Eight Days Later, the Liberals Learn Nothing

May 10, 2011

As a political observer, one can't help but be transfixed by the most-recent implosion of the Liberal Party. I say most recent, because the Liberals seem to fall into disaster every time they have to find a new leader. Eight days removed from an electoral drubbing, the Liberals are at it again.

With the newly-elected NDP MPs coming under scrutiny, one would think the Liberals would be salivating at the chance to get these rookies in the House and watch them face off against the experienced Tory ministers in Question Period. All the Liberals would seemingly have to do against these rookie members of the Official Opposition is put together a sentence and they would look like a coherent, credible alternative.

Instead, the Liberals are happy to hash out their leadership battles for the Canadian public to see - again - and make it as bloody as possible. Keith Beardsley has put it best, in the National Post: constitution be damned, the Liberals need a quick-fix and ignoring the document on which the party is based is the best way to do it.

Instead of working to become a force in Canadian politics the Liberals are, once again, at each other's throats. Centrist alternative be damned, Liberals have to look out for number one first: themselves.

At the end of the day, this looks better and better for the Conservatives: an inexperienced NDP opposition and a weak Liberal Party that will only get weaker as it fights yet another civil war. I like our chances come 2015...

So now what?

May 5, 2011

Here we are, three days after the election and many are talking about a "seismic shift" in Canadian politics. Depending on who you talk to, there was an "Orange Crush" or an "Orange Wave" that led the NDP to become Canada's new Official Opposition, decimated the Liberal Party of Canada and left Canadians with a Conservative majority government. On top of it all, the Bloc Québécois has been virtually wiped out, holding only four seats in the House of Commons; eight short of even being recognized as an official party in the House.

Now, I'm obviously thrilled with the results. I think a Conservative majority was what this country has needed for a long time. I'm excited about the next four years - low taxes, job creation and a reduction of the deficit. On top of it all, the Prime Minister has committed to Universal Health Care and I think we'll have a relatively moderate government.

I'm also thrilled with the Conservative breakthrough in Toronto. Seats like Eglinton-Lawrence, Don Valley West and even (this one shocked me) Willowdale are now held by Conservative MP's. I know these aren't all the Tory seats in the city, but it's the first few that come to mind. This is a good breakthrough and a testament to the work the Tories have done since 2004 to steadily increase their vote count and finally win some seats.

I do want to take a minute to address those that think Monday's results mean the end of the Liberal Party. It doesn't. When we look at the NDP opposition, it's a bit of a gongshow. I don't doubt the dedication of these new Parliamentarians, but their experience is a little, shall we say, lacking. Even veteran Parliamentarians like Tom Mulcair are already having faux-pas moments where they are having to correct the record. Liberals merely need to seize on this inexperience, time after time, to show that they do have the bench strength to at least form the Official Opposition come 2015.

I also found it fascinating that Jack Layton believes this to be a momentous victory. No question that his achievement is historic and should be applauded as a success for his party, but while he is now the Leader of the Opposition, he has actually lost clout in Parliament. In the previous minority governments, Jack could pry concessions from the government if he wanted to (and if the government would concede to him, in order to avoid defeat). Now, he's the Leader of the Opposition in a majority Parliament. Sorry to break it to you, Jack, but you're likely to accomplish nothing. Maybe Ruth-Ellen Brosseau will take you to Vegas when Parliament breaks for one of its holidays.

On the Lighter Side: A Word Cloud!

A word cloud of the most commonly used words thus far. Interesting that "Liberals" seems to be the biggest!

The Rise of the NDP

April 24, 2011

Yes, I know - I haven't updated this in awhile. I've been keeping up with the campaign, but it's been a hectic week and a half. I apologize to my faithful readers (if I have any) for my delay.

For those who have continued to follow the campaign, you'll know that the NDP has been on the rise in polls. Whether this will translate into seats for Jack Layton and his party, we will have to wait until election night to find out.

Looking at another third party that was seemingly on the rise, we can turn to the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom. In the 2010 election there, a massive sweep of "Cleggmania" was expected to wipe out the Labour Party and turn the election into a race between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. At the end of the day, the Lib Dems kept their share of the vote roughly from the previous general election and actually lost five seats in the process.

There are really two scenarios that could play out due to the rise of the NDP: 1) Left-leaning voters split their "anti-Harper" votes between the NDP and Liberals, allowing Conservative candidates to come up the middle; or 2) Left-leaning voters, seeing the rise of the NDP, coalesce around Jack Layton and provide him with enough seats to overtake the Liberals as the Official Opposition.

To be entirely honest, I would be far more comfortable with the NDP as the Official Opposition. I disagree with everything the NDP stands for, but I respect New Democrats far more than Liberals because New Democrats have principles that they stick to no matter what. This is why I'm a Conservative - because Conservatives also tend to be more principled. Liberals, on the other hand, occupy the "mushy middle" of Canadian politics and don't put the focus on what is the best measures policy wise, but what will best benefit them politically.

It will also be interesting to see what the rise of the NDP means for Toronto-area ridings that have always voted Liberal. The two options I outlined earlier, regarding either the Tories coming up the middle or more New Democrats getting elected could be seen to have the greatest impact right here in Toronto and in other urban centres where Liberals/New Democrats are elected in far greater numbers than Conservatives.

I guess we'll find out in eight days!

Highlight of the debate

April 13, 2011


A new post to come shortly, I've been busy. Just wanted to share my favourite debate night moment. Admittedly, it came from Jack Layton but the stunned look and then smirk from Ignatieff is priceless as he tries to come up with a defence.

The Economy

April 5, 2011

For me, this election is all about one issue: the economy. Yes, I identify myself as conservative and support the Conservative Party. That said, if Michael Ignatieff had presented a stellar economic plan, I would have given him a look. But, his platform came out and it was like traveling in time to the days of Trudeau. As I said in a previous post, the policies of the Trudeau government are a reason why I'm a conservative-minded individual.

With the economy being top of mind, I was pleased to read today that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says that Canada will lead the G7 in economic growth for the first half of 2011. In brief, Canada's economy will grow by 5.2 per cent in 2011's first quarter and smaller, but still acceptable, growth rates in the next two quarters.

I have to admit, that when the recession hit, I was worried about the massive amount of spending that was done by federal and provincial governments. I tend to be a bit of a deficit hawk. But looking at the statistics, 23,000 projects were funded across Canada which created 480,000 jobs according to government figures. I also strongly support the government's deficit reduction plan, which includes wrapping up the stimulus spending and conducting a review of government operations. If the Conservative budget measures continue to be implemented, we should be out of deficit by 2015. I can accept that.

For me, there is really only one party that gets the economic balancing act that is necessary at this time - and obviously, it's the Conservatives. Today's report from the OECD just firms up the fact that the Harper Conservatives have done - and will continue to do - a good job (and yes, I support corporate tax cuts).

National Post editorial board: A far cry from the Red Book

April 4, 2011

I was going to write a post this evening about the recently released Liberal platform. The National Post said it best, however, and I've decided to simply share their comments, from the Editorial Board.

The Liberals won power in the 1993 election, in part, because of their platform. Nicknamed the Red Book, the document was an integrated mix of sensible, centrist planks that had all been costed out and that were complementary with one another. Some Liberals are claiming that the 2011 successor to the Red Book, released Sunday, follows in the same tradition.

Alas, the comparison is inapt. The Liberals’ new platform for the current election is disappointing. It contains little that is novel, promises billions in new spending that will be paid for with higher taxes, and sneaks in a major environmental program without disclosing how much it will cost or whether or not it will stunt job growth.

Officially known as “Your Family. Your Future. Your Canada,” the document even reopens the old tar pit of employment equity in the federal civil service — a sop to NDP supporters who never tire of gender politics. This time, though, the Liberals want to go further than merely creating another enormous bureaucracy to evaluate whether an Office Assistant III should be paid the same as a Materials Management Foreman II. They want to elevate pay equity to the status of a human right. That way, federal bureaucrats who feel their positions are undervalued can file both employment and rights grievances.

Not all the Liberals’ ideas are bad. As the National Post has advocated on more than one occasion, the party favours establishment of a civilian oversight board for the RCMP, along the lines of the one already in place for the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service. The inability to reform the RCMP has been one of the biggest failures of the Tories’ five years in office. Indeed, under the Harper government, the rot within our once-proud national police force has gone from bad to worse.

Nor is there much wrong with the basic concept of a “Canadian Learning Passport” that would offer $1,000 a year to students to attend college or university. The concept is likely to rankle Quebec’s provincial government, which sees even benign forays into education, such as this, as unwelcome intrusions by Ottawa into provincial jurisdiction. (Quebec complained bitterly about another $1,000-gift scheme the Liberals devised in 1999, the Millennium Scholarships.) And the passports could have the unintended consequence of becoming a subsidy just for the middle and upper class, because — at $1,000 a year — they would be too small to make post-secondary schooling affordable to students from low-income families. But as big-government initiatives go, this one is relatively harmless.

When all of the various planks are thrown in, however, the economic math in the Liberal platform doesn’t work. On the one hand, Michael Ignatieff and his party promise $8.2-billion in new social spending over their first two years in office, funded almost entirely by a cancellation of planned corporate tax cuts. Yet they insist that corporations won’t fare poorly, because they will “provide the right incentives for entrepreneurs and investors” to create new jobs and businesses. But the incentives pledge carries with it only about $2-billion over the same period. Forgive us for being dubious, but if the Liberals take $8-billion from entrepreneurs and investors and give them back just $2-billion, the net result is unlikely to be more jobs and economic growth.

The platform even opens the Liberals up to charges of harbouring a — dare we say it — hidden agenda. Having been burned in the last election by the unpopularity of their radical, pro-environmentalist Green Shift program, the Liberals buried their new major eco-plank — a cap-and-trade system — on p. 46. Yet in revealing his party’s policies on the weekend, Mr. Ignatieff made no mention of cap-and-trade, which would put a high price and firm limit on carbon dioxide emissions, then force companies and consumers to buy credits for their use of electricity, gasoline and other fuels. Tory supporters will no doubt argue, with justification, that this is just Green Shift Lite.

In the lead-up to the Liberal platform release, many Canadians wondered whether the party would lurch left or right — either to steal stray voters from the NDP and summon the faded glory of Trudeau-era statism, or else to create a truly centrist pro-growth alternative to the Tories. Unfortunately, Mr. Ignatieff chose the first option. We believe it is not a wise blueprint for Canada, nor a wise path for his party.

Article source: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/04/04/national-post-editorial-board-a-far-cry-from-the-red-book/