Election 2015

[Edward Campbell]

Good news about new seats in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/adding-seats-to-house-of-commons-a-political-windfall-for-tories/article2271940/

Adding seats to House of Commons a political windfall for Tories

JOHN IBBITSON

Globe and Mail Update
Published Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011

The Senate will pass the legislation enlarging the House of Commons by 30 seats either Thursday or Friday. By the weekend, it should have royal assent. This matters a lot.

Elections Canada has warned that unless the law is enacted by the New Year, it might not be able to take the new seats into account in time for the 2015 election. But now we know those new seats, created to give the growing parts of the country more equal representation, will be in place.

Each provincial elections commission will decide where the new ridings go. But your correspondent decided to get a jump on things, by identifying clumps of seats, each with populations of 110,000 or more, in the provinces that will get the new ridings. It’s from these clumps of large seats that new seats are most likely to be carved.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/new-seats-rebalance-the-house-of-commons/article2216717/?from=2271940

Bottom line: the new bill is a political windfall for the Conservatives. Here’s why: In Ontario, which gets half of the new seats, the burgeoning cities of Mississauga and Brampton, on Toronto’s western flank, have some of the largest constituencies in the country: Brampton West has more than 170,000 people in it, for crying out loud. The nine big ridings that encompass the two cities, and Caledon to the north, can be expected to increase by at least three. All of them are currently Conservative, so the three new ridings should be Conservative, too.

Vaughan and other bedroom cities north of Toronto should grow from five large Conservative seats to six. North of them, York and Simcoe, including the now-bedroom city of Barrie, will probably grow from four to five. All are currently Tory and should stay that way.

The eastern communities of Markham, Ajax, Pickering, Whitby and Oshawa should grow from five oversized ridings to six, with the sixth Conservative.

In Toronto itself, the ridings are not all that large, relatively speaking. Still, the city should get an extra seat, and let’s give it to the Liberals.

The Niagara region certainly warrants an extra seat. The NDP is strong down there, but the Tories are stronger. We’ll give them one.

There are four large ridings in Hamilton and in urbanizing areas around it. Hamilton is an NDP bastion, so let’s assume they grow that bastion by one, while the other seat goes to the Tories. The NDP could also pick up an extra seat in the Windsor area, where they are strong.

But the tri-city area of Guelph, Cambridge and Kitchener-Waterloo gets bluer with every election, and the Tories should be expected to pick up the extra seat that the technology triangle generates. The extra seat for London should also be blue.

Eastern Ontario is also growing, and apart from Kingston, the region is bedrock Tory. They should pocket the extra riding that gets created there, and another seat that will probably be carved out of suburban Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley.

That makes 12 new Conservative seats in Ontario, two new NDP and one new Liberal. Even if this estimation is out here and there, a bigger Ontario delegation to Ottawa means a bigger Conservative majority.

Alberta’s easy: two new seats for Calgary, two for Edmonton, one for the growing communities in between and one in the north, where the oil sands is swelling the population. All should be safely Tory. The question is whether NDP MP Linda Duncan will be able to hold on to her Edmonton riding after redistribution.

British Columbia is tougher to predict. Vancouver Island deserves a seat, and it could well go NDP. Vancouver and the Lower Mainland deserve four, and all three parties are competitive here. But the NDP and Conservative dominate the areas that are growing fastest. Let’s say two for the Tories and two for the Dippers. The Okanagan region also deserves a seat, which should go Tory.

Finally, Quebec earns three seats, which should be apportioned to large ridings in around Montreal, and perhaps to Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa. The NDP swept both regions in the last election, and for now let’s predict they repeat the feat.

Add it all up and the 30 new seats fall out like this: 21 gains for the Conservatives; eight for the NDP, one for the Liberals. For the Tories, sweet.

There are two caveats, both large: The NDP gains in Quebec are tentative. A Bloc or Liberal revival could put all those seats, including the new ones, in peril.

Equally important, many of the Tory seats in and outside Toronto are newly-won. If the Conservatives falter, the Liberals will be in the best position to win back many of those lost ridings.

But at this early date, a bigger House of Commons favours an even larger Conservative majority.

No wonder the Harper government was so determined to get the bill passed before Christmas.

Roll on 2015!

 

[Swingline1984]

Too early to judge if there will be any impact in the long term, but, NDP support in Quebec appears to be slacking off:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ndp-in-free-fall-in-quebec-poll-finds/article2271529/

 

[Journeyman]

Too early to judge if there will be any impact in the long term, but, NDP support in Quebec appears to be slacking off:

I suspect, given my belief that the average voter has the attention span of a gnat, that any recent change reflects media attention on the Bloc Québécois leadership race, rather than any serious thought on the matter by those surveyed.

 

[Edward Campbell]

More on the 'merger,' reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/talk-all-you-want-but-liberal-and-ndp-pieces-just-wont-fit/article2147672/

I think Ibbitson is right when he focuses on the political DNA. The old PCs and Reform/Alliance folks were, indeed, different breeds of the same species but the Liberals and NDP are completely different species: wolves and donkeys.

Coderre is impatient; he judges, I'm guessing, that it's his turn - now or never - but that the next leader of the Liberals will lead them to another defeat, as did Dion and Ignatieff, and that he will suffer the same fate as they did. But, I guess he guesses, a coalition might, just, succeed in 2015; I suspect he sees it as his only chance because Trudeau is gaining on him.

The NDP knives are out for all to see. It is Topp and the old Layton gang vs. Mulcaire and the new Québec team – which I beieve he has in his camp. I understand that Topp is on the left of the party – not as far left as e.g. Libbie Davies but far left of Mulcaire and some of the new Québec MPs.

My guess is that Mulcaire does not have much (any?) support outside of the Québec caucus but that no one other than Mulcaire has much support in that caucus. The result: stalemate and, eventually, a backroom deal that will please no one. That's one of the reasons why I am 99.99% certain that the NDP will drop from 50+ to 20- seats in Québec in 2015.

How is this for a prediction for 2015?

Conservatives – 163 seats
Liberals –            60 seats
NDP –                  60 seats
BQ (revived) –      20 seats
New QC Party –  20 seats
Greens –              5 seats

It's not even four months, but I'm updating my prediction based on:

1. A 338 seat House; and

2. My perception that the NDP will falter in Québec.

Here is my new guess, for fall 2015, at end of year 2011:

Conservatives:                177
Greens:                              3
Liberals:                            69
NDP:                                61
New QC Nationalist Party:  21
Others:                              7
TOTAL                            338

 

[a_majoor]

So you don't see the Bob Rae/Power Corp gang going for the brass ring of the Liberal Party? The infighting in the LPC will probably prevent them from running any sort of effecive campaign (they don't even have any sort of identifiable "theme" right now besides "We're not them"), and I totally agree that the NDP will probably implode as well.

I'm actually willing to suggest the CPC will probably manage to gain more seats in traditional Liberal and NDP ridings simply by running up the middle (the CPC candidae for London North Center did so; she had the same % of the vote as the previous CPC candidate, what changed was the NDP vote rose enough to "eat the LPC vote [which had been enough to get a slim win in 2006]). IF the two parties are still in disarray by then (and bitter leadership battles could ensure this) then the real danger to us is the CPC becomes complacent and lazy, with poor government as a result.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

So you don't see the Bob Rae/Power Corp gang going for the brass ring

Here I thought that I was the only one that rings that bell ;D

 

[a_majoor]

This suggests that the BQ or any other "Quebec Nationalist" party will be able to gain many seats in 2015:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/12/15/national-post-editorial-board-yesterdays-bloc-quebecois/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

National Post editorial board: Yesterday’s Bloc Québécois
National Post Editorial Board  Dec 15, 2011 – 4:42 PM ET

Marie-France Coallier/Postmedia News
Daniel Paille is congratulated by Gilles Duceppe after winning the BQ leadership.
   
To understand just how moribund the Bloc Québécois has become, study the results of its leadership race, which concluded on the weekend with the selection of Daniel Paillé, a former BQ MP from the Montreal riding of Hochelaga.

In May, the Bloc had 50,000 members. By voting day on Sunday, it had 36,000. That means that in just seven months, it has lost more than a quarter of its rank-and-file, the people who are the backbone of any election campaign — canvassing support, making calls, putting up lawn signs, arranging voters’ rides to the polls and so on.

On top of that, just 39% of Bloc members bothered to vote in the contest. Mr. Paille earned 7,868 votes. His chief rival, Maria Mourani (one of just four Bloc MPs to retain her seat in May’s federal election), received only 4,972.

For contrast’s sake, consider that the Alberta provincial Tories held a leadership race in September to replace outgoing leader and premier Ed Stelmach. In the first round of balloting in that race, nearly 60,000 members voted (a total that was considered low at the time because five years earlier, when Mr. Stelmach was selected to replace then-premier Ralph Klein, nearly 100,000 Tories had bought memberships and cast ballots).

The Bloc’s disastrous performance in the May election, in conjunction with the lack of interest in its leadership contest, supports the prevailing view that the separatist threat is withering. Just 300 members showed up in a Montreal hotel meeting room on Sunday to listen to the leadership vote results and hear Mr. Paillé’s speech. Only about 500 bothered tuning in to the web broadcast of the leadership debate. (It’s also notable that the Bloc’s provincial sister party, the Parti Québécois, is third in most polls, too.)

What can the federal government do to hasten the trend? The best policy is to simply ignore the separatists — and thereby reduce their ability to play the victim card.

In fact, the Tories’ move to end taxpayer subsidies to political parties already has hurt the Bloc more than any other party. Over the past five years, the BQ has relied on handouts from Canadian taxpayers for between 80% and 95% of its annual operating funds. Simply sticking with the promise to cut per-vote grants to the Bloc (and all the other parties) will slowly choke off the party’s air supply. That should relegate the party to obscurity, if not oblivion — even if the cause of separatism stumbles on.

National Post

 

[a_majoor]

Perhaps the only reason this may not come to pass is people have now gotten a chance to see the "real" NDP in action, not the sanitized "Jack Layton" facade:

http://phantomobserver.com/blog/?p=12140

Annus Impotenus Liberalis

When reviewing a past year, entities can have an annus mirabilius (or a miraculous year), or an annus horribilus (a rotten year, a phrase made famous by the Royal Family). For the Liberal Party of Canada, 2011 has shaped up to be an annus impotenus – a year that reveals the entity’s impotence.

It’s such a loaded word, isn’t it? Fraught with the flavour of helplessness, of despair at not being able to do what’s needed (or wanted) to be done, made all the more worse because it also carries the implication that said entity was once very powerful, and now is reduced to a shadow.

But impotence – or rather, the normal male reaction to its diagnosis and revelation – explains a great deal about the Liberal Party’s behaviour this past month. Why else would the forty-something Justin Trudeau explode with an uncharacteristic scatological insult, in the middle of Question Period? Why else would Irwin Cotler try to pursue other means of gaining redress, in the face of a Speaker’s ruling that agreed with him yet told him there was nothing more to be done? Why else would Bob Rae snap with such heat at the revelation of a spat between two members of the party’s younger generation? Why else would the party restrict access to its biennial convention for those always-unpredictable bloggers?

Impotence can lead to two types of behaviour: explosions of frustration in situations that the entity thinks it should have had the upper hand, yet doesn’t; and irrational attempts at overexerting control in situations where the entity believes it still ought to have some power. And the higher-ups in the Liberal hierarchy have shown both types.

What we have to appreciate is that the election of 2nd May dealt the Liberals a more severe blow than everyone initially thought. Third party status has meant, among other things, a severely reduced budget for the caucus, simply due to smaller numbers. That also means increased competition for getting the Liberal message out, as the NDP’s numbers justify increased press time. It’s only because Bob Rae can outperform Nicole Turmel that the Liberal polling numbers are doing as well as they are; you have to ask yourself, would they still be as good if Jack Layton were still around?

But the really big blow is that, for the first time, the Liberals are confronting the possibility that, yes, Canadian voters are prepared to entertain the vision of a nation, not only with the Liberals not in charge, but with the Liberals no longer on the scene at all. As articulated recently by Peter C. Newman, a Canada without the Liberal Party is not only thinkable, but perfectly feasible.

Can the Liberals cure their impotence in 2012? The best way to judge that is to wait and see the trendlines for their political contributions as published by Elections Canada; if the last quarter of 2012 records a significant drop, then the party is going to be in for a very bad twelve months. Count on it.

Possible and maybe even feasible, but the prospect of an NDP government should give everyone a cold chill (I lived through Bob Rae's stint as Premier of Ontario, so I have first hand knowledge of the catastrophy). The Liberals may have too much "baggage" to reboot (and certainly too many of the old timers are still belly up to the trough), but so long as Elizaberth May runs the show the Greens have no realistic prospects either.

Prediction: a crippled LPC lives on past 2015, but still fails to recapture the opposition given a strong NDP and resurgent Quebec nationalist party taking most of the vote, and enough "Green" voters to ensure vote splits everywhere else. CPC continues to dominate the political center, and small "C" conservative parties improve the ground game at the Provincial level, keeping the Liberal farm team out of power as well.

 

[Old Sweat]

In this column from the Globe and Mail Margaret Wente has some fun at the expense of the evil Harper crowd. It is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act.


Is Stephen Harper the Dear Leader in disguise?

Margaret Wente 

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011 2:00AM EST

Is there any difference between Stephen Harper and North Korea’s defunct Dear Leader? Maybe not as much as you might think. Many eminent Canadians are warning that Mr. Harper and his hard-right Conservatives are turning our beloved nation into a thuggish, dictatorial, one-party state.

In an exit interview the other night with As It Happens, outgoing Senator Tommy Banks (appointed by the Liberals, and best known as a jazz musician) declared that he is deeply alarmed about the country’s direction. He vowed to keep fighting as long as he has breath to set things right. Chronicler Peter C. Newman is similarly distressed. In his book When the Gods Changed, he argues not only that the Natural Governing Party is finished, but so too is the Canada he once knew and loved.

A lot of people in my postal code (adjacent to the University of Toronto) believe that our progressive paradise is lost. “The most remarkable feature of the first half year of Conservative majority rule is how quickly we have been herded toward a one-party system,” writes critic Michael Harris. Our international reputation is also on the skids. By abandoning Kyoto, Mr. Harper has turned us into a pariah state.

Contempt of Parliament. Authoritarian rule. Demagoguery, deceit and dirty tricks. Abuse of power, along with the growing stench of corruption, as the country hurtles down the wrong track. Why, it almost sounds like – the Chrétien government circa 2000!

If this indictment sounds familiar, it’s because the Conservatives made the same case against the Liberals when their positions were reversed. Majority governments in Canada have a lot of power, which is great if you’re on the winning side and awfully frustrating when you’re not. Their power is even greater when the opposition is hopelessly fragmented, essentially leaderless and out of new ideas. Today, the federal centre-left in Canada is furiously impotent – just as the centre-right was for most of a decade.

If you happen to identify with the out-group – as Mr. Banks and some of our leading public thinkers do – it’s a whole lot more satisfying to demonize the bad guys than try to unite the good guys. Perhaps that’s why so many of them insist that Mr. Harper is “dangerous,” or even “extremely dangerous.” This view was recently expressed by Stephen Clarkson, a prominent liberal academic, who warned that Canada is being crushed under the jackboots of the reigning proto-fascists. Mr. Harper, he wrote in the Literary Review of Canada, is “a dangerous figure” who “threatens the country’s constitutional heritage,” and “has rejected consensual centrism in favour of a program carefully conceived to overturn the social-market legacy he has inherited.”

If you are a faithful follower of the mainstream media, you will also know that Mr. Harper is guilty of valorizing the military, being indifferent to the plight of downtrodden aboriginals and clamping down (at vast expense) on imaginary crime. He has also created a quasi-totalitarian world called Harperland in which no dissent is tolerated.

But here’s the worst part. Canadians don’t care! In fact, they claim to be pretty happy with the way things are going. According to a new poll published in Maclean’s, 86 per cent of us believe Canada is the greatest country in the world. For some unfathomable reason, we are way more optimistic than either the British or the Americans. On top of that, the Harper government’s dangerous and misguided policies are overwhelmingly popular. According to a poll by Ipsos Reid, two-thirds of Canadians approve of its efforts to boost the military and fight crime. Sixty per cent of the public feel the government is enhancing Canada’s reputation in the world. And a whopping 80 per cent agree with its decision to ban the niqab at citizenship ceremonies – a move derided by much of the progressive left.

It doesn’t get worse than that.

To tell the truth, I don’t agree with all of Mr. Harper’s policies myself. (e.g., the niqab.) But it seems obvious to me that his government is far more in touch with mainstream Canadians than all those critics who accuse him of abandoning the mainstream. He’s worse than an extremist – he’s a populist. Or else he has duped and terrorized the masses so effectively that they are powerless to resist. Kind of like you-know-who.

 

[GAP]

But here’s the worst part. Canadians don’t care! In fact, they claim to be pretty happy with the way things are going. According to a new poll published in Maclean’s, 86 per cent of us believe Canada is the greatest country in the world. For some unfathomable reason, we are way more optimistic than either the British or the Americans. On top of that, the Harper government’s dangerous and misguided policies are overwhelmingly popular. According to a poll by Ipsos Reid, two-thirds of Canadians approve of its efforts to boost the military and fight crime. Sixty per cent of the public feel the government is enhancing Canada’s reputation in the world. And a whopping 80 per cent agree with its decision to ban the niqab at citizenship ceremonies – a move derided by much of the progressive left.

It doesn’t get worse than that.

To tell the truth, I don’t agree with all of Mr. Harper’s policies myself. (e.g., the niqab.) But it seems obvious to me that his government is far more in touch with mainstream Canadians than all those critics who accuse him of abandoning the mainstream. He’s worse than an extremist – he’s a populist.

It must be tough to make that agument and still try to stab him in the back.....poor Margaret..... :

 

[Old Sweat]

I probably should have typed the Harper is evil crowd, which is what I meant, instead of the evil Harper crowd,

 

[Infanteer]

What a great article.  It highlights 2 important realities about politics in Canada - namely that:

1.  The adversarial nature of Canada's parliamentary system produces an entire industry based around a class of political-whiners (ie: the losers) who we just have to put up with; and

2.  Most Canadians are happy if their routine of get up, have breakfast, drive the SUV to work, make a paycheck, get home, watch hockey, put the 1.5 kids to bed, watch the news, go to sleep, and repeat isn't messed with.  They are happy to ignore the political-whiners provided the government of the today produces results supporting said routine.

 

[Kirkhill]

I think the article points out the real problem that the "liberals" had and have.  They don't like the status quo.  They don't like who Canadians (Brits, Yanks, Aussies, Francais, Gerries, Greeks....) are and they feel the need to change us.

Unfortunately for them the feeling is reciprocated.  The majority of Canadians etc don't like those that constantly nag at them telling them how vile they are and how they must change.

The real mystery of the Liberal Party is how it managed to get elected for so long with so many anti-populists in their ranks.  Perhaps "money and influence" really did buy elections.

The biggest fear of the anti-populists may be that they will never again be able successfully to oppose the popular will and lead us to their desired change.

Ralph Klein, the populist's populist and bete-noire of the progressives, was in power from 1992 to 2006 - a total of 14 years.

I wonder if Harper can continue feeding the masses what they want (boring non-interference) for 14 years.  That would take him out to 2025 and a suitable retirement age of 66.

The Annex must be mortified.

 

[Old Sweat]

"Everybody look at me. I'm an activist!" The ex-senate page rides again, this time in this story from the Winnipeg Free Press reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.



Ex-Senate page who held up throne speech with 'Stop Harper' sign finds her voice

By: Diana Mehta, The Canadian Press

Posted: 12/23/2011 3:16 AM | Comments: 12 (including replies)


It was just a 20-second silent protest, but it helped her find her voice.

Ever since holding up a hand-painted red "Stop Harper" sign during the current Conservative government’s throne speech in June, former senate page Brigette DePape has thrown herself into grassroots activism and now spends her time expressing her dreams for her country.

"It’s been so inspiring to take part in collective action," DePape told The Canadian Press in an interview.

"I really think that it is through action that we can have hope and it's really only by taking action that we can start to imagine a better Canada."

The University of Ottawa graduate was catapulted into the national spotlight after she pulled her sign out from beneath her skirt and held it up in the middle of the Senate Chamber to an astonished audience before being escorted out.

Her actions prompted an array of responses from across the country, and made more people tune into highlights of the throne speech than in previous years, but the aftermath of the stunt wasn’t easy for the 22-year-old.

She recalls being referred to as a schoolgirl while being escorted out of the Senate while others yelled out “Shame” as she walked by. Later, she dealt with belittling comments from some quarters as news of her actions spread.

"At first it was difficult because there were many Conservative groups and people who were very critical of the action,” she said. “There's a real effort to demonize those who are challenging power in different ways.”

But DePape thinks her bold moves have paid off.

She hopes she’s jolted older Canadians into realizing that all of the country’s youth aren’t apathetic and that their concerns deserve a national stage.

“People have come up to me in the streets to give me a high five or a hug. I think it just shows the excitement for taking action and the real hunger for change.”

While her time in the spotlight was brief, DePape hopes her actions helped unify resistance among those who aren’t happy with the way the current federal Conservatives are running the country.

“There seems to be this recognition that the regular institutional means for making change simply are not working for us,” she said. “The support for the action really showed that people are understanding the importance of taking direct action.”

DePape’s primary cause at the moment is “climate justice.” The issue is so important to her that she joined The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and travelled with the group to observe international climate talks taking in place in South Africa this month.

“We’re working to organize against Harper’s climate crimes,” she said from Durban.

“The message that we are trying to get across is that our government is working on behalf of corporate polluters rather than working for us."

Besides pushing for a drastic improvement of Canada’s environmental record, DePape is also penning columns for British Columbia-based news magazine The Tyee in which she writes on “direct action movements” she’s experiencing.

In the future, she hopes to continue working on climate justice issues with other young adults "to really hold the government to account."

"It's not just politicians whose voices should be heard," she said. "Everyone's voice matters."

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I doubt she's living off the kindness of strangers or some inheritence.

Expect to hear from this one for years to come. This isn't a cause for her anymore, it's become her job.

She's likely pulling down, at minimum, a middle\ high upper class wage created by donations and stipends from various rights\ world peace\ enviromental organisations, et al.

It wouldn't suprise me to see grants from the Liberal or NDP party in there either.

 

[a_majoor]

How come all *our* jobs involve creating or protecting wealth....[/sarcasm]

 

[a_majoor]

Another plan for "strategic voting" by a would be NDP leader, and a pretty detailed (if very long) critique:

http://www.punditsguide.ca/2011/12/pros-and-cons-of-the-cullen-plan-a-sceptics-guide-to-electoral-coalitions-in-canada/

Summing up in the comments:

[quoote]
The idea of “strategic voting” is a pipedream. A great many NDP supporters said they would vote Liberal last time – as they always do – and lied. They didn’t. Furthermore, there is a great deal more that separates most Liberals and Dippers that people care to admit. I for one would never vote NDP, but would vote Conservative under certain circumstances. A great many Liberals are like me.
[/quote]

 

[a_majoor]

The shift that the CPC government is creating is truly amazing, especially considering it is coming along with the sort of grace and majesty of continental drift. Rather than loud, flashy, expensive and ultimately symbolic rather than effective initiatives, the CPC is changing the political landscape in more subtle ways. Kirkhill's observations about the difference between "leadership" and "management" in terms of how people are governed seem to be apot on here:

http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Harper+takes+government+Canadians+lives/5917386/story.html

Harper takes government out of Canadians' lives

By Barry Cooper, For the Calgary Herald December 28, 2011

This year, Stephen Harper took Canadian politics in a new direction. Liberals and lefty intellectuals are alarmed, but Canadians seem to be pleased. To see the significance of what the prime minister has achieved since he gained his majority in May, a little context is needed.

Before 1982 and the advent of the Charter, domestic politics was mostly about federalism and the division of responsibility between Ottawa and the provinces. Since then, the growth of what my first political science professor, Alan Cairns, called the "embedded state" has changed things enormously. His term referred to the ability of federal and provincial officials to act on behalf of citizens. Ottawa was there to help, which meant to relieve citizens of their responsibilities and render them dependent on government.

Even before 1982, Ottawa had been spending money in areas of provincial jurisdiction and justifying its activity on the basis of the spending power. This power is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. It rests on legal sophistry first advanced by Frank Scott of McGill University that the federal government is a legal person called "the Crown in right of Canada" who can make gifts to citizens or to the provinces, with or without attached strings.

The practical outcome of the embedded state and the use of the spending power was called executive federalism. It was institutionalized in first ministers' conferences that brought together elected political executives, but also on occasion lobby groups such as the Assembly of First Nations. There was seldom any input from either citizens or regular legislators. The chief consequence was that the lines of federal and provincial jurisdiction and responsibility were blurred beyond discernment. Occasionally, as with such egregiously ill-considered proposals as the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, there was sufficient opposition from legislators and citizens to check the executive.

Here is a statistic: both Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney on average held well over one such meeting a year. Stephen Harper has called one meeting in five years.

Harper has made it clear on several occasions that individuals, not governments, are chiefly responsible for how we lead our lives. From child-care policy, property rights for status Indians or ending taxpayer support for political parties, the Harper government has pursued a strategic objective to dis-embed the federal state from the lives of citizens. This is why the Canadian Wheat Board is going the way of the long-gun registry.

Less remarked upon is the effort of the government to dismantle executive federalism. In the closing weeks of 2011, two events helped push the country in the direction of what might be called classical federalism, the federalism described in sections 91 and 92 of the old British North America Act, now called the Constitution Act (1867).

First was the Dec. 19 announcement by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to the provincial and territorial ministers that health-care transfers would level off over the next few years. This was a unilateral and final decision. More important, Flaherty said there would be no restrictions on how the provinces spent the money. Health-care delivery was a provincial responsibility, period. So ended half a century of coercion by Ottawa in the name of spurious national standards.

Then came the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the securities act reference.

The court's reasoning was anticipated by University of Toronto law professor Jeffrey MacIntosh in a series of articles last summer and fall in the Financial Post. The Achilles heel of the federal position was that Ottawa maintained that "systemic risk" to capital markets required a national regulator, but provincial membership was voluntary. Not only were the two arguments contradictory, but the first was mere conjecture without evidentiary support, a polite way of saying it was bogus.

The proposed act did not address systemic risk anyhow, but simply duplicated provincial regulations. If Ottawa could supplant provincial jurisdiction in this way, kiss goodbye to federalism.

Which raises an interesting question: Was Stephen Harper subtle enough to choreograph a tactical defeat in the Supreme Court in pursuit of a strategic victory for classical federalism? Let's hope so.

Barry Cooper is a political science professor at the University of Calgary. His column appears every second Wednesday.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Harper+takes+government+Canadians+lives/5917386/story.html#ixzz1hrYTI02j

 

[a_majoor]

In this case, the blog post is much more informative than the initial piece which prompted it. More on what ails the LPC (and why we should probably not expect too much in 2015).

http://stevejanke.com/archives/325266.php

Another gutless Liberal whines
Monday, January 02, 2012 at 07:56 PM
Comments: 4

For a entrepreneur, Daniel Veniez is a singularly gutless individual.  He has written an extensive piece on what is ailing the Liberal Party.  Now you'd expect this former CEO, this former policy advisor, this former Crown corporation chairman, to call it like it is.

What we get instead is the tentative whining of a gutless Liberal.

At first blush, Veniez seems to be hitting hard:

The party is an even looser confederation than Confederation itself. In fact, it is a dysfunctional mess. Reporting lines go to multiple places, management accountability is entirely absent, and funds are allocated inefficiently. Everyone wants to be a big fish in a shrinking pond. Provincial offices have their own staff that report to provincial executives, who in turn want to protect their own turf. In any rational management structure provincial offices should report directly to the executive director at national headquarters.

An inordinate number of "commissions" serve no useful purpose other than being permanent fiefdoms and a power base for a few skilled operators. These lead to exclusion and a clique mentality. There's a "commission" for everything. If you're young, you've got one. If you're old, you've got one. A woman? No problem, there's one for you. Of course, where would Liberals be without an "Aboriginal" commission? Not to worry, we've got one of those, too.

At the national level there are "vice presidents" that represent you if you are English, French, and virtually everything else. I'm beginning to feel excluded because there isn't a vice-president for white middle-aged men with black hair. You get the picture. There are provincial and territorial associations with their own presidents, executives, staffs, constitutions, and way too many sacred cows.

Pretty harsh stuff, right?

Wrong.

There is a glaring omission of the sort that reveals the fundamental cowardice that bedevils all Liberals.

Where are the names?

Daniel Veniez lists every Liberal Party commission, but not by name.  Here are the names: the National Women's Liberal Commission, the Young Liberals of Canada, the Aboriginal Peoples' Commission, and the Senior Liberals Commission.

Was that so hard?

Veniez writes:

And what would I do with all those commissions and fancy officer titles that mean nothing and do even less? They would be toast -- every last one of them.

Why can't he bring himself to write this instead?

The National Women's Liberal Commission would be toast.  The Young Liberals of Canada means nothing and does less.  The Aboriginal Peoples' Commission?  Gone.  The Senior Liberals Commission?  Gone.

Now that would take some guts.

Here's another example:

An inordinate number of "commissions" serve no useful purpose other than being permanent fiefdoms and a power base for a few skilled operators.But changing it will be hard, because what people ultimately care about is themselves and their own space, not the health and vitality of the party as a whole.

Few skilled operators?  That's a bit vague.  How about being specific?

How about saying that Tanya Kappo, the president of the Aboriginal Peoples' Commission, cares only about herself, as do the other nearly dozen Presidents and Vice-Presidents of that Commission?

Why can't Veniez take the step of accusing Nicole Foster Woollatt, Sharon Davis, Alexandra Knight, and the rest of the Women's Commission cabal of being a drain on the vitality of the Liberal Party?

Is Veniez worried that Samuel Lavioe, president of the Youth Liberals of Canada, will burst into tears if Veniez actually names Lavioe as being complicit in creating a "fat, lazy, complacent, and obsolete" Liberal Party?

Why won't Veniez lay part of the blame for the current state of the Liberal Party at the feet of Senior Liberals Commission presidents Austin Bowman (English) and Marie Reine-Paradis (French)?  Logic dictates they've been around longer and therefore have earned a larger share of the blame.

But Veniez makes vague references to petty fiefdoms and egocentric party apparatchiks, but won't take the lead of pointing fingers and naming names, and demanding that these individuals defend themselves against his accusations.

As long as the Liberal Party is being diagnosed by the likes of Daniel Veniez, these party "big fish" won't have anything to worry about.

 

[Edward Campbell]

What I'm seeing is that Steven Janke, a well known Conservative (big C and small c) blogger, is the one doing the whining ... OK so Veniez didn't single out people and organizations by specific names, he still laid out some pretty damning evidence of the Liberal's structural incoherence. Janke's comment, while "fair," adds nothing to any debate - it's just whining and piling on.