MMP proposal defeated

Well, the election result was pretty much what I expected, no real surprise there. The referendum result was much more pleasant: resounding rejection of MMP:

At 8:15 a.m. ET Thursday, with more than 98 per cent of polls counted, the proposal had the support of 36.8 per cent of the vote. Meanwhile, 63.2 per cent of voters cast their ballots in favour of the existing first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

Only five ridings, all of them in Toronto, showed a majority supporting MMP.

The MMP proposal required 60 per cent support to become the new electoral system. As well it had to win a majority in 64 ridings.

A citizens assembly was appointed by the previous Liberal government to study the issue. It recommended MMP to replace FPTP, which has been in place in Ontario for 215 years.

Huzzah!

Repost: The value of scrutineers in elections

Back in 2004, I posted a brief discussion of my experiences as a scrutineer during a by-election in the 1980s. It seems appropriate to re-post that story today:

[. . .] In Canada, these people are called "scrutineers" and they have a vital job.

No, I'm not kidding about the vital part. Each candidate has the right to appoint a scrutineer for every poll in the riding (usually only the Liberal, NDP, and Conservative parties can manage to field that many people). I was a scrutineer during a federal byelection in the mid-1980's in a Toronto-area riding, but I had five polls to monitor (all were in the same school gymnasium). This was my first real experience of how dirty the political system can be.

The scrutineers have the right to challenge voters — although I don't remember any challenges being issued at any of my polls [. . .] They also have the right to be present during the vote count and to challenge the validity of individual ballots. Their job is to maximize the vote for their candidate and [legally] minimize the vote for their opponents.

Canadian ballots are pretty straightforward items: they are small, folded slips of paper with each candidate's name listed alphabetically and a circle to indicate a vote for that candidate. A valid vote will have only one mark inside one of the circles (an X is the preferred mark). An invalid vote might have:

• No markings at all (a blank ballot)
• More than one circle marked (a spoiled ballot)
• Some mark other than an X (this is where the scrutineers become important).

After the polls close, the poll clerk and the Deputy Returning Officer secure the unused ballots and then open the ballot box in the presence of any accredited scrutineers. The clerk and DRO then count all the ballots, indicating valid votes for candidates and invalid ballots. The scrutineers can challenge any ballot and it must be set aside and reconsidered after the rest of the ballots are counted.

A challenged ballot must be defended by one of the scrutineers or it is considered to be invalid and the vote is not counted. The clerk and DRO have the power to make the decision, but in practice a noisy scrutineer can usually bully the DRO into accepting all their challenges. I didn't realize just how easy it was to screw with the system until I'd been a scrutineer myself.

This is one of the key reasons why minor party candidates poll so badly in Canadian elections: they don't have enough (or, in many cases, any) scrutineers to defend their votes. In my experience in that Toronto-area byelection, I personally saved nearly 4% of the total vote my candidate received (in the entire riding) by counter-challenging challenged ballots. We totalled just over 400 votes in the riding (in just about 100 polls) — 21 of them in my polls. I got 15 of those votes allowed, when they would otherwise have been disallowed by the DRO.

There was no legal reason to disallow those votes: they were clearly marked with an X and had no other marks on them; they were challenged because they were votes for a minor candidate. As it was, I had a heck of a time running from poll to poll in order to get my counter-challenges in (I probably missed a few votes by not being able to get back to a poll in time).

The Libertarians only had six or seven scrutineers, covering less than a third of the polls in this riding. If the challenge rate was typical in my poll, then instead of the 400-odd votes, we actually received nearly 2000 votes — but most of them were not counted.

Yes, even 2000 votes would not have swung the election, but 2000 people willing to vote for a "fringe" party would be a good argument against those "throwing away your vote" criticisms. Voters are weird creatures in some ways: they like to feel that their votes actually matter. Voting for someone who espouses views you like, then discovering that only a few others feel the same way will discourage most voters from voting that way again in future.

Minor revisions in the text to elide references to the 2004 Ohio article which I was originally commenting on.

Voting day in Ontario

It may surprise some of you to find that today is an election day in Ontario . . . and the most likely result is no change (the ruling Liberal party may lose a few seats, but appears likely to still manage a majority in the house). John Tory did a masterful job of steadily wearing down his own support to keep Premier McGuinty in power for another four years (the government-funded madrassa proposal had a major part in this outcome).

Perhaps more important is the referendum to change the existing electoral system from the traditional first-past-the-post to a system that will provide (theoretically) a result more reflective of the actual votes cast. I like to consider this proposal the "Never let Mike Harris get elected again" initiative, because the most likely outcome of implementing this will be a never-ending series of coalition governments between the moderate left, the hard left, and the Greens. We'll not likely see the conservatives get close to running the province again if this proposal is approved by the voters.

I'm against it, by the way, as I really don't like the idea of adding a number of unelected (and probably otherwise-unelectable) party bagmen through the party list system: the current system isn't wonderful, but it's better than this monstrosity being foisted off on the voters today.

Why John Tory will not be Premier of Ontario

Colby Cosh does the honours:

Where were you when John Tory lost the Ontario election? I was at my usual post in far-off Alberta, but even here Tory's Wednesday self-immolation cast a glow that you could almost warm your hands by.

As I hear it told, a radio reporter looking for a new angle asked the Conservative leader whether the fully funded religious schools he wants to pay for as premier would be permitted to teach creationism.

There's no word on whether Tory actually expressed gratitude for the layer of gasoline he had just been super-soaked with: he just went ahead and whipped out the Zippo. Creationism? Sounds great! Why, it's just one more of the menu items our $400-million will buy us! Say, why's my tie melting?

It's funny the number of normally conservative folks I've talked to lately who are considering voting for anyone but the Tory candidate in their riding . . . the majority because of this very issue. It's going to be a particularly unpleasant day when the votes get counted.

"Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian"

Along with (at last count) just over 3,000 other deliberate vote-wasters nation-wide, I voted for my local Libertarian candidate yesterday. He got 274 votes in the riding, which isn't a bad result when you have almost no visibility in the media and (likely) no budget for signs, flyers, or other forms of advertising.

Buttons on the bookshelf above my desk.

Who's saying what?

Here's a quick round-up of post-election posts on some of the blogs I regularly read:

• Ghost of a Flea: Nick agrees with Damian Brooks that "there are few sillier than then notion Captain Ed had anything to do with the outcome".
• Babbling Brooks: Damian has a go at our kindly, well-intentioned, but sadly misinformed American friends.
• Daimnation: Damian Penny has a round-up of individual winners and losers in last night's election coverage.
• Castle Argghhh!: John also finds the adulation of Captain Ed to be overdone, and has a lively comments thread on the topic.
• Gen X at 40: Alan exults that "The Tories get the keys to the kingdom but with so few seats they are on the short leash. The wing nuts will be more difficult to keep in place so they will have to be dealt with. Are we witnessing the second coming of Joe Clark?"
• The Last Amazon: Kate also finds it refreshing that "there will finally be a Prime Minister in this country that is not from a lawyer from Quebec".
• Let It Bleed: Bob reminds everyone in the GTA about the VRWC gathering-and-victory-party on Friday.
• Steve Janke: Angry in the Great White North: Steve posts his list of the real winners and losers in this election.
• Political Staples: Greg did a similar round-up to the one you're reading now, but there's not much overlap, so you could do much worse than to go follow the links he provides on his list.

Political earthquake?

So, it's official: Paul Martin has acknowledged defeat and announced that he will be resigning as Liberal leader. Conservative leader Stephen Harper has accepted the role of minority Prime Minister. NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe have offered their congratulations and re-affirmed that they'll continue to push their own issues and agendas. So, what has really changed?

The new Tory government will have remarkably little representation from the major cities of Toronto, Vancouver, and their immediate surrounding areas. Ontario didn't read the change in the political wind and elected more Liberals from the 416 and 905 area codes than anyone had predicted. Ontario . . . out of step with the rest of Canada . . . who'd ever have seen that one coming?

Harper has potential breathing space of up to six months before he needs to recall Parliament . . . and even in six months' time, few of us will relish the idea of yet another election campaign. The party leaders will have to present the image of co-operation, without being seen to sell out their respective power bases, but also avoiding the risk of being blamed for triggering a new election. It's going to be a challenge for all concerned.

Parenthetically, I do find it amusing that Stephen Harper will be the first Canadian Prime Minister born in Toronto.

The Economist surveys the election

The British-based weekly newspaper, The Economist (subscriber-only link) outlines today's election for non-Canadians:

Canada's Liberals are set to lose a general election after a dozen years in office. Opinion polls show the Conservative opposition, led by Stephen Harper, with a lead of some 10% over the moribund governing party of Paul Martin. Mr Martin's bumbling leadership is largely to blame [. . .]

It must be galling to Mr Martin that his government is being taken down, in part, by a scandal that occurred under his predecessor, Jean Chrétien. That involved the diversion of funds that were supposed to be used to persuade Quebec to stay in the union. Instead some ended up lining the pockets of Liberal cronies. Mr Martin's efforts to distance himself from it did little to help. When the auditor general released her report on the charges a few months into his term he feebly claimed he had been kept "out of the loop" on Quebec during Mr Chrétien's reign. He also promised to testify in any inquiry and fired the public works minister most closely associated with the scandal. But voters were unimpressed. Mr Martin's poll numbers tumbled.

He is much to blame for his woes. His leadership has been plagued by missteps. His decision to call an early election in May 2004, despite obvious public disgust over the scandal, was a mistake. He wanted a mandate for his policies; instead he was left with a minority government. When his fragile hold on power was challenged by a house motion last year calling on the government to resign he refused, citing fine points of parliamentary procedure to claim it was not a vote of no confidence. This reinforced a perception of the Liberals as corrupt and unresponsive.

Why scrutineers are important

Back in 2004, I posted a brief discussion of my experiences as a scrutineer during a by-election in the 1980s. It seems appropriate to re-post that story today:

[. . .] In Canada, these people are called "scrutineers" and they have a vital job.

No, I'm not kidding about the vital part. Each candidate has the right to appoint a scrutineer for every poll in the riding (usually only the Liberal, NDP, and Conservative parties can manage to field that many people). I was a scrutineer during a federal byelection in the mid-1980's in a Toronto-area riding, but I had five polls to monitor (all were in the same school gymnasium). This was my first real experience of how dirty the political system can be.

The scrutineers have the right to challenge voters — although I don't remember any challenges being issued at any of my polls [. . .] They also have the right to be present during the vote count and to challenge the validity of individual ballots. Their job is to maximize the vote for their candidate and [legally] minimize the vote for their opponents.

Canadian ballots are pretty straightforward items: they are small, folded slips of paper with each candidate's name listed alphabetically and a circle to indicate a vote for that candidate. A valid vote will have only one mark inside one of the circles (an X is the preferred mark). An invalid vote might have:

• No markings at all (a blank ballot)
• More than one circle marked (a spoiled ballot)
• Some mark other than an X (this is where the scrutineers become important).

After the polls close, the poll clerk and the Deputy Returning Officer secure the unused ballots and then open the ballot box in the presence of any accredited scrutineers. The clerk and DRO then count all the ballots, indicating valid votes for candidates and invalid ballots. The scrutineers can challenge any ballot and it must be set aside and reconsidered after the rest of the ballots are counted.

A challenged ballot must be defended by one of the scrutineers or it is considered to be invalid and the vote is not counted. The clerk and DRO have the power to make the decision, but in practice a noisy scrutineer can usually bully the DRO into accepting all their challenges. I didn't realize just how easy it was to screw with the system until I'd been a scrutineer myself.

This is one of the key reasons why minor party candidates poll so badly in Canadian elections: they don't have enough (or, in many cases, any) scrutineers to defend their votes. In my experience in that Toronto-area byelection, I personally saved nearly 4% of the total vote my candidate received (in the entire riding) by counter-challenging challenged ballots. We totalled just over 400 votes in the riding (in just about 100 polls) — 21 of them in my polls. I got 15 of those votes allowed, when they would otherwise have been disallowed by the DRO.

There was no legal reason to disallow those votes: they were clearly marked with an X and had no other marks on them; they were challenged because they were votes for a minor candidate. As it was, I had a heck of a time running from poll to poll in order to get my counter-challenges in (I probably missed a few votes by not being able to get back to a poll in time).

The Libertarians only had six or seven scrutineers, covering less than a third of the polls in this riding. If the challenge rate was typical in my poll, then instead of the 400-odd votes, we actually received nearly 2000 votes — but most of them were not counted.

Yes, even 2000 votes would not have swung the election, but 2000 people willing to vote for a "fringe" party would be a good argument against those "throwing away your vote" criticisms. Voters are weird creatures in some ways: they like to feel that their votes actually matter. Voting for someone who espouses views you like, then discovering that only a few others feel the same way will discourage most voters from voting that way again in future.

Minor revisions in the text to elide references to the 2004 Ohio article which I was originally commenting on.

Conspiracy theory of the day

I was planning on voting this morning before coming in to the office, but as I picked up my voter information card, I noticed that the polls didn't open until 9:30, which was too late for me to vote and still get in to work on time. They also seem to be open much later than I recall from the last election. When I got in to the office, I mentioned it to Jon, and he offered this rather creative theory:

Maybe the cards were deliberately printed up with the wrong times on them, which would keep most working people from voting early, and since the cards show that the polls will be open quite late (9:30 pm), they won't rush home to vote. Civil service workers, of course, will get the correct time and vote during the day (because the civil service gives time to allow voting, while private companies may or may not do so).

I had to say that it was either complete hogwash, or a brilliant, subtle plan.

Red Ensign Election Predictions

Darcey is asking the other member of the Red Ensign Brigade what their predictions are for the federal election. I'd already posted my guess, but I thought it'd be interesting to gather up the predictions and keep them near the top of the page until the final returns are in, purely to add to the embarrassment factor when we all turn out to have missed the obvious NDP sweep to a majority:

I'll add to the list as other Red Ensign bloggers post or email their own predictions.

Update 22 January: Keith, Shane, and Alan all provided predictions for tomorrow's election.

Update 23 January: I've added in Damian Penny's, Mark Steyn's and Andrew Coyne's predictions.

"That's a fact"

Via Political Staples, a link to a Rick Mercer rant on attack ads, and the Canadian Forces.

Spinning the rhetoric

An article in New Scientist seems to provide scientific reinforcement to the common perception that Paul Martin "spins" his words more than Stephen Harper or even Jack Layton:

With the most fiercely fought Canadian election in more than a decade taking place on Monday, the crossfire of political rhetoric between the incumbent prime minister and his Conservative Party challenger is becoming heated — but which one is more trustworthy?

According to a new computer algorithm, Prime Minister Paul Martin, of the Liberal Party, spins the subject matter of his speeches dramatically more than Conservative Party leader, Stephen Harper, and the New Democratic Party leader, Jack Layton.

Spin, in this case, is defined as "text or speech where the apparent meaning is not the true belief of the person saying or writing it", says the algorithm's developer, David Skillicorn at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada.

He and his team analysed the usage patterns of 88 deception-linked words within the text of recent campaign speeches from the political leaders. They then determined the frequency of these patterns in each speech, and averaged that number over all of that candidate's speeches. Martin received a ranking of 124, while Harper and Layton scored 73 and 88, respectively.

"I think it's expected that any party in power is going to use spin more than the challenging party," Skillicorn says. "They have a track record to defend."

"They have a track record to defend." Or, in this case, obscure.

Hat tip to Paul Wells.

NDP tops 20% in latest Ekos poll

The every-other-day poll track:

Alan McLeod (the Red Ensign Brigade's token lefty) will be pleased to see the NDP's numbers jump over the 20% barrier for the first time during this campaign.

Sourced, as usual, from the Wikipedia page on the election.

Beaten to the punch

I was planning on putting together a quick "voters guide" on the weekend, to provide information on the minor parties running in this election. Autonomous Source beat me to it . . . and did a better job than I would have done anyway.

Hat tip to Andrew Coyne.

Sleazy election tactics or criminal libel?

Jon sent another link to a fascinating story (with the proviso that nothing's been confirmed aside from the blog entry yet) of local campaign dirty tricks:

During the show, a caller called in and accused Conservative Candidate Maurice Vellacott of sexual assault on a church secretary. Vellacott, immediately asked for the name and number of the caller for legal action and they had an idea of who this person was. The campaign volunteer who apparently made the call is George Laliberte. When they ran a reverse lookup of the number, they came up with the Liberal campaign headquarters of Chris Axworthy.

i.e. a Liberal supporter at the Liberal campaign HQ accused on public TV, the CPC candidate of sexual assault on live television. There was no 7 second delay to cut the statement off. So many heard it.

Fascinating times in this election.

Update: There's now a link in the original post to more information from the Velacott website.

Predictions are for geeks

A post up at Let it bleed talks about the difficulty of predicting seat totals from the percentages reported in the polls. The predictions at this stage of the last election were pretty far off:

Continuing on in my new-found role of playing the grump, I was mentioning to a friend the other day that people seem to have forgotten what actually happened in the 2004 election. In hindsight (note the emphasis) the results have acquired a cast of inevitability — the media coverage was too negative! Harper stopped campaigning with a week to go! the Liberal attack ads were brilliant! the polls indicated the Tories would lose!

Only in the last couple of days have the Tories come close to majority territory. On the latest poll data, using my up-to-the-second, hi-tech, Excel spreadsheet (anyone who knows my Excel skilz will be laughing at this point), I confidently predict 76 Crooks, 138 Fascists, 48 Commies, and 46 Traitors. Resulting in a minority Fascist government, ready to negotiate with the Commies or the Traitors for support.

My numbers are at least as believable as any others, but I don't believe 'em myself, partly because they don't account for the "wasted" votes in ridings where the winner garners a huge plurality (Alberta and Quebec, mostly) and partly because I still don't really trust the polling numbers to be accurate.

Liberals accuse Tories of violating the Canada Elections Act

In a news release on the Liberal Party website, the Blogging Tories blogroll is described as "an initiative of the Conservative party, rather than of individual Canadians." This might mean the blogroll would be in contravention of part of the Canada Election Act:

There are strict spending limits for political parties during election campaigns. And there are also limits on how much other groups (third parties) can spend during elections. Under the third-party financing legislation, it is illegal for a third-party to evade election spending limits by splitting itself into two or more groups.

Stephen Harper opposes third party spending limits. He has challenged this legislation at the Supreme Court, and has said that if elected, he will repeal the legislation that limits how much third parties — such as lobby groups — can spend during elections.

Perhaps Mr. Harper should practice what he preaches.

Has someone not pointed out to these guys that there are also Liberal and NDP blog-groups? If not, they'll be in for a nasty surprise of their own if this petition to the Chief Electoral Officer goes any further.

Hat tip to Damian Penny for the link.

EKOS and Strategic Counsel polls differ strongly

The two most recent polls, one from EKOS and the other from Strategic Counsel, find very different results for the Liberals and Conservatives. EKOS, on the 16th, found the Liberals rising to 29.6% and the Conservatives dropping to 35.8% (a 6.2 point gap), while Strategic Counsel's numbers were 24% for the Liberals and 42% for the Tories (an 18 point gap). Liberal supporters will be hoping that EKOS is accurate, while Conservatives will be plumping for the Strategic Counsel poll:

Even more distressing, for Liberals, is that their support in Quebec appears to be weakening even further: the CTV/Global poll of Quebec voters shows the Conservatives at 31% and the Liberals at 12% (the Bloc still has a huge lead at 47%).

Sourced, as usual, from the Wikipedia page on the election.

The Ballad of Belinda

Ruth pokes a bit of fun at everyone's favourite political turncoat, Belinda Stronach:

Just A Corporate Ho
(sing to tune of Just a Gigolo, by Louis Prima)

I'm just a corporate ho
And everywhere I go
People know the part I'm playin'

Yeah I wanted more
So I crossed the floor
Oh what their sayin'

But on this next Monday
When Liberals pass away
What will they say about me?

When the end comes I know
They'll say just a corporate ho
Life was all about me

Misleading headline? Or prophetic headline?

NealeNews linked to a Telegraph Online article with this rather misleading headline: "Conservative juggernaut will crush Canada's ruling Liberals, polls predict":

Canada's Conservatives appear to be steaming towards a historic general election victory, opinion polls have predicted.

With less than a week until polling day on Jan 23, yesterday every survey showed that the party that has been out of power for more than a decade is poised to crush the ruling Liberals headed by Paul Martin, the prime minister.

The latest polls give the Conservatives a 10-point lead over the Liberals, with some showing a widening gap between the two parties.

Although the polls are still showing a strong Conservative lead, the numbers don't translate directly into seats: most such projections are still pointing to a bare majority or a strong minority for Harper. That doesn't quite match with the mental image of a "Conservative Juggernaut".

Antonia Zerbisias credits VRW bloggers for Conservative victory

In her latest Toronto Star column, Antonia Zerbisias says:

Four days after next Monday's federal election, Toronto's (mostly) conservative bloggers will be drinking it up at a downtown pub. Judging from the polls, it will be a celebration of victory, one in which they had no small role.

For one thing, there'll be a few non-Conservatives in attendance. Still, it's a small recognition of how much the Canadian blogging community has risen in the estimation of the press since last election.

For the past few years, they've been bashing the Liberals, for everything from not saluting U.S. President George W. Bush to the income trust scandal.

Saluting Bush? Yikes. But the income trust farce, that deserved even more government-bashing than the Canadian blogosphere delivered. That was pure buffoonery.

Oh sure, every once in a while they would take aim at columnists and pundits whom they perceived to be liberal/Liberal, but most of their fire was aimed at the government.

Why critique the cheerleaders, when you can critique the players?

So what if the Conservatives win? Will mainstream media (MSM) journos who perform their watchdog role be lined up against the virtual wall?

If so, it'd be a small gathering . . . that's one of the things that the bloggers have been complaining about for all this time: that the MSM wasn't doing the job of being watchdogs.

She also quotes Bob "Let it bleed" Tarantino on what Conservative bloggers might do if Harper wins next week:

Toronto conservative blogger Bob Tarantino [. . .] tends to agree: "Assuming the CPC wins (still a big "if'' at this point) the first few months will see something akin to drunken euphoria amongst conservatives.

"What happens after that will be a function of two things: whether it's a majority or minority government and how badly the Liberals do (in terms of seat count). If it's a majority and the Liberals are trounced, then the `coalition' that comprises the CPC will splinter, and online pundits will start sniping at the party and each other . . . If it's a majority and the Liberals still place strongly, the coalition will likely still splinter, but not as quickly and not as deeply. In a minority situation, I think the dynamic will remain the same as prior to and during the election: guns trained on the media and the Liberals."

I think Bob is probably right. I wouldn't expect the coalition to survive longer than the debate over the first budget of a new Conservative government myself.

Polls still trending Tory

The latest polls still show the Tories out in front with a big lead:

Toronto may be the only bright spot for the Liberals at this point, where they're reported to still have a 3-point lead over the Tories.

Sourced, as usual, from the Wikipedia page on the election.

Update: For the first time, seat predictions have moved into the Conservative Majority, although just barely (or perhaps comfortably, depending on the particular poll used as a baseline). Hat tip to Paul Wells for the links.

Paul Martin explains the ad approval process

Proud to be Canadian has some fine video analysis of Paul Martin "explaining" how the attack ads came to be.

Hat tip to Greg Staples, who in turn found the link on Antonia Zerbisias' blog.

Poll tracking

So far, it's difficult to discern any change in the polling numbers that could be attributed — positively or negatively — to the Liberal attack ads:

Sourced, as usual, from the polling summaries at Wikipedia.

More signs of desperation

Small Dead Animals has the text of an affadavit from an NDP candidate who was offered a bribe to drop out of the race and throw his support to the Liberal candidate: page 1 and page 2.

Hat tip to Jon for the heads-up.

Update: Angry wonders if this is a hoax.

Update the second: The Liberals have dropped their candidate, according to a CTV news report. Hat tip to NealeNews.

Property Rights as a "shrine"?

Jon sent me a link to a brief CBC article on Martin's criticism of property rights:

Liberal Leader Paul Martin said property rights is the "shrine at which the U.S. conservative movement bows."

He said enshrining those rights in the Constitution would allow the government to attack a range of laws.

"If property rights were enshrined in the Constitution then probably you would not be able to ban handguns," Martin said.

Harper said he has no desire to strike down those kinds of laws.

"We believe the Charter of Rights should reflect the right to own property, the right not to be deprived of property without due process of law and just and timely compensation."

First, it's interesting that the CBC is now referring to Paul Martin as the "Liberal Leader" rather than as "the Prime Minister". I don't read enough CBC posts to see if there's been a change in that since the campaign started to get interesting.

Second, I don't see the US conservative movement as being particularly worshipful of property rights . . . see the ongoing issue of eminent domain for a pretty clear example. It's one of those motherhood things, I suspect, in that it only gets cursory attention before the real debate gets rolling. Over the last few years, you would have difficulty painting the US Republican party as being a defender of the right to own property.

Third, Harper saying that gun bans are the kind of law he doesn't want to strike down is disturbing. Theft of private property is theft of private property, whether the perpetrator is a criminal thug or a government thug. The principle should be that legally obtained property cannot be arbitrarily taken without compensation (at the absolute least . . . it'd be more consistent if we could just cut that statement at the end of "taken"). Gun bans are exactly this sort of taking without compensation.

The NDP skewers Martin's anti-military ad

The New Democratic Party has a very good response to the recently released-then-withdrawn anti-military ad on their website:

"We're Not Making This Up"

While the Liberals are mired in controversy about their ad that claims the Conservatives will send "soldiers with guns" into Canadian cities, one fact has been overlooked.

Soldiers will soon be in the streets of Winnipeg. And that's a good thing.

"More than 500 army troops, backed by helicopters, armoured vehicles and artillery will turn Winnipeg into an Armed camp..."

"Exercise 'Charging Bison' will unfold for seven days and nights beginning April 30 ...."
- Winnipeg Free Press (December 27, 2005, page A1)

"Charging Bison" is a Canadian Forces training exercise to help our soldiers prepare for the tough, complex and dangerous jobs they will be facing in places like Afghanistan.

But if other parties were like the Liberals, there would be ominous ads threatening that a Liberal victory would mean "soldiers in the streets of Winnipeg. With guns."

But we're not Liberals, so we don't manipulate the truth to scare Canadians — or insult the brave men and women in our armed forces.

And one final point — the last time we saw large numbers of soldiers in the streets of Winnipeg, it was another election year — 1997. They were helping to save the city from flooding.

Wow. Is there anyone outside the PM's inner circle who thought that ad would be a vote-winner?

Update: Whoops. I forgot to hat-tip Damian "Babbling" Brooks (who found the link at Angry in the Great White North).

Am I the only blogger . . .

. . . who hasn't (yet) posted something to parody the structure of the Liberal Party ads? You know, the ones that go kinda like this:

Declaration of a fact or factoid

Oddly chosen counter-fact or factoid

Weird connection drawn between the two

In Canada

We're not making this up.

Clearly, I've been letting down the side here. Has there ever been a set of TV ads so widely mocked in such a short period of time? Has there ever been a set of ads that so richly deserved it?

Potential cabinet ministers in a Tory government

Rick Mercer has some dynamite suggestions for cabinet posts if Stephen Harper forms a new Tory government after the January 23rd election. Although he does make the following admission:

Many sports fans spend their days building fantasy football or baseball teams. Likewise there are a handful of nerds out there who create fantasy cabinets. I do this all the time. I often kill time at the airport compiling my dream cabinet in the back of a scribbler. This week for example my dream cabinet would contain John Crosbie, Geddy Lee and Justin Pogge. Luckily for the Nation I will never choose a cabinet so we will never know what kind of damage I could wreak on the country.

QotD: Desperate Politicians

[Paul Martin] has nothing left to say to Canadians other than to tell them that unless they vote Liberal, the sun will not rise, spring will not come, and volcanoes will destroy the earth.

NDP leader Jack Layton, speaking in Hamilton, Ontario, 2006-01-11

Construct your own Liberal ad

David Janes has some fun with a Liberal-Style Attack Ad Generator.

It'll be interesting to see

. . . how the new Liberal ad campaign (and associated media & blog attention) will move these numbers around:

Sourced, as usual, from the polling summaries at Wikipedia.

Brian Mertens offers some Free Advice

Brian Mertens has some brilliant posts up on the Liberal attack ads. Brilliant work.

Damian Penny goes Liberal . . . sorta

Damian Penny shows us the next set of Liberal party ads, before they're released to the media. Stephen Harper has a dog and President Kennedy is gunned down in Dallas, Texas.

They're much better than the first set of Liberal ads, released yesterday.

Hat tip to Jon.

Alan McLeod: Tory stooge

In a stunning revelation, it appears that Alan McLeod (well known lefty and all-around beery guy) "is being turned into a stooge for the Tories". David Janes has all the gory details.

Malicious quoting

It would be tempting, but wrong, to use this Paul Martin quote to "prove" that he considers Aboriginals to be the problem:

We gave $5 billion to aboriginals because that's one of the root causes of poverty in our country.

Of course, it would be equally wrong to say that he's just a flaming communist for this gem, too:

Fundamentally, our tax system has got to make sure that, in fact, we take the money from the well off and that we redistribute it to those who don't have it [. . .]

Hat tip to Jon for digging up the link to the transcript.

Brown trouser day at the Toronto Star

The Toronto Star has suddenly decided that Harper and the Tories are headed towards a majority government on the 23rd:

The EKOS survey of 1,240 Canadians through the weekend and yesterday found 39.1 per cent support for the Conservatives. The Liberals had 26.8 per cent support; the NDP 16.2 per cent; the Bloc Québécois 12.6 per cent; and Green party 4.6 per cent.

"This is the breakthrough Harper has been waiting for," EKOS president Frank Graves said.

In Ontario, the Conservatives have widened the gap to a 10-percentage-point lead over the Liberals. Of the 518 Ontarians surveyed, 43.8 per cent supported the Tories, 33.5 per cent the Liberals, 16.2 per cent the NDP, and 5.4 per cent the Greens.

Even in Quebec, the Conservatives are ahead of the Liberals. A total of 330 people were surveyed in that province and 19.1 per cent threw their support behind the Tories, compared with 17.4 per cent for the Liberals.

If this doesn't energize the Liberal faithful and drag in the waverers, then nothing will.

QotD: Polls

Big poll out this morning. People in red have a certain look in their eyes. The only concern the Tories might have is that it is not two weeks from now.

Alan McLeod, "Day Forty-Two: Monday And The End", Gen X at 40, 2006-01-09

Jon live-blogs the debate

Jon posted this as a comment, but I think it deserves to be a full entry on its own:

Hey! Look at me! I'm live-blogging the debate!

8:15 pm: Oh God, what a bunch of wankers.

8:17 pm: Wankers, the lot of 'em.

8:20 pm: Wankers, wankers, waaaaaaaankers.

8:31 pm: Ok. Here's a switch: Socialist Wankers.

8:35 pm: Harper — "My family has lived as wankers under this flag for six generations. And we're still wankers."

8:37 pm: Layton — "I firmly support same-wanker marriage."

8:40 pm: Ducieppe — "Eeef ze time she comes, we zurender to zee wankers."

8:45 pm: Martin — "It was wankers who stole the money, not me."

9:00 pm: Me — "We're all going to die."

Wankers.

I think this nicely sums up every federal political debate we've had for the last three years.

Are the Tories peaking too soon?

The same collection of tracking information from Wikipedia:

QotD: Canadian Political Landscape

My working assumption has been that there is no substantial Conservative political talent in Canada, as distinguished from pundits or theorists. But the more interesting proposal is that Canadian politics is a natural monopoly. On this view, even if it was possible to profitably carve out a "Canadian conservativism" distinct from warmed-over Red-Toryism, the Liberal party would simply extend one of its tentacles to occupy it; conversely, should any party successfully replace the Liberals, they will converge on a form that looks a lot like the present Liberal octopus. This doesn't mean that secondary parties don't matter: the obvious model is the way that the existence of Apple affects the evolution of Windows merely because they theoretically could replace it, even if they never will in real life.

Some might call this a pessimistic vision of Canada's future. I say that the Canadian "soft monopoly" model provides a pretty optimistic scenario for the future of (say) China. Also, I've thought about this for at least four minutes now, and I don't see how responsive democracy necessarily requires competitive parties, despite all the pieties to the contrary. I'm always tempted to think that the optimal number of political parties is zero, and having one really big one might actually be a closer approximation of this.

Evan Kirchhoff, "Coronation Announced", 101-280, 2005-11-29

QotD: Canadian Elections

Every 12 to 36 months, the federal Liberal government is exchanged for another, identically-staffed federal Liberal government, in a traditional ceremony known as "Exoneration". Many Canadians have come to deride the procedure as an obsolete relic, but it should be noted that voting in Canada is now considerably faster and more convenient than, say, purchasing beer.

From what I can tell, the new government will take office in late January, and will likely be a Liberal "majority" government rather than the current Liberal "minority". In plain terms, this means that some of the public funds now being used to bribe "opposition" parties will be freed up to bribe voters directly. However, kickbacks and naked theft will continue at customary levels.

Evan Kirchhoff, "Coronation Announced", 101-280, 2005-11-29

Gag laws and the freedom of speech

Bob has a good overview of the whole farce that is the "gag law" over at Let It Bleed:

It was stupid when the Supreme Court said it, it was stupid when Carol Goar mewled about it and it's stupid now that Freeman is dredging it up again, so I'll repeat myself: in their zeal to get the rich, they're affecting everybody, rich or not and perhaps particularly the non-rich. If one million people donate $10 each to an activist group, that doesn't suddenly make the people who donated the money "wealthy" — Freeman is conflating the monetary resources of the aggregation with the monetary resources of the individual and, because he evidently loathes the "wealthy" so much, conferring the attributes of the former onto the latter. Someone who makes $30,000 and contributes $20 to Greenpeace has suddenly been deemed "the rich" — and, to make the irony even more enjoyable, they are now being denied the ability to advertise on two ends: they can't afford to advertise on their own, and if they try to pool their money with like-minded citizens, they are prevented by law from advertising and are sneered at as "wealthy". Are the union members who contribute to the CAW "wealthy"? No? So why shouldn't they be allowed to participate in the public discourse through advertising? Hell, even if they were wealthy, why shouldn't they be able to?

The election gag law seems to be most easily described as a battle between the Liberal Party, in their guise as the "Natural Governing Party" and the National Citizen's Coalition, who have been fighting against these laws from the beginning. The end effect of the current version of the law is to make it practically impossible for anyone except registered political parties and their candidates to make any organized stand during an election campaign . . . not just the NCC and their "wealthy" backers (I doubt whether the average NCC supporter earns more than the average Canadian).

Everyone's freedom is therefore restricted, even if most of us never try to exercise that freedom, we're still less free because this law is in place. It's a bad law, because it's been carefully crafted to swat one particular anti-government messenger and it impacts many more individuals and groups who are now no longer able to get their own messages out to the voting public.

This week in the polls

There's a useful poll aggregation page at Wikipedia, from which I've grabbed a selection of the last week's worth of election polling:

Harper to strengthen northern defences

Conservative leader Stephen Harper made some strong commitments to defending Canada's north in a speech in Winnipeg today:

Stephen Harper says that if he's prime minister, any foreign vessels bold enough to trespass in Canada's Arctic would get a frosty reception from brand new icebreakers bristling with firepower.

The Tory tough talk is part of multibillion-dollar plan to protect the country's sovereignty in the wake of reports that American submarines cruise Canadian waters at their leisure undetected. Harper said he'd put an end to that by establishing a national sensor system for northern air and water.

He promised to commission three Canadian-built military icebreakers and create a military-civilian deepwater docking facility in the Iqaluit region.

And he said he would set up an Arctic army training centre in the Far North and station new search-rescue aircraft in Yellowknife.

At least 500 sailors, soldiers and airmen would operate the icebreakers and the docking station, which would cost about $2 billion over eight or nine years.

Although I find the mention of icebreaking ships "bristling with firepower" to be highly amusing — none of the rest of the fleet could be accurately described that way — it's the first hint of seriousness about the northern frontier in many years.

Of course, to properly patrol the ice-packed coastline, you need (whisper it) nuclear-powered submarines. The sort of vessel that has only once ever appeared on the Canadian military shopping list (during the first Mulroney government, if I remember correctly).

Don't hold your breath waiting for them to appear in the Canadian order of battle any time real soon . . .

QotD: Neckties

Ordinarily I'd sneer at someone who noticed this sort of thing — but here it seems like a new clinical stage in the slow death of the necktie. For politicians, ties remain truly de rigueur only on international stages. Paul Martin favours them about half the time because he's old-school, and playing that up is to his advantage. Jack Layton wears them because he's a dashing guy who is good at choosing neckties (or has good help), and because his party secretly wants a patriarch after years of being an unsightly coven for identity groups. That's what the necktie is, more or less — openly patriarchal. For someone like Harper, who is already suspected of having ambitions to be an operant-conditioning Daddy Dearest for the nation, it must be avoided. One can't help feeling that the tie's time may soon be up for almost everybody, if only because the father himself seems pretty doomed in our civilization. The defenders of neckwear get more defensive every year.

Colby Cosh, "The way of the fedora", ColbyCosh.com, 2005-12-16

Why Paul Martin is sounding desperate

It's something that several people have mentioned in the last week or so . . . how desperate Paul Martin seems to be. It's not as though his party is behind in the polls, or is clearly leaking support in key ridings (though it may be), but that the Prime Minister's own public performance has been more than a bit tinged with an unstatesmanlike cold sweatiness. David Warren probably has it right:

While I am certainly irritated by Paul Martin's anti-American posturing in the election campaign — it is low, cheap, and vile — it is not his most annoying, nor even his most cynical, strut. The attempts to cast Stephen Harper as a dark operator, and allege some fanciful "hidden agenda", insults my intelligence a little more. Mr Harper leaves much for me to desire in a Conservative leader, but he is a decent, honest man. Mr Martin, of whom I once thought more highly, is not. It has become evident since the prime ministry came within his grasp, that he will say or do anything to clutch it. He now disgusts me; I think more than Jean Chrétien did, the petty thug who was our last Liberal prime minister.

To be fair, Mr Martin and cronies have more reasons to cling, than the enjoyment of power itself. For if even a minority Conservative government can be formed, there may be three-party agreement to launch corruption inquiries that go far beyond the scope of the Gomery Commission. Billions upon billions are spent annually in other unaudited programmes, crying out for review. Remember this each time the Liberals sound desperate.

It is distressing that having watched Paul Martin's premiership, I'm almost feeling nostalgic for "le petit gar de Shawinigan".

Update: Interestingly, Bob has another idea that also seems to fit the evidence:

A few years back, someone (possibly Lorne Gunter, but I can't recall for sure) noted a sure sign that the media had turned on Jean Chretien: they started quoting him verbatim, rather than selectively editing his mangled syntax. Within months, Chretien had been tossed and Paul Martin rode to helm the Liberal Party on a wave of feverish media adulation. Looks like we're witnessing the beginnings of a turn on Paul, too:

The morning rally was the first the Liberals have staged in British Columbia since the campaign began. Although the supporters managed to create a cacophony of sound with the balloons distributed by the party for that purpose, the gathering was small by election campaign standards — the 19 candidates in attendance made up a substantial proportion of the crowd. [emphasis added]

Ouch. [The Globe URL which originally pointed to that story has been altered, and the text quoted above appears to have disappeared into the ether

Flaws in the election laws

Another example of why public funding for political parties is a bad idea:

[Matthew] Pollesel [former assistant national organizer] alleges that the former grassroots party has been hijacked to gain access to federal election subsidies provided under the new elections-financing law.

The law was introduced by former prime minister Jean Chretien to reduce the dependence of politicians on donations from corporations and unions, and gives parties a subsidy of $1.75 per year for each vote won in the last election.

The formerly impoverished Green Party is now collecting $1.1 million annually in federal subsidies.

Asked on Thursday about how the money is being used, Harris deferred to his staff: "I am the leader of the party," he said. "I don't manage the party."

Money and politics are difficult to separate: politicians make decisions that greatly influence who will benefit and who will suffer . . . and a small amount of money can be a remarkably effective multiplier. Outright bribery is usually too easy to track, so other methods of getting money into the hands of politicians have been developed over the years. The most recent overhaul of the election funding was intended to reduce the direct influence of unions and corporations in the election process.

This case shows that there are no perfect solutions to the problem of separating the politicians from the money.

Harper promises to resurrect Canadian paratroop battalion

CBC News is reporting that Conservative leader Stephen Harper, on a campaign stop in Trenton, promised to raise a new paratroop battalion:

Military spending over the next five years would increase by more than $5 billion compared to the plan set out by the Liberal government, Harper said. By 2010, he said, a Conservative government would be spending $1.8 billion more per year than the Liberals.

"The Canadian Forces deserve better than the neglect that they have seen for the past 12 years," he said.

Asked about his plan to create a new airborne battalion of 650 troops stationed in Trenton, Harper said he doesn't believe there's a stigma attached to the idea of airborne troops.

Even more to the point, the article also mentions:

The Airborne Regiment, which was based in Petawawa, was disbanded in 1995 following a 1993 deployment as peacekeepers to Somalia, during which Canadian soldiers beat a Somali teenager to death.

Harper said, "The government of the day disbanded the Airborne Regiment to avoid getting to the bottom of a particular incident."

Hat tip to Nealenews.

Jon sells out

Jon contacted his local Conservative candidate and asked for a big campaign sign on his front lawn. But this is how he asked:

Please place the sign in front of the effigy of Martin that's hanging by his ankles from our tree, and a little to the right of the effigies of Layton and Duceppe that are... well, I can't really say what they are doing in an e-mail; you'll see 'em when you come to install the sign. Also, if you could drop off Harper's promised $2400 for my two kids a little early, that would be greatly appreciated. Of course, that $2400 is my money anyway, but let's not go there.

The Economist makes book on the Federal election

The good folks at The Economist take a quick look at the Canadian political scene at the start of the election campaign:

The Liberals have been losing support among voters ever since the revelation, in 2003, of the so-called "sponsorship" scandal. In 1995, voters in Quebec narrowly rejected a referendum on secession from Canada. In the following years, the Liberal government, under then prime minister Jean Chrétien, spent money on advertisements in the majority-francophone province promoting Canadian unity. Some of the money found its way to advertising firms with links to the Liberals, and thence back into party coffers. Mr Chrétien’s successor as prime minister, Paul Martin, asked a judge, John Gomery, to look into the accusations. His commission reported this month that money had indeed gone criminally missing, but explicitly exonerated Mr Martin. Nonetheless, the Liberals now seem tired and faintly corrupt in voters’ eyes.

But will this usher in a government led by the main opposition party, the Conservatives? The odds are surprisingly long. The current Conservative Party is the result of a recent merger between the western-based Canadian Alliance, which resembles America’s Republicans in its social and fiscal conservatism, and the ideologically softer Progressive Conservative Party. Led by the Alliance’s Stephen Harper, the new Conservatives seem more right-wing than many Canadians are comfortable with. Mr Harper’s opposition to gay marriage and reservations about abortion — both of which are espoused by the Liberal government — make him easy to portray as out-of-touch with tolerant Canadian values.

[. . .]

But Canada differs from its southern neighbour in a big respect. The two big parties must compete with the NDP across the country. And, more significantly for Canada's future, these three parties must contend with the Bloc Québécois, the national party advocating "sovereignty" — independence — for Quebec. Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc's leader, promises that voters in his province will pass "harsh judgment" on the Liberals for a scandal which, after all, misused funds designed to promote Canadian unity in Quebec. And not only is the federal government unpopular, but the provincial one, run by the Liberals, has failed to impress. This combination of forces will probably strengthen the Bloc’s hold on Quebec’s delegation in Ottawa in the January election.

Opinion polls suggest that support for independence has been growing in Quebec since the 1995 referendum. But much of this support looks fragile — many people say paradoxically that they favour independence but do not want to see a referendum soon: in other words, they are for it in theory, but against in practice.

This is interesting . . .

According to Bourque, former PC cabinet minister Jim Flaherty is rumoured to be making a move for Stephen Harper's job:

Bourque has learned that longtime Ontario Cabinet Minister and two-time provincial leadership contender Jim Flaherty may well be positioning himself for an early opportunity to unseat Stephen Harper, the disappointing Conservative Party incumbent, increasingly seen as a lame duck leader who's political capital may well have expired with his botched handling of recent national antagonism towards the long-governing Liberals. Sources tell Bourque that failed retail heiress Nicky Eaton hosted a swish gathering at her country estate in Caledon for Flaherty's intimates to discuss a bid for Harper's job.

Hmmm. Very interesting. I've met Stephen Harper and I think he's capable of being a good prime minister. I've not only met Jim Flaherty (I'm in his riding provincially), but I coached two of his sons in soccer. I have a good opinion of his potential as a leader as well. The question is, do I want to see Flaherty rise at the direct expense of Harper?

Hat tip to Sean, via Small Dead Animals.

Media bias? What media bias?

It has been argued ad infinitum that the Canadian media has a strong bias in favour of the Liberals, and not just by those out on the right side of the political spectrum. This Toronto Sun article merely restates the case in terms of the recent decision by MP Pat O'Brian to sit as an independent:

O'Brien, who is opposed to legalizing same-sex marriage, said Martin had not, as he promised, allowed a "full and fair" debate on the issue and was instead just trying to ram it through.

Here's how to spot that our overwhelmingly pro-Liberal media are biased in favour of Martin over Harper:

Watch for how many of them argue that in losing O'Brien, Martin has demonstrated a clear inability to retain the loyalty of socially conservative Liberals, whose support he needs if his minority government is to survive for any length of time.

We predict there will be none, even though more than 30 Liberal MPs oppose same-sex marriage and Martin clearly can't afford to lose many more.

Despite that, count on our pro-Liberal media to never suggest that O'Brien's defection shows any failure on Martin's part.

Hat tip to Elizabeth for pointing out the article.

Canadian Crisis: religious fanatics also infiltrating the Liberal Party!

In a shocking, hard-to-believe, cold-sweat-inducing revelation, it appears that Christians — actual believing-in-capital-G-God Christians — are also attempting to take over the Liberal Party:

Socially conservative Christian groups purportedly infiltrating the Conservative party have been equally involved in the ruling Liberal party for years.

"People of faith are engaging in the democratic process in the Liberal party as well as the Conservative party," Charles McVety, head of Canada Christian College and a founder of the Defend Marriage Coalition, said in an interview.

Reactions from traditional strongholds of Liberaldom have been somewhat confused:

McVety said his group, which opposes same-sex marriage, helped a number of like-minded Liberals secure nominations prior to last year's election.

Among them were Toronto-area MPs Paul Szabo, Tom Wappel, Jim Karygiannis, Dan McTeague and Albina Guarnieri, now veterans affairs minister, and Oshawa MP Judi Longfield.

"And those are just some of the Liberals we've helped."

The terrible news will undoubtedly leave knees quivering and jaws sagging all through the Liberal hierarchy.

Kate Caves to the New Liberal Reality

Kate, of Small Dead Animals, has finally realized that the battle is not worth fighting. She's conceding, and re-aligning her world to fit the new reality:

The Liberal Party will not only continue to exist, they shall continue to govern and enjoy the privilage of stealing from me for the greater good.

So, to my fellow moderate, mainstream, compromising Liberal Canadian citizens so tolerant of the mischievious ways of our political masters — today I concede.

You win. I lose. You are right. I was wrong. You were always right, and I was always wrong.

Having broken the shackles of black and white, I'm ready to venture into this brave new ethical world of "Grey" and work with you. I can't say I understand it, but nonetheless — it's time to adapt.

As my first step, as a show of good faith, I've arranged a compromise with you. We will find a middle ground between "honesty" and "dishonesty", a happy litlle grey parking spot between "respect for property" and "systematic theft".

Poll Tracking, part IV

The unexpected results, in the most recent poll, of Belinda Stronach crossing the floor to join the Liberals:

Click to enlarge

Most recent data from the COMPAS/Ottawa Citizen poll, published today.

More Campaign Slogans

Thanks to The Librano Generator, we can test some campaign slogans for the next election:

Hat tip to Small Dead Animals.

The Phantom Observer takes the high road

Unlike a lot of bloggers from the right side of the political spectrum, The Phantom Observer takes a calm, rational view of the Belinda Stronach situation.

What's wrong with the man???

Random office conversation

My virtual landlord was leaning over the cube wall, commenting that I was lucky that my Libranos poster hadn't been torn down yet. He then suggested that I should print out a picture of Belinda Stronach and add it to the poster.

I pointed to the space below the Libranos title and asked, "Right about here?"

I guess you had to be there.

Update: I worried that this post was getting a little far down the poor-taste meter, but Damian Penny links to a CP story that goes much lower:

They started off as a political golden couple, but wound up a wincing example of why you shouldn't date someone from work.

"Never dip your pen in the company ink," as one Conservative insider put it. With news reverberating around Parliament Hill of Belinda Stronach's blockbuster bolt from the Tories to the Liberals, the indelicate question was unavoidable: "What about Peter MacKay?"

Stronach's well-publicized romance with the Conservative deputy leader could hardly have come to a more stunning end.

Update the second: Publius expresses his strong distaste for Belinda Stronach in this heartfelt post:

Let me expand upon my earlier comments: Bitch, Whore, Weasel, Coward, Skank, Ho, Traitor, Sludge, Swine, Rich White Trash, Spoiled Brat, Rich Bitch and so on and so on. Words fail me, as they have Andrew Coyne. What the heck do you say. All that comes to mind is a stream of profanity and various rude gestures. The conspiracy theorist in me recalls that her father, that's the one who actually earned the money, was a staunch, if right-wing, Liberal.

Could his and his daughter's support for the Conservatives have been part of a power struggle within the Canadian economy? Was Frank not getting enough of the pie, being muscled out by Power Corp and its courtiers? Has an agreement been struck allowing the Stronachs' back into the fold? Or was this betrayal, as Stephen Harper suggested, part of her ambition to become Prime Minister? Pure and simple power lust. The MSM has been typically clueless, save Mike Duffy and Don Martin. On CTV's 24hr news channel the two dim twits spent almost an hour gossiping about how poor Peter McKay must feel. Hello, ladies, this isn't a beauty parlour or a coffee brunch. You're newscasters, try to act the part once in a while.

Belinda the Betrayer

Damian Penny has the breaking story. This is just freakin' ugly.

Update: Kate writes:

Well, we always knew she was a Liberal — they were just hagging over the price.

I wonder if she realizes how many new Western separatists she just created today with her comments about Conservatives not understanding the "complexity" of the country? That the party must "grow in Quebec" before it's a national party? I wonder if she understands that her defection speech will be interpreted as another slap by a self-serving and politically ambitious Ontario power broker at western aspirations to finally have an equal voice in Canada?

Probably not. The woman is that stupid.

Update the second: Bob wonders:

Hands down, funniest news of the day [. . .] Not because Stronach has elected to join the illustrious ranks of people like Scott Brison and Signorina Giuseppe Volpe, but because this will now prompt a slew of reversing reappraisals amongst media talking heads: whereas, previously, Tory Belinda was a well-clad blonde bimbo with too much of daddy's money who was a vessel/puppet of Mulroney-esque forces determined to seize back control of the country, now, Liberal Belinda will be hailed as a shrewd and effective political operator with a deep understanding of, in no particular order, French, public speaking, complex economic and/or political issues, "what Canadians want" and "how evil Stephen Harper and the Conservatives really are".

Protest fizzles on Parliament Hill

Paul Denton was there, taking pictures and taking the pulse of the crowd . . . which appears to have been mostly rural issues brought to Ottawa on tractors.

Jeebus. Nooses? An effigy coffin?

Between these, and the tone of some of the speakers' rhetoric, I was reminded how uncomfortable it sometimes is to be on the side of farmers, or vice versa. Fiery speeches about how "people in cities who ride buses shouldn't get to tell people in the country who ride tractors what to do" don't exactly endear me to legitimate grievances, both as an urbanite and a user of public transit.

Mike Brock does some addition

Mike Brock adds up the sudden burst of spending the Liberals have racked up in the last few weeks:

In a country which according to Paul Martin, can only afford very modest tax cuts, the Federal Liberals seem to have had absolutely no problem in increasing spending to the degree of over $1,100 per taxpayer in the last three weeks.

Just think about that. Weeks ago, the Liberals had absolutely no room for tax cuts, but they now have room for over $1,100 per taxpayer more in program spending. And the spending announcements don't seem to be coming to an end anytime soon. If this isn't out-of-control pandering by a desperate government, than I don't know what is.

Clearly, circumstances alter cases. This is money that PM "Jell-o" Dithers had to spend to save Canada. If those evil Tories had their way, this money would all have been wasted.

Liberal Campaign Slogans

The ever-helpful Andrew Coyne has posted some useful suggestions for Liberal campaign slogans:

A friend of mine suggests, in light of the Liberals' evident strategy of promising every province, city, or interest group whatever their heart desires — together with a warning that all of these goodies will go up in smoke if they are defeated — a possible Liberal slogan: "Vote Liberal and nobody gets hurt."

And from the comments on that post: "Vote Liberal — We haven't been corrupt lately." Or "Vote Liberal. We have no convictions" (yet). Or perhaps "Vote Liberal: We're Organized." And even: "Vote Liberal and Fuggeddaboutit!!"

Update: Aaron provides some extra content on Grandinite.

David Frum on Liberal Parliamentary Strategy

Angry in the Great White North links to this article by David Frum, which goes a long, long way to explain who the Liberals' parliamentary advisors might be:

The Liberals have lost a series of confidence votes in the House of Commons. On Wednesday and Thursday, the Conservatives won two votes to force adjournment. By long constitutional usage, a Westminster-system government that is forced to adjourn must either resign or call an election. But the Liberals, apparently taking their advice from the lawyers of Charles I, seem to believe that they can continue governing without the support of Parliament.

If anyone had taken the time to look up the history, they'd have seen that Charles I didn't have a particularly happy end to his reign. It left him a much shorter man . . . by a head.

In hopes of buying votes, they continue to announce lavish spending proposals — even as 400 years of British constitutional law denies a government that rules without a majority in Parliament the right to spend so much as a single penny.

Eh, tradition. Piffle. Not as important as Paul Junior's right to be prime minister. In Paul Junior's book, anyway.

Angry continues, in his post:

Of course, that all makes sense now. During caucus meetings, they are holding seances, and getting advice from the courtiers of Charles I of England:
Charles I (19 November 1600-30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625, until his death. He famously engaged in a struggle for power with Parliament; he was an advocate of the divine right of kings, however some in Parliament feared that he was attempting to gain absolute power. There was widespread opposition to many of his actions, especially the levying of taxes without Parliament's consent.

A comment on Angry's post points out that holding seances is practically a Liberal rite of passage, in the post-Mackenzie-King era.

Is the Governor General going to do her job?

Despite press reports yesterday that implied that the Governor General did not have the power to dismiss the prime minister, Andrew Coyne sets the record straight:

Both the story and the "senior government official" are wrong. The Governor General most certainly has the right to advise her first minister. As Bagehot famously put it, under the British constitution (of which we are the inheritors) the sovereign has three rights: "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn." Ordinarily, it is true, the prime minister is not bound to follow her advice, but that is a different statement.

And while it is also ordinarily true that she is bound to take his, that is not true of one matter in particular: who should be her first minister. If the Governor General is of the opinion that the current prime minister does not command the confidence of the House of Commons, she has the absolute right to dismiss him and to call upon someone else, or to dissolve Parliament and call new elections. It is not the prime minister, acting on the Governor General's advice, who dissolves Parliament: it is the Governor General, usually on the prime minister's advice but not always.

The bold sentence is the key to the whole affair. I can't imagine how the Governor General cannot see that her duty is plain: parliament has demonstrated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, their lack of confidence in the government, yet the government has not resigned. It is her job to dismiss Mr. Martin and either call upon Mr. Harper to form a new government or to require a new general election.

Federal Liberals gear up for election campaign

Kate, at Small Dead Animals links to some undercover work at Debris Trail, showing the new Liberal Party pins being ordered.

Parliament adjourns for second straight day

The Tories and Bloc Quebecois forced the house to adjourn again today, demonstrating that the government has lost the confidence of the commons:

The Conservatives paralyzed Parliament and called Thursday for the Governor General to force Prime Minister Paul Martin to call an immediate confidence vote.

Bloc MPs joined the Conservatives to force through a morning motion that adjourned the House of Commons hours before it was scheduled to rise. The motion meant the theatre of the daily question period was scrubbed.

The Conservatives and the Bloc used the adjournment to drive home their contention that the Liberals have no authority to govern and that Parliament won't work until they bring in an immediate vote of confidence.

Of course, unless the Governor General decides to actually do her job, the Liberals will keep dodging. They appear to be gambling that one or more Tory MPs will be unable to get to the commons for the scheduled vote next week, and/or are stepping up their attempt to bribe opposition MPs to take senate appointments or ambassadorships overseas.

Just the most recent news from the "Banana-Split Dominion".

QotD: Canadian Politics

Let's say the government is right, that a vote of the majority of the House of Common expressing no confidence in the government does not count as a vote of non-confidence: that although the House may have demanded "that the government resign," it forgot to preface this with the critical words, "Simon says." What does this mean?

It means that we now have a new form of government in this country: government by technicality. The government can no longer claim to govern with the consent of the governed, the traditional standard of legitimacy in a democracy. It governs with the consent of itself. It is the constitutional equivalent of a circular argument, a government that rules solely on the strength of its own assertions. It holds a new kind of power: the power of positive thinking.

Andrew Coyne, "Government by Technicality", AndrewCoyne.com, 2005-05-11

Summing up the Federal Liberals

Andrew Coyne has this one all wrapped up with a ribbon and a bow:

I've been trying to think of a parallel for what the Liberals are doing, and I think this is it: It's like someone who's been summoned to appear in court, but who can escape the writ's application so long as it has not been physically delivered to him. That is the basis of their refusal to resign. Parliament may have manifestly lost confidence in the government — has for weeks — but so long as they can prevent the House from putting this to a vote — so long as they can evade the writ-server — it doesn't count. Yet now that the writ has been served, they say it doesn't count unless it's in Latin.

Refuting the polling bias charge

Andrew, at Bound By Gravity, addresses the common complaint among (some) Conservative bloggers that the polling firms are biased against their party. Unfortunately, he uses tools that may baffle the average blogger: dollars and cents.

Now let's leave aside the following two critical points that blow away the credibility of the "polling firm bias = skewed results" theory all by themselves:

a) Ignore the fact that any polling form caught fixing its numbers would have its reputation irrevocably tarnished.

b) Further, ignore the fact that the quickest way to boost Liberal support (by leeching NDP support) is to show the Liberals behind in the polls.

Instead, let's take a look at the major Canadian polling firms and their donations over the years and see if there is a correlation between poll results and donations.

I'd say it was devastating, but I'm of the innumerate variety of blogger, so I have to take his word for it that the numbers completely obliterate any serious charges of bias.

In all seriousness, I think Andrew is doing a great job of digging up the important facts . . . and few things are more important in political life than money. If you don't already visit BBG regularly, I'd recommend that you start to do so now.

Poll-tracking, part III

The Liberals and Conservatives swap positions again:

Click to enlarge

Most recent poll from CTV, published today.

Damian Penny asks the right question

Damian Penny asks the obvious question:

Do we Canadians still have the right to sneer at the Yanks for all the problems they had with their election in 2000?

When did we blow past the counting of the number of dimpled chads that can dance on the head of a pin? Yesterday? Day before that? Whenever it was, that was the point at which we can no longer pretend any sort of moral or political high ground whatsoever.

A Les Mackenzie comment at Daimnation puts it well: "Speaking of George W . . . Why hasn't he called out Prime Minister and congratulated him on his new dictatorship? Damn Americans!"

New decoration for the office

I picked up the latest copy of the Western Standard at lunch. Here's my new whiteboard decoration (until it gets torn down by the raging hordes of Librano supporters, of course):