New column day

Here, expanding on this post about New Brunswick's failed attempt to become a corporate tax haven - and why Brad Wall's attempt at a similar scheme for Saskatchewan is similarly doomed.

For further reading...
- Again, the outline of Shawn Graham's scheme to win over corporations as a tax haven is found in Daniel McHardle's report. And CBC reported on the eventual demand from the New Brunswick Business Council to reverse the cuts (which, like Wall's, seem to have been purely the product of government ideology rather than any meaningful analysis or consultation).
- Statistics Canada has provincial GDP numbers here (CANSIM table  379-0030), showing New Brunswick's stagnation after Graham's 2009 announcement. And Heide Pearson reported on New Brunswick's population drop in the most recent census.
- Finally, Alex MacPherson's report on multi-million-dollar payments to CEOs in Saskatchewan's slumping resource sectors offers yet another example of how the people at the top never seem to sacrifice when everybody else is told to pitch in.

New Brunswick Goes to the Polls

We've finally reached election day in New Brunswick, with plenty of potential for some highly interesting results as little seems to have been decided so far. Most of the projections have the NDP at 1 or 2 seats, with the main question being whether the party is able to build on its momentum from this year's campaign or whether a past trend of losing support late in the campaign continues. But nbpolitico has a full list of ridings which are particularly worth watching from the NDP's perspective:

The NDP is in play in somewhere between 2 and 4 ridings (Tracadie-Sheila, Nepisiguit, Bathurst and Tantramar) according to my analysis. They may also be in play in Saint John Harbour, Saint John East and Fredericton-Silverwood, though my analysis says no.

Note that nbpolitico has also modeled a series of "surge scenarios", leading to a fascinating set of possible outcomes.

Of course, there's still a day's worth of GOTV efforts to determine who will win out in the end. And we'll look forward to finding out whether voters are frustrated enough with a campaign of wilful self-delusion from the Graham Libs and Alward Cons to give the NDP an unprecedented presence in New Brunswick's legislature.

(Edit: updated link.)

Beyond the echo chamber

It remains to be seen how the rest of New Brunswick's election campaign will play out - and particularly whether either the Libs or the Cons will try (however implausibly) to adopt a theme of responsible management for themselves. But for now, it's hard to imagine the NDP's chosen message fitting more perfectly into the broader campaign.

So far, even the national media is dumbstruck at the Graham/Alward bidding war for votes in a province whose fiscal mismanagement already looks to raise some serious long-term issues. But rather than following suit with its own package of baubles, the NDP is not only promising to hold the line on taxes but even highlighting practical ways to save hundreds of millions of dollars without affecting program delivery.

Which means that New Brunswick's citizens have an obvious choice other than to keep voting for the same old empty promises and irresponsible government. And if enough voters learn that they do have that option, then what already looks to be a potentially historical breakthrough for the NDP may get even bigger.

Update: The Chronicle Herald seems to agree.

Thursday Morning Links

- If there's anything surprising about the latest federal fund-raising numbers, it's how little has changed over the past few years. While the Cons are hopefully seeing a drop in their receipts over the past couple of months, there seems to be little indication that any party's fund-raising capacity has changed meaningfully since the Cons took power - which is particularly telling for a Lib party which perpetually seems to be almost ready to adapt to a grassroots-based fund-raising model.

- The New Brunswick NDP looks to be doing an excellent job focusing public attention on both the Libs and Cons in that province for a stunningly slimy move to pass an increase to MLA salaries and pensions (among a pile of other legislation) at a time when a flood prevented any recording of the goings-on in the legislature.

But if I have any criticism of the NDP's strategy, it's that the party's sights are set so low in what may be its most visible issue campaign. After all, while it's true that it would only have taken one NDP MLA to keep bills from being forced through, surely it's for the best to elect many more MLAs who won't be inclined to play along with such abuse of democratic procedure - and with the NDP's polling numbers in the mid to high teens, there would seem to be a strong chance of doing just that.

- David Eaves' takedown of Stephen Taylor and other Con spokesflacks is well worth a read:

(F)or Conservatives the whole reason for getting rid of the census was that it was supposed to curtail big government. Stephen Taylor - Conservative blogger and cheerleader - says as much in his National Post Column. The beginning of the end of the Canadian welfare state. What was his line? "If it can’t be measured, future governments can’t pander." It took about 9 days to disprove that thesis. A $5.1-billion dollar a year increase to create prison capacity for a falling crime rate is the case in point. Turns out even if you can't measure it you can still do something about it. Just badly.

This isn't the end of big government. It isn't even the end of pandering governments. It's just the beginning of blind government.

- Meanwhile, QMI is predictably carrying the Cons' water on the census issue like to many others, push polling about how respondents would treat "questions that you considered to be very personal and embarrassing" without pointing to any evidence that such questions exist. So let's make it clear: if there were any questions on the long form whose embarrassment factor could possibly jeopardize the results, the Cons wouldn't have had to fabricate them.

- Finally, PostMedia reports that while the Cons' vandalism in government isn't the kind that can be prosecuted, their electoral book-cooking may yet result in charges.

Short-sighted

Shorter Tim Powers:

It's madness - MADNESS, I say! - for a province to sign away control over its own ability to set long-term policy in exchange for a single lump sum payment. That is, unless it's Jim Flaherty handing out the money.