Why Would Anyone Vote...Liberal?!

Last week I wrote a rather extreme article suggesting that no one should vote NDP in this election, on the view that if you were conservative you would vote Tory, and if you were progressive and concerned about a Tory government, you really should vote strategically for the Liberals. Voting NDP would split the progressive vote, and would likely ensure a Conservative government, possibly even a majority one at that. A week is a long time in politics, as the saying goes. Now the NDP have blown by the Liberals in several polls, and so many could mockingly ask why anyone would vote Liberal - the same strategic calculus I advanced in my piece last week would suggest that progressive voters not wanting a Conservative government ought to vote NDP given the current numbers.

Perhaps. On the purely strategic argument, this may be true enough. But even half-a-week is a long time in politics. And polls can be soft - remember Truman and Dewey? This is not entirely unrelated to the strategic voting considerations. Because one has to question whether the NDP is ready for government, and whether that question is going to increasingly dawn on voters as election day looms. Ultimately, that is the test - when I argued for strategic voting for the Liberals, it was on the premise that the Liberals could not only plausibly win an election, but that they could form a better government than the Conservatives. That premise does not hold true for the NDP. Jack Layton and his party may have served an important role in opposition, and might even preform wonderfully as the official opposition - but the party simply does not have the bench strength, or frankly a set of realistic policies in hand, to form a government. And that should be a fundamental consideration on voting day.

Sovereignty as an Election Issue

What every happened to concerns over Canadian sovereignty? In this post we turn to the Harper government's position on such policies as U.S.-Canadian integrated border security and integrated national defence initiatives, as a sovereignty issue that we ought to be talking about in this election campaign.

Remember the days when sovereignty was such an issue for Canadians? If it wasn't "Sovereignty Association" and the spectre of Quebec separatism, it was accusations of selling out our sovereignty in a North American free trade agreement. Trudeau famously spoke of Canada being the mouse in bed with the American elephant. We don't hear that much about sovereignty anymore, as though our fears had crept back into the shadows with the rising of the sun. But I want to suggest that sovereignty, in the context of our relationship with the United States, should be an issue in this election.

Irresponsible Government

There are few things as uninteresting as the story of the rise of responsible government in Canada in the 1800s and the subsequent confederation of the provinces into the Dominion of Canada. It was independence by subcommittee. It was what happens when your founding fathers are technocrats. But as dry and colourless the story is, the foundation that was put in place created one of the finest democracies in history. For almost a century and a half, Canada's government has been a testament to how the Westminster system, modified for local conditions, can mediate between the various forces and interests that shape and emerge from civil society.

At the root of that system was the notion of responsibility - institutional responsibility, ministerial responsibility and individual responsibility. Whether it is the vicissitudes of politics, the tactical realities of a minority government or the personal bent of the party leaders that notion of responsibility seems to be eroding.

Why Would Anyone Vote NDP?

So, why would anyone vote NDP? No, really. It is not a facetious question - it is a serious one. In the context of the current political structure, given the recent election history, and the options facing Canadians, I would like to suggest that it makes absolutely no sense to vote NDP.

Don't get me wrong - the NDP may have many attractive policy platforms and qualities. Back in the days when Canada had a fairly stable system of three political parties, the NDP long fulfilled an important role as a moderating influence, keeping the Liberals in particular from straying too far to the center-right. The NDP served as the conscience of the nation on many social and labour-related issues. It continues to have important things to say about many topics. And Jack Layton, even if he has been in the role far too long, is in many ways an attractive party leader. But none of that means that anyone should vote for the party in this election.

The More Things Stay The Same, The More They Stay The Same

Ah, the drama. As the window closes on this election, it is looking more and more likely that the House of Commons will reconstitute itself in almost the same shape and proportions that it had when the writ dropped. Stephen Harper's majority appears to be slipping from his grasp. Michale Ignatieff's chance at hitting 100 seats seems equally unlikely. And Jack Layton's post-debate bounce is almost certain to deflate. Anything can happen in an election, but time is collapsing quickly.

Whose responsible for this stasis? Is it the politicians? It's hard to blame them. They're certainly trying hard. A few more risks might help, I guess. But it's probably asking them too much to change. The voters? Maybe a little. But four million of them watched the debates. And they vote. Sometimes. In ever declining numbers.

No. It's the media. It's all the media 's fault. They suck. It is, as Jack Layton might say in a desperate attempt to sound hip and happening, a #fail of epic proportions.

They, most of them anyway,  fail in three main ways.

Three Weeks On

The Story of the Third Week: The Winner of the Debate

I’ve been watching debates since the Trudeau years. (Remember that time Joe Clark wore mismatched spats? What a scandal that was!) I always enjoy them. What’s not to like. Our democratically elected leaders desperately trying to frame themselves in the best light, occasional policy discussions, quips and one liners. I love that stuff.

This year’s had a lot going for it: a terrible set with hues that matched the tone of Jack Layton’s skin, occasionally rendering him invisible; Stephen Harper delivering the most leveled one-note performance since the last Matrix movie; Ignatieff connecting to regular joes by reminiscing about his days hanging out in prisons as a graduate student; Gilles Duceppe trying and failing to get laughs; the Scottish tones of the French debate. What more could you ask for? Priceless television.

Food Policy as an Election Issue

Food is back on the election agenda after decades in the back room. For good reason. More and more voters are realizing that the industrial food system that feeds us today is broken. These people are flocking to farmers' markets where sales are worth over $1 billion a year, according to a study by Farmers' Markets Canada. They are joining an increasing number of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects and are demanding more access to food that is produced sustainably by farmers in their regions. There is a saying in the local food movement that you vote with your fork. Now, the federal election offers citizens a chance to voice their opinions about food at the ballot box.

Unfortunately, the Harper-led Conservative party's stand on food and agriculture misses the mark. While the NDP, the Liberal Party and the Green Party offer (to varying degrees) their solutions to building Canadian food sovereignty and strengthening new local and sustainable food systems, the Conservatives are promising more of the status quo, more of the same structures that are responsible for the environmental, social and health problems that our food system causes today.

The Liberal Focus on Harper's Contempt for Democracy

“There he goes again with this word ‘bickering.’ This is a debate, Mr. Harper. This is a democracy...You keep talking about Parliament as if it’s this little debating society that’s a pesky interference in your rule of the country. It’s not.”

Michael Ignatieff, Leaders' debate, April 12, 2011.

Ignatieff kept returning to this theme of democracy in the debate. Even when asked about Canadian foreign policy, he returned to hammer the idea that Canada cannot advance its values abroad when democracy was being undermined at home. What was he on about, anyway? It is hard to pitch the importance of democracy the way you can tax cuts and raising the employment rates. But it is so much more important. Ignatieff is on to something crucial here, and it is vital that Canadians not miss it.

The issue is political accountability and the realization of deliberative democracy. Which simply means that government in a democracy is supposed to be accountable to the people, and decisions are supposed to made through a process in which the people are able to meaningfully participate. One of the great strengths of democracy rests on the twin ideas that decisions will be better, and will enjoy wider and more enduring support from the public, precisely because they are made through a process of debate and deliberation in which the people play a meaningful role. 

Not Knowing What the Left Hand is Doing

Let's say its 2008 all over again. And you are a dashing, personally popular, mustachioed leader of a much less popular party on the left wing of the political spectrum that perennially finishes third or fourth. Your policies are old, comfortable, familiar to 15% - 20% of the electorate.  The party on the right can only grow so much because of fears about its hidden agenda and its awkward leader. The party in the centre has broken with its long tradition of selecting electable leaders. Climate change is on everybody's lips, so much so that it is the main plank of both the party in the centre and a new party on the left, the Greens. So, faced with this opportunity what do you do?

If your answer was bury your head in the sand, than you just might be Jack Layton. And your short-sighted decision then, is looking like its really going to hurt you now, in 2011.

Jack Layton is a committed environmentalist. He hasn't owned a car since 1983. His house, a charming semi in downtown Toronto is environmentally sound, retrofitted to reduce its footprint. And one suspects that he, like most environmentalists, recognise that without a real tax on carbon it will be next to impossible to mount an efficient and cost-effective campaign against greenhouse gas emissions.

Mission Creep in Libya and Tory Decision-Making

The Harper government skipped any vote in Parliament on decision to commit Canadian Forces to the military intervention in Libya. It was said that the other parties supported the decision, and in any event, who wouldn't support a U.N. sanctioned humanitarian intervention aimed at preventing the massacre of civilians? It was, after all, justified on the basis of the new international principle, the Responsibility to Protect, which Canada played a large role in developing.

Now, however, the pressure is mounting on NATO allies to rachet up the air strikes, and to target the military hardware of the Qaddafi forces in an effort to break the stalemate developing in Libya. Foreign Minister Lawrnece Cannon is leaving the campaign trail to attend a couple of major meetings to discuss the way forward. France and the U.K. in particular are calling for NATO forces to strike Qaddafi miligary targets for the purpose of aiding the rebels and breaking the deadlock. Even the U.S. has suggested that Qaddafi's departure is a pre-condition to any peace agreement.

Our Ears Are Burning: 11 April

Yee-haw. Here's the round up of the international press on the Canadian election. There's two big stores.

First, the Auditor General's leaked draft report on possible inappropriate allocation of money to Tony Clement's riding under the guise of G8 / G20 spending. This is all over the place. For example: Bloomberg Business Week.

But the real news is, appropriately, hockey centred. Moving the French debate caught the interest of a lot of people, including these entertainment industry weasels and these shameless gossip mongers. Go, Habs, go.

And I suspect this is the first time that Ultimate-Guitar.com has covered a Canadian election.

-BC

Two Weeks On: Sic Transit Control Freakery

The Story of the Second Week: The Bubble Around Stephen Harper

For the first part of the week, the incredible control that the Conservatives exercised to keep the hint of dissent away from Stephen Harper dominated the election discourse and has the potential to become one of those little issues that grows and grows. All signs point to the relaxation of the bubble but only after a few false starts before a sort-of apology was issued.

As much as I think it is troubling for the democratic process it does serve a couple of larger interests. First, it shows us just how competent the Conservatives are at doing things like this. One cannot imagine that the NDP or the Liberals, even if they wanted to, would be able to execute as tightly as the Conservatives did. It is yet another example - fund-raising, attack ads, issue selection - just how advanced the right-wing are at managing elections and related get out the vote and energize your base campaigns.

The Conservative Platform on Freedom of Religion

The Conservative Party Platform released on Friday has a curious pledge to create an office within DEFAIT devoted to championing freedom of religion overseas and around the world. It was reported on Saturday that Ignatieff was initially at odds with others in his party on the issue, with Iggy saying that defending freedom of religion is consistent with Canadian values and deserves non-partisan support.

On the one hand Ignatieff was both entirely correct on freedom of religion being one of the fundamental rights in Canada, and his instincts to want to protect this is laudable. Moreover he came across as statesman-like in taking the position that he could support reasonable proposals in the Conservative Party Platform. It was a nice departure from the usual cat-fighting and gainsaying of a political campaign. On the other hand, the Conservative proposal does require consideration.

The Liberal MPs who initially criticized it did so primarily on the grounds that it was cynically motivated. The proposal was seen as nothing more than a crass attempt to win over communities of religious minorities within the electorate. That is obviously a difficult proposition to prove, of course, but it has to be said that religious freedom is a curious right for the Conservatives to champion.

The Parties and the Rights of New Canadians

This week Stephen Harper made a point of wooing so-called New Canadians - immigrants who have gained citizenship through naturalization. One aspect of the Conservative Party Platform, just released today, is devoted to policies to enhance the security of minority communities within Canada, including New Canadian communities.

That minority communities in Canada are gaining some attention is to be applauded. But immigrants to this country can justifiably ask how secure their rights as Canadian will be under a government formed by either the Liberals or the Conservatives. There have been some horrific cases in recent years involving Canadians with dual citizenship being abandoned to detention and abuse by foreign regimes, in violation of their fundamental human rights. Canadian governments were at times complicit in the abuse, and in other cases simply refused to assert the rights of the Canadian victims, and indeed the rights of Canada being violated through the abuse of its citizens.

We will return to examine thes ramifications of these cases in more detail, but for the moment let us just take a quick look at some examples of governmental failure to protect the rights of Canadians. The first case has to be Maher Arar, which developed during the last Liberal government. A Syrian Canadian who was detained by U.S. authorities while in transit in New York, and "renditioned" to Syria on the basis of, in part, false information provided to them by the RCMP suggesting that he had terrorist links.

Our Ears Are Burning: April 7

Here is todays round-up of varied international coverage of the Canadian election.

Be careful who you mess with. CatholicCulture.org reports on the request by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to the Chief Electoral Officer to accommodate election workers during Holy Week. (Once again the church of my forefathers is on the vanguard of the pressing issues of the day.)

ARTISTdirect.com follows Nelly Furtado's twitter campaign to get out the vote, noting, oddly, that she takes the campaign as seriously as a "gonorrhea diagnosis". That does sound pretty serious - I wonder what CatholicCulture thinks about that.

My favourite agribusiness magazine Feedstuffs picks up a story that I have not seen in the Canadian press at all: a two-hour farm issues debate hosted by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture on April 11. The Greens have been invited to this debate. Why wouldn't the Globe or the Post deign to write a real story about rural agricultural issues as a lead-up to this debate?

The World Socialist Web Site notes the complete lack of debate on Libya and Afghanistan and offers an interesting critique of the all-party support for the wars and the re-arming of the Canadian Forces. Fascinating stuff if you can get past the repeated use of the word "imperialist".

India figured prominently in the Canadian election according to the Hindustan Times and the Times of India with the announcement that Canada will pursue a free trade pact with India for 2013.

-BC

Lessons from the South: This is the Face of the Right

Last night Mike Huckabee was on Jon Stewart. If you have any interest in politics, take the time to watch it. In a long, fascinating and civil conversation Huckabee shows what a moderate right-winger in the USA looks like: small government, social conservatism, and a heady dose of olde-fashioned Christianity. 

It really puts Canadian politics (and journalism) in perspective. Does anyone on the left really think that this represents the end goal for Harper's "American-style politics"? Is anyone on the right surprised about the discomfort that the electorate has with ties between Canadian and American right-wingers? 

And when was the last-time a Canadian television journalist engaged in such a substantive conversation about political philosophy. Note the use of the radical technique of asking questions and then pursuing the guest after he gives evasive answers. - BC

The Ideas at the Centre of the Centre

In last weeks piece on Stephen Harper's position on the political spectrum, I referenced his seminal 1997 opinion piece (co-authored with Tom Flanagan) "Our Benign Dictatorship" which is as clear of a blueprint for forming a Conservative government as you are ever going to read. In it, Harper had some choice words for the Liberal party:

The Liberal party... is a true centre party... standing for nothing very definite but prevailing against a splintered opposition. It avoids definite ideological commitments and brings together people simply interested in exercising power and dispensing patronage.

So while last week I wondered whether Harper aspired to turn the Conservatives into something very similar - a party detached from any principles other than forming the government - this week, following the release of their policy platform, I think it is fair to ask if the Liberal party does, in fact, stand for any clear principles that serve to distinguish it from the Conservatives. The quick answer is no. The longer answer is no, but what a lost opportunity.

The Quick Answer:

On April 3, the Globe and Mail's John Ibbitson wrote that the liberal platform marked a return to a "Trudeauesqe" past of increased social spending paid for by higher taxes. This was in stark opposition to the Conservative approach of lower taxes and balanced books that characterised what Ibbitson had called in an earlier article Harper's "night watchman" concept of government. But, notwithstanding Ibbitson's desire for the better political theatre that an epic clash of the left and right might provide, even a cursory reading of the liberal platform suggests that the two parties are just not that far from one another. This was certainly the view of the editorial board of the Globe, who called the platform prudent, pragmatic and "Harperian" the next day.

Abuse of Detainees in Afghanistan and the Rule of Law

Photo - MCpl Brian Walsh/DND

As we mentioned in an earlier post, we believe that the rule of law ought to be an issue in this election. In particular, how each of the parties would likely conduct itself as a government from the perspective of the rule of law. To what extent would a government formed by any particular party respect and give effect to individual rights? To what degree would it comply with its obligations under domestic and international law? Moreover, combining aspects of the rule of law and related principles of democratic accountability, how would the government respond to allegations that government agencies had violated the law? How confident could the public be that such charges would be investigated in an objective and transparent manner, with full disclosure of information to the inquiry, and to the public?

Redacted Email on Treatment of Detainees

We plan to explore these questions, in part by looking at some of the incidents of the past few years. There is, for example, the allegations that Canadian Forces personnel were complicit in or at least had knowledge of the abuse and possible torture of suspected Afghan insurgents detained and turned over by the Canadian Forces, at the hands of agents of the Afghan government. There is considerable evidence that detainees captured and turned over by the CF were indeed tortured, though there remain questions regarding the extent to which the government knew or should have known that they would be tortured. These questions raise the possibility that Canada was in violation of the Geneva Conventions, to which it is a party, and possibly even guilty of war crimes and violations of the torture convention.

One Week On

Story of the Week: Michael Ignatieff

Although this is Stephen Harper’s fourth federal election as his party’s leader, he has yet to reveal himself as a relaxed and natural campaigner. He is prone to tactical missteps and can be surprisingly tone-deaf – remember his comment in 2008 that the massive collapse of the stock market might offer an opportunity to buy low for middle class families. So far this week he has seen his coalition fear-mongering boomerang back with evidence of his own attempts to form a coalition to topple Paul Martin way back when; he has retreated awkwardly from his call to debate Ignatieff mano a mano, and, apparently, he has restricted himself to answering only five questions a day from the press on his campaign bus. They’ll be better weeks ahead, but he can’t be happy about this one.

Ignatieff, on the other hand, is a rookie. This is his first go-round as party leader. And, if the truth be told, he has not exactly stormed the barns as a leader prior to the dropping of the writ. There was a lot of hemming and hawing, big words, clumsy attempts to connect with the common folk and some pitchy tough talk here and there. He never seemed to find his comfort level. But this week he has revealed a news side – competent campaigner. Above all else, he has made no gaffes. That’s got to be the first rule of campaigning. But, more impressively, he hit the ground running with a flood of ads, made some clean and voter friendly promises around education, pensions and childcare, And most impressively he handled the whole two-man debate issue like a pro, kept in in the media, backed Harper down and, witness the letter he sent to Harper today, is even having a little fun with it.

Can the Count keep this up? Elections are tricky and kinetic. Next week is a brand new battleground. And the whole Liberal platform is being unveiled this week-end. But, regardless of what will come, he can chalk up the first week as a good one.- BC