No Lincoln

Errol Mendes writes that Stephen Harper recently went to see Stephen Spielberg's Lincoln. If Harper saw himself in the man, he's deluded:

If he saw any of himself in the film’s focus on the rather Machiavellian methods Lincoln used to obtain congressional approval for the 13th Amendment proscribing slavery for all time, then Canada had better watch out.

While Harper certainly could offer a list of the devious machinations he’s used to secure his political objectives — from eliminating the Progressive Conservative Party to treating Parliament, the Crown’s prorogative powers and taxpayer’s money as his playthings — there is nothing even remotely similar in how the two men have handled power.

Lincoln devoted his efforts to establishing a "more perfect union." And he advocated acting "with malice toward none, with charity for all." Mendes writes:

Lincoln, no doubt, was prepared to engage in unsavory politics in the right cause. The Harper Conservative government also engages in unsavory politics, but to what end? Killing the Liberal party? Imposing policies on most of the country in order to secure a base that can deliver elections? Focusing on wedge politics to divide Canadian society? Abandoning principled conservatism in order to push through massive budgets that hide environment-damaging measures that advance the interests of the most powerful lobbies?

Most of all, Lincoln believed in government of the people, by the people and for the people. Mr. Harper believes that his country would be better off if  "the people" kept their noses out of government -- most particularly, his government.

Getting Their Act Together

A new poll, published by Forum Research, predicts that, if there is a by-election in Toronto, Rob Ford will be reinstated as mayor -- unless his opponent is Olivia Chow:

Ford came out tops in a variety of three-way and four-way combinations that did not include Chow (Trinity-Spadina). When her name was added, she mopped the floor with all rivals, including Ford.

If Ford were facing popular Newstalk 1010 host John Tory and councillors Adam Vaughan and Shelley Carroll, the mayor would be re-elected — albeit with only 31 per cent of the vote, the poll suggests.

In a council-only three-way, Ford’s 37 per cent would beat staunch Ford critic Vaughan (30 per cent), and Carroll (16 per cent), the poll says. Ford still won when TTC Chair Karen Stintz was added to the slate.

Adding Chow to get hypothetical three-way, four-way and five-way races saw her triumph in all cases, with support ranging from 37 to 42 per cent. 

There is more than enough ambition is political circles these days. Ford is betting that ambition will divide his opposition. After all, the same strategy has worked very well for Stephen Harper. All politicians speak nobly of putting city or country before personal gain. Rarely, though, do they mean what they say.

But unless Canada's and Toronto's progressives get their act together -- instead of squabbling among themselves -- their country and their city will be ransacked.

Elizabeth May

As 2012 draws to a close, Michael Harris reviews the state of all of Canada's federal parties -- except the Bloc Quebecois. He has some insightful comments about each. But I am particularly struck by what he writes about Elizabeth May and The Green Party:

For now, the Green Party is Elizabeth May. Despite all the institutional barricades erected in front of this prodigiously hard-working politician, she tears the pant leg off the government on everything from the environment to the Canada-as-resource-colony model promoted by our CEO-PM himself. She runs the most intellectually alive office on Parliament Hill. The place is staffed by people who walk through the door just to be around her and to help.

But 2013 will be frustrating because May’s message of unification, the only certain answer to Harpocracy, will fall on the ears of two relatively newly-elected leaders, both of whom think they will be able to get the job done alone. At some point, the Greens must elect more members, since not even Elizabeth May can run on empty. If this woman isn’t allowed to take part in the next TV debates, we should all watch the shopping channel.

May's task is difficult because the other leaders aren't buying co-operation as the answer to the Harper juggernaut. And, until she is joined by other members of her party, Mr. Mulcair -- and whoever leads the Liberals -- will continue to ignore her.

That situation is truly tragic.

Evidence Suggests Now Is The Time For Pension Reform

Martin Regg Cohn writes that federal bureaucrats have presented Finance Minister Jim Flaherty with a plan to shore up the faltering Canadian pension system. Private pensions have been decimated by the Neo Conservative Revolution. Cohn writes:

The world of pensions is collapsing around us. Traditional “defined-benefit” pensions that reliably promise to pay a fixed amount in future — really the only payments worthy of the name “pension” — are being phased out in the private sector. The registered savings and pooled plans offered up as alternatives are merely Potemkin pensions — glorified savings plans that expose workers to the risk of stock market volatility and the madness of high management fees charged by Bay St.

The bureaucrats argue that Canada is in the unique position of being able to afford an overhaul of the pension system:

“Canada’s current social security contributions and payroll taxes are relatively low compared to other OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries,” the paper notes pointedly.

Currently, Canada allocates a mere 5.5 per cent of its economic activity (GDP) to social security and payroll taxes. If all the improvements outlined in the paper were phased in, the percentage would rise to 6.3 per cent. Even under this improved scenario, Canada’s contributions would still be low by OECD standards — and remain at the very bottom of the G-7 group of industrialized countries.

Mr. Flaherty's prime directive, however, is to keep Bay Street happy:

He announced yet again Friday that “this is not the time to put another burden on employers and dampen employment prospects of Canadians,” citing the supposed “softness of the economy.”

Flaherty is adamantly opposed to reform, even though he recently admitted that those profits on Bay Street are, in truth, nothing but "dead money." For a man who was trained as a lawyer, Mr Flaherty has an astounding immunity to evidence.

Sometimes There Are No Words

But the American columnist E.J. Dionne has found some that adequately describe the situation:

We have had enough. American politics is plagued by timidity and paralyzed by opportunism whenever we even consider talking action to curb gun violence. No other developed country in the world has these massacres on such a regular basis. In no comparable nation do citizens have such easy access to guns. On no public question other than gun violence are those who demand solutions after an ungodly episode accused of “politicizing tragedy.”

And, of course, there are those on the other side of the debate who also have found words. But one wonders if those words proceed from an addled brain:

Steve Dulan, a board member for the Michigan Coalition of Responsible Gun Owners who is supporting a state bill that would allow concealed weapons in schools and other gun-free zones, said Friday that having armed teachers inside Sandy Hook Elementary School would have, "if not prevented, then perhaps minimized," the tragedy.

"We do know that armed citizens defend themselves all the time, in all kinds of different contexts," Dulan told HuffPost Live host Alyona Minkovski.

There comes a time when it's not difficult to understand who truly understands an issue and who is simply demented. If nothing else, what happened in Connecticut yesterday has separated the rational people from those who are off the wall.

The Truth? What's That?

For those who wonder why Peter MacKay is stiill in cabinet, Michael Harris has a straightforward answer:

Very simple; Peter MacKay has done no worse on this file than Stephen Harper. In fact, he has merely followed the core of Stephen Harper’s communications strategy: the Conservatives aren’t bound by the facts, they create them. What they say is fact becomes fact. Here are a few examples from the Boss himself on the subject of the F-35.

“A lot of the developmental costs you’re reading in the United States, the contract we’ve signed shelters us from any increase in those kinds of costs. We’re very confident of our cost estimates and we have built in some latitude, some contingency in any case. So we are very confident we are within those measures.”

Peter MacKay may be taking heat these days. But he was simply repeating what Stephen Harper said. He was doing exactly what he was asked to do. Both men operate on the firm conviction that saying makes it so. Harper followed the same strategy last week when he announced that his government had approved the takeover of Nexen by CNOOC:

Just this past week, after taking heat for the multi-billion dollar Nexen deal, in which a Canadian resource company became a Chinese asset, the prime minister told the House of Commons that the “vast majority” of Canadians approved of the transaction.

That wasn’t true, as multiple national polls inconveniently pointed out. How did the PMO explain it? Well, turns out the PM meant that the vast majority of Canadians who called his office liked the idea of China taking over part of Alberta. Of course.

It's been a long time since we've heard the truth from either Mr. Harper or Mr. MacKay.

Underhanded Economists

The F-35 fiasco should serve as a cautionary tale: beware of politicians who claim to be economists. For, Andrew Coyne writes, -- even as the Harperites peg the cost of those jets at $45.8 billion -- they still can't bring themselves to tell the truth:

Now, this increase in the reported price does not mean the cost of the planes has “skyrocketed” or “ballooned” or whatever other word you might have read. I mean, it has — from $75 million per plane to $88 million, with further increases likely to follow. But acquisition costs are only a fraction of the total: just $9 billion, a figure that has not changed even after this 20 per cent increase in unit price. The rest, almost all of it, is for sustainment and operations.

The new line, as expressed in government documents and repeated by the defence minister, Peter MacKay, is that the planes will cost $45.8 billion “over 42 years.” Not 20 years, or 30 years, but 42 years. And then the spin: it was a billion dollars a year before, it’s pretty much a billion dollars a years now. So you see? Nothing’s changed. 

How does the government get 42 years? By adding in 12 years for “development and acquisition,” from the decision to acquire the planes in 2010 to the delivery of the last plane in 2022. No previous estimate included development costs. And indeed they add next to nothing to the total: just $565-million. But by tacking on another 12 years, they allow the government to spread the cost over a much longer time frame, and make the annual cost of the planes seem much lower than it is.

Harry Truman once quipped that he wished he had a one handed economist on his staff. He complained that, when economists made an argument, they would conclude with the phrase, "on the other hand." Unfortunately, Harry offered no advice on what to do about underhanded economists. But one imagines that, if he were around to watch the Harper government in action, he'd be far from complimentary.

Keep Those Wages Down

When all the rhetoric has cooled, Tom Walkom writes in today's Toronto Star,  it should be clear that the Chinese government and the Harper government share the same objective:

The real problem with China’s Communists is not that they’re unusually wily but that, like the Harper Conservatives, they want to keep workers’ wages down.

If Ottawa were truly worried about the effect of Chinese investment on the lives of real people, it never would have allowed one Chinese-controlled firm to import 200 low-wage “temporary” coal miners into B.C. instead of employing Canadians.

The joint effort to keep wages low is shared by several governments. Yesterday's passage of right to work legislation in Michigan is an attempt to do the same thing. And Tim Hudak's proposed "Path to Prosperity" for Ontario is more of the same. Today's editorial in The Star makes the point that Hudak seeks to turn private sector workers against unionized workers:

If he wants to be the heroic debt slayer, Hudak needs to drop the divisive tactics, such as his attempt to foster anger among private sector workers against their neighbours in the public service. Nowhere in his plan does Hudak explain how the economy will be better off when thousands of middle-class employees get laid off, stop spending money in stores or paying for their kids’ university education. 

Both Mr. Harper and Mr. Hudak hold master's degrees in economics. And the only thing both men appear to have learned  from a so called "higher education" is that, at all costs, workers wages must be kept down.

Champerty and Maintenence

The Conservative Party of Canada appears to be incapable of embarrassment. Consider their argument against the robocall case, which opened yesterday. Arthur Hamilton, the party's lawyer, accused the Council of Canadians of bringing the case forward for the purposes of "champerty and maintenance" -- to push their political agenda and to fundraise on its behalf.

Tasha Kheiridden points out that there are all kinds of organizations which do that, as a normal part of the political process. She then goes on to list a number of such organizations on both the left and the right:

But the jewel in this crown involves none other than the prime minister himself. In 2000, Stephen Harper was president of the National Citizens’ Coalition. The NCC had a history of fighting for its political agenda through the courts, including supporting one of its vice-presidents, businessman David Stockell, in his 2000 lawsuit against three NDP MLAs who had failed to keep their election promises. That same year, Harper launched his lawsuit against the federal government, Harper v. Canada (A.G.), alleging that Ottawa had denied groups like the NCC freedom of speech by banning third party advertising during elections.

According to former NCC vice-president Gerry Nicholls, the NCC paid for everything, using Harper’s name for symbolic purposes, “fighting for free speech as an individual on behalf of individuals.” Harper ultimately lost the court challenge at the Supreme Court, but he and his organization gained exposure and recognition for the lawsuit, and the NCC counts it among its major campaigns for freedom.

In other words, Hamilton is accusing the COC of exactly what it has done for years -- and which is, in no way, illegal. Hamilton gives Canadians an idea of where Conservative heads are. It's all about fundraising. The idea that the Conservative Party of Canada might have broken Canada's election laws is inconceivable -- although the party admitted doing precisely that with its own In And Out fundraising scheme.

Khieridden's conclusion is ironclad:

For Harper’s party to allege champerty and maintenance by the COC is thus pure hypocrisy. For the Tories’ lawyer to say that the COC believes it will succeed in “sinking the Harper agenda” by a set of lawsuits is laughable.

The COC will gain publicity, a soapbox for its cause, and donations from supporters new and old. But if the government’s agenda is so feeble as to fall over this lawsuit, then it doesn’t deserve to stand in the first place.

Things Fall Apart

Not all Conservative MP's agreed with Stephen Harper on the Nexan Energy deal. James Bazan wrote to one of his constituents in Manitoba:

“I would like to note that I am strongly opposed to this deal, and I have raised my concerns directly with cabinet as well as with the prime minister. As I have stated to my colleagues in cabinet, due to China’s dismal record on human rights and freedoms, I take particular exception to allowing a state-owned company from China to purchase a Canadian company. The Communist Chinese government continues to fail to grant even the most basic of human freedoms to its citizens, as they strip away their national wealth to invest around the world. CNOOC’s past possible human rights abuses and failure to report oil spills is something I am also very concerned about …

“As a Conservative, I am in favour of keeping markets open in Canada, however I do not support allowing state-owned and state-controlled enterprises to take over publicly traded Canadian companies, as these state-owned and controlled business (sic) are not on the same level playing field as other free-enterprising corporate entities. Markets should operate in a manner that allow (sic) for fair and proper investment. State control, through financial manipulation and investment, do (sic) not allow for openness or fairness to the average investor. Large amounts of state investment distort markets for all other participants, while limiting other opportunities.”

Obviously, Mr. Bazan's objections didn't carry much weight with Stephen Harper -- but, then, neither did Bill Casey's, Garth Turner's or Chuck Cadman's. Michael Harris writes that Mr. Harper -- an apostle of free markets and a soldier in the war against tyranny -- is willing to overlook a lot about China:

Isn’t China the country where there is no independent judiciary, where religious repression is routine, where arbitrary detention and extra-judicial killings are commonplace, where torture is a normal state tool, where Liu Xiaobo is looking at 15 years in prison for circulating a pro-democracy pamphlet, where websites are censored and blocked, and where they slaughtered their own students in Tiananmen Square?

Harris observes that things are beginning to fall apart for the Harper government. Eventually voters tire of the hypocrisy.

 This emperor has no clothes.

Murphy's Conundrum

Pity poor Rex Murphy. He doesn't understand what he calls the "unbalanced and disproportionate" antipathy Canadians feel for Stephen Harper:

For, step back a little, make a little space, and you will see that in his personal and domestic conduct, Harper is almost stereotypically Canadian. He’s a mild, unobnoxious, hockey-mad fellow. He doesn’t boast.He shuns the spotlight he could be commanding every day. He keeps his privacy and doesn’t insist, like many public figures, in conducting a soap opera around his position or his family. He’d be the ideal neighbour — he wouldn’t just drop in, too reserved for that (which is great), but I’m sure he’d lend a shovel when needed. Probably even help dig out your car if you were stuck, and take your thanks with a self-conscious smile and reassurance that it was no trouble.

Really?  Murphy advances this opinion in the same week that the cost of those F- 35 fighter jets was revealed to be $45 billion instead of $16 billion, and that Mr. Harper approved the sale of Nexxen Energy to China's state owned energy corporation. Two weeks ago Canada voted against recognition of Palestine at the UN.

There were those calls in Irwin Cotler's riding, which the Speaker of the House labelled "reprehensible" -- not to mention the robocalls in the last election. And there was Joe Oliver's claim that environmentalists were enemies of the state. In fact, Mr. Harper likes to label  all his opponents enemies of the state. Remember "Taliban Jack?"

And then there is the business of Harper's hidden agenda. Rex writes:

Even though he is Prime Minister and has a majority, many still believe he keeps that damn agenda up his sleeve. Query: What’s the point of a hidden agenda that stays hidden? Will it still be hidden when he leaves office? If so, what was or is its point?

What, indeed, is the point of keeping government estimates away from Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page? Why did Mr. Harper not want to release those documents on the treatment of Afghan prisoners? Why do the Conservatives insist that so many  parliamentary committees meet behind closed doors? And why are Canadian scientists not allowed to speak with the media?

Why is Stephen Harper so deeply dispised by a majority of Canadians? The answer is as plain as the nose on Mr. Murphy's face -- and as old as the human race: What goes around comes around. When you treat people with contempt, they will return the favour.

Mr. Murphy simply hasn't been paying attention.

Fraud -- Pure and Simple

In case his readers have forgotten, Jeffrey Simpson reviews the increasingly tangled web of deceit which surrounds the F-35 fiasco:

The contract, insisted the government, would cost $9-billion for the aircraft, and $7-billion for maintenance over 20 years. Over and over, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and the entire Conservative chorus repeated this mantra.

Critics in the U.S. alerted Congress that cost overruns were plaguing the project. The Parliamentary Budget Office in Ottawa said, no, the cost would be more like $30-billion over 30 years, for which the PBO was predictably denounced by the Conservative chorus.

Alan Williams, a former assistant deputy minister who had forgotten more about procurement than any minister had ever learned, warned repeatedly that the project was off the rails. Predictably, the Conservative chorus denounced him. The Speaker of the House found the government in contempt of Parliament for refusing to reveal the full costs of the program, but that didn’t stop the government from being re-elected.

Other countries, alarmed at the F-35’s mounting costs and questionable technical reviews, began to delay purchase commitments. Still, the Conservative chorus stuck with the mantra, denouncing all doubters as anti-defence, pacifists and know-nothings.

Deeper and deeper, the Harperites dug themselves into the hole of their own rhetoric – until Auditor-General Michael Ferguson’s devastating report last April unveiled the true costs to be way higher than the government’s mantra. Worse, the report said the Defence Department had told the government that costs had skyrocketed. Yet, the government, campaigning for re-election, kept that information from the public.

The Harperites, as is their habit, all sang from the same hymnal. Most importantly, they did so during the last election, after they had been found in contempt of Parliament for not revealing the cost of the purchase. In a court of law, that's called fraud.

And they got away with it.

In Their Sights

The Harperites are gunning for Justin Trudeau. Michael Harris writes this morning that:

Not only does the Harper government have the magic wand of incumbency, it has the ruthless machinery to destroy its opponents. The political roadkill is everywhere. And the coming assault on Trudeau hangs in the air like an unspent thunderstorm ready to burst.

And, on the other side, Justin's recent pronouncements on the Nexxen deal and the gun registry have made progressives uneasy. But he stands for an old idea -- which, in the Harper era, seems remarkably fresh:

“Our democracy is in trouble. I trust the people to change that. I trust the people to restore the idea that Canada is a better place than it is now. I trust the people to decide if I’m right for this job.

“I would like to see people vote for something rather than against something. I would also like to improve our idea of citizenship — not just obeying the laws and paying taxes, but Canadians getting involved and being the agents of change. I love the country and I trust Canadians to believe in themselves again.

What a concept! Trusting Canadians to believe in themselves again. Stephen Harper has  diminished Canada's democratic institutions. And, operating on the principle that austerity is good for the soul, he has robbed the majority of Canadians of the hope that things will change, replacing it with the grim notion that plutocracy is the way of the world.

Harper -- the anti-Trudeau -- has trashed the idea of the Just Society. Injustice -- in the Middle East -- or in an economy -- where the gap between the rich and the rest of us grows -- is the way of the world. While the banks record huge profits, the economy stagnates.

In the end, the choice is between hope and despair.

The Price Of Power

The prime directive of any good journalist should be the people's right to know. But consider the saga of Peter Kent. Lawrence Martin writes that Kent, a member of The Canadian Broadcasters Hall of Fame, has been in the forefront of those who make sure Canadian scientists don't talk to journalists:

The latest example of such muzzling concerns David Tarasick a researcher in Kent's ministry who is the co-author of a study on the ozone whole over the Arctic. Tarasick had offered to discuss his findings with the press:

It’s the type of story that Kent once pursued avidly for the CBC. But Kent’s office, as revealed by emails recently obtained by Postmedia, brought out the big muzzle and clamped it on Tarasick’s jaw.

When the issue first arose early in the year, Kent denied issuing any gag order. “We are not muzzling scientists,” he told the House of Commons. It was just, he said, a case where circumstances did not allow Tarasick to give interviews.

The emails contradict this version of events. They reveal officials in Kent’s department thought it would be fine to go ahead with the interviews. But Kent and the Prime Minister’s Office wanted their own propaganda spin on the ozone report — and so they silenced the scientist.

A man who used to enthusiastically chase stories on global warming bowed to the Prime Minister's Office and refused to let journalists know about the latest Canadian research on the environment. After all, the citizens of this country paid for that research. More than that, a functioning democracy needs information:

You’d think that, if one Conservative minister had the courage to stand up and say, “Wait a minute prime minister, this is not the way a democracy works, this is not the way freedom of speech works,” it would be Peter Kent. You’d think he’d be asking the question: “What are we afraid of? What is wrong with airing different views on the subject? If we disagree with Tarasick, we can say so.”

Kent was uniquely placed to do precisely that. But he didn't. Such is the price of power.

This entry is cross posted at Eradicating Ecocide.

Most Stupid People

Lately, Tasha Kheiridden has been aiming her barbs at the government she once supported. Her most recent target is Corrections Canada, which has decided that more double bunking is appropriate for Canada's inmates. There are at least two reasons why the policy is not a  good idea. The first is that double bunking is more expensive than housing one inmate in each cell:

Putting two inmates in a cell originally designed for one is a recipe for spreading disease, straining facilities, increasing stress, and making prisons more dangerous places. Over time, this money-saving measure may end up costing taxpayers more.

On the health issue, prisons should take their cues from hospital designers, who increasingly are abandoning double-occupancy rooms in favour of single ones. Why? Because in the long run it costs less, due in large part to the reduction in the spread of communicable diseases between patients.

Secondly, double bunking puts inmates in a pressure cooker, increasing the likelihood of prison violence:

Roommates without criminal records have a hard enough time getting along; why should one expect that two offenders will coexist peacefully in a 10-by-7 foot cell? According to the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, “an estimated 90 per cent of all prisoners have a mental health problem, including personality disorders, and /or a substance misuse problem.”

Recently, Canadian federal correctional investigator Howard Sapers attributed a rise in violence in western prisons to overcrowding. Sapers told the Calgary Herald that “crowding has that effect: it creates tension and it increases opportunities for interpersonal violence because people are in closer proximity.”

Conservative prison policy is based on the fervent conviction that what inmates need is more punishment. Such policy underscores the fact that, while the Harperites live and breathe ideology; they have very few good ideas.

 What John Stuart Mill wrote in the 19th century remains true in the 21st century: "Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."

The Old Man In Ottawa

Stephen Harper claims that Conservative values are Canadian values. But, based on recent polling data, Frank Graves concludes that Mr. Harper is trying to stop a wave that is not moving in his direction:

When looking at values overall we are struck by their level of stability. This is to be expected and welcomed; values constitute the moral charter for societies and it would be a very bewildering and unstable world where values were shifting rapidly. But within this placid world of normative stability there are some conspicuous exceptions. All of the values which are demonstrating downward trends are conservative values.

Respect for authority and traditional family values, still very important in older and conservative Canada, hold no resonance in younger and university-educated Canada. The overall trajectory in all portions of society is downward for these and related conservative values such as minimal government and security. Not only are these trendlines significantly downward but this decline in subscription to conservative values is even more pronounced in younger Canada, metropolitan Canada, university-educated Canada and among women.

Graves writes that the Harper government is serving a "gerontocracy," which he warns, "could have the negative effect of reinforcing the sclerotic stagnation evident in the current economy." It's strange that a man who sees himself as an economist can't see the red flags. But, then, Mr. Harper didn't see the Great Recession coming, even when it was just around the corner.

Even more importantly, Graves' findings explain why Mr. Harper insists on doing things behind closed doors. Despite his claim that Canadians are true conservatives, he knows that his interests are not in the public interest. Transparency would put an end to the juggernaut. The gerontocracy would be toppled.

Stephen Harper became prime minister before he turned fifty. But he is -- and always has been -- an old man.

Joyce's Modest Proposal

While the press follows Justin Trudeau everywhere, both Paul Adams and Andrew Coyne  have chosen to give Joyce Murray some attention. Adams writes that what she proposes deserves serious consideration. Like her fellow British Columbian, Nathan Cullen, she urges opposition party cooperation. Adams writes:

For Joyce Murray, the experience of the Cullen campaign for the NDP leadership is instructive. Cullen’s advocacy of joint nomination of candidates was met at first with derision. Many commentators, inside the party and out, felt it hobbled his candidacy. But after a while, the idea — combined with his winning personality, it has to be said — began to attract attention and win wider appeal, some of it organized by outside groups such as Leadnow. Some people who had been on the sidelines joined the party to support Cullen and his idea. He went from being a marginal candidate to running a strong third, and in doing so he opened the door to a discussion of the idea.

Andrew Coyne also backs Murray's proposal as a one time election pact:

The details no doubt vary, but here’s how I can see it working. The opposition parties would agree on a single candidate to put up against the Conservatives in each riding. Were they to win a majority, they would pledge to govern just long enough to implement electoral reform: a year, two at most. Then fresh elections would be called under the new system, with each party once again running under its own flag, with a full slate of candidates.

Such an arrangement would be the first step on the road to proportional representation. A system which casts aside more than 60% of the votes will ultimately fail. If Canada is to survive as a democracy, it will have to move to some form of proportional representation.

First Rate Intelligence?

Ever since the United Nations vote on Thursday, the Harper government has portrayed itself as a beautiful loser. It and eight other nations -- most notably the United States -- voted against support for Palestine. Canada, say the Harperites, is on the side of moral clarity. Haroon Siddiqui wrote yesterday in the Toronto Star that:

The vote was overwhelming, more than two-thirds in favour — 138 for, 9 against and 41 abstentions. Much to Canada’s shame, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird was among the loudest pipsqueak noises against the tide of history.

Even the United States, chief patron of Israel, was subdued, dishing out brief boilerplate statements. But the voluminous Baird was keen to showcase Canada in the august company of the Czech Republic, Panama, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau.

Stephen Harper claims that he is a loyal supporter of Israel. In truth, he is a loyal supporter of a like minded government; and he ignores Israeli opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu:

The prime minister portrays himself as a staunch ally of Israel, and tends to brand those who don’t agree with him as anti-Semitic and bully them — as discovered by the Christian ecumenical group Kairos, the Canadian Arab Federation and Palestine House, whose funding was cut, and Montreal-based Rights and Democracy, which was destroyed.

In fact, what Harper has done is to take sides with the right wing in an ideological and political struggle within Israel and the Jewish diaspora. He could have sided with those who do not agree with Israeli expansionism and permanent war on the Palestinians.

But Stephen Harper is incapable of balancing competing interests -- whether they be the interests of business and labour, Alberta and British Columbia or Ottawa and the provinces. The only thing he knows how to do is pick sides. And, like most people who call themselves conservatives these days, he is on the wrong side of history.

Scott Fitzgerald wrote that, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."  It has become abundantly clear that the Conservative caucus is not populated by people of first rate intelligence. And, when it comes to foreign policy, the prime minister is first among equals.

The New Newspeak

NDP environment critic Meghan Leslie understands how indebted the Harper government is to George Orwell. Rather than reading 1984 as a warning against tyranny, the Harperites have adopted the novel as a how to manual. Their messaging is thoroughly imbued with the principles of Newspeak. Those principles are particularly apparent when it comes to environmental policy. Leslie invites her readers to consider Harperian definitions for the following terms:

In the Conservative world, “responsible” means expedited. Gut environmental assessment laws, exempt pipeline projects from the Species at Risk law and Navigable Waters protection, and from fisheries habitat protection laws, and you’re a general in the Conservative War of 2012 — the war on the environment.

 “Consultation” means talking to a hand-picked group of friends who share your agenda, and perhaps posting a document on a website to solicit comments — with no disclosure of what the comments were and, likely, little consideration of them. No need to give any reason for the decision you were going to make all along, either.

“Open and transparent” means holding a record number of committee meetings behind closed doors, requiring the Parliamentary Budget Officer to take you to court to get basic information on departmental spending, and erasing pesky words like “environment” from websites that contradict your new reality.

“Accountable” means proroguing Parliament when your government is found in contempt for hiding documents from Parliament.

Orwell warned that those who called themselves socialists were not really socialists, just as the party which calls itself Conservative isn't really conservative. He understood that people like Stephen Harper really didn't have a philosophy. But they did -- and do -- have an objective. “If you want a picture of the future," O'Brien told Winston,  "imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”

This entry is cross posted at Eradicating Ecocide.

Truly Progresssive

Zach Paikin echoes something The Disaffected Lib wrote about yesterday: Canada needs a truly progressive political party. A simple coalition of opposition parties, Paikin writes, will not be enough to defeat Stephen Harper:

Even if the parties pursued joint nominations in Conservative-held ridings, their leaders could undermine those nominations with gaffes. Justin Trudeau and David McGuinty know the kind of damage a few poorly-chosen words can do at the riding level. Imagine the devastating consequences for, say, a jointly-nominated New Democrat if a Liberal leader made a statement opposing his party’s policies during an election.

A coalition of convenience will not be enough to bring Harper down:

Teaming up with other parties to beat Harper is a reactionary, not progressive, strategy.

A progressive party needs to create a vision of its own that is not primarily rooted in opposition to someone else’s vision. That vision has to be original, compelling and easy to communicate. It also has to be national. Morally speaking, the traffic light parties simply don’t have enough in common to justify keeping a Liberal candidate from running in Conservative-held ridings.

The Lib reminds his readers that parties on the left are in opposition because they bought into the corporatist agenda -- and Stephen Harper beat them at their own game:

 I read a lot of nonsense about what the "left" should be doing or how the "progressive" parties should be doing this or that.   And each time I see those references I ask myself, "what 'left'" or "what 'progressives'?"

There was a time when most everything on the other side of the Conservatives could be considered left or at least slightly centre-left.   Then Harper showed up with his prime directive to shift Canada's political centre far to the right and fix it there.   And, with a great deal of help from people with names like Ignatieff and Layton, that's exactly what he's done.

As the Liberal Party tries to reinvent itself, it should remember recent history and have the courage to make a genuine turn to the left.