Ontario tuition is skyrocketing

Following-up on yesterday's post on the student loan system and post-secondary education, the student newspaper of my alma mater, Carleton University's The Charlatan, reports on a Statistics Canada report that shows Ontario registered the highest tuition increase in the country this year, at 5.4 per cent.

With students struggling to pay their tuition fees, news that Ontario students pay more than anywhere else in Canada has many Carleton students wondering why.

A Statistics Canada report released Sept. 16 found Ontario students faced the highest increase in tuition, at 5.4 per cent for undergraduate students, and paid the highest tuition at $6,307 on average.

To add a little perspective, when I started at Carleton back in 1996, tuition was just over $3000, around $3100 if I recall correctly. Four years later, it was just under $4000. Those were the Mike Harris years, of course, and tuition skyrocketed. Things seem to have gotten little better since though, with tuition now having DOUBLED since I started as an undergrad 14 years ago (ok, now that makes me feel old.)

Have average salaries doubled over the last 14 years? Not even close. It's undeniable that we are saddling students with greater and greater debt loads than we did past generations. It's not smart, it's not sustainable, and it will have consequences.

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Canada's student loan system is in crisis

In a story that largely flew under the radar earlier this month but deserved much more attention than it got, the government had to take immediate action to ensure that tens of thousands of students heading to university and college campuses this fall would be able to pay their tuition:

The recession-fuelled rise in postsecondary enrolment has maxed out the federal student loan program at $15-billion, forcing Ottawa to hastily change the rules to keep the money flowing as classes resume for the fall.

Without the last-minute boost for the cap on total student debt, the federal government estimated, 50,000 students would have been denied about $300-million worth of loans.

It seems with the recession, many more people than expected are heading to campus to upgrade their skills and be better positioned to enter the workforce as the economy improves. But while the economic situation pushed the system over the top this month, forcing the last-minute boost, there is a deeper, more systemic problem illustrated by the need for this action: rising tuition and related costs, and rising levels of crippling student indebtedness.

Canadian university students are taking on higher debt loads than ever before, more than doubling the amount they borrowed 20 years ago, according to a new report from the Canadian Council on Learning.

According to the CCL, the average debt for a university graduate more than doubled between 1990 and 2000, rising to $24,706 from $12,271. By 2009, that number had risen to $26,680 for university graduates.

As the report indicates, these rising debt levels could have major societal and economic repercussions as graduates struggle to get themselves out from under these mountains of debt. Couples will wait longer to have children (and could ultimately have fewer, exacerbating population declines.). They'll put off buying a house longer, which has ripples throughout the economy. They'll rent longer (instead of building home equity) and many graduates are moving back in with their parents. And they'll delay retirement planning and savings, which will have major repercussions down the road, with our public pension system already in need of major reform.

Gone are the days when you could work the summer at a great-paying job, and earn enough to pay for your year's education expenses. Those high-paying summer jobs just aren't there anymore, and a look at unemployment numbers during the recent recession shows students suffered far more than the rest of the workforce. Even with summer jobs and part-time work during the year, students are still emerging with large debt-loads. Those high-paying jobs also aren't automatically there any more after graduation, particularly in this economy. A degree is increasingly a necessity to get in the door.

The questions we need to be debating as a society is do we place value on having an educated workforce, how are we faring compared to other countries, what are the consequences of falling behind as a country, and do the benefits to the economy, society and country of an educated populace merit an increased level of government support?

I believe it does. A more educated workforce earns more money, paying more taxes to the government. It spends more, putting more money into the economy (and paying more taxes). It creates more business and jobs, who all earn money and pay taxes. In short, government investment in education pays for itself many times older. There's no better investment we could make than in ourselves.

By relying on a loan system that leaves students with crippling debt loads we're stifling that innovation potential. It's time we undertake a comprehensive overhaul of our post-secondary education models, with an eye toward shifting the reliance from loans toward grants and bursaries.

And we should go further, towards universal access. As Michael Ignatieff has said, if you get the grades you should get to go. Now that could take many forms, and will require a re-think of the entire system. Should the wealthy really get low-cost access? Perhaps not. There are many details to be debated, and many different forms that the system could take.

It is time, though, for the debate to begin. In fact, it's long overdue. The system is broken, and we're falling further behind every day.

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The long gun registry lives, at least for now

With last night's nail-biter vote on a Liberal motion to end the Conservative bid to kill the gun registry passing 153 to 151, you can now be returned to your previously scheduled program of baseless election speculation. The registry will live to be a political prop for all for another day or three. But first, a look back at the vote and the way forward.

THE POLICY

It's important to say that the most important thing is that the registry remains in place as a valuable tool that police forces across the country insist they need to do their jobs and that everyone from doctors and nurses to victim's groups believe is an important (and symbolic) part of a wider gun control regime.

It doesn't end here. The anti-registry forces have promised to try and try again. The pro-registry forces can't rest here either. Both the Liberals and the NDP have similar proposals to reform the registry. The Liberals have said they'll implement there's when in government; the NDP promise a private member's bill as soon as possible. I believe there is much common ground here. I'd like to see the Liberals and NDP get together on registry reform legislation and push it through this Parliament.These reforms are needed, there's no need to wait, and it would put rural NDP and Liberal MPs in a much better position next election to be able to point to a reformed registry. I hope both parties can at least temporarily put aside the politics to work together on this one.

And I agree with Ian Capstick's point on Power and Politics last night: the gun control lobby shouldn't stop here. They should move the debate to new ground, such as exploring selective weapons bans. The same polling registry opponents like to point to in support of scrapping it also show that 44 per cent of Canadians would support a complete hand gun ban (the same number are opposed.) An earlier poll showed 45 per cent of Canadians felt owning firearms should be illegal altogether. I wouldn't go that far, but there definitely is appetite for stricter gun control.

THE POLITICS

The Conservatives like to say they were going to be a winner either way. Of course, they always say this. Prorogation was still a magnificent victory for the Prime Minister's genius. Anyway, time will tell. Bottom line: they wanted to kill the registry, and they failed. They took their best shot last night, using a private member's bill to make it seem a pseudo free vote, and nearly moved enough NDP votes to take it. But the registry lives.

And I ask you, are these the faces of happy people?

They lost the battle, but they'll tell you it was a Pyhrric victory for the opposition and the war will still be their's. It's nearly entirely spin, but it's pretty good spin.

Certainly, the registry is useful to the Conservative Party as a fundraising tool. I have no doubt they wasted no time getting an e-mail solicitation out to the faithful after the vote, and I'm sure when this quarter's financials are in, it will show the faithful opened their wallets. The registry is also a useful way of keeping their rural base energized and onside: as long as it lives, they need to vote Conservative to get it killed. If it's gone, maybe another ballot issue comes up that changes the equation. And if they really wanted it killed, they'd put it on a money bill and make it a confidence matter. It's more useful as a wedge.

The party has their eye on potential pick-ups from Liberal and NDP pro-registry voters in rural Canada. As I've said before I'm doubtful they'll find gains; I think the registry has already been factored into rural voting patterns. If it's a ballot issue for you, you're probably voting Conservative already. You're nearly definitely not voting Liberal. Time will tell, of course, but I'd be surprised.

More interesting for me, and continually ignored by the so-called liberal media, is the impact for the Conservatives in urban Canada and Quebec, where the registry is popular. Many urban and Quebec MPs are offside from their constituents on this issue. And it's also in these registry-supportive areas where the Conservatives need gains to earn a majority.

Will the registry be a ballot issue in urban Canada and Quebec? It remains to be seen. It could be. Certainly, it hasn't been in the past, nor has it generated the raw emotion it has in rural Canada. Two things on that, though.

One, the registry is the status quo, it's accepted as a fait accompli in urban Canada, so there's been no need to get too worked up over it. And two, the Conservatives haven't elevated the issue before. Sure, it was in the platform. But it wasn't in the brochures and stump speeches of urban Conservative MPs and candidates, and in government Harper didn't show any eagerness to kill the registry until now. With Candice Hoepner's bill, the issue is now national news, and you can count on the opposition reminding urban and Quebec voters in the next campaign that the Conservatives very nearly killed the registry, and have promised to not rest until they succeed.

This could well become a ballot issue for those educated urban women that helped flip a number of urban ridings to Harper in the last election, and if it does it could mean Conservative trouble.

For the Liberals, there is risk but also potential for growth. Deciding to "whip the vote" was a risky gambit for Michael Ignatieff, but one worth making and a little less risky then it seems on the surface. Remember, months back the Liberal caucus came together, urban and rural, and hashed-out a compromise that they could all agree on, that balanced the legitimate concerns of rural Canadians while keeping the registry alive. With that compromise agreed to the caucus was united and onside. So was it really necessary to call a formal whip?

Perhaps not, but I'd argue it was still a good call. For one thing, it made clear the Liberal Party was united on the issue and it shifted the public and media pressure to the NDP. It ended months of possible "how will x, how will y" vote stories immediately. Liberal MPs could go right to work explaining the compromise position. And for a leader who has been criticized for a lack of strength, I think the show of "whipping" the vote even though the compromise was reached was useful to portray Ignatieff as a strong, decisive leader. You can also make an argument for the consensus-leadership approach that Jack Layton took on the issue, but Ignatieff and Layton have different leadership perceptions and challenges to overcome. Ignatieff had to show a firmer hand to the public than Layton did.

What will it mean electorally? Well, there certainly is risk in rural Canada, both for sitting Liberal MPs and for growth potential. But as I argued above, I think that the pool of voters for whom the registry is a ballot issue are lost to us no matter what we do on the issue. There were a lot of tight-margin ridings both ways last time. Could this issue move some votes there? Potentially. Enough to swing seats LPC to CPC? I'm doubtful. Remember, the LPC ran a very weak campaign last time and turned in one of its worst showings in history. I'll make a bold prediction: at worst, we'll suck slightly less next time. So I don't see enough Liberal vote being in play here to be difference-making.

What about urban Canada? Again, I think that's more interesting. I went over many of the reasons above why this could be troubling for the Conservatives in urban Canada and Quebec. I'd suspect the Liberals will put this issue front and centre in those ridings in the next election. There is the potential for pick-ups in a number of ridings across the country for the Liberals here. If there are rural loses they'd, at worse, be balanced by urban gains, with a net positive being more likely. It would have been a bigger mover had the Conservatives succeeded in killing the registry, but it could still be a ballot issue.

For the NDP, they're getting positive reviews for Layton's handling of the issue. My bias is obvious here and my awareness of that fact can't negate it (although I shall try), but I have to disagree with those positive reviews. I think he fumbled his way through this, and was lucky to pull it off. But in the end, I think he probably did the best he could with a bad situation.

And Layton did have a very difficult challenge here. His party was much more divided on this issue than the Liberals were. When the Liberals unified around their compromise position, the NDP was left without cover. Layton didn't want it to be NDP votes that killed the registry, but he has a large rural caucus that doesn't support the registry and feel their constituents don't either. Somehow, he had to bridge those two sides.

The compromise was there, and he found it. I was genuinely surprised that it took him as long as it did though. What followed seemed a strange kabuki play as a parade of NDP MPs came forward to change their votes on the issue. In the end, their least-vulnerable MPs took one for the team, and those most at risk were given cover and allowed to vote with the government. And I give full credit to all those that made the difficult decision to support the registry, and wrestled with this issue mightily.

Will Layton and the NDP get a bump from being seen as allowing this to be a free-vote, despite the intense lobbying behind the scenes? Perhaps. I think it would be negligible, though. I think the question, though, is can the NDP have their cake and eat it too on this one? Can they support the registry in the cities and oppose it in rural Canada at the same time? I think that's a tough sell that would hurt them on both sides. If they can successfully move reforms to bridge that urban-rural divide, however, it over-rides that problem.

Electorally, I don't see this hurting the NDP in rural Canada, particularly if the registry is reformed. Their most at-risk MPs voted to scrap, and the others have sufficient margins to overcome any blow-back on this issue. In urban Canada (and Quebec), if the registry had died with NDP rural votes they'd have been in serious trouble. Recent polling makes that abundantly clear. With the registry saved, I think they're probably fine. You could make an "you can't trust the NDP to support the registry when the chips are down" argument, but I don't think it would resonate.

For the BQ, nearly the entire Conservative caucus in Quebec is offside with their constituents on this issue, where the registry is very popular. With the BQ as the second-choice in most of those seats. you can be sure Gilles Duceppe will be reminding them of this next election.

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Showdown at the parliamentary corral

If yesterday's theme in Ottawa was shashbuckling pirates, today it's westerns and cowboys. Because tonight at 1745 EST it's the show-down in the parliamentary corral, when the pro an anti-gun registry forces square-off. Don't vote until you see the whites of their eyes!

I think it will be a nail-biter. I'm told the Liberals will have all hands on deck. Apparently Newfoundland MP Scott Simms spent some extra time washing his hands or something this morning, wasn't at a group photo-op, and a flurry of speculative media coverage ensued. Were I Yukon MP Larry Bagnall, I'd walk by the press gallery coughing, clutching a bottle of cough syrup, just for the fun of watching the networks break into regular programming. Anyway, they'd better have all hands on deck, no excuses. The NDP don't want to flip one more MP than they think they have to (a risky gambit), so it's a very thin margin we're working with.

I won't rehash the arguments pro and con at this point. But I do want to reinforce a few things.

One, as I wrote last month when Angus Reid released its last poll on the gun registry, opposition to scrapping the registry is growing, and for scrapping it is declining. In the latest poll, 46 support scrapping, and 40 per cent oppose scrapping. Pro-scrapping is up two points from August but down five from last November. But opposition to scrapping it is up five points from last month and six points from last year.

As they learn more, the undecideds are breaking to the don't scrap side. Keep this issue in the spotlight and that trend will continue, and the air will come out of the scrap the registry balloon. People are increasingly siding with the police, the doctors and nurses, the victims of crime, and the growing chorus in favour of the registry.

Two, the media still persist in the laughable assertion that no matter what Stephen Harper does on this issue he'll win, because he's super-awesome. And vice-versa for the Liberals. I wonder how they can seriously write this nonsense.

First of all, the gun registry is Harper's majority killer. It's poison for him in Quebec (better build arenas for everyone), and in cities, particularly with urban women. There's no way he can make up enough seats in rural Canada to both a) compensate for held seats endangered by this issue, and b) add the numbers he needs for a majority. The math isn't even close. There's a reason why he hasn't pushed this issue until now. You can bet that whatever happens tonight, the Liberals will make the registry an issue in urban and Quebec races, particularly in held ridings. Peter Kent in Thornhill, Alice Wong in Richmond, Andrew Sexton in North Vancouver ... the list is long of urban Conservative MPs offside with their constituents on this issue.

And secondly, as I've argued before I'm doubtful the Liberals will take much of a hit in rural Canada on this. By and large, most of those opposed to the registry enough to make it a ballot issue aren't voting Liberal anyway. So it's factored-in. Those who see the registry as a conspiracy toward a police state will forever be lost to us. And for those with legitimate serious issues about the registry, the proposed Liberal changes are a reasonable compromise that address most of their concerns. I see a net positive for the Liberals on this issue with the way they've played it.

Three, while the media have focused on Liberal and NDP MPs they've refused to challenge the long list of Conservative MPs who represent areas (urban Canada, Quebec) where support for keeping the registry is very high. Why aren't they too expected to vote the will of their constituents, as Candice Hoeppner insists the opposition MPs should? Have they been privately whipped or pressured? Questions that the gallery hasn't bothered to ask.

Anyway, if there's one thing we can all agree on, I think, it's that there are far more important matters of state our parliamentarians should be focused on at the moment. So let's kill this bid to quash the registry tonight, and move on to more important things.

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Argh! The Liberals be here to steal y'er women and drink y'er rum!

Aye, we''e tried t' keep it secret but alas, that scallywag Jim Flaherty has found out our secret plans, gar!

Aye, this an an excerpt o'er a speech that Flaherty actually ga'e today, in the Chateau Laurier, at a Canadian Club e'ent. And yes, he is the finance minister o' a G8 country. Aye, me parrot concurs.

In the global recession, the ship of state has had a difficult voyage.

But we can see the harbour lights.

And that’s just when a would-be captain and his ragtag crew are trying to storm the bridge.

If they seize the wheel, ladies and gentlemen, they’ll have us on the rocks.

And that’s not how this voyage should end.

Aye, yes, it be true. We Liberals be pirates and you landlubbers best be scared, shiver me timbers! We're takin' o'er this ship o'state and y'all can either join our crew or be permanent guests o' Da'ey Jones, shiver me timbers!

Ahoy, if you want t' be sparred from our pirate path, hand o'er your women and your rum while we plunder your booty, shiver me timbers! Or join our crew for an ad'enturous life o' piratin', plunderin' and drinkin', shiver me timbers! We're an equal opportunity employer, and offer full medical, dental and a comprehensi'e retirement sa'in's plan.

Arrr, resistance is futile, argh!



Choose your Canada, scallywags!

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Casting call for a stop Ford movement: which also-ran sucks slightly less?

The latest Nanos poll of the Toronto Mayoral race showing a 24-point lead for right-wing candidate Rob Ford has certainly made waves far outside of the elite centre of the universe.

Rob Ford: 34.4 per cent

George Smitherman: 16.0 per cent

Joe Pantalone 12.6 per cent

Rocco Rossi: 7.2 per cent

Sarah Thomson: 4.6 per cent

Undecided: 25.0 per cent

(Phone survey of 1,021 likely voters Sept. 14-16. MOE +/- 3.1 per cent)

The break-out PDF from Nanos is very interesting reading. While Ford has an impressive 50 per cent of the vote in his homebase of Etobicoke, he's no suburban phenomenon. In fact, he leads the field in every region in the city, including a five-point lead on Smitherman in the Toronto core. He leads with both men and women. In every age category. With home owners and renters. It's an impressive and very through domination by Ford.

Rob Silver has a column that offers some very credible explanations for the Ford phenomenon, which I largely agree with. I'd add to the list Miller-backlash, and one more: the utter failure of George Smitherman, Joe Pantalone, Rocco Rossi and Sarah Thomson to wage professional, credible, organized campaigns that speak to the concerns and needs of the electorate.

This is backed-up by what, for me, was the most interesting part of the Nanos poll: the break-down by party support.

Ford has 52.2 per cent of Conservative voters, that's not surprising. Interestingly, despite Rossi and Smitherman's awkward lurches to the right, Joe Pantalone (the Jack Layton-endorsed Miller deputy) is second in Conservative support at 12.5 per cent, followed by Smitherman at 7.1 and Rossi at 6.7 per cent. So yeah, that tactic paid-off well. NDP voters are split between Ford and Pantalone (but this sample is very small).

The Liberal supporter numbers are interesting. Smitherman has a bare lead over Ford amongst Liberal supporters, 27.6 per cent to 26.2 per cent. That's embarrassing for a high-profile former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister. Also embarrassing is Rossi, briefly federal Liberal executive director, at just 7.3 per cent. And a whopping 24.3 per cent of Liberals are still undecided.

That undecided tally mirrors the over undecided total of 25.0 per cent. With a 24 point lead, this is Ford's election to lose. For him to not be elected mayor would require a campaign implosion, and probably a shrinking of the field. And most of those undecideds would have to break one-way, coalescing behind a stop-Ford movement that shows no signs of forming. One has to ask which of the similarly unimpressive candidates it could form behind? How could one candidate credibly say to another "you should drop out because I suck slightly less than you?"

I think many of those undecideds are like me: certainly not going to vote for Ford, but disappointed by all of the other candidates and still hoping, increasingly in vain, that one of the other candidates will do something to impress me. And no, tunnels, money-back guarantees and boccie-balls aren't going to do it.

In the end, barring a game-changer, people like me will either stay home on election day, or hold our noses and vote for the marginally less incompetent alternative. And that's how a guy who drove while intoxicated, lied about a drunken fight at a Leafs game, and has made off-colour remarks about Asians, homosexuals and city cyclists becomes Mayor of Toronto.

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Video: Lawless Government

Perhaps a tad over the top and lengthily, but then the list of independent watchdogs punted by the Harper government is an impressively long one. And I do love the soundtrack. (h/t Bowie's Blog)

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Liberal Express: A summer vacation well spent?

When the summer began and the Liberal Party announced plans for the Liberal Express, a summer-long bus tour by leader Michael Ignatieff, I was somewhat ambivalent. It wasn’t that it was a bad idea – it was definitely the right thing to do – it was just that we’ve been down this road so many times I was past getting too worked-up about it. Either it would go well and we’d do what we had to do, or we wouldn't.

With the summer over, the tour having wrapped-up in Gatineau on the weekend and the parliamentary circus returning today, I think it’s fairly clear the tour has been a success, and has achieved what I had hoped it would.

It’s important to consider what Ignatieff and Co. sought to accomplish this summer in context. This wasn’t about big overnight boosts in polling numbers, either party support or leadership numbers. That will take time. And it wasn’t about laying-out a detailed policy platform either. That will come in due course.

The summer was about a number of things.

First was helping Ignatieff find something resembling mojo. Competing with some very experienced politicians in Harper, Duceppe and Layton, he needed to learn the retail side of politics. Giving stump speeches, wading into crowds, making small talk, eating endless boxes of timbits. All while looking and acting like something resembling an actual person. By all reports, that mission was accomplished. The reports from the trail, even from usually un-friendly media sources, have been largely favourable. While he was the beneficiary of the lowered expectations thanks to the Conservative caricature campaign, we have been seeing a much more comfortable, real Ignatieff this summer.

Second was to bring the Liberal Party together, energize the grassroots, and convince both the membership and the caucus that we’re working toward something and Ignatieff could conceivably get us there. I think I reflect the feeling of many members when I say I’m willing to think long-term and work for the long-haul, ignoring the inevitable bumps along the way, if I feel we have a plan to get somewhere and are executing, and not just flailing around. Too often in recent years I’ve felt like we’ve been doing the latter, and not the former. Even preceding the summer though, that has slowly been changing. Jumping all-in on the random issue of the day is becoming less common. Instead, what’s beginning to emerge are defining narratives, both of what we want to do as a party, and of how we view the government of the day. Combine that with a leader finding his feet and able to articulate that and it’s something members can begin to rally and work behind.

Third was changing the media narrative. If the Liberals and Ignatieff are ever going to have a chance, they had to get out from under the emerging media narrative of the aloof, stiff professor with nothing to say leading a listless party. With the Conservatives largely taking the summer off, the Liberals had the playing-field to themselves much of the time, and they took advantage of it. In contrast to the restricted access to Harper they’re used to, the national media were invited on the bus, given open access, and lengthily interviews with Ignatieff. Combined with his improving performance, the result is a second chance for Ignatieff, as the media seem one again willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and the sense he has the momentum going into the fall session. Also important was meeting with every local media organization possible. The tour generated a great deal of favourable local coverage, which can be much more valuable than national press.

As I said at the start, the polls aren’t going to shift massively overnight. It’s going to take time. We have seen some positive movement and some tightening over the summer. I’d attribute much of that to Conservative self-inflicted wounds, rather than Liberal gains.

What’s key though is putting the conditions in place to make gains, over time. In the past, we’ve seen the Conservatives drop support over a number of issues, only to steadily return. That’s because, when people were ready to drop the Conservatives, they looked around and, finding the alternatives lacking, slowly drifted back.

We had failed to put the pieces in place so that, when the Conservatives do stumble, the Liberals are seen as a viable, compelling alternative. This summer has seen a good start on rectifying that, and the process will continue into the fall.

It will be up to Ignatieff and the Liberals now to continue that summer momentum into the fall, and transition from the bus to the parliamentary bench. We need a new approach in the House that mirrors what we saw on the bus: comfortable but engaged, confident but not shrill. Articulating a larger vision, rising above the day-to-day battle. Measured opposition that puts individual events in a larger context, instead of grabbing for headlines. And slowly continuing to put more policy fruit on the tree.

What this summer has done is earn Liberals and Ignatieff a second look from Canadians. Now they just need to seize that opportunity and run with it. It’s an all-new battle, and it begins now.

Photo source: Richard McGuire.

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John Baird, self-hating elitist?

Perhaps a little bitter that his party's latest attempt to kill the gun registry may be dying an inglorious death, Conservative house leader John Baird continued his party's war on cities and urban Canadians today by lashing-out at everyone's favourite whipping-child: elitists. And not just elitists, but the worst kind of elitists of all:--Toronto elitists:

"I share the disappointment of many of my colleagues that people who had fought so long, so hard, so passionately against the registry are now feeling the pressure from the two Toronto leaders, Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Layton," Baird said.

"We're all accountable. If we make clear and unambiguous promises in our constituencies and then face pressure from Toronto elites, [MPs are] accountable for that."

Of course, John's loathing of elitists doesn't stop him from hanging around with them all the time, going to fancy galas and what not:

And this is just a small selection from the John Baird fancy-pants elitist collection on Macleans.ca. He's quite the trooper, John Baird, spending all his time hanging-out with elitists. And then going back to his highly rural riding of suburban Ottawa to refresh and unwind.

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You can’t blame Kory for being Kory

It was fitting that it was on Twitter that news of Kory Teneycke’s resignation from Quebecor and Sun TV spread like wildfire Wednesday morning, and that the deletion/suspension of his Twitter account was the early-warning signal that something was amis. Say what you well about Kory, he certainly embraced social media with gusto, and it played no small part in his downfall.

His departure was fairly cryptic, except for the statement of the obvious: for various reasons, he had becoming a lightning-rod for criticism that was distracting from what the company was trying to accomplish. True enough, certainly.

However, I’m not going to blame Kory for being Kory. He is now what he was before: a fierce C/conservative partisan attack dog. Like many partisans in any camp, he is eager to run a strong offence and go hard after anyone that speaks or causes ill to his side. Quebecor Kory was the same as PMO Kory, and no one should have legitimately expected otherwise.

Really, while more details of the Avaaz petition and Kory's possible involvement may be still to come, I don’t place fault with Kory. If I question anyone’s judgement, it’s that of Pierre Karl Peladeau and Quebecor. Kory was a known-quantity when they hired him to lead their Sun TV venture. They had to know what they were getting. If he became a liability that had to be cut loose (and he had), it speaks as much, if not more, to their judgement than it does to his.

Perhaps they felt they would get a kinder, gentler Kory. Perhaps they felt his connections in government would outweigh the hard edge of his public relations style. In the end, clearly they gambled wrong. His abrasiveness did make him a lighting rod for criticism – some of it fair, much of it not. And while stirring the pot is useful to a point (certainly he earned them tons of free media), pass the point and it just becomes bad for business. And at the end of the day, this is about business.

And Kory’s departure will, I believe, be good for business. But don’t expect a change in ideology from the new venture – the rightward bent is a business decision that didn’t begin and end with Kory. And with a former Brian Mulroney confidante as his replacement in Luc Lavoie, certainly the network’s C/conservative pedigree isn’t in doubt. But Kory’s departure will be hailed as a victory by the left. It will deflate much of the energy and the anger, and the issue will fade from consciousness. Lavoie won’t be getting into Twitter wars with Margaret Atwood.

But he will be quietly and impressively lobbying in the corridors of power, ensuring Sun TV gets the license it needs, brings more talent on board (should be easier with the fires died down) and comes to the airwaves on schedule. Sun TV is coming to your televisions, and nothing will change that.

And perhaps, in the end, Sun TV will be judged by the quality of its on-air product and talent, and not by the abrasiveness of an over-eager executive. And that’s how it should be.

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Fixed election dates a failed experiment

I've long-believed that fixed election dates are a pointless exercise of show-reform that carry more negative consequences than positives, and I think their implementation in various circumstanced has borne that out. But now you don't just have to take my word for it:

A political scientist says New Brunswick's experiment with a fixed election date has been a failure and should be scrapped.
...
Don Desserud, a political scientist at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, writes in an election analysis for CBC News that for any advantages the new system has brought, it has created additional headaches.

"Fixed-date elections make election planning more convenient. However, the price we are paying for this convenience is a system that favours the party in power and serves only to convince the voting public that elections are horrendously boring and nasty affairs," Desserud writes.

Certainly they've proven a farce at the federal level, but they're not really meant to apply in minority situations anyway. At the provincial level though, where several provinces have given it a try, I think the evidence is fairly clear.

All fixed election dates do is serve to lengthen the unofficial campaign period. Any semblance of responsible government, of hard choices, disappears many, many months before the fixed election date. Instead, for the governing party it's permanent campaign mode, using the levers of government for an extended PR blitz at taxpayer expense while real governing essentially stops. Likewise, the opposition ends any desire to compromise and begins an extended shadow campaign, mugging for the camera at every opportunity.

Fixed election dates move us closer to what is the reality in the U.S., and what has become the reality at the federal level thanks, in part, to constant minorities: the permanent campaign. And that isn't a positive.

In addition to the advantage for the government to use taxpayer resources for the extended campaign, the lengthened unofficial campaign also advantages those parties with large war chests. During a writ period, the strict spending cap and rules on advertising serve as a leveler. But during the phony war there are no caps, it's a spending free for all, which favours the wealthy parties and allows them to shape the narrative in advance of the official campaign and greatly influence the outcome before the race even officially begins.

I've always felt fixed election dates were populist pablum masquerading as reform, but now it's clear: they're a failed experiment. Lets scrap them.

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Liberal critic shuffle

I have a piece in The Mark this morning on last week's shuffle by Michael Ignatieff of the Liberal critic line-up:

When Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff shuffled his critic line-up for the fall session of parliament recently, the media were quick to trot out the sports analogies. Sun Media’s David Akin even published a list of critics and their respective ministers – Scott Brison vs. Jim Flaherty in Finance, for example – that evoked a UFC line card more than the serious business of Her Majesty’s government and loyal opposition. But, then again, given the tenor of parliamentary discourse today, perhaps UFC isn’t really that far off the mark.

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Sun distorts Rae's position on Quebec arena funding

It wasn't particularly surprising, but I was relieved to learn that Sun Media distorted Bob Rae's position on the possibility of the federal government spending $175 million to help build a professional hockey arena in Quebec City with the goal of bringing the NHL's Nordiques back to the city.

The headline in the Sun chain yesterday, "Hoo-Rae for funding" certainly gave me pause. The article was reporting on a speech Rae gave to a fundraiser on Friday in Montreal, and the lede seemed to report his position quite unequivocally:

Bob Rae has told Liberal party members he backs federal funding for a new arena in Quebec City as long as it’s not the only initiative in the country.

If you read my last post, you'll know that I strongly disagree with that position. And I was surprised, and disappointed, in Bob's apparent position. My curiosity-meter was tweaked though when I went on to read the rest of the Sun story, and found no direct quotes that seemed to support that lede and headline.

The curiosity meter red-lined when I read CTV's story on that same fundraising speech which, surprise surprise, had a much different interpretation of Rae's comments:

Rae also said the Tories should be cautious in considering requests to devote millions of dollars in federal funding to a new hockey arena in Quebec City.

"Mr. Harper's got to understand that this is not just a one off thing that one can do for one city or one franchise. If you're going to have a policy, it's got to be a consistent policy right across the country," Rae said.

Now this position sounds more sensible. While I'd have preferred if he had added "and that's why we can't go funding pro-sports stadiums and arenas, not when we have a deficit and many other more important priorities" perhaps it was felt to be blindingly obvious. And he's absolutely right that you can't play favourites here. If you fund one, you need to fund them all. And how in the heck could we possibly afford that?

Still, the differing Sun and CTV reports raise the question, does Rae support funding the Quebec arena or not? If Sun has it right, why does CTV not mention that certaintly newsworthy fact at all?

Curious to clear this up, I sent Bob a message on Facebook and asked him, did you support funding the Quebec arena as the Sun reported, or urge caution as CTV reported? He replied quite quickly to clear things up:

I urged caution. I never spoke to Sun media. I said Harper needed to understand that this is not a "one off" decision. You can't just dole out money to a commercial arena in Quebec without understanding the implications for the rest of the country.

So it would seem the Sun completely distorted Rae's position, and he did not say let's fund all of them. He said you need to be cautious setting that kind of precedent.

Why torque his comments? Well, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the driving force behind bringing the Nordiques back to Quebec, the fellow who would be the biggest beneficiary of a taxpayer-funded Quebec City arena, also happens to own Sun Media, right? Surely they would have mentioned such a conflict in their coverage if it existed, right?

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Governments should not fund professional sports stadiums. Period.

While there are many notable differences between Canadians and our American cousins, one interesting one has been that while the Americans have always been eager to throw hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into sports stadiums where millionaire athletes play for billionaire owners, in Canada we’d always expected pro-sports to pay its own way. It has been an interesting dichotomy, particularly given the stereotype of Canadian interventionists vs. American free-market worshipers.

This noteable difference, however, may soon evaporate, if special interests in Quebec get there way. Apparently Quebecor boss Pierre Karl Péladeau wants to bring the NHL’s Nordiques back to Quebec City. So does Quebec City’s mayor. And Jean Charest. So does Stephen Harper. Hell, so do I. I’m not sure many people would object to an NHL team in Quebec. Or Hamilton, Winnipeg or Saskatoon. Let’s give Halifax a team too, while we’re at it.

Of course, the odds of an NHL led by Gary Bettman ever doing this are astronomical. But that hasn’t stopped Quebec from channeling Field of Dreams and deciding if they build an arena, a team will come. But instead of the billionare Péladeau opening his wallet, Quebec wants the taxpayers to foot the bill. Fighting for his political life, Premier Jean Charest has promised to kick-in. And now they’re trying to hot the federal government up for a cool $175 million.

Sadly, the Harper Conservatives haven’t dismissed this asinine notion out of hand. Not when there are votes to be bought in the Quebec City region, the one part of the province they still have a shot. Their Quebec MPs are on board (except Maxime Bernier) and Harper is promising arenas for all, while out West his caucus seems aghast.

My Liberals are sadly mixed. Denis Coderre, who inexplicably again has a critic portfolio, is pressuring Harper to fund the arena. Other Liberal MPs, such as Keith Martin and Joyce Murray, have taken to Twitter to oppose the idea.

And then there’s newly-minted deputy Liberal leader Ralph Goodale who, unfortunately, told the media that if Quebec is getting $175 million, that’s cool, but he wants “over” $100 million for a football stadium in Regina.

No, no, NO! The Conservatives are wrong on this, and Liberals like Goodale and Coderre should not be egging them on. The government has no place subsidizing professional sports stadiums. And if you fund one, you’ll have to fund them all. It’s a dangerous precedent we can’t afford to set, particularly in today’s budgetary climate.

This isn’t investment we’re talking about here. It’s subsidy. We’ll never see this money back. If these are economically-viable projects, they wouldn’t need government funding. They would be financed by the private sector. If the private sector won’t fund it, then it’s not a viable project, and all the government funding in the world will only delay the inevitable business failure.

Now known as Rogers Place, Vancouver’s General Motors Place was built in $160 million in 1995 (gee, how’s that for inflation?) and was privately financed by the Griffiths family. Sure, Arthur Griffiths ended-up overleveraging himself by buying an NBA expansion franchise at the same time and ended-up losing it all to John McCaw, but point is he had an economically-viable project and he got it financed privately, without blackmailing the taxpayers for donations.

There’s no reason why Quebec City, Regina, and every other city can’t do the same. And if they can’t, then they must not be able to support a team and probably shouldn’t have one.

I hope the government comes to its senses and kills this thing in its infancy. And I hope the Liberal leadership brings the caucus together, gets everyone on the same page and says a firm No to taxpayer-funded stadiums, wherever they may be.

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Help unravel the mystery with Professor Layton!

This showed-up in my inbox the other day from Nintendo in a case of interesting timing, given current events. I found it amusing, and surely ripe for parody by someone with graphic design skills...

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