Parliamentary Supremacy is not a political gambit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Opposition did some thinking this week

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what happens now?

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

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

The ground is not ready

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canada's old government

The Jaffer judgement and the reactions to it shows some interesting dynamics in Canada's current political climate.

The same can be said of a recent junior minister's temper tantrum in Charlottetown and Mr. Flaherty's jaunt to a London photo-op in an airplane he may not have had a right to take.

Not too many months in the past all three incidents would have been largely ignored by the media and by Canadians. The reason is simple. They really do not amount to much.

Mr. Jaffer's sentence certainly is light but the Canadian legal is system is what it is for better or for worse. Sometimes someone will receive woefully inadequate consequences for their actions and others will receive much greater for less serious crimes. It is unfortunate but it is the nature of all systems devised by humans.

Mr. Flaherty's trip on the Citation was no big deal. Really, Canada is the only Western country where we expect senior ministers to take commercial transportation to go to events. It is silly. It was silly when the Conservatives tied themselves into knots complaining when Liberal ministers used to do this and it is silly now when the Conservatives are doing it. Although I do find it ironic that Conservative ministers are doing what they used to forcefully condemn when they were in opposition. Conservative hypocracy, I am shocked.

Ms. Guerguis' (sp) temper tantrum was a little more serious but in the grander scheme of things it was still pretty minor.

So, what do the reactions to all of these incidences say about the political dynamic in this country?

The Conservatives have hit that point in being the government where every perceived misstep by it or its supporters becomes more magnified and frankly blown out of proportion.

This usually happens to governments that have grown old in the eyes of voters and the media. It seems they just cannot do anything right and every transgression, regardless of its insignificance becomes a major issue. We saw this in the past with Mr. Dingwall's pack of gum.

As well, when a government reaches this point it is pretty much doomed. It does not take long for Canadians to believe a government is old and beyond its best-before-date to believing it is time for a change. And there is virtually nothing a government can do at that stage to reverse that belief.

The reactions to these three events demonstrates that the Conservatives days are numbered on the government side of the House. They are on a well worn path to electoral defeat, one that has been tread by governments, Liberal and Conservatives, before it and there is probably not much they can do to get off of it.

The next election will likely see the end of the current Conservative government.

Going out on a limb

If the allegations of Professor Attaran become the topic of conversation for the remainder of the Spring Parliamentary session the Liberals will win a majority government in the next election, regardless of when it occurs.

Very few Canadians will support a government that appears to have been complicit in committing war crimes. Certainly, some of the more ardent Conservatives, who see the Afghan and Iraq wars as some kind of holy crusade will continue to support the Conservatives but anybody who does not believe that will find somewhere else to go on election day. If not to one of the opposition parties then the couch.

I have my doubts about the allegations and I need to see more evidence before I can conclude that the government was complicit in torture, to conclude that the government actually did commit a war crime. So far there are no facts to support these allegations.

However, I have been around politics long enough to know that facts do not count for a hill of beans in politics. You just need to look at past scandals, such as Adscam, to see that in action. If the government is perceived to have committed a war crime they are done.

If these allegations prove to be true then the Conservative Party of Canada will be destroyed. Oh it will resurrect itself as another conservative leaning party, or a couple of different conservative parties but the current incarnation of the Conservative Party will self destruct.

Did the Conservatives really think the anthem gambit would work?

Really c'mon!

They propose changes to the anthem to appease women.

Did they really think the traditionalists in this country would just say "Oh, OK".?

Did they really believe that women in this country would really be impressed by this?

Did they really believe that feminists would forgive them for all of the cuts to women's programs?

Perhaps this was just something to distract Canadians from other issues but they could not use something else?

These guys and gals are really losing it folks. The death watch has begun and do not be surprised to see some rats abandoning this sinking ship very soon.

What Now Mr. Harper?

You blew it!!

You managed to alienate Canadians enough that the best performance by Canadian athletes in the Olympics, on Canadian soil, did not cause you to even enjoy a temporary bounce in your polling numbers.

The result was a Throne Speech that was forgotten 5 minutes after the GG finished reading it and a budget, whose most positive review was it is bland, innocuous and inoffensive.

You are in a political pickle. Budgets are really the only tool you can use to pick up more support from voters and the one you just produced will be a complete failure in achieving that. You see, restraint is not cool. It does not gain votes. You need to provide something to grab the attention of voters and there is nothing in the budget to do that. Certainly there is the attack on the public service that all Conservative governments do when their fiscal incompetence forces them to deal with deficits that they create. Unfortunately, that kind of thing only appeals to your base it does not cause others outside of it to support the Conservatives. Indeed, I would argue that you will lose more votes than you will gain. The decisions in this budget are going to negatively effect over 150 thousand people in the National Capital Region and Eastern Ontario directly and indirectly effect 100s of thousands more. That is more than 25 seats that you just put in play without any counteracting benefit elsewhere.

Now the one thing that might have stuck out from that past few days, the national anthem proposal, is being withdrawn after just three days, probably because your internal polling demonstrated that Canadians recognized it for the deeply cynical move that it was and they rejected it in droves.

This was the last week where you had the opportunity to drive the agenda for the next few months. Instead, now it will be the Opposition as they hound you some more on issues that caused you to prorogue Parliament in the first place. It is ironic that you took this action to escape those issues only to be faced with them again just 10 weeks later but from a political position much weaker than it was before Christmas. A position you find yourself in because of your own actions and decisions.

I am not certain how you are going to escape this one. The once compliant media is becoming more critical and the Opposition seems content to let you twist in the wind for a few more months waiting for the negative reactions of Canadians to your government over the last few weeks to be cemented in their consciousness.

I am certain you have some things up your sleeve but will any of them be any different than we have seen from your crew before? Can you be truly innovative in your approach?

I guess we will see but if not then I suspect we are beginnning the death watch for your government and your term as the leader of the government of this great country.

Looks like John and Pierre lost the argument

A Throne speech that goes out of its way to mention reducing Public Service pensions and public service spending (read wage freezes) and this even before a budget is released.

This is not good news for John Baird and his familier to the South.

I am certain they have been trying to fend off these measures, knowing the effect they could have on their re-election prospects, but it would appear they failed.

It is certainly going to look good seeing Ottawa, West Quebec and Eastern Ontario awash in Liberal red again.

Year End Review

Happy New Year everybody!!

So another year has gone by and I decided to review some of the politics we saw in Canada in the last year or so.

Most overrated politician: It's a tie. Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff.

Stephen Harper because he has bookended the year with two prorogations of Parliament for the only purpose of escaping two self-inflicted political traps. Anybody who really believes this will not come back to haunt him and the Conservatives sometime in the future is dreaming. Both traps could have been avoided if Mr. Harper would have been more strategic and less ideological. I still cannot believe people in this country think this guy is a political genius.

Michael Ignatieff because he has not been the saviour for the Liberal Party his supporters believed him to be. Under his leadership the Party's standing with the public is no different than it was in 2008. As well, he has been utterly incapable of taking advantage of Mr. Harper's many political mistakes in 2009. By God, Mr. Harper just Prorogued Parliament for the second time in just over a year, for extreme partisan purposes, and where is Mr. Ignatieff and the Liberals? They should be shouting about Mr. Harper's attacks on Canadian democracy from the roof tops but instead the silence is deafening.

Most underrated politician Stephane Dion.

His reaction to the November 2008 economic statement and the actions that grew out of it knocked the Conservatives on their collective butts, a position they did not recover from until September of 2009.

Smartest political move The Sudbury Declaration by Mr. Ignatieff. That declaration caused panic in both the Conservative and NDP camps. It forced the Conservatives to definitively state that they did not want an election just when they were ramping up the government funded advertizing for their Action Plan to increase their polling numbers. Now the advertizing is done and the Conservative polling numbers are slowly but surely sinking again.

Dumbest political move Letting the Afghan detainee issue morph from being about torture to being about the credibility of the Conservatives. The Conservatives forgot an axiom in politics; it is not the crime that will get you it is the coverup. This issue is going to haunt them for awhile.

Most overrated political move Stephen Harper channeling the Beatles at the NAC. The reaction of the chattering classes to it demonstrates just how stupid Canadian politics have become.

Most underrated political move Michael Ignatieff's non-confidence speech in September. That speech set out an election theme, something that has been missing from the Liberals for over a decade. It gave me hope that Mr. Ignatieff would be different but so far I have not seen any follow through on that speech so maybe I am mistaken.

Most unreasonable expectations The idea the Olympics will give the Conservatives a boost. They will be forgotten long before any Canadian marks their X on a ballot and any attempt by the Conservatives to somehow take credit for the efforts of our athletes will be greeted with contempt and scorn.

Least unreasonable expectations A spring election, although I believe it will be closer to the end of May beginning of June than mid-April.

Sleeper issue to watch for in 2010 The deterioration of the economy this year as the stimulus spending of Fiscal Year 2009/10 stops in the new FY and all of the unrepaired structural problems that lead to the last recession, but were masked by the trillions of dollars in stimulus spending around the world, reassert themselves.

There you have. Just one man's opinion of the year just past.

The Beginning of the End for John and Pierre

I read in the Globe and Mail yesterday that the government is considering going after the Public Service pension plans as a way to reduce the deficit. This, of course, is only the beginning.

This is a common tactic of Conservative governments when their gross mismanagement of the public purse finally catches up to them.

The Mulroney government found themselves in the same situation in the 1990s and they went after the Public Service pay and benefits.

The result was Ottawa became a Liberal bastion for three straight elections.

Now we are seeing the beginning of the same thing again in 2010. The Public Service is still the biggest employer in the National Capital Region and many of those folks live in Nepean, Barrhaven and Orlean, suburban ridings currently held by Conservatives. However, pissed off Public Servants could tip the balance back to the Liberals again. As well, the 416, 417 highways have caused many of them to live further out of town which could cause problems for Conservatives in the broader Eastern Ontario Region.

It is nice to know that Conservative ideology does not make allowances for past mistakes. I am really looking forward to the National Capital Region and Eastern Ontario being painted red again.

Deep breath everybody

Stephen Harper has prorogued Parliament to escape a Speakers Warrant being issued in the new year for the Afghan detainee documents.

This is not surprising and it is certainly an outrageous affront to our democracy but let's not get too excited.

This is not permanent. He has not put troops into the streets. He has not otherwise done real harm to our institutions. He has merely taken a longstanding Parliamentary practice and abused it. Like I said not very surprising with this guy as we all know ideologues like him always believe that the end justifies the means.

Besides pointing out this abuse to Canadians, Liberals should be quietly ensuring that their own leadership would not do the same thing in the future. Mr. Harper's diminishing of Canadian democracy will only become permanent if his Liberal successor does the same thing, given similar circumstance. That may seem like an odd statement but politicians, when in power, always do what has been proven to be successful in the past regardless of their rhetoric when they were not in power. If Stephen Harper does indeed get away with this then some of his successors may decide to take similar actions as him if they find themselves in a little bit of political trouble. This may be particularly true in another minority government situation.

If Liberals believe otherwise about their leadership our democracy really is in danger from Mr. Harper's actions.

As an aside to Conservatives do not think for a moment that Canadians will not notice Mr. Harper's actions. You may be correct that it will have no immediate impact on Conservative fortunes and it is obvious that Mr. Harper and his advisors are only thinking of the immediate but his actions reek of arrogance and cynicism and these are always the downfall of governments. Canadians recognise them and do not like them in their politicians and eventually punish them for it.

To Liberals, provided that a Liberal government does not pull a similar stunt in the future, there is a silver lining to what Mr. Harper has done. The level or arrogance we are seeing from this government is usually followed by a big fall. Think Mulroney, Harris or Trudeau. Mr. Harper has bought himself three months but it could cost the Conservatives four or more years soon afterwards.

What a dumb political move by the Conservatives

I have been watching the Conservatives' reaction to the detainee scandal with a critical eye since Mr. Colvin made his first statements in front of a Parliamentary Committee. Since that time they have had failed strategy after failed strategy and they have forgotten one of the axioms of politics.

It is not the crime that will get you it is the cover up.

I happen to agree with the Conservatives to a certain extent that Canadians will not get too worked up if it is proven that Canadian troops handed over Afghan detainees for potential torture. You see, Canadian are reasonable people who do not believe the troops or the government are evil or condone torture. The Conservatives should have realized that early on and came right out and admitted that the original agreement regarding Afghan detainees was woefully inadequate which probably lead to some Afghans being handed over to Afghan authorities who might have tortured or abused them. With a large dollop of mea culpa they could have admitted they dropped the ball on this file but they did eventually get around to fixing it.

Certainly the usual suspects would have condemned the government but that could have easily been dismissed as partisan politics and all of the revelations that we have been seeing in the last few weeks would have had less of an impact as Canadians would already have known that the government made mistakes.

Instead of course, the Conservatives have lied, obfuscated, smeared and otherwise did the opposite of what I suggested above. The result, weeks of bad press. Being placed in the position of being seen to defy the will of Parliament and being forced to consider Proroguing Parliament once again.

What a mess for the Conservatives.

The Conservatives made the mistake of making this whole scandal about what they are covering up and the lengths they are willing to go to cover whatever it is they are covering. That has the potential to be extremely damaging to the Conservatives and perversely their efforts have reached a point where the honest course is no longer viable. They are going to have to continue trying to cover up their actions and each day, week and month that they do so is like an acid dripping on their credibility.

It is ironic, if the Conservatives would have made this scandal exclusively about torture it would have probably gone away by now or at least been less toxic. Instead it has become about their credibility and it will not be going away any time soon, regardless of whether we have a new Parliament in the New Year or not.

As an aside, if Mr. Harper does Prorogue Parliament in the New Year he will get away with it in the short-term. It will be up to the Opposition to try to make it harm them in the medium to long-term.

Nice Spin, Globe and Mail

So the Globe and Mail published an article yesterday stating that the introduction of the enabling legislation for the HST was bad news for the Liberals. I really liked their argument. They essentially stated that if they voted for the measure they would lose support in Ontario and BC and if they voted against the measure they would lose support in Ontario and BC.

What crap!! As I have stated on this blog before the enabling legislation has a greater potential to hurt the Conservatives than it does the Liberals.

So far, the Conservatives have managed to fly under the radar on the HST in both provinces. It should be remembered that it was Jim Flaherty that proposed the idea to both provinces. It should be remembered that it was Jim Flaherty's department that negotiated the HST deal with both provincies. It should be remembered that it is Jim Flaherty that will have to table the legislation. It should be remembered that because this bill deals with taxes it will be a confidence motion. Therefore, the Conservatives are going to have to fight for this bill just to survive as the government.

Suddenly, the Conservative government's role in the HST will be highlighted.

Yet somehow this is very bad news for the Liberals.

Of course, the spin the Globe and Mail published is quoted directly from the Conservative talking points. It is SOPs for the Conservatives that when they are going to do something that can potentially harm them politically they try to deflect blame to someone else, with the Liberals being a favourate target.

I have no real problem with the Conservatives trying to give this porker a whole makeover but I have a real problem with the Globe and Mail publishing a story about the HST enabling legislation that just puts forward the Conservative Party position with barely a hint of independent analysis.

My already low regard for the Globe and Mail went even lower yesterday.

Will progressives ever learn?

Steve commented on a Decima poll the other day regarding opinions of the Gun Registry. I will not add much to his analysis of the poll.

However, that poll did start me thinking about why we would see this kind of result.

Leaving aside my distrust of polls sponsored by the media there is still a question of why we would see these kinds of estimates. It is a given with most progressives that gun control is a popular concept in this country. I am certain many are asking how can Canadians show such ambivalence towards a tool central to controlling guns in this country?

I think the simple answer is the political right in North America have developed a winning strategy for changing the societies that our fathers and grandfathers created in the 40 years after the Second World War. It is not just gun control. We are seeing it with other issues, such as health care, the environment, crime and taxes. It still boggles my mind that the political right on this continent has managed to convince the middle class that it is in their best interests to shift the tax burden from the wealthy and big business to the middle class. It defies all that I learned in economics about people making decisions in their best economic interests.

All of this is a neat trick since their arguments are so often wrong. In most cases progressives have the facts on their side but we are still watching the slow but steady erosion of the just society. So how do they do it? They are motivated, organized and well financed. They are masters of agitprop. They have no scruples. If it will achieve their goals they will lie through their teeth or instill fear. They just care about making their arguments sound plausible. The truth is secondary.

Little set backs, such as losing the American presidency will not deter them. It has been quite remarkable to see how people who were defeated and discredited last November still managed to put President Obama's health reforms on the brink and even though they did not kill them they still managed to water them down a great deal.

Progressives on the other hand seem to be none of these things. In addition they seem to be complacent, seeming to believe that since they have the facts on their side everything will work out for the better. Of course, when that proves to be a false assumption they are left scambling. The gun registry is a case in point. Progressives are going to be trying to prevent its abolition but they are late into the current round. The right has stolen a march on them.

It is time for progressives to change.

The first change is a change in attitude. This is not a game. This is a fight to maintain a just society as opposed to the goal of the other side to create a society that is only just for a chosen few and the other side is playing for keeps. So stop trying to play fair and play to win. I know many progressives recoil in horror at the idea of using agitprop to advance their agenda but if your goal is to maintain that just society then you are going to have to get your hands dirty. If you cannot do that then watch helplessly as that society drifts away. Bottom line, propaganda works. It has been doing so since our species learned how to talk and it really took off when it learned how to read and write. Use it and if you think doing so is somehow beneath you then I would respectfully suggest that you get over yourself.

The second change is be more proactive instead of reactive. Start setting the agenda and the frames for the arguments and stop ceding that advantage to the right. That means progressives are going to have to be as motivated, organized and well financed as the right. The dozens of progressive organizations out there fighting for different causes are going to have to unite into a progressive network and pool their resources and talent.

This should be happening now and these groups should support each other regardless of the cause, whether it be health care, taxes, or legalized drugs.

Third, keep going when you achieve a victory. Do not stop, do not think it is permanent and do not become complacent.

Fourth, come up with better arguments when confronting the right. The right are masters at coming up with the simple and punchy arguments for their positions. They realize that their audiences, whether they be their fellow citizens or legislators, are harried, time crunched people who want their information in nice neat packages that can be displayed on the screens of their mobile phones. The progressive response is usually long boring dissertations full of facts and figures that has their audiences' eyes glazing over before they finish the first paragraph.

Fifth, develop "think tanks" like the Fraser Institute. I cannot think of a single progressive think tank that takes the same approach to issues as Fraser. Certainly their work is intellectually suspect but they do not care. Their goal is not to advance academic arguments but to provide an academic veneer to the positions of the right. To give their positions the appearance of respectability.

The development of a just society was the goal of our fathers and grandfathers and although we had not achieved it we were heading in the right direction. That direction has since changed and we are actually moving farther away from it. It does not need to be that way. Progressives on this continent can still keep us moving towards that society but they are going to have to change their approach to achieving it if they want to succeed.

Stay positive my friends

I have recently been criticized by some other Liberal bloggers because they claim that I refuse to see the reality of the current situation of the Liberal Party and that my attitude is part of the problems that they are having. Although he was too polite to say it in so many words one blogger even implied that I may be deluded.

I have been called much worse and I take none of the criticisms personally.

However, I would like to explain my seeming indifference to the current situation the Liberals find themselves in and even my optimism as we look into the future.

First, everything in politics is transitory. It is ever changing and that is particularly true in between elections. So I never become too upset or too happy about what is happening during that period. Indeed, that holds true during elections. I wait until election night before I become either one.

I remember at the beginning of February 2004, every pundit in the country was stating that Paul Martin would sweep the country. There were even hints that he could take more than two seats in Alberta and sweep the Bloc out of Quebec. By the end of that Februrary every pundit in the country was questioning whether Paul Martin would be able to hang on to government.

Or a more recent example. At the beginning of June of this year many Liberals were saying Michael Ignatieff should force an election. The Liberals were leading the Conservatives and had been doing so for about six months so the time was right to strike. Of course, by the time the most probable election date rolled around that lead had evaporated.

The nature of politics is such that getting upset or ecstatic about what is happening in the moment is counter-productive and probably not good for your health. In addition, any political party that makes major decisions based on what is happening in the here and now generally does not enjoy long-term success.

That is why I generally put less importance on the the here and now of politics, preferring to look beyond it. It is too easy to get lost in the forest when you are looking at the trees.

Second, we will never know what Canadians will care about. The pundits try to tell us differently and they may even try to get Canadians to care about their pet projects and pet peeves but when all is said an done Canadians will choose for themselves. This also means that you can never really understand why one party will be in or out of favour at any given time. Therefore, giving a political party some advice to take this action or that based on what is happening now is a useless gesture and could actually do more harm than good.

Third, we do not have all of the information necessary to give good advice. We as bloggers and citizens have to rely on the media for our information. As has been pointed out many times before our media cares more about advancing a narrative than giving us any real information. I often find bloggers giving the Liberal Party all sorts of advice based on this incomplete information and I am left shaking my head, particularly since the Party and its paid operatives have access to information sources we could only dream about. Then there are those bloggers who give advice to the Party based on information and analysis by media types who are well known to be hostile to the Liberals.

The final point is completely political. That is, it is usually a bad idea to acknowledge to the world that things are tough for your Party. Certainly things could be going badly but that does not mean you need to admit that publicly. Many argue that admitting a problem is the first step towards solving it and that is true but admitting it publicly usually just complicates matters. That is why there are all sorts of organizations and programs that allow people to admit their problems anonymously. As much as we like to believe honesty is the best policy being honest at the wrong time or to the wrong people tends to make matters worse.

As well, the most successful political organizations are the ones that can exude a quiet self-confidence regardless of the situation. The most successful politicians in recent history have all had it. Reagan, Harris, Clinton, Thatcher, Chretien, Obama. I would even say that Stephen Harper has that trait. Those who did not have it tended to enjoy less or no success. Bush Sr, Dion, Joe Clark, McGuinty during his first go around, Eves, John Major, John Kerry and McCain. Remarkably Paul Martin had it as Finance Minister but lost it when he became PM.

This trait often manifests itself in the ability to spit in the eye of your political opponent even as you find yourself being politically wounded. Chretien was a master of it. There were some tough times during his administration but by all outward appearances he and his administration never showed their effects and often he would just become more defiant when things did go wrong.

Of course, there is always a danger that quiet self-confidence can morph into arrogance and hubris leading to a great fall. Mulroney and Harris come to mind and it does look like Stephen Harper may be straying into that danger zone. We will have to see how far he goes. Incidentally, the really successful ones are the ones who can strike a balance between self-confidence and humility. Chretien was a master at it as was Bill Clinton. Both probably would have won another election if they had stood for it.

I have seen the beginnings of a quiet self-confidence in the current Liberal leadership and it is the first time I have seen such in the Liberal leadership for half-a-decade. The Sudbury Declaration was a great example of such. Since that time the Party has gone on to ignore the minutae of daily politics and it seems to be pursuing a plan despite it. You can read my previous posts to see what I mean. That is good news and one of the reasons why I am optimistic for the future. They have not been perfect at it. I was steaming when I saw the statement by Mr. Ignatieff after the by-elections. They were by-elections that you had no chance of winning so he should have just ignored their results and let everybody else have their nice little circle jerk over them. Fortunately, his statements were ignored so no harm was done.

Politics is a funny business where you can be on top of the world one day and in the depths of despair the next, but only if you let it happen. I choose not to. I am well aware of the current political situation but I have seen politics from within a party apparatus and without so I know that the situation can change at any time and I also know that there is alot more going on behind the curtain than we as ordinary voters ever see.

I will go on being optimistic about the chances of finally getting rid of this government so feel free to call be deluded if you wish.

Some observations from the weekend

I had reserve duty last weekend. As usual I stay on Base Trenton and drive out to our ops area in Prince Edward County. To do so I have to cross a railroad overpass on the western edge of the City of Belleville. This riding is held by a Conservative.

On Saturday morning I noticed one of the "Economic Action Plan" signs with vague references to bridge improvements next to that overpass. However, there was no sign of any kind of construction activity. No equipment, no construction warning signs, not even a worn out orange cone.

I found this odd. That sign was not there a month ago when I had my last reserve duty. So it is very recent. I began to wonder who begins a major construction job in November? The answer is no one. The freeze/thaw cycle plays havoc when you are pouring concrete so in all likelihood not much or even no work would be done on this bridge this year. Instead the work would be done next spring, probably beginning in earnest in May.

That had me thinking that the Federal government's fiscal year ends on March 31. No work will probably begin on this bridge until May. So, is the money slated for this bridge improvement really going to be used? Has the money already been transferred knowing that it would not be used during this fiscal year?

I am really looking forward to the Auditor General examining this whole Economic Action Plan. The sooner she does it the better.

Anyway, Saturday morning I arrive at our Ops area, with my fellow reservists, to discover that a vital piece of equipment for our work is in pieces and unservicable. Apparently, an engineer took it apart on Friday and went home before putting it back together again. We called that engineer to come and fix our equipment so we had to wait until he did so.

In classic military fashion, having no work to do until the thing was fixed, we all sat down, drank coffee, ate Timbits and talked. It took awhile to fix the equipment so it was a long conversation covering many topics. Included amongst those topics was the giant novelty cheques fiasco and I swear I did not bring it up. I will save you the details but I will let one of my fellow reservists speak for the consensus of the group when he stated; "It really does not bother me that the Conservatives put their logo on these government cheques but it pisses me off that they seem to think Canadians would be too stupid to notice. I cannot support people who think I am stupid."

One of my fellow reservists is an air traffic controller in Montreal. He controls the upper level airspace. He is one of those people who prevents your airplane from hitting another while you enjoy your delicious airline meal and the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

At breakfast on Sunday he mentioned that he had been talking to the plane carrying the Royal Couple last week. The conversation ventured to how he has talked to the airplanes carrying Stephen Harper on several occasions. He knows this because the plane carrying him always has the call sign of CanForce One. (How original)

So he stated; "Yep, I have told the pilots of the planes carrying Steve what to do."

To which another sitting at the table stated; "Then maybe you should tell him to go and slap the douchebag sitting in the back."

There was much chuckling and nods of agreement from those around the table.

There is only one irrefutable implication of the by-elections

The political make up of the House of Commons has not been significantly changed.

The Conservatives still need the support of another party to maintain the confidence of The House.

The Opposition still needs to unite to defeat the government.

The rest of the theories, analyses and prognostications that we have heard following these by-elections is speculation, conjecture and spin, much of it very self serving, and all of it of little value.

Keep your eye on the puck!!

The Conservatives have had a terrible month. It began with accusations of using stimulus funds for partisan purposes and using taxpayers funds for partisan advertizing. The partisan use of stimulus funds was backed up by independent observers. More recently, it has become increasingly apparent that the Conservatives have FUBARed the roll-out of the H1N1 vaccine. Again, independent observers, including the Auditer General, have backed up that assertion and the intervention of the AG even puts paid to any accusations of the Opposition politicising this issue.

Considering all of this would it be smarter of Liberals to keep hammering away at the government on these issues or to self-immolate themselves ONCE AGAIN over some silly issue, like for example, Liberal Members voting to support a Bill to scrap the gun registry?

It would appear for some Liberals that they would prefer the latter.

The reaction from some Liberals has been quite over the top. Accusations of violating Liberal principles, claiming that those who voted with the Conservatives last night are not "real" Liberals and taking pot shots at the party leadership for letting it happen.

Talk about misplaced priorities and an overreaction. Those Liberals need to take a pill for many reasons.

1) It's a freaking private members bill. The lowest of the low of bills in Parliament. It took months to go from first reading to last night's vote and it will take months more to complete the parliamentary process, probably dying on the order paper in the Spring when we have an election.

2) It was second reading. There is alot of time left to modify this bill in committee.

3) This could be an opportunity for the Liberals to exploit a law and order issue that the Conservatives consistantly find themselves on the wrong side, provided the Liberals play it right. The Conservatives used a back door method to make this attempt and they whipped the vote, including forcing a Member to vote despite H1N1 concerns. That gives the Liberals a golden opportunity to again make gun control an issue. There is a reason why the Conservatives chose this method. They know they are vulnerable on this issue so the Liberals should be exploiting that vulnerability. Incidentally, Mr. Ignatieff looked like he was trying to do just that last night but it was lost in the cacophony of recriminations from some Liberals. If Liberals really want to save the Registry make it uncomfortable for the Conservatives to continuing to back this bill. That is going to take a disciplined communications strategy, involving independent observers and experts over the next few weeks and months. Degenerating into recriminations and accusation is probably the best way to embolden the Conservatives to continue on their present course and speed up the Registry's demise.

4) To claim that someone who disagrees with you is not a real or good Liberal is hubris of the highest order. Such assertions indicate that you believe you are the only ones with the right answers. That is the hallmark of an ideologue and an extremist. It is not something I have come to expect from Liberals.

Many Liberals proudly claim that the Party is a big tent party. Well, if that is what you want the Liberal Party to be then you better be prepared to tolerate those who disagree with you.

5) In politics expediency sometimes trumps principle. That is just the way it is. If you cannot accept that fact then I would suggest you find another interest besides politics. You will live longer.

I find it kind of funny that many of the same Liberals who ridiculed the NDP for taking the expedient route of supporting the government are now complaining about expediency within their own party. Many of those Liberals gave NDP supporters the advice that they should just acknowledge that the NDP is like any other political party. I would suggest that they take their own advice.

As well, do not assume that the Liberals who voted with the Conservatives made their decisions because of expediency. The creation of the Register was controversial amongst Liberals from the beginning because not all Liberals agreed with its creation. Some of these Members might have made this decision because they thought it was the right thing to do.

Again, if you believe their principles are somehow inferior to your own I would suggest that is the height hubris as well. It is that kind of hubris that eventually leads to the fall of governments. It is disconcerting that we are seeing it among some Liberals before the Liberals have won anything.

6) The days of the Registry were numbered as soon as the Conservatives won government. The fact it has survived this long is quite amazing and a testement to the fact it is supported by the majority of Canadians. To make certain that it continues to survive until the Liberals win an election Liberals are going to have to be smart about opposing the government on it and they are going to have to avoid complacancy.

If Liberals really want to save the Registry they are going to have to win an election, full stop. That is the only way to secure it. So Liberals have to stop handing their opponents the gift of disunity over what the Party says or does. It is the right thing to do politically and it is the right thing to do for a party that claims to tolerate different viewpoints and ideas.

Will H1N1 derail the "economic recovery"?

I really do not believe that the economy is recovering, which is the reason for the quotes in the title.

The global ecomomy was pushed off of a mountain last Fall and it fell for a long time, hitting hard outcroppings all the way. If finally hit bottom and it is now stumbling along the very rough terrain of the valley floor heading for the next peak. It is not even close to reaching the point where it can begin climbing to that peak but it is moving that way. While it is doing so will a big boar come out of the underbrush and knock it back on its ass again?

Ok, I think I have taken that analogy far enough.

I ask this question because I am seeing a significant drop in productivity at my place of business as a result of H1N1. So far only one person in my organization has been away as a result of a confirmed case of H1N1. He came through alright and he is back to work. However, the number of people who have taken time off because of normal seasonal illnesses, either for themselves or in their families is quite a bit higher than last year. We had one situation where one member of a team was coughing and hacking. It was just a chest cold but he finally said the heck with it and took a day off. That very same day 4 out of 5 of his fellow teammates took the day off as well, even though they were not sick but just worried that their sick teammate would make them sick. That is five lost person days that can be attributed to the fear of H1N1 but not the actual virus.

I wonder if this is happening elsewhere?

Regardless of how bad this outbreak actually becomes, just the fear of it seems to be causing work disruptions. We are still early in the season, could these disruptions become longer and more widespread? I believe they could and if it does happen then I think we can count on the economy not showing consistant signs of recovery until at least the Fall or even beyond.

Why the Fall?

The flu season will last until Spring. Any distruption it creates will probably not work through the economy until late spring, early summer. On April 1 we will see the beginning the the new fiscal year for the government, which mean most of the stimulus funds that are being spent right now will dry up. The stimulus package was meant as a short-term tonic for the economy and most of it was slated to be spent in this fiscal year. The amount slated for next year is much smaller. Incidentally, this is true for most of the developed world.

So possibly before the economy fully works through the effects of H1N1 the funds that have managed to smooth the sharper edges of the recession will be removed. I cannot believe that combination will create the best conditions for an economic recovery.

Are the Conservatives dropping the political H1N1 ball?

My wife is like the majority of Canadians in the sense she does not give a damn about politics. She could not care less about all of the things I read and write about here on Liblogs.

I mention this because a couple of nights ago we were sitting at the supper table talking about the H1N1 vaccine. She is concerned and had questions on whether she should get it. Our family doctor says yes but a family friend, who also happens to be a doctor, is much more circumspect, mentioning such things as the lack of testing of the vaccine in Canada and possible side effects.

So my wife decided to look to see what the government has to say about it. Thus my wife and I had one of our rare "political" discussions. She mentioned she was confused because of the mixed messages she was receiving from the doctors and that the government did not provide much useful information and at one point in the discussion about the government information she asked the question: "Is the government giving us all of the information, are they holding any of it back?"

After thinking about it yesterday she decided to get the shot. She falls into one of the groups that are considered high risk so she can get it before the rest of us. We had a prior commitment last night but she said we will be done by 8:00pm, the clinic closes a 9:00pm, so we should get there with plenty of time. We arrived at 8:15 and she was told the clinic was closed. They were so overwhelmed they had to stop taking new recipients almost as soon as they opened the doors at 5:00pm. They told her if she wanted to have any chance of getting the vaccine she should show up at the clinic around 1:00pm, a full four hours before it opens.

She was not impressed, in fact she was downright angry.

She again asked me my opinion on the situation and I told it was simply that they did not have enough of the vaccine. She then asked me who was responsible for getting the vaccine and I told her it is the federal government. She then made the statement: "How can they not have enough vaccine? Everybody knew the Swine flu was coming back. What the fuck has the government been doing for the last 6 months?"

My wife is concerned about H1N1, although she has decided to receive the vaccine she is still confused about it and still has doubts about the decision and now she is frustrated and at least partially blames the federal government for that frustration and confusion.

Concern, confusion and frustration. A heady mix, that if it infects enough of the Canadian population would spell the end of a sitting government because when they rear their heads the person feeling these emotions begins to look for someone to blame and the federal government is an easy target.

Of course, this is just an anecdote but my wife's experience is not an isolated case. It is happening all over the National Capital Region and probably all over the country. For the first time in several years my wife has noticed the federal government and she is not impressed with how it has handled this situation. If that sentiment begins to catch on amongst other apolitical Canadians the Conservatives could find themselves in deep trouble.

The Conservatives know they are vulnerable

I am a little confused by the Conservatives' actions with regard to the blatantly partisan dispensation of the stimulus funds and the unprecedented amounts of taxpayer's money they are paying on partisan advertizing.

Both are high risk actions that have a very large potential downside for their political fortunes. They provide their main political opponents with ready made advertizement material where they can take Stephen Harper's statements of 2006 and place them beside his actions of 2009.

So, why have they done it?

Some would say it is hubris. They believed they would not get caught and even if they did they would not pay a price for it. There is some truth in that but I believe there is a deeper reason.

Simply put they are vulnerable and scared. For the first couple years of this government the Conservatives walked with a swagger. They believed they were unassailable and invincible. That swagger disappeared after Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament last year. It has never returned. Since then I have detected a very different attitude since then, an attitude of bravado covering up a great fear.

We saw that in the late spring and late summer when Stephen Harper first made a deal with Michael Ignatieff to prevent a summer election and practically begged Mr. Ignatieff to allow his government to survive come the Fall.

We have seen it in the fact the Conservatives are enjoying good poll numbers but there is not even a hint of Stephen Harper forcing or calling an election. We know he does not fear any negative fallout from the electorate about doing so because he totally ignored that threat last year. Certainly, we have seen speculation in the media that he will force an election but nothing from Mr. Harper, the guy who really counts.

We currently see it now in those poll numbers. The Conservatives have spent untold millions, maybe billions, of stimulus dollars in Conserative and swing ridings. He has spent an unprecedented amount of taxpayer's dollars on blatantly partisan government ads and they are still enjoying the afterglow of a backlash against their chief opponent when their necessary strategy to sever themselves from Mr. Harper's confidence games caused a widespread eruption of election speculation with Mr. Ignatieff being blamed for it.

In addition the Conservatives have enjoyed a national media that has been compliant at best and complicit at worst.

Despite this the Conservatives are not much better off than they were on election day last in 2008. They have failed to break the 40% mark for more than a couple of weeks and they are now slowly sinking back to the levels that they achieved before the Sudbury Declaration.

That is telling. Stephen Harper is almost four years into his government. He is at that stage where there is usually no great desire for change and where the government usually enjoys widespread support. If Jean Chretien would have had all of the advantages I describe above during his fourth year as PM the Liberals would have been sitting comfortably in the mid-40 range. The same could be said of Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau.

Stephen Harper, he struggles to acheive 40% and even if he achieves that level it is not sustainable.

The Conservatives are not acting like a government that is strong and confident, like Jean Chretien did in the fourth year of his government or like Mike Harris for that matter at the same stage in his. Instead they are acting like a government that knows they are vulnerable and they are trying their damnest to turn things around, very much like Ernie Eves did leading up to his one and only election as Ontario Premier. You may remember that in the last few months of his goverment he lavished all sorts of money on Ontario voters while spending all sorts of government money on partisan advertizing. We all know that worked very well.

I have argued several times on this blog that the Conservatives are frightened. The fact they believe they need to take a huge political risk in playing partisan games with economic stimulus money during an economic downturn and spending an inordinate amount of government money on partisan advertizing would seem to confirm that argument has merit.

A warning to Liberals

EKOS is scheduled to come out with a poll this Thursday. That poll is going to indicate that the Conservatives do not appear to have been harmed by the current Cheque-Gate scandal.

They may drop but if they do it will be within the margin of error (MOE). The same can be said of the Liberals. They may increase but again it will be within the margin of error. Then again the Conservatives could increase and the Liberals decrease but within the MOE.

One thing about these kinds of scandals is they do not have an immediate impact on the horse race estimates of polls. When Ms. Fraser broke Adscam, in a much more dramatic fashion than this scandal broke, the Liberals did not suffer an immediate hit in the polls and the Conservatives did not enjoy an immediate benefit. Indeed, throughout the three year Adscam saga the Liberals never trailed the Conservatives until the final three weeks of the 2006 election campaign.

What these kinds of scandals do is cause a slow burn in the electorate towards the party in power. It causes many to believe that a change may be in order, even those who continue to tell pollsters they support the government. In other words, these types of scandals sow the seeds of discontent amongst the electorate that can be reaped at a later date. As well, they create the impression in the electorate that the government may be corrupt, which then causes even the smallest transgression to become magnified. Witness David Dingwall's pack of gum to see that in action.

So, when the poll comes out on Thursday and you see that the estimates have not moved much please do not whine and cry about how the Conservatives are getting away with yet another scandal or how the Liberals are not taking advantage of this. The time will come when the seeds Mr. Harper and his members have planted this week will germinate and grow until they overwhelm them and they find themselves on the opposition benches looking over at PM Ignatieff.

However, if you really must obsess over the next polls then I would suggest you look at the undecideds. I would suspect that the estimate for that will increase at greater than the MOE.

The Conservatives are just keeping an election promise

Remember back in 2006 when the Conservatives made an election promise to be a more transparent government.

Their using oversized novelty stimulus checks with the Conservative logo and being signed by individual members, cabinet Minister and Stephen Harper is them being transparent in using taxpayers money for partisan purposes. So they have kept that 2006 election promise.

The Conservatives cannot be blamed if everybody else interpreted their promise of transparency some other way.

Calvin Klein's Obsession for Politicos

This particular fragrance comes in many bottles sporting such labels as Strategic Council, EKOS, Angus Reid, Ipsos Reid and Nanos. The fragrance is likened to that which comes out of the back end of a bull but that does not stop politicos of every stripe, both professionals and otherwise, from constantly marinating in it.

Why? Who knows but the obsession is real which is very strange. After all

Polls are not predictive. I still remember reading a banner headline in a newspaper just a couple of days before the writ was dropped for the 2004 election that stated "Liberals Heading for a Majority: Poll."

Polls do not measure support for parties. They measure the opinions of a sample of people at the time the poll was taken. The only true measure of support for a political party is what it received on election day. When a person marks his X on that little piece of paper and drops it into the cardboard box he is committed. He cannot change his mind.

Public opinion can change at any time. You just have to look at the 2004 election example. It is obvious that many Canadians changed their minds as the campaign wore on because on the Saturday before the election the Liberals and Conservatives were deadlocked at around 33%. Then many of these same people changed their minds again because the final result was a 6 point victory for the Liberals.

Then you can look at the 2008 election. Towards the end alot of people had changed their minds about the Liberals and Mr. Dion, which fact probably went into the calculation of Mr. Duffy as he was deciding whether to release the now infamous Dion Atlantic TV interview.

I know many out there would still argue that all of this is true but polls do matter because of two considerations.

Polls drive the media narrative. What came first the chicken or the egg? I am more convinced that the narrative drives the polls, not the other way around. We saw that at the end August, beginning of September. The media began hammering away at the narrative that Canadians did not want an election but it took them more than a week to publish polls stating that. Assume it takes at about three days to take and publish a poll and that works out to almost a full week to peddle that narrative before actually asking Canadians for their opinions. I can guarantee that had some effect on the subsequent polling estimates.

Then there was Paul Martin. When Mr. Brault gave his testimony during the Gomery Commission the Liberal polling numbers dropped 6 points overnight. The Conservative numbers did not budge either way. The Liberal numbers had fully recovered and were back to their pre-testimony levels within 10 days but that did not stop the media from stating in almost every political news story, in the subsequent months, that the Liberals were plunging in the polls.

Polls influence public opinion. There is some truth in that but do not overestimate that influence. If its influence was as strong as some people think we would never have a change of government. It is very rare for an opposition party to ever lead a sitting government. So, except in the rarest of instances the sitting government will always be seen leading its chief opponent. That is true of the horse race numbers and the individual leadership numbers for each party leader. If that situation has such a strong influence on public opinion we would not have seen some of the big changes we have seen in the last 20 years. Think Peterson, Campbell, Eves, George Bush Sr..

As well, if polls had such influence on public opinion we would probably have a two tier health care system by now. The Fraser Institute has published many studies, containing much polling data, demonstrating that Canadians are alright with the idea for more than a decade. Yet no politician out their will ever suggest converting the Canadian health care system into a two-tier system.

With this in mind I find it disturbing that some Liberals out their are stating that the Liberals should change their strategy to turn their numbers around. That is bad advice. They had better hope beyond hope that the Liberals do not succumb to the temptation to chase higher polling numbers. They are unlikely to succeed in overtaking the Conservatives.

As well, a political party or individual who makes decisions bases on polls, particularly the public polls is destined to fail.

As I have stated in a previous post the Liberals having finally shown that they have developed a long-term election strategy and an election theme. It is easy to see if you look past all of the political noise that we have subjected to since the Sudbury Declaration. It would be a shame if they let that strategy and theme fall by the wayside in a futile quest to improve their polling numbers. Instead, continue to implement the strategy and the polling will take care of itself.

A little piece of trivia. In the primary season leading up to the 1992 US elections none of the stars of the Democratic Party believed they could unseat George Bush Sr. He was extremely popular after winning the first Gulf War and the polling seemed to indicate he would take the '92 election in a walk. So none of these party grandees put their names into the ring. They figured they would lose, thus ending their hopes of winning in '96, so they decided to let a relative unknown win the nomination so that he could be sacrificed. Needless to say they were wrong, Bill Clinton won two elections and the time of these grandees passed, denying all of them a chance at the White House. I wonder if some of them regret allowing the polls to have such an influence on their decisions.

I know I am asking alot in saying ignore the polls but at the very least I would suggest that obsessing over them is probably not a good idea.

Sometimes Canadian politics bugs me

Stephen Harper sang at an arts gala during the weekend and it becomes big news.

Liberal and Conservative bloggers begin examining this event like a witch doctor examining chicken entrails to try to determine whether this will help or hinder this reelection chances. Naturally, for the most part, the conclusions fall along partisan lines.

The media does the same thing. John Ibbotson in the Globe today was absolutely gushing and greatly demonstrated that his bosses should have left him in Washington. Dude, I really hope you wore a condom when you wrote that column.

Meanwhile, this weekend we saw evidence that the world economy is still not out of recession. The rate of descent has decreased for certain but otherwise it is still descending and this is before the stimulus spending governments pumped into the the world economy runs out at the beginning of the new fiscal year, which begins, in most countries, in April. That's only six months away folks. As someone in project management I can tell you that six months is a very short time indeed. Since the bulk of that stimulus was earmarked for this year, when April 2010 rolls around things will begin to change for the worst again and probably rather quickly.

Remember folks the thing that started this whole ride, the sub-prime mortgage collapse and the gigantic toxic debt it left behind is still there. It has been masked by the stimulus spending and the bank bailouts but those were only temporary measures to prevent the collapse of the global financial system and to give the illusion that governments were doing something about the recession. However, once that runs out that debt will rear its ugly head again and smack the global economy onces more.

Do we see anybody giving this issue the attention it deserves on the weekend or today?

Of course not. Instead we hear about Stephen Harper singing the Beatles.

Sad really.

Liberals are sticking to their strategy

With the benefits of hindsight we are beginning to see that the Liberals have finally developed a medium to long-term strategy for winning the next election. Something we have not seen since before Jean Chretien won his third majority.

We have seen only the beginning and in broad strokes it looks something like this. Stop supporting the government and begin to lay the groundwork for having an election on competing values.

It began in June when they allowed the government to survive despite not receiving what many believed they could have received at that time. While others were thinking short-term political advantage it was apparent to some that the Liberals were playing the long game.

The summer was spent developing and fine tuning the strategy for the Fall and the Winter.

We saw the beginning of its implementation in Sudbury. A necessary first step was to extricate the Liberal caucus from Stephen Harper's confidence games and they did that beautifully, side swiping the NDP in the process. Of course that set off a storm that has lead to a predictable fall in their polling numbers. (Note I do not say support. Polls measure peoples opinions at a given time and we all now peoples opinions change all of the time.)

Despite this the Liberals did not flinch. They continued to implement their strategy.

The next step was for Mr. Ignatieff to outline the broad strokes of how the Liberals would handle the economy. It received as much play as you would expect for a speech by the Leader of the Opposition but it was generally well received.

Then we saw the Liberals begin to go after the Conservative record and set up their attack lines for the next election. Gerard Kennedy's report on stimulus spending is gold. It received very little attention at this time but it was never meant to. Again, the Liberals are thinking medium to long-term.

The final step of this part of the strategy that they have shown us is Mr. Ignatieff's speech for the non-confidence motion. It establishes an election theme. Something the Liberals have not had since I do not know when. As I stated in a previous post it is a winning theme. It is the one that has made the Liberal Party the Natural Governing Party in this country. If you do not believe me on this last point then I would point out the National Post is stating there is not much difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives. That is something I would expect to hear from Jack Layton. The Liberals should feel very good. When the house newsletter of the Conservative Party begins to spout decades old NDP talking points, when criticising your party, you are probably on to something.

I do not know the next steps in this strategy. I imagine we will see the Liberals continue to push their election theme over the next few months and I would expect to see more reports like that produced by Mr. Kennedy. As for other parts of that strategy we will just have to wait and see.

A month of bad press and dropping poll numbers did not deter the Liberals from pursuing their chosen strategy. That shows strength, resolve and courage. That should make Liberals happy and it should be a cause for concern to its opponents.

Why do the media try to be political strategists...

because they are not very good at it.

As I have stated in this space before Stephen Harper does not want an election this Fall. His reasons are many and Mr. Ignatieff just gave him another reason today. (See my previous post).

That does not stop the media and others from speculating that Mr. Harper will engineer his own defeat by using some sort of poison pill.

I saw the latest speculation on this yesterday in the Globe where they stated that the Conservatives may use the HST enabling legislation as a poison pill.

What stupidity!!

The HST is deeply unpopular in BC and it is becoming increasingly unpopular in Ontario. It is widely seen in both provinces as a tax grab during hard economic times.

In that kind of atmosphere why would the Conservatives even think of introducing legislation that will enable this tax as a stand alone Bill, let alone use it as the hill in which to sacrifice their government? Up to this point the Conservatives have been distancing themselves from the two provincial government decisions on the HST. They made the necessary agreements with the two provincial governments but they are hoping no one will notice that it takes two to make such agreements.

Now people are suggesting that they will abandon this strategy and highlight their role in the imposition of the HST by using it as a Bill to trigger an election?! These people must be on crack. I cannot think of a strategy more likely to cost votes in the two most populous provinces in the country.

It is true that such a bill would make things ackward for the Liberals. They would either have to make things difficult for the Ontario Liberals and break a commitment by voting down the Bill or they would have to give Jack Layton ammunition to use against them by supporting it.

However, neither option would hurt the Liberals that much in the long run. Mr. McGuinty would be inconvenienced by having the bill defeated but I am certain he also remembers the fact that former Harris reformatories now in the Harper cabinet have overtly tried to undermine his political position, leading up to the last provincial election, on several occasions. Now that another Harris acolyte and former colleague of these same ministers is the leader of the Provincial PC Party he can probably expect more of the same if they are still occupying those posts. As well, considering how unpopular the HST is in both provinces the two premiers may welcome an out from having to implement it without being seen as giving into the opposition in their respective provinces. In other words, neither provincial government is likely to make too much noise if enabling legislation is defeated.

As for Jack Layton, voting for the Bill will allow him to again say there is no difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives. But they have been saying that for decades and the results speak for themselves. Canadians believe that there are only two parties capable of governing this country and if both are implicated in the implementation of the HST it will be cancelled out as an election issue.

The HST enabling legislation will not be introduced as a stand alone bill. It is too toxic. Instead it will be buried in a good news budget in the Spring or it will be buried in a big, good news omnibus bill just before or after the Christmas break.

Oh look, an election theme

Today Michael Ignatieff did something that Liberal leaders failed to do in the last three elections. He actually set out an overarching theme for the next Liberal campaign. Good on him.

As elections themes go, it is a good one. The agreement amongst Canadians that governments are a force for good runs deep in this country. Canadians do not want governments to be all encompassing but at the same time they do expect their governments to actively contribute to the greater good of the nation and society.

This idea has been a core Liberal value for over a century and it is a contributing factor to its great success in that time in winning elections and forming governments.

From a strategic point of view it is a good strategy as well. Stephen Harper has never articulated his vision for Canada. There have been hints which have lead to accusations amongst his opponents of a hidden agenda and hopes amongst his supporters of the same thing. Mr. Ignatieff might have just removed that luxury from him. Depending on how well Mr. Ignatieff continues to articulate and elaborate upon his vision the greater the pressure he will put on Mr. Harper to put forward his vision. If it is as bad or as good as his opponents or supporters believe it could make things rather difficult for him.

During the last election he took some flak for waiting until almost the last minute to release a platform. He could take more if he is unwilling to offer his own vision when his chief opponent does nothing but talk about his.

If this theme continues through to the next election, in the Spring, then we could find ourselves in a campaign that we have not seen in awhile. One that is actually about competing visions for this country.