Actions Speak Louder Than Op-Eds

Stephen Harper has announced (in the Toronto Star of all places) that he will now try to encourage the UN to focus efforts on helping prevent infant mortality and deaths during pregnancy and childbirth. While I applaud the Prime Minister's sentiment, this is one of heck of a Saul on the road to Damascus conversion. It will shock no one that a disproportionate amount of infant mortality is centred in the sub-Saharan Africa. Under Stephen Harper, Canada has abandoned sub-Saharan Africa in favour of more work in the Americas. While that is a defensible foreign policy position, it does not set up the Prime Minister well to actually do anything to solve the problems he outlines in his article. I won't even get into the question of how exactly he's going to pay for such an ambitious foreign aid agenda.

Seat Projection Update: Now With Real Competition

The polls are getting downright close as the petty prorogation plan persists in pestering the parliamentary poo-bah. My seat projection is also shifting accordingly with major swings in Ontario, Manitoba, and New Brunsiwck.

National:

CPC 121
LPC 102
BQ 53
NDP 32

Province-by-Province

BC: CPC 19, NDP 11, LPC 6
AB: CPC 28
SK: CPC 13, LPC 1
MB: CPC 7, LPC 4, NDP 3
North: CPC 1, LPC 1, NDP 1
ON: LPC 53, CPC 40, NDP 13
PQ: BQ 53, LPC 15, CPC 7
NB: LPC 6, CPC 3, NDP 1
NS: LPC 6, CPC 3, NDP 2
PE: LPC 4
NL: LPC 6, NDP 1

Riding By Riding:
Seat Projection Jan 21 2010

Thursday Links and Thoughts

Some quick thoughts and under reported stories for this Thursday morning:

• I hope Scott Brown enjoys his 36 months in the US Senate. There's little chance he can retain Massachusetts in a Presidential election year (the seat's up in 2012). Pathetic performance by the Dems up in the Bay State.
• Can we pay attention to stories like this one yet? Religious tensions and conflicts in Africa are more important than most of the North American media would say. Nigeria is so important economically, politically, and psychologically to West Africa and the continent as a whole. This conflict rages while the President recovers from being rumoured dead.
  
• Robert Ghiz has decided that Shawn Graham is taking too much of the political flak out east. He's decided to join in.
• And by the end of the month, they meant whenever.
• We're still not entirely clear why all the bees are dying. Not enough flower power?
• Ah, the sounds of a perfectly functioning coalition government doing exactly what the people want. The fact that the Germans are just now figuring out how screwed they are, four months after the election is over is somewhat disturbing. Not a good trend for Canadian Liberals.
• Yes Virginia, Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal. That's why stories like this don't scare the living crap out of me. I'm not hyperventilating, I'm sighing my relief.
  
• Are you ready to see the political fringes of Europe at work? Because the European Parliament isn't crazy enough, the Lisbon Treaty (no, nobody actually read the thing) allows for citizen's initiatives.

Orange is SOOO 2004

Viktor Yuschenko, the once-poisoned President of Ukraine has been eliminated after the first ballot of the Ukrainian Presidential election. Former PM Viktor Yanukovitch (the Pro-Russia guy Yuschenko beat in 2004) leads current PM Yulia Tymoshenko 38%-24% heading into the run-off. I would think Yuschenko's support would go to Tymoshenko before Yanukovitch but then again they may be so angry with Tymoshenko for running against her former running mate that they'll vote for Yanukovitch. I really don't know. Whoever wins, the country is likely to get a lot closer to Russia over the next term. I kind of wish Elections Canada took this approach to voter turnout, (from the BBC): "In the eastern city of Donetsk, one polling station encouraged voters with vodka and sausage." Booze and meat! Now that's a reason to vote!

Projection Update: January 2010

With a few polls out, we have what I would consider the bare minimum to run a projection. A little drop in the polls for the Tories results in a drop in their projection. André Arthur is a winner in this projection.

National:

CPC 134
LPC 87
BQ 52
NDP 34
IND 1

Province by Province:

BC: CPC 19, NDP 11, LPC 6
AB: CPC 28
SK: CPC 13, LPC 1
MB: CPC 10, NDP 3, LPC 1
North: CPC 1, LPC 1, NDP 1
ON: LPC 46, CPC 45, NDP 15
PQ: BQ 52, LPC 15, CPC 7, IND 1
NB: CPC 6, LPC 3, NDP 1
NS: LPC 5, CPC 4, NDP 2
PE: LPC 4
NL: LPC 5, CPC 1, NDP 1

Seat Projection

Riding Ratings

Idle Election Speculation

This is an interesting story on cbc.ca quoting Harper reassuring the business community that the first step to stopping the mounting deficit will be taken in the next budget. I suppose the majority of prognostication on the budget has been that it will be more fiscally austere than the last, well, four. I'll leave the structural deficit issue aside. What I'm interested in is whether or not Harper is still trying to provoke an election. Harper may be thinking it's still December 2008 politically by leaking this kind of story. He's now got eight weeks to get the opposition angry enough to either bring him down or for him to go the GG and cry unworkable parliament again. If he thinks the opposition wants more stimulus, this would certainly be a shot over their bow.

Reformer? I Don't Think So

Stephen Harper was once elected as a member of the Reform Party. While I'm not overly upset about proroguing parliament, I will say he is disgracing the name Reform. I am not talking about Preston Manning, I'm talking about the original Canadian Reform Party, the one headed by William Lyon Mackenzie in the 1830's. I am well aware that historically Mackenzie would be considered a Liberal with his opponents forming the basis of the Conservative Party that John A. MacDonald would eventually lead. However, hear me out. Whatever you may think of the 1837 rebellions, they were the catalyst for the granting of responsible government in the Province of Canada. Mackenzie's big problem (and Papineau's in Lower Canada) back then was that the executive and legislative councils were not responsible to the legislative assembly for their actions. In modern Canada, the executive and legislative councils are the Prime Minister and his cabinet and the legislative assembly is the parliament of Canada. There are those who want to look around the world to find reasons to dislike the proroguing of parliament. I would say that it goes against the democratic foundations of this country. The basic idea that the cabinet is responsible to parliament is what men died for in 1837 and 1838.

Iceland Melts Back Into Chaos

And you thought the Governor General was the only figurehead making news these days. The Icelandic President has vetoed a bill for the second time in sixty years. This is kind of an important bill: it deals with repaying the UK and the Netherlands for bailing out Iceland after their banks collapsed in the fall of 2008. The veto will now drag the repayment terms in front of Iceland's electorate for a referendum. If the referendum fails, Iceland would face the reality of defaulting on its debt. EU membership would appear to be impossible until this crisis is resolved. Yikes.

Scrap The Thinker's Conference

This is not a new position for me, but I like the idea of a Thinker's Conference less today than I did fourteen months ago, so I figured I'd argue for it's immediate destruction. There are a lot of reasons not to go through with this thing, so I'll list these one by one:

1. Timing: This is the new addition to the list. With the conference scheduled for late March, political reality threatens to scuttle the thing whether we like it or not. The odds of there being an election or at very least a confidence vote around the time of this conference seems to increase by the day. If we do end up in an election or in the position to vote no-confidence we can't very well say "you'll have to wait until our Thinker's Conference delivers our policy platform." If we need a platform before this thing takes place, we run the risk of being contradicted by our own conference. The proroguing of Parliament gives a perfect excuse to cancel the thing. Let's take advantage.
   
2. Optics: We have a leader with the reputation of being an elitist out of touch with the cold realities of today. In order to improve that leader's image we are going to surround him with other elites and talk about a point in time when a large number of Canadians don't expect to be alive. It's kind of like asking Stephen Harper to dress up like a robot on Halloween. It confirms a negative image for our leader.
3. We Already Have A Policy Process: In fact, we just had a policy conference in Vancouver last year and we are scheduled to have another one next spring. The grassroots of the Liberal Party seems to have less and less power everyday. Robbing the grassroots of the illusion of a meaningful policy process is a terrible pill for the party faithful to swallow. It also shows the Liberal Party to be an elitist and closed institution which plays into the optics issues above.
   
4. Stop Trying to Recreate Trudeau: We all love Pierre Trudeau. It doesn't mean we have to replay the sixties playbook every time we're in a rut. The Kingston Conference was successful in that time. It doesn't mean it will work now. The En Famille online forum seems to be a more timely version of the Kingston Conference in this open-source internet era.
   

New Year, New Election Speculation

No less than Don Newman seems convinced that Stephen Harper wants a spring election. There is a certain logic to it. First, the Tories have enough momentum to convince themselves of the possibility of a magical majority being within reach. That puts Stephen Harper firmly on the spring election side. The opposition has a timing issue to worry about, as in, if not now, when? The fall is probably the most logical point in terms of timing but between New Brunswick's provincial election and Ontario's municipal elections, the fall may be a little crowded this year. The following spring is a painfully long wait for an opposition leader. Letting the government go for two and a half years is not what Michael Ignatieff was appointed Liberal leader to do. Furthermore, while the 2011 budget looks like it's going to be the painful one, there is a real threat of surrendering the fiscal responsibility issue to the Tories if you vote for the big spending 2009 and 2010 budgets and vote against a fiscally prudent 2011 budget. The troops are also supposed to be home by spring 2011 (God willing) making the Afghan issue a little less relevant than it is today. Anything beyond next spring would be a dangerous game for Michael Ignatieff in terms of his own party. Thus, if the opposition parties can find an issue they like, they could drag down the government this spring. Or, Stephen Harper could decide that after the prorogation he doesn't want to face the house again and ask the Governor General for another election on his own. It would be a kind of average minority government length of 18 months.

All that said, the public doesn't want an election in their next few lifetimes let alone in the next few months and convincing them that a fourth election in six years is really worth their while will be a feat for either the opposition and the government. Finding an issue for anyone could be tricky. The Tories are hoping for an Olympic bump but I don't know how you run on "the Olympic government" platform for more than about five minutes. The opposition is mad as hell about prorogation, Afghan detainees, reckless spending and about ten other things but finding anyone outside of Ottawa who cares has proved elusive. Very few elections have been won on procedure or foreign policy and fiscal prudence is usually only demanded after taxes are raised to fight deficits. The opposition also need to bring down the government without seeming like they are forming a coalition to bring down the government, lest they conjure up the ghost of coalitions past. A tight rope for all parties to say the least.

Stephen Harper's Ingenious Plan to Help Pulp and Paper Mills

Yes, apparently prorogue is the word of the week in Ottawa. This means there are a whole lot of dead government bills out there (James Bowie's got the comprehensive list). This also means that there will be a lot of paper required to print new bills and there you have my post title. I don't really care that Harper's decided the house needs an additional six weeks off and a new throne speech. Unlike Andrew Coyne, I don't see the need for a revolution. The Afghan detainee question is by all accounts a historical question dating back to the period between the first reports of torture (whenever those were) and the changing of the guidelines which seems to be a period between 2006 and 2007. There's nothing that is going to change between now and March on the question of the events of 2006 and 2007. If Harper's proroguing to avoid that question, he's not half as politically shrewd as he looks. Otherwise, proroguing is basically the government taking a blow torch to their own legislative agenda. So, with that in mind, I do want to highlight some bills you probably never knew existed that will now be dead.

First, C-40 was an attempt to increase voter participation. The last day of advance would have all the poll locations of election day. I can't say whether or not this would help turnout. In my experience, advance polls are mostly filled with people who would vote on election day anyway with a couple of regular voters who find themselves unavailable on election day. I suppose having a polling station around the corner on an extra day might help turnout, but I wouldn't expect huge numbers. I would expect the cost of the election to go up considerably this gets reintroduced and passed.

C-61 is a very peculiar bill to kill seeing as it is back-to-work legislation for CN workers. I would have thought they would have rammed this through. There's a joke about trains and timeliness in here somewhere. Who knew Stephen Harper was a union man?

The killing of C-63 I believe delays the plans of the Squamish First Nation out in BC to develop reserve land. As is too often the case in First Nations issues, one step forward, two steps back.

Any plans to sue Al Qaeda in this country will have to be put on hold after C-35 bites the dust. The interesting part of this bill is an amendment to make it possible to sue states who sponsor terrorism in Canadian courts. How you would get them to pay up is another question.

C-23 and C-57 are trade deals with Colombia and Jordan that will now be postponed.

Finally, stop the presses: Stephen Harper kills senate reform! Okay, not really. Just C-30 which would have merged the Senate's ethics overseer with the House's. He is also supposed to be taking the time to complete the tiring task of appointing senators. This apparently requires his undivided attention.

I Want the Job Because I Want to Do the Job

Michael Ignatieff can be frustrating to watch as a Liberal leader. He's currently doing his year-end interviews. Radio-Canada's interview is fairly generic stuff really, stuff you'd expect Iggy to just nail. Then why in the name of all that's holy are we getting this stupid answer to "why he wants to be Prime Minister." Basically, his answer was that he wants to be Prime Minister in the future because he wants to lead Canada into the future. He then went on to describe some future challenges and says that the Liberals will be the party to think about those challenges. We don't need to think about how to overcome those challenges in office. If you want to think about those challenges, you should have stayed in academics. Politicians act. They do things to overcome challenges. You've had four years to think about how to do that. Enough thinking.

I appreciate that the party is a little gun-shy after The Green Shift but you didn't have to be specific. Say, "we're going to invest in education and research" instead of "we're going to think about what we're going to do about investing in education and research". Stop treating politics as an academic exercise and maybe, just maybe, people will stop thinking of you as an academic and start thinking of you as prime minister.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate.

10 Events to Look Forward to in 2010 (Not The Olympics)

I don't know what it is about human nature that makes people suckers for a good list. As this year draws to a close, we look ahead to 2010 and what will be making news in the year to come:

1. Elections in the UK: Conservative leader David Cameron has looked like a Prime Minister in waiting for a while now. He should get his chance to take the reins as the Labour government's time is up in 2010. Expect the EU to be watching with great interest as David Cameron could rock the boat.
   
2. Midterm Primaries: The actual midterms will make an appearance further down the list. However, I think the primaries may be the most telling part of the American 2010 elections. The Democrats are facing divisive fights in places like Pennsylvania and the Republicans are going to have to figure out how to avoid Scozzafava-ing (Yeah, it's a verb now) themselves out of major gains in both houses (check out Charlie Crist's fight in Florida). My fearless prediction is the party that purges the fewest moderates will come out ahead. This will also provide a great preview of the Republican race in 2012.
   
3. Canadian General Election: I had to include this on the list. It might not happen. The budget may be austere enough to be pass. Ignatieff may also be unwilling to scrap his Thinker's Conference in March. Still, when a government is walking a tightrope as narrow as Mr. Harper's, an election just feels like it has to be close.
4. A Binding International Climate Treaty: Okay, maybe not.
5. New Brunswick Election: Fixed elections have come to New Brunswick and September 27th is marked on the calendar for Shawn Graham and his Liberal government to face the people of New Brunswick. It should prove interesting with NB Hydro undoubtedly dominating the debate.
6. Ontario Municipal Elections: See, I'm not Toronto-centric. Actually, while Ottawa should be interesting, Toronto has the potential to be a three ring circus: Rocco Rossi v. George Smitherman v. Unknown right winger (John Tory?) v. Unknown NDPer (TTC Chairman Adam Giambrone?). Also, Hazel McCallion will probably continue to defy age and democratic history in Mississauga. No one outside of Carolyn Parish will be at all upset about that.
   
7. Midterm Elections in the US: The Dems are probably due for a fall. That said, Republicans will need to find bodies for all those vulnerable seats. At any rate, prepare to be inundated by "Will Obama Lose Congress and What Does That Mean for 2012?" stories.
8. Afghan Torture Scandal: The Continuation: This one isn't going away folks.
9. The Start of the 2012 Presidential Elections: I'd say the day after the first Tuesday in November should mark the start of the endless fight for Iowa and New Hampshire. Look at Sarah Palin in front of a tractor! Mitt Romney is spending more of his own money! Wait, what did that fringe candidate just say?
10. Yukon General Election: Dennis Fentie's Yukon Party government appears to be up for renewal in 2010 as well. Hey, elections are elections.
    

Top 10 Political Deaths of 2009

For no particular reason the top 10 political collapses of the year. I'm really trying to focus on things that are done and dusted as opposed to deaths that are still in process:

10. David Caplan: This probably wasn't self-inflicted but still a major minister of the largest province resigning in scandal justifies a spot on this list.
9. John Tory: Okay, maybe this is wishful thinking on my part. If he does come back it will be a surefire case of political zombeeism. He did manage to prove that no seat is safe... at least when he's around.
8. Rodney MacDonald: The former Premier of Nova Scotia is cooked. Can we all say it together now, "Don't take over a party after an electorally successful leader."
7. Rahim Jaffer: Okay so the shot was probably fired in 2008, but the patient killed any chances of a comeback while in political hospital. I remember a time when Mr. Jaffer was going to be the new face of the Conservative party.
6. Tony Blair: The former UK PM lost his bid to be the first President of the European Union... to a Belgian bureaucrat. Oh, and his party is toast in next year's elections thanks in large parts to his efforts.
5. Ed Stelmach: Steady Eddie was a premier, Steady Eddie had no base, Steady Eddie wasn't very Steady was he?
4. Fair Vote Canada: Okay, maybe not big fish, but they do seem to constantly get caught in the political lines. Andrew Coyne was spreading half-truths again this week on the National for an example. Losing the BC referendum and losing it badly effectively killed any hopes for electoral reform over the next ten years. Fair Vote has basically conceded this point and is now focusing on campaign finance reform which is great but not really their original target.
3. L'ADQ: Québec's third party had the shelf life of Egg Nog. Their collapse has been just pathetic.
2. Mark Sanford: Do you want to hike my Appalachian Trail?
1. Taro Aso: For any LDP leader to lose a Japanese election requires a political death viewable from space. Mr. Aso's culpability in the defeat is debatable.

What did I miss?

Developing? I Don't Think So

Here's an interesting release out of Copenhagen. South Korea is the kind of country that will doom any treaty to failure. South Korea by almost any objective measure is a developed country. Its GDP per capita is higher than 12 members of the European Union. South Korea is the world's fifth largest importer of oil and the eleventh largest consumer of crude. It's a member of the OECD for goodness sake. It's developed. Yet, for some unknowable reason the Republic of Korea is described as "developing" by the geniuses in Copenhagen and praised for making commitments that would be embarrassing from a developed country. In fact, Canada's being lambasted for setting targets dramatically lower than those coming from South Korea. If you are wondering why Korea is setting its targets based on 2005 levels, well, it's emissions almost doubled between 1990 and 2005 making a 1990 date impossible. So why the double standard? Search me. Kyoto set the precedent of ignoring the developed countries in Southeast Asia and Copenhagen looks to continue the trend. South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are developed countries (or whatever you want to call Taiwan). As I've said before, the European Union cannot solve the climate crisis. Canada can't solve the climate crisis. The earth's fate lies squarely in Asia. That's where the growth is going to come from. It may not be comforting to Western environmental activists who would like to blame big domestic corporations, but reality, the scientific reality, doesn't back up the politics.

Projection Update: Chanukah Edition

I haven't run a projection update lately because there are perilously few polls out at the moment. Only five national polls have been put out in the last thirty days. Even those polls that are out have ridiculously wide ranges, especially at the regional level. So with all those caveats out of the way, here's how the numbers breakdown. The riding results are now included at the bottom of the projection.

National Picture:

CPC 143
LPC 77
BQ 53
NDP 35

Province-by-Province:
BC: CPC 20, NDP 11, LPC 5
AB: CPC 28
SK: CPC 13, LPC 1
MB: CPC 10, NDP 3, LPC 1
North: CPC 1, LPC 1, NDP 1
ON: CPC 52, LPC 38, NDP 16
QC: BQ 53, LPC 14, CPC 8
NB: CPC 6, LPC 3, NDP 1
NS: LPC 5, CPC 4, NDP 2
PE: LPC 4
NL: LPC 5, CPC 1, NDP 1

Riding-by-Riding

Seat Projection-12142009

Well That Was Quick

Remember all those long months ago when Rocco Rossi was brought in to save the Liberal Party of Canada. Apparently, everything's fixed and he can go and fix the city of Toronto. I assume he'll run on a platform of tenacity and seeing things through to a successful conclusion... that is until he decides that really he wants to run Dalton McGuinty's war room in 2011. I'm sorry, I've got nothing against Rocco Rossi. Heck, who knows, I might even be persuaded to vote for him, but this looks terrible. If he was thinking of running for mayor, why did he take the Liberal job in the first place? Why does it seem that everyone just wants to use the Liberal Party as a stepping stone these days? No wonder we're stuck in the mud.

Harper Should Stand Up for Canadian Values

The Ugandan parliament is considering a bill to criminalize homosexuality. In fact, they want to make it punishable by life in prison. The death penalty is also on the table. This is in blatant contradiction of Canadian values. Canadian values govern our aid efforts all over the world. At least they're supposed to. If this bill is passed, which would be disastrous, the Canadian government must cut off aid funding to Uganda. While it may not be fair to the people of Uganda, governments rarely respond to small moves. At fairly least, the honorary consul (our high commission in Kenya is responsible for Uganda) should be withdrawn. Canada cannot be giving 23.5 million dollars per year to country that thinks homosexuality is a crime to be punished by life imprisonment or death. Mr. Harper make this intention clear to the Ugandan government now to try to talk them back off the edge of this cliff. If they do not respond, cut them off.

Earth To Canada: You Don't Matter

There's a lot of hullabaloo about Canada's climate record. Heather Mallick has decided to apologize to former imperial masters on our behalf. Apparently, Canadians have lost their way on climate change... oh and also the media sucks and we stupidly keep voting for people we really don't want or something like that. I really could care less about Ms. Mallick. I do care about facts. The fact is that Canada's environmental record is terrible but it's inconsequentially small. Do the math. Canada's total CO2 emissions in 2004 according to the World Bank was 639 MT. The INCREASE in China's CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2004 was 2617 MT. That's more than four times greater than our total output. The US saw its emissions go up by almost twice Canada's 2004 levels in the same time period. If Canada had met its Kyoto obligations it would reduce the 2004 number by about 250 MT which is a lot in Canadian terms but almost nothing on the world stage.

The reality is that the future of our planet doesn't lie in Canadian or even Western hands. In 1990, the countries actually bound by Kyoto made up 58.6% of world emisssions. By 2004, that number had dropped 49.1% in spite of the fact that those countries on the whole were 1600 MT over their Kyoto targets. If the world is going to become insufferably hot it will be because China, India and a few other major players failed to achieve what on the surface seem to me to be unreasonably optimistic targets. In 1990 the world's two most populous countries accounted for just 13.5% of the world's total. In 2004, that number had jumped to 21.9%. The world can no longer be entirely shaped by the decisions taken in European capitals by old white men. Asia is where the climate battle will be lost or won.

We can get warm and fuzzy talking about per capita emissions. The earth doesn't care. The earth cares about the total. A 0.1 T increase in China's CO2 emissions per capita represents a 139 MT in the world's CO2 levels. In other words, the disastrous record of Canada between 1990 and 2004 represents less than 0.2 T increase in China's CO2 emissions per capita. If heaven forbid China were to have the CO2 per capita of EU star Denmark (2004) it would add 8328 MT of CO2 each year. India would add about 9328 MT at a 2004 Danish level. That is a non-starter. All of this doesn't mean we in Canada shouldn't try to reduce our emissions. It just means that if there is drought and floods destroying the world in the coming years, it really won't be our fault.

Canadian Sovereignty Must Be Maintained

There are a lot of Europeans and European sympathizers in a fuss about Canada's expected recalcitrance at the upcoming Copenhagen conference on climate change. While I am all in favour of taking steps to reduce Canada's carbon footprint, we should not be be bullied into doing things which would hurt the long term economic fortunes of this country. We are an oil producing developed country whose oil reserves are just starting to be exploited. Most of the rest of the developed world either has no oil (see most of the EU) or coping with depleting reserves (Norway and the United States spring to mind). That doesn't mean these countries don't need oil today or that they won't need oil in the future. Creative accounting (economic collapse can do wonders for your environmental figure) shields Russia from Euro-scorn and allows the Europeans to fuel their cars with Russian oil and heat their homes with Russian gas (assuming the pipeline is turned on) . The oil-rich Arab states face no consequences for their drilling under Kyoto and are unlikely to face much pressure going forward for reasons unknown. Canada stands alone. We face unique circumstances, we should not accept a generic deal. The truest test of sovereignty is being able to listen to your people and say no even when everyone else wants you to do something.