On bubble politics

"Political leaders should never go anywhere which has not been carefully staged by their handlers because..."

"Political leaders should avoid appearing near people who have not been vetted because..."

"Political leaders should constantly look over their shoulders for their competitors' operatives because..."

No, I don't think the above sentences have reasonable endings from the standpoint of what kind of politics we want our leaders to practice. But one party on Canada's federal scene - or at least a number of its prominent supporters - owe us all either an explanation as to how they can be reasonably completed, or an apology for doing their best to build a wall between political leaders and the public.

The Photo Op

There's been plenty of rightful criticism this fall of the Cons' use of a combination of public and party money to blast out a consistent message at volumes which are bound to overshadow the capacity of any party which doesn't have the federal government apparatus behind it. And rightly so, as the battle of ideas which is supposed to be found in a democratic system is bound to be diminished where one side is able to drown out others.

But there's been an even more damaging turn which doesn't seem to have received much public outcry at all. I won't bother linking to the photo since it's been present in plenty of reporting over the past few weeks, but Kady set the context in liveblogging Jack Layton's meeting with Stephen Harper a month ago: having dared to make the public aware that he'd be going to Langevin, Layton was followed at a seeming distance of about half a foot by Lib operatives holding signs reflecting their party's message.

Now, it's hardly a new development for a leader's image in still form to be converted to another party's use - and indeed Canada's political history is rife with examples where that strategy has succeeded (the Dion shrug) or failed (the PC's 1993 ads against Chretien). But it seems to me to be an entirely new step to intrude on a leader's physical space in order to force one's own message into their image.

And it's also worth noting that unlike any non-astroturf protest, the Libs' signs weren't focused on any actual issue of substance. Instead, they carried two of their party's preferred messages for the fall to try to intrude on any attempt by Layton to define himself: a narrative of "NDP + Conservative" (keep in mind, this is at a time when exactly one party - and not the NDP - had voted with the Cons on confidence matters in the previous two years), and a narrative of Layton as power-hungry.

In terms of the impact on public debate, this was roughly the visual equivalent of shrieking "you lie!" in the middle of a public speech (or Warren Kinsella's attempts to avoid letting Brad Lavigne get a good point in edgewise) - only it may have been even more harmful since it tossed in physical cornering and appropriation of image to go with the mere disruptive effect. But nobody outside of a few NDP bloggers seemed to even question whether something might have been amiss.

From the Libs' standpoint, the tactical impact probably exceeded their expectations. Not only did most media outlets make their contrived photos into the defining image of Layton's meeting with Harper that day, but some media outlets used the same picture to represent Layton for several days after the fact - ensuring that even as Layton's words spread the NDP's message in print, the Libs' intrusive visual about him would be presented as the first impression for readers.

So what can be done in response?

The Response

Presumably the quick answer is based on a party's self-interest: it should avoid any situation which might result in an embarrassing photo being taken for the same reason the Cons have won more praise than criticism for replacing their candidates with tape-recorded versions of their party's message. While I'm not aware of any Canadian politicians going to quite the lengths that, say, George W. Bush did in ensuring ideological uniformity in his audiences, most parties already seem to go to awfully great lengths to make sure that their leaders appear in only the most positive of settings. And surely for the sake of avoiding embarrassing visuals, they can find some way to limit their exposure - by limiting public notice about their appearances, by vetting audience members ala Bush, or by ensuring that the party's actual leader never appears next to a backdrop which hasn't been fully set up by staffers.

But there are a couple of serious problems with this answer.

First, it doesn't deal with the question of what parties ought to be doing on anything but the most superficial level. And indeed an effort to keep anybody but confirmed party supporters away from a leader will only make it more difficult to draw in anybody who isn't already involved in politics.

Of course, we know that Stephen Harper is perfectly happy staying in a bubble for himself - in large part precisely because his strategy is based on keeping a modest base motivated and trying to make the rest of the electorate so sick of politics as to stay home and give him a majority. But don't the Libs need to try to encourage public involvement to try to counter that effect? And doesn't that make their effort to force other parties to put up a wall between themselves and the public just as counterproductive as it is damaging to the concept of a free competition of ideas?

Similarly, the second major problem has both ethical and strategic ramifications: even if one assumed that they were otherwise legitimate, the Libs' tactics are doomed to fail against a party with the Cons' resources.

With a security detail laying out Stephen Harper's every step, he'll never have to worry about similarly damaging images. Indeed, the best the Libs can do is get pictures of themselves outside the Cons' selected sites. And even that step (which they've taken a few times since) gives the Cons an excuse for stunts like delivering budget reports two provinces away from the national capital in order to avoid the gangs of roving Liberal operatives just waiting to interpose themselves into the same frame as Harper's photo ops.

So the tactic doesn't serve as any check on the powerful. But the NDP, which doesn't have the state apparatus working to spread its partisan message - and which might actually feel some pinch in redirecting resources from engaging with the public to trying to insulate its leader? The Libs definitely taught them a lesson alright. And the next time the Libs showed up with an astroturf protest against Jack Layton, the NDP found a way to keep him from once again having his image appropriated for the Libs' uses.

The Challenge

But if the NDP has now made changes to Jack Layton's accessibility for the sake of trying to preserve its public image, it's all the more worth asking whether the Libs' move to force those changes can possibly be justified. So I'll invite Lib supporters - particularly those who have spread (and in some cases continue to spread) the images generated by their effort to intrude on Jack Layton's image and personal space - to fill in the blanks.

"Political leaders should never go anywhere which has not been carefully staged by their handlers because..."

"Political leaders should avoid appearing near people who have not been vetted because..."

"Political leaders should constantly look over their shoulders for their competitors' operatives because..."

If the Libs are prepared to try to justify why they're encouraging a form of politics which creates massive disincentives for public engagement, then they're free to do so. But if they recognize that we're best off with a political system where "shouldn't" replaces "should" in the above statements, then it would seem to be an essential step to stop making use of the fruit of their own poisoned tree - and maybe to apologize for doing their utmost to force other parties toward exactly the same types of politics that have rendered the Harper government so odious.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

On underlying assumptions

Shorter Bruce Johnstone:

The idea of having SaskEnergy own natural gas reserves is an interesting one. But if we can accept as articles of faith that Crown corporations (a) shouldn't try to act in the public interest and (b) will fail miserably at anything they attempt in contrast to the infallible private sector, then I'm sure we can agree to dispense with it.

On contrasts

I'm not entirely sure why Warren Kinsella is so proud of today's Question Period segment - particularly since it culminates in Brad Lavigne explaining reasonably why it's a good idea to reverse at least some of the Libs' historical assault on EI benefits while Kinsella tries to drown him out by mindlessly repeating "vote against it!". (Meanwhile, Tim Powers apparently gets lost in the phrase "enchanted forest".)

But if one wants to compare the substantive decision-making process of the NDP to the facade politics of the other two parties (which I'll do in more detail in a post to come), one could hardly ask for a better example. So I'll at least echo Kinsella so far as to suggest giving it a look.

Weasel words

John Baird tries to dodge questions about how much stimulus spending is actually underway:

The Liberals have also said that only a small fraction of infrastructure projects announced as part of the Conservatives' economic stimulus plan are actually creating jobs.

"That's a bunch of baloney," Baird said in response. "We see substantially more than 75 per cent of projects that were slated to begin this year... are incurring expenses."

Which leads to some obvious follow-up questions.

First, how many projects as part of a stimulus which was supposed to create jobs immediately aren't actually "slated to begin this year"?

Second, how broad is Baird's definition of "incurring expenses"? Are projects classified as such based on having even a small amount of preliminary organizational or professional work done, rather than any substantial construction? Is there a gap between projects which have "incurred expenses" and ones which have actually received reimbursement, leading to provinces and municipalities being left holding the bag even as Baird claims credit for their actions?

All of which lead to the ultimate question: how much of the money which was supposed to flow quickly has actually been disbursed?

Needless to say, one wouldn't think Baird would be speaking so carefully if the answers reflected well on the Cons. And if the Cons keep their frame of reference limited to such carefully-selected phrases rather than any actual measure of stimulus achieved, that figures to speak volumes about what's included (or not included) in their upcoming propaganda piece.

Sunday Morning 'Rider Blogging

There isn't too much to say about two of the three phases of the Saskatchewan Roughriders' game after their win over Edmonton yesterday. The defence was nothing short of superb, leaving little to improve on other than trying to make sure a bit more rust gets shaken off Rey Williams before he returns to a full-time role. And on special teams, about the only development which seems likely to affect the team in future games is the success of the punt teams when Jamie Boreham has converted third downs or quick-kicked into the wind - leading to the question of whether the 'Riders might be best served using a similar strategy even when the conditions aren't quite as extreme.

On offence, though, there's plenty worth discussing about Darien Durant's performance.

The good news is that Durant seems to be adding new strategies to deal with defensive pressure as his first season at the controls wears on. At the beginning, Durant mostly sought to scramble to the outside - which is never a bad option for a quarterback with his athleticism, but which can be easily enough taken away when it's his standard escape route.

As the season has progressed, the 'Riders have rolled out new wrinkles to combat the pass rush every few games. Not long ago, Durant added to the usual screen plays as an outlet against pressure by making effective use of shovel passes; yesterday, it was a strategy of backing up and buying a fraction of a second when a rusher got in Durant's face which met with some success.

While we've seen a lot of different strategies work at different times, however, we haven't often seen much variety within a single game. And the same held true yesterday: while Durant's retreats worked well at times, he also wound up taking far more sacks than would be ideal, seemingly due in large part to far less decisive running than he's shown in the past when an extra second bought by backing up wasn't enough for him to find an open receiver.

That was particularly problematic in the second half when Edmonton tried to cover for its injury-depleted secondary (I believe defensive coordinator Jim Daley actually took the field under the assumed name "Gemara Williams") by sending a blitz nearly every play. Rather than attacking either the weakness in the secondary or the desperate pass rush, Durant stuck with the apparent plan to try to retreat his way out of trouble. But not surprisingly, that was less successful when there were multiple defenders coming at him than when Durant faced only a single defender who would have to worry about containment rather than being able to rush all-out.

Fortunately, Durant managed to make just enough plays to win the game by sticking to the original plan. But the next step in Durant's progress as a starter has to be to take the elements which he's used effectively in isolation and identify the one which fits best into the game situation. And that may be the difference between Durant's current status as a solid starting quarterback who can manage the game if the rest of his team plays up to par, and his developing into one of the CFL's elite players.

As planned

When Daniel Paille was first announced as the Bloc's likely candidate in Hochelaga, I noted how a split in the Bloc's usual combination of sovereigntist and progressive voters might significantly improve the chances of the NDP's Jean-Claude Rocheleau. Now, it looks like events are playing out about as well as the NDP could possibly have hoped:

While one prospective Bloc Québécois nomination candidate has stepped aside in favour of Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe's preferred candidate, Daniel Paillé, another one is not going anywhere, reports Les Nouvelles Hochelaga-Maissonneuve. Former aide to former Bloc M.P. Réal Ménard, Benoît Demuy, had been selling memberships since June, but after meeting with Duceppe on September 4, decided to withdraw from the race. Not so for Jean Baribeau, a 25-year resident of the riding and math teacher who describes himself as a "sovereignist and confirmed social democrat" who "has politics in his blood" and thinks people in his community don't want a "parachute candidate". Baribeau had been seeking a meeting with Duceppe all summer while he was selling membership cards, he says, but never got any reply. Meanwhile the Bloc has brought in veteran organizer Patrick Marais to help Paillé with his nomination campaign, according to Le Devoir. Thus there will be at least two candidates for the Bloc nomination meeting, whenever it is held. No word on any prospective Liberal, Conservative or Green candidates as yet, but nominated NDP candidate Jean-Claude Rocheleau has evidently been following the Bloc race, and recently highlighted his own local roots to Les Nouvelles as well.

In light of Demuy's apparent head start in selling memberships, it would seem highly likely that the Bloc's party apparatus will enable Paille to take the nomination. But the prospect of Baribeau spending a contentious nomination battle spreading two themes ("parachute candidate" as a criticism and "social democrat" as an ideological identity) which mirror the NDP's preferred messages for the by-election campaign should help make many Bloc voters far more receptive to Rocheleau once the by-election takes place than they might have been otherwise. And that could present exactly the opening the NDP needs to establish itself as Hochelaga's leading alternative to the Bloc in the coming campaign and beyond.

Blackout

Back onto the subject of the the general sliminess associated with a government entering into a controversial and ill-advised deal without public input then claiming that it's too late to change anything, it's odd enough that SaskPower's announcement that it's locked itself into a 25-year contract to have Northland Power spend $145 million to build a natural gas power plant took two days to get reported on CBC (and appears to have been completely swept under the rug by CanWest). But it's even more strange that a few other threads to the story still don't seem to have surfaced in the media.

For example...

1. SaskPower is contracting out a significant amount of power generation without any explanation as to why that function is being privatized.

2. The Sask Party rushed to lock SaskPower into the contract just before what's supposed to be a thorough public review of its power options.

3. While Northland Power advertises its role operating wind and co-generation plants, there's no indication that it has any experience operating a stand-alone natural gas facility - making #1 look all the more problematic given that the task is being contracted out to a company with less experience than SaskPower.

4. While I haven't yet tracked down any definitive pricing lists, the construction cost looks to be out of whack with the cost of building natural gas facilities elsewhere: $145 million for an 86-MW plant, compared to recent costs (using the first two examples I found elsewhere) of $200 million US for a 150-MW facility in Montana and $479 million US for a 300-MW facility in Florida. Even allowing for exchange rates and other cost differences, the sticker price for the Spy Hill project looks to be well on the high side based on those comparators - and no, the fact that Northland Power is paying that price up front doesn't offer any comfort when SaskPower is on the hook to pay enough to make that initial cost profitable for Northland.

Now, it may be that there are at least relatively reasonable answers to these issues. But is there any possible explanation as to why they apparently haven't even been raised in the wake of SaskPower's announcement, particularly when projects in relatively similar price ranges have received front-page placement in both CanWest papers?

(Edit: fixed wording.)

The reviews are in

Ralph Surette:

(S)econd thoughts have kicked in about the worth of Layton and his works, showing that maybe even the media are marginally redeemable. There’s the obvious, of course: that Layton spared the country an election it doesn’t want, and that there will be some improvements to EI.

But deeper down, there’s this awkward twist that doesn’t fit in the storyline. Layton, and Alexa McDonough before him, were mostly right about Afghanistan — at least if we can go by what top generals are now saying: that we’re on the wrong track. And about the missile defence system that the Harper government cheerfully supported and the NDP opposed and that now has been scratched by President Obama. And about the need for financial regulation, for an auto-sector strategy, an alternative plan for pensions, more economic stimulation, and more.

Further, there’s this: proclaiming that minority government must be made to work and voting against the Tories is not contradictory. Co-operating with Harper is like trying to hug a porcupine. Harper only "co-operates" when he’s hit between the eyeballs. So now he’s hit and Layton is co-operating. Good for him, sanctimonious or not. The question here is why Layton’s the target and not Harper. Has the latter successfully intimidated, or at least bamboozled, the media?
...
(W)e have the NDP as the only party in the Commons giving any evidence of having done any long-term thinking, and having turned out to be right in much of it besides, but with little hope of being rewarded for it. Indeed, beset by the Greens on one side and the Liberals on the other, they might even be punished for it. Yet, reading through the second thoughts, this may be the most useful and responsible party we have.

On embarrassments

In fairness to Diane Ablonczy, Jane Taber's column today omits the obvious explanation as to why she insulted a crowd of travel writers by wasting their time with such insights as the observation that Ontario is "quite a bit east" of Whistler. But let this be a lesson to Ablonczy: it's a bad idea to talk down to better-informed crowds as if they were Conservative supporters.

Musical interlude

JPL - Whenever I May Find Her

Just wondering, but...

...to the extent the Libs' Outremont nomination is seen as a proxy battle between Denis Coderre and Martin Cauchon, does Michael Ignatieff's flip-flop today actually resolve anything?

Not that I'd see the decision to hold an open nomination as anything but a massive improvement over an appointment. But surely if Coderre is determined to eliminate a perceived competitor for the mantle of leader-in-waiting, he'll have both the opportunity and the incentive to try to find somebody else to challenge Cauchon for the nomination.

On progressive choices

Thankfully, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy's call for a flat tax was so bizarre and ill-timed that even the Sask Party couldn't use it as an excuse to move in that direction. But it's still worth pointing out part of the position taken by the Frontier Centre's David Seymour which deserves notice as a novel (if completely ill-founded) angle on the issue:

Seymour added that income is often a function of age, arguing that putting higher tax rates on higher income is just shifting the taxpaying to different stages of life rather than between people with different life fortunes.

Of course, Seymour doesn't appear interested in dealing with the cumulative impact of all taxes which results in an overall system that's barely if at all progressive. And on its face, there's ample reason for doubt about the argument that progressive taxes won't have some redistributive effect among individuals. But let's ignore those glaring problems with the argument and deal with income taxes alone on Seymour's footing.

Let's assume that an individual has the choice as to when to pay a fixed amount of income taxes during the course of his or her lifetime, but will have a "standard" income progression consisting of escalating income through his or her working life, followed by retirement at a lower income level.

From that starting point, which of the following seems like a more plausible statement?
(a) The individual would be best off paying a constant rate of income tax regardless of his or her income at any given time.
(b) The individual would be best off paying income tax at a rate which varies based on income, such as to pay a lower rate when money is tighter (early in his/her career and on retirement), and a higher rate when more money is available.

In effect, Seymour's argument relies on the premise that the population at large would take (a) as a given and prefer a flat tax as a result. But doesn't (b) actually make far more sense as a matter of rational self-interest?

(Edit: added link.)

Reversible

I posted yesterday on how Dalton McGuinty is at best presenting a misleading historical picture in pretending that there's no precedent for reversing a decision to move toward a harmonized sales tax. But let's take a look at the more important issue: leaving aside the general sliminess associated with a government entering into a controversial and ill-advised deal without public input then claiming that it's too late to change anything, what are the actual prospects of reversing the decision to harmonize?

McGuinty's argument that nothing can be done is based largely on the terms of the agreement signed between Ontario and the federal government. And it's accurate enough to say that as long as the agreement is in force, Ontario is bound to push ahead with the HST. But what McGuinty conveniently leaves out is that agreements can be changed or ended by the parties involved - and there's little reason to think that either Ontario or B.C. would have trouble getting out of the current agreements if they made a public decision to do so.

To see why that's so, consider the circumstances in which McGuinty or Gordon Campbell would make a request to terminate their HST agreements. Presumably that would come after public outrage grows to the point where the province concluded that the HST simply wasn't going to be politically palatable - based on the size of protests, the volume of public commentary, continued polls slamming the tax and perhaps a recall movement in B.C. At that point, the premier involved would likely have little choice but to make a public appeal to the federal government to release it from its commitments.

So how would the federal government respond at that point? Keep in mind that Stephen Harper has apparently already decided that the HST isn't something he wants associated with his government, which is why he's issued a gag order on Deficit Jim Flaherty and set up a party message that the provinces are responsible for the decision.

Needless to say, that position would become completely untenable if the Cons received a public request to reverse an HST agreement and ordered either B.C. or Ontario to push ahead anyway. At that point, every single major political party in the affected province on both the provincial and federal levels would be aligned in one direction on an issue which would form the main topic of political conversation. And given the choice between either going along or trying to fight the current alone while facing the likelihood of being swamped in the process, the only sensible course of action for the Cons would be to go along with the province's request.

And if they didn't? Well, that's where the Cons' minority government would become particularly significant. Presumably any attempt to stand as the lone defender of a massively unpopular tax would take a substantial bite out of the Cons' standing with the public - leading to exactly the type of situation where the federal opposition parties could all agree that a trip to the polls is in order. And a resulting change in government in an election fought on the issue would almost certainly mean the end of the HST, since the federal Libs' position that they don't want to break a deal with the provinces wouldn't make much sense after the provinces have already declared they want out.

Of course, McGuinty's hope is apparently that people won't think through the above scenario, and will instead buy his argument that it's not worth bothering to protest since nothing can be done. But the reality is that there's an obvious path to reverse course - and he and Gordon Campbell are exactly the pressure points which the public needs to hit in order to make that happen.

Friday Morning Link Blast

Apparently it's been a busy week, as plenty of good material hasn't yet found its way into post form. So here it is for your weekend reading:

- Erin's take on EI improvements is definitely worth a read in pointing out the relative impacts of the proposals made by the opposition parties and the one now likely to be passed.

- One NDP nomination which probably deserves more attention than it's received is that of Jasbir Sandhu in Surrey North. The combination of a riding recently held by the NDP under Penny Priddy and a candidate with a strong public profile would seem to suggest that the seat is once again one of the party's top priorities. And while the Cons will obviously be fighting tooth and nail for every seat possible, the fact that incumbent Dona Cadman has repeatedly broken with her party may make the Cons slightly less eager to defend this seat than those occupied by their less-independent MPs.

- The fact that the Western Climate Initiative - including the governments of Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba - has criticized the Cons' attempt to set "intensity" targets rather than actual caps on emissions from the tar sands has received plenty of attention. But the Pembina Institute's framing of the problem is worth emphasizing:

"It's also significant that provinces are once again pointing out the problems that will occur if the federal government sets intensity targets for entire sectors like the oilsands. That would amount to providing a production subsidy to a sector that doesn't need it, and invite retaliation from our trading partners."

- Finally, while the scathing report about the Cons' plan for a more harsh but less effective prison system has received plenty of attention primarily for its similarity to policies which have failed in the U.S., it's worth highlighting what the plan figures to do compared to Canadian standards:

In addition to constructing super prisons and implementing work programs, the program will eliminate gradual release and deny inmates rights that are now entrenched in the Constitution.

Needless to say, that raises a serious question as to whether the Cons have any clue as to the relative importance of constitutional documents and department-level policies. But would it be much of a shock if they're deliberately planning to put programs in place which are unconstitutional now in the hope that court rulings which properly recognize the constitutional rights of inmates will help them rail against judges in the future?

Compare and contrast

Dalton McGuinty, trying to make excuses as to why it's too late to have any actual debate over the HST:

"In no jurisdiction that they have put this into place have they ever repealed it."

Reality:

Harmonizing Saskatchewan's taxes may have been the death blow that forced Grant Devine from office in 1991, said David McGrane, assistant professor of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan.

"If the experience in Saskatchewan tells us anything it's that McGuinty should be stepping very warily when it comes to harmonization, it is something that can be extremely unpopular," McGrane said.

Harmonization became one of New Democrat Roy Romanow's key issues as he campaigned successfully to overtake Devine as premier and it was promptly abolished after the election.

Just so we're clear...

...when I suggested that the Cons couldn't plausibly distance themselves from the HST without also cutting loose any credit or responsibility for their infrastructure spending, that wasn't intended as an invitation to the Cons to do just that.

But as long as Baird is looking to claim (in the face of thoroughly damning evidence) that the Cons haven't had any role in deciding where federal money is spent, I'm sure we'd all be interested to see just how many municipalities and provinces in fact had projects rejected through the Cons' various infrastructure schemes - and whether they'd agree with Baird's insinuation that their "competence" and "ability" are called into question by the Cons' failure to support their plans.

Municipal roundup

Needless to say, the biggest news on the municipal front is the not-unexpected announcement that Jim Elliott will challenge Pat Fiacco for the position of mayor of Regina.

Of course, Elliott's previous electoral results haven't been overwhelming. But he's achieved a public profile as one of the leading skeptics about a downtown domed stadium. And while the odds of Elliott beating out Fiacco figure to be long, he should be in an excellent position to start setting up the narrative which could lead to more visible change down the road.

Meanwhile, the Leader-Post has reported on two additional entrants in Regina's municipal races.

In the Ward 5 council seat, John Findura is running again after placing second in 2006. But while it's always a plus to see additional entrants participating in municipal elections, Findura's 2006 profile focusing on traffic, crime and taxes may leave little room for optimism that he'd be an improvement over incumbent Bill Gray (who hasn't yet announced his intentions) or any other competitor.

And in Subdivision 3, former FNUC Vice President and Canadian Education Association councillor Shauneen Pete has announced her candidacy. On paper, it's remarkable that a candidate with Pete's resume would launch herself into an already-contested school board race - but it certainly speaks well for Pete that she's looking to put her experience to work at the school board level.

On qualifiers

It isn't just the Sask Party government which is having to backtrack on its pro-nuclear jingoism, as even the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce is now trying to pretend that its constant stream of pro-reactor messages was always subject to concern about the cost involved:

The Chamber believes uranium development can be a major contributor to helping our province achieve its long-hoped-for potential. However, development in any business has to be economic, and that has always be the key qualifier of our support.

So let's take a look at the Chamber's helpful set of nuclear industry talking points masquerading as an FAQ (warning: PDF) to see how careful they've been to suggest that cost might be a problem:

Nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation. Nuclear energy is competitive with fossil fuel for electricity generation, despite relatively high capital costs and the need to internalize all waste disposal and decommissioning costs. If the social, health and environmental costs of fossil fuels are taken into account, nuclear is outstanding...(W)hen all of these issues are given careful consideration, nuclear energy still costs considerably less than renewable energy...Other drivers of this resurgent interest in nuclear energy include: the growing global demand for electricity; nuclear power’s cost competitiveness over the full life cycle...Nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation, except where there is direct access to low-cost fossil fuels.

Now, am I the only one seeing a lot of "nuclear = cheap!!!" to go with the Chamber's general "nuclear = magic rainbow sparkle ponies!!!" PR campaign, rather than any actual recognition that costs might offer some reason to qualify its cheerleading?

Update: In fairness, it's worth noting that the Chamber of Commerce's FAQ does mention the possibility of cost overruns - but not as a reason to avoid building the reactor which might give rise to them:

WOULD THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT NEED TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE COST OF BUILDING THE POWER PLANT?

Capital cost overruns and schedule delays are key risks in any new nuclear build project, and they would need to be carefully mitigated in the project development process. To date, the cumulative risks of a new nuclear build have been too large for the private sector to bear alone and governments have played some form of facilitation in the implementation of nuclear power projects in all jurisdictions.
...
WHAT TYPE OF COST OVERRUNS HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCED BY NUCLEAR POWER PLANT BUILDERS?

Historically, the requirement for significant upfront capital investment, the long development timelines, and the uncertainties of licensing and cost overruns have resulted in the need for cooperation between public and private sector players to ensure nuclear new build projects are successfully executed. The most important roles of government are to provide strong and effective regulation of the nuclear power industry to ensure public safety and to provide policy stability to allow efficient licensing, construction, and operation.

Saskatchewan could reduce licensing and first-of-a-kind risks by drawing on the recent experiences of other Canadian provinces that have developed nuclear generation capacity.

So contrary to McLellan's message now, the Chamber's position hasn't been "build nuclear only if we determine that it's cheap", but "build nuclear because we believe it's cheap - and if we're wrong, we can skip over regulatory steps and stick the public with any remaining bill".

The reviews are in

Lawrence Martin:

What party is getting it right? Not on the political scoreboard, which is the journalistic obsession, but on the criteria that really count – policies that affect the country.

On that note, the question of track record, has anyone been looking at the NDP's performance?
...
They have been the most vocal opponents of foreign takeovers of Canadian companies. That got them labelled as antediluvian nationalists. But as our crown jewels continue to be sold off, you don't hear that criticism as much. Even some Conservatives are now wondering if the hollowing-out trend has gone too far.

The Dippers were early environmental warriors. Their warnings on income inequality – check the ugly stats on the current gap between rich and poor – have turned out to be highly credible. On the native peoples file, they were the ones who pressed the government to make the emotional residential schools apology.

Politically, the New Democrats are not getting much traction. It's tough when you have no control of the airwaves. They are still stereotyped by an image tethered to decades past. But they can take comfort in knowing that on many of the vital issues, they've been on the mark. Never mind the political score. On what really matters, vindication has come their way.

On diverted traffic

Kady is hard at work digging into the question of how the heavily self-promotional Action Plan site is funded and administered. But I haven't yet seen any followup on a great point raised by @joshstuart yesterday: whatever the Cons' excuses for using political terms and images on what's supposed to be a government site, how can it not be a serious issue for the site's social network links to go to personal sites for Stephen Harper rather than anything which even pretends to be official government material?

On competing visions

I'll echo Greg in mentioning that Brian Topp's latest is a must-read. But the most noteworthy part from my standpoint was Topp's willingness to point to the progressive coalition as a positive example of the NDP's vision and strategy:

Jack Layton's vision used to be that 163 Members of Parliament were elected from parties who claim to be progressive or centrist, versus 143 Conservatives. We are coming up on the first anniversary of Layton's attempt to have the government of Canada reflect that fact. Having been thwarted in this by the current leadership team in the Liberal Party, Layton and the New Democrats have reverted to type, and are seeking to achieve progress file-by-file (as Layton did on Toronto city council and in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities) in a Parliament where, you would think, progressives might have some leverage over a government dependent on them to survive.

In contrast to messages like the above, the NDP's strategy for too much of this year has involved at best a position that the coalition was a necessary evil, and at worst a failure to rebut the Cons' patently wrong view that it somehow represented an attack on democratic outcomes rather than an expression of them.

But with one of the NDP's public faces taking a step in the direction of explicitly defending and promoting the idea of coalition politics, it would stand to reason that the party can't be far behind. And that looks to position the NDP beautifully whenever the next federal election takes place.

After all, it's no secret that Stephen Harper's plan is to run against the idea of a coalition among the other parties - which makes sense for them given the hope that an election framed in those terms can give the Cons a couple of extra points which they're never going to pick up based on their own record in office. And equally obviously, the Libs' response is to deny that they're even remotely interested in that result while trying to change the subject - which can at least be rationally explained as an effort not to lose centre-right votes to the Cons, though I'm still far from sure it's ultimately a smart choice.

But let's not forget that the polls which are now wrongly cited as evidence that the coalition was radioactive actually showed support in the range of 30-50% - obviously providing for a significant pool of voters beyond the NDP's usual reach. And the demonstrations in favour of the coalition likely made for the greatest collaboration among diverse left-of-centre voices that Canada has seen for quite some time, hinting at exactly the type of potential energy that the NDP needs to tap into.

As a result, if the NDP positions itself to attack the Cons' anti-cooperation stance head on, it could find itself in the electoral sweet spot of being the clear alternative to the Cons on the ultimate ballot question, with a strong network of like-minded Canadians ready to offer their support to the principles at stake. And while there's a long way to go in challenging the false conventional wisdom that's taken root, it has to be a good sign that Topp appears to be setting the NDP up for exactly that type of message.

"We chose not to" Photoshops - #3

"We chose not to" Photoshops - #2

"We chose not to" Photoshops - #1

Let's follow up on this post with a new set of Photoshops from the Libs' slogan that keeps on giving. Here's the first:

The reviews are in

Jeffrey Simpson:

Strip away the rhetoric from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's recent speeches and two conclusions emerge.

First, there isn't much to them. Second, most of what there is does not differ markedly from what Stephen Harper's Conservative government is doing.

Again, rhetoric aside, a convergence between the two parties is noticeable, as the Conservatives become big-spending middle-of-the-roaders and learn more about foreign policy, and the Liberals seem incapable or unwilling to present anything terribly arresting.

Deep thought

Somewhere, at this very moment, Lisa Raitt is lobbying to be appointed Fisheries Minister.

On hollow messages

Granted, the Libs are apparently in the midst of their usual attempt to make themselves look far more progressive than they actually are. But surely Andrew Steele knows better than to think they'd ever translate that into actual policy proposals rather than content-free drivel.

On perfect storms

Among loads of other interesting information in her latest nomination roundup, Alice at Pundits' Guide points out why Sherbrooke indeed makes loads of sense as one of the NDP's Quebec targets:

Sherbrooke, QC - NDP Leader Jack Layton will be in Austin, Qué. next Wednesday to attend a fundraiser for his star candidate in this riding, TV host Yves Mondoux, reports the Sherbrooke Tribune. Mondoux was substituted in as NDP candidate very late in the 2008 campaign, when Bishops University professor Cheryl Gosselin had had to step down, and yet he still achieved 13% of the vote with few resources, said NDP Québec Lieutenant Tom Mulcair, who has promised the riding a much higher level of support this time around, and indeed it was named one of the Québec target seats by newly-appointed NDP campaign chair Brad Lavigne last week. 2008 Conservative candidate André Bachand has accepted a government appointment with UNESCO, while 2008 Liberal candidate Nathalie Goguen has elected to run municipally this fall instead, and no replacement has been identified as yet. Mondoux does not underestimate his remaining opponent, five-term Bloc Québécois M.P. Serge Cardin, but notes that "M. Cardin ne sera pas éternel". "Il faut préparer le changement," he says. No word on when the NDP nomination meeting is expected to be held, and Cardin has not been renominated for the Bloc in this riding as yet either.

Needless to say, there's probably no better opening for the NDP to make the jump from a competitive fourth to a serious contender than to combine a high-profile candidate of its own with a sudden dropoff in interest from the Libs and the Cons.

Which isn't to say that the other parties are wrong if they've concluded that their effort is better placed elsewhere: after all, fully-funded campaigns from the Libs in 2004 and the Cons in 2006 fell roughly 14,000 and 16,500 votes short of Cardin's total respectively. But Mondoux' early start and high profile should establish him as the main challenger to Cardin - and if the Bloc decides to move its resources elsewhere as well based on a perception that Cardin is in less dire straits than candidates facing challenges from the Libs or Cons, then it's not out of the question that Mondoux could take advantage of that opening to push Sherbrooke into NDP hands.

By-election aftermath

Obviously the most important result of last night's by-elections was the fact that both Saskatoon Riversdale and Regina Douglas Park stayed in NDP hands. But let's take a closer look at last night's results to see what they may mean for each of the parties involved.

For the NDP, the percentages are probably close to the best that could have been expected. With all parties focused entirely on the by-elections, the outcome figured to be closer than would normally be the case in a general election setting. And indeed the percentages narrowed far less in both of the ridings decided last night than in the 2008 Cumberland by-election - signalling that the NDP has managed to substantially improve its lock on traditional party turf compared to just a year ago.

That said, there seems to have been at least some disconnect between the NDP's expectations and the actual outcome. In Regina Douglas Park in particular, the Lingenfelter campaign spent much of the latter part of the campaign trumpeting record numbers of signs and identified votes. But those obviously didn't translate entirely into votes when it counted - and in fact the latter number actually exceeded the NDP's final tally at the polls.

So there are a couple of lessons to be taken from last night's results. First, the NDP needs to stay focused on the final result rather than taking too much pride in side projects like sign totals. And second, the voter identification process could probably use some tuning up - likely including both additional verification of identified supporters, and a stronger push to ensure that identified voters are kept involved throughout the campaign.

For the Sask Party, the by-elections served primarily as a test as to whether a combination of any remaining honeymoon period for the Wall government and a fairly negative air campaign against Dwain Lingenfelter could create enough of a head start to make up for the NDP's advantage in feet on the ground. And the answer there was a resounding "no", even with the Sask Party able to focus on only a single riding in each of Regina and Saskatoon.

But that doesn't mean the by-elections were a total waste for the Sask Party. Presumably the anti-Lingenfelter ads will serve Wall's purposes in framing the NDP for future elections even if it wasn't enough to put either of its candidates over the top this time out. And the absence of any meaningful Lib vote (by choice in Regina Douglas Park, but not in Saskatoon Riversdale) looks to have operated to the Sask Party's favour in both ridings, hinting at some changes in the dynamics likely to affect Saskatchewan's urban results in 2011.

To the extent any candidate could claim a stronger performance than expected, that honour would have to go to the Greens' Victor Lau in Regina Douglas Park, who increased his raw vote total from 2007 and nearly doubled his share of the vote. But even that result leaves Lau far from any serious contention for the seat - and it's doubtful that circumstances will get any better for the Greens in 2011, particularly if the nuclear question has been decided one way or the other by then. (Meanwhile, the Greens' campaign in Saskatoon Riversdale was a fairly thorough flop, as Tobi-Dawne Smith took a lower share of the vote than the previous Green candidate.)

Finally, there are the Liberals - or what's left of them. On paper, they seemed to have an opportunity to put themselves back on the political map in Saskatoon Riversdale: for their first by-election under a reasonably well-hyped leader, they managed to recruit a candidate who won over 34% of the vote in an adjacent riding under the Sask Party's banner in 2007. And of course most of the Libs' seeming strength should have been in Saskatoon, where former leader David Karwacki was the only Lib candidate to top 16% in a riding which featured a full slate of opponents.

But instead of building on any combination of her own history and any Lib machinery in Saskatoon, Eileen Gelowitz barely nosed ahead of Smith for a distant third place with 2.6% of the vote. And that complete absence of a party capable of assembling even a minimally successful campaign even under the most friendly of conditions would figure to make it next to impossible for the Libs to recruit similar candidates in the future.

The results are in

Congratulations to Dwain Lingenfelter and Danielle Chartier on their by-election victories. And RIP Saskatchewan Liberal Party, 1905-2009.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Meanwhile...

...Michael Ignatieff now says he won't do anything about the HST (which he still purports to oppose) due to his firm belief in the sanctity of written agreements.

No, seriously.

Worse than nothing

One of the main rallying points for the NDP in its decision to try to get results out of the current Parliament rather than forcing an election has been to compare $1 billion in EI improvements from the NDP's anticipated votes this fall to zero in benefits arising from the Libs' 79 votes to prop up the Harper government. But it's worth pointing out that while that may make for an easily-repeated message, it's actually far too generous to the Libs when one compares the starting point for the votes.

After all, the NDP's votes are coming at a time when the alternative to passing an EI bill is a certain election. Once a campaign starts, the baseline expected result would almost certainly involve the Cons winning another minority government - and a Harper majority (which would surely take the opportunity to start attacking "fringe groups" like women and minorities with far less restraint than they've had to show so far) would loom as a more likely outcome than a victory for any other party or combination thereof. And even if one generously assumes that the heightened risk of a Con majority through an election is balanced out by the potential for change, the net benefit from votes actually is still $1 billion more than would be provided otherwise.

In contrast, the Libs' confidence votes included the most important ones of all - being those at the start of 2009 when there was a coalition ready, able and poised to offer an alternative government.

That's where any attempt to claim credit for the Cons' initial stimulus breaks down. The difference then wasn't between the Cons' stimulus and nothing, but between continued Con government and any superior stimulus plan which could and should have been provided by Ignatieff and his party in a coalition with the NDP. And based on the opposition parties' common criticisms of the Cons, the latter choice would have meant more money flowing directly to municipalities to get a recovery started faster, and a plan designed based on what the NDP and Libs jointly saw as best for Canada rather than on what the Cons saw as best to buy themselves votes.

In sum, Ignatieff's decision to leave Harper at the controls when there was actually an immediate alternative resulted in a far worse outcome than a mere zero. And it shouldn't be forgotten that the party which now claims it can do better is the party which chose not to.

Monday Morning 'Rider Blogging

Needless to say, yesterday's game was a painful one for the 'Riders. Of course Saskatchewan managed a remarkable comeback after seeming to have no answers for the Edmonton offence in the first half. But curiously, the team seemed to figure that it could coast through the latter half of the fourth quarter once it had both the lead and the wind - and while the Eskimos' route to a game-winning touchdown may have been surprising, it shouldn't have been a shock to anybody that they rediscovered their ability to score points when they needed to.

As a result, the obvious priority going into next week's rematch has to be figuring out some way to stop the Esks' offence - and preferably without relying on receivers to drop catchable passes.

Most of the season, opponents have had their greatest success both pressuring Ricky Ray and tipping passes at the line. And while the former wasn't much of option given how quickly Ray was getting rid of the ball yesterday, the 'Riders weren't far away from getting their hands on enough passes to cause problems for the Esks. Which means that the key may simply be a matter of figuring out how the angles in Kevin Strasser's offensive scheme might differ from those under Rick Worman.

And of course, while the 'Riders managed to force one key fumble yesterday, they'll almost certainly need to up the turnover count - which shouldn't seem all that unrealistic considering how much trouble most of the Eskimos' skill players have had in hanging onto the ball.

Meanwhile, the 'Riders' offence was roughly on par with expectations. Wes Cates was shut down a bit more than usual, but that was counterbalanced by some effective running from Durant as well as an effective distribution of passes (five different receivers posted 35+ yards, with four of those catching 5 passes in the process).

As for the special teams, the main issue yesterday was one of strategy rather than execution. Counting Jamie Boreham's successful fake punt, the 'Riders chose three times to punt from well within Edmonton's zone with a brisk wind at their back in the fourth quarter - the last two with a three-point lead. And while one wouldn't want to count on Luca Congi being a lock to convert from 50+ yards, the value of even a single point in that situation would seem to have offered reason to let him test his range.

Having once again found a way to lose on their home turf, the 'Riders will face plenty of pressure to repay the Eskimos' favour next week in order to avoid falling to the back of the West standings. And while all aspects of the game seem to be functioning well enough to keep the 'Riders competitive against anybody, it has to be cause for concern that they've had trouble building and holding a lead against any team other than the Bombers.

E-Day

Today's the day for voters in Regina Douglas Park and Saskatoon Riversdale to have their say in two provincial by-elections, with polls opening at 9 AM and closing at 8 PM.

Both NDP candidates have apparently shattered previous records for sign locations, signalling that a strong volunteer effort has translated into plenty of public support. But the count that matters comes today - so I'll encourage voters in both ridings to make sure their voices are heard, and anybody interested in volunteering to stop by the NDP's campaign headquarters (Tommy Douglas House in Regina, 1030 Avenue L South in Saskatoon) to pitch in.

Behind closed doors

I'll have plenty more to say in a follow-up post. But for now, it's worth highlighting Joe Kuchta's research showing that the Wall government looks to have abandoned the TILMA in name only - and that while public outcry about the original agreement between B.C. and Alberta may have forced the Sask Party to back down, it seems eager to sign a virtually identical agreement following exactly the same zero-consultation process which gave rise to the TILMA.

On transformed strategy

The CP offers at least some answers to my questions as to what the NDP is hoping to accomplish by prolonging the current Parliament. But while it's right to note that the strategy seems to be based at least in part on precedents which led the party to power in Manitoba and Nova Scotia, there are some key distinctions which seem to have been glossed over:

(T)here is more to the transformed NDP strategy than the EI bill and Liberal tactics, say party insiders and analysts. The seeds were planted at the annual convention in Halifax in mid-August.

There, party members focused intently on how to win. They talked about putting an end to the political games and voting for things that they actually wanted to happen. And they took a hard look at how provincial NDP Leader Darrell Dexter managed to work his way up to be premier of Nova Scotia.

The events of the last week "are an example of Jack Layton trying to take a page from Darrell Dexter," said Anthony Salloum, program director at the Rideau Institute think-tank and a former staffer for Alexa McDonough when she led the NDP.

Salloum, who is also close to Dexter, said the Nova Scotia premier had a patient, pragmatic approach to politics when he was in opposition. He didn’t oppose for opposition’s sake, and would hold his nose and support measures that made sense. Gradually, he expanded his base that way, developing a reputation for being practical rather than partisan.

The CP's account is absolutely right about the message sent in Halifax, as speakers from Manitoba and Nova Scotia alike made pointed mention of the party's having voted with Conservative governments at times on the way to power. But what's missing is the context for those votes.

In Manitoba, in advance of an election which was set to take place that fall regardless of what happened on the budget vote, the Filmon government presented a budget which boosted health care spending by roughly 10% after the NDP had focused on health care as its main issue for the previous four years. As a result, the NDP's support for the budget provided both a vote for substantially the policies it had been advocating since the previous election, and a form of immunization in advance of an election which would happen regardless of the outcome of the budget vote.

In Nova Scotia, the NDP's votes actually were essential to support a PC government. But they too were readily explained as being based on the governing party having actually adopted planks from the NDP's platform.

Of course, $1 billion in improvements to EI for long-term workers as currently on offer from the Cons is certainly better than nothing. But the federal NDP has rightly criticized the Cons' bill as falling short of even the Cons' spin (which itself didn't promise anything close to what the NDP has long been seeking on EI). And combined with the Harper government's continued stance of refusing to cooperate with other parties, that makes it a much more difficult sell to claim that NDP support can be grounded in the governing party having adopted its values and proposals.

Which means that unless Layton has some reason to expect that the Cons will radically change course, the NDP's message will be based on compromising for the sake of being seen as willing to compromise, rather than much expectation of substantially advancing the NDP's vision for Canada in its voting choices. And there's reason to question whether that will accomplish any more as a matter of pragmatism than it will as a matter of principle.

Someday, this could all be ours...

While one would like to think the overwhelming public opposition to nuclear power in Saskachewan would lead to the "demise" of any plans for reactor construction as theorized by Murray Mandryk, I'm still far from convinced that the Wall government won't try to find some excuse to ignore the province's input. So let's look to New Brunswick's Point Lepreau reactor for a reminder as to just how accurate nuclear backers tend to be in describing the costs and time frames involved:

New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham is ratcheting up the pressure on the federal government to get a firm completion date for the Point Lepreau refurbishment project.

Graham announced Thursday that he has sent a second letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking that the federal Department of Natural Resources, which is responsible for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., provide an update on the nuclear reactor refurbishment project — which is months behind schedule.
...
In Graham's letter Tuesday to Harper, the premier warned the prime minister about the financial implications about any significant delays at the nuclear plant.

"The losses occasioned by these delays are extremely costly for both AECL and NB Power. AECL and NB Power have a fixed-price contract with various damage formulas," Graham's letter said.

"No doubt our respective counsel could advise on the implications for each of the parties. I am writing in the same vein as my January, to request that the federal government keep NB Power whole for these losses. We did not contract for failure and damage claims. We contracted for success."

The reactor was originally intended to begin generating electricity again on Oct. 1.

NB Power has not released an up-to-date estimate of the project's delay. However, CBC News reported earlier in September that the refurbishment is at least nine months behind schedule.

For every day that Point Lepreau remains offline, it costs the New Brunswick government roughly $1 million upfront, though that should eventually be mitigated somewhat. Before the refurbishment project started, NB Power bought insurance just in case the reactor fell behind schedule. Additionally, NB Power renegotiated a series of contracts in 2005 to include stiffer penalties on AECL if the project was not completed on time.

If the penalties and insurance funds are fully recouped, the monthly cost to NB Power would be about $20 million.

NB Power would still be on the hook for the entire cost of the delays in the month of October, which isn't covered by the insurance or penalties.

On impact assessments

Shorter TD Economics HST analysis:

On its face, tax harmonization thoroughly screws over consumers in order to give money to business. But if one pointlessly takes into accounts goods and services not covered by the harmonization, the screwing looks much smaller. And the actual screwing decreases even more in theory once one assumes that businesses will return some of the giveaway to consumers, though the net result does indeed remain a screwing. So what's not to like?

'Rider Tidbit of the Day

It doesn't seem to have received much notice so far, but let's point out that one of the Saskatchewan Roughriders' strengths this season has been the sheer number of effective receivers. In the team's 10 games so far the 'Riders have had 7 different leading receivers, including Weston Dressler (games 1, 2 and 8), Andy Fantuz (game 3), Rob Bagg (games 4 and 6), Chris Getzlaf (game 5), Jason Clermont (game 7), Wes Cates (game 9) and Gerran Walker (game 10). And it's not out of the question that a few more names could find their way onto the list by the end of the season: Stu Foord, Hugh Charles, Jason Armstead, Johnny Quinn, Eric Morris and Adam Nicolson all have the potential to put up a high-double-digit yardage total or more given the opportunity to make some catches, and of course Matt Dominguez is still waiting in the wings.

All of which means that the 'Riders had no trouble making teams pay for playing off any of their receivers. And that only figures to make it easier for the players like Dressler, Fantuz and Cates who normally demand extra attention to find openings that the 'Riders' opponents can't afford to give them.

So now what?

The last few days have seen numerous twists and turns in the apparent course of events in the House of Commons - with the latest appearing to be a conclusion that the EI legislation which the NDP wants to work with will be held up by the Bloc. And there are still plenty of ways in which either the EI bill or other matters in Parliament could shift again to move Canada back toward the fall election which seemed inevitable just a couple of weeks ago.

But with the NDP having generally set itself up on a track to avoid an election, there's one serious question now facing the party which the Libs never bothered to answer when in a relatively similar stance. Namely, what exactly will the party be doing to improve its position while prolonging the current Parliament? Or if the NDP's goal is to avoid an election now, what's the plan to make sure that it's better placed for an election later?

I've mentioned a couple of opportunities which the NDP will presumably want to pursue. But those are dependent on at least one of the other parties in Parliament recognizing common interests and working with the NDP - and while it would be a plus if those came to fruition, it's obviously impossible to plan based on matters beyond a party's control. (Again, this is one of the lessons that the Libs never seemed to figure out.)

Of course I'll be mooting some more suggestions of my own, and I'll invite readers to do the same. But the most important answers will have to come from those within the NDP who concluded that the party's best choice was to buy time now rather than seeking to take advantage of the opportunities from a fall election: what return are we expecting to get on the investment?

Municipal roundup

The Leader-Post updates a couple more entries into Regina's council races this fall. Incumbent Fred Clipsham will jump right in to the four-candidate pileup in Ward 3, while Danny Berehula will try again in Ward 7 after losing to incumbent Sharron Bryce in 2006.

While Regina doesn't figure to suffer from any lack of competitive council races, Saskatoon is apparently lamenting the fact that over half of its incumbents currently appear to be unopposed. But it's worth noting that the Star-Phoenix isn't exactly being subtle in pointing out which candidates it wants to see elected.

While progressive candidates Sean Shaw and Derek Rope don't get either any political identifiers or policy proposals mentioned in the Star-Phoenix' coverage, right-wing candidates Carol Reynolds and Mark Horseman are actually identified as such. And what's more, Horseman receives an opportunity to complain about city spending which is then reinforced by former councillor Owen Fortosky - meaning that even non-candidates spreading a message of spending cuts are being offered more attention by the Star-Phoenix than actual candidates who actually want their municipal government to be useful.

On selective patriotism

Shorter Kelly McParland, on learning that a single U.S. administration official had proposed treating Canada similarly to Mexico in terms of border issues:

Oh noes!!! We must drop everything and run - nay, SPRINT!!! - to the nearest megaphone and shout at the top of our lungs to defend our honour on border management and security, lest the slightest inaccuracy or unfair portrayal of Canada affect U.S. policy!!!! SHRIEEEEEK!!!!


Shorter Kelly McParland on the suggestion that it might be a good idea to point out a few of the inaccuracies being spread about Canada's health care system within the U.S. health care debate:

Meh. Why should anybody care whether one of the U.S.' major political parties uses every moment available to it on airwaves which cut through both countries to fabricate conspiracy theories about our health care system? After all, it's not as if it matters what they do anyway.

(Edit: added label & fixed wording.)

Musical interlude

Watchmen - Holiday (Slow it Down)

On closed minds

Shorter corporate Saskatchewan on the province's overwhelming rejection of nuclear development through the UDP consultation process:

If the lowly general public has the nerve to disagree with what we've heard in our well-sealed echo chamber, that just proves that it isn't worth listening to.

On foolish games

Never mind Omar Alghabra, it looks like Michael Ignatieff may want to have a word with Michael Ignatieff over his political games. Ignatieff today:

Mr. Ignatieff at first told reporters Friday that he did not want to play “games” by criticizing the NDP's position, but did later poke fun at his rivals on the opposition benches.

Now, the statement that Ignatieff doesn't want to play games looks odd enough based on the quote which follows. But it looks downright ridiculous compared to Ignatieff's public position yesterday:

The Liberals have offered to speed passage of Tory EI legislation, hoping to rob the NDP of its rationale for propping up the Harper government.
...
"We don't want to give Mr. Layton any alibis," Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said.

Of course, it remains to be seen how many more "games" Ignatieff and his party continue to play by their own definition. But it should be abundantly clear that Ignatieff isn't interested in trying to do much other than dig himself down to Stephen Harper's level of complete disconnection between what he claims to aspire to and how he actually acts. And that's unlikely to be a winning angle when Canadians prepared to put up with that kind of duplicity already figure to be in Harper's camp.

The reset button

The Libs evidently think they've managed to accomplish some great feat by basing their entire Parliamentary strategy on a desire to embarrass the NDP. But the end result may be the opposite of what they're expecting.

Keep in mind that the Cons' current habit in government has been to push ahead with its agenda with absolutely no need to negotiate or take into account the policy goals of other parties. But that doesn't mean such an outcome was ever inevitable; instead, it was brought about by opposition parties (first the Bloc, then the Libs) who didn't bother trying to get any policy results in exchange for their backing.

Now, circumstances have already changed enough for the Cons to have felt a need to introduce EI improvements beyond their existing budget plans. And the Libs' effort to speed up the process of passing that set of changes may only make it easier for the NDP to get more of its priorities passed into law.

After all, there's no indication that the NDP's position that it'll need the Cons to offer reasons for any future support will change - and indeed Layton has already presented that as his bottom line.

So suppose the EI bill does pass in the next two weeks before the Libs' next scheduled confidence vote. At that point, Layton will have another opening to declare that Harper needs to give the NDP some reason to support the government.

Now, Harper could refuse to offer anything at that point. But the fact that Harper put the current EI expansion on the table suggests that he perceives some significant risk in being seen to have precipitated an election by offering absolutely nothing to a party who's willing to work within the current Parliament. So it's more likely that he'd then turn to another item on the NDP's list of policy priorities - pensions? credit card regulation? - and make a public overture to the NDP on that in order to try to get Layton's vote on the next confidence motion.

From there, I doubt the Libs would bother trying the expedited process gambit again on their own. But once it's been used once, there would seem to be little reason not to apply it to issues that cut far enough across ideological lines to be seen as desirable by both the NDP and the Cons. And as each NDP priority passes, the cycle figures to begin again - creating a new baseline expectation where the Cons have to first accommodate and eventually negotiate with the NDP to stay in power, as well as a list of concrete accomplishments the NDP can point to in the next federal election campaign.

In sum, rather than allowing the NDP twist in the wind for several months over a single EI bill, Ignatieff may instead have created the conditions for the NDP's best-case scenario under the current Parliament: a government looking to it for support, and a Parliament with no roadblocks to getting those agreed measures passed. So after two years of ensuring that their confidence votes would count for nothing, the Libs may have just set up the NDP's votes to generate the greatest possible return.

Burning question

As unseemly as it is that the Ontario government is threatening to release a "document on the negative impact of management fees for investors" as retaliation for the mutual fund industry's campaign against the HST, isn't it at least as problematic that it's withheld that information from the public in the first place?

On systemic issues

Kudos to the CCPA for its effort in putting together a comprehensive list of the Campbell government's public service cuts. But isn't it a sure sign of a broken political system that the government's own reporting is too opaque for anybody to tell what's been given the axe without that kind of effort?

(h/t to the Tyee.)

L'Affaire Jaffer

I wasn't planning to post on Rahim Jaffer's arrest initially. But now that it's given rise to a media lovefest which is eager to present him as the lone victim of his own apparent offences, I'd think there's a need to ask some serious questions about Jaffer's actual IOKIYAC treatment by the media and his potential treatment by the justice system.

Shouldn't those now going out of their way to paint Jaffer as a "decent person who was an inspiration to young political hopefuls" whose arrest was merely the result of his being "too human" also be spending at least a bit of time pointing out that Jaffer's party is doing its utmost to make sure that our justice system isn't equipped to take those kinds of factors into account in sentencing?

Of course, there's another way around that in terms of the types of charges which prosecutors may choose to pursue. And I wonder if there's a serious question on that point as well: will minimum-sentence laws premised on the claim that nobody committing a particular offence can possibly deserve to avoid jail time simply lead to the Crown choosing not to pursue the maximum charges properly applicable to "respectable" offenders like Jaffer?

On glass houses

Omar Alghabra might want to have a word with his party's leader - or vice versa. Omar Alghabra:

The EI debate: Canadians are being deprived a meaningful debate

It is almost impossible to have a meaningful debate with the Conservatives and Stephen Harper. They are more interested in one upmanship games than articulating what it is that they stand for.

Michael Ignatieff:

Although Liberals believe the EI bill "falls radically short of serious employment insurance reform," Ignatieff said they want to expedite its passage.

Alghabra:

It appears that the Conservatives have no vision and don’t know what they believe in. They are mostly interested in humiliating their opponents rather than engage in policy debates.

Ignatieff:

The Liberals have offered to speed passage of Tory EI legislation, hoping to rob the NDP of its rationale for propping up the Harper government.
...
The move is clearly designed to embarrass NDP Leader Jack Layton, who has said his party will prop up the government at least until the EI reforms are implemented.

"We don't want to give Mr. Layton any alibis," Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said.

And in case there's any doubt, I'd fully agree with the strategy of seeking to pass the bill quickly as a means of getting help to workers. But shouldn't the Libs have at least some shame about using their criticisms of the Cons as a blueprint for their own actions?

(Edit: fixed wording and link.)

Too costly

It's definitely for the best that the overwhelming public outcry over the Sask Party's nuclear agenda has forced even Brad Wall to acknowledge some of the main problems with nuclear power. But considering that Wall still doesn't apparently see those as reasons to stop pushing ahead, there's still plenty of work to be done:

Nuclear power may be too large and too costly for a province like Saskatchewan, which needs to keep its energy options open, Premier Brad Wall said Wednesday.
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In an interview before Wednesday's cabinet meeting at the legislature, Wall did not close the door on nuclear power, saying it was still on the agenda.

But while the high costs of nuclear reactor construction are nothing new, he said there are factors that have led to the increased concern over price.

Those include the cost of upgrading the province's transmission system to accommodate the large scale of a reactor, uncertainty around the ability to export the power generated and the increasing potential of electricity generation from natural gas that could remain cheap for some time to come.
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"That is one of the challenges of nuclear power. . . . The cost is significant enough that it may just, on a de facto basis, rule out pursuing some of the rest of the envelope, the rest of the options, including clean coal, which is not an inexpensive technology," said Wall.

The premier said it would be a mistake for a government-owned electrical utility such as SaskPower to be reliant on a single source of power. The government envisions a mix of energy sources -- including clean coal, natural gas and renewables such as wind power -- in the province's power supply.

Needless to say, the problem with Wall's seeming recognition of the problems with nuclear power is that it's contradicted by his actions. Even ignoring the other issues which Wall downplays, there's no apparent reason to think that the actual cost of nuclear construction will drop before the end of the year when Wall wants to be able to commit Saskatchewan to reactor construction. And there's absolutely no way around the fact that the proposals floated so far would make Saskatchewan almost entirely dependent on nuclear power.

So Wall seems to have accepted all the premises behind the NDP's position that the only decision he can validly make is to nix the idea of nuclear power - while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the resulting conclusion. Which means there's reason for suspicion that he's looking for little more than excuses to falsely declare the cost issue resolved (presumably through the Sask Party's usual creative accounting) rather than actually dealing with the obvious concerns of Saskatchewan's citizens.

On reasonable expectations

It's rare for the Harper government to come up with a new form of government secrecy that they haven't yet trotted out many times before. But the Cons' response to the news that they hadn't bothered answering an e-mail from the NDP looks to have managed the feat:

For the record, the Prime Minister’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, responded late yesterday to a Globe and Mail story published online that morning. The story quoted New Democrat spokesman Karl Belanger saying that it was “telling” that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Guy Giorno, has yet to respond to an email sent to him several days ago by NDP Leader Jack Layton’s chief of staff, Anne McGrath.

The NDP said the email was to follow up on questions the Conservatives had raised about NDP policies during an Aug. 25 meeting between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mr. Layton, attended by both Ms. McGrath and Mr. Giorno.

Mr. Soudas offered this response.

“Why would we reply to people who leak e-mail correspondence?” he wrote in an email.

Leaving aside the NDP's absolutely correct point that it's the Cons who have gone out of their way to leak actual private conversations, let's keep in mind what the "correspondence" actually involved: an e-mail from the NDP to the Cons, period. Which means that no information could possibly have been "leaked" from the government because...well, it didn't actually provide any information capable of being leaked in any meaningful sense of the word.

But apparently the Cons are managing to claim that their failure to respond somehow constitutes a confidential non-communication. So as far as the Cons are concerned, their government's silence on the NDP's policy proposals - or presumably any other issue - is nobody's business but their own.

Now that's responsiveness

When I suggested that the Saskatchewan NDP should work toward developing a news aggregator as part of a strategy to turn its website into a hub for news about the province, I didn't think they'd be able to put a first version online in a matter of days. So far the News and Views page includes a collection of Saskatchewan-focused blog posts and news stories from fairly familiar sources, which is itself a handy enough addition to the NDP's caucus site. But if the party is able to take the next step and start incorporating sources which don't otherwise get much online exposure, then it should be well on its way to ensuring that anybody looking for the best collection of information on Saskatchewan politics looks to the NDP first.

On possibilities

Not surprisingly given my earlier posts on NDP strategy, I'm with pogge in not seeing a lot of upside to the NDP's declaration that it will support the Cons until EI changes are passed - particularly since that announcement wasn't paired with any particular urgency to actually pass the new EI bill. But I do wonder whether the fact that the NDP signed on to vote in favour of Friday's ways and means motion - even after the Bloc had already indicated that the Con government wouldn't be toppled - might be a sign of potential or actual cooperation between the NDP and the Bloc along the lines of what I mooted earlier this year.

After all, there's been a fairly clear line drawn between the Con/Lib and NDP/Bloc groupings within the House of Commons over the past few months. Both Harper and Ignatieff have publicly declared that they have no intention of working with either of the latter two parties - which means that in order to increase their influence, both the NDP and the Bloc have a strong interest in improving the share of seats taken out of those two parties' hands. And of course the NDP and the Bloc also share a common strategy of painting the Cons and Libs as mirror images of each other.

So might the NDP's decision to give the Bloc some political cover on its vote with the Cons be a first step toward the two parties working together more often - giving them an effective voting bloc larger than the Libs in the current Parliament, with an eye toward applying joint pressure on the Cons as matters stand now and developing a governing alternative in the future?

Well said

Greg:

Liberals quite frankly don't care whether the NDP votes with the Conservatives or not, in the real world. In their hearts, the NDP always votes with the Conservatives, because they, the NDP, are not Liberals. Whereas although Liberals do vote regularly with the Conservatives, that is entirely different. After all, they are Liberals. It is the difference that makes all the difference.

On poor judgment

In response to Dr. Dawg's challenge, there's one Lib blogger willing to try to defend the Cons' free trade agreement with Colombia. But this one leads to a follow-up test: try to find a word of Bionic Liberal's post which wouldn't be equally applicable as an argument in favour of expanded trade with, say, apartheid-era South Africa. (If not more so, given that the obvious problems in Canada which BL claims should disqualify us from trying to take any action to preserve human rights anywhere were actually the model for the regime which Canada boycotted.)

So the rallying cry has gone up from the Libs: "we are all Rob Anders now".

On levels of support

It shouldn't come as much surprise that the Libs, the Cons and their media buddies doing their utmost to strongarm the NDP into backing the Cons even while concern trolling about how disastrous that move would be. And there's no doubt that the NDP's response needs to be based on its own assessment of how matters stand rather than on those external forces.

But just as that means not being goaded by the taunts coming from the Cons and Libs, it also means resisting the pressure to knuckle under and offer more support than the Cons deserve for too little return. And with that in mind, here's how I'd see the path forward from this Friday's confidence vote.

In general, the NDP needs to differentiate between two different types of cooperation which current seem to be getting mixed up. Take in particular this line from CBC:

NDP Leader Jack Layton had signalled he could support the government after the Tories announced a proposal to extend employment insurance for long-tenured workers. Layton said the EI plan was a "step in the right direction."

For the EI changes to proceed, the NDP feels it would have to support the government on Friday.

Now, there might be some circumstances where the NDP should be willing to declare that a substantial enough set of policy proposals from the Cons could justify supporting the government more broadly to make sure they get implemented. If by some chance Harper were to adopt wholesale some combination of the NDP's proposals on EI, its climate change bill (with reinforcements based on the ability to pass a money bill) or pension protection, that's the point where the NDP should take a serious look at backing the Cons even on unrelated confidence votes - as the tangible gains from those specific policies would be seen to outweigh the costs of keeping the Cons in power long enough to get them passed.

But one set of EI adjustments which falls far short of the NDP's own proposals shouldn't be seen as anywhere near meeting that standard. And that in turn leads to a far different set of calculations.

The NDP should make it clear that it supports the EI bill itself (depending on its contents), and that to the extent the EI bill is seen as a confidence matter the NDP will vote in favour of it. But it should also place the onus squarely on the Cons to act responsibly enough in how they act generally to shift the NDP from its entirely justified lack of confidence in the Harper government. And that should start with a vote against the Cons on Friday to make it clear that Harper has to demonstrate he's willing to govern in a way that the NDP can support - or declare otherwise and justify that refusal to Canada's voters.

Particularly in light of Harper's recent combination of taunting and unresponsiveness, the starting point needs to be that the Cons still have everything to prove - both in being serious about passing the EI reforms which have been floated so far, and in governing responsibly enough not to be brought down while the EI bill works its way through Parliament. (That should be paired with the unanimous consent strategy on the EI bill itself, which if the Libs play along would have the added bonus of raising the expectation that the changes will happen regardless of whether or not an election happens in the meantime.)

And if as seems likely the Cons choose to force the country to the polls rather than doing their job of working with anybody in Parliament, then there can't be much room for doubt that the NDP and the country would be even worse off in the long run if Harper were allowed to keep power rather than being called out on his stubbornness.

The unhelpful truth

It isn't exactly news that after spending several years shouting from the rooftops about tax harmonization - and throwing billions of public dollars at provinces to pay them off - Deficit Jim Flaherty has suddenly gone quiet now that the resulting tax increases are proving unpopular. But it's noteworthy that the Cons themselves are apparently admitting to having told Flaherty to shut up about the HST:

In the past, Flaherty has publicly pushed provinces to harmonize their sales taxes with Ottawa's, calling the two-tier tax system a "direct burden" on businesses.

In March, he praised Ontario, saying the move would save business about $500 million in administrative costs, and noted that, in a few years, "hopefully we will have a harmonized system across Canada."

But federal Conservative sources have told the Star that earlier in the summer, officials in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office ordered Flaherty to tone it down.

"They asked Jim to stop talking about (the tax) so much because it's not helpful," said one insider.

Of course, it's worth highlighting that the PMO doesn't appear to have shown any interest in actually revisiting whether it's a good idea to spend billions of federal dollars pushing toward tax harmonization in the first place. And the fact that Harper's orders were simply to try to hide from responsibility for his government's actions rather than to do something about them should leave no room for doubt that the Cons remain fully behind the effort to shift tax burdens from businesses to individuals - no matter how much they pretend otherwise in order to deflect blame.

The reviews are in

Murray Mandryk:

For however much Dan Perrins's report on the Uranium Development Partnership's (UDP) public consultation did or didn't reflect Saskatchewan's true feelings on nuclear development, one thing should be learned from this process.

Don't let Energy Minister Bill Boyd teach you how to drive.
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(I)t might have been Boyd's motoring analogy that was the real car wreck Tuesday. To be begin with, a yellow light doesn't mean "proceed with caution". It means "prepare to stop". (Let us all hope and pray that Premier Brad Wall opts for the safer option of teaching his own kids to drive on the province's back roads, rather than assign the task to Boyd).

Second, even "prepare to stop" would be an exceedingly understated interpretation of the submissions delivered to Perrins that screamed at the government to slam on the brakes.

On ideological attacks

Let's not be too hasty in suggesting that Scott Brison's attempt to paint a free trade agreement which rewards Colombia's anti-worker violence as a necessary bulwark against a Commie menace reflects any deeply-ingrained reactionary ideology in either of the two largest national parties. After all, I'm sure we'll be seeing Con and Lib support for a monument to the victims of totalitarian corporatism any day now...