Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading...

- Tabatha Southey delivers a thoroughly entertaining smackdown of Stockwell Day's antics over the past week:

I mention all of this as context for my reaction to Stockwell Day’s press conference this week in which he explained that the government must spend $13-billion on prisons, despite statistics showing that crime is down in Canada, because of an “alarming” increase in “unreported crime.”

I'm having trouble sharing and understanding his particular personal vision. I'm not sure that prisons are a good “if you build it, they will come” investment.

In fact, I thought the Treasury Board President looked pretty crazy and scared. I felt like I was watching a man light himself on fire.
...
The strength of the Conservatives for so long was their ability to get inside the heads of ordinary Canadians. Lately, it’s as if they’re bored with that, so instead they are getting inside the heads of the most bashful of property-crime victims and some Cold War re-enactment enthusiasts.

- It's great to see John Rafferty's work on pensions getting some positive media attention. And while I'm less optimistic than Rafferty seems to be about the prospect of getting much done in a Con-controlled Parliament, it's definitely worth working getting C-501 passed to make sure that workers aren't left out in the cold when an employer goes under.

- I've mentioned before that it strikes me as entirely too narrow a focus to view the Cons' gutting of the census as merely a communications issue. But Bruce Anderson is still worth a read from that angle:

(T)he long-form-census debate is almost case-study worthy, as communications goes. Before the announcement, there was no effort to rally interest in the problem that the government felt needed to be addressed. The blow-back was predictable, but from the get go, it seemed that the government kept bringing rhetorical pen-knives to a gun fight.

After the blow-back became a source of political anxiety for the Conservatives, two or three different lines of argument were inflated and trial ballooned, none of which have soared. Net-net, the Harper Conservatives added a public-opinion risk with no reward anywhere in sight. If they wanted a debate about which party best respects your privacy, there is little evidence or prospect of this happening now. The more likely question vexing centrist voters is whether the Harper government prefers ideology over information as a way to make decisions with their money and about their services.

- Which is why the Cons may want to take another look at the Chronicle Herald's suggestion:

In the past month, while Mr. Harper has been largely unseen and unheard, the government has been anything but focused on the economy. It has stirred up a national backlash over replacing the mandatory long-form census with a voluntary one that will cost more and yield less reliable data on which to plan government services and make economic policy. It has expended energy talking "tough on crime" and arguing the need for more prisons even in the face of falling crime rates.

Although the PM has left his ministers to conduct an inept defence of both these diversions, the policies clearly come from his office and wouldn’t be getting their misplaced prominence if he didn’t want it that way.
...
Mr. Harper should accept the compromise he’s been offered on the census and get his attention back where he says it belongs: on economic management.

- Finally, while I've mentioned the Saskatchwan NDP's candidate nominations as they've happened, it's worth noting that the Sask Party has also been carrying out plenty of nominations. And their acclamation of Paul Merriman in Saskatoon Sutherland looks to reflect two of the party's major weaknesses: not only does the free ride for a familiar name play into concerns about connections mattering more than substance, but the fact that this is the second Sask Party-held riding where Wall and company couldn't even find a second interested candidate plays into the perception that they're little more than a Potemkin party.

The reviews are in

The Province takes note of the NDP's pension legislation that's making its way through Parliament, and gives it a thumbs-up:

The NDP portrays itself as the party of regular working people and for good reason.

The list of New Democratic Party initiatives for workers over the years is long.
...
(John Rafferty's C-501) proposes to change federal bankruptcy rules to give pensioners and laid-off workers of bankrupt companies "secured" creditor status.

As workers at distressed Canadian firms know too well, they are sent to the back of the line with other unsecured creditors and face ruined retirement years. This isn't the case in other countries where pensions are protected.

Rafferty's bill makes sense. It is only fair and just that people who have worked their whole lives receive a pension that has been promised, in the same way they received wages, medical coverage or other agreed-to benefits.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

On target audiences

BigCityLib asks whether the Cons can pass Garry Breitkreuz' bill to repeal the federal long gun registry. But the real question is whether or not they want to - and the answer to that still looks to be "no".

If the Cons' actual goal was to eliminate the registry, then their path to get that done would seem to be obvious. After all, NDP MP John Rafferty has already announced that he plans to introduce a bill to the same effect. Which means that if the goal was to actually pass a bill, the Cons would be publicly working with Rafferty to try to round up additional support in Parliament and in the public.

Instead, the Cons are conspicuously ignoring the fact that Rafferty is looking to reach the same supposed goal, refusing to mention any opposition MPs by name and suggesting that they'll generally be reluctant to vote to repeal the registry. Which should serve as a strong indication that their intention is something other than to actually get the legislation changed.

That's doubly so when one looks at Breitkreuz' bill. Rather than merely repealing the registry, it also sets up what looks to me to be a highly unusual requirement that the Auditor General evaluate all gun laws every five years - without the slightest indication as to why gun laws in particular should be subject to that kind of review.

At best, that can be seen as a cynical way to keep gun issues in the news even after the main irritant is removed. But the provision might be seen as a poison pill for opposition parties - or worse yet, as an excuse for somebody to stop the bill in its tracks as requiring the Auditor General to spend money reporting even if it otherwise enjoys enough support to pass.

In sum, the real danger isn't that C-301 will eventually pass (since the Cons have essentially rendered the registry useless anyway). Instead, the greatest risk is that it will allow the Cons to keep gun owners on their side and motivated even as Harper deliberately avoids acting on his party's promises. And if the opposition parties are on the ball, they'll find a way to get a poison-pill-free version of the bill through Parliament to shut down the issue.

Taking aim

NDP MP John Rafferty's announcement that he'll introduce a private member's bill to scrap the federal long-gun registry has received some comment from a policy perspective. But it's worth noting the political implications of the move as well.

Keep in mind that Harper's Cons have done everything they can to minimize the use of the registry as it now exists, adopting an amnesty policy which eliminates any consequences for not registering guns and thus ensures that the registry isn't current or comprehensive. So the actual utility of the registry is significantly lower than it would be if the current law was being enforced - and only gets reduced further with time as information in the registry gets further and further out of date.

Yet the Harper government has also conspicuously declined to do anything legislatively to deal with the registry - even during the period of time when the Libs were allowing the Cons to pass whatever legislation they wanted to. Which would send a strong signal that Harper wants to keep the issue on the table to keep rural ridings in his column as part of a push for a majority.

But what would happen if Rafferty's bill passed? Not only would the Cons lose their ability to hold the registry over its rural supporters, but they wouldn't even be able to take credit for the bill which changed the status quo. Which could only be bad news for the Cons' rural MPs who still rely on the registry as their main source of outrage against urban Canada and the other parties - and great news for the NDP in particular as it seeks to expand its own image and win back some ground in rural areas.

Of course, as long as the Cons stay in power they can at least try to take credit for any change by presenting a bill of their own before Rafferty's can work its way through Parliament. But all indications are that the Cons would prefer not to forfeit their feigned outrage over the gun registry if they can avoid it. And Rafferty's bill may thus serve a valuable purpose in forcing their hand.