Make no mistake, this was an NDP victory

The NDP are declaring victory for clean air in Canda, and rightly so. Bill C-30, The Clean Air Act, has been transformed from the joke that it once was into a real bill with real solutions. While the Liberals and the Tories did everything they could to delay this victory for clean air, the NDP held their ground and it paid off. The NDP passed 11 out of 12 amendments including amendments to introduce a cap and trade carbon market, put a hard cap on greenhouse gas emissions from big polluters, and set short-, medium-, and long-term GHG targets.

So before everybody (yes I am talking about you Mr. Dion) tries to find a way to take credit for the newly amended bill- because we may go to an election on it- let's have a look at what some of the detractors of the committee had to say over the past few months.

March 22, 2007 – Green party leader Elisabeth May says “Bill C-30 – the so-called Clean Air Act – was dead on arrival at its first reading last year. . . Ongoing attempts to breathe life into the corpse are a waste of time . . . It’s time for MPs to bring down the curtain on the C-30 sideshow and get to work on climate change strategies that will drive progress towards the Kyoto targets.” (Green Party Press Release)

February 5, 2007 - Michael Ignatieff accuses the NDP of being “engaged in a ‘double game’ by criticizing the Conservatives while working with them to rewrite the government's legislation.”

Ignatieff says: "There's something nauseating going on which Canadians have to notice . . . Layton gets up and pretends to oppose a government that he's propping up. He's got to decide what the hell he's doing here . . . I think (propping up the Tories) is substantially reducing NDP support . . . The problem with the strategy is in Layton's base. Any NDP voter looking at this is thinking, `Why are these guys letting the Harper government off the hook on the environment?” (Toronto Star)

December 20, 2006 – Newly elected Liberal leader Stephane Dion says "Mr. Layton decided to play the game . . . I told him, at this stage I will play the game, too. (But) I will denounce it; I will denounce it at the same time . . . If I'm able to become the prime minister next spring, I will not continue this fake gesture." (Toronto Star)

What is evident from these statements is that the other parties had a real lack of vision in terms of what can be achieved in a minority parliament. The Conservative Clean Air Act was dead in the water. There was a logjam on the environment front and it was Jack Layton, Nathan Cullen and the NDP who sorted it out, despite criticism from the Liberals and the Bloquistes, and despite resistance from the Conservatives.

The committee to amend Bill C-30 was never about propping up the Conservatives, it was about finding the fastest, most feasible way to get real movement on the climate change file. It was about getting the best ideas from the four parties and putting them together to finally get some results. Had the Liberals had the leadership and vision to see that from the beginning, who knows what this parliament could have accomplished and how fast it could all happened. But we now have something better, something stronger, and we can only hope that Bill C-30 will find smooth and quick passage through the House of Commons.

Michael Mulligan is entitled to his entitlements too

I was reading all about the latest Liberal scandal over the Victoria nomination on Jarrett Plonka's blog. Basically what happened is that some guy, Michael Mulligan, wanted the Liberal nomination and was allegedly told by some Liberal in Vancouver, Bruce Young, that he would have to step aside for a woman. The email written by Mulligan, posted on kerplonka!, trashes the Liberal party and the so-called 'parachute candidate', Anne Park Shannon, claiming that she has a "sense of entitlement" (funny, I always assumed that every Liberal got one of those in the mail with their Liberal membership card).

What is sad is that with all of the comments that people left on Jarrett's post, no one pointed out that Mulligan kinda went overboard with his rage, or that there were actually a few victims in this whole scenario.

When I first heard about the Liberals' new "strategy" for fielding more female candidates, where they appoint women with no nomination contest, it seemed to me to be a battle-of-the-sexes waiting to happen. Please excuse the sweeping generalization, but from my experience, there is nothing that gets men's backs up more than when they are forced to step aside for a woman. I would hope that they would be a little more respectful and sensitive to the issue of female representation than Mulligan has been, but even I, someone with little time for the 'Men's Rights Movement', can't really blame them for getting upset. Forcing anyone who has invested time, energy, and money into a nomination race to step aside at the last minute, for any reason that is unforeseen and no fault of their own, is unfair.

I am a serious advocate of increasing female representation at all levels of government, but the Liberals simply have the wrong approach. The 'force a woman on them' strategy results in overreaction from angry men like Mulligan, and it creates unnecessary scrutiny over other, perfectly sound mechanisms to ensure female participation. It puts female candidates in the terrible position that Park Shannon now finds herself in; where there is doubt cast over her legitimacy as a candidate (not like any Liberal candidate stands a chance against incumbent Denise Savoie anyways).

If the Liberal party was serious about female representation they would have spent more than a millisecond of thought on the issue, and they would have come up with a more fair and effective solution. A good start would be to have look at how other parties, like the one with the highest proportion of female MPs ever, do it. In the NDP, riding executives must undergo a search for "affirmative action candidates" before they can hold a nomination meeting. This means that they must prove that they have approached women and members from other marginalized groups to run.

This approach addresses one of the primary causes for underrepresentation of marginalized groups: people from marginalized groups tend to be socialized to believe that they are not supposed to be candidates or Members of Parliament. Also, the NDP's approach to female representation has the added benefit of being democratic and fair.

But the NDP strategy requires more than just phone calls from on high; it requires commitment from many party members at many levels in order for it to work. Considering Mulligan's reaction to being asked to step aside for a female candidate, I can see how the Liberals may have a hard time with this. They would prefer to parachute female candidates into ridings or resort to more desperate measures like trying to lure strong NDP women into crossing the floor.

As with so many other issues...cough, cough...$10 minimum wage...cough...the Liberals seem to want the NDP to do all of the ground work so that they can swoop in at the last minute and pretend that they are the champions of the issue of the day. However, with all of the negative attention they are getting over the Victoria debacle, they are finding out that this time it won't be that easy for them.

What's a federalist social democrat to do?

Quebec voters go to the polls today after what has been a pretty interesting election. Charest looked strong going in, but it really is a three way race, even at this late date.

I am not going to speculate on the results of the election, the question that I have is 'if you are a federalist social democrat living in Quebec, who do you vote for?' I've heard voters complain about having to choose between the lesser of all evils, but the lack of decent choices in this election is obscene.

Those living in Quebec know all about how difficult it can be to figure out where to park your progressive federalist vote, but I will attempt to spell out, for all of my non-Quebec readers, how dismal the Quebec provincial elections can be for us NDP types. Here are the options:

The Quebec Liberal Party: Under Jean Charest's leadership this party reminds me of a certain provincial Liberal party that we have out west. They are big fans of the public private partnerships and they want to lift the tuition freeze.

After Charest announced that they would take the new federal money from the budget- the money that Quebec has asked for for a while to address the fiscal imbalance- and spend it on tax cuts, voting for them would be really hard to stomach. No, the QLP is not really an option for social democrats.

Le Parti Québécois: This party has attracted many social democrats in the past, and they have been responsible for some progressive government programs like universal childcare, and electoral reform. They can be credited with getting 'big money' out of politics, but they have changed and they no longer resemble the party of Rene Levesque.

Also, the PQ platform may dance around the whole referendum issue calling for a "public consultation" but Boisclair has made it clear that, should they form government, the PQ would see a referendum on sovereignty as part of their mandate- even if they were a minority government. A federalist living in Quebec may have been able to, in good conscience, help elect a PQ government in the past- because they could count on them to bring forward progressive change- but not today.

Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ): These guys aren't even near the realm of possibilities for left-wing voters. They have many regressive policies; among the worst is turning Quebec's renowned child care program into something more like Harper's abysmally unfair and unhelpful child care plan.

As well, they are on the way wrong side of the controversial Reasonable Accommodation debate, a debate on what kind of consideration should be given to ethnic minorities and their cultural practices. Many progressive groups find the debate itself insulting, and the fact that the ADQ are surfing the wave of backlash against ethnic minorities is despicable. Also, the ADQ aren't sovereigntists but they don't seem to have a very solid plan for keeping Quebec in Canada. If these folks win, especially if they win a majority, I predict an exodus of progressive Quebecers.

Québec Solidaire: This was supposed to be a shining beacon of hope for social democrats in Quebec but they have not managed to amount to much. They merged all sorts of marginal parties but still could not move out of the margins. Dual leaders is an interesting political experiment, I am not sold on the idea yet, but it certainly is progressive. But alas, they are sovereigntist and their membership is often more pur et dur than the PQ. However, one of their candidates is the guy, Bill Clennett, who was choked by Jean Chretien. If I lived in that guy's riding he would sooo have my vote.

The Quebec Green Party: More progressive than their federal counterparts, as they have very minimal links with the federal greens, but who really wants to vote for a party that doesn't amount to much more than a brand name? Although they do score some federalist points because they refused to merge with Québec Solidaire over the separation issue. I would still sooner vote Marxist-Leninist than Green- Quebecers of the world unite!

No, I don't envy New Democrats in Quebec and the tough choice that they have to make today. Just keep in mind my Québécois brothers and sisters, if the ADQ wins a majority, we have plenty of room for you all out west.

The Martlet Op Ed Massacre

UVic student gets op ed submission severely censored edited

By Erin Sikora

Some of you may have read my earlier post about the intense University of Victoria Students' Society (UVSS) elections this year. I was going to end my commentary of the whole ordeal there but I was persuaded by some friends to submit an opinion piece for the student newspaper, the Martlet, after Erica Virtue, newly elected Director of Services, wrote one and quoted me waaaay out of context. Big mistake. The result was a hack-job of the opinion piece that I sent them and just over 400 words to Erica's over 600 words.

Let's just say that I am less than impressed and I have learned a valuable lesson.

Below is my original piece. Enjoy.

Because Students Deserve Better

I tried to write a balanced opinion piece on how this new UVSS board should work together and move forward but I must admit that I have failed miserably. I have failed because I did not come up with a balanced piece. I have an opinion, and it matters.

Last year I had a very tough election experience. I worked my ass off for two weeks and I won by a tiny margin along with only a couple other members of my slate. Adding salt to the wound, the opposing slate was run behind the scenes by my real-world nemesis, Dallas Henault, the president of the BC Young Liberals at the time.

I was worried about my new colleagues but I made a point of trying to get along with them all. As soon as I got to know the members of the other slate, my concerns were allayed. They were all just students who, like me, had an opinion and wanted to get involved with the UVSS to serve our fellow students. There were some tense moments this past year, and definitely some moments where I felt marginalized, but for the most part, we all worked well together. I even became friends with some of them.

Things are a little different now. Fast forward to this year's election night: when Erica Virtue, ACT Now candidate and new UVSS Director of Services realized she was going to win but that most of her slate-mates would not, she unfortunately, did not react very well. Visibly upset, she told all of the observers in Vertigo that she did not want to work with "those people." On top of this, many ACT Now candidates quite publicly put down Team FAST and their supporters, calling them "hippies" and "deadbeats." The whole election was pretty ugly.

I have experienced the bitter-sweet taste of winning while seeing many friends losing. Not fun. But once elected, you have to show some respect for the students who voted, for you and for the other UVSS directors with whom you will be serving your term. The election is over; now is the time to build bridges. Because students deserve better, I have a couple of suggestions on where to start:

Stop the name-calling and give up on the battles that you have fought and lost. For instance, you may be very angry that there was a National Student Day of Action, but you have to accept that the majority of students do not share your anger. If they did, then the ACT Now campaign against the Day of Action would have resulted in more people voting for the slate. The truth is that although only 500 or so students showed up to the legislature, many more wish they had gone or are at least glad that there was a Day of Action.

Above all, new directors, remember that your opinion matters, and many students may even share your opinion, but other, sometimes differing, opinions matter too.

Negotiation? Sounds like a Socialist conspiracy to me

Even though I haven't blogged on it yet I have been following the budget coverage over the past few days.

Initial reaction: amid the uncontrollable excitement and exhilaration that I felt over the unusable tax credit that I will be able to get for my scrapheap of a vehicle, and the new RESP provisions that will be about as helpful to current heavily-indebted students as the BC Liberals' 'baby bonus', I couldn't help but feel that Canada's New Government was missing the point of minority parliaments.

Flaherty stated unequivocally Monday, as this Conservative government has maintained since the beginning, that the government "will not negotiate" the budget with the other political parties. This seems contrary to reason to me. I understand that there aren't many examples of successful minority governments for the Conservatives to look to, but I can think of one obvious flop of a minority parliament that Harper may want to learn a lesson or two from. It began with Joe Clark saying "I am going to govern as if I have a majority" and it ended 9 months later somewhat embarrassingly for Clark and the Progressive Conservatives.

Of course, I could be way off in thinking that their approach may be strategically misguided. After all, they have been able to count on the supposedly progressive Bloc to prop them up without asking for anything in return for two years in a row now.

But let's just forget for a moment that we are measuring the success of this minority government by their ability to win a majority of seats in the next election. What's far worse than this my-way-or-the-highway approach being of questionable strategic value, is that it is bad for the country and ultimately undemocratic. A large majority of Canadians in the last election voted against the Conservatives. That means that a large majority of Canadians do not want a rigidly Conservative budget that is put together with no consultation from, or negotiation with the other parties elected to the house.

It's not good enough to guess what the other parties might want and meet them at what seems to Conservatives as 'halfway.' This is especially true when it comes to the subsidies to the oil industry. Gradually scaling down the subsidies to large oil companies will do nothing to slow down the extraction from the tar sands which are the single largest contributer to greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. And with gas prices at a record high, why should these companies get any more of Canadians' money?

Jack Layton said it best when he said that "for every step forward there seems to be two steps back." This astute observation applies to the way that the Conservatives have handled this minority parliament as a whole actually. Just when you think that the Conservatives might be willing to work with the other parties- they did give in to the demands of the NDP and set up a committee around the Clean Air Act- they prove that they are as unreasonable and stubborn as ever.

Don't let them tell you it can't be done

The new NDP ads are out and at the risk of sounding like a partisan hack, I have to say that I could not be more pleased with them.

The NDP has been ramping up it's messaging on fairness for ordinary Canadians in the past few months, and I have to admit that I love the 'fairness' message. It neatly sums up what has been really missing in much of Canadian public policy for so long. Also, the term 'prosperity gap' is the perfect way to frame so many issues like the growing gap between rich and poor, student debt, the gender gap, etc.

The message of hope that comes through in these ads cannot be ignored either. It is like a breath of fresh air in the mud pit that is Canadian politics lately. The Conservatives with their negativity and the Liberals with their time-wasting have really made a mockery of parliament as of late. It is nice to have someone breaking through the mess of insults and demands for apologies with a message that tells Canadians that the things that they want their politicians to be doing, like coming up with a better childcare strategy, and addressing climate change, can be done.

At a time when the Conservatives and Liberals are struggling to look like one another- as Mike Duffy pointed out today, the Liberals went out with a 'tough on crime' announcement today while the Conservatives are still on their re-launch of old environmental promises marathon- the NDP is solid and consistent. The NDP hasn't flip-flopped like the Conservatives have on the environment and the Status of Women, or like the Liberals on well, pick an issue any issue.

The NDP has always offered leadership to the rest of parliament in areas that really hit home to most Canadians like health care, the environment, and a whole host of social issues. I think that these new ads highlight that, and remind Canadians who they can actually count on to stand up for them and the things that they care about. Also, the ads remind Canadians that Jack Layton's leadership has actually produced results, unlike Dion's- not that Canadians needed reminding, they seemed to have figured it out on their own, as evidenced by the recent Ipsos Reid leadership poll.

So to all of the naysayers who have been crapping on NDP communications strategy and speculating about a doomsday scenario (sorry if it seems like I am picking on you NBC Dipper), I hope this gives you some hope and helps to alleviate some of your concerns.

UVic goes to the polls

Another student election has passed at UVic and the progressive slate, Team For A Sustainable Tomorrow (FAST) won 8 out of 9 positions that they vied for. Team FAST was up against ACT Now, who were poised to do quite well since they were fielding a full slate of 15 candidates, one of which was the very popular Mike Waters who led his slate to victory last year only to be disqualified in his bid for Chairperson. However, ACT Now, aside from Waters, came in below Team FAST electing 6 directors at large and only one executive, Erica Virtue as Director of Services.

In short, Team FAST kicked ass and really should have run more candidates, while ACT Now really dropped the ball. Without giving away any trade secrets, here are a few lessons that we can all learn from the ACT Now failure:

Lesson #1: Do the Work
You cannot just half-heartedly copy the tactics of the other slate (classroom speaking, leafleting etc.) halfway through the campaign and expect to win. In student elections there is a bare minimum of work you need to do as a slate in order to elect a majority of your slate members to the board.

Lesson #2: Know Your Electorate
When you call students "deadbeats" and "hippies", as more than one member of ACT Now did, there are going to be people who laugh and agree with you, but those people do not usually vote. It is usually the "deadbeats" and "hippies" that you decry for their protesting, that will decide your fate. You should wait until after the election is over and you are elected before you insult the electorate, like the new ACT Now Director of Services who shrieked "hahahah...stupid f***ing hippies" when she won the SUB poll.

Lesson #3: Know What Your Electorate Wants
On a campus with parking lots that are never full, a campaign based on reducing parking fees is not going to be a success. We are at a time when there is a strong movement away from parking lots in favour of increased public transit. Members of ACT Now and many of their friends may want to reduce parking fees because they drive to school, but they are in the minority, especially in a city like Victoria that is set up to have UVic as a major hub for many bus routes. Also, see lesson #2 about which type of students are more likely to vote.

Lesson #4: Don't Come Across as a Mean Asshole
One has to be very careful with negative campaigning on campus. It works better when you can substantiate what you are saying. If you go around calling somebody on the other slate a liar, you should be able to clearly state why said candidate is a liar. Otherwise you just look mean-spirited and make people either not vote at all, or vote against you because they think you are an angry asshole. In student politics, where there are no re-branding opportunities like a photo shoot with kittens or having Rick Mercer sleep over at your house, first impressions are everything.

Lesson #5: Cheating Doesn't Pay Off
If your friends are poll-sitters, they probably should not cheat and tell voters to vote for you and your slate while at the polling booth. This tactic is not likely to gain you enough votes to win, and will only cause you and your friends a big headache in terms of possible disqualifications, investigations, and potential lawsuits.

Lesson #6: When You Lose, Do It With Class
Losing with class does not mean standing around with your slate where everyone can hear you talking about how UVic students are "all a bunch of stupid f***ing hippies" because they deigned to elect someone other than you and your slate. You should save those sentiments for somewhere more private. Also, right after you find out that you have lost and that your slate has been largely defeated it is not a good idea to start telling off the Chief Electoral Officer. And when you are asked to leave the building you should leave before campus security and the Saanich Police show up to escort you out of the building. Not that watching Arel English (see picture above), defeated ACT Now candidate for Director of Finance, have his hissy fit wasn't funny; it was just er...not advisable.

So there you have it. This election turned out a lot differently than last year's election where the progressive slate got clobbered by the Students for Students. But the Students for Students had some behind-the-scenes help last year from Dallas Henault, the BC Liberal who has been working the UVSS election beat for years and was even reportedly paid by the BC Liberals in the past. Dallas wasn't all that successful over his career in student politics, having never gotten himself elected, but certainly none of this craziness would have happened on his watch.

Above all, this election has proven that a campaign based on making the UVSS politically apathetic and doing nothing to lower tuition won't work at UVic. The "deadbeats" and "hippies" have spoken, and they like their student representatives to represent them, not just call them names.

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ROBERT McCLELLAND

Somebody recently reminded me that eventually 'a tiger will show his stripes', and that if you wait long enough, the assholes that you can't stand will reveal their true nature to the masses, and face their warranted scrutiny. Well today is a bad day for assholes everywhere because the old adage has proven to be true yet again. Robert McClelland has so totally screwed himself with his disgusting anti-semitic comments (comment #37 being the really terrible one) that I almost feel bad drawing more attention to his public flogging; but then I think about all of the times that he was unfair to people that he disagreed with and all seems just.

The comments that Robert made are covered ad nauseum by Cherniak, Kinsella, and Small Dead Animals so I won't re-post them, but I have to say that I am not surprised to see this kind of garbage coming from this guy. After all, he is the "%&@# the Jews" guy who is constantly crossing the line with his inappropriate comments. It was only a matter of time before he put his foot so far into his mouth that he choked on it.

Other positive outcomes of today's events:
1) there will now be an NDP blogroll that is not controlled by a spiteful, mean-spirited jerk,
2) all of the anti-My Blahg backlash prompted McClelland to tell the world that not only does he not speak for the NDP, but he is not even an NDP member.

So to all of the people, across party lines (even, begrudgingly, you Cherniak- you actually deserve mad props for this one), who have been burned, irritated, and offended by Robert McClelland: today is your day.

"Stay Calm, Be Brave, Wait for the Signs"

So my sources tell me that famous Canadian novelist Tom King is considering throwing his hat in the ring with the NDP for the next federal election. King is a prominent First Nations activist and is also well known for being the creator of The Dead Dog Cafe Comedy Hour on CBC Radio One.

No word yet on where he would seek nomination but he would be a marvelous addition to the NDP caucus.