Smash the state! Okay, start with the TTC!

I've posted today's column on the transit strike (also my previous column on the press gallery fracas, if you missed it.) The source for the "curb rights" approach to deregulation mentioned in the piece is a 1997 study by three US economists for the Brookings Institution, condensed here. There's a good survey of transit competition around the world here. And for a look at transit's past, and its future, check this mind-blowing article (registration required) by the always thought-provoking Larry Solomon.

Today's column will annoy most of you. Extra-annoying bonus point: I agree with Simpson! DOUBLEPLUS UNGOOD: And because the comments still aren't working properly, no one can read your screams...

PM vs media, round XVIII

Wells dug up these quotes -- from Allan Levine's 1993 book Scrum Wars: The Prime Ministers and the Media -- but they're so hilarious I'm going to reprint them here...

The [news] conferences had first been convened, starting in December 1976, at the theatre in the National Press Building and had been chaired by the gallery executive itself. But in November 1978, in an attempt to exercise greater control over the prime minister's meetings with journalists, [Communications Director Dick] O'Hagan moved the weekly gatherings down Wellington Street to the Canada Conference Centre. Now the conferences were chaired by Trudeau's press secretary Jean Charpentier, who decided which reporters could ask questions. O'Hagan was also unhappy with the "wooden, remote and professorial" image of Trudeau "sitting behind the desk in the (Press Building's) Theatre, with a flag behind him and glass of Perrier Water (with a slice of lemon) at his right hand." At the Conference Centre he could stand.... For O'Hagan, the image was perfect. ———— [Louis] St. Laurent respected the press and media as having as important a job to do as Parliamentarians. But this did not mean that St. Laurent was willing to be "scrummed." Reporters would stand patiently in an East Block corridor waiting for cabinet meetings to end. When they approached the prime minister with a question about what had been discussed, he would usually cut them off curtly. "You have no right whatsoever to examine my mind," he'd tell them. "If there will be some action, I will let you know." ———— Whereas Diefenbaker relished the challenge of the corridor debates, Pearson found them impossible.... At the suggestion of press secretary Dick O'Hagan, the journalists were moved into a special conference room. ... Two long and trying years went by before Pearson finally banned this media circus from Parliament's hallways for the duration of his term in office.

Mader Blog has a good rebuttal of my own and similar "more time for debate" takes on the Afghanistan vote. Whether MPs needed more time for debate, in some objective sense, is an issue that can be, um, debated. But there's such a thing as courtesy as well. Had Harper taken more time, made more effort, perhaps he could have forged a broader consensus in favour of the mission, rather than going for the quick hit of dividing the Grits.

It was a disgraceful week, one in which both sides of the House took turns advertising their contempt for the Parliament each claims to revere... My Saturday column is up.

We're staying

It wasn't pretty, and it didn't show a whole lot of respect for Parliament, but I have to admit Harper got the job done with his sudden decision to put the question of extending the Afghanistan mission to the House. It was brinksmanship of the highest -- and lowest -- order, and thank God it passed, in the end. So we're committed for another two years, meaning Canada will be in a position to take command of the Kandahar operation next year, and the whole NATO-led shooting match come 2008. Harper delivered -- technically -- on his pledge to give Parliament a say in such matters, even if he had previously insisted that a vote was not necessary in the case of an extension of an existing mission (and indeed declared in debate that the mission would continue for one year even if Parliament did not approve). At any rate, he can now say Parliament has spoken, robbing opponents of the mission of a potential rallying point next February, when the current tour was supposed to expire. Best of all, he has flushed out the Liberals, exposing the divisions within their ranks. Only 30 Grits voted to continue the mission that they themselves had launched. Among the Liberal leadership contenders, only two -- Michael Ignatieff and Scott Brison -- voted with the government. The rest either voted against -- Dion, Fry, Bennett, Bevilacqua, Dryden and Volpe -- or say they would have (Rae and Kennedy -- not sure about Martha Hall Findlay). Ignatieff, as he has been throughout this debate, was exemplary:

During the debate, Michael Ignatieff -- one of the frontrunners for the Liberal leadership and a bullish supporter of the Afghanistan mission -- supported extending the mission. "I express unequivocal support for the troops in Afghanistan, for the mission, and also for the renewal of the mission," he said. Ignatieff argued that Canada must shift from a "peace-keeping paradigm" to one that "combines military, reconstruction and humanitarian efforts together." However, he said his support was conditional on the mission equally combining these three elements.

If only his rivals could summon such clarity.

"A hunting accident in my living room"

So the former VP of Groupaction becomes the second person connected with the sponsorship scandal to testify, under oath, to having been afraid someone would kill him -- a fact CP neglects to mention until the eighth graf...

MONTREAL (CP) - A former ad executive lived with a twisted trail of fake projects and phoney contracts because "great Canadian institutions" like the Prime Minister's Office of Jean Chretien were involved, Chuck Guité's fraud trial heard Wednesday.

Jean Lambert, a former vice-president of Groupaction Marketing Inc., testified the schemes grew more complicated through the 1990s and involved high-level civil servants, MPs, senior Quebec Liberals, cabinet ministers and senators.

"At the centre of all these tentacles was the PMO," Lambert testified.

But Lambert also said he did not go to police because he didn't have concrete proof of his suspicions.

Guité's name scarcely came up in three hours of testimony as Lambert described "camaraderie well beyond what I would have thought as normal" between politicians and Groupaction executives.

"It was just an accumulation of what I was seeing going on in the agency where I worked, the closeness of my agency and others to the governing party, members of Parliament, ministers," Lambert said, without naming many names.

"It became evident, without having proof, that something was going on."

The dawning realization of high-powered involvement over a number of years caused Lambert to fear for his life, he said, and scared him away from complaining to police.

Lambert said he feared that if he were wrong in his allegations, he would probably end up in a mental institution for spreading conspiracy theories.

"I was a speck of dust in this," he said. "If I was right, well, the idea of having a hunting accident in my living room didn't interest me, either."

My Wednesday column

... dissing the Grits for concealing the costs of the gun registry, is posted here.

Alas...

Manning says he will not run for Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership

What price the pelt?

Sigh. I have a lot of respect for Neil Reynolds, the Globe financial columnist and legendary newspaper editor. He's smart, independent-minded, and knowledgable, particularly on economic matters. So how could he fall for the old "natural parity" fallacy ("Ideally, we should have a 100-cent dollar")?

At 90 cents (U.S.), the Canadian dollar is getting back where it belongs, which is at par with the American dollar or within a few cents of it, either up or down... Ideally, these kindred dollars should exchange at par, or close to par, as they have so often in the past...

There is in fact no reason at all why the two currencies should tend to trade at par, or any other parity for that matter. This hoary myth persists for one reason, and one reason only: because they have the same name. No one suggests the yen, or the pound, or the euro should "naturally" trade at par with the US dollar: why would they? Nor would anyone propose anything so preposterous of the Canadian dollar, if it had a different name. So perhaps it's time to dust off a proposal I made some years back: let's call the currency by another name -- something so obviously and distinctly Canadian, it would have no need of the "Canadian" tag in front of it. In honour of our fur-trading heritage, I suggest the "pelt." As in, "that'll be six pelts." The pelt: It may seem a little strange now, but trust me, it'll grow on you.

Writer's block, actually. Why?

May 13 column: Harper's show of accomplishment

Has any government, anywhere, ever enjoyed a shorter honeymoon than Stephen Harper's? It was literally over before it started... [More] My take on Harper's First Hundred Days (a milestone beloved of editors, though no one else pays it much mind -- and in any case it's not 'til Tuesday, is it?), published in Saturday's paper, is posted here, for your reading and commenting pleasure...

May 10 column: An odd definition of charity

Probably no item in the budget was more widely praised than the proposal to exempt donations of stock to charity from capital gains tax... If it were just a matter of saving lives, you understand, they'd take a pass. But dangle a tax break in front of them, and they're all ears... [More]

May 6 column: The end of the fiscal imbalance

Reading the papers after the budget was a walk through a parallel universe. The Liberals' interim leader, Bill Graham, was quoted denouncing it as Canada's first "neo-conservative" budget, apparently unaware that the budget promised to outspend his own party's election platform by several billion dollars, while such tax cuts as it contained were largely cribbed from the Liberals' 2005 budget. The Ottawa Citizen, meanwhile, gave thanks for "a budget that offers relief from years of Liberal social engineering," before noting, in the next paragraph, that "the budget offers tax incentives to use public transit, to enroll children in organized sports, and to encourage students to excel academically." Yes, it's out with the old Liberal social engineering -- and in with the new Conservative social engineering... [More]

May 3 column: Minority Tories on a fishing trip

Every budget has its telltale line, that one, seemingly innocuous passage that gives the game away. While the rest of the budget labours mightily to obscure and deceive, in a flash it reveals what in fact the government is up to. This year's telling moment occurs on page 76. I won't quote the whole thing; the section heading is enough. It reads: "Improving the Tax Treatment of Capital Gains for Fishers." [More]

April 29 column: A good deal -- 25 years too late

It was always apparent that the softwood conflict could end only with Canada's capitulation. Hotheaded threats of retaliation against American wine vastly overstated our leverage. Airheaded vows to divert our lumber to China were simply delusional. We were never going to bring the Americans to their knees; nor were we ever likely, however many international trade panels might rule in our favour, to bring them to their senses. [More]

April 26 column: Enter the Liberal B Team

That's it? Only 10? What happened to those dozens of pretenders to the Liberal crown we were promised? Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, when Dominic Leblanc's name was being tossed about, when Denis Coderre and Hedy Fry were said to be "fielding calls," when insiders were talking up Ruby Dhalla's chances... [More]

April 22 column: The asymmetric orthodoxy

Everybody has fallen in love with Stephen Harper's new "open federalism," and if anyone can figure out what it is perhaps they'll call me. For now, all is sweet nothings... [More]

April 19 column: We've created a monster

Naturally I was as distressed as anyone at the news Stephen Harper had taken to closing his speeches with the words "God bless Canada." Talk about control freaks, I thought: Now he's telling God what to do... [More]

April 15 column: The premiers' latest sham

The premiers, by the grace of God, have met again, and though the results were even more entertaining than usual, this is probably the last such gathering we will see for a while... [More]

April 12 column: Reining in the lobbyists

Borrowing and stealing having already gone out of fashion in Ottawa, the government is now poised to move against begging. Also pleading, cajoling and the genteeler forms of inveigling -- or, as it's better known, lobbying. That's if it can survive the lobbying campaign that's about to get under way... [More]

April 8 column

Something strange and wonderful is happening to Canadian politics. After decades of trolls and main-chancers, politics is suddenly, miraculously, fit work for decent people again. We have been governed by rogues, of one kind or another, for so long. Now at last dignity, integrity and gravitas are back in fashion... [More]