On coalition building

Rob Silver suggests that the Libs have three options in talking about the possibilities for a post-election coalition: ruling it out, saying nothing about it, or offering "clarity" defined as a relatively detailed statement of principles. But I'd argue that there's another option which is more likely to produce positive results than any of those.

Off the top, I'll agree with Silver that ruling out a coalition would be entirely counterproductive, and that the Libs won't be able to avoid talking about it. But why would the Libs want to offer the juicy target of a "five-point statement of principles", knowing that any detailed principles are bound to be both attacked directly, and ignored by the Cons when there's a stronger attack to be launched by pretending they've never been mentioned?

Simply put, the Cons' attack is going to be based on the idea that all possible coalitions are evil. That may be a tougher sell than the Cons might think, but it means that it doesn't matter how well a single possible form of coalition is framed: the Harper narrative will involve slamming the worst aspects of any possible coalition imaginable, and refusing to listen to any pleas that a set of principles will actually limit what the Libs will agree to.

So the only sensible countermeasure looks to me to be to take the opposite position on the broad principles of coalition politics. Rather than implicitly accepting any of the Cons' arbitrary factors which supposedly make a coalition illegitimate (and allowing that type of language to dominate the discussion), any party interested in participating in or supporting a coalition to take down the Cons should be talking up the value of cooperative politics: pointing to the many examples of coalitions which the Cons themselves seem perfectly happy to accept, highlighting areas where the Cons are isolated both in Canadian politics and around the world, and creating an underlying narrative that everybody in Ottawa agrees that it's possible for parties to work together to produce better results for Canadians - except for Stephen Harper and his insular, secretive Con government.

With that type of message, there's actually some positive content for all potential coalition parties to rally behind, while Harper will be forced on the defensive as the lone defender of the partisan buffoonery pushed by his government. And that looks like the best hope for a result that satisfies both the Libs' internal concerns, and the desire of many Canadians of multiple partisan stripes to remove the Cons from office.

You can't do that in Parliament

Ah, the wacky ideas coming out of the NDP these days. Voluntarily implementing non-binding ethics recommendations? Encouraging public participation in the drafting of legislation? Consultations with citizens to support future policy development? If this kind of thing doesn't stop soon, people might start getting the idea that politics can and should be taken seriously.

On private interests

A few weeks back, I noted how odd it was that Brad Wall looked to be raring for a fight to privatize health care even when the issue wouldn't seem to be a winner for the Sask Party. But in retrospect, the move was likely aimed far less at the public than at a corporate media audience. And sure enough, the province's major newspapers have served up a giant steaming pile of Canwest love for Wall's effort to push public services into the private sector.

So let's take a few minutes to deal with the most ridiculous of the Sask Party claims which are being repeated unquestioned by the province's two main print media outlets.

First, nobody is arguing against providing better health services or dealing with waitlists. This has been the favourite strawman of the press in mischaracterizing the NDP's position - but the next argument that the province shouldn't address the need for improved surgical capacity or CT scan availability will be the first.

But that leads into the second point: there's a choice to be made as to how to deal with health care improvements. And it's on this point that the media has bought the Sask Party's spin hook, line and sinker - bashing the NDP for having a preference which it actually defends with some reasoning, even as it's the Wall government which has stated without justification that it's looking for any "opportunity" to push private-sector delivery.

In fact, there's absolutely no reason why improvements can't be made within the publicly-operated system - and the Sask Party's defenders haven't even tried to provide one. At most, there's been some tangential observation that some of the usual efficiencies associated with single-location health care delivery (e.g. CT scans on hospital sites) won't apply. But even if it's taken as a given that a CT scanner can't fit into one of Regina's current hospitals, that doesn't answer the question of whether we should prefer public or private operation of a new scanner to be set up on another site.

But what about the cost of setting up a publicly-run scanner? Welcome to point three, which has been negligently omitted by the media at every turn: privatization is not a free lunch. Even on the Sask Party's own account, privatized service delivery may well cost as much as the current public model. And that's ignoring both the real possibility that a privatized system will in fact make the public system less efficient, and the reality that once a private interest is relied on to provide vital public services, it'll have plenty of leverage to raise the price later on.

And that in turn leads to point four: privatization has real structural consequences, as more decisions about public health are put in the hands of actors whose primary interest is to increase their own market share and profit margin rather than to achieve the best possible health outcomes. Murray Mandryk's column manages to unwittingly make this point in using past examples of privatized services to suggest that we shouldn't worry about just one more (or two more, or however many more the Wall government can jam into the next year and a half). But if past governments didn't sufficiently take into account the reality that corporate actors may create warped incentives within the health care system (and yes, the NDP can take some blame here), that's hardly an argument to continue to ignore the dangers now.

In sum, the Sask Party's case has been based entirely on lowballed costs, dishonest assessments of our options and straw men. But while that deception has unfortunately been parroted by observers who should know better, it's still an open question whether Saskatchewan's voters will be so easily fooled.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

The reviews are in

It shouldn't be news that the Harper Cons have no interest whatsoever in being anything but an obstacle to any action on climate change. But it's not such a bad thing that Jeffrey Simpson has noticed:

According to the government’s own numbers, actual emissions will grow in absolute terms in every year from 2009 to 2012. All the government’s many and expensive policies will have done is to slow the increase, and then only slightly – by 10 million tonnes in 2012, against countrywide emissions of more than 700 million tonnes. At this rate, Canada will not achieve even the Harper government’s modest reduction target: a 17-per-cent drop in absolute reductions by 2020 based on 2005 emissions, a softer target than the 20-per-cent drop the government had previously promised.

The numbers show how useless and expensive are some of the government’s policies. For example, Ottawa is going to throw $1.5-billion into biofuels, largely ethanol, over the next nine years without a significant decline in emissions, because, as is obvious, the biofuels program is an agricultural subsidy program rather than a serious measure against emissions.

Or how about the absurdity of the transit tax credit, announced in an election campaign as a climate-change-fighting program? That all-politics-all-the-time program is estimated to reduce emissions by just over a risible 3,000 tonnes. And then comes the big Clean Energy Fund and Clean Air and Climate Change Trust Fund, together worth $2.5-billion, which the government admits “are not expected to result in quantifiable reductions by 2012.”

Maybe these funds will produce some reductions later, but then that would be entirely in keeping with the Harper government’s leisurely approach to climate change, an approach best summed up in the document’s statement that the government focuses on “long-term results.” As students of governments know, when they say everything is focused on “long-term results,” it usually means the government in question is not serious.

On personal service

Apparently Dimitri Soudas is hiding from a bailiff trying to serve him with a Parliamentary summons. But I can't see this ending well for somebody who tends to have to make predictable public appearances: wouldn't the smart response be to serve him in person next time he's on live TV?

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Deep thought

Sure, the $50,000 price tag for Sask Party candidate Kevin Doherty's moving expenses might seem outrageous on its face. But in fairness to Doherty, it's a delicate operation to move a moat.

On commercial significance

As expected, Michael Geist's first response to the Cons' new DMCA is worth a read (and some followup action). And Geist is right to draw primarily a distinction between a needlessly complex series of exemptions, and a single, strict rule about digital locks which trumps any consumer-based considerations. But let's note another aspect of the bill - and in fact the digital lock provision - which truly gives away the Cons' priorities:

41.1 (1) No person shall
...
(b) offer services to the public or provide services if
...
(ii) the uses or purposes of those services are not commercially significant other than when they are offered or provided for the purposes of circumventing a technological protection measure...

A similar standard applies to the provision of any "technology, device or component" under the proposed section 41.1(c)(ii).

So what makes that wording important? In order to escape prosecution for making available any product or service which has any potential to circumvent a "technological protection measure", an individual has to demonstrate that the product or service has some "commercially significant" uses or purposes. And that means in effect that any defence based on the fact that a product or service has valid, legal purposes other than infringement is available only to business interests - as a product or service which is made available freely rather than for profit wouldn't seem to fit the definition of "commercially significant".

In other words, the Cons' bill turns the development of freeware or open-source software into a source of potential legal liability, even if it's developed and distributed for a generally valid purpose which only has incidental potential for infringement. But the development and distribution of the exact same software for profit is considered to be above reproach.

So C-32 reflects a stark division between commercial interests which are given top priority, and all other interests which are seen as insufficient to justify any relaxation of the media industry's demand for total control over content. And the fact that the same theme is pervasive throughout the bill should offer reason for this latest attack on consumer interests to be met with just as much outcry as the previous ones that have been stopped in their tracks.

On open seats

As Kent has already noted, Sask Party MLA Joceline Schriemer has decided not to run again in 2011.

While the move is far from unexpected based on Schriemer's lack of interest in the job, it confirms that the Wall government will have to start from scratch in a seat where the NDP boasts one of its strongest challengers in Ryan Meili (along with three other nomination contestants). And it'll be worth watching who gets saddled with the responsibility of carrying the banner for the Sask Party in a race where the NDP has such a significant head start.

John Baird: Enemy Combatant

A handy hint: anybody who goes out of his way to invent new categories to avoid the application of rules that govern all possible subjects doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.

On competitive destruction

Leftdog has already discussed the Wall government's inexplicable determination to privatize the delivery of CT services in Regina - and my previous posts on other privatization efforts also cover some of the problems with the latest move, particularly given Don McMorris' eagerness to jump at every possible "opportunity" to push delivery into private hands. But let's note an extra issue with the CT scan plan in particular.

Here's the supposed rationale for putting public resources into private CT scan delivery:

The region currently has two CT scanners at Regina General Hospital and one at Pasqua Hospital that are running at maximum capacity doing 75,000 scans a year.

If one new CT scanner is added to the region, it will be able to provide 10,000 more scans, officials with the Regina-Qu'Appelle Health Region said.

But those estimates come with an important "all else being equal". And there's reason to think that for a privatized form of service delivery in particular, that assumption won't hold up.

After all, in order to operate a new scanner, a private firm will naturally need to recruit staff with the technical expertise required for the job. And the most obvious source of trained local staff will be...the Regina-Qu'Appelle Health Region. Which will presumably lose the ability to operate its scanners at full capacity if enough of its staff decide to leave - and will have no control over who gets poached by a private operator.

As a result, the resources used by a private firm to operate a scanner will all too likely be cannibalized from RQHR, resulting in little actual increase in capacity. And the private firm will have no incentive whatsoever to avoid damaging RQHR's ability to deliver services; in fact, its long-term interests will be best served by forcing the region to rely on it more and more.

In contrast, another scanner operated by RQHR in a new location would allow for the region to determine where its staff are best used, moving over only those health care professionals needed to get a new scanner up and running - with the end result that the capacity from the new machine would actually be added to the region's existing capacity. But in the Sask Party's haste to sell off everything it can, it apparently isn't even looking at that option.

In sum, the Sask Party's excuse about wanting to build capacity only highlights the futility of privatization as a strategy to deal with the areas of Saskatchewan's health care system that can stand to be improved. And if the Wall government is indeed in a rush to privatize as much as it can over the next year and a half, that should make for all the more reason to ensure it isn't in a position to keep up the damage at the end of 2011.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Con transparency at work

I for one did not know that the contents of the Hill Times are considered extremely sensitive information. Somebody should really crack down on the national secrets being leaked through its website.

Wednesday Morning Links

- I'm not sure that Alex Himelfarb doesn't contradict himself in saying there's no room for left-wing parties to promise more effective government while pointing out the layers of rules and control that makes it difficult to accomplish much in the civil service as it stands. But Alex Himelfarb's defence of public service is definitely worth a read:

An unrelenting and escalating assault on government is changing public attitudes. We rarely hear people talk anymore about politics and public service as a noble calling. We are more likely to hear derision. Even many of those in the private sector who now take such comfort and pride in the performance of our financial sector were not so long ago deriding politicians and bureaucrats for “not getting it” when they opposed bank mergers or the conglomerations of banks and insurance companies. We quickly lose sight of the fact that our regulatory system and the “bureaucrats” who uphold it were key to our performance. In this climate, politicians and private sector leaders instead too often compete in government bashing. When is the last time we heard a speech here in Canada on the importance of government and the value of our public service?

- Not shocking: the millions of litres of spills in Canada's Arctic which had previously gone unreported. Shocking: the fact that the news was actually allowed to see the light of day.

- After using the existence of developing states as an excuse to avoid action to slow down climate change, the Harper government is now being shown up even by its closest neighbour in that group. But needless to say, nobody among the Cons seems the least bit interesting in changing course as a result.

- Electoral reform still seems to be receiving short shrift even as it's become one of the centrepieces of the UK's coalition government. But at least Chantal Hebert has noticed that it's something the Libs should be looking to get in on.

- Finally, David Climenhaga duly slams Alberta's media for excluding left-wing voices.

On public safety

One more follow-up on this post, as there's another comparison worth drawing between the Cons' billion-dollar G8/G20 boondoggle and their actions in 2008. Do we know what, if anything, the federal government did to ensure the safety of opposition MPs in the wake of behaviour that it considers to be terrorism? How much money was put into that effort - which actually would have required a rush deployment of resources - compared to the cost of providing security for foreign leaders which could have been prevented through better planning?

And needless to say, if the answer is that the Harper government did nothing to keep opposition members safe from what it considers to be terrorism perpetrated by Con supporters, then its ability to claim with a straight face that it doesn't see any human-rights problems in countries like Colombia makes a lot more sense.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Well said

Linda McQuaig rightly notes that while even the Cons' claims to want to prevent political violence with their ridiculous G8/G20 expenses ring hollow, the actual summit security measures will restrict far more activity than anybody could reasonable justify:

There's been much well-deserved anger over the Harper government's absurd plan to spend almost a billion dollars on security at the summit (and the G8 summit in Huntsville). For the same price, we could have all ridden the TTC free for an entire year.

But there's been little anger that a good part of this money will be used to intimidate and terrify those who challenge the status quo.

The University of Toronto, falling in line with this new security-state mentality, plans to lock down its main campus during the summit, forcing the cancellation of G20 related events, including one featuring Maude Barlow, Amy Goodman and Naomi Klein.

It's hard to imagine a more inappropriate response. Universities should be centres of critical thought, where students are encouraged to scrutinize the current orthodoxy and challenge the Establishment. That's hard to do when they shutter their doors at the first whiff of controversy.

One man's terrorist

So far, the closest the Cons have come to an explanation for their billion-dollar G8/G20 boondoggle is to point to a single incident last week:

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews cited the example of a fire bombing at an Ottawa bank last week as a reason for tight security, after the anti-establishment group that claimed responsibility warned it will attend the summits.

"This is a prime example of the reason we need to prepare, to face thugs and terrorists who threaten our safety," said Toews.

But it's worth noting that the Cons' main area of concern seems to be the "at (a) bank" part. After all, last anybody checked, they saw no problem at all when their own friendly "thugs and terrorists" carried out the same type of vandalism against an opposition MP who they believed had it coming. So a billion dollars of public money are being spent to prevent exactly the same actions the Cons have implicitly encouraged - at least, as long as they're directed toward their political opponents.

History corrected

EFL rightly takes Jane Taber to task for writing the widespread support for the 2008 progressive coalition out of the history books. Which means at least this once, I won't have to.

Not too late

Following up on my review of the limited amount of committee review of the Cons' dumpster bill, Alice tells the rest of the story so far by examining the path the bill has taken so far in the House of Commons (as well as the frequently-inaccurate reporting on its progress). But let's note the most important message as to where matters stand now: with the NDP's amendments still up for debate and presumably headed for votes in the near future, there's still time for the House of Commons to pull the most egregious abuses of Parliamentary process from the bill.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Guest Post - Introducing Don Hansen

I've posted a few times about the NDP's nomination race in Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, where Don Hansen is squaring off against Brian Sklar for the opportunity to challenge the Cons' Tom Lukiwski for the seat. Today, I have the privilege of presenting a guest post from Don Hansen about his reasons for running - which could have saved Lukiwski plenty of trouble if he'd been patient in trying to learn about Hansen.
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I have always been wary of those who seek political power with too much zeal, as I tend to think there is often a less benevolent motive behind those who desire it too greatly. I never trusted the backroom gangs in politics, whose job is to protect the interests of those they serve, rather than doing the just and proper thing.

Last October, I received a phone call from an old friend that I met as a teenager asking me to consider seeking the nomination for Regina Lumsden Lake Centre. (Many years ago when I was much younger, I imagined how it would feel to be a Member of Parliament; then I would lie down until the feeling passed.) I told my friend that I would think about it and get back to him. I spoke to those whose opinions and blessings I value. Every closed door I imagined that could prevent me from seeking the nomination opened. There were no reasons other than my own fears and apathy that could prevent me from making the effort.

Now it is not so much a matter of wanting to do this, but rather something that I feel I must do.

Saskatchewan has not had a Member of Parliament who demands from the government full employment and the eradication of poverty for many years. I am also not happy with the way in which the Christian Right has been monopolizing Christian activism. There is a need for a left wing Christian philosophy based on social justice to prove there are other faith experiences than what the ultra-conservative televangelists present. I can fill those needs.

I remember at my very first NDP convention, meeting Les Benjamin. A man who was already a 6-year veteran of the ins and outs of politics and a titan within the New Democratic Party approached me, and introduced himself and welcomed me to my very first party convention. He reached out his hand to mine and then gave me a smile that immediately made me feel that this was a party where I was welcome; a party where all were equal – this man who was already becoming a legend within the House of Commons and this young boy from a small farm off the Manor road.

So, who exactly am I? I was born in Oxbow and raised on the family farm north of Glen Ewen.

- I am a graduate of the University of Regina and the Waterloo Lutheran Seminary.

- I have been an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada for twenty-five years. I have served parishes in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and North Dakota. I am currently serving the parish of St. John and Norrona in Strasbourg and Bulyea.

- I was a military chaplain for just over three years and I am a United Nations peacekeeping veteran.

- I was a board member of Circle of Life Native Ministry serving the residents of North Central Regina.

- I have been an activist in the Philippines for the past six years, confronting the issues of the child-sex tourist trade and human trafficking.

- I have been a life long member of the New Democratic Party and have served many provincial and federal constituencies throughout Canada.

- I am an associate member of the National Farmers Union and a life long member of the cooperative and credit union movements.

I am a person of faith but I am also pro-choice. I am pro-choice because I know that my faith does not give me simple and easy answers to complex and difficult questions. My faith does not promise to spare me from making tough decisions. It just promises me that I will not have to face those choices alone. I know that the whole question of foetal personhood is a deceitful, and often malicious, attempt to distract us from the real issue - which is that the woman has rights. And while various religious traditions may teach various things about when, if, and how we should sacrifice ourselves for others, no one - not partner, nor politician - no one gets to decide what is, or is not, an appropriate sacrifice for someone else to make.

I am outraged at the repressive and mean-spirited policies of Stephen Harper and his Conservatives. I have no doubt that his agenda is to move Canada towards a far more conservative society both economically and socially than what Canadians want.

Tom Lukiwski's record as our Member of Parliament is deeply troubling to me. Even those who supported him view him as an ineffectual Member of Parliament. And while I might be prepared to forgive offensive comments from many years past (after all, who of us has not said stupid and offensive things at some point?), I find it much harder to forgive the fact that he has made no effort to keep the commitments that he made when he apologized for his comments about the LGBT community. He has consistently refused to meet with representatives of the LGBT community, and has refused to reach out to those people who he had so thoughtlessly hurt and dehumanized.

What's more, Tom Lukiwski sees his job as defending the Conservative government's interests in Regina Lumsden Lake Centre rather than the other way around. He and Stephen Harper broke their solemn promise to remove non-renewable resource revenue from the equalization formula. They want to weaken the Canadian Wheat Board and go to war against organized labour. They want to force their anti-choice position upon the poorest women of the world. Due to their mismanagement of the economy, our pensions are in jeopardy. They want to start privatizing our health care system. And we need to start un-electing the Members of Parliament who back that agenda in order to stop them.

There are a number of policy areas that are of particular interest to me.

- I will defend the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. I will press government to honour the standards and conventions established by the United Nations' International Labour Organization.

- I will work to entrench the Canadian Wheat Board as the single desk marketer for Canadian wheat and barley, and commit Canadian policy to the principle of orderly marketing systems for commodity sectors. I will work with farm organizations to help implement income stabilization programmes, tailored for each commodity sector and focused on the family farms that most need the support. I will encourage the development of more producer-run cooperatives to act as a counterweight to the power of multinational agribusiness giants, and to encourage more value-added processing and jobs in Canada.

- The protection of our air, land, fish and wildlife must be a priority. We must address the issue of climate change not with idle words or by taxing you and your family, but with tough laws that force polluters to clean up the mess they have made and to stop tax giveaways that reward corporate polluters.

- Canada must provide robust support to the United Nations and its work in conflict resolution, peacekeeping, and global co-operation, and re-establish Canada as a leader in global peace and development.

- As a Member of Parliament, I will always put the interests of the poor, the oppressed and the disadvantaged foremost in all that I do, keeping the interests of working people and small farmers a top priority. I am not afraid of those goliaths of wealth and privilege.

If you want to learn more about me and about where I stand on the issues, please check out my website and my Facebook page. Both pages also provide contact information so that you can reach me directly to discuss your priorities and concerns.

If you think that I might be the person you want to be the NDP candidate for Regina Lumsden Lake Centre then please support me at one of our two nominating conventions. The first one is in Lumsden on Wednesday June 23 at the Dew Drop Senior’ Centre and the second one is in Regina the very next day, Thursday June 24 at the Italian Club - 2148 Connaught Street. Registration for both conventions begins at 5:30 PM.
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Thanks to Don for taking the time to introduce himself to readers. And I'll encourage anybody interested in giving a voice to those who are currently marginalized in Ottawa to help Don's campaign through the links above.

On top-down communication

It's noteworthy enough that after the spring session of the Legislature, the Sask Party government felt the need to go back to the drawing board with a new - or at least reworded - set of mandate letters. And I'm not inclined to allow the Wall government to change the subject from its own incompetence (and the resulting movement for change) for too long.

But there are a few points from the mandate letters that themselves speak volumes about the Wall government's warped priorities. And I'll take the opportunity to highlight a few that stand out.

For now, let's take a look at one of the tasks found in the letter to Wall's own deputy minister, Doug Moen:

Facilitating coordination and delivery of all government communications by providing effective strategic direction and implementing a new organization model that better aligns ministry communications activities to the Executive Council.

Now, I'm not aware of anybody in Saskatchewan expressing concern that Wall wasn't quite controlling enough, or that the province needed more top-down messaging. But the instruction to Moen seems to signal that after a session where his government has been rightly slammed for refusing to consult or communicate with Saskatchewan citizens, Wall is doubling down on a Harper-style system where his office strictly limits what the rest of the government says and does. And it's doubtful that either the ministries or the people who deal with them will appreciate the move toward centralized control.

Sham. Wow. Tony.

Shorter Tony Clement:

Can we agree that we won't be able to have any useful discussion about our new copyright legislation until we've all had a chance to see it? Good. With that in mind...Hi, it's Tony with DMCA! You’ll be saying "eh" every time you try to get at your favourite content!

Make haste, for the hour has grown late

For those in Regina Coronation Park and Regina South who haven't yet renewed or signed up for an NDP membership, Friday is the membership cutoff date for the nomination meetings later this month. So even if you haven't yet decided who to support, now might be a good time to pick up your membership so that you'll have the chance to vote.

On targets

In his comment on Angus Reid's findings about the best possible leader for an NDP/Lib coalition, Jeff unintentionally points out the reason why no replacement leader for the Libs can be expected to substantially improve the odds of taking down the Harper Cons - and why Canadians looking for change should cast their attention elsewhere:

And the X factor, of course, is the multi-million dollar demonization campaign the Conservatives unleashed on Ignatieff, and you can be sure one is sitting in a drawer on Bob.

Of course, it's undoubtedly true that any possible replacement for Ignatieff as the face of the Libs will face a similar blitz from the Cons. And the newer and less prominent any replacement is, the more devastating a campaign by the Cons is bound to be, as a consistent negative message sticks easily to a leader who lacks much public definition.

But there's a corollary to that view: a leader who's already well-defined and has a proven strategy for dealing with Con attacks makes for a far less juicy target. And while the Cons' strategy has been effective in smearing new leaders at a point where they aren't yet household names, it's been less so in attacking Layton in the past.

Remember that the Con response to the 2008 coalition included all-out slams on Layton and the NDP as coalition partners - which managed to affect Layton's numbers only temporarily. And with Layton now back on top as the most popular federal leader based on his work over the course of seven years at the helm of the NDP, it seems safe to say that the Cons will have a much tougher time tearing him down than anybody the Libs can present to the country.

So the case for putting Layton front and centre in any discussion of coalitions is based on more than just the fact that his current numbers are higher than the Libs' contenders. There's also a far stronger likelihood that Layton's positives can withstand the worst the Cons can throw at him - and that staying power may be the key to the change Canadians want.

Monday Morning Blog Links

Too many tabs to clear off all of them at once, so let's start with a quick run through some blog posts of note.

- Scott's suggestion for the Libs' coalition message may be a bit wordy, but it gets close to what looks to be the best possible starting point where all options are on the table.

- Steve is right to note how ridiculous the Cons look for claiming that the big meanie Liberals made them spend hundreds of millions of dollars on G8/G20 security. But let's note that the Cons aren't done digging, with a spokesflack spinning as a gratuitous "passing jab" as if that's supposed to be a reasonable explanation.

- It didn't take long in the wake of this morning's Angus Reid poll for Three Hundred Eight to crunch the national numbers on coalitions led by Ignatieff, Rae and Layton. But it's worth noting that in all three scenarios, either the Cons or the Libs would need the support of the Bloc to govern - meaning that all parties may have reason to stop the gratuitous Bloc-bashing that's remained the most problematic part of any coalition discussion.

- Finally, the back-and-forth between the gang at the Progressive Economics Forum and Stephen Gordon over tax policy has been a staple of the Canadian blogosphere for some time now. And it took one of its most interesting turns yet over the past week, with Gordon's slightly questionable list of sources allegedly supporting a corporate-first agenda getting promptly shot down by Marc Lee.

On media access

LRT is right to note that there's far less actual demand for right-wing propaganda than one would think from the sheer amount of it available. But at the same time, we also shouldn't underestimate its reach or ignore its dangerous effects.

After all, the number of people reached by even a relatively unpopular broadcast outlet may well be enough to sway public opinion by influencing what gets discussed and how. And there are plenty of examples of wealthy owners taking a loss on media outlets in order to better serve their interests elsewhere - e.g. by shouting down any talk of a progressive tax system, or (as in the current brouhaha) fomenting anger at workers.

That's why the likes of John Gormley will perpetually have access to a substantial audience, even if truly market-based decisions would see them turfed. And it's why we can't afford to let his ilk get too extreme without being called out through the more modest media that we have available.

A leadership moment

During the 2008 parliamentary showdown, the NDP went out of its way to avoid having any insistence on top cabinet positions derail the progressive coalition, explicitly ruling out any demand for posts like finance minister or deputy PM in order to assemble a team that could take down the Harper government. Now, we may get to find out whether the Libs have any interest in doing the same:

Si une coalition PLC-NPD était offerte aux électeurs, elle pourrait prendre le pouvoir. Toutefois, les conservateurs réussiraient à défaire une coalition dirigée par Michael Ignatieff (40% au PCC contre 34% au PLC-NPD). Dirigée par Bob Rae, la coalition arriverait à égalité avec le PCC (38% de chaque côté).

Seule une coalition pilotée par Jack Layton remporterait les élections (43% contre 37% pour le PCC). Cette coalition serait tout aussi populaire au Québec. Elle y récolterait 44% des suffrages, soit 10 points de pourcentage de plus que le Bloc québécois. «Jack Layton est aimé au Québec, mais plusieurs ne votent pas pour son parti, car ils savent qu'il n'a pas de chance d'être élu. Avec une coalition, cela change les intentions de vote», estime M. Mukerji.

Mind you, there is another way from point A to point B. After all, if the apparently-substantial number of Quebec voters holding off on voting NDP due only to the fact that they don't know their own strength can be brought together by the next election, then the Libs might well be cut out of the picture entirely.

But there seems to be little room for doubt that the strongest possible coalition would feature Layton as its leader. And how the Libs respond to that possibility may determine whether or not there's much hope of bringing down the Harper government in the foreseeable future.

On lost perspectives

It's a sad day for the Canadian blogosphere when leading sources of snark and perspective alike decide to go dark. All the best to both CC and Dan Gardner in their continued work - and I'll hope the pull of the blogs is strong enough to bring both back in time.

Take two

Yesterday, Jack Layton suggested that the opposition parties use the fact that the Cons won't want to see a vote of non-confidence before next month's international summits as an opportunity to press for better policies than they'd have on offer otherwise. That might be limited to slowing down or diverting some of the garbage tossed into the Cons' dumpster bill - or with a strong opposition push, it might well mean getting some genuinely positive policy put in place as the price of allowing Stephen Harper his much-sought-after photo ops. (How about, say, getting the Climate Change Accountability Act through the Senate?)

Since Layton made the suggestion, I've seen plenty of Libs respond by labelling it a stunt or by criticizing Layton's wording. But I've seen exactly zero consider the possibility on its merits.

So let's put the idea out there again. Is there some reason why the opposition parties in general (or the Libs in particular) wouldn't try to get some results with the leverage that comes from the Cons wanting to avoid an election? And if not, then what can they work together to get done?

The reviews are in

Following up on this morning's post, here's the Montreal Gazette editorial board with its own well-justified concern about the Cons' dumpster bill:

The measures are not of prime importance - except maybe the environment one - but this practice simply guts Parliamentary debate.

And they're getting away with it. No party wants an election now, and the public wants one even less. But an election would be triggered if MPs defeat the budget, the cornerstone of the government agenda. So the budget is sure to pass, meaning anything included in it has a get-out-of-jail-free card: no cranky opposition, no careful study, no public airing. The whole budget bill got just seven days of House debate, and five in committee.

This is a shabby and unreasonable way to do the public's business.
...
One passed in the House, the budget bill faces the Senate, where some senators are threatening to separate one or all of the measures listed above before passage. The argument against that is that the Senate, with so little democratic legitimacy, ought not to interfere with the public will as expressed by the Commons. But an omnibus bill like this is in itself plainly a circumventing of MPs' authority (and duty) to express the public will on various matters.

Stephen Harper and his troops have resorted to this gimmick after about half of their legislation, in recent years, has been stymied one way or another - either by their own artful prorogations or by the opposition. We can understand ministers' frustration, but respected political scientist Ned Franks had this right when he told the Hill Times that this kind of "end run" is an "abomination" and a good example of "how not to do legislation."

On rush jobs

Not surprisingly, the Cons are making up excuses as to why their dumpster bill should go unchallenged. But let's see just how well the excuse holds up to scrutiny.

Here's the Cons' spokesflack explaining why nobody should bother looking at 880 pages worth of Harper-driven legislative amendments, many of which have nothing to do with the budget they're tied to:

“The all-party House of Commons Finance Committee has scrutinized C-9 and passed it without amendment,” Mr. Chisholm noted.

So what actually happened at the Finance Committee, which covered those 880 pages in a grand total of seven meetings? Let's take a look to see if anybody can reasonably claim that concerns about the bill were actually given proper scrutiny.

The first meeting to study C-9 took place on April 22. On that day, the Finance Committee received approximately 80 minutes to ask questions about the first three parts of C-9, covering 97 sections of statutory changes. And Finance Committee Chair James Rajotte helpfully described the workload associated with the bill as follows:

Okay, it looks like we've finished 3 of 24 parts today.

I do want to very much thank the witness for being here.

Colleagues, you may want to hear this. We have 21 parts left of the bill. We have 62 witnesses who have been requested on this bill. There are some time sensitive issues here that need to be done, at least in the government's view, by June.

Not surprisingly, at least some opposition members were somewhat concerned with having to jam that many witnesses in along with the sheer size of the bill. But when NDP MP Pat Martin suggested splitting up the bill, here's what he was told:

Mr. Pat Martin:
My only observation, on the NDP's part, is that you could always split the bill as a third option. You didn't have to stuff in all of these controversial things that have really nothing to do with the budget, like the environmental assessment review, etc.

Break out the time-sensitive parts of this bill and I think it would pass speedily, and leave the controversial stuff for further analysis later on.

The Chair:
I appreciate that, but as you know from reading your O'Brien and Bosc book, a committee has to deal with a bill as sent to it by the House of Commons. So we have no choice as a committee other than to deal with the bill in its present form.

So in case there's any doubt as to whether the fact that the bill wasn't split up at the Finance Committee level means that anybody actually approved of having it rammed through all at once, the answer is a flat "no".

The Finance Committee's April 27 meeting, which lasted two and a half hours (including a forty-five minute break for a vote in the House of Commons), finished off only two parts of the bill. But since one of those parts was the massive Part 5 dealing with customs tariffs, the meeting made for MPs' lone opportunity to deal with a grand total of 1,548 sections of C-9. So shall we ask if anybody honestly believes that an average of four seconds of scrutiny per section is plenty of time to evaluate the Cons' budget legislation?

Thanks in large part to Rajotte's admonitions that MPs "be as brief as possible in our questions" and "try to get through...as many parts as we can today" as well as a decision to limit questioning to five-minute rounds, the Finance Committee's two-hour meeting on April 29 managed to breeze through parts 6 through 14 of the bill, covering 136 sections. (And they'd have made it further if the Vice Chair's attempt to simply declare five parts dealt with without any questions had succeeded.) As part of their effort to give the budget implementation proper scrutiny, MPs received helpful answers such as these ones dealing with the Cons' claim to have saved a bundle of money by eliminating positions which didn't actually cost anything:

Mr. Robert Carrier:
At how much do you estimate the real savings from the elimination of these positions?

Ms. Claudette Lévesque:
We did not evaluate that... It was not just a computing exercise, it was an exercise to try to evaluate the efficiency of the various boards and to ensure the best governance. If all 245 positions had been filled, we estimate that the costs — this is a very rough estimate that we did with Treasury Board — including the per diems, the honorariums, travel costs and everything associated with these boards, would be $1,000,000 to $1,250,000 for the 245 positions.

Mr. Robert Carrier:
That is assuming these positions would be filled. Is that a realistic assumption? Could these positions, even though 90% of them are presently vacant, be potentially filled or are these rather useless positions that you want to eliminate in the interest of efficiency?

Ms. Claudette Lévesque:
I am unable to comment. Obviously, these positions are filled by Governor in Council appointments. So this would be on the advice of the minister in charge of that portfolio. I could not say regarding any given position whether it could have been filled, but as a result of the assessment it was decided that they were no longer necessary.

At the Finance Committee's next meeting on May 4, Rajotte helpfully signalled that he wanted to be done dealing with the bill by the end of that week. The two-hour meeting dealt with Parts 15-19 of C-9 (266 sections in total), including the thorny issues of Canada Post and AECL.

Along the way, the Cons decided that any information about what effect the amendments might actually have on Canada Post had to be withheld from the MPs assessing the bill:

Mr. Thomas Mulcair:
As an elected member, I want to see those analyses that have been done by your department. Can I have them?

Ms. Katherine Moynihan:
I imagine the studies will be subject to the Cabinet confidence policy.
...

Mr. Thomas Mulcair:
The thing is, the Cabinet in question is asking us to vote for or against a bill, based on information we don't have. It is a great pleasure to meet you this afternoon, Ms. Moynihan, but you are giving me nothing that clarifies it for me and enables me to make that decision.

Mr. Ted Menzies:
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Go ahead.

Mr. Ted Menzies: Having been a minister, Mr. Mulcair would know that there is cabinet confidentiality.

If you wish that information, rather than asking this witness, I would suggest that you ask the minister—
...
Mr. Thomas Mulcair:
We've just been told that studies and scenarios and modelling have been done as to the potential costs. The member of Parliament who is sitting in the corner over there decided that he knows that they're cabinet documents. We have no such information. If he has been given access to cabinet documents, we should be given the same access, because he's just a member of Parliament, as we are.

The Chair:
As the chair, I will make the request that if there are any documents that can be made available to the committee, please make them available to the clerk and they will be made available to all members.

The May 5 meeting began with Rajotte declaring his intention to complete the committee's review of the five remaining parts of the bill, including Part 20 dealing with environmental assessments, Part 21 making changes to the Canada Labour Code, and Part 23 amending Canada's telecommunications ownership laws. The committee didn't quite make it to the end, but managed to skim over Parts 20-23 (32 total sections) in two hours.

The two-hour May 6 meeting covered Part 24, then got started with the first six organizations on the committee's witness list. On May 11, a three-hour meeting dealt with 11 organizations' views on the environmental assessment and nuclear issues. On May 12, a 95-minute meeting dealt with a panel of six organizations on a grab bag of issues within C-9.

Finally, the May 13 meeting raced through votes on all sections of the bill in under half an hour - with a number of provisions passing thanks only to the chair breaking a tie in the absence of a full Lib slate. A statement by NDP MP Pat Martin made for the only substantive discussion - but it led to this response from Dean Del Mastro:

(A)s the member would well know, bills are often brought before the House. We don't presuppose at committee whether a bill would pass or not; that's why we have standing votes in the House of Commons.

The member presupposes that the absence of a given member is in fact determining whether these clauses or this bill would succeed or fail. I'd suggest that it's not fair to project onto anyone whether something would pass or fail if the membership were in fact somewhat different.

So in committee, the Cons told the NDP that it shouldn't worry too much about what happened there since the House would have its say. But now that the bill has passed committee, they're claiming that the House has no business doing just that.

To sum up, then, the 2208 sections of C-9 were dealt with in committee for a total of roughly 18 hours - meaning that on average 122 sections were dealt with per hour, or over two per minute of committee time. That amount includes questions to officials, outside organizations' presentations and comments from the MPs involved. And needless to say, the breakneck pace came due thanks in large part to the Cons' constant demands that the process be sped up and the level of detail pared down - and with the usual obstacles put in the way of other parties' attempts to gather information.

So the only available conclusion is that the Cons have been working at all turns to make sure that C-9 doesn't receive the type of scrutiny it deserves. And the fact that they managed to strongarm the Libs at a previous point in the process most certainly doesn't entitle them to declare that there's no point in changing that reality now.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

On showing up

Update: This post has been removed and retracted in its entirety. My apologies to Tom Lukiwski for any harm to his reputation caused by this post or its contents.

Blasphemy

Needless to say, it's shocking that anybody would have the nerve to suggest using the combined votes of the majority of MPs as leverage to ensure that the Harper Cons can't impose their dumpster budget on the country. And this is what makes Jack Layton a much less Serious(TM) leader than Michael Ignatieff.

Update: Though Impolitical does have a point: if Layton wanted to signal his desire to cooperate with Ignatieff, clearly he'd have been better off launching a dishonest ad campaign against him.

The reviews are in

While B.C.'s successful HST petition and rumoured recall campaign have understandably focused attention at the provincial level, Charlie Smith nicely summarizes the effect that the continued debate over the HST might have on federal politics:

After the 1993 federal election, McGill University political scientist Elizabeth Gidengil demonstrated that the federal NDP lost much of its support to the Reform Party, which was seen as the party of protest that appealed to populist voters.

It was a counterintuitive argument because the Reform Party was adamantly right wing, whereas the NDP was a left-wing party. But in their heyday, each embodied the sense that they were against corporate and government elites who were trying to shove unpopular policies down the public's throat.

With their support for the HST, the Harper Conservatives have yielded this ground to NDP Leader Jack Layton, who is a shrewd observer of political trends.

Don't underestimate the NDP in the next election. With his opposition to the HST, Layton just might outlast both Harper and Ignatieff as a federal party leader.

In other news about Con transparency...

After negotiating down an order to produce Afghanistan torture documents in full to a process allowing them to be examined by a small group of MPs under an oath of confidentiality, the Cons are once again looking for excuses to declare unilaterally that their choice of documents can't even be examined by the group that's sworn to secrecy.

Needless to say, the only reasonable opposition response would be to say that if the Cons are planning to withhold documents through the agreed process, then full enforcement of the original order is back on the table. But more likely the sneak attack will be quietly removed (or worse yet, used as the basis for other concessions to the Cons), and the lesson about Con "cooperation" once again forgotten.

(Edit: fixed wording, added parenthetical.)

Double standards and cover-ups

Following up on yesterday's post, I'll offer one final note about Jason Kenney's lies about calling political staffers before Parliamentary committees. And this is a factor that should be absolutely devastating toward the Cons' base to the extent any reality manages to reach them.

Even today, the Cons' reflexive response to any concern about their ethics in government is to shriek "Adscam!", which their supporters take as reason enough to forgive and forget all Con sins in favour of a round of Lib-bashing.

But Kenney's earlier speech in Parliament about the need to call staffers as witnesses of course involved...Adscam. Which means that the Cons' new policy would serve to prevent Parliament from carrying out some of the same steps which were pursued to expose the Libs' wrongdoing.

As a result, when the Cons say "Adscam" now, it should only serve as a reminder that if their new-found principles in government had applied while they were in opposition, Adscam itself might have been swept under the rug. And that would seem to establish conclusively that the Cons are no less a party of double standards and cover-ups than their predecessors in office - not to mention raising questions about what kind of misuse of public resources they're trying to hide.

Musical interlude

Esthero - Heaven Sent

Grassroots growing

In case there was any doubt that it's still possible to get large numbers of people involved in a political effort, the B.C. HST petition should put that to rest - having reached the required threshold of obtaining signatures from 10 per cent of the voters in every single one of B.C.'s provincial ridings with over a month to spare.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the petition will manage to force a near-term change in policy, government or both. But the fact that it's cleared what was once seen as an insurmountable hurdle should signal that it's not a good idea to bet against the anti-HST movement - and provide a positive example for efforts to get citizens engaged on other issues as well.

Heartening

I'll be hoping to see the site expand from its current content-distribution format to build links between concerned citizens as well. But for those who haven't yet found their way to SGEU's If You Love Saskatchewan site, stop by and lend some heart to the effort to save and strengthen our province's public services.

(Edit: fixed labels.)

Can't be trusted

Following up on Jason Kenney's lies about never asking political staffers to testify while in opposition, let's take a somewhat closer look at the factors (aside from the fact that it's been caught on tape) makes this particular dishonesty so damaging compared to the Cons' usual garden-variety lies.

The first point worth noting is that Kenney doesn't simply present his false version of history in the Cons' usual style of idly reciting talking points or provoking an obviously fabricated shouting match. Instead, he manages to summon plenty of apparent emotion and outrage in support of his lies.

And that's only amplified by the second point, which is that Kenney's Power Play appearance includes plenty of the types of personal details (e.g. about his own aggressiveness) and even seeming attempts to remember past events which would normally provide some indication of genuine recall as opposed to fabrication. Rather than simply reciting a party-based message, his words are tied to a personalized time frame and his own supposed memory of his time in opposition:

I was in Parliament as an opposition member for nine or ten years, and I was a pretty aggressive opposition member. I don't ever recall, in that decade, current political staff members of the government being called before committees to testify.

Now, it's one thing to be caught giving false information when there's some argument to be made that a minister was simply misinformed about something beyond his or her control. And that tends to be the territory where the Cons normally operate, bolstered by their strategy of covering up any information that would indicate what ministers actually knew at the time they answer a particular question.

But it's another matter entirely to be caught saying with the fullest possible conviction that one's own documented history never happened - having had one's fake sincerity laid bare for all to see. And that's where Kenney now stands.

Which is to say that Kenney has effectively been drained of all credibility. He can't pretend to speak with passion on anything, or to have any useful content to offer from his personal experience, because he's shown himself to be able to put on a blatantly false facade in both of those areas.

Of course, the Cons generally consider that kind of performance to be grounds for promotion rather than reason for concern. And they still get taken far too seriously on far too many subjects despite their track record of dishonesty. But the gap between what Canadians can see with their own eyes and what the Cons pretend to passionately recall and believe is bound to reach the point where Harper and his spokesparrots are answered with nothing but derision and mistrust - and the sooner that response becomes the norm, the better.

Well said

Joe Kuchta takes full advantage of a chance to rebut a poorly-informed Star-Phoenix editorial on the WEPA, boiling down both what the agreement actually does and how dishonestly it's been peddled:

Those who claim the new agreement is not TILMA are not being entirely honest. The format is exactly the same and the content nearly identical. The new agreement retains the worst elements of TILMA, such as the right of private parties to challenge government entities. The New West pact provides for financial penalties of up to $5 million if a government is found to be non-compliant with its obligations.

Agreements like TILMA and the New West Partnership are meant to pressure governments to reduce standards and regulations to the lowest common denominator or abandon them altogether. They are by intent, design and structure no more than instruments for deregulation.

The reviews are in

Plenty of voices are chiming on the Cons' billion-dollar G8/G20 boondoggle - and none looks to be buying the Cons' spin for a second. Here's Don Martin with his own list of what could have been funded with the Cons' wasted billion:

No amount of righteous government bluster about living in post-9/11 protection paranoia, last week's bank firebombing in Ottawa or the precedent of hosting two back-to-back summits can explain how an $18-million security tab for the G20 in Pittsburgh last September, which involved 4,000 police, must balloon to a billion dollars in Toronto requiring 10,000 cops on the ground.

This is Canada, not Kandahar. In a London that has seen subway and bus terrorist bombings, the official security tab for its G20 gathering last March was $30-million.
...
The tab for this security overkill could cover a third of the estimated international cost for the African family planning initiative, or pay two-thirds of Canada's 10-year humanitarian assistance program in Afghanistan.

A government that still hasn't delivered on its promise to beef up police forces could hire 2,500 officers for five years, buy a million advanced Tasers, pay a year's salary for 23,000 soldiers, procure a total of 366 LAVs or purchase five Black Hawk helicopters for every hour the leaders are yakking.

Jeffrey Simpson focuses on the Cons' needless siege mentality:

This siege mentality has now been used in preparing for the G8 and G20, with everyone fearing some major terrorist attack against the leaders, or against one of them. A corner of Muskoka is being turned into a militarized zone, downtown Toronto shut off, baseball games moved out of town, thousands of police and security agents mobilized, to say nothing of helicopters, planes and, for all we know, submarines in Lake Ontario.

The siege mentality then joins the explosion of staff that now accompany leaders to such events to create events of nightmarish bureaucracy. Canadians officials have been camped out in Toronto for almost two months working on the myriad of logistical details to make this extravaganza happen.

The whole thing is over the top and way too expensive for three days that bid fair to be a non-event in substance.

Alec Bruce nicely boils down the issue with a comparison to family expenses:

There is something almost poignant about federal office holders who believe they have to periodically buy their way into the good books of the international community. It's a little like watching a hardscrabble kid-made-good, but from the wrong side of town, cutting a fat cheque to a country club.

Oh, he's a member, alright. But, he'll never really belong.

Meanwhile the kids stay home wondering whether daddy's super-ego will forever eclipse their own social, educational and employment aspirations as the household debt mounts and the deficit between fond ambition and brutal reality widens.

And the Star features several strong letters to the editor, including this gem from David Hague:

If I challenged anyone to spend $1 billion with the proviso that once the money was spent there can be no evidence of the expenditure, the winner of the challenge would probably have hosted a G20 summit. Once the summit is over the billion dollars will have evaporated. Oh well no big deal as we just borrow the money from our children and grandchildren and let them pay the bill.

A moratorium on logic

Shorter Jim Prentice:

If BP's disastrous spill in the Gulf of Mexico has taught us anything, it's that we can consider offshore drilling to be risk-free everywhere except the Arctic.

Shocking. Absolutely shocking.

No, not the fact that Jason Kenney lies:



But it's remarkable that it's only now that people are rightfully noticing what's been obvious for ages.

(Edit: added links, fixed formatting.)

Wasted breath

Shorter Kevin Carmichael:

If you assume that the G20 is the lone organization whose discussions can possibly result in improvements to the global economy, then it's worth any amount of money to keep it running smoothly. And it's not as if anybody's standing in the way of consensus on further progress, right?

By way of analogy

Following up on this morning's post about Tony Clement's dishonest attempt to pretend that a Canadian DMCA would somehow help the people whose choices would be limited by new Con legislation, let's consider briefly whether there are any other areas of public policy where the Cons might want to eventually follow Clement's approach.

So where else might there be...
...a current vacuum of federal law resulting from past court decisions...
...leading to choices being made in the absence of any enforcement of outside values on individuals...
...raising an opportunity for the Cons to argue that they need to pass new legislation to officially sanction those choices...
...and concurrently allowing the Cons to use the "need" as an excuse to impose limits on personal freedom of choice where none currently exist?

Not that I have any such areas in mind, of course. But let's just say it's worth being careful about letting Clement's form of argument go unopposed on copyright lest it turn up again.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

I suppose that works too

I'd still think that the best possible comparison for the Cons' ridiculous billion-dollar G8 and G20 expenses is the amount of democratic participation we could fund at home for the same amount of money - linking the amount of money spent on foreign politicians to a domestic equivalent, and providing a counterattack against what's going to be one of the Cons' key attack lines in the next election campaign. But the NDP's list - with more of a focus on obvious policy impacts - is worth a look as well to see just how much money the Cons are frittering away.

On false confessions

Lest there be any doubt based on the Cons' track record, if Tony Clement thought he was in any real legal jeopardy over format-shifted content, he'd have denied the very existence of iPods, blamed a random staffer for transferring the music without his knowledge, claimed that the Canada Evidence Act and national security interests actually require him to have his favourite music available in case of an emergency, and started a smear campaign and lawsuit against Thomas Edison claiming that the recording of music is all a conspiracy against his party. So take his pathetic attempt to soften the ground for the Cons' impending DMCA for what it is.

Failure in action

Thomas Walkom's evisceration of the Libs' ineffectiveness has received plenty of well-deserved attention. But why settle for a column pointing out the Libs' ineffectiveness when we can see it being lived out before our eyes?

As I've noted before, the Cons have managed to make themselves look silly and isolate themselves internationally as the lone voice fighting a coordinated tax to make the financial industry responsible for the costs of insuring against its own failures. Which would seem to make for an ideal point of contrast for any competent opposition party.

So naturally, here's the Libs' position:

"I think it's a diversionary tactic to take attention away from subjects they regard as unpleasant on which the Harper government has been isolated," said Liberal Finance critic John McCallum. He did, however, say he also opposed a bank tax.

That's right: given a chance to paint the Cons as irresponsibly standing in the way of global financial stability, the Libs...are quibbling about process while agreeing with the Cons in substance.

Which hints at another reason why they've been missing in action on the Cons' omnibus bills and other manipulations of government. For all the bluster in both directions, there just isn't much difference between the Libs and the Cons when it counts - even when that leaves them united arguing against the world.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Once again, a few odds and ends which I haven't had a chance to comment on in a full post...

- The issue of Afghanistan torture documents seems to have mostly faded away since a deal was reached in Parliament. But it's worth keeping in mind the uncertainty as to whether the documents provided to the reviewing committee will actually include all the material that matters. And considering that the Cons fought for months against a binding order, there's little reason to think they'll act in good faith now if there's any chance to keep damning evidence under wraps.

- There's been plenty of talk about possible cooperation among the federal opposition parties, with a strong assumption that the talk has to find its way upward from the grassroots. Which makes for an interesting comparison to what's going on in Alberta, where the Libs have become the first party to nominally vote for some cooperation with other parties - even though the NDP's members had already spoken to say they weren't interested.

- It sounds damaging enough to point out that the Cons are actively monitoring any unfavourable expressions of opinion online. But let's take it a step further: Stephen Harper wants to trample on your happiness since it threatens his government.

- After taking an early lead in the "most blindingly orange website" contest with fellow Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre candidate Brian Sklar, Don Hansen has apparently conceded that race in favour of a more sleek and readable site. You can express your gratitude (or disappointment) at a meet-and-greet this Friday.

- Finally, the Cons seem to be trying to flood Canada's limited number of information experts with regressive legislation in hopes that something will sneak by unanswered. Fortunately, Michael Geist is up to the task of taking them to task on copyright and privacy protection alike.

The reviews are in

Murray Mandryk rightly calls out the Sask Party for politicizing labour negotiations, and places the blame for the resulting fallout where it belongs:

What is bothering many workers, however, is articulated in the CUPE/SGEU/SEIU (Service Employees International Union) newspaper ads you saw on the weekend that talk about SAHO and the government "playing favourites" by "giving some health-care workers better treatment than others."

One of the reasons the Sask. Party wanted SUN (the public sector union with the best public image) on its side going into the 2007 election was the pure political one of softening the Sask. Party's image with urban voters and women. More problematic was the Sask. Party government's eagerness to cement this relationship with its extraordinarily generous offer to SUN.

Simply put, the government stuck its nose in the SUN negotiations, resulting in SAHO doing the political bidding of the Sask. Party rather than doing its job of getting the best possible deal for the Saskatchewan taxpayers.

Now, the other health-care unions are miffed and refusing to settle and SAHO is again doing the political bidding of the Sask. Party by cutting off negotiations and embarking on the current campaign to convince us the wage offers are fair and equitable.

Perhaps, the offers are fair and equitable, but the treatment of the other unions isn't.

Well said

John Moore reminds us of the purpose for the Cons' selective presentation of carefully-staged images of Stephen Harper, as the media is far too readily being used to distract from the reality of who currently occupies 24 Sussex:

What’s being sold, as so often happens in TV advertising, is the aura that surrounds the product, not the merits of it. And it is being deftly done. The trick in selling a politician and his policies on TV is to offering a commercial that looks like a news story. And in the instance of the rock ’n’ roll dad, what Our Glorious Leader’s handlers are doing is taken from the Ronald Reagan era in U.S. politics – allowing the cameras to film the leader often in his R&R time to show he’s a regular guy, not a professional politician.

We all know, intuitively, that this is a marketing campaign. We all know intuitively that it is timed to distract from the reactionary, hard-line, ideological PM who emerged through his position on maternal health and the abortion issue. We all know that the scary reactionary is being softened into a regular dad with a missus mad about the gardening.

While we know it intuitively, it needs to be said, aloud and often. That short piece of media analysis on Canada AM was one of the very few times recently when the selling of Our Glorious Leader was laid bare.

On spending decisions

There's plenty of justified outrage about the price tag for the Cons' choice of G8 and G20 venues. But let's put the number in context by comparing it to the Cons' plan to defund democracy in Canada.

For the cost of a few days worth of international photo-ops where Harper and company actually plan to hold up most meaningful discussions, we could afford 30 years of the per-vote party funding that the Cons want to slash. So what do Canadians think is a better use of their tax money: providing a temporary elite international forum where their own government will try to ensure that nothing much gets done, or decades worth of stable funding to ensure democratic diversity in Canada?

On openness

With talk about transparency for MP expenses dominating the federal scene for the past few weeks, it was inevitable that similar questions would start to get asked at the provincial level. And it's a huge plus to see the Saskatchewan NDP take a stand in favour of improved disclosure from the start, particularly with the Sask Party going down the route of its federal cousins by making a fool of itself trying to defend the status quo.

Here's the Sask Party's response to a question about disclosure of caucus expenses:

Morgan, the (Sask Party) government's justice minister, struggled to explain why (caucus funding) has remained hidden over the years even while transparency has increased on other aspects of provincial spending.

He suggested details of caucus spending would provide information to political opponents and raise questions about "motives."

"I think by its nature, caucus is . . . very reluctant to release information that they feel could effect their ability to deal with issues in the house when they want to bring things up," said Morgan.

Sask Party. Hiding. Questionable motives. Can't deal openly with issues. Check.

In contrast, the NDP has nothing to hide, and is willing to disclose its caucus spending accordingly:

But (NDP MLA Kevin) Yates said he could not think of any aspect of caucus spending that would be problematic to release publicly.

He said it was probably time for the board of internal economy to review all rules around expenditure and disclosure.

Needless to say, that looks to be a difficult position for the Sask Party to argue against. So thanks to the Saskatchewan NDP, we should be well on our way toward improved disclosure on the provincial level without the waiting game being played federally - at least, unless the Sask Party thinks it'll do itself more damage by letting the truth get out than by arguing alone for keeping the public in the dark.

Off message

I should have known there would be a twist to make the Cons' latest attack on accountability even worse. And sure enough, they unveiled a doozy this morning: apparently "ministerial responsibility" means having their choice of uninformed ministers answer questions about departments or decisions which have nothing to do with their knowledge or authority.

But while the Cons have surely managed to offer up a creative new form of unaccountability, I have to wonder whether the messaging around it really fits what they're trying to get across. Does a party whose base is committed to personal responsibility actually think that there's no problem with making "ministerial responsibility" referable only to a cabinet hive-mind? And is Jay Hill's extended waaambulance ride the best pitch for a party which normally tries to portray itself as strong and in control?

A test of responsibility

Kady has already pointed out one of the obvious corollaries if the Cons had any actual belief in ministerial responsibility, as Stephen Harper would then be responsible to explain and justify the policy personally rather than forcing the likes of Dimitri Soudas to serve as the public face of an anti-accountability strategy. But let's note that there are other areas where it'll be easy to test the Cons' commitment to the principle.

For example, a government actually intending to encourage ministerial responsibility would have to allow the minister responsible to answer the opposition's questions about any matter within the scope of departmental responsibility - and to actually discuss what the department is doing, rather than attacking the questioner or changing the subject in accordance with centrally-driven talking points. So will we see the Cons abandon their strategy of sending up the likes of John Baird to serve as all-purpose spokesparrots in favour of having ministers actually allow themselves to be held to account?

This is where we pause for laughter.

On strategic planning

I'll agree generally with Brian Topp's take on the NDP's best strategy for the near future now that the idea of a coalition is receiving some more public discussion. But it's worth pointing out one crucial difference between today and 2008.

Back then, all indications are that the NDP was the lone party with anything resembling a plan for a coalition. And the Libs' lack of advance planning presumably played a substantial role in their being unprepared to discuss a coalition immediately after the election, or to publicly defend one following Deficit Jim Flaherty's subsequent FU.

Now, there may not be much reason to think a formal agreement is in the cards in advance of any election - and indeed neither party has expressed much apparent interest in any pre-election non-aggression pact. But the fact that the Libs' elders have already negotiated one coalition agreement and are keeping up high-level talks about future possibilities would seem to ensure that they won't be caught completely off guard when the opportunity arises again. And that can only help the prospects of a coalition developing and succeeding after an election - even if the campaign looks an awful lot like the one that preceded it.

Surprise, surprise

Let's see how the first test of the Cons' New Era of Ministerial Accountability is working out:

Ms. Oda’s spokeswoman, Jessica Fletcher, said in a e-mail that the minister wouldn't comment on the contents of the briefing notes.

Requests for an interview with CIDA representatives went unanswered.

But don't worry: the Cons will surely find their commitment to ministerial responsibility again just in time for the next photo op.

Just wondering...

...but since nobody seems to have thought to ask even as Brad Wall has used it as his pretext for a trip to China, there are a couple of questions crying out for answers about the Wall government's relationship with B.C. and Alberta.

If the goal in establishing a "partnership" is simply to brand Western Canada's resources on a regional basis in travelling abroad, then why in the world has membership in the club been limited to those provinces willing to sign away their right to democratic government? And isn't it downright negligent of the Campbell, Stelmach and Wall to have refused to invite, say, Manitoba to participate as well if the primary goal involves building links for the region?

A line of spin is born

The Hill Times previews what's sure to be the Cons' argument about the role of the Governor General just as soon as they've had the chance to install their nominee in the role:

Meanwhile, as the possibility of the Liberals winning the most seats in Parliament in the next election becomes more and more remote, many in the party are saying they are more open to the possibility of forming a coalition with the NDP.

"What they've decided to do [in the U.K.] is exactly what I think we should be doing in Canada, everyday in the House of Commons," said Mr. McGuinty. "We should be working together to make sure we put the interests of the Canadian people first above all else."

A coalition government agreement would require the consent of the Governor General, however, and there is speculation Mr. Harper will name a replacement for the current GG by July 1.

Needless to say, the proper response is that despite the unfortunate precedent set in 2008, the GG doesn't have the authority to withhold consent to a coalition government approved by the majority in the House of Commons.

But it shouldn't come as much surprise if the Cons are setting themselves up to argue otherwise. And any NDP and Lib supporters trying to lay the groundwork for a coalition will need to make sure the Cons can't once again pretend to own some presidential entitlement to stay in office after losing the confidence of the House.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

On limited rulings

Dr. Dawg is right to note that the Cons have apparently drawn their latest anti-accountability strategy from the words of the ruling on Afghnistan torture documents which they once denounced. And there's certainly a lesson there for Peter Milliken and anybody else who may have to decide about any future Con argument as to the dangers of attempting to offer the Cons any rhetorical middle ground.

But it's worth noting that Milliken doesn't say for a second that committees can't seek answers from political staffers - only that staffers may face some conflicting pressures if they see themselves as bound primarily by their ministerial loyalties, and that committees should be willing to recognize limits on what a staffer is entitled to say where a particular answer might reveal advice to a minister. And that issue is discussed as a matter of what committees should do as a best practice, not a limit on what they have the authority to do.

Of course, the Cons are all too eager to eliminate any trace of context from Milliken's words in order to suggest that no staffer should ever testify about anything. But Milliken's ruling is clear that any reason for caution is based solely on the issue of whether a staffer's testimony might disclose advice. And that leaves no reason for committees to be shy about having staffers testify as to facts or decisions made at the staffer's level, nor for the Cons to launch an assault on the authority of committees to call their choice of witnesses.