One oft-repeated meme is that four years ago the Liberals supported corporate tax cuts, and so how dare they change their mind. This leads to one of the most oft-repeated, and lamest, charges in political “debate”: the flip flop.
Hearing this charge from the Conservatives on the right is one thing (not that they’ve never been known to change their minds on anything…) but it’s particularly amusing coming from the NDP, given that they also are opposed to further corporate tax cuts. But then again, they have a history of being angry when people agree with them, anger being a default position, although one that makes it difficult to “make parliament work."
Things are a lot different today than they were in 2007. The Ottawa Senators battled Anaheim in the Stanley Cup Finals. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End packed them in at the box office, and The Dixie Chicks cleaned-up at the Grammies.
Oh, and the Liberal Party had another leader and the federal budget projected a surplus for 2006/07 of $9.2 billion, and $3 billion for 2007/08.
In the context of 2007, with a healthy surplus, corporate tax cuts made sense as part of a program of targeted tax relief in other areas and other program investment. Which is what the Liberals campaigned on in 2008.
However, things are a little different today, aren’t they? We have a deficit of over $50 billion, and a host of more pressing priorities. And the Ottawa Senators are now a horrible hockey team. So in the current context, corporate tax cuts no longer make sense, particularly when you're talking about borrowing money and adding to the deficit to do it.
Things change, and we need our politicians to change along with them and adopt policy that suits the needs and challenges of the times, instead of being wedded to the policies of yesterday if they no longer make sense. That’s why government investment in telegraph infrastructure shouldn’t be a priority, why there’s no debate about a phonograph levy, and why we don’t need to tighten our border security to guard against Fenian raids.
Canadians want leaders with a plan for 2011; not critics still living in 2007.
In November of 2009 I was invited to attend an event called the World Blogging Forum in Bucharest, Romania organized by Romanian foreign language students with support from the Romanian government. I was one of only two North American bloggers (the other was from the U.S.) with bloggers from all around the world gathering to discuss blogging and social media in their countries.
It was a fascinating perspective as the conference proceeded and the discussions occurred, both in the formal hall and in the corridors. There was a very different perspective and views on social media from the bloggers in the democratic/more developed countries, such as Western Europe, and those countries still struggling for democracy and without media freedom, such as the Caucasus, the Middle East and China.
In the democratic world, it was about telling our personal stories, commenting on issues important to us, advocating for causes and, in many cases, sharing ideas on how to monetize on our blogs.
In the countries where they don’t have the democratic freedom we take for granted, where they don’t have the free press we enjoy, where they live daily under oppressive and dictatorial governments, their perspective on social media was very different. For them, social media is a vital tool of empowerment and democracy promotion.
For countries without a free press, blogs are their free press, with actual citizen journalists reporting on events the government wants censored, and that wouldn’t be reported otherwise. And Twitter is their rapid response and organizational tool. Small handheld cameras and video sharing tools like YouTube add another layer, bringing video that would never be shown on state television.
On the first day of the conference, after the Romanian president made an opening address, the first session was on blogging and citizen journalism. I was the last of three presenters on the topic, giving a survey of the Canadian political blogging scene, and how parties, citizens, journalists and politicians are using social media tools.
But I felt incredibly out of place following two speakers from the other side of the equation. Zhou Shuguang is a widely-known Chinese blogger and techie who has been a thorn in the side of the Chinese government, and has spent much of his time burrowing holes in the Great Firewall of China the government has erected to try to censor the Internet. His is a truly impressive story.
But as I read about the amazing events in Tunisia and Egypt, and as I watch the gripping live coverage from Egypton Al Jazerra English, the speaker I keep thinking back to is Egypt’s Wael Abbas. Before Abbas’ presentation, like many in the West I didn’t know much about Egypt, but I though it was a fairly friendly, free country, particularly compared to many of its neighbours.
His perspective (here's his blog), and his story, was eye-opening. And he also provided examples of how social media then was already playing an important role in the fight for democracy in Egypt, and played a key role in a tug of war between activists and the government that has continued to today, and has now boiled over.
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.
Despite the Egyptian government's attempts to cut off the Internet in the country to deny this vital tool to the protesters, Abbas is still blogging and posting video on his blog of the protests, arrests and beatings. It's amazing, important, compelling work.
I was playing around with my video editing software last night and made this video. I worried it was a little unfair and wasn't sure I'd post it. Then I saw the new Conservative ads today and thought, what the heck...
I've been planning to write about populism vs. experts on taxes for a few days, but with the release yesterday of stunning numbers from Abacus Data on Canadians’ lack of support for corporate tax cuts, the case is bolstered even further.
The Conservatives want to continue the cuts, saying they’re necessary to spur job creation and make Canadian businesses competitive.
The Liberals want to cancel the planned cuts (and raise the rates back to the current 2010 level after they’re cut further in the coming fiscal year), saying they’re already plenty competitive, and, with a huge deficit, we could better spend scarce resources on priorities such as home care and education.
What I’ve found interesting about this debate is that while the Liberals have adopted a populist track (we want to help you, not big business) the Conservatives are relying on experts to make their “job creators” argument, trotting out economists to discuss economic theory and productivity gains.
It’s an interesting contrast to the 2005/05 election campaign, when the Conservatives campaigned on reversing Liberal income tax cuts (raising personal income taxes for the lowest-income Canadians) to finance their GST cut. It was a policy nearly every economist and expert would tell you was ass-backward. The Liberals tried to argue the economic theory. The Conservatives ignored them; they knew that whatever the experts said, the people would buy into a sales tax cut no matter how they paid for it. And populism trumped the experts and the theory.
When I read columns earlier in the week where pundits said the Liberals were crazy to be taking this track when all these experts said corporate tax cuts are the bees knees, I just smiled and remembered back to 05/06.
And it would seem I read the mood of the people right, according to the study Abacus Data released yesterday. 57 per cent of Canadians most identified with the opposition parties’ position opposing the corporate tax cuts, 21 per cent with the Conservatives, and 21 per cent identified with neither. The opposition carried the day in all age groups, both genders, and across Canada. Even 26 per cent of Conservative supporters disagreed with the government.
When asked if they supported or opposed the Conservative plan to continue with corporate tax cuts, 52 per cent strongly or somewhat opposed it, while just 26 per cent somewhat or strongly supported it. 22 per cent said neither.
So, suffice to say the Conservatives have their work cut out for them, which explains their cross-country panicky full-court-press this week, sending the cabinet out to stump for cuts that studies say will be of most benefit to the big banks.
The framing of this issue is also interesting in another sense. As a Liberal, I’m not opposed to the theory of corporate tax cuts. So, while I think things like Mintz’s study greatly exaggerate the impact of corporate tax cuts, I do believe competitive corporate tax rates are an important part of a competitive economic climate. So I see no reason to debate the experts on the basic theory; just their spin.
The issue for the Liberals is that our corporate taxes are already extremely low. When we were in surplus, the Liberals pursued a balanced agenda of personal and corporate income tax cuts and program investment. But with a deficit of over $50 billion, we need to set priorities. And we think family home care, education, and pensions are all more pressing priorities than yet another corporate tax cut.
Now, this is more nuance than I’d ever hope to see in the soundbite-driven era of modern politics, but the point should also be made that corporate tax rates are not the be all, end all of creating a competitive business environment and fostering job growth. And many of the Liberal proposals, from education to home care, do help to create a more competitive climate for business investment. I wrote about this in November, in a piece called Seeing the forest for the corporate tax cuts. It would be nice to see some of the expert analysis look at ALL the factors that both reduce cost of business and create a climate for businesses to invest and grow.
But in the mean time, in a battle of populism vs. experts, never bet against the people.
As part of the Conservative government's plan to try to convince Canadians that we should spend money we don't have to give big corporations tax breaks, instead of investing in ordinary Canadians, finance minister Jim Flaherty had a press conference this morning.
Postmedia journalist Andrew Mayeda was there, and he shares this excerpt from Flaherty's response to a question if the Conservative government would ever consider a tax increase down the road. I've boldedthe relevant portion.
"Our plan actually is to continue to reduce taxes over time in Canada. We've reduced business taxes significantly, and our plan continues in that regard. We've reduced the federal consumption tax, the GST, as we promised we would ... We've done some tax reductions on personal income taxes. Quite frankly, we'd like to do more over time, so that's the direction we want to go. What we're seeing in the economy is moderate growth. It's not dramatic, but it is steady. And we expect that to continue over the medium term. You know, given what we've all been through around the world in the last few years, I would never presume to say 'never' in terms of a very substantial economic shock where we'd have to have one. And there are risks in the world, with respect to Europe, with respect to relative weakness in the U.S. economy, with respect to some global imbalances that I'm sure we'll be talking about at the world economic forum (in Davos, Switzerland) the next few days. That's not the expectation. The expectation is that we'll have continued moderate economic growth and continued tax reductions over time."
Now, let me say first that, as a realistic and reasonable person, I think this is a perfectly acceptable and realistic answer. We don't know what the future may hold. Making definitive statements on hypotheticals is a fool's game. You can tell someone what you know they want to hear, but it wouldn't be honest. It's entirely possible that a scenario could arise where, to maintain programs, a tax increase may need to be considered.
So I think Flaherty's answer, which I'd sum up as "we're not planning to and we don't want to, but I won't say never ever," is the correct one.
But here's the thing. A few years ago Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was asked a similar sort of hypothetical. In short, the question was if the sky is falling and you had a massive deficit, would you maybe consider a tax increase? His answer, like Flaherty's, was that that wouldn't be his first choice, it's not his plan, but he wouldn't rule anything out.
And the Conservatives have been dining out on that answer ever since. In their most recent round of attack ads, once focused entirely on taxes, centred around a quote form Ignatieff that he won't take a tax increase "off the table."
So would it now be fair to see ads on how Jim Flaherty is going to raise your taxes, or is the sauce not as good for the goose as it is for the gander?
I look forward to the creative and entertaining rationalizations on how the Ignatieff and Flaherty situations are completely different. Don't disappoint me, friends.
UPDATE: In the interest of fairness, I should say that Mayeda reports Flaherty's office is crying, surprise surprise, that he was "misinterpeted." Reports Mayeda:
In an email, a spokesman for Flaherty said the minister meant that he would never rule out another big economic shock. I suppose it depends on how you interpret the word "one," which I took to stand for "tax hike." But fair enough.
Mark me down as unconvinced. The question was about ruling out a tax increase. Flaherty posited the hypothetical of another economic shock, and said he wouldn't rule it out. Look at the main line here again:
You know, given what we've all been through around the world in the last few years, I would never presume to say 'never' in terms of a very substantial economic shock where we'd have to have one.
Now, it seems pretty clear to me that by "have one" Flaherty means a tax increase. But he now wants us to believe one means economic shock.
Tell me, which sentence makes more sense?
A) I would never presume to say 'never' in terms of a very substantial economic shock where we'd have to have an economic shock.
B) I would never presume to say 'never' in terms of a very substantial economic shock where we'd have to have a tax increase.
Yeah, I'm not buying Jim. You had a moment of honesty. Own it. Don't piss on my trouser and tell me it's raising.
Online voting sounds like a nice idea in theory. You'd obviously still have physical polls, but online voting would make it a lot easier for people to vote, would encourage young people that live online to vote, and could well increase voter turnout.
Nice in theory, but I have some serious concerns I'd need satisfied before I'd ever consider supporting online voting.
We actually had a debate on this at the last federal Liberal biennial in Vancouver during the constitutional plenary, when the delegates considered an amendment that would have opened the door to online voting for nomination races.
I went into the debate supporting the amendment from the perspective of someone who grew up in a massive rural riding, where we either had to run multiple polls or ask people to drive for hours to cast a vote. But during the debate the nays had me reconsidering.
Online voting is so anonymous. How do we do who is sitting at that computer, and that they actually are who they say they are? Someone could have gathered-up a bunch of PINs and be voting them. Maybe someone moved, the new residents got their PIN in the mail and is casting their ballots.
How do you guard against persuasion and intimidation? In a physical polling place, unless they need assistance a voter must go to the voting screen alone, and can cast a secret ballot. What's to stop an abusive spouse or partner from standing over the computer and making sure they "vote correctly?"
And then there's the IT security issue. How long before someone hacks the system, destroys or compromises records, and puts the integrity of the result into question? As a journalist my day job is covering the technology sector, and I'm not confident of its ability to keep a system safe and secure.
The beauty of our current system is its simplicity. We go to the voting place, show our id, and get a ballot. We mark an X for one person, and put it in a box. The staff count up all the ballots, the results are tabulated, and a winner declared. If there's a discrepancy or a challenge, we go back to the physical ballots and re-count them. There's virtue in that simplicity. Technology doesn't make everything better.
And not for nothing, but how easy do we really need to make it to vote? Is taking 30 minutes out of your life every couple of years to go to an elementary school gymnasium and mark an X really that much of a sacrifice to make for our democracy? Shouldn't voting require some level of commitment, of engagement, of effort?
As I said, I like the theory of online voting. I'm glad we're having the debate, and that the BC Liberal race is seeing a lot of interesting ideas put on the table. But they've got a long ways to go to convince me online voting could be viable, practicable, and desirable.
Rather than writing based on a first gut reaction, I thought I’d let the weekend go by before I offered my uninformed, non-expert thoughts on the Liberal ads launched last week.
I should mention that, after the Conservative ads launched, I wrote that I felt the important thing for Liberals to do was to stay focused on the ground, getting Michael Ignatieff in front of Canadians to prove that he’s not the caricature of Conservative folklore. I also wrote I didn’t see a compelling need to rush out our own ads; certainly not ones designed to counter Conservative messaging rather than reinforce our own.
I still believe that continuing to tour and meet Canadians is the most important and effective thing we can be doing. That said, there’s no reason we can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
I think the fact we’re running ads may well be more important that the content of the messaging contained within. For one thing, it soothes panicky Liberal nerves after the Conservatives launched their barrage. And with this party that’s never a bad investment, particularly ahead of this week’s winter caucus meetings. It’s also a signal to the Conservatives. Their ads were evaluated as sending a message to the Liberals of “you want an election, this is what you’ll get so think twice.” With their ads, the Liberals reply “we can bring it too, so if you wanna dance we’ll dance.”
I’m not sure how much resonance the ads will have with the public. They do send the message that the Liberals are in the game, and with only the Liberals and Conservatives running ads, that could reinforce the two-choice narrative the Liberals want to put forward.
Of course, blink and you might not know these are actually Liberal ads. You’d have to read the fine-print at the start. While these ads could be successful at hurting the Conservative vote, what’s missing is what has been our challenge for five years: converting the disaffected to the Liberal column.
That’s not really a criticism. You can’t do everything in a 16-second ad. As long as we’re competitive going into a campaign, I’m happy, and these ads can help there. It’s in a campaign where we’ll need to convert on that support that might get shaken loose. And that is made possible by the ground work and touring that’s going on now, which is why I keep coming back to the importance of working hard on the ground.
As for the ads themselves, I like the choice to focus on fighter jets and corporate tax cuts. It reinforces the narrative the Liberals have been pushing: jets and big business tax cuts vs. family care and schools. I might have liked to have seen that second-half though. Rather than just hit the Cons, contrast it with our ideas for family home care, as an example. The contrast would help on the conversion challenge.
My favourite ad is the corporate tax cut one. Focused and to the point, speaking to the challenges of ordinary Canadians in the current economic environment and trying to put a gap between their priorities and the government’s. I think the jets issue can be effective too – the ferocity of the CPC propaganda campaign on this issue makes me suspect they have polling that shows Canadians aren’t onside with them on this one.
Now, I recognize that the ads sow confusion about the Liberal position, which isn’t actually to cancel the purchase (note, no deal has been signed yet anyways and won’t be until 2014) but to put the jet purchase to an open, competitive tender to get the best deal.
While I’d like for us to all have a full and open debate that puts all the factors on the table, I can live with it. For one thing, it’s a 16-second ad. For another, we’re fighting the spin and distortion of the Conservative side, backed by the defence industry. Rather than bring a copy of Robert’s Rules to a gun fight, putting forward a clear if slightly misleading message is an unfortunate necessity.
There is lots of talk around negative ads. The Liberals are trying to make much of the fact they're attacking Harper on the issues, while the Conservatives are attacking Ignatieff personally. Some media are predicting a backlash for the Conservative negativity, others say the distinction the Liberals are drawing is minute and meaningless.
The media always decry negative advertising. Just like they paint as weak someone who doesn't go negative. I don't lose sleep over their punditizing. Maybe, at some point, people will lose patience and punish the personal negativity. I'm not holding my breath though. Certainly, they never will if they lack a compelling alternative to turn to, which is why that remains our central challenge. And I really don't think most people watching at home will draw the distinction between personal negative and issue negative. I do, though, and I'm glad we're sticking to the issues.
Anyway, overall, I still believe the ground work is far more important than ads I don’t expect many people will see anyway, and that’s where we need to keep focused. But these ads do show we can respond rapidly too and we’re not afraid to spend some money and go on offence. With a campaign possibly coming up, in my completely non-expert view both are good signs.
The Liberals released two pointed and focused contrast ads this morning, returning the Conservative personal attacks with issue-based critiques. I'll told you should be seeing these ads on TV as we speak. More to come soon, I need to shower, shave and get off to work. For now, here are the ads.
The Conservatives, egged on by the defence industry, keep telling us we need to ignore that looming deficit and pressing social needs (such as family home care and pension reform) and instead drop $16 billion we don't have on sole-sourced stealth fighters because:
A first-of-its-kind hijacking exercise involving the U.S., Canadian and Russian militaries went so well that a similar drill is planned for 2011, an American officer said.
Jet fighters from Russia and the North American Aerospace Defence Command pursued a small passenger jet playing the role of a hijacked jetliner across the Pacific and back during the August exercise. The aim: To practice handing off responsibility for a hijacked jet between Russia and NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canadian command that for decades devoted its efforts to tracking Soviet forces.
Officers reviewed the exercise in November at NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. The verdict: It "was pretty much carried on flawlessly," said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Lee Haefner, who was the lead planner.
NORAD and Russian officers will meet in Russia in February to begin planning a second exercise, Haefner said.
But how could this happen, you ask? (Happen again, actually) We're cooperating with the Rushkies? What about their ageing bombers and the red menace that Peter MacKay wants us to be scared of? Haven't they seen Red Dawn?
And we were able to hold this joint exercise with the American and the Russians, even though each country was operating different airplane types? But how could they interoperate, and what not? It's a miracle they didn't all fly into each other with those totally different types of airplanes they were flying. Didn't they know Stephen Harper says that's impossible!
Doesn't this example of a joint military exercise gaming exactly the sort of threat we expect our next-generation fighter interceptors to meet, and done cooperatively with our American allies flying different aircraft, and even with the Russians, pretty much negate the Conservative argument for why we need to drop $16 billion in this uncompetitive, un-tendered F-35 deal?
Only if you want to let facts enter into the debate, I suppose.
It’s a widely held, and pretty accurate, theory that every Liberal believes themselves to be a communications expert, and are overly focused on the air war to the near virtual exclusion of where elections are primarily fought (and won): on the ground, face to face and door to door.
I think the Conservatives had many motivations and goals when they released their personally-negative attacks ads yesterday. I don’t know if setting the cat among the Liberal pigeons was one of them, but it may well have been and I’m sure they wouldn’t object if that’s one of the results.
I’m seeing many Liberals frantically demanding the party “forcefully respond” to the Conservative attack ads. And I’m reading many media pundits and other assorted “experts” counseling it is “critical” that the Liberals respond to the Conservative attack ads, or the sky will fall and what not.
Respond how? These experts have no ideas or suggestions. But the Liberals had better respond, er, um, somehow! Or else bad stuff, etc.
Of course, these are the same experts that routinely chide the Liberals for being too focused on the air war and not, oh, let’s say, touring 20 target ridings across Canada and recruiting an impressive roster of star candidates.
Which, incidentally, is exactly what the Liberals have quietly been doing. After a summer spent on the road, Michael Ignatieff followed it up with a series of “Open Mike” town halls in the fall. And right now, he’s on a whirlwind tour of 20 target ridings across the country.
At the same time, the Liberals are quietly recruiting an impressive roster of so-called star candidates (I dislike the term, but whatchya gonna do?), as Steve noted on the weekend. New Liberal candidates (or nomination contestants) include former Military Police Complaints Commission chair Peter Tinsley, and former McGuinty cabinet ministers Peter Fonseca and Marie Bountrogianni, to name but three.
We’ve seen a more confident and comfortable Ignatieff getting a very positive reaction on the ground, as people see he’s not the caricticure of Conservative ads. We’ve seen positive reaction to focused Liberal policy announcements on pensions, health and home care, and education, to name but a few. And we’ve seen the Liberals begin to articulate a clear choice between themselves and the Conservatives (fighter jets and prisons vs. health care, education and pensions) and begin to set a ballot question (are you better off after five years of the Conservatives?).
It all adds up to the Liberals doing the hard work on the ground that they need to do if they’re going to have success in a future election campaign. Will it pay off right away in poll movement? Probably not. I wouldn’t expect to see much poll movement before the campaign; this is laying the ground work you need to have future success, and be in a position to capitalize with opportunity presents or opponents mistep. As long as we’re within striking distance going into the campaign, I’m happy. We need to be patient.
And that’s my non-expert advice for Liberals here: stay patient. We’re on the right track, and the work we’re doing will pay dividends in the long run if we stay focused. Let’s keep executing on our strategy, and not get distracted by reacting to Conservative ads and going on defence.
If someone has some ideas for the critical “forceful reaction” that is being called for, I’m all ears. But I’m not sure our own negative ads are called for right now, nor would our own positive ads necessarily be effective (although I could be convinced).
I still maintain, though, that the best way to counter the negative caricature of Ignatieff that the Conservatives portray in their ads is for him to keep going out there, meet Canadians, and prove that caricature wrong. Surpass their lowered expectations, provide a credible alternative, and we'll do well.
Forgive me for lapsing into cantankerous old man mode, but I think the Twitter hype is getting ahead of itself.
Is it an important and useful communications tool? Absolutely. I get much of my news from Twitter, primarily as news organizations and people I follow share links to media coverage. (Note: like blogs, this is Twitter amplifying MSM coverage, not creating original journalism).
I also follow many journalists, politicians, politicos and others. It provides an interesting perspective into the behind the scenes, the personalizing superficial (I mean that in a good, humanizing way), and an opportunity to interact. I've debated coverage with journalists, and policy with cabinet ministers. I like to think the debate improves us all.
I agree when the article says Twitter has the potential to influence the tenor of media coverage, and from there the public. It's the same blogs, influential by degrees of separation. But I wouldn't go further than that.
I was amused by the subhead on the The Hill Times article: Twitter could determine electability and influence next federal campaign, say leading political twitterers. That about sums it up. People on Twitter say Twitter is important. Let's not forget that 95 per cent of the population has no idea what Twitter is.
Also, it's important to look at your audience. I currently have 1,233 followers on Twitter. They're made up primarily of fellow Liberal partisans, partisans of other assorted stripes, Ottawa watchers, hill journos, and some politicians. I could probably count the number of undecided voters following me on one hand. So I can tweet for the Liberal cause until I'm blue in the face; I'm not changing anyone's mind.
It's the selection-bias of Twitter that limits its utility. This example from the article is meant to argue for Twitter, but really it confirms its limitations:
Ms. O'Malley, who has 6,271 followers on Twitter, said she started following hashtags and local media in the ridings affected by this past November's byelections.
"It really did help inform me. I'm not in Winnipeg North; I'm not even in friggin' Vaughan. It gave me the ability to see what all sides were saying....Imagine that [multiplied by] 308," she said.
The national media did very little actual on the ground reporting in last fall's by-elections. Instead, they covered them from Ottawa. Instead of going into the communities and talking to voters, stopping in at all candidates meetings, or visiting campaign offices to gauge volunteer support, they relied on the partisan spin they got from each camp, which is usually pretty divorced from reality. And the spin war was certainly active on Twitter.
Having relied on that picture, there was much Ottawa media shock when Julian Fantino barely won in Vaughan instead of the expected landslide, or Kevin Lamoureux scored a surprise victory in Winnipeg. Because they weren't getting an accurate picture from Twitter or (naturally) the spinners.
Point being, Twitter is neither a substitute for on the ground reporting, nor for on the ground campaigning. It is a tool among many, but it's just a tool. It's another channel to get the message out, and in an ever-fracturing communications world we need to leverage all the channels we can. There is great potential in social networking, and turning people into advocates within their personal networks.
Elections, however, are still fought and won (or lost) on the doorstep. Not by retweets.
Minister of State Rob Moore, who joined Harper during the announcement, will head the 12-member commission, which involves other parliamentarians and business owners.
The commission will consult Canadians "to identify irritants that have a clear detrimental effect on growth, competitiveness and innovation" and find solutions to lighten the regulatory load.
Yes, nothing says we're serious about cutting red tape like forming a blue-ribbon commission to study cutting red tape. They'll hold hearings, have debates, and then write a report. The government will then study the recommendations of the report. That should do it.
It's necessary though, because how should the Conservatives have any idea what to do about red tape after just five years of running the government?
But clearly they don't, because in fact they've had a policy of adding to the red tape burden while in government. And I don't just mean their own internal communications nonesense.
No, the best example of the Conservative fetish for red tape is their love of complicated tax credit schemes.
Last week I wrote about the Conservative public transit tax credit program that has failed to do anything to improve transit or boost ridership. What it has done though, is increase red tape for millions of Canadians.
Instead of just sending funding directly to transit, or lowering the overall tax rate, the Conservatives designed a tax credit that requires you to save your transit passes to claim the credit each year, then stick all the passes in a shoe box for seven years in case they audit you.
And this is just one of many similar tax credit schemes the Conservatives have introduced. There's a Children’s Fitness Tax Credit, a Mineral Exploration Tax Credit, tax writeoffs for meal expenses by long-haul truck drivers, and credits for enrolling kids in sports programs.
All are complications to the tax system that have caused Canadians to fill shoe boxes and increased red tape for both citizens in preparing their taxes and the government workers that process them. They've made it harder to do your taxes, and caused many more Canadians to have to turn to accountants and professional tax preparers to navigate the Conservative red tape burden.
Why this massive increase in Conservative red tape? It's about votes. Instead of just funding things like transit directly, or just cutting the overall tax rate, they pick specific demographics they want to target for political purposes, design a credit, and get you to think about their kind benevolence each time you apply for a credit to get some of your own money back.
Now, after having dramatically increased the red tape burden, the Conservatives are hoping for another political hit by promising to reduce the very problem they've compounded.
For the supposed law and order party, the Conservatives sure make a habit of choosing which laws really count, and which should be ignored. Yesterday, it was Conservative MP Larry Miller saying law enforcement authorities should just ignore certain gun control laws. Today, fellow Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott got in on the act with another law he doesn't like, and therefore doesn't count.
"The Court has hereby belittled religious faith by writing it off as something 'you do in your head or on weekends' without it impacting all of a person’s life," Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott wrote to the province’s Justice Minister Don Morgan Tuesday.
"It’s a serious misunderstanding of Christian faith or any faith for that matter," Vellacott told QMI Agency in an interview.
"The inference here (is) you can hold these beliefs and freedom to worship just long as it doesn't affect your life or how you live out your life. And that obviously is a serious problem," he said. "It sets up a hierarchy of rights saying these same-sex rights are more important than freedom of conscience and religion."
Don't be ridiculous, Maurice. People have the right to hold whatever bigoted beliefs they please. But they don't have the right to hold whatever job they please. The job of a marriage commissioner is to marry people. All people. Black or white, gay or straight. If you can't do that, don't take that job.
If it was against my moral or religious beliefs to flip hamburgers, I probably shouldn't work at McDonald's, should I? And it would be ridiculous of me to cry discrimination if McDonald's refuses to hire me if I'm unwilling to perform a major portion of the job responsibilities they'd be hiring me for.
Conservative MP Larry Miller has suggested government officials should turn a blind eye to unregistered firearms if farmers are just using them to protect their livestock from coyotes.
The beef farmer-turned-federal politician made the remarks at a Saturday meeting in Elmwood, Ont., to discuss how to deal with the growing problem of coyotes preying on sheep and other farm animals in the area.
“(Farmers) are afraid to bring out their guns and travel around like they used to,” Miller (Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound) told the crowd, according to a report in the Owen Sound Sun Times published Monday. “What the (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources) needs to do when it comes to unregistered guns and what have you, they’ve got to start turning their heads the same way they do with commercial fishermen that break the law . . . Let the farmers out there that have guns do a lot of this control.”
He stood by his defence of ignoring laws he doesn't like when contacted by the Toronto Star:
“There are a lot of guns that aren’t registered and urban people may not understand why, but it just goes to show you how ridiculous a law it is and until it’s scrapped, people in my part of the world and most rural parts of Canada are not going to be happy,” Miller said.
Actually Larry, you said we city folk don't understand, but maybe it would help if you tried to explain it to us, instead of just stomping your feet and saying its stupid. Because, particularly with the reforms that a Liberal government would make to the registry, I fail to see any compelling argument why farmers shouldn't need to register their guns. I support their right to have them, just take five minutes to register the dammed things.
In the mean time, counselling that laws he doesn't like shouldn't be enforced is an interesting position for a lawmaker to take. Any other laws we should feel free to ignore, Larry?
Anyway, I enjoyed how a Ministry of Natural Resources spokeswoman corrected three of Larry's misconceptions in one comment:
Ministry of Natural Resources spokeswoman Jolanta Kowalski said enforcing firearms registration is federal jurisdiction and noted there is no closed season on coyotes. Kowalski also said the ministry enforces the rules surrounding fishing.
Opps, sorry Larry.
P.S. I like Mark Holland, but his linking the Phoenix shootings in his comments was unnecesary, inappropriate and unfortunate.
I often disagree with my friends at the National Post editorial board, and they have it wrong again today. It's a given they're a little misguided (after all, they do occasionally publish my ramblings online, which doesn't speak well of their judgement) but they're particularly off base with this most recent editorial offering.
When outside Canada, MPs of all stripes are expected to defer to the policies of the government of the day, at least in public. But since the summer, both Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and his party’s foreign affairs critic, Bob Rae, have sought to score political points back home by taking digs at the Tories while on foreign soil.
They start with "on foreign soil" as where they draw the line (if phoning reporters back in Canada on your flight home, consult the moving map to make sure you're in international airspace before you dial). That would be disagreeable enough, but they confuse the issue by providing an example of unacceptable foreign policy disagreement that was made on Canadian soil: Ignatieff's comments on the government's UN security council bid.
So it would seem that, whether on foreign soil or our own Canadian terra firma, any criticism of Conservative foreign policy means "forgetting you're Canadians first" and is, therefore, not permissible. Presumably, though, it's still ok to disagree with our minority government on non-foreign policy issues, as long as you're within our borders.
Of course, The Post Doctrine must be new, because I don't recall them being outraged when then opposition leader Stephen Harper went on Fox News and other U.S. media outlets in the lead-up to the Iraq War and publicly attacked the Liberal government. He even wrote an op/ed for the Wall Street Journal taking his country's duly elected government to task. The Journal, by the way, is distributed on foreign soil:
Canadians Stand With You Wall Street Journal | 3/28/03 |
By STEPHEN HARPER and STOCKWELL DAY
Today, the world is at war. A coalition of countries under the leadership of the U.K. and the U.S. is leading a military intervention to disarm Saddam Hussein. Yet Prime Minister Jean Chretien has left Canada outside this multilateral coalition of nations.
This is a serious mistake. For the first time in history, the Canadian government has not stood beside its key British and American allies in their time of need. The Canadian Alliance — the official opposition in parliament — supports the American and British position because we share their concerns, their worries about the future if Iraq is left unattended to, and their fundamental vision of civilization and human values. Disarming Iraq is necessary for the long-term security of the world, and for the collective interests of our key historic allies and therefore manifestly in the national interest of Canada. Make no mistake, as our allies work to end the reign of Saddam and the brutality and aggression that are the foundations of his regime, Canada’s largest opposition party, the Canadian Alliance will not be neutral. In our hearts and minds, we will be with our allies and friends. And Canadians will be overwhelmingly with us.
But we will not be with the Canadian government.
Modern Canada was forged in large part by war — not because it was easy but because it was right. In the great wars of the last century — against authoritarianism, fascism, and communism — Canada did not merely stand with the Americans, more often than not we led the way. We did so for freedom, for democracy, for civilization itself. These values continue to be embodied in our allies and their leaders, and scorned by the forces of evil, including Saddam Hussein and the perpetrators of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That is why we will stand — and I believe most Canadians will stand with us — for these higher values which shaped our past, and which we will need in an uncertain future.
Messrs. Harper and Day are the leader and shadow foreign minister, respectively, of the Canadian Alliance.
Of course, the Post didn't take great umbrage at Harper's lack of Canadianess. They, and most of the media elites, were too busy cheerleading for Canada to get into a war Canadians didn't want, and that Jean Chretien's government wisely steered clear of.
How about Harper's habit, as Prime Minister, of regularly using overseas press conferences (with foreign media present) to launch unprompted attacks on his political opponents? Apparently that's still Canadian, even though Harper does it so often he's had to apologize for making crap up:
L'AQUILA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper was forced to apologize publicly for attacking his political rival Michael Ignatieff at the G8 over a quote that was wrongly attributed to the Opposition leader by a senior Harper aide.
At a closing news conference here today, in French and in English, Harper was defending the relevance of the G8, when he launched into a stinging rebuke of Ignatieff.
So, if you're following at home, The Post Doctrine seems to boil down to this: Liberals shouldn't say anything bad about the Conservatives on foreign policy issues ever, particularly when overseas but sometimes in Canada too; Conservatives go to town.
The blatant hypocrisy aside, their entire thesis is laughable, and the Post's desire to place limits on speech is a bizarre position for a publication usually so opposed to any such limits (see controversial cartoons, human rights commissions, and so on) to take. Or any media outlet to take, for that matter.
First of all, I think people overseas know that opposition parties likely disagree with the government on any number of things. Maybe in the time when ambassadors traveled by sailing ship they may have been in the dark, but with Google that ship has pretty well sailed. Whatever timezone someone makes a comment in, it travels the world in seconds anyway. Just who are we trying to fool here anyway?
Would we be surprised if John Boehner or another prominent Republican visited Canada and didn't offer a full-throated endorsement of President Obama? Would we be scandalized if he disagreed with Obama on trade policy? Would we be surprised? Would we care?
Any democracy has healthy debate; the only countries that would be surprised by this are the dictatorships of the world, and I'm not concerned about offending their sensibilities. You know what's a pretty important Canadian value: free speech. It's a shame the Post's editors forgot they're Canadians first too. I support their right to be wrong though, whatever the time zone.
We have dueling leadership races underway on the left coast as the BC Liberals and the BC NDP look to replace their leaders. I think the BC Conservatives may have a race too, but no one is paying attention.
While the BC Liberal race has seen a large field of experienced candidates discussing a wide range of policy issues and presenting plans for the future of the province, the BC NDP race has been far more interesting.
First, no one wanted to run, despite the vigour with which a group of dissidents punted former leader Carole James.
Then there was the revelation that an obscure constitutional provision requires their next leader to be a woman. With just weeks to go to sign up members, there were still no committed candidates.
After letting Larsen have the field to himself for a few days, a few more candidates have stepped-up recently. MLA Nicholas Simons has thrown his hat in the ring. One of the anti-James dissidents, I hear he's a nice enough fellow but I don't think he's seen as a contender.
And he was quickly followed by Fraser-Nicola MLA Harry Lali. He had a number of things to say during his event kick-off, but there's one that's getting more of the attention: he wants to be a champion for old white guys.
“Equity quotas are anti-democratic and discriminate, specifically against older, white males,” Harry Lali said during his kickoff speech in Merritt, B.C.
“As leader, I would welcome back older, white males into our NDP family,” he added. “I say to older, white males: ‘Don’t stand outside the tent and complain, come and join my campaign team.’”
I'm a nearing middle age white guy, but I'll be an old white guy soon enough. And I agree, old white men have been excluded from the political process and the corridors of power for far too long! Particularly old white male lawyers. Finally, old white men have a champion. We shall overcome!
Anyway, yes, I agree with Lali as far as the quotas being dumb. But geez, man. Really?
“In their typical ‘I-make-the-rules’ fashion, Harper’s Conservatives knowingly broke Treasury Board guidelines, breaking government standards for websites and advertising,” said Liberal Treasury Board Critic Siobhan Coady. “The Conservatives were advised that this was a violation, but plowed ahead anyway in order to blur the line between government advertising – paid for by taxpayers – and Conservative propaganda.”
According to federal documents obtained by The Canadian Press, bureaucrats advised that the EAP website – in the exact hue of Conservative blue and at one point featuring a video of Stephen Harper playing piano – broke Treasury Board rules. However, the website was given the green light by then-Treasury Board President Vic Toews despite these objections.
“Our party has long spoken out against this abuse of taxpayer dollars for partisan purposes,” said Ms. Coady. “In fact, we wrote the Treasury Board in October 2009 to complain about how this website and related advertising broke their own rules – and now we learn that two weeks after our complaint the Conservatives just gave themselves an exemption.”
A government web site bathed in Conservative blue? Pretending Harper playing the piano has something to do with economic stimulus? It's laughable. The proper thing to do is for the Conservative Party of Canada to repay the taxpayers for this blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars for partisan political purposes.
I trust the invoice will be paid promptly, lest penalty fees and interest be applied.
Former CTV BC news anchor Pamela Martin's endorsement of Christy Clark for the leadership of the BC Liberal Party (and her joining the Clark team to head membership recruitment) is generating a lot of buzz on the left coast. And it's certainly a coup for Clark.
I think my fellow British Columbians will join be though in saying sure, that's great, but what we really want to know is who is Squire Barnes supporting?
Every month I dutifully save my monthly TTC Metropass, and when I do my taxes I tally up the cost (it's currently $121/month in the T-dot), claim it on my taxes and get some of the cost back against my taxes. And stick the 12 passes in a box to save for seven years in case I'm audited.
The Public Transit Tax Credit was one of several similar programs introduced by the Conservatives in 2006. Ostensibly, the idea was to boost transit ridership. However there's no evidence the program is achieving that supposed goal:
Michael Roschlau, president of the Canadian Urban Transit Association, said it’s a great idea to reward people for taking public transit, but the statistics do not show that the credit produced a spike in ridership.
“We have not been able to attribute a direct correlation between the ridership trends and the tax credit,” he said.
The fact the credit was budgeted to cost $200 million annually and, so far, has been coming in under budget, would seem to indicate there hasn't exactly been a mad stampede of people leaving their car at the park and ride, swayed by the tax credit.
That's because a tax credit for riders isn't going to do anything about an underfunded, over capacity transit system. Even if it encourages some drivers to give transit a try, the transit system is unprepared for an increase in ridership so, finding crowded buses and subway trains, they'll be quickly back to their cars.
If the federal government really wanted to boost transit ridership, they'd take that $200 million and find a way of getting more stable operational funding to transit systems like the TTC, so they can improve service levels, build capacity, and offer a more compelling quality of service that will convince people to become regular transit users.
The tax credit is nice for me, but I'm going to be taking the bus regardless. It does nothing to improve transit.
Of course, improving transit service was never really the Conservative goal with the program. Sure, they could boost operational funding and see better transit service as a result. But there's no photo-op or political impact with that. But with a tax credit, you're reminded every year at tax time as the Conservatives try to buy your goodwill with your own money.
The NDP's Catherine Bell has been battling at the ballot box in Vancouver Island North with Conservative John Duncan for years. She narrowly lost to the incumbent Duncan in 2004, and narrowly unseated him in 2006 to serve a term as MP before she lost to Duncan, now Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, in 2008.
Vancouver Island North has long been a target NDP riding, and a frequent stop for Jack Layton. Bell had been expected to try to take the seat back from Duncan in the next election, but news broke yesterday that Bell will not be the NDP candidate:
"I bought a small business last year and it's taking pretty much 999 per cent of my time," Bell told the Courier-Islander Tuesday. "It's a real lot of work and I just don't have the time to spend to be a proper candidate and I don't want to leave the party hanging. I want them to find someone who can commit the time that it needs to do a good job.
"This is another chapter in my life. It's the first business that I've ever owned and I want to make it work and be successful. I find that I'm really enjoying it and I just don't have the time to dedicate to being a full-time candidate, giving it what it needs."
I think many thought the coffee shop (the Zocalo Cafe & Gallery at Fifth and Cliffe in Courtenay) was the perfect launching pad for Bell to take another shot at Duncan (here's your muffin, and a brochure!) but it appears the business will be keeping her too busy for campaigning. I wish Catherine luck, I'll stop by for a hot chocolate next time I'm back.
In the interim, it will be interesting to see who the NDP nominates to run in Bell's place, but between her departure and his elevation to cabinet in the shuffle before last, I'm sure Duncan is breathing a little easier today.
I would note, though, that for progressive voters who supported Catherine Bell and are looking for a new champion in Vancouver Island North, the Liberals have already nominated a great candidate in Mike Holland.
A former Courtenay city councilor, he's best known for leading the fight against the BC NDP government when it tried to seize the assets of charities such as Glacier View Lodge (a complex care facility), and later against the BC Liberal government when it reneged on its promise to build long-term care beds for the province's seniors.
Out to British Columbia again, where the candidates for the leadership of the BC Liberal Party have been busy lately talking policy ideas.
Kevin Falcon took a controversial position this week when he argued for merit pay for teachers and cash incentives for schools and teachers that improve test scores.
If he wins the leadership contest next month, Falcon said he would create a master teacher incentive program that would recognize exceptional and innovative educators and a model school incentive program that would reward schools for improvements in student achievement.
…his plan wouldn't rely solely on test scores. Rather, he said his government would work with teachers, administrators, parents and community leaders to develop criteria for identifying innovative educators.
Falcon’s proposal sparked a firestorm of criticism. The BC Teachers Federation, predictably, called it “a cockamamie notion” and his leadership opponent, former education minister George Abbott, said it would amount to cherry-picking one element of failed U.S. experiments in education.
Mr. Abbott said he was opposed to throwing “one experimental or trick shot piece out there that is drawn from the American experience and may not be applicable to our experience,” into education policy in this province.
Abbott made his own major policy push yesterday, and it wasn’t without its own controversial policy positions. For example, remember the carbon tax? While it helped fell Stephane Dion, BC’s own carbon tax, while controversial at its inception, remains quietly in place in BC. The BC Liberals won the last election despite a concerted effort by the BC NDP to defeat them on the carbon tax. Still, Abbott wants to revive the issue with a referendum:
The carbon tax referendum would be held June 24, which is also the date Abbott proposes for bringing forward the provincewide vote (currently set for Sept. 24) on whether to extinguish the harmonized sales tax.
Abbott said many British Columbians are rightly proud of the trail blazing carbon tax, which is scheduled to climb to seven cents a litre effective July 1, 2012. But he questioned whether the province should continue with such a tax when, as he put it, "the rest of North American is not dancing with us on this issue."
So, rather that being an environmental leader and continuing with a carbon tax, the system increasingly favoured not just by environmentalists but even by the energy industry, Abbott wants to re-open the can of worms? It’s an absolutely horrible idea. I can only surmise he seems some political advantage if he can rile up people on the issue, but it’s both bad policy and bad politics in my view. It is (was) a dead issue. I agree with Falcon on this one:
But Falcon rejected Abbott's call for a referendum, saying, "we had a referendum on the carbon tax and it was called the general election."
While it didn’t get the attention of merit pay for teachers or a carbon tax referendum, I was more disturbed by Abbott’s senate musings:
He also said the province should follow the route of Alberta and begin electing senate nominees.
When one of B.C.'s six seats in the Canadian Senate becomes vacant, a provincewide election would be held. The winner's name would then be forwarded to the prime minister for appointment to fill the vacancy.
While the Commons is representation by population (in theory), the Senate is meant to balance that with representation by region. The problem is, the current regional make-up of the Senate is outdated, and is based on a 19th century view of confederation-era Canada. The Maratimes are vastly over represented. Dido Upper and Lower Canada. The West, meanwhile, is lumped together as one regional group.
This inequity, while grating, is less pressing while the Senate is composed of unelected sober second thoughters that, recognizing their constitutional illegitimacy, are loathe (well, usually loathe) to circumvent the will of the elected Commons.
However, if you elect senators as Harper and Abbott favour, then those elected senators will be able to claim a democratic mandate and will not hesitate to exercise their not insubstantial constitutional powers.
Creating elected senators without addressing the regional composition of the Senate and addressing the balance of powers between the house of parliament is a bad idea, and it’s bad for BC. I’ll say to Abbott what I’ve long said (well, blogged) to Harper: you shouldn’t do senate reform half-assed. It has to be all or nothing.
Meanwhile, Christy Clark yesterday launched a series of open government initiatives aimed at increasing public confidence and public participation in the democratic process. It included a promise to, as Premier, hold a dozen town halls each year with BC residents.
“The reality is that voters feel a disconnect with their government,” said the former deputy premier and education minister.
“These proposals are designed to reconnect people with government.”
Other proposals put forward by Ms.Clark include working with all MLAs to see more private members’ bills debated and passed as well as a caucus accountability committee with the party leader as member, and cabinet accountability sessions in the regions of B.C. at regional policy conferences or other special events.
More on the specific proposals is available here. Some are more ambitious than others, but I like the monthly townhalls and more streaming video of legislative and committee meetings.
As for the BC NDP
While I don’t agree with all of their ideas, I have been impressed with the level of policy-focused debate we’ve seen in the BC Liberal leadership race. Meanwhile, over on the BC NDP side, Dana Larsen remains the only declared candidate. He has, however, secured a key endorsement:
Diane Ablonczy today was named by Stephen Harper as the new junior foreign affairs minister. Here's what Ablonczy was saying back in 2002 when she was the opposition critic, on what was a major foreign affairs issue of the day: the case of Maher Arar, who was facing torture in Syria at the time as the government fought to have him repatriated:
Mr. Speaker, it is time the Liberals told the truth: that their system of screening and security checks is pathetic. Arar was given dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship by the government. It did not pick up on his terrorist links and the U.S. had to clue it in.
How is it that the U.S. could uncover this man's background so quickly when the government's screening system failed to find his al-Qaeda links? .. Mr. Speaker, the government needs to take responsibility for what it is doing to protect Canadian security. The fact is that these Liberals were asleep at the switch. Arar was not properly checked. Instead, the government ran around chastising the U.S. for sending Arar back to Syria, where he is also a citizen. Why is it that the Liberal security system is so weak here that they overlook vital information that the U.S. picked up on a routine check?
Arar would later be brought back to Canada and, after being cleared of any wrongdoing by a public commission, would reach an out of court settlement with the federal government for $10.5 million.
I must have missed a memo or something, but judging by a flurry of activity over the holiday apparently there are still people out there who were still taking Norman Spector seriously. Who knew?
"I think she's a bitch. It's as simple as that. And I think that 90 percent of men would probably say she's a bitch for the way she's broken up (retired hockey player) Tie Domi's home and the way she dumped Peter MacKay. She is a bitch."
--- "Why is it unacceptable? That's what I think about her. I think it was much worse - a few years ago - when one of the Liberal members referred to (former Edmonton North MP) Deb Grey as a slab of meat quite frankly. I think that was totally unacceptable. But bitch is a word that I would use to describe someone like Belinda Stronach. It is a word that I use regularly."
Why the Globe & Mail continues to give this asshat a platform is beyond me, and how anyone can consider him a commentator with any credibility beggars belief. Nevertheless, the Globe continues to give Norman a platform and, over the holidays, he posted a piece that speculated about marital trouble between Stephen and Laureen Harper as being behind their joint end of year television interview.
Despite the piece being pulled from the Globe following a flurry of negative commentary, not to mention there being absolutely nothing to back up Normans gossip mongering, Spector defiantly stood by his baseless accusations:
"I’m still of the opinion that the deleted piece constitutes a worthy explanation of why he and Ms. Harper decided to do their first joint interview since the government came to power in 2006."
First of all, Norman is a few years late to the party. These rumours have been floating around Ottawa for years. The media have all heard them. Hacks of all stripes have heard them. Heck, even bloggers like me have heard them. Some of them are quite out there, such as an affair with an RCMP bodyguard who was transfered to the Yukon in punishment.
I don't know who Norman talked to, but some time ago I spoke with journalists I trust about these rumours. And they told me that of course they'd heard them, of course they'd investigated them, and no, there is absolutely nothing to them. The fact that no one has published these rumours should be an indicator to their baselessness. It would seem even bloggers have higher journalistic standards than Norman Spector and the Globe & Mail.
I think politicians are entitled to a private life. As long as it doesn’t impact or interfere with their jobs, as long as it’s between consenting adults and doesn’t break laws, then it’s not relevant.
All kinds of rumours swirl around Ottawa. Some aren't true, some are. The tales of infidelity, of office shenanigans and what not, are voluminous. But unless and until it interferes with their job, or breaks the law, it's not relevant in my view, and should be left to the likes of Frank magazine and not the mainstream media, or even reputable blogdom. And publishing unconfirmed rumours is even more ridiculous.
As I've written before, people are imperfect. Politicians are no exception. If we try to hold them to a higher standard than we hold ourselves, we're only asking to either be disappointed or lied to.
As for Norman, the Globe needs to attract a higher quality of columnist. Just what does it take to get dumped as a contributor by Canada's national newspaper?
While the rest of Canada may have slowed-down for the Christmas break, with two leadership races underway on the left coast the wackiness continued as per usual in Supernatural British Columbia.
The BC NDP
* We’ll start with the BC NDP, and the slow to start race to replace Carole James. With potential candidates slow to surface, we finally had someone step forward and put their name into the race over the break, and it’s a familiar name: rabble-rousing marijuana crusader Dana Larsen.
Former West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast federal NDP candidate and marijuana advocate Dana Larsen announced Wednesday that he will run for the leadership of the B.C. New Democrats.
Larsen said he had no plans of pursuing a leadership role until Carole James stepped down from the position in early December, but said he decided to throw his hat in the ring because he wanted to offer "a fresh perspective" to party members and the B.C. electorate.
In an interview with The Outlook, Larsen said he hopes to take the B.C. NDP back to "grassroots" politics and re-establish the party as "unabashedly left wing." Renewed support for low-income and seniors' housing, he said, are two issues at the top of his agenda.
As Troy McClure would say, you may remember Dana Larsen from past scandals was forced to resign as a federal candidate over video of himself driving a car while high on LSD (actually, see update below), or banned from the NDP convention in Halifax by Brad Lavigne.
Yes, we first came to know Larsen as the NDP candidate in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Really Long Riding Name in the 2008 federal election. Larsen was the first of three NDP candidates to drop out of the race in BC after YouTube video surfaced of Larsen “dropping hallucinogenic drugs and driving while smoking marijuana.”
But NDP provincial secretary Moe Sihota said Larsen was declared ineligible to run for the party after the 2008 federal election campaign when he had to step down as a candidate in a Vancouver-area riding after videos appeared of him smoking pot and taking LSD.
Sihota also counted Larsen out on a technicality, which he said ultimately could prevent Larsen from running provincially at all.
"He's not a member of the party," said Sihota. "He was already deemed ineligible to run for the party federally and the rules committee, which meets on Jan. 6, would have to decide whether he would be able to run provincially."
It appears some of the confusion may have been addressed, and Larsen does indeed now have a membership, although he says he had, or should have, had one all along. I was interested to read Sihota’s characterization of Larsen’s departure from the 2008 race though. Sihota said Larsen “was deemed ineligible to run for the party federally” but the news coverage at the time made clear Larsen wasn’t forced-out but stepped aside voluntarily:
Asked about Mr. Larsen’s resignation Wednesday evening in Toronto, NDP Leader Jack Layton said he didn’t know why the party hadn’t done checks to find out about some of the candidate’s activities, which are posted on the Internet. He said the candidate submitted the resignation to the B.C. campaign team and that it was accepted.
“I don’t know a lot of the details of what’s gone on there, but he’s obviously taken the decision that he’s not a suitable candidate, and we’ve accepted that decision.”
The next leader of the B.C. NDP will have to be a woman, unless the party's male president or treasurer resigns, according to gender rules in the NDP constitution.
The unique requirement, buried within the NDP's official rulebook, adds an extra layer of complexity in the race to replace leader Carole James.
The constitution states both genders must be represented in the jobs of leader, president and treasurer.
The current president is Moe Sihota and the treasurer is Bob Smits. James is stepping down later this month, and all those who have publicly said they are considering the job are men.
This is yet another example of why I think hard quotas are a clumsy way of achieving demographic parity, and are generally a bad idea. I might add that the BC Liberals didn’t need quotas to attract two quality female candidates in Moira Stilwell and the frontrunner, Christy Clark.
BC Liberals
*Over in BC Liberal land, meanwhile, we may have our first flip-flop of the campaign, on the proposal floated a few weeks back to lower the voting age to 16. When Mike de Jong first floated the idea, and Christy Clark quickly expressed support, Kevin Falcon did as well, in a statement that’s still on his Web site:
“Lowering the voting age to 16 is an interesting idea. One I am inclined to support, in conjunction with mandatory civics courses as a part of the high school curriculum. I should add that I am proud to be a member of a party that allows 14 year olds to become full members and commence their engagement as citizens before they get to vote.
“We need to recognize however, that lowering the voting age will not solve all the problems of lack of engagement with citizens. As it is, voter turn-out is unacceptably low in BC. What I am interested in is hearing from people about what we can do collectively to make sure that more people are encouraged to exercise their vote.”
However, just a week later, in a Dec. 21 interview with Harjinder Thind on Red FM, Flacon appeared to back away from that position:
Harjinder Thind: Are you in favour of increasing the minimum wage, or, decreasing the voting age?
Kevin Falcon: I am not in favour of decreasing the voting age because I think that we already are having trouble getting 18 to 24 year olds voting. But, I am interested in reaching out to those young people the way I have done through my leadership campaign by using social media and by using our website and Flicker and facebook and Twitter to connect with young people and we're doing that very successfully.
I hope Falcon will explain his apparent 180 on this issue. And I have to say, reaching out to the kids on the Twitter is nice, but if the message you’re tweeting is I don’t think you should have the vote, you’re missing the point.
The NDP has long prided itself as a champion of the interests of women, and it even implemented an affirmative action policy to ensure more female candidates in the last election. But it is now seen as the party that undemocratically turfed a female leader, and it will undoubtedly elect a man to succeed Carole James.
In fact, it will be interesting to see if any women even run for the NDP leadership. If none do, it will be a stunning commentary about the party's true commitment to the interests of women.
Meanwhile, the B.C. Liberals couldn't be happier about this. The polls show the NDP's loss in support from women is in the double-digits, as many have gone over to the B.C. Liberals.
*Lastly, Christy Clark is talking about putting families first:
UPDATE: In an e-mail, Larsen clarifies that he did not drive while under the influence of LSD. There is a video of him taking LSD, and a separate video of him driving with an unlit joint. Media coverage indicates the driving video was while under the influence of DMT (dimethyltryptamine), but he says it had worn off before he drove. Says Larsen:
"Despite the media hype, in the two videos in question I am shown to be a responsible user of psychedelics. I do regret the brief segment which shows me driving with an unlit joint in my hand. I advocate for responsible use and don't support driving impaired."
