Dipper Chick

Does this page look funny to you?

2009-07-14T11:47:00.000-07:00

No, it's not your connection acting up on you. My images will not be loading. :(

Unfortunately, the person hosting my images decided to stop suddenly without telling me. Since I got my macbook stolen a few months ago, I don't know if I'll ever retrieve that beautiful designed header.

I haven't been blogging for a while anyways. I guess you could say I have hung up my keyboard. But I'll leave my stuff up for nostalgic purposes.

So here I go...with a whimper not a bang. It's been fun.

UPDATE!!

I found my graphics! All is right in the world!!

As you were.

It's not you, it's me: Ignatieff dumps the coalition

2009-01-28T16:02:00.000-08:00

*sigh*

It's a sad day indeed.

Time to take down the Coalition Bloggers button and leave all of the coalition facebook groups. Yup, Iggy has ended things. We have been very publicly dumped. We saw it coming. The relationship has been on the rocks since prorogation. But we hoped we could keep it together for the good of Canadians who need a budget that will protect jobs and stimulate the economy in ways that will create new jobs.

But sadly, he has left us for the Conservatives, stating that he will be supporting a budget that is, in his own words, "flawed."

Adding insult to injury:

Ignatieff refused to say the coalition — negotiated last November by his predecessor, Stephane Dion — is finished. He suggested it could still “play a useful role” in future. - Winnepeg Sun, January 28, 2009

"Play a useful role"? That's cold Iggy...even for you. And you know as well as anyone else that the Governor General will not ask anyone else to form government should the Tories fall after failing on one of your progress reports - which are months away.

About these progress reports....Ignatieff laid out standards that the Tory budget needed to meet in order to gain Liberal support: protecting jobs, addressing pay equity fairly, investing in the green economy, and the list goes on. Iggy admits that these standards were not met, but he will be supporting the budget anyways. How are we to believe that the standards for these progress reports mean anything?

We've all said a lot about Stephane Dion's lack of leadership, but it does seem now like even he was a harder marker than Ignatieff.

HARPER MUST GO! Liberals, are you with us?

2008-12-08T19:44:00.000-08:00

Sorry for taking a break for a few days but I just had to take a step back to get a handle on the situation.

If I hear one more vile Conservative talking point based on a lie and reeking of desperation (eg. the Liberals and NDP are trying to overturn election results, the Bloc would hold the balance of power, Canadians have rejected the coalition because the polls say so, the coalition MPs' deceased family members would be "turning in their graves" blablabla) it might just send me over the edge. How low can these f@#$ers go? Sorry for the expletives but this is out of control. Misleading and scaring Canadians to hold on to power is unacceptable.

This will be an historic time studied by political scientists, historians, and constitutional scholars, but indoctrination enthusiasts should take note as well. The Conservative machine has pulled out all the stops. They are knowingly spreading falsehoods about what is going on (I say knowingly because I am sure that they paid enough attention in high school social studies to know how our parliamentary democracy works). They are doing all sorts of tricky stuff that flies under the radar. Like calling conservative supporters, inciting their anger, and then connecting them with an NDP or Liberal MP.

But what worries me the most is not the Conservative machine. Call me naive, but I have faith in Canadians' ability to eventually wade through the BS and scare tactics and figure out that a coalition government will give them what most of them desperately want right now: a stable government where Harper is not the PM. Conservative supporters will still be angry about losing power, but we all know (especially Harper) that true Conservative supporters are the minority of the electorate.

No, the biggest threat to the coalition is the Liberal Party. I won't put all Liberals in the same boat here- there are obviously some that have realized that Harper can't be trusted to put Canadians before his partisan games. These are the same Liberals who were dissatisfied, and at times embarrassed, with how the Liberal caucus propped up the Harper government for years. The same Liberals who were so stoked when their party grew a pair last week and stood up to Harper, that they organized online and on the ground to build support for the coalition.

I feel pretty terrible for these principled Liberals. First John Manley came along and rained on their parade and now a few MPs, like Ujjal Dosanjh (really, how many times is this a@$hole going to turn on the NDP in his political career) are sowing the seeds of doubt about the future of the coalition.

It must be really demoralizing to be one of the principled Liberals right now. To come so close to taking out Stephen Harper, who has been the worst threat to progressive politics that our country has seen in decades, only to be thwarted by indecision and in-fighting; that would be rough.

The Liberal party is in dangerous territory right now as they decide how to select their leader. They stand to alienate a lot of their members and supporters if they don't let their membership have a say. If they opt for the caucus and national executive deciding on the leader, they will probably get away with it because of the urgency of the situation. But if on top of an undemocratic leadership selection, they decide to prop up Stephen Harper for a few more budgets, they will pay the price (the Liberal brand can only do so much without people to fly the flag). For a party whose membership and leadership contenders are all talking about rebuilding and renewal, this is a very strange direction to be heading.

If the Liberals decide in January to prop up Harper, they will be saying that it's okay to play partisan games instead of dealing with the economy; that it's totally acceptable to risk causing a national unity crisis with highly charged, divisive rhetoric; and that subverting the democracy of our system of responsible government is an effective method of staying in power.

Video from Coalition Rally in Vancouver.....finally

2008-12-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

Hey Dipper Chick Productions fans!

Here is the latest. A short look at what it was like at the Vancouver rally for the Coalition for Change the other night. Enjoy my patented Shakycam skillz.

The picture quality would have been better but I had some editing and compression issues (iMovie, you and I are through). But you get the idea.

The Tories had their rally in Vancouver today and there were only about half as many people there as we had the other night. You know what that means....half as much fun.

Vancouver pro-coalition rally a success

2008-12-04T19:46:00.000-08:00

Over 1500 people. Not much of a counter-protest. A great night.

I have video. Will get it up for you all when I can.

Talking point of the week

2008-12-03T17:01:00.000-08:00

"He seems to be more interested in protecting his job than your job"
-Jack Layton on Stephen Harper trying to avert democracy

BAM!

Jack Layton's speech just blew Harper's out of the water.

Am I allowed to wonder aloud why he can't be PM of the new coalition? Oh whatever, I know, I know...we have to compromise to make the coalition work. It's the best thing for Canada right now. But I'm more proud than ever to call Jack Layton my leader.

If you want to place a TV ad, pay for it Harper

2008-12-03T16:21:00.000-08:00

Wow that was cheap. If the Conservatives have so much money, why do they need to use their (current) status as government to get free ad time from the networks?

They made a pitch to the networks that they needed to speak to the country and then Harper just repeated what he has been saying for days. Infuriating.

Especially infuriating because he knows quite well that the the act of the PM making an address to Canadians really ups the anxiety level of the nation(s).

I am continually blown away by the utter disregard for the welfare and stability of this country that Harper and the Conservatives have exhibited this past week. He has figured out that the best way for him to get Canadians to agree with his irrational arguments for staying in power is to scare them into irrationality themselves. Shameful.

A trip down memory lane with the Conservatives

2008-12-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of confusion being spun out there about the legitimacy of the opposition forming a coalition government. That's understandable, this is new territory for Canadians. Some of us are dorky enough to have been following this thing minute-by-minute since last week. Some of us are even dorky enough to have been really excited about taking a course called "The Canadian Constitution." But unlike the 62% of Canadians who voted for one of the parties that will soon guide us through these tough economic times, we dorks who understand exactly how this will come to be are in the minority.

As a result, Canadians who voted against Harper but are just tuning in now, might be a little confused. They heard the opposition parties, and many constitutional experts who have weighed in, explain that this coalition would be perfectly legitimate in forming government. But then they hear Conservatives liken our system of responsible government to a coup. It must be confusing.

Let's forget what the Conservatives are saying now. They are understandably panicked and saying whatever they think they need to say to stay in power.

Let's instead look at what Conservatives said about these kinds of situations in the past.

On what would happen if a government lost the confidence of the HoC soon after an election:

"If the Liberals win one more seat than us and the Bloc and us defeat the government, it would be obvious what the next step would be," Mr. Reynolds said in an interview yesterday. "It would be irresponsible to hold another election right away."
– then-Conservative House leader John Reynolds, Globe and Mail, 1 June 2004 (during an election campaign)

On governments that delay confidence votes:

The whole principle of our democracy is the government is supposed to be able to face the House of Commons any day on a vote. This government now has the deliberate policy of avoiding a vote. This is a violation of the fundamental constitutional principles of our democracy.
-Stephen Harper, May 3, 2005

On working with "socialists and separatists":

September 9, 2004

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson,
C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D.
Governor General
Rideau Hall
1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A1

Excellency,

As leaders of the opposition parties, we are well aware that, given the Liberal minority government, you could be asked by the Prime Minister to dissolve the 38th Parliament at any time should the House of Commons fail to support some part of the government’s program.

We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising
your constitutional authority.

Your attention to this matter is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
Leader of the Opposition
Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada

Gilles Duceppe, M.P.
Leader of the Bloc Quebecois

Jack Layton, M.P.
Leader of the New Democratic Party

Seems like we all agree. Well, we all did at one point or another. Then desperation grabbed hold of Stephen Harper and now we have to face the full might of the Conservative machine as they try to mislead and confuse Canadians in order to gain public support.

But we have the constitution and 62% of Canadians on our side. So, bring it on.

Coalition Bloggers

2008-12-01T19:14:00.000-08:00

Supporting the Coalition for Change.

Liberal blogger Scott Tribe, progressive blogger Kelly John and I, in the spirit of NDP-Liberal cooperation, have put together a badge (that pretty thing over to the right) to show support for the new coalition formally announced today.

We are planning on launching a website too (coalitionbloggers.ca), but we are still working out the details on what the site would do. Maybe a forum for discussion? An aggregator for pro-coalition bloggers? What do you think? We are open to suggestions.

For now, post the badge on your profile so that we can show how widespread the support is for this exciting new coalition government.

Here is the code:

<a href="http://coalitionbloggers.ca"><img src="http://1337hax0r.com/images/coalitionbloggersbutton.png" alt="Coalition Bloggers" title="I'm a Coalition Blogger!" /></a>

Nice try, but we're not distracted

2008-11-30T18:24:00.000-08:00

Jeez. The Conservatives are desperate. They threw legal and ethical caution to he wind in this latest move to tape and distribute a private NDP caucus meeting.

I'm not a lawyer (just a know-it-all blogger), but I'm pretty sure that you can't record a conversation that you are not invited to take part in and then distribute it. And getting an email because you have the same name as someone else doesn't count as an invite. I hope someone goes to jail for this. That's a perp walk I don't want to miss.

On the substance of what was said at the meeting, Adam Radwanski made an interesting point on Goldhawk Live. I'm paraphrasing, but he said essentially that the content of the tape is not really a big deal. The NDP has been fighting to stop the Conservatives for years now, so it is not surprising that they would be in talks with opposition parties at any time about ways to stop the Harper agenda. And based on what Mulcair said, it sounds like Jack was referring to the talks that he and Duceppe have had throughout the years about the issues that they agree on.

I'm glad that Layton talks to all the parties in the HoC about how to achieve positive results on the issues Canadian care about. Maybe if Harper did the same every now and then, he wouldn't be stuck panicking like his is now.

Why that dirty rotten proroguing a#@hole!

2008-11-29T20:55:00.000-08:00

Stephen Taylor, Conservative hack, uh, I mean blogger, is reporting from the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner that there are strong rumours that the Prime Minister will be proroguing parliament.

Come on. Is Harper really that desperate to spend Christmas at 24 Sussex? I know that the holiday season is not the most preferable time to move but didn't he scream bloody murder over the mere suggestion that Paul Martin might do this a few years back when the tables were turned?

The only thing worse than doing nothing to stimulate the economy is running away when the country desperately needs action.

Go ahead Steve, prorogue until next year and throw all your money at destabilizing the economy with your irresponsible rhetoric hoping that you can hold on to power for a little bit longer. But my guess is that you are not getting out of this that easily.

Thanks for the "virtual campaign office" Harper

2008-11-29T15:20:00.000-08:00

I just looooove the new Conservative grassroots communication tool for the ConBots. So helpful. I sent letters to the editors of all my local papers (see screenshot above)- right through their website. They did it all for me! And all I have to do is enter my postal code to figure out which radio stations to call and when.

They had talking points for me to use but I didn't really like them so I just substituted my own.

Those cunning Conservatives. How are we ever going to beat them when they keep coming up with all these great ideas?

UPDATE!!!

Other bloggers are posting on this as well. Turns out Marie Eve over at Dawg's Blog did something like this during the election and Paul has reddit'd it to get the word out. Go vote it up!

Prime Minister Layton

2008-11-28T19:48:00.000-08:00

Yes. I am serious.

Think about it. The Liberals don't want Dion to be PM. It wouldn't be fair to let Iggy or Rae be leader without a convention. Layton could be PM until the Liberals have their leadership convention in May as scheduled. It would be a way to show the NDP, and Canadians for that matter, that the Liberals are serious about forming a coalition government that would work together to get us through these tough economic times.

The Liberals would, of course, still have a majority in cabinet, and therefore would still hold more power than the NDP. But since both parties would need each other (and the Bloc) to stay in power, they would have to find compromise positions on everything anyways.

Before you start calling me crazy, consider this: the whole "who is going to be PM?" business seems to be a sticking point getting in the way of finalizing a deal. And the only way Harper will come out of this a winner is if the opposition parties can't get their sh@% together.

Ok. I'm sold. Let's do this coalition thing

2008-11-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

Wow. This is really happening.

I'm going to sum up my views on a possible Liberal-NDP coalition government in two words: apprehensive support.

A month or so ago, I never thought that there would be a set of circumstances that would make me supportive of the NDP forming a coalition with the Liberals. But here we are.

The Conservatives delivered their waste-of-paper economic update yesterday and not only was it lacking in any kind of stimulus for the economy, but they had the nerve to project a phony surplus.

What they pulled yesterday was disgustingly partisan and exactly the kind of thing that turns so many Canadians off of voting for any political party.

I gotta hand it to Paul Wells, when he nails it, he really nails it:

So the real outrage of yesterday’s economic “update” is not that it seeks to impose on most parliamentarians a change to funding rules that most of them would never ordinarily accept; it’s that it accomplishes nothing else. It’s that in the most dangerous economic times Canada has faced in 20 years if not far longer, this prime minister can’t wipe the smirk off his face and grow up a little.

I was put off, to say the least, by all of this, but the last straw for me personally- what really sent me over the edge into let's-take-these-jerks-down-now territory- was the assault on collective bargaining.

Public service unions were negotiating in good faith to try to find a way to get through these challenging times, and Flaherty essentially spit in their faces. It may seem to some as a rather benign attempt to tighten the belts of the public service at a time when all Canadians are tightening their belts, but in an update that was supposed to be about "symbolic gestures", the symbolism on this one is frightening. What kind of a message does it send when a government says its okay to unilaterally break a contract with thousands of workers and then take away their collective bargaining rights? Not the kind of message that I can stomach.

That's right. I am not feeling the slightest bit complacent about any of this. The Conservatives need to be stopped. I still don't trust the Liberals, and I still believe that an NDP government is what Canadians really need. But right here and now, with things being as they are, a Liberal-NDP coalition is the best option.

My apprehension comes from wondering if the Liberals can be fair while negotiating the terms of the coalition. I have a hard time believing that they can put their sense of entitlement aside and offer the NDP a significant enough role to form a true coalition. But if they can come to an agreement that is fair, I say take Harper down.

And Steve, while you are telling us (as I type) that Canada's government should be chosen by Canadians, keep in mind that only 37.6% wanted a Conservative government while 44.4% voted for a Liberal or NDP government.

Let's cut those pesky elections while we are at it

2008-11-27T00:11:00.000-08:00

But after two months of campaigning, I am exhausted. So I am not back to regular blogging just yet. Give me a couple days.
-Dipper Chick, Thursday, October 30, 2008

Is there no end to the lying and broken promises? Sorry folks. I've been a terribly bad blogger. I will try to make it up to you.

So what has propelled me out of my laziness? It's none other than the audacious political maneuver that Harper and the gang have concocted while they should have been thinking up ways to save Canadian jobs.

I want the Liberal Party put out of it's misery as much as anyone, but scrapping public financing to political parties is blatantly bad for Canadian democracy and won't make much of a difference savings-wise.

The public financing that political parties get based on how many votes they receive in an election is the most democratic subsidy that the government could possibly give. It costs only $30 million (a drop in the bucket of the federal budget) and it ensures that Canadians get to hear from all popular political parties, not just the one with the largest number of well-off supporters who they keep track of in creepy detail with a Big-Brother-style database.

And the whole "set an example" nonesense? Give it up Flaherty. Canadians aren't stupid. We are all picturing you and Harper behind the scenes with your evil villain laughter and Mr. Burns finger-tapping thing ("ehh-xcellent"). This isn't about saving money.

Something that's been bugging me as we hear about the need to reign-in MP's travel and switch to lower-grade TP in the HoC (okay, I made that up): if we're all supposed to be tightening our belts, then why does corporate Canada still get to keep their billions of dollars in tax cuts? Just saying.

A message for you Gordon Campbell...

2008-10-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

...Vancouver on line one.

Wednesday night was a great night to be a New Democrat in BC. Winning both by-elections in Vancouver was sweet.

Spencer Herbert and Jenn McGinn will make us proud. I am sure of it.

But after two months of campaigning, I am exhausted. So I am not back to regular blogging just yet. Give me a couple days.

Until then, enjoy this video made by the BCNDP. It documents the 24 hour campaign marathon that Spencer and Jenn undertook last week. It was intense... intensely fun (if you like mainstreeting on Davie in the middle of the night that is).

Can't wait til the rest of the province gets to tell Gordon Campbell what they think of his years of arrogance and neglect on the issues that matter in their communities.

Vancouver by-election fun

2008-10-21T23:24:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, while the MSM were all busy speculating over the size of Harper's minority in Canada's New New Government, Gordon Campbell snuck in a call for two by-elections in Vancouver. Yes, the lucky residents of Vancouver-Fairview and Vancouver-Burrard will get to go to the polls on October 29th. Good times.

It's all-hands-on-deck over here to make sure that we send Jenn McGinn and Spencer Herbert to Victoria, so I will be blogging only sporadically, if at all, until next Wednesday. I will try to make it up to you all by getting a video made out of this by-election madness, so that you too can know how great it feels to get to campaign for two extra weeks.

If you live in Vancouver, please join me. We start with Burma-shaving around 7:30am most mornings, and end with calling voters who tell you they have already voted until 9pm. (actually, it's been fun- I'm just being whiny)

But seriously, Jenn and Spencer are great candidates and I am grateful for the opportunity to send them to Victoria with a message for Campbell about what Vancouver thinks of his pay hikes for top advisors, inaction on minimum wage, neglect of the housing crisis, *insert your favourite BC Liberal broken promise*, etc.

Don't do it Stephane

2008-10-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

If you are reading this Stephane Dion, don't do it. Don't step down. You can turn the Liberal party fortunes around. You just need to keep pushing the Green Shift. Maybe re-brand it, call it the "Magic Super Happy Tax" (not yet a trademarked name). If you keep trying, one day Canadians will understand it, then they will be sure to love it and make you Prime Minister. They will forget all about the years of Liberal corruption and the last parliament where you helped Stephen Harper 43 times. If you start every speech by telling people to go to the calculator on the website, you could probably even get away with voting with Stephen Harper 43 more times.

Please M. Dion. There is an opportunity here. No one likes a quitter.

Dipper Chick Productions presents: E-night in Vancouver

2008-10-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

The latest Dipper Chick production takes you on a journey through E-day/night in Vancouver. I tried my best not to use any Queen, but some snuck in there at end.

Enjoy!

And here's a much higher quality election video from the folks over at ndp.ca:

I have a lot of funny footage that I couldn't use in other videos (it either didn't fit or was not appropriate for public consumption) and I'm trying to decide if it's worth putting together an Election 2008 Outtakes video. So I put a poll up over on the side bar and made it extra scientific by allowing you to vote for more than one option. Let me know. Your wish is my command.

UPDATE!

We have results from the outtakes poll. Thanks to all 10 of you that voted (jk. there were at least 20-something votes)

No. I am a Liberal who wants to erase Election 2008 from memory. 3%
Yes. I want to see more of Jack Layton's press secretary, Karl Belanger. 50%
Yes. I want more behind the scenes of the Michael Byers pizza party. 34%
Yes. I want to see Dipper Chick tell more New Democrat MPs how awesome they are. Those are the hard-hitting questions that the citizen media really need to be asking. 65%

So you will get your outtakes video....eventually. Once the provincial by-elections in Vancouver are over. Blame Gordon Campbell for your wait.

Some final thoughts on Election 2008

2008-10-16T01:14:00.000-07:00

More than a day later, I have mixed feelings about the election results, but I'm mostly pleased. The NDP ran a spectacular campaign, Jack Layton was at his finest, and some great people got elected.

Vancouver was a fun place to be a New Democrat on election night (I have video evidence to prove this assertion). But I'll be honest and say that I was hoping for a better result in BC. We had a rough ride out here, though. The NDP has been a primary target of negative campaigning from both the Liberals and the Conservatives. As lame as the "Ottawa NDP" ads were (there were a ton- radio and TV), and as reprehensible as the smear campaign from the scumbags over at Liberal Team BC was, negative campaigning works.

However, What really hurt us in BC was the Liberal vote collapsing all over the place. People were voting Conservative in protest of Dion and his carbon tax. We lost every close race we were in to Conservatives. I bet all those progressives who listened to Bob Rae and Ujjal Dosanjh and voted Liberal to stop Harper in say, Surrey North, are feeling kinda misled at this point.

None of this shakes this winning feeling I have though. We have some talented new MPs (shout out to my homeboy Don Davies), we made historic gains in Newfoundland and Quebec, and I think the party is in a better place than we were before the election.

What I mean to say is that things feel different now. We may not have increased our standing (FPTP strikes again), but we are a changed party. Jack Layton told us all that he was running for Prime Minister. Amid jibes from cynical pundits, he continued to run for Prime Minister. Right until election day Jack let us know that he is in it to win. Many thought that this was a ploy to look like the Leader of the Opposition but I don't agree. I believe that he is serious. So do thousands of New Democrats across the country. I think that was the point.

I really believe that Jack Layton can lead the New Democrats to victory. Not just Stornoway victory, but 24 Sussex victory. Before you start thinking that I'm just a few kitchen table references away from drinking the kool aid, I'll admit that it's not going to be simple (who knows where the Liberal party is going at this point) and that it may not even happen for a few elections. But that is the goal now. And we all know it.

Some quick, tired thoughts on the results

2008-10-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

I was too busy at the Vancouver party to put together a substantial election post (you should be expecting another video soon, you lucky readers), but here are some thoughts:

Linda Duncan. Wow. I will be smiling for a long time over that. You made me proud today, Edmonton.

I'm excited about Don Davies in Vancouver-Kingsway. Don is just a hell of a guy and supremely principled and qualified for the job. It's nice when the good guys win.

In terms of the overall picture, I would say that the big losers in this election are Harper and Dion. Harper called this election to get a majority government. As bad as things looked for him at one point, he can't be that thrilled with the outcome. Dion is in trouble. The popular vote for the Liberals was the worst in history. Somewhere, John Turner is relieved to be handing over that record.

More later.

Jack Harris is the man

2008-10-14T20:12:00.000-07:00

NDP breakthrough in Newfoundland and Labrador. This night is off to a good start.

I will, of course have a more substantial election post, but I thought that Harris deserved his own.

Yeah, a 74.6% win gets you your own blog post.

Sent from my BlackBerry device

No, you don't have to vote Liberal

2008-10-14T00:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few days but its crazy over here in New Democratland, er, I mean Metro Vancouver. The orange tide has swept over the Lower Mainland and even if we don't win all of the seats that we are competitive in, this election has seen massive growth for the NDP over here.

Meanwhile, the Liberals have been on a "save the furniture" tour for the tail end of this election, going to Liberal incumbent territory to try to minimize the inevitable losses they will incur once the votes are counted. They are so destitute that their only hope is to try to trick voters, who are legitimately concerned about a Stephen Harper government, into voting for them.

But, in this election in particular, voting Liberal is a wasted progressive vote. Stephane Dion has brought the Liberal party to new lows in support. Here's my brilliant election prediction: the Liberal party will not be forming government. Voting Liberal may help elect another Liberal MP, but that MP is sure to vote with the Conservatives or abstain when it really counts. That is what they did 43 times in the last parliament. Do you really want more of this?

I understand progressive Canadians' concerns with Stephen Harper. I am with you.

Story time: I almost voted Liberal in 2004. Yes, I was swayed by the "Conservatives are sooo scary, you need to hold your nose and vote Liberal" messaging. Guilty. Then a very smart woman (my Mom, awwww) caught me on the way to the poll. I told her about how my riding could easily go Conservative because I'd seen so many Conservative signs and Paul Martin told me I should be scared and blablabla. She responded with something like this:

"Look, your vote counts but not too many races have ever come down to one vote. If you vote Liberal, you'll probably find out when the votes are counted that you didn't have to do that to stop the Conservatives. But you will have to live with the fact that you voted Liberal for the rest of your life."

What I took from that is that since we each only get one vote, it means more to us as individuals, as an expression of what we think is right for Canada, than it does in the grand scheme of who wins or loses. This is why your best bet is to vote for something positive instead of against something negative.

Thanks to my Mom's wisdom, I can say today that I have have always voted NDP. Voting NDP in 2006 helped elect Denise Savoie in Victoria. Denise went to parliament and fought for things I care about like the environment, post-secondary education, anti-scab legislation, the list goes on. Denise never once disappointed me. This is more than progressives who "strategically" voted Liberal last time can say after the Liberal party enabled the Harper agenda 43 times.

The sad truth about the Liberals is that they are not really progressive outside of elections. They govern from the right when they win and vote with the Conservatives when they lose. Voting for them to "stop Harper" makes no sense. It's not strategic, it's a sham.

Liberals say that Jack Layton's "lend us your votes" message in 2006 had a lot to do with their loss. They go so far as to say that they "want their votes back." But I don't think they were their votes. I think that many of the new votes that the went to the NDP in 2006 were from people who sincerely believed in Jack Layton and the NDP, but had possibly voted "strategically" for the Liberals in the past.

This election should see even more votes coming back to the NDP. Because Stephen Harper does need to be stopped and Jack Layton has proved that he and the NDP are the ones to do it. Also, I think people are starting to get tired of the same old same old and that there is an appetite for real change. And, with Jack running for Prime Minister this time, he has energized the base and given true progressives hope. It's an exciting time to be New Democrat.

So, I'm sorry that my Mom is not available to reach all of you who are thinking about voting Liberal, but I'm hoping that this post reaches you before you head to the polls and that you think about what you really want for Canada, not just what you don't want.

Dion feeling blue in final days of campaign

2008-10-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

In a very strange political move, Stephane Dion told Global TV today that a Liberal government would not implement its key child care and health care promises for at least two years. Not to fear however, we'd still get a carbon tax.

Globe and Mail reports:

In an interview with Global TV, he [Stephane Dion] said that the downturn in the economy could force him to slow down the “pace of investment we wanted to make in the first two years.”

He was careful to say, and he repeated this to reporters later in a scrum, that the Green Shift plan would not be affected.

Rather, he would look at slowing down his commitments on child care, a catastrophic drug program and getting more doctors.

Dion is quite the Maverick, usually Liberal leaders wait until after the election to ditch their progressive policies.

But seriously, if the Liberals were to form a government after Tuesday's vote (mammoth-sized 'if'), it would definitely be a minority government, in which case, it would likely not last into a third or fourth year. The much needed funding for child care and new doctors wouldn't happen.

Economic downturn or not, these are not luxury items. The long-term health of our economy requires accessible, affordable child care, not now, or two to three years from now, but more than ten years ago when the Liberals first promised it. And universal health care as we know and love it in Canada won't survive without a plan for new doctors.

Given that the Liberals won't roll back the $50 billion in corporate tax cuts and they won't pull out of Afghanistan until 2011, basically what Dion is saying with this new announcement is that a Liberal government would be just like a Conservative government but with more broken promises and a carbon tax.

No website is going to tell me how to vote

2008-10-10T00:24:00.000-07:00

I am too busy/tired for a long post tonight/this morning but I have a few thoughts to impart.

As I've scanned through the countless "strategic" voting sites (I refuse to link to any of them) something has been bugging me.

Most of the sites telling us how to vote to stop Harper decided since the beginning of the campaign that it was a foregone conclusion that the Liberals were the ones who were going to do it. Here are two major problems with that:

1) Liberals don't stop Harper. They helped further the Harper agenda by voting with him or abstaining 43 times. Dion's Liberals are responsible for $50 billion in corporate tax cuts along with other regressive Conservative policies becoming law.

2) It seems like the people who are drawn to "strategic" voting or vote swapping are the people who are fed up with our stupidly undemocratic First Past the Post system. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have even hinted that they would be willing to move to proportional representation. So why are people who are disgusted with our antiquated and unfair electoral system rewarding the parties who keep it this way by treating them like they are the only two parties in the contest? You are playing right into their hands people.

These are of course, only two of the problems with the "let me tell you how to vote" sites. Expect to see my full comments on those abominations and "strategic" voting before this thing is over.

Elizabeth May set to come in third in Central Nova, poll says

2008-10-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

I feel like part of the MSM now, reporting on a poll, but this one was interesting.

Mike Duffy aired a poll for the riding of Central Nova today which showed the Elizabeth May in third place, behind NDP candidate Louise Lorefice. Here are the results:

Conservative 44
NDP 25
Green 23

What was even more interesting, were the voter intentions of those who would have voted Liberal, had there been a Liberal candidate:

NDP 49
Conservative 25
Green 16

I wish the Liberals would step aside for the Greens in more ridings.

This data, lays the smackdown on so-called "strategic" voting sites that are telling residents of Central Nova to vote Green to stop Peter MacKay. What a sham those things are. Expect a whole post devoted to ~~strategic~~ stupid voting.

I'll post a video of MDL when I find one.

Don Davies rocks Vancouver-Kingsway debate

2008-10-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

Was at the Vancouver-Kingsway all candidates debate tonight. Didn't liveblog, as Paul Wells suggested we bloggers should. But, as you will see, I did get some video.

NDP candidate Don Davies rocked. That's not just my bias talking. He was by far the most prepared, the most well-spoken, and he offered the best responses.

Vancouver-Kingsway is a riding scorned. They elected David Emerson the Liberal, last time around only to have him go Conservative within the first few months. They had town hall meeting after town hall meeting in the riding for almost a year. There is a dude in the riding who has transformed his vehicle into the anti-Emersonmobile.

The first question was about floor-crossing and what each party's policy was on it. Here's how that went (I, of course, added a soundtrack):

Anyways, the Liberal candidate came across as unprepared and the Conservative candidate didn't bother to show up. If everyone in the riding watched even 15 minutes of the all candidates debate, it would be a Don Davies landslide.

Way to go Don!

Linda Duncan: Kicking ass in E-town

2008-10-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

Linda Duncan, NDP candidate for Edmonton-Strathcona, has really lit a fire up under my little hometown of Edmonton.

She even has a growing movement of Liberals supporting her in her effort to unseat Rahim Jaffer.

As a former resident of Edmonton-Strathcona, this is exciting stuff. Through most of my upbringing I lived in the Ralphocracy. It was disheartening to see my fellow Albertans elect Conservatives every bloody election. I'd look around, at my neighbors, teachers, hell...everybody, after election day thinking 'who are these people'? 'Which of you voted for this madness'?

I had to sell out and settle down in BC because I couldn't take it anymore. That, and Edmonton is damn cold. I don't care what Vancouverites say about "wet cold" vs. "dry cold". Minus 40 is minus 40 people.

Anyways, seeing videos like the one below where over 100 Albertans got together for a canvas blitz for Linda warms my heart and makes me think that there is hope.

Go Linda, go!

New Release from Dipper Chick Productions

2008-10-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

Back by popular demand I present to you the latest Dipper Chick production.

It is entitled "Dipper Chick Parties with Michael Byers" and I assure you, it is as exciting as it sounds.

Enjoy!

Here are a couple other videos to get excited about today: the new NDP ads.

It's a good day in videos.

Do we start calling him Taliban Pete now?

2008-10-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

"MacKay opens door to talks with Taliban"

What a headline.

Looks like Jack Layton has been right all along in saying that diplomatic relations with the Taliban need to be part of a strategy in Afghanistan if we are to have any success in achieving peace the region.

MacKay changed his mind on the issue after British general, Brig.-Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith, came out publicly in favour of negotiating with the Taliban. From the CBC story:

The Conservatives have softened their position on talking with the Taliban after a British general said that Western forces will never win against insurgents and negotiations may be necessary.

NDP Leader Jack Layton jumped on that Sunday, saying he was "heartened" by British Brig.-Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith's comments to a London newspaper.

Later Sunday, Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said the Conservatives would be "supportive of discussions" provided the talks were headed by the democratically elected Afghan government, and as long as the "terrorists" renounced violence.

Layton has said negotiations are necessary, but MacKay rejected that in the past. "We are not having direct discussions with terrorists. We won't, will not, that will not change," he said on May 4.

Will the Conservatives apologize to Layton for calling him "unpatriotic" and even "Taliban Jack" for suggesting the diplomatic route for a couple years now? Doubtful. But it does feel good to be able to say I told you so.

You'll have to excuse me now. I feel the sudden urge to go post comments all over the Conservative blogosphere. Come join me if you like.

Team Dion chooses an unfortunate post-debate photo op

2008-10-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

I wonder if Warren Kinsella knows just how clever his analysis of the English Leaders' Debate was (yeah, probably).

"Stephen Harper was the goalie. He knew he'd be under attack from the others, that he wouldn't get an opportunity to score, so his job was to keep the puck out of the net and he did that. Stéphane Dion was skating around, he looked fine, but he didn't score - and he needed to score. Jack Layton was all over the ice - forward, defence, in the corners with his elbows up. He dominated. Elizabeth May was in the dressing room, still suiting up. And Gilles Duceppe was asleep on the bench...

Jack Layton won the game."

Better late than never: Thoughts on the English Debate

2008-10-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

Now that I have had some time to see the coverage on the debate I feel like I am infinitely more qualified to comment. Lies. I just had a busy day. And as usual, I was disappointed with the coverage. Some pundits were bang on. Hebert, Fife (sorry, no link- but he said Jack won on CTV), and Kinsella come to mind. But in an attempt to say something different than any other journalist, many of the pundits often come to conclusions that are so weird that one wonders if we were watching the same program. I won't even dignify them with a link.

My thoughts:

Jack had the most memorable moments by far. It's cute to see the Green and the Liberal bloggers scrambling to argue that their leaders said clever things too. Jack dominated. Period.

An interesting element of the Ipsos insta-poll:

Among those who changed their vote, 37% say they would now vote NDP, 26% say they would now Liberal, 25% say they would now vote Green, and 9% say they would now vote Conservative.

So if winning the debate means shaking loose other parties' voters, I think we have a winner!

Elizabeth May is clearly an intelligent person but since her party is totally irrelevant, it sort of felt like they let one of the NGOs into the debate. She made great pains to seem credible on issues other than the environment, but she spent her time in attack-mode without offering too much in terms of new ideas.

I saw May talking to Stroumboulopoulos (your bf and mine), which aired after the debate, and it struck me that unlike even other fringe parties, the Greens aren't offering anything you can't find somewhere else. May told Strombo she thinks that Green MPs will bring decorum to the HoC and improve the level of debate, but the NDP has long filled that role, and filled it well. And besides, have you met your local Green candidate? Go check them out and see if you buy what May is selling. I bet 95% of you will find that your local Green would bring up the crazy factor in Parliament substantially if they were elected.

Back to the debate...

After so many attacks on Harper's lack of a platform, Team Tory are now scrambling to find a way to make their plan for corporate tax cuts and laissez-faire economics palatable to the Canadian electorate so that they can release a platform. Until this moment they obviously thought that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" would do it. Nope. You still need a platform. Even if you don't actually believe that government should do anything, Canadians seem to think it should.

Dion struggled with his English. A lot. I don't think he improved his image in Western Canada much. And I'm having a hard time remembering anything he said. Except that we need more fun in Canada. Evidently he thought he was running for highschool class president.

Jack was amazing. He was the only one you could actually see standing up to Harper effectively. Here is a video to remember the highlights:

It was a good night.

You know you've hit the big time when...

2008-10-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

you get to guestblog on muchmusic.com.

But seriously. It was fun. They were looking for a sort of 'what are you doing for the election'/ 'say a little bit about youth and politics' kind of thing from each party.

I was happy to oblige.

Layton burns Dion- video

2008-10-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

Jack dominated the english debate. No question.

So many good zingers, but here is my favourite:

Like I said over here, I will be posting this far and wide. I suggest you do the same.

Jack is on fire - quasi-liveblog

2008-10-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

"Either you don't care or you're incompetent. Which one is it?"

Answer the question Stephen Harper.

UPDATE 6:30 (PDT)

"Where's your platform, under the sweater?"

UPDATE 7:31 (PDT)

The best zinger of the night was against Dion:

"If you can't do your job as leader of the opposition, I don't know what you are doing running for Prime Minister"

BAM!

(You had better get used to seeing that clip. I will be posting it gratuitously whenever I can)

Jack rocked the english debate. The clear winner.

Even Kinsella agrees:

Up here, Jack Layton was the winner. He dominated the proceedings – when he castigated Stéphane Dion on repeatedly abstaining in the House of Commons, it was devastating to the Liberal cause. He didn’t cower before Stephen Harper’s intellect or political skills, either, and not many Canadian politicians can say that.

Well done Jack. I am a proud New Democrat tonight.

Pour quelques arpents de neige

2008-10-01T21:38:00.000-07:00

It was certainly the best french language debate that I have ever seen. Although it was amusing that one of the translators was Australian (sadly, not Harper's), I watched it in french because so much is lost when you can't hear the leaders' voices. Straining to make sure I didn't miss anything (It's been a few years since my french immersion days) inhibited my liveblogging abilities.

Here are some points on the evening in no particular order:

Consensus seems to be that the new format, and new table, are good. I agree. It was good to be able to see the leaders' body language and for them to be able to see each other so well.

Jack Layton's French was impressive. I'm not the only one who noticed. From Norman Spector's blog:

Watching the debate in French, the big surprise of the first half hour has been the quality of Jack Layton's French: It's much improved over the 2006 debate, and what's particularly noteworthy is his working-class accent.

The Liberals have some new 30-day plan? Huh? Please tell me it involves the notwithstanding clause.

Best debate liveblogging: Though the Macleans crew were wildly entertaining, the most informative was Douglas Bell from the Globe. Bell's post is good because if you missed the debate, you can still get a decent idea of what the important exchanges of the night were.

The NDP released a series of reality checks on ndp.ca throughout the debate. Here's a good one:

Stephane Dion suggested to Jack Layton that every country who had adopted a cap and trade system had started with a carbon tax. He's wrong.

THE FACTS:

“[W]e have had in the European Union now almost a decade and a half to two decades of reflection on what needs to be done on climate change. The Europeans made a deliberate choice not to go for carbon taxes. We had a discussion on carbon taxes. We have a standing tradition on energy taxation, but we were making a deliberate choice for emissions trading, emissions trading primarily among actors within the EU but also with an openness to link up with those mechanisms created under the Kyoto system and with those, wherever in the world, who would develop similar trading systems.”
– Jos Delbeke, Director, Climate Change and Air, Delegation of the European Commission to Canada, House of Commons Committee on C-30, 13 February 2008

How cool was the "say something nice about the person to your left" question? Hilarious watching them all get so uncomfortable. Obviously nobody prepared for that in debate prep.

Overall, I got what I expected from each leader. Harper stayed on message and made great pains to stay calm. He was almost whispering at one point. Dion, speaking in his native toungue, gave the best performance he could but was still underwhelming. Certainly a loss for him after he told everybody he was going to win. Duceppe is a veteran and he always does well in these things. Probably what has kept him alive. May was a distraction but her bit about Harper's kids being the only good thing about him was funny.

Jack Layton made me very proud. He was the most poised, the most confident, and the most sincere of all the leaders. He called Harper out on the $50 billion in corporate tax cuts, the need for more family doctors, and asked Harper to repeat his ridiculous comments about the arts in French (Harper wouldn't do it). Layton offers the most credible solutions to the economic, environmental, and health care crises we face and his solutions came across well.

Yes, Jack was looking good tonight. Bring on the english debate.

Liberal ad uses senior couple without permission

2008-10-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

Not only did the Liberals put a senior couple in their new ad without having proper permission, but the seniors happen to be strong New Democrat supporters. Oooh. That's a bad break for the lazy staffer who obviously didn't get a proper release form for the footage.

From the Tyee:

The couple are Jean Macintyre and her husband John, a retired judge of the B.C. Provincial Criminal Court. Jean Macintyre has for several years been the president of the North Vancouver-Seymour NDP Constituency Association.

As a longtime New Democrat, she's working to promote her candidate Michael Charrois, and to defeat Liberal incumbent Don Bell.

Dumbfounded to see herself and her husband in the ad, Macintyre says the video clip was taken by one of their sons in a Lower Lonsdale coffee shop a couple of years ago. How it fell into the Liberals' hands is a mystery to her—and to the son.

I promise, no unwitting Liberals or Conservatives have been featured in any Dipper Chick productions.

Extreme Makeover: Harper Edition

2008-10-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

Extreme Makeover: Harper Edition was launched in the Orange Room today.

The feature uses cold hard facts, cute graphics, and testimonials from Canadians to rip apart some of the re-branding that Harper's team has tried to do.

This is how you slam someone with the right mix of web 2.0, humour, and class. Take notes Liberal and Tory war rooms.

In my not-totally-unbiased opinion, New Democrats have kicked some serious ass in the web strategy department this election.

Well done.

Have you heard the one about the speechwriter...

2008-10-01T01:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of points on plagiarism-gate:

I feel for the researcher who had to have listened to tons of right-wing speeches from around the world and somehow picked up on the similarities between the two.

I'm sure it is no coincidence that Michael Ignatieff does the economy stuff and Bob Rae does the "Look at how scary and extreme Harper is- he supported the Iraq war" stuff.

It's highly likely that Lippert and Howard's speechwriter just ripped off the same Bush talking points. As if they don't have like a worldwide neo-con listserve that sends those things around.

There's nothing much else to say that hasn't been said in a gazillion different ways by the MSM, other bloggers, or the busy pundits over on the Macleans blogs. This one has been pundited to death.

Award for best quip on Conservative plagiarism goes to Brad Lavigne, NDP campaign spokesperson (as heard on Mike Duffy Live):

"I think now we know why Mr. Harper doesn't have his platform out. They're waiting for the Australian Liberal party to finish writing it."

ht: Stageleft

Jason Cherniak: the Nelson Muntz of the Canadian Blogosphere

2008-09-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

The similarities are striking.

Here’s a quote for the “Shameless Advertising” section of your blog, Cherniak:

“Jason Cherniak is a self-important, koolaid drinking, wingnut who is read by the media and general public for the same reason that people can’t help but look at a train wreck. He is a very small man with a very big ego who has made it his mission to distort the truth in order to score juvenile political points against his opponents. His reporting style is much like a pre-pubescent schoolyard bully. The fact that he is considered to be the most influential Liberal blogger really says something about the Liberal Party of Canada.”

You can put that one right above the one about how Dion’s wife reads your blog, you nerd.

This post was inspired by the growing coalition of Bloggers Against Jason Cherniak.

Dipper Chick talks to Jack Layton

2008-09-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is a video I made for all of you of Jack Layton's visit to Vancouver.

The video takes you through my journey towards getting some kind of interview with Layton. Very tough to do during an election campaign. But his tour, even though they have an effective RCMP detail, is still a strong contrast to Harper's bubble (Layton's press secretaries seem like way more fun than Harper's as well).

Anyways, enjoy my fine camera work and cheesy interviewing skillz.

Jack Layton had better believe that when this madness is over, and he is all settled into 24 Sussex, that I am coming for my exclusive.

NDP platform kicks poverty's ass

2008-09-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

The NDP platform was launched on Sunday.

Most of it came as no surprise. Just a soild plan including the announcements we've heard throughout the election. Layton did however, announce the New Democrat plan for tackling poverty. It's big.

Robert Benzie from the Toronto Star reports:

Unveiling the New Democrats' plan for governing today in Toronto, Layton pledged a new $17 billion child benefit plan that will reward families up to $400 a month per child.
"The New Democrats' child benefit will give every middle-class and working family in Canada a raise," he said.
"Our priorities are those of the kitchen table, not just the boardroom table."
As first disclosed by the Star, families with a household income of $38,000 or less would receive $400 a month per child.
Those making less than $188,000-a-household would get $250 a month per child.
And families earning more than $188,000 a year would receive $100 a month per child.
Unlike the current Conservative $100-a-month per child baby bonus policy, the money wouldn't be taxed.
The NDP would also extend the eligibility threshold from the existing cut-off – currently when a child turns six – to 18 years old.
Layton's 57-page platform document boasts a slew of other measures designed to eliminate poverty within 12 years, including a minimum wage of $10 that would be indexed to inflation.
A New Democratic government would introduce a Poverty Elimination Act, setting firm reduction targets and make the government accountable for meeting those goals.
A progress report would have to be tabled every five years.
The NDP wants to reduce child poverty by more than 50 per cent and the overall poverty rate by more than 35 per cent in the first five years.
A new poverty elimination office, to be part of Human Resources Development Canada, would assume overall responsibility for helping the poor.
The NDP defines the poverty line as Statistics Canada's "low income cut-off" or LICO, which calculates the income level at which a family may be in dire straits because it has to spend a greater portion of its income on shelter, food, and clothing than an average family. The LICO measurement varies, depending where in Canada a family resides.

The child benefit that New Democrats are proposing is the first serious step I've seen made by any party to reduce child poverty.

It puts Jack Layton in stark contrast with Stephen Harper who offers families barely enough for beer and popcorn and calls it a child care plan while he gives $50 billion away in corporate tax cuts.

Liberal candidate muses about Dion's "best before date"

2008-09-28T22:09:00.000-07:00

The latest friendly fire on Dion isn't anonymous. From Burnaby Now:

A local Liberal candidate says he hopes Michael Ignatieff will take over the party's leadership one day.
Gerry Lenoski, candidate for Burnaby-New Westminster, made the comments Thursday, the same day Ignatieff was scheduled to appear in Burnaby.
Some Liberals have been casting doubt on Stéphane Dion's leadership as polls show him lagging behind Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"Some day Mr. Dion may not be leader, and I hope Michael Ignatieff will replace him," Lenoski said in an interview. "Everybody has a best before date."

Lenoski's comments would not have been as bad if they hadn't come after weeks of Liberal insiders trashing Dion. It's obvious that many Liberals think that Dion is well past his "best before date" and is starting to stink up the fridge.

Here is a sampling of some of the coverage Dion has been getting:

In the 2008 election, Dion has been a flop. Inside the party, there is disarray. Reporter Linda Diebel documented earlier this week in the Star a litany of campaign missteps, from the failure to have an airplane on deck at the election start to Dion's refusal to listen to anyone's advice.
Many Toronto-area Liberal MPs are furious with Dion, who seems oblivious to their concerns and their suggestions. And some long-time loyalists who knock on doors and stuff envelopes are sitting this one out, uninspired by their leader.
A number of senior Liberals tell me privately they feel Dion is an embarrassment – not an asset – for the party and that a thrashing on voting day, which they fully expect, is what the Liberals need before they can regroup and rebuild.
And if the polls are right, a humbling defeat is what Dion and the Liberals are facing. - Toronto Star "The Worst Liberal Campaign Ever" Sept 18, 2008

And:

As one senior Liberal insider puts it: "For us to make any significant gains would require that just about everything go terribly wrong for the Conservatives."
Another muses that perhaps Dion should be dispatched to campaign in Newfoundland for the rest of the election, leaving Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff to lead the fight for seat-rich Ontario.
Good idea.
Among a dozen veteran Liberal stalwarts and strategists we interviewed last week, most privately admit they are no longer worrying about winning as much as avoiding losing in a carnage that could deep-six the party for a decade or more. -London Free Press

Wait, there's more:

Why Mr. Dion hasn't trundled out Mr. Rae and Michael Ignatieff sooner is a mystery -- well, maybe not a big one -- but he didn't have much choice given the funereal tenor his ill-starred journey has taken on. Even the Liberals' balky old campaign plane won't co-operate -- the rented 737 had to put down in Montreal for repairs, forcing Mr. Dion to rent a Bombardier borrowed from Porter Air to get out of town. You know you're in trouble when the ever-loyal Toronto Star refers to your "flagging campaign" in the first paragraph of its news report, while its big-name columnists line up to write your obituary. Chantal Hebert gave Mr. Dion a week at most to turn things around; James Travers suggests local MPs are just hoping to survive the slaughter.

Someone in the Liberal camp who doesn't like Mr. Dion has been talking to the papers, and stories about intrigue sourced to unnamed Liberals appeared in both the Globe and Star. The reports had similar themes: he doesn't listen to advice; he ignores the party's seasoned old guard; he micromanages down to vetting campaign ads; he's failed to mend fences since the leadership race or to share the stage with more popular figures who could leaven his stodgy image; and most of all he seems to have no idea the campaign is meandering along in no particular direction. -National Post, Sept 17, 2008

I have a whole other post full of other examples. These are just the ones I found without looking too hard. The big story on the Liberals this election is how badly they are tanking.

One thing is for sure, the knives have been sharpened and will be coming from all directions if Dion fails to deliver in the debates.

A vote for the Greens is a vote for Conservatives

2008-09-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

Quite literally in some ridings.

From a riding profile on Vegreville - Wainwright published in the Edmonton Journal:

Will Munsey, 47,
Green
Do you anticipate that it will be hard to sway voters?
"I'm going to make an admission to you. I used to vote Conservative. I didn't vote for Stephen Harper in the last election, but in the one he lost in 2004, I voted for him. And I am a conservative. God, my father even has pictures of Stephen Harper hung up in the basement."

One can understand how Munsey drifted to the Green Party. When Elizabeth May says things like "I don't think a woman has a frivolous right to choose" she is bound to make Conservatives feel right at home in her party.

UPDATE!

The latest video from the creative and talented NDP candidate David Sparrow, is quite clever and fits nicely with this post. Enjoy!

DC gone electionin'...for the weekend

2008-09-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

Blogging will be sparse over the weekend as I help out my local candidates, work on a few projects (including a video or two pour vous) and *video spoiler alert* enjoy Jack Layton's visit to beautiful BC.

To tide you over until my return, here are some of my favourites of the videos posted in the Orange Room.

Behind the Scenes of Jack Layton's tour:

Rick Mercer sticking it to the Liberals:

Nice use of hipster dance music:

A classic that warms the hearts of New Democrats everywhere:

The pixel is mightier than the candidate

2008-09-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

Holy sh@$ this thing is getting ugly.

Mostly thanks to the Big Red Smear Machine, which is particularly vile here in BC. The Liberal Team BC website (refuse to link to it) reads like Frank magazine lately. And it's only going to get worse as the Liberals keep tanking out west. Yuck.

But candidates are getting smoked by their skeletons across party lines and throughout the country. Just today there were four more casualties.

The internet has bitten a lot of people in the ass in the past few weeks. If it didn't directly provide the dirt, then it helped fan the flame for every fallen candidate. Yup, blogs and social networking sites, the power-tools of democratic expression, are flexing their might.

While parties spent a lot of resources this time around creating interesting web-2.0-y ways to connect to voters (the Orange Room is, hands-down, the coolest btw - notaleader.ca is just weird and Scandalpedia is severely lame), there is a general consensus that more attention could have been paid to researching one's own candidates and their online identities.

No party gets out of this one unscathed though. Except the fringe parties. Who no one cares about unless they have a candidate who is overwhelmingly unpleasant in a well-documented way. But the Conservatives, New Democrats, and the Liberals all have fallen soldiers.

I'm willing to cut them some slack however, because candidate vetting in the Age of the Internet is a whole new ballgame. It's not as simple as just googling candidates. It is nearly impossible to go through every dark corner, every blog post, every discussion board, and every facebook group looking for dirt on 308 people. Especially in a snap election situation. And nobody seemed to predict how severe a weapon the internet was going to be (except an unnamed friend of mine who thinks the internet is evil and needs to be taken down, and would be really upset with me for referring to him on the internet, even in an unnamed way).

Regardless, the internet is here to stay and politics is going to have to adapt. Total lunatics used to be able to run in ridings where they had no shot of winning because the media wouldn't care. Well, no more.

This election has proven that there is a microscope over every single one of us now. It's a shame because it will likely deter even those with a very clean history from running. And we will probably end up with a higher percentage of crazies because one has to be either super-squeaky-clean or bat-sh@$ insane to be a candidate in the Age of the Internet.

But that is something to worry about next time we all meet to practice democracy for five weeks or so. Lesson learned. So, for the remainder of this election, unless someone is a fricken' serial killer, can we have the national MSM just stick to the issues?

Except for that Liberal guy who billed the government for Liberal campaigning. The MSM should totally nail him.

With friends like these...

2008-09-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

Liberals are just giving it to Dion in this campaign.

With all of the anonymous Liberal insiders, and not so anonymous former Liberal insiders, ripping on Stephane Dion and the Liberal campaign, the Big Red Machine has some massive chinks in the armour.

Day after day the story on the Liberals is how miserable their campaign is.

On Wednesday, the Globe ran an article about how the Liberals were pretty much claiming defeat. The title is harsh enough, "Liberals shift focus to 'living for another day'" but here are some excerpts that you know just gotta hurt:

Usually at this point in a successful campaign, however, there is thought given to forming a transition team.

Senator David Smith, one of the co-chairs of the Liberal campaign, said yesterday that he wasn't “going to get into it” when asked about transition...

Another senior campaign strategist burst out into laughter when asked about whether there had been any thinking as to a transition team.

“It wasn't even in my vocabulary or my brain,” said the strategist, suggesting the Liberals are trying to hold what they have...

One candidate is demoralized as he hears from former Liberal voters, “I'm not really sure about this Stéphane Dion.”
The senior campaign staffer there says they are emphasizing “the team” over the leader.
And after five hours of door-knocking over the weekend in his riding north of Toronto, a Liberal incumbent candidate heard complaints about his leader from 80 per cent of those he spoke to.

“[The candidate] is very discouraged and says that the only thing that may help him is that he is not identified as a Liberal and can run on his personal popularity,” a campaign insider said.

Quebec, according to some Liberals, is a “disaster.” The Liberals have 11 of the 75 seats.

And in British Columbia, Liberals are concerned about the rise of the Green Party and the credibility that Mr. Dion has given to its leader, Elizabeth May. Those who like a carbon tax will support Ms. May, whose platform is much stronger on the issue, the Liberals fear.

Ouch. Thank you anonymous staffer who "burst out into laughter" at the idea that the Liberals would form government. You have provided me with some laughter yourself.

My suggestion for Dion and the gang is along the lines of what former Liberal Party President Stephen LeDrew has in mind to enliven the out-of-touch, teetering on irrelevant Liberal Party: a sound "drubbing" in this election. But, it's cool with me if the Liberals don't get back up again as LeDrew predicts they will. Crossing my fingers for this eventuality in fact. But alas, Canadians will decide their fate.

As for M. Dion, all is not lost. He still has his koolaid drinkers to defend his honour. When they aren't too busy smearing New Democrats and launching weird conspiracy theories, that is.

And before any Liberals accuse me of helping Harper by suggesting that it would be great if the Liberal Party got their asses handed to them by Canadians, go read this. I am done arguing with you on your favourite Liberal talking point. I will be sending you to that link to argue with Scott Piatkowski, who has generously offered to shut you up with smartass answers, instead. I am actually considering posting his "snappy answers" down one of the columns of my blog.

An appeal to progressive Canadians

2008-09-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

With polls showing the Liberals battling the Greens for fourth place in BC, they are getting more and more desperate to chisel away at the NDP vote. Bob Rae has been here in BC already, telling us that we progressive Canadians need to smarten up and vote Liberal, and now Martha Hall Findlay is here too. I guess they have figured out that Ujaal just doesn't do it for NDP voters in BC.

Anyways, according to a story in the Ubyssey, Bob Rae was at an event in East Vancouver on Friday. Here's how the Liberals "unite" progressive Canadians:

In what is becoming increasingly common in many urban ridings across Canada, the Liberals on stage spent the night attacking the NDP instead of the Conservative Party, with longtime Vancouver East MP Libby Davies the target of their attacks. [Liberal Senator Larry] Campbell began his speech with strong praise for Davies, calling her “a friend,” and said he wouldn’t be campaigning against her if she was running for any other party.

Former COPE mayor Larry Campbell is the new definition of sellout. His attack on Libby Davies is shameful. But Senator Campbell doesn't have to worry about getting elected again. And a Liberal government would ensure that he continues to have job security. So his negative campaigning won't hurt him. But I hope this anti-NDP message really backfires on whoever the Liberal candidate is in East Van and he loses by an even larger margin than he would have before.

More from Rae at the rally:

He continued with strong rhetoric against the NDP, saying “the NDP has defeated all the progressive measures that we introduced in government...”

So, then... the Liberals defeated progressive measures in the last parliament (like anti-scab legislation) as a clever way to get back at the NDP? Ahhh. I totally get it now. Well played Liberal Party.

But seriously, this is getting ridiculous. The Liberals had government after government to deliver on child care, the environment and all the other things that they claim the NDP "defeated". Instead Liberal governments broke their election promises and embroiled themselves in scandal. That is what brought them down. Period.

I have heard enough Liberal BS about how we need them to stop Harper. If Martha Hall Findlay or Bob Rae or some other Liberal from Ontario comes to my door in East Vancouver to tell me that "progressives need to stick together, so vote Liberal blablabla", this is pretty much the gist of what I will be telling them:

Where I live, voting NDP not only beats a Conservative, but it elects a strong New Democrat who gives me and my fellow East Van residents a real voice against Stephen Harper and his Conservatives, unlike a Liberal MP who would have abstained or voted with Harper when it really counted in the last parliament.

In fact my New Democrat MP, Libby Davies, has been a strong voice against the last decade of regressive governments. She stood up to Liberal governments while they gave tax cuts to corporate Canada for years on the backs of students, and middle and low-income families. She has demanded that both Conservative and Liberal governments enforce the Canada Health Act instead of allowing private clinics to erode our universal health care system. She fought for same-sex marriage against Conservatives and socially conservative Liberals long before it was made law. And she has spent most of her career bringing much needed attention to the growing crisis in the Downtown Eastside.

Libby Davies is never going to be a Liberal MP because with her experience, she is in an even better position than most to call BS on Stephane Dion and the so-called Liberal 'dream team' (puke) when they claim that only the Liberals can deliver the change that progressive Canadians are calling for. Libby Davies seems to know that only a New Democratic government will do that.

And Libby isn't the only one. She is one of hundreds of New Democrats running to represent Canadians in an NDP government. New Democrats who have witnessed the Liberals either breaking their election promises while in government, or letting Harper get away with $50 billion in corporate tax cuts (and much more). When elected, Jack Layton and these hundreds of New Democrats, like Libby Davies, will bring forward progressive policies to solve our economic and environmental challenges (like they always have) and shape a country fit for future generations of Canadians.

Because of how low the Liberals seem to be willing to stoop with their smear campaigns, these New Democrats are putting themselves and their families in harm's way just to tell their communities what a government led by Jack Layton has to offer.

Every single one of these New Democrats deserves the vote of Canadians who are fed up with Stephen Harper and want real change.

Led by Jack Layton, a New Democratic government will change the way that politics are done in Canada and take measures to ensure that all Canadians make it through the tough economic road ahead. That is something that no other party can promise with any credibility.

So, no matter where I lived in Canada, no matter what riding, I would be putting my vote towards achieving a New Democratic government. Because 'not being Stephen Harper', does not qualify someone to be Prime Minister. And because after Liberal governments have gotten us into most of the crises we now face, why would we trust them to get us out?

Besides, raise your hand if you really believe that Stephane Dion is in any position to stop Stephen Harper?

(crickets)

How far into that speech do you think I would get before Martha and Bob would mark me down as 'not voting Liberal' and take off?

Internet sleuthery claims another victim

2008-09-23T16:47:00.000-07:00

Crazy (but not unpredictably so) how much the internet has impacted candidates in this election.

Just today, another candidate, this time a Liberal, is being burned by information dug up on the web. Apparently the Liberal candidate for Winnipeg Centre, Daniel Hurley, billed election expenses to Canadian taxpayers to the tune of $1,547.56 in the 2005/06 election.

Stephen Taylor deserves a lot of credit for this one. He weaves together news items and expense claims that he found on the internet to prove that Hurley (Stephane Dion's chief of staff at the time) traveled with Dion to Edmonton for the purposes of electioneering, and then filed an expense claim for the trip with Environment Canada. Included in the claim was $166.60 for meals. For two days. No Harvey's or Timmy Ho's for this Liberal.

This newest scandal is not as immediately intriguing as some of the others, but it's probably more shameful. I mean, this heightened-sense-of-entitlement Liberal thought that Canadians should pay for his Liberal campaigning. Somebody should have explained to Hurley prior to the 2005/06 election that "the Natural Governing Party" is just what Liberals call themselves. It's not actually true. There are still elections, and those elections are supposed to be fair.

But this candidate's misuse of government funds likely won't get the same level of coverage that other candidates got for say, smoking pot. I guess it's lacking the web 2.0 angle...maybe if there was a YouTube video of Hurley submitting the expense claim, this story might take off.

Things that make me happy to be a New Democrat today

2008-09-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

Nanos poll:

Conservative Party 35% (-1)
Liberal Party 30% (-1)
NDP 22% (+2)
BQ 7% (NC)
Green Party 6% (-1)
Undecided 18% (-1)

It's not so much the numbers themselves as it is the trend. According to Nanos polling (the same Nanos who projected the popular vote to within 0.1% in 2006), the NDP is on the rise. Notice the upward slope. I'm trying not to pay too much attention to polls in this election, because there are so many of them (and some of them are all over the place), but it's hard not to take the Nanos polls seriously.

Bill Blaikie:

Great piece written by Blaikie in the Globe today on the toxic environment in the HoC. Here is an excerpt:

I have always been proud of the role and the behavior of the NDP in the House of Commons. Sure, we have had the odd louder-than-appropriate voice in our corner of the House, and the odd unparliamentary incident, usually driven by rage at some form of government inaction. But my memory of my life in the NDP corner will primarily be one of trying to raise important issues while the Liberals and Conservatives, aided by the fatal attraction of the media, preferred to spend their parliamentary time debating who among them was the least corrupt.

He will be missed.

The Absent Liberals:

Hilarious that there is now a resource for Canadians to watch every vote from the last parliament where the Liberals enabled the Harper agenda. The votes where the Liberal benches are empty are my favourite. Like this one:

This is the best use of CPAC footage that I have seen in a while.

And of course, Jack Layton:

His leadership numbers are great (well above Stephane Dion's, of course) and he is in Hamilton today announcing New Democrat trade policies:

Renegotiating NAFTA chapter 6- which right now limits Canada’s control over our own energy resources;

and NAFTA chapter 11- which currently allows foreign investors to challenge Canada’s right to make laws to protect our interests.

Correcting NAFTA’s deeply flawed dispute resolution mechanisms.

Requiring strong labour and environmental standards in every trade deal Canada signs.

Exploring opportunities for a model fair-trade deal with the European Union.

Jack's performance in this election has been spectacular. He has a clear message on the issues that matter, he stands as a strong contrast to Stephen Harper, and he's been handling the crap that the Liberals throw at him like a champ. I'm a very proud New Democrat with Jack Layton as our leader.

Week Two in Quotes

2008-09-21T23:51:00.000-07:00

I know some of you were eagerly anticipating the week's review in videos again but I thought I would disappoint you all and mix it up a little instead. Really, I just thought that some of the quotes this week were worth reflecting upon and I didn't want to have to make them all into home-made videos. So here are my faves.

Best Jack Layton quote this week:

The troubles in the financial markets “are the clearest possible warning that the North American economies under Conservative governments, both in Canada and the United States, are on the wrong track,” said the NDP Leader.

“Conservative governments don't do their jobs. They don't keep their eyes on the stock promoters and the bond sellers and the mortgage brokers and bankers. Today, we see the results.”
-Globe and Mail, September 16,2008

He gets it.

In stark contrast, we have someone who either doesn't get it or has internal polling that shows that Canadians don't trust a Conservative government to look after their interests during a recession:

"There are and there will be difficulties in the world economy. At the same time, Canada is not in the same situation as the United States. My own belief is if we were going to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now."
- Stephen Harper, CBC, September 15, 2008

This is the scariest thing that Harper has said in a while (although "do you like handcuffs?" was kinda creepy).

Gilles Duceppe, in response to more ex-bloquistes coming out about the Bloc's irrelevance:

"People say that during every campaign, and every campaign Quebecers give us a majority," Duceppe said as he toured northwestern Quebec on the federal election campaign trail."And it will be the same this time as well."
-CBC News, September 15, 2008

Somebody's a touch on the complacent side. I hope Quebecers kick his ass into retirement for that remark.

Elizabeth May on the campaign support she is getting from her coalition partners:

Young Liberal Carmen Cipolla admits to feeling a bit of "discomfort" as he walks the streets of Antigonish in hopes of converting party loyalists to the cause of Green Leader Elizabeth May...

"He's fabulous. These young Liberals are very idealistic," May says of her temporary convert.
Cipolla - a leader of the St. Francis Xavier University Liberal Society - decided to work for the Greens after May and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion struck a deal not to run candidates in each other's riding-The Canadian Press, September 18, 2008

Young Liberals everywhere are likely cringing at the idea of the leader of the Green Party calling them "idealistic."

And from the media. Just a couple of items because it's getting late. Feel free to add your own favourites in the comments section.

I am tempted to paste the entire Randall Denley article here but I won't. Here's a quote that summarizes it:

One might reasonably ask what, other than habit, makes the Liberals the automatic alternative to the Conservatives. After all their years in government, the Liberals still retain an aura of credibility -- but is it deserved?
-Ottawa Citizen, September 16, 2008

Go read the whole article if you haven't already.

From the Maclean's blogs:

"Glen McGregor pointed this out to me today, a new Liberal spot. Is this the worst political ad ever made?"
-Maclean's Andrew Potter on the new Liberal ad entitled, Liberal Leadership (September 20, 2008)

Yes, it is the worst political ad ever made. It makes you feel uncomfortable for Dion while you are watching it. This ad makes Dion look like such a flaming nerd that it has me feeling really really bad for ragging on him now. Puts me in a terrible moral predicament. I'm really annoyed with the Liberal Party over this.

But the most memorable quotes of the week were ones that the quoted thought were buried.

Who can forget Gerry Ritz' comedy routine:

During a conference call with scientists, bureaucrats and political staff on Aug. 30, Ritz made several off-colour jokes about the outbreak.

After fretting about the political dangers of the Listeria scare, Ritz quipped: "This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts."
Then when told of a death in Prince Edward Island, Ritz said, "Please tell me it's (Liberal MP) Wayne Easter."
-CTV.ca, September 17, 2008

That still grosses me out. Days later.

Then we have the wacko Conservative candidate from Toronto who resigned on Sunday. He thought he could hide all sorts of disgusting comments he made on his blog by making it "members only". Yay for google cache! I'm not going to post his comments but you can find the worst ones and the links to the caches here.

And for my patient readers who just wanted some video, here's one that is fairly amusing (quite amusing if you are a B-star G. geek like myself). It's called 'Harper is a Cylon':

h/t: Troy's Scribbles

Liberals team up with leader of Marijuana Party to reach new lows

2008-09-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

They must be getting pretty scared and desperate over at Team Liberal. They have obviously let the bottom-feeders in the Liberal war room out to play.

In a desperate move to distract the public from Dion's lack of leadership and his flip-flop on the Green Shift, the Liberals issued a press release accusing the NDP of having a secret deal with the Marijuana Party.

The accusation is of course, ridiculous. The NDP's (very appropriate) response was:

"This is pure fantasy," campaign spokesman Brad Lavigne said. "The New Democratic Party has made no such deal with any other party or with any individual ... This is nonsense, absolute nonsense." -CTV.ca, Sept 20, 2008

I applaud Lavigne's restraint. My reaction would have been something like "What the @$#% have they been smoking over there?"

Just because Dion and the Liberal Party need to form coalitions with fringe parties to get elected, doesn't mean the NDP does as well.

And before they started throwing around accusations, the Liberals really should have made sure that their asses were covered on this issue.

From ndp.ca:

The Dion Liberals just issued a press release entitled “Layton must come clean on Marijuana Party deal”. The same release, word for word, could have been issued raising questions of the Dion Liberals and their ties to the Marijuana Party.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has not “come clean” with Canadians about the terms of his deal with the former Marijuana Party Marc-Boris St-Maurice.

The former leader of the Marijuana Party, who ran against Prime Minister Paul Martin in the 2004 general election, quit and joined the Liberals in 2005.

“I believe that if any party will ever legalize marijuana in Canada, it is the Liberals," St-Maurice said in a statement, “And I hope to bring my knowledge and expertise on this issue to help the Liberal Party develop new policies, programs and legislation which address the marijuana situation.”
(CBC.ca , February 28, 2005)

St-Maurice also donated $1000 to Stephane Dion’s leadership campaign. SOURCE

Zing.

Aside from the blatant hypocrisy on the part of the Liberal Party, this whole thing is just bizarre.

I mean, they are attacking the NDP on marijuana? Really? There's no story here. There are no secrets. The NDP isn't hiding anything. The NDP policy on the decriminalization (not the same as legalization btw) of marijuana has been publicly available since it passed at one of our conventions (cannot recall which one). New Democrats, and a vast number of Canadians, don't think it's right that people should go to jail with gang-bangers and hardened criminals for smoking pot.

There are serious criminals out there (ENTER cocaine smuggler who supported Dion's leadership...double zing) who the police need to be able to focus on. I live in East Vancouver where my car gets broken into at least once a week (not an exaggeration unfortunately). I want the police after those people rather than some hippies who get together to smoke pot and listen to Grateful Dead records.

As for Dana Larsen and Kirk Tousaw, they deserve a lot of credit for stepping down as candidates to avoid doing what Marc Emery and the Liberal Party are doing now: sensationalizing the marijuana issue during a federal election to take attention away from issues that Canadians are actually concerned with.

While Canadians are deeply concerned about our economic and environmental future, they are not listing marijuana policy as one of their top vote-determining issues. But Marc Emery, leader of the Marijuana Party, desperately wants their attention. So, Emery the pot crusader teamed up with the Liberals to concoct wild stories about make-believe pacts with Jack Layton. Lay off the hallucinogens buddy.

NDP candidate gets creative

2008-09-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

NDP candidate in Don Valley West, David Sparrow (no relation to the ill-fated Sparrow) put together some videos.

They're cute. I like 'em.

Awaiting the launch of notanenvironmentalist.ca

2008-09-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

Hmm...

So if he's not a leader, can't/won't take on Harper, and he's not actually a green crusader....

what exactly does Stephane Dion have to offer?

Liberal candidate wants to drill off B.C.'s coast

2008-09-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

In a recent radio interview with CHNL in Kamloops, the Liberal candidate in Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo, Ken Sommerfeld gave a big 'thumbs up' to lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling off the west coast. He actually said that it was a "good idea."

Easy for him to say from Kamloops.

Here is a clip from the interview contained in a video made by yours truly (it would have been too boring to post the clip on its own):

After the radio interview, Sommerfeld spoke to the Kamloops Daily News further indicating his support for offshore drilling.

The Kamloops Daily News does not keep their articles up on their website longer than a day. But here is the text of the article on Summerfeld that was published in the Kamloops paper on Wednesday, September 17th:

Offshore drilling supportable: Sommerfeld

Lifting a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling in West Coast waters would not be inconsistent with the Liberal Green Shift, the party’s local candidate said Tuesday.

Ken Sommerfeld said B.C. should be able to develop its offshore oil and gas reserves just as Alberta can exploit the oil sands.

He made the comment in an interview on CHNL radio, responding to a question from a caller: Would you favour drilling off the West Coast if it were possible?

“If it’s possible to do it, I would support it,” Sommerfeld later told The Daily News. “I don’t think the moratorium on economic activity is the way to move forward at this point.”

Offshore drilling takes place around the world, he noted. If it can be done safely and in an ecologically sound manner, then why not?

“It has to be ecologically sustainable,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to suggest we should move in and start drilling willy-nilly.”

The NDP’s Michael Crawford wondered how drilling offshore could be compatible with the Green Shift.

“Is this the shift or are we getting the shift?” he asked. “It looks shifty to me.”

Crawford said federal Liberals have stated in the past they will respect the moratorium, however the party’s official stand is unclear.

“We’re really clear: We’re not going to drill off the West Coast,”

Crawford said. “It would produce terrible environmental degradation,”

he said. “It doesn’t make any sense to us.”

Sommerfeld maintained that the Green Shift doesn’t seek to restrict fossil fuel use. Instead the plan proposes to tax fuels at the source and channel revenues into conversion to cleaner technologies.
The B.C. government began lobbying for the moratorium to be lifted when the Liberals still governed in Ottawa and renewed its efforts when the Conservatives attained power.

So just what is the Liberal policy on offshore drilling?

You're goin' down Cherniak

2008-09-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

Check your facts!

Jason Cherniak just reported that the NDP has an anti-semitic candidate by the name of Stacey Douglas. It's obvious that Cherniak salivates over every negative rumour that comes out about the NDP, but he should really do more diligent fact-checking before he hits the "publish" button. Especially when his only source is another hyper-partisan Liberal blogger.

The actual NDP candidate for Scarborough-Agincourt was nominated last night. His name is Simon Dougherty and he was uncontested. (I bet as soon as he realizes his mistake Cherniak will be madly googling poor Dougherty)

Ha. This totally made my day.

UPDATE

Here are screenshots of the post in case Cherniak deletes it:

Cherniak needs to either get rid of this post or explain why he posts things that aren't factually accurate.

UPDATE 2

Cherniak has taken it down. But here is a screenshot of the post in the feed on Proggressive Bloggers. Go vote for it!

UPDATE 3- By special request

So if you look in the comments, you will see that Cherniak has reposted his defammatory post and requested that I update as well. I will indulge him. Sorry I did not update as soon as you posted your update Jason, but I couldn't stay home watching your blog and hitting the refresh button every few seconds, as I had an energizing Jack Layton event in Vancouver to go to.

Here is the link to the Elections Canada site where you can see who the confirmed candidates are. If you download the list, you will see that Dougherty is listed as the NDP candidate for Scarborough-Agincourt. Just a tip: until they are posted on this list (not too hard to find btw- surprised that you didn't locate it yourself), or another official-type list, people should not be reported as candidates unless you were at the nomination meeting to witness their candidacy yourself. But thank you for letting us all know that someone else got it wrong too. That's much better than say, apologizing.

UPDATE 4- Now I am annoyed

Jason Cherniak is a child. He has now changed the name of his post to read "NDP fired candidate who was anti-Israel." No apology for getting it wrong or leaving his smear up for a whole day. And he has left the body of the post intact so now it seems like the NDP went and fired her yesterday (not the case). On top of this he has changed the date and time of his original post. Somebody is trying to get to the top of the feed readers. Tsk.

Conservative candidate off message on Afghanistan

2008-09-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Conservative candidate (and former MP) John Duncan, from Vancouver Island North, doesn't seem to agree with Harper's announcement that a Conservative government will withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2011.

The Comox Valley Record reports on a news conference that Duncan held on Friday, September 12 (two days after Harper's announcement):

He also responded to questions about controversy caused by Conservative leader Stephen Harper’s statement that the Canadian Forces would finish their combat role in Afghanistan by 2011. It stirred the ire of one parent, whose son was killed while serving overseas.

When asked what his position is on the CF’s continued role in Afghanistan, Duncan said he simply couldn’t say right now.

“To predict in 2008 what we might do in two years is too early ... to say definitely what we would do,” said Duncan.

I wonder how other Conservatives feel about Harper's new withdrawal date.

Harper probably has a tighter leash on the rest of the Conservative candidates but we can easily guess what they think based on previous comments. Here's one example:

Conservative MP Russ Hiebert, parliamentary secretary to Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, said “artificial deadlines” for a troop withdrawal would “let down our allies.”

“Is that the legacy we want to have for our Afghanistan mission, that we did not get the job done? Setting a deadline for the Canadian Forces to withdraw right now would send a clear and dangerous signal to the Taliban. For the sake of the Afghans, our mission cannot be measured simply by the number of years or months we have invested." -Toronto Star, April 20, 2007

There are countless other examples of Conservative MPs saying that we cannot just "cut and run" if you go looking for them. Any regular QP watchers will recall that that has been their standard line for any MP who deigned to question them on an exit strategy. Paul Wells featured a research quiz last week and readers left tons of "we cannot cut and run" quotes in the comments section.

I don't buy for a second that Harper, if re-elected, will withdraw in 2011. Even if he does, the cost of this war is already unacceptable. From the Gazette today:

The Afghan war is going to end up costing the Defence Department more than $22 billion, both in actual money spent on the mission and future payments to rebuild equipment and provide long-term care for veterans, a military conference heard Wednesday.

And Harper would have us believe that he is the only one who can save us from economic doom. Without his $50 billion in corporate tax cuts and his costly war, we could have been in a much stronger position to weather the economic storm that is coming. We could have invested in health care, the green economy, child care...The list of things we could have done with $72 billion is long.

When the numbers on Afghanistan come out, I think Harper might have a harder time selling himself as a responsible spender.

UPDATE

Looks like there are other Conservative candidates having problem with the Tory message box. This time on the economy. Jerad Gallinger posts on candidate Gerry Labelle:

In an interview today with Radio-Canada, Conservative candidate Gerry Labelle blasted the Harper economic record, stating that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s attitude toward Ontario has been “horrible.”

“That’s not how you do things,” he said, referring to Minister Flaherty’s statement earlier this year that Ontario is the “last place” in Canada businesses should invest.

“It’s the federal government, so you’re not supposed to have favourite provinces, you treat everyone equally,” continued Mr. Labelle.

Labelle also characterized his party’s environmental plan as “insufficient” and said about the Tories’ recent cuts to cultural programs that, “If there is a fault that I think the Conservatives have, it’s that they explain things poorly.”

Happy Birthday, Liberal Plane!

2008-09-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

Ok this is hilarious.

From ndp.ca:

29 years ago today the Liberal Plane came into the world. Taking its first flight on September 18, 1979. SOURCE
Let’s look back to that day:

Canadian families gathered around their TVs to enjoyKing of Kensington, Mork & Mindy and to get the nightly news from Knowlton Nash and Lloyd Robertson (some things never change).
And what news it was! The Iranian Revolution. The Fall of Pol Pot. Margaret Thatcher wins election and Ronald Reagan begins his long shot bid to become President of the United States. In our own backyard Prime Minister Joe Clark struggled to make his minority government work and a chastened Pierre Trudeau announced his resignation.
Stephen Harper was 20. Stephane Dion was 24. Jack Layton was 29. Nathan Cullen was 5. Craig Oliver was 41.
The world wide web, Britney Spears, compact discs, Sidney Crosby, VHS, the Canada Health Act, and Motley Crue did not exist.
Over those 29 years the Liberal Plane has lived a lot: 22 years in the Persian Gulf, a stint with Federal Express and, in recent years, working with Air Inuit.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIBERAL PLANE!

When Harper sets a tone...

2008-09-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

It is with shock, but not really disbelief, that I found myself reacting to the news of Agricultural Minister Gerry Ritz' vile jokes about listeria deaths. It's a sad day in Canadian politics when we find out that this is how our government handles a tragic crisis:

During a conference call with scientists, bureaucrats and political staff on Aug. 30, Ritz made several off-colour jokes about the outbreak.

After fretting about the political dangers of the Listeria scare, Ritz quipped: "This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts."

Then when told of a death in Prince Edward Island, Ritz said, "Please tell me it's (Liberal MP) Wayne Easter."

Easter is the Liberal agriculture critic and has called for Ritz's resignation over his handling of the outbreak, which was linked to a Maple Leaf Foods meat processing plant north of Toronto.

I wonder, does Harper "set the tone" for his cabinet ministers too?

Green Party platform snubs PR

2008-09-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

Just perusing through the Green party platform today and there seemed to be a few things missing.

First, there was nothing really credible on health care. It is one of Canadians' top three issues and the Green plan really showcases their inexperience and lack of understanding on this file. There was not one mention of how to address the shortage of family doctors- the problem that many Canadian health care woes stem from.

But there was an even more peculiar ommission.

The Greens say that one of their three main principles is "grassroots democracy" but nowhere in their platform do they mention electoral reform. Could it be that they have given up on fighting for proportional representation? If they haven't given up on PR, they have at least moved it so far back that it gets no mention in the eight-page document. Even their plan to raise the GST gets a mention.

A few words that do feature prominently throught the platform: Green tax Shift.

Yup. It's looking more and more like May and the Green Party are committed to their coalition with the Liberal party in a long-term kind of way. It seems like less of a Liberal/Green love affair and more like an engagement. I wonder when the wedding is. Day before E-day perhaps?

I also wonder how the Green Party base feels about all of this. Not the members who have caught a whiff of relevance and are now robotically loyal (even when May makes anti-choice comments). But I wonder about the people who were there before Elizabeth May. The people who have worked tirelessly election after election to bring democratic reform to the forefront. I want to know how they feel.

An economic critique from one of the same protesters that Harper gets every election

2008-09-17T02:22:00.000-07:00

First of all, a big 'right on' to the brothers and sisters who went out to protest Harper. Good to see that CAW members are not taking these layoffs sitting down. And good tour event for Jack Layton.

I'm so inspired that I'm going to take a page out of Jack's book and take Harper on on the economy myself. Conservatives think that they can hit the panic button in a time of economic crisis and call all other people fiscally irresponsible and we are just supposed buy that. Harper wants us to believe that since he and his friends all look like a bunch of bankers, that they are unquestionably the best equipped to manage the economy.

It's late as I write, so I will keep this short, but here are a couple of points that I have to make on the subject before I can sleep tonight (new levels of nerdiness, I know). I will leave it to you readers to comment with other examples of Conservative mismanagement.

Point #1. Harper's record is not super. A recent study by economist Jim Stanford done for the CCPA shows that "the Harper government has become the first elected federal administration to experience a decline in average national productivity during its entire term in office since Statistics Canada began gathering productivity data in 1961." The study points to three major reasons for the decline:

1. The energy and commodity boom, which has undermined productivity in resource industries by luring companies to exploit increasingly marginal deposits.
2. The negative impact of the high Canadian dollar (which tends to follow oil prices) on high-productivity manufacturing jobs.
3. The importance of low-productivity service sectors (such as retail and hospitality) in new job creation. These are the only sectors relatively immune from the negative effects of the high dollar.

“We’ve had three strikes against our national productivity, and they’re all related to the Harper government’s acceptance of Canada’s new status as an energy ‘superpower.’ By endorsing the high dollar and abandoning Canadian manufacturing, this government has done more damage to our national productivity than any other government in our postwar history,” Stanford concludes.

Point#2- Stephen Harper spends like a drunken sailor when it comes to dishing out to his friends. Harper gave away $50 billion in the form of corporate tax cuts. $50 billion. Here are a couple of interesting posts from The Progressive Economics Forum about the cost of Conservative tax cuts. In discussing the tax cuts for 2006 and 2007 alone, Erin Weir points out that:

Had the federal government not adopted these tax cuts, it could instead have doubled its support for healthcare, post-secondary education, and social assistance. This point would be worth remembering next time someone claims that medicare is inherently unsustainable.

Point #3- Stephen Harper resorts to gimmicks instead of revealing a real plan. From a great article in the Ottawa Citizen (featured in my earlier post):

Yesterday, Harper said that Layton's plan to expand medical schools was unaffordable, but the cost is $200 million a year. Harper is prepared to spend $600 million a year to reduce the price of diesel and aviation fuels by two cents a litre. Which plan offers the bigger benefit to Canadians? Layton also wants to forgive the student loans of doctors who choose the vital, but less remunerative, area of family medicine. It's the sort of incentive that should have already been enacted by a thinking Conservative government.

Now, Harper has promised $750 to first-time home-buyers. Since there were an estimated 30o,ooo first-time home-buyers last year, Harper's plan works out to $225 million a year. More than Layton's health proposal and arguably not as useful; the decline of the manufacturing sector, and the effect that it has on other Canadian jobs, has placed and will continue to place a large segment of potential first-time home-buyers in a financial situation that frankly, $750 isn't going to do much for. People need to be able to afford to buy a home before they can reap the benefits of a tax credit.

Bottom line is that people need jobs, and we need a plan to create sustainable jobs to weather this storm. Not a bunch of gimmicky tax cuts.

Canadians need real economic leadership and I only see it coming from one place.

Dion's plane is down...but he might make it on the news tonight

2008-09-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

Stéphane Dion's campaign plane, a headache from the start, had to stop for an emergency landing in Montreal Tuesday night when a generator lost power.
-Globe and Mail September 16, 2008 at 9:21 PM EDT

Not such a clever joke now, is it LiberalTour?

Tough day to be a Liberal. After a couple days of the Liberal message being sidelined because the big story on the Liberals is that they aren't really very interesting, their gas guzzling jalopy of a plane breaks down.

But on the plus side, this will likely get Dion a TV spot today. And as Liberal bloggers are pointing out, Dion needs all the help he can get.

Impolitical writes about yesterday's CTV broadcast

Well, in an interesting development from CTV, they decided that when presenting their overview of all the campaigns on the national broadcast tonight to cover Harper, Layton & Duceppe and then take a commercial break. Then they did a piece on the Liberals later on at about the 18 minute mark in. So in effect, people might have been left wondering...well, what about the Liberal campaign today? Anyone who turned off the set after seeing coverage of the first three campaigns would have missed the coverage of the Liberal day. They might have thought that's all there was. Intriguing news management by CTV.

That's not "intriguing news management" that's just how the media treats the fourth party. Get used to it.

Best. news article. ever.

2008-09-16T16:53:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read Randall Denley's article in the Ottawa Citizen entitled:

There's more to this election than Conservatives and Liberals

yet, go read it. I've never seen a journalist stand up to the established order of things like this. The tide must be turning, winds of change blablabla... But seriously, I think I am going to frame this story.

Here are my favourite snippets:

It's early in the campaign, but neither Dion nor his Green Shift policy seem to be registering with Canadians. If the Liberal leader can't show some sign of life in the polls, this election will be about choosing the next official Opposition. The NDP's credentials there are arguably stronger than the Liberals'...

and

One might reasonably ask what, other than habit, makes the Liberals the automatic alternative to the Conservatives. After all their years in government, the Liberals still retain an aura of credibility -- but is it deserved?
The Paul Martin era, brief though it was, squandered the image Liberals had spent more than a decade building up. Their tough money guy turned out to be a woolly-headed ditherer. Then the Liberals amazed the public, and probably themselves, by choosing as leader the candidate who was the fourth-most electable on their slim list. They topped that with the Green Shift, a policy that is not entirely without merit, but also one that is pretty nearly impossible for their candidates to explain and for the public to understand. Why does all of this guarantee the Liberals at least a second place finish?
Voters who do not support the Conservatives need to ask themselves what they want to achieve in this election. At a minimum, it has to be an opposition that will do its job and effectively critique Conservative policies.
That's a tough one for the Liberals. As the official Opposition, the Liberals were pushed around by the Conservatives, either voting with them or not showing up for crucial votes.

Great analysis. I wholeheartedly agree. For a detailed look at what Denley is talking about in terms of the Liberals' job in opposition, I will refer you to my earlier post. Enjoy.

Paranoia hits the Liberal camp. Hard.

2008-09-15T21:45:00.000-07:00

Jason Cherniak should not be sharing his drugs with Stephane Dion. It's bad enough to have a severely paranoid Liblogger making videos about a supposed Layton-Harper partnership (three versions even...all posted to his blog- I said I wouldn't link to it but I'm doing it). But now Dion has jumped on the crazy train to conspiracy-theory-land.

What kind of Liberal arrogance makes a person forget that he and his Liberal caucus sat through the last parliament and not only allowed the Harper agenda to become a reality, but actually assisted it vote after vote? I love how Liberals act like what they do while they are in parliament is somehow less important what they say they want to do in parliament during an election.

But Dion is not getting away with it. No. Not on this blog. With very little digging I found this handy-dandy list of Liberal accomplishments in the last parliament (thank you ndp.ca):

Harper’s agenda: Kill NDP motion to ban cosmetic pesticides
Liberals helped by: Voting with Harper (16 May 2006)

Harper’s agenda: Extend the combat mission in Afghanistan from 2007 until 2009
Liberals helped by: Voting with Harper (17 May 2006)

Harper’s agenda: Permit replacement workers in federal workplaces
Liberals helped by: Voting with Harper (21 March 2007)

Harper’s agenda: Kill NDP motion for withdrawal from combat mission in Afghanistan
Liberals helped by: Voting with Harper. (30 April 2007)

Harper’s agenda: Kill NDP motion to restart study of electoral reform
Liberals helped by: Voting with Harper (2 May 2007)

Harper’s agenda: End Canada’s involvement in Kyoto
Liberals helped by: Abstaining (24 October 2007)

Harper’s agenda: Cut $5.3 billion a year from public services
Liberals helped by: Abstaining (31 October 2007)

Harper’s agenda: Stop a package to help the ailing manufacturing and forestry sector
Liberals helped by: Abstaining (14 November 2007)

Harper’s agenda: Put $50.5 billion in giveaways to profitable corporations ahead of child care, poverty alleviation and First Nations
Liberals helped by: Abstaining four times (4, 10 and 13 December 2007)

Harper’s agenda: Reinstate "security certificates" opposed by human rights advocates
Liberals helped by: Voting with Harper (6 February 2008)

Harper’s agenda: Link passage of crime bills to confidence in the government
Liberals helped by: Abstained (12 February 2008)

Harper’s agenda: Get his third budget passed. A budget that doesn't offer a cent for child care or skyrocketing drug costs, but steals $55 billion in surplus employee contributions to the Employment Insurance fund.
Liberals helped by: Ordering all but 10 MPs to abstain from the vote (4 March 2008)

Harper’s agenda: Stay in power by defeating a NDP non-confidence motion criticizing the Conservatives for rejecting an all-party bill that environmental groups called the "breakthrough bill" to tackle climate change.
Liberals helped by: Abstaining (10 March 2008)

Harper’s agenda: Extend Canada’s military role in Afghanistan until 2011
Liberals helped by: Negotiating an extention to the mission and then voting with Harper on it (13 March 2008)

Harper’s agenda: Kill a Liberal bill to give a $5,000 tax deduction to parents who save for their children's education.
Liberals helped by: Abstaining from the vote (13 March 2008)

Harper’s agenda: Stay in power by defeating a NDP non-confidence motion against the decision to give a massive $50.5 billion tax break to profitable corporations while ordinary people pay a greater share of taxes.
Liberals helped by: Voting with Harper (2 April 2008)

Harper’s agenda: Defeat an NDP motion to stop changes to the Immigration Act giving the minister authority to treat immigration applicants unfairly.
Liberals helped by: Voting with Harper (9 April 2008)

Harper’s agenda: Pass S-203, a weak animal cruelty law that critics say will let animal abusers walk free.
Liberals helped by: Voting with Harper (9 April 2008)

Who's the real Harper-helper? Hmmm? (and who's the master of alliteration?)

Liberals have been whining since they lost in 2006 about all the things Paul Martin could have done had he just had more time in government. In fact, the Liberals I know have been insufferable with that line to the point that I wonder if they have all been centrally programmed to deliver the Liberal messaging anytime anyone mentions the NDP or Jack Layton. Anyways, the point is that Paul Martin had control over this country's finances for more than a decade and failed to deliver on his promises parliament after parliament. Jack stood up to the Liberals and told it like it was in the 2006 election. He didn't tell people to vote Conservative. The Liberals and their history of corruption and inaction sent their voters running all on their own.

The least the Liberals could have done was suck it up after they lost and tried to do their job as Official Opposition. Instead they let Harper walk all over them while the NDP was left, often on their own, standing up to the Conservatives on the issues that Liberals are supposed to care about.

Now that its vote-getting time, Dion is talking about the need for people to unite against Harper. Liberals still seem to think that scaring progressive Canadians into holding their nose and voting Liberal is a sure-fire way to get more Liberal votes. Even after they tried it and had only marginal success in 2006. Maybe it will work for them. But the polls don't show it working all that well. Probably because many progressive Canadians are tired of just being "anti-Harper." We want to vote for something.

Besides, people are figuring out that strategically voting for the Liberals is the best way to elect Conservatives in many ridings. And as the voters of Vancouver-Kingsway found out the hard way, even if you do elect a Liberal in your riding, you really can't be sure of what you are getting.

Week One in videos

2008-09-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

Lots of good video available online nowadays. I'm almost ready to say goodbye to cable once and for all.

Here is a roundup of my favourite videos of the week. No Jason Cherniak, your weird home-made conspiracy theory video set to the theme song from the X-Files did not make the cut. I'm not even going to link to it. (Note to readers : if you google it anyways, prepare to be freaked out in a way that he probably did not intend.)

Looks like CTV's Rosemary Thompson and I have the same take on the emergence of Liberal protesters at NDP events. In this clip, she reports on the NDP rally in Toronto on Saturday and the appearance of Liberal protesters. She notes that with the New Democrats gaining on them in the polls, the Liberals may have to worry about holding onto their Official Opposition status. Protesting NDP events is evidence that they are indeed worried. Keep up the good work Young Liberals who thought you were being so clever.

Also on CTV, Jack Layton's TO rally speech. It's a gooder.

Abbreviated awesome version:

I of course love the NDP ads. Whoever made them is wicked creative. They are the most refreshing negative political ads I've ever seen (not just because they are about Stephen Harper):

Ok. I admit it. The Harper-hancuffs video is pretty funny:

But Harper's people shooing away the media- while they were rolling- is pretty funny too:

And of course the star video of the week:

Meanwhile, I can't find a good video featuring Stephane Dion. Likely because the most interesting thing he did all week was get pooped on.

Can't wait for week two. Bring it.

Out with the old

2008-09-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was such a slow news day that I got my new template done. About time. I was getting sick of that old template.

But I haven't yet come up with an accurate way to describe this blog. I'm open to suggestions. Even from all the new Green friends I've made with posts like this and this. It doesn't have to be flattering, or even positive. If it's entertaining enough, I'll use it.

Oh and for those of you who are wondering where the cartoon went: scroll down, way down, keep scrolling...

UPDATE!
The cartoon is back.

A Stephen Harper themed poetry club

2008-09-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

Yes. I'm serious. In honour of Harper's commitment to the arts there is a facebook group called Stephen Harper Poems. The group features a contest that offers $100 for the best Harper poem.

Here's mine:

There once was a guy named Stephen
With artists he would get even
He couldn't dance or sing
So he cut their funding
To lock the hick-vote that he'll be receivin'

I know, I know. It's a stretch. You think it's easy to make rhymes?

Take that VISA!

2008-09-13T00:24:00.000-07:00

I'm going to put my super-partisan hat on and say that I love the affordability stuff that the NDP announced.

The plan calls for:
An end to hidden fees with laws requiring full disclosure of charges by banks, cellphone operators, and other companies, including the unfair practice of charging more for cellphone text messages.
A ban on ATM fees "so you don't have to pay to get your own money," Layton said
A tough price monitoring agency and a fuel prices ombudsman to "stop gas companies from having the arbitrary power to gouge Canadians."
A cap on interest rates and fees charged by "fringe banks" on so-called "payday loans."
A five per cent over prime cap on credit card interest rates

I fantasize about a world where VISA doesn't get to rip me off. Wish Jack could have been Prime Minister before my student years.

VOTE SWAP is a sham

2008-09-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

The Facebook Vote Swap group that is getting all the attention is beyond ridiculous.

I suppose this group has arisen from voters' (especially young voters) frustration over our antiquated electoral system but the only thing less representative than a first-past-the-post system, is an FPTP system that's been $%&@'ed with.

The more people trust this vote swap, the less representative the vote will be. The thing runs on the honour system for christssakes. This is an election people! People are not always honest. Especially people on the internet (see my earlier evidence of this phenomenon).

I'm a pretty honest person (brutally honest usually) and I'm still tempted to scam Liberals out of their votes through this system. But I won't. Because I care too to much about Canadian democracy. And because one look at my facebook profile would probably scare Liberals away anyways.

But I wouldn't put it past those interweb-saavy Tories. They are wily.

And the Greens. This is their big chance. Yesterday, the vote swap group had a list of ridings that needed specific votes. The list told us to vote Green in six ridings where the Greens didn't come in second (and not even third or fourth in most of them) and have no hope of winning. But we were supposed to believe that voting Green there is the best strategy for beating the Conservatives. With strategy like that one wonders if Conservatives aren't behind this thing. That would be a whole new level of wily. FYI- the list is gone now, after I and others made a massive fuss over it. Seriously, your friendly neighbourhood Dipper Chick took on the big bad creator of the group (actually he's very polite- probably a nice guy) and now the list is no more. That's power.

Questionable strategic value aside, the biggest flaw in this vote swap system lies in the group's major premise: that anyone but a Conservative is A-ok. That is one of the biggest fallacies that exists in Canadian politics. Sometimes I wonder if mass amounts of Canadians have sustained head injuries causing severe memory loss and amnesia that have made them forget the right-wing Liberal governments of the 1990's. If so, I am sorry for being so insensitive to your ignorance. But the fact remains- the Liberal Party is not left-wing. They are not the answer to stop all the things you don't like about Harper.

The Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin bled our social services dry causing the crises we have today in health care, post-secondary education, and numerous other important Canadian Institutions that they pretend to care about at election time. They did nothing on the environment, allowing polluting industries to spiral out of control. Many Liberal MPs even voted against same sex marriage. This is not a progressive bunch.

As for the Green Party, they have many conservatives in their ranks. And under Elizabeth May, they have become nothing more than Liberal cheerleaders. But my regular readers already know what I think of May and the Green Party. Here's a treat for those of you who don't.

New Democrats are the only ones who have been consistently progressive. They are the true founders of our universal health care system, they have always defended human rights (even when those rights are unpopular), they stood up to Harper against the mission in Afghanistan when others would not, and they look out for ordinary Canadians. Take note vote swappers who are fed up with our FPTP system- New Democrats are the only party in the HOC pushing for a more representative electoral system.

So when I think about stopping Harper, only one party comes to mind. Makes strategic voting so much simpler.

...but Buckdog might be a martyr

2008-09-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

Check out the Green Party trying to bully Buckdog into removing a post including a video where Elizabeth May appears to say that Canadians are stupid.

What is funny is that others have posted this clip, the video was likely made by a Tory, and Buckdog is the only blogger who is being threatened.

Here's a link to the National Post article on the whole ordeal.

Some are saying that the clip is taken out of context. But here is a transcript that I put together from the original source:

Man asking question: "First of all, if all you seem to agree that the environmental costs need to be internalized and a carbon tax is one way of doing that. Why is there so little political will for a carbon tax? That's the first part."

Radio announcer: "Hang on, let's get an answer to that. Why is there so little political will?"

Elizabeth May: "(inaudible [all the politicians are scared to death]) ...to mention the word tax and they think Canadians are stupid and cannot...and I fundamentally agree with that assessment. But most politicians think that if you say we're going to put on a carbon tax and reduce your income tax, they don't think they can sell it. Its all about votes."

The ending sentence that was cut off in the video was probably cut off because it includes indirect support for the Liberal plan.

I don't think that the context changes a thing.

I'm with you brother Buckdog. Stay strong.

Elizabeth May is no martyr

2008-09-10T20:25:00.000-07:00

After hearing one too many claims that the Elizabeth May and the Green Party are somehow left-wing or close to New Democrats on the political spectrum I'm going to have take a minute (ok several minutes) to debunk that myth once and for all.

The Green Party ^TM

Worse than just a single-issue party, the Green Party is nothing more than a brand name. Kind of like Nike. You want to believe that if you buy brand name running shoes that you will be more fit and look cooler, and that some how they are better than other shoes. But rip off the swoosh and you have an inferior product made by a company with questionable ethics. Branding the Green Party as 'fresh' and 'new' while it is identified, through its name, as an advocate for one of the most topical issues of our time is a marketing ploy. The Liberals have been using their brand name to trick progressive Canadians out of their votes for decades. This tactic is neither 'fresh' nor 'new.'

Back in Realityland the Green Party is a mess of an organization. Because of its lack of defined social principles, the Green Party is home to disaffected protesters from all parties. It is a place where people who are not team players can go to feel like 'big fish' and young rebels can feel uh, rebellious. It may have been about raising issues on the environment in its inception but they have never been as effective at their stated goal as New Democrats have, who are actually running to form government.

David Suzuki was quoted today saying:

“I can't wait until there is no Green Party,” Dr. Suzuki was quoted as telling the Toronto Star.

“As long as there's a Green party, the implication is that the Greens somehow have a stranglehold on this issue; they're the ones that worry about the environment so the other parties can worry about other things. I don't think it's a ghetto subject.”

Elizabeth May is not Progressive

People worry about Harper's hidden agenda or the fact that Dion keeps changing his Green Shift proposal, but May is the sketchiest of all. It's hard to tell what she actually stands for, other than the environment, because she has a different line depending on who she is talking to. She tries to cast herself as more evolved than the old-school politicians, but her backroom shenanigans with Stephane Dion are as old as it gets.

May uses her gender as an issue when it suits her politically but she has slapped women's rights in the face with her anti-choice comments. Her "I don't think a woman has a frivolous right to choose" comment compelled prominent feminists Like Judy Rebick to withdraw their support for her.

She supports Liberals:

But even as Ms. May vehemently denied she is co-operating with the Liberals, an email surfaced showing Ms. May cheering on a Liberal candidate. This morning at 9:19 a.m., Ms. May sent an email to Brent Fullard, the new Liberal candidate in Whitby-Oshawa, Ont., and copied the email to a broad range of reporters and politicians.“I cannot help myself!!! GOOD LUCK BRENT!!!,” writes Ms. May in response to a Liberal press release announcing Mr. Fullard's candidacy.
-Globe and Mail, Monday Sept 8, 2008

Courtesy of Jason Cherniak, we see that Elizabeth May endorsed Liberal candidate, Bryon Wilfert, and that her endorsement is on his campaign literature(!!!):

Her endorsement (highlighted above) reads:

As Executive Director of Sierra Club of Canada, I worked closely with Bryon Wilfert when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment, Stéphane Dion. He was unfailingly helpful in work at the Environment Committee and in work to prepare for the United Nations Climate Conference. Now that I lead a different political party, I am still happy to attest to this commitment.

Elizabeth May
Leader, Green Party of Canada

Imagine being Joe Greencandidate in that riding. Must be rough.

She also tried repeatedly to woo (more) Conservatives to the Green Party. In her attempt to gain entrance into the leaders' debate, May ambulance-chased every rogue MP that surfaced in the last parliament- some of them, deeply conservative.

Former Conservative MP Garth Turner, who campaigned with May in the London by-election, admitted that he had talks with Elizabeth May about joining the Greens before he joined the Liberals.

May proclaimed former long-time Conservative MP Bill Casey, "an honourary Green."

The long and short of it is that May and the Green Party are not progressive, and they are massive hypocrites for trying to wave the flag of democracy over the debate issue. True defenders of democracy don't play games for their own personal gain at the expense of Canadians' right to vote for the candidate and political party of their choice.

Elizabeth May is a severe opportunist and I feel terribly sorry for all those who fall for this highly sophisticated ploy.

Suggested further reading:

-Dan Baril- Former Green Party strategist (also a former Conservative strategist) ripping apart May's reaction to being initially excluded from the debates.
-Mia Rabson from the Winnipeg Free Press on how undemocratic May and her political games are.

UPDATE!!!
Elizabeth May calls Canadians "stupid." Nicely done.

The Debate Debate is over

2008-09-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

I suppose now anyone can scream and holler and monopolize the agenda during an election with their vanity project and effectively bully their way into the national debate. Take note fringe party leaders.

Jack was right to rid the Canadian public of the unnecessary distraction that was Debate Debate 2008 (too cute...I know). Maybe now we can see some media coverage on the issues. That is, until the Conservatives come up with new animals they'd like to see defecate on Stephane Dion.

Jack's facebook popularity on the rise

2008-09-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

Some are saying that New Democrat supporters are upset with Jack about Elizabeth May not being included in the debate. They cite people commenting on his facebook fan page as their reference.

But Jack's facebook popularity has risen substantially in just two days.

According to Pundits' Guide, Jack had 12,613 supporters on September 7th. Just two days later, he now has 14,232 supporters.

News flash to all that fell for the Liberals and Greens pretending to be New Democrats. People on facebook aren't always honest.

Dion doesn't get to bring his personal cheerleader to the debate

2008-09-09T18:30:00.000-07:00

I am so sick of hearing about Elizabeth May and her quest for more media attention. There are pretty clear standards for who is in the national leaders' debate and she doesn't meet them.

The Green Party has never elected a member to parliament. The fact that an opportunistic ejected Liberal MP saw a way to gain some favourable media coverage and used the Green Party to do it does not mean that May belongs in the debate. Blair Wilson could have called himself a Communist, or resurrected the Natural Law Party. That would not then qualify either of those leaders to be in the debate.

As an aside, if I were in the Communist Party (who, interestingly enough, have elected a member to parliament before) or another fringe party, I would take this opportunity to get some media attention by trying to get in on a class action suit with the Greens. It wouldn't be the first time that the fringe parties have banded together- their last class action suit was even filed by the same lawyer that is representing the Greens in their current case.

Miguel Figueroa of the Communist Party, Connie Fogal of Canadian Action and all other fringe party leaders actually have a much stronger argument for being in the debate than Elizabeth May does. That is because there is a much more important reason why Elizabeth May, specifically, should not participate in this debate. She has pledged her allegiance time and time again to Stephane Dion and it would be highly undemocratic for the Liberals to have two representatives in the national, televised leaders' debate.

I don't care how many times Elizabeth May calls assertions of a Liberal-Green alliance absurd. Her previous statements on the subject speak for themselves. Here are just a few of them:

"We'd like to be participants in a coalition government," she said. It would be great if the next federal election led to a minority Liberal government, May said
-The Daily Gleaner (Fredericton), 12 February 2008

"It's a no-brainer. We can make the most progress with Stéphane Dion as prime minister in a minority government. I think Dion's record is a lot better than the other parties want to say it is. I'll defend it."
- Elizabeth May, Globe and Mail, 21 January 21, 2008

"We recognize that a government in which Stéphane Dion served as Prime Minister could work well with a Green Caucus of MPs, led by Elizabeth May, committed to action on climate."
- Joint Statement with Dion, GPC Release, May 13, 2007

"Well, what I'm trying to do is send a clear signal to Canadians. When I heard Rex Murphy say on the national news that the Harper budget was so green that I could now join his party, I thought it was pretty important to make sure people knew that while the Green Party policies are the very best, a government of Stéphane Dion as Prime Minister with us in the House of Commons, with many Greens in the House of Commons, we could deliver very good government to Canadians."
-Elizabeth May, Adler On-Line, CJOB, 13 April 2007

And for my final bit of proof of Green-Liberal collusion- perhaps the most compelling proof of all muahaha:

This is from the Green Party website. They used terribly unflattering pictures of everyone except May and Dion. Coincidence? Highly doubtful. I'm surprised that they restrained themselves from photoshoping a green halo onto Dion.

Harper image still needs work

2008-09-09T00:19:00.000-07:00

I know they are trying to soften his image but I don't think the sweaters are working. All I can think of when I see this picture is 'please don't hurt the baby!'

This is what Young Liberals do without proper leadership

2008-09-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

On a side note: three or four Young Liberals with too much time on their hands came out to the Vancouver Kingsway event today to cheer Jack on in their own special way. They came with pictures of Layton and Harper printed out on bubble-jet printers and an incoherent message about why Jack is bad. They proceeded to pick a fight with the NDP supporters there.

I asked them what voting for the Liberal candidate in Vancouver-Kingsway did for the constituents of the riding last time. I got no response.

They told me they were hoping to ruin the New Democrats' media coverage and get on the national news. Pretty desperate- especially considering that the hecklers included Braeden Caley, President of the YLC BC and Mia Taghizadeh and Joshua Hutchinson, former and current Presidents of the UBC YLC. That's some pretty high ranking YLers. For a mock protest. The whole scene was a little pathetic. I kind of felt bad for them.

Don Davies: "Stephen Harper's Worst Nightmare"

2008-09-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

Saw Jack Layton tonight at the Vancouver-Kingsway event. It was energizing. Good crowd, lots of excitement. Speech was great.

The Don Davies campaign in Vancouver-Kingsway should be a good one. That is a riding badly in need of honest representation. Davies is a lawyer and strong human rights advocate- and just a really good guy. I am looking forward to hitting the doorstep for him in my spare time.

I don't know enough about the other candidates to comment at this point but I can almost guarantee that I will have something to say about them before this election is over.

Go Don!

Canada's Next Top Prime Minister

2008-09-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

As we moved from certainty to speculation and back to certainty around the timing of an election (albeit with a shiny new date of Oct 14th, 2008), many have weighed in on what they think this election will be about.

The general theme running through the Canadian punditry elite is that this election will be about leadership. ok. good. I'm with you there. 110%. In a time of impending economic and environmental crisis this country needs strong leadership. Give me an L- E-...

Where I, and many Canadians it seems, differ from say, the Lawrence Martins of the world is in who we look to when we compare leaders.

More and more the polls show that Jack Layton is a major contender for the the big winner of Canada's Next Top Prime Minister. As far as I am concerned, Dion is a bit player in this contest. The only thing at all interesting about his act is how unprepared it is.

No. This time, me and my fellow Canadians are not falling for the Big Red Scam. You know, the one where we are supposed to believe that the Liberals are totally different from the Tories. The one they have been trying to sell us for years.

Dion may have a flashy new tax that he is parading around and calling an environmental plan but he has spent way too much time enabling Harper (supported him on 44 confidence votes I hear) to be able to proclaim that Harper is evil and that only Stephane Dion and his merry band of snake oil salesmen can save us. Thanks but no thanks. We're not buying it anymore.

Stephen Harper is not good for Canada and he does need to be stopped. But I'm counting on Jack Layton to do it.

There's a reason that Layton is being compared to Obama (both favourably and pejoritavely). It's because he is tapping into that same feeling of hope that won Obama the Democratic nomination. He is promising to do things differently and that is what Canadians want.

This election should make for some interesting reality TV.

Back.

2008-09-07T12:55:00.002-07:00

That's right. I am ready for my glorious return to the blogosphere.

I just couldn't stay away.

Expect regular posts soon. And maybe even a fancy new template.

Maintenant vous voyez

2007-09-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

Told you so.

Thomas Mulcair declared elected in Outremont. What a night.

Green candidates: Canada's next endangered species?

2007-07-12T02:24:00.000-07:00

Great news for the NDP candidate in Saanich-Gulf Islands. Prominent Green Party activists (so weird calling any Greens "prominent") in the area are taking Elizabeth May's lead and asking members not to run a candidate. Their reasoning? Because Gary Lunn is sooo evil that they really want to defeat him, and they fully admit that a Green Party candidate is not the one to do it.

The reason that this is especially good for NDP candidate Julian West is that the NDP seems to pick up stray Green votes in the riding, as evidenced by past election results. Between 2004 and 2006 the Green vote dropped more than 6% and the NDP vote went up nearly 6%, while the Liberal vote was nearly unchanged (only 60 new votes). In 2006 the NDP came in second and with or without a Green candidate, West is going to be serious competition for "Dirty Gary."

Below is the open letter written by the Green Party activists to the members in the riding.

WARNING: It's unnecessarily long and detailed. Just skip to the part about how "courageous" it is to back out on your promise to field a candidate in every riding.

From: Will Horter [mailto:whorter@dogwoodinitiative.org]
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 5:10 PM
To: bcenvirowatch@lists.onenw.org ; LW-List; oog@lists.onenw.org;
ofc@lists.onenw.org; gsx@lists.onenw.org
Subject: [BCEN LW:] Open letter to Green Party members in Saanich - Gulf
Islands

Dear members and supporters of the Green Party:

Re: Upcoming nomination meeting in Saanich - Gulf Islands

We are living in extraordinary times. Global warming will require each of us
to change the way we relate to one another, and to our communities and our
planet.

This will be a big challenge, requiring each of us to do extraordinary
things.

We know you care deeply about the future of our planet and your community,
and that you understand that slight changes to business as usual will not
address these challenges at the scale or on the timeline necessary.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May recognized this when she allied with
Stephane Dion to put "progress ahead of partisanship" by agreeing to not run
candidates in each other's ridings.

Unfortunately, despite this courageous action, our political electoral
system remains broken. As it is currently structured it inhibits, rather
than facilitates, the scale of discussion and action required to address the
challenges that face us.

Addressing these challenges will be hard, but we can succeed if we work
together. Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion took the first step, saying,
"While the need for cooperation may be obvious to the average Canadian,
within political parties, one is not supposed to allow even limited
cooperation. We admit we are different from most adversarial, political
leaders... We will always put the country and the planet first."

We, concerned British Columbians, also need to put our country and our
planet first. Too often issues that matter - the future of nuclear power,
oil tankers in British Columbia's inside passage, coastal drilling for oil
and gas - get captured by a partisan political process that puts sound bites
and partisan attacks over solutions.

We need to fix that.

Extraordinary times demand extraordinary actions.

This is why we are jointly writing to you to make an unusual request: We
are asking you personally to go to the nomination meeting for the Green
Party in Saanich-Gulf Islands which may take place this Saturday afternoon
(July 14th) in Sidney, and vote for "None of the Above."

We don't make this request lightly, and here's why we're making such an
extraordinary request. Make no mistake, we do understand that this IS
extraordinary: we are deep believers in the process of democracy, and do not
take lightly such a request.

People in the Saanich-Gulf Islands federal riding are among the most
environmentally conscious voters in the country. Unfortunately, for the past
four elections, their political support has been split between three federal
parties: The Liberals, the NDP and the Greens.

This has allowed the Conservative candidate to be elected four times by a
minority of the voters. In 2006 the voting was: Conservatives (37 %);
Liberal (26%); NDP (26%); Green (10%)

The simple fact is that if the Green Party runs a candidate in the coming
federal election it will make it much more likely that the Conservative
candidate will win once again.

And this is not just any Conservative candidate. Gary Lunn, the four-time
incumbent, is Stephen Harper's Minister of Natural Resources.

And "Dirty Gary" sure does like developing resources. As the Tyee recently
wrote, "Lunn . is trying to push nuclear power, rev up the oil sands, and
make way for more pipelines and supertankers on B.C.'s coast."

Mr. Lunn is the leading BC voice for the Conservatives' plan to circumvent
the 35-year old moratorium banning oil tankers in northern BC waters. He
recently claimed the tanker moratorium to be a figment of the public's
imagination, stating that it "has never existed" despite numerous documents
which verify that the tanker ban was created by his own ministry before
Harper took power.

Lunn supports breakneck expansion of the Alberta tar sands despite the fact
that it is Canada's biggest and fastest growing greenhouse gas emitter. He
favors nuclear power as the solution for the power addicted tar sands, which
needs massive amounts of energy to steam the dirty tar out of the sand. Lunn
was quoted by CanWest early this year saying, "[w]e burn a lot of natural
gas to extract that oil from the sands right now. So there's a great
opportunity to pursue nuclear energy -- something that I'm very keen on."

"Dirty Gary," who the Times Colonist has described as "an enthusiastic
champion of nuclear power", recently approved a plan to bury nuclear waste
underground. With this plan, the TC columnist Susan Riley wrote, Lunn "has
given the green light to a near-moribund industry that is now rebranding
itself as green."

And that is not all:

. Gary Lunn killed the popular EnerGuide program that helped
thousands of Canadians offset the cost of retrofitting their houses to
become more energy efficient, bringing it back a year later as a much weaker
programme.

. Lunn has been a mouthpiece for the asbestos industry, allowing
Canadian corporations to continue to profit from global sales of killer
asbestos whilst allowing a de facto ban at home. Lunn played a role in
Canada's undermining the Rotterdam Convention, refusing to allow asbestos to
be listed in the United Nations agreement that guarantees that countries
shipping toxic substances have the right to know what they are. Minister
Lunn's position was supported by only four other countries whose democratic
and environmental records speak for themselves: Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Iran
and Peru.

Surely, we can't allow Gary Lunn to be elected a fifth time by once again
splitting the progressive vote among three parties.

A recent Tyee article framed the issue well: "[h]ow does a guy like Lunn win
a riding that contains areas synonymous with earth love and sustainability?
And if the environment is the challenge of a generation, how come
environmentalists can't cooperate to take out a man they all say is one of
its biggest foes?"

The candidates already nominated to run against Lunn have strong
environmental credentials, are strong advocates for electoral reform, and
are not likely to bow down to traditional party politics:

* Briony Penn, the Liberal candidate, is a former long-time Green
Party member. Briony, a PhD in geography, is prominent environmental
activist, reporter and writer. Briony lectured for 15 years at the
University of Victoria. She made headlines in 2001 by protesting private
logging development on Salt Spring Island with a horse ride through downtown
Vancouver au naturel. Briony is active with a number of NGOs and serves as a
founding director of The Land Conservancy.
* Julian West, the NDP candidate, is a former Green Party candidate in
Cowichan-Ladysmith. Mr. West is a PhD in applied mathematics from MIT and
has taught at universities across the continent. West has been active in
environmental politics and on electoral reform. He joined the Green Party
of British Columbia in 1995. In 1997, he co-founded the Electoral Change
Coalition of BC, and in 2000 was a charter member of Fair Vote Canada.
Julian has served on the boards of Fair Vote Canada and Fair Voting BC for
the past seven years.

These are extra-ordinary times. We can't let a pro-nuclear, pro-oil tanker,
pro-oil-sands-growth Conservative like Gary Lunn win again.

That is why we are calling on you to vote for "None of the Above" at the
nomination meeting for the Green Party in Saanich-Gulf Islands.

With two environmentalists running for the other parties, the Green Party is
unlikely to replicate its previous vote totals, but these votes could cause
the election of Gary Lunn, a key player in Stephen Harper's
anti-environmental government.

Playing a role in defeating Gary Lunn, a sitting Minister of Natural
Resources, on environmental issues related to climate change, would give the
Green Party enormous credibility.

In April, speaking at the nomination meeting in the uptown Toronto riding of
St. Paul's, the National Post reported that Elizabeth May stated the Green
Party might abandon its efforts to field candidates in every riding. May
stated, "It's possible we won't have people in every riding. adding that
there was a general feeling in the party that fielding candidates in as many
riding as possible was important."

We have concerns that the candidate nomination process has likely been
subverted because it appears that proper notice has not been given to all
members in the Saanich-Gulf Islands EDA. Just last week the nomination
meeting was scheduled for Saturday, July 14th, 1-3pm, at the home of Bryce
and Laurie Kendrick in Sidney, 8727 Lochside Drive Tel; (250 655 5051).
(RSVP required) This late notice does not comply with the Green Party
constitution which requires 30 days written notice unless a snap federal
election has been called. Also, people have been told that the the executive
of the riding is limiting attendance to "current members of the SGI EDA, and
invited guests only."

We call on Green Party members in the riding to exercise their democratic
right and demand the riding executive comply with the Green Party rules. In
addition, when a properly noticed nomination meeting is held we urge you to
collectively choose to change the way politics is done in Canada. Vote for
"None of the Above" at the nomination meeting and become part of a historic
effort to turn this country away from the destructive path Harper's
conservatives have set us all on.

The Green Party is already having an impact in the riding, having influenced
the two other parties to poach Green Party members as their candidates.
Helping to defeat Gary Lunn by avoiding vote splitting could actually
strengthen the Green Party in the riding.

So how will this work? The Green Party constitution doesn't specify what
happens if "None of the Above" wins on the nomination ballot. However, the
Green Party executive, which has to certify all candidates, is unlikely to
override the democratic choice of local members and force a candidate onto
its the ballot.

We all are committed environmentalists - some Green Party members, some
Green Party voters, some Green Party supporters. Collectively we believe
that the best action for the Green Party to take, both for the environment
and for the Green Party itself, is to not run a candidate in the
Saanich-Gulf Islands riding.

It should be noted that we are writing to you in our personal capacities,
and any organizational affiliations are listed for information purposes
only, and do not reflect the views of those organizations.

As committed environmentalists we need to work together to ensure that the
candidate who gets elected to represent Saanich-Gulf Islands is an advocate
for the environment, not an apologist for the oil and nuclear industries.

Please vote for "None of the Above", and encourage your Green Party friends
to do the same.

For the future,

Guy Dauncey
Writer, Green Party member
& Federal Shadow Cabinet critic on climate change

Marlyn Horsdal
Book editor, Saanich-Gulf Island
Green Party Member

Casey Brennan
Former Green party candidate for Esquimalt-Juan De Fuca
Environmental activist

Harold Wolf
Saanich-Gulf Island
Green Party Member

Will Horter
Writer, environmental and human rights activist

Dorothy Cutting
Climate Change activist,
Salt Spring resident

King's Shame

2007-07-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

I usually like Ian King's column so I can't understand where this poorly researched piece of garbage came from. His column entitled "Layton's Shame" in today's issue of 24 Hours is, well, shameful.

I can get over the fact that he accuses Jack Layton of exploiting the death of 6 soldiers in Afghanistan by daring to question the mission on the day that the deaths were announced. That is a common tactic for proponents of the war in Afghanistan who look for ways to avoid questions while soldiers and civilians keep dying.

Accusing Layton of being that callous, when in truth he has always shown Canadian soldiers the utmost respect, is still pretty cheap and un-called for. But in an ongoing debate where he has been called everything from "unpatriotic" to "Taliban Jack", it's pretty mild.

What I can't get over is Ian King's seemingly total disregard for diligent fact-checking. The case that he trumps up against Layton when he calls for his resignation is based largely on outrageously untrue accusations. Allow me to point out King's various offenses against factual accuracy:

Offense #1:

"Every budget and most votes of confidence see him [Layton] on the same side as the Tories"

What kind of a self-respecting journalist gets this stuff so wrong? Layton and the NDP have voted against the Conservatives on every budget in this parliament and they have voted against the Tories more often than any other party.

Offense #2:

"On affordable housing, the NDP has been silent."

Yes, let's forget about bill C-382 introduced by NDP MP Irene Mathyssen on Wednesday, November 22, 2006 (National Housing Day) entitled "An Act to provide for secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians." Let's also forget that the Leader of the NDP wrote a god damn book on the subject.

Offense #3:

"They could tear the Conservatives on health care or call for more post-secondary student grants. They don't."

The NDP has been ignoring health care? They spent crap-loads of money making a TV ad about the Liberal/Conservative record on health care and airing it. Not to mention the countless press releases.

And the NDP has been on top of all post-secondary education issues. My favourite MP, Denise Savioe, put forward a private members' bill calling for many measures to help students, including increasing grants. Increased grants were in fact the first step of the NDP's 3-step plan to tackle the student debt crisis.

Columnists like Ian King have only themselves to blame for Conservative shortcomings being swept under the rug. King and his ilk are quick to write scathing editorials about the NDP and Jack Layton for taking a position that a majority of Canadians agree with and sticking to it. But they rarely write about how the NDP is the only party in Parliament consistently standing up against the government on issues that those self-proclaiming "left-wing" journalists purport to care about.

I like Ian King's column and his blog, but after this gaffe, he should think about tendering his resignation.

Don't remove me from your 'Bookmarks' just yet

2007-07-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

One of my adoring fans got on my case the other day about my lack of content over the past few weeks. He said that if I was going to go on any kind of blogging hiatus, then I have an obligation to my dedicated readers to let you know. Another one of my readers threatened to un-bookmark me if I didn't blog soon.

As you can see, the chastising and the threats have had some success because here we are, with a new post. I am sorry for leaving you all in suspense these past few weeks, wondering what had happened to me. You will be pleased to hear that I haven't given up on blogging, nor have I been taken out by one of the many people that I trash regularly. No, there is no big and exciting excuse for my silence, I just have a real job for the summer and it takes up all of my time and energy.

I promise that after all of this 'being a productive member of society' nonsense is over, I will be back to the smartass opining in full force.

In the meantime, I will try to post at least more than once a month.

Insert appropriate U2 song title here

2007-06-09T00:31:00.000-07:00

Stephen Harper has really done a number on our national reputation over this past week at the G8 Summit. He started by telling the world, even before the summit opened, that Canada won't even try to meet our Kyoto commitments, and ended by getting scolded by rockstars for allegedly blocking other G8 members from putting real figures in the humanitarian aid package to Africa.

Harper has faced heavy criticism for his conduct at the summit. From NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Alexa McDonough:

“On development, Stephen Harper was clearly labeled as one of the G8’s worst offenders on broken aid promises for Africa. He’s holding up the efforts to make tangible improvements in the future. On renewed nuclear tensions, Harper is giving vocal support for a global US missile shield, which blatantly escalates the nuclear threat in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Let’s face it, when it comes to diplomacy, Stephen Harper is more like a dam than a bridge-builder.”

But the best burn came from musician/ activist Bob Geldof:

"A man called Stephen Harper came to Heiligendamm, but Canada stayed home."

Yes, Stephen Harper has really misrepresented the values of Canadians at the G8 Summit. He even dissed Bono by refusing to meet with him. He said it isn't his 'shtick.' That's just cold.

"ANTI-SCAB! ANTI-SCAB! ANTI-SCAB!"

2007-05-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

When Paul Martin walked onto the field in Vancouver for the 2005 Grey Cup amid chanting and fierce boos, I felt a little sorry for the guy.

What happened to Dion today at the CLC rally in Ottawa however, was amazing. The video makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

How stupid is Team Dion? Did they expect that it would be all hugs and kisses from the labour movement after the Liberals turned their back on Canadian workers and helped kill the extremely important anti-scab bill (C-257)?

I can't wait to see what happens when Buzz Hargrove tries to give him a jacket and a hug during the next election.

Listen up Jean Charest

2007-05-27T23:57:00.000-07:00

Reminiscent of the Conservative federal budget in March, Jean Charest has decided to ignore the opposition with his new budget and govern as if he has a majority. Yes, it seems as though Charest and Stephen Harper were classmates at the Joe Clark School of Minority Parliaments. However, this game of chicken that Charest has initiated will likely end up a little less 'Harper Budget 2007' and a little more 'Joe Clark Loses Big-time 1979.'

Harper didn't have to negotiate with anyone to get his budget passed because there was a party in the House, the Bloc, who was desperate to avoid an election. Charest is not operating under the same circumstances.

Super Mario and the ADQ, still riding high after impressive election gains, have not had time to scare Quebeckers with their neo-conservatism and they are well positioned to kick some serious ass in the next election, whenever that may be.

Pauline Marois and the PQ will not make the same mistakes that Boisclair made. An election right now could even give the sovereignty movement some much needed momentum- something that would be bad for federalists all across Canada.

If there is any party in l'Assemblée nationale that absolutely needs to avoid an election, it is the Liberals, with their serious lack of strategic talent- as exhibited by the last half of the campaign when they promised the controversial tax cut in lieu of more popular spending measures, and then this past week when they included the whopping $950 million tax cut in their budget, making the whole thing impossible for the opposition to support.

So here is my suggestion to M. Charest- who no doubt reads my blog in hopes of keeping his finger on the pulse of young New Democrat women in BC:

Back down. Few will fault you for trying to work with the other parties in a minority parliament instead of over-delivering on that tax cut you promised. The other parties are not asking for much; the PQ wants money for health and education, and the ADQ wants more money towards paying down the debt. You kinda seemed like a jerk to the rest of the country for spending your new transfer payment from your pal Steve on a tax cut anyways. There is an easy compromise here that will avoid an election. Take it. It's the right thing to do, for Quebec and for Canada, and it will save your ass...for now at least.

The Tories are usually so good at stacking these things

2007-05-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

From the Ottawa Sun website poll around 6:30 PM (PDT):

I try not to place too much emphasis on any given poll but...

Go Senators.

Don't call it a comeback

2007-05-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Please forgive me for the long hiatus. May has been one hell of a month. Here are some items over the past week or so that have irritated me out of my blogging coma.

Is this a result of that 'labour surplus' in the stripping industry that everyone's talking about? I get pissed off when politicians use fake solutions to real problems to score points against their opponents, potentially making things worse for the group that they pretend to be helping. First of all, cracking down on foreign strippers is relatively unnecessary because apparently one of the things that the Liberals actually managed to get done while they were in power was a crack-down on foreign-dancer permits. That is why the number of work permits issued to foreign strippers over the past few years has been dramatically reduced.

Also, this bill is supposed to prevent the exploitation of foreign dancers but more often it is the women who are working here illegally that are severely exploited. Further reducing the number of work permits granted will not decrease the demand for foreign dancers, it will only increase the number of foreign dancers who are working illegally.

Brilliant ideas from the National Post: Diane Francis has been on a rampage against politicians that she does not deem fit to govern and she has now decided that, "Canada's governance gap could be closed if: 1) candidates were required to pass a rigorous economic IQ test and 2) were paid the average of their past five years' salary with a cap of $500,000." I am blown away by how out-of-touch Francis is with, well, anyone outside of Bay Street. I don't see how some heiress multi-millionaire who essentially inherited a company is worth more to tax-payers than a social worker, or a teacher, or an environmental lawyer.

Also offensive was her list of the NDP MPs and their "occupations", supposedly taken from their websites. Try as I might I couldn't find a website that described, say, Peggy Nash, a highly successful union representative who has won a ton of awards for her work in various other fields, as: "activist, volunteer."

Those petty Conservatives: Brad Lavigne, NDP Caucus Director of Communications, nailed it when he said on Mike Duffy Live the other day that, "Peter Van Loan is a small, small man."

The Conservatives were hoping to avoid a standing vote on Bill C-52, the one that makes official the broken promises to the Atlantic Provinces and Saskatchewan. But their plans to have the legislation slide through without any of the MPs being on record as voting for it were foiled by the NDP. What Government House Leader Van Loan decided to do to get retribution is move the NDP motion- the one to bring the newly amended Clean Air and Climate Change Act to the house- from Thursday to Friday, seriously shortening the debate time. Not the worst thing that they have done since they have been in office, but it's annoyingly petty. And Peter van Loan, the small, small man, will get his own devoted blog post soon enough.

Conservative 'dirty tricks' manual: This thing is 200 pages, which is a lot longer than their Climate Change Plan. Or their Auto Strategy. Or their plan to reduce wait times.

Yes, the Conservatives have their priorities straight: "how to favour government agendas, select party-friendly witnesses, coach favourable testimony, set in motion debate-obstructing delays and, if necessary, storm out of meetings to grind parliamentary business to a halt." I still can't believe that they wrote this stuff down. And handed it out. Jeez. That's not smart.

You had me at "Hello facebook"

2007-05-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

I thought nothing could beat "Hello facebook" but I was wrong. The Liberal Party communications geniuses keep coming up with solid gold, the latest nugget being this installment of the 'Stephane Dion talks to facebook' series. In his latest attempt at trying to seem hip and cool for the youngsters, Stephane Dion plays Ann Landers to his Young Liberal friends on facebook. Just watch it.

With all the problems that the Liberal Party has, I don't think that focusing on Dion's facebook friends is the way to go. If I was a young liberal, this would be my question for the next episode of 'Dear Stephane':

Dear Stephane,

Why have our poll number dropped so much since Convention? Aren't we supposed to be Canada's Natural Governing Party? Is it your leadership or could it be that Canadians are still mad at us for all that corruption stuff, and the getting us into the Afghanistan mess, and the doing nothing on child care, climate change, child poverty, etc.

Why are all of our MPs leaving? Not like Joe Volpe and Garth Turner wouldn't make great cabinet ministers, but I am starting to get a little worried that the talent pool is getting pretty shallow.

If Stephen Harper is so unfair and the Conservative Government is so scary, then why have you voted with them on 60% of the votes before the House?

Sincerely,
I Miss Teflon Jean

Nicely played Carole James

2007-05-02T20:38:00.000-07:00

In the world of shrewd political moves, this one is good.

In the fall of 2005 the legislature passed a bill giving MLAs a 15% pay raise only to have royal assent withheld after the NDP changed their mind. Carole James, at the time, stated that she thought that an independent panel should review the matter and report to the legislature with recommendations.

It took a year and a half, but a panel was put together earlier this year and now they have come out with recommendations. They recommended a pay increase higher than the one proposed in 2005. 29% for MLAs and a whopping 53% for the Premier.

Carole James and the BCNDP caucus wasted no time in rejecting the recommendations of the committee saying that they were "out of step with what is acceptable to British Columbians." This was a smart move because now the BC Liberals lose no matter what they do next. If they accept the findings and use their majority in the House to pass them into law then they will look greedy. If they reject them, they will be seen to be following the lead of the NDP (and Gordo won't get his extra $60,000 a year).

I like it.

Polls that make me smile

2007-04-25T23:39:00.000-07:00

This whole having a real job and not just being a student thing has me totally exhausted so I am just going to post two polls that made me happy this week.

From Angus Reid:

Only 29% of Canadians approve of the
recent agreement between the Liberal and Green parties

Two-in-five (44%) perceive deal as a sign of weakness

If Canadians could vote in Central Nova, Peter MacKay would get 35%; May second with 22%

Majority of Canadians (52%) reject Liberal / NDP / Green merger

I really don't hate to say I told you so.

And the Decima poll that Harper's psychic really should have predicted was coming before the Conservatives spent so much money on their fancy new digs (I mean what do we pay that woman for- it can't simply be for picking out Harper's 'try to look like a human' turtlenecks and ensuring that he always gets the same 7-year-old-boy haircut):

Cons 30
Libs 29
NDP 18
Green 11
Bloc 8

I have said it before, and it bears repeating, that one should not pay too much attention to just one poll. But the trends are interesting. Especially the trend that shows that the Greens peaked months ago. I like that one.

Vous allez voir!

2007-04-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

In the realm of crazy exciting news, Thomas Mulcair, former Quebec Environment Minister, has decided to run for the NDP. He is quite easily the biggest star candidate that the NDP has had in Quebec. Ever.

He was greeted today on Parliament Hill by excited NDP MPs and staffers- about 80 people total- and this is what he had to say:

"Dear friends, dear future colleagues, thank you so much for your warm welcome.

On Mont-Royal this morning, it was 20 degrees, snow was melting, people were out en masse, and I was able to tell reporters that change was in the air!"

I'm planning to take Jack on a tour of Quebec. Because there is a wellspring of support for our values. Vous allez voir!"

Mulcair has so much credibility that his decision to run for the NDP could likely start a chain reaction of other high-profile progressive Quebec candidates looking to run under the NDP banner. This would make the NDP a real contender in Quebec, creating some very interesting four-way races in the next election.

Here is the NDP press release in its entirety:

APRIL 20, 2007
THOMAS MULCAIR TO RUN FOR NDP

MONTREAL – Today, NDP Leader Jack Layton welcomed Thomas Mulcair to the ranks of the NDP. Mulcair, former Environment Minister for the government of Quebec, intends to seek NDP nomination for the upcoming federal election.

“Support for the NDP tripled in Quebec during the last federal election and Quebeckers’ support for our ideas and our values is constantly growing said Layton. “The fact that Thomas Mulcair has joined our team reinforces this momentum and we are optimistic that other candidates of his caliber will join us."

A lawyer by profession and Liberal member of the Quebec Legislature for Chomedey from 1994 to 2007, Mulcair is a committed environmentalist who brings with him incredible experience. As Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development in Quebec, he worked on behalf of Quebeckers, defending the Kyoto Protocol and promoting a progressive environmental policy. He was never afraid to confront his federal counterpart, Stephane Dion, on the important issues. Mulcair was ousted from Charest’s cabinet due to his stance on environmental protection, particularly with regard to the Mont Orford file.

Since the Liberal Party has still not learned from its errors under the weak leadership of Stephane Dion; since Stephen Harper’s Conservatives remain light-years away from real life in Quebec; and since the usefulness of the Bloc Quebecois has become questionable, Mulcair’s arrival will help the NDP position themselves advantageously in Quebec.

“It’s a privilege for us to see that Thomas Mulcair has decided to pursue his commitment to public life by choosing to represent the interests of Quebeckers under the NDP banner,” concluded Layton. “We welcome him wholeheartedly.”

-30-

The Green Party is imploding

2007-04-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

Strangely enough, not everyone in the Green Party is happy with Elizabeth May's deal with Dion.

Here are some great quotes from disgruntled Greens:

Why should Jack Layton show Ms. May and ourselves courtesy when she has done nothing but insult him since becoming leader. She comes from a conservative mind set and has done nothing in her leadership to build the kind of cooperation she now claims to be trying. She has been a liberal sympathizer for many months with little consideration for the NDP. She has continued to praise the liberal record through her misguided support of Dion, a record that pales in comparison to the NDP record which is mind boggling considering they had the power and the NDP does not. Stephane Dion does not believe in electoral reform nor parliamentary reform. Like Stephen Harper he will ignore any and all reform that threatens the dictatorial power of the PMO.

You guys are living in a delusion spun by both Ms. May and Mr. Dion that may yet prove fatal for the Greens. Stephane Dion will cast aside any cooperation with the Greens or the environment issues if he gets a majority government.
-Stephen LaFrenie, Nominated Green Candidate for Trinity-Spadina

And this one:

...the agreement to not run candidates strikes me more as backroom deal-making than cooperation - and it is being portrayed in that manner by Mr. Layton. The Green Party only has one chance to be seen by Canadians as a party that does politics differently. One of the costs to be paid for this deal is that it will put a question mark in the minds of some voters as to whether that premise is true.
-Kevin Colton, Green Blogger

These are just the ones that I could find easily. There are likely many more.

Something we've known all along...

2007-04-18T00:09:00.000-07:00

...is that the Bloc has screwed the NDP out of making a real breakthrough in Quebec for years now.

Here is some proof from SES:

[Bloc voters only] If the Bloc Quebecois did not exist federally and you had to choose between the federal [rotate] Liberals, Conservatives, NDP or Green Party, which federal party would you vote for? Values in parenthesis represent the change in support if the BQ did not exist.

Canada without Bloc (N=910, MoE ± 3.3%, 19 times out of 20)
Conservative Party 39% (+3)
Liberal 34% (+1)
NDP 19% (+3)
Green Party 8% (+2)
None 1% (0)

Quebec without Bloc (N=230, MoE ± 6.5%, 19 times out of 20)
Conservative Party 41% (+13)
Liberal 21% (+3)
NDP 23% (+10)
Green Party 12% (+8)
None 4% (0)

Read Nik Nanos' take on it here. Kinda stating the obvious but still very interesting.

What is strange to me is all of the closet-Conservative Bloc voters. But I suspect that these are more anti-Liberal votes than pro-Conservative ones.

Elizabeth May for Liberal backbencher!

2007-04-16T01:46:00.000-07:00

A few thoughts on the Dion-May alliance:

1) The whole thing seems pretty selfish. By backing Dion for PM, Elizabeth May is telling Canadians that they should vote Liberal- unless they live in Central Nova. She is sacrificing the legitimacy of the rest of her party for a chance to win her own seat.

Even if she does win her seat (doubtful considering results in Central Nova from the last two elections), with this move May has ensured that other Greens won't win, thereby dooming herself to be an independent MP with no resources, no time to speak in the House, and no committee role.

As Martha Hall Findlay, a Dion supporter, pointed out on Mike Duffy Live last week, if May thinks Dion is best suited to be PM, she should join the party and run for the Liberals. Maybe that is what May is setting herself up to do. I wouldn't be surprised if she has deluded aspirations of being the Liberal Environment Minister in a Dion-led government, leaving her Green Party more irrelevant than ever.

If I was a Green I would be livid over May's disregard for the other members of her party. I can only imagine how annoying it will be for Green candidates and supporters to see the Green leader's endorsement of their opponent's leader on the local Liberal literature.

And if I were a Liberal I would be pissed off about Dion's disregard for sound political strategy, showing once again how weak a leader he is, conceding a seat to a party that has never won anything at any level in Canada. Ever.

2) The "Big Red Machine" never needed help from another political party before; why is it that now, under Stephane Dion's leadership, they need to strike an electoral alliance with the Greens, a party that has no seats and no hope of winning any seats? The implications aren't great for Dion or for his supporters.

Quoted here is the advice that a Tory friend of mine gave a Liberal friend:

"Nevermind the attack ads, Stephane Dion is not only 'not a leader', he's just plain politically DOA. Stop flogging a dead horse and focus on trying to keep Dion from taking you down with him."

What is even more ridiculous than the deal itself is all of the Liberals scrambling to find ways to stay in their comfortable state of denial by telling themselves that what Dion has done was a smart move or 'the right thing to do.' The desperation and blind partisanship reminds me of the Greens who tried so hard to explain away Elizabeth May's anti-choice comments.

One of my personal faves is the Cherniak post where he tries some weak anti-NDP spin and ends up a little off-message speculating about a Liberal merger with the Greens in his comment section.

3) Over the course of the weekend, Elizabeth May has proven that she has a severely inflated sense of self-importance that borders on absurdity. Calling Jack Layton out on national television for not returning her phone calls? Who does this woman think she is anyways? No one has ever elected her to represent them in parliament. Canadians had a chance in the London North Centre by-election and they didn't take it.

Take a hint Elizabeth May- The NDP isn't interested in your electoral games or playing any part in your twisted episode of the Red Green Show. What else is there to talk about? The Greens don't have any seats in parliament right now so they can't help make parliament work. May herself has given much praise to the NDP for their green strategy over the years, so it appears that Layton doesn't need any help from her there. And I doubt that Layton really wants to hear about her new found admiration for Dion, a man who had the chance to reduce GHG emissions and instead saw them rise by more than 30% under his watch.

After May's media stunt this weekend, Layton's office has received her request for a meeting loud and clear. The NDP Leader receives thousands of requests for meetings. I am sure that Jack's people can fit her in somewhere between his meeting with the leader of the Christian Heritage Party and the leader of the Marijuana Party.

Don't panic Liberals, Dion has a plan

2007-04-11T11:57:00.000-07:00

The Liberal Party may have what could be aptly described as an exodus on their hands (the newest high-profile caucus member to announce that she will not be seeking re-election being Belinda Stronach). But never fear Liberal supporters, Stéphane Dion has an excellent new strategy that he is sure will put the Liberals over the top in the next election.

4995 facebook friends, roughly 5 369 076 to go.

Pink jerseys?!

2007-04-11T01:00:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the Canadian Women's hockey team who just won another world championship tonight...but pink jerseys?! Apparently they are a throwback to the old days of 1990 when they actually wore pink. What was that all about? What does that say about how seriously we took our female athletes in the 1990's? Were they not good enough to wear the Canadian red and white like other Canadian athletes?

Anyways, they are auctioning off the pink jerseys worn by the women on ebay and the proceeds are going to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Great that they are raising awareness about breast cancer and donating money but how come we never see men's teams doing this sort of thing? Imagine the media frenzy that would ensue if the Canadian men's team wore pink jerseys. I bet Sidney Crosby's pink jersey could get a hell of a lot of money.

Make no mistake, this was an NDP victory

2007-03-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-28T01:47:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-03-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

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.