Whose system is it, anyway?

Yes, it’s that time again. Time to re-post my award-winning (no, really!) op-ed from 2005, arguing why we should take our public services back from unions.

An interesting wrinkle to the TTC situation is that, in addition to the TTC being a statutorily-protected monopoly, in recent years the City of Toronto has been implementing land use and other policies that are heavily biased against car ownership. So not only do Toronto residents have no other public transit options, they are increasingly unlikely to have their own private transit options (i.e. a car). Thanks, union bosses and socialist politicians!

Take back our public services

Organized labour has some clever slogans about all the good it has done for society, such as “Unions: the people who brought you the weekend.” But what have they done for us lately?

Think of the state of our roads, the quality of our education and health care, the cleanliness of our streets. The overall tax burden has grown, but this has hardly been matched by an increase in the quality of government services. Yet the wages and benefits of public sector workers continue to rise. Of course they do: by their very nature, public sector unions tend to drive up the costs and size of government. Union dues – themselves a cost driver – go to employ officials whose full-time work consists of filing grievances, lobbying the government for more workers, coordinating with other unions and supporting sympathetic candidates.

Much of the impetus for contracting out the delivery of public services stems from roadblocks faced by politicians attempting to meet the demands of taxpayers or deliver on good-faith election promises. Unions label such activity "privatization," but it's not. From their point of view, it's de-unionization. Scratch the surface of any of the recent campaigns against health care reform, and you will find that most are organized and funded by unions. They oppose health care reform because they are afraid it will result in new services or facilities outside the current unionized health care sphere.

Of course, nothing is preventing unions from attempting to organize workers in non-unionized facilities, but after 30-odd years of public sector unionization, a sense of entitlement takes hold. And it's easier to protect existing union turf by holding citizens and politicians hostage through work-to-rule and illegal strikes, than to convince non-unionized workers it's worth handing over part of their paycheques to Sid Ryan et al.

Since public servants began to unionize, the public has gradually lost control of its public services. Some have argued for outlawing strikes by teachers and other public sector workers, but this would be mere tinkering. The only way for the public to take back control of the services it owns is by decertifying public sector unions and restoring a direct employment relationship between government workers and democratically elected governments. Here’s why it makes sense:

Once the public has decided that a particular service is to be provided by the government, then that service is, by definition, essential. Many try to make a distinction between services that relate to safety and other government services. But public schools, transit and most other public services are legally or effectively monopolies, in that most citizens have no practical alternative when those services are not available.

Public sector collective agreements take away the public’s democratic right to decide what public services are to be delivered and what terms of employment are to be offered (provided those terms comply with employment standards laws and the common law). The wages, benefits and working conditions of public sector workers should be open to the democratic process as are all other aspects of government. They should not be decided in backrooms in negotiations from which the public is barred and on which the public’s elected representatives are forbidden to comment.

It is not the role of government to engage in unfair labour competition with the private sector. Some people think it is noble for the government to “set an example” for the private sector through higher wages and benefits. Such people don’t understand economics. The increasing taxes that those business will have to pay to support the government’s “example” mean that they will be hard-pressed to pay the employees they already have, let alone pay them more.

Thousands of private firms have policies and procedures for dealing fairly with employees; so would a union-free public sector. If the public through their elected government provides wages, benefits and working conditions that can’t compare with private employers’, then it will find itself with fewer and less capable employees.

Public sector workers would continue to be free to advocate for themselves through the democratic process. But those who interfere with the provision of government services will, like private sector workers, be subject to the appropriate civil or criminal sanctions. Those who fail to show up for work will not be "on strike," they will have quit.

Let’s put the “public” back into the public sector, by putting citizens and their elected representatives back in charge of our public services.

Never mind: Gorbachev insists he's still an atheist

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made clear this past weekend that he is an atheist after European news agencies last week claimed that he had confirmed his Christian faith during a visit to the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy.

Gorbachev, the last communist leader of the Soviet Union, confronted speculations that he had been a closeted Christian during an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax.

"Over the last few days some media have been disseminating fantasies – I can't use any other word – about my secret Catholicism, citing my visit to the Sacro Convento friary, where the remains of St. Francis of Assisi lie," Gorbachev said, according to an Interfax article posted Friday.

"To sum up and avoid any misunderstandings, let me say that I have been and remain an atheist,” he stated.
--The Christian Post, March 24

Well, okay, then.

Gorbachev comes out

Reagan suspected Soviet leader was a closet believer

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time, paying a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.

Accompanied by his daughter Irina, Mr Gorbachev spent half an hour on his knees in silent prayer at the tomb.

His arrival in Assisi was described as “spiritual perestroika” by La Stampa, the Italian newspaper.

“St Francis is, for me, the alter Christus, the other Christ,” said Mr Gorbachev. “His story fascinates me and has played a fundamental role in my life,” he added.

Mr Gorbachev’s surprise visit confirmed decades of rumours that, although he was forced to publicly pronounce himself an atheist, he was in fact a Christian, and casts a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1989 in a new light.

Mr Gorbachev, 77, was baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church and his parents were Christians.

In addition, the parents of his wife Raisa were deeply religious and were killed during the Second World War for having religious icons in their home.

Ronald Reagan, the former United States president, allegedly told his close aides on a number of occasions that he felt his opponent during the Cold War was a “closet believer”.

Mr Reagan held deep religious convictions himself. However, until now Mr Gorbachev has allowed himself to express only pantheistic views, saying in one interview “nature is my god”.
--London Telegraph, March 19

Gorbachev’s coming-out reminds me of a short story that appeared in Toronto Life magazine many years ago. Set in the future, it describes the last hours – prior to execution – of a man who is unnamed, but clearly the “last” pope. Grim and shocking as the story was, it seemed terribly plausible at the time. What was implausible then was the fall of the Soviet empire, aided in part by an historic pope.

Those of us conservatives who tend more towards despair than happy warriordom should take note.

The Jerk

Candidate Franken ridicules conservative student’s facial tic, then refuses to shake his hand:

According to Fritz, things started out fine with him taking photos of fellow Carls (that's what students call themselves) with Franken. Then Franken's curiosity was raised about why Fritz didn't want to be in a pic.

He's a conservative, another Carl yelled out by way of explanation.

At that point, Franken reportedly began peppering Fritz with questions about supporting President George W. Bush and former President Ronald Reagan's tax hikes. Fritz told me he got tense and, as he does in those situations, started chewing the inside of his mouth, a gesture he said was mimicked by Franken; Fritz also thought his style of speech was mocked by Franken.

An aide eventually interrupted Franken's act, Fritz said, by announcing to the candidate that it was time to go.

Fritz told me Monday that he then stuck out his hand to shake Franken's. "Well, at least it's nice to meet you," the GOPer said he told Franken, who reportedly replied, I can't say the same.

There was no handshake, said Fritz.

***********************************************

Fritz told me Wednesday he was stunned by Franken's behavior: "I usually expect politicians to, at least, pretend as though, even in that kind of interaction, that they can convince me or have some kind of reasonable dialogue -- the whole Minnesota Nice thing, at least."

Fritz's version of the encounter was backed up by Pablo Kenney, prez of the Carleton Dems.
--Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, January 23, 2008

Somehow, I don't think Stuart Smalley would approve.

Hell freezes over

David Mamet explains "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'" in the Village Voice

Mamet is acknowledged to be one of the greatest dramatists of our time:

I wrote a play about politics (November, Barrymore Theater, Broadway, some seats still available). And as part of the "writing process," as I believe it's called, I started thinking about politics. This comment is not actually as jejune as it might seem. Porgy and Bess is a buncha good songs but has nothing to do with race relations, which is the flag of convenience under which it sailed.

But my play, it turned out, was actually about politics, which is to say, about the polemic between persons of two opposing views. The argument in my play is between a president who is self-interested, corrupt, suborned, and realistic, and his leftish, lesbian, utopian-socialist speechwriter.

The play, while being a laugh a minute, is, when it's at home, a disputation between reason and faith, or perhaps between the conservative (or tragic) view and the liberal (or perfectionist) view. The conservative president in the piece holds that people are each out to make a living, and the best way for government to facilitate that is to stay out of the way, as the inevitable abuses and failures of this system (free-market economics) are less than those of government intervention.

**********************

And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.

"Aha," you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.

Continue reading here. And be sure to share this with all your friends studying drama or screenwriting.

H/t: NRO's The Corner.

A New York politician’s presidential ambitions may be finished (but not the one you think)

Spitzer makes brief appearance at delayed news conference: apologizes but makes no announcement about his future

A news alert from the New York Times:

Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring
By Danny Hakim

ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.

Mr. Spitzer, who was huddled with his top aides early this afternoon, had hours earlier abruptly canceled his scheduled public events for the day. He is set to make an announcement about 2:15 this afternoon at his Manhattan office.

Mr. Spitzer, a first-term Democrat who pledged to bring ethics reform and end the often seamy ways of Albany, is married with three children.

Just last week, federal prosecutors arrested four people in connection with an expensive prostitution operation. Administration officials would not say that this was the ring with which the governor had become involved.

He had a difficult first year in office, rocked by a mix of scandal and legislative setbacks. In recent weeks, however, Mr. Spitzer seemed to have rebounded, with his Democratic party poised to perhaps gain control of the state Senate for the first time in four decades.

Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

“”This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. ”It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

Albany for months been roiled by bitter fighting and accusations of dirty tricks. The Albany County district attorney is set to issue in the coming days the results of his investigation into Mr. Spitzer’s first scandal, his aides’ involvement in an effort to tarnish Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, the state’s top Republican.

Would Obama ask Parliament to reverse its decision on Afghanistan?

Foreign policy adviser promises additional US troops, but expects Canada to maintain its combat role “as long as it possibly can”

N.B. This post has been corrected.

In case anyone missed Leslie McKinnon’s long piece on Barack Obama on last night’s "National," here’s what one of his foreign affairs advisers, Susan Rice, said about Obama’s hope that Canada would extend its combat mission in Afghanistan:

Rice: Barack Obama has also said that he would add at least two additional combat brigades to the American contribution in Afghanistan.

Reporter voiceover: this would add 15,000 troops: a gift to the Canadian military effort. But Parliament has all but agreed to withdraw from combat in Afghanistan in 2011. This doesn’t sit well with the Obama team.

Rice: And we will look to our allies in NATO to step up their contributions. In Canada’s case, we’d hope very much that Canada would continue and sustain its very important contribution.

Reporter: Continuous combat role?

Rice: Yes.

Reporter: Really. Because you know there’s a big a debate.

Rice: Yes, I understand. I think it’s fair to say that an Obama administration would hope very much and work in partnership with Canada to encourage Canada to continue and maintain its contribution for as long as it possibly can. This is crunch time in Afghanistan

These comments start at about 43:00 min.

Now, I don’t know when this interview was filmed, but by now all the US presidential candidates should know that the House of Commons has passed a motion to end Canada’s combat mission in Afghanistan in 2011. Correction: the motion is expected to be voted on this week. My apologies.

Unfortunately, in recent days NDP leader Jack “troops out now” Layton seems focussed on auditioning for an internship in an Obama White House. So I doubt he will be raising the fact that his hero wears combat boots, and would like Canadian soldiers to keep wearing theirs indefinitely.

“Friday Night Lights” reportedly coming back for a third season

Nikke Finke’s Hollywood Diary is reporting that the high-quality, low-rated NBC drama “Friday Night Lights” has a deal for a third season, after several weeks on the bubble:

I’m told that Jeff Zucker, Marc Graboff and Ben Silverman had been searching for a way to renew the critically acclaimed but low-rated Friday Night Lights for a 3rd season so that it would still make financial sense. The answer came in a deal with DirecTV, now owned by John Malone’s Liberty Media. Clearly Malone is looking to distinguish DirecTV from its rivals on a content as well as price basis. “It’s an innovative deal where NBC found a partner who will share costs and exhibition windows,” an insider explained to me. So both NBC and DirecTV will be airing Friday Night Lights across multipurpose platforms.

My back is sore from shovelling snow, so I am doing the end zone dance in my mind. Woo hoo!

For those who haven’t seen it, FNL is a brilliantly written, cast and acted drama about marriage, family and growing up, with less football than you might think. NBC is not airing episodes at the moment (and will not be doing any more new episodes this season), but Global has just started showing reruns on Wednesdays at 10:00.

h/t: Lainey’s Entertainment Update.

McGuinty took nine months to provide details for “fast-tracked” jobs fund

Qualifying industries have also been changed twice

Imagine my surprise yesterday when I received a news release from Premier Pinocchio announcing that his nine-month old “Next Generation of Jobs Fund” (originally titled "Next Generation Jobs Fund") is now accepting applications.

Now, why would such an announcement need to be made at this time? Could it be because (1) McGuinty is in a bun fight with federal finance minister Jim Flaherty over McGuinty’s crappy management of Ontario’s economy, and (2) next to nothing has happened on this file since the fund was announced last June?

As I wrote last September on the “Election Battle Blog” sponsored by TVO’s “The Agenda (I was the Ontario PC party’s designated blogger):

With the election looming, McGuinty announced something called the “Next Generation Jobs Fund” in June. Here’s what its web page says today: “Program details to follow.”

But there have been a couple of interesting changes to the “fund” since September, all while it was impossible to actually apply to the fund for a grant. Eligible investments were expanded from clean automotive and other “green” technology, to encompass health and biotech R&D, creative industries, and pharmaceutical research and manufacturing. Here's what the web page said last September:

The fund will invest in:

- The manufacture of green cars and auto parts
- The development of clean fuels, and
- The creation of clean technologies and products.

At some point since then, this was expanded. Here's what the site said on February 20:

- Clean automotive and other green technology,
- Health and biotechnology research and development,
- Creative industries (digital media and ICT), and
- Pharmaceutical research and manufacturing.

Now, the eligible industries appear to have expanded yet again, to include:

- financial services that involve global or North American mandates and the establishment of new, discrete operating units
- anchor investments to support cluster development, including in the services sector
- opportunity based or unique investments.

Yup, the McGuintyites really have a handle on this thing.

Hillary's campaign puts reporters where it all goes down

Think Harper disrespects journalists? Well, he hasn't forced them to cover his events from a public toilet like Hillary Clinton did.



Reporters work on their laptops in a men's bathroom as Democratic presidential hopeful US Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) speaks during a campaign rally at the Burger Activity Center, March 3, in Austin, Texas.(AFP/Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)

H/t: NRO's Media Blog.

P.S. Mmmm . . . burger.

Will the real pornographers please stand up? (don’t worry – it’s not a confidence vote)

Cherniak sets off wet firecracker on Conservatives; forgets Liberal thongs and rubbers

Undaunted by the fact that his last attempt at nailing the Conservatives blew up in his face, Britney Cherniak is at it again, claiming the Tory yout’ have borrowed an image from a porn site.

Of course, burned from his most recent fiasco, Britney is careful to insert this blanket caveat:

. . . please note that I do not take credit for the research. Somebody else sent me the information and I wrote the post.

Unfortunately for Cherniak, the Liberals hardly qualify for membership in the anti-sex league described in George Orwell’s 1984:

Politics isn’t sexy? Tell that to the thousands of delegates at the Liberal convention.

Forget the hunt for undecided delegates, people here want to get their hands on the sought-after “I’m Liberal” thong underwear.

Five hundred pairs were ordered, in both official languages, and already size medium is sold out in French and English.

The $16 underwear has generated a lot of interest from delegates stopping by the Liberal merchandise table.

“I should get one of those,” retired senator Marian Maloney said when she spotted the mini black cotton underwear.

Ms. Maloney, who is 82, bought a pair. They’re for her daughter-in-law, she said, after playfully posing for a picture.

Condoms are also being distributed at the convention. More than 2,000 bright red contraceptives bearing the Young Liberals of Canada logo will be given out throughout the weekend.
--CanWest News Service, December 1, 2006

Well, it looks like the condoms were a good idea. Here's a tale told by an anonymous commenter on Big City Lib's blog:

My longtime "friend" who I accompanied to the convention went out to "vote" friday evening and although she made it back to the hotel alright she must have had a little too much of the free, cheap wine because she ended up in the wrong room, in the wrong bed!

It was her first convention and I guess she must have known that liberals go to get laid so didn't want to let the party down. This inciddent has now started in motion a chain of events that will ultimately reflect very poorly on her and her riding. But on the up side the sex was apparently great and she did get a free scarf!

Bush takes Hillary fishing on Lake Tahoe

White House clarifies that it’s Hillary who’s holding up release of her records as first lady (as if there were ever any doubt)

The White House on Wednesday blamed the Clintons for a month-long delay in the release of some 11,000 pages of records relating to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's years as first lady, despite Sen. Clinton's contention at Tuesday night's debate that she has "urged that the process [of releasing documents] be as quick as possible."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said that Clinton representatives have known since Jan. 31 that the documents -- Hillary Clinton's daily public schedule during her husband's presidency -- have been deemed ready for public release by the National Archives.

But under a November 2001 executive order, the White House can't make them available to the public until approval is given by a designated representative of former President Bill Clinton.

"Presently, we have not received notice that the Clinton representative has reached a decision on the release or withholding of any of Mrs. Clinton's schedules," Perino said, adding that the White House has not objected to approval of any of the more than 550,000 pages of documents released so far from the Clinton years.

"It is our intent and has been the practice to act on any requests as quickly as possible," Perino said.
--ABC News, today

Perhaps George W. Bush had finally had enough of Hillary’s stump speech line that refers to Bill having to “clean up” after Bush 41, and her expecting to do the same after Bush 43.

Hillary Rodham Stalin

Democrat lawyer recalls Hillary’s attempts to turn Watergate into a show trial

From an article by Jerry Zeifman for Accuracy in Media (h/t: NRO’s The Corner):

At the time of Watergate I had overall supervisory authority over the House Judiciary Committee's Impeachment Inquiry staff that included Hillary Rodham-who was later to become First Lady in the Clinton White House.

During that period I kept a private diary of the behind the scenes congressional activities. My original tape recordings of the diary and other materials related to the Nixon impeachment provided the basis for my prior book Without Honor and are now available for inspection in the George Washington University Library.

. . .

After hiring Hillary, Doar assigned her to confer with me regarding rules of procedure for the impeachment inquiry. At my first meeting with her I told her that Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, House Speaker Carl Albert, Majority Leader Tip O'Neill, Parliamentarian Lou Deschler and I had previously all agreed that we should rely only on the then existing House Rules, and not advocate any changes. I also quoted Tip O'Neill's statement that: "To try to change the rules now would be politically divisive. It would be like trying to change the traditional rules of baseball before a World Series."

Hillary assured me that she had not drafted, and would not advocate, any such rules changes. However, as documented in my personal diary, I soon learned that she had lied. She had already drafted changes, and continued to advocate them. In one written legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel. In so doing she simply ignored the fact that in the committee's then-most-recent prior impeachment proceeding, the committee had afforded the right to counsel to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

I had also informed Hillary that the Douglas impeachment files were available for public inspection in the committee offices. She later removed the Douglas files without my permission and carried them to the offices of the impeachment inquiry staff-where they were no longer accessible to the public.

Hillary had also made other ethically flawed procedural recommendations, arguing that the Judiciary Committee should: not hold any hearings with-or take depositions of-any live witnesses; not conduct any original investigation of Watergate, bribery, tax evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense of President Nixon; and should rely solely on documentary evidence compiled by other committees and by the Justice Department's special Watergate prosecutor.

Only a few far-left Democrats supported Hillary's recommendations. A majority of the committee agreed to allow President Nixon to be represented by counsel and to hold hearings with live witnesses. Hillary then advocated that the official rules of the House be amended to deny members of the committee the right to question witnesses. This recommendation was voted down by the full House. The committee also rejected her proposal that we leave the drafting of the articles of impeachment to her and her fellow impeachment-inquiry staffers.

You know, some people like to refer to Hillary as “Hillary Milhous Clinton” but I think that’s unfair. To Nixon.

Update: Commenter Dennis Prouse suggests that this video provides a more apt comparison:

Dump Tory group shoots itself in the grassroots

Bizarre news release helps McGuinty, discredits pro-review forces

I have not weighed in publicly on the John Tory leadership review (for the record, I helped out on the campaign and am against review), but this release, issued by the “Grassroots PC” group headed by former party president Rueben Devlin and former MPP Bart Maves, needs to be cited for its clumsiness, in both ideation and execution.

The release attacks Tory’s recent speech to the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario. Below are some excerpts, followed by the response of Tory supporter John Ratchford:

Grassroots PC: [Tory] called for new initiatives to attract and retain nurses – a great idea. The slightly embarrassing fact, though, is that the Liberal government has already implemented each one of the great new ideas he suggested.

Grassroots PC: Great New Idea #1: “Implementing the creation of 70 per cent full-time employment for nurses”
Slightly Embarrassing Fact #1: Every hospital in Ontario is already required to have 70 per cent fulltime employed nurses…it’s government policy.

Ratchford: Fact: Ontario’s nurses say the Liberals haven’t kept their promise. Doris Grinspun, Executive Director of the RNAO, said: “Targeted funding is crucial if the government is going to achieve its goals of increasing Ontario’s nursing workforce by 9,000 and having 70 percent of nurses working full-time.” (RNAO press release, January 22, 2008)

Grassroots PC: Great New Idea #3: “Establishing nurse-led clinics that would allow nurses to take a lead role in areas such as chronic disease management.”
Slightly Embarrassing Fact #3: On November 30, 2005 the Liberal government announced $15 million for the creation of 69 new diabetes education and care teams.

Ratchford: The error-ridden news release also declares that the Liberals have kept their promise and created nurse-led clinics, pointing to an extremely small $15 million program as proof of the accomplishment.
Fact: Here’s what the RNAO said in their January 22 news release: “RNAO says the need to immediately improve the public’s access to primary health is why the association wants to see 12 of the 25 nurse-led clinics, promised during the election campaign, up and running in 2008.”

***********************************************************

Well, to point out the obvious, the fact that something is “government policy,” doesn’t mean it’s actually happening. For example, it’s “government policy” that class sizes from grades JK to 3 are capped at 20. But the McGuinty Fiberals have failed to achieve that, despite spending a couple billion and having four years to do it.

And giving the Liberals credit by citing a two-year-old funding announcement that equates to maybe 20% of the full clinic idea Tory proposes? Talk about apples and oranges. Or more like the way teachers are being encouraged to mark these days: no marks off for incomplete or late assignments.

I respect the right of the dump Tory crowd to get their messages out. But I fail to see the “strategery” in putting out a release that credits McGuinty with things he hasn’t achieved. It doesn’t advance their cause; it just hurts our caucus and whoever might succeed Tory, should these guys achieve their goal at the review in London.

In addition to serving as unpaid water-carriers for McGuinty, “Grassroots PC” have ceded the high ground they tried to claim with Devlin’s introductory comment on their website: “while we respect John Tory and appreciate his service to the party, he is not the leader our party and Ontario need to succeed in the future.” Issuing a release that could have come from the Liberal war room falls rather short of showing respect for Tory.

I grant that opposing the leader while supporting the party can be a tough wire to walk. But these guys have deliberately dived off that wire headfirst – without a net.

Endnote: Hugh MacIntyre has a different view.

Absent Liberals leave Dion red-faced

30 Liberal MPs AWOL on Monday, caucus sporting scarlet scarves on Wednesday. Coincidence?

These days, it is not always clear that the official opposition has the fire in the belly to acquit itself of some of its most basic parliamentary duties. On Monday, the first day back in Parliament after a six-week break, more than 30 Liberal MPs were missing in action for question period.
--Chantal Hébert, Toronto Star, today

Mike Duffy also noted the thin Liberal ranks to Liberal whip Karen Redman on his program Monday. The clip is titled "Party whips discuss the stance on Afghanistan" and Duffy refers to the absent Liberals at about 4:20. Redman defends the absentees at about 8:00.

As some politician once said: "You can fake that you care, but you can't fake being there."

Perhaps Monday's embarassing attendance is why Liberal MPs were wearing red scarves in the House today (after this morning's caucus): a public gesture of solidarity.

But maybe it's Dion who needs the warm garments. If I were a leader possibly facing an election in a matter of weeks, and 30 of my MPs couldn't be bothered to show up to support me during the first question period after the winter break, I'd be feeling pretty chilled.

Update: According to commenter Jason, the red scarves had to do with a charitable initiative, and not Dion's caucus support. My apologies.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich (Blackstrap, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, January 31, is National Red Scarf Day. Twelve year old Miss Hannah Taylor initiated this campaign. As a young child, she witnessed a person homeless and hungry and was moved to take action to combat homelessness in Canada.

The Minister of Human Resources and Social Development and I met with this charming young lady this morning to express our government's support for her great work.

We recognize that a safe and stable home is an important first step on the path out of poverty. Our new homelessness partnering strategy works with other levels of government, the private sector and community organizations like Hannah's Ladybug Foundation to implement solutions that address local problems. Together, our work is delivering results.

We recognize National Red Scarf Day. On behalf of the government, I am pleased to acknowledge the valuable work of Hannah Taylor, the Ladybug Foundation and the Canadians who support this worthy cause. We thank Hannah.
--Hansard, Wednesday

May too Liberal with her punctuation

Harper never used Keen’s given name, nor the word “waiting” in the Commons

Taking a break from her rantings about Adolf Hitler, Green Party supremo Elizabeth May turns to another old lib-left chestnut, Stephen Harper’s supposed sexism. Unfortunately, she relied upon some invented facts to make her case:

And now I turn to an unexamined aspect of the Harper abuse: sexism. The ways he spit out the name “Linda Keen” day after day in Question Period, suggested he felt he could make hay out of the fact the President of the CNSC was a woman. If CNSC member Dr. Christopher Barnes, with both an Order of Canada and membership in the Royal Society of Canada, had been its President, I simply cannot imagine the Prime Minister rounding on Michael Ignatieff, as he did in the House, demanding if he was prepared to wait for “Dr. Christopher Barnes” with the scorn in his voice he emoted for “waiting for Ms. Keen!”.
--Elizabeth May, guest-posting at Scott’s DiaTribes, January 21, 2008

Just for a lark, I checked Hansard. Harper referred to Keen by name a grand total of five times: once on December 12, and four times on December 13. On every occasion, he referred to her as “Ms. Keen,” not “Linda Keen.”

And he never used the word “waiting” in reference to her in the Commons. In fact, if you search the entire Parliament site for the phrase “waiting for Ms. Keen” you get 0 results.

Well, as some say, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Or perhaps May just doesn’t understand what quotation marks mean.

I checked the video too. You can view the December 12 clip here (Harper starts at about 21:00) and the December 13 clip here (Harper starts at about 04:19:30). I guess if May wants to describe Harper as spitting that's her prerogative, but he struck me as more bewildered and bemused at the Liberals' flip-flopping.

Delacourt: Keen coverage is payback for Harper’s treatment of press gallery

Media are making a point – about themselves

In case anyone missed Friday’s “Politics” broaaadcast on Newsworld, Toronto Star columnist Susan Delacourt provided a rare moment of insight into the media’s attitudes (or at least her own). Her comment starts at about 49:30:

Delacourt: This is where, I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple of days, their media strategy – I know it sounds like we’re fixed on this – but remember, that we here in the media, one of the things that we’re supposed to be is independent as well.

And for the last two years, this government has sort of shown, sort of, the back of the hand to that whole idea of independence, or sort of distance, and I think this is where it catches up with them.

The media is gonna tell this story from the experience they know which is – we don’t know what it’s like to get someone on your doorstep firing you at ten o’clock at night – but we certainly know what it feels like to be trifled with and to be played around with and bullied.

And I think that’s where, if these guys had had a little more of a farsighted media strategy, that maybe this story would be being told a different way. But I’ve been very surprised watching the way this story has been reported. And how else would we report it? It’s what we know here.

While it’s indisputable that the Harper government has imposed a strict discipline on government communications and spokespersons (an understandable policy for a conservative government), this can hardly be described as giving reporters the “back of the hand.” What it has given the back of its hand to is the old style of media relations under the Liberals.

Under that style, Hill reporters were not treated with independence or distance; they were treated as pets to be cultivated and – if deemed sympathetic – rewarded with leaks from inside government, weekly caucus meetings, and not-so-underground leadership campaigns. (Sounds like trifling and playing to me.)

Delacourt’s comments suggest that reporters have decided to take a stand on their independence – by sabotaging it (“How dare Harper treat us like we’re biased, we’ll show him – by being biased!”). Which seems rather like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

This is why Kimmel rules my late night

Check out this YouTube of Jimmy Kimmel’s interview Monday night with two guys from Louisiana, who had been thrown out of their (former) favourite all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. (You may have heard about this incident in the news.)

Unfortunately, the video has a one-minute gap starting just before 6:00, but if you skip ahead to about 7:00, you will get a last laugh.



I think Letterman still does interviews like this too, but his are painfully unfunny. Like the rest of his show.

This just in . . .

CP figures out that February holiday won’t come cheap and wasn't thought through – four months after it was announced

The Liberal government's plan to give Ontario workers a new holiday next month will cost municipal taxpayers millions of dollars, and Premier Dalton McGuinty admitted Tuesday there are still "wrinkles" to be ironed out regarding Family Day.

There are also fears the new statutory holiday will mean increased costs to clear roads if it snows on Feb. 18 because towns and cities would have to pay a premium to anyone called in to work due to a storm or other emergency such as a broken water main.
--“Family Day to cost Ontario municipal taxpayers millions of dollars,” Canadian Press, today

But CP saved the best for the end of the story:

"We're going to have to find a way to iron out some of the wrinkles that develop as we bring in place the very first Family Day," McGuinty said. "Undoubtedly there were wrinkles of this nature when they first put in place the original eight statutory holidays."

Damn you, Jesus!

The sound of selective science

(With apologies to Kate)

From the New York Times’ John Tierney (h/t: Andrew Potter):

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year’s end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record — it was actually lower than any year since 2001 — the BBC confidently proclaimed, “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed.

When Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005, it was supposed to be a harbinger of the stormier world predicted by some climate modelers. When the next two hurricane seasons were fairly calm — by some measures, last season in the Northern Hemisphere was the calmest in three decades — the availability entrepreneurs changed the subject. Droughts in California and Australia became the new harbingers of climate change (never mind that a warmer planet is projected to have more, not less, precipitation over all).
--John Tierney, New York Times, January 1