For the sake of clarity...

...if Stephen Harper and the Conservatives truly want to lay claim to the authorship and inspiration for the Clarity Act, then I think a massive ad campaign in the Quebec media is the way to go. I'd gladly chip-in $50 towards a full-page Conservative ad in La Presse affirming Stephen Harper as the true father of the Clarity Act, so Quebecers can at last know the truth. What'dya say, Steve? Frankly, I don't know why Harper hasn't been on the husitngs already in Quebec, going door to door if necessary, trying to correct this injustice of history...

Cadscam isn't over

All the RCMP decision means is there isn’t enough information to support criminal charges. That’s no surprise, I said that months ago. Heresay isn't legally admissible, Chuck Cadman can't testify, and those that made the offer/s to him have no reason to fall on their swords. The RCMP didn't say the charges were false. They said they can't be proven in a court of law.

The fact remains, the behaviour of the Conservatives during the Cadman affair, and since it came to light, is sketchy and unethical at best.

The fact remains, the Conservatives have yet to come clean and answer very basic, simple questions about their behaviour and their actions. Instead, they have deflected and obfuscated.

The fact remains, the Conservatives have yet to offer a explanation for just what sort of offer they made to a man on his deathbed that makes any sense at all.

The fact remains, the Conservatives have not explained what Stephen Harper meant on that tape when he said “financial considerations” and they haven’t told us what Harper knew, and when.

And why is Dona Cadman still a Conservative candidate if the party thinks she made the whole thing up?

There are many unanswered questions, and Canadians are still owed proper explications. Here’s what we do know. The Conservative Party made some sort of offer involving “financial considerations” in an attempt to secure the vote of a man dying of cancer. I don't think that's in dispute.

Was there any illegality involved? I don’t know. Clearly, at this point there isn’t sufficient evidence to support any charges. This thing was never going to be settled in court though. The public will have its say in the next election, and the public doesn’t need the RCMP or the judicial system to tell it offering a dying MP “financial considerations” for his vote is disgusting and morally wrong.

And as for the Conservative libel lawsuit against the Liberals, why would it be dropped? First of all, even if it looked like the case would be lost, frankly I think the spectacle of discovery, a public jury trial, and Stephen Harper on the stand testifying about the Zytaruk tape, would be worth whatever the libel award would end up being. Pass the hat for donations on that one, I'll chip in $20 to see Harper et al on the stand, under oath.

However, this libel suit won't hinge on the merits of the allegations; it’s whether or not statements made inside the House of Commons can be repeated verbatim in a news release under the shield of immunity. The argument there is as strong today as it was yesterday, and frankly, with the potential ramifications of the Conservative opinion for new media and bloggers (could be we sued for reporting on debate in the HoC?) the issue shouldn’t be abandoned.

Cadscam over? Far from it. With the RCMP investigation out of the way, now there’s absolutely no reason why the parliamentary ethics committee can’t begin to look into this. I trust that, like some of their blogging supporters, the NDP will now support such parliamentary investigation.

Trust me, this thing is far from over. Canadians need answers.

Things that make you go eww

I’ve been trying lately to catch-up on my reading of MacLeans. The Rogers behemoth recently offered me a subscription for $1.50/month, finally dropping it down to a price I don’t mind paying.

And the mag isn’t really too bad these days, as long as you ignore Mark Steyn, Barbara Amiel (really, why does she have a job with you Macleans, seriously?) and the ridiculous editorials. There’s usually some pretty decent and informative articles in each issue, not to mention columnizing from Paul Wells and Andrew Coyne.

It was in a recent Wells column called “Generation Harper” that I came across this disturbing insight. I was at Manchu Wok at the time and somehow, I managed to hold-down my honey garlic chicken.

The bars don't rock until closing time with quite as many suit-clad political staffers on the make. Tory staffers — never, ever speaking on the record to journalists — admit there's a subtle in-group pressure to get married and start raising a proper brood of children.

Growing the next generation of Conservative voters with good, strong, pure conservative genes. Have another baby for Steve Harper, do your duty for the leader.

I just hope this party-mandated baby boom has nothing to do with this:

Bemused Toronto commuters were repeatedly informed that "Stephen Harper eats babies" after a hacker tampered with advertising signs on city trains.

I'll remind you Harper never denied the allegation...

We wanted policy and now we've got it. Sort of.

If there's been one lament from many Liberal bloggers such as myself over these past many months, it has been that the party hasn’t been talking policy near enough. OK, there’s actually been one other pretty big lament, but that’s a well-trodden other story. Well, now our call for policy has been answered. Sort of.

By now, everyone has heard the Liberals are thinking about implementing a carbon tax, a carbon tax shift, call it whatever you want. Actually, for those paying close attention the musing has been going on for some time. During the last round of by-elections, I attended an all-candidates debate in Toronto-Centre where the topic came up, and Liberal candidate (and now MP) Bob Rae spoke favourably of the idea. Green candidate Chris Tindal rightly said sounds great Bob, but that’s not current Liberal policy. Bob, who is one of those charged by Stephane Dion with drafting the policy platform, said trust me Chris, it’s on the way. It appears he was right. On a side note, there was strong support in the room for the concept. And on a cautionary note, I wouldn’t consider a by-election all candidates meeting audience in downtown Toronto representative of much of anything.

Anyway, on the plus side everyone is not only talking about a policy idea, but they’re talking about a Liberal policy idea. On the negative side, we’re not putting any details out there, there’s no meat on the bones. This could have a couple of consequences if not managed properly. For those like me, who are inclined to defend the idea, that’s though to do without knowing just how it will work. We can all speculate how we think it could/should work, creating confusion with differing models. People can fill it the blanks with their own hopes, and undoubtedly disappointing many when the actual details emerge. It’s also a vacuum for Conservative and NDP misinformation and distortion that is tough to counter without the actual plan. Well no, we’d never do it that way we can say, but we can’t say what we will do.

If we are trial-ballooning this thing, using the country as a free national focus group, that’s great. But if we don’t frame the debate, put it in context, put a little meat on the bones, then our opposition will define it negatively for us and sour our sample group, making the results meaningless and the policy stillborn. Long story short, if we’re serious about this we need details.

If done properly, and I think that’s the key caveat, I think this would be a good policy. Most Canadians would agree with the idea that those that pollute more should pay more. Green behaviour should be incented, wasteful behaviour penalized. As long as sensible mechanisms are built in to account for things like differences in rural and urban life, for example (long a blind spot in Liberal policy development, remember long guns) and it’s revenue neutral, and it’s put in the context of a wider green agenda and plan for a green economy, then I’m behind it.

What’s more, it’s a bold policy initiative that stakes-out strong green ground and speaks to an activist Liberal Party. It’s a chance to begin defining ourselves again, allow the electorate to see us in another light besides the QP scandal cut and thrust, and to engage with them again on our terms.

Can we sell it though? That’s the challenge, and that’s my big question. I’d like to channel Barrack Obama and say Yes We Can, but the honest answer is I don’t know, but I hope so. Can we figure out how to communicate this thing in a sound bite? That won’t be easy. We’ll need to, but we haven’t shown an aptitude for it in the past.

Take the last election, and the Conservative promise to cut the GST. Of course, they didn’t widely publicize the fact they planned to pay for it by cancelling previously granted Liberal income tax cuts, or, in other word, the Conservatives planned to raise income tax rates. Nearly every economist in the country (including, I’m sure, Stephen Harper) agreed this was a bad idea economically. Anyone that looked into the issue could see this was bad policy. But boy, was it good politics. We couldn’t get past that 5% GST sticker cash register photo-op. We had the right policy then, and they didn’t, but they sold it better, and they won.

I understand the view of those that say a carbon shift may be good policy, but its too hard to sell so we shouldn’t do it. I understand, but respectfully, I think that’s a cop-out. No matter how uphill the battle, some fights are worth fighting. Some fights need to be fought. And in this day and age, what fight can be more important than the environment?

If we only stand for things when they're easy to do, and not when they're hard, then do we really stand for anything at all?

Frankly, if we’re going to go down in the next election (not that I think we will) I’d rather go down fighting for something that we know to be right, fighting the good fight, then go down running a cookie-cutter, politics as usual, play it safe campaign designed by consultants and focus groups.

I think we can win this fight though, and the next election for that matter. Arm us with more details, and quickly, and start driving the debate rather than floating balloons. Don’t let the opposition define this thing before we do and pull the rug out from under us. Don’t do this half-assed. If we’re going to suit-up for this fight, let’s do it right.

Why Bernier’s girlfriends do matter

It may be easy to dismiss these stories out of hand and avoid being seen as gossipy busy-bodies, but no matter how amusing a line Steve Harper’s speech-writers wrote for him, the fact is Maxime Bernier’s ex-girlfriend having ties to organized crime is relevant. And it must be hard for the Conservatives to pretend its not because it comes down to an issue they claim to be all about: national security.

Bernier is Minister of Foreign Affairs. As such, he has access to a great deal of confidential information concerning our national security, and makes critical decisions every day. He also holds a high-level security clearance. Associating with people that have links to organized crime opens him to potential compromise, which may well be why the RCMP questioned him recently about a photo of him with a Montreal man facing criminal charges.

Even if I was willing to dismiss the girlfriend thing, and I think it mainly shows bad judgment more than anything else, in rushing to Bernier’s defence Stockwell Day goes too far:

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day dismissed opposition complaints yesterday, saying the government has no business doing security checks on a cabinet ministers' families or partners.

While cabinet ministers and even members of Parliament must file conflict-of-interest reports that include the financial holdings of their spouses, Mr. Day said there is no reason to perform security checks on family members or partners.

Given some of the other initiatives Day and The Right have advocated in the name of “national security” his supposed squeamishness here is amusing. This is usually where he’d say ‘if you have nothing to hide…” But seriously, to argue no security checks should be done on the spouses of cabinet ministers? That’s a ridiculous argument, especially from Day.

Why does it matter? Well, like anyone else do ministers not confide in their partners about their jobs? Could that not involve confidential information? Do they not bring papers home, that the spouse would have access to? I think a background check is entirely relevant, given the circumstances. Then there’s the possibility of compromise and blackmail.

Because someone trying to get close to such a person to gain information is not outside the realm of possibility. Indeed, while I think there’s probably nothing to the Julie Couillard thing, the Gerda Munsinger affair puts lie to Day’s sweeping assertion we shouldn’t care who cabinet ministers date:

Munsinger was at the centre of a spy sex scandal that rocked Ottawa in the 1960s. The East German-born Soviet spy came to Montreal in the 1950s and ended up being involved with government officials in the John Diefenbaker government, including the associate minister of national defence, Pierre Sévigny.

She was deported in 1961 and the matter was quietly dealt with internally. But in 1966, a Liberal minister brought it up in the House of Commons. A media frenzy ensued and Munsinger was tracked down in Munich and confirmed the story.

All we’re talking about here is ensuring that someone who, by virtue of their relationship with a cabinet minister, gains potential access to confidential information, is not a security risk. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. And it certainly has nothing to do with gossip.

On Bernier though, I'll agree with those that say there are other, better reasons to go after him: he's a really crappy minister.

Contrasting Conservative rhetoric, and action, on transparency with Liberal action

You’ll remember that the last Conservative election campaign made a big deal about bringing transparency and accountability to government. Heck, they even had a whole plank in their platform dealing with access to information:

That was the Conservative rhetoric. The Conservative reality though, as we’ve seen, is completely different. And as we know it’s far from the first time the farce of Conservative promises and rhetoric have been exposed by their actions, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

The federal Conservatives have quietly killed a giant information registry that was used by lawyers, academics, journalists and ordinary citizens to hold government accountable.

The registry, created in 1989, is an electronic list of every request filed to all federal departments and agencies under the Access to Information Act.

Known as CAIRS, for Co-ordination of Access to Information Requests System, the database allowed ordinary citizens to identify millions of pages of once-secret documents that became public through individual freedom-of-information requests over many years.

With this latest action by the Conservatives to restrict access to information, from its war with the media to stalling committee investigations, I was reminded of concrete, tangible action taken by the last Liberal government.

It was the Liberals that in December 2003 took a major step forward in opening government to accountability by bringing-in a system of proactive disclosure of expenses by cabinet ministers, their political staff, and senior civil servants. Every quarter their expenses need to be posted publically on the department’s Web site, where citizens and media can scrutinize how the servants of the people are spending our money.

For example, go to the Ministry of Finance Web site, at fin.gc.ca. After picking your language, scroll down and you’ll find a link for proactive disclosure, click Travel and Hospitality Expenses, and then reports. Thanks to this system we can see, for example, that Jim Flaherty dropped nearly $10k on air fare to go to Tokyo for a G7 Finance Ministers meeting. Or that his communications director, Dan Miles took a journalist to Ottawa’s Eggspectation and dropped $18.90 on the meal. (Hopefully the PMO doesn’t find out a Conservative staffer dined with a reporter, even if he or she bought their own eggs!)

You’ll find similar disclosure reports on all ministerial Web sites. Such tools are a great resource for the media and the public to hold ministers and staff accountable for their spending. Indeed, the very existence of the system, and knowing that their expenses will be made public, have led ministers and staff to curtail their expense spending.

That’s transparency and accountability, courtesy a Liberal government. Given that the Conservative style of accountability seems to be closing CAIRS and curtailing disclosure, one wonders how long it will be before they kill proactive disclosure of ministerial expenses too?

On a funny side note, on the main Finance Ministry page on proactive disclosure they have a little blurb on the history of the program, including a link to the PMO Web site on ethical conduct. Open the link and you get:


A blank page. Too funny. And very appropriate.

A tragically dumb column

The dumb column of the day award goes to Conservative apologist Don Martin, who coughed-up this embarrassing entry in the National Post:

Dead ducks are no 'tragedy'
Let's stop tarring and feathering Syncrude
Don Martin, National Post Published: Tuesday, May 06, 2008

CALGARY -Stephen Harper does not empathize easily.

The Prime Minister values self-reliance and a suck-it-up mentality in Canadians confronted by difficult circumstances and, except for cats, this feline fan doesn't fret about problems in the animal kingdom.

Which is why Mr. Harper's "terrible tragedy" designation for 500 unfortunate ducks that picked a toxic Syncrude oilsands sludge pond for their final dip last week, a casualty count that could be inflicted by just 55 hunters in a single day under Alberta duck-hunting limits, was so uncharacteristic.
(more)

Shorter Don Martin: F**k the ducks.

He’s completely off base. If Don dislikes overblown rhetoric though, he’d do well to advise to advise Stephen Harper to get serious about environmental protection in the oilsands, and move away the industry self-police mantra so favoured by the right towards real protection and real enforcement to balance the oilsands development with the good of the environment.

Fact is, if Harper didn’t have zero credibility in this area he wouldn’t have to call it a tragedy. Indeed, he’s overcompensating because he’s seen as an industry stooge and, as Don noted, people get very sensitive when it comes to animals.

Another shorter Don Martin: Leave the poor oil companies alone!

There's the possibility this incident could be a canary in the mineshaft. It should be fully investigated by the appropriate authorities, punitive actions taken as allowed for my legislation, and steps taken to ensure it doesn't happen again. That would be an even greater tragedy. The oil companies are making very good money in the oil sands, and they have a responsibility to us to ensure they're doing so as safely and cleanly as possible.

Summer tour a good idea

If we're not going to have an election this spring, then I like what I’m reading in The Hill Times for a planned summer tour of the country by Stephane Dion. And not just because I was calling for him to do this last summer.

Also positive is not only is a high-profile Quebec Liberal MP being quoted on the record in the media saying positive things about Dion and the party, but that Pablo Rodriguez and Denis Coderre are planning to role their sleeves up themselves this summer and blitz all 75 Quebec ridings on behalf of the part.

"He will be touring but a lot of us will be touring also. For Mr. Dion, it's a great opportunity to get better known. He's a man, the more you know him, the more you like him. So, being close to the people and having a chance to talk directly with Canadians will be very good," said Mr. Rodriguez.

"[The purpose of this tour is] Making sure that Canadians understand what we stand for and this is very very important for us. We have to communicate our message a little bit better and explain the key differences between us and the Conservatives on the environment on social issues."

This is the kind of on the ground grunt work we need to be doing to grow our support in the polls. That, and bringing down this government at some point soonish.

And on a lighter note, get a hold of this laugher from Conservative MP Mike Wallace:

"We have a great record to be running on in the next election. There's not one of our top five promises that they could point to that we did not move on. And on the ethics issue, in my public meeting, not one question on those issues. We have been running a solid clean proactive government since we were elected in January 2006," said Mr. Wallace.

Yeah Mike, and I’m starting at small forward next season for the Toronto Raptors.

I recognize the need to tow the party line in public, but how can people say crap like that without busting out laughing hysterically?