Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Tabatha Southey rightly turns Brad Trost into a poster boy for the Harper Cons' deliberate aversion to critical self-evaluation:

We shouldn’t be too quick to judge.

Let’s instead take a cue from Conservative MP Brad Trost, who, when questioned regarding the calls, said, “I don’t think there was anything wrong with the robo-call. I think it was good and accurate information and we should stand behind it.”

Then Canada’s Candide went on to add, “I didn’t hear it. I don’t know the script. Don’t know anything. … One of my colleagues had it at her residence and her husband got it and he said it was fine. I’ll take his word for it.”

We may have lost the penny this week, but I hope we coined the word “Trostful,” which I will define as “marked by a total belief in the reliability, truth and strength of anything your colleague tells you was said to her by her husband, or similar evidence.”

 - Meanwhile, Murray Mandryk is rather sharper in his depiction of the Cons:

That the Conservatives denied involvement in the anonymous robocalls until being caught, red-handed, by the PostMedia voice analysis makes this explanation a dubious one. But that they have kept repeating the deceit at every available opportunity pretty much shows how disingenuous their denials really are..

They offered nonsense briefs to the commission arguing Saskatchewan hadn't grown much in the past 10 years and rural and urban voters had identical interests anyway. They stacked the meetings with friendlies spewing similar nonsense. They exaggerated how many of their friend-lies actually attended the meetings or presented briefs and then they claimed these meetings represented 75-per-cent provincewide opposition to the new boundaries.

And even when caught with their little "miscommunication" of the truth - even when the Conservatives had to own up to the fact that they were the ones responsible for the phoney and misleading push polling - they remorselessly did it in a way in which they simply repeated every one of the above falsehoods all over again.

Remorse? You've got a better chance of finding it in most federal prisons.

- Charles Hamilton reports on the Sask Party's announcement that it won't countenance any public benefit from alcohol sales. Don Gunderson rightly responds that it's the citizens of the province who will lose out as a result of that corporate giveaway.

- Chantal Hebert and John Geddes both wonder whether the particularly egregious abuses of public trust and money from Stephen Harper's highest-profile Senate appointees will pave the way for the abolition of the unelected chamber.

- And finally, John Ibbitson concludes the Globe and Mail's series on making Parliament relevant again by writing that courage on the part of MPs is the most important ingredient in a democratic revival.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Yes, it's noteworthy enough that Jack Layton is surging ahead as Canada's first choice for Prime Minister. But perhaps the most stunning news is that the first of those polls comes from Ipsos-Reid - the pollster which regularly places Conservative support (and one would think by association Stephen Harper's) higher than any other. And if even the most Con-friendly of polls is showing Layton ahead, there doesn't seem to be much prospect of the Cons getting any good news as the campaign winds down.

- Meanwhile, the party polling is looking no less promising for the NDP.

- John Duffy notes why the NDP's gains don't figure to be ending anytime soon:

There is no reason to believe...that this has to come to a halt. Fact: various polls are now showing the NDP eating not only into the Liberal vote (as in Ontario) but also into the Conservative vote pretty much everywhere outside the prairies. Analysis is catching up. Fact: the NDP surge is showing no sign of abating. Fact: The NDP has a great, upbeat "closer"-style spot on television right now, while the other parties have ads that are not resonating. Fact: The Conservative response, which would probably be impressive, is nowhere to be seen, plus they just lost one of their best strategy guys at the worst possible moment. Meanwhile, the Liberals are starting to fall off the coverage radar. Fact: earned media campaign coverage is about to go dark for the Royal Wedding and the final weekend.
...
I am seriously starting to wonder whether some sort of massive genie hasn't been let out of the bottle here. Mr. Harper has framed the campaign and its run-up as an anti-politics exercise. Putting words in the PM's mouth, I described his core pitch as being, "The heck with these elections we've all come to hate. Vote for a Harper majority and all this political crap gets out of your hair for four years." What appears to be happening here is that the anti-politics appeal has found its audience, and it's expression is "the heck with Harper and Ignatieff." The response seems not to have taken the form of Liberal voters sourly staying home and throwing the election to the Conservatives. Rather, it appears the anti-politician mood that the Prime Minister stoked has created an immense opening for Mr. Layton's positive, uplifting, take-a-chance-on-me offering.

- Douglas Bell rightly points out that the NDP's surge is based at least as much on the party's appeal to Canadian values as to any protest vote.

- And Bell also passes along Liam McHugh-Russell's end-of-campaign prediction:

I told you two weeks ago that the NDP would need just a glimmer of hope to finally take off, and now they've gotten it. They're finally heading toward their ceiling and that ceiling is high indeed: 130 per cent the height of the Conservatives or the Liberals. You want a seat count? NDP 115, Conservatives 110; Liberals 65; Bloc 18. In the end, politics is possible and suddenly, so are these results. Me, I am still rooting for the NDP because I believe they're serious about us having the Canada we already have, except better. But it's also very exciting that the result we do get five days from now will be determined by the question I said mattered when this whole thing started: whether Canadians believe it's possible for them to have the government they want. And it seems increasingly like they can – and that they will.

- Armine Yalnizyan offers a reminder of the Cons' choice to gut the long-form census - and points out the wide range of Canadians affected by their inexplicable disregard for thorough and accurate census data.

- Stephen Whitworth expresses some restrained displeasure with the Globe and Mail's train wreck of a Con endorsement.

- And finally, Les Perreaux debunks the efforts of political opponents and media alike to make an issue of the NDP's potential wave of new MPs.