Federal Politics – Page 139

Another NDP with inflated hopes in Toronto.

August 17, 2015 by Peter Lowry

There is a probably apocryphal story doing the rounds about the newly appointed New Democrat candidate in Toronto’s Eglinton-Lawrence constituency. This guy is a former member of the legislature and cabinet minister from Saskatchewan.

It seems in this story the chap once visited Scotland and came back with a bolt of cloth of exceptional weave with which he intended to make a suit. There was only one problem. He took the bolt of cloth to various tailors in Regina and all said they could make him a fine jacket but there was simply not enough material for a suit.

When he later moved to Toronto to make some money, he thought he would check the bolt of cloth with Toronto tailors. The first tailor on Spadina Avenue, that he took the cloth to, said that he could not only make him a suit but there was enough material; for two pairs of pants.

The chap was somewhat puzzled by this and asked how it was possible when the tailors in Saskatchewan said there was not enough material. The tailor looked at and said, “Sir, back in Saskatchewan, you were a big man about town. Here in Toronto, you are just another small-town putz.”

And that helps to explain the cow pad in which New Democrat Leader Thomas Muclair has dumped his new candidate. Even if the campaign was three times as long, this guy has no chance of making any impression on the voters other than to say to them, “Yes, there is a NDP candidate.”

If this guy was really the star candidate that Thomas Mulcair makes him out to be, it would only be fair to let him have a riding where he might have a chance. It is a very safe bet to say that this guy has no chance in Eglinton-Lawrence.

And the reasons why are simple. The incumbent, Finance Minister Joe Oliver has probably already outspent him by better than five to one with pre-writ and post-writ spending. Any good NDP workers in the riding have already been press-ganged into working in other ridings where the NDP at least stand a ghost of a chance. The hapless candidate will probably have to hire people to put up his signs.

And the bad news is that the Liberal in the riding is better known already than this newcomer from Saskatchewan will be at the end of the campaign. The voters already know that Liberal Marco Mendicino defeated that Conservative turn-coat Eve Adams for the Liberal nomination. The voters know that Mendicino is the one to rid them of Harper’s worst Finance Minister.

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In the heat of the news media.

August 15, 2015 by Peter Lowry

If you have seen carrion birds gather around road kill, you might have a small taste of how people feel in a media scrum. The media in full flight can be frightening, overwhelming and demonize you with their rudeness, intrusiveness, and unreasonable demands. That is how Nigel Wright, former chief of staff for the prime minister must have felt the last few days. Yet, Mr. Wright had his plan, his objective, his strategy and his tactics and that armed him.

And in the heat of the Ottawa summer, the carrion media were fed pap. They were part of the scene, they played but a part and they have been had.

And Mr. Wright smiled while his former boss, Mr. Harper was many miles away from the melee. Canadians will likely never know what the Prime Minister knew of the incident. He just had the convenience of having a chief of staff who could casually write a cheque for $90,000.

And in a blizzard of e-mails released by the court, a different story was told. This was about the concerns of the courtiers in the imperial Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). It was all about optics—how they would tell the story. It was media control. It was about spin. It was the conversion of fact to fiction—palatable to the hoi polloi. Keep the mud splatter off the Prime Minister’s robes of office. It is not a topic that a sensible public relations professional would ever commit to writing.

But what did the Prime Minister know? Mr. Wright says that the Prime Minister knew very little. Mr. Harper’s eyebrows must have gone up at least a millimetre when he was told that Mike Duffy had a home in Prince Edward Island. He wanted Duffy to help elect Conservatives—not languish in a pastoral island when not in the Senate. He had to be party to that part of the sham at least.

As much as Stephen Harper enjoys micro-managing the government and his party, he probably was not aware of Duffy playing fast and loose with his expense accounts—that is too picky even for a control freak!

But when he was told about it, did he say “Can anyone rid me of that troublesome Senator?” No. In his usual unfeeling, uncaring way, Stephen Harper said, “Have the Senator repay it.”

According to Nigel Wright it became a major project of the PMO. It was “Save our ship Duffy.” All hands were ready to bail. And that was when Wright wrote the famous cheque. Mr. Wright is a very loyal soldier. And he has been busy in court this past week proving it.

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Trudeau’s stop-gap Senate solution.

August 14, 2015 by Peter Lowry

Babel-on-the-Bay is only giving Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau a conditional pass on his proposed Senate solution. The truth is that Trudeau just does not want the constitutional problems that the Stephen Harper or Thomas Mulcair solutions will cause. He is not his father’s son in that regard. Pierre Trudeau was always ready to fight for Canada.

But Justin does not believe that the Senate is worth fighting over. His is an elitist solution but he feels it can solve the problem on a short-term basis. What he wants to do is create a bi-partisan committee to recommend appointments and that future senators can only be appointed on merit and not their service to their political party. It would be as simple as just another level of Officer of the Order of Canada with a small chore thrown in.

Trudeau’s solution neatly sidesteps the constitutional crisis that Stephen Harper would create. Harper has said that he no longer wants to appoint senators. The last time he tried creating a bunch of Senators, he got some bad apples in the lot. No doubt Canadian voters can help him carry out that promise by not re-electing him.

It is Thomas Mulcair who is proposing a Senate solution that simply will not work. It is unrealistic and guarantees a major constitutional wrangle. Mulcair and his New Democrats want to abolish the Senate of Canada. That would be our ultimate solution as well but Mulcair knows he is lying. He knows that Quebec would never allow that to happen without conditions that the rest of Canada probably would not accept.

Your writer once had a good discussion with Justin Trudeau about the idea of a constitutional conference or parliament. While we were not far apart on the objectives of such a constitutional gathering, it was obvious that any of the ideas brought forward would be a long time coming to the national table.

Mind you the possibility of positive change in Canada becomes even more remote if we change how the country votes. Both Mulcair and Trudeau are unhappy with our first-past-the-post voting system. Trudeau is cautious and wants a thorough study of the voting options available to Canadians and there is little problem with that. Mulcair very incautiously wants to go right to proportional voting. He wants a Mixed Member Proportional parliament such as in the Weimar Republic of the 1920s. Considering that both British Columbia and Ontario have voted against somewhat related changes in the past, Mr. Mulcair might just be sticking his neck out a bit too far.

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Welcome to an urban Canada.

August 13, 2015 by Peter Lowry

In 1851 when they first set out to count people in Canada, they concluded that 86 per cent lived in rural areas and 14 per cent lived in urban villages, towns and cities. It then took 160 years for that to reverse. In the 2011 Census, it was determined that 86 per cent lived in urban Canada and the remaining 14 per cent were rural. What it means is that pandering to the farm vote might get us fed better but it is hardly the key to winning a majority government.

But what the recent redistribution of federal ridings in Ontario did was to add rural and urban votes when possible to take advantage of Ontario’s urban-rural split. In this way, the rural Conservative voters could fight above their weight class by helping the urban Tories. There is a band of rural ridings across the middle of the province that is the stomping grounds of the Ontario Landowners Association. These are Conservative voters. Not that all these rural OLA hotheads are crazies but they do include a lot of gun nuts and people who seriously believe that property rights supersede human rights.

It is not that urban voters are more urbane but the requirements of urban lifestyle do require that you put community standards and civilized living ahead of property rights.

Not that Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives or the federal Conservatives care about the differences. They just want the mindless votes for mindless candidates. There is no attempt on their part to pick intellectual candidates. While the odd populist sneaks into the role of candidate, the majority are just expensive votes for the party leadership. Most just do what they are told.

But Stephen Harper has never understood is that Canada has become an urban nation. Farmers and city-folk alike are better educated, more sophisticated, better read and more aware of current events. They are not dummies. They know when politicians are lying. They turn up their noses at attack advertising. In the current ad campaign against Justin Trudeau, the only point that has been made is that the Liberal leader is younger. Considering the Prime Minister’s age, most Canadians are younger. So what?

Harper has done what he can to shore up his urban votes. He has pandered to the Jews and Ukrainian-Canadians. He gives substantial benefits to the rich. He uses threats of terrorism. He denies the financial trouble he has caused by his oil-centred industry policy. He has failed the young in not creating jobs for them. He has failed our cities by not recognizing their needs. He has failed the country.

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What do Trump, Ford, Harper have in common?

August 12, 2015 by Peter Lowry

If you think the front runner for the Republican Party nomination for American President is a joke, you did not understand Toronto’s former Mayor Rob Ford either. And Stephen Harper has his own place in Hell next to both of them. All three show signs of being misanthropes—which means they really do not like people. These guys are not there for the people they say they care for. They are users, not caregivers.

These are people who care so little for others that it is only their ego that feeds them. Trump and Harper appear to share a hair fetish. Trump’s fluffed-up mane is a joke and those in the know would never dare laugh at Harper’s lacquered hairpiece. You wonder just how many hours a day it takes them to be coifed to their satisfaction. Harper’s staff hairdresser is no secret while Trump can afford as many as he wishes.

And all three are political prim donnas. They are not democratic. It is their way or the highway. And Trump and Ford are boors. They insult women as though they are from a different form of civilization. Harper is the better actor but he is even stiff around his wife. It is obvious that none of the three are really comfortable around forceful women. Not one of them has strong women on their teams.

For Ford, cancer was a minor bump on the road. It set him back but he kept the Ford name in the race for mayor at the time and another Ford in the running for his council seat. When he made it back in time to run for council, he bounced the substitute Ford to just a school trustee. Ford has to wait four years to flog his mayoralty hopes again.

Trump believes his own propaganda. He has the billions needed to fund his campaign for the White House and he will run as either a Republican or as an independent. If he does take the independent route, he is likely to be vilified by Republicans for taking votes from the Republican candidate to the advantage of the Democrats.

Harper probably believes he is better off than Ford or Trump. He is coming from a position of strength. He is an incumbent but there is baggage to that too. He is dragging the country into the second recession on his watch. Most “progressives” on his team have jumped ship. Their replacements are weak and uninspiring. He has been at loggerheads with the Supreme Court because of his disregard for Canadians’ rights and freedoms. He has trashed the Senate and scoffs at the Commons. He has annoyed our friends the Americans and made enemies for Canada in the United Nations.

And yet there are people who will vote for men like Donald Trump, Rob Ford and Stephen Harper. Be gentle with them for they are the angry, the disconsolate, the losers.

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What news from social media?

August 11, 2015 by Peter Lowry

When giving candidates advice to use social media, it has never been the intent to use this as the primary campaign media. Social media is like a vacuum. It can suck up a lot of detritus but if you do not empty it occasionally, you really do not know what you are getting. You have to be aware of the average age of the participants, just maybe, their level of interest and their serious need to get a life.

While there is a growing cohort of grannies sharing pictures of grandkids in the Facebook universe, it is still a youth movement. And 14-year olds still need adult oversight in its use. You have to realize that the heavy users are hiding from their homework. And you can be sure that the people on Twitter during last weeks leaders’ debate were more interested in their own witticisms than thinking through what was being said.

First of all, a candidate’s objective with social media is to have reach. You start with your political party supporters and use them to reach out to the community. You have to use every trick in the book to build that network. Once it has started to reach a substantial number, you want to mine it for campaign workers. You have lots of work for them and you need to build it with team leaders and teams. Use it to recognize and thank your troops. Make it fun and lay it on. That is what social media is all about.

And if someone is following you on Twitter, you have to keep them interested. Keep those witty twits going. Let the candidate spend ten minutes on it and let the experts fill in from there.

And one of the things this adviser must admit is that we have to constantly update ourselves. Nobody is an expert unless they are watching it daily. There are new sites, new apps, new uses and a whole new language. A news reader on network television yesterday said “OMG” and assumed that everyone would know what she meant.

The growth potential for targeted marketing to social media users is something that most politicians have ignored to-date. If you have the ability to use automated calls to tell your opponents’ voters to go to the wrong address to vote, you also have the ability send your own supporters helpful messages. Maybe some parties like the negative approach but there is still something to be said for the positive.

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Tar Sands: Yours to Exploit.

August 10, 2015 by Peter Lowry

It must be that on the eighth day that God created tar sands. They seem to be an afterthought. Tar sands are also causing a great deal of hypocrisy in this federal election. Just the other day one of our favourite authors and a New Democratic Party candidate stuck her foot in it by suggesting that some tar sands may have to be left in the ground. And that would be as mild a comment as any concerned environmentalist could make.

But Prime Minister Harper jumped on it. “You see,” he said. “The NDP is consistently against the development of our resources and our economy.”

The Prime Minister also alluded to the NDP’s “not so hidden agenda.” There is no question though that NDP candidate Linda McQuaig had been suckered by the news media to contradict the published policy of the NDP.

The NDP stand on tar sands exploitation is built on B.S. and designed to confuse. It actually tries to reassure environmentalists while seeking the votes of people who want jobs in tar sands extraction. It even plays one pipeline against another. The other day, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said that TransCanada Energy East pipeline is a win-win-win proposition. He says it will create jobs, pay royalties to provinces and just needs to go through a rigorous, transparent environmental review.

But the only purpose of the Energy East pipeline is to get tar sands bitumen to ocean ports. That is the only reason for the Keystone XL pipeline through the United States or the additional pipelines to the west coast. This is to export pollution to parts of the world that do not care about the environment. It is making a buck off others’ misery. It is selling our children’s world.

Mind you, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s position is so middle-of-the-road that he should be required to paint a white line while there. He seems quite happy to let Harper and Mulcair slug it out. With Mr. Harper reading into any comment from the NDP and Mr. Mulcair’s tendency to get huffy, they are the more natural protagonists.

In the meantime, many Canadians are still trying to figure out Mr. Trudeau’s suggestion earlier this year that the environment should be run like Medicare. He suggested that the provinces could run things in regard to the environment and the federal government should pay for it. At least that is the way that Medicare seems to work.

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Discovering Ontario.

August 9, 2015 by Peter Lowry

When Babel-on-the-Bay publishes its Morning Line on the federal election in early September, much will hinge on Ontario. With more than a third of the seats in parliament at play in this one province, national parties worry most about their position here. And watching from Barrie, Ontario, we have the catbird seat.

And what we really love about the current feud between Prime Minister Harper and Premier Kathleen Wynne is we can let them go at it. We do not like either one. One of the reasons for their feud is that they are too much alike. He is a bully and she is always ready for a fight. Like Harper, Wynne might not be particularly good at her job but in the last provincial election, she was the best we could find. In a field of nobodies, you have to pick somebody.

Luckily, we do not have that problem this October. Despite the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair’s weaker showing in the leaders’ debate, the voters now know that they do have options. The Conservative savaging of Liberal Justin Trudeau’s youth is not going to work.

But by fighting with the some of the premiers, Steven Harper thinks he can gain some advantage. Mind you only a bully would pick on two women and a fellow Conservative. And picking on Rachel Notley in Alberta is just plain silly. The Alberta voters are still on a honeymoon with their surprise NDP premier. Complaining about her tax plans at this stage will do Harper no good.

While we have known the Conservative Premier Paul Davis of Newfoundland and Labrador is no fan of Prime Minister Harper, you would think that Harper would try to cool the animosity during his too long election campaign. It is just that anyone who threatens Newfoundlanders’ fishing rights is picking a fight they cannot win.

But the stupidest fight of all is with Wynne in Ontario. It’s hardly that the jogging granny is Ontario’s favourite pin-up girl. Nobody is under the illusion that the woman is a Liberal. She won the Liberal leadership under a cloud, picks candidates for the wrong reasons and casually says one thing one day and something else the next.

In a spate of anti-liberal programs such as selling off a chunk of Hydro One and making the Weston family richer selling booze, the one good effort is at helping Ontario residents with their pensions. So this does not sit well with the Prime Minister. He picked the fight by not being willing to go along. It was no skin off his big nose. This is his ideology speaking and she can call him any name she wants.

Harper, of course is kidding himself by thinking he can do as well in Ontario as the last election. His emphasis on tar sands exploitation robbed Ontario of manufacturing capability to the extent that we are unable to do anything other than throw natural resources at a falling market and falling loonie.

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Duffy is bound to be but a busker.

August 8, 2015 by Peter Lowry

Justice grinds along as the federal election wanders to its ten-week conclusion. Nothing but a busker, Senator Duffy serves as a minor entertainment as we wait to record the verdict of a nation. Mr. Harper no longer cares about the future of the Senate of Canada. And if he could get away with dispensing with the House of Commons as well, he would be much happier running the country.

Poor Mike Duffy, as a political pundit for CTV, his bias was brazen. As an entertainer, he was at the top of his game. When Prime Minister Harper called, he jumped at the chance to be pensioned off to a seat in the Canadian Senate. He saw it as a sinecure, a well-earned early pension for a bon vivant who had earned his chops.

But the Prime Minister wanted a quid pro quo. He expected “The Duff” to sing for his supper at Conservative fund-raisers. And The Duff saw it as a way to live high on the expense account. Just maybe, he lived a little too high.

The new Senator saw the Senate as something of a private club. It was run on the honour system. “We are all honourable ladies and gentlemen here.”

It even does a little work if you feel like it. It keeps the hand in.

Senators have to be from a province or territory and Duffy chose Prince Edward Island. He had a place there that he could claim as a residence. In the meantime, he continued to live in the Ottawa area for convenience.

And the wonderful thing about it was that Duffy could help his friends in the Conservative caucus of MPs. Was not the Prime Minister’s Office his booking agency? Did not the Prime Minister have first call on Duffy’s services? Who was the best warm up act for the Prime Minister of Canada?

It was certainly inconvenient that someone called Duffy on his expenses. They must have known where he really lived. His booking agents at the Prime Minister’s Office thought that the Conservative Party might offer a bailout. The party baulked when it was found that the Senator had misspoke on his expenses. He might have erroneously billed more than $30,000. It was the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Nigel Wright who wrote the cheque for over $90,000 that Duffy found was needed.

And since the Chief of Staff reports directly to the Prime Minister, that was who fired Mr. Wright. It was the only way that Mr. Harper could disassociate himself with the illegal payment to a Canadian Senator. Mind you with the way the Prime Minister micro-manages his office and parliament, he is the only person we can blame.

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Bearding a bully.

August 7, 2015 by Peter Lowry

Canadians watched a bully get his comeuppance last night. There were no knock-out blows or deathbed repentances but some solid points were made. In balance, the Greens’ Elizabeth May looked good, the New Democrat’s Thomas Mulcair was stuffy, the Liberal’s Justin Trudeau showed strength and the Prime Minister kept saying “Let’s be clear,” when he really was not.

But why did it all look like an attempt at stand-up comedy at a funeral directors’ convention? Why were the men all in black suits with ties out of the Salvation Army bag? At least Elizabeth May could stand out in her little black dress.

Starting on the far right was the Prime Minister. And we really mean far. They could have put another 50 actors on that sound stage and had room left over. It was a bad advertisement for MacLean’s. The moderator was so far away from the participants that he had to shout to be heard.

And the moderator was not heard enough. The Prime Minister would talk right over him sometimes just to make some obscure, unnecessary point. The moderator could have asserted himself without being so opinionated.

Elizabeth May is still our favourite Liberal. She could do wonders for a Liberal cabinet—besides being a great den mother. Justin Trudeau looked good to her far (stage) left. It was fascinating that he actually did try to keep his powder dry. His timing was often good at jumping in and a few times came across as rude.

But he was bound and determined to nail Mulcair on his going after the separatist vote in Quebec. And he did. Maybe some commentators could not understand that in an English-language debate but it is the English-language audience that mostly gives a damn about this country and they had to understand the duplicity involved.

And Thomas Mulcair has to take some time to regroup after that debate. He did not look like a Prime Minister in waiting. He looked like a stuffy little man whose past was his passion in Quebec. He brought nothing of the New Democrat strengths to the stage.

But it was Stephen Harper who was measured and found wanting. It is still going to be a very long election campaign but the signs are there that Harper will get what he deserves. And that is not four more years.

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