Take off the sunscreen

Classic. Decades of scare stories about the sun's evil rays, years of alarmist warnings by politicians and others ("for God's sake keep your kids out of the sun"), and what do we find is the major cause of cancer in northern countries? Lack of sunshine...:

For decades, researchers have puzzled over why rich northern countries have cancer rates many times higher than those in developing countries — and many have laid the blame on dangerous pollutants spewed out by industry. But research into vitamin D is suggesting both a plausible answer to this medical puzzle and a heretical notion: that cancers and other disorders in rich countries aren't caused mainly by pollutants but by a vitamin deficiency known to be less acute or even non-existent in poor nations... For many reasons, Canadians are among the people most at risk of not having enough vitamin D. This is due to a quirk of geography, to modern lifestyles and to the country's health authorities, who have unwittingly, if with the best of intentions, played a role in creating the vitamin deficiency... Only brief full-body exposures to bright summer sunshine — of 10 or 15 minutes a day — are needed to make high amounts of the vitamin. But most authorities, including Health Canada, have urged a total avoidance of strong sunlight or, alternatively, heavy use of sunscreen. Both recommendations will block almost all vitamin D synthesis.

Harper du jour

Then:

"The broad lesson of history is that Canada's natural governing coalition always includes the federalist option in Quebec, not the nationalist one."

-- Stephen Harper, January, 2002

Now...:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper championed his "open" brand of federalism in Quebec's rural heartland Saturday night, finding an echo in the province's newly emboldened autonomists.

Harper - speaking exclusively in French - painted himself as a defender of the Quebec nation, and the federal leader best positioned to fight the province's separatist forces.

"When you are a nation, it is perfectly natural to be a nationalist," he told a crowd of more than 400 people gathered in the community centre of this farming town south of Quebec City.

"Open federalism is what we did when we asked the Canadian Parliament to recognize that Quebecois form a nation within Canada," Harper said.

GENS DU PUH-LEEZE:

He said a re-elected Conservative government would lead a Canada that was "strong, united and free, with a Quebec (that was) autonomous and proud." ...

Monday is Harper’s birthday, and after his speech, which was entirely in French, he was serenaded to the Quebec birthday theme, "Mon cher Stephen, c’est a ton tour de te laisser parler d’amour," to the tune of Gens du Pays.

BACKDATE: Here's more from that long-ago speech by Canadian Alliance leadership candidate Stephen ("the Canadian Alliance is here to stay") Harper, delivered at the Versailles Park Place Hotel in Montreal, Jan. 19, 2002:

Conservative political parties have long recognized that their relative weakness in Quebec is a critical factor in limiting them to opposition rather than government status. Conservatives have also observed that, when they came to power in Canada in the past century, they did so in coalition with the province's so-called "nationalist" forces. This lesson has been interpreted by the Canadian Alliance as meaning that the party should position itself as a nationalist force in Quebec and focus on the significant anti-Liberal vote.

Over the past few years I have concluded that this strategy is fundamentally mistaken. It ignores the real lesson of Canadian history -- that while Conservatives have come to power by exploiting a nationalist strategy in Quebec, such coalitions have never lasted very long. Indeed, they have ended in political disaster.

The broad lesson of history is that Canada's natural governing coalition always includes the federalist option in Quebec, not the nationalist one. This is what the Liberals were in the 20th century. In the 19th century, when the Conservatives usually made up the government, they occupied a similar position. It would therefore be a mistake, in my judgment, for the Canadian Alliance to focus on simply grabbing the anti-Liberal vote in order to build a beachhead in Quebec. The party must undertake the long-run work necessary to become a federalist option in Quebec acceptable to a significant number of Liberal as well as anti-Liberal voters.

Can't get there from here

Okay, so it was 20% from current levels. If that's the case, they're not going to get there, as my Wednesday column argues -- and as a number of economists agree.

20-20

It's been widely reported that the new Tory environmental plan (brought to you by the Liberal Party of Canada!) calls for a 20% reduction in GHG emissions by 2020 -- as in 20% below current levels. I'm not so sure. Here's what Baird says... in his speech today:

Once greenhouse gases have stopped rising, we will begin to reduce them, so that by 2020, Canada will have cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 150 million tonnes. This is 20% of our total emissions today.

Note: 20% "of", not 20% "from". I'll check, but I think he means that in 2020, emissions will be 150 Mt lower than they otherwise would have been.

But emissions would be likely to rise by at least that amount between now and then, probably more, in a business-as-usual scenario. For example, Baird's paper last week on the costs of Bill C-288 projected emissions for 2012 at 850 Mt, which is 80 Mt more than they are now. So I think the implication is that emissions will in fact be higher in 2020 than they are now.

Incidentally, how much of a rush job was this? Another passage from Baird's speech:

This is an ambitious plan -- one that will require resolve, and one that comes with some costs. Part of these costs will be paid by individual Canadians and their families. The costs are real but they are manageable.

When fully mature, by 2020, total costs will be in the range of $XX per Canadian in today’s dollars...

$XX per Canadian? My God. At one point in the speech he says "we will begin to turn back the hands of time," but I didn't know we were going to have to go back to using Roman numerals. Perhaps they're banning calculators as well?

Absolute rubbish

This is a total non-story, and typical of CP's wilfully obtuse coverage of this issue:

The Harper Conservatives have stunned the House of Commons by supporting a Bloc Quebecois motion that calls for absolute limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

It's an apparent contradiction of Conservative policies...

The Harper Conservatives have stunned the House of Commons by supporting a Bloc Quebecois motion that calls for absolute limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

It's an apparent contradiction of Conservative policies.The motion was passed unanimously, a rare occurrence in the Commons.

The Bloc motion calls for the government to urgently set absolute targets for cutting greenhouse emissions in order to achieve the objectives of the Kyoto Accord.

Incredulous opposition MP's initially attributed the government's support for the Bloc motion to a translation error, which translated "absolute" targets as "fixed" targets.

But after the error was corrected, the government voted in favour.

The Tories have explicitly rejected absolute limits on emissions in favour of "intensity targets," which would allow emissions to rise along with economic growth.

If the Tories had "rejected" absolute limits, how did they expect to get to the 45 to 65% reduction (from 2003 levels) projected in the Clean Air Act (Ambrose version)?

The whole "intensity" vs "absolute" target controversy, as I've written before, is a complete red herring. It's simple arithmetic: before you can get to absolute reductions, you have to reduce the "intensity," in the same way that before you can stop your car, you have to slow down.

Better living through chemicals

Iggy Pop is 60 years old. Iggy Pop is 60 years old. Iggy Pop is 60 years old.

Spring, when Crocuses bloom

Manitoba election called for May 22: My gut says this is going to be closer than people realize. The Tories have a bright, young leader, there's a mood for change in the province, and the Crocus scandal has finally started to bite -- as God knows it should.

But what do I know? Any Manitoba bloggers blogging the campaign? Show yourselves!...

UPDATE: This probably means no federal election this spring -- or this year?

UPPDERDATE: Pegblogger Inside Outsider, aka Comments Closed (say, now there's a thought...) already has the complete results, riding by riding. The decision desk makes it 29 NDP, 27 Conservative, and 1 Liberal. More Tobabloggers here.

There are no more conservatives

Alberta's Conservative government brings down a budget with a 12% increase in spending -- 10% operating, 37% capital. At the same time, it has the gall to announce:

In 2007-08, the Alberta government is taking steps to strengthen its fiscal management practices by ensuring there is a disciplined approach to spending and tight limits on in-year increases to operating expenses.

Ah, but just wait until they get their majority...

Star dreck

Every now and then the Toronto Star comes up with an editorial that's just so tortured and self-contradictory, that twists itself in so many knots in an effort to arrive at the desired endpoint -- support for the Liberal Party -- that you just have to stand back and applaud. This is one of them...

The editorial admits:

1) that "most Canadians accept it will take a few years beyond 2012 to meet our Kyoto targets," ie the Tory position,

2) that the Liberal alternative, involving "the purchase of emissions credits from other countries," while cheaper, is "a huge waste of money because it means billions of dollars would be shipped out of Canada."

To repeat, the Tories are right that there's no way to meet our Kyoto targets by 2012 (actually by 2008-2012) without causing massive economic disruption; and they're right (in the Star's view, not mine) that buying massive amounts of credits overseas, in an effort to reach the target, would be a huge waste of money. Yet it still concludes with the Tories being in the wrong, and the Liberals in the right. As the Star puts it:

While Dion's plan would be better if he extended the target by a few years rather than waste money on foreign credits, no one can doubt his commitment to move much more quickly on the domestic front under a plan that is far more ambitious than Harper's expected go-slow approach.

So the Liberals are wrong in practice but right in principle, while the Tories are the reverse. Oh, bravo.

On the other hand...

Harper puts Senate reform plan in action: "Prime Minister Stephen Harper put his Senate reform plan into action Wednesday, announcing that he will appoint Bert Brown as his first elected senator.

Harper told the House of Commons that he will name Alberta's 'senator in waiting' to the upper chamber."

Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Harper honours Mulroney - once a rival, now an inspiration:

While Harper was toasting his new political role model downstairs, his old political ally was at a separate event in the same building.

Reform founder Preston Manning was attending a gala for the small-c conservative think tank named after him.

Harper made a brief visit to the Manning event...

Still waiting for an explanation from Mulroney as to why he took $300,000 in cash, in hotel rooms, from Karlheinz Schreiber -- what he did for the money, what he did with it, and why he didn't tell the court this rather salient fact at the time he was suing the government for saying he took money from Karlheinz Schreiber in the Airbus affair.

Apparently these questions do not trouble the current prime minister of Canada.

IRONY SUPPLEMENT:

It turns out that taxpayers are picking up the tab for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's personal primper.

After two days of ducking media and opposition questions, the Conservatives finally revealed Wednesday that Michelle Muntean is on Harper's government staff.

But the revelation raises two more big questions: How much is she being paid? And why is there no government record of her employment....

As an MP, Harper went after Reform Leader Preston Manning publicly for not detailing his party-paid clothing allowance. Under pressure, Manning eventually did provide an accounting of the $31,000 perk, but tensions between the two men had begun in earnest.

On the non-fecundity of rabbits

My column is up, taking the Post to task for its bizarro PR editorial of the previous day. My first line is maybe a little over the top, but honestly: Italy, Israel and Hitler, all in one piece. Wow.

Some other data, by the way, on the non-proliferation of small parties (they "breed like rabbits," according to the Post) under proportional representation...:
- I mentioned Germany: for most of its post-war history, the Bundestag has been divided between just three or four parties. There are now five (counting the CDU and CSU as one).
- In New Zealand, which like Germany uses the mixed-member proportional model (the one proposed for Ontario). the number of parties winning seats expanded to six after it converted to PR, from four before. There are now eight, but that number is expected to fall.
- In Ireland, which has used PR (the single transferable vote) since 1919, there have typically been five to seven parties represented in the Dáil. (The Irish have had the chance to switch to first-past-the-post on two occasions, and rejected it both times.)
-In the Australian Senate, which is elected by STV, there are currently seven parties. Three of these, however, campaign and vote as a block, and effectively count as one.
- In Sweden, there are seven parties currently represented in the Riksdag. The same number are represented in Denmark's Folketing, and in Norway's Storting.
- In the Netherlands, which uses a pure party-list system (a la Israel), there have generally been 8 to 10 parties represented in the Tweede Kamer.

Are you sensing a trend emerging? The general pattern of PR is to produce two or three dominant parties, with three or four smaller parties orbiting around them. I can see no examples in any of the countries cited of extremist parties grabbing even a footing, let alone the kind of stranglehold that anti-PR hysterics foretell.

Visualize whirled peas

Good call:

The leader of the Green party says she won't sign the nomination papers of a Vancouver candidate who described the collapse of the twin towers in the terror attacks of 9-11 as 'beautiful.'

Green Leader Elizabeth May says non-violence is one of the party's fundamental principles.

But wait a minute: What happened to local democracy?... What about all those disenfranchised anti-imperialists and 9/11 conspiracy theorists in Vancouver Kingsway? Shouldn't they get the nutter they nominated? I see the hand of Karl Rove in all this...

Hockey night in a weltanschauung of linear causality

Andrew Potter, on Macleans.ca:

Watching the start of the NHL playoffs last night, I was reminded once again of Pierre Bourdieu's assertion that taste is first and foremost distaste; that is, we define ourselves not so much by what we like, but by what we cannot stand.

The Red-Green show

What do I think about the Dion-May "non-compete" agreement? See tomorrow's column (since the Post has already published it online, I might as well do the same). For a less equivocating view, here's Colby Cosh's take.

Oh, and for anyone who's wondering whether that Green candidate really wrote all those hateful things, yes he did -- and more. And still more.

UPDATE: Jack's not happy:

NDP Leader Jack Layton says a deal between the Liberal and Green Party leaders will deny Canadian choices in the next federal election.

Layton says he's surprised and disappointed that supposedly principled politician like Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has "so quickly slipped into the muck of backroom wheeling and dealing."

This, from the guy who wrote Paul Martin's last budget in a hotel room -- with Buzz Hargrove on the speaker phone!

UPPERDATE: Here's the text of the joint statement. May explains why she's running in Central Nova, while former leader Jim Harris offers 12 reasons why it's "a brilliant strategic move".

TALKING OF STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: CAW leader Buzz Hargrove rails against the "insanity" of the environmental movement and blames ... the Conservatives!

APPARENTLY, SHE WANTED A THREE-WAY: The Globe reports that May tried to pull Layton in on the deal:

Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who today announced with Stéphane Dion, that she would not be challenged by a Liberal in the next federal election, contacted former Canadian Ambassador to the UN Stephen Lewis last month asking him to set up a meeting between her and NDP leader Jack Layton. Ms. May, who intends on running against Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in his Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova, was looking for a country-wide collaborative arrangement involving her party, the NDP and the Liberals. Mr. Layton refused to take her calls, Ms. May said yesterday, adding that Mr. Lewis is an old friend and she thought he could help. “I have been rebuffed by Jack Layton,” she said.

Must be spring, the Leafs are out

The classic Toronto Sun headline, apt as ever.

Winnipeg. 1978 by the looks of it.

Awesomest video in the history of awesomeness. My town, in its glory days, captured by an auteur of the first rank. I wept. PLUS: Bring Back the Jets!

All of our agents are currently occupied

Air Canada rejects Liberals' request for plane: "Strong bookings have forced Air Canada to reject a request by the federal Liberals for an airplane for the next election, CEO Montie Brewer said Thursday."

Just guessing, but do you suppose Air Canada would have been a little more responsive if the Liberals were still in power -- or had a reasonable shot at it?

The Scottish tragedy

Say, now here's a little experiment in asymmetric federalism that's working out just fine...

The Scottish National Party, ahead in polls for elections to Scotland's parliament, is prepared to pick fights with the British government in London to force the case for independence, Prime Minister Tony Blair warned yesterday...The SNP, which campaigns for Scottish independence from the rest of Britain, has led Mr. Blair's Labour Party in every poll this year. The Labour-led Scottish government has power over issues from health to education, with foreign affairs, defence and control of the currency reserved to London.
If the SNP emerges the biggest party after May 3 elections to the Scottish parliament, "Scotland is then moving down a track towards separation, with the people in the driving seat the SNP, who will use the power they have to try to create the maximum conflict with Westminster," Mr. Blair told reporters in Glasgow...

You know, if Quebec were recognized as a nation, had its own flag, its own sports teams, even its own banknotes, but no legislature -- like Scotland, before Blair's ill-judged constitutional reforms gave the nationalists the launchpad they needed -- I'd take the trade. As, I'm guessing, would Blair at this point.

Dissolution and the Governor General's prerogative - an exchange

A friend writes:

It was great to see a mention of King-Byng in print today, but there have been some other developments since 1926. Since then, elections have been granted several times to minority prime ministers who had served relatively short times in office: Diefenbaker in 1958 and 1963, Pearson in 1965, Trudeau in 1974, Clark in 1979....Also, what about Adrienne Clarkson's statement in her memoirs that she would not have granted an election to Paul Martin until he had served at least six months? A Governor General does not make these things up by herself; her view would reflect what she had heard from her legal advisers.

My reply:

All very true. But there are circumstances in the present situation that arguably make it unique. In only one of the instances you mention was there the same three-elections-in-three-years instability. And in no previous situation that I can recall did the opposition parties have such a demonstrable track record of working together and such obvious ideological affinities (assuming a Bloc virage on sovereignty -- admittedly speculative).

Pearson in 1958 and 1963 would have had to work with both the CCF/NDP and Social Credit; Diefenbaker in 1965 was barely in control of his own party, let alone that very divided House; Stanfield in 1974 would have had to work with the NDP at its most radical. I suppose Trudeau could have cobbled something together with the NDP and Social Credit after defeating the government in 1979, but he had no interest in doing so: he wanted an election. As did Pearson in 1963 -- the only other instance (I believe) of a government falling on a confidence motion since Meighen.

So the combination of: prolonged period of instability; incipient opposition alliance; government falling on a confidence motion; and opposition preferring to form a government rather than go through an election would be, I think, unique.

Anyway, just wanted to throw it out there as a possibility.

And the last word to him:

I should also have mentioned Paul Martin in 2005 as the most recent precedent. He was granted an election after seventeen months in office [About six months late. In my books, he was defeated in May. - AC] Harper is now working on fifteen.

Your strongest argument, I think, concerns the ideological affinity of the opposition parties. But calling upon the Governor General to grant or withhold an election based on her assessment of opposition parties' ability to work together plunges her into the political realm -- particularly dangerous when the incumbent has inevitably been appointed by a past or present prime minister, who was (is) also a party leader. She would have to assess the likelihood of the Liberals maintaining the support of both the BQ and the NDP, and weigh that against the cost of a new election. These are not the kinds of political calculations that we want the Governor General to make except in some really unusual emergency.

The Liberals had their chance in January 2006. Paul Martin was still prime minister, and he could have stayed in power and tested his position in the House of Commons. Maybe he could have worked out an arrangement with the BQ and the NDP. But he chose to resign. Harper then became prime minister and by convention has the right to receive an election if he asks for it (as long as it's not an abuse of democracy -- hence the six months caveat).

Stephane Dion, extreme centralizer

I wish. From Double Vision, by Edward Greenspon and Anthony Wilson-Smith, p. 363-5:

As a professor in politics, Stephane Dion launched his career with a highly unusual two-page essay... He stated clearly and with great eloquence the case for the recognition of Quebec's distinctiveness in the Constitution. He also put forward the arguments for decentralization..., saying a strong Canada must not be confused with a strong federal government alone. "We as Canadians have nothing to fear from decentralization. We know it well enough to make it our ally. A strong federal government must not be confused with a centralizing government. Restricting itself to its own role will only make it more effective"...

In cabinet, Dion quickly made his impact felt. He and Pettigrew ... served as a sounding board as the government translated the work of the unity committee into a Speech from the Throne...

Dion thought it wasn't enough, not in labour market training nor in other areas. Like Massé, he argued that Ottawa had to promise to restrict use of its spending power in fields of provincial jurisdiction. In his blunt way, which was often mistaken for arrogance, he told Chretien in front of the cabinet that if Ottawa could not see its way clear to meet such a basic Quebec demand, then he, Dion, had to woner why he had bothered joining the government...

Wells has posted about sixty-eleven other examples on various occasions. Anyone who thinks Dion is a "Trudeau federalist" is, well, apparently among the majority of readers of this blog.

Nooooooooo

iPhone may not come to Canada

I dunno. I'm sure it's a serious problem and all, but why does this make me think of this?

And he was never heard from again

Hearn questions slogan 'Canada's new government': I nominate Hearn for The Orwell Award for Courage in the Defence of Plain English from Annoying and Vaguely Creepy Political Slogans. Or maybe he's just trying to distance himself from Harper, hoping to be spared the wrath of Danny Williams.

Election first, campaign afterwards

"I'm not going to start laying out a program for an election I haven't yet won."

Thus John Tory, to Warren the K's immense amusement. Funny -- I seem to remember another political leader saying something strikingly similar. It was long ago, but ... yes, I have it. It was Jean Chretien..., during the 1993 election. The precise quote:

Let me win the election, and after that you come and ask me questions about how I run the government.

It was in reply to a question about what changes he'd make to social programs -- the same subject, and more or less the same sentiment, as Kim Campbell was pilloried for. By Jean Chretien, as it happens.

King-Byng spring?

Suppose the Tories contrive to lose a confidence vote. Does an election follow? Not necessarily. (I suspect we may be hearing more of this...)

Welcome, Tory partisans!

I never cease to marvel at the blind partisanship of some of the commenters on this site. There doesn't seem to be anything Harper and Co. could do that could shake your faith: no budget so profligate, no promise so broken, no principle so abandoned, no pandering so overt, no Quebec strategy so failed, no rhetoric so inflammatory. But I had not realized quite how far you were willing to go until now....

In the current example, the defences offered are as follows: 1) the ad ran in February, but isn't running now, 2) the Liberals started it, 3) the ad does not say flat out that Dion is a vendu, or even slyly suggest it, but is merely an innocent reference to house sales, and besides 4) calling a federalist politician from Quebec a vendu -- calling this particular federalist politician from Quebec, the most reviled by Quebec nationalists since Jean Chretien, a vendu -- is no big deal, or certainly nothing remotely comparable to calling him an Uncle Tom.

The first two I cannot even bring myself to bother with. (You may refresh your memory as to my opinion of Liberal attack ads here.) As to the third: the notion that such a loaded word would appear, in print, in a political attack ad -- where every word is hashed over and rehashed for any possible meanings, intended or otherwise -- next to Dion's head, in the closing seconds of the ad, without its authors being aware of its peculiar resonance for its intended audience -- francophone nationalists in Quebec -- is too ludicrous to contemplate; to suggest that this meaning would be obscured by the simple expedient of embedding it in the phrase "vendu tel quel" requires a blithe sophistry, or an automaton-like literal-mindedness, that in either case I cannot begin to fathom. But don't take my word for it: here's Bill Johnson, bilingual lifelong student of Quebec politics, author of an admiring biography of Harper ("excessively sympathetic" -- Adam Daifallah) and a sometimes over-the-top critic of Dion himself, writing in the Globe and Mail in February:

"Make no mistake, the French television assault ads targeting Stéphane Dion launched this week by the Conservative Party are astute and deadly. They are also dishonest, and set a new Canadian standard for uncivil discourse...

Take, for instance, the third ad, and its sticker, Vendu Tel Quel. Traditionally, separatists have stigmatized as "vendus" -- sell-outs -- French-speaking Quebeckers such as Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien who fought separatism in Ottawa. Centring one ad on "For Sale" was not innocent..."

As for the fourth point, that there is no comparison between vendu and Uncle Tom -- a "traitor to his race," in other words -- well, let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

It would be news to Lawrence Martin, author of Iron Man, the definitive Jean Chretien biography. In the opening pages of Vol. 2, recounting the notorious incident during the 1990 Liberal leadership race in which Paul Martin's supporters chanted "vendu" and "Judas" at Jean Chretien, he describes the former epithet as so vile that even separatist leaders would not use it (though see below).

It would be news to Aline Chretien. Interviewed by the Montreal Gazette's Terrance Wills, Mme Chretien "said it is the francophone press, not Main Street Quebecers, which has tagged him an Uncle Tom and a vendu."

It would be news to Gilles Duceppe. Standing outside the House one day (May 6, 1999, if you're scoring), the Bloc leader accused Mr. Chretien of being "a token French Canadian flat on his face before the federal government" and said he was "acting like an Uncle Tom" for refusing to allow Lucien Bouchard, then the premier of Quebec, to meet with the visiting president of Mexico, while inside the Commons various Bloc MPs shouted "vendu" at the Prime Minister. But of course, as we know, political party leaders reserve the worst insults -- vastly, incomparably worse -- for themselves, while leaving the incomparably milder insults for unnamed colleagues. Of course.

Oh, but I forgot the fifth defense: that "politics is a bloodsport," and this sort of thing just goes with the territory. Fair enough, I suppose: but doesn't anybody want to change politics any more?

When a politician says "sincerely"

There really are no limits to what these people will do or say. Count the howlers, code-words and pious disavowals of the obvious in this piece: "The federal Conservatives have unveiled a television ad they will begin running in Quebec this week, attacking Liberal leader Stephane Dion for his stance on the fiscal imbalance..."

The federal Conservatives have unveiled a television ad they will begin running in Quebec this week, attacking Liberal leader Stephane Dion for his stance on the fiscal imbalance...

Environment Minister John Baird and Industry Minister Maxime Bernier told reporters in Ottawa Monday that the ad campaign is meant to highlight Dion's "out-of-date views on federalism and the fiscal imbalance."

"In short, Stephane Dion is an extreme centralizer, an Ottawa politician who has never recognized the fiscal imbalance," Baird said. "He's a man Quebecers cannot trust to keep their hands off their hard-won gains."

Baird explained that they are launching the ad because Dion seems eager for election, insisting that the Conservative party is not.

"Dion voted against the budget and by default, for a spring election," Baird said. "Dion has an urge to campaign. We, on the other hand, have a genuine desire to govern."

The two Tory ministers insisted that while their party doesn't want a spring election, it is preparing for one by spending the next two weeks fanning out across the country to talk about the party's agenda, while Parliament is on Easter break.

The announcement about the ad campaign was also a rare opportunity for the Conservatives to show off their new campaign headquarters.

The headquarters is a massive, 17,000-square-foot war room in an Ottawa suburb, complete with its own TV studio.

"I sincerely hope we won't have to use this facility until 2009," Baird told invited reporters. "But should the Opposition force an election, the Conservative Party will be ready."

UPDATE: Actually, it's worse than I imagined. Here's a still from the ad:



Check the sign just to Dion's right. To call a politician a vendu in Quebec is one of the worst possible insults -- akin to calling a black man an Uncle Tom. It plays on the worst possible emotions, in the most divisive possible way. It is simply outrageous, all the more so for the sly and deceptive way in which it is inserted into the ad. In the circumstances, pointing out that the "fiscal imbalance" Dion "refuses to recognize" does not exist -- as the Tories know full well -- seems superfluous. REDFACEDATE: Oops. It appears that's the ad that ran in February. Still outrageous, but old news. Here's the actual latest attack ad, which is merely manipulative, inflammatory and tendentious.

Biofools

Among the many dumb, focus-group-driven policies in the late budget -- revoking the deduction for interest on debt incurred to finance foreign takeovers; providing a rebate for some fuel-efficient cars, but not others (and taxing some gas-guzzlers but not others); etc. -- the $2-billion handout for the biofuels industry stands out. A study by a Library of Parliament researcher calculates the precise acreage of its stupidity...:

"In fact, if 10 per cent of the fuel used were corn-based ethanol (in other words, if the E-10 blend were used in all vehicles) Canada's greenhouse gas emissions would drop by approximately one per cent," says the study, dated March 8.

Nor will biofuels have much impact in reducing dependence on oil and gas: "Global production is still too small and the need for raw materials is still too high for biofuels to have a significant impact on the fuel market and be able to compete with fossil fuels."

It cites an article in New Scientist as concluding that Canada would have to use 36 per cent of its farmland to produce enough biofuels to replace 10 per cent of the fuels now used in transportation.

Meet the new corporate welfare, same as the old corporate welfare

Sigh.

Aerospace industry to get $900M boost: The Tories are set to announce a $900-million aid package for Canada's aerospace industry, with most of the money going to businesses in the politically key province of Quebec.

Predicted reaction in comments: "But just wait until we get a majority ... baby steps, people ... changing a culture takes time ... checkers/chess ... etc."

Size matters more

Maybe this strikes you as unfair:
"Boy banned from hockey tourney for being too big

An eight-year-old hockey player has been banned from a Quebec tournament for being "bigger and stronger" than his other competitors.

Jared Murray, grand-nephew of Ottawa Senators coach Bryan Murray, is a four-foot-nine, 110-pound Grade 3 student registered as a novice B player with the Shawville Blackhawks..."

Boy banned from hockey tourney for being too big

An eight-year-old hockey player has been banned from a Quebec tournament for being "bigger and stronger" than his other competitors.

Jared Murray, grand-nephew of Ottawa Senators coach Bryan Murray, is a four-foot-nine, 110-pound Grade 3 student registered as a novice B player with the Shawville Blackhawks.

His team was 11-3-2 during the season, finishing fourth in the standings, and Murray recorded a staggering 51 goals in 17 games.

But Hockey Outaouais officials have ruled that he is ineligible to play in the regional playdown tournament because of his size and strength.

But actually when you think about it, it's perfectly fair. What's unfair is lumping players of vastly different size and ability in the same competition together based solely on their age.

Maybe I'm biased -- as a December baby, I was usually one of the smaller players on my team -- but the age-class system of eligibility never made much sense to me. It's clearly intended to be a proxy for size -- the primary factor, besides ability, in determining players' competitive standing relative to one another. And, equally clearly, it's an imperfect proxy. So why use the proxy, when its perfectly feasible to do without it? Why measure indirectly what can more easily be measured directly?

Why not group players by height and weight, in short, rather than age? That's the way it's done in some other sports, like boxing, wrestling, and rowing. Why not hockey?