Larry, Moe & Curly Size Up the Curtains

So much has been written in the past few days on the whole subject of the Big Switch, as the Conservatives look forward to trooping back to the East Side of the House and the Opposition shifts over to the West Side Government benches in a coalition government, that in one sense it’s all been said, more or less. Still, there are a few things to think about, yet.

The Governor-General’s Role

Much has been made about the reserve powers of the Governor-General, deriving from Queen-in-Parliament. It is the role of the Governor-General to ensure that Canada has a functioning Government — not just a ministry that can act by Order-in-Council, but one which can command and hold the Confidence of the House. This is what gives rise to the generally-accepted notion (seen any major media lately that disputes it?) that the Governor-General will simply have to turn the keys to the Langevin Block and 24 Sussex Dr. over to the coalition as a given.

But, caution! The key word to keep in mind here is “functioning”. Governors-General are not a law unto themselves — they are bound in a web of tradition, common law practice and the like — but they are as near as you can get in Canada, thanks to Section 6 of our Constitution (“The Queen is the sole executive authority in Canada”). This is why we have Speeches from the Throne: none of us elected either a Government or a Prime Minister (or, despite the rhetoric, a “Prime Minister in Waiting”). No, we, each and all of us, only elected a Member of Parliament for our riding. These have been duly sworn in as members of Canada’s 40th Parliament, and have duly elected one of their number as Speaker of the House. That is the constitutional fact-on-the-ground, and nothing beyond it.

By tradition, (s)he-who-was-Prime-Minister-before-the-election is given first chance at meeting the House with a new Ministry, which must seek the Confidence of the House before it is really empowered to act. This the Rt. Hon. Her Excellency the Governor-General has done by accepting Stephen Harper to form that Ministry. It has now acquired the Confidence of the House, with the passage of the Throne Speech vote last week.

Suppose, therefore, that the Government fails the next confidence motion, be that one placed by one of the Opposition parties or on one of its own measures. Former Prime Minister Martin has already established the precedent of simply ignoring a confidence vote and continuing to govern (2005), so if the Harper Government simply ignored an Opposition motion he’d be pilloried — but on ground first tilled by the very parties trying to take him down. (His ground would be far less firm if he ignored one of his Government’s motions declared a confidence matter.)

So Stephen Harper could proceed over to Rideau Hall, and simply say “I shall attempt to regain the House’s Confidence” — and the Governor-General would be well within her prerogatives to accept that. Good-bye, coalition hopes, at least before Christmas.

Secondly, he could go and say “Your Excellency, my Government has lost the Confidence of the House, and I do not believe any other combination of MPs can hold it long enough to pass and implement a budget. I therefore regretfully request a new Writ of Election: let us let the Canadian people decide our country’s future course of action”. Oddly enough, the Governor-General would again be well within her prerogatives to accept this and call an election, without calling on the Opposition Leaders, should she agree with that advice.

Thirdly, of course, Stephen Harper could lose a confidence vote, go to the Governor-General and resign the office of Prime Minister. Now life gets interesting, for the Governor-General could (a) decline to accept his resignation, (b) decline to accept and issue a Writ …

Or, (c) call upon another person to lead a Government anchored in the Conservative MPs. That person need not even be a member of the current Conservative caucus. (It is also not without precedent.)

Or, (d) the Governor-General could invite someone to try and form a Government from amongst any or all MPs, be this a “unity” government (shades of Sir Robert Borden in 1917) or the coalition being discussed so eagerly in the country these days.

But It Doesn’t Matter

Here’s the thing, though. The decisions don’t matter because no alternative to the Harper Conservatives is likely to last through the first Opposition Day Motion (if that long).

Picture a motion, put forward by the (now) Opposition Conservatives, aimed at additional socio-cultural recognition of Québec. (Leave aside the distaste this might leave elsewhere in the country for a moment: we’re dealing now in tactical politics in the House.) The BQ can’t vote against “a Québec interest” — which means they vote (even by abstention) to topple the coalition. At which point we’re back at point (a) again …

At that point the obvious answer would be an election. But, if it’s all that obvious, then it’s that obvious now. This is why I think there’s better than even odds a failure of confidence in the Harper Government will lead directly to another election.

Besides, Who Would Lead Such a Coalition?

Again, the presumption is that Stéphane Dion would lead such a coalition, thus escaping the fate of Edward Blake (the only [so far] Liberal Party of Canada leader never to assume the Prime Ministership). But is this necessarily so?

It’s all very well for Liberals to talk about a premature end to their leadership contest, and an immediate handing over of their party leadership to Michael Ignatieff, thus retiring Dion early, but that doesn’t guarantee the Governor-General would approach a coalition débutant and hand over the keys to the kingdom simply because of internal politics in one party. Remember (c) and (d): the Liberals could change leaders, and the Governor-General could still call on Dion; likewise, Dion could go as the coalition M. le Premier Ministre présumé and the coalition’s opportunity could be handed to Ignatieff … Rae … LeBlanc … even Layton or Mulcair. All of these, of course, are unlikely options, but the power is in the hands of the Governor-General, not the Opposition parties.

Indeed, the Governor-General could ask the Opposition Leaders to attend her and offer their advice prior to answering Stephen Harper. (After all, if you want to use part of the residual powers of the Monarchy for your own ends, you’d better be prepared to accept that all of them may be in play.) So, having heard from the “coalition of the power-hungry”, she may just decide that, yes, an election is inevitable, might as well get on with it…

In other words, Larry, Moe & Curly ought not to be sizing up the curtains in the PMO and planning on the décor changes at 24 Sussex Drive just yet, no matter how encouraging the press is.

And the Results of That Election?

Let’s be clear where I stand: Harper’s tactics in jumbling in the removal of the per-vote subsidy with the economic statement were deplorable — very bad form and a sign of his own hubris — but the removal of that subsidy is actually a plus for Canadian citizenship. Parties (and candidates) should have to work to convince me to pay for them. (Raising the limit from $1,100 per party and $1,100 at the candidate/EDA level to $2,500 at each level should make the work in reaching enough donors worthwhile.) If I had my way, he’d lay that measure before the House Monday and call for the vote — let’s get the Opposition parties on the record in a clear manner regarding this.

Of course, Harper has said “no” to that, and a replacement economic statement and early budget have been bandied about. Malheursement, one error compounded on another.

Still, the platform would be clear:

We’ll invest in tomorrow but not in yesterday;
Canada has been different from the rest of the G-7 for a decade & we’re not in the same troubles they are;
Re-elect us and we will squeeze unnecessary and past-their-prime programs to the max;
We’re looking for no deficits, tax reductions and more focused spending;
Politicians will be hit as much as anyone;
We believe in Canadians, not handouts and make-work programs.

A 37 day campaign — be adamant that the Greens do not belong in any debates (maybe even just outright refuse to debate given how short a time it’s been since the last election) — and get out of the bubble and into the faces of Canadians.

That should be a majority-winning campaign.

Master Plan or Not, There’s Common Interest Here

In this morning’s Globe and Mail, Tom Flanagan laid out the reasons why an election now — and not necessarily a majority as a result — serves Stephen Harper’s strategic needs. Picked up on by bloggers Trusty Tory, Patrick Ross, and Steve Janke (amongst others), the story line that the goal Harper has is to continually weaken the Liberal Party in a series of soi-disant “Punic Wars”, tied to the current funding model for politics in Canada, has credibility.

If this is so, it makes the meetings tomorrow between Harper and Duceppe, and Saturday between Harper and Layton, all the more interesting.

Why interesting? Simply put, because each of these leaders has a reason to have common cause — a cause not shared by Dion (or May).

Duceppe’s Need: For the Bloc, this election must maintain relevance in front of the Québec electorate. With the latest poll at 31% for the Conservatives vs 30% for the Bloc in the province, Duceppe needs to win or hold seats which previously might have been out of reach for the Bloc. This means trading off the Québec City region — where the Conservatives are strong — for seats in the 450, the périphérique of Montréal’s banlieues. These seats become more solid for the Bloc with the rise of the Conservatives, turning former two-way races into three-way battles.

Expect, therefore, that during an election Duceppe will expend equal effort trashing the Conservatives and the Liberals — but in different parts of the province — while running on a campaign similar to last time’s, with the sentiments of “it’s a good thing we’re here” (that can be used regardless of the focal point du jour).

Then, too, the Bloc is a fusion of rural fiscal rectitude types coupled with social democrats, overlain with the motif of “what’s in it for Québec?”. In other words, on an issue-by-issue basis, the Bloc can work with the Conservatives or the NDP, whereas working with the Liberals is more difficult for them (and made more difficult by Liberal sensibilities about “being seen in bed with the separatists”: Trudeauvian muddleheadedness continues unabated).

Layton’s Need: For the NDP, if there ever was a time to advance significantly, it is now. NDP policies offer alternatives to Liberal ones: cap-and-trade vs the Green Shift mass-economic-alteration approach, more interest in infrastructural needs, etc. Dion’s Green Shift has painted the Liberals into a corner: neither can it be explained simply (although it can be attacked in a sound-bite) nor does the relationship between its social engineering, spending plans and incomplete taxation model “fit” NDP priorities. It is, in other words, a natural target for Layton.

Much as with the Bloc, the NDP needs more three-way races. Layton is no doubt cognizant of the latest polls in BC — always fertile territory for NDP battles — where the BC NDP has now pulled three points ahead of the BC Liberals, primarily on dissatisfaction amongst BC Liberal voters with the carbon tax and the arrogance of the Government, with its “to hell with you” attitudes. It will be easy in that province, for instance, to campaign on a simple “if you like Gordon Campbell, you’ll love Stéphane Dion” approach: it is credible given the wanton spending and social engineering of the BC Government in the past three years (whereas, in the past two elections, Campbell looked more like an ideological bed-mate of Stephen Harper).

So, although Layton too will need to campaign against both the Liberals and the Conservatives, much of his fire will, too, likely be directed against the Liberals, trying to turn weak Liberal seats into NDP seats in three-way battles. Then, too, at the present time, gains in the 416 (Toronto Core), 613 (Ottawa Core) or 514 (Montréal Core) are more likely to come from the Conservatives beating up the Liberals to the benefit of the NDP. There is, in other words, common cause.

Canadians of a Tory bent should welcome this. It was no accident that, at the founding of the NDP in 1961, noted Canadian Tory philosopher George Grant welcomed the new party as an analogue of the (then) Progressive Conservatives, but on the left. The Conservatives and the NDP outside of French Canada are as much two sides of the same coin contra the dominant political philosophy of the Liberals as the Conservatives and the Bloc are two sides of une pièce de monnaie commune against the philosophy of the Liberals in la nation de Québecois. It is why I, a Tory, can say ”Layton? Why Not?” — but not “Dion? Why Not?”

Harper’s Need: Aside from staying in Government, what the Prime Minister needs is to trigger another wave of navel-gazing as the Liberal knives come out. So he needs to campaign softly against the other two opposition parties, and focus his fire on Dion and the Liberals (which is already occurring, of course).

But Flanagan is right about Liberal Party finances: they are strained, and failing to win the next election will likely strain them even further.

Today, on CKNW, a dual polling result was offered: that (a) a majority of Canadians in the poll want a change of government and (b) a majority of Canadians in the poll liked what the Conservative Government had done over the past two and a half years. What this suggests is that there is a fatigue (which I have previously written about, in the context of the March by-election in Vancouver-Quadra and elsewhere) with the perpetual “election readiness” and confrontation. To that extent, the Prime Minister is right about Parliament being dysfunctional (although that ignores his Government’s part in that dysfunction). Still, if the record is approved of, turning the dislike for the messenger that currently exists around ought to be in reach.

What Canadians are looking for, at this point, in my view, is adult behaviour: neither Harper nor Dion have come off particularly well in that department this year. So a reversion to the 2006 approach: policy announcements, coupled with a reiteration of accomplishments (one presumes “fixed election dates” won’t be mentioned too loudly), and a change from advertising that insults opponents to advertising that analyses deficiencies in the opponents’ platforms will probably consolidate most of the disaffection that currently exists.

We are likely, after this election, to have made it quite clear that the Liberal Party is fundamentally a rump in Toronto, Ottawa and Montréal. That, plus the unleashing of a “gathering of friends in the Forum” for Dion and an increased fiscal impairment of the the Liberal Party, is what Harper needs. This meshes with the needs of Duceppe and Layton. The alliance may be informal, but it is how the election is likely to play out, despite the desire of media personalities located in the Liberal Heartland of the three major cities of the Eastern time zone to “equate Liberal values and Canadian values” (a patent nonsense when one considers the many differing approaches to Canada found in its regions from coast, to coast, to coast. (When one’s social interactions centre on a common point of view, it is easy to come to believe that this is reality everywhere: no cabal or plot need be assumed.)

So, as Margaret Wente said in today’s Globe and Mail, bring it on, already. It’s time to stop playing chicken and start playing for votes — for real.

Ho, Hum, Fo, Fum — On With the Vote

In a little over a week from now, according to the media (who love a horse-race and thus are excited at the prospect), Prime Minister Harper will make the trek up to Rideau Hall and ask the Governor-General for a Writ of Election. Shortly after Thanksgiving, by mid-October, we can expect to have finished the campaign, voted, and returned the new Parliament to Ottawa.

Forgive my lack of enthusiasm, even though I do believe the backing, filling, posturing, foaming at the mouth, back-pedalling and abstaining has gone on more than long enough and that it is time for all of us, in all 308 ridings, to have our say — not the blogosphere’s, not the media’s, not the politicians’ and not the parties’. Still, I just can’t find it in me to get all trigger-finger itchy about the prospect of throwing my incumbent MP out (much though I think she deserves it for her performance, and much though I think her party deserves a good long time in the deep woodshed, not simply banished from the Government benches for a term). Nor do I particularly want the Prime Minister returned to power, save only that I want the Leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal and Offici(ous) Opposition to take power even less.

Patrick Ross has offered his views as to why we might withhold a vote from the Conservatives for undermining the spirit of their legislation to fix election dates, as has Raphael Alexander, who sums it up as a minor transgression rather than an issue to turn a vote upon. Bloggers from the Liberals and points “further left”, of course, can be pointed to as seeing this as an issue to turn an election on (in favour of their candidates of choice), such as the always worth reading Steve V. So is the threat by Prime Minister Harper to seek dissolution rather than waiting to either fail a confidence motion — or meander his way to the fixed election date of 19/10/2009 — worth worrying about, or not?

The past two decades — concentrated in Western populism, most recently expressed in the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance federally and the BC Liberals provincially — have seen issue after issue brought forward to restructure our system of Queen-in-Parliament to have more of the features of a constitutional republic (with the Crown now serving as the Head of State to a Head of Government with far more “Head of State”-like features). One of these concerned removing power from the office holder to call an election willy-nilly because the polls were right, or announcements were pending, or just to take advantage of a disadvantaged opponent, as was the pattern of Jean Chrétien in power (for instance). This leads to the idea, found in strong-executive republican models such as are used in the United States, or France, of a fixed and predictable election date.

I do not support these (despite Chrétien’s abuse of Prime Ministerial perogative). Our system of governance depends upon the Opposition being perennially “prepared to govern” (and showing us that they are, indeed, fit for purpose: this is the essence of my rejection of the Federal Liberal Party and Stéphane Dion, for neither, since January 2006, have demonstrated that fitness for power). Just as the Government can fall at any time — and especially so when it is a minority (never forget that backbenchers can and have revolted even in strong majorities!) — so, too, the Governor-General need not issue a Writ of Election simply because the Prime Minister demands it. She can turn instead to anyone whom she believes can command the Confidence of the House. That it has not happened since 1926, when Lord Byng quite rightly refused William Lyon Mackenzie King his Writ — that Arthur Meighen could meet the House and carry on for a few months shows the rightness of the Governor-General’s assessment — and when the election came the Canadian people returned King rather than Meighen, a judgement on Meighen, not on the Governor-General (as many Canadian historians trying to “bury” the Constitutional protections of the Crown over politicians would have it).

This power is not in abeyance. Nevertheless, I do not think Her Excellency will refuse the Writ, if it is asked for. Still, it is good to know our system — and not to focus on those elements drawn from other systems where they are an integral part of “how it all works”, but are a graft that sits poorly on our way of doing things (much as Trudeau’s precious Charter is a similar graft denying Parliament its perogatives).

As with many things in politics today, power and truth make uncomfortable bedfellows. Prime Minister Harper is legally correct to say that he retains the privilege of requesting a dissolution of Parliament. The “truth” — really, a pravda, or propaganda statement — surrounding fixed election dates, however, was that he yielded this power, tying his, and his successors’, hands. This discomfort this gives to his supporters is the result of this collision between power and truth.

Come election day, though, how we got to the polling place will be the least of the concerns motivating most voters. In other words, it is just another annoyance, to use Raphael Alexander’s view, as opposed to a support-breaker, as Patrick Ross intimated, and certainly not a sustainable issue, as supporters of the Prime Minister’s opponents would have it.

The real question will be — and this applies to all of the over 1,600 candidates expected to run nation-wide as much as it does to the party apparatus backing each of the leaders and the national “air war” for support — what is on offer? What do you stand for? What will you support if you are in Opposition; what will you bend on if you are in Government? (The likelihood of yet another minority is strong enough that these are viable questions.) For Liberal MPs, in particular, “are you going to stand in the House and vote?” might be appropriate.

At the moment my vote is available; I do not go into this campaign already decided. I should be very satisfied with a Conservative Minority Government coupled with a strong NDP Opposition, and the election of a few Green MPs (save only in Central Nova). But who will get my vote in Vancouver-Quadra? Until I see who runs, and what each of the candidates says for themselves, on top of party platforms, I will not know.

All candidates should also be aware of one other thing: “none of you” is a vote, whether carried out by formal abstention in front of the Deputy Returning Officer at my polling place (no crying foul, please: if you can abstain in the House we too can abstain) or simply by joining the near-majority of Canadians who consider the whole game a sham and a waste of their time and don’t vote at all. (I’ve only ever missed one Federal election, due to a strike in France which delayed my return to Canada, but the past two elections I have considered the “not voting” option as one of my choices.)

In any event, whether I’m excited about the prospects or not, I am more than ready to see the back of this Parliament — and the back of the defeated leader(s) after this election. So off you go, Prime Minister. Let’s get the Writ and get it all over with.

It’s time for a new beginning in Ottawa.

Unrighteous Indignation

I have taken a few days off to watch the latest tempest in a teacup bring itself to a boil. That, of course, would be the swirl of controversy surrounding Maxime Bérnier, our Foreign Affairs Minister.

Gentlemen and ladies, of course, do not gossip about the private lives of others. I have nothing to say about M. Bérnier’s choice of former girl-friend. That, of course, is what ought to have been the norm.

But there is little to no danger of finding gentlemen and ladies of principle on the Opposition benches, or in the trenches of the MSM, in Canada, in 2008. To quote the last election’s Liberal tagline, “Choose your Canada”. They have — and a rather sickly and unappetising place it is, indeed, filled with cynicism from the Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition to the lowliest of hangers-on in the blogosphere (a certain group of people writing under the brand of “Canadian Cynic” comes immediately to mind).

Here’s the funny thing. At the moment, I’m not happy with the state of our nation’s Government. I’d be hard pressed to vote for its return at this juncture: I dislike the very notion of “the best out of a bad lot”. That, unfortunately, is what the Harper Government has become. It’s not enough reason to support it.

On the other hand, the behaviour of the Opposition since last fall has absolutely destroyed any chance at all that I would support the Liberals in the next election. This is not a matter of the leader of that party at all. All Liberals wear the badge of shame they themselves have earned by threatening elections and then abstaining on votes, up to and probably including today’s NDP non-confidence motion (the last Opposition-led one before the House rises for the summer session). Meanwhile the Nation’s business, which could have been discussing matters of substance, has been hijacked for a steady diet of innuendo, slime, reputation-destroying perilously close to either libel or slander most of the time: in other words, a complete and utter failure to attend to their purpose in being MPs. “A Government in Waiting”? That is what an Opposition is supposed to be.

These Liberal MPs — along with their cousins dans la dépravation in the Bloc — are anything but. I am utterly and completely ashamed that my own riding’s MP, the now dishonourable Joyce Murray, has done nothing since scratching out her by-election win in March, but add to the chorus of braying asses.

A strange day, indeed, when one looks to see Parliamentarians and finds them in the New Democrat benches, but there you are.

I do not excuse the Conservatives. Almost every Canadian with a Conservative MP has been as ill-served as those with a Liberal MP. Where are the matters of substance from the Government benches? Oh, yes … message controlled out of existence.

I look at the Harper Government’s record and am generally in favour of it. (I neither expect perfection — my views are just one amongst many and the Governing party is a big tent with many strains of political opinion — nor demand it. Show me a party closer to my views and I’ll give it a good hard look. Until then, I’m satisfied with the one that comes closest, most of the time.)

I look at the behaviour of the Government and consider them little better than Liberals, when it comes to being quality MPs. Committee chairs who undo meetings, repetition of the same point day after day instead of a quiet “that has already been asked and answered, Mr. Speaker” — for heaven’s sake, you can defend your position without descending to their vitriolic and bombastic level! — local voices stilled.

The Prime Minister’s Cabinet might well have been filled in 2006 with Ministers who lacked experience in Government — by 2008 they ought to be competent. Centralisation in the PMO has ensured they are not. Failing to build a viable bench of both party and policy leadership is a severe failing of this Prime Minister.

Yet the indignation continues, on both sides. It is strongly rumoured, for instance, that Stéphane Dion will make a carbon tax similar in intent to the Gordon Campbell carbon tax in BC a lynch-pin of his policy platform. (I shall save, for another day, my views on the whole carbon tax issue.) Nevertheless the attack guns are trained on this, with hyperbolic (and thus unbelievable claims) even before the policy statement is made.

This simply destroys Conservative credibility — what little was left, that is, after a do-nothing record laid down by Baird even on matters championed by this Government itself — even further. There are good reasons to question a carbon tax as a vehicle in a northern climate, especially one with a surfeit of geography to be traversed, and an urban planning model best described as “let’s sprawl, baby, ’cause energy will be cheap forever!”. When Garth Turner, for instance, realises that the problem with the housing bubble in his riding of Halton is as much driven by Halton’s need to drive everywhere — and thus house prices in Halton will collapse as energy costs rise, carbon tax or not — and that there is little to be done other than recognise the malinvestment and to salvage what can be salvaged from it, instead of crying out for “relief” on his blog, we’ll actually see some reality enter the situation.

But no, there are points to be made, and that takes precedence over sound policy, honest debate about contentious approaches, respect for the other party even in disagreement — all required elements to approach the truth of hard matters and gain a consensus that supports the course of action taken.

There was a time, not long ago, when the House would be raucous, and then members would cross over the lines to meet up and head off for a drink and dinner together. They were Parliamentarians first, and partisans second.

There was a time, not long ago, when policies were debated and a national consensus allowed to build. The citizens were respected first and not treated (are you listening, purveyors of Victory Funds and “oh, we’re under threat” letters such as Dr. Gerstein’s) as simply cash cows to be milked and X-markers once in a while.

The modern Conservative Party has given up on speaking to the electorate as adults. Paradoxically, it is the NDP and Green parties that hold onto a small vestige of that. (The Liberals, of course, adopted a permanent sneer toward the House and the citizens with Trudeau, never to lose it again.) Now we have — as I have oftimes said — two Liberal parties, for neo-cons are simply neo-liberals in disguise.

The indignation in the House and in the news is manufactured. The indignation of the electorate, on the other hand, will be real. It is as yet small. It threatens an earthquake if you keep going this way.

Whether that earthquake tears this Dominion apart, in a righteous anger at the very idea of Ottawa, or whether it simply leads to the sudden promotion, to Government, of one of the perennial also-rans, remains to be seen.

In-and-Out, Three Hail Marys & Back on the Street…

George Carlin, on his immortal Class Clown album from the 1970s, talks of the experience of being an adolescent boy having to go to Confession, and hoping to get the “right Father”: one would give you ages’-worth of pennance (“the four First Fridays, the five First Saturdays, a trip to Lourdes…”) and the other would understand (“that’s okay, man, tres Santa-Marias“). Five minutes later, the penitent would be back on the street ready for another week of fun and frolic.

Apparently the Conservative Party of Canada was hoping to draw Carlin’s “Father Rivera” yesterday with their “selective confession” to various members of the media.

Let me be clear about my own views on election spending. I like the current restrictions on contributions. They equalise the playing field somewhat — even minor parties ought to be able to find supporters who can kick in sufficient funds to play. At the same time, I’d lift the lid on spending. If you can out-raise all the other parties, you ought to be able to use the money. Finally, other people who wish to communicate on issues ought to be able to do so, with limits on how much spending they can do. (So this is hardly libertarian enough to suit, let’s say, a Gerry Nichols, but much more free than the current Canada Elections Act and related regulations allow for. In particular, if I want to spend money to support campaign messaging on how to spoil your ballot, I ought to be able to do so.)

So if the Conservative Party spent $19 million rather than $18 million in the 2006 election I am not particularly chuffed at the thought. In-and-out, after all, is a time-honoured practice used by all of the parties at one time or another. (I can’t stand the supercilious types who pretend they’re simon-pure on this, although, mind you, there’s no shortage of them. Needless to say, the Conservatives weren’t spending monies redirected to their party from Federal Sponsorship and Advertising contracts, either: their supporters contributed that money to be used to win an election fair and square.

Still, yesterday’s shenanigans — selective invitations, a semi-secret location, ducking into the fire stairs to escape questions — sent all the wrong images to the country. “If you act guilty, you must have something to feel guilty about.”

So, thanks to this ineptitude and stupidity (and I always recall that Robert A. Heinlein once said a number of different things that add up to stupidity is the only natural capital crime — even if you get to escape natural retribution for the first offence, not learning from your errors certainly qualifies for the aphorism’s intent!) the Conservative Party may well have given itself a serious, perhaps fatal wound, something none of the imagined bluff and bluster seen in Parliament from the Liberals has been able to do.

If this is evidence of Stephen Harper’s superior tactical political skills — Gerry Nichols, in a web-only column for the Globe & Mail this morning certainly seemed to hint that these exist — then yesterday represents the moral equivalent of slipping in public on a cow pattie at the Stampede ready to be trampled by a raging bull or three.

Everything now turns on just how turned off we have all become. Will Canadians become incensed and feel retribution is required, or have they heard so much dung being flung in the past few years that this gets chalked up as “just another gros enmerdement“? If it’s the second, the Harper Government gets its equivalent of Father Rivera’s Three Hail Marys and it’s back on the street ready to fight for the right to continue to govern, perhaps even with a majority. Or, if we get angry, does this mean we get to experience Stéphane Dion’s sterling leadership qualities?

For, in Canadians’ response, that is also part of the equation. Dumping the Liberals in 2006 wasn’t a matter of “paying any price” for a change: there were many who may not have liked what Harper’s positions were, but accepted that he had proven, in Opposition and in bringing his party together, that he was viable if given Government. Dumping the Conservatives in 2008 (or 2009) doesn’t come with quite so much surety.

It will be dreadfully noisy for the next few days. It might even cause the Opposition parties to suffer a collective spinal injection rather than spinal tap, and we’d be off to settle the matter in an election. Or this will be an on-going gut-rumble in Question Period until the summer recess, at which point quiet will resume.

I suspect the Canadian people are turned off, tuned out and hoping for quiet. We shall see what happens.

When the System is Past its Best Before Date

The odour of decay wafts gently on the spring breezes these days from the manure mound that Parliament has become. Yet another week of “will they or won’t they?” politics, as the Liberals hem and haw, posture and pose, stamp their feet and consider whether now is the optimal time for them. Buttressed by the latest Nanos poll (which everyone trusts because, after all, it is Nanos who got the last two elections right), we may see the government fall. Or not, as the case may be.

I have been thinking about what it would all mean to go to the polls now. Who, pray tell, is there to vote for?

Politics in a Parliamentary system depends on mutual respect. The players may and will disagree as to policy. They may even huff and puff in feigned indignation from time to time. (It was a horrible move, to put cameras and microphones into the Commons; it converted debate into theatre, and sacrificed the calm and the constructive to the farce of playing up. Good-bye reasoning; hello sound bite.) But Members should respect each other. They should see each other as the head-and-tails of the same coin.

This they no longer do. We are all impoverished for it.

Afraid of “eruptions”, Stephen Harper centralised and controlled his Conservative benches, and remained on an election footing even before accepting the Queen’s Mandate in 2006. Since then the difference between reality and electioneering has been lost (I shudder to think he might mean the words that his Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries utter in the house; that he might well believe the rhetoric as reality). With it, no new platform, no new directions have been taken on.

What the Harper legacy leaves me with is the conviction that a Conservative Government will squander this country just as the Liberals have done and would do again. How else does one see a failure to clean up the cesspool of programmes left from the “something-for-everyone” Chrétien-Martin years? How else does one see the sloshing of money at potential votes? How else does one see the loud rhetoric and the timid actions?

I cringe every time I see someone refer to the Harper Conservatives as Tories, for they are anything but.

But the Liberals do not comfort, either. Picturing Stéphane Dion in power is akin to picturing Joe Clark’s worst day in office as the best we will see. Behind the scenes, it will be as when the Don is dying, and the subordinates are carving out their own turf, preparing for the internecine war to come and grabbing as much as they can on the way. Is it cruel to compare the Liberal Party’s grandees to pseudo-Mafiosi? It is, and yet there is truth in it. For buying the Dion party means buying the Dion team: who on earth wants a rerun of Goodale, Coderre, and the like? Who wants to see a Cabinet riven by the Ignatieff-Rae manoeuvring? None of that lot should be allowed near the levers of power.

There is no reason to desire (nor expect) a Layton/NDP breakthrough or a May/Green arrival. Once again this election will come down to the main two parties. Perhaps, had either minor party leader actually been a Parliamentarian and a calm public debater we would see them differently, but shrill and loud is just more of the same. I can get crud from Harper and Dion; I don’t need more of it assaulting me from the others.

(The Bloc does not, of course, run outside Québec. The maggots run over the decayed corpse of that party. It has gone from raison d’être to raison de pension. As with the rest of the country, it has its voters who now vote for it reflexively, from habit, and without care.)

We used to have the ability to consciously vote “none of the above” in this country, and that is what the system needs: formal abstentions at the ballot box. Alas, party interests wiped out this option, and legislation made promoting it when it matters — during a campaign — illegal. Now our option is to simply not vote, or to go and spoil the ballot.

I do hope we are at least offered a decent and honourable candidate in my riding, someone I can vote for as an individual. Goodness knows, from her first day in the House, my new MP, Joyce Murray, demonstrated she’s not it, as she joined the cackle and disparage brigade in her maiden appearance. But on a party basis, a pox on all their houses; let them be anathema!

The long dying of the country’s politics will continue.

Parties Hoist on their Own Petards (Part III)

Two days ago, it was the turn of the Greens, NDP and Bloc; yesterday, the Liberals had their turn. Today, let’s complete the job, by looking at the Conservatives.

The situation for the Conservative Party may not seem as difficult, at first, as I have made the other parties’ situations out to be. They are the Government; they have a reasonable likelihood of continuing to be so. Even if we were to go into an election, they stand a reasonable chance at being returned to office (although not, perhaps, with a majority: Bloc fortunes at the moment seem solid enough to deny many marginal seats that might go Conservative in Québec, and Ontario, according to the polls (especially the Greater Toronto region) remains Liberal country. Without the extremely detailed polls taken by parties that allow seat-by-seat estimations, it is foolish to take any of the national polls — not even Nik Nanos’ work with its superior public track record through the last few tilts at the ballot box — as a seat count indicator. Still, the overall national numbers, and their regional breakdowns, don’t seem to support much of a shift in the seat count from the 2006 results.

Why Should the Conservatives Grow?

And why should growth for the Government have occurred, anyway? Canadians, mostly, don’t spend a lot of time on politics unless an election is on (and about half of us not even then!). For many of those who do vote, voting is a matter of habit: the elector has marked his or her ballot for the same party time after time. Growth in support, then, is more difficult than it looks.

But there are a few things Canadians don’t seem to put up with gladly. One is acting, in office, as though we are all stupid. The other is the sense of “no tomorrows”. Let me explain.

The Finance Minister’s recent blasts at Ontario and its government, for instance, are indicative of the strategy of making people feel stupid. It is, after all, only last fall that Ontarians trooped to their provincial polling places and re-elected the McGuinty Government, and quite solidly, too. There are good reasons to question the wisdom of that judgement — but the fact is that that was the judgement of the voters. (They may have made it for several reasons: John Tory’s failed campaign [plus lingering memories of the stench and decay left in the wake of the Harris and Eves Governments, not all of whose initiatives were good for the province and not all of whose legacy was on a firm footing]; Howard Hampton being at least one election past his best-before date with the electors; and a judgement, on the part of Ontario voters, that Conservative Government in Ottawa is likely to last and a desire to counter-balance it with an opposing Liberal Government in Queen’s Park [a traditional voting pattern in Ontario, supporting years of Liberals in Ottawa during the PC forty-two year dynasty — the Diefenbaker years and the Clark interregnum being less than 20% of the total — and the choice to vote Liberal and NDP when facing the Mulroney PCs in Ottawa, and the "Common Sense Revolution" PCs in Ontario when facing Chrétien's Liberals nationally].)

Whatever the reason, Ontario kept McGuinty in power: rabid, foam-at-the-mouth criticism on an on-going basis insults their intelligence. Is it any wonder there is still no headway being made in that province for the Conservative Party of Canada?

This sort of attack-dog approach has been a constant thread in the Harper régime, whether in public speeches or in the House. Not everything requires high dudgeon and indignation as its first, last and only recourse. Canadians expect a little more maturity from their Ministers and Government members — certainly more than they have been shown to date.

To his credit, in the House, the Prime Minister often comes across as more statesmanlike (certainly by comparison, and often genuinely so). One needn’t always like the message being given, but recognise at least that calm and even tones are a welcome reversal to debate form in an institution now reduced to petty tantrum, schoolyard bullying, the taunt of the day and other childish behaviour. So, too, the Prime Minister on those occasions where he speaks in public: less bluster by far than his opponents, more description and reasoning with the electorate.

Stephen Harper, of course, much like his opponent across the aisle, is well-known not to be a good “mass” people-person. He, too, is a character best served up in small settings, or on the radio: television is not his forte, and neither is the mass meeting, especially with an inability to control the outcome. This is standard introvert behaviour.

Harper has given in to the desire to protect himself from the fray, however, too much — and it is not a trait that is admired. There are reasons to have done so. As we have seen in the past two years, there are elements in the mass media who have prejudged the Harper Government and found it lacking for the mere crime of existing: from CBC reporters feeding questions to MPs to CTV’s general slant on the news, few days have gone by without a subtext of “ohmigod, what idiots Canadians were!”. The MSM, too, plays the contempt card in the face of the voter, more often than not. But, just as a Conservative in Toronto knows better than to expect The Toronto Star to suddenly turn generally supportive of his or her thoughts about things, the effect is often to neutralise the bias. This is why Conservative support has also remained stuck: not going up (because of the sense that the Government really is a one-man show brought about by the way Ministers are used as pit bull terriers and the obvious stand-off that exists between the Prime Minister and the normal interactions with the public and press that the role demands in the twenty-first century mobocratic “political consumer” economy) but not going down because of the obvious and blatant attempts to dismiss, smear, demean and deny the voter recognition for their choices, no matter how much it might disturb the salons of editors, columnists and newsreaders.

Until the Prime Minister opens up his Government, however, he will remain in this box. There were — and possibly are still (we are not privy to Conservative caucus meetings) — reasons to avoid public disruptions that cloud and confuse the on-going task of melding one party from the many strains that make up Conservatives in Canada. Mixing quasi-libertarians, social conservatives, traditional progressive conservatives and those who are tired of Central Canadian preoccupations and dominance of all issues into one coherent body that will stand up for each other rather than tear each other apart is a difficult task, and years of Liberal Government meant forming a Cabinet that needed (in many cases) guidance.

Still, two years on, some of the talent ought to be emerging, and not to attack, but to put forward policy and set the stage for future actions by the Government. This is important: Canadians do wonder if Harper would survive a leadership review by the party were another minority returned — and know he would face one if a coalition of opposing forces controlled the House even if the Conservatives returned with the largest number of seats (such a move would only take political calculation on the part of the Liberals and NDP, plus any Greens that might gain election). It is almost inevitable that continued minority governments will lead to at least informal but solid coalitions emerging. We’re not stupid, and expect it, and so we want to know what the Conservative team looks like, since a Conservative vote is not only for today’s government and leader, but for tomorrow’s potential one as well.

Until and unless Harper can “let go enough”, he and his Government remain stuck where they are, not quite able to command the result they have earned from the past two years’ governance, yet still able to block the emergence of their opponents — which means continued childishness and petulance, threat and submission, etc. Showing adult behaviour when facing little children would go a long way. Does the Prime Minister have it in him to trust the Canadian voter to make an adult decision?

If he does, and he changes his style and the style of his Government accordingly, he should find his long-sought majority.

That was Interesting — Now Comes the Aftermath

It’s been a very interesting night, actually, watching the by-election returns come in. If nothing else, tonight’s returns show just how isolated Toronto has become from the rest of the country — and, with it, the ideas of the Toronto élites in the various parties.

Toronto Centre and Willowdale were never, of course, in doubt: a political earthquake of extreme proportions would have been required to shake these loose from not only the grip of the laurels of incumbency being passed on to two new candidates (both of whom had received great quantities of news coverage not that long ago as the Liberal leadership campaign carried on). Indeed, both have (as of the 20:39 PT reading from the Elections Canada website) achieved a 59% true majority from the electors — slightly less than one in four — who turned out today. This puts two more possible alternatives to Dion on the Liberal benches for all to see, each and every day in Question Period: I do wonder why my mind’s eye keeps seeing Gaius Julius surrounded by his friends. Probably clapping as the knife goes in, too.

Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River, where Stéphane Dion’s hand-picked candidate, Joan Beatty, was expected to have a tough go of it tonight, but the battle was expected to be close for all of that. Nevertheless, this riding voted consistently, from poll to poll, to elect the Conservative, Rob Clarke. It would, in point of fact, have taken just about every NDP vote to have gone to the Liberal (I do recall more than one news article and blog post in the past few days who thought it would be a Liberal-NDP battle here!) to close the gap. (It may well be that that outcome does eventually come about — a Liberal & NDP merger, not unlike the Canadian Alliance & Progressive Conservative merger that gave us today’s Conservatives. Goodness knows there are enough former New Democrats already on the Liberal benches.)

“DMCR”, as one Maclean’s blogger put it, has another distinction: the highest turnout of the four by-elections. Still only 25%, but solidly so, not under the mark as in the Toronto ridings — or in Vancouver.

Which brings me to Vancouver Quadra, still a battleground at the time of writing (there are still 64 of the 237 polls to report, and although the Liberal Joyce Murray has been ahead often the lead has see-sawed). I am expecting (but not personally happy about) Murray to win it. However, Stephen Owen’s +20% legacy has been dissolved. The next go around in this riding should be more interesting, indeed. The Greens are coming out of Quadra with 15% as well — they and the NDP have traded the also-ran laurels all night long — and I suspect this represents the future general election in BC, at least along the coast: a four way battle.

The Aftermath

If there is a big loser tonight it is Jack Layton and the NDP. Across three of the four ridings (Toronto Centre, Desenthé-Missinippi-Churchill River and Vancouver Quadra) the party is in the 13-17% range, not enough to lead to more seats. True, all four of these ridings were Liberal pre-tonight, but if the NDP’s message — with its anti-war core and NDP opposition exercised in the Commons (no abstentions amongst the abstentious, so to speak) can’t make headway in a by-election, where both the prior incumbents and the current government could be sent a message, then they are unlikely to do so in a general campaign. The party has come to be seen as mostly “against”; it is going to need to be known as being “for” a coherent, integrated programme, or that merger with the Liberals is going to looking more and more appropriate as time goes on.

Our Opposition Leader, Stéphane Dion, also has failed to reinforce his position tonight, and may in fact have weakened it substantially. Four-for-four was — as with those who run websites and data centres — the price of admission. There will be those who link DMCR to Outremont and ask what other losses wait in the wings. The tussle amongst sitting MPs over whether to try and trigger an election or continue to avoid losing by winning a non-confidence measure will continue. No doubt the morrow will bring new analysis — perhaps first and foremost from the recently-installed President of the Central Region of the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario) — but things are at a point with Dion where his supporters end up being countered not only by those who do not support the Liberal Party, but by those who do (and fear for it). In other words, the storm of sound and fury, signifying little to nothing, we have lived through for weeks will continue.

On the other hand, the Greens can see decent results in Toronto Centre (where they came second) and in Vancouver Quadra (where Dan Grice put on a solid showing). Both these results earn the party funding support for the next battle, having 13-15% of the total vote: this puts them on a part with the NDP. (The other two ridings showed a more standard breakdown of support.)

Finally, the Conservatives. Not only does Stephen Harper come out of tonight with a new MP on the Government benches, but it is clear that none of the attempts to plaster his party with goo — Schreiber, Cadman, etc. — have done any real damage. Neither have any of the decried “self-inflicted wounds”: income trusts, denial of the RESP tax change, etc. Whatever reservations may keep Harper from achieving a majority, he is also not losing ground. This is particularly important when we remember that by-elections give voters a safe place to “spank the government”. We come out of tonight with a government unspanked. Food for thought should the government fall in the near future.

The Anomaly That is Toronto

I close this piece by returning momentarily to the city of my birth, Toronto. There should now be little question but that Toronto has a political culture that is atypical. It was, as Ontarians well know, Toronto that has thrown up the “Progressive” end of Progressive Conservativism, both provincially and federally. Yes, there are other places that live and breathe a Liberal-NDP axis: Ottawa, West Island Montréal, the City of Vancouver. Toronto, however, exemplifies this. Couple that with the fact that many of the most influential Liberal bloggers are either transplants to Toronto, native Torontonians, or located just outside it in Southern Ontario, and that most of the English-language main stream media in the country is located there, and the disproportionate influence of the Toronto political calculus on national affairs starts to be seen.

But that influence wanes the closer the Liberal Party as elected comes to be the Toronto & District party. Tonight’s results move the Liberals a little closer to that: winning Vancouver Quadra, a seat where, from 1988 to 2006 inclusive, a box painted red with an “L” on it could have been elected with a 10%+ margin (and actual candidates did significantly better), by the less than 4% Joyce Murray is tracking to, suggests that urban Vancouver may be more susceptible to new types of races (against the Conservatives here; against the NDP elsewhere; every riding facing a growing Green challenge). The future, in other words, is changing: eventually, Toronto — even with its gerrymandered riding boundaries that split opposing party strengths to allow Liberals to sneak through (for Toronto is not monolithic) — will come to change, too.

For Toronto worships at the twin troughs of power and money, and eventually goes where these can be found. When they do, the Liberals as we know them are toast.

So here’s the real question from tonight: can the NDP (or the Greens) figure out how to compete successfully enough to tip the balance and make the residual Liberals the supplicants, when the time comes?

On this question the nation’s political future rests.

Update @ 21.41 PT: Vancouver Quadra takes the laurels for largest turnout and the gap between the Liberal Murray and the Conservative Meredith is closing. Nothing like a little “end of the night” (there are only 34 polls still to report) excitement, although I’m not expecting an upset here — just an extremely close result.