Harper Leadership: Leading From Behind

The end of the year is an ideal time to take a look at how you’ve done in various areas of your life and where there’s room for improvement. Unfortunately, in the case of our government, I’m sure Stephen Harper puts his fingers in his ears whenever he’s reminded of his performance so that leaves it up to others to give him his year end performance review on the major issues facing Canadians. For a guy who’s campaign slogan was “Harper Leadership” (a slogan that has conveniently been banished from the website since the election), his record sure doesn’t seem to be one of a “leader”. On issue after issue, he’s content to be at the back of the pack and only doing anything positive when he’s forced to. It’s why I’m not optimistic he can really change for the better and why Canada would be better off with him gone. But on to the review…
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On the Economy
- While Dion and the Liberals proposed economic solutions to get our economy rolling again in the last election, Harper offers no plan and said basically only "don't worry, be happy" when more and more experts were saying Canada had serious troubles ahead that need to be tackled. Harper STOLE the Liberals plan after realizing he was LAST to the party in realizing the economic crisis Canada faced.

- While every other western nation has put forward massive stimulus packages and are acting NOW to help their economies, Stephen Harper’s only response was to try to crush his opponents and pander to his base and then shut down Parliament for seven weeks. Stephen Harper is content to be the LAST western nation to bring in real solutions for the economic crisis.

On the Environment
- While every other western nation is focused on greening their economies and meaningfully tackling climate change, Stephen Harper has his head in the sand and prefers to obstruct than help tackle the problem. Stephen Harper is content to see Canada have the WORST record in the Western world on the environment.

On Early Learning and Child Care
- While other countries invest in early learning and child care and realize how conducive such investments are to a strong economy, Stephen Harper is content to literally have Canada be ranked DEAD LAST on our approach to this issue.

On Ethical Investigations
- When the more shady aspects of the Mulroney-Shreiber affair came to light, Harper railed against holding any real investigation before caving (but of course showed real leadership by stalling the inquiry until after the election). Stephen Harper only acted when outside voices were UNANIMOUS that he HAD TO. Hopefully he’ll be pushed in to doing the same for the In and Out and Cadman scandals.

On Foreign Affairs
- Maxime Bernier had to make a dozen mistakes before HE resigned as Harper couldn’t even bring himself to fire him. Stephen Harper is content to have incompetent ministers representing us on the world stage.

- Canada used to be a respected voice on the world stage. Under Stephen Harper we've pulled out of the race for a UN Security Council seat because Harper has made it so it's a virtual certainty Portugal would beat us. Stephen Harper is content to have us seen as being a Bush-like pariah on the world stage.

On Aboriginal Issues
- While virtually every other nation supported the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indiginous Peoples, Canada was one of the few countries opposed. While all 10 Premiers supported the Kelowna Accords, Stephen Harper tore them up. While other countries and provinces take dramatic steps to improve the lives of Aboriginals, Stephen Harper is content to leave them at the back of his priorities.

On Food Safety
- While every independent voice has called for a public inquiry into the listeriosis outbreak, Harper still insists on a private closed door one and staunchly defends his incompetent and horribly insensitive Agriculture minister (even re-appointing him after the election). Stephen Harper is content to be LAST to the party on food safety.

On Health Care
- While other provinces tackle wait times Stephen Harper has forgotten about it entirely. He promised wait time guarantees for 5 procedures and settled for one out of 5 (with a different one in each jurisdiction). For Stephen Harper, accomplishing less than 20% of what you promised is considered a major accomplishment.

On Human Rights
- As Barack Obama is about to close Guantanamo Bay and EVERY OTHER western nation has repatriated their citizens who were interned there, Stephen Harper is content to be the LAST supporter of Guantanamo. While EVERY western country that officially opposes the death penalty advocates clemency for their citizens abroad, Canada is now the ONLY country that doesn’t. Stephen Harper is on pace to see Canada have the WORST record on human rights in the western world.

On Culture
- While other countries invest in their culture industries to bolster their economies and promote their national identity Harper thought it wise to cut and censor them. Harper was eventually dragged to make an embarrassing reversal, but once again Harper was LAST to realize the importance of the cultural industry to our economy and identity.

On Gender Equality
- While other parties ran more female candidates, Harper ran less. To boot, Harper slashed funding for Status of Women Canada and weakened its mandate, his party passed resolutions removing gender equality as goal for the government, against pay equity and bring back Ken Epp’s “unborn victims of crime bill”. Harper had a chance to change course and instead brought in a fiscal update that attacks pay equity and then appointed an abysmal 4 out 18 women to the Senate in his history making patronage spree. While other countries make strides in moving towards gender equality, Harper is ALONE in having us move BACKWARD. Harper is dead LAST in his commitment to women’s issues and giving an equal voice and equal representation in the House of Commons and Senate.

On Poverty
- While an economic crisis ensues that could see poverty rise to historic levels and while our neighbour to the South is ensuring it does all it can to soften the blow for those hardest hit, the word poverty can’t even cross Stephen Harper’s mouth. Stephen Harper is content to be DEAD LAST in poverty reduction efforts.

On Plans for the Future
- While out campaigning for a majority, Stephen Harper had NO INTENTION of releasing a platform. He ONLY released one in the end when it became embarrassing for him not to. What he released has more photos than ideas and While running a campaign based on “leadership” Stephen Harper had (and in all likelihood has) NO REAL PLANS of his own to lead us into the future.
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And that’s far from all the examples where Harper’s failed. We need real leadership from our government during the biggest economic crisis we’ve faced in decades and Harper has a huge mountain to climb to show he’s up to the times and deserves to govern in the year ahead.

We have to ask ourselves what kind of government do we want in 2009? One that leads from the front or from behind? We must demand much better of our government or it must go.

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Top 10 Canadian News Stories of 2008

Every year has its big stories, but this year had many that I think Canadians will still be talking about years from now. You may not agree with the top 10 Canadian stories I’ve chosen, but it’s hard to say each of these weren’t major stories when they hit and that most of these don’t still resonate. I’ve reflected on each one (some “reflections” I guess could be posts in themselves) and they are listed in rough chronological order rather than importance.

1) Chuck Cadman Scandal: You don’t hear about it as much now, but you can’t say it’s not huge news when you hear allegations (which seem to be backed up on tape) that the Conservatives tried to literally bribe an MP to vote with them. And don’t forget Harper’s libel case against the Liberals over this is still before the courts, but given how that’s fared of late I’m thinking Harper’s hoping we do forget about that one.

2) In and Out Scandal: The RCMP raiding the governing party HQ and the ensuing frantic (and failed) attempt to control the media spin over the Conservatives apparent over-spending and shady dealings with local ridings during the 2006 election was certainly a sight to see. Conservatives are STILL spending millions fighting this in court so obviously they realize how bad it will reflect on them when Elections Canada does finally rule officially AGAINST them

3) Maxime Bernier's Bungled Foreign Affairs Tenure: I’m someone who believes it’s extremely important for Canada to maintain a positive reputation in the world and so it’s big news to me that this year we came to fully realize that Stephen Harper had appointed among the worst (if not the worst) foreign affairs ministers in Canadian history. From not knowing who the President of Haiti was, to blowing private negotiations to get a troublesome Afghan governor to step down, to promising C-17s that didn’t exist for deployment, it was clear the guy was just not up to the job. Amazingly enough it took him leaving confidential documents at his girlfriend’s place to bring him down, but even then Harper wouldn’t fire him, Bernier instead resigned. This was also the first and only cabinet resignation I believe we’ve seen so far from this government. That’s not a good thing given how many of Harper’s ministers have done things that should have warranted their dismissal.

4) The Green Shift: Like it or hate it, it was the most bold policy proposal of the year. Sadly the Conservatives AND NDP smeared it with disinformation and the Liberals were unable to successfully combat the onslaught. I’ve still yet to hear one person credibly argue how a cap-and-trade system would be a superior approach to tax shifting for reducing GHG emissions over the next several years when a cap-and-trade system could easily end up being (in the words of Andrew Coyne) "just as costly...twice as complicated… and probably half as effective (as a carbon tax)" and when we know that Europe has had a terrible time getting cap-and-trade off the ground and that the Western Climate Initiative here in North America isn’t scheduled to start till 2012. Yet as of this time an exclusively cap-and-trade approach seems to be the approach all parties (except the Greens) now want us to head in.

I HOPE the Liberals show some courage again and revive the Green Shift policy in a different more saleable form down the line (certainly the Green Shift policy on the whole could stand for some tweaking). After all it was originally Michael Ignatieff’s idea when he was the only leadership candidate in 2006 arguing for it. I understand how given the results of the last election he doesn’t want to touch a tax shift with a ten foot pole and I guess I can’t blame him if he doesn’t go back to it, but to date I’ve seen ZERO evidence in polling or anything that Canadians were voting against us SOLELY BECAUSE of the Green Shift. Is there really more than 1-2% of Canadians who would have said “I definitely would have voted Liberal but didn’t only because they were proposing a carbon tax”?

I think it’s foolish to boil down the election loss to that policy (or just who our leader was for that matter) when people could have voted against us for literally dozens of different reasons (I wouldn't be surprised if some people actually went to the polls thinking the Liberals were going to ban the bible or some other crazy nonsense perpetrated by Conservatives) and such a simplistic view allows us to learn little. I think we lost much more so due to weaker organization and GOTV efforts, the smearing of Stéphane Dion with millions of dollars in ads that we were unable to combat (due to our weaker fundraising abilities) and Harper successfully (falsely) portraying the Liberal platform as planning to spend tens of billions more than was available in the treasury (e.g., the infrastructure policy was portrayed as $70 billion over the short-term rather than over 10 years).

I hope Ignatieff thinks long and hard about what’s best for the country in the long-term, because the environment may not be top of mind for Canadians now but in 2-3 years it will definitely be back and I fear cap-and-trade alone simply won't be sufficient to make the greenhouse gas reductions we need to make and to avoid being seen as a laggard in the world eye on this issue.

Liberals ought to take a look at Norway, an oil-producing nation with HIGHER GDP per-capita (highest in the world right now), economic productivity and living standards than us and yet who have a dreaded carbon tax (though the Liberal Green Shift was actually a superior approach to what Norway put in place as I believe they had too many exemptions). We can catch up to them or we can fall further behind (the environment isn’t the only issue we can look to Norway on either).

If we KNOW the Green Shift (or an improved adaptation of it) is the best approach for the environment (combined in time with cap-and-trade), how can we as the “natural governing party” just abandon it completely just because of one election? If we used one election as the basis for whether to discard different policies then that really sets a bad precedent for any party to be bold. Trudeau discussed implementing a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1979 and lost, it’s a good thing we didn’t abandon it in the next election. I hope we don’t so easily discard tax shifting once and for all.

But alas, I feel this little tirade will fall on deaf ears and tax shifting will not be proposed again by any major party in Canada for a long time to come…So then on to the next news story of the year….

5) 2008 Federal Election: I honestly believe that if the election were held a week before (when polls had it at 33 Cons -30 Libs) or a week after (when Nanos again had it 32 Cons – 30 Libs) October 14 the result would have been dramatically different, but Stephen Harper called the election for when he did for a reason and it paid off. He wanted to avoid by-elections losses while having an e-day before the economic downturn he knew and before Obama could be elected in the US. Harper was clearly going to lose all 4 by-elections (and from what I heard on the ground we were on the verge of winning St. Lambert on the eve of Sept. 8) and he waited till the very last day before the by-elections so he could run ads unopposed outside the writ (to do an end run around election spending limits), wasting the maximum amount of public money possible. That he could do that AND break his promise not to call an election before October 2009 and almost not even release a platform and not be punished at the polls for any of that still bothers me.

As for the campaign itself, it started off slow for us, but I believe we did eventually hit our stride and our platform had the right priorities (I’ve still yet to hear a single Liberal state any specific policy aside from the Green Shift that we shouldn’t keep in the next platform), but perhaps we promised too much (in $ terms at least) or perhaps we didn’t communicate well enough what we were going to do. As I said above on the Green Shift, it’s simplistic to blame that for our loss or to blame just Stéphane Dion. In the debates everyone praised his performances and to me that still represents the real Dion, but in the end he could not overcome the negative caricatures (bought my an unprecedented character assasination campaign by the Cons) that even he recognized had been cemented in Canadians’ minds. That certainly hurt us, but what hurt us more was being outmatched in organizational and GOTV efforts and simply not being in play in many less ridings than the Conservatives. We have a lot of work to do to fix that in time for the next election (I’ll propose some more thoughts on how to do that in the new year). Apart from that, I think a lot of voters by the time e-day arrived were just looking for a steady hand to manage the economy and a plurality for whatever reason thought that would be Stephen Harper. I’m sure he was helped by the strong final weekend he had and the major market rallies that occurred on the final two days of the campaign.

Even so, a MAJORITY voted against Harper and if we had a system of proportional representation then the results would have translated into the Liberals, NDP and Greens having a majority of seats between them without needing any support from the Bloc to have formed a coalition. Only the Conservatives and the Bloc won a greater percentage of seats than their percent of the popular vote and that’s the second election in a row that’s happened. I hope the time will have finally come for the majority of Liberals to realize that electoral reform is not only the right thing to do but is also in our own party’s interests (I’ll also have more to say about that in the new year).

6) The Economic Crisis: It’s not quite true that no one saw an economic crisis coming (in fact I give Garth Turner credit for making dire predictions well before the bottom fell out on the market), but I think the magnitude of it has taken just about everyone by surprise. If you had said a year ago that Canada would have a $30 Billion deficit in 2009 and that all parties would agree that a fiscal stimulus package getting us to that point would be necessary (not forgetting the fact though that if it weren’t for Harper’s reckless GST cuts the prospective deficit would be MUCH smaller) you’d have been called crazy. Thankfully previous Liberal governments ensured that our banking system was one of the most solid in the world and Stephen Harper has a minority or else Canada would be in a HUGE amount of trouble that might take a decade or more to get out of. Liberals can’t let Canadians forget that the Harper Conservatives brought in 40 year mortgages and other reckless practices (before abandoning them when it was clear how damaging they were) that were the original source of the financial meltdown in the U.S. that dominoed into a global economic crisis and we can't let them forget either how recklessly Harper and Flaherty and Co. frittered away a strong surplus that would be have been enormously useful at a time like this.

These guys don’t know how to manage the economy and the evidence is overwhelming, we just have to make sure Canadians understand just how bad they have been and how disastrous it would be if they got a majority.

7) Fiscal Update/The Liberal-NDP Coalition: Stephen Harper came into Parliament enjoying the good will of the opposition parties. Many people were predicting he would likely get to govern until at least 2010. It’s his fault alone that he squandered that and now has the lowest ratings for “Best PM” than he’s ever had. The fiscal update had no solutions for the economic crisis, proposed bizarre (e.g., a firesale of public assets in a horrible market) and offensive (e.g., weakening pay equity and banning public strikes right after a collective bargaining deal was reached) policies while having the central goal of crushing the Conservatives political opposition through the elimination of the per vote subsidy.

Had the coalition not come about I have no doubt in my mind Harper would have dug in his heels on the update, as without a coalition, voting down the update would have meant an election that the opposition parties weren’t prepared to face. In all likelihood with no coalition one of the opposition parties would have been very likely to cave. Thankfully, because of the deal Dion negotiated with Layton, Stephen Harper had to shelve every negative aspect of that update. But for putting it forth in the midst of a crisis and at a time when the opposition was willing to work with him, Stephen Harper should have lost power. The coalition in turn would definitely have brought in a strong and popular budget by now instead of us having to be the last western country to bring in fiscal stimulus to revive our economy. I’m confident that even though they would have started with only about 40%-45% public support (which is still more than Stephen Harper enjoyed) their policies would have proved popular over the year ahead. Unfortunately, the Governor General was put in the unprecedented situation of being asked to allow Harper to dodge the will of Parliament. Stephen Harper’s head would have exploded if Paul Martin had tried the same thing, but I don’t think there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind now that he will do anything to retain his hold on power.

Now the coalition looks unlikely to happen because Stephen Harper’s scare tactics and disinformation have knocked its popularity down to below what we would have hoped for (though I think it’s disingenuous of this Globe article to call 40%-45% support for the coalition “widely unpopular” without also calling Stephen Harper “widely unpopular” after receiving only 38% support in the last election) and because Harper now desperately wants to survive past January so he can regoup without the threat of any looming coalition (as that threat can't really exist past February).

Though I do hope that if Stephen Harper doesn’t take dramatic steps to show he’s changed (that go beyond just putting out a strong budget) that those worried about voting him down realize that we may live to regret allowing him to live another day and that the Liberals, NDP and Bloc decide to end his career right at budget time in January. If the Harper Conservatives won’t be a responsible government in the worst times our country has faced in decades then there is ample justification for the coalition taking on that role instead and every single precedent that exists would compel the Governor General to allow that.

8) Provincial elections in Alberta and Quebec: The status quo prevailed in Alberta, but it was definitely surprising and disappointing (I’m sure all the more so for any Liberals living in Alberta) just how resounding Ed Stelmach’s victory was. Now that oil is plummeting to lows not seen in years and it seems like Stelmch spent the cupboard and never planned for something like this, I wonder if Albertans will finally see that perhaps they aren’t being best served by Conservative government after all. I’m sure somehow all the problems Alberta is facing for low oil prices will be blamed in Trudeau somehow.

As for Quebec, Jean Charest completed his political comeback with a majority, but Stephen Harper’s Quebec/separatist bashing the final week of the campaign almost blew it for him and definitely has helped revive PQ fortunes. Had Charest only won a minority I think his career in Quebec would have been over (since the only reason he called an early election was to win a majority) and I wonder if he wouldn’t have tried to go back to Ottawa to end Stephen Harper’s. The things will never know since a majority is a majority and I’m guessing Charest will retire at the end of his term (has any Premier ever won 4 consecutive terms in Quebec?), but I won’t be surprised if he tries some bold initiatives in next 4 years to cement his legacy.

9) New Liberal Leader: I was I was sad to see Stephane Dion go and not got the second chance every one of our other past leaders received, but I do believe he played important positive role as our leader and even as interim leader with the creation of the coalition. I think he would have made an excellent PM and still could have grown into the job of party leader (as was evident in the last half of the campaign) , but as he recognized the Conservatives so badly tarnished him that it would been very difficult to reverse that impresssion and thus he felt the mountain would be too high to climb.

While the ensuing Liberal leadership race was much shorter than expected and cut out what likely would have been some valuable debates, Liberals are now able to turn their guns away from each other and squarely on Stephen Harper MUCH sooner than expected.

10) Senate Patronage Spree: Ordinarily Senate appointments by a PM are hardly big news, but that changes when it’s done by a man who’s spent a lifetime campaigning against Senate patronage and who just shut down Parliament to avoid a confidence vote and when it also happens to also be the largest number of appointments in a single day. There being no gender or partisan balance in these appointments and the overwhelming number of hardcore party loyalists being appointed just made all the more cringe inducing. Whether the galling nature of these appointments will turn public opinion against him remains to be seen, but it was a pretty dramatic example of Harper will abandon any principle to hold on to power and use all the perks that come along with it.

Honourable mention: The inevitable end of John Tory’s leadership of the Ontario PC Party, though it comes a lot later than I, and the poll I conducted, had predicted. But since it’s not official yet, technically it can be a story for 2009. My endorsement for their leader still has not changed though: Randy Hillier all the way! And here’s hoping Baird, Flaherty, Clement and/or Van Loan (the more of them better) also race back to try to grab the Ontario PC Party brass ring as well - they will be doing their country a HUGE favour by leaving Ottawa for Queen’s Park and going back to the opposition benches where they belong!

World News Note: Obviously the biggest worldwide story (that eclipsed all Canadian stories) was the was the 2008 Presidential Election and the election of Barack Obama as President, but Canadian politics is still where my heart is so that’s what I stuck to in this list just like I did last year.

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You Might Want to Regain the Confidence of the House Before You Try That Mr. Harper

The majority of MPs have expressed non confidence in Stephen Harper. He hasn't apologized or accepted responsibility for instigating a parliamentary, constitutional crisis when Canadians expected much better. But yet somehow he thinks that's still a license to go and make 18 patronage appointments to the Senate as Christmas presents to his party loyalists. What's the rush Mr. Harper? Stephen Harper's government doesn't have the legitimacy to make Senate appointments until he formally shows he has the confidence of the House. I think the opposition parties should make that clear and ask him to back down. If Harper is serious about governing in a responsible manner and working constructively with the opposition parties like he claims, then last minute partisan appointments seems a pretty strange way to show it.

Stephen Harper has a LONG way to go to get back the confidence of the House and if he goes through with these Senate appointments before the budget vote (which to boot would represent another in a seemingly endless line of broken promises) then he'll have made it clear that he's not at all prepared to change his ways. Stephen Harper has a choice here and this seems pretty brazen of someone who actually needs to turn a new leaf in order to survive in January. I think the opposition should make it abundantly clear that Harper has abused the powers of the Prime Minister's office far enough and we won't tolerate it any further. If he won't listen on this, then he won't likely listen on the budget either. This could be a good first test of whether Stephen Harper realizes that he doesn't have a majority.

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The FAIREST approach for Liberal leadership

My expert solution that surely everyone would agree with is laid out below. So with LeBlanc’s exit the possibilities for the way forward have narrowed. Let me first say that I’m disappointed to see a race with only two contenders, I think we could have benefited from more, not less voices in this race (I think 4 or 5 would have been a good number). But I guess Dominic LeBlanc has become the John Edwards of this race (absent the torrid affair), bowing to the reality that he couldn’t win so dropped out early in the race. Has he been promised a jet ski by Rae or Ignatieff in order to get his endorsement? I’m sure we’ll know for sure quite soon.

But this leaves us with two key issues to resolve going forward:
- What should be the future of Stephane Dion’s leadership?
- How do we select the leader in time for the Jan. 26 return of Parliament as both Rae and Ignatieff seem to want?

Here is my gold 4 point solution that should satisfy EVERYONE.

1) Stéphane Dion stays on as interim leader until the permanent leader is selected in 3rd or 4th week of January when a permanent leader is elected.

The man has made many mistakes (which he has admitted to), but he has given the past decade of his life to this party and his whole life has fought hard for this country. He deserves some respect for what he has done. One could certainly make the case that anyone else might not have been able to put together the coalition that ultimately caused Harper to back down on public financing and leaves us with a chance to form government at the end of January. If we are going to elect a permanent leader in January anyway it seems unnecessarily cruel, not to mention ineffective to push him out sooner and replace him with an interim leader for a matter of 5-7 weeks. Parliament is not in session at this time and the organizational hassles involved in switching leaders for such a short amount of time simply because many people are upset right now just doesn’t make sense. I hope caucus can take the more rational and respectful approach here.

2) Hold at least 4 nationally televised debates between Ignatieff and Rae. Hopefully the major networks will cover them (the times and dates should be arranged for maximum coverage and ratings) and this will be an excellent way to get coverage for our party while Parliament is not in session (which is always a tough time to get the media to pay attention to the opposition)

3) Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff both release full platforms very early in the new year. I hope these platforms detail what they would do in their first 100 days as Prime Minister since that still remains a possibility should the coalition take power at the end of January or if we get an election should the government fall at that time where either will be running to be PM.

I will note that neither have answers my questions yet though! I have gotten assurances from the Rae camp that the answers will be coming soon and the Ignatieff contact said he “is trying to get answers to your(my) questions” so hopefully both will be up here soon.

4) Electing the leader through a One Member One Vote procedure that protects smaller ridings and the voices of youth, seniors, women and Aboriginals.

Here is how I envision this working:
- A date (or it can even last a whole weekend) is set in the 3rd or 4th week of January for when voting will take place by ALL Liberal members who have signed up ONE WEEK before the vote. Given that the dynamics of the leadership race have radically changed it seems unfair to set an earlier cut off. Everyone was under the impression the membership cut off was going to be February 6th so setting it for mid January seems pretty fair.
- Voting is done online, by phone or in person (I think we should follow whatever is done by other parties who use OMOV)
- Each riding is apportioned 100 points based on the percentage of votes received for each candidate in each riding. 50 points in each riding go to male members’ votes, 50 points go to female members, 33 for youth, 7 for Aboriginals, etc…. so that it matches EXACTLY the proportions that WOULD HAVE been given delegate spots to vote at the convention in Vancouver.
- Whoever has the most points “wins” and the other agrees to drop off the ballot for Super Weekend so the other is acclaimed in Vancouver at the leadership convention as per our constitution.
- That winner is appointed interim leader by the national executive as Stephane Dion steps down follwing the vote of the membership.

When we change the rules mid-stream I think it’s important that no groups voices are weakened as a result and this ensures that doesn’t happen. Some people may have problems with this arrangement for allocating votes (and in fact I’d hazard to guess it won’t even happen), but if this isn’t what happens I imagine it will end up the case that a smaller percentage of women, Aboriginals and youth will have a say in the leader than would have happened under the originals rules. This could in turn upset the Commissions. For instance, I recall the YLC opposed OMOV vote last time unless there was an agreement to apportion a certain percentage of votes for youth.

So this proposal doesn’t favour any camp over the other, and important to me, doesn’t weaken the voices of women, Aboriginals, seniors, or youth compared to the representation they would have had if we elected the leader in Vancouver as originally planned. I hope many others would agree with this modest, fair proposal.

It’s essential this be done right. This party needs unity which means having a procedure where EVERYONE accepts the results as an entirely fair way to decide the leader and so that Liberals can get behind the leader without any supporter of the other candidate or neutral Liberals having misgivings about how the race was done.

UPDATE 10:10 PM: Rumour is Ignatieff gave the jet ski to LeBlanc up front (as yet unconfirmed). Also, it appears that Jeff (BC'er in Toronto) would agree with my proposal

UPDATE 2: I was unaware it was possible to move up the DSMs for Super Weekend to mid January and appoint an interim leader then based on the results, but if it is possible to do that and still have a bit of flexibility on membership cut-offs (for the reasons I outlined above, ideally it should be a week before the voting) then I think that would be a fair solution as well since all members get to vote as DSMs. I still think what I proposed here is fully in line with the constitution but moving up DSMs would be more consistent I suppose. If you agree with that option OR the one I proposed in this post, vote Yes for the poll in the top right corner.

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"When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is when it's rapidly losing its moral authority to govern"

Wise words, spoken by none other than Stephen Harper on April 18, 2005. Can a single Conservative really say that if there was a Liberal PM today under similiar circumstances that you would be applauding the Governor General's decision to allow the porogation of the House of Commons? Thanks to the Harper-Jean precedent (which Harper is SOLELY responsible for and never should have forced the GG to choose between two troubling precedent setting choices) that day is much more likely to come under a future PM who doesn't wish to test the confidence of the House. At least I will remain consistent should that day come, but I trust the Conservatives will be about as consitent with their statements and past positions as Stephen Harper has been throughout this whole crisis. In the end for Conservatives it's all about putting Stephen Harper and the Conservative cabinet minister's jobs before everyone else's.

Stephen Harper still doesn't enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons. These petitions signed by every MP from the opposition parties delivered TODAY to the Governor General clearly demonstrate that. These MPs must hold together. If there was no coalition waiting in place then Harper would never have backed down on his fiscal update. If divisions start to form Harper will make NO or very minimal concessions on his budget. And in the end if his budget doesn't reflect the policies that 62% of Canadians voted for and represent a DRAMATIC departure from what was in his fiscal update then he should be brought down and replaced. I don't expect him to do that because it's not in his character and Harper has completely betrayed the trust of all opposition MPs. But Harper is gambling that this opposition will crumble or cower away.

For all the talk of "belt tightening" a large sum of taxpayer money was spent on this past session of Parliament to be the least productive in Canadian history and accomplish absolutely NOTHING. I imagine Conservatives are proud of how they "put the opposition in a corner" on this one though and are hoping that millions spent on ads over the next few weeks will help Canadians forget how much they are interested in preserving their own power than doing what Parliamentarians are supposed to do.

But we shouldn't give in to his strong arm tactics, the man has shown a complete lack of respect for the Parliament Canada elected and to let his get away with it all and come back stronger to laugh at the success of his gamesmanship later (which will happen if he passes a budget with very minimal concessions) is not in the best interests of this country and nor is it the best solution for this economic crisis that Canadians most want their Parliamentarians to deal with right now.

Canadians could have had a budget and response to the fiscal crisis before the end of this month. Harper instead wants them to wait two months when people need help NOW.

Canadians could have had a government that brought in common and economically sound policies 62% of Canadians voted for. It appears they won't get that before the New Year, but it is my hope they still will.

This is justice delayed, let it not be justice denied.

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Calgary Grit Has it All Wrong on the Coalition – Reasons Why We Should Never Listen to Dan Arnold Again (Unless of Course He’s Right)

So I see that Calgary Grit Dan Arnold has taken on the role of official downer of the Liberal Party (don’t listen to him! You’ll see why below).

Dan don’t you know the Liberals have been so starved for good news these past few months (or even years!)? Yet now we may be on the cusp of finally coming back to power and you choose to rain all over our parade. Shame! How dare you try to be a voice of caution!

If this coalition falls apart or never comes to fruition, I’ll be holding you responsible. Just like I still firmly believe that you choosing not to give your Victory Fund dollars to Brant was the only reason the Liberals lost that riding (in your heart you know I’m right!).

So I see you’ve come up 11 reasons why we may want to re-think or be more cautious about this whole coalition business. And you say you MAY write some rebuttals to your own points? Time is of the essence Mr. Arnold, what if the Liberal or NDP brain trust decides to pack it all in because they are unable to think of any rebuttals? Well then it falls to the rest of us to make up for your reckless behaviour.

So below I’ve listed each of Dan Arnold’s 11 feeble points of caution in italics and listed my rebuttals below each point. And yes these are serious rebuttals, but I do encourage other Liberal bloggers to shamelessly gang up on Calgary Grit as well and show him we aren’t the party of pessimism! It’s time for Hope! Change! Caution to the Wind!

Seriously now…

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1. Western Allienation: As other Alberta Liberals have pointed out, the backlash in Alberta and across Western Canada is going to be huge. You thought the "No! No! No!" headlines were over the top today? Well you ain't seen nothing yet.

Western alienation is probably the biggest issue in my view. I don’t doubt the backlash in the West will be huge. It will likely take months (maybe even close to a year) to subdue and reverse it (in fact I predicted the coalition will start out relatively unpopular across all of Canada at the beginning). But we can recover and make this into winning conditions in the West in particular.

3 Things will be important to be successful
1) Make sure Westerners are well represented in cabinet. Harper obviously has way more Western MPs than the coalition will have, but seriously I’d be surprised if most Westerners could even name 10 of them.
2) Find some issues that are most popular out West and bring them in (ok you’ll have to consult someone who knows the West better than I do but there must be some that the coalition could agree on)
3) Start running ads about 8 months to a year into the coalition government comparing how the new coalition has done MORE for the West than Harper ever did. We value the West, Conservatives took them for granted, etc. etc…

2. The NDP is Legitimized: The one thing which has always kept the Liberals ahead of the NDP, even when the LPC sinks to it's lowest of lows, is the widely held perception that the NDP is not up for the job of being in government. By placing the NDP in Cabinet, you're implicitly admitting that they can handle the job. Plus, I have this rule of thumb that any move that makes Jack Layton grin from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat is a bad move.

This cuts both ways. The NDP’s main talking points about the Liberals will be damaged too. No more “13 years of inaction, blah blah”. And no longer being able to just blindly oppose everything the Liberals do. The NDP used to like to have it every which way as they never had to make a responsible decision. That will change now as they’ll have to wear the decisions made by the coalition.

I think the Liberals will still always outpoll the NDP in the popular vote because we will always be presenting more moderate mainstream policies. As evidence of that, aside from the Green Shift (which we simply do not have a mandate to implement, even though I still believe it’s the right approach) I can’t think of any policies from our platform we had to concede to make this coalition deal work. Meanwhile the NDP had to give up their biggest policy from the last campaign which was raising corporate taxes by $50 billion (instead we’ll get corporate tax cuts as Liberals planned). I’m sure the NDP cabinet ministers would do a good job in the coalition government, but it will be the policies they propose in the next election that will keep their party down below ours.

3. The Coalition Precedence: Similarly, the NDP is going to expect Cabinet posts in any future minority government. So if we wind up with a Liberal plurality in the future, the NDP is going to be demanding seats at the Cabinet table as a condition of support.

Perhaps, but after the Rae-Peterson accord, the Liberals won a majority (if that happened federally the Liberals would just have to make sure they played their cards A LOT better than Peterson did with his majority mandate). Even if they didn’t win a majority, if it’s a strong minority they should be able to govern soundly on their own on an issue by issue basis as Paul Martin did.

As the largest non-Conservative party it will be the Liberals choice to make whether to accept the NDP as coalition partners and I’m fine with that. The amount of seats the NDP would get in a cabinet (or if they get any at all) would surely always depend on how many seats they had relative to the Liberals. A Liberal-NDP coalition still beats Conservative government by a long shot.

4. The Coalition Precedence II: As Stephen Harper's 2004 letter shows, what's good for you one day, is not so good the next. And I have strong doubts that Liberals in love with the idea of a coalition government now would have welcomed one back in 2004. It's highly possible that a future Liberal leader who wins a plurality of the seats might find himself or herself in Stornoway.

Unless the Conservatives start moving to the left of the Liberals or a new strong opposition party comes about I can’t quite see how the Conservatives could really come to a deal with the other opposition parties as the Liberals have. By virtue of their “uniting the right” they have much less common with the remaining parties than the Liberals do. If the 2004 deal had come to pass and they toppled Martin and Harper took over without an election I don’t think his government would have lasted very long with NDP/Bloc support.

5. The End of Strategic Voting: Since I've been following politics, the final week of every campaign has featured a Liberal leader appealing to other progressive voters to vote Liberal in a bid to stop the scary Conservative bogeyman of the day. Once voters have seen a progressive coalition take power, they're going to laugh at any Grit who tries to make the case that a vote for Layton is a vote for Harper. While it might be good for democracy to see this argument disappear, it's a potent argument to surrender.

No strategic voting still makes perfect sense under a FPTP system. In 3 way races where the NDP is running clearly 3rd, a vote for the NDP could lead to a Conservative being elected in that riding. Only if we change electoral systems does strategic voting no longer make sense (something I will be posting about at another time, as I do favour electoral reform).

6. Coalition Times are Tough Times: If we do hit a recession, do you really want to be in power when it happens?

I believe we will hit a recession, but after 18 months hopefully we will be out of it and can claim credit for governing through the storm. And in reality I believe the policies we are proposing are actually a better means of getting out of the storm than what the Conservatives would do. If the economic crisis is not over in 18 months, well hopefully we can manage to extend the deal until the recession is over or at least on the mend (and if Conservatives were in power under similar circumstances after 18 months you can bet they would try to sustain their government in a similar manner).

7. The Race for 24 Sussex: With 30 month and 18 month deals signed, Dion has given his successor the keys to 24 Sussex as a parting gift. But Dion has also handcuffed whoever wins the Liberal leadership race to this contract. Sure, they can break it, but that would be a political hit in and of itself.

All Liberal leadership candidates agreed to the deal. Dion showed the deal to them before the Monday caucus meeting and they all signed on. And why wouldn’t they? As I've said before, it will be FAR easier to combat the inevitable Conservative fear mongering ads in government than from the opposition benches.

Dan I know this means you have to change the name of your Liberal leadership series from the Race for Stornoway, but I hope you don’t mind taking one for the team.

8. The Black Swan Effect: Sure, these parties can probably find common ground on the economy. But what happens when the unexpected happens? Will the Liberals and NDP be able to find ground on foreign policy? And, taking point number 7 to one of its three possible outcomes, could the NDP and Michael Ignatieff find common ground on foreign policy?

The accord lays out what they will focus on and says they will govern on a “no surprises” basis. I think in the end the cabinet will discuss matters as they come up and come to a consensus. The Liberals and NDP already agreed on Afghanistan to stay till 2011 which was another major concession by the NDP. If they can give up that (which was a MAJOR rallying cry for them), then I think the NDP will, for the most part, be willing to cede foreign policy (particularly the most “hot button” issues) to the Liberals (I presume the Foreign Affairs minister will be a Liberal). But with a few exceptions (e.g., positions on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where I imagine the Liberal position will be the official position of the coalition government) the Liberals and NDP have a fair amount in common with the NDP on foreign policy as it is. The NDP have basically been decrying these past few years the move away from our “proud record on the world stage”, which for the most part is a Liberal record, so I think there’s a lot of room for common ground.

9. No Bloc Party: Yes, I know they've worked with other parties before. And I know nothing has been promised to them. And I trust Stephane Dion more than anyone else to stand up for Canada and to not cave in to Bloc demands. But I hate the Bloc Quebecois with a fiery passion. So this just feels wrong. Especially when the first letter from the trio talks about "a majority of Canadians and Quebecers".The only way to ever stop these kinds of arrangements is for the Liberals and NDP to have a combined majority in the House and for Quebecers to start voting for the Bloc is much smaller numbers.

It’s just an unfortunate reality that in the current House we have to choose between Conservatives propped up by the Bloc, or Liberal-NDP coalition propped up by the Bloc. I’ll choose the latter and it will be a lot better for Canada and the functioning of Parliament than the former.


10. Voter Reaction: Maybe voters will grow to love the coalition. Maybe it will lead to a Liberal majority - a common result of past Liberal/NDP cooperation. But you have to at least recognize that it could backfire. You also have to recognize that after seeing the craziness of the past week, the stability of a Conservative majority will sound appealing to some voters (then again, so could a Liberal majority).

Ok this one is easy, I say voters will “grow to love the coalition” :). Canadians are for the most part centrist or left-of-centre. 62% of them voted for parties that offered what this government will give to them. Again I don’t think the Liberals really surrendered anything other than the Green Shift so I see no reason why anyone who voted Liberal should oppose what they get. The NDP and Bloc supporters seem to be on board with what’s on offer as well. I predict that after a year in government at least 45-55% of Canadians, and hopefully more, will be very happy with the government the coalition provides which is a lot higher than the satisfaction level Canadians would have with a Conservative government one year from now.


11. Mandate: Yes, I know the leader with the fewest seats can govern. Yes, I know we elect parliaments, not Prime Ministers. But at the end of the day, Stephen Harper got 38% of the vote and Stéphane Dion got 26%. The Conservatives got 143 seats and the Liberals got 77. Heck, even the Liberal-NDP coalition only got 114. So, from a purely conceptual point of view, this doesn't feel completely right.

We can’t just focus on the Liberal numbers, this will be a Liberal-NDP government. The Liberals and NDP got 44.4% of the vote, the Conservative 37.7% that’s what we should be mentioning again and again. More Canadians voted for our parties than his, that’s a fact they can’t deny. If they want to talk about how they have more seats while at the same time pretending we don’t have a Parliamentary system and that we directly elect the PM their contradictions will eventually catch up to them.

And the Greens and Bloc also support the coalition so that makes 62% of Canadians that should theoretically be behind this. Beats Stephen Harper’s 38%!

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So take that Dan “Stephen Harper is a genius” Arnold! Your pessimism is unwelcome. Only sunny skies ahead!

Unless of course things end up going horribly wrong in a way only Dan Arnold could have predicted, in which case this post may quietly disappear…

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Forget King-Byng, Remember Clark-Schreyer

"Mr. Clark was defeated on a budget seven months after the election that brought his Tories to power. He asked Edward Schreyer, then the Governor-General, for a dissolution of Parliament. Mr. Schreyer, quite properly and according to constitutional convention, asked the Liberals, under Pierre Trudeau, whether they could govern with a working majority in the House of Commons."

I don't agree with many of the points in the Globe editorial (did they forget they endorsed Stephane Dion for Liberal leader originally?), but I assume they have their facts straight on what happened in 1979. At that time, Joe Clark had a minority with a slightly greater percentage of seats in the House than Stephen Harper currently does. 7 months, not 7 weeks had passed since the election. And there was no formal deal between opposition parties. Yet even considering all that Shreyer denied Clark's request for dissolution and asked the leader of the official opposition if he could form a government. Trudeau refused and that was his right, but the precedent in the upcoming case is obviously clear, Stephane Dion must be given the opportunity to demonstrate he can govern with majority support in the House of Commons.

Governor General Jean's decision should never rest on a PR war, polls, rallies, petitions or any other kind of public display. Her decision should rest solely on her constitutional responsibilities and ample precedents, not just from 1979 in our system but dozens of precedents from other countries that also carry our system. If Conservatives can't accept the Westminister Parliamentary model we have and the role of the Governor General perhaps they should advocate constitutional change, but you can't do an end run around our constitution just because you don't like the result. The formation of coalitions is common enough with this system (just take a look at other countries that have it and whose government have been managed well) and the ONLY reason the Conservatives oppose it this time is because they will lose power.

They were fine with the Governor General handing over power to Stephen Harper without an election in 2004, why the problem now?

They were fine with the "separatists" being the ONLY party to prop them up on confidence votes for almost the first full TWO YEARS of their last government, why the problem now?

I expect no response from a single Blogging Tory.

This is no undemocratic power grab. Harper has lost the right to govern, it's nobody's fault but his own (even many Conservatives admit this) and there is a coalition waiting in place to govern better and more in the interests of all Canadians. I hope Harper just accepts his fate, doesn't run, and the Governor General respects precedent and allows a new government to assume power. Not only is it the right thing to do constitutionally, it's what's best for Canada and Parliament during these troubled times as well.

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Reality Check for Blogging Tories

I've taken the liberty of updating the sidebar on the Blogging Tories website. Stephen Taylor can thank me later. Unless Harper decides to be the first PM ever to porogue a Parliament without having passed a single government bill and with no reason other than to hang on to power than I think this new image better reflects reality :). And remember, it's Christmas season, so please share it (or improve it) with your Coalition and Tory friends.

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Canada NEEDS a NEW Prime Minister

Ok so I've said this before, but I say it again now for much different reasons. We have a clear way forward and much to justify it (for an exhaustive list see below).

Our economy faces its worst crisis in decades and this calls for putting personal partisan interest aside and working in a spirit of inter-party co-operation to give Canada the BEST policies to help our country through these trouble times. It’s clear now we won’t get that from this Prime Minister who’s fiscal update was all about pandering to HIS party’s base rather than helping Canadians who are most in need. Using an economic crisis to try to bankrupt your opposition parties was bad enough, but Harper at least had an opportunity to try and propose real solutions for the economy. He failed miserably.

- Weakening pay equity and public service worker’s rights isn’t a solution to the economic crisis.

- Claiming there will a razor thin surplus these next few years when EVERY economist says otherwise is not a solution to the economic crisis

- Promising massive cuts to social spending without specifying where those cuts are going to go isn’t a solution to the economic crisis.

- Having a firesale on government assets isn’t a solution to the economic crisis.

- Proposing NO stimulus for the economy, when EVERY OTHER world leader is, isn’t a solution to the economic crisis.

A much better solution to the economic crisis is a NEW government. This one recklessly managed mismanaged the economy for 2.5 years and when given another minority it has failed to change its ways. It has failed to act as all western governments have. It has failed to reach beyond its base as Canadians EXPECTED it to do.

It’s too late for death bed conversions, it will be obvious it’s just a façade. It’s time to bring this government down and give Canadians a better one.

I think the best, most practical and least divisive solution would be to have this government led by Stéphane Dion until the time a new leader is crowned and with the NDP receiving 7 or 8 cabinet posts in a trimmed down 26-28 member cabinet. To pressure Dion to resign would badly divide the Liberal Party when it needs to be united and, in particular, to install one of the other leadership candidates would be deeply resented by members of all other camps (and neutral Liberals like myself).

NO ONE can say Dion isn’t ready or fully qualified to lead as PM. He has over a decade in cabinet, he knows the issues this country is facing, and I think would work very well with members of other parties in this minority climate. If he is only to lead until May then no one can say he has ulterior motives other than what is in best interests of the country. We NEED that right now. McCallum and Goodale would be preferable to the current leadership candidates as PM, but as far as I understand they are each already committed to one of the candidates in this race (Goodale for Rae and McCallum for Ignatieff) so other Liberals would be more likely to question their motivations. Nor is it clear that either one of them isn’t one day interested in ultimately formally seeking the Liberal leadership.

For those that say Canada shouldn’t have a lameduck PM, the next 6 months may be the MOST crucial time in dealing with crisis and we need to have a PM who is willing to devote himself solely to bringing the BEST solutions foreward and that the public sees as having no ulterior motivations (e.g., positioning for the curren, or a future, leadership race or for the next general election). We won't get that from Harper, but we would from Dion. There are other countries that have tapped caretaker PM’s (usually with undeniably impecable qualifications) to deal with crises who later passed their job on to a successor and this would be no different and an orderly succession could be arranged in May to the next Liberal leader.

It is important to get all 3 leadership camps to agree to this though, but I would hope they would see it in their interest to be all now campaigning to be PM instead of opposition leader. If this deal falls apart due to the Liberal caucus unable to agree on who would be PM then whoever wins the leadership race would be certain to face a barrage of attack ads full of fear-mongering (e.g., “Bob Rae will ruin the economy”, “Michael Ignatieff is a Bush clone”, “LeBlanc isn’t up to the job”) that in reality could have been best countered by already being in government. If any of the leadership candidates could become PM upon winning the leadership then they would INSTANTLY be able to counter the smears (e.g., Bob Rae would bring in a competent budget, Ignatieff would show himself to be much more moderate, LeBlanc would show himself to be a sound economic manager as PM). This in turn would give that leadership candidate a much better chance of winning re-election as PM. So I hope cooler heads can prevail here and see how this works out best for ALL progressives, Liberals and NDP alike.

But what of all those who will howl that this is “undemocratic”? Well here are some facts:

- The Liberals and NDP together received 44.4% of the vote in the last election compared to 37.65% for the Conservatives. The coalition would be supported from outside by the BQ and Greens who received a further 16.76% of the vote.

- The Liberals and NDP may only have 114 seats between them, but opposition parties received more than 50% of the vote in more than half the ridings across Canada.

- The NDP and Liberals hold seats in EVERY region of the country.

- The first two Conservative budgets and the softwood lumber deal were ONLY supported by the Cons and the Bloc Quebecois so talk of this “aiding the separatists” is merely a sideshow. Conservatives had no problems being propped up solely by the BQ for the first two years of their government and NO ONE is talking about the BQ formally joining this coalition so this arrangement would be no different.

- In 2004, when Stephen Harper was opposition leader, he signed a letter with Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton saying it would appropriate for a new government to be formed without an election should the governing party be voted down within a few months of the last election.

- Coalition governments that are decided after the election are the norm in countries with economies much larger than ours such as Germany, France, Japan and India. Coalition governments are also the norm in over a dozen other Western countries whose economies are doing comparatively well (e.g., the Scandinavian countries). Often these coalitions last several years so the argument that coalitions would necessarily be unstable or bad for the economy doesn’t fly.

Will there be a backlash if we get a Dion led coalition? Of course, but so would there be if there was a coalition led by someone else (in fact the Tory talking points already have adapted to that possibility of slamming a PM “voters never had a chance to vote on”). We can’t let a possible short-term backlash deter us here. Stephen Harper faced a large backlash over the appointments of David Emerson and Michael Fortier to his cabinet. It lasted a few weeks and (unfortunately) it blew over. Harper is facing a backlash now, but we can’t back down this time.

Any public backlash over a coalition will surely dissipate if we PROVIDE GOOD GOVERNMENT. The best way to counter way to counter all the fear mongering is provide the public with a dose of reality and the beauty is that, in government, we can do that. We will have a strong rational PM with a cabinet that puts the interests of Canadians ahead of their parties for once. The public will see that within a few months time and come to support what we’ve done. Let’s be prepared for some short-term opposition, but we can prove the skeptics wrong in the end.

So it’s my hope (and it may never come to pass I realize) we will see no backing down by the opposition and that ALL Liberals and ALL NDP members can get thoroughly behind our parties’ leadership here for the good of the country.

We will face an onslaught of opposition this week in the form of TV and radio eds, op-eds and anything else the Conservatives will throw at us.

Let’s be ready, we know what we are doing is right.

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