Worth the Fee to Read It

“An election if necessary, but not necessarily an election” seems to be off the table. St-Stéphane, le Dauphin Dion, has apparently reached a decision: Liberal MPs are to spend the summer communicating new Liberal policies (to be revealed shortly) to the electorate and then the fall session will “be allowed to begin”.

It is not my place today to throw wood and camp stove fuel, along with a lighted match, on the fire of controversy about the various Conservative bills and Liberal Puffery placed against them that occasionally manages to leak out around the edges of the drool and theatre surrounding Liberal indignation over “In-and-Out” and the rebuttals thereunto that pass for the nation’s business these days. Talk radio, at least here in Vancouver, is ignoring the whole sordid mess of Ottawa: none of it matters. This echoes what I was highlighting last month during the lead-up to the Vancouver-Quadra by-election: the irrelevance of the whole Ottawa thrust and counter-thrust. My guess (and, to be fair, my hope) is that when Stéphane’s Liberal MPs — the underwhelming Don Bell in North Vancouver, the indescribable Dr. Hedy Fry in Vancouver-Centre, the party-switching Ujjal Dosanjh in Vancouver-South, the lunch-bag-let-down Joyce Murray in Vancouver-Quadra, the seldom-seen Raymond Chan in Richmond and the generally-forgettable Sukh Dhaliwal in Newton-North Delta — come to hit the hustings in what on all the available history and evidence ought to be fertile ground for their party they discover that not one — not a single one — of the “policy issues” they want to talk about get any traction, or, indeed, any interest, other than the local party ground troops from the EDAs there to clap on command.

I’m not being hard, by the way, on the Liberals — the NDP MPs and the Conservative MPs are just as likely to meet quiet indifference to their presence in their ridings, and to require equal levels of support from their EDA members out to make it look good — because, frankly, if the Lower Mainland of BC is anything to go by there’s little going on in Ottawa that’s seen as mattering to people here, and even less that anyone here can do to influence what goes on in Ottawa. (Do you suppose there’s a correlation between BC’s “worst compliance record in Canada” with the Canada Revenue Agency and that sense that that happens over the mountains, across the Prairies, and through the endless lakes and forests that lie between here and the Nation’s Capital really happens on another planet?)

The Liberals, for instance, are likely to be here selling Dion’s much-anticipated Carbon Tax. BC residents, of course, will — oh, frabjous joy for Dominion Day! — be paying the BC Liberal Government’s carbon tax come July. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, 2.4¢/litre doesn’t sound like much, and as a percentage of the typical current pump price for 87 octane of $1.31.7/litre perhaps it’s not. But it’s the principle: Excise Tax, Deficit Reduction Tax (for a deficit long gone), GST & GST on the taxes!, Translink Tax … the list is long and here’s another one. The hub of cross-border shopping in Canada is across the Peace Arch/Douglas Point crossing, followed very shortly by a stop at a Washington State filling station, where, at US$3.60/US gallon, the price is still only 96.4/litre in Canadian funds. Selling yet another tax won’t be easy. Selling reversal of the GST cut — every trip to Bellingham is 2% cheaper now when you declare your purchases on a day trip — won’t go far, either.

The Liberals will be pitching their wares against the latest Statistics Canada data, which shows that BC has benefitted the least — wages up a paltry 0.7% over 2001-2006 (and how much is the cost of living up?) with increased bifurcation of the incomes of British Columbians out of the middle class and into the small but increasing-like-mad incomes of the “rich” and the growing numbers of the poor. They’ll be selling against a party with the same name, and many of the same well-known “names” involved, that gave the Premier a 54% pay increase, Cabinet Ministers a 39% increase, established independent “Boards” for BC Ferries and Translink that voted themselves massive (40-60%) increases while raising fares, and which has recently funded playground equipment at well-heeled private schools like St. George’s without a penny going to any school on the East Side of Vancouver, all because St. George’s could write the matching funds cheque and despite all the hard work of the parents and community around the East Side schools they couldn’t raise the sums required in the time available. Blatant mis-steps like these await the Liberal MPs.

It’s not even a matter of being tarred with the same brush because of the similarity of name: it’s that they’re coming back with a “Government Knows Best” approach when a spring of similar arrogance has been laid down by the Province. We get to deal with our MLAs next spring; we get to deal with these MPs now. Expect — just as in talk radio — the average citizen not to give any care as to which level of government did, or proposes, what: you’re here, I’m ticked, you must be responsible.

That lack of knowledge of where and whom to actually target, of course, is yet another indication of the disconnect involved. (The inevitable “that’s not us, that’s them” en riposte, of course, solidifies the inclination to ignore the lot of them.)

As with Chicken Little (or Professeur Puffin) the running about shouting le ciel tombe day after day has now led to the point where tune-out is complete. Vote, don’t vote; topple, don’t topple; threaten, don’t threaten; it’s all just noise now. If Ontarians, for instance, have expressed more favour for the Liberals since In-and-Out that can just as much be because Ontario’s Provincial Government is Liberal, and fighting Ottawa’s Conservatives as it might be for In-and-Out. In other places the shift is not happening, or not profound: evidence of disregard or a belief that, yes, they all do it.

What this means is that when the next election does finally come it will be fought, not on accusations of sleaze (much though a Kinsella-inspired Liberal War Room might salivate at the thought) but on policy. Chatter about global warming has died down and mostly gone away, in the face of tougher economic times (jumping food and fuel prices, slowing pay, increasing taxes and fees, fewer opportunities, knowing people who are now laid off) and a winter spent literally chattering as La Niña worked its oscillatory magic on our weather. No doubt the warming goes on, but it is not the issue it was. Feeding the family, dealing with the member in distress, wondering how to close the gap between income and every two-bit oligolopolist and agency head who thinks they’re the only one shovelling a double-digit increase at you: that’s what matters.

A bevy of MPs who have spent this year sitting on their hands or ducking for cover when the division occurs — we might call it a sit-in, except the last place they wanted to sit was in the House — will come to face a population likewise on sit-down strike. Or most of them at any rate: there will be those who shift their agitation (such as with immigrant community leaders) from the Conservatives for “changing the rules” to the Liberals for “not stopping this” (as has been threatened). For the rest of us, though, we’ll get to yell at any politician who shows their face.

It shall all be a fire storm of sound and fury — signifying nothing.

The saliva drools on page after page written by media personalities and bloggers alike. Regardless of faction, the motif is the same: let’s go to the polls, now!

Well, yes, let’s do. But be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

All sides, of course, see an advantage in going now. The Conservatives believe the most recent set of charges laid by the RCMP in the ever-dragging sponsorship matter will remind everyone that the Liberals are not to be trusted — and they’re happy (as the Prime Minister himself noted in a speech) to go to the polls over their planned changes to our Immigration practices. The Liberals believe that this week’s raid by the RCMP on behalf of Elections Canada at Conservative Party headquarters shows the Conservatives to be at least equally corrupt, and that they will have the better of the Immigration issue in any event.

Ah, but is a vote in the NDP’s interest? Or the Bloc’s? For the Conservatives tied their own hands — I do think it would be a suicidal move to plead the need for an election given their legislation mandating a fixed election date (are you regretting this now, Mr. Harper?, because you ought to be) — and the Liberals need support. Despite both the posturing of Stéphane Dion and other Liberal consigiliere of both front bench and back room whisper, the Liberals cannot, on their own, do anything. They will need to bring the other Opposition parties along with them — at least one if the Government fails to whip itself for the vote, and both of them, in force, if the three-line whip is in place.

For the Bloc, of course, the issue is simple. Are they ready to take enough seats? If they are, they can vote as they please; if they are not, they will keep this Parliament running. (Note, please, that I did not say they would topple the Government if they’re ready: they will determine which outcome — maintain current practices or make the proposed changes — better serves their interests (which are expressed as les intérêts du Québec, naturellement. It may well be that they find the proposed changes as something they can make show as “another victory”.)

So ignore the Her Majesty’s Prime Minister and the Leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition. Instead, cast your gaze firmly upon the Hon. Jack Layton, leader of the New Democrats. What is in his interest here?

Recent polling data suggested, for instance, that the Liberals were making gains in two places the NDP needs to have strong three-way races to win seats: British Columbia and Ontario. Going into electoral battle against such a surge (were it to be maintained to voting day) would not serve the NDP well. On the other hand, voting with the Government means the NDP would also be aiding and abetting the implementation of the budget, something they voted against. A difficult situation, indeed!

Frankly, if there’s a party that needs the economy to weaken further, it is probably the NDP. A downturn would take some of the heat off any environmentalist trends — work and money concerns usually override more abstract causes (as any student of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs would know) — and given the lack of clear Liberal policy the NDP would have the opportunity to stake out a “citizens’ economic platform” in contradistinction to both of the larger parties. Just as the Conservatives would like to go into an election now — before tougher and more turbulent times come — even if it meant another minority as the outcome, so, too, the NDP are probably better served by waiting, both on the Green flank and on the “green” flank, so to speak.

Then, too, with both the Conservatives and the Liberals flinging mud and splattered head to toe with it, there will be those voters who are ready to say “a pox on both your houses” and take their custom elsewhere. On the other hand, given the House schedule, there will be few additional opportunities to vote non-confidence in the Spring session. That puts the Government in control of the agenda over the summer, and a gear-up period in the Fall sitting before confidence motions are again on the order paper. So do you go now, or hope you can build momentum quickly come late September?

Layton’s challenge, of course, is the usual one: gaining attention. This is a double-edged sword: to get attention, he generally must be somewhat outrageous (the joys of sound-bite media), yet that makes him seem to be reacting rather than offering a well-thought-out alternative (or just shouting to be heard at worst). It’s why, for instance, you seldom see him in the newspaper or on the news: the bully-bites offered up from both the Conservative and Liberal benches, and the presumption that Dion is master of the House’s fate (something he, alone, is no more capable of controlling than is the Prime Minister) means that Dion’s threats to topple are taken seriously instead of being challenged as reason suggests they should be.

There’s little question but that we are not being well-served by our current Parliament. It is well past its best-before date, and should be, as with Fortunado in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, bricked up in the dungeon and seen no more. But here is the question, will Layton take up Montressor’s bricks, mortar and trowel and do the deed?

It may serve the NDP better to wait, but the dangers in that course of action say to me that Jack Layton’s moment to risk all has come. When the carnival comes and the vote is pressed, it is time to press the brick home and lead us to the polls.

That is, of course, if the Liberals deign to even show up to vote (in numbers more than a handful).

The odour of rotten politics on Parliament Hill being what it is, the ups and downs of any particular day ought not to make much of a difference in terms of whether an election is desired or not. Still, if for no other reason than to preserve the tradition of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition and all that it stands for, any course of action that does not lead to the defeat of the Conservative Government this week tells all of us that the Liberal Party is morally and completely bankrupt, and deserves to be reduced to as close to zero MPs in the election when it finally comes as is humanly possible.

A rather strong statement, that, especially coming from someone who doesn’t (at the moment) have a dog in this hunt. So let’s decode why I’d push the point now.

Monday the Finance Minister threw down the gauntlet, so to speak, saying clearly that the Government would introduce a motion rescinding the RESP deduction legislation passed by the House a few days ago. (This was reported yesterday by Garth Turner, MP, on his blog, and confirmed this morning by The Globe and Mail.) A Ways and Means motion to implement the now-passed Federal Budget for 2008 must be presented in any event; it has been easy enough to attach the motion of recision to that — and a Ways and Means motion is a Confidence Motion, so to pass an amendment removing the provision is as much a toppling of the Conservatives as is voting down the Ways & Means motion itself. The stage, in other words, is set for a showdown (one the Liberals ducked again last night by voting against the NDP non-confidence motion on climate change, an issue Stéphane Dion is both personally identified with and allied with Elizabeth May of the Greens over).

I think it fair to say that should the RESP provision be struck down in the Ways & Means motion it is highly unlikely that the Bloc or the NDP would support the motion. Once again it all comes down to the Liberals. The question is: with a Liberal MP having been the agent of the Private Member’s Bill that was passed, will the party vote against the Government — or will Stéphane’s Chickens (I do believe Puffins actually have a backbone) once again do their disappearing act? The last few weeks suggest they will rather than back one of their own MPs, one who is the rare winner who succeeded in getting a Private Member’s Bill of some value passed.

The moment the Liberals duck this vote, they are roasted and toasted. A general election campaign today would see the Liberals able to use the RESP vote positively against the Conservatives, who are on the record as opposing this. Failing to vote down its demise would not only remove this weapon, it would allow a very well-heeled governing party to blast the Canadian electorate pointing out the Liberals cared so little for their own member’s bill that they were willing to sacrifice it — for nothing. As Kim Campbell discovered in 1993, you don’t want to spend even half a campaign being laughed at every day. (Would Second City do a new production of “Grit, Party of Shoe” to go with their 1993 show, “Tory, Party of Two”?)

The Liberals, by pulling their disappearing act this time, risk falling into last place in the Commons. Would there be any reason not to change allegiance to the NDP — or to the Greens — rather than staying with the Red-Faced Machine? How could any Liberal supporter with a conscience (I omit any party hack, EDA ground worker or the like by conscious intention: their loyalties have different sources) continue to support the party when it shows that earthworms have more backbone? Any believer in progressive or left politics, or anyone desirous of defeating the Government, would have no choice but to move their vote to a party that might actually do just that when the RESP vote was nullified by abstention.

No, the moment of truth has come, and for Stéphane Dion’s party none of the options look good: go up against an extremely well-heeled Conservative machine in a general election they’re not ready for, or duck and be deemed useless by the electorate.

(Incidentally, if I were someone who allowed pollsters to access me, I’d be lying my teeth off when they called. I suspect there’s a lot of “if you expect me to say this, well then I suppose I could for now” going on out there — and of course the number one lie is “I will vote and here’s my choice”.)

Now, in all of this I do not think the Government is likely to find it easy to win re-election — nor do I expect Stephen Harper to be rewarded with an undisturbed leadership even if he brings home another minority government. Nor will Jack Layton carry on blithely (Mulcair’s recent fiasco in the benches of the far corner notwithstanding) unless the NDP do make it to Official Opposition. We are, in other words, facing a changing of the guard. Only a Conservative majority facing an NDP Official Opposition will stop the purging of leadership — just as Stéphane Dion will only survive in the Liberal Leadership by returning the party to the Government benches. In other words, across the parties available to Canadians other than Quebeckers, there will be blood on the floor of the back rooms starting about five minutes after the concession speeches are heard.

Recent polls, of course, might give our soi-disant Official Opposition an injection of vertebrae: certainly some of the Liberals’ more thoughtful bloggers, such as Steve V of Far and Wide, find them compelling. They do suggest that “party of two” is not in the offing even if Harper is returned. Others, of course, busy handing out the funds the party does have in its coffers to its leadership contenders of 2006, seem to feel that nothing can rebound on the Big Red Ship, and that we are all fools who will forget all within a few days.

We may well do just exactly that. Or the electorate may hone its blades for its own jour des politiciens filleté. But either way, it is time to stop the endless games of Ottawa and bring this to the Canadian people to decide.

Let the people speak! Show up and be counted on the Ways & Means motion!

Awakening this morning to find that the disrespectful cut-and-thrust that is now Federal Politics in this fair land has now descended into legal action has brought me up short. I understand that there are times in life — even in political life — when libel and/or slander must be met. By this, I do not say that this is one of those times, simply that I recognise the occasional necessity. But still, this morning, I am actually queasy as I think about how low we have sunk as a nation.

Whether Chuck Cadman, MP, was offered an inducement in exchange for his vote is not really the issue here any more. These last five days have been about nothing more than trying to throw mud, to obfuscate, to ruin reputations, and — by so doing — to gain some temporary advantage in the polls that could, in turn, lead to a non-confidence vote and perchance a change of government via the subsequent election. It is the very stridency, the bellicosity and the unending din and roar of it all that makes me see it that way. Right from the beginning this has been about drawing up battle lines, seeing how many influencers could be drawn into the camp and how much anyone who disagrees will be maligned for their personal failing in not joining in on the side of the angelsdevilsangelsdevilsangelscamp, regardless of which camp that be.

No wonder the much-talked-about and generally-ignored Average or Ordinary Canadian just wants politics to go away. All of this behaviour — endless continuing references to Adscam, Sponsorship and Gomery, “let’s attack Mulroney one more time”, now the Cadman debate — is childish in the extreme, unproductive, lacking in care and concern for the country, disrespectful to the tradition of responsible government and to the institution of Queen-in-Parliament, and reminiscent of the sort of taunting best left in schoolyards (and supposedly no longer allowed there with all the rules about “bullying” students have imposed on them today).

It’s why, for instance, there is no sign on my lawn during this by-election in my riding, no money has been given to any campaign, and I am really starting to wrestle with the question of whether I’ll even bother to go to the polls on March 17th, because, frankly, at the moment, a pox on all your houses is looking more and more to be the right answer for Vancouver-Quadra and the nation — and none of this nonsense going on in Ottawa is even a part of a local campaign (yet). Still, the desire to get out the old black brush and the tar and do a little “guilt by association” is flaring high this morning.

“What if they gave an election and nobody came?” is precisely where our political class is taking us. Falling numbers of active voters, in turn, make freakish results much more likely. So, too, the likelihood of further impasses, both between the parties, and within the subsequent leadership campaigns that each will face at some point (probably for most sooner rather than later). The Liberal Party, after all, got their Joe Clark in Stéphane Dion, slipping up through deadlocked front-runners to become “the leader least likely to have been selected, but was”. (Not unlike Bob Rae becoming Premier of Ontario back in 1990, actually.) This will become more and more the norm: grandees in gridlock and someone no one can really rally behind making it through as the “least hated alternative”, just as the country will continue to be divided with each party strong in a region and weak everywhere else, so that no majority emerges time and again.

I’m sure it’s all very emotional and involving to those on the inside. It certainly keeps columnists and pundits fed with material to write about, speak on — and more than enough to keep talk lines buzzing. Very good for ratings, all of that, but frankly the nation tired of this nonsense a long time ago, and I think we will see, more and more, that each outburst of Eau de Scandale or Arôme d’Indignation will lead to a general debasement of all parties’ standings and all leaders’ satisfaction levels. Only the one who calls a halt to this despicable game can expect to see his or her rankings rise.

Of course, for those for whom partisanship is a way of life — as opposed to fidelity to our traditions — all of this will fall on deaf ears. Some may even say “oh, look, his side is weak, so he wants us to down our weapons”. Wrong. On this I take no “side”, other than the one I have put forward today. Sit down, shut up, and hang your head in shame — and I care not whom you support. I am tired of the lot of you failures not governing, not being governments-in-waiting, and not sticking to matters that matter.

As for all those who have blogged this morning about how their parties should keep hammering away, and go for that election call: be careful what you wish for. I can assure you that here sits one citizen who, were that to happen and were the Harper Government to be re-elected, would be mightily angry if you kept this yammering up after having “gone to the people”. (But then, I would be equally angry at that government if it didn’t stand down and stop running a permanent pre-election campaign.)

I’m (to quote the character of Peter Finch in Network) “mad as hell and not going to take it any more”. Somehow I think we are the real majority in Canada these days.

Another Federal Budget has been brought down, and I must confess the whole thing was boring in the extreme. We might, of course, have had at least a frisson of excitement as to whether the Opposition would manage to combine forces and precipitate an election, but as we know Stéphane Dion, Follower of the Official Opposition, signalled his latest backing down from the electoral abyss even before the Finance Minister rose in the House. So we are left with a limp rag of a budget and a limp rag of an Opposition: hardly inspiring, although it does leave Opening Day free and clear on the horizon to enjoy another year of baseball.

I’m not about to whinge about the Liberals. They are as entitled as anyone to make fools of themselves in public, and I must say that I think, along with Jeff Jadras of A BCer in TO and many other Liberal bloggers, that this is one opportunity missed too many. How, really, can anyone take any bluff or bluster out of the mouths of the chicken pen seriously after this? Why, indeed, even listen to it, other than habit? Steve V of Far and Wide this morning asks the key question, which is that if this was about simple lack of readiness to compete then why not just admit it and head onward to mid-October 2009, when the fixed election date comes up, and no more snorting and pawing the ground only to tuck tails between legs one more time. When even the columnists of the Liberal Party’s House Organ, the Toronto Star, start questioning why we should care, as reported in Blogging a Dead Horse, I think the answer is clear: we shouldn’t.

Yet there were reasons for disappointment with this budget, and they’re not the ones laid out by Garth Turner. From the point of view of the twenty-first century, as opposed to the twentieth, not dumping money on dying industrial models is a good thing. Yes, in Ontario times are tough. All the money that’s been sloshed at the extended automobile industry over decades, however, hasn’t protected that economy, those jobs or the affected families. The industry - as with any industry - is prepared to take any hand-out on offer, and then do exactly what it was going to anyway. Border constraints imposed by the US Department of Homeland Security make just in time inventory processes that cross the border inefficient and unpredictable. We will end up with other marques prospering that source parts not made in Canada from outside North America, and American marques dying unless there are exceptional reasons to deal with that border. Slopping money is simply filling up the pig-trough and not solving the real problem - which is essentially beyond a Canadian solution in any case.

It’s what isn’t being done by what is ostensibly a Conservative government that bothers me, as I suspect it bothers Aaron Wudrick of the Wudrick Blog when he comments on just how “Liberal” our Conservative Government is. Oh, well, as Joanne of Blue Like You points out, there are political implications, and perhaps we should be satisfied with the opportunity for yet more self-immolation on the Red(-faced) Team’s side of the aisle. But I am not.

There is so much slop in the system already - programmes for every two-bit cause known to mankind and every supplicant under the sun, delivered through Industry Canada, the regional economic expansion arms (ACOA, WD and the rest of the handout brigade), dribbles from Heritage, pork pie from HRSDC, a bit of IRAP money from the NRC here and some CANARIE droppings there (I defy you to find the year or two you’ll need to sort through the many layers of “beg and receive” set up over the years by previous governments) - and really, after two years in office, there is little excuse for this continuing. Then, too, the whinge from the more hawk-like Liberals is that “we left you guys a whopping surplus and you’ve handed it out all over the map, so now you get to flirt with the danger of not breaking even”. True enough, but the problem isn’t with the GST reductions, the income tax changes, the new tax saving account, or the child care money. The problem is with all the other new programme spending on top of all the existing programmes, most of which have carried on blindly and blithely spreading their steaming droppings onto the Canadian economy, distorting it. Why, indeed, would anyone in VC land actually think about the size of investment needed to make the company they’re interested in successful when they know there are all those programmes out there to pick up their slack? Why would managers care to invest in their own business’s future out of earnings, or worry about whether their products have a viable market, when there’s all that money slopping around to go prop things up, or build a new product that can attract the cash but has no proven market applicability?

All this largesse, in other words, has created a Canadian entrepreneurship good at complaining, good at buck-passing, and good at form-filling and report writing, but not one that cares to get down and do the hard work of scratching out a living the old fashioned way: earning it.

A Conservative government ought to be expected to, at the very least, challenge the 400,000+ civil serpents who are busy running this national slush account in its many forms. If they wanted to keep certain types of programme - perhaps they, too, have some sort of Chrétienite “Innovation Agenda” - then at least they could clean them up, rationalise them, sweep away the programmes hanging on for the last 1% of the job they originally were specified to carry out that will never finish, and the like. But no: we just add to the pile, and the Canadian taxpayer and productive business person groans under the load.

After all, if Conservatives won’t bring fiscal order to government, who will? The “never met a handout for Québec I didn’t like” Bloc? The “there’s airtime and the pretense of relevance in asking for money” New Democrats? The “none of you are doing enough” Greens? Or the “hey, you’re being Liberal enough for us” Liberals? Don’t make me laugh.

But we’re stuck, aren’t we? It’s much more fun to hand it out than to clean it up, and it always will be. The notion that taxes are an impost (and hence an imposition) on taxpayers is long dead: the question is now put as “how much will taxpayers be left with” as opposed to “how little should we take”. The notion that programmes should have a defined end-point and then be shut down is long gone in favour of perfection, “finishing the job” (which is never done, and always expanding). We as a nation will be sucked dry - although what’s been done to this point is precisely why Ontario is dying, Québec and the Atlantic provinces died and the West - the country’s last bastion of productivity and growth - is at risk.

It’s the being stuck that made Flaherty’s budget yesterday a yawner, not the items in it.