Crap, more evidence Ignatieff thinks about things

Apparently Foreign Policy magazine has released its list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers, and it has placed Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff at number 64. #1 was fed chair Ben Bemanke, #2 was some guy named Barrack Obama, and other notables include Bill and Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, and Pope Benedict. So, not a bad list. Even if it does include Dick Cheney.

Here's the entry on Ignatieff:

64. Michael Ignatieff

for showing that not all academics are irrelevant.

Liberal Party leader | Canada

Poised to become Canadian prime minister next year, only five years after leaving Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Ignatieff is out to prove the relevance of academia -- and big ideas -- in politics. Ignatieff's writing on the sometime necessity of "violence … coercion, secrecy, deception, even violation of rights" to fight terrorism has made him a singular voice among Canadian liberals. His 2004 book, The Lesser Evil, made the case that targeted violence was necessary to prevent the possibility of falling victim to greater violence, but stressed that democratic states should not employ torture or be motivated by national pride or revenge. In 2006 he was elected to Canada's House of Commons and in 2008 became leader of the Liberal Party. As a politician, he's renewed his party's focus on human rights, the war in Afghanistan, and more recently, global climate change, which he defines in characteristically utilitarian fashion as "redistributing risk to the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world."

Exciting news for "Toronto Liberals" certainly, but for the more cynical in our ranks the reaction will no doubt be "oh crap, don't remind people Ignatieff has a brain, the Conservatives will kill us!" And, while I've not ventured into Blogging Tory land yet, I'm sure the Conservative war machine (not a metaphor, they built an actual machine) is all a tizzy gearing-up for another values-war. More evidence he's out of touch, academic elitist, etc. He's not Tim Horton's! He "thinks" about things!

Isn't it time, and I hope you're listening DonOLO guys and gals, that rather than cowering and hiding from this narrative, that we flip it on its head? Hate to break it to y'all, but we're not going to successfully repackage Michael Ignatieff as just folks, even if we bring Jean Chretien's denim shirt out of retirement. It just won't fly.

Michael is what he is: a journalist and academic and a world-recognized author and expert on human rights. He's a deep-thinker. The Conservatives want to paint that as a bad thing, because a) their guy ain't, and b) they're more comfortable in a values-war, drawing sharp lines to lure support. But why are we letting them define the terms of the debate? Who decided smart was bad?

We need to make the argument for smart being good. I want a leader that is a thinker (balanced with decisive doing, naturally), that is intelligent and learned. I don't care if our leaders like hockey too or like maple dips. I want to know they have good values and rich experiences and strong principles to guide their decisions.

We've been hiding from Michael's resume for far too long. Ignatieff and the Liberals need flip the narrative and instead treat it as an asset. Tell us about his career, about reporting on the flight of the Kurds in Northern Iraq for the BBC, about how he became a human rights expert, and why. Tell us how his experiences as a journalist, as an academic, how his writings on human rights led him into politics. Tell us how that experience has shaped what he has come to believe, and how it would influence what he would seek to do as Prime Minister.

Or, in other worlds, for the umpteenth time, let Ignatieff be Ignatieff.

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Harper uses our troops as a human shield

It’s not a new low for the Stephen Harper Conservatives, but rather a continuation of their import of the worst of the tactics of the U.S. Republican Right. The “you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists” rhetoric, the labeling of opponents as “Taliban sympathizers” or “un-Canadian” or “against the troops.” Basically, smear and appeals to patriotism substituting for policy and debate.

Over the weekend, however, Harper took his cheap political hectoring to a new low. Speaking about a Canadian Navy vessel, using serving sailors as political props for his photo-op, Harper launched into a baseless partisan attack against his political opponents, who have had the temerity to raise questions about his government’s handling of reports of torture of Afghan detainees:

"Let me just say this: living as we do, in a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform, based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you."

This was an attack unbecoming of a Prime Minister of Canada, and to do so aboard a naval vessel with our sailors as background is doubly disgusting. But it has been all too common a tactic by Harper, by Peter MacKay, by Conservative pundits and the Blogging Tory keyboard commandos: when under attack for their political decisions, hide behind the military and smear your opponents.

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear, once and for all, although it really shouldn’t be necessary: absolutely no one here is attacking or making allegations about our military members. Harper is slinging bullshit. The torture scandal is entirely political. This is about what members of the Harper government knew about allegations of tortured Afghan detainees, who knew it, when they knew it, and what action they took and why. Absolutely no one is questioning the decisions or activities of our men and women on the ground, in uniform. Just the Harper administration in Ottawa.

Indeed, if our troops have been put in a compromised situation here, if they may have turned over detainees who went on to face torture in Afghan prisons, then that is the fault of the politicians and civil servants in the Conservative government that ignored the warnings of Richard Colvin and others. It is the Conservatives that would have failed the troops, and that’s one reason why the opposition wants to get to the bottom of this mess.

But instead of investigating this, instead of looking for answers, or even admitting mistakes may have been made by his government, Harper and his ilk are inventing fictitious attacks against the troops. For Harper, the military is a convenient human shield. He can hide behind them and lob grenades at his political opponents, labeling any return fire as unpatriotic attacks on our soldiers, sailors and airmen.

It’s disgusting and unprincipled, and Harper, the Conservatives, and all good Canadians, should be ashamed of his behaviour. Our military deserves better than to be used as a human shield by a Prime Minister unable to fight his own battles.

Related reading:

Scott Tribe: Harper causes me to post twice on a Sunday - very rare
Jane Taber: Using the troops as props

UPDATE: Scott Taylor, a veteran and experienced investigative reporter on military matters with strong ties to the rank and file, rips into Peter MacKay:

Initially, MacKay charged that by retelling "Taliban lies" Colvin has essentially been fuelling enemies’ propaganda machine. When that tactic failed to score a hit, MacKay wrapped himself in the flag, curled up in the fetal position and pleaded for everyone to "stop attacking his soldiers." This is an emotionally charged issue for many of those who are justly proud of the service of our Canadian Forces, and MacKay claiming that Colvin is somehow attacking our military will immediately invoke their ire.

Although the manoeuvre was dramatically played out by MacKay, the fact is that no one engaged in this debate has alleged wrongdoing on the part of any of our troops.

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Looking back on The Coalition, one year later

It’s hard to believe that, one year ago, political Ottawa was in a tizzy of coalition madness, and even in the rest of Canada, the political interest alert system rose from “who cares” to “meh, wha?” Looking back one year later, who were the winners and losers and what are the lasting impacts?

In the short-term, certainly, while they may have over-played their hand the coalition was the right move for the opposition parties. With the Conservative economic update that ignored the worsening economic realities and instead tried to destroy their political opponents, the opposition parties had to act.

The coalition succeeded in forcing the Conservatives to introduce a budget in January that, while unfocused and imperfect, did make needed changes in areas such as Employment Insurance as well as spend billions in necessary stimulus to help the economy. It wasn’t the budget we’d have written, but it went much further than the Conservatives wanted to go because their feet were held to the fire by the coalition.

At that point, while I had misgivings at the time as well as quibbles with the strategy, Michael Ignatieff made the right decision in backing-away from the coalition. If they’d tried to take the government, after it has gone a long ways toward meeting their demands, the public would have revolted. No matter how constitutionally legitimate it would have been, in the eyes of much of the public it would have lacked moral legitimacy, and without such legitimacy no government can, or should, govern the people.

So, on the positive side for the opposition, the coalition forced the Conservatives to address the economic reality, dramatically change their policy in our direction, and bring in necessary economic policies to help Canadians deal with the recession. And for the Liberals, however messy the aborted leadership process triggered by the coalition drama may have been, it did get our new leader in place much sooner, saving us many, many dollars that could instead go into party coffers. We emerged with a new leader, a united party, and a healthy war chest.

That said, there were missteps and many negatives.

Did we overplay our hand by proposing a formal coalition, rather than just a Liberal government that would seek to govern with NDP and BQ support on a case-by-case basis? Certainly the NDP saw this as their opportunity at real power and wanted seats at the table. And it was important to demonstrate to the Governor-General and Canadians that the new government would be stable. But it made the separatist-socialist coalition messaging easy, and that resonated with Canadians. And we needed public support for legitimacy. We may well have over-reached.

Having Gilles Duceppe at the table for that press conference/photo-op was a mistake too. It lent credence to Conservative lies about the BQ being in the proposed government when they weren’t, and hurt our chances to sell this to the public.

And as much as it pains me, having Stephane Dion at the head was a deal-breaker for many Canadians. I argued at the time it had to be Stephane, and for us, there was no other viable option at the time. But he had just been pretty soundly rejected by the electorate and I talked to many Canadians who said, they’d support the coalition, but not with Dion. While he was the PM we needed, he wasn't the salesman we needed to sell it. It was another factor that made it harder for us to gain public support.

Looking back now, I’d have to say I total more wins in the Conservative column one year removed from the coalition crisis.

While they were forced into stimulus spending they’ve embraced it, using the opportunity to paint themselves as Conservative Santa Clauses with a multi-billion dollar slush fund. They’re showering money on their own ridings to cement their re-election chances and on key swing ridings they need to get to their elusive majority, all with giant prop-cheques emblazoned with the Conservative logo.

We can point out all we want that the distribution of funds is politically-motivated, that they’re blurring the partisan/government divide, but for most people any outrage is largely of the “a pox on all their houses” variety. Conservative popularity has largely held steady through this downturn. That’s a remarkable feat, and due in no small part to the stimulus spending forced on them by the coalition.

More long-term, the prospect of a future coalition government, which would be perfectly democratically legitimate and could be an antidote to both the perpetual minority governments that Canadians are tiring of as well as a good opportunity to unite the centre-left against the Conservatives, has been poisoned and will likely be a no-go for a generation.

We had to sell Canadians on the concept, and we blew it. We were hobbled by the factors mentioned above and we couldn’t overcome the Conservative campaign of smears, lies and distortions. Now the concept of coalition governments, which are the norm in so much of the rest of the world, is as politically toxic as, well, the green shift. Which is a victory for the Conservatives that greatly increases their chances of continued governance by playing the NDP and Liberals off each other. A divided left helps a united right.

So, overall, while the opposition parties largely played their cards as best they could and did achieve some tactical victories, in the long-game it’s Stephen Harper’s Conservatives that emerged as the winners from the coalition madness of one year ago. They continue to govern, their opposition is divided, they held (and even increased) their popularity through a punishing economic downturn, and are inching closer to majority nirvana.

It has been quite a year.

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Coming Thursday: Liberals talk policy. Pictures at 11

From CP's daily look-ahead to news events occurring Thursday comes this interesting entry:

QUEBEC _ Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff delivers the Liberal position on climate change, the environment and the clean economy. (Holds news conference at 12:45 p.m). (11:45 a.m. at Laval University, Cite Universitaire Theatre, Palasis-Prince Pavillon)

So be sure to stay tuned for that, should be interesting.

SPOILER ALERT!

I'm reasonably informed that the Liberal position will be in favour of the environment and in favour of the clean economy. Or so my senior sources say.

Probably still worth watching the announcement though.

P.S. Anyone want to bet the words "green" and "shift" don't appear within 400 words of each other in the speech?

But in all seriousness, if we're going to start talking real about policy and rolling-up our sleeves I think that's fantastic and welcome.

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Maurice Vellacott says the darndest things about abortion

I may need to make this "darndest things" thing a regular feature. Maurice Vellacott, a Conservative MP from Saskatchewan, released a press release last Friday about how great it is that it's getting hard to get an abortion in his province due to a shortage of doctors, and also commenting on criticisms the cut-off date for performing the procedure is too early in pregnancy.

No surprises there. But here's the line in Vellacott's release that caught my eye:

Pro-life feminists have also come to see abortion as part of a male agenda to have women more sexually available.

Really, Maurice? I mean, really?

That's about the dumbest thing I've read in some time.

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Tom Flanagan says the darndest things about child pornography

As the Conservatives prepare to hurriedly rush-in legislation on child pornography that absolutely has nothing to do with distracting public attention from the Richard Colvin's testimony and the growing scandal about what the government knew about allegations of torture in Afghan prisons and when, here's what Tom Flanagan, a senior adviser to Stephen Harper and former senior campaign staffer, had to say on the subject to The Manitoban:

Before making his comments about context in the media during his first lecture, Flanagan digressed for a moment and spoke about the misinterpretation of the beliefs of lawyers, due to the people they defend in court. Flanagan cited the example of Stockwell Day suggesting that a lawyer by the name of Lorne Goddard, who had defended a client accused of possessing child pornography, believed the same thing as their client — “that the lawyer himself believed that it was OK to have child pornography.” Flanagan then continued, saying “But that’s actually another interesting debate or seminar: what’s wrong with child pornography — in the sense that it’s just pictures? But I’m not here to debate that today.”

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Isotopes meet H1N1 in an unsexy confluence of Conservative incompetence

While the politicians and the media may have moved onto other, seemingly sexier crisisis (ed. surely not sexier than cancer?), that doesn't mean the isotope crisis has gone away, or has even been solved by Lisa Raitt and the Conservatives.

Indeed, doctors are warning that the (Conservative-mishandled) isotope crisis could be worsened by the (Conservative-mishandled) H1N1 flu pandemic. Provinces and health authorities are facing increased costs due to both H1N1 and the isotope shortage. It's like two tales of Conservative incompetence fusing together into a big, ugly, bouncy blue ball of poor management.

From the Ottawa Citizen (can't find a link):

Canada's doctors say the ongoing medical isotope shortage "is not sustainable," especially while there is a flu pandemic eating up health-care resources.

They are pushing the federal government to quickly come up with short-term solutions and to take a second look at its decision to get out of the isotope business.

Dr. Anne Doig, president of the Canadian Medical Association, told the House of Commons health committee Monday that the health-care system was "coping" with the shortage of isotopes, which are used in treating and diagnosing conditions including cancer and heart disease, but that the country's doctors were worried about the toll it was taking. "In particular, the resulting increased demand on resources -- both human and financial -- and especially now in the midst of a pandemic, is not sustainable," Doig said.

...

Dr. Jean-Luc Urbain, president of the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine, told the committee that doctors and technologists had been able to minimize the effects of the shortage through extraordinary efforts, but that it was having damaging and long-lasting consequences.

He said the enrolment of medical students in nuclear medicine was down, some specialists were heading for the U.S., and some technicians had lost their jobs.

Urbain was critical of decisions made by the Conservative government, including its cancellation of the MAPLE reactors and a $22-million grant given to McMaster University in Hamilton to upgrade an old reactor there.

He said the money should have gone to investigating how to get the MAPLE reactors up and running. The MAPLE reactors were built next to the NRU reactor, but encountered technical problems and have never been approved for use.

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It's not the torture, it's the cover-up

I haven’t followed the ins and outs of Richard Colvin’s testimony and the ensuing Conservative smear campaign super-closely, but I do have some thoughts here on what the issues are and how the opposition should be pursuing them.

To me, this isn’t so much about allegations of torture in Afghan prisons, and the program of the Canadian military transferring prisoners to Afghan custody where they could face abuse. When the government, after much public pressure and pressure from the opposition parties, finally revamped the transfer program a few years ago it was an acknowledgment by the government that yes, there is a problem here, and we need to take appropriate action to ensure our soldiers aren’t unknowingly complicit to abuse.

Colvin’s testimony served to underline the necessity for the reform of the transfer program, and again raise the question of who knew what when, and why the government took so long to act.

What is new, however, and newly damaging and meriting of close scrutiny, is Colvin’s testimony of how when he tried to raise these issues, he was constantly shut-down, told to report verbally so there would be no paper-trail, his memos sent to the circular-file.

You can say that the reports of torture and abuse he raised are hearsay and second or third-hand, whether that matters or not is debatable but it is a legitimate point.

But what is not second-hand, what is not hearsay, are the roadblocks he ran into from his superiors in government when he tried to pass these allegations and reports up the chain of command. He had direct, first-hand knowledge of being told to report verbally so there would be nothing on paper, nothing that could be released under Access to Information requests.

Whether the allegations of abuse were legitimate or not, and indeed if they weren’t the government wouldn’t have later revamped the transfer programs, they should have been evaluated and considered and not covered-up. This is compounded by the extraordinary lengths the Conservatives went to in attempting to stop Colvin from telling his story, whether to the courts or to parliament.

It’s not the crime, they say, it’s the cover-up. Here it’s probably both, but the cover-up may be more damming. The Conservatives are trying to distract attention by trying to discredit Colvin's testimony as third-hand hearsay. We need to pivot back to the cover-up, and the direct attempts to stifle and suppress his reports.

BY THE BY, speaking of Rick Hillier jumping in to take a few swings at Colvin and say he knew nothing about nothing, it's worth remembering that it was Hiller as Chief of Defence Staff who tried to clamp-down on the growing scandal in 2007 by ordering the halt of the release of any information on the detainnee program under Access to Information on flimsy national security grounds.

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I think the Conservatives owe Colvin a cash reward

Once again, the gap between Conservative rhetoric and Conservative reality is gaping. This time, whistleblowing is in the spotlight.

Here's what the Conservatives had to say about whistleblowers in their 2006 election platform, Stand-Up for Canada:


And here's what they have to say about whistleblowers now:

According to their platform, it would seem that, far from trying to discredit him, they actually owe Richard Colvin a monetary reward.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that cheque in the mail though, Mr. Colvin.

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New DonOLO team too experienced

I really should weigh-in with my insight and thoughts on the highly important and critical re-organization of the Office of the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, as no blogger can let a story as important to the future of the nation as the hiring of a bunch of (should be largely) anonymous staffers in the opposition leader's office go without comment.

As I looked over the names and biographies of the new hires that were published yesterday, after doing the proper analysis for sex, language, regional representation, hair colour, past leadership clan allegiance and position on Star Wars vs Star Trek (a good balance on most counts, I can report) what occurred to me was that these are all very experienced people.

Most of them seem to actually have had prior related job experience before being hired to these senior positions. They've worked in government, in opposition, they've worked in politics, and they've done things that will help them in their new roles. Much experience.

Maybe, too much experience? Let me get ahead of the chorus that will come with the first bad poll and say clearly this new team is too experienced. What we need are political rookies with no experience, clearly. Experience is clearly a handicap. Where's the new blood, the fresh faces?

Experience, boo! Fresh blood, yeah!

Remember, you heard it here first.

If things go wrong, the problem is too much experience by anonymous staffers.

Unless things go well, in which case clearly we need even more experience and that's what I'll have always believed firmly.

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Harper Conservatives: Soft on white-collar crime?

Once again, the gap between Conservative rhetoric and Conservative reality is gaping. This time, white-collar and financial crime is in the spotlight.

The Conservative rhetoric:

Today, the Conservative government announced new legislation to crack down on white-collar crime.

Our government understands that those who are defrauded by white-collar criminals have been victimized just as much as a person who has been mugged.
...
The Conservative government will always work for the safety of Canadians, their families, and their savings.

And the Conservative reality:

Canada's financial transactions watchdog says its services are in greater demand than ever, yet the federal government has cut its budget by eight per cent in the last two years.

The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FinTRAC) referred 556 cases to domestic or foreign police and other agencies in 2008-09.

In tabling the centre's annual report in Parliament, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty cited the devastating effects of white-collar crime and lauded the centre's role in "strengthening the integrity of Canada's financial sector."

The centre's director, Jeanne Flemming, said FinTRAC is able to produce "more financial intelligence, more quickly" than ever in the face of growing demand.

However, the Conservative government, which has made anti-crime legislation a centrepiece of its agenda, has cut the centre's 2009-2010 budget to $48 million from $54.9 million in 2007-08.

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Jason Kenney to imported poor children: Forced labour and abuse, so what!

You may have read that Britain is apologizing for shipping thousands of poor children off to the colonies in the 19th century, including Canada, where they often faced abuse and forced labour. You may have heard that, on behalf of Australia their Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd had apologized for the abuse and conditions the children faced in his country.

How about Canada, which took even more of the poor children than Australia and also treated the children to abuse and labour? Yeah, not so much. It seems Jason Kenney doesn't see the need:

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says there's no need for Canada to apologize for abuse and exploitation suffered by thousands of poor children shipped here from Britain starting in the 19th century.

...

But he says there's limited public appetite for official government apologies for tragic events of the past and no demand for one in this particular case.

Really, Jason Kenney? Let's take this thing piece by piece. First of all, you say there's "limited public appetite for official government apologies for tragic events of the past" and so sorry abused poor kids, no apology for you?

That's rich coming from a minister in one of the most apology-happy governments since confederation. The Harper Conservatives have apologized for residential school abuse, for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident, for the Chinese Head Tax, the internment of Japanese-Canadians during WW II... All worthy and warranted apologies, to be sure, but it seems rich for this government to now to claim apology apathy.

Second, there's no demand for an apology, Jason? What does that mean? It seems the message is maybe Canada has done all kinds of bad things, but if no one is upset enough to lobby us about it then it's not worth apologizing over.

I'm sorry, Jason (opps, I apologized) but that's ridiculous. If something is wrong, then it's wrong. If something warrants an apology, then it warrants an apology. Lobbying or public pressure shouldn't be the deciding factor. All that should matter is if it was wrong, or not.

If you want some angry people with a group name though Jason, how's this:

Sidney Baker, 76, of Home Children Canada, said he also expects an apology from the Canadian government for the treatment of children who were scooped off streets in the U.K. and shipped to Canada between 1869 and 1939. ...

Baker said the victims and their families have never asked for compensation from the Canadian government - only an apology.

He said the group has been told that Ottawa has been working on an apology for some time.

Baker claimed that "between three and half and four million Canadians are descendants of the Home Children."

So there's demand that Minister Kenney insists "doesn't exist" even though the government told this group an apology was in the works. As I said though, public pressure aside, is an apology warranted here? Let's review:

Canadian Citizenship and Immigration says on its website that many of the children, most of whom ranged from eight to ten years of age, came from families of the urban poor who could not care for them properly.

CIC says most of the children were runaways or abandoned, but some were also orphans.

Children were generally sent to Canada without the knowledge or permission of their parents, a move made legal by the British Parliament.

Studies show that more than two-thirds were abused by their patrons in Canada, Home Children says.

According to CIC, it was only after the death of one of the home-children at an Ontario farm in 1895, that Canadians would learn about the British program.

George Everitt Green, a young agricultural labourer from England, died seven months after arriving in Canada, his body emaciated and covered with sores, visible scars of the cruel treatment the CIS says he received from his employer.

Other home children committed suicide in Canada between 1923 and 1924, which prompted an investigation by the British Parliament and led to Canada's Immigration Branch introducing a regulation in 1925 that prohibited charities from bringing children under 14 years of age to this country.

Yeah, sure Jason. No need to apologize for our nation's role in that dark chapter of our history.

For god's sake, do the right thing here. You can even "paraphrase" the Australian speech, if you want. If the Conservatives insist on hewing to Kenney's ignorant, embarrassing and demonstrably false line on this, the only lesson that can be taken is that the Harper government only apologizes when there's an identifiable voter group involved that they can woo.

So, sorry abused poor British kids.

Maybe you should get organized and move to key swing ridings and then Jason Kenney will care about you.

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Video: Bucharest at night by speeding bus

More video from my week at the World Blogging Forum in Bucharest, Romania. Here are some snippets from out night-time speeding tour of Bucharest on a speeding bus filled with noisy bloggers. I think I may have been the only one listening to our poor tour guide. Highlights of the tour included the Revolution Square and the Bucharest Fried Chicken.

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Video: Scenes from the 2009 World Blogging Forum

YouTube is being uncooperative, but here's one video I have managed to get uploaded so far from my week in Bucharest, Romania for the World Blogging Forum that gives a bit of a taste of the event.

More to come.

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News of John Baird's cat's death goes international

News of the death of John Baird's cat, Thatcher, and how the Conservative government actually called 10 Downing Street to confirm the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (the Iron Lady is very much alive) has gone international with coverage in German news magazine, Der Spiegel.

Via Google Translate:

Why you should not name his cat "Thatcher"

Ottawa - Canada's Transport Minister John Baird on Tuesday among colleagues spread the simple message, "Thatcher is dead." The message reached members of the Canadian Parliament who attended a gala event in honor of Army families. Also, the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was present.

As the Canadian news agency CanWestNews reported was to the consternation of whether the big news - especially feels the Canadian Conservative government party of the "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, who governed Britain from 1979 for eleven years combined, very.

Prime Minister Harper told immediately, the message can be verified by the death of the politician in Britain. But in 10 Downing Street one was surprised - Lady Thatcher, 84, was alive and kicking.

As it turned out a little later, Baird had said Transport Minister Thatcher, a very different - namely, his cat, which he had given in honor of the politician whose name.

This story sounds too good to be true. It is, however, assured as a "CanWestNews" spokesman SPIEGEL ONLINE: "Our chief political reporter was at the gala reception there and has seen the story live."

Stephen Harper said Canada would be back on the world stage under his leadership. Not sure this was what he had in mind though...

UPDATE: We're more back than I thought, baby. I quick Google search also reveals hits from the Irish Times and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, as well as the United States, where the St. Petersburg Times has my favourite headline: Canada takes a brief paws to mourn thatcher.

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Romanian presidential election campaign sign review

It was a happy coincidence for a political junkie that my visit to Bucharest for the World Blogging Forum coincided with early campaigning for the Romanian presidential elections. Since I enjoy getting away from policy from time to time and looking at communications and branding, I thought I'd snap some pics of the campaign signs plastered all over the city for a Romanian edition of my regular election campaign sign reviews.

First a little background, based on a few conversations with Romanians I've met. Romania has a two-chamber system with a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate. The Prime Minister is head of government and, similar to our system, must command the support of the chamber of deputies. Members of both houses are elected to a four-year term. The President is head of state and is elected to a five-year term.

The incumbent president, who addressed the opening day of the World Blogging Forum, is Traian Băsescu. I'm told he's been a controversial figure in the country. Formally independent but supported by the Democratic Liberal Party, which has a slim minority in parliament, but Băsescu has been unable to get some of his reforms approved.

In particular, I'm told he wants to abolish the Senate. Some Romanians I spoke with told me the powers of the two houses, which once different, are now largely similar, and the bicameral system has led to legislative gridlock. Interesting to consider given the unending Senate reform debate in Canada.

While Băsescu appears to be contesting the presidential election and running for a second term (based on his Web site certainly), Băsescu doesn't seem too active in the sign war. The only signs I saw of his don't appear to be for a presidential campaign, but rather asking for a yes vote in a referendum to bring in a unicameral system, essentially abolishing the Senate.

Election polls show Băsescu in a dogfight for a second term with the Social Democratic Party candidate, Mircea Geoană. The polls show Băsescu leading on the first ballot with around 34 per cent support but with limited growth support, dropping the second ballot narrowly to most of the other major candidates.

I'm told the election is a coin-flip at this point. Which makes the sign war all the more important. In order of first ballot poll support, here are the campaign sign pics I snapped around Bucharest. The first ballot vote will be November 22nd, and the second round on December 6th.

Traian Băsescu

The incumbent, Traian Băsescu is the only of the candidates to be approaching a smile on his signs, which appears to be a bold choice in Romania. As I mentioned the signs, which aren't as numerous as those of the other candidates, seem to focus not on the presidency but on the political reform referendum.

Roughly translated, the slogan is "why are we afraid, let's escape. Go referendum!" and talks about reducing the elected parliamentarians from 471 to 300. (UPDATE: A better translation offered in the comments is: "They cannot escape from the things they fear.")

The orange and green vaguely remind me of the NDP. I give Băsescu credit for not scowling in his picture.

Mircea Geoană

Mircea Geoană's signs looked much the same as this but I wanted to share a picture of his campaign tent, as I thought this was a neat idea.

Design-wise it's a simple design: his name, the office he's running for "presidente" and the logo of his party. Or, to be more specific, the coalition between the Social Democratic Party and the Conservative Party.

Simple can be good but this almost seems to simple. A slogan would have been nice. Geoană has adopted a neutral facial expression, which could be worse (as you'll soon see) but can't these guys smile? Maybe Romanian politics is different, but I want a happy leader.

The tent is cool, though. I saw a few of them located in major pedestrian squares, like our Yonge and Dundas in Toronto. During the day they're staffed by campaign volunteers (I presume) handing our brochures and speaking to those interested. It's a cool idea.

Crin Antonescu

The candidate for the National Liberal Party, Crin Antonescu is currently running a distant third on the polling but he's near the lead in the sign war.

This poster features a picture of the candidate against a sky-blue background with his last name, the office, a slogan and the logo of his party. Continuing the off facial expression-choice theme, Antonescu appears to be offering a smirk. One lady-friend commenting on Facebook however called it a "come-hither look" that may appeal to the ladies. I shan't comment on that.

The slogan translates roughly as Romania common sense. Platitudes abound in any language, it seems. Surely not a Romanian Mike Harris devotee? Overall I like the sign, except for the facial expression.

Sorin Oprescu

Running fourth is Sorin Oprescu, the current mayor of Bucharest. While a former member of the Social Democratic Party, he's running as an independent candidate and I'm told he has no real chance of winning, with one person calling his campaign a "waste of money." He must be spending a lot though, as by my judgment he's winning the sign war, at least in Bucharest.

Maybe he'd be polling better though if he had less signs, because that angry scowling picture can't be helping him any. I like the white on blue design and the slogan is alright, translating as "Go Romania!" But with that scowl, it makes it seem like he wants Romania to go away.

Don't be so angry, man!

Others

There are a number of other declared candidates for smaller parties, including one for the Green Party, but I saw no signs for them during my travels.

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Some videos from World Blogging Forum

Here are a few videos that people here at the World Blogging Forum in Bucharest have been creating and uploading. My own videos will need to wait until I'm home, my laptop is too slow for video editing.

This first video is a brief interview by blogger Ilyi with Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas, whose presentation I blogged about earlier:



This second video is from blogger blogowski of an impromptu mini-scrum on the bus to the conference this morning with Seesmic CEO (and web celebrity) Loic Le Meur:

Bus Interview with Loîc :) from Pedja Puselja on Vimeo.

And here's Andrea Vascellari's discussion of citizen journalism which I also mentioned in my earlier blog:



UPDATE: Here's Luca Sartoni from Italy on the future of blogging:

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Day 1 in Bucharest for #wbf2009, Blogs and Citizen Journalism

(Note: This entry was written Tuesday night; WiFi not cooperating at the hotel again)

With the opening political and celebrity remarks out of the way at the first World Blogging Forum in Bucharest, Romania, the first panel of the day was up and the topic was Blogs and Citizen Journalism, and the influence of blogs on the civil society.

An interesting topic, and I found out last night (after a few glasses of Romanian wine) that I’d been tasked to give a speech as part of this panel. So I made some notes last night and this morning, and as I listened to the first two speakers my notes began to look less and less relevant and interesting.

Zhou Shuguang

The first speaker was Zhou Shuguang from China. A self-taught IT guy and former network administrator, Zhou is a veteran blogger who has had many run-ins with the Chinese government for reporting on news the government doesn’t want covered and helping people get around the “Great Firewall of China” the government has built to keep non-government approved foreign news from getting into the country. Zhou was even arrested at one point by the government for his work.

He noted that China has 40,000 police that monitor the Internet full-time, it has over 500,000 sites blocked in the country, last year some 80 people were jailed things they’d written on the Web, and in early June this year, on the anniversary of the Tienanmen Square massacre, Web access evaporated all together.

To get around government censorship, some in China use a VPN or a proxy to connect to outside networks, but that’s not an option that’s available to most Chinese people. Twitter and Friendster are both blocked, but Zhou said people are using RSS subscriptions and RSS feed tools such as Google Reader to get around the blocks. He also described a network he hopes to build that will help more people get access to free and open news and information, and to communicate with each other free of censorship.

Wael Abbas

I had read about the Chinese Great Firewall and its attempts at censoring the Web, often aided and abetted by Western companies looking to stay on the good side of the Chinese government to get access to the lucrative market, but I’m sad to admit the situation in Egypt described by the next speaker, Wael Abbas, was completely new and shocking to me. Abbas is a blogger and human rights activist who was named Middle East person of the year by CNN in 2007.

In Egypt, said Abbas, there’s no protection for journalism, there’s censorship on supposed security grounds, copies of papers are often confiscated and presses delayed or closed, tapes confiscated from videographers, TV stations raided by security officials and tapes seized, all leading to an environment of self-censorship by the media to avoid confrontation with the government.

As a result, he said there was a dire need in Egypt for an alternative form of media to support civil society and provide real, uncensored news to the Egyptian people. The government had been blocking the Web but ended that practice when it wanted to encourage telecom investment. Instead, said Abbas, the government doesn’t censor blogs, but instead harasses, detains and arrests bloggers within the country instead in an attempt to intimidate then into ceasing their activities.

Blogging and citizen journalism first came into its own in Egypt when the mainstream media weren’t covering protests against President Mubarak, election rigging and police violence. Bloggers stepped in to fill that gap and while sometimes the barrier between blogging and activism blurred, the objective approach bloggers tried to take found public support. They presented video and pictures of what was happening and asked people to draw their own conclusions. The media were actually spurred-on by the bloggers, being encouraged to report more of what was actually happening, and publishing blogger content. Opposition parties also reached out to the new media.

Abbas himself drew negative government attention when he published photos of hired thugs that arrested female protestors, and exposed paid pro-Mubarak protesters, and posted controversial video. He has had his Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo accounts shut down under government pressure for his activities, and the government has accused him of being a criminal, a homosexual and having converted to Christianity in attempts to discredit him.

While at its peak around 2005, Abbas said bloggers helped push the envelope for press freedom and political freedom by the opposition, its still under attack and the government’s counter-attacks are working, causing him to lose optimism that real change will happen in Egypt.

It’s hard to see change without international support and that’s hard to get for the situation in Egypt, said Abbas, because there’s not much awareness of the situation internationally. Mubarak is viewed as a moderate friend of the West but people don’t know that Egypt has fake press freedom, fake opposition parties and fake elections, it’s all a mirage.

My turn

I felt a little intimidated and out of place following these two speakers and having heard about the very real challenges and real dangers they face in their activities, and the real change and difference they are making with blogging and social media. It certainly put into perspective our political debates and what gets us upset in Canada, and just how good we really have it. The Conservative may leave nasty comments, but that's as bad as it gets here, by and large.

I gamely pressed ahead though and tried to give a quick overview of the state of blogging and citizen journalism in Canada. I said it’s not as well established here as in many other countries for a number of reasons. One: we don’t have the critical mass of both bloggers and blog readers, and with a free press and a democratic system of open governance we don’t have the same impetus as less free countries to use these tools to counter that and have that freedom.

We don’t have a lot of real “citizen journalism” in Canada but more so opinion and commentary, I said. Blogs tend to be built around communities of interest, and have been successful and useful in bringing those with common interests together, but their ability to influence civil society and public opinion is limited because readerships tend to be limited. In political blogging, for example, I said most readers tend to be very interested in politics already and largely have their minds made-up, so not many people are bring influenced by blogs.

Where blogs in Canada do tend to have the opportunity to influence, however, is via the media. I said that many journalists tend to follow blogs (and Twitter) for news tips, information, and to take the pulse of public opinion, so where blogs can be successful in influencing the narrative is if they can help shape the media narrative.

I did bring up one Canadian challenge around libel law and libel chill, with our law placing the burden of proof on the publisher. With bloggers not having the resources to fight nuisance complaints, this can lead to self-censorship in some fields. I also mentioned that, in addition to government watchdogs, bloggers also see their role as a media watchdog watching for and reporting problems or alleged bias in coverage, something people here found interesting.

In response to a question, I talks about how political parties and activists are investing much time and energy in social media, including officially, but that ability to influence seems limited.

I was asked why blogging isn’t as developed/popular in Canada, and I said I had the impression that blogging is viewed almost as old, as yesterday’s news, and that we’re by and large beginning to move beyond blogging. Micro-blogging and Twitter is where we’re largely moving to now, with its immediacy, simplicity and portability. I spoke about how most of our parliamentarians are now on Twitter, although usage varies, and some government ministers are even engaging with their constituents through tools such as Twitter. I spoke about my twitter exchange with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, a particularly pertinent example given that the topic of our twitter-exchange was the visa requirements targeting Roma and Mexicans visiting Canada.

Overall, I think it went fairly well and while we lag in blogging I got the impression the use of twitter by our politicians impressed some. I really do think Twitter is a much more powerful tool for direct citizen engagement than blogging, so I hope we'll continue to see its use grow.

And more

Among the speakers to follow on this same topic, Ramon Stoppelenburg from Holland told a very interesting story of how he used his blog to travel around the world by finding people to stay with via his blog, and then blogging about them, their views, their countries and their lives. It became quite popular and he managed to visit 72 countries. He got offers for sponsorship but only accepted purchase of things he needed, such as airline or ferry tickets to get to his next stop.

It really opened his eyes to the other side of the Web, he said, the people behind the Web, and how the views we get of places and issues from the media are often very different from what the situation actually is. The lesson he learned, he said, is that the more we share the more we understand each other, so we should share more of ourselves online.

Form Finland, Andrea Vascellari told an interesting tale of citizen journalism. A few years ago he was out and about in town when he noticed police cars around a school and, calling his office, he learned there had been a major school shooting. He posted a short blog about it via is phone, and very quickly he was getting interview requests from the BBC and other international media. He began doing phone interviews from the site and, thanks to Finland’s advanced mobile communications and wireless infrastructure, uploaded pictures and videos directly from his site to international broadcasters.

He also set limits on his citizen journalism, however: when one organization asked him to interview students and friends of the victims about the shootings he declined; he didn’t think that was appropriate to do. It’s an interesting example of the differences in standards and morals between traditional and citizen journalism, and how with citizen journalism comes an opportunity to redefine the rules.

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Day 1 in Bucharest for #wbf2009, the opening

When I began my Google and Wikipedia research on Bucharest and Romania in preparation for the World Blogging Forum this week, I was very interested to read about some of the history of the venue for the conference, The Palace of Parliament.

Commissioned at great cost toward the end of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s Communist regime to house the parliamentary and presidential facilities, it’s the world’s largest civil administrative structure and is second only in size to the Pentagon. In person, though, it’s quite the sight. We saw it first at night glowing from blocks away, and as we pulled up to it this morning for day one of the conference it was even more impressive.

There are big chandeliers, high ceilings, large reception halls, paintings, sculptures, and lots of marble everywhere. Not uncommon in Europe, but it’s kind of striking to see a relatively new building constructed in this style. Anyway, cool place for a blogging conference but enough architecture, on to the blogging.

After we settled into the Human Rights Hall of the Palace of Parliament, the first big item on the agenda was a speech from the President of Romania, Traian Basescu. Was pretty good to see the head of state come out for the conference and, even better, he didn’t deliver a boiler-plate welcome and thanks for coming speech, but actually had some substantive thoughts to share on the topic of the conference.

Basescu, who you can follow on Twitter (@tbasescu), said as an Internet user he believes the Internet is the freest means of communications yet invented because promotes pluralism and enables dialogue on a global basis, bringing the freedom to communicate at a global level. People aren’t along on the Web, they’re part of a community where they can find support.

In Romania, Basescu said blogs are relatively new but they’re becoming well established and consolidated. And he said he finds the political analysis is better in the Romanian blogs than it is in the traditional press in Romania, because bloggers are less dependent on economic and political interests. The media here, he said, aside from the state channels are dominated by private press with business interests that influence their coverage and seek to influence policy with their coverage to advance business interests. Many journalists, he said, are seeking refuge in blogging as a way to escape those shackles and report freely.

I thought Basescu made a really good point when he said that, with the freedom of communication and expression of the Internet and blogging, there must also be accountability and responsibility taken by bloggers for the information they publish. When one has freedom, one has responsibility

While Basescu doesn’t believe there’s a place for government regulation here, he does want to see bloggers step-in themselves with self-regulation, agreeing amongst their selves globally on common-sense rules of practice.

Another interesting speaker from the morning opening was Loic Le Meur, the founder and CEO of Seesmic (A Twitter/social media viewer) and host of the LeWeb conferences in Paris.

Le Meur made an interesting point that while advances such as the printing press, the telephone and telegraph, cinema and television were all momentous, the Internet was truly ground-breaking as a communications breakthrough because while the others were good at either mass (one-way) communication or just a one-on-one conversation, the Internet is the first to bring both aspects, mass communication and interactivity, together natively.

I parted ways with Le Meur when he said professional media will never be the main source of information because they’re outnumbered by users, because twitter is so immediate, and so on. I don’t buy it. Le Meur talked about learning about an earthquake in China on Twitter six hours before it hit CNN. He also talked about how, with the US Army clamping-down on information access after the Fort Hood shootings, on Twitter individual soldiers were putting information out there uncensored.

Le Meur added that traditional broadcasters jumped on the soldier’s tweets, reporting them, only later to learn much of the information was incorrect. The annoying “twitterization” of the MSM aside (balloon boy coverage comes to mind), this example seems to me to illustrate why twittering won’t replace the MSM: I don’t know if I can trust what I read from random twitter guy.

What I think needs to happen, and is slowly happening (Le Meur agreed) is that traditional media needs to adapt to social media. What we need is a marriage of the best of traditional media (research, fact-checking, ethical and moral standards, etc.) with the best of social media (immediacy, interactivity, multiple platforms of content delivery). There will always be lots of information on the blogs and on forums such as Twitter, but the signal-to-noise ratio is high. It’s the trusted names that will rise above, and the brands of the MSM in that regard as they enter the new field are strong, I feel.

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Day O in Bucharest for #wbf09

(Note: This post was actually written Monday night local time, before a bus full of bloggers all got back to the hotel, fired-up their laptops and crashed the WiFi. Bloggers!)

I’ve arrived safely in Bucharest for World Blogging Forum 2009, and really must get some rest before what looks like a daunting schedule for Tuesday but first, it being a blogging conference, I must blog.

After catching most of the first half of a fun Hockey Hall of Fame Legends game at the ACC on Sunday afternoon, I left to catch the shuttle out to YYZ for my evening flight on the Polish Airline, LOT, to Bucharest, Romania via Warsaw, Poland. I’d read some questionable reviews of Lot so I didn’t know what to expect but, really, it wasn’t that bad. Seats were cramped but I got an exit row and an empty seat beside me, so that was a plus. Free wine helped. The food wasn’t bad, a stuffed chicken breast with potatoes and vegetables that could have been hotter, but filled me up. Big strike was no in-flight-entertainment. There was the always enjoyable moving-map, but no movie or anything for over eight hours was puzzling. Luckily, sleep and a book passed the time well enough.

Transfer in Warsaw was painless with no customs to clear and the airport easy to navigate, the flight to Bucharest was comparatively brief at just under two hours, customs/passport control was a breeze and my bag actually beat me to the baggage claim, which never happens. And thankfully there was a representative from the World Blogging Forum there to meet me and some other bloggers at the airport, as I wasn’t looking forward to navigating the Bucharest transit system solo.

The drive into Bucharest from the airport was about an hour long, and it revealed a city that is an interesting mix of old and new, and of western and traditional influences. Within two minutes we passed a MacDonald’s and a giant Ikea, as well as a Jaguar dealership. There’s much construction, still a smattering of plainly communist-era edifices (mainly in the city centre) and mainly older buildings. You see this mix in most European cities but, in my first trip to Eastern Europe, many of the older buildings seemed much worse for the wear here than elsewhere. Also, there was certainly more of an eastern/orthodox influence in the architecture.

After checking-in at our hotel and dumping our bags, it was off with my fellow bloggers on the bus to the welcome party. And that brings me to another observation about Bucharest: the traffic here is crazy. Not Bangalore-bad, Bangalore was madness, but it was jam-packed and people were constantly jockeying for position, with lights only sometimes obeyed. It made for an interesting trip.

Had a great evening getting to know some of my fellow bloggers as we talked about social media, application development, sports and, of course, blogging. Met some really interesting people from the U.S, France, Holland, Hungary and elsewhere, enjoyed some Romanian wine that seemed to taste better with each glass, and enjoyed some good food, Romanian and otherwise.

And then, after more than a few glasses of Romanian wine, we learned that a) we’ll be meeting the president of Romania at the conference tomorrow, and b) we all have to give speeches to the conference tomorrow as well. That ended the festivities in a panic as we all rushed to the bus to head back and try to prepare to sound intelligent tomorrow.

I’ll be part of a panel in the morning with bloggers from China, Egypt, Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere speaking about blogs and citizen journalism, the influence of blogs on the civil society, and standing-up for the community. I’m trying to formulate thoughts, but if you have any to share on the topic, please, please do.

I’ll let you know how it goes and will hopefully have some live-blogging and tweeting from the conference tomorrow, as opportunity and WiFi permits. I think it’s going to be a great conference. Thus far the hospitality of our Romanian hosts has been amazing, and it seems like they’ve assembled a really dynamic group of bloggers and social media activists.
Really makes me wonder what I’m doing on the guest-list at times, but I shall soldier on. Perhaps I’ll speak to the president about the Romanian visa situation. Alert Minister Kenney. :)

P.S. Two lessons learned: Put your room keycard in the slot on the wall to make the lights work. And the power button on the remote turns off the tv, but channel-up or down is how you turn it on.There's a presidential election on in Romania, and campaign signs are everywhere. I think this rather stern-looking fellow (they all look stern, actually) is from some sort of "Liberal" party.

Never mind KFC, although they have that too. But they also have Bucharest Fried Chicken, or BFC. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Blurry from the bus at night picture of revolution square, and memorial to overthrow of communism.

Meeting Dutch blogger Ramon Stoppelenburg and two of the organizers of WBF.

Our traditional Romanian dinner.

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Painting a Conservative picture

There's been a number of stories about the Conservative government and its principles that, taken in isolation, are telling but don't really amount to much. But when you look at all these stories in aggregate, however, a picture certainly begins to emerge about the style and attitude of this government:

Gov't program wants job applicants' views on Tory budget: An elite federal program to recruit the cream of new graduates suddenly wants to know the applicants' views on the government's vaunted Economic Action Plan before they get a job interview.

Cities stuck with bill for Tory 'propaganda': The federal government is being accused of wasting millions of taxpayers' dollars by forcing cash-strapped Ontario and municipalities to help pay for billboards advertising the Conservatives' economic program at thousands of infrastructure projects. The Liberals and NDP slammed the Conservatives for requiring provincial and city governments receiving infrastructure cash to buy an additional sign at each building project specifying that the federal government paid part of the bill under its Economic Action Plan.

Raitt accused of expense abuse: Federal cabinet minister Lisa Raitt signed off on her own expenses on at least one occasion – more than $3,000 spent on a trip to London, England – when she was president and CEO of the Toronto Port Authority.

Torch relay has a lot of stops in Tory ridings: If MPs strutting at hometown torch relay celebrations was a Winter Olympic sport, the federal Conservatives would be turning in a solid gold performance. When federal riding maps are superimposed over torch relay community events, the flame's pit stop standings are as follows: Conservatives: 126 New Democrats: 29 Liberals: 21 Bloc Quebecois: 18.

Duffy blasts NDP MP as 'faker': Conservative Senator Mike Duffy called MP Peter Stoffer a "faker" Thursday after the Nova Scotia New Democrat released a report questioning the expenses of new Tory senators.

Stimulus money favours key Tories: The biggest winners of the Conservatives' stimulus extravaganza include one of the prime minister's closest friends, a riding the Tories desperately hope to win in a byelection next week, and a longtime party stalwart. Eastern Ontario MP Scott Reid, the Nova Scotia riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley and British Columbia MP Jim Abbott are three of the clearest winners in the distribution of stimulus spending, a broad analysis by The Canadian Press shows.

And that's all just from this past week, and never mind the H1N1 story. Each one in isolation merits a head-shake, but in aggregate it's quite a picture.

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The TTC is on crack

Most cities want people to take public transit. They see value in getting people to park their cars and take the bus or subway. They even encourage such behaviour. Not so in Toronto. In Toronto, transit users are an annoyance to the transit system, something to be barely tolerated, and even loathed.

Yes, the TTC is set to hike fares again, and I don’t mean by a little. They’re proposing major fare hikes that will, bizarrely and stupidly, hit Metropass holders the hardest.

The cash fare for a single trip is proposed to rise by a quarter, fro, $2.75 to $3. Token fares would also go up by a quarter, from $2.25 to $2.50. A weekly pass would rise from $32.25 to $36. And the big daddy, a monthly Metropass, would skyrocket from an already pricy $109 to a ridiculous $126.

The problem, according to the TTC? It seems too many people are taking transit. The horror!

I accept that riders do need to pay their fair share to fund the transit system but it’s worth noting that the TTC already gets 71 per cent of its revenue from riders, one of the highest percentages in North America.

The TTC needs to control costs internally, and the province and feds need to step in with stable operating funding. They’re quick to do flashy capital acquisition photo-ops, but operating funds keep the trains running.

There’s a reason we as a society subsidize transit: it gets cars off the road, reduces congestion, and is good for the environment. Maybe less money on highways and more money on transit would be an idea.

But back to the TTC. Even if you accept the need for fare hikes, the decision to disproportionately punish Metropass holders, your best and most loyal customers, is asinine. You want to be encouraging people to buy Metropasses, not discourage them.

Already a pretty shitty deal, under the new fare regime a Metropass holder needs 50 trips to break even over token fares. That’s a round-trip to work every weekday, and at least another roundtrip every weekend. And THEN you start to have a better deal over tokens. That’s an exceedingly shitty deal that is only made less shitty, ironically, by the Harper government’s transit pass tax credit, which lowers the break-even number to about 42 trips.

(Although, it’s worth noting that the credit is also part of the problem: it encouraged people to buy passes, yes, but with no more operating funds for the TTC it leads to congestion and the need to either lower service levels or hike fares, thereby driving some back to their cars.)

It’s stupid for the TTC to be discouraging pass holders like this. They should want to incent people to buy passes. It’s better for them. They get the money in one hit at the beginning of the month, instead of having to collect it over the course of the month in cash and tokens, that cost them money to process. Pass holders generate steady, predictable revenue and are loyal customers. Most transit systems price cash, token and pass fares to encourage pass buying over tokens, and tokens over cash. Not the TTC.

These hikes will undoubtedly encourage many to just go back to their cars, as the TTC is making the transit value proposition less and less attractive. Which may be their goal; those pesky transit users only clutter up the subway cars.

But for many, such as me, there’s no choice but to take the TTC. Buying a car isn’t really an option right now. So we’re held hostage to the TTC and its ridiculous fare hikes. And it’s hard to see any sanity on the horizon.

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(Video) What we need is bullet control

And on the lighter side, maybe Chris Rock had it right after all..

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Adult conversation on the gun registry?

On the eve of the vote on second reading to end the long-gun registry that will be a free vote for Liberal and NDP MPs, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is sending signals he’ll propose policy that would seek to continue the registry while trying to address the concerns of rural Canadians, and indeed, rural Liberals:

Ignatieff said his caucus supports the "principle of gun control," and he personally believes it should include long guns. But he said the issue has divided urban and rural Canadians, and faces "resistance" in rural Canada.

He said his caucus is working on proposals to bridge that gap. In French, he suggested it could include "decriminalizing" the registration system for long guns.

It was a Liberal government that enacted the legal requirements to register firearms, including long-barrelled hunting rifles or shotguns, under the Criminal Code of Canada. The federal Conservatives have brought in successive "amnesties" since 2006 that were meant to encourage compliance by otherwise law-abiding and licensed long-gun owners.

"The fundamental issue is to make sure we get a system of gun control which works both for rural Canada and for urban Canada," Ignatieff said.

"We want to listen to victims groups, sports hunters, legitimate gun owners to find a way to rebuild legitimacy for the gun registry in rural Canada. That's not a thing you can do overnight."

Ignatieff said changes would start with a "simple principle: we are for a firearms registration system that includes all firearms, but there is a problem of resistance in rural areas. It could be possible to decriminalize but to maintain a firearms registration system for long guns."

Interesting. For those Liberals who have been saying it’s time for Ignatieff to have adult conversations with Canadians, here’s a litmus-test for ourselves: can we have an adult conversation on this issue within our own party?

For too long we’ve been playing politics on this issue too, pandering to our urban base while ignoring the rural perspective. Part of the problem has been we haven’t had rural voices at the policy-making table to add perspective. And part of the problem was the calculus was made better to secure the urban even if it means punting the rural.

Whatever happens with the private member’s bill, it appears we’re going to get a chance here within Liberal-land to try this one again, to try to find common policy ground on gun control that can address the concerns of both urban and rural Liberals. The question is, will it be actual debate? Online thus far, the tone has been largely support the registry no matter what or you’re a bad Liberal and a bad person. That reeks of the arrogance the Conservatives always accuse Liberals of having, and it’s insulting to the rural Liberals who have every right to their view.

This issue isn’t a make or break for rural Liberals by a long-shot, at least not for me. But it is symbolic. If you send the message that their views aren’t welcome, that there won’t be actual debate, that the urban way will always carry the day, then you’re just reaffirming the Conservative talking point about this being a Toronto party. Is that really what we want to do?

So can we put ideology aside to accept that each side has legitimate concerns, and try to find common ground? I hope so. Because if Liberals can’t even have adult conversations with ourselves, we’ll never be able to have them with Canadians.

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Off to Romania next week for the first World Blogging Forum

On Sunday I’m off on a little adventure, beginning my journey to Romania to be a guest at the first World Blogging Forum, to be held in Bucharest.

When I first received an invitation last month to be an invited guest at an event called the World Blogging Forum I was skeptical, but after some research and as more information became available it turned out to be a really interesting event that will bring together bloggers and new media journalists from around the world to discuss blogging and related topics.

Here’s a list of the topics on the agenda:

• Blogs & citizen journalism – global trends
• The influence of blogs on the civil society
• The importance of blogs for the governmental organizations
• E-Government – Democracy through participation
• Enviromental blogging and activism
• New media & renewable energy – using blogging to build a self-sustainable world
• Freedom do differ – ideas worth fighting for
• Business and Corporate Blogging
• Ethics & responsability – growing a healthy global community
• Blogging and global politics – building a better world
• The future for blogging – what’s next?
• Blogs and Education – new skills for the new world (Using New Media to Help Teachers and Students Achieve Excellence)
• Researching Blogs and Blogging Research
• How to Monetize Your Online Media
• Behind the Scenes – blogging and new media
• Mobile democracy – the truth is live and in full streaming
• Standing up for the community
• Science blogging and sharing ideas
• Sharing ideas – the global playground
• Opening the world – promoting transparency on a global scale

Some of the other guests on the roster also appear quite interesting, and really speak to the difference that blogging and new media is making in other parts of the world. While its more hobby and sideline here, in places with a less-developed traditional media its making a real impact.

For example, Zhou Shuguang has been active fighting media censorship in China. And Giorgi Jakhaia’s work chronicling the plight of civilians in Georgia made him the target of denial of service attacks. Some really interesting people with interesting stories and perspectives. It make me wonder what I’m doing on the same roster, but I look forward to learning and sharing my perspective.

I’m not currently aware of any other Canadian bloggers that will be attending, so I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts on the topics above and on blogging and new media in general, so I can bring your perspectives to the conference as well and share them with the group. Feel free to begin a debate on the comments or send me an e-mail if you prefer. I’ll also be posting regular blog and video coverage of the conference throughout the week next week, as Internet access permits.

I’m also looking forward to seeing something of Bucharest and Romania. I’ve traveled extensively throughout Western Europe, but this will be my first time visiting the East. It’s an interesting time to go, coming 10 years after the fall of communism. Under the Ceauşescu regime they had it particularly difficult. It will be interesting to see how they’ve progressed in the decade since his ouster.

I fly out on Sunday night on Lot (the Polish airline) via Warsaw, which should be an adventure in itself. I've read some questionable reviews. Haven’t flown Lot before but at least it’s Star Alliance, so Aeroplan points! The conference runs through the week and I head back Friday.

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