The Post Doctrine: Silly Liberals, free speech is for Conservatives

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.

Apparently, the learned minds at the Post believe it's un-Canadian to disagree with Conservative foreign policy. At least that seems to be their thesis, because they present an extremely muddled and confusing argument in support of it.

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.

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Kelly McParland and Conservatives: Missing the point on abortion

My conservative friend (small c) Kelly McParland over at the National Post has taken some issue with my post yesterday on the Conservative government’s decision to no longer include access to safe abortion (he doesn’t weigh-in on their also pulling contraceptives) from their otherwise laudable (and not at all political) push to improve maternal and fetal health in developing countries.

Here’s a taste from Kelly:

Even for Liberals, though, this is appalling stuff. The government proposes a program to help improve health care for impoverished women, and the Liberals try to turn it into a question of abortion politics.

(snip)

So just what is the Liberal plan, then? If some impoverished country refuses to guarantee abortion rights, they get nothing? Jeez, way to go Michael Ignatieff! Cut off the needy unless they toe the line with Liberal party values. That's Harvard thinking all right. Or maybe it's Yale thinking, because didn't Bush go to Yale?

Yeah, what? No. It would seem what we have here is a failure to communicate. I only went to Carleton myself (the Harvard of Ottawa South), I don’t know where Kelly studied, but it needn’t have been Cambridge to see that’s not at all what we’re talking about. And I don’t know who is.

Let me break down what we are talking about -- slowly, with Carleton-level words, and bullets – so we can move the debate onto non-fictional grounds and carry on from there with a degree of rationality.

• There are many factors that contribute to maternal and fetal health. Poverty. Access to medical services. Food and water. Education. Proper natal care.

• Part of that is access to contraceptives. Contraception is an important part of family planning. Access to contraceptives is lacking in many poor and undeveloped countries, leading to larger families that are unable to care for them, prolonging the cycle of poverty. That’s why providing access to contraceptives to give these women options and choice is important to improving maternal health.

• So is access to safe abortion services. The fact is, many women will seek access to abortion services, whether it is safely available or not. Forcing them into backalleys and unsafe environments leads to injuries and death, and is a major detriment to maternal health in developing countries. That’s why experts agree giving women the option and choice to access safe abortion services is important to improving maternal health.

• No one is talking about forcing abortions or condoms on anyone. The law and regulations of the host country are obviously the final word. And no one is talking about denying funding to countries that don’t allow abortion. We’re saying it should (continue to) be part of our programs in those countries where it is permitted.

Back to the politics, there is one fundamental fact that Kelly seems to have overlooked, and it exposes his Liberal wedge argument as ridiculous: all Ignatieff and the Liberals are doing is calling for the current policy of the Government of Canada to be continued and respected.

That’s right. Today, as part of its development initiatives in developing countries around maternal and child health, Canada funds access to abortion and contraceptive services in those countries where it’s legally permissible. That’s a policy that predates the Liberal government by the way, because the experts in the field say it’s important and effective and necessary. We think that should be continued.

The wedge is coming from Stephen Harper, Bev Oda and the Conservatives. The Conservatives want to change that policy. Indeed, they have admitted that they are changing the policy, and will no longer include funding for abortion and contraception as part of our development policy and funding for maternal and child health.

I oppose that change. So does Michael Ignatieff, experts in maternal and child health, and millions of Canadians.

And that change isn’t some figment of our fevered Liberal imaginations. Just ask the anti-abortion groups claiming credit for reversing the government policy and raising donations for the Conservatives in gratitude.

It is a conscious decision by the Conservative government, an apparent sop to their socially conservative base, and one that has nothing to do with their stated goal of improving the lot of women in developing countries, and everything to do with their ideological and political views.

Now, you can argue abortion is wrong, and that’s a perfectly legitimate debate to have. My own view is I support a woman’s right to choose, up to a certain point in pregnancy or if her life is at risk, but I think we should all work to make abortion as rare and unnecessary as possible.

It is, however, the law of the land in Canada. And I have no indication the Conservatives want to change that law for Canadians. So I don’t think we should deny funding for something that is legal in Canada and legal in the host country and effective with the stated goal of the program, merely on ideological grounds.

That’s what we’re talking about here. Not invented bogeymen, or Ivy League potshots.

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Someone teach the National Post basic business journalism please

I’m a business journalist in my day job, and while today my reportage is more technology and marketing focused, back in the day I used to have to do a lot of spot reporting on company earnings. Wade through a mess of confusing numbers and acronyms – EBIDTA, GAAP, one-time charges, revenue, income, currency charges – and quickly discover the facts, what’s newsworthy and why, and report it.

And I tell you, if I got it as wrong as the Post did here, I’d be fearing for my job. Their analysis/link they try to make is completely off base and without merit, and is completely unsupported by the facts. With the Post’s death rumoured in recent days I’ve been defending them; not because they occasionally publish my commentaries but because I think we need more media organizations in this country, not less, because as a journalist I support jobs for journalists, and because off the op/ed pages, generally the Post is no more or less biased than any other outlet. But pieces that are completely full of crap like this one make it difficult to do so.

First of all, they rely on a Q2 2009 to Q3 2009 comparison as the main plank to support their thesis: dropping Liberal polling equals dropping Liberal donations. Ask any business journalist, financial analyst or accountant and they’ll tell you comparing consecutive quarters is largely meaningless. That’s because business is seasonal, it’s cyclical. So comparing, say, a department store’s Q4 vs Q1 next year revenue will likely show a big drop always. Why? Because Christmas is in Q4, and it’s a major shopping season. Sales always taper off in January.

That’s why comparing consecutive quarters is meaningless, and it’s why instead it’s standard practice to compare to the year-ago quarter. So, comparing Q4 this year versus Q4 last year and you’ll be comparing two like shopping seasons, giving you a better trend line to judge performance.

Second, if you want a true apples to apples comparison you need to look for and exclude one-time expenses or revenues. A company might take a big hit in one quarter because of a fine, for example. Or realize a big one-time gain because of an asset sale. Comparing numbers without factoring-out one-time numbers gives you a meaningless conclusion.

Anyway, here’s the Q2 to Q3 numbers as Tweeted by Canwest’s David Akin:

Q309/Q209 #cdnpoli Contribution $ only: #BQ -50% #CPC -5% #GPC +14% #LPC -50% #NDP +57%

As I said, comparing consecutive quarters is largely invalid, and there’s one major factor the Post missed in drawing the conclusion they did from these stats (I don’t quarrel with Akin here, he’s just reporting the numbers): the Liberals had a huge one-time revenue boost in the previous quarter: the Vancouver convention. Over 2000 people at up to $1000 bucks a pop. That skews those numbers.

Of course, they dropped from that quarter’s result, and it had little to nothing to do with polling: it had everything to do with not having a major national convention every quarter. To not factor that in is misleading, dishonest and just plain crappy reporting.

That aside, let’s look at the Post’s wider conclusion: that Liberal polling decline = Liberal donation drop. That’s only supportable if you ignore the methodology flaws already noted and look at just the LPC numbers in isolation. But their theory doesn’t hold with the other numbers. The Cons shot-up in the polls, but their contribution numbers dropped 5%. The NDP tread water in the polls at best, and they went up 57% in contributions. Their thesis just doesn’t make sense, even if you ignore the other obvious flaws in their supporting data.

Now, all that said, what happens when you do the comparison that is generally accepted practice in business, and compare to the year-ago quarter? Here is Akin’s tweet for that number:

Q309/Q308 #cdnpoli Contribution $ only: BQ -92% CPC -41% GPC -67% LPC +5% NDP -41%

Well, that’s a very different number isn’t it? Remember, we were fighting an election in this quarter a year ago, usually good for a nice fundraising boost. So it’s unsurprising the Conservatives and NDP are both off by 41%, year over year. Again, one-time rev boost in the year-ago quarter.

Nonetheless, that rev boost this time was available to all the parties, not just one (unlike the LPC convention) and yet only one party is not down sharply year over year. Indeed, only one party is actually up year-over-year for Q3, despite not having an election boost this year: and it’s the Liberal Party, up 5%.

So that just takes the Post’s theory and proves it to be completely full of crap. The LPC has fundraising momentum. There's a long ways to go to match the Conservatives in sheer volume, but the trends remain positive.

Now, could poor polling make it difficult to raise money? Absolutely. It will definitely make it harder, and things need to turn around on the polling front. But as much as the Post may wish to twist the laws of accounting, basic business sense and, well, reality to make it so, there’s nothing in the donation figures to show that has happened yet.

P.S. Visit Pundit Guide for a more non-partisan take.

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Ignatieff breaks the cycle of bluster

I think my original headline was Ignatieff changes the dynamic, but you get the idea. You can read my take on yesterday's events over at the National Post's Full Comment blog, where I'll be writing periodically:

You can agree with Michael Ignatieff’s declaration Tuesday that the Liberal Party will no longer support the Conservative government when parliament returns this fall (possibly triggering a fall election) or you can disagree with it, but one thing is for sure: going into the fall, the Liberals have succeeded in radically altering the dynamic, putting the other parties on the defensive for the first time in years.
(more)

And here's a taste of Michael's speech yesterday:

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Will Steve Harper bail-out the National Post?

With all the National Post has done for the Conservative movement since 'ol Conrad Black set up shop in Don Mills, a government bail-out would be the least Stephen Harper's Conservatives could do:

The Harper government is considering help for Canada's troubled private TV broadcasters, including looser regulations and tax changes.

In an interview today with The Canadian Press, Heritage Minister James Moore says the government is looking at how to assist CanWest Global, which is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

He suggests the help could come in the form of loosened regulations and changes to the tax system, which would also help other private networks.

CanWest, CTVglobemedia and Quebecor have all been lobbying Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet for assistance.

And wait! What's this?

CanWest hired a former senior adviser to Harper to help with its lobbying efforts.

Quick, to the lobbyist registry! And I'm sure they've waited-out the mandatory cooling off period, right?

So, public assistance for the private media, courtesy Steve Harper's Conservatives. How do you like them apples, CBC?

UPDATE: According to the lobbyist registry, CanWest has no currently registered external lobbyists, but does have a number of internal staff registered to lobby on its behalf. Among them is Charlotte Bell, the vice-president of regulatory affairs, television and radio for CanWest Media Works, whom you may recall caused a little kerfuffle when she was involved in organizing a fundraiser for then Conservative heritage minister Bev Oda:

Heritage Minister Bev Oda has cancelled a fundraising event after critics attacked the fact that it was organized by a woman who lobbies her department.

Charlotte Bell, the vice-president of regulatory affairs, television and radio for CanWest Media Works, had been helping organize the fundraiser to re-elect Ms. Oda, bringing about opposition claims that the Conservatives were not acting as ethically as promised when it comes to corporate influence in politics.

Ms. Oda's spokesman, Chisolm Pothier, said she and Ms. Bell are old friends and the fundraiser was an annual event dating back to Ms. Oda's days in opposition.

"The minister was not aware Charlotte Bell was registered to lobby Canadian Heritage," he said. "To avoid any negative perception, she decided to cancel the event."

However, I don't think she was ever a "senior Harper adviser" though. And none of the other listed internal registered lobbyists appear to have held a "public office."

So the question remains, just who is this former "senior Harper adviser" that CanWest hired to lobby the government to help it stave off bankruptcy, and why aren't they listed in the registry?

Not to mention, of course, why help private broadcasters but tell the CBC to sink or swim?

UPDATE 2.0: More from impolitical.

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Signs your "national newspaper" is in trouble

You've decided to stop stocking the vending box outside of Union Station, one of the (if not the) busiest commuter/pedestrian hubs in the largest city in the country (snapped this afternoon):


I've of mixed feelings. The politico side of me dislikes the Post for its political leanings, and wouldn't mourn its demise. The journalist side of me likes the Post for the simple fact that it employs journalists, something organizations are doing less and less of these days, and would therefore mourn its demise.

Either way, get that box out of there, because that's just embarrassing.

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Bob Rae confirms Ivison's anti-Ignatieff stories just aren't true

Bob Rae did Canada AM this morning, and set the record straight on the false rumours planted in John Ivison's National Post column. Clearly these rumours were Conservative plants, designed to sow distension in Liberal ranks and distract us from the real issue: Stephen Harper's incompetence economic management.

But here's Bob, in his own words, from Canada AM this morning. Who are you going to believe on these rumours, John Ivison's unnamed sources or Bob Rae?

Seamus: Let's talk seriously about. -- You met with your leadership rivals and with Stephane Dion. Is that all true?

Bob: No, that's wrong. That's the first thing that's wrong in the story. Mr. Dion wasn't there. Mr. Dion was in Ottawa. We were in Toronto.

Seamus: That's why we have on you on the show.

Bob: Exactly.

Seamus: What did you talk about? What was discussed?

Bob: We talked simply about how serious the situation was, how none of us had anticipated that we'd number this situation. Earlier in the week. There you are. We were waiting for the outcome of the discussions with the other two opposition parties. As we were chatting those discussions were still ongoing. So we really just talked generally about how we needed to focus and how we needed to make sure that there continued to be unity in the party. And that while it was important for democracy that in the party that you know we all be able to talk through and work
through the leadership campaign and continue with that. The most important thing was to work in a disciplined and focused way and do whatever we can to support the party. At this time of great challenge.

Seamus: I have to ask you. The headline on the National Post is pointed. NDP Liberal plan would see Ignatieff as PM and Rae, Leblanc agree to step aside.

Bob: No, there was no discussion of that. I mean that was not at all decided. And that was never sort of asked for. Nobody -- nobody was being asked to do that. So like a lot of things you read in the newspapers, that happens to be untrue. If any reporter had asked me, I would have been able to tell them. I suspect this is an example of people spinning and overspinning. There will be a lot of that seamus. There will be a lot of people trying to put forward their point of view and not straightforward but through a bunch of surrogates and then talk into reporters ears. This is the way the world works and -- in this spin capital of ottawa. But the reality is that wasn't what was discussed. What was really discussed how do we create the unity that's necessary, how do we create the discipline that's necessary for us to -- for us to succeed. In what is a very difficult moment for the country. All of prime minister who simply could not govern with other parties and that is the test of a minority parliament. You know, i know he got 143 seats but he doesn't have a majority. He demonstrated so clearly last week the prime minister and his team demonstrated they're simply incapable of working with other parties. All they know how to do is poke a finger in the eye of the rest of parliament. That's not going to work. Canadian people deserve better. They deserve economic leadership and real principled leadership at a time of economic crisis. We have an obligation to do.

Seamus: As always with you, I don't have much time. You know, i hear what you're saying about -- about everybody getting together. There can only be one liberal leader on possibly only one prime minister. Who would that be?

Bob: Well, the liberal leaders -- leader is stephane dion. We're meeting as a caucus over this week as we carry on with this plan. I think it's very important for canadians to know that the notion that somehow any internal issues in the party would be allowed to interfere with a
successful transition to a new government, that notion is false. We are all going to be working together. We're all putting national interests first. We're all going to be making sure that it's the national interest that prevails and that interest is in having a stable government with
strong economic leadership with a program that makes sense to Canadians. That's what we're doing.

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Better Know a Media Source

Today’s inaugural edition of Better Know a Media Source comes from an article in today’s edition of the National Post – The Fighting Post! – and an article on “research” that shows hey hey, ho ho, Stépane Dion has got to go:

'It's over' for dion, research suggests
Step down sooner rather than later: focus groups
James Cowan, National Post Published: Friday, October 17, 2008
Stephane Dion may be taking time to mull his political future, but Canadians have already said goodbye to the Liberal leader, according to new research.
Ensight Canada, a consulting firm, will today release the results of focus groups it conducted on Wednesday night, less than 24 hours after the polls closed.
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Actually, if you read the article it becomes clear the focus groups didn’t find that “it’s over” or that Dion should “step down sooner rather than later.” Indeed, read the piece and you learn the groups didn’t really talk about Dion at all. Which is a problem in and of itself, but not the spin being put on the findings by the Post. And by our “researchers” from the company that did the focus group testing. A company I’d never heard of called Ensight Canada, described by the Post as “a consulting firm.”

I have heard of the two Ensight principals the article quotes though: Jamie Watt and Robin Sears. The article simply identifies them as principals with Ensight. Are they professional independent researchers, you ask? Well, let’s get to know them better, shall we?

Jamie Watt has deep Conservative links. A key backroom player in the Mike Harris “Common Sense Revolution” in Ontario, he chaired Jim Flaherty’s campaign for the Ontario Conservative leadership and then co-managed the PC’s provincial campaign in 2003 for Ernie Eves.

Robin Sears was a national director of the NDP and was a regular NDP pundit, but is better known now as the lead spokesperson and apologist for former Conservative Brian Mulroney during the (still unresolved) Schreiber business.

That background seems to add a new dimension to their commentary and “research” I think.

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OMG, I agree with Colby Cosh on something?

I never thought I'd see the day. And yet, I do today.

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The National Post can't stand alone

Speculation on the possible sale of the perennially money-losing National Post has been running rife of late, with far more people than those that actually read it mulling over its fate.

Lawrence Martin says the Post’s sale would be politically ground shaking, particularly if a Liberal such as Senator Jerry Grafstein picks it up, given the Post’s long-held Conservative bent (it tried single handedly to bring Jean Chretien down with the manufactured Shawinigate scandal – Jean actually gained seats in the next election). But then again, we heard the same thing when the Liberally-connected Aspers bought the Post, so who knows.

And in the Post itself, Jonathan Kay says the death of the Post will somehow be the death of print journalism, and the opening of the drawbridge to the unwashed blogging hordes. Actually no Jonathan, the death of the Post won’t be the death of print journalism. Heck, as much as I’d wish it so, the death of the Post won’t even be the death of really bad print journalism. Just the death of a really bad newspaper.

If I could put my business journalist fedora on for a moment though, I have trouble seeing a standalone sale of the National Post being likely, even for peanuts, as I just don’t see a business case. No one is likely to write a cheque if they can't see a path to profitability.

Now, one part of Conrad Black’s decision to found the National Post, after Thomson wouldn’t sell him the Globe and Mail, was definitely vanity. He wanted a national pulpit to take on, and take down, the dastardly Liberals and to espouse all his closely-held Conservative ideals, such as, oh, delicious irony, cracking-down on crime and attacking lenient judges and sentencing.

Vanity aside though, while I’m no Conrad fan I wouldn’t consider him a dumb businessman, and the Post was about business. Mainly, advertising business. Southam owned most of the daily newspapers across the country, and at least one (sometimes two) in every major market except one, the biggest one: Toronto.

More than vanity, the Post was about getting a foothold in the Toronto market and allowing Southam’s ad sales teams to be able to sell advertisers a national ad package in papers from coast to coast. To be taken seriously, that package had to include Toronto.

The National Post was a national newspaper in name only. That’s even more true today, with the Post having disappeared from many markets. It has always been a Toronto paper. And it has failed to compete in this market, which was already saturated before it arrived.

Even though it has lost money from day one, in the context of a Southam or a CanWest, the Post made some sense as a loss-leader, given the already discussed advertising considerations and the prestige factor of being in the nation’s largest market. For CanWest today though, given the tightening media market overall, and the Post’s continual cash hemorrhaging, clearly the losses now outweigh benefit of having a Toronto paper in their ad package, unless they hope to work out an ad sales deal with the new ownership.

Which is why a sale makes even less sense. Well, getting rid of it makes sense. But, subtract the need to have a Toronto paper in a national ad buy, who would want to buy the National Post.
Perhaps another chain needing their own Toronto media market, but what chain would that be?

With consolidation there are few other conglomerates of any size left in the print world. The only one with national scope is Bell GlobeMedia, and they have the Globe. On a more regional level there’s TorStar, but they have the Toronto Star. Black Press is confined to the West. The Irvings have some papers in the Maritimes.

That leaves the possibility of operating the Post as a stand-alone entity. And as I said, it’s essentially a Toronto paper, and in this market it’d be going up against the Star, Sun, Globe, and subway freebies. And in every other market, it would now have to compete with the Canwest dailies (Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Hearld and so on). And a new owner would have to hire staff across the country if it wanted to continue pretending to be a national paper. The Post relied heavily on content from its Canwest cousins. Either that would change, or a healthy fee would be extracted by CanWest for “wire” access.

If the Post wasn’t a viable business in the context of a national chain needing ads in the Toronto market, its far less viable as a standalone paper. Just what would the business model be?

As much as it pains me as a journalist to say this in an era when jobs in my field are scarce, it makes more sense to just shut the doors and sell the assets. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

EDITED TO ADD: One scenario that could possibly work: buy it cheap, dump everything but the business section, and revert to being the Financial Post. That's what the paper was before Conrad bought it and wrapped news, sports and arts around it. But could a business daily survive in the Internet age, and in Canada/Toronto? I frankly doubt it. It would be a slightly less crazy scenario though.

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A tragically dumb column

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

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

CALGARY -Stephen Harper does not empathize easily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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You can always count on the National Post for half the story

In how many ways is Don Martin’s column in the National Compost Tuesday full of it? Really too many to count, but I’ll mention a few anyways.

Don’s thesis is that according to a recent poll, men tend to statistically favour the Conservatives over the Liberals, 41 per cent to 27 per cent according to Don’s Ipsos poll.

A question for Don. He says:

But what's even more sobering for Liberals is that Mr. Harper's negatives are concentrated in young to middle-aged women of lower to middle incomes.

Those approaching retirement or enjoying a $60,000-plus salary tend to side with Mr. Harper, a split decision that keeps Conservatives in a dead heat with Liberals among women voters nationwide.

Now Ipsos doesn’t release the full tables, and Don doesn’t quote any stats for women supporters, who in the stats I’ve seen from other polls vastly favour the Liberals. Unsupported by stats, he claims women are split between the Liberals and the Conservatives, and men are vastly favouring the Liberals. How, then, prey tell, does this same poll show:

The survey, administered March 18-20 by Ipsos Reid, showed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives and the Liberals led by Stephane Dion are in a virtual tie in public support. The Grits, with 33 per cent of the decided vote, were up two points from a previous poll conducted March 4-6. The Tories remained at 35 per cent.

If men vastly favour the Cons, and women are divided, or as Don as, “in a dead heat” then why aren’t the Cons way ahead? Why are they tied? Is there some third sex out there with massive Liberal support I’m not aware of?

If anyone with an Ipsos subscription out there could share the raw numbers on female support I’d appreciate it. The last numbers from Nanos (SES) I could find with a gender breakdown are from November, and they had decided voters at men C40.1 to L30.9, and women L37.6 to C30.6.

Anyway, moving on from the incomplete numbers and Don’s ignoring of salient but inconvenient to his premise points, I will grant him men do tend to favour the Conservatives. Let’s move on to why Don thinks this is.

Besides Stephane Dion’s overall wimpiness compared to Stephen Harpers, *cough*, rugged masculinity, it’s the Liberal platform says Don:

The party platform is not expected to be much of a male magnet either, specifically a focus on fighting homelessness, enhancing daycare, boosting education tax advantages and imposing emission caps on greenhouse gas producers.

Is he serious with this crap? Yeah, I’m a guy and I agree, fighting homelessness is so girly and feminine. Enhancing daycare? Take off the dress Doris! Education and the environment? Who cares! Get back in the kitchen and make me a pie while I go scratch myself and watch football.

But the Conservative platform, says Don. It’s enough to make a man chug a six pack, belch, and pass out on the couch after beating-up some nerds:

The Conservative alternative practically oozes testosterone -- boosted military spending for Afghanistan, reasserted northern sovereignty and tax cuts with specific benefits targeted at male-dominated trucking and trades.

Yeah, guns make stuff go boom! And only men drive trucks or work in the trades. Manly men. (Not to be confused with Manley men). Men’s men. Why, it’s a veritable stereotype jamboree from our friend Don.

I will give Don one point:

To have any hope of recapturing 'Y' chromosomes, Liberal insiders admit they'll need to successfully attack Mr. Harper on the government's ethical and economic shortcomings.

This is true. And given the laundry list of Conservative flip-floppery on maters ethical that should be easy. And Dion does need to get tougher. Kicking some ass in Quebec would be a good place to start.

Maybe some photo-ops with his dog. After all, Harper is a cat person. To lapse into lame Don Martin-like generalizations, dogs are manly pets. They practically ooze testosterone. Cats are girly and lame, eww. Men won’t support a cat guy.

But seriously, he glosses over Harper’s challenge though:

The key to a majority mandate for the Conservatives is to win over Metro Toronto women, Mr. Bricker notes...

Yeah, good luck with that one Steve. Not just women, but Toronto women? Just keep telling everyone Ontario sucks, keep reducing female clout in your cabinet, and keep ignoring female priorities and you’ll be fine.

I'm sure in some future column Don will devote some column inches to Steve's challenges there...

UPDATE: Thank-you to mrvnmouse in the comments for providing the numbers for female support, which are:

Women Con/Lib/NDP - 29/38/15

So, when Don says "Conservatives in a dead heat with Liberals among women voters nationwide" he means a nine-point Liberal lead. A dead heat Don, really? I see now why you didn't include those actual numbers in your piece.

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Taxes, schadenfreude, Americans, resignations, selective memories and the Queen

*Can’t buy a majority: According to the good folks at Decima, over the holidays the Conservatives gained a seven point lead in the polls. All they had to do was not be in the HoC or committee facing daily attacks, not have the opposition in the news, have no news stories on Mulroney and Schreiber or Lunn’s nuclear bungling or Afghanistan, get everyone sleepy from copious amounts of turkey, and force-feed them fawning year-end media interviews. And get lots of free advertising from TSN.

Oh, and spend billions more dollars cutting the GST by one point. Can’t forget that. In spite of everything, I’m starting to feel bad for Stephen Harper. He picks the week after Christmas for his big announcement, when things are slow and the media A team is on holiday, guaranteeing compliant coverage from the B team. He gets wall-to-wall fawning coverage of his tax cut, and still he can’t even scratch into majority territory on a temporary post-announcement blip.

OK, I don’t really feel sorry for him. I think it’s pretty funny actually.

*Schadenfreude: From the same polling story:

The latest poll contains plenty of bad news for the NDP.
The party -- which won a historic Quebec byelection in September and hopes to take more seats in the province -- sagged to eight per cent in Quebec. The Green party had nine per cent in the province.
It was almost as bad for New Democrats in Ontario. In that province, Liberals held a 40-37 lead over the Tories, while the NDP was at 12 per cent and the Green party was at 10.

What was that again about an orange wave, Jack?

*Americans: I can’t bring myself to get too interested or excited about the ongoing U.S. presidential primaries. For what it’s worth, I’m pulling for Obama. He’ll have a tough fight against Clinton, but he has a shot. I have to laugh at some of the media coverage the past few weeks though, by both our press and the American press, particularly around the New Hampshire results. They seem to be trying to spin Obama’s close second place finish as a major defeat; I guess because he pulled-out a surprise win in Iowa he was expected to run the boards. Now they’re casting Clinton as the comeback kid, because she barely managed to hold a state she once had a much bigger lead in, not to mention a lot more organizational muscle. And then there’s the tear-gate nonsense. The primary process is a marathon, not a sprint. Wake me up in a month or two.

*Resignations: MP Brian Pallister is quitting politics and won’t run in the next election. I was about to do a post on how this is another rat fleeing a sinking Liberal ship, another sign Dion is not a leader, and another sign a Conservative (or NDP) wave is about to sweep the country. Then I remembered Pallister is a Conservative, so it must just be family reasons and not a sinister conspiracy.

*National Compost: The editors at the Post are all indignant and up in arms today (not too unusual really), demanding justice in a story so ridiculous it doesn’t bare a full summary, and so much of a non-story you probably haven’t heard of it unless you read the Post or are a Conservative die-hard (all five of you). To the Post editors though, since they are obviously so concerned about this, they might want to go back and talk to their newsroom colleagues that were around in the late nineties, when the Post’s “investigative journalists” worked hand in hand with the Canadian Alliance, trying to bring down the Chretien government with the bogus crap pile of accusations known as Shawinigate. Did Post reporters ever leak information to the Alliance, to be used in QP, so they could then write about it in the Post? Umm, does a bear shit in the woods?

The Post today says: Name the guilty reporter, and let the public see what penalty has been meted out.

Actually, come to think of if, in the Shawinigate case justice was served. Chretien won another majority, Stock Day faced open rebellion in his caucus, and no one still reads the National Post.

*God save the Wii: Ending on a positive note, I enjoyed this story:

God save the Queen: She's now playing Wii

By GamePro staff
GamePro (online)

SAN FRANCISCO (01/07/2008) - Queen Elizabeth II is reportedly enamored with Nintendo's Wii.

According to a tabloid source close to UK's The People, The Queen is showing signs of becoming a "Nintendo addict" after getting her aging hands on her grandson's newly gifted Wii.

"When she saw [Prince] William playing a game after lunch at Sandringham... she begged to join in," the unnamed contact alleges. "She played a simple ten-pin bowling game and by all accounts was a natural... William was in fits of laughter. He was enormously impressed at having such a cool gran."

Since 2001, Her Majesty has regularly upgraded her cell phone before deciding on a Blackberry which she uses today. She sends email (queen@england.gov maybe?), listens to an iPod, and has seemingly turned into one of these.

I just have one point of contention however, and it’s with Prince William. He thought his Gran was cool for playing the Wii? I’d say having her face on all the money was already pretty cool, but that’s just me.

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