Miniblog
February 28, 2006

stand up for canada!/changeons pour vrai!

Before AC went on vacation (no, I have no idea when he’s coming back, sorry. Yes, we’re all hoping it is soon…), he wrote that he was against the idea of a deputy PM, and even more against the idea of a deputy PM from Quebec. His reasoning was that, apart from the position being constitutionally non-existent, appointing a Quebecer as deputy PM would simply reinforce the unfortunate deux nations view of the country.

I agreed at the time with AC that deputy Prime Minister is a position we can happily do without, though I think that, given precedents such as Baldwin/Lafontaine and Macdonald/Cartier, it is a bit late in the game to start worrying about entrenching a bi-national view of the country.

At any rate, as Globe and Mail reports today, “less than a month into office, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is planning his third meeting with Quebec Premier Jean Charest as part of a strategy that points to the converging political agendas of both leaders.” Apparently they are going to meet to talk about the usual agenda items (Fiscal Imbalance, UNESCO) designed to weaken the federal government and smooth Quebec’s emergence onto the world stage as a de facto sovereign government. (How, pray tell, is Canada supposed to ever refuse to recognize a Quebec declaration of sovereignty if we first petition the United Nations to do so at UNESCO? Good strategy there guys.)

Blah blah blah, my question is pretty simple: What does more damage to Canadian unity: 1) The practice of appointing a Quebecer as deputy PM, and thereby entrenching Quebec’s representation within the federal Cabinet, or 2) the Prime Minister repeatedly engaging the premier ministre of Quebec, égal à égal in quasi-secret negotiations that effectively the province as an independent sovereignty?

Kicking ass in Canadian journalism

I laughed along with Paul Wells last year, as he routinely mocked the paper’s outsized headlines, Greenspon’s hyberbolic weekend column (“Unprecedented insight!”), and the in-house “re-imagination” strategy. Who’s laughing now? According to today’s WSJ, the Globe and Mail is kicking ass in Canadian journalism, and doing better than most of its US counterparts:

In contrast with most U.S. newspapers, which are suffering from declining circulation and seeing their share of advertisers' dollars shrink, the Globe is selling more papers and winning advertisers away from the three other daily papers that serve Toronto, Canada's largest city and home to one-quarter of the nation's population.

For the six months ended Sept. 30, the Globe's circulation climbed 5% to an average of 335,013 on weekdays. During the same period, average U.S. daily newspaper circulation declined by 2.6%; and among the country's biggest 20 papers, as measured by circulation, only one, the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger, gained circulation.

The WSJ goes on to assert that the Globe has pretty obviously won the newspaper war with the National Post (described as Conrad Black’s “pet project”), but Greenspon himself isn’t allowing himself to gloat too much. "Newspapers are falling off the cliff," he says. "But we're at the back."

(thanks to the handcaper for the link)

February 27, 2006

(still) defining the "fiscal imbalance"

Education summit not just about money: Charest...

... he says, just before going on to demand $2.2. billion from the feds. Whoops, make that $4.9 billion. As a friend of mine who was a delegate at least week's education summit reported back: there were so many figures flying around, most pulled straight out of dark bodily orifices, that Stephen Harper "would be crazy to pay any attention to any of them." This is probably a good time to link to AC's more-relevant-than-ever column on the "fiscal imbalance". This part is particularly nice:
The fiscal imbalance is one of those things like dark matter or quantum uncertainty that defy comprehension by the ordinary layman. Its precise magnitude has been the subject of countless arcane calculations -- the government of Quebec devoted a whole white paper to the subject -- but its basic mathematical expression may be reduced, by a combination of Lagrange polynomial interpolation and dead reckoning, to two lines: 1. Ottawa has money. 2. We want it.

how do we get corporate canada to invest?

I am ignorant about a great many things, and, apart from a C+ in second-year macro at McGill, my ignorance of economics is almost complete. Which is just prefatory to saying that I didn’t understand Jim Stanford’s column in today’s Globe and Mail (again, behind the firewall). As I understand it, Stanford is suggesting that Canada’s ongoing productivity problem is to some extent a function of inadequate corporate investment in new technology and equipment. And that failure comes at a time when “corporate coffers are bursting”:
Some of this largesse has been siphoned off to fat dividends; some has been invested overseas. But lots of it just sits there. Canadian businesses currently sit on $280-billion worth of cash, foreign currency, and short-term paper.
Stanford suggests doing one of two things: Reinstating 7 percentage points worth of federal corporate income taxes (to spend on public capital investment, like hospitals and colleges) or, alternatively, forcing corporations to spend these excess profits on productivity-enhancing investment. “Either way,” he writes, “that money must be put in motion. Corporations have no right to pile up hoards of idle cash… If they’re not going to invest, let someone else do it for them.” I won’t pretend to understand the ins-and-outs of corporate taxation and its relationship to productivity, innovation, public-sector investment, or anything else. Hell, I couldn’t even find the door. But what I’d like to know is, what does Stanford mean when he says that the money “just sits there”? Obviously, some money does just “sit there.” The money under my couch just sits there, playing no useful economic role on either the consumption or investment side. Money that is literally socked away is no good either. But I assume that Canadian corporations aren’t literally sitting on piles of cash, Scrooge McDuck-style. And I remember being taught, in grade 12 I guess, that savings was a form of investment, because when you put cash in the bank, the bank the loans it to someone who spends it on whatever they see fit, from buying a new car to starting a new business. So my naïve question is, what is happening to that $280 billion that Stanford says “just sits there”? Is it really not being invested, or is it just being invested in the wrong things? If it is really just sitting there, is taxing it back the best way of putting it in motion? If it is being invested in the wrong things, why is that? More broadly, if Stanford is right, why is Corporate Canada sitting on so much money, instead of investing it in productivity-enhancing equipment and technology?

cartoons, with rhubarb

I liked the Globe and Mail editorial today on political cartoons. The paper took an Iranian newspaper to task for running a non-funny cartoon of President Ahmadinejad:

... the cartoon fell flat because it did not insult anyone. It had no barb, no edge. Political cartooning is the cruellest art. The best cartoonists take no prisoners. The best cartoons hurt.

Indeed. So why is Ezra the only one taking no prisoners?

Summers gone

In today’s FT, Lucy Kellaway has a good column on that peculiar form of cat-herding known as university administration. She begins:

If I had to write down all the senior management positions I would hate to hold the list would go on forever. All big management jobs are beastly: they are stressful and frustrating and almost always end in failure.Yet at the top of my list of undesirable jobs would be running Harvard University, where Larry Summers resigned as president last week – just in time to save himself the ignominy of a vote of no confidence. It is not just the top slot at Harvard I would turn down. It is the head of any university, in particular a successful one.

The rest of the column is behind the firewall, but it lists seven characteristics that make academics employees from hell: - they are highly intelligent - they have low emotional intelligence - they are not team players; indeed, in most departments their colleagues are rivals - criticism is a way of life - there is no proper line of authority - they are complacent, and have a vested interest in the status quo - academia is a status industry, which makes pettiness the strongest currency If I had to guess which of these played the biggest role in the decline of Summers, I would rank the 6th, especially the egregious form of complacency known as tenure, at the top. But the one factor that Kellaway does not list is the one that was decisive: politics. As Alan Dershowitz argued last week, Summers’ problems at Harvard were essentially political:

It started as a hard left-center conflict. Summers committed the cardinal sin against the academic hard left: He expressed politically incorrect views regarding gender, race, religion, sexual preference, and the military. ... In the minds of at least some vocal members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, expressing such politically incorrect views is the academic equivalent of provoking Islamic extremists by depicting Prophet Mohammed in a political cartoon.
February 24, 2006

Canada's multicultural crisis?

There is a new issue of the Walrus out, though you wouldn’t know it from the magazine’s website. The cover story is another piece on Canadian identity from Alan Gregg. Most of the article is a summary of the history of Canada’s immigration policy, followed by some good data from UofT prof Jeffrey Reitz on how well our current multiculturalism policies are working for new visible minorities. “Not too well,” is the answer.

Since the post-cartoon chaos started overseas, there has been the usual self-congratulatory stuff in the papers here in Canada, arguing that there hasn’t been any comparable violence here because Canada has a more benign and tolerant attitude toward immigrants, especially muslims.

Gregg isn’t so sure. Here’s the key section:

Unlike Britain and France, however, which began accepting visible-minority immigrants after WWII, Canada did not do so in any real numbers until the 1970s. Consequently, second-generation immigrants represent only 14 percent of Canada’s current visible-minority population…

… given current settlement trends and growing income disparities, Canada may indeed face the kinds of ethnic conflict that have beset England and France. Instead of having more effective multicultural policies or societal tolerance, Canada has avoided these problems to date largely because it got into the visible-minority immigration game a generation later.

tyler cowen ballyrags curling

Gushue goes for Gold today. It's a holiday in Newfoundland. Newfoundlanders have their priorities in order. Meanwhile, the big heads over at Marginal Revolution have been having a good snicker about curling in the Olympics. Tyler Cowen introduced the subject here (and doesn't bother spelling Saskatchewan properly). Lapsed Canadian Alex Tabarrok draws our attention to the latest in broom technology here. Today, Cowen betrays the depths of his ignorance:
If the sport falls on hard times, it could sell itself as a Monty Python skit, albeit in an obscure Swiss German dialect. Is it the only Olympic sport where you can wear earrings while playing? Here is a curling video -- be baffled, be very baffled. The division of labor is limited by the extent of the market, as they say.
This, from a man who spends his spare time seeking out decent barbecue, and writing about it as if he were Shackleton.
February 23, 2006

my productivity problem

Books that I have started since Christmas and which I am utterly failing to finish: Benjamin Friedman, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth Reza Aslan, No God But God Martin Wolf, Why Globalization Works Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape Book that I've read twice already and which I started again this week: Patrick O'Brian, The Mauritius Command

patriotism as brand loyalty

One of the more intriguing ideas to come along over the past few years is the notion of “nation branding,” which made the NY Times Magazine end-of-year list of big ideas. There are two main aspects to nation-branding, one economic, the other political. On the economic side, the idea is that a strong national brand can act as a “value-added” to branded exports, sort of the way an “Intel inside” sticker adds value to your IBM laptop. On the political side, nation branding is also called “public diplomacy,” and it has been pitched as a vital part of a nation’s soft power. Simon Anholt is a British marketing guru who has done a nice job of staking out a large claim on this relatively untouched terrain. As Anholt argues, nation branding "involves close coordination of the often disparate factors that go into a country’s international image: tourism promotion, trade, even foreign policy." I think he exaggerates the extent to which a nation brand must be as tightly controlled or coordinated as a corporate brand. People are generally able to distinguish a country’s "political" brand from its "tourism" or "culture" brand, which is why we find it easy to both denounce China’s human rights record, but still go there on vacation in search of the exotic orient. Evidence for this is actually found in a study that Anholt himself recently did, in which he calculated that Canada has the third most popular nation-brand in the world, after the UK and… Switzerland. Canada is surpassed only by the United Kingdom, with ranked first, and Switzerland, which ranked second, on a list of 35 nations. The United States ranked 10th on the list.
Simon Anholt, creator of the Anholt Nation Brand Index, said that the result means that Canada is a much admired country. “What it says is that everybody rates [Canada] very highly," Anholt said in an interview. "It scores particularly strongly for things like governance and for tourism."
Another problem with the nation branding field is that it is sorely in need of some sort of normative analysis. What are the ethical limits of nation branding? What sorts of controls are legitimate? What forms of marketing should be allowed? Given that Canadian politics has been dominated for the past year or so by a scandal directly related to an attempt at marketing the national brand to Quebecers, it is unfortunate that there has been so little public attention paid to this normative dimension. I talk a bit about this in a column I wrote for Maclean’s here. (Thanks to reader Julie Crysler for the Anholt link)
February 22, 2006

pre-game jitters

I’m so nervous about the game today my mind is more muddled than normal. I can't possibly blog anything remotely useful. I’m excited about the gold in the women’s x-country sprint, but have to confess that I’m disappointed it wasn’t Beckie Scott. I’m very optimistic about the game against Russia this afternoon; I’m happier playing the Russians than I would be playing the Swedes or the Slovaks. Yesterday's game wasn't great, but it was better. In 2002, the team only really played two decent games, the last round robin against the Czechs, and the gold medal match. Even the semi-final against the Finns was tight. We'll be fine. If you are looking for stuff to read and argue about, I thought this article by Caldwell about Nicolas Sarkozy was excellent. Caldwell is right, IMO, that Sarko is the dominant French politician of his generation, the one who is setting the terms of debate in that country:
It is not certain that "Sarko," as he is called in the press, will win, but it is certain he will set the tone. To adapt a metaphor of the political scientist Samuel Lubell, he is the "sun" of the French political scene, generating all the light and ideas. The other candidates are like "moons," merely reflecting the light he gives off--agreeing with Sarko on this, disagreeing with him on that, and sort of agreeing with him on the other thing.
If you are looking to strike up the band on the Sarko-wagon, you can throw away your Che t-shirts and get latest Sarko-swag here. Back after the game.
February 21, 2006

anti-branding in the Muslim world

Cartoons row boosts sales of Mecca Cola DUBAI, Feb 20 (Reuters) - UAE-based Mecca Cola, touted by its makers as an Islamic alternative to Western brand soft drinks, has seen sales triple since anger erupted in Muslim countries over cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad. Chairman Taoufik Mathlouthi told Reuters at a food industry exhibition that he planned to list Mecca Cola on the Dubai stock market, adding the process could take more than a year. "Growth came with these Danish caricatures. It's crazy but our sales multiplied by three ... We cannot supply all the demand we have right now," Mathlouthi said.

SC appointments: what would Coyne blog?

According to Susan McGrath, past-president of the Canadian Bar Association, Stephen Harper’s plan for reforming the Supreme Court appointments process “may very well leave the impression that the judges are being controlled by the politicians.” Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant fears that interrogation of candidates by MPs will “Americanize and politicize the judicial system.”

Oh ho ho. If there are two things Canadians fear more than Americans and politics, I don’t know what they are. Politicians playing politics? Heavens. What next, Canada’s men’s hockey team playing hockey? It is to dream.

Listen: having MPs interview potential SC judges can’t possibly politicize the Court, because it is already politicized. The whole appointment process is a highly political endeavour, with all the lobbying, calculating, scheming, partisanship and vote-buying that characterizes all politics. You thought the making of laws and sausages was disgusting, you should pay a visit to the Supreme Court chop shop someday.

But that’s the whole point. They don’t want you to see it happening, and they don’t want your MPs to have a role to play. Who is this “they”? The usual suspects: The elites, in Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto, the ones who still believe in the Empire of the St. Lawrence and the prerogatives of the Crown and the idea that Sir John A/Sir Wilfrid/St. Pierre of Trudeau/Jean “capo di tutti capi” Chretien know best and everyone else – especially MPs – should just sit down (or stand up) when and where they are told. Letting MPs interview Supreme Court judges? Next thing you know they’ll be asking for free votes in the Commons. Seriously, if these elites had their way, the Prime Minister would appoint the members House of Commons, on the grounds that free elections would risk “politicizing” the business of Parliament.

Yet it isn’t politics these people fear: they love politics! The more they control it, the more they love it. What they fear is not politics, but democracy, the notion that what the people want (as expressed through their elected representatives) is not what the people actually need.

There is nothing to fear about democracy. Come on into the pool, Canada. I assure you, the water is fine.

February 20, 2006

What Would Orwell Blog? (II)

The Handcaper points me to this article from the Financial Times on why blogging is an obsolete medium. It's a bit long and makes some predictable points, but there is some great stuff at the end:
Which brings us to the spectre haunting the blogosphere - tedium. If the pornography of opinion doesn’t leave you longing for an eroticism of fact, the vast wasteland of verbiage produced by the relentless nature of blogging is the single greatest impediment to its seriousness as a medium. To illustrate the point, I asked a number of bloggers whether they thought Karl Marx or George Orwell, two enormously potent political writers who were also journalists, would have blogged if the medium had been available to them. And almost always, the answer was, why of course, it would have given them the widest possible audience and the greatest possible impact. …. And that, in the end, is the dismal fate of blogging: it renders the word even more evanescent than journalism; yoked, as bloggers are, to the unending cycle of news and the need to post four or five times a day, five days a week, 50 weeks of the year, blogging is the closest literary culture has come to instant obsolescence. No Modern Library edition of the great polemicists of the blogosphere to yellow on the shelf; nothing but a virtual tomb for a billion posts - a choric song of the word-weary bloggers, forlorn mariners forever posting on the slumberless seas of news.

Ontario's Choice

Here are the results of the latest SES poll of who Ontarians would like to see as leader of the Liberals. This is pretty thin gruel. Dryden or Rae would constitute a major shift left, though who knows what Rae's actual politics are these days. Could be he's the next Tony Blair for all I know. If it has to be one of this crew, I think I'd like to see Rae or Ignatieff. Can anyone think of a good reason why Jean Chretien shouldn't make a comeback? Apart from "because Albertans would riot," that is?
Methodology Polling between January 30th to February 3rd, 2006 (Random Telephone Survey of 500 Ontario residents, MoE ± 4.5%, 19 times out of 20). Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding. Question: Regardless of the party you support, who would be your choice to succeed Paul Martin as Liberal leader? Unsure 28% Ken Dryden 14% Bob Rae 12% Michael Ignatieff 12% Belinda Stronach 11% Frank McKenna 7% Brian Tobin 7% Anne McLellan 4% Joe Volpe 3% Martin Cauchon 1% Other 2%
February 19, 2006

how to be afraid

Visionary futurists have a remarkable quirk. They tend to enforce the gravity of their prophecies by asserting that they will come true – or else… It’s Utopia or Oblivion – my way to futurity, or the handbasket to hell! I frankly care nothing for “Utopia” or “Oblivion”. If my long romance with futurism has taught me anything, it’s that neither of these terms has any meaning. They are mere verbal gasps of intellectual exhaustion. They mean only that the futurist has exhausted his personal ability to confront the passage of time.
That’s from the conclusion of Bruce Sterling’s Shaping Things. This “intellectual exhaustion” seems to be everwhere right now. In his new book Revenge of Gaia, James Lovelock declares that we must embrace nuclear power, or else we’re doomed. In the new documentary The End of Suburbia, we are told that we must end sprawl and embrace the New Urbanism, or else we’re doomed. The message of Jane Jacobs’ last book Dark Age Ahead is essentially: adopt my views of economics and urban planning, or else we’re doomed. Like Sterling, I don’t find this terribly helpful. While most of the Utopia/Oblivion crowd is on the left, you find it on the right as well. Mark Steyn has been arguing lately that unless the West, or at least Europe, starts having more babies, we’re doomed to an Islamic takeover. Are we doomed? Bird flu is now in France and India. It has been a particularly balmy winter in Canada, notwithstanding the deep freeze of the past few days here in central Canada. Oil prices are down a bit, but the $20 a barrel age seems to be over. Fifteen people were killed in Nigeria yesterday during rioting over the Mohammed cartoons. Yet I’m not particularly concerned about plague, global warming, the end of oil, or terrorism. Not that any of them couldn’t or won’t happen, just that I don’t think their effects will be as bad as everyone seems to think. I have faith in our ability to cope, even thrive. Perhaps I’m naïve, or just happen to live in a comfortable part of the world. I know I’m supposed to be afraid of a great many things, but I’m not. Perhaps the big problem is that I don’t know how to be afraid. Because I am worried about the demographic crisis of the west. Not because I’m afraid that Islamic fundamentalism will take over, but because I think it is going to have terrible economic and social effects. The National Post has a series on it this weekend, as does the Guardian. Philip Longman’s The Empty Cradle is the most worrisome thing I have read in years.

barcodes on everything

There is the known, the unknown known, and the unknown unknown. When the unknown unknown comes lurching to town, you have to learn about that comprehensively and at great speed. Generating new knowledge is very good, but in a world with superb archives, accessing knowledge that you didn’t know you possessed is both faster and more reliable than discovering it.

Donald Rumsfeld? No, that is Bruce Sterling in his new book Shaping Things. I’m a huge fan of Sterling’s science fiction. His Schismatrix is one of my top three or four books in the field, along with Neuromancer, Snow Crash, and – with some reservations – David Maruszek's Counting Heads.

Shaping Things isn’t cyberpunk, it is a slim book about the future of technology and design. It comes in somewhere between Bruce Mao’s Massive Change and Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near, but is less fruity-utopian and techno-gaga than either of those. Sterling is exploring the possibilities for the operating system of the future. That is, how we will interact with objects in the world once they become spimes.

"Spime" is his neologism for objects that are historical entities that have a precise, documentable, and machine-readable trajectory through space-time. The entire history of every object will be embedded in transparent networks of information management. The members of this technosociety will have an unprecedented advantage over other cultures. Faced with any problem, they will be able to perform a rapid search of the solution-space, generating and testing billions of possibilities in a very short period of time. A spime-laden technosociety will be like a hyper-version of Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer. Other societies will have their Kasparaovs, but will be at a permanent and deepening disadvantage. Their options will be to join or submit. A spime technosociety is a natural empire.

February 18, 2006

Switzerland 2, Canada 0

Forget the Leafs, Team Canada stinks. Excuses: 1. In a meaningless game, the underdog always has the advantage. 2. The Swiss have played together as a team for a while, while Canada still needs to gel. 3. Canada got stoned by a hot goaltender. 4. Canada got robbed of at least one goal, perhaps two by poorly place cameras and/or bad officiating. 5. The international ice is too big. 6. Too many penalties meant we couldn’t play our game. 7. Our players aren’t used to afternoon games. 8. Pros don’t take international games seriously. Most of them would rather not be over there playing. Etc. As if. They went in cocky and stayed cocky right up until it was too late to get it together. After the first period, Joe Thornton was interviewed briefly by Elliotte Friedman of the CBC. With 90 seconds left in the period, Thornton made a terrible play, got stripped of the puck, which led straight to the winning goal. Did Friedman mention it? Say anything like, hey Joe, some no-name just stripped you of the puck and made you look like an idiot? No… he just threw some softballs at Thornton, then said, “anything to be concerned about?” Thornton shrugged and basically said no, we’re going to cream these guys. That’s when I was pretty sure we were going to lose. Thornton’s interview was an exact replay of the CBC interview with Eric Lindros in Nagano against the Czechs in 1998. Canada was down 1-0, Lindros walked off the ice after the first (second?) period and was asked if he was worried. Lindros, the captain, shrugged, smiled, and said, “naw, we’re going to win.” When a team is beating you, and someone asks if you are worried, the answer is: YES. If you answer anything else, you should be benched because your head isn’t in the game. Things to take away from the game: 1. Team Canada is always shaky in the opening rounds. Check back to past Canada Cups, Olympics and World Cups. Rarely do we walk over everyone. 2. Canada needs to lose a game or two before they wake up. Ummm… that’s it. Otherwise, it was a total waste of time. They should get some of the women’s team into the dressing room to give them a speech about getting the job done.

Reynolds got deleted

Sorry, the post I had on John Reynolds got deleted by mistake. I was trying to delete a double posting of the Team Canada entry, but it decided to get rid of the Reynolds entry instead. Honestly, Blogger is the crappiest publishing platform, I don't know how Coyne stands it. Half the time it refuses to actually publish the posts, just sits there for 10 minutes resetting itself and going "0% uploaded". Take it to the donnybrook, I guess.
February 17, 2006

cartoon violence

I suppose we should talk about the cartoons. The best piece I read on the alleged moral equivalence between those doing the rioting and those doing the publishing was by Dan Gardner in the Citizen. One of the nicest lines about the suppose clash of civilizations was by David Brooks in the Times, when he said that it isn’t that Muslims and the West have different ideas, it is that we have a different relationship to ideas. In yesterday's Guardian, Ronald Dworkin lays down some basic principles here, getting all John Stuart Mill in the process. Let me try to add something semi-new to the debate. What seems to be happening isn't so much a clash of civilizations, as it is a clash of concepts of civilisation: Much of the Islamic world remains largely what philosophers call a "perfectionist" society. On perfectionist views, it is the function of society to promote the moral and spiritual perfection of each person, according to a shared conception of the good life. In a perfectionist society, there is no distinction between church and state, or between law, religion, and morality. The West – or perhaps better, Christendom -- used to be a perfectionist society, oriented around a common and publicly enforced vision of human excellence. That's why we felt the need for things like Crusades and Inquisitions. Then we had schisms, reformations, and whole lot of religious warfare. As Christendom became the West, it (gradually) ceased to be a perfectionist society organized around common moral values (“the good”) and became a society organized around certain liberal principles (“the right.”) What is important to note is that our ancestors in the West didn’t choose our liberal freedoms because they woke up one day and decided that they preferred liberalism over perfectionism. It is that they eventually realized – after centuries of fighting about it – that the only alternative to religious toleration was perpetual war. But religious toleration is the thin edge of the liberal wedge. Once you allow a man to say that he has different Gods than you or that there is no God at all, it is hard to set any principled limit on what anyone can say, about anything at all. Looked at it from this perspective, Fukuyama’s thesis of the "End of History" comes across not as a final triumphalist victory for the West, but as the inevitable consequence of the exhaustion of reasonable alternatives. Liberalism isn't a reflection of our deepest values, but a second-best regime more or less forced upon the societies of the West. This is why, when the protesting Muslims carry placards that read “damn your freedoms,” they are missing the point. Not everyone here likes the consequences of our freedoms, either. It isn’t that we chose liberalism because we thought it would be nice to have high divorce rates, huge drug problems, a debased popular culture and a general lack of respect and civility. That’s just what we’ve ended up with, because the cost of clamping down on these things is too high. Bernard Lewis and other commentators on Islam like to note that Islam has never had a proper reformation or enlightenment. Yet unlike the West, which more or less had to arrive at liberalism by groping through the solution space, Islam has our experience as a guide. It would be extremely unfortunate if the Islamic world had to go through what Europe went through a few hundred years ago. It would be nice if we could just point to our experience and say, look, we tried all the alternatives and they don’t work. This is where you are going to end up, so why not just get started. But that obviously won’t work, because this would be to posit a “stages of civilization” view, which is exactly the sort of moral superiority and arrogance that the muslims are protesting. Where that leaves the world, is very hard to say. *** I'd love to hear your thoughts. It probably doesn't need saying but this isn't my place, so please keep things civil.
February 16, 2006

until anti-branding always

It is commonplace now to observe that Che Guevara’s image, especially the famous Korda photograph, has become an international brand used to sell everything from T-shirts and key chains to ice cream bars and, uh, books. At the International Center of Photography in Manhattan, there is currently an exhibition entitled "¡Che! Revolution and Commerce," which explores the various permutations of Che iconography. For the most part, this hasn’t stopped earnest (heheh) counterculturists from wearing Che t-shirts, berets, and so on. But now it has become a running joke, so it is clearly time for something more edgy and radical. Right on cue, I recently received this email from Cam, a student at the University of Toronto:
In the past few weeks I've noticed a couple things around Toronto you might find interesting. The first is that more kids than ever are wearing the kafiyah, the headscarf associated with the PLO since the 1960s. Normally, you'd see these things on International Socialists and other "anti-imperialist" types, but this really isn't a political thing. I assume it's just because the kafiyah is associated with militancy and looks all-around bad-ass, but I don't know. The other new bit of rebel gear--probably less controversial--is that Nike has released a sneaker commemorating the Easter Rising of 1916. It is green, orange, and white, and has the Irish harp on the heel. A link of the shoe is here. I find this a bit funny because the de facto military commander of the Rising was James Connolly, a Marxist and trade unionist. Ah well, I'm sure it will sell well in Irish America. As I understand it, for the last few decades celebrating the Rising was more or less a Republican affair, but I guess since the IRA packed it in it's become an inclusive holiday again.

This is rather disconcerting, if true, a sign of the internal logic of extreme rebellion spiralling completely out of control. Can anyone confirm the kafiyah sightings, in Toronto or anywhere else?

Meanwhile, if you're really looking for the latest in alternative streetwear, I recommend Sarko-tees.

What Would Orwell Blog?

The Handcaper points me to last night’s broadcast on NPR of Open Source, hosted by Christopher Lydon. The show was a re-run of “Who Owns Orwell?” a look at what Orwell would think of the modern world, why he remains relevant, and where Orwell would hang his political shingle. Lydon’s guests were professor Tom Gleason of Brown University and Jeffrey Numberg (?) of Stanford. It’s not a bad show, with some fairly predictable discussion of American imperialism and contemporary political doublespeak. But right at the end there is a great exchange where Lydon asks, “what would Orwell make of blogging? Would he be blogging today?” Numberg replies, “well, it is pretty silly to ask if Orwell would have been blogging… but yes, I think he might very well have been a blogger. It would have given him the freedom to write what he wanted, without any editorial control.” You can stream the show from here.

Simulating intelligence

Jean Baudrillard takes a wander through les banlieues and doesn’t like what he sees:

Fifteen hundred cars had to burn in a single night and then, on a descending scale, nine hundred, five hundred, two hundred, for the daily ‘norm’ to be reached again, and people to realize that ninety cars on average are torched every night in this gentle France of ours. A sort of eternal flame, like that under the Arc de Triomphe, burning in honour of the Unknown Immigrant. Known now, after a lacerating process of revision—but still in trompe l’oeil.

But who can blame them? France offers its immigrants “integration,” which is nothing more than an attempt to palm “French” values off onto others:
Integration’ is the official line. But integration into what? The sorry spectacle of ‘successful’ integration—into a banalized, technized, upholstered way of life, carefully shielded from self-questioning—is that of we French ourselves. To talk of ‘integration’ in the name of some indefinable notion of France is merely to signal its lack.
What is so wrong with upholstering Baudrillard does not say. But after giving it careful thought, he’s decided that the root of the problem is not with France, or Europe, but with the West. Or, rather, with the very absence of the West:

This society faces a far harder test than any external threat: that of its own absence, its loss of reality. Soon it will be defined solely by the foreign bodies that haunt its periphery: those it has expelled, but who are now ejecting it from itself. It is their violent interpellation that reveals what has been coming apart, and so offers the possibility for awareness.

What is worth doing, in this desert of the real, remains unclear.

February 15, 2006

should reviewers review their reviewers?

Today's feeding: Lite Toronto-centrism. I figure we can start in the centre of the universe and work our way out to where the serious stuff happens. But the question that has tongues wagging down on Queen St. West is: Should book reviewers review their reviewers? That perennial question, which seems to arise only within the Canadian (Toronto?) world of letters, was raised anew last week, when Ryan Bigge went bonkers on Globe columnist Leah McLaren’s new novel The Continuity Girl, in the pages of the Toronto Star. Link to the review here… caution: bodies, limbs, blood. This is mean, vicious reviewing. It is also rubber-neckingly awesome to read. As Bigge himself notes in the review, not everyone will like it, but those who do like it will like it a lot. And as some people were quick to notice, McLaren might have started it, having launched an unprovoked assault on Ryan a few years back. Yesterday I was forwarded an email in which the writer suggested that newspapers should have a policy of not allowing feuding writers to review one another. The rationale, as far as I could gather, was that the obvious conflict of interest could lead to all sorts of evils, from biased reviewing to childish shin-kicking. There’s something to this, I suppose. Books cost money, and reviewing is, in part, a form of consumer report. Readers should expect a fair and reasonably objective account of a book’s features or failings. At the same time, there is the fact that criticism is itself a form of writing. It is entertainment, and nothing, I mean nothing, is more entertaining than a good literary hair-pulling. One might argue that, if anything, editors should make a point of picking reviewers who might be looking to get blood on their knuckles. For example, who other than Christopher Hitchens should have reviewed Martin Amis’ Koba the Dread? The fact that it is two old friends unloading on one another is what makes it worth reading. A good editor should be able to mediate between the poles of dry objectivity and naked vengeance-seeking. As long as conflicts of interest are disclosed and punches are kept reasonably above the belt, I see no reason not to put the cats into the bag and let them hiss scratch. Whether Bigge’s review falls within the rules of fair play is not for me to say. Disclosure: In the fall of 2004, a book I co-authored was negatively reviewed in the Globe and Mail by Hal Niedzviecki. In our book, we criticize a passage from some of Hal’s earlier writing, which he took extensive issue with in his review. A few months later, I dumped all over Hal’s book I’m Special in the pages of the National Post. A summary of this "feud" was published here. Arguably, Hal should have declined to review our book on the grounds that he could not be objective about its contents. I thought Hal’s review of The Rebel Sell was self-serving, in that he spent most of the review promoting his own work. Equally arguably, I should have declined the chance to review I’m Special on similar grounds, that I was simply looking to even things up. Perhaps I was. But I stand by my review, as I’m sure Hal stands by his.

Feeding the fish: day one

Uh, hey guys. Andrew Potter here. I normally run a blog over at Rebelsell.com, but Andrew Coyne asked me to feed you while he is away. Well, I guess we should get started… Why do the Leafs suck? That is, why have they sucked for so long? How can a team, in the self-styled centre of the hockey universe, go so long without winning a Stanley Cup? Except for Ottawa, every other Canadian team has made the Cup finals in the last twenty years, while Calgary, Montreal, and Edmonton have won Cups. And is there anyone who would put serious money on the Leafs making the Cup finals before Ottawa does? So what is wrong with the Toronto Maple Leafs? Some obvious possibilities: 1. Bad owners. 2. Bad coaches. 3. Bad players. 4. Bad fans. 5. Bad luck. I suppose that Toronto’s 40-year stinkitude can be chalked up to some version of “all of the above.” Ballard was a bad owner, John Brophy wasn’t a great coach, and the Leafs haven’t had a genuinely strong team since the early 1990s. Like Cubs fans, Leafs fans are famously loyal, to the point that it actually harms the team. Less loyal fans would demand better results, putting pressure on the management to actually care about the on-ice product. As for luck, every Leafs fan I know still moans about Gretzky high-sticking Gilmour and then going on to score. But surely there has to be more to it than this. Is it really credible that a club with the resources that the Leafs have could be so unsuccessful for so long? Could it be that the Leafs in some sense deserve to lose? Is the real question, not why do the Leafs suck, but why must they?

Housesitting for Andrew Coyne

Dear Andrew, Thanks for looking after the place while I’m gone. I’m away for a couple of weeks, to the annual Asper/Coyne snowshoe race around Lake of the Woods. No way is Leonard winning this time. There’s not much you need to do – the plants are plastic, so don’t bother watering them. Remember this is Toronto, so you’ll need to separate any waste into the seven colour-coded recycling boxes stored out back. Regular garbage is only picked up every six weeks, so try not to cook or eat or anything. Help yourself to the booze, but don’t drink all my scotch. And keep your paws off the leather-bound copies of Hansard. Otherwise, enjoy the place and we’ll see you in a few weeks. Yours, AC Oh wait, I almost forgot: Don’t forget to feed the fish! That’s the most important thing. I usually feed them a steady diet of Canadian politics, but they’ll actually eat anything. They’ll even chew your arm off, so be careful. They normally eat six or seven times a day, but feel free to do it less often. They’ve been on a bit of a binge lately and could stand to go on a diet
February 13, 2006

Oh, one more thing

Did anyone see this remarkable "reportorial" in the Globe and Mail?

In a telephone conversation with party executives on Jan. 26, Mr. Martin declared that he intended to resign "soon," and that he would consult them about the appointment of an interim leader. Party members breathed a huge sigh of relief. Then the unexpected happened. After conversations with close supporters, including at least one Liberal senator, Mr. Martin changed his mind. The Liberal leader emerged from a caucus meeting on Feb. 1 with the news that former cabinet minister Bill Graham would replace him as parliamentary leader but that he would remain as party leader until his replacement was selected. The executives were miffed... What happens if the government is defeated before Mr. Martin is replaced?... Party organizers can only hold their breath, because they do not want Mr. Martin to lead them into another election... [T]o block an emergency comeback by Mr. Martin with the same tired crew of counsellors, executives are examining ways to select delegates well before the convention. That way, the executives could rapidly organize an electronic leadership vote by those delegates, ensuring the party would have a new leader even if the government fell unexpectedly over the next few months. It's that bad.



Has this been reported anywhere else?
February 12, 2006

Enough

I've come to believe the debate over the Emerson and Fortier appointments is not a debate about the appointments themselves, or the ethical concerns they raised. It is a debate about the place of ethics in politics. It is a debate about the relationship between pragmatism and principle, and between leaders and followers, and it is hugely important for the future of this government.

In my opinion, the appointments were unprincipled at best, unethical at worst. Others may disagree; there are good arguments on both sides. But what is striking in the hundreds of comments posted on this site since then is how many of them treat ethical considerations as, essentially, irrelevant.

I say that the appointment of David Emerson to cabinet was a grubby reward for crossing the floor. I say that Emerson's sudden post-election discovery that he was a Conservative was a fraud on the voters of Vancouver-Kingsway. I say that by inducing Emerson to make the switch, the Tories repudiated everything they stood for in the election just concluded, both in their general commitment to ethics and accountability, and in their specific hostility to such exchanges, so palpable in their scandalized reaction to the Stronach and Grewal affairs.

I say all this, and the response is: yes, but he'll cement ties with the B.C. business community. Or, yes but he'll be a voice for Vancouver around the cabinet table. Or, yes but he'll close a deal on softwood lumber.

I say the appointment of Michel Fortier, an unelected party organizer, to Cabinet and to the Senate of Canada, was a repudiation of not one but two explicit campaign promises on the part of the leader. And the response is: yes, but he'll be a voice for Montreal around the cabinet table. Or, yes but the Quebec media seems to approve. Or, yes but ...

It's as if I were to say: boy, this room is cold. And the response was: yes, but look, the walls are blue.

The most common reponse of all is a worldly appeal to apathy. If you say to me, "no one cares," what you are really saying is, "I don't care." As an ethical argument, this may serve many purposes, but rebuttal is not one of them.

SOME OF the comments at least aim in that direction. But if they do not dismiss ethical concerns altogether, they are themselves largely beside the point.

That Harper said during the campaign that he was opposed to legislation prohibiting MPs from switching parties, a point to which a good many commenters attach particular weight, would indeed be significant -- if the legal status of such transactions were what was at issue. It is not the Tory leader's failure to pass a law forbidding floor-crossings that has excited such controversy, but his own role in arranging one. I don't recall him giving as his reason for opposing such a law that he planned on inducing an MP to cross the floor, and didn't want to be unduly hampered in the attempt. Rather, he appealed to democratic principle, noting that such a ban would give too much power to party leaders, who might thus threaten dissenting members not just with expulsion but with the loss of their seats. It's an interesting, thoughtful argument. But it would have been more relevant to the current discussion had he said he wanted to retain his power as leader to lure other parties' members to his own.

That other members of cabinets past have been appointed without first being elected, the defence most commonly offered of the Fortier appointment, is similarly beside the point. The issue is not that Fortier has not been elected -- though the longer that remains the case, the more it will become the issue -- but that Harper had said he would do no such thing. It isn't the appointment, as such, or his elevation to the Senate, that raises ethical issues, as undemocratic as they are. It's the breach of faith.

And none of this -- not the broken promises, not the undemocratic appointments, not the crossing of party lines or the dangling of cabinet posts -- none of it is redeemed a whit by the observation that it has all been done before, that "the Liberals were worse." Yes the Liberals were worse, far worse. Yes, the Tories are being held to a higher standard. Why is that a complaint? Would their supporters prefer that the Tories were held to the same standard -- that is, that people expected them to be no better than the Liberals? The Tories are being held to a higher standard for the same reason they were elected: because they set a higher standard for themselves.

TO BE CLEAR, I don't think the Emerson business is "just as bad" as the Stronach affair. It matters what the terms of trade are in such transactions, as it matters who is on either side of the exchange. In Stronach's case, it was very clearly a trade of one job for one vote: a job for which she was wholly unqualified, in exchange for a vote the Liberals manifestly did not deserve. Stronach brought nothing to the table but her vote -- that, and her willingness to look the other way at the Liberals' ethical lapses. It isn't just that she crossed the floor, but whom she was crossing to: a party that had not just lost the "moral authority" to govern, but (in my opinion) the constitutional authority.

Emerson, by contrast, would obviously be cabinet material in anyone's government, while the Tories have none of the ethical or constitutional clouds over their heads the Liberals did. So the two situations, while comparable, are not identical. But if moral equivalence is to be avoided, so is its reverse. To say that both are wrong is not to say that both are equally wrong. But to say that one is worse than the other is not to absolve the second of any fault whatever.

No one's saying, or certainly I'm not, that this one episode marks the Harper government as a failure, or that the Tories are just as bad as the Liberals, or that we would all be better off with the Liberals back in power. All I have said, for those who need reminding, is that these appointments were a "mistake." And the most that I or anyone have suggested as a remedy is that both men should put themselves up for election. I am not sure why this idea should provoke such fury.

Well, I have a theory. And here we come to the point I made off the top: this isn't about Emerson and Fortier, or the correct prodecure for crossing the floor. This is about whether questions of principle are permitted to intrude into political decisions, and by extension whether those committed to the principles on which a party was elected -- in a word, its base -- have the right to object when their leaders seem to stray from them.

Those who are determined to extinguish any hint of dissent probably think they have the party's best interests in mind. More broadly, they may think they are upholding a pragmatic view of the world, against an unyielding, unrealistic purism. They may feel that sticking too firmly to principle at any one point can jeopardize the party's ability to enact the rest of its program. And in a lot of cases they would be right.

But that doesn't mean they're right this time. I've said I don't think this one issue outweighs the whole of the Tory platform. I also don't think there's a choice to be made between them.

The debate here is not between purism and pragmatism, much as self-professed pragmatists always want to believe it is. The issue is not whether compromise is sometimes necessary, but which kinds of compromises are. Unless you think all compromises are acceptable, in which case we have nothing further to discuss.

LEAVE ASIDE the question of what practical gains are to be had from protecting Emerson and Fortier from the rigors of seeking election, and whether these are such prize catches as to be worth all the aggravation. Let's think longer term. Is the sacrifice of principle in this case likely to retard or advance the Tories' ability to realize their larger ambitions? And, perhaps a less obvious question, is it likely to increase or diminish their desire even to try?

One of the things I have always admired about Harper is his preference for "the long game": for focusing on long-term strategic objectives, even where this meant passing up short-term advantages. It's possible, as his idolators insist, that he is doing so even now. But there is another way of playing the long game, and that is by preserving a reputation for straight-shooting -- not just because shooting straight is the right thing to do, but for the practical benefits it brings.

A reputation for honesty is hard won, and easily lost. It is a priceless asset in a leader, especially when paired with a reputation for good judgment. (Joe Clark had the first but not the second.) If people trust you, they will follow you, and stick with you when times are tough. They will accept sacrifices they might otherwise reject, take risks they would ordinarily avoid, because you tell them it is worth it.

A leader's job is not to give people what they want, or to tell them what they need: it is to persuade them to want what they need. Trust is a critical element in that. Indeed, it is indispensible.

There are two ways to realize the value of an asset. You can sell it, in which case you get an immediate return, at the obvious cost that it is no longer available to you. Or you can hold onto it, and reap the dividends over many years. I don't say that Harper has squandered this asset with the choices he has made this week. But he has significantly devalued it. From now on, everything he does will be viewed through this lens. Whenever he makes a pledge in future, he will be reminded of the ones he did not keep on his first day.

But -- this is the good news -- he will be much more of a mind to keep his promises because of this week. I want to be ruthlessly pragmatic here. Every leader must at some point or another betray his base. I don't mean break his promises, though even that will sometimes be necessary (the great ones do so only in the most extreme necessity, the lesser ones do it every other day). But there are always choices to be made, about whether to press ahead with this or that objective, or put it off to another day; whether to hold out for the soundest policy, or settle for second-best; whether even to veer off course altogether, under pressure from a political opponent or private interest. And in these decisions, being practical sorts, they will make a practical calculation, weighing the political costs of antagonizing the opposition against the costs of betraying their base.

By their evident dismay at these two appointments, the Tory base has sent an important message to the government: we are not to be trifled with. They have adjusted the political scales in their favour. In future, the government will not be so quick to take them for granted.

Now put those two points together. Suppose, in the face of these abrupt departures from principle, the party had burped contentedly, and gone to sleep. What message would that have sent to the broader public? That indeed, the Tories were no different from the Grits. Instead, a good section of the base rebelled, even over a decision that benefited the party in a narrow political sense. Harper's reputation may be diminished after this week, but the party's, if you ask me, has been enhanced.

AND THAT'S that. Even if the government does hold byelections now, the damage has been done. And if it doesn't? The country is not going to collapse because of a couple of broken promises, and neither is the government. The point has been made. It's time to move on.

Or, in my case, it's time to go skiing. See you in a couple of weeks.

Penultimate point

First, a note on floor-crossing. Then we'll get into some broader issues... A clever riposte to those who want to ban MPs from switching parties is to bring up the question of free votes. Isn't an MP who votes against the party line just like one who crosses the floor? Shouldn't that be forbidden, too, in the name of holding MPs accountable to the voters who elected them? The question invites us to think there are only two possibilities: either MPs vote the party line, or they vote their conscience. But most voters, I submit, want their MPs to do both. It's true that MPs are elected mainly by virtue of their party affiliation. But they are also chosen partly for their individual judgment (some more than others), otherwise we need have no MPs at all. Probably MPs should have to vote the party line on platform issues, for that reason. But outside of confidence motions -- and very few bills need be matters of confidence -- they should be free otherwise to vote their conscience, or their constituents' wishes, as they see fit. Indeed, in the Conservatives' case, that sort of autonomous role for MPs is party policy. (So if an MP did toe the party line, he'd be violating party policy? Just checking.) How's that different from crossing the floor? Because when a member switches parties, he does not become a free agent. He rejects one party's whip, and accepts another's. Exercising his judgment on particular votes is part of the understanding on which he was elected; submitting himself to an entirely different party platform is not. That part of the bargain has been fundamentally altered. Which is why I'm predisposed in favour of the idea that, as a rule, members should have to seek a new mandate from their constituents in such cases. In all such cases? What about the MP who leaves his party to sit as an independent? That's not what the voters bargained for, is it? What about when two parties merge? Are we going to have 75 byelections? I don't see why you couldn't. On the other hand, you could make the argument, as many do, that the MPs in these scenarios will face the judgment of the voters at the next election -- though until then those voters would be deprived of the kind of representation they voted for in the last one. BUT LET ME put another case to you. Suppose an opposition MP crosses over in return for a cabinet post, or some other reward that goes with being on the government side. There's no urgent question of principle that impels him to switch allegiances, which he might argue justified temporarily breaking faith with the voters. It's just a bribe, basically. Or at any rate, it is unclear to what degree he was motivated by principle, and what by venality. In that case, it's clear -- clear to me, at any rate -- that he must immediately submit his decision to the voters' approval. Quite apart from whether floor-crossing should be allowed or not, we want our MPs at all times to be acting on principle, and not for personal gain. It's always possible that a member may wish to join the government side out of genuine principle, and for that reason I don't think you want to ban floor-crossing outright. But there needs to be some check applied to it, some test, some means of winnowing principle from self-interest. That is a judgment probably best left to the voters. Must they make that judgment immediately, though? Couldn't it wait until the next election? But in a general election the fate of the individual MP is swept up in any number of other issues: the parties, their platforms, the leaders etc. In a byelection, it is much easier to focus on the particulars of the case at hand. And that's as it should be. Integrity in those we elect is not an issue like the rest, to be weighed against their positions on health care or fiscal policy. It is, or should be, a basic condition of office, a prerequisite. If at any time that comes into doubt, the doubt must be resolved immediately. So I'm certainly comfortable with a law requiring MPs who cross from opposition to cabinet, or who are elevated to cabinet within x number of months of having crossed, to first obtain the voters' approval (that used to be the requirement, remember, for all cabinet appointees). Whether the same stricture should apply more broadly I leave open. But what sort of law should apply in general is a very different matter from what is the right thing to do in this case. I'll turn to that, and some other distinctions that seem to have eluded a few people, in my next post.
February 11, 2006

Pigs! In! Spaaaace!

By request...

MONTREAL - The Montreal RCMP's commercial crime section has opened a file on the Canadian Space Agency concerning potentially millions of dollars in suspect contracts approved by the federal Public Works Department while Alfonso Gagliano was its minister... Samir Elomari, a former CSA scientist who successfully sued the space agency for falsely appropriating one of his inventions, submitted a formal complaint to RCMP headquarters in Ottawa last month. Evidence that at least $7.3-million worth of contracts have never been publicly accounted for was presented during the 2004 Quebec Superior Court hearing for Mr. Elomari's $14.375-million civil lawsuit against the agency.



That was years ago! How many prime ministers have there been since then? Alfonso's a dead horse! Move on! etc.
My Saturday column is up, in which I once again indulge my naive, undomesticated purism, this time on the subject of former prime ministers taking envelopes full of cash in hotel rooms shortly after leaving office from notorious commissioned salesmen. (No one cares! Move on! - ed.) I'll have a couple of other posts to infuriate you later. OH BUT: Just in passing, I can't resist noting the irony, if that's the word, of platoons of Tory partisans shrieking in triumph over a poll showing that 48% of Canadians think, if the past week is anything to go by, their politics will be no better than the Liberals'.

One day story (Week One)

CP: Horrible first week for Harper:

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Given the experienced brain trust on Stephen Harper's Conservative transition team, no one was predicting such a controversial first week for the new prime minister and his rookie cabinet. The brouhaha began 25 minutes before Harper was even sworn into office Monday morning, when former Liberal industry minister David Emerson arrived at Rideau Hall in front of a gob-smacked national media to be sworn in as Tory trade minister. By Friday, the array of troubles ranged from the Conservative front bench to its parliamentary secretaries, from federal-provincial relations through the Tory back bench, and even into its beleaguered communications group and the harried departmental staffing team.



PoliticsWatch: Harper's Caucus Crisis

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to hand a cabinet job to Liberal turncoat David Emerson and a Senate seat and cabinet job to party official Michael Fortier has become not only a public relations disaster but is creating quite a strain on his caucus. As many as eight MPs have either expressed reservations or openly criticized the new appointees publicly.



New York Times:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has gotten off to a shaky start in his first week in office, facing a rash of criticism for three cabinet appointments that appeared to compromise his past positions on making government more democratic and ethical.



One day story (Day Five, Six)

'I won't quit,' embattled Emerson tells CBC Emerson might quit, sources say MEANWHILE... Dissident Tory seeks to introduce bill to curtail party-switching

A rebellious Conservative wants to introduce legislation that would deter future David Emersons and Belinda Stronachs from switching political parties. Ontario MP Garth Turner hopes to push ahead with a private member's bill even after being reprimanded by Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his outspoken stand. "It's on the public agenda and I think it needs to be addressed. People feel a bit cynical about the system," Turner said in an interview Friday.



NDP wants inquiry into Emerson's floor-crossing

A New Democrat MP has asked the ethics commissioner to investigate turncoat Liberal MP David Emerson, suggesting he violated the Ethics Code when he deserted his party and took a cabinet post with the Conservatives. Peter Julian sent a letter to House of Commons Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro requesting an investigation into a possible breach of the Ethics Code involving Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Trade Minister David Emerson. Julian says Harper could be in violation of Parliament's conflict-of-interest code when he offered Emerson a plumb post in exchange for defecting from the Liberals.



Former Stronach riding president calls Emerson appointment "a mistake"

Stephen Somerville, president of the Newmarket-Aurora Conservative riding association, said while he understand bringing Vancouver MP David Emerson into the Tory fold will give the West Coast a voice in cabinet, he doesn’t like it. “We’ve elected a great number of highly skilled people ... we didn’t have to go outside,” Mr. Somerville said. “I think we have a great platform, but did we make a mistake on the first day of government? Yes.”



Emerson defection 'different,' MacKay says:

International Trade Minister David Emerson's controversial leap to the Conservatives was "different" from past party defections and suggests a politician who was "obviously very disillusioned" with the Liberals, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said Friday. Defending Mr. Emerson's move this week into the Conservative cabinet, Mr. MacKay told CBC Newsworld that the former Liberal's decision also suggests a clear dedication to the people of his B.C. constituency.



House of Commons Opposition a Waste of Time: Official PM Spokesperson:

On Don Newman's CBC "Politics" Program today, the official spokesperson for the Prime Minister (William Stairs) claimed that David Emerson opted to cross the floor "rather than wasting his time in opposition."


February 9, 2006

Coventry

As in, where Tory MP Garth Turner has been sent, for the crime of calling the Conservative party back to its senses. But let him tell it:

Speaking of offices, after today I’m expecting the Whip will be assigning me a renovated washroom somewhere in a forgotten corner of a vermin-infested dank basement in Ottawa. That should go well with my seat in the House of Commons that will be visible only during lunar eclipses. Uh-huh. That kind of a day. This one MP came face-to-face with the party machine in a series of unhappy meetings including one tonight with the prime minister. I think it is now safe to say my career options within the Conservative caucus are seriously limited. If you would like a course on how not to be popular in Ottawa, then take a seat.



Read the whole thing. Read the whole blog. Birth of a folk hero?

99: It ain't so

This is pretty categorical:

Wayne Gretzky denied he ever placed a bet with the gambling ring his assistant coach Rick Tocchet is accused of operating. He also said he never placed any kind of bet on hockey in his life and that he will not resign his position as executive director of the Canadian Olympic men's hockey team. Mr. Gretzky also brushed aside a report that New Jersey State Police had wiretap evidence of him discussing the gambling operation before it was made public by the authorities. He said he had no knowledge of Tocchet's involvement in gambling prior to this week's news. "No way," he said emphatically when asked if he planned to resign from the Olympic team. "If I had ever bet so much as a penny on sports I would call Bob Nicholson and resign." Bob Nicholson is president of Hockey Canada, which oversees the Olympic team... "If I did one thing that would embarrass Team Canada or the country or hockey I would resign," he said. "It didn't happen." "If I bet on sports - I would never embarrass Team Canada or the country or hockey - I would phone Gary Bettman and Bob Nicholson right now and say you know what, I resign, it's over, even if I made a $1 bet," Mr. Gretzky added, referring to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. "I wouldn't even go into a sports book in Vegas," Mr. Gretzky said. "Even though it's legal, I would never do that. That's how serious I am."



I hope to God he's telling the truth. Not for his sake, but for ours.

Square, meet circle

"Asymmetrical federalism along with the Council of the Federation, representing premiers and territorial leaders, are instrumental to satisfying Quebec's "desire for acknowledgement" within Canada, Premier Jean Charest said Thursday." -- CP "Prime Minister Stephen Harper has assured Ontario that Ottawa will treat all the provinces equally when it comes to their plans for child-care programs, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Thursday." -- CP

"Not legally necessary"

Politics Watch:

Tory MPs say Emerson should run in a byelection

OTTAWA — Two Conservative MPs are now publicly urging Trade Minister David Emerson to resign his seat and run as a Conservative in a Vancouver byelection.

Tory MPs Garth Turner and Myron Thompson both made the comments to reporters outside a Liberal caucus orientation on Parliament Hill.

"I think being a Member of Parliament is a very important thing and I think being elected is a very important part of that," Turner said.

"So I said during the campaign that I think anyone who crosses the floor ultimately should go back to the people for ratification and I stick by it... While backbench Tory MPs are now starting to publicly question Emerson's appointment, no cabinet minister has cross that line yet. "I don't think he's required to run in a byelection," said Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay. "It's certainly not legally necessary."



No cabinet minister? Not even one?

Make floor-crossers run in byelections, Fortier says New senator cites Emerson, Stronach as examples Members of Parliament who bolt from their parties and cross the floor of the House of Commons should have to quit and face their voters in a byelection, says new Public Works Minister Michael Fortier.



Hey! Lay off Fortier! His appointment was justified by the vital imperative of representing Montreal in Cabinet!

Michael Fortier may be Montreal's representative in the newly elected Conservative cabinet, but the Senate riding he will represent in Quebec doesn't include any part of the city in its boundaries.


SMART CAREER MOVE: Interesting nugget from Deirdre McMurdy's column in the Ottawa Citizen:

[Fortier] was, according to Tories, a second choice for the controversial slot. The appointment to Senate and cabinet was first rejected by Montreal businessman and thwarted candidate Daniel Fournier, who is said to have longer-term political ambitions within the party.



I think that's called "playing the long game."

Realism

Idealists will no doubt be shocked at the news that several NHL players were involved in an illegal gambling ring. But that sort of high-minded moral outrage is a luxury affordable only to those who have never been involved in the game, and never will be. Realists know that this is how the world works. The question to ask is not, did they do the right thing, but will they get away with it? And what, after all, is the harm? So a couple of laws may have been broken. So the integrity of the game itself is called into question, particularly if any of those bets are found to have been placed on NHL games. It's not as if they were actually fixing the games. And what if they were at that? It's just a game, a show. Who's harmed if it turns out people were throwing games -- if instead of playing for one team, they turned out to be playing for the other? The fans? Serves them right for being so naive. Grow up, people. No one cares. True fans of the game keep their eyes on the big picture. Don't let the best be the enemy of the good: the NHL is on a roll these days, after an extended spell in the sporting wilderness. It would be a shame if perfectionists, by seizing on every little fault, were to spoil that run. (And why get so upset about the NHL, after what we've learned about what goes on in other sports?) In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing turned out to be part of a brilliant plan by the NHL commissioner... ---- Well, no. We wouldn't excuse such behaviour when it comes to professional sports, would we? So why do we apply a lower standard to politics? Why do we expect less of our leaders than we do of a bunch of jocks?

One-day story (Day Four)

I don't know what to make of this. If you believe this story, the Liberals had a softwood deal with the Americans before the election, but were prevented from announcing it by ... David Emerson. Allegedly, the reasoning was that it would undercut all their Bush-bashing. But could he have had ulterior motives? (I mean ulterior to the original ulterior motive, of "standing up to" American bullying and intransigence even while you had a deal in your back pocket -- a deal, what is more, that essentially gave them everything they wanted. But I digress.) Was he ... could he ... it's not possible, is it? If so, it rather puts this story (Softwood truce a 'top' priority, Emerson say) in a different "light," doesn't "it"? MEANWHILE: Emerson says he will not resign his position, although he's thought about it every day. He's mad at the Liberals (mutual, I'd say), says they got more money out of him, thanks to his fundraising efforts, than they spent on his campaign (nicely ignoring all the starry-eyed volunteers who gave countless hours of their lives to it), says he's never been much into partisan politics (oh? then why didn't he run as an independent?), that the "lines are blurring" (that's not what you said about the Tories, um, three weeks ago), that he's shocked at the reaction -- no, "flabbergasted", so much so that he may not run again -- that he can't believe how nasty politics can be (have a read of some of these Hansard quotes -- "vicious guttersnipe," "crawls through the gutter," etc.). But mostly, well, it's all about the children, whom Emerson says are facing hostility at school over his defection. Colby Cosh is not amused:

In an earlier age it would have gone without saying that the best way to protect the reputation of one's family is to not do disgraceful things. All children are hostages to their parents' public conduct: if you get caught sexually molesting St. Bernards, it's sort of inevitable that they're going to call your kids "Beethoven" in the schoolyard and make little barrels of brandy out of construction paper. But the new Saddamist doctrine, espoused here by Emerson, is that one's own offspring make terribly convenient human shields. Lay off the criticism or the shorties get it!



MEANWHILER: Outrage continues to build. The Globe and Mail is calling on Emerson to resign and run again. An online petition (one of several) calling for Emerson's "recall" is gathering steam, with more than 3800 5400 names so far. But relax, people. This will all be over by Christmas. QUOTE O' THE DAY: "There is absolutely no principle attached to Mr. Emerson's decision, other than power." The speaker? Ujjal Dosanjh, former defector, patron saint of "deniability." I think that's a case of the pot calling the kettle ... a fish. It's that surreal. SECOND-PLACE: "Obviously, Mr. Harper cannot be depended upon to uphold his promises and commitments." The speaker? Scott Brison.

Radio Free Pay WOXY

This is the end of an era. WOXY.com, the mighty 97X out of Oxford, Ohio and possibly the world's coolest radio station, online or off, has converted to pay. (At least we still have Soma-FM ! Not to mention Radioio.com's many streams. And Radio Paradise and...)
February 8, 2006

Oh yeah, Dingwall

Employment law expert Howard Levitt rips open the Dingwall can of worms...

Why did both the government and Dingwall repeatedly, even adamantly, assert that Dingwall had resigned from the Mint, if he was fired? Without access to the arbitration decision, one can only surmise. My belief is that Dingwall told the truth under oath before the standing committee and resigned just as he claimed. In that case, what the arbitrator likely found was not that Dingwall was "fired," but that he was "constructively fired." To find a constructive dismissal, the arbitrator would have had to conclude either that Dingwall was ordered to resign or that his conditions of work were so untenable that he was entitled to consider himself as having been fired -- and resign accordingly. It also may be, since parties can agree to anything before an arbitrator, that the government and Dingwall agreed on a unique definition of "fired" for purposes of this award. It is even possible, although politically risky for the Liberals, that the government consented to portions of this arbitration judgement. In light of the government's apparent anxiety from the outset to pay Dingwall severance, one can reasonably ask how hard the government defended this case and what agreed instructions the arbitrator received. Notably, when Dingwall was questioned before the standing committee of the House and the issue of his severance entitlement was probed, he never claimed that the issue was being arbitrated. But if the agreement to arbitrate was made only later, why did the Liberal government keep it under wraps throughout the election campaign? Since the arbitration decision was released before the election but remained secret until this weekend, the Canadian public should be told who it was released to, who from the government became aware of it and, most important, why it was kept secret until after the election? Did Mr. Dingwall make any deal with the government obliging him to also keep it secret? ... In the interests of transparency in government, the arbitration decision should be immediately released by the government to the public and consideration given to judicially reviewing (appealing) the decision to Federal Court. If the arbitration award was legally sound but based on facts that were inaccurate and sold the taxpayer short, then consideration should be given to recovering the money from anyone complicit in that. What strikes me as particularly indecent is the fact that the money was paid out just before the government changed, making an appeal potentially moot. Who made that decision? And should the Harper government consider suing that individual or those individuals for the return of these taxpayer dollars? If Dingwall was actually fired, the government repeatedly lied to the Canadian public and the House. In any case, while this scandal continued to bubble, why were we not informed about this private arbitration or the facts upon which it was based? The Harper government rose to power promising to prevent secret insider arrangements and bring transparency to public office. It now has its first opportunity to show that it is serious.



Minister of Nothing To Do With Canfor

So that big catch the Tories made? The Liberal star who was going to single-handedly solve the softwood lumber dispute? Uh, maybe not...

Questions are being raised about whether David Emerson, the newly appointed Trade Minister will be able to work on the softwood lumber file, the most pressing file in his department... Conservatives defending the decision to take the newly minted Conservative are arguing that Emerson, a former executive with Canfor, will help settle the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. However, on November 11, 2004, Emerson signed a public declaration of recusal with the ethics commissioner's office forbidding himself from being involved in matters that directly involve Canfor. Canfor is Canada's largest forestry company and one of the companies specifically named in the anti-dumping case initiated by the U.S. in the softwood dispute. "As former president and CEO of Canfor Corporation, I have an entitlement to an unregistered pension plan, partially funded through a Retirement Compensation Agreement," Emerson's declaration of recusal states. "In order to prevent the appearance of a conflict of interest situation from arising, I have undertaken, in the exercise of my duties and responsibilities to abstain from any participation in discussions or decision-making processes involving direct dealings with Canfor Corporation, its subsidiaries and affiliates." The softwood lumber dispute consists of two separate legal cases involving anti-dumping and counterveiling duty measures against Canadian lumber exports. Anti-dumping investigations concern the pricing practices of individual companies. The firms and not the federal government are party to the investigations. The US Department of Commerce issued anti-dumping questionnaires to six Canadian companies, including Canfor. Duff Conacher of the public interest group Democracy Watch says Emerson cannot work on the softwood lumber file without being in a conflict. Conacher says because of Emerson's financial interest in Canfor he should not be trade minister. "The best thing is to be totally separated from it and have ministers that don't have these ties that raise conflict of interest issues, especially if it's a minister who has switched parties and caused other ethical questions as David Emerson has," Conacher said in an interview with PoliticsWatch. 



You need to be watching The Fifth Estate, right now. Karlheinz Schreiber has begun to talk. UPDATE: Here's the accompanying website, with all the supporting documentation, interviews and video clips: Money, Truth and Spin. FULL DISCLOSURE: I was one of those interviewed for the story, though I seem to have wound up on the cutting room floor. DEEP BACKGROUND: Airbus apology Airbus hypocrisy Airbus lawsuit Airbus revisited Schreiber's suit WARNING: Can I ask everyone please to take extra care to avoid any unfounded accusations or speculation, for obvious reasons.

Latest floor-crossing shocker!

Kinsella named Speaker of Senate Oh. No, not that one.

Revenge is a dish best served with a Merlot

Cool.

A relatively obscure Toronto lawyer has become the first declared candidate for the Liberal leadership.

Martha Hall Findlay threw her hat in the ring Wednesday, undaunted by the fact that much higher profile contenders have been dropping from the race like flies.



Martha Hall Findlay. Martha Hall Findlay. Now where have I heard that name before? Ah yes. She was the Liberal candidate of record in Newmarket-Aurora who was rudely bumped from the nomination last spring to make way for the incoming Minister of Complex Files. She is also the possessor of possibly the single most impressive resume I have ever seen in a political candidate. If the two of them are now to square off against each other for the leadership -- can we dare hope? -- it should make for highly entertaining political theatre. AWWWW: But it seems all is forgiven. Here's the first thing you find on her website: "Congratulations to Belinda Stronach on her re-election as the MP for Newmarket-Aurora..." UPDATE: Well, maybe not quite all. From the same story: "Hall Findlay said she supports legislation that would prohibit MPs from crossing the floor to other parties." Ha! I'm guessing she and Stronach are going to disagree on that one. WHAT IS MORE: Also of note in Joan Bryden's story - persistent rumours that Martin Cauchon is dropping out. MORER: Gerard Kennedy has ruled himself out as well.

Bug

Along with Blogger's periodic refusal to publish for hours on end (hence the minimalist white-on-white layout around noon today), and Rogers's appalling unreliability as an ISP, I am also currently plagued by a bug that sometimes causes the Safari browser on my iMac G5 to hang when I load the page. But only Safari, and only on the G5, and only sometimes. I think it must have something to do with Google Ads, since it began (I believe) around the time I started running them. But what kind of obscure bug afflicts one browser on one machine, and then only some of the time? Is anyone else having this problem, either loading my page or their own?
My latest column is up. It's about, you know...

One-day story (Day Three)

Canadian Press:

Even some Conservative MPs were openly musing yesterday about holding byelections if Prime Minister Stephen Harper opts again for unorthodox means to fill out his cabinet.

On their way into their first caucus meeting, some did little to conceal their unease with Harper's decision to welcome Liberal defector David Emerson into his cabinet along with Michael Fortier, who will run the Public Works Department from his seat in the Senate.

While Liberal and NDP MPs are already howling, some Tories talked about reviving a bill that would stop MPs from switching parties until they face voters in a byelection.

"Oh, I think there is support (for the idea)," said Calgary's Diane Ablonczy. "That'll be up to Parliament to decide but I think it's probably going to be back on the table."



Not a single Tory challenged the qualifications of their new colleagues, whom many applauded as quality additions to cabinet.

But the way they were appointed left many puzzled. Some Tories said they feared Harper's action could instantly tarnish their new government, prompting voters to conclude the Conservatives were just as cynical as the Liberals they replaced.

"I'm quite sure you're going to hear that. Why wouldn't you?" said Thompson.

"That wouldn't be a surprising comment coming from anyone that was a voter ... a lot of comments that come from voters don't surprise me and a lot of things up here (in Ottawa) do surprise me, even from my own party," he said, quickly adding he still trusts Harper's judgment.



Reuters:

New Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday dismissed widespread unhappiness with his Conservative cabinet as "superficial criticism" and said he had no regrets about giving top jobs to an unelected aide and to a recent defector from the Liberals.

Newspapers and media commentators condemned both decisions, saying they flew in the face of Harper's promises to run a more accountable government after winning the January 23 election.



Globe and Mail:

Members of the Conservative caucus squirmed in public and seethed in private yesterday, trying to come to grips with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's two controversial cabinet appointments.

"This looks like expediency, even hypocrisy," a veteran Conservative MP from Western Canada said of the appointments of David Emerson, who was elected last month as a Liberal, and Conservative campaign co-chairman Michael Fortier, who didn't run but will get a Senate appointment.

"This is shocking. It's just unbelievable. Who was Stephen talking to? We campaigned against this kind of stuff," the MP said.

A rookie MP said: "I'm not sure how I'm going to explain these appointments to my constituents. It's bewildering."



Vancouver Sun/National Post:

Stephen Harper, in his first interview since becoming Prime Minister, said yesterday he anticipated the "superficial" criticism of his decision to convince former Liberal Cabinet minister David Emerson to cross the floor to join his Cabinet.
While Mr. Emerson's defection was praised in some quarters, many Canadians voiced outrage and media commentators described the floor-crossing as a betrayal of grassroots voters and a reflection of "dirty" politics.
"I expected some of the superficial criticism I've seen," Mr. Harper told The Vancouver Sun in an interview. "But I think once people sit back and reflect, they'll understand that this is in the best interests of not just British Columbia but frankly of good government."



Edmonton Sun:

At least two prominent Alberta Conservative MPs are expressing doubts about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to appoint a floor-crossing Liberal to a cabinet post.

James Rajotte and Ken Epp - who both voted for a private member's bill that would have barred MPs from switching parties between elections - said they were not comfortable with Harper's appointment of rogue Liberal David Emerson to be his new International Trade minister.

"My view, my personal view, is that an MP has to consult his constituents before he makes a move to another party," said Rajotte, who also admitted he was "disappointed" at having been passed over for a cabinet spot himself.

"That's why I voted for that bill. If it were presented again, I'd vote for it again. I think there should have been a byelection or something (in Emerson's riding), so the constituents could have some kind of input."

Epp said he also still supports the idea of forcing MPs to fight byelections before switching parties.



Calgary Sun:

As a firestorm erupted over the appointment of a Liberal turncoat and an unelected Montrealer to the new cabinet, Stephen Harper moved to soothe sore feelings yesterday during his first caucus meeting since the election.

Conservative MPs say they're bracing for a backlash from their ridings, but stood behind the new PM's decision to appoint Michael Fortier to the Senate in spite of the party's stand on appointments to the Upper Chamber.



CBC News: Vancouver Liberals want Emerson to repay $97,000:

The Liberal riding association in Vancouver Kingsway wants David Emerson, who left the Liberals for a Conservative cabinet job two weeks after the federal election, to repay almost $97,000 in campaign donations...

In a letter to Emerson, the president of his local Liberal riding association says people who donated to the campaign wanted to elect a Liberal, not a Conservative.

Ivan Curman is also demanding that the MP resign and run in a byelection in Vancouver Kingsway.



Liberals more popular than Emerson in his riding:

David Emerson, despite his high-profile national role as British Columbia's senior federal minister in Ottawa, wasn't known by most of his Vancouver Kingsway constituents before the 2006 campaign began, according to a poll obtained by The Vancouver Sun.
The Mustel Group survey conducted last October found only one-quarter of respondents could identify Mr. Emerson, widely criticized for abandoning the Liberals on Monday to join Stephen Harper's Tory Cabinet as a star recruit, as their member of Parliament.
"Perhaps as further evidence of the relatively low profile of David Emerson amongst voters in his riding, 90% could not name a single accomplishment since being elected to the riding,'' Mustel Group president Evi Mustel advised the Liberal party in her 22-page analysis of the October, 2005, survey results.



National Post:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper must blunt the criticism of his appointment of an unelected party organizer to the Senate and to his Cabinet by holding elections for Parliament's Upper Chamber in the next year, says Bert Brown, who won Alberta Senate elections in 1998 and in 2004, but was never appointed by the Liberals.
Mr. Brown yesterday urged Mr. Harper to hold votes for the five existing Senate vacancies and to elect eight "extraordinary Senators" in order to ensure the country "can't turn back" from the parliamentary reforms promised during the recent campaign.
Prime ministers have the option of appointing two Senators from each of Canada's four regions in order to combat a Senate dominated by the opposition parties, a measure Brian Mulroney used as prime minister in the 1980s.



AND FINALLY: Harper hints at Senate vote:

A day after stunning many Western Conservatives with the appointment of a party organizer to the Senate and then to cabinet, Prime Minister Stephen Harper moved to soothe their feelings, suggesting the Tories may hold Senate elections in conjunction with the next federal vote.
According to caucus sources, Harper said he hopes to be able to fill any remaining vacancies in the Senate the next time voters go to the polls in a federal election — which is likely to happen within the next 18 months.
"The idea is to let Elections Canada run it; there's no need for any constitutional amendment, although there would presumably have to be discussions with the provinces," said a Tory source who was heartened by Harper's pledge.



Why? Why "discussions with the provinces"? This is a house of the federal Parliament. Its job is to represent the regions -- not the provincial governments.

Party of free speech

The fundamental issue raised by death threats on cartoonists? According to the new Foreign Affairs minister, it's the need for more cartoonists to self-censor...

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay today issued the following statement:

“The publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed has caused offence to Muslims and non-Muslims around the world and in Canada.
“Freedom of expression is a legally enshrined principle in Canada, but it must be exercised responsibly. We commend those Canadians who have acted appropriately.

“However, we condemn the violent protests that have occurred in some parts of the world, and find the attacks on foreign diplomatic missions particularly deplorable.

“This sensitive issue highlights the need for a better understanding of Islam and of Muslim communities. Respect for cultural diversity and freedom of religion is a fundamental principle in Canada. The Government of Canada will continue to promote a better understanding of Islam internationally, in partnership with Muslim communities.” [Emphasis added.]



Ezra Levant comments: "Peter MacKay hasn't been Foreign Minister for a week, and he's already sounding like Pierre Pettigrew or Kofi Annan."

Minister of Defence Lobbyists

Globe: The defence lobbyist who became the minister:

Even as he creates a new rule that former ministers, ministerial staff and senior public servants cannot lobby the federal government for five years after they leave their jobs, Mr. Harper has named a former defence lobbyist to the post of defence minister. Until former brigadier-general Gordon O'Connor was elected in 2004 and named defence critic, he had for years been a registered lobbyist working for the public-affairs giant Hill & Knowlton and specializing in advising defence manufacturers on how to secure government contracts.

Consider a partial list of Mr. O'Connor's clients. From 1996 to 2004, he was an official lobbyist for defence contractor BAE Systems, which last June took over another of his clients, United Defense. From 1996 to 2001, he served defence contractor General Dynamics. From 1999 to 2004, he served naval electronics firm Atlas Elektronik GmbH. From 2001 to 2004, he served Airbus Military, maker of the A400M military transport plane, which has competed to provide transports for Canada's military...
It is not unusual for retired military officers to take jobs connected to the defence industry, but it is rare for a defence lobbyist to jump so quickly to the post of defence minister.


IN FAIRNESS: Prime Minister Harper Announces New Ministry and Reaffirms Government Priorities:

As part of the government's commitment to improved accountability and transparency, Prime Minister Harper issued a new guide and code of ethics for Ministers and their staff.... The revisions to the Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Code for Public Office Holders include:

- a five-year ban on former ministers, ministerial staff and senior public servants from acting as lobbyists to the Government of Canada, a ban which cannot be waived or reduced by the Ethics Commissioner;

- in terms of other forms of employment, new requirements that the Ethics Commissioner publish instances in which former public office holders have been granted a waiver or reduction of the post-employment restrictions;

- clarification of arrangements for blind management agreements to ensure that a public office holder can only meet the manager of the agreement with the approval of, and in the presence of, the Ethics Commissioner, and by making more stringent the exceptional circumstances in which the public office holder may intervene;

- clarification that reports and findings of the Ethics Commissioner are final and may not be overturned by the Prime Minister;

- clarification that trusts, and benefits flowing therefrom, are subject to the Code; and

- clarification that the Ethics Commissioner may review complaints by members of the public that are brought to his attention by members of Parliament and that he may take such action as he deems appropriate


Party of free enterprise

Tories axe plan to privatize port:

Stephen Harper's new government has cancelled the proposed sale of a money-losing coal terminal in Prince Rupert that had been opposed by the former Liberal industry minister who defected to the Conservatives this week.
David Emerson, now International Trade Minister in the Tory government, helped prevent the sale of Ridley Terminals Inc. from getting through the Liberal cabinet last year and had spoken out against his government's plans during the recent federal election campaign...
The cancellation means that the new Conservative government, seen as ardent supporters of free enterprise, has killed a privatization plan put in place by the departing Liberals.



NEWS ITEM: Harper appoints horse as Consul. REACTION FROM COMMENTERS: "You guys are playing checkers, when Harper's playing chess! He's looking nine moves ahead! He's actually living in the future! The Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal are his to see! etc. etc." "While troubling ethically, I believe this to be a brilliant strategic move, as it will lock up the equestrian vote." "Must we be the only virgins in the whorehouse? This is how the game is played. Politics, people." "This is nothing, compared with what went on under Emperor Tiberius." "Why must you carp so? Stop undermining our leader!" "The critics will have to eat their words when that horse romps home in the Preakness." "This will all be forgotten by the third century A. D." "There is historical precedent for this." etc. etc.
February 7, 2006

Profiles in courage

CTV:

Helena Guergis, an Ontario MP, was reportedly set to reintroduce her private member's bill requiring floor-crossing MPs to run in a by-election as a candidate for their new party -- an idea not included in the Conservatives' election platform.
However, Guergis was one of 26 people named Tuesday as a parliamentary secretary, leading to that idea being shelved.


But check the quotes from Casey, Jaffer, Thompson, Epp... UPDATE: The best part? She's parliamentary secretary to David Emerson.

Financement distinct?

Premiers who counted on child-care cash say Harper should pay up:

OTTAWA (CP) - Stephen Harper is facing a showdown with premiers over his plan to scrap child-care deals that were years in the making. The prime minister offered Tuesday to negotiate a "transition period" with Quebec before cutting off related funding to all 10 provinces after March 31, 2007. It wasn't immediately clear whether other provinces will get similar offers before the Conservatives snuff the Liberal plan to set up a $5-billion national day-care system.... Charest has warned that such programs fall squarely on Quebec's jurisdictional turf. The five-year deal signed by Quebec and Ottawa in October hands $1.1 billion to the province with few strings attached. "We want the agreement reached with the former government to be respected," Charest said Tuesday. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty echoed that sentiment. His Liberal government has much invested in its child-care deal, he said. "All I know is that we worked long and hard to land the agreement we have in place and we are very reluctant to give that up."... In Manitoba, there was similar resolve. "We still have two signed agreements with the government of Canada," said Family Services Minister Christine Melnick. "Our expectation is that they certainly will be honoured."


And speaking of signed agreements:

OTTAWA (CP) - Provincial and territorial governments are not keeping their promise to account for billions in health funding allocated by the former Liberal government, says the Health Council of Canada. The federal government gave provinces $36 billion over five years in the 2003 first ministers' accord, and another $41 billion over 10 years in 2004, on condition that the money be spent on specific areas. But it's not clear where the money is going, says the council, created to monitor implementation of the first ministers' accords.


Democracy, ewww

Fortier 'didn't want to run' in federal election (CTV) :

Michael Fortier, Canada's new minister of public works, said he didn't run in the federal election because "it wasn't the right situation" for him.



I can see his point. Having to get elected is such a bore. WAIT, THERE'S MORE:

Asked about his reasons for accepting the post despite his reluctance to seek office, Mr. Fortier said: "Well, because the prime minister phoned me and there was this gaping hole in the Montreal area."



This is the most insidious part of this whole affair: the notion that every part of the country must be represented, in decimal-point proportion to its population, in the cabinet. That is supposed to be the job of Parliament. Yet the idea has taken hold that a region is only properly "represented" (knowwhatimean?) by a cabinet minister, in the same way as voters are told, sometimes none-too-subtly, that if they want their concerns to be taken into account, they had better elect a member of the governing party as their MP. This is an affront to Parliament, and to the role of the ordinary MP. It is a distortion of the role of a cabinet minister, which is to make policy for all of Canada, not to haggle for his region. It is pork-barrel, spoils-system politics, and it has no place in a modern democracy.
February 6, 2006

Red Rover, Red Rover, we call ... David over!

On the other hand, maybe Emerson's on to something. Maybe we should just elect MPs to act as free agents, on the basis of their personal attributes and desirability in the political marketplace: "elect me and I'll consider several offers." Instead of known quantities of MPs elected on each of several party slates, there'd be a pool of 308 unattached individuals. Then the parties would set about trying to lure them onside -- like a giant game of Red Rover, or perhaps the NHL draft. They'd offer whatever cabinet posts they had to hand, mindful that whatever was offered to one MP could not be offered to another (as, of course, an MP could accept an offer from only one party at a time). Then the various competing "teams" or "ministries" would see who could command the confidence of the House, and we'd form a government that way. Alas, that is not in fact how we form governments, nor was that the understanding on which Emerson sought the support of the electors of Vancouver-Kingsway. THIS JUST IN: Gurmant Grewal says he has tapes of Emerson deal MEMEWATCH: HockeyDirt.com picks up the hockey metaphor, and runs skates the length of the ice with it:

In a blockbuster trade announcement, Stephen Harper announced today that the defections of Belinda Stronach and Scott Brison to the Liberals were in fact part of a blockbuster trade involving former Industry Minister David Emerson, a functioning Quebec based campaign team and future considerations. Further, it now appears that the trade may be a three or even four way trade involving Bob Rae, a contender for the Liberals and Mario Dumont, who is currently considered the top draft pick for the Tories.


UNOFFICIAL OPPOSITION: BabblingBrooks has all the latest in spluttering indignation from ... supporters of the government. Hey! Liberal bloggers! Yeah, I'm talking to you, progressives! These people are mowing your lawn. You heard me. You're getting called out, here. (Fades into incoherent string of taunts...)

Harper's worst enemy

Remove Emerson! Elect Emerson! I've got it. First remove him, then elect him. Or not. CHICKENS, ROOST: Ahab's Whale has stocked up on some choice (and remarkably fresh) campaign rhetoric Emerson could use in the coming byelection:

"Just mark my words," Industry Minister David Emerson told reporters travelling with Martin yesterday in Vancouver. "If they get elected, they are going to begin a massive review of programs and a massive set of cuts to government programs. "And people are going to say, `We didn't ask for this. Mr. Harper didn't say this is what he was going to do.'"



"The Conservatives want to keep any of their members who might be inclined to say something that would uncover their true intentions and keep them quiet, out of the limelight," Industry Minister David Emerson said in Vancouver yesterday... "I've got to wonder what it is they're hiding," Emerson said in an interview after a speech by Prime Minister Paul Martin. "They've got a message that they've been quite successfully getting out to try to pretend they're moderate on a range of issues where we all know that underneath, when you scratch a bit, they're not moderate at all."



"I'm going to be Stephen Harper's worst enemy," he warned. "We're going to stir the pot and you better believe we are going to make a heck of a lot of noise."



And of course, who can forget:

Industry Minister David Emerson also painted a bleak picture of Harper rule, whereby "the strong survive and the weak die." ...



A CONTRARY VIEW:
Knock knock. Who's there? Emerson. Emerson who? Emerson nice cabinet picks.
Reminds me of that Jeff ("You might be a redneck") Foxworthy joke, about the correct (redneck) use of the word "mayonnaise": Mayonnaise a lot of people here tonight.

Trust the people

Well, I guess the Liberal leadership race is on again. I don't want to overstate things, but this business of Emerson and Fortier has all the makings of a public relations fiasco for the Tories -- on their first day, and on their issue: ethics and accountability. At least, I hope it does. It may be that the big brains around Harper are right, and this is a "one-day issue," of interest to the media and no one else. The Liberals can't say anything about it, of course, and the poor defrauded citizens of Vancouver-Kingsway can be bought off, rather as Emerson was, with a cabinet seat. Cynical, true, but who knows, maybe they're right. But suppose they're wrong, and this quickly metastasizes, casting doubt on everything the Tories do -- the filter through which every subsequent statement or action is viewed, the moment when they squandered their biggest asset: the expectation that this time, after so many governments came to power promising to "clean house in Ottawa", this time would be different. Then I think the Prime Minister would be well advised to alter course, admit he made a mistake -- two, actually -- and get out in front of this. There's a simple way to do it, one that could even turn a retreat into an advance. Announce, no later than tomorrow, that both appointments will be put before the people: Emerson's, in a byelection, allowing his constituents to pass judgment on his change of party; Fortier's, in Quebec's first-ever Senate election. I think it's just possible that the shock of actually being asked their permission might overcome people's revulsion at the appointments. Had Dalton McGuinty, in a similar situation, put his 2004 tax hikes to the people -- which was no more than he was legally required to do by law, before he amended it to evade the obligation -- there is every possibility they would have passed. But it will be a near thing. The talk radio shows in Vancouver are boiling with listeners' rage. And who can blame them? I know, I know: Emerson is eminently qualified for cabinet, with brains and experience to burn, where Stronach brought nothing to the table but her vote in that week's confidence showdown. Her case really was an explicit trade of one office for one vote (an office, what is more, that the government had no legal authority to offer her, at least in my opinion), where his might more genuinely be based on a willingness to broadly support the government's aims and policies -- which is after all the same terms required of every member of cabinet. But still: it stinks. We now know two things after the election that we should have been told before -- that Dave Dingwall was to be paid $418,000 severance for being fired, and that Dave Emerson is a Conservative. The seat he holds does not belong to him. It is not his "entitlement." It belongs to the voters of Vancouver-Kingsway. And they can be forgiven for feeling as if they've been had. As for Fortier, it is a fine thing for a Prime Minister elected on a platform of democratic accountability, who promised he would not appoint anyone who was not elected, either to cabinet or to the Senate, to then turn around and do both at one go. And to appoint his campaign manager co-chair, to boot! Maybe I'm wrong, and no one cares. But if they do, then the government has a clear path before it. Put both appointments before the voters. Abide in their judgment. Seek their confidence, and it will be repaid. Trust the people. *It used to be, until almost the Second World War, that every appointee to Cabinet was expected to first resign and run in a byelection -- to seek his constituents' approval for "crossing over" from being a watchdog on the government to being a member of it. It was wildly impractical, since in an evenly divided House it meant the government temporarily lost its majority -- both King and Macdonald exploited the gaps in power thus exposed to unscrupulous ends -- but you have to admire the spirit of it.

Glaring omission

A major question left unanswered by the list of cabinet appointments: Who is the new Minister of Complex Files? David Emerson may have crossed the floor, but he's no Belinda Stronach. Has Prime Minister Harper simply overlooked this important portfolio? Has it been lost in the reshuffling of government responsibilities, consolidated inside one department or another? Or did they just forget to put out a press release? I trust this matter will be cleared up soon. This is just too critical a position to be left unfilled. Whoever it turns out to be, he or she will have some pretty expensive shoes to fill. I've heard rumours that Gary Lunn was supposed to have the inside track, but at this point that's all I have...

First reports

CTV: Flaherty for Finance, MacKay for Foreign Affairs...
Lunn, Skelton, O'Connor, Prentice, Solberg, Toews, Day, Clement, Baird, Oda, Strahl, Verner, Bernier, Ambrose ...
Eminence grises Reynolds, Speaker, Fortier... DAVID EMERSON??? Has crossed floor -- days after being elected as a Liberal. First reaction: he should immediately resign his seat and run in a byelection, having effectively won it by false pretenses. Second point: so much for Tory fury over Belinda Stronach trading her vote for a cabinet seat. This is not a good note to be striking on their first day. UPDATE: He gets TRADE and "responsibility for Olympic Games." Tories get a two-seat swing in the balance of the House. Standings now are 125-102-29-51-1. So Tories plus NDP equals majority. André Arthur is no longer the swing vote. MICHAEL FORTIER appointed to Senate seat from Montreal. (Gets PUBLIC WORKS.) He, apparently, will run in some sort of election. Will "Senator" Emerson do the same? Complete List: HARPER Prime Minister NICHOLSON House Leader, Democratic Reform LEBRETON Senate leader FLAHERTY Finance MACKAY Foreign Affairs (and ACOA -- what, between flights?) TOEWS Justice DAY Public Safety O'CONNOR Defence BAIRD Treasury Board FORTIER Public Works CLEMENT Health (and FEDNOR) FINLEY Human Resources and Social Development CANNON Transport, Infrastructure and Communities BERNIER Industry EMERSON Trade LUNN Resources STRAHL Agriculture (and Wheat Board) HEARN Fisheries ODA Heritage AMBROSE Environment PRENTICE Indian Affairs CHONG Intergovernmental Affairs/PCO (!!) (and Sports) SOLBERG Immigration SKELTON Revenue (and WEDI) VERNER Int'l Cooperation (?) and La Francophonie THOMPSON Veterans Affairs BLACKBURN Labour and Housing (and EDAC-FROQ) 27 in all, down from 39... ABLONCZY out, RAJOTTE out, HILL out, KENNEY, MOORE out. But Emerson's in.... DIVERSITY SCORECARD: Quebec 5, Ontario 8 (plus LeBreton?), B.C. 4, Alberta 4, Man/Sask 2, Atlantic 3 Women 6, Vizmin 1 (Oda. Chong? Clement? How viz is a min?)... Catholic/Protestant/Jewish/Other: anybody know? IDEOLOGY SCORECARD: Red - MacKay, Prentice, Hearn Blue - Toews, Clement, Baird, Flaherty, Fortier, Bernier Reform - Day, Strahl, Solberg, Lunn Liberal - Emerson

First, the good news

Tories won't have Deputy PM, sources say (Globe)

Excellent news, for all the reasons I stated.

ONE LAST PLUG: Much of the job of Finance minister, especially in this Parliament, is going to be dealing with the provinces, notably in the matter of the mythical beast known as the "fiscal imbalance," and much of that work is going to be about ratcheting down the expectations Tory rhetoric did so much to raise -- notably in the province of Quebec. Well then. Who better for that job than a Quebecer? A Quebecer, say, who used to work for the provincial Finance ministry. Any members of Harper's caucus who fit that description? One in particular, perhaps?
February 5, 2006

Panther Herpes

As we await tomorrow's sober, dignified swearing-in of the new government -- a thousand years of tradition, democracy's glory, etc etc -- your suggestions, please, for an appropriately insulting nickname to bestow upon our 22nd Prime Minister. I came up with three in about thirty seconds for a post a few days ago -- Captain Bloodless, Stone Cold Steve, Prime Minister of the Chess Club -- but you can surely do better.
February 4, 2006

Dingwalled

So Dave Stonewall gets his "entitlements" -- $418,000 in severance pay, half again as much as his annual salary, plus pension benefits -- literally hours before the old government hands over power to the new. How convenient: after the election is safely over, but before the incoming Tories can do anything to stop it. Perfect.

One one level, the arbitration ruling -- announced, even more conveniently, on a Saturday -- settles a mystery: was Dingwall fired, or did he, as both he and the government maintained throughout, resign of his own free will -- "to clear up his good name," if you'll recall.

Of course, that was just the start of the mystery. If he quit voluntarily, everyone naturally asked, why should he be paid severance? And if he was fired, what for? After all, both he and the government maintained he did nothing wrong. Remember the defence of his character offered in Parliament, by none other than the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister?

Well now, thanks to the arbitrator, we know that he was fired. And if, as the arbitrator has also ruled, he is entitled to severance, we can assume he was not fired for cause -- $748,000 expense accounts notwithstanding. That is, he did nothing wrong.

But if he did nothing wrong, then why was he fired? And if he was fired, then why did everyone involved deny it?

A FIRST: Daimnation is hoping the lawyers get most of the money.

A SECOND: Doublemint Dingwall! Double your pleasure, double your funds! A THIRD: Of course, after his services to their campaign, the Tories may be tempted to double the amount. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE:

On top of that, CTV News has learned the deal was actually approved on Jan. 20, three days before Canadians voted in the federal election. The government issued a cheque to Dingwall on Friday... A senior official in the Prime Minister's Office said neither Prime Minister Paul Martin nor any other campaigning politician knew about the Dingwall settlement until Saturday, when officials in the Privy Council Office issued a news release. Government bureaucrats refused a CTV News request to view the report produced by Adams. No one in the Prime Minister's Office or the Privy Council Office would appear on camera.



Nobody knew, nobody talks. And nobody sees the report. Perfect. LOOMING SPECTOR: A former deputy minister writes:

Who decided to arbitrate Dingwall's severance? And who decided on sending the dispute to an old arbitration softie like George Adam? If it was an official who made these decisions, he/she should be demoted, if not fired. The wise course of action would have been to face Dingwall in Court -- if it came to that -- and let him explain previous statements about his departure.


Column-inches? Column-yards!

I have posted my latest column (on Gomery II), plus about fifty or sixty others going back to last June. (See an index to the last 10 under the Recent Columns bar at right.) And, of course, the complete archive* way back to 1985 is available on the Columns page. For your reading and commenting pleasure. *Still working on updating 2004 and parts of 2002. BACKDATE: Some stray magazine pieces still to be posted on the Essays page. Found a few the other day in print form I'd been unable to locate for years. Plus there's several hundred editorials from my years before the masthead at the FP and Globe just waiting to be archived.
February 3, 2006

Punt!

So Rock is out -- or rather, was never in -- bringing to four the number of leading Liberal leadership contenders to give the race a pass. The Dr. J and Mr. K team offers an incisive view of this mass wimp-out:

It appears that all of them reduced the matter to a simple cost-benefit analysis -- weighing the financial loss in leaving plum post-political jobs or appointments and the personal or family-related sacrifices against the advantages of political power and public service... What remains unspoken is that your typical “high profile” Liberal has a very high expectation of sliding into the Prime Ministership and a very low tolerance for the political wilderness. Imagine having to bankroll and fight a leadership race and one, maybe two elections before reaching your ultimate goal. Having to rebuild your party. Having to develop a platform. Having to bridge the factional divides. Having to justify yourself and your party for who you are, rather than merely having power be its own justification. Who the heck would do that? Certainly no present-day Canadian Liberal, it seems. Next to John Diefenbaker, Stephen Harper might have spent more time in the political wilderness than anyone in living memory. He’s a veritable Daniel Boone of the political boondocks. Harper has been criticized, notably in a recent, recycled CBC TV bio about turning on the old Tories and quitting Reform. What is conveniently forgotten is that, in both instances, particularly the former, he was leaving for no cabinet post or sinecure, but rather for almost certain political oblivion. He was taking a step out and down rather than up. Hardly your typical brand of opportunism, even if portrayed as such. Harper’s later success was helped partly by the reluctance of other ostensibly star candidates to accept the risks inherent in seeking the leadership of the Canadian Alliance or fledgling Conservative Party (Mike Harris, to name one). In the end, Harper funded and fought two leadership races and two elections before winning a federal election. He has been a political activist for about 23 years, almost 20 of which were spent in opposition or exile. He is a bright individual who would certainly have succeeded in other fields. Many of his contemporaries are senior professionals or executives. He didn’t have to work as an underpaid opposition staffer, didn’t have to opt out of his MP’s pension in the 1990’s. Clearly, he believed these sacrifices were worth taking. What the Liberal predicament underscores is that the Liberal Party is an entity of, by and for power. It has no other animating purpose. If you were looking for the quickest route to power, whether an ex-PC or provincial NDP minister, or a pro-lifer trying to “influence” from within government, you joined the Liberals. But no more. No more certain path to power there. That is another irony of the Harper victory. It marks a win for political principle over ambition and opportunism.



And speaking of ambition and opportunism, catch this priceless exchange between Scott Brison and an underling, culminating in this Brison quote: "How dare u speak to me like that?" Darcyish snob and 1337-speaking teen, in eight words. Pwl Wells comments:

I'm awfully fond of Brison [that makes two of you - ed.], but I suspect — I hope! — Liberals will need lots of convincing before they fall in line behind a businessman whose boldest political move to date was a classic case of buying in at the top of a market.


Icefloes

Interesting...

RUNCIMAN RENEWS CALL FOR ELECTED SENATORS (Toronto) - In the wake of the federal Conservative election victory, Leeds-Grenville MPP Bob Runciman today announced that he will re-introduce legislation that would see Ontario become the second province in Canada to elect Senators-in-waiting by a public vote. Runciman's earlier legislation died on the Order Paper when the McGuinty Government prorogued the legislature last year. "Prime Minister-designate Harper has clearly indicated that he will only be appointing elected Senators during his government's term", said Runciman. "This is an historic opportunity to bring some measure of democracy to this institution." The veteran MPP's legislation, modeled on legislation currently in effect in Alberta, would mandate a province wide Senatorial election to occur in conjunction with the next provincial election.



Return of the Donnybrook!

A good number of comments on this site, I've noticed, begin "Off topic, but..." The zeal of commenters for discussing a given subject is undeterred by mere irrelevance: A post about Say's Law invariably winds up hosting a thread about pistachio nuts (or, more usually, abortion). At the same time, the churn of new posts sometimes interrupts a perfectly good argument, or slices up into several different threads a discussion that should really embrace them all. For these reasons, I've resurrected an old feature on this site, the Donnybrook: free-standing comment threads that are not tied to a particular post, but have a life of their own. (After all, it's your site: I just work here.) I've set up three of these to start you off. You'll see them posted at the top of the right-hand column. The first, provocatively named "Off topic, but..." is an open thread, for posting items that have nothing to do with anything previously posted, but might be of interest. The second and third are self-explanatory, broad topics of continuing interest. I'll leave them up for as long as they seem current. (Feel free to suggest some more.) Have fun.
February 1, 2006

For less awful elections

I'll have some thoughts on Gomery II later, but meantime here's today's column, which gathers together some notes scribbled here.

The best experts believe this government is set to last for at least two years. Which means we have two years to make sure the next election is not quite as awful as this one. Some areas for improvement:

The debates. Once a novelty, these have become as much a part of the electoral landscape as lawn signs, as critical as television ads: Paul Martin’s slide in the polls began with the first debate. Yet we persist in treating them as ad hoc events, with rules left to last-minute negotiations between the major parties and the networks -- vested interests, all.

It’s time to set the rule for the debates in the election laws. This year’s debates offered some examples, good and bad. Good: more debates -- four, rather than two -- mean less hype, more substance. Let’s have one every week. (Of the campaign, I mean. Though come to think of it...) Bad: the practice of segregating the debates by language must end. Bilingual debates mean the whole country watches at the same time. Which means the leaders have to talk to the whole country, rather than one province.

Should the Greens be in? Should there be a run-off debate towards the end for the two leading candidates? Should we dispense with the quickie question-and-answer format in favour of a real debate -- 10 minute opening statement, 8 minute rebuttal, etc -- giving the leaders time, for once, to develop an argument? These are interesting questions. They should be decided well in advance of any actual election, and fixed in law.

The campaign finance laws. We’ve come a long way from the cesspool of the recent past. Bombardier is no longer making $100,000 annual contributions to the ruling party, cabinet ministers are no longer collecting secret contributions in unlimited amounts from the industries they regulate, and so on. The Harper government promises to close some of the loopholes left by the Chrétien reforms, notably in the matter of corporate contributions.

Yet, curiously, the Conservatives seem to have forgotten a key plank from their platform in the previous election: to abolish the $1.75 (now $1.83) per vote subsidy the political parties receive out of public funds. If the principle is that elections should be a matter between the parties and the voters, and therefore that parties should have to appeal to the choices of free individuals, for funds as well as votes, this seems a contradiction, to say the least.

The electoral system. Every election throws up fresh anomalies from our antiquated first-past-the-post system. Some examples this time out: The NDP, with 2.6 million votes, gets 29 seats. The Bloc Quebecois, with 1.6 million, gets 51 seats. The Greens, with more than 650,000 votes, get zero seats. Liberals in the West, Tories in the cities, federalists in Quebec, all are greatly under-represented, distorting our perception of the country and needlessly aggravating regional tensions.

That isn’t by any means the only distortion in our system. There are also vast disparities in the numbers of voters per riding. It took as many votes to elect one Tory MP in some Alberta ridings as it took to elect five Liberal MPs in PEI and Labrador. A system in which one person’s vote is worth three times, or four times, or five times another’s, depending on which party they vote for or which riding they live in, is only approximately democratic -- and not at all fair.

The tone. Politics is never a lovely business, but this election was just plain ugly. The fault lies mostly with the Liberals, but all the parties got into the mud at one point or another.

And when they were not attacking each other, they were ganging up on a perfectly decent group of Canadians: social conservatives. Again, the Liberals led the charge, but the Tories seemed as content to deflect the demonization campaign onto someone other than themselves. To listen to the rhetoric, you would never believe that anyone who had any questions about abortion or gay marriage should be allowed out in public, let alone to vote.

It doesn’t have to be this way. People can change, and so can politics. The Liberal leadership race is a good place to start. Will the party elect another leader schooled in the politics of fear and smear? Or will it absorb one of the lessons of its defeat, and choose a leader with a sense of dignity and principle?

Frank McKenna and John Manley are both good men, and the race is poorer without them. But so are Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff, Stephane Dion, Ken Dryden, Gerard Kennedy... An election pitting any one of them against Stephen Harper would be a tonic.

Here’s hoping.

Here's the first take on the Gomery report. Looks pretty good at first glance.

Must be a new government or something

Howard Stern, threat to Canadian broadcast standards, is back on Canadian airwaves.

MORE: Can these people be far behind? Will the industry get off its collective knees, stop collaborating with transparent front groups, stop stroking the hand that feeds it, stop generally abasing itself, and tell the CRTC to take a hike?

Is this the start of an Ottawa spring?

(More anti-CRTC rants here.)
All I can say is, John R. Mott, CA, you da man!

Health care, a federal jurisdiction?

Works for me.

Quebec's daycare plan, model for the nation?

The C. D. Howe Institute, in a new study, begs to differ.

Talk about a complex file

As we wait for Judge Gomery to deliver his apparently far-reaching report, let us bow our heads and remember whom the outgoing Prime Minister had entrusted with the task of implementing his recommendations I SWEAR I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS: Google "Minister of Complex Files," and amongst the links that turn up are this and this. (Google "strutting bantam in epaulets," you get this.) What fiend is responsible for these outrages? On the other hand, Google "Adscam" and you get ... 275,000 links!

Gomery Too

Gomery part deux arrives today, with recommendations for squaring a difficult political circle: how to hold ministers accountable for what goes on in their departments, yet at the same time keep ministers from interfering in how their departments are run. How? Time once again for me to ride my favourite hobby-horse: the New Zealand model, sometimes called the New Public Management. Huge oversimplification: Turn government departments into Crown corporations. Deputy Minister becomes CEO, negotiates contract with minister, setting out policy objectives and performance benchmarks. Minister is responsible to Parliament for overall policy; CEO is responsible to Minister, via contract, for meeting benchmarks. How he does so, crucially, is up to him. Essentially the "purchaser-provider split" idea, writ large. Something goes wrong, minister has interest in exposing it -- as outraged purchaser of public services, rather than shifty-eyed provider. Ministers freed to concentrate on big picture, as members of cabinet rather than departmental managers. No room to meddle, so can say no to special pleaders. No more Lawrence MacAulays. CRITICAL DISTINCTION: Conservatives' Accountability Act, and likely Gomery Too, relies heavily on tighter policing -- more audits, tougher penalties etc -- to prevent ministers from politicizing their departments. New Zealand model achieves this by structurally separating the two. Clarifies responsibilities, expectations, lines of authority. Here's a column I wrote on it. And here's another. I'm sure I'm glossing over its defects, as the learned readers of this page will no doubt inform me. For extra credit, here's a load o' reading material from primary sources:
New Zealand government IMF OECD (Also here and here.) Adam Smith Institute Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (UPDATE: Corrected link) Frontier Centre for Public Policy Heritage Foundation FAO
Relevant NZ gov't departments:
State Services Commission Treasury
UPDATE: More reading - Reflections on the New Zealand Model Public sector reform in New Zealand: Issues of Public Accountability More specialized studies: The Challenge of Assessing Systemic Change: The Case of Public Management Reform A Review of Australian and New Zealand Experiences with Accrual Output Based Budgeting Turning Loose the Invisible Hand: New Zealand's Information Technology Policy Applied to Canada: Modernizing Government Accountability: A Framework for Reform (Canada School of Public Service) New Public Management, North American Style (Sanford Borins, University of Toronto) A Practical Basis for Public Service Ethics (J. I. Gow, Université de Montréal) Addressing the Accountability Deficit (Tom Axworthy, IRPP) As a counterpoint, see also the testimony of Prof. David Good and Prof. Paul Thomas before the Senate Finance committee this October.

Bernierwatch

Hacks and Wonks jumps on the Beauceron bandwagon.