New column day

Here, on the importance of showing up.

For further reading, see the Globe and Mail's study on votes missed by MPs, as well as its coverage of the Cons' cone of silence. And for another example that I didn't include in the column, some selected posts on the Cons' stragglers during the 2009-2010 prorogation of Parliament.

Update: The NDP nicely times its own platform plank on MP attendance - though I'd argue that any standard should be set well above missing half of the votes in the House of Commons.

Update II: Janyce McGregor has more on the list of debate no-shows across Canada, with the Cons predictably well ahead of their competitors.

Trusted

In case there's any particular doubt why the Libs have changed the subject from health care, Ipsos Reid offers the strongest answer yet:

Forty-six per cent of likely voters said they trust Jack Layton and the NDP most to manage health care in Canada, according to a new poll by Ipsos Reid. Thirty per cent of respondents said Stephen Harper and the Conservative party were most trusted and 20 per cent reported trusting Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal party more.

Now, this isn't the first time the NDP has ranked ahead of the Libs on health care among other issues - so there should have been plenty of warning signs even before the Libs developed their campaign plan. But the new polling offers a rather compelling signal that any focus on health care by the Libs would play right into the NDP's hands - and that likely explains the Libs' flailing to try to drive the election campaign in yet another direction.

(Hint: However proud the Libs are that their leader is roughly as popular as the man they consider unfit for office, any attempt to build a cult of Iggy will run into similar problems.)

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Assorted material for your midweek reading.

- With market-based quackery being pushed yet again as a quick-fix "solution" for our health care system, Brian Topp reminds us what the most thorough look at the future of health care in Canada actually found:

Roy Romanow rejected the American model for health care. Not just because it produces grossly inferior health outcomes compared to public systems. But because American health care is simultaneously grossly expensive, with out-of-control annual cost increases.

It is also true that Mr. Romanow proposed that Canada's public health system be built on – with a catastrophic pharmacare program, homecare, and a move toward a “primary care” model – change paid for through a modest increase (compared to American growth rates) in federal transfers.

These steps would improve health services – by ensuring people can afford critical drugs; heal at home; and be dealt with as a person instead of as a transaction by the health system.

These steps would also control costs in the public health system. Using the public system's power as a group buyer to hold down the spiraling costs of pharmaceuticals. Getting people out of crowded hospitals (the fundamental solution to crowded emergency rooms). And evolving toward a better model to compensate health providers.

- I'd like to think Douglas Bell is right in his view that Stephen Harper won't succeed in demanding an electoral do-over if he falls short of a majority. But I'd much sooner put money down on Paul Wells' take that there's going to be just as much of a fight after the election as during the campaign.

- Dan Gardner compares the Libs' dilemma to that of WWI-era Germany in being squeezed by strong rivals on each side. But I'd think that analogy only further exposes their folly in declining to try to turn one into an ally.

- Cliff nicely defines why many NDP voters don't have any interest in the Libs' invitation to fold for the greater glory of Michael Ignatieff:

To the casual observer, or the observer deliberately avoiding the details - liberals and social democrats may seem to have more in common than liberals and conservatives - but have you noticed that in provinces where the NDP is a legitimate, even default governing option that the provincial 'liberals' and 'conservatives' have long since merged into default chamber of commerce conservative parties? Have you noticed that in the UK the two parties that felt their policies were most aligned to form a coalition were the 'liberals' and the 'conservatives'? You don't think the same thing would happen in Canada in a heartbeat if it ever looked like the NDP was becoming a viable governing option?

When we say 'Liberal/Tory, same old story' that isn't just a slogan, we New Democrats really do believe that on the really important issues particularly on economics and social spending there is no real daylight between Liberal and Tory policy books.

So pardon us if we look for an alternative to either the 'liberal' or 'conservative' wings of the single corporatist Bay Street Party presented to us as our only options. Pardon us if we fight for every seat where we have a chance - usually because the local progressives are tired of being wooed in an election and then pimped out as soon as the vaguely more progressive sounding corporatists who call themselves 'liberals' beat the vaguely 'conservative' sounding corporatists they agree more than disagree with.

- Finally, Dr. Dawg serves up a disturbing list of what the Cons consider to be normal.

Just

It's been obvious for over two years that much of the election campaign we're now seeing would be spent discussing the Cons' attempts to fearmonger about the prospect of a coalition government. And I've pointed out before that the Libs' strategy - ranging from failing to defend the idea to outright ruling it out - is self-defeating in numerous ways: it abandons an opportunity to campaign from a lead position, suppresses any hope that a change of government is in sight, and allows Stephen Harper and his party to skate around what should be some damning history.

Now, we're seeing the absolute worst-case result for the Libs from their ill-fated choice - one that even I didn't see coming. But thankfully, it's actually the one that serves the interests of progressive Canadians the best.

The main explanation as to why the Libs weren't prepared to defend the idea of a coalition is that it would have provided progressive voters with a license to support the NDP as well or instead - resulting in the Libs failing to gain seats relative to the NDP even as both parties won enough to replace the Cons. And that was seen as unacceptable based on the Libs' usual position that they'd prefer to suppress the NDP and cling to their status as a default alternative rather than working on replacing Harper.

But a campaign focused on a widespread push in favour a coalition would have had some other consequences as well.

In particular, the Libs would have been able to point to the terms of the 2008 coalition agreement as a precedent for future discussion. That in turn would have led to pressure on Jack Layton and the NDP as to whether or not they'd be prepared to accept a Lib-led government. And based on the NDP's interest in seeing a change in government, the likely response would have ended up harnessing Layton's trust and popularity for a cause which would have seen the Liberals as the senior partner in a coalition.

But the Libs weren't interested in an alignment which would have allowed the NDP to join them in making gains. So instead, they foreclosed on any possibility that the NDP could serve as a junior coalition partner in the hope of snuffing the NDP out entirely - ensuring that the NDP would instead be evaluated in direct competition with the Libs.

Which hasn't exactly gone according to plan.

Not that the actual outcome should be too much of a surprise. After all, one could hardly expect that the NDP would answer the Libs' attacks by rolling over and playing dead - even if the strength of the NDP's response might go beyond what the Libs anticipated. And the combination of Jack Layton's personal popularity and a growing swell of NDP support in Quebec has been readily visible for years.

But the Libs once again counted on inertia to drive voters back into their camp if Harper was within reach of a majority - apparently without anticipating that the NDP might be able to build up enough strength to challenge them at levels where a majority isn't in sight.

And now, there's not much left in the Libs' arsenal for the balance of the campaign. They most certainly don't figure to gain any ground on the NDP from a policy platform which mostly reads as a pale imitation of NDP proposals, nor a health-care focus which ignores the fact that the NDP is more trusted on the issue. And even if the Cons do have another surge into majority territory left, it's going to be difficult for the Libs to argue that the NDP can't do at least as much to stem the tide.

Indeed, the Libs' best hope may yet be to flip-flop on their willingness to consider a coalition once again. But it seems more likely that they'll keep on bashing the strategic-voting drum as rhythmic accompaniment for their march to oblivion - and they can't be said to have earned anything but their just deserts in the process.

Wednesday Morning Links

Content goes here.

- Scott Stinson is the latest to note that the Libs' sudden concern for health care looks to have been fabricated solely for campaign consumption:

In the month of March, which ended with the dissolution of Parliament, the Liberal party asked many questions about tax rates, election financing and ethics. It asked questions about prisons, Bev Oda, the CBC and the Champlain Bridge. It asked questions about the environment, child care and fighter jets.

It did not ask any questions about health-care funding.

The same is true of February: zero questions about health care, save for a couple here and there that asked why the government wasn’t rushing to hold clinical trials for the controversial “Liberation” treatment for multiple sclerosis.

It’s a record that is tough to square with the Liberals’ newfound zeal for health care, the latest evidence of which was an announcement on Tuesday that former prime minster Jean Chrétien would join leader Michael Ignatieff on the campaign trail “as the Liberal team shares the Liberal commitment to protect universal public health care.” That statement came just a few hours after Bob Rae and two other Liberal candidates held a press conference in Ottawa to accuse the Conservatives of plotting to slash health-care funding in order to balance future budgets.

But if the Liberals had always intended to make this long-awaited election about health care, they sure took their sweet time getting around to it. The NDP asked at least 10 questions about health care in the House in the past few months, from the sanctity of the Canada Health Act to the need for drug coverage to, er, bedbugs.
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The Liberal party position as the only champion of public health would be just a touch easier to buy if its platform included anything about long-term funding other than a mushy promise to be “at the table for Canadians” when negotiating an extension to the 2004 deal with the provinces. Quality would be improved, costs would be contained, pressure on families would be relieved. Possibly pixie dust would be involved.

Mr. Ignatieff has been Liberal leader for more than two years, and he’s never said much about long-term health-care funding until now. But it seems to be the message he has chosen to try to revive a waning campaign. The question is, is it too late for the defibrillator?

- The Star calls for an end to the treatment of elected MPs like potted plants:

MPs of all political stripes ought to stand up for themselves – and, more importantly, their constituents. In a minority government situation, where a party needs each and every vote, MPs may find they have more power than they realize to effect the positive changes they feel they were elected to do. The parties – so eager to blame their rivals for turning Parliament into a gong show – should look themselves in the mirror. They need to examine how they choose candidates, and the kind of discipline they enforce once MPs get to Ottawa.

- Ho-hum, just another story about the public face of the Prime Minister's Office trying to arm-twist an independent organization into hiring the Cons' choice of chairs, then falsely denying that he so much as had any contact with the group involved. No need for ministerial responsibility here.

- Also, under-the-table cash payments to cleaners at 24 Sussex Drive. Move along, nothing to see here.

- Finally, Wheatsheaf points out the sad excuse for a response from Kelly Block when the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting asked about her position on funding the CBC:

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Bagged cats.

Trop drole

The NDP has some fun with Jack Layton's popularity in Quebec:

On jiu-jitsu

Little noticed in Jack Layton's interview with Peter Mansbridge is a nifty little inoculation against the Libs' inevitable late-campaign strategy:

In an interview with CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge, Layton said the difference between his NDP and the Liberals is that his rivals have been in power.

"They were [in power], and they broke their promises," Layton said. "We have yet to be in power. We're making some commitments, and we've got a strong record of delivering on what we say we're going to do in minority parliaments. And now we'd like the opportunity to do it as the leader of the governing party."

Needless to say, the Libs don't figure to have much left in their quiver other than to say it's pointless to vote for any other party based on their standing as a past government.

But Layton's message looks to nicely turn that contrast into a positive for the NDP - painting the Libs as part of the broken Ottawa which the NDP is looking to fix, while noting the upside of a party which can come to power with a clean slate. And that in turn only serves to complement Layton's challenge to any effort to narrow down voters' choices.

Not that it should be too much surprise that Layton has been able to develop an increasingly effective response to a tactic he's dealt with in four election cycles as NDP leader. But it's particularly noteworthy that he's going on the offensive in pointing to a new start as a plus for swing voters and for Canada - and that push may be just what the NDP needs to keeping building on its successful campaign so far.

Well said

April Reign responds to the Libs' attempts to artificially narrow our voting choices by making it clear what she wants to vote for:

I want to vote for a party that has a commitment to health care and the bona fides to go with it.

I want to vote for a party with a commitment to labour, to protecting pensions and with a vision to bring dignity and hope to the lives of the poor including poor seniors.

I want to vote for a party with a commitment to human rights, women’s rights and respect for the environment.

In short I want to vote for a leftist party, which Ignatieff says the Liberals are not.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- While there's plenty of reason for optimism that the NDP can win enough seats to make change for the better, there should never be any illusion that politics as usual will go down without a fight. Today's sad examples: Dr. Dawg slams the Libs for outing star NDP candidate Francoise Boivin (in a move which will hopefully produce enough backlash to put Boivin over the top), while Rick points out that Bob Rae is once again serving as the Libs' designated spoiler in ridings where they'd apparently prefer to see Con incumbents hang on against strong NDP challengers.

- In what should be a bigger story than it seems to have become so far, Marco Fortier points out that the Cons have tossed aside any requirement for experience or competence in order to permit religious-based charities to receive large amounts of federal money.

- There's plenty of good news in the vote mobs which are working to get students and other young Canadians voting. But Susan Delacourt points out that as per usual, there's plenty of work being done by less positive actors to suppress turnout as well:

Valeriote also says that people with Liberal signs on their lawns have been getting visits from volunteers identifying themselves as Conservative campaign workers, who are warning these would-be Liberal voters that voting for Michael Ignatieff will result in handing control of the country to Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe.

Like Volpe, Valeriote is saying that this is all part of a voter-suppression effort. Green Party leader Elizabeth May talked about this at the Star's editorial-board meeting a couple of weeks ago -- the nasty tactics may not drive any votes toward a particular party, but instead, disgust people enough about politics that they simply stay away from the ballot box on May 2. Much of the Liberals' whole campaign this time has been focused on boosting turnout, so these 12-year-old-kid pranks could be a real problem.

Then again, it all does give average citizens a glimpse of what's become business as usual in Ottawa in recent years.

- And finally, Alison clarifies what the Cons mean in saying they're "Here for Canada".

- Update: Also, what Rick Mercer said:



- Update II: I didn't liveblog last night's Palliser forum due to a lack of wireless reception. But I'll point out that one of the most impressive parts of Noah Evanchuk's perfomance was his consistent stand to the effect that all voices - including those opposing him - should be heard at the forum and elsewhere.

Unfortunately, this fact check misses the mark on the same point in suggesting that it's somehow a failing for a couple of Libs to have not removed critical comments from their Facebook pages.

Too little, too late

Chantal Hebert notes that the Libs are once again changing messages in the middle of a campaign that isn't going their way. But the most important point is why their decision to take on the cause of health care now is likely to ring hollow:

For months prior to the campaign, the provinces and the many protagonists of the health-care system pushed for some statement of federal intent on post-2014 medicare funding.

In response to this flurry of behind-the-scenes activity, the NDP raised the issue a number of times in question period since the new year. It did not make it once on the Liberal 2011 line-up.

So the health-care issue ultimately looks to reinforce the NDP's message that the Libs have been missing in action when it comes to the priorities of Canadians. And that can only help the effort to promote the NDP as the stronger defender of Canada's cherished public institutions.

Telling

One might think that facing the strongest challenge his party has faced from a national party in over a decade, Gilles Duceppe would develop at least some substantive argument against the party involved.

But one would be wrong.

In fact, Duceppe is only reinforcing the positive aspects of Jack Layton and the NDP while trying to make a flawed strategic voting argument. And it's not hard to see how that content-free response might make it all the easier for the NDP to turn its current popularity into an even bigger breakthrough than already seems possible.

Monday Afternoon Links

Content goes here.

- David Climenhaga critiques the questionable Star coverage given to Angus Reid's polling showing the NDP catching up to the Libs nationally:

(A)sk yourselves this: If a new poll had showed a huge surge in support for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, would reporters have "balanced" their stories by noting in the lead, "but their support could collapse by the time voters go to the polls"? Unlikely.

If the poll had shown a huge jump in support for Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals, would the Toronto Star have observed, "their support could collapse by the time voters go to the polls"? Impossible!
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Plenty of voters, myself included, have voted strategically for Liberals when we preferred New Democrats because in the ridings where we lived the No. 3 party, whichever it was, didn't have a chance.

If the New Democrats are on the cusp of becoming the No. 2 party, it may in fact be the Liberals who see their support peeling off toward the NDP by the time voters go to the polls.

Count on it that if that possibility rears its head, the mainstream media -- and not just the perennially Liberal Toronto Star -- will pull out all the stops to prevent it from becoming reality.

So look for plenty of stories in the next few days like the Star's, full of qualifiers, hedges and explanations of why what you're seeing isn't really what you're seeing.

But who knows where that might lead? As Layton observed in the same story, "A lot of Canadians don't like to be told what to do, and so we're seeing a lot of enthusiasm on the ground."

- Alice points out how "strategic voting" sites play directly into the Cons' hands:

You would think that with all these sites ganging up on Conservative candidates, that party would be up in arms for fear of losing its shot at a majority, right?

Hardly.

To the contrary: they are gleeful, as evidenced by the fact that they have not said one peep about the three sites publicly since the campaign began.
...
If you didn't read my plea not to vote strategically in the last election, I urge you to take another look now. A vote "against" someone or something is a vote in favour of nothing. It gives no mandate to elected officials, creates all the wrong incentives for the politicians who are elected that way, and guarantees that Parliament will descend even further into the partisan barking we see there now. Indeed the perverse problems with the methodology itself have led respected website Democratic Space author Greg Morrow to stop publishing his "strategic voting guide" from previous elections.

In this election, read the platforms, watch the debates, take a measure of the leaders and the candidates, and vote your heart. If everyone did that, who knows what we might come up with together.

- Environmental Defence catalogues where Canada's federal parties stand on key environmental issues. Predictably, the answer from the Cons is "nowhere in sight".

- Douglas Bell suggests that the Libs may want to start making an election issue out of the treatment of G20 protesters. But I have to wonder whether anybody would be fooled by their suddenly raising the topic at the end of an election campaign when they've been perfectly happy to ignore it until now.

- Finally, Hugh Mackenzie highlights why there's no such thing as a tax cut which primarily helps the middle class - and notes what's really afoot when political parties pretend to offer that impossibility:

(T)ax cuts are presented as if they are some kind of magic key that benefits everyone equally. So in the current election campaign, the Conservatives are running on their tax cut platform as if it benefits everyone in the same way, when in fact the cuts are very tightly targeted to people who have enough disposable income to double their savings in their tax free savings accounts, or who have children in arts programs, or who are in a couple with one very high income earner and one very low (or no) income earner and when by far the biggest tax cut goes to corporations in the financial services and energy industries.

In the same vein, in the early 2000s, a smattering (of) broadly-based personal tax cuts masked a massive cut in corporate tax rates and a huge cut in capital gains taxes that stands as the single most regressive tax change in Canadian history.

Equally important, talking up tax cuts without coming clean about their impact on public services is profoundly dishonest. Every cut in public fiscal capacity results in cuts to public services that we depend on – services that a study by the CCPA estimated in 2006 were worth an average of $16,000 to every Canadian woman, man and child. To illustrate the point, that study found that if the Harper government had turned the money raised by 2 percentage points of the GST over to local governments to spend on local services instead of cutting the GST, 80% of Canadians would have been better off.

What that means is that, when you take into account what happens to public services as a result of tax cuts, there really isn’t such a thing as a middle-income friendly tax cut.

On room for growth

Sure, the latest party polling is great enough news for the NDP. But what may be even more noteworthy is the potential for even more improvement based on the leadership preferences also observed by Angus Reid:

The performance of NDP leader Jack Layton in the televised debates has led to the highest approval rating recorded by any Canadian federal politician in an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll over the past three years. Half of Canadians (50%) approve of the way Layton is doing his job.

One third of respondents approve of Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper (33%), while one-in-four feel the same way about both Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff (24%) and Green Party leader Elizabeth May (also 24%).

Layton’s momentum score stands at +26, with more than a third of Canadians (36%) saying that they now have an improved opinion of the NDP leader. The remaining contenders all posted negative momentum scores.

There is a virtual tie in the preferred Prime Minister question, with large proportions of Canadians choosing either Harper (28%) or Layton (27%) for the country’s top political job. Ignatieff is a distant third with 13 per cent, while Duceppe and May are in single digits.

Which means that the NDP isn't merely converting some of Layton's usual leadership advantage into temporary voting intentions.

Instead, it's improved both its party and leader scores by a substantial amount during the course of the campaign. And that means that there's room to grow even between the NDP's party scores and Layton's preferred Prime Minister number - which in turn can only raise the hopes that he'll reach that position by the end of the campaign.

Momentum building

Something's happening here:

An Angus Reid poll shows one quarter of Canadians say they would vote for the New Democrats, an increase of four percentage points since early this month.

That puts the party in a tie for second place with the Liberals, who are also at 25 per cent after seeing their support drop by two percentage points over the same period.

And here:

But the big winner from the debates in the short run is NDP Leader Jack Layton—at the expense of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and his party, the Forum Research poll of 2,241 Canadians found.
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The poll of voter preferences nationally for the four main parties and the Green Party showed the NDP was the only party to significantly gain ground since the results of the last Forum Research poll conducted April 5 and April 6, edging up to 22 per cent support from the 20 per cent in the earlier poll.

And even here:

A new poll, done exclusively for QMI Agency by Leger Marketing, shows that Layton and the NDP are the only party to win significant new support on the campaign trail in the last two weeks.

The party is now the preferred choice of 22% of voters, up from 18% two weeks ago.

"Both ends of the country are turning to Jack," said Leger's Christian Bourque.

Of course, all of the pollsters are quick to pair the NDP's gains with a declaration that they might not last until election day. But however tempted some respondents might be to shift their votes, they'll have absolutely no reason to do so when there's no meaningful advantage to doing so - which means that the NDP's effective parity with the Libs (paired with greater popularity on issues and in leadership) may offer exactly the right set of conditions for lasting change for the better.

On logical conclusions

Neil Reynolds' musings about how the Bloc could be offered the chance to form the government of Canada obviously don't have any real chance of coming to pass. But it's worth pointing out whose rhetoric would take Reynolds' scenario a step further.

After all, the Cons are trying to push Canadians to believe that the only party who can legitimately form government is the one who wins the most seats.

It's theoretically possible that the Bloc could be that party, as a near-sweep of Quebec combined with a relatively equal split among the four national parties could position Gilles Duceppe with the highest seat total. Which means that if Stephen Harper actually believed a word of his own rhetoric, he'd find himself supporting a Gilles Duceppe government for the sake of preserving the sanctity of "most seats wins".

In contrast, the reality-based line is that what matters is whether a party can win the support of a majority of the House of Commons. And on that front, any risk of a Bloc government fades away in a hurry - regardless of whether or not the opportunity is offered.

Which nicely contrasts how Canadians should view the requirements for a new government to be legitimate. Would we be forced to accept a Bloc government simply because it ends up on top of the party standings? Or would the national parties have any capacity at all to work on putting together an alternative?

On unifying campaigns

I haven't dealt with the B.C. NDP's leadership race on this blog to any meaningful extent. But it's great to see that Adrian Dix has earned a close win to lead the charge toward a new NDP government in 2013. So congratulations to all of the candidates and campaigns - and I'll look forward to the party's direction as it works on cleaning up the wreckage of the Campbell Libs.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Ralph Surette nicely summarizes the Cons' economic plan for Canada - and the less opportunity they have to focus on forcing it on the country, the better:

(D)espite the huge wealth of its oil boom, the Alberta government is all but bust: deficits in the billions, schools and hospitals being cut back to pinch pennies, inadequate infrastructure, and accumulated oil money from the past being depleted to pay the bills. All this is the result of basically giving it away to oil companies — in the middle of a resources boom!

Someone sent me a link to a B.C. online investigative magazine called The Tyee which interviewed Allan Warrack, a minister from the Peter Lougheed government of 40 years ago when plans were laid down to preserve Alberta’s oil wealth for future generations, and to diversify the economy. He says the province is now being run like a "banana republic" for failing to extract fair rents from its resources; the Alberta Heritage Fund which he helped set up hasn’t had a cent added since 1987; and a huge legacy of environmental "carnage" is building up with no money to fix it. Worse, the economy has not diversified, having become even more dependent on oil.

Even a $300-million fund for medical research, set up in 1980 to attract scientific talent to the province, has been shut down, despite its arm’s-length status and the fact that its endowment had grown to $825 million. "It’s hard for me not to fly into a rage when I recount what happened," says Warrack.

This is the "vision" that’s playing out for Canada on a larger scale: an increasingly resource-dependent economy with its booms and busts, massive giveaways to oil and mining companies (including tax cuts), environmental controls out the window, the dollar up and down, and manufacturing taking hit after hit. And no plan for tomorrow, except to seek more resources jobs with ever more corporate giveaways as our manufacturing shrivels, thanks to a high and volatile dollar.

- Which fits nicely James Laxer's list of differences between the Cons' plans and what Canadians actually want:

Canadians list health care and jobs as their top priorities. Harper’s leading issues are: corporate tax cuts, crime, jet fighters, deficit reduction, and income splitting. A Fortress North America security deal with the United States is very much on his to-do list. Further down the list is the privatization of CBC television and a much expanded role for religious organizations in the delivery of social policy.
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Harper’s advice to young people looking for jobs will be to act eager, be polite, wish your customers a nice day, smile and don’t worry too much about the pay. (The Harper government actually has no job creation strategy, apart from lower corporate taxes. Their stimulus program----forced on them by the opposition----has expired. Now their strategy is to sell oil sands oil to the Americans and pray for economic recovery south of the border. Prayer is undoubtedly good for the soul, but only in business schools is it regarded as an economic policy.)

- So the best hope under a Con majority might be for Harper and company to be too imcompetent to carry out their plans. Though as pogge points out once again, that's a distinct possibility.

- But as kirbycairo notes, the issue with an economic and political system designed to disempower the public goes beyond the Cons alone, leading to an obvious prescription for change:

A century and a half ago republicans and leftist naively thought that universal suffrage would solve many of the problematic and exploitative aspects of capitalism because they thought that people would elect representatives who would act in their interests. The problem is, however, that over time, the rich and powerful trained their economists and technocrats to essentially convince people that they HAVE to choose certain kinds of economic policies and that a more cooperative society is simply impossible. As a result, much like war, many of the most exploited have been cheerleaders in their own exploitation.

But it is all a lie. A very large, elaborately constructed lie. All the wealth of a nation, of the world, comes from the labours of people who make things and grow things, not from people who push papers around. And if all those people decide to create a cooperative society in which 90% of the wealth isn't in the hands of 10% of the population, then that is precisely what they can do. We are many, they are few.

A friendly reminder

Needless to say, there's plenty of reason for confidence if the rest of the election campaign comes down to a contest as to who can best be trusted to strengthen Canada's health care system. But the Libs who are obsessed with replaying their same false grievances so thoroughly debunked in 2006 might want to be particularly careful about reminding Canadians what happened to cause their previous government to fall.

Let's not forget that when the NDP withdrew its support of the Martin government in 2005, it was over a single difference in priorities.

The NDP proposed to strengthen the Canada Health Act as its lone condition for supporting the government through the fall of that year.

And the Libs refused.

So if the question now is who has a track record of fighting for health care (and who's prepared to try to excuse doing nothing about it)...well, the more the Libs want to remind Canadians how they've been out of touch with the priorities of Canadians, the better.

Sunday Morning Links

Content goes here.

- No wonder the Cons have fought so hard to suppress their Statement of Operational Requirements for F-35 fighter jets. After all, who would want to have to justify leaving out the part about engines?

- For more on the passing of Allan Blakeney, you'll find Malcolm's take here.

- Memo to Jessica Earle and anybody else buying the spin that a cap-and-trade system is political poison in Quebec: you'll want to check whether your sources said the same about the Cons' promise of the exact same thing in 2008. And if not, then you're peddling partisan spin rather than meaningful analysis.

[Update: See Kate Heartfield for an example of how it's done. Though the words "blatant lie" might be necessary for a truly descriptive story.]

- Finally, Armine Yalnizyan rightly criticizes the cult of zero when it comes to corporate taxes:

Corporations benefit from public policy, public institutions and public services, without which profits would be far, far lower.

If the argument is that corporations should pay nothing for these privileges and benefits, it’s like saying they have rights but no responsibilities. And that flies against every principle of justice society holds dear.

A revolutionary war was fought and a nation was formed on the principle of “no taxation without representation”.

You can try, but any theory that suggests it is in the public interest for the most powerful entities in society to have representation without taxation is unlikely to pass the sniff test of democracy.

But while it's worth pointing out the extremes being demanding by the tax-slashing brigade, I'd think it's even more important to highlight the need for a real alternative.

After all, the main argument for perpetual corporate tax cuts is apparently that higher corporate tax rates in one jurisdiction might lead big businesses to shift their profits elsewhere to avoid it. But that does indeed lead to perpetually diminishing returns for every single jurisdiction competing for businesses.

That makes for a classic prisoner's dilemma which can only be solved through collective trust and action. So let's start pushing back with a call for to establish uniform corporate tax rates among the world's developed economies which eliminate the incentive to shift paper money around - lest the cult of zero otherwise make that the default rate.

[Edit: fixed wording.]