Canadian Election Chatter

2011-09-01T09:13:00.002-04:00

We haven't seen a majority government situation during this blog's existance (even if this one is with just 38% of the population's support) - so this site faces a long hiatus.

Rather than let it sit for years, I will likely come back with posts related to thoughts on any glimmer of movement towards electoral reform, and perhaps the odd "I told you so" rant as the continued erosions of our system of government's checks and balances advances.

Final Thoughts

2011-05-13T13:12:00.002-04:00

Well it's been a couple of weeks, and I can finally make a quick note here. It went pretty sour. The manipulation and deceit sadly worked for them. So now we have to live with a Conservative majority government. The Liberal party has been decimated as well - so that change of leadership will at least be coming about. Dr. Ignatief has already resigned. The executive appears to be continuing to mess up the party's path forward, and we may well see Rae decide to take a pass on the mess too.

Jack Layton and the NDP scored a huge burst in seats, with an unexpected gain in popularity. The main gains were at the expense of the now nearly defunct BQ. Their leader, M Duceppe is out of his seat, and leadership role as well.

Happily the Greens got a seat in the house, sadly though, it was their leader, so we won't be seeing a change in that position for more than 4 years. Ms. May has worked a long time to get there, but I think they should be much further along than they are, mostly due to some poor riding choices in previous elections. They should have won a seat a couple of elections back, and be working on 3 or 4 by now.

Where does that bring us? Well over the next four years we can expect some catastrophic impacts on our freedoms, our position on the world stage and our progressiveness. We can expect:

Elimination of Gun Control - Our police will lose the ability to track who has a gun in their house, and the extra checking associated with gun ownership will be eroded. Apparently while we can license a car or register a dinnerware pattern, registering your gun makes hunting impossible, and oh so terribly unpleasant.

Anti-abortion legislation - say good-bye to a woman's right to choose. A predominantly male government will be able to push through legislation that pushes us back to the 70's.

A Big Prison agenda - now, this is not big prisons versus little prisons. This is a corporatization of prisons that has been on the agenda for a while. Remove rehab programs, and ignore the fact that 3/4 of all inmates are illiterate, and well over half suffer from mental illness. I would be all for a simple enhancement to the conditions in which we incarcerate prisoners to make it easier for the guards and management of the inmates, but this will be capacity increases at the expense of rehab, and in support of an incarcerate without judicial flexibility, which will directly result in an increase in crime rates, as we take minor offenders and train them to be hard-core offenders. Great.

Religion meet Government. The core evangelical sky-god worshippers who run the Conservative party will begin to re-route funding away from secular NGO's and into the hands of their evangelical pals. We will see increased corruption, reduced tolerance for diverse thought, and a further polarization of our society.

Our position in the UN, and on Green treaties. We missed out on broader participation on the security council, and are near pariahs at international meetings on the environment. We can expect that to continue.

I could go on, but isn't that bad enough? Oh, and open government? access to information? Those things were bad enough in the minority parliament, just wait to see what we've called upon ourselves now.

If there is one thing we need to do over the next four years, it's focus on revisions to our electoral system. We have an authoritarian regime lining up their ducks based on approval of 24% of the voting eligible population at best. We need an instant run-off style voting system that preserves our existing parliamentary system, but ensures that broad consensus about which government we DON'T want is as well captured as the one we DO want.

So you won't see election news here until 2015... but in the meantime, I'll try to share occasional thoughts and events relevant to the predictions above, and hopes for progress on the latter point regarding the electoral system.

Keep strong Canada, these will be trying times for democracy and freedom.

Framing the State of the Parties - Ripe for Change

2011-03-28T11:43:00.001-04:00

As the campaigns get into full gear, I can't help but think about the one positive outcome we face here - Regardless of who wins this, we are surely about to see four of the five party leaders change this year.

The guy who gets in - and it will be a guy - will stick around, but surely the rest will be sent packing. We're seeing the Liberal's Ignatief make his first attempt at a real campaign. But he hasn't wowed us so far, running up to this event, and with a failure to take the party to a government, he would certainly be out. I will return to him in a moment.

The PM Harper is said to be losing support in his party too. I'm not sure how long you can muzzle adults before they get a little hot under the collar, so I'm sure losing this election (which I hope does happen) will bring his number up as well. I suspect the CPC would string him along for 6months before announcing an convention, but he would be gone.

Jack Layton has had a bad string of health issues, and has been in place with the NDP for a long time now. He's done a reasonable job for that party, pulling little bits of value out of CPC budgets - one might say propping them up with an informal coalition - for quite a while. But I suspect he might be motivated to let go at a post election review.

Elizabeth May generally gets good things said about her from her audience, but I think she hasn't done the Green party any favours. For some reason she thought it appropriate to go up against a government strong-hold seat, rather than pick of a nobody seat. That seems to me like a HUGE mistake. What better way to advance your party than to get into the friggin' house of commons. It's been too long without progress for them, and surely there will finally be an effort to replace her as well.

Returning for a moment to Ignatief, it seems possible that even with a minority win for his party that a leadership review might oust him. The Liberals are doing a very poor job of holding their party together as a cohesive unit this past decade, since all the animosity of the Cretienites versus Martinites, and those camps are said to still be in place.

When it fell nobody was surprised anymore

2011-03-27T12:30:00.002-04:00

The contempt of parliament motion passed the house fell, and the Prime Minister was off to see the Governor General on the weekend. It took until Friday, rather than the Monday for the opposition to have control of the agenda. But so it was. With that we are on our way to Election 41.

The issue does indeed seem an undeniable case of contempt for parliament, as per the motion. When a government in power refuses to deliver to parliament fundamental documents that clarify its spending, to back up its budgeted numbers for major billion dollar purchase plans, it does in fact seem contemptuous of the very foundation of our government system.

Its sad that so many contemptuous actions of that government had been allowed to pile up. Rules broken right and left without repercussions have left me flabbergasted.

Immediately the PM also began a diatribe that fits right in with his approach to communications - flood the conversation with some irrelevant story to take over the discussion. With the word coalition appearing several times per sentence, the media (and apparently here I go too) immediately chatted up the word as well.

All his language is accusatory, threatening, and scare-mongering. That's no way to lead a country.

The gist of the suggestion was that when Stephen Harper gets a minority, it's a sad affront to Canadians but he'll slog it out and pursue his mandate. If the Liberals should get a minority government, then it is immediately classifiable as a horrific coalition and illegitimate.

The opposition parties all scurried around to deny a coalition in the works, but it took them a while to start focussing on how a) Harper made an concerted effort to put together a coalition with the Bloc and the NDP to bring down the Martin Liberal government, and b) the government is in contempt of parliament and THAT is the illegitimate thing and furthermore c) coalitions are perfectly legal and some might say productive ways to form governments. Ask, oh I don't know, pretty much ANY government in Europe - particular the current Conservative government running the UK just now.

2011 Budget Issued

2011-03-22T17:39:00.000-04:00

The pivotal budget has been delivered in Parliament, and it looks like - finally - the opposition will not be supporting it.

There are little things going on that could affect the outcome here. There's some speculation that there might be a last minute negotiation between CPC and NDP - although I think that's unlikely. Meanwhile, there is also speculation that PM Harper might go to the Governor General and cry lack of support, requesting an election. This would be an arguably petty move to preempt a non-confidence vote by opposition parties.

The GG could respond within his power to request that other parties form a government. That would be a nice outcome, as it would avoid a costly election. And really, the only possible outcomes are a CPC minority or a Liberal minority. The former is a same-old-same-old which doesn't address the lack of confidence. Thus, why not resolve the situation with the latter? Let's put that extra few hundred million in electioneering and associated costs into seniors programs, and just get on with it.

That way, the next time the government falls, perhaps we'll have a new slate of leaders in the parties as well.

Next Monday?

2011-03-16T16:26:00.000-04:00

Sounds like next Monday is the most likely day for a non-confidence vote during which the CPC government can be brought down. Tuesday the budget gets tabled, and the opposition doesn't want to go to the polls on a budget-based issue, rather the correct focus for the election should be integrity and the shady activity of the government.

Whether it's the Oda or Kenney affairs, or the 'Harper government' moniker, or the multi-million dollar tour promoting the Conservative Party under the guise of celebrating government (e.g our) spending on infrastructure, there is more than enough reason to turf out the current guys and stick in pretty much anyone else.

Hoping against history for a) thorough drubbing for the CPC b) a broad change of players in party leadership c) inspirational leaders d) a populace that gets off their asses and votes.

Can only wait and see at this point. Stay tuned.

Can You Believe: One Year (and a bit) Later?

2011-03-10T15:13:00.001-05:00

Yes, it's been a year or so. Who would have thought we would still be in this silly stalemate after all this time. Even ignoring all the sleaze and blatant disregard for law and the rules of parliament, this situation is strange.

It is one borne out of weak, uninspiring leaders, an unmotivated, cynical populace, blind loyalty and an ideological perception of entitlement. Without all those pieces, we wouldn't be in this situation.

The sad thing is that if we could just break ANY of those things, the stalemate would dissolve and we could move forward - potentially with positive change. But sadly we seem to be unable to do so. An election call would precipitate change, but cannot happen because everyone is sitting in a little safe spot, afraid to move for fear they will lose their perceived control.

For the ideologues who prance around flouting the rules of parliament, forging and altering documents, abusing their positions and resorting to petty, insulting personal attacks on anyone questioning their ineptitude, the concern is that the call of an election only bangs them up against the glass ceiling on their popular support. They know that the majority is (thankfully) still out of reach.

For the weak opposition leaders, they are poorly supported within their own ranks, and KNOW that a failed election would be the catalyst to clear them out (and likely) then install the 2nd choice among weak candidates. In the meantime, a year or so passes.

For the populace - my fellow Canadians - we get the worst possible outcome. Some of us blindly support anything right wing, mainly because they've drunk the US media kool-aid which resonates with them, in the simplicity that all the complexities of the world are easily pigeon-holed into 'right' and 'left' and as long as you blindly support the former, the latter can some day be eradicated.

And "blindly" is the operative word there.

The vast majority of my compatriots sadly take another approach. Go through your daily lives, ignoring the world around you. Show no interest in anything, learn nothing about what makes your country the way it is, and for goodness sake, never vote in an election.

Ladies, I harbour particular finger-waving for those of you who shirk your duties as a citizen. There are probably people alive in your family who can remember not being allowed to vote. Certainly there are some who can remember not being able to borrow money without their husband's approval, or hold a job other than teacher, nurse or food-server without a very thick skin and superhuman perseverance. You are currently ruled by a political cadre that includes barely 20% female representation. Why do you stand for that?

I would gladly see the women of the country demand that once, even if for this next (whenever it comes) election only, you will NOT vote for anyone who isn't female. Try it. Just once. Make a change. Then maybe we will see some strong women and can leave behind the likes of Ambrose, Guergis and Oda for some intelligent, thoughtful leaders, rather than ones who will fill chairs and keep their mouths shut.

Where We Are Headed
So how will change happen? A budget is approaching, but the NDP are well placed to sell their support for influence on the budget contents, and the CPC know this and will give them juicy tidbits and let them claim ownership.

The Liberals hesitate to spark a non-confidence vote, likely because they can't count on NDP support while the aforementioned carrot remains of interest.

The CPC probably should, strategically, make it happen themselves for fear the press finds a spin on all the back-to-back sleaze stories, and it begin to stick with their blind-support base. But truly, they want nothing more than to keep the opposition weak, and know an election could cause change in that regard.

Thus we continue to go around.

There is a two week period leading into the next budget process, and a lot can happen in that period. And so we wait. This time, however, I suspect it will not be a year before something happens in this area. One can only hope, because right now change is probably the best thing we can get out of this.

Still No Shakeup

2010-01-28T17:06:00.000-05:00

Haven't seen anything that leads to a shakeup of the top names in the political parties, but the polls are suggesting that the PM's decision to prorogue the parliament to escape criticism hasn't worked out very well for them.

There sure is a lot of ammunition for proving that the Government's pre-power words about transparency, smaller government and accountability have all been tossed aside in favour of reaching for absolute power without oversight or criticism from those pesky voters.

Big protests last weekend were positive to see. I may well have participated myself had I heard about their pending occurrence. As it was, it still sounds like the turnout was good. Perhaps the outrage is beginning to get some foothold.

Sadly I saw an article on how favourable people across the country feel about people of minority groups, such as Jews, non-whites, French-Quebecers and so on. The charts all showed the least tolerant people as being Albertans! Why is that? The fact that this current government has it's power-base and roots in Alberta makes me even more dismayed. Were they to get a majority, I shudder to think about what sorts of things they would do to equality, multiculturalism, immigration and arts policy to please their rural Albertan base.

Well, at least the winds are blowing in an encouraging direction just now. Would still love to see some new blood at the tops of some of these parties, but I think we'll still have a bit of waiting.

Don't Look At Me

2010-01-05T17:08:00.000-05:00

I've given up trying to predict an election anytime soon. The leader of the opposition is a obfuscating mute, the leader of the government has decided to pretty much cancel parliament rather than face criticism and oversight, and the other parties are too small to matter.

There's no hope of electoral reform in the coming 5 years that I can imagine. The media doesn't seem to be able to put in enough effort to make anything stick to the antidemocratic, non-communicative government that gets people vow to boot them out.

It's a dark period for Canada for sure. We're back where we were two years ago - needing a shakedown in the parties to get new people involved at the top.

I can't see an easy way out of this one. We can only hope a leader of some kind emerges from the back benches.

Elusive Election

2009-10-20T17:07:00.000-04:00

Funny how quickly the shenanigans change things around. So I'm thinking spring before we see an Election. There seems to be some concensus that there wouldn't be an election during the Olympics. Not sure why, but there it is.

Lately, the federal conservatives have been getting exposed for their partisan abuses of public events, funding, etc. They've been spotted with Conservative Party logo's on gov't funding novelty cheques. And when the logo isn't on it, the colour scheme is miraculously their party colours. And the signatures are always the nearest conservative.

Also, the bulk of the funding events seem to be in the ridings of Conservative members.

I'm getting jaded, knowing that even though the ethics commissioner has been referred to these events, and even if he can bring himself/herself (who is it these days?) to criticize, nothing will stick on these guys. They could bring out pictures of the whole bunch of them riding orphaned immigrant children like ponies, and the electorate would shrug and ignore it.

Oh well, let's let this stew a bit longer.

Politics Gets More Depressing

2009-10-13T12:17:00.000-04:00

Well, it's looking like the Liberals are further messing up the state of their party. Meanwhile a poll suggested last week that the Conservatives are nearing potential majority status.

Mr Ignatief has pulled a Dion-like move with his strategy to not tell anyone his platform details for fear of the Conservatives snagging all his planks, meanwhile petty childishness erodes any firmness to their Quebec numbers.

Meanwhile the NDP are sheepishly hiding due to their support of the Conservative agenda on the last vote, and the Greens are snoozing as well.

I am really truly worried about what would happen to the country if the conservatives got a majority. I would actually start investigating possible other destinations to live. Perhaps somewhere in a UN highly ranked country like Norway or something. I truly think we'd see totalitarian moves to oppress the people, move religious-right policy into place, isolate the media, eliminate public broadcaster, keep most of government out of the public visibility, move the country closer to the US, eliminate the Canadian dollar, make guns wide-open for broad availability, move our incarceration rate up as high as the US and so on. Our treatment of Canadians abroad, our positions in international bodies and our environmental positions have all been eroded to embarrassingly malformed states.

There is absolutely a secret agenda waiting. We see it regularly in the strategy of the PMO to silence their people so that their constantly mouth-occupying feet don't get exposed. Their racism and intolerance would be set free, and their ideology would guide all their paths. They know that the fear-factor has held them back from majority territory, so they've tried to have us forget the crazy stuff they espoused early in their formation.

Even worse, with a majority all of the Bush/Cheney advisors who find themselves impotent in the USA would be quickly employed (some already are) by the Conservatives, and we'd get to experience that regime ourselves. Welcome to 2001.

Ignatief has got to lay open his kimono and make take ownership of his platform. Yes, Harper will steal parts of it, but that won't be hard to prove. In fact, plan on it. Introduce the platform, point out the government's position, and as each plank is stolen be ready to point out that they have done so to prop up their minority.

It sounds like an election has been delayed until at least Q1 of 2010. Let's hope we can find some way to make it an election that makes Canada a better place than a worse one.

Yes, Seems to be That Time Again

2009-09-08T11:10:00.000-04:00

The ducks are being lined up for another election. It seems to be in the cards for this autumn. The deciding factor will be if the NDP decide to use their leverage to advance some of their agenda with the government. I know people will complain, but this is really how the NDP add value to our system. They are not going to get elected in the next decade, surely. I'm a bit doubtful that they will ultimately survive the next few years, with pressure from the greens.
However, their value in the past has been to use what leverage they have to advance items from their platform with the government in power to get change for which they can claim ownership. Hey, it got us medicare didn't it?

Meanwhile, the Liberal party leader Mr. Ignatief seems to be in a decent jumping off spot. The media is kind of getting this wrong, saying, 'oh look he's neck and neck with Harper, what tough times for any chance of a Liberal win.' But in reality, this is his starting position. He's basically been neutral, AND had a negative campaign attack for a few weeks - though I haven't seen that lately.

So as he begins to roll out his platform details, he has the opportunity to build on, or subtract from, this current position. Basically any positive response, and he's in the black.

The Liberals have also managed to test-fly a few items. They haven't got much response to a campaign built on EI reform, so now they're tuning it to address jobless numbers. They need to move forward with an autumn election, because the recession is wrapping up, and they don't want the conservatives - who denied there would even be any downturn at all a year ago - to take credit for this incoming tide.

Two things resonate with me for this coming election. One - leadership: I MUCH more trust a guy who has actually had a job. Seems a minor thing, but look at Mr. Harper who has never really held down a job - he went from school to political backroom activity under Manning, and into eventual political leadership. How does a person like that relate to the process of applying for a position, going to interviews, answering to management hierarchy, getting paycheck (or not). It's a fundamental life-skill thing. And delivering things! He's probably never had to create and deliver something! Ignatief as a journalist and a professor has had to deal with deadlines, delivery and completion of tasks. Man, these are such basic things that we SURELY should have in our leaders.

Add to that the leadership ability on the world stage - who would you want someone who has never travelled anywhere on his own time (post PM-ship doesn't count), or someone who spent decades travelling and reporting on issues around the world. I feel much more comfortable with the global awareness of an Ignatief, than someone who has never been there.

Even when he does travel, Harper cannot seem to figure out such basic things as how to get to a meeting on time. Again - a skill we learn in the workplace, but not having held a job, Harper is habitually late for media events when EVERY other leader in the G20 can manage to pull it off.

So that's the leadership piece.

The second issue for me is respect for the rights of Canadians. There seems to be case after case after case of Canadians abroad who are ignored by our government when they get into difficulty abroad. The most infuriating is the case of an autistic man in Africa who was abandoned for 3 years and STILL isn't able to come home. There is the disturbing element that all the people affected appear to be people of colour.

Add to this the case of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khater. Every rule in the book says that we need to bring this young man home. Regardless of his role in the Afghanistan. I think that our civilization proves itself not in the easy situations but in the difficult situations. Not under idle calm but under stress. We demonstrate our humanity and fundamental principles through how we handle the difficult situations. A minor child involved in a war situation - the UN position on it is clear. The position of the courts is clear. Yet the government continues to appeal court decisions and allows the guy to remain in illegal US detention.

I dislike what the man and his family have espoused and advocated. But we should recognize that as a Canadian he has unalienable rights that we will support. We either have or should have a means for dealing with him here. We can imprison him if necessary, apply judicial process, and restrict his personal freedom in an appropriate way. However, he has an unalienable right to have his government support his return.

There seems to be an innate racism in the Federal Conservative party that pokes it's head out occasionally. Even though their approach has become to never allow anyone except the inner cadre to ever speak to Canadians through the media, it doesn't manage to mask that ugliness.

So those elements- leadership and the rights of Canadians abroad - are big issues for me. I don't know that I will vote for Liberals, but I have to advocate an anyone but Conservatives position.

Independent of those two issues, the other element I touched on there, the isolation of the government from the people is surely something that is not appropriate for a democratic government. Media interviews are almost never granted, and the politicians never speak except in very scripted situations. Can't we get some people in there who can think on their feet, aren't so bigotted and inept that they have to be muzzled?

Bring on the election! We need some change. For once it seems like we're a year behind the US political status. They flushed their right wing wackos last year, we're still stuck with ours.

Autumnal Poll Visit?

2009-07-16T16:40:00.002-04:00

The scuttlebutt says an election is looking virtually certain for the Autumn. There is no clear idea yet about which issue Mr. Ignatieff will centre his push around, but it does seem logical that his current position as leader of the liberal party for long enough now to be fresh, yet not spoiled goods means he'll do it.

As well, the Conservatives seem to have made enough recent messes that they will be rather damaged goods the next time around. It's clear their attacks upon Iggy will be based on his career's travels around the globe, and time at Harvard in the US.

It's a bit sad that the argument will carry some weight in some quarters. Just think, a political party, in a climate where the global ecomony and foreign policy issues are at the forefront perhaps more than they have been since WWII is going to make the argument that the other candidate has spent a career travelling and engaged in employment in international culture and issues, while their candidate has rarely been out of the country, and has never held an actual, real 'job.'

What a bizarro-land situation that will be.

Meanwhile the Greens and NDP are looking a bit has been. I would have thought the best option for them would be for the NDP to drop the trade-union focus, and join up with the Greens becoming he "New Green Democrats." or something. Of course that would likely split the left of centre vote, and help out the conservatives, but in terms of their fortunes probably make more sense.

Well still a whole summer to work through. But mark you Calendars for Octoberish I suppose.

Making Them Wear It

2009-01-30T10:12:00.003-05:00

Ignatief at the helm and the Liberals have approved the "Conservative" budget. I have a hard time finding a slate of policies that would endear me to any party. My morals and common sense tells me that bits of each platform adds up to responsible government. I'm rather surprised though, in the whole budget after the prorogation thing that:

a) Iggy didn't at least suggest a few constructive changes to the budget (spend more on this, less on that)
b) The "we already fixed it last year" conservatives could suddenly become the NDP
c) That Jack Layton isn't playing this a bit more astutely. Read more constructively, less attacky

I'll avoid too much policy picking, as this blog is focussed on the path to election(s). But my preferred play through this whole thing is that Iggy lets it lie enough that the spending gets going and money starts flowing, and the paperwork is in place for the programs, then pulls the plug.

My big concern is that the conservatives will be as lame at actually moving the funds as they have been for $billions announced years ago for city infrastructure funding that have barely moved.

So that next election, or movement to a much needed coalition is still a good 4-6 months away.

Churn

2008-12-09T10:07:00.002-05:00

Stephan Dion has announced his resignation, and it appears the Liberals will have a replacement for him by mid-week. Again, it appears that they are taking the wrong path to do it though. I'm amazed at the crappy decision making they are using to get through this. There must be some real boneheads involved in running that party. It's like a cat in a harness running along a path and you've got to yank them back onto the path.

I was thinking they were reading my blog, or listening to my coffee-shop discussions for a while, as they seem to be dealing with my problems as I bring them up. Getting rid of Dion and making a move toward a quick replacement process is good. But of course, they're picking the wrong process, which leaves them open to criticism of putting a leader, and potentially a PM into place based on the choices of some inner circle of proven-inept organizers.

Bob Rae has been pointing out that it should be a broader voting of all Liberal members - that's the guy who's thinking. I think that Ignatief would still win the vote in that situation, but they really need to understand that the process should be broad and quick. This isn't 1982 - they can easily do a phone/internet thing pretty easily. I could write a javascript form for them with some basic security in about two hours. Why can't they figure this out.

The Bloc and NDP are pretty quiet. Now the talk about the Conservatives is that they messed up by proroguing. If they had kept parliament in session, they may well have won the non-conf vote and still be around. Instead they have focussed the Liberals on their weakness (their leadership) and may still yet get their house in order.

The saga continues. We'll see if they can change their mind a few more times and get this thing settled so that we can get a bit of stability into Canadian Politics.

Change of plan

2008-12-07T22:06:00.002-05:00

Well things are changing fast. Blogging from my ipod is not optimal but seems to kind of work. Watching the news, it appears that Dion will shortly step aside and iggy will take over. I think the latter is a mistake though. The use of some open process would be more sensible and inclusive. I keep spouting that they can both fix this mess and appear hep and hapnin' by orchestrating it all thru YouTube.
Probably lots more to come tomorrow.

Thanks for the Mess Steve

2008-12-03T09:08:00.005-05:00

I'm quite saddened by this whole thing. Watching the goings-on in Thailand, Zimbabwe and various banana-republics, I fear that the Harper cronies will try to throw us into that mix.

I have no political party affiliation or loyalty - but I do recognize dangerous behaviour when I see it. I see blatant lying and more worrisome propagandist messaging coming from the government. Watch for jingoistic language straight out of the Republican play-book. This plus the advertising campaign they are setting off borders on incitement to violence. Have they no respect for our system, our way of government?

Here are my issues:

Use of the word 'Canadians' - they've positioned this to be the right-wing conservative sympathizers. It becomes almost threatening to people who don't share their point of view.
Use of phrases of 'the other' that stereotype and marginalize people based on their thoughts and beliefs: "socialists" "separatists."
The use of 'the big lie' - their communications take the position of thinking up a hollywood-esque melodromatic scene, and they they happily invent facts to fill in the picture, then repeat it ad nauseum, blatantly ignoring reality, happy to paint their picture around lies. "They wouldn't even include the Canadian Flag in the pictures when they signed their agreement" - Well, first, their was a flag there - and second, what the HELL has that got to do with anything. This smacks of the Republican 'he didn't wear a flag pin' attack upon Obama in the US. I swear they have a US handler brought in on these PR things, who just recycles all their dirty politics.
The big PR campaign that is just getting into gear now. As I type there are people in sound booths and edit suites piecing together propaganda pieces that are all sad eyed kids and sneering opposition members.
These are tough times and the gov't made all sorts of orchestrated speeches about cooperative government, but instead they came along with a weak financial statement during a Worldwide Recession and Economic Crisis, and instigated confusion at a time when we need stability and leadership.
The fervour being whipped up in Alberta serves nobody and hurts our country more than does the 'separatists' vowing to not defeat the coalition. Inclusion in the political process helps pull bloc supporters over to the side of constructive collaboration and positivity, and away from negativity, isolation and hatred. Which way are Albertans being pushed?
Crazy phraseology about 'democracy' and 'the constitution'. The opposition members represent over 60% of the population, and the parliamentary system around the world sees constant use of coalitions to bring about progress in government. These lies are all attempting to confuse Canadians who are already too influenced by American TV, and in fact are banking on the assumption that they are. This isn't a US presidential system - nobody votes for a PM, we put in parties, and the proposed coalition has support of the vast majority of Canadian voters.
If anything was anti-democratic it was the move by the gov't to cripple any opposition by removing their funding and trying to push them back into begging for handouts from developers, special interests, lobbyists and cronies.

It's saddening to see such desperation and confusion in government at a time when our economy is suffering so much. Imagine how different things would have been had the financial statement followed the direction of the throne speech, and broadly sought support for financial stimulus, and infrastructure support. Hell, most of that needn't even be brought about for many, many months. In fact, most infrastructure work has lead times measured in years. But the announcement and a few paltry millions scattered about to start drawing up the plans would have set our stock-market going the exact opposite way.

Now, I'll also wrap up by saying I wish that Stephan Dion had stepped down and that we had an interim Liberal leader, or jeeze even Jack Layton taking the lead on this. But in spite of my distaste for Dion as an attempted leader, I'm prepared to accept the parliamentary tradition of the current leader taking the reins and take him at his word that he's step down in May when Ignatief takes over. (don't get me started on him).

Pass the Sour Cream

2008-12-01T22:18:00.004-05:00

So if Harper Prorogues parliament, does that make him the proroguer and the rest of the MP's prorogies?

Things continue to develop quickly, and its looking that they are ignoring my Layton hand-off to new-Liberal-guy idea, and going with Dion as the new PM. It's also looking like the conservatives are going to prorogue, which is frighteningly like a step toward a dictatorship. Shut down parliament so nobody can dissent and do what you want. I don't know if the PM has to ask the GG to prorogue parliament - I would have thought so. I can't imagine that our GG (really her room full of handlers - she's just a figure-head afterall) has any option, but if she did she'd say that the business of the house has not been completed, and proroguing is inappropriate. Come back with the confidence of the house and we can talk.

It's a surprising turn of events, and hopefully we can see a new government take over who can put a solid plan forward to quiet the markets and add some sense of astute, economic policy in place.

A good question that nobody has asked is will Dion put the Green Shift into play? The NDP would likely support it. It would also be astute to roll back the GST at least one percent to where it was before. Low impact on consumers and good impact on the budget. Hell, they could fund the whole stimulus package on the back of the billions it brings in.

"We've Already Got One," Say Torrie Slugs

2008-11-29T09:37:00.006-05:00

I have to respond to the current message track of the Conservatives - as I know Mr. Harper is waiting for me to do :)

His current popular sound bite is that Stephan Dion doesn't have the right to become prime minister. He needs to be voted in by Canadians, not some people in a back room.

He seems to forget that we have a well established parliamentary democracy - and nobody is making up new rules on this.

The prime minister is not on the ballot of any of our elections, and just like how nobody voted for Dion nobody voted for him either. Nobody votes for PM - we vote in a party (his only received 38% of the vote BTW), and the leader of the party (parties?) in power becomes the PM. As usual someone needs to point out to Harper that we do not live in the United States. If the GG asks another group during a minority to form a government, the leader of that group, as chosen by our elected representatives, is the PM. There's no dirty tricks involved, its just how it works... and it's a lot better than going to the polls. Surely he isn't suggesting an election is a better path forward out of their self-dug hole.

I'm always disgusted when he starts throwing around the word "Canadians", it is invariably insulting and divisive, in that he is telling us what to think, and invariably it's something diametrically opposed to how we are thinking.

Plus this constant, constant need to try and contrast the trailer-park, tim hortons crowd against a bunch of lounging greeks with palm fronds and grape-feeders is a pathetic excuse for constructive debate. It's a page right out of the American's republican playbook.

When talking about the funding for parties this morning on CBC's "The House", Pierre Pollievre was doing it as per his script. He says, hockey teams and church groups (or some similarly parochial groups) can raise their own money, so our political parties can as well. As usual - 'salt of the earth folk' against 'silk and velvet ensconced elites'. That is SO Karl Rove.

Well in truth, our parties are supported by a tiny amount of cash from the federal budget to decouple their viability from cheques handed out by powerful businesses seeking favours. The conservatives have no shortage of those from the Alberta oil sands, so they are happy to cut the greens and NDP off of the funds they need to represent their constituents. As I've said before - their prime motivation is to hamstring the Liberals at a point where their finances are already low.

I don't believe in any of the parties' magical abilities to get us out of this current financial situation, but if there's one thing I do believe, it is that these current bums thinking that the best response to the crisis is to claim they fixed already fixed it a year before it started is one of the stupidest things I've heard in my life of listening to political theatre.

Well, This is Awkward

2008-11-28T14:35:00.002-05:00

So fancy meeting you here. Who'd have thunk?

Yesterday, Canada's New, New Government, same as the old government, delivered a fiscal statement in the midst of perhaps the greatest global financial crisis seen since the 1930s, and somehow forgot to include any substantial measures to deal with it. In a CBC interview with the abrasive Mr. Baird. His response to lack of attention to stimulus? Oh, we did that last year.

Now, I'm not sure which of the two implications is more shocking - that he is claiming they knew about the soon to arrive Worldwide Financial Crisis before anyone else, and didn't tell anyone, or that he considers reducing the GST a valuable financial stimulus. That cut creates an almost imperceptible reduction in prices for all but the biggest of big-ticket items, yet robs the government coffers of billions: low incentive for consumers with big negatives for deficit avoidance.

Also buried in the mini-budget speech, was the elimination of funding for political parties. The buck and a bit per vote that each party receives. The whole point of which, is that the parties are then beholden to the taxpayers, rather than to the guy in a suit that can slip them the biggest cheque.

The opportunistic leaders of the CRAP party have realized that the liberals are in a tough financial position. In their usual effort to silence and pummel anything that could be considered opposition, the surely figure that eliminating this source of funding will hamstring them for longer into the future. Just like their earlier elimination of legal support for people who find themselves in subjugated by government and forced to address it in the courts.

Anyway, those are the events that precipitate an untimely return to the consideration of potential elections. Now reports suggest that Messrs. Broadbent and Chretien are working at a potential coalition to take over government. The idea being a confidence vote on Monday, and a new government by next weekend. Clearly while I disagree that the chances of earlier election calls that preceded this last one were not a great concern to Canadians, I'm sure Canadians do not want to go to the polls with the same slate as our last round.

This led me to think there should be a new rule - when a minority government falls, all parties have to change leaders. Ha!

But presumably our GG will accept a proposal that sees a coalition government proposed following the failure of a confidence vote. So who will be PM? Clearly either Dion, Layton or Duceppe. The first and last seem impossible, so are we about to see a PM Layton?! What an amazing turn of events.

I'd suggest that the coalition might agree that Layton gets the keys until the Liberals elect their new guy, then he takes over with a guarantee of no election call until he's done an equivalent period, then it's all bets are off.

Would Duceppe stick it out? It would be preposterous to have a separatist take over the PM role - Ha! So what will they need to give him to keep him on side. The numbers don't work out without him.

There are 308 seats and C=143 while L=76 N=37 B=50 O=2 So clearly it takes em all.

The bottom line though - what kind of government puts us in this situation in the middle of a global financial crisis. Instead of building a concensus, collaborative government to get us through the tough times, they are bitter and divisive and put us into turmoil when we need strength and leadership.

Shame on them.

Who knows where we'll be by next week!

Wrapping it all up

2008-10-15T09:50:00.004-04:00

Well, can't say that I'm surprised with the outcome. I can certainly say I've heard enough about it for a few days, with just a couple of hours of coverage. There's not much to report, but every radio program introduces the story of the election as if nobody else is covering it, and treads the same ground.

The fact is that participation is down, and with a small fraction of the total vote, the ruling conservatives have increased their minority government.

But the story is not one that has finished. This is, to an large extent, just a continuation of the same story that has been developing from the day that Paul Martin's cronies decided to attack Cretien while he was still in office. Ever since then the Liberals have been in disarray, and the left side of the spectrum (if such a spectrum really is relevant anymore) has been without a dominant force.

In the coming year (man, do we really have to watch that long?) Dion will be pushed back out, Rae and Ignatief will again split their party in half vying for leadership. What will be different this time? Will Kennedy come up the middle this time as another weak liberal leader? Will Manley throw his hat in the ring and split the party three ways? Will one of the previous guys turn out to have weakened his position letting someone move into a dominant role? Hard to say.

I can't help but think that an 'instant run-off' voting system would have worked so much better. In each riding if voters had picked their first and second choices we'd likely have seen a liberal minority with a substantial green presence and a stronger NDP, leaving government open to form around a coalition of a pair of parties, and we would not have a small percentage of the popular vote resulting in so many seats going conservative.

Such is life.

Something tells me this blog will be coming back to life in the 18months, to chatter about yet another trip to the polls. 'Till then - happy politics! (And enjoy the dog and pony show to the south!)

Done!

2008-10-14T20:25:00.003-04:00

Well, I did it. I voted the crap out of that election - boom, in the box.

Did you? Get out there - several minutes remain!

Election Prediction

2008-10-11T18:57:00.005-04:00

I have a lot more confidence in the UBC election stock market than I do any of the polsters for predicting the election results. It's looking like there will be another conservative minority with a slightly diminished seat count for them, but also a substantial diminishment of the Liberal seats. NDP position seems to have strengthened a lot, though no to the historic high which I think was around 45seats under Ed Broadbent.

I'd love to see the conservative numbers drop down to a lower number to create something more interesting for us. Perhaps some sort of coalition government, with some legs to run for a few years... at least long enough for the Liberals to re-group. We need some stronger people in leadership, and the only avenue that I can see producing someone any time soon is probably the Dion door.

That would mean the old Rae vs. Ignatief thing again. Not sure if either of them fit the bill. Perhaps Manley will dust off his old election signs and give it a whirl as well. The country might be hungry enough for someone that he could potentially take a pretty good crack at it. I suspect, however, that his strategy will be to wait for the Rae/Ignatief battle to run a little further through before popping his head above the parapet.

Stephan does The National

2008-10-09T11:26:00.002-04:00

I watched a goodly chunk of the National's Q & A with Stephan Dion yesterday. Insert big sigh here.

I accept that he's passionate for what he believes in. And I also believe that he wouldn't do a bad job. He's utterly charisma-free, which generates a gut reaction in me of "wrong guy for the job" but I can happily over-ride that with my trusty brain which I keep handy for just such moments.

His almost desperate delivery is probably what gives some that sense of passion. I suppose to as an ordinary sort of guy, there is a certain amount of nerves talking on national television perhaps? Plus he was trying to squeeze in 5 pounds of potatoes into a 1 pound bag in most of his responses. The result is that he seemed to be ignoring the question. Sacrificing the answer to cram in some more details.

A more concerning thing personality-wise is that he seems to be utterly humourless at all times. Never cracks a smile. Never seems to calmly ponder the answer to a question. I'm not looking for a creepy Harper smile, but some sense of calm, confidence would be good. Then again, maybe those are traits that get wrapped up in the concept of charisma.

There was a moment when he expressed an answer to one of Mansbridge's questions with a sentence of French. I'm sure he lost a few thousand western voters with that one. I guess the idea was "here's a very a propos proverb that we all know well." Well, it wasn't "comme ci comme ça" - we didn't know that one, and it came across like someone unable to think of the words in English. Not the sign of a strong communicator who will connect with the people from sea-to-sea.

There were some pretty direct questions that he should have been prepared for. Ones for which he could have delivered a nice clean, to the point answer. First, I recall a woman saying she earns $12k a year and has two kids, and inquiring how is she and other poor people going to afford a new carbon tax.

The answer was a gimme! Slam-dunk opportunity. And if delivered with compassion and understanding could have really connected. Instead, he immediately forgot the detail of the question: "I don't remember how much her revenue, er, income was," he began "but let's say it's $20k..." and he launched into how much money she would save based on his green shift shtick.

No Stephan! First - $20k is a lot more than $12k. Surely you could have retained that nugget from a 15second clip. And the right answer was an emphatic: "With our green shift you get to keep more of your hard earned money - it is not a tax on your income." He could even have slammed Harper's lie and deny approach (straight from his US republican advisors no doubt) "Mr. Harper repeats at every opportunity the lie that the green shift is a tax on individuals. This is not true."

There, done - say it with some compassion and you're through the question. But no go.

The other question I saw was a small biz owner with an aviation company asking if the green shift was going to tax his business out of existance. Dion's response was totally off topic, talking about airplane manufacturing jobs at Bombardier doing well 'cause they were building more green planes.

He had actually given the right answer earlier in his conversation - where he pointed out that the green shift is phased in. While a small businessman has no ability to drop his plane and buy a new state-of-the-art bio-plane, he should have suggested that he could alter his business to embrace more green friendly processes, and the green shift would not knock him out of business. He could have also projected a tough line to say though, that if his business was unable, over the long term, to become more green friendly, that was a cost of doing business in the new reality, but they weren't going to hit him over the head right away. Perhaps throw in some comment about a special element of the Green shift plan to help small businesses of fewer than 5 employees or something. Done.

Poor guy - can't project his way out of a soggy paper bag. I don't doubt that he'd do a decent job. I just don't know that an average voter can see the strength in the platform beyond the anti-charisma that their leader exudes.

Hope you get out and vote next week. Remember to take a look at the polls in your riding and just pick the strongest non-conservative and go with it.

Seriously, just think what fun it would be to have an awkward, bookish PM! Really, it would truly make me proud to have someone totally charisma free representing us world-wide. There's nothing that says 'integrity' like someone who doesn't come across like a used-car salesman... or a creepy cult-religion pastor like our current guy. So perhaps putting your vote behind Stephan is not such a bad thing!

A Peep from the Finance Minister

2008-10-08T17:01:00.004-04:00

Well, RH Harper took the shackles off Flaherty long enough for him to pipe up and issue some firm words against deficits.

I had a funny moment standing in my kitchen a couple of days ago, listening to the news when I suddenly couldn't think who the finance minister was. Wow, I thought, we didn't have that issue back in liberal days. I was not a big PM as PM fan - but it's hard to fault Paul Martin on his fiscal policy, and solidity as a Finance Minister. They churned out surpluses over and over, and left things in pretty good shape when they decided to turn inwards and set their own offices ablaze with in-fighting.

A few moments later Flaherty's name came to mind, and my heart sunk recalling all the childish sniping at Ontario's government. Oh grow up, you lost that election and new guys are doing a better job of it than you did. Scuttling a province by generating bad press from the feds isn't going to make people sing the praises of the Harris government of yesteryear.

So, the knitted curtain (made out of surplus sweaters don't you know) was lifted long enough for Flaherty to say "We will maintain a surplus in Canada and we will continue to pay down debt." Great, thinks I, that sounds reasonable enough. But so much of a country's perception in a volatile market is the confidence that the outward facing officials can generate. A government that keeps the media out of all its activities, does not evoke a sense of transparency.

Truth be told, I'd prefer the finance ministers of yesteryear. I like Martin in the role, I thought too that Michael Wilson, to go back a few years, did a decent job as a Conservative FM (ie non-CRAP conservative). I even remember Allan MacEachen appearing decent. Granted I didn't have as much flesh in the game in those distant years past, so may not have noticed all the nuances.

There's a good resource to be found here, a list of all the FM's.

I would have preferred if, in the Martin years, we had inched a bit more towards debt repayment, when those multi-billion dollar surpluses were rolling in. And we could have done with somewhat less habitual under-estimation.

And out of all of the special interests I can think of, I would loved to have seen a few billion dropped into modernizing Canadian Transportation. Not creating the Mississauga Palace of Versailles that Pearson Airport turned into (I was all for updates, but I think they went a bit overboard there) Rather they should have focussed on steel and rubber transportation on the ground. A world class railway - like we had in the 50's (you can still see it if you want, it's pretty much the same stuff). And some heavy-handed, micromanaged municipal transit build-outs to get me out of my car would have been a good use for those things as well. (Municipal governments would gobble the cash up unless it's well wrapped in strings).

Now we've heard of some infrastructure money in the past few years, but I think it's still an order of magnitude lower than it should be.

Greens and NDP are both talking up a re-investment in these areas. Dion is also talking a green streak - so what the hell, go pick the one that's leading in your area and cast your vote next week.

Let's just avoid buying the sweater thing and putting them back in.

A Platform! Wow. Is that The Kind of Election We Want?

2008-10-07T10:50:00.004-04:00

In a bizarre, unexpected moment of sanity, the governing Conservative party has scrambled around and is going to actually announce a platform in this election. Sure the advanced polls have already closed, so many thousands of people have had to vote without knowing what their party was suggesting for the future. And sure we're in the midst of one of the most significant financial industry collapses in history, without any real recognition of it from that same party. But hey, what more do those little people need to know anyway.

Seeing the poll graph that flashes past the screen each night on CBC, I see that the Conservative line is dipping, and the NDP & Liberal ones are cranking up. The Greens gained a bit, but there's a sharp snap back on them too. Since nothing specific has happened, I'd expect that's a statistical error - something within their margin of uncertainty. Those graphs should really be drawn with error bars to give us an idea of their uncertainty. Since the Conservative number is 32% and the liberals 25%, if the margin of error is 3 or 4 points, it could be that the conservatives are at 29 and the liberals at 28. I'm sure that is not the case, but we can't really tell what is within the realm of possibility.

So two comments to make that really outline what I'm feeling most strongly about during this campaign. First, how everyone in the country should vote - Yes, I'm talkiing to you, and second my read on how ideology driven people think.

HOW TO VOTE TO SAVE YOUR COUNTRY

First you need to find a source of polling data for your riding. Now remember, these things are never bang on - but that's okay you just need a rough idea. Since I assume everyone else in your riding is reading this as well, all will be fine.

If you can't find one check here. It's not very scientific but it might fit the bill. The discussions in each riding often include some recent numbers that someone mentions. Otherwise, just google "riding polls" and click the "pages from Canada" search button.

How every you do it, just look at your riding's numbers. This part is the easy step:
simply vote for the leading non-conservative party. That's it. Done.

So, if the conservatives are ahead (my condolences) but look at the next number down, and cast your vote for that party, regarless of which way you are otherwise leaning.

If the conservatives are not leading, simply vote for the leading party in the polls. This avoids the vote splitting. Plus it's pretty democratic really. Since we don't have a proper "first choice, second choice" instant run-off voting system like we SHOULD have if we were in the 21st century, this deals with the challenge of 'anyone but the conservatives' without splitting the vote and letting them come up the middle.

Problem solved.

THE IDEOLOGS PHILOSOPHY

My fundamental fear of a conservative majority is their ideology driven agenda. It's been very carefully hidden for a few years now. They've effectively cut the media off from being able to participate in the democracy. There are no more scrums in the house. The local MP's in the their ridings don't talk to any media. Thus no media will hear when one of their many loose cannons spews vitriol at minorities, aboriginals, gay/lesbian communities, or immigrants, or when they spout some crazy right wing conspiracy theory about the jews, or advocate adopting the US currency (wouldn't that be great right now as their banking system falls apart.)

What motivates the leaders of this party? I beleive it is an ideology that they have a world view, heavily influenced by religion and class structure, and they are driven to re-mould the country in that image. I fear that their perception is this. "If we can just get that majority, we can fix everything. If we can get around these pesky citizens, who don't know what's good for them, we'll make everything right. Then, we can 'eliminate' the naysayers because they will be overwhelmingly quieted by the vast majority of people who will be won over by our amazing approach to reforming the country."

The problem with that - besides the inherent assumption that they know better than the people - is that the mould they would advocate would involve creating a state infused with christianity-based philosophy, where the border between the US and Canada is largely erased, and Alberta becomes some oil-rich oligarchy within a weak, probably militaristic, Canada.

Vote on Election Day

So we all need to find a means to ensure that the majority (ie at least 65% of the population by recent polls) is not led by this party. Assuming some of the 35% support does not fully grasp the ideology of the conservatives, we are looking at some crazy situation where we can all be led by a minority with a vastly different view of the country.

Then after election day we need to get the voting system changed. Not to some crazy MMP thing like Ontario explored briefly, but changed instead to an 'instant run-off' approach that recognizes that people often have an 'anyone but that guy' perspective. Our current system allows the 'anyone but him' situation to disasterously end up electing exactly that person due to spreading of the majority vote among a diffuse base of alternatives.

Whew. There - I've outlined the solution to all the woes of our country in one brief blog post, and it's not even lunch time yet.

Integrity, Debates and Polls

2008-10-01T17:07:00.003-04:00

Wow - it's tough to blog about a subject that is just so depressing. Walking along the street today I saw a headline about John Baird being ahead in some poll. This is one of the reasons I dislike media carrying poll information, as it's just put out there in a few words in 200pt font on a masthead, and nobody gets any detail about the question asked or the margin of error.

I'm amazed and saddened that people can actually see that guy in normal operating mode and think "hey, there's a guy I want to support." I lose faith in humanity, in that people seem incapable of detecting (or perhaps caring about) sleaziness.

Meanwhile, I note at night on the CBC national news that a nightly flash of a chart showing the trend over several days is given. Luckily that goes by so fast that nobody can be very influenced by it.

With the freezeframe button on my remote, I can look at it long enough to figure out what it says. It's pretty much showing variations within the margin of error, but seems to indicate some growth for the NDP - perhaps at the expense of the liberals. There's some drop in the Conservatives, but again within the margin of polling error.

Integrity

Given the incessantly negative advertising of the conservatives, and their lack of a platform and their ongoing avoidance of allowing their people to talk for fear their propensity to insert their feet, I would think integrity would be a bigger issue in this election.

The recent plaigiarism scandel has been trivialized by some, but I think this speaks directly to integrity. However, I think the story is bigger than what the media is half-assedly reporting. Contrary to their reports, I think the issue is likely not that they copied an Aussie PM's speech, but rather that they were given text by someone in the US Republican party, and they parroted it 'cause that's what Uncle George told them to do. It seems unlikely that Harper's androids were sitting around watching John Howard speeches. Getting the daily communiqué from their republican handlers seems much more likely.

Does anyone care that our PM gets his speech text from a Republican handler? Seems not.

Meanwhile the debates are queued up, and set to clash directly with the US veep debates. You'd think they could have planned a bit better for this. I mean the pure theatre value of the swan dive being set-up for Gov Palin at the hands of crazy-man Biden should be pretty entertaining.

But debates have gone beyond their original purpose. God-forbid that we should have people tune in to the Cdn debate for the purpose of seeing who has the greater strength to lead the country. No, instead people watch it to see if someone can 'score points' against someone else. It's become purely theatre - more a sport than an intellectual discussion. We want to see losers hammered, not eloquent leaders. We don't want to see someone inspire us, we want to see someone trip-up the other guy.

I like to think that my interest in the US Veep Debate is to pull the cloak of lies off this Palin character, and expose her for the lightweight that she is.

I like to think that my interest in the Cdn debate is to hear who can put to gether the most cogent arguments for their platform. Given that certain parties have chosen to introduce no platform at all, and campaign purely on personal attacks doesn't leave me very inspired.

Train Tours and Deregulation Fueled Epidemics

2008-09-22T12:48:00.004-04:00

The cross-country train thing that Elizabeth May is doing is nice to see. I think it says some fundamental things about the origin of this country and what binds it together, and how things change. But it also has a good message about green transportation.

I wonder how much sway they have over the schedule of the Transcontinental - apparently it's a regularly scheduled one. My experiences on that beast have been that they are invariably delayed by many hours - sometimes tens of hours as they go across the country, but perhaps things have changed in the latter decade or so.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, I continue to hear reporters talk about the Liberal inability to fill the schedule with event, press or public. They seem to have some severe organization issues. I'd speculate that those who would normally organize such things are waiting to precipitate Dion's failure so they can bring their guy in (read: Ignatief or Rae)

I'm amazed at the things the Conservatives do and the inability of voters to see thru' the charade. I mean a minister joking and making light of one of the western world's worst bacteria contaminations of the food supply, and I see little sign of it impacting their support.

Frighteningly, I heard a reporter speculating that with stronger parties on the left, the threshold of popular vote required for a majority may be as low as 35%. That's pretty scary. The more I think about it, the more I think that our only hope is some coalition forming that can depose a Conservative minority. If a majority happens, we're all really, really screwed.

The same push towards deregulation (or at least hollowing out of food safety inspection infrastructure) that allows the Listeria epidemic also allows the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. If our conservatives start pushing that even further, who knows what sort of mess we'll find ourselves in.

Maybe I'll look into this vote-swapping thing. I don't think it's going to have much impact, but the tiniest oportunity to ensure that we aren't beholden to ideologs is attractive.

Governance by the Numbers?

2008-09-15T12:55:00.003-04:00

Second week kicks off with out much really gripping the electorate. There was that whole country-wide uprising of voters of all stripes against the party leadership that would exclude a leader from the debate who has a sitting member, and candidates running coast-to-coast in all ridings. That is a real great thing for Canada, that we value our democracy to that extent and can be non-partisan in such movements.

But I fear I am hearing a real erosion of the Liberal party. My prediction seems to hold still that this election will help us in terms of clearing out some people that shouldn't be there. I think Dion will be gone after this. I just fear that the result will be a Conservative Majority. I am hearing some clearer positioning of the Green Shift concept lately, but still think it is a mistake for the election campaign. It would have been better as a policy to bring forward as a governing party.

My biggest hope is that new found strength in the NDP and Greens will result in enough seats to form a coalition of some kind. I mean, if the conservatives get a minority, but the NDP + Liberals represent more seats, it is conceivable that they immediately vote down the Conservatives and go to the GG to request that they form a coalition government. Of course the numbers will be a challenge, as the remaining parties Greens + Bloc perhaps could depose them with the conservatives. But some bedfellows are not probable. And after the animosity being displayed in Quebec between Bloc and CRAP, it could well be that they will not vote together in such a situation.

Still waiting for some substance to emerge, and still grumbling about the idea that some moron would place the Canadian leadership debate on at the same time as the US leaders debate. Duh.

Poor Respect for our Political System

2008-09-09T21:34:00.004-04:00

There is some broad consensus that the exclusion of Greens, and their theologian leader, from the upcoming debate. I'm reminded of the CBC 'At Issue' panel - a set of political pundits, who were asked a week ago, as a wrap up question: "Should the Greens be part of the Debate." All three unequivocally said yes without hesitation.

Contrast that against the denigrating Prime Minister slagging the Greens with some inane argument that the greens as liberals anyway. This is some half-assed reference to a riding where they've coordinated to not split the vote, to ensure a conservative defeat. Of course, the conservatives are similarly not fielding a candidate in another riding where a conservative leaning independent is strong (with the hopes that he's shift to them, of course).

I am disappointed that our politicians don't fundamentally understand how important it is to preserve the fair and open principles of electoral debate.

I'm saddened by our current government and hope we can find some path to change. Crap, I'm too depressed to type anymore for now. I'm going to bed.

Anti Democratic Principles

2008-09-08T20:25:00.002-04:00

I heard that the Greens will be excluded from the debate because PM Harper has refused to take part if they participate. They are fielding candidates in all ridings across the country, are getting a non-trivial portion of the vote, and - unlike say the libertarians, or the communist party or the marijuana party - most people know someone who has voted Green, or perhaps will vote green themselves.

Given that threat, the other parties have said if Harper doesn't participate, they won't thus, the media is saying lets exclude the Greens.

Will this stick to the Conservatives? No, not likely. The media won't give it legs. Such fundamental rejection of free speech, and the importance of the debate process is so sad. But it's in line with a party who locks the media out of the workings of government, instructs the caucus to not talk to media, and is even coaching certain foot-in-mouth prone candidates to not talk to anyone.

Crazy process.

Barack Layton?

2008-09-07T18:07:00.002-04:00

My reading of the election timing is starting to show up in the media. I saw CTV commentary that mentioned (mostly jokingly) Obama and Layton comparisons. That was my prediction a week or two back. The thesis? A media feeding frenzy on the Obama/McLean project south of the border is bound to inspire Canadian voters - some of whom will say "I wish we had someone new talking about big questions, and inspiring us. A strong orator like Obama."

I don't think we have anyone like that in the slate - though some folks have told me that seeing Dion in person is much more inspiring and impressive that his on-TV persona.

When I spin through our existing leaders though (and this has been supported by a recent poll which came out after my comments earlier), I think Layton is the guy who would benefit most from those thoughts. On that poll, I heard surveys of opinions about leadership show people to rate Layton highly.

Smooth, though, Layton isn't. Noticing some media footage recently, he's got a strange posture that might turn some people off, looks like some combination of a guy in a girdle and a flamboyant thespian - too much arm swinging or something. Can't put my finger on it, but these things do a lot to influence people's opinions (unfortunately). Hmmm, I wonder if it's a good time for him to consider loosing the mustache? Nah, probably too much screwing with the brand at this point would hurt him.

Still watching...

The Long Road Ends At Another Road

2008-09-07T14:41:00.000-04:00

Well that took a while, but finally we're there. Writ dropped, election officially in place this morning, and driving around this afternoon I see men with poor motor-skills trying to tap stakes into the ground to support their election signs.

Tip: Obese senior citizen with a big sledge hammer - wielding that thing takes a bunch of arm strength you haven't been working on since your late 60's. Let the young guy do that part before you bust the guys arm.

Listening to a cross country call in show, I'm hearing positive things and scary things. Some pragmatic perspective from BC where an existing carbon tax gives them some perspective. Some blinders-wearing Albertans who are content living in a one-party system, at federal and provincial level staying on script.

I heard some brilliant comments from an immigrant man, and a middle aged lady. From the former, echoing my thoughts, the fear of a Harper majority, given a blatant disregard for democratic society (e.g. free media who are included in the workings of government) and the hidden ideologue's agenda.

The lady on the green shift idea made an excellent point that took me a bit of time to parse - but she said (to paraphrase) "being against the green shift isn't going to make gas and fuel costs come down, and if you think we need to make some changes because of the evolution in our fuel driven economy, perhaps this is the way to go."

I think the green shift plan, as it's proposed was a terribly poor strategic move going into an election, but is probably an astute direction. I think we'll hear many commentators quoting Kim Campbell in the coming weeks: "An election is no time to discuss important issues" (to again attempt a quote from memory).

So out on the trail go our politicians, and the outcome is uncertain. I must say though that I truly am worried about where we might end up. Particularly that an Environics poll suggesting a possible Conservative majority might be accurate and sustained. I think we'd see the loss of treasured Canadian institutions such as our healthcare system and the CBC, and quite possibly loss of identity pulling us closer to Americans through the scuttling of our currency, our resources and our independance in foriegn policy.

I remember waking up after a Mulroney victory and how dismal things looked - and much of that was well founded. This current Conservative group scares the crap out of me, and I can only hope that some other party - any party can keep them at least to a minority, or if not, someone else can get into a minority position through some dynamic changes during the course of the campaign.

Watch this space for more avg guy on the Capital streets perspective.

Writ Pending?

2008-09-04T10:57:00.000-04:00

It's oh so close... Or is it? The insiders say that the it's a certainty, but one never knows. I'll wait and see if there is any writ droppage today or tomorrow. But word on the street is it happens before the weekend.

On a call-in show yesterday I was surprised to see how many callers said they didn't want to see this election now, and then proceeded to talk about how crappy the current government is and how they aren't doing anything, and should do something first.

I can't help but see that as a contradiction - if they're so crappy and unable to do anything, then perhaps this is your chance to impose some change on them.

The show had a very astute guest though, well, I say that because he was echoing things I've been saying around the dinner table and coffee shops for a while, but had yet to hear in the media. Unfortunately I didn't get his name, and the CBC website for 'OntarioToday' has no history info.

One - on the concept of a fixed election date. First it's an indictable offense to have proclaimed that a fixed date was required because otherwise parties would select election days opportunistically, then to have done exactly that.

Two - the whole concept of a fixed election date makes little sense in a parliamentary system. (my theory is that it's more of their subconscious white-house wannabe syndrome)

Three - the deck-clearing effect of this election could be dramatic, with new leaders possible in many camps. This is a key value for me, and why I'm anxious to see this one happen.

Anyway, rather than 99% sure, as most media and pundits seem to be, I think I'm hovering around 65%. Just given the opportunism, Harper et al may well be pulling our chains with all the meeting shenanigans and hint mongering. I certainly hope not.

Trailer Park Soaps versus Writ Droppage

2008-09-02T08:53:00.000-04:00

The pending election is palpable, I suspect the dropping of the writ will occur today, unless our current GG is off traipsing around some distant country on our dime. Just in time, and I hear on morning radio the discussion of our election versus their election.

Of course the debate was prepared ahead of time, before all the trailer trash stories in the saga of veep candidate Palin started showing up, and there's almost another one every news cast. So the discussion is charisma versus no charisma.

I think the downside is that the charisma channel tends to bring with it a package of bad decisions and trashy stories. In comparison, I'm glad to say that our elections are a little tamer. Certainly less vetting of candidate family members, but also fewer knee jerk 'card' playing to counter the opposing party's positions.

The most we get (thankfully) is a carefully orchestrated shot of Liberal Dion arriving for a meeting in a Prius, and stories of his dog being named Kyoto. That's enough of that sort of stuff for me.... though as I said earlier, finding a leader with the ability to articulate a vision and address issues head-on would be nice.

Meetings, Meetings

2008-09-01T15:09:00.000-04:00

PM Harper schedules meetings with all the opposition leaders and speculation is reaching a peak that the call will happen imminently. Why the meetings - I assume it's so he can say 'I tried to work with them, but they just refuse to stop ruining parliament.'

Of course, voters won't soon forget the publishing of the conservative handbook on how to effectively disrupt meetings, committees and debate.

The Obama tidal wave on the American news channels is scaring the crap out of the charisma-vacuum that is the Conservative party. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of charisma driven politics. However the I find their realization humourous that their combined lack of charisma and lack of ability to communicate a vision leaves them exposed during an American media juggernaut. They end up looking boring and directionless, which can only help their opponents.

This promises to change on an almost hourly basis at this point, as we finally get into an election campaign, albeit for manipulative reasons, based on pretense.

Health Minister is WHERE?

2008-08-28T15:25:00.000-04:00

In this run up to a new election coinciding with the Listeria debacle, I've heard a few news reports mention that Health Minister Tony Clement is not available because he's in Denver at the Democratic convention.

Huh? Does this not catch ANYONE else's attention? Why is the reporter involved not tripping over themselves to find out why he's there and tell us about it? He's a right wing, conservative insider - and the media has pointed out that the Bushies have been providing that party with backroom guildance. And he's at a conference for the new leader of the DEMs? What gives?

Where's the media when you really want answers to a question!

Timing is Everything

2008-08-26T14:15:00.001-04:00

Interesting point I hadn't thought about before from an interview I saw last night on CBC news. One of the big motivators for the PM calling an election early is the big US election with its mass appeal.

If that election is fought late this year with all its associated press feeding frenzy and the perceived building love-in with Barack Obama, what is the impact for a crazy right wing government in Canada?

I think it makes a ton of sense. Surely it will be inspiring for voters above the border to jump on the bandwagon of a youthful idealistic visionary, versus a dour, negative, control freak. Not sure who benefits here. Greens? NDP? Liberals? Dion doesn't have any charisma, so perhaps the other two both get a bump. That would be interesting, but still leave us with a minority gov't though.

The Greens are led by a bible-thumping former minister apparently (they keep that part very quiet), so it almost seems like Jack Layton might actually get the better part of that. Liberals under Ignatief or Ray could do pretty well in that environment, but they can't get there until they get rid of that albatross around their neck.

The crazy 'election day' thing Harper put in place is looking lamer and lamer. Do they know anything about the parliamentary system? It makes no sense at all in a system where minorities are possible. Just another attempt to be as American as possible. Too much bad TV watching by that conservative group as kids I guess. Their mothers should have made them watch more "Beachcombers" and "King of Kensington."

New Rumblings

2008-08-18T09:53:00.000-04:00

PM Harper is on a tour it seems, trying to lay the groundwork for a fall election. Granted, I expected one last fall, but this bizarre stalemate seems set in concrete, and there is a lack of leadership with an addiction to some perceived glory of the current roles. Harper is basking in one of the most stable minority governments in Canadian history, and Dion is sitting under the sunlamp of weak leadership, convincing himself that it's the tropical sun he's basking in on the ramparts of his palace.

In reality, the Harper government stability is built on a foundation of secrecy, bumbling politicians whose only success comes from being muzzled to ensure that they can't commit immediate and irrevocable political suicide by opening their mouths. They have actually, really written a manual, distributed to their people on how to stonewall committees to ensure that they don't progress towards logical, meaningful conclusions - because those are typically against the Conservative direction of the right-wing, US wannabe vision.

Meanwhile, the NDP and the Greens are further splitting the centre and left ensuring that a party with approval of a quarter of the population can continue to sit there doing nothing.

Dion is the biggest failure of this situation, in that rather than going to the polls on a platform built around something he stood for, he's happily capitulated on anything and everything that was posed to him, all to maintain his weak, cardboard leadership.

With Harper's tour spouting that he may have to call an election because of the House's dysfunction, Dion could lose the only freebie he could have mustered, the strength of conviction on some random topic. Now he'll have to go into an election with both weak leadership, a history of capitulation, and no central focussing principle. What's most laughable is that Harpers mantra about dysfunction in the house is in no small part attributable to his party. They literally wrote the book on obfuscation and dysfunction, well the manual anyway.

So my bottomline is still that an election is desperately needed to clean up stalemate that we see now. Problem is, I'm not convinced any of those there now have the guts to go forward with it.

I like to think of the best outcome imaginable. At this point, all I can think of is that the stalemate could result in a gentle flip of leading parties in a minority with the same weak support numbers that have persisted for years now. The result being a Dion government coalition with Jack Layton. That's also in some ways a worst case, 'cause it entrenches Dion making it hard to bring in a stronger leader, while giving the Conservatives the opportunity to find someone more charismatic. The good thing is that I'm skeptical they could find a 'Reform aka CRAP aka Conservative' figure who has charisma and a closet that is not bulging with inopportune, bigoted comments, reactionary policy and skeletons to boot.

So, yeah, I'm hopeful something will happen in the coming months - more than the few by-elections currently scheduled. But I'm still skeptical we'll get a better political landscape out of it. Hopefully some vision and charisma from south of the border will inspire voters here to seek out someone with depth and leadership vision. I think we usually end up with better (well, less dirty anyway) politicians than the Americans get with their system of only old-money, rich white guys. But some vision would be a nice change.

Summer Recess

2008-06-24T22:23:00.000-04:00

Well, the session is over, and I've long since given up hope that the Liberals would bring down the government. M. Dion appears to be so back-boneless that he would support a bill to sell off a few provinces rather than take down the government in a non-confidence vote.

So the summer comes along, and we won't see an election until the fall I guess. Crazy stuff.

Bubbling Dissent

2008-03-28T10:46:00.000-04:00

The Liberal party is starting to vibrate a bit with a combination of dissatisfaction with the leader Dion's performance, lack of perceived election readiness in Quebec, and inability to attack the government on big, seemingly glaring exposures.

On the latter point, the finance minister's obsession with sniping at those who deposed him from his previous job in Ontario. Or, perhaps, his attempts to sequester money for a commuter train from his own riding in back-woods Ontario into Toronto. Luckily the train thing has been downgraded to a feasability study (wanna bet that one of his cronies gets the contract?).

But meanwhile, the optics of a federal finance minister slagging a provincial government, particularly when he used to hold a job there and was deposed. That's pretty cheezy small town stuff.

Dion's inability to project a sense of leadership is an issue that can only be cleared by an election I think. I wonder though if some of these rumblings of lack of election readiness are a ploy to force the Conservative's hand, and precipitate the election themselves. A bit far-fetched I suppose, but political chess is often about manipulation.

This is not resolved yet, and I suspect the news cycle will hype it a bit more before it drops.

Two Passes But ByElections are Key

2008-03-17T21:25:00.000-04:00

So both the 'confidence-like' votes passed. A key bit in this whole thing, driving the Liberals propensity for approving everything, regardless how they feel about it, are the by-elections that ran today.

Getting Bob into the parliament is a key part of their push forward. They want all the press that buys them, and also to get him some camera time to build his stock so that when they dump Stephane Dion, they will have some viable options.

So, I'm not sure if they will drop the government on the very next opportunity, or string them along a bit longer to give Bob some soak time. What do you think?

I suspect they also want to give the local riding associations time to rebuild their cash a bit after the by-Election. Sure, they can save some cash by re-using their lawn signs.

Vote Today on Afghanistan

2008-03-13T09:29:00.000-04:00

It would have been a drop the government like a hot brick day, but everyone is supporting the government's position on Afghanistan. Not that I don't - it seems reasonable enough to me. But it's another turning point passed.

RESP Regressive Tax Relief

2008-03-12T11:04:00.000-04:00

This is an interesting step towards another chance at an election. A Liberal MP put forward legislation that made it through the house of Commons and is off to the Senate for approval. This bill makes RESP contributions tax sheltered, much like an RRSP. ( Read "like an IRA" for any American's who might be reading here - not that I can imagine such a scenario).

It's apparently got a $900M pricetag against government revenue, and the Conservatives don't like it. Parents of course eat it up. The MP who championed the bill is shown papering his office with emails of support. Go figure, people like getting tax breaks. Offer a free case of beer with your tax return and see how many emails of support you get.

My problem with it (yikes, I'm siding with the Conservatives) is that such a program benefits education for rich people. The people that would have trouble affording post-secondary education don't have the cash (and sometimes not the knowhow) to wrangle up an RESP. If we want to blow $900M a year on education related benefits, how about lowering tuitions, or funding low-income students through their schooling.

Anyway, the Conservatives are putting together a bill to rescind the legislation if it goes through. If passed, the RESP bill dies, if defeated the government falls. Well, interesting of course, as the Liberals immediately say,that they will not defeat the latter bill.

And so it goes again.

We need an election to clear the clogged pipes. The liberals can't change leadership without an election to precipitate it. The Conservatives can't be deposed without it. The NDP and Greens can resolve their relative roles in the landscape without it either. The outcome would be either the same thing, or perhaps a reduced Conservative minority, or a Liberal Minority. Either way, it would have some value to clear the air.

When will the opposition get a backbone and vote down stuff that they don't support?

Sleaze Oozes out of Government Cracks

2008-03-06T14:02:00.000-05:00

While the current government gets closer to one of the longest running minority governments, a few things begin to pile up behind the gate to an election.

The Obama campaign was the last thing I thought would come up in our political situation, but a bonehead move by someone in the PMO meant that a discussion was leaked to the press.

Initially, it was shared (allegedly by Harper's Chief of Staff) that Obama called up the Canadian Embassy to say - "hey, forget all that stuff I'm saying about NAFTA - it's just for getting votes" - okay I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.

Later it comes up that, well, that's not really what the exchange was. But it's immaterial now, as the impact has already been felt in Ohio primaries.

In previous government leaks, they found the culprit and removed the temp employee I think it was, in the handcuffs of the RCMP. In this case it sounds like there's a Privy Council investigation, and they'll likely come back with "oh well, we reprimanded the unnamed pesky fellow". Sounds like a double standard.

Though, I am somehow not surprised, as there was word of Republicans or at least links to republican-connected right wing religio-fascists in the US providing advisors to Harpers campaign during the previous election. It seems possible in a slightly crazy conspiracy-sort-of-way that they would also be looking for some help in besmirching Mr. Charisma given the way the upcoming US election is looking.

Anyway, all this to say, it gives the Opposition some scandal-like ammunition to consider toppling the government. Add onto that the current push towards the censorship bill C-10 that seeks to not only scuttle funding for some Canadian movies that don't meet some cabal's ideas of suitable content, but they also want to be able to do it after the fact. This ensures that not only do they kill the movie project, but they also financially deep-six the production company who suddenly finds that it's product has bankrupted them as the pending funds are suddenly withdrawn after the cash is spent. Some nut job evangelist named McVety out west was claiming ownership of the bill until someone told him to shut up, and now he's pulled back into the festering underbelly of religion-motivated censorship advocates.

Hopefully the arts community continues pushing on this, and the Liberals in the Senate can kill the thing. Meanwhile, add it to the list of reasons for an election.

Afghanistan Entrée to Spring Election Fading

2008-02-12T09:39:00.000-05:00

This one came and left pretty quickly. Over the past few days it looked like an election was imminent over a Conservative bill to extend the Afghan mission. The motivation seemed to me to be coalescing around a desire to exploit perceived differences among Liberal leadership about how the mission should go.

But as of this morning it sounds like the liberals have agreed to a position regarding post 2011 definitions of the engagement. I'm guessing the liberals and conservatives will be able to find some agreement to avoid defeat of the bill, and they will end up waiting for the budget as the motivation for defeating the government.

An election seems needed to clean house. The liberals can drop Dion after an election attempt. The Bloc can drop Mr quit-no-not-quit. The NDP & Greens will get a new snapshot of where they stand. The conservatives can experience their humbling inability to grow past their current minority -thwarting their ability to deploy their hidden agenda.

The next few days will be interesting to watch.

Pre Christmas Calm

2007-12-18T17:42:00.000-05:00

There is a strange detente in Canadian politics. I had expected an election by now, but there remains this strange stand-off based on the fact that the Conservatives can't gain any support, and thus would be stuck with the same situation after any election, and the liberals have a weak, uncharismatic leader.

The Bali climate change conference surely didn't win them any support, with his Smiling Smugness presiding over the portfolio. The eventual capitulation to acknowledge a slightly less pig-headed stance will not likely win many supporters over either, but rather there will be just a further sense of following the American position blindly. Interestingly, the pull-back by the American contingent is now being characterized as un-supportable by the White House. What will His Royal Smugitude do if they reverse their position post conference?

Anyway, I'm not sure how this gets resolved. Presumably, given a few month window, Dion might have the foresight to withdraw and let others take over. If they were smart they would secretly cue up a convention and have a re-vote with a short window. Or ideally, show a little leadership and have it all over the web and/or phone in voting.

We can only speculate what the new year will bring.

Step One

2007-10-18T10:55:00.000-04:00

That's pretty much as I expected. The Liberals under Stephan Dion will 'not show up' for the vote on the Throne Speech. Our PM is taking a super arrogant tone about no amendments. The Liberals have walked into this one with their troubles.

Lucky for us there is a minority government, in that the speech we heard - as Dion says - is a lot different that what we'd see if there was a majority government.

The Crime bill will the first reprise of previous legislation that the Conservatives will try to force through the house. This will be a tough one - but the media isn't helping me much here. I've heard and read a few reports, but they never tell us what the opposition didn't like about the original bill that was defeated. C'mon journalists - give us the details we need to understand the situation!

Presumably amendments will be proposed, but the question is, will Mr. Dion let this one go forward, or will he stop the spinning wheel there. I speculate that he will hold his nose and abstain from voting this one down as well.

He's likely going to wait until an environmentally related bill comes up and then propose changes that won't go through and then vote it down.

The Conservatives will know that, and so will stuff in all sorts of other bills first. Gun Registry elimination will likely be one of them. OF course, nobody except a handful of rural gun folk will support that, so it's maybe not a bad one to call an election on as well.

Our government is in dire need of some good leadership - Dion's not going to do it, Harper is a scary guy as are his cronies. The other options are likely in any scenario. How does it happen? Presumably a liberal leadership change - resulting in a Ignatief/Rae option... neither of which are very appealing. The former exudes a smug, eye-rolling smirkiness when dealing with others that wipes out his other potentially positive traits. Rae has too much baggage from provincial politics to take Ontario, and is seen as an Ontarian by everyone else. I suppose a Manley run might be possible, and he has some credibility.

Harper will surely stay on even if defeated in some way, particularly if Parliament flips to a liberal minority somehow.

It's going to be a while before we can see any landscape change that makes a difference to the race.

Voter Prefs?
I don't see a big change in the offing in voter preferences. I think the conservative vote is topped out, and any change might exhibit what we've seen in Ontario elections recently, with a drop across the traditional parties, and a gain by the fringe ones - with Greens picking up more votes. I think Liberals will switch more to voting out of party loyalty, and vote mostly against the other guy, while they wait for a leadership change.

The saga continues.

Throne Speech Precipitate

2007-10-17T12:56:00.001-04:00

Last night's prime-time throne speech was yet another one of those whitehouse-wannabe moves. I guess they would have called it a state-of-the-union address given the opportunity. A lot of media did anyway. Interestingly, the Conservatives abandoned the ideas of securing a Sparks Street building for a new 'briefing room' idea - a la the American Whitehouse sessions. I guess the idea would have been that they could invite only the press they like to those sessions, rather than being under the rules of the press club or other egalitarian approach to communication. The government has been terrible for open communication with media and thereby Canadian citizens.

So our GG gives the speech last night - I must admit it was interesting to see the ceremony around the situations, with the black-rod guy and all the MP's being forced to stand in the doorway of the Senate - that's pretty wild. I'm uncomfortable standing idle for 40minutes, I don't know how all those ancient folk do it.

Regarding the style and substance - first the former: call me old fashioned, but I think the GG should be a master communicator, with a good command of the language and ability to convey some depth as she reads the text. I didn't get that here. Our previous GG - Adrian Clarkson was a superior reader for that role. Madame Jean regaled us with several references to the Canaddin Miltree. But she looked good in the big chair. And what was with the marmalade jar lid on her shoulder?

Wouldn't it be something to see a little more teeth in that role, so that there are a slate of qualifications that Canadians demand for the job, and then she/he writes their own speech based on the input from the government. Then they can play off both sides - communicate the intent from the government, but add some cautionary words.

Okay - I know I'm way off topic. Let's reform the pseudo-monarchy.

Anyway, regarding substance this whole thing isn't so much about government as it is about the topic of this blog... ie the next election.

The NDP and the Block quickly play their part - and advocate defeat for the budget. The Conservatives play their part, and change it into not an opportunity to use the Liberal parties disarray to foist an election on them (that would have meant putting out a crazy budget to force immediate defeat) but rather they play the card of indicating they will re-introduce all their crappiest legislation from the last session.

Now the game is that the liberals either have to initiate an election, or 'not show up' for the vote, tacitly approving the budget, and then being faced with all the previously rejected legislation. Each element of that - by the way - will now be designated a confidence bill - and so again, the liberals either face an election with their current mess, or help the conservative impose martial law and serve up kittens for dinner.

Election this Fall
So will there be an election this fall? Not sure - lets work it through.

Either the Liberals don't show up and let the speech pass, or they bring it down. They will propose an amendment to the speech which should be something about Kyoto and environment, so that if the house falls, they can say that it is on that issue, which is the one they wish to fight the election around.

So yeah, I think there will be an election - maybe not right away, but the precipitating event will be linked to this speech. If not a direct defeat, then a defeat based on the amendment, and if not that, then a defeat based on the accompanying budget, or the resulting legislation.

But wait - it has to happen very soon if we aren't facing a Christmas campaign. Just think of the worms stirred up in that. To Jesus or not to Jesus your way through the holidays - separation of religion and politics. Every candidate will have to be buried in events for Hanukkah, Christmas, Hajj, Eid-Ul-Adha, Kwanza, Flying-Spaghetti day and all the rest.

So lets watch and see!

Quebec ByElection Review

2007-09-20T15:18:00.000-04:00

Interesting steps toward election time. The recent flurry of Quebec by-elections adds more complexity to the landscape. Generally, it looks like bad news for the Liberals, good news for the Conservatives and NDP and worst news for the Bloc.

After Gilles Duceppe did his spectacular flip flop (I quit see ya - oh wait, no I don't) I figured they were finished, and the election backs that up. Three ridings were up for grabs Outremont, Roberval and Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot. They went NDP, Conservative and Bloc. The latter was a very thin win where it should have been a big margin. The Roberval thing is noteable to see, but a right wing reactionary vote as a fall-back isn't too surprising.

The NDP getting a seat in Quebec is a surprising, but Outrement, I can kind of understand. It's trendy and left-bank feeling, so it's not a stretch from that point of view. Hmmm how did the greens do there I wonder... Whew - down in the weeds!

It was Bloc and Conservative at 2k a piece, liberals at 7k and NDP at just over 11k. Greens: 529.

Yikes.

Anyway, my point is that this doesn't say much for Liberal leader Dionne's future - which makes me think, election soon. Liberals must be thinking, "how can we dump this guy?" Conservatives must be just waiting for some indication that it's bubbling a bit more, and they'll drop the writ.

Speculation I've also heard is that the Ignatief camp is holding back to help the stumble along. They'll look better with their guy having been around for a few weeks now at least. He doesn't look so much like he's just stepped off the plane.

The bottom line is that our leadership is pretty marginal. There is no real choice out there - anything would be better than Harper, but I wouldn't want a majority on any of them.

The waiting for the Election signals continues, but I'm guessing we'll see it happen during the winter - I suspect the pending Ontario Election means it won't happen before Christmas though.

Sixty Days is Now?

2007-08-22T12:55:00.000-04:00

In February, I speculated that the election would be in about 6 months. I was a bit off, perhaps, but I see the wheels turning still.

My premise is/was that the plan for making the next election happen was orchestrated a few months back, and the pieces are still falling into place. Back in February, a new Kyoto law was passed as a private members bill. This law requires the government to set out their greenhouse gas remediation plan. Of course, they are having none of that, and that is what the opposition wants - force the government into a environmentally triggered non-confidence vote and an election scheduled shortly thereafter. This fits with all the opposition parties (except the Bloc) who are looking to fight this next race on the hot-button topic of the environment.

Yesterday was the deadline. I certainly didn't hear anything happen. It's a pretty sad day when laws passed by the house are ignored by the government. What ever happened to democracy. It seems as bad as the US where they do crazy things with their legislation. In that bastion of democracy, their president can just arbitrarily write in new stuff after a bill is passed. What a wacky world that is - "I just signed my employment contract, I think I'll write in a 100% raise, and a 6month paid vacation... there." What if we could work that way. I also heard something about an anonymous hold that can be put onto legislation there as well.

Anyway, we are seeing more of that US playbook in action here. Unfortunately the Liberal/NDP options are not very compelling currently. But either is better than the creepy Harper guy. Liz May and her greens initially sounded viable to me, but then I learned that she is actually an Anglican (or other?) minister! That's terrible - we could end up with a biblically-guided leader if she were to ever (not that she could) take office. Religion and politics - yikes. More shades of the American system.

I'll be watching - perhaps this old blog will spring back to life again with another go around in a Canadian Electoral race.

Visit Me Later...

2007-02-13T20:08:00.000-05:00

Another election can't be more than six months away. While the current government has cozy secret meetings with American Far Right groups feeding them "great ideas" they try to keep most of their crazies quiet with a no-interviews policy and a firewall around their caucus.

This is not the Canada that Canadians want.

When the next election comes around, visit here at CanadianElection.blogspot.com (bookmark me now!) and you'll get my valuable insights into what's going on. Okay, not so much valuable as they are thoughtful.

Without any party loyalties, you get a point of view that supports elements from across the political spectrum - well, okay not from the gun-toting, bible thumping, anti foreigner wacko side.

See ya before the writ hits the floor!

Post Mortem

2006-01-25T14:10:00.000-05:00

Well, a day has passed since the election, and while we're still in a quiet period, it's pretty tough to get away from the constant analysis, only about 5% of which is of any constructive interest.

There's the to-be-expected talk about successors to Paul Martin, and a general agreement across the political spectrum that his consolation speech was pretty classy and strategically well timed. He's avoided a long drawn out process towards launching a new leadership campaign by withdrawing right away.

I was pondering when the Conservatives will haul out their country destroying ideas. Initially I thought, they will likely beleive that they can rule the world, and so will wait for a few months to "solidify" their base then start hauling out social conservative moves. Replacing judges, reversing basic human rights, cancelling rehabilitation while wondering why the prisons are filling up with recitivists. I realized that they might go for another approach, which is to capitalize on the disarray of the Liberals, and ram their nasty policies through immediately. That would satisfy their most red-neck supporters, and the house would be hesitant to bring down the government without a viable Liberal leader. The other parties would also worry about the populace being unhappy with the expense of another quick election.

A scary thought, as it is tantamount to holding the country hostage to radical legislation.

You can Run...
To get away from the constant election talk on the radio, I switched to BBC World News feeds, and re-broadcast it to my down-stairs radios to listen during lunch. Just my luck, they decide to talk about the Canadian election, and interview Ottawa's most right-wing crazy talk show host. This twit then goes on about how the liberals were demanding that people "turn over their children to the government to be raised at the age of 2 years old" What an asshole.

Nothing like lying to the outside world and making Canada look like a totalitarian society. How he could twist increasing subsidies for child care into that, I don't know.

So, despite my best efforts to avoid election talk, my run to BBC didn't work. I've since switched to NPR. It's pretty guaranteed that US radio won't talk about Canada.

A final word about Ottawa Centre: Turned out to be 66,000 Votes, with the finishing order of Dewar(NDP) taking it, followed by Liberals, CPC, Greens and the rest. Suprised there wasn't more Green support, but still taking 10% of the votes isn't too bad I guess. Dewar won with 37% of the vote.

Adieu until the next election

So, in the interest of letting this sit, I think I'll abandon this feed until the next go-around. I'm guessing it will be, at earliest, autumn 2006 and at latest early summer 2007. Lets hope the fabric of our society can hold it together until then.

Signing off...

Election Night

2006-01-23T21:31:00.000-05:00

Okay, so now the clock ticker on the bottom of the screen has zeroed out. I've pulled my laptop down from my office, and watching the TV I'll update anyone who's following (as if anyone is).

Short Snappers
These notes will be updated through the evening, even though it looks like a continuous blog entry.

First results come in from the east coast. They are talking to Peter MacKay in the east, (declared elected), which made me think - this guy has been totally invisible during the entire election!! I've not heard his name mentioned even once during the whole campaign. Anyway, Mackay and the liberal (former PC) Scott Bryson has also been elected.

More results to come, but early going, and it's Liberals leading 24 to 11 to 5 for NDP and a single BQ are the numbers for elected and leading.

Any Americans out there? Unfortunately I'm guessing there is absolutely zero coverage on the entire US cable universe. Too bad... as bad as our Parliamentary system is - it's way better than the US system. It would be nice if you could see REAL democracy in action. Yes, democracy where there are no election irregularities. No ridings (ie electoral districts) where there are more votes cast than voters. No weird machine breakdowns that toss out all the black voters ballots.

Okay - just a little gloating there that the 'bastion of democracy' to the south is so unaware of what's happening with their near biggest economic partner so near to millions of their citizens.

More as it happens

TV Coverage - Sucking Spectacularly
Okay, so finally the results are rolling in, and we're seeing numbers for various ridings here and there. The CBC is showing the lineup of photos of candidates for various ridings and their current scores. BUT THEY DON"T INDICATE WHO THE INCUMBANT IS! What idiots. Isn't that kind of an obvious bit of info we want to know?!!?

Looks like CTV has a little MP on the face that is the encumbant, though I didn't notice it right away.

Okay, even global, the crazy right wing biased channel, has little [i] symbols to indicate incumbant.

Oshawa Swings ?
Hey ho - it looks like Sid Ryan is taking Oshawa? Ha - toasting that Carrie guy. Heard an all-candidates session and Ryan (though a union guy) sounded much more canny than the Carrie guy. Glad to see it swing away from the incumbent loser guy.

Later... Carrie managed to take it afterall. So much for voting based on candidate intelligence. (...and I'm NOT an NDP supporter).

So far it looks strangely like the polls were off, but it's so early who can say.

Scratch that, the share of the vote is still favouring the liberals at 35%lib to 38%CPC to 22%NDP for NDP. But thats the popular vote. The elected or leading numbers are showing 93CPC 80Lib, 37BQ 20NDP 1 OTHER

And, everyone seems to be already saying PC minority. So far so good.

Say It Ain't So
Okay, so all the stations are calling it a CPC (oops I said PC earlier - that "P" has long been lost. Perhaps an "R' would be more approriate ie regressive. Anyway. I heard Bernhard Lord just use the words "Prime minister Harper". What a scary thought.

Oh well - I'm expecting Martin is now out, Probably John Manley will take the leadership, and we'll have another vote perhaps in June or August and then Harper will be gone. I just wonder what sort of a mess we'll be left with in the meantime.

Global Television Conservative Sycophants
Watching a bit of Global - holy frothing conservative suck-ups! They've got these pundits just grinning and claiming that there will be a conservative majority within the year. They're just going on and on about this valhalla that they think they've stumbled into.

It's amazing how out of tune with reality they are. They claim as well that the liberals will be in a 5 year disoriented fratracide session. Man - they are drinking their own kool-aid.

Every riding that isn't a conservative win, they are saying "it's still early, and too close to call", but when it's a conservative lead, they just say "oh yeah, they've won it."

Gotta change the channel - what a bunch of biased suck ups.

NDP Gains, and Greens on the Radar
The popular vote is looking strong for the NDP. Even Olivia Chow is leading in her riding. I think the historic highs for the NDP were 43 seats under Ed Broadbent.

The Greens are leading in a BC riding. THis will be cool to watch. I've seen squat on Ottawa centre to see how the split is going, but I assume Dewar is leading the pack... but I've got nothing to go on there yet.

Good to see Tony Clement is not getting any traction in his on-going bid to get into federal politics. The stink of the Harris provincial government must still be in his laundry.

Hey, there's an independent in Churchill Manitoba still leading. I can't recall seeing anyone ever being elected as an independent in a general election in my lifetime.

Other breaking news, Belinda Stronach has won her riding!

Wha-hoo! Peter Kent has also lost his riding. Ha! He seems like such a dozy goof - glad to see no progress there.

Ken Dryden, my childhood hero has held onto his riding. What politics has to do with goal-tending I don't know, but glad to see him holding on.

Paul Martin has held onto his riding, and (drat) so has MacCallum.

Oh yeah, been meaning to say this during all my blogs, but my least favourite government folk are MacCallum, Pettigrew, and Graham. I'll be happy to see all three no longer in any position.

Interestingly, the numbers on the screen are now showing a green elected or leading, and an other elected or leading!! What an interesting election this one hs turned out to be.

Balance of Power
SO the intersting thing to be resolved so far, is will the NDP hold the balance of power. 102 liberal, and 30 for NDP against the 121 of the PC so far. Now this isn't a done deal yet, with lots of data to come in still. But if the Lib + NDP total is greater than the CPC, then that will be great, as they can trash the CPC quickly when the timing is right... without having to rely on the Bloc to do the deed. Of course, a deal with the devil is possible there. Conservatives and Bloc working together - I wouldn't put it past them.

Finally, Ottawa Centre
Okay, so finally saw that Dewar is taking Ottawa Centre. The CBC not showing the Green numbers strangely. Typical ignoramuses.

Oh- hey figured out that there is an (x) to indicate the incumbant. Not the most obvious indication. I assumed (X) meant leading, as there is coincidence there. Why is it not an (I), one might well ask.

Hold the Phones
What - Tony Clement seems to be winning by about 5 votes! What a wacky switch this is. At least there is an automatic re-count to be had in this case, no doubt. I beleive Elections Canada does one of those when the margin is slim. Will be nice to see him lose if he does.

Also, the other Harris Ontario PC Jim Flaherty seems to have his riding awarded to him. More Harris stink for the country - and speculation that he's got possibilities for the finance minister

Ralph Goodale won his riding. He's pretty eloquant and humble in the face of his voters. I don't beleive there was a leak of any Income Trust policy changes, so that whole ruse was a wash anyway for him, I guess. It's unfortunate that the media went all feeding frenzy on his ass. I'm not much of a fan of the guy normally, but he seems to have a bit of 'humbility'.

Sounds like there is an independent in Quebec - some radio talk-show host. Not sure what that's about, as there's only one independent shown on the scoreboard. Alas, the Green number has dropped off the board. What of the Churchill independent?

My fear is that both the CPC and the Bloc are both unpalatable and ornery enough, that if they form an alliance, we'll be stuck with them, and they'll trash the country.

Hey, Olivia Chow has won her riding. This stinks a little bit of the family business thing that I typically think very little of, but we'll have to wait and see what she can do for her riding. I assume it won't be the same as the crazy husband and wife team (Grewals) caught up in the post-Stronach craziness. Sounds like Gurmant didn't run this time. Don't know about his remote-control wife. Perhaps he's running her only this time.

Later...Yes, his remote control wife Nina did win, and so Gurmant remains in power and incognito. Also, a reprimand from the ethics commissioner just released should ensure he stays in the background somewhat. Wonder if he'll steal his wifes clothes and show up in the house anyway?

Final View, Before Calling it a Night
So I fear that a few weeks from now, the grizzyly right wing true colours will start to show their ugly face.

Ha - some pseudo-journalist is talking to Belinda, suggesting that the leadership of the liberals is in her future! What a joke, as if she'd even have a modicum of support for the position. What a joke. Speaking of Jokes...

Stockwell Day won his riding in Okanagan! This should be good for a laugh - what will they do with him? It would be hilarious to see him as a cabinet minister. What a crock this government is going to be.

Just making a final dent in a bottle of Lot 88 Cabernet Shiraz. A nice drink from Australia that has got me through a nice steak dinner, and through a full evening of election returns.

It's looking now like the following split:

122 CPC; 106Lib; 50BQ, 30NDP, 1IND.

So, gladly the NDP looks like they have a good hold on the balance of power, but of course an alliance between the CPC and the Bloc is more than the Liberals and NDP. So we'll have to see what sort of deal with the devil the CPC will make. With that - I'll take my leave. Unfortunately, the Greens sound like they're out of it for the night. Perhaps next time. I'm glad I could throw a vote their way on a whim, and not risk our riding going in a wacky direction.

Settling Marbles

2006-01-22T16:32:00.000-05:00

With less than 24 hours remaining until the polls open, the other polls - the opinion polls are purported to be showing some withdrawl from the Conservatives and movement back to the liberals, perhaps at the expense of NDP as well. This according to a pretty good article from the New York Times. More on the International perspective below.

Here's a pretty good site providing forecasting of the seat split. Check out democraticSpace which also seems to show the turn back from a Conservative majority, and a jump in Liberal party fortunes suggesting 127 seats for CPC and 97 for Liberals. The other prediction site previously mentioned has the CPC at less that 120. If the current trend accellerates, we might get closer to my desired outcome, a very, very slim edge for the CPC over the liberals, which will turf out Martin, and ensure the CPC collapses quickly to establish a more centreist government under someone else. Another minority under a new Liberal government with a coalition would be good for making progress on the hill.

People are settling on their decisions now, as we go into supper time gradually across the country, and tomorrow people will mark their ballots and have to live with the outcome that will roll in in the late hours of the evening on monday.

Unfortunately, I never saw an organized 'anyone but the conservatives' campaign muster anywhere, but I get the sense of a deep-rooted visceral rejection of their position among a broad demographic across the country as I watch town-hall type meetings, and listen to phone in content. I worry that the CPC strategy of not saying much (don't disclose the true agenda) and muzzling actual MP candidates will actually work for the less sophisticated voters. A sad comment on the CPC party. I worry about what it means for our country.

The International Read
I think there's a pretty good perspective to be had by tuning in to what journalists with the benefit of some distance say about the race. So here's a round-up of stuff I can find at various reputable media sites. Of course there are biases, but I think the distance provides somewhat of a filter, for better or worse.

The New York Times article on the pending vote.

The Independent has an interesting article that perhaps comes to conclusions a bit too fast. On the positive side, it is speaking to a parliamentary-system-literate audience which allows it to get into a bit more depth than the NYTimes article, and picks up both on Martins' awkwarly run campaign, and on Harper's "North European" slight pretty quickly. It's got a weird perspective on Ignatief in Toronto, painting him as the heir apparent for the Liberal party after Martin gets bumped following an election loss. I guess he's known to Britons from a BBC2 tenure of some kind.

New Zealand's Herald has an article picked up on Friday from Reuters that takes a bit of a different tack. (It's great to see all these different spins!) This article focusses more on the encumbant Liberals fight to the finish, a CPAC poll dividing the race at 37 to 31% in favour of the CPC's and takes Harper's comments about 'not addressing abortion in the near term' at face value, without pointing out the criticisms about skirting any issues that would expose the socially conservative and ugly underbelly of their hidden agenda.

Australia's Sydney Morning Herald has an article about Bon Jovi's plane slipping off the runway in Hamilton, but nothing about the Canadian election recently. The paper seems a bit of a rag based on the focus of the bulk of their articles (lots of hollywood) - plus their page is pretty heavy, and slow loading.

Australia's Daily Telegraph has quite a good article, covering issues, other parties and with a pretty balanced approach. Heck, they even use the word 'extremist' near Harper's name. Nice to see some recognition of that criticsm, while still putting his view forward.

The LATimes has the barest minimum of an article. To it's credit, it does give a great overview of the numbers involved, in terms of seats and the mechanics of the government. But it's got that typical American audience need for an explanation about parliamentary democracy. It covers all the issues in two short sentences. Not quite the coverage you'd expect a major city to have for their country's largest trading partner (or second now apparently) going to the polls! Typical myopia.

Record Turnout Expected
It should be interesting to see the turn-out numbers. I'm expecting more than 60,000 votes cast in our riding of Ottawa Centre. It will also be interesting to watch the overall numbers. My sense is that the extra effort seen in attending advance polls will manifest itself in strongly higher numbers on election day as well.

The liberals probably have the most to gain from this, although I get the feeling that the other left-leaning parties may as well benefit. But what do I know - I think I get a skewed view of the world from the confines of my left-leaning riding. Then again, there is a large pro-green display in the window of a prominent 'yoga clothing' store in Westboro. It attempts to show the Greens as the only viable choice, and highlight an issue with each of the other three parties. They seemed to be a bit weak on what to criticize for the NDP, colouring them as pot-heads! That's a weird one... I think they're mixing them up with the marajuana party. And what more pot-head group can you find than a store for yoga clothing!

Fear Week

2006-01-19T13:09:00.000-05:00

Given that opinion polls might be a bit wonky, given the very high refusal rates and such, the numbers may have an unintended impact, in that voters are getting innundated with numbers that suggest a Conservative win, and perhaps a slim majority.

That's scary to alot of people - notwithstanding the inane attempts of the Liberals to capitalize on that with marginal ads - people are turning on their strategic voting calculators now.

How do you vote strategically? Part of it depends a lot on your particular riding. The biggest risk of strategic voting is splitting the vote on the wrong side of the equation. Now, given that the right is pretty well owned by the Conservatives, with the liberals dancing over the centre-line sometimes with conservative fiscal policy, we're pretty much talking about two camps here - the anyone-but-the-conservatives faction and conservatives.

Now, in Ottawa-Centre, a case in point. My perception is that the conservative candidate (who just run my phone with a taped message - what an annoying approach) is pretty far back. This riding has been NDP and Liberal for a long while. I perceive a tight 3-way race. If Mr Dewar for the NDP hauls out the "I have the same shoe size as Ed Broadbent" routine one more time, I think he'll lose the lead. Mr. Chernushenko for the the Green party may have a shot at being the first Green in Canada to get a seat. And the Liberal Guy who's name I'm trying to forget, is a weak third I'm guessing. But here, the voters on the centre and left of the spectrum can actually vote with their gut, rather than stategically. Since the conservatives may get about 5000-8000 tops out of 60,000 voters there's not much of an 'up the middle' strategy available for this Fountain character.

(Later... Post election the number turns out to be 66,000 voters!)

Broadbent won the riding last time with about 25k votes. I suspect the winner will be in the 18-20 range this time, but voting will undoubtably be much higher, hence my expectation that there will be in the range of 60k or more votes cast.

CBC Wakes Up
Compared to most media, I'm usually fairly satisfied with the CBC balance. They drift off towards the 23 year old pot smoker sometimes, but by and large they provide balance.
The last few weeks have been abyssmal though. They've let Harper's handlers drive their agenda. I can't beleive they led the news with a Harper story almost every edition. You think they'd say, gee, they're trying a ploy to manipulate us... but they haven't been very sophisticated at the production level. I mean, in the interest of balance, I'm sure they could look at lead-story allignment and make an effort to use something from one of the other campaigns occasionally. They're all doing 'stuff' every day.
At very least become more introspective and make the story "Harper's campaign continues the ploy to drive the nightly news through inane daily announcements" Why not do something like that?

CBC must realize that given a majority Conservative position, a lot of them are out of work. The station will be privatized. I wonder how they like producing telethon segments a la your closest PBS station instead of political coverage. "Operators are standing by. If you enjoy these incessant BBC mystery dramas set in the 70's, call now and donate". And "This hour has 22 Minutes" will sell squat on US Cable. Rick Mercer will just be a weird guy who talks funny, from "New Finland" to American audiences.

Well, anyway this morning on CBC radio Anna Maria Tremonte had a couple of great guests - the publisher of Harper's magazine in the US, Rick MacArthur, and a Conservative pundit, who writes for a variety of US right-leaning papers (and his name escapes me). It was a great bit. You can listen to it here: The Current Stream" Find the stream for Jan 19/06 and listen to the first segment (probably only available on the 20th or later).

A bit confusing that the liberally oriented magazine in the US should be called "Harper's" but whadaya-going to do? The gist of the conversation was that MacArthur lamented a Bush-suck-up leader, albeit probably not as extremist as bush, coming to power in Canada - beacon of sanity in the free world, and model for where Americans wished their country stood (his sentiments.) The conservative pundit next commented that Harper is a good start, but he's still way less conservative than they would like. To his credit, he commented that we have the stronger position on softwood lumber, and so Harper will be able to stand firm there.

MacArthur touched on a point that wasn't pursued - but one which I'm lamenting myself. He said that the merger between Reform and PC's resulted in a softening of the Reform agenda, unless they've just learned to market themselves better. Duh! This was further driven home by comments that Bush came to power as a Centerist "lets clean up those pesky, corrupt Democrats" candidate. This is the same thing all over again! Play moderate on the campaign trail, and disclose your true radical colours when in power.

I'm amazed how thin the veil is. Harper was even talking 'American Style' about our checks and balances in the Juciciary which he claims will still be Liberal for a long time due to appointments. What the hell is that? It sounds like a CNN soundbyte. Does he want to get our Senate to hold hearings for new Supreme Court judges? Man this stuff is scary. Does he think the judiciary is working some evil liberal agenda, rather than applying the laws according to our constitution?

Score One for Mansbridge
I was impressed that during an 'town-hall' style interview with Peter Mansbridge hosting, and talking to Jack Layton, they used some pointed questions. He put Layton on the spot to answer a few questions from audience members around which he was widely skirting. I liked how he particularly button holed him on the "Corruption" thing. There's no evidence of corruption of any of the liberal MP's, he pointed out, so why are you using the word "corruption" in your speeches and ads. Layton didn't have much of an answer, and tried to do the usual non-answer "I think that Turkish Cuisine is a particularly delicate balance of sweet and savory" "Yeah, but the question Mr. Layton"

Good Forecasting Site
So there we have it:

Conservatives hidden right wing agenda to gut our country and 'erase' the Canada/US border
Liberals still recovering from the Martin/Chretien coup attempts and unable to run a campaign, and doing a half-assed job of governing
NDP, wrapped up in political double speak, and ignoring Conservative ridings and criticism
Greens, a bit of a flakey core to their platform, and no only the slimmest chance of electing a single MP
Bloc, irrelevant to everyone, including about 60% of Quebecers

So to vote strategically, how do you know which way things are headed, without using the skewed opinion polls? Here's an option. This website gathers riding by riding opinions on which way the area is headed. Who better to estimate the direction than the people voting there. And they've been around long enough to have a track record, which is pretty good.

http://electionprediction.org/

Right now, it looks like a pretty good outcome to my thinking. 97CPC, 77Lib, 17NDP, 55Bloc and 66 too close to call. IF the split sticks that way it would be a minority at least. Althought an unscrupulous deal between Bloc and CPC isn't unlikely. But at least Martin would be dumped, and hopefully some vestiges of the Liberal divide between Martinites and Chretienites might be erased. Then there could be another election shortly after with a better outcome, including the dumping of Harper.

Ideal outcome would be something like 114CPC, 113Lib 32NDP, 3Green, 46Bloc

That would be great, some enviro pressure from Greens, Martin gone, strengthened NDP, and weakened Bloc. Another vote 6 months later, Harper gone.

I think this is one of those devil we don't know wishes.

Are the Polls Accurate?

2006-01-17T17:53:00.000-05:00

There sure has been a change in the polls, according to all the media sources. I always feel a the dirt oozing out of the press this time in an election campaign as certain media sources switch from simple bias to outright support of a party. Newspapers seem particularly bad for this. But anyway, that's just me.
On another note - here are things I wish the media would repeat more often - just simple facts, no bias required:

The "Conservatives" are the Reform and PC's combined, with many PC's having bailed out.
Stockwell Day would presumably be the new Minister of External Affairs
Polls are not very accurate anymore, as many people have cell phones, and refusal rates are very high.

Some stuff the Liberals should say (if they were running a better campaign).

Canada has the only surplus in the G8, and we're leading western nations in growth. If you want change, how exactly would you like those numbers to change?
There was not $200Million in lost money in the sponsorship scam - most of that went into spending on programs. There were a few millions stolen, but a bunch has been recovered.
Chuck Guité practiced his craft in under the conservatives & Mulroney
The sponsorship scam is not a bunch of crooked liberals - it's a bunch of crooked Quebec politicians and their cronies. There are probably just as many in among the other parties in that same circle of Montreal elitist politics & business types. BC is another hotbed of crooked politicians typically. And there are more peppered about the country. There are likely more in the Conservatives, fewer in the NDP - and the tree-hugging Greens are probably mostly clean.

Okay so that last they could never say, but I'm sure it's true

I've actually voted already - in Ottawa Centre - because my SO is going to be away on election day. As we went to the advanced poll, I figured I may as well vote then too.
I might have voted differently if I was to do it again today. Heard some decent interviews with Jack Layton, and figured he might be a decent choice. He talked about some of my favourite topics all around electoral reform. Namely - popular vote versus results and women in parliament.

I wish that someone could get a good vote for anyone-but-the-conservatives campaign going. I'm frightened we've got our on US experience about to start, with a religious right agenda sullying our government. Code words are flying around to hide the real words like intollerance, racism, destroying our national identity, erasing the Canada/US border, and eroding our social programs, health care principals and generally taking us back in a regressive regime.

C'mon people look at your ridings and choose anyone but them. Just think... Stockwell Day as our Foreign Affairs Minister.

Returning to Canada to Find A Mess

2006-01-14T10:11:00.000-05:00

Okay, right after New Years, I went off on a business trip to the US, and getting back into the saddle on the 11th of January, the whole landscape has changed.

I was wondering why the media was so happy to play along with the "Conservative" spin leading into Christmas: always leading with the Harper daily announcement, and it's imploded on itself now. All the coverage seems to be based on whatever the Conservative spinners are delivering and nobody is analyzing the spin from the fact. Must be that the CBC at least is run by 20-year-old ingenues who don't have enough life experience to detect when they are being spun.

It appears that they are all predicting a conservative win now. The scary part about predicting a minority is that voters think - "oh, I'm contributing to the minority, which is a good thing, rather than a majority - yikes." But when everyone does that, you get a majority anyway - case-in-point: the NDP Ontario government of a couple of decades back.

The worst bit of Journalism I've seen is the media coverage of the Liberal "Soldiers with Guns" ad - there was a clearly staged Conservative old-timer soldier protest, and the coverage of it was "here's a protest - soldiers are outraged" not - "The conservatives set up this lame protest"

And nobody is pointing out that the "Conservatives" are not the conservatives... but rather a bunch of Reformers in Sheeps' clothing.

The only thing scarier than a fascist party is a fascist party that has learned to dress themselves up as acceptable moderates. When they realize that it works, and people forget what they were 15 minutes ago, they get these weird grins of delight.

More on the rest of the campaign later.

Christmas Quiet Period

2005-12-23T10:06:00.000-05:00

As we get into the Christmas period, all parties vow to spend it with their families and stay off the campaign trail. Not sure how well they will stick to this, but let's watch.

I liked Martin's approach to this announcement: "My wife says I'll be spending my time at home" or some such comment. Nice slightly mysogynistic, old 'ball and chain' comment. Way to win the votes of younger folk.

Harper just grins his creepy grin and talks about home and family because he figures that's what his religious right base is looking for.

Layton and his wife are both running, so I suspect they will both be stapling signs to posts between gift wrapping.

I'll be interested to see how the start of January plays out.

Heating Up the Campaign Trail

2005-12-14T10:41:00.000-05:00

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.

Pre-Christmas Strategies Laid Out

2005-12-11T17:21:00.000-05:00

So it's been going now for almost two weeks -and the path forward is reasonably clear. The challenge is that all the parties see the pre-Christmas period as a bit of a throw-away. They don't want to be seen as complacent - because they know the others will accuse them as being disinterested. They don't want to lay out their entire platform, because they still want to have some stuff to announce in early January to garner some headlines.

But, there is the first debate coming up in Vancouver shortly, and it's a bit tough to go into a debate without some planks in your platform, or you won't have much to stand on when it comes to pushing your points. Lets hope the first debate can be moderated with a bit of structure and not turn into an exercise in simultaneous talking.

The media coverage has been as entertaining as the party performance. Global news seems to be a broken record, as probably the most biased "news" coverage in the country (from a so-called Nation-wide station) they are playing a single track. Each newscast seems to say "The Liberals are slipping in the polls" and then they play tons of Harper announcements and get (vaguely supportive) reactions. CTV and CBC coverage seems to be more balanced, but CBC policy seems to be talking out both sides of their mouth. I applaud their idea in the last election to not focus on the Polls, as that approach can create the old self-fulfilling-prophesy-syndrome. And, of course, that is why some polling companies seem to push their preferred parties. Announce it and the public will say "Jeeze, the Liberals are slipping - no way I'm going to support those losers."

But, while they started their cowverage off saying they would again refrain from reporting on Polls once the campaign started, I seem to see a lot of poll coverage on their organs. The CBC One radio coverage even started with poll info on the News lead-in at least once in the last few days.

Kudo's to Mike Duffy on CTV for commenting on the Conservative lame-o advertising. I've been pointing out how the Harper ads look like crap. Some deer-in-the-headlights actor playing a woman journalist 'interviewing' Harper, and graphics, effects and copy that sound like it was a high school project.

Mike Duffy was commenting on the Conservative advertising in Quebec, trying to counter the Bloc, and mentioned that the ads in English Canada look like they were put together by a group of kids in advertising school. Glad to see that others are noting that.

Not sure what kind of a message it sends to voters to appear amateurish and klunky, when you want to project that you can run the country. That's probably the biggest benefit to the Liberals out their right now, in my humble opinion.

I think it is the intangible sense of a parties style that makes or breaks the shiftable vote. There is a big chunk of voters out there who will vote a certain way barring anything but a major meltdown. When it comes to the crucial Ontario vote (in terms of swinging the size of the coming minority), credibility based on subtle perception will be most important.

So in closing this brief commentary, here's my perspective of how things are looking currently.

Conservatives: Awkward, walking on eggshells, throwing out announcements willy-nilly, most of which are based on news-hooks and sound bites. Driving the media seems to be working in terms of getting lead-story time.

Liberals: Project the we're busy governing, and are the only competant party look. Largely keeping the powder dry until after Xmas, and setting up photo op's that paint a flattering picture

NDP: The usual differentiation strategy - we're not like those guys - with an astute chunk of milking the influence they were able to weild in the minority parliament.

Greens: Hey we're here and we don't get much respect. They seem to be saying we're more than just the environment, but they are not punching through with the big messages. They need some good beefy, solid maple in their platform. Two or three planks that aren't overtly environment, but that they can repeat to the point of nausea, where-upon the media will finally get it.

Bloc: Just keeps hyping the big bad liberals: "THEY" did this to "US" The federalist forces really need to find a sensitive way to say that the "THEY" in this case is a bunch of corrupt Quebecers. Put in the Bloc and you can just as easily have another big raft of corrupt Quebecers. Liberals should point out that they will be extra careful going forward, given their current black eyes, and will thus be more squeaky clean than anyone else.

My biggest gripe this week: All the Quebec coverage is about the Bloc. I've seen no coverage of alternatives in prominent ridings. The media doesn't need to take a pro-federalist stance (although a little bias in that direction would be reasonable - as reasonable as Global pushing Harper so hard). Just having balanced coverage of the fact that there are other people running in Quebec would be nice. WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES? We never get to see.

A Bientot....

The Voting - Parliamentary Democracy Gears Turn

2005-11-28T16:13:00.000-05:00

In some ways, irregardless of your political stripes, these are the most exciting days of a Parliamentary Democracy. The wheels turn to set about a potential change in government. Roles that are otherwise window-dressing actually have a function and we see that a few dozen millions can live in relative harmony and bring about a structured revisiting of their system of government.

So a vote is on, and the outcome is essentially a foregone conclusion. Non-confidence in the reigning party will be confirmed, following the motion served last week by The Conservatives and NDP (Moved by Harper, seconded by Layton). The outcome is that with the non-confidence vote lost by the governing party, the Governor-General (the Queen's representative in Canada) will confer with the Prime Minister and in that process will call for a new election. The writ, as we say, will be dropped.

She, (the GG) can actually do something else if she wanted - she could say, "You conservatives, NDP's and Bloc's go form a new government." But that's very unlikely, and so we'll end up going to the polls in early January.

Voting on the non-confidence motion gets underway just before 7:00pm tonight, and doesn't take long, as members simply stand to be counted and then we know.

Phoning it in For the First Month

It's generally conceeded that the parties will not be going full tilt until after the Christmas season. There will be some token campaigning, but they anticipate a lot of doors closed in their faces leading up to the holidays, and so will wait until afterwards to start really pounding the pavement.

The first spins of the session will have to be seen. We still see the Liberals saying "Canadians don't want an election" Canadians generally don't seem to care much when it happens. The opposition parties point out that they'd like a non-confidence motion now, and an election later (with some governing going ahead for a month or so).

They have a point, I suppose - the Liberals - that once confidence has failed, the concept of continuing to legislate further business is a bit of a stretch to the parliametary system.

Enjoying the Machinations

So meanwhile, enjoy the steps as they play out. I think it's the best part of the system, steeped in tradition, no gunshots invoved or people lined up against garden walls. The PM should have a speech for the press shortly about his chat with the GG, there should be statements that punch the primary slogans and points of the respective campaigns, and lawn signs will start sprouting around town.

I'd recommend a sign from each of the Liberals and the Greens for your lawn - the colours will be particularly festive. You can worry about the political statement after Christmas, and pull them down in favour of your chosen party. Or, if you're like me, no party at all.

There's an Election Looming - The Lay of the Land

2005-11-20T09:50:00.000-05:00

It's late Novemeber, 2005 and there are moves afoot that will precipitate an election before long. The lay of the land is this: The ruling liberals are on record as saying they will call an election, around the March '06 time frame, based on the timing of a certain judicial review report (more on that later).

They are in a minority government position, one where the opposition parties can topple them with a non-confidence vote, but only if the other parties work together.

There is no single other party with which the governing liberals can cooperate to carry the house, and thus a simple coalition is not possible. Plus, while loose allignment with one of the opposing parties was enough to barely (ie by one vote) hold on to power, that has been dissolved. The numbers were just balanced insuch a way, back when non-confidence votes were being weilded a few months back, that the two together (Liberals and NDP) could, with the tie breaking vote of the speaker of the house, carry the day.

But it's not that simple, the NDP (New Democratic Party - they are not actually "New" at all) has proposed that something other than the usual non-confidence, bring-down-the-governement-type vote be introduced. They want to pass a vote to have an election at a specific time - in early January.

But that hasn't been done before, and the Liberals claim that it's not kosher. Either there is confidence in the Government or there isn't (Spin 1), they say. And Canadians do not want a Christmas Holidays election (Spin 2)

But "Hey-" say the NDP and the other two opposition parties, the Bloc and Conservatives, why can't we agree to dissolve the governement later, after these pieces of legislation you the governement are trying to complete, and we the opposition would like to see completed. (Spin 3)

This, to your humble citizen seems pretty good - politicians actually doing something, and finishing some work. Why can't we do that indeed.

DE-SPIN:

Spin 1: Either there's confidence or there isn't. This is governing party spin to actually say "We need to be seen having the election on our terms, and we want to force the election to be either a) called by us at our timing, to project a we're-in-control look... or we want the election forced at Christmas time so we can paint you with our Spin 2 Brush and make you all look bad.

Spin 2: The idea that "Canadians Don't want a Christmas Election" is total bunk. Canadians could care less. It takes 20 minutes or so to vote - no big deal. In fact, it gives Canadians a chance to talk about something beefy and convouted during the holidays when families and friends get together. In reality, if we thought about it more openly and in the media (don't get me started), Canadians would LOVE a Christmas election. Everyone votes, Christmas cookies around the fire, singing polically-re-written Christmas Carols, we all watch the returns with a glass of nog. It would be great fun.

But the Media is spinning this for the politicians, when in reality, the politicians do not want to campaign in the cold, don't want to disrupt their lavish Holiday lifestyle with some actual work. So while the opposition wants to avoid Xmas with their "Hey, lets get some work done" approach (see below), the Liberals want to avoid it with a "Hey, we'll blame this on you and it will hurt you in the polls" thing.

Spin 3: This is actually mostly Spin 2 all over again. The opposition parties can be painted with the same brush as the governing politicians. Nobody wants to work - let alone work hard over Christmas. If it happens, and it probably will, they will all look back at it happily because it will be a big bonding thing with egg-nog and warm furry sweaters and frost-bitten ears, and they'll call it the best days of their lives.

However, I actually like the spin idea that they should postpone till January, and actually pass some flippin' legislation so the country can move forward a bit before the next election blasts a whole in all government productivity.

Oh, the 'judicial review' thing - that's better known as the Gomery Report, an investigation or royal commission or some sort of review of the events around a big financial scandal in Quebec, where a raft of Quebec politicians and beaurocrats lined their buddies' pockets through improperly doled out contracts. This thing is SpinCity, and I'll talk more about it later.

Next Blogs - Watch for a weekly update, or even more often if the spirit (and events) move me to the keyboard

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2005-08-22T13:14:00.000-04:00

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