Liberals and Crime

Tom Flanagan crowed after the 2006 election that there are certain issues that just favour the Conservatives. The example he gave was the economy. No matter how successful the Liberals were in balancing the books and creating jobs, Conservative research suggested that when it came to economics people trusted the Conservatives more than they did the Liberals. It does not much of leap to suggest the same is true for crime. After all, to presume that the public has a working knowledge of each party's justice policies is giving the public way too much credit; the public trades in stereotypes and they are always going to believe that Conservatives are tougher on crime. This is especially so now. The Conservatives are in power and for this reason alone what they say with regard to crime garners headlines. By contrast, past Liberal support for some those Conservative tough on crime measures has drawn almost no attention at all. Of course, even if the Liberals were able to convince Canadians did support this or that Conservative measure, the Conservatives have a fail safe. They have claimed and will continue to claim that the Liberals had ability to introduce such policies when they were in power and failed to do so. No one likes a Johnny come lately.

So if the Liberals can not lessen the lessen the popularity of Conservative tough on crime agenda by towing the Conservative line, just what can they do? Well, they can try put the subject in different light. And at first blush it appears that have tried to do just that. The Liberals have reminded the public that "US style mega- prisons" come at a cost and questioned just how Canadian such policies truly are. "Canadians know that spending billions of dollars on US-style mega-prisons to lock up young people will only produce more hardened criminals. It’s a failed American crime policy, and it just doesn’t work."

The problem with such an approach is this. In words of great voting behavior researcher Philip Converse, the vast majority of voters show a lack of “constraint”: That is, they hold incompatible beliefs. Many voters simply do not recognize that tough on crime measures necessitate the building of "mega-prisons". If asked, they will say that they support the former but disagree with the later.

The Liberals know this. Indeed, Liberal marijuana policy, for example, is premised on there being such wide cognitive dissonance. On the one hand the Liberals have long maintained that Canadians should not be saddled with a criminal record for consuming something that is, after all, less harmful than alcohol. It is this light that Chrétien famously joked about having a joint in one hand and the money to pay for the fine of having it in the other. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand.” On the other hand, just as they long downplayed the affects of smoking marijuana they have long stressed the importance of stiff penalties for trafficking. Both positions are wildly popular with the public, but run the two positions together and it is as if Chrétien said this instead. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand. Having paid my fine I would hope the cops find the person who sold it to me in put him in jail for a very long time.” If the act of consumption is not deemed overly ruinous then the whole punitive rationale for trafficking comes crashing down. Add to mix an acknowledgment on behalf of the Liberal party that marijuana can serve a medical purpose and you have a conceptual train wreck as a policy.

Liberal supporters should take two things from this. One just because it Ignatieff is decrying "mega-prisons" now does not mean the party has seen the light. When it comes to crime, the party seems to have no qualms speaking out of both sides of its mouth. Two, however popular such denunciations of "mega prisons" might be it is not likely such talk will do anything to arrest the popularity of the Conservatives tough on crime agenda.

No, the only way the Liberals are going to be able to arrest the popularity of Conservative's get tough on crime agenda is by putting a legal elephant right in the middle of the room. Promising to legalize either marijuana or prostitution would do the trick. Hot topics draw in an ordinate amount of attention generally and starve any related issues of any oxygen altogether.

The question then becomes would either policy would pay off politically. With regard to the later I just do not know. However, with regard to the former I am convinced it would be a political winner for the Liberals.

Polls consistently show that the Canadian public supports the legalization of marijuana by a wide margin. So the public is receptive to the idea already. More importantly, the arguments for legalizing marijuana are far more robust than the arguments for increasing the penalties for trafficking. Indeed, the later are often so bad as to have earned the name "reefer madness". As with SSM, the advantage of such an issue lies not with the popularity of such a proposal per say as the cost to the Conservatives of having their talking points savaged by the media for months on end. It is the process not the polls that really matter. I do not care what the issue is if your talking points been savaged by the media and informed public over a long period of time, you are going to hurt on the polls. The more prominent or controversial the issue the worse it gets.

Liberal Messaging

Since Peter Donolo took over, Liberal messaging has been 100 times better. Still, problems remain. The party badly needs an attack dog or dogs. Politics is a blood sport. You have to be prepared to give as good as you get. If the Conservatives want to dig up old quotes, the Liberals should do likewise. It is laughable that Conservatives have been able to play the nationalist card with quotes like these from Harper lying about.

"Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status"

"Any country with Canada’s insecure smugness and resentment can be dangerous."

The Liberals also need to start developing additional talking points aimed not at a broad audience but at political pundits, and political junkies. Above all else the party needs to challenge the legions of conservative columnists least various conservative position become received wisdom. Factual errors need to be pointed out, non sequiturs need to be mocked and detailed arguments provided. Again the party needs to be vicious. Ignatieff talks about wanting to the be the party that bases its decisions on sound reasoning and science. A good way of establishing such a reputation is take a conservative pundit out to the wood shed on occasion. When a conservative columnist retires the Liberals should share Trudeau's lament: "I'm sorry I won't have you to kick around any more." Darwin had Thomas Huxley; the Liberals need their own bulldog.

Lastly, the Liberals need to touch on hot button issues again. Since the 2006 election the Liberals have steadfastly avoided them. Politically this has been disastrous. Social issues have always been the Conservatives Achilles' heel. Of course, the ability of the Liberals to capitalize on such issues by just talking about them only goes so far. So long as the Liberals show an unwillingness to put forward socially liberal policies, the Conservatives are not likely to oblige the Liberals by talking about hot button issues. The Liberals have to put forward a socially liberal agenda in order to fully capitalize.

Liberal problems run deep

The Liberals think that they can win the next election by rolling out a safe middle of the road platform. They are wrong. There is no push to throw the bums out and there is no evidence whatsoever the Liberals are gaining any traction with the public. The Conservatives have the advantage of being the party in power, they are better organized, their policies clearer, their messaging is generally better and they have far more money. If the electorate if given a choice of voting for middle of the road Conservative platform and middle of a road Liberal platform, they are going to go with the Conservatives.

So the question is can the Liberals turn things around. I doubt it. Igantieff is looking older and more gray by the day, there is nothing in the platform to hold the public's attention for very long and even though talk of fiscal responsibility and democratic institutions bore the public to tears, the party seems determined focus on them nonetheless. All of this is obvious.

What is less obvious is this. The Liberals seem blind to the fact that some of their core philosophy, viz., a commitment to equity and collective rights, is deeply unpopular with large segments of Canadian society. Weather it be the funding for religious schools in Ontario, or special treatment of Quebec many Canadians are deeply offended at the very suggestion that government monies and policy should be used to protect and or foster minority interests. Furthermore, weather one believes that employment equity, for example, actually makes the government less efficient is beside the point, a commitment to equity is incompatible with the liberal notion of a government built around merit. Hiring the best person for the job is far cry from using the government as a counterpoint to perceived and actual deficiencies in the private sector employment. So long as the philosophy of equity rules, conservatives will have an easy time claiming that government is the problem.

It gets worse for the Liberals. With the party long since having abandoned a commitment to universality it is not surprisingly that many Canadians believe that the Liberals are solely committed to using public monies to benefit minorities.

All of this is one more reason why it is vitally important that the Liberals recommit to universality and that the the party develop policies that offer a concrete benefit to Canadians -- all Canadians.

Childcare is obvious place to start. The problem is that the Liberal,s early childhood education program is unmediated disaster. The goal of the program was ostensibly to work with the provinces to set up an early childhood education program for children under 6. However, to the average voter this amounted to little more than a vague promise to provide more daycare at sometime in the future; they could not figure out what this would mean for their lives. To add insult to injury, the Liberals willingness to consider different deals for different provinces has muddied things all the more.

If the Liberals reintroduce such a program in the future, they need to present it in a form in which voters can understand, with a clear time line and that they make sure they offer parents a clear and tangible benefit. They could, for example, promise to provide all day preschool and kindergarten for every 3 and 4 year old in Canada two years after an election.

Marijuana prohibition is comming to an end: the Liberals need a Plan

Proposition 19 failed, but the issue will likely be revisited in 2012 and this time it will likely pass. Voter turn for mid term elections is always significantly less than when the presidency is up for grabs. For proposition 19 to have stood any chance of winning Democrats, and the young needed to be energized. They were not and stayed away in droves. Even with everything stacked against them, though, the yes campaign still garnered 46% of vote.

Legal production of marijuana in California will make the legislation of marijuana elsewhere in the US all but inevitable and extension in Canada as well. Obama is not going to go to war with California in order to maintain a federal prohibition. Indeed, it was Obama that set the wheels of legalization in motion by declaring that he would not crack down on medical marijuana. For you see, unlike in Canada, in California, for example, one does not have to be afflicted with a particular aliment to be eligible for medical marijuana. A doctor can proscribe marijuana for whatever they see fit. Needless to say, such a system is ripe for abuse and the Bush administration was right to see medical marijuana program as a potential Trojan horse. But Obama let wooden horse to be wheeled into California and other States anyway. In so doing, Obama has allowed the medical marijuana industry in California and elsewhere to grow to the point there is no saving prohibition for Odysseus. There are more medical marijuana dispensaries in LA than Starbucks.

The Liberals need to come up with a plan. Canada needs to come up with a plan. The loss of the billion dollar industry, albeit an illegal industry is going to have an impact.

The natural response, indeed, the only response, is to beat the Americans to the punch. Far from being political poison, political legalization has a lot of upside for the Liberals. It would drive a wedge between libertarians and Theo cons. It would appeal to people who would otherwise would not vote -- most notably young Canadians. It would be popular in the very provinces and regions that the Liberals actually have a chance of making headway, e.g., urban Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec. It would garner a lot of positive international exposure. It would leave the Conservatives defending discredited Reefer Madness arguments. Above all else, the lynch pin in the opponents arguments, viz. that the US will not stand for it, is quickly be worn away.

Liberal Corporate Tax Cut talking points nowhere to be found

Corporate tax cuts promises to be one of the main points of contention during the next election. So one would think the Liberals would have a stack of well developed talking points devoted to the issue, but alas one would be wrong. Go to the Liberal website and this what you will find.

"The Conservative plan is to put us another $6 billion into debt by giving more tax cuts to profitable corporations – when corporate taxes are already low."

That is it.

Christ. You would think that Liberals would point out that the annual cost would be 6 billion a year and as such cost would quickly add up to one hell of a lot more than just 6 billion, but that little ditty seems to be lost on the Liberal staffer who wrote the above blurb. They might also have pointed out that 6 billion pays for a hell of a lot of daycare spots.

Moving on. How low is low? It would nice if they put Canada's corporate tax rate into context. At the very least point out that it lower than the States.

How profitable is profitable? Corporate profits in Canada have long been higher than pretty much any where else. Pointing this out would greatly undermine the Conservative position.

Europe's debt Crisis in a nut shell for lazy ass conservative bloggers

"One of the problems is, the Liberal message is being seen in the UK, Spain, Ireland, Greece, California etc. Right now, the Liberal message is more social programs which means higher taxes."


My God. Do not be so lazy. For starters, understand the difference between Liberal and liberal. There is nothing liberal about the Liberal party of BC for example. They are conservative. Take the time to read up on what actually happened in Europe, the governments in power at the time, their policies ect. It beyond ludicrous to lump the UK, Spain, Ireland, Greece, California together.

Greece has always been an economic basket case. For Christ sake, it has defaulted 7 times in since 1945.

However, prior to the down turn, Spain, Ireland and UK were in fine fiscal shape. All had gross debt levels that were lower -- in the UK's case much lower, than they are here and Spain and Ireland were running surpluses. All 3 though had allowed huge real estate bubbles to inflate.

Once real estate bubbles started deflating all over the western world, the UK and Ireland pumped huge sums of money to prop up their banks and furthermore took responsibility for enormous private debts incurred by their banks. As a result, their debt to GDP ratios sky rocked. In the less than a year Ireland's debt to GDP ratio doubled!

At the same time as governments everywhere were busy saving their banker's bacon, government revenues collapsed and governments were saddled with higher bills for things like unemployment Insurance. Some European countries tired to make up for a huge drop in demand by introducing various fiscal stimulus and this inflated their budget deficits greater still. However, in no case was the fiscal stimlus package particularly large. Indeed, in many cases their was no fiscal stimulus at all. This was the case in Ireland. Not only was there no fiscal stimulus there, the Irish government also made deep cuts to social services and sharply raised taxes.

Needless to say, the kind of Hoover economics now being practiced by all of battered European economies -- with the notable exception of Iceland -- is not addressing the underlying problem, viz., a sharp decline in aggregate demand and an associated decline in government revenues. To further complicate matters is that a common currency has meant that Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Greece have not been able to deflate their currency in attempt to become more competitive and short term interest rates are already at record lows. As such, many still expect the worst. For them, it is not a matter of if Greece and Ireland will default on their debt obligations, but when.

So could such a crisis happen here? Damn skippy it could. Canadian consumer debt, most it related to spike in housing costs, is every bit as high as American consumer debt was prior to the crash. And again the crisis in Europe and US was brought on by a private debt crisis, associated with various real estate booms, that in turn created a public debt crisis. As for our much lauded banking system, Spain's banks are no less conservative in their lending pratices than Canadian banks, but a real estate bubble in Spain inflated and burst nonetheless. And why has the cost of housing gone through the roof since 2006? Well, the dumb ass Conservative government decided pour fuel on an already red hot real estate market. In their first year in office the Harper government increased the mortgage amortization period from 25 to 40 years, allowed for 0 down mortgages, and reduced the down payment on secondary properties from 20% to 5%. Ever since the down turn, Jim Flaherty and idiots have been scrabbling to undo the damage their actions have done. The maximum amortization period will soon be reduced to 30 years, and already a 20% down payment is required on secondary properties and 5% on primary properties. The problem is it is too little too late. The best Flaherty and idiots can do is prevent further damage. For one thing, since 2006 Canadian mortgage and housing corporations liabilities have gone from 100 billion to 500 hundred billion. If the housing bubble bursts and Canadians start defaulting on their mortgages, the Canadian tax payer will be picking up the tab. The Canadian government guarantees all that debt.

The media and the Liberal Message

The Liberals seem to have realized their ability to ability to get their message directly out to the Canadian people is very limited indeed. Perhaps this is why the party has not bothered developing extensive talking points on the most central of issues. One is not going to find the Liberals, for example, saying anything interesting about corporate tax cuts. The party seems happy just to have the media mention their platform. Such a minimalist strategy extends to the ads they produced recently. One ad draws attention to the F 35 purchase and the other ad to the planned corporate tax cut. Nothing else is said in either ad.

Fair enough. Such a strategy does have its advantages. Besides, most talking points aimed at the lay public are both stupid and simplistic and are a complete waste of time. The less of them the better. However for the Liberals to abandon entire issues altogether is fool hardy. The Liberals need to start developing talking points aimed not at a broad audience but at political pundits, and political junkies. Above all else the party needs to challenge the legions of conservative columnists least various conservative position become received wisdom. Factual errors need to be pointed out and non sequiturs need to be mocked. Be vicious. Ignatieff talks about wanting to the be the party that basis its decisions on sound reasoning and science. A good way of establishing such a reputation is take a conservative pundit out to the wood shed on occasion. When conservative columnist retires the Liberals should share Trudeau's lament: "I'm sorry I won't have you to kick around any more."

Europe's debt Crisis and Toronto Sun idiocy

Calling someone a social conservative used to be just a polite way of calling them a moron.

Today one need not even include "social". Calling them a conservative will suffice.

"The welfare state has roared back to bite the British lion in the rump.

Ditto for the Irish economy.

Saddled with massive debt and staggering under unaffordable social programs, both the British and the Irish are facing massive cuts.

Britain is cutting everything from the military to social services.

Ireland is bankrupt."

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/editorial/2010/12/22/16650641.html

The notion that generous social programs sank the UK and Ireland is nonsense and so is the acronym "pigs". Spain and Ireland were running surpluses. What sank Spain and Ireland was a huge real estate bubble and inability to devalue their currency. Ireland's debt to GDP doubled over night when the government guaranteed the debts of private banks. The same thing happened in the UK. City Boy bailouts are the main reason UK debt almost doubled.

As for viability of the Welfare state, no one has more generous social programs than the Scandinavian countries and no one in Western world has lower debt levels. Sweden, Finland and Norway have more assets than debts and Denmark virtually the same amount of debts as assets.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2010/02/debt_deficits_and_growth

Conservatives big by election winners

The Liberals will not hold onto Winnipeg North. Parties do not win a seat by 40 points in one general election and fail to win it in the next general election. The NDP will take Winnipeg North in the next election.

Still, winning Winnipeg North was quite an accomplishment and Liberals should pat themselves on the back. For the first time in the post Martin era they did something right. That is the good news.

On the flip side is that if the Winnipeg North victory is if this is evidence of an down turn in the NDP fortunes, the Liberals are in big trouble. An NDP collapse in the next election all but guarantees a Conservative majority. Igantieff should be careful what he wishes for. If that NDP collapse, British Columbia Southern Interior, Nanaimo Cowichan, New Westmister Coquitlam, Sault Ste Marie, Skeena Bulkley Valley and Esquimalt Juan de Fuca will all go blue next election. People in these ridings do not shift from right to left and back again. They shift from one populist party or candidate to another. A weakened NDP will also mean that most of the following will also go blue: Burnaby Douglas, Victoria, Edmonton Strathcona, Elmwood Trascona, Western Artic, Welland.

Just as bad, the Liberals won Winnipeg North by playing the crime card. This may have work in few ridings were crime is major issue and NDP are strong and Conservatives weak, but it is bound to fail in virtually every other instance. The Conservatives own crime as an issue and rather than come up with an effective response the Liberals have chosen to tow the Conservative line yet again.

Of course not only did the Conservatives get confirmation that their get tough on crime stance is a political winner in Manitoba they also made major inroads in Ontario. Liberals can spin it however they want. The Conservatives are slowly reducing the Liberals to rump around Toronto Center. Toronto is looking more and more like the Dunkirk pocket everyday. With any luck Obama will send a flotilla to evacuate the besieged. The notion that the Liberals secured a moral victory by limiting Fantino to just under 50% of the vote is absurd. The so called pundits who thought that Fantino would magically win by more simply do not know their craft. The magnitude of the Conservatives victory, while not as impressive as what the Liberals were able to do in Winnipeg North, can not be understated. The Conservatives took 35% of the vote in 2008 and 50% this time around. Even more impressive is that virtually the same number of people cast the votes in favour of the Conservatives this time around as last.

Lamoureux's victory is an Aberration: Conservatives on Verge of Majority

The Conservatives are on the cusp of a majority. They have 145 seats as it is, more money than the other parties combined, they are better organized than the other parties, they dominant the political agenda, and finally they control the public purse. Kingston and the Islands, Mississauga South, Ajax—Pickering, Vancouver South, Esquimalt Juan de fuca, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, Malpeque, Brampton—Springdale, Welland, Brampton West, Edmonton Strathcona are all within their reach and it is easy to see the Conservatives taking a few more 905 seats that just a few years ago looked like save Liberal seats.

As for the Liberals, Kevin Lamoureux's victory was an aberration. Lamoureux won by promising to be tough on crime. In other words, he won by promising to be a Conservative in riding that would never vote for a real Conservative. People in virtually every other riding have no such hang up and Conservatives own crime as an issue. For many Canadians, the Liberals are like old friend that they no longer see much of any more or have much in common with and so give little thought to. The Liberals are short on cash, volunteers and it goes without saying ideas. The jig is up. The Liberals are no longer able to get by on nostalgia and regional divisions. While Ignatieff speaks glowingly of Pearson, the Canada Health Act and CPP, voters recongize the attempted bait-and-switch know that when the Liberals speak of "social justice" they do not mean a commitment to the truly popular notion of universality but rather a commitment to means tested social programs, affirmative action, asymmetrical federalism, pay equity, the intellectual abortion that is collective rights and other policies that neither interest the middle class or have their support. Take away the Liberals commitment to "social justice" and Harper's populace facade and their is little difference between the two parties.

An "effective" Senate is an Undemocratic Intellectual Abortion

Constitutionally senators have all kinds of power and every once in a blue moon the Senate has stalled major pieces of legislation (e.g., free trade and the GST). However the aforementioned instances of stalling are so rare they are the exceptions that prove just how "ineffective" the senate truly is. Moreover, no senate I can think of has pursued a legislative agenda of its own accord; opposing legislation is one thing; purposing legislation is quite another. The reason the senate is not an "effective" body is that senators are not elected and as such lack legitimacy. Furthermore, senators are members of legitimate federal political parties and the parties that they belong to are loath to have their unelected members exercise real authority least their actions undermine the party. Finally, the fact that it is the ruling federal party and not, say, provincial governments that appoint senators defines a clear pecking order, with the Senate answerable to the House.

Harper, of course, wants to reform the Senate. And Harper being Harper has decided to kill two birds with one stone. He had Conservative senators vote down a climate change bill passed by the House that he did not like as a means of forcing other parties on side. Being unable to reform the Senate in one fell swoop, Harper has proposed electing Senators piece meal. Under the Conservative plan, new senators would be elected and would be limited to serving out a 8 year term. The elephant in the living room is that if the senate's lack of effective powers flows from the senate's lack of legitimacy, then electing senators might provide the senate with a degree of legitimacy it currently does not hold. One problem with proceeding thusly is that current senators are free to serve until the age of 75. As a result, Harper's actions could either transform an unelected political body with no real power into a largely unelected political body with real political power or commit Canadians to the farcical and expensive act of electing people to office who hold no real power. Always content to play the Tin Man and Lion to Conservatives scarecrow, the Liberals remain largely mum on the subject.

Setting aside problems associated with implementation, is the cause of democracy even served by reforming the Senate? Well, the Reformers always held that the regions needed more say and an “equal” “effective” and “elected” senate is the best way of achieving a balance between population centers in Eastern Canada and the rest of us. However, such a conception, and for that matter an "effective" version of the current senate, does not stand up to scrutiny. The problem is fivefold.

First such an argument rests on a false contrast; seats in the House of Commons are supposed to be assigned on basis of population, but in actuality that is not the case. Consider the 905. There are currently 4 plus million living in the 905 and there are currently 32 seats for an average of just over 127,000 people per riding. There are 6 ridings with over a 140,000 people in the 905, Bramalea - Gore - Malton (152,698) Brampton West (170,422) Halton (151,943), Mississauga - Erindale (143,361) Oak Ridges - Markham (169,642) and Vaughan (154,206). By contrast there are 4.5 million people in Sask, Man, NWT, Nuv, Yuk, PEI, NS, NFLD, and NB and there are 62 seats for an average of 72,000 people per riding. Moreover, there is but one riding in the 9, Selkirk Interlake (90,807), with over 90,000 people. Given current growth trends, there will be more people in the 905 than the aforementioned provinces and territories by 2011. Given population growth, Harper would have to give Ontario alone another 70 seats to make things half way equal.

Second, the people living in Canada’s less populated provinces have a mechanism to assure that regional concerns are addressed; it is called provincial jurisdiction and provincial representation. By the very nature of living in a province with a small population, the 135,851 people in PEI have plenty of ways of addressing regional concerns that are not available to, for example, the 136 470 people living in Mississauga - Brampton South.

The third reason is that while one person one vote is bedrock principle of any democracy, one province one senate vote is something else entirely. People, not provinces, deserve equal representation. A province is no more or less than the people that make up that province. Giving the 135,851 in PEI the power to determine everything under provincial jurisdiction, provincial representation and 4 MPs well all the while giving the 170, 422 residents of Brampton West one MP is bad enough as it is. Piling on and giving the 135,851 people in PEI the same number of “effective” senators, as per the American Triple E Senate model, as 12,160,282 Ontarians is beyond stupid and grossly undemocratic. Equally silly is having one "effective" Senator for every 72,997 New Brunswick residents (10 senators in total) versus one Senator for every 685, 581 BC residents (6 senators in total). And that is what the current configuration gives us.

Four, as Benjamin Franklin put it, having two equally matched houses makes as much sense as tying two equally matched horses to either end of a buggy and having them both pull. Having two houses is not only a lobbyists dream, it is a recipe for political gridlock and pork barrel politics. The only thing that would be worse is if one needed 60% of the votes in the senate to overcome a filibuster.

Five, leaving aside the fact that no province has a second chamber, most having abolished them long ago, and that there are numerous examples of unicameral nation states (e.g., New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, South Korea and Portugal), we already have a de facto unicameral state as it is -- just ask the supporters of a Triple E senate. After all, one can not argue on the one hand that the current senate is undemocratic and so contributes to the "democratic deficit" and on the other hand argue that the senate is “ineffective”. A body that adds nothing to the genuinely "effective" process can not take away anything either.

Coyne gets it wrong

Stephen Harper’s Tories can run $56-billion deficits, raise spending to all-time record levels, and grease every Conservative riding with layers of pork; they can abandon Afghanistan, coddle Quebec, and adopt the NDP approach to foreign investment; and still there exists in people’s minds another Conservative party, somewhere, for whom these policies are anathema.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/15/politics-all-the-way-down/

Yes the Conservatives are guilty of pork barrel politics. Yes the Conservatives are guilty of codding Quebec. However, Harper is no Mulroney and everything else Coyne he says is completely ridiculous.

As a percentage of GDP, government spending is neither high in comparison to other nations nor is it historically high by Canadian standards. Furthermore, the whole basis of Coyne's silly thesis is the fact that he uses the mid 90s as his measuring stick and never mentions that Martin cut government spending to levels not seen since the 1950s and the fact that he likes to focus on absolute spending and not spending relevant to GDP. Of course, Coyne never laments the fact that military spending is growing faster than any other area and is up 56% since 1999. Apparently in Coyne's mind, spending on programs that actually benefit Canadians is waste of money but engaging in expensive foreign wars that do not benefit Canadians in any way is our moral duty. Incidentally, a rise in military spending is something Coyne should lament. In marked contrast to health car, a rise in military spending in absolute terms is not needed to keep up with a rising population.

As for the notion that Canada has "abandoned" Afghanistan, never mind the missions complete futility and cost or the fact that our being there increases the chances that we will be attacked by terrorists home grown (e.g., Toronto 18) or otherwise (e.g., Al Qaeda claiming that we are a target because of our presence in Afghanistan) this is pretty strange assertion to make given that Canada has been there 9 years and that Canada has just signed up for 3 more years without Parliament ever been consulted.

Finally, the notion that Canada should act like a financially desperate country whose markets have been pried open by the IMF and world bank is just plain stupid.

Mulroney Lives

"Hockey Canada has authorized the creation of Team Quebec to host France, Italy and Switzerland in the proposed Quebec Cup next August in the provincial capital."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/101112/national/hko_que_national

The treasonous fuck or fucks who oked this should be fired.

Liberals are not poised to Win an election: a rethink is needed

There is no chance whatsoever that the Liberals would win an election.

Over the course of the 40 years the Liberal fortunes have risen and fallen according to the ability to capture at least 70% of the seats in either Quebec or Ontario. For a majority the Liberals have needed to capture at least 80% of the seats in either of those two provinces. The Liberals are not competitive enough in the Western Canada for that calculus to change.

Canada is no longer divided against itself and so long as this holds true this is not a party in need of tinkering. It is a party that needs to be blown up.

One of the main stumbling blocks is that the Liberals and the pundits have never fully absorbed what happened to level of support in Western Canada following the 1974 election. Some of blamed the NEP and others have even claimed the gun registry played a part. The latter claim is ridiculous. The gun registry had no impact the Liberals share of the popular vote or their seat totals. As for the former, it was the fact that the Liberal vote collapsed in Western Canada in 1979 that paved the way for the NEP politically and not the other way around. The NEP was introduced after the 1980 election. The Liberals took 1 seat in the three most western provinces in 1979 election and 0 in 1980.

The source of the collapse was that the more emphasis Trudeau placed on individual rights and a commitment to linguistic equality the more the rest of the country, particularly the West, resented the Liberals inability to put a stop to bill 178 and and 101 and its willingness to make special accommodations for Quebec. Quebec's Official Language Act spelled doom for the Liberals in Western Canada from the mid 70s until collapse of the Progressive Conservatives in 1993. Ironically, it was the Mulroney's willingness to go even further in pandering to Quebec, particularly the Charlottetown Accord, that gave the Liberals some life again.

Of course, the Liberals response to Mulroney taking Quebec in 1984 and 1988 and subsequent success of the Bloc was abandon any thought of national programs and a national vision. The death of universality was the budget crisis of the 1990s and the notion that Quebec is special. This has rendered the Liberals forever impotent in Western Canada. Pay equity, collective rights, affirmative action, means tested social programs and other hall marks of modern liberalism have never had the same appeal in Western Canada as elswhere in the country and that is saying something. Outside of Quebec, such hallmarks are generally and rightly poorly regarded. What did hold the Liberals in good stead was when the NDP and Liberals were jointly pursuing universal social programs or basking in their passage. The success of one party generally meant the success of the other. Until such time as the Liberals recommit to universality they have no chance of gaining traction in the western provinces.

Marijuana prohibition is comming to an end, but Ignatieff and the Liberals have not noticed

Marijuana prohibition will soon come to an end. Indeed, if Californians vote yes on proposition 19, the end will come next on Tuesday.

Legal production of marijuana in California will make the legislation of marijuana elsewhere in the US all but inevitable and extension in Canada as well. Obama is not going to go to war with California in order to maintain a federal prohibition and his unwillingness to tackle the issue head on will be mean the flow of legal Californian bud into the rest of the US will dwarf the amount of illegal Mexican bud going North now. Prohibition is not a half way proposition.

Speaking of Mexico, illegal producers there will be hit hard. However, low their costs are now in comparison to US producers, Illegal producers in Mexico will not be able to compete with legal producers in the US. Of course, Mexican producers will not be the only ones effected. Proposition 19 will spell the end of billion dollar export industry in Canada over night.

Now, even if proposition 19 fails, there is no putting the medical marijuana genie back in the bottle. You see, unlike in Canada, in California, for example, one does not have to be afflicted with a particular aliment to be eligible for medical marijuana. A doctor can proscribe marijuana for whatever they see fit. Needless to say, such a system is ripe for abuse and the Bush administration was right to see California's medical marijuana program as a potential Trojan horse. But Obama let Odysseus and rest the Greeks out. By failing to crack down on medical marijuana users and dispensaries Obama has allowed the medical marijuana industry in California and elsewhere to grow to the point there is no turning back now. There are more medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver than Starbucks.

The Liberals need to come up with a plan. Canada needs to come up with a plan. The loss of the billion dollar industry, albeit an illegal industry is going to have an impact.

The natural response, indeed, the only response, is to beat the Americans to the punch. Far from being political poison, as I said countless times before, there is a lot of political legalization has a lot of upside for the Liberals. It would drive a wedge between libertarians and Theo cons. It would appeal to people who would otherwise would not vote -- most notably young Canadians. It would be popular in very provinces that the Liberals actually have a chance of making headway, e.g., urban Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec. It would garner a lot of positive international exposure. It would leave the Conservatives defending discredited Reefer Madness arguments. Above all else, the lynch pin in the opponents arguments, viz. that the US will not stand for it, is quickly be worn away.

Conservative strong support of Israel is Daft

Conservatives like to speak of Israel as being alone in a hostile tyrannical sea. Nothing could be more misleading. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey are part of a informal alliance knitted together by American largeness and the 3 latter three are have been key to Israeli security of more than 30 years now. Of course, the populations of the last four are hostile to the very idea of such an alliance and so special care needs to be taken by all involved. The question various Neo Con thinkers raised is whether this alliance is more trouble then it is worth. It does provide a military buffer to Iran and so is key to the continued flow of oil out of the Gulf. However, the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan lack popular legitimacy --- as does to lesser extent the Turkish military -- and their restive populations resent the US for propping up such regimes. Not that any Neo Con thinker would ever admit it, but this situation is made all the worse by these populations getting daily reports from the Occupied Territories. Such reports remind millions of middle Easterners on daily basis of this informal alliance put together by the US for the purpose of securing the transfer of oil out of the Middle East at a cost many Arab nationalists tell them is less than true market value. Where this all comes back to the West is that various foreign jihidis have decided that it is easier to strike at the "far enemy" than the "near enemy" and more troubling still various 1st and 2nd generation Muslim immigrants to Western countries have decided to take up the cause as well.

All that being said, it should come as no surprise that I regard the the level of support offered Israel by the Conservatives as a form of insanity. In material terms, the aforementioned alliance helps the US manage the flow of oil in an out of the Gulf. However, it does nothing for Canada directly. In diplomatic terms all that aid gives the US a great deal of leverage. In diplomatic terms Conservative cheer leading coupled with Ignatieff's me toos, hurts our relationship with the aforementioned non-Jewish states and leaves us ironically in no position to help Israel out. We are lot more more valuable to Israel as low key member of the security council, for example, than we are as a vocal cheer leader pissing in the wind. Our strong support for Israel has no upside.

The only thing tempering the stupidity of such a approach is that we are not the target the US is. Noisy sidekicks are never the real price. Still, as has become readily apparent over the last 10 years, Canada can no longer consider its foreign policy without also asking questions about how this or that policy might impact upon domestic security. The Toronto 18 is a great case in point. The war in Afghanistan was what motivated the Toronto 18. As for the most recent batch of homegrown terrorists, I do not know specifically what motivated them. However, their choice of targets should have raised more eyebrows then it did. In the years leading up to their arrest, I had mentioned on a number of occasions what would happen if the Montreal subway was attacked. For example I wrote this last December: "Make no mistake if the Montreal subway is bombed and the motivation for the attack was the Afghan mission, there would be huge uptake in support for separatism. The PQ and Bloc will argue that the bombing is proof that Quebec needs its own foreign policy." The government can not afford to flippantly pursue policies that might increase the risk of a terrorist attack homegrown or otherwise. It is one thing to pursue policies that might increase the risk of terrorism, but are nonetheless in the national interest. It is quite another thing to pursue policies for cheap political gain that do nothing to further Canadian interests, increase the risk of terrorist attack and the chance of social strife and that is what Conservatives are doing.

The Sad State of Canadian Foreign Policy

Canada's ability to effect any kind of change at the diplomatic realm internationally depends on our ability to position ourselves as deal makers and "honest brokers" and until the Conservatives were elected that is exactly the strategy Canada took. The Conservatives approach, by contrast, emphasizes "principled" stances. On the face of it is appears as if the Conservatives have chosen to sacrifice Canada's ability to achieve much of anything in the world of international affairs so as to score points domestically.

However, things are a lot worse than that. The recent UN vote and UAE fiasco are evidence that diplomatically we are flying blind. Our official lines of communication and our back channels are so weak relatively minor disagreements are breaking out into the open and catching us completely unawareness and we do not have a any kind of grasp as how little influence with have in world. Complaints about "secret votes' are just a fig leaf meant to cover up the government's incompetence.

Conservative Foreign policy: Moralistic, Macho, Moronic

I do not know what is worse, the UAE fiasco or the fact that these bombastic simpletons thought they had 150 votes in the bag.

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101015/cannon-un-101015/20101015/?hub=CalgaryHome

The Stupid People's party Strikes Again

The Conservatives blamed Ignatieff for Canada not getting a seat on the security council. Far from turning attention away from the Conservatives this only focused attention on them. Talking points that are this asinine tend to grab headlines -- not just in Canada but abroad as well. The Guardian, for example, would never have bothered reporting the failure of Canada to secure a security council seat. It is just not the kind of thing that Brits care about. However, the utter stupidity of the such a talking point made it newsworthy. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/13/canada-michael-ignatieff

The Conservative's most recent talking point is hardly better. Decrying secret votes and saying that they do care not about popularity contests are about as superficially appealing as Tim Hortons trumpeting of"steeped tea". Leaving aside the issue that secret votes make it less not more likely that such a votes become a popularity contests, a secret vote are the only kind of votes Canadians have. I doubt all those Conservatives worried about the supposed intrusiveness of the long form census would want someone looking over my shoulder to see who they voted for. Conservative Macho talk about laying it out on the table for everyone to see is just a canard. As for the Conservatives not caring about popularity contests, I think they protest too much. One does not make a meal out of something one does not care about. The Conservatives are caught in a performative contradiction.

Now, I do not want to disecte why Canada lost. What I would like to add is this. Harper's world view -- particularly when it comes to foreign affairs-- is not terribly sophisticated. It is high time we stop trying to breath intelligence into such policies by attributing machivillian motives to its authors. What we have is stupid talking points in defense of stupid policies. Full stop.

The Liberals need to make the case

The Liberals decision to whip the gun registry vote was a step in the right direction, but people should not get too excited.

The Liberals still seem to believe that by sounding serious, flexible and sympathetic they will have a chance to win the next election. They are dreaming. A lot of the success Conservatives have enjoyed stems from the fact that however, stupid their arguments and policies, they are the only ones willing to put forward some. When pundits talk about policy or arguments used to buttress it; they deal with Conservative policies and arguments. The Liberals give them nothing to talk about. The Liberals have abandoned the field altogether; they do not put forward polices; they do not put forward arguments; they do not refute arguments. They might tut tut and promise to "compromise", but this only hurts them. The former makes them appear to be the effeminate wimps the Conservatives claim them to be and the later makes it appear that the various Conservative arguments polices have some validity when in actuality they have none. At best, the Liberals will sometimes take a stand in defense of the status quo. The aforementioned gun registry is a case in point. However, do not expect them to say much of anything when they do take a stand. They might note that the experts support them, but they will not repeat the expert's arguments least someone take offense to what the experts are saying and want to shoot the messenger.