If "Ifs" and "Buts" Were Candy And Nuts...

...Will Wilkinson would still be fucking clueless

In the wake of the 2008 federal election, many Canadians are concerned about the lowest rate of voter turnout in the history of Canadian confederation.

For the first time in Canadian history, voter turnout dropped below 60&. 13.8 million out of 23.4 million voters reported to cast ballots in the election, which returned Stephen Harper's Conservative government for a second term. Sadly, this is down a full million from the 2006 election.

Sad, that is, unless you're Will Wilkinson. Writing in the Ottawa Citizen, Wilkinson muses "no voters, no problem!"

"Last week's federal election was decided with the lowest levels of voter turnout in Canadian history -- about 59 per cent. But public-spirited citizens should not therefore wring their hands about the sorry state of Canadian democracy. Contrary to the folklore of democratic health, low turnout can signal social solidarity, reflect real civic virtue, and even make democracy work better."

This is, of course, nonsense. Wilkinson's justification for this absurd statement relies heavily on "if" and "but" reasoning.

"We humans are adversarial beings, easily riled by us-versus-them conflict. (Even Canadians!) Democratic politics is a wonderful way to peacefully channel social antagonism into ritual symbolic warfare. High voter turnout is as likely to reflect angry social division as it is to augur the reign of Kumbaya social cohesion.

Indeed, lower levels of turnout may suggest that voters actually trust each other more -- that fewer feel an urgent need to vote defensively, to guard against competing interests or ideologies. Is it really all that bad if a broad swath of voters, relatively happy with the status quo, sit it out from a decided lack of pique?"

Wilkinson actually suggests that lower voter turnout reflects higher rates of social trust. If one is actively seeking a means by which they can alleviate anxiety over low voter participation, this would almost seem adequate.

But those who pay attention know quite different: that a failure to participate in what is actually the easiest way to participate in the political process is a failure to care.

Those who don't plan to vote certainly aren't attending political rallies or candidate debates. And if they read about the election at all, it's more likely than not that it's simply en rote to the Sunshine Girl.

The notion that voter non-participation reflects higher rates of civic trust seems to rest on the notion that voters cannot find a preference amongst the various offered alternatives. But this would suggest a significant portion of the Canadian electorate -- 40% + -- that would need to be utterly devoid of personal values.

No one is devoid of personal values.

A more likely alternative yet is that voters aren't finding candidates who embody their values. Even this underlies a deeply-rooted problem within the political system: a lack of options in the Canadian political system.

Furthermore, Wilkinson actually suggests that a refusal to vote is a vote for the status quo. Simply not so. After all, the notion that declining to vote is a vote for the status quo would depend on the status quo being assured.

In the 2008 federal election, the status quo was far from assured. In fact, the status quo is never assured.

The numerous recounts ordered after the election show how close this election was in many ridings -- some in which the incumbent was defeated.

In such cases, only a few more ballots in favour of the incumbent -- in favour of the status quo -- could have made the difference.

Not voting is not a vote for the status quo. Not voting is a vote for nothing.

"Moreover, if you want to be civic-minded, your duty isn't to fill in ballots just to fill in ballots. You shouldn't do it in ignorance, out of emotion, or to win approval from your political friends. Your duty is to vote well -- to participate in a way that, at the very least, makes the outcome no worse.

Everybody has an incontestable and absolute right to his or her vote, but that doesn't mean it's always right to vote. Abstaining can be a way of looking after the public good, too. Not all of us have the energy, inclination, or opportunity to learn what we need to know in order to vote well. And that's OK. There's more to public-spiritedness than showing up at the polls. You can run a small business or coach a kids' hockey team with the common good in mind. That's an expression of civic virtue, too.

The virtue of opting out is especially clear once you grasp that more voting isn't necessarily better voting. Specialists in public opinion have exhaustively documented the average voter's shocking ignorance about the main issues of the day, the names of their local candidates for office, or the policies the candidates support."

Certainly, an informed voter is much better than an uninformed voter. An informed voter will make a wiser decision ten times out of ten.

But it's hard to imagine who, in this country, could not have the time or opportunity to inform themselves during election time. Election news dominates television, radio and newsprint during a campaign. The internet is inevitably abound with news about virtually any candidate or party one could wish to inform themselves about.

In order to not have the opportunity to inform oneself on an election, one would have to either be blind and deaf, or living in a uni-bomber style shack.

Frankly, Wilkinson may be right about one thing: any voter unwilling to turn off the new Metallica CD long enough to listen to news radio on the way to or from work may be doing their country a service by not voting. But that individual would still do their country a greater service by casting an informed vote on election day.

"The flakiest voters -- the ones least motivated to show up at the polls year in and year out -- also tend to be most poorly informed. So when turnout drops, it tends to leave the pool of remaining voters with an improved average level of political knowledge and policy know-how. If well-informed voters have a better picture of the candidate or party most likely to promote the general welfare, then especially high turnout can actually tilt an election away from the better choice, leaving everyone a bit worse off. And that's not very civic-minded."

This is an argument that also leads directly into the realm of elite rule. The argument raised is that, in order to make a valid political decision, one should know how government works.

But one need not know the ins-and-outs of running a Parliamentary committee in order to judge a candidate's ideas and qualifications.

"At this point in the argument, some readers will have become pretty upset. The "best informed" voters tend to be the best-educated, and therefore tend to be relatively wealthy. Doesn't this line of thinking suggest that relatively disadvantaged citizens would do us all a favour -- would do themselves a favour -- by staying home on election day? But then who will stand up for them? Who will promote their interests?

It's an excellent question, but it's based on one disproven and one unlikely assumption. The disproven assumption is that economic self-interest predicts voter behaviour. The consensus finding of political scientists is that voters -- lettered and unlettered, rich and poor -- tend to vote in good faith to promote what they see as the public good. That's good news. The unlikely assumption is that the voters who know least about politics and public policy have the means to make good decisions about which candidates and policies will best promote their interests. That doesn't compute."

True enough. But not voting doesn't support any notion of the public good. Once again, a ballot not cast is a ballot for nothing.

Even if non-voters have no opinion regarding the public good, it would be remiss to pretend that, in itself, is not a problem.

"But everyone should have the means to make informed and effective democratic decisions. And that's really the issue, isn't it? It would be ideal were each and every citizen to have the income and education typical of well-informed, motivated voters. But to get there, we need policies that will actually work to promote broader prosperity and a fuller realization of basic human capacities. A better-informed pool of voters is more likely to deliver those policies."

In other words, in order to increase voter turnout, Wilkinson argues, we would need to increase the level of education.

This isn't a bad idea. After all, as Benjamin Barber would remind us, if disagreement is the language of democracy, education provides us with the syntax. Each reasonable excuse for voter non-participation offered by Wilkinson could easily be remedied by better education in various subjects, including history and basic civics.

Twelve million voters declining to cast ballots could, in a sense, almost be argued to be a sign that more and more Canadians are embracing the most basic element of Barber's model of strong democracy -- increased self-government in the public realm.

Yet in order for this to be the case, one would expect to have witnessed a dramatic surge in membership in Civil Society Organizations -- the realm in which self-government most often occurs. Yet membership in most CSOs continues to remain restricted mostly to those most committed to their causes -- ranging from organizations like Amnesty International to the Salvation Army Church.

Many of these people are already amongst any country's most politically active citizens.

Self-government via civil society offers no remedy to non-voter anxiety.

"And so we are left with the Zen riddle of democracy: the closer a non-ideal democracy comes to maximum democratic participation, the less likely it is to adopt the means to ideal democratic participation. Lower voter turnout sets the stage for better democracy.

So, on behalf of our cherished ideals of democratic equality, let me be the first to say: well done, Canadian abstainers."

Wilkinson is a researcher for the Cato Institute in Washington, DC. The Cato Institute is think tank that favours individual liberty, free markets and small government.

But only the most fervent libertarian could look at declining voter turnout and see a victory for conservatism or the public good.

After all, declining to participate in the "ritual symbolic warfare" Wilkinson envisions essentially abandons the field of such battle to those with ideas that may prove anathema to the average libertarian.

All it would take for a few seats that would otherwise be won by pro-small government candidates to go to their statist adversaries would be for just a few too many voters accepting Wilkinson's invitation to theoretically vote for the status quo by not voting at all.

Under such circumstances, the non-vote for the status quo was actually a vote for bigger government, and -- in the wrong hands -- less of the individual freedom that the Cato Institute favours.

One wonders if Wilkinson would be willing to stand by this column if that actually turned out to be the case.

Linda Duncan Emerges Victorious in Edmonton-Strathcona

Rahim Jaffer sent packing

One of Canada's underrated political giants is out of work today, as the NDP's Linda Duncan has managed to unseat Rahim Jaffer in Edmonton-Strathcona.

"Every corner of this community tonight said they wanted a different voice for Alberta and I'm ready to give it," Duncan announced. "There will be a real load on me to speak for the alternative voice in Alberta."

At one point, Jaffer had actually delivered a victory speech while enjoying a 1,000 vote lead. Duncan closed the gap, however, and managed to emerge victorious by 400 votes.

Duncan, an environmental lawyer, will face numerous challenges in the new Parliament.

Perhaps most paramount among them will be finding a way to make the government responsive to her environmental concerns. Not only will she be dealing with a government whose views on environmental regulation her party has utterly dismissed, she'll also have to face what she has acknowledged as a jurisdictional deficit on the part of the federal government.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle is one that all pro-environment federal MPs and candidates share -- that of the Canada-wide Harmonization Accord on the Environment, in which provincial governments have been ceded the bulk of jurisdiction over environmental affairs.

The argument, in essence, is that the provincial governments are best-situated to deal with environmental concerns.

This, naturally, significantly complicates efforts to do things such as living up to Canada's Kyoto obligations.

This confronts many pro-environment candidates, as as Duncan, with a key dilemma: their efforts may bear the most productive fruit at the provincial level, yet the most logical way to institute nation-wide standards for environmental protection is through the federal Parliament.

If Linda Duncan's persuasive voice can find traction within the House of Commons, she may be able to lead the charge in renegotiating the Harmonization accord and reasserting federal leadership and jurisdiction over the environment.

If she can't, Canada's bloc of pro-environment MPs may be fighting an uphill battle.

David's Political Orchard Fails to Bloom

Orchard loses by 3,000 votes in Saskatchewan

In a development much less shocking than Michael Byers' defeat in Vancouver-Centre, David Orchard failed in his bid to unseat Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River MP Rob Clarke.

A campaign based on fear and obscure endorsements failed to pan out for Orchard.

In hindsight, maybe running on an anti-free trade, anti-nuclear platform in a riding dependent upon farming and the uranium industry wasn't the wisest choice.

At 58 years old and having never held political office -- as well as having been defeated in two Progressive Conservative leadership contests -- it's unlikely that Orchard will return.

The smart money says that the organic farmer from Borden, Saskatchewan will ride this electoral defeat into the sunset.

Then again, David Orchard has so very rarely done what the smart money suggested he would. In other words, expect to hear from David Orchard again.

Back to the Drawing Board for Michael Byers

Michael Byers fails to bring down Liberal giant

Among the official results available this evening: Michael Byers has lost his bid to enter the House of Commons, coming in third to incumbent (and victor) Liberal Hedy Fry and Conservative Lorne Mayencourt.

Fry took home just under 35% of the vote. Mayencourt slid in at second with just under 25%, and Byers claimed 22%.

It seems that Byers just wasn't able to swing voters in Vancouver Centre with his promises to shut down the tar sands and to shut down the evil private health clinics.

Byers has already blamed his electoral loss on the financial crisis.

In the end, the excuses will count for very little. Byers just isn't ready for federal politics, pure and simple. At the very least, this particular candidate -- who really has offered very little aside from ideology -- wasn't well situated to win in a riding with strong competition from a fellow left-of-centre candidate.

So it's back to the drawing board for Michael Byers. Sometimes being a self-proclaimed foreign policy expert just doesn't cut it.

Well, Stephen, I Hope That Was Worth It

Conservatives reelected with minority government

As Canada heads into the dying hours of October 14, 2008, Stephen Harper's Conservative party has claimed a second straight minority government -- the third straight minority for the country.

This is exactly what Harper predicted when he called the election, even if it isn't quite what he simply must have been hoping for.

Preliminary results -- a few races across the country will almost certainly go into recount -- have the Conservatives holding 145 seats, the Liberals with 76 and the NDP with 37. The Bloc Quebecois have 48 seats and the Green party came up empty.

Harper had to work very hard to justify this election, considering that he had to violate his own fixed election date legislation to even call it. He'll still have some work to do yet. Even Harper's stronger mandate is rather thin justification.

And Harper would, quite frankly, be foolish to even try to offer up another fixed election date law in order to pay lip service to demands for electoral reform. Canadians aren't likely to fall for that one twice.

Stephane Dion will have some very difficult questions to answer considering the defeat his party absorbed during this election. As of this writing, the Liberals have lost 26 seats.

For Jack Layton, any lingering questions about his leadership should have been dispelled by this outing for the NDP -- an additional nine seats over their 2006 total.

Gilles Duceppe and his Bloc Quebecois lost three seats in Quebec. Not quite the federalist triumph that appeared to be imminent as the election began, but still a positive result for federalism.

Harper has his government -- one stronger than the government that preceded it. One can only hope that this lesson on the current status of Canadian politics: no party clearly has the support of Canadians. Even as some commentators will trot out the myth of Canadian left-of-centre solidarity, the country is not as firmly united against Stephen Harper as some will pretend.

The coming months should be interesting, if nothing else.

Three Ridings in Three Years - An Election Day Reflection on Electoral and Partisan Homelessness

The following post is being offered as an unofficial part of an election day blogburst. As such, it's a good deal more personal than most of the posts offered here at The Nexus.

Enjoy.

One of the unique challenges for many Post Secondary Students in this country is living away from home.

For myself, since my journey in acquiring a University Education began in 2004 -- which will likely be remembered as a long year without NHL hockey -- the one thing that has remained more or less constant in my life is the presence of politics.

For those in the know, The Nexus was launched during that year in 2004 as a side project to self-publish views that may have been judged too pragmatically extreme for the University of Alberta Gateway. Over time, of course, things have changed dramatically. The Nexus has become a full-time enterprise, and stands as a testament to the omnipresence of politics in my life.

Some people have come to understand precisely what it is The Nexus stands for. Others, comically, have not.

But even before the Nexus became a semi-daily publishing blog, politics was largely inseparable from my life.

Nearly any time I spent not studying, working or sleeping was spent in the company of a close friend of mine who had moved up to Edmonton at about the same time that I had.

Our purposes in doing so were actually quite different: I was seeking a University education. My friend, however, had moved to the city in order to live on the street. By choice. As a self-avowed anarchist, he'd sworn he could never willingly pay taxes to "the system" he so vociferously opposed.

The topic of conversation, which more often than not unfolded in a Second Cup coffee shop on Whyte Avenue, almost always debated the virtues of mainstream politics -- as embodied by "the system" -- against the radical fringe politics my friend so passionately espoused.

The topics of conversation ranged numerous topics, including but not limited to: anarchism, veganism, straight edge ideology, identity politics of varying degrees, democracy, communism and punk rock.

My good friend introduced me to a dark side of Edmonton's premiere entertainment district that few people see. I was, and remain to this day, outraged by the presence of homeless teenagers -- homeless children, sometimes no older than 14 years old -- on the street. Some caught up in various drug cultures, others brave enough to resist it. Some engaging in property crime, some finding just enough to get by via (mostly) legal means.

As it turns out, more often than not, these kids were running away from abusive home environments.

But the most enraging situations dealt with kids who had been kicked out of their homes by parents unwilling to care for them. Then, to heap on a little extra abuse afterward, telling social workers their children -- whom they had cast out of their homes -- were runaways.

It was -- and remains -- an issue sufficient to offend my sense of social justice while also offending my conservative sense of family values.

After about a year of living on the Edmonton city streets, my good friend moved to Victoria, BC to try to advance his anarchist cause there. A few years ago he moved off the streets and started promoting punk rock concerts and anarchist book fairs.

It's in this regard that it seems rather ironic that my political life has developed to a point of electoral and partisan homelessness. In the past three years I've lived in three different ridings (two federally and one provincially) and voted for three different candidates from two different parties.

During the 2005/06 election, I lived in the riding of Edmonton Centre. Public outrage over the Sponsorship Scandal had given conservative-minded voters across the country an opportunity to finally ouster the Liberal party from government. I cast my ballot in support of Laurie Hawn, and helped unseat a Deputy Prime Minister from public office.

I had disliked Anne McLellan tremendously before election day. Her calls for strategic voting in the lead-up to that election came off as purely disingenuous -- merely an attempt by a desperate candidate whose party had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar to hold on to office.

When the final tally was taken, McLellan lost to Hawn by 7% of the vote in the riding.

Two years later I had moved out of my downtown apartment and into a house on the north side of Edmonton. Aside from the 45-minute bus rides to campus everyday -- only to be inevitably followed by a 45-minute bus ride home again -- I was fairly satisfied with it.

But when the 2008 provincial election was called, I found myself in a unique quandry. Faced by two parties -- the Kevin Taft-led provincial Liberals and Gary Mason-led NDP -- wholly unsuitable to actually govern, it wasn't hard to decide who I favoured as the government.

That being said, with my choice of government virtually guaranteed, I found myself voting for an opposition instead.

Considering the nature of the opposition so needed in Alberta, the choice wasn't difficult: I cast my ballot in favour of Ali Haymour, the NDP candidate in the riding.

Tom Lukaszuk, the Conservative candidate in the riding, wound up winning with a resounding 51% of the vote. Haymour managed to amass less than 10% of the vote.

It was the first time I had ever voted for a losing candidate. I was disappointed, but certainly don't regret it. A much stronger opposition very much remains on my personal provincial wish list in Alberta.

Now, later in 2008, I'm living in a house located just along the periphery of the University. My riding is now Edmonton-Strathcona, and I spent most of this election as an undecided voter. Again, while favouring the Conservative party federally, the local NDP candidate, Linda Duncan, remained a strong candidate.

In the end, it was ironically Duncan's expertise -- actually better suited to the provincial Legislature than the federal House of Commons -- that swayed my decision. Earlier today, I cast my ballot in favour of Rahim Jaffer. He may not win, but I don't expect to regret it if he doesn't.

In the end, the source of my electoral and partisan homelessness may be best described by the words of the late John Diefenbaker:

"I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledege to uphold for myself and for all mankind."

I am a Canadian. A free Canadian. Free to live where I choose, to believe as I will and support any political candidate who supports the values I judge to be most important.

I have the right to support what I believe is right, and oppose what I believe is wrong. More often than not, this requires supporting candidates from more than one political party.

This is a heritage of freedom that must be upheld for myself, for my fellow Canadian citizens, and for all mankind.

But this freedom, when exercised to its fullest, does not come cheaply. It entails embracing partisan homelessness in order to ensure that one has the freedom to do what is right.

Those unwilling to embrace that freedom need not have it held against them. After all, our system remains a party system, and may not be able to function without political parties, no matter how stifling to individual political freedom they may be.

But for the rest of us that freedom will forever remain necessary -- necessary to ensure the right thing is done, and necessary to keep the partisans honest.

Liberals Thrust, Feint to Close Out Campaign

Like the Conservatives, the Liberal party released three ads in the waning days of the 2008 federal election campaign.

Unlike the Tory ads, however, these spots don't fit so nicely into the three types of campaign ad. Instead, the Liberals have offered two clear attack ads and an attack ad dressed up to seem like an enthusiasm-themed ad.



The ad portrays ordinary Canadians explaining why they're going to vote Liberal.

"They've helped our country do great things," says one man.

"Like balancing the books," says another.

"Bringing in universal health care," adds an older lady.

"And telling Bush no way on Iraq," concludes another.

However, then the ad takes an abrupt turn away from trying to remind Canadians why they should be enthusiastic about the Liberal party and instead why they should be afraid of the Conservatives.

"The Liberals know Canada's at its best when we work together," says one man.

"Instead of being told to fend for ourselves," adds an older man, finishing the preceding man's thought.

"We don't know what's coming with our economy, but we can't just tell people to go it alone," the man says.

"Like Harper will," adds another older woman.

The ad concludes with a male narrator announcing that the Liberals are "always there for you."



The second spot, a much more blatant fear-based attack ad, is another "Harpernomics" ad.

The ad jumps from accusing Harper of being "in denial" about the economy to accusing him of planning more "Bush-style policies", "shredding our safety net".

The irony that it was Paul Martin who shredded Canada's social safety net during the early '90s recession as a deficit-fighting measure shouldn't be lost on many Canadians. Regardless, it obviously isn't mentioned in the ad.

The ad concludes by shifting abruptly to an attempt at an enthusiasm-based pitch, insisting that it will "strengthen the safety net in tough times" (despite historically having done the opposite).



The final ad features the intriguing last-minute return of the woman who narrated the Liberal attack ads of the 2004 and 2005/06 campaigns. Recently, she had been narrating ads for the NDP.

Entitled "Denial", the ad again accuses Harper of being "in denial" about the economy. The ad asserts that Harper denies there's a problem, accuses him of not caring, and insists he can't be trusted.

"Harper's turning his back on you," the ad insists.
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Ironically, the ad cites a Toronto Star headline insisting that "Harper's Tactics Mislead Canadians". Meanwhile, the Liberal campaign has resorted to flinging around predictions of a social democratic apocalypse that hasn't happened in the two and a half years in which Harper governed, and came much closer to actually happening under the Liberals than at any time under a Conservative government.

The ad also claims the Liberals have "an immediate economic action plan".

The truth is actually quite different. Dion has pledged to hold meetings to come up with a plan after taking office. What little of such a plan he's hinted at have turned out to be rather dubious.

But if there's anything the Liberal party historically hasn't done, it's allowed facts to stand in the way of fear-based campaigning.

This batch of Liberal ads clearly want to counter-brand Stephen Harper as terrifying -- a threat to Canada's social programs and unable to handle the democracy.

The fear-based theme is nothing new. They did it in 2004, tried it again in 2005/06, and unless the Conservatives somehow win a majority in this election (as it stands now, this is unlikely), they'll almost certainly do it again in the next election.

Unfortunately, these ads come at a time when the Liberals should be trying to re-brand as an economically reliable party. In order to do this, however, they would need to try and find a way to step around Conservative assertions that Dion's plan is risky.

Now that final balloting in the 2008 federal election campaign is mere hours away, it's too late for them to even try. Should their defeat be worse than what polls are currently projecting, they'll have no one but themselves to blame in this regard.

Tories Parry, Thrust to Close Out Campaign

As the final hours tick off of the 2008 federal election campaign, the battle to carry the airwaves finally begins to draw to a close.

The final three Conservative party spots break evenly down into the three categories of political ads -- an enthusiasm-themed ad, a negative-themed ad, and an attack ad.



The negative ad portrays what appears to be a worried working mother musing over her electoral choices while watching Stephane Dion give a speech on television. She's clearly concerned about the economic situation in the United States and hopes it doesn't find its way north of the border.

Her young daughter colours at the kitchen table while the woman thinks about the choices posed by Stephane Dion (at least according to the ad). Dion "promises money like it grows on trees" and "keeps pushing this carbon tax".

She can't afford more debt or taxes, she muses. She winds up concluding that Dion "just isn't worth the risk".



The second spot, entitled "A Time For Certainty", features Stephen Harper giving a relaxed but clearly urgent dissertation to the camera.

He's abandoned his famed sweater vest for his customary suit, but his top button is undone, and he isn't wearing a tie -- clearly, he doesn't want to seem entirely less than relaxed.

"In these times of global uncertainty, there are some things we need to be certain about," he says. "We need to be certain that we don't spend more than we have. We keep our budget balanced, live within our means. We need to be certain to keep inflation under control so that we keep rising prices in check. But most of all we need to be certain to keep our taxes so you and your family have more to work with."

"This isn't the time for untested theories or risky themes," he adds. "It's a time for certainty."

The spot opens with the ads titled scrawled out in what imagines may be Harper's handwriting. It concludes with his his signature written against an image of a fluttering Canadian flag. The message is very simple: Harper's message in this ad is his own, so much so that he signs off on it himself.



The third spot is an attack ad.

One after another, numerous newspaper headlines appear on the screen. Each one is torn away to reveal either another newspaper headline or Dion himself underneath. Each headline reflects the economic struggles unfolding in the United States -- troubles that are very much on the minds of Canadians as the American markets drag down the TSX.

Dion's carbon tax plan could even culminate in a trade war, according to the ad.

The ad concludes with a video image of Dion promoting his carbon tax being crumpled up before the narrator insists that Dion is "not worth the risk".

The ad also reminds Canadians that Dion has no plan for the economy (in fact, his plan is to come up with a plan after assuming office).

All three ads reflect what has become an official -- if unintended -- theme for the Conservative campaign: economic uncertainty. They're clearly hoping that Canadians will entrust the currently-fragile global economy to the Conservative party platform. Not the platform that was released so late in this campaign, but rather the platform the party has been running on all along: the one they built through two and a half years of governance.

The housewife ad and the attack ad are both counter-branding ads: trying to brand Stephane Dion as risky and worrisome for Canadians.

The "Time For Certainty" spot is the first re-branding spot of the Conservative campaign. It follows a furious pace of economy-related Liberal ads (the "Harpernomics" ads) and attempts to brand Harper as the best choice for the economy: the one that shares the priorities of Canadians and understands what they really need. It also seeks to brand him as somewhat workmanlike: a leader who will get down to work and do the job at hand, but also knows when the work week is over. More like the idyllic life that most middle- and working-class Canadians covet than the workaholic Harper is sometimes believed to be.

At the end of this campaign, Tory fortunes will have hinged on how successful the Conservatives have been in this branding tactic: reminding Canadians how worried they are about the economy, counter-branding Stephane Dion as a disaster waiting to happen, then re-branding themselves as the party best situated to deal with the crisis.

Green Shift is Michael Ignatieff's Hill to Die On

In the end, the final verdict on the carbon tax may be delivered in Etobicoke-Lakeshore

When Liberal leader Stephane Dion made what seemed to be an abrupt about-face on the issue of the carbon tax, some commentators dismissed it as a common, run of the mill flip-flop.

Those familiar to the game of politics know better. Dion's reconsideration of the carbon tax -- and the incorporation of the controversial measure into his vaunted Green Shift plan -- is a classic case of brokerage politics. In order to keep Michael Ignatieff -- who first floated the idea of a "revenue neutral" carbon tax -- firmly on board, Dion adopted Ignatieff's flagship policy plank.

But now that the carbon tax has effectively handcuffed the Liberals in the 2008 federal election campaign -- at one point pushing the party to the brink of third-party status, although it seems to have recovered -- there remain two ways to look at the implications for Michael Ignatieff.

In one sense, to those willing to overlook his proposal of the carbon tax, Ignatieff will remain very much in the game to decide who will succeed Stephane Dion as the next Liberal leader.

On the other hand, however, the unpopularity of the carbon tax proposal could be enough to erase the 5,000 vote margin by which he won Etobicoke-Lakeshore in 2006.

The similarity of Ignatieff and his Conservative opponent, Patrick Boyer, may even help sway some soft Liberal voters in the riding. Boyer has been described as "not too conservative" and Ignatieff as "not too liberal".

Boyer, meanwhile not only has experience representing the riding for the Tories, but also seniority -- he served out two terms under Brian Mulroney, whereas Ignatieff has two and a half years incumbency.

Boyer also enjoys one other advantage: he lives in the riding, whereas Ignatieff parachuted into the riding in 2006. "I know this riding. I live here," Boyer notes. "I'm not a drop-in candidate like the Liberal."

"I live 15 minutes from this riding. I come in by subway," Ignatieff responded.

A Boyer victory seems a real possibility as election day approaches.

Should Ignatieff go down in defeat in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, the carbon tax will be far from the only reason it happens. However, it will certainly be a factor, and it will be hard to look at an Ignatieff defeat as anything other than a verdict on the carbon tax.

Accusations of Racism and Disappearing Ads

A few days ago, the Liberal party produced a new campaign ad, entitled "Harper and New Canadians".

When a party, like the Liberals, have found accusations of racism to be their political bread and butter for the better part of the last 20 years, it would probably be unreasonable to think that they wouldn't jump at an opportunity to do it again.

Thus, this particular spot -- interestingly coming weeks after the infamous comments were uttered in the first place.

The ad itself was released on October 9th. As of October 13th, it's marked as "no longer available" on the Liberal party's YouTube page, making one wonder what happened in the interim days in order to necessitate its removal. Interestingly enough, the ad is actually available via YouTube's search function.

The attack ad deals with the comments of Lee Richardson, a Conservative candidate in Calgary who surmised that a significant portion of crime in his riding was being committed by immigrants -- more specifically, refugees. Richardson would later clarify his comments as being based on anecdotal evidence collected in the course of interactions with his constituents.

The spot quotes Richardson as saying that "Refugees are 'troubled people' who 'take advantage' of those trying to help them. 'Look at who's committing these crimes,' he says. 'They're not the kind that grew up next door'."

Once again, as with a previous ad targeting Gerry Ritz, Richardson is described not as a colleague of Harper's, but rather as a "crony".

Clearly, the intent of the ad is to counter-brand the Conservatives as racist and anti-immigrant. The Conservatives have previously sought to brand themselves as immigrant friendly with an ad released at the start of the election campaign.

Naturally, the ad doesn't bother to take note of the Liberal party's own experience with racial issues in the course of this election -- such as the controversy surrounding Simon Bedard who had suggested that lethal force should have been used to settle the Oka crisis and the "disappearance" of the victims of that force.

Perhaps its because the ad opens that racial Pandora's Box -- the very box the Liberals have rarely hesitated to open before -- on which the Liberals are very vulnerable indeed that they decided to have it pulled from the YouTube page.

Why Can't Elizabeth May Just Be Honest With Canadians?

Elizabeth May caught red-tongued again

Yesterday, with polls predicting another Conservative minority government, Green party leader Elizabeth May made a pro-strategic voting sales pitch to left of centre Canadians.

"There's no question that there are some ridings where you might say to vote green you ought to vote NDP to stop a Conservative from winning, and in some ridings you might want to vote Liberal to stop a Conservative from winning," May said.

Moreover, May even knows where these ridings are. "It would be maybe 20 per cent of ridings in the country where that's even a factor, and mostly in Ontario," she added.

For her own part, Valerie Powell, the Green party candidate in Simcoe North, is not amused. "I think she's muddying the waters," she said. "I think she's the best prime minister, and we have to keep working hard as Greens to make sure we have as many MPs as possible."

"I love Valerie and I read her full quotes and they weren't harsh or unfair. She's right, life would be simpler if I acted like [NDP Leader] Jack Layton and didn't care if Stephen Harper formed government again," May retorted. "Life would be simpler if I were a complete hypocrite like Jack Layton and pretended I cared about the climate when all of his strategy makes his own personal success more important than survival of the climate and decent climate policy."

"I'm just not that person."

Which is true. Elizabeth May is the person who hatched a deal to allow Liberal leader Stephane Dion, the former Environment Minister whose job it was to implement Kyoto -- on behalf of the party that signed and ratified Kyoto -- but never got out of the blocks, to run unopposed by a Green party candidate in his riding.

She's that person.

Today, however, Elizabeth May is being dishonest with Canadians yet again, as she denies that she's never encouraged Green party supporters to vote for the NDP or Liberals in order to block a renewed Harper government.

Considering that her own comments and her deal hatched with Stephane Dion -- which would leave Green party supporters in St Laurent-Cartierville with no Green party candidate to vote for and the Green party-endorsed Liberal leader in their stead -- are rather contradictory, Elizabeth May has to have very little respect for the intelligence of Canadians in order to make this claim.

"Being honest with the voters, I acknowledge that there is concern over vote-splitting in a small number of ridings. But I am not going to say 'vote Liberal here, vote NDP there,'" May insisted later Sunday.

Which is actually being dishonest with voters. Certainly, May might not have come out and explicitly said to vote for those parties, but she has repeatedly urged strategic voting to defeat the Conservatives, which would entail voting for those two parties.

So Elizabeth May's tao of strategic voting seems to work one of two ways: either all voters -- Green party voters included -- should vote strategically in order to defeat the Conservative party, or only Liberal and NDP voters should.

The latter, of course, would make May every bit as hypocritical as she accuses Jack Layton of being -- putting her own party's success ahead of what she claims is the country's well-being.

May already is "that person" -- a foul hypocrite who keeps trying to twist the truth to her own ends, all the while expecting Canadians to simply not catch on to her protracted double-speak, and so unable to simply admit it that the most potent response she can offer to erstwhile ally's attempts to poach her voters is that she "strongly disagrees" with it.

Sadly, even Valerie Powell herself is peddling May's most recent dishonesty.

It's just another reason why Canada will be fortunate indeed when Peter MacKay defeats Elizabeth May tomorrow and sends her back to the dishonesty drawing board.

Mission: Gatineau

NDP determined to add to their Quebec caucus of one

The NDP's deputy leader, Thomas Mulcair, believes the party is on the cusp of a Quebec breakthrough -- perhaps eight to 12 ridings.

They believe they can do this by courting soft social democratic Bloc Quebecois votes in numerous ridings, including Gatineau.

In fact, Mulcair has looked to his own seemingly-unlikely triumph in Outremont as the measuring stick for potential success there. “Your numbers are almost identical to mine,” Mulcair recently told Francoise Boivin, the NDP's candidate there.

Boivin herself is optimistic about her prospects for victory over Bloc Quebecois incumbent Richard Nadeau, and she has her list of priorities for the riding.

“We need doctors in Gatineau, and it’s more urgent than anywhere else in Quebec. The NDP’s platform is heavy on promises to improve healthcare, and train more doctors."

“People want change,” she said. “We’re a people-oriented party. With the economy taking a turn, they need a party with people at the centre.”

“We seem to draw from every sector in the region,” she added. “It used to be easy because you would look at the map and say, ‘this part is Liberal,’ but this time, my team is having great difficulty because we have to go everywhere. It’s very, very encouraging.”

Jack Layton has also spent his own fair share of time in Gatineau -- launching his party's campaign there -- and has campaigned relentlessly in Quebec.

Layton has framed his campaign in Quebec as being not only about the future of his party, but about the future of social democracy in Quebec and across Canada.

"I have had the dream of building a New Democratic movement in Quebec for a very, very long time,” Layton has remarked. “And I guess it's because I was born not all that far from here and raised here in Montreal that I have a sense that right now people want to move beyond the old debates and Quebeckers want to participate in a movement for change right across the country.”

Which is one of the reasons why a victory in Gatineau is so pivotal for the NDP. But don't expect Richard Nadeau to concede the fight easily. The four-way split of the federalist vote in Gatineau and Nadeau's strong family ties to separatism in the riding have amassed him a healthy lead amongst decided voters.

And Layton, Mulcair and Boivin can hardly expect the Liberal party to follow Stephen Harper's Andre Arthur example and take one for the federalist team in the name of blocking a separatist candidate.

If the NDP does, indeed, achieve their Quebec breakthrough, it will prove to be a boon for Canadian unity. Gatineau is as good a place as any to start that, but the success of the NDP enterprise is far from assured.

Stephane Dion is Not a Quitter

But his prospects of continuing leadership are not for him to decide

In what some may consider to be a bit of a bombshell, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that he doesn't expect his leadership to endure a loss in the 2008 federal election.

"I'm running to win this election. If I don't win this election, I'm sure my party will look for another leader," Harper mused.

Stephane Dion, however, has very different ideas about his tenure as Liberal leader should he fail to become Prime Minister on October 14.

"Well he's a quitter; I'm not," Dion announced. "I will never quit. I will stay for my country. But I am working hard now. We are working for a victory. For a progressive government. This is what is at stake."

"I am the leader. I am the leader. And I am working to win. I am not a quitter."

Of course, with strong potential successors -- in the form of Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff -- waiting in the wings to take over from Dion, and many Liberals remaining quite eager to hand either man the keys to the party station wagon, Dion would be remiss to assume that just because he wants to stay on as leader he will stay on as leader.

Dion may find himself in the same position as his Green party compatriot Elizabeth May -- having assured a breakthrough under his leadership, and unable to deliver. Just as Elizabeth May's leadership is unlikely to survive her impending electoral defeat with her leadership intact -- she's already announced she won't seek to substitute herself for any Green candidate who does win a seat, likely understanding that the NDP and Conservatives may decide not to extend leader's courtesy to her under such circumstances -- Dion is equally unlikely to accomplish this feat.

If Dion and May each find their leaderships terminated, the great many Liberals and Greens who opposed their alliance of convenience will likely shed few tears over their respective fates.

Stephane Dion may not be a quitter, but that doesn't mean he won't be fired if he loses this election.

What Lies Ahead for Elizabeth May?

May's Central Nova -- and continuing leadership -- prospects looking dim

With balloting in the 2008 federal election to begin in mere days, Elizabeth May has to be looking at her decision to gamble in running against Conservative deputy leader Peter MacKay with some regret.

The most recent polls taken in Central Nova find Peter MacKay comfortably sitting on 39% of the vote in the riding. May, sweeping up some portion of Liberal voters, is currently contesting second place in the riding with the NDP. Louise Lorefice, the NDP candidate, narrowly trails May, 19 to 22 per cent.

With many observers thinking the 2008 election just may turn out to be the year that the Green party breaks through and wins some seats in Canada's parliament -- the convenient defection of former Liberal MP Blair Wilson to the Greens doesn't count -- one has to wonder what this might do to May's leadership prospects.

After all, the general convention in Canadian politics is that a party leader must hold a seat in parliament. And while some leaders -- such as Preston Manning and Lucien Bouchard -- have, in the recent past, rejected this convention, May might not find herself in the comfortable position that Manning and Bouchard found themselves in.

When Manning and Bouchard declined to seek election as their party's representative in parliament -- in favour of Deborah Grey and current Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, respectively -- they had their party firmly behind them in that decision.

Of course, there does remain one important distinction between the two situations: Duceppe and Grey won their seats in by-elections. And while Manning himself did survive one general election defeat -- at the hands of Joe Clark -- as leader of the Reform party, a different internal dynamic tends to apply after a party wins its first seat in a by-election.

May herself has already proven herself unable to grasp the differences in these dynamics. For example, she continues to refer to her agreement with Stephane Dion as "leader's courtesy", despite the fact that leader's courtesy has never actually been exercised during a general election. This is a tradition generally reserved for by-elections in which a newly-selected party leader seeks entrance into the House of Commons in place of a previously-elected compatriot.

If Elizabeth May's facetious "leader's courtesy" gambit in Central Nova fails to pay off, she may find the chickens discontented over her decision coming home to roost.

More interestingly yet, if May does find her leadership of the Green party terminated over the gamble, a successive Green party leader may find their way into the house to be quite perilous, even if the Green party manages to elect a member.

After all, one has to imagine that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NDP leader Jack Layton may not be so eager to exercise the "leader's courtesy" that May declined to extend -- or even offer -- to them.

After all in politics, as in life, turnabout is fair play.

Whatever lies ahead for Elizabeth May, it would seem that being seated as the newly elected MP from Central Nova -- and maritime giant killer -- is not it.

If Stephane Dion Were An Angrier Man...

Would this:



Have sounded more like this?



In all fairness, it isn't a very fair comparison.

But the question -- despite what what some commentators have insisted was actually quite simple:

What would Stephane Dion, as Prime Minister, have done to confront the emerging economic mess that Stephen Harper has not done?

We've already seen that Dion, like any other politician, has a tendency to dodge questions he doesn't want to answer.

It isn't too hard to figure out what's going on here: Dion doesn't want to answer this question because he recognizes the limitations on the powers of the Prime Minister to fix an economic crisis that has been born and bred in the United States, just as he doesn't want to answer questions about his post-Green Shift plan because it inevitably entails a tax hike on Canadian citizens.

It's no different than any other politician. Sometimes candor simply isn't worth the political price one will pay.

Then again, sometimes a non-answer is just as revealing as an answer.

Lil' Harper: Pro-Ice Cream

Speaking of New Lows...

David Orchard targets the RCMP for partisan gain

When Gerry Ritz's extremely outrageous comments regarding the listeria outbreak became public, the Liberal party released an attack ad denouncing it as "a new low".

Now, with a micro-scandal emerging in which it has been alleged that uniformed RCMP officers have been lending a helping hand to Rob Clarke, the Conservative incumbent in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River, David Orchard, the Liberal candidate in that riding, has taken aim at the RCMP.

"It's completely unnecessary in a democracy for the national police force to be using its vehicles, openly, on the main street of a town, to drop off signs for a candidate," Orchard lamented. "It's a gesture of intimidation. It's frightening and unacceptable."

Only David Orchard could look at an off-duty RCMP officer delivering campaign signs and equate it with the popular cliche of a Texan Sheriff busting out people's tail lights. The Liberal party actually takes the intellectual dishonesty a step further, accusing the Conservative party of "abusing police resources".

If Orchard and the Liberals had merely denounced it as "unprofessional", they'd be right on the mark.

Of course, no one expects to hear Orchard or his party surmising that, considering that Clarke formerly commanded the RCMP detachment in nearby Spiritwood, Saskatchewan, this is simply a case of an RCMP officer helping out a political candidate he supports. Moreover, one he almost certainly knows personally.

The officer in question shouldn't have been delivering signs in uniform. Nor should they have been using a marked RCMP pickup in order to do it.

But for David Orchard and the Liberal party to try to use the RCMP in order to fear monger its way to an electoral victory is beyond shameful.

For Orchard, this ranks right up there with him comparing Canadian Forces in Afghanistan to slave traders.

It's a new low. One may wonder precisely how much lower Orchard could sink yet.

Maybe for his next act Orchard's going to suggest that his door-knockers are being Rodney Kinged. Given his own recent experience with door-knocking perhaps Orchard's colleague Garth Turner could help set that one up.

Copyright? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Copyright! Redux

In the course of a federal election in which the Liberal party has accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of plagiarism on two different occasions -- one justified and another not so much -- it may seem interesting to find the Liberal party blatantly copying Apple Computer's popular (Mac/PC) advertising scheme.

Coming via YouTube, Ian Sutherland -- the Liberal candidate in the much-beleaguered West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky riding -- posts the following three ads.

The first focuses on Stephane Dion's Green Shift plan:



The second focuses on childcare:



And the third digs up the same-sex marriage issue:



In each case, the message essentially copies Apple's: the Conservative party (Sutherland's stand-in for the PC) is outdated and backward, while the Liberal party (Sutherland's stand-in for the Mac) is forward looking, progressive, and more advanced.

Of course, the spots hit a few major snags: first off, the Liberal portrayed in the ad is no Justin Long.

Secondly, the Royal Canadian Air Farce already did this, and did it much better.

Thirdly, each video ends by noting it's been authorized by the official agent of Ian Sutherland.

If this is true, then these videos are official campaign material, and Sutherland's campaign has violated Apple's copyright on this particular advertising scheme. Even the music itself is lifted directly from the Apple ads.

This while Green Shift Inc still fights to force the Liberal party to recognize its registered trademark.

It would seem that West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky has produced yet another campaign gaffe for yet another party, making this riding one of the real wild cards in the 2008 federal election.

Jack Layton Talks (With Chalk!)

In a pair of new campaign ads released today, "Jack Layton and the NDP" hit back at both the Liberals whom they hope to supplant as the Official Opposition, and the Conservatives whom they want to prevent from winning a majority government.

These two spots may be the most creative of all the ads released during this election campaign (at the very least, they give the Conservatives' "Dion gamble" ads a run for their money). They feature Jack Layton delivering a short message while animated chalk figures appearing (likely quite strategically) on the right side of the screen.

The first spot addresses the economy, and stars Stephen Harper bequeathing a gift of $50 billion to a corporate boardroom:



The board members celebrate as Harper deposits a bag stuffed with cash on their table.

The image then pops out of view, and is replaced by a hypothetical Prime Minister Jack Layton holding the same bag -- this time clearly marked "Canadian $" -- aloft, while he explains his campaign priorities: Jobs and Training, Doctors and Nurses, Medication, and Childcare.

A kitchen table with a family of four seated at it appear below the list of Layton's priorities, rejoicing while Layton looks on approvingly.

"For strong leadership, on the side of everyday families like yours, vote New Democrat," Layton promises.

In terms of branding and counter-branding, this ad is nothing new for the NDP campaign: it brands the NDP as the party of "everyday families", and counter-brands the Conservatives of the party as the "other" -- money-grubbing corporations.

The second ad addresses leadership:



This spot begins with Layton noting that "most Canadians don't want to see Mr Harper in power," and plays up the ABC -- Anyone But Conservative -- angle that has emerged not only during this election, but also in the two elections preceding it.

The ad then weighs two alternatives: Stephane Dion and alleged impending Liberal infighting, or Jack Layton.

(Of course Dion and the Liberals would more likely pat themselves on the back and get down to the business of governing if they managed to win this election, as opposed to embarking on two years of bitter infighting in the wake of an electoral victory, but this spoils the premise of the ad, so one cannot expect the NDP to mention this.)

The goal of the ad, once again, is obvious: to brand Layton as a strong leader while counter-branding Stephane Dion as a weak leader, unable to plan a proper electoral campaign or control his party afterward -- that is, if he remains party leader at all.

But beyond this, however, the two spots have a rather ingenious thematic premise to them.

The virtues of the NDP are treated as being so basic and so sensical that they don't necessarily rely on protracted theorizing to support them. Rather the ideas themselves are so fundamentally simple that they can be explained in the simplistic language of cartoon doodles.

Even while they take an aggressive stand against the opposition, these NDP ads are so utterly disarming that most viewers may be challenged to recognize them for what they really are: primarily negative ads, with a brief positive message sprinkled in at the end -- the very kind of ad that has become customary for the NDP.

Liberals Picking a Water Fight

With the Liberals nearly out of contention to win the 2008 federal election, they find themselves in a very precarious position: unable to form the next government, and possibly at risk of being supplanted as the Official Opposition by the NDP.

Of course it wouldn't do to look as if they're simply throwing in the towel and fighting for second place. So while the Liberal party's newest ad focuses mostly on the NDP, it also takes its obligatory shot at the Tories.

Entitled "The Choice on Canada's Water", the spot promises that a Liberal government would protect Canada's drinking water, clean up Canadian water ways and ban bulk exports of fresh water.

The party notes that Prime Minister Stephen Harper refuses to ban bulk exports of fresh water, but then actually claims that the NDP is worse yet, noting that as Quebec's Minister of the Environment Mulcair once advocated the export of Canadian water "for profit".

The ad, which features a fairly benign collection of images of running water, concludes by imploring voters to "help protect Canada's water" by voting Liberal.

The spot in question clearly has three goals: to brand the Liberal party as the party that will protect "Canada's water" -- clearly asserting its claim to environmental leadership -- counter-branding the NDP as the party that will "sell out" Canada's water supply, and counter-branding the Conservatives as the party that just plain doesn't care.

The ad asserts oer and over again that the water Thomas Mulcair would export is "Canada's water". Canadians own it, and only Canadians should enjoy the benefits of it.

However, this ad seeks to play to the ignorance of Canadian voter in terms of water and ownership issues. After all, international law actually holds that no country can actually "own" water -- they can merely own the bodies of water in which it collects and the rivers and streams through which it flows.

The ad also neglects to mention that Mulcair advocated the consideration of water exports while serving in a Liberal government -- a fact that may lead voters to question the sincerity of the Liberals' professed opposition to water exports.

This is before one even considers the fact that the Mulcair speech in question -- conveniently provided by the Liberals themselves -- make numerous references to the necessity of proper management, and insist that export of water should only be considered under favourable conditions.

The ad features one other striking difference between it and the previous Liberal spots: a new announcer. This very well could be a bid to try to distance themselves from the frantic and desperate tone the narrator of the past two English-language Liberal ads took.

But it's hard to look at the Liberals' now-solidified shift toward attacking the NDP as anything other than an attempt to stave off third-party status in the next parliament.