Monday Afternoon Links

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- I don't entirely agree with Andrew Coyne on his observations about the Cons, at seems to me they've done plenty in pursuit of their easily-identified ideological position - even if it's normally been supported enough by the Libs not to set the two parties apart. But it's difficult to argue with his conclusion as to what happens when brokerage politics gets taken to its extreme:

The consequence of all this realpolitik, oddly, is more or less to make politics extinct in this country, or at least redundant. The forms are maintained, the rituals are observed, but without purpose or urgency, the kind that motivates activists and inspires voters. To be perfectly clear: absolutely nothing is at stake in Canadian politics. There is no clash of visions, no conflict of values, because neither party has any. Nothing is riding, therefore, on the outcome of any election. It simply does not matter who wins.

Well, it does, but not in any way that is relevant to the voter: that is, whatever policies a given party or leader might enact after the election, in response to whatever random events or pressure groups, they must remain an impenetrable mystery before the election, or indeed at any time until the moment they are enacted. The analogy here would be with the stock market: it obviously matters what stocks you own, but you’ve no way of knowing how they will perform in advance. You might as well pick them at random. Likewise, I defy anyone to predict what the Conservatives—or Liberals—would do on any given issue. Certainly nothing they say or do beforehand should be taken as evidence of anything. Therefore no one who is not actually paid to follow politics should pay it any serious attention. It is not worth your time, except as a diversion.

I admit I have been as reluctant to admit this as anyone. My whole career has been based on the proposition that somewhere, under all the insults and lying and general bad behaviour that makes up the bulk of political life, there was some genuine issue at stake: that if you could just strip away the politics, you would eventually get to the policy. It has taken me all these years to understand that, no, it’s just politics all the way down.

- Dennis Gruending weighs in on the Cons' unilateral Afghanistan extension:

Polling since 2007 has shown consistently that international public opinion is largely opposed to the war in Afghanistan. Even a majority of respondents in seven out of 12 NATO member countries want troops withdrawn as soon as possible. In Canada, an Angus Reid poll conducted in October 2010 indicates that 55% of Canadians oppose our involvement in the war, while only 35% support it, the lowest level of support recorded by the poll in question in the past two years. Among Canadians, 34% have “strong opposition” to involvement in the war, three times higher than the number in “strong support”, standing at only 11%. Our government does not see this popular opposition as something that should be heeded. It is perceived rather as a public relations problem that should be met by attempts to manipulate us.

- Anybody want to change the odds on how much federal infrastructure money will get spent before the Cons' March 2011 deadline?

- Finally, having managed to goad the opposition parties into restricting the use of ten-per-centers, the Cons and the Canadian Taxpayer Federation are now apparently looking to build similar outrage about the use of in-riding mailouts. But in case there was any doubt what the real goal is, the far more costly federal communications spending that's entirely controlled by the Harper government is once again being ignored.

On evidence-free assertions

Bob Runciman is searching for some excuse for using public money for the Cons' political purposes. But before anybody takes his indignation too seriously, let's note that he's using the excuse that "everybody does it" before checking to see whether anybody actually has:

Loveys said this type of partisanship was unheard of before the Harper government came to power.

But Runciman isn't so sure.

He said the government will be checking to see if Liberal senators have done the same in the past.

Now, it's noteworthy enough that it's "the government" - and apparently not Runciman himself - who will take on the task of actually checking whether there's any truth to the theory that the Cons are simply doing what the Libs would have done before. And that should say plenty about who's actually pulling the strings when it comes to the mailout.

But the more remarkable part of the statement is that Runciman apparently has no qualms about using "as far as we know, they could have done it too" - presented without any effort to see whether or not it has any basis in reality - as a catch-all defence which justifies any action which might benefit the Cons. And while the standard of ethics shouldn't come as much surprise, it's surely something we should be looking to change - regardless of where it originates.

On communication resources

As promised, let's follow up on the MP expense numbers released last week with a closer look at who spent what - and how it fits into the larger picture of public spending on political messaging.

For that purpose, I've put together a quick spreadsheet dividing up listed MP expenses for 2009 by party affiliation. If anybody wants to double-check my data entry or play around with the results, I'll be happy to pass along the raw data (which looks to be a few hundred dollars off the disclosure summary on householder totals, and within a cent on ten percenters).

Here are the party expenses for householders and ten percenters for 2009, along with the percentage of the total expenses in each department by party. The percentages won't correlate perfectly due to the difference between the householder numbers used and the total taken from the official summary, but the broad trends should be fairly clear.

Party	Householder $	Householder %	Ten Percenter $	Ten Percenter %	Overall $	Overall %
Cons	$2,085,664.82	45.4%	$6,410.979.65	63.0%	$8,496,644.47	57.5%
Libs	$1,173,004.97	25.5%	$1,450,559.81	14.2%	$2,623,564.78	17.8%
Bloc	$702,598.97	15.3%	$1,033,958.73	10.2%	$1,736,557.70	11.8%
NDP	$628,928.64	13.7%	$1,287,209.52	12.6%	$1,916,138.16	13.0%

So even in the types of materials available to all parties in Parliament, the Cons have been using up a disproportionate share of the resources put into political messaging. And indeed the above suggests that eliminating ten percenters out of an MP's riding was a smart short-term move by the opposition - though I remain unconvinced the opposition parties shouldn't have instead done more to use the medium themselves.

But wait, there's more! The picture is even more galling when one takes into account the resources at the Cons' disposal as a government out of the $239,577,131 in total expenses generally amounting to actual or potential political communications spending for 2009:

Party Name	PMO/Cabinet	Advertising	MP	Party	Total	Total %
Cons	$67,600,000	$130,000,000	$8,496,644.47	$10,351,071	$216,447,715.47	90.3%
Libs	n/a	n/a	$2,623,564.78	$7,219,593	$9,873,157.78	4.1%
Bloc	n/a	n/a	$1,736,557.70	$2,742,215	$4,478,772.70	1.9%
NDP	n/a	n/a	$1,916,138.16	$4,998,192	$6,914,330.16	2.9%
Greens	n/a	n/a	n/a	$1,863,155	$1,863,155	0.8%

The above includes the PMO, cabinet and government advertising expenses which have been widely reported in recent days. And while I wouldn't disagree with the view that these amounts shouldn't be used for political purposes, they look to make for a vital part of the picture given how each have been used for direct political messaging by the Harper Cons.

Now, if I'm missing anything that could be included in the "funding for political messages" picture as analogous expenses favouring opposition messages (or otherwise providing a more complete view), I'm open to suggestions.

As the picture looks now, though, a party with 38% of the vote and 47% of the seats in the House of Commons is controlling over 90% of the public money used for political communications. And it actually has the chutzpah to be trying to raise popular outrage over the lone part of that funding which isn't thoroughly biased in the Cons' favour - because apparently Harper and company feel the need to push the number up to 93%97% by further eliminating any direct links between votes and funding.

All of which is to say that there's ample room to make a case that the real problem with public funding for political communications has nothing at all to do with the per-vote subsidy. And the Cons may want to be careful how much outrage they try to build lest it be turned back against their far more appalling amounts spent promoting themselves.

Update/edit: Joe has more on the printing expenses of the Cons' Saskatchewan MPs. And the above end number is fixed based on the Cons' own share of printing expenses - which would be the only factor left to offer any communication resources for the opposition.

Edit II - Fixed reversed columns in second chart.

On comparative costs

Following up on this morning's theme, there's been plenty of news about the Cons' waste of millions of dollars for political purposes through their MP expenses. But the MP and cabinet amounts look particularly appalling compared to the return on investment in funding for parties:

A Chronicle Herald analysis of the expenses shows that 47 of the top 50 spenders on "ten percenters" in 2009-10 were Conservative MPs.
...
The biggest spender on ten percenters last year was Conservative Alberta MP Brian Jean, who spent $116,423.43. Overall, MPs from all parties spent $10,182,707.71 on the mailouts.

Now, I'll plan to look at the numbers in more detail later on. But for now, suffice it to note that if we work downward from Jean's number and assume the Cons' 47 worst offenders averaged a little over $100,000 apiece in ten-percenter costs, then their expenses came in at roughly $5 million per year. And apparently the Cons have absolutely no shame about having spent that much.

Not coincidentally, $5 million is also approximately the amount of the NDP's annual subsidy as a party. So let's ask which looks like a better use of exactly the same amount of public money.

Is it a better investment to fund the entirety of the staffing, communications, research, policy development, organizational support and community engagement conducted by a national political party?

Or is the same amount better spent on nothing more than the mailing costs of junk mail from a third of the Cons' caucus?

On priorities

Shorter Tom Flanagan:

I can't believe the opposition actually worked to eliminate a public irritant rather than clinging to every available avenue for propaganda. Whatta buncha rubes, I tells ya!

On unknown outcomes

The most interesting note coming out of today's story on MP expenses may well be the impact of the oath of secrecy surrounding the Board of Internal Economy on other issues. In particular, it doesn't seem like any party was shy about declaring in advance that yesterday's meeting would deal with the issue of ten-percenters - but is there any way to actually find out what was decided other than to see whether there's any change in their distribution or content?

Burning question

Why is it that during the course of their Harper Holiday, the only Ottawa-based function which Con MPs can still find time for is to keep signing off on their perpetual blizzard of ten-percenters?

Burning questions

I'm not sure anybody else has asked a couple of questions about media treatment of ten-percenters in the wake of Sun Media's report yesterday. So let's raise them now.

First: is there any precedent for a Canadian political party making the content of its ten-percenters available in advance as a media story?

And more importantly as a practical matter, if Canadians are rightly annoyed by ten-percenters generally, then doesn't it only make matters worse to give the Cons free media space for the content of their partisan advertising to boot?

On self-absorption

Shorter Peter Goldring, Parliament's fifth-highest spender on ten-per-centers:

I have no opinion on whether allegations of anti-Semitism or outright lies about MPs' voting records might make for an unreasonable use of mailing resources. But dammit, any publication which might help the NDP to win my seat is by definition an affront to democracy.

Dangerous

Needless to say, yesterday's story on how NDP MP Megan Leslie managed to use ten-percenters to benefit artists in her riding makes it clear why the Cons and Libs have to see the NDP as a serious threat. After all, if Canadians start getting the idea that MPs can make valuable contributions to their own constituencies rather than serving solely as talking-point delivery devices, where will that leave them?

On conduits

With yesterday's whiff out of the way, let's move on to the more important issues surrounding ten-per-centers. In this post, I'll take a look at the strategic implications of the Libs or any other opposition party seeking an end to them, and follow up with another post on the principle of the matter.

At the outset, let's draw a distinction between three types of communication which are used by federal politicians to get their message out to the public. The first is government-based communication, which takes up by far the largest share of cost - and which, while theoretically neutral and limited to informing the public about federal programs, is bound to at least somewhat support the interests of the party in power. Of course, under the Cons this type of advertising has tilted as far toward partisan messaging as Harper and his party can get away with.

On the opposite extreme is party-based communication, which is at least nominally privately funded (though of course publicly-funded tax credits, rebates and subsidies play a significant role in their distribution) and by definition intended solely for the purpose of partisan advantage. There too the Cons are largely able to dominate the field due to their historical fund-raising advantage.

The third type is then MP-based communication, consisting of householders and ten-per-centers. In theory, this type of communication lies on the middle ground between the other two in terms of content and focus: it's naturally more partisan than government-purchased messaging, but in theory shouldn't be as much so as the material that parties purchase for themselves. (The "middle ground" theory does break down in terms of cost, but only because there's almost certainly less money spent on MP-based communication than the other extremes - which hardly seems like reason to focus on it as the most deserving of limitation.)

And most importantly, MP-based communication is also the type where the Cons have the least relative advantage in getting their message out: one could assume in theory that it should roughly reflect the proportion of seats each party holds in the House of Commons, but in fact the ten-per-center system as it stands is probably best seen as a potential equalizer between all of the parties in Parliament.

Mind you, it's probably true that the Libs have failed to maximize their use of the medium. But surely that can be seen as a problem worth fixing rather than an inevitability.

Indeed, it would seem obvious that the Libs and the other opposition parties are in fact best served defending the type of communication which theoretically allows them the best chance of countering the Cons' control over the federal government and their party-level fund-raising strength. But that fact likely hasn't been lost on the Cons as well - which may be one of the main reasons why the Cons have effectively turned the medium into a purely partisan one featuring their most odious attacks and lies.

For the Libs to attack the medium rather than the Cons' misuse of it then completely misses the point. Particularly with another reorganization in the books, the Libs should be eager to look for ways of spreading their message - not publicly demanding that they be silenced in one of the few formats they currently have available to make their case to voters in Con-held ridings. If anything, the Cons are probably doing Ignatieff a favour by not taking up his invitation, as any restriction on MP-based communication only means that the material available to Canadians will include more from the categories where the Cons are able to completely dominate the field.

Even if the Libs have no idea what they want to say for now, they surely can't believe that they'll ever get back to power without someday coming up with a message which they'll need to put in front of Canadians. And the more the Libs do now to limit their means of spreading any consistent theme later on, the more likely they'll make it that the Cons' message will continue to win out for far too long to come.

On misinterpretations

Note: See update below.

I'll go into more detail later about the strategic mistake behind Michael Ignatieff's demands on 10-per-centers. But before going down that road, it's worth noting that Ignatieff seems to have completely lost track of the issue he's supposed to be dealing with.

At the start of his letter, he alludes to the difference between householders and 10-per-centers, with the former presumably consisting of mailings from an MP to his or her riding, and the latter of mailings from an MP to another riding. Which seems to me to be entirely consistent with how the terms are normally used.

But how does one then make sense of Ignatieff's demands?

For that reason, I am urging you and the other members of the Board, to take the following steps:

1. Ten percenters should be limited to a Member's own riding;
2. The practice of ten percenter "regroupings" must be abolished; and
3. The name of the leader of the sending member's party must be included in any ten percenter and the leader must explicitly endorse the content of the product.

From what I can tell, if #1 was actually carried out as the parties actually understand the term "ten percenter", then the effect would be to abolish ten-per-centers entirely. Which would of course make the other two recommendations entirely moot.

More charitably, one can interpret "ten percenter" in the recommendations to actually refer to "householders". Of course, there's a reason why those terms are different: the "ten percent" wording itself is a reference to the proportion of a riding outside an MP's own which can be targeted with a mailing, such that it can't sensibly be applied to mailings within an MP's own riding. But at least one can then make sense of Ignatieff's demands if that's what his wording reflects: #1 would serve to abolish ten-per-centers as normally understood, while the latter two demands would place limits on the use of householders within an MP's own riding.

That would still raise serious questions as to whether we really want even more political communication to be focused on leaders rather than the connection between MPs and constituents. But it's particularly odd that one can't even get to that substantive issue without overlooking the fact that Ignatieff's letter utterly mangles the terminology used for MP mailings. And that might be taken as a sign that Ignatieff and his inner circle really don't understand just what it is that they're calling for.

Update: In comments, anonymous notes that while the controversy around ten-per-centers has generally involved their being sent into ridings other than the one held by an MP, there's no reason in principle why they can't similarly be sent into an MP's own riding. Which does mean that Ignatieff's set of demands makes at least some sense referring to ten-per-centers alone - though concerns about the content which might potentially go into an MP's own riding if ten-per-centers are limited to that audience seem rather far afield from the problems being raised now.

So, my mistake on that front. But as Ian notes in comments, there's still the substantive issue of the disconnect between MPs and constituents to be dealt with.

Update II: Should I be more or less embarrassed now that the National Post editorial board has made the same error? Yes, I'm thinking "more" too.

(Edit: fixed wording.)