Selling out is back in

Well isn't this just ducky:

A year ago, Immigration Minister Monte Solberg presented a framed certificate of citizenship to a smiling Dalai Lama, making him an honorary Canadian. This week in New York, there were signs that the Conservative government would prefer to distance itself from the Tibetan Buddhist leader, after protests from the Chinese government. The Prime Minister's Office would not confirm plans for a meeting between Mr. Harper and the Dalai Lama next month and one person said that a "pause for thought" is taking place inside government....

A year ago, Immigration Minister Monte Solberg presented a framed certificate of citizenship to a smiling Dalai Lama, making him an honorary Canadian.

This week in New York, there were signs that the Conservative government would prefer to distance itself from the Tibetan Buddhist leader, after protests from the Chinese government. The Prime Minister's Office would not confirm plans for a meeting between Mr. Harper and the Dalai Lama next month and one person said that a "pause for thought" is taking place inside government.

The issue is significant because it suggests the government is rethinking its relationship with China... All the signs point to a more nuanced approach to China than the one initiated by Mr. Harper last year, when he promised he would not "sell-out to the almighty dollar" by allowing concerns about human rights to be overshadowed by the prospect of improved trade.

Last year? That was, like, nine months ago.

There's much more in this approving vein: "...the government has moderated its tone... a subtle shift that is seen as being part of a new, more thoughtful approach to foreign relations by a prime minister who has learned from experience... Mr. Harper now appears to have a clearer appreciation of the threats, interests and values that abound in the diplomatic world... etc"

Apparently Harper even weighed in with that old Liberal chestnut, the third way, proposing "an alternative governance model to 'unfettered capitalism on one hand or old socialist models on the other.'"

How sweet to be a Tory today. Untethered at last from any principled mooring, they are as light as feathers.

Father of Deconfederation?

A Manitoba friend writes:

I'm thinking of lobbying for a private member's bill to create a new statutory holiday -- perhaps "Journée Thomas Scott Day" on the 12th of July or "Journée Victimes de Massacre de Frog Lake Massacre Victims Day" on April 2.

More on this madness here.

Self-parity

The dollar's brush with parity with its US counterpart is the occasion for one of the media's periodic fits of collective insanity. That the dollar is rising is newsworthy; that it has hit a 30-year high doubly so, though it is hardly grounds for self-congratulation -- it is in large part the result of US economic weakness and the skyrocketing price of oil, neither of which is our doing. ...
In any case, the dollar's rise is neither good news nor bad news, as far as the country as a whole is concerned, though it may be either for particular interests. It "should" be wherever it is at any given moment, in the sense that that is the value that equates the supply and demand for Canadian dollars.
But the fact that one Canadian dollar is now equal in value to one US dollar is of no significance whatever, any more than if it were at 99 cents, or $1.01. It's just a number. Of course, it's a round number, and as such likely to be invested with the mystic label of "psychological barrier" - a staple of business coverage. But in reality these are about as significant as your odometer turning over.
As for the particular talismanic value attached to "parity," it is solely attributible to the belief, lurking at the back of every Canadian's mind, that the dollars ought naturally to be at par -- a belief fuelled by nothing except that they have the same name.
All in all, I like the Globe's headline best: Parity. So what?

Popular vote in recent federal elections in Outremont.

Fun fact

Since 1968, there have been precisely 100 federal by-elections. Of these, one third -- 32 -- have resulted in a change of party, not counting the two last Monday. And how many of these upset winners have held onto their gains at the next election? Just over half: 18.

Tea-leaves

We shall see how significant these by-election results prove to be: the press has a tendency to hyperventilate over these things, but the actual long-term record of by-elections as predictors of subsequent elections is spotty at best. Nevertheless......

There is a clear loser tonight, and it's ... the Bloc. The Liberals did poorly, to be sure, but not far off what they did in 2006. In Outremont, the supposed catastrophe, they are down from 35% to 29%, thanks in large part to a very poor local organization. Otherwise their vote held, albeit at historically low levels.

But the Bloc! In Outremont they lost 18 points, from 29% to 11%. In Roberval, too, they're down 18 points, 45 to 27, while in Ste. Hyacinthe they dropped 14 points, shaving a 31 point margin of victory in 2006 to just 5 points. On average, taking the three ridings together, the Bloc has seen two-fifths of its vote disappear, in just eighteen months. That's a catastrophe.

UPDATE: But of course the bad news for the Liberals is that none of that Bloc vote is coming their way. In Outremont, it went overwhelmingly to Thomas Mulcair, the former provincial Liberal cabinet minister turned federal New Democrat (though how many voters thought he was still a Liberal would be interesting to know). In the other two ridings, the Bloc vote swung just as hard to the Conservatives.