It's More Than The Economy

Chantal Hebert writes in today's Toronto Star that the Liberal Party is floundering because Canadians believe Stephen Harper is a competent economic manager:

The global economic downturn has become to Harper what the unity debate was for a string of successful Liberal governments — a defining file that he is managing to own.

So far, no opposition figure is emerging to give the Harper/Flaherty tandem a real run for its money. The opposition narrative on the government’s economic management is failing to find traction with the public.

But, once again, Hebert focuses on only part of the narrative. The Harperites have been ramming through highly ideological legislation -- which has infuriated different segments of Canadian society. The Omnibus Crime bill has both Quebec and Ontario up in arms. The bill to abolish the central desk at the Canadian Wheat Board has alienated a significant number of Canadian farmers.  Killing the gun registry -- and the data base that goes with it -- has created significant opposition in Canadian cities. And the government's prohibition of strikes in the private sector has unions seething.

Anyone who thinks that Mr. Harper's attempt to restructure Canadian society is a political no brainer should look at what has happened in the United States during this week. E.J. Dionne writes that Republicans are taking a "shellacking:"

This week’s elections around the country were brought to you by the word “overreach,” specifically conservative overreach. Given an opportunity in 2010 to build a long-term majority, Republicans instead pursued extreme and partisan measures. On Tuesday, they reaped angry voter rebellions.

In Ohio, voters rejected Governor Kasich's attempt to restrict union bargaining rights. In Maine, voters exercised a "peoples veto" of Republican attempts to outlaw same day voter registration. And, most surprising of all:

In Mississippi, perhaps the most conservative state in the union, voters beat back a referendum to declare a fertilized human egg a person by a margin of roughly 3-to-2. Here was overreach by the right-to-life movement, which tried to get voters to endorse a measure that could have outlawed popular forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization.

Since coming to power, Mr. Harper has followed the Republican model. It would appear that American voters have looked at the Republicans and have had buyer's remorse. One wonders if Stephen Harper is paying attention.

Ultimately, voters will judge him on much more than his stewardship of the economy.

When Every Vote Counts

Every several decades, David Shribman writes, the United States has an election in which "the country seems to approach one of the hinges of history." The election of 2012  will be such an election. While a significant number of voters may be in the center, the nation's two political parties are not:

Sometimes, it seems as if the two parties are occupying different universes. In Congress, where liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats once made common cause, the chasm between the two parties is wider than the aisles that separate them – indeed, wider than at any time in memory. In fact, for the first time in the modern era, there’s no ideological intersection between the two parties. The most liberal Republican, a phrase that increasingly is an oxymoron, is more conservative than the most conservative Democrat, a phrase that also seems an antique.

Faced with such a stark choice, a lot of voters could choose to stay home. They did that recently in Canada, where the Liberal Party -- which has always occupied the political center -- was almost reduced to an historical footnote. But, as Canadians are discovering, even with the support of only 25% of the voting public, the winning side is proceeding -- full speed ahead -- on its agenda.

So, one way or another, Americans are going to get the complete package. Their problem will be to decide which package they prefer. Shribman writes:

Here are some of the questions at issue: Should the country press ahead with a comprehensive overhaul of health care or peel away at the Obamacare program passed in 2010? Should Washington regulate how banks and other financial institutions behave and pay their executives? How should the country pay for retirement supplements and health-care obligations undertaken when the country was richer and younger, now that it’s poorer and older? Are central banks such as the Federal Reserve redoubts of tyranny or tools to tame, or spur, the economy? Are taxes the price of civilization or a threat to freedom?

This will be an election where every vote counts -- and where every decision not to vote also counts.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Dull But Brilliant

Canadians tend to think that their country's history is dull. But like William Lyon Mackenzie King -- one of Canada's longest serving prime ministers -- there is much that is brilliant below the surface. Lawrence Martin writes that King was unquestionably a weirdo:

Few knew that seances, table-rapping sessions and communing with the likes of William Gladstone, Wilfrid Laurier and other stiffs occupied big stretches of King’s time. In contemplating affairs of state, he ascribed great significance to the formations of his shaving cream. At breakfast, it was the configuration of tea leaves that arrested him. Before heading off to work, he would shoot the breeze with his dog, Pat.

But King spent his youth as a labour negotiator; and he was, in his mother's apt phrase, "the Official Harmonizer."  King's style of governance defined the Liberal Party for eighty years:

His exemplary displays of centrist brokerage politics, his placing of national unity at the forefront and his securing of Quebec were pillars that endured for decades. But the fracturing began under Mr. Trudeau and was accelerated by Mr. Turner, who clashed with both Mr. Trudeau and Jean Chrétien. The party took sides, dividing into long-lasting Trudeau/Chrétien and Turner/Paul Martin blocs.

Today we live among the ruins of King's legacy. Stephen Harper -- who is as wily as King -- is trying to get the country to do a one hundred and eighty degree turn. The difference is that King, for all his weirdness, had a gut feel for the country. Stephen Harper -- who, in some ways, is equally dull -- suffers from a Louis XIV complex.

King knew that his grandfather would have been appalled to hear his grandson proclaim, "l'etat c'est moi!" So he worked hard at being dull -- but brilliant.

The Sun Also Rises

Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times that solar power is no longer the Impossible Dream:

. . . progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy,” with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year.

This has already led to rapid growth in solar installations, but even more change may be just around the corner. If the downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.

While the United States waged war in Iraq, the cost of solar power declined dramatically. However, the fossil fuel industry -- in both Canada and the United States -- has funnelled billions into the conservative parties of both countries:

Let’s face it: a large part of our political class, including essentially the entire G.O.P., is deeply invested in an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels, and actively hostile to alternatives. This political class will do everything it can to ensure subsidies for the extraction and use of fossil fuels, directly with taxpayers’ money and indirectly by letting the industry off the hook for environmental costs, while ridiculing technologies like solar.

Fifty years ago, the oil industry made war on the electric car. That war was so successful that it has only been in the last decade that people have seriously considered battery powered automobiles. We should expect the same reaction now.

The question is: Are we going to be bulldozed a second time?

The Problem of Political Courage

Chantal Hebert argues in today's Toronto Star that the repatriation of the Constitution in 1981 unleashed a tide of populism which has paralyzed Canada's parliamentary institutions:

In the three decades since the patriation conference, the parties and the politicians who have espoused the new culture of populism have thrived; those who clung to the old ways have wilted. Canada’s traditional parties were in the latter category. So were the country’s parliamentary institutions.

Perhaps. But it's also quite possible that the problem lies not in the institutions so much as in the leaders who followed patriation. Much more saliently, Hebert writes:

Over the past 30 years, political courage has become a rarer commodity in Canada. As in the case of other more tangible commodities, the rule that if you don’t use it you lose it applies to this near-extinct virtue.

She claims that the two phenomena are linked: the rise of populism has led to a decline in political courage. Our leaders have, indeed, lacked political courage. But I'm not convinced that populism is to blame. To begin with, the so called populist revolt has given us Stephen Harper, one of the most dictatorial prime ministers in this nation's history. One would think that populism would serve as a check on the prime minister's power.

Secondly, Hebert takes no notice of the corporatist forces which have grabbed the reins of power in almost every Western democracy. The corporatist agenda has led to our present crisis. Populism is not the cause of our problems. The concentration of wealth and power got us into this mess.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are part of an almost universal populist movement. Rather than causing our problems, populism may be what gets us out of this mess -- provided our political leaders can rediscover the true meaning of courage.

Sophocles Knew How The Story Went

Two weeks ago, I applauded as European leaders finally forced their mega banks to take a haircut. But events this week have illustrated how fragile their plan is. The union is too multifaceted to deal with the extraordinary mess the so called best and brightest have managed to create.

As Tom Walkom points out in The Toronto Star, what began as a noble experiment fell victim to arrogance:

The arrogance emerged in 1999 when Europe’s leaders, smug with success, transformed this quite workable trade agreement into a far more ambitious scheme — a full-fledged monetary union.

Based on a new currency called the euro, that union was a step too far. It tempted fate.

And in the end, it brought on itself the wrath of the gods who, as the ancient Greeks knew well, like to smack humans when they get too uppity.

The  idea of a common currency -- like the so called "liar's loans," which fueled Wall Street's profits for over a decade  -- came with problems no one thought were of consequence:

From the beginning, the monetary union was fatally flawed. That it attempted to link entirely disparate economies through a single currency was difficult enough. Economically, countries like Portugal and Spain had virtually nothing in common with Germany, France or the Netherlands.

But its real flaw was lack of back-up. A central bank was established to issue the new euro. But unlike the Bank of Canada, this European Central Bank is explicitly forbidden from acting as a lender of last resort when regional institutions get into trouble.

More important, and again unlike the Canadian or American federations, the 17-member eurozone has no mechanism for transferring money from rich areas to those in need.

That, too, is explicitly forbidden.

It's possible that the Europeans can save themselves. But creating a bigger pot of money is only a stop gap measure. They need a central bank with more sweeping powers than just the ability to print money. However, those powers would infringe on the national sovereignty of all seventeen European nations. Getting to that kind of agreement is much more difficult than getting the private banks to take a haircut.

Sophocles knew how the story went.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Science is Useful

When the Harper government encounters facts which contradict its preconceived notions, it simply ignores them. That is certainly the case with the government's tough on crime agenda. As Jeffrey Simpson writes in this morning's Globe and Mail, homicides in Canada are at their lowest level since 1966; and, because homicide rates are considered a "social barometer,"  those numbers should be taken seriously:

Peel back the general statistics and look more closely at homicides. For example, 13 per cent of those accused of homicide in the past decade were suspected of having a mental or developmental disorder. “Tough on crime” measures are hopeless in these cases.

The government stiffens penalties for gun-related offences, even as the number and rate of firearm-related homicides are falling. More people are killed from stabbings and beatings than guns. So why don’t we crack down on knives and baseball bats?

And, as it cracks down on firearm offences, the government abolishes the gun registry and delists sniper rifles and the semi automatic rifle which was used in the Norway massacre. Then it tells the provinces they must bear some of the cost of its anti-crime agenda, even though it refuses to reveal the projected costs of the legislation. The problem, Simpson writes, is that:

Homicide rates in Ontario and Quebec are also falling. Both rates are below the national average, and Quebec’s is also at the lowest level since the mid-1960s. No wonder, then, that the governments of both provinces are annoyed by the Harper government’s crime bills.

Ontario’s beefs seem mostly to be about costs, a complaint understandably shared with other provinces. More criminals in jail mean higher prison costs, which will fall on provinces. Ontario, like others, wants recompense from Ottawa, which has thus far steadfastly refused. 

Quebec's Minister of Justice, Jean-Marc Fournier, has put things most succinctly: “Science is useful. At some point, someone discovered that the Earth is round.” But, as far as the Harper government is concerned, the earth is still flat.

Harpocrisy

Tony Clement was grilled yesterday by a parliamentary committee  reviewing spending for "border security" in his riding. But, as Lawrence Martin writes this morning, "It's John Baird who is on the hook for G-8 money games." The trouble is that Baird sees only a picayune bureaucratic transgression:

It should be noted that the $50-million was more than just a top-up. It was the bulk. The border fund was only $33-million. Baird’s add-on made it $83-million. 

Baird explained that the border fund was used as a way of trying to expedite things. He wanted the legacy fund projects – which included things like new sidewalks, outdoor furniture and landscaping, some of which was far away from the Huntsville summit site – to get rolling quickly. But what kind of morality is at play when a senior minister of the Crown feels it’s justifiable to camouflage a major expenditure under a different budgetary category for the sake of hurrying things along?

Remember, these were the folks who were apoplectic about the Sponsorship Scandal. They howled about the rot which had engulfed the Chretien government. But this, says Mr. Baird, is small potatoes. The two transgressions -- both uncovered by the auditor general -- were not of the same order of magnitude.

Baird is effective at disarming critics and was so again at the hearings. It was like, ‘Ah well, we made some mistakes, we agree with the Auditor-General, we’ll do better next time, let’s move on.’

Baird's  hypocrisy is extraordinary. It's so egregious it deserves a name of its own. Call it "Harpocrisy."

A Place To Talk

Dan Gardiner, in the Ottawa Citizen, asks the most important question Canadians are facing:  "Why have a Parliament at all?" The question has become front and center because, as Gardiner points out, Stephen Harper has been imposing unprecedented time limits on debate:

Harper has imposed time limits at a much higher rate than Chrétien did, even at his most imperious, and he is on track to set an all-time record. But let's not get distracted by trivia, as the PMO flack would say.)

Of course, Harper's strategy is contemptuous of parliament. That's what the last election was supposed to be about -- but somehow it got lost in the scuffle. And, therefore, Parliament these days is not about debate. Gardiner writes:

One may note that almost one-third of MPs have never debated these issues in the House of Commons and, if Parliament is to be something more than a fig leaf covering the prime minister's naughty bits, parliamentarians must have the right to stand up and debate as long as they damned well want.

Parliamentary debate ensures good legislation. Tony Doob, a criminologist at the University of Toronto, recently pointed out in committee that the government's omnibus crime bill was flawed:

The government has often said the bill will create a mandatory minimum of six months in jail for anyone who grows at least six marijuana plants for the purposes of trafficking. It's supposedly a measure targeting gangsters, but that, frankly, is nonsense. The legal definition of "trafficking" includes selling, giving, or offering any quantity, so we can be quite sure that most people who fall within the ambit of the law are not Hells Angels and wouldn't know one if they tripped over their big leather boots

But read the legislation. There is a second mandatory minimum of nine months in jail that applies under certain circumstances. One is when the marijuana plants are grown "on real property that belongs to a third party." So if you grow pot in a condo, it doesn't apply. But grow it in a rented apartment and it does. And there's no cut-off. Even a single plant would trigger the mandatory minimum.

The Conservatives blamed that oversight on the NDP. The government, however, is supposed be be responsible for its own legislation. Had there not been a forum to discuss it -- as limited as that forum was -- an already bad bill would be even worse.

Nevertheless, the Conservatives plan to continue limiting debate. They really despise the place we have set aside to talk about the issues.The problem with that policy is that it assumes infallibility. The last time I checked, we elected a Prime Minister, not a Pope.

The People They Refuse To See

As Stephen Harper jets off to Cannes, trumpeting his government's economic performance, someone should follow him with a copy of the latest Food Banks Canada  Report. That report, which was released today, contains some very disturbing numbers:

More than 851,000 individuals visited a food bank in March alone, a number that’s little changed from last year’s record and still 26 per cent above prerecession levels.

And the picture gets bleaker:

The findings reveal that recipients span the spectrum. Nearly 100,000 of them are first-time users and one in five actually has a job or has recently been employed. More than one in ten are immigrants or refugees – many of whom are highly educated, and usage is growing among seniors.

The monthly numbers are not an aberration. According to Craig Alexander, chief economist at the Toronto Dominion Bank, they reflect long term trends:

While the number of jobs lost in the recession has been recouped, many new positions aren’t as well-paid as the former ones. Wage growth has not kept pace with inflation. Globalization, outsourcing and technological changes have eliminated many middle-skilled, middle-income jobs. And displaced factory workers are having trouble re-entering the work force.

Worse still, the present government doesn't want to see these trends. It has worked hard to sweep the numbers under the rug:

The federal government no longer produces national welfare statistics, and not all provinces publish their social-assistance caseloads. Unlike the U.S., Statistics Canada doesn’t publish how many unemployed people run out of EI without finding work. And the agency’s data on incomes is published with a two-year lag – meaning the last national indicator on poverty rates is from 2009.

The gap between the poor and the rich is widening, a recent Conference Board of Canada paper found. It said income disparity has risen more rapidly in Canada than in most of its peer countries, including the United States, since the mid-1990s.

Mr. Harper won a majority claiming that, for Canadians, things were getting better. The Food Banks Report makes clear that his claim was cynically untrue. This government is allergic to facts. It's also allergic to the poor. It simply refuses to see them.

The Ultimate Irony

I have long felt that modern conservatives lack a sense of irony. I can think of no credible explanation for this impediment. Perhaps it is genetic. But, as Paul Krugman points out in Monday's New York Times, whether they're aware of it or not, their irony is showing.

Krugman credits Barney Frank with a phrase which accurately describes them -- "weaponized Keynesians."

Right now the weaponized Keynesians are out in full force — which makes this a good time to see what’s really going on in debates over economic policy.

What’s bringing out the military big spenders is the approaching deadline for the so-called supercommittee to agree on a plan for deficit reduction. If no agreement is reached, this failure is supposed to trigger cuts in the defense budget.

What is truly fascinating is that the modern Republican Party, which holds that government spending is wasteful spending, is wholeheartedly in favour of spending for the military. Never mind that one of their own  -- Dwight Eisenhower -- warned Americans of the danger of the military-industrial complex.

Why favour spending on guns and bombs rather than roads and bridges? Krugman  writes that the answer lies in "a point made long ago by the Polish economist Michael Kalecki: to admit that the government can create jobs is to reduce the perceived importance of business confidence."

Republicans have argued all along that government inhibits business confidence -- and that the cure for the present malaise is an increase in business confidence. The problem, they say, is that confidence is in short supply. A dearth of demand is of no consequence.

If Republicans possessed a sense of irony, they would see the hypocrisy behind their position. But to compensate for that lack of irony, they have doubled down on outrage.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

Chantal Hebert writes in today's Toronto Star that, while the growing list of NDP candidates "has all the makings of a decent future NDP cabinet, it has few of the trimmings that project strong leadership." However, after the party chooses a leader -- Gerry Caplan writes in The Globe -- the party's success will depend on how successfully he or she makes peace within the ranks:

The leadership process makes conflict almost inevitable and deeply divides the party. In politics, a party leader is a big deal. If you decide to run it’s because you’ve come to believe you’re the best person for the job. From there it’s a short hop, skip and jump to being convinced you’re the only person for the job, indeed the indispensable one. Soon you have not a soupcon of doubt that if anyone else won it would be a disaster of irreparable, epic proportions.

As the campaign goes on, and especially when the candidates are forced to meet repeatedly in debate – listening for the hundredth time to each other’s tedious gags, spin lines, talking points, personal stories, promises, banalities – their animosity, even contempt, for each other steadily grows. Only the potential need for a second-ballot deal prevents a public eruption. When the losers are forced to line up behind the victor after the final ballot, you can be sure they’ve been strip-searched for hidden weapons.

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Therefore, opportunism is the name of the game:

the bitter antagonists [are] obliged to work together or the winner choos[es] the loser as a lieutenant, as in Mulroney-Clark, Chrétien-Martin, JFK-LBJ, Obama-Clinton, Ignatieff-Rae. The high profile Romney-Perry fiasco has yet to play itself out of course, but it does seem likely one will punch the other’s lights out on national TV one night, a fitting climax indeed.

But if acrimony is the lasting legacy of the race -- as was the case with Mr. Chretien and Mr. Martin -- the party can destroy itself from within. Jack Layton wanted his legacy to be a country which could rise above its bitter partisan divisions. The race for the leadership of his party will demonstrate if those who wish to succeed him have taken that legacy to heart. The NDP's success will be depend on what kind of peacemaker it elects.

War Is Peace

The Harper government has turned Von Clausewitz' dictum -- that  war is "politics by other means" -- on its head. For this prime minister,  politics is war. Last week, he moved to finally obliterate the long gun registry, records and all. The Canadian Wheat Board is next in his sights.  Eight years ago, he demolished the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. And, in the last election, he almost did the same to the Liberal Party of Canada.

His next target, Lawrence Martin writes, is organized labour. Mr. Harper sees the NDP's ties to labour as its Achilles heal. And he's betting that union bashing wins votes:

A series of recent anti-labour moves by the Conservatives have been judged as politically popular. Lisa Raitt, the union-bashing Labour Minister, has racked up points in using heavy-handed tactics to prevent strikes by postal workers and Air Canada flight attendants.

In a sure signal of the government’s hard-line intent, she said last week that she was considering changing the Canada Labour Code so that the economy will be defined as an essential service. In that almost any strike could be said to affect the economy, such a move would give the government extraordinary arbitrary powers.

The Harper government has no intention of serving as a mediator between management and labour. It has made it clear that, in any negotiation, it sides with the bosses. And recent history is on the side of the bosses:

The strength of unions has declined significantly over the years. They accounted for 38 percent of the Canadian work force in the 1980s, but only about 30 percent now. Big labour supporters argue that just as unions have declined so has the middle class and so has the gap between rich and poor increased. It was the unions that were a major force in creating middle class prosperity, they say.

Mr. Harper says that his government stands up for the little man. But the growing income inequality of the Harper years belies that claim. Like all modern conservatives, Stephen Harper has declared war on the poor -- and anyone else he considers his enemy.


Some years ago, taking his cue from Sun Tzu, David Horowitz wrote a book titled The Art of Political War.  But before Horowitz, George Orwell reminded us that Big Brother needed perpetual war -- with interchangeable enemies -- to successfully remain in power. That war was fought under three banners: War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery.

Sound familiar?  It's time for the opposition parties -- all the opposition parties -- to get their act together.

And That Has Made All The Difference

Paul Krugman has been arguing against the doctrine of "epansionary austerity" for sometime. That doctrine holds that, if governments make deep budget cuts, the economy will expand. It has become a theology among American Conservatives. Until yesterday, it was a doctrine which the leaders of the European Union trumpeted at every opportunity. And Stephen Harper has made it clear that he, too, worships at that altar.

Krugman revisits what has become the all too familiar rationale for taking an axe to government expenditures:

This doctrine was sold both with claims that there was no alternative — that both bailouts and spending cuts were necessary to satisfy financial markets — and with claims that fiscal austerity would actually create jobs. The idea was that spending cuts would make consumers and businesses more confident. And this confidence would supposedly stimulate private spending, more than offsetting the depressing effects of government cutbacks.

He then examines what has happened in the countries which have applied that medicine:

Greece has been pushed by its austerity measures into an ever-deepening slump — and that slump, not lack of effort on the part of the Greek government, was the reason a classified report to European leaders concluded last week that the existing program there was unworkable. Britain’s economy has stalled under the impact of austerity, and confidence from both businesses and consumers has slumped, not soared. 

And then he turns to Iceland -- which three years ago was an economic basket case. Instead of following the conventional wisdom, Iceland made a different choice:

Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net. Where everyone else was fixated on trying to placate international investors, Iceland imposed temporary controls on the movement of capital to give itself room to maneuver.

 Did Iceland fall into the abyss?

Iceland hasn’t avoided major economic damage or a significant drop in living standards. But it has managed to limit both the rise in unemployment and the suffering of the most vulnerable; the social safety net has survived intact, as has the basic decency of its society. “Things could have been a lot worse” may not be the most stirring of slogans, but when everyone expected utter disaster, it amounts to a policy triumph.

Yesterday, the Europeans decided that it was time for their banks to take a haircut. It will cost the masters of European finance fifty cents on the dollar. Merkel, Sarkozy et al. also significantly expanded their bailout fund. In the grip of economic disaster, they chose another path. It's not a novel solution. In fact, it's as old as John Maynard Keynes. But, as Robert Frost wrote, that choice -- in the end -- will  "make all the difference."

A Pattern Is Emerging

When Stephen Harper appointed Angelo Persichilli as his new Director of  Communications, he raised eyebrows. Mr. Persichilli is bilingual in a country with two official languages. But Mr. Persichilli's two languages are English and Italian. All of which is well and good. But some of us have come to think that high public office in Canada requires fluency in both English and French.

Apparently, Stephen Harper does not agree. Last week he nominated two jurists for the Supreme Court of Canada -- one of whom, Michael J. Moldaver, does not speak French. Judge Moldaver, we're told, is an excellent jurist. I assume that is so. But why -- in a court which hears arguments in both languages -- not choose an eminently bilingual justice?

Yesterday, the prime minister proposed that Michael Ferguson become Canada's new auditor general. Mr. Ferguson has served as New Brunswick's chief auditor. He is unilingually English in Canada's only officially bilingual province. One assumes that Mr. Harper believes that what worked in Fredericton will work in Ottawa -- even though the job description requires fluency in English and French.

Harper and his party -- particularly the party which launched his political career -- has a record on official bilingualism. Perhaps they assume that Canadians have forgotten the federal election of 1997. In that year, the British newspaper, The Independent, carried a story which began with the following two paragraphs:

Vancouver - On his small square patch of Canada, surrounded by a nine-foot fence of English laurel, Reform Man is railing against the Frenchmen who run the bloody government, and dropping remarks about Chinese drivers.

"I admire a lot of those other cultures, but in their own country," said Sid Blanchett, a diesel engine mechanic. Mr Blanchett lives in north Vancouver, a hotly contested riding in the 2 June election. There are two signs outside his fence: one for the Reform Party, and another that says "No More Prime Ministers from Quebec". He's proud to be a racist and a redneck, he said, if that means defending his own culture, religion, and traditions.

The "No More Prime Ministers from Quebec" signs also bloomed like dandelions in my Ontario riding. Mr. Harper's recent appointments, his destruction of the gun registry, and his omnibus crime bill are all reminders that, despite the repackaging and the pictures with kittens, Harper's base is -- and always has been -- solidly redneck. If further proof is required, consider Rob Ford's recent abuse of Toronto Police Dispatchers.

These appointments are deliberate. A clear pattern is emerging. Ignorance is in the driver's seat.

The New Scapegoats

Tom Walkom writes this morning that, when times get tough, people look for scapegoats:

In Germany after World War I, the scapegoats were Jews. In Canada during the slump of 1919-20, popular anger was taken out on Polish, Finnish, Russian and Ukrainian immigrants believed to be Bolshevik agitators. Many were rounded up and jailed without trial at the Kapuskasing internment camp in Northern Ontario.

But the Harper government isn't quite so openly xenophobic. Those it seeks to blame for  our current economic malaise are unions:

This is the significance of its extraordinary intervention in two Air Canada labour disputes.

While it is common for governments to beat up on their own workers, it is most unusual for them to take sides in private sector disputes, particularly in a competitive area like air travel.

The government’s stated reason for intervention in the Air Canada disputes — that it was protecting the economy — was laughable. This was particularly true in its first intervention, against striking ticket agents.

          That strike, which did not involve air crew, would not have stopped Air Canada from
           flying..

It's a tactic which has been tried recently in Wisconsin and Ohio -- although it's interesting to note that, in Ohio, Governor John Kasich's attempt to destroy the state's public service unions is up for recall. And, according to Talking Points Memo, the tide is running heavily against Kasich:

The Quinnipiac poll showed that 56% of Ohioans think that SB 5, the new anti-union law passed by the Ohio Legislature and signed by Kasich, should be repealed, with 32% saying it should be kept. Independent voters favor repeal 52% to 33%, and even a little more than a third of Republicans want it scrapped. State residents may have that chance this November, as pro-union forces delivered more than five times the needed amount of signatures to force a ballot referendum.

All of this is immaterial to the Conservatives, of course. As Texans suggest that Harper's plan to build more prisons is fiscal folly, the government -- like the Titanic -- speeds ahead towards the iceberg. If it were really paying attention, the government might take a good look at Ohio -- because what goes around, comes around.

Scrooge's Children

Last week, Brian Topp had the temerity to suggest  that it was time to raise taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. Jim Flaherty, predictably, called that notion "dreamy." In the last federal election, none of the parties dared make such a suggestion. When Michael Ignatieff wondered aloud on the issue, everyone rained on his parade. But, Lawrence Martin writes this morning, things have changed:

The tax breaks of the affluent class are becoming an issue everywhere. Debts and deficits, which were accrued in good part because of ideologically inspired tax-cutting, have reached threatening levels. As the global downtown drags on, the ever-growing income gap between haves and have-nots is being showcased. Economic nostrums such as deregulation are increasingly being called into question.

More than that, there is the simple question of social justice, a phrase which is absent from the Conservatives' vocabulary. Instead they speak glowingly of their management of the nation's finances:

They trumpet the splendid economic fundamentals, many of which – an example being the regulation of the financial sector – were put in place by previous governments.

Historically, Canadians have accepted higher taxes as the cost of a just society. While interim leader Nycole Turmel does not have the gravitas to make the argument, there are many in the NDP caucus who do have the necessary skills. "In Mr. Topp, Thomas Mulcair, in Peggy Nash and others they have an impressive set of leadership candidates who are unflinching."

During the minority years, the opposition parties blinked continually, afraid to bring on an election. Now, while the Harperites use their new majority to ram through all kinds of regressive legislation, the opposition parties have the time to define this government. The Harper crew is the spawn of Ebeneezer Scrooge. It's about time someone had the courage to say so -- again and again.

When Mean Rules the Roost

In today's Washington Post, E. J. Dionne reminds his readers what the Republican Party used to stand for:

The Grand Old Party instituted the Homestead Act and created land-grant colleges, the interstate highway system, student loans, the Pure Food and Drug Act and even a prescription drug benefit under Medicare.

It was Richard Nixon who supported laws establishing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In signing the OSHA bill, Nixon called it “one of the most important pieces of legislation, from the standpoint of 55 million people who will be covered by it, ever passed by the Congress of the United States, because it involves their lives.” Yes, government regulations save lives, a view now heretical in the GOP.

Now Republicans see government as the root of all evil. Beginning with Ronald Reagan, they have campaigned on the slogan, "Government is not the solution to the problem, it is the problem."  And, therefore, the best way to kill -- or starve -- the beast is to cut taxes. But Reagan championed across the board tax cuts. These days, Republicans consistently favour tax cuts for the rich and  -- in a new twist -- complain that the rest of society doesn't pay enough in taxes.

Dionne writes that, even if the less affluent don't pay income taxes, they "still shell out a significant share of their earnings in payroll, sales and (directly or through their rents) property taxes."  Thus, the party of Lincoln has completely abandoned its historical base. They have forgotten his warning: "These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people."

Put simply: in today's Republican Party, mean rules the roost.

Is The West In Charge?

John Ibbitson wrote in Friday's Globe and Mail that the ascension of the Harper government confirms a power shift which has been happening in this country for over two decades. "The West," he writes, "isn't just in. It's in charge."

What does this mean for our politics? A powerful government that prefers market-based approaches rather than regulation, as the Wheat Board bill shows. A greater emphasis on Asia-Pacific issues: Mr. Harper is travelling to Hawaii, Australia, Thailand and probably China – for the second time in three years – in the coming weeks. And a federal industrial strategy, to the extent there is one, that will focus more on broadening the base in Alberta and B.C., and less on scraping the rust off the Ontario manufacturing belt.

Certainly that is what the Harper government believes.  But Mr. Ibbistson is given to overstatement. Despite his majority, the election results -- recently confirmed in provincial elections -- suggest that Stephen Harper is, and always has been, prime minister by default.

Like the George W. Bush Republicans, who squeaked into office in 2000, the Conservatives are interpreting their victory as an historic realignment of the country -- a realignment which was supported by 25% of Canadian voters. Canadians know who Mr. Harper is and they will tolerate him -- for awhile.

There is a recurring theme in Canadian newspapers -- nearly all of whom supported the prime minister in the last election. And that is that the Conservatives will be "in charge" for a long time. They would do well to remember Karl Rove's rosy predictions about a stable Republican majority.

Politics is simply too volatile these days to gloat over one's prospects. However, that has not stopped Mr. Ibbitson -- or Mr. Harper -- from doing so.

Suspicion Is The Prime Directive

Jonathan Kay is not a noted critic of the Harper government. But, in Thursday's National Post, Kay takes aim at Bill C-10, the government's omnibus crime bill. The Conservatives won a majority by claiming they know how to prudently manage the nation's finances:

But Bill C-10 will actually cost billions in the form of police resources and new prisons. That's why cash-strapped American states - which have long played the populist game of lock-'em-up - are moving in the other direction. Reformers in Texas, in particular, think we're nuts for copying the policies that they're now trying to dismantle.

The Harperites claim that mandatory minimum sentences will put real deterrents into the system and better protect the public. They say this as crime rates drop, and as Canadians -- according to the Canadian Index of Well Being --  "report high levels of personal safety; the proportion feeling safe walking alone after dark increased from 86% in 1993 to 90% in 2004."

What. exactly, is going on? It's seems pretty clear that the Conservatives believe they represent the majority of Canadians. The last election put the lie to that delusion. Most Canadians did not vote for them. Nonetheless, if they are paranoid,  the Conservatives  claim that the majority of Canadians are paranoid.

Suspicion is their prime directive. No one is to be trusted. The government has taken on the personality of the man at the top. He and they live in a Nixonian world.