Alan Ferguson, Vancouver Province Columnist, takes Dictation for Tony Clement

I responded to Alan Ferguson’s reprinting of Conservative drug war propaganda thusly. http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/editorial/story.html?id=ad7d5473-5bc8-4b17-aa73-fd91ae6523e1

And he had to consider that a mass of studies, albeit chiefly authored by those with vested interests, has claimed a great success for Insite, where addicts shoot up illegal drugs under supervision, using clean needles.

Who has vested interests and what are these vested interests? Spit it out.

These studies claim to show that Insite has directed addicts to treatment, and prevented overdose deaths, without jeopardizing public safety and while halting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

If you have any methodological criticisms to make, I would love to read them. A good laugh is good for the soul.

A handful of doubters who dared to question these claims has drawn much
scorn from the advocates of "harm reduction" -- around whom a small industry has
evolved.

Oh yes, the myth of the loan brave conservative wolf fighting against the scientific establishment with a little help from big oil and big tobacco in the case of Dr Singer or the RCMP in the case of Colin Mangham. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=fad6bd9a-7c00-47aa-a549-e4e0376603c7&p=1 In reality they are, of course, the apologists of ignorance in the service of the forces of reaction. History will piss on their corpse.

Many people apparently believe marijuana has already been decriminalized, although this imminent folly was mercifully abandoned when the Conservatives took power from the Liberals.

By golly I think you have plagiarized Tony Clement or perhaps you just taking diction and forget to mention him by name. Anyway, did you ever think to ask Clement what evidence he has for this belief? I will let you in on a little secret. Should the Liberal bill have passed and been enforced, it would have represented a crack down as far as Vancouver is concerned. As then Vancouver police spokesperson, Anne Drennan noted back in 2003 "in Vancouver, we very rarely arrest for simple possession of marijuana. There would have to be exigent circumstances."

You: “that no drugs are safe, no matter what we've been lulled into believing over the years.”

Tony Clement: Clement has said the new strategy would include an education program that warns young Canadians and their parents that "there are no 'safe' amounts," and no "safe drugs."

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=3e0b00a4-5331-4c20-9fea-c0c1a115abc0

Can you see difference? I can not see the difference. What kind of Columnist parrots government talking points and treats them as if they were holy scripture? The Province does not have the best reputation as it is. What do you want to do? Do you want to see it fully morph into the second coming of Pravda? If so, keep going as you are.

Trudeau's Omnibus Bill and a New Liberal motto

In arguing for his Omnibus Bill Trudeau http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-73-538/politics_economy/omnibus/ had this to say. “If you are on the Liberal side, you should take risks on the side of progress. If you are going to be beaten, you should be beaten because you have been too progressive. Rather then take risks on not moving and be beaten because you have not moved fast enough.” These are words present Liberals should live by. The days timidity and temperamental conservativism must come to an end.

83% of Quebecers and 75% of Canadians Want the Government to Mandate More Vacation Days

83% of Quebecers and 75% of Canadians want the government to mandate more vacation days. Wow for a party that is tanking in Quebec that would seem like a winning issue. So what hell is taking the Liberals so long? Get on it. The EU minimum is 4 weeks. Canadians deserve no less.

“Three-in-four Canadians want a longer minimum vacation time”

“Four-in-five Quebeckers (83%) say they want labour laws to be changed to provide more minimum vacation time to Canadians,”

http://www.angusreidstrategies.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=news&newsid=122&page=1

Dion's 7 Do's and Don'ts

1) Dion’s Achilles heel is his English. He must continue to improve it if the Liberals are to have any chance.

2) Dion needs to introduce some new policy. Dion’s unwillingness to introduce new policy has meant the media have focused on the negatives when they have focused on the Liberals at all. Furthermore, Harper and crew have painted Mr. Dion as weak, indecisive and as “not a leader”. The Liberals lack of policy focus has played right into their hands.

3) The Liberals need to explore various hot button issues. Dion has chosen to focus on the big issues, global warming, the loss of the manufacturing jobs and poverty. However, there are no easy solutions to any of these problems and the public simply lacks the ability and more importantly time to tackle or understand the complexities involved. As the SSM debate and the debate over funding for faith based schools demonstrate, what galvanizes the public and the media alike are hot button issues. If the Liberals are to succeed they are going to have to tackle the big issues, but they are also going to have to push the envelope on various hot button issues. With regard to both they are going to have develop clear well thought out policy that is not watered down by political calculation. Good policy is good politics.

4) Dion has to break with the past both rhetorically and policy wise; this is vitally important when it comes to Quebec. Under his direction the party has too many of the hall marks of the Martin/Chrétien government. The Liberal government’s environmental record is bound the hurt his credibility during the next election. Dion is going to have to acknowledge the failures of some predecessors and promise to do better. In any such mea Culpa will have to attack Liberal’s previous reliance on an intensity based emission plan. This will then free the Liberals up to attack the Conservatives intensity based plan. Such admissions will help him put his stamp on the party.

5) Dion should under no circumstances try to appeal to soft separatists, or try to immolate Martin’s asymmetrical federalism. Rightly or wrongly Dion is viewed as a strong Federalist and the party lacks the resources, time and people to chance that perception. Besides, such a campaign would be dismissed as desperate pandering at this point. It would also undermine what his appeal in English Canada. The Liberals only hope of breathing life into their flagging Quebec fortunes is to appeal to socially democratic and socially liberal strains in Quebec society.

6) The Liberals need to rediscover universality. Until they do, major policy initiatives, such as Liberals early childhood education plan, are bound to fall flat on their face. Indeed, as with early childhood education, the more the Liberals talk up the need for such a program the more inadequate and lackluster their proposal will appear and the more attractive the Conservatives thousand and one ways to dress up tax cut or rebate, a la the universal baby bonus, will seem. Access to affordable child care was certainly a more attractive option than anything the Conservatives were offering. However, many voters hedged their bets. They figured that a $1200 bird in their hand was better than 15% chance of nailing two in the bush.

7) If they Liberals are going to continue to paint Harper as the second coming of Bush, they better inact some polices that are going to leave Harper and Bush on the same side. Stephen Harper has long since become wise to such talking points and has gone out of his way to distance himself from Bush and the Americans have been helpful in this regard. Moreover, Harper has all but put a stop to nut bars, such as, Gallant waxing poetic on issues near and dear to social conservatives and he has not openly courted the social conservatives in the way that he did before becoming PM.

Marijuana and Schizophrenia: A prelude to a Conservative Talking point

This summer a meta analysis of all articles dealing with marijuana and schizophrenia was published in the Lancet. That same day a score of sensationalist headlines appeared. Maia Szalavitz of States at George Mason University put those headlines following into context.

“A 40% increase in risk sounds scary, and this was the risk linked to trying marijuana once, not to heavy use. To epidemiologists a 40% increase is not especially noteworthy-- they usually don’t find risk factors worth worrying about until the number hits at least 200% and some major journals won’t publish studies unless the risk is 300 or even 400%. The marijuana paper did find that heavy use increased risk by 200-300%, but that’s hardly as sexy as try marijuana once, increase your risk of schizophrenia by nearly half!

By contrast, one study found that alcohol has been found to increase the risk of psychosis by 800% for men and 300% for women.

http://www.stats.org/stories/2007/will_one_joint_schizoid_july30_07.htm

Speaking of correlation that is precisely what epidemiological studies have consisted failed to show and there is no causation without correlation. Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking3/MJScience.html Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking3/MJScience.html and Oxford’s Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. http://www.stats.org/stories/2007/will_one_joint_schizoid_july30_07.htm According to Dr. Alan Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University,

"If anything, the studies seem to show a possible decline in schizophrenia from the '40s and the '50s,"

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/09/19/reefer_madness/index.html

As Szalavitz notes, this is marked contrast to what happened with cigarette consumption and lung cancer. “

When cigarette smoking barreled through the population, lung cancer rose in parallel; when smoking rates fell, lung cancer rates fell.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/reefer-inanity-never-tru_b_58353.html

Much of the evidence linking marijuana to schizophrenia suggests not that it causes schizophrenia per say but rather that it causes the earlier onset of symptoms in people who would sooner or later develop schizophrenia. Much to Gordan Brown’s dismay, this is opinion of Dr Iddon.

Dr Iddon, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on drugs misuse [Britain], said the study did not convince him it was time to return cannabis to class B. "I don't think the causal link has been proved. I think cannabis might - possibly for genetic reasons - trigger psychosis at an earlier age." The MP, who is also a member of the science and technology select committee, said there was a danger of criminalising "hundreds of thousands of young people" if the status of the drug was changed. "If Gordon Brown changes the class of the drug, it won't be evidence-based but for political reasons," he said.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2136479,00.html

Canadians want to dump the Monarchy and so should the Liberals

I have no time for monarchy and so the following warms my heart.


"Under the terms of the Canadian Constitution, Queen Elizabeth II holds the position of Canada’s head of state. Would you support or oppose Canada ending its formal ties to the British monarchy?

Support
53%

Oppose
35%

Not sure
12%"

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/28442/half_of_canadians_would_cut_ties_to_monarchy

Media Coverage: The Liberals Have a Choice; Controversial Policy or Internal Strife.

Dogged by internal strife and haunted by the sponsorship scandal the Liberals badly need to change the channel and the only way of doing this is introduce controversial legislation. Talk of Dion being mischaracterized in Quebec is not going to interest the media for very long. There is a policy void at the center of the Liberal party and if the party does nothing to correct the situation the media will successfully define the Liberals as being a divided party with no clear direction or focus.

The party has long understand the importance of having ideological enemies, whether that the Bush administration or Canadian social conservatives. However, the party has always thought it could wage such ideological wars on the cheap. It could talk a good game, but it thought need not follow through with policy. It was never an entirely successful approach and since Stephen Harper took over the party the law of diminishing returns as set in. Indeed, Harper has all but put a stop to nut bars, such as, Gallant waxing poetic on issues near and dear to social conservatives and he has not openly courted the social conservatives in the way that he did before becoming PM.

I find the Liberal’s half ass approach baffling. SSM and the Liberal decision to stay out of Iraq were major Liberal victories and perhaps the only two of the last 4 years. If the Liberals are to avoid being defined by their own bickering, they have no choice but to goad social conservatives and or the Bush administration into open warfare and the only way of doing that is propose policies that neither likes. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain.

As I have said repeatedly, if the Liberals promise to legalize marijuana, the social conservatives and the Bush administration will bite and Harper will be at the mercy of these two groups. The added bonus is if Dion promises to legalize marijuana, thereby imperiling the US War on Drugs, he will not lack for name recognition. Not only will Canadians know who he is, so too will Americans, and good number of Europeans and Australians.

Bob Rae on Federal Spending Powers

Bob Rae has a piece about Federal spending powers in today’s Globe and Mail. I think this approach has some potential, but the Liberals badly need to add flesh to what is still a bare bones idea. Indeed the programs and initiatives that Rae mentions are either still in planning stages or are recycled “beer and popcorn”.

http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20071001/CORAE01/Headlines/headdex/headdexComment/2/2/7/

Canadians who want their federal government to support early childhood education, decent housing, cities that work, a healthy environment, new initiatives in health care, more mobility for students, better research and stronger universities should be appalled at this emasculation.

The Liberal’s early childhood education program is never going to be the vote getter they hope it be so long as it remains something far less than a universal program. After all, the more the Liberals talked up the desperate need for more child care the more inadequate and lackluster their proposal appeared and the more attractive the Conservatives universal baby bonus appeared. Many voters figured that a $1200 bird in your hand is better than 15% chance of nailing two in the bush.

I also think Rae and other Liberals are going about this backwards. The Liberals should first propose what is bound to be a popular universal program (e.g., public dental care) that would be administered by the provinces and note how Harper’s proposal to emasculate the Federal government would prevent such a program and others like it from being implemented. In politics it always best to go from the specific to general than from general to specific. That is why it is nearly impossible to talk about violent crime with any intelligence. The starting point is always going to be some violent crime. Lastly, some Canadians, particularly in Quebec, are not likely to favor everything on the list and may be willing to sacrifice a particular federal program if it means that Federal government will stay out of others.

Harper says Canada "Back": More Dictation at 11

After Canada failed to join the coalition of willing Harper had this to say. “Canada remains alienated from its allies, shut out of the reconstruction process to some degree, unable to influence events. There is no upside to the position Canada took.” On Tuesday, Harper trumiphally announced that Canada is “back and no longer alienated from its coalition partner(s).” Harper vowed that so long as he was PM, Canada will have an “aggressive” foreign policy. That is to say as aggressive as the US wants him to be .

Conservatives Announce New Election Slogan and Unveil Accompanying Poster

The Buck Stops Here

The Globe and Mail's Conservative Stenographers

I hope The Conservatives are paying Bill Curry and Tenille Bongoguore well for writing the most recent Conservative press release. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070925.wharpersp0925/BNStory/International/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail

Below part of Conservative new release and part of Curry and Bongoguore Conservative news release in Globe and Mail. Can you see the difference tone? I can’t see the difference tone? Maybe that is why the Conservatives have yet to issue a news release today. Curry and Tenille it seems already beat them to the punch.

“In a keynote address at the APEC Australia 2007 Business Summit today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told more than 200 business and political leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific countries that Canada’s balanced approach to reversing global warming is a model for the next international protocol on climate change.

“The growing menace of climate change is one of the most important public policy challenges of our time,” Prime Minister Harper said. “For at least a decade most Governments, including Canada’s Government, paid lip service to the issue because they were unwilling to tell the public that reducing carbon emissions will have real economic costs. We need to take action. We owe it to future generations, just as we owe them a strong and secure economic future.”

The key to a practical, realistic and effective global action plan on climate change, Prime Minister Harper said, is striking a balance between sustainable economic growth and careful environmental stewardship. The new Canadian strategy involves regulating emissions for the first time while also investing in new clean energy technologies and establishing a carbon emissions trading market that will give business the incentive to run cleaner, greener operations.

http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1091/87117

Canada back in middle on world stage, Harper says

Mr. Harper laid out his government's approach to foreign policy in extensive detail Tuesday. Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Mr. Harper said he prefers taking concrete action as opposed to unsubstantiated rhetoric.

“Success requires middle powers who can step up to the plate to do their part,” Mr. Harper said, according to a written version of Tuesday's speech.

“Success demands governments who are willing to assume responsibilities, seek practical, do-able solutions to problems and who have a voice and influence in global affairs because they lead, not by lecturing, but by example.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks to the press in New York earlier this week. (Reuters)
PM addresses Council on Foreign Relations on Canada's role on the global stage
Prime Minister Stephen Harper pushed for a 'flexible, balanced' approach to global warming Monday. Mr. Harper said the United States can't go it alone in the world and needs other countries like Canada to do their part.

“Take Afghanistan as an example,” Mr. Harper said. “Canada did not hesitate, a little more than six years ago, when terrorists hit this great city and Washington, D.C.

“The United Nations Security Council authorized military action to remove the Taliban regime, and Canada was there, immediately.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070925.wharpersp0925/BNStory/International/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail

Liberal Blogs and the Next Election

By and large, the critics are right. Blogs are largely parasitic. The MSM writes the stories and the blogsephere critiques and fact checks them. The reasons are simple. Bloggers lack the connections, resources and training of professional reporters. More importantly reporters get paid for what they do and bloggers, with the exception, of a very select few are not able to make a living off what they have written. As a result, bloggers are not able to devote nearly as much time as reporters can and they are seldom able to go into the field and talk to sources. All that being said, what the blogsephere does, it does very well. There are many more bloggers than reporters and what an individual blogger can not accomplish is sure to be accomplished by the blogsephere as a whole.

You Tube and similar services threatens to turn this parasitic relationship during election time on its head. You see, storylines determine by and large what is and what is not newsworthy and this is especially so during the course of an election. News agencies send reporters to seek confirmation of an unstated narrative or to answer a question posed by the media. For example, following the Liberals January collapse in the polls the media sought confirmation of the Liberal collapse everywhere. Another example is the media attempted to answer this question: Can Stephen Harper, as the media very much expected, keep his MPs on message and from saying anything controversial? Where bloggers come in is that knowing the storylines ahead of times the blogging community can beat the MSM to the punch. This is not that difficult. Canada is a small media market and with the huge number of cutbacks at the major news organizations as well as the smaller ones there are not nearly enough reporters to attend every all candidate’s debate and campaign rally out there. There are, however, more than enough bloggers to document these events using nothing more than a digital camera. There is no reason why Rob Anders, Gallant and Day’s every move can not be captured forever. Just as importantly, the growth of online communities devoted to the various political parties promises solve another problem, viz., disseminating what has been documented. Prior to the growth of these interested communities, the problem was that not only did one have to document whatever it was one wanted documented one also had to get MSM to publicize the event in question and they were not always willing to do so. Such a problem happened to me during the last election. I was able to ascertain that the Conservative candidate in my riding had told a gym full of high school students that she “makes an effort to smile at brown people”. The media was notified, numerous witnesses made available including the teacher and principle, but the media failed to report. I needed the reputation of the MSM to move the story forward and so the story died there. Now, I do not mean to suggest that should something similar happen during the next campaign that the result would be different. My point is that if such an event were to be documented using some kind of video technology and placed in the right part of the web the size and readership of these online communities would force the MSM into picking the story up. The blogsephere could potentially cause them to loose control of storylines of their makings. For example, the media was well on its way to answering the aforementioned Stephen Harper question in the affirmative. However, had the blogsephere been able to substantiate some of the rumors to the contrary they would have been forced, like it or not, to go back on what they had written. Paul Wells notes the potential of such technology and communities. “YouTube destroyed a political career last autumn when the online video site became the place to see footage of the Virginia Republican senator George Allen tossing a bizarre insult -- "macaca" -- at a Democratic campaign worker of East Indian descent.” http://www.macleans.ca/switchboard/columnists/article.jsp?content=20070122_139453_139453 However, as Conservatives Rondo, “the fact’s don’t matter”, Thomas http://www.trailervision.com/trailer.php?id=166 and Randy White http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/03/06/white050306.html can attest, the potential of such technology should have been apparent to Canadian politicians long before George Allen downfall.

Another way in which the Liberals can take advantage of the blogsephere is that they can use Lib blogs as a de facto secondary war room -- a poorer but not altogether insubstantial cousin. The Liberals lack the resources and the manpower to compete with the Conservatives during the next election. The blogsephere could help the Liberals narrow the gap. How? Well, they could do so in a rather straight forward manner. The party could use the blogsephere to help disseminate its message. This is good as far it goes, but there are other ways that hold more potential. For example, the party could take advantage of the creative potential of the blogsephere as a whole and develop talking points from chewed over ideas in the blogsephere. Failing that, the blogsephere as a whole can at times be quite the opposition researcher. Finally, bloggers can do and say things that political parties can not. This looks to be particularly relevant in any campaign were Afghanistan and Global warming are likely to take center stage. The Liberals are hamstrung by their own record, but liberal bloggers are free to run rough shod over Conservative talking points that might otherwise lead to questioning about the Liberal record if the same were to be said by the party.

In order for the party to effectively utilize the blogsephere, and Lib blogs in particular, the Liberals are going have go out of its way to draw attention to it and raise its profile. This can be accomplished in a number of different ways, but two come readily to mind. By leaking first to the blogs, a la Stephen Taylor, and later to the media the Liberals can draw media attention to the blogsephere and particular blogs. The same thing can be achieved by granting interviews to selected bloggers.

Conservative Green House Gas Intensity Plan: The Emperor has no Clothes

Companies will be required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 18 percent per unit of production over the next three years. Each year after that, industry will have to achieve a further two percent improvement in emission intensity.Thanks to these and other measures, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions from all sources will begin to decline in absolute terms as early as 2010.Our plan will reduce Canada’s total emissions, relative to 2006 levels, 20 percent by 2020 and 60-70 percent by 2050, but note that basing early targets on emission intensity will allow us to square effective environmental action with the reality that Canada has a growing population and growing economic output.

Our plan will reduce Canada’s total emissions, relative to 2006 levels, 20 percent by 2020 and 60-70 percent by 2050, but note that basing early targets on emission intensity will allow us to square effective environmental action with the reality that Canada has a growing population and growing economic output.

http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1004/87147


GHG Intensity has been going down an average 2% a year since 1996. http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2005/images/fig2_e.gif Meanwhile GHG emissions went up an average of 1.33% during that same time period. At that rate a 78% reduction in green house intensity would leave Canada in 2050 63.7% above what is it is in 2011!

To the Media

You should note two things.

1) GHG Intensity has been going down an average of 2% a year since 1996 well all the while GHG emissions have gone up 25%. In other words, proposing that countries set intensity based intensity emission targets that they are bound to meet anyway and which will not only fail to reduce GHG emissions but allow them to continue to go up is not a model for anything. It is political cover for those wanting to nothing.

2) It was the Bush administration that first championed emission intensity "targets" and this was only later picked up by Harper. So do not let Harper pass off an old Republican idea as a new Conservative one. An old Bush talking point is not a “bridge” to Bush.

Policy Now

The Liberals do not have the luxury waiting until an election campaign to unveil new policy. They have to stop the bleeding and the only way of doing is come up with policies that will restore Canadians interest in the party. Besides, election campaigns are unpredictable and bold new policy is just as likely to get dismissed as an act of desperation (e.g., the Liberals proposal to ban hand guns) as it is to be celebrated. Two other points: 1) The blizzard of policy proposals unleashed by all parties becomes like white noise after a while. 2) some policies need time to mature. Such was the case with SSM. As I have said time and again, based on what the polls said the policy was clear looser. The country might have been spilt, but likely voters where not. The older one is the more likely one was to vote and to oppose SSM. The success of policy lay in the fact that pundits, academics and even bloggers ran rough shod over the Conservative position and Conservatives sustained a good deal of collateral damage. Intellectually, morally and legally bankrupt, the critics ground down the Conservative position to there was nothing left but stinking carcass of lies, obfuscations and bigotry.

Dion's image problem is Really Just a Policy One.

"Dion admits he's had problems as leader, so he's promising to explain himself better, stop sounding like an academic and speak more from the heart."

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/TopStories/ContentPosting.aspx?feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V2&showbyline=True&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20070920%2fdion_personable_070920

They are going to Gore him. They have it all wrong. He should stop trying to “speak form the heart” and start sounding more like an academic. As for being able to explain himself, he would have a much easier time if the Liberal party developed coherent policies that flowed from a set of core principles and not from focus groups, polls and worst of all what Paul Martin did. If the Liberals take the time to develop a clear policy platform, Dion’s “image problem” will all but disappear.

In particular the Liberals need to lay out a substantive critique of the merits of the Afghan mission. Right now their demand that Canada end its combat mission in February 2009 is free floating. It needs to be tethered to a critique of the mission. Worse I am suspicious that the party is playing semantics and is willing to sanction a deal with the Conservatives that would see Canadian troops stay in Kandahar, but not in a non combat role, as if this is distinction with difference. The party should note that should it sanction a longer stay in Kandahar, in no matter what role, the party base will not forgive them.

Update: CTV was wrong; it one thing to challenge an image of oneself that is not accurate and it quite another vow to be more warm and fuzzy and less "academic". I still hold to thrust of what I said though. The main obstacle is not Dion's image, but a lack of policy.

Gerard Kennedy on Politics with Don Newman

I watched Gerard Kennedy on Politics with Don Newman. http://www.cbc.ca/politics/ today. The thrust of what Kennedy was saying was bang on, but he sounded a little harassed at times. Kennedy acknowledged that the party has not regained the trust of Quebecers, that the party has to under go a period of renewal and that much more than a fresh coat of paint is needed. Kennedy comments were in marked contrast to what Dion was saying in Crosby Ontario. Dion did acknowledge the results and took responsibility for them, but this was tempered by his frequently mentioning how “great” the Liberal Party is and how it will win the next election. Somber realism is much better sell than fake optimism.

As for the comments of former John Turner front man Ray Heard earlier in show, you can give them a miss. The comments of David Herle the day before were much more interesting. Speaking of the Tuesday show, Big City Lib and Red Tory were mentioned.

Maple Three Makes the News: Toronto Star

Toronto Star Susan Delacourt mentioned my blog yesterday. http://www.thestar.com/News/article/257672

“Criticism appeared to become more vocal after Dion appeared on CBC TV last week, in an interview with Peter Mansbridge, and failed to impress some Liberals.

"The more I see of him the more I fear the prospect of a (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper majority," a self-styled "progressive" named Koby posted on a Liberal blog called Maple Three. Around Ottawa, even Liberals who are supportive of Dion acknowledged it wasn't the leader's finest hour – he seemed ill at ease and ill-prepared.

The post in question is this one.

http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2007/09/dions-cbc-interview-thoughts.html

Liberals one Step Behind the Times

During the 2004 election campaign I told Don Bell, now the MP for North Vancouver, that I thought that Liberals had picked the wrong time to call an election. I told him that Martin should have waited until the fall and time the election to correspond with the US election. He agreed, but was less enthusiastic as to why I thought so. I thought the Liberal campaign should be centered around equating Bush and Harper.

Martin did end up running such a campaign, but he was an election too late. He ran the campaign he should have run in 2004 in 2006. However, by December 2006 the Bush Administration was damaged goods. Katrina had rendered the Bush administration ideologically impotent. The successful foreign policy critique of the White House, viz., that it was incompetent, become a successful global critique of the administration. Harper recognized the folly of getting to close to Bush and in a letter printed in the Washington Times denied the assertion of a Washington Times columnist that a Conservative government would be a de facto extension of the Republican Party. With no new policy initiatives that would show Bush and Harper to be of the same ideological ink, the Liberal campaign fell flat on its face. To make matters worse, the Liberals help neutralized the one issue that dogged Harper in the early parts of the campaign, viz., SSM, by promising to put a lock box around the notwithstanding clause. After that, the focus was no longer Harper’s legally morally and intellectual bankrupt stand on SSM, but was rather whether it was ever permissible to use the notwithstanding clause.

The Liberals seemed to have again missed the boat. The Liberals have yet to grasp in ways the other party’s have that the focus of Quebec politics has changed and that this requires that the party change accordingly. The Conservatives have successfully revived Mulroney’s soft separatism and Layton has realized that ideologically speaking Montreal is fertile territory. The Liberals have repeatedly failed to meet the NDP’s ideological challenge and have as of yet failed, although there are rumblings to the contrary, that they will seek to capitalize on the rest of the country’s distaste for Quebec pandering. In particular, Dion has yet to offer a substantive critique of the Afghan mission. Saying that he would end the combat mission in Afghanistan in February 2009 is not reason for ending the mission.

Conservatives on the Verge of a Majority

I will repeat what I said before the by-elections. "The Conservatives are poised to pick up a lot of seats in Quebec meaning they will only have to pick up a few more suburban seats in BC and Ontario to win a small majority."