poliwoliblog

Conservative crime bill

2011-11-10T21:35:00.003-05:00

I am happy to hear that both Ontario and Quebec are refusing to pay for the costs of the federal Conservatives crime bill. The Conservatives crime bill is ineffective, expensive and not very useful. It’s good to see provinces standing up to the Harper government. Also, the Conservatives bill to not only abolish the gun registry but to also destroy all records from the registry is particularly egregious. Quebec wants to create its own gun registry and thus the federal government should give the Quebec data to the Quebec government. Doing otherwise is ideologically extreme. I’m glad to hear that Quebec is thinking of suing the federal government for the data. In principle, Ontario should also create its own gun registry. The votes are likely there for doing that in the legislature. However, some NDP MPPs might vote against it if there were a vote because they represent rural ridings where the gun registry is unpopular. However, if all Liberals MPPs voted for a provincial gun registry, it would need only one NDP vote to pass. Also, the Ontario Liberals need to try to regain support in rural Ontario, and introducing a provincial gun registry wouldn’t be popular in rural Ontario, so I think the Ontario Liberals should put off such an idea right now.
Also of note is that Julian Fantino once supported the federal gun registry but now as a Conservative cabinet minister opposes it. To paraphrase John Kerry, he was for the gun registry before he was against it.
Also, Vic Toawes needs to lighten up. He takes things too seriously and doesn’t need to keep scowling all the time. He’s just cranky too much.

Shark fin ban

2011-11-05T13:24:00.003-04:00

Recently the City of Toronto voted to ban the sale, possession or consumption of shark fins. It sounds like the right thing to do but not surprisingly Mayor Rob Ford voted against the ban. Ford’s vote against the ban was one of only four such votes against the motion. The other three votes were from Ford loyalists Doug Holyday, Giorgio Mammoliti, and David Shiner. Lots of other Ford loyalists voted for the ban. Does this mean Ford has lost control of City Council? I’d say he never had it to begin with. Ford attempts to run City Council like a Parliament, up to and including whipping votes. Thankfully a number of Ford’s allies sometimes ignore the whip. But Toronto City Council is not meant to work that way, it is meant to work with the collaboration of everyone and it is unfortunate that Rob Ford doesn’t run council this traditional way.

Here is the above post in French

Récemment, la Ville de Toronto ont voté pour interdire la vente, la possession ou la consommation d'ailerons de requins. Il sonne comme la bonne chose à faire, mais il n'est pas surprenant que le maire Rob Ford ont voté contre l'interdiction. Le vote de Ford contre l'interdiction a été seulement un des quatre ces votes contre la motion. Les trois autres votes ont été des loyalistes Ford : Doug Holyday, Giorgio Mammoliti, et David Shiner. Beaucoup autre loyalistes Ford ont voté pour l'interdiction. Est-ce que cela signifie que Ford a perdu le contrôle du conseil municipal? Je dis que Rob Ford n'a jamais eu le contrôle du conseil. Ford tente d'exécuter le Conseil municipal comme un Parlement, jusqu'à et y compris les votes à fouetter. Heureusement, un nombre d'alliés de Ford ignorent parfois le fouet. Mais le conseil municipal de Toronto n'est pas destiné à travailler de cette façon, il est destiné à travailler avec la collaboration de tous et il est regrettable que Rob Ford ne court pas le conseil de cette façon traditionnelle.

Column by Robert Fisher en français

2011-10-28T23:40:00.003-04:00

I'm taking a course in learning French right now, so I thought I'd make an attempt to translate my most recent blog post into French. Here it is:

Je voudrais profiter de problème avec un article écrite récemment par Robert Fisher de la CBC. Premièrement, il a dit que « Certaines personnes à l’intérieur et à l'extérieur de Queen’s Park me dites que McGuinty a, au mieux, 18 mois et membres de son cabinet peut-être même moins » Il n’est pas clair ce qu’il veut dire par cette déclaration parce qu’il ensuite dit que McGuinty démissionnera au cours de ce mandat parlementaire. Est-ce qu’il veut dire qu’une élection sera forcée en 18 mois même si Andrea Horwath a promis de faire fonctionner ce parlement ? Ou veut-il dire que McGuinty va démissionner en 18 mois ? Il ne peut pas vouloir dire les deux parce que si une élection est forcée en 18 mois, il y aurais aucun temps pour démissionner et McGuinty dirigerait le parti dans l’élection prochaine. Je serais surpris si McGuinty quitte en 18 mois. Il a vient de travaillé très dur pour restaurer sa popularité. Pourquoi quitterait-il si bientôt quand a ce moment son leadership semble être un atout. Je serais surpris que les CPs and les NPDs seraient prêts pour forcer une élection en 18 mois après cette élection était dissolue pour les deux. Par ailleurs, Andrea Horwath, en particulier, a exprimé le désir de faire fonctionner ce parlement à long terme. Si une élection est forcée en 18 mois, il n’y aurait pas de temps pour la retraite et la sélection d'un autre premier ministre libéral, comme j’ai dit.
Fisher est aussi trop dur sur plusieurs ministres. Il dit que Michael Chan, Margarett Best, et Harinder Takhar apportent peu à la table du Cabinet, avant, pendant ou après la période de questions. C'est une légère malheureuse contre 3 ministres bien aimés et compétents qui ont tous récemment été réélus dans leurs circonscriptions.
Fisher a également été surpris que Kathleen Wynne, a été donné Affaires municipales et pas autre chose. Il a dit « Sûrement sa réélection et son travail en tant que co-président de la campagne libérale signifiait qu'elle méritait mieux. » Mais Affaires municipales est un poste ministériel formidable, à mon avis, étant donné l'importance des municipalités sont situées en Ontario. Pour moi, c'est un poste très intéressant et amusant. De plus, Wynne va aller tête à tête avec Rob Ford. Quel pourrait être plus amusant que cela ? De plus, Wynne a aussi été donnée au poste très important de ministre des Affaires autochtones, en plus du portefeuille des Affaires municipales. Donc ce n'est pas qu'elle sûrement a mérité mieux, elle a obtenu les meilleur postes possibles.

Column by Robert Fisher

2011-10-23T23:42:00.002-04:00

I’d like to take issue with a column written recently by Robert Fisher of the CBC. Firstly, he said “Some inside and outside Queen’s Park tell me McGuinty has, at best, 18 months and members of his cabinet perhaps even less.” It is not clear what he means by this because he then he goes onto indicate that McGuinty will step down at some point during this parliamentary term. Does he mean that an election will be forced in 18 months even though Andrea Horwath has pledged to make this parliament work? Or does he mean that McGuinty is going to step down in 18 months? He can’t mean both because if an election were forced in 18 months, there would be no time for McGuinty to step down and he’d lead the Liberals into the next election. I’d be surprised if McGuinty quit in 18 months. He just worked really hard to successfully restore his popularity. Why would he quit so soon after that when at the moment his leadership seems an asset to his party? As far as an election being forced in 18 months is concerned, I’d be surprised if at that time both the Tories and NDP are ready to face the electorate again after just coming off a campaign that was a bit disappointing for both of them in terms of results. Besides, Andrea Horwath in particular has expressed a desire to make this parliament work long term. If an election were forced 18 months from now there would be, as I say, no time for succession in the premier’s office from McGuinty to another Liberal even if McGuinty were interested in retiring.
Fisher is also too hard on several cabinet ministers. He says that Michael Chan, Margarett Best and Harinder Takhar bring little to the cabinet table before, during, or after question period. This is an unfortunate slight against 3 well liked and competent ministers all of whom recently won re-election in their ridings.
Fisher also was surprised that Kathleen Wynne was given Municipal Affairs and not something else. He said “Surely, her re-election and her work as co-chair of the Liberal campaign ... meant she deserved better.” But Municipal Affairs is a great cabinet post in my opinion, given how important municipalities are in Ontario. To me it is a very fun and interesting post. Plus Wynne gets to go head to head with Rob Ford. What could be more fun than that? Plus Wynne has also been given the very important post of Minister of Aboriginal Affairs in addition to the Municipal Affairs portfolio. So it is not that she surely deserved better, she got the best postings possible.

Ottawa teen's suicide

2011-10-21T14:44:00.002-04:00

One sad item that has been in the news recently is the suicide of Jamie Hubley, the 15 year old son of Ottawa City Councillor Allan Hubley. Jamie committed suicide because he was an openly gay high school student who was massively bullied at school by cruel fellow students for being gay. He wrote in his final blog posting that as far as he could see, the bullying would never get better despite the slogans of the anti-homophobic bullying campaigns (that it will get better). He wrote in his blog how depressed he was and that he was cutting himself. Cutting oneself is a well known action of depressed teenagers. Teenage depression is a very big problem even without bullying. Bullying causing depression and suicide among teenagers is a big problem even without homophobic bullying. I want to state very clearly that homophobic bullying is not acceptable under any circumstances whatsoever. There are no exceptions at all -- never ever acceptable.
Also, bullying of any kind is not acceptable under any circumstances and there are no exceptions at all to this either. The Ontario government needs to continue and ramp up its anti-bullying campaign, including fighting homophobic bullying.
Jamie expressed thoughts of suicide for weeks before his suicide. I wish someone could have noticed the suicidal thoughts and done an intervention before he killed himself. Changing high schools would be a good option to escape the bullying, for him and other teenagers like him. There has to be more consequences for bullies in high school, which also means catching and reporting bullying more when it happens.
RIP Jamie Hubley and condolences to his family, friends, and all those who knew him.

Ontario election results

2011-10-13T22:07:00.003-04:00

Well the election results are in and there is some disappointment here in the Liberal camp. One seat shy of a majority still does not make a majority. It can be argued that it makes a “major minority” but cooperation is now needed in the legislature to get things done. This is still a great result when considering that a few months ago the McGuinty government was written off completely and Hudak was predicated to easily win a majority government. It was a strange election in many ways. The Liberals gained ground in many Toronto ridings, increasing their percentages from 2007 in ridings such as Don Valley West, Willowdale, Eglinton—Lawrence, St. Paul’s, Toronto Centre, Trinity—Spadina, Beaches—East York, Etobicoke—Lakeshore and Etobicoke Centre. Yet the Liberal vote collapsed in many rural ridings, denying the Liberals a majority government. Most of those rural ridings in Southern Ontario went Conservative while most of those rural ridings in Northern Ontario went NDP. The only completely rural riding the Liberals now hold is Glengarry—Prescott-Russell. They also retained the partially rural ridings of Peterborough, Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Thunder Bay—Superior North, and Brant. But in Peterborough, Thunder Bay—Atikokan, and Brant, the Liberal vote was under 40%, demonstrating the challenges the Liberals now face in mixed urban-rural ridings. However, Thunder Bay—Atikokan Liberal incumbent Bill Mauro miraculously increased his vote percentage from 37.69% in 2007 to 39%. He also increased his margin from a mere 50 votes to about 400 votes. Quite the turnaround given that many expect Mauro to be defeated this time after his near-loss in 2007. It was a little bit surprising to see the rural riding of Essex go to the NDP. Most such rural ridings in this election went Conservative and the Tories federally increased their vote to an impressive 48% in the May federal election. This was one of a few cases where the NDP jumped from third place in 2007 to first place in 2011.
The NDP also won the suburban 905 riding of Bramelea—Gore—Malton. This is the first time the NDP federally or provincially, have won a riding in Peel Region. Bramelea—Gore—Malton contains part of Brampton and part of Mississauga. In the 1990 Ontario election when the NDP won a majority government, the NDP came close to winning both Brampton ridings but fell just short, losing Brampton South by about 400 votes and losing Brampton North by a scant 98 votes after a recount. The NDP also came within about 1000 votes of winning Mississauga North in that election. The old Mississauga North comprises all of the Mississauga portion of the current Bramelea—Gore—Malton. It seems very likely that had the riding existed in 1990, Bramalea—Gore—Malton would have elected an NDPer. So it is not completely surprising the riding went NDP in this election. In addition, in the 1988 federal election, Bramelea—Gore—Malton (at that time known as Brampton—Malton, it was renamed Bramelea—Gore—Malton in 1990), the NDP got 22% of the vote, above both the provincial and federal NDP averages of that election. Again, this high result from 1988 shows the roots that allowed the riding to go NDP in this election.
A lot of those above mentioned Toronto ridings that saw an increased Liberal vote from the 2007 election went Conservative in the May federal election, making the Liberal vote increases particularly astounding. Kathleen Wynne getting 58% of the vote in Don Valley West, a key Tory riding during the Harris years, was particularly stunning. This is even more amazing considering that Don Valley West went Conservative federally, with the Tories edging out the Liberals by around 1.5% of the vote. It was also astonishing to see the Liberals get 51% of the vote in Willowdale. Willowdale was one of the most shocking federal pickups for the federal Conservatives in the May federal election. I still can’t believe the Tories got 41% there federally, edging out Liberal incumbent Martha Hall Findlay. Yet Willowdale has always been a weaker riding for the Liberals provincially than federally, and yet Liberal incumbent David Zimmer got 51% of the vote even after Hall Findlay lost in that shocker last May. This is the first time in living memory that the provincial Liberals have gotten over 50% of the vote in Willowdale or its predecessor riding Armour Heights. Willowdale has always been a target seat provincially for the Tories – it was one of three Toronto ridings to go Tory in the 1990 Ontario election. Willowdale helped the Tories keep their majority in the 1999 provincial election and everyone was shocked when Zimmer beat incumbent Tory cabinet minister David Young in the 2003 federal election. So it was pleasantly surprising to see the Liberals get an absolute majority in Willowdale provincially.
It was quite surprising to see the Liberals get only 21% in Simcoe North. In the 2007 election the Liberals got 30.5% in this riding and got 38.9% in Simcoe North in the 2003 election. In the 2004 federal election when many rural ridings in Ontario went Conservative, the Liberals won with 43% of the vote with socially progressive and long-time Liberal MP Paul DeVillers as the candidate. DeVillers retired at the 2006 federal election and the Liberal vote dropped to 38% of the vote. Since then the federal Liberals have done quite poorly in rural Ontario and the Liberals have sadly stopped being competitive in Simcoe North federally and provincially. This is unfortunate given the past competiveness of the riding for the Liberals.
Congratulations to the Liberals for forming another government.

Election Day

2011-10-06T02:04:00.004-04:00

Today is election day. I encourage all you Ontario voters to vote.

I also encourage all voters who are supporters of the Ontario Liberal Party to vote. The Liberals need your vote and of course every vote counts.

Best of luck to the Ontario Liberal Party.

Rob Ford's proposed cuts

2011-09-07T00:06:00.001-04:00

I’d like to weigh in on the issue of budget cuts and library closures in the City of Toronto. The Ford brothers appear to have forgotten that they promised no service cuts but now act as though implementing service cuts, including closing libraries, was what they were elected on. It may was well be repeated yet again that in fact Rob Ford was elected to cut the gravy, not actual services and not to close libraries. I also believe it folly to claim like the Fords do that every single person objecting to cuts is affiliated with a union. Some people really don’t want their libraries closed. Some people really don’t want cuts to programs such as daycare. And they may not be in a union. It is not only labour unions that object to hard-right policies and the hard-right should admit that. But for them, unions are a type of scapegoat through which they can claim that all objection to hard-right polices come from unions and that regular folk just love those hard-right policies. This claim is not true. Polls consistently show that even most Conservative voters support some social spending. Ford was elected largely by Liberal and NDP voters. Conservative voters alone could not have put him over the top. I estimate Ford got around 25-30% of Liberal voters and about 20% of NDP voters. Now admittedly, some of those then-Liberal voters became Conservative voters in the federal election held a few months later. This appeared true in ridings the Conservatives won in Toronto federally where some then-Liberal voters who likely voted for Ford also moved to the federal Conservatives. But this was still a minority of Liberal voters who did the switching to the federal Conservatives. It just happened to be enough to pick up a large number of seats in the city, especially with increased votes splitting due to that “Orange Crush”. Notably in Etobicoke North, where Rob Ford got the highest percentage of the vote, a large number of Rob Ford voters voted Liberal and NDP which allowed the Liberals to retain the riding. As I also say, most Conservative voters in Toronto are not hard right-wingers anyway. Therefore when Torontonians strongly object to the type of cuts the Fords have been proposing, it should not come as a surprise. Voters do want low taxes, but this desire is tempered quite a lot when they see the type of services that would have to be cut to give them really low taxes.

Note: This is being posted in the midnight hours of September 7, right before the provincial election is officially called. In the coming days I will be giving commentary on the provincial election.

RIP Jack Layton

2011-09-04T20:12:00.006-04:00

RIP to Jack Layton
Layton lost his battle with cancer. He was a great politician and was much more than just an elder statesman. I did not agree with all of his policies but every last one of his policies was well meaning. I liked his longstanding policies on gay rights, ribbons for the Montreal Massacre anniversary, and infrastructure funding for cities. He was renowned for being able to work well with Mel Lastman despite their ideological differences, which is in stark contrast to the current situation at Toronto City Hall in which the left-wingers are completely shut out of all policy making. That current situation is not good for a municipal government and it is great that Layton and Lastman could work well together.
Layton is known for having run for Mayor of Toronto in 1991. He only got 32.88% compared to 58% for June Rowlands. He ran a good campaign for mayor but likely suffered in the election due to the unpopularity of the year-old NDP provincial government.
Two times Layton made the decision to prop-up a minority government: in 2005 with Paul Martin’s minority government, and in 2009 with Stephen Harper’s minority government. I believe Layton made the right decision in both those cases to prop-up the government – neither the spring of 2005 nor the fall of 2009 were the right time in my view for a federal election. Both times Layton extracted significant concessions from the government: in 2005 for infrastructure spending and in 2009 for the unemployed who were out of work because of the recession. I loved his eternal optimism and his willingness to work with leaders of other parties, even Stephen Harper, who is not known for his negotiating skills.
I certainly didn’t agree with all his left-wing causes in municipal and federal politics, but some of his policies were good and we will all miss him. My thoughts are with his family and colleagues.

The Australian election

2010-10-06T21:43:00.002-04:00

I haven’t had a chance yet to comment on the recent Australian election. It certainly was an abnormal election. The former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was dumped by his own party and new Prime Minister Julia Gillard called a new election. Rudd was dumped because his party had fallen behind the opposition in the polls. But in my view that decline in the polls could have been avoided had different courses of action been taken by the Rudd government. Firstly, the Rudd government should not have abandoned its climate change legislation. I realize it could not be passed in the Senate because of opposition obstructionism, but the legislation was very popular with the Australian public and abandoning it made the government’s popularity decline sharply. Instead the government, in my view, should have continued to push for the legislation. They could even have considered a double dissolution on the issue. In Australia, a double dissolution can occur when government legislation is rejected multiple times by the Senate. In the case of double dissolution, the entire Senate is up for election rather than the normal Senate half-election in which only half the members are up for election. After a double dissolution election, the Australian constitution allows for a joint sitting of both the House of Representatives and the Senate wherein a combined majority vote of both chambers can pass legislation that previously triggered the double dissolution. Labor certainly could have won such an election, in my opinion, if they had campaigned on the climate change bill and forgone their deeply unpopular mining tax (which also almost cost Labor government). Following an election victory for Labor in this scenario, there almost certainly would have been a combined majority for Labor in the two houses that could have passed the climate change legislation.
What is very strange about the climate change legislation is that the Green Party of Australia actually opposed the Rudd government’s climate change legislation on the basis that it did not go far enough and as a result the Greens voted against it in the Senate. This made the margin of defeat for the climate change bill quite wide. I believe this approach of opposing legislation because it does not go far enough is counterproductive. The nature of politics is compromise. In my view if you support something, you should always support legislation that meets that goal even if the legislation does not go as far as you want. Otherwise change will never be effected because people will be stuck voting against everything on the basis of it not going far enough and so nothing would pass and no progress would be made. To me it seems like a no-brainer that the Green Party of Australia ought to have supported the climate change legislation even though they didn’t think it had enough in it because something is always better than nothing.
Following the election, the Australian Senate composition does not change until July, but when it does change, ironically the Labor government will be in a better position in the Senate then they are in the House, in stark contrast to the government’s previous term when they were in a much better position in the House than in the Senate. Come July, Labor and the Greens will have a combined majority in the Senate. Given that the Green Party has given its support to the Labor minority government in both the House (through newly elected Green MP Adam Bandt) and in the Senate, the government will have a de facto majority in the Senate next July. Meanwhile in the House, Labor just barely holds on, being supported by the Green Party and 3 Independents for a very slim majority. Reinforcing the strangeness of the election is the fact that the two key independents giving Labor the majority are former members of the right-wing Australian National Party (one of the members of Australia’s centre-right coalition parliamentary group). Looking at the two members in question, however, makes their support for Labor less surprising. Both appear to have drifted away from the Nationals quite a bit in terms of policy. For example, both based their decision to back Labor in large part on the Labor government’s comprehensive program to build broadband internet to rural areas of Australia, a program that the National Party strongly opposes. Given that the opposition Coalition opposes the Labor government’s broadband program it appears that Labor’s support of the program and the Coalition’s opposition to it helped save the Labor government from defeat. Labor did manage to win the “two party vote” wherein under the Australian election system, vote preferences are distributed to the two main parties. They fell one seat below the Coalition, however. But to complicate matters, one of the newly elected National MPs from Western Australia declared that although he is a National MP, he was not part of the Coalition, effectively making the two main parliamentary groups tied for seats and giving Labor an opportunity to deny that the Coalition had won more seats than them. In the end, Labor won the election and I congratulate them for a well-earned victory and wish them luck as they govern as best they possibly can.

The rise of Rob Ford

2010-10-05T00:18:00.003-04:00

I get why a very large number of Torontonians want Rob Ford to be their next mayor. There has been too much spending under David Miller. Under Miller, there has also been too much banning of things occurring such as the banning of certain types of shopping bags and the once-proposed ban on Tim Horton’s paper coffee cups. In addition, there have been too many fees added under Miller, such as the mandatory five cent bag fee. So I can see why Torontonians are irate and want massive change. I just don’t personally believe that Ford is the right person to clean up the mess. Ford has promised to scrap the Toronto land transfer fee and car registration fee. I never supported the land transfer fee and I would like to see it gone too, but how would Ford pay for its elimination? It would be unthinkable to do it by cutting services. Yes there is plenty of fat to cut but I would support the elimination of the land transfer tax and the car registration fee only after it is established they can be eliminated without cutting services. I’d also like to see the bag fee eliminated and I know Ford is the most likely candidate to do this but I’m wary of a Ford administration for a number of reasons. Firstly, Ford has trouble getting along with other politicians. This problem he has is well documented. As mayor your job is to be as collegial as possible with council and this could go by the wayside with Ford as Mayor. Secondly, I believe Ford’s strongly socially conservative views are incompatible with representing a city as diverse as Toronto. His stance on gay rights is quite out of step with modern Toronto and could become problem (in my humble opinion) if he is elected mayor. Also one of his most infamous comments concerns funding for the prevention of AIDS. As documented on city TV news (http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/17952--councillor-rob-ford-under-fire-over-aids-comments), Ford said "If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn't get AIDS probably, that's bottom line." Those infamous comments made no sense and it is a fact that worldwide there are millions (I am not exaggerating when I say millions) of people who suffer AIDS who are neither gay nor users of exchanged needles.

I also strongly disagree with Ford’s idea of eliminating streetcars. It makes no sense and is not environmentally friendly no matter how “clean” the buses are that replace the streetcars. As far as Ford’s plan to cut City Council in half, how does it make any sense to have fewer councilors in Toronto than there are MPs representing the city?

I’d personally prefer George Smitherman to be mayor. He is almost as aggressive as Ford of course. However, his policies on the whole make more sense in my opinion and I like that he does not support mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi’s idea of reviving the Spadina Expressway by making it a tunnel. In my opinion reviving the Spadina Expressway even as a tunnel is a really bad and undesirable idea. After all it was opposed because of all the houses that would demolished and I don’t believe Rossi’s claim that to build his tunnel no houses would need to be demolished. I also oppose Rossi’s tunnel idea because it could quickly turn into a debacle like the Big Dig in Boston.

In Markham where I live the mayoral race is far less heated. Two people are running against incumbent Mayor Frank Scarpitti. Both ran against Scarpitti in the 2006 election as well. One of them is Partap Dua. He ran as an independent in the 2006 Canadian federal election in the riding of Markham—Unionville. He ran as an unofficial candidate for a new, unregistered, left-leaning party. Later that year Dua placed second in the 2006 Markham mayoral election. Also running is Stephen Kotyck. His plan is to cut waste and pare the Town of Markham down to essential services. But I strongly disagree with one of his proposals to cut “waste”. He considers having two transit systems in York Region, YRT and VIVA, to be wasteful. He proposes merging the two systems. I strongly disagree with this. Viva works very well as I have learned from riding it many times. Having two transit systems is not wasteful. Now, despite his suggestion of merging the two transit systems, YRT/VIVA is a Regional issue rather than a Town issue and if Kotyck were elected Mayor he would have to convince the entire York Regional Council to agree to his proposal, which is not likely given VIVA’s popularity. I personally am supporting Frank Scarpitti for re-election because I think he has done an excellent job as Mayor over the past 4 years.

New Brunswick election

2010-10-03T23:29:00.005-04:00

For me personally the election in New Brunswick is kind of depressing. It was a massive Tory landslide. The Liberals were wiped out in Fredericton and Saint John. The very forceful strength for the Tories in Northern Francophone New Brunswick continues even without Bernard Lord as leader. Of course it is important to remember that this result does not show an embrace for the right as it would in many other provinces, or other countries. The New Brunswick PCs have always been a moderate brand of Conservatives who never have had specifically right-wing policies. There was very little right wing in the Tory platform and the Tories actually were to the left of the Liberals on the issue of tax cuts. That being said, the Liberals did run to the left of the Tories in some respects, notably in that it was the Liberals who promised a prescription drug government program. Nevertheless the New Brunswick Tory leadership continues to be Reddish Tory so one should not likely expect a hard right shift in governance in New Brunswick. This lack of polarization in New Brunswick (which is in contrast to the polarization we have seen in Ontario especially during the Harris years) could explain why the New Brunswick Tories in 1999 and 2010 have been able to sweep the province to an extent that former Ontario premier Mike Harris never could.

The landslide was so strong that Larry Kennedy, the Victoria-Tobique Liberal MLA who survived the 1999 Lord landslide was defeated in this election. Granted, that part of the province has shifted to the right federally since the 1999 provincial election. One bright spot from the Liberals perspective was that Liberal Chris Collins was re-elected in Moncton East – former Tory Premier Bernard Lord’s old riding. He won it by less than 200 votes but it was still major trend bucking. It makes some sense that he won it – he was the only incumbent Liberal running for re-election in a riding with the word Moncton in it, and Moncton is more Liberal than Fredericton or Saint John. Collins was originally a New Democrat, running for the NDP in the 1987 New Brunswick election. Needless to say he was defeated in this election because the New Brunswick Liberals won every single seat in the legislature. In 2003 he was inspired to run against Bernard Lord in his own riding when he found that the government and his local MLA, Mr. Lord, were not giving him enough government services to treat his son Sean for cancer. His son was being treated in Halifax and the government was not paying for the trips to visit his son in the hospital. In the 2003 election Collins lost to Lord by only 10% of the vote. Collins was elected to Moncton City Council in 2004. When the 2006 election came, Collins couldn’t run against Lord because he was travelling with his son outside the country at the time. However Lord resigned his seat when he lost the premiership and Collins easily won a March 2007 by-election. Unfortunately his son Sean passed away from cancer in July 2007 at the age of 13. After this tragedy, Collins was appointed to the provincial cabinet and was Minister for Local Government at the time of the 2010 election. He gets to be in opposition with 12 other members as the Liberals lick their severe wounds.

Senate finance committee

2010-07-12T06:05:00.001-04:00

I have recently been watching the Senate finance committee examine Bill C-9, the budget implementation act. They are very slow at it because Liberal Senators do not like the bill. Liberal MPs didn’t like the bill either but they received instructions from their leader Michael Ignatieff not to stall the bill. Liberal Senators are known for not following their leader. For example, Liberal Senator Colin Kenny recently wrote an op-ed in which he defended CSIS chief Richard Fadden about his espionage allegations and actually appeared to contradict his party’s message on this issue when he said “Fadden did Canadians a service by pointing out that too many Canadian politicians are effectively on other countries' dole.” That is a clear contradiction of the Liberal position that Fadden’s allegations are unfounded.

So it is evident that Liberal Senators have a tendency not to follow the party line. As a result there are a number of Liberal Senators who actively wanted Bill C-9 to be split into multiple bills and studied individually. They were disregarding the fact that a parliamentary crisis would ensue if they succeeded in doing this. Progressive Conservative Senator Lowell Murray also wanted to break up the bill. Murray considers this bill an affront to parliament. I wouldn’t go that far but putting so much budget-unrelated content into a budget bill is very questionable.

During the committee meeting Ned Franks said in relation to the confidence issue of Bill C-9 that numerous financial bills have been defeated in the past in Canadian parliament and the government did not fall. Now Ned Franks is a parliamentary expert and knows in detail all the legislative history of Canada’s parliament all the way back to Confederation. But I found that comment odd. Most of those years he has studied had majority governments in which financial bills are never defeated. And my impression is that in the case of minority parliaments, if a financial bill is defeated then in most cases the government falls. My impression is that only if the bill does not meet the criteria as being “supply” would the government not fall if the bill were defeated. “Loss of supply” is an undisputed loss of confidence when it occurs. There was a case in 1967 when a financial bill the Liberal minority government introduced was defeated because it did not have support of any other party in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Lester Pearson was out of the country when the bill was defeated and there were serious questions at the time about whether the government had fallen or not when the bill was defeated. The government declared it was not a matter of confidence and continued governing and an election was not called until 1968. But this must surely be the exception and not the rule. The Liberals were defeated over a budget in 1974 when it is believed they purposefully introduced a budget that the NDP could not support in order for there to be a reason to call an election in which they believed they could get a majority government. When the Trudeau government was defeated over the 1974 budget, it was clearly a loss of supply and the government fell. The Liberals only stayed in power because they won a majority government in the ensuing election. So I do not see how there has been an opportunity in Canadian parliamentary history for there to have been numerous financial bills defeated in which the government did not fall and so I am unsure what Franks was referring to. It is possible that Franks is referring to times that budget bills have been defeated in the Senate. But again I think there is limited opportunity for this to have occurred because it has been quite rare in Canadian history that one party has a majority in the House of Commons and another party has a majority in the Senate. This anomaly would have been the case throughout much of the Mulroney years but I’m quite certain no such bill was defeated by the Senate then. Another possibility that occurred to me was did such a thing happen during the Diefenbaker years? Again that does not seem likely so I am unsure as to why Franks was referring to when he made that comment about budget bills being defeated.

The funniest thing Franks said was when he referred to a bill that legislated on navigable rivers. He said that he actually prefers non-navigable rivers because he likes going white water rafting!

Obama and Gary Coleman

2010-07-11T22:56:00.001-04:00

I would like to discuss a famous actor who passed away recently. RIP to Gary Coleman. He was a great actor and I shall always remember him for the time he played himself in an episode of the Simpsons and for the voice he played in the game the Curse of Monkey Island (Monkey Island 3). In the Curse of Monkey Island Coleman played the voice of a bratty lemonade sales boy who scams his customers by using a literally bottomless mug that sits on a hole in the table. The lemonade he poured after the customer paid a nickel went to the ground and the customer is scammed when they find the mug empty. The game’s hero, Guybrush Threepwood, switched the bottomless mug for a real mug and when Kenny pours the lemonade into this mug Guybrush gets to drink it. Kenny storms off in a fit as a result of this. Later, however, Kenny sees the error of his ways and runs a legitimate cannon sales business that Guybrush buys several cannons from.

In politics, I am perturbed by Barack Obama’s poor approval numbers. I do not know if it is because of the Gulf oil spill, a still-recovering economy, or lingering unpopularity of his health care reform, but many Americans in my view are too quickly forgetting how much worse things were under George W. Bush. In regards to Obama’s lingering unpopularity over health care, this is unfortunately the case because the Democrats may have won the legislative battle but by then they had long since lost the media battle with the Republicans. The Republicans by the summer of 2009 had already gotten their negative story on the health care bill to be a largely accepted belief among many Americans. Democrats fighting back failed to reverse the minds of many who had been convinced by the massive Republican misinformation. This is harming Obama’s presidency far too much despite the fact that the health care bill he signed is needed, long overdue, and contains none of the Republican negative characteristics attributed to it. As I’ve said, Obama’s health care bill is only a first step in the effort the cover all Americans for health care. Republicans really ought to show more care for the poor who cannot get adequate coverage but then that would not be a typical Republican thing to do, the party that likes to ignore the poor. What concerns me as well is that no matter how much the economy continues to improve in the United States, voters do not give him credit for the recovery and in surveys continue to treat Obama as though the United States in is deep recession. Meanwhile in Canada it is equally disheartening how large a lead the federal Conservatives have taken in the polls over the Liberals. Now is a difficult time to be a Liberal much in the same way that in the US it is a difficult time to be a Democrat. One can hope for improvements in the future.

Ujjal Dosanjh

2010-05-28T00:32:00.002-04:00

I was just watching on the internet the interview that Vancouver South Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh did with Stephen Colbert. Everyone should see the really funny part where Colbert and Dosanjh sing the Canadian National Anthem to the tune of the American National Anthem. I also love how Dosanjh responded to Colbert’s scenario: a gun is to your head and therefore you must choose to scrap either Canadian medicare or Canadian same-sex marriage, which do you choose to eliminate? Dosanjh’s answer: neither. Dosanjh also appeared on CNN to defend Canada’s public health care system from Republican attacks during the United States’ health care debate. The CNN host did not realize that it was taxes that paid for Canadian medicare and surprisingly thought that Canadian employers were somehow involved in providing Canadian medicare before Dosanjh set him straight. The host also got a viewer caller question about whether medicare is provided in Canada to illegal immigrants. Dosanjh did not directly address the question about whether care is provided to people who are in Canada illegally but stated more generally that anyone visiting Canada from abroad who has a medical emergency will be treated immediately without upfront payment even though as non-Canadian residents they obviously would not have a health card. Dosanjh said that in such cases the government sometimes tries to collect bills for this care later. Dosanjh is great handling these interviews and I’m very glad we got him from the NDP. I think he was also a good Minister of Health during his year in Paul Martin’s cabinet.

Bob Rae's fond memories

2010-05-28T00:24:00.003-04:00

What is going on here? A cow, a female cow, attacking a woman unprovoked? Cows are supposed to be docile. What happened? It is a good thing her grandson could drive a tractor and he got her the quick medical attention she needed. I always figured a cow might kick you if you try and ride her, but to engage in a prolonged attack for no reason? What is wrong with this cow?

Source for this crazy cow story:

http://www.theprovince.com/Alberta+woman+lucky+alive+after+attack/3075170/story.html

On to politics. Bob Rae is reminiscing about the events that happened 25 years ago this month when he negotiated the pact with the Ontario Liberals that toppled Frank Miller’s government. The Lieutenant Governor, John Aird, allowed the Liberal party to form a minority government because the NDP had reached an accord with the Liberals that in other countries such as New Zealand would now be called a “confidence and supply accord”. In other words, the NDP agreed to support the Liberals on matters of confidence and supply in exchange for the Liberals implementing several key NDP policies. As any studier of Ontario politics knows, it was the Liberals who were given credit for these left-leaning policies and the Liberals were given a huge majority government in the 1987 election that was called after the two year accord had expired. It is Bob Rae’s dream to bring such a similar accord to the federal government. Rae was one of the strongest backers of Stephane Dion’s aborted coalition accord with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois. The problem is English Canadians reacted so negatively to the Bloc’s involvement in the coalition and it is almost completely mathematically impossible for the Liberals and NDP alone to obtain a majority of seats. So as much as many people want such a coalition government it is very difficult. They couldn’t even convince Michaëlle Jean to allow the coalition. How would Rae and other coalition supporters get the next Governor General who may have strong Conservative ties, to allow such a similar proposed coalition in future?

Confrontational Tories

2010-05-28T00:23:00.001-04:00

I am unhappy that the Tories are now prohibiting their staffers from testifying in committees. Doing so in essence goes against House of Commons rules and it creates needless additional conflict. It also prevents committees from getting to the bottom of important questions and is just the same old Tory excessive secrecy that Canadians have noticed but many of whom are not paying enough attention to.

UK election outcome

2010-05-26T08:00:00.001-04:00

The United Kingdom recently saw a change in government. It has seen an unprecedented formal coalition government between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. It is quite amazing they have been able to form this coalition considering that the two parties disagree ideologically on many different issues. One of the early government policies has been a civil liberties policy, including the scrapping of Labour's plans for a national ID card. I agree with the general thrust of this new government’s civil libertarian policies. One Conservative policy I do not agree with that the Liberal Democrats were reluctantly forced to agree to as part of the coalition agreement is the redrawing of every House of Commons seat in the whole country. The Tories want the Commons shrunk to under 600 members. I do not agree with this shrinkage when in fact the Commons has had over 600 members since at least 1950. This policy may be a ploy by the Tories to redraw constituencies to favour the Tories more than the current boundaries, which are said to favour Labour. Hence how Labour got 35% of the votes in 2005 and 55% of the seats and how in 2005 Labour had fewer votes in England than the Tories but way more seats in England than the Tories. A purported reason to reduce the number of constituencies is to save money. But given that the Tories and Liberal Democrats have agreed to a fix term five year parliament, any such saving of money would not kick in until 2015. Nevertheless, hopefully with the Liberal Democrats as part of the government they will keep a check on the Tories so that they do not gerrymander the constituencies in the Tories favour too much. Furthermore, hopefully the Liberal Democrats will keep a check on the Tories more ideological agenda, if and where such ideological agenda exists.

McGuinty and the HST

2010-05-24T06:02:00.001-04:00

One might wonder why Dalton McGuinty, who seems adept at trying political self-preservation, would implement the unpopular HST. I think it must be because he believes it will create jobs by the time of the next election and he can point to the HST being tax neutral. On the related question of why the HST is so much more unpopular in BC than Ontario I would guess it is because in BC the HST is not at all tax neutral because all of the federal exemptions are being applied to fuel so that the HST will not be charged on top of BC’s carbon tax.

Audits and private members bill

2010-05-24T05:59:00.002-04:00

I cannot help but take MPs sides on this dispute on parliamentary expenses. I see it the way Chantal Hebert recently put it, MPs don’t want to be lynched by the media for their expenses. As NDP MP Yvon Godin put it, “Who is she to tell me the value of the money that I will spend”. I think MPs fear such an audit would not treat them fairly and end many political careers due to sensationalism. It is for this reason that I believe an alternative to an audit by the auditor general ought to be found to uphold accountability of the House of Commons internal economy.

Ontario Liberal backbench MPP Mario Sergio introduced a sweeping private members bill to amend the City of Toronto Act into the Ontario legislature on Thursday. I strongly disagree with the bill and it is unlikely to pass because it goes foursquare against the government’s policy on the City of Toronto. The bill would make sweeping changes. It would limit the total number of wards to the city to 31 from the current 44. This goes against current government policy of allowing the City of Toronto to draw its own wards in a way it sees fit. It would impose greater outside financial control over the City of Toronto through some new board created by this bill and presumably appointed by the province. This goes against current government policy of allowing the City of Toronto greater financial control of itself. It also imposes a term limit of two consecutive terms on all Toronto City Councilors. This is very much not a government policy and it would be wrong to impose term limits on the City of Toronto and only the City of Toronto while leaving other municipalities in Ontario without term limits. I oppose term limits. However, term limits are something Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi has in his platform. But to impose term limits on the City of Toronto without even a request from the City of Toronto to do so would be wrong. I am unsure of Sergio’s motivation for introducing this bill but I am strongly opposed to it.

Michaëlle Jean

2010-04-06T18:53:00.001-04:00

Apparently, according to a Toronto Star article, Stephen Harper has decided not to renew Governor General Michaëlle Jean’s term and is actively looking for her replacement. I do not agree with Harper’s supposed decision not to extend her term. This is a minority government and in 2004 Paul Martin used the fact that there was a minority government to extend Adrienne Clarkson’s term. What concerns me very much is how many partisan Tories are on the speculation list. From a Globe and Mail News blog, possibilities listed are Tory Senate Speaker Noel Kinsella, Don Cherry (known Conservative supporter), and Preston Manning (Tory supporter and former Reform Party leader). Cherry was suggested on Twitter by former Harper communications director Kory Teneycke. The Globe and Mail blog says that wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen was approached for the Governor General’s job but he declined. Since then Hansen has claimed that he was never approached about the post and would actually consider taking it. I think Hansen would be a great choice if Harper insists on replacing Jean. He would be a much less partisan choice than those Tories listed. The Globe blog also lists the possibilities of diplomat John De Chastelain and Inuit leader Mary Simon. Both of those would be good non-partisan choices. In an update to the blog, it was stated that another possibility has surfaced: Wayne Gretzky. The blog refers to Gretzky as being from Tory ranks. I can only assume that this is said because Gretzky’s uncle Al Gretzky was a Conservative candidate in the 2006 federal election. Harper has close ties to Gretzky but that is mainly from the Olympics. Other than that there is no proof Gretzky is a Conservative supporter. But all the Tory names surfacing sadly makes me think that maybe a goal of Harper’s Governor General appointment is to ensure that they would never allow an opposition coalition like the one proposed in 2008 to take power. This is unfortunate in that such a partisan choice could mean that a coalition would be unable to take power even if after the next election the Liberals are only, say, 2 seats behind the Conservatives.

Oklahoma hate crime law nonsense

2010-04-05T23:56:00.001-04:00

Recently a Republican legislator in Oklahoma slipped in an amendment to a bill to prohibit the state from handing over evidence in hate crimes against gays being prosecuted by the federal government to the feds under the new Matthew Sheppard Act on the basis that Oklahoma law does not have hate crime laws for gays. That is irrelevant because there is a federal hate crimes law for gays and it has long been established in case law in the US that federal law trumps state law. Therefore, if Oklahoma did pass the bill in its current form I would support the FBI coming in and seizing the evidence from the state authorities if necessary. The Governor of Oklahoma, Brad Henry, is a Democrat. So hopefully he would veto the bill if it got to his desk. It is, however, heartening to be reminded that some Republicans, even some in Oklahoma, support same-sex equality. In this article about the story, http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=16&articleid=20100322_16_A15_Abillt724803 ,

Toby Jenkins, who is president of president of Tulsa-based Oklahomans for Equality, was quoted. Jenkins defended the right of pastors to preach anti-gay sermons. He said he does not want clergy prosecuted. However, he is President of a pro-gay group. The clincher is that the article says that Jenkins is a Republican. So Jenkins is a pro same-sex equality Republican from Oklahoma. I bet few expected to be able to find one but there he is.

Afghan detainees

2010-04-03T13:32:00.004-04:00

I certainly want to get to the bottom of this Afghan detainee mystery. But even if the Sergeant-at-Arms forcefully seized all documents uncensored and made them public we may not have an answer about what government official knew what when in regards to prisoners being tortured. Conversely because the documents date all the way back to 2001, although very unlikely it could be for all we know that un-redacted documents show that the Liberals were somehow complicit in the torture of Afghan prisoners when they were in government. Although the Liberals must realize that that is a risk, to get to the bottom of this they certainly want the documents released. I am of the opinion that it is not reasonable for parliament to force the release of all the documents to the public uncensored due to national security concerns. Unfortunately the wording of the motion that passed in December was such that it had the effect of demanding the government release the uncensored documents to the public without restriction. Since then opposition parties have been backing off that demand by conceding that there are legitimate national security reasons not to release some of the documents and are instead asking that select MPs be shown the uncensored documents in strict camera under secrecy. If this occurred, it is not clear to me whether the MPs who saw the uncensored documents would be able to then publicly say that they discovered that the Conservative government and/or the previous Liberal government had complicity in the torture of Afghan prisoners and thus would not be able to embarrass the Conservatives on this matter as opposition parties had been hoping. So in the end the opposition may not be able to embarrass the government as they had hoped.

Obama's health care overhaul

2010-04-01T19:13:00.001-04:00

I support the passage in the United States of the recent health care overhaul. Of course I believe it doesn’t go nearly far enough. But it was hard enough to pass the bill as it was. They had to get every single Democratic Senator to vote for it. One notable Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, would not vote for a health care bill that had a public option. Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman also refused to support a public option. I fully support the public option concept and found it unfortunate that it wouldn’t have taken effect until 2013. Universal public health care is always the ideal. Republicans rail against government takeover of health care. Yet that’s a concept I support, and even the American population supports that concept to some extent. As much as Republicans claim that Americans oppose “government takeover” of health care many polls have shown a majority of Americans support the public option, something that Republicans would indeed classify as a “government takeover.” In my view individual states that have Democratic legislatures ought to pass a single payer system for their own state and go beyond the new federal law. California is attempting to do just that right now. However California has a Republican governor, famous actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has promised to veto a single payer bill. Democrats do not have the votes to override a veto. Also passing budgets and budget related items is so difficult under California’s constitution that the single payer bill would actually need voter approval in a referendum. Voter passage in a referendum is no guarantee when the anti-single payer groups would inundate the state with misinformation in an attempt to defeat a single payer system. There is also no guarantee that a single payer system could be passed into law next year. The open California governor’s race is an exact dead heat between the leading Republican and Democratic candidates at the moment and if a Republican wins, they too would surely veto a single payer bill. As for New York, although New York has a Democratic governor, this Democratic governor is badly embattled and is not running for re-election. New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo is expected to seek the Democratic nomination for governor but has yet to announce his candidacy. But even if Cuomo becomes governor, a single payer bill is unlikely to pass unless the Democrats majority in the Senate is expanded. At the moment there is a very narrow Democratic majority in the Senate in which the balance of power is held by socially conservative Democrats. With this narrow majority, it is not clear to me whether a single payer bill could pass. Sadly it also seems difficult for states to implement a single payer system with the constant thorn of budget deficits that is affecting every single jurisdiction in both Canada and the United States. Nevertheless in my view this federal health care bill in the US is only the beginning of the long fight to ensure that the under privileged have complete and total health care coverage in all of the USA.

Baby Isaiah revisited

2010-02-03T13:47:00.003-05:00

I'd like to revisit quickly the Baby Isaiah case again to respond to a comment made on my previous post on the subject. Somebody posted a comment and said that the term "brain dead" was never used in the article I linked. I have seen other articles on this case that do use this term, such as this one:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/01/19/12544441-qmi.html?cid=rssnewslast24hours

Nevertheless, if in fact Isaiah is not brain dead, why remove the ventilator? It is not relevant whether he would be able to live a normal life. If he is alive he is entitled a chance to live with the assistance of a ventilator.

Obama's State of the Union Address

2010-02-03T02:46:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama’s State of the Union address seems very good. Its great that he points out that he and absolutely everyone else hated the bank bailouts. But I would point out that I’ve seen conservatives in the United States blame the hated bank bailouts only on Obama and point to it as example of why Obama is socialist, etc. American conservatives backing Republican Scott Brown in the recent upset Massachusetts Senate election cited the bank bailouts as one of the reasons that they believe Obama is so terrible. But I would point out that the bank bailout bill was signed by George W. Bush in 2008. I’m not sure if Obama was even there to vote for the bank bailout – he was probably out campaigning at the time. American conservatives also have railed against Obama’s stimulus package. But their argument does not hold much water when one considers that Bush also supported a stimulus package in the fall of 2008 but Republicans in his own party filibustered the Bush-supported stimulus until the session ran out. All of these things were just being done to prevent the collapse of the economy and these bailouts and stimulus packages do seem to be preventing the economy from collapsing and seem to be even helping the economy to recover. So in conclusion I’d say a lot more work needs to be done in the United States capital but Obama has given a great State of the Union address.

Baby Isaiah

2010-02-03T02:41:00.002-05:00

It may surprise long time readers to learn that I have found an issue with which I agree with pro-life activists. That would be the Baby Isaiah case. In this particular case doctors in an Edmonton hospital insist upon removing the ventilator of a 3 months old baby named Isaiah May. The doctors there are under the impression that Isaiah is allegedly brain dead. Isaiah had a tough birth in October wherein he was born in a rural hospital after about 40 hours of labour and no C-section was used despite the increasing apparent need for one. The result of this difficult birth was that the umbilical cord became wrapped around his throat and as a result his brain was severely deprived of oxygen at birth. Doctors believed he would live only a few days but it has been over 3 months. Now the doctors in the Edmonton hospital wanted to use apparently weak patient protection laws to remove Isaiah’s ventilator, which he needs to help him breathe, without parental consent. For whatever reason the doctors insist that this removal is in Isaiah’s best interest even though removing the ventilator would risk Isaiah’s life. Although the doctors allege Isaiah is brain dead, he frequently opens his eyes and moves his limbs. That’s not what happens when you’re brain dead. Thus his parents went to court and won an injunction to block the removal of the ventilator. The judge also ordered the parents to find an independent assessor of Isaiah to determine his neurological status in an independent opinion from the hospital doctors. I agree with this court decision because to me it is irrelevant how brain damaged a person is, if they are still living with continued brain activity, their life should be preserved with every medical effort possible including ventilators. Many people require ventilators to live, even those who do not permanently reside at a hospital. An example of this is American politician Brooke Ellison. In 1990, when Ellison was 11 she almost died when she was hit by a car on her first day of junior high school. This accident left her a quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator. She ran unsuccessfully for a New York State Senate seat in 2006 for the Democratic Party. There are many other people dependent on ventilators. Isaiah is dependent on a ventilator and so I fail to see how it is in his “best interests” for it to be removed. They ought to make a determination exactly how brain damaged Isaiah is. Even if the brain damage is severe and irreversible, that is irrelevant to this question because if a person is still living medical care is not arbitrarily withheld from them. Isaiah has not had a chance to learn to talk. How do we know he couldn’t learn to talk in future? Nor can they base a decision to withdraw life support on a person’s inability to talk. That is discriminatory. My feelings on this matter are summed up nicely by Isaiah’s mother, Rebecka May: "I believe any life is worth fighting for," (says Rebecka May, who pumps her breast milk for son Isaiah to receive through a tube). "Even if a person has disabilities, they deserve a chance; they are still a person; they still have emotions."

It is also interesting that the article I quoted from says that a goal of medicine is to not prolong dying. Yet how do we know Isaiah would die anytime soon if he stayed on the ventilator. We do not know that and therefore the doctors decision is arbitrary and indeed needs to be reversed.

Article source:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-two-faces-of-a-life-or-death-dilemma/article1445507/

Good job Michael Ignatieff

2009-06-23T21:57:00.002-04:00

Needless to say I am thankful that the election threat has been averted but I still want to take issue with past Conservative characterizations of the previous Liberal proposal to reform Employment Insurance. Tories classified the Liberal suggestion as a “socialist scheme” but that is something I would take issue with. I know of a previous Conservative government who enriched Unemployment Insurance – the government of John Diefenbaker who extended unemployment insurance benefits due to rising unemployment around 1958. The book I have says the Diefenbaker government extended unemployment insurance benefits by 6 weeks, which is longer than the , which is longer than the 5 week extension the current Tories brought forward. My point is that Tories have enriched Employment Insurance before and could do so again and the fact that Tories have enriched unemployment insurance shows that EI enrichment is not a socialist scheme. Sure Diefenbaker was largely a Red Tory. But even Harper’s blue Toryism doesn’t prevent him from supporting farm subsidies due to his farmer base of support still desiring farm subsidies. The Conservatives have actually offered some enrichment of farm subsidies so why is enriching Employment Insurance a “socialist scheme”? And in regards to the EI deal that has been reached by Ignatieff and Harper, I disagree with the negative characterizations of it that I’m seeing in the media, especially from the National Post. National Post columnists in particular are painting Ignatieff in a very negative light with regard to this deal with Harper on EI. They say he caved in from the conditions he set on Monday morning. Nothing could be farther from the truth. At his Monday morning press conference Ignatieff made it clear that his conditions for supporting the government were not rigid demands. He said at that Monday morning press conference that he was flexible and reasonable. He demanded answers from the government on how it would get out of deficit, how it would handle the isotope crisis, how much infrastructure money has actually been spent, and what plans the government has to reform Employment Insurance. Contrary to what is implied in the negative columns about Ignatieff, Ignatieff never made it a condition that Employment Insurance reform be passed into law this week. He only asked what the governments plans to reform EI were. Contrary to what is said in the negative columns about Ignatieff, Ignatieff got all 4 of his conditions met. The government released more information about how it planned to get out of deficit. Ignatieff may also have been given more information about this in his private meetings with Harper. The government agreed to give written information about what it planned to do about the isotope crisis. That is the second condition met. Harper told Ignatieff his plans for Employment Insurance reform, which was his plan to give the self-employed access to EI. Ignatieff and Harper agreed to strike a blue-ribbon panel to study both how to implement access to EI for the self-employed and how to make other improvements to EI. The combination of those things is Ignatieff’s third condition being met. The only condition that is unclear whether it has been met is the condition that the government make it clearer how much infrastructure money has actually been spent. But I think it likely that Harper gave Ignatieff information on this during their meetings which would mean that all four conditions were met and Ignatieff did NOT back down as indicated in the many negative columns written about Ignatieff.

Congratulations to the Nova Scotia NDP!

2009-06-13T14:53:00.003-04:00

I want to congratulate the Nova Scotia NDP on winning a substantial majority government on June 9. I am pleased that the Liberal Party came in second place in the popular vote and that the governing Tories actually fell to third place in the popular vote. I’m glad the Tories in Nova Scotia were routed. I’m also glad that the Liberal Party will form the Official Opposition and I congratulate Kelly Regan, wife of Halifax West Liberal MP Geoff Regan for wining a seat for the Liberals in Bedford-Birch Cove against the incumbent Tory MLA. I also congratulate Liberal Andrew Younger for his victory in Dartmouth East against an NDP incumbent. The Liberals did great under the circumstances so congratulations to both the N.S. NDP and the N.S. Liberals!

The economy

2009-06-13T14:49:00.001-04:00

Stephen Harper recently indicated that the economy was on the mend because the economy contracted by about 5.4% instead of by about 6.5% as predicted. It’s certainly possible the economy may be improving but is it really accurate to say the economy is on the mend simply because it didn’t contract by quite as much as projected? Projections and estimations have tendency to be off by some margin of error. Maybe the economy is improving but an economic contraction of over 5% is quite serious and not something to celebrate.

Swine flu

2009-06-13T14:48:00.000-04:00

In recent weeks I have been preoccupied by exams and studying. I didn’t notice that the swine flu epidemic had gotten way worse. Tens of thousands of people infected (some people think it could be hundreds of thousands). Multiple children have died of swine flu in the United States. My heart goes out to all the families of the children and adults who have died of swine flu worldwide. I didn’t realize how severe this epidemic was. I’m so sorry.

Smiths Falls water bottle plant

2009-06-13T14:47:00.001-04:00

The other day in the Kingston Whig standard there was an article about the plans for a water bottle company to take over the empty building where the Hershey Chocolate Factory used to be in Smiths Falls, Ontario. The Council of Canadians has objected to this on the basis that bottled water is bad for the environment due to polluting trucks and due to the fact that water bottles end up in landfills. I do not agree with the Council of Canadians assessment. Water is good for you and bottled water is the only way to drink water on the go. Also, so long as water bottles are recycled they are not a problem. As far as trucks are concerned, that is something we need to work on long term. But by all means open a water bottle factory in Smiths Falls.

It seems odd the NDP keeps getting scandals recently

2009-06-04T00:04:00.005-04:00

It does seem odd that the NDP in recent days has been beset by scandals. First there were union donations in Nova Scotia in the middle of an election campaign. The reason they are considered improper is because the umbrella union organization appeared to use its subdivisions to give more than the new legal donation limit. The NDP has done nothing wrong, however. They immediately returned the donations as soon as they realized there was a problem. The NDP's opponents have called for an RCMP investigation but I disagree. Not every little thing should warrant an RCMP investigation. The governing Manitoba NDP also saw an old scandal resurface over the use of union volunteers in the 1999 Manitoba election to do with election expense claims. Some former NDP worker has come out with the allegation that this mishap was done purposefully. The NDP's response has been that it what they did was thought to be a legal practice at the time and it was only later ruled illegal and the situation was dealt with at this time and there is nothing new here. I'll take the Manitoba NDP's word on this. Although this former NDP worker has called for a public inquiry, there can't be a public enquiry for every single scandal. That would be going too far. Sometimes inquiries and investgations are warranted, but there are times when we should just let things be. Another odd thing is that both these scandals are related to unions. Unions mostly support the NDP in Canada. This was also true at the federal level until union political party donations were completely banned. In most provinces that have an NDP local labour unions almost exclusively support the local NDP. An exception to this is in Ontario. In Ontario, lingering bitterness over the Bob Rae years makes unions in Ontario split their support between the provincial Liberals and the provincial NDP. This held true even during the 2007 Ontario election when Rae had already openly become a Liberal. Rae's effects on the Ontario NDP have long outlasted Rae's time as a member of the NDP. In my view it needs to be firmly established what it is and is not legal for unions to do when it comes to helping political parties so that we don't get scandals like the ones in Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

St. Paul’s by-election

2009-05-25T20:26:00.002-04:00

It is now not a matter of if there will be a provincial St. Paul’s by-election, but when. Michael Bryant is quitting politics and will take a newly created job with the City of Toronto. Unlike current federal vacancies where we don’t know whether there will be a by-election because we don’t know when the government will fall, provincially there is a majority government and a by-election is thus guaranteed because there are over two years left in the mandate. I’m not sure of any possible Tory or NDP candidates for the by-election. But one possible Liberal candidate is St. Paul’s public school trustee Josh Matlow. He ran against Ernie Eves in his by-election in 2002 and did quite well, way better than the 1999 result in Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey. I wonder if he’d go for it. Another remotely possible candidate is federal St. Paul’s MP Carolyn Bennett. She ran for the provincial Liberals in 1995 in the St. Paul’s predecessor St. Andrew-St. Patrick. The problem with this idea is that it would be a messy situation because it would create a possible federal by-election in St. Paul’s as well as the provincial by-election. Bennett might also face questions about the federal MP’s pension she would collect while also collecting an MPP salary. Bennett is very unlikely to run. I am a bit concerned about this by-election because the McGuinty government has never had to defend a Toronto seat in a by-election where the Tories got over 25% of the vote. The Tories got about 26% of the vote in St. Paul’s in the last provincial election. The Toronto Star article I read said Bryant would return to electoral politics if McGuinty ever retired as party leader. Of course by then Bryant would not have his seat but one must cross that bridge when one comes to it. I wish Bryant well in his new job.

Goodbye John Tory

2009-03-20T21:25:00.001-04:00

I would like to say that I’m sorry that John Tory was humiliated in the Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock by-election. Tory was always very moderate for a Tory and while I always disagreed with him on the overall direction of Ontario, I always appreciated his support for same-sex marriage. Thus I extend to Tory my political condolences. At the same time I am pleased a Liberal won the by-election. Congratulations to Rick Johnson. He, just like Kathleen Wynne before him, proved to John Tory that his Liberal opponent is no pushover. It is unfortunately disturbing that the Ontario PCs are likely to now take a hard shift to the far right because hardcore Conservative Tim Hudak is the frontrunner for the PC leadership. Ontario does not need to go down that road again. Another possible contender for the PC leadership is apparently federal Public Safety minister Peter Van Loan. The issue with a Van Loan run is that he does not have a seat in the Ontario legislature and many Ontario Tories have expressed a desire that their next leader already have a seat in the Ontario legislature. If Van Loan ran and won he would have to convince the holder of his seat in the provincial legislature, Julia Munro, to step aside, something she was unwilling to do for John Tory despite the fact that Tory’s cottage is in her riding. If Van Loan ran, he would not have to resign his seat unless he won the leadership. However protocol would dictate that he would have to resign as a cabinet minister as soon as he entered the provincial leadership race. Then if he didn’t win the leadership he’d have to hope that Harper would be willing to take him back into cabinet.

Strangely enough, Peterborough Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro was approached by some provincial Tories to run for the leadership. He declined. Even if Del Mastro may have been a good leader, Del Mastro himself expressed the view that the next leader should already have a seat in the Ontario legislature. Del Mastro does not have a seat in the Ontario legislature so that would have worked against him if he had run. Also if Del Mastro had run and won, he would have found himself completely seatless. This is because the provincial riding of Peterborough represented at the Ontario legislature is held by the Liberals. Not only this, but all provincial seats adjacent to the Peterborough riding are also held by the Liberals (this includes the Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock riding John Tory just lost). The closest provincial riding to Peterborough held by the PCs is the Durham riding. Thus in the hypothetical situation of Dean Del Mastro running for and winning the Ontario PC leadership, he might have to convince Durham MPP John O’Toole to step aside to allow him to run in a provincial by-election. Considering that O’Toole might not be willing to do so means it is a good thing for Del Mastro that he is not running for the PC leadership. Del Mastro’s only possible incentive for moving to the Ontario legislature is that once a member of the Ontario legislature, his job would be more secure than is his job in the House of Commons. This is because the Ontario legislature has a stable majority government slated to last until September 2011 whereas the federal House of Commons has a much less stable minority government that pundits believe will only last so long. However, considering the likely uphill battle Del Mastro would have faced against frontrunner Tim Hudak it probably would not have been worth it for Del Mastro to run for the PC leadership.

In an article in the Globe and Mail, there is this strange tidbit:

“Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who hails from Calgary, may also be wooed by provincial Tories anxious to gain access to his contacts in ethnic communities in the Toronto area. He was invited to speak at the provincial party's convention last month, where he joked about having been made an "honorary" Ontarian.”

I assume the article didn’t mean that the Ontario PCs may woo Jason Kenney to run for the Ontario PC leadership. Although Kenney may well be an “honorary Ontarian” and although Kenney lives a significant part of the year in Ontario due to his job as an MP, Kenney actually running for the Ontario PC leadership would be too much of a parachute. The article may have been referring to Ontario PC leadership contenders seeking Kenney’s endorsement or may have been referring to the provincial party asking Kenney to use his contacts with Toronto ethnic communities to establish contacts for the Ontario PC party with those same ethnic communities. Kenney actually running for the Ontario PC leadership seems way too “out there” to be possible.

Former Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock MPP Laurie Scott was originally planning to run in her old riding again in 2011. She may well still do so despite there now being a Liberal incumbent in her riding. Even if she didn’t run Rick Johnson would face a tough fight to retain his seat but I’m hoping he fights that fight valiantly and I wish him good luck in the legislature.

Yea Barack Obama!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-16T20:49:00.003-05:00

I am overjoyed at the recent election of Democrat Barack Obama as President of the United States. Obama won all the Kerry states and also won all the Gore states. In addition Obama created 9 new blue states: Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, Ohio, and Florida. Obama also got an additional electoral vote from Nebraska by winning the Second Congressional District of Nebraska (NE-2) which consists of the Omaha metropolitan area. This occurred because Nebraska gives two electoral votes for the statewide winner, and one electoral vote each for the winner of the Presidential vote within each of Nebraska’s 3 Congressional Districts. Maine also uses this same method. However, never before had either Maine or Nebraska split its electoral votes as a result of this “district method” of allocating electoral votes. That being said, Bush came close to winning Maine’s Second Congressional District in 2000 and in 1992 Ross Perot came close to winning one of Maine’s Congressional Districts. However, because Clinton narrowly won that Congressional District, Ross Perot was unable to get a single electoral vote despite winning 19% of the national popular vote. Because of what happened in Nebraska, Republicans in Nebraska plan to introduce legislation to restore the winner-take-all system of Presidential elections. Nebraska used the winner-take-all system prior to the 1992 Presidential election. Nebraska has a unicameral Upper House (known sometimes as the Nebraska Senate), all of whose members are officially non-partisan. Unofficially however, Republicans make up a majority of the Nebraska Senate and so the bill to return to winner-take-all could conceivably pass considering that Nebraska has a Republican governor. It is however too late to repeal the “district method” for this election so Obama will get an electoral vote from Nebraska.

I will not object too strongly if Republicans in Nebraska manage to repeal their “district method” because I favour the winner-take-all method for Presidential elections. There are many reasons for this but one of the big ones is that the “district method” opens up the Presidential race to gerrymandering and that needs to be avoided at all costs. So if Nebraska Republicans repeal Nebraska’s “district method” I am ok with that even though NE-2 could have broken a 269-269 electoral vote tie in favour of Obama if the election nationwide had been closer. Due to the electoral vote splitting that is to happen in Nebraska, the 1996 Presidential election will still be the last election when not a single state’s electoral votes were split. In 2000, and 2004, there were split electoral votes due to faithless electors. In 2000, a Gore elector for the District of Columbia refused to cast any electoral votes in protest of DC not having full congressional representation. In 2004, a Kerry elector for Minnesota cast his/her electoral vote for John Ewards (sic) for President and John Edwards for vice-president. This vote for “John Ewards” appears to have been a simple mistake. Even though the vote was for “John Ewards” it was certified as a vote for John Edwards. This faithless electoral vote was very unfortunate because it denied John Kerry a well-earned electoral vote from Minnesota. Due to NE-2 going for Obama, this Presidential election will be the first Presidential election since 1960 in which any state’s electoral votes are split (other than splits occurring due to faithless electors).

I feel that also I need to debunk claims that I have seen that Barack Obama is to the right of Stephen Harper. I’ve seen the argument made but I consider such an assertion hogwash. Yes Obama is to the right of Stephane Dion, Bob Rae, Paul Martin, Jean Chretien, and even Michael Ignatieff. But Obama is not to the right of Stephen Harper. To make my point I want to debunk the claims made in a recent Toronto Sun column written by columnist Lorrie Goldstein. Goldstein says:

“One of the most intellectually lazy and politically dishonest things the liberal media have done over the past few years is to constantly misrepresent Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a clone of outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush.

Lazy because the facts don't support it. Dishonest because those making the comparison know better.

On the bright side, they now have a lot of splaining (sic) to do, given the number of political views Democratic presidentelect (sic) Barack Obama and Harper share and it will be fun to watch them squirm.”

Goldstein goes on to make his points as to why this is his view. He says:

“For example, Harper, unlike Bush (and Obama), does not support the death penalty. Harper, unlike Bush, supports medicare and has never attempted to use the power of the state to restrict access to abortions.”

It is true that both Bush and Obama support the death penalty but I personally suspect Harper also supports the death penalty considering his government’s new policy of not opposing the death penalty given to Canadians sentenced in the United States. As for Goldstein’s claim that Harper supports medicare, I can tell you that Harper certainly did not support medicare when he was head of the National Citizens Coalition. The National Citizens Coalition opposes Canada’s medicare system, opposes the Canada Health Act and would like to see health care in Canada privatized. It was only after Harper became a party leader that he began publicly supporting the status quo for health care in Canada. As for Obama, Obama platform calls for significantly more government involvement in the United States health care system. It is also of note that Obama’s Presidential predecessor Bill Clinton has come to Canada and given speeches lauding Canada’s health care system and indicating that Canada’s nationalized health care system is the ideal. Considering that Obama’s end goal for health care is to make sure every American is covered, I think the argument can be made that Obama does support medicare. I’m sure Obama always has supported some form of medicare, unlike Harper whom we know at one time opposed the Canadian medicare system. As for abortion, Harper has refused to state his own view on abortion but over the years has clearly given more support to the pro-life side. Obama by contrast is openly and steadfastly pro-choice. This makes Obama the more “abortion choice” friendly politician.

Next Goldstein says:

“Harper's position on same-sex marriage, before the courts decided in its favour and which Harper has not overturned by invoking the Constitution's notwithstanding clause, is the same as Obama's.

Both support civil unions for homosexuals but not same-sex marriages. That's also the position of all the major Democratic presidential contenders in recent years, including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Both Harper and Obama support the war in Afghanistan.”

Now we’ve reached everyone’s favourite issue: same-sex marriage. First off let us note that of course Harper has never had the Parliamentary votes to overturn same-sex marriage using the notwithstanding clause even if he wanted to. At first glance it does appear that Harper and Obama’s position on same-sex marriage is the same: no same-sex marriage, civil unions. However there is a key difference. Obama does not favour laws that ban same-sex marriage whereas Harper does. Obama opposed the recent California referendum to ban same-sex marriage ; he endorsed the no side of the California referendum to ban same-sex marriage. Obama also opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment. It is very clearly evident that Obama does not support overturning same-sex marriage in a jurisdiction after a court has legalized same-sex marriage in a jurisdiction. This is in stark contrast to Harper. Harper wanted same-sex marriage in Canada overturned the moment it was legalized by a court in Ontario in 2003. After the 2003 Ontario court ruling, it became Harper’s policy that any court rulings legalizing same-sex marriage in Ontario or any other province were to be overturned by the government. In the spring of 2005 when the same-sex marriage Bill was being debated, Harper led a Parliamentary campaign to defeat the same-sex marriage bill and to use government legislation to overturn the court decisions legalizing same-sex marriage. This is in stark contrast to Obama, who opposes efforts to overturn court decisions legalizing same-sex marriage. So it is very evident that Harper’s position on same-sex marriage is very much to the right of Obama’s position on same-sex marriage, in contrast to what Goldstein asserts.

As for the war in Afghanistan, both Harper and Obama support it. But this fact does not contribute to either the argument that Obama and Harper are both as right wing nor does it contribute to the argument that Obama is more right-wing than Harper.

Next Goldstein discusses the environment:

“Harper, from oil-rich Alberta and Obama, from coal-rich Illinois, have both softened their past opposition to the Kyoto accord and reducing greenhouse gas emissions for pragmatic reasons.”

I don’t believe that this statement accurately reflects Obama’s position on the environment. During this long Presidential campaign, Obama has been supportive of the Kyoto protocol and it really is hard to argue that Obama has ever been as hostile to efforts to fight climate change as Harper has been in the past.

Next Goldstein talks about taxes:

“Next, consider this example of the logical absurdities to which simplistic comparisons between Canadian and American politicians can lead.

Obama's major campaign promise was a $2.9-trillion tax cut to 95% of American taxpayers over the next decade, despite having inherited a $438-billion deficit from the Bush administration.

On the surface, that sounds a lot like former Conservative Ontario premier Mike Harris' 30% cut to the provincial income tax rate, despite having inherited an $11.2 billion deficit from the previous government of then NDP premier Bob Rae in 1995.

So, does that mean Obama is a Harris clone, a closet common sense revolutionary? Will the federal Liberals (and liberal media), who attacked Harris for cutting taxes without first balancing the budget, make the same criticism of Obama today? Of course not.”

I consider this comparison between Harris and Obama to be absurd because Harris’s tax cut program involved cutting taxes for all income levels (Harris did not implement enough tax cuts for the low income brackets of course), whereas Obama’s plan involves raising taxes for the wealthiest and cutting taxes for everyone else. Also of course Obama’s tax plan puts a greater emphasis on cutting taxes for lower income earners than Harris’s plan ever did. So therefore Goldstein’s comparing Harris’ tax plan to Obama’s tax plan is like comparing apples and oranges and in reality does not make help make Goldstein’s argument.

Next Goldstein makes another comment on taxes:

“Now factor in that cutting taxes in tough times (albeit with a different emphasis on who gets the most benefits) has been done by both Republican and Democratic administrations. So, is Obama a Ronald Reagan clone? See how silly this gets?”

Of course Obama is not a Ronald Reagan clone. Again, Reagan’s tax cuts did not involve raising income taxes for the highest income earners, unlike Obama’s tax plan. So Obama and Reagan cannot be compared based on taxes.

Finally Goldstein discusses the Iraq War:

“Finally, to address what the liberal media think is their best argument, yes, had Harper been PM in 2003 it is likely, despite his denials today, that we would have joined the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

But in the U.S. at the time, support for invading Iraq was a bipartisan position widely held by Republicans and Democrats -- and by prominent Liberals inside and outside of then PM Jean Chretien's government, including the current frontrunner for Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff.

For the liberal media to argue, with the benefit of hindsight, that Harper was wrong and Chretien right, is supportable. But to argue that makes Harper a Bush clone is absurd.”

Goldstein makes a good point about Michael Ignatieff. Ignatieff’s position on Iraq really handicapped his 2006 bid to lead the Liberal party. But I disagree with Goldstein on his point about Iraq. Harper supported the Iraq war and would surely have sent Canadian troops to Iraq. This made his position the same as Bush’s. Why can’t we use these facts to make the “Harper is a Bush clone” argument? It is also very noteworthy that Obama opposed the Iraq War from the start, which clearly makes Obama to the left of Harper on Iraq.

To conclude, I feel that it is very fair to say that Barack Obama is to the left of Stephen Harper.

Federal election results

2008-10-31T22:05:00.004-04:00

It goes without saying that I am incredibly unhappy about this month’s election results. They really were quite horrendous. That being said, Harper’s brazen attempt to get a majority government by gutting the fixed election date law failed. But the Liberals did so poorly that Harper could have gotten a majority if he had not turned off Quebec voters by insulting Quebec artists. I am an Ontario voter but I couldn’t disagree more with Harper’s assertion that ordinary Canadians don’t care for the arts. I am very pro-art. I like Shakespearean plays, paintings, other plays, musical concerts, and whatever kind of art you can think of. I like certain mainstream television shows and some Hollywood movies, but with the exception of the few TV shows and movies I like, I prefer the “refined art” of the kind that the other parties defended against Conservative attacks during the election.

Now Jean Charest plans to pull a Stephen Harper and call an early election in his province in an attempt to get a majority. I have mixed feelings about this. Although I want Charest to get a majority, I hate early elections. I prefer how things are done in Ontario, when early elections occur very rarely. Ontario has not had an early provincial election since 1990. That’s the way I prefer it and I disagree with politicians of all stripes playing politics with election dates. Charest unfortunately is playing politics with election dates so I cannot on balance agree with his decision to call an election.

This leads to another interesting question. Elizabeth May failed to win a seat in the election. May has since vowed to win Central Nova in the next election and in the meantime promised to run in the first available by-election. But what if the first available by-election is Laurier-Sainte-Marie, Gilles Duceppe’s riding. What if Charest calls the Quebec election and then the PQ does incredibly badly. What if then Pauline Marois resigns the leadership. At that point I see no way Duceppe could resist for a third time going for the PQ leadership. At which point Laurier-Sainte-Marie would be vacant and there would be a by-election. Considering how poorly the Greens did in Quebec, would Laurier-Sainte-Marie really be an appropriate riding for May to run in?

I want to comment on what happened in Outremont in the federal election. This time New Democrat Thomas Mulcair won by 6 percentage points, a much smaller margin than in his by-election win. I even hear that the race sea-sawed back and forth between Mulcair and the Liberal candidate. While I’m glad to see the Liberals do better in Outremont than in the by-election, unfortunately the 33% the Liberals got is still less than the 35% the Liberals won the riding with in the 2006 election. It was also heartbreaking to see Eleni Bakopanos fail to regain Ahuntsic for the Liberals after leading for much of the night. However, the Liberals managed to retake Brossard-La Prairie with a new candidate after a recount. That puts the Liberals at 14 seats in Quebec, which is higher than the 13 won in 2006 under Paul Martin. No doubt this improvement of Liberal fortunes in Quebec is largely due to Stephane Dion’s stellar performance in the French leaders’ debate. It was also good to see Justin Trudeau elected in Papineau. However due to the narrow margin in Papineau, I think it likely that Dion’s excellent French leaders’ debate performance helped put Trudeau over the top.

By contrast however, the Liberals were sadly wiped out in English speaking New Brunswick. The Liberals did much better in French speaking New Brunswick and Dion’s French debate performance probably helped there. What was particularly amazing was that in Madawaska-Restigouche Liberal incumbent Jean-Claude D’Amours increased his margin of victory to several thousand votes over the 800 vote margin he had last time. In part this was due to a slight decline in the Conservative vote, but it was largely due to a substantial increase in the Liberal vote largely at the expense of the NDP. No doubt that some of this was due to strategic voting as a result of the near-Tory win last time. Also the fact that there was a new NDP candidate probably decreased the NDP vote as well. But part of it I am sure is Dion’s excellent French leaders’ debate performance. In addition, I have no doubt that Harper’s poor French leader’s debate performance hurt the Tories in Madawaska-Restigouche.

Sadly I fear Elizabeth May may never win a seat in Parliament. Her chances in a by-election are iffy and her chances in Central Nova are even more iffy. In addition, next time I’d expect May to have a Liberal opponent in Central Nova in addition to the Conservative incumbent. The whole deal about not running a Liberal candidate against May in Central Nova was entirely a Stephane Dion thing and I expect the next leader of the Liberal Party to run a candidate in every single riding as the Liberal Party traditionally does. The Green Party may not even get into the leaders’ debate in the next election because the Green Party no longer has a single MP in the House of Commons and having Blair Wilson was one of the main reasons that May was included in the election’s leaders’ debate.

I was glad to see the Tories wiped out in Newfoundland and Labrador. The NDP won St. John's East with about 75% of the vote and almost won St. John's South-Mount Pearl over the Liberals with the Tories at only 12.6%! In St. John’s East the Tories got a mere 9.3%! I, like all Liberals, wish the rest of Canada could have voted like Newfoundland and Labrador. I’m glad that at least some parts of the country agree that the Tories shouldn’t be in office. I would like to thank Danny Williams for single-handedly wiping out the federal Tories in Newfoundland and Labrador. The strange part is that Williams is a Progressive Conservative, himself a Tory! How strange that a provincial Tory was one of the Liberals best allies in the election.

To be honest, while I’m obviously disappointed in the New Brunswick Liberal results, they do not surprise me too much. English speaking rural New Brunswick is Atlantic Canada’s only Bible Belt so it is not surprising that the Tories do well here. Even English-speaking cities in New Brunswick are somewhat socially conservative so it is not too big a surprise that the Tories won Saint John and Fredericton and almost won Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe (it was probably the francophone minority in Moncton that saved the Liberals here). On a related note, Dominic LeBlanc from Beauséjour, New Brunswick has been the first to announce his bid for the Liberal leadership and I may support him. We need a new leader who can win back government, defeat Stephen Harper, and implement a centrist vision for Canada.

Canadian and American politics

2008-08-29T22:14:00.001-04:00

I am distressed about the fact that Stephen Harper wants to call an election. First he wants to meet all opposition leaders. Sadly Stephane Dion has failed to make an appointment with Harper for earlier than September 9 despite the fact that Harper has rejected September 9 as too late a date. If Dion wants an election all he has to do is refuse to meet with Harper before September 9. But if he wanted to try to avert an election he could take time out of his schedule to meet Harper before then. I am unhappy that Dion has not tried harder to find a mutually acceptable meeting time with Harper. If Harper called an election next week all the by-elections would be cancelled and I am very unhappy about that. Recently Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe found time in his schedule to meet Harper on Friday and NDP leader Jack Layton has agreed to meet Harper on Saturday. So why can’t Dion take time out of his schedule and meet with Harper soon like the other opposition party leaders have done?

In the US, I’d say Joe Biden was a fairly good choice for vice president by Barack Obama. I thought his recent speech at the Democratic National Convention was great. His only disadvantage is that he is from an existing blue state, Delaware, and therefore his presence on the ticket will not have a chance to bring in a red state. Biden is simultaneously seeking re-election to the US Senate. If Obama wins, Biden has to resign. If he resigns prior to the start of the new Congress, he will have to resign twice – resign his existing term and decline to serve the new term. Delaware has a Democratic governor who is term limited. Most likely a Democrat will win the gubernatorial election. But even if a Republican wins the gubernatorial election, Biden has plenty of time to resign and allow the existing Democratic governor to appoint a Democratic successor to the Senate before the new governor takes office.

Wawa

2008-08-29T01:42:00.002-04:00

As I write this I am staying at a motel in Wawa, Ontario. Wawa is in the federal electoral district of Algoma–Manitoulin–Kapuskasing. The results from the last federal election for this riding were as follows. Liberal: 38% , NDP: 34% , Conservative: 23%. The NDP almost won last time which was surprising considering the district’s strong Liberal history – decades and decades of continuous Liberal representation. In fact former Prime Minister Lester Pearson once represented part of this riding in the House of Commons. But a small swing between the Liberals and NDP in the last election and this would be an NDP riding. This should not be overly shocking considering the provincial NDP history that much of this riding had prior to 1999. A large portion of the riding was the Algoma riding that was represented by Bud Wildman all the way from 1975 to 1999. Ontario’s far North sent representatives from Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party. The Red Tory machine at the time had strength in Northern Ontario. This means that prior to 1987, the old Algoma–Manitoulin riding was represented by a Tory. But because the modern district had a large portion of it represented by Bud Wildman, we can see that this riding does have NDP history. In addition, the current Algoma–Manitoulin district was certainly NDP popular vote-wise in 1990. Northern Ontario uses different boundaries for the provincial legislature than the federal boundaries. So the provincial counterpart to Algoma–Manitoulin–Kapuskasing is simply called Algoma–Manitoulin. It is a little bit smaller in size and population than the federal counterpart. Nevertheless the results for the provincial riding were similarly close in the last provincial election. The Liberals got 42.6%, the NDP got 36.9%, and the PCs got 14%. This was quite a bit closer than the 2003 results for the riding with the exact same boundaries. The NDP vote jumped several points and the Liberal vote dropped several points. Algoma–Manitoulin is represented in the Ontario Legislature by Liberal Mike Brown. Mike Brown has represented a riding called Algoma–Manitoulin since 1987, although prior to 1999 his district was much smaller in size and population. Mike Brown was Speaker of the Ontario Legislature from 2005 to 2007. During the provincial election Brown was the incumbent Speaker and therefore it is hard to say if Brown got any extra votes because he was Speaker. If Brown had not been Speaker at the time the race between the Liberals and the NDP may have been even closer. Algoma–Manitoulin–Kapuskasing’s federal MP is Liberal Brent St. Denis. St. Denis has been an MP since 1993 and is certainly a native son for the riding – he was born in Blind River (within the riding) and has many community roots in the riding. However the NDP is gunning for his seat. The same NDP candidate as 2004 and 2006, Carol Hughes, has been renominated for the NDP and this time Hughes hopes to close the narrow gap and win the seat. I do not want to see this happen because this would involve knocking off St. Denis – a progressive, pro-gay marriage Liberal. The NDP did very well in the riding last time, even before much of the economic hardship that this riding experienced had hit. In the next federal election a major question that should determine the outcome of this riding would be whether voters in this riding would blame the incumbent party in their riding (the Liberals) or the incumbent government (the Conservatives) for the economic hardships that these Algoma–Manitoulin–Kapuskasing voters have experienced. If they blame the Conservative government, then St. Denis has more of an advantage. If they blame the Liberals, NDP candidate Carol Hughes would have a significant advantage. The interesting thing about this riding is that this is quite a left-wing riding despite it being a very rural riding. This is in contrast to Saskatchewan, where rural areas are strongly Conservative. This is also in contrast generally to many rural places in several different provinces in Canada. The reason for this discrepancy applies more generally to all rural Northern Ontario ridings with the exception of the more well-off regions of Muskoka, Parry Sound, and Nipissing. Outside those 3 regions, rural Northern Ontario tends to be more economically disadvantaged. Economically disadvantaged voters tend to vote more left-wing. This is why we see several left-wing ridings in Northern Ontario that are rural. More specifically, it can be said in general that people in these economically disadvantaged rural areas of Northern Ontario experience lower paying jobs, less job security, and higher unemployment. These things are key factors that make voters vote more left-wing. In many cases, such conditions cause voters to opt for the NDP, thus explaining the high NDP numbers in the economically disadvantaged rural Northern Ontario ridings. This phenomenon explains the left-wing nature of Algoma–Manitoulin–Kapuskasing and establishes the general fact that rural in Northern Ontario means quite different things than rural in many other parts of the country.

I want to make one additional note about the fact that the Ontario PCs used to routinely win many seats in Northern Ontario prior to 1987. In the 1987 election, most vestiges of the Northern Big Blue Machine disappeared. However, the Tories still managed to win 3 seats in Northern Ontario – Nipissing, Parry Sound, and Cochrane South. Based on political history, Nipissing and Parry Sound are not shocker wins for the Tories in 1987. However, the 1987 Tory win in Timmins-based Cochrane South seems strange from a modern prospective considering the fact that the area covering Cochrane South is reliably left-wing as evidenced in recent elections. The explanation for the anomaly comes from the personal popularity of the 1987 Tory candidate, incumbent Alan Pope. Pope was a Red Tory and the final Tory holdout in Northern Ontario outside Muskoka, Parry Sound and Nipissing. Pope did not run again in 1990. However, he won his seat in 1987 fairly easily. The Tories were in fact drifting to the right at that time regardless of Pope’s own views but this drift to the right had not yet registered in the Timmins area. When Pope retired in 1990 his seat went NDP as part of the NDP wave and the Timmins area has been represented by the NDP provincially ever since. But due to the slightly odd circumstances of the 1987 Cochrane South election, Cochrane South has the distinction of being the only riding in all of Ontario to elect a Tory in 1987 but to not do so in 1995. Similarly, Cochrane South was the only 1987 PC riding to go NDP in 1995. I will be heading to Timmins next and I will survey Timmins more at that time.

Manitoba

2008-08-29T01:36:00.001-04:00

I’m in Manitoba as I type this. I am on a road trip to Winnipeg but now I am headed out of Manitoba. The people who live in Winnipeg seem quite a bit happier than those in Toronto. It could be culture, it could be a smaller city thing, or it could be the economy – the economy in Winnipeg is doing much better than the economy in Toronto. I’m a Liberal but I was exited about entering a province that has an NDP government for the first time since Ontario had an NDP government. Manitoba only has two Liberal MLAs – Liberal leader Jon Gerrard and Kevin Lamoureux. Unfortunately, I was unable to meet with Kevin Lamoureux as I had originally hoped. Kevin Lamoureux hangs out at a McDonald’s in Winnipeg every Thursday evening and invites his constituents to come to the McDonald’s at this time in order to talk to him. Sadly I could not be in Winnipeg on a Thursday. Today I got a tour of the Manitoba legislature building. Unfortunately the actual legislative chamber was unavailable to be toured because it is being used for some sort of conference. Regardless, eventually the tour guide discussed the Manitoba government. She said that there are 57 seats in the legislature. The New Democratic Party, she said, has 36 seats. The Progressive Conservatives, she said, have 19 seats. The Liberals, she said, have 2 seats. It is also true that the federal Liberals have only 3 seats in all of Manitoba – Anita Neville in Winnipeg South Centre, Raymond Simard in Saint Boniface, and Tina Kepper in Churchill. The two Liberal seats in the Manitoba legislature are safe Liberal seats so long as the incumbents run for re-election. Jon Gerrard represents the River Heights riding and Kevin Lamoureux represents the Inkster riding. Both ridings are in Winnipeg. If Gerrard didn’t run, River Heights would easily go Tory. If Lamoureux didn’t run, Inkster would easily go NDP. The two Liberal seats in the provincial legislature are safe only so long as the incumbents run. At the federal level, there are sadly no safe federal Liberal seats in Manitoba. Saint Boniface was shockingly close last time. The Tory candidate got an astonishing 35%, and Simard won by only 3 and a half percent. Winnipeg South Centre was also surprisingly close last time – Neville won by only 7 percent. The Liberals in the Winnipeg South Centre and Saint Boniface both had 39% of the vote. Former Winnipeg South MP Reg Alcock lost his seat last time by 111 votes in a shocking upset. Alcock lost to a very right-wing Tory – Rod Bruinooge. Now ironically the strongest Liberal riding in Manitoba, based on the last election, is the Churchill riding. In the Churchill riding, the Liberals got a little over 40% of the vote, higher than the 39% from the other two Liberal ridings in Manitoba. The Liberals won Churchill in the last election by 12%, higher than the Liberal margin of victory in either Saint Boniface or Winnipeg South Centre. But when one considers the fact that former Churchill MP Bev Desjarlais is not expected to run again in Churchill, one realizes that Churchill is not a safe Liberal seat. This is because last time former New Democrat Bev Desjarlais ran as Independent after having failed to be renominated for the New Democrats the previous October. Desjarlais was a socially conservative New Democrat who defied the NDP party whip to vote against the same-sex marriage bill. This disobedience of the whip caused Desjarlais to be immediately stripped of all her critic responsibilities. A few months later she lost the NDP nomination to a 22-year-old woman –Niki Ashton. Some argue that this was not a coincidence. When Conservatives have criticized the NDP over same-sex marriage they have incorrectly stated that Desjarlais was kicked out of caucus for voting against the same-sex marriage bill. What actually happened was that Desjarlais was allowed to stay in caucus after the final same-sex marriage bill vote but voluntarily left caucus after losing the nomination a few months later in October of that year. She could have chosen to remain in caucus but did not because she decided to run for re-election as an Independent rather than standing down after her nomination defeat. In the ensuing election, received about 17% of the vote, splitting votes mostly with the New Democrats but seemingly also split some votes with the Conservatives due to her social conservative stance. This Conservative vote splitting is evident in that the Conservative vote in Churchill actually dropped several percentage points from the 2004 election results. Add some of Desjarlais’ vote to the Conservative total, add the rest to the NDP, and Churchill becomes too close to call between the Liberals and New Democrats. Niki Ashton has been renominated for the NDP and is fighting hard to become an MP. Ashton is the daughter of Manitoba NDP cabinet minister Steve Ashton. So based on how close Churchill is without Desjarlais running as an Independent, it becomes obvious that unfortunately there are no safe seats for the federal Liberals in Manitoba. However the situation in Manitoba is not as bad for non-Tories as it is in Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan, all federal riding boundaries are drawn so that it is exceedingly difficult for a non-Tory to be elected. The only non-Tory to have managed this feat with any sort of ease in recent elections is Liberal Ralph Goodale. Sadly if Goodale retired, the Tories could easily end up winning all 14 federal Saskatchewan ridings – potentially with less than 50% of the Saskatchewan-wide vote! The federal Saskatchewan ridings are gerrymandered that badly. There is something about Saskatchewan’s population distribution that apparently makes it impossible to draw 100% urban federal ridings in Saskatchewan’s two major cities of Regina and Saskatoon. Instead the federally-controlled Saskatchewan electoral districts commission has been recently drawing Saskatchewan ridings that are about half urban and half rural. There are 8 such ridings in Saskatchewan, 4 for Regina and 4 for Saskatoon. Regina is divided into four and Saskatoon is divided into four. At least half the population of each of these 8 ridings is rural in nature. This disenfranchises the urban voters in Regina and Saskatoon. I believe that wherever possible districts should either be 100% urban or 100% rural. I am against mixing urban and rural areas into a single riding if it can be avoided. This is because like it or not, urban voters and rural voters vote very differently. Ballot box issues for urban voters also tend to be starkly different than ballot box issues for rural voters. Therefore urban areas and rural areas should kept in separate ridings wherever possible. But because this rule is ignored in Saskatchewan, rural Conservative votes plus vote splitting between the Liberals and NDP ensures that a Tory is elected every time in each of the 8 mixed urban-rural federal Saskatchewan ridings with the exception of Ralph Goodale’s Wascana riding. Wascana covers a rural area and part of Regina. Without Goodale this is not a safe Liberal riding. This is illustrated by the fact that in 2000 Goodale himself came close to losing to the Canadian Alliance candidate.

Manitoba also has 3 NDP MPs – Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre), Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North), Bill Blaikie (Elmwood Transcona). Aside from the 3 Liberals, the rest of Manitoba is represented by Tories – eight Tory MPs including three within the city of Winnipeg. Manitoba Tory MPs tend not to be as homophobic as Saskatchewan Tory MPs are. Nevertheless Manitoba Tory MPs are all socially conservative. But as I say the Tory MPs from Manitoba are usually not as socially conservative as Tory MPs from Saskatchewan. To give one example, thanks to the split urban-rural federal ridings of Saskatchewan urban residents in part of Saskatoon are stuck with the extremely socially conservative MP Maurice Vellacott who has made some rather anti-gay comments and has remained incredibly hostile to any LGBT rights.

Manitoba is the only prairie province where the federal NDP holds any seats. What’s more, all the prairie federal NDP seats are in inner city Winnipeg. Since the loss of Churchill, the federal NDP has held no rural prairie seats. In other words the traditional rural prairie base of the federal NDP is largely gone. The rural NDP base for the provincial Manitoba NDP is also relatively weak outside Northern Manitoba. Similarly, based on the most recent Saskatchewan election, the rural NDP base for the Saskatchewan provincial NDP is gone outside of Northern Saskatchewan. Considering that neither the federal NDP nor the Alberta provincial NDP has EVER had a base in rural Alberta, it becomes obvious that the NDP (both the federal NDP and its prairie province chapters) no longer has its traditional rural prairie base, with the exception of Northern Manitoba and Northern Saskatchewan.

Egmont

2008-08-10T13:56:00.001-04:00

I cannot help but say I am disappointed that Bobby Morrissey dropped out as the Liberal candidate in Egmont when Morrissey was such a good candidate and Egmont is such a winnable riding – currently held by the Liberals. Morrissey had defeated former PEI Premier Keith Milligan for the nomination. I do not know whether Milligan will now try for the nomination again. Morrissey was a strong candidate and most likely could have held the seat. His Conservative opponent would have been Gail Shea, a former PEI Tory MLA. She lost her seat in the last PEI election when the provincial Liberals swept the Island. I’ve heard however that now the PEI Liberal government is unpopular in rural PEI. But I have not been able to ascertain why. Supposedly the unpopularity of the PEI Liberal government in rural PEI would catapult Shea to victory. Supposedly strong opposition to Dion’s Green Shift would catapult Shea to victory in Egmont and catapult many other Tory candidates to victory in several Liberal ridings in Atlantic Canada. I do not want to believe this. The Tories claim that Morrissey quit because he thought he would not win the riding due to Dion’s Green Shift. The Liberals deny this and Morrissey denies this. Morrissey is supposed to have found a very promising job in the private sector that made him quit his candidacy. I do not fully understand why he could not have taken this job, then waited for the election and then run. Personally for me, being a Member of Parliament is a much more desirable job than even the most highly paid private sector job. Egmont stayed Liberal in 1984, though it went Tory with David MacDonald (very Red Tory) in the election 1968 through to and including 1979. Liberal George Henderson won it by a wide margin in 1980 and retained it by 918 votes (5% of the vote) in 1984 over the Tories. Joe McGuire won it for the Liberals in 1988 and he has held it ever since. Sadly McGuire announced that he would not run in the next election and that is where we are at now. It is ironic that a seat that stayed Liberal in 1984 is now considered the most winnable riding for the Tories in PEI. There was also a Liberal candidate who just dropped out in the riding of Palliser. However this is not as big a deal as Palliser is not a winnable riding for the Liberals – the Liberals always come in third in Palliser. However, the Liberals need to find a new candidate in Palliser and in Egmont so that the party can be ready when the time comes for an election.

Barrie examiner letter to the editor

2008-08-04T15:25:00.002-04:00

I’ve found a good letter to the editor in the Barrie Examiner. It is entitled “Harper's bluff yet to be called”. I like this part. “Since Canadians want another federal election like they want snow in September, there also needs to be an overwhelming issue to send voters to the polls.” I certainly agree with that. There needs to be an overwhelming issue over which to pull the plug otherwise to me doing so seems inadvisable. There is also a Toronto Star article entitled “Bring on fall election, Liberals say”. It quotes Bob Rae and appears to be implying that Rae is saying “bring on a fall election.” Of course I don’t want the Star to put words in Rae’s mouth. What Rae did say is that it is only a matter of time until an election and that the Liberals are increasingly ready for one. The problem with the Liberal Green Shift is that although it is credible and doable, it is polarizing. People either support it or strongly oppose it. There is a sizeable, although minority, population that opposes the Green Shift. Opposition to the Green Shift is heavily concentrated out west, especially in Saskatchewan and Alberta. There is strong opposition in those provinces due to the oil revenue that those two provinces generate due to oil drilling. Of course the Green Shift does not put a tax on petroleum itself. Conservatives still contend that the Green Shift would cause the prices of gasoline to increase. There are genuine fears out west that the Green Shift would devastate the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan. I would like to reassure those who feel that way. I am thoroughly convinced that the Green Shift would either have no effect on the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan or the Green Shift would have a positive effect on the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan. By no means is the Green Shift another National Energy Program as I have seen some contend. The Green Shift is completely different. There is also opposition to the Green Shift in British Columbia where the provincial Liberal government has already implemented a carbon tax. There is strong opposition to the BC government’s carbon tax and as a result there is opposition to the federal Liberal Green Shift. Sadly the Liberals are therefore, I fear, risking the seats they have in British Columbia by promoting a policy that is similar to the provincial carbon tax that British Columbians have already rejected. Thus for all these reasons I am not convinced that the Liberal Green Shift ought to be the overwhelming issue over which the federal Liberals force an election.

The Green Shift will be an integral part of our platform but I firmly believe the Liberals should campaign on other things as well. During an election the Green Shift by no means should be the only thing discussed by the Liberals. There are plenty other issues to promote and plenty of other issues to attack the Conservatives on. Of course we cannot really consider our options on when to force an election until after the by-elections on September 8. If the Liberals, God forbid, get wiped out in the by-elections I am doubtful there would be eagerness on the part of the Liberals to force a quick election. Even if the Liberals lost one of the two seats it held I am doubtful the Liberals would be clamoring to bring down the House. If the Liberals win both, the Liberals can consider their options, part of which should involve weighing the percentage of the vote the Liberals get in each of the three ridings. That being said, I am cautioning against rushing into an election. We need the exact right issue at the exact right time, and I am not convinced we have found those two things yet nor I am I convinced we’d find those two things in the fall. Stephen Harper has talked about making confidence motions in the autumn out of government measures on the economy, crime, and other Conservative policies. It is my guess that the Liberals would look at each of those measures separately and decide individually whether to support or oppose each measure. If an economic proposal put before parliament is not overly radical or nutty, I don’t see why the Liberals wound not support it. Similarly, the Liberals have mostly supported the Conservative crime-fighting agenda. I don’t see this stopping in the fall unless the Conservatives propose something really radical. I do not personally agree with Stephane Dion that Canadians are “hungry for an election”, as one article put it. My party will do what it thinks best on every issue and every vote in the fall. But even when we support certain Conservative measures we will not stop criticizing the government over it’s numerous failures. This is not incompatible. This is what is needed to make a minority parliament work. When the Bloc Quebecois was supporting the Conservatives in confidence votes, the Bloc did not refrain from criticizing the Conservatives at the time. The situation is no different for the Liberals. We will support individual Conservatives proposals as we see fit but we remain the Official Opposition and the role of the Official Opposition is to hold the government to account. We do that by criticizing the many things that this government has done wrong. Anyway, good luck to Frank Valeriote in Guelph, Marc Garneau in Westmount—Ville-Marie, and Roxane Stanners in Saint-Lambert!

Farewell to Howard Hampton

2008-06-15T17:05:00.002-04:00

I’m sad to see Howard Hampton go. He has always been one of the most of the most sincere politicians around. I have always admired his principles. Hampton has always fought for what he believed in. I may have disagreed with him on policies, but he was always genuine in what he believed in. I also applaud him for always supporting gay rights, long before Ontario Liberals had jumped on the bandwagon. When NDP Premier Bob Rae allowed his entire caucus, including his cabinet, a free vote on the NDP government’s same-sex benefits, Hampton was one of the courageous 56 NDP MPPs (along with 3 Liberal MPPs) to vote for the same-sex benefits package. Sadly the majority of elected politicians in Ontario in 1994 were unwilling to allow for same-sex equality. Many of the 68 MPPs to vote against the same-sex legislation have changed their views and are now in favour of same-sex benefits and same-sex marriage.

There are several names mentioned as possibilities to replace Hampton as leader. NDP MP David Christopherson has already endorsed his provincial seatmate Andrea Horwath for leader. Also mentioned are NDP MPPs Peter Tabuns, Michael Prue, and Cheri DiNovo. Former NDP MPPs Marilyn Churley and Frances Lankin are mentioned. But Churley is the federal NDP candidate for Beaches—East York and Lankin is firmly entrenched as the head of the GTA United Way. Any of the NDP MPs from Ontario are also possibilities such as Charlie Angus from Timmins—James Bay.

I am a Liberal so I can’t endorse a candidate. But I say after the end of this weekend – let the leadership jockeying begin!

Alexa McDonough retiring

2008-06-05T13:13:00.002-04:00

Alexa McDonough will not run in the next federal election. I am surprised by this. 63 is fairly young for a politician to retire. But Alexa has been involved in politics for almost 30 years, so she has earned her retirement. There are so many candidates from the Liberals and NDP that could possibly replace her in her Halifax riding it is mind-boggling. On the Liberal side, I can think of several names. One possibility is a political comeback by former Halifax MP Mary Clancy who represented the riding from 1988 to 1997. She is currently president of the Halifax riding association. I'm also wondering about a possible second attempt by United Church minister Kevin Little who was the Halifax Liberal candidate in the 2000 election. Another possibility is 2006 Halifax Liberal candidate Martin MacKinnon. MacKinnon had already won the nomination in 2007 to run in the next election. However last October he resigned his nomination to take another job. Now that the seat has been opened up he may regret this decision. If he wants the nomination back he will have to run for it.

On the NDP side possible candidates being discussed are former Nova Scotia NDP leader Robert Chisholm, 2006 Central Nova candidate Alexis MacDonald, and NDP MLA Maureen MacDonald. Any of the other Halifax NDP MLAs are possibilities. One thing holding back all of the Halifax MLAs is that the Nova Scotia NDP could form government sometime soon and running federally could deny them a chance to be in cabinet. I also wonder whether 1984 Halifax NDP candidate Tessa Hebb is interested in running. That may not be likely becaue I think she may live in Ontario now. Her son Matt, however, was the Nova Scotia NDP campaign director for the 2003 NS election. I also wonder whether 1988 Halifax NDP candidate Ray Larkin would be interested in running. Similarly, I wonder whether 1993 Halifax NDP candidate Lynn Jones would be interested in running.

I'm rooting for the Liberals to take back the riding. Nevertheless, Alexa will be truly missed by everyone.

Ken Livingstone and George Smitherman

2008-05-07T20:03:00.001-04:00

I am disappointed in the election results from London, England. Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone lost and conservative Conservative Boris Johnson won. I wanted Livingstone to win. He was centre-left but I like him in particular because he has consistently been opposed to the Iraq War. The result is also disappointing because Livingstone was already planning to run for another term in 2012. Livingstone has conceded defeat but ominously said that he wants to be mayor when the 2012 Olympics happen. That would mean challenging Johnson in 2012. But ousting a one-term incumbent would be difficult. Livingstone’s political career thus may sadly be over.

Another interesting fact relating to mayors is that there are rumours that Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman wants to run for Toronto mayor in 2010. The idea is that Smitherman is actually considering challenging David Miller. I am actually concerned by this. Not because of David Miller. Miller’s second term as mayor has been problematic. Nevertheless, for Smitherman to run for mayor would require for him to resign his seat at Queen’s Park. It would also mean he would have to resign his cabinet position. In fact Smitherman might have to resign his cabinet position early. Nominations open in January 2010. If Smitherman were serious about running for mayor, he’d have to register early in order to mount a credible campaign. Doing a year-long campaign for mayor while being a cabinet minister is out the question. Therefore Smitherman would have to resign his cabinet position early in the year. I expect that he would also be under pressure to resign his seat at Queen’s Park early in the year as well. The reason for this is that it would be assumed that he would rarely attend legislative sessions while out campaigning for mayor. In any event Smitherman would have to resign his legislative seat before the municipal filing deadline. Failing to resign his seat before the municipal filing deadline would make his name be removed from the list of municipal candidates. Any such resignation would create a by-election in Toronto Centre. Sadly Toronto Centre isn’t as strong a Liberal seat provincially as it is federally. In the recent federal Toronto Centre by-election, Bob Rae got 59% of the vote. However in the recent provincial election, Smitherman received only 47% of the vote, compared to 20% for the Tories and 18% for the NDP. PC leader John Tory lives in Toronto Centre. Thus if he hasn’t managed to get a seat by then Tory could run in Toronto Centre. I think a Toronto Centre provincial by-election should be avoided if possible and therefore I have reservations about Smitherman running for mayor. But that choice is Smitherman’s to make and I would encourage him to think it over carefully.

Quebec provincial by-elections

2008-04-29T19:54:00.002-04:00

There will be 3 provincial by-elections in Quebec on May 12th. One of these is in the riding of Hull. I would be incredibly surprised if any party other than the Liberal Party won the by-election in Hull. I interestingly found an editorial written by Fred Ryan that discusses the Hull by-election. The editorial says that the share of the vote for the PQ in the Hull riding has been growing(http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/city/story.html?id=e66221f2-93e8-4ad2-9e8f-ccdcf904ab38). However, I looked at election results for Hull and found the opposite to be the case.

Looking at elections from 1994 onwards, we get the following:

1994 election: PQ – 41.12%
1998 election: PQ – 32.02%
2003 election: PQ – 25.47%
2007 election: PQ – 23.93%

As you can see the PQ vote in Hull has actually been dropping.

As a side note, in the 1995 referendum Hull voted about 70% NON and 30% OUI. In the 1992 Charlottetown Accord referendum Hull voted about 44% NON and about 56% OUI. In the 1980 Quebec referendum Hull voted about 67% NON and about 33% OUI.

The PQ remains a sovereigntist party. Hull has twice voted overwhelmingly against Quebec sovereignty. Therefore I personally feel that it is not a good idea for federalist voters in the Hull riding to vote PQ as a protest vote. Electing a PQ MNA, especially one in such a federalist riding, advances the PQ’s sovereignty agenda and I do not believe federalists should vote to advance the sovereigntist agenda even indirectly. I believe that in the circumstances it is best for Hull to have an MNA from the governing party which is the Liberals. This may sound cliché but indeed it would be a government MLA who would best be able to fight for improved health care service in Hull.

The other two by-elections are in ridings that were held by the PQ. One of them was held by former MNA Diane Lemieux who resigned her seat over disagreements with party leader Pauline Marois. The other riding was vacated by former PQ leader Andre Boisclair who chose not to stick around after being forced out of the party leadership. These two ridings are likely to stay PQ. In one of them, former Bloc MP Maka Kotto is running for the PQ. Kotto’s resignation, however, created a vacancy at the federal level that has created a potential by-election. I have long found that Quebec, especially at the provincial level, has more by-elections than other provinces. This seems to be because Quebec politicians, especially those at the National Assembly, are more readily willing to resign their seats than politicians in other provinces. The Charest government is currently doing well right now in terms of popularity and I wish all 3 Liberal candidates the best of luck.

By-election results

2008-03-23T23:14:00.002-04:00

I have mixed feelings about this week’s by-election results. The Liberals did incredibly well in the Toronto by-elections and increased the Liberal vote percentage in both ridings by several percentage points. The Conservative went down several points in Toronto Centre and went up only .76% in Willowdale. I personally do not consider such a marginal increase in the Tory vote to be very significant. My feelings are mixed however because the by-election results outside Toronto were far worse news for the Liberals. The Liberals lost the Northern Saskatchewan riding badly but I was not surprised by that. I was expecting the Liberals to lose that riding. We badly messed up our chances in that riding by appointing Joan Beatty over the wishes of the powerful and influential David Orchard supporters in the riding. Orchard wanted to run for the Liberals in the by-election and was miffed at being denied a chance to do so. Had Orchard been the candidate it would have still been a tough by-election for the Liberals but the Liberals would have had a fighting chance. Causing so much controversy by appointing Beatty removed any chance the Liberals had in the riding. Now Beatty has no political office and I don’t think she would be allowed run in a by-election for her old Cumberland provincial seat after having already defected from the NDP.

Vancouver Quadra was also bad news for the Liberals. The Liberals held the riding by a mere 151 votes. The Liberal vote in the riding dropped significantly and the Tory vote surged. The Green vote surged as well from low single digits to 13% of the vote. On election night I was shocked when the final two polls came in to see that the Liberal lead had shrunk to 151 votes. Those final two polls must have been won by a landslide by the Tories. Now the Tory central party wants a recount of the results. I highly doubt that a recount would change the outcome but it could delay Liberal Joyce Murray’s ability to take her seat in parliament. From what I read, Tory candidate Deborah Meredith was not consulted on this recount ahead of time and the central party announced the desire for a recount without talking to Meredith first.

So my feelings are very mixed considering the incredibly strong showing for the Tories in the two Western Canadian by-elections. Now there is unfortunately a whole new set of by-elections that the Liberals could always lose. These by-elections would occur if the government does not fall. The riding of Westmount—Ville-Marie is already vacant. It was held by the Liberals and astronaut Mark Garneau is the Liberal candidate. Saint Lambert (south of Montreal) is also already vacant as former Bloc MP Maka Kotto recently resigned his seat to run for the PQ in a provincial by-election. Two more ridings, both held by the Liberals, will become vacant in the near future. Guelph Liberal MP Brenda Chamberlain has announced that she will resign her seat on April 7. Don Valley West Liberal MP John Godfrey has announced that he will resign his seat on July 1 to accept a position as headmaster of a Toronto French school. Guelph is very iffy for the Liberals because the Liberals only won the seat last time with 38% of the vote and only 8% over the Tories. The NDP and Greens had a strong showing in the riding as well. In the recent provincial election, the Greens received a whopping 19.5% of the vote. That means that in a by-election even the Greens could win the riding. The NDP has a star candidate – Thomas King. King is a prominent Metis writer and commentator who talks extensively about Metis and aboriginal issues. The Conservatives have a well known candidate – Guelph City councilor Gloria Kovach. Her ability to be elected to Guelph council could propel her to parliament. The Liberals have a much lesser known lawyer. In a by-election the riding could go to any of the four major parties including the Greens. The Greens are a particularly distinct possibility due to the 19.5% they got in Guelph in the provincial election.

Don Valley West was won by 20% over the Tories with 53% of the vote. Local gay United Church minister Rob Oliphant has been nominated for the Liberals. The Tories have nominated the 2006 candidate John Carmichael. This riding is not as safe for the Liberals as Willowdale and in a by-election it could sadly conceivably go Conservative. The Liberals are very likely to again lose Saint Lambert which they lost in the 2004 election so a Liberal loss there would be no surprise. Sadly none of the upcoming by-elections look like a sure bet for the Liberals.

However, I am still delighted at the wonderful Toronto by-election results. Another bright note is that the Liberals easily won the popular vote of the 4 by-elections put together.

McGuinty, Dion, and America

2008-01-26T18:08:00.000-05:00

I am glad to see that Dion has sided with McGuinty on the more seats for Ontario issue and says that in contrast to what Peter Van Loan said, McGuinty is actually a great man of Confederation.

Barack Obama will probably win the North Carolina primary in the US today. Whether that alone shifts him into front-runner status remains to be seen. My endorsement is Hillary Clinton but I have no problem with Obama becoming President. All that really matters to me is that the Dem nominee can beat the GOP nominee.

Prohibative organ donation restrictions

2008-01-10T15:16:00.000-05:00

I would like to express my concern over this new Health Canada policy that seeks to exclude sexually active gay men from donating organs. It opens the Harper government up to accusations of being homophobic. Unfortunately it zeroes in on a single group and reinforces stereotypes. STDs spread in the gay community but this is not inherently due to being gay. There are historical and sociological factors to do with promiscuity. In the articles I read about this I was seeing a lot about families being questioned on these things after a donor is dead. This seems to discount the numerous existences of live donors. This new policy is a blanket ban that doctors can only override in exceptional circumstances. Unfortunately this blanket ban endangers the lives of those in need of a donated organ. Here is a hypothetical example. A gay man marries a woman and has a daughter. They then divorce because the man realizes he is gay. The man enters into a monogamous sexual relationship with another man that carries as little risk of HIV as a monogamous heterosexual relationship. The gay man’s daughter suffers kidney failure in both kidneys. After some time of treatment she is in serious need of a transplant. A test is done on the father and there is a requisite DNA match. The doctors set aside this match and look elsewhere because they have much higher preference for a donor who is straight. It is difficult to find a matching donor elsewhere. This girl’s life is being endangered because of a blanket policy that does not apply to the circumstances and is clearly discriminatory. This is the fault of the Harper government through failure to exercise their responsibility. I also wonder whether this regulation is an invasion of provincial jurisdiction. The Supreme Court might actually use its precedence criteria to strike down this regulation when I think about it. Thumbs down again to the Harper government.

Joan Beatty, David Orchard, Nick Clegg

2008-01-05T12:48:00.000-05:00

Dion is appointing Joan Beatty to be the candidate in the Northern Saskatchewan riding federal by-election. I have certain reservations about appointing her over David Orchard but think she is likely to be a better candidate than the disaster that was Jocelyn Coulon. Beatty is an NDP MLA in the Saskatchewan legislature and will have to resign her seat immediately. Because she is running for the federal Liberals, I doubt she would be welcomed back into the provincial NDP to run in the provincial by-election for her seat should she lose the federal by-election. This means that she has no job if she loses the federal by-election. Beatty herself has made some implication that running federally for her is all about being a member of the government. Beatty implies that she did not want to be an opposition member for the next 4 years in the Saskatchewan legislature. Beatty therefore must have believed the Liberals could return to power federally in a shorter time than that and she wanted to be a part of that new governing team. Beatty herself has stated she sees a return to power for the Liberals in the next federal election. I dearly hope that is true.

I would also like to congratulate Nick Clegg on his recent leadership victory that gives him the leadership of the UK Liberal Democrat Party. Under Clegg and his recent predecessors, the Liberal Democrat Party seems clearly to the right of Labour over economic issues. That may have been less so under leader Paddy Ashdown. Prior to the 1997 UK election Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown held private talks about forming a possible coalition government after the 1997 election. The idea would have been that Labour would have only a narrow majority or only a plurality of seats and thus the Liberal Democrats would be the coalition partner to create a stable coalition government. Once the large size of Labour’s majority in the 1997 election became apparent, the possible coalition did not happen. However, in the 2001 election, Labour and the Liberal Democrats coordinated their campaigns in a way that would inflict the most damage on the Conservatives. On a side note, Labour’s vote in the UK is very efficient. The Tories won more votes within England in the last election, but Labour had significantly more seats. This meant that 35% of the vote translated to 55% of the seats in Parliament and a comfortable majority. Since the fall, that parliamentary majority has been the only thing keeping Labour in power. I hope Labour’s fortunes can improve over the coming years.

Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T03:28:00.000-05:00

I would just like to wish the entire world a happy new year! This greeting encompasses my political opponents. Happy new year to everyone including my political opponents. All the best to everyone in 2008!

Larry O'Brien and Jim Jones

2007-12-26T22:03:00.000-05:00

Recently, Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien was charged by the OPP with attempted bribery. O’Brien allegedly attempted to bribe a rival candidate to drop out of the mayoral race in exchange for certain items – one of which was allegedly an appointment to the National Parole Board of Canada, to be done by the Conservative government. This allegation got federal Environment Minister John Baird caught up in the controversy. Several Liberals called for Baird’s resignation in Question Period before the holidays. However, the OPP has said they no longer have any investigative interest in Baird. Baird has also always been clear that no such appointment was ever discussed with anyone. I am a Liberal, but I am willing to give Baird the benefit of the doubt. Because O’Brien is innocent until proven guilty, I feel he may stay on as mayor as long as he is not found guilty. If found guilty, he may feel compelled to resign. In such a case he may be required to resign depending on the severity of his sentence. If O’Brien resigns in 2008, there is still time for a by-election for the Ottawa mayoralty. If there is a by-election, I would want the runner-up from the 2006 race, Alex Munter, to run. I’d expect him to be the frontrunner in such a race unless one of the city councilors was to run. If councilors were to run in a by-election, it would give them a unique opportunity to run for mayor without putting their council seats on the line. In a regular election, councilors cannot run simultaneously for council and mayor. But at the same time councilors are not required to resign their existing council positions to run for mayor. In a mayoral by-election, councilors could retain their seats while running and only have to give up their council seats if elected mayor.

Mentioning this topic compels me to mention a slightly similar situation that has occurred in my home town of Markham, Ontario. Markham Regional Councilor Jim Jones pled guilty to assault on November 22 for an assault that occurred in February of this year. Mr. Jones grabbed a maid at a hotel in Niagara-on-the-Lake where he was staying for a Town Council retreat. Jones was lying on his bed. Jones said “Kiss me” to the maid and grabbed her without permission. The maid left the room shocked and called police. The police came and charged Jones with sexual assault. The charge was later downgraded to regular assault which Jones pled guilty to. Jones states that what he did was a major error in judgment. Jones was given a year’s worth of probation and several hours of community service as a sentence. Markham Town Council in response to Jones’ conviction requested Jones’ resignation as a councilor. Jones refused to resign. Town Council did however accept Jones’ resignation as Markham Deputy Mayor. The Town also stripped Jones of all committee chairmanships. The Town asked the Regional Council to take similar disciplinary action. Indications are that some councilors are now going to feel uncomfortable working with Jones in light of his conviction. Markham now has no Deputy Mayor but Regional Councilor Jack Heath stands to become Deputy Mayor because he received the second most number of votes in the 2006 Regional Council election. Since Jones was innocent until proven guilty, the Town did not request his resignation until after he was convicted. I believe that was the proper way to go about it. In this day and age, unwanted kissing and grabbing are serious matters. Jones should consider what is best and resign if he feels that his continued presence on council will make things too awkward.

I feel that Jones conviction has essentially ended Jones political career. In the 2010 election, I do not think Jones could get the most number of votes for Regional Council let alone the fourth most number of votes for the 4 spot election. But our political system allows Jones to continue in office until December 2010. He can then choose to not run for re-election if he wants to avoid a likely defeat. Whether he runs again or not, he will be eligible for a severance package in either defeat or retirement.

In conclusion, I hold out hope that Alex Munter or someone progressive like him can become the next Mayor of Ottawa.

Westmount—Ville-Marie and other ridings

2007-12-22T14:30:00.000-05:00

My previous post discusses Westmount—Ville-Marie. The latest rumor is that a municipal councilor will run for the NDP in Westmount—Ville-Marie. I think municipal councilors may have a greater success rate in Quebec than in Ontario when it comes to seeking higher office. Recent examples of Ontario municipal politicians seeking higher office have had mixed results. At most, municipal councilors in Ontario only have about a 50/50 chance of succeeding at winning higher office. For example, the very popular David Shiner went down to a decisive defeat in Willowdale in the recent provincial election. However, Liberal Joe Dickson, who was an Ajax councilor, won a decisive victory in Ajax—Pickering. There was the occasional Green candidate who was a municipal councilor and they all went down to defeat. A Cornwall councilor, Tory Chris Savard, went down to a 10-point defeat in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry was by far the strongest Tory riding federally to go Liberal provincially in the 2007 provincial election. I always thought this riding would go Liberal in the provincial election, but the strong Tory federal results made Milton Chan at electionprediction.com think otherwise and thus Chan predicted a Tory win in the riding. I was glad when the Liberals won Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. It keeps Cornwall’s Liberal streak going provincially. Cornwall has been represented by a Liberal provincially continuously since 1987. Prior to that, the riding of Cornwall was represented by the Tories for two years. Prior to that Cornwall was actually represented by the NDP. I wonder whether Mike Harris’ decision to abolish all provincial ridings and adopt the federal boundaries was a move designed to benefit the Tories. One thing it did was remove some political clout from the City of Toronto. Under the 130 seat distribution, the Metro Toronto (as it was called at the time) had 23% of the province’s seats. Under the 103 seat distribution, the former Metro Toronto had 21% of the province’s seats. I think this served the Harris anti-Toronto agenda quite nicely. Because of the switch to federal boundaries, Cornwall is no longer sure to be represented by a Liberal provincially. The reason for this is that rural areas now covered in the amalgamated riding are strongly Tory. This however, has yet to deny Cornwall Liberal representation in any of the 3 elections in which federal boundaries have been used. But Cornwall almost lost Liberal representation in 1999 when the Liberals won the riding by only 600 votes. That particular election was an example of strategic voting that worked. The NDP vote was very low in this riding that election. It was so low that it was one of the rare occasions when 46% of the vote was not enough to win. Instead, the Liberals beat the Tories 47.99% to 46.47%. This 46.47% was higher than the province-wide Tory average and yet the Tories still lost. The strategic voting in this riding did not prevent a Tory majority government but it was enough to keep Cornwall red.

Speaking of electoral districts, Tory MPP Norm Sterling is very strongly against the arrangement whereby 10 Northern Ontario electoral districts keep the 1996 federal boundaries, Parry Sound—Muskoka becomes a hybrid of both 1996 and 2004 federal boundaries, and the rest of the province adopts the 2004 federal boundaries. Sterling says that this gives Northern Ontario too much voting clout. What Sterling does not acknowledge is that under his government, Ontario moved to a 103 electoral district system where Northern Ontario’s per-riding population was back than quite a bit less than the per-riding population of Southern Ontario. To the best of my knowledge Sterling did not object to that arrangement then. Even in the days of having 130 MPPs, many Northern Ontario ridings were significantly smaller in population than those elsewhere in the province. All the McGuinty government did was prevent an electoral district from being eliminated in Northern Ontario which would have created crises for numerous incumbents. McGuinty instead said that we can afford to give Northern Ontario a bit more clout at the provincial level than at the federal level because Northern Ontario is important and disadvantaged and has too often been neglected in the past. I think of keeping the extra seat as a compensation for these disadvantages that Northern Ontario has faced.

Adopting the Northern Ontario federal boundaries would have been disastrous for incumbents. Who knows who would have won the Nippising—Timiskaming riding. That is anyone’s guess. Nickel Belt would likely have had an NDP win, possibly larger, possibly narrower. Sault Ste. Marie would have been a Liberal win. Sudbury would have been a Liberal win. Algoma-Manitoulin—Kapaskuing is anyone’s guess. It may well have gone NDP under the federal boundaries. Tamiskaming—Cochrane would have been eliminated and David Ramsay would have been without a seat. He would have been forced to retire or run in Timmins-James Bay against Gilles Bisson. Ramsay would have for certain lost that contest. Thunder Bay—Superior North would have gone Liberal. Thunder Bay—Rainy River would likely have gone NDP whether or not Howard Hampton was the candidate there. You see, the federal redistribution put Howard’s hometown of Rainy River into Thunder Bay—Rainy River. So Howard may have run in Thunder Bay—Rainy River instead of the new Kenora riding. As it happened, Liberal incumbent Bill Mauro won Thunder Bay—Atikokan by only 50 votes. I would consider Hampton’s hometown a strong NDP area provincially. And thus I expect that had the federal boundaries been in place, the NDP would have won Thunder Bay—Rainy River whether Hampton was running there or in the Kenora riding. As for the Kenora riding itself, it is hard to say. Kenora is Liberal federally, with the Tories in second and the NDP a few hundred votes behind the Tories in third. If Hampton were to have run there it would have gone easily NDP. If Hampton had run in Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Kenora still probably would have gone NDP but could have gone Liberal especially if former Kenora Liberal MPP Frank Miclash had attempted a comeback.

Norm Sterling’s solution is to abolish all Ontario ridings and start from scratch, guaranteeing Northern Ontario 11 ridings. This would mean redrawing all ridings and wiping the political map clean. I do not agree with doing this, at least not until after the 2011 federal redistribution. I feel the current boundaries should be used for the 2011 election. After that, if we are unhappy with the new federal boundaries because they do not suit Ontario as a whole or Northern Ontario, then we can consider wiping the map clean and creating our own electoral boundaries.

Unthinkable but true

2007-12-22T14:20:00.000-05:00

Well, the unthinkable has occurred. Lucienne Robillard has announced that she will resign her Montreal seat on January 25, two years and two days since she won the 2006 election. She has given no reason for her abrupt decision to resign. Months ago she had already announced that she would not run again. That is why they nominated Marc Garneau in her riding. I do not know whether Robillard thought that there would not be a spring election so she had to resign now. The media treats a spring election as a near certainty. I am inclined to agree with the media on this one even though I do not like it. I am a Liberal, but not all Liberals seem to have realized that an election a few months from now is likely counterproductive for the Liberals. I do not see ourselves in any more of a position to win then than we are now. Liberals were recently talking boldly about defeating the government on their own non-confidence motion initiative in the new year. However, even if they were given the opportunity to do this, my guess is the non-confidence motion would not pass. My guess is the Bloc would vote against it so that they could pass judgment on the 2008 budget before making a decision on whether to the defeat the government. But it is the 2008 budget that makes me think a spring election likely. I see it as very difficult for this parliament to survive the 2008 budget. The Liberals do not want to keep abstaining and the Bloc already yanked their support of the government this autumn. I see it as unlikely that the Bloc would go back to supporting the government because this fall Duceppe seemed quite enthusiastic about an election despite the fact that it would cause the Bloc to lose seats. The only way an election can be avoided is if the Liberals are around 10 points or even more behind in the polls. In that case, we might see the Liberals abstaining or registering only token votes against the budget. This makes a Westmount—Ville-Marie by-election unlikely. Westmount—Ville-Marie is a target riding for the NDP, especially in a by-election. This is due to the 15% the NDP received there in the last election. However, Westmount—Ville-Marie was always a stronger Liberal riding than Outremont as far back as the Chrétien glory days. The Liberals got 45% there in the last election, compared with 35% in Outremont.

Minimum Wage Bill

2007-12-09T14:30:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday there was a vote at second reading in the Ontario Legislature on Cheri DiNovo’s reintroduced private member’s bill to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour. The Bill was defeated 33-11. Almost 60% of the House was absent. There were so few Liberals present that had enough opposition members been there, and had it been a matter of confidence, the government could have been defeated. The government whip’s job is to ensure that such an occurrence never happens. For a majority government to have what I call a guaranteed majority, a certain minimum of government members must be present. This minimum is one more than the total number of opposition members in existence combined. Any less than this and the government can be outvoted. I have looked at numerous House votes both federal and provincial and I have seen that on some occasions the total number of voting government members is less than the guaranteed majority number. My assumption is that in these instances, the whip also counts how many opposition members are present. If the opposition number is insufficient, I can assume the vote proceeds and the government maintains a relative majority for that particular vote. The government whip’s job is to count both government and opposition members present to ensure that the government never loses a crucial vote of any kind.

I have gotten off topic. I wanted to say that my position on the minimum wage has not changed. I do not support Cheri DiNovo’s Bill and instead support the government’s plan to continue to incrementally increase the minimum wage. One Liberal MPP, Tony Ruprecht, voted in favour of the Bill. This is consistent with his statement during the election that he supports an immediate 10 dollar minimum wage. Considering the poverty levels that exist in his riding of Davenport, I do not blame him at all for his position. I feel like listing here the recorded division on DiNovo’s Bill:

In Favour:

Bisson
DiNovo
Gélinas
Hampton
Horwath
Kormos
Marchese
Miller (Hamilton East–Stoney Creek)
Prue
Ruprecht
Tabuns

Against:

Aggelonitis
Arthurs
Balkissoon
Broten
Brownell
Chudleigh
Colle
Delaney
Dhillon
Dickson
Flynn
Gerretsen
Hardeman
Hoy
Jones
Klees
Kwinter
Lalonde
Leal
Levac
Mitchell
Moridi
Naqvi
Ramsay
Rinaldi
Savoline
Scott
Sergio
Shurman
Smith
Van Bommel
Wilkinson
Wilson

Put an end to this controversy

2007-11-20T18:18:00.000-05:00

I've received a comment from Jeanne Krieber-Dion herself. She sounds unhappy with me. So this message is to Jeanne:

I feel like I've gotten off to a bad start with you. I have a lifelong commitment to politics so we may meet in person someday. That is why I want to correct the problems that have occurred. My opinion about double-barreled last names is my PERSONAL opinion. Anybody is entitled to take double-barreled last names and I have no problem with it. I still believe that the traditional method of assigning last names based on the father is discriminatory, however. I do not want you or anyone else to be upset over the mistake I made on June 2nd so I am soon to go and edit the offending mistake out of that post. If I've offended you, Jeanne, I wholeheartedly apologize. I do not want to be in the bad books of the daughter of a future Prime Minister and I do not want you to misjudge me based on one factual error that I made. So again I am sorry to you and everyone about the mistake.

Sincerely,
Brendan

Van Loan vs. McGuinty

2007-11-17T11:44:00.000-05:00

I am against the federal government proposal to change the formula of seat allocation for the House of Commons. Sadly the proposal short-changes Ontario. I feel it is better to stick to the current formula. Dalton McGuinty and federal Tory House Leader Peter Van Loan have had a surprisingly partisan exchange over this issue – along party lines. I think you can guess which one of the two I agree with – Dalton! If the choice is between further shortchanging Ontario with the seat plan or keeping the status quo’s shortcomings, I’d stick with the status quo. I am hoping the federal Liberals join with the provincial Liberals in fighting against this bill so that Ontario does not get shortchanged more than it already is. This particular bill should not be a matter of confidence because it was not mentioned in the Throne Speech.

I also think it has become clear that as long as the McGuinty government is in power and as long as the Harper government is in power, n’er the twain shall get along. This is also true of PST harmonization. Harmonizing Ontario’s PST to the federal GST would be detrimental to Ontario consumers. It is for this reason that McGuinty is only willing to harmonize the PST on his terms. Without numerous exemptions on various items in a harmonization agreement, McGuinty has said he is not interested. And those exemptions would make it so that it is not harmonization at all. It is for this reason that PST harmonization is unlikely to occur under McGuinty. Also, I know this was four years ago, but I recall that the Eves Tories also did not believe in PST harmonization.

I understand

2007-11-16T22:41:00.000-05:00

I get the point about Jeanne Krieber-Dion's name. However, taking both parents names musn't be mandatory in Quebec or much of the Quebec population would have double-barrelled name.

Baffling question from Wednesday

2007-11-16T22:39:00.000-05:00

I have a quick question. Does anybody know why, on Wednesday, the Liberals abstained in the House of Commons on a Bloc Quebecois opposition motion concerning the forestry industry, thus allowing the motion to fail? The motion couldn’t have been a matter of confidence. If they were in favour of it why didn’t they vote for it and if they were against it why didn’t they vote against it?

Speaker of the Legislature

2007-11-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

Something odd is occurring. Liberal MPPs are challenging Mike Brown to be Speaker of the Ontario Legislature. The two challenging are Steve Peters and David Zimmer. I find it odd that these two are challenging because both of them have a Parliamentary Assistant position that they would have to give up should they win. This would force a shuffle. I know cabinet ministers are not eligible to run for Speaker. Does this mean, however, that Parliamentary Assistants are allowed to run for Speaker?

Statements In Brief

2007-11-03T18:04:00.000-04:00

I want to make some brief statements:

I liked McGuinty’s new cabinet except I had concerns when he dropped Monte Kwinter and David Ramsay without giving them a PA job to land on.

The Liberals were right to twice abstain on voting to keep the Tories in power. There was an editorial in the Toronto Star on October 31 saying that the Liberals should have defeated the Tories over the mini-budget. I disagree. The Liberals agreed with all the tax cuts except the GST. There was no point in fighting an election over the GST. So twice the Liberals did the right thing.

Source:

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/272037

PQ gone extremist

2007-10-22T03:33:00.000-04:00

I am strongly opposed to a bill on immigration that the PQ has tabled in the Quebec legislature.

Here is what it is:

“Under the proposed law, immigrants who can't speak proper French after an appropriate apprenticeship in provincially funded language courses would be forbidden from running for election in provincial and municipal elections as well as those for school boards.”

If immigrants to Quebec want to run for office, they should obviously be able to speak French. But first they have to become Canadian citizens. That takes 3 years at the minimum. These courses would last 3 years. I do not think taking these courses should be mandatory for immigrants if they want to run for office. Immigrants can learn French on their own. Why should the state forbid immigrants to run for office who learn French on their own without taking the government-controlled courses? I expect the law would get a Charter challenge and be struck down. If a PQ majority government then wants to use the notwithstanding clause, that is their choice but I’d expect it to cause a significant backlash in the rest of Canada as it always does when a Quebec government uses the notwithstanding clause to take away rights. But a PQ majority government could only use the notwithstanding clause if the law were struck down on equality grounds. The court could, should and probably would do something much more powerful. The court could strike down the law (or at least a significant portion of it) using section 3 of the Charter. Section 3 of the Charter is not subject to the notwithstanding clause. Section 3 guarantees the right of all Canadian citizens to qualify for membership in the House of Commons or in a legislative assembly. Prisoners don’t qualify even if they are citizens but I’d expect the court to uphold that under Section 1 of the Charter. Now, if a court struck down the proposed law under Section 3 of the Charter, it may only be able to void the restrictions on running for the National Assembly. Because school boards and municipal councils may not count as legislative assemblies, the court may have to leave the restrictions for running for school boards and municipal councils intact. But if the Supreme Court were to strike down the restrictions on running for the National Assembly under Section 3 of the Charter, it would be a significant blow for a PQ government and could not be overturned by the notwithstanding clause.

In short, as I have demonstrated, the bill in question introduced in the National Assembly is unconstitutional.

Also, under this unconstitutional law, would immigrants who already know French upon arriving in Quebec also be forced to take those courses? The article did not say whether the Quebec government or the ADQ supports this bill. I’ve since found out the government does not support this bill. I still don’t know whether the ADQ supports this bill. Because it is a minority government, the bill could conceivably pass without the government’s consent. In a case like this, the premier might have to order the Lieutenant Governor not to give the bill Royal Assent if he opposes it strongly enough.

Also take a look at this quote from the article:

”Among the measures proposed by the PQ are the creation of a Quebec constitution and a certificate of citizenship, the reinforcement of the province's language laws and the revision of the provincial charter of rights.”

What is this “certificate of citizenship”? Is this some kind of Quebec citizenship? If so, I am very strongly opposed to this proposal. Quebec is part of Canada and has no authorization to implement its own citizenship. Any attempt to do so would likely be unconstitutional. This is just one more reason why I don’t want the PQ back in power.

Source:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071019/immigrants_french_071019/20071019?hub=Politics

Ontario Election results

2007-10-11T21:41:00.000-04:00

I am ecstatic, elated, and overjoyed. The Liberals did it! They got a second large majority government. And I was right to repeatedly say that the media was always premature in predicting a minority government. Indeed, as I thought before and during the campaign, the Liberal vote is a lot more efficient than the media gave it credit for! The biggest dark spot for me is that Mario Racco lost in Thornhill. Darn it! This makes the seat threatened for the Liberals at the federal level. And I liked Mario Racco. The Liberals easily won Oak Ridges—Markham. But because the Tories won Thornhill, the provincial Liberals for a second time in a row have been denied a clean sweep of the whole of the Town of Markham. That being said, I am quite certain the Town of Markham itself voted over 50% Liberal. But the Tory win in Thornhill doesn’t make it look like Markham was a clean sweep. I am the most disappointed about the Thornhill result.

I don’t know whether Helena Jaczek can actually make it to cabinet now. This is because York Region already has two cabinet ministers in Michael Chan and Greg Sorbara. I certainly hope neither one of those two is demoted to make way for Helena. But if Dalton has a cabinet spot for Helena, that’s great. If not, she can be given an important parliamentary secretary position. I think I understand why the sprawling Oak Ridges—Markham riding is consistently more Liberal that it appears it should be. I think it is because although the majority of land in Oak Ridges—Markham is rural, the majority of voters in Oak Ridges—Markham are suburban. This allows for a more Liberal-friendly voting base. With the win in Oak Ridges—Markham and Richmond Hill, all of the old Oak Ridges, won by Frank Klees in 2003, is now represented by a Liberal both federally and provincially. I’m starting to think that Klees’ win in 2003 was due to personal popularity and that a new Tory candidate in 2003 would have lost in Oak Ridges. Sadly, Klees won narrowly in Newmarket—Aurora. Once again it has to have been personal popularity. I think with a generic Tory candidate, Newmarket—Aurora would have gone Liberal.

Also of note is that this election marks the fourth federal/provincial election in a row that the Liberals have won every single riding in Brampton and Mississauga. It happened previously in 2003, 2004, and 2006. While twice (once federally and once provincially) a member in Brampton/Mississauga crossed the floor to the Tories, it happened in both cases some time after the election. Speaking of which, Tim Peterson running as a Tory was swept from office by a large margin by Liberal Charles Sousa. What this means is that Tim Peterson’s decision to cross the floor cost him his seat. I expect Peterson would have easily won as a Liberal. So if it weren’t for crossing the floor, I think Peterson would still be an MPP.

Another interesting fact – the Liberal, Leeanna Pendergast, unexpectedly won in Kitchener—Conastoga over PC candidate Michael Harris. Michael Harris used to go by Mike Harris, but for the election wanted to distinguish himself from the former Premier. The interesting fact is that now both Liberal Kitchener seats are represented by one family. Pendergast’s sister is married to re-elected Kitchener Centre Liberal MPP John Milloy. In Kitchener—Waterloo, Elizabeth Witmer won for the PCs. But had she not run, I expect the riding would have gone Liberal. Cambridge re-elected PC MPP Gerry Martiniuk by 7% just like in the 2003 election.

A real shocker was that Liberal cabinet minister Caroline Di Cocco lost her seat in Sarnia—Lambton by a fairly wide margin to a Conservative candidate. The NDP candidate shockingly got almost 27%, denying any chance of victory for Di Cocco. Di Cocco was the only cabinet minister defeated. Although Sarnia—Lambton remains a bellwether riding federally, it is not provincially. The Sarnia riding went PC in 1987. And in 1999, Di Cocco won Sarnia—Lambton for the Liberals while Mike Harris formed a majority government. And now Sarnia—Lambton has elected yet another opposition member to Queen’s Park. What this means is that both federally and provincially, Sarnia—Lambton is trending Conservative. The Liberals managed to retain the neighbouring Lambton—Kent—Middlesex by 6.9% with Liberal incumbent Maria Van Bommel. It is quite odd that this rural riding should end up with a lower PC percentage than in the mixed urban/rural riding of Sarnia—Lambton.

John Tory claims to want to stay on as party leader. But how can he do this without a seat? Does he plan to make one of the freshly-elected PC members in a safe seat resign so he can run in a by-election? Surely he can’t expect to lead his party from the gallery for the next four years.

I would like to note with interest that in both ridings where a federal MP was elected as a Liberal but then crossed the floor to the Conservatives (Thunder Bay—Superior North and Mississauga—Streetsville), the provincial Conservatives did very poorly. I wonder if this is a coincidence or if there is retribution happening for the floor-crossing. It didn’t work the other way in Halton. The Liberals almost won Halton against the Tory incumbent. If there had been retribution for Garth Turner crossing to the Liberals, I don’t think there would have been such a strong Liberal showing in Halton.

I am also disappointed that Nerene Virgin didn’t win in Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

But the Liberals were not wiped out in Hamilton and retained Hamilton Mountain.

I am happy overall and wish Dalton luck over the next four years.

Marc Garneau, Aileen Carroll and Barrie

2007-10-02T18:20:00.000-04:00

I’m disappointed that Marc Garneau will not run in any riding for the Liberals. But then again in the 2006 election he was not the strongest candidate. I just hope to goodness the Liberals have an actual good candidate (hopefully a star candidate) up their sleeves in Westmount—Ville Marie. The important part is that Lucienne Robillard does not quit early. The last thing we need is another Quebec by-election.

In Barrie, I’m surprised how competitive Liberal candidate Aileen Carroll is based on what I have read. I’ve read that she is making Barrie a close race and has a chance to win the riding. For a riding that went so solidly Conservative in 2003, this is surprising. It must just be Carroll’s personal strength as a former MP. If the Liberals are competitive in Barrie, the Liberals just have to be doing relatively well. But we can take nothing for granted. We need to get out every vote possible in every riding. That is hard work but I hope we can do it.

London--Fanshawe

2007-10-02T18:17:00.000-04:00

I found an article written prior to the dropping of the writ about the London—Fanshawe. It deals with constituency flyers mailed out from Liberal MPP Khalil Ramal paid for by taxpayer dollars. The article says as follows:

“The latest Ramal flyer to circulate to homes in the London-Fanshawe riding shows a picture of Ramal shaking hands with London Police Chief Murray Faulkner. The flyer claims Ramal has been a leader in providing significant resources for local policing.”

These flyers were sent out prior to the writ being dropped and therefore were perfectly legal. But that did not stop the riding’s PC candidate, Jim Chapman, from making these allegations that I consider outrageous:

Chapman believes the photo was used without Faulkner's permission and is "in contravention of a long-standing policy against involving law enforcement officers in partisan politics. This suggests a serious ethical lapse on the part of Ramal's handlers," Chapman said, "or a lack of understanding on their part about what's legal and what isn't."

I’d be surprised if the police chief would have agreed to have a picture taken with Ramal unless he accepted the fact that the photo might be used for promotional purposes (anyone getting their picture taken with a politician ought to know that the picture could be used for political purposes). As far as a long-standing policy against involving law enforcement officers in partisan politics, such a convention may exist. However, there is no law against involving law enforcement officers in partisan politics. But even this in this case is a moot point. The flyers were technically pre-writ non-partisan constituency newsletters. And in those non-partisan constituency newsletters, I suspect politicians have their photos taken with police chiefs all the time. Note that the Toronto Police Association publicly endorsed John Tory when he was running for Toronto mayor. As far as “a lack of understanding on their part about what's legal and what isn't” is concerned, it is clear that Ramal’s handlers know perfectly well what is legal and what isn’t. They know there is no law against putting a politician’s photo with a police chief in either a constituency newsletter or campaign material. They also know that issuing constituency newsletters prior to the writ dropping is perfectly legal and that is what they did. Even the NDP candidate for the riding, Stephen Maynard, acknowledged that Ramal broke absolutely no rules. Maynard said so himself in the article.

(http://www.londontopic.ca/article.php?artid=4798)

On a closely related note, London—Fanshawe is one of the strangest ridings in the province. In 1999, the riding should have easily gone Liberal. But the NDP vote was at 24%. This split the vote and allowed the PC candidate to come up the middle with 38%. In 2003, the PC incumbent came in third. It was by far the most 3-way of a race in the province and is likely to be so again this time around. In 2006, the riding went NDP federally in another perfect 3-way race. Current London North Centre Liberal MP Glen Pearson was second and a socially conservative Tory candidate was a very close third. One can compare previous election results in this riding easily because there was no boundary change whatsoever in the Federal 2004/Provincial 2007 redistribution. London—Fanshawe and it’s predecessor ridings were bellwether ridings that voted for the same party as the party winning government every time. This applied both federally and provincially. That is why it was a little bit surprising to see London—Fanshawe to go NDP in the 2006 election because that was the first time in a very, very, very long time since the area had elected an opposition member federally or provincially. So that’s why its outcome provincially is uncertain. Any of the 3 parties could win and some people are banking on an NDP win for the capable but young Stephen Maynard (25). If the riding does go NDP, that will be something. If it goes NDP but if at the same time the province-wide trend is still Liberal, that will be quite amazing. But you never know. The legislature once had a member younger than Maynard. Coincidently he was also from Southwestern Ontario. His name was Kimble Sutherland. He was 24 years old when he was elected in the 1990 Ontario election in a fluke. He was a student-activist type. He agreed to run, never expecting to win. Although he was a passionate New Democrat, he was really only meant as a place-holder for the “un-winnable” Oxford riding. Sutherland was probably as surprised as anyone on election night that he had won. He was a University student at the time. I’m not sure whether he was able to finish his degree while being an MPP. He obviously wasn’t able to win re-election in 1995 but came a credible second. Sutherland may well hold the record for the youngest MP/MPP/MLA/MNA/MHA who happened to be a member of the governing party. Here is an interesting tidbit about Sutherland from Wikipedia:

“He first became active in politics in 1981, when he joined the local NDP riding executive during a provincial campaign.” Sutherland was born in 1966. At the time of the 1981 election, Sutherland was 14. I am not sure whether parties other than the NDP allow 14 year olds to be on a party’s riding executive.

Speaking of people named Sutherland, I can’t believe political icon Kiefer Sutherland has been arrested for DUI. I think this may eliminate the possibility that Kiefer could ever run for political office in Canada. I’m shocked that this happened. I thought Kiefer was an outstanding actor and I can’t believe he did this. At least now he won't run as a star NDP candidate.

Shook hands with Ed, Hugh, and Kate

2007-09-28T21:24:00.000-04:00

On Thursday I got to shake the hands of Ed Broadbent, Hugh Segal, and Kate Holloway. York University hosted a two-hour forum on electoral reform. I only got to see the last 3 minutes. I had class for almost all of it, and then I needed to look up its location and that is how much time was left. As a result I only got to hear Broadbent speak. Interestingly, York didn’t invite a representative of the Green Party to the debate. Broadbent represented the NDP, Segal is a Conservative Senator and so he represented the federal/provincial Tories. Kate Holloway represented the Liberals. In some way, you CAN say the Greens had representation – in Kate Holloway. Holloway was formerly a prominent member of the federal Green Party. Kate was, however, the only representation the Greens got. All 3 of the speakers are in favour of MMP. I enjoyed the part of Broadbent’s speech I heard, but I strongly disagreed with one part of it in particular. Broadbent referred to the 2006 federal election and said that in the City of Toronto the Conservatives received “thousands” of votes but got no seats in the City of Toronto. Broadbent said the votes the Conservatives received in Toronto should have gotten them seats. I disagree with this. The Conservatives only got about 20% of the vote in the City of Toronto. I don’t think this warrants any seats when it is quite clear that Torontonians overwhelmingly rejected the Conservatives. Broadbent argues that under proportional representation the Conservatives would get seats in Toronto. But frankly I don’t see why we should give the Conservatives an opportunity to win seats in Toronto. I just don’t think 20% of the vote should warrant representation when it was quite obvious the vast majority of Torontonians did not agree with Conservative policies. Broadbent said the same thing about Montreal and Vancouver. He said that there too the Conservatives received votes but got no seats and that this was unfair. Well, we all know what happened in Vancouver. But in Montreal it stands – there are no Conservative seats on the Island of Montreal. And why should there be? The Conservatives got only around 15% or so of the vote in Montreal. I don’t believe that should entitle the Conservatives to seats. This whole thing is another reason I don’t like proportional representation (PR). It looks as though under PR, even when you overwhelmingly reject the Tories, Tory MPs still get elected. For me that is just plain unappealing.

I wonder if people like Ed Broadbent would make the same argument about Markham. Would they argue that the federal Tories deserve representation in the Town of Markham because of the 30-35% of the voters voted Tory in Markham? Markham spans 3 different federal ridings: Markham—Unionville (my riding and where the majority of Markham residents live), Thornhill (this has the far Western part of Markham and the rest of the riding consists of part of the City of Vaughan), and Oak Ridges—Markham (this has the Eastern and Northern parts of Markham). The Markham portion of Oak Ridges—Markham is the strongest Liberal part of the riding where the Liberals rack up large majorities. Markham—Unionville voted strongly Liberal in the last federal election, as I am certain did the Markham portion of Thornhill. In Markham—Unionville, the Conservatives got just under 27%. In Thornhill, the Conservatives got 33% (this number incorporates the Vaughan portion of Thornhill). In Oak Ridges—Markham, the Conservatives got 38.5%. That 38.5% is the result riding-wide. The Tories received far less than this in the Markham portion of Oak Ridges—Markham. When you do the estimation math in your head, you come to the conclusion that if the whole Town of Markham were its own riding (as it once was provincially), the Tories would have 30-35% and the Liberals would have somewhere above 50%. I am 90% certain that the whole Town of Markham voted over 50% Liberal in the last federal election. It is for this reason that I wouldn’t buy any MMP argument about Conservatives deserving representation in the Town of Markham. For the record, to contrast those Conservative numbers, here are the riding-wide Liberal numbers for each of the 3 ridings I just discussed. Markham—Unionville: 61.9%. Thornhill: 53%. Oak Ridges—Markham: 47%.

Leader's Debate

2007-09-25T15:30:00.000-04:00

The other night there was a leader’s debate for the Ontario election. Unfortunately for Howard Hampton, he had a bad cold. This may have impeded his debate performance. The result of Hampton’s cold may have been that Hampton was less forceful than in two previous leader’s debates he was in. Nevertheless, Hampton still seemed to do ok. In my humble opinion, Tory could have done better. Also, in my humble opinion McGuinty did well.

That being said, I am VERY apprehensive about whatever Ontario post-debate polls may come out. I am VERY fearful they will show Conservative momentum because of how commentators spun the Ontario leaders debate. Almost all commentators spun the debate as a loser for McGuinty. This despite the fact that when I watched the debate, I saw that McGuinty did just fine. McGuinty was the only leader who was positive. The other two leaders were just continuously attacking McGuinty. Constantly being on the attack does not make you look like a Premier. Only McGuinty offered positive messages. Offering positive messages is how you look like a Premier, not by attacking constantly and not by playing footsie with the other Opposition leader. Interestingly, Dalton McGuinty’s quip that Howard Hampton and John Tory are HoJo is becoming something of a catchphrase. Unlike what Howard Hampton said, McGuinty was not in desperation to use the term HoJo. It was a joke, plain and simple. My deep concern is that people who originally thought that McGuinty won the debate when they watched it will change their minds and decide that Tory won the debate because of what the media said. This could have a devastating effect on the Liberal campaign. I have read a number of user comments on more than one website which said that McGuinty won the debate. I’ve also seen and/or heard occasional comments from Ontarians that their opinion of John Tory worsened because of the debate. I am just dreadfully scared of the pro-Tory media spin on the debate and the negative effect it will have on the Liberal campaign.

I also do not support John Tory’s idea of allowing booze to be sold at convenience stores. For one thing, it breaks with a VERY long tradition in Ontario. Secondly, it means less government regulation and therefore an increase in the likelihood of booze falling into the wrong hands. No I am not questioning the integrity of shopkeepers. No offence to shopkeepers, but I fear that this new lack of government regulation would increase the number of alcohol-caused accidents and deaths.

Tory MPP Bill Murdoch has announced that he would almost certainly vote against any legislation implementing John Tory’s faith-based funding plan. Tory simply dismissed Murdoch as a maverick when asked about this. But this is actually significant for a member of the Conservative caucus to so openly rebel against the party leader on this controversial issue. I don’t know whether Murdoch voting against Tory’s faith-based funding plan would get him kicked out of caucus. However, considering the position that the Liberals and NDP have taken on this issue, Tory’s faith-based funding plan could not be pushed through unless there were a Conservative majority government.

I am quite unhappy that Howard Hampton has said that for him to offer support to any minority government, the minority government in power would have to implement the entire NDP platform. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives could ever agree to implement the entire NDP platform. This would mean an incredibly unstable minority government. With this being Hampton’s position, the minority government could easily fall on the Throne Speech – just like at the federal level the government is threatened by a loss of confidence on the Throne Speech. Hampton making the demands he has made, I see no point in an Ontario minority government even trying to pass a budget. And how exactly is this minority government extreme instability supposed to get better under MMP if opposition parties continue to make such un-agreeable demands? For example, if the Greens get seats under MMP they could demand the abolishment of the Catholic school system in exchange for support of the government . That would be a complete no-go and could lead to MMP minority governments to be as unstable as ever. By the way, everybody these days seems to think that for this Ontario election, a minority government is a foregone conclusion. Despite the spin, there is just not enough evidence that a minority government is a foregone conclusion. Take the poll that showed the Liberals with a 9-pont lead. I think the last time a 9 point spread produced a minority government may have been never. I know that that particular poll is now out of date, but still it is something to keep in mind

I want to re-iterate one point – Dalton did far better in the debate than commentators gave him credit for.

Willowdale, Oshawa, Ajax--Pickering

2007-09-23T17:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I drove through a neighbourhood in the northeastern part of the Willowdale. The lawn signs there were about 10 to 1 for the Liberals. This is despite the fact that the neighbourhood is in Tory candidate David Shiner’s municipal ward that he represents on city council. I’ve seen Liberal lawn sings in other parts of Willowdale as well. I really hope that Willowdale Liberal incumbent David Zimmer is able to win re-election over David Shiner.

The Election Projection Project has called Ajax—Pickering for the Conservatives and Oshawa for the NDP. I wonder whether the prediction for Ajax—Pickering is a little premature. The seat is Liberal federally. If provincially there is a Liberal majority government, shouldn’t Ajax—Pickering go Liberal? As for Oshawa, I think the prediction is based on lawn signs and reports on what is happening on the ground. I want the Liberals to win Oshawa. However, I’ve heard tell the provincial Liberals haven’t won Oshawa ever since Liberal Premier Mitch Hepburn tried to break up a strike in Oshawa in the 1930s. Between the NDP and the Conservatives, I’m not sure which I’d like better to win. The NDP candidate in Oshawa is Sid Ryan. He has already run several times previously for the NDP federally and provincially. He’s come close all but one of those times. In the 2006 Federal Election, Ryan ran in Oshawa and came within 5 points of beating incumbent Conservative Colin Carrie. In the 2004 Federal Election, Ryan ran in Oshawa and came within 400 votes of beating Carrie in an open seat contest. In the 2003 Ontario Election, Ryan ran in Oshawa and came within 1000 votes of beating Conservative incumbent Jerry Ouellette. In the 1999 Ontario Election, Ryan ran in Scarborough Centre and placed an above average but still distant third. He split the vote and allowed Conservative incumbent Marilyn Muchinski to be re-elected by a wide margin despite several other Tory candidates being defeated in the same election with higher shares of the vote than Muchinski received. Ryan is president of CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) Ontario. Ryan was born in Dublin, Ireland. He is considered something of a socialist. He may win in Oshawa. We shall see. But the Liberals need to focus not on Oshawa, but on Ajax—Pickering.

Outremont and Ontario Election

2007-09-14T23:22:00.000-04:00

I’m as worried as ever that on Monday the NDP will win over the Liberals in Outremont. This would be a serious blow to my leader Stephane Dion and would make the appearance of the Liberals not having momentum. My understanding is that for the last couple weeks the Liberals have been running a spirited campaign, but I don’t know if it was enough to catch up to Mulcair. I can’t conjecture what the election results would look like. One conjecture seems as doubtful as the next.

I’ve now joined Michael Chan’s re-election campaign. I’ve also joined his re-election campaign group on Facebook. I’m afraid that there there are a few “wall” comments but not too much else content. Nobody is doing in depth discussion about how the campaign is going. I am, however, getting daily email campaign updates from the central Liberal campaign. Needless to say they highlight Liberal policy announcements and criticize the Tories and the NDP. Speaking of policy, the Green Party has announced that a Green government would put into place SIX new statutory holidays. These include Earth Day, “Ontario’s birthday”, Remembrance Day and provincial and municipal election days. What about times like this year when Earth Day falls on a Saturday or Sunday? I especially do not agree with statutory holidays on election days. That is too much of a disruption and does not necessarily encourage people to vote. The reason according to Green Party leader Frank De Jong is that workers in other countries who have more days off are more productive. I wonder if De Jong has the statistical evidence to back this up. This statutory holiday policy has a European feel to it. It is in many continental European countries that have an increased number of holidays and also often have election day as a holiday. Another thing about election day on a holiday is that there is one group of workers who don’t get the day off – election workers! Another problem is that on election day schools are a common source of location for polls to be placed. On a statutory holiday schools will be closed and unable to be used for polling locations, causing a serious administrative headache. That’s why I prefer Dalton’s single new holiday in February.

Coming Throne Speech

2007-09-13T21:57:00.000-04:00

I can’t deal with whether the federal government will fall on the coming Throne Speech. That seems too far away right now. I want to focus on the provincial campaign. There will be a lot of Throne Speech optics later. If we’re lucky, someone will find away to keep this government in power for now – Liberals in Ontario cannot have two elections so close together. I want this Conservative government out of office just as much as the next Liberal, but a 2007 election is not the way to do it. Bringing down the government only creates an election that the Conservatives could easily win with a minority or majority. Not for decades upon decades has the Governor General asked an opposition party to form government without an election victory for said opposition party. That just doesn’t happen anymore. If we could bring down the government in hopes of Dion simply being appointed Prime Minister on the spot, I’d go for it. But Governors General just don’t appoint new Prime Ministers on the spot following the loss of confidence of a government anymore. So it just is not a doable option. That is why we need to keep this Conservative government in power in the year 2007 and explore our options next year. That’s all the dealing I’m going to do on this topic for now.

But as a closely related aside I want to mention that Harper has been bold enough to say he won’t hold a vote on extending the combat mission in Afghanistan unless he thinks the government can win that vote. The implication is he may hold it eventually, as the current deadline of February 2009 comes close. But he will not hold such an early vote because he thinks he can’t win it. I seem to read signals from the government that the government was hoping certain Liberals would again break ranks and support the extension past 2009 in the same way that certain Liberals voted for the extension to 2009. I expect the government to be disappointed if they are hoping for this. Dion has more or less united the Liberals on this issue. In the spring there was a Liberal motion to end the mission in 2009. Individual Liberals did not break ranks and I wouldn’t expect them to in a future vote. We are now quite united on this issue. When it comes down to it, there cannot be an extension of the Afghanistan mission within the context of this current parliament. Harper would still need a majority government to push through such an extension of the mission. And even then, it would go against the type of “all-party consensus” that Harper has been promising.

I need some help

2007-09-10T20:56:00.000-04:00

Somebody has made the claim on the electionprediction.com page that there were polls in and Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot showing a tight two way race in both ridings in the by-elections. The claim was that the poll was in the Toronto Star. I can find the poll absolutely nowhere on the internet and I have searched thoroughly. If anyone can point out to me where this poll is and what the numbers say I would be most appreciative.

Larry Zolf

2007-09-10T20:49:00.000-04:00

Larry Zolf wrote an opinion piece in August about the 2007 Ontario Election (http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_zolf/20070806.html). There are some things he said that I would like to dispute. A general problem is that Zolf makes far too many generalizations. Here is one such generalization:

“Hampton represents the Rainy River-Kenora riding, which boasts a huge aboriginal community, effectively giving him the aboriginal vote of Northern Ontario.”

That may be true within Hampton’s riding, but I see no evidence of the NDP having the Northern Ontario aboriginal vote outside Kenora-Rainy-River. Each aboriginal voter makes his or her own decision and I expect a number of them choose to vote Liberal.

This next quote by Zolf I find incredibly strange and it makes little sense:

“Harper's stand on the war will cost him at Camp Petawawa and other military towns, and in rural Ontario.

The NDP stand on Afghanistan, on the other hand, will win seats for Hampton's party in large cities.”

What stand on the war of Stephen Harper’s is Zolf referring to? Harper is very popular in the military town of Petawawa and places like that. His pro-military stand makes that a given. So what is Zolf referring to? Is he referring to the fact that Harper will not extend the Afghan mission without a parliamentary consensus? In those military towns, some may wish for the mission to be extended, but voters there are hardly going to switch to the Liberals, who have a much clearer stand to end the combat mission in 2009. Besides, this is a provincial election he is supposed to be talking about. Is Zolf implying that this “stand” Harper has taken, whatever it may be, will be detrimental to John Tory in those military towns. That whole first sentence from the quote I just cited makes no sense whatsoever. And even the second sentence has little logic either. This is a provincial election. At the provincial level, Afghanistan has not been an issue at all in this provincial campaign, and I see no evidence that Afghanistan will become an issue at all in the provincial campaign. I also do not see Howard Hampton campaigning on the federal NDP’s stance on Afghanistan; instead Hampton is opting for provincial issues.

As an aside, here are the four federal parties positions, as I see them, on Afghanistan:
Conservative: Would like to extend combat mission past 2009 if that were politically possible and if there were an all-party consensus.
Liberal: End combat mission in 2009.
Bloc: End combat mission in 2009, but did not support the extension to 2009 in the first place. Bring down government unless it commits to end mission in 2009.
NDP: End mission now and bring troops home, but support the government’s official position by voting against Liberal motion to end mission in 2009.

The Liberal position as you can see is actually the simplest. Contrary to popular belief, the Liberals have not waffled on this issue since Dion took over. Dion has long been quite clear about the 2009 exit date. We are not hypocrites for wanting the mission to end in 2009. I know it was our previous Liberal government who sent the troops in, but that does not mean we did not want the combat mission to end at some point.

I am getting sidetracked from Larry Zolf’s article. To me, Afghanistan could not be more irrelevant for this provincial campaign.

There are another couple quotes from Zolf that I take issue with. Here is the first:

“Hampton is no pal of Buzz Hargrove, leader of the Canadian Auto Workers' union. (He realizes that Hargrove wants to reward McGuinty for all his auto industry efforts.) But Hampton will do well in Oshawa, Oakville, St. Thomas and other auto union towns regardless.”

I can agree with Oshawa. The Oakville riding, on the other hand, has long had among the absolute lowest results for the NDP both federally and provincially despite the presence of a Ford plant. This has been true even at the height of NDP popularity. For example, the NDP was third in Oakville South in the 1990 election, 4000 votes behind the second placed Liberal candidate, who in turn was only 100 votes behind the PC candidate. Hampton’s party has never done well in the Oakville riding before; I see no evidence of that changing now. I also have trouble seeing the NDP doing well in St. Thomas, which is the political base of Liberal MPP Steve Peters, who prior to his election to the legislature was the popular mayor of St. Thomas. St. Thomas is in Elgin—Middlesex—London, where the NDP has also never done well.

Here is the next quote from Zolf’s article that I take issue with. This sentence in Zolf’s article is referring to Howard Hampton:

“He also has the gay and lesbian vote in Ontario.”

That is a sweeping generalization if I’ve ever seen one. Tell that to George Smitherman’s gay voting base in Toronto Centre. I think Dalton McGuinty is the most gay-positive Premier in Ontario history. In my opinion, McGuinty has actually focused more on gay rights than Howard Hampton has. People who are gay don’t vote only on the single issue of gay rights. They also will evaluate the government’s record on health care, education, and other issues. They will make their decision based on many issues. People who happen to be gay will not vote in bloc for the NDP, and never have.

Zolf concludes by predicting a surefire minority government. The most recent Ipsos-Reid poll showed the NDP at 16%. That is not likely enough to make a minority government happen. We won’t know for sure anything about majorities or minorities until we are much closer to election day.

No Proportional Representation

2007-09-09T16:10:00.000-04:00

I will vote for the status quo on the electoral reform referendum. Firstly, I, as do many, dislike the idea of having list MPPs that parties can select in an elite manner. MPPs in danger of defeat who are high-profile could simply be added to the top of the list to prevent their defeat. We could also experience the phenomenon whereby MPPs can run both locally and on a list, so that when defeated locally they are still elected on a list. This happens all the time in New Zealand and I don’t agree with it. The second problem is that proportional representation would result in perpetual minority governments. Proponents of proportional representation counter that these minority governments would be stable coalition governments. But I don’t like the idea of the Liberals having to make a semi-permanent coalition with the NDP. As it is, the Ontario NDP is fiercely anti-Liberal in nature. How we could ever make any kind of alliance with them I’m not sure. The NDP never has anything good to say about the Liberals. I don’t see how that could change in the context of minority governments.

As far as the coming election is concerned, based on my experience at the federal level, I fear that a minority Liberal win would be almost as bad as losing outright. Once again, people say the Liberals would need the NDP to stay in power in this situation. But the NDP dislike the Liberals so much I don’t see how any kind of alliance could be formed. I expect that the minority government would be unstable. I can just see now both opposition parties announcing they cannot support the 2008 budget, causing the government to fall in 2008. I foresee a Liberal minority as a disaster. But sometimes I wonder whether the talk of minority government is only being used to sell more newspapers. A 5, 6, or 7 point lead could just as easily translate into a majority government.

The Ontario Liberal Party has nominated all its candidates and exceeded its goal of nominating females in half of ridings not held by the Liberal Party. And overall the party has one third of its candidates women. This is excellent. This includes Helena Jaczek in Oak Ridges—Markham, the riding neighbouring mine.

I am impressed by the candidate running for the Liberals in Hamilton Centre. His name is Steve Ruddick. He is a CH (Hamilton’s local television station) weatherman and is a media personality who is also a news reporter and journalist. The Liberals pulled out of their hat a candidate much stronger than I expected (I feared the Liberal candidate would be much lesser known after Judy Marsales announced she wasn’t going to run again). I wish Steve Ruddick the absolute best of luck.

Prorogue????

2007-09-06T19:40:00.000-04:00

Harper prorogued parliament. When I think about it I'm not surprised. He wants to start his government fresh and is willing to risk an election that he thinks he'd win anyway by having a new Throne Speech. I'm not sure how much emphasis on the environment this throne speech will have. The government says its Clean Air Act won’t be one of the killed pieces of legislation to be resurrected. However, the numerous justice bills that reached the Senate shortly before summer and thus could not be passed will be resurrected at the stage at which they were previously. I don’t know how this works. I can only assume that they have to renumber the bills the match the new parliamentary session. Apparently private members bills don’t die when parliament is prorogued. I was under the impression that ALL bills died, including private members bills. It must be different somehow at the federal level. Recently, I saw some articles referring to a private member’s bill to implement the Kyoto Protocol. These articles said that this was a private member’s bill and thus it would not die when parliament is prorogued. But that bill has already received Royal Assent, so not only does the bill not die, it is already law! I’m not sure where the misconception that this bill had not yet received Royal Assent came from. One of the articles I read said that there is a group (I forget what it was called) that is thrilled parliament was prorogued because doing so temporarily kills the age of consent bill. This group opposes this bill. One argument they make is that teenagers under the age of consent are less likely to speak out and seek health information regarding sexual relationships. Maybe that is true in many U.S. States, with their mishmash of age of consent laws. However, I’m hoping it would be different in Canada because 14 year olds under the new law are not prohibited from having sex. Having sex with someone as much as four years older than them is still legal. So as long as their sexual partner is of the right age there should be no disincentive to seek health information. If however, the partner is more than 4 years older than the 14 year old, then there may be a case of not seeking information in hopes of not being caught. This leads to the group’s other argument against the bill, it limits sexual freedom for young teenagers. Now this is true to a certain extent. The maximum limit of 4 years may have been too few. Any attempts by the Senate to change this, however, will be swiftly rejected by the government as the government is want to do. At least if this Bill is resurrected, it can also receive a fair examination in the Senate before being passed.

I have a bit of political humour. The NDP candidate in my riding of Markham—Unionville for the upcoming provincial election is Andy Arifin. But currently on the NDP website, I can get information on him only in French! Clearly that part of their site is a work in progress. Here is the humourous translation of Arifin’s blurb into English using the Google translator:

Andy Arifin is enthusiastic with the idea to insufflate a new energy with the Ontarian policy. Inspired by the optimistic vision of Howard Hampton of the future of Ontario, it is happy to represent the district of Markham-Unionville in the name of the team of the New democratic Party.Andy always lived in Markham. While it finishes a baccalaureat specialized in political sciences at the York University, it finds time to militate actively.As a student, Andy saw closely how the badly advised policies of Dalton McGuinty as regards education postsecondaire push a number growing of students to be involved in debt always more. Following the deregulation of the expenses of the professional training schemes, a measurement of the McGuinty government, certain students cannot consider higher education any more or to continue their program of studies.Andy impatiently waits the moment to represent the families of workers as new deputy of the district of Markham Unionville in Queen' S Park.

“New deputy” means new MPP. If Arifin wants to be the new MPP for Markham—Unionville, he has his work cut out for him. After all, I think that if the NDP were to win 106/107 seats in the province, Markham—Unionville would be the one seat that didn’t go NDP.

Provinical poll form Ipsos Reid

2007-09-03T15:07:00.000-04:00

There is a provincial poll released August 28 from Ipsos Reid showing the Liberals at 42%, the Conservatives at 35%, the NDP at 16%, and the Greens at 6%. This is a drop for the Greens and a significant drop for the NDP. It is also an increase for the Liberals and a drop for the Tories. This poll also provides strong evidence to me that regional breakdowns for polls within the province, especially for Northern Ontario, are unreliable. This poll shows for Northern Ontario the Liberals at 51%, the Tories at 20%, and the NDP at 18%. The previous Ipsos Reid poll (released August 21) showed the Tories at 41% in Northern Ontario, and the Liberals at 34%. The current poll has the Tories dropping 21 points in Northern Ontario. Such a large fluctuation is not realistic in my opinion. I’d also expect the NDP to be higher than 20% in Northern Ontario. I thus suspect that the Northern Ontario results are not accurate possibly due to small sample size within that region. I’m also wondering if it is the same thing in the 416 and 905. Even though the Liberal lead expanded in this poll overall, it somehow shrunk substantially in the 905. The Liberal lead in the 416 also shrank to just 3 points. Is it possible that the results for both the 416 and 905 may be inaccurate due to small sample size within those regions? I’m inclined to believe that regional results within Ontario tend to be inaccurate due to sample size and thus to get the real picture it is best to look at the province-wide poll results. In my opinion, a 7 point lead would be hard pressed not to produce a majority government.

Cheri Di Novo, Alan Tonks, John McKay, Mike Wallace

2007-09-01T14:35:00.000-04:00

In a previous blog, I mentioned NDP MPP Cheri Di Novo’s liberal views on homosexuality. The riding’s federal MP Peggy Nash is also in favour of same-sex marriage. For the record, the only MP to oppose same-sex marriage in the City of Toronto excluding Etobicoke and Scarborough was York South—Weston Liberal MP Alan Tonks. Tonks says he supports civil unions but not same-sex marriage. The first problem with civil unions is that many experts believe they are outside the jurisdiction of the federal government and the federal government would have to rely on individual provinces to decide whether they want to enact civil unions. I’m no expert, but I imagine the Alberta government, for one, might have serious trouble passing a civil union law. The next problem with civil unions is there is a glaring equality problem as illustrated in the UK’s civil union legislation. In the UK, same sex couples can enter into a civil union. But they do not have equality because a church minister cannot preside over any legally binding civil union ceremony. By contrast, church ministers can and always have presided over legally binding opposite-sex marriage ceremonies. I consider this discrepancy discriminatory. We could have had the same problem in Canada. Some have argued that the government getting out of the marriage business is a solution. The idea is that only those willing to have a religious ceremony can get married (including same-sex couples). This is discriminatory against non-religious people not willing to have a religious ceremony. It relegates non-religious couples to have a civil union instead of a marriage. This is just as discriminatory as denying marriage to same-sex couples. Yet this is the position of Burlington Conservative MP Mike Wallace (http://www.marriagevote.ca/articles/wallace.html):

"My personal goal is to open up the debate and get the Government of Canada out of the marriage business. I want to leave marriage to the church organizations in Canada and the government can then create a civil union that protects all couples," Wallace said in the press release. Wallace also stated to [Kevin Flack] that "the United Church does marry gay couples in some churches in Burlington, and I am not wanting to stop this."

I have news for Mr. Wallace, the stated intent of the Harper’s December 2006 motion was expressly to repeal same-sex marriage. It said nothing about getting the government out of the business of marriage. The motion said nothing about “reopening the debate”. It simply called on the government to bring in legislation to repeal same-sex marriage but keep the government in the marriage business The idea behind the motion was expressly that the government should introduce legislation that prevents same-sex couples from having their marriage recognized by the government. The motion was not about a broad “reopening the debate” where various options could be considered. The motion was specifically meant to start the process to eliminate same-sex marriage but keep the government in the marriage business. Therefore, if Wallace was in favour of same-sex marriage, he should have voted against Harper’s motion. I also disagree very very strongly with fellow Liberals like Liberal MP John McKay who are against same-sex marriage. McKay on June 27, 2005, made this quote in the House of Commons that I think is offensive for gays and lesbians:

"It is the foundation for family formation. When marriage is degraded to simply a public declaration of one's best buddy, then the institution of marriage becomes meaningless."

McKay claims to be willing to look at civil unions. But he opposed the government’s same-sex domestic partnership benefits legislation in 2000. He previously opposed government benefits for same-sex couples. I could accept his civil union position if it weren’t for his previous opposition to other forms of gay rights. At least, by contrast, another Liberal MP in the same vicinity as McKay’s riding, Mark Holland in Ajax—Pickering, has always voted in favour of same-sex marriage.

Bad news about Bob Rae, plus some provincial Liberal candidates

2007-09-01T14:29:00.000-04:00

I have some bad news. Bob Rae has a cold and therefore his heart surgery has been delayed. No new date has been set. My concern is that Rae will still be recovering and unable to campaign when Harper calls the Toronto Centre by-election.

Almost all previously defeated Liberal candidates in the 2003 Ontario election and subsequent Ontario provincial by-elections are not running in the 2007 Ontario election. The only exceptions I know of are Helena Jaczek (general election), Sylvia Watson (Parkdale—High Park by-election), and Laura Albanese (York South—Weston by-election). All these candidates have some, but not a certain, chance of winning. Jaczek only narrowly lost to Frank Klees in Oak Ridges, but the redistributed results from the 2003 election in Oak Ridges—Markham has the Tories winning by a 9 point margin. At the same time, Oak Ridges—Markham has twice gone Liberal federally. So Helena could take it in the context of a strong Liberal majority win province-wide. Parkdale—High Park and York South—Weston could also flip back to the Liberals in the case of a large Liberal majority government.

Sylvia Watson is running again in Parkdale—High Park. She chose to relinquish her city council seat after losing last year’s by-election. Watson probably withdrew from the municipal race as soon as she entered the by-election race to avoid criticism of hedging her bets on two races. She also promised not to re-enter the municipal race should she lose the by-election. When she lost the by-election, she kept her word. I wish Watson had won the by-election. I was personally involved in her campaign. I may not agree with actual winning candidate Cheri Di Novo’s economic policies, but I do agree wholeheartedly with her liberal views on homosexuality. I will discuss this more in a future blog. Although Sylvia Watson could have technically re-entered the municipal race, it would have been difficult because her withdrawal attracted a large field of candidates vying to replace her. Her re-entry into the municipal race would have made the race extra crowded and may have posed a significant challenge to her re-election prospects. On council, Watson was a centrist who although not a steadfast David Miller ally, often voted for Miller’s policies. It is for this reason that I am perplexed to see this written about Sylvia Watson by Toronto politics commentator David Nickle (http://www.insidetoronto.ca/news/Villager/Column/article/28047):

“Even those who might have at other times run for Progressive Conservatives, like the fiscally conservative Sylvia Watson, didn't dare fly the Tory flag in this town when she took a shot at Parkdale-High Park in a byelection last year for the Liberals.”

Sylvia seems pretty Liberal to me. She was more fiscally responsible than fiscally conservative, and I don’t think she would have run for the Harris Tories. I see no evidence that Sylvia even contemplated running for the Tories.

On a closely related note, provincial affairs columnist Eric Dowd wrote this (http://www.inbusinesswindsor.com/2007Issues/August2007/queenspark.pdf):

“The Conservatives hoped to have Bas Balkissoon, a cost-conscious municipal councilor who blew whistles on waste, run for them in a by-election in Toronto and talked to him about it, but Balkissoon opted to run for the then more secure Liberals and held the riding comfortably. Another respected Toronto councilor, Sylvia Watson, as well as TV reporter Ben Chin and news anchor Laura Albanese, viewed as star catches because everyone knows their faces, also opted to run for the Liberals in by elections, although all three lost when the New Democrats surprisingly revived.”

I’m no insider, but I’d venture to guess Balkissoon turned the Tories down not only because it was easier to win in Scarborough—Rouge River as a Liberal, but equally because Balkissoon is a Liberal at heart. I also hope Dowd is not implying that Watson, Chin, and Albanese would have run for the Tories in other circumstances. There is such a thing as simply being a Liberal, regardless of how well that party happens to be doing at any given moment. That is what most Liberals are like. The David Emersons of the world are few and far between.

Men more likely to oppose gay marriage

2007-09-01T14:15:00.000-04:00

It has just occurred to me that every single Liberal MP to vote for Stephen Harper’s December 2006 motion to repeal same-sex marriage were men. In 2005, almost all of the Liberal MPs to vote against same-sex marriage were men, with only a handful of exceptions. In December 2006, all the female Liberal opponents of same-sex marriage were either no longer in Parliament or switched their vote. Speaking of that December 2006 vote, Liberal MP Glen Pearson had been sworn in that very day after winning a by-election and so was able to vote against Harper’s motion. Raymond Gravel, however, also having recently been elected in a by-election, had not been sworn in yet for some reason and was not sworn in until a few days later. I’m not sure why this is. It meant that Gravel (who was an openly gay Catholic priest) was unable to vote against Harper’s motion as he had announced he would. I don’t know why it took longer for him to be sworn in. All I can think of is that the returning officer took longer to submit the results to Parliament for some reason.

Speaking of by-elections, it has not been since 1986 that a governing party has picked up a seat previously held by an opposition party in a by-election in Ontario provincial politics. In 1986 there was a Liberal minority government. A Tory member resigned from the York East riding. In the by-election, Liberal Christine Hart won. Prior to this, the governing party picked up a seat in 1984 in Wentworth North when the Tories narrowly picked it up from the Liberals. This MPP never got a chance to actually sit in the legislature because a general election was called before the legislature met again.

Sault Ste. Marie

2007-09-01T14:12:00.000-04:00

For some reason, Milton Chan from www.electionprediction.com has changed his prediction in the riding of Sault Ste. Marie from Liberal to Too Close for the upcoming provincial election. I’m not sure why he did this. He seemed confident of a Liberal win before and I do not know what made him change it. The incumbent Liberal candidate is by far the highest profile candidate. Neither the Tories nor the NDP have chosen candidates with high name recognition. To boot, Sault Ste. Marie has a popular Liberal incumbent in David Orazietti. Orazietti defeated popular 13 year NDP incumbent Tony Martin by 8000 votes in the 2003 election. He won 57% to Martin’s 32%. In an election where the percentages for the NDP went up in most ridings, this was quite a downturn in NDP support. This was an impressive victory. Tony Martin went on to win the federal Sault Ste. Marie by 700 votes. In the 2006 election when most narrowly elected NDP incumbents won by larger margins, Martin increased his margin to only 2000 votes with the Liberals an impressive second. In 2004, I heard that the Liberals actually won the City of Sault Ste. Marie and that it was the newly added rural portion that put Martin over the top. So even at the federal level Sault Ste. Marie is only a marginal NDP seat. It is for this reason that I think for Sault. Ste. Marie to go NDP provincially, it would take a signficant Liberal meltdown. Thus I don’t understand why Milton Chan suddenly changed the riding to Too Close.

Politicians

2007-09-01T00:47:00.000-04:00

In Prince Edward—Hastings, the MPP Ernie Parsons resigned in order to become a justice of the peace. This has left the seat vacant until the general election where another MPP, Leona Drombrowsky, is going to run. Parsons applied for the JP position just like anybody else and had to go through the normal application. It was necessary to do this because Parsons had already decided to retire from politics at the end of his term. Parsons will not make a pension from his years as an MPP because Mike Harris abolished the MPPs pension. Therefore simply going into retirement may not have been an option for Parsons. It may be for this reason that he wanted to become a JP. But Parsons had to leave his old job early because the job stared in July and one cannot be a JP and MPP at the same time. I do not agree with Harris’s decision to eliminate the MPP pension. I believe politicians retiring at the normal retirement age deserve such a pension to live off of for their years of public service. Harris’s reason for eliminating the pension is because the pension was “gold plated”. I don’t know how gold plated it was, though. People need an income after retiring. Eliminating the pension simply discourages people from entering provincial politics. Instead, people may enter municipal politics which often does have a pension or federal politics which also offers a pension. Other provinces do offer pensions to their former legislature members. If such a former member goes on to become a federal MP, and are old enough to collect such a pension from the provincial government, some call this double dipping – collecting an MPs salary as well as a provincial pension. But I do not know why people refer to this negatively. I don’t see why becoming a federal MP should disqualify one from a pension for their years of service at the provincial level. Similarly, I do not know of any law that says a former MP is not eligible to collect a former MP’s pension should they go into another line of work such as politics at another level of government. For example, Carolyn Parrish is a Mississauga City Councilor. Her 12 years as an MP also entitles her to an MPs pension because she is over the age of 55. So I see no reason why she cannot collect a Councilor’s salary and an MPs pension at the same time. By the way, I met Carolyn Parrish at a talk she gave at my university shortly after she retired from federal politics. She said she wanted a seat on Mississauga City Council because otherwise she’d be bored out of her skull. Now that is a sign that she was long ago bitten by the political bug and thus for her quiet retirement is far too boring.

To collect an MP’s pension, one must have been an MP for 6 years, and for at least 2 parliamentary terms. The six years and two terms do not have to be consecutive. What this means is that one term MPs are never eligible for pensions. Here is a scenario where I am not sure whether one is eligible for a pension. Let us say someone is elected to the House of Commons. Just for fun let us imagine that she was previously a long-time municipal and then provincial politician. Yes she is a Liberal. Let us imagine that she is elected to her first term in parliament and that this parliament lasts a normal 4 years. Let us imagine that she is re-elected at the next election and serves another 2 years in parliament. After she has been a Member of Parliament for just over 6 years, she resigns her seat to spend more time with her grandchildren. Is she eligible for an MP’s pension or not. Is she eligible because she served the minimum 6 years or is she ineligible because she did not serve her full second term in parliament?

Speaking of municipal politics, there is a strange loophole in the Ontario’s municipal election’s act. It has to do with campaign surpluses. A municipal politician’s “campaign surplus” cannot be spent by the politician on anything other than future municipal campaigns. If, however, a municipal politician does not run again, the surplus goes into the coffers of the municipality. The loophole is that the surplus can be preserved for future campaigns if the politician registers as a municipal candidate but then later deregisters. This has caused more than one former municipal politician to do a strange thing – register as a candidate and then immediately deregister. They do this just in case they run again municipally some time in the future. I know of two examples when this has happened. Former Toronto City Councilor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski retired from politics in 2003. However, in 2006 he registered to run in his old ward and then immediately deregistered. He did this to keep his campaign surplus from 2000. This could mean that Korwin-Kuczynski is contemplating a municipal run in 2010. MPP Mario Racco has also done this same trick twice, as referenced in a Toronto Star correction notice(http://www.guelphmercury.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1160689838085&call_pageid=1051266777375&col=1051266777367). In 2003, while still a councilor, Racco registered to run again municipally and later deregistered because he was in fact running provincially. In January 2006 Racco again registered to run municipally and then immediately withdrew. He did this so that he can still have his campaign surplus from 2000 should he decide to run in 2010. At first I was shocked to see him register even for a moment because he is a sitting MPP. However, I later looked at the law and saw that what he did was ok. The law says that an MPP who registers to run municipally may do so, but if they have not resigned as MPP by the close of municipal nominations, they are deemed ineligible to run municipally and are automatically removed from the ballot. This means that Racco still has his campaign surplus to run in 2010. If Racco is re-elected in 2007 and decides to run municipally in 2010, we can look forward to a Thornhill by-election in late 2010/early 2011. But I do not know whether Racco would actually run in 2010. His old ward is currently held by his wife Sandra Yeung Racco. I don’t know whether she’d be willing to give her seat up for her husband. And as far as running for regional council is concerned, I do not know whether Racco has enough at-large name recognition to capture one of the 3 spots on regional council. So if Racco loses this year, running municipally in 2010 may be his only option to remain politically active. If Racco wins this year, I am doubtful he’d run in 2010 because doing so is risky. It would either mean getting his wife to not run again and risk running in his old ward or it would mean an even riskier run for regional council.

Andy Savoy was a Liberal MP from 2000 to 2006. He physically sat in Parliament from 2001 to 2005. In the 2006 election, he unexpectedly lost his seat to Conservative Mike Allen by some 200 votes. Despite this close result he is for some reason not running in the next federal election. He should consider attempting to re-enter parliament at some point so that in future he could be eligible for a pension. He served only 5 years in parliament which is less than the requisite 6 years. He would have made it to 6 years had the 38th Parliament not been so abnormally short. It occurs to me that in Ontario one possible reason we have so many MPPs not seeking re-election after only one term is because there is not a pension and therefore there is no motivation to seek a second term in order to be eligible for a pension. But this is just a guess. I know in Mary Anne Chambers’ case it was due to health. But I still hope the Liberals can win Scarborough—Guildwood.

CNE and Trinity--Spadina

2007-08-24T14:58:00.000-04:00

I recently took a day-long trip to the CNE. There was a sign that listed all of this years Ex sponsors. I saw the symbol for Ontario there but I did not see a symbol for the government of Canada. Either I missed it or somehow the federal government is not sponsoring the CNE despite the fact that CNE stands for Canadian National Exhibition. The CNE grounds are in the Trinity—Spadina riding. I want to save time so I’ll call the riding TS. TS is home to some of the most exiting and famous attractions in Toronto. These include the CNE grounds, the CN Tower, the SkyDome (Rogers Centre) and the Air Canada Centre. All these things with the exception of the CNE grounds are in very short walking distance from the Union Subway station. To get the CNE grounds from the Union Subway station, you take a streetcar. The famous Eaton Centre is also in the federal TS riding, but not yet in the provincial version of TS. Federally TS is held by New Democrat Olivia Chow. Formerly it was held by Tony Ianno. Ianno is again the Liberal candidate for TS. His motto is “Send a strong voice back to Ottawa”. Ianno has run in every federal election since and including 1988. In 1988 Ianno came within 400 votes of winning, losing to New Democrat Dan Heap. In 1993 Heap retired and Ianno scored the largest electoral victory of his political career. In 1997 Ianno won in a tight race against Olivia Chow. In 2000, Ianno won by a 9 point margin over author Michael Valpy. In 2004, Ianno scored a 800 vote victory over Olivia Chow, surprising many. In this election Ianno made a very big deal about Chow’s refusal to resign her council seat (which she had recently been elected in) when running for federal office. In 2006, Chow responded to this by resigning her council seat and stating that win or lose the election she was going to move to Ottawa to be with her husband Jack Layton. As it happened the national Liberal loss allowed Chow to win the seat although still by a fairly narrow margin. It is for this reason that the Liberals have a shot to win this seat back. But as the 1988 election proved, this can only be done if the Liberals win government. So that is one of many reasons why the Liberals must get their act together and win government. One encouraging sign for the Liberals in TS is that municipally half the riding is no longer represented by a New Democrat. The western half of the riding is represented by 20+ year incumbent Joe Pantalone. Pantalone’s sister was an elementary school principal but last year precipitated a very embarrassing, bizarre, and illegal incident at her school that is too embarrassing even to discuss. This however did not affect Joe Pantalone because after this embarrassing incident Pantalone was easily re-elected. The encouraging part for the Liberals is in the eastern end of TS. Here independent/small-l liberal candidate Adam Vaughan won against semi-official NDP candidate Helen Kennedy by a large margin. So I wish Tony Ianno luck.

The provincial level is the level at which TS is the toughest for the Liberals. Not since the 1987-1990 period have the Liberals held the predecessor to TS (Fort York). In this 1987-1990 period the Liberals also held all the other ridings that make up the modern TS (Dovercourt, Parkdale, St. Andrew-St. Patrick). Since 1990 life has been tough here for the Liberals. Since 1990 the only component riding of TS the Liberals have ever been able to win is Parkdale (which only made up 5% of TS). The PCs were third in Fort York in 1987, 1990, 1995, and third in TS in 1999 and 2003. Even in 1987, life was not the best for the Liberals in Fort York considering that even then Liberal Bob Wong only won Fort York by about 100 votes over Joe Pantalone of the NDP. In 2003, some thought the Liberals could win the riding with then-Davenport trustee Nellie Pedro. But the Liberals did not come close. This time round again the Liberals hope that they can win the riding with Kate Holloway. Holloway was until recently an active member of the Green Party of Canada. She also ran for the Green Party in the 2004 Federal Election in Scarborough—Rouge River. When Stephane Dion was elected leader of the Liberal Party, his environmental credentials caused Holloway to join the Liberals. The Liberals are hoping that an as an environmental candidate Holloway can pose a credible challenge to TS NDP incumbent Rosario Marchese. I certainly hope Holloway can win but I fear TS may be to strong an NDP riding at the provincial level for that to happen. A Holloway win would certainly bode well for Tony Ianno, however. I wish Kate luck.

Ontario Liberals

2007-08-21T11:36:00.000-04:00

I am happy about today’s Strategic Counsel poll about Ontario politics. It shows that Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals still have a chance at re-election. It was 40% for the Liberals, 35% for the PCs, 18% for the NDP, and 8% for the Greens. It is that Green support the Liberals need the most. If even one or two percent of that Green support moved to the Liberals and these numbers occurred on election day, the Liberals would have a majority government for sure. Although I can find no previous Strategic Counsel poll on Ontario politics, the Globe and Mail headline is this: “McGuinty support slips to minority status, poll finds”. I think the polls numbers have just as much a chance to produce a Liberal majority government. Remember that in 1999 Mike Harris won a majority government while only winning the popular vote by 5 points. I’ve applied the numbers to the UBC election forecaster for the upcoming Ontario election. (I made some accommodations to make the numbers fit into the projector). To make numbers add up perfectly I made it look like this: Liberal: 40.0% , PC: 34.7% , NDP : 17.7% , Other: 7.6%.

I needed those approximations to make the grid add up perfectly to 100%. Here are the seat numbers I got for those adapted numbers:

Liberal: 61
PC: 38
NDP: 8

This would be a 57% Liberal majority. However, I have to make some adjustments for things the projector does not factor in. I am giving the NDP the 3 seats it won in by-elections. I am making the assumption that John Tory wins his seat in Don Valley West (the predictor predicts this seat as a Liberal hold). I am also switching several bellwether ridings won by tiny, tiny margins by the PCs back to the Liberals because I expect them to return a Liberal should the Liberals be re-elected due to their bellwether status. Those ridings affected are Ottawa West--Nepean, Huron--Bruce, and Kitchener Centre. I also am moving Oakville back to the Liberal column because the Tories only won it by 0.3% and I expect Liberal incumbent Kevin Flynn to be re-elected should the Liberals win re-election province-wide. These changes make the seat numbers as follows:

Liberal: 61
PC: 35
NDP: 11

That would still be a 57% Liberal majority. So I’d say the Liberals are still in the game and a minority government is far from certain.

Gordon Brown and Paul Martin

2007-08-21T00:59:00.000-04:00

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is speculated to be considering calling a snap election for October. I say don’t do it. Having an election this early is always risky because the public reacts badly to unnecessary early elections – just ask David Peterson. In this case it would be even worse – an election after only two years. The public could definitely react negatively to such an early and unnecessary election. The general rule is that the possible earliest that one can voluntarily dissolve Parliament and be re-elected with a majority is 3 years and a few months into the mandate, as judged by the Canadian Liberals majority wins in 1997 and 2000 which were both 3 years and a few months into the mandate. 3 years exactly is not enough as proven by David Peterson. Imagine, thus, the disaster that could occur for Labour with an election only 2 years into the mandate. By my theory, Brown needs to wait until the fall of 2008 at the earliest for an election. Yet despite my warning there is serious talk of there being an election in the spring of 2008. But as I said, exactly 3 years into a mandate is not enough time – new Prime Minister or not. I’ve even heard of there being an election on the 1 year anniversary of Brown taking power. I assume they meant an election at this time, not a dissolution at this time. A dissolution at this time would result in an election in July or August which I think would be considered unacceptable. Election Day being held at the first anniversary of Brown taking power would also be a bad idea for a reason other than it being only 3 years into the mandate. Having an election at such a time would mean holding the election in late June. There is strong evidence that holding the 2004 Canadian election in late June reduced voter turnout. There is reason to believe the same would happen in the United Kingdom with a late June election. Lower voter turnout is bad for democracy and will not necessarily favour the incumbent government. Strangely, the UK Conservatives say that Brown should have called an election immediately after becoming Prime Minister. This is impractical for several reasons. Firstly, it would have resulted in a summer election. Secondly, it would have left no time for Brown to establish himself and his policies. Thirdly, it would have left no time for Labour to refill it’s empty electoral coffers, giving the Tories an unfair advantage. Fourthly, it would not have left time for Labour even to have an election manifesto (a terse platform). Fifthly, it would have left no time for Labour to develop an election platform. Sixthly, it would have ended MPs term in office too early. I could go on. The fact is as much as the Tories don’t like it, Gordon Brown has the exact same authority to govern as did Tony Blair – it is the way the system works. An October election is also a bad idea because it would deny the two newly elected MPs in the recent by-elections a chance to settle into their jobs. It would barely give them time to receive their first paycheck. Besides, Labour’s 10 point lead might be smaller or nonexistent by October. That’s why Brown has to stay in character and be his usual cautious self.

I am unhappy to hear that Gordon Brown’s government is considering reversing the legislation of his predecessor Tony Blair and upgrading cannabis to a Class B drug from a Class C drug. It makes no sense to reverse the legislation of a predecessor of the same party. Currently, those caught with cannabis can be theoretically be jailed but are more likely to be let off with a verbal warning. Those caught with a Class B are arrested and can face as much as 5 years in prison. I don’t think that this is how the state should treat cannabis addicts and those who possess but do not deal cannabis. The penalty should not be as severe as a Class B drug penalty, and that is why the government did the right thing in downgrading cannabis to a Class C drug. I like Gordon Brown but if he decides to make Cannabis to a Class B drug I will have to oppose him on this.

Here is a general rule I like to apply when it comes to calling elections. This is related to what I was talking about above. A head of government with a majority government should not give up their majority government by calling an election prior to governing 4 years into the current mandate. I am not generally a fan of early elections. I learned this bitter lesson the hard way with the 2004 election. That election was an early election. It resulted in a Liberal minority. This lack of a majority led to the Liberal party’s electoral defeat a year and a half later. Paul Martin should never have given up the majority government he had in 2004. He and I found that out the hard way. If Martin had to have an early election (had it occurred in an earlier month like May or April I acknowledge a Liberal majority could have been achieved despite my mistrust of early elections), he should have had earlier in the year than June. In fact, if an early election had to occur, it should have occurred prior to the 2004 Ontario budget which severely damaged the federal Liberals. Despite the fact that the sponsorship scandal had broken in February, the Liberals continued to be way ahead of the Conservatives until late May/early June. In fact, around the Mother’s Day weekend the polls showed the Liberals were looking at a new majority government. It was only once the 2004 Ontario budget was released that the federal Liberals fell behind the Tories within Ontario and nationally. So had an election been held prior to the 2004 Ontario budget, current Canadian politics might be very different. It could mean that Paul Martin could still be Prime Minister. I hypothesize that such an election timing would have resulted in a Liberal majority government. This would mean that that government would still be governing today. Contrary to what actually happened, the government would have been in no danger of falling after the sponsorship scandal’s Brault testimony. The Liberals could have used their majority to ride out that political storm and still be looking at being re-elected in 2008. So it goes without saying that words cannot describe how much I regret having an election in June 2004.

On a lighter note, the English media coverage of the Outremont by-election is almost ZERO. Nevertheless, I am still hopeful the Liberals can retain the seat.

Bob Rae, health, nominations, municipal politics

2007-08-17T21:13:00.000-04:00

I am concerned for Bob Rae because he is going to have heart surgery. After that it is supposed to take 6 weeks for him to recover. I am hoping that after that he will be recovered enough to do campaigning in the Toronto Centre by-election. I also worry myself with the wellbeing of politicians’ children, regardless of the politician’s political stripe. For example, I am deeply concerned about the serious health problems more than one of new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s children have suffered. His first child, daughter Jennifer Jane, died at the age of 10 days old of a brain hemorrhage due to her premature birth. More recently, Brown’s youngest son, James Fraser, has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. This means that Gordon Brown will likely outlive James and see another one of his children die. This is terrible. I don’t understand why these illnesses keep befalling Gordon Brown’s children. My condolences for both children.

I’d now like to do a follow-up on something I talked about previously—Niagara Falls. According to recently defeated former Niagara Falls, Ontario city alderman Selina Volpatti, as stated on her web site, Niagara Falls used to have a ward system prior to the 2003 municipal election. Why they switched to an at-large system is beyond me. Selina was the Liberal candidate for Niagara Falls in the 1999 provincial election. Being on city council was not enough to get her elected, however, and she came short by 1400 votes. The winner was Tory Bart Maves. Selina would probably be an MPP today except that for the 2003 election she apparently lost the Liberal nomination to current Liberal MPP Kim Craitor. Instead she is out of politics because she came 9th place in an 8 member at large system in the 2006 municipal election. Based on what she said on her website, she was very popular in her ward. So she’d still be a councilor now without the change in systems. So the switch to an at-large system has ended her political career. However, if she had run for one of three Regional Council seats she may have been elected.

Speaking of party nominations, I know of a way that previously Liberal, now Tory MP Wajid Khan would never have crossed the floor- if he had never been given the Liberal nomination in the first place. In 2004, Khan was unopposed for the Liberal nomination in Mississauga—Streetsville. It was when he won the nomination that Khan was given his ticket to Parliament because Mississauga—Streetsville is relatively Liberal and twice voted for Khan mainly because he was the Liberal candidate. But Mississauga—Streetsville is in my opinion the old Mississauga West. By contrast, I consider Mississauga—Erindale to be the old Mississauga Centre. In 2004, Carolyn Parrish was the incumbent for Mississauga Centre. Steve Mahoney was the incumbent for Mississauga West. But for some reason Mahoney decided to go head-to-head against Parrish for the Liberal nomination in Mississauga—Erindale. Parrish won that contest. Rightfully so, in my opinion, in that Mississauga—Streetsville has more of Mississauga West in it than does Mississauga—Erindale. I think Mahoney should have gone head-to-head for the nomination against Khan. Mahoney’s prior experience and incumbency could likely have won the nomination against Khan. Mahoney had a lot of personal popularity, so he may have been able to win Mississauga—Streetsville by a wider margin than Khan both in 2004 and 2006. If Mahoney had taken the Mississauga—Streetsville nomination, he would still be a Liberal MP today. Best of all, unlike Khan, Mahoney was pro-gay marriage. My hypothesis about the old Mississauga Centre being the new Mississauga—Erindale and the old Mississauga West being the new Mississauga—Streetsville is proven at the provincial level. Mississauga Centre incumbent Harinder Takhar is running in Mississauga—Erindale. Missisauge West incumbent Bob Delaney is running in Mississauga—Streetsville. Both are Liberals. No need to challenge each other for a nomination. Problem solved. That problem could have been solved in 2004 and Mississauga—Streetsville, instead of having an anti-gay marriage Conservative MP, would have a pro-gay marriage Liberal MP.

Cabinet shuffle

2007-08-16T23:44:00.000-04:00

Stephen Harper’s cabinet shuffle was mostly about selling the mission in Afghanistan and nothing more. Harper also moved the moderate Jim Prentice from Indian Affairs to Industry and put the more conservative Chuck Strahl into Indian Affairs. This change in Indian Affairs minister has frustrated Caledonia First Nations protestors (http://www.940news.com/nouvelles.php?cat=23&id=81574). Yet I find it strange that by contrast it seems to have pleased Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Ramsay. Look at thus quote from the article I just cited:

Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Ramsay suggested the portfolio change shows the federal government considers First Nations matters a priority.

Ramsay said he's currently writing the new minister a letter outlining some of Ontario's priorities. Working closely with the federal government to implement the recommendations of the Ipperwash inquiry and resolving land claims such as the one plaguing Caledonia are among them, he said.

"I think we have a federal government that is very concerned about the aboriginal issue and has really showed some tremendous progress in trying to move yardsticks on this file," Ramsay said.

Why does Mr. Ramsay think that causing disruption on the Caledonia file by replacing ministers mean that the federal government considers First Nations matters a priority? These are words coming from a Liberal cabinet minister. I suspect he is only saying this to try to create a smooth relationship with his new federal counterpart, Chuck Strahl, and that if it were not for this he would not have said such nice things about the disruption being caused by the replacement of the Indian Affairs Minister. The Ontario government has often been critical of the Harper government, so I am still very surprised to see such positive words coming from a minister of the Ontario government. After all there is a lot Ontario Liberals could criticize the Harper government about regarding aboriginal affairs, starting with the scrapping of the Kelowna Accord. But again I don’t think Ramsay meant those praises and I think they were only for the purposes of good diplomatic relations.

My household has been recently receiving unwanted copies of the National Post due to a promotion that we do not want. On today’s National Post paper there was an editorial about Harper’s cabinet shuffle. I was shocked to see how blatantly pro-Conservative the editorial was, heaping much undeserved praise on the Harper government. I also find it interesting that some people are connecting this cabinet shuffle with a possible future election. While the shuffle IS all about the 3 ongoing by-elections in Quebec, it is important to remember that there is a fixed election date Bill in place that means in order to get a general election we’d need a non-confidence vote. The recent SES poll showed a significant drop for the NDP. So they aren’t ready to have an election. The Liberal numbers in the SES poll are stagnant. That is not enough to want an election. The Bloc has been the Conservatives’ coalition partner ever since the government came to power. The Bloc has no reason to withdraw their support now as polls show the Bloc would either lose seats (probably some to the Liberals, maybe a couple to the Conservatives), or keep all the ones they have. Polls do not show the Bloc gaining seats so the Bloc has no incentive to withdraw their support of the government. This means an election will not come until some time next year at the absolute earliest. By then any popularity boost by this cabinet shuffle would be all forgotten anyway. Even if sometime in 2008 the Bloc for some reason withdrew its support, the Liberals might try to keep the Tories in power themselves unless their poll numbers were going through the roof. But it’s more likely the Bloc’s support of the government will last throughout 2008.

There is also talk of proroguing Parliament and having a new Throne Speech in the fall. I’m not sure if this Throne Speech would occur on September 17 when the House of Commons is scheduled to reconvene or after that. I don’t want the Throne Speech occurring in the middle of the Ontario election because this would give an unfair advantage to the provincial Tories. The problem with proroguing Parliament is that it would kill at least temporarily Bills that have not received Royal Assent. This includes some of the government’s vaunted justice Bills that have yet to pass the Senate. There is some kind of procedure to bring back killed Bills that I do not understand. But proroguing Parliament potentially delays the passage of these Bills into law, and I thought the government wanted those justice Bills to become law as soon as possible. Proroguing Parliament would also kill the unpassable Bill to scrap the gun registry and the controversial political redistribution Bill that both Quebec and Ontario are against. Several other government-introduced Bills would die, not to mention countless private members’ Bills. If they want a Throne Speech, the least they can do is wait until their vaunted Bills are passed, unless the Bills’ purported importance was being overplayed for political gain. Nevertheless, proroguing Parliament is not a decision Harper should take lightly.

Pauline Marois

2007-08-14T07:02:00.000-04:00

PQ leader Pauline Marois will run in a Quebec provincial by-election in Charlevoix. While the Liberals have already said they will not run a candidate against her, the ADQ is considering running a candidate against her. One reason she probably chose this seat is due to the Quebec political tradition of other major parties not opposing party leaders in by-elections. Otherwise it would not make sense because Charlevoix is not a safe PQ seat. The resigning PQ member won by only 6.88%. The ADQ had about 30% of the vote. A race with Marois against an ADQ candidate with no Liberal candidate would be strange. It could give the ADQ candidate a chance to win. This could in turn force Marois to resgin as leader and could bring Gilles Duceppe to Quebec City after all. I don’t know how a straight PQ-ADQ race with no Liberal candidate would look like. If all the federalist vote were to unite behind the ADQ, the ADQ could easily beat Marois. If it is more of a left-right thing, then Marois would stand a good chance if the centre/left vote united behind her. I think if the ADQ insists on running a candidate, the Liberals would be doing Marois a favour to run a candidate as well. The Liberals want to let Marois into the legislature. A PQ-ADQ race with no Liberal candidate has the significant danger of Marois being defeated and therefore in this circumstance running a Liberal candidate may be the right thing to do. Maybe ADQ leader Mario Dumont will in the end choose not run a candidate. If they do run a candidate they will receive a lot of criticism for such cruelty and it could cost them the by-election race. I say either both other parties run candidates or neither party runs candidates. The Liberals bowing out if the ADQ won’t does not exactly make sense.

The tradition of not opposing party leaders in by-elections exists federally as well but is less hard and fast. Unlike in Quebec, at the federal level the tradition does not extend to other opposition parties. What I mean by that is that at the federal level it is the tradition for the GOVERNING PARTY to not run a candidate against a leader attempting to enter parliament in a by-election. Other major opposition parties do run candidates against leaders trying to enter parliament and there is no tradition against this. On the other hand, if it’s a Prime Minister trying to enter Parliament (it can theoretically happen), I also know of no tradition that says opposition parties are not to run candidates in the by-election.

I do not consider the Conservatives to be strong followers of the tradition of the governing party not running a candidate against a party leader attempting to enter parliament in a by-election. I say this because when Green Party leader Elizabeth May ran in the London North Centre by-election last year, the Conservatives ran a candidate against her. I also strongly suspect that if someone had won the Liberal leadership race who did not have a seat in parliament, the Conservatives would have run a candidate against them in the by-election that would have occurred to get the new leader in Parliament. Of course knowing the Conservatives, they probably would not have even called that by-election until just recently, leaving this hypothetical Liberal leader unable to lead his/her party from the House of Commons.

This political tradition I have been discussing does not exist at all in Ontario at the provincial level, at least not anymore. The Liberals ran a candidate against John Tory when Tory ran in the 2005 by-election. The governing party in Ontario has also always run a candidate against Ontario Green Party leader Frank De Jong the numerous times De Jong has run in an Ontario by-election. On a side note, De Jong seems to really like hopping from riding to riding. He has run in the following places:

1988 Federal: Rosedale, Winner: David MacDonald (PC)
1990 Provincial: Ottawa East, Winner: Bernard Grandmaître (Lib)
1991 Municipal: Ottawa’s Capital Ward, Winner: Jim Watson (now Lib cabinet minister)
1993 Federal: Ottawa—Vanier, Winner: Jean-Robert Gauthier (Lib)
1995 Federal by-election: Ottawa—Vanier, Winner: Mauril Bélanger (Lib)
1995 Provincial: Nepean, Winner: John Baird (PC)
1997 Federal: Ottawa Centre, Winner: Mac Harb (Lib)
1999 Provincial: Parkdale—High Park, Winner: Gerard Kennedy (Lib)
2003 Provincial: Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey, Winner: Ernie Eves (PC)
2005 Provincial by-election: Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey, Winner: John Tory (PC)
2006 Provincial by-election: Parkdale—High Park, Winner: Cheri Di Novo (NDP)
2007 Proincial by-election: Burlington, Winner: Joyce Savoline (PC)

De Jong is relatively economically conservative and has even called for the abolition of Catholic schools. As with the federal Greens, it is for reasons like this that it is hard to tell sometimes who the Greens are splitting votes with.

The political tradition I have talked about has once actually helped a political party defeat the leader attempting to enter Parliament at the federal level. Arthur Meighen became leader of the Conservatives (again) in the early 1940s. The York South riding was supposed to be a safe Conservative seat. So the MP resigned to allow Meighen to contest the riding. The Liberals followed the political tradition and did not run a candidate against Meighen. The CCF however did run a candidate. It was a two-candidate only race. Because the Liberals ran no candidate, there was no vote splitting on the left. The result of this lack of vote splitting was that the CCF candidate was able to easily defeat Arthur Meighen in the February 1942 by-election by a large margin. This forced Meighen out of the Conservative leadership. I wonder how close the 1942 York South riding boundaries resemble the modern York South—Weston boundaries where in 2007 there was also a by-election upset won by a social democratic party (the NDP) at the provincial level. This 2007 by-election upset also took place in February. Maybe in another 65 years they can have another by-election in York South in February, but a with a Liberal winning it!

A website on gay rights

2007-08-13T23:02:00.000-04:00

Gay rights issues have been swirling in my head again. Personally I am glad that I am pro-gay marriage. I couldn’t live with myself if I were anti-gay marriage. I have come across a site created and maintained by Bill Myers from Ohio. It is called GAY RIGHTS INFO. Bill cares passionately about gay rights believes strongly in the expansion of gay rights. So he has compiled voting records of politicians in the US and around the world on gay rights issues. He also gives the status of gay rights in all US states and various other countries including Canada. Bill’s site includes a page that gives a table of voting records for all MPs in the current Canadian House of Commons, those from the 38th House of Commons, and most of those who were in the 37th House of Commons. The reason I say “most” is because the table does not include MPs like Brian Tobin who resigned mid-way through the 37th House of Commons and whose ridings were filled in a by-election. It DOES, however, include MPs such as Jean Chrétien who resigned near the end of the 37th House of Commons and whose seats were vacant at dissolution. Here is a link to the table: http://www.actwin.com/eatonohio/gay/canhoc.html

This table for the Canadian House of Commons has 16 Commons votes that Myers considers to be a “homosexual issue”. If the member voted what Myers considers to be the “pro-gay” position on the issue, they get a + sign for that vote. If the member voted what Myers considers to be the “anti-gay” position on the issue, they get a – sign for that vote. If they did not vote, they get a question mark. If they were not MPs at the time of the vote, they get an “I”. The problem with this table is that it has many flaws to it. Another feature of the table is that MPs who are outspokenly pro-gay get a + sign next to their name. MPs who are outspokenly anti-gay get a – sign next to their name. Stephen Harper has, correctly in my opinion, a – sign next to his name put there by Myers. However, there is one error among the + signs and – signs next to peoples names. There is a glaringly incorrect anti-gay – sign next to the name of Conservative MP James Moore. James Moore supports same-sex marriage and has voted for it. What’s more, look at this quote from James Moore (http://www.sodomylaws.org/world/canada/canews018.htm):

“The government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. And it is no business of any politician to even comment, let alone legislate, let alone preach, about the consenting behaviour of two adults behind closed doors,” Moore said.

“And Larry Spencer was way over the top and I think his comments were ridiculous.”

Clearly the anti-gay – sign did not belong next to James Moore’s name. Myers probably meant to put the – sign one line down next to Conservative MP Rob Moore’s name. Rob Moore is an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage. I think this is where that – sign belonged, and putting it next to James Moore’s name was a technical mistake.

But the flaws in the table go far deeper than that. Some of the issues voted on that Myers considers to be “homosexual issues” I do not consider to be homosexual issues at all. Votes on Canada’s age of consent could be argued to be a homosexual issue because none of the proposals being voted on equalized the homosexual age of consent. However, I consider the age of consent votes in question to be too specific to warrant being called a vote on “homosexual issues”. Therefore I don’t think the age of consent votes should have been included in the table. There are also two votes that have NOTHING to do with “homosexual issues”. They are a vote on a child pornography Bill and a vote on a Bill that proposed to “increase the maximum sentence for people convicted of using the internet to lure a child for sexual purposes from five years to 10.” I am appalled that these two votes are included in the table and that a vote for either Bill is considered an “anti-gay vote” and a vote against either Bill is considered a “pro-gay vote” In both cases homosexuality may be indirectly involved. However, homosexually-oriented child porn is equally as reprehensible as heterosexually-oriented child porn. So this vote should not have been included in any way in the table. The vote on the internet luring Bill should clearly also never have been included in the table.

It is also appalling how much of an emphasis Myers places on the internet luring Bill. He considers a vote for this Bill to be “anti-gay” and in some cases penalizes the most pro-gay MPs in the House very heavily for voting in favour of the internet luring Bill. For example, MPs first elected in 2006 are only graded on voting on two issues – the internet luring Bill and Harper’s motion to restore the old definition of marriage. This gives several MPs (including newly elected pro-gay NDPers) a C grade when they in fact deserve an A+. For example, Michael Ignatieff’s vote in favour of the internet luring Bill causes Ignatieff to be given only a C grade despite his outspoken support for gay rights. What’s more, Myers gives other MPs like Jack Layton, who have a perfect voting record on gay rights, an A instead of an A+ simply because they voted for the internet luring Bill. None of this is in the remotest way right. As I have explained, several MPs who have a C deserve an A+, and several with an A also deserve an A+. It makes ZERO sense to include the internet luring Bill in the table. And WHY does Myers penalize MPs so heavily for voting in favour of the internet luring Bill? This is a Bill that has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with gay rights. Just look at the age group mentioned. The Bill covers the luring of children from the ages of 5 to 10. This has nothing to do with gay rights because having gay sex with a 10 year old is EQUALLY as reprehensible as having heterosexual sex with a 10 year old. NO GAY RIGHTS ARE INVOLVED WHATSOEVER. Including this vote distorts the grades of several of the most gay-positive MPs in the House. Inquiring minds want to know why Bill Myers included the internet luring Bill in the table and why he included the age of consent votes and the child porn vote in the table.
Bill Myers says that the site will be shut down on January 1, 2008 because he no longer has time to update the site. He says all data will disappear so readers have to save the data beforehand. I plan to do just that because generally it is a very informative site. But I am baffled in particular by the child porn vote and the internet luring vote being included in the table and distorting the grades of some of the finest pro-gay MPs in the House.

Equality, Equality, Equality

2007-08-11T14:25:00.000-04:00

I was watching A Channel news and they ran a story on the fact that it is Pride Week in Simcoe County. I was happy to see that the new Mayor of Barrie, Dave Aspden, gave a speech that “emphasized the importance of equality for all community members.” (http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=648542&catname=Local+News). It is my hope that equality for Mr. Aspden includes same-sex marriage. If the previous mayor of Barrie, Rob Hamilton, had been re-elected last November, I’m not sure whether he would have given such a gay-positive speech. I say this because in the 2000 federal election, Hamilton ran for the notoriously anti-gay Canadian Alliance in Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford. Regardless, the news story featured a male same-sex couple living in Simcoe who next week will be legally married. Sadly for them and other gay people living in Simcoe County, the support of Simcoe County’s gay community by the county’s federal MPs is severely lacking. All Simcoe MPs are Conservative. All Simcoe MPs are against same-sex marriage. I say this based on their 2005 and 2006 parliamentary voting records. This is despite Simcoe’s gay community which as we can see is becoming more and more active. Thus it is shameful the lack of support local MPs are offering the gay community. It’s sad that former Simcoe North Liberal MP Paul DeVillers chose not to run again in the last election. In his absence, Simcoe North only went Conservative by 2% because of a vote split with the NDP. Had DeVillers run, his incumbency may have been enough to win again. DeVillers supported same-sex marriage way back in 1999 despite representing a conservative rural riding. If he’d run again, Simcoe County might still have one pro-gay MP. This whole thing is a shame. After all, prior to the 2004 election, two of the 3 Simcoe MPs (Paul Bonwick and Paul DeVillers) were solidly in favour of same-sex marriage, and a third (Aileen Carroll) would have come around to support it as she eventually did. It’s facts like this that make me think we never should have had the 2004 election – Paul Martin could have delayed until 2005.

All of Simcoe’s MPPs are Tory. Despite Tory leader John Tory’s pro-gay marriage position, all Simcoe MPPs have stated publicly that they are anti-gay marriage and so they are no help to Simcoe’s gay community either. This all leads to another related question. Why is Barrie still so socially and economically conservative now that it is a city of over 100,000 people?

Speaking of equality I want to discuss another equality issue. I am unhappy about the plight of Nine-year-old Lydia Houck. Here is the lowdown from the Toronto Star of August 9:

“Nine-year-old Lydia Houck was looking forward to a day of fishing, hiking and golfing when she browsed through a list of summer day camps offered near her Nova Scotia home.
But the only option that fit her interests was just for boys.
In contrast, the only all-girl camp, dubbed Glamorous Girls, offers jewelry-making and a trip to the spa for manicures and pedicures for girls aged five to 12.
Lydia says she'd rather be fishing….
"My brother and I go fishing a lot and I enjoy going outside a lot, and this camp seemed to fit that description and it was pretty much the only day camp that did."”

Government officials deny there is discrimination but listen to what Jacqueline Warwick, the co-ordinator of gender and women's studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax had to say (from the same Toronto Star article):

“Jacqueline Warwick … said there is nothing innovative about splitting boys and girls into activities that are traditionally masculine and feminine.
She said she was "astonished" that a municipal government would be behind such blatant gender stereotyping, adding that the idea of a spa day for young girls is part of a larger cultural phenomenon that ensures girls and boys fit into specific gender roles.
"I do think that there is a widespread movement to restore these very repressive, old-fashioned gender roles," said Warwick.
"This emphasis on frivolity . . . can be understood as a way of occupying girls' and women's time. They spend all their time and money on these activities. It's a way of containing women and girls into these safe stereotypes where they're not going to disrupt society."”

I agree with what Lydia and Ms. Warwick say. For Lydia, fishing is more fun than a spa. I happen to agree with her on that. Thus I think for the sake of equality Lydia should be allowed to go fishing with the boys’ camp. Other girls probably want to go fishing too.
One more thing about equality to discuss. We do need more women in politics. What we also need is to put an end to the pattern of American celebrities being arrested for drugs and drunk driving. Look what happened to Lindsay Lohan. Now she is the butt of the joke for every late-night comedian. She is but one example. How is this tied to politics? Well, I want young child actress Miley Cyrus to avoid the fate of Lindsay Lohan. Miley’s grandfather Ron Cyrus was a Democrat Kentucky politician who served 11 terms (two decades) as a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives. Miley has lived a wonderful, glamorous and privileged life, but even that life has not come without pain. Her grandpa Ron Cyrus died recently. And according to one of Miley’s song, she misses him. My condolences on the loss of Miley’s grandfather. Actors in the past have entered politics. Sadly the Hollywood actors who enter politics tend to be Republican and male. We don’t seem to get female Hollywood actors entering politics. So I think Miley Cyrus should consider a future career in politics like her grandpa. Her future career opportunities are her choice, but she would be an excellent addition to politics because she would be a much needed female addition to the actors-turned-politicians club. Her trademark show Hannah Montana is popular in Canada, so here’s a pipe dream: theoretically she could become a Canadian citizen and eventually run for the Liberals. I assume that if she were in politics she would have a similar political persuasion as her grandfather. But all of this speculation of a future political career is a little far off for now. For the time being I just want Miley to stay away from alcohol and drugs and avoid brush-ins with the law. Sadly Miley will not be able to vote in a federal election, until 2012. She will turn 18 in November 2010 but only after the midterm elections. Miley’s career decisions are hers, but the world would be a better place if Miley can give it all she’s got.

Jocelyn Coulon

2007-08-09T19:22:00.000-04:00

Outremont Liberal candidate Jocelyn Coulon has a website now. The Outremont by-election has been called but I can get very little coverage of it. However, I found an editorial in The Suburban “QUEBEC’S LARGEST ENGLISH WEEKLY NEWSPAPER”( http://thesuburban.com/content.jsp?sid=10264485391792019844135862989&ctid=1000002&cnid=1012344) that I found offensive. It was about the history of Liberal foreign policy and Jocelyn Coulon’s own foreign policies. These words from the article alone are offensive to Lester Pearson’s peacekeeping legacy that won him a Nobel prize:

“Lester Pearson’s vaunted role in developing “peacekeepers” following the Suez crisis was more a construct to protect the dignity of the British and offer them an elegant way out.”

The editorial was written from a very neo-conservative prospective on foreign policy. Its perspective appears similar in line to that of Conservative foreign policy, but is far more blatant than the federal government is in making said neo-conservative position stand out. I’m not going to go over the whole article because there are parts that I find too offensive to even repeat. But I will say that the article concludes with this:

“In this most dangerous of worlds, we hope voters in Outremont send a message to “les rouges” that the time for dilettantes and straw men is over. Outremont, on September 17 say “ca suffit” to the Liberals and M. Coulon. It’s time to end the charade.”

I can assume that they hope that Outremont voters vote something other than Liberal. However the NDP and Bloc have similar foreign policy positions to the Liberals on the issues that the article discusses. So what I think they’re really asking is that Outremont voters vote Conservative. However, a large majority of Outremont and Quebec voters do not share this editorial’s neo-conservative view on foreign policy and thus this is not a useful way of convincing Outremont voters to vote Conservative.

Amusingly, one of the article’s complaints was this:

“In continental issues, the Liberals opposed free trade and branded Brian Mulroney an American lackey.” As far as free trade is concerned, it was a contentious issue back then. The Liberals needed to take advantage of the issue as best they could and oppose Mulroney’s Free Trade Agreement due to its many potential flaws. As far as the editorial’s complaints about branding Mulroney an American lackey, what is there to complain about? It was obvious to everyone, including the media and political cartoonists, that Mulroney often did seem like an American lackey. The Liberals were Mulroney’s political opponents. They had every right to exploit that image in the same way that the Liberals now have the right to pound the Conservatives on the Afghan detainee issue. As much as the Tories hate it when the Liberals find something like the detainee issue and pound them with it, this is the Liberals’ job. As much as the Tories still pretend the Liberals have no right to criticize the Harper government, they are wrong. It is the Liberals’ right and obligation to attack the Harper government with anything they see fit that will embarrass the government. So the editorial should not be complaining about how the Liberals portrayed Mulroney. That characteristic of Mulroney was obvious and it was the Liberals’ job to remind voters of one of Mulroney’s signature traits.

By the way, the Outremont race is probably between the Liberals and the NDP. But I still find it hard to believe that such a significant threat is coming from the NDP in a Quebec riding.

Brantford

2007-08-08T22:59:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, I went to church in the city of Brantford. Complex story. Guess what I’m going to do now? You guessed it. Talk about Brantford politics. Municipally Brantford uses a ward system but elects two councilors per ward. I personally prefer the single-member ward system for municipal politics. I personally find an electoral system whereby a district elects more than one member to be strange because it involves voting for more than one candidate at the same time, and this often makes it unclear just how popular any given elected candidate is. This muddiness increases the more candidates are to be elected. For example, the City of Niagara Falls (Ontario) elects 8 councilors at large. In 2006, 8 people were elected out of a total of 26. The top vote getter received only 9 percent of the vote. This really makes it unclear how popular each of the candidates is which is why I don’t like this method of electing councilors, especially when it gets to such ridiculous numbers as 8 candidates, 8 different people electors vote for at once. Interestingly, the adjacent City of Niagara Falls, New York also uses an at large multiple councilor system of elections except there they have party primaries. Another difference in Niagara Falls New York is that every 4 years 3 councilors are elected at large for a 4 year term. Two years later, two other councilors are elected at large for a 4 year term. Thus Niagara Falls, New York has a staggered election system similar to the federal U.S. Senate electoral system.

At least when it’s two candidates per ward, as it is in Brantford, you can have some idea of how popular a candidate is. For example, in 2006 two Brantford councilors were elected with over 40% of the vote, with the second place (yet still elected) candidate in both cases in the 20s. In a two councilor per ward system, this is a symbol of great popularity.

At the provincial level and federal level Brantford is in the Brant electoral district. Provincially this electoral district is represented by popular Liberal MPP Dave Levac. Federally Brant is represented by Liberal MP Lloyd St. Amand. Sadly St. Amand doesn’t have the same personal popularity as his provincial counterpart, given that St. Amand was twice elected by only narrow margins. If the much more personally popular Jane Stewart were still around, I’d expect Brant to be a much safer Liberal seat. As it is, St Amand only has a plurality of around 500 votes over the Tory candidate. This is because the NDP candidate split the vote and almost cost the Liberals the seat. In the next election former Hamilton Mountain MP Ian Deans is going to run in Brant. My advice to the Brant voters thinking of voting NDP is to instead vote for St. Amand unless they want a Tory MP elected in Brant (who would be the first Tory MP elected in Brantford since the 1958 federal election).

The City of Brantford has made the proposal to annex small areas just outside the city that are in Brant County so that they can be developed. While Brantford Mayor Mike Hancock and Brant County Mayor Ron Eddy support this proposal, I strongly oppose it. Firstly, this proposal has met stiff opposition from the Six Nations in Brant County and the two mayors are refusing to listen properly to their concerns. Secondly, it leaves a problem of political representation. The mayors want this to take effect on January 1, 2008. This is not good because this is outside the timeline of a municipal election. They will likely redraw Brantford wards to include the new electors from Brant County. This is undemocratic because this gives these electors elected representatives who they had no opportunity to vote for or against. If they insist on going through with this thoughtless annexation plan, the least they could do would be to make it take effect in December 2010 when a new council is elected in both Brantford and Brant County. This plan also requires provincial approval and I would advise to the province not to approve this plan. There have been threats of Caledonia-style First Nations protests if this plan goes through. That alone should allow this plan to be burned.

Affected residents may also object to becoming residents of the City of Brantford. This proposal will also phase in Brantford’s higher property taxes. This is wrong. Brant County residents like their low property taxes, and should not be forced to live in much higher taxing jurisdiction of Brantford. There is no reason why development of land (if First Nations have no claim to it) cannot occur within the jurisdiction of Brant County. I want an end to this foolhardy proposal as soon as possible.

Rick Downes, NDP, minimum wage

2007-08-04T07:49:00.000-04:00

Rick Downes is the provincial NDP candidate for Kingston and the Islands. On his website, www.rickdownes.ca, there is a video of his nomination speech. It is evident from this speech and his website that he supports his party’s policy of legislating an immediate increase of Ontario’s minimum wage to 10 dollars an hour. In his nomination speech, Downes heaps much praise about the successful policies and outcomes of the recently re-elected Manitoba NDP government. However, I have a very good question to ask. Can Mr. Downes explain why his beloved Manitoba NDP government has not increased Manitoba’s minimum wage to 10 dollars an hour? Why in fact is Manitoba’s minimum wage at 8 dollars an hour, the same as Ontario’s currently is? Does even Downes beloved Manitoba NDP government realize that an immediate increase in the minimum wage would be an economically disastrous thing to do? Is the Manitoba NDP, just like the Ontario Liberals, instead taking more moderate steps to help the working poor rather than facilitating a large and crippling minimum wage jump? If so, I think Mr. Downes may be in need of some lessons from his own NDP colleagues from Manitoba.

Had Ernie Eves been re-elected in 2003, Ontario’s minimum wage would remain frozen from 1995 levels. If John Tory is elected, the minimum wage MAY continue to increase, but I cannot say for certain. Tory has mostly been vague on minimum wage policy. By electing the Liberals, the working poor living on minimum wage have been able to see a steady increase in their living wage to make up for 8 years of neglect. If re-elected, the Liberals will continue on this path, and eventually moving the minimum wage to 10 dollars an hour in a gradual manner that will not create economic shockwaves.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-08-02T06:50:00.000-04:00

Help! The Interstate 35W in Minnesota has collapsed and killed numerous innocent bystanders. Help! I have gone across that bridge many times. Granted I do not remember it, because I was less than a year old. At that time my parents and I lived there for a few months. Tragic events happen in Minnesota just as anywhere else, but Minnesota is great. When my parents and I lived there, we loved it. We lived in Bloomington which is a suburb of Minneapolis. Up until this bridge collapsed, Minneapolis-St. Paul was a great place to live. They built the biggest mall in America, aptly called Mall of America, only AFTER we had moved away from Bloomington. But even back then when we lived there in 1984 there were excellent shopping opportunities. And that is what makes Minneapolis-St. Paul so great. It is actually quite odd. Minneapolis-St. Paul is a large, burgeoning metropolis, and yet it still only has enough of a population to be given 10 Presidential Electoral Votes. So in light of what has happened, I thought I’d discuss Minnesota politics.

Democrats have long had a slight edge in Minnesota politics. This is enough so that Minnesota has voted for the Democratic nominee for President continuously in every election since 1976. It even voted for Walter Mondale’s beleaguered campaign. For the record my four favourite states in the American union are Minnesota (lived there!), New York (lived there for a good 7 years!), Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. All of these states voted for losing Presidential Democratic nominees John Kerry, Al Gore, and Michael Dukakis. These 4 are also 4 of the 8 American states that have never voted either for George W. Bush or for his father in presidential elections (we are not counting the times George H.W. Bush was on the Vice-Presidential ticket with Ronald Reagan). The other 4 states in this category are Washington State, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Hawaii. In Minnesota some people thought the state was shifting to a being a Republican state after conservative Republican Norm Coleman beat former Vice-President Walter Mondale in the 2002 federal Senate election. But this ignores the fact that Minnesota has had Republican Senators before, including during it’s glory days of being very liberal Democrat. It also ignores the fact that this election was under peculiar circumstances with the recent death of the incumbent Senator Paul Wellstone in a tragic plane crash in October 2002. But since the Coleman victory Democrats won the 2004 Presidential Election in Minnesota. In 2006, Democratic victories in Minnesota were even more resounding. The Democrats regained control of the State House. Democrat Amy Klobuchar resoundingly won the federal Senate election against incumbent federal Representative Mark Kennedy (who at one time was considered to have a chance at winning). Democrats sent a 5-3 majority House delegation to Washington, and gained control of all statewide positions except Governor and Lieutenant Governor (actually beating the incumbent Republican state Auditor by a solid 10 percentage points!). So at the moment Minnesota is a fairly Democratic state. Now Minnesota has one conservative Republican Senator, and one liberal Democrat Senator. Norm Coleman has the advantage to be re-elected in 2008, but only because he is the incumbent. If he were not running, it would be a surefire Democratic pickup.

But I don’t know what to do about the bridge collapse, the dead innocent bystanders, and the economic damage this bridge collapse is going to cause.

Supplementary to my previous blog post

2007-08-01T19:50:00.000-04:00

The by-elections have been called, but only the two in Quebec. The Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean should be able to be called for the same date of September 17 now that Michel Gauthier has resigned. Harper wants political conditions for him to improve before risking any of the by-elections in Ontario or British Columbia. Harper can't have thought Outremont to be that winnable for his party since he waited until the absolutely last day before calling the by-election. In my opinion political conditions for Harper in Quebec are not as good as he may have hoped, but still better for Harper than the Liberals would have hoped.

I have also found out that in Welland, Jody Di Bartolomeo lost the NDP nomination to Malcolm Allen in March 2007, and that is the reason Di Bartolomeo is not running for the NDP again. The NDP sometimes ends up denying the nomination to a candidate who came close in the previous election. For example, Steve McClurg came within 100 votes of winning in New Westminster-Coquitlam in the 2004 Federal Election, but in 2005 lost the nomination for the 2006 Federal Election to Dawn Black, who is now the MP for New Westminster-Coquitlam. If McClurg had won the nomination, he might well be the MP now. What happened instead is that McClurg recently became a Liberal and sought the Liberal nomination in Burnaby-New Westminster before giving up his ambition for being an MP and withdrawing.

Jody Di Bartolomeo similarly came fairly close in the last election and evidently wanted to again make an attempt to become an MP. While I wholeheartedly endorse John Maloney to win the next Federal Election in Welland, I feel a little bit sorry for Di Bartolomeo because he was denied a chance to run in the next election.

Outremont and Welland

2007-08-01T03:04:00.000-04:00

Because for certain there is a by-election coming in the riding of Outremont, I thought I’d discuss the riding of Outremont. Outremont is a multi-ethnic district in central Montreal that consists of the former City of Outremont plus some surrounding areas. Its MPs are often cabinet ministers. But this has only been the case with Liberal governments. It had Marc Lalonde as an influential cabinet minister during the Trudeau years. When Lalonde retired in 1984, the riding elected an opposition member in the 1984 general election, Liberal Lucie Pépin, by a large margin. Pépin served the next four years as a member of the Official Opposition. In the 1988 election, Pépin lost Outremont by a narrow margin to Tory Jean-Pierre Hogue. This was due to a significant vote split between the Liberals and the New Democratic Party. After this win for the Tories in Outremont, Hogue spent the next 5 years as a government backbencher. In 1993, Hogue was very badly defeated, receiving only 8.91% of the vote, losing to Martin Couchon. Couchon then spent several years in the Chrétien cabinet. As a Chrétien loyalist, Couchon did not seek re-election in 2004. He was succeeded in Outremont by Liberal Jean Lapierre, who then also became a cabinet minister (Transport) under Paul Martin. Lapierre was re-elected in the 2006 election. Although Lapierre had previously served as an opposition member from 1984 to 1992 (he left the Liberals in 1990 and joined the Bloc Quebecois, then resigned his seat in 1992 which Mulroney left vacant until the next general election), he didn’t want to serve in opposition again and quit his seat in January 2007 after serving in the opposition again for less than a year. The seat has been vacant since but Stephen Harper must call a by-election by Saturday.

I also just feel like discussing the Ontario riding of Welland. Federally, this riding is represented by Liberal John Maloney. In the next federal election, Maloney will face a Conservative candidate named Alfred Kiers who evidently is a right-wing Conservative because in 1997 he ran against Maloney as a Christian Heritage Party candidate. Maloney will also face New Democrat Malcolm Allen, who is the deputy mayor of Pelham, Ontario, as well as councilor for Pelham’s Ward One. Unfortunately for Mr. Allen, he is being parachuted into the Welland riding because Pelham is outside of the riding of Welland. He will thus lack name recognition when he runs in the riding. I am not sure why the 2006 and 2004 candidate, Jody Di Bartolomeo is not running again for the NDP considering that he came second both times and in 2006 came within less than 5% of winning the riding.

Provincially, the riding of Welland does not yet exist, but will as soon as the provincial election starts. The current equivalent provincial riding is Niagara Centre. It is represented by NDPer Peter Kormos. Kormos has been in the legislature ever since a 1988 by-election. Back then the riding was Welland-Thorold. Welland-Thorold and its successor Niagara Centre have bucked the provincial trend in every election since the 1970s with the exception of the 1990 election. After this election that the NDP won province-wide, Kormos was briefly in the Bob Rae cabinet before being thrown out of cabinet for appearing fully clothed in the Toronto Sun as a Sunshine Boy. For whatever reason this was considered a scandal by the government and it put Kormos permanently out of cabinet. This “scandal”, however, did not affect his standing with his local electorate. Thus, one can expect the new Welland riding that Kormos is running in to likely buck the provincial trend again and re-elect Kormos. The redistributed results for Welland show a weaker NDP win. The Liberals have a much stronger vote (10 points higher) in the Welland redistributed results but are still 5000 votes behind the NDP. Kormos’ opponents will be Liberal John Mastroianni, a former Welland politician who recently finished second in the race to be mayor of Welland. The Tories will run Ron Bodner, a former mayor of Port Colborne who lost his bid for re-election as mayor of Port Colborne in 2006 by almost 2000 votes. Both would like to think they could beat Kormos. As much as I’d like Mastroianni to beat Kormos, the smart money remains on Kormos being re-elected.