Sunday Afternoon Links

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- I haven't dealt with the Libs' latest bloviations about the gun registry since it looks to represent just one more attempt to distract from the issues Canadians really care about in an effort to find an elusive wedge against the NDP. But Matt Gurney nicely highlights the anti-democratic nature of the Libs' position:

The long-gun registry vote, held late last September, was a nailbiter. A private member’s bill put forward by a Tory MP was very, very close to dismantling the (registry). The bill had earned the support of several Liberal and NDP MPs, mostly from rural ridings where the registry is deeply unpopular. Ignatieff ordered a whipped vote — he forced his MPs to vote as he wished them to or else face internal discipline. Layton permitted an open vote, and lobbied his MPs aggressively to vote the way he wanted them to. It worked. The registry survived by two votes.
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Layton has the right...to advocate for what policies he will. In taking a stand and persuading his MPs to vote with him, without threatening punishment for those who disagreed, the NDP leader showed true leadership and honoured Parliamentary tradition, where private member bills are settled by a free vote.

The private members bill was really a government bill by any other name, so the opposition has a fair point when they claimed that the Tories were abusing Parliamentary procedure to achieve partisan aims. But they weren’t alone in their maneuverings. The Liberals, by whipping the vote along party lines, broke with Parliamentary tradition and forced their members to vote against the wishes of their constituents. And yet they accuse Layton of being unprincipled on gun control.

Yet more proof that for the Liberals, the only principled vote is one that returns them to power.

- While the top-line results are typically receiving the most attention, perhaps the most telling part of Nanos' latest leadership polling is the utter failure of the Libs' attacks on the competence of Jack Layton and the NDP:

On the issue of competence the leaders' scores on April 23 were: (Change from April 21 in brackets.)

* Stephen Harper: 38.7% (+6)
* Jack Layton: 22.3% (+2.7)
* Michael Ignatieff: 11.2% (-5)
* Elizabeth May: 2.4% (-0.5)
* Gilles Duceppe: 4.6% (-0.9)

- While the Cons' embarrassing effort to shout down any inconvenient questioning surely reflects on the crowd which participated, it's particularly worth highlighting who it was that gave the orders - and who chose not to do anything about it:

A reporter tried to press Mr. Harper on, this asking whether he “really believed” that Ms. Young would not know Mr. Malik, who’s been in the public spotlight for decades due to scrutiny on him after the 1985 airplane bombing that claimed 329 lives.

But the Conservative Leader refused to answer this follow-up query, waiting as the crowd at the Coptic Christian Centre in Mississauga applauded and cheered him for about 60 seconds.

It’s the first time a Conservative crowd has purposely drowned out a reporter’s question of Mr. Harper during the 41st election campaign.

Encouraging were Tory staffers including Marc-André Plouffe, who before the campaign started was a senior adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Which is to say that the fault lies less with the crowd than if it had simply been a spontaneous outcry. Instead, it was Harper and his staff who went out of their way with an apparent strategy to shout down any tough questions - and that responsibility is particularly clear given Harper's failure to let Milewski do his job.

- Meanwhile, the Libs have been caught on tape with their own attempt to make sure other parties aren't able to get their message to voters.

- Finally, Points of Information leaks some of the ads you can expect as the campaign draws to a close.