Wednesday QP, short form

Liberal MP: Passports, what you guys gonna do?
Conservatives: Liberals did nothing, Liberals bad.

Liberal MP: Kyoto, what you guys gonna do?
Conservatives: Liberals did nothing, Liberals bad.

Liberal MP: Trade, what you guys gonna do?
Conservatives: Liberals did nothing, Liberals bad.

Liberal MP: Can we all join in wishing the Oilers good luck in the Stanley Cup finals?
Conservatives: Liberals did nothing, Liberals bad.

OK, I made that last one up. But you get the idea. :)

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Hypocrisy watch

Jason Kenney just chided the Liberals in QP this afternoon, saying you don’t make progress for Canada by attacking the leaders of foreign countries.

I wonder if he offered this same advice to his buddy and fellow Conservative MP Rob Anders, when Rob said this:

"[Honouring Nelson Mendela is a] total political-correctness poster-boy thing... He was a Communist. He was a terrorist... The Liberals always deprive us unanimous consent on all sorts of provisions. They wouldn't allow us to honour the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen with regard to their wedding anniversary..."

- Conservative MP Rob Anders, explaining why he voted against a resolution to make former South African president Nelson Mendela an honourary Canadian citizen, June 6th, 2001.

Or this:

"I don't think that, you know, anybody would argue that if Nelson Mandela was saying, you know, 30 years ago, that you should go around with matches and necklaces and strangle people or burn them out of their homes, that is not terrorism."

- Conservative MP Rob Anders after blocking a resolution to declare former South African president Nelson Mandela an honorary Canadian citizen, June 11, 2001. Anders also implied that South Africa was better off during Apartheid than it is today

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Remember the heartlands

After moving to the centre of the universe, aka Toronto, a year ago I’ve been back in B.C. this week, visiting family in a rural riding in British Columbia. And it reminds me of the urban/rural divide, and of an opportunity the leadership candidates are missing.

Speaking to my Liberal friends here about the leadership, nearly every one at this point is still sitting on the fence. There just isn’t a lot of interest of excitement about the leadership race out here, even among the party diehards.

I think many are waiting for a little attention from some of the candidates, or any of the candidates. And I don’t mean a phone call, but an actual visit to the riding. There’s a reason door knocking in a general election campaign is so important: many people will still vote for the candidate that came to their door and talked to them, that personal contact means a lot.

Each riding elects the same number of delegates to the leadership convention, and you can bet it’s a hell of a lot harder to get a delegate spot in a major city than it is in a rural riding. In the same way, it’s also way easier for a campaign to get a delegate elected in a rural riding. It takes a lot fewer votes to elect your slate in a riding with a few hundred members than it does in a riding with thousands.

And strategy aside, I think the leadership candidates and the party would benefit from getting out of the cities and into the heartlands, and being exposed to the issues and concerns of rural Canadians, and rural Liberals.

I hope that, certainly once the House adjourns for the summer, the leadership candidates will venture out of the cities and start to visit more rural ridings across Canada, and meet with rural Liberals and rural Canadians.

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Question Period

Being on vacation this week, I’ve had a chance to catch a bit of question period (yes, I'm cool, I know). But it’s the first chance I’ve had to really get a look at the new dynamics since the election.

*The more things change, the more they stay the same: The two main parties may have flipped sides but the script for each side seems to have remained the same. The opposition earnestly asks pointed questions, the government deflects and doesn’t come close to answering them.

*What are you wearing? I’m no fashion expert, as anyone who has met me in person will surely attest, but tan suits just don’t work on anyone, except maybe in the Southern United States in the 1800s. MPs do get a clothing allowance, don’t they?

*It’s Bill Clinton’s fault: I lost track of the number of times the government answered a question from any of the opposition parties by simply blaming the previous Liberal government. I think Paul Martin might even have been accused of being responsible for the Maple Leafs poor season. This is a standard defence for new governments, I just wonder how long they plan to (or think they can) get away with it.

*NDP=Holier than thou: I’m no Volpe fan, and this whole fundraising thing looks to be stupid and fishy to me, but within the rules. Investigate? Fine, I don’t care. I find it amusing though that Pat Martin also wants the investigation to go back to 2004, but only to look at Liberals. Why not include all parties Pat, and go back to, say, the mid 1990s if you really, truly are all about fairness and all that? I’m sure Jack has nothing to hide, and Stephen and Peter wouldn’t mind. Speaking of which, did we ever find out why paid-off Peter’s leadership debts?

*Kiddie bench: And is it just me, or does Peter McKay just look too young to be a minister of the crown? Maybe a goatee would help. The glasses help a bit.

*Separated at birth? Serge Menard (BQ) and David Emerson (check today’s scorecard for latest party affiliation), long lost brothers?

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Correcting the Globe and Mail

From today's piece in the Globe on Harper's so-called Senate reform plan (which I don't see how he'll do without opening-up the constitution):

Mr. Harper has already said he would never appoint a senator, meaning that, as senators leave the Red Chamber, numbers would shrink and vacancies would remain open.

What you meant, Brian Laghi, is he would never appoint a senator AGAIN. I invite you to search your archives for "Michael Fortier." You may also want to add the search term "flip flop" to your search to further narrow down the results.

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Our religion is better than your religion, says Stock

Our good friend Stockwell Day took a break from keeping the public safe last week to speak to a prayer breakfast in Edmonton, and over the sticky buns (Danishes, perhaps?) the subject of the Da Vinci Code came up.

It seems from the news account that most of his comments made a lot of sense. He basically said the book is good because it is raising people’s interest in religion and the church, and that Christianity is up to the challenge of a little critical questioning. I agree. People are talking about religion and examining their own faith, that’s a good thing and it’s an opportunity for the church to enter into a dialogue with the public.

Now let’s move on down to the end of the story, to what we folks in journalism like to call the kicker. Here Stock seems to go over the line, and I think it’s readily obvious why.

In an apparent reference to the violence sparked by recently published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, Day noted Christians have been restrained in their opposition to Brown's debunking of Christianity.

"I haven't seen the clerics order that the movie studios be destroyed or that the newspaper places be burned down," he said. "Isn't it great that the message of Jesus Christ is one of love and tolerance?"

Sigh. And you were doing so well, Stockwell!

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The 6th priority: Let’ kill all the judges!

The first thing we'll do: let's kill all the lawyers. For the Conservatives, apparently after all the lawyers are dead they plan to move on to the judges. You know the ones, those lily-livered, soft on crime, Liberal friendly, pot smoking, gay-marryin, property rights not protectin' judges.

The evidence is mounting. Our illustrious Justice Minister (who is no stranger to judges and the justice system himself), Vic Toews, followed his leader to Vancouver this week. I’m not sure how long Vic was in town, but it was long enough to warn the good people of Van-city that they are under siege…from lenient judges. According to Vic, the criminals are flocking to Vancouver, not only for the warm weather but also because the sentences are so low.

"People like to come here because the weather is fine and the sentences are low," Vic Toews joked during a warmly received luncheon speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade. The former Manitoba attorney-general also suggested that individuals who rob a bank in his home province would likely flee to this region to "get house arrest" in British Columbia.

I know I plan to knock off a liquor store before I go back to the T-Dot.

I also enjoyed the rest of the story, after a defence lawyer rightly called Toews’ tough talk crass vote buying and noted that while the Cons would reap political credit for getting tough it would mean increased costs to be borne by the provinces, when the piece mentioned that, you know, actual statistics show the crime rate in Canada is actually declining. Statistics be dammed, Vic Knows better!

He also disputed statistical data that the crime rate is steadily declining in Canada. He said the violent-crime rate is comparable with U.S. cities, and told the Board of Trade audience that Vancouver has the highest property-crime rate in North America, followed by Winnipeg.

In fact, Regina has the highest property-crime rate in Canada, followed by Abbotsford and then Vancouver. Winnipeg is fifth, according to Statistics Canada. While property-crime rates in Vancouver are above those of many U.S. cities, the murder rate is significantly lower and half that of New York, for example.

Statistics released by the Vancouver Police Department, which has had a nearly 15-per-cent budget increase in the past three years, indicate that violent crime is not rising.

Mr. Fowler described the government's insistence that communities in Canada are increasingly unsafe as "intellectually dishonest," yet effective politically. "It is a debate based on a fiction. Politics is about dealing with public perception, not the reality. The realities don't lead to votes."

So, we’ve established that judges are the real problem with our criminal justice system, what do we do now? Cut their pay, of course! What about that independent body created to set judicial salaries free of political interference? Screw that, political interference and cutting judges salaries will make for safer streets, right?

With the way they’re talking about journalists these days, I just hope there’s no way he can cut my pay. Warning Stephen: if you try I'll opt out of equalization!

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Quick random thoughts

After leaving Seattle I’ve traveled up the coast to the lovely Comox Valley on Vancouver Island for a quick vacation with the family. So the BCer is back in BC, if only for a week. Still, the birds are chirping, and it’s nice to see the mountains and the ocean again.

And it’s tough to think about politics at all, but here’s a few random thoughts on some of the pieces of news that have come my way in the last few days.

Harper and the media: As a journalist I’m generally inclined to side with the media in these disputes, and Harper is behaving like a dumbass here. But with their walkout last week, so are the media. No one looks good here, the public dislikes them both. Now neither has much claim to the high ground. But rather than go on at length, I’d like to this week’s Touchdowns and Fumbles (scroll to PM to Shun Journalists), which I thought put it well.

PM backs down on policy for the fallen: Harper says that he has changed his mind and now the families if fallen soldiers will decide whether the media can be present for the repatriation ceremonies at CFB Trenton. Given the grief he has gotten from some of the families, it makes sense for him to revisit this. But, when this policy was first announced, didn’t he say then that it was up to the families? Tough thing to be caught fibbing on.

Fixed election dates: I’ve already blogged on why I’m opposed to fixed election dates, and they’re meaningless in a minority anyway. I find the Harperspeak on this issue amusing though: this will stop leaders from manipulating the election calendar for political purposes, but he’ll call an election anyway if the opposition don’t follow his political agenda, if and when it suits his purposes. Alrighty then.

The power of Christ compels him: When God isn’t sending hurricanes to New Orleans to punish the sinners for gay marriage and abortion, He/She is giving Pat Robertson the strength to leg-press 900 kilos. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

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Seattle urinals: What’s the deal mate?

As my handful of regular readers will know I’m currently in the Emerald City, Seattle, on a business trip covering a Microsoft conference.

For those interested, they still insist Vista will be available for the enterprise in November and consumers in January. I also have a beta of Office 12 I'm going to play with next week and may post some thoughts on.

Been having much fun outside of work though. It's a lovely city. Today, a few of us went down to the Space Needle. It’s no CN Tower, but it’s really cool, and a nice view. Unfortunently we didn't realize that was the Sci-Fi museum next door, when we checked it out it was closed.

I’ve been here since Sunday , heading up to British Columbia tomorrow to visit the family, but last night over drinks someone finally brought up a question I’ve been wondering, and it turns out all the other (guys) in the group have too: what’s the freakin deal with the urinals in this city?

Take a look at this pic (which I did not take, and won’t reveal who did) and you’ll see what I mean. It’s freakin huge, it comes three feet out from the wall!

I’ve used the facilities at four different public places in Seattle: the Westin Hotel, the W Hotel, the convention centre and Safeco Field. Same urinals at all of them. I mean, how do you use these things?

Do you spread your legs and straddle them? Do you hang back and have no privacy at all? I feel like Paul Hogan in that first Crocodile Dundee movie.

Craziness I say, craziness!

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Dion on electoral reform

Along with a number of other bloggers, I participated in a conference call yesterday with Stephane Dion. This call was for supportive bloggers (calls with other bloggers will come soon) and I thought it was a great call, with a lot of good questions on a range of topics and thoughtful, insightful answers from Mr. Dion.

As mentioned I have declared my support for Mr. Dion, so my bias there is clear. Still, given my day job I approached the call as a journalist. My day job is also why I’m a bit late with this post, being in Seattle right now for a Microsoft conference. If you want to read all about Microsoft’s shift to 64-bit computing, click here.

But seriously, back to the call. I’ll let the other bloggers on the call post on their questions to Mr. Dion. I asked two questions: one on the recent polling numbers and one on electoral reform.

Polling

Briefly, on the recent Ipsos numbers showing the Cons widening the gap, he said polls can change very quickly, pointing out where the Conservatives were in the polls last year. If we stick to our message, once we have a new leader in place he expects us to take the lead again. He added though that we need to present a vision to Canadians, not just attack Harper and wait for him to fall on his face.

My take: I agree with him on the vision part and on the volatility of polls, but I fear many in our party continue to underestimate Harper. I think the gap evidenced by the recent Ipsos poll can’t be attributed to a Conservative honeymoon or the Liberals being leaderless any longer. His attractive but empty policies are resonating with Canadians, and I think we need a better communications strategy to expose their shortcomings.

Electoral Reform

My second question dealt with electoral reform. I mentioned that many Canadians, particularly youth, are disenchanted with politics and feel disenfranchised by our current first past the post system. With electoral reform well underway in B.C, and now beginning in Ontario, I asked if he would be supportive of a similar exercise at the Federal level. Here’s his answer:

“There is one strength of our electoral system, and that’s giving clear accountability lines. You know who is in power and who’s the opposition. There’s no in between. If the Liberals are in government you know who to fight or who to blame, and the same for the Conservatives when they are the government. In the PR system everybody is in the government and in the opposition at the same time and you don’t know who is responsible for what. There are moving coalitions all the time. Each electoral system has its shortcomings and its strengths, and we need to keep that in mind.

What I dislike in (the current system) though is the over-exaggeration of regional concentrations of the vote. With 50 per cent of the vote in Ontario we have been able in the past to have almost 100 per cent of the seats, and with 1/3 of the votes in the West we were unable to have a significant number of seats. It gives the sense we’re a party for Ontario and a party unable to have support in the West, when it’s not really the case.

One day, assume that you have a government elected where it is Quebec that is out of the government because of this electoral system, with 25 per cent of the vote, and the government has no or few seats on Quebec, and you have a separatist leader trying to have a referendum at the same time. This would be very dangerous for the country.

Because of that, I’m open to consider (electoral reform), and to be frank with all of you I wrote a piece…that will be published soon advocating for consideration for a system that would be very close to the German one, that means you would have a threshold of five per cent to receive compensatory seats, and the compensatory seats would be given on a PR system. I don’t have time to explain it (all) today on the phone, but I’m open…to consider a change in the electoral system.

I don’t think a (leadership race) is a good opportunity to (have that debate), but the one who will be in power will be in a position to study the results of the current consultations about that, and to have an open debate about ways to keep the strength of the current system while having some corrections for the exaggeration of the regional vote that we have now.”

My take: I get the sense he isn’t too keen on the single transferable vote model that the citizen’s assembly in B.C. settled on, but I was glad to hear he is supportive of some significant action toward electoral reform. I’d mainly considered the question an the provincial level so the question of regional over-representation wasn’t one that I’d thought of before, and I thought he made a very good point there. Overall, I’m glad to learn of his willingness to explore this topic and to hear that he has already taken some steps down that road, and I look forward to reading his paper on that topic when it is published.

Certainty his insightful, thorough and well considered answers to all the questions posed by the bloggers served to give me a better sense of the man and where he’s coming from, and reinforced my belief that I was right to support him and that he is the man to lead our party, and hopefully soon the country. I thank Rob, Jason and Denise for organizing the call and I look forward to future opportunities.

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A night at Safeco

As mentioned I'm in Seattle for Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WINHec). The conference officially gets underway Tuesday with a keynote with chairman Bill. Today was spend in a daylong look at some of the new features coming up in the new Windows Vista Operating system, which is still slated for enterprise availability toward the end of November and consumer availability in January.

Tonight, though, the good folks at Microsoft took the media to a Seattle Mariners game against Baltimore at Safeco Field. The overcast, drizzly Seattle weather cleared long enough to make for a perfect sunny night for baseball, with the roof open. It's just a beautiful ballpark, very much in the style of the new old style parks in San Francisco, Cleavland and Baltimore, among others. For sure a cut above Toronto, Oakland and the late Big Owe in Montreal, the other major league parks I've visited.

A few pics from my night at the ballpark follow.

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Polling on the gun registry

Having escaped from gun happy Florida unscathed, after a day back in the T-Dot I'm back on the road, this time in rainy overcast Seattle. Add in the mountains and it feels just like home.

Interesting polling results from Ipsos today on support for the gun registry, in the wake of the AG’s report last week and Constable Stock's plan to scrap it if necessary but not necessarily scrap it.

In a nutshell, most of the country says scrap the long gun registry, but keep the handguns registered. The exceptions: Ontario and Quebec. When you factor those two population heavy provinces, overall, country is split.

Unsurprising, really, as I suspect if the results were to be broken down even further it would again be shown to be an urban/rural divide.

There’s some interesting figures. For example, some 48 per cent want to maintain a handgun registry but support killing the long gun registry, while 47 per cent said keep them both. An earlier Ipsos study that didn’t separate handguns from long guns showed 67 per cent didn’t want the gun registry scrapped; that really underscores the difference in opinion on handguns vs. long guns.

I don’t think there’s any way you can call 48 per cent of Canadians gun nuts. They’re not. They support the handgun registry; they just don’t see why long guns should be included. The gun nuts are those that say kill the handgun registry too (I didn’t see any stats on that). There won’t be any pleasing them, it’s like religion for them. From my cold dead hands, and what not.

Ont., Que. out of sync on gun registry, new poll finds
Carly Weeks, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, May 22, 2006

OTTAWA -- More than half of Canadians in Western and Atlantic provinces support the Conservative government's intention to scrap the long-gun registry, while more than 50 per cent of people in Ontario and Quebec want the registry to remain intact, a new poll shows.
(more)

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Spinning Afghan poll: Nat Post: Support firm. Otw Cit: Canada divided.

Yesterday, polling firm Ipsos Reid released the results of a poll it had conducted (for Global and the National Post) on the support of Canadians for our presence in Afghanistan, and the Harper government’s recent two-year extension/exercise in wedge politics.

The top line results: “Canadians Support Afghanistan Mission (57%) But Not Keen On Two Year Mission Extension (44%).”

Ok, interesting. There’s the basic facts, now how will the different media outlets with their different biases and prejudices, report these facts?

Here’s a sampling of how two newspapers, owned by the same company, covered the same poll this morning. Yes, the same poll. And more astoundingly, both stories are written by the same guy! Yes, the same guy wrote two articles on the same poll, both taking wildly different views.

Now, in fairness, it’s entirely possible that the editors at the National Post took the Citizen’s story off the internal wire and re-wrote it to fit their propaganda aims without the writer’s consent. I don’t know. But still, WTF?

The Ottawa Citizen
Headline: Mission divides Canadians
Excerpt: Canadians are deeply divided over the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan, a new poll shows, a division made worse by the decision to extend the deployment another two years.

The National Post
Headline: Support for afgan (sic) mission remains firm
Excerpt: Support for Canada's troops in Afghanistan remains relatively high, according to a new poll, which shows 57% of respondents backing the mission despite an increase in casualties.

It was an exclusive poll for Canwest Global so their media empire at first crack at it, but given the range of coverage within just their stable of publications (actually, only the Post tourqed it, the others are in line with the Citizen's, running their version of the story) I look forward to seeing how it’s covered elsewhere.

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Is Constable Stock still tackling crime or not?

Scrolling through my e-mails yesterday and saw a press release from the Feds titled "Government of Canada launches "Tackling Crime" website", and just over an hour later the release was retracted with a Kill Bulletin, indicating the release had been sent in error. Perhaps they're not tackling crime after all?

Seemed a little unusual, so I clicked on the site just to see if it was live yet or not. It was. According to the killed press release, its purpose is to “give Canadians information on measures the federal government is putting into place to help ensure public safety and security.”

Click on the site and you see that translates as “taxpayer-funded advertising for the Conservative Party of Canada.” Expect such a site might have resources and tips for Canadians to keep themselves safe, or help them get information and access to law enforcement services? Yeah, not so much.

But, continuing the government’s new Conservative-blue Web site design (blue: Canada’s other other official colour) we get the infamous five priorities, a big picture of Stockwell Day, and press releases about all the good stuff the Conservatives are doing to tackle crime, like killing the “costly and ineffective” gun registry.

Well, with Stock on the job, I feel safer already. But isn’t the use of taxpayer dollars to regurgitate party talking points the sort of thing he used to tut tut? I’m just saying.

Transmitted by CNW Group on : May 19, 2006 13:53
/K I L L B U L L E T I N - Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada/

OTTAWA, May 19 /CNW Telbec/ - We are advised by Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada that editors should disregard c9975, "Government of Canada launches "Tackling Crime" website", transmitted at 12:38e today. The item was sent in error and should not be used.
-30-

Transmitted by CNW Group on : May 19, 2006 12:38
Government of Canada launches "Tackling Crime" website

OTTAWA, May 19 /CNW Telbec/ - Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has launched a new website highlighting one of the Government of Canada's five key priorities - tackling crime. This one-stop source of information will give Canadians access to information on the government's efforts to keep Canada's communities safe from gun, gang and drug violence.

The website www.tacklingcrime.ca brings together information from the key departments of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada (PSEPC) and the Department of Justice Canada as well as PSEPC portfolio partners the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada Border Services Agency.

"Safe streets and safe communities are the foundation of happy, secure families and a strong economy," said Minister Day. "We have promised to work hard to get tough on crime and we are doing it."

The website is designed to give Canadians information on measures the federal government is putting into place to help ensure public safety and security. These initiatives include enhanced law enforcement resources, efforts to educate at-risk youth in order to prevent crime and criminal justice reforms.

"Canadians want action to reduce the threat that our streets and communities face as a result of gun and gang violence," said Minister of Justice Vic Toews. "This website will provide details on our justice reforms and initiatives, which will mean real results for Canadian communities."

"The launch of the website during Police Week is also symbolic of the contribution law enforcement officers and prosecutors make to safe streets and neighbourhoods," said Minister Day. "By working together we can make law-abiding citizens and their families more secure."

-30-

/For further information:

Media Relations: Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, (613) 991-0657; Mélisa Leclerc, Director of Communications, Office of the Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, (613) 991-2863/

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Airline potpourri

I find myself again in the departure lounge of the Orlando airport on my way back to Toronto, this time via Charlotte. I won’t be in Toronto long though. On Sunday I’m on the road again, off to Seattle for Microsoft’s WinHEC conference.

I’ve been doing a lot of traveling of late, and with all the bad things you hear about air travel I thought I’d share a few of the things I like that the different airlines do.

Air Canada
I’ve flown on their new Embraer regional jets a few times in the last little while. Since I covered the Bombardier/Embraer feud in the late 1990s I was prepared not to like them, but I much prefer it to Bombardier’s regional jets, which I found compact and confining. The E-75 is quite spacious and comfortable. And I really like the in-seat video on demand for us plebes on coach class. It’s a bit finicky and they don’t have the news on it yet, but a movie or an episode of The Office really helps pass the time.

United Airlines
Their snack pack offerings are my favorite so far. And I really like the “in the cockpit” feature on the audio system. It lets you listen in to the cockpit’s communications with air traffic control and the tower. It’s fun to hear what’s going on.

US Airways
Flew US Air down here for one leg and I’m waiting to board them now for the flight back. Was an older Airbus coming down and minimalist service, including no movie or inflight entertainment, but they did cycle through questions from the board game Cranium on the TV screens. Was a fun way to pass the time as I listened to MP3s.

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Cry baby Harper, part 33: Where can I go now for John McCallum impressions!?

After doing his best to piss on the Parliamentary Press Gallery since his election, despite what seemed like a Conservative love-in during the election campaign, Stephen Harper, shocked that the media don’t like being smacked around, reportedly plans to register his displeasure at what he hath sown by refusing to attend the next Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner, Nov. 25 at the Museum of Civilization in Hull, aka Gatineau.

According to CTV it’s “a move he's considering in order to register his displeasure with an ongoing disagreement his office has with Parliament Hill journalists over the way his press conferences ought to be conducted.”

CTV adds “He will not insist that other caucus members boycott the Press Gallery dinner but many Conservative MPs and nearly all cabinet ministers are expected not to attend the dinner to show solidarity with their boss.”

My god he’s a whiny little sissy, isn’t he? Say what you will about Dubaya, and I’ve said plenty (although not more while I’m still in Florida, God bless President Bush, and his brother Jeb, the next El Presidente) but at least he had the gonads to go to the Washington press dinner and take his lumps from Stephen Colbert (speaking of someone with gonads.)

I mean, how petulant is this? You go out of your way to pick a fight with the media, you then express shock when they get annoyed, and then skip you the dinner in protest? Forget taking a punch, he can’t take a word of constructive criticism.

As CTV noted, Pierre Trudeau was the last PM to skip the dinner. Is this his role model? Most Conservatives I’ve talked too think Pierre was a dick. (Me, I think Pierre kicked ass.)

And besides, what does he hope to gain here? I’ve always thought Stephen has come off well at these dinners. They’ve served to humanize him, to show that he has a human side and has a sense of humour. I’m not sure how much mileage one can get out of an impression of John McCallum (maybe if John had run for the Liberal leadership Stephen would have gone) but still, it was a darned fine impression.

Anyway, since Stephen seems to be following Pierre’s lead, I wonder how long it will be before he gets off a train in North Bay and gives Ontarioins the finger? Oh, fuddle duddle!

Harper may snub annual press gallery dinner
Updated Thu. May. 18 2006 11:33 PM ET
David Akin, CTV News

Ottawa -- The prime minister may snub the annual Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner this fall, a move he's considering in order to register his displeasure with an ongoing disagreement his office has with Parliament Hill journalists over the way his press conferences ought to be conducted.

(more)

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A sad spectacle

It's hot and humid outside and freezing cold inside the conference centre, but that’s Orlando. Between trying to learn the difference between enterprise services architecture and service oriented architecture I've been trying to keep in touch with news on the Afghanistan debate back in Canada. And it sounds like it was a pretty sad spectacle.

As I posted the other day I believe we should be in Afghanistan. I’ve believed that from the start, and I’d been meaning to post about it for some time. I felt and feel that slipping public support was because the public hasn’t been engaged in a proper debate on the mission. That farce we had in Parliament was not that debate, and will do nothing to raise public support for the dangerous but essential work the men and women of our armed forces are doing there.

This was about politics, pure and simple. Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are playing political games with the deployment of our troops in a war zone, seeking to drive wedges into the Liberal Party in the middle of a leadership race. Smart politics? Sure. Good governing? Not so much. Disgusting? You betcha.

Why the rush to a vote? Why not have a proper debate, committee hearings where we hear from learned experts on the work we’re actually doing over there and where ordinary Canadians have a chance to make their voices heard? If Harper had really wanted to raise public support for the mission and show support for our troops, that’s what he would have done.

I was disappointed to see the number of Liberals that voted against the mission. I was disappointed, and I think they should still have voted yes, but I understand. Some of them are probably just against the mission on principle, but I believe many voted no because they couldn’t stomach the cynical political games that Harper was playing with a hurried, uninformed process. People should make no mistake: most Liberals support this mission. We launched this mission in the first place. What we don’t support is using troop deployments as political wedges for partisan reasons.

As to those who think we should just pack-up and go home, I respect your opinion but I disagree. Sometimes the mission needs to be peacemaking, not peacekeeping. It’s easy to say we’re for human rights everywhere; it’s harder to do something about it. Sometimes it means getting your hands dirty. I think, and I think our soldiers do too, that it's worth it.

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Cry babies on the right

It seems Gwyn Morgan’s feelings were hurt because the opposition parties had issues with his public statements, and didn’t bow and scrape and kiss his feet when he deigned to come before them on his way to heading Harper’s public appointments commission.

Look at the guy’s record; I can’t imagine why the opposition might have had a few questions. Boo hoo, Gwyn. From their conduct in this affair one thing is clear, and another Harper flip-flop is revealed: he can’t take a punch, and neither can Morgan.

The ironic thing is that it’s the Conservatives that supposedly want us to move more toward an American system, which has Congress review many of the major appointments by the executive branch. You think this committee hearing was political? Not by a long shot. Harper appointed a dud. The system worked.

Perhaps Gwyn Morgan and David Emerson can get together somewhere and have a big pity party. Those two are perfect for each other.

PM's rejected nominee deplores treatment
Opposition attacked personal character, Gwyn Morgan says
BILL CURRY
From Thursday's Globe and Mail

OTTAWA — There is no individual in Canada who would take an appointment that involves a public grilling by a Commons committee after the "vicious" treatment he received on Tuesday, Gwyn Morgan said yesterday.
(more)

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Long guns aren’t handguns

This may surprise some of my Liberal friends but I don’t have a problem taking rifles and shotguns (the so-called long guns) out of the gun registry, although I do strongly support the gun registry as a concept and believe it should remain with handguns registered and restricted.

There’s really a cultural divide on this issue, and it falls along urban and rural lines. In the cities, concerned about crime committed with (mainly hand) guns, the impulse was to ban all guns. In reaction to Ecole Polytechnique it was a worthy impulse.

In developing the policy though, the Liberal Party’s predominately urban makeup prevented it from seeing the rural perspective. In rural areas long guns are a part of life for many, and I don’t mean in the cultural sense. I’ve never been a hunting fan but hey, knock yourselves out. Just don’t shoot me in the face. But they are a part of life in a more practical way, such as farmers and ranchers protecting their property/livestock from predatory animals.

Our gun registry didn’t make allowances for the legitimate needs of rural Canadians for long guns, because the rural voice wasn’t heard at the policy making table. As a former Western rural Liberal, I used to get a bellyful about gun control. The Reform Party exploited the issue well. It ignites strong passions in rural Canada.

Let me say that the mismanagement that occurred in the past is regrettable and wrong, that has amply been covered elsewhere so I won’t go over it again. But mismanagement aside, I think there would be a lot more support for the registry with long guns excluded.

Let me emphasize hand guns should and must remain registered. Here, The Right has no legitimate counterpoints in my view. The whole “criminals don’t follow the law” thing is a silly argument; you could say the same for any law. You don’t hunt deer with Berettas. And the self defence argument? I’m sorry, but the example in the U.S. shows more guns means more violence. And most shootings are accidental, with guns owned by a family member.

The registry must not be scrapped all together. The mismanagement is in the past; we can’t let the Conservatives use past mismanagement as cover to cancel a program they just fundamentally don’t agree with, but most Canadians do. A recent Ipsos poll showed that was the case across the country.

It’s paid for. It’s being used by police more than 5000 times a day. Let’s keep it. There is a lot of support for the concept of gun control in Canada. It is making a difference. Let’s recognize the legitimate concerns of rural Canadians by get the long guns out, and let police continue to have access to what they’ve found to be an effective law enforcement tool.

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We should be in Afghanistan

While it’s important that we debate these things in an open and civil way, I believe unequivocally that Canada should be in Afghanistan, and that we should stay as long as we are needed and, more importantly, our military is able to sustain the mission.

I’ve been reading that support for the mission has begun to slip, perhaps inevitable given the recent casualties sustained. But I don’t think that support needs to be slipping, I think it’s our (the Liberals and the Conservatives) fault that it’s slipping, and I think we can change that.

The former Liberal government launched this mission, and it was the right thing to do. But I think many people feel that, especially as the mission transitioned to more of a dangerous combat role, we didn’t properly engage the Canadian public in a debate about the mission. We didn’t educate the Canadian people on the risks, and why they need to be taken. That kind of open debate is essential when a country sends its troops into harm’s way.

Afghanistan is not Iraq. I didn’t support the unilateral intervention in Iraq, but I did and do support our presence in Afghanistan. The former Afghani regime oppressed its people, especially women, and it harbored and aided Al Qadea and the 9/11 attackers. We are there now at the request of the democratically elected Afghani government as part of a NATO mission with worldwide support. It’s dangerous, but vital work and it’s in our best interests to see it through, in addition to being the right thing to do.

Afghanistan is not Iraq, and it’s important that the current government and the Liberals and Conservatives make that clear to Canadians. I think that line is becoming blurred for some, and that is hurting support.

It would be helpful though, in making that difference clear, if our current government avoided loaded phrases like “cut and run.” Unintended or not, that draws a linkage in many Canadians’ eyes, and it’s not a helpful one.

I think if we have an open and honest debate and discussion with Canadians about why we’re there and what we’re doing most of them will be on board. However, there does need to be a clear timeline for withdrawal (I’d say exit strategy, but there’s another loaded term) and it would be helpful if this mission was not at the expense of helping Darfur. Quite possibly we can’t do both, I’ve heard conflicting reports there, but if we can do something there too we should.

Lastly, a note to all politicians. You can’t make this political. This needs to be a bipartisan exercise. It is not advantageous for the Conservatives to try to paint the Liberals as anti-war, that won’t build support for the mission and it will turn the majority of Canadians against the war, and against you, because it will force everyone to pick sides and polarize the debate.

And Liberals, particularly leadership candidates. Joe Volpe, I’m looking at you bud. This is not your wedge issue, you’re not going to become the anti-war candidate and sweep to glorious victory on the wings of angels. Particularly, Joseph, if you were a member of the Liberal cabinet that authorized this mission in the first place.

Not to pick on Joe, but his comments in that CP piece really piss me off. These two in particular:

He's also calling for a reorientation of Canadian Forces to pursue a more traditional peacekeeping mission while helping to restore "civil society" to the war-ravaged country.
"That's what we're equipped to do, that's what we're capable of doing and that's where our expertise lies," Volpe said in an interview.

That’s a load of crap, Joe. Canadian troops are among the best trained in the world, and are more that capable of handing their mission. If not, YOUR government wouldn’t have sent them, would YOU? Besides, we are helping to restore civil society, as long as there’s still Taliban around blowing stuff up it’s hard to be civil.

Volpe suggested this was no coincidence. He believes there was a change in the mission at the behest of U.S. President George W. Bush.
"We can't switch from peacekeeper to peacemaker on the fly just because a Republican government in the United States asks us to. We can't be an extension of American foreign policy," Volpe said.

Ah, the beloved Bush bogeyman. I love to bash Bush too, but I’m not a (semi-serious) leadership candidate discussing the deployment of Canadian troops in a war zone. Is that your argument why we shouldn’t be there, Joe? Because Bushy wanted us to? It is possible to make an actual argument about why we shouldn’t be there, but that sure isn’t’ it. Again, don’t play politics with the deployment of troops. Enough said.

I can respect people that feel we shouldn’t be there, and they are fully entitled to their opinions. But let’s have that debate, and let’s do it on a bipartisan, open way, without any cut and run talk from the right or Dubya bashing from the left. We have soldiers in harm’s way, so let’s respect them by keeping this debate respectful please.

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Hello from rainy Orlando

Left rainy Toronto this morning and I’m now in rainy Orlando. At least it’s a bit warmer here though, at 30 degrees Celsius.

I’m down here attending SAP’s SAPphire conference through Friday morning. I hope to continue blogging while I’m here but it may not be too regular if things get busy. Or if the sun comes out and I ended up lounging by the pool all day instead. We’ll see.

On a semi-related note, man the security when connecting through Washington-Reagan is crazy, and for all that I didn’t even see the Capitol or anything out my window. Hella lame.

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We all know what speed dating leads to...

So, Sandra Buckler and Stephen Harper say the Conservative government's rocky relationship with the media is because they're speed dating. Said Sandra:

"We really haven't figured everybody out yet, but we're starting to get a good idea of what we like and what we don't like," Sandra Buckler told the Canadian Association of Journalists on Sunday.

Well, to keep using Sandra and Stephen's analogy, I can only see their evolving relationship with the media heading one place: polygamy. Because once you start letting the press and the media date, it's inevitable.

Coming to the CBC this fall is the hit new drama you won't want to miss...

Big Love: Stephen Harper and the Press Gallery

But on a semi-serious note for a moment, kudos to Sandra for having the courage to go and face a grilling by a room full of journalists. Perhaps, having seen we're not so bad after all (to know us is to love us), she'll encourage her boss and his cabinet friends to say hello every once and a while...

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Speaking of lawsuits, Oh David…

As long as we're talking about launching lawsuits against political opponents, remember the little matter of Conservative turncoat and professional cabinet minister David Emerson, and the $97,000 his old riding association would like back?

To refresh your memory, a few days after winning election as a Liberal by promising to be Stephen Harper's "worst enemy," Emerson crossed the floor in to the warm, comfy fur of the Harper cabinet (and has continued to make good on his promise).

Shortly after the move, his old Liberal riding association raised the question of the nearly $97,000 that had been raised to elect a Liberal, not a Conservative.

Since suing your political opponents on rather flimsy grounds for politically opportunistic reasons seems to be the all the rage these days, and since the Conservatives were the improper beneficiaries of that $97,000 as it elected a person now sitting in their caucus and voting for their budget and other legislation, instead of the Liberal the donors intended, here's an idea: let's sue the Conservative Party of Canada to get it back.

Sure, we wouldn't win. But it's about politics, not justice. Only one downside: unlike the Conservatives, we couldn't get the taxpayers of Canada to pay for our doomed and politically motivated partisan lawsuit.

As for David…

Yeah, he's not going anywhere folks. And stop calling him names, you're hurting his feelings. :(

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Anti-Canadianism sweeping the United States?

It seems any time someone boos the American anthem at a hockey game in Canada; The Right is up in arms about a wave of anti-Americanism sweeping the True North Strong and Free. And of course, the Liberals are always somehow to blame.

I wonder, then, if righty bloggers will be up in arms over the news that last night the fans in San Jose, where their Sharks were facing Canada's last Stanley Cup hope, the Edmonton Oilers, booed O'Canada so loudly it nearly drowned-out the anthem singer?

I'm sure there is still some way to blame this on the Liberals though. Perhaps they're unhappy at the Liberal's criticism of the softwood lumber sellout?

Or, maybe, they're just hockey fans that got a little bit overzealous, just as happens in Canada from time to time? Yeah, I'd go with that one too. Anthem booing by anyone, though, isn't cool.

Go Oilers Go (for lack of any other Canadian team)!

No Canada: Sharks' fans boo anthem
May 14, 2006

SAN JOSE, Calif. (CP) -- San Jose Sharks fans were in a nasty mood Sunday night, loudly booing the Canadian national anthem before the start of Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinal.

The Sharks are playing the Edmonton Oilers.

Annemarie Martin had barely began singing O Canada when many in the sellout crowd of 17,496 began booing. The sound was so loud it nearly drowned out Martin.

As the song progressed the booing decreased and some Shark fans joined in singing the Canadian national anthem.

There was no apparent motive for the booing _ just a questionable expression of the fans' dislike of the Oilers, who won the last two games in Edmonton to tie the best-of-seven series 2-2.

Fans in both arenas didn't boo the opposing national anthem prior to Sunday's game.

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If you get beat, join them

I’d been wondering what my former Conservative MP (John Duncan, Vancouver Island North) had been up to since the voters showed him the door in January. I needn’t have worried though, as, while they may like to chastise the Liberals for it, the Conservatives also take care of their own.

In John’s case, that means a nice, cushy job with the Federal government. After all, isn’t he entitled to his entitlements too? For John, that means a position as “special assistant for Pacific” to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

But wait, it gets better. Mr. Duncan didn’t actually accomplish much during his time as a Reform, Canadian Alliance, Conservative Party (I think that’s all of them) MP. Well, to be fair, by flip-flopping and opting back into the MP pension plan not long after campaigning against it and saying those that opted in “didn't deserve to sit in the House of Commons" he did provide one of the earlier examples of how his party’s supposed commitment to ethics and integrity is an entirely fluid concept. Ah, but campaigns are campaigns though, right John?

But one thing John could regularly be counted on was to rail against those ivory tower DFO bureaucrats in Ottawa, making decisions from thousands of miles away that impacted B.C. fishermen. “How many salmon are in the Ottawa River?” he would demand piously from the podium. And, you know, I agree. The DFO does need more people on the ground in fishing communities on the coasts and less bureaucrats in Ottawa.

So, now that he has joined the DFO, where is our friend John working?

Fisheries and Oceans Canada
MINISTER'S OFFICE,
CENTENNIAL TOWER
200 Kent Street
Ottawa, Ontario Canada
K1A 0E6

If he’s on a high enough floor he might be able to see the Ottawa River from his new office. How many salmon do you see there Johnny?

(H/T Cowboys for Social Responsibility)

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Enough is enough

I’ve been reading today in many blogs, Liberal and Conservative, about Stephen Harper’s promise to sue the Liberal Party for what his Conservative brethren have divined to be still missing money from the sponsorship scandal that they believe ended-up in Liberal coffers. And it’s pissing me off.

I’ve been of mixed thoughts about the issue throughout the day.

On the one hand, it’s obvious and shameless political opportunism. The Conservatives are using public money to further their political interests (ironically, what they say the Liberals did with sponsorship) and damage their political opponent.

But on the other hand, I thought, well, a crime was committed, and how can we be seen to impede the investigation and resolution of that crime? I’m mad as hell too.

I am also mad, though, at the continual smearing of the Liberal Party as a whole for the actions of a few bad apples. Enough is enough. We don’t have to put up with it, and we shouldn’t put up with it.

We’ve cowered in the corner for too long and said I’m sorry, please, don’t hurt me. In fact, it was the Liberal government that called in the Auditor General to investigate. It was the Liberal government that called in the RCMP to investigate. It was the Liberal government that called the Gomery Commission to investigate the affair, an investigation that cost more than was alleged to be misspent. It was the Liberal Party that paid back every dollar that independent judicial investigation, whose chief counsel was a staunch Conservative, determined improperly ended-up in Liberal coffers.

That’s the record. Those are the facts. And yet still we let the opposition smear all Liberals with this brush. And instead of saying bullshit, we let them. And we helped them. We went across the country and made sure everyone knew just how mad we were too.

Enough is enough. I did nothing wrong. Most Liberals did nothing wrong. A very few did. Those that did have been identified by the auditor general, the Gomery Commission, and the RCMP. They have and are facing justice. The system is working.

The Liberal Party has paid its penance. The Conservatives are desperate to keep this in the news. Looking at their record, I can see why. They know such a lawsuit isn’t legally feasible, but they don’t care. It’s about keeping an old story in the news for political advantage, and they’re willing to use taxpayer dollars to do so. But we need to stop rolling over. Enough is enough. It’s time to stop being pussies and fight them on this.

One of my favourite shows, The West Wing, is ending Sunday and thinking of this issue I was reminded of a scene from the third season episode “Gone Quiet”. It’s the presidential campaign, and consultant Bruno blows up at Sam for his refusal to stand-up to the Republicans.

"We all need some therapy because somebody came along and said liberal means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense. And we're going to tax you back to the stone age because people shouldn't have to work if they don't want to. And instead of saying 'Well, excuse me, you right-wing reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun Leave it to Beaver trip back to the '50s'. We cowered in the corner and say, 'Please don't hurt me'. . . .

That’s been us for too long. Well, enough is enough. I’m honest and hardworking, I pay my taxes and I love my country. I’m also a proud Liberal. It’s time we reclaim our brand. You want to call me corrupt? Not without a fight.

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Liberal MPs attend anti-abortion rally: What do we stand for?

I'm all for the idea of the Liberal Party being a big tent party welcoming of people from the left and the right with different views on different policy issues, but on some issues of fundamental importance I believe we should draw the line and say THIS is what we believe in, and if you're a Liberal so do you. Abortion is one of those issues for me.

Yes, we need to be a big tent, and we can have different views on any number of issues, from tax reform and military funding (I wasn't happy with the cuts we made in the 1990s) to foreign affairs. But despite minor differences, what should bind us together are certain core beliefs and principles. On the Liberal web site there's a page on philosophy that spells it out well. Here's an excerpt:

The prime principles remain a belief in:
* individual freedom, responsibility and human dignity in the framework of a just society;
* political freedom in the framework of meaningful participation by all interested persons;
and
* the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the framework for both Canada's democratic society and the interaction of members within the Liberal party.

The Liberal Party of Canada is committed to:
* the pursuit of equality of opportunity for all persons;
* the enhancement of our unique and diverse multicultural community;
* the recognition that English and French are the official languages of Canada;
and
* the promotion of the Canadian identity in a global society.

I believe there are certain fundamental policy issues that flow from these principles that are so core to what it means to be a Liberal that if you want to sit in the Liberal caucus, you need to vote with the party and defend them. Otherwise, I'm sorry, but while I respect your opinion and your right to it, the Liberal Party probably isn't the party for you.

Abortion is very much one of those issues for me, and so is same-sex marriage. That's why I was quite saddened to see Liberal MPs Paul Steckle, Paul Szabo and Tom Wappel attended the recent anti-abortion rally on Parliament Hill. To do so goes against everything I believe the Liberal Party stands for.

Not to mention make us look completely moronic when we try to demonize the Conservatives on this issue, as Paul Martin did in the last election. While there are obviously more anti-abortion MPs in the Conservative camp and something is more likely (not any time soon, certainly not until a majority) to happen on the abortion front under a Conservative government, still, it was laughable.

I recognize these are divisive issues, and public opinion is split. I recognize some Liberal MPs may hold strong personal beliefs, or feel the need to bend to what they perceive as the will of their constituents if they want to keep their jobs. I recognize seats may/will be lost. I understand that.

Nonetheless, being a Liberal should mean believing in certain things. If you don't, as I said, maybe you're in the wrong party. I'd encourage those MPs to think about that between now and the next election, and I'd encourage our next leader to think about it before he signs their nomination papers.

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More lighter side: Colbert nails gun control and the Nazi card

Just watching last night’s episode of The Colbert Report, and there’s some great stuff that’s particularly timely for us up here in Canada as is touches on two issues that have seen some discussion lately: gun control, and the Nazi card in political debate.

It comes during Colbert’s interview with Republican Congressman Lee Terry of Nebraska’s 2^nd District (The Fightin’ Second!), and there’s video available here. This first excerpt below touches on gun control, and Terry’s statements are nearly word for word the standard talking points I hear from gun registry advocates in Canada as well.

Colbert: The NRA gave you an A on your voting. Why not an A+ sir?
Terry: I don’t know.
Colbert: What is the most absurd thing about gun registration gun registry, the 72-hour waiting period, trigger locks…what part of that is most laughable?
Terry: The people that are compliant to those laws are the ones that are not the problem. You’re just focusing laws on the good people and philosophically I don’t think that’s appropriate.
Colbert: I agree. Good people shouldn’t have (pause) laws.
Terry: Let’s focus on the crime, and the use of the gun in that crime.
Colbert: Exactly. Too many people forget that passing laws doesn’t stop crime.
Terry: No.
Colbert: Right. So stop having laws. I mean you might get a little less crime, because it wouldn’t be illegal then.
Terry: No but, you know…
Colbert (interrupts): Let’s move on…

With satire Colbert does a great job of debunking the standard Conservative line about gun control laws: only the law abiding citizens follow the law, criminals ignore them. Ummm...that's why we call them criminals. By this logic why have any laws?

A little later, while discussing Terry’s support of alternative fuels, and in particular hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Colbert shows a clip of the hydrogen-powered Hindenburg. I’ll let the rest speak for itself.

Colbert: That was the Hindenburg, Congressman. Congressman, you are aware that the zeppelins were made by Nazis?
Terry: I knew they had some, yeah.
Colbert: I’m not suggesting you are a Nazi. I’m just saying you support some of the Nazis’ aims
Terry: Of alternative fuels?
Colbert: I’m just saying you might want to hitch your wagon to a different person than Hitler…<snip, Colbert shows a picture of burning mini-zeppelins in downtown New York>
Terry: I see fuel-efficient vehicles.
Colbert: On fire.
Terry: While you see flames and carnage I see power and energy.
Colbert: That’s what the Nazis wanted. Will to power.

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On the lighter side: What does Belinda’s face reveal?

I ripped this item out of the Metro subway mag last Friday but misplaced it in the midst of last weekend’s convention fun. I found it today though, and it deserves a mention.

It’s a short piece in the fashion section I’d normally gloss over if Belinda Stronach’s picture hadn’t of caught my eye.

Luckily, I don’t have to explain the piece, which was an advertorial for an upcoming issue of Elle Canada, because Man vs. Clown has posted an image of the article online.

I think the part I found humorous, and why, is pretty obvious. Like MvC, I also burst out laughing a little bit on the subway. And I was on my way to the Liberal leadership forum, no less. Priceless!

P.S. I spotted Ms. Stronach at the luncheon on Saturday and she was quite popular, posing for pictures and signing autographs.

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Let there be political peace in our time, or at least intelligent debate

Given that two lines in a post I made four days ago seem to be part of a mini-kerfuffle in the blogsphere today, I should probably comment a little further on the Bob Rae Munich Pact story.

For the record, here’s the exact transcript of his remarks. CTV’s Mike Duffy Live ran the video today in this clip, where three party strategists discuss the remarks. Also, in this clip Duffy’s media panel weighs in.

“…it’s true for softwood lumber which is an issue that I’ve been working on for the last little while. Now Mr. Harper might like to say that’s a wonderful deal. Don’t forget, Neville Chamberlain came back from Munich, and held up a piece of paper, and said he had peace in our time. He was wrong. So is Mr. Harper. Really wrong.”

Sitting in the back of the hall and hearing that my eyebrow rose and I jotted down a note on my notepad. I didn’t think of if as an earth shattering faux pas; I thought of it as a cheap and lazy political smear. Frankly, I was surprised someone of Bob Rae’s intelligence and intellect couldn’t come up with something better.

Yes, I know he didn’t say Bush was Hitler or that Harper was Chamberlain. I get the point he was trying to make. I was a history major. I see the analogy. But why even go there? The insinuation, even if unintended, was obvious. He didn’t need to connect the dots for anyone.

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say the only illusion he wanted to draw was simply to an agreement that seemed like a good deal at first glance but later proved disastrous and didn't settle the dispute it was intended to settle. Bob Rae is a veteran politician, and a very smart guy. He knows better than to touch the Nazi card with a 10-foot pole.

And whether he wanted to play it or not, playing the Nazi card has become an all too common political crutch for people of all political persuasions. It’s a quick and easy way to demonize your opponents, and it’s usually reserved for those too dumb or too lazy to come-up with something more intelligent.

I’ve been smeared with the Nazi card myself, in my then community paper by a director of the local Conservative riding association. He was also, more astoundingly, a social studies teacher at the local high school. Luckily for me, I wasn’t in his class when I was a student there.

At the time, I was communications director of the local Liberal riding association, and having brought some media experience to our rural riding we were in the midst of an aggressive communications campaign to challenge our incumbent Conservative MP in the lead-up to the 2004 campaign.

Used to having their MP get a free pass and not be challenged on his statements and record, the regular letters to the editor and media comments seemed to rankle local Conservatives and this fellow, not identifying himself as a Conservative director, wrote a letter to the editor accusing us of following the example of Adolf Hitler’s “Big Lie” and compared me (he didn’t say my name but we knew who he meant) to Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. Yes, he did actually say Nazi, Hitler and Goebbels.

Besides being a bit tickled by the fact we’d gotten to them that much I frankly found the whole thing sad and pathetic, and wrote a letter back soundly condemning his remarks. Really though, his own remarks made him look dumb enough without my help.

I realize people are going to disagree with me on policy and the best direction for Canada, but I'd like to think we can disagree while still respecting each other’s opinions and believing we both want what we believe is best for the country.

My point being the intellectually lazy of all political stripes play the Nazi card too often, and it should stop. It just makes you look like a dumbass.

And it’s not just the Nazi card. It’s calling your opponents evil, or saying they’re with the terrorists, or that you want to wipe them off the map, and so on. Name-calling seems to have replaced intelligent argument in our political debate. That’s goes doubly in the blogsphere. Call me idealistic, but I think we should strive for a higher level of political discourse in this country.

Bob should apologize, and then we should move on. It was a stupid comment, but it wasn’t malicious. It was just lazy. I know he can do better. I know we all can.

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Interesting conference in Toronto next week

Really cool conference in Toronto next week called Mesh. It's all about Web 2.0 and touches on blogging and politics as well.

The U of O's Internet law guru, Professor Michael Giest, is giving a keynote. There are also two really interesting sounding panels that are unfortunately running concurrently. One asks "Are Bloggers Journalists?", a question I've posed often, and the other panel asks "Can Bloggers Influence Politics?" and features heavyweight political bloggers Warren Kinsella, Paul Wells and the sorely missed in blogland Andrew Coyne, as well as the Internet chief for the Ignatieff campaign, Brad Davis.

I wish I could make it down and I did get a media invite from the organizers, but alas it's on a weekday and I just can't make enough of a connection between the content and my day job (reporting on enterprise IT) to justify a day out of the office. But if you're in the area and available I'd encourage you to check it out, and hopefully blog all about it.

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Go Harpocrits go!

The Ottawa Citizen has a morning smile today far better than anything those latte-sipping yuppies at the Globe could ever offer up: Conservative MPs are attending Ottawa Senators playoff games in corporate luxury suites as the guests of corporate lobbyists.

But wait you say, didn't the Cons lambaste Liberals for doing the very same thing when they were in government? Didn't Conservative MP John Williams say it should be outlawed, and call it "influence peddling at its most obvious"?

Harsh words indeed. But hey, the Liberals did it; campaigns are campaigns, it's not (yet) against the law, pragmatism, yada yada.

But here's my absolutely, positively favourite justification for this obvious flip-floppery. It comes from a Conservative communications thingy, responding to questions about government whip Jay Hill attending a game as a guest of Bell Canada:

Charmaine Crockett, a spokeswoman in Hill's office, confirmed the whip had attended the game as a guest of Bell Canada, but said Hill received approval from ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro to attend the game. (Emphasis mine.)

Well, if Bernie said it was alright then go to town guys, because we all know how much the Conservatives respect the opinion of our esteemed Ethics Commissioner, and hold him in such high esteem, now don't we?...

Conservative MPs accepting perks
Despite Harper's former criticisms
Jack Aubry, CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, May 09, 2006

OTTAWA -- Accepting gifts, including free Ottawa Senators playoff tickets in luxury corporate boxes, continue to be acceptable for Conservative MPs in Stephen Harper's government, despite criticism of the practice when the Tories were in opposition.
(more)

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Soldiers...with guns...in our cities!

No, I did not make this up! After all, I'm not allowed to. And neither is the Toronto Star's Political Blog, which is reporting on an exercise Ottawa Army reserve units will be conducting in the suburbs of the nation's capital Saturday.

The Star posted an e-mail from an Ottawa city councilor advising his constituents on the urban patrolling exercise that soldiers will be conducting...in their city...with guns:

I am writing to give you advance notice that Army Reserve Force units from the Ottawa area will be conducting joint urban warfare training in the Hunt Club Road area this Saturday.

A training exercise involving 50-75 soldiers is taking place in the surrounding woodlands and boarded houses at 1008 to 1016 Hunt Club Road on Saturday, May 13, 2006 between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

Urban patrolling will be conducted in the area surrounding the property, specifically the residential area to the North, the commercial area (South Keys Mall) to the East, and the industrial area to the South-West around Uplands.

I am advised that pyrotechnics will not be used but the exercise will involve firing blank ammunition. The urban patrolling will occur during the morning hours between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.

After 12:00 p.m., the urban patrols will be ordered to converge on the buildings and set up the outer/inner cordon and then assault (if necessary) the buildings and conduct a search. This cordon and search will be repeated on each house at least 4 times in order for military personnel to become more proficient in their drills and to increase their understanding of their Rules of Engagement.

This training also exposes soldiers to the reality of conducting operations in an urban environment - the kind they may encounter if they participate on missions outside Canada. The skills they develop and perfect will help ensure their safety and success in future operations.

* For the record I have no problem with this exercise. Urban training is important given the kinds of missions and environments our soldiers are and will be facing in the future. And I'm not allowed to make that up.

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BCer's pick: Stephane Dion

After a lot of careful thought and consideration of all the candidates, their pros and cons and the political landscape I’ve finally made my decision: I think Stephane Dion is the right person to be the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

This wasn’t an easy decision, as it is such a quality field of candidates. I went into the LPC(O) convention this weekend with three candidates on my shortlist: Dion, Ken Dryden and Gerard Kennedy.

I was stronger on Dion and Dryden but I’d heard a lot of good things about Kennedy and a friend of mine whose opinion I respect is organizing for Kennedy, so I wanted to give him a look. I think he’s a great guy and has a great future in the Liberal Party, but I just don’t think his time is now. I think he needs a little more seasoning on the national stage. I hope he runs federally in the next election, and if he does I think he’ll be a real force.

I really like Dryden, and I was going back and forth on the two all weekend. I met Dryden a year or so ago, when, on a visit to the Comox Valley as minister to meet with his provincial counterpart, he took time out of a busy schedule to attend a reception with the local federal Liberal riding association. Often ministers would pass through the riding without any notice so the fact he sought us out and took the time impressed me, and I think it speaks volumes to his commitment to the grassroots. I also admire his frankness, his honesty about the challenges facing our party, and the intelligence and conviction he brings to political life.

But in the end, I felt he just doesn’t have the zeal, the passion, and the drive to smack down Harper in a debate, or rally a crowd on the hustings. One on one Ken is great; if he could meet every Canadian in person we’d win a landslide majority. Modern politics is a TV game though, and I’m not sure he has mastered that medium yet. I hope he does.

Why Stephane?

I’ve liked Stephane for a while, and I think I was one of the earlier people in blogland to float his name as someone who should run.

He wasn’t seen as a serious candidate at that point and I’m glad to see that has changed, and in a big way. When I went to his hospitality suite Saturday night ready to put on a Dion button the room was packed and they were out of buttons, they’d been surprised by the demand. MP Bryan Wilfert was able to find me a sticker; hopefully I can find a button soon.

In January when I floated his name the only reservations I had about Stephane were these: does he have the “royal jelly” to inspire and excite, and can he make the transition from loyal lieutenant to leader. Watching his performance over the past few weeks, and this weekend, I can now say the answer to both questions is a definite yes.

You could see him change during his speech Friday night. He started off a bit nervously, the English a bit awkward, but as he got going you could see the passion building as he talked about the need to add a third pillar, environmental sustainability, to the Liberal pillars of social justice and fiscal management and the audience buying-in to that vision.

Stephane is committed to the party, and wasn’t part of any of the Chretien/Martin feuding. He was a loyal minister for Jean Chretien, tackling the difficult unity file, taking on the separatists and steering through the Clarity Act. When called on by Paul Martin he worked hard to help salvage Liberal fortunes in Quebec in 2004, and did a great job in the environmental portfolio. He's succeeded in every file he's been given, and I think now he's ready to get the filing cabinet.

What about Quebec?

The big question people seem to have about Stephane is can he win in Quebec? Don't they hate him there because of the Clarity Act stuff? I think he can be successful for us in Quebec. I'm not a Quebec expert, but here's my theory.

Do some people not like him in Quebec? Sure. It's the same people that didn't like Jean Chretien. It's the soft-nationalist/separatist elite, and I don't see them voting Liberal anyway. Paul Martin and Jean Lapierre tried to go after that vote and it didn't work; recognizing that in the 2004 campaign they called in Dion to shore-up our federalist base.

We're never going to sweep Quebec. The BQ isn't going anywhere; the Tories are back and aren't leaving either. But they're both going after the same soft nationalist piece of the pie. Let them fight over it, because we can have the federalist piece of the pie for ourselves. Let's be that strong federalist voice again, that passionate defender of Quebec's proud place in a strong and united Canada, that unapologetic defender of Canada. And who better to do it than the champion of plan b, the guy that stood toe to toe with the separatists and wouldn't blink?

The right person at the right time

I think Stephane Dion is the leader the Liberal Party needs right now. He's unscathed by the party infighting and any ethical issues and has always been there when needed, he has experience in government on both domestic and international files and his intelligence and honesty would be a breath of fresh air. He refuses to back down in a debate, but he does it not with confrontation and smears, but with intellect and wit. I'd love to see him wipe the floor with Stephan Harper in a debate, and you could charge admission to see him joust with Gilles Duceppe.

Also, I think his message of adding a third pillar, environmental sustainability, to the Liberal pillars of social justice and fiscal management really resonates with Canadians. The environment is going to be THE issue for the 21^st Century. It also brings our party back to the Centre/Left, where I'm more comfortable and where, as I've blogged in the past, I think we need to be.

For these reasons and more, I'll be supporting Stephane Dion for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.

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Wrapping the LPC(O) convention

It’s Sunday and I decided to sleep-in rather than catch the last morning of the convention. There wasn’t too much on the agenda and I needed a good night’s sleep.

The good

It was a good weekend. Over 1200 enthusiastic Liberals in attendance and even though we’re in a leadership race there was no tension or rivalry, everyone was feeling united and together, and energetic and enthused about the challenges ahead.

It was good to see a few friends I hadn’t seen in a few years, and it was also great to meet a number of fellow Libloggers, including Ted of Cerberus, Jason of Cherniak on Politics, Shosona, Zac of Behind the Headlines, and Vincent of A View or Two.

I liked Bill Graham’s luncheon speech and his expansion of the attack to the NDP, and I also liked Mike Eizenga’s call for a national membership list and a streamlined party bureaucracy.

The highlight though, without a doubt, was the leadership forum and the hospitality suites. It was great to hear from all the candidates and see them strut their stuff in person. While they don’t all have a chance, I was impressed with the quality of the group, and the warmth on the stage and in the room. I was at the leadership forum in Vancouver during the last leadership campaign, where John Manley, Sheila Copps and Paul Martin debated, and it was very much a different vibe.

The haters who bemoan the fact all the supposed big names dropped-out are full of it; this is a great group of candidates.

And while the forum helped me narrow my choices it was still a really difficult decision to decide whom to support. Saturday evening, before heading up to the suites, I sat in the lobby for 30 minutes mulling my two top choices, going back and forth. It wasn’t easy. That post is to follow though.

The needs improvement

The party needs to get better organized. While the Web memberships should help, it’s still too difficult to join the party. And it’s also difficult for them to get more involved once they do. We need better communication to members from the party and the riding associations, they need to reach out to the members more. And bloggers need to be recognized as part of the process.

My blog coverage of the weekend

Blogging the LPC(O), Night One: Leadership
Ground control to LPC(O): It's the 21st Century calling
Blogging the LPC(O), Day Two: Power to the people
Blogging the LPC(O), Day Two: Mike Eizenga and right-sizing the Liberal Party
Blogging the LPC(O), Day Two: Bill Graham, then desert
LPC(O) Day Two: Bloggers meet Ignatieff

Other Libloggers on the weekend (I’ll add to this list as I see more posts)

Cherniak on Politics
LPC(O) Leadership Panel
LPCO leadership beakouts
Final thoughts on the LPC(O) AGM

Take off, eh?
Michael Ignatieff - Blogger Chat

Best/Worst Times
Graham Speaking
Graham speech part deux

Shoshana
LPCO is a shambles after staff quit…
Highlights of the LPC(O) AGM
Leadership prediction from the LPC(O)

Bob the Red
Michael Ignatieff wears stylish re-soled, black shoes

Behind the Headlines
LPC(O)

A View or Two
A View or Two's Take On The LPC(O) AGM

The Steel City Grit
LPC(O) AGM-Leadership Impressions

The "What Do I Know Grit"
Victory at Last!
Maurizo Bevilacqua Wins

Cerberus
LPC(O) AGM

An Younger Liberal
LPCO AGM

Yappa Ding Ding
Liberal Leadership Debate
Reforming the Liberal Party (Mike Eizenga's LPCO talk)
Environment Forum (More LPCO notes)
Forum on Urban/Rural Issues and on Energy (Yet More Notes from the LPCO)

University of Ottawa Young Liberals
LPC(O) AGM

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LPC(O) Day Two: Bloggers meet Ignatieff

Brad Davis, Internet guru for the Michael Ignatieff campaign, extended an invite for interested Libloggers to meet with his candidate at the LPC(O) convention this afternoon. Myself and maybe eight others bloggers took him up on the offer.

I didn’t take any notes so I’ll just offer my recollected thoughts and impressions. And in the interest of full disclosure I’ll say Ignatieff isn’t on my leadership shortlist, I was just interested to hear what we had to say.

I started things off by asking what, with political parties reaching out to bloggers, he sees the role of bloggers in the political process to be: are they media, an arm of the party communications apparatus, or somewhere in between?

I thought he came down pretty firmly on the media side. His point was there are no more private conversations; anything you say in public could end up on a blog and in the public domain. And he said that’s a good thing. It means people like him need to be on their toes, but openness and transparency is a good thing for the process.

He mentioned a speech he gave to maybe 75 people in Calgary a few months back, before he was a candidate. Never expecting it to be a big deal, he mentioned in passing he was thinking of running. The next day it’s all over the blogsphere and is a news story, much sooner then he’d necessarily have liked his leadership musings to be out there. He said it was a hard but necessary lesson for him: anything he says anywhere is open game for public discourse.

On the issue of the influence of bloggers in the wider political discourse Ignatieff said he does see them as influential, particularly among the younger generation, and that people come to blogs as a source of news and facts. He also made some interesting comments on the need for accuracy in blogs, but said he sees a self-correcting nature in the blogsphere similar to the process at Wikipedia.

I don’t think I totally agree with that. While media certainly do monitor the blogs for tips, I still think the blogsphere is very much an echo chamber, though that’s changing. I read blogs more for views and opinions than news, I don’t see the MSM being replaced there.

And it’s because of the accuracy issue. I don’t think the self-correction is there yet, although there are certainly different classes of bloggers: those that do make a try for fairness, or at least reasonableness, and the partisan cheerleaders/smear artists. It’s not difficult to guess which group has some wider credibility, and the potential for wider influence.

Anyway, it was interesting to hear Ignatieff’s thoughts on blogging issues, and I thank Brad and his team for extending the invite. I’m glad his team is taking a progressive approach to the Web, as evidenced by their new Web site. I hope the other candidates will continue to reach out to bloggers, and that the party will begin to recognize them as a legitimate part of the process.

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Blogging the LPC(O), Day Two: Bill Graham, then desert

After the mandatory rubber chicken lunch (back in BC it was a rubber salmon, mmm) and before a very tasty desert, our interim leader Bill Graham took to the stage to fire up the troops.

After pumping-up the crowd a bit Bill went into attack mode, squarely making the Mike Harris-Stephen Harper connection and promised not to let Harper and Jim Flaherty do to Canada what Harris and Flaherty did to Ontario with their mean-spirited, short-sighted, neo-conservative agenda.

He said we need to prove to Canadians that we’re ready to govern, but we can do it. He gave props to the LPC’s Alberta wing; he was at their AGM recently and said despite their election setbacks, and just the case of being a Liberal in Alberta, they’re fired-up and ready to go.

We need to take stock of the party and our faults honestly, but he also pointed to our strengths, including the largest opposition caucus in many years and a strong team in the Senate.

Then it was back to the attack and the Conservative’s “election budget”, which Bill called “short term gain for some, long term pain for all.” He said the omissions from the budget, including Kyoto and climate change, the Kyoto Accord, and leadership around social programs and post secondary leadership spoke much more about the Harper agenda than what actually was in the agenda.

Picking up on Ken Dryden’s remarks from last night, he also took a swing at Jack Layton and the NDP, saying he abandoned children, families and aboriginals for 10 more seats. Jack asked people to lend him their votes. Well, as Bill said, “they want their votes back Jack.”

Bill also stood up for Dalton McGuinty, referencing the Globe’s editorial this morning that called Harper’s behaviour the other day “unworthy of a Prime Minister.”

Speaking of the Globe I ran into Globe political reporter Bill Curry today. Bill was in my year at Carleton University and on my dorm floor in first year (what seems like so many years ago) and is a solid reporter; you can read his coverage of Graham’s speech here and last night’s leadership forum here.

I thought it was a good speech from Graham. He earned two standing ovations, and you could tell there’s a lot of respect for him in the room.

I’m also glad to see we’re beginning to take on the NDP as well. As I said some months back, watch the left.The Liberal Party lost the last election, don’t get me wrong. But Jack Layton needs to be held to account as well. A lot of people lent him their votes because he promised them a bill of goods. They can’t be very happy with what he’s delivered.

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Blogging the LPC(O), Day Two: Mike Eizenga and right-sizing the Liberal Party

I woke up far too soon after I’d gotten to sleep and made the TTC trek downtown for day two of the LPC(O) convention this morning. I’d wanted to be here in time for the report from the party renewal commission, but, a bit surprisingly, the real highlight turned out to be the presentation from LPC president Mike Eizenga.

I can’t report much on the renewal commission presentation, it was mainly boilerplate, but was delivered with enthusiasm. It was structural though, more how it will work than changes being considered.

Eiziega, though, didn’t disappoint. I wasn’t too familiar with Mike going in, but my picture wasn’t too positive. I wasn’t at the leadership convention, but what I heard was that he was parachuted in by the Martinis last minute to stop Akkaash Maharaj, who has been working on the ground for years campaigning, from getting the job. I like Akkaash, so I didn’t like to see that.

So, point being my expectations weren’t high going into Mike’s speech, but I was pleasantly surprised at his forthrightness. He’s promising to take on a lot of sacred cows, and I wish him luck.

His thesis, one I totally agree with, was that the Liberal Party cannot win the next election, or any other ones either, without major structural changes. We have new enemies and they’re crafter then before, and more agile, nimble, and better financed with us.

The touchstone of his vision is strong provincial and territorial associations (PTAs, like the LPC(O). They need to be the main input into a downsized LPC.

As he said, the party structure is too top heavy. There’s a national executive, including exec members, PTA and commission reps, of over 60 people, and add in staff and a national executive meeting includes some 90 people. That’s insane. As he pointed out, that’s more than most provincial legislatures. We’re over governed, this bureaucracy is expensive to support, and it makes it difficult for the organization to move quickly.
“We are stunningly over governed and structurally burdened,” as he said. The structure is far too unwieldy.

We spend $4 million supporting that infrastructure annually. The Conservatives are lean and mean, and they spend that $4 million (and a lot more since they’re out fundraising us) on the ground, in the trenches, building and organizing.

Why is it this way? Every time a group felt disenfranchised another chair was pulled up to the table. It makes us feel good, but does it accomplish anything? Not so much.

He said our PTAs (which the Cons don’t have) are a strength for us though, or can be, if we use them right. We need to make them more effective though. Today, he said most PTAs spend too much of their time, 50 per cent or more, pushing membership-related paper and doing data entry. That’s time and money that should be spent organizing.

So where do we go? Mike said the time has come to dramatically shrink the size of our organization. I agree. It won’t be easy, it will mean constitutional amendments and people whose power bases are being threatened will fight hard. It will mean hard choices and we’ll need to build consensus, but it needs to be done.

He also said the time has come for a NATIONAL MEMBERSHIP LIST. If someone joins the party on Newfoundland or B.C. it shouldn’t matter, they should be joining the Liberal Party of Canada.

While recognizing the PTAs will fear a loss of power and money, Mike emphasized that the same membership fees will continue to go to the PTAs. But if the back office administration is centralized in Ottawa allowing economies of scale to be realized, PTAs will be able to redirect those resources from paper-pushing to party building.

I think it’s a good idea. I bought a five-year membership in B.C. two years ago, why couldn’t I just transfer that to my new riding, and just send in a change of address? And frankly, the PTAs are overburdened as others have observed, let’s centralize the administration and let them focus on building an organization on the ground.

So, all in all a nice job by Mike today, and good response from those that dragged themselves out of bed to hear him speak this morning, hangovers and all. He has a tough road ahead of him, but I wish him well and hope I can help.

Just one final note, he mentioned 150 people are joining the party every day through the Web site. I think that’s fantastic. The power of the Web needs to be recognized.

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Blogging the LPC(O), Day Two: Power to the people

Forget past leadership feuds. The real problem in the Liberal Party isn’t division between different leadership camps; it’s the division between the party hierarchy and the grassroots.

There is a sense among many long-time, loyal Liberal activists that, for far too long, the party elites don’t give a crap about the grassroots…until election time that is, when they need the worker-bees to knock on doors, stuff envelopes and do all the grunt work that gets them elected and helps them get good jobs.

Between campaigns, though? Forget about it. Policy is driven from the top down and so is the strategy. Perhaps lip service is paid to the grassroots, but nothing more.

And that’s a mistake. For one thing, it builds an ivory tower mentality. A bubble effect. There is so much energy, but also ideas, knowledge and brainpower, at the grassroots and it needs to be tapped. The party has lost touch with the people of Canada after 13 years in power, and that started with losing touch with its grassroots. They’re the people on the ground, they know what’s going on their communities, and that intelligence can’t be discarded.

Also, if you ignore the grassroots they won’t be there during the election when you really need them. People don’t like being taken for granted and they’re not stupid. They’ll stay at home. Many have in recent years. We need them back.

I was glad to see some of the leadership candidates touch on this point Friday night. Ken Dryden touched on it, but I thought Carolyn Bennett really nailed it. As she said, we need democracy between elections as well, we need to empower the members, and the culture of the party needs to change.

Among many, sadly, the culture our party elites today is one of entitlement and arrogance. I’ve seen this firsthand. The party in different regions has been controlled by cliques that know how to stack meetings with insta-members, skills they learned in the murky trenches of youth politics. They may not have much experience but you can’t offer them advice, they know what they’re doing and you’re with them or against them.

Our hierarchy is very top-down. The hierarchy dictates to the grassroots, not the other way around. Policy developed, if the hierarchy allows it to make it to plenary and it passes, is dismissed if not in line with their own goals. And take membership sales. The vast majority are sold at the riding level, but in BC every penny of the membership fee goes to the party, and none to the riding, even though they did the work to sign them up and their task of reaching out to their members gets more expensive with each new member.

As Carolyn said, our culture does need to change. And change never happens from the top down. It’s not in their interest to secede their power. Change, as always, comes from the bottom-up, and the grassroots is where the culture change in the Liberal Party needs to begin. I recently re-read 1984, and to borrow from Orwell, if there’s hope for change it lies with the proles, if they ever realize their power.

And we in the grassroots have the power. We just need to choose to flex our muscle. We put these guys in office and in power, they work for us. Let’s demand change, and accept nothing less. Let’s seek out and support candidates that share our ideas, or run ourselves if we can’t find them.

Let’s actually be the open tent we like to say we are.

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Ground control to LPC(O): It's the 21st Century calling

I'm in downtown Toronto with my laptop but I'm a few blocks from the convention hotel at a Starbucks, where I'm enjoying a grande hot chocolate and borrowing a WiFi connection from a local office tower (I think).

That's because there's no way for me to get on line at the convention itself. The Shearton Hotel charges a pretty penny for WiFi access, and there is nothing set up to allow delegates to get online. Or bloggers. There is a media room with Internet access, but I was told access to it by bloggers is verbotten.

It's the domino theory, you know. If we let one in then we loose Vietnam to the commies, then Cambodia, then Australia, and then the next thing you know the hammer and sickle is flying over the White House.

Anyway, my point is LPC(O), come into the 21st century and recognize bloggers as a legitimate part of the process. The ironic thing is that, as a working journalist, I could have easily flashed by business card and and secured media accreditation (and Web access), but I opted instead to pay $300 to be an observer, figuring the party could use the donation, and I'm on a patio down the street.

But blog on I shall. I've been typing away, and have a few posts to share before I head back down the street for more fun.

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Blogging the LPC(O), Night One: Leadership

Well, it’s 12:20 am-ish and I’m back from the first night of the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario)’s annual convention in Toronto. I’m also pretty tired and a little tipsy, so forgive me any typos or meanderings; they’ll be corrected in the morning.

Tonight’s highlight was the leadership forum where all 11 or so (who can count that high?) candidates got a chance to strut their stuff. It was a good night, and went a long way to solidifying my choice in my mind. I’m not quite ready to write an endorsement post yet, but probably will be tomorrow. My shortlist is down from three people to two, and I’m 95 percent sold on my top pick.

The main ballroom was packed for the evening’s agenda, and so were the hospitality suites. More on those later, but the organizers announced 1200 delegates in attendance. Not too bad. I also met up with Libloggers Cerberus, Cherniak and Shoshana and had a good chat with them about the leadership candidates.

The Leadership Forum

On to the main event. All 11 candidates were there, even the newest, Hedy Fry. I’ll comment of their three-minute or so opening remarks in the order they spoke, and to be fair to those who say coverage of female politicians always includes what they’re wearing I’ll include what the guys were wearing too.

Scott Brison: Scotty was up first looking dashing as always, wearing a suit and blue stripped tie. He railed against Harper’s budget for the first half of his remarks, and then said just attacking Harper won’t cut it. He said he would move Canada not left, and not right, but forward, causing me to fight the urge to yell “forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling twirling toward freedom!” French was awkward.

Maurizio Bevilacqua: He wore a suit with a red tie, and his hand motions were impressive.

Stephane Dion: He went for the casual look, suit jacket and open collar blue dress shirt. He started off slow with slightly awkward English and stepped on a few of his applause lines, but built steam and passion as he went on. He talked about Laurier’s unifying vision, the Liberal Party’s two pillars of social justices and economic management, and the need to add a third pillar, environmental sustainability. He returned to the three pillars often during the night. Good audience reaction by the end of his opening. And his French was excellent.

Martha Hall Findlay: A jacket and white blouse, French was fluent. Talked about the need for leadership from a new generation, and new blood.

Hedy Fry: Wore a red blouse of some sort and a broach, passable French. Spoke about the need to restore our values and lots of boilerplate Canadiana. Had some good lines that got a good reaction though. She called multiculturalism our secret “weapon of mass inclusion", and made one of the few specific policy commitments by promising to reinstate the Kelowna Accord (to strong applause), and ended with a reference to her defeat of Kim Campbell in 1993 that the crowd lapped-up: “I defeated the last Tory Prime Minister, I can defeat this one too!”

Gerard Kennedy: Suit with the requisite blue dress shirt and a red paisley (I think) tie. French seemed accented but perhaps passable. He seemed very low energy; I remarked to a few people it was like the room deflated when he took the mic. A friend organizing for Kennedy told me he’s not feeling at all well, so that could be it. Style aside, content-wise he didn’t grab me. He talked about the country he wanted his daughter, now age 8, to have in 10 years at age 18. He called Canada the “world’s first international country.” I don’t know what that means. He made the Stephen Harper is Mike Harris argument, and took an amusing shot at Jeffrey Simpson in French.

Carolyn Bennett: Violet? jacket, blue blouse, pearls. Carolyn wasn’t on my shortlist and still isn’t, but I was so impressed with her I considered for a little bit giving her my vote on a first ballot before moving to a candidate with a chance on the second. She was my surprise of the night. Her theme was what she called “democracy between elections” and empowering the grassroots, and it really resonated with me and spoke to a lot of what I feel is wrong with the Liberal Party. I’d like to delve into the grassroots disconnect more fully in a later depth, but tonight Carolyn said while the Liberals have a record of achievement, how we did it was disastrous. Canadians believed we stopped listening to them and so we lost the activists, and we need to get them back. She also said we need to empower the members, and not just during campaigns but between them too, and that the culture of the party needs to change. I couldn’t agree more, and dido much of the attendees tonight, judging by the applause. And her French seemed good.

Michael Ignatieff: Like Dion, went with the casual look, suit jacket and open collar blue shirt. Kissed up to the audience a bit then talked about Canadian values, social equality, financial management and national unity. We need to be the party of equality of opportunity. Brought up the credentialing issue, getting a good reaction with the line “I’m tired of talking to cabbies with more degrees than me, we need to get them from the cab to the lab.” Took some shots at Harper, good French, clenched first hand motion off-putting.

Bob Rae: Suit with blue shirt and red patterned tie. With a very serious demeanor, he started off attacking Harper for killing the Kelowna Accord and gave kudos to BC Premier Gordon Campbell for denouncing Harper for it. He also attacked what he called Harper’s “focus group budget” and got a laugh with the line that having $10 billion to give away was an experience he’d never had. The passion started to come at the end as he said the battle with the Conservatives is not a tea party but a political campaign, offering two stark visions for Canada.

Joe Volpe: Casual look, suit with blue open collar shirt. Talked about nation building and how the world envies Canada, his voice dropped to nearly a whisper before he switched to what seemed like passable French for at least a third of his speech.

Ken Dryden: Bucked the trend with a suit and red/blue stripped tie but with a white dress shirt. In his low key-speaking style, I thought Ken really connected and had some good lines. He has an honesty that’s compelling. “Losing stinks” he said, and his thesis was “we need to win.” I agreed with him when he said “you win together and you loose together, but for too often we won apart.” That’s very true. He was also the only candidate to get some shots in at Jack Layton, saying parents, aboriginals, and others can’t be too happy right now, adding they’re probably saying “thanks a lot Jack.”

Questions and Answers

These were written and submitted beforehand. There were two rounds, each time three questions were read and each candidate had 90 seconds to respond to one, two or all three. Nothing too eventful here, a few random thoughts:

• Rae compared Neville Chamberlain and the Munich Pact/appeasement of Nazi Germany with Stephen Harper’s surrender to Bush on softwood. I thought that was over the line, you can do better than that Bob.
• Ignatieff said Canada needs to be a leader in “clean coal.” What, prey tell, is clean coal, besides a coal industry marketing buzzword? It’s like “healthy cigarettes” or “exploring for oil.” (ed. Actually there is such a thing as clean coal, my bad. Forgive me Iggy?)
  
• Martha Hall Findlay drew a gasp when she stated the obvious: Kyoto is flawed and we need to acknowledge that, but its still the best bilateral agreement we’ve got, and so we should work with it and build on it.

Hitting the suites

The formal activities over for the night, I met up with the other Libloggers before hitting the hospitality suites organized by some of the leadership candidates. First off was Brison, on an upper floor far from the other ones (24th to their 4th). Still low key at this point, no sign of the man himself, sparse food selection, small room.

A glass of cabernet and I headed down to the 4th floor and the main hospitality suite row, bigger suites here and it was jam packed, elbow to elbow, hard to move. Stopped in Kennedy’s suite for another cabernet and chatted with my Kennedy supporting friend, giving him a chance to sell me on his man, who wasn’t there yet.

Then on to Dryden’s suite, where the food assortment was more varied, with Smarties and M&Ms, among other things. I finished my wine to try one of their watermelon martinis, wasn’t that great. No sign of Ken, but their hockey-card themed invite cards are a keeper.

I went looking for the Dion suite next but was disappointed not to find one, maybe he’ll have one Saturday night. Stopped quickly in the Rae suite for another drink, didn’t see Bob, and the Volpe suite for some chicken wings. Joe was there but I didn’t speak with him, Joe isn’t on my shortlist.

Stopped briefly in the Ignatieff suite before heading to the subway, the windows were steamy. Read into that what you will, I draw no metaphorical conclusions myself.

I’m off to sleep but I’m bringing the laptop down with me tomorrow in the hopes of blogging from the convention itself tomorrow if I can get online. More big picture thoughts tomorrow I hope, and my leadership endorsement.

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Government will collect tax on the softwood refund

Yes, you read that right. After surrendering to the U.S. and only getting a portion of our illegally collected softwood duty back from the Bush Administration, the Harper administration will be TAXING the portion of their own money our forestry companies ARE getting back from this deal. The tax windfall could be worth as much as $1 billion to Harper and the provincial governments.

I really should read the business section more often, because otherwise I would have missed this, I think, huge story in the Globe's Report on Business. And Eddie, why wasn't this in the A section anyway, instead of B5?

We get into corporate tax law here, but as ROB explains it Eastern Canadian forestry companies should actually come out OK but companies in B.C. will be getting hosed. Remember when the Reform Alliance was all about standing-up for the West?

In a nutshell, as I read it companies wrote-off duties paid during the dispute, claiming it as an expense for tax purposes, so now that they're getting the money back they need to pay taxes on it. Eastern companies tend to have poor balance sheets so they can defer the payments to the future, but most B.C. companies have healthier balance sheets and can't.

Take Canfor, David Emerson's former company, and the company he still has financial ties to through his pension plan. After taxes ROB says they'll end up with about 55 cents on the dollar, reducing their appx. US$760 million refund to US$475 million.

My take on the softwood deal itself is basically that it sucks, but I don't think they could have done much better with the Americans. It's a defeat and shouldn't be celebrated, but life sucks sometimes.

But this tax situation is something Harper can do something about, though. He's trying to shore up his strength in B.C., how are they going to react to news of Harper's tax windfall at their expense?

Softwood firms to be taxed on duty refunds
Ottawa, provinces could get $1-billion
STEVEN CHASE AND PETER KENNEDY

OTTAWA, VANCOUVER -- As a final indignity, Canadian softwood producers will have to pay tax on the $4-billion in U.S. timber duties they stand to recoup under a deal between Ottawa and Washington to settle the five-year-dispute.
This would mean a potential revenue windfall for Ottawa and the provinces of $1-billion if all companies end up paying tax on the duties.
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Blogger gettogether at LPC(O) tonight

For those of you attending the LPC(O) convention in Toronto this weekend, a few of us Liblogger-types are meeting up for a quick drink tonight before hitting the hospitality suites for, well, more drinks, and all Liberal blogsphere types are welcome to join.

We'll be meeting at 9:30 pm by the escalators on the main reception floor of the Shearton Centre if you're interested in joining us. Famed Libloggers Cerberus and Jason Cherniak will be there, and probably a few more of your Liblogger favourites as well.

It should be an interesting weekend for bloggers. Some of the candidates have been doing different things to reach-out to bloggers; Ignatieff has invited Libloggers to a meeting Saturday, for example. I plan to blog regularly throughout the weekend, and I look forward to reading others' takes on the weekend.

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LPC(O) convention, anyone?

I'll be attending the LPC(O) convention in Toronto this weekend as an observer. I've not been able to contact my riding association and never heard anything about a delegate selection meeting, and the party office is unable to tell me if or when one was held, so observer it is.

Are any other Liberal blogsphere citizens going to be attending? As a still fairly recent transplant from B.C. I know no one in Liberal circles in Ontario, so I'm hoping some familiar blogging names will be there. Perhaps an impromptu Libloggers meeting/drink or two is in order?

On another note, I've been following Cerberus's tally of Liblogger endorsements with interest (poor Joe, Carolyn and Maurizio, where's the love?). I'm still undecided, but I hope that will change after getting a closer look at the candidates this weekend. There's three I've narrowed it down to. It's just a pity Ms. Stronach didn't stay in long enough to host a hospitality suite.

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Pity the single male

For it seems we're the only group not singled out for special tax cut largesse in Tuesday's Conservative budget. As far as I can figure I'm coming out worse than I was going in.

I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the budget, I think it has been well dissected elsewhere. Still, a few thoughts though. Politically I think it's good for the Cons, policy wise not so good for the country. As a political observer I appreciate their strategy, but as a citizen that takes an interest beyond the headlines some of their choices are unfortunate.

I'm surprised they didn't keep the entire Liberal income tax cut, the money was there. Instead they keep half, which can still be easily spun as a tax increase, although given all of their other little tax cuts floating around it's a tough case to make in a soundbite.

Usually I read the Globe in the mornings, but I came into a free copy of the Toronto Sun Wednesday so I read its budget coverage yesterday. Apart from the cover of a fairy princess Jim Flaherty sprinkling tax cuts to the good citizens (dammed Liberal media!) I was surprised to find the editorial/columnist coverage rather negative. Of course, the neo-Cons felt Harper et al hadn't gone far enough!

And really, this isn't a small-c conservative budget. There's no across the board tax cuts or slashes to government programs. If anything, government has gotten bigger, with all these targeted tax cuts designed to appeal to specific voter segments in the next election meaning more complicated tax returns and more paperwork for the bureaucrats to push.

You might call it bribing the voters with their own money, but hey a) the Liberals did it too!, b) campaigns are campaigns, c) it's called pragmatism, and d) When you're on a righteous crusade any sin is permissible for the Greater Good.

Playing chicken

As for this whole game of chicken nonsense, of course the Liberals are going to vote against it in the House. I was told that's what the opposition is supposed to do (by Stephen Harper). With the BQ's support it will pass. And in the Senate?

Harper seems to be daring the Liberals to vote it down in the Senate. All that's missing is a taunt about gonads. While such action would purely be symbolic, as it would go back to the House which would then pass it again once and for all, it's not necessary. Make our stand in the House, propose some carefully selected and crafted amendments, and move on. There's more important work to be done than waging symbolic and pointless fights.

If Harper wants to play fight, let him play with himself.

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Revisionist history

I think it's natural for people to get their backs up when criticized, particularly when that criticism is coming from outside the family. So I think I was naturally upset last week reading about the U.S. government report calling Canada a terrorist haven.

This has been a favourite rant of the Bill O'Leillys, Pat Buchanans and other no-factanistas of the American right. Never mind the fact none of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada, and it was colossal blunders by the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement authorities that failed to apprehend the terrorists.

Still, this kind of nonsense is par the course from the American right and I usually pay it no attention, although I was disappointed to see Stephen Harper react by taking off his cap and begging forgiveness (while throwing in the requisite Blame the Liberals defence) instead of saying (diplomatically of course) bullshit.

But what really annoyed me was that this report, to buttress its Canada=terrorist haven claim, brought up the Maher Arar case. Remember him, the completely innocent citizen shipped-off by the Canadian and U.S. governments to be tortured in Jordan (the outsourcing of the 21^st century)? According to the Bush Administration, "the Arar case underscores a greater concern for the United States: the presence in Canada of numerous suspected terrorists and terrorist supporters."

In case you missed it the first time, he was COMPLETLTY INNOCENT! With fact checking like this, this report and the contention Canada is a terrorist haven has just as much credibility as Bush's pre-Iraq war WMD claims and Colin Powell's RV chemical factories from his UN show and tell.

The Globe put it well in a recent editorial (click here to avoid the subscriber firewall):

Arar illustrates what?

Hard as it may be to believe, the name Maher Arar stands for a Canada soft on terrorism, in the eyes of the U.S. State Department.

This is the same Maher Arar who was apprehended by the U.S. government in the fall of 2002 while changing planes in New York, deported without a judicial hearing to his birthplace of Syria, incarcerated in a cell only slightly larger than his body for a year and tortured -- without credible evidence emerging in a public forum, then or now, that he is a terrorist.
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Does Stephen Harper eat babies?

Funny story in the news today, apparently some hackers got into the electronic advertising system on Toronto's commuter GO Train system and reprogrammed it to say "Stephen Harper eats babies."

It caused much embarrassment for transit officials, who shut down the system until it could be properly secured to prevent future incidents from occurring in the future. Interesting though was the response from the Harper camp:

Dimitris Soudas, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, described the hacker's actions as "inappropriate and disrespectful."

Kind of a non-denial denial, isn't it? The question remains, does Stephen Harper eat babies? If so, why? If he doesn't, why hasn't he spoken up and forcefully and unreservedly denied these baby eating allegations, rather than letting them fester? What is he hiding? Do you eat babies or not, Mr. Harper? The Canadian people demand you be accountable here!

While Harper is remaining silent, his former colleagues are speaking up. Harper used to head the National Citizen's Coalition, and current NCC honcho Gerry Nicholas told Toronto's AM640 "he's worked with Harper for 5 years, and never once in that time... did Harper eat a baby."

That raises more questions than it answers though. Why give such a specific time frame, does he know that Harper ate a baby before his time with the NCC, or after? Has Harper eaten babies in 24 Sussex? In the House of Commons? Oh, the humanity!

Oh please, won't somebody think of the children?! I demand a judicial inquiry into the baby eating question at once, Mr. Speaker!

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Bloggers to be part of Liberal renewal

Public Eye Online's Sean Hollman had Mark Podlasly, a member of the Liberal Party's renewal commission, on his radio show recently and Podlasly indicated bloggers may soon be playing a bigger role in the process, and that the commission will be looking to the Liblogs group for ideas.

Podlasly's role on the committee is to see how the party can make better use of the Internet. According to Hollman, Podlasky said the committee is considering "blogger conference calls" as a way for the party to reach out to Liberally-minded bloggers.

These are certainly interesting ideas, and I'll be interested to see how it all plays out. I think the party does need to make better use of the Internet, and reaching out to bloggers, as other parties have done with some success, is a good idea.

I think though that as bloggers are taken more seriously by the politicians it may be time to reconsider the role bloggers play, and will be playing, in the political process in the future. What will be the price of access, and are bloggers to be journalists or just another arm of the party communications apparatus?

I imagine the blogsphere will continue to have a little of both. I've always tried to take a somewhat journalistic approach with my writings, which is perhaps natural given my day job, but I've always been one to believe that telling truthiness to power isn't disloyal, but in fact takes a special kind of party loyalty.

While cheerleading has its place, such people tend to lack credibility, and therefore influence, and so I doubt they would be the bloggers that parties are trying to reach. The bloggers I most regularly read across the spectrum, from people like CalgaryGrit, Cerberus and TDH Strategies on the Liberal side to Political Staples on the Conservative side, aren't afraid to admit when their party is wrong and call their leaders to task when necessary, and try to maintain some intellectual honesty. That's why I read them, blind partisanship quickly becomes boring.

I guess my question is this: if parties and bloggers are to become closer, will bloggers in the future be afraid to bite the hand that feeds them? And how will the parties react when bloggers chomp down?

MoveOn.ca?

The federal Liberal's renewal commission will be "considering and recommending" the organization of "blogger conference calls" where party politicians reach out to Grit bloggers. This according to the commission's Internet policy chair Mark Podlasly.
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