The reviews are in

Lawrence Martin:

Mr. Harper's government is also the one that promised to breathe new democracy into the country but did the opposite, overcentralizing command in the Prime Minister's Office to a degree seldom seen. His Conservatives took attack advertising to new lows, even doing the cluster bombing between campaigns. They put out a 200-page dirty tricks handbook on how to disrupt parliamentary committees. They ran roughshod over the freedom of information process, even attempting to vet communications of independent officers of Parliament, the Auditor-General included. They've given us the Cadman affair, the so-called in-and-out affair, NAFTAgate, a fixed-election date that they unfixed, the use of a budget update to try to undercut opposition party financing, the attempted hamstringing of budget officer Kevin Page, gobs of patronage when they promised not to go that route.

If the Prime Minister thinks he can find a deity, any deity, who will be impressed with that show of morality, he is welcome to try.

On breaches of duty

So far, coverage of Peter MacKay's three-and-a-half-year long conflict of interest and ethics violation has at best hinted at what looks to me to be a significant part of the story.

MacKay's excuse for failing to disclose his involvement in his father's businesses is that he had flat-out forgotten that he was involved with them. But doesn't that mean he's admitting that he's been utterly negligent as a vice-president and director who would have owed the businesses a duty to look out for their interests? And is that really the profile of somebody who deserves to hold responsibility for a cabinet portfolio?

The reviews are in

Haroon Siddiqui:

(Michael Ignatieff) is like John Kerry in 2004, unable to shed the burden of having backed George W. Bush. Given the clarity of Canadians on much of post-9/11 politics, Ignatieff is even less likely to win as Harper Lite than Kerry could as Bush Lite.

This is made all the more relevant given the many domestic implications of the war on terror.

Ignatieff was mostly mute during the controversy over Suaad Hagi Mohamud. Her lawyer, Raoul Boulakia, told me that the Liberals under Ignatieff have been reluctant to touch any case that might turn out to be unpopular. "Once they hear the word security, they run for cover. They don't want to touch it."

That was precisely the problem with Kerry Democrats – cowed into silence on key issues when Americans were beginning to crave principled stands.

So we end up with the irony that while Barack Obama is Canadianizing America – health care, human rights, civil liberties, etc. – Harper is stuck in Bush's policies, and the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada cannot articulate a vision of Canada in tune with the times.

Out of harmony

Last week, I theorized that if each of the opposition parties stuck to its most obvious line of attack on the HST, then the Cons could find themselves losing votes from all sides. But my fears have been confirmed that the Libs would undermine that possibility as they have every other chance to mount a solid attack on Harper by trying to sell conflicting messages in the two provinces which the Cons have bought off:

While leader Michael Ignatieff has said little about the HST for national consumption, it's clear from the party material that Liberals are opposing introduction of an HST in B.C. -- which could be embarrassing given that their provincial cousins are behind it.

Their federal candidates have been instructed to refer to the tax as the "Harper Sales Tax" and to assert an HST won't work for B.C.'s economy, instead hurting growing sectors, specifically the service industry and tourism.
...
Should voters ask what federal Liberals themselves would do, candidates have been asked to tell voters that an Ignatieff government would not use a cookie-cutter approach to the HST. "We would be far more flexible in applying harmonization."

Candidates also have been told not to comment on comparisons with Ontario -- which announced its intention to harmonize its sales taxes last March -- because "they have different industries."

In other words, rather than taking any coherent stance whatsoever either for or against the HST, the B.C. Libs are taking up the line that they'd carry out harmonization differently without saying how, and pretending that the issue is somehow radically different between the two provinces which have gone through the exact same process this year. Which makes the Libs themselves look even sillier than the Cons with their "don't blame us, we just spent $6 billion to make it happen" stance to the extent the issue does get discussed.

But more importantly, the Libs' internally conflicting position will mean that both they and the Cons will have a strong incentive not to talk about the HST during the course of a campaign. And that in turn will all too likely ensure that one of the issues with the strongest potential to raise public ire against the Harper government (even among its core supporters) will be kept out of the headlines - which figures to hurt the Libs' interest as least as much it does the other opposition parties.

On demands

The Star reports on a rough outline of the NDP's position in dealing with the Cons this fall, with improvements to EI, pension protections and credit card fees as the three main issues being presented. But while there are some reasons why focusing on those issues alone might make sense, I wonder whether the NDP should be expanding its range of demands to better position itself for the campaign which is likely to follow anyway.

Let's start off with the argument in favour of limiting the NDP's message. Of the three demands which have already been made public, two of them are already fairly well established as NDP issues: while the other opposition parties may have occasionally discussed pensions and credit card fees, it's the NDP that's generally recognized as leading the charge in trying to get anything done. And while all three opposition parties have seized on EI at various times, it's both a familiar theme for the NDP and a potential feather in the party's cap if it can somehow wring some concessions out of the Cons on an issue where the Libs tried and failed miserably.

So all three issues raised so far are identified with the NDP from its actions to date, and consistent with a platform based around the interests of working Canadians. And one can make the case that a party which doesn't tend to receive as many opportunities to make its case through the media needs to stick to its existing message to reinforce its position.

But I'd think there are far stronger considerations that might point toward raising some relatively new issues now to position the NDP for a fall campaign.

First off, the wave of outrage over the Cons' Senate patronage would seem to set up an opportunity for the NDP to paint an end to that type of action as part of its required change in course.

The most obvious opportunity on that front would be to publicly demand that the Cons work toward a mutually agreeable appointment to chair the Public Appointments Commission - a commission which was of course created through the Accountability Act, then thrown out the window once one of the Cons' party bagmen was rejected as chairman. My first thought was that somebody along the lines of Duff Conacher would be ideal as a compromise - though Conacher himself has probably been speaking a bit too much truth to power to win the Cons' approval now. But by coupling a demand to fill the position with an obviously non-partisan name, the NDP could put plenty of pressure on the Cons to live up to their past principles, and be able to position itself as the defender of those principles if the Cons reject the offer.

Likewise, at least a few promised provisions of the Accountability Act fell by the wayside as the Cons decided that improved access to information and other reforms didn't serve their purposes once they were in power. And by highlighting those issues now, the NDP can rightfully break them off from the Cons' brand and take up the cause of transparent, accountable government for itself.

As for other possibilities, I'd wonder whether the NDP's focus on areas covered by its private members' bills so far might unduly limit its ability to make the case as to what it would in fact do if given the chance to govern. There's no reason why the NDP's demands should be limited to areas which don't require government expenditures (as private members' bills are required to be) - and there would seem to be plenty of opportunity to request that money budgeted but not spent by the Cons be directed both toward more sustainable development and in a less partisan manner. In other words, the NDP should be taking a close look at its past platforms, not just its bills in Parliament, and looking for some relatively inexpensive but progressive items to fit into the current fiscal framework.

Finally, with the NDP also recognizing that its initiatives would require at least a few months to pass, some type of "no poison pills" term would also seem to be desperately needed, particularly on the off chance that Harper were to decide that he's better off snapping up the NDP's offer.

Again, the odds are that the Cons will summarily reject whatever the NDP brings to the table now anyway - particularly since their goal seems to be to place the onus back on the Libs to bear the brunt of responsibility for forcing an election. But even if that's the case, I'd think it's better for the NDP to ask for more now - such as to position itself as representing a broader range of interests, and to enable it to criticize the Cons as having rejected more good ideas later - rather than leaving open any room for argument that it aimed too low.

Win-win

I'll say this about the Saskatchewan Roughriders' decision to take a chance on a kick returner who's jawed, brain-cramped or fumbled his way off of half of the teams in the CFL (including the 'Riders) but seldom had trouble finding another one to take a chance on him: whatever the outcome, Jason Armstead's signing should put an end to any talk of improving the team's return game through outside additions.

If we get Armstead at his best, he's one of the few players with the speed to rattle off big returns even with mediocre blocking in front of him - so fans will have to be happy with him as the fix for this season.

And if we get Armstead at his worst, then whoever else the team puts back in the spot from its current roster (presumably Eric Morris) will look good enough by comparison to stop any questions for the rest of the year.

Deep thought

Boy, it must be embarrassing to be seen adapting or reusing slogans from past U.S. Democrat campaigns.

On double-edged swords

Don Martin seems to think the Cons are headed for a fall love-in between Stephen Harper and the previously-exiled Brian Mulroney. I'm not sure there's much reason to think that'll be the case - but as Murray Mandryk points out, that may carry at least as many costs as it does opportunities in terms of cementing a connection between the two:

(H)ow do old Reformers justify to themselves Harper's most recent Senate appointments? What do they say when they speak privately? How can they possibly disagree with Maclean's magazine columnist Andrew Coyne, who so aptly described these appointments as the "most obnoxiously partisan, disgustingly sycophantic choices" Harper could make?
...
These particularly partisan appointments jackhammer away at the the bedrock of old Reform principles that also demanded balanced budgets, prudent spending and an end to pandering to Quebec -- other issues from which Harper has parted ways.

It makes one wonder whether some old Reformers are now privately wondering: "Aren't we really right back to the days of Mulroney?"

Bob Rae: Liberals Haven't Done their Jobs for Two Years

Or at least, that's the implication of what he now says about what he wasn't elected to do:

"I didn't come to Parliament to vote for Stephen Harper, I wasn't elected to vote for a neo-conservative government," Rae told CTV's Canada AM.

And yet, that's of course exactly what Rae and the rest of his party-mates have done. Repeatedly. 79 times, one might even say. And all without a word of protest at the time.

But fortunately, Rae explains why he's now able to acknowledge the fact that he's spent his last two years doing exactly what he was elected not to do:

"I'm a member of the Official Opposition, Mr. Ignatieff is the leader and he's said we're not going to continue to support the government."

So apparently Rae is only allowed to point out the problems with Stephen Harper and his neoconservative government with the Lib leader's dispensation. And if Ignatieff himself has some Harper-like or neoconservative tendencies...well, Rae's own actions in propping up Harper under Iggy's orders tell us just how likely he'll be to do anything to counter them.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Reasons for disbelief

When a premier who's taken every step possible to avoid meaningful greenhouse gas emission reductions in order to prevent his province's oil industry from facing any consequences for its impact on the environment claims that we should avoid disrupting the equally-irresposible federal government's direction on climate change going into an international conference, it's probably worth taking that as evidence of just the opposite.

And when a supporter of a party whose leader declares tar sand development to be a national unity issue and says we can't reduce greenhouse gas emissions any more than the oil industry will let us criticizes another party as uncommitted to dealing with climate change, it's probably worth taking that too as evidence favouring the opposite conclusion.

Waiting for the miracle

A few Libs seem all too happy to use exactly the same kind of highly selective quoting and repetition of press spin against the NDP that they regularly decry when it's working against their party. So let's highlight the most important part of what the NDP in fact has to say, with the part of Joe Comartin's statement that they're leaving out:

"It's absolutely necessary that the Conservatives make some very important compromises," said the NDP MP. "If they don't change their economic policy, we won't be able to support them."

If there's been a change in the NDP's tone, it's in suggesting that there's some meaningful chance that the Cons might now consider governing more responsibly in order to stay in power where the Libs left them no reason to do so before. And I'll grant that the line taken by both Comartin and Thomas Mulcair is more optimistic on that point than I am: I'd think it would be better at this point to stick with the previous terminology that it would require a miracle for the Cons to do so and let them try to take steps to make it happen, rather than creating even the slightest space for a desperate Lib party to invent a narrative which casts the NDP as taking over the role the Libs have occupied for so long.

But the NDP's basic position that Con government in the form we've seen for the past three and a half years isn't acceptable remains the same - leaving only the question of whether Harper is willing to change how he governs in order to retain the ability to do so. And while it looks like the Cons prefer to put the onus back on the Libs to keep allowing them to govern without compromising at all, one can't rule out the possibility that a miracle will happen.

Update: Megan Leslie is closer to the right message (though I'd work on the example of what would have to happen for Harper's direction to change):

"We clearly haven’t supported the vision of the Conservatives. Absolutely," said Ms. Leslie. "But were there to be a huge change in that vision, who knows? I think there’s room to stop and think about what is best right now. But it’s the Harper vision that we can’t support. Who knows? Maybe he’ll fall on his head and have a new vision."

Update II: Apparently no miracle is forthcoming. Which is just fine: thanks to the Cons' over-the-top refusal to even talk about cooperating, the NDP both preserves its principled stance as the lone national party to vote against the Cons' government in practice, and wins the title of the only party willing to make any effort to make Parliament work to improve matters.

Simple answers to simple questions

Greg asks:

The Tories have a minority government and need the support of only one other party. Whether we have an election or not is up to the government's willingness to negotiate with other parties, not the Liberals. The Liberals alone have no ability to bring down the government. Why won't they work with the other parties in parliament to avoid an election?

Because after three and a half years of staying in power by bulldozing weak opponents as part of a hyperpartisan strategy rather than compromising even once on anything of substance, they flat out don't know how to "work with" anybody. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

Time for a reminder...

I for one recall something about an opportunity to replace the Cons with a less toxic government without an election until at least 2010. Can anybody remember which party it was that decided leaving the Cons in power would somehow be more stable?

On revelations

So apparently the Libs have figured out that it's entirely legitimate to judge a government on its body of harmful work rather than waiting to read the text of the Cons' latest attempt to cling to power first. And good on them for coming around to the NDP's longtime position.

But here's the problem: the same standard of judging a party by its full track record rather than merely its latest public facade applies equally to the Libs. So how do they plan to get off the hook for having to eat two years worth of excuses for propping up the Cons?

Update: Lest there be any doubt, there's indeed plenty of reason for skepticism as to whether or not the Libs will follow through on their bluster for a change. But even if they don't, they have plenty to answer for in going from their "no reasonable party would declare non-confidence in advance!" line to doing just that.

Update II: HUD has the early lead in providing the best explanation for the Libs' change of tune.

On business inputs

In comments here, I noted what strikes me as the underlying philosophy behind the the HST and other efforts to shift the cost of taxes from businesses to citizens. But it's worth going into a bit more detail as to just how bizarre the distinction may be.

Just so there's no doubt what type of goods will be covered by the HST, here's the Campbell government's attempt to get restaurants onside despite the increase on taxes for their customers:

For example, a restaurant will no longer pay sales tax (PST) on products which are considered business “inputs” under HST such as:

* fridges, stoves, freezers, dishwashers and other appliances
* energy for heat, cooking and operating equipment and lighting
* cleaning supplies, such as rags, soaps and cleaning solutions,
* cash registers, computer hardware and software
* equipment repair and maintenance services
* paper towels and toilet paper
* customer food bills and menus
* cloth napkins, table cloths, tray covers and placemats
* pots, pans, kitchen implements and knives
* plates, bowls, glasses, cups, other reusable dishes, and cutlery
* coffee machines, blenders, mixers and other small appliances
* free‐standing equipment such as juice dispensers, ice machines and coolers
* office equipment, supplies and furniture,
* advertising materials, such as flyers and brochures
* items purchased to give away as free promotions

Note that the majority of the items which the Campbell government brags about making tax-free for restaurants are also items which are used regularly for home purposes. So let's ask the question which seems to have been utterly ignored by the HST's proponents: is there actually any basis in principle for treating those items differently based on whether there's a profit motive involved?

Is there an obvious reason to consider keeping a home clean and well-maintained to be "consumption" to be accounted for as a negative externality when it's merely done for the benefit of family, friends and unincorporated groups, but a "business input" if some clients might also stop by? And if so, what does that say about the value we place on providing for one's home and family?

Is there in fact some real economic benefit to taxing the price of a computer which will be used for non-profit purposes including a blog without ads, while treating a blog with ads (and thus some theoretical claim to potential profit) as a business which entitles the computer's purchaser to a 12-13% rebate?

Is there a particular reason why it's considered taxable consumption to merely raise children, but a tax-creditable business enterprise to raise them for export?

Okay, the analogy likely breaks down at some point. That said, it still seems that the starting point has to be that a good purchased and consumed is a good purchased and consumed. And some hint of an underlying profit motive on its own hardly looks to be justification for overriding the considerations underlying consumption taxes.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the HST debate to date has involved the least bit of scrutiny toward the premise that businesses ought to be treated more favourably than mere citizens.

Which itself seems to reflect a trend which deserves to be pointed out more than it has been. While some mention has been made of the effort to convert Canadians from seeing themselves as involved citizens to identifying themselves primarily as consumers defined by what they own, the push seems to be on toward the next step: a country of 33 million independent consulting firms seeking to maximize profit at every turn, with the mere consumers in our midst punished for their lack of interest in becoming capitalists with higher taxes.

Of course, if the HST does end up spreading from coast to coast to coast, there will be ample reason for Canadians to make just that switch for tax purposes. But is it ultimately a plus for us to be judged as possible profit centres first and foremost, while activities which can't be classified under that heading are subject to relative tax disincentives? And isn't it worth at least having the discussion in some detail before the tax system is shifted even further toward putting profits first?

Logical connections

Let's take Michael Ignatieff's "life support" line to its logical conclusion.

Harper government : Liberals : New Democrats :: Terri Schiavo : Republicans : Democrats

Now we just need to make sure that the Libs meet the same reward as the Republicans for their bedside manner.

(Hey, if it's not too soon for Kennedy jokes...)

Someday, this could all be ours...

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

After decades of national debate over what to do with spent nuclear fuel, and with no resolution in sight, the Kewaunee nuclear power plant in northeastern Wisconsin finally ran out of storage space inside the plant.

So over the past week, Kewaunee workers have begun storing radioactive waste in casks on the grounds of the reactor, a short distance from the shores of Lake Michigan.

After a practice run a few weeks ago, workers moved spent fuel into the first of the 25-ton, 16-foot-long casks and then transferred the cask into a concrete vault outside the building Aug. 22, said Mark Kanz, spokesman for the Kewaunee Power Station. A second cask was transferred Thursday.
...
The dwindling storage space in the spent-fuel pool inside the Kewaunee plant was among the factors that led Wisconsin utilities to sell the reactor to Dominion several years ago. Dominion then proceeded with plans to build the dry-cask storage system and applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep the plant running until 2033.

Point Beach experienced a brief fire during a spent-fuel transfer attempt in 1996. The hydrogen fire inside one of the casks produced enough force to blow a 3-ton lid 3 inches into the air. That incident resulted in an investigation and a $325,000 fine against Wisconsin Electric, which owned the plant at the time.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission later required Wisconsin Electric, which now operates under the trade name We Energies, to use a different kind of storage container for the used but still radioactive nuclear fuel.

Some Wisconsin environmental groups have been critical of nuclear power in part because of the onsite storage of radioactive waste on the grounds of the two plants.

Iggy said it, not us

I'd point out that it's really been for two years, but otherwise Michael Ignatieff seems to be coming to terms with the role his party continues to play:

“We've kept this government on life support for 10 months. It's important to remember that,” he said at his news conference.

Indeed it is - particularly when it comes time to decide who can be taken seriously in saying they're prepared to offer a better alternative.

Another slap in the face

Shorter Maria Minna, trying to deflect criticism of the Libs' $550/plate Sudbury fund-raiser in the midst of a lengthy and bitter strike at Vale Inco:

I'm shocked the little people aren't grateful that we're trickling down all over them.

Burning questions

Since Deficit Jim Flaherty has fallen in line with the Cons' attempt to deny responsibility for sales tax harmonization at the same time as David Akin has released the Cons' latest spending figures, now seems like a perfect time to put the stories together by asking the Finance Minister to answer the point I raised here.

Namely, how much of the Cons' $69 billion in announcements since last fall didn't involve a decision by any other party? And when can we expect the Cons to publicly retract their attempt to take credit for the rest of it?

Unobstructed

I mentioned in an earlier post that if Stephen Harper cared in the slightest about ensuring that the Senate didn't stand in the way of the will of Canadians as expressed through the most recent election, then he'd have made sure that his appointees committed to working with all future governments rather than appointing a set of Con hacks. But let's take another look at the implicit assertion that the current makeup of the Senate has affected the passage of government bills in the first place.

Fortunately, we can start with LegisInfo's handy list of bills which passed one chamber but not the other. Since the list doesn't consider bills in the current session which could still pass in the second chamber, the most recent bills listed are ones from the 2nd session of the 39th Parliament - but that timing should only help the Cons' claim since it reflects a Senate composed of a higher proportion of Libs than the present one.

But not surprisingly, the Cons appear to have awfully little to complain about. The bills which passed the House but not the Senate included 8 private members' bills and only 2 government bills - meaning that Jack Layton, Nathan Cullen, Dan McTeague and Nicole Demers have at least as much justification as the Cons for concern about their democratically-passed bills getting bottled up.

So what were the rare examples of government bills which didn't get through the Senate? Bill C-10 from 2007 was rushed through the House of Commons in a single day - resulting in serious issues such as film censorship provisions being completely unaddressed. Let's grant that this counts as maybe the sole relevant example of the Senate delaying the passage of a government bill. But if there was ever a point where the Senate would be justified in putting the brakes on a bill in the interest of some sober second thought, that would have to be it.

Meanwhile, Bill C-29 took nearly eight months to pass in the House of Commons before finally making its way to the Senate on June 17, 2008. Since the Senate only sat for a grand total of two more days before the summer break, it can hardly be blamed for the fact that the bill didn't manage to get any further - particularly when it was the Cons who chose to halt the bill's progress at that point in order to try their luck at the polls.

What about the Cons' bills from the previous session (39th Parliament, Session 1)? There, the list of government bills which passed the House but not the Senate is somewhat longer - but the path taken by those bills once again thoroughly undercuts any claim that the Senate was responsible for holding up bills agreed to by the democratically-elected chamber.

Starting from the top of the list of bills considered last by the Senate...
- Bill C-51 passed the House four days before the Senate's summer break;
- Bill C-22 spent a month and a half in the Senate after taking nearly a year to pass the House of Commons;
- Bill C-33 reached the Senate the last week before the summer after needing 8 months to pass the House of Commons;
- Bill C-23 took a year to pass the House of Commons, and reached the Senate only a week before the summer recess;
- Similar patterns applied to C-10 (introduced May 4, 2006 and only reached the Senate on May 29, 2007) and C-35 (introduced November 23, 2006; reached the Senate June 5, 2007). (Which, as the Libs note is a pattern which the Cons are repeating with more recent bills).
- About the only exception was C-62, which passed through the House on a single day in June 2007 and theoretically could have made it into law if the Senate had acted equally quickly. But based on the fact that the bill still didn't arrive until shortly before the summer recess, that would presumably have required unanimous consent in the Senate, not merely a majority.

And of course, it was again the Cons who pulled the plug on those bills in the Senate by opting for prorogation.

In sum, then, the Cons can point to a grand total of one government bill where delay caused by the current party standings in the Senate could have affected their ability to implement legislation approved by the House. Which hardly seems like a compelling impetus for not just breaking but downright eviscerating what was supposed to have been a firm campaign promise based on the founding principles of the party which first launched Harper into Parliament.

Meanwhile, there's also the future of the Senate to look at. And the fact that Harper has obviously made loyalty his top priority in Senate nominees suggests that it may not be long before exactly the problem which the Cons are falsely claiming to want to solve becomes a reality for the next government.

After all, if the current Con caucus in the Senate sticks together and continues to take orders from Harper or another leader equally determined to press every potential political advantage with no regard for democratic principles, then a Con majority created by the next wave of Harper appointments would figure to have no more regard for the will of the majority of the House of Commons than...well, Harper himself when it's proven inconvenient. And the fact that Harper's current rhetoric ties any talk about democratically-elected governments to his personal "agenda" should provide yet one more hint that when push comes to shove, his appointees will be instructed to put the Cons' political interests ahead of any commitment to respecting the will of the democratically-elected House.

So Harper's patronage appointments look far more likely to create a roadblock to the implementation of legitimate legislation in the future than they are to resolve any meaningful difficulty in getting bills passed now. Which should make it clear that they have nothing to do with "evening out" the legislative process, and everything to do with tightening the Cons' grip on Canada no matter how many of their promises and principles they have to discard in the process.

On their side

If there's any element of the right-wing self-image that fits even less with the facts than their claim to responsible financial management, it's their attempt to be seen as consumer-friendly by...every so often declaring that businesses could consider doing better without government action. And Michael Geist points out just who it is that the Cons side with when they have the choice:

Last week I discussed the well-known challenge faced by millions of Canadians as they sort through a myriad of cellphone pricing plans in a marketplace still lacking in robust competition.

Previously unreported, however, is that Industry Canada officials identified the same problem and worked for years to develop an online tool to address it.

After spending tens of thousands of dollars creating and testing an online calculator designed to help consumers select their ideal wireless plan, Industry Minister Tony Clement killed the project weeks before it was scheduled to launch.

Government records suggest intense lobbying this spring by Canada's wireless companies, who feared the service would promote lower-cost plans, played a key role in the decision.
...
The focus groups' response to the cellphone cost calculator was positive, with the vast majority of participants indicating they would use the tool and encourage friends and family to do the same.

Yet just as Industry Canada was set to launch the tool, the major wireless carriers began lobbying against it.

According to lobbyist registration records, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and Bell Canada met with officials from Clement's office on April 8, with the association listing telecommunications regulation and consumer issues as the topics of discussion.

Two weeks later, Telus also met with the same officials to discuss consumer issues.

The carriers were apparently concerned that the tool only covered voice services and was geared toward lower-priced plans.

Sensing that Clement was facing pressure to block the calculator, Canadian consumer groups wrote to the minister, urging him to stick with it.

Despite months of preparation, thousands of dollars in taxpayer expense, the creation of an effective tool and the obvious benefits for lower-income Canadians, Clement nevertheless killed the project.

So never mind the market forces which the Cons normally claim to want to apply, nor the obvious value of providing more and better information to Canadians than carriers would provide themselves. Instead, Tony Clement apparently fully supports the telecoms' view that lower-income Canadians should pay more for their cell-phone plans than they would if they knew what options actually existed. Which should make it clear that when it comes down to choosing between the interests of citizens and those of corporations looking to preserve artificially high profits at customer expense, the Cons will side against mere Canadians every time.

A Decreasingly Brief, Updated History of Liberal Declarations that they Can't Go On Supporting the Harper Government's Every Whim

Since they've delivered more material since this post...

October 20, 2007:

Dion told his MPs that it would be unthinkable for him to yield to the humiliation of supporting the throne speech and Harper's vision of Canada. He said that he'd merely be suffering the death "of 1,000 cuts," as long as he propped up the government and he would emerge from the whole ordeal with reputation and leadership damaged.

December 2, 2007:

Dion has had a rough year dealing with constant questions about his leadership abilities, crucial by-election losses in Quebec, and low poll numbers that have forced him to prop up the Conservatives in order to avoid heading to the ballot box.

However, Dion vowed to The Canadian Press that the coming year will be a different story.

"2008 will be another ball game," he said. "You cannot keep alive forever a government who wants to die."

January 14, 2008:

"I honestly don't see how they can support the budget. They are the opposition, they are there to oppose. This notion of appeasing and sitting on your hands, that's run its course. The political price to be paid for doing nothing is too high. If the Tories were to come out with a very Liberal budget, that might diffuse it, but what are the chances of that especially since they [the government] don't have a lot of money," said one top Liberal who requested anonymity.

"The Liberals are coming around to the notion that they can't continue to abstain so I think that's not a viable long-term strategy. So, I don't see the government getting Liberal support on this budget or abstaining."

February 17, 2008:

"We hear now that ... Chretien and Jean Pelletier, his former chief of staff, are telling him it's a matter of credibility, that he can't support the government any more and that the timing would be right," Jean Lapierre told CTV's Question Period on Sunday.

Lapierre, now a political commentator for Quebec's TVA network, said Dion would be "comfortable with that advice."

April 9, 2008:

The Liberals have hammered away at the government in recent weeks over the bill, accusing the Conservatives of seeking a back-door way to enforce an anti-immigrant agenda. But they have refused to say when or if they will actually oppose it in Parliament.

Some political observers say the Liberals could suffer damage within one of their core constituencies — ethnic communities in urban and suburban ridings — unless they back up their rhetoric with action.

October 20, 2008:

One of the chief questions, being asked of returning Liberal MP's- are they prepared to endure another period of abstentions? The theory being, a weakened opposition, with no leader and no money, will be forced to dodge and weave to avoid another election. I would argue, that there should be little chance for a repeat of last spring's embarrassing string of abstentions.

April 10, 2009:

At some point, you can't wait forever. You can't play cat and mouse. You have to have the courage to defeat the government. With the economy deteriorating, you have to be capable of providing an alternative, or else you're endorsing the government.

June 29, 2009:

A Liberal source told The Hill Times that the Liberals are unlikely to vote for the Harper government on confidence votes anymore.

"There's an inherent dichotomy in, 'This government is terrible but I'm going to support them.' How do you reconcile that? [Stéphane] Dion took a lot of political hits because he never reconciled that," said the Liberal source.

And now today:

(O)thers close to Mr. Ignatieff — and many MPs, who loathe propping up the government — are raring to plunge into a campaign. They argue that Mr. Ignatieff's and the party's credibility can't withstand yet another retreat.

On political games

Shorter Con spokesflack Dimitri Soudas:

The opposition's failure to approve our appointment of one party hack three years ago has left us no choice but to keep appointing hundreds more ever since.

Well said

HUD:

We're being given the illusion of choice when really it's all the same crap tied up in different coloured bows. Yes, that's how I think about American politics and increasingly Canadian politics too. We've got 2 big box parties in Canada that are now so similar, one of them is terrified to make their "policies" public for fear the other party will steal all their ideas. Gee, did it never occur to anyone that they might have to come up with something the other guys can't steal. Something new. Something daring. Something people really need and want. No, that would be too risky. People might not like something new. You'd have to work really hard to sell it and convince people it's worth having. If you just put out the same old stuff that's already selling, you know people will buy it (or at least you're pretty sure they will) and you don't have to explain why it's better so it's safer and easier to just make the same lame crap as everyone else. Just roll out a huge ad campaign and put a shinier bow on your stuff and hope people are drawn to the shiny keys.

Of course, I'd think HUD's ultimate conclusion misses part of the point: in politics as in shopping, the problem isn't so much a lack of other choices as an all-too-easily accepted assumption that it's not worth seeking them out. But the first step of recognizing the illusion of choice between the big boxes is an important start - and the more voters realize how many others are similarly sick of the same old same old, the better the chance that another choice will be able to compete on an equal footing with the current big boxes.

Sunday Morning 'Rider Blogging

Thanks to the bye week, there isn't much to talk about by way of news about the Saskatchewan Roughriders. And indeed even off the field the times have been fairly quiet, as the big story a week ago (the possibility of signing Reggie Hunt to patch up the team's linebacker corps in the wake of injuries to Rey Williams and Kye Stewart) remains a matter of speculation at best. But the lack of an immediate game to dissect should also present an opportunity to look at the season as a whole - so let's compare where the 'Riders are now to where one might have expected them to be.

The obvious good news for the 'Riders this season has been the defence - despite a surprisingly high number of points against (worst in the league at 256).

At its best, Gary Etcheverry's line has been a turnover machine which has made virtually every quarterback other than Anthony Calvillo look unusually uncomfortable in the pocket - and even at worst it's generated regular pressure while keeping most offences from putting games out of reach. With the exception of some issues in wrapping up running backs, there's been little dropoff in the linebacking corps despite the loss of Mo Lloyd and Anton McKenzie. And the secondary has managed to become more opportunistic than it was under Richie Hall without sacrificing its coverage on opposing receivers.

About the only question going into the second half of the season is then whether or not the front seven in particular can stay healthy - and if not, whether any injured players can be replaced without too much of a drop in production. For now, the 'Riders have managed to get solid efforts out of backups on the defensive line (and thankfully so in light of Scott Schultz' retirement) and the linebacking corps. But it's not hard to see how another key loss or two could be the breaking point, and that could be a problem particularly given John Chick's history of injuries.

On offence, while the story has changed from week to week, the results are actually best described as remarkably steady. Darien Durant ranks a solid fourth or fifth among CFL starters in nearly every key passing category including completions, yards, touchdowns and QB rating, while posting a decent but unspectacular TD-to-interception ratio of 11 to 11. Likewise the 'Riders rush offence ranks fourth in the CFL, though with a bit more variation in the players involved than some teams (as due to Wes Cates' early absence no single 'Rider ranks higher than eighth). And not surprisingly, the combination of average passing and average rushing has led to an average point total, as the 'Riders sit fourth in the league there as well.

The good news is that there's some obvious room for improvement in the second half. With any luck the offensive line should be healthier and more experienced - and it looks like Andy Fantuz will soon rejoin a group of receivers that has been surprisingly effective in his absence. And most importantly, the extra experience which Durant has picked up over the first half of 2009 should help prepare him to move from solid to upper-echelon down the stretch.

Of course, the reason the 'Riders have managed to struggle at teams even with the offence and defence generally doing relatively well has been the special teams. But rather than hammering the same point that seems to be dominating discussion about the team, I'll take a moment to point out that some key parts of that unit have been reasonably solid, as the kicking numbers of Jamie Boreham and Luca Congi aren't all that far off from past seasons. The issue has instead been with the return and coverage teams (where to my surprise it's actually the punt return coverage team which ranks as worst in the league by a wide margin, while the rest have been merely below average) - which means that a fix requires more than just putting somebody new in the returning roles.

Which may make for the general theme for the 'Riders: there doesn't figure to be much room for improvement based on trying to sub in new personnel for what the team has. Instead, the key is to get back to health at a few positions, and to continue to developing the talent on the roster where it hasn't yet come together. And while the team still looks more like an average CFL unit than a top contender, there's plenty of reason for hope that it has enough potential to emerge from the pack over the rest of 2009 and beyond.

The reviews are in

The Edmonton Journal:

Albertans, it seems we misunderstood this Senate obsession of Reformers and Stephen Harper Conservatives.

When they raged at the appointment of party bagmen, former aides, sympathetic media types and hockey celebrities by the Chretien Liberals, we imagined the problem was the kind of person for whom the Grits were holding out the cushy seat.

But it turns out bagmen, aides, and names in hockey and journalism are just hunky-dory in Tory-land. The Conservatives' real problem in the bad old Liberal days was simply that they weren't the ones doling out the loot.
...
Maybe Harper expects future senators--elected or otherwise--to look on the bright side his concept of the Senate. If second thought is downgraded as a virtue, maybe it's less important to be sober as well.

On pledges

Jeff and James provide some excellent thoughts on what Stephen Harper would be doing if he really cared about reforming the Senate. But let's toss one more possibility into the mix.

Most of Harper's current criticism of the Senate consists of complaining about its impact on the speedy/immediate/retroactive passage of legislation which has emerged from a democratically-elected House of Commons. Which seems to me to be an entirely misplaced criticism which I'll address in more detail in a future post.

But if that rather than naked partisanship were his main concern, then why doesn't the set of pledges he's extracted from his new nominees include a commitment not to stand in the way of legislation which passes the House in the future, regardless of which parties supported it along the way?

Deep thought

If Stephen Harper is indeed more concerned with "God's verdict" than what mere humans think, he owes Canada an awfully thorough explanation of what he thinks God wants him to do.

Update: Particularly since, as Greg points out, his treatment of the "least" in his eyes wouldn't seem likely to stand him in good stead under the teachings he apparently follows.

On immediate impacts

There's plenty of speculation flying around as to the possible impact of Gary Doer's appointment as U.S. ambassador. But surprisingly, none of it seems to focus on the area which holds the most potential for Doer to either achieve something of importance despite the weaknesses of the government which appointed him, or permanently tarnish his image.

At the moment, much of Doer's reputation - both in terms of his policies as premier, and his connections built within the U.S. - is based on his having been one of the driving forces for progress in fighting climate change. And in particular, his work with the Western Climate Initiative has helped to set up the most promising means of getting around what was then complete recalcitrance at the federal level on both sides of the border.

Now, the playing field has changed: the U.S. administration looks to be trying to take a lead role on the issue, leaving Stephen Harper's government as the most determined to halt any international progress. And with the Copenhagen conference set to take place this fall, Doer's first couple of months on the job would seem to have potential to either create a path toward a deal, or undermine any hope of getting one signed.

How might Doer make a difference for the better? We know all too well that Harper is seldom one to listen to anybody who might challenge his orders. But there will be an obvious need for Doer to be in regular contact with Harper and his office in managing Canada's most important international relationship.

Which should create a significant opportunity: to the extent both the Obama administration and Doer himself see action on climate change as an integral part of the economic relationship between the two countries and make that message clear to Harper, it'll be awfully difficult for the Cons to justify their usual vocal opposition to a global deal which has U.S. backing. So Doer's appointment could lead to a joint effort by Canada and the U.S. to push toward agreement in Copenhagen rather than being the two main holdouts against international consensus.

In the long run, that would seem to make for the best outcome for everybody involved. And even Harper would seem to stand to benefit from being seen as willing to work toward international solutions rather than being just as petulant in the world as he is at home.

But then it's equally possible that Harper doesn't have any intention of moving from his usual position. In that case, Harper might well be hoping that Doer's previous credibility on the issue will reduce the U.S.' inclination to criticize Canada's position, and make him at least marginally more persuasive in spouting the same old lines about how we'll never agree to cut emissions until the developing world agrees not to develop.

Of course, few outside the tar sands (and their analogues around the world) figure to be particularly eager to see Canada successfully stand in the way of global agreement based on Doer's current profile. But Doer himself might well be the biggest loser if that's indeed Harper's strategy.

The initial surprise of having him suddenly lined up against any international agreement might well play a role in shaping the relative positions of Canada and the U.S. this fall, giving him at least some claim to have influenced global events (if contrary to the principles he's espoused during his public life so far). But the result once that initial impact wore off would be to undermine his own credibility on the issue - and the few friends he'd make in Harper's camp for sacrificing his good name to the interests of the oil companies would seem to be far outweighed by the current goodwill that he'd lose.

For now, we don't have much way of knowing exactly how much autonomy Doer will have as ambassador, and how much (if it all) Harper is willing to listen to him on climate change or on any other issue. But with Copenhagen just a few short months away, we may find out in a hurry whether any good will come of Doer's appointment, or whether Harper is simply looking for somebody else whose reputation can be thrown under the bus to further the Cons' agenda.

Musical interlude

Moloko - Sing It Back (Todd Terry Remix)

More reviews are in

Andrew Coyne:

As ever with Stephen Harper, there is an in-your-face element to the latest batch of Senate appointments. It’s almost as if he said to himself, okay, if I’m going to get slammed for these appointments anyway, what are the most obnoxiously partisan, disgustingly sycophantic choices I can make? I know — I’ll name my former press flack! No, wait — I’ll name the president of the party! Or maybe — yes! — the most hyper-partisan, Grit-hating thug I know, my former campaign manager!

I’ve got it! I’ll appoint all of them!

Yes, I know, the Liberals did just the same for years — the same Grits who are now assailing the appointments, just as the Tories used to attack theirs. This is the cycle we have become caught in, each party justifying its own excesses by the other’s, each hypocritically accusing the other of hypocrisy. And the public, educated by long useage to expect no better, cannot even be roused to outrage any more. Time was when this sort of flagrant cronyism would have caused a scandal. Certainly in any other country it would. But not here, not any more.

We have a deeply, deeply cynical political culture, and the Senate is a big part of it. A country that teaches itself to accept that one of its two legislative bodies should be composed almost entirely of appointed party hacks and bagmen (the other being made up of obedient ciphers) can accommodate itself to a great many things.

Of course, there's one key flaw in Coyne's reasoning, as there's one party which continues to work to point out the rot which goes to the core of each of the Libs and Cons. Which means that the main question arising from Harper's latest excesses is that of whether genuine outrage and desire for change can surface amidst the kabuki theatre playing out as ever between the two parties who have made the Senate into the dumping ground that it is.

The reviews are in

The Ottawa Sun:

It was just five years ago when Harper said, “Despite the fine work of many individual senators, the upper house remains a dumping ground for the favoured cronies of the prime minister.”

But that was then and this is now, and Harper seems to have no problem making sure that “dumping ground” is filled with his friends. Among yesterday’s appointees are Harper’s former communications aide, his election campaign chair, and the president of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Harper’s description of the Senate five years ago is no different today — it’s just his friends he’s dumping there now.

On diplomacy

Following up on last night's post, one would have to figure that any chance of Gary Doer looking to take any major new steps in his last months as premier would be ruled out by his expected appointment as U.S. ambassador. But it'll definitely be worth watching what happens once he actually takes up that post.

From what I can tell, while the Harper government has sought the occasional "bipartisan" cover through individuals who shared his (see e.g. the Manley panel on Afghanistan), Doer's appointment would make for the first time that a prominent figure from another party has been offered a position where some of his personal views might differ significantly from those of the Cons. Which means that this may be the ultimate litmus test as to whether Harper is capable of allowing even the most qualified and distinguished of public servants to apply some of their own values and ideas, or whether he'll limit Doer to doing nothing more than putting his name on the same old message.

Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of reason for optimism - and indeed find it a bit curious that Doer would have enough hope of being allowed to do anything useful to even want the appointment. But time will tell whether what looks to be a poor attempt to deflect attention from Harper's latest bout of Senate patronage will actually lead to some cracks in the Cons' wall of insularity.

Thursday Night Link Blast

Clearing out a few random links currently taking up much-needed browser tab space...

- Yes, the Libs deserve to be mocked more than any one post can handle. Fortunately, Greg, NBC Dipper, pogge and Cameron are all up to the task.

- One piece of Gary Doer's announcement that he'll be stepping down as Manitoba's premier which doesn't seem to have received any attention yet is the question of whether he sees his legacy as set already, or whether there will be anything big to come this fall. Though it's probably true that Doer's previous governing style suggests he'll go out quietly rather than even considering any major initiatives as he steps down.

- For those who haven't seen it yet, Kent Peterson's Humble Opinion is the latest addition to a growing stable of Saskatchewan NDP blogs - and worth a read particularly for his youth-oriented perspective on politics.

- Finally, Michael Geist's post on federal copyright consultations this morning focused largely on the fact that submissions from some activist sites may have been wrongly lumped together. But it's interesting as well to take a look at the compiled numbers of submissions - particularly since in addition to an expected number of mainstream pro-user perspectives, they show more submissions backing outright "open copyright" than supporting stronger penalties for infringement, more support for eliminating copyright altogether than for halting "illegal file sharing", and more respondents endorsing the status quo without changes than backing the industry-driven bill which the Cons tried to foist on Canadians.

Inspirational message for the day

Shorter Lib positioning before the fall session of Parliament:

So it turns out that our last set of confidence threats involved an issue that we don't think matters enough to be worth an election. But that's just as well, since we've been doing a lousy job of laying the groundwork for one anyway.


Incidentally, if there was any hope left for the EI panel, can there be any doubt that the net result will be zero now that the Libs have happily and voluntarily given up whatever leverage they could possibly have held?

On comparative options

I posted yesterday about my theory that tax harmonization may be just the issue to set up an election campaign where all of the opposition parties might stand to come out ahead. But in case there's any doubt, I do figure the NDP would likely be the largest beneficiary - in particular thanks to one side of the HST debate which has yet to be fully addressed at the federal level.

After all, the Cons' reflex action in response to any opposition call for substantive policy of any kind - particularly in the case of EI recently - has been to whine about future tax increases, on the premise that none of their current budgeting would be altered by a future government. The NDP sought to fight that argument in 2008 by attacking corporate tax cuts, but couldn't generate as much outcry on that front as I'm sure the party hoped for.

But the pools of money set aside for the HST would figure to present an ideal opportunity to point out some obviously-available fiscal capacity which is being used for ends which a large number of people would be glad to reverse.

So the NDP would not only be able to use the large costs involved as an argument against harmonization in particular, but would also get to point to the money as a source of funds for its electoral platform. Based on the cost estimates from its 2008 platform, that would pose a choice between paying off Ontario and B.C. alone to force their citizens to pay more in taxes, or any one of:
- two years of funding for the NDP's health care plan (including home care transfers and a catastrophic drug plan) and child care plan;
- two years worth of funding for improved intergovernmental fairness, including meeting the equalization accords with the provinces, reallocating a cent of the gas tax to municipalities, increasing funding for First Nations and investment in Arctic infrastructure and northern development;
- four years of funding to build increased social housing, along with investment in a national literacy strategy, nutrition, healthy living, drug and mental illness initiatives; or
- four years of funding for economic and educational priorities including student and research grants, student loan reform, sectoral strategic investments, apprenticeship funding, border infrastructure and an immigrant credentials qualifying program.

And of course, there's every opportunity to apply a similar principle to other ideas - say, improving EI in both the qualifying hours threshold and the amount of income replaced for a two-year period.

Again, any one of those would cost only what the Cons already have sitting around waiting to be handed to Ontario and B.C. as an incentive to harmonize. Which means that there should be plenty of opportunity to draw a strong contrast between an expensive, undesirable scheme from the Harper Cons, and an opportunity to use money already available in the federal budget to fund priorities which Canadians actually want to see addressed.

Try, try again

There's no word yet as to whether or not Regina's municipal elections this fall will include a real race for mayor. But there's good news from Saskatoon at least, as 2006 runner-up Lenore Swystun is making another run at incumbent Don Atchison (and assembling supporters at an impressive rate in the process).

Mind you, Swystun will have a long way to go in making up the 25,000-vote gap from three years ago. But the combination of more experienced organization and improved name recognition for Swystun since her last run should help to level the playing field - and hopefully Swystun will end up joining Sean Shaw and others in bringing some much-needed renewal to Saskatoon's municipal government.

Burning question

Speaking of damage to the Cons' core brand, when exactly did "every bit as much patronage as Jean Chretien" become a selling point?

On harmonized interests

Every time the possibility of a vote of non-confidence in the Harper Cons is raised, one of the main arguments against the possibility of an election is the need for the NDP, Bloc and Libs to all join forces when a peak for one in the polls often coincides with a trough for another. And while the claim that diverging poll numbers will always leave somebody prepared to support the Cons loses some force when all three opposition parties define themselves primarily as the alternative to Harper in one form or another, it's still all too true that we haven't yet reached the point where all three opposition parties actually vote to topple the Cons.

But as alluded to in this post, to the extent a perfect storm is needed to create a situation where all three opposition parties would vote non-confidence at the same time, that may have arrived in the form of an issue which plays nicely for all three opposition parties in different ways.

That issue is the sales tax harmonization which has been pushed by the Cons for years - but has just started to give rise to massive public outrage now that two provinces have taken up the offer. So let's take a closer look at how a campaign focused on the HST would affect all four parties in Parliament - and in particular how a campaign fought on the issue could take enough of a bite out of the Cons for all three other parties to benefit.

It's no secret that the Cons see finger-pointing and distraction tactics as their best hope in dealing with the HST. But no matter how much they try to throw blame around, they haven't succeeded in evading responsibility.

And that spells disaster for a party whose core brand is based in large part on populism and tax-cutting. With provincial parties from all sides of the spectrum laying rightful blame on the Cons for paying off the provinces to raise taxes on their citizens, the Cons look to see at least some of their core support either sitting out an election based on the HST, or outright turning on them.

Mind you, I wouldn't expect any of the other parties to go to any great lengths in trying to win over the tax-cutting crowd. But for the NDP, any tarnish on the Cons' populist image figures to feed perfectly into the "On Your Side" message premiered at the Halifax convention. And that would raise the potential for a substantial amount of the Western populist swing vote to turn from the Cons' column to the NDP's (based on B.C. voters outraged about the current harmonization plan and Saskatchewan and Manitoba voters who recognize the future risk for their provinces), while also likely opening some doors in Ontario as well.

While the NDP fights harmonization, the Libs will likely be perfectly content to let the Cons take a PR hit, while presenting themselves as the party which actually defends the idea in principle while using the issue primarily as a matter of bad governance and deception on the part of the Cons. And indeed the Libs may be able to retake their longtime mantle as the party of big business by actually defending tax harmonization (as they too encouraged in office) while the Cons hide away and try to deny any responsibility.

And what about the Bloc? At the moment, Quebec's provincial sales tax is "blended" and administered provincially rather than being harmonized like those of the other provinces - and the Bloc has long argued that Quebec should receive inducements along the lines of those offered to the other provinces for that state of affairs. Which means that the HST as an election issue sets up exactly the kind of provincial grievance and claim to federal money which would allow the Bloc to stand out from its competitors as putting Quebec first.

So what would happen if the issue plays out based on those lines, resulting in the HST serving as the main issue damaging the Cons in different ways in different regions? I wouldn't expect the Libs to get anywhere near majority territory based on their taking a pro-harmonization stance - but it's not at all outside the realm of possibility that the damage to the Cons' brand could result in the Libs nonetheless taking a fairly solid lead as the Cons drop below their usual floor. The Bloc would be able to play up the lack of funding to Quebec against all of the national parties, meaning that they'd stand a strong chance of maintaining if not improving their current position. And the NDP would probably benefit the most of all, adding the anti-HST vote to its current level of support.

Let's say that results in a division of the vote along the lines of Libs 32, Cons 27, NDP 21, Bloc 10, Greens 8 - all numbers within a plausible HST-based shift from current support levels. Does anybody think that a single one of the opposition parties would have a second thought about pushing for an election which produces that outcome?

Of course, the issue may not play out exactly as I theorize above. And the picture may get a lot more messy if the Doer government undercuts the NDP's anti-harmonization message by going along with the scheme, or if the Libs try to take an anti-HST stance for themselves at the federal level. But the potential should be apparent for the opposition parties to see the HST as just the issue which can both topple the Cons from power and strengthen their own hands if they all play their cards right.

Single payer, single message

With the overlapping Saskatoon events held by the Canadian Medical Association and Canadian Doctors for Medicare taking place the same weekend as the federal NDP convention, I didn't get much opportunity to comment at the time. But fortunately, much of the message of Canadian Doctors for Medicare has been nicely distilled into a handy video which deserves plenty of play on both sides of the border - and which features a couple of familiar faces:



Not that it's likely that the direction in the U.S. will change from its current course - which appears to have a fairly strong chance of including a public insurance option, but doesn't look likely to radically change the system's funding structures. But if the Democrats want to look toward a more ambitious plan now that it's long since been made clear that they're not going to win bipartisan support for anything of substance, this would be an excellent place to start.

Quote of the day

Greg cuts through the equally bizarre spin from both the Libs and Cons surrounding yesterday's confirmation that the NDP will stick with its record of opposing the Harper government:

Jack Layton must be the greatest political mastermind since Machiavelli. Or, he has the looniest opponents, ever.

On zealotry

Shorter Globe and Mail HST cheerleading squad:

All business savings will be passed onto consumers! But no increased taxes will be! Praise be to Free Market Jesus for this unexplained miracle! Thus concludes our dispassionate, impartial commentary.

Burning question

So when's the last time the Libs bothered organizing a public protest against the party which actually holds power?

And it begins...

Of course Michael Ignatieff couldn't even hint at an election for a matter of days before bending over backwards to say he doesn't want one:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is showing the party flag in the Northwest Territories.

It's not just white, it's bright!

During a visit to Yellowknife Ignatieff tried to dispel rumours of a fall election. He says federal Liberals want good government, not an election.

And apparently Ignatieff is part of a shrinking minority still holding out inexplicable hope that "good government" might be forthcoming from the Cons after three and a half years of incompetence and thuggery. But even if Iggy himself is on the fence as to whether Harper would govern better than he would, shouldn't someone within the Libs be pointing out how self-defeating it is to take that position publicly?

The vicious cycle

When Michael Ignatieff first chose continued Con government rather than the progressive coalition, I noted the obviously fleeting nature of whatever gains Ignatieff could possibly have hoped to make. At that time, my focus was on the influence of Con-friendly media which wasted no time in declaring that the exact decision which they demanded ultimately served as a sign of weakness. But in retrospect, it's natural that the same forces would be at play in public perceptions as well: having opted for the short-term boost of having Harper supporters approve of his decision to roll over, Ignatieff set himself up for a slow bleed of support which has been playing out ever since.

And Ignatieff has only exacerbated that result by wrongly figuring that the formula would work again. Having built his original reputation on an elite-friendly choice to prop up the Harper government, Ignatieff has apparently assumed that he could keep boosting his numbers by setting up new confidence tests and then once again pretending to be a voice of conciliation. But in what should have been a predictable outcome, the response has been rather different when Ignatieff has manufactured his own crises in the absence of any leverage against the Cons. And that's resulted only in Ignatieff falling into the same vicious cycle as his Lib predecessor.

Every single time the Libs roll over, they lose at least a bit of confidence and support as demoralized voters realize that they're backing down in exchange for nothing. Which has served to accelerate the decline which Ignatieff was bound to face anyway - and made it more difficult for the Libs to break out of the cycle, as the opportunities for a confidence vote in the rear-view mirror look ever better than the ones up ahead.

That background brings us to the latest polling which the Libs are so eager to dismiss out of hand. The most obvious example is the latest Ipsos-Reid offering, which may well be rightly seen as an outlier in terms of party preferences. But the signs of weakness on Ignatieff's part go much further than that - and they can't be explained away by the Libs' current excuse about opposition parties having a tough go of it during the summer.

After all, even if one throws the Ipsos-Reid poll out the window entirely, the Libs have indeed dropped over the course of the summer in most polling - which can't be said for either the NDP or the Greens despite their facing the same obstacles as opposition parties. And the Ipsos-Reid result itself is best viewed as part of the polling picture rather than discarded entirely - both for the sake of completeness in taking into account all available data, and because there's plenty of reason for suspicion that it merely fits the pattern of Lib decline rather than serving as a result out of the blue.

Perhaps most notably, though, Ignatieff himself now has sunk to the lowest approval rating of any of the national leaders in Parliament, to go with a net rating comparable to Harper's. So rather than maintaining any political capital personally based on his post-budget warm-and-fuzzies, he now figures to act as a drag on his party.

Now, it may well be true that the Cons can be expected to lose a couple of points of relative strength once they're back under the scrutiny of Parliament this fall. And I'll deal shortly with the one issue which looks like it could well create the conditions for a vote of non-confidence where all of the opposition parties would have an obvious interest in bringing down the Cons.

But there are plenty of pitfalls waiting for the Libs as well. Not only will they have to answer for the apparent failure of their EI panel, but Harper has set up some obvious traps to try to bully the Libs into once again backing down.

And Ignatieff's current message itself seems like an ideal setup for another decision to roll over. For all the Libs' brinksmanship, they aren't sending any consistent message that the Cons need to be brought down (which would itself seem problematic since the current issues are the same ones where the Libs have already given Harper a pass).

Instead, Ignatieff's musings about "when to call an election" invite the Cons and the corporate media to respond with themes of "not now!" and "voters don't want one!". Which makes for the same old no-win situation for the Libs, who don't figure to earn many points in the elite opinion department either by raising the stakes or by backing down.

Of course, we surely know by now that the Libs consistently answer those questions in favour of hoping that factors outside their control will make the next election window a more promising one (even as their position deteriorates in the meantime). But that just leaves the Libs in the same old cycle. And if they haven't yet managed to shoot themselves in the foot enough times to make the Ipsos-Reid numbers into the baseline level of public support, that reality can't be more than a couple more capitulations away.

The reviews are in

Murray Mandryk:

The problem for the Wall right now is two-fold: First, his government is now completely reliant on the private sector for such forecasts after purging departments like energy of civil servants who supposedly did not share the Saskatchewan Party's vision. The loss of such professional objectivity in the civil service was the same mistake that the Devine government made, one that would later prove to be costly.

Second, that Sask. Party "vision" for the province has been an exceedingly rose-coloured one that offers only so much room for the supposedly negative forecasts. The March budget did rightfully project that the province would take an approximate $1.7-billion hit on oil revenue and Crown land sales from the $2.4-billion it took in 2008-09. One gets the distinct impression that it didn't want to be talking about a further $1.3-billion hit on potash revenue because a $3-billion revenue decline somehow just didn't properly reflect the government spin that Saskatchewan is a booming island in the middle of this recession.

This, too, was all too similar to the Devine approach.

So if Wall wants to avoid any more such Devine comparisons in the future, here's one alternative: Just stop budgeting like Devine did.

The races are on

While the NDP has been laying the groundwork in both ridings for some time now, the by-election campaigns in Regina-Douglas Park and Saskatoon Riversdale are now officially underway.

The current conventional wisdom is that the timing is set up to avoid a federal election campaign later this fall. But from my standpoint (and acknowledging that the NDP isn't about to take anything for granted), the timing would seem to suggest that Brad Wall's goal is primarily to have a losing set of by-elections register as little with the public as possible rather than seeing them as opportunities to pick up seats. After all, one would have to think that a short campaign at the end of summer which is bound to be overshadowed to at least some extent by the release of Dan Perrins' nuclear development consultation report will make for about the worst possible set of circumstances for the Sask Party's chances of making up the gap in two strong NDP ridings.

The race to the bottom

For all the criticism this space levels at Michael Ignatieff, let's give him credit for being more efficient than his predecessor in at least some ways. After all, while it took Stephane Dion a year and a half to end up on the wrong end of a double-digit polling gap against the Cons, Ignatieff has managed the feat just three months after his official coronation.

Update: In fairness, the latest from Harris-Decima shows a dead heat between the Libs and Cons. But as I'll discuss in more detail later, it's hardly a great success for the Libs to be somewhere between those two extremes.

On coalition politics

In case anybody thought Michael Ignatieff might have learned anything since his first few sets of predictably flawed decisions as the Libs' leader, he's now managed to deal himself by far the weakest hand in an unavoidable discussion about the merits of coalition governments:

In an e-mail exchange with Brian Topp, Les Campbell argues that, as the way forward, the NDP should “pursue serious negotiations for a pre or post election progressive alliance.” If there’s any doubt what he has in mind, he refers elsewhere in the exchange to “discussing the possibility of pre and/or post election coalitions.”

Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff pours a gallon of cold water on that idea in the last paragraph of a long interview in Le Devoir: “I am not against political arrangements between/among parties to make a minority Parliament work. I am prepared to negotiate with the other parties to move legislation forward. But, let’s be clear, I’ve always spoken of arrangements, not of a coalition.”

So to clarify, Ignatieff has just told anybody who supported the progressive coalition this past winter (consisting of 40-45% of voters depending on the poll) that they can go pound sand, as he has no interest in any similar effort to replace a Harper Con government with a more progressive one on the terms which the Libs and NDP have already been able to agree to. Which should allow the NDP to step into the breach as the lone national party in Parliament advocating a progressive coalition as the best means of securing better government for Canada, while painting Ignatieff as too stuck in his own sense of Liberal superiority to countenance working together.

But that doesn't figure to do much to quiet down the Cons' critics who see "coalition" as a dirty word. After all, Ignatieff has still left the door open to some unspecified "arrangements" - which will allow the Cons to pester him constantly with questions about what kind of arrangements he'd accept and under what circumstances. And "we'll have to wait and see" doesn't look to be an option in response, since Ignatieff seems prepared to categorically reject any future coalition without any similar need to take context into account.

In sum, then, Ignatieff has managed to make himself and his party into an undesirable option both for anybody who wants to see their federal leaders make coalition politics work, and for those on the centre-right who bought Harper's message that cooperation means other parties doing what he tells them as a reason to reject the progressive coalition when it arose. But if there's any good news, it's that a message so fatally flawed from both sides can only increase the chances that Ignatieff will be in no position to dictate the terms of any inter-party cooperation after the next federal election.

The reviews are in

Walter Cordery:

There is another culprit contributing to the coming disaster known as the harmonized sales tax, a $2-billion ripoff of B.C. consumers. And to date Stephen Harper's teflon coating appears to have deflected the controversy surrounding his government's decision to bribe British Columbians with their own money.

Would Gordon Campbell have agreed to merge the provincial sales tax with the goods and services tax and remove exemptions for some items if Ottawa hadn't dangled a $1.6-billion carrot in front of the increasingly cash-starved B.C. government?
...
With talk of a fall federal election in the air due to Harper's inability to reform Canada's EI system, federal Tories in both Ontario and British Columbia are growing nervous they will suffer the electorate's wrath concerning the HST. As well they should.

On opportunities

It seems entirely likely that the Greens will end up following Lib-style anti-democratic advice as to handle pesky outbreaks of riding-level democracy, in this case Stuart Hertzog's intention to challenge Elizabeth May for the party's nomination in Saanich-Gulf Islands. But if they have the slightest bit of foresight, wouldn't they see a nomination contest featuring candidates taking somewhat different angles (but where May would presumably have the far stronger chance of winning) as their best chance of actually assembling the type of organization which they're currently lacking in the riding?

Update: Due credit to the Greens for resisting the temptation to follow the Lib-style advice.

The reviews are in

Jim Harding:

If former federal governments had invested in non-reactor technologies that weren't designed for nuclear weapons and adapted for nuclear power, we could have avoided this isotope shortage. If the risks of low level radiation, in medicine as well as along the nuclear fuel chain, weren't so downplayed to try to make nuclear power more palatable, we might also have become less dependent on nuclear medicine.

So let's get it right this time round. Wall's government should stop playing politics with nuclear medicine.

Compare and contrast

There's still plenty of ground to be covered in examining the Cons' responsibility for bribing Ontario and B.C. to raise taxes on their citizens. And one of the more interesting areas for further discussion comes in comparing the process followed for the HST payoff with the one applied to the Cons' much-ballyhooed infrastructure spending.

In the case of infrastructure, the Cons made a pool of money available with a stated intended purpose. But rather than actually proposing any projects, the Cons have left it to municipalities and provinces to apply with their own "ideas" for spending - pausing at most to filter out some spending for partisan gain, then passing money along based on proposals from the provincial or municipal level.

And the predictable result? Con actors from Stephen Harper down to to rank-and-file MPs have spent the entire summer running to the nearest camera to claim full responsibility for every announcement they can fit into their schedules.

In the case of the HST, the Cons actually spent more time and effort trying to convince the provinces to go along with a scheme which actually originated at the federal level. But the rough process has been the same: money was set aside for a specified purpose, and the Cons have responded to provincial interest by signing on to pay out money as they initially proposed.

But the Cons claim they bear no responsibility that since the provinces made a decision to go along with their payoff.

So let's assume that there's some validity to the Cons' effort to flee any responsibility for the HST. By the same standard, hasn't every single infrastructure project initiated this year been the result of a proposal and decision from one or more other levels of government? And applying the same standard which they're trying to apply to the HST, shouldn't the Cons be scrupulously avoiding any credit for infrastructure spending which doesn't come from their own ideas?

Sunday Morning 'Rider Blogging

In some ways, Friday night's game again the Alouettes made for as positive a loss as a team can hope for. Facing the cream of the CFL crop this season, the 'Riders kept the game within reach virtually all the way - but lost by just enough that it's tough to cast blame or second-guessing on any one player or play. But there's obviously room for concern that the team's weaknesses this season only seem to be getting more glaring with time - and the bye week would seem to be the last and best chance to bring in some new personnel to deal with those problems.

While most of the focus after the game has been on the 'Riders' offence in both its effectiveness moving the ball and the number of turnovers that kept Montreal ahead, the biggest plus from the game looks to me to have once again come on the defensive side of the ball.

For the second week in a row, the 'Riders dedicated their defensive efforts to limiting the effectiveness of a red-hot player. And after holding DeAndra Cobb to 29 yards against Hamilton, Saskatchewan again did the job, holding Anthony Calvillo to by far his weakest passing totals of the season, with 170 yards in the air compared to a previous low of 236.

But there were two problems with that approach. First, the Als's dink-and-dunk offence based on short passes and a solid ground game from Avon Cobourne was effective in limiting Saskatchewan's ability to force turnovers - which put the pressure on the offense to similarly hold onto the ball. And conversely, the Als often started with superb field position - meaning that the yardage totals didn't mean limiting the Als' scoring, as the defence gave up touchdowns on drives of 22, 28 and 57 yards.

Meanwhile, the 'Riders' offence followed exactly the opposite approach, piling up big yardage (8.5 per play to 5.2 for Montreal) but losing the field-position and turnover battles. In particular, while Darien Durant deserves full credit for making plenty of big plays, his interceptions ended one promising Saskatchewan drive and gave the Alouettes a short field for two of their touchdowns. And the 'Riders seem to have relied almost entirely on Durant rather than establishing much of a running game - making it all the easier for Montreal to focus in on his passes.

As for the special teams, this was once again a case of the less said, the better. But it's particularly noteworthy that the kick coverage teams - which had been the one relative strength for the 'Riders' special teams this year - managed to sink to the same depths as the rest of the unit, giving up two massive returns to Larry Taylor. That might be a sign of the special teams spending more time than they could afford trying to paper over their weaknesses - but with a bye week ahead, there can't be any excuses if the 'Riders aren't able to start improving some of the problem areas, whether or not that can be done with the talent now on the roster.