Ending the denial

Pat Martin and the NDP now have a strong new ally in their ongoing efforts to ban the manufacture and use of asbestos, as the Canadian Cancer Society is set to slam federal policy which has both encouraged continued asbestos manufacturing, and blocked international efforts to reduce its use:

The Canadian Cancer Society will announce as early as today that it endorses a ban on the export of asbestos and believes the federal government should stop blocking international efforts to curb the trade in the dangerous mineral.

Although asbestos is internationally recognized as one of the worst cancer-causing materials ever to have been in widespread use, the society's decision was controversial because it undermines Ottawa's long-standing contention asbestos can be used safely and should be promoted.

Most industrialized countries, including Canada, no longer use much asbestos because of health concerns and worries over legal liabilities...

In recognition that calling for a ban is politically sensitive, the society is expected to say instead that it believes the use of asbestos should be eliminated, which is tantamount to a call for a ban...

Despite the well-known health risks, the federal government has been a strong backer of asbestos.

It has spent about $19.2-million from 1984 to 2007, including regular funding of the Montreal-based Chrysotile Institute, to promote asbestos use.

Although many countries have banned asbestos, Canada continues to allow it in children's toys and building materials, among other products.

The cancer society will also recommend that the federal government stop trying to block efforts by the Rotterdam Convention, a UN-organized body, at its meeting in 2008, to place the variety of asbestos mined in Canada on the list of the world's most dangerous substances.

Unfortunately, the NDP has so far been the lone party willing to take any steps to reduce asbestos use and production. And it's to the discredit of all other parties that they seem to have valued the protection of the asbestos mining industry more than the workers and consumers who stand to suffer from the continued use of a toxic substance.

But the Cancer Society's announcement should both bring the issue back into the public eye, and highlight the fact that the question of asbestos use is intricately linked to major health concerns. And that kind of attention should go a long way toward the kind of political change needed to put an end to asbestos production.

Choosing campaigns

It's undoubtedly for the best that Deceivin' Stephen is at least claiming to understand that Canada's combat role in Afghanistan ends in 2009. But even if Harper is in fact willing to act on the consensus against an extension, isn't there a distinct possibility that Harper's motive may be to have more of Canada's military at home to hide behind in time for an election that fall?

On breakthrough possibilities

Steve has covered the Montreal portion of today's newly-released Environics leadership poll. But while Jack Layton's standing as the top choice for Prime Minister may be limited to Montreal for now, the national numbers may hold even more promise for the NDP and its leader:

While Harper's approval rating has slipped across the country to 48 per cent, it's lowest level since his election and the first time Environics has seen it below 50 per cent, Dion hasn't been able to capitalize. Only 16 per cent of Canadians see him as the best choice for PM, compared with 36 per cent for Harper and 20 per cent for Layton.

That standing makes Layton the sole leader to gain ground in the "best PM" numbers, as Harper lost a point and Dion was stagnant.

But perhaps even more significantly for possible future moves, Layton has emerged for the first time as the clear leader in public approval. Indeed, based on the full Environics poll reults, Layton alone managed to improve his standing with the Canadian public in June, pushing back toward approval levels which he last held consistently shortly after the 2006 election at 56%.

Meanwhile, every other leader saw a significant drop. Gilles Duceppe had already started dropping from his historical levels before his abortive departure, and fell 3 points to 53%; as noted by the article, Deceivin' Stephen is below 50% for the first time after plummeting 6 points; and more modest losses now place Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion at 42% and 38% respectively.

Of course, Layton's strong numbers will surely make him a target over the course of the summer. But they also suggest that Canadians are likely to be highly receptive to what he has to say - and if the public continues to grow ever more wary of the other federal leaders, then it may not be long before Layton ranks as the top choice for PM across far more territory than Montreal alone.

An impending battle

Chantal Hebert notes that while the Cons' stay in office so far has been relatively quiet on the health-care front, they likely won't be able to avoid the issue much longer:

Ask seasoned political veterans to name the big issue lurking around the next corner in Canada and chances are the answer will be none of the topics that are currently consuming Parliament.

While global warming and Canada's fighting role in Afghanistan have taken centre stage on Parliament Hill since the last election, it is the inevitability of the resurgence of the debate on the future of medicare that is increasingly creeping into leading-edge public policy thinking...

Watching Parliament these days, it is hard to believe that a provincial challenge to the Canada Health Act could be only a few months away. Health care has no profile in the current House of Commons; it has fallen off the official opposition radar. If an election had taken place this spring, it would not have been a major issue. But that could change quickly.

The Prime Minister knows first-hand about the perils of looking the other way when it comes to files that are not the forte of his Conservative party. Harper, who came to power prepared to treat the environment as a third-tier issue, is still paying for his hit-and-miss approach to climate change in the polls. As the minority government looks to the challenges of a longer-than-expected first mandate this summer, it is bound to be picking up rumblings on the medicare front.

It may well choose to ignore an issue that has largely defeated the previous generation of federal and provincial leaders. But if some of the country's top public policy practitioners are to be believed, Canadian politicians can run but they will not be able to hide for long from a no-holds-barred debate on medicare.

It seems fairly clear that it won't be long before the usual federal reluctance to question anything that happens in Quebec has to give way to the importance of the issues being debated - and Harper surely can't be looking forward to facing that reality. But it's worth noting that it isn't only the Cons who risk being caught behind the curve when it comes to health care.

While Hebert is right to note that the "official opposition" has been asleep at the switch so far, there's good reason for her to limit the statement to that effect. Even in the face of other, more publicized debates surrounding the environment and Afghanistan, the NDP has continued to make health care a signature issue by pointing out where the Cons' negligence has undermined the Canada Health Act, pushing for ways to strengthen the public system as it stands, and indeed taking its place on the front lines of the upcoming Quebec debate. And there could be little better opening for the NDP than for Jack Layton to be the most prominent national voice on the side of single-payer health care as the issue moves to the front of the line in public discussions.

It probably isn't too late now for the Libs to use their relative strength in seat numbers and connections to take a significant opposition role to preserve the Canada Health Act. But the debate will go on whether or not the Libs bother to participate...and they'll be the ones who face the risk of being seen as irrelevant if they attempt to appease their Quebec cousins by sitting out such an important discussion.

On hidden viewpoints

While John Ibbitson's pro-SPP hack job yesterday was prominently featured on aggregator sites, Linda McQuaig's column on the SPP today seems to have been largely buried. Which is a shame, since McQuaig tells much of the story which has been all too often neglected, with a particular focus on the secrecy of the SPP process to date:

It's a great irony that, while the United States has probably never been less popular among Canadians than in the era of George W. Bush, plans to integrate Canada more deeply into the U.S. have been proceeding at a brisk clip.

The threat of Canada being absorbed into the U.S. has traditionally provoked strong reactions here, as the pitched electoral battles over the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1980s and '90s attest.

But the issue seems to have largely disappeared in recent years, leaving the impression that the push for deeper integration has stopped or that Canadians no longer care about it. Neither is true.

Rather, what's happened is that those pushing for deeper Canada-U.S. integration – principally members of the corporate elite on both sides of the border – have become more sophisticated in their strategy. Rather than loudly trumpeting their agenda, they've made their push largely invisible.

Their latest vehicle is the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Since it was officially launched by the leaders of the U.S., Canada and Mexico in March 2005, it's operated largely under the radar, even though it deals with some of the most important issues a nation faces – national security and energy, as well as trade.

Given the centrality of these issues, one would have thought that any changes – especially changes that would make Canada more like the U.S. – should involve wide consultation with the Canadian people.

But exactly the opposite is happening. The public has been completely shut out of the SPP process...

Regulatory harmonization is just one small area that the SPP is working on. I'll deal with the more contentious issues – security and energy – in a later column, all in the interest of setting the stage for next month, when Bush arrives in Montebello, Que., for what he, Stephen Harper and Mexican president Felipe Calderon are no doubt hoping will be an opportunity to quietly discuss the SPP and weigh the advice of their business council.

No public consultations have been planned for Montebello. Indeed, security measures will ensure the leaders hear as little as possible from the people.

While the leaders will be doing their best to avoid hearing from anybody but business interests, it's voices like McQuaig's who can help to make sure that serious issues surrounding the SPP aren't ignored in coverage of the upcoming convention. And hopefully the combination of this spring's Parliamentary hearings and coverage surrounding the convention can force the SPP and its backers to face the type of public scrutiny that they've scrupulously avoided so far.

Building on successes

The NDP has already won plenty of positive press for its stance on Afghanistan - with Barbara Yaffe's column today making for the most recent example. But based on a new push today, it looks like the NDP's strategy to date has only been the start of a serious challenge to the Cons' message about Canada's combat role.

Let's start with the highlights from Yaffe:

New Democrats, crowded on the political left by Liberals and Greens, are distinguishing themselves with a bold, common-sense position on Canada's Afghanistan mission...

New Democrats, alone, have drawn a line in the sand, insisting the mission, as it's being carried out, is deeply flawed and that Canadian troops should come home. (Google: "Commons, standing committee, defence, Afghanistan.")

The party details a logical, realistic position in an 11-page dissenting opinion to a June 18 report on the deployment by the Commons committee. It followed several months of hearings...

The NDP report notes that many other NATO countries have expressed a reluctance to partake militarily.

Without any clear objectives being debated and a consensus emerging as to what is to be achieved, "Canada has wandered into an international conflict in the middle of Central Asia with little control over the direction of the mission, or with much influence on its strategy."

The NDP's blunt conclusion is one that is mighty hard to refute.

While that kind of positive press is well and good, it can never hurt to provide some added support for one's position. And Jack Layton is pushing for Canada to both point out the civilian casualties which have resulted from combat in Afghanistan, and encourage a strategy to reduce the harm now being done to Afghan civilians:

Jack Layton, the federal NDP leader, will call on Stephen Harper today to demand that U.S. and NATO forces cease air strikes in Afghanistan...

Afghan elders and villagers in two regions, in western and northeastern Afghanistan, claimed on Saturday that 133 civilians were killed in recent air strikes. "Canada should lead the way in demanding a halt to these air strikes," Layton told the Star...

Layton plans to speak with Harper today, asking him to instruct Canada's representatives on NATO's North Atlantic Council, which manages NATO's day-to-day operations and meets two or three times a week at NATO headquarters in Brussels, to call for an end to NATO and U.S. aerial bombing.

"The increasing death toll of Afghan civilians is something Canadians don't accept," Layton said. "Across the country people have told me spontaneously that destruction of villages was not what they expected to be part of the Afghan mission in which we're participating."

Now, it doesn't seem particularly likely that the Cons will bother acting on Layton's request. But any failure to do so will call attention to a couple of factors which the Cons likely don't want brought into the public eye.

First, it seems obvious that the Canadian public's level of support for continued combat depends in large part on the particular angle being discussed. And it's hard to imagine an issue which would result in a stronger backlash against the Cons' position than their giving tacit (or worse yet, public) approval to avoidable civilian casualties.

Second, the Cons have staked their entire foreign policy on the premise that Canada should be willing to sacrifice diversity of interaction and multilateralism in exchange for what's supposed to be increased influence with the U.S. and other like-minded countries and entities. But there's a conspicuous lack of evidence that Harper's efforts to echo or even outdo his southern soulmate have actually given Canada the slightest bit of ability to influence the actions of the U.S. or anybody else.

And Layton's call will bring that fact to the forefront. After all, even if the Cons aren't the least bit willing to challenge the status quo, any discussion about whether Canada should attempt to bring up the issue leads naturally to the question of "would they listen even if we asked?"

It may well be that even the Cons would answer "no" in order to avoid pressure to follow Layton's lead. But that answer in particular, in addition to the question in general, can only highlight the implausibility behind the Cons' worldview. And the more attention Layton can direct toward the Cons' own self-delusions, the less likely we'll be to have a Con government in power too much longer.

On alternate realities

The federal Cons seldom seem to lack for useful hints to anybody looking to run a top-down, reality-averse government. But while it isn't always possible to highlight all the examples, let's look a few handy tips from today's news:

- Want to take credit for being the first in the world to do something when you're not - in this case an air quality index which already existed in Canada in pilot form? Just ignore everybody else who's done it first, and let others try to correct your claim.

- Need to break a promise without calling it that? No problem - just claim you've "modified" it, as the Cons did today in deciding to replace their campaign promise to buy icebreakers with an alternate strategy of not buying icebreakers.

- And want to get your message about a massive public event, in this case the Calgary Stampede, to the media without any risk of pieings or other messy realities that tend to come with the general public? Just plan to take the media on a field trip from the event site rather than allowing anybody to know where your announcement is happening. And for an added bonus, you can always refuse to offer a ride back to anybody who doesn't project your desired message.

On chains of command

The Globe and Mail reports on a new Department of National Defence policy under which information about Afghan detainees is being systematically suppressed from public release. But while the policy is highly dubious on its own, what's even more interesting is what the announcement says about the relative positions of the two people most directly responsible for the decision:

The office of General Rick Hillier, Canada's top soldier, has halted the release of any documents relating to detainees captured in Afghanistan under the federal Access to Information Act, claiming that disclosure of any such information could endanger Canadian troops.

According to documents made available to The Globe and Mail, the Strategic Joint Staff, a newly created group that advises Gen. Hillier, has been reviewing all Access to Information requests about detainees since March, shortly after the detainee controversy first erupted.

The Strategic Joint Staff has given strict guidance to National Defence's director of Access to Information, Julie Jansen, on what documents should be withheld. The result is that the flow of documents about detainees has virtually dried up and the department has summarily rejected requests for the same kind of documents it released earlier.

In recent letters responding to requests filed on behalf of The Globe and Mail, Ms. Jansen has “exempted in its entirety” the disclosure of detainee transfer logs, medical records, witness statements and other processing forms. The department said the information could not be disclosed for national security reasons...

Asked if there was any evidence that soldiers' safety had been compromised because of earlier disclosure of detainee information, DND spokesman Marc Raider responded that “the information cannot be provided for operational security reasons.”

It was on the basis of successful access requests by The Globe and by Professor Amir Attaran of the University of Ottawa that Canadians first learned of allegations that three Afghan detainees were abused while in Canadian custody. Those allegations have led to three separate investigations by the Canadian military and the Military Police Complaints Commission, which have yet to be completed.

On the substantive side, the policy looks like one that's ripe for challenge. As a general rule under Access to Information legislation, a blanket policy of withholding a specific class of documents tends to be seen as an improper failure to consider whether documents are in fact subject to disclosure. And the use of a specially-chosen group of reviewers to produce the desired outcome doesn't seem likely to make such a policy look any more legitimate.

Unfortunately, though, such a challenge may take years to work its way through the Information Commissioner and the courts. But we won't need to wait that long for today's news to speak volumes about a complete breakdown in the appropriate chain of accountability within National Defence.

Under Canada's Access to Information Act, the "head" of each government department is generally responsible for compliance with the appropriate access rules. Of course, those functions can be and are frequently delegated - but ultimately it's the minister who properly holds responsibility for his department's decisions. And presumably the minister would be responsible both to approve any blanket policies...and to defend those policies publicly.

So who's the minister responsible for National Defence? Not surprisingly, that would be the perpetually-embattled Gordon O'Connor, who happens to have demonstrated his utter incompetence most clearly in his attempts to respond to the previously-disclosed documents about detainees.

Now, it's not at all surprising that O'Connor himself apparently isn't defending, or even addressing, his department's new policy - both because the perception that he's merely covering up his own tracks would be inescapable, and because there's always the danger that he'll blurt out that the Red Cross is fully responsible to make sure that National Defence complies with the Access to Information Act.

But with O'Connor so plainly shirking both his ministerial responsibility to make sure that his department properly reviews documents for disclosure and allowing his his delegate Hillier to take the public fire for that fact, today's article ultimately offers one more strong piece of evidence that O'Connor simply isn't doing his job. And that in turn provides yet another reason why O'Connor shouldn't be allowed to remain responsible for anything.

Update: Jeff has more to much the same effect, while several other posts have also covered the suppression of information.

It's all about perspective

Shorter John Ibbitson, trying to defend the Security and Prosperity Partnership:
The greater goal of the parties involved in the SPP is "big-bang harmonization of regulatory regimes, or the creation of a common external tariff". But Maude Barlow is a lunatic conspiracy theorist for saying the same thing disapprovingly.

On coziness

Steve has a thorough discussion of the CP's bizarre decision to voluntarily publish an article whose sole purpose seems to be to test a Con talking point that environmental groups are "too cosy" with the Libs. But let's fill in a couple of additional gaps.

First, it's no secret that environmental groups have also been involved in helping to formulate both policy and strategy for other parties who care enough to include them in their discussions. It's been publicly noted that the NDP enlisted the input of environmental groups both in developing some of their past policies, and in the course of this spring's Parliamentary negotiations - and it would be shocking if the Greens and Bloc weren't making some effort to interact with the environmental movement as well.

And as Steve notes, that's not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, it's simply a matter of parties seeking the input of groups who know the issue best - and it's the Cons who deserve scorn for refusing to engage with such groups, not the other parties for listening to them.

Second, let's note that while the efforts of the other parties can be far more plausibly seen as merely talking to groups known for both a genuine interest and knowledge of a key issue, the Cons themselves have a far more dubious link to a group which seems to want to present itself as "environmental" despite being plainly a self-interested creation.

After all, the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association has taken on a far higher profile than ever before, featuring numerous co-announcements with the Cons, ever since Deceivin' Stephen took office. And its cooperation with the government has without a doubt been based in large part on its Con connections, including its head (former Reform and Con insider Kory Tenycke) and a registered lobbyist (Harper confidant Ken Boessenkool).

Of course, the Cons probably would assume that the rules which they seek to apply to everybody else have no application to some of their own. But the CP has no excuse for neglecting to mention both the fact that the Cons are the ones isolated in their refusal to speak substantively to environmental groups, and the fact that the Cons have far more problematic links to other interest groups who have obviously had the government's ear.

On selective listening

The Tyee reports on the B.C. government's "conversation" on health care, where the public regional events have just come to an end. But as anticipated all along, while the talk from actual B.C. residents appears to have been largely in favour of strengthening public health care, there are indications that the Campbell government is looking to claim that it heard something else entirely:

"What we are hearing from those who participated in the Conversation regional events is a strong consensus in favor of protecting publicly funded health care in B.C." Leslie Dickout, a BC Health Coalition campaigner, told The Tyee...

"I was quite impressed with the Conversation on Health itself," said Leahy. "People could say what they liked, and of all the 35 people who spoke, there was not one voice for private health care. We all believe the system is sustainable if managed right."...

"I was amazed at how much preparation people had done," said Ducharme, who is the regional chair for the Thompson North Okanagan region of the BC Nurses Union, and who will join Dickout, Leahy and Murray in speaking at today's Health Coalition press conference.

In the audience of more than 100 people, she said, "I only noted two advocates for private enterprise medicine. They were very vocal, but they certainly were in the minority."

Ducharme said she is worried the government "won't listen to what we had to say. It's not a conversation if the other side isn't listening." She visited the Conversation on Health web page and didn't see the mood in the room reflected in the summaries posted...

"We have heard a lot of messages from the Conversations, including one theme that says we shouldn't increase privatization," Minister Abbott told The Tyee. "But I haven't formed any conclusions yet, although I do think that prevention and primary care may well be areas where we'll want to see innovation."

It remains to be seen what kind of legislation Abbott winds up pushing following the consultations. But when the government's perception of the meetings seems to be at odds with what the actual attendees actually heard, there's all the more reason to think that the B.C. Libs had no intention of actually listening no matter how many B.C. residents spoke up for an improved health care system. Which leaves only the question of how supporters of public health care can send a message which even Campbell and company won't be able to ignore.

Boot camp

Uncorrected Proofs points out one utterly bizarre priority on the Young Liberals' "Take Back Canada" website. But something else about their choice of phrasing jumps out at me even more.

The main theme of the site is "Give Harper the Boot". Which would be well and good on its own - but does nobody in the Young Libs remember that the "give...the boot" phrase was at the centre of an effective ad campaign against their own party in the last federal election?

I suppose this could be an effort to get today's Young Libs into the party's longtime habit of poaching ideas from the NDP...or perhaps the 2006 election experience has led somebody to conclude that it's simply an effective phrase. But I'd still think that the Libs would be bright enough not to remind Canadians of the election where voters decided to remove their party from power.

Political Sabermetrics II: Notes on Atlantic Canada

With the political scene quieting down for the summer, I'll be taking the opportunity to significantly bulk up my political sabermetrics series (with a little help from Elections Canada's financing database). For now, I'm only at the point of assembling the data needed for a more thorough analysis...but there are at least a few points worth noting based on the data from Atlantic Canada that I've put together so far.

- First, in what's both a cautionary note for the series generally and an important issue on its own, it seems that a surprising amount of candidate information isn't available on the Elections Canada reporting site. At least in the database I've worked from so far, data from the 2006 election is only available for roughly 1/2 to 2/3 of all candidates in each province I've looked at - which will leave plenty of holes in any attempt to connect funding to electoral results. And the issue doesn't seem to be one related to particular parties or candidate types: the missing information includes that from six sitting MPs representing all three national parties with a current place in Parliament. While some data may be missing, though, there's still more than enough to make for some interesting discussion.

- For example, the Atlantic award for Biggest Waste of Money goes to the Christian Heritage Party's Baird Judson, who managed to spend $5,346.77 in the Charlottetown riding to win a grand total of 97 votes. Despite his spending far more money than most small-party candidates, Judson's vote total was half the total of the Marijuana Party candidate in the riding, and indeed was the third-lowest of any candidate in the Atlantic provinces. The lowest vote total was that of Marxist-Leninist Charles Spurr in Dartmouth-Cole Harbour (56), with Labrador Green candidate Gail Zwicker not far behind at 82.

- But what about the Biggest Waste of Money, Substantial Political Party Division? Look no further than the Cons' Paul Francis, whose expenditures of 59,102.04 were the highest in Sackville-Eastern Shore. For that investment, Francis finished a distant third behind the NDP's Peter Stoffer (who cruised to victory with over 52% of the vote), as well as a Lib candidate who spent half as much as Francis.

- Leaving money out of the equation for a moment, the Greens did surprisingly poorly in terms of votes for a region where they seem to expect to elect their first-ever MP in the next general election. Despite the NDP's relatively weak presence in Newfoundland-Labrador and Prince Edward Island, the Greens didn't manage to beat out the NDP in a single Atlantic riding. And in two ridings, they dropped down to fifth place - falling behind the Christian Heritage Party's James Hnatiuk in South Shore-St. Margaret's, and independent Danny Gay in Miramichi.

- Meanwhile, the Greens' primary target riding looks to include one of the largest "could've beens" in the region. It's been often noted that the NDP's Alexis MacDonald finished a strong second behind Peter MacKay - but much less often discussed that MacDonald's campaign spent only $28,582.28, significantly less than a number of other NDP candidates who wound up with far less votes. I'll be hoping to learn more about the relationship between spending and political success as the series progresses, but it seems entirely possible that if MacDonald's campaign hadn't been outspent 2-to-1 by the Cons, MacKay wouldn't even be in Parliament to be considered Elizabeth May's preferred target.

- Finally, if you're looking for an incumbent who received a disturbingly easy ride, look no further than Con Greg Thompson in New Brunswick Southwest. Thompson only had to spend $32,170.17 to coast to victory with 54% of the vote - presumably thanks in large part to the fact that he faced both the worst-funded Lib in the whole region (Stan Smith at $21,541.46), and the worst-funded Dipper in the province (Andrew Graham at $3,438.46). This may offer an opportunity for any smaller party to win a disproportionate share of the vote by putting resources into a neglected riding - or it could be an aberration that other parties will make up for next time Canada goes to the polls.

There's plenty more to deal with even in the Atlantic region - and probably all the more to be discovered in the numbers across the country. And hopefully we'll be able to figure out both how political parties have chosen to spend their money in the past, and how they can do better with it in the future.

The selloff goes nuclear

Over the last couple of days, word has come out that the Cons are talking with private-sector "partners" about Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. And while the Cons are trying to pretend that there are no "formal negotiations" worth talking about (even though they acknowledged discussions over a year ago), it appears clear that nuclear energy is yet another area where the Cons are looking to push low-risk profits into the private sector while leaving the public purse to deal with the downside:

Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, said past partnerships with AECL have left taxpayers on the hook for huge cost overruns and liability for messy production.

Meanwhile, he said, the private company has walked away with the profits. But Adams said Lunn has personally been campaigning to sell off parts of AECL since he became minister of natural resources.

"It's a complete disaster for taxpayers," Adams said. "That's AECL's track record when it comes to privatization, and that raises a major concern about what AECL's up to now."

Given AECL's track record of cost overruns, as well as the valid concerns that surround the use of nuclear energy, this isn't a clear-cut case where the federal government should be looking to continue the current operations of AECL without looking for ways to lessen the risks. But one can always count on the Cons to find a way to make a bad situation worse - and AECL looks to be just one more example of that reality.

After all, the Cons' apparent direction would result in the worst of all words. By actively seeking private-sector investment, the Cons are pushing to increase the amount of funding going into Canada's nuclear industry generally...and correspondingly placing a lower priority on less dangerous and more environmentally-friendly power sources. And while it appears that a private partner would take the profits associated with an added nuclear focus, it's the Canadian public which figures to once again be left on the hook for the obvious potential downsides of future nuclear development.

The cost of distrust

The Halifax Daily News reports that the federal government has offered Nova Scotia an equalization buyout which, on paper, would hand the province a billion dollars more than the deal Rodney MacDonald is asking for. But the projected benefits would be entirely dependent on the Cons keeping their promise - and MacDonald seems to have understandably concluded that even a billion-dollar risk premium isn't worth banking on Deceivin' Stephen:

Ottawa has offered Nova Scotia an offshore revenue agreement that's arguably $992-million better than what the province is demanding under the Atlantic Accord, according to a federal source.

Two economists who studied the accord dispute for the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council said Friday that option does seem to be more lucrative than what the province is demanding. But Wade Locke of Memorial University in Newfoundland and Paul Hobson of Acadia University both doubt the federal government could guarantee the terms would remain unchanged for the life of the agreement...

Nova Scotia's demand boils down to full offshore revenue plus O'Brien money, without any clawbacks. According to projections contained in Locke and Hobson's June 13 report, it adds up to $23.999-billion over the life of the accord, which expires in 2019-20.

The federal source said the deal Ottawa offered weeks ago could be worth $24.991-billion, using the same APEC figures. The province was apparently interested, before MP Bill Casey broke ranks with the Conservative Party and voted against the budget...

The problem, according to Locke, is every province that receives equalization might be better off if it was allowed to stay with the old fixed formula. If Nova Scotia gets to choose a richer equalization program than the rest of Canada, Ottawa will be under pressure to give others the same option, or reduce that 3.5% fixed growth rate.

"The issue comes down to a matter of trust that a sworn promise is not going to be violated or a commitment is not going to be changed later on when other people are coming to your door saying hey, what about me?" Locke said.

Of course, the Cons have a well-established track record of broken promises - not to mention efforts to pick fights with anybody who dares to point them out. So it's clear why MacDonald would see his province as better off with an arrangement which minimizes the chances of another Harper reversal.

But if even a Con premier and former Harper supporter is willing to leave that much money on the table out based on Harper's untrustworthiness, it shouldn't be a tough decision for voters to decide that the cost to Canada of Deceivin' Stephen's reputation is far too high to tolerate.

Well-positioned

Chantal Hebert discusses the NDP's strategy to parlay Jack Layton's personal popularity and the party's stance on Afghanistan into votes and seats in the upcoming Quebec by-elections:

According to Decima's Bruce Anderson, more voters say that their opinion of NDP Leader Jack Layton is improving than fading, a distinction he shares only with Green Leader Elizabeth May these days.

That is particularly true in Quebec where Layton now ranks second to the Bloc Québécois' Gilles Duceppe.

This summer, Layton will attempt to parlay that personal appreciation into votes for the NDP by turning three soon-to-be-called Quebec by-elections into a mini-referendum on the Afghan mission. Over the course of a news conference (scheduled before the latest casualties in Afghanistan came to light), Layton made his intentions crystal clear Wednesday. And he reiterated his call for bringing the troops home before Canada's current commitment to NATO ends in February 2009.

The NDP seized on the Afghan issue last summer in part to stake distinct ground from the surging Green party. To this day, its position also sets it apart from the bulk of Quebec's establishment...

This may be a case where Quebec's sovereignist and federalist tenors are out of synch with mainstream voters. Or it could be that the 70 per cent of Quebecers who tell pollsters they oppose the mission are answering a black-and-white question that leaves no room for nuances. The by-elections will provide part of the answer.

Of course, no political strategy with any realistic chance of success figures to go unopposed for long. And even the first steps in the NDP's effort to discuss Afghanistan have resulted in plenty of backlash from media figures and bloggers alike, who have been eager to throw reality out the window to claim that Layton's already-scheduled announcement was somehow a reaction to the forthcoming news of more Canadian casualties.

But while it remains to be seen how the situation changes as the attacks on Layton become ever more shrill, for now all indications are that Layton is both gaining respect from voters, and positioned on the right side of Quebec public opinion. And as Hebert notes, the NDP's stance figures to have positive effects both for the NDP as a party, and for Canada's internal debate about Afghanistan in general.

About nothing

The CP reports that Deceivin' Stephen's much-ballyhooed trip to Saskatchewan today was for the purpose of announcing...nothing in particular. Which leads me to think that if only the Cons weren't already better defined by deception, incompetence, hypocrisy and gratuitous secrecy, we'd be able to label Harper's regime a Seinfeld government.

Strings attached

There was already no lack of reasons to be highly skeptical about the Cons' travelling patronage show. But CUPE points out that part of the small print for all Con infrastructure funding figures to cause serious problems for communities who don't share the Cons' privatization agenda:

Stephen Harper's Conservative Government is putting on a road show this summer, with a series of meetings and negotiations about its "Building Canada" plan, announced in the spring budget. This $33 billion fund doesn't actually include any additional money, but is just a repackaging of currently planned infrastructure funding with a new caveat: municipalities and other proponents will now have to fully consider public-private partnerships (P3s) as a condition for receiving funding.

"The need to demonstrate that they have "fully considered" the P3 option, even when public delivery is known to be more cost efficient and accountable, is extremely unreasonable," stated CUPE National President Paul Moist. "Simply preparing a P3 proposal can be very expensive for most municipalities, and prohibitively expensive for smaller municipalities."

"Under no circumstances should the federal government impose P3s, or an obligation to consider P3s, on municipal or other governments as a condition of receiving infrastructure or other funding," he continued. "Local governments are accountable to their taxpayers for the services they provide and understand their community needs and resources. They shouldn't be forced to risk public funds to comply with the ideological bias and private interests of upper levels of government."

Now, it's bad enough to see yet another example of the Cons' willingness to spend more to get less if it means transferring money and resources away from governments. But the Cons' move looks all the more absurd if one contrasts the P3 requirement for infrastructure spending with the Cons' complete lack of interest in accountability when it comes to provinces spending federal money in areas such as child care and health care.

It speaks volumes about the Cons that the sole condition they seem willing to attach to public money is that it has to be used in substantial part to remove public infrastructure from public hands. And the more attention the Cons receive for such a warped sense of priorities, the more likely Canadians are to decide that they can't be trusted with the public purse.

Open-wound federalism

The Globe and Mail reports that Deceivin' Stephen has started off his summer by making it clear once again that any provincial premier who dares to call one of his bluffs won't be invited back to the table. And the Cons' pettiness seems to have resulted in an even more dangerous step than we'd known about to date:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will appeal directly today to the people in two of the three provinces that have been at loggerheads with his government over the control of resource revenues...

Neither Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald nor Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert, who publicly condemned the federal budget for including resource revenues in the equalization formula, have been given formal notice of the visits...

Mr. Calvert caught a plane to Iqaluit yesterday to attend a conference of western premiers and will be out of his province when the biofuels announcement is made at a grain terminal near the Gardiner Dam.

There has been little or no communication between his officials and the Prime Minister since Saskatchewan decided to ask the courts whether the budget violates the constitutional right of a province to own its non-renewable natural resources and whether it contravenes principles of fairness.

Mr. Calvert says the fact that resource revenue has not been removed from the equalization formula, as Mr. Harper promised during the last election campaign, will cost an estimated $800-million annually to Saskatchewan...

Mr. Calvert accused the federal Conservatives of using this type of funding as a dodge on the equalization issue. And "one would have liked a certain sense of prior knowledge of the Prime Minister's visit," he said. "It doesn't help relationships when we're surprised."

What's most striking about the above is that the Cons' strategy appears to have progressed well past the point of merely snubbing premiers for individual events. Indeed, with Calvert out of the province attending a well-publicized conference, the Cons could plainly have informed Saskatchewan's government of today's announcement without any risk that Calvert himself would attend.

But apparently, based on Saskatchewan's acceptance of Harper's own invitation to sue, the Cons are simply refusing to communicate with Saskatchewan as a matter of course. Which can only confirm just how disinterested the Cons are in listening to Saskatchewan - as well as hinting at how far the Cons might go in dealing with all but the most friendly of groups if they ever managed to win a majority.

Update: Greg has more on Harper's shunning tactic.

Pressing the point

The Cons may be looking for ways to change the subject from Deceivin' Stephen's claim that he wouldn't extend Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan without consensus agreement to do so. But fortunately, the other major federal leaders seem to have their own consensus that the Cons won't be let off the hook that easily:

It's looking more like Prime Minister Stephen Harper's pledge not to extend Canada's combat role in Afghanistan without the consensus of all four federal parties means the combat mission will end in 19 months.

Two party leaders were unyielding in their positions Wednesday as news filtered back from Kandahar that six more Canadian soldiers and an Afghan interpreter had been killed by a roadside bomb.

With Canada's death toll in Afghanistan reaching 66 soldiers and a diplomat since 2002, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion told a news conference that Harper should have informed NATO allies weeks ago that Canada would not be renewing its combat commitment in the Central Asian country.

"The prime minister has said that he needs to have a consensus in order to extend the mission beyond February of 2009," Dion said. "This consensus will never exist."...

(Jack Layton) said Harper needs to show leadership by urging the United States to stop high-altitude bombing in the face of more than 270 civilian deaths so far this year. Furthmore, Canada should withdraw its 2,500 troops from what he characterized as a hopeless mission.

"It's the wrong mission; it's not working; it's not going to accomplish the goals," said Layton, adding his party will ensure the issue is front and centre in coming federal byelections.

There are still obviously some major points of difference between the NDP and Libs when it comes to Afghanistan, and the article points those out as well.

But it's for the best that despite those differences, both Layton and Dion are shaping their message to fit neatly into the narrative that the Cons are wasting their breath blustering that Canada has no choice but to stay in its current combat role indefinitely. And if the opposition leaders can keep their primary focus on that target, then it shouldn't be long before a pullout no later than 2009 becomes a genuine consensus expectation.

In search of a problem

Shorter Jim Flaherty:
My top priority this fall is to break down internal trade barriers. I'm hoping somebody will justify the policy by actually identifying some this summer.

On social irresponsibility

Embassy reports that there's some talk of trying to include references to corporate social responsibility in new trade agreements. But it appears all too obvious that the actual corporations involved have no interest in such agreements including anything but a weapon to wield against governments:

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which is leading the business community in the consultations, has made a submission to the government, said the chamber's international policy analyst, Brian Zeiler-Kligman...

"We would support a reference being made to voluntary corporate initiatives in free trade agreements, provided that the reference is directed to [the two countries] and not to companies," it adds. "The reference should remind the parties of their role in promoting and facilitating, but certainly not mandating, voluntary corporate initiatives."...

The letter goes on to state that any reference should be carefully crafted to prevent foreign governments from using it to bilk money from a Canadian company, and it should appear in the preamble to reflect that it is voluntary and non-binding.

Mr. Zeiler-Kligman said the chamber does not generally support the idea of including corporate social responsibility in free trade agreements.

The article notes other difficulties in trying to include as nebulous a principle as corporate social responsibility within a trade deal. And it's worth pointing out how far removed even the principle of corporate responsibility would be from any binding agreement on social or environmental issues to parallel the seemingly unquestioned obligation to facilitate trade.

But Canada's business representatives apparently aren't willing to countenance even as small a step as recognizing corporate responsibility as a matter of substance. Instead, they're fighting tooth and nail against any portion of an agreement which could possibly suggest that any interest other than trade could matter, or that anybody besides the governments involved should take on any obligations. And that should speak volumes about which interests are met and which ones are entirely ignored as the current unbalanced form of agreement spreads.

On mixed messages

CSR points out some interesting comments from Jean-Pierre Blackburn on the Cons' plans surrounding Canada's combat role in Afghanistan. But there are a couple of additional points worth discussing within Blackburn's message.

First, as CSR notes, Blackburn's quoted passages suggest that the Cons are planning for an extension vote in February 2008. And that would likely be the time where the Cons would most likely manage to eke out a majority vote for an extension.

But there's little reason to think the opposition parties will want to play along by abandoning the issue in the meantime. After all, with the Van Doos headed to Kandahar before long, this fall figures to be the time when the Cons can be portrayed as most out of step with the desires of Quebeckers in particular and Canadians concerned about the mission in general.

While the opposition parties unfortunately let their Afghanistan motions this spring get sidetracked, it seems entirely likely that they'll be able to agree on a motion this fall when the result is to leave the Cons defending continued involvement when public opinion is most strongly against that position. And a united opposition vote against any extension in 2007 would make the Cons look like sore losers at best if they tried to reverse that outcome in 2008.

Meanwhile, Blackburn's comments also retreat noticeably from Deceivin' Stephen's recent talk of a "consensus". Instead of continuing with the idea that a relatively united stance among multiple parties would be needed, Blackburn's message is based on the premise that the Cons' planned "vote" will determine whether or not any extension is approved as a "choice of the House of Commons".

Of course, it could be that the Cons are simply trying to send different messages to different audiences. But it also seems entirely possible that Harper's initial comment was simply a trial balloon to test whether Canadian pundits were prepared to play the same cheerleader role played by their counterparts to the south. And if so, Blackburn's change of pace may reflect an attempt to change course now that the "consensus" comment has instead come to be interpreted as evidence that Canada's combat role will end in 2009.

Nothing new

A couple of notes on the fund-raising story which is inexplicably getting so much attention today:
- First, these numbers aren't news; in fact, the CP reported on them two months ago. But at the start of a slow news season, Jane Taber is apparently now rummaging through clippings from the previous few months to be recycled into headlines.
- Second, in my posting on the first story, I criticized the CP for discussing the parties in an arbitrary order rather than actually listing them in order of fund-raising success - which would have resulted in more press for the NDP and Greens, and less for the Libs and Bloc. But Taber manages to take several additional steps in writing major pieces out of the story: despite the NDP's success in raising over twice as much as the Libs, Taber doesn't even mention them (or for that matter the Greens or Bloc) until the postscripts.

The Mulcair Effect

While it's no secret that Thomas Mulcair's arrival as the NDP's Quebec spokesman has given the NDP a significantly stronger media presence in the province, I don't think anybody expected him to be publicly talked up by a high-profile Lib as a direct challenger to the Cons. But based on Pablo Rodriguez' comments in the Hill Times challenging Michael Fortier to face the will of Quebec voters, Mulcair appears to have become just that:

Public Works and Government Services Minister and Quebec Senator Michael Fortier is "like a ghost floating around Parliament," say his political foes on the Hill.

Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez (Honoré-Mercier, Que.) declared last week of Sen. Fortier of the previous spring House session: "You know he's somewhere around, but you never see him."

Over 102 sitting days of the Senate, where Sen. Fortier represents Rougemont, Que., he has voted only five times all in one day.

Sen. Fortier was unavailable for an interview last week. But his press secretary, Frédéric Baril, said the Public Works minister is hoping his days in the Senate are numbered as he focuses on winning the Quebec riding of Vaudreuil-Soulanges, as highlighted in the website, www.michaelfortier.com.

However, Mr. Rodriguez points out that the federal government could call a byelection for the Montreal riding of Outremont, left vacant by the resignation of former Cabinet minister Jean Lapierre. Sen. Fortier, who also serves as the minister responsible for the Montreal region, could easily throw his hat in that race, said Mr. Rodriguez, who added that the NDP has a candidate–former Quebec Liberal environment minister Thomas Mulcair–ready to run whenever an election is called.

Of course, it's entirely likely that Rodriguez will ultimately throw his support behind whichever Lib candidate ends up running in Outremont.

But it's still noteworthy that even the Libs are showing some willingness to shine the spotlight on the NDP's star candidate where the result is to highlight Con unaccountability. And that decision could bode well both for the ability of the NDP and the Libs to cooperate to a greater extent, and for the NDP's chances of a major breakthrough in Quebec.

Limiting knowledge

There's been some comment already on Ian Urquhart's column about Ontario's MMP referendum. But while it's for the best that some prominent Libs are willing to back MMP and Urquhart himself seems to see the referendum succeeding, it's worth noting yet another obstacle that the governing Libs may have put in the way of a strong campaign on the issue:

Given the widespread public ignorance of the electoral reform issue – a recent Environics poll showed 70 per cent of Ontarians are not familiar with it – how, then, will voters learn about the pros and cons of MMP?

The government plans a major public education campaign, run by Elections Ontario, which is a reliably neutral body.

Unfortunately, however, neutrality imposes severe limits on messaging. John Hollins, head of Elections Ontario, last week told a meeting of representatives of the political parties that, because of the requirement that he not take sides, the public education campaign will dwell on the "mechanics" of the proposed new electoral system rather than the "consequences."

Of course, the devil is in the consequences.

Hollins also told the meeting that the referendum regulations could be interpreted as meaning the parties must stay out of the electoral reform campaign. That would put a crimp in NDP plans to make support for MMP a part of their platform.

Taking into account all of the above, it is quite possible Ontarians will be making their choice on the referendum question with minimal knowledge of what is at stake.

Referendum experts say that in such circumstances the voters usually opt for the status quo over the unknown.

Hopefully there'll be some clarification from Elections Ontario as to who may and may not be involved in the referendum - and that clarification will make sure that political parties aren't prevented from expressing a position on a vote which may have far more long-range consequences for Ontario than the election itself. But if Hollins' current interpretation is correct, then it looks far too likely that electoral reform will get lost in the shuffle of this fall's election.

As it was, Ontario's party machines figured to have far more experience in securing media attention than the limited-resource, ad hoc coalitions being set up for the referendum. And the referendum already figured to face the problem of not fitting neatly into the talk about personality politics that tends to dominate election coverage.

But the likely gap in coverage will only become far worse if the parties are prohibited from even discussing the issue. Parties with a strong view on the issue be prevented from simply stating one of their uniting principles - and volunteers and organizers would presumably face far more of a burden in having to divide their activities between party support and issue advocacy. Which would figure to offer a boost to the Libs, Cons and electoral status quo, while hurting the chances of the NDP, the Greens and the MMP side of the referendum.

Hopefully Urquhart is right in figuring that MMP will be able to reach the referendum thresholds in any event. But with the Libs apparently both limiting any discussion about the effects of MMP and silencing a significant number of its supporters, the 60% number is only looking all the more daunting.

On non-enforcement

The Winnipeg Free Press reports on yet another example of Elections Canada's failure to deal with campaign financing issues, as Belinda Stronach appears to have settled the accounts from her 2004 Con leadership campaign well past the official deadline with no explanation for the delay:

Elections Canada let Liberal MP Belinda Stronach skirt a deadline for the settling of outstanding financial questions about her 2004 campaign run in the leadup to the last federal election.

Documents obtained by the Free Press show Stronach's campaign was officially notified on Sept. 12, 2005 that an Elections Canada review had determined she failed to dispose of a $31,000 campaign surplus from her first successful run as a Tory.

In that letter from the director of Elections Canada's political financing and audit unit, Stronach's official agent was told the surplus had to be resolved by Nov. 18, 2005.

The letter also included a pointed reminder that failure to deal with the surplus as required could result in convictions under the Canada Elections Act.

However, Elections Canada discloses it wasn't until May 2006 -- six months after the deadline initially issued -- that Stronach's campaign finally complied with the order.

Elections Canada is now under fire for not only turning a blind eye to the deadline issued to Stronach, but for also refusing to disclose the outstanding problem during the last federal campaign when the Free Press and other news media asked questions about the electoral expenses of the Newmarket-Aurora MP.

"How can they (Elections Canada) allow her to avoid that deadline and then run again?" asked NDP ethics critic Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre).

In fairness, Stronach's situation seems less problematic than some others might, since any outstanding issue dealt with a surplus rather than a deficit. But it's worth wondering what the precedent means for later on - particularly in 2008 when the deadlines pass from the Libs' recent leadership race.

After all, it's quite likely that at least some Libs were familiar with Stronach's late filing in the course of their own leadership race. If so, then knowledge that Elections Canada hadn't insisted on deadlines being met in the last high-profile leadership campaign could only have encouraged the Libs' candidates to count on similarly favourable treatment. And with the Libs' fund-raising currently tanking, there's every reason to suspect that a good number of their leadership candidates will indeed put the ball in Elections Canada's court to decide whether to deal with a failure to settle accounts - or to simply allow supporter loans to be written off.

On needless secrecy

Thanks in large part to NDP MP Charlie Angus, there's been no lack of talk about the Cons' about-face on Celebrate Canada funding, which like so many programs has only grown by leaps and bounds under Deceivin' Stephen after forming a frequent target for the Cons while in opposition. But the Montreal Gazette points out that in addition to throwing more money into the pot, the Cons have also gone out of their way to make the funding more difficult to trace:

In 2006, a Citizen analysis of Celebrate Canada records found that after the 2004 election, 79 per cent of funding went to projects based in Liberal ridings. The government denied political considerations factored into funding decisions.

The Liberal ridings may have appeared to do better because many of the larger projects were based in urban areas, where Liberal representation tends to be strongest. Applications for projects are sent to provincial and territorial Celebrate Canada committees, which then make recommendations on funding the federal government.

A similar comparison with records for this year is not possible because the government, citing privacy concerns, will not release the address of organizations and events it funds.

Now, frequent readers of this blog will know that I'm one of the first to recognize and highlight real privacy concerns when they turn up. But it should be obvious that in this case, the only privacy that's being protected is the Cons' ability to funnel money where they see fit without oversight.

After all, the funding in question is public money being granted to public organizations for the purpose of organizing public events...meaning that nobody involved could have a reasonable expectation that the details would be hidden from public view.

Moreover, there's similarly no reason to think that any information involved consists of anything more than the names and addresses of the organizations who are putting together the events. And it's generally understood that such "business card" information isn't considered protected information under any but the most unusual circumstances.

Which means that the Cons' concern for "privacy" seems limited to making sure that the media can't compare their riding-by-riding breakdown to that of the Libs. And if the Cons are willing to offer up such a painful excuse for keeping the information hidden, it seems fair to infer that it's because Oda's management is matching - or exceeding - even the Libs' high standard for patronage.

The uselessness continues

CTV reports that while the worst suspicions about counterfeit imported toothpaste have been confirmed, the Cons' response hasn't changed for the better since the story first came forward.

Instead, Health Canada is merely following up Tony Clement's "buyer beware" message with an equally unhelpful "buyer really beware"...which can't be of much comfort to Canadians who would reasonably expect a responsible government to ensure that tainted products are taken out of circulation, rather than putting the onus on consumers to avoid them.

On dual considerations

Both CBC and Ipsos-Reid give top billing on a new opinion survey to the 39% of respondents who think that dual citizenship should be eliminated. But it's worth noting that nationally - and indeed in each province - a significant majority of Canadians are in favour of allowing dual citizenship.

From the Ipsos-Reid press release:

As Canada celebrates its birthday this Canada Day weekend, a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of the Dominion Institute finds that four in ten (39%) Canadians are against the current policy regarding dual citizenship, and believe that Canadian citizens should not be allowed to simultaneously hold citizenship of a country other than Canada. On the other hand, a majority (61%) of Canadians are in favour of the current practice, and believe that Canadians should be able to hold dual citizenship, whereby one would be allowed to simultaneously be a citizen of Canada and of another country.

In other words, the poll apparently lacked a middle or undecided option. Which means that the 39% against dual citizenship is a far less significant number than it would be if, due to other options in the poll, it ranked anywhere near the number of respondents who prefer the status quo.

Meanwhile, the regional breakdown highlighted by CBC shows that even if respondents are broken down by their province of residence, the option of maintaining dual citizenship wins out by between 14% and 34% everywhere:

Breaking it down by province, Albertans were most opposed, with 43 per cent against dual citizenship. British Columbians had the least problem, with 33 per cent.

In sum, while the number of Canadians who see Canadian citizenship as incompatible with citizenship elsewhere is perhaps higher than one would like to see, the national consensus is still strongly in favour of permitting dual citizenship. And with younger respondents preferring to continue the status quo by an even wider margin, the poll merely confirms that Canadians figure to prefer to allow dual citizenship well into the future.

Update: Of course, it could be that the Cons will want to push to abolish dual citizenship no matter how strongly the public is against them. And I fear Robert may be right in musing as to how they could seek to force through a more restricted definition.

Not getting the message

Shorter Jim Prentice in response to the Assembly of First Nations' National Day of Action:
We've heard you loud and clear. We just don't care enough to actually do anything in response.

On island offensives

The Tyee has an interesting article on the state of the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding, where Gary Lunn, who manages to stand out as exceptionally reckless on the environment even among the Cons, has managed to hold onto a riding with a seemingly strong environmental vote. But while I'll leave Lunn's continued presence for a discussion another day, there's one note worth pointing out based on the riding's history.

While the Tyee notes that Green candidate Andrew Lewis was seen as a disappointment for his loss of votes from 2004 to 2006, the party's expenditures in the riding offer what looks to be a complete explanation for Lewis' dropoff. And the story surrounding Lewis says an awful lot about both where the Greens now stand nationally, and how unlikely they are to progress much further anytime soon.

In 2004, the Greens showered Saanich-Gulf Islands with $79,731 in election spending - close to the maximum expenditure for a riding, and nearly double the $40,318 spent on NDP candidate Jennifer Burgis (who still finished five points ahead of Lewis). In contrast, in 2006 the Greens seem to have put their money elsewhere, spending only $19,061.08 on Lewis - which combined with increased investments from the NDP and the Libs explains the Greens' dropoff in votes.

Now, that decline in spending offers a reasonable excuse for Lewis' 2006 performance. But the reality from 2004 highlights the distance between the Greens and victory in even the most favourable-looking ridings across the country. After all, Lewis couldn't break out of fourth place even while spending to the maximum in what was obviously a strong target riding - and the 2006 results signal that the Greens are fighting a losing battle to try to retain any support they can win with a single-riding push.

Out of an abundance of fairness to Lewis, I'll point out as well that his 2004 showing doesn't appear to reflect the most wasteful per-vote spending in the riding's history; that honour goes to the Canadian Action Party's Valerie Rampone, who managed to spend $4,335 on 234 votes in 1997 in a losing bid to finish ahead of the Natural Law Party. But especially with extremely strong environmental candidates running for the NDP and Libs, it looks like the Greens have already peaked in what was once their best hope for a seat - and aside from the media spotlight on Elizabeth May in her effort to leap past both the Cons and NDP in Central Nova, they'll likely have to hope to catch the other parties napping to seriously challenge anywhere else.

Amplifying the problem

The Cons have received loads of criticism for pushing forward with an office-building sell-off without any meaningful public discussion or debate about the costs and (alleged) benefits involved. Which has naturally led the Cons to try to address those concerns about poor resource management and opaque decision-making...by spending millions of dollars on a report which won't be made public:

The federal government is hiring Deutsche Bank to provide independent advice on the financial wisdom of a controversial plan to sell nine big office buildings and lease them back from private owners.

Government sources have told The Globe and Mail the plan is a gamble that could cost taxpayers up to $600-million over 25 years if it fails, but might also produce savings of $250-million...

Deutsche Bank will be paid $1.9-million for the work, and then is precluded by conflict-of-interest rules from playing a financial role in any sale-leaseback deal if it goes ahead...

(I)f the analysis shows costs outweigh benefits, the property sales will not go through, Mr. McGrath said during a conference call. If cabinet decides the plan is solid, final sales could be concluded in three to six months.

The government does not plan to make the Deutsche Bank report public before officials send it to cabinet ministers with a recommendation, Mr. McGrath said.

Of course, it seems entirely likely that the Cons' current plan is to defer any discussion pending completion of the report, then claim that the report says something that it doesn't in order to try to support their own poor policy choices - as they've already been known to do. And as long as the report is suppressed, there will be no way for Canadians to know either how its outcome was shaped through biased terms of reference, and whether the Cons' public spin is anywhere close to accurate.

Regardless of what happens now that the report has been commissioned, though, there should be even less doubt now that the Cons remain willing and eager to sacrifice public money on the altar of privatization. And whatever the outcome of the selloff process, that's a fact which should be held against them at every available opportunity.

Airheaded

It may be tough to believe that Canada could do worse than Deceivin' Stephen as the country's most powerful political figure. But Harper's second-in-command is apparently going out of his way to show that the nearest Cons successor might be up to the task, as Lawrence Cannon's Transportation Department is claiming that political control over Canada's no-fly list and an ID requirement for 12-year-old passengers are "safeguards" rather than clear indications of a terribly-designed scheme.

On signals

The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy may once have seemed to be a useful diversion for the Cons on the environment file. But thanks to the Roundtable's preliminary report on greenhouse gas emissions, the Cons may be facing more heat than they'd expected this summer:

The Conservative government needs to slap a price-tag on greenhouse gas emissions very soon if it hopes to achieve its promised reductions by 2050, says a group of federally appointed advisers.

And the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy said Wednesday that the government would save Canadian businesses more money if it signed up to international carbon trading markets, rather than going it alone.

The round table's interim report, commissioned by the government, was yet another voice among a chorus of economists and environmentalists who say the only way to address greenhouse gas emissions is to make it costly to pollute. Top thinkers at financial institutions and Canadian universities have underlined that the market needs a strong price signal if industries and consumers are to truly change their behaviour...

The round table's interim report ran a number of scenarios on the impact to the economy, given certain policy choices. It found that acting quickly to achieve the target of 65 per cent below 2003 emissions levels by 2050 would have a milder impact on the economy and result in an ultimately lower price per tonne of carbon than proceeding slowly.

It shouldn't come as much surprise that Baird is responding by trying to spin a report that calls for immediate action and strong price signals as somehow supporting the Cons' intention to avoid both. But while the Cons predictably can't be bothered to acknowledge the substance of the Roundtable's report, it nonetheless figures to cause major problems for the Cons' attempts to muddy the environmental waters.

In particular, the Cons' usual claim that Canada can't afford to take real action now (if ever) will seem all the less plausible now that their own advisory body has made it clear that the greater economic danger lies in waiting too long. And the more Canadians realize that both the environment and the economy are at risk due to the Cons' inaction, the less patient they figure to be when Harper finally faces another trip to the polls.

Time to let it go

Shorter Barbara Kay:
And while I'm trying desperately to reignite past political battles, what kind of anti-troop terrorist-hugger would stand for the idea of "not necessarily conscription"?

(Edit: typo.)

Forcing consensus

While I couldn't disagree much more with the tone of Andrew Coyne's column on Deceivin' Stephen's Afghanistan plan, he figures to be right on the mark in substance. Contrary to how Thomas Walkom, Lawrence Martin and others have painted Harper's "consensus" comment, there's little reason to think that the Cons are really interested in allowing the views of other parties to influence any plan to extend Canada's combat role any more than they can avoid.

Instead, Harper's goal seems to be to try to develop the type of elite consensus that now dominates the U.S., where the pro-withdrawal message supported by a majority of the population is consistently dismissed as a "fringe" position. And what better way to marginalize the majority than by conflating flowery-sounding talk of a "consensus" with the oft-heard talking point that anybody who would even consider pulling out is against freedom, democracy, the troops and Canada as a whole?

If there's any good news, it's that the misreading from Walkom and Martin suggests that such a plan has backfired. Rather than strongarming anybody into supporting indefinite combat, Harper may only have made a 2009 pullout from Kandahar appear to be the default option.

But as Coyne notes, that could still be dangerous to the extent that the pro-pullout side may let its guard down. Which means that there's no less need now than ever to make sure that Harper can't pretend that his desired "consensus" in any way reflects the views of either most MPs or most Canadians.

A tenuous Link

Shorter Link Byfield:
It turns out that putting a bunch of Reformers in power won't necessarily result in the federal government catering to my every whim. So it's time for plan B: starting my own government and seeing who follows me.

On corrective action

While Bill C-31 was improved significantly by the Senate's refusal to jeopardize Canadians' privacy for the convenience of political parties, it still left plenty to be desired in the area of voter access to the polls. But the Globe and Mail reports that a Charter challenge could well undo the damage in that department as well:

Mr. Wright plans to be a witness in a constitutional challenge by B.C. lawyer Jim Quail, who argues that the measures intended to stop voter fraud will instead disenfranchise the poor and transient.

"You've got whole categories of people who don't have identification with an address - they don't drive vehicles, they don't have passports, they've just moved, they just got robbed," said Mr. Quail, a staff lawyer at the non-profit B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre.

"You get turned away - and you've just lost your right to vote."...

A spokesman for Elections Canada said he couldn't comment on the debate around the law. But in testimony before the Commons standing committee on procedure and House affairs in December, former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley said about 3.3 million people - 15 per cent of Canada's population - don't have driver's licences, and many don't have a current address on the card.

Canadian passports do not show addresses, nor does the citizenship card, he said. In fact, there are only five pieces of federal government ID that have a name and address - the federal fishing licence, certain Quebec trades cards and cards issued by Quebec's Centre local de services communautaires, certain hospital cards, and the card issued by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind - none of which show citizenship, he said.

"Some groups of electors are much less likely to have a driver's licence - in other words, they are targeted by this absence," said Mr. Kingsley, adding that this includes homeless, disadvantaged, seniors and youth.

The law is expected to change voting dynamics where there are many transients, such as ridings with a lot of university students, as in Mr. Owen's riding, and poorer neighbourhoods such as Vancouver's urban slum, the Downtown Eastside.

Because a vote of no-confidence could easily topple Canada's minority government, Mr. Quail said he will file his challenge, under Section 3 of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as soon as he can. He has already prepared affidavits, lined up witnesses such as Mr. Wright and has begun to draft his challenge.

"We want to be in a position to move pretty quickly so we can get [the new law] struck down before the next election happens," he said.

While I'm ordinarily fairly pessimistic about the chances of constitutional challenges, this looks to be a relatively solid case. Under the provisions of C-31, Canadians could plainly be prevented from exercising their right to vote based on matters beyond their reasonable control. Indeed, the main question in Quail's challenge in particular may be whether a court would wait for actual damage from an election before addressing Quail's argument, or look at striking the law down ahead of time to prevent an anticipated breach of Charter rights.

Of course, it would be for the best if a court challenge wasn't needed to put such arbitrary restrictions under the microscope. But there figures to be at least some chance to avoid the needless exclusion of voters from the next federal election - and Quail deserves credit for helping to make sure the issue gets dealt with.

Hurry up and wait

The CP reports that not only have the Cons failed to address actual health wait times, but their negligence in dealing with the provinces has ensured that we still don't even have useful data to compare provincial wait times and outcomes:

Ottawa set up a $5.5-billion Wait Times Reduction Fund in 2004 as part of a 10-year plan to strengthen health care, and in return each jurisdiction agreed to establish comparable indicators of access to health care professionals, diagnostic and treatment procedures.

The idea was to provide the public with a national picture in which provincial laggards and leaders could be readily identified by their citizens. But it never happened, says (a Health Council of Canada report).

"The information needed to paint a cross-Canada picture - information that allows Canadians to see changes over time and to compare wait times data from different parts of the country - is not available from all jurisdictions, despite widespread recognition that it should be."

Provinces were supposed to establish pan-Canadian benchmarks for five priority areas of health care by Dec. 31, 2005, but they have not done so, says the report. Instead, each province has declared benchmarks for different procedures.

"Without comparable data - information that is based on similar ways of measuring change - it is not possible to determine on a national level whether meaningful reductions in wait times have been achieved, or how many people receive their care within the time frames (benchmarks) agreed to," says the report.

The Health Council of Canada rightly notes the problems with an overly narrow focus on wait times to begin with. But whether or not it makes sense to divert health resources to a small and arbitrary list of procedures, it could only be a plus to have an accurate reading on how long patients actually have to wait in as many areas as possible.

Unfortunately, thanks to the Cons' accountability-free philosophy in dealing with the provinces, there's little prospect that the situation will improve as long as Harper holds power. And Canadians already waiting for health care surely can't be happy having to wait for a change in government before they'll have any idea where they stand.

None too bright

In case we needed yet another painful reminder that the Cons' party management is even less competent than their government, York Region unintentionally highlights a comedy of errors between a new Con candidate and the screening committee who apparently approved him:

One of the things Paul Calandra was obliged to do before becoming a candidate for the Oak Ridges-Markham Conservatives was disclose he is embroiled in a lawsuit.

While Mr. Calandra insists he told the local Tories he’s being sued by his sisters over their mother’s estate, a party official can’t confirm if such a disclosure was made.

Documents filed at the Newmarket court office show plaintiffs Milva Gehring and Concetta Calandra claim seven months before their mother died in August 2005, she revoked Mr. Calandra’s power-of-attorney.

In the statement of claim, the sisters further state their brother used the power of attorney to take out a $240,000 mortgage on their mother’s Ballantrae farm, wrote a $25,000 cheque to himself and charged a total of $7,800 on one of their mother’s charge cards without her knowledge or consent...

In the run-up to the Conservative nomination, Mr. Calandra answered the party’s 35-page candidate-search questionnaire and was interviewed by a three-member candidate-search committee.

“I told them about the suit,” Mr. Calandra said. “The nominating (search) committee knew about it and the party knew.”

Committee chairperson Solette Gelberg told the newspaper, she had “no knowledge of a lawsuit”.

One day later, after calling the candidate, the King Township resident called the newspaper and said Mr. Calandra “may have mentioned” the legal matter, stressing three potential candidates were each interviewed for two hours.

Mr. Calandra’s campaign website states he opened and successfully operated two businesses “after completing university”.

What it doesn’t say is Mr. Calandra did not graduate from Carleton University. Initially, he told the York Region Media Group he had a university degree and then after persistent questioning, he said he did not graduate because he was short credits required for a degree.

After being informed of what Mr. Calandra’s website states, Ms Gelberg suggested Mr. Calandra “fix” the education information.

A day later, she told the newspaper Mr. Calandra informed her he has enough credits for a university degree.

“He just hasn’t applied (for the degree),” Ms Gelberg said. “His website says he completed university. For him, he was finished.”

For those keeping track:
- The search committee doing due diligence on Con candidates doesn't seem to blink at an ongoing lawsuit which includes accusations of financial mismanagement.
- Meanwhile, the candidate approved by the committee can't keep track of his own education - but figures it's not a problem to err on the high side and let others correct him.
- And with both sides having so little idea what they're talking about, it's tough to tell whether the candidate also covered up his outstanding lawsuit originally, or whether the search committee was simply paying little enough attention to miss it entirely.

I suppose this is the result when a party applies an intelligence-optional standard - which may well make Calandra a cabinet candidate down the road if he proves himself as an effective trained seal through another Con election win. But it's hard to imagine that Canadian voters would want to see the Cons' foibles occupying government benches any longer than can be avoided. And it may take nothing more than the "persistent questioning" that forced Calandra to admit his exaggerations to make sure the Cons can't hide their weaknesses past another trip to the polls.

No reason to brag

Deceivin' Stephen is proudly claiming that he hasn't yet damaged federal/provincial relations to the point where no premier will take federal money. But give him time...

A shorter Monday morning

Shorter Con environmental policy:
Silly civil servants - of course it's a good deal to pay $4.5 million to avoid making homes more efficient!

Shorter Con building sell-off policy:
Silly civil servants - it's a steal to pay $600 million to get rid of government assets!

Shorter Deceivin' Stephen:
I'd get along just fine with the civil service - if only those heathens would stop casting doubt on our governmental infallibility.

On standard communications

The Cons' content-free media strategy seemed to work relatively well for as long as the press was willing to put up with nonexistent answers. But now, the Cons' stonewalling has led to a rightful response pointing out the Cons' lack of substance - and even CanWest's news coverage gets into the act in its report on future military spending:

The release of the (Cons' anticipated defence strategy paper), crafted by the military to meet the Conservative's defence vision, is at least a year late. Officials with Mr. O'Connor's office stated last year the strategy would be ready in the summer of 2006. They then changed that to the fall and then later said the strategy would come out by the end of 2006.

In an e-mail sent Thursday, Mr. O'Connor's office stated: "When we are ready to announce more on this, we will do so."

That same mailed sentence is the standard communication line from Mr. O'Connor's office used to answer questions on a variety of issues, ranging from the defence strategy to when a compensation package might be ready for Canadian veterans exposed to nuclear fallout during the Cold War.

Now, the Cons would presumably be unhappy enough to have their delays pointed out publicly by the media chain which is normally most friendly to the party.

But with the Cons' attempts to deflect the press becoming an object of ridicule in and of themselves, Harper and company face a choice of either allowing their "brand" to become synonymous with blanket refusals to say anything meaningful, or loosening the reins and risking the virtual certainty that the Cons' none-too-bright public faces will embarrass the party. And the opposition has to be looking forward to seeing either of those scenarios play out.

Credit not due

From the CP's headline, "Harper to go North as government moves ahead with deep-sea port, icebreakers", I'd almost thought for a second that Deceivin' Stephen might have reversed course again to actually keep his party's campaign commitments on those issues.

But sadly, the article makes it clear that the Cons are instead pushing forward with pale imitations of their original plans. And what's worse, with a false headline atop a rare article about Arctic issues, the Cons will have an easier time avoiding any public accountability for another set of broken promises.

In a nutshell

John Ivison's column on the Cons' inability to succeed even in their narrow task of advertising and campaigning while in office is worth a read. But let's highlight a couple of vignettes which sum up the Con government about as well as can be done.

First, there's the tendency toward hiding away from any public accountability...with Sandra Buckler not surprisingly leading the way:

The plan in crisis situations has been to avoid the media. One MP said the only advice the Prime Minister's communications director, Sandra Buckler, was able to offer to caucus was the location of the back door.

Then, there's the combination of top-down messaging and incompetence in managing even that - leading to frustration among trained seals who aren't quite sure how they're expected to clap on a given day:

On detainees, one strategist recalls asking for talking points from the PMO before going on a televised discussion panel. "I was told to read the previous day's Question Period, which was no help because we had three different positions," he said.

Fortunately, the Cons are properly facing criticism for both their inability to distinguish between governing and campaigning, and their incompetence even in the focus they've chosen for themselves. And the more Canadians become aware of both of those problems, the less likely the Cons will be to hold office much longer.