Still no ideas from Belinda, while Brison cribs from Clement

It is one year to the day since the sleek HMS Stronach made her maiden crossing in the House of Commons, finding a comfortable berth alongside the Martin JuggerNot. How were these unsinkables to know that a paunchy iceberg by the name of Stephen Harper lay just a few knots ahead?

Enough bad metaphors. It has also been nearly six weeks since Stronach announced she would not be seeking the Liberal leadership, offering the risible rationales that (a) the riding-weighted selection process was unfair, and (b) she could only speak her mind on policy and party renewal as a backbencher, not a leadership candidate:

Stronach also told CTV that she was interested in, "pushing the envelope for ideas that will bring about greater renewal of the party."

The MP for Newmarket-Aurora told reporters that she could have launched a strong bid for the leadership, but she is more interested in being "free to express my views."

"I think I'm less restricted as a member of Parliament to speak about renewal from the grassroots up," she said.
--CTV.ca, April 6, 2006

Well, perhaps it’s not fair to hold Stronach accountable after only six weeks. But look over here! Another erstwhile Conservative, Scott Brison, has come forward with a new idea! Well, sort of new: no one’s proposed it for at least two years.

Today, openly gay and really openly bilingual Liberal MP Scott Brison unveiled the first whiz-bang idea of the Liberal leadership. Yes, the man whose last leadership campaign (for the PCs in 2003) featured a light bulb as its logo, is hoping to capture the imagination of Liberals and soon-to-be Liberals with an idea last seen in Tony Clement’s bids for the Ontario PC leadership in 2002, and for the Conservative leadership in 2004:

The first $25,000 in annual earnings by young adults would be made tax free under a proposal floated today by Liberal leadership candidate Scott Brison.

The tax break would apply to a person's first 12 years of full-time work, thus helping young Canadians pay off student loans and start families, Brison told a Bay Street lunch crowd of 1,000 people at the National Club.
--www.TheStar.com (sorry no link, the Star's links never seem to translate into my blog)

When then-Ontario health minister Tony Clement ran on the idea in 2002, it was called JumpStart 250 – 250 referring to the notion that the first $250,000 in income earned by 18-year-olds would be tax-free. He resurrected the idea in his bid to lead the new Conservative party in 2004.

As someone once said, a week is a lifetime in politics. And a year? Consider that a year ago, Stronach and Brison were considered two of the brightest lights in Ottawa and two huge losses for the Conservatives – losses for which Harper was blamed. Brison was offering spirited defences of the sponsorship scandal in Question Period.

Now Stronach is squinting into the fluorescent lighting cast on those whose achievements never matched their hype (though the Star's political blog reports that she has been named head of the Liberal women's caucus). Brison is stealing ideas from Tony Clement, and both are struggling to master French.

But, as we should all remind ourselves, Stronach and Brison have not been the first to undergo reversals of political fortune. They will surely not be the last.

Harper is playing chess while the opposition plays checkers

That's the conclusion I draw when I see that the Prime Minister has quickly dropped his plans for a new commission to oversee all public appointments, mere hours after the government operations committee rejected his nominee to head the commission.

Rookie NDP MP (and former Buzz Hargrove grenade-catcher) Peggy Nash offered the rationale that former EnCana Corp head Gwyn Morgan’s previous comments on multiculturalism and the roots of gang violence rendered him unsuitable for the role. From the Canadian Press story:

"(The) opposition this morning voted down the government's key efforts to clean up the appointments process," said Harper spokeswoman Carolyn Stewart Olsen.

"It is now clear that we will not be able to make progress on this issue in a minority Parliament.

"The NDP and the Bloc will have to explain why they co-operated with a party that doesn't want to clean up the government appointments process to snub one of Canada's most respected business leaders."

Olsen said the government will campaign again on accountability in the next election and try to set up the appointments committee in its next mandate.

She added that Harper will invite Morgan soon to serve the country in another role.

"Recent riots in France and Australia are timely and troubling examples," [Morgan] said [in a February speech]. "It seems as if `multiculturalism' in these countries has created `subcultures' bearing little relation to the mainstream culture and values of the country."

Last year, Morgan linked Canada's gang-violence problem to immigration from places such as Jamaica and Indochina — "where culture is dominated by violence and lawlessness."

The government was obviously ready and waiting for the opposition's short-sighted tactic. And the NDP have just handed the Harper government the first plank in its next election platform.

Will Nash learn from her mistake? Too early to tell. Did her former boss Buzz Hargrove ever learn from his?

Addendum: I was remiss in not mentioning the other recent case of chess-playing by the Harper regime: calling for a snap debate and vote on extending the Afghanistan deployment past February 2007.

Yes, there is a sound logistical argument for having a vote now: it is impractical to wait until the fall or winter for the forces to learn whether that mission will be continuing or not. But there are also good political reasons for doing it now.

First, having the vote now means the issue will have been decided at least at year (we hope) in advance of the election. Second, it catches the Liberals leaderless and in the midst of a leadership contest in which several candidates have already been unable to resist backing away from the Martin government’s decision to commit to a more aggressive and dangerous mission in Afghanistan. (For the Liberals who are despairing over what to do tonight, here’s a wacky idea: how about a free vote?)

It is less than a year since a Liberal government made the decision to commit to the current mission in Afghanistan. Now we have several of their MPs and leadership candidates publicly questioning a deployment they voted for mere months ago.

If the vote fails and the mission has to end in 2007, it will be clear that it was because of lack of support from the Liberals and NDP – not the Conservatives.

Pre-election periods – and this one began on January 24th – are all about defining who you are. When a party has taken two or more different stands on an overseas deployment within a 12-month period, the public is wont to say “I don’t know where these people stand or who they are.” But they’ll know who the Conservatives are: the party that supported the troops, supported the mission, and held a vote in Parliament – like they promised.

Is “Draft Belinda” censoring comments?

Demonstrating the same brand of message discipline that has gotten Belinda Stronach through a leadership campaign, two elections, a floor-crossing and an aborted leadership bid (by the way, we're still waiting for those bold ideas that Stronach said she could only put forth from the sidelines), the "Draft Belinda" blog appears to have a general ban on any comment that falls outside the realm of Belinda worship.

Yesterday I couldn’t resist posting a comment along these lines on the blog, set up by someone calling himself “Jon”:

“Jon, get back to the Magna assembly line!”

And I posted under under my own blogger identity. So far, however, the comment has not appeared, though comments made after that point in time have – all throwing bouquets of encouragement to Stronach, some anonymously. (Now why would anyone not want the world to know that they're someone who thinks Stronach would make a great PM? Oh, yeah.)

I noticed that at Canadian Jedi, several commenters mentioned they had also posted comments at Draft Belinda. Theirs have not been published either.

Paul Martin’s forgotten foray into Ontario politics

Such a fuss – especially at the Toronto Star – over Stephen Harper’s perceived failure to show sufficient deference to Premier Pinocchio (or, as my former boss used to call him, “s***head”). And the nerve of Harper – appearing at the Ontario PCs’ major fundraising dinner to endorse John Tory!

The opposition and some media outlets are playing along, forgetting that McGuinty has no lessons in courtesy to teach anyone, having himself walked out of a recent premiers’ meeting a day early.

Liberal leadership candidates – glad for the opportunity to talk about something other than their party’s record and the Conservatives’ lead in Quebec – are happily piling on. When I hear erstwhile New Democrat Bob Rae – the highlight of whose political career was moving the non-confidence motions that brought down the Clark and Miller governments – accuse Harper of “injecting a totally partisan approach to the entire enterprise of being prime minister” . . . Well, I don’t whether to laugh or cry.

Anyhow, as is often the case, the current brouhaha is in dire need of some context, other than reporters’ top-of-head claims that Harper’s conduct is unprecedented. While the details may be, the substance is not.

Andrew Spencer of Calgary helpfully supplied some context in a letter published in the Star yesterday, noting that “On Jan. 18, going into the final days before the election, Dalton McGuinty told reporters: “I continue to believe that Prime Minister Paul Martin is the best choice for the people of Ontario." He also actively campaigned for his brother, David McGuinty, a Liberal candidate for the federal riding of Ottawa South.”

Here’s another example. In September of 2003, Liberal backbencher Paul Martin was the Prime Minister in waiting, his elevation to leader of the Liberal party the following November a mere formality.

With no portfolio and no leadership foes left to crush, Martin was free to insert himself in the Ontario election Premier Ernie Eves had called for October 2, 2003. He did so by making a highly publicized visit to the riding of St. Paul’s to endorse Liberal MPP Michael Bryant. I don’t have access to any databases at the moment to confirm the details, but I recall Martin endorsing Bryant with the phrase “this is my team” (meaning all Liberals and therefore the Ontario Liberals).

Eves was a sitting premier, and Martin was, for all intents and purposes, a prime minister elect. Yet Martin’s campaigning, as I recall, did not inspire any public whinging from Eves, even though as finance ministers, Martin and Eves had enjoyed a cordial relationship. And Bryant had defeated Eves’ “life partner” – former Harris cabinet minister Isabel Bassett – in St. Paul’s in the 1999 general election.

McGuinty’s rent control: a $1 M house for under $1,500 a month

Shortly after the McGuinty government’s election in October 2003, the Toronto Star reported that “Dalton McGuinty has embarked on the ultimate urban challenge: finding an affordable house in downtown Toronto.”

In January, 2004, some vague details about the house – purchased by the Ontario Liberal party for McGuinty – were released to the Star’s Ian Urquhart:

The party bought a house for McGuinty in the tony Yonge-Summerhill area of mid-town Toronto. The price was in the high six figures.

That's beyond McGuinty's price range, even with his salary of $152,835 a year.

So McGuinty will rent the house from the party for an amount equivalent to the housing allowance for out-of-town MPPs, or about $1,460 a month - well below the market rate for the area.
--Toronto Star, January 31, 2004

The article also noted that “It is not unusual for political parties in Ontario to subsidize housing costs for their leaders. When Mike Harris was Conservative leader his party helped defray the cost of his $4,000-a-month waterfront condo.” An article in the Ottawa Citizen earlier that month reported that the PC party was paying $7,000 monthly to rent a house for former premier Ernie Eves, in the Cedarvale area of Toronto.

Two years later, the actual price the Liberal party paid for the house and mortgage details have not, to my knowledge, been publicly revealed. Hence, the public has no idea how much housing subsidy McGuinty is receiving from the party.

Below are the deed, mortgage and assessment documents for the house. I have whited out any information that might identify the property address. (I apologize for the poor resolution -- I was trying to keep the files to a manageable size.)

The purchase price was $995,000. Scotiabank’s commercial banking group has a $1,000,000 mortgage on the property.

As the Star reported, McGuinty is paying only $1,460 monthly to occupy the house, far less than its carrying costs.

To give you an idea of the costs, a $1-million dollar mortgage at 5% with a 25-year amortization period would require a monthly payment of $5,845.90.

The 2006 assessment for the house is $1,050.000. At this year’s mill rate, plus the 3% increase approved by council, that means an annual tax bill of $9,806.42.

Add in $300 a month for utilities and insurance (a modest estimate) and you get monthly costs of $6,963.10 (this does not include maintenance or repairs).

Minus McGuinty’s monthly contribution of $1,460, that’s $5,503.10 every month out of party coffers.

Deed, mortgage and property assessment documents for the house purchased for McGuinty by the Ontario Liberal Party

Joan's note: Again, sorry for the resolution.

Conservatives continue to rake it in

Seemingly lost in all the Budget news yesterday was the release of the political parties’ first quarter financial returns by Elections Canada.

Through the first three months of 2006, the Conservative party continued to lead in fundraising, raking in $5,371,354 in donations from 37,391 donors. Average donation: $143.65.

This was four times what the Liberals raised. The Martin JuggerNot took in just $1,328,515.12 from 6,493 donors, for an average donation of $204.61.

The NDP raised nearly as much as the Liberals, taking in $1,113,563.26 from 12,850 donors – an average donation of $86.66.

McGuinty’s head still sharper than his brain

An amusing sideshow to the tussle over the new border crossing regulations is Premier Pinocchio’s attempt to pick another sissy fight with Stephen Harper.

McGuinty and his tourism minister Jim Bradley are urging the federal government to reconsider creating an ID card that Americans would find acceptable, instead of a passport.

“I think we should be looking at other alternatives before we go to the passport option because it is a great expense for a family,” McGuinty said.

Like a Liberal who can’t see past the next election, McGuinty can’t see the costs of a new identification card to everyone, not just border crossers.

Creating an ID card with biometric features would require new legislation, new bureaucracy, new civil servants, new software, etc. And there’s no guarantee the cost per card would be less than a passport. They might end up costing more.

McGuinty’s thinking is the kind of Liberal brainstorm that created the $2-billion gun registry, when everyone who owned a long gun was already required to have a Firearms Acquisition Certificate, and handguns and automatic weapons were already individually registered (except the ones owned by criminals, of course).

We’ve seen Ontario Liberals introduce a new form of identification before. In the late 1980s, the Peterson regime introduced the Ontario Health Card – in white and Liberal red, natch.

To an Ontario population then numbering 8 million, the Liberals distributed 24 million of these puppies -- including to an actual puppy. Yes, at least one dog applied for and received an Ontario Health Card. (“How was your colonoscopy, Spot?” “Ruff!”)

The Harper government could do something to make passports more affordable, such as reducing the fee, lengthening the term or introducing a “family” rate for family members applying simultaneously. But creating a new bureaucracy where one already exists? Literally priceless.

D’oh! Re Mi with Ron Schuler

On Saturday April 29th, the Manitoba PCs will choose a new leader through an unadulterated one-member-one-vote process. (The kind that Belinda Stronach suddenly realized was the ne plus ultra of democracy and freedom of speech a few weeks ago. Sorry, I can’t help it.)

This past Monday, the Winnipeg Free Press ran profiles of the three candidates, MLA Hugh McFadyen , MLA Ron Schuler, and Neepawa newspaper publisher Ken Waddell (subscription required).

In addition to the profiles, the Free Press required each candidate to submit to one of those rapid-fire Q&As that are minefields for candidates trying to look hip and intelligent while sticking to their messaging. This was Ron Schuler’s response to the musical portion of the quiz:

Q. Favourite Neil Young song?

A: Long pause, then “Uh, all of them.”

Gulp. And double gulp when I realized that Schuler’s answer was a identical to one of the funniest lines in one of the best Simpsons episodes ever.

It’s the one where Burns sells the nuclear power plant to Germans. In one scene, a German manager is interviewing Homer about his job as the plant’s safety inspector:

Manager: Which safety initiatives have you spearheaded?

Homer: Uh, all of them?

Make that a triple gulp. The name of Schuler’s riding is . . . Springfield.

When is it okay to call your opponents whores? When they’re conservatives

Antonia Zerbisias thinks I’m a whore. (The things you miss when you don’t make the effort to go online on Easter Monday!). The background:

Zerbisias had a bit of an online donnybrook with the Blogging Tories' own aggregator-in-chief, Stephen Taylor, over his blogging last week about the Keith Boag report on the introduction of the government’s Federal Accountability Act. In his report, Boag contrasted the legislation with the new government’s attempts to control media access and questions.

Taylor called foul, saying “I agree that the PPG [Parliamentary Press Gallery]/Boag certainly has the right to be frustrated. However, facile and on-demand media access is not an issue of government accountability (in the context of the FAA [Federal Accountability Act], or the election/mandate that was fought/received on the issue). My complaint is that it was selfish for Boag to complain about his frustration when it was unrelated to the story.”

Zerbisias initially had sympathy for Taylor’s take on the story, but when she realized that Taylor had not posted the video of the entire CBC item, but only a clip showing Boag’s attempts to equate government accountability with how the PMO treats reporters, she went ballistic, calling Taylor’s post “GROSSLY MISLEADING, UNFAIR AND BIASED [her emphasis]:

“That’s because, among his many sins, he only posted video of the top and tail of Boag’s report -- perhaps a minute of what was actually a four minute report to make his case against Boag. Taylor ‘‘footnotes’’ the video but not once does he say that it was heavily-edited -- indeed mutilated -- to indict Boag. And yet he damns Boag for editing the report?”

I am not going to wade into the debate between Zerbisias and Taylor, as they are more than able to fend for themselves, but I was struck by the fact that Zerbisias seemed prompted by the incident to refer to us as “these Blogging Whories” (sourcing Robert McLelland, no less). Perhaps she has called us this before – if so, I never saw it.

I am not sure why Zerbisias uses the term “whore” to describe us, but I gather it is because she regards us as blind cheerleaders for the Conservative party and anything its elected and unelected officials do. This is patently untrue (and in my case I would refer anyone to my February archives).

Nevertheless, the issue I am taking up isn’t whether or not Zerbisias’s inference that we are all unreconstructed apologists for the Conservative party is true; it’s the language she used.

I must say that, as a terminally dateless social misfit, I find the term “whore” to be an odd fit. But I regard its use as a metaphor in the political realm to be inside the foul line. That was also my view when a few Conservative politicians applied the image to Belinda Stronach, when she crossed the floor to the Liberals last May. Many of our political and ideological opponents, however, felt differently about the use of the term.

You may recall that Saskatchewan Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott described Stronach as having “prostituted” herself to Paul Martin. Alberta PC MLA Tony Abbott said Stronach had “whored herself out for power.” (Abbott later apologized for and retracted his comment.)

These comments prompted a firestorm on the left and centre-left, from folks who viewed the comments as sexist and demeaning to Stronach:

Yesterday, I waded through the vicious, sexist blog comments. I listened to the vicious, sexist comments from Conservatives and their supporters on CBC’s The National. My ears are still ringing from the “can I say that on TV?” vicious, sexist comments on CTV News. I mean, “whored herself out for power” as Alberta Con Tony Abbott so charmingly put it?
--Antonia Zerbisias, Blog, May 18, 2005

At least MacKay’s hurtin’ hoedown was gentlemanly, unlike the skank-done-us-wrong reaction from Conservative supporters
--Antonia Zerbisias, Blog, May 19, 2005

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan and a battery of prominent women in the Liberal caucus yesterday demanded an apology from Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and several Tory politicians for what the Grits called sexist and woman-hating comments about Belinda Stronach’s defection to the Liberals.

“What we have seen yesterday and today from members of the Conservative party, the comments, the comments that have been made about our colleague, that are nothing more than simply sexist and misogynist ...” said McLellan, who yesterday introduced Stronach at the former Conservative’s first Liberal caucus meeting.
--Kingston Whig-Standard, May 19, 2005

In a May 19th op-ed in the National Post, Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla wrote: “There are few who would disagree that the words “prostitute,” “whore” and “attractive dipstick” wouldn’t have surfaced if Belinda Stronach were male. Criticism is acceptable. Sexism is not. To attack her in such a manner not only debases a smart and successful Canadian, it debases the Conservative label.”

Finally, Zerbisias’s mothership, the Toronto Star, ran an editorial on May 19th calling the comments “a torrent of odious and sexist invective.”

Footnote: The inside story of Stronach’s floor-crossing, detailed in a February Toronto Life profile, provides support for the prostitution metaphor. Pimping services were provided by former Ontario Premier David Peterson, who negotiated with Martin chief of staff Tim Murphy on Stronach’s behalf, and insisted on a cabinet position for Stronach.

Ignatieff channels Harper and Harris

“I’d like to be a politician, the public figure who promised little and delivered what he promised, to the degree I possibly can – not 25 priorities but three – and try to be someone at the end of this game about whom you could say, ‘Well, I don’t like that guy very much, but he did what he said.’”
--Michael Ignatieff, Macleans interview, April 10 issue

Pay More, Get Less with Promise Breaker McGuinty

Today saw another item added to the 50-plus list of broken McGuinty government promises, with their announcement that, starting May 1st – just in time for the summer heat – most Ontario homeowners will pay up to 15 per cent more for their electricity. From the Toronto Sun website:

Currently, Ontario homeowners are charged five cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity they consume each month, and 5.8 cents above that amount. But that rate will increase to 5.8 cents at the low end and 6.7 cents at the highest after May 1. The lower amount will be paid for consumers who use less than 600 kilowatt-hours during the summer season, from May to October. The threshold increases to 1,000 kilowatt-hours for the winter season of November to April.

Incredibly, this is the second time in less than three years that the McGuinty branch of the Fiberal tree has broken a promise to control electricity rates. Yes, the Fiberals have become so adept at promise breaking, they are now figuring out ways to break previously-broken promises all over again.

This was their electricity pricing promise in the 2003 election: “4.3 cents is the price that we are going to keep on our bills”(McGuinty, scrum, November 18, 2002); and “the price freeze stays until 2006” (McGuinty, Focus Ontario, Global TV, September 20, 2003).

A month after taking office, the Liberals announced the 4.3-cent cap would be removed in April, 2004. They tried to tie the broken promise to Ontario’s finances, but Ontario Hydro’s books and debt have been separate from government finances for two decades.

(Say, did you know it was yours truly who first slapped the moniker “Promise Breakers” on the McGuinty Liberals in the aftermath of the 2003 election? Now you do. (I was working for the PC caucus at the time. Come to think of it, I still am. I mean, I am again.) What’s the point of having a blog if one cannot be immodest once in a while? But then I guess having a blog is kind of being immodest a lot of the time.

No doubt Premier Pinocchio is hoping that raising electricity rates will help him keep demand down and the lights and A/C on until after the October 2007 election, while his energy minister Donna Cansfield scrambles to bring new energy supply on line.

Though it is fair to lay some of the blame for Ontario’s straitened energy supplies at the feet of the Eves government, which in November of 2003 backed off the scheduled electricity market opening, it was McGuinty who promised to shut down all of Ontario’s coal-fired power plants – approximately one-quarter of Ontario’s supply – by 2007. They have already broken this promise; now they say the last coal plant will not close until 2009. (The Eves government’s schedule for shutting down coal power was a more realistic 2015.)

Regardless, when people’s air conditioners sputter to a stop in July, they won’t be blaming Ernie Eves; they’ll be blaming a Liberal government that’s been in power (no pun intended) for almost three years.

The stated motivation for the coal promise is air quality. Yet at the times that Ontario does not have sufficient supply, it will be importing higher-priced power from U.S. coal plants, whose emissions don’t require a passport to cross lakes Ontario and Erie. This was all foreseeable to anyone capable of dressing himself.

So there you have it: three broken promises, higher prices, and more smog. Another bang-up job by erstwhile strip-mall lawyer McGuinty. No wonder his brother isn’t running for federal leader, while his former education minister Gerard Kennedy left skid marks on the cabinet room floor.

As I have said elsewhere, although many aspects of the Common Sense Revolution have survived the change in government, the next big test will be the election in October 2007. Does “doing what you said you would do” still count? Or does “the cupboard was bare” story still fly? Only time will tell.

If you missed the lowlights of the Fiberals’ March 23rd Budget – the one that was going to win McGuinty as many as two of the three by-elections scheduled for March 30th (they won zero) – check out the Ontario PCs’ Pay More Get Less website.

“Me fail English? That’s unpossible!”

Simpsons fans will recognize the foregoing as an exclamation from the hapless Ralph Wiggum, classmate of Lisa Simpson and son of hapless Springfield police chief Wiggum. It immediately came to mind when I came across this story, mentioned in the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web Today” online feature:

Rudy Rios was stripped of his duties as junior varsity baseball coach at Chavez High School last week after using a district copying machine to make a flier encouraging Latino students to attend a rally protesting restrictions on illegal immigration.

Rios, who still retains his duties as an English-as-a-second-language teacher, was copying and distributing a flier that read: "We gots 2 stay together and protest against the new law that wants 2 be passed against all immigrants. We gots 2 show the U.S. that they aint (expletive) with out us (sic)," according to district officials.

IEB: Improvised, Explosive Belinda

As I suggested on Adam Daifallah’s blog this morning, Belinda Stronach’s decision to not run for Liberal leader is the first astute move she has made since entering politics. Then she had – or should I say detonated – her news conference, and proved me wrong.

Oh, she’s not running all right, but her tortured explanation for not doing so dropped a nasty stink bomb on her new party, and further diminished what little credibility she had left with the national media.

She had a good chance to win, Stronach claimed, but her reason for not running is the party’s leadership selection process, which she says renders her incapable of speaking her mind on party renewal. She maintains that she would have been “trapped” in a system in which the grassroots are “ahead” of the party.

This is risible nonsense. In the two months that have passed since Paul Martin announced he would not be leading the Liberals into another election, this is the first inkling we have ever heard from Belinda that she had a problem with the Liberal party’s leadership process.

Briefly, the process consists of a vote at the riding level that chooses delegates and assigns first ballot votes on the basis of one member one vote. The delegates are then free at the convention to vote as they wish on second and subsequent ballots. Each of the 308 ridings will elect 14 delegates. There will also be approximately 850 ex-officio delegates.

The Conservative party’s leadership process is a modified one-member-one-vote process that is similar to the Liberals’, to the extent that it treats all ridings equally, regardless of the number of members in each riding. There is a preferential ballot, but no delegates.

As CBC reporter Julie Van Dusen noted on Newsworld today, Stronach applauded the Liberal leadership rules when they were released last month. As the National Post reported on March 20:

“I was particularly pleased to see the national party executive agree on rules that will ensure the leadership race is a more open, accessible and accountable process from start to finish, that will guarantee a level playing field for everyone who decides to run,” Ms. Stronach said in a statement.

Update: Stephen Taylor has some compelling background on Stonach's position on riding equality in leadership races, when she ran for Conservative leader, here.

Stronach's talking points today, less than three weeks later, are a transparent rationalization for the fact that her weak support among traditional Liberals means she could only win the leadership if she were free to essentially take over the party with new members. Yet Scott Brison, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae do not seem deterred, though they are essentially starting from the same place.

In the Simpsons episode that features the musical version of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the closing song includes the line “a stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met.” I guess to Stronach, a “grassroots Liberal” is just somebody whose membership she hasn’t bought yet.

I suspect that the leadership rules that are genuinely troubling to Stronach are the financial ones, which would have all but eliminated Stronach’s financial edge. This is the first major leadership race that will operate under the new election financing law enacted in 2003.

The spending limit has been set by the Liberal party at $3.4 million, down from the last race’s limit of $4 million. Under federal law, campaign spending must include travel, polling and personal expenses, items that have been exempted in some previous races. Corporate and union donations are banned, and an individual is limited to donating $5,100 to all leadership candidates.

Candidates are limited to spending $5,000 on their own campaigns. Contrast this with the approximately $1 million Stronach spent on her own campaign for the Conservative leadership in 2004, a figure admitted by one of her spokesmen last fall.

As for her claim that she would not be free to speak her mind – again, ridiculous. Is there any better platform for the discussion of ideas than an opposition party leadership contest with no frontrunner?

When Stronach defected to the Liberals last May, Stephen Harper speculated that the real reason she was leaving was because her leadership ambitions were unlikely to be realized in the Conservative party. Tony Clement was more forthcoming, and his observations at the time have proven prescient:

Mr. Clement did not spare harsh words for his former leadership rival yesterday, saying Ms. Stronach is the political equivalent of soccer player David Beckham and his out-sized ego.

“At some point, Manchester United said ‘We don’t need the distraction. We’re a better team without him,’ “ Mr. Clement said on his way to Bracebridge, where he will be running as the Conservative candidate against Liberal agriculture minister Andy Mitchell.

Mr. Clement said he feels “vindicated” by Ms. Stronach’s departure to the Liberals.

“She has been running a parallel leadership campaign since the day after she lost the last one,” he said. “When she doesn’t get her way, this is the typical response from her.”

He added that Ms. Stronach was a “destabilizing influence in the party” long before she announced that she was crossing the aisle before tomorrow’s budget vote.

“I honestly believe that we are far better off in the long run,” he said. “I know there’s a grey cloud right now, but the silver lining will become more prominent the further we get away from today.”

“I wonder what shred of credibility she’ll have because it’s so obviously about naked ambition rather than public policy or principle,” he said. “Why would you trust a liar like that?”

Prime Minister Paul Martin exercised “the politics of desperation” by inviting Ms. Stronach into his cabinet, Mr. Clement said, but could come to regret the decision once the budget vote is over.

“He will rue the day, I’m telling you,” said Mr. Clement. “Bully for him, he won a 24-hour contest of wills, but I think in the long run he will rue the day. The ego and the constant demands, they just won’t stop. It’s always about Belinda.”

This sorry episode lends credence to Harper and Clement’s views. Stronach could have withdrawn with dignity, offering truthful and credible reasons such as wanting to improve her French and get more Parliamentary experience under belt. But that would be too pedestrian for Belinda. There always has to be some grander – dare I say, Nietzschean – rationale. I can’t help saying this about the atheist Stronach: Thank God we are rid of her.

Footnote: This has been a bad week for National Post columnist Don Martin. On Tuesday, Ralph Klein announced he is stepping down before year end. With Klein’s departure, Martin's contacts in and access to the workings of the Alberta government are sure to diminish. Then Belinda Stronach announced she’s not running, which will not help sales of Martin’s upcoming book on her. He deserves to take a dram or five this weekend.

New economic research institute coming to Manitoba

This may be good news for those of us frustrated with so-called “research” produced by the likes of YWCA Canada, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Caledon Institute and so on: The Manitoba Chambers of Commerce (MCC) are establishing an independent, non-profit research institute to look into economic development-related issues. As the Winnipeg Free Press reported yesterday (subscription required):

For a number of years, the MCC has been calling on the provincial government to conduct in-depth studies into why Manitoba often compares so poorly to other provinces on things like employment, labour force growth and average weekly wages.

But the chambers’ pleas have fallen on deaf ears, so now they’re taking matters into their own hands and moving forward with plans to create a new independent, non- profit research institute that can look into economic development-related issues.

“We got to the point where we simply said, ‘ Let’s go ahead and do it,’” Dan Overall, the MCC’s director of policy and communications, said in an interview yesterday. “ We’re hopeful what this will do is help raise public discussion about some of these issues and provide data and analysis.”

25th Anniversary of Reagan Assassination Attempt

I had forgotten that exactly 25 years ago today, John Hinckley attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

The anniversary did not rate a mention in any of the Globe, Post, Toronto Star, or Toronto Sun. National Review Online has a remembrance of the day’s events, as told to Deroy Murdock by Rudy Giulani. On the morning of the shooting, Giulani had attended a White House breakfast with Reagan, as Reagan’s yet-to-be-confirmed Associate Attorney General. The assassination attempt occurred that afternoon. Giulani recalls what he learned from the experience:

“For me personally,” he says, “it was one of those terrible emergencies that I was involved in. And I think it kind of taught me how to handle it. Not just me personally, but watching the other people: the attorney general, how he organized it, the head of the FBI, Bill Webster. And the attorney general, who had been in office at that point two months, handled it brilliantly. He organized all of us. He had us all doing our jobs. We each had our function.”

Does Giuliani call himself a Reaganite?

“Oh, absolutely!” he exclaims. “He had strong beliefs. He knew what those beliefs were. He stuck to them whether they were popular or unpopular. And he did it in a way in which he was civil and nice to everyone. It was a beautiful combination of tremendous commitment to what he believed in, but not anger.”

“Ronald Reagan was a role model for me,” says the man they call “America’s Mayor.” “I consider him a hero.”

NRO Online also has an excellent remembrance of Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, by Peter Schweizer.

They just can’t help themselves: Cherniak starts Liblog slush fund

I briefly checked out some of the Liberal blogs today and noticed that Jason Cherniak is trying to start a non-profit corporation for Liberal bloggers:

Today I will obtain the final signature on the application to incorporate the list of Liberal Bloggers as an Ontario non-profit company. We have now approached the moment of no return, where I will begin paying the government to make this all official.

For those who do not know yet, this new organization has been created for two reasons. The first is to protect me from liability for what others might post on sites that the Liberal Blogs list will link to. The second is to create an organization that can receive donations and then spend excess money to help the Liberal Party. The main idea is to become a third party advertiser during elections. The other and less certain idea is to create a Liberal Blogger Scholarship. If we go ahead with the second option. We will have to create some sort of board of notable bloggers and possibly other Liberals to judge a contest. That, however, is just a thought at the moment. The main goal is to raise money to pay for startup and hosting.

Wow. I wonder how they’ll decide how the third-party advertising money gets spent. I’d love to hear that conference call. Thirty-seven bloggers arguing over how to spend $187.63 (“Mom! Don’t turn the dryer on! I’m on a conference call!”) Or, as someone once described the Jerry Springer show: two women fighting over a man with one tooth.

But then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Liberals will donate thousands of dollars to Cherniak’s endeavour – out their own pockets. Cherniak used the phrase "paying the government" so I guess anything's possible. Only time will tell. I posted this comment on Cherniak’s blog:

You just can't help yourselves, can you?

Riddle me this: what's a Liberal without a slush fund? A New Democrat!

Finally, Cherniak’s comment about “the moment of no return” reminds me of this quote from Macbeth:

I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.
--Macbeth, 3. 4.

YWCA (soon to be an Oliver Stone movie)

Kudos to Joanne at Joanne's Journey, who has been hot on the trail of the YWCA data-fudgers, a la Jim Garrison.

Hitting a dead-end with the report's authors, Joanne had the moxie to call a CTV reporter and politely ask how she came to conclusion that the YWCA's flimsy child care "study" proves that "most" Canadians prefer government-run day care over a $100-a-month direct payment to parents. Interesting reading indeed.

The reporter's conduct cannot really be condemned, as she did what many reporters must do when pressed to report on a lengthy report they don't have time to read: she relied on the honesty of the report's authors.

Goldstein dissects YWCA daycare paper

I have still not gotten 'round to a detailed read of last week's so-called "study" released by YWCA Canada. But fortunately, Toronto Sun senior columnist Lorrie Goldstein has. Goldstein found that the report was gerrymandered from beginning to end:

This left-wing women's group which is virulently opposed to the Conservatives' child-care plan claimed its study showed, as The Canadian Press and others dutifully reported, that "Canadian families, irrespective of where they live or the size of their communities, want their child-care needs met by a nationally funded public system and not a federal cash payout."

Gee. Sounds like they conducted an independent national poll asking unbiased questions which found overwhelming support for a publicly-funded national daycare program, eh?

Uh ... no. In fact, I've read their report, called "Building a Community Architecture For Early Childhood Learning and Care" and YWCA Canada did nothing of the sort.

What it did do was organize task forces of 20 to 30 people each, most of them already highly supportive of a state-funded daycare program, in four communities -- Halifax, Vancouver, Martensville, Sask. and Cambridge, Ont. These people then talked to other people sympathetic to a national daycare program and guess what? This report based on those reports advocates a national daycare program, which just happens to be the YWCA's long-held position as well. Amazing!

Read the whole column here.

Goldstein also notes that the paper was funded by the federal government through Social Development Canada back when the Liberals were in power.

I would add that the report's so-called "expert panel" included longtime government daycare shills Martha Friendly and Kerry McCuaig. Another member is Charles Pascal, executive director of the Atkinson Foundation, an outfit funded out of Toronto Star profits, that is no stranger to bogus public policy research (scroll down to the "Speaking Out" report).

The YWCA report is here.

CP24 response re ethics complaint

Yesterday, I received the following letter from CP24 Vice President and General Manager Stephen Hurlbut in response to my complaint about CP24 anchor David Onley. I am quite stunned by the rationalizations Hurlbut offers for one of his journalists taking a government appointment. I will be preparing a response and invite suggestions.

March 16, 2006

Dear Mrs. Tintor,

As the Vice President of News for Citytv and Vice President and General Manager of CP24 I will address your concerns.

Mr. Onley is indeed the Chair of the Accessibility Standards Advisory Council and the 3 to 4 non-paid days required for him to attend to his duties do not, in our view, constitute any breach of any code or constitute a breach of professional ethics. In fact, we are honoured and fully supportive that David has been asked to work on this very important initiative. CHUM Television and Citytv specifically has been a champion of all minority rights since we first went to air in Toronto and our support of David’s advisory role is consistent with our fundamentals. We believe it is important to recognize that the position is part-time and voluntary and while there is a small per diem of $225.00, Mr. Onley has asked that we direct this stipend to our corporate charity the CHUM Charitable Foundation.

Perhaps if we explain some of the background you may see Mr. Onley’s situation in a different light. The government has clearly explained to all members of the Advisory Council that they are not members of the government nor the Civil Service but rather they are volunteers positioned as experts in an advisory role only. When David and I were discussing the possibility of his accepting the position we were fully aware that the Ontario Disabilities Act was passed with unanimous support from all parties and had there been any issue of partisanship we would not be involved. While indeed the Advisory Council will present a report to the Cabinet Minister, it is representing the requests and enjoys the support of all members of the Legislature.

David Onley offers a very unique and valuable perspective. As I am sure you are aware, David has a disability; he had polio as a child. In his professional role as news anchor and reporter David, to the best of our knowledge, is the only full-time disabled newscaster in Canada. We believe that his level of visibility in his role as anchor/reporter has in itself been a positive statement. We believe that his simple TV presence and his level of consistent professionalism has made a difference and if his television work can draw greater attention to the work of the advisory board we support it totally.

Mrs. Tintor, we are vigilant in ensuring that our ethical lines remain in tact (sic) and that our role as journalists is not tainted by lending our resident expert David Onley to a non-partisan initiative. The work of the Advisory Board is important and our corporate responsibility is to help.

I do thank you for your letter and sincerely appreciate the concerns you raise and I invite you to call me directly should you wish to discuss this further.

Sincerely,

Stephen Hurlbut
Vice President, News Programming – Citytv
Vice President & General Manager – CP24