize on the homogenization with this biting commentary.

Contextually this makes sense. The Liberal Party has been inexorably drifting to the right over the past 25 years. The Chretien-Martin era marked new low point for progressives. The governing Liberals slashed $25 billion from health and education and downloaded it to the provinces, they eliminated the federal role in social housing, they gave tens of billions worth of incentives to the oil and gas sector, they put us into a war in Kandahar without a clear mission, and they pushed through a reactionary anti-terror bill, complete with draconian security certificates. So, it is almost a given that whomever leads them now should necessarily be more individualistic, more laissez faire, more hawkish and less committed to basic notions of fairness than the one previous. Ignatieff fills the bill, and then some.

Another measure is this: the Liberal Party of Trudeau and Pearson was home to some of the most out-spoken, risk-taking progressives of their era -- like Tom Kent, Allan MacEachen, Warren Allmand, Paul Martin Sr., Monique Begin, and Pauline Jewett.

Yet where are these people in today’s Liberal Party? They aren’t there; or if they are there, they are so timid and neutered in a party that equates hacking away at health and education as providing tax “relief” that “social justice” is spoken of with the same mindless monotony as an advertising jingle.

None of this is to say that recent Liberals have not done or promised progressive things. It is just that on balance, the party is far more to the right than it’s ever been. The result is that given the choice of taking a decision favourable to Conservatives or New Democrats, one could safely predict today's Liberals would take the former.

In the desperate days of the 2004 election Paul Martin threw long and declared that Liberals and New Democrats “share the same values”. The snicker-worthy intonation being that if Liberals weren’t Liberals they would be New Democrats.

The move won him votes, but it also won Liberals much more scrutiny of their record by centre left Canadians.

Given the choice of an Ignatieff-led Liberal Party – a party that a month ago agreed to prop up the Conservatives for a 79th time in exchange for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to collaborate with Pierre Poilievre on a private members bill – or the New Democrats who are showing in Manitoba and Nova Scotia that progressive parties can govern with their values in 2009, it’s a good bet progressive Canadians will be attracted to the more hopeful choice.

The scrap over who has the better conservative ideas will be fought out by these two men.

The Dead Chamber: providing over 142 years of embarassment ...

2009-07-02T19:36:00.006-04:00

Oh, it was embarrassing LONG before this. (for a complete list of Senate embarrassments, visit here, courtesy of the NDP).

But thanks Senators, for using words like "embarrassment" and "childish" to describe what goes on in the unelected, undemocratic sandbox you reluctantly attend for 3 or 4 days a week for a tidy $130,000 a year.

Every Prime Minister - Conservative and Liberal - from Sir John A., to Trudeau to Harper have added to the democratic deficit (hey, remember that?) by rejecting change and preferring to let the Senate be. So that today we Canadians are saddled with a $95 million a year embarrassment of Liberal and Conservative Senators patting each other on the back - when they aren’t storing their knives there - and self-important appointees masquerading as legitimate legislators at the public's expense.

During December's crisis, Harper accused other parties of having an undemocratic agenda -- days before he plumped the Dead Chamber with 18 more Conservative has-beens and hangers-on. Deciet, make way for hypocrisy!

For longer than they have been new, the New Democrats have had this right: there is only one solution to the Senate: Let’s get RID of it.

Liberals could have sat in cabinet -- instead they will sit with Pierre Poilievre

2009-06-29T22:10:00.007-04:00

Every time you see him on TV, it's easy to remember that the only reason Stephen Harper is still prime minister today is because Michael Ignatieff left him there. Given the choice of Liberals governing in a legitimate coalition, or more of the same from Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff voted confidence in the latter.

The book end of Ignatieff's capitulation in January was the one earlier this month, in which Liberals patted their backs bloody boasting that their noble leader forced the Conservatives to agree to a "Blue Ribbon" panel to consider changes to EI for the fall.

Those fonder of reality have rightly pointed out that the "pound of flesh" Ignatieff walked away with was indeed far less than he said he wanted from negotiations: namely, help for the unemployed this summer and a 360 hour rule.

But none of this nonsense will move Liberals off their tales of heroic daring-do.

Well, this should: Harper's appointment to the Conservative chair on the panel? None other than Pierre Poilievre. That's right, the very same Pierre Poilievre whose singular role in the House of Commons and everywhere else has been to enrage Liberals by endlessly hectoring at them with mindless talking points about their leader's plans to raise taxes and his 34 year absence from Canada.

Far less than a victory, naming Poilievre is Harper's oh-so-subtle way of thumbing his nose (if not extending another appendage) at Liberals for playing politics for a week about a summer election they had no intention of forcing.

Well played, Iggy. Well played, indeed.

Steamrolled

2009-06-17T12:37:00.003-04:00

David Akin evaluates the comparative negotiation skills of Michael Ignatieff against those of Jack Layton:

"In 2005, Jack Layton won $4.6 billion in new investments in housing and transit in exchange for supporting the minority government of Paul Martin.

In 2009, Michael Ignatieff got a working group and an opposition day for supporting the minority government of Stephen Harper."

But it’s actually less than that. In exchange for voting in favour of the Conservatives' estimates on Friday, the Liberals have been given:

a) the opportunity to write a private members' bill on EI with the help of three Conservatives; and

b) An additional opposition day in at the end of September with which they can once again threaten to defeat the government, thereby beginning the ceremonial crying-of-wolf all over.

So, other than Stephen Harper, is anyone actually any better off today than when this soap opera began? Nope.

Even Michael Ignatieff can admit that:

“Let me be clear, we don't have an agreement here. We have an agreement to work hard, professionally, and seriously with top level officials to get a legislative proposal before parliament if we can. I give you no guarantees that we can get there, but I know in my heart I can look unemployed Canadians in the eye today and say I’ve done my darnedest for you.” – Ignatieff, CTV News, 17 June 2009

Michael Ignatieff is the new Dion

2009-06-16T11:48:00.004-04:00

Yesterday's press conference by Michael Ignatieff was contrived by backroom Liberals to thrust their guy into the mold of "Big Time Leadership". The thinking being that if the coverage over the weekend and the remaining five days of this parliamentary session could be shaped by Ignatieff staring down Stephen Harper in a "just watch me" moment, Canadians may begin to visualize the two men as equals and rivals.

But instead of seeing a stand-off, most commentators are still stuck on just how hollow and irrelevant Iggy's press conference was. The result is that no one is saying the name "Ignatieff" in the same breath as Trudeau or JFK. Instead, he's being compared to Stephane Dion - and what's worse, he is coming up wanting:

“Stephane Dion may be gone from a leadership role, but his legacy of hysterical threats followed by ignoble climbdowns lives on, affecting our perception of his successor. This government is terrible, it is horrible, it is an abomination unto God himself – and we are totally going to do something about it, eventually, somewhere down the road, maybe spring-ish. But now we dance!” – Scott Feschuck, Maclean’s blog, June 16, 2009

“Dion’s problem was that he had a vision; he just couldn’t find the right words to sell it. Ignatieff has managed to flip things around; time after time, he articulately ties himself into knots trying to get around the fact that he has very little to say.” – Adam Radwanski, GlobeandMail.com, June 15, 2009

Premier Darrell Dexter

2009-06-09T23:01:00.003-04:00

This, of course, is huge.

The first time a New Democrat government has been formed in Nova Scotia.

The first east of Ontario, and the first time a new party has had a breakthrough into government since 1990.

There will be plenty more firsts to come from Canada's newest government in the days to come.
For now, it’s time to congratulate Nova Scotians for their deliberate choice.

For weeks they were bombarded with baseless attacks about the "reckless" and "risky" New Democrats and warnings of doom, so often from come-from-aways.

Yet 46% of Nova Scotians put that garbage where it belonged to put their trust in the man and the party who had earned it.

Congratulations, Nova Scotia. Congratulations Premier Dexter.

How to build a structural deficit (or where will we cut so Suncor can keep another billion?).

2009-06-08T10:05:00.007-04:00

This is a no brainer.

At some point - likely with little help for the Conservatives' stimulus - the economy will begin to show signs of stabilizing.

And when it does the knives will truly come out for the $50 billion federal deficit.

You can already hear Ignatieff Liberals chortling that Canadians are dying to give the Red Team another chance to re-live their dubious "glory days" of the 1995-98 era in which they brought down a $42 billion deficit by heroically slaughtering transfers to the provinces for health care, education and social assistance.

Canada has already lost $140 billion in corporate taxes becasue of an unprecedented reduction of the business tax rate from 28.12% in 2001 to 19% today. Incredibly, both the Conservatives and Liberals say they are committed to lowering it a further 4% by 2012!

A cut of that magnitude will cost the federal treasury another $8 billion a year. A hole that size would leave precisely the structural deficit every party says they don't want. This will put health care, the CBC and countless other Canadian institutions on the chopping block. This suits the Tories just fine, but there was a time when Canadains could expect better from the Liberals.

It's like volunteering for a pay cut while you are trying to pay down the mortgage and take care of a sick family member. No sane person would agree to it.

Enter the Harper Conservatives and Ignatieff Liberals.

Note to Chantal Hebert: Read your own paper.

2009-06-01T13:42:00.004-04:00

For the past few years, Chantal Hebert’s columns in the Toronto Star have ranked among the better federal political opinion pieces on offer. While not all of her points will be agreed with, her argumentation has been sound.

That’s why her recent twaddle in the key of “Jack Layton is a has-been” is just so disappointing.

Her argument, that Layton “is being squeezed out of a Bloc Québécois-Liberal duel in Quebec” and “is also becoming a mere bystander in a Harper-Ignatieff election battle nationally” is the stuff of a Red Bull fueled imagination.

There is, in fact, zero evidence to suggest Hebert is correct. At all.

In fact, as if to make that very point, today’s Toronto Star also contains a story about this poll.

That’s right, according to a poll commissioned by the same people who employ Hebert, the New Democrats are within the margin of error of exceeding their results from the last election, AND interestingly, are also at an incredible 17 percent in Quebec, up (not down) FIVE percentage points from the 2008 election.

Columns are generally better when they aren’t disproven by the part of the paper that reports news.

Check your stats: NDP has best record of balanced budgets - Gvnt of Canada

2009-05-18T14:45:00.007-04:00

Reading this, anyone who knows anything about New Democrat governments would conclude that Janice MacKinnon was either (a) badly misquoted, or (b) the victim of a nasty spill off the turnip truck.

Though threadbare from over-use, the talking points that say “New Democrats equal deficits and profligate spending” are flat wrong. The fact is that since the mid 1980s, New Democrat governments have had the BEST record of balancing budgets of any party on average. The source for such blasphemy? Why, the shysters over at the Federal Department of Finance, of course!

The whole "spend us into deficit" racket is sadly more true of Liberal and Conservative federal and provincial governments. It's something you’d expect MacKinnon to have some familiarity with, given that she was an NDP finance minister responsible for a balanced budget or two herself.

Only 300 ridings left to go ...

2009-05-15T10:49:00.006-04:00

Taking a cue from others, this corner of the internet has for some time observed a policy of not commenting on the musings of the leader of the Green Party, nee Liberal Party spokes-thingy.

The point having already been made, and nothing having changed, what’s left to say? But an article in the Owen Sound Sun Times does change things. For the worse ...

Coming off of this week's election in BC which saw Green support tumble 37% from their electoral high, Elizabeth May is now suggesting she’s looking at running in “seven or eight” ridings across the country.

For those keeping score at home, since re-entering electoral politics in 2006, May has now mused about running in no fewer than EIGHT federal ridings:

Central Nova: here

Cape Breton-Canso: “I’d love to be the Member of Parliament for Cape Breton--Canso. That's where my family home is.” – CTV Question Period, January 7, 2007

London North Centre: “I want to be the best MP London-North-Centre has ever had, quite honestly, I want to work really hard for the riding." - London Free Press, October 26, 2006

Sydney-Victoria: "One morning I wake up and think for sure I’m going to run in Cape Breton-Canso . . . Then I think maybe I should run in Sydney-Victoria by the end of the day.” – Halifax Chronicle Herald, February 21, 2007

Ottawa West—Nepean: "I love the idea of running against one of the cabinet ministers of this (Conservative) government. I live not that far away from where (Environment Minister) John Baird's riding is in Ottawa.” - Halifax Chronicle-Herald, January 18, 2007

New Westminster—Coquitlam: “Green Leader Elizabeth May says she would consider running for a seat in a soon-to-be-vacant riding out west but will not make up her mind until a by- election is called.” – Toronto Star, May 11, 2009

Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley: “It depends on when and if a byelection is called because if there is a general election first, then there is no byelection opportunities. If a byelection opportunity presented itself, I’d be very interested.” – On running in Bill Casey’s former riding, CBC "Politics with Don Newman", April 28, 2009

And now, Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound

Honourably in the last three years, May has managed to eke out a shrinking share of the political space talking about the need for politicians to be straight with people. So it’s more than a bit revolting to find her ending her political comeback by packing-up her carpet bags after making this solemn promise to the people of "her riding" ...

Layton to help Obama become America's Tommy Douglas

2009-05-15T08:06:00.005-04:00

The history of the fight for universal public medicare in Canada records that opponents to the CCF/NDP's plan in Saskatchewan were backed by US-based health care companies and doctors. In spite of this, Tommy Douglas and Woodrow Lloyd were successful, and Canada is the country it is in large part because of that victory.

So it's fitting that as the Obama White House seeks to make history again by transforming the notorious US health care system into a less costly, fairer, and more universal program, Canadians should return the favour: "Layton to help Obama in health care battle".

Polkaroo is not the only imaginary thing on TVO

2009-05-11T23:14:00.003-04:00

People who live outside Ontario will have missed the panel on TVOntario tonight on “The Future of the NDP” which is too bad, because it was some of the more contrived programming ever offered by the basic cable superchannel (and that includes the Today's Special when Jeff's magic hat gets lost at the drycleaners).

Let’s run through:

On one hand there were the detractors: Buzz "Basil" Hargrove (best remembered for musing about running for the Liberal Party in 2008) and self-described radical Judy Rebick. These two firmly of the timeless opinion that New Democrats will only succeed when they sound less like your neighbour and more like hectoring 1970s anti-market crusaders -- Brother Hargrove intoning at one point that calling Employment Insurance “Employment Insurance” was tantamount to giving in to the man (the irony having clearly been lost on the Champion of the Working Class (TM) that it was his old pal and CAW jacket honoureee Paul Martin who changed the name from Unemployment Insurance back in 1995.)

Also on the panel was Globe and Mail columnist Adam Radwanski, who could most charitably be called, oh, cynical about the NDP and Jack Layton.

In the middle of this maelstrom of the imagination was NDP MP Niki Ashton who did a fine job at checking the sur-reality of having her party's obituary read to her by the detractors and occasionally by host Steve Paikin while the party, quite heathily, lives and breathes.

The only thing that appeared to be missing from the program was a ticker giving moment by moment updates about Michael Ignatieff’s feelings about puppies and his childhood crushes.

Come on. We get it. The Liberal Party membership had a new leader forced upon them and are therefore up in the polls from their historic low. Does it necessarily follow that the New Democrats are doomed, let alone even affected by this? No, but that's not stopping TVO from assembling a panel to suggest it.

Funny how the only people saying the New Democrats are down and (almost) out are the same people who say your favourite sports team sucks … non-supporters.

Ignatieff knows less than a 9th grader

2009-05-11T10:36:00.013-04:00

So this is interesting for two reasons:

1) Ignatieff now says the Liberal-NDP coalition would have "divided" people. Really? A historic accord agreed to by a majority of parliamentarians, representing a majority of voting Canadians and that would have brought political rivals together into an alternative government would have been more "divisive" than Stephen Harper's government?

Well, that's worth remembering.

As are these things Ignatieff used to say about the coalition he now derides:

“I think the thing that the Canadian people…have to understand is that the coalition agreement does not jeopardize the national unity of our country. No Liberal, certainly not me with would ever sign into any agreement that jeopardized the national unity of the country, that compromises the national authority of the government or sets in place unequal treatment of provinces." – Michael Ignatieff, "Mike Duffy Live", 5 December 2008

“I support the [Coalition] accord because it's fiscally responsible, it provides responsible economic leadership in tough times and it also conserves the basic principles of national unity, equality that our party has always believed in.” – Michael Ignatieff

In fact, Ignatieff was so opposed to the coalition accord he now considers more divisive than Stephen Harper, that he was only willing to sign a petition to the Governor General in favour of it:

2) Upon reflection, Ignatieff has also concluded - along with Stephen Harper and the Conservative letter-to-the-editor writing base - that "There was also a question concerning the legitimacy of the coalition that troubled me.”

No surprise really that a man who has lived outside Canada for 30-odd years thinks we are the Republic of Canada too.

Free advice to Professor Ignatieff: on one of your book tours, consider picking up a copy of the high school reader "How Canadians Govern Themselves" where in the first chapter you will learn:

"If a Cabinet is defeated in the House of Commons on a motion of censure or want of confidence, the Cabinet must either resign (the Governor General will then ask the Leader of the Opposition to form a new Cabinet) or ask for a dissolution of Parliament and a fresh election."

“She superimposed her face on another body image”

2009-05-06T09:53:00.002-04:00

Given, um, recent revelations, Team Ignatieff may want to borrow from Ruby Dhalla’s very own expertly crafted “Photoshop” talking points to explain away this now unhelpful photo from the weekend …

Subscribe to the Liberal Party and get a free clock radio & pen set

2009-05-04T11:17:00.003-04:00

For a moment a jolt of electricity seemed to be in the air in the otherwise dull-as-dishwater convention coverage on Saturday. CPAC reporters took a break from their usual stalling for time or chatting-up delegates about by-law amendments and swollowed hard at the prospect of getting to report actual NEWS!

Across the land, Elevator Network viewers and retirement home rec room occupants were agape that the Liberal Party was about to announce a new … wait for it … logo!

But in all seriousness, a political party’s logo is an important part of its overall branding. It needs to be recognizable as well as say something about the party.

So isn’t it a bit odd that their new logo …

Appears to be an un-italicized throw-back to their old 1992-era logo?

And what about that new leaf device? What does it say about the new Ignatieff Liberals? Who knows? Perhaps it’s a reminder to renew their subscription to Macleans’.

How far will Ignatieff take the Liberals into Harper's camp?

2009-04-30T16:09:00.006-04:00

Maybe it was because his 2006 leadership bid was so mired in blunders the point was lost.

Maybe it’s because short circuiting the most recent leadership race avoided any further scrutiny.

Or maybe it’s because following the 2008 disaster, federal Liberals are just happy to have someone else lead them – and it hardly matters who.

But hidden beneath his rhetoric, Michael Ignatieff has already moved his party as close to the Conservaitve Party as any leader has in two decades.

That’s the point Bob Hepburn makes in his column in today’s Toronto Star.

"Since January, when he was anointed interim leader by the party's backroom boys and its sitting MPs and senators, Ignatieff has moved quickly to erase much of the left-leaning social agenda pursued by his predecessors, Stéphane Dion and Paul Martin.

He killed any idea of a coalition with the New Democrats, which Dion backed. He isolated Liberal MPs clearly identified with the left wing of the party, notably Justin Trudeau and Gerard Kennedy. He ditched Dion's "Green Shift" carbon tax plan.

To win support in western Canada, he has championed the development of Alberta's oil sands, which worries environmentalists concerned with massive pollution associated with the projects.

And he is aligned almost perfectly with Harper in agreeing to end Canada's military role in Afghanistan in 2011, in their visions of Quebec and free trade, and in their unqualified support of Israel.

… In fact, since Ignatieff became leader, the Liberals have yet to vote against the Conservatives on any issue of significance other than a tepid effort by some Tory MPs to kill off the long-gun registry."

Hepburn’s is a good point. If either Harper or Ignatieff had been in the Prime Minister’s office in March 2003, Canadian troops would have been fighting in Iraq. How unsettling is that to Chretien Liberals?

As they gather in Vancouver, do Liberals really know what they are doing? Do they actually think Canadians will want to replace one right wing prime minister with another?

The imaginary "crisis" of the New Democrats

2009-04-29T11:03:00.009-04:00

Satire, they say, is best when it contains a little bit of truth.

Knowing this, it’s easy to conclude that Chantal Hebert’s column is not satire. Because her second in a series in the Toronto Star on the thesis “the NDP is down in the polls and Layton needs to go” is completely without a morsel of truth.

Her column is built on the fact-vacant allegation that "Current polls do suggest that [New Democrats are] facing diminishing returns in the next election."

What?

Presuming that polls DO matter to decisions parties make this far in advance of an election, the fact that the NDP is polling at or near the margin of error of the 2008 election in the middle of a love-in for Michael Ignatieff is no small feat.

Even in Hebert’s home province, the NDP is today holding the 12 percent it got in Quebec six months ago – effectively disproving her claim that “Outremont’s Thomas Mulcair might not even have a seat in parliament after the next election.”

But even if you took Hebert’s wild argument at face value: do you dump a popular leader who brought the NDP from 13 seats to its second highest result in history on the basis of a poll? That’s ridiculous. If polls were all that mattered, we would be marking the 100th day of President Hillary Clinton’s administration today.

Hebert mentions NDP strategist Brian Topp, yet she studiously avoids two points he made in a recent Globe and Mail discussion, 1) New Democrats don’t have the culture of “playing leadership politics” the same as the old line parties and 2) Layton’s leadership is on par with past NDP leaders:

The federal NDP doesn't play leadership politics the way the Liberals and Tories do. We debate things, including the leadership, but don't generally divide into suicidal factions over leadership issues.

Second thing worth saying: Jack Layton has only been federal leader for six years. In that brief time he has taken our caucus from 13 to 37 members, added 1.5 million votes to our column, and has been working very effectively in Parliament in the best traditions of his predecessors. It's true that he didn't get to the Cabinet table (this time) - but he did force a Conservative government to do a 180-degree turn on its what-me-worry policy towards the economic crisis, and to adopt stimulus measures it fundamentally rejected only weeks before. Not bad for the first few weeks of a new Parliament.

The most cynical bit in all of this is that the column doesn't provide anyone, anywhere calling for a change of leadership except for “comments” to a previous column from people she describes as “some New Democrats”.

But only a few weeks ago, Peter Stoffer, among the most independent-minded MPs in the NDP caucus, and one who has not always seen eye-to-eye with Layton gave an unequivocal endorsement of his leader and flatly refuted claims of any displeasure in the grassroots:

"To say that we're looking for a new leader is simply false, I haven't heard that on the ground, I haven't heard that in our caucus, I haven't heard that even privately from people who speak to me on a regular basis. I haven't heard that at all. So it's simply not on."

In sum, the “NDP is down in the polls and Layton needs to go” thesis is the stuff of a Red Bull-fueled imagination. Almost no one is discussing leadership change in party that just achieved its second best result in history. What is out there is an erroneous assumption that there's “panic” based on polls that are not a great deal different from the historic result of the last election.

So what is this really about? Without being out right cynical, who really knows?

But like the klutz who shoves you from behind and then points to the fellow next to him, the only thing that columns like this are trying to do is create a problem where none actually exists.

Factdown!: Poll shows Iggy popped

2009-04-26T12:43:00.007-04:00

The Liberal Party message box on offer right now is that Michael Ignatieff and the Canadian people are enjoying an exciting, fireworksy new romance that’s certain to bloom into an embarrassingly steamy make-out session at the ballot box.

The corollary of this message is that the new Liberal leader’s limitless popularity is hurting the New Democratic Party and forcing them into a state of panic. The media, bored of economic stories and anxious to return to covering horseracing are happy to parrot the tired Liberal lines.

The only thing lacking in this twaddle is any actual ounce of reality.

By way of illustration, the Harris Decima poll that came out this week demonstrates two facts that fly in the face of the Liberal message:

1) Support for the Ignatieff Liberals has been on a steady DOWNWARD trend since late March; and
2) Support for Jack Layton's New Democrats has been GROWING since the middle of last month.

As for the corollary that a new Liberal leader foretells of an inevitable end of days for New Democrats, let's review, shall we ...

... The Paul Martin juggernaut was poised to win 290 seats – wiping the NDP clean off the electoral map in the process. Actual result: NDP growth / Liberal decline.

... Stephane Dion was going to consume all the political oxygen on the left, deny Jack Layton his well earned credibility on the environment and reduce the party to a rump. Actual result: NDP growth / worst Liberal result in history.

... Now there’s Ignatieff.

For most Canadians – after five leaders of the Liberal Party in six years - this whole melodrama is getting a bit predictable.

The Bloc Quebecois’ desperate tweet for help.

2009-04-23T11:42:00.004-04:00

Gilles Duceppe is just fresh out of ideas.

Moments ago, the Bloc Quebecois leader Twitter'ed to shrug: « En préparation pour la période de questions en Chambre cet après-midi. Vous avez des suggestions? »

That’s right. The Bloc leader, with 48 MPs, and a research office worth $1.6 million in staff salaries, in the midst of a recession, with 350,000 unemployed in Quebec, can’t come up with a single idea of his own.

Even Bloc MPs are now having trouble hiding that they just haven't a clue what they are supposed to be doing in Ottawa.

Good timing, Paul Crête.

True Ignatieff Love: By the numbers

2009-04-21T10:40:00.003-04:00

Anyone contemplating rushing out to buy Michael Ignatieff’s book in hope of finding exciting, new-ish policy ideas from the new-ish Liberal leader is bound to be disappointed.

You might think a man wanting to be thought of as a prime minister-in-waiting would use his new book to promote his vision for the country he only returned to three years ago. You might think the halted Liberal leadership contest would require that. But aside from a few mentions of interprovincial trade and an east-west power grid, Ignatieff‘s book offers nothing on the scale of Jack Layton’s 2006 book Speaking out Louder -- which some considered excessively policy prescriptive.

Those who have bothered to sift through Professor Ignatieff's latest tome have offered this snap shot to give a real sense of what the 211 pages of True Patriot Love are really all about:

Total mentions of …

Issues facing Canadians
Jobs = 0
Pensions = 0
Canada Pension Plan = 1
Employment = 0
Employment insurance = 0
Climate change = 0
Environment = 0

Recent History of the Liberal Party
Bob Rae = 0
Jean Chretien = 0
Paul Martin = 0
Stéphane Dion = 0
Sponsorship = 0
Carbon tax = 0

Ignatieff and his family
The Grants (George Monro, William Lawson, etc.) = 284
His wife “Zsuzsanna” = 4
His brother “Andrew” (whose estranged relationship with Ignatieff was excruciatingly documented by Michael Valpy) = 1
Personal pronoun “I” = 164

New Democrats get all MPs' voting records on line

2009-04-19T10:24:00.004-04:00

Anyone who has ever tried to navigate the incomprehensible procedural kaleidoscope that is the House of Commons Journals to find out how your MP, or a party voted on an issue in the House has a reason to thank the New Democrats and their house leader Libby Davies.

As Alexander Panetta reports here:

“MP Libby Davies sent House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken a letter bemoaning the lack of transparency in Parliament.

She noted that Americans could, for instance, see that Barack Obama missed 37.4 per cent of votes in the U.S. Senate, and voted in line with the Democrats 96.7 per cent of the time.

"Each of us finds signs of growing voter disengagement – like declining turnout in elections – worrisome," Davies wrote to Milliken in March 2008.

"And each of us desire to find ways of opening the House and its deliberations to greater public interest and knowledge. . . Compiling and presenting these records on the public Internet site is a rather modest, yet at the same time critically important, step in modernizing the relationship between Canadians and their members of Parliament."

Commons technical staff began working on the design, and the chamber's board of internal economy agreed at a meeting last month to launch the feature.

Starting next week, the website will also include a search engine that allows people to see how MPs have voted since October 2004.”

Even internet rights guru Michael Geist is celebrating Davies' and the NDP's accomplishment too.

Now, you can already hear murmurs from the cynics saying “MPs always vote the party line anyway”. But is that even true? Maybe. Maybe not. We kinda rely on the media and other political parties to tell us, don’t we?

The point is this: unlike in the US, it’s been almost impossible for citizens - and citizen journalists - to figure out which MPs have voting for, or against what issues for ourselves. Until now, that is.

Sometimes the most practical advancements in accountability don’t look like this -- they look more like this.

Ignatieff concedes next election to the Conservatives ... again.

2009-04-15T10:50:00.004-04:00

With 1,279 days until polls close in the next federal election, the BaDH Decision Desk can already predict that the Ignatieff Liberals will not form a majority or minority government.

The analytical and empirical basis for how such an early prediction can be made is right here.

It will be recalled that the Liberals had their worst showing in history in the 2008 election in part because of a leader who failed to connect with ordinary people, but more so because of an ill-defined plan to raise taxes that met with hostility at doorsteps across the land. A plan concocted by none other than Michael Ignatieff.

So it’s absolutely baffling to see the seeds of a repeat performance being sewn by the exact same man who saddled Liberals with the unpopular carbon tax from under which they are still trying to escape.

Right now, Harper and the gang are desperate to do two things: first: define Ignatieff as haughty intellectual with zero practical government experience and second: talk about anything other than how the economy is worsening under their watch.

Staggeringly, Ignatieff’s incomprehensible slip-up hands them a way to do both. Wait for the Conservatives' gigantic war chest to start being funneled into an unending stream of ads about how the Ignatieff Liberals will raise personal taxes – perhaps with a carbon tax, perhaps with an increase in the GST hike, or perhaps with a 2000% income tax increase! (only Iggy knows for sure!?)

That history appears to be repeating itself will give Liberal supporters more cause for considering dropping Professor Ignatieff’s first year Canadian politics course and going to a more reliable opposition with Jack Layton.

Liberals' naked partisanship backfires

2009-04-09T13:43:00.003-04:00

The Nova Scotia election hasn't even been called and already the third-place Liberals are scrambling to fire a campaign worker and apologize to a New Democrat candidate over this.

They say the most painful campaign injuries are always the self-inflicted ones.

Not sure what they say about campaign injuries before the campaign even starts though.

A good strategy if the ballot question in 2012 is "Who likes Brian Mulroney more?"

2009-04-06T22:09:00.005-04:00

So Michael Ignatieff thinks the way to hurt Stephen Harper is to blow kisses at a Conservative politician who left office with an approval rating of 21 percent and who is currently the subject of a commission of inquiry into his business dealings.

And people say 30 years out of the country has hurt Professor Ignatieff's connection with the Canadian zeitgeist.

Tisk, tisk.

Lawrence Martin asks "where are the New Democrat voices in our media"?

2009-04-02T17:42:00.003-04:00

No party ever thinks they get a fair shake from the media and New Democrats are certainly no exception.

Today, the New Democratic Party runs a very popular government in Manitoba. It stands a good shot of returning to power in British Columbia in May and is poised to make history as government in Nova Scotia in the next election.

The people of Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Yukon have all elected NDP governments in the past 19 years. And in the last federal election, 2.5 million Canadians voted for their New Democratic Party candidate sending the second largest NDP caucus to Parliament Hill.

So, the question gets asked, why is it that "there are fewer left-side media voices in the country than probably ever?"

Except this time, the questioner isn't a hardened New Democrat voter, academic or even MP, but Lawrence Martin, columnist in the wait for it … mainstream Globe and Mail. He goes on to say:

"The Toronto Star has the odd left-wing columnist but is predominantly Liberal. The CBC has a leftish reputation, but try finding anyone among its top TV commentators who trumpets NDP values. Rex Murphy leans right, Andrew Coyne is predominantly conservative, Allan Gregg has been anchored in the Tory party for decades and, among Chantal Hébert's many colours, pink is not prominent."

Martin’s prescription: there needs to be more NDP voices in the national media:

"To change the voting culture, you have to change the media culture. Without a bigger voice in the fourth estate, the left's chances of making a breakthrough are minimal. The Reform/Alliance party eventually hit pay dirt, becoming the dominant force on the conservative side, because big media promoted its religion.

The NDP has a good public relations team and a media-conscious leader. But even with prevailing economic orthodoxies shamefaced, New Democrats can't break the journalistic ritual that sees Liberals and Conservatives with a stranglehold on coverage. Until they do, until they alter the media perspective, until their supporters gain ownership of media properties - as happened on the right with Fox News and CanWest Global - not much will change."

When a leading voice in the Ottawa press gallery is noticing this as a problem, you can be sure that it is.

So, a proposal to our embattled Canadian media empires: speak to a young, erudite and growing audience that doesn't have anyone speaking directly to them right now. Instead of going pearshaped, go orange instead.

Ignatieff Liberals are back to thinking Kyoto is just the name of a dog.

2009-03-31T12:19:00.003-04:00

For the federal Liberal Party the environment isn’t a crisis. It isn’t even an issue. It’s a prop. For decades the Liberal Party has campaigned on the environment, collected the votes for their song and dance and then walked away from our browning planet.

Check their stats:

In 1993 the Liberal Party ran on a platform that mentioned the environment 118 times. Yet 13 years and four Liberal governments later left us with a worse environment.

In 1997 they signed the Kyoto Accord pledging to reduce GHG emissions 6% and then “didn’t get it done.”

More recently, the Liberals declared climate change the number one threat to Canadians and our planet. Not just Dion, but every Liberal including Ignatieff clapped their hands and voted in favour of Jack Layton’s Climate Change Accountability Act, which to the chagrin of the Harperites passed the House in June and was in the Senate when Harper called the early election three months later.

Yet over at Peterborough Politics, Cam is reporting that Liberals might not support the bill when it comes back to the House this week.

The Sierra Club of Canada, once considered a virtual clearing house for the Liberal Party now finds itself inexplicably pleading with Liberal MPs to vote in favour of the bill that will hold future governments accountable for hard climate change reduction targets.

“Tomorrow’s vote is an opportunity for each MP to demonstrate to their constituents where they stand on climate action, and to live up to their previous commitments,” said Stephen Hazell, Executive Director of Sierra Club Canada.

On one hand it’s no surprise to see Liberals heaving their convenient environmentalism of the past two years overboard like ballast from a sinking ship -- it’s just that Canadians are more accustomed to seeing this when Liberals are in government -- not opposition.

Layton loses no ground – ranked the leader best able to understand the problems of Canadians

2009-03-30T19:45:00.005-04:00

Imagine that every time you applied for a loan or met someone new your cheating ex-spouse was permitted to comment on the matter.

That’s the way it is with Buzz Hargrove. In terms of fidelity to the New Democratic Party the former Paul Martin-booster ranks with such courageous defenders as Hazen Argue, Rick Laliberte and (in a delightful twist of irony that has never been fully examined) his old arch nemesis Bob Rae. The man who New Democrats could almost never count on for anything can now be counted on by journalists with tight deadlines and unimaginative editors to heap mud on Jack Layton with the all the suspense of a vending machine.

Which accounts for this.

But aside from Hargrove’s ludicrous objectivity and absurd claims (he says the NDP “felt more comfortable attacking the Liberals” than Harper in the last election. Um, WHAT?? Did the eagle-eyed Hargrove not catch a glimpse of the most vicious attack ad of the last campaign?), the article builds its house on the sand of recent polls to suggest New Democrats should be worried about the Liberal “juggernaut” version 3.0.

But recent polls don’t show much evidence of this at all. The Angus Reid poll that came out last week had the Conservatives at 35, the Liberals inching to 31 and the NDP down at 16 percent. A margin of error drop for the NDP since the election is hardly proof positive of a hollowing out.

If anything, New Democrats should be buoyant from this poll. In terms of leadership “best ats,” Canadians rank Layton first or second on almost every issue.

Which leader is the most honest and trustworthy? Jack Layton ranks first.

Which leader agrees with you on the issues you care about? Jack Layton ranks first.

Which leader cares about the environment? Jack Layton ranks first by a 22 point margin!

And on the critical vote-determining question of which leader understands the problems of Canadians? Canadians rank Jack Layton first by four points over Harper.

Ignatieff’s only first place ranking is “inspires confidence.” After the leader Liberals just had the contrast alone makes this understandable. But even in political death, Dion haunts the Liberals.

Consider that days after becoming leader, after a leadership race that blistered his credibility for “not getting it done” and at a time when the economy was showing no signs of weakness and Harper appeared in control and confident, Stephane Dion brought his party to a record 40 percent in the polls.

More than 90 days since becoming leader himself in circumstances far more favorable, 40 percent support remains a feat Michael Ignatieff hasn’t come close to matching.

Come back Floyd Laughren! All is forgiven.

2009-03-26T17:06:00.005-04:00

Hey, who remembers 1995 when the Ontario Liberals and Mike Harris Conservatives pilloried the New Democrats for having the brazen gall to take dramatic measures to protect Ontarians from the recession?

Judging from the highlights of today’s doomsday budget in Ontario, the McGuinty Liberals don’t … or if they do, they just think hypocrisy suits them better.

Take a look:

* $57 billion in borrowed spending, starting with a record $14.1 billion this year (compared to a meager $12.4 billion under the New Democrats);

* $1 billion in unidentified “mystery cuts” (see ya in hell, TV Ontario);

* A 5 percent reduction in the public service (Rae Days never looked so good); and

* An 8 percent increase in the cost of household goods, including on electricity and home heating bills with the absurd combination of the provincial sales tax with the GST;

Hey, it’s not all bad! Bay Street still gets off with a sweet corporate tax cut while everyone else gets the privilege of paying Dalton McGuinty more for giving us less – (less pocket money and less services)

Meanwhile next door in Manitoba, increased core spending in education and health and ... wait for it ... a balanced budget from the New Democrats.

How do you like your McGuinty Liberals now, Ontario?

The Liberal Peeps Opposition

2009-03-24T12:00:00.002-04:00

So there’s a lot of anger out there that the Liberal convention to crown Czar Ignatieff is coming together as a completely perfunctory affair for the hundred or so faithful who are expected to hump over the Rockies from their base in the GTA in May.

"It's a convention about nothing," grouses one disgruntled Grit, echoing a description often applied to Jerry Seinfeld's television sitcom of the 1990s. "Some people are wondering why we're bothering to have a convention at all."

Honestly, what’s the fuss about, Liberals? When has a federal Liberal Party convention been about substance? This Liberal convention, like the ones before and after it have always seemed like the Peeps Easter candies that decorate store shelves this time of year - colorful and fluffy yet utterly generic and void of any nutritional value.

But that’s the way the Liberal establishment likes their conventions. It’s the way they like their leaders, and it’s the way they like their so-called opposition to the Harper Conservatives as well.

Just think about how Ignatieff and the Peeps continued Dion’s record of helping Harper get his budget passed. They claim to have put the government on probation - yet when the time came, they not only voted in favour of the Harper agenda – they fast-tracked it in the Senate, admitting that they didn’t even know what far-right measures were contained in the 500 page budget document.

"One of the problems is that if we have an omnibus bill there is all kinds of stuff. It is like a folder. So people put stuff in the folder that we don't know about. But at the moment that we have known that this problem [with employment insurance] was rising up, we reacted and the question that we need to ask is the government -- did the government know what was within its budget? I don't think so." – Michael Ignatieff, CTV Newsnet, March 12, 2009

Unbelievable. And this bunch claims to have put Harper "on probation."

Just like with Peeps, after a while of consuming Liberal talking points, you begin to wonder what attracted you to them in the first place.

Give FOX News' "Red Eye" a black eye

2009-03-23T12:42:00.005-04:00

If you are disgusted by this schlock passing for "journalism" on a channel passing for a news network ...

... here's how you can let FOX News know: redeye@foxnews.com

Maybe it's time somebody gave this show and its witless production staff and host a year long break of thier own.

"I am a New Democrat" Obama says

2009-03-11T14:03:00.006-04:00

Well, there you have it, Canadians.

Only a few weeks after being here - during which he had only the briefest occasion to shake NDP MP Paul Dewar's hand - and Obama has picked a side ... Obama: 'I am a New Democrat'. (Check it out! He even used the capital "N"!)

Single payer health care. Commitment to a cap and trade carbon market. Tough diplomacy in Afghanistan ... America really is back!

That must have been one hell of a handshake, Paul.

The answer is yes.

2009-03-09T14:13:00.006-04:00

Citing two recent political developments in the war in Afghanistan, over at his blog Aaron Wherry asks “Does this mean we have to do away with the basic assumption that everything Jack Layton says is ridiculous?”

The answer of course, is yes.

And as the facetiousness of Wherry’s query suggests, the cynicism against New Democrats is less than entirely justifiable, and opinion leaders know it.

Presuming that New Democrats can’t be right because Liberals, Conservatives and their cheerleading establishment say so is like not letting your otherwise accomplished sister change a light bulb on the basis of several “dumb blonde” jokes. It’s prejudice in deliberate defiace of the facts.

Consider for a moment ...

When New Democrats, then the CCF, called for extending civil liberties to Chinese Canadians, the know-it-all establishment called them traitors.

When they called for the creation of public health care, the know-it-all establishment called them communists.

When they opposed the War Measures Act, the know-it-all establishment called them cowards.

Yet one by one, each of these positions came to be the opinion of the majority of Canadians.

Does this mean that New Democrats are always right? Of course not. But neither are they always wrong. Our political discourse would be stronger and more honest if more opinion leaders gave up on their cynicism (or their agenda) and aknowledged the latter.

The Iggy who cried election, part XXII

2009-03-06T14:56:00.003-05:00

First under Dion, now under Ignatieff, federal Liberals have not yet tired of bombastically, and energetically threatening an election over the latest matter of outrage courtesy of the Harper government they have chosen to let survive back in January.

They do so knowing full well that the media will report on their swaggering.

Not entirely in their calculation however is that the same reporters will also have to follow up on yesterday’s tale of defiance with this headline as Liberals swallow hard and take what remains of their principles with them.

And thus the paper tiger is once more among the chickens.

Liberal carbon tax to file paternity suit against Ignatieff

2009-02-28T09:43:00.004-05:00

Taking the opportunity of being in the part of the country that shut out all but seven Liberals, Michael Ignatieff told westerners yesterday that the party’s marquee carbon tax of the last election was a mistake.

Today’s Toronto Star celebrates the inevitable facing of facts with the headline “Dion's carbon tax plan was a vote loser, Ignatieff says”

But hold up a second. Whose carbon tax, was that again?

While there can be no question that Stephane Dion raised the carbon tax as his own; fed it and put it through school; the father of the Liberal Party’s carbon tax is, it will be recalled, one Dr. Michael Ignatieff, BA, MA, PhD, Esq.

In the heady days of the fateful 2006 Liberal leadership race that ultimately chose Dion, it was the then-front runner Ignatieff who first suggested a carbon tax. Barely unpacked from his arrival in Canada, Professor Ignatieff proposed the Liberal Party reverse its long-standing opposition to carbon taxes in an attempt to pick what strategists knew would be a fight with Stephen Harper which would serve to lift him above the Rae-Dion-Kennedy “also-rans” and secure victory.

The Vancouver Sun announced the carbon tax's glorious birth saying:

“Canadians are ready for tough measures, including a controversial "carbon tax" to boost the cost of environmentally-unfriendly fuel, in order to deal with the escalating problem of climate change, Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff said Sunday.”

Not only did Dr. Iggy sire the carbon tax, he was even the first to hint at the unfortunate “Green Shift” name.

"I'm proposing to cut taxes on the clean fuels to create a powerful incentive in the marketplace. It's tax-shifting, not tax-increasing,"

So come on Dr. Iggy, live up to your responsibilities.

It’s easy to recognize a mistake born of bad judgment (heck, you are even developing a knack for it), but it’s another to be a dead beat dad to the albatross you brought into the world.

Down on the Count: Ignatieff “naive, egotistical”: UK paper

2009-02-23T18:46:00.006-05:00

Count on the British to be able to size up Michael Ignatieff. He has after all spent more of his recent life in their company – in their universities, in their wood-paneled social clubs, on their televisions and in their newspapers – than he has on ours.

For its part The Guardian – Britain's venerable left-leaning paper – is decidedly anti-Ignatieff, if this column in its on-line edition today offers any indication.

The column casts long doubts over Ignatieff's leadership, finding him “nowhere” on the economy, ridiculing his “conditional” support for the Conservatives' budget, and blasting him for his decidedly un-progressive decision to let the Harper government survive despite the alternative accord offered by the New Democrats.

Michael Stickings savages Ignatieff and the pervasive delusions held about him by the know-it-all establishment saying:

Ignatieff “has never seemed to be much of a Canadian, and certainly not enough of one to be our prime minister. It's not that he has spent so much of his life overseas – mostly in Britain and the US. It's that he has seemed to aspire actively to be anything but Canadian, and more specifically to be American. Which is fine, in a cosmopolitan sort of way, but he comes back to Canada with an air of condescension about him, as if he has seen the world and conquered it and has now decided, with the coaxing of a party eager for him to lead it back to the promised land, to sully himself in the world of politics supposedly on our behalf but really because he just wants to be prime minister, so great would it look on his resumé, a capstone to a long and successful career.”

*Ouch!*

But wait, there's more. As that last paragraph lets on, Stickings is a Canadian who writes for The Guardian. Not just that, he's also a Canadian who has supported the Liberal Party in the past (on his website he admits to have supported Bob Rae for leader in 2006).

That The Guardian let this column run shows that Ignatieff's international audience isn't all rosy adulation and gratitude from wide-eyed plebes. There is a real sense - from the people who know him best - that the man may be in this for the wrong reasons.

UPDATE: The comments on the column are lively and revealing that Britons are grateful to finally find their televisions Iggy-free …

“Is this the same bloke who used to ponce about on the BBC?”

“he's a dreadful old pseud. he ruined bbc arts programmes in the late 80s. we were glad to be rid of him. our gain, your loss.”

Exit Stage Right? (or Harper's walk in the slush)

2009-02-11T11:41:00.004-05:00

There are no doubt a lot of Conservatives – as well as hapless politicos - reading Don Martin’s column today with a tanker-load of askance.

But rather than being an apple short of a fruit plate, Martin may be on to something when he predicts an early exit for Stephen Harper.

“What does all this mean? Search me. But some who orbit just outside Mr. Harper's innermost circle speculate that a Conservative party with no heir apparent could lose its leader before the next election.”

A month ago, it seemed far more likely that Harper might be forced out by a palace putsch aimed at ending Harper to sue for peace with the now-defunct Liberal-NDP coalition. But why now? Having survived the debacle of the November economic statement, and having seen to the Dion-ification of Michael Ignatieff for the foreseeable future, why would Harper walk away from the PMO?

The answer lays in the man himself.

Those familiar with the personal history of Stephen Harper will also know of his penchant for calling it quits prematurely.

Months into his undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto, he dropped out to take a mail room job at Imperial Oil in Calgary. Likewise, after a falling out with Preston Manning, Harper didn’t even complete his first term as a Reform MP, resigning 1997.

The nub of it is that more than griping about marginal tax rates, Stephen Harper likes to be right. And with the economy shedding 230,000 jobs in three months, with commercial and personal bankruptcies on the rise, and with a historic trade deficit, Harper, his team and their dogmatic attachment to yesterday’s ideology look very, very wrong right now. If someone is going to have their picture next to R.B. Bennett in the next generation’s text book, better to have be a Prentice, a Baird, or better still a Charest, Harper must be thinking.

If the comedian’s adage is “always leave ‘em laughing”, Harper’s adage may well be “always leave ‘em before they forget about Brian Mulroney.”

What has happened to put Ujjal Dosanjh on the outs with the federal Liberals?

2009-01-30T17:54:00.006-05:00

Over at the Globe, Rod Mickleburgh asks the question: "What has happened to put Ujjal Dosanjh on the outs with the federal Liberals?"

From this corner, a modest suggestion for an answer can be distilled from this video from election night:

Dosanjh's strident "I'm not supporting this government on any issue whatsoever" outburst was born of the frustration all Liberal candidates felt having to explain for 36 days in the election why they kept Harper in power through 43 confidence votes under Dion. (Incidentally, that they were being “reasonable and constructive” while Harper was politicising immigration and cutting culture funding is the best they came up with).

Never a believer in cooperating with the New Democrats in a stable coalition government, Ignatieff has known for some time that he would have to resume Mr Dion’s posture.

Under those circumstances, it would be politically untenable for Ignatieff to promote a man who serves as an embodied reminder that far from being a progressive opposition, the Liberals have sunk back into the role of playing a hapless Robin to Stephen Harper’s Batman.

Ignatieff fails the first test of his leadership

2009-01-28T11:53:00.004-05:00

For months Michael Ignatieff has said Stephen Harper can't be trusted.

But by walking away from the historic Liberal-NDP coalition today, Ignatieff is perversely showing confidence in Harper. The same Stephen Harper who played political games, shut down Parliament and broke a key promise on the Senate in the midst of a recession.

At the same time, Ignatieff is showing non-confidence in himself to be Prime Minister in these tough times.

Ignatieff has failed the very first test of his leadership.

Liberals will say "we can just defeat Harper later." True, but the Coalition option will be gone, and an election will be the only other option -- an election that the Liberal Party doesn't have the money or organization to fight. In sum: Ignatieff has saddled Canadians with a Harper government for years to come.

Edward Blake, the first Leader of the Liberal Party who didn't become Prime Minister.

Michael Ignatieff, the first Leader of the Liberal Party who didn't want to be Prime Minister.

The Liberal Party as you've only very recently seen it before.

2009-01-21T16:59:00.002-05:00

The great Iggy transformation of the Liberal Party is underway!

So it's a touch odd that today's missive "Liberal Leader announces parliamentary appointments" from the Red Bunker seems eerily similar to this similarly titled press-stopper of only three months ago.

New Democrat finance critic impresses European audience ...

2009-01-10T16:19:00.008-05:00

From today's Financial Post ...

On a bitterly cold night in Paris this week, a small group of current and former world leaders sat down in the the French prime minister's residence for supper with a hand-picked selection of Nobel laureates.

Seated in the opulent splendour of Matignon house alongside guests including Germany's Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, was a sole Canadian who had received a personal invitation from the host, French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

... who's that turning heads among the European political and business leaders as they strategize over the appropriate response to the global recession?

You guessed it, Jack Layton's finance critic, Thomas Mulcair.

If Mulcair and NDP ideas can impress and be welcomed by leaders of international finance abroad, maybe, just maybe it's about time detractors at home finally ejected their outmoded stereotypes about about the New Democrats.

Fix the economy, get rid of Harper

2009-01-08T13:40:00.002-05:00

Over brie and Courvoisier this holiday season Conservatives have had plenty of time to figure out what they need to do to rehabilitate their party after the November 2008 Economic Statement debacle.

The obvious conclusion for all – save those few hopeless ideologues who still cling to the myth of Stephen Harper’s strategic mastery despite all evidence to the contrary – is that Harper himself must go.

Those needing further convincing that keeping Harper around will hurt more than the alternative consider this: On the very same day that economists are predicting we are now a toboggan run of job loses without even a set of black plastic handles to slow our descent, the only news out of Stephen Harper’s interview with Maclean's is that he’s still fixated on the political party allowances that landed him in the non-confidence penalty box in the first place.

In answer to the question have you “mishandled your relations with the opposition?” Harper incredibly tells Peter Whyte: “the government has decided to go [with] a freeze instead of an elimination. But make no mistake, the government believes that the elimination of these subsidies has to be done eventually, that that’s in the public interest.”

WHAT!!??

Harper is supposed to be saving a $1.2 trillion economy from collapse. He’s supposed to be managing a $250 billion federal budget. He’s supposed to be doing his part as a leader of a G-8 global economy to restore the confidence of investors and consumers. Instead he’s still obsessing over $20 million worth of political subsidies that are so gosh-darn important they merited ZERO mention in the Conservatives’ election platform. $20 million in political allowances that are dwarfed by the $95 million we are forced so spend on the Senate Harper said he wouldn’t appoint anyone to, but then did.

The issue here is not about political party allowances, nor should it be. The issue now is whether Stephen Harper possesses the self-discipline required of a Prime Minister in a minority government during a calamitous economic downturn. Based on Harper’s narcissistic obsession with partisanship in these times, the answer comes back resoundly “no”.

In a manner unseen since the disastrous bumbling of Stockwell Day at the head of the Alliance, Stephen Harper has climbed high, overplayed his hand, and crashed all the while using his party’s credibility on the economy, democracy and public accountability to break his fall.

Jack Layton and the coalition’s answer is simple: we have to fix the economy and get rid of Harper. You can’t have one without the other.

Harper must go. Even Conservatives must realize that his position is too compromised now.

Which leads to an interesting possibility: before the coalition has its first chance to get their hands on Harper, will more sober and statesmen-like Conservatives like Jim Prentice and Rob Nicholson step forward to call for the change in the leadership their party and our economy needs?

The Layton factor (or why Robert Silver can't take success for an answer)

2009-01-07T22:38:00.006-05:00

There are people who are just going to see the world the way they want regardless of the facts.

Enter Robert Silver and the blog he appears to share with Tim Powers (imagine what that apartment must look like).

In it today, Silver transitions from the obvious to the absurd all the while missing the fact that the party of Tommy Douglas is larger, more confident, and more prepared to govern than it has been in a generation; with almost all of the credit going to Jack Layton.

First the obvious: Silver writes “Whether the coalition is dead or alive is fully and entirely outside the NDP's control. If Michael Ignatieff wants it to happen, it happens. If he doesn't, it's dead.”

That's right. Of course it's right. Without Ignatieff and his 76 Liberals, there is no coalition. But Silver has missed the point. The New Democrats don't need to be in control of what Ignatieff does next. All that matters is that Mr Ignatieff has a choice: he can either demonstrate a desire to work with the NDP on an agenda to stimulate the economy that all Liberals have endorsed, or he can, as Mr Dion did with the Afghanistan vote, hold his nose and give an un-trustworthy Stephen Harper yet another blank cheque while bidding adios to progress on child care, EI reform and working with Obama on climate change. The decision is Mr Ignatieff's. But it's a mistake to believe the decision is politically valueless and that the New Democrats don't know that as well.

Secondly, there is the absurd. In the face of the facts, Silver argues that the New Democrats “failed in the last campaign” and are the same party they were in 1970s.

The same as encountering a misguided soul at the bus station who emphatically insists that Elvis and Marilyn Monroe staged the moon landing on a soundstage outside of Des Moines, this kind of rubbish can only be countered with the facts:

The 2008 election produced the second largest New Democrat Caucus in history -- including the largest Ontario caucus ever (not bad for a leader who will celebrate only six years on the job this month).

In the same election, Layton managed to engineer breakthroughs in Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Conservative bastion of Alberta while virtually sweeping Northern Ontario.

The party has increased its seats in every election since Layton became leader and in the Commons has rewritten the 2005 budget to make key investments that are building affordable housing and putting buses on the roads right now.

And as the willingness of Liberals to agree to the coalition policy agreement shows, Layton's NDP understands the modern economy better than any “tax cuts will save us all” Liberal or Tory government ever has.

Layton's (latest) accomplishment has been the unprecedented coalition agreement reached with Mr Dion with the tacit support of Bloc MPs – a feat considered impossible by Ottawa insiders. No New Democrat leader has come this close to producing a stronger economy or fundamentally changing the culture of Ottawa before. As a result, Layton is in the strongest position among his party and Canadians who want change.

But don't try to tell the professional detractors of the Jack Layton NDP any of this.

Structural deficits anyone?

2009-01-06T00:36:00.001-05:00

For most of the fall and even after Harper pad-locked Parliament, Conservatives vowed against a return to structural deficits.

Jim Flaherty proudly told a business audience, "Ongoing, unsustainable budget deficits are quite rightly unacceptable for Canadians. These structural deficits must never return."

On this point the Conservatives would find little disagreement -- at least among New Democrats. Budgeting over the long term to spend more than you take in isn't smart for households, businesses or governments (incidentally, a point Jack Layton has been living and saying long before he was elected leader of the New Democrats).

Yet while the Tories have talked the talk, they are walking the walk right back into the kinds of structural deficits we saw over the 1980s and early 1990s. What Flaherty is musing about today is code for hobbling the federal treasury for years to come. More permanent tax cuts is precisely a recipe for a return to year-over-year deficits. In the post-Economic Statement-era, is it now too much to ask that the Conservatives at least be honest about that?

If Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty were honest, they would be reexamining the scheduled corporate tax cuts for 2010, 2011 and 2012, given what little those cuts have done to help forestall the current economic downturn. After all, what good is a tax cut to GM, or the larger economy, when the company isn't making a cent to be taxed?

Though if they were honest, Harper and Flaherty would have to admit that their predisposition towards larger and larger tax cuts has more to do with parochial ideology and constraining the federal government to provide infrastucture investment or child care than either with economic stimulus or preventing a return to deficits.

If nothing else, Flaherty's tax cut musings make the point that the Conservatives have learned little since the near-death experience of the Economic Statement. Because budget making through ideological lens has done so much to create jobs and secure their precarious position so far.

Flames fans burn Harper over Senate appointments

2008-12-30T09:34:00.004-05:00

Stephen Harper’s decision to break his word and appoint the largest number of unelected Senators in history has made him unpopular everywhere – even in the Conservative heartland of Calgary.

Since it began, Harper has shown an incredible inability to relate to people’s fears about the economic downturn.

And like a reflex born of his discomfort having to hear ordinary folks bleating about their own insecurities, Harper’s reaction has been to retreat deeper into the comfort of his own parochial partisanship. Witness the now-infamous Economic Statement which addressed a sinking auto sector head-on by attacking unions, women and his political opponents.

It’s this exact same partisan impulse which allowed Harper to break his word to never appoint unelected Senators by appointing an obscene 18 of them at the cost of $6 million in the first year.
But people in his hometown of Calgary “get” Harper. Even though he wasn’t born here, the movement that sent him to Ottawa was. Like kindred spirits born of the seemingly-unending oil boom and mountain air, they understand him. Nowhere more so than at the Saddledome – the great hockey shrine, where might makes right and winning is what matters most.

So it’s no small surprise that Harper's visit at the December 23rd game against Anaheim was greeted with booing. Sources tell Canada’s Number One Equine-Themed Politics Blog that a large number in the crowd were visably – and audibly – in an un-Christmasy mood towards Harper and his day-old Senate flip-flop.

As we approach the season of resolution and renewal, Conservatives need to ask themselves if Stephen Harper really is the best they have to offer Canadians.

(Oh, and the Flames won 4-3)

Premier Darrell Dexter ...

2008-12-29T10:37:00.004-05:00

... the rest of the country might want to get used to saying that in 2009.

Because Nova Scotians are already there.

2008: The worst of Stephen Harper's last good year

2008-12-22T16:50:00.001-05:00

When he was running for the leadership of the party in whose name he just appointed a historic 18 unelected, unaccountable and undemocratic Senators, Stephen Harper said:

“I will not name appointed people to the Senate. Anyone who sits in the Parliament of Canada must be elected by the people they represent.”

Of course, this appalling reversal - on the very same day he appoints a judge to the Supreme Court with no committee vetting process as he had so often promised in the past - is how Stephen Harper ends his worst year since becoming Prime Minister.

But it's not Harper’s worst year just because of his election which failed to produce a majority and the promised ‘big Quebec breakthrough’.

It’s not his worst year just because the great economist has missed all the cues of a historic recession.

It's not even his worst year just because a fractured opposition has been forced into unity against him.

It's been Stephen Harper's worst year simply because he waited until 2008 to make all of his worst mistakes. He called a snap election at the wrong time, breaking his own fixed election law.

After kissing up to Quebecers for years he betrayed his tin-ear to the province with far-right politics like attacking cultural industries and a heavy-handed plan to lock up 14 year olds.

He promised cooperation with the opposition and to make the economy job one but instead tabled a Economic Statement which economists called a farce.

He hypocritically called the opposition parties "undemocratic" for planning to replace his government when he had made the exact same plans four years earlier.

And now in spite of his March 2004 promise to "not name appointed people to the Senate" he has done just that: appointing 18 to jobs-for-life on the $95 million gravy train.

When you stop taking the things you say seriously it’s usually a good sign that others should think to do the same.

In 2009, Conservatives should take a good hard look in the mirror and ask themselves if Stephen Harper really is the best they have to offer Canada.

"Past Steve is coming back to kill future Steve!!"

2008-12-12T13:00:00.002-05:00

It's official.

On November 28, 2008 at approximately 4:30pm Eastern, Stephen Harper finally became everything he used to hate ...

“Pushing a corpse from a speeding vehicle”

2008-12-09T15:17:00.002-05:00

As today’s events in Illinois show - or the more local example of Conservatives raising the ethical bar by fraudulently recording and broadcasting a confidential caucus meeting - politics sometimes attracts the wrong kinds of people.

So when Liberal leader Stephane Dion announced his hastened departure from Stornaway yesterday, it was nice to see these incredibly kind words from New Democrat leader Jack Layton.

Layton’s words are all the more generous given the non-reaction Dion’s announcement elicited from others. Somewhere between “see ya, ‘round” to dead silence was offered up in memory of the Liberal leader - including from Liberals who were said to be 100% behind their leader last week.

As Bruce Cheadle wryly put it: “On Monday, NDP Leader Jack Layton distributed a glowing tribute to the departing Dion that made Liberal send-offs, by comparison, appear as perfunctory as pushing a corpse from a speeding vehicle.”

Ouch.