There is no sure thing in politics

You know to be a political pundit is one hell of a gig. You get to throw your opinion out there, usually without any real facts to back it up and when you are proven wrong by events you can be certain that no one will remember what you said a few weeks ago. Throw in the fact that most of them make good six figure salaries and all I can say is where do I sign up?

This train of thought has come about because I have been seeing alot of the pundits already calling the next election a sure win for the Conservatives. They really should know better. There really is no sure thing in politics.

My favourate example this week was put forward by James Travers of The Star in a couple of columns. (Sorry no link. I have still not figured out how to insert them into the text of my posts.) In two columns he states that there is a disconnect between Stephen Harper's Conservatives and Canadians on two issues that he states will be ballot box questions if an election is held this fall - Afghanistan and the Environment. He then goes on to argue that despite this the Conservatives will probably win an easy victory and maybe even a majority government.

Huh? Is he really arguing that a government that is on the wrong side of two issues that will be ballot questions will have an easy time of winning an election?

Part of his argument of course is the troubles that Mr. Dion is having. To which I ask, how can someone be so cynical that he would believe Canadians would care more about the internal machinations of a political party over issues like the Afghan mission and climate change? Is he really implying Canadians will care less about these issues in the next election than the settlement Jamie Carroll will finally receive?

He must have a really low opinion of the Canadians electorate.

As well, he is assuming that the Liberals will not get their act together for an election and that Mr. Dion will not perform well during that election. One or both are possibilities but to draw conclusions on unproven possibilities is just silly.

The last two elections were predictable. It was pretty obvious that the Liberals would probably scrape out a victory in 2004 and lose the next one, although there was still a question of by how much.

This election is going to be extremely unpredictable. Despite what the pundits say the Conservatives' disadvantages are just as heavy as their advantages and the same is true for the Liberals. Mr. Harper will be in the position of fighting this campaign as the government which has different requirements and is a different dynamic to fighting a campaign as an opposition party. It will be interesting to see how he reacts to 5-6 weeks of criticisms of his government's record from three different perspectives. ( I have another post running around in my head which will expand on this idea. Stay tuned.)

If we have an election this fall it is going to be one of the most interesting ones we have seen in a couple of decades and I would not even hazard a guess on how it is going to turn out.

Why I won't support MMP: Governments should not be chosen by backroom negotiations

"If I wanted Jack Layton to be part of the government I would have voted for him."

I am certain if the last Federal Election would have been fought using the MMP electoral system that statement would have been uttered by many Canadians a few weeks after the election results rolled in.

The greatest argument that proponents of MMP make is such a system would eliminate the result of a party that wins less than a majority of the popular vote from receiving the majority of seats in the Legislature. Part of that argument is "the majority of the electorate rejected the governing party so why is it allowed to govern with a majority?" What they seem to forget, or at least they hope others will forget is larger majorities of the electorate reject the parties that lose an election. So my question is, why should they have any say in government at all?

During the last federal election the NDP received about 20% of the popular vote. That means around 80% of the electorate rejected the NDP as an option to form the government. It is probably not a stretch to believe that a sizable number of those voters did so because they did not want Mr. Layton or the NDP anywhere near the levers of power. Yet with an MMP system those desires would be ignored as the various parties engaged in horsetrading to secure enough votes in The House to win a confidence motion.

For me one of the weaknesses of MMP is the need for the winner of an election to enter into negotiations with the losers of the election to find a coalition partner, because with MMP coalitions would become the norm. Of course all of those negotiations would be behind closed doors. So in the end the voters will not know what their government will look like after they have cast their vote.

So imagine you are a Conservative supporter who supported them because you liked their economic policies. Further imagine your reaction if you were to wake up a few weeks after the election to the banner headline on the front page of the Globe and Mail: "Jack Layton to be named Finance Minister". Although my personal nighmare would have been the headline: "Gilles Duceppe to be named National Unity Minister".

An interesting feature of most MMP systems is if the winner of an election cannot cobble together a working coalition the second place winner is given a chance.

So again, imagine the last Federal election. The Conservatives are unable to convince the NDP to join them and after a set period the Governor General says to Stephen Harper: "You have had your shot and failed so now I am going to give Paul Martin a chance." Of course during that time period both the Liberals and the Conservatives would have been wooing Jack Layton with all sorts of goodies to convince him to join their coalition.

So it is conceivable with the MMP system that the loser of an election can still form the government. Even in the case were polls were showing that over 60% of the electorate desired a change in government. Yep, that certainly is a more democratic system.

Proponents of MMP argue that the FPTP system results in those votes that did not go to the eventual winner of a riding being wasted. MMP will not fix that problem. If I voted for one party because it put forward a set of policies I agreed with and that party would have to change those policies to convince another party to join a coalition my vote is just a wasted. If I would have wanted the policies and the programme of the "junior partner" in a coalition to be enacted I would have voted for that party.

The greatest strength of MMP, according to its proponents, is actually its greatest weakness. Instead of voters choosing their government they are only choosing the sides that will eventually move to the back rooms to hammer out a government that will not look anything like what the electorate voted for. MMP will actually take the decision on who governs Canada or Ontario out of the hands of voters and put it into the hands of the unelected, often unaccountable political operatives that are employed by all political parties.

That is not enhancing democracy.

Why I won't support MMP: Political Glaciation

There is no democratic electoral system that is "more" or "less" democratic that any other. First-past-the-post, some form of Proporational Representation or even the American Electoral College are all democratic systems with their strengths and weaknesses. You can argue at length about those but no conclusions can be made about which one is democratically superior. All of them are designed to allow citizens to choose who they want to govern and all of them are effective at getting that job done.

Proponents of MMP like to point to Germany and New Zealand as prime examples of that kind of electoral system. They are certainly good examples of both and they are both great examples of one of the greatest weaknesses of MMP, namely, lack of action on fundemental issues facing their countries.

In Germany the politics stays the same and only the personalities change. The Christian Democrats, with their Bavarian allies, and the Socialist Party are the same parties now as they were 20 years ago. Certainly their leaders have changed but there policy ideas and their political programmes are the same now as they were in the '80s. When one of them loses an election this does not change, only the leader of the party changes. The reason for this is both parties know that they just need to bide their time until a very small portion of the German electorate gets tired of the government and then they will be in power again.

The result of this is much needed reforms to the German economy are not getting done and that has been the case for over a decade. As well, there is no sign that this situation will change in the foreseeable future.

New Zealand only recently switched to an MMP system. The reason for the switch was a long standing government that brought in extremely painful economic reforms about 20 years ago. These reforms were made possible by a government that won successive elections using the FPTP system. After that government was finally defeated the country switched to MMP so that this could never be done again. The people of New Zealand chose this system because they wanted to prevent future governments from putting them through the same gut wrenching change again.

Contrast that to the FPTP system. This system forces political parties to renew themselves on a regular basis because they know that they cannot just wait for a small portion of the electorate to grow tired of the government.

We have seen that more times than I can count at both the Federal and Provincial level. Those parties that make the effort to renew themselves, come up with new ideas on how to deal with the issues that matter to Canadians are successful. Those that do not are not. That is the reason why the Liberals and the Conservatives have been the dominant federal parties in this country for so long and why the NDP can never get out of third party status. The NDP is the same party today as it was under Ed Broadbent. The only thing that has changed is its leaders.

As an aside, that is the reason why I believe the NDP will eventually be usurped as the third party by the Greens. The Greens have shown more willingness to adapt its policies and programmes to the desires of Canadians and it is only a matter of time before the overtake the NDP. After that, who knows.

You can see the results. Many of the programmes that we have come to take for granted in this country would not have come to pass with an MMP system.

Countries and provinces change and the people of those political entities need to be able to choose governments that are willing and able to deal with that change. The FPTP electoral system is more effective at allowing them to do so.

Have you ever had that feeling of deja vu?

Looking at the recent troubles of Stephane Dion I cannot help but think I have been here before.

I really do not need to go into all of the problems as they have been well discussed.

What strikes me are the similarities of his situation with that of Stephen Harper after he won the leadership of the Conservative Party. At the time, the takeover of the PCPC by the CA created all sorts of problems. New announcements by prominent Progressive Conservatives that they were leaving the new Conservative Party were rampant and it all culminated in Scott Brison switching sides to the Liberals.

The pundits at the time had written off Mr. Harper. The Conservatives were moribund in Quebec, Mr. Harper was seen as an uncharismatic policy wonk who could not connect with voters, the Party was having difficulty raising money and Mr. Harper was having great difficulties organizing the Party. The pundits all believed that Mr. Harper would be crushed by the Big Red Machine and that the end of his political career was just an election away. Sound familiar?

Of course there are differences. Stephen Harper was saved by the Sponsorship Scandal which was a three year cancer that ate away at the Liberals and their support. I doubt that the Liberals can expect such a gift from the Conservatives.

However, there are other very important differences that need to be kept in mind. During Mr. Harper's time of troubles the Conservatives were sitting in the low 20s in the polls while the Liberals were in the mid to high 40s. As well, this was the period when Paul Martin could still do no wrong. He was the golden boy of politics, respected, LIKED, and popular in every part of the country. (Indeed, there was even talk that the Liberals would actually pick up seats in Alberta.) Can the same be said of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives?

As well, during this period the Conservatives were sitting at single digits in Quebec and they had absolutely no organization there. The Liberals on the other hand have a base in Quebec and they do have an organization even if it is in some disarray at the moment.

Yet despite those realities Stephen Harper was a few badly timed comments, from some of his candidates, away from winning the 2004 election and he won the 2006 election.

Compared to Mr. Harper, Mr Dion is in great shape. I do not know when the next election will be but as things stand now the Liberals do have a realistic shot at winning it.

A Fall Election is Unlikely

There has been a great deal of time and effort spent talking about what the Liberals are going to do with the Throne Speech. Are they going to vote against it and trigger an election while they are in their weakened position? Are they going to do something else to prevent the government from falling, thus making themselves look weaker?

Both questions are irrelevent because the Bloc will probaby prop up the government in October. The reason is simple. By most accounts Stephen Harper is going to put something in the Throne Speech about limiting the spending powers of the Federal Government in areas of provincial responsibility.

There is no way the Bloc will vote against such an idea. Nationalists in Quebec have been demanding that for years and a Party that purports to have the interests of the Nationalists in mind will not take any actions to deny it to them. If it did it would be handing the Conservatives a very convenient bat with which to beat the Bloc in any election that immediately followed.

In short, voting against limiting Federals spending powers in Quebec is a short-cut to political oblivion for the Bloc so they will find a way to support a Throne Speech that contains any announcements of such limits.

The Case for Stephane Dion

My two previous posts were about the need for Liberals to continue to support Stephane Dion because to do otherwise is to invite a certain thumping in the next general election and the possibility that they would not recover enough to win the one after that. Revolting against Stephane Dion now raises the spectre of Stephen Harper being PM for as long as Jean Chretien was PM. If any Liberal thinks that is a good prospect I would say that you have just not been paying attention.

However, there are more positive reasons why Liberals should support Stephane Dion and that is because for a brand new leader, of a political party that is still trying to wash away the stains of the Sponsorship Scandal and the Chretien/Martin schism, he has done reasonably well.

If you need a demonstration of that you just need to look at the Harris-Decima poll from yesterday. I have lost count of the number of polls that have indicated the Liberals and the Conservatives have been tied in public support for the last 6 months or so. That is a major accomplishment for an Opposition Party at this stage in an election cycle with a leader who is still working to put his stamp on the Party. This is a great contrast to how Opposition Parties have fared, in similar circumstances, in the past as I will demonstrate later.

I would argue that one of the contributing factors to this reasonably happy state of affairs is Mr. Dion's leadership. True, Mr. Harper has certainly contributed to it as well but the current state of support for the two big parties cannot be placed just on one party or one leader.

Going back over the last 10 months Mr. Dion has made some shrewd moves that have wrong footed the Conservatives on a number of issues that are of great importance to Canadians and placed the Liberal Party on the right side of those issues.

It is Mr. Dion who put the environment and climate change on the radar screen of Canadians. His use of the green scarves at the convention and his use of his honeymoon after his election to push the Government on this issue planted the seed with Canadians and the unusually mild January that followed caused that issue to become the most important one for Canadians. A situation that is still true. That caused the Conservatives to scramble to neutralize the issue and it lead to the fall of a Cabinet Minister. And you just have to see that the environment and climate change is still the most important issue to Canadians to see that the Conservatives have failed to neutralize it as an issue, which means Canadians still do not believe the Conservatives have done enough on this file.

Part of the reason for the Conservative ad campaign against Mr. Dion was because they bungled this file so badly and Mr. Dion was showing that he was a real threat to the Conservatives because of his credibility on the issue. Indeed, the Conservative ad campaign and the reason why they launched it could have been lifted directly from Karl Rove's playbook.

It still boggles my mind that many Liberals not only buy into the Conservative line that Stephane Dion is not a leader but some actually embrace it . All I can say is that if you are one of those Liberals you are not very bright. But I digress.

With regard to Afghanistan, it was Stephane Dion that brokered the Liberal proposal that Canadian troops be withdrawn from combat by the 2009 deadline with the possibility of their continued presence in Afghanistan in another role. That proposal predates polls that show that is the preferred option of Canadians and it certainly predates the Conservatives making rumblings about "changing the configuration" of the mission.

It was Stephane Dion that lead the charge against the government regarding the Afghan detainee issue and he did not back off when Stephen Harper accused him of being a "Taliban lover". The Liberals relentless pressure on this issue lead to yet another loss of a Conservative cabinet minister and the Conservatives are still feeling its fallout months after.

The Liberals under Stephane Dion have identified the economy as a potential soft spot for the Conservatives. They are correct. The climbing dollar, the hollowing out of Central Canadian industry, job losses in Ontario and Quebec and the looming recession in the US are causing dark clouds to appear on the economic horizon. By getting out in front of this issue now the Liberals will be in a very good position to offer an alternative to a government that has all but ignored the plight of the Central Canadian economy.

As I stated earlier in my post all of these factors have contributed to the Conservatives and the Liberals being tied in popular support for months. To show how significant this situation is you just have to remember that the Liberals under Mr. Chretien were about a dozen points behind Mr. Mulroney 10 months after his election as Liberal leader. Then there is Stephen Harper who was a whopping 20 points behind the Liberals 10 months after his election as Conservative Party leader. As well, it should be remembered that Mr. Harper was 8 points behind Mr. Martin at the beginning of the last election so for the Liberals to be where they are now in popular support in relation to the government is very good news.

It is very true that Mr. Dion must improve both as a leader and he must improve the Liberal organization but it is also very true that the Liberal Party under his leadership has been in more than just striking distance of winning the next election for most of his short tenure as leader of the Liberal Party.

So, what now?

The Liberals lost the by-election in Outrement (Oh the horror, THE HORROR!) so what do they do now?

If Liberals were smart they would do a calm assessment of what happened in Outrement. They would suppress the desire the cast blame and instead seek to find what errors were made so that they could avoid them the next time.

If Liberals were really smart they would put the loss in perspective and minmize any damage the loss will cause. One truism of life is people will often make a bad situation much worse by overreacting to it.

If Liberals were smart they would use this setback to rally around the Party leadership and to firm up their resolve to refocus their efforts on the real opponent of the Liberal Party, namely the Conservative government.

If Liberals were really smart they would realize that it has only been 10 months since Stephane Dion won the Liberal leadership. Any open revolt against him, whether it lead to his ouster or not, would destroy any chance of the Liberals winning the next election and it would hamstring the Party for the following one, which will probably be in 2012. By then the ages of the erstwhile front runners to replace Mr. Dion (Iggy and Rae) would be an issue.

If Liberals were smart they would realize that the Conservative government has demonstrated that, despite 20 months of constant campaigning, using honourable and underhanded methods, they have been utterly incapable of consistently lifting their level of support above the minority government level.

If Liberals were really smart they would realize that they hold the future of the Conservative government in their hands. It is their actions over the next few months that will determine whether the Conservative government goes down to defeat or whether they achieve their much coveted majority. In other words, the Conservatives need help from the Liberals to achieve their electoral ends and it is up to Liberals to deny them that help.

If Liberals were smart they would realize that all things in politics are temporary. Nothing stays the same and one bad week will not make or break a Party's fortune, unless that Party's reaction causes the bad week to become a bad month, a bad quarter and/or a bad year.

If Liberals were really smart they would remember that as late as Christmas 2005, the Conservative Party was polling in the mid-teens in Quebec and most pundits had written them off in that province. They would also remember that in three straight elections those very same pundits did not give Jean Chretien much of a chance in his home province and really smart Liberals should be able to figure out how those elections turned out.

Now the big question is, how many smart and really smart Liberals are out there?

Will the Liberals hand Stephen Harper a majority?

On the existing evidence I would say the answer is yes.

The reason is simple. They are not united. That has become increasingly apparent as the fallout of the Outrement by-election unfolds. The fissures in the party are becoming wider and more obvious and in all likelihood it will just get worse.

In all honesty I believe the reason for this is there are a significant number of Liberals out there with their heads so far up their asses they could give themselves root canals. (Assuming they knew how to do so in the first place.)

Liberals of all people should realize the price of disunity. It was the disunity on the right that made the Chretien era a virtual golden age for Liberal fortunes. If it was not for that disunity the Chretien era probably would have ended in 2000.

Then there are those supporters of the losing leadership candidates from last December. It has become increasingly obvious that many of them have not been able to accept the result.

Some of these folks have a hard time with it because they truly believe that their guy would do a better job. My advice to you is to get over it, you lost. That is how it is sometimes. Then there are those who supported their candidate because they thought they would get a nice back-room job with the Party along with influence when it won the next election. Dream on. If Stephane Dion is replaced just a short time after he won the leadership the Liberals have no hope of winning the next general election as whatever credibility they have will be in tatters. So you folks are looking forward to at least 5 years before the Liberals will even have A CHANCE of winning an election, and such a victory will certainly not be guaranteed. My guess is many of you who are in this group are not interested in putting your careers on hold for that length of time or longer.

Then there is the meme that Stephane Dion is not a leader. I would remind everybody that it was the Conservatives who first made this assertion and the media took up the call. Such was bad enough as it started to stick with those Canadians that do not live and breath politics on a daily basis. However, the Conservative advertizements that started that whole ball rolling were supposed to be a prelude to an election. When that election did not come to pass the damage should have faded. Unfortunately, Liberals began to buy that line as well. Say what you will about Conservatives they would not be caught dead buying into a line about them put forward by the Liberals.

The irony in all of this is the Conservatives are vulnerable.

• They have not connected with the Canadian public in any meaningful way.
• They are on the wrong side of the issues with regard to Afghanistan and the environment.
• They have virtually ignored the hollowing out of Central Canadian industry, with its resulting job losses. (That is around 180 seats right there folks.)
• They have broken some high profile election promises.
• They put 20 seats in play, 12 Conservative seats in Saskatchewan and 8 in the Maritimes, with their breaking of the Atlantic Accords.
• They have had some high profile run-ins with Elections Canada about highly suspect election spending practices.

In short, when the next election rolls around Canadians may be seriously looking at alternatives to the Conservatives. Unfortunately, a disjointed Liberal Party will not be a viable alternative for most and they will probably go for the Party that looks united and coherent.

Or to put it another way, regardless of their unease with the Conservatives Canadians will not vote for an alternative that is disjointed, incoherent and disunited. They will hold their nose, vote for the Party that seems to have its shit together and hope for the best.

You know if it were not for the fact Stephen Harper would be PM of a majority government I would have no problem with the Liberals wondering the political wilderness for the next half decade or so. There is nothing like spending long periods of time in the opposition for getting rid of the dead wood and hangers on in a political party. What is usually left over are those folks who are dedicated to the Party and its ideals.

Unfortunately, I do not think Canada can afford a Harper majority government so the Liberals are going to have to get their act together very quickly if Canadians hope to avoid such a fate.

And I will openly state right now that if the Liberals do not get past their navel gazing very soon they will not be able to count on my vote during the next election.

When Did Peter Donolo become a Conservative?

I read with interest the polling results in today's Globe and Mail and I will talk about it and its "analysis" later.

However, what really surprised me about this was the companion piece that Mr. Donolo helped to write. I could not believe that a man who worked as Mr. Chretien's communications chief could put his name on such an obvious piece of Conservative friendly spin. I realize that everybody needs to make a living but he is one of the reasons why Canadians are so cynical about politics and the political class in this country. Too many of them seem to be available to the highest bidder.

As for the poll itself I was surprised to see the Conservative numbers where they were. SES published a poll last week that put them in the mid-30s in support so I expected subsequent polls from other organizations to do the same.

The Liberals are exactly where I expected them to be because they have been hovering around the 32% mark since the last election. And contrary to what the pollsters say their support is rock solid while the Conservative support is fluid. The proof is in the trends and they are more credible than a poll question asking the respondent a hypothetical question regarding whether they would switch their vote. I have already mentioned the trend for the Liberals and the other trend is the Conservatives have been bouncing around like a basketball for months. One month they are up, the next they are down. They cannot seem to find a level and stay there. That indicates fluidity in support and that makes the life of political strategists for the Conservatives very complicated.

The Globe and Mail spin had me chuckling. The writers and editors must have been feeling rather queazy after writing the story as they were spinning rather quickly. I certainly hope they all took cabs home last night because they would not have been in any shape to drive home after writing that BS.

I have never bought into the idea of the G&M being a mouthpiece for any political party so it begs the question as to why they went to such lengths to take a poll that is bad news for the Conservatives and spin it into good news.

Part of the answer lies with their editorial from yesterday about Kyoto. It is no secret that the G&M is very pro-business and it is very against implementing the Kyoto Protocol because it has bought into the argument that doing so would be bad for the economy. It has dismissed the positive economic offsets of its implementation, which I think is wrong, but that is an argument for another post.

Today's poll indicates that the next election could be anybody's race and that the Liberals probably have as much of a shot at forming the next government as the Conservatives. Mr. Dion has committed to implementing the Kyoto Protocol. They know that he means what he says and that he is not just posturing. So they do not want him anywhere near the levers of power. Hence, the spin on the SC poll.

No Liberal should be happy with the spin of the poll but they should take heart that the G&M felt they needed to do so because they are beginning to see the fact the Liberals are back in the game, there are as many negatives on the Conservative record as positive (and we all know that negative tends to have a greater impact than positive during elections) and Stephen Harper has not connected with Canadians even after all of this time in the spot-light.

If the Conservatives continue to langish in a tie with the Liberals expect the G&M to continue to write Conservative friendly articles. If it actually looks like the Liberals may consistantly overtake the Conservatives expect that Conservative friendliness to be more strident.

What a boring political summer it has been

For the last two months or so I have found that not much has really happened on the Canadian political scene that I could write about in an indepth fashion. Certainly, there have been a few issues and events but none of them has really gripped my imagination.

So I decided to put them all in one post.

1. The Cabinet Shuffle: There is not much more to be said on it that has not already been said. The only thing I would add is that Stephen Harper has twice failed to build a cabinet that created the conditions for achieving his much coveted majority government. Indeed, his second cabinet did worse that his first. Kind of makes me wonder why he bothered with another shuffle. I guess he believes that the third times the charm.

2. Latest SES Poll: Speaking of the government's failure to grow its support into majority territory there is the SES poll from last week. It was not very surprising. The Conservatives got a bit of a boost, the result of the incumbent advantage. The only really remarkable thing about it was that advantage did not kick in until August. Usually a government enjoys that advantage soon after the House rises so I would have expected to see it occur in July. Its delay could indicate that the damage from the Afgan detainee controversy in the Spring could have caused more lasting damage to the Conservatives than originally thought.

3. Michael Ignatieff's mea culpa on Iraq: During the Liberal leadership race he was crucified by many of his critics for supporting that war. Then he admits he is wrong and many of those same critics claims he did it so that he could make a run at Mr. Dion. What partisan rubbish. If you are like me and you have ever wondered why politicians do not admit error or apologize then you just have to look at this event to see why in living colour. As well, if you are wondering why we always seem to be saddled with a large surplus of sub-par career politicians, many of whom have never held down or could find a real job, you can also look to this situation for your answers. I am certain that anybody with the abilities to offer real leadership and vision would avoid politics like the plague so that they can avoid all of the dickless, microbrained, scabrous trolls that infest our politics.

4. Karl Rove resigns: Speaking of dickless, microbrained, scabrous trolls. Considering how the Bush Administration seems to be sinking like a stone it is difficult not to use that old cliche about rats deserting a sinking ship. My only wish is that some of his kind that live in this country would follow his lead and bugger off.

5. The Bush Administration declares the Iranian Republican Guard as a terrorist organization: Is this a pretext for a military strike? If so the ramifications of such a strike are incalculable. At the very least oil prices going above the $100/barrel level for sustained periods is not out of the question. In fact it is a certainty I believe. I still find it amazing that a government with as many checks and balances as the US government would be powerless to stop the most unpopular president in recent memory from such folly.

6. The sub-par mortgage market in the US is collapsing: The North American economy has been growing continually for about 15 years. Over that period there have been periods where it looked like it would come to an end but we have always dodged the bullet. Could this be the one that ends the good times? We are due and there is a strong possibility that the malaise in the sub-prime market will spread into the general real estate market in the US. If that happens the NA economy will be in for a rough time. Interestingly, the impact of the current troubles will probably not really be felt until next Spring, which could very well correspond with a US attack on Iran. Considering the general incompetence of the Bush Administration they would be capable of taking an action that would cause energy prices to spike just as the NA economy was heading into a recession.

7. The lumber industry in the US is gearing up for another fight: And they are using the money that the Harper government gave them as part of the Softwood Lumber Deal to finance the new fight. I bet no one saw that coming.

8. Mr. Harper announces the building of a new northern port and new patrol ships for the Arctic: Right, I will believe that when I see it.

OMG I think I am siding with Paris Hilton

When I heard that Paris Hilton was released for "medical reasons" the other day my first reaction was that this was typical of the US justice system. If you have money and fame you get special treatment. It really did not upset me because the US justice system has never lived up to the ideal of equal justice for all.

Even so, like being a bystander at a serious accident scene, I could not ignore this story so I read more than a few stories on this continuing saga.

One piece of information that stood out for me in one of these stories is the fact that the Los Angeles county detention facilities are hopelessly overcrowded. As a result, inmates that are incarcerated for short periods of time for non-felony crimes generally only serve about 10% of their time before being released again, often into house arrest.

So considering Ms. Hilton was sentenced to 23 days in prison her serving two days and then being released into house arrest is entirely consistant with the practice of LA County prison system.

So that has me asking the questions. Is Ms. Hilton's fame causing her to be treated more harshly than other inmates in that facility? Could it be the lust for "equal justice" is actually having the opposite effect?

Make no mistake. I am not fan of Paris Hilton. However, I am concerned that the very thing that many are outraged about may be happening anyway. Her fame and fortune could be leading to special treatment and ultimately an injustice.

What was Stephen Harper thinking?

It has been widely reported that one of the reasons for Mr. Harper's trip to Afghanistan was to try to change the channel on what has been a dismal four to six weeks for his government. I happen to agree with that assessment.

He even went so far as to travel to a forward base.

At first I just dismissed the trip for what it was but then I thought about his excursion to the forward base some more and found myself first shaking my head in disgust and then getting rather upset.

That excursion is the most irresponsible thing Stephen Harper has done since he won the last election.

Although it always causes my gorge to rise when I say this out loud Mr. Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada. It is not his function to take such risks. By doing so, he did not just risk his own life but he risked a very serious and prolonged national crisis. If the unthinkable would have happened and he was incapacitated or killed while at the forward base, or traveling to and from it, Canada would have been left without a Prime Minister and it would have been left with a governing party that would have needed to scramble to find a permanent replacement for him. Any chance that such a party would actually be able to deal with the many important issues facing Canada would be nil. In short Canada would have been without an effective government for weeks and possibly months.

It is true that steps were taken to mitigate the risks, such as the presence of over a dozen JTF-2 commandos and the fact he flew to the forward base as opposed to going by road. However, that does not take away from the irresponsibility of his actions. He has much more bigger fish to fry than visiting a few dozen Canadian soldiers at this forward base.

Some of his supporters would contend that his actions showed courage. What silliness. Leaving aside the risk mitigation measures taken, strapping on body armour, helmet, and boss shades and then flying into the forward base for an hour is not courageous. True courage is doing what the soldiers he visited do. Living and breathing the stress of living at the forward base for days or even weeks at a time, undertaking patrols in hostile territory to suppress the Taliban.

In 2000 Jean Chretien called a election during the worst flooding experienced by Manitoba in a generation. Mr. Chretien visited the area during the election and he was roundly condemned (and rightly so) when he did a photo-op where he threw a sandbag onto one of the barricades. As if him taking a half-hour tour of the devastated area and throwing a sandbag onto that barracade could give him even an inkling the stress and pain the victims of that flooding were experiencing.

It is expected that the Prime Minister would do some politicking while on his trip to Afghanistan, especially considering recent political events. But it is the height of irresponsibility that he would risk a national crisis in order to do that politicking. It was an act of a desperate man and a gross misjudgment on his part.

For better or for worse, Stephen Harper is the leader of the Canadian government. He has the responsibility to make personal decisions that will not risk leaving Canada leaderless. He failed to live up to that responsibility during his recent trip to Afghanistan.

Then there is the logistical nighmare that he caused his security personnel and the very soldiers he went to visit but that could be a topic for a whole other post.

The Quebec Election, the day after

Jean Charest has proven that a politician can win and lose at the same time. He won the most seats but it was a near run thing including in his own riding and he took a hammering from the electorate. The only thing that saved his bacon was Mario Dumont. If he had not done so well we would be looking at a PQ government today and possibly a majority. Make no mistake, this was not an endorsement of Mr. Charest, his government, or federalism. The result is that Mr. Charest has been mortally wounded. If he sticks around the Liberals lose the next time, which will probably be within a year to 18 months.

Mario Dumont won but I do not envy him his next task. His near victory last night will attract alot of media glare onto him and his party, including the seperatist press who are not happy he usurped the PQ. Expect them to make his life Hell for the next few months. In addition, he has to take a bunch of political neophytes and mold them into a viable government in waiting within a year. That is difficult at the best of times but it will be even more difficult because his caucus and his party have their share of wingnuts who the media will just love to focus on.

The PQ lost but they were not destroyed. Writing their political epitaph is a little premature. Seperatism is not dead in Quebec and as long as that is the case the PQ will always be a force to be reckoned with.

As far as the implications of last night for the federal scene everything has been thrown for a loop.

Mr. Harper's Quebec strategy suffered a major failure last night. Despite all that he did for Mr. Charest over the last year, from the nation vote to the recent budget the PLQ could only muster one-third of the vote and the Quebec National Assembly is now dominated by parties whose devotion to Canada is conditional to non-existent.

In addition, Mr. Harper's actions this past year, culminating with a budget that could have been written by Mr. Charest, has inextricably linked Mr. Harper and Mr. Charest inside and outside Quebec. That is not good news for Mr. Harper because Mr. Charest has become a millstone around his neck. He is going to have a difficult time severing that link and it will probably cost him.

As well, several commentators have argued that Mr. Dumont's rise is great for Mr. Harper because they are a natural fit ideologically. It is true but Mr. Harper better be careful. Mr. Dumont stood shoulder to shoulder with Parizeau and Bouchard during the last referendum and he has never repudiated his desire for Quebec separation. He has just "softened" it a bit and renamed it "autonomy" which if you look closely looks alot like Rene Leveques' idea of sovereignty association. In addition, Mr. Dumont's brand of conservatism has a nasty streak to it. During this election he played to the fears of pur laine francophones who believe the Frenchness of Quebec is being eroded by immigrants, particularly those of colour.

Those two factors hold a trap for Mr. Harper in the broader Canadian context if he gets too close to Mr. Dumont.

In short, Mr. Harper does not have anybody in Quebec it can turn to for support in the next election. Mr. Harper will be running away from Mr. Charest as fast as he can and he will have to keep his distance from Mr. Dumont so as not to alienate voters in the rest of Canada who may not like him consorting with a known seperatist and a possible bigot.

I am not certain about the implications of last nights events for the Bloc. Last night separatists and soft nationalists decided to support an alternative to the PQ. Fortunately for the Bloc no such alternative exists at the federal level. Unfortunately for the Bloc, Mr. Harper has taken some of the wind out of their sales with regard to the Bloc's constant whines about Quebec being the victim of the federal government and federalism. Without them, the Bloc may not be able to come up with an election platform that resonates with Quebecers.

The Liberals come out of last night's election relatively unscathed. Mr. Dion has no ties with either Mr. Charest or Mr. Dumont. That means he will not have to deal with any of the baggage that comes with them. It also means he will not have anybody to turn to for support in the province either but I would argue that being a native son would mitigate the negative effects of that somewhat.

As well, there is a very good chance that the Quebec part of the next federal election will not feature yet another tired debate about separation, a fiscal imbalance, or Quebec's place in Canada. Quebecers indicated last night that they do not want to talk about the first topic and Mr. Harper has taken the other two off the table for the foreseeable future. So the topics of conversation during the next election could very well be the same in Quebec as the rest of the country, namely, the competing policies from the various parties regarding the environment, crime, Afghanistan, social policy, health and child care. In that situation the Liberals are at least on a level playing field with the Conservatives and I would argue that they might even have an advantage in key areas of the country, including Quebec.

Last night was a bad night for federalism and it could change the dynamic of the upcoming federal election is a way no one thought possible a month ago.

The budget will not pass

Because it is not meant to.

This budget is an election budget and nothing more. The Conservatives have no intention of ever implementing it. They only want to run on the promises contained in it.

Stephen Harper wants an election. That is obvious and he wants it because he knows that now is the best opportunity for him to achieve his much coveted majority. If he is forced to wait until the fall or beyond he knows that his chances of winning the next election is in doubt let alone winning a majority government.

So his government produced the budget with the idea of triggering an election. He wanted the opposition to defeat it so that he could say to Canadians: "See all of these goodies that we were going to give you. Well the opposition parties just took them away so give us a majority government so that we can give them all back."

Of course, if Canadians fell for that they would find the new budget of his new government missing alot of what is in this document.

Unfortunately for Mr. Harper, the Bloc threw a monkey-wrench into his plans although it is only temporary. It is still very likely that an election will be triggered at some point this spring although Mr. Harper may find he no longer completely controls the circumstances of its triggering.

I believe this will play out in one of two ways.

1. Jean Charest wins the Quebec election. If that happens Mr. Harper will present a poison pill in the House of Commons, probably in the form of one of his more draconian crime bills and he will make any vote on it a matter of confidence. Such a bill will be completely unacceptable to the opposition parties and they will be hard pressed to accept it. If they do not then we are on our way. If they do he will continue to present poison pills until he gets the result he wants. Mr. Harper will of course blame the opposition for the election, he will blame them for taking away all of the goodies contained in the budget and he will claim yet again that the opposition is "soft on crime".

2. Andre Boisclair wins the Quebec election. If that happens the Bloc will want to take advantage of the PQ honeymoon and Mr. Duceppe will suddenly decide that the budget is not such a great deal for Quebec after all. So sometime in April when a vote on the budget comes up the Bloc will withdraw its support for it and we will again be off. Mr. Harper will still claim the opposition took away all of the goodies in the budget and campaign on that.

Either way this budget is nothing more that a bunch of promises that are meant to be used during an election campaign and Stephen Harper will be trying his damnest to make certain it is used for that purpose.

What is your vote worth?

Since Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Harper were buying votes yesterday I started to think what would my price be to sell my vote to them.

After careful consideration and thought I have decided it is:

A yearly all expenses paid family winter vacation to the warm destination of the family's choice (or its cash equivalent) for all families that have a blogger that quotes Plato in the blogger name.

So folks what would your vote be worth? What price would you extract from Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Harper to sell them your vote?

Reality is a bitch isn't it?

Liberals were feeling pretty good for awhile there weren't they?

From September to the beginning of February they did not have to do anything and they still saw their fortunes rise. They got used to it and thought it would carry through to the next election. Now they have a bad two weeks and suddenly many of them are wondering what went wrong.

Well, the short answer is nothing. Ignore the media hype, ignore the polls, ignore the pundits and the chattering classes who say the Liberals are in trouble. This is merely the Liberal Party coming back down to earth.

Have the Conservatives done anything really right to deserve the good fortune they have enjoyed for the past couple of weeks? No. However, they have not done anything really wrong in the last few weeks either, so in that situation the the advantage goes to them as they are the sitting government and one of the axioms of politics is the incumbent has the advantage in between elections unless they make a series of big mistakes.

Is there anything the Liberals can do to reverse their fortunes? Not yet. But I would not worry too much. No one is really paying attention to politics right now so whatever anybody says about the relative fortunes of any political party now is blowing smoke.

I have heard plenty of advice from the Liberal blogsphere about reversing their fortunes. My favourite is they should stop talking about the environment and move on to something else. That does beg the question though of who it going to listen? It is the lot in life of an opposition party that you will generally be ignored in between elections.

Mr. Dion announced a very reasonable income trust proposal. Did it go anywhere?
Mr. Dion announced a new Liberal policy on the Afghan mission. Did anybody pay attention?
The Liberals proposed some very reasonable amendments to those now infamous Anti-terror provisions. Do you know of anybody outside of the political blogsphere who knows what they were?

So if your target audience (the electorate) will generally ignore what you have to say why would you begin to make all sorts of policy announcements and policy proposals? The only people that will listen to you is your opponent and then only to come up with counterarguments to throw out during an election campaign when the electorate begins to listen.

The opposition best places itself by picking a theme and hammering away at it. Even though it does not pay dividends at the time it does cause the theme to stick in the minds of the electorate come election time. It is then that the opposition party should change tack and build on what they established. The Liberals will be proposing the three piller approach in the coming election but in order for that to be really effective they have to establish one of them in the minds of Canadians and keep it there. They appear to have succeeded.

I would point to the Liberals' chief opponent as an example. Mr. Harper hammered the accountability and scandal theme for months. After awhile people were tuning him out and it appeared that he was barking up the wrong tree as it appeared everybody else had moved on.
Then we had the election of 2006 and he changed tack completely. Although accountability was still part of his election theme it was not the only part. He made it part of a whole and it worked because he had established accountability as a key issue in the last election.

Despite the efforts of Mr. Harper et. al. their environmental bonafides have not been deeply established amongst the electorate. If it is a key issue in the coming election it will be a weakness for them and a point of strength for the Liberals. So when the Liberals build upon that strength by integrating it into a more complete whole it will put them in a good position to win the election.

The Conservative "Surge": Perception and Reality

I usually do not comment on polls. I find the media and the pundits so misread what most polls say that if I were to comment on all of their mistakes I would never get any of my own work done. However, the characterization of the latest Strategic Council poll was so outrageous I could not let it pass.

First the perception: There is not doubt that the poll seems to indicate a drop in Liberal support. That is helped along nicely by the overcharged rhetoric of CTV and the Globe and Mail. If I believed in such a thing I would say they they are biased against the Liberals, but in reality it is probably just them trying to sell some sizzle with a rather thin steak.

However, the poll and their analysis is not good news for the Liberals because it does create the perception of decay in support. No party can like being in that position when an election is imminent.

However, most Canadians do not live and breath politics so this poll will be quickly forgotten by them as they focus on other things they consider more important, although the perception the poll generates may linger.

That lingering perception has a nice silver lining, which I will go into in greater detail later.

The reality: This is a new poll that was conducted using a different methodology from previous polls and a different questionnaire from previous polls.

All polls are stand alone entities. They are a snapshot in time. It is possible to take a series of polls that use the same methodology and roughly discern a trend but to do so is fraught with pitfalls because they use different samples every time so they are not truly longitudinal surveys.

So when a pollster switches polling methodology they break the chain and they cannot state the new poll indicates a change in a 'trend' with any degree of validity.

Strategic Council demonstrated this themselves during the last election. At the beginning they were placing the "Party Support" question (the money question because that is the question the poll sponsor is really paying for) at the beginning of their poll questionnaire and the results showed a neck-in-neck race. Half way through the election they buried the money question in a new questionnaire and had it preceded by a bunch of questions regarding government accountability. Naturally, the results of that new poll resulted in better estimates for the Conservatives. So much so, they wound up in majority territory even though no other pollster put them there. Of course, they published a poll just before election day that was in line with other pollsters and I think the reason why is they put the money question back at the beginning, although I cannot prove it because I could never find that last questionnaire.

Both methods are statistically valid but needless to say that all things being equal you will get markedly different results for each poll and you cannot say with certainly why the results are different.

So no one can say the Conservatives have surged because the new poll is disconnected from previous polls. As well, changing the methodology of a poll will effect it results and you can never completely calculate what effect the change of methodology has on the results.

So while it is valid compare the results of this poll to the previous poll and state the Liberals are down a certain amount and the Conservatives are up a certain amount, you cannot say with absolute certainty that the change is truly the result in the change of support and not the change in methodology. And it is certainly a rather large mischaracterization to look at this poll and say the Conservatives have "surged".

Reality point number two: Despite the new methodology and questionnaire the difference between the two big parties in just 5 points. This is also despite the good results on the internals of the poll. Mr. Gregg, actually said something that was telling and I really wonder if he meant to say it. He stated, and I am paraphrasing, "Alot of Canadians respect Mr. Harper but they still do not seem to agree or like his policies". Interesting statement and very logical. I may like and respect the salesman but if I do not like what he is peddling I am still not buying.

I would also point out that the internals are not much different than they were last year when it was PM Martin facing Leader of the Opposition Harper. The sitting PM always has the better internals in between elections but it can change in a heartbeat once the writ is dropped. Just ask Mr. Martin about that.

Reality point number three: The Liberals have been hovering between 30-34% for almost a year. This is the first poll that puts them below that in a very long time. Considering what I stated above we cannot say with any certainty why the level of support has changed. The change in methodology could be a factor, although considering the magnitude of the drop it is reasonable to assume some of it is a result in the erosion of support. Why that support eroded is a whole new argument and this poll would not be very useful in such an argument.

Reality point number four: The undecided estimates are at 23%. Yikes.

Unintended consequences of creating the perception of the decay of Liberals support: This is the silver lining.

The pressure is now off of the Liberals and Mr. Dion and it is now placed squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Harper. This poll could have the effect of lowering expectations amongst the electorate for the Liberals and Mr. Dion. Therefore, if they can mount a reasonably competent election campaign they will exceed those expectations and grow their support.

That is what happened to Mr. Harper last year. No one expected much from him or the Conservatives. Yet he did run a competent, if uninspired, campaign and managed to eke out a victory.

Conversely, Mr. Harper will have to run a more than competent campaign to grow his support.

This does not mean that the Liberals should be complacent. For example they, should take the results of this poll to heart and present a united front on the issues. They no longer have the luxury to be divided over such esoteric issues as the extention of some of the provisions of the anti-terror laws. Talk about it, debate it, but once the leader makes a decision accept it and move on.

As well, the perception this poll could generate also means they will need to work hard to make sure they can run at least a competent campaign and maybe even run one that Canadians can find a little inspiring.

The Neo-cons are here to stay

There has been a large and permanent change in the Canadian political landscape. It began happening a while ago so it is not earth shattering but it is significant and it has some significant implications for the future of politics in this country.

It is a matter of faith amongst many progressives and old Tories that the Stephen Harper brand of conservatism is an anomaly that will disappear in Canada when he finally receives his well deserved walking papers from the Canadian electorate. Afterwards the myth goes, true Toryism will rise again and take its rightful place in the Canadian political landscape as the neo-cons scurry back into their caves.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The old Tory Party is dead, it will probably not be resurrected and the Tory tradition that it kept alive will eventually wither away under pressure from the progressives and the neo-cons.

The person who finally confirmed that was Garth Turner. Contrary to some beliefs he is not a Liberal or a Red Tory, he is a dyed in the wool Blue Tory. He has been such for as long as he has been in public life. The fact he could not find a home in the Conservative Party of Canada speaks volumes and it pretty much puts the final nail into the Canadian Tory coffin.

In addition if you look at the possible replacements for Mr. Harper, when we finally give him the heave-ho, there is only one amongst them who could be considered remotely moderate and that is Jim Prentice. However, his purported moderation is the result of him not cleaving to the social conservatism that many of his neo-con cohorts cleave to. As well, he is somewhat less ideological and more pragmatic than his neo-con brethren but that does not make him a Tory or the standard bearer for an eventual Tory resurgence. Despite is smoother edges he is a neo-con through and through.

Finally, there are very few voices amongst the Canadian political right at large that could be considered Tory. If you peel away the heated rhetoric, insults, bullying and general cement headedness of the average Conservative supporter in the media and on the Blogging Tories you will find people who admire the stalwarts of the neo-conservative movement such as Dick Cheney, George Bush and others of that ilk. There are very few who show any admiration to the likes of Joe Clark, Bob Stanfield or other former standard bearers of the Tories. Even Brian Mulroney is not admired for his ideas, he is admired for some mythical ability he is supposed to have to guide Stephen Harper to six decades of Conservative governance.

When Stephen Harper finally does go these folks will still be around. They will only rally around someone who supports the same bloodyminded conservatism that they believe in. Anybody that shows true Tory leanings will be destroyed, although that will not prevent them from supporting someone who is of the true faith that can act like a compassionate Tory conservative as they will be more electable.

So Liberals, true Tories and progressives had better get used to the new political reality and they had better be prepared for a long struggle to hold back the narrow-minded, means spirited, socially conservative neo-cons that now menace the Canadian political landscape.

What is to become of the human species?

The conclusions of the conference on climate change are eye openers, depressing and they lead to whole host of other questions that need to be answered.

First of all the depressing part. Global warming is happening, it is being caused by human activity, temperatures are likely to rise by 2C to 6C by the end of this century and they are likely to take at least a 1000 years to begin falling again.

I believe that it was the same group of scientists who warned, in 2001, that we may be approaching a tipping point where global warming occurs regardless of any change in human behaviour. I guess we can safely assume that we passed that tipping point many years ago.

As a corollary to that we can conclude that the first part of the global warming debate is over. It is happening and it is going to continue to happen for at least the next two generations. So if you are one of those who still denies the existance of global warming get with the program.

Now some of the questions:

Will the rise in temperatures continue into the next century? Or to put it another way will temperature eventually stabilize at a certain level or continue rising? The report is silent on that very important point I would hope the climate science community will begin looking to answer this question.

Can we minimize the rise in temperature over the next century. I am no expert on this science but I can only assume that a rise of 2C by the end of the century is probably better than a rise of 6C. For now we should assume the answer is yes because the alternative is unthinkable.

A final question is what are we going to do to deal with the effects of global warming in the coming decades?

I have seen many people who claim that trying to deal with global warming now will cause unspeakable harm to our economy. To which I respond, whether we pay the price now or pay it later we cannot avoid the costs of global warming.

During the 1990s there was much talk about the national debt, which is why Paul Martin eliminated the federal fiscal deficit. I would submit that we are now beginning to see that we are accumulating a global debt and we are continuing to add to that debt by the day. Just like the national debt is going to be a burden on future generations of Canadians the global climate change debt is going to be a massive burden on future generations of the human species.

I would submit that we have to begin taking measures to pay that debt down now. We need to take measures to reduce our GHG emissions in real terms sooner rather than later. Any plan that calls for increasing our GHG emissions is hopelessly insufficient. We need to take them even if other countries in the world will not follow suit right away. We need to begin addressing this issue because our children and grandchildren cannot do it for themselves.

The Conservatives are becoming desperate, Part 2

If we needed further proof of this we need look no further than the CTV website which is running a story about how the Conservatives will be running attack ads against Stephane Dion next Sunday.

Attack ads can be effective, otherwise politicians would not resort to them. However, they are a high risk proposition and the fact the Conservatives want to resort to them now is telling.

I give a possible reason for this desperation in my previous post but I think this new strategy indicates another factor in Conservative thinking. They do not expect to get much political mileage out of the budget.

Considering that it will be an election budget full of spending commitments and tax cuts it is interesting that they feel the need to use attack ads leading up to it.

On a technical note if someone out there would be kind enough to give me instructions on how to insert links into the text of my posts that would be great. I have figured out how to link other sites in my posts but all I get are the URLs and you know how long some of them can be. I have tried figuring it out for myself but to no avail. Thanks folks.

The Conservatives are becoming desperate

That is only reason I can think of as to why Stephen Harper turned an official government apology to Mr. Arar into a partisan event.

I am not too pleased by what he did but Maxwell House and BCer in Toronto pretty much reflect my reaction so I have nothing to add in that sense.

However, something else that struck me about Mr. Harper's statement is how politically risky it is.

Invariably when a PM issues an official government apology to a person or a people it is a good news story that lasts about 12 hours. Most people read, see or hear it, they say "good, nice job PM", and then forget about it.

Considering the story of the apology broke last night and this morning the actual apology today is already a non-story. By taking the partisan swipe today Mr. Harper has extended the story for at least one more day but he has taken a great risk that it will spin out of his control.

The story of the apology itself is spent so there are really only two angles the MSM can take on this. They will either take up the angle Mr. Harper put on it or they will take up the angle of how he made an official government apology a partisan event, possibly digging up some of his and his caucus's statements about Mr. Arar when they were in opposition. Right now it is even money in which direction the MSM will jump.

If they jump in the second direction I mentioned it will be bad for the Conservatives and Mr. Harper personally. Right now Mr. Harper still enjoys good approval ratings even as his party's support sinks amongst Canadians. His little stunt today runs the risk of sending his personal approval ratings in the same direction as his party's and it risks further eroding that party support.

So the question becomes, why did Mr. Harper take such a big political risk today?

I think you just have to look at the poll in the Globe and Mail today to find a great deal of the answer. As I already stated the Conservatives are trending downwards with regard to popular support. Then in today's Globe we hear that the environment and climate change are the most important issues to Canadians. In addition, the same poll reveals that the Conservatives are dead last amongst the national parties with regard to who Canadians think are best suited to deal with these issues and that is after all of those nice environmental programs were announced last week.

So the Conservatives and Mr. Harper find themselves in the position of going into an imminent election where the most likely ballot question will be about the environment and climate change and where they are considered the least credible party to deal with these issues.

As well, the Conservatives know they have nothing to offer Canadians on these issues and they know that they will not change the perception of Canadians regarding the lack of credibility on these issues in just a couple of months. They know that is going to put a drag on their efforts to regain political support.

So they have to resort to the only thing they can do to neutralize this disadvantage, namely take every opportunity to strike at your political opponents. The Liberals did it under Mr. Martin. We all know that they did so because they were desperate, but it was all they had, and we all know how 'successful' was the strategy.

Conservatives are very fond of making the statement that the Conservatives have accomplished more in 1 year than the Liberals did in 13. It is a dubious claim. However, it took the Liberals 13 years to reach the level of desperation that the Conservatives seem to have reached in only 13 months.

It will not be the end of the world

I have read some of the reaction to the musings about letting Mr. Coté et. al. back into the Liberal fold and I am most intrigued by those who say it would be disasterous for the Party.

Let's be clear that these three and any others that were banned for life because of their roles in the sponsorship scandal should remained banned for life. What they did was unconscionable. However, if by some miracle they actually do become Liberals again it will not be a big deal from a political point of view.

The reasons (in no particular order):

1) The sponsorship scandal was not as big a political disaster as conventional wisdom makes it. Look at the results of the last election. The revelations of the Gomery Inquiry were fresh in the minds of Canadians. The Liberals ran a hopeless and hapless election campaign and they were sideswiped by the announcement of the RCMP Income Trust investigation. By all rights, the Liberals should have been crushed. Instead they held the Conservatives to a very slim minority and they only came up 6 points short of the Conservatives in the popular vote.

One year later the flame of anger of the sponsorship scandal has all but burnt out so its impact will be even less. Yes it will cause the usual suspects to get their backs up again but most people have moved on and it will not be the ballot question except for the most ardent Liberal haters.

2) The current government rejected most of the recommendations of the inquiry called to investigate the sponsorship scandal. It is difficult for them to re-ignite the fire in people if it is demonstrated that they did not even care enough about what happened during Adscam to take the suggested measures to prevent a repeat of it. Indeed, it makes them look hypocritical.

3) The Accountability Act is supposed to prevent people like Mr. Cote and Mr. Gagliano from doing their dirty deeds again. So if the Conservatives push this too hard they actually undermine the credibility of their centre-piece legislation.

4) The Conservatives are now the government with their own ethics record to defend. Everytime they bring up sponsorship, Liberals can mention how the Conservatives broke Election Financing laws and how the man who issued the report stating that suddenly and surprisingly resigned. There is probably no connection but the optics are bad, just as bad as the optics of welcoming Mr. Cote, et. al, back into the Liberal fold. As well, Liberals can mention the scores of patronage appointments made by the Conservatives just days before the Accountability Act came into effect, thus breaking the spirit of their centre-piece legislation. Finally, all of these are more recent than the sponsorship scandal.

5) It will probably be a sad coincidence that the next election campaign will take place at the same time as the expected spring offensive of the Taliban in Afghanistan. If it does come to pass and Canadian service men and women lose their lives that will push the last vestiges of the sponsorship scandal out of the Canadian consciousness. As well, even if there are no Canadian casualties, daily reports of their struggles will be much more compelling to Canadians than a refried sponsorship scandal.

6) The environment appears to be shaping up to be the issue of the next election. Canadians feel a real sense of urgency that something needs to be done about GHG emissions and that will probably not subside much in the next few months. It is this issue and the Afghan mission that will probably be the ballot questions for most Canadians in the next election.

7) In the very short term Canadians will be more transfixed by the Pickton trial what is happening with the Official Opposition.

Letting these folks back into the Liberal Party is wrong on a matter of principle. They violated the trust of Canadians and of Liberals. They do not deserve the priviledge of belonging to the Liberal Party.

However, the political impact of such a move would be minimal.

Sometimes the Liberal Party can just be plain stupid

As a Liberal I read with dismay that the Liberal Party is considering allowing three men implicated in the sponsorship scandal back into the Party.

That is just stupid and wrong.

I read some of the arguments defending such ideas from Mr. Dion, Mr. Coderre, Madame Jennings and others. They are cogent and logical and they are the result of the sense of fairness and justice that most Liberals have, but THEY ARE BESIDE THE POINT.

These men were participants in gross abuse of the public trust. There level of participation is still open to question but not the fact they were participants. They have proven that they cannot be trusted so it is reasonable that part of their penalty for that be their banning from participating in a specific political party. If they believe such a penalty is too harsh or unfair, too bad, they only have to look in the mirror to see who is to blame for their predicament.

So what I suggest to all members of the Liberal Party is you contact your riding association president and voice your opposition to these men being allowed back into the Liberal fold. CC the National Liberal Headquarters when you do so.

As well, Jason Cherniak, if you happen to read this blog, as a member of the team that got Mr. Dion elected as Party Leader I would ask you to contact some of your colleagues who may still be working for Mr. Dion and have them give him a swift kick in the ass.

Random meanderings

Just some thoughts on some of the things that have been happening in the last few days.

Cabinet Shuffle: The primary purpose of Mr. Harper's first cabinet was to consolidate the Conservative victory and to create the conditions for a majority government.

It failed.

The evidence of that can be seen in the polls (more on them in a minute) and in the fact that Stephen Harper had to substantially shuffle his first cabinet just 10 months after naming it.

Will this cabinet succeed where the first one failed? That remains to be seen. However, if the primary purpose of this cabinet is still the creation of the conditions for a majority government, instead of governing, then I do not see it having much more success.

Canadians demand good governance along with good government and if a government fails to provide either one it tends to be unsuccessful at the ballot box. Or in other words, if we see more of the same from this government but with different faces in different places Canadians will not be impressed.

Mr. Khan's defection: This event was totally predictable and so is the reaction to it so I will leave others to it.

However, I find the timing of it to be intriguing. All of the key players in this little play agree that it was Mr. Dion's ultimatum that finally convinced Mr. Khan to make his move. It would be interesting to know Mr. Dion's logic behind it.

Was he trying to interfere with the coverage of the cabinet shuffle? Was he just trying to limit the negative fallout of Mr. Khan's defection by controlling the timing of it instead of letting Mr. Harper pick the moment? Is there some other explanation?

Saddam's execution: I cannot say I am sorry he is dead but at the same time the way he was executed has left a rather sour taste in my mouth. In addition, the fact that all of the other trials have now been cancelled leaves me wondering if we will ever know the full extent of his crimes and those of his accomplises both in Iraq and in the West.

Timing of the next federal election: Alot of speculation on this and the only person who really knows is Stephen Harper as he is in control of when, at least for now. My guess is he will want to have an election as soon as possible after the budget and well before the campaign season begins in Afghanistan. News reports of slain Canadian soldiers during an election will certainly not help him achieve his objective. So I suspect E-day will be sometime in early to mid April.

Who will win the next election: I have heard many predictions on this where people have boldly stated that one particular outcome is more likely than the other. Well folks, I say if you have those powers you can tell me what the next winning numbers will be in the lottery and which stocks to invest my winnings in.

Here is my bold prediction. The Bloc Quebecois will fail to form a majority government.

Currently the Liberals have a slim advantage over their opponents. Since last January their support has held steady between 30-33%, with the predictable exception of the post convention bounce. That would seem to indicate that their support is solid and it provides a stable foundation to build upon. In addition, their brief flirtation with 40+% mark after the convention and the general goodwill Canadians seemed to have towards Mr. Dion demonstrates that a significant number of Canadians find supporting the Liberals to be acceptable again. That has not been the case for over a year. It was only fleeting but it is an indication that Canadians are probably willing to listen to Liberals again.

The Conservatives enjoyed a nice honeymoon but their support has been falling steadily since the summer. They have gone from support in the low 40s to become tied with the Liberals and at one point they were even below them. They have since rebounded somewhat but certainly not enough to make any Conservative with half a brain feel comfortable. The Conservatives are showing the same volatility in support the Liberals endured leading up to the last election and we all know how that one turned out. Conservative support is soft and unstable and they have to be as concerned about losing support as they are about gaining it. Of course, the fact that they were in the 40s at one point demonstrates that a significant number of Canadians find supporting them acceptable as well, although it has been awhile since that was true and it is still an open question as to whether it will be true again.

So, with that in mind I can only say that it is anybody's game right now. How this will all play out is anybody's guess but it should be interesting to watch.

"Is Stephen Harper stoned?"

That is the question my wife just asked me.

I was flipping through the channels and came upon CPAC, which is currently showing an interview with him. She took one look at him and asked the above question.

I think the question was funny although the answer is no. However, I see her point as he seems to have a glassy look in his eye tonight. I bet he is probably very happy the Fall session of Parliament is over.

Update: Just so you know my wife, unlike myself, hates politics and rarely pays attention to it. So her question is by no means a partisan shot, it was asked in all seriousness.

The answer, of course is no, but I still had a good chuckle at the question?

So much to talk about, so little time

Stephen Harper's Senate proposal: The usual suspects have come out for and against this proposal so there is not much else to say in that sense. Although I am somewhat surprised that many Harper fans in the media have panned his ideas.

What I find more interesting about all of this is how far the expectations of the Reformers have fallen in the last 15 years. There was a time when Mr. Harper's proposal would have been met with hoots of derision from the Reform crowd because it is not a Triple-E proposal. Hell, it is not even a single E proposal. I guess it just goes to show that even the highly principled Reformers can sell out for power, just like they have been accusing Liberals of doing for over a decade.

Same Sex Marriage Debate and Vote: What a fucking joke that was. I wonder if Mr. Harper can now count on the social conservatives to bother voting in the next election. If not, it probably will not hurt him in the West but it will cost him some seats in rural Ontario.

Upcoming cabinet shuffle: If the rumours are true it sounds like it is going to be a major one. I wonder if the Canadian punditocrasy will pick up on the fact that the government had to do major renovations to its cabinet less than a year after it was sworn in? That my not be unprecedented but it is very uncommon and it is a good indicator of the incompetence of the Conservatives government ministers.

Gilles Duceppe's threat to topple government over Afghanistan: Contrary to conventional wisdom this move is not directed at the Liberals, not even indirectly. The Liberals hit there nadir in the last election in Quebec. The seats they won are all Liberal strongholds that they did not lose even though they were killed by the sponsorship scandal. Gilles Duceppe knows he will not get those seats this time now that the anger over adscam has dissipated. No, his real target are the seats held by the Conservatives. The Conservatives and the Bloc are going after the same voters, soft nationalists, and Mr. Duceppe realizes that the Afghan war is very unpopular with that segment of Quebec society. So by highlighting the war now, and pointing out the Royal 22nd Regiment will soon by deployed to the war zone, he further separates them from the Conservatives. Rather clever really.

Iran holds a Holocaust denial conference: This was met with universal condemnation in the West but the President of Iran does not care because that was not the audience he was targeting. He was talking to the disenchanted Muslims in the Middle East and they ate up his message. With the destruction of Iraq, the marginalization of Syria and the indifference of Egypt, Iran has an opportunity to substantially increase its influence in the Middle East and this little conference was part of the strategy to exploit that opportunity. It probably worked.

Huge anti-government demonstrations in Beirut: Hezbollah managed to get over a hundred thousand demonstrators out against the Lebanese government and keep them out for a better part of a week. Many of those demonstrators were not members of Hezbollah and until about 5 months ago they did not trust them. I don't know how this will play out but if the Lebanese government has to give into Hezbollah's demands I hope its leadership will have the decency to acknowledge the service the Israeli PM and the IDF did it last summer.

Now for the hard part

And the Liberals could have made it much harder on themselves today.

I like Stephane Dion and I respect him. He would make a great PM. However, I do question his ability to defeat Stephen Harper. I question is ability to translate his win amongst Liberals into a win amongst the broader Canadian electorate.

I was watching both CBC and CTV today and they both made be cringe when near the end of their broadcasts they began to mention Mr. Dion and Dalton McGuinty's in the same sentence. My greatest fear is he will suffer the same fate and just like Mr. McGuinty's defeat allowed Mike Harris to ravage Ontario a Stephane Dion defeat will allow Stephen Harper to ravage Canada.

He does have many positives but he also has many negatives and unfortunately negativity wins in modern election campaigns. However, most of his negatives have to do with him personally, such as his English skills and his lack of charisma. I am a Liberal folks and I did not find either of his speeches this weekend to be very good let alone inspiring. So I am wondering how non-political Canadians will take him.

So, Liberals are going to have to look very honestly at his negatives and find ways to counter them. As well, Mr. Dion is going to have to begin defining the ballot question for the next election beginning yesterday. Fortunately, all of his ideas would resonate with many Canadians so he has to begin talking to Canadians about them now. He has to take the iniative. Mr. Harper is going to try to make the next election about tax cuts and the fiscal imbalance so Mr. Dion has to pre-empt him and hammer on his three pillar themes. He can keep it general at first and become more specific as specific policies are developed. That is probably the best way he can translate his victory today into a bigger victory over Stephen Harper.

The Liberals have given themselves a very difficult challenge and it is going to take alot of hard work by their leader, in a very short amount of time, to overcome that challenge.