Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday...

- Susan Delacourt rightly questions why any political party would work as hard as the Cons to tell Canadians not to bother participating in their democracy:

It's worth thinking about how we keep being told that participating in the country is a nuisance.

Canada's long-form census is now voluntary, not mandatory, just like our elections. In other words, feel free to throw that census form or ballot in the garbage can, and go back to whatever you were doing before that intrusive question was foisted upon you. And don't forget taxes. They too are annoying, if you listen to the political noise. Parliament -- that thing you elect -- just a place where people play games. The public service -- a burdensome obstacle. Is there anything about the civic life of this country that stands above insults from the political class?
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The politicians we've elected ought to stop pandering to this democracy-is-so-annoying stuff. It's not consistent with the praise that's repeatedly (and rightly) heaped on the Canadian troops, who sacrifice much for democratic ideals. It also assumes that people, other than the soldiers, are idiots.

The fact that folks got angry about Parliament being prorogued, about the mandatory census being scrapped, tells me that Canadian citizens are not stupid at all, and they don't like being called lazy or uninterested. Besides, practically speaking, insulting the electorate doesn't seem to be the best way to get people's votes.

- But not all the parties are that cynical. And Brian Topp nicely sums up the NDP's position going into the federal election campaign:

Mr. Layton is the most liked, respected and trusted national leader on the opposition bench. The New Democrats are working from the base of the largest caucus of incumbent MPs they've had in two decades. The New Democrats came in first or second in over a hundred ridings in the last election -- excellent room for growth. They will field the best-funded campaign in their history, led by a seasoned team who have worked together in three recent previous campaigns. Given that Mr. Ignatieff agrees with Mr. Harper on substantially all of the key issues before the country, Mr. Layton is, on the issues and in much of the country, the most credible alternative to Mr. Harper.

Which is to say that while Mr. Layton and his party weren't anxious to have this election, and worked seriously to see if Canadians could see some progress in this Parliament, they enter this campaign in excellent shape.

- Now the bad news: the federal election campaign will of course take place under #harperball rules (as per CC's astute idea). Read and contribute for reference during the campaign.

- Murray Mandryk notes that the Sask Party's budget yesterday may be falling into a familiar trap, with overly optimistic projections making it likely that today's promises will again turn into tomorrow's excuses:

Finance Minister Ken Krawetz's 2011-12 budget, presented Wednesday, was filled with pre-election, pie-in-the-sky nonsense, beginning with a predicted 4.2-per-cent increase in real gross domestic product when private forecasters are only predicting 3.9per-cent growth for 2011. Finance officials attribute this to early, more-pessimistic forecasts, but it should also be noted this economic growth number is based on an average crop year. Considering the 10 million unseeded acres last year and similar snowfall this year, that's overly optimistic.

Also overly optimistic is a mere 5.5-per-cent spending increase (to $10.7 billion) in the face of potential spring flooding problems and simply unsustainable spending initiatives. For instance, the budget sets aside a meagre $1.5 million for its 300 rental housing units under the Saskatchewan Rental Incentive Program. (Surely, there's got to be more here?)

And while credit should go to Krawetz and company for the $335-million debt paydown that will slice an additional $10-million worth of interest charges out of general revenue fund (departmental) spending, it's noteworthy that there will (sic) no more such debt reduction for the entire second term of the Sask. Party government (working on the logical assumption that this budget gets the Saskatchewan Party re-elected) and that Crown and overall debt will continue to rise. This government's policy of stripping dividends from all Crown corporations except SaskPower (to the tune of 70-to 90 per-cent this year) to pay for departmental spending and tax cuts is short-sighted. We inevitably wind up paying for it on our utility bills.

- Finally, from the "simple answers to simple questions" department, here's pogge's post title:

Remember the Afghan detainee docs?

Not if the Cons, Libs and Bloc have anything to do with it. This has been another version of "simple answers to simple questions".