The Sorry State of Political Reporting

I do not know why I bothered but I read the most recent article today in the Globe and Mail by Jane Taber and the only thing I could think of was "no wonder mainstream news organizations in the Western world are having difficulties".

I am a political animal and I found that article to be boring and pointless beyond belief. I had to force myself to finish it. I could only imagine the reaction from those who do not care about politics.

That article really sums up the MSM's troubles. They publish articles that the vast majority of their consumers will not read and they are doing it with increasing regularity and then wonder why their readership and ratings are down across the board.

The alternatives to that article are many, the agreement on the changes to pensions reached by the country's finance ministers being an obvious one. As someone who is middle aged I read the story about it and I will read any analysis of it in the future because it will actually have an impact on my life at some point.

An article about Conservative election strategy, not so much. Particularly since the article was unadulterated BS. Somebody should tell these "political" journalists that political parties generally do not make their election strategy public as they do not want their opponents to know what it is until an election is called. So, if a source within a political party calls you up and wants to talk to you about such a strategy all sorts of red flags should go up in your head and you should be a little more critical of what the source is telling you instead of taking it as whole cloth truth.

For instance the obvious question is why would you be making any part of your election strategy public? I am certain that you would not get a straight answer but you should at least give it the old college try.

One obvious answer.

The Conservatives want to give the impression that they have the "Big Mo" going into the Spring. The target audience for that message is not the electorate but the Liberals. The Conservatives know that Stephen Harper will be fighting his fourth election. They know that his esteem amongst the electorate is at its lowest since he was elected to government. Certainly Mr. Ignatieff is lower but he is the Leader of the Opposition so that is to be expected. They know that a large majority of Canadians now believe the country is heading in the wrong direction and that number has been growing steadily for about a year. In short, they know that the next election will be a crap shoot that they could very well lose so they want to postpone it as long as possible. So, they come up with some bullshit story and peddle it to any journalist that is willing to take it at face value.

The MSM in the Western world is having difficulties and the big brains in their head offices are attempting to come up with all sorts of ways to reverse the trend. Here is a little bit a free advice on how you may be able to contribute to such a reversal; Stop allowing your news organizations to be manipulated by political parties and remember that the main reason why people consume the news is to find out what is going on in the world that will directly effect their lives and their livelihoods. Until you do that you can expect the downward trends in readership and ratings to continue.

Clusterf**k

It was with great amusement that I read the story in the Globe and Mail last week about how the Conservatives were "on track" to a majority government using a "cluster" strategy in Ontario to put them there. They managed to weave together the Conservative win in Vaughn, the latest Nanos poll and some interesting speculation on Conservative strategy into a wonderful piece of political fiction.

First the poll.

The key feature of the Nanos poll was if you look at the estimates from the current poll and compare them to the estimates from the last poll you notice that the change in the estimates for all of the parties is within the margin of error. In fact, the aggregate change of both the Liberals and the Conservatives is well within that MOE. What that means is there was no real change in the estimates from one poll to the next. The fluctuation of the numbers is the natural differences you will see from one poll to the next when you use the same polling methodology poll after poll.
The other two big polls that came out this week show the same thing.

The most interesting thing about all three big polls is they are either monthly or quarterly polls and in all cases they showed that over that time there has been no change in the political dynamic in this country. They demonstrate that Canadians are in a holding pattern, with the Conservatives holding the incumbent advantage. In fact, you can go back farther with these polling companies to see that this pattern is one of long standing so it is probably going to take an election to change it.

As for the actual estimates themselves you just need to remember that all polling companies poll the same survey population using slightly different polling methodologies and that is the reason why each polling company has different estimates. The only constant for all of them is the "holding pattern" dynamic that I mentioned above. Which one of these polls best reflects the current reality as far as the level of support each party enjoys amongst Canadian voters? Who knows and it really is not relevent right now because an election is not imminent.

Second the "Cluster Strategy".

The biggest and most obvious flaw in the logic of this strategy outlined by this story is it is based on the very unreasonable assumption that the Conservatives will hang on to their current seats. Therefore, they only need about 10 seats to win a majority and they seem to be available in the 416 and 905 area codes.

What is missing is, if you believe the polls, the Conservatives could lose all but one of their seats in Quebec. No serious Conservative strategist would not take that possibility into account when planning strategy so in fact they are looking at the possible requirement of winning from 15 to 20 additional seats in those two Ontario area codes. Looking at those two area codes there do appear to be around 9 seats that the Liberals won by a small margin so they could be vulnerable. However, there are a like number seats in that part of Ontario that the Conservatives won by very slim margins (Mr. Fantino, I am looking at you). So, this "cluster" strategy must be able to accomplish the goal of winning all of the "vulnerable" Liberal seats without losing any of the "vulnerable" Conservative seats and then take another half-dozen or so Liberal seats where their margins of victory were much higher. Is this possible? Certainly but it I were a political strategist I would not be counting on it happening.

The above also does not take into account that the Conservatives won many more seats in other parts of the country by small margins so the Conservatives would need to bat a thousand in keeping all of them just to keep their "seats to majority" requirements under 20.

Another obvious flaw is the strategy as outlined in the story is the Conservatives seem to be planning on accomplishing this feat by preaching law-and-order in the cities and suburbs while preaching their anti-gun control gospel in rural areas. Do Conservative strategists really believe they can keep their message on gun control from seeping into the urban and suburban areas of this country where gun control is popular? Good luck with that.

The whole "cluster strategy" story was a piece of political fiction. Their analysis of the Nanos poll was superficial at best as they did not mention the fact the estimates had not changed from one quarter to the next. Their analysis of the "cluster strategy" was also very superficial and it was based on some extremely questionable assumptions.

All-in-all an interesting read but not one that could be taken seriously.

Well, that's a relief

With the mixed results of the by-elections last night it looks like we will be saved from the inevitable wingeing, hand wringing and cringeing from Liberals, activities that had already begun to happen in some parts of the Liberal blogsphere ever before the elections results were in.

Certainly the usual suspects are going to spin this in a way that suits their interests.

Conservatives are spinning it as a big victory.

Some in the media have stated the results are a further indication that the Liberals are in trouble. Then again the MSM in this country has been writing the political obituary of the Liberal Party for more than 5 years yet it just keeps sticking around.

Then there are some Liberals who are spinning it as really bad news but invaribly they are all Liberals who have expressed great displeasure in Mr. Ignatieff as the leader of the Party and they take any setback, real or otherwise, to butress their prejudice. They remind me of Habs fans who seem to relish the idea of Carey Price having a bad season just so they could be proven "right" in their assessment that the Canadiens traded the wrong goaltender. Or in other words their dislike of Mr. Ignatieff is more important to them than finally relegating Mr. Harper and his government to the dust bin of history. Sad really.

The reality of course is these were by-elections. They do not indicate any big trends for the upcoming general election; the results of them do not change the political landscape in Parliament and the only people who really care about them are the few that voted in the by-elections, political commentators who work for free and seem to have way too much time on their hands and paid political commentators who need to keep their bosses happy. The wider Canadian public probably were not even aware that by-elections took place last night until they read about it in this morning's newspapers.

In the end these were victories for the individual candidates that won in each riding and nothing more.

What would a debate on the Afghan mission accomplish?

There has been a fair amount of negative reaction to the decision of the government to extend the Afghan mission and their assertion, with the support of the Liberals, that no debate is necessary in the House.

My original reaction was just as negative but after thinking about it for awhile I am now wondering if it is such a big deal.

Many have argued that such a debate is necessary to assert the supremacy of Parliament. While I agree with such a sentiment I would point out that Parliament began its descent into irrelevancy under Trudeau and every government since then continued its descent with the current government taking it to extremes.

Further, even if we eventually have a Parliamentary debate and a subsequent vote we all know that Stephen Harper will make certain that such a debate is in the form of a non-binding motion which they will use to reinforce their position if they win the vote and ignore if they lose. So, really the interests of Parliamentary supremacy would not be served by such a debate and vote.

I have argued before that the true test of the actual Supremacy of Parliament will come after the current paranoid government is removed from power and we see how its successor deals with Parliament. On that score the actions of the Liberals in this case have disappointed me.

Looking at the situation on the ground, not much has changed. The Taliban is still winning the war in Afghanistan. The Karzai regime is still incompetent and corrupt and they only control Kabul. The rest of the country is still ruled by warlords who are still financing themselves and their warbands with drug money.

Here at home the war is still not very popular but that unpopularity has not really been galvanized into an actual anti-war movement. Canadians do not really want to be there but at the same time they are not clamouring for the troops to be brought home either. Further, much of the chattering class is still firmly behind the war as witnessed by the claims that the agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberals was "bipartisan" and by the fact that none of the MSM have made a real effort to analyze the implications of the proposed new assignment.

So, in the end any Parliamentary debate on the new assignment would just degenerate into jingoism, false patriotism and generally useless BS just like the last "debate" we had on the Afghan mission. No really important questions would be answered or even discussed and Canadians would eventually just tune it out and have their belief that our Parliament is useless further reinforced.

Further, do not mistake the hooting of the Bloc and the NDP as a serious desire to debate this new assignment. They merely see a an opening for gaining some political advantage.

Finally, when all is said and done, the decision on whether Canada remains in Afganistan depends of Barack Obama. He is now focusing on re-election in 2012 and part of that effort will be the removal of troops from Afghanistan before November 2012. The US may not remove them all by then but they will remove a large proportion of them and when that happens the pressure from Canadians on our government to remove our troops will be irresistable, regardless of who is in power. I would expect the Obama Administration to begin making serious noises about withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan next summer with the buildup of pressure on our government to correspond to increased momentum of that withdrawal going into 2012.

All of this talk about Canadian troops remaining in Afghanistan until 2014 is bunk. The draw down of Canadian troops next summer will be the beginning of a process that will probably end no later than the summer of 2012.

I am not surprised by the decision to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan after 2011. Anyone who really believed that Canada would pull its troops out of that country next summer, as promised, is naive in the extreme. While I am disappointed that the Liberals have decided to go along with this decision that disappointment is the result of what the decision might mean about how a future Liberal government treats Parliament. I am not really disappointed that there will be no Parliamentary debate because I do not believe such a debate would really accomplish anything useful.

Blah, blah, blah

The mid-term elections in the United States were quite unremarkable. What was expected to happen, happened.

What I found funny and fascinating was the reaction of the commentariat in the US and to a lesser extent here in Canada. The arguments put forward by these folks were quite amusing in how overblown and breathless they were. You would almost think that something profound happened in the US during the elections.

They made several arguments that I found really overblown.

1) The election was going to bring about change in the United States.

They certainly caused some changes in who occupy seats in Congress and in some governors' mansions but other than that not much is going to change in the US as a result of these elections.

The founding fathers of the United States were all movers and shakers in the American colonies in the 18th century. After they threw out the English king they knew that any danger of another king rising up to take his place would come from within their ranks. So they created a form of government that would prevent any of them from acquiring ultimate power with the now famous check-and-balances. It was a wonderful system for preventing the rise of a king but a by-product of it was it caused change in the United States to be slowed to a crawl. This was true when there was a general consensus in the United States on the direction of the country, with the only disagreement being on how to get there. That consensus broke down decades ago and we now see different segments of US society trying to pull the country in different directions. Their objectives for the country are not the same. In that kind of atmosphere the very design of the US political system has put American society and its politics into a kind of stasis. Not much is changing in the US and certainly not much is changing for the better for the citizens of the United States. This election did not change that dynamic. If anything it just made it worse.

In addition, the US Congress is now divided into five major factions. Liberal Democrats, conservative Democrats, moderate Republicans, conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers. (Note the Republicans are fractured into three.) None of these factions have a majority in either chamber and party discipline is a foreign concept to members of Congress so we have a recipe for mayhem even without any intervention of the President, who if he is smart, will take advantage of these divisions, particularly within Republican ranks.

2) President Obama is in trouble and there is a real question as to whether he will win another term.

No one can really predict the future so such an outcome is certainly possible but I would not say it is very probable. Mid-term elections in the US are similar to by-elections in this country. They tend to attract the protest vote while others who have no real problem with how things are going in the country stay home. The big prize in the US has always been the presidency so when it is not up for grabs during an election there is not much incentive amongst most of the electorate to get out and vote.

As well, the President drives the political agenda in the United States not the Congress. The Tea Partiers might think they are in a position to harm the President but he can keep throwing bombs at them to keep them off track. Indeed, the President has a little more freedom to act. He can now propose and if the Congress balks he and his supporters can claim it is just the Republicans playing partisan games instead of looking out for the best interests of the American people. And like I said in point number 1 he can begin throwing legislative bombs at the Republicans in Congress to force them to actually take potentially unpopular positions on important issues.

The President has two years to work with this new reality and if he uses his time wisely he should be able win another term.

3) The Tea Partiers are now a force in US politics.

Let's wait to see the results of another election or two before coming to such conclusions.

Much more was said about the mid-term elections but most of it was nothing more than newsies and their employers trying to justify their existance. They were certainly interesting to politicos in both the US and Canada but the sad reality is they will not have a profound impact on the US or on the well-being of its citizens.

Potash and politics

I had a chuckle at the Conservative decision not to allow the takeover of the Canadian potash industry by the Australians.

Of course the simple reason was the Conservatives did not want to put those 13 seats in Saskatchewan in play during the next election.

This is a sharp contrast to three years ago when the Conservative government shafted the Saskatchewan government out of equalization payments. At the time there was much complaining from the people and the media in that province but the Conservatives did it anyway. Back then they knew that they would suffer no political damage as a result of that decision.

Now they know the opposite is true and they also know that they will be hard pressed to win the next election as it is without risking seats in what they consider to be safe Conservative areas of the country.

I noticed that a few commentators have characterized this move as "pragmatic" on the part of Stephen Harper but I think the more accurate characterization of this move is "being scared".

Jim Who?

I was impressed with the amount of ink and time that was spent on the story about Mr. Prentice's resignation but I was also wondering why so much time was spent on it.

Really, except for politicos, few Canadians would have been able to pick him out of a lineup two days ago and the same will be true again is a week or two after his picture disappears from the news sites.

All of that speculation as to why he made the decision and its implications for the leadership of the Conservative Party, who cares? This is just another example of how out of touch the professional political class is in relation to ordinary Canadians. A simple announcement would have sufficed.

President Obama Cannot Lose in November

And he might even come out the biggest winner in the end.

The reason he cannot lose is because his job is not up for grabs. He is safely ensconced in the White House for another two years.

The reason he might win is the Republicans taking back one or both chambers of Congress would provide a foil for the President in the coming years. Remember folks, President Clinton enjoyed his greated successes when Congress was controlled by the Republicans.

The reason of course is the Republicans would no longer just be the Opposition bitching about what the Democrats were doing but they would actually have their hands of some of the levers of power in the United States government. The blame for the problems of the country would no longer be solely placed at the feet of the President and the Democrats. The Republicans would have to share that blame and as history has shown in that situation the sitting President usually has the advantage.

I doubt President Obama is hoping the Democrats lose control of Congress in November but I imagine he is not losing any sleep over that prospect either.

The Limits of the Politics of Anger

At any given time the electorate if pissed off about something. That is just the nature of politics, it is the root cause of partisanship and it is the reason why negative advertizing works.

For a politician to be successful they need to be able to tap into that anger. That is the reason why Mr. Ford won his election in Toronto. I followed that election and it was obvious that a significant number of the citizens of Toronto were very angry. At what? Take your pick. It was just a general anger but Mr. Ford did manage to tap into it very effectively.

There is, however, an inherent trap in coming to power on a wave of anger. That trap is two fold. Politicians who win by this means have great expectations placed upon them. If they are unable to meet those expectations the anger that gave them power quickly turns on them. As well, if the politician meets these expectations the anger cools somewhat and those who were angry begin to think clearly and examine what the consequences of the actions of the politicians they put into power and it is often the case that they do not like what they see.

There are many examples of the first part but I will name two.

Larry O'Brien was the Rob Ford candidate in Ottawa four years ago. He was the political outsider railing against the political establishment and tapping into the general anger of the people of Ottawa to the former administration. Although not as bombastic as Mr. Ford he made many of the same promises that Mr. Ford made this time around. Of course, Mr. O'Brien could not keep those promises and the results of the October 25 election speaks for themselves.

The Chretien Liberals came to power on a wave of anger against the GST. Although Jean Chretien never stated that he would get rid of the tax leading up to his victory he did not try to dissuade any Canadian who believed that he would, and there were alot of them. Of course, the Liberals did not repeal the GST and that was a big contributor to Mr. Chretien having his majority reduced from 20+ seats to 5 in 1997 and he would have lost alot more if it were not for the division of the political right handing him virtually every seat in Ontario.

Incidentally, that should be a story Mr. Hudak should take to heart over the next few months.

There are many examples of the second trap as well but I will name one.

Mike Harris rise to power was fueled by anger against Bob Rae. He made all sorts of promises that resonated with the voters on Ontario and they elected him. He did keep his promises and Ontarians gave him a second mandate but the original anger that put him in power faded and Ontarians became more aware of the cost of his promises, with Walkerton being the most dramatic. The result was alot of "buyers' remorse" amongst those who supported him and that resulted in Mr. Harris leaving half way through his second mandate and a massive loss for the Ontario Progressive Conservatives in the subsequent elections.

Tapping into the anger of the electorate is very important requirement if politicians wants to enjoy political success. However, if that is the sole basis of their success they will find that it will be short lived. Anger will not sustain a government for the long-term.

Backfire

The vote on the gun registry last night was a major loss for the Conservatives and it has made abolishing the gun registry in the future much more difficult.

It is true, as many Conservative defenders have pointed out today, the loss will probably assist the Conservatives in their fund-raising and it will energize their base somewhat. However, those defenders are missing or at least failing to acknowledge the big political downside of last night’s vote. I will address that in a minute.

The really interesting thing about last night’s vote is it has probably guaranteed the survival of the registry for the foreseeable future. It should be around for a long time.

For about a decade the Conservatives have had the advantage in the debate about the registry because they could always point to the AG report about the cost overruns in building it and then claim is was expensive waste of money. That has changed. Proponents of the registry have been able to credibly refute that claim by demonstrating that it costs very little to maintain the registry and more importantly that it is considered to be a vital tool by law enforcement. As well, the statements by the Ecole Polytechnique survivors leading up to the vote has reminded a lot of Canadians of why the registry was created in the first place. Those considerations will not be forgotten by Canadians and opponents of the registry will find them hard to overcome. Finally, Parliament has spoken. For all but the most ardent opponents of the registry the issue is resolved. Like SSM and abortion, revisiting this issue would not be a popular move amongst the electorate. Certainly Canadians are not embracing the registry but they are not clamouring for its dismantling either. They are probably satisfied with the outcome of the vote and would like to put the issue to bed. Incidentally, if the vote had gone the other way they would feel the same way and any party which proposed resurrecting the registry would be met with disapproval.

From a political standpoint we need to call a spade a spade. The Conservatives lost a key vote at the beginning of a Parliamentary session after what they would consider to be a summer-from-Hell. Anybody that believes that will not have an impact on their political fortunes going forward is dreaming.

As well, Mr. Harper’s statements after the vote will not help him. I realize he had to make them to assuage is base. However, those statements will not help him beyond that base and they could actually hurt him. The much documented supporters of the registry (eg. Quebecers) will not be happy with such statements and Mr. Harper would be hard pressed to win an election let alone a majority without these registry supporters. Mr. Harper really is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Abolishing the registry is not a winning ballot question in most of the country so he needs to change the channel quickly but he will also have to deal with some in his base that will demand he make this an election issue. It will be interesting to see if he can square that circle.

Another consideration is what the vote did to his opponents. After a successful summer tour the Liberals followed it up with a demonstration of severe unity on this vote. Every Liberal member showed up and every Liberal member voted with the Party. The punditry in this country will ignore that fact of course but it will not be lost on Liberal partisans. This summer and early fall has allowed Liberals to feel good about themselves again and that cannot be good news for the Conservatives.

On top of that the NDP completely flubbed this vote and that has weakened them. The only way Conservatives can win elections in this country is by having the NDP siphon off enough votes from the Liberals to allow the Conservatives to win. If the NDP wanes the Conservatives lose.

At the time it must have seemed like a good idea to the Conservatives to attempt to kill the registry by means of a Private Members Bill. Kill the registry and avoid too much political blowback in the process, its win-win. Unfortunately for them the exact opposite has happened. The debate and the concluding vote have actually made killing the registry much more difficult and in the process the political fortunes of the Conservatives have been harmed. I cannot believe any Conservative can be happy with that outcome.

Somebody please check the temperature in Hell

I actually agree with Maxime Bernier on his statements about not using taxpayers funds for a new hockey arena in Quebec City.

Incidentally, I also do not believe governments should finance similar projects in other cities. If these projects are financially viable those pushing them should have no problems finding private investors.

If they are having difficulties doing so that should be a sign.

I don't think Stephen Harper cares any more

The recent decisions to replace some high profile dissenters within the government bureaucracy and the word out today that the Harper government may not yet be finished doing so is very curious behaviour for a man who wants to retain power.

After a summer of controversy that has totally derailed your plans to hold a Fall election and caused serious harm to Conservative support, the last thing you would want to do is to create more controversy or to give what was once a friendly media more reason to take you to task. (When you have a columnist from the Conservative Party's in-house newspaper calling you a liar over your statements about the replacement of the Gun Registry head you know you have lost the media.)

Stephen Harper and his government are vulnerable and they know it. It all began with the first prorogation and it has just increased from there. That decision put a majority government permanently out of reach for the Harper government but it was not fatal. However, that event did begin a pattern where this government has been mired in controversy for most of its second term. That culminated in the Census decison and the reaction to it, which I am certain took the Conservatives completely by surprise and which Stephen Harper might believe was the tipping point for his government. I am certain they are further surprised by the quiet competence the Liberals have shown with the Liberal Express. If the Liberals can do the same during a real election campaign against a tired and old government the result is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

I have always believed that the first proroguation of Parliament was the beginning of the end of the Harper government and that they would never win another election. It would appear that Stephen Harper now agrees with me.

He has seen the writing on the wall. He knows he will be a former head of government very soon and that there is very little that he can do about it so he is now doing whatever he can to implement the imfamous "hidden agenda" and/or hamstring the Liberals when they take power.

Polled by EKOS

For the first time in my life I received a telephone call from a polling firm asking me about my political preferences. I have been surveyed many times about my favourite toothpaste or radio station but never have I ever been called for a political poll.

It was an automated poll. The system asked me questions and I pressed buttons on my phone to answer.

It was a short poll, only nine questions, of which, five were the standard demographic questions.

The poll asked one question each on whether I thought the country and Ontario were heading in the right or wrong direction.

Then it asked me who I would support if an election were held in Canada and Ontario.

Interesting that they asked the direction questions first. The answers to those questions could influence how someone answers the subsequent party support questions.

Having designed surveys and polls in the past my choice would have been to put the party support questions first. It would make analysis of the estimates from those questions much simpler and reliable. Done the other way I cannot really determine the level of influence the direction questions would have on the party support questions so any analysis of the party support estimates would be much less reliable.

Not that it matters any more as I have been out of that business for almost a decade but I still have an interest in how these companies design their polls.

It was an interesting 3 minutes.

Piling on the straw, part 2

A few days ago I stated in this space that the Census controversy would probably not hurt the Conservatives too much on its own.

With the release of the e-mail exchanges between Tony Clement and StatsCan that could change. This is written proof that the Conservatives lied and then attempted to use StatsCan to cover-up that lie.

If the media decides to pursue this angle in this latest development the Conservatives could find themselves hurt badly by this controversy. These e-mail exchanges could make this whole controversy about the credibility of this government instead of the merits of why they made the decision.

For the past six weeks we have heard mostly about the reasons why the long-form Census should be retained and it is apparent that the Conservatives have taken a hit. If the next week sees the focus switch from the esoteric statistical issues from the first six weeks to issues of Conservative credibility that hit will be much harder.

My only question is will the media pursue this angle? We will have to wait and see.

Is the other shoe dropping?

The word out on the economic front today is American productivity is dropping, and the Canadian housing market is cooling off, which I can attest to as there are two houses on my street that have been up for sale for weeks without even a hint of a sale. This is just more bad economic news to go along announcements of other bad economic news in the past weeks.

The underlying factors that caused the 2008 recession have not gone away. They were only covered up by the trillions of dollars in stimulus funding governments threw at the world economy back then. It is almost a certainty that the problems that caused the recession will rear their ugly heads again once the stimulus funding runs its course. It is just a question of how serious would be their impacts on the world economy.

There have been increasing signs that the world economy is heading towards another economic slowdown. It still remains to be seen whether it will be a full blown recession or just reduced economic growth.

Piling on the straw

It has been over six weeks since the Harper government made their announcement about the long-form census and the controversy is still rumbling along.

I find that amazing. Really, it is the census. I cannot think of much else the government does that could be less controversial. I certainly cannot think of much else that most Canadians would not give a second thought to, even on Census Day. After all, it is just one of those little things we all have to do once in a while.

So let's give the Conservatives credit. They managed to take something as innocuous as the Census and turn it into a full blown political crisis for them.

So will it hurt the Conservatives?

In and of itself, no. However, this is just one more controversy for this government which seems to have been mired in nothing but controversy since their re-election in 2008. Really, can anybody remember a time since then when they have not been trying to put out some kind of fire? Hell, sometimes they are trying to put out more than one at the same time as we witnessed during the detainee document controversy and the concurrent Guergis controversy.

I can guarantee that these non-stop controversies are having a negative impact on the Conservative fortunes and that when they go a controversy too far that negative impact will be politically fatal.

This government was on borrowed time before the Census long-form fiasco and it has just brought them that much closer to the end of their time in government.

Now that is what I am talking about

It hit the news yesterday that an environmental group is taking direct aim at Alberta and urging Americans to rethink any plans they may have in visiting Alberta because of the Oil Sands.

I have seen the billboards and I have seen the video and they are one-sided and full of half-truths. In short this group is engaged in propogating propaganda to Americans about the Alberta and the Oil Sands.

Good on them.

It was really quite amusing this morning to see the Alberta Premier complain about the inaccuracies of the message from this group. He actually sounded like a progressive when they respond to inaccuracies and blatant lies told by the political right. It was quite the role reversal considering his own advertizing campaign expounding the Oil Sands is unadulterated propaganda.

I have argued in this space before that progressives have to begin using these kind of tactics if they want to advance their agendas and their causes in the face of fierce opposition from the political right. The political right on this continent developed and perfected the concept of "truthiness" and they have used it to good effect to advance their causes and agendas. They are still using it.

I read a story today about a tea-bagger group in Iowa putting up billboards that put Obama between Hitler and Lenin. It was an obvious attempt draw parallels between the three men. After cries of outrage they did pull it down and made a mea culpa but the fact they even conceived of and then paid for such advertizing speaks volumes.

Propaganda works. It has always been so. The political right on this continent has figured that out and they have used it to good effect. It is heartening to see that some groups from the progressive side of the political spectrum seems to have figured that out as well.

It is unfortunate that we have to go down this path where debate will essentially become nothing more than competing propaganda campaigns but this is a reality as one of the successes of the right has been the general discrediting of intellectuals and intellectual thought. If progressives are going to rebuild that credibility they are going first going to have to push back the political right and discredit some of its "truthiness". Once that happens progressives can then reassert truth into debates.

This advertizing campaign by the environmental group is a start. I only hope that other progressive organizations follow their example and begin to play the political game to win instead of playing it to be fair.

2B or not 2B

While it is heartening to see the reaction of many to the bone headed decision of the Harper Government to eliminate the long form of the Census it is not so much to see who the reaction is coming from.

It is universally coming from academics, experts, bureaucrats and the media, those folks the Conservatives label the "liberal elite".

I can guarantee that the bleatings of this group is falling upon deaf ears and in fact I would not be surprised if the Conservatives make statements, in the near future, to the effect that they are defending Canadians from intrusiveness of the liberal elites in Canada. My guess, it will come in the form of a request for financial support from the party faithful before the expected fall election.

That would cause the anti-intellectual, knuckle dragging mouth breathers that infest the Conservative Party to shout out a lusty "Ya", while writing cheques, while the rest of the Canadian public would shrug and turn back to their BBQs and the users of the Census long-form data would be left to find the data they need to do their work elsewhere.

Part of the problem for the critics of this decision is they are again using long-winded dissertations on the importance of the data. Certainly, everything they say is based in fact but the Conservatives do not care about facts and Canadians are too busy enjoying their summer to really pay attention.

What the critics have to do is grab the attention of Canadians by showing them how this decision will effect them at personal level. They need to do it in a short and punchy way that allows for the short attention spans of the typical voter.

There are dozens of programs, at all levels of government, that involve writing cheques to Canadians and that use this data in their administration. The critics should identify each and every one of them and make the statement:

"If you receive cheques from any of these programs the decision by the Harper Government on the Census could reduce the amount of that cheque or whether you receive it at all".

Certainly that would be a broad statement but as I have stated in this space before the critics of this government have to stop playing fair and start playing to win. If that means using propaganda then so be it.

Certainly the Conservatives would deny this statement but we all know that the nature of politics is the accusation always receives more play and bigger headlines than the subsequent denial.

This is a party and a government that believes any kind of compromise or conciliation is a form of weakness so this decision is final. However, that does not mean that the critics of this decision cannot make the government regret it.

Liberal Majority Government by 2015, at the latest

Governments have life-spans.

At the federal level in this country that life-span is generally 8 years and/or two consecutive elections. It is very rare for a government to last more than eight years or for a government to win more than two successive elections. That is why Jean Chrétien’s feat of winning three straight majority governments and governing for 11 straight years is considered such an extraordinary political achievement.

As the life of a government progresses it is inevitable that Canadians begin looking for a change. That desire usually begins to manifest itself around year 6 of the life of the government or soon after they win a second straight mandate. The Conservatives have won two back-to-back mandates and they have been in government for 5-and-a-half years and we are beginning to see that desire for change. From their polling numbers being in the low 30s to the media reaction to the Fake Lake, which would have been ignored by them two years ago, there are signs that the desire for change is slowly but surely building. The Conservatives are already on borrowed time.

So, how will we get to a Liberal majority by the middle of this decade? Assuming there is an election this fall, as many believe, the following five scenarios are the likeliest outcomes.

1a) Liberal Minority government: If the Liberals win the government in the fall Stephen Harper is gone from politics and all of a sudden it is the Conservatives that would be in disarray. They would be the Official Opposition Party suffering through questions of leadership, dealing with fundraising issues as donations become fragmented between the various leadership candidates, and dealing with questions about party unity as a leadership race inevitably opens up rifts between the candidates and their various camps within the party. These problems would not be resolved and the new leader would not have enough time to get his act together in time for the next election which would probably be 18-24 months after the 2010 election.

We also cannot forget about the possibility that the loss of the-discipline-of-power might cause a rift to develop along the old Tory/Reform Party fault line within that party which would highlight and amplify any questions about party unity and could do long-term damage to the Conservatives.

This scenario could also see the replacement of one or more of the other federal party leaders, which would break the current political logjam and leave Michael Ignatieff as one of the “seasoned” federal leaders going into the election after the next one.

We cannot forget some of the questionable funding decisions from the stimulus program and the G-20 summit that would probably come out during that period and there might even be some revelations from the Afghan detainee documents.

Finally, the media would fall over itself to curry favour with the new government. The corporate bosses that run our MSM are always looking for something from the government and being overly critical of the party in power is not conducive to successful lobbying efforts. So we would see a much more positive media environment for the Liberals while a not so good one for the Conservatives.

Combine all of the above and it is very likely that we would see a Liberal majority government after the election following the next one, probably in 2011 or 2012.

1b) Conservative minority government and Stephen Harper resigns as leader of the Conservatives: In this situation the Conservatives would be going through the process described in 1a) plus attempting to govern at the same time. That never works. It just provides voters with more incentive to make a change.

I am making no assumptions about how Stephen Harper leaves his job (ie. Is he pushed?) but it would have an impact on Conservative fortunes during a subsequent election.

The new leader would also have to deal with the Harper record, which could include some rather damning reports from the AG when she reports on the stimulus and G-20 spending.

1c) Conservative minority government and Stephen Harper stays on: The Conservatives would be saddled with the problem they face now but more magnified. They would be in the same position that Paul Martin found himself in after the 2004 election. They would be in government but Canadians would grow increasingly disenchanted with them and Stephen Harper so that at the next opportunity they would make a change.

Again, I am making no assumptions about how Stephen Harper hangs on to his job or how firm his hold would be on it.

Finally, if Stephen Harper reacts to any AG reports critical of the stimulus and G-20 spending as he usually responds to criticism he will just be reinforcing the desire for change.

For both 1b and 1c we would see a change in the media narrative as it becomes somewhat more positive to the Liberals and somewhat more negative to the Conservatives. The corporate bosses of our MSM would not want to offend the Conservatives too much but they would also want to make some inroads with the Liberals as it would be apparent to them that a change of government is inevitable and imminent.

The likely result of the next election after 2010 for 1b and 1c is a Liberal victory, likely by a very large margin. That election would probably occur in late 2011 or early 2012.

2) Liberal majority government: In this situation the Liberals beat my assumption by 5 years and not much more needs to be said.

3) Conservative majority government: This situation would provide the Liberals with the opportunity to renew itself without the constant pressure of being ready for an election. They would be able to fundraise, develop policy, renew the party and, if they desire, change leaders in a more orderly manner. As an added bonus, the prospect of not even being able to compete for power for another four years would cause all of the current crop of hangers on and hacks to leave the party. Most of these people are only involved because they believe they will be rewarded with lucrative jobs when the Liberals win the government so they would desert because very few of them would want to put their careers on hold for four years.

As for the Conservatives, by the time the next election comes along in 2014 they would be beyond stale and the desire for change would be quite high. This is assuming having unshackled power does not bring out the baser instincts of the Conservatives and/or Stephen Harper does something to keep them under control. If this assumption is incorrect then that desire for change becomes very intense which would probably increase the margin of victory for the Liberals in 2014 and potentially greatly damage the Conservative Brand. As well, this government acts in a dictatorial manner in a minority situation so it can only be imagined how it would act with a majority. Mike Harris and Brian Mulroney ran their governments in that fashion and you just need to look at what happened to them and their governments after their last elections to see how that would turn out for the Conservatives.

In all probability Stephen Harper would leave at some point during a majority mandate forcing the Conservatives to choose a new leader before the 2014 election. That would leave a new leader trying to defend the record of his predecessor and leading an old government. You only need to look at the fate of Ernie Eves, Paul Martin, Kim Campbell and John Turner to see what usually happens in those situations.

For all of these scenarios I do not make any assumptions about unforeseen events, such a natural disasters, economic downturns or economic upturns. These kinds of events could have an impact but that impact would only delay or accelerate the inevitable it would change it.

We will see the end of the political limbo that we have been living under for the past half decade or so after the next election. At that point the Liberals will be on the road to forming a majority government before the middle of this decade.

Earthquake Question

Considering an earthquake hit Toronto was a tsunami warning issued for the Fake Lake?

Perspective please

Two issues seem to have some Liberals a little miffed at the Liberal Party. The first is the Afghan detainee documents deal and the other is the foreign policy positions outlined by Mr. Ignatieff.

To the first point if this whole exercise was about Parliamentary supremacy then the Opposition has succeeded in making it so. The government actually argued that they were not required to release these documents to Parliament. They have been forced to reverse that position completely as a result of Parliament, in the persons of Opposition MPs, asserting that Parliament is supreme.

If this whole exercise was just a political gambit then I could see why some people would be a little upset with the agreement. After all, we will probably not see the quick release of these documents as a result of this agreement. Then again that was never going to happen anyway as the wheels of our Parliamentary system have never been known to turn quickly.

The principle of Parliamentary supremacy has been defended with this deal. If that is your main concern in this issue you should find this agreement satisfactory. If your main concern is using this issue as a weapon against the Conservatives then I guess you have reason to be upset.

As to the second issue I have to agree that I am not completely happy with all of the foreign policy positions outlined by Mr. Ignatieff but as a whole it is a damn sight better than the foreign policy being pursued by the current government. Since this is just a proposal it is not written in stone and it can be changed as circumstances dictate going forward, particularly when the Liberals become the governing party.

Fox News North, whatever

I feel no need to worry about such a channel up here in Canada.

Looking down South, it has the genuine article but all of its efforts could not prevent the Republicans from being crushed in the 2008 election. They lost the Presidency, the House and the Senate despite Fox News' best efforts.

Looking in Canada, the current MSM has been carrying Stephen Harper's water for over half a decade and he still has not been able to close the deal with Canadians. Hell, he actually seems to be regressing.

What "success" the Sun papers have had has been the result of the fact they are easy and quick to read while riding the bus to work. Hell, I have even picked up a discarded copy from time to time to read the sports section. That will not translate in a TV news station.

The National Post is the self-professed Conservative newspaper in this country and it is losing money hand over fist. So much so that it might be purchased by the Toronto Star. (The irony is delicious)

In short, from a political partisan standpoint Fox North will probably not change the political landscape in this country and it will probably be as financially successful as the Sun papers and the National Post.

I have better things to worry about besides this.

Mr. Ignatieff, ignore the noise and focus

Modern politics seems to conspire to distract political parties from what is important. It is a function of a media that gave up reporting the news in favour of infotainment a long time ago and the fact most modern politicians are so bereft of ideas that they have to resort to hyper-partisanship to appear relevant.

Mr. Ignatieff you need to rise above all of this.

It is a reality that most people vote against something as opposed to voting for something. That is why negative advertizing works and that is the root cause of partisanship. If it were the other way around our Parliament would be a hotbed of debate about different ideas on how to make the lives of Canadians better instead of the juvenile crap we see there now.

However, despite this reality a political party still needs to be able to present ideas and, dare I say it, vision to really enjoy success. That is one reason why the Conservatives have never won a majority government. They have figured out the "vote against" reflex of the average voter but they have not been able to take it to the next level because they are a complete failure on the "vision" front.

The Conservatives have been presenting you with all sorts of ammunition for you to begin convincing Canadians that they need to vote against these clowns. I do not believe they have gone one week since Parliament resumed where they have not been defending some kind of bonehead decision, the Fake Lake being the latest in a long line. You and I both know that these are the kinds of things that plant the seed in the electorate that will germinate into a desire for change over time or during an election campaign.

However, you need to do more. You need to present a vision or at least an election theme. The campaigns of seemingly random election promises are not working. They have not worked for the Liberals in the last three elections and they have only been marginally more successful for the Conservatives.

You do not need to present individual policy proposal yet. The ground is not ready for that anyway. When the time comes you will need to present these proposals in the context of an overarching theme if you are to take increasing anger at the Conservatives and turn it to Liberal advantage.

Last Fall, when you gave your non-confidence speech in the House of Commons, you articulated just such a theme. I blogged back then that the theme you talked about was a proven winner in this country and I urged you to follow through on it. I am quite disappointed that you did not, however it is not too late.

You have a summer BBQ season coming up so you should spend that entire period talking about your vision. At every event talk to Canadians about how you believe government can be an agent of good in the lives of Canadians, using topical examples such as the oil spill in the Gulf to demonstrate your point. Talk about your vision for Canada and where you would like it to be in the next 5 to 10 years and beyond. In short, establish the broad objectives of a Liberal government under you so that when you begin to present individual policy proposals during the next election Canadians can put them into some context and see how they would achieve the objectives you have outlined.

The Conservative have been planting the seeds of their own defeat since Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament the first time. They will be ripe for the taking during the next election so you need to prepare Canadians to accept the idea of a Liberal government. Letting the Conservatives self-destruct will go along way in doing that but if you really want to seal the deal you will need to provide them with an alternative that they can like.

You only have the summer to do that so I would suggest you focus on that and not worry about the rest of the political noise out there right now.

Look past the next election

One thing about all of this merger talk is it is motivated solely by short-term considerations.

However, if you look past the next election there is no political logic to the NDP joining the Liberals and the idea of a merged Liberal/NDP Party should scare the shit out of the Conseratives. Such a situation would eliminate the NDP from the federal political scene and ensure the Liberals are the dominent party in this country for the foreseeable future.

As I stated in my previous blog the Liberals have dominated the Canadian federal political scene for more than half a century despite the centre-left being divided between two parties. The simple fact of Canadian politics is the progressive habit runs deep and there has not been any signs that it is changing.

So, imagine what would happen in the Canadian political scene if there were only two political parties, one a conservative party the other a liberal party. Liberal dominance would be virtually guaranteed.

I know many would dispute that assertion but just look at the last 60 years. In all but two cases the Conservatives only won government because the NDP siphoned off enough votes from the Liberals to hand them victory. The two exceptions are the first election of the Chief and the 1984 election. However, you only need to look at the 1988 Free Trade election to see what I am talking about. The Conservatives won that election with 43% of the vote. That leaves the remainder voting against them. Fortunately, the NDP took enough of that 57% away from the Liberals to deny them government. Just imagine if that election would have been fought between just the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives. Joe Clark's experience really sheds a light on that dynamic. Then there is Stephen Harper who has only won his minorities because Jack Layton has managed to increase his seat count in Parliament to the detriment of the Liberals. Again, imagine if the NDP did not exist.

Of course, you cannot just add up the Liberal popular vote and the NDP popular vote and think that they would mesh perfectly. Some Liberals would go to the Conservatives, but not that many, and some Dippers would refuse to join the new party but enough of them would put power over principle to make the new party the dominent party on the federal scene.

I am certain that some NDP supporters would disagree with my assertion that the NDP would be eliminated but you only need to look at the two "partners" in the proposed merger. Despite its current problems the Liberals are bigger, better financed and they have the better party apparatus than the NDP. We only need to look at the "merger" between the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance to see what happens to the smaller party in such a situation. A merger between the Liberals and the NDP would be a takeover and nothing else. The NDP and its ideals would cease to exist on the federal scene, much like old time Toryism has disappeared from federal politics.

Looking past the short-term a political merger between the Liberals and the NDP makes no sense from an NDP point-of-view. It would be political suicide for them. That is why you can probably believe Jack Layton when he states that he does not want to merge the two parties.

As for Conservatives you had better pray that it does not come to pass if you are entertaining any ideas of becoming a more competative political party in the 21st century.

For the Liberals, such a merger would be advantageous to you in the longer-term but not so much in the short-term. I would wager a sizable chunk of money that you will be enjoying majority government status by the middle of this decade without a merger so you have no real need to make it happen at present. Who knows, once the dynamic I described in my previous post re-asserts itself, and the NDP is struggling to maintain official party status, maybe then discussions can be opened up to take over the NDP.

Why would any Liberal suggest a deal with the NDP right now?

The short answer is fear. They believe it is the only way to defeat Stephen Harper. The logic of those making this suggestion is the centre-left is divided so it needs to be united in order to take on the big bad Conservatives.

The biggest hole in that logic is the centre-left in this country has been divided for over 60 years. With the exception of the 1990s, the centre-right in this country has had only one party to represent it for the last 6 decades yet in those 60 years the Liberals have dominated the Canadian federal political scene.

You see, the pattern in this country for the past 60 years is the Liberals govern, often for long stretches at a time. As usually happens, with long standing governments, they get tired, they run out of ideas and the electorate decides it is time for a change. At that point Liberal support tends to bleed to the NDP in sufficient numbers that the a conservative party forms a government. Then when Canadians grow tired of that government those that lent their votes to the NDP go back to the Liberals, often in very big numbers. In short, Canadians believe there are only two parties that can be trusted to govern. The Liberals and their conservative alternative.

We have seen no evidence that this pattern has changed. Yes some would point to the polls indicating that Jack Layton is the most popular federal leader right now but one thing about respondents to polls is they know that they can answer the question any way the like without consequences. No government has fallen and no party ever formed a government based on a poll from Nanos, Ekos, Strategic Council, et al.

It is only the ballot box, where the decision of a voter has profound consequences, where we should be looking and it you look there it is as plain as Stephen Harper's hair style that the decades old voting pattern is still alive. Despite Adscam, the Liberals came in second in the 2006 election and despite the worst showing of the Liberal Party since 1984 the Liberals still have double the seats of the NDP after the 2008 election.

The spanner in the works is the Bloc. It is a big enough force in Quebec to be a problem. However, twice in this decade it looked like their grip on Quebec was loosening only to have the two big parties give them another lease on life. The Liberals did it with Adscam in 2006 and the Conservatives did it with their policy proposal of locking up 14 year olds and attacking the arts in 2008. Long standing stalwarts of the seperatist movement have called into question the whole concept so if the Liberals can exploit that and provide Quebecers a reason to vote Liberal again they should be able to whither the Bloc.

The other argument is Canadians are becoming more conservative. Again the ballot box proves that argument wrong.

A third argument is Conservative voters are more motivated while progressive voters have washed their hands of politics. Again, the ballot box prove that argument wrong and when Canadians finally decide to rid themselves of the Conservative government they will come out to vote to do so. It is funny, whenever Canadians become motivated to get rid of a government voter turnout goes up. We saw that with Brian Mulroney's, Jean Chretien's and Stephen Harper's first election victories.

There is no reason for the Liberals to make a deal with the NDP right now. The current Conservative government has passed its best before date. There is a malaise in the electorate right now that will change into a desire for change. Once that happens many voter who deserted the Liberals will come back to them. Liberals should be patient and not let fear cloud their judgement or make them do something that would be counter-productive in the extreme.

If after the next election the Liberals are in a position to form a government and they need help from another party to do so then seeking that help from the NDP should be an option. Until then just focus on being an effective opposition and winning the next election.

Do the Liberals have a hidden agenda?

There has been a fair amount of complaining about the Liberals and the fact they have not bothered to release even a part of their election platform and that they do not stand for anything. Many are saying this is the reason why the Liberals are not doing so well in the polls.

We, of course, have seen this before. Leading up to the 2006 election Stephen Harper talked about nothing but Adscam and absolutely refused to talk about anything else. At the time it was assumed that the reason for this was he had a hidden agenda. So that must be the reason for the Liberals reluctance to release any policy.

So, what is that hidden agenda? Do they have one?

Or are we just seeing again that it sucks to be the Official Opposition in this country?

Some Thoughts

I have been way too busy to blog in depth about what has been going on these days so I thought I would just summarize some of them.

The polls: As many have noticed the polls have not been giving any of the three national parties any love. There does seem to be a general malaise amongst the electorate.

Although this is not good news for any party right now it is the Conservatives that should be the most worried about it. It does not take long for this kind of malaise to morph into a desire for change. Once that happens there is not much the government can do to stop it and Mr. Harper's own experience should tell him that once that does take root even an Opposition Leader who has been largely written off can win an election.

The Conservatives know this as demonstrated by my second point.

The Conservative capitulation on the Afghan detainee documents: No media have characterized the deal as such but considering the lengths the government went to prevent their release, the statements, a month ago, by senior Conservative officials about calling an election before they would release them and the fact that the government agreed to each and every major demand by the Opposition would indicate they completely surrendered on this issue.

They are afraid of an election and I only hope the Opposition are aware of that fact and begin to use it to their advantage.

Abortion: This particular Djinni has been let out of the bottle and the Conservatives have been trying to stuff it back in ever since.

It still boggles my mind that the great chess master actually let it out. The Conservatives have been playing with fire for over a year by throwing red meat at their base while risking alienating the broader electorate in the process. They have more or less escaped each one of these instances without damaging themselves too much but their luck cannot hold indefinitely and they might have just run out of it this time.

I still question why the Conservatives feel the need to keep shoring up their base. I have stated in this space before that I believe they see something happening within their base that frightens them and this latest episode just reinforces that belief.

Auditor General wanting to audit Member's expences: To what end?

Sorry folks but I am going to have to disagree with the consensus.

It is very common for senior public servants to build empires and our AG has shown herself as being very adept at doing so. This is just more of her empire building and it should be nipped in the bud. There are much greater issues with how this government spends our tax dollars that should be investigated before looking at how individual Members spend their 200K a year office budgets.

The Stanley Cup playoffs: Go Habs Go!

The elections in Britain: Interesting result but it has no bearing on our politics in Canada. It is a different political culture with different values and different personalities. Our form of government may be based on theirs but that is as far as the similarities go.

As well, any similarities that are pointed out about their situation and the ones here miss the mark. For this election the Brits were actually in the same spot we were in 2006. A government that had been in power for a long time, a great desire for change amongst the electorate, but a distrust of the change presented by the only viable alternative to the government. So, the electorate opted for change but they also opted to keep the new government on a tight leash.

That is the limit of any similarities however because the winner of their election decided to enter into a formal agreement with one of its opponents as opposed to trying to govern alone. Once the British Conservatives made that agreement they and the governance of Britain started down a much different path than the ones we have been on for the last four years.

You know you are desperate when...

You spend a whole week talking about the statements of a pollster.

To my Conservative friends if the only thing you can think of to attempt to put some daylight between yourself and your chief political opponent is to attack a pollster you guys are in serious trouble.

Wanted: One Prime Minister, a person with ideas need not apply

I took in some of the recent Thinker's Conference on the weekend and followed it some more by reading the various blogs of folks who attended. All in all I would say it was a success.

However, to judge by the reaction in some of the media you would expect that it was an unmitigated disaster. It is an interesting reaction as the event ran smoothly and there was a good exchange of ideas on many different issues.

And therein lies the problem with this event. The media does not do ideas. They prefer to act as "political strategists" even though they are not very good at it and even though there are much greater issues they should be concerned with.

Part of the reason for this is the generation of ideas in this country as become industrialized like many other sectors of our economy and it is an industry that is dominated by corporate interests.

You only need to take a look at all of the "experts" that now weigh in on many of the issues of the day. They are from banks, various interest groups, and industry groups such as The Conference Board. Then there are the lobbyists. They are now the ones that generate most of the ideas for government but only for the highest bidder.

The idea industry reflects the general lack of innovation of the corporations it supports. Canadian corporations do not care about innovation or ideas. Their job is largely to manage their corporations in a way that contributes to the profits of their parent company, whether they be in the US, Europe or China. For them coming up with good ideas is to rock the boat, which is something they do not want to do and they want to be certain that the Canadian government supports their endeavours so it cannot rock the boat either.

The Thinker's Conference goes directly against that. Not only did the conference have a diversity of opinion it also had a diversity of the sources of that opinion. The corporate interests were not the only voices and ideas presented.

This would not be so bad except that the Liberals have had two big thinkers as successive leaders. They have had leaders that can take ideas and synthesize them into policies that could upset the status quo. It is even worse that the current Liberal leader takes every opportunity to acquire the opinions of ordinary folks. That, combined with some of the ideas expressed on the weekend, combined with a big thinker holding down the position of Leader of the Opposition is not something to make the heart of some Canadian corporate leader flutter with delight.

That is the kind of thing they would want to discourage and since all of the media is this country is owned by those same corporate leaders we see a generally negative reaction to what should be a positive idea, a politician listening to people to determine what are their priority isses and how they might resolve them.

It could be argued that after almost 20 years of having managers running our country that we could use an ideas person for the next Prime Minister to help bring us fully into the new century.

How do we overcome voter ignorance?

It seems many Liberals want to have an election on Parliamentary Supremacy. Such enthusiasm is based on the assumption that Canadians will embrace the argument Mr. Harper is defying Parliament so he needs to be kicked out of government for it.

While I agree with the sentiment it is not an argument I would consider to be a strong one.

One reason is the ignorance of Canadians with regards to the workings of their political system. The coalition argument last year should be a demonstration of that. What I would like to see is a poll asking respondents "What is the Prime Minister and the government responsible to in our system of government?"

I would bet a sizable chunk of money that a large majority of them would respond with "to the voters", instead of the right answer which is to Parliament.

Stephen Harper exploited that ignorance last year to good effect and I believe him and his people are coming up with another campaign to do it again. It will be based on lies, but it will be easy to understand and it will sound plausible. All he needs to do is neutralize this issue in the campaign but if he can turn it against the Opposition to carry him to victory that would be gravy.

The Opposition will have the much greater burden. They want to not only keep this issue front and centre in the campaign but they want to make certain that it fatally wounds the Conservatives in the process. They have the truth on their side but as I have stated in this space before progressives always have the facts on their side but they always seem to lose arguments to the right anyway because they just cannot seem to present the facts in a way that grabs the audience. We have seen that with gun control, health care and taxes to name just three issues. I have serious doubts they will be any more successful on such an esoteric concept as Parliamentary Supremacy.

A second reason, which helps explain the first one, is successive Prime Ministers have been marginalizing Parliament for the last 40 years or so. They have concentrated power more and more in the PMO and the Executive and they have reduced the average Parliamentarian to a barking seal.

Now the Opposition wants to fight an election asserting Parliamentary Supremacy?

That is what we are faced with. I have yet to see an argument put forward by Liberals, either at the official or grassroots level, that would be able to overcome voter ignorance and what will be a very concerted effort by Mr. Harper and the Conservatives to exploit that to their benefit.

Until that happens I just will not be as enthusiastic about fighting an election on this issue as many other Liberals seem to be.

Parliamentary Supremacy is not a political gambit

I know that I am in the minority but I still have many reservations with the idea of having an election where the central theme of the Liberals or any of the Opposition parties is the supremacy of Parliament.

Having an election based on that concept is not the slam dunk that many Liberals believe it would be. The result could be a serious setback for the central concept of Responsible Government.

Elections decide questions. If the next election asks Canadians to choose between Parliamentary Supremacy and something else that the Conservatives present as a rebuttal and the Conservatives win then a basic concept of Responsible Government would be seriously weakened, perhaps permanently.

We need to be careful not to let short-term political opportunity cause great harm to the future health of our institutions. Yes, the fact Mr. Harper is defying Parliament is outrageous but he is just one man and his defiance will not cause permanent harm to the institution.

That will only happen if the Opposition decides to use that defiance as a political gambit and fails.

Unless the Liberals have something else with which to combat the Conservatives so that they can use Mr. Harper's defiance as just another example of Mr. Harper's style of government ande his unsuitability to occupy the office he is currently occupying they should be very careful on this issue.

Mr. Harper does not care about our institutions. He has proven that over and over again. It is up to those of us who do to safeguard them. If that means letting a political opportunity go by then sobeit.

The Opposition did some thinking this week

For a couple of weeks there have been rumblings from sources in the PMO that Stephen Harper would call an election if the Opposition attempted to invoke Parliamentary privilege in their desire to see the Afghan detainee documents.

I had serious reservations about the Liberals doing just that as indicated in my last post.

However, the actions by the three opposition parties shows that they did some thinking before taking action. They did not just react in a knee-jerk fashion they actually did some planning.

Presenting a united front on this issue is crucial. If it were just the Liberals doing this the Conservatives could have invoked National Security for not releasing the documents and accused the Liberals of just playing partisan games. As well, if all three opposition parties are singing from the same hymn book on this, at least for a little while, then it will likely carry much more weight than if just one party is invoking privilege.

As well, the questions from today have not actually set any mechanisms in motions for finding the government in contempt of Parliament. They essentially just formalize what the Opposition has been saying informally for months. They, as Parliamentarians, have the right to see the Afghan detainee documents.

Again, this is important because it takes away the government's ability to conflate a contempt charge with lack of confidence in the government. If the government wants to use an election to stop the release of these documents they will have to call it. There is nothing in today's Opposition questions that can be construed as the Opposition not having confidence in the government.

So what happens now?

In all likelihood we will see the government squirm some more. The amount of squirming is going to depend on how far ahead the Opposition Parties thought beyond today. They are going to need follow through on this and part of that follow through will be to educate Canadians on the meaning of Parliamentary Supremacy. As well, they are going to have to be ready to take the next step and introduce a motion of contempt. They cannot reverse themselves from the course they charted today.

Ultimately, I do believe we will have an election over this. There is no way Stephen Harper will allow himself to just meekly take a contempt charge from the Opposition. However, if the Opposition has the forethought to use the time between then and and now to give Canadians a crash course in the meaning of Responsible Government this issue could very well fatally damage the Conservatives' chances of re-election.

The ground is not ready

The terms of reference for the detainee document review has been released and predictably they just prove that the whole exercise is a stall tactic.

Equally predictably many in the Liberal blogsphere are demanding that the Liberals table the Contempt of Parliament motion and dare Mr. Harper to call an election over it. Of course, they assume that such an action would be political suicide so he would not do it.

Such assumptions are wrong because they are based on a false premise. It is believed that if the Conservatives call an election to prevent being held in Contempt of Parliament and to prevent the release of what could be very damaging documents that the electorate will punish the Conservatives badly.

What many are forgetting is leading up to the dissolution of Parliament the Conservatives would be screaming that they are doing so in the interests of National Security. Meanwhile, the Opposition will be screaming about Parliamentary Supremacy. Considering how the Conservatives managed to exploit Canadians' ignorance of their own political system to make the idea of a coalition government very unpopular 14 months ago Liberals should not be too confident that they will come out on the winning end of an argument between National Security and Parliamentary Supremacy.

At the very least there are enough Conservative apologists in the media who would help the Conservatives muddy the waters enough to neutralize the detainee documents issue as an election issue. That would mean the election would be fought on other issues and as many in the same Liberal blogsphere have pointed out the Liberals do not seem to have many policies to campaign on at the moment.

So, putting forward the Contempt motion right now might be problematic because the Canadian people are not prepared for it. Remember, the opposition to proroguing the House in the country, earlier this winter, centred around MPs taking a "holiday". The detainee documents were barely on the radar for most ordinary Canadians.

The groundwork needs to be done before this issue can really be used to hurt the Conservatives. Unfortunately, that has not happened and it is pretty late in the game to begin doing so. The Liberals had almost three months to do just that and to develop a coherent plan of attack when Parliament resumed and they failed to do both.

As an aside I am having serious doubts about Mr. Ignatieff. He is faced with a principle opponent who is making all sorts of serious political errors. If Mr. Harper were facing someone with even half of the political instincts that Misters Chretien, Trudeau or Mulroney had he would be toast. Fortunately for him he is not facing that. Mr. Ignatieff is making it easier for him.

The Conservatives will still probably lose the next election because they are just getting old and tired and it is showing. However, it will be a rather indecisive defeat which will have us dealing with yet another weak minority government.

Finally, do not fear for Parliament. The Canadian Parliament has been in existance since before Confederation. There is very little that the current dickhead and his minions can do to really harm that institution. It will be in existance long after Stephen Harper's government is tossed into the dustbin of history.

You should only fear for Parliament if the next Liberal government, saddled with a minority government and facing a hostile House decides that Mr. Harper was on to something in his actions of the past 15 months. That is when I will begin worrying about Canada's Parliamentary Democracy.