Monthly Archive: September 2007

Dalton McGuinty has gone on the record: "I won't raise taxes!"

A fine sentiment, but in the background, the actions of one arm the Ontario government is about to seriously impact on the ability of another arm of the government to raise funds through Ontario Savings Bonds. A lack of ministerial oversight has brought this absurd situation to a head.

Think about it. OSBs raised $1.3 billion for the government in 2007. If that revenue stream is squeezed, then how can Dalton McGuinty keep his promise?

Bryon Wilfert, a close advisor to Stephane Dion, says the time is not right to have an election. If the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois vote against the Throne Speech, it would be up to the Liberals to support the Throne Speech and so avoid an election. Wilfert has a plan for how that would happen, but it hinges on Liberal MPs being in support of Stephane Dion, and I can't think we can just assume that.

Is Stephane Dion the little yellow dude of Canadian politics?

The Jamie Carroll story continues to spiral out of control. The list of Liberals publicly demanding that Stephane Dion take action grows by the hour. That Stephane Dion's leadership has taken another huge body blow is no longer in question.

An official call has been made by Robert Fragasso, the president of the Liberal Party in Quebec, that Jamie Carroll resign as national director of the Liberal Party. Carroll is Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's longtime ally and an important party of Dion's inner circle. His position as national director is key to what control Stephane Dion has over his party.

But with this news, we have the first open sign of a serious challenge to Stephane Dion's leadership.

Update: Massive Liberal infighting goes public.

We hear from Liberal sources that at a meeting with Quebec Liberals in the aftermath of the Outremount by-election loss, Jamie Carroll responded to demands that more Quebecers be included in Stephane Dion's inner circle. Jamie Carroll is the Liberal Party's National Director and a close supporter and advisor of Liberal Stephane Dion.

Jamie Carroll's response: If I hire more Quebecers, will I also have to hire more Chinese?

A Liberal blogger has had enough and wants Stephane Dion to slap Jamie Carroll down.

Meanwhile I am amazed at just how eager Quebec Liberals are to make sure that any misstep by Stephane Dion or his inner circle is made known to the press.

Update #1: The president of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, Robert Fragasso, is demanding that Jamie Carroll remove himself as national director.

Update #2: Massive Liberal infighting goes public.

Apparently the Liberal Party in Quebec will shut down tomorrow unless Liberal Party headquarters in Ottawa sends them $250,000 immediately.

I don't know what is more remarkable. That the Liberal Party in Quebec is shaking down HQ for money, or that we're hearing about it.

But to me, it comes near to confirming a pattern suggesting that the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party is in full rebellion.

Is $60 million a lot of money to Dalton McGuinty? Don't expect a straight answer. If my sources are right, then for the premier of Ontario, it really depends on who is getting the $60 million and why.

Autistic children? Um, sorry, too rich for his blood.

Goofy architecture backed by Ontario's wealthiest citizens? Sure, and who can Dalton McGuinty make the cheque out to?

Maybe it really depends on which group of people is worth more in political donations in the future.

The wife of Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion, Janine Krieber, recently gave a speech at Queen's University. It was an official Liberal Party event, and the audience was treated to Krieber's insights into the ins and outs of terrorism.

And guess what? Apparently the BlackBerry from Canada's RIM would make a real good tool for terrorists.

The Liberal Party has paid a steep price since electing Stephane Dion leader. And yet as bad as it gets, there always seems to be room for things to get worse. Now news that Marc Garneau, Canada's first man in space, and a former star candidate for the Liberal Party, won't run for the Liberals this time around. But the way in which Marc Garneau explained his decision, the way it portrays the Liberal Party in the worst possible light, especially in Quebec and in particular attributed to Stephane Dion's style of leadership, has pushed that price up even higher.

Frankly, I can't imagine how much longer Liberals are going watch idly as the cost of Stephane Dion's leadership rises.

Gilles Duceppe faces an uncertain future. The only certainty, therefore, is that he would want that reckoning to be delayed as long as possible.

I've just found out comments have been out of order. Please stay tuned.

Update: Issues have been resolved (comments, access to API, etc)

I've always had a stereotypical view of Liberal Party members, both federal and provincial, as having a unified set of opinions on such issues as homosexuality. I was surprised to see just how far off of Liberal Party policy you could veer and still be called a Liberal. In this case, I'm looking at Dave Yadallee, a riding president for the Alberta Liberal Party, and his opinion that homosexuality is a slur on society.

Well, that isn't very Liberal of him.

Put aside that the Kyoto Protocol is fatally flawed, based on bogus number that even supporters admit would have little impact on their own much-vaunted (but equally useless) computer model predictions. The fact is, where it matters, no one cares.

China is exempt from the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, given a pass because it argued that the "world's factory" needed more growth to finish emerging from the status of a developing country. Sure. Whatever. But even if China, as one of the planet's largest producers of greenhouse gases, was included in Kyoto, it wouldn't have mattered.

As illustrated on Car Free Day, one of the world's most carefully controlled populations under the rule of one the world's most enduring dictatorships simply ignored the government-supported environmental initiative.

The key to being an effective politician is to be flexible in your thinking.

Imagine something flexible, like an overcooked noodle.

The website for the federal Liberal Party's Quebec wing is a complete mess. I'm not talking about a couple of bad links. I mean a site that would never be released as a beta. For a working website to have reached this state suggests a site that has essentially been abandoned.

I find that very interesting.

Scanning the news in the aftermath of the Quebec by-election results that saw the Liberal Party under Stephane Dion suffer humiliating losses in every riding, I am struck by the pattern that emerges. Different stories on different topics, and yet knitted together they paint a picture of a Liberal Party in disarray, but even worse, a leadership that isn't acting in a way that suggests they recognize it.

Michael Ignatieff is having a fundraiser in Vancouver. Can't find it? Look for the posters with puffins on it.

I'm not kidding.

The Liberals must stop fighting among themselves. Listen to this guy, he knows what he's talking about.

Aside from the shift in the MP distribution, what do the number of votes cast for each candidate in the Quebec by-elections tell us about what arguments are going on behind closed doors at the party headquarters of the Liberal Party and the Bloc Quebecois?

Stephane Dion's time as leader of the Liberal Party might well be done. He will retain the position, but the comments of an anonymous MP quoted by the media suggest that Stephane Dion's days of actually being allowed to lead are essentially over.

A Liberal blogger who volunteered in the riding of Outremont has some obervations related to the allegations that factions in the Liberal Party, specifically Michael Ignatieff's supporters, are throwing the by-election in order to embarrass Liberal leader Stephane Dion and so set the stage for another leadership race.

Though he doesn't see direct evidence that would allocate blame to Ignatieff's people, he says that there was something very odd going on in Outremont. This was not a campaign designed to win a seat for Stephane Dion and the Liberals.

Thanks to the sleuthing work of Jason Cherniak, we know for certain that the allegation that Michael Ignatieff loyalists are actively trying to undermine the Liberal efforts to win in the Outremont by-election, and so sink the leadership of Stephane Dion, came from a real Liberal source.

The serious allegations that Michael Ignatieff and his people are working against a Liberal win in the by-election in Outremont as a way of pushing Stephane Dion out as leader is not the first time this story has played out in the press.

But what is very revealing is that the two stories are very similar.

And I mean very similar.

In my last post, I considered the possibility that enemies of Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion from within the party would like to see their own party lose the by-eletion inthe riding of Outremont. A Liberal stronghold, the Liberal candidate is Jocelyn Coulon, an academic cut from the same cloth as Stephane Dion himself, a candidate that was not nominated by the Liberals in the riding but appointed to be their nominee directly by Stephane Dion. A loss would reflect poorly on Stephane Dion on a number of levels -- weakness in Quebec, poor decision-making skills, etc -- and might accelerate his departure as leader of the Liberal Party.

If I was Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae, I might see such a loss for the Liberal Party as an opportunity to get a second chance at the party leadership. If not Ignatieff and Rae personally, then maybe their more devoted followers in the party. With that in mind, I considered that elements in the Liberal Party would work towards a Liberal loss.

It made logical sense, but frankly I was being speculative. There was no way that my musings could ever be backed by evidence. These sorts of things happen so far back behind the scenes that we'd be lucky to learn the truth of it decades from now in some memoir or autobiography.

Or maybe not. How about confirmation of my theory before the day is out? Political musing at internet speed indeed.

Just how close is the by-election in Outremont, Quebec? And can Stephane Dion influence the outcome? I don't mean influencing voters. I mean influencing people in his own party to pull for a win in that traditional Liberal riding.

Check out Ms Dewey, and then you'll understand why Google has nothing to worry about.

Just tracing the money from the Ontario Liberal Party to the AFL-CIO in the United States to member unions in Canada to the Working Families Coalition working hard to make sure that Dalton McGuinty's Liberals win the upcoming Ontario election.

Ottawa is embroiled in controversy. The Conservatives are being targeted for having moved money from the national campaign office into local riding associations to use to buy local advertising. But the advertising was in fact purchased from the national campaign. It consisted of the national ad with the local candidate's name added to the end (connecting the local candidate to the national party brand).

Elections Canada is calling foul, saying the ads weren't truly local. The Conservatives argue that the ads were local, and in any case, that sort of judgment call is not for Elections Canada to make.

The Liberals are in a frenzy, demanding inquiries and such. People go to jail for this sort of thing! Fraud! Fraud!

Hey. No one is doubting that advertising was actually purchased by the Conservatives.

The Liberals ought to be careful. A quick look at one shows something that looks, well, strange. I was looking at Stephane Dion's returns.

Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government in Ontario has awarded a number of lucrative infrastructure construction projects to a consortium bankrolled by the Labourer's Pension Fund. When you look at the history of the fund, the union behind it, and the political links surrounding the players, you can't help but wonder if everything is connected somehow.

Funny how priorities are set nowadays. On the one hand, a film with explicit depictions of child sex and rape is praised as art, with an extra showing scheduled by the Toronto International Film Festival. This despite the fact that people have been arrested for having cartoon depictions of underage sex in their possession. But while a lot of latitude is given to the depiction of child sex, Ontario will not tolerate the sight of anyone smoking.

I mean really, we have draw the line somewhere.

That Elections Canada is even involved in passing judgment on whether a particular ad is effective as a local ad is fundamentally insulting. Political advertisements are aimed at me, the voter, and not at Elections Canada. I get to pass judgment on the ad campaign when I vote. Elections Canada ought to butt once it has confirmed that the money was spent on advertising.

Glancing over at Michael Bryant's No Gun No Funeral website, I see things are quiet. They've been quiet for quite some time.

Garth Turner keeps insisting that local funds out of existing budgets are covering the mass mail campaign preceding his Lost Tory Tour. But the more I read about the issue of MP-originated mail, the more I discover that this is a significant controversy with a big impact on costs, costs that are paid for by the taxpayer. Now I've learned that it is the difference between spending $1 to send a bunch of flyers, and spending $100 to send the same flyers.

It looks like Garth Turner and his friends chose the $100 option.

Fiscal responsibility would require, at the very least, being up front about the difference in cost.

For the heck of it, let's create a central post for tracking, if we can, which Liberal MPs are charging Canadians first class postage rates to deliver thousands of anonymous flyers on behalf of Garth Turner. Garth Turner says he doesn't know who these MPs are, so we'll have to build up a list of Garth Turner's secret admirers on our own.

With some insight from a postal worker, I can start to put some potential costs to the taxpayer to advertise Garth Turner's Lost Tory Tour.

Update: Made some changes now that I have some more hard data on the way these mailings work.

A small improvement to the blog that I hope will improve people's experience here, as well as encourage even more online discussion.

Since I can't figure out who the 15 Liberal MPs who helped Garth Turner with his franked mail campaign, I'll have to think about something else. Something completely unrelated.

That's not my metaphor. That's the image painted by Katharine Parsons, a Liberal Party activist and a director on the board of the York-Simcoe Federal Liberal Riding Association. She has issued a remarkable press release that shows that things are not well in York-Simcoe. What is even more remarkable is the Liberal Party infighting is not so in anymore, but is being done out in the open via press releases.

This blog post shares the name with a Garth Turner blog post on the same subject. Garth Turner poses some very good questions that deserve some answers.

Another example of a generic Garth Turner tour flyer being delivered by individually addressed envelopes to people in the areas where he will be making an appearance. Another example from what might be an expensive advertising campaign being paid for by taxpayers, but more interesting is what the recipients have in common.

It could explain why we're being made to pay for this.

I've been reviewing my thoughts on the material sent to people to encourage them to see Liberal MP Garth Turner speak as he tours western Canada. Now with photographic evidence, I think I was wrong in my initial assessment. Special thanks to Garth Turner for helping me understand what is going on.

I got an email from a Calgary-based reader, relating to me the strange snail mail letter he received advertising the Garth Turner Lost Tory Tour. I'll relate to you what he told me, and let you muse about what it all means.

Update #1: The mail was sent from 15 different Liberal MPs into western ridings where Garth Turner would be doing his presentation. I suspect these were "10-percenters", a tool provided by the House of Commons to faciliate communications between an MP and his constituents, but increasingly used to send aggressive partisan mailings to voters in ridings held by other parties without spending party funds. If so, just how is this not a Liberal Party operation and just how does this not cost the taxpayer money?

Update #2: Having received a photo of the material sent, I've changed my mind. I don't think these are 10-percenters at all. I think this is expensive franked mail containing the equivalent of a 10-percenter. That's a huge leap in expense. Imagine the local dry cleaner sending you their monthly flyer via first class mail. Imagine then that the post office bill for that dry cleaner was paid for by you, whether you used that dry cleaner or not.

Liberal MP Garth Turner of Halton is on a speaking tour of western cities, outlining the multitude of reasons why Stephen Harper and the Conservatives ought to be thrown out of office. One of those reasons is the October 31, 2006 announcement by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty that income trusts would no longer enjoy tax-free status.

That announcement quickly devalued trusts, and investors whose portfolios were top-heavy with income trusts felt burned. That hit seniors particularly hard. Garth Turner says as much:

The Harper Party has repeatedly attacked its own bases of support. It betrayed seniors by taking their income trusts – folks who consistently have voted blue.

Seniors had their income trusts taken away? Why would seniors be so heavily engaged in income trusts in the first place? They are not a low-risk investment appropriate for a retiree's portfolio, at least not in a large proportion. You would think that the advice given by investment dealers is the real problem, especially since the taxation sword had been hanging over income trusts for quite some time.

Actually, you would be right to think that. A lot of seniors are thinking that too. If they are angry with Jim Flaherty, it is because they don't think he's moving fast enough on cleaning up that industry, an industry they believe is home to people who are little better than con men and who have been able to collect fees and commissions while dispensing poor advice to people who were too trusting.

Not exactly the spin Garth Turner has been putting on things.

Don't take my word for it though.

Check out other entries from the Garth Turner Lost Tory Tour category
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Garth Turner posted an artistic rendering that shows him to be Stephane Dion's general assigned the task to take back the West for the Liberal Party, while General Stephane Dion takes the east. Taken in the context in which it was intended, the cartoon is actually poking fun at those who think Garth Turner has been assigned such an exalted task.

Of course, Garth Turner doesn't provide that context, nor does he link to where you can understand the original context.

Just a post about a curious observation about Mickey Mouse. Rendered in 3D, Mickey's ears are stubbornly two-dimensional. I wonder how much trouble that was for modern animators.

We live in interesting times in southern Ontario. Yesterday, a major highway was shut down to allow police to safely transport three explosive devices discovered during the arrest of Adel Arnaout, the suspect in three letter bombings in Toronto and nearby Guelph.

Now that the excitement is over, and the dust, literally and figuratively, has settled, many are eager to learn the details of the case built up by the police. What little we know reads like a crime mystery.

I fully expect a Law & Order episode to be based on these events next season.

In Britain, we have an interesting case study of what happens when guns become the focus of police efforts instead of the criminals themselves. The results are obvious in hindsight, but are also so absurd that perhaps the British can be forgiven for not realizing what would happen.

But in Canada, we have no such excuse, since we can study the British experience and draw lessons from it.