Promise broken

Remember back when the Cons promised to put all significant international treaties before Parliament for a vote?

Just thought it might be worth a reminder now that the Cons have eagerly trashed that assurance (along with any other opportunity for debate about the GNEP).

Unsupported

The CP's report from today's Environment Committee meeting offers yet another example of the Cons' complete lack of credibility and honesty when it comes to the environment:

NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen pressed Baird to name a single group that has supported the plan, or a single regulation that he has placed on industry.

"I'm confused as to why this government is trying to seek credibility on the world stage...yet has not one validator that we're aware of that has taken a look at your plan and said it will actually meet your targets," said Cullen. "It does not pass test – why would you think the international community would think any different?"

Baird said it is too early to properly assess the government's regulatory framework, since it is still in the process of consulting with industry on what limits the various sectors will be handed.

Baird's response is significant for a couple of reasons. First, it highlights just how far the Cons are from having any support at all when it comes to their environmental non-strategy: given the proliferation of astroturf groups on virtually all major public issues (including the environment), it's downright stunning that the Cons can't even find one of those to provide some semblance of cover for their neglect.

But more important is the gap between the Cons' assessment of themselves, and their attitude toward anybody else trying to assess their efforts. Take a look through any recent Hansard, or indeed the Cons' own website, and you'll find a steady stream of claims that the Cons have already taken definitive action to regulate industry and otherwise deal with climate change.

Yet suddenly when the question is asked whether anybody else agrees, the Cons can only whine that it's too early to draw any conclusions at all. Which, if accepted as true, would make their own self-promotion equally premature.

Of course, the reality is that it's far from too early to evaluate the Cons' record. And the fact that the Cons can't name a single outside source of support for their continued excuses not to act on climate change should help to emphasize just how far out of touch the Harper regime is with the public desire for action to fight global warming.

Assessment needed

The NDP is rightly criticizing the Cons and Libs for voting down an NDP motion on free trade with Colombia. But the most important part of the story may not be the corporate parties' unsurprising determination to push ahead with more free trade deals, but rather the complete unwillingness of either the Cons or Libs to even see human rights issues assessed as part of Canada's analysis of trading partners:

An NDP motion from International Trade Critic Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster) has been defeated by the combined decisions of the Liberal and Conservative parties in the Standing Committee on International Trade.

“It’s unfortunate that the Liberals and Conservatives failed to recognize and support Canada’s leadership in affirming the supremacy of human rights over any other consideration. The people of Colombia were hoping that Canada would use its influence to help them in their struggle for human rights,” said Julian.

The motion recommended that bilateral trade negotiations between Canada and Colombia be halted in light of the continuous abuse of human rights by the government of Colombia, and stressed the importance of developing a framework for a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) for future bilateral trade negotiations with Colombia and other nations.

Remember that the main justification for pushing ahead with Colombia free trade - which Harper himself has parroted - is a claim that doing so will ultimately improve human rights in the longer term. If that were the case, though, one would expect the Cons to be glad to see a thorough appraisal of those expected positive effects in order to bolster the deal.

Instead, the vote to avoid any meaningful assessment of human rights makes sense only if an actual report would likely undercut the premise that free trade will do anything to help Colombia's human rights situation.

Unfortunately, the Cons and Libs have once again demonstrated their determination to ensure that human rights issues don't get in the way of the continued spread of free trade. And that should offer just one more reason to doubt their commitment to human rights either in Canada or abroad.

Room for growth

All too predictably, the CMA's narrow focus on wait times has received far more media attention. But Bruce Campbell and Greg Marchildon's call to improve the existing scope of public health care in Canada deserves mention as a reminder that there's plenty to work toward beyond merely preserving the system we have now:

Claims that Medicare is fiscally and economically unsustainable are unfounded, but they are used to persuade a reluctant public that there is no choice but to accept privatized health care. According to Canada's leading health care economist, Robert Evans, the wolf at the door of the Canadian Medicare system is not an economic wolf but rather "a political wolf dressed in phony economic clothing to deceive the sheep."

Thus, the challenge is to defend Medicare against the forces seeking to dismantle it. We can best do this by completing Tommy's original vision for Medicare. Building on the proven administrative efficiencies of the single-payer systems administered by the provinces, we can expand Medicare well beyond doctors and hospitals into pharmacare, home care and dental care; to re-orient public health care around primary health care and community care, and tackle head on the social determinants of health.

In some areas change is beginning to happen. There are many examples of successful innovations, which have dramatically reduced wait times, improved access to quality care and reduced costs. Dr. Michael Rachlis, a physician and health policy advisor, has performed an important service for all Canadians by cataloging the most promising innovations in our public system. But missing is the political leadership on the part of provincial and federal governments to ensure the systematic dissemination and application of these solutions throughout the system.

Whether Medicare moves forward, or becomes progressively eroded by encroaching privatization, will depend on which vision of health care prevails. Will it be one based on the premise that health care is a commodity and that ability to pay should determine who gets what care and how? Or will it be the one actually desired by most Canadians? That is a 21st century Medicare, but one still based on the principle that every Canadian should have access to health care on the same terms and conditions.

Of course, there are far too many indications recently that we are indeed moving backward - ranging from the missed opportunity for universal prescription drug coverage in Saskatchewan to the federal Cons' determination to limit the flow of information about best practices. But it's worth keeping in mind that there's plenty of room for improvement in the system we have now, and working to push the system in the right direction rather than merely trying to hold the existing ground.

On regulatory measures

The CP reports that Ontario and Quebec have reached an agreement to negotiate regulatory harmonization. And it'll be interesting to see whether the move by Canada's most populous provinces sounds a death knell for the spread of the TILMA, or instead signals that the Charest government is giving in on the fight to preserve provincial autonomy:

Quebec and Ontario signed an agreement Monday to start talks to remove interprovincial trade barriers in an effort to help businesses - especially the struggling manufacturing sector - but the federal government needs to do "its share," said Premier Jean Charest.

Charest and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty agreed to begin negotiating an accord to strengthen the economies of both provinces by eliminating red tape and unnecessary regulations, saying provinces need to work together to meet global challenges...

Under the new deal, negotiators will look at harmonizing regulations that govern everything from the weight of trucks to health-care professions to find ways of making it easier for companies to operate in both Quebec and Ontario in hopes of increasing the $70 billion a year in trade between the two provinces.

Now, two major caveats are in order with the announcement. First, the issue of "internal trade barriers" doesn't deserve even a small fraction of the attention it's received over the past year and a half. And second, the last agreement which was announced to involve negotiation as to harmonized standards turned out to have far more damaging effects.

Indeed, there's some dangerous language even in the article: the contemplated "accord" could well signal that the intention is to negotiation a TILMA-type agreement rather than the actual standards in question. And it remains to be seen whether the public announcement is as deceptive as the one regarding the TILMA was last year.

That said, there's some reason to think today's announcement could nonetheless offer reasonably good news.

After all, the concept of harmonizing regulations makes plenty of sense as long as it's carried out with the goal of ensuring mutually effective standards - not the goal of gutting regulation entirely as is implicit in the TILMA. And the willingness of Ontario and Quebec to at least alert the public to their plans makes for far more transparency than the TILMA signatories ever offered.

Moreover, the federal Cons have made clear that they're willing to impose drastic measures on the provinces to try to ensure that trade takes precedence over all else. And while giving in to Harper's wishes to any extent is seldom an effective strategy for long, it may be that the willingness of Quebec in particular to negotiate some regulatory standards later will help to avoid the Cons going nuclear while the Libs don't dare to oppose them.

Update: Erin has more.

On leadership

Shorter Stephen Harper:
If others fail to meet their commitment to a goal which they claim to share in common, it's your own fault for trying to reach it.

Bound to fail

Unfortunately, it looks like the Cons have managed to obstruct against any reference to binding greenhouse gas emission targets. But let's take a moment to quickly dispose of Harper's predictable spin:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper successfully pressed for the deletion of key wording in a climate change communique that would have specified that all members support a "binding commitment" on developed countries to reduce emissions by specific targets.

"Canada's view is we need binding targets on all nations," said Mr. Harper, who dismissed reports that other countries opposed Canada.

Now, it should be obvious that if Canada's goal was in fact to ensure that all countries are subject to binding targets, then the logical course of action would have been to actually ask for that. And the wording presumably wouldn't have been difficult to work out: simply remove "developed" from the phrase "developed countries", and you get to a declaration which would indeed call for binding targets for everybody.

But instead, the Cons held out for a resolution which instead eliminated any reference to "binding targets" - demanding a lower standard rather than a higher one. And combined with their inexplicable pride over an APEC declaration which is explicitly "aspirational", there's plenty of reason to think the lone change in the Cons' position on climate change is a poor effort to pretend to care.

To sum up...
What Harper claims Canada wants: Binding targets for all
What the Commonwealth resolution would have included if not for Harper's obstruction: Binding targets for some
What Harper actually fought for and won within the resolution: Binding targets for none

Needless to say, fighting against binding targets for anybody is no way to make progress against climate change. And Harper's latest step in that direction should offer ample reason to make sure he isn't in a position to embarrass Canada abroad any longer.

Off target

When asked to explain their withdrawal from Kyoto in all but the ability to show up at (and disrupt) ongoing negotiations for the next phase, the Cons have generally made excuses based on the need for reductions from the U.S. and China as part of a global effort to combat greenhouse gas emissions. Which, if the Cons were remotely willing to defend their position, would suggest that they should be first in line calling for a truly global treaty to the same effect.

Not surprisingly, though, the Cons are doing nothing of the sort. Instead, they're blocking a Commonwealth resolution calling for just such a global agreement:

Canada is reportedly holding up a resolution at the Commonwealth summit in Uganda which calls for binding climate change targets, sources have confirmed.

Environmentalists and Commonwealth sources claim Canada has problems with the resolution despite virtually all other countries in attendance, except Australia, supporting it, reports The Canadian Press.

The resolution calls for global emission targets and comes ahead of next month's UN-sponsored meeting in Bali, Indonesia where negotiations will be made to find a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol.

Not that this comes as much of a surprise based on the Cons' track record of opposing Kyoto from the beginning, and doing their utmost to avoid real reduction targets in Canada regardless of who's been in power.

But today's move should make it all the more clear that the Cons' problem with Kyoto lies not in the countries who haven't signed on to reduction targets, but in the fact that it demands emission reductions at all. And the Cons' usual combination of dishonesty and conflict with the values of Canadian voters will offer just one more reason to make sure Harper can't continue to stand in the way of progress either at home or in the world.

On potential support

Discussion about the latest Angus Reid poll on Canada's national opposition parties (warnings: PDF for those with slow connections; online poll for those who don't believe in such things) has focused mostly on the leadership numbers involved. But while Layton's lead over Dion is mostly a confirmation of old news, the poll does contain one intriguing new development, as the NDP's potential support is now in a dead heat with the Libs':

The poll also asked Canadians which opposition parties they would consider voting for in the next federal ballot. A third of respondents (33%) are willing to back the NDP candidate in their riding, including 95 per cent of those who voted for the New Democrats in the January 2006 election...

34 per cent of respondents say they would be willing to vote for the Liberal candidate in their riding...70 per cent of Quebecers - and 58 per cent of male respondents - would not vote for a Liberal candidate. The Grits are also only holding onto 78 per cent of those who voted for the Paul Martin-led Liberals in 2006.

For the record, the poll provided a "not sure" option where the NDP posted a 16% total and the Libs 14% - leaving the parties equal as well in the "definitely would not consider" category. Meanwhile, the Greens' "consider supporting" number is at 21%, well back of the other two parties.

So what do those numbers mean? Simply put, there's now empirical evidence to refute the Libs' usual claim that only they can stop the Cons. With the NDP now matching the Libs dollar for dollar, member for member and potential voter for potential voter, there's absolutely no reason for opposition voters to believe that the Libs' historical advantage actually translates into any greater prospect of defeating Harper. And that should free up opposition voters to choose the party which is most in line with their values.

Of course, the above analysis is based on the national numbers. And the story varies somewhat by region: the NDP has more potential support in British Columbia, Quebec (!) and Atlantic Canada, while the Libs show higher upside in Ontario and the Prairies.

Which in turn may help the NDP's prospects even more. It seems likely that Ontario's numbers (like ) are based at least in part on a lack of public attention to the change in the Libs' default position. But the more word gets out that the NDP is making major inroads into formerly-safe Lib territory in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, the more likely Ontario voters are to realize it can serve as a more effective voice for them as well.

Naturally, the Libs will be doing all they can both to slow down the NDP's momentum, and to reverse their own slide. But for now, the Libs' sole advantage seems to be historical - and it may not be long before it's left in the past for good.

On responsibility

Shorter Jim Flaherty:
Canada's urban residents have nobody but themselves to blame for the causes of today's crumbling infrastructure. Take, for example, their choice not to flee the country when it was run by a Prime Minister who couldn't even keep his own head above water without taking back-room cash payments.

Proportional benefits

It may be an unusual call for proportional representation from an unlikely source. But Murray Mandryk's column today may well help to keep up the NDP's campaign discussion about the need to take another look at how Saskatchewan votes.

Mandryk starts off with a passage which could serve as the introduction for a strong argument in favor of a full MMP system:

(A) mere 5,569 votes that went to the Saskatchewan Party instead of the NDP -- 33 in Moose Jaw North, 37 in Meadow Lake, 61 in Prince Albert Carlton, 182 in Regina-Qu'Appelle Valley, 253 in Regina South, 270 in Saskatoon Sutherland, 302 in Saskatoon Greystone, 1,041 in Saskatchewan Rivers, 1,568 in Rosthern-Shellbrook and 1,822 in Humboldt -- are the difference between the current 38-20 Saskatchewan Party-controlled legislature and a 30-28 NDP-controlled legislature identical to the last House.

Given that the latter would have meant the Saskatchewan Party would have still have had 49.4 per cent of the vote (compared with the 50.62 that the party actually got) while the NDP would have only garnered 38.2 per cent (compared with the 37.09 per cent it actually received), we would very likely be in a huge democratic crisis right now had the NDP won.

Needless to say, if our current system was indeed that close to a genuine "democratic crisis", that would seem to make for a strong argument for a full overhaul. But Mandryk doesn't go anywhere near that far.

Instead, Mandryk suggests a far more modest change:

Isn't it now time to consider setting aside part of the Saskatchewan legislature for proportional representation? Suppose that there were 10 seats in the 58-seat legislature based on popular vote rather than first-past-the-post. And suppose, based on the recent popular vote, the Saskatchewan Party government had five more seats, the NDP four and and the Liberals one. Wouldn't that result in both better cabinets and oppositions?

Maybe we need to consider such new ideas to get the depth we need in modern-day cabinets.

Mandryk doesn't deal with the question of how the occupants of those seats would be chosen. And based on his call for the seats to be used to improve the frontlines of government and opposition after the election results are in, it would seem that he's looking for the parties to have virtually free rein in allocating those proportional seats.

Of course, it's debatable whether this would be the best option. While Mandryk seems to see the PR seats as a way of immunizing top political talent from any need to run individually, I'd tend toward an approach which still gives some immediate say to the province's voters, filling any PR-based seats with a party's candidates who came closest to winning their ridings.

Whether or not one agrees fully with his proposal, though, it's still noteworthy that one of the main drivers of Saskatchewan's conventional political wisdom is calling into question whether the current FPTP system provides the best possible representation for Saskatchewan's citizens. And hopefully that will be an early step toward real change in the province's electoral system.

Below the radar

A couple of notes which you may have missed from yesterday's Hansard...

First, Con MP Denis Lebel counted himself as one of his party's ideal target voters by making a statement about his fondness for storytelling. Presumably Lebel is eagerly anticipating tomorrow's Question Period Storytime, featuring such classic tales of creative fiction as "Karlheinz' Letter Gets Lost" and "The Wonderful Magical Happyland of Afghanistan Where There Was No Evidence of Torture Until Two Weeks Ago".

Second, as part of their effort to use absolutely every means at their disposal to put party interests over government accountability, the Cons have made a habit of using their own questions in Question Period for sheer self-promotion rather than allowing back-benchers to actually express even the slightest concern with government actions. But it strikes me as curious that they were eager to use that platform yesterday to highlight their own lack of a meaningful response to U.S. interference with Canadian emergency vehicles seeking to cross the border.

Making strides

Barbara Yaffe writes about the promise of a federal NDP breakthrough. And while most of the information is relatively familiar, there's one surprising indicator of just how far the NDP has come over the past few years:

(W)hile few have been watching, the party's membership list has grown to the same length as that of the Liberals. And the NDP is set to spend the same as mainline parties in the next campaign.

(Said Jack Layton) "We're going to run an $18-million campaign and match the Liberals and Conservatives for the first time in history."

Based on an extremely quick look, I haven't been able to find total numbers from the last few years. As a result, it's not entirely clear just how much of the gap has been made up recently.

But from what I've been able to track down (see p. 21 here), Lib members outnumbered NDP members by a 6-to-1 margin as recently as 2003. And if the NDP has indeed managed to close that gap in just four years - despite the Libs getting the inevitable membership boost from a leadership race in the meantime - then there's plenty of reason to suspect there's a shift in progress which hasn't yet registered in the polls.

A purely private partnership

Berlynn catches an important story from the Council of Canadians which all too predictably went unreported in the media, as the North American Forum (linked to the Security and Prosperity Partnership) held another summit last month. But while the subject matter doesn't seem to have changed, the spin about the ever-more-secretive process is getting even less plausible as time goes by:

The North American Forum, a high-profile sister organization to the Security and Prosperity Partnership, is co-chaired by George Schultz, Peter Lougheed and Pedro Aspe, who are quite proud of how discrete these meetings are. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day attended the 2006 summit in Banff and to date refuses to disclose the contents of his speech.

According to a CanWest article from March 23, 2007: "A 'media management plan' for the event in Banff last fall imposed a gag order on all participants, except the head of the Calgary-based media consulting firm, Corpen Group, John Larsen. Participants were directed 'to avoid direct media engagement where feasible,' say the notes... But Mr. Larsen said 'the conference wasn't secret. ... It was private, and that's an entirely different thing from being secret.'"...

"The Co-Chairs do not intend to make public pronouncements advocating specific policy approaches on the NAF's behalf," says the forum's website. "Rather the outputs of the NAF will be ideas and approaches that are individually pursued by participants at their own initiative and in their own name."

At least when the SPP met at Montebello, the participants were willing to admit to some influence over the jelly bean industry.

But apparently even that's seen as too much disclosure within the NAF - leaving citizens of all three countries unable to do more than guess as to what policies are being influenced by the privileged few invited to participate. And it seems like a safe bet that the summit wouldn't be so meticulously hidden from view if its results could bear public scrutiny.

Advancement opportunities

For the past decade, the Saskatchewan NDP's narrow hold on provincial power has limited the prospect of successful MLAs making a move to the federal scene. But with the next provincial vote four years away and a seat or two no longer holding the potential to swing the provincial balance of power, the Hill Times reports that the federal NDP is now looking to bring current and former MLAs on board:

The federal NDP may try to woo former Saskatchewan premier Lorne Calvert, whose government was recently swept out of power, along with two of his defeated Cabinet ministers to run federally in the province in the next general election.

"Jack Layton hasn't closed any doors and we've not entered into any formal discussions with any Saskatchewan New Democrats, but it's certainly a possibility," said Brad Lavigne, director of communications and research to NDP caucus in an interview last week.

Mr. Lavigne confirmed, however, that the party is "likely to reach out to" Mr. Calvert and to two defeated provincial NDP Cabinet ministers–Lon Borgerson, former minister of regional economic and co-operative development, and Graham Addley, former minister of healthy living services, minister responsible for seniors, Investment Saskatchewan Inc. and information services corporation of Saskatchewan and convince them to run federally in the next federal election.

The article notes that there haven't been any concrete steps taken just yet. And barring some surprises on the provincial side, it does seem fairly unlikely that Calvert would make the move.

But the combination of an experienced candidate like Borgerson or Addley with an electorate which is relearning the pitfalls of right-wing government at two levels would seem to offer a great opportunity both for the federal NDP, and for the individual candidates. And if the NDP can start building momentum now in its longtime prairie stronghold, then it should be well-positioned to make a strong push at Con incumbents across Western Canada when the next election rolls around.

A familiar refrain

Shorter Charles Gordon:
The likelihood that Canada's political scene will be dominated for months by talk about Conservative corruption is both proof of Stephen Harper's strategic brilliance, and excellent news for the Conservatives.

Poorly covered

Shorter Peter MacKay:
Of course the Con government knew things that it pretended not to, and suppressed information which would have proven it wrong until a court ordered otherwise. But it's completely unfair to describe that as a "cover up".

On disinformation

The Star reports that the Cons are set to axe a health information network which would otherwise be used literally millions of times per year by Canadian medical practitioners. And aside from including the network in part of a set of arbitrary spending cuts, the Cons' reasoning seems to be based largely on the fact that the network contains too much useful information:

Effective March 31, 2008, the Canadian Health Network will cease to exist.

For the past eight years, it has provided citizens and medical professionals with a reliable, non-commercial source of online information about how to stay healthy and prevent disease.

Although the website (www.canadian-health-network.ca) is managed by the Winnipeg-based Public Health Agency of Canada, it is a collaboration of 26 organizations – government departments, universities, hospitals, libraries and non-profit health providers – who draw on 1,600 specialists across the country...

(L)ately, (the CHN) website has been getting 380,000 hits a month, 40 per cent of them health-care professionals. In the last year alone, its usage has increased by 70 per cent. It has established a reputation as a trustworthy portal in a cyberworld of drug manufacturers, health-care conglomerates and self-promoting quacks...

Health Minister Tony Clement launched a new website, www.healthycanadians.gc.ca, in October, to provide users with information about all of the government's programs – its children's fitness tax credit, its revised Canada Food Guide, its toy safety tips, its latest product recalls and its healthy pregnancy guide – designed to promote an active, well-balanced lifestyle.

There's certainly nothing wrong with centralizing all of Ottawa's health information in one place.

What's missing from the new database is any reference to the links between health and the environment, disease and poverty, or violence and gun control. Nor does it touch sensitive topics such as abortion, genetically modified foods or sexual abuse. It completely overlooks mental illness.

In contrast, the Canadian Health Network is all-encompassing. It looks at controversial questions from all sides. It is constantly updated as new knowledge becomes available.

From the usage numbers, it looks to be virtually beyond dispute that the CHN website is seen as useful by Canadian health care providers. And even if one doesn't take as proven the article's suggestion that the network might actually operate with a surplus, it seems equally clear that any program which can offer valuable information to health care providers in the range of two million times every year is more than worth the cost of the Cons' ordered $16 million cut.

But the Cons are apparently of the view that the benefit of a cheap, effective way of improving health care for Canadians is more than outweighed by their desire to remove any uncomfortable material from web pages affiliated with the federal government, as well as to focus more attention on their partisan actions (rather than information which could actually be useful to health care providers).

The end result, though, can only be to make it more difficult for Canadian health care providers to find information relating to the issues which the Cons want to sweep under the rug. And with the Cons taking active steps to ensure worse service for the Canadians who most need a responsive health care system, there's ever more reason to doubt Canada can afford much more of the Cons' course of treatment.

Perception first

Number of Con MPs who were eager to be seen supporting a former Prime Minister who acknowledges having taken $300,000 in cash from a man since charged with fraud and bribery as long as that little bit of unpleasantness was out of the public eye: 17.

Number of Con MPs who bailed on that same former Prime Minister once it became inevitable that Canadians would be reminded that he took $300,000 in cash from a man since charged with fraud and bribery: 17.

Once again, the Cons have sent a strong message that as far as they're concerned, anything can be overlooked just as long as nobody's paying too much public attention to it. Which should offer just one more reminder of both the need to keep the Cons under the microscope, and the likely rewards awaiting any effort to dig into what's currently being kept hidden.

Out of the loop

Given how transparent the Cons' diversion tactics are at the moment, I'll try to avoid allowing them to distract from bigger issues like infrastructure. But it's worth pointing out one odd aspect of the Cons' official Crime Posturing Week, as Justice Minister Rob Nicholson seems to be utterly clueless about what's going on in his own party.

Here's Nicholson today:

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson says he's on side with his provincial counterparts who want changes to the double credit criminals usually get for time served in remand.

Nicholson says he's happy the issue was discussed at a justice ministers meeting in Winnipeg this week and he plans to draft legislation making the jail credit system clearer.

But he wouldn't give a date for when he expects such a bill to be introduced in Parliament.

So what's wrong with that position? Here's the web page with information on Bill C-475, a private member's bill introduced earlier this week by Con MP Rick Dykstra - which deals with exactly the issue discussed by Nicholson. (That should also say anything one could need to know about which side likely brought up the subject within the federal/provincial talks.)

In keeping with the Cons' rule against independent thought, Dykstra's bill would have been vetted by the Cons prior to being introduced. But apparently nobody bothered to tell Nicholson - even as he's making public appearances dealing with the same issue in the same week that Dykstra put his bill before Parliament.

Not that it's much surprise that the Cons are once again failing to inform the responsible minister about decisions from on high. (See Chong, Michael.) But if the image-obsessed Cons aren't even competent enough to get their appearances right in trying to move public discussion back to less hostile turf, there's all the more reason to worry just how much more they're messing up on the substantial matters which rank lower on their priority list.