Are Reforms You Call "Paltry" Really Worth the Price?

So apparently the NDP have decided to prop up Stephen Harper till March (as the EI reforms go through committee, 2nd, and 3rd readings) SOLELY in return to what NDP MP Pat Martin flatly calls “paltry improvements to EI.” Well the NDP seem to have quite a sense of priorities because by propping up Harper till March (when he pulls the plug himself and perhaps before these EI reforms even receive royal assent) that means:
- There will be NO MORE significant enhancements to benefits or fixing regional disparities for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers NOT covered by the Conservative reforms (the reforms are said to affect at best 60,000 people a year) (so much for helping the little guy)
- Canada will be sending Harper the obstructionist to the most important climate change negotiations in history this December who will go with the goal of torpedoing the whole thing (so much for the environment)
- Canadian citizens will continue to languish in foreign prisons with no help from their government (so much for human rights)
- Government stimulus funds will continue to go predominantly to Conservative held ridings that actually have lower relative unemployment rates (so much for fairness)
- Harper will bring in ever more right-wing legislation knowing you will pass whatever he wants until the EI reforms are passed into law as you are promising (so much for principles)
- Harper gets an election at his preferred time and you will be giving him what you in your own words called a "de facto majority" (so much for electoral strategy)
- Harper will give you no credit for these EI reforms he was already going to do, he will throw in some mockery and more humiliations here and there and you will have no real accomplishments to go to the electorate with in March (so much for pride)

And that's just a short list and it's all so Tom Mulcair can hold his seat a little longer and Jack Layton can hold the NDP leadership a little longer.

When the two of them lose them both as a result of the election Harper triggers post-Olympics, I somehow doubt their supporters will look back on it and think it was all worthwhile. Even though I think the Liberals still stand a good chance of winning then too, it will be after more damage was done to our reputation and finances that will have to be repaired thanks to NDP short-sightedness.

Now these EI reforms that Pat Martin calls paltry are worthwhile, but I'm sure they could have been applied retroactively after an election and are far from all the reforms that should be made or even that the NDP said must be made. And it should have been obvious to the NDP that leaves Harper in office for the next 6 months means NO MORE "results for people" beyond what their own MP said was paltry while having all the negative consequences above and more.

But I guess protecting Jack and Tom matters more. That's really some leadership the NDP have isn't it?

The irony is that by extending the government till March and giving us an election on Harper's terms, IF Harper actually won I wonder if the NDP would even survive to fight the election after that? First chance Harper would get post-election he will cut public financing of political parties, which no doubt will be a big thank you to Jack from Steve for the 6 months or so Jack helped HIM survive.

In the meantime, should the NDP grassroots just fall in line with Layton and Mulcair's wishes and not force them to back down, then we must just resign ourselves to six more months of spiraling deficits, more debt, more unemployment (without any new significant assistance), more division, and no leadership or vision at home or abroad. And then we can get an election exactly when Harper wants.

I think we can do better.

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The Case for Change

As Parliament returned today, so does this blog. And as the Harper government returned to Question Period for another round of evasive non-answers, ask yourself do we really need more of this? What does Stephen Harper have to show for his almost four years in office? Deficits, Debt, Division, Deception and Disarray.

Stephen Harper was so obsessed with banishing "surprise Liberal surpluses" and yet now he wants us to cut him slack for ever rising surprise new Conservative deficits.

Stephen Harper boasted about how much debt he was going to pay down, only to pile up more than had been paid in the last decade.

Stephen Harper said when he was first elected that his he would "govern for all Canadians" only to be the worst wedge politician Canada's ever seen as he writes off 60% of the population completely.

Stephen Harper said he would bring open, honest and accountable government, only to give us the opposite.
He promised us no recession and no deficit and we got the worst of both.
He tried to take credit for the lowest unemployment rate in 33 years, only to blame everyone else but him when he faces the highest.
He railed against Liberal patronage and cronyism and felt compelled to top it.
He promised sincere cooperation on EI this past summer and turned the whole thing into a charade.
He accused the opposition of wanting to raise payroll taxes on EI (which we were told would be a "job killer"), only to do so himself.
That kind of deception is tough to top.

And he's left our country in complete disarray with no vision or long-term domestic or foreign policy goals. Can someone point to anything Stephen Harper has planned for even next year? As every other major industrialized country makes targeted investments and restructures to compete in the global economy, Stephen Harper just puts his head in the sand. Does anyone still listen to Canada with Stephen Harper in power? When Stephen Harper says Canada is "back" under his leadership he must mean back of the pack.

It's really quite the legacy to leave behind and that's just the short list!
Well we needn't let him add to it any longer.

Canadians deserve better.

We face the toughest times in a generation with a Parliament Stephen Harper refuses to make work (Overdue EI Reforms still don't make the grade).

If you give Stephen Harper your hand, rest assured he will do everything he can to tie it behind your back (Jack Layton take note...).

Every day more Harper is in office our potential as a country is further squandered as he obsesses over crushing his opponents instead of governing the nation.

There is little positive to be gained by keeping this government in office any longer. We can do better.

We need a government willing to actually govern and make Parliament work rather than one focused entirely on electioneering and trying to come up with the best "plausible" lies about their opposition.

We need a government willing to lead on the world stage, rather than one that's happy to be a bit player.

We need a government with a team of strong capable ministers, rather than a one-man show who forces the rest into hiding.

We need a government that listens to research and science instead of one driven only be ideology.

We need a government willing to stand up for women's and minority rights and the disabled, instead of one that sees them as "left-wing fringe groups".

We need a government that protects Canadians abroad instead of abandons them.

We need a government that believes in our institutions, from public broadcasting, to the courts, to Elections Canada, rather than a government trying to tear them down.

We need a government that knows we must invest more in post-secondary education, instead of one who mocks those with a university education.

We need a government willing to show real environmental leadership at the largest ever Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December, instead of one that would go with the goal of being the biggest holdout.

We need a government that knows that good child care policy is good economic policy, instead of one that is seemingly proud not to have created a single child care space.

We need a government willing to level with Canadians and give straight answers instead of one that stonewalls and deceives at every turn.

We need a government that's fiscally responsible and has a social conscience to replace one that's neither.

We need a government that's focused on building the Canada of the future to take over from one that can't see beyond the next election.

We need a Prime Minister that unites Canadians rather than divides them.

Only Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party can provide this kind of government to Canadians. A Prime Minister and government that provides real vision and leadership we can all be proud of.

A majority of Canadians may say they don't want an election now, but that's because they are not yet convinced an election would change much or that there's no single defining issue. But an election can give us the real debate about our future we didn't get in the last and that we really need as economies restructure across the globe.

Liberals will present a truly alternative compelling vision for this country and Canadians will see we can be so much more than we are.

Stephen Harper was given another chance by Canadians almost a year ago and in every way, he's blown it. The stakes are too high to grant him another reprieve. These tough times demand better.

When Canadians are faced with a choice of positive change and more of the same, the choice will be clear.

Canada needs a new direction and it can't come soon enough.

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For more on why we need an election, see here

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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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When You’ve Run the Country’s Finances Into the Ground and the Economy is in a Tailspin….

Apparently Harper thinks it’s time to use an economic crisis for partisan gain! People are suffering all over the country and this is Harper solution? Absolutely shameful.

So it will be delays on fiscal stimulus to actually help the people hurting most, but moving right away to gut the opposition’s primary means of financing! The magic solution for the deficit from the biggest spending (while delivering the least results) government in Canadian history!

As Impolitical notes all this talk about “belt tightening” is straight out of the John McCain playbook: trying to make a cause célèbre of tackling supposed pork barrel spending that, in reality, amounts to an extremely tiny fraction of the federal budget. Yes there is room to cut back on some parliamentary expenses, but public financing is no pork barrel project and exists for a good reason: to create a level playing field so that all voices of the political spectrum are able to be represented by political parties.

There’s only one party on the right that gives the Conservatives an inherent fundraising advantage already that they’ve exploited to no end. But I’m sure Conservatives relish nothing more than to have a Canada with no one opposing the Conservatives. And let there be no doubt about their motives here. As Stephen Taylor, the top Conservative blogger, notes, “in this, the Conservatives aim to level a strategic blow to the Liberals as Conservative fundraising efforts”. So this is the new co-operative spirit Harper pledged to bring in? This is what Harper thinks Canadians are looking for in tough times?

Public financing brings far more benefits to the health of our democracy than what it costs. In the end the amount each party receives is ultimately earned by the amount of support each party gets in an election, so it’s not just free government handouts either. The federal treasury would be saved an insignificant amount and the health of our democracy would suffer far more if the per vote subsidy were removed. This is not a price worth paying, nor does it get us anywhere near getting the country's finances back in order.

For those that say “well Liberals will just need to do a better job appealing to Canadians in order to earn their money”, well I’d agree Liberals do need to do a better job at that, but there currently exists a dramatically unlevel playing field and if this were really about just “belt tightening” for the sake of helping the economy and not a means to crush the opposition why not, as a fellow Liberal blogger suggested, remove donation limits at the same time then?

Donation limits don’t impact the federal treasury so Conservatives should have no problems making it easier for parties to fundraise from private citizens if they think public funds shouldn’t be used to subsidized parties at all.

We will see how this plays out, but I'm hoping Liberals, and indeed all opposition parties, stand absolutely firm and call Harper on this for what this is: pathetic partisan gamesmanship when Canadians deserve, and expect, A LOT better!

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A Tale of Two Harper's

Below is a comparison of Stephen Harper and his party’s election statements with their post-election ones on a range of issues. What we are seeing with each passing week is a Stephen Harper slowly reversing everything he said in the last election. Yet amazingly he seems to have reversed himself on so many fronts without having to openly admit he was wrong or mistaken in his original view. In some cases he had the wrong position in the election and a better one now and sometimes the opposite, but is it too much to ask that the media actually call him to task when he contradicts himself so quickly? That Harper be forced to own up to the mistakes he’s made? So here’s just a small number of examples…

	Election Harper Conservative Positions	Post-Election Harper Conservative Positions
On Deficits	"Stephen Harper, who's vowed to avoid a deficit in any circumstances – without raising taxes – says he considers questions about how he'd therefore cut spending to avoid going into the red as the economy weakens 'a ridiculous hypothetical scenario.' " (Oct 11 2008)	"it would be misguided to commit to a balanced budget in the short term" (Throne Speech, Nov 19 2008) [Canada – now faces] "the classic circumstances under which budgetary deficits are essential." (Nov 22 2008)
On the Seriousness of the Financial Crisis	"if we were going to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now.” (Sept 15 2008) "I think there's probably some great buying opportunities emerging in the stock market as the consequence of all this panic" (Oct 6 2008)	"The financial crisis has become an economic crisis, and the world is entering an economic period unlike, and potentially as dangerous, as anything we have faced since 1929" (Nov 21 2008) "We may well be in a technical recession the last quarter of this year and the first quarter of next year" (Jim Flaherty, Nov 23 2008)
On Dion’s Proposed First Minister’s Conference	"Stephen Harper swiftly dismissed the proposals as a flurry of needless meetings" (Oct 1 2008)	“The prime minister called for the meeting the day after winning his second minority government on Oct. 14, adopting part of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's plan for dealing with the financial and economic crisis. During the election, Harper dismissed the Dion plan as an indication he was "panicking." (Nov 10 2008)
On Dion’s Proposed Accelerated Infrastructure Spending	"Leaders need to have a plan and not panic. You panicked, Stephane'' (Oct 1 2008)	"Stephen Harper said he's confident that billions of dollars in funding for big-ticket projects - such as roads, transit and sewers - will be accelerated in the next year." (Nov 10 2008)
On Dion’s Proposed Review of Canada’s Regulatory System	"It seems the Liberals are making it up as they go" (Oct 4 2008 - Conservative War Room mocking John McCallum saying that it would be due diligence to do such a review)	“I have initiated, since the election campaign ended, a pretty comprehensive internal evaluation of Canada's own domestic systems of regulation in response to the international financial crisis” (Oct 30 2008)
On Afghanistan	"While there may be a few Canadian soldiers who stay on after 2011 as advisers, the bulk of the troops will be home by then, Harper said" (Sep 10 2008)	"We are in Afghanistan for the long term under a United Nations mandate for as long as we are needed and welcomed by the Afghan people." (Peter Mackay, Nov 21 2008)

Most of those were said by Stephen Harper himself (or his comments paraphrased by the media), but I’ve noted where it came from one of his Ministers or his War Room, but as we all know almost nothing comes from the party without his approval (bird poop incident notwithstanding). I’ll update this list over time as I discover new contradictions (please feel free to post more in the comments), or Harper unveils more for us.

There are surely many more (I hope the Liberals are keeping a running tab), but with it being not even a month and a half since the election what does this say about a man who reverses himself on so many fronts so quickly? How do his supporters defend this? Why should we believe anything Stephen Harper says in the future?

I wonder what Stephen Harper’s response would be if he were ever confronted with such a table. Thankfully for him the media have short memories and likely won’t call Harper on his all of these contradictions at any of his press conferences when they have the chance. It would be nice to be proved wrong on that count for once though.

UPDATE: BC'er also traces Harper’s “evolving” views on the deficit here.

UPDATE 2: More of the Harper government’s ever-changing views here, here, and here.

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Time to Own Up Mr. Harper

Stephen Harper and his caucus were all too all too happy to take credit when the balance sheets looked good and the economy was strong. Stephen Harper was all too confident in saying “if we were going to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now” and so sure of himself in the last election saying it was “ridiculous” to talk about there being a deficit anytime soon. Stephen Harper happily encouraged Canadians to tap into a “great buying opportunity” on the market when it was over 20% higher than it is now. Any Canadians who took his advice would have lost a fortune.

Well Mr. Harper, you want to set a new tone in this Parliament? To turn over a new leaf? Then take some responsibility for once in your political career.

You took credit for the economy when it was doing well, take some credit when it isn’t.

You took credit for your policy decisions in the past, now take some credit for the consequences of them now.

While I will say that outside economic forces are affecting the overall Canadian economy and leading to market crashes, lost jobs, etc… more than the actions of the Harper government (though Harper has done little to help), it is beyond dispute that the current financial situation of the Canadian government and its impending deficit is largely due to the decisions of THIS government. It’s been validated by any rational non-partisan observer that it was mainly Harper's policy decisions, not the current financial crisis, that is leading us back to deficit after a decade in the black.

So Mr. Harper, will you finally take responsibility for your own mistakes?

For spending the cupboard bare and GST cuts that had little to no economic benefit?

For squandering a massive surplus and putting us in deficit?

For doing little to prepare us for the current economic turmoil? For eliminating a fiscal cushion that could have been invaluable at a time like this?

If Stephen Harper is unwilling to for once, own up, then all this talk about a new tone in this Parliament from his government, is just that: talk.

Mr. Harper has done so little to give Canadians a reason to trust his word, and I’m afraid we’re just going to get more of the same in the months ahead.

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The Harper Conservatives Are Best Placed to Manage Our Economy? What a Joke!!

The latest Conservative campaign against Stephane Dion is once again a joke that doesn't even come close to holding up to scrutiny. Canadians are supposed to believe that Conservatives are best placed to keep us out of deficit? This coming from a government that brought in two useless GST cuts that have done nothing to help the economy and drained billions and billions from the treasury for no purpose? This coming from a finance minister who when in Ontario Government lied about a $6 billion deficit? This coming from a government that had the biggest spending budget in history last year? What benefit did that focus group driven budget bring the Canadian economy? Now we are talking about the cupboard being bare and economic hard times on the horizon, I wonder why?

Contrast that with a Liberal government that turned a $42 Billion deficit left behind by Conservatives into a Gonvernment Treasury richer than it had ever been in Canadian history. We've gone from reliable surpluses each year to worrying about deficits? Whose fault is that? Who has done such an abysmal job managing the economy to put us in this position? Did he ever worry about deficits with the Liberals in power?

Yet the Conservatives want to claim it would be Stephane Dion who would run Canada into deficit? The records of the two parties are clear, 13 years of solid fiscal responsiblity versus 2 years of reckless economic management.

Everyone knows the Liberals will have a fully costed platform come election time as they have for many years. Stephen Harper just wants to goad them into realeasing their playbook early. Liberals won't fall for that trick and we know there's no way a Liberal government would run us into a deficit so it's a waste of time for Dion to spend much effort dealing with this spin.

So Conservatives can spin all they want for now, but once Canadians see the Liberal platform they'll know Conservatives were lying and will see how much of a better plan the Liberals have for Canada than the Harper Conservatives.

We'll see who has the last laugh.

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