The Conservatives have done so much damage to our international reputation on issues like human rights and climate change that Stephen Harper seems to expect we would lose to Portugal in the bid for the next seat on the UN Security Council. So they are considering pulling us out of the race I'm sure a Liberal government would have won.
Canada is back alright....
While the NDP are throwing in the towel on environmental policy, from the very beginning, the Conservatives abandoned their principles on what they know is sound economic policy in favour of trying to win extra votes. However, Conservative disregard for good policy is only getting worse with their latest attacks on tax shifting.
Many economists are solidly behind the idea of tax shifting - it rewards work and investment, it lowers the tax burden where it matters most and it punishes behavior that has a real cost to the environment. Economists agree that this is the best way to address climate change while having sound economic policy at the same time. Conservatives may say "well we don't care what economists think!", well you sure do when it suits you - Conservatives have quoted Jack Mintz (who it seems has contributed most of the ideas of the tax shifting plan) before to defend corporate tax cuts and have used whatever economist they could find that ever criticized something Stephane Dion said and then put the economist's quotes on their website.
Yet why do Conservatives oppose tax shifting? Because in their view everything proposed by a Liberal must be condemned and because they don't really care about the environment or sound economic policy - all that matters to them is staying in power.
In the end tax shifting isn't a strictly Liberal idea though, it was proposed by an economist (not known to be a very left-wing field) and the idea of putting a price on carbon has been embraced by staunch conservatives such as Preston Manning and Andrew Coyne, not to mention the Economist magazine (known for having a right-wing bent). Not to mention the Conservatives have frequently praised Gordon Campbell as a model Premier, yet it is Campbell who has implemented a carbon tax-shifting plan (that sounds quite similar to what the Liberal policy is shaping up to be) and John Baird paid Campbell's tax shifting approach a mild compliment saying it might work in BC. There was certainly no strong criticism of the Campbell plan, yet now something similar is proposed at the federal level and Conservatives are pretending it would be end of the world? How do Conservatives explain these contradictions?
Well by distortions and dishonesty that's how. They will refer to the past and say the greenhouse gas emissions went up (even though intensity went dramatically down and the Conservative environmental plan only has intensity targets) as if somehow that discredits the plan, they will claim the policy will raise the price of gas at the pump when it won't, and they will use whatever other scare tactics they can think of. In fact the willful distortions have already started, as we have Baird saying it's a "gas tax increase" and Marvin Tweed (maybe he's next in line as their spokesman) saying it's a "new massive gas tax". I guess this is all they have.
Conservatives will continue to distract and distort, but they certainly won't try to explain why economists and other staunch conservatives back a tax shifting plan and yet they don't.
When the Liberal policy is actually presented Conservatives will have to explain why they spent so long misleading Canadians instead of actually presenting a real plan to help our economy and our environment.
In the end it will be clear that Conservatives are more interested in attacking the Liberals than putting forth sound economic policy. It was the case with the GST cuts that no one believes is sound economic policy and in the end very few Canadians have saved money off it, as retailers just increased their prices to compensate. Stupid policy but they thought it would be good to club the Liberals with. They have even risked bringing us into deficit just so they could run an ad saying Dion would raise the GST. Again more about scare mongering than saving our economy. The same is true with this their vicious opposition to a tax shifting plan.
Conservatives have always been poor economic managers, Brian Mulroney and Mike Harris being the worst recent examples, but few have been as reckless in their economic policy as this Conservative government. They spent the cupboard bare, have no plan for the economy and expect Canadians to believe we can trust them in a recession?
The Liberal record is clear - we fixed a Conservative mess and ushered in the strongest economy in decades. Canadians will see that record matched up against the Conservative one in the next election. Fiscal responsibility is now a Liberal bedrock and it never has been for Harper's Conservatives. Though it is now time to match fiscal responsibility with environmental responsibility, but it's important to do it in a way that's best for the economy.
That's what the Liberals are proposing and that's why economists and small-c conservatives support it. It's using market mechanisms to help our economy and the planet and anyone who is environmentally conscious will have MORE money in their pocket and that I think is really the bottom line for many voters.
So the message to soft Conservative voters (no point wasting time on those who don't believe in climate change and the hardcore partisans) in the next election will be clear: The Conservative party doesn't know how to manage the economy and only pretend to care about the environment. If you want solid economic managers who will use solid market mechanisms to be a world leader on combating climate change then the only party that will get the job done is the Liberal Party.
In other news on the U.S. election front, while many news outlets focused on the race in West Virginia, Democrats had another great night in a Congressional election as Travis Childers won an open seat for the House of Representatives in Mississippi, further increasing the Democratic majority. This has been a running trend with the Congressional by-elections we've been seeing this year.
I thought this quote from Jonathan Singer at mydd.com sums things up for how dire things really are for the Republicans:
"this is as bad news as the GOP could possibly get at this point. They lost a district that leans 6 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in Illinois in March. They lost a district that leans 7 points more Republican (went 7 points more for Bush in 2004 than the nation as a whole) earlier this month in Louisiana. Now they lost a district that leans 10 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in Mississippi. If they can't win in Mississippi's first congressional district, where can they win? The Republicans tried to make this election about two people: Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And despite running this type of campaign, they lost."
A Democratic President with strengthened majorities in both Houses of Congress is exactly what the country and the world needs right now and so far I have reason to be optimistic about that :).
So last night was not a great for Obama, but it also wasn't unexpected. Last week many journalists predicted a 40 point blow-out and that's what we saw (67% - 26% was the final tally -though am I the only one wondering where the rest of the 7% went? The numbers added up roughly to 100% in every other primary). I'm sure Obama hoped to close the gap though and he failed to do so. I do note though that he got more votes last night than John McCain did :). I'm not sure he will win West Virginia but I'm confident that with the massive Democratic turnouts in every state in these primaries Democrats will turn out in November in large enough numbers in enough states to give him the White House.
That said, two things are clear after last night: Clinton will now almost certainly stay in until the last primary state has voted and Obama has to pick his VP very carefully with an eye to bringing in voters in states where he did not perform as well. Once the nomination race is officially over and assuming Obama wins (which is still extremely likely), I'll lay out my thoughts on who Obama's VP should be, but how these next few weeks play out I think will play a role in that, as it will be important to see if Obama does manage to do better in areas where he hasn't in the past.
I think it's absolutely terrible of Clinton to be focusing on how whites versus blacks vote and making any arguments versus Obama's candidacy on that basis, but Obama does need to do better in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida then he has in these primaries so hopefully his VP will help with that.
As for Clinton going forward, her victory speech was interesting. It had some good messages and good lines - the one about the woman who was born before women had the right to vote who cast an absentee ballot for Clinton in South Dakota literally from her death bed was a compelling story (though I didn't think the story of how an 11 year old boy was donating to her campaign was a particularly strong follow-up). Importantly she refrained from attacking Obama directly, but the speech did sound mostly like a final plea to superdelegates (in fact her speech said plainly they will decide the race) and a plea to be the VP if she loses (before North Carolina and Indiana I supported the idea as her as VP, but after the past week and some of her comments I have had second thoughts though I think an experienced woman definitely should be on the Democratic ticket). Though saying no Democrat was won the White House since 1916 without West Virginia ignores that Democrats owned the deep South and pretty much the opposite regions of the U.S. than they do today right up until the Nixon years (and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are the only Democrats elected since then and Bill Clinton won with heavy vote splitting on the right). It was interesting though that she only said she would be in the race until the last state had voted (as opposed to the convention) and talked about how "we" will come back to West Virginia and win. I would say though the speech didn't focus enough on John McCain which I hope she will do more of if she's staying in the race.
I think at this point Clinton knows she won't win, but despite what so many were saying about her refusing to be VP it seems she wants to be on the ticket more than Obama wants her. No matter what though Obama would have to find some way to reach out to her supporters when it is all said and done, he will regret it if he doesn't.
So now it's on to Kentucky and Oregon, where we will see a repeat of West Virginia in one state but Obama should at least be able to cushion the blow with a win in another. It will all be over soon though...
UPDATE: John Edwards endorsing Obama tonight will certainly help towards bringing this race to a close.
You used to be able to count on the NDP being the boldest party on the environment. That was their issue for a time. Well no longer. The former party of the environment have surrendered their principles once and for all on this issue.
The NDP used to be in full agreement with the environmental groups and individuals like David Suzuki (in fact I remember when I was at the University of Toronto when David Suzuki came to speak, the event was sponsored by Jack Layton's NDP), but no longer, they've thrown in the towel on the environment in favour of trying to become a more populist party. More interested in proposing policies aimed at saving a few dollars here (ATM fees, knocking a cent or two off the price of gas) than actually meaningfully taking on climate change.
How else do you explain their strong opposition to tax shifting? Jack Layton says: "We don't see putting a charge on the backs of individual Canadians through taxes as the way to go." Does that sound like something an NDP leader would say in reference to tax shifting? I'm thinking he's just upset that Dion proposed this policy before he did and he feels duty bound to treat anything coming from the Liberals as inherently evil.
Not to mention Layton being completely dishonest about what policy is on offer here. It won't harm low-income Canadians as it is said that the policy includes "programs aimed particularly at cushioning the blow for lower-income and rural Canadians who'd be hardest hit by increased fuel and electricity costs." Not to mention it does NOT affect prices at the pump. So then why does the NDP have a problem with this?
If low income earners aren't hard hit then this is a progressive policy and one that is the soundest for the environment - those who consume less energy will have MORE money in their pocket (certainly more then they would then if the price of gas dropped a cent or two) and very few will pay more. The multi-millionaire with a huge mansion (or a few of them) will pay more for the massive amount of energy his/her home consumes. You would think the NDP would agree with that wouldn't you? Why not? Because it's a Liberal idea and that's about all there is to it.
I can imagine what the NDP response would be to these arguments - they'd make reference to the past saying people who care about the environment can't vote Liberal because greenhouse gasses went up (though the NDP remain dishonest about what the record really is), but when it comes to the environment what matters most is the future and who is putting forth the best policies NOW to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions substantially over the next decade.
Do you think ANYONE (except NDP partisans of course) will agree in the next election that the NDP have the best policies to accomplish this goal?
Instead it will be the Liberals who will be universally seen by environmental groups to have the most sound plan. NDP supporters may say "we don't care what about environmental groups think!", well Jack Layton sure used to care, so what's happened here?
The NDP will say "the Liberals didn't vote on our no confidence motion on the environment - we obviously care more!", well if that were true then you would endorse policies that will get the job done on the environment not oppose them just because they are coming from a party you want to destroy. And you wouldn't support re-electing a government that has done nothing on the environment and has made us an international pariah on this issue.
Once the NDP discover that people care more about what parties would implement in the next parliament than what motions they voted on in the last then they will probably say "don't trust the Liberals, they won't actually implement these policies!" Of course that would be an admission that the policies being proposed are actually sound and better than what the NDP have on offer. Not to mention Jack Layton has given Stéphane Dion high praise, referring to him as a “committed Canadian and a man of principle and conviction” so the argument that you can't trust Dion doesn't fly.
And so in the next election the message to NDP voters will be clear: If you care about the environment and implementing the policies we need to meaningfully address climate change then the Liberals have the best policies to get the job done and you as an environmentally conscious person will have more money in your pocket as an added benefit.
While the NDP give up on the environment in their opposition to this policy, Conservatives continue down a path of failing Canadians on economic policy with their blind opposition to tax shifting (which will be the subject of the next post on Canadian politics).
Now this hasn’t been officially rolled out, but I think this is the kind of approach we need to show Canadians we have a serious plan to combat global warming:
The plan, according to sources, would shift the 10-cent federal excise tax on a litre of fuel at the pumps into a broad-based carbon tax that would also apply to other fuels, such as for home heating. Sources say that the plan would not add more taxes to gasoline.
But the key is that the money raised – estimated as much as $17-billion – would be returned to middle-class and working Canadians in personal income tax cuts, making it revenue neutral. There could be corporate tax cuts as well.
Some people are skeptical, including a “veteran” (probably John Turner years) Liberal strategist that always pops up in a Jane Taber piece (why those anonymous Liberals think they are helping the party with such comments is beyond me), but I think we need to give Canadians a lot more credit than those worried about a policy like this this are doing.
Canadians could understand five simple things:
1) We need to be doing much more to be combating global warming. The Carbon Budget was a start but this builds on that and is even more bold. Conservatives have put our reputation in the dumps (especially at Bali), we should be seen as a leader and not a laggard on this issue.
2) In a time of economic uncertainty, we want a plan widely endorsed by economists. This one is.
3) You won’t be paying more at the pump with this proposal.
4) You won’t be paying more taxes overall with this proposal. It is a tax shift not a tax increase.
5) If you are someone who doesn’t consume much energy you will come out ahead.
The important thing though is that Liberals frame this issue before the Conservatives do.
Though I have faith in Canadians that they would embrace a plan like this and so far I would say that the evidence shows that I am right.
So Governor General Michaëlle Jean tells France President Sarkozy to not 
forget about the million Francophones outside of Quebec and Duceppe loses it? I’m just as puzzled as some others out there. Seems pretty clear to me that this should be something our Governor General saying.
The Bloc just seem to be grasping at straws these days, hoping they can find some cause that will salvage their chances in the next election. I'm pretty sure Duceppe's bizarre rant won't be a winner for them though.
