Thin Front Bench

I’m sorry for taking so long to update my blog. I’ve been a bit sick for the past few days and I just lost track of time.

There’s been no shortage of news this week with what they are now calling the Bernier-Couillard affair. The latest bite is about whether or not Couillard was awarded a diplomatic passport: if she was, why wasn’t she screened? Or if she wasn’t, why did she get the right to jet around the world with Maxime Bernier? There are many questions and there will continue to be until Harper manages to find some serious “distracting news” such as a Cabinet shuffle.

But this whole big scandal is really nothing more than a symptom of the incompetence of Harper’s front bench. Apart from him, there’s simply no one who can be trusted to handle a serious portfolio. In finance, we have Jim Flaherty who handled Ontario Finances under Harris; in Defense we have Peter MacKay who's a lawyer and career politician; in health, Tony Clement who handled the SARS outbreak in Toronto; and in Foreign affairs, well... it was Bernier.

I’d therefore like to finish this post by asking you all to read Rex Murphy’s Globe and Mail article. I don’t usually like his writing, but here, he’s really got a point.

Validation!

You may recall last year when the government purchased four Boeing C-17 troop carriers for 3.4 billion dollars. I had voiced my disapproval at the time in the post Think Twice, and after reading the news this morning, I am feeling validated!

This may amaze you, but barely a year after the purchase, the government is having to revert back to renting Russian lifters to fly aid to Burma. None of our 3.4 billion dollar C-17s, you see, are available. Out of the four planes, one is in Afghanistan, the second is in Texas having new parts installed, and the last two are... grounded in wait of repairs.

Now, the government wouldn't have run in to all this trouble if Maxime Bernier hadn't "accidentally" pledged the C-17s without inquiring about their availability, but one has to admit that having only one plane in four operational a year after the 3.4 billion dollar purchase is pretty shameful.

I guess the moral of the story is that, unless we want to become a great military power, we're better off renting. It's cheaper, easier, and yes, far more reliable!

Bouchard-Taylor

Un petit mot sur le rapport Bouchard-Taylor sur les accomodements raisonnables qui vient d'être publié aujourd'hui.

En somme, ce qu'affirment MM. Bouchard et Taylor, c'est qu'il n'y a pas une crise d'intégration mais de perception. «Il y a un écart frappant entre les perceptions des citoyens et celles des gestionnaires d’institutions» qui font face aux demandes d'accomodements religieux a affirmé M. Bouchard.

Il cite à titre d'exemple la polémique provoquée en mars dernier par un groupe de musulmans en passage à la cabane à sucre du Mont-Saint-Grégoire qui avaient demandé un espace pour faire la prière. «Il ne s’est absolument rien passé à cette cabane à sucre, a déploré M. Bouchard. C’était un contrat entre un prestataire de service et un client. Personne n’a vu de problème». En d'autres mots, d'après les commissaires, les québécois font une montagne d'un grain de sable.

Et bien franchement, bravo! Les commissaires ont remis un rapport lucide basé uniquement sur des statistiques et la réalité du terrain. Ils ont correctement conclu qu'il n'y a aucun problème, et recommandé aux québécois -de façon mesurée, bien sûr- de faire confiance à leur gros bon sens plutôt qu'aux manchettes sensationnelles du Journal de Montréal.

Pour terminer, la citation du jour. Jean Dorion, président de la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, n'aime pas la suggestion qu'on désigne dorénavant les québécois «de souche» comme «Québécois d'origine canadienne-française» et non pas tout simplement «Québécois».

«Je ne vois pas ce qu'il y a de gênant de dire qu'on est Québécois quand on appartient au groupe culturel majoritaire au Québec».

Bravo au Manitoba

Le gouvernement néodemocrate du Manitoba a pris une excellente décision aujourd’hui en introduisant un projet de loi pour limiter les dépenses publicitaires des partis politiques hors de la période de campagne électorale. Il existait déjà un plafond pour les dépenses pendant la campagne électorale, mais ce nouveau projet de loi empêchera les plus riches de s’approprier un avantage en dépensant un nombre disproportionné de fonds avant la campagne.

Ottawa devrait imiter ses homologues de Winnipeg. Une limite sur les dépenses de campagne est inutile si les partis politiques peuvent utiliser tous leurs fonds juste avant son lancement. En plus, comme nous avons adopté un systeme d’élections à date, les partis les plus riches pourront s’y prendre en avance pour dépenser tout leur argent d’excès juste avant le début de la campagne officielle.

Le plafonnement de dépenses est un principe excellent qui empêche l’argent de décider l’issu des élections. Cependant, pour être encore plus efficace, il faudrait qui s’applique à toutes les périodes de l’année.

Caricatures

J'ai toujours aimé les caricatures. Celles-ci sont vraiment tordantes!

Garnotte, Le Devoir

Garnotte, Le Devoir


Gable, The Globe And Mail

Gable, The Globe And Mail

Just in case you have two hours of down time,..

I just wanted to give you the link to a recent series that aired on Ideas in which imminent scientist David Sanborn Scott was interviewed about his latest book: Smelling Land, The Hydrogen Defense Against Climate Catastrophe. http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/hydrogen-solution/index.html

The interview runs for two hours in total, and there's also the option of listening to a one hour debate opposing Scott to some nut from a right wing think tank.
I not that very few of you have that kind of time, but just in case you can find it, this interview is truly worth it.

As a teaser, I should mention the point that probably resonated the most with me: the scope and speed of the climate crisis means that we will have to find a way to produce next to ZERO emissions, rather than simply less emissions.

Why? Because:

a. we're running out of time before the damage of our CO2 becomes irreversible.

b. there are simply too many humans on the planet becoming richer and therefore consuming more, for us to keep of using technologies that pollute. Even if all Canadians used hybrids, it would only take a few coal plants in India and China to offset the reductions.

This is why, Scott says, we need to invest massively in technologies that will produce ZERO emissions.

For him, hydrogen is the way to go... I will say no more.

Mismanagement

There hasn’t been a formal announcement yet, but with each passing day, it grows more likely that Canada will bow under the pressure and choose not to apply for a seat at the U.N. Security Council. With Germany and …Portugal as sole competitors for two available seats, our government seems poised to decide that the odds of placing third in an election that Canada has never lost are too high to make it worth the political risk.

Why? Two words: Maxime Bernier.

It’s not that all it’s his fault, but Maxime Bernier is a symbol, a prime piece of living evidence showing how little we seem to care about foreign affairs and how insignificant our country has resultantly become.

This man was out of his depth right from the swearing-in ceremony. He has been as much of a flop as could have been predicted. Just last week, after committing the horrendous diplomatic faux-pas of asking for the governor of Kandahar’s head, he confused Haitian President René Préval for his predecessor Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Haiti, by the way, is one of the largest recipients of Canadian foreign aid.

But before Bernier, it was just as bad: Peter MacKay. His experience in Foreign Affairs was serving as a Crown Attorney in Nova-Scotia and having his drivers licence suspended for speeding in 2005.

Foreign policy, today, matters only to the government if it can help win votes. That’s why, for example, Harper was so unrelenting in his praise of Israel: he’s after the Jewish vote. That’s also why a colossal proportion of foreign aid goes to Afghanistan: it’s necessary for selling the mission to Canadians.

But when it comes to getting real international recognition, such as a seat at the Security Council, we discover that all this inaction and policy mismanagement is costing us. We’ve dramatically reduced foreign aid to most African countries, but guess what, there are an awful lot of African countries and they each have a vote. We’ve been so strong in praising Israel that we’ve angered many Arab countries and lost our reputation as a moderate broker that could help link the U.S. and Europe. But guess what, there are an awful lot of Arab countries and states that used to vote for Canada because it was perceived as being balanced.

This is all very sad, but all very true: we’ve lost most of our stature in the world. Sure the change is mostly due to demographics, but it’s also mismanagement, total mismanagement.

Carbon tax and leadership

Two interesting stories came out today.

First, a Harris-Decima poll reveals that Canadians find Stéphane Dion weak and uninspiring, but still find him more likable that Stephen Harper.

Then, a Globe and Mail article indicated that the Liberals were seriously leaning towards embracing a carbon-tax and putting it at the centre of their platform.

Well, in my mind, it's all very clear: they HAVE to go with a carbon tax.

Leaving aside the fact that it's unquestionably the right thing to do, a carbon-tax would finally give Dion something to fight for. If we look at recent polls, the two vices that Stéphane Dion is most often accused of are weakness and inability to communicate. But interestingly enough, before he became Liberal leader, his English was perfectly acceptable and he certainly wasn't thought of as weak.

That's because he hasn't had anything to fight for. Since January 2006, he's been acting as Leader of the opposition and spending all of his time attacking the government. Visibly, he hasn't done the greatest job.

But attacking the government has never been Stéphane Dion's strong suit. He's always been fighting for a vision. First it was national unity which led him to pass the Clarity Act and almost single handedly provoque Lucien Bouchard's frustrated exit from Politics. Then it was uniting the environment and economy, an issue which he championed in Cabinet under Martin and then as a Liberal Leadership candidate.

Dion'a strengths are honesty, sincerity, and true command of the issues. They were evident in the past, but are now being overshadowed by accusations of weakness, indecisiveness, and lack of vision. A carbon tax could be the magic pill that puts Dion's problems behind him and gives his strengths a chance to express themselves. It won't be an easy sell, especially when the Harper spin machine gets going, but he's got to have a better shot at selling a carbon tax that framing the Conservatives as an "evil right wind ideological government". And if polls are to be trusted, here's an interesting fact: Harris-Decima concluded last week that 61% of Canadians support a carbon-tax. So clearly, there's potential.

Selfdestruction

Susan Delacourt, a senior journalist from the Toronto Star, was apparently told by Liberal Senator David Smith that his party was planning on putting off an election until the government simply killed itself. Some people may call this a risky strategy, but history does show that governments tend to face their biggest problems towards the end of their terms. And considering that the Conservative policy book was written with the assumption that their would be an election after 18 months of governing, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea after all.

I actually believe that the government has already started to self-destruct, and that the terrain should be ripe for an election by the fall. Why? Because, the government's everyday policy is simply not in tune with the desires of most Canadians.

Let's just look at two stories today: first, Health Minister Tony Clement is attacked by leading scientists for refusing to renew the funding of the Vancouver safe injection site despite clear evidence of the pilot project's success. Second, the government takes heat for eliminating a database often used by journalists of all Access to Information requests since 1989.

These are all relatively small stories -small coverage, no legs-, but they do add up and contribute to a wider unease about the Conservatives. However good they may be at spinning a message and attacking the opposition, these everyday policy decisions do matter.

The Conservatives have a good shot at another minority (they won't ever get a majority), but they need to start acting like a party of government rather that a party of opposition. This means toning down the personal attacks, staying clear of national institutions such as the Nuclear Safety Board and Elections Canada, and most importantly, leaving their right wing ideology out of day-to-day policy.

Imagine if Tony Clement had accepted the scientific evidence and given the safe injection site funding. He wouldn't have made huge political hay, but instead of putting off more scientists and receiving negative media coverage once again, he might have gotten a few endorsements and brought the government another hundred votes. A hundred votes a day can go a long way...