Tag: Canadian Politics 2007

My Kind Of Conservative

I likely won’t vote for the man and the characteristics that are pointed out in this Toronto Star article may be exactly the sort of thing that loses him votes on certain sectors of the right but this is the sort of thing that I used to not be surprised to read in an article about a conservative leader in the good old pre-neo-con days:

“I’m just telling you when I see those things, that’s the way I react. How can we possibly live with ourselves when we have that kind of thing going on in a wealthy society like this?” When asked about what he would do to help eliminate poverty in the province, Tory, a former chair of the United Way of Greater Toronto, said: “I want to put forward a plan to reduce poverty overall … but I want to be certain that I can meet the objectives that I set,” he said.

Tory said his party has committed to a $1 billion, 10-year plan to repair social housing across Ontario to improve living conditions for low-income families. He referred to his plan to revitalize neighbourhoods, to his commitment to eliminate the health-care levy that discriminates against the poor and his program to help skilled immigrants.

While it is true that even our rural overlords in Ottawa have come to understand that Canada is a socialist country that works, that resource wealth when shared egalitarianly leaves plenty for the profit incentive, it is good to see that effectively the issue of poverty is a non-issue, though the responses may differ.

Group Project: Federal Election 2007

Apparently, the logos were being slapped on buses as we slept thought the night:

The Tories, in fact, reportedly plan to use the two already-equipped buses now being operated by Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory in the Oct. 10 provincial election campaign. Two more Greyhound buses for the federal Tories, it’s said, are also being prepared and “wrapped” with Conservative logos and large photos of Harper.

Why? Because the Bloq says they will not support the throne speech and the NDP says they will not support the throne speech. That means a few things:

  • They will, in the end, support the throne speech.
  • Facing the prospect of the Bloq and the NDP not supporting the throne speech, the Liberals will support the throne speech.
  • We are going to have an election!

I love elections. Except Ontario provincial elections which create about as much excitement and policy debate as the weekly seniors discount day at Shoppers Drug Mart. Polite debates largely built around consensus on the bog points. Bo-ring.

Not that we need a Federal election. The minority government is doing quite fine keeping everyone on a pretty moderate path while also providing good opportunity to expose the weaknesses of everyone involved. What could be better? So, if an election comes:

  • Who do you vote for and why?
  • Does punishing the party that triggers the unnecessary election play a role?
  • What are the issues?
  • What is the popular vote?
  • What is the seat count?

That’s not too hard, is it?

Alberta Considers Not Selling The Farm Anymore

What an odd debate it is that is breaking out in Alberta over the report that is stating decades of Conservative governments have been giving away their oil. Alberta’s government owns the resource and gets to charge a royalty for it’s exploitation. While the new Premier has to make the decision, former Premier Klein is showing where his loyalties are to be found:

Speaking yesterday to an industry group in Calgary, Mr. Klein criticized the report, insisting that the province’s previous fiscal regime had provided the necessary stability for companies to invest in Alberta. “These are the things that separate us from places like Venezuela and Iraq, where governments hold foreign companies hostage by arbitrarily hiking royalties,” he said. “We don’t do business like that in this province. We have a fair, clear and comprehensive royalty regime, where the rules are the same for everyone and they don’t change on a whim.”

This is on top of another former Premier, Peter Loughheed causing controversy by suggesting that concern should be had for the state of the Albertan environment in light of the expansion of the oil patch and suggesting increased claims for extra-provincial wealth sharing were coming.

The other day, bouncing around ideas someone came up with beerocracy but it turns out that was an idea once before, one blogger ranking tops on Google for noting in 2003 that the “term was coined by Lady Nancy Astor to describe the Scottish brewing families that entered politics and were influential in Parliament in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and they somehow never brought about a boozy paradise for all.” The influence continued longer than that. Point? I don’t know. But it is interesting to note the unique difficulties and disadvantages that come with windfall booms and monoconomies.

I Forgot Why Mulroney Was So Fun

Remember when Canadian politics involved people against whom you could actually have a reaction?

“Look, out of 11 million citizens of this country, there were a million people — young men from British Columbia to Newfoundland — who rose to fight the Nazis. The most evil machine ever known to man, trying to exterminate the Jews, everybody knew that, and all these young Canadians rose and went overseas to fight them. Pierre Trudeau was not among them. That’s a decision he made. He’s entitled to make that kind of decision. But it doesn’t qualify him for any position of moral leadership in our society.”

That is the sort of good clean fun we haven’t seen in Ottawa for 20 years. Too bad.

An Election In Ontario

Ontario suffers from a funny sort of guilt – sorry it is so large and populous and diverse and economically strong and sets the national agenda. It could spin off Toronto, you know…that might work. And, because someone had a whacky idea a few years back, Ontario has fixed provincial elections and I guess one is coming up. The problem with fixed elections without primaries and stuff is that they sort of creep up on you so here we are about five weeks off and no one is listening that much. Well they will today:

There was a real holiday flavour to the unofficial kickoff of the Ontario election campaign yesterday. The Liberal party promised a new statutory holiday in February if it is re-elected on Oct. 10, something that would give Ontarians a long-called-for winter break.

I say the Conservatives go one better and promise to mirror the, what, 37 or so statutory holidays of Newfoundland. Until we get Regatta Day off – are we really free?

Group Project: Do We Really Need Another Leader?

None of the above. Like most Canadians, the lack of a compelling leader is either a big problem or an admission that we really do not need someone to tell us what to be, we just need someone to administer. It is interesting that many of our southern nieghbours may feel the same thing if ry is right. The Globe and Mail is running articles today examining the current Canadian leadership and gives PMSH some advice:

He should start by asking himself why they haven’t bitten so far. After all, in terms of party standings, the Conservatives are still tied with the Liberals in the low 30s. What’s holding them back? The reasons are evident in the data. A large majority of Canadians associate words such as “controlling” and “partisan” with Mr. Harper. They think he’s too right-wing. Most believe he’s too close to U.S. President George W. Bush. He’s not seen as particularly likeable. A majority don’t think he cares about people like them. And most Canadians feel his government has accomplished little during its time in office.

I dunno but if I have to choose between likeable and capable give me capable. But I am not all that certain that Stephen Harper is all that capable. For me, a center-left non-supporter, he seems more like the first or second leg in a relay. Preston Manning tried to reframe the ideology of conservatism in Canada without any real plan for taking the helm and running the place. Harper has the task of proving a majority is possible but maybe he has to stand aside in a few years for that more charismatic person who can implement policies more in tune with the vision of Reform, someone who can convince me and other swing voters that meddling with actual institutions and constitutional principles is something I want them to do.

Notice I do not even speak of others as leaders even though those parties represent the majority of Canadians and are all to the left (to the left) of the conservatives. For the last two decades, whether under rural or urban overlords, Canadians have been happy to have conservative management by any name as long as enough socialism is being administered by them.

  • Has our relationship to leadership changed? Do we not need someone to frame a national vision preferring just decent management?
  • Is the place of conservatism in the US really any different after the ideological disappointments of the last seven years? If the relay analogy is apt, has the race been won and lost? Can a sensible centrist now reframe it to move it into popularity or is another puritan revival required or, if not, going to be foisted anyway?
  • Is there any major shift in the way politics plays out in North American in the offing? The conservative movement of the second half of the 20th century has been both hugely successful and an utter failure as both nations to one degree or another are reformist social welfare states with hugely successful capitalist infrastructures. What should the next ideological revolution look like? Should it not just be an admission that things are pretty robust, fair and acceptable?

There you go. Something to chew on on this quietest day in the quietest day of the year.

Friday “After The Thunder” Chatfest

Don’t expect much from me today. What a thunder storm. Like the 1812 Symphony without the orchestra: boom, blam, whammo. What with the many mouths a wailing, not a lot of sleep. I almost wrote “flat chest” up there. One more week in August and therefore in summer. Summer really ends around here in October compared to the Maritimes but you know what I mean:

  • Update #2: A neato series of photos from the collection of a new technology museaum in the UK with photos of things like a lump of concrete from 1899 and early 1900s analogue computers including one called “the totalisator” which is my new nickname for me.
  • Update: Brendan Carney, subject of last fall’s overly wrought series on the SU football team, made the pros.
  • Nice to see the scoffing one dimensional right wing bloggers were wrong – again – as the police did infiltrate the wacko protest group at the summit. Darcey’s comment makers display an interesting learning curve but Darcey’s own response is gold:

    Wouldn’t it be crazy if they were undercover protesters pretending to be police officers pretending to be protesters? That would be the ultimate…Or wouldn’t it be weird…if they were police who wanted to be involved in the protest? Maybe their overwhelming zeal was too much for some of the more moderate protesters on the line. This is a good story.

    Cheeky monkey. Far more entertaining that the scoffing one dimensional left wing bloggers

  • What started as a funny idea for naming a sport team seems to end up in a grade seven locker room.
  • If you ever worry about your own beer intake or, conversely, consider it boring check out Ron’s series of posts of drinking his way thought Germany’s Franconia region. Plenty of gems like this:

    Andy met someone he recognised. It turned out to be Dan Shelton and his wife. He was making a documentary about Bamberg or something. I wasn’t concentrating that much on the conversation. I was in my beer zone. Feeling the warm glow of contentment that comes after a morning’s drinking. Very tall. I can remember that. Dan Shelton’s very tall. And annoyingly skinny for someone who works with beer.

  • Amy Winehouse update. I sent portland a copy. Let’s see what happens.
  • The Australian government has been tidying up wikipedia, too.

That is it. Not caffeine in the brain yet.

The NuGovernment Loves Wikiality

You know, it is a great idea to set up something that sounds like an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It just has to turn out to be the best source of truth going. And Canadians are sooooo trustworthy. Dudly Do-right picked up a Canadian Federal government wage, right? Just like the people doing this:

A website that tracks the origins of millions of edits to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, shows that computers inside federal government offices are responsible for more than 11,000 changes to articles, including some significant edits of entries about parliamentarians. WikiScanner, a website launched on Monday by a U.S. graduate student, shows that changes to articles originated from computers inside a variety of government offices, such as the House of Commons, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Environment Canada and the Auditor-General of Canada. The site, however, does not reveal the identity of the individual who made the edits.

Thankfully, it is not just Canadians who are shuffling the cards mid-game. The same report shows that the CIA is involved and it even “purportedly shows that the Vatican has edited entries about Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.”

Excellent.

Steve’s National Brilliance

Now that I am back in Canada even after only a few days, I can celebrate the lack of a third colour on the flag, our poor standards for lawn mowing and trimming as well as the capacity of our national leaders to leave all the toys on the political stairway, like these results of Steve’s great idea last year to call Quebec a nation:

The provincial government plans to force the federal government’s hand on how it views the division of powers with the provinces and spending, Quebec Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Benoît Pelletier says. Premier Jean Charest’s government also wants to finally see Quebec’s distinctiveness recognized in the Constitution in a charter of open federalism. Quebec wants the federal government to address the division of jurisdictions between Ottawa and the provinces and intends to press Ottawa on the matter, Mr. Pelletier said in an interview yesterday. He also wants the federal government to spell out precisely how it sees the federation operating and wants Ottawa to limit spending in provincial jurisdictions.

That’s not much. And it is a damn good thing that Steve is so clever that he can handle this situation and come up with a plan that will make everyone happy. I am sure that plan is in there, right? He has a plan, right?

Or is the plan saying the Liberals were no better?

Friday Linkfest For The End Of July

Just like that it’s gone – the thing you wait for all year. No one waits for August. That is like waiting for the weekend to come so you can sit on Sunday afternoon thinking about the workweek to come.

  • Big Toe Update: really – big toe.
  • Update: Ben points out why Hillary is very likely going to be the next President – the responsibility gene.
  • I don’t know if this should make me cry or make me laugh.
  • How to make pals? Hit them up for money:

    Another Conservative official who was approached said in political parties, “these things normally should not have to be asked for.” The official said he already contributes to the party and the request has exacerbated uncomfortable relations between the PMO and some ministerial offices.

    What is it about these guys that they seek out and destroy goodwill wherever they go.

  • Rob shares in interesting warning. As you know, Rob is much more keen on the new digital order but I appreciate how he is learning about it before our eyes:

    It’s almost impossible to buy music with no frame of reference. There were no hits, no recommendations, no “if you like x, you’ll like y”. I realized that the time it would take to decide if I liked an album was probably worth more than the $3 it would cost to buy one–in other words, not even worth it for “free.” Musicians, bloggers, writers–if you’re toiling in the long tail, getting stuck at zero is now a real possibility. Being just like the other guys but trying harder is less of an effective strategy than ever before.

    Yes, the long tail has plenty of room at zero. They didn’t mention that bit. Without authority nothing is authoritative. Without guidance we are unguided. How do you do that in the million person village? I am not saying not to do it. Nick is quite right about the importance of doing. But how does one do when the only venues come with sidewalks? Does it matter?

  • Truly, the Kitty of Dis.
  • Patty Smith is playing “Because the Night” live on CBS’s The Early Show, given seven seconds in passing during a promo introduction for the eight am news. A part of me just died.

That is it. Maybe more later. Off to the office on a nice sunny day.