Leadership 2009 - Week In Review, February 14

The NDP leadership race was somewhat quieter this week than the previous few, with only a couple of developments worth highlighting.

First off, Lorne Calvert's announcement that he'll be leaving the Legislature at the end of June may subtly affect the race in a couple of ways. First, the Saskatoon Riverside seat which Calvert is vacating would seem to be an ideal fit for Ryan Meili - though it doesn't look like the nomination will go uncontested.

Perhaps more significantly, though, the announcement that Calvert won't be around to mentor a new leader could raise the stakes when it comes to leadership experience. Of course, any new leader will still be surrounded by a number of MLAs with a track record in cabinet as well as plenty of resources within the party. But a longer transition period could have helped to ease a new leader into the role - while Calvert's early departure may result in some greater concern as to whether the next leader can hit the ground running.

The second main development which I'd discussed earlier was Dwain Lingenfelter's press conference to allege political interference in SaskEnergy's gas purchasing policies. So far, the accusation has mostly played out as a sparring match between Lingenfelter and Brad Wall - but as much as the other candidates would surely prefer to stick to their own themes and narratives, they'll need to find some way to inject their own messages into media coverage if Lingenfelter can keep himself in the headlines with similar stories.

Edit: fixed title.

Unsettling

As Greg points out, the Libs' apparent unwillingness to discuss anything to do with Cadscam looks awfully suspicious. So let's compare the Libs' apparent position with what might have been expected in assessing the outcome of the Cons' strategy to suppress a scandal.

Here's Ralph Goodale's response to a question about Pierre Poilievre's latest smear of Tom Zytaruk in Parliament:

Outside the Commons Friday, Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale said he could not comment, because the terms of the Liberals' settlement of the lawsuit preclude him from discussing the case.

“Mr. Poilievre, presumably using the protection of parliamentary privilege, made some remarks. Perhaps he should be pressed to explain himself,” Mr. Goodale said.

Now, one of the main unanswered questions about the settlement was just what it was that the Libs had agreed not to talk about. And the more likely prospect also seemed to be the more palatable one: that any agreement limiting the Libs' ability to do their job as the opposition would extend only to the specific bribery accusation that gave rise to Harper's defamation lawsuit, rather than rendering the Libs unable to comment on a matter of public interest.

But from Goodale's response, the opposite appears to be true. While the contents of Zytaruk's tape and other questions about the Cons' offers to Cadman were public issues before any of the statements which gave rise to the lawsuit, the Libs are apparently operating under the assumption that Cadscam as a whole - which of course is far from being resolved - is included in what they've agreed not to discuss. Which raises a serious concern about why an opposition party would agree to those kinds of terms.

And that goes doubly when one notes that Goodale himself recognizes a significant need for Poilievre and the Cons to be held to account for their continued attacks on Zytaruk. It would seem virtually impossible to reconcile the view that Poilievre "should be pressed to explain himself" with an agreement not to make that happen - particularly coming from a party which is otherwise bleating about the need for accountability to originate from opposition benches.

Of course, there isn't much anybody else can do to reverse the Libs' bad choices. But now that their ineffective opposition extends beyond propping up the Harper government to agreeing not to raise subjects which the Cons find inconvenient, there should be all the more motivation to make sure the responsibility to hold the Cons in check is held by a party which is up for the task.

Friday Night Musical Interlude

Some Tiesto to kick off the long weekend.

This time with feeling

Let's note that the Libs' 50th vote to prop up the Cons may have differed from some of the earlier ones in at least one respect: in contrast to the grudging resignation that accompanied Stephane Dion's capitulations, Michael Ignatieff is apparently downright enthusiastic about supporting Deceivin' Stephen. Here's ottawaobserver at babble:

Anyone who was just watching the 2nd reading vote on the Budget Implementation Bill was treated to the scene of Michael Ignatieff being in such a hurry to support the budget, that he jumped up to vote yes before even the Conservatives could.

I hope they clip that video and play it over and over again!

50 and counting

The Libs' streak of confidence votes where they've propped up the Harper government has now reached 50. But let's be fair: on a grand total of two of those votes (both involving Bloc sub-amendments), they weren't alone among the national parties - so the half-century mark for the Libs keeping Harper in power on their own is still to come.

On sorry excuses

Kady's liveblog of the Public Accounts committee may not have intended to focus on the First Nations issues set out in a report on child and family services by the Auditor General. But even dealing with that issue only in passing, her account offers a stunning indictment of the Cons' cluelessness:

Meanwhile, the government members keep wanting to go back to The Residential Schools Apology, and how it made everything better, which, when you think about it, would be a question better posed to a First Nations person than bureaucrat.

Now, it's probably true to say that to the extent the apology may have had an impact, that would probably be better determined by asking the people actually on the receiving end of the apology. But under the circumstances, it's asinine to try to claim that a symbolic apology would have "made everything better".

Indeed, the report mentions the residential school system in passing as only one of the factors in the disruption of First Nations families. The Auditor General's focus was on a multitude of factors affecting the well-being of children on reserves, including socio-economic conditions, jurisdiction, program design and availability of services - all of which would be within the purview of the federal government.

But apparently the Cons' talking points don't involve any interest in how their party is actually handling the substantive issues facing First Nations. (Which would be an equally easy source of softball questions if they had done anything which they believed to be worth highlighting.)

Instead, they've apparently been told to try to pretend that a single symbolic moment should somehow negate any need to deal with the actual challenges - presumably the better to lay the groundwork for a future claim that it's not worth bothering. And that should speak volumes about how little the Cons think should be done to improve the conditions facing First Nations at the moment.

Safe bet

Having laughably cited a couple of shuffled deck chairs as evidence that the Cons are being less partisan, the Globe and Mail will fail to report that Darrel Reid's promotion should be taken as an indication of increased wingnuttiness.

Inequity for all

Earlier this week, I discussed how the Con/Lib attack on pay equity will affect non-unionized employees. Today, Dr. Dawg completes the picture by explaining how unions and their represented employees will be affected:

(T)his is placing federal public service unions in an impossible position. Unions are to be made equally responsible with employers in achieving pay equity at the bargaining table. But, as we all know, the two parties are not on a level playing field. One party can, if arduous conditions are met, go out on strike--assuming that pay equity is a strikeable issue among the membership. The other can bring far more pressure to bear, up to and including back-to-work legislation. Yet, if an individual decides to bring a successful complaint of her own outside the collective bargaining process--a complaint that unions are to be prevented from backing--the union could be held jointly liable.

To add insult to injury, Treasury Board chief Victor Toews is weeping crocodile tears at the moment about the costs and delays inherent in the current process. Those costs and delays, of course, have arisen precisely because Treasury Board, under both Conservative and Liberal administrations, has traditionally fought pay equity complaints every step of the way, spending millions of the taxpayers' money to do so.

Read it all if you haven't already.

On interventions

Naturally, yesterday's revelations about how the Sask Party may have driven up energy bills through political interference in SaskEnergy can't pass without comment. But it's far too soon to say for sure exactly what may or may not have happened in terms of Sask Party intervention. So let's stick to two points which would seem to be beyond dispute: first, the decision which was actually made by SaskEnergy, and second, Dwain Lingenfelter's choice to make the issue public.

Here's what apparently happened with SaskEnergy's supply contracts:

Lingenfelter said the Crown corporation’s decision to lock in a majority of its gas supply last summer when natural gas prices were at an historic high had cost ratepayers $55 million in comparison to spot prices as natural gas costs have tumbled.

And the former deputy premier alleged that the move was made against the advice of SaskEnergy officials at the behest of Crown Investments Corp. (CIC) vice-president Iain Harry, a former communications director of the Saskatchewan Party Opposition and former special adviser to Wall as premier.
...
SaskEnergy rates of $8.51 a gigajoule since Oct. 1 have been generally higher than the market price for natural gas — currently around $4.50 a gigajoule — but Cheveldayoff said that was a circumstance of timing.

“What happened last year was that we had very high prices in the middle of summer. SaskEnergy traditionally hedges in the middle of summer and it was looking like prices would continue to rise at that time,” said Cheveldayoff...

What stands out to me about SaskEnergy's decision isn't the question of whether there was any political interference in the actual hedging, but instead the fact that it relies on a complete disconnect between SaskEnergy's interests and those of the province.

After all, it's well known that increased oil and gas prices had boosted the province's coffers to the point where Wall and his party didn't even know what to do with all the money at their disposal. So it would seem to have been a relatively easy matter for the province to coordinate with SaskEnergy to ensure that increases in market prices didn't have to be passed along to Saskatchewan residents who couldn't afford them.

But then, keeping utility rates affordable is apparently seen as part of the NDP's brand rather than the Sask Party's. Which means that SaskEnergy instead saw a need to enter into a hedging transaction which led to a twisted set of risks and rewards for the province at large.

If prices had indeed kept going up, then the hedging would have provided a benefit at the least useful time possible, adding more money to the pile which the Sask Party still hadn't figured out how to deal with. But instead, the precipitous drop in prices meant that SaskEnergy took a loss from the hedging transaction just as Saskatchewan's economy slowed down and the provincial balance sheet started to look precarious again.

In other words, while the early purchases may have been seen as mitigating risks within SaskEnergy as a distinct entity, they also served as a risk amplifier for the province as a whole. And the fact that Saskatchewan citizens are seeing the downside of that move should offer a reminder of the dangers of a view that detaches our Crowns from the best interests of the province generally.

Turning to how Lingenfelter's announcement will affect the leadership race, I'd draw two main points from the intervention - one a significant positive, the other less so.

On the plus side, Lingenfelter is apparently avoiding the usual front-runner's trap of simply trying to keep his head down and coast to the finish line. Instead, he seems to be entirely willing to take some political risks - which in turn should make the race more lively and more likely to find its way into the public consciousness.

The flip side, though, is that it may be a concern that Lingenfelter's first major public presentation since his competitors entered the race was aimed at criticizing procedure by the Wall government, rather than drawing any principled lines in either the leadership race or the wider political scene. While there can't be much doubt that all of the contestants will get their shots in at the Sask Party, the NDP ultimately needs more of a unifying vision than "tear down that Wall" - and if Lingenfelter plans to focus his efforts in the leadership race on opposition rather than party development, that figures to hurt both his chances in the race and the party's chances of renewal.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Deep thought

Surely a responsible pollster would suppress any result which doesn't conform to expectations in order to preserve public confidence in their accuracy and completeness.

As predicted

Long before the Libs made their choice to keep propping up the Harper government, Paul Wells noted that the Cons weren't about to let the concept of a coalition go away even if Michael Ignatieff did try to distance himself from the one actually agreed to last year. And in yesterday's reporting on Omar Khadr, we saw the first hints as to how Con-friendly media will keep the Cons' talking points front and centre.

Here's Kelly McParland introducing the opposition leaders' joint letter regarding Khadr:

The little-loved coalition has revived itself in support of Omar Khadr, the Canadian held at Guantanamo Bay.

And from Don Martin:

That vilified coalition of the three opposition parties staged a family reunion of sorts yesterday, demanding U. S. President Barack Obama immediately free Canadian Omar Khadr from his six-year imprisonment in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

The Liberal, New Democrat and Bloc Quebecois party leaders all put their signatures to paper, regrouping to argue their position as the majority of MPs in the House of Commons.

Now, it's worth noting that the attempt to link opposition cooperation to a coalition has no basis in reality. The same three parties worked together on an issue-by-issue basis in the last Parliament without the slightest intention to form a coalition government, and the possibility of a coalition forming is no less remote today.

(Not to mention of course that the Bloc was never to be part of a coalition government, which further highlights the lack of any connection between the proposed coalition and the current opposition cooperation. But that fact already seems to have been edited out of the history books.)

It does seem clear though that regardless of the accuracy or lack thereof, at least some portions of the media will see reason to write about a "little-loved", "vilified" coalition every time the opposition parties so much as agree on a lunch order. And that will pose some interesting choices for the Libs and the NDP.

Having passed up the opportunity to shift the focus from the theoretical possibility of a coalition to the reality, the Libs will now face an entirely unpalatable choice of main options.

On the one hand, they can choose to play dead in Parliament once again so as to avoid a constant association between themselves and the idea of coalition which they apparently see as poisoned. But that of course involves not only giving the Harper government both exactly what it wants politically, but also willingly taking on the Dion brand of ineffective opposition.

On the other hand, they can take up the task of defending the concept of coalition in principle in order to justify any steps they might take to actually oppose the Cons. But that many only raise all the more questions about why they didn't follow through in practice - particularly as Canadians continue to suffer from ineffective Con government.

Either way, the Libs figure to spend an awful lot of time trying to explain their own choices rather than being able to focus all that clearly on the Cons. And that only figures to help let Harper off the hook for his own failures.

Meanwhile, the NDP will face a challenging dilemma as well. Having spent the better part of the last two months spreading the word about a multi-party solution while mostly ignoring direct attacks, it now has plenty of work to do in trying to restore Jack Layton's public impressions to their usual levels. And for the moment, it looks to be trying to put the focus back on its effective work in Parliament in order to turn the page on the events of the last couple of months.

But if the Cons and their media allies aren't about to let talk of a coalition die down, then the NDP's most obvious means to turn that into a plus is to appeal to the broader pool of coalition-friendly voters by playing up its own role in creating an alternative to Harper (and the Libs' weakness in not following through). Which may make for a choice between the relatively safe route of trying to move back to the branding the NDP has set up over the last few election cycles, or an all-or-nothing push to try to unite the left under the NDP's tent.

Whatever happens, there doesn't seem to be much reason to doubt that the now-defunct coalition will continue to affect the opposition parties' choices going forward. And it's probably not too early to suggest that both the Libs and the NDP would be better off if Ignatieff had recognized that reality before he decided to leave the Cons in power.

On growth industries

In fairness to the Cons, let's note that not every industry has suffered under Deficit Jim and Recession Stephen. After all, manufacturers of partisan trinkets have presumably never been so profitable.

The fine print

Following up on my posts this weekend, Paul Wells points out a couple more examples of significant legislative changes which the Cons are looking to force through in the Con/Lib budget:

• Competition law. “The last profound reform of this law was more than 20 years ago and resulted from years of consultation,” Manon writes. “The government’s current project is nearly as substantial. The amendments cover 31 pages and are highly complex. The fact that they will be adopted without real study frustrates those who have been suggesting changes for years, like the Liberal MP Dan McTeague.”
...
• Foreign investment: a new, high and rising threshold for investment review, with government given a veto over acquisitions in cases of “national security.”

Now, it should be obvious that there's absolutely no need to tie such fundamental changes to any stimulus package. But it'll take a strong stand from the Libs to keep them from ramming these changes through. And since we've seen no sign of that to date, it's looking all too likely that much of Harper's economic agenda will end up being pushed through thanks to the Libs' continued ineffectiveness.

On global solutions

For those looking for some good news out of Ottawa, the NDP has reintroduced its Climate Change Accountability Act which made it through the House but not the Senate last year. And it looks to have already provoked a downright comical reaction from the Cons:

Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, today the NDP proposed to reintroduce a climate change bill that would see Canada abandon our shared targets with the United States. This would put in jeopardy our plan for a joint North American climate change strategy.

Could the Minister of the Environment comment on how the bill would adversely affect the global fight against climate change?

Hon. Jim Prentice (Minister of the Environment, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, let me compliment my friend on his reasoned language and on his chairmanship of the environment committee of the House.

The NDP bill would have Canada diverge dramatically from the common targets that our government has put forward and that President Obama has put forward. The NDP would lead us down a path toward isolation that would exacerbate the economic downturn.

The NDP clearly does not get it. Everyone agrees that we need climate change policies that are measured to work together in partnership with other members of the international community.

For our part, we will continue to work with the new U.S. administration on this task. I encourage opposition parties to do the same.

Now, it's easy enough to dispense with the main apparent criticism of the bill: nothing in the NDP's legislation would do anything to rule out or undermine any bilateral process. What it would do instead is to bring Canada back in line with the broader international effort which the Cons have ignored in favour of trying to tie themselves to lower U.S. standards.

And that's where the Cons' staged question and answer get all the more laughable. While both Bezan and Prentice try to cloud the issue by tossing in terms which imply a broader effort, both make it clear that the Cons' real focus is solely on a two-country which ignores the work being done around the world.

Of course, the Cons have also made no secret of their desire to build in language to exclude the greatest polluters from even that limited framework. And that offers yet another obvious hole in the Cons' claim: as much as they try to pretend to be working on common ground with Obama, the reality is that the new U.S. administration hasn't shown any sign of buying the Cons' excuses.

Which means that the real choice is to engage with the U.S. along with the rest of the world - which the NDP's longer-term targets would make possible - or to keep clinging to the hope that Obama will be as irresponsible as his predecessor. And the fact that the Cons can manage to be sanctimonious about the latter choice may signal that they haven't yet come to terms with just how alone Canada may be in the world as long as Harper remains in charge.

Scary thought for the day

From Lawrence Cannon:

Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, every other country that had nationals in Guantanamo fulfilled their basic obligations and got them out, every country but Canada.

Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler says that attempts over the past year and a half to speak to senior officials at the Prime Minister's office or in the Department of Justice or the Department of Public Safety have met with the same closed door. This is no way to treat a Canadian.

Will the Prime Minister commit today to raise the issue of Omar Khadr when he meets with President Obama next week?

Hon. Lawrence Cannon (Minister of Foreign Affairs, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, officials in my department have carried out regular discussions with both the defence and the prosecution in this case. I also want to point out that consular services have been offered to this individual. He is being treated as any other Canadian citizen in detention would be treated.

Now, it seems fairly obvious that Cannon is far off base. But considering the lengths the Cons have gone to in refusing to assist Khadr, how damning would his claim be if it's true?

Journamalism 101

Pop quiz: when a government makes a show of promoting "a former Reformer working in the office of Human Resources Minister Diane Finley" who "previously worked for Treasury Board President Vic Toews" as an example of their being less partisan than before, what should be the theme of any reporting on the story?

(a) Government non-partisan! Government conciliatory! Government focused on policy!
(b) Government spinning like a top! Government still beyond belief!

Update: Keep in mind, the penalty for an incorrect answer is due mockery by Scott Feschuk.

On loyalties

The Star reports on the latest developments in the ongoing Patrick Brazeau saga today. But while its article focuses on the fact that Stephen Harper was well aware of the sexual harassment complaint against Brazeau before appointing him to the Senate, I'd have to think there's another bigger issue raised by the latest story.

After all, in March 2008 Brazeau's core responsibility was to represent the interests of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, and he wouldn't appear to have had any formal affiliation with the Cons (despite the obvious links between them). So why would be have been effectively reporting to Harper already at that time?

Time to be heard

John has a great post up on how the U.S. media conglomerates are looking to use the stimulus bill as an opportunity to tighten corporate control over the Internet south of the border. Which makes for an excellent opportunity for a reminder that we're coming up to another deadline for submissions to the CRTC as to whose rules and interests will take precedence in Canada's online community.

Memories

Remember when the prospect of six-figure job losses was considered a grave warning of the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, rather than just another month in the life of Deficit Jim?

Nickel and dimed

Shorter Tony Clement:

Our attempt to require Xstrata to preserve 700 jobs as a condition of taking over Falconbridge hit a teensy little snag when Xstrata figured out that we wouldn't actually enforce the deal. But now that Xstrata claims it will preserve less than half that number, the remaining workers should have no reason to worry.

On neutral parties

At least one Lib blogger has tried to justify Carolyn Bennett's attacks on Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page by suggesting that Page is intruding on the traditional role of the official opposition. It would be easy enough to respond that if the Libs were concerned with a public perception that they're not really opposing the Cons, they might want to look first at what they themselves are doing in propping up the Harper government. But let's look a bit more closely at the role of the PBO to see why there shouldn't be much reason for concern.

Here's what seems to me to be the central part of James Bowie's argument:

Criticizing the government, identifying the flaws in its policies, and making public statements in those areas is the traditional role of the opposition. Having another body of people performing that same job and identifying that body as "independent" can only serve to make the opposition itself (whatever party it may happen to be) less credible. The Library of Parliament is very dangerously becoming the perverted stepmother of the opposition benches, encroaching on the opposition's mandate and usurping their legitimacy as the authoritative critics of the government.

The problem with this view is that it misstates the role of the PBO. Kevin Page's description doesn't involve "criticizing the government, identifying the flaws in its policies, and making public statements in those areas".

Instead, it involves independent research and analysis of the country's finances, on an ongoing basis and based on specific requests from parliamentarians. And in addition to providing information to all parties, that role inherently includes some potential in principle to bolster or undercut the arguments of any party in Parliament depending on the context of any given report. So to the extent the Libs may be concerned with constraints on future governments, the simple answer is that if they generate reasonable budgets, the office could prove to be an ally rather than an enemy.

Of course, Kevin Page's actual statements have tended to be less than flattering for the Harper government. But the main reason for that is a problem with the Cons, not with Page's office: when a government is operating based on implausible assumptions and incomplete disclosure, it would seem impossible for any analysis to avoid pointing those factors out by contrast.

And there wouldn't figure to be much to be gained by pushing Page out of the picture and letting the Libs try to make the same arguments for themselves without a supporting analysis. After all, the nature of a partisan system is that one party's criticisms of another tend to be given relatively little weight (and to be counterbalanced by accusations sent in the other direction). Given that reality, it's hard to see who but the party with the largest megaphone would benefit from eliminating a means for the public to try to assess who's actually in the right.

Which means again that the Libs should be building off of Page's analysis as part of their own case why the Cons shouldn't be left in office - not attacking the PBO as a competing form of opposition. And hopefully the end result will be a government more responsible than the one we're stuck with now.

Deep thought

The Libs who said that they'd deal with the Cons' attacks on pay equity when the time came seem awfully quiet now that the time has come.

On vote suppression

Good catch by Chrystal in pointing out just how many eligible votes might have been lost to new identification requirements in 2008. But it's worth comparing that number to one of the main narratives following from the election.

For all the hand-wringing about decreased turnout as a sign of voter apathy, Chrystal's numbers would suggest that nearly two-thirds of the decrease from the 2006 election actually resulted from the voter ID requirements. Which means that the issue may have been less whether citizens cared enough to vote, and more the fact that every party in Parliament other than the NDP deliberately made it harder to do so.

Off target

While the Cons are back to their usual habits, it looks like the Libs are outright regressing. Rather than pointing out any of the problems with the Cons' budget, they're instead attacking one of the few institutions which has managed to shed some light on the Harper government's manipulations.

Now, this is far from the first time the Libs have taken a bizarre stand against government transparency from opposition benches. And as in the case of the Accountability Act when the Cons first took power, it appears that the Libs are eager to allow the Cons a free pass for now if it means less checks on their own actions in a future government.

But the difference now is that Harper has joined the Libs in the fight against oversight - and has had several years of experience in taking advantage of the secrecy which the Libs are so eager to preserve. Which means that if the Libs don't remind themselves soon that they're still in opposition and start choosing their targets accordingly, they may end up strengthening Harper's hand even further.

Uncooperative

It's been laughable enough to see the Cons' attempt to paint themselves as willing to work with the opposition parties taken as fact by media and Libs alike in the absence of any real evidence that the Harper government plans to do anything but resume strongarming the Libs into submission. But Ted Menzies' latest should put any doubt to rest:

The Conservative government will not agree to any more budget amendments but it's keeping its options open to inject more stimuli later this year.

"In this budget we're not going to accept any amendments and why should we," said MP Ted Menzies, parliamentary secretary to the minister of finance.

Now, the obvious answer is that the Cons have just unveiled a 551-page monster of a budget bill which is laden with problematic content - some of which was at best hinted at in the Cons' budget motion, and some of which is completely new.

But Menzies has given notice the Cons won't even consider the idea that a single provision in their mammoth budget bill should be subject to review or negotiation. Which would seem to be as strong an indication as possible that the Cons are back to their usual shove-it-down-their-throat style of government - leaving only the question of whether the Libs will once again be happy to play along.

Inequitable

Not surprisingly, the pay equity portion of Deficit Jim's budget bill looks to be one of the more significant flashpoints. But let's look at a couple of the ways in which these provisions are even worse than one might have expected based on the Cons' usual distaste for pay equity.

First, the premise of any pay equity assessment is that one of the two main factors under consideration is the employer's - such that any inequity in an employee's "market value" can and should be duplicated by public-sector employers:

4(2) The criteria to be applied in assessing the value of the work performed by employees in a job group or a job class are

(a) the composite of the skill, effort and responsibility required in the performance of the work and the conditions under which the work is performed; and

(b) the employer’s recruitment and retention needs in respect of employees in that job group or job class, taking into account the qualifications required to perform the work and the market forces operating in respect of employees with those qualifications.

That would be a problematic enough starting point based on the fact that it would only tend to replicate any lack of pay equity that already exists in the "market". But it gets worse when one looks at who gets to decide what the employer's recruitment and retention needs are. So let's examine the process for non-unionized employees.

First, the employer decides for itself whether or not any of its job groups or classes are "female predominant". If so, then it gets another specified period of time in which to decide if any pay equity matters need to be addressed, and then another one to determine what if anything it wants to do in response.

Of course, a dissatisfied employee may make a complaint. But the first step of most complaints travels right back to the employer, who gets another crack at deciding whether or not it should do anything differently.

It's only if the employer once again falls short in its response to an employee that the employee has any recourse to another party, that being the Public Service Labour Relations Board. But the problems for the employee aren't done yet.

For most of the possible violations (i.e. those that don't arise out of the last step in the process of complaining to the employer, including where that's the employer's fault due to its failure to provide required information), the Board's lone options are to dismiss a complaint, or to order the employer to once again go back to the drawing board.

And matters aren't much better if the employee has succeeded in launching the other type of complaint - which isn't even available until after the employee has previously provided a specific allegation to the employer, received the employer's response, and provided a detailed statement to the Board.

Under that process, the Board is again limited in its initial response: it can either dismiss the complaint, or ask the employer to provide another report about its assessment process. But the Board isn't given any authority to follow up on that report unless it includes a "manifestly unreasonable" error. (And again, keep in mind that the employer is explicitly directed to consider its own staffing interests - meaning that it'll almost by definition be "reasonable" for an employer to conclude that its best interests are served by doing nothing.)

Even at that point, the employer gets another chance to report back before facing any order which actually requires it to pay compensation to the affected employees. And that's only applicable if the employer is found a second time to have been "manifestly unreasonable" rather than merely wrong in its assessment.

In effect, then, employers get a minimum of four chances to put forward their preferred assessments, and are given the ability to stall at every turn in the face of a complaint. And it's only after failing utterly in that task - including a second chance to avoid being "manifestly unreasonable" after one finding to that effect - that employers can face any real consequences.

As a result, employees are left to rely almost entirely on an employer's willingness to voluntarily provide reasonable assessments. And the process to challenge any assessment is effectively designed to make for more trouble than it's worth from the employee's standpoint.

Which shouldn't come as much surprise given the Cons' obvious hostility toward pay equity. But it'll be interesting to see how the Libs can possibly pretend to care about pay equity while voting for a warped set of criteria and a Kafkaesque process.

Muddying the waters

Another nasty surprise from the Cons' budget implementation bill: it would significantly narrow the scope of the Navigable Waters Protection Act by severely restricting the types of projects which are subject to regulation.

The current law applies to any structure that affects navigable waterways, as well as any dumping or excavation that affects a waterway. In contrast, the Cons' revisions would eliminate any regulatory role except where a project interferes with navigation alone - with no regard for any other effect on a waterway. And even within that narrowed definition, the Cons' revisions would allow for two separate processes (one by regulation, another by ministerial order) to bypass the usual approval requirements.

It's particularly striking that the Cons felt the need to toss both elements into the legislation. One could perhaps rationalize a streamlined process in order to speed up infrastructure spending as part of their supposed stimulus. But if that process is put in place, then it's hard to imagine what purpose the Cons would have to also narrow the circumstances where the legislation applies other than sheer contempt for the concept of regulation.

Now, the Cons have already signalled their response to concerns about environmental damage resulting from their budget. Having needlessly and without warning inserted attacks on the environment into a budget implementation bill, they're now criticizing anybody who dares to point out the issue as as unduly focused on specifics within a larger bill.

But it's the Cons who have chosen to ensure that the impacts of hastily passing the budget bill may affect Canada's waterways for a long time to come. Which means that they should rightly face the choice whether to step back from their attacks on the environment, or to answer for forcing through the changes now.

In the dark

Following up on last night's post about Bill C-10, let's start taking a look at a few potentially problematic areas of the Cons' budget implementation bill.

To start with, there doesn't seem to be much dispute over the need to create some new flexibility for the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation to stabilize Canada's financial system. But there doesn't seem to be a significant need for the CDIC to be substantially more secretive in taking those steps - and indeed there's probably a case to be made that more disclosure is needed in the case of emergency action involving potentially huge amounts of money.

Which means that it's worth noting that the "bridge institutions" which the Cons want the authority to create would be shrouded in secrecy:

253. The Act is amended by adding the following after section 45.2:

45.3 (1) Subject to subsection 12(1) of the Privacy Act, any information with respect to the affairs of a federal institution designated as a bridge institution or of any person dealing with it is confidential, shall be treated accordingly and shall not be disclosed.

While there's a limited set of exceptions set out by the draft legislation, those refer to disclosure within government rather than allowing for any public scrutiny. And the provision would also override the Access to Information Act (see section 255).

Compare that to the general operations of the CDIC, which are subject to the oversight normally applicable to Crown corporations. Rather than applying the same set of rules, the Cons are looking to blanket bridge institutions with a prohibition on any public disclosure.

Which makes for a serious problem, since the potential costs associated with bridge institutions are probably the largest created by the economic crisis. A bridge institution is by definition a financial institution pushed into receivership - and the U.S.' experience, with single-institution bailouts ranging well into eleven figures, should hint at the potential downside if the CDIC is required to step in and keep an institution afloat.

Of course, it's in keeping with the Cons' usual practices that they apparently think costs which could dwarf the amount of money being put into the economy at large should be hidden from public view. But that should raise a red flag at the best of times for those of us who recognize the danger of massive spending in secret - and can only look even more dubious given the Cons' lack of honesty and transparency even when they know the facts are likely to get out.

Review time

Deficit Jim's budget implementation legislation is now available online - with a bill that the Cons are demanding to have passed in a hurry reporting in at a svelte 551 pages. I'll be taking a look for any obvious new moves or attacks on the opposition - but anybody else with the inclination is encouraged to do the same to make sure we're at least aware of any nasty surprises before the Libs vote them into law.

Update: Beijing York notes some problems with the link in comments. Here's another link which should in theory go to the bill's table of contents; if that doesn't work, then it may be easiest to seek out bill C-10 through LEGISinfo.

How quickly they forget

For those trying to play up the Cons' assertion that they don't plan to run attack ads against Michael Ignatieff, let's turn back the clock to that long-ago era of January 2009.

That would be when Harper's party - in the midst of the current economic crisis - claimed that a series of anti-coalition spots were "response ads" rather than attack ads. This despite the fact that the ads the Cons were supposedly responding to didn't even hint at voting down the Harper government, and indeed only asked the Cons themselves to listen to suggestions for the budget.

Just so we're clear, then...

The Cons may be trying to present themselves as focused on the economy to the exclusion of running ad campaigns. But they've already proven the contrary through their actions.

Moreover, the Cons have already demonstrated their propensity for splitting hairs rather than acknowledging what their ads actually are. And they don't figure to have any more shame about labelling negative ads as, say "factual" than they did about labelling attack ads as "response ads".

Which means that pretending the Cons' latest leaks bear any resemblance to how they'll actually function serves only two purposes: to make the Libs overconfident about how what they can get away with before facing another advertising barrage, and to give the Cons a free pass for past actions which show just how empty the new words are. And it's hard to see how anybody but Harper benefits from either of those outcomes.

Leadership 2009 - Week in Review

We'll see if there's enough news from the Saskatchewan NDP's leadership campaign to support a weekly roundup from here on in - but there's plenty worth pointing out about the shape of the race based on this week's developments.

The most obvious news is the addition of Ryan Meili to the contest. But what hasn't yet been noticed is just how quickly Meili has made a splash in the few areas where it's possible to measure public support.

As both the latest addition to the race and the one with the lowest profile within the NDP, Meili would have seemed to have the toughest task ahead of him in assembling a support network. But Meili's list of Facebook supporters is already longer than that of either Deb Higgins or Yens Pedersen. And in the LeaderPost's entirely unscientific poll on the race, Meili is amazingly within a whisker of Dwain Lingenfelter at 40% of the vote, with Higgins and Pedersen stuck in single digits behind "none of the above".

Of course, the Leader-Post's poll doesn't seem likely to carry much weight as an indicator of actual public opinion. But it does offer a hint as to which campaigns are best organized in showing support from the beginning. And if Meili is at the head of the pack in that department, that may signal similar strength in volunteer numbers for the other tasks which will more directly influence the outcome of the race.

Now, Higgins has some obvious alternative sources of support within the NDP caucus and the labour movement. And those factors are likely enough to maintain her ranking as the strongest challenger to Lingenfelter for now even if her online network may be the weakest of all the candidates.

Moreover, Higgins might be the greatest beneficiary of a Meili campaign strong enough to keep Lingenfelter from a first-ballot win. So Higgins may not have much reason to worry based on this week's developments.

But a candidate running on youth and renewal surely can't afford to be lapped in the online organization department. Which means that Yens Pedersen's campaign looks to face some significant problems if his head start and profile within the party have already been overtaken by Meili's support network.

In fairness, it could be as well that Meili's camp has focused on more visible showings of support to the exclusion of longer-term work - which would figure to play out publicly in time. But for now, Meili looks to have established himself firmly in the #3 position - and if he can keep up this week's pace, then Lingenfelter and Higgins may end up being surprised by the race's youngest challenger as they reach the finish line.

Musical interlude

Apparently some folks enjoy music for the weekend. Here's a song.

Fine print watch

The Harper government is loudly trumpeting its desire to quickly pass a large budget bill which hasn't yet been publicly introduced. Is there a more obvious signal that there are some nasty surprises in store?

On dubious honours

There's been plenty written about the Cons' transit tax credit debacle. But one of the more interesting implications doesn't yet seem to have been pointed out.

Here are Greg Weston's observations on what the program's revised projections mean in the cost to reduce emissions:

(T)he Harper government opted for the transit pass tax credit, which the finance department estimated at the time would cost taxpayers about $2,000 to $3,000 per tonne of greenhouse gas eliminated.

Today, that's probably closer to $10,000 a tonne.

To put that in perspective, paying someone 10 grand to park the family clunker for about three months would have the same environmental impact. Where do we sign?

Now, I'm not sure if Weston's math is precisely on target. After all, the Finance Department's original projections were already based on an estimated emissions impact of half that assumed by Environment. Which means that the further revision makes the outcome only three times worse than Finance had estimated, pushing it to the $6,000-$9,000/tonne range.

But that gap is still enough to restore a dubious honour to the program. For awhile, it looked like the Cons' car purchase tax credit had beaten out the transit pass credit as the world's least effective emissions reduction measure. But the new numbers would appear to push the transit tax credit back into the lead - at least until the car purchase credit undergoes a similar review.

Of course, the bigger question is why we're still stuck with a government which has gone to such lengths to lead the world in the waste department. And the fact that they've managed to fall short of even the lowest expectations on the environment (which was of course the top political issue at the time) can only offer more reason to doubt that Con-managed stimulus spending will accomplish anything useful.

Posted

I blogged about a Buy Canadian policy a couple of days back. But at the time, I hadn't realized that Erin had already made similar points with a particular focus on steel trade patterns - which miraculously found their way into the National Post. So have a read as to why the concept of domestic purchasing makes sense in general - and why the actual compromise on the Buy American clause may be an ideal result for Canada.

The party of responsibility

It hasn't taken long after the introduction of Deficit Jim's initial budget for both the Libs and Cons to start bidding up any federal stimulus plan. But with plenty of stories pointing out the Cons' consistent failure to accomplish anything useful while dispensing billions of public dollars, the result may be to create a huge opening for the NDP to brand itself as the party of fiscal responsibility.

To start off with, let's note that the seemingly safer route for both the Libs and the Cons is to push for more and more stimulus. In the Libs' case, any mention of added stimulus funding can serve to try to distinguish themselves from the Cons as more responsive to concerns raised by the recession. But the Cons would naturally prefer to avoid letting the Libs draw that contrast, which makes them likely to try to keep pace with any requests to toss more money on the pile.

Of course, both will also talk about trying to be fiscally responsible in the process. But that's where the opening for the NDP comes in.

After all, the wave of news this week simply confirms the reality that the Cons' management of public funds has been woeful from day one. Already, there's evidence to suggest that the impending sea of red ink could have been avoided if not for the Cons' irresponsibility.

With reports pointing out that past Con spending has produced few if any demonstrable results, a case can be made that while genuine stimulus would be a plus, Deficit Jim and company figure to do more harm than good if given more money to play with. And that can stick to the Libs as well while they support the Cons, particularly if they're the ones publicly suggesting that Flaherty should be doling out more than he is.

Now, the first reaction would almost certainly be a suggestion that the NDP would be playing against type with such a move, notwithstanding the NDP's superior governing record and support for balanced budgets. But even that might not be a negative, particularly to the extent it gives the media a hook to write about the NDP's position. While columns saying that "even the NDP is sounding more responsible than the other parties" may be condescending initially, they can easily lay the groundwork for a message which cuts out "even" and "sounding" to make for a genuinely positive association.

And the longer-term benefits to the NDP could be massive if it succeeds in building that link. With the Cons simultaneously abandoning the idea of balanced budgets and getting tarred with the patronage brush, the main factor keeping their deficit-hawk supporters from turning elsewhere may be the lack of a seeming alternative. But if the NDP can change that calculus, then the result may be to topple the Cons from power - and to place the NDP in a stronger position than ever before.

Deep thought

If I was sitting on evidence that a government was grossly mismanaging and politicizing infrastructure spending, my reaction wouldn't be to give it another $12 billion to play with.

Update: Nor would it seem like a good idea to call for more.

Within reach

Robert Silver is looking to lower expectations for the Libs for the next federal election campaign by throwing out daunting-sounding numbers about what it would take to remove the Cons from office. But let's take a closer look at whether he's right in saying that change is out of reach.

Let's note off the top that even in Silver's minimal scenario of an 8-point change, the total Lib+NDP seat count would exceed the Cons', meeting one of the artificial conditions which coalition bashers have sought to impose in the current Parliament. So if Ignatieff can overcome the distrust he's built up with the other opposition parties, even that minimal movement could result in a change in government.

But what about the higher numbers required to push the Libs alone ahead of the Cons? A 10- or 12-point swing sounds like a lot on its face. But in reality, it's well within the range of possible outcomes.

After all, it was as recently as 2006 that the total swing involving the Libs and Cons was over 13 points based on 6.5-point moves for both parties.

In 2004, the combined NDP (+7)/Lib (-4) swing was over 11 points. (I'll ignore the Cons' numbers from that year since they reflect a party merger - but looking at only raw numbers the NDP/Con swing would be even bigger at 15 points.) And in 2001, the Alliance/PC swing was just under 13 points. So in fact, the 2008 results are unique among recent elections in their lack of a significant swing among the parties.

What if one limits the swings to the top two parties from the previous Parliament - both to mimic the Con/Lib dynamic, and to avoid picking only the greatest jumps and drops from each cycle? Even there, the types of changes which Silver paints as being unrealistic are well within the range of what's happened in the past in plenty of other elections beyond 2006. In 1993, the Lib/PC swing was 36 points; in 1988, just under 11; in 1984, roughly 34; in 1972, just under 11; in 1962, 20 points and in 1958, 22 points.

And those numbers reflect all kinds of political circumstances - including minorities (1958 and 2006) and majorities alike, as well as featuring sharp changes in direction (1984 and 1993) alongside elections which preserved the current party in power (1972 and 1988).

Of course, those numbers also hint at the second part of the equation which Silver would presumably like to avoid. If a swing of 20+ points is recognized to be a plausible outcome, then there's no way around the fact that the NDP has joined the Libs within striking distance of the Cons.

But I'd have to think that Silver and others are best off playing up rather than minimizing the potential for change. After all, the more the Libs' mouthpieces try to answer the suggestion that Canadians can replace the current Con government with a pessimistic "no we can't", the more likely voters will be to look for a party which offers a more hopeful answer.

Edit: fixed typos.

Team efforts

Adam Radwanski's post on politics as a team sport is definitely worth a look. But it should also be asked whether the way politics are treated in the media exacerbates the rooting-for-laundry mentality.

When it comes to reporting on the views of voters generally, we see constant polls about who supports who for the moment. But only a small fraction of that amount of attention seems to be dedicated to figuring out why respondents prefer the party that they do. And it's a rare poll indeed that raises even the issue of second-party preferences and likelihood of a respondent's vote switching, let alone the reasons why such a switch might or might not take place.

And coverage of the political scene may raise similar issues. Part of the problem likely lies in the false balance issue: where stories are designed to simply present the position of two opposed parties rather than to evaluate the strength of those positions (much less the possibility of different ones not represented by the parties named), it's easy for readers to find something which supports the team mentality and move on.

That in turn rewards parties who value message consistency over accuracy and substantive content by reinforcing their positions, while punishing those who have internal differences of opinion which reflect the process of actually deliberating to reach better results. Which means that parties are left encouraging their supporters to be parrots rather than thinkers, focusing on spreading the core message rather than raising questions about what the party ought to be doing.

Of course, the same problem may exist to an even greater extent outside media channels. And it's entirely possible that peer-to-peer persuasion (via party talking points) will only become more significant in at least the near future as citizens tune out the he-said, she-said media battle. Which raises the question of whether those covering politics will see value in offering up information which pushes observers to examine their underlying assumptions, or whether they'll continue to reinforce the team-based model.

Same old story

I made the point yesterday that Michael Ignatieff's actions in dealing with his Newfoundland and Labrador MPs on the budget vote would be telling as to whether Iggy would be a slave to tradition or would actually look for new and creative solutions to political problems. And I had to give him credit for a reasonable response when it came to this week's vote.

But instead of following through on the idea of allowing MPs to represent their constituents, Ignatieff is now declaring that he just hadn't gotten around to imposing top-down rule as usual:

During a closed-door caucus meeting Wednesday, sources said Ignatieff chided the Newfoundland MPs for speaking out publicly against the budget before consulting with him.

Four of the six had already announced their intention to vote against the budget by the time Ignatieff gave them dispensation to do so.

Moreover, sources said Ignatieff warned caucus he doesn't intend to relax discipline again in future (sic).

"He said it was a one-time thing, alone, period, full stop, and for us not to get our hopes up too high because it would not happen again," said one caucus member.

Needless to say, Ignatieff's scolding of MPs even for speaking up would seem to put the Libs well along the path toward a Harper-style system where all communications are vetted by a controlling leader. Which has to be particularly galling for MPs who are already frustrated with being forced to support another party's ideologically-charged budget - and should serve as a signal that their voices will be silenced as long as they stick with the Libs.

Competitive advantages

Giant Political Mouse has already posted about the latest entry in the Saskatchewan NDP's leadership race, as Dr. Ryan Meili has joined the fray. And having spent several months expressing my concern about the dangers of a coronation, I'll note on the entry of a fourth impressive candidate just how rare such a strong leadership field is in Saskatchewan - at least among parties other than the NDP.

After all, both the Saskatchewan Party and the Liberals have replaced leaders in the past few years - but neither has been able to muster a contested race in so doing. Instead, Brad Wall was acclaimed, while Ryan Bater's appointment for the Libs looks to be a formality as soon as his party gets around to it. And I'm not aware of any contested leadership races for the Greens - though I'll certainly correct the record if I've missed any.

In contrast, the NDP is now looking at a second consecutive race which features a choice among former members of cabinet as well as strong outside competition. And whoever ends up winning in the end, the party figures to be far better off than its competitors for once again providing its members the opportunity to choose its future direction.

As predicted

For anybody holding out misplaced hope that the Libs might try to improve the Cons' budget implementation legislation on pay equity or any other issue, Michael Ignatieff is shutting down the possibility and requiring his party's MPs to support the bill sight unseen:

Having cast their protest vote Tuesday, a spokesperson confirmed that Ignatieff now expects the Newfoundland MPs to support the budget on all subsequent votes, including the budget implementation bill.

Moreover, he's told the MPs they can't attempt to amend the bill, which is to be introduced this week.

And all this just as word comes out that the budget which the Libs just supported is likely off base in its deficit assumptions. Which would seem to signal that the only change from Stephane Dion's reign to Ignatieff's is that while Dion usually at least hinted at voting against the Cons before caving, Ignatieff is stomping out even the possibility of holding the Harper government's actions up to scrutiny.

Behind the numbers

A few notes on some less-noticed numbers in Strategic Counsel's budget polling which may significantly change the complexion of the outcome...

First, on the question of the budget's impact on perceptions of the Cons, it's worth noting that remarkably high numbers among current Con voters seriously skewed the top-line numbers on a few of the issues. In every other party, at least 61% of respondents noted a loss of confidence in the Cons - a particularly striking number when that confidence wouldn't figure to have been all that high to begin with. And 69% or more of respondents from every party aside from the Cons wanted to see another government given a chance - yet that figure was only 51% in the total numbers since only 6% of Con respondents shared the view.

Second, some of the statement response numbers look to be virtually impossible to reconcile. Based on the percentages involved, at least 18% of respondents agreed both that the opposition parties should back the budget, and that the Cons should be replaced with another government - and at least 4 per cent that the Cons had a good plan, yet should still be replaced.

Third, the party breakdowns offer a few interesting tidbits. Contrary to popular belief (if perhaps not party practice), Con voters were actually the least likely to be concerned with how a deficit would be paid off. Meanwhile, the voters least willing to pay higher taxes to pay off a future deficit were NDP and Bloc supporters.

And finally, there's the likelihood of support numbers. There, supporters of four parties - including the Libs - were on average more likely to support the Libs if they defeated the budget rather than backing it. But again the top-line number showed more seeming support for the budget due to a Con response which sticks out like a sore thumb, with 63% of Con voters answering that they were "much less likely" to vote for the Libs if they defeated the budget.

Now, it's probably true that Michael Ignatieff's strategy includes trying to shift a significant amount of Con support into his party's column. But in light of the other numbers among Con voters, it seems entirely possible that the headline numbers trumpeted by the Libs are the result of Ignatieff choosing the preferred option of those who will never want Harper to be replaced.

Well said

Dr. Dawg:

(T)he Liberals have teamed up with the Conservatives to pass an all-things-to-everyone budget that hurts Newfoundland and Labrador, threatens to gut pay equity, keeps most unemployed people off EI, starves research and development, ensures our solid last-place standing among industrialized nations with respect to childcare, and substantially erodes the revenue base with ginormous tax cuts. The price of this monstrous cave is regular reports to Parliament, which, with the addition of five dollars or so, might allow Count Michael to purchase a latte...

The new Liberal leader is even being coached by Tom Flanagan. Good grief. With a little training, it seems, Iggy will prove to be every bit as good a Conservative backbencher as his predecessor.

On accomplices

Having apparently recognized a serious weakness in their party's position, some prominent Lib bloggers are trying to pretend that their party's vote in favour of the Cons' budget doesn't make them complicit in Deficit Jim's attack on pay equity. But there are a couple of serious problems with that position.

First, as I've pointed out, the Libs justified their plan to vote down last fall's fiscal update based on exactly the same type of intent-based language. And indeed they're still saying publicly that the Cons' plans should be considered an attack on pay equity:

Ruby Dhalla, the MP for Brampton-Springdale, said, “The Conservative government refuses to end its attack on pay equity and the women of Canada continue to suffer as they make 70 cents for every dollar made by their male counterparts.”

From that starting point, here's the case against the Libs in a simple logical sequence:

The budget includes an attack on pay equity.
The Liberals have supported the budget.
Therefore, the Liberals have supported an attack on pay equity.

Of course, the Libs can try to make the case that the attack on pay equity is justified in the context of other economic issues - which appears to be what Dhalla for one is attempting to do. But that's an entirely different issue from whether or not they've actually supported the attack.

But what about the argument that passing the budget is merely symbolic, such that the Libs can oppose any substantive alterations pay equity in the form of legislation?

That might be well and good in theory. Except that the budget itself will be the subject of implementing legislation which the Libs don't seem to have any intention of opposing after approving the budget in principle. And the Cons haven't been shy about using those types of bills to make substantive changes - such as the immigration amendments which the Libs screamed about for months but allowed to pass last year.

So does anybody think that the Cons will hesitate to include substantive pay equity changes in their budget bill? Or that the Libs will hold up a budget implementation bill over pay equity when they've already approved the planned changes in principle?

In effect, the attempt to avoid responsibility for the Libs' giving the budget a pass on pay equity looks to be aimed at nothing but minimizing the scope of an acknowledged weakness and delaying the party's inevitable share of the blame. And that's not an outlook which either pay equity supporters or others who expect the Libs to stand up for them should find the least bit reassuring.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Buy Canadian. And be proud of it.

In response to the NDP's sensible call for a Buy Canadian policy to the extent permitted by international trade law, the Cons are mocking the idea of a concerted effort to keep stimulus spending at home.

Which is odd, considering that one of the centrepieces of their budget is based entirely on the concept that stimulus dollars won't serve their intended purpose unless they're spent in Canada:

The federal Finance Department looks favourably on stimulus spending that helps builders, in part because so many of their materials are made in Canada. This ensures more benefits of stimulus spending remain in this country than if the money goes to taxpayers in the form of rebates to spur consumption. There's a good chance that consumer spending would leak the benefits of stimulus to foreigners: 50 per cent of durable goods bought in Canada are imported.

“[By] contrast, only 20 per cent of investment in residential and non-residential buildings is imported through such inputs as building materials,” the Finance Department said in its recent paper on stimulus.

So the Cons are well aware that a stimulus package needs to be oriented toward purchasing Canadian-produced goods in order to actually help our economy. But they're only willing to pursue that end through indirect means - placing arbitrary distinctions above the consideratons which even they recognize to be crucial for the success of any stimulus package.

Needless to say, the same reasoning should be applied in both cases: where the purpose of a stimulus package is to sustain Canada's economy, there's no value in putting it toward subsidizing imports where that result can be avoided. And that's true regardless of what additional domestic purchasing provisions the U.S. puts in place for itself.

Testing the limits

Based on what Stephen Harper and his party have managed to get away with so far, it's been an open question for quite some time whether there's anything the Cons could do which would manage to earn genuine media condemnation, rather than being painted at least in part as a legitimate byproduct of Harper's partisan fervour.

This may provide the answer.

A rocky path

So far I've avoided commenting much on the Libs' Newfoundland and Labrador MP issue other than to point out how it undercut Michael Ignatieff's claim to message discipline. That's been based in part based on the fact that it's far too soon to turn the page on Ignatieff's more critical error in propping up the Cons in the first place, and in part on a sense that a remotely competent leader should have been able to defuse the story in a matter of hours.

But apparently Ignatieff doesn't fit that bill. And it may be possible to tell plenty about how he figures to handle his party and the broader political scene from his reaction to the first hint of dissent within his party.

First off, there's Ignatieff's utter naivete about how Stephen Harper would handle the situation. It's been fairly well documented that Harper's desire to work with other parties has ended where anybody has asked anything of him rather than vice versa - and "new spirit of cooperation" aside, I'm not sure anybody looking at the situation realistically would expect Harper to do Ignatieff any favours.

Yet after delaying doing anything for days, that seems to have been Ignatieff's first attempt to deal with the issue, with predictable results:

Mr. Ignatieff said he called Prime Minister Stephen Harper yesterday to ask him to reconsider the clawback. "I said would he push the 'pause' button on those changes, and rethink his approach to get greater national unity in a time of crisis. And he said no."

Now if only there had been some opportunity to put in place a government which would move past Harper's model of divide-and-conquer politics. But on that point, what's done is done.

That said, there's no reason why Ignatieff should have had to learn the hard way what should be obvious to anybody who's paid the slightest bit of attention to Canadian politics during Harper's stay in office. And the fact that he turned first to Harper to solve his own internal problem should speak volumes about Ignatieff's lack of decisiveness when it counts.

Ignatieff's next reaction, though, may be even more telling:

Mr. Ignatieff said late yesterday that he would have his Newfoundland MPs over for dinner at Stornoway in an effort to find common ground before today's vote.

But he made clear that withdrawing the Liberals' support for the budget is not on the table.

"Our support for the budget is not in question..."
...
Earlier, Mr. Byrne and two senior Liberal MPs, Ujjal Dosanjh and John McCallum, were attempting to find some way to head off the mini-revolt. Mr. Ignatieff's spokeswoman said yesterday, "It's too soon to talk about disciplinary measures," if any or all of the MPs make good on their threat.

Now, it should go without saying that a "revolt" only exists insofar as any vote against the budget is seen as prohibited by the leader. Which raises a serious question about why Ignatieff would see no need to even explain the apparent plan to stick to a strict whip.

At most, I've seen a few MPs mouth platitudes about the value of party solidarity. But there's no apparent reason why that has to be defined in terms of all voting the same way on a matter rather than all agreeing to the level of discretion given to individual MPs. And while opening up the door to a bit more MP independence on the budget vote might result in a few more MPs wanting to express their displeasure with Harper's direction, it wouldn't figure to have any effect on the substantive result.

If Ignatieff had made that his response from the beginning and worked within his party to reach agreeable terms for dealing with the budget, then there would be no danger of the Libs booting a substantial portion of their caucus for daring to do the opposition's job. But by dithering for several days then going to Harper first, he's ensured that both his party's divisions and his own ineffectiveness stay on the front page - and it may now be too late to secure internal agreement on what would seem to have been the best possible solution.

And more importantly, Ignatieff has confirmed that he's so bound by how politics are usually done that it he either doesn't even look for new ways to solve problems, or maintains a strong bias against creativity and progress in the face of tradition. And that common thread between his decision on the coalition and his ineffectiveness on the budget vote looks to make for one of the largest problems with him as a leader going forward.

Update: In fairness, Ignatieff eventually managed to stumble into something close to the right answer.

Deep thought

If Stephen Harper's Cons were to release an ad which co-opted one rival's well-known slogan to pressure a second rival for supporting a third, we'd never hear the end of the "chess master" raves.

Governed by vandals

Shorter Steve Janke:

Of course I'd never suggest outright that donating money to opposition parties could result in your brake lines being cut. But let's just say that it may have happened before.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Phase II

It hasn't taken long for the NDP to follow up its English-language ads unveiled last week with a new set in French: "Equité Salariale" and "Changement". While the latter looks to be fairly similar to the Change ad in English, the former which focuses on pay equity looks to be a strong addition to the NDP's message - and indeed may be worth translating for broader distribution nationally.

Here's a rough translation of "Equité Salariale":

Let me ask you a question. Do you believe that a woman should receive equal pay for work of equal value?

I think so. But Stephen Harper's budget attacks the right to pay equity. And Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff chose to stand with Stephen Harper against pay equity.

I expected better from a new Liberal leader. But happily, the NDP is there to defend people like you and me. Visit npd.ca to find out more.

For those wondering: yes, "happily" is a translation of "heureusement", in a seeming reference to Bloc campaigns of yore.

One other interesting element to note is that unlike the English ads, neither of the French ads focus on Jack Layton personally. That strikes me as surprising given that Layton has actually fared better in Quebec than elsewhere in best-PM polling - but it may make sense if the NDP has concluded that it's the party brand rather than Layton's that has the most room for growth among its French broadcast audience.

Update: The ads are now available from the NDP's French site.

On punchlines

Sure, Tom Flanagan deserves every bit of the widespread mockery he's received for his helpful suggestions as to how each party in Parliament can best benefit the Harper government. But isn't the larger joke on the party which has ensured that Flanagan and his ilk will continue to be more influential than almost anybody else in determining the federal government's direction?

Me first

I've spent plenty of time pointing out how the Libs' decision to prop up the Harper government looks to be a strategic train wreck. But it's worth noting that the Libs' decision to keep the Cons in power is based on a misguided attempt at self-interest in the first place:

"By him [Mr. Ignatieff] throwing out the three different timelines, what he's ensuring is that by holding those press conferences, he looks prime ministerial, he's the government-in-waiting and it's a Liberal government-in-waiting as opposed to a coalition government," said one Liberal who added that if the Liberals had defeated the government and gone ahead with coalition, the NDP would have stolen their "thunder" and used it as their own record in the next election.

"Within the [Liberal] caucus, some of the people would say, 'You can't go into a coalition government with the NDP because they would take some of our thunder and use it as their own record. They would say, 'We need another minority, lend us your vote again and again and again. Coalitions work better than majority governments.' The fear would be that somehow all of that Liberal support would vanish in some parts of the country with this."

Or in shorter form:

What's the point in doing any good for Canadians if another party might share in the credit?

Led astray

You know Deceivin' Stephen is facing some internal problems when he can no longer keep his anonymous party sources on message. So it's worth pointing out that criticism of the Cons' budget is leaking from their own internal sources:

"It's clearly politically targeted. There's no doubt about that.... This stuff is so blatantly political, it leaves a bad taste in people's mouth even on the Conservative side. Throwing money back at the arts now, now, we're friends of the arts. It's so transparent, it's sad."

One of these things is not like the others

Pierre Trudeau: In his first leadership campaign shortly after joining the Libs, mobilized an unprecedented army of young and new activists to build a popular image with a message of generational change.

Barack Obama: In his first national campaign relatively shortly after joining the Senate, mobilized an unprecedented army of young and new activists to build a popular image with a message of hope and change.

Michael Ignatieff: In his first leadership campaign shortly after joining the Libs, managed to motivate so little activist support as to hand the title to Stephane Dion despite being the favourite of most party insiders. After ascending to the leadership by elite consensus, now seeking to reach the broader public with a message of inevitability.

An open question

Andrew Potter:

Bob Rae, when the coalition was announced, called it "the very best possible government." Things haven't changed that much in the past two months, which obliges me to ask why Canadians have to settle for second best.

On rationalizations

Glen Pearson offers an inside look at the excuses which Michael Ignatieff offered up to try to explain his decision to leave Stephen Harper in power. But however much Pearson and others try to play up Ignatieff's argument, the rationalization doesn't stand up to even slight scrutiny.

Let's start with what Ignatieff recognized to be the upsides of expressing non-confidence in the Harper Cons:

He argued that if he brought down the government by voting down the budget, certain short-term goals would be achieved. We would be government. He would be Prime Minister. We would be able to more correctly invest those kind of monies. All of this is true.

Consider this the starting point: Ignatieff rightly recognized that in addition to meeting the Libs' political goals, a change in government would also have led to better management and a more effective stimulus package. Which means that in voting with the Cons, the Libs would be punishing vulnerable Canadians for their party's unwillingness to bring about positive change.

So what could possibly justify pushing ahead with that strategy?

Then he challenged us to think of a larger dynamic, one that eventually won the day. A coalition, he offered, would be the final nail in the coffin for any hopes of national unity. The West would want out. Quebec would be an unknown factor. And Canadians as a whole, excepting those constituency groups that would have been served by the coalition, would be ushered into an era of great national uncertainty again. The markets, so requiring of stability right now, would respond with alarm and alacrity. His arguments continued for a time yet.

Now, part of the problem with Ignatieff's position is implicit in his concern about a division between "those constituency groups that would have been served by the coalition" and - well, everybody else. Surely as the Prime Minister in charge of the coalition, Ignatieff would have been in a position to resolve not to resort to Con-style divide-and-conquer politics as the national response to an economic crisis. And the fact that Ignatieff doesn't think he could have governed in the national interest under a coalition should provide reason for suspicion about how he'd plan to exercise power in the future.

Aside from that warped view of the coalition, though, the underlying theme of Ignatieff's position positively begs to be refuted.

First, there's the national unity canard which the Cons have played up from day one of the coalition. But there are a couple of serious problems with the argument.

For all the Con-led bleating about anger in the West, the reality is that when the coalition issue first emerged in the public eye, even Con strongholds featured more active support for the coalition than for continued Harper government. And there's been no indication of any real growth in the ever-marginal Western separatist movement as a result of the coalition.

Instead, the only evidence to suggest such a threat has been a self-serving assertion from the Cons and their supporters. And it's hard to see how the prospect of a coalition government would offer any substantial change in the factors which would seemingly give rise to such a movement compared to events which have already happened - i.e. Con sweeps or near-sweeps in Western provinces which are still insufficient to result in the party forming government.

In contrast, there's exactly one province which has seriously threatened separation in the past. And it's Harper's attacks on Quebec which both boosted the political fortunes of the PQ provincially, and led the Bloc to start re-emphasizing separatism in light of the Libs' willingness to leave Harper in power.

Which means that to the extent national unity based on separatist movements could be a concern, Ignatieff's decision to keep Harper in power only exacerbated the dangers. And the fact that Ignatieff could present the reaction of the province which has most broadly supported the coalition as an "unknown factor" to justify killing it off should highlight just how disingenuous his argument was.

So much for how Ignatieff helped to reignite the risk of Quebec separation. But what about unity and stability in a broader social sense, based on possible disruption in Canada as it stands rather than the threat of regional separation?

Ignatieff's argument seems to be predicated on the idea that if the Cons and their supporters weren't likely to favour a coalition, then the result could be some enduring dispute which ought to be avoided. But again, there's absolutely no reason to think that the Cons' reaction to the current coalition will be any different from their response to any other legitimate process which might remove them from power.

In effect, Ignatieff's argument is that as long as the Cons hold Canada hostage by threatening to throw wrenches into the national machinery if they're removed from office, the country is best served by letting them have their way. And it's not hard to see how making that view part of the Libs' guiding philosophy could have disastrous results for them and for the country at large.

Finally, there's the question of political and economic stability. There, one has to compare the results of a coalition with the path actually pursued by Ignatieff.

After all, a coalition government would on its face have been able to offer political stability for at least a year and a half. And whatever risk there might be of the coalition crumbling before that point would have been counterbalanced by the formal agreement among the current opposition parties.

In contrast, Ignatieff's amendment to the budget serves only to create even more confidence showdowns under the current Parliament: in addition to the Cons likely reverting to form in trying to pass their own hard-right agenda once the budget has passed, they'll also be able to test the Libs' willingness to vote them down several more times over the next year. And for the confidence votes to come, there won't be any credible threat of a coalition to keep the Cons in line.

Needless to say, the political uncertainty which the Libs have continued doesn't figure to be a plus for the markets, for investors or for anybody else. Which means that Ignatieff's decision results in the Libs trading a temporary illusion of stability for continued brinksmanship and uncertainty during the time when the economy actually needs to recover.

Now, it seems doubtful that Pearson or anybody else within the Libs who supported the coalition would have avoided considering those same issues over the course of the last couple of months. But the fact that the Libs were willing to take a warmed-over serving of stale Con talking points as their justification to avoid offering Canadians better government when they need it most can only signal that they're not about to offer any meaningful change from where Harper is currently taking the country.

The Big Truth

Silver Donald Cameron nicely outlines the reason why progressive governments can be expected to manage public money far more effectively than those who think government is inherently wasteful to begin with:

Consider this whopper: conservatives handle money prudently, while "tax-and-spend liberals" are financially irresponsible. That’s the exact opposite of the truth — but this Big Lie has been so often repeated by the right that it’s rarely even questioned...

(W)hat about Manitoba’s NDP Premier Gary Doer, running 10 budget surpluses in a row while cutting taxes and improving social services? Anybody remember the balanced budgets of Allan Blakeney and Roy Romanow in Saskatchewan? And the looting of the Saskatchewan treasury by the Tories under Grant Devine, which sent the deficit to $1.2 billion and landed a dozen Tories in jail for fraud?

Canada’s greatest socialist, Tommy Douglas, held off implementing medicare for 15 years, until he was sure that Saskatchewan could afford it. Why? You can’t build social democracy, Douglas argued, if the bankers can stop you by calling your loans. That’s not a problem for right-wing governments — but it gives left-wing governments a lively allergy to deficits.

And anyone who tells you otherwise is spreading a Big Lie.

Unfortunately, it looks like we're doomed to at least one more federal budget which represents the worst of all possible worlds. Now even more than during the first couple of years of the Cons' reign, we're stuck with a government which believes that it can't do anything in the public interest - but which feels entirely comfortable throwing billions of dollars around haphazardly with no concern about what that will do to the public purse down the road.

But there may be at least some chance for some good to come out of the current mess. And the more Canadians take up the call keep a close eye on what happens with the Cons' spending, the more likely the Harper example will be to discredit the big lie as to which end of the political spectrum is best equipped to handle Canada's finances responsibly.