Quote of the Day II: Harper

This is finals period so I do not have as much time as I would like to write, so I'll quote. Here is Jeff Jedras summing up my opinion of what Harper has done the past few weeks:

But I’ve digressed. I don’t blame Jean. I blame Harper. He put the Governor-General in this position, and now a very dangerous precedent has been set: illegitimate governments that have lost the support of the people’s representatives can govern with impunity, fleeing parliament at will to avoid accountability. Mark my words: Conservatives, and all Canadians, will come to regret the precedent set here today.

What we have today, however, is an illegitimate government that has lost the moral authority to govern. As El Presidente would say, Let Me Be Clear. Stephen Harper has lost the confidence of the House. You know it, I know it, he knows it. It is a fundamental tenant of our system of parliamentary democracy that, to be Prime Minister, you must command the confidence of the House. And he does not. That is abundantly clear.

Harper may go on to govern for many years. And he may even do some good things, anything is possible. But his scorched Earth, nuclear war campaign to maintain his tenuous grip on power has besmirched and weakened the very institutions he claims to be fighting to protect.

He has stoked the fires of Western alienation by exploiting the legitimate concerns of Western Canadians for his narrow political ends.

He has stoked the fires of Quebec nationalism with his narrow-minded attacks on the Bloc Quebecois, a party that draws broad support from Quebecers not for its pro-sovereignty policy, but for its pro-Quebec policy.

He has exploited the lack of understanding many Canadians have of our parliamentary system to portray opposition parties representing the majority of the population exercising legitimate mechanisms available to them under our system of government as undertaking acts of treason that constitute a coup, thereby weakening the confidence and respect the public has in its system of government. That’s very dangerous.

And he compounded the danger by putting the Governor-General in the untenable position of having to make a decision he should never have asked her to make, further weakening our system of governance. It was only his blinding ambition and lack of respect for democracy that but her in this bind, and his inability to do the right thing.

Harper gets his prorogation

According to Radio-Canada, all the hints seem to indicate that Harper got what he wanted. He has been talking with Michaelle Jean for more than two hours now and he should be giving a speech shortly.

Update: confirmed

Harper and Québec

Harper has attempted to demonize the Bloc Québécois following the formation of the LPC/NPD/BQ coalition. I never voted for BQ or Parti Québécois, but the idea that their mere presence in a coalition is used as an argument against the coalition has greatly angered me (and pretty much every Québécois I have talked to). If Québec is to be a part of Canada, Québécois have every right to influence the direction that the country takes; if you attack the coalition on the basis of the support of the Bloc, you question whether or not Québécois should have a right to influence the country. This is low level demagoguery. The Bloc is not some kind of disreputable organization or a mafia; it is a political party playing by the rules of the Canadian Parliamentary system. If you are not happy, blame the system and not those who follow the rules.

Harper has destroyed in a few days all his efforts to build support for the CPC in Québec.

RIP Harper?

Josée Legault believes that Harper's political career is over, even if he manages to survive the next confidence vote. I admit his star appears to be falling; he did not manage to score a majority government despite the Liberal Party being at an historic low, he ran a bad campaign and now he has shown that his political instincts might not be all that great. And it appears that more and more people are realizing that he is indeed a right wing ideologue despite all his attempts to change his image: cuts on culture funding, attack on women's right, no stimulus for the economy, suspension of the right to strike for government employee and his attempt to cut party funding, etc.

I would not count him out just yet, but I would not be surprised if he was kicked as a leader; and I am fairly certain the CPC will never win an election if they keep Harper against a LPC with a new leader.

The crisis in Ottawa helps Charest

The crisis in Ottawa is the thing everyone is talking about right now in the political world; even with provincial elections a mere week away. This is good news for Charest because since he has been leading overwhelmingly in the polls, it gives less of a chance for the other parties to catch up and also because he can point to Ottawa as an example of why a minority government is not a good idea. For Charest, no provincial news is good news.

Update: An alternative view would be that the current crisis shows that a minority government is good because it allows other parties to prevent the government from doing whatever they want and that if Charest has a majority he will become "arrogant" like in 2003 whereas if it is a minority he will have to play nice as he has done since 2007. That might work to some extent, although I think the fear of an "unleashed" Charest is much much weaker than the fear of a despotic Harper among Québécois.

Deal reached between the Liberals and NDP

That is interesting. I really did not see it coming at all. PM Dion... It will take time to get used to that if it does end up happening.

It seems that Harper opened a Pandora's box with his economic package. He might back down but it looks more and more that the opposition smelled blood and they are going for the kill no matter what. There is still plenty of time for another breakthrough though, so Harper is not out yet.

What an unexpected turn of events.

Via CalgaryGrit

Harper takes a week

To find an alternative solution to the fall of his government. The vote will be held on December 8th now. There are talks of a coalition government under Dion, although everything is a bit unclear now. PM Dion... Who would've thought.

Crisis in Ottawa?

It appears that the minority Conservatives government might fall, a mere few weeks after gaining power. The three opposition parties find Thursday's economic package "unacceptable" and they are talking about voting it down and forming a minority coalition government. It seems the Liberals do not want to have a government under Dion and the rumor is that the Liberal caucus would more than likely vote Mr Ignatieff to lead the coalition government even though he has not yet won the leadership race. If you can read french, I suggest you read Chantal Hébert's blog for the best update on this situation. Here are her two latest posts which sums up the situation. I think it is time that I dust up my knowledge of the Canadian Constitution and Canadian federal political history because I'll admit it is not my area of expertise and the situation just got suddenly really interesting for the first time in (my) living memory.

Harper tries to slash parties funding

This will be interesting to watch:

Symbolic cuts to politicians' perks, temporary relief for pension plans and a political grenade – ending the $30-million public subsidy to parties – are expected highlights of Thursday federal economic statement.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will ask the five political parties to give up the $1.95-per-vote subsidy that parties need to pay for staff and expenses.

(...)

Such a measure would cost the cash-strapped Liberals $7.7-million, the NDP $4.9-million, while the Bloc Québécois would take a $2.6-million hit and the fledgling Green party would be out $1.8-million.

Stephen Harper's Conservatives, who won the most votes, stand to lose $10-million.

But proportional to revenues raised last year, the taxpayer subsidy represents 37 per cent of the totals raised by the Tories. That's far less than the 63 per cent chop for Liberal coffers, 86 per cent for the Bloc and 57 per cent for the NDP. The Greens stand to lose 65 per cent of total revenues.

The Conservatives are trying to pass this by making it hard for opposition parties to vote it down. They are calling this an "austerity measure" designed to save money in tough economic times. They are bundling it with other measures that are popular, such as a trim on MP salary and an increase in pension plans. Opposition parties would look foolish if they voted it down. The Conservatives would not stop talking about how the opposition parties cared more about their perks and salaries than the interests of the taxpayers. At the same time, the Conservatives can claim the moral high ground by saying that they are the ones hurt most by this measure, which is true if you look at it in dollars. But of course if you look at it from the angle that matters, that is the percentage of funding that comes from public financing, the Conservatives would be the least affected, since they are very adept at raising money elsewhere. But it would be easy for the Conservatives to spin this in their favor.

It is also possible that they do not seriously intend to pass it, they just want to make the opposition looks bad and to ensure that they do not complain about the rest of the budget.

But if he does intend to push it through, I think Harper is taking a very narrow and short term view. If the measure passes, it will force the opposition parties to find new ways to look for money. They will all attempt to replicate Obama's model of campaign financing. They probably won't be as successful as Obama, since he had the advantage of being charismatic. But I think the LPC, if they elect a decent leader (Leblanc or Ignatieff), could revive the party using a social-networking, bottom-up, small donor, 308 ridings strategy. This measure might just force the LPC, out of economic necessity, to focus on their ground game and party building; and that might just be trouble for the CPC in the long run.

The party that stands the most to lose in this is the Bloc, because no one likes them. Québécois votes for them because they do not like the other options. But no one is enthusiastic enough about the Bloc to donate, which is why they get 83% of their funding from the government. Here is a fearless prediction: within days Duceppe will claim that Harper is trying to shut down opposition from Québec and that Québec's culture is threatened by this plan.

Hat tip: CalgaryGrit

Federal Liberals leadership race

CalgaryGrit has a rundown of the debate between Ignatieff and Leblanc, two of contenders in the race for the Leaderships of the Liberal Party. The third one, Bob Rae, boycotted the debate because Ignatieff would not agree to let him to change the rules at the last minute; the debate was supposed to be private with no media but Rae wanted to let them in. It seems like a very juvenile move by Rae. But the media blackout does not extend to blog so CalgaryGrit was able to report to us what was said. Here is the answer I found the most fascinating:

Green Shift?

Ignatieff - "The voters have spoken on The Green Shift"

LeBlanc - "The Green Shift was a major hurdle to our candidates in many ridings across the country"

Both candidates for leadership agree that giving the environment a priority was a mistake. This should give pause on those talking about the inevitable onward march of environmentalism. As I have said before, people care more to be seen and to think of themselves as pro environment rather than to actually bear the cost of true pro environment policies. That is why the Green Shift failed, Dion asked Canadians to pay for what they claimed they believed while all they wanted were symbolic gestures that could make them feel not-American, like signing Kyoto but doing nothing to curb CO2 emissions.

After lying to the public, Canadian journalists attempt to take the moral high ground.

About a month ago, a Canadian journalist named Melissa Fung was kidnapped in Afghanistan. While her story was reported in Afghanistan, the Canadian media decided not to report the story to increase her chances of being released. I'll repeat that just for emphasis. Canadian journalists decided to lie to the public by omitting a newsworthy event for a "higher purpose", that is the released of Fung. Now I won't go into the morality of that except to say that it's a slippery slope and that the decision could be easily criticized from a "right to information" perspective.

But now the funny part. Michèle Ouimet from La Presse (via Macleans blog) heavily criticize the Harper government for not being honest about whether her release was paid by prisoner exchange or a ransom, going so far as saying that the situation (Harper not telling the truth) is "an absolute mania".

So let's sum up the situation here. Journalists from across the country decided it was their responsibility to shield Canadians from newsworthy information, and then those same journalists call the government's reluctance to talk about how the release of Fung was arranged an "absolute mania".

I'll play Captain Obvious here. OF COURSE her release was arranged using either money or a prisoner exchange. She was willingly released by her captor and the odds that they somehow felt guilty after 28 days or that they suddenly became mortally afraid of Stephen Harper are very low. But just as the journalists' decision to lie to the public can be defended on the ground of saving a life, the government's decision not to talk about how they paid for the release can be easily be understood by the fact that the government doesn't want to publicize how much they reward people who kidnap Canadians since this would only encourage more kidnapping.

Edit: Added the links

Quote of the day

CalgaryGrit talking about some Québec provincial election polls:

It's difficult to know what to make of this without having Nate Silver explain it to me