Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- There's always been reason for skepticism about the pundit-class theory that the 2011 federal election should simply be deleted from the history books as an aberration. But Abacus provides a compelling example as to why the relative position of the NDP and Libs looks to be a longer-term phenomenon, as the NDP has broken the four-party impasse in support among younger voters which existed until the 2011 election.

- Of course, that leads nicely into Adam Radwanski's interview with Sasha Issenberg as to how to bring new voters into our democratic system:

Should we be looking at those as positive developments, in that they’re helping create a more engaged electorate?

There’s this instinct that people have when they see individuals reduced to data sets to think that it’s dehumanizing. In fact, the reality has been precisely the opposite. The reason turnout has gone up is that campaigns are making significant new investments in field work, often volunteer driven, that looks to talk to voters one-on-one.

We now have this body of experiments that shows person-to-person contact does something to turn a non-voter into a voter that no television ad can. Smart campaigns, and Barack Obama’s is the best example of this, are making the investments to create these types of interactions.

- Meanwhile, personal connections also figure to be the best antidote against high-volume misinformation campaigns - and the Cons' pollster of choice has been censured for contributing to just that against Irwin Cotler.

- Finally, Pat Atkinson comments on the Saskatchewan Party's moves toward privatizing nearly everything the province's Crown corporations actually do:

The most disconcerting part of this steady transfer of functions and assets away from these publicly owned companies is what is happening when it comes to disclosure to the legislature of the list of payees for each of the Crowns. For competitive reasons Crowns don't have to disclose contracts with private-sector businesses. These payee contracts are excluded from public reporting.
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This brings me back to ISC. While it is true there hasn't been an outright sale of any of the Crowns referred to in the legislation, there has been a steady erosion of these publicly owned companies. A number of functions that were once performed by the Crown sector have been transferred to private companies and a good bit of "our money" is leaving the province. Privatization is indeed underway, despite what the Wall government says.

Burning question

An even faintly ethical government, confronted with reprehensible behaviour that escapes any ramifications based merely on a technicality, might be expected to at least turn its mind to trying to fill in the gap.

Anybody want to take bets on who'll even waste their breath suggesting that the Cons could have enough interest in honest politics to consider the possibility?

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Duncan Cameron points out how the Cons are copying the Republican economics that have led the U.S. to ruin:

The Harper Conservatives model their economic policies on beliefs held dear by American Republicans: just lower taxes, and reduce government, and business will create the wealth.

With this approach, not only is income becoming less equal as the OECD just noted, Canadians and Americans are not becoming wealthier. The "give business a tax break" and the "let the invisible hand of the market do the rest" policies are not improving life for Canadians or Americans.
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There is a role for active government in creating wealth, working with trade unions and using knowledge invested in the workforce, and local resources to create new relationships between employers and communities.

Setting out performance criteria for business, taxing business income, and re-investing in businesses that create wealth in Canada is the way to go. Of course to get there is going to require a change in government, and a new approach by the next Canadian government. The American Republican growth model hold out little hope for a better future in Canada.

- No, it shouldn't be news that the Cons have no qualms about setting up shadow MPs to try to attack incumbents. But it's interesting to note that they're still trying the tactic when their previous efforts have failed so miserably.

- Lost in the midst of plenty of justified frustration with the Cons' climate-change obstruction and marginalization is a remarkable admission from Peter Kent:

Environment Minister Peter Kent has pledged to the United Nations that Canada won’t pull out of the Kyoto climate treaty during the final days of the Durban conference – but he refuses to rule out a decision to withdraw shortly after the global talks wrap up.

Asked about Canada’s rumoured withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, Mr. Kent said he assured the UN that he won’t unleash any “unfortunate surprises” before the end of the Durban conference Friday.

And we should be entirely willing to echo Kent's view that it would be both unfortunate and surprising for a country of Canada's stature to simply tear up an international agreement on climate change - particularly as Kent plans to do exactly that later this month.

- Finally, if we didn't have enough reason to worry about the Saskatchewan Party's financial mismanagement, surely the revelation that the Premier apparently can't make ends meet on his publicly-funded salary (and thus need to take taxpayer-subsidized dollars from his party as well) should raise some concerns.

Parliament In Review: June 16, 2011

While June 16 was a shortened day due to the NDP's weekend convention, it wasn't lacking for a few notes of interest.

Issue of the Day

While the Cons took the opportunity to serve notice of their intention to impose back-to-work legislation at Air Canada, the NDP's focus on pensions offered an ideal response - encapsulated in Jack Layton's question which of course received a typical non-response from Stephen Harper:

The government should not be getting involved so early on in the process and picking winners. The workers are currently fighting to protect their pensions. They do not have a choice, because the government did not do what was necessary to strengthen and protect the retirement pensions of workers here in Canada.

Why does the government want to impose a pension model that leaves people to fend for themselves?

Meanwhile, the Cons seem to have somewhat anticipated the issue, using one of their members' statements to criticize the NDP for having an interest in improving the Canada Pension Plan. No word yet on their progress in excising all references to Jim Flaherty proposing exactly the same thing.

Cooperation Runs Amok

The day saw several outbreaks of civility in various forms - including a round of mutual back-patting on the mega-trials bill which all parties agreed to pass, and Elizabeth May asking a question to enable Irwin Cotler to finish a speech which got cut off. But the spirit may have gone a bit too far in a round of "points of order" which were nothing of the sort in response to the news of an Air Canada settlement.

In Brief

Within the debate on the mega-trials bill, Joe Comartin took the opportunity to point out the Cons' habit of trotting out the same victims of crime on multiple occasions in support of legislation they themselves kept from passing. Peggy Nash introduced a private members' bill against animal cruelty. And the Cons offered some signal as to how they plan to deal with the NDP's ascent to Official Opposition status: by simply whiting out "Liberal" and replacing it with "NDP" in repeating their stale attacks.

On hiring practices

It's probably not surprising to see the NDP taking a look at staffers from defeated Bloc and Lib MPs to ensure that constituency offices have at least some experienced hands (while also allowing for some new blood). But it's a bit more noteworthy that at least one Lib MP is actively supporting that process:

NDP Whip Yvon Godin (Acadie-Bathurst, N.B.) said he sees nothing wrong with the recruits from Quebec, many with no experience in politics, hiring assistants from either Bloc Québécois, or Liberal ranks.

"It could happen that you take one of the other team, they have experience, and they work together with some other people," Mr. Godin told The Hill Times. "It's always a possibility, but it's not up to us to make that decision, the Members that hire the person, they have to live with that person."

The prospect of the NDP recruiting experienced Bloc Québécois staff in the vast majority of ridings the party swept in the province, rural and Québec City ridings outside Montreal and even within the city, could add to the difficulties the Liberal party faces as it attempts to rebuild with a base of only 34 seats in the House of Commons.
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With the NDP in need of roughly 220 new political staffers to support its...Quebec caucus, Mr. Godin said the new MPs may turn to experienced Bloc Québécois staff, and, to an extent, Liberals looking for work in the Montreal area, as the NDP beefs up rapidly for the 41st Parliament. The first session could begin as early as May 30.
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One of the seven Liberals in Quebec who survived the May 2 vote massacre, Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler, told The Hill Times the NDP should also reach out to Liberal assistants who will soon be out of work.

"I would like to think that they might look to some of the people from the Liberal party," Mr. Cotler said. "For example, Marlene Jennings [defeated by the NDP in Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine] had a great executive assistant, why wouldn't the NDP say, 'Look, here's a good person, he could help out.'"

Mr. Cotler went further, saying he intends to contact Mr. Godin to make the case for the young Liberals now helping their former MPs pack up their offices, and offered his own assistance to the flood of New Democrats coming in.

Of course, it's natural that Cotler and other Libs would be concerned with making sure that the staffers they've come to know over the past few years would find another opportunity in the wake of a change in political winds. And Cotler deserves credit for making a public appeal to ease them into new positions.

But it surely can't escape notice that the recruitment of staffers from other parties may have a couple of other consequences: not only will they end up contributing their talents to the NDP's efforts leading up to the next federal election, but their arrival will also figure to build links between the parts of federal parties which have been under different umbrellas in the past. And both of those results would figure to strengthen the NDP's hand as it builds its Quebec presence over the next four years.