The Scandal Machine Backfires: Sask NDP Admits to Electioneering on Voting Day

When the NDP issued this press release, one can imagine the reaction they hoped to elicit was one of outrage.

Instead, they've drawn attention to what seems like a potential violation of Elections law. The press release, which claims that Saskatchewan Party staffers, including Deputy Chief of Staff to Premier Brad Wall Terri Harris, was issued on November 7, 2011. It claimed that the staffers had been spotted removing NDP door-hangers mere moments after they had been placed:

"The Sask Party operatives were removing NDP literature which helped the senior renters know where and when to vote, and offering rides to voters in the bad weather.

'I think she’s seen me,' said Rogochewsky upon being spotted by NDP team members, who had already noticed that literature seemed to be disappearing from doorknobs minutes after it was placed there."

The problem for the NDP is obvious. It's illegal to campaign on election day, and if they're in a seniors' apartment complex anywhere in the province hanging partisan material on door knobs, they're in violation of the elections act.

Certainly, it's awfully nice of them to offer rides to seniors. They can quite easily do that without leaving partisan material behind.

Any Saskatchewan Party staffers encountering the NDP leaving such material behind are certainly not obligated to allow the NDP to break the rules to the Saskatchewan Party's disadvantage. This is, of course, presuming that what the NDP claims is happening at all.

Considering that the NDP were already lying to the people of Saskatchewan before the writ was even dropped, they'll need some evidence. There's no reason to simply take their word for it.

If You Want to Do Better, Mr Lingenfelter, Apologize

Lingenfelter pretends to shy away from negative campaigning

During the Saskatchewan leaders' debate last night, many people noted that there was a noticeable lack of some of the staples of political debates. The leaders seemed to entirely decline the talk over each other, and mostly stuck to promoting their own policy ideas to the people of Saskatchewan.

NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter insisted that, for his part, it's been a deliberate campaign tactic.

"I watched the Ontario election and less than 50 per cent of the people came out to vote," Lingenfelter said. "I think part of it was because of all the negativity — negative ads, personal attack ads. Maybe I can change that. I'm going to try."

Good. If Lingenfelter is going to try to be the politician who disavows negative campaigning, he can start by apologizing for the dishonest ad in which the NDP fabricated a quote by Premier Brad Wall.

His party eventually replaced the ad, but they've never apologized for it. They've accused the Saskatchewan Party of being "childish" in objecting to the ad, but they've never apologized.

So now Dwain Lingenfelter knows what he must do: apologize for his party producing a campaign ad that was a blatant lie, and promise to never do it again.

NDP Response to Saskatchewan Party Ad "Childish"?

Prior to the beginning of the 2011 Saskatchewan election, the NDP released an ad that featured a fabricated quote, portrayed as from Saskatchewan Party leader (and Premier) Brad Wall.

When challenged over the blatantly deceitful ad, NDP House Leader Kevin Yates dismissed the Saskatchewan Party's complaints over the ad as "childish".

Now, the Saskatchewan Party is running an ad the NDP insists is untrue.

The ad notes that Nexen, the oil company NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter worked for, moved its head office to Calgary, and insists Lingenfelter did it.

Then-Nexen CEO Charlie Fischer insists that Lingenfelter didn't make the decision to move Nexen's head office to Calgary. But as it turns out, Lingenfelter was still involved.

To move the Nexen head office to Calgary required repeal of the Wascana Act, which stipulated that the head office of the company had to remain located in Saskatchewan. Wascana Energy had formerly been known as SaskOil.

Lingenfelter lobbied Kindersley MLA Bill Boyd to support the repeal of the Wascana Act. (Boyd isn't clear on whether or not ne actually supported the repeal.)

Dwain Lingenfelter's involvement in the reloaction of Nexen's head office, however, is undeniable. The NDP's response to this ad is childish and over the top. After all, unlike the NDP, they didn't lie.

But We Mustn't Call it a Coalition...

Nathan Cullen proposes "coalition lite"

With Nathan Cullen contesting the leadership of the NDP, it's as fair a question to answer as for any other candidate:

What, precisely, does Cullen have to offer?

As it turns out, the answer is "very little". To date, Cullen's offering in the leadership campaign is "beat Harper", and not much else. To whit, Cullen is recommending that the NDP run "joint candidates" to defeat Conservative candidates.0

Is it coalition lite? Or merger lite?

It doesn't seem to matter to Cullen. To him, it's the prefect way to pander to a wider variety of left-wing voters.

"I believe now is the time to respond to the call from people of all walks of life, who hate that Stephen Harper can change our country for the worse with support of less than four in 10 voters," Cullen declared. "For me, the greater cause is that the wedge politics of the Stephen Harper government are killing us. ... We need to find a way to speak past the narrow political interests of parties from time to time."

A very real question must persist over whether or not those same people liked it when Jean Chretien was able to govern Canada with the support of less than four in ten voters. It also seems necessary to remember that it was that same Chretien government that slashed healthcare and education funding.

Yet the NDP -- whose bread-and-butter issue is healthcare -- never pulled out all the stops to team with their fellow opposition parties to put a stop to that in 1997. Very curious.

Non-ironies aside, this is an idea that only could have come from the NDP at a time when they're ahead of the Liberal Party, both in seat count and in popular support. In this sense, Cullen is very opportunistic with an idea he very clearly hasn't thought through.

For example, with whose caucus would a joint candidate sit? The Liberal Caucus? The Green Party Caucus? The NDP caucus? As an independent?

The only way an idea like this can be said to even remotely work would be within a formal coalition -- and Canadians have already shown what they think of that. Even if Cullen hasn't learned his lesson in this regard, his fellow leadership candidates seem to -- they've all given the idea their staunch disapproval.

This, along with the detail that joint candidates would require participation from another party. The Liberal Party is practically guaranteed to refuse.

Cullen will almost certainly remain undeterred.

"I have no problem going up against Stephen Harper one on one," Cullen declared. "This just makes it a slam dunk."

Not many Conservatives would worry much about a Stephen Harper/Nathan Cullen match-up in a federal election. Cullen's half-baked ideas are nothing to worry about.

Desperation is Not the Answer

NDP running on rent control in Saskatchewan

With his leadership already a disaster and an election already in progress, there's nothing Saskatchewan NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter can do but try to put an optimistic face on it.

Although he tried to fire his supporters up by forecasting an NDP victory in the 2011 election, Lingenfelter and the NDP are simply desperate.

They were desperate when they produced a campaign advertisement that fabricated an anti-labour quote by Premier Brad Wall. And they're desperate when they turn to rent control as a key campaign plank.

The party has pledged to throw $320 million at a housing strategy in Saskatchewan which will basically combine government-funded housing developments with rent control.

This is remarkable, when all they really have to do is leave the market alone to work; which is something that, for all its occasional frustration, is something that has always worked far better than government intervention.

As a policy, rent control has been destructive everywhere it's been implemented. It discourages property owners from offering housing units for rent, and discourages the construction of additional units. It produces a social loss.

Of course, with the levels of support in Saskatchewan being what they are, this isn't a policy the NDP has a prayer of ever being able to implement. It's simply desperate pandering to its own base, to the crowd who turned out for events such as Occupy Saskatoon.

By offering up a policy such as rent control, Lingenfelter has certainly boosted his chances of getting those people out to vote. But the average citizen of Saskatchewan, who are quite pleased with the job Wall has done as Premier, is the vote that Lingenfelter needs. He's just guaranteed he won't be able to get that vote.

If Dwain Lingenfelter really wanted to lead the NDP to victory in Saskatchewan, he would have dispensed with this policy as quickly as it was dreamed up. But Lingenfelter must, by now, know that he can't win this election.

He's simply embraced the politics of desperation, clearly did so long before this election, and should have resigned as NDP leader the second he did.

The NDP Gives Democracy a A Great Big Orange Middle Finger

NDP's stance on extra seats for growing provinces anti-democratic

The NDP must think that Canadians in Alberta, Ontario and BC aren't just aren't paying attention.

That's the only explanation for their position opposing the addition of new Parliamentary seats for Alberta, BC and Ontario. These provinces have long been underrepresented in Parliament, and the rapid growth of the population of these provinces only ensures that it will get worse if it isn't addressed.

Fortunately, Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal is prepared to move to alleviate this issue.

"Currently, Canadians in the fastest-growing provinces are severely underrepresented," Uppal explained. "We believe that every Canadian vote, to the greatest extent possible, should carry equal weight."

David Christopherson, the NDP's Democratic Renewal critic, has vowed that the NDP will fight the re-distribution tooth and nail. And therein lies the evidence that the NDP thinks Canadians aren't paying attention.

In August, NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel even had the nerve to describe the proposed new seats as "divisive".

"The approach of the Harper government is really divisive right now. It's not constructive, it's not nation-building," Turmel insisted.

Of course any Canadian with even the remotest grip on reality know precisely what this statement is:

A lie.

It's the NDP who are trying to divide Canadians over the addition of more seats to Parliament, and it's unfortunate they don't respect Canadians enough to tell the truth about it.

It's the NDP who are looking to voters in BC, Alberta and Ontario and telling them they aren't good enough to have the same electoral weight as voters in Quebec. It's the NDP who are looking to these voters and telling them they must remain second-class citizens in Canada.

Fortunately, voters in Alberta, BC and Ontario are paying attention to this issue. And what do they see? They see the Conservative Party sanding up for their right to equal representation, and they see the NDP opposing it.

It's not a hard conclusion to reach: if you live in Ontario, BC or Alberta, the NDP is not on your side. They are against you.

Brian Topp & the NDP: Not On Your Side

Topp-led NDP would do what's good for them, not what's good for Canada

Anyone who pays even passing attention to the NDP has noticed it: their penchant for divisive politics.

They delight in drawing sides among Canadians, then telliing as many as possible that the NDP is on their side, and that their political opponents are not.

Yet if you live in the provinces of BC, Alberta or Ontario, the NDP is unequivocally not on your side... or at least they won't be, if Brian Topp -- so far the only declared candidate for the NDP leadership -- gets his way.

Topp has already declared that the NDP will staunchly oppose any additional seats in Parliament for Alberta, BC or Ontario unless Quebec recieves a proportionate increase of its own. This despite the fact that Quebec is already disproportionately represented on a scale greater than anywhere else in the world.

Topp's justification for sticking the 61% of Canadians that are underrepresented in Parliament is rather bizarre: because Parliament recognized Quebec as a distinct society within Canada, it's entitled to be overrepresented.

“The national legislature … has recognized the province of Quebec as a nation within the country, a resolution that was supported by all parties, and this is an occasion where it’s time to think about what that resolution means,” Topp declared.

It isn't hard to figure out what that motion means. It doesn't require extensive reflection. It may mean that Quebec is distinct within Canada, but it doesn't mean that it's above the rest of Canada.

Sadly, many of the NDP's hardcore supporters will back Topp's opposition to equitable democracy in Canada even thought it's vastly democratic. They even manage to offer some supremely dumb reasons: some will even declare that in opposing the addition of more seats in Parliament, they're fighting in favour of small government (not realizing that there's a difference between Parliament and the government).

Some oppose the addition of these seats believing that too many of them -- particularly in Alberta -- will fall to the Tories. For these people, their motivation is crassly partisan.

In Brian Topp's case, he's merely shamelessly pandering to Quebec at the expense of the rest of Canada. After all, it wasn't BC, Alberta or Ontario that delivered a mass of new seats to the NDP in the last election. It was Quebec.

In pandering to Quebec, the NDP is only doing what's good for itself. The NDP's merely doing what the NDP does best: putting itself first, and Canada second.

Saskatchewan NDP Already Making Excuses For Losing

Orange getting ready to be crushed in SK

In Becoming Holyfield, multi-time World Heavyweight Champion Evander Holyfield offers an intriguing insight into the behaviours of boxers who know they cannot win a big match:

They give themselves an excuse to win.

Holyfield even attributed the infamous ear-biting incident to this particular behaviour: Mike Tyson giving himself an excuse for having lost.

With pre-election polls in Saskatchewan indicating that, barring a miracle, serious gaffe, or major political scandal, the Saskatchewan Party will win a dominating victory in the coming 2011 provincial election, the NDP is already looking for it's excuse for losing.

Regina-Dewdney MLA Kevin Yates has decided on his excuse: blame attack ads from the Saskatchewan Party undermining NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter.

“This is how the right-wing does things," Yates complained. "I don’t think it would have mattered who the leader is, they would have gone after the leader. The tactics might have been a little different but that’s what they do."

Yates complained that the ads were unfair. He's obviously banking on voters forgetting about the deliberately deceptive attack ads the NDP has been running, featuring fabricated quotes cast ridiculously out of context. How Yates says the right-wing does things is not all that different from how the left-wing does things.

Other than Yates, other NDP candidates and activists seem to be quietly admitting defeat, and focusing on making it as small a defeat as they can.

Saskatoon-Nutana MLA Pat Atkinson will not run in the 2011 election. This grants her a great deal of freedom to speak openly about the NDP's prospects in the coming election.

“There is no question we are in a battle to maintain the seats that we have. But I think it’s important that the NDP do well enough so that the government has an Opposition that can be effective,” said Atkinson, formerly Minister of Finance. “It appears as though Brad Wall is going to be re-elected ...we usually give a government two terms. The important thing will be to have an effective Opposition.”

(Noting that Saskatchewan often gives governments at least two terms seems to smack of another excuse, even if it seems more gracious.)

“Brad Wall is a very popular guy," Atkinson conceded. "There’s no question about that. But does that mean you give him a mandate to do whatever he wants? I don’t think the public wants to do that.”

There is little question that Saskatchewan would be better off with a strong opposition than a weak one. But with the NDP pulling some boneheaded blunders and seemingly conceding the election, they'll have great difficulty electing that kind of opposition.

Brad Wall will continue to be a great Premier of Saskatchewan -- far better than Dwain Lingenfelter could hope to be -- the NDP is already doing enough to ensure that.

A Confusing Brand to Embrace

When going into an election, one would expect that there is an incentive for politicians to be on their best behaviour.

The Saskatchewan NDP, however, has not been on their best behaviour. They've been closer to their worst. The party got itself into hot water in July when it released a radio ad featured a heavily-edited quote. The quote was not merely heavily-edited -- the new favourite defense of the far-left when they are caught red-handed behaving poorly -- it was heavily-edited to the point of sheer dishonesty.

A comment made in response to a question about the tactics used by a public service union during a strike was presented as a comment about how Premier Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party feel about helping working families confront higher cost of living.

"I don't really care. We're not going to do it, and they're coming back to work."

When considers the extent of the warping and twisting of context in the presentation of this quote, there's really only one reasonable conclusion: the NDP lied. They made a decision to lie to the people of Saskatchewan, and turned out to be not all that good at it.



In response to the revelation that the NDP took Wall's comments bizarrely out of context and then altered them, the NDP is refusing to budge. They insist that the comments accurately reflect Wall's attitude toward working families.

They have nothing to support those claims, but they make them nonetheless. It's just what they do.

Now the Saskatchewan Party has released an ad highlighting the NDP's blatant attempt to deceive the people of Saskatchewan. The intent of the ad is very clear: they're seeking to brand the NDP as liars.

Bizarrely, the NDP has not only chosen to embrace that brand, they've sought to counter-brand the Saskatchewan party as childish for objecting to the NDP's lies. Naturally, they say nothing at all about their own childishness in lying in the first place.

Polling numbers indicate that the NDP is going to get creamed in the 2011 provincial election. There will be no orange crush. Instead, the orange will be crushed. Considering they have a leader who owes the people of Saskatchewan his resignation for approving this ad in the first place, they deserve much, much worse.

All Eyes on Elections Canada

How Broadbent Institute treated in wake of scandal will speak to impartiality, credibility of EC

Eventually, Elections Canada was bound to get it right.

In the wake of an appeal by the NDP, to its followers, to donate money to the fledgling Broadbent Institute -- a think-tank which is so fledgling that it hasn't even been incorporated yet, which prevents it from accepting donations.

The NDP came up with a very simple solution: accept the donations, made in the memory of the late Jack Layton, on the think tank's behalf, and hold it until the institute is incorporated.

This turned out to be contrary to the Elections Act. Not only was it illegal for the NDP to accept these donations on the Broadbent Institute's behalf, it was actually illegal for them to solicit the information in the first place.

To its credit, Elections Canada, which turned a blind eye to the electoral fraud committed by the Ruth-Ellen Brosseau campaign -- they submitted nomination papers to the Elections Canada featuring signatures that had been falsified -- got this one right. They advised the NDP that it was unlawful for them to accept these donations.

However, there is still much to be seen about how well Elections Canada can be trusted to treat the Broadbent Institute impartially. The NDP has very clearly demonstrated a direct relationship between itself and the Broadbent Institute.

This should prohibit the Broadbent Institute from registering as a third party at election time -- acting essentially as an extension of the party, and potentially allowing it to exceed election spending limits either at the national level, or in individual constituencies.

The NDP may wish to pretend that the Broadbent Institute is completely separate from the party itself. These recent events have exposed that notion for precisely what it is: pure bullshit.

It's with this in mind that Elections Canada would be required to reject any third-party application from the Broadbent Institute come the 2015 federal election.

Whether or not they actually will seems far from certain, and remains to be seen. Elections Canada can expect to be watched very closely when it comes time to make that decision.

Is Libby Davies the Most Irresponsible MP in Canada?

Davies resurrects Dhalla's pension bill

When running in a riding like Vancouver East, one can always bank on the appeal of additional welfare benefits for somebody.

In this vein, Vancouver East MP Libby Davies' most recent proposal is not actually a new idea by any stretch of the imagination. Unlike the idea's progenitor, Davies will likely not have to pay a price for the sheer irresponsibility of it.

Davies has resurrected a proposal by former Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla to pay old age pension benefits to elderly immigrants immediately upon arriving in Canada. The proposal, adopted as a blatant means of pandering to the immigrant community in her riding of Brampton-Springdale, instead angered her constituents. She was beaten by 10,000 votes in the 2011 federal election by Conservative Parm Gill.

Running in Vancouver East, Davies has found that no bit of far-left boilerplate, no matter how ridiculous or irresponsible, can fail her.

Precisely how irresponsible is Davies' most recent proposal? It's irresponsible to the tune of anywhere from $300 million to $700 million per annum, paid out to people who have never contributed a red cent to the Canada Pension Plan. Every year.

The sheer irresponsibility of it becomes crystal clear when one considers that as of 2006, the CPP was considered to be facing an unfunded liability of $620 billion.

This isn't the first time Davies has done something irresponsible for purely ideological or demagogical purposes. In 2009, Davies voted against a bill to impose a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence for human traffickers who exploit children. Her reason was an ideological opposition to mandatory minimum sentencing.

Davies' Parliamentary motion calling on the government to open pension funds to recent immigrants -- currently there is a 10-year residency requirement, which is as it should remain, if not increase -- is merely the most recent in a long, sad history of demagogical irresponsibility from Libby Davies.

The Road to Jerusalem

Today, Jack Layton will be laid to rest.

Some may find it odd that sometimes a man's most vociferous critics may be the ones who admire them the most.

I won't pretend I respeceted or admired Jack Layton any more than anyone else.

Nor will I pretend that the long mourning period observed by Layton's followers hasn't been more than a little off-putting. Perhaps even as off-putting as John Diefenbaker's funeral.

But the long mourning period did give me the opportunity to do something that Christie Blatchford didn't do when she wrote her graceless -- but not altogether unjustifiable -- comments: think long and hard about it.

My thoughts continually take me back to the evening of May 2, 2011, when the Conservative Party won a majority government. In the middle of finding the bottom of a celebratory bottle of Jack Daniels, I took some time out to pray for Layton's health. It was actually the first time I prayed for a politician's health. Strangely, it was the first time I had actually considered praying for the health of a politician.

At the time, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

It was entirely natural that my thoughts when back to that when Layton announced that he was stepping back -- temporarily -- to fight a new cancer. Many media commentators could tell right away that there was good reason to be concerned.

Once again, I prayed for Layton's health. Sadly, those prayers weren't answered.

But it also occurs to me that I may have been praying for the wrong thing. I'm reminded of a tale Evander Holyfield related in his book, Becoming Holyfield, regarding the passing of his mother. She had been in a car accident, and arrived at hospital in a coma.

Trying to focus on his training, Holyfield asked a close spiritual advisor what he should do. He was told to pray for the right thing to happen.

Those who have experienced a family member passing away from cancer -- this author has witnessed two family members die of the disease, and has had four others successfully fight it off, the youngest at the age of two years old -- understand full well how painful fighting terminal cancer is. Sometimes, the cancer cannot be beaten. The best thing to hope for is a quick, painless, merciful passing.

The specific details regarding Layton's final days are not of public knowledge. This is as it should be. We don't know how much pain Layton was suffering before his passing. His friends and family do, and that's information best reserved for themselves.

I take some comfort in hoping that Layton's passing was a peaceful one, and in hoping that he didn't suffer.

If he did, I take comfort in knowing that his passing at least ended that suffering. And although I disagree with Layton's politics, I admire Layton's character, and firmly believe he's in a much better place now.

If Layton's passing ended a period of suffering, it was the right thing to happen. It's a sad thing nonetheless, but there's comfort to be taken from it.

Jack Layton has followed Tommy Douglas down the road to Jerusalem. There is no doubt in my heart that he arrived safely.

Nycole Turmel's Professionalism Problem

Public service union bosses should reject partisanship

In Canada, there is a problem that public service unions refuse to admit is a problem; it's because it chiefly concerns them.

Canada's political discourse is far too often -- near constantly, in fact -- littered with partisan messaging on the part of public service unions. Under the leadership of now-NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel, the Public Service Alliance of Canada was one of these unions.

During the time Turmel was President of PSAC, the organization was endorsing Bloc Quebecois candidates. Turmel herself held memberships in the BQ and Quebec Solidaire, and was a self-described "activist for the NDP".

But in campaigning for the BQ, Quebec Solidaire and the NDP, Turmel essentially campaigned on who she thought her bosses -- or at least those of the members of the union she represented as President -- should be. It's incredibly improper, and the President of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada agrees.

“The professional institute is non-partisan and, when you become partisan - I am not going to speak about Ms Turmel per se - but when you display partisanship it impacts on your credibility,” Corbett mused.

“It is an issue for Ms Turmel,” he declared.

It would be a bigger issue for Turmel if she was still President of PSAC. Fortunately, she isn't.

The bigger question is whether the current leaders of PSAC can aspire to the higher standard of professionalism evident at PIPSC. It won't be hard to figure out if they do.

With Turmel occupying a high-ranking position with the NDP, a PSAC endorsement for the NDP will immediately fail the smell test. PSAC members and leadership will likely immediately excuse the funk, but it will give Canadian voters good reason to be concerned about the impartiality and professionalism of the public service.

Fortuantely, even though Nycole Turmel very clearly didn't care about this, Gary Corbett at least does. Hopefully current PSAC President John Gordon will aspire to Corbett's example, not Turmel's.

Nycole Turmel and the NDP's Achilles Heel

NDP interim leader's history comes back to haunt her

With NDP leader Jack Layton's health having taken another turn for the worse, many Canadians are wishing him a speedy recovery and return to the political battlefield.

But certainly almost none more than his followers in the NDP. Now more than ever.

Although the NDP made a decision not to diclose interim leader Nycole Turmel's memberships in the Bloc Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire -- both separatist parties -- to the public, it turns out that the Globe and Mail found out anyway. What has emerged since are numerous questions about Turmel's loyalties.

With whom do her loyalties lie?

Turmel says she is not a separatist. Despite her membership in two separate separatist parties, that is enough for this author. As it turns out, there are many reasons than just her flirtations with separatist political parties to doubt her loyalties.

In 2006, while Turmel was National President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, PSAC endorsed a number of Bloc Quebecois candidates in the election.

“Bloc candidates are better prepared and more willing to cooperate with PSAC in furthering our causes,” PSAC declared during the 2006 election.

In the eyes of some, the detail that Turmel's and PSAC's endorsement of these BQ candidates was extended based on labour policy, not based on separatism, should allay any concerns about that endorsement. But those people are wrong.

That detail rather illuminates the detail that the organizations with which Turmel is involved -- whether by her hand or otherwise -- tend to develop a tendency to put their own agendas ahead of the interests of the country. That is a very disturbing thought. Unsurprising, but disturbing.

In the case of the Bloc, it's obvious: they put their agenda of separating Quebec from Canada ahead of Canada's interests. They also put Quebec's parochial interests ahead of Canada's on all issues. Turmel and the other so-called "soft separatists" who join the BQ know this full well.

In the case of PSAC, it's a matter of putting the interests of the union ahead of the country. It's bad enough that public service unions are permitted to make endorsements during election time in Canada -- effectively campaigning on who they think their bosses should be. It's that much worse that PSAC's position relating to these BQ candidates is that their bosses should be separatists. It casts a serious shadow over what PSAC has become.

Now, Nycole Turmel has -- however temporarily (one hopes) -- succeeded Jack Layton as the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. And whether it's considering her separatist dabblings or the bizarre activities of PSAC under her watch, there are too many reasons to doubt her ultimate loyalty, and not enough reasons to invest faith in her.

And the NDP knows it. That is the reason for their fuming, raging response to the Turmel revelation. The NDP response has ranged from comical attempts to portray Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a separatist to equally-comical description of the reporting of Turmel's history as "harassment".

(That the left -- including countless NDP-affiliated individuals and organizations -- went through Harper's history with a fine-tooth comb in search of anything they could misrepresent in order to fan the flames of fear is a detail they themselves now choose to omit. Turnabout is fair play. Remember that.)

Once the NDP has gotten over their rage and fury, the first thing they need to do is set about picking a new interim leader. Unless Turmel can come up with a good explaination as to why it is that she maintained her Quebec Solidare membership so long after cancelling her BQ membership, and even after becoming interim opposition leader, she needs to resign post-haste and let a responsible MP take over the job.

This time around the NDP should disclose, not conceal, the history of their interim leader. While they're at it, perhaps they can disclose precisely how many of their MPs have been, or are now, separatists.

Then they should take the appropriate action with the lot of them, and cast them out.

The NDP is, after all, supposed to be a federalist party. It's high time they started acting like one. Otherwise, they can't simply content themselves with getting angry at the people who choose to fire some metaphorical arrows at their exposed Achilles' Heel.

Pat Martin Doesn't Get This Whole "Parliament" Thing

NDP MP seeks to shut down government

As MPs returned to Ottawa after the 2011 federal election, NDP leader Jack Layton must have been worried that one of his new MPs would do something very, very stupid.

He probably couldn't have imagined that it would be one of his veteral MPs who would do something stupid.

Questions abounded whether or not Layton's deluge of first-time MPs would know how Parliament works. Instead, it seems to be Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin who doesn't understand. And he's been there going on 14 years!

Martin's comical blunder revolves around a bill he plans to introduce in the House of Commons that could deny funding to the Senate, by requiring Parliament to vote on a separate supply motion for the Senate.

“We may not be able to abolish the Senate by constitutional amendment, but we can cut off its blood supply,” Martin declared. “We might not be able to get rid of it, but we don’t have to fund it.”

Actually, they do.

As a long-time Parliamentarian, Martin must understand full well that, in order for bills passed by the House of Commons to become law, they must also be passed by the Senate.

If the Senate cannot function due to lack of funds, cannot examine bills, and cannot vote on them, nothing passed by the House of Commons can become law. Nor could the government pass budgets or anything of the like.

It would actually lead to a shutdown of government.

Fortunately, Martin doesn't stand even a remote chance of passing such a bill -- or any other bill -- without support from the Conservative Party. He even knows this. He isn't even introducing this bill out of good faith. He's introducting it purely as part of a point-scoring endeavour.

“It will force the Conservatives to stand and vote to support the Senate, which is kind of delicious given the grief it is causing them lately,” Martin remarked.

Martin is risking a shutdown of the Parliamentary process in order to score political points. Incredible.

Normally, Martin wouldn't be any where near this irresponsible. In fact, in previous years Martin has been a champion of such basic and fundamentally democratic principles as ensuring that bills are examined by committee, even if he opposes them.

The NDP's ascension to Official Opposition seems to have brought out something previously unseen in Pat Martin: an undemocratic streak that would risk an effective shutdown of Parliament in pursuit of political advantage.

No, The Kids Aren't Alright

NDP Seeking Permanent Second-Party Position

NDP juggling demands of federalists, separatists

Speaking in Ottawa recently, NDP National Director Brad Lavigne has made the party's goal clear: they want to render their 2011 gains in Quebec permanent.

It may be even more than that. Lavigne seems to think those gains may already be permanent, having been hard-earned.

“It wasn’t a mistake, it wasn’t a fluke, it was eight years in the making,” he insisted.

Some things Lavigne said weren't especially surprising. He indicated that the NDP's strategy was to essentially build a Jack Layton personality cult, and they did precisely that.

“We made sure the brand of the party was Jack Layton,” he said. But this is not news to Canadians, after years of listening to NDP operatives refer to the party as "Jack Layton and the NDP".

Moving forward, the NDP's plan is to keep the Liberal Party and Bloc Quebecois down.

“Now that their traditional voting base has left them and many of them have come to us, we have to make sure that we kind of entrench their new home with us,” Lavigne declared. “we have to occupy the space that they traditionally occupy.”

“The four-and-a-half million voters, it’s the new voter coalition,” he added. “It’s the new voting base, we need to cement that in for the long term and make sure there’s not reason for them to go back to their previous home.”

This confronts the NDP with a serious challenge to juggle. They have to juggle the demands of federalist Liberal voters and separatist Bloc Quebecois voters on virtually every policy point: lingual policy, referendum law, even separatism itself.

This has already led to the NDP's position as a federalist party being shaken by a disturbing lack of commitment to federalism.

This is a strategy that is bound to fail. Pander too much to separatists, and the federalist vote will flee from the party -- as it should. Pay the proper attention to federalist demands, and separatists will flee back to the Bloc Quebecois.

The only way to have a chance at keeping all these balls in the air may be to simply declare that the NDP shall have no policy on separatism; that the party shall be neither separatist nor federalist.

Not that this is likely to work either. Those committed to winning sovereignty for Quebec, as those committed to keeping Canada together, are not prepared to accept anything less than a commitment.

The NDP so often brags that they aren't the party of the "squishy middle". They're a flat-out party of polarization, and they're proud of it.

Simply put, Brad Lavigne and the NDP have a choice to make: they can commit themselves to federalism and risk their separatist votes, or they can commit themselves to separatism and risk their federalist votes.

To do anything less is to not be the NDP. To do anything less is to risk having supplanted the Liberals only to ultimately become them.

If the NDP wants to permanently remain Canada's second party, they have a choice to make. Will they make the right choice for Canada? That has yet to be seen.

The Transformation is Nearly Complete

NDP nearly completed transition into Jacques' Bloc

Federalist NDP supporters across Canada -- especially in the rest of Canada -- should be getting nervous.

Very nervous.

Since arriving as the official opposition on the crest of the infamous orange wave sweeping through Quebec, the NDP is appearing less and less like its former self every day; and more and more like the Bloc Quebecois.

As NDP leader Jack Layton and Quebec lieutenant Thomas Mulcair addressed the Quebec wing of the party, Mulcair adopted the traditional language policy of the Bloc Quebecois: one of lingual supremacy.

This has seeped into the NDP's positions almost to the extent of the traditional BQ hostility to immigrants.

“People who choose Quebec, because an immigrant is not forced to come to Quebec, must understand that they will learn and their children will learn French over and above all,” Mulcair declared.

Mulcair justified this hostility as a means of securing federalism in Quebec.

“As federalists, we have always understood that the best way to preserve Quebec’s place in Canada is to ensure that Quebecers feel secure with their language and culture,” he added.

But securing the French language and culture in Quebec cannot realistically be accomplished by isolating it and promoting it above all others. Nor can Mulcair expect to mandate that every word an immigrant family speaks, or their children learns, be French.

It isn't in this new hostility to immigrant communities that the NDP's transformation lies. The Sherbrooke Declaration also holds that a 50% +1 vote is sufficient to secure sovereignty, and that the clarity act -- ensuring that separatists cannot attempt to win sovereignty on the back of an ambiguous or deceptive qeustion -- should be abolished.

Jack Layton calls it "treating Quebec with respect". The rest of Canada should recognize taht there is a difference between treating Quebec with respect and openly pandering to separatists.

The transformation of the NDP from a federalist party into the Bloc du jours should concern a great many Canadians.

Good Luck With That, Stephane

Stephane Dion wants his legacy back

Like Chevy Chase in Memoirs of an Invisible Man declaring "I want my molecules back!", Stephane Dion is making demands of the Canadian political class.

He wants his legacy back. His separatist-fighting legacy.

In an op-ed appearing in the Ottawa Citizen, Dion is offering a lecture to NDP leader Jack Layton about why 50% +1 is an unacceptable threshold for a separatist mandate in a sovereignty referendum.

In a nutshell, Dion's argument is that the oui majority in a seccession vote must be large enough to allow the negotiation process to move forward with certainty, and must be able to withstand periodic shifts in public opinion:

"There are two fundamental reasons why negotiations for secession should be contingent on a clear majority. The first is that serious and irreversible decisions that affect future generations should be made by consensus, not on the basis of a weak and uncertain majority, not on the basis of a result which might have been different if the vote had been held the day before or the day after. There is no doubt that secession is something serious and probably irreversible since it is nearly impossible to rebuild a country after it has been broken. Such an action affects future generations and has serious consequences for all of the citizens of the country being broken up.

The second reason is that, even with all the goodwill in the world, negotiating the separation of a modern state would inevitably be difficult and fraught with pitfalls. What must not happen is that, while negotiators are working on a separation agreement, the majority should change its mind and decide to oppose secession. That would be an untenable situation. That is why the process should only be undertaken if there is a sufficiently large majority that will last through the inevitable difficulties of negotiation."

Dion makes a very strong argument. Unfortunately, Dion still has to own up to his role in attempting to form a coalition government with the NDP that would have mortgaged the Canadian government to the Bloc Quebecois.

While the Liberals publicly boasted that the Bloc had voluntarily taken separatism off the table for 18 months, and that they had refused to give in to Bloc demands on language law.

However, the NDP had been walking the BQ line on Bill 101 all along, and are walking it still.

In 2008, the coalition's right hand ignored what the left hand had been doing. Now that the left hand no longer needs the right hand at all, it seems that all bets are off.

It's admirable that Stephane Dion is standing up to Jack Layton on his soft-on-separatism positions now. But Dion knew full well that Layton was soft on separatism before he tried to bring the NDP and Bloc together in a vain attempt (vain in every sense of the word) to snatch power away from the Tories.

That's why Dion will likely never recapture his tainted legacy as a separatist fighter. When all the political chips were on the table, he revealled to Canadians that he can be every bit as soft on separatism as Jack Layton clearly is.

In 2008, and as it pertains to the fight against separatism, Stephane Dion has made himself Canada's invisible man.

What Does the New Voice of Quebec Want to Tell Us?

NDP's soft on separatism take sends a bad message

The NDP's long-awaited Quebec breakthrough in the 2011 federal election could be said to be the fruits of Rebecca Blaikie's labour. Though she still has not captured electoral success, it was Blaikie's hard work, in large part, that led to the 2011 triumph.

But there are shadows of peril surrounding the NDP's emergence in Quebec. With one MP already openly expressing separatist views, and two others suggesting they're unsure how they'd vote in a sovereignty referendum, Canadians are being faced to wake up to the reality that the NDP may simply be supplanting the Bloc Quebecois as Quebec's federal separatist party.

Blaikie stresses the importance of the NDP adopting assymetrical federalism and a position that a 50% plus one vote in a sovereignty refrendum is good enough to allow Quebec to separate.

“As New Democrats, just as we respect the rights of First Nations, we respect the rights of Quebecers. But what we're ultimately trying to do is create a situation in which we never need to exercise those rights, because they feel like they're a part of something worth belonging to,” she said.

This way lies madness.

First, assymetrical federalism is not an acceptable proposal for Canada. Simply put, assymetrical federalism is simply not sustainable. If the NDP would be willing to grant powers such as opt out-with compensation privileges to Quebec, they owe it to the other nine provinces as well.

Secondly, Blaikie is simply incorrect that 50% plus one is sufficient for Quebec to separate from Canada. 50% plus one is sufficient to secure a mandate to negotiate seccession with Canada's nine other provinces, but on its own it's not enough to separate Quebec.

Other problems abound for the NDP -- such as Jack Layton's open opposition to the clarity act -- that lead to serious questions about the NDP's credibility as a federalist party.

So Canadians have a very simple question for the NDP, the alleged new voice of Quebec: what does the new voice of Quebec want to tell us? About federalism? About sovereignty?

The answers it's offered to the former question are exceedingly poor. The answers offered to the latter are unclear, and carry the vague prospects of a province-wide political bait-and-switch.