Category: Federal Politics

Legislating Ideology.

by Peter Lowry

It is when you listen to the federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver that you realize what a breath of fresh air the late Finance Minister Jim Flaherty must have been in Mr. Harper’s Cabinet of Inadequate Ideologues. You can also imagine how he would have laughed at Joe Oliver’s suggestion that there be a law passed against deficit budgets. That would be like passing a law that says Canadians cannot have a mortgage or an auto loan.

The ability for a country to borrow is just one of the many strategies available to a finance minister to level out the peaks and valleys of a country’s capital needs. To even think that he can force future finance ministers to accede to his ideology makes Oliver out a fool. A law against deficits would be ignored.

What is particularly galling about the suggestion is that the Conservatives are coming off many years of deliberate deficits because of the 2008 mortgage collapse in the Unites States that put world finances into a tail spin. Canada came through that period relatively unscathed because the Harper government was forced to agree to deficits.

Maybe Mr. Oliver was not paying attention at the time.

What is also a bitter pill is the way the Conservatives have reached their “Nirvana” of a balanced budget at this time. To force through parliament an ill-considered security bill to show the government as strong against terrorism is a sham when there is no accompanying budget to pay for this supposedly enhanced protection.

A good example of this thinking is the non-delivery of new carbines and training with them for the R.C.M. Police. The delay now stretches over six years and Treasury Board has never released the money for these life-saving weapons. And our federal police will continue to be at risk because many gunmen are better armed.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement should take a bow at budget time. He has single-handedly hamstrung the Canadian government on hiring permanent help while wasting funds on casual help and consultants. The truth be known, the Harper Conservatives are the worst managers of Canadians’ money since John Diefenbaker waited for the AVRO Arrow to prove it could fly before cancelling the project and ending Canada’s leadership in fighter aircraft.

What Mr. Harper should have told his finance minister was that predicting a balanced budget this year was a mistake. It has taken a lot of flim-flammery and the loss of some tax savings for the rich. The really good news is that this coming budget will probably be Joe Oliver’s last.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The Candidate: That pre-writ lit.

by Peter Lowry

Part 2 of our series for Canada’s federal candidates.

There are many arguments about the literature required by candidates in the pre-writ period (the time between being chosen as the candidate and the election call being official). If the Prime Minister decides to wait for the chosen date of October 19, you can expect the writ to be issued, at the latest, shortly after Labour Day, allowing at least 36 days for the election period. There will be new rules in play for this writ period.

Since the rules are lax in the pre-writ period, some people spend a lot on communication. Most of this is a waste of money. The reality is that you only need two printed pieces in this period and the rest of your communication can be concentrated in social media.

The first piece is the candidate’s card. These are handed out and left everywhere by the candidate. They should be of just good enough quality that people will not automatically throw them in the garbage—you want them to read it first. They can be as simple as a two-sided business card and as elaborate as a slightly larger version that is folded.

The key information on the card is 1) the candidate’s name, 2) a contact number that will be operational for the entire campaign, 3) the political party and 4) the name of the electoral district. You might also show a small map of the riding if it has been changed.

Stay away from trying to include any policies or trite slogans. You might start thinking now of seven words or less that explain why people are voting for your candidate instead of any other. Do not hold up producing the card waiting for the answer.

The second piece is a candidate introduction. This is the one time that the literature really is about the candidate. It should never be an eight-and-a-half by 11 two-fold piece. It has to be something of substance. Think light card stock or heavy glossy paper. And be sure to write the copy first. Designers are not always good copywriters. Make sure there is room for all the copy. One of the best designs is like the Time Magazine cover with two inside pages with a grouping of stories about the candidate’s career and community involvement. The back page is all the contact, volunteer, donations, lawn sign, etc. stuff and do not forget to cover all the social media and other Internet sites.

This is also the time to build and promote the candidate in social media. Use it creatively, use it well and keep it lively. Your people have to remember that half your followers will probably be too young to vote but they make great volunteers and have older siblings, parents and friends. The job is to get them interested, including their friends in the novelty of something different, and volunteering—do not be an old fogey!

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

What’s the Senate all about Hair?

by Peter Lowry

There is something of a contest going on. The Hair might draw the line at taking off his stuffed shirt and streaking the tourists gaping at Ottawa’s Confusion Square but no holds are barred in distracting Canadians from the Duffy Trial.

The Duffy Trial is the big show in Ottawa now and it’s getting the news media all a twitter. It is where the chubby one-time spokesman for the Hair Senator Mike Duffy is on trial for accepting a bribe.

But just a minute: maybe the Hair can explain to us why the person accepting the bribe is charged and the person paying the bribe is not? Enquiring Canadians want to know?

But if the court cannot figure that one out, there are another 30 charges against Duffy to consider. Most of the charges have to do with him claiming expenses from the Senate whether he was being reimbursed by the Conservative Party or not. He never did explain why his cottage in Prince Edward Island was listed as his residence while his home is in Ottawa? The boy had an eager hand in charging expenses and seems to have been generous in whom he billed. Was it just his sense of entitlement?

You have to realize that ‘The Duff’ was a favoured performer on CTV. ‘The Duff’ was quick with a joke about things in Ottawa and viewers lapped it up. The Hair obviously felt that this talent would be useful during elections and invited the rotund broadcaster into the hallowed halls of parliament. As a Senator, ‘The Duff’ was unrestrained—especially in his spending.

But then what about other senators? Even (gasp) some Liberals were questioned. There seemed to be a sense of entitlement throughout the chamber of sleepy second thought. And what is this about the expenses of Senator Pamela Wallin? Did we not hear that ‘The Duff’s’ fellow CTVer was using Senate funding to get to her corporate board appointments? Is it any wonder that Justin Trudeau simply fired all Liberal appointed Senators from the Liberal caucus? Justin does not like the Senate at all. He has just not figured out what to do about it.

Does The Hair know what to do about the Senate of Canada? He promised that senators would be elected on his watch. Hah! The Hair set a record of some sort in appointing the most senators at one time. He was obviously going to get some rotten apples when he appoints them wholesale like that.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

A time and place for political deals

by Peter Lowry

Election day in Ontario in 1985. On the way into a candidate’s campaign headquarters, Liberal Leader David Peterson’s executive assistant was leaving and we stopped to chat. There was no pussy-footing about the situation. “First thing tomorrow morning, you have to arrange a meeting with NDP Leader Bob Rae.” He was a bit taken aback by the bluntness but saw no point in sticking with any denial. We both knew that Frank Miller’s Conservative Party would win a minority government but that the combined Liberal and New Democrat seats could take over the government.

What went without saying in that brief encounter was that it was imperative that the deal be made. If the Peterson Liberals could not remove the Ontario Conservatives from office, we were faced with more decades of Conservative Ontario. It was so serious that long-time Liberal stalwart Bob Nixon headed up the negotiating team. The New Democrats trusted him and did not really know David Peterson.

The point of this story is that until election day the Liberals had never given any credence to a possible deal with the New Democrats. The NDP equally denied that there was any such possibility.

And that is the same to-day. Neither Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau nor New Democratic Leader Thomas Mulcair can give any suggestion of a deal between the two parties before the federal election scheduled for October. They would be wrong to suggest it, foolish to speculate and careless to hint.

Oddly enough, both parties see it as losing votes. The Liberals see it as losing some of the more right-wing Liberal votes to the Tories. They recognize that while they run hard as a centrist party, they need those soft right wing votes that Stephen Harper and his Reformer faction scare off. There are just too many of those voters who would go back to Harper if they thought there was a deal in the air between the Liberals and the New Democrats.

The New Democratic Party has a different problem. They have a solid faction of hard core socialist votes who might sit on their hands rather than support a deal with the devil—in this case those damn Liberals. These people would be sympathetic with Mulcair running a centrist campaign to try to woo left-wing Liberal votes. It is just that with a Liberal/NDP deal in the air, they are likely to stay home.

And that is why you can speculate all you want about a Liberal/NDP deal but nothing will happen until after the election.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The Candidate: “What do we do now?”

by Peter Lowry

That question is never answered in the movie: The Candidate. It is the final line of the film delivered by actor Robert Redford. The bad news for any serious political candidate is that winning your party’s nomination is when the hard work begins. For all of those eager candidates being chosen for the upcoming federal election, Babel-on-the-Bay is going to provide periodic candidate check lists to assist candidates to be the best candidate they can be. Other readers can also enjoy:

When you hit your stride as a candidate by admitting that you have never worked so hard in your life, you will be able to say you are a real candidate. Sure, there might be candidates in Alberta who can take it easy but there are many cautionary tales of candidates who lost because they thought they could coast to victory. No candidate has ever been sorry for working hard every day of the campaign.

And every candidate needs a personal calendar so that every day to the election can be crossed off. And when you cross off another day, you have to remember that there are no do-over days or grace periods.

This initial period of the campaign is classroom time for the candidate. You keep your mouth shut and your ears and eyes open. Your time has to be spent learning every street and rural route in the riding. You study census information until you are quoting riding demographic information in your sleep. You study previous elections and learn by the mistakes of previous candidates.

Of course we all know that you will only win on your leader’s coat-tails but you never, ever know when you will come across someone who only votes for the individual. Those are the votes you have to win.

One of the major tasks in this period is finding voter groupings. Where are the pools of voter support that can be accessed for campaign assistance and support? You can find them in churches, community centres, temples, libraries, legions, hockey arenas and the local bocce association. And never forget the local religious groupings. Never interrupt services but there is nothing wrong with getting to know all the local pastors, priests, rabbis and imans. And never forget that when elected you represent all these groups.

Next chapter in this series, we will look at early communications needs.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

We’ve been goosed by Uncle Joe.

by Peter Lowry

Once more the Canadian parliament has been downplayed by the Harper Conservatives. Even as simple an announcement as the date of bringing down the next budget is moved away from Ottawa. It was moved to a Toronto factory where people toil at sewing machines, assembling winter jackets for a garment company.

The company is known as Canada Goose—which is American owned—and has been subject to controversy for its methods of obtaining its fur trim. It provided a cynical backdrop for the announcement by Finance Minister Joe Oliver that the 2015 federal budget will be delivered to Canadians on April 21. You could tell from the bored looks of the sewing machine operators that they must be paid on piece work and Joe Oliver was taking the bread from their mouths in more ways than one.

But it also shows how little the Conservatives think of parliament and it was another excellent reason to turf them from office when we go to the polls. The people who have to be aware of the budget date are the people in parliament. The people in parliament care. The rest of us are interested but are in no rush. And yet, Oliver makes the announcement on the day before a long weekend and nobody supposedly gets a chance to comment on his insult to parliament.

When Oliver sat down to his pesach seder this past Friday evening, he could give the same speech to the child’s question as he gave the garment workers. (In the Jewish beginning of Passover with the special Friday night dinner, the youngest child, who can understand the question, ritually asks what is different about this occasion.)

Rather than just make the announcement at Canada Goose, Oliver went on to tell the media what will be in his budget. He announced again the usual line that there is a surplus and that the goodies already announced and implemented before parliament had even agreed will become authorized in his budget. Goodies such as income splitting for the wealthy and child tax credits for those who do not need them are of course included.

Where the budget really matters is in the provincial legislatures that have held up releasing their budgets as some of the basic transfers from the federal government have to be confirmed before the provinces can announce their budget plans. Oliver has been delaying this process with his dallying. The taxpayers end up being goosed by both levels of government.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

“Rules, shmules, we the boss:” says Brother Brown.

by Peter Lowry

Canadians are usually fairly good about not mixing religion and politics. It is one of the less endearing traits of American politicos. That was why it was most unusual the other day when a B.C. member of the Conservative backbench quit his caucus and said he would sit as an independent so that he could practice his religion. If more of his co-religionists followed his lead, Mr. Harper could lose his majority and we might have an election sooner than this Fall.

We mention this in passing as this commentary is also about religion in politics. It is about Canadian politicos who break the rules set by all parties in running the operations of the Houses of Parliament. Believe it or not we have been waiting for Barrie MP Patrick Brown to apologize for a breach of those rules last month.

This has to do with a religious conference held on the premises of Parliament Hill. One of the major speakers at this event was the chap we refer to as the Cardinal of Calgary, Defence and Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney. While Brown might not be very up-to-date on parliamentary rules, you would think an aspirant for Mr. Harper’s job such as Kenney would have a staff to tell him when something is a ‘no-no.’

Parliamentary rules allow available meeting rooms to be booked by MPs for outside functions. The rules explicitly forbid fund-raisers and conferences. This conference that Brown booked was charging the 150 or so guests $212.99 a day. Mind you, the only people on the platform with Minister Kenney were Conservatives and their good friends. It seems nobody is sure if Mr. Brown was or was not there. He has that affect on people.

This conference was headlined as being A Conference on Religious Freedom and organized by International Christian Voice which concentrates its efforts on being a voice for Pakistani Christians. The conference was held in honour of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Christian Minister of minority affaires in Pakistan who was assassinated in 2011.

Since the parliamentary rules stipulate that Brother Brown was supposed to be there hosting the event, somebody should find out where he was. With him running between his duties in the House of Commons and his try for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, somebody on his staff should keep track of him. The boy could be lost.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Don’t care about politics? You’re missing the fun.

by Peter Lowry

The talking heads of the news media tell us that Canadians no longer give a damn about politics. They think it is a yawn. That may be. It might also be that the talking heads are a yawn and they are failing to understand the problem. This blog seems to have the reverse problem. We have built a strong readership of people who seem to be quite knowledgeable of politics and they only fall off when we get onto subjects that are more of personal interest and less political.

We try not to do that too often! Yes, we know that the bloody bitumen is not as exciting as the tales of the Hair but bitumen is not just an environmental issue. It is about where Mr. Harper has been taking this country. Stephen Harper has let Canada’s manufacturing crumble in the East while he built his synthetic oil empire. Now that OPEC has called the tar sands bluff, Stephen Harper has been proved the fool.

Babel-on-the-Bay stats show is that our readership is highest when we are providing reasoned political analysis. People jump on the Morning Line when we publish it on upcoming elections and referenda. Mind you, we have a success record in forecasting elections that many pollsters and news media people envy.

Maybe the problem is that politics in Canada has become something of a blood sport. It has been in the sewer in America since the days of President Richard Nixon. In Canada, it was not the Liberals and New Democrats who took our politics that route. The politics of lies and scurrilous hate advertising is a specialty of Stephen Harper and his friends. They take every unfair advantage and every opportunity to abuse the rules and they hate getting caught. They might be embarrassed by the sycophants they appointed to the Senate but they still brazen it through.

But all politicians are to blame for the inability to reconnect with the voters who feel they have been disenfranchised. They would rather be playing at politics within their party instead of recognizing their party’s failings. They are more interested in power within their party than the need for outreach. Political parties such as the Ontario Progressive Conservatives are so top-down driven that they have allowed their membership to disintegrate and are easily swamped by people buying memberships wholesaled by ethnic groups.

We have allowed politics in Canada to become a closed shop. We are letting people manipulate our parties to their own objectives. And we wonder why the average citizen is not interested?

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

We’re having a ‘Be Kind to Stephen Harper Month!’

by Peter Lowry

At a recent meeting of the Broadbent Institute supposed communication experts were telling the New Democrats that they should not keep up the incessant attacks on the Conservative government. It is not that they are feeling sorry for the bastards. They just feel that those who oppose the Conservatives need to be more positive about their competitive programs. And we Liberals will when we can when we get some.

We are not forgetting New Democratic Leader Thomas Mulcair’s national day care plan. This plan sounds good. It sounded even better over the years when it was promoted by Canada’s Liberals. In fact, back when the plan was devised, Thomas Mulcair was a provincial Liberal. He should be fairly well briefed on the plan.

But the good news this month is that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau will be kicking off some policy in radio commercials. Nothing overly exciting but it is a long way to the election. And in the meantime, the palace guard has been doing an excellent job of keeping good ideas from reaching Justin. It only looks as though Justin was having something of a dry spell. Since he kicked a couple Liberals out of the caucus for getting horny for New Democrats and told right-to-lifers not to apply as Liberals, what more could he say?

The good news is that Justin is starting to throw some red meat to his candidates. It really would be stupid to have nothing positive to say about where your party wants to lead this country. Generalities are just not good enough.

But it would also be a good idea to try this idea of being nice to Mr. Harper. We are always willing to try a new approach in politics. (God knows how badly our old methods have screwed up things in the past.) So we will only mention positive things during the ‘Be Kind to Stephen Harper Month.’

We can also congratulate the Prime Minister on the excellence of his coiffure these days. As he has to stick around Ottawa because of the upcoming election, his hairdresser has more time to work with his hair.

And we could all congratulate him on his stance for war. We might even promote the idea of his being the person on the ground to show our pilots where to drop their bombs

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Who leads Canada’s progressives?

by Peter Lowry

Canadian media are a lazy bunch. They follow the paths of least resistance and false assumptions. Take this past week when some supposed progressives were gathered at the Broadbent Institute in Ottawa for its Progress Summit. The one question that was never answered was ‘Who were the Liberal Progressives at the gathering?’

Ed Broadbent never invited this progressive Liberal. Nor would this Liberal attend. This is not sour grapes. We know that Ed Broadbent is not progressive nor are the sponsors of the meeting. Ed Broadbent is a staunch unionist with a closed mind. He believes in the collective over the individual. He lives in the past.

More than a third of Canada’s union members are believed to vote Liberal. And as more and more unions move into the 21st Century, that number will grow. It is not that the unions are failing to support their members but they are recognizing their membership as individuals. Their strength as a union is in the individual initiatives of the members. The era of the ‘I’m alright Jack’ union is dead and gone.

Those Liberal apparatchiks who got into close combat with the urban New Democrats 30 to 40 years ago remember when what seemed solid CCF/NDP ridings swung wildly between the Conservatives and the supposed socialists. There was no transition through the Liberals who thought they were the middle ground. There was no middle ground. These voters were Conservative or NDP supporters and the Liberals were the traditional enemy. They started shifting en mass to the most likely non-Liberal solution.

Today’s New Democrats continue to change, more despite the Ed Broadbents than because of them. They are a melange of younger academics, environmentalists, the less progressive unions and a mixed battery of community activists. You would be hard pressed to define them as socialists and you would be in error to consider them progressives. The progressives were chased out of the party along with the radical Waffle some 30 years ago. Leaders such as Jack Layton were municipal activists and political populists.

And that leaves a guy like New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair in a bind. All he knows is what he learned as a Quebec style Liberal and he has some time under his belt as a frustrated but persistent opposition leader. All he has going for him is a very shaky base in Quebec from the now gone Orange Wave and an embattled Ontario wing. As a citizen of France as well as a Canadian citizen, his loyalty to Canada is going to be called into question during the campaign. That might be his mob out there but to lead, you really need to know where the mob wants to go.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]