What we stand for

When Stephen Harper somehow attempted to claim yesterday that the Cons' budget represented what "every NDP leader in history has stood for", my first reaction was to think this was the Cons' biggest whopper yet. But on a closer look at a readily-available source of NDP leader quotes in the form of the Leadership You Can Trust sidebar at the Blogging Dippers, he may just have a point - if one adds in a bit of missing language.

Take, for example, James Woodsworth's quote, with the missing language added in bold:

I am convinced that we may develop in Canada a distinctive type of Socialism, which to the outside observer shall appear the antithesis of Socialism in its focus on devolution and privatization. We in Canada will solve problems along our own lines, or failing that, throw money at them then claim we could have done no more.

On that reading, it couldn't be more clear that Woodsworth would indeed be on side with the Cons.

Then there's Audrey McLaughlin:

When you finally listen to the businesses who said from the beginning that they had no interest in your child-care tax incentives, it's amazing what you can learn. When you act on what you've learned by providing a pittance to the provinces to make up for your earlier mistake, it's amazing what you can change.

That one's downright eerie in its foresight of the Cons' position. But it certainly puts McLaughlin in their camp as well.

And the same goes for Tommy Douglas:

My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. Especially when that idea is a pale imitation of one announced by a previous government.

And finally Alexa McDonough:

We're a country built on the idea of community, that you help your neighbour and your neighbour helps you, and that the federal government doesn't help anybody.

So thanks to Harper for finally providing NDPers with a better idea what their previous leaders believed in. And we look forward to his future claim that a man who loved Canada as much as Douglas wouldn't have hesitated a second in granting the government whatever powers it wanted to deal with perceived enemies.

Called to account

The Cons did their best to try to hide Gordon O'Connor's admission that he misled Parliament underneath the news of the budget. But the House of Commons Defence Committee isn't letting O'Connor off the hook that easily:

The issue of enemy detainees captured by Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan just won't stop dogging Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor.

O'Connor has been summoned to appear before the Commons defence committee to account for false statements about the monitoring of detainees in Afghan custody.

The minister is not compelled to show up, but a spokesman from his office said that upon receiving a formal invitation from the committee O'Connor will co-operate on scheduling an appearance date.

I'll note first off that the article wrongly repeats O'Connor's subsequent spin in asserting merely that the ICRC "is only compelled to report such abuses to the country that is holding the detainees", rather than the truth that it's outright prohibited from disclosing abuses to any other country.

But then, the committee hearing should offer plenty of opportunity to clear up that fact both in O'Connor's mind and in the media. And in addition, the committee hearing will help to open up for added public attention an issue which the Cons did their best to bury. Which is why this is one of the rare occasions when calling a Con on the carpet over an inaccuracy (rather than simply highlighting an incident as evidence that the Cons can't be trusted) is actually worth Parliament's time.

Finally working together

There's potentially great news on the environmental front, as the CP reports that all three opposition parties have proposed amendments to Bill C-30 that would result in hard emission caps matching Canada's Kyoto targets. But never ones to let good works go unpunished, the Cons have responded by shutting down the committee for the moment:

The government's centrepiece environmental legislation, the Clean Air Act, is in deep trouble and there's speculation it could become the trigger for an election.

This week all three opposition parties proposed amendments to the bill – amendments that would enshrine the emissions-cutting targets of the Kyoto Protocol, which the Conservatives have called unachievable.

After the amendments were tabled, the government cancelled a Tuesday meeting of the committee studying the bill.

Environmentalists were delighted at the unusual consensus among the New Democrats, Bloc Quebecois and Liberals, whose amendments coincide on key points such as firm limits – known as hard caps – for greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Kyoto targets...

Environment Minister John Baird gave few hints about the government's strategy when questioned Tuesday. He said he is still reviewing the opposition amendments.

The article speculates about the possibility that the Cons could either use an opposition-passed set of standards as an excuse to call an election, or simply refuse to proclaim a rewritten bill into force. But for a government accustomed to setting the political agenda, either one of those would result in a significant show of weakness, while also drawing large amounts of attention to the last policy area the Cons want to be highlighting.

Which means that there may finally be a chance of real emission reductions taking place in the very near future. And all of the opposition parties deserve credit for burying the hatchet long enough to make that the case.

Still waiting

It's no secret that many of the elements included in the Cons' budget had already been announced prominently, while some (particularly the fiscal imbalance plan) were important enough to stand out in even in the midst of a budget. But it's worth noting that what appears to be the Cons' entire solution to a main priority on coming to power was slipped in as an extra - and that there doesn't appear to be much reason for many (or perhaps any) provinces to take the Cons up on the bulk of their wait-times funding offer:

(R)eluctant provinces have been given more than $600-million to comply, even in a small way, with federal demands that they guarantee that certain medical treatments will be provided within clinically acceptable amounts of time.

Any province that limits waiting times for at least one procedure selected from five priority areas -- cancer care, heart care, cataract surgery, joint replacement and diagnostic imaging -- will share in a one-time pot of $61-million.

The funding amounts to something of an about-face for the Conservatives, who have said repeatedly they will provide no additional money for the guarantees -- requirements that the provinces pay to send patients elsewhere when treatment is not available locally in a timely manner.

At least $10-million will go to each province that falls in step with the Conservative plans, and another $500-million will be divided among those same provinces on a per capita basis. The three northern territories will share the remaining $12-million provided.

The funds can be spent any way the province or territory chooses. For Ontario, the decision to sign on to the federal demand for guarantees will mean an additional $205.5-million this year. For Quebec, it will mean $125.6-million. And even tiny Prince Edward Island stands to gain $12.1-million.

Now, it's a small plus that the Cons are at least now willing to offer some funding rather than trying to impose their promise on the provinces without offering any support. But while the Globe's coverage seems awfully sure that all provinces will sign on to the plan, such an outcome seems far from certain.

Let's note first the goofy structure of the funding. By setting up a fixed pool of funding to be distributed on a per-capita basis only among the provinces who participate, the Cons have ensured that each province which signs on will decrease the possible funding available for other provinces.

That may make for some interesting prisoner's dilemma-type situations among the provinces. But it surely isn't the most effective way to get as many provinces as possible onside. And it doesn't seem the least bit unlikely that once one of the largest provinces decides to put itself at the Cons' mercy in dictating its wait times, the others (along with most smaller provinces) will conclude that the diminished potential return isn't worth the cost of implementing the Cons' proposed guarantee.

But then, it could be that no province will see it as worth its while to sign on - particularly given the danger than any commitment will prove to be entirely one-sided.

After all, there's still the strong possibility of an election taking place before the budget passes: a province could easily commit to wait times targets this month, then see the government fall (or engineer its own demise) in April before the budget has moved through Parliament. Which would leave any province agreeing to the Cons' terms with no guarantee of receiving any funding at all...while a public promise would presumably be rather difficult for any province to backtrack from.

Of course, the Cons could have avoided this difficulty by setting a more reasonable deadline than the end of this month. And there's no apparent reason why such a later deadline wouldn't have worked for either side.

As for the smaller envelope of funding for meeting one priority, that'll likely be seen as more reasonable for more provinces based on the relative costs and benefits involved. But at that same time, it's also likely to ensure that each province focuses on meeting only the cheapest of its "guarantees".

And of course all of the above leaves aside the serious problems with a limited wait times program in general.

Notwithstanding the problems with their plan, the Cons will presumably claim that their limited offering completes their list of five initial priorities. But nobody should be surprised if many or all provinces indicate in short order that the Cons' idea of sufficient (and sufficiently-assured) funding is far from enough. Which would properly place the wait-times guarantee alongside the commitments to accountability and child care as areas where the Cons have gone through the motions without ultimately getting much done.

A look at the ledger

Since Scott has largely pegged my reaction to the Cons' budget, I'll shift to relatively-neutral observer mode to examine who stands to win and lose politically as a result:

Winners: Quebec Solidaire, Quebec Greens
All three main Quebec parties spent today rushing to support the budget - and none figures to have won any great advantage by doing so. But the door seems to be wide open to any of the upstart parties which takes the opportunity to pursue an anti-Ottawa strategy.

Loser: Bloc Quebecois
I'll have to admit to start off that I've always had trouble seeing what the Bloc brought to the table to justify its number of seats. But after giving a pass to two consecutive Con budgets, it seems the Bloc is lowering the bar even further: not only is it structurally unable to form government to implement policy of its own, it isn't even making any real effort to influence the policy of the parties who do hold power.

Mind you, there is one caveat. If by some chance the PQ pulls out a majority government, then the Bloc will presumably find a renewed focus in the possibility of another referendum. But if not, then having endorsed the Cons' federal/provincial funding platform and with no more opportunity to campaign in opposition to Lib scandals, it's hard to see what useful purpose the Bloc could serve going forward. Which means that Duceppe's acceptance of the budget may well operate as the Bloc's death knell.

Winner: Lorne Calvert
The Saskatchewan NDP gets somewhat more money to work with, yet also gets to continue rightly slamming the Harper government (and its Sask Party proxies) for a broken equalization promise. While it would have been better for the province generally for the Cons to have kept up their side of the bargain (except to the extent that might have helped the Sask Party), the result couldn't have been much better for a government which can get by without the added money.

Loser: The Auto Industry
While the Cons' plan to create incentives toward more-efficient vehicles is a plus in general, it's striking that Flaherty doesn't seem to have any qualms about kicking the automotive industry while it's already down by planning to take in more money through the inefficiency surtax than will be provided in incentives for efficient vehicles. And while I hope the long-term effect will merely be to push the industry toward producing more efficient vehicles more quickly, the effect could be to make the current trouble in the industry last longer and get worse than it would otherwise have to.

Incidentally, this should also serve as a ready-made answer when the Cons try to accuse the Libs' "carbon budget" of being a tax grab, since it's their own auto plan that actually results in at a demonstrable cost to industry (and concurrent benefit to government coffers).

Winner: Astroturf Groups
It may be a subtle change for the Cons to remove the capital gains tax from donations of publicly listed securities to private foundations - and one which looks good on its face. But while some better-meaning people may use this to benefit legitimate charities, it's all too likely that the change will also be used to facilitate additional donations to the right-wing noise machine.

Loser: Public Ownership
It didn't make the headlines, but a full $6 billion of infrastructure spending is targeted toward P3-style gateways and border crossing, and Jim Flaherty's vision of an office dedicated solely to promoting P3s will come to fruition. Of course the winners will be the contractors involved...while the public treasury will be a long-term loser as well.

Only one of many

In a shocking reversal from the Cons' usual policy of refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing no matter how glaring, Gordon O'Connor has finally admitted to misleading Parliament about the Red Cross' ability to inform Canada about any abuse of Afghan detainees.

Of course, the statement was seasoned with O'Connor's judgments about his own motivations, presumably aimed at telling MPs that his year of consistent fabrications doesn't make for any reason not to trust him completely now. But it's at least a small amount of progress for one of the Cons' cabinet ministers to admit to being something short of infallible.

By my count, O'Connor's apology leaves John Baird, Diane Finley, and Stephen Harper himself in line to apologize either to Parliament or to the public. And that's just for the misleading statements that I've blogged about this month - to say nothing of earlier statements, or ones whose inaccuracy hasn't yet gone public.

With that in mind, is there any reason why any person - let alone one out of every seven Canadians - would trust Harper more then they did when he was elected?

More from catnip and Ryan.

On refusing to act

Uncorrected Proofs points out a particularly glaring example of the Libs' strategy of refusing to act on progressive issues now in order to run on those same issues later - in this case dealing with the anti-scab bill, C-257, which the Libs supported until recently.

In fairness to Dion, he does appear to allow for some possibility that a new bill could be introduced in the current Parliament. But it's hard to see much commitment to following through:

Results will have to wait until the next election, Dion said.

The Liberal leader said the definition and protection of essential services needs to be "clarified" in any new legislation.

"We'll come back with a better bill. If there's an election before that, we'll put that commitment in our platform," he said.

So, let's keep an eye out over the next little while to see if the Libs do in fact introduce a bill along the lines of the amendments that were ruled out of order.

Which isn't to say that the Libs will be blameless even if they do: it'll still be problematic that they've delayed any passage of anti-scab legislation, and risked the possibility that nothing will be done if the current Parliament is dissolved. But if the Libs really are so crass as to fail to follow through on introducing a new bill - or to make that bill anything but a top priority going forward in light of the time lost already - then there will be all the more reason to conclude that the Libs' commitment to progressive values ends where implementation of those values begins.

On differing priorities

A Strategic Counsel poll asked Canadians what they want to see addressed in the federal budget - and the answer couldn't have been much different from what the Cons figure to offer:

When respondents were asked what they thought to be the most important issue for the budget to address, social programs were the clear favourite:

* Increasing spending on social programs: 50 per cent
* Cutting taxes: 19 per cent
* Transferring funds to the provinces for their use: 15 per cent
* Reducing debt: 13 per cent.

"Canadians are experiencing right now something that we refer to as 'joyless prosperity,'" said Gregg.

"They believe the economy is in good shape and we're having fewer people anticipating the future with economic dread. We have more people today claiming that they are better off financially than they were 10 years ago since I've been tracking (results) in the past 30 years."

Yet the mood is still not optimistic, he said.

"That's because (Canadians) believe that in the face of this prosperity, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer ... And secondly, that our social safety net is unravelling in the face of this prosperity -- our health care system is worse, our education system is worse, the quality of life in our cities is deteriorating."

It surely isn't a coincidence that the Cons are now scrambling to relabel their provincial funding into the "social programs" column rather than the "transfer to the provinces" one.

But a good chunk of that will be in the form of a revised equalization formula with no direct link to program funding. And even any amount provided in transfer payments will offer little (if any) means of tracing that funding into genuine provincial investment.

Which means that it's all too likely that even an election budget under favourable fiscal conditions will have little demonstrable positive effect due to the Cons' aversion to effective government. And that can only signal just how little interest the Cons have in getting anything done in the longer term on the issue seen as most important to Canadians.

Update: Robert has more.

Double the hypocrisy

The latest Cherniak story just keeps getting better, as the Liblogs administrator is now up in arms over the prospect that anybody would think of comparing him to "Stalin (possibly the worst mass murderer in history)".

Which makes for the following timeline:
- Cherniak claims that doing X makes the NDP "Stalinistic".
- Cherniak does X.
- Cherniak goes into a fit of outrage at the prospect that anybody would compare the act of doing X to anything Stalinistic.

So let's take stock of what kinds of actions are to be considered acceptable in Cherniak's world.

Purging people based on a perceived failure to toe the party line is outrageous. Except when Cherniak does it.

And comparing one's political opponents to Stalin is beyond the pale. Except when Cherniak does it.

This has been today's lesson in Lib principles. Carry on.

A dogged defence

Shorter Officially Screwed:

The fact that nobody sees the Cons' tax credits as worth bothering with just proves that they're working!

A periodic assessment

Notes from today's Question Period:

- Elizabeth May's riding announcement was obviously as poorly kept as a secret can be in Canadian politics. But her choice of issues may be more surprising: in addition to the environment and foreign policy, she seems to want to make a major theme out of MacKay's role in the PC/Alliance merger. Given that MacKay won 43% of the vote in the 2004 election and saw his margin of victory decrease in 2006 after the merger presumably faded in voters' memories, it's questionable why May would want to attack that relatively distant decision rather than the ample material offered by the Harper government.

- As usual, Jim Flaherty didn't have much of interest to say. This is all too likely to be true tomorrow as well.

- More interesting was that Stephane Dion wouldn't rule out essentially conceding in Central Nova, declaring only that no decision has been made as to whether or not to try to foist May onto the riding's voters. Can we safely say that any talk of a 308-riding strategy for the Libs is now in the past?

- From Jack Layton's appearance, the most significant news looks to be the apparent lack of progress to date on the committee reviewing C-30. I'd think it would have been all the better for Layton to point out that it would be equally possible to strike a deal with the other opposition parties as with the Cons. However, if the NDP is now saying little more than that the committee is still around rather than that it's likely to get much done, that seems to give a strong sense of what has (and hasn't) happened over the past couple of months.

Even lower in facts

As a follow-up to this post, here's what John Baird wants to claim (against all available evidence) as new developments from the G8 climate summit:

Baird said the most important developments from the Potsdam meetings were a new consensus that climate change exists and must be dealt with, and an agreement that technology will be a vital tool in helping developing nations reduce emissions.

It's somewhat disturbing that Baird is being allowed to represent Canada in public if he's actually unaware that every single state involved in the summit has already signed and ratified the Rio Convention, under which they recognized the problem of climate change and agreed to deal with it. Of course, I'd tend to chalk that particular omission up to the Cons' trademark strategy of "making things up" rather than any lack of knowledge.

And the concept that "technology is a vital tool"? Let's check the Rio Convention in a bit more detail, starting with Article 4:

1. All Parties, taking into account their common but differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional development priorities, objectives and circumstances, shall:...

(c) Promote and cooperate in the development, application and diffusion, including transfer, of technologies, practices and processes that control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol in all relevant sectors, including the energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry and waste management sectors;

Now, Baird's line was limited to developing countries. But that doesn't make his claim any more plausible - and indeed one doesn't even have to get past the preamble to the Rio Convention to find a specific reference to the role of technology in developing countries:

Recognizing that all countries, especially developing countries, need access to resources required to achieve sustainable social and economic development and that, in order for developing countries to progress towards that goal, their energy consumption will need to grow taking into account the possibilities for achieving greater energy efficiency and for controlling greenhouse gas emissions in general, including through the application of new technologies on terms which make such an application economically and socially beneficial...

So once again, the point which Baird seeks to claim as current progress was in fact agreed to 15 years ago. What's more, on this one Baird doesn't even have the excuse that his party-mates did their utmost to undermine any agreement in the meantime. And there's surely not much reason to think there was a never-reported Luddite delegation to meetings in between which insisted on dealing with climate change without technology being involved.

In sum, while Baird may be louder than his predecessor on the environment file, he apparently isn't any more interested in dealing with facts rather than fabrications. And it'll only be a continued embarrassment to Canada if he and his party remain in a position to represent Canada while so clearly showing their contempt for reality.

Taken in

Shorter Peter Worthington: It was just last week that I joined the Ad Hoc Committee for Conrad Black. And they already sent me this nifty tinfoil hat!

Backward momentum

With the Cons desperate to claim to have done something on the environment beyond recycling the programs they cut last year, there can be little doubt that the G8 climate change summit was going to be spun as a success if it resulted in anything short of an axe-murdering spree. (Only then would the Cons have gone into "blame the Liberals" mode.) And a compliant media seems to have given the Cons the positive headlines they wanted without looking at the summit's actual results.

But on any reasonable assessment, the summit and its aftermath proved little aside from the Cons' continued rejection of anything resembling reality - and any momentum developed by the G8 is headed squarely in the wrong direction.

To see why this is true, we'll need to start with one of the less-than-surprising outcomes of the summit. Reuters notes that the U.S. is no more interested in joining into a global effort than ever (and indeed has slid backwards since the Clinton era when it at least signed Kyoto):

"On two issues, the United States were the only ones who spoke against consensus," German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters at the end of the two-day meeting, which he chaired on behalf of Germany's G8 presidency.

Gabriel said the U.S. remained opposed to a global carbon emissions trading scheme like the one used in the European Union and rejected the idea that industrialized nations should help achieve a "balance of interests" between developing countries' need for economic growth and environmental protection.

"We find this regrettable," Gabriel said, adding "I would have been disappointed if I'd expected something different."

Of course, the U.S.' reticence is nothing new. But what has changed since Harper took power is Canada's insistence on following along. And John Baird's message reflects the fact that no matter how unreasonable the U.S. remains, Canada will refuse to be involved in any global initiative which its southern neighbour doesn't also back:

Environment Minister John Baird, speaking from a meeting in Germany of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations, also said any extension of the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012 must include the United States and other big developing nations.

"We very clearly said that any future global deal must include the United States, China and India," he said in a conference call with reporters after meeting his G8 counterparts.

What Baird leaves out as usual is the fact that all three of those countries signed and/or ratified Kyoto as well. Which should say all one needs to know about whether the objection is a legitimate one, or simply the most convenient excuse available for the Cons to obstruct any further progress.

With Japan also apparently taking a similar position, the current summit seems to have utterly ignored the EU's efforts to push for collective action. Instead, today's news only confirmed that key participants including Canada are happy to see nothing done as long as the Bush administration remains in office - and are willing to give the next U.S. administration an effective veto over any future agreements by insisting on American involvement.

To anybody wanting to see long-term action against climate change, that result can only be seen as a negative one. And if the Cons are entirely satisfied with the outcome, that must in turn be as a result of a combination of political posturing, and a lack of any real desire to deal with the greenhouse gas emissions on a global basis.

On principle

There are plenty of times where no line fits a story better than CC's oft-mentioned phrase: "And if you don't like THOSE principles, well, I've got others." But sometimes, even that classic snark falls somewhat short of a target.

And so it is with Jason Cherniak, who by his own standards has established himself as a Stalinist who makes "unbelievable decisions":

"If you don't like THOSE principles...well, no big loss. After all, I wouldn't know a principle if you whacked me over the head with it."

Update: In comments, Cliff points out that the original attribution of the "I've got others" quote (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) is to Groucho Marx.

On developing wisdom

Thomas Walkom discusses the rapidly-spreading realization that long-term success in Afghanistan depends on discussions with all parties involved, rather than a continuation of the Cons' swagger-and-awe strategy:

When New Democratic Party chief Jack Layton suggested last fall that talking to the Taliban might bring peace to Afghanistan, he was laughed out of court.

The major newspapers dismissed him as either naive or reprehensible. The Conservative government was contemptuous, as were the Liberals.

They called him Taliban Jack.

Eventually, Layton stopped talking about negotiating with the Taliban. Which is ironic, given that the idea is now gaining credibility among those who travel in more established circles.

Indeed, the latest figure to call for a political settlement to the Afghan conflict is a pillar of the Ottawa establishment. Gordon Smith, now director of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, is Canada's former ambassador to NATO and a former deputy minister of foreign affairs. His Canada in Afghanistan: Is it Working? was done for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, a Calgary think-tank that is not known for being squishy on matters military...

(According to Smith,) "We do not believe that the Taliban can be defeated or eliminated as a political entity in any meaningful time frame by Western armies using military measures," he says...

"(T)alking to the Taliban" emerges as the only feasible solution. "Given the costs of war," he writes, "NATO needs to look candidly at the prospects – aware that there can be no guarantee – of a political solution."...

It's a grimly realistic paper. It's also in line with the thinking of other recent, unvarnished assessments of the Afghan war, including a report from the Senate defence committee.

Oh yes, and its key recommendation echoes that of Jack Layton. But my guess is that up in Ottawa, the people behind this war aren't going to be dismissing Smith as Taliban Gord.

Walkom is right in pointing out the gap between how Layton was treated in taking the lead on the issue, and how others have been handled when making similar suggestions. But he falls short of discussing the future implications of the shift in conventional wisdom. And once one takes a look at those, it seems all too likely that Canada's (and indeed NATO's) strategy in Afghanistan will continue to be defined by those who see military conquest as the only real end.

After all, while the need for talk may be filtering into some parts of Canada's establishment, it's still a long way from finding its way into the worldview of the Cons. And it's hard to see how they could come around to the possibility of a political solution after building their foreign policy around the idea that the Taliban presents a unique existential threat, such as to justify eliminating Canada's ability to contribute troops to any other mission in the world.

Which means that while cooler heads may be prevailing in the world of think tanks and pundits, there's little chance of them winning out in government as long as the Cons are in power - much as the self-righteousness of the Bush administration has resulted in escalation in Iraq even as most Americans have long since come around to the view that the war is long past being able to meet the administration's stated goals. But if there's reason for hope, it's that this additional parallel between Harper and the Bush administration will also offer another reason for Canadian voters not to match the mistake of their American counterparts in leaving such a government in power longer than can be avoided.

On weak defences

If there were any doubt as to whether or not Gordon O'Connor is in trouble, the Star reports on what he can expect when Parliament sits next week. And while it shouldn't be much surprise that he'll face plenty of criticism, it's striking just how weak any defence seems likely to be.

The sole pro-O'Connor voice which the Star was apparently able to track down was a former fellow cadet and officer. And even from that less-than-neutral source, the case for O'Connor couldn't be much more tepid:

(Douglas Bland) notes that few defence ministers survive their time atop the department without enduring some controversies. "It's just in the nature of this very large organization ... with all kinds of money and where all the employees are armed," he says.

"It's inherently difficult to do and it is even more difficult to do when you're dealing with a wartime situation."...

"When it gets into dealing with these very big issues, like C-17s and re-equipping the armed forces and people being killed and wounded in action, I think he's done a reasonably good job."

In other words, the case for O'Connor amounts to:
- the all-too-familiar refrain that "it's hard work being X!", and
- a claim that if one narrows the issues and squints hard enough with a positive enough impression of him as a person, one can see O'Connor as doing a "reasonably good job".

Of course, that latter point is thoroughly contradicted by O'Connor's track record of fabrications and evasion tactics. Which means that unless Harper and company are prepared to offer a far stronger case for O'Connor's continued place in Cabinet than anybody the Star could track down, it's long past time for the difficult role to be taken over by somebody who hasn't demonstrated his or her inability to fill it.

From proposal to policy

Largely lost in the discussion about the Libs' "carbon budget" proposal has been the question of how best to actually put such a proposal into effect. And all indications suggest that it'll only take a move to get the Bloc onside to put such an idea in place in the very near future:

NDP leader Jack Layton did in fact welcome Mr. Dion's new position, noting that the NDP had asked him to move in this direction when he was environment minister.

“It's a flip flop that I welcome,” said Mr. Layton.

Once again, it's odd that the Libs chose to unveil the plan today rather than (apparently) seeking to submit amendments on the committee review of Bill C-30. But if the Bloc is willing to continue its historic support for action on climate change, then it's entirely possible that the Libs' plan could be implemented at least in large part through a bill passed within the current Parliament. And with Dion still not apparently sure whether he wants an election this year, that appears to be the only way to meet the Libs' own January 2008 target for implementation.

Unacclaimed

The CP reports that the Cons' efforts to insulate Rob Anders from any effective nomination challenge have been held invalid by the Court of Queen's Bench:

An Alberta judge has overturned the controversial Tory acclamation of Calgary MP Rob Anders and ordered a new nomination meeting.

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Jed Hawco issued a court order instructing the Conservative Party of Canada to restart the nomination process in Calgary West.

Eleven disgruntled Tories have been fighting Anders' unchallenged nomination since last summer, claiming the party did not widely advertise important dates or adequately search for qualified candidates.

What's particularly remarkable is that from the article, it sounds like the reason for restarting the nomination process may not have been based on the most obvious flaw in the Cons' handling of the riding - namely, their arbitrary disqualification of another candidate who seemingly managed to meet the nomination requirements despite the lack of proper advertising or candidate search processes. Of course, that'll have to be confirmed once the detailed reasons are available.

But regardless of the precise reasons, today's ruling confirms that the Cons are falling short of basic principles of fairness in deciding who'll represent them in the next election. And that disregard for natural justice internally only highlights why the Con government has been similarly disinterested in fair processes when it comes to developing policy which affects all Canadians.

Child's play

A couple of notes on the Cons' impending announcement that they'll provide a small amount of funding to the provinces for child care after all.

First, if anything should be able to kick-start the NDP's drive for a federal Child Care Act, this should be it. Any framework for child-care funding may have seemed largely theoretical when no such funding existed...but now that it's entirely possible for money to be flowing before long, there's every reason to set out the terms under which that money can be spent.

Second, the Cons' plan to offer only the limited amount of money otherwise budgeted for tax credits is one that some of us may have seen coming (and criticized). But the response from both the provinces and the other federal parties should be a simple one. Rather than merely allocating the same dollar amount, the Cons should be talking to the provinces to see what new spaces will cost, and allocating enough money to meet their original space commitment - or else be seen as breaking even their own ineffective promises on child care.