Is that Snow melting that I see? With recent heat on the campaign trail, I would expect it to be. The media attention is still being driven my Mr. Harper it seems. Often coverage will start with one of his statements, and occasionally contrast someone elses position on the topic.
Today though, US Ambassador Wilkins has weighed into the election - no doubt on direct guidance from the US Whitehouse administration. He's made fairly poorly worded comments about Martin (not mentioned by name but clear) dissing the US for political points.
The motivation, some news sources are saying, is that the Bushites would like to see a more conservative government here (duh) aka, the other right wing party, that of Mr. Harper. Ambassador Wilkins' comments about criticising your friends while expecting respect from them are rather misplaced on three fronts.
First of all, the only respect Canadians have been demanding from the US is respect for very specific trade agreements, on all rulings have supported us, and on which the US continues to renege. They on the otherhand are PO'd at the fact that many other countries have reduced respect for them given recent foreign-policy and environmental decisions.
Second, in the face of hostile and illegal US handling of our softwood lumber trade, if our PM didn't express disapproval, he would be severly beaten up by voters and the opposition parties.
Finally, if the US administrations goal is to undermine the Liberal campaign by expressing disapproval, this is another of their patented misunderstandings of what goes on outside their borders. Showing disapproval for Martin, and approval of Harper is a very large barrage of nails in the Conservative election coffin. That's majority-making material for Liberal election outcomes.
Meanwhile, Liberals are taking heat for an aide's comment that if Harper's $100 per child payment to parents went ahead, there would be nothing stopping it from being spent on "beer and popcorn." Am I the only one who's going "wha???" Not because the statment colloquially captures an accurate issue about some percentage of the recipients using the funds poorly, but more because this is a Liberal comment trashing a potential poorly directed social payment proposed by conservatives. Will the real conservative party please stand up! Strange roll reversal.
In spite of media attempts to make the comment catch fire, my perception is that it doesn't have any legs, and the story will fade out quickly.
One last thought on the US-Canada relations front - I regularly check various global newspapers - including a couple of US ones - the LA Times, NY Times. Coverage there of the Montreal Conference statements about the US do not single out Canada as trashing them, but rather highlight a global condemnation of the lack of American alignment with global enviro-movement. Canadian Media should look a bit more at how our relations with our southern friends are playing from other perspectives.
Green Party coverage on CBC last night was suprising. What sticks with me, not much other than that they were covering the Green Party. I guess there are a couple of points. The Deputy-Leader of the Greens pulled a full-stronach and crossed the virtual "floor" to run for the Liberals. The Green's leader Jim Harris (I had to surf off to greenparty.ca to get that name) is saying that this is a compliment to the party's strength and ability to drive the issues that a prominent member of their organization was snatched by the party in power. I can kind of see that.... with a bit more success along those lines though, there won't be a green party left!
I also retained the info that the Greens had apparently run a candidate in every riding in the last election! I was suprised to hear that. Presumably they have no federal funding, since they didn't get any seats, so to do that on their own (donated) coin is impressive... kind of smells of grsss roots support. This immediately made me think the funding laws need fundamental changes, as the Bloc must get a big bag of funding, but with concentration of their members in one geographic area, that kind of seems unfair that such a small portion of their budget will be needed for travel!
The final point I wanted to make on this is that it makes a strong case for revisiting our method of voting. Something that takes into account people's second choice, or maybe their "don't want" choice seems strongly needed here for some real democracy. Imagine a situation where all voters are leaning toward the left, with a small portion thinking right. With (theoretically) 3 parties splitting the left vote, and one party on the extreme right, we could end up with a right-ist government that is supported by about 20% of Canadians.
What if we had a system where you voted for someone and against someone in your riding? Then you add up all the "fors" and subtract the "againsts" and you end up with a winner. At least if everyone has an "Everyone but Bob" sentiment we don't get stuck with Bob.
The only guys I didn't mention this go around is the NDP. My only retained thoughts there are that they seem to have a pretty decent ad campaign, certainly compared to that high-school project Conservative crap, and the testimonial based Liberal "forget-about-our-leader-for-a-minute-won't-ya?" campaign. They're also doing one other thing good, they're not getting any foot-in-mouth time. That's a good steady-as-she-goes approach.
The Conservative ads have one smart element - the cheesy trailer-sign "Stand up for Canada" idea. Regardless of the jingo-istic, manipulative, us-and-them nature of the comment, I think the device is a good one, as it can spawn people who do that to their own signs, thus creating some grass-roots momentum for them. They really need to lose the format of the rest of the ad though - whoof.
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