Federal Politics – Page 202

Canada’s Conservatives face war on two fronts.

March 26, 2012 by Peter Lowry

The news media will be paying an inordinate amount of attention to the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair for the next while. He won that party’s terribly dull leadership race and earned the attention. It would be a mistake though to think this means a breather for the Liberal’s Interim Leader Bob Rae.

The Conservatives ensured there would be no break for Rae with those ridiculous attack ads that are inundating the Harper-friendly television networks. We have listened to many theories about this attack from Conservatives, as well as seasoned political observers, and it is still not clear. It is like a bunch of young ruffians poking sticks into a wild animal’s den. You hope the creature is not rabid when they get bitten but they will certainly deserve a few scars. All that the Conservatives have proved so far is that they have more money to spend than they need. And they are not very imaginative.

We can only hope that Liberals do not respond to Bob Rae’s plea for additional funds from the party to pay for Liberal attack ads. If Bob Rae has a shred of dignity left, he will make all his attacks on the Conservatives in the House of Commons.

And that is where the most telling assaults will be made for the next year. The Conservatives are vulnerable on many issues. They lack depth (and brains) in their front bench and will have a difficult time fending off two aggressive opponents in the House.

The worst result of the stupid attack ad is that Rae might decide to enter the race to be leader of the party. That would be a mistake. What Rae did in the 1990s in Ontario was not what the attack ad says. What he failed to do at that time as Premier was to lead his party. He is a very experienced and articulate politician. He is just not a leader.

By having Bob Rae working in parliament during the Liberal leadership contest, the party will be in far better position than the NDP during their contest. The Interim Leader of NDP was virtually ignored while the NDP front-bench was out chasing the leadership. This will not be the case for the Liberals.

The one-two punch of Mulcair and Rae spell trouble for Mr. Harper. If Harper was weak in Quebec before this, he is now guaranteed that his way is blocked in that province. And Mulcair and the NDP are not the only beneficiaries of knee-capping Harper there. The Liberals can only grow in Quebec and we have hardly heard the last of the separatists.

We can look forward to the renewed challenge to Mr. Harper in the House. Just remember guys, the enemy of my enemy is my friend!

-30-

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

John Fraser defends the monarchy. Why?

March 25, 2012 by Peter Lowry

The last thing we need today was another book extolling Canada’s relationship with the monarchy. Can people find nothing more irrelevant to write about?

But John Fraser wants to entice people to read—wait for it—The Secret of the Crown.

The secret is out: John Fraser is a monarchist. The Master of Massey College, entrusted with the coddling of the impressionable minds of the elite among graduate students at the University of Toronto is a staunch defender of the royals. He was so thrilled with the visit of the newlyweds, Billie and Katie, to Canada last year, he had to write about it.

Fraser sees the monarchy as having a stabilizing affect on Canada. He is concerned about the dire consequences of dumping the monarchy for he knows not what. He claims the monarchy protects our traditions, customs, laws and rights. He fails to explain how the monarchy achieves this feat. The royals do not even understand a tradition such as Hockey Night in Canada. And even John Fraser might not understand a custom such as ending our sentences with an interrogatory ‘Eh!’ And we can only hope that the Supreme Court will keep our laws and rights safe from Harper’s Conservatives.

But Mr. Fraser’s admiration of the monarchy is his right. And it is our right to feel the same as many Canadians. There are those of us who do not care about the monarchy. We figure the monarchy’s best before date expired about a century ago.

What we object to is that the monarchists among us are very much afraid of an open discussion on the subject of the monarchy. They do not want us to question the role of the monarchy. Even the royals themselves have finally decided that the law of primogenitor was so obsolete as to be embarrassing. They now agree that the rights of women are equal to men in our modern society. And it certainly was not the Monarchist League that advised them to make the change.

Mr. Fraser has his right to be a conservative (in the proper sense of the word). That means, he has the right to resist change. He can help preserve old customs and quaint traditions. He can join in re-enacting the Battle of the Boyne for all we care.

But we will fight his resistance to change in how this country serves its citizens. A constitutional conference is something that has to happen. We can no longer live with a 19^th century constitution. We must have thorough discussion of how we want our country to be run. And then the voters will decide.

If Canadians want the monarchy in preference to some possibly updated system, so be it. At least we will have decided. We will then work with whatever we decide.

-30-

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

The NDP cannot get their vote out?

March 24, 2012 by Peter Lowry

The one thing you always assumed in working against the New Democratic Party in an electoral district during an election was that the NDP would get their vote out. If that was one of their targeted ridings, you knew that they would do the job. That was why today’s leadership convention was full of surprises.

With a claimed membership of over 120,000 across Canada, to have an average of only 50 per cent vote for leader was not expected. It made no sense. If you sell a membership to someone, do you not take them by the hand to make sure they vote for your candidate? If they are a long-time NDPer and voting is sacrosanct with them, you still leave nothing to chance. Even the Conservatives know better than that!

The NDP embarrassment could be creating concerns for the Liberals. The Liberal Party is planning to have a vote by every member at their upcoming leadership convention. If the Liberal executive gets cold feet, they could try to pull it back into a delegated convention. That would be a smack in the face for democracy in the Liberal Party.

Mind you there was one aspect of the NDP voting that caught us off guard. The party officials promised the news media that the first ballot results would be announced at 10 am EST. And, to everyone’s surprise, they were.

Liberals almost pride themselves on never doing anything on time. That never was a problem at Liberal conventions because we always had spies in communication to keep us fully apprised on how the vote count was going. If you did not have the figures in advance, you did not feel involved.

Even with the very long voting times needed to handle the vote, it was an impressive, well run convention. You might criticize the organizers for not having enough bandwidth and servers to handle the traffic but you have to realize their first concern was security. With only about half the potential votes to handle, it makes you wonder about the simulations that they surely must have run.

The convention hall in Toronto presented some awkward logistics with which the organizers did the best they could. The candidate bleachers, where they could present a wall of signs, were a rather dated approach but the NDP is also dated. And as for the drummers for Thomas Mulcair’s entrance to speak on Friday, that was the same stunt we used 44 years ago to shorten Liberal leadership contender Robert Winters’ speech to the essentials. Mulcair’s only mistake was to try to talk fast.

The NDP have chosen. M. Mulcair is their new leader. It is certainly going to be a new beginning to some interesting times.

-30-

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

And Mont Royal has two Members of Parliament?

March 23, 2012 by Peter Lowry

If there is a lower-class, sleazier way of conducting themselves in office, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper will find it. The latest is that they have dug into the taxpayer-provided Heritage Ministry funds to pay a salary to the Conservative candidate-in-waiting for Montreal’s Mont Royal electoral district. And the guy has the audacity to complain to the news media that he is not being paid enough!

Remember that Stephen Harper and friends just recently cut off government funding for the opposition parties. To then use public money to blatantly pay a political wanna-be to harry a sitting MP is chutzpah that only gonnifs like the Conservatives would attempt.

Liberal MP Irwin Cotler has served Canada and Mont Royal well for the past 12 years. A highly regarded law professor and a human rights advocate, he has been Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. The Conservatives were way out of line in using one of their call centres to recently lie to Liberals in the electoral district that Mr. Cotler was resigning. As an attack on Cotler and the Liberals, it made no sense.

It seems to be all the Conservatives know how to do is attack. It must be some sort of pit bull instinct. It is like the current attack on Liberal Interim Leader Bob Rae. Why? Do they think they are going to have to run against him soon? Bob Rae is laughing at them. If those are the nastiest things they can use against him, they are years behind the times. Stupid attacks like that might encourage him to run for the Liberal leadership.

The point that the Conservatives are missing is that you have to be a better than average representative for people to win election against the money and dirty tactics that the Conservatives use in elections. People such as Cotler and Rae are elected by the people in their electoral district to represent them in our Parliament. As an MP and as a representative of those voters, they deserve respect. They are hardly the nebbishes that the Conservative Party encourages to run for them and then do nothing in Ottawa but vote for Conservative bills when told.

As for this person Saulie Zajdel who ran for the Conservatives in Mont Royal in the last federal election, we have little comment. As a ward healer in the Cȏtes des Neiges area of Montreal, he spent a number of years on city council. If he wants to be paid as much as a Member of Parliament, maybe he should get a real job.

-30-

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

Canada is not just an economic union.

March 22, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Never tell a Canadian they do not have a country worth fighting for—not unless you want to start a fight.

But we have many problems eating at our country and we need to find a way to fix them. You cannot write a constitution in the 1860s and expect it to meet the needs of an entirely different type of country in the 21^st Century. We have left the country to fly on autopilot for far too long.

The changes made in 1982 did nothing more than remove Canada’s constitution from the British parliament and bring it home to Canada. It left us with impossible conditions for modifying the document and a country that is harder and harder to govern.

A paper written about 20 years ago makes the point that most of the formal discussions on the constitution have been about economic matters. Since the destructive effort of the Macdonald Commission was undertaken in 1982, Canada has had nothing but failed attempts at addressing our constitution. We had the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord, then the Beaudoin-Dobbie Report and the Allaire Report and proposals for co-operative federalism and asymmetrical federalism. Canadians had every right to be thoroughly disgusted with the business of trying to build a country. They feel it is not worth the hassle and the upsets watching politicians fight for territory.

And yet, the writer of the paper felt that Canadian voters had learned from it all and were using unemployment levels, the rate of inflation and the rate of economic growth to judge the performance of government. The writer, an academic and an economist, obviously knew nothing about government or voters.

Even those who understand voters find it easier to tell you what voters do not want than what they want. For example, Canadian voters do not want the constitution to be discussed behind closed doors. They do not want it left to politicians. They do not want it wrapped in academic mumbo-jumbo. What they might accept is an open and transparent process that ensures them a vote on any and all proposals.

What that process might be, needs to be debated. And we need to decide on the process before we get into the specifics of what needs to be discussed. We need to accept the premise that anything related to our country has to be free to be discussed. There are no sacred cows. The future makes no guarantees.

-30-

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

The Harper Conservatives are selling us cheap.

March 17, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Canada used to have some rules about concentration of news media. Mr. Harper and his pals have sold us out. With the announced sale yesterday of Astral Media to Bell Canada Enterprises, Canada’s news media are now mainly concentrated under the control of four huge companies. And these four companies hardly have the best interests of Canadians at heart. Nor are they politically neutral.

While the Astral deal still needs approval from the Competition Bureau and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), this will be a pro forma exercise. Both federal agencies have been gutted by the Conservatives and will do what they are told. Harper and friends work on the be-with-us-or-be-gone approach with supposedly independent federal agencies. With the early dismissal of CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein, the Harper government has made the point very clear.

And Bell Canada knows it. When von Finckenstein made too much of Bell’s buying CTV network, Harper’s people made it clear that if the CRTC did not agree, the Cabinet would override the agency. Today, the CRTC is there to act as a servile head waiter, ready to meet every demand of the four media giants.

All four of the companies are quick to support Harper’s Conservatives on the federal level. The only television holdout left is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Radio-Canada and Harper’s friends at Pierre Karl Péladeau’s Sun Media are waging war against the CBC on Harper’s behalf.

Quebecor’s Péladeau might be Harper’s friend but he still supports the separatists in Quebec with his major Quebec print media. He is hardly a wise choice for broadcasting licenses by a federal agency.

But not liking someone does not seem to be the criteria today. Bell Canada has long deserved its position right up there with Canada’s most hated corporations. Consumers have been bruised, berated and belittled by that corporation for years and Bell continues on because the banks will give them all the money they need to buy whatever they want.

Shaw’s Global almost looks politically neutral until you note the position the Wildrose Alliance leader’s husband holds in Global’s Calgary operations. Maybe that is why Danielle Smith has those TV programs to promote her cause.

Recently Rogers has become more aware of its competitive position in trying to become more hated than Bell. Roger’s call centres are starting to work on being nicer to customers. It is a very pleasant change.

Mr, Harper put these four corporations in their current position of power and he is getting full court press from them to promote him. You have to wonder why it is not working.

-30-

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

Mr. Harper reads the handwriting on the wall.

March 16, 2012 by Peter Lowry

The message is clear that Lockheed Martin’s F-35 will not fly! It must have been the Almighty or somebody who finally let Prime Minister Harper and his minions know that they were not on the list for F-35 stealth fighter plane delivery. It is just as well. Canada never needed that type of fighter aircraft.

Despite the repeated assurances of Defence Minister Peter Mackay and his junior minister, former cop Julian Fantino, Canada does not need any F-35s at this time or probably ever.

Why Canada’s military would even consider a short-range, single-engine, stealth fighter is a mystery. Those of us who have served in the military always understood Canada’s aircraft needs were determined by having the best way to patrol our borders and that is a lot of borders to patrol. It was not until the Harper government sent some of our F-18s to Libya that our pilots got a chance for live-fire experience in a ground support role. How often do we want to get involved in somebody else’s war?

Canadians have made it very clear over the years that they are proud of their military being peacekeepers. We are not mercenaries. There is nobody whom we wish to fight.

If the Harper government is serious about cost cutting, they can always consider the Swedish offer of some of their Saab JAS 39 Griffin multi-purpose fighters. The Swedes would cut us a very reasonable deal.

But if Canada could have its druthers, we should ask the Americans if they will sell us a couple squadrons of F-22 Raptors when they are in a deliverable condition. The F-22 will be far more expensive than the F-35 but, penny for penny, it is better suited for Canadian needs. And a dozen F-22s would still be less expensive than 65 F-35s.

The F-22 Raptor (also being developed by Lockheed Martin) is a twin engine fighter platform with the advanced electronics for patrol assignments. Capable of speeds in excess of Mach 2.2, the F-22 can fly higher and faster than virtually any other fighter.

While the airframe for the F-22 has been shown at air shows, much of the inner workings of the aircraft remain cloaked in secrecy. So far, the Americans have been reluctant to admit to discussing this fighter with any of its allies.

But we could always ask. If the Americans cannot trust Canadians, who can they trust?

-30-

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

The eastern pipeline option.

March 14, 2012 by Peter Lowry

You have to admire the resourcefulness of Albertans. They always have answers at the ready to overcome political obstacles. Whether the blockage is created by Ottawa or the Legislature in Edmonton, they will come up with an answer. The usual solution is to form a new and more right-wing political party. The current provincial inheritor of the Conservative-Reform-Alliance parties is the Wildrose Alliance. The party has been poised to move in on the Alberta Conservatives as that party’s strength erodes.

Well ahead in the public opinion polls, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith is acting as premier-in-waiting for the election to be held in the next couple months. Smith has Conservative Premier Alison Redford in a bind as the Premier is committed to supporting the Trans-Canada’s Keystone XL Pipeline through the United States to the Texas Gulf refineries as well as the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline over the Rockies to Kitimat, B.C. This left Smith with an option that had not been considered, an all Canadian solution. She suggested shipping Alberta’s heavy tar sands oil to refineries in Sarnia, Montreal, Quebec City and Saint John. The only pipeline that would be new on that route would be to Saint John from Montreal.

While it was not a brand new suggestion, it got rave reviews in the more conservative media when Smith proposed it in a speech in Ottawa. It could hardly be ignored in Alberta.

But what Smith did not add was the fact that the Enbridge eastern route is through the U.S. before crossing the Canadian border again into Ontario. One of the options all along was to divert heavy oil from the Enbridge pipelines south to Texas. This is a slightly roundabout route but it gets around most of the serious ecological concerns.

Mind you, the more practical people with a concern for the ecology are pointing out that heavy oil can cause the most serious harm to the ecology. They explain that refined oil cannot mix with water and is much easier to clean up than heavy crude. They ask why the heavy crude cannot be processed to a stage in which it could flow easier and not be an ecological disaster waiting for a pipeline break. Nobody seems to be able to answer that.

Nor would it be a concern of someone such as Wildrose’s Danielle Smith. This is a person who did her internship in Alberta politics as an acolyte of the Fraser Institute. In the convoluted politics of Alberta, Ms. Smith describes herself as Pro-Choice Libertarian. That is quite a fence-sitting accomplishment for any politician.

-30-

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

Singing the liberal blues.

March 13, 2012 by Peter Lowry

It is appearing more frequently. People are addressing and talking about what they call ‘blue liberals.’ It seems to be the new way of talking about the right wing of the Liberal Party. And, yes, there is a right wing. It used to include people like John Manley and Paul Martin Jr. Paul used to laugh it off as he told people to ‘campaign on the left and govern on the right.’ It was how Paul Martin made Stephen Harper Prime Minister.

Michael Ignatieff capped the foolishness when he drove the Liberal Party of Canada down to third party status. This very capable and very intelligent man simply did not understand the modern Canada. He tried to be all things to all Canadians—to embrace both right and left wings—and failed everybody. We paid lip service to his concept of the ‘Big Red Tent’ and let him down.

But we Liberals have always had the seed of our own defeat as a party. It is the myth of the all-inclusive party with right and left wings. This is what fails us. It was the choice of John Turner as leader after Pierre Trudeau. It was the same as the party collectively stepping off a cliff. And then going from Chrétien to Martin; same cliff. The fiction of Paul Martin balancing the country’s books in the 1990s, in a booming economy, ate at the heart of the Liberal Party. The confused message was too much for Canadian voters.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives currently own the right wing of Canadian politics. And it includes the extremists. It includes those who put property rights ahead of human rights. It includes the fanatics who want to deny women control of their own bodies. It includes those who want to return the death penalty. It includes those who put their religion ahead of tolerance.

Liberal values are different. Liberals have always placed the individual first. It is this recognition of individual rights that has lead the party to Medicare, Old Age Security and to build Canadians’ pride in their country for its peace keeping, openness and reputation for fairness around the world—a reputation that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are now trying to destroy.

The key to a transition of the left is that there is much to add to the Liberal Party from the New Democrats. There is a balanced social democracy at the heart of that party that should become the flag of a new liberalism in Canada. There will be much to repair in our country after the Harper years.

-30-

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

Mr. Broadbent regrets.

March 12, 2012 by Peter Lowry

For many years some people have thought that the sign outside New Democratic Party headquarters in Ottawa should have included the line: ‘E. Broadbent, prop.’ It will be an end to Ed Broadbent’s era later this month when his hopes for the party will be destroyed by democracy. Control of the party will be wrested from him.

For good or bad, the next leader of the NDP will not be Ed Broadbent’s creation. Mind you, he has had a heck of a run since being chosen leader of the party to succeed David Lewis in 1975. Some people know when to quit.

Probably Broadbent’s worst fear is that Thomas Mulcair from Quebec will win the NDP’s first truly democratic leadership convention. Mulcair is the demon from the unknown. He is no social democrat. He is barely a blue liberal.

And he is not Ed Broadbent’s boyo! Broadbent made it clear from day one of this interminable NDP campaign that he was fore-square behind Brian Topp. It was made perfectly clear that Brian Topp was the establishment candidate. That endorsement and Topp’s seeming to have all the personality of a sack of potatoes, did him little good.

With the current consensus that Thomas Mulcair is in the lead, Broadbent has much to answer for among the titular leaders of the NDP. It seems the boy can sell memberships. Quebec has never had so many New Democrats as it has today.

But, by no stretch, has Mulcair won the leadership. If he has a going in position of 25 per cent of the vote, that is formidable. His only problem will be how to turn 25 per cent into 51 per cent. For that, you have to have more people thinking you are second best than thinking you are number one. That is not as likely.

And we know that Brian Topp is no compromise. Paul Dewar is nobody’s second choice. Nathan Cullen from B.C. would be an interesting compromise but nobody knows him. And that leaves the darling of the NDP, everybody’s second choice: Ms. Peggy Nash.

And why not? She will make nice with Ed Broadbent and send him off like an aged parent to a seniors’ residence. She will keep the fiction of Jack Layton’s social democrats alive by not pandering to the unions in public. She will be tougher than previous women leaders of the party. She will still watch her inflated caucus numbers in Quebec recede. She will be back in third party status after the next election. Without a rapprochement with the liberal left across Canada, she is taking the NDP nowhere.

-30-

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