The Plane! The Plane!

"My guess is they will be on the lookout for any mistake by Mr. Dion or the Liberals so that they can hype it up while they will ignore or at least downplay any errors by Mr. Harper and the Conservatives."

I saw the CTV news tonight and heard Bob Fife do exactly what I stated the media would do a few days ago.

Apparently, the Liberals are finalizing the arrangements for their campaign plane and since they have not done it yet Mr. Fife tells Canadians that this is sign of disarray in the Liberal campaign. Let us leave aside that it does take time to find a suitable aircraft, particularly since it has to carry not only Mr. Dion and his entourage but it also has to carry all of the parasites, er I mean, the national media that will be following Mr. Dion. Let us leave aside that they will have finalized the arrangements by tomorrow. As well, let us not forget that they will not be using the plane until the campaign begins so they did not need to have the final arrangements made until tomorrow. No, Mr. Fife has to hype up this situation.

Oh and to add to it, apparently the airplane the Liberals do not have yet is a 737, which Mr. Fife states is a gas guzzling aircraft. How can a man who is running on the environment use a gas guzzler intones Mr. Fife. Oh the horror, the horror!! To which I ask, if the Liberals do not have an airplane yet how does Mr. Fife know that the Liberals will be using a 737? As well, all large wide bodied jets guzzle jet fuel like crazy but Mr. Fife neglects to tell Canadians that little fact.

Liberals should have no doubts about how the media will view them and present them to Canadians in the next couple of weeks and they should be prepared for it. They will not catch any breaks so they are going to have to manufacture those breaks for themselves.

Why am I surprised?

I have to admit that I am truly surprised by the media's resurrection of the idea of the possibility of the Conservatives winning a majority government. And I am surprised and perturbed that I am surprised about them doing so.

The media talked about the prospect of the Conservative majority for the first year or so of their government but then it stopped because events began to overtake their narrative. The Conservatives began to drift downwards until they were tied with the Liberals and they remained so for the last six to nine months. Indeed, less than ten days ago two very reputable polling firms put the Conservatives slightly behind while another polling firm that usually overstates Conservative support said they were tied and in the low 30 range.

Then the media released some polls this past week that showed the Conservatives spiking into the high 30 range this week. There of course, was no explanation of why this happened or of what circumstances would have brought this about. No analysis, nothing. Instead they just lept to the "Conservative majority" idea again.

And I was surprised. I would have thought they would have taken into account the situation from the last 6 to 9 months and tempered their narrative a bit or at least try to give some explanation of why there was a sudden change. Silly me, I know how the media works so I should not be surprised and I am very disappointed in my own naivté.

Oh well, live and learn.

Now that my cynicism about our MSM has been renewed and reinforced I can say that I do not believe this narrative any more than I believe any other narrative they have peddled over the last 20 years. I have observed way too many elections to believe what the media says at the beginning of them will reflect what the reality will be at the end of them. The narrative could be right but I would wager a fair amount that it will be flat wrong so I will wait until mid October and see what happens.

But I am still quite upset with myself for letting them surprise me.

Welcome to 2004

I am always amazed at how history repeats itself in politics. It must be because no politician has had an original thought on how to win elections since the creation of representative democracy.

In 2004 Paul Martin was riding high in the polls, with personal leadership ratings 25 points higher than Stephen Harper and his party in the low 40% range while the Conservatives were around 15 points back. Every newspaper in the country was stating without reservation that Mr. Martin would weather the sponsorship scandal storm and win a majority government. The main reason of course was those polling numbers and the fact the media firmly believed that Mr. Harper would never be able to beat Mr. Martin and the Big Red Machine.

The Liberals apparently believed this hype themselves because their election strategy for the 2004 campaign was to highlight the superior leadership qualities of Paul Martin compared to Mr. Harper.

The first part of that strategy was to release a series of negative attack ads that were directed straight at Mr. Harper. No talk of policy just an attempt to paint Mr. Harper as a dogmatic, neo-conservative "Alberta Firewall" ideologue who could not be trusted with power. The next part of the strategy was to release a series of positive ads depicting Mr. Martin as the steady hand and friendly everyman. The final part of the strategy was to trash Mr. Harper at every turn during the actual campaign. The Liberal Red Book that year was very thin as the Party did not really develop much of an election platform.

Does all of this sound familier?

We all know what happened next. By the final weekend of the election the Liberals and the Conservatives were statistically tied in the polls with the Liberals having lost almost 10 points of support, with most of that going to the Conservatives and the rest going to the NDP and the Bloc. They made a slight recovery in the final weekend and their net loss was only 7 points with a result being a minority government.

Of course there are differences. Mr. Harper will not have the mother of all political scandals hanging over his head. He will have a few, including one where video of the RCMP raiding Conservative Party Headquarters was taken by Liberal Party cameramen, so we could be seeing that video again in the next few weeks. However, they are small compared to what Mr. Martin had to deal with.

Then again Mr. Martin could boast a multi-billion government surplus and he was running as the government when the Canadian economy was running on all cylinders. As well, he was not saddled with a war in a far off land and a casualty rate that could hit the psychologically important century mark during the course of the election campaign.

As well, Mr. Harper was kind enough to have an election platform as thin as the Liberal platform. There was not much to it. It remains to be seen if the Conservatives will have a comprehensive platform this time around or if they will stick to the "five priorities" strategy that he employed with some success in 2006.

The final big difference is now Mr. Harper is running as the leader of the government. Many pundits have pointed out the fact this will be his third campaign but it will be the first where he will be running as the head honcho. He will no longer have the luxury of running without having a record to defend. He will no longer have the luxury of being able to attack another party without them having plenty of ammunition to fire back. He will be the primary target for all of the other parties this time around and he will be subject to relentless attacks from them. He has never reacted well to criticism so it will be interesting to see how he reacts to almost six weeks of it.

Mr. Martin's decision to make the 2004 election about him and his leadership turned out to be an almost fatal political mistake. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Harper's decision to do the same thing will result in a different outcome.

How will this election play in the media?

That is one of the intangibles in the upcoming election.

The current media narrative is not positive for the Liberals. After months of not mentioning the notion of a Conservative majority government, because the Conservatives were drifting in the other direction, many media pundits have resurrected the idea. Of course it is based on a couple of polls that suddenly show the Conservatives in the high 30 range after they had been sitting in the low 30s for more than six months. The media fails to mention why such a sudden change took place especially since nothing dramatic has happened in the last two weeks. Unless, of course you include more bad economic news in Ontario, an outbreak of a potentially deadly infection borne by tainted meat products, casualties climbing in the war in Afghanistan, Stephen Harper breaking his own fixed-elections law, and almost universal accounts that the Conservatives were about to take a beating in four by-elections. I am certain all of these events explain the sudden rise in Conservative fortunes being touted by the media.

My God, they must think Canadian are idiots.

So what can we expect for the election?

My guess is they will be on the lookout for any mistake by Mr. Dion or the Liberals so that they can hype it up while they will ignore or at least downplay any errors by Mr. Harper and the Conservatives. That mean the Liberals will have a great deal of pressure in them for the first couple of weeks. If they can get through the first couple of weeks relatively unscathed they will be in good shape.

The Liberals will have to hammer Stephen Harper while staying on message with regard to their platform. They will need to be disciplined. That does not mean Stephane Dion will have to muzzle his team. It does, however, mean that the Liberals will need to avoid another "Beer and Popcorn" moment, which was the most hyped moment in the 2006 election. How an off the cuff remark by a party apparatchik can become a three day story just demonstrates how bankrupt is our media. But I digress.

They will also have to realize that the media cares more about strategy than policy. So while they should be releasing their policies as the election goes on they will have to keep a close eye on their overall election strategy and that of the Conservatives.

Media narratives can change on a dime during elections.

• In 1984, the narrative was John Turner would win the election for the Liberals over the inexperienced Brian Mulroney.
• In 1993, the narrative was Kim Campbell would hang on to government over yesterday's man Jean Chretien.
• In 1997, the narrative was Jean Chretien would handily win another majority government.
• In 2000, the narrative was Jean Chretien would be reduced to a minority government.
• In 2004, the narrative was Stephen Harper, a bookish, policy wonk with zero charisma and leaderhship ratings more than 20 points behind Paul Martin would not stand much of a chance and the Liberals would hang on to their majority, just not the sweep that was expected when he became Prime Minister.

In all of these elections the narratives changed in mid-election because events overtook them.

The Liberals are in better shape that the media is letting on. They are well within striking distance of the Conservatives and as I stated in my previous post history has demonstrated that election campaigns are not kind to incumbents. The Liberals have as much chance of winning as the Conservatives and I would even state they have a better chance of winning a majority than the Conservatives. (See my previous post for why)

However, the Liberals have to understand that they will have to be prepared to deal with a hostile to ambivalent media as well as the other political parties.

The Liberals have the advantage in the upcoming election

I am still not convinced there will be an election call in the next week or so and I have always believed that handicapping an election is a mugs game but what the heck.

Looking at the current levels of support for the two big parties and historical voting patterns I would say the Liberals are the ones holding the advantage at the moment.

First of all both parties are sitting at around 34% in the polls. Successive polls in the last 6 months have indicated such with only minor variations here and there so it is safe to say that both are probably at that level of support in the country. It is reasonable to assume that for any party to achieve a majority government they would need to achieve a minimum support level of 40%. It could be more depending on how the votes are distributed across ridings but for the sake of argument let's say 40% is the brass ring both parties are reaching for.

So, both parties need to increase their current support by 6 points.

If we look at voting patterns for the past 30 years the party in government has never grown its level of support by that much during an election campaign. Indeed, in most cases the party in government actually see an erosion of support between the time the writ is dropped to election day. Looking at the elections from the past 30 years that erosion can be anywhere from 2 percentage points to 10 percentage points, although it averages around 6 points. The one exception I found in checking elections over the last 30 years was the 2000 election, where Jean Chretien managed to increase his support by 2 points over the course of that election campaign.

Conversly, the support for the Opposition tends to grow over the course of election campaigns. That was true, even in 2000 when the Reform Party was lead by Stockwell Day. Certainly he lost that election but he did manage to grow Reform Party support during that campaign.

So, if this historical pattern remains true the highest level of support the Conservatives can realistically hope to achieve is 36% but a more likely outcome is an erosion of support with a rise in support for the Liberals. Considering the current level of support for the two main parties that is a recipe for an electoral loss for the Conservatives and depending on the numbers it could be a big loss.

As well, there is the question of what votes are available to each party to expand their support.

In this case the Liberals have a clear advantage. Again, looking at historical voting patterns the Liberals have always lost elections after long periods in government when they have become arrogant and ethically challenged. In that case many who voted Liberal previously tend to switch to the NDP. The NDP hits a high water mark as a result of this dynamic but eventually when progressives in this country become disenchanted with Conservative governance the progressive vote once again coalesces around the Liberals. Could that happen this time? That remains to be seen. However, many Green supporters will be realistic enough to realize that they will not form the government and that they have the greenest Liberal leader in history. As well, many NDP supporters may decide that getting rid of the Conservatives is the goal and they will realize that Jack Layton is not the man to do it. Sorry NDP partisans, but Liberal support is double that of the NDP, it is still the only real alternative to the Conservatives and many of your supporters know that.

The Liberals just need to convince around 6 % of Green and NDP supporters to lend their votes to the Liberals for the Liberals to have a chance at a majority government and they need even less to form a minority government, particularly if Conservative support erodes over the course of a campaign as history suggests is the most likely possibility.

In the case of the Conservatives, their pool of potential swing votes in much smaller. It is unlikely that they will be able to tap a big enough pool of NDP or Green supporters for the simple reason that they are pretty much diametrically opposed in political philosophy. There might be a pool available from the Liberals but their support has been pretty solid over the last year despite a very bad year for the party and its leader. It is not likely that enough of them would desert the party during a campaign to allow Mr. Harper to grasp that brass ring of a majority. There is the Bloc and Quebec but even then for the Conservatives to win enough seats for a majority they would need to grow their support in that province by double digits during the campaign, something that is totally unheard of in that province.

Of course history is not always a good indication of the future although I have always been fascinated by how much it tends to repeat itself over time.

As well, we have no idea how the campaign will unfold but even here the Conservatives might be a victim of their own success. They have been successful in painting Mr. Dion as ineffective so they have managed to set expectations really low for him. If he performs above those expectations he will benefit.

It is interesting that politician who go into a campaign with alot of credibility can be at a disadvantage, particularly if they have a bad campaign. Both Mr. Day in 2000 and Mr. Tory in 2007 went into their respective campaigns with a fair degree of credibility amongst pundits and the voters only to lose most of it as a result of bad campaigns.

Constrast that with Stephen Harper. He went into the 2004 election campaign with very little credibility but despite runnning a rather undisciplined campaign he managed to reduce the Liberals to a minority government. Expectations were low for him in that campaign and he exceeded them so he benefited.

Stephane Dion enjoys that happy situation now. Expectations are not high for him so it will not be that difficult for him to exceed them. When he does he will benefit from it.

Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have a shot at winning the next election. However, if the campaign unfolds as they have done historically the Liberals hold a clear advantage and considering they are sitting in the mid-30 range in the polls a Liberal majority government is not beyond the realm of possibiliy. Indeed, I would go so far to say that based on historical voting patterns the Liberals have a greater chance of forming a majority government than the Conservatives, although I do not believe it is likely.

Want to fight Global Warming, put a value on carbon

One of the more interesting things about capitalism is putting a price on something will change behaviour but putting a value on something will change attitudes and beliefs.

At the moment, the best way to reduce ghg emissions is to put a price on those emissions. It is an imperfect solution to an imperfect problem. It is a necessary step because to do nothing is to march toward oblivion. However, make no mistake, it will not be enough to stop that march. It will just slow it down.

To really reduce ghg emissions and reverse GW we need to find a way to put a value on them. Right now we spew tonnes of the stuff into the atmosphere because it is considered a worthless waste product. If that were to change, if it became a valuable commodity, then you would really see a change as companies and entrepeneurs fell over themselves to develop ways to capture this commodity for exploitation.

There are examples. Technology is being developed to capture and utilize the methane created by city land fill sites. Someone realized that this stuff could make them a profit and letting it seep into the atmosphere is a waste.

The most pervasive ghg is carbon dioxide. Considering how much of the stuff we spew into the atmosphere on a daily basis the person or company that comes up with a process or product that puts a value on it will become very wealthy indeed.

Premiers Wall and Stelmach, selfish ...

Oil.

The one substance on the planet that can light fires both literally and figuratively.

You would think from the statements of the two Premiers mentioned above that someone was going to take it away from them or at least prevent their provinces from exploiting the resource. Talk about a persecution complex.

One thing about fossil fuel is it is the only practical energy source we have. All other sources are either too expensive, even in these times of high oil prices, or hopelessly impractical to develop as a mass energy source. And by no means has the human species come up with a technology or process to replace fossil fuel as the primary world energy source.

Solar energy: Certainly it will have a niche market but it will not come close to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels.

Nuclear energy: Too expensive and then there is the problem of what to do with all of that waste, which remains lethal to humans for thousands of years.

Wind and tide energy: See my comments about solar energy.

Biofuels: Eat or drive. Hmmm, tough choice.

Hydrogen: Sounds promising but technology to exploit it has been under development for decades without a marketable breakthrough. Perhaps, because the best source of hydrogen is hydrocarbons, which brings us back to our dependence on fossil fuel.

All of this to say that fossil fuel is not going anywhere as our main source of energy any time soon. As well, there is no magic bullet to replace it because it was the magic bullet. There is nothing else on Earth that can replace it.

So why are these two Premiers in such a frigging hurry to exploit it?

One other thing about fossil fuel is there is a finite amount of the stuff. It will inevitably run out. So leaving aside the arguments about saving the atmosphere for our children and grandchildren should we not be endeavouring to save some of the most practical source of energy for our children and grandchildren?

For Premiers Wall and Stelmach, apparently not.

Listening to those two yahoos yesterday I am very happy that I am in my 40s and that I have no children. By the time the full effects of our wasteful exploitation and use of fossil fuels is felt, I will be in my dotage or my grave. And I will not have to worry about any children and grandchildren cursing my name and my generation for wasting their inheritance.

Premiers Wall and Stelmach, the bounty under the soil of your two provinces will provide for the needs and wants of your people for generations, provided you exploit them carefully and there are generations still walking around in a few decades or so. So stop with the persecution complex and get with the program of stopping global warming and climate change.

More good news for the Green Shift, from the National Post?!?

There were two pieces in the National Post today that were good news for the Liberal Green Shift.

They released a poll on the Green Shift and Jonathon Kay published a column endorsing carbon taxes.

First the poll.

The National Post spun the results as would be expected from them and I have seen a few counter-spins on Liblogs this afternoon but both The Post and the Libloggers have missed a very important point.

Three weeks after Stephane Dion released The Green Shift Plan the National Post felt it necessary to sponsor a poll specifically about it and that poll indicated that a full one-third of respondents knew about The Green Shift.

That's huge.

It is the fate of all Opposition Parties that they will largely be ignored and any announcements they make will be forgotten within days if not hours of the announcement. The fact The Green Shift Plan has remained in the consciousness of that proportion of poll respondents this long after its release is more than the Liberals could ever have hoped for.

Half the battle in selling something is having your target market be able to identify what you are selling. So the Liberals are off to a good start.

Although many Conservative supporters have been pointing with glee to this poll today, I am reasonably certain that the professionals in the PMO are not too happy about the results of this poll.

Oh yes, the last Opposition Leader who managed to keep one of his announcements in the consciousness of Canadians long after the announcement was Stephen Harper and the announcement of the Accountability Act.

Incidently, the Liberals have Stephen Harper to thank for this happy turn of events. If the "chess master" would have ignored The Green Shift announcement instead of going off on it, using some rather inflammatory language, the Plan would have been forgotten very quickly. So, I hope Liberals everywhere will extend their thanks to Mr. Harper for his assistance.

The second piece by Mr. Kay was the second piece of good news. Of course, he started off by stating Mr. Dion would lose the next election (Did anybody expect anything else?) but then he went on to endorse a carbon tax. He then ended his piece by stating he did not agree with the Liberal Carbon Tax proposal because, well, it was a liberal carbon tax proposal instead of a conservative carbon tax proposal.

After I had stopped laughing I realized that his column indicates more good news for the Liberal plan. Leaving aside his endorsement of one of the central features of the Liberal plan what is really significant is that pundits are talking about the Liberal Plan. Even the harshest critics of the plan and the Liberal Party find themselves talking about it instead of talking up the government. This is further proof that so far this summer the Liberals have taken control of the political agenda.

Again, Stephen Harper took control of the political agenda with the release of the Accountability Act and he rode that to victory.

There is still alot of time to go but if the Liberals can maintain the control of the agenda, that these two articles demonstrate, they have they will be in very good shape going into the Fall.

Don't worry, it is OK to trash Muslims

Throughout the history of this country, and throughout the history of civilization, it has been socially acceptable to openly denigrate and generally hate specific groups.

For much of the 19th Century it was completely acceptable to trash and bash the Irish. It is interesting that English Canadians during that century disliked and distrusted the Irish more than they distrusted French Canadians. They had more time for people who descended from a country that was the enemy of England for more than 800 years that they did for people who spoke their language and had a shared history.

In the 20th Century is was the Blacks, the Jews, the Chinese and of course throughout Canadian history it was OK to trash First Nation Canadians.

Of course all of that began to change in the '60s. During that period it was no longer considered socially acceptable to hate people of different skin colour. It took a little while longer for that attitude to permeate to people of different religions but it eventually did.

So, by the '80s the only people that bigots could opening hate were homosexuals. Unfortunately, even they became off limits in the '80s when AIDS caused an outpouring of sympathy for the gay community, which gave the gay rights movement a big boost of support and which eventually culminated in gays being considered equal to straights including receiving the right to marry.

So, who were the bigots going to hate? After all, like all people with addictions they need their fix in order to function. Fortunately for them, Muslim terrorists began hijacking airplanes and the Ayatollahs in Iran came along. Suddenly it was OK to trash Muslim fundamentalists. Then 9/11 happened and it was mana from heaven for the bigotry crowd. It suddenly became socially acceptable to hate all Muslims.

We have seen that recently with the publishing of the cartoons of Mohammed in a Dutch magazine and a particularly vile story in Macleans magazine that is now a subject of a couple of Human Rights cases.

Of course defenders of both cite "freedom of speech" when defending both magazines and they have the temerity of stating Human Rights Commissions are trampling on those rights.

My question to them is, if Macleans would have replaced "Muslims" with "Jews" in their story would you be so forgiving? I think not. It they would have done so they would have been condemned from virtually every quarter of Canadian society. Politicians of every stripe would have stood up and condemned the story (and some would have really meant it) and the story would not be allowed to stand.

Of course, about 30 years ago such a story could have been published and it would have received the same reaction as the one Macleans published about Muslims. The community in question would have been offended and the organizations the represented them would have made alot of noise but it would have caused nary a ripple in the broader Canadian society.

We have come a long way in recognizing that hating people because they are different is wrong but we still have a long way to go.

The Green Shift Plan: So far so good

Decima released another poll today showing that the Liberals are still rock solid in their support amongst Canadians. That is the third one since the release of the Green Shift Plan to indicate that. The Liberals are not losing any ground but they are not gaining any either.

This is interesting because this particular poll was taken at or just after the much publicised objections of the Premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan and the three Northern Premiers. As well, it was taken after the small problems with Green Shift the company and the media's playing up of that story. It could have been expected that those events would have caused some erosion.

So what can we conclude from this. Nothing definitive. However, the preliminary conclusion we can draw from this is the Green Shift Plan has made a good first impression and quite frankly that is all Liberals could have expected or wished for upon its release. It is a great start for the Green Shift Plan. (Now build on it!!)

About the poll itself, Decima states that the Conservatives could gain support again now that the summer is here. Well, duh!! It is called incumbant advantage and I actually expect Conservative support to climb somewhat in the coming weeks. It will have nothing to do with anything they do or anything the Liberals do it will just be a factor of them being the government at a time when folks are not really thinking about politics. So, when it happens, Liberals please do not overreact.

As well, I found it interesting that the Conservatives have lost support on the 613 area code. Since the 2006 election they have had pretty good support in Eastern Ontario. When much of the rest of Ontario was turning their back on the Conservatives their support in Eastern Ontario was steady. The fact this poll indicates that support may be eroding could be significant.

Of course, the number of interviews for this geographic strata for this poll is probably between 30 and 50 respondents so we cannot put too much trust in the estimates for them. It would have a double digit MOE so you cannot read too much into the estimates for this area.

Oops he did it again

Reading the story this morning in the Globe and Mail where Mr. Dion admitted that the Carbon Tax in his Carbon Shift plan would impact Alberta and Saskatchewan the hardest left me shaking my head.

I have to admit, my first reaction was "What are you thinking?"

However, thinking more deeply on it I find myself impressed. I for one am tired or politicians who lie to me about the tough issues. Mike Harris claimed that he could reduce my taxes by 30% but still maintain the level of government services that I had become accustomed to. Larry O'Brien, the Mayor of Ottawa, stated he could freeze property taxes and still maintain services. Of course both were wrong and I cannot shake the feeling that they knew their promises would be impossible to keep when they made them. In other words, they told the voters what we wanted to here, knowing it was untrue and enough voters in both cases believed them.

Stephane Dion has taken a different approach. He has come right out and said the Carbon Tax will have an impact on producers of high carbon products and it so happens most of those producers are in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Politically, it is bass ackwards but from the standpoint of integrity you really cannot find any fault. Perhaps, Mr. Dion is going to be a different kind of politician.

Then I began looking at the impacts. By Mr. Dion's reckoning 40% of the revenues from the Carbon Tax will be from the two provinces I mentioned. If the total projected revenus of $15 billion is correct the 40 % works out to $6 billion. Forgive me, but when you compare that to the profits that the oil and gas extraction companies are making these days $6 billion is not really going to make that much of a dent. And that is assuming these companies do not pass on at least some of the cost of the Carbon Tax to consumers, which we all know is not going to happen.

So really, the oil and gas industry in Alberta and Saskatchewan should be more concerned about the continuing economic slowdown in the US and what that could do to the economies of China and India. Because the impact of simultaneous slowdowns in those three countries will have a much greater impact on the oil and gas industry than Mr. Dion's Carbon Tax.

Someone at Liberal Party HQ is thinking

I find it interesting that there is a rumour of a cabinet shuffle tomorrow so the Liberals release the "tax cut" portions of their tax shift plan today.

It virtually guarantees headlines about Liberal tax cuts tomorrow.

Now if Stephen Harper does announce a cabinet shuffle tomorrow it will drown out the "tax increase" portion of the plan, somewhat, when it is released.

So now Stephen Harper has a choice. Have the rumoured cabinet shuffle or wait until after the plan is completely released giving the plan two solid days of wall-to-wall media coverage. That after all is all the Liberals can hope for from this announcement. Coverage of the plan will quickly fade as the summer progesses.

Either way however, the Liberals have wrong footed the Conservatives by giving them two equally bad choices of what to do tomorrow.

So what is it going to be Mr. Harper?

Allow the complete release of the Liberal tax shift plan and the resulting indepth media coverage? Or to put it another way, allow the Liberals to create that all important first impression of the plan.

OR

Use your cabinet shuffle to shift some of the attention to you but at the cost of competing with the release of some of the more controversial aspects of the Liberal tax shift plan? That certainly would take some of the Liberal thunder but not before Canadians hear about planned Liberal tax cuts.

Back to you Chess Master.

Thank you Mr. Dion for not forcing an election this summer

After all what compelling issue could you have forced a summer election over?

There are several issues that many would say fall into that category. Let's take a look at each.

1) Conservative Scandals: Some would say we should point out the recent Conservative scandals. However, you and I both know that none of those scandals are fatal and that scandals tend to be most effective in hurting a sitting government when they have had time to grow in the minds of the electorate. Forcing an election too early after scandals break leaves you wide open to accusations of political opportunism. I could just see the Conservatives and their apologists in the media howling about the Liberals disrupting the summer of Canadians because of selfishness on the part of the Liberals. Then of course, there is the optic of a party that was thrown out of office less than three years ago over scandal complaining about the scandals of another party. That would negate any benefit of these scandals for you Mr. Dion.

2) The Immigration Bill: This would certainly resonate with your base but the whole idea of the next election is to grow your support beyond your base. This issue is not one that will do that. As well, you know that Immigration policy in this country is alive and ever changing so nothing the Conservatives did this spring cannot be reversed or changed when you are safely ensconced in the PM's chair.

3) The economy: Really what are you going to do about what is happening in the economy at the moment? Do you have some magic powers that will allow Alberta to make tonnes of money on high oil prices without effecting Central Canada? I doubt it. The fact is running on the economy now would be bad timing. You have to do what Jean Chretien did. Run on the economy after it has began to recover. That way as it continues to recover you can take the credit for it. Do not do what Bob Rae did. Run on the economy when it was going into the crapper. That just leads to you being blamed (wrongly) for that situation and costing you big time.

4) Your environmental plan: This is going to be an exciting policy but we both know that trying to explain it during the 36 days of the politically overheated atmosphere of an election campaign is a recipe for disaster. No real debate would take place and whatever statements you or anybody else made about the plan would be discounted as partisan election politics. As well, it does not take much political savvy to realize that one "beer and popcorn" moment would force your plan off the election agenda, probably leaving holes in Canadians' understanding of it. Holes the Conservatives and other climate change deniers would be all too happy to fill, to yours and Canada's disadvantage. You are correct to spend the next couple of months explaining this policy in the less politically charged atmosphere of the summer.

Of course there is some danger in waiting but that is politics.

Some believe the Conservatives will come back stronger. That tends to defy political trends. You have been observing politics long enough to realize that after two years a malaise sets in amongst the electorate with regard to a sitting government. So the second half of a government mandate is usually about managing that malaise so as to reduce its impact on the government's re-election chances. So far, this government has been brutal in doing so and that has been reflected in some recent polls. Whether those polls are a harbinger of a trend that is advantageous to you or just a blip remains to be seen. You will have a better idea in the Fall.

Some state that waiting gives the Conservatives time to come up with an agenda which they will then put into a Throne Speech and combine with another cabinet shuffle. We have seen that movie before. This government thinks small and has no talent in its caucus. For it to have three Throne Speeches and three cabinet shuffles in three years is a sign of weakness and they will be hard pressed to overcome that.

Then there is the Conservative Policy Convention. That is going to be fun to watch. Either the control freak Stephen Harper will allow free discussion, including from the more wing-nutty branch of his party (probably blowing a gasket in the process) or he will attempt to control what comes out of that convention. Either way, much of the work of the convention will be overshadowed by that dynamic blunting the benefit of the convention for the Conservatives.

Mr. Dion, it remains to be seen whether your current strategy will work. After all there are no sure things in life. However, I agree with you that forcing an election this summer would have been a bad idea that would have probably lead to a Liberal defeat. Recent events seem to show that the Liberals have turned a corner and are now moving forward again. Given a few more months the Liberals should be able to build on that and generate some momentum.

We will see.

Tony Clemente is a happy man today

I would imagine that the decision by the BC Supreme Court, regarding Insite, brought out alot of big sighs of relief from Mr. Clemente and Mr. Harper.

The deadline for making a no-win decision was fast approaching. They had to choose from two equally unpalatable choices.

1) Ignore the growing body of evidence that suggests Insite is doing some good and close it down.

2) Or the opposite.

Decision one would have caused a storm of protest from many, leaving the government open to all sorts of accusations of placing ideology over science and generally alientating a large number of people, including many in BC, which will be very important in the next election.

Decision two would have alientated the Conservative base, which is not a good idea at the moment.

Neither option is good for a government that can now be officially labeled as embattled.

Thankfully for them the BC Supreme Court let them off the hook.

Now they have the best of both worlds. They no longer have to make that no-win decision and they can pander to their base by stating that they are "upset" with the decision. Further they can use that decision to further push their idea that Canada's judiciary is too "activist", which always goes over well with Conservative supporters.

As well, they can now appeal that decision knowing full well that the process is going to take a year or more to finish. That takes Insite off the list of issues that can hurt them and it takes away any need for a decision on Insite until after the next election. At that time the Conservatives will either still be in power facing a disorganized, demoralized opposition or they will be on the opposition benches. Either way Insite will no longer be a potentially damaging issue.

It has been a terrible winter and spring for this government but the BC Supreme Court gave them some good news yesterday. I hope that they are suitably thankful for that.

This government cannot be that incompetent, can it?

After reading about the fate of Mr. Bernier my first reaction was to just shake my head. But then I began to question this affair and other blunders of this government in the last six months and became suspicious that they are up to something.

After all, this government is supposed to be lead by a political strategic genius yet this government has made some fundamental errors in the last half-year.

Take the Bernier Affair (the misplaced documents not his choice of companion). It is Cabinet Minister 101 that you should never take secret department or cabinet documents from their secured location in your office. If, for whatever reason, you have to remove them then you take them from the secure location in your office directly to the secure location that has been installed in your residence. You do not take them to the apartment of your lover (ex-lover?) one evening and you certainly do not leave them sitting on the night stand beside her bed the next morning.

Then look at the Linda Keen, nuclear isotopes fiasco. It is usually not good for a government's fortunes to be seen by the electorate as dropping the ball on nuclear safety. For whatever reason whenever the word "nuclear" is mentioned people tend to perk their ears up to see what it is all about. So when a government is perceived to have placed political and business interests above nuclear safety it is usually not good news for them.

Then look at Mr. Flaherty's assault on the Ontario government just before the last Ontario budget. That is not really a surprise. After all, Mr. Flaherty has a well documented history of incompetent boobery from his days in the Harris/Eves governments. However, it is widely known that no minister in this government can go to the bathroom without first clearing it with the PMO and maybe even the big guy himself. (I am talking about his position and not his girth, which some are saying is actually shrinking.) Again considering the big guy is supposed to be a political strategic genius you would think he would have put a stop to Mr. Flaherty's silliness real quick.

So again, considering Mr. Harper's genius all of these errors cannot really be errors. They must be part of some elaborate and undoubtedly brilliant political strategy. The question is what?

My guess is they want to goad Mr. Dion into defeating this government. However, that raises the question of how do they overcome the negative effects of these gaffes?

The only answer is the Harperites have some really, really, really, really dramatic surprise up their sleeve and they are just itching to spring in on the unsuspecting Liberals. Perhaps they have found the cure for Cancer. Or maybe Stephen Harper single handedly captured Osama bin Laden during his last trip to Afghanistan. (When bin Laden ducked into the Khandahar Airbase Tim Hortons for his daily large double-double.) Combine this with the Conservatives almost religious belief that Mr. Harper will kick Mr. Dion's ass during the election debates because of Mr. Dion's English (of course ignoring his French and its possible effects on those debates) you can see an outline of the plan.

This can be the only explanations for the recent spate of stupidity we have seen from them for the last few months. Then again, maybe they are just incompetent and corrupt but I still have my suspicions.

Incidentally, the questions I want answered in the Bernier Affair is exactly when did Ms. Coulliard contact her lawyer about the lost documents? Was it soon after they were left behind, which most agree was before April 24? If so, why did her lawyer hang on to them for a month? What did he do with them during that month? And the million dollar question: Whose idea was it for him to hang on to them for that long? His? The Hells Angels? Ms. Coulliard's? Stephen Harper's?

After all, if this would have come out just before, during or just after the NATO summit it would have been very bad for the government. Much worse than it is now and it is bad enough as it is.

You have to give Conservatives credit

They do not air their doubts in public. You have to know that some of the more thoughtful Conservatives are probably wondering about a party and leadership that just cannot grow their support. They have to be wondering why they cannot open up a consistant double digit lead on an opponent that has had such big troubles for the last four years. Yet we hear nary a peep of worry.

Contrast that to the Liberals who upon release of another poll suggesting that Mr. Dion is not currently connecting well with Canadians several bloggers begin gnashing their teeth and making more noise about Mr. Dion having to go. Right on cue I will wager that we will hear "unnamed senior Liberals" making similar noises in the coming days thus undoing all of the progress that Mr. Dion has made in the past weeks.

And progress has been made.

After a year from hell Mr. Dion was finally beginning to get some good press. Some in the media were actually using the term leadership and Mr. Dion positively in the same sentence. Some were describing him as bold and courageous for proposing putting a price on carbon while suggesting the a reduction of income taxes. Some in the media were playing up the coming announcement hard and the communications strategy was actually working. It was whetting the interests of pundits and setting the stage for what should be a good news announcement. It was generating a debate on the merits of a Liberal policy instead of the interminable talk about party leadership and the "behind the scenes leadership race" the likes of Duffy and others were peddling.

Then, as if by design, another poll is published indicating that Mr. Dion is not well regarded by Canadians. If many of the Liberals who have complained tonight had any political sense they would have realized that the poll is just more of the same and strugged it off. They would have realized that rebuilding his image after last year will take longer than 5 months. They will have realized that having yet another round of calling for Mr. Dion's removal is counterproductive in the extreme.

Mr. Dion cannot be removed and he is not inclined to step down. So, calling for him to leave the post accomplishes nothing except to weaken him more and to strengthen Mr. Harper. In all likelihood any progress that Mr. Dion has made has been set back.

Although they take it to extremes there is something to the Conservative strategy of ignoring what the media and its opponents say about them. They refuse to buy into it. Liberals could learn from that. They could learn that a certain amount of aloofness with regard to the media narrative would go along way in rebuilding their image and that of Mr. Dion. Instead, they buy it hook, line and sinker and thus give it credibility.

Debating party policy is great but expressing doubts about Mr. Dion has to stop. It is useless, self-destructive and irrelevent.

Stephen Harper falls into Gilles Duceppe's trap

That is the only way to explain the fiasco from last night where the Conservatives voted no confidence in Elections Canada.

This topic has been talked to death already so I am only going to say this.

The Conservatives breathed new life into the In and Out scandal last night. They again put it and their war with EC on the front pages. That is ironic because the initial effect of the scandal had pretty much run its course. No new revelations were forthcoming so it was destined to be put on the back burner, at least until the next election.

Gilles Duceppe decided that he did not want that to happen so he put forward last night's motion hoping the Conservatives would do something stupid. Or more likely, knowing that the Conservatives would choose the bloody minded path over the conciliatory path. Well, the Conservatives either did miscalculate or lived up to their advanced billing and gave the In and Out scandal legs to carry it through to the weekend.

It is funny, in the past governments tried to get out from under scandals by attempting to bury them as soon as possible. The last two governments have taken different tacks. Both have actually taken steps to keep them going. Such an approach cost the Liberals power, what will the Conservative approach to this scandal cost them?

Why does Liblogs cause my CPU to max out as long as I am on the site?

This is a general question to all of you out there that are more technically minded than I am.

I have noticed over the last few weeks that my computer slows to a crawl when I visit Liblogs and the Blogger dashboard.

I accessed the Windows Task Manager and I noticed that I still have a great deal of system memory to spare but the progress graph for the CPU indicates that 100% of my CPU is being used and it stays that way as long as I am on the Liblogs site or any one of the sites associated with it.

Interestingly, when I go to make a comment the CPU usage goes down to zero until I actually post the comment when it spikes before going back down to zero.

Then I return to the blog I commented on and goes back to 100% and stays there until I leave Liblogs. This does not happen for any other site I visit. It only happens on Liblogs.

So is there something on Liblogs that could cause this? Could there be something on my computer that would cause this, keeping in mind that it only happens why I am on Liblogs.

Any ideas as to why this is happening would be greatly appreciated.

Well, that would be number four

That is the number of times that Stephen Harper has indicated that he wants an election.

The first three times he was thwarted by circumstances and by Mr. Dion who has so far refused to take the bait.

So now Mr. Harper has created another "crisis" so that he can claim Parliament is not working. Of course that is true in some of the committees but in reality Parliament is working rather well, from a government point of view. They have been able to pass most of what they wanted to pass and they have even been able to pass those measures they did not want to pass. (The crime package comes to mind.)

So why is Mr. Harper using this current tactic?

1) He has had a few good days so internal polling is probably indicating a bit of an uptick for the Conservatives. Of course most of that, if it exists, would just be the result of incumbent advantage and it would evaporate as soon as Canadians were reminded, during an election, of all of the issues that have dogged the Conservatives of late.

2) The IMF released a report today that Canada is in for a rough year and that is on top of some rather bad economic numbers released in the last week, including an uptick in the unemployment numbers. The economic slowdown that everybody is predicting appears to be imminent, which is one reason why Mr. Harper was making statements to the contrary yesterday.

3) Mr. Dion has denied him an election on three occasions so now he is letting go a trial balloon on the more direct approach.

4) The frame of reference for the Mulroney Inquiry has been released. There will be growing pressure on him to set it up in the coming weeks and an election will be just the ticket to put that on the back burner.

5) Stephen Harper could just be trying to use this threat to bury some inconvenient issues before some of those disrupted commitees and he really does not want to call an election.

So, what do the Liberals do?

Stay the course on the committees and let him call an election or back down, while reminding Canadians about the infamous Conservative committee manual and the fact the Liberals have been cooperating with the Conservatives for the last little while. Perversely, Mr. Harper has given the Liberals an opportunity to reframe their recent actions in Parliament in a more positive light.

In the case where he calls an election, the Fixed Election Date law is less than two years old and the promise of fixed election dates goes back to when Stephen Harper was a young Reform Party backbencher. If Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to break his own law and a two decades old political promise the Liberals should be able to live with that. It guarantees that the Conservatives will be on the defensive for the first few days of any election campaign. Studies have shown that people pay attention to the first few days of an election campaign and the last few days. So, giving Canadians the first impression of a government on the defensive would be great news for the Liberals. By the time the Conservatives would be able to change the channel Canadians will have largely tuned out the election.

If he backs down, then he is the one that looks weak, if anybody were to notice. Mr. Harper was actually rather clever in choosing the committee disruptions as his potential election trigger. Most Canadians do not follow the minute details of them so if Mr. Harper decides to back down he can just claim that the opposition has become more cooperative on committees and call off any election. The media is guaranteed to give him a pass on that lie and Canadians will just accept it.

Mr. Harper's desperation for an election is almost palpable now. That is the only reason I can think of for him putting into motion a strategy that will result in him breaking his own law to call an election or will result in him having to back down.

The by-election results mean a Liberal majority

At least that is my conclusion considering how hard several of the critics of the Liberals tried to take the results of Monday night and turn them into bad news for the Liberals.

Editorials in the National Post, The Globe and Mail, several other Western newspapers, Greg Weston and Chantal Hebert all used very twisted logic today to try to argue that Monday's results were just short of a disaster for the Liberals and Mr. Dion.

Of course, to those uneducated in the minute details of politics a story where the Liberals won three of four contests would seem to mean they had a good night. So critics of the Liberals have to change that perception somehow and the ones I mentioned above used some pretty interesting logic to attempt just that.

Of course they focused on the results in BC and Saskatchewan and they either did not mention the Toronto ridings or they dismissed them. Rather intellectually dishonest if you ask me. But of course they were not going for intellectual honesty they were going for spin.

So lets take a look at the results of ALL of the by-elections and analyze what they mean for the next general election.

First of all, the Liberals crushed their opponents in the Ontario by-elections. That would seem to indicate that they have gained a great deal of momentum in Ontario. In addition both the Conservatives and the NDP did very poorly, with their vote being taken by the Greens. If we extrapolate, there is a very strong possibility that the Liberals are poised to garner at least 50% of the vote in Ontario. As well, when we factor in the rise of the Greens and their hijacking of the Conservative and NDP vote that creates the perfect conditions for many favourable splits. The result is probably a minimum of 90 seats for the Liberals and possibly a sweep of Chretien proportions. (100+).

Now lets take a look at the Maritimes. The Liberal support there is at the level where they are poised to take 30 of the 32 seats. So that is an additional 30 seats.

In Quebec the Liberal support is now at the level where they will double their seat count at a minimum. However, the Conservative strategy is to go after the same voters as the Bloc (soft nationalists) so they will be beating each other over the head. There are about a dozen ridings in Quebec were the Federalist and the Nationalists are pretty evenly split. So the division of the Nationalist vote between the Conservatives and the Bloc will allow the Liberals to come up the middle in many of those ridings. As a conservative estimate the Liberals will capture 30 seats.

So conservatively that is 90+30+30=150 seats. (Possibly 160+) So getting back to the "analysis" of the folks I mentioned above the Liberals are in a little trouble in the West. No one is suggesting that they are going to be shut out but they are suggesting that they will have difficulties. Looking at the by-election results the Liberals did lose support but they managed to hang on to half of the seats contested. Again extrapolating that to the whole of the West the Liberals will be able to pick up the seven seats necessary to get their majority (probably more). And even if they do not the results from Monday night would seem to indicate a breakthrough for the Greens so they could pick up enough seats to make the Liberals and Greens a majority in Parliament. That would present the Liberals and the Greens with the chance to form a formal coalition government. Ms. May and Mr. Dion have struck an informal alliance so I do not see it as a stretch for them to formalize it. Minister of the Environment, Elizabeth May. Just the thought of that is probably enough to make Stephen Harper blow a gasket.

So there you go folks. Looking at the results of Monday night as a whole the Liberals are poised to win at least a slim majority and possibly a comfortable one.

Of course the whole analysis above is unalterated BS. It is spin.

However, the assumptions I made to come up with it are just as valid as the assumptions of the folks I mentioned at the beginning of this post. There is as much truth in my spin as theirs.

As I stated in my last post, by-elections cannot be used to predict the voting patterns of the electorate in a general election. General elections and by-elections are like apples and oranges. They do not compare. Of course that fact does not stop people from trying but that does not mean you should take any of it seriously. (Including mine)

Liberals win 3 out of 4, what does it all mean?

Well, I guess it depends on what you believed going into these by-elections.

I have had some time to digest the reaction to the by-elections and the thing that stands out for me is most analysts, both the professionals in the MSM and the amateurs in the blogsphere, are using their results to reinforce their preconceptions.

Many, including some Liberal bloggers are using it to continue to flog that old horse about the leadership of the party while others are using it to flog the idea that the Liberals are now sitting pretty and victory is now assured.

As well, many are coming up with all sorts of reasons for the results coming to all sorts of conclusions, which again are usually along the lines of their preconceptions.

I have to admit they are all interesting. My favourite was the instant analysis by the NDP representative on CPAC last night. She stated that if Mr. Dion did not win all four by-elections his leadership would be in trouble. It was such a silly statement in light the thrashing the NDP took last night. I noticed that Peter VanDusan did not ask her too many questions after she laid that egg.

However, in any analysis of the results two truths have to be kept in mind. One, voter turnout for by-elections is always much less than for general elections. Two, the voters that bother to vote can do so secure in the knowledge that they are not going to cause any great upheaval in the grand scheme of things. Therefore, they can cast a protest vote with impunity.

Keeping those two truths in mind let's take a look at the four ridings.

The two Toronto ridings: Much has been made of the margins of victory and much crowing from Liberals has resulted. However, what needs to be kept in mind is both Liberal candidates were strong, high profile candidates. As well, both were former Liberal leadership contenders who have their own electoral machines. As a result they had the apparatus to pull the Liberal vote. That combined with the usual voter turnout in by-elections is probably the biggest reason why they won by so much.

It is premature for Liberals to be jumping to conclusions about the levels of support for the Conservatives and the NDP based on these results. In all likelyhood most of their supporters saw a no-win situation and stayed home. Things will probably be different during a general election. Not that the Liberals will lose either riding but their margins of victory will be much smaller.

The Saskatchewan Riding: This riding was won by the Liberals by 67 votes the last time and by most accounts it was the result of an extraordinary aboriginal vote. This makes sense since the last general election took place on the heals of the signing of the Kelowna Accords. Those Accords were very popular with Aboriginal Canadians so they came out in droves to support the party that supported them. This by-election did not have the same dynamic so voter turnout amongst First Canadians reverted to past patterns.

That is the most likely reason for the Liberal loss in this riding. All of that other stuff blaming the Liberal leadership is just spin.

The Vancouver Riding: It is interesting that Liberal support went to the Green Party instead of the Conservatives. I believe this is a classic case of voters voting for an alternative to the established parties knowing that it would have no grand effect on the greater scheme of things. In all likelyhood, such a dynamic will not happen in a general election.

What is most interesting about this riding is the Conservatives actually put alot of effort into winning it. From Mr. Kenney's efforts with the Chinese community to the resources they pored into the riding to pull the vote last night it is interesting that they could not increase their support in that riding. That should be of concern to the Conservatives.

All-in-all it was not a night of surprises. The Liberals hung on to their three strongholds and they lost the one seat they only won by a whisker in 2006.

Now we get to see what happens over the next few weeks or months leading to a general election. How that turns out is anybody's guess right now but I can virtually guarantee that last nights results are less useful in predicting the results than Tarot Cards and tea leaves.

By Golly, It Happened Again

Four years ago my wife and I went down South to escape the Ottawa winter and just days before we left Sheila Fraser released the report that began Adscam. It had barely begun when we left but it was going strong when we returned a week later.

Fast-forward to this year and the Cadman Scandal (Cadscam?) broke just days before we headed South again (first time since 2004) and when I returned early this morning (To a freaking snow storm!!!) I notice it was still going.

Maybe I should let sitting governments know about this apparent effect. Perhaps my not leaving the country to head south in the winter is worth some money to them.

With regard to the scandal itself I cannot add much more than what I have already mentioned before I left and what has been written by others in the last week. However, I will say that this scandal does appear to have some legs and the fact Stephen Harper is directly implicated does not bode well for the Conservatives.

I noticed that several Liberal bloggers have talked about some recent polls and how the scandal has hit the Conservatives but the Liberals have not really benefitted. I would remind them that when Sheila Fraser broke Adscam the Liberals dropped about 8 points but the Conservatives barely budged. Most of those 8 points wound up in the undecided column. So the fact we are seeing a similar pattern with this scandal is not a cause for concern and it has nothing to do with what the Liberals are doing.

As well, within weeks the Liberals had recovered and indeed were firmly in majority territory when the writ was dropped in 2004. So do not be surprised and do not overreact when the Conservatives recover in the coming weeks. It has nothing to do with what the Liberals or Conservatives are doing. It will be a function of the fact the story will be off the front pages by then and nothing more.

Of course, when the election campaign starts and all of these nice eggs that the Conservatives have laid in the last couple of weeks begin to hatch it should be interesting to see what will be the dynamics.

I could not be more happy that the NDP has decided to give the Conservatives a pass on this scandal. This scandal has the potential to lift all of the opposition parties but the fact the NDP has decided to support the Conservatives virtually guarantees they will receive no benefit. In fact, there are about 20 NDP seats that will be close battles between them and the Liberals and at the local level NDP support of the Conservatives will be a potent weapon against the NDP candidates. I have been waiting a long time for Jack Layton's obsession with the Liberals to trip him up and it finally has. It will be fun to see his face during the next election when he sees his party reduced, perhaps to the point of losing official party status.

This scandal is manna from heaven for the Bloc. They will now be able to campaign on the idea that the only honest federal party in Quebec is the Bloc. The rest are crooks they will claim. It could work in some of those ridings where they are in close battles with the Conservatives.

Finally, to those who believe this scandal creates the conditions for an election I would say: Are you out of your freaking mind?

An old political adage comes to mind. When your political opponent is making a big mistake just get out of the way.

Liberals want Canadians and the MSM to be talking and thinking about this scandal. They want this scandal and its implications to sink in and sink in deep. That will take time.

As well, the Conservatives want the exact opposite. They want to change the channel and they want it changed yesterday. The Liberals forcing an election at this time would do exactly that. They would be doing a huge favour to Stephen Harper.

The Conservatives have laid the eggs of their electoral defeat and their actions and words since this scandal has broken is only incubating those eggs. However, they are not ready to hatch just yet. That will take time and the Liberals are right to buy that time.

Well Mr. Harper, you were denied yet another election

This is the third time that you have tried to engineer an election and failed. This is the third time that you have caused a media frenzy only to see it fade away into nothingness. This is the third time you have fired up that much ballyhooed "Election War Room", only to have to turn out the lights again.

This is the third time you have been denied. Which is interesting because many believe you to be a political strategic genius and you are supposedly up against a weak and bumbling leader in your chief opponent.

It kind of makes me wonder who is the superior political strategist.

With Mr. Dion deftly neutralizing Afghanistan and crime as election triggers your last chance was the budget. However, that budget is so innocuous that it will be forgetten by the weekend and Mr. Dion can safely prop you up until the time of his choosing. Although, this budget and your other budgets might come back to haunt you in the fall when your government is forced to post the first deficit in more than a decade.

You can take some solace in the fact the budget will be well received so you may see a temporary uptick in your support. However, it will be small and short lived and you will be in no position to take advantage of it.

You can also take some solace in the fact that some Liberals are upset that Mr. Dion has not toppled your government. You can find many of them right here on Liblogs. Unfortunately for you however, Mr. Dion has surrounded himself with experienced and hardnosed political operatives who realize that realpolitik requires political idealism and principles be tempered with political calculation.

Of course the usual suspects will say nasty things about Mr. Dion for propping you up. However, you know it will be quickly forgotten because it is the curse and the blessing of being the Leader of the Opposition that people will forget what you said or did and it will have no impact on the next election. You know this because you did exactly the same thing when you were opposing Paul Martin. You propped him up two or three times in order to wait for the time you thought was more advantageous to you.

You can also take some solace in the fact the media has still not turned completely against you. They will do so of course as they always turn against a government after a time. However, for the moment they have not done so. They are no longer doing the collective Lewinsky to you as they were doing when you first came to power. They have stood up and are now looking more critically at your government but so far it has not had much of an effect on their narrative. Of course that will really change as the economy goes into the ditch and the first hints of deficits appear in the fall.

So what now? You have blown your wad. You find yourself leading a government without much of an agenda and going into an economic slowdown. Your government will be slowly eaten away by events beyond your control (Hello Linda Keen!). You have lost the Afghan war and crime as issues on which to fight the next election. The economy is slowing down, particularly in the Canadian heartland, and you have put your government on the path to deficit. As well, the "prudence" of your budget will constrain you in doing what all governments do this late in their mandate; throw money around. It will undermine your credibility if you spend the next 6 months running around the country making funding announcements.

And that clever, underestimated, bespeckled man across the aisle now holds all of the cards with regard to when an election will be held. I can assure you that when he finally decides to topple you and your government it will be at a time that is most inconvenient for you and it will be on an issue on which your government will be loathe to fight an election.

All-in-all Mr. Harper you and your supporters will probably look back at February 2008 and realize that it was that time when you lost the last chance of fighting an election on your terms and you might even be doing that as you watch Stephane Dion being sworn in as Prime Minister.

Liberals, the Habs fans of the Canadian Political Scene

I am a fan of the Montreal Canadiens and I spend some time on various fora on the web discussing the team. One of the things that stands out for me when I visit these sites is there are a significant number of Habs fans that brutally criticise the team regardless of what is happening on the ice. In addition they are constantly harping on the GM and coach to do something. You know, some will constantly complain that Bob Gainey still has not swung that trade where the Canadiens exchange a 7th defencemen, a case of used water bottles and a bag of pucks for Crosby and Malkin.

This line of thought occured to me after I read the story that Mr. Dion has hinted he may not bring down the government over the budget and the reaction of many Liberal bloggers to that news. By and large, it is very negative, full of angst and frustration as Scott Tribe so accurately describes it.

The arguments are all the same. It shows weakness. It shows a lack of resolve. They all wonder what it will take for Stephane Dion to step up and show some guts.

First of all deciding to trigger an election is not done on a whim. A great deal of political calculation goes into it and alot of information goes into that calculation. The guys and gals on the inside have access to all of that information and they are all seasoned political operatives. So I do find it amusing when folks who have access to much less information so earnestly criticise Mr. Dion for not going for it.

Second, Mr. Harper desperately wants an election. He has gone so far as to try to convince Canadians that the Senate not passing his crime bill before his deadline is an indication that his government no longer has the confidence of the House. When someone wants something go desperately the obvious question is why. As most agree, it is not because the conditions are ideal for Mr. Harper. In fact the conventional wisdom is because he believes it is the best that it is going to be and it can only get worse going forward. So with that in mind why would the Liberals give Mr. Harper his election?

Or to put it another way. It is generally bad political strategy to give your political opponent what he wants, particularly when he demonstrates he wants it so desperately.

Third, most of the books on strategy that I have read, and I have read many, state that, unless forced to, you should not enter into battle with your opponent until the conditions are such that your chances of success outweigh that of your opponent's.

That is not the case right now. If we were to have an election right now it would be a crap shoot. It could go either way. There are no do overs in politics so if we have an election and Stephen Harper wins we are stuck with him for at least two additional years.

It is not often that an opposition party is in the driver's seat with regard to election timing in this country so the Liberals would be prime idiots to squander that advantage with a premature election call. It is better to wait until the conditions are a little more favourable to them.

Those very same books on strategy state that it is not weakness to retreat in the face of your opponent if the conditions for battle are not in your favour. Indeed it is good strategy because it will give you greater opportunity in the future to wrong foot your opponent and fight the battle at the time and place of your choosing.

Of course, if the budget does pass then we can expect the usual suspects in the media to spin it to the Liberals disadvantage. Who cares. I find most of the pundits to be wannabe political strategists anyway and the only reason why they are writing about political strategy instead of developing it is because they lack any actual political strategic ability.

With the exception of some Liberals, Canadians are not clamouring for an election or a change in government. So Liberals have to be careful they do not mistake their desires with that of the electorate because in most cases nothing good ever comes from that.

Many Liberals believe Mr. Dion is weak so I cannot understand why they would want him to trigger an election where he would have to defend his decision during the first two or three days, thus putting him at a disadvantage from the beginning. It is much better to wait until conditions improve and then use their advantage of being the party that controls the timing of the next election to much more advantageous effect.

So General Hillier is now a lawyer

I was just reading through the media sites on this snowy Friday night and found this chestnut.

Although what he says in technically true it does not take away from the fact that the allegations against the Governor of Khandahar of him personally taking part in torture come from reliable sources, including our own diplomats.

As well, we are not talking about a court of law we are talking what Canada's role should be in Afghanistan and to some extent whether Canada should still be involved in that war.

And, he totally misses the point that the real crime in this story is not the allegations but the fact the government tried to cover them up, which is the pattern for this government. Canada is at war and its citizens have the right to know what they are at war for. Platitudes and jingoism are very thin substitutes for real information which is why support for the war continues to wane and it could also be a contributing factor to the fading poll numbers for the Conservatives.

This is so cool

Here is a little something I found on Youtube.

I am not in any of the scenes but I certainly would like to be. Except for maybe the shot where the guy is flying just off the surface of the lake. Yikes you would regret sneezing in that situation.

Enjoy

Of Bali and Afghanistan

The key recommendation of the Manley report is for the government to demand NATO send 1000 more troops to the Khandahar region or Canada will pick up its ball and go home.

Well good luck. The Europeans would be unwilling to do so because of domestic public opinion. However, even it they could somehow convince their domestic audiences that it is in their interests they would not be really inclined to do so because of Canada's recent actions with regard to climate change.

Officially, diplomats will tell you that there is never any "linkage" between issues in international relations. Afganistan and climate change are different issues and no government would ever consider making an action in one a condition for a consession in the other.

However, we are not just dealing with diplomats here. We are dealing with politicians and governments and the European governments are not all that pleased with the Canadian government right now because of its actions in Bali last year. So there is absolutely no incentive on the part of the European governments to stick their necks out at home to assist Canada in southern Afghanistan.

So do not expect any real assistance from the Europeans to be forthcoming at the NATO summit in April.

Of course the same cannot be said of the US. As several others have pointed out there are already plans to send 3200 marines to the Khandahar region in the coming weeks and some or all of them will eventually be made "permanent". So Stephen Harper will get his 1000 troops and he will use it as an excuse extend the mission.

Again as other have said, it is curious as to why the Manley Report did not mention this.

It could not be because this whole exercise is just to give Mr. Harper political cover when he proposes extending the combat mission to 2011 and beyond is it?