Wednesday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your midweek reading.

- Erin compares the stimulative effects of Ontario's election platforms:

A multiplier is the amount by which a dollar of budgetary outlay increases Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The federal Department of Finance estimates multipliers of 1.3 for public expenditure, 0.9 for personal tax cuts and 0.2 for corporate tax cuts in the year after their enactment.

Applying these multipliers to Ontario’s election platforms suggests a GDP boost of $1.3 billion from the Conservatives, $1.4 billion from the Liberals and $1.8 billion from the NDP if corporate tax credits are treated as corporate tax cuts. Counting these credits as public spending brings the NDP’s stimulus to $2.3 billion.

Of course, all of the above multipliers would be lower in Ontario because it is smaller than the national economy. Proportionally more spending would flow outside the province than outside the country as a whole. The NDP’s Buy Ontario policy would limit this outflow by keeping a larger share of procurement spending inside the province.

Given higher outflows and lower multipliers at the provincial level, the federal government should take primary responsibility for using fiscal policy to manage economic demand. However, to the extent that Ontario provincial platforms can be evaluated as stimulus packages, the NDP proposal is strongest.

New Democrats would deliver the most stimulus and job creation at the lowest fiscal cost by focussing on measures with the biggest bang per buck: direct public investment and targeted tax credits. By contrast, Liberals and Conservatives have prioritized slashing tax rates on corporate profits, the least effective way to stimulate the economy.

- Andrew Steele is right to point out the need to treat voter suppression as the crime that it is. But it's equally important that those of us who value widespread participation call out attempts to suppress the vote through legislation and other means as well, rather than buying into the spin that we should value evidence-free assertions about a need to crack down over real access to the polls.

- CUPE notes that the Sask Party's rhetoric about privatizing surgical functions to increase the number of procedures performed has proven entirely false in practice, as millions of dollars in added funding (contingent on the money being siphoned into the private sector) have actually led to less surgeries being performed.

- Finally, I'm guessing most readers will already know about the Manitoba NDP's fourth straight mandate. But it's still a huge plus to see that the efforts to build a right-wing western bloc have hit a barrier at the Manitoba border - and hopefully we'll see even more pushback as the fall's election season progresses.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Graham Thomson notes that for all the permutations and combinations that have developed among Alberta's opposition parties over the past few years, the NDP's strong principles have positioned it nicely in the lead up to a possible fall election:

Even though they might not admit it, New Democrats wouldn't mind a fall election. The provincial party is still basking in the afterglow of the Orange Wave that saw federal leader Jack Layton take the party to Official Opposition status for the first time.

The Environics poll of Alberta politics put the New Democrats into a statistical three-way tie for second place with the Wildrose and Liberals. All of a sudden, New Democrats are no longer in fourth place. Also giving the Alberta New Democrats a confidence boost are the federal election results where more than 230,000 Albertans supported the party.

Almost half that support is in Edmonton where the party is focusing its attention on a fall election. And narrowing the focus even more, the NDP won its one Alberta seat in Edmonton-Strathcona with the reelection of Linda Duncan.

It's all good news for Alberta New Democrats, especially Notley who represents the provincial riding of Edmonton-Strathcona and who, thanks to the federal campaign, already has targeted more than 12,000 supporters.
...
Alberta's New Democrats have such a long uphill climb they should equip their candidates with crampons and rope. But they are also among the most optimistic of Alberta's political parties, realizing they are staking out a unique position as the only politicians talking about increasing royalties on oil and gas companies and cracking down more forcefully on the environmental impact of the oilsands.

- Simon Enoch discusses Saskatchewan's highly unusual and distortionary electoral boundaries - just in time for the boundary review process which looks likely to change them.

- Andrew Steele offers some common-sense advice to political parties: for all the promise of online citizen engagement, knocking on doors is still the #1 priority in trying to win over voters.

- I'm not sure we can accurately say that Terence Corcoran is leading Canada's intellectual retreat when politicians like the Ford brothers and the bulk of the federal Cons receive so much more attention. But Erin is right to call out his Tea Party-esque nonsense.

- Finally, Matt Taibbi points out one of the many outrageous possibilities on the U.S. political scene, as it seems entirely possible that corporations who have sent money offshore will once again be rewarded for their manipulation of the law with a tax holiday.

Signs of decay

I'm not sure whether the Libs think their base will be more fired up by their clinging to the trappings of past power to prevent newly-elected MPs from doing their jobs, or by their criticism of competitors for having the nerve to think about the future. But with the party facing questions as to whether it can justify its own existence, doesn't such a decayed foundation make for a compelling indication that rebuilding isn't worth the trouble?

On majorities

I'll post later about the main questions facing each Canadian political party after Monday's election. But with pundits like Andrew Steele declaring that we should assume the NDP can't put together a majority coalition, let's set the record straight as to exactly how much hope there is to unite Canada's left behind the NDP as it stands (rather than mucking around with mergers or other structural changes).

Throughout the election campaign, EKOS regularly ran second-choice polling. And every time it did from the moment the NDP emerged as the second-place party nationally, the NDP's support as a first or second choice was between about 50% and 54% of voters - compared to numbers in the low 40s for the Harper Conservatives.

Which means that if we're indeed seeing polarization into a two-party system in which the Libs and Bloc are relatively inconsequential, the default assumption should be that the NDP has the upper hand as matters stand now.

Granted, that doesn't mean we can assume the same will be true by 2015. After all, the Harper Cons have obviously tailored their message to what they perceived to be the share of the vote they'd need to win, and we have to figure that their strategy will change if they face a more polarized choice rather than being able to rely on vote-splitting.

But we already have plenty of evidence available that the NDP's message appeals at least somewhat both to a majority of Canadians, and to substantially more voters than the Cons have managed to reach to date. And that would seem to offer ample reason to continue with the party structure that's working.

Tuesday Evening Links

This and that for your post-election reading.

- Erin recognizes the long-term positives to be drawn from yesterday's election results:

The NDP replacing the Liberals as one of the two predominant parties is hugely positive. Canadian social democrats have been striving for this realignment since they founded the CCF in 1932.
...
In the next election, progressives should no longer feel that they must choose between voting NDP because it is progressive and voting Liberal to stop Conservatives. The resulting concentration of progressive votes for the NDP would produce substantial gains in English Canada. If the NDP can gain as many seats there as it just gained in Quebec, it would form a majority government.

The next four years will be tough. But there is a bright orange light at the end of the tunnel.

- Andrew Steele also hopes for positive results out of the election campaign, including this possibility which seems a lot more likely now that the next trip in the polls is years down the road:

4. The lessons of a long-term plan. The NDP was executing a long-term plan in this election. Jack Layton consciously chose to target francophone Quebec over the past four elections.
...
His party continued to work in Quebec, and Mr. Layton clearly was focused on winning over Quebec francophones during segments of both debates. This time, the long-term plan paid off, and Mr. Layton and the NDP will be rewarded by a fundamental breakthrough.

It is a good lesson that politics is not won today or tomorrow but over the course of years. Deciding on a strategic course, sticking to the plan and adjusting tactically as you move forward is critical.

The good news is other parties will hopefully follow this methodology, getting out of the insular hyper-caffeinated world of Question Period and back into thinking about the big picture.

- Scott Stinson suggests that the media should be able to learn from the campaign as well:

More debates would help. Had there been one debate specifically on the economy, there’s a chance the leaders would have had to spend time defending their visions -and their platforms. Mr. Layton never faced serious questions about his economic plan during the two debates, a fact Mr. Ignatieff could only lament as he spent the campaign’s final week belatedly attacking the NDP’s “fantasy” numbers. It’s too bad: that exchange would have made for good TV.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the national media decided en masse to stop paying more than $10,000 a week for the right to join the leaders’ tours -a move that would essentially defund the highly scripted operations. It would be nice to see more -and more fulsome -debates. And it would be something if parties had to subject their economic plans to some sort of outside audit -one that compared Conservative apples to Liberal apples to NDP apples.

Is that expecting too much change? Is unrealistic to expect such radical reforms before the next campaign?

Perhaps. But change could happen. This was supposed to be an election about nothing.

- But then, pogge notes that the media itself was a major problem in its utter disconnect from the values of voters.

- Finally, Webb offers up what's probably the safest prediction coming out of the election results:

I'm going to make a prediction right here and now: Canadians will regret giving so much power to someone who was learning how to abuse it for the last five years. I'll give it two years for the grumblings to begin and three years before the sweat is really on. This is how I see it going, more or less:

The cost of the crime bill will skyrocket, especially for provincial governments. The economic pressure it creates will increase until it becomes unaffordable for either provinces or the country as a whole, and people will seek alternative measures for law and order. This will pit the provinces against the feds, and it will also pit Canadians against the possibility that their province and their country may go bankrupt. Austerity measures will be introduced and as a result taxes will go up. This will all go on against a backdrop of the energy industry making unprecedented profits each quarter with unbelievable subsidies. There will be a critical mass of discontent and that's about when the 'jets' will become another economic crisis we can ill-afford.

On clean campaigns

Sure, the NDP's opponents are salivating over what isn't yet known about the party's candidates and potential MPs in Quebec. But let's put that argument based on a lack of evidence into perspective.

After all, we're currently stuck with a micro-managing Prime Minister whose level of control putatively extends as far as running background checks on individuals entering his party's rallies. Yet his party's campaign has been derailed in just the last couple of days by revelations that they've appointed a fanatic who rants about "black shirts" and the "SS" to a gun advisory committee, their happy acceptance of campaign support from a dangerous offender and Paul Bernardo admirer, and the knowledge that a star candidate has been repudiated by her own family while gladly accepting an endorsement from one of the country's most notorious terrorist financiers. And that's to say nothing of the scandal-ridden staffers who have made regular appearances on the campaign trail.

Meanwhile, from the party which is expected to crumble under scrutiny, the closest there is to that type of story is...idle speculation from other parties' spinmeisters.

Lest there be any doubt, I'm not a huge fan of gotcha politics in any event. But for anybody making a remotely rational comparison between the NDP and its rivals in this campaign, it's Jack Layton and company who have done the best job of avoiding any impropriety or perception thereof.

A dose of reality

I won't argue with Andrew Steele's take that the latest WikiLeaks document disclosure is probably closer to "gossip" than "whistleblowing". But I'd argue that there's room for a far more positive response than the one he seems to expect:

Today, national leaders of other countries will provide less information to Americans and the West generally, fearing it will become public.

Take Saudi Arabian, United Arab Emirate and Egyptian opinion that Iran's President is "another Hitler." These leaders will face abrogation not only from Iran but from some within their own country over siding with Israel against another Muslim country.

If the criticism becomes strong enough within government and power structures, they could have to alter their positioning publicly and privately to compensate, making concessions to Iran to demonstrate solidarity.

And that is bad for the world.

It weakens the prestige and attraction of the very democratic institutions Mr. Assange claims to be supporting, at just the time when another model of state-operating is becoming fashionable.

From my standpoint, Steele's concern raises a fairly important question: how sustainable can any institution be if it can't survive the revelation that its actors are mere people, subject to holding strong opinions and occasionally lapsing in judgment just like anybody else?

If anything, the value in the latest documents looks to be some much-needed confirmation that for all the prestige we may seek to ascribe to diplomatic institutions, they - like the military, and the police, and the other groups who have been built up as requiring public support and fealty at all costs - are ultimately made up of human beings who are both fallible and opinionated. And maybe the better course of action is to avoid blowing out of proportion the revelation of the obvious and predictable, rather than stoking outrage as an excuse to clamp down more tightly on the escape of the occasional bit of truth.

On frozen rates

Andrew Steele is right to criticize the Ontario PCs' attempt to make hay out of a theory that the McGuinty government would try to raise the HST. But it's worth noting that the Libs themselves don't seem to want to acknowledge the reason why the accusation is so far-fetched:

I've noted before that the preliminary agreement between the Harper Cons and the McGuinty Libs provided that the province would be required to keep the HST rate where it is for at least two years following implementation. And that's made all the more clear in the comprehensive agreement that's since been signed between Jim Flaherty and Dwight Duncan:

15. The Parties agree that the PVAT Rate in respect of the Province will be 8% as of the Implementation Date.

16. The PVAT Rate in respect of the Province may be increased, or decreased, in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement after a minimum period of two years from the Implementation Date. Following that two-year period, any change in the PVAT Rate in respect of the Province, as permitted under the provisions of this Agreement, will not occur more often than once in any twelve-month period.

So for the same reason why the PCs' calls for a reduced HST rate were always misplaced, it's equally off base to suggest that a scheme which locks in the rate until at least the summer of 2012 somehow reflects a conspiracy to raise it.

Shill baby shill

We're probably not far from broken record territory here. But as long as Andrew Steele and his ilk want to keep repeating zombie lies, I suppose someone has to give them their due rebuttal. So for those who missed it the first time:

Even leaving aside problems with his assumptions, Jack Mintz' much-bandied-about "591,000 jobs" number incorporates other tax changes along with the HST. On this ground alone, anybody saying "the HST will create 591,000 jobs" can be dismissed as either not knowing what they're talking about or lying through their teeth.

On zombie numbers

Apparently Andrew Steele was right about one thing, as Jack Mintz' inflated and misleading job number has been parroted nonstop by HST backers from the moment it was first released (even by those who should know better). So let's quickly recap the main problems with Mintz' report, as well as pointing out how it's completely incompatible with one of the main pro-HST talking points.

The much-bandied-about "591,000 jobs" number:
- incorporates other tax changes along with the HST. On this ground alone, anybody saying "the HST will create 591,000 jobs" can be dismissed as either not knowing what they're talking about or lying through their teeth;
- doesn't take into account negative job impacts from the increased taxes on individuals;
- relies on assumptions about marginal tax rates which completely ignore the reality that reductions in one jurisdiction such as Ontario may simply result in a corporation paying more tax elsewhere;
- ignores existing policies such as research tax incentives and municipal tax benefits which affect the amount of investment made by the private sector; and
- ignores the fact that a focus on capital investment may actually reduce employment in some cases (by encouraging the relative use of capital as opposed to labour).

But let's add another major problem to the mix. Mintz' numbers assume that all of the benefit of tax harmonization will flow directly to businesses, counting every dollar of PST elimination as applying to a reduction in corporate marginal effective tax rates. That would appear to be completely incompatible with the oft-cited claim that businesses will in fact pass along any amount of their PST savings to consumers, as money which doesn't stay in corporate hands surely wouldn't figure to alter investment decisions.

In sum, there's no reason to let pro-HST voices double-count the supposed benefits of harmonization. If they want to claim that any corporate tax reductions will be passed along to consumers, then that has to be taken into account in any wishcasting as to how much money corporations will have at their disposal to invest; or conversely, anybody trumpeting Mintz' jobs number can be assumed to believe that not a red cent of any tax savings will actually be passed along to consumers. And the fact that the pro-HST side has thus far been based on so many utterly inconsistent claims would tend to signal that they'll be reluctant to face up to the realities once that choice is put in front of them.

On clunkers

Now that the first snarky response to Andrew Steele's latest HST sales pitch is out of the way, let's deal with the more substantive problem with Steele's most recent posts. Steele tries to rely on a report by the University of Calgary's Jack Mintz as demonstrating that the HST (along with a number of other moves by the McGuinty government) will create 591,000 "net new jobs" over the next decade, and argues that the report will fundamentally change the terms of Ontario's debate over the HST.

Let's leave aside for the moment that Steele's first post on the subject falsely tried to attribute that entire amount of theoretical job growth to the HST alone. Even looking solely at what Mintz' report actually says rather than the spin Steele is so eager to place on it, there's simply no basis for taking its numbers seriously: while Mintz' highly specific number speaks of "net new jobs", it doesn't actually take into account any of the costs of the HST or other associated policies to provide a "net" picture.

To start with, Mintz utterly fails to take into account how factors other than theoretical investment through global capital markets might affect Ontario's economy. Even other backers of the HST acknowledge that it'll result in higher costs for consumers, which is bound to create a cost in jobs in the meantime as well as undercutting the supposed gains in incomes. But Mintz cuts that out of the picture in order to focus solely on corporate investment.

And there are problems with that unduly narrow focus as well. Others have pointed out that corporate tax cuts like those included in Mintz' study may simply change the recipient of the same corporate tax amounts, rather than providing even a theoretical increase in economic activity.

But again, Mintz doesn't mention that as a factor, looking solely at the nominal "marginal effective tax rate" payable to Ontario rather than the amount which American companies in particular would actually pay. Which makes for a particularly glaring omission given both Ontario's interdependence with U.S. markets, and Mintz' attempt to paint changes by multijurisdictional businesses as one of the main benefits of reducing marginal tax rates.

In effect, Mintz' job estimate is the equivalent of a clueless would-be businessperson excitedly declaring "Eureka! If we sell 5,000 widgets for $200 apiece, we'll make a million dollars in net profit!". And the fact that it takes such an obviously distorted study to make the HST look good has to seriously call into question whether there's any benefit to be had for anybody but corporations looking to boost their share of public wealth.

Mind you, Steele tries to paint Mintz as the "Cadillac of Canadian public policy and economics" in hopes that nobody will look too closely at what he's actually done. But it may bear pointing out that businesses which actually put reliance on brands like Cadillac over creating quality products haven't exactly fared well for themselves - and indeed have contributed to Ontario's downfall in the first place.

Update: Erin points out a few more problems with Mintz' report.

On false equivalencies

Shorter Andrew Steele:

"Cutting corporate taxes" (by transferring costs to mere citizens) is the new "saving childrens' lives".

On hollow messages

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

On policy discussions

Following up on yesterday's post about Andrew Steele's misplaced attempts to smear the NDP, let's take the opportunity to point out one of the most interesting aspects of the Halifax convention that seems to have slipped below the radar so far. While Steele wrongly criticizes the NDP for not planning to discuss policy, the reality is that the party has in fact put together a policy book (warning: PDF) which will form the basis for the resolutions to be debated at the convention. So rather than merely debating freestanding topics (as the Libs are apparently continuing to do), the NDP will in fact be carrying on a more thorough policy discussion based on fitting specific resolutions into a full set of governing principles.

Of course, we're still waiting on word as to what resolutions will be addressed at the convention, and there will almost certainly be areas where there's some lively dispute as to how the current policy book should be changed. But it's surely a point in its favour that the NDP (unlike Steele's party of choice) is actually willing to make its principles public for discussion and debate. And as a reward, the NDP will come out of the convention with the framework of a full platform to show for it.

On false branding

Pop quiz time. Which is the first Canadian political party that comes to mind based on the following description?

...consumed by internal obsessions and bogged down with endless scandal and mismanagement...

Send your answer to Andrew Steele for his information.

Mind you, Steele's utterly bizarre theory about the NDP's current position goes a bit further than that phrase alone. But it doesn't make his take any more plausible:

The other, bigger issue is the toxic legacy of past NDP governments. Few would choose to return to profligate regimes consumed by internal obsessions and bogged down with endless scandal and mismanagement.

A vigourous debate about how to govern would be in the NDP's best interest. The time has come to move past some of the discredited shibboleths clogging up the NDP's policy cupboard - rent control and nationalized energy spring to mind - and find more effective policies to ennunciate the NDP's values.

Starting with the painfully obvious, the next party which actually has an internal debate about what level of "internal obsession,...scandal and mismanagement" it should seek to pursue while in office would be the first. (Even if I'd have to acknowledge that it would make for a highly entertaining conversation.) So Steele's supposed advice is obviously based more in an attempt to falsely brand the NDP than in any idea about what the party should actually be discussing.

But what about that attempted brand? There, the question is one of evidence rather than statements which fall apart even on their own internal absurdity. But Steele's case doesn't come out any better in his first description of the NDP as "profligate" based on the historical record:

NDP governments have balanced the books 46 per cent of the time. Manitoba’s NDP government has posed surpluses every year it has been in office and Saskatchewan’s NDP government posted 11 consecutive balanced budgets after ending a decade of Conservative mismanagement and corruption.

Despite Paul Martin’s frequent pronouncements on fiscal responsibility, Liberals have the worst fiscal record overall. Liberal federal, provincial and territorial governments have posted year-over-year budget deficits an astonishing 79 per cent of the time.

Conservative governments have only a slightly better record than the Liberals, logging deficits 65 per cent of the years in which they’ve been in power.

The report issued today by the Liberal government’s Department of Finance looks at federal, provincial and territorial accounts over the past 22 years.

In other words, NDP = fiscally responsible. Steele's Liberals = profligate. And dishonest about that fact.

But one might say, what if Steele were referring only to the federal NDP as compared to the provincial governments who have consistently been more responsible than their Lib or Con counterparts? I'd think that's more than ruled out by the feigned concern over the "legacy of past NDP governments", but just for kicks let's see how that assumption works with the rest of Steele's thesis.

So let's have another pop quiz - this a two-parter.

1. Never mind Steele's descriptor "endless", name a single scandal involving the federal NDP.

Go ahead, take your time.

2. If you've come up with anything at all, compare it to Steele's party's sponsorship scandal in scope, breadth, and damage to the party and/or the wider political system.

Now which federal party can possibly be considered as one associated with "endless scandal"? And I won't even get started on a Liberal criticizing another party for "internal obsessions" getting in the way of effective political action.

In sum, Steele seems to be putting up nothing more than a cynical effort to try to tar the NDP with his own party's obvious weaknesses. And while there are some honest points to be made about areas where the NDP can look to improve, it's fairly clear that Steele's are something else entirely.

Coalition-fabricating

Following up this morning's post, it had sounded initially like Andrew Steele had come to much the same conclusion. That is, until his post went off the rails entirely:

Harper must recognize that forcing the NDP to sustain his government is self-defeating; a divided NDP will allow the Liberals to consolidate more centre-left votes and potentially defeat Conservative incumbents in Ontario and the Maritimes. The Lower Mainland of B.C. is one of the few places where the NDP and Conservatives go head-to-head, but even there the Liberals remain a threat to come up the middle if the NDP vote falters.

Instead, the Conservatives can help maintain a healthy NDP protest vote (and a split on the centre-left) by finding ways to get the Bloc to abstain.

Abstentions by the BQ cost Duceppe's party nothing, allow the NDP to maintain its symbolic opposition to the Conservatives and keep the Conservatives in power, while freeing all three of those parties from losing seats against a resurgent Liberal Party in a sudden election.

The fact is that the renewed vigour of the Liberals has created a new majority coalition in the House of Commons: a Conservative-Separatist-Socialist coalition that will almost definitely secretly conspire to keep themselves in office for another year.

So in Steele's mind, the likely result is that the NDP will at no point back down from its record to date of voting against the Cons, meaning that Harper will have to rely on the Bloc to prop up his government. Which is an eminently reasonable theory to start with, and still probably the most likely outcome going forward.

But if Steele is indeed of the view:
- that the NDP won't vote with the Cons under any circumstances, and
- that Harper will deal solely with the Bloc because of that fact...

... then how on earth could he even pretend that the NDP would be part of a "coalition"?

And even Steele's talk of an "understanding" fails to make the slightest bit of sense. After all, how would it serve any purpose for Harper to try to deal with the NDP - however informally - if he plans on relying on Duceppe alone to prop up his government in any event?

Of course, the likely answer to both questions is that Steele is more eager to try to turn the "socialists and separatists" language against Harper - with an added bonus of building an illusion of Con/NDP agreement - than to think through the actual implications of his theory. But it's hard to see how that leads to a message any more honest than the Cons' original bluster which Steele is impliedly criticizing.

Lessons learned

Shorter Andrew Steele teaching math:
The group of consumers who will pay more in HST once tax harmonization goes through in Ontario is "broader" than the group of consumers plus employers who pay the PST now.

And shorter Andrew Steele teaching logic:
There's no difference at all between shifting a tax on manufacturers alone so that it applies to consumers, and shifting a tax which already applies to employers and consumers alike so that it hits only the latter.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

On illusions

Andrew Steele's post on the advantages of incumbency obviously reflects a Lib/Con-centric view of politics. (No, "parties of all stripes" don't set up artificial barriers to nomination challenges - it's the Cons and Libs alone who do so.) But the post is definitely worth a read in outlining evidence that the only real effect of incumbency is to dissuade otherwise-viable challengers:

Stephen Levitt, famous for Freakonomics, and Catherine Wolfram from Harvard did a complex econometric study into the causes of incumbent advantage, rather than simply measuring the advantage as earlier studies had done. They found that the source may actually be incumbents getting better at scaring away high-quality opponents.

Rather than anything based in reality, the advantage is that people thinking about running for public office over estimate the ability of the incumbent to retain office. High-profile candidates decline to run, fundraising goes uncollected by default, volunteers sit unmotivated on the sidelines and the incumbent gets back in because no one bothered to run hard against him.

Ken Carty from UBC found similar evidence in Canada. Where they are not intimidated, "local party organizations of non-winning candidates are in the position of being able to realize potentially significant electoral returns through the mobilization of additional personnel or financial resources in their constituency campaigns.

Now, Steele uses the evidence to suggest merely that the Libs and Cons should rethink their arbitrary barriers to nomination challenges (which would seem obvious to some of us simply from the perspective of internal accountability). But it seems to me that the concept applies far beyond nomination races alone.

Indeed, the studies mentioned by Steele are themselves based primarily on general election results rather than internal party challenges. And the inescapable message is that a substantial amount of the actual advantage of incumbents is based on the fact that opposing parties tend to mount something less than the greatest possible challenge.

Applying that principle to the Canadian political scene, it's then worth wondering whether many of our current political assumptions are themselves a product of parties failing to appreciate what may be possible.

The current conventional wisdom seems to suggest that the approximate party results which have been relatively consistent over the past decade will continue to be so. But is there any reason to think that the seeming tiers among Canadian political parties are any more an inevitability than the supposed advantage of incumbency? And if convincing potential candidates and supporters to push forward in the face of a perceived advantage is more than half the battle in making up any actual ground, then doesn't that become an even more important task?