So much to do, so little time...

It's been a while since my last post.


As those of you who are more familiar with my blogging know, I am just getting my legal career off the ground right now, which makes it pretty hard to blog, but I haven't given up and don't plan on doing so anytime soon!


Unfortunately, my latest busy streak at work has come at a rather inopportune time, since things have been really hot in Ottawa lately!


I watched with great interest as Prime Minister Harper steered himself into the political crisis! I have to say that the most interesting part was watching each side try to justify itself. All sides seem pretty unanimous that the economic update didn't really seek to do much for Canadians, and in fact Harper's stance all throughout the elections was pretty much to stand around and wait for things to come crashing down around his ankles. Just the same, I'm pretty convinced that this had a lot more to do with Harper's attempt to cut off public funding of the parties than anything else.

The fact is that the public simply won't get behind the parties for fighting to save their own asses, but fighting to make sure the government protects Canadians during an economic crisis is a little more palatable to the public.

To be honest, I can't say that I blame the opposition parties for wanting to protect their public funding. As soon as the elections ended, the PM promised he would try to work with the other parties, and then immediately set about adopting measures that would bankrupt them! Our country has no one to blame for this political crisis, but the PM himself.

I can respect the PM for trying to get politicians to make cutbacks during these lean times, but if he really wanted to get the opposition parties to start surviving off of their grass roots donors, he could have chosen a more reasonable approach. At the very least, the government should have pledged to gradually phase out public funding by reducing it gradually over the years.

Sadly, by making a blatant attempt to cripple the opposition, the Tories proved that they simply couldn't be trusted, and the opposition parties had no choice but to take them down while they still can.

I was rather hoping that the Governor General would refuse to prorogue Parliament, but I can't say that I blame her for agreeing. I believe that even though Parliament had not had its chance to express it's lack of confidence in the Conservatives through a vote, it was still pretty clear that the PM was trying to avoid such a vote. Just the same, she is an unelected figurehead who has to be very careful about the APPEARANCE of illegitimacy. Let us not forget that she was named to her position by a Liberal PM, which may have prompted some to criticize her for being partisan. At least by granting the PM's request, she has given Canada's elected officials the time to work something out between themselves. I still disagree with her decision, but at least I can respect it.

It's a shame about Dion. I'll miss him as a leader, but at least the Liberal party will have some stability now that Ignatieff is both our interim and de facto new leader. I like Ignatieff, and I have to admit that we are already getting better press coverage with him as our leader. He deffinitely has no shortage of charisma. I look forward to him becoming PM!

Looking on the bright side

Now that some of the dust has settled from the elections, I thought I'd take a minute to evaluate things.

Before I go any further, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. We Liberals lost these elections big time. It is our worse showing since Confederation. I am a strong believer that it never pays to quit when the going gets tough, but it is also equally important not to dillute one's self about the gravity of the situation.

Having said that, even though I have long since completed my studies at Ottawa U's History program, I remain a perpetual student of history, and I am particularly well acquainted with military history. As I examine the makeup of Canada's latest Parliament, I am reminded of the situation of the American Navy immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor. History is cruel and ironic and Pearl Harbor was no exception. The irony of the situation was that even though the aerial attack had left most of the American fleet under water, with few casualties for the Imperial fleet, the venture had also been a disaster for the Japanese.

As fate would have it (some conspiracy minded historians have argued that fate had nothing to do with it), both of the American Aircraft Carriers were away from Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. Far more valuable in modern warfare than the battleships that were sunk in Pearl Harbor, the Carriers led the Americans to the victory at Midway, which turned the tide of the Pacific War against the Empire of the Sun. The Japanese also missed several important submarines and an oil refinery at Pearl Harbor.

The paralel here is that like Admiral Yamamoto, Prime Minister Harper has failed to strike the killing blow that he needed to survive. For the third consecutive election, Mr. Harper has failed to win a majority government. He has come close, but his chances of going any further are limited at best.

If you add up the votes collected by each of the Liberals, NDP, BQ, and Green, you get 61% of Canadians who did not vote for the Prime Minister. Now this worked fine politically for Jean Chrétien, because he was a centrist who could win votes on either side of the political spectrum. Harper can only attract the right. Since the Liberals swung pretty hard to the left under Dion's leadership, there isn't much room for the PM to grow. If his party lets him have another election (and I suspect they will), it will be his last chance to win a majority.

Not quite convinced? Think of it this way: 61% of Canadian voters want the government to live up to its Kyoto obligations. 61% of Canadian voters want a socially minded government. Stephen Harper can't offer this.

Rumour has it that Stéphane Dion is set to resign as leader of the Liberal Party tomorrow afternoon. If that's his decision then so be it, but I remain more convinced than ever that it's the biggest favour he could possibly do for the Conservative Party at this juncture. The last thing we need right now is to go through another divisive and costly leadership debate. Even if we don't tear each other apart, the PM will just call a snap election before the new leader has even had a chance to move into his new office.

Prime Minister Harper called this election when he did because he knew that rough months were ahead. I can't say that I blame him for that. It is a trick used by Canadian politicians from all parties for a long time, but he was the one who introduced the fixed election date legislation under the guise that it was supposed to stabilize things. The least he could have done was engineer his own defeat on a confidence motion and at least show some respect for one of his own laws! (but I'm getting off track).

The Cadman affair, Schreibergate, and the Election Spending scandal are all issues that could blow up in the Prime Minister's face this fall. If anything is uncovered that could render it impossible for the House to have confidence in the government, then they should be removed from office. Unfortunately, it appears that the Liberal caucus will be too divided and unprepared to fight an election. My hat is off to the PM for some shrewd political movement, but if Dion is willing to tough it out and fight, the Conservatives could be in for a nasty surprise.

I've heard a lot of talk about what a catastrophe these elections were for the Liberals. As I said before, there is no escaping the fact that we came out the losers in this election, but it was no catastrophe. As Rocky Balboa would say "it's not how hard you hit that counts, but how hard you can get hit and still keep getting up". We should consider ourselves lucky that we did not get the same treatment Kim Campbell received in 1993, when she went into an election with a majority government and favourable polls, only to have her party blown clear out of existence. That is a catastrophe. We should not throw in the towel and sacrifice a good leader because of one loss. This is not the time to be fighting amongst ourselves. Canadians have elected Stéphane Dion to be their leader of the Official Opposition, a vital and important role in Canadian democracy. Our party owes it to Canadians to fulfill this role to the best of our ability, rather than to spend our time squabbling amongst ourselves.

Leadership debates

Well, I can't say that last night's debate was as much of a victory for the Liberals as it was during the French debates, but I still think Dion held his ground pretty well.

Duceppe was the most dangerous one out there as he usually is in the English debates, because of course he has little to lose. It was fun to watch him answer the question about the first thing he would do if he was elected Prime Minister.

Layton was pretty solid, but he brought the debate down on the intellectual levels every now and then by making personal attacks against Harper and his "sweater vest" (in fairness to Mr. Layton, some of them were funny).

Elizabeth May was marvelous! I can't say that I agreed with everything that she said, but I thought she did a good job of casting off the "left wing nut job" label. With a little luck, her party may actually pick up a seat or two! Unfortunately, Mrs. May is doomed to have her ass handed to her by Peter McKay, but I would be among the first to jump for joy if she managed to pull off a miracle and defeat him!

The PM did a much better job of defending himself last night than he did during the French debates, but usually the best he could do was attempt to make the Liberal plan look bad. In fairness, I have always believed that the best defence is a good offence, but in politics a good offence means having a something to propose (at least in my opinion). Prime Minister Harper had no such plan. At the best of times he relied on his record during office, and the rest of the time he was content to just make misleading attacks against Dion's plan.

In my view, at least Dion had something to offer Canadians, whereas Harper had little more than "more of the same".

Le débat des chefs

C'est pas mal optimiste de ma part, mais je crois que Stéphane Dion vient de faire un gros coup hier soir lors du débat des chefs!

À mon avis, Dion était de loin le meilleur de tous les chefs. En observant les débats il était clair que seul les Libéraux ont une vision pour amener notre pays dans la bonne direction.

La première question par un membre du public a été posée sur l'économie, et seulement le Premier Ministre Stephen Harper et Stéphane Dion ont fournit des vraies réponses. Ce premier disait en effet que tout allait bien au Canada et qu'il n'y avait pas de besoin pour prendre des mesures proactives. Tout comme son idole George Bush, il préfère la stratégie "laissez faire". Stéphane Dion a répondu en donnant un plan aussi détaillé que possible dans le temps alloué sur la stratégie libéral.

Les autres parties de l'opposition ont quand même fait des bons coups, tel que Gilles Duceppe qui a réussi à faire connaître le bon record de sa partie face à l'environnement. Jack Layton en a fait des bons arguments concernant le crime et les jeunes contrevenants. Élizabeth May a bien fait en répondant à toutes les questions qu'on lui posait sans donner l'impression que sa partie n'est bonne que sur les questions de l'environnement.

Il faut quand même que j'avoue d'avoir remarqué qu'il y avait une certaine inégalité entre les deux parties principales hier soir. C'était clair que les parties de l'opposition s'entendaient pas mal entre eux. Ils attaquaient le Premier ministre sans pitié, et ce dernier avait beaucoup de difficulté à se défendre contre les quatre autres chefs.

Ce qui m'a surprit le plus, c'est que Duceppe est même venu à la quasi-défense de Dion lorsque Harper a attaqué le record libéral sur l'environnement. Selon Duceppe, pour Harper, les quelques efforts qui ont été rendus par les Libéraux de Jean Chrétien et Paul Martin ont été trop, et maintenant le PM leurs accusent de ne pas avoir fait assez. J'en croyais pas mes oreilles ni mes yeux! Mais il paraît que même les autres parties ont embarqué sur le mouvement ABC de Danny Williams("Anybody but Conservative").

Je sais très bien que les débats ont rarement un impact sur le résultat des élections et donc je refuse d'espérer pour des grands résultats, mais je suis prêt à souhaiter que ceci puisse remettre le vent en faveur des Libéraux.

Pour moi j'étais pas mal convaincu d'avance que Dion allait gagner les débats en français, car il est de loin plus intelligent que le Premier Ministre. Le vrai défi pour Monsieur Dion aura lieu lors des débats en anglais. Si Dion est capable de tenir tête contre Harper et les autres chefs, il pourrait réussir à vraiment changer la dynamique de cette campagne électorale.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Liberals

I've been meaning to post about Stéphane Dion's ambitious new plan to fight climate change for about a week now, but I've been busy with the bar course and preparing a move to my new apartment, so life just keeps getting in the way!

Anyways, I've got to say that at least on paper, The Green Shift looks good so far. The gist of the Liberal plan is basically to introduce a carbon tax that will encourage private companies to cut their production of CO2 in order to save costs. It also includes a tariff on goods being imported from other countries that do not have a similar program, in order to encourage other countries to do their part for the environment, and also to ensure that Canadian goods remain competitive.

Inevitably, the implementation of such additional taxes on their own would basically amount to less money in all of our pockets and frankly, now that I'm no-longer in university and will soon be paying taxes, paying more taxes is not a good thing! Fortunately, the plan also includes a 10% tax cut, for the lowest income tax bracket (such as yours truly!), and a 3.8% tax cut for the middle class tax bracket. It also includes replacing the current $1000 emloyment credit with "a $1850 refundable refundable employment credit targeted at those Canadians who earn less than $50,000 per year". According to the plan, this will put up to $250 back in my pocket. The plan also contains additional goodies for Canadians living in rural and northern areas.

All in all, it's a pretty impressive plan. The problem? Frankly, the Leader of the Official Opposition is going to have a hard time selling this plan to Canadians. It's not that Canadians don't care about the environment, or that they run and hide everytime they hear the word "tax", as the Prime Minister would have us believe. The problem is that people have heard this before. Jean Chrétien's failure to get rid of the GST is still very fresh in the minds of Canadians, and even though Prime Minister Harper has done an about face on many of the positions he took as Leader of the Official Opposition and during the last election, he did make good on his promise to reduce the GST.

There's also the fact that Dion himself once opposed the introduction of a carbon tax. He said he would never introduce one, and that it was "bad policy". To be fair, if memory serves me, he was being questioned about a bare bones carbon tax on its own, and there was no discussion of offsetting the carbon tax with major income tax cuts. But still, most people aren't aware of these little details and the Tories can be counted upon to use their sound bites to chip away at Dion's credibility. I can't really say that I blame them.

There is some hope though. Here in Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty took a lot of heat for introducing a health tax, after promising that he would not raise taxes. McGuinty was able to defend himself with an independent auditor's report which found that the previous Conservative government had mistakenly calculated that it was running a surplus and that the province was in fact running a deficit. That, combined with some huge Tory blunders led to the Conservative defeat last fall.

Simply put, it's all a question of marketing. Dion is going to have to persuade Canadians that this is a good plan, that their taxes won't be affected, and most importantly, why he has changed his position. It is a tall task to be sure, but he has all summer to give it his all.