Barrie examiner letter to the editor

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!

Put an end to this controversy

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

I understand

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.

Outremont and Ontario Election

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

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.

Outremont

I never thought I’d say this but I am concerned that the Liberals could lose the Montreal riding of Outremont to the NDP. The NDP is running the very high-profile candidate Thomas Mulcair. Mulcair does not live in Outremont and has never represented it. However, he is high-profile because he until recently represented a Laval riding in the National Assembly for the Quebec Liberals and was previously Jean Charest’s Environment Minister. Mulcair seemed to disagree with the more right-wing aspects of Charest’s premiership such as the privatization of Mont Orford Park. When Charest tried to demote Mulcair (presumably due to these differences) to Government Service Minister, Mulcair refused this position and returned to the backbenches. In the 2007 election, he did not run again. After retiring from provincial politics, all 3 of Canada’s major federalist parties wanted him to join them and run for their respective party. Despite Mulcair’s apparent left-leaning nature, it appears even the Tories wanted him to run for them and the possibility of Mulcair being a Tory candidate was occasionally discussed. However, Mulcair opted instead to join the New Democratic Party and become Jack Layton’s Quebec lieutenant. Why he couldn’t have simply run for the Liberals instead I’m not sure. Notre-Dame-de-Grace Montreal councilor Marcel Tremblay was supposed to be the Tory candidate for the Outremont by-election. Tremblay’s ward doesn’t cover any part of Outremont but he would be high-profile because he is the Montreal mayor’s brother. The Tories apparently heavily courted Tremblay. More recently it appears that Tremblay is not running and plans to continue working on Montreal’s municipal issues. The Tories thus still have yet to announce a candidate for Outremont. The Liberals also have not announced a candidate, although it is supposed to be some kind of star candidate. Some think Dion will simply appoint a female candidate into the riding. But the Liberals have been very tight-lipped and so any speculation on who the Liberal candidate will be is merely guesswork. The Bloc recently nominated some low-profile candidate. I am currently hoping to goodness that the Liberals nominate someone who can match Mulcair’s profile. Otherwise Mulcair could actually win a Quebec riding for the NDP, something that would prove disastrous for the Liberals both short term and long term. Outremont is an Allophone and Anglophone riding that also has a significant French-speaking population. I’d also say that Outremont has a core sovereigntist vote of the mid-20% range. Keeping in mind that the NDP is a federalist party, I have difficulty seeing the BQ vote going much below 25%. I’m guessing that the NDP under Mulcair could get as much as 30% of the vote. In the previous general election the NDP got 17% in Outremont and that is bound to increase with Mulcair. If the vote splits enough, Mulcair could win with 30%. Whether the Liberals could get above that 30% and still take first place all depends on how well the Tories do and how well the Greens do. It all remains to be seen and I am frustrated that I do not know who the Liberal candidate is so that I could better evaluate Liberal chances.

More about the Senate

While it is true that the Senate is currently blocking a Senator term limit Bill, the Senate is not blocking the three justice Bills Stephen Harper is citing. These Bills have only been in the Senate for a few weeks and the Senate has not expedited them. This quote from Stephen Harper is patently false. Harper said “Our bail reforms are backed by police, prosecutors, big city mayors, the NDP and the Ontario Liberals. But not by the Liberal majority in the Senate,”. In fact the Bill in question has not been voted down by the Senate. It has, however, received only first reading in the Senate. It is not stalled at committee. The Liberals support this Bill and the Senate will pass this Bill. Parliamentary procedure on Bills is sometimes slow, even in the House of Commons on the government’s own Bills even when not at committee. The Senate simply has not had a chance to move the Bill forward to the next stages to be passed. It is just that the Senate has not gotten around to debating and passing the Bill yet. I can assure Stephen Harper that the bail reform Bill will be passed in the Senate in the fall. Saying that Liberal Senators are against this Bill is incorrect and Stephen Harper should know it.

As far as the mandatory minimum sentences Bill, the Liberal leadership opposed the Bill in the House of Commons, but I’m guessing that as with the budget it will be passed in the Senate. The third Bill that the CTV article mentions is as follows : “The blocked bills would have: Raised the age of consent from 14 to 16”. This is a Bill that the Liberals and Bloc reluctantly supported. The NDP has been split on this issue in the past but those previously opposed to raising the age of consent also reluctantly support this Bill. This Bill passed without there ever being a recorded vote. I’m guessing the Senate will get around to passing the Bill in the fall. The Bill gives a close-in-age exemption of up to four years. The opposition parties would never have agreed to this Bill otherwise. The Bill however now prohibits a 19 year old from having sex with a 14 year old. Even 20 year olds are now prohibited from having sex with 15 year olds. Some have argued that the Bill is a violation of human rights because it unduly restricts who 14 year olds and 15 year olds may choose as sex partners. The problem is that this is a side of the story that nobody really wants to hear because everyone is too caught up in the hype about supposed sexual exploitation of 14 year olds. I don’t doubt that there is some sexual exploitation that has occurred. Such sexual exploitation is already illegal, however. Proponents of this Bill have argued that somehow Canada’s current law is being used by sexual predators in the United States to come and sexually exploit 14 year old girls. The first problem with this is that luring children over the internet is already illegal and so if any sexual predator tries this they are already breaking the law. I think proponents of the Bill had the internet in mind when they were arguing that Canada’s law was being used to exploit. And I don’t doubt that there have been some who have used the current law to exploit 14 year old girls. But any of them who did it over the internet were breaking the law right off the bat. And even if they did not use the internet, the moment that there is a hint of exploitation in the relationship with the girl it becomes illegal under the current law. I do not know how many people actually come from the United States to Canada and hang around to pick up 14 year old girls and have sex with them; because that is the only way they could do it without breaking any laws. I don’t doubt there have been a few who have done this. And maybe the new law will discourage them from doing this and there will be even fewer strange men from the US hanging around trying to pick up young girls. But sadly I expect this Bill will reduce sexual exploitation by very little because those who want to sexually exploit will sadly not let the law stand in their way.

The CTV article seems to imply that the age of consent Bill was a Bill that the Ontario Provincial Liberals (of Dalton McGuinty fame) supported being passed. If the Ontario Liberals have an official position on the federal issue of age of consent its news to me. I do not know if this is what the article meant or if they were only referring to the bail and mandatory minimums reform. But if the Ontario Liberals have an official position on the age of consent issue that is outside their jurisdiction, I must have missed that.

I do not believe that Stephane Dion is as bad a leader as everybody says. I fail to understand why no one likes Stephane Dion. He is such a great guy. And as a leader he often seems to know what he is doing. For example, he reached the recent compromise on the Senate budget Bill standoff all by himself. He diffused a potential storm by allowing a free vote on the budget Bill, opening the door for Atlantic and Saskatchewan Liberal Senators to vote against the Bill but still allowing the Bill to pass the Senate. This was an excellent compromise that has allowed the Bill to pass but now be judged in the court of public opinion. It was an excellent solution and it was all done by Stephane Dion. He is a far better leader than people give him credit for. He’s even getting more effective during Question Period. I am overjoyed to see that in the last few weeks and months, the Liberals have finally been able to, on a regular basis, hold the government to account as is the Liberals’ duty as the Official Opposition. The Liberals have finally found themselves able to effectively oppose the government and effectively hold the government to account and I am overjoyed at this. And as any opposition party does this, it increases their viability as a government-in-waiting, and I’m glad to see the Liberals finally as a government-in-waiting working on being able to eventually replace the Conservatives and become the Government of Canada once more.


Sources:
http://www.news1130.com/news/national/article.jsp?content=n062269A

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070622/kyoto_budget_070622/20070622?hub=CTVNewsAt11

Farewell to Bill and Jim

Yesterday, Bill Graham announced that he would resign his House of Commons seat on July 2. Today, Jim Peterson announced that he would resign his House of Commons seat on July 12. I’m guessing that both these parliamentary veterans were asked to resign to make way for Bob Rae and Martha Hall Findlay to run in by-elections. But my concern is that the Liberals could lose one or both of these by-elections to the Conservatives. I’m particularly concerned about Willowdale, where the Conservatives got 29% to the Liberals’ 55%. In Toronto Centre I am concerned that the riding could go something other than Liberal because of continuing dislike of Bob Rae. The Liberals want all Liberal Leadership candidates to be in the House of Commons. There were initially 11 leadership candidates, 8 of which were MPs. 3 candidates, MPs Carolyn Bennett, Maurizio Bevilacqua, and Hedy Fry all dropped out prior to “Super Weekend” and all endorsed Bob Rae. MP John Godfrey was briefly in the Leadership race as well but dropped out in April 2006 before the race really started for health reasons. He did however participate in a leadership race debate in April 2006 and did well at it. It is therefore sad that after such a great start, health had to make Mr. Godfrey drop out. While I expect Godfrey could have been a great leader, he was born in December 1942. No offence to the exemplary Mr. Godfrey, but a younger leader may well have been needed to be able to take on Stephen Harper and form a future government. Not to say that Godfrey too would not have been capable of this, I’m just saying that someone younger may, I stress, may, have been a better choice. Mr. Godfrey also later endorsed Bob Rae.

There were 3 leadership candidates who were not MPs. They were Gerard Kennedy (my candidate!), Bob Rae, and Martha Hall Findlay. Kennedy is a former Ontario MPP and former Ontario education minister. Rae is a former Ontario MPP and a former NDP Ontario Premier. Rae left the NDP in 2002 over it’s rejection of free market capitalism (he referenced outgoing UK Prime Minister Tony Blair as an example of someone who has praised free markets) and over it’s lack of support for Israel. Bob Rae’s wife is Jewish. Rae is also of Jewish decent although he was raised an Anglican. Some say Rae was the first Jewish Premier of Ontario. After leaving the NDP, Rae slowly drifted his affiliation to the Liberals. In 2006, Rae decided he wanted to seek the federal Liberal leadership. He eventually lost to Stephane Dion. I followed Kennedy’s lead and endorsed Stephane Dion when Kennedy dropped out of the ballot. Rae was also an NDP MP from late 1978 to 1982 when he quit in order to become leader of the provincial NDP. The third leadership candidate who was not an MP was Martha Hall Findlay. She has never held elected office but came close to beating Belinda Stronach in 2004 when Stronach was a Conservative. In the leadership race, Hall Findlay was first to be eliminated and she endorsed Dion. Rae released his delegates and did not endorse either of the two remaining candidates, Dion and Michael Ignatieff. Ever since the leadership race has been over, the Liberals have wanted the 3 non-MP candidates to become MPs in order for there to be a stronger front against Stephen Harper’s government. But now that the next election might not be until 2009, these 3 politicians likely have started to become impatient about being on the sidelines and possibly remaining on the sidelines for a whole another 2 years before they can run in a general election. It is for this reason that I think the two retiring Liberal incumbents were asked to retire early to allow an earlier chance to get the seatless leadership candidates to enter Parliament in by-elections. Rae and Hall Findlay were already nominated in their respective ridings for the next general election. I expect that the two retiring political veterans obliged because they did not want to have to wait around another two years before being able to retire. Both Peterson and Graham announced their retirement at a time that a spring election was expected. I don’t think they were planning on the seemingly inevitable election to fizzle. Graham and Peterson likely were expecting Parliament to be dissolved this spring. I doubt either was betting on the Parliament lasting another two years as now seems probable. It is for this reason I think that both have just announced their resignation to allow for an early retirement and thus some new blood to be elected in their place.

Unfortunately this all leaves out my guy Gerard Kennedy. Under this current plan Kennedy remains on the sidelines until the next election which could be another two years. Kennedy decided to run in his old provincial riding of Parkdale-High Park against NDP incumbent Peggy Nash. I’m glad Kennedy is running there as he is just about the only one who could win this increasingly NDP riding back for the Liberals. However, this leaves Kennedy out until the next general election unless another seat opens up and Kennedy opts to run there instead. It previously seemed like a good seat for Kennedy to run in was York South-Weston. After all Kennedy represented much of the riding from 1996-1999. However this was based on the assumption that Alan Tonks (who was born in 1943) would retire. Since then Tonks has, however, committed to running again so the seat is not becoming vacated. This is on top of the fact that there are now doubts about how safe the seat is on the federal level given the recent NDP victory in the provincial York South-Weston seat. So I’m sad to say that for now my guy Gerard Kennedy is stuck out of Parliament.

Atlantic Canada and the Canadian Senate

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=37506&sc=98


http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2007/06/14/cabinet-react.html

Now that Liberal Robert Ghiz has been sworn in as PEI Premier and now that Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald has come out against the federal budget, there are no longer any pro-Harper Premiers in Atlantic Canada. I am glad that this is the case. What a spectacle this Atlantic Accord debacle has been. One of the debacle’s casualties, Bill Casey, recently did something abnormal in the House of Commons. I’m not exactly sure what happened the other day when Bill Casey initially voted for Liberal MP John Cannis’s private members’ motion on income trusts, but after the vote was held he stood up and announced that he missed the whip so much he voted the wrong way and that he meant to vote nay. How is that possible? It was so obvious that when Mr. Casey had stood up it was when the yea votes were being counted. Did he change his mind after initially voting or what happened? Somehow the House accepted his change of vote even though I thought that to change one’s vote required unanimous consent of the House. Does this mean that he personally supports the government’s income trust policy?


Even though the Green Party of PEI did relatively poorly in the recent PEI election, I recall federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May saying she was encouraged by the PEI election results. I believe the highest vote that any Green candidate received in the PEI election was 8%. Sure one could say it was a breakthrough that the Greens finished ahead of the New Democrats in popular vote, but that is likely because the Greens ran more candidates than the New Democrats. Had the New Democrats fielded a full slate and the Greens fielded the same partial slate that they did field, the New Democrats would likely have polled ahead of the Greens. Even if the Greens and New Democrats had both fielded a full slate of candidates, the New Democrats would likely have finished ahead of the Greens. I consider it likely that the Greens only finished third because they had more candidates than the New Democrats. Green Party leader Sharon Labchuk has challenged the appointment of the new Environment Minister George Webster because, as quoted in the PEI Guardian “ ‘Environment Minister George Webster is one of P.E.I.’s larger potato producers and represents the global industrialized system of agriculture that’s poisoned our air, contaminated our water and mined our soil,’ said Labchuk.
‘His appointment is a slap in the face to every Islander with nitrate-contaminated water and to every parent who fears for their children’s health and safety in the upcoming spray season.’ ” My goodness, Islanders have been farming potatoes for generations. Why does she just assume that there are lots of pesticides involved, including in the case of the Minister’s potato farming? After all, Mr. Webster has won environment awards according to the same article. Comments from the Green leader mentioned in an online CBC article are even more disturbing. This is what the article paraphrased Ms. Labchuk as saying: “Labchuk said P.E.I. needs someone who is going to work to dismantle the potato industry, not protect it. She said a better choice would have been somebody who doesn't come from a farming background.” Dismantle the potato industry, the lifeblood of PEI? Come on now. If everyone knew that this was the PEI Green Party’s position, I doubt any Green candidate would have received 2% letalone 8%.

On another topic, I’m tired of Liberal Senators defying the directives of Liberal leader Stephane Dion. There is this whole thing about Senators defying Dion and defeating the budget. It’s likely that the Senate will at least delay the passing of the Bill into the summer and make the Senate sit into the summer. However I am a bit disturbed at the Liberal leader’s inability to make Liberal Senators follow his directives. I get the feeling that it is often this way. Senators often refuse to follow the directives of their Commons leader. What else would explain how a Tory budget was defeated by the Senate in 1993 when the PCs had a majority in the Senate. Clearly some Senators then too defied their Commons leader, a seemingly common occurance. Personally I have no problem with Senators from Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan voting against the budget. But I think Dion should maybe threaten to punush any Liberal Senator outside those provinces if they vote against the budget. I don’t mean to be unfair to Senators based on what their home province is, but it is for the good of the Liberal Party that we let the budget pass and let the Atlantic Accord debacle be judged in the court of public opinion. I just feel that giving Senators from those 3 provinces an exemption from the directive to vote for the budget is a reasoable compromise to this emotional topic. I am going to assume that Conservative Senators from those 3 provinces will be like their Commons counterparts from those 3 provinces and vote for the budget. If so, the budget can still easily pass with the support of the other Liberal Senators plus the Conservative Senators. No budget amendments are possible because those would presumably be rejected in the Commons. If certain Senators move amendments at committee, hopefully those amendments can be defeated by the full Senate. The budget bill needs to be passed as quickly as possible to avoid a political crisis that could rub off badly on the Liberals. I have no problem with some delay on the budget Bill, but I want to see the Bill passed by the end of June. Barring that, the Senate needs to sit in July to get the Bill passed. I know that this is a bad budget, but that has to play out in the court of public opinion without any negative effect occuring on the Liberals. The only way to ensure this is to pass the bad budget bill.

Quebec and Jean Charest

I’m glad the Charest government survived its budget vote on Friday. The budget passed 46-44. There was one missing Liberal whom I haven’t figured out who it is. I’m glad the PQ backed off and now the tax cuts can take effect.

Speaking of the PQ, it is unfortunately true that former PQ leader André Boisclair’s sexual orientation had a negative impact on the PQ in the campaign trail. I find this odd because Quebec is supposed to be very tolerant of homosexuality. In fact it is. The only exception seems to be Quebec shock jocks. Shock jocks are radio jocks who make their career out of purposefully making inflammatory statements. Shock jocks have a propensity to exist in the United States, but I find they are even more common in Quebec. As a result, Boisclair suffered homophobic slurs against him by at least two shock jocks, one of whom is now a federal Member of Parliament. During the campaign, a shock jock used a French homophobic slur against Boisclair that I can’t remember. Then at the time of the leader’s debate Independent MP André Arthur called Mr. Boisclair a ‘p'tite fille’, a little girl, which is obviously a homophobic slur. Arthur is a former Quebec City area shock jock. It’s unfortunate that these shock jocks have to resort to personal insult. But it becomes obvious how much Boisclair’s sexual orientation negatively affected the PQ campaign.

Speaking of issues to do with sexual orientation, I want to discuss a topic that I am fascinated by – civil unions in Quebec. Since 2002, Quebec has had a civil union law. It allows two people who are both of the same sex or of opposite sexes to enter into a civil union. It gives largely the same rights as marriage. For opposite-sex couples, it gave a less legally entangling alternative to marriage. For same-sex couples, it offered them much sought-after spousal rights. The Quebec court later ruled that civil unions were not the equality needed under the Charter and immediately legalized same-sex marriage in Quebec. The civil union alternative is not available to anyone who lives in Ontario. I kind of wish Ontario offered a civil union alternative like Quebec. But I suppose marriages and common-law relationship recognition is good enough too.

I want to mention one more unique aspect of Quebec law. As in France, when a marriage between a man and woman occurs, the woman in the marriage cannot change her last name to her husband’s name. That is probably why Stéphane Dion’s wife’s name is Janine Krieber. Dion’s daughter has the double-barreled name Jeanne Krieber-Dion. For the record I can’t help but think it is sex discrimination that traditionally it is the male in an opposite-sex marriage that is expected to pass his surname to his children, but I can go on about that on another day. For now I want to just congratulate Jean Charest on being the first minority Quebec premier to survive a confidence vote in over 100 years.