Obama Canada and Marijuana Legalization

Obama has bigger fish to fry right now than to waste political capital legalizing marijuana.

That said, external forces could force his hand. For example if Canada were legalize marijuana he would be engulfed in debate. The problem for Obama is not only would Canadian boldness flame domestic debate but should Canada have the guts to go through with such a move various European countries (e.g., Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands) Australia and Latin America, Mexico in particular, would soon follow Canada's led. The international dominos would start falling one by one. This in turn would further embolden domestic proponents, especially those in California.

Politically, Obama's ability to push back would be limited. His hands are tied in ways another leader hands would not be. He freely admits to having marijuana in the past ("I inhaled frequently. That was the point") and his marijuana use is not a part of some redemption narrative, a la George Bush. It was a path he choice not to continue going down. Drug use was never presented as a demon he had to overcome yet alone one he still struggles with the way an alcoholic does with drink. This would leave him open to the charge of hypocrisy. Far more importantly though, the war and drugs, especially with regard to marijuana, has had a profound impact on the African American community in the States. If Obama was to toe the standard line in the face of Canada promising to end the war on drugs, he would be in a world of hurt politically. The African American community would not, of course, abandon him, but they would be unhappy and their unhappiness would have the potential to throw his whole presidency out of whack politically. His whole message of being the candidate of change would be called into question. There is also some evidence that it may be unpopular with Obama's many online supporters.

"On Obama's Change.gov Web site, which was used during the transition period, his staff asked the public to submit new policy ideas. Then the rest of the online community voted on its favorites.The most popular idea, by a wide margin: 'Ending marijuana prohibition.'"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=36162#comments

Finally, there is every indication that Obama is sympathetic to the cause. Obama promised to stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries during the lead up to the election and he made good on it the other day. This is big. In the month and bit since Obama took announcement 10 states are debating medical marijuana provisions. Once the number of States with medical marijuana provisions (currently there are 13) reaches a critical mass, marijuana will have to be reclassified. It is currently classified as a schedule one drug, i.e., an illegal drug with no medical benefit. A federal show down as to what place marijuana has in US society is, in other words, in the works.

It is also big for another reason. Unlike in Canada, in California, for example, one does not have to be afflicted with a particular aliment to be eligible. A doctor can proscribe marijuana for whatever they see fit. Needless to say, the Bush administration was right to see California's medical marijuana program as a Trojan horse and that is why they cracked down so heavily. The system is ripe for abuse and with medical marijuana users and dispensaries no longer being targeted the medical marijuana industry in California will eventually grow so large as to leave no alternative but legalization.

Why Getting Tough on Drug Crime Makes things Worse

There is no evidence that the prospect of death or prison deters the gang members in anyway. Worse there is evidence that getting tough on drug crime, makes things worse. Prison encourages gang membership. Indeed, in many parts of the world you need to be gang member in order to survive prison. Take the example of Brazil. Inmates join the gangs, e.g., Sao Paulo's PCC, for protection. The gang charges an entrance fee which the inmate has to work off by doing the gang's bidding when he is on the outside. If the inmate does not follow through, he and his family are in trouble. That is how a gang grows from a couple of dozen members to one that is thousands strong. If memory serves me right they PCC has over 40,000 members.

Of course the problem is not isolated to connections a prisoner makes on the inside. Someone who goes away for a long stint has no savings, no job contacts a huge hole in their resume and that is just the beginning. Ex cons are hardly in high demand and someone who is on parole has limited freedom of movement; they can not always go to where the jobs are. Not surprisingly many ex cons return to criminality as means of trying to support themselves; what was once a choice morphs into a necessity. If you get a critical mass of these ex cons in particular area, then it becomes particularly difficult to root out the problem. This is especially so if, as is often the case, the drug trade in that area is controlled by a particular ethnic group or groups. Not only does proximity play a role but then so too does family and culture. As is the case with many Mexican, the US, and Brazilian inner cities and suburbs, the risk is that various Canadian suburbs and inner cities will be lost to the drug war.

Prosuing a war on drugs is also hugely expensive. Much of made of the cost of mandatory minimums drug sentences and the policing costs generally. Prison costs in the US are approaching the amount spent on post secondary education. However, court costs are also enormous. There is huge volume of drug charges and the number of drug crimes is sky rocketing. If memory serves the number of drug crimes as gone up 55% since 1994. Moreover, drug dealers and people charged with impaired driving are generally the only kinds of criminals with any money.

The marijuana industry is of such a size in BC that the province has decided that pursuing each and every case may lead to the complete breakdown of the justice system. Th system is literally going to pot. Other provinces will soon experience similar problems and so do not be surprised to see other provinces introduce measures that will allow them "prosecutorial discretion". Quebec will likely be the first. Production in Quebec has surpassed production in BC. The marijuana industry is growing like a weed there.

Finally, and to add insult to injury is that so called successes in the drug war often result in violence; associates or rival gangs seek to fill the vacuum caused by a major drug bust and subsequent arrests.

As to Liberals claim about community programs helping lessen the problem, yes that is true. They do help. However they can only ever go so far. The main reason people sell drugs is simple. There is a lot of money to be made. The only effective way of dealing with the problem associated with marijuana trade is to legalize marijuana. If Canada were to legalize marijuana, the gang world would down size. There would simply not be the need for that many members. Members who ended up in jail or are dead or who simply moved on would not be replaced as fast as they once were. More importantly, the market would not be large enough for fledgling groups to build up enough capital, cache and connections to survive. It should also help in other areas. The gangs are using the proceeds of marijuana sells and sometimes marijuana itself as seed capital they need to branch out into other endeavors.

Mandatory Minimums: Liberals As Useless as Ever

Ignatieff is an improvement over Dion. However, the Liberals are still as useless as ever. The party's only redeeming feature is that they are not Conservatives. The Liberals remain a party of the status quo. There is nothing liberal about the Liberals. The party's platform is horrid mix of identity politics, asymmetrical federalism and neo conservative economics. To add insult to injury, the Liberals have allowed the Conservative to foster a uncritical respect for the military --- Highway of Heros excuse me while I puke --- and to run with a law and order agenda that has been completely discredited and abandoned even by arch conservatives, e.g., William Rehnquist.

These mandatory minimum sentences are perhaps a good example of the law of unintended consequences. There is a respectable body of opinion which believes that these mandatory minimums impose unduly harsh punishment for first-time offenders -- particularly for 'mules' who played only a minor role in a drug distribution scheme. Be that as it may, the mandatory minimums have also led to an inordinate increase in the federal prison population and will require huge expenditures to build new prison space...

Mandatory minimums... are frequently the result of floor amendments to demonstrate emphatically that legislators want to 'get tough on crime.' Just as frequently they do not involve any careful consideration of the effect they might have on the sentencing guidelines as a whole. Indeed, it seems to me that one of the best arguments against any more mandatory minimums, and perhaps against some of those that we already have, is that they frustrate the careful calibration of sentences, from one end of the spectrum to the other, which the sentencing guidelines were intended to accomplish.

Gang Land Shootings

The Conservative get tough on crime approach is idiotic.

There is no evidence that the prospect of death or prison deters the gang members in anyway. Indeed, as many gang members live in the same location and are from similar ethnic backgrounds, getting "tough on crime" only serves to make things worse by helping foster gang culture. Moreover in so far as long jail sentences mean that such ex cons have no choice to turn to criminality as a means of economic survival, the drug trade becomes centered in these areas. If at a certain point in time a critical mass of community members acquire a criminal record, the chance of weeding out the drug trade and the violence there becomes very unlikely. As is the case with many Mexican, the US, and Brazilian inner cities and suburbs, the risk is that various Canadian suburbs and inner cities will be lost to the drug war.

Legalize marijuana. Money from the illegal drug trade is life blood of gang culture it is also at bottom the main reason they killing each other. They are fighting for larger share of the market.

Ignatieff and Conservative Mistruths

Canadians expect their politicians to be able to stand up for themselves. Dion never seem to understand this. He constantly railed against the Conservatives and the lies they told about him. He took such lies as a personal insult. His caucus followed his lead. The Liberals were constantly asking for apologies. Worse, the Liberals were often so busy asking for apologies that the lies that were the source of their outrage were forgotten during the self righteousness grandstanding that followed.

Thankfully, Ignatieff seem to see things differently. He said that the Conservatives owe the Liberals nothing least of all an apology. However the Conservatives owe the Canadian people plenty, including the truth. A lie about Dion is to lie to the Canadian people. The Liberals need not, indeed must not, seek redress for themselves. To do so is forget what one of their most important functions as an opposition party is. Namely, the Liberals must protect the public by cataloguing and demonstrating Conservative mistruths. The Liberals can not allow themselves to be distracted and thus the public left in the dark.

Dion is a Liability: the Liberals must have new Leader come Jan 27th

Politically, Dion is the most inept leader in the history of the Liberal party. He is a liability. In English, he is terrible in an attack and even worse in defense. If Harper is successful in proroguing parliament, the Liberals should be looking to replace him for that reason alone. However there is more to it than just that. Having a lame duck leader for 6 plus months was always a terrible idea. Have a lame duck Prime Minister would be 100 times worse. I almost do not care how the Liberals go about choosing their next leader at this point. The important thing is that Dion is gone come January 27th.

Besides dumping Dion and actually mounting a coherent defense against the Conservative onslaught, the Liberals need to address the elephant in the living room. They can pretend that Harper’s threat to cut public funding for political parties was not what precipitated all of this, but no one is buying it. Someone at some level has to address this issue. It should be a relatively easy case to make. After all, one can argue all one likes about the merits of public funding. I happen to think it justified. However, the fact of the matter is that without public funding this time around several parties would be facing bankruptcy. In other words, what Harper said amounted to a threat to legislate various parties out of existence.

Is Proportional Represenation comming to Canada?

There is only one way this makes sense the Liberals long term: Either the coalition itself moves toward proportion representation or the Liberals use coalition as means of making proportion representation a election issue the next time around. As I said before, from a strategic point of view PR makes sense for the Liberals. As the party of the center, they would be well positioned to be part of government from here until the end of time.

By the way, I hope the people talking about a 308 approach realize that if Canada retains a first past the post system, west of Toronto, the Liberals will wiped off the face of the face of the earth in the next election. I doubt that they would even hold onto Quadra and Vancouver Center. The rest are toast. Outside of Vancouver and Victoria, the Liberals will finish 4th in BC.

For the sake of the NDP, Liberals and indeed the even the Bloc the coalition has to get a lot accomplished. It can not afford to play it conservatively, as it were. They are going to have be truly bold.

No to 308

308 seems to be code for the Liberals should pander to the God, Gays and Gun crowd. Those who advocate such a policy seem to believe that such a strategy would allow the party to become more competitive in rural ridings and would not make the Liberals any the less effective in urban areas, particularly the big three. They are wrong on both accounts. The Liberals are not going to make up 50 point deficits in rural ridings West of Ontario. In Alberta, there was but one riding outside Calgary and Edmonton where the Liberals were within less then 60 points of a Conservative candidate! As for the cities, if the Liberals truly were the Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver plus the Maritimes party they would be much better shape. The truth is they were crushed in suburban Vancouver, lost seats in the 905 and won one but one seat off the Island of Montreal. I need not explain what happened in Quebec over the course of the last 5 years, but Vancouver needs some explaining. The Liberals saw their support in the Lower mainland ridings go up in 2006 even as they lost 6% nationally. The reason for the Liberal surge was that the Liberals were able to use the SSM issue to their advantage. Harper was deemed too socially conservative by many Vancouverites. All of that changed in 2008. Dion’s horrible English, his politically disastrous Green Shift, his lack of answer to Harper’s get tough on crime policies and his decision not to focus on any issue that might anger the social cons cost the Liberals dearly in Vancouver.

Given the economic downturn and a candidate who is fluent in English, the Liberals should be able roll back some of Conservative gains in suburban Vancouver. However, the next Liberal leader needs to put social issues back on the table if the Liberals and at the same time come up with an answer to Harper’s get tough on crime policies. As most of you know, I think a promise to legalize marijuana, would help the Liberals on both accounts. What is true of Vancouver is doubly true for Montreal. As the last election showed, the Conservatives Achilles heel in Quebec is that they are the wrong side of Quebecers when it comes to social issues. However, the Liberals will not be able to exploit that weakness unless they put social issues on the agenda. Needless to say, it would also work when it comes to Toronto.

Saddle Harper with the Sara Palins of the world, and the Liberals will win the cities, particularly the major cities. If they win the cities, they will win the country.

There is virtually no downside. So what if they loose Crowfoot by 80 points instead of 78 like they did last time.

308 and the 50 State Plan; Some Comparisons

Comparing ridings to states is comparing apples to oranges. We should be talking about a 10 province strategy to be consistent.

There are three major parties in Canada and not two. Now, I know this does not mesh with some people’s belief that the left right spectrum drives voting patterns, but historically, Western rural voters swing between the NDP and the conservative party de jour. Moreover, there are slew of working class neighborhoods (e.g., Surrey North, Nanaimo Cowichan) were voters do the same.

The Democrats garnered 42% in the South in 2004. The Liberals garnered 16.5% in the West in 2008. Outside of Vancouver, Victoria, and the southern part of Winnipeg there is no support for the Liberals to speak of. It is one thing to target every region of the country when you are flush with cash and have huge base of support in absolute numbers to work with; it is quite another when you are fighting it out with the Green party for 4th place outside of the urban centers. The Greens beat the Liberals in 8 seats in BC, 10 in Alberta, 2 in Saskatchewan and 1 in Manitoba. I dare say there was not a county that Nader outpolled Kerry.

308 Misguided

The Liberals are not going to win by trying to emulate the Democrats 50 strategy. It is one thing to try to build on a beach head that is anywhere from 30 to 45% of the vote and quite another to build something when you take 5 to 15% of the vote. Furthermore, there are also 3 major parties in Canada and not two. If support for the Conservatives goes down in rural Canada, the NDP gains. The reverse is also true.

Another misconception is that Obama won red states. It is more accurate to say that the changing face of Virginia, for example, has transformed the state from a Red state into a swing state. Obama won because the Republicans were crushed in ever major city outside of the South and youth showed up and voted for him by a margin of 2 to 1.

Liberals need to stop fooling themselves. A Liberal minority runs through suburban Vancouver, the 905, and Quebec. The Liberals, I am looking at you Mr. Ignatieff, will not win by appealing to gun owners in Wild Rose. The Liberals made inroads in Vancouver in 2006 because social issues mattered in that election and the Conservatives lost Quebec in 2008 because they were on the wrong side of Quebec when it came to social policy. The Liberals need to become more socially liberal; they do not need to pander to the pro bazooka crowd.

Obama and the Prospect of Legalizing Marijuana

The strongest argument against legalization of marijuana is that the Americans would fly off the rails. However, a Democratic president will soon be taking power and the Democratic base is open to such an idea. Moreover, Obama’s hands are tied in ways another leader hands would not be. The war and drugs, especially with regard to marijuana, has had a profound impact on the African American community in the States. If Obama was to toe the standard line in the face of Canada promising to end the war on drugs, he would be in a world of hurt politically. The African American community would not, of course, abandon him, but they would be unhappy and their unhappiness would have the potential to throw his whole presidency out of whack politically. His whole message of being the candidate of change would be called into question.
If the Liberals were to draw out how Obama’s message of change is not consistent with a hard line on marijuana, they should be able to tie Obama hands. As for any noise the Republicans might make, the more noise they make the better it would be for the Liberals. Let Republicans scream their opposition from the rooftops.

After all, Harper has been trying to create distance between himself and his social conservative base and the Bush administration ever since he became Prime Minster. If the Liberals promised to legalize marijuana, not only would Harper find himself in lock step Palin, John Walters, Fox news, the Washington Times, James Dobson, and the faculty at Bob Jones University and rest of the Republican apparatus that Canadians love to hate, but so too would Campaign for Life, Charles McVety and Real Women line up behind him. The Liberals could play the nationalist card and social conservative card all at once. The thought of being able to strike a fatal blow the US war on drugs will make Canadians a little giddy. If that was not enough, on the flip side of things, a legion of rock stars, intellectuals, movie stars, and high brow magazines, such as the New Yorker will line up behind the Liberals. John Stewart would eat such a proposal up. Canada would again be "cool".

Finally, such a promise would tear the Right apart. Libertarians and social conservatives would be at each other's throats and the National Post and great swaths of the Sun Media chain will side with the Liberals on this one! The National Post, Canada's flag ship of Canadian conservativism, has repeatedly called on marijuana to be legalized and has heaped scorn on the Conservative position.

Harper as Dr. Frankenstein

American “conservatism” today is largely a byproduct of Republican talking points and campaign tactics and strategy. Elitist liberals are effeminate snobs who are disconnected from reality; by contrast conservatives are real and unburdened by facts. It is talking points such as this that are conservatism’s first principles and not anything that Burke or even William F. Buckley wrote. In this sense the Republican party is literally writing dissent out of the script of what it means to be conservative. Something similar is happening to Canadian conservatism under Harper. Harper is redefining what it means to be a conservative and he is doing so by borrowing liberally from the Republican party. Indeed, it is hard to find a Conservative talking point or tactic that has not been borrowed from the Republicans. Republicans warned about “cutting and running”; Conservatives followed suite. The Republicans equated a government surplus as over-taxation; the Conservatives followed suite. The Republicans portrayed Kerry as effeminate elitist snob; the Conservatives did the same with Dion. The Republicans baited Michael Dukakis and kept him off message by telling out right lies about him; the Conservatives did the same with Dion and Dion’s Green Shift. The Bushies were all about message control; so is Harper.

This is not an entirely academic exercise. Rhetorical crap has consequences. Just look at Bush. Just look at what might have happened had McCain been elected and then died in office. Bush and Palin are not conservatives in any traditional sense. However their success within the Republican Party can only be accounted for by saying that each is an outgrowth of Republican rhetorical crap. Bush and Palin’s only redeeming features are that they fit the stereotype. Bush and Palin are not the authors of the Republicans decline. The Republican Party has played Frankenstein and Bush and Palin are their monsters. Harper also fancies himself a Dr. Frankenstein. The willingness of Conservatives to stomp on informed opinion and validate idiocy has the potential to cause Canada great harm.

Liberals need to be more than Stephen Harper on Prozac

Stephen Harper once said that Alliance party needed to be more than “Paul Martin in a hurry”. The Liberal party needs to realize that it needs to be more than Stephen Harper on Prozac and that is all it has been for a very long time. Despite all the talk in the media about Dion having moved the party to the left, the central plank in the Liberal platform was reducing income taxes and replacing it with a regressive tax. The Federal Liberal platform hardly differs at all from the one Gordon Campbell will be running on in May! Now granted the makings of “universal” daycare plan was in place when Martin lost in 2006, but in terms of implementation since 1993 the Liberals have only cut taxes and social spending. They have not implemented a major entitlement program since the 1960s. What has confused people is that the Liberals have failed miserably when it comes to standing up to “special interests”. Whether it be the Kelowna Accord, the Atlantic Accord, asymmetrical federalism, and Liberal party affirmative action, the Liberals have come to resemble at best a new social movement and provincial clearing house and at worst their servant.

The belief that Liberal party have moved left reinforces my belief that the Liberals need to reverse their traditional modus operandi. Instead of talking left – new left -- and governing right, they need to talk right and govern left. They can start by sending the right message to the public by cleaning up their own house. The core of liberalism as an ideology is universality; special provisions inevitably damage the party’s brand. Abolish the Women and Aboriginal People’s commissions, revamp the delegate selection process or dump it altogether and stop insisting on a quota of women candidates. The Liberals need simplify and de-clutter their message. Stop talking about women, aboriginals, Quebecers, rural Canadians, “cities” in speeches and talking points that reach a broad audience and get back to talking about just “Canadians”. Micro messaging turns off more voters than it attracts.

The Liberals also need to stop trying to minimize the differences between themselves and the Conservatives. When it comes to Quebec, taxes and most recently crime the Liberal party has been chasing after the Conservative party for years. Not only is this a daft strategy short term, long term it has been disastrous. These issues can not be “neutralized” in the way that Afghanistan was. Trying to match the Conservatives tax cut for tax, for example only serves to focus all the attention on an issue that the Conservatives will win on every single time.

The flip side of trying to minimize the differences between themselves and the Conservatives and not running on a truly alternative vision is that the Liberals have proclaimed themselves to be the champions of the status quo. Needless to say, this is an odd position for an ostensively liberal party to take. However, with Harper having been in power for 2 plus years now and the Bush regime thankfully at an end, the days of railing against the Conservatives “hidden agenda” are over.

The Liberals need to embrace universality again and I do not mean just the rhetoric. The Liberals need to promise to end the war on drugs instead of sitting back and letting the Conservatives box their ears in with their get tough on crime agenda. Finally the Liberals need to be confident that social liberalism and universal social programs are a better sell in Quebec than being called a “nation” and having a seat – or not -- at unesco.

Liberals and New Media; Some Brief Thoughts

Given their precarious financial situation, the Liberals need to take advantage of new media. The problem is they do not know how to do it. The good news is that they are not alone. The major parties seem to see new media as just another means by which to disseminate current talking points and boiler plate. The model is top down. For blogs to be any use to the party, the party should be thinking bottom up. This is what the Liberals should aim for.

The totality of interactions on self identified Liberal blogs produces and refines some talking points.

Lib blogs serves de facto war room, albeit a secondary one.

Lib blogs serves as means of spreading information that the MSM refuses to pick up

Lib blogs serves as means of extending the news cycle of issue that damaging to the Conservatives

Of course, for any of this to happen Lib blogs has to grow substantially larger. The number of regular posters is puny. The $64,000 question is to how to foster such development.

The potential of online video as means hitting the opposition over the head should be obvious by now and the Liberals seem to have caught on. What seems to escaped the party’s attention is how to use online video as means of reaching voters in a positive way. No one is going to watch boiler plate. No one cares whether Dion has a web journal. No one is going to watch how Liberals are going to be make Canada “a fairer, Greener”, place. If you want to catch people’s attention (a la what Obama was able to achieve on his essay on race), you have to talk up to them and not talk down. Online video should be seen as means of demonstrating your leader or team’s knowledge and smarts and not necessarily as means of furthering some policy end. You Tube is made for someone like Ignatieff.

Leadership Convention: I hope the field is small

I hope the Liberals have no more than 5 leadership hopefuls and that all are fluently bilingual.

Leadership Convention has to be held Before May

There is a lot of talk of turning the Liberal policy convention into a leadership convention. This is a terrible idea. The problems with the Liberal party go far beyond leadership and the party can ill afford to delay a policy convention or turn it into a complete afterthought. That said, if the policy convention is to be held at the beginning of May and mean something, the Liberal leadership contest has to be held even earlier. Now there are some who claim that the party can ill-afford to have the leadership convention in March or April. However, the longer the leadership contest goes the more money it will cost the party in terms of lost donations and the longer the party will remain adrift. The added bonus is that by having the leadership and policy conventions a month or so apart the Liberals should be able to dominate the political agenda. The economic downturn will tie Harper’s hands.

Harper Cabinet: Tokenism on Steroids

I see the Conservatives are adopting some of the Liberal's worst habits. This cabinet is as bloated as Paul Martin’s and same attention to tokenism is there. There is no reason to keep Oda in cabinet, for example, and the decision to put Leona Aglukkag in charge of Health is politics at its worst. Andrew Coyne was spot on. It sure would be nice if cabinet was based on, oh, merit instead of such things as regional representation, ethnicity and sex. The way Canada selects cabinet ministers bares more of a resemblance to how a Benetton ad is cast then the process by which it is done in other Western countries.

Fortunately for the country, but unfortunately for the Liberals, social conservative fruit cake Alice Wong did not make the grade. For those that do not know, she is right up there with Rob Anders and Cheryl Gallant. The same can be said of that intellectual giant Donna Cadman.

Brossard-La Prairie: Something smells

I am surprised that no one has commented on this, but I am sorry something went on in Brossard-La Prairie that needs to be looked into further.

563 rejected ballots

212 vote swing on the recount

How The Conservatives Successfully Branded Dion as a Wimp

Dion apologists are busy trotting out the line that Conservatives would have had just an easy a time defining Ignatieff or Rae. Who are they kidding? Sure with Rae there is a lot to work with, but Ignatieff did not give them much. What were they going to say? It is not as if they were going to claim that Ignatieff was as big a backer of the Iraq war as Stephen Harper. More importantly both would have been able to fight back and that matters. One reason that Conservatives were successful in defining Dion is, as I said, simple. His English is not good. People did not understand him or have to patience to listen to him and so turned to the Conservative translation instead.

Moreover, everything the Dion said and did fit perfectly with the Conservative caricature of him. They played him like a fiddle. The Conservatives painted Dion as an indecisive wimp. The worst thing Dion could do once the Conservatives started making everything into a confidence motion was to talk tough and then abstain. That is what a wimp would do. The worst thing Dion and Liberals could have done when the Conservatives started playing bully boy was to get high and mighty and self righteous, but that is exactly what the Liberals did every single time. (I am starting to think that the popping puffin was no gaffe but was rather part of deliberate attempt to emasculate Dion by having the media play it ad nauseum and having Dion and the Liberals get all huffy about it.) The way to handle Conservative bullying is to roll your eyes and mock them. Think of the fun Trudeau would have had with an – intellectual-- lightweight like Peter Van Loan. Tell John Baird that he looks like he is going to stroke and that putting Harper in sweater is about as strange a sight as Paris Hilton carrying around a dressed up pit bull instead of one of those puntable breeds. Do not demand an apology. An apology is what a wimp would ask for.

Then there is election itself. Dion said he was going to take the highroad and like any wimp he did. He wanted to show that if he could not beat Harper in the trenches at least he would show that he held the moral high ground. So instead of doing the smart thing and rolling out one hard hitting negative ad after another, Dion gave us the odd negative ad and a lot of sunshine, butterflies, flags and happy people. In other words, the Liberals rolled out just the kind of useless ads wimps would roll out.

What happened in the English debate was even worse. Dion needed to have some zingers reader. He needed to be brief and not verbose. He needed to hit Harper hard, the way big sister Elizabeth May did. Instead, Dion was hopelessly cheerful when not filled with righteous indignation. His accent was strong throughout, revealing why a bully might have taken notice of him in the first place. I thought I was watching a Conservative ad every time he spoke and “Do you think it is easy to make priorities?” stuck in my head the rest of the night.

So it is only fitting that Dion signs off by talking about the successful smear campaign against him and promising that he will do everything in his power to make to sure this does not happen to next Liberal leader. That is exactly what a wimp would do. But, fear not Stephane. The next leader won’t be a wimp.

Defining Dion: Why it worked

The Conservative were successfully able to define Dion for one simple reason. Dion’s English was not good enough and his accent very strong. Half of Dion’s sound bits were incomprehensible even to people whose first language was English. As for people who struggle with English, many would not have gotten a word he said. ESL students have a terrible time with accents and Dion’s was particularly pronounced. His inability to communicate turned him into a blank slate on which the Conservatives could write anything they pleased. The Liberal support in English Canada went down nearly 950,000 as a result. The Conservatives tried to pull the same thing off in Quebec, but Dion speaks French. The Liberal vote went up 94,000 there. The next Liberal leader must be able to speak both official languages flawlessly. That rules everyone from the last leadership convention out except for Rae and Ignatieff. Quebec will be key next election. Having a leader who speaks better French then Harper gives the Liberals the advantage there.

Dion Going but alas Not Gone

The good news is that Dion is leaving. The bad news is he is not gone yet. Another 6 months of near incomprehensible sound bits and tactical errors awaits us. I am giddy with excitement. At least the leadership race will generate publicity and the candidates will be able to take some shots at Harper.

It is Simple; Canadians Do not like Dion

Dionistas, as Mound of sound refers to them, seem not have heard of Occam's razor. Shaving away the sometimes paranoid stab in the back conspiracy theories, the most plausible explanation for why the Liberal vote was down 944,350 outside of Quebec is also the simplest and most straightforward. Canadians do not like Dion or his policies, particularly his green shift.
The sooner Dion goes, the better.

The Liberals can not afford to move to “the Center”

Sometimes when people talk about the Liberals needing to move to the center what they mean to this. The Liberals need to pander to the god gays and guns crowd to again seize power. I could not imagine a worse approach and one that would fatally damage the Liberal brand. The Liberal brand really shines through when the party is aggressively pursuing socially liberal policies. It was certainly true in 1968 and it was true in 2003. If for no other reason than who we are is wrapped up in who we are not, viz., not Americans and America is a conservative nation, Canadians want a “cool” Liberal party. Quebecers want a “cool” Liberal party. They do not want a Tim Horton’s coffee drinking Michael Ignatieff trying to be one of them. Besides the research is abundantly clear on this; lower income voters give much bigger weight to economic issues than to social ones. It is the well to do, that care most about social issues and Canada’s well to do are socially liberal.

As for Canadians outside of major centers, if you want to make headway with that group you promise to improve their economic lot. The Torries have done this. They promise them tax cuts every election and have more or less cornered the market in that regard. The Liberals need to promise to reduce expenses in a way the population can get their head around and that is by again embracing universality. People do not understand or care about means tested policies and this is all the Liberals have offered up for decades now. You can not strengthen your brand by proposing a means tested policy. Furthermore, the population knows that a means tested policy is politically vulnerable and is likely to be chopped in hard times or in Tory times. However if you think raising taxes is a hard see just try cutting a universal social program. A popular universal social programs quickly become part of what it means to be Canadian and real boon to the party that introduced it.

Dion's Kool-Aid drinking Bloogging Friends

I hate to be so bellicose, but my god Lib bloggers need get some perspective when it comes to Dion. This was not some minor hiccup on the road to a majority, this was arguably the worst showing in the party’s history and it was entirely predictable.

The Liberal vote was down by 849,425.

The Liberal vote was down 944,350 outside of Quebec. This is the biggest drop in history of the party. Yet the delusional Dion supports still want to maintain that Dion’s English and manner of speaking are fine. Christ.

The Liberal share of the popular vote was the worst in party history

The Liberal share of the popular vote was down 8.3% in BC

The Liberal share of the popular vote was down 3.94% in Alberta and at 11.36 this was the party’s worst ever showing in Alberta

The Liberal share of the popular vote was down 7.55 % in Saskatchewan and at 14.85 this was the party’s worst ever showing in the province.

The Liberal share of the popular vote was down 6.87% in Manitoba and at 19.13 this was the party’s worst ever showing in Manitoba

The Liberal share of the popular vote was down 6.11% in Ontario

The Liberal share of the popular vote was down 7.33% in Nova Scotia and this was the party’s second worst showing there.

The Liberal share of the popular vote was down 4.33% in PEI.

The Liberal share of the popular vote was down 6.81% in New Brunswick.

BC and the Dion Disaster

While the Liberal share of the popular vote in other provinces has gone up and down over the years, the Liberal share of the popular vote in BC remained steady between 1993 to 2006 at between 27.6% to 28.8%. That all changed for the worse with Dion. The Liberal share of the popular vote in BC collapsed and the Liberals finished with 19% of the vote in 2008. The sooner Dion leaves, the better for the Liberals in BC. Oh yeah, he can take Mark Marissen with him.

There are at least 849,425 reasons to Dump Dion

The “good” news is that the number of people that voted for Harper was down even though his share of the popular vote went up. In 2006 5,374,071 Canadians voted for the Conservatives. In 2008 that number went down 168,737. Now here is the bad news for Liberals. Not only was the Liberal share of the popular vote at a historic low, the number of Canadians that voted Liberal was the lowest since 1984. And if you throw out 1984, you have to go back to 1965 to see so few ballots cast for the Liberals. The Liberal vote went down by 849,425. Between 2004 and 2006, the number of people casting the vote for the Liberals went down by 471,692.

This is this is the second worst election performance for the Liberals in modern era.

Dump Dion

Sharpen Your Knifes

Let us review.

The Liberal share of the popular vote has never been lower. The Liberals where down everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, accept Montreal. They bled votes to the Greens, to NDP, and above all to the Conservatives. Thousands upn thousands of Liberal voters also just stayed home.

The next Liberal leader must be able to speak both French and English flawlessly. Dion Kool aid drinkers can claim that Dion's English was not a big deal, but they are deluding themselves. It was a huge deal.

The next Liberal leader must be willing to play smash mouth politics. Dion’s high road approach left the Liberals high and dry.

The next Liberal leader must renew the Liberal brand that is all but dead. That means he or she must embrace universality and full blooded social liberalism.

Dump Dion

Pink Slips for Green People: Dump Dion

I hate to say I told you say, but I told you so. “Heureusement, ici, c'est le Bloc!” Otherwise we would be looking a Conservative majority. Save for the Quebec language debate, not much went right for the Liberals. It was hard to conceive of them running having run a worse campaign. Their ads were pathetic, their messaging was pathetic, their election readiness was pathetic, their platform was worse than pathetic and of course Dion’s English was pathetic. Their failure to use any wedge issue was inexplicable. Boy do the Liberals look stupid for having punted away the Afghanistan issue. Headlines screaming that the Afghan mission is massively over budget heading into the last week just as the markets collapsed might provided the Liberals with a bump going into the last week. In every region of the country the Liberals were hindered by Dion and his carbon tax. Dion appeals to no one accept a few Liberal bloggers. The sooner he goes the better and believe me he will go. The only question to be answered is Dion the worst Liberal leader of all time. Quite possibly he is.

Seat Predictions

Large numbers of former Liberal voters in urban Ontario and BC will vote Green. The NDP and Liberals will see a slight uptake in support in Quebec as Conservative voters migrate to the Bloc to replace Bloc supporters migrating to the NDP and Liberals in Montreal.

The Conservatives will make gains in Winnipeg, the Lowermainland, and the 905.

Liberal looses in Northern Ontario are the NDP’s gain.

The Conservatives will loose their stranglehold on Quebec City to the Bloc

With the electorate unhappy and uninterested, the number of Canadians voting will reach historic lows

Voter Turnout

58%

Popular Vote

Conservatives 34.5 (-1.5)
Liberals 27 (-3)
NDP 19 (+1.5)
Bloc 10.5
Greens 7.5 (+3)

Canada

Conservatives 138 (+14)
Liberals 75 (-28)
Bloc 53 (+2)
NDP 40 (+11)
Independents 2 (+1)

BC

Conservatives 23 (+6)
NDP 9 (-1)
Liberals 4 (-5)

Alberta

Conservatives 28

Saskatchewan

Conservatives 12
Liberals 1 (-1)
NDP 1 (+1)

Manitoba

Conservatives 10 (+2)
NDP 4 (+1)
Liberals (-3)

Ontario

Liberals 37 (-17)
Conservatives 50 (+10)
NDP 19 (+7)

Quebec

Bloc 53 (+2)
Conservatives 6 (-4)
Liberals 14 (+1)
NDP 1 (+1)
Independents 1

New Brunswick

Liberals 4 (-2)
Conservatives 5 (+2)
NDP 1

Novo Scotia

Liberals 5 (-1)
Conservatives 2
NDP 3
Independents 1 (+1)

PEI

Liberals 4

Newfoundland

Liberals 5 (+1)
NDP 1 (+1)
Conservatives 1 (-2)

NWT

NDP

Yukon

Liberals

Nunavut

Conservatives (+1)

(Liberals -1)

Conservatives: seat pick ups

1) Conservatives pick up Newton North Delta from Liberals
2) Conservatives pick up Saint-Boniface from Liberals
3) Conservatives pick up Nunavut from Liberals
4) Conservatives pick up Brant from Liberals
5) Conservatives pick up Huron-Bruce from Liberals
6) Conservatives pick up Richmond from the Liberals
7) Conservatives pick up Newmarket Aurora from Liberals
8) Conservatives pick up West Nova from Liberals
9) Conservatives pick up Madawaska-Restigouche form Liberals
10) Conservatives pick up Mississauga South from Liberals
11) Conservatives pick up Oakville from Liberals
12) Conservatives pick up Winnipeg South Centre from Liberals
13) Conservatives pick up London West from Liberals
14) Conservatives pick up Mississauga Erindale from Liberals
15) Conservatives pick up Halton from Liberals
16) Conservatives pick up Fredericton from Liberals
17) Conservatives pick up Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca from Liberals


1) Conservatives pick up West Vancouver from Greens

1) Conservatives pick up Vancouver Island North from NDP
2) Conservatives pick up Surrey North from NDP

Liberals: seat pick ups

1) Liberals pick up St John's South Mount Pearl from Conservatives

1) Liberals pick up Parkdale-High Park from NDP

1) Liberals pick up Papineau from the Bloc
2) Liberals pick up Ahuntsic form the Bloc

NDP: seat pick ups

1) NDP pick up Churchill from Liberals
2) NDP pick up Nickel Belt from Liberals
3) NDP pick up Algoma-Manitoulin Kapuskasing from Liberals
4) NDP pick up Thunder Bay Rainy River from Liberals
5) NDP pick up Sudbury from Liberals
6) NDP pick up Welland from Liberals
7) NDP pick up Kenora from Liberals

1) NDP pick up Thunder Bay Superior North from Conservatives(Liberal win 2006)
2) NDP pick up Vancouver Kingsway from Conservatives(Liberal win in 2006, Emerson)
3) NDP pick up St. Johns East from Conservatives
4) NDP pick up Oshawa from the Conservatives
5) NDP pick up Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar from Conservatives
6) NDP pick up South Shore-St. Margaret's from Conservatives

Bloc: seat pick ups

1) Bloc pick up Jonquière-Alma from Conservatives
2) Bloc pick up Louis Hebert from Conservatives
3) Bloc pick up Charlesbourg-Haute-Saint-Charles from Conservatives
4) Bloc pick up Beauport-Limoilou from Conservatives
5) Bloc pick up Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean from Conservatives

What needs to be done to Save the Furniture

1) Keep Dion in Quebec and tell him to speak French and only French. I do not want to see him speaking English on any news clips. Every time Dion is heard on English speaking television or quoted in an English speaking news paper, the Liberals loose votes.

2) When attacking the Conservatives in English, have Ignatieff or Rae do it.

3) Go after the female vote. God knows they have lost men. Stress that the Conservative Daycare plan has not produced a single daycare spot.

4) Bring up social issues. As I said thousand times before, this is the Conservatives Achilles Heel.

5) Layton has described Dion as "A man of principle and conviction”, and May has also said similar things about Dion: That being the case, why the hell are the Liberals not using these quotes?

Harper and the Debate

Harper did not come out of this unscathed. For example, what is left of his environmental platform is in tatters. It is too bad one of his opponents did not deliver the coup de grace by pointing out that just as emissions in Canada have risen over the last 20 years emission intensity has gone down.

However, given the number of shots he took on the economy, Harper came out relatively well on that account and his get dumb when it comes to crime plan was more or less given a free pass. Harper kept on saying that crime is up in “some” places and amazingly no one had the foresight to say “yes it is, but it is down in the vast majority of places.” Furthermore, May was the only one to point out how odd it is that Harper would consider sending somone, who is not considered mature enough to vote or drive, to jail for life. It was too bad May did not take it further. Not only are 14 years not allowed to vote, or drive, but they are also not allowed to decide whether to quite school, decide to marry, drink alcohol or consent to sex with adult. It takes a great deal of chutzpah on Harper’s part to on the one hand raise the age of consent to 16, or as the Conservatives like to say “age of protection”, and on the other hand claim that 14 years should be held to the same standards as adults when it comes to criminal matters. It also says a lot about the Conservative world view.

Of course the main reason that the major opposition parties were not able to mount an attack on Harper’s get dumb when it comes to crime platform was that they refuse to address the root cause surrounding the only kind of crime, viz., drug related crime that is going up and will continue to go up. I do not mean poverty; that was mentioned. No serious discussion of drug and gang related crime can take place without first acknowledging that what fuels drug related crime is the amount of money involved in the drug trade and the lure of money is the main reason why poor young men and teenagers come to be the foot soldiers in the drug trade. Not to put too fine a point on it but gang bangers to do commit drive bys for shits and giggles. They are on the job when they commit these acts. Pace the politicians, these are not meaningless random acts.

I surmise that part of the reason that May remained silent on the subject of legalizing marijuana, for example, was the political fallout of NDP’s version of Cheech and Chong.

English Leaders Debate: May Set the Tone

May was breath of fresh air and kept Harper on the defensive all night. Dion and Layton were terrible and Harper told so many lies of omission I lost count. Duccepe was an after thought, albeit a charming one. More later.

Seat Projections

Two things will determine whether the Conservatives end up with a majority. 1) How much of the Liberal vote in the 905 migrates over to the Conservatives? 2) How badly damaged are the Conservatives by Harper’s attack on the arts community and his get dumb when it comes to crime plan in Quebec?

My prediction as of right now.

Canada

Conservatives 151 (+27)
Liberals 75 (-28)
Bloc 45 (-6)
NDP 35 (+6)
Independents 2 (+1)


BC
Conservatives 26 (+9)
NDP 7 (-3)
Liberals 3 (-6)

Alberta

Conservatives 28

Saskatchewan

Conservatives 13 (+1) Liberals 1 (-1)

Manitoba

Conservatives 10 (+2)
NDP 4 (+1)
Liberals (-3)

Ontario

Liberals 39 (-15)
Conservatives 50 (+10)
NDP 17 (+5)

Quebec

Bloc 45 (-6)
Conservatives 14 (+4)
Liberals 13
NDP 2 (+2)
Independents 1

New Brunswick

Liberals 4 (-2)
Conservatives 5 (+2)
NDP 1

Novo Scotia

Liberals 5 (-1)
Conservatives 3
NDP 2
Independents 1 (+1)

PEI

Liberals 4

Newfoundland

Liberals 5 (+1)
NDP 1 (+1)
Conservatives 1 (-2)

NWT

NDP

Yukon

Liberals

Nunavut

Conservatives (+1) (Liberals -1)

Conservatives: seat pick ups

1) Conservatives pick up Newton North Delta from Liberals
2) Conservatives pick up Saint-Boniface from Liberals
3) Conservatives pick up Nunavut from Liberals
4) Conservatives pick up Fredericton from Liberals
5) Conservatives pick up Brant from Liberals
6) Conservatives pick up Huron-Bruce from Liberals
7) Conservatives pick up Richmond from the Liberals
8) Conservatives pick up North Vancouver from the Liberals
9) Conservatives pick up Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca from Liberals
10) Conservatives pick up Newmarket Aurora from Liberals
11) Conservatives pick up West Nova from Liberals
12) Conservatives pick up Madawaska-Restigouche form Liberals
13) Conservatives pick up Mississauga South from Liberals
14) Conservatives pick up Oakville from Liberals
15) Conservatives pick up Winnipeg South Centre from Liberals
16) Conservatives pick up Kenora from Liberals
17) Conservatives pick up London West from Liberals
18) Conservatives pick up Mississauga Erindale from Liberals
19) Conservatives pick up Brampton West form Liberals
20) Conservatives pick up Oak Ridge Markham from Liberals

1) Conservatives pick up West Vancouver from Greens

1) Conservatives pick up Vancouver Island North from NDP
2) Conservatives pick up British Columbia Southern Interior from NDP
3) Conservatives pick up Surrey North from NDP
4) Conservatives pick up New Westminster-Coquitlam from NDP

1) Conservatives pick up Brome-Missisquoi from Bloc
2) Conservatives pick up Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine from Bloc
3) Conservatives pick up Haute-Gaspésie-La Mitis-Matane-Matapédia from Bloc
4) Conservatives pick up Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord from Bloc

Liberals: seat pick ups

1) Liberals pick up St John's South Mount Pearl from Conservatives

1) Liberals pick up Parkdale-High Park from NDP

1) Liberals pick up Papineau from the Bloc


NDP: seat pick ups

1) NDP pick up Churchill from Liberals
2) NDP pick up Nickel Belt from Liberals
3) NDP pick up Algoma-Manitoulin Kapuskasing from Liberals
4) NDP pick up Thunder Bay Rainy River from Liberals
5) NDP pick up Sudbury from Liberals

1) NDP pick up Oshawa from Conservatives
2) NDP pick up Thunder Bay Superior North from Conservatives
(Liberal win 2006)
3) NDP pick up Vancouver Kingsway from Conservatives
(Liberal win in 2006, Emerson)
4) NDP pick up St. Johns East from Conservatives

1) NDP pick up Gatineau from the Bloc

Bloc: seat pick ups

1) Bloc pick up Jonquière-Alma from Conservatives

Dion Disaster: Some Hard Truths

For weeks many Liberal bloggers have been clinging to Nanos. However, Nanos has the Conservatives at 40% now and it is time that every Liberal acknowledge some hard truths.

1) The green shift a disaster.

2) Dion is a disaster.

3) The Liberal platform is mix of boring platitudes and policies that have been announced before and have not captured the imagination of the Canadian people.

4) If the Liberals stay the course, they will be wiped off the map. There is likely nothing that could stay off a Conservative majority now, but that is what makes a late hail marry worth it.

5) The Liberal ads suck. The negative ads are not specific enough and the positive ads are a complete waste of money. Go negative and do not let up.

6) If the Liberals hold the Conservatives to minority, they could dump Dion and elect Rae or Ignatieff leader and the party will survive. If the Conservatives take a majority and Rae and Ignatieff pack in, the very future of the Liberal party could be in jeopardy.

MSM and Objectivity

Paul Krugman once quipped that should Bush claim the earth flat the following headline would appear the next day “Shape of the earth: opinions differ”. His point was that a false version of objectivity holds sway over the MSM and this has a profound affect over the quality of news coverage. The media sees it as their job to report how opposing political groupings view an issue all the while withholding judgment on the issue itself. This sometimes gives news coverage an Alice in Wonder Land character. Take the recent controversy about “putting lipstick on a pig”. Rather than simply dealing with what Obama said and the absurdity of characterizing such a comment as a smear directed at Sarah Palin, spin doctors were brought in on both sides to give us their interpretation of what was implied when Obama uttered said comments. We do not need an authority to tell us the meaning of a mundane saying. Call a spade a spade and then show us that spade.

Another problem is that just because one side is able to appeal to legitimate authorities does not mean that the media should seek out some huckster on the other side, in the name of “balance”, and pass him off as being equal in statue and yet this happens all the time. This has allowed the right to assert that there is serious debate when a learned consensus exists. There is no debate about the merits of Darwinian theories of evolution as compared to Intelligent Design. There is no debate about whether climate change is occurring. Learned opinion about Insite is not spilt and learned opinion is not spilt about Harper’s criminal justice plans either.

On Crime: Conservatives say it is uninformed opinion that counts

Anthony Doob, a professor of criminology at the University of Toronto "it looks like some grade school dropout wrote this thing."

Nicholas Bala, a specialist in youth crime at Queen's University in Kingston, "significantly bad social policy."

Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University "It's really very much a commitment to the American model. In America they have crime rate that's three-and-a-half times higher than ours and they put five times as many people in jail. That doesn't seem to me to be a very workable equation”

Ross Hastings, University of Ottawa criminologist, and co-founder of the Institute for the Prevention of Crime: "This is more of a politics of crime rather than it is a reasoned, evidence-based response to the problem of crime.”

Angela Campbell, who specializes in children and the law at McGill University's law faculty. "hard-line, law-and-order approach that is very simplistic and doesn't look at the social nuances that lead young people to criminal behaviour."

With their get dumb when it comes to crime plan panned by experts, the Conservatives argued that what really counts is what the uninformed where saying.

Jim Bob: The victims of crime should determine the punishment: they are the most objective

Jane Doe Tory: I hope those little #%$$# rot in hell

Grumpy old Guy: When I was young, kids knew their place.

Old guy from the Simpsons: that’s a paddling.

Sarah Palin: 14 year olds are not only enough to consent to sex, get married, drink alcohol, drive, join the army and vote, but if they commit a crime they need to be held to the same standard we would hold a adult to.

Your Average Canadian According to Harper

Liberal Platform

I had hoped for more, but the hopelessly temperamentally conservative Liberal party of Canada gave me what I expected. Dion acts as if Robert Stanfield was a Liberal icon and not Trudeau. The Liberals are not even promising to ban hand guns. I will hold my nose and vote Liberal, but only because in my riding the only two parties with a chance are the Liberals and the Conservatives. If the Liberals loose, and there is no reason to believe that they will win, I will be calling for Dion to be ousted as party leader as soon as the results are in.

Dion needs to go after the God, Gays and Gun crowd

The old adage has it that Canada is socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Dion seems to have forgotten this. He seems to have forgotten that calling someone a social conservative is just a polite way of calling them a moron. In past elections the Liberals have had Stockwell Day, Randy White and Charles Mcvety. This election Dion has not introduced anything that will cause the nuts to break free from their handlers. We social liberals are itching for the opportunity to beat the rhetorical tar out of social cons. Dion needs to give us that opportunity.

Save what you can

Stuff Dion in some room and tell him outside of the debates he is not allowed to talk English again in public. Speaking of the debates, 100% of Dion’s energies should be focused on them. Let Rae and Ignatieff do the talking from now on

Stop wasting money on useless leadership ads. Dion is unsalable. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional. The Liberals must go negative. Under no circumstances can Dion be shown in an ad or his voice heard.

The Green shift is unmediated disaster. Stop talking about it.

Promise to ban hand guns. This will help them with urban women.

The election is lost. It is all about keeping Harper in minority territory. On the subject of minority, mention the prospect of a Harper majority at every chance.

Conservatives promised to slay the Surplus

Conservative candidate Cindy Silver: December 8 North Shore Outlook "Continuous federal surpluses are a sign, not of economic health, but of over-taxation.”

Chuck Strahl “Canadians know that the surplus comes from over taxation.”
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:v_OTC4oJYs8J:www.chuckstrahl.com/view_page.php%3Fid%3D527+stephen+Harper+over-taxation+surplus+&hl=en

Jay Hill “For Conservatives, a surplus is an error known as over-taxation”
http://www.jayhillmp.com/news/weekcol/2004/Nov172004.htm

Conservative candidate Mike Wallace. “Paul Martin has no credibility in fiscal matters - by overtaxing Canadians he has run massive budget surpluses year after year”
http://www.mikewallace.ca/

Conservative candidate Jim Flaherty: “The total federal surplus (over-taxation) was 63 billion during the last eight years.”

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:8svPdM_x0jwJ:jimflaherty.ca/docs/GST.pdf+stephen+harper+surplus+over-taxation+&hl=en


Now where have heard this surplus = over-taxation talking point before? Think think think. Oh yes, it was part of Republican Party platform back in 2000. “Budget surpluses are the result of over-taxation of the American people.” Needless to say, having turned record surpluses into record deficits I think it is safe to say that the Republicans have, indeed, succeeded in slaying the surplus and now the Conservatives are poised to follow suit.

Green Shift is a Unmediated Disaster: Change Course

Call it what you will, the Green shift has been an unmediated political disaster that is now the Liberals cross to bear. That said, the Liberals are not condemned to press with only this policy. They need to change the channel and the only thing that is going to accomplish this is to wide into the cultural wars in a big way. Do not worry about what the hinterlands may think. It is too late to think about winning the election. The best the Liberals can hope for now is hold on to what they have in Canada’s major cities. My personal favorite is promising to legalize marijuana, but this will likely fall on deaf ears. Promising to introduce euthanasia is not nearly as bold but might buy the Liberals a few days grace from the green disaster headlines.

Change Course

The Liberals need to stop putting lipstick on Liberal pigs. The Green shift is abject political failure. They need to focus on other things and not just the Green Shift. They also need to stop making Dion the face of the campaign. They need to emphasize team. Yes this runs counter to usual campaign orthodoxy, but Dion is a clear liability. Every time he speaks the Liberals loose people to boredom or worse. The less he tries to speak English the better for him and the Liberals. Park him in Quebec and tell him to limit himself to French as much as possible. Assign each region a designated spokesperson or spokespersons. Put Rae in BC, Ignatieff in Ontario and Brison in the Maritimes for example. Next, fluffy short on specifics ads about the green shift will not arrest Harper’s march to a majority. The Liberals need to produce hard hitting political ads that are long on specifics.

The hopelessly conservative Liberal party of Canada

The Toronto Star Thomas Walkom is right. http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/495706 The Liberals are entirely undeserving of the name “progressive”. What exactly is progressive about Dion? On paper he is no more progressive than Gordan, right of Attila the Hun, Campbell? Dion punted away the Afghan issue, has been silent on health care, seems to have shelved any plans for early childhood education and has not opened any new fronts on the cultural front. If he wants to inject any kind excitment into his campaign, he best throw us a bone or two.

Green Bore: ZZZZZ

What the Liberals need to do, other than getting Rae and Ignatieff to take some of the load off Dion, is they need to revamp their Green Shift talking points – or better yet switch the subject to something else, but alas that is just not going to happen. Anyway, saying that you want to tax more of what we do not want and tax less of what we want more of is fine as far as it goes, but one can not fill 5 minutes of speech mindlessly outlining such a “simple” plan. The biggest strike against the Green shift is not that the Conservatives have managed to paint it as a tax grab and they have been partly successful in that regard. No the biggest strike against the Green Shift is that it bores people to tears and they find its self appointed salesman hopelessly dull.

How to avoid a full on Dion disaster

Go negative in a big way.

run ads painting Harper as a mean spirited bully and promote viral internet ads doing the same

Attack Harper’s economic record repeatedly

Promote something other than the Green Shift. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Liberals own the environment or that environment is the issue.

Goad social conservatives into a major fight by promising to introduce something that really pisses them off

Promise to ban hand guns again

Get Rae and Ignatieff out in front of the cameras. Dion’s English has improved, but not enough.

Sask. and Alberta are lost causes --- forget about them.

Barbara Yaffe on Conservative Immigration Reforms: Wrong as Always

I am not a Barbara Yaffe fan and nothing in her recent column on immigration changes that. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=1404512e-d7eb-4f6a-a6a9-93ba78a71fb5

Yaffe: At present the country has a backlog of 925,900 permanent-residence applications. If unaddressed, the backlog is set to grow to 1.5 million by 2012, which would force newcomers to endure a decade-long wait.

There are is not one massive line, but many lines as there are embassies and consulates. How long someone takes to get processed does not depend upon how many people are applying to immigrant to Canada world wide but among other things how many are applying at a particular location. It may take someone in Warsaw 1.8 years to be processed, but someone in Bogotá over 16 years.

Another thing is that Canada puts a quota on the number of people taken in at each local. In other words, to present the problem as if Canada were processing people as fast as they could but we lack the right number of tellers is wrong. Those bottlenecks that do exist, exist because the government wants them to exist.

Yaffe: The current system requires applications to be handled on a first-come, first-served basis.

This is not true and Finley is either lying or ignorant when she says otherwise. As Guidy Mamann of the immigration law firm Mamann & Associates notes the immigration minister is not required by law to process applications as they come in.

“In an interview last week with CTV’s Mike Duffy, Finley confirmed that our backlog now stands at about 925,000 applications. The government maintains that the Minister needs these powers to cherry pick applicants who are needed here on a priority basis. She was asked by Duffy, if under the present system, the department was able to fast track, say a welder who was desperately needed in Fort McMurray . Finley answered “The way the law stands now we have to process the oldest application first. If that person is number 600,000 in line we’ve got a lot of applications to get through before that”.

This is simply not true. Our current legislation states that the federal cabinet “may make any regulation ... relating to classes of permanent residents or foreign nationals” including “selection criteria, the weight, if any to be given to all or some of those criteria, the procedures to be followed in evaluating all or some of those criteria… the number of applications to be processed or approved in a year” etc. In fact, in the case of Vaziri v. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the Federal Court held in September 2006 that our current legislation “authorize[s] the Minister to set target levels and to prioritize certain classes of PR applicants” without even a
regulation being passed. Accordingly, Finley has more than enough power under our current legislation to make virtually any changes that she wants subject to the Charter.”

Yaffe: Impartiality is well and good, but entry to Canada is a privilege and the humanitarian end of the process is addressed through the family and refugee classes of immigration, which Finley has pledged won't be affected.

Canada needed all the economic immigrants it can handle. What it does not need is refugees and family class immigrants. Indeed, while much has been made of the fact that immigrants are lagging further and further behind, once you look at it by category it becomes apparent that only skilled principle applicants earning anywhere close to what their Canadian peers are earning and skilled principle applicants are the only category of immigrants that are working in numbers that even approach the Canadian average.

"At 26 weeks after their arrival, 50% of all immigrants aged 25 to 44 were employed. This was 30 percentage points below the employment rate of about 80% among all individuals aged 25 to 44 in the Canadian population. ... At 52 weeks after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 58%. This narrowed the gap to 23 percentage points. At 104 weeks, or two years after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 63%, 18 percentage points below the national rate of 81%. ... Immigrants admitted as principal applicants in the skilled worker category had an even better record for employment. At 26 weeks after arrival, the gap in the employment rate between them and the Canadian population was 20 percentage points. By 52 weeks, this had narrowed to 12 points, and by two years, it was down to 8 points."

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051013/d051013b.htm

If you tease out the numbers, 55% of non principal skilled applicants in the 25 to 44 age group are working after 2 years! As Conservative bill does not do anything to reduce the number of refugees and family class immigrants, but instead purposes to favor certain kinds of economic immigrants over others, it is completely useless.

Yaffe: Why on earth would the federal government not pick and choose, based on the economic needs of Canada , those it allows to enter Canada ? It's essential that those chosen possess skills to contribute to Canada 's wealth in no small part because Charter rights are accorded to newcomers the moment they make landfall. They're given immediate rights to avail themselves of taxpayer-funded social programs.

The Conservatives have talk a good game about the need to bring in doctors and PhDs, but this is all really just a smokescreen for allowing the provinces to bring guest workers --- many if not most of them far from skilled. Currently Alberta, for example, is hopping to fill the following positions through immigration: Front desk clerk, short order cook, baker, maid, assembly line worker, server, buser, bellhop, valet, and cafeteria worker, laundry attendant, pet groomer, general labourer, and hair dresser. All that is required of such would be immigrants is that they score 4 or 24 on the language assessment. In other words, they can still be functionally illiterate and still get it in. Never mind the fact that in many cases such demands amount to little more than a request from business that government assist them in quashing growing labour unrest, e.g., in the oil sands, such thinking is short sighted in extreme. Just look at Europe. There is ample evidence that armies of disenfranchised workers, whether they be illegal or guest, are a recipe for disaster. It is great way to, create an underclass, suppress wages, encourage black marketing, increase xenophobia and racism. Of course, great swaths of guest workers turn out to be anything but and as soon as the economy experiences a downturn they are trampled under foot and to add insult to injury are generally resented for being so unfortunate. Again look at Europe. A European like backlash is possible and this would make all but politically impossible to increase the number of economic immigrants coming to Canada at a time when it is imperative that we do so.

Yaffe: The expectation is that the government will now speed the processing of economic class immigrants with skills deemed to be in demand by provincial governments and major employers.

Business is more concerned with gaining access to cheap labour than putting Canada on a firm footing. Insuring that cleaning companies in Whistler are able to import Filipino women to work as cleaners is not a pressing issue. What is a pressing issue is the fact that Canada needs to get much younger.

The average Canadian in 2004 was 39.7; in other words Canada is one of the oldest nations on earth. However bad things are now things promise to get a lot worse. The percentage of Canadians over 65 is set to go from 14.7 now to 27.6 in 2050. If the situation was ever allowed to get this bad, the economy would be in sharp decline, the federal government would surely be in deficit, and virtually ever public entitlement program would have collapsed or would be close to it. Public health care system would surely have collapsed under the demands placed on it.

Part of the problem is that average immigrant to Canada (37.1) is not much younger than the average Canadian (39.7). The situation is akin to baling out a boat by moving water from one part of the boat to another. The average immigrant to Canada needs to be under 30 and Canada should aim to let in 500,000 plus economic class immigrants a year.

Canada, of course, is not alone in having to deal with aging population. Some European countries have it even worse.

"World Bank projections show that the working-age population of the present EU will drop from 230m now to 167m by 2050, a fall of 63m. Most of this is concentrated in the 12 current euroland countries, where working-age population is projected to drop from 186m to 131m. The worst-hit individual countries are Italy , with a 15m, or 42% fall, from 36m to 21m, followed by Spain and Germany. Britain is not immune but fares relatively well. The World Bank projects a 5m fall in working-age population, from 35.2m to 29.9m In general, though, Europe's position is dire. As Lombard Street Research writes: "The last demographic shock on a similar scale was the Black Death of the late 14th century. Even two world wars did not stop Europe 's population rising by nearly a fifth in the first half of the 20th century."

If Europe continues on as it is, the median age in Europe will go from 37.7 today to 52.3 by 2050!
As professor Charles Kupchan notes,

"today there are 35 pensioners for every 100 workers within the European Union. By 2050, current demographic trends would leave Europe with 75 pensioners for every 100 workers and in countries like Italy and Spain the ratio would be 1 to 1."

Sexual Orientation not Chosen

One does not choose to desire anything; thinking otherwise is what Ryle called a category mistake. I do not choose to desire a glass of water; I just desire one. The same goes for belief. I can no more choose to believe in God than I can choose to believe that there is a computer screen in front of me. That being the case, it matters not a lick whether one’s sexuality is biologically based or otherwise.

What really seems to be at the heart of dispute is whether one’s sexual orientation can change. Available evidence, especially with regard to males, is it can not be changed. Orientation seems to be far less varied than behavior. (Women who identify as bisexual respond to erotica of all sorts; their bisexual male counterparts on the other hand only respond to one or the other.) This has led those opposed to fundamentalists to claim victory. Both sides are guilty of confused thinking though. Just because sexual orientation can not be changed does not mean that this settles the issue. Pedophilia also seems to be immutable, but that does not make diddling kids morally permissible. Homosexual behavior is morally permissible because there is no harm in two consenting adults of the same sex engaging in sexual behavior and with regard to morality no harm no foul.

Poilievre

Poilievre: “My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work, independence, and self-reliance. That's the solution in the long run, more money will not solve it.”

This is typical small minded conservative self-reliance crap. A lack of “self-reliance” is consequence not a cause. Also Poilievere’s timing is awful. He could not have picked a worse time to spout off. The good news for those concerned with the quality of public discourse is that Poilievre is likely in Harper’s doghouse, he already had to make a clarification, and will not be answering too many questions in the House or making any public appearances.

All that being said, Poilievre is right about one thing. The reserve system, premised as it is on the notion of native rights, is a bureaucratic, fiscal, legal, intellectual and sociological abortion that does nothing save waste mountains of money, breed corruption and poverty, instill in the native community a vile sense of identity based on “blood” and breed racism in the Canadian society at large. Hell, if Harper promised to abolish native rights and privatize communal land holdings, I would vote for him. Well maybe.

Starve the Beast: Cut Military Spending

Outside of implementing a newer version of the White Paper and alas this just not going to happen, the one area of government that fat can be cut is the military. Sure the military’s operational capability was badly compromised by cuts during the 1990s, but this not all bad. Indeed, far from it. It has greatly limited our ability to engage in foreign adventurism and this is important for reasons that extend beyond wasting money. The biggest threat facing Canada by far is Islamic terrorism and this relates largely to our presence in Afghanistan. In the case of the Toronto 18 the Afghan mission was what motivated the accused to target Canada. As for Al Qaeda, the only time Bin Laden and company have mentioned Canada is in reference to the Afghan mission. Starve the beast. Government can not be trusted. Unless military spending is kept low, future governments, particularly Conservative ones, might commit Canada to foreign missions that are doomed to failure and greatly increase the likelihood that Canada will be attacked by terrorists home grown or otherwise.

The Liberals should not Force an Election Now

Yes the Conservatives are flat right now. Yes the Conservative will come back reenergized after the break. This will be especially so if they bring parliament back only after the Conservative convention. However, no the Liberals should not go right now. If you go province by province riding by riding there is very little evidence that the Liberals would win an election right now. Whatever gains they might make in the 905 are more than offset by Conservative gains in Quebec. Liberal support has not budged outside of the Maritimes, the 416 and parts of the 905. Indeed, there is pretty good evidence that it has gone down in “the West” and Quebec.

The consequences of an election loss are just too high for the party. The Liberals have enough held in reserve so they will not be outspent by the Conservatives during the next campaign. The Liberals will spend the max. However, after that Liberal party would be flat broke and would be in midst of another leadership campaign. The Liberal party would be faced with either doing battle with the Conservatives in election with huge monetary disadvantage or allowing the Conservatives to stick to them even worse then they are now. Forget a death by thousand cuts; the Conservatives would look to disgorge great gobs of flesh.

Another problem with going now is that Liberal platform, to be blunt, sucks. There is not single issue or combination of issues that I can see that would put the Liberals over the top and that especially includes a carbon tax. Indeed, whenever I here a carbon tax – sorry tax shift – mentioned I can not think help but think of Warren Kinsella’s errant but humourous quip “Think gas is expensive now. Want to be pay more? Vote Liberal.”

On the flipside though it is pretty clear that Canadians are not enamored with the Harper government, the Conservative caucus is very weak and most of the cabinet intellectual minnows, the economy in central Canada is going south and good god if the Liberal got down to work on the policy front, stopped focusing only the environment, they might actually convince the Canadian people to give them a minority government. Rae, Ignatieff and Dion must understand that Canadians want an end to the incremental approach the Liberal party has taken over the last number of years. The status quo will not do. Canadians want change.

Safe Injection Site: Different Standard for BC and Quebec?

Tony Clement is apparently open to idea of Quebec setting up a safe injection site.

Health Minister Tony Clement says his government will not necessarily oppose safe-injection sites for illegal drugs in Quebec even though it will appeal a court decision allowing a similar facility in British Columbia……”I am obligated to consider each situation as a unique situation. That’s my obligation as the Minister of Health.”

I love it. It is as if Harper and company have forgotten what launched the Reform Party in BC. Insite is Vancouver’s pet project and so as it the Conservative’s risk shutting it down at their own peril, but shutting down Insite well allowing a safe injection site to be set up in Montreal would create a huge political storm in BC. I can see the headlines now and tempers starting to boil. I can guarantee you if Conservative treat the two cases differently, Conservative support in the Lowermainland will drop 5% to 10% overnight. There is nothing that goes over worse in BC than saying that Quebec deserves to be differently than BC.

Hat tip To David Eaves .

Language Test for Immigrants

Despite the alarmist headline,“Language test spells trouble for newcomers” in the Star, Canada's decision to force all would be immigrants to take the IELTS (the Cambridge language exam) is good news. The Cambridge exam may not perfectly reflect spoken English in Canada, but it is the gold standard of English tests taken aboard and in ESL schools in Canada and it is required for foreigners wanting to go to university in Canada. One can sign up for a Cambridge study coarse in Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, Seoul, New Delhi, etc. By adopting the Cambridge test as the standard, it becomes easier for Canada to attract would be immigrants. People know just what to study for, and more importantly they can easily access programs that will help them pass the test.

Whether it be allowing ESL students to work in Canada and now this, the Harper government, to its credit, is making it easier and more likely that ESL students, for one, will immigrant to Canada.

Update: The government got cold feet and dropped the idea. Shame. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/436519

Seats Projections if Election was held Today

Reading the polls, both provincial and national, this is how I see things breaking down if a federal election was held today.

I see the Conservatives gaining at the expense of the Liberals in BC, making solid gains in Quebec at the expense of the Bloc, loosing some ground to the Liberals in the 905 as a result of some NDP voters migrating to the Liberals and loosing ground to the Liberals in Newfoundland.

As for the Liberals, I think they will pick up seats from both the NDP and Conservatives in the 905 and 416, pick up 2 seats from the Conservatives in Newfoundland , and pick up 3 seats from the Bloc as result of decrease in the Bloc vote in Quebec. On the flip side, the Liberals should loose ground to the NDP in Northern Ontario and as mentioned ground to the Conservatives in BC.

The NDP will loose seats to the Liberals in the 416 and 905 and loose two seats to the Conservatives in BC. However, these looses should be offset by gains in Northern Ontario at the expense of the Liberals and picking up a seat an extra seat in Quebec.

The Bloc will by far the worst of any of the major parties. I see their body of support slipping just enough to allow a stagnet Liberal party to regain three seats and they will loose voters on the left to the NDP and voters on the right to the Conservatives. The NDP should be to pick up Jeanne Le Bar and the Conservative will make major gains outside of Montreal at the Bloc's expense.

Conservatives 143
Liberals 100
Bloc 34
NDP 29
Independents 2

BC

Conservatives 23 (+6)
NDP 8 (-2)
Liberals 5 (-4)

Alberta

Conservatives 28

Saskatchewan

Conservatives 13 (+1)
Liberals 1 (-1)

Manitoba

Conservatives 9 (+1)
NDP 4 (+1)
Liberals 1 (-2)

Ontario

Liberals 56 (+2)
Conservatives 39 (-1)
NDP 11 (-1)

Quebec

Bloc 34 (-17)
Conservatives 23 (+13)
Liberals 15 (+2)
NDP 2 (+2)
Independents 1

New Brunswick

Liberals 5 (-1)
Conservatives 4 (+1)
NDP 1

Novo Scotia

Liberals 6
Conservatives 2 (-1)
NDP 2
Independents 1 (+1)

PEI

Liberals 4

Newfoundland

Liberals 6 (+2)
Conservatives 1 (-2)

NWT

NDP

Yukon

Liberals

Nunavut

Conservatives (+1) Liberals -1

Conservatives

1) Conservatives pick up Richmond from Liberals

2) Conservatives pick up Newton North Delta from Liberals

3) Conservatives pick up Saint-Boniface from Liberals

4) Conservatives pick up North Vancouver from Liberals

5) Conservatives pick up Nunavut from Liberals

6) Conservatives pick up Fredericton from Liberals

7) Conservatives pick up Brant from Liberals

8) Conservatives pick up Huron-Bruce from Liberals


1) Conservatives pick up West Vancouver from Independent (Blair Wilson)


1) Conservatives pick up Vancouver Island North from NDP

2) Conservatives pick up British Columbia Southern Interior from NDP


1) Conservatives pick up Berthier Masinonge from Bloc

2) Conservatives pick up Saint Maurice from Bloc

3) Conservatives pick up Trois-Rivières from Bloc

4) Conservatives pick up Chicoutimi-Le Fjord from Bloc

5) Conservatives pick up Vaudreuil-Soulanges from Bloc

6) Conservatives pick up Brome-Missisquoi from Bloc

7) Conservatives pick up Compton-Stanstead from Bloc

8) Conservatives pick up Richmond-Arthabuska from Bloc

9) Conservatives pick up Shefferd from Bloc

10) Conservatives pick up Quebec from Bloc

11) Conservatives pick up Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine from Bloc

12) Conservatives pick up Haute-Gaspésie-La Mitis-Matane-Matapédia from Bloc

13) Conservatives pick up Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord from Bloc


Liberals

1) Liberals pick up St John’s East from Conservatives

2) Liberals pick up Avalon from Conservatives

3) Liberals pick up Mississauga Streetsville from Conservatives

4) Liberals pick up Vancouver Kingsway from Conservatives

5) Liberals pick up Ancaster-Dundas from Conservatives

6) Liberals pick up St. Catharines from Conservatives


1) Liberals pick up Trinity-Spadina from NDP

2) Liberals pick up Parkdale-High Park from NDP

3) Liberals pick up Hamilton Mountain from NDP

4) Liberals pick up Ottawa Center from NDP

5) Liberals pick up London-Fanshawe from NDP


1) Liberals pick up Ahuntsic from the Bloc

2) Liberals pick up Papineau from the Bloc

3) Liberals pick up Brosserd La Praire from Bloc

NDP

1) NDP pick up Churchill from Liberals

2) NDP pick up Nickel Belt from Liberals

3) NDP pick up Algoma-Manitoulin Kapuskasing from Liberals


1) NDP pick up Oshawa from Conservatives

2) NDP pick up Thunder Bay Superior North from Conservatives


1) NDP pick up Jeanne Le Bar from the Bloc

Major changes to the Immigration System Desperately Needed

Major changes to the immigration system are desperately needed. Seven come immediately to mind. Canada needs to

1) limit family unification to spouses and dependents under 18

2) cap the number of refugees at no more than 5000 a year including dependents

3) allow people to apply for refugee status only in Canada and not abroad

4) stop allowing people in on humanitarian grounds and compassionate grounds

5) rework of the points system so that more emphasis is placed on youth, education and language skills and that bonus points are assigned if the applicant has his or her professional skills pre-recognized by the appropriate regulatory body and or the applicant has a university degree from Canadian university

6) grant citizenship to foreigners earning a graduate degree in Canada

7) lift the cap on the number of immigrants allowed in each year.

Why the changes. First off and most importantly, Canada has to get younger. The average Canadian in 2004 was 39.7; in other words Canada is one of the oldest nations on earth. However bad things are now things promise to get a lot worse. The percentage of Canadians over 65 is set to go from 14.7 now to 27.6 in 2050. If the situation was ever allowed to get this bad, the economy would be at best stagnet and likely in sharp decline, the federal government would surely be in deficit, and virtually ever public entitlement program would have collapsed or would be close to. Public health care system would surely have collapsed under the demands placed on it.

Part of the problem is that average immigrant to Canada (37.1) is not much younger than the average Canadian (39.7). The situation is akin to baling out a boat by moving water from one part of the boat to another. The average immigrant to Canada needs to be under 30 and Canada should aim to let in 500,000 economic class immigrants a year.

It is imperative that Canada undertake such a project now. After all, Canada is not alone in having to deal with aging population. Some Europe have an even worse problem.

"World Bank projections show that the working-age population of the present EU will drop from 230m now to 167m by 2050, a fall of 63m. Most of this is concentrated in the 12 current euroland countries, where working-age population is projected to drop from 186m to 131m. The worst-hit individual countries are Italy , with a 15m, or 42% fall, from 36m to 21m, followed by Spain and Germany. Britain is not immune but fares relatively well. The World Bank projects a 5m fall in working-age population, from 35.2m to 29.9m In general, though, Europe's position is dire. As Lombard Street Research writes: "The last demographic shock on a similar scale was the Black Death of the late 14th century. Even two world wars did not stop Europe 's population rising by nearly a fifth in the first half of the 20th century."

If Europe continues on as it is, the median age in Europe will go from 37.7 today to 52.3 by 2050!
As professor Charles Kupchan notes,

"today there are 35 pensioners for every 100 workers within the European Union. By 2050, current demographic trends would leave Europe with 75 pensioners for every 100 workers and in countries like Italy and Spain the ratio would be 1 to 1."

Another area of concern is that the ratio of principle skilled principle applicants as percentage of the over number of immigrants to Canada is way too small. Currently less than one in 5 immigrants is a skilled principle applicant. This is a huge concern for a whole host of reasons not the least of which is that it is only skilled principle applicants that earning anywhere close to what their Canadian peers are earning and skilled principle applicants are the only category of immigrants that are working in numbers that even approach the Canadian average.

"At 26 weeks after their arrival, 50% of all immigrants aged 25 to 44 were employed. This was 30 percentage points below the employment rate of about 80% among all individuals aged 25 to 44 in the Canadian population. ... At 52 weeks after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 58%. This narrowed the gap to 23 percentage points. At 104 weeks, or two years after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 63%, 18 percentage points below the national rate of 81%. ... Immigrants admitted as principal applicants in the skilled worker category had an even better record for employment. At 26 weeks after arrival, the gap in the employment rate between them and the Canadian population was 20 percentage points. By 52 weeks, this had narrowed to 12 points, and by two years, it was down to 8 points."

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051013/d051013b.htm If you tease out the numbers, 55% of non principal skilled applicants in the 25 to 44 age group are working after 2 years! Canada needs to do a better job of ensuring that immigrants are able to succeed and the natural to place to start is eliminate those categories of immigrants that are not likely to succeed economically. The earning power of immigrants is such now that the possibility of large urban immigrant underclass, a la Europe, exists. Canada needs to nip this situation in the bud. The low earning power of immigrants will eventually affect our ability to attract immigrants to Canada as well as the affect the general population’s willingness to accept them.

For similar reasons Canada must resist the siren song of business demanding that the government allow in guest workers to meet labour shortages. Never mind the fact that in many cases such demands amount to little more than a request from business that government assist them in quashing growing labour unrest, e.g., in the oil sands, such thinking is short sighted. There is ample evidence that armies of disenfranchised workers, whether they be illegal or guest, are a recipe of disaster. It is great way to, create an underclass, suppress wages, encourage black marketing, increase xenophobia and racism. Currently Alberta is hopping to fill the following positions through immigration: Front desk clerk, short order cook, baker, maid, assembly line worker, server, buser, bellhop, valet, and cafeteria worker, laundry attendant, pet groomer, general labourer, and hair dresser. All that is required of such would be immigrants is that they score 4 or 24 on the language assessment. In other words, they can still be functionally illiterate and still get it in. Great swaths of guest workers turn out to be anything but and as soon as the economy experiences a downturn they are trampled under foot and to add insult to injury are generally resented for being so unfortunate.

Carbon Tax: Target the Oil Companies

Canada gets less out of its oil resources then pretty much any other oil producing nation. A carbon tax can help change that. “A Bank of Kuwait report released in mid-2006 said that the break-even point for a Canadian oilsands producer on a barrel of crude oil is US$33. " http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080523/oil_profits_080523/20080524?hub=TopStories Oil is now $132 a barrel. The oil sands are responsible for much of the increase in green house gases over the last 15 years and the oil sands are environmental embarrassment. I, for one, am content to let production continue, but it is time the companies pay the Federal piper and in a big way.