We the Sheeple

When I attended the Liberal Party Convention in Vancouver earlier this month, the number one question I was asked by MPs, bloggers and fellow delegates alike was, "Is Garth going to run again?"

The answer, apparently, is no.

I knew he'd been back and forth a couple of times on this since he lost the election last fall, but as far as I and the rest of the Halton Riding Association were aware, he was ready and willing to take another shot. So when he started telling the media in recent weeks to "stick a fork in me, I'm done", I thought he was just messing with them. But while nothing is 'official'-official yet, it looks like he's serious this time.

Who can blame him, really? Since he was ejected from the Conservative Party he's had garbage dumped on his lawn, had his vehicle followed and photographed, his wife and his campaign manager have had sexually degrading comments about them spewed across the internet, and he's been inundated with an endless barrage of harassing and threatening emails and phone calls. He's certainly not the first politician ever to be targeted in this way, but as someone who got to take a couple of those calls during the campaign I can personally attest to the devastating emotional effect they can have. Anyone who can stand up and take that sort of abuse for any length of time and continue doing their job the way that they see fit deserves our respect.

So rejoice, oh ye haters - you won't have Garth Turner to kick around anymore (that thud you just heard was the sound of Steve Janke's blog stats crashing to the ground).

Happily, none of this has prevented the man from continuing to speak out about the sad state of our democracy - specifically, the effect of having our elected representatives forced to toe the party line instead of being free to speak on our behalf. His own personal experience with this phenomenon is detailed in his new book, "Sheeple: Caucus Confidential in Stephen Harper's Ottawa". I'd give you a review, but sadly our rapidly expanding town still has but one tiny bookstore (not counting the excellent 'Recycled Reading'), and the two copies they ordered disappeared before they even hit the shelves.

Turner speaks about his book and his experiences in this excellent interview on CBC News: Sunday. There is apparently a later panel discussion with Turner, Elizabeth May, Michael Enright and James Travers which I'm hoping will be posted later.

By the way, before you write off 'Sheeple' as sour grapes or the revenge of the rejected, Turner isn't the only one concerned about the bubble of obedience that Stephen Harper has created around himself, both in caucus and in the PMO:

Mr. Jaffer, whose is married to Minister of State for Status of Women Helena Guergis (Simcoe-Grey, Ont.), said there are "caucus morale" issues in the Conservative caucus and he questioned whether there is enough of a "culture of dissent" within the party for Mr. Harper to be made fully aware of the political situation inside and outside of caucus.

"I often challenged certain things because I wanted to be sure he got the best information; whether he liked it or not was another thing," said Mr. Jaffer. "But that's always a challenge and the Prime Minister has to take a step back and ask himself that; is he being served in the best possibly way from the people who are currently around him? If he thinks that he's not, and, in particular, if he doesn't have that culture, if it's become more of a 'yes' culture than a culture of dissent, then he has to ask that question and maybe he has to make some changes, but only he can really be able to do that."

Whatever you think of Garth Turner and his ways, there does seem to be a growing consensus that there are some fundamental problems with our democratic system that must be addressed. Some are attempting to do that through digital democracy, electoral reform, or overhauling their own political parties to make them more internally democratic. Others, like Turner, are questioning the very role that political parties play in our system. They point out, as does Hassan Arif in a recent editorial, that Canada has one of the most rigidly partisan political systems in the world. Even in the U.S., where the relationship between Red and Blue is commonly characterized as a war, votes in Congress rarely fall strictly along party lines, negotiation is the norm, and each representative is fully expected to express the wishes of their constituents and not just their party.

Compare that to our current Parliament, where nearly every vote of any significance is a whipped vote, and any MP who goes against that can expect to be disciplined or expelled. What does that do to the ability or even the willingness of our representatives to actually represent us? What does it say when most MPs spend all of their time (and our money) parroting talking points, re-distributing identical pamphlets and essentially selling their party's position to their constituents? When was the last time you heard an MP speak an opinion that wasn't identical to the opinion of every other MP in his or her party? When was the last time your MP asked you what you thought about anything, or responded to an email with anything other than "Thank you for your comments"?

I used to have an MP. Now I have a spokesperson for the Conservative Party of Canada.

I'm gonna miss you, Garth.



(crossposted from HaltonWatch)

Number Crunching 2: Where Did All the Liberal Voters Go?

The inter-party dynamics took on a rather different tenor during the recent election. Instead of the usual 'blue vs. red and let the weirdos take the dregs' approach, the NDP and even the Green Party were finally recognized as a force to be reckoned with. At least by the Liberals - the Conservatives, of course, paid them no mind as they recognized that all of their new votes were going to be coming from the Liberals, thus regarding the other parties (except the Bloc) as beneath their notice.

The Liberals, on the other hand, had the rare good sense to recognize the NDP and the Greens as a significant potential drain on their votes. But instead of simply agreeing with them on principle while arguing that Liberals are better and more experienced at the application, they chose to go on the attack, making party level pleas for strategic voting and practically calling Jack Layton a dirty commie.

They actually seemed surprised by the results.

I mentioned earlier that the Liberal Party is hemorrhaging to the left. Most election post-mortems have noted this, but have been focusing on the seat counts and the percentage shifts, which don't really tell the whole picture because they are skewed by the vagaries of our FPTP system and the size of the smaller parties. I've found the raw numbers of voters to be far more telling. Here's the evidence:

- Compared with 2006, the only party which showed a net increase in votes was... the Green Party. To the tune of about a quarter million votes. Independents and miscellaneous fringe parties also showed an increase.

- If you adjust for the drastic decrease in voter turnout this year, you would get the following net losses and increases:

Conservative: +198,011
Liberal: -597,097
NDP: +95,191
Green: +342,907
Bloc: -76,648
Other: +21,612

In other words, only about a third of the Liberals' lost votes went to the Conservatives. The other two thirds went to the Greens and the NDP. This is in stark contrast to the previous election, where almost all of the Liberal losses benefited the Conservatives.

- In Quebec, the big losers were the Bloc and the Conservatives, who each lost the adjusted equivalent of over 100,000 votes. Many of those were picked up by the Liberals - many more by the NDP.

These numbers tend to verify the impression I got listening and talking to people during this election. Right-leaning Liberals were drifting to the Conservatives, or just choosing not to vote, because they felt that Dion was a weak leader. However, there don't appear to have been a lot of them this time, and I believe the Conservatives are approaching their ceiling in terms of numbers of voters.

But left-leaning Liberals, as well as NDP and Green supporters who might have otherwise voted strategically, told me that they could not bring themselves to vote Liberal because they did not consider the Liberals to be a truly progressive party. In fact, they didn't see much difference between the Liberals and Conservatives at all - an impression left by Chretien and Martin's centrist, corporate-friendly fiscal policies, as well as the embarrassing record of abstentions during the last Parliament.

The decision the Liberal Party needs to make right now is if they're ok with that.

If they are - if they want to continue presenting themselves as a kinder, friendlier version of the Conservatives who know how to balance the books and keep the Bay Street boys happy - then by all means, they should go with someone like McKenna, or Manley, or even Ignatieff. They might even win a few of those Red Tories back with a more palatable leader making their case.

However, leaving aside for the moment my philosophical revulsion for that sort of approach, I honestly don't think that anything can be gained by it. Fiscal prudence might appeal to pensioners and corporate donors, but it's hardly the way to generate voter enthusiasm or grassroots donations, and that's what the Liberals desperately need right now.

Going by the numbers and not just the seats, the message is clear: the Conservatives have stalled, and the moderate left is on the ascendancy. The only question is, will the Liberals stop pandering to the corporations and money men whose influence and vote-buying powers are no longer what they once were? Or will they wake up and start paying more than lip service to what the majority of Canadians clearly want - sound fiscal and social policies that actually put people and the planet first?

The answer will determine their survival as a political force in this country.

Voters, Schmoters: How the Real Decisions Are Made

It's been a week and a bit now since a little more than half of us marched into our polling stations to do our duty and cast our ritual vote for our candidate or party of choice.

Yay us.

As sick as some of us might feel about the results, we all somehow manage to convince ourselves that "the people have spoken". That as much as we might disagree with the choices they made, however pathetic the turnout was, however dishonest and manipulative the political advertising campaigns were, however shoddy and superficial the media coverage, the plurality of Canadians who bothered showing up had somehow ferreted out enough information about their candidates and party leaders to make something resembling an informed decision.

Meanwhile, the real decisions about our economy had already been made by Stephen Harper's true constituents:

Politics factored into bank aid deal
Dialogue between Ottawa, Bay St. behind the scenes

… Several of the people involved in the process said that even while pillars of Wall Street were crumbling and world leaders were invoking the spectre of financial armageddon, a central consideration for the Prime Minister’s Office seemed to be Jack Layton and the New Democratic Party.

The Conservatives and key allies on Bay Street feared both the immediate and lasting consequences of giving political adversaries an opening to turn the banking industry and its ties with Ottawa into a matter of public scorn. This concern reached a peak immediately before the election with the meltdown in markets, co-ordinated global interventions and the approach of polling day.

Amid late-night phone calls to the homes of senior officials in Ottawa, a loose strategy emerged to split the federal government’s response into two stages, with a decision to delay until after the election the explicit commitment to insure interbank lending that was finally unveiled yesterday.

But bank executives insisted on a long-sought move to shift mortgages off their books and supply them with cash before the election, because they feared the uncertainty of polling day and the possibility Mr. Flaherty might not return as finance minister, according to participants in the process and observers. This first stage was held back until the last possible moment, the eve of the Thanksgiving weekend, the last day of market trading before polling day, when a $25-billion scheme to aid banks was announced by Mr. Flaherty. “The strategy [was] trying to low-key it, [unveiling it] when people were running away to the cottage to pull the dock out of the water and making their pumpkin pies,” said one person involved in the discussions.

This is what happens when a government is confident that nobody is paying attention. Get ready for more of the same.

Dion

Wow. Well. That was... unexpected. And given the whole host of lousy options currently available, I think this may have been the best choice he could have made. At least now we will have some continuity, and Dion and his supporters might continue to have a voice in the renewal process.

I keep thinking back to a scene in the movie 'Serpico'. Serpico has been branded a traitor by his fellow officers for exposing corruption, but he insists on staying on the job. He is called to make an arrest at a sleezy apartment, and as he knocks on the door he realizes that the cops who are supposed to have his back have suddenly vanished.

Then he gets shot in the face.

The way Stephane Dion has been treated by the Liberal Party establishment from day one is appalling. Whatever Dion's shortcomings, they could have easily been overcome if he had had the unqualified support of his caucus and staff. He did not, and those 'anonymous Liberal insiders' made damned sure that everyone knew that he did not. They never wanted him, and were apparently willing to wreck the party in order to replace him with another corporatist Martin clone.

And now they will reap the rewards for their short sighted power tactics.

Welcome to your Kerry years.

Number Crunching: Sometimes, All Politics Are NOT Local

One of many things I learned working on my first campaign is that whatever your area of responsibility might be - door knocking, sign installation, organizing appearances and debates, calling supporters to get out the vote - you become convinced that what you are doing is what will ultimately win or lose the election for your candidate.

In Halton, a whole number of factors have been blamed for Garth Turner's loss to Lisa Raitt:

The sign people blame whoever it was who stole and trashed hundreds of our signs, as well as the dozens of Jumbotron-sized full colour Raitt billboards installed by hired crews over the final weekend.

The fundraising people blame the buckets of money poured into Raitt's campaign by the federal Conservatives.

Scrutineers blame the Conservatives' use of detailed supporter lists in a carefully orchestrated last minute get-out-the-vote phone blitz, often conducted directly from the polling stations.

The candidate blames, in part, the repeated lies about Liberal tax and child care policies parroted by Raitt during the debates and in her multiple literature mailings.

The campaign manager blames the Conservative bloggers who relentlessly trashed and harassed Garth and herself, as well as the local media who gave Raitt a free pass but could barely contain their glee whenever Garth made some minor stumble.

And one obnoxious prick actually blamed Esther.

While all of these things may have been minor factors (except the last), I have been taking a close look at the totals for other GTA ridings, and I have come to the conclusion that not only was Garth's loss a foregone conclusion given the national and regional trends, but that he actually fared better than Liberal candidates in adjacent ridings despite the personal interest Harper had in ensuring his defeat.

Check this out. This is a comparison between Halton and four other GTA ridings. Two (Oakville and Burlington) are adjacent and actually share a population base and some key demographic characteristics. The other two (Brampton West and Oak Ridges-Markham) have had a similar population explosion and increase in their ethnic and immigrant populations. Three elected a Liberal MP last time, and one managed to barely retain theirs.

And yet the trend was remarkably similar across the board:



It looks a little impenetrable, but to sum up: Between the 2006 and 2008 elections, the Halton Liberal candidate had the smallest loss in percentage vote share and the Conservative had the smallest gain. Similarly, Halton saw the smallest shift in numbers of votes from Liberal to Conservative.

In other words, the Halton campaign did a better job of holding back the blue tide than other similar GTA ridings.

We should all be very proud.

Dead Soldiers

(WARNING: I wrote this at three in the morning after a very, very long and emotional day and more than a couple of beers, and I went a little over the top in a few places. I was actually thinking of toning it down a bit in the bleary light of day, but then I figured - screw it. It's my blog, and that's how I was feeling when I wrote it. If you have tender sensibilities, feel free to skip it.)
_____________________________

I've been drinking a bit, so I will be posting in point form this evening.

- People get the government they deserve, and on that note... fuck you, Ontario!!! I hope you all enjoy the next 1-4 years.

- This is our Kerry year. You remember - that year when nobody with more than two brain cells to rub together could even conceive of the possibility that Dubya could ever win another election after demonstrably lying his way into a war and occupation and digging the U.S. into debt hole from which they may never recover? Yeah. That year.

Next year in Jerusalem.

- If you haven't heard already, Garth lost. And the blogosphere just became a little less interesting tonight. I was honestly shocked by how much he lost by, but it appears that he just fell victim to the mouldy blue tide sweeping across Ontario. Speaking for myself and Zorph and possibly others, I am BEGGING Garth to keep up his blog, or start another. Even if you aren't our guy in Ottawa for now, we still value your wit and insight.

Blog on, Garth. Blog on.

- I think it's a given that nobody in Halton will ever attend another Town Hall meeting, or receive a telephone or email response from Lisa Raitt regarding anything they wish to ask of her. We have just elected Stephen Harper as our MP.

- We received several 'crank' phone calls at the campaign office this evening. The least offensive was one I took myself, wishing us all 'bad luck' in this evening's vote. A worse one said something about setting election signs on fire with lighter fluid. Nice people you have onside there, Lisa. Have fun with them.

- North Oakville polls rawk. We need to re-jig the riding boundaries next time to include more of north Oakville, less of north Burlington. And the Milton developments are o-tay too.

- If my sister out on Salt Spring Island voted Green, I will be having serious words with her.

- We cannot go forward in the same way that we did during the last parliament. Something must be done about Stephen Harper declaring every piece of shite he puts before the House of Commons as a do-or-die confidence matter. The three opposition parties MUST put forward a motion to prevent the government from declaring anything but budget bills as confidence motions.

- I am deeply concerned for the future of the Liberal Party, and not just because we've lost seats or that we are about to further bankrupt the party through another leadership convention. Stephane Dion, for all his faults, represents the long-neglected left wing of the Liberal Party. His failure to sell his vision to the majority of Canadians in this election will be regarded by many of the 'old guard' Martin Liberals as a failure of the left wing in general, and will provide an excuse for a shift back to the corporatist policies of the past in the form of people like Michael Ignatieff.

That, plus the influx of orphaned Progressive Conservatives like (sorry to say) Garth Turner into the party may well knock the Liberals off of their traditionally slightly left-of-centre position into something more closely resembling a Red Tory party. Which means that I may well have to start voting NDP again.

- For a terrifying glimpse into the future of Canada, I strongly recommend "The Wrecking Crew" by Thomas Frank. It's sure scaring the shit out of me right now, and I'm only about half way through (I want that back, Esther).

- Speaking of Esther: THIS IS IN NO WAY YOUR FAULT! It was Harper and Dion and buckets of money and weak minded people crawling home to Daddy in fear. And yeah, a bit of it was Garth being Garth. You did nothing but help his chances. You are the best. Never forget it.

- I filked my own version of 'Barrett's Privateers' for the occasion tonight, but didn't feel it was appropriate to serenade Garth with, given the circumstances. I'll post my lyrics on his blog or mine later this week.

- Nothing lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever...

And here. We. Go.

One more sleep, and it will be off to the races. I'm excited. I'm terrified. I don't know where the hell I'm going to find another two scrutineers by tomorrow evening.

It's still a total crap shoot here in Halton. The polls and projections all say it'll be within a thousand or so votes either way, but none of them account for The Garth Factor: that pungent melange of infamy, gusto, brash outspokenness, and a lightening rod-like ability to attract controversy.

Or as David Akin put it in his 'Ontario Ridings to Watch' post:

HALTON
Garth Turner’s riding. Need I say more?

Garth wrote a lovely post this evening about the last street he and Dorothy door-knocked today. Good stuff.

I'm almost resigned to another Harper minority at this point. But if Garth loses, I think I'll cry for a week.

Here's something to keep us all in a good mood tomorrow.



Good luck everyone!

Democratic Space Implodes!

Whoa! Weird. I tried to check Democratic Space's strategic voting guide, and I got this:



I checked it again five minutes later and got a 403 - Forbidden error. And now the front page is up (with a new look), but all the other pages are blank.

I hope it's just a facelift, but it would be interesting if it turned out to be a massive traffic surge.

Why I Support Garth Turner

I am one of those left-wing types who has always swung somewhere between the NDP and the Liberals - with the occasional flirtation with bone fide socialism - for most of my adult life. So, WTF am I doing hanging around with a couple of ex-Progressive Conservatives like Garth Turner and Esther Shaye?

One word: DEMOCRACY.

It was two and a half years ago that I attended my first Garth Turner Town Hall Meeting. I was exceedingly sceptical going in, but after listening to Garth and meeting Esther Shaye, his constituency office manager and current campaign manager, I started to believe.

Since then, I have gotten to know Garth a bit better and Esther quite well, and to a lesser extent I have come to know many of those who stuck with Garth on his voyage from PC to Conservative to Independent to Liberal. And though I may disagree with some of them on specific policy matters, I can tell you this:

They are the REAL DEAL.

They believe in Canada, and they believe in Government as the instrument of the people of Canada. They believe that politicians are there to represent their constituents and not their party. They believe that they are there to serve our interests, not their own. They know Stephen Harper and his associates better than any of us would ever care to, and that experience has inspired all of them to do everything in their power to drive the lot of them out of Canadian politics forever.

Garth Turner is, to a large extent, everything you've heard. Opinionated. Self-aggrandizing. In love with the sound of his own voice. And on a fairly regular basis he lets his mouth (or his blog) get ahead of his brain.

Garth Turner is also the only MP I have ever had who has ever answered a direct question from me, or adjusted his perspective based on what I had to say. He is a fiscal conservative, but after some soul searching he has come to honestly support Dion's Green Shift and to embrace the notion that the rich hold some obligation to the poor. He's all about the tax cuts, but he totally gets why I went to Montebello to protest a year ago. I smack him regularly on issues like Senate reform, but I still hold out hope that some day Betty and I will wear him down.

When I listen to Garth Turner, I know that I am hearing what he thinks and not just what his party tells him to think. More importantly, when I speak to Garth, I know that he is actually listening to me and not just thinking up some way to convince me that I'm wrong.

A year and a half ago I had no interest in involving myself in the minutia of riding-level politics. This long weekend, I will be forgoing Thanksgiving turkey with the 'rents in favour of campaign activities as I somehow find myself responsible for the recruitment and training of 40+ election day scrutineers.

Three weeks ago, I couldn’t even spell scrutineer, let alone tell you what one did.

This is democracy. This is what it should be. This is what you should demand from yourself and from your own MP.

Me? I’m lucky enough to live in Halton.

A Further Thought on Strategic Voting

There was a little piece in the 'Ethics' column of the Toronto Star last weekend that really struck me. A card-carrying member of the NDP asked whether it would be 'ethical' to vote for a party they didn't favour in order to deny a majority to a party they despised. This was the answer:

Do I do the unthinkable to thwart Mr. Harper?

A: Strategic voting is a dangerous game that has a way of biting us back.

Many Liberals will attest to this: It was strategic voting at their leadership convention that got them into the Stéphane Dion mess in the first place.

But you are asking about ethics, not political strategy – and they are rarely the same. In this election you're caught in a situation of conflicting loyalties. You feel loyal to a group of people you have supported, worked with and come to respect.

But you also want to be loyal to your country, and worry that "wasting" your vote on a candidate who can't win helps deliver the nation into the hands of someone you detest – if not personally, then certainly politically.

So the question is: Which loyalty takes precedence? And the answer is clear, to me at least: Loyalty to country trumps loyalty to party. It's a question, ultimately, of who serves whom. Political parties exist to serve Canada, not vice versa.

I will repeat that:

LOYALTY TO COUNTRY TRUMPS LOYALTY TO PARTY.

And yes, he also says that the ethical thing to do would be to give up the NDP membership, at least for the duration. But I think a better idea is here.

I thought of that again today when I read about the three IPCC scientists who came out with a plea today for Green supporters to vote strategically to stop Harper.

What are your loyalties?

FYI, Halton is most certainly one of those swing ridings where the Green vote could make a difference. Or the NDP. Or, well, the Saturday night crowd at The Dickens.

Vote for Garth. I'll explain why later.

Halton's Xeroxed Endorsements of Lisa Raitt

Nobody was surprised when the Milton Champion, the Oakville Beaver and the Burlington Post all gave blanket endorsements to the Conservative candidates in their ridings, including Lisa Raitt whose riding straddles all three towns.

What is surprising is that Lisa Raitt seems to think she has just received endorsements from three different newspaper editors.

Perhaps she, like me, had been under the mistaken impression that these three newspapers, although part of the same Metroland chain, were actually independent entities. But although each has its own managing editor, all three are in fact run by the same production staff and the same Editor-in-chief, who is apparently the one writing the endorsements.

From the Champion:

At the local level, we feel Raitt brings invaluable experience as CEO and president of the Toronto Port Authority to a job that will see her focusing on Halton’s woefully underfunded infrastructure needs.

...While Turner is the riding’s most politically-experienced candidate, we believe the outspoken, rebellious, party-be-damned approach he has taken in the last two-and-a-half years will be counter-productive to the team-building environment we think Canadians want from their next government.

The Beaver:

Frankly, it sounds like Turner will say anything to get himself elected. While this may ingratiate him to many of his constituents, and even his followers across Canada, we fear his rebellious, party-be-damned approach will be counter-productive to the team-building environment we think Canadians want and need from their next government.

... Newcomer Lisa Raitt brings invaluable experience as CEO and president of the Toronto Port Authority to a job that will see her focusing on Halton Region’s woefully underfunded infrastructure needs.

And the Post:

At the local level, we feel newcomer Raitt brings invaluable experience as CEO and president of the Toronto Port Authority to a job that will see her focusing on Halton Region’s woefully underfunded infrastructure needs.

While Turner is the riding’s most politically-experienced candidate, we believe the outspoken, rebellious, party-be-damned approach he has taken in the last two-and-a-half years will be counter-productive to the team-building environment we think Canadians want from their next government.

To their credit, the Milton Champion ran the following letter two days after their endorsement which takes issue with their choice. And the guy even wrote it himself.

DEAR EDITOR:

When my son asked Lisa Raitt about being a drop-in candidate, she told him, “There was no choice; the election came up suddenly.”

That was, of course, blatantly false, as anyone involved knows that the local Conservatives have been begging to be allowed to nominate a candidate for more than two years.

If she’s elected, she won’t be the MP for Halton; she will be Stephen Harper’s MP, beholden to him. Many card-carrying Conservatives are upset about this.

This isn’t about affirmative action either; it’s not about more women candidates. It’s about Harper’s distrust of the local riding and its ability to select a candidate malleable enough to keep quiet and do her master’s bidding.

If Raitt is elected she will carry no weight for Halton in the House of Commons. She will simply be Harper’s messenger, bringing nothing but empty rhetoric to the riding.

When the Progressive Conservatives merged with the Alliance Party, there were many Progressive Conservatives who felt that this might be a new beginning to a right of centre progressive party. Sadly, Progressive has been dropped and the new party is far more draconian, ideological and downright mean.

Turner and other PCs were shocked at the direction the party took — the fact that there was no room for debate, or that expediency trumped accountability and ethics made it difficult for a real PC to last in the new party. Frankly, you will find that a lot of Progressive Conservatives have had to find a new home in the Liberal Party.

Turner is loud, but he’s certainly accessible. Constituents know where to find him. He has had many town hall meetings where people could express their opinions in an open forum and expect them to be taken to Ottawa. He has been a presence in Ottawa and a valuable Member of Parliament. I believe that the House of Commons needs more people like Turner, willing to speak truth to power. We certainly don’t need more ciphers whose only role is to raise a hand when Harper wants them to vote.

It saddens me that you would support someone like Raitt, who really brings little to the table. As far as her being the CEO of the Toronto Port Authority, did you do any research on how effective that organization is, and what the people of Toronto think of it? I don’t expect you did.

EDWARD BROOKS, MILTON

Rally in Support of Culture: Toronto, Wednesday

If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the arts & culture industry, or if you just want to show Harper and the other party leaders and candidates just how much real, ordinary Canadians care about culture, please come down to the CBC building at Front & John at 11:30 tomorrow and show your support.



See you there! Rain or shine!

Harper's Job Creation Strategy: Call an Election

The Conservatives are all about putting a happy face on the rotting corpse of the economy this week, and new jobs numbers for September seem to bolster their stubborn insistence that everything's going so well.

The average estimate by economists is for the addition of about 12,500 new jobs in the Canadian economy in September, that's down slightly from the 15,200 jobs created in August. For the first eight months of the year the Canadian economy has created 87,000 jobs compared with 221,000 in the first eight months of 2007.

That's great, right? Except... wait... does that number include the nearly 200,000 temporary workers typically hired by Elections Canada during an election? John Ivison seems to think so, and... oh, look.

Yes. Yes it does.

[TD economics strategist Millan] Mulraine forecast the Canadian economy will grow by about 15,000 jobs in September, mostly due to hiring related to the Oct. 14 federal election.

"That's the only reason why we see a big bump for September," he said.

I see. Never mind.

Here's Garth and Lisa on jobs and the economy.

Halton Candidates Debate, Round 3

Practise makes perfect.

The three rookie candidates showed significant improvement in their debating skills for the third Halton candidates debate last night. Collard is getting a little better about getting her nose out of the page, Wagner managed to keep his tongue largely untangled and even worked up some genuine emotion (although he still talks too fast), and Raitt only mentioned her kids maybe half a dozen times.

I didn't get the tape rolling until a fair ways in (I was trying to be subtle), so I missed recording the opening statements which were... interesting. Garth started right off the bat saying that he would use his closing statements to say why we should vote for him, but would use his opening statement to explain why we shouldn't vote for Lisa Raitt. And then he went on the attack, hauling out everything from her parachute ride into Halton to her tainted record with the Toronto Port Authority.

It was a bold move for what should have been a quiet little local debate, and I'm not sure it was the wisest approach as it set a rather hostile tone that the audience didn't seem to appreciate. On the other hand, it got all that on the record and out of the way right from the beginning, it put her on the defensive, and left her looking like the hostile one whenever she tried to get her own back later in the debate. And it seemed to be forgotten as the debate wore on.

Still, I found it a bit much for the circumstances. But what do I know.

Here are the four candidates explaining their personal positions on Afghanistan. I started with this one because a) it shows Raitt falling back on the old "it's all about those poor oppressed women" excuse, which ranks up there with "bringing democracy to Iraq" and the Domino Theory as one of the most cynical and disingenuous post-invasion justifications for war this century, and b) Rob Wagner calls her on it and thereby gives his best answer of the evening - and I promised to say something nice about him.

There you go, Rob.



More video to come...

Quote of the Day

Say what you like about Canadian Cynic, whenever PSA blesses us with a post, all ye take heed.

And the Liberals, they stood by like a pack of wet dogs, shivering and licking their own hinds, trembling from the cold, confusion and fear. Pity poor Stephane Dion, a decent enough guy stuffed into the wrong place at the wrong time and doomed to wear the blame for the wave of failure that is rising before him. He is a smart, decent fellow. In this climate, where we are infected by the same contagious stupidity that is endemic in America, the worst thing for a party leader is to be smart and decent. That equals weakness in the new political math. A brave and powerful political ape will scream and hurl great armloads of feces and recline on a bed of enemy skulls to drink toasts to himself. Dion is a lost man waiting to discover his fate. While Stephen Harper is a scalding douche telling the biggest lie, most often until it begins to find belief in the TV thickened skulls of the electorate. Welcome children of Karl Rove, we are your dupes, victims and patsies.

Another voice, crying out in the wilderness.

Watch closely - this is us in another four to eight years.

There is a devastating and bloody evisceration of Sarah Palin in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone. It was written soon after her debut at the Republican National Convention and so fails to account for the bloom coming off that particular rose in recent days. But the language is delicious and the criticism of both her and the America that loves her - merciless.

I'll skip to the end:

...Sure, Barack Obama might be every bit as much a slick piece of imageering as Sarah Palin. The difference is in what the image represents. The Obama image represents tolerance, intelligence, education, patience with the notion of compromise and negotiation, and a willingness to stare ugly facts right in the face, all qualities we're actually going to need in government if we're going to get out of this huge mess we're in.

Here's what Sarah Palin represents: being a fat fucking pig who pins "Country First" buttons on his man titties and chants "U-S-A! U-S-A!" at the top of his lungs while his kids live off credit cards and Saudis buy up all the mortgages in Kansas.

The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn't that she's totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got. No, the most disgusting thing about her is what she says about us: that you can ram us in the ass for eight solid years, and we'll not only thank you for your trouble, we'll sign you up for eight more years, if only you promise to stroke us in the right spot for a few hours around election time.

Democracy doesn't require a whole lot of work of its citizens, but it requires some: It requires taking a good look outside once in a while, and considering the bad news and what it might mean, and making the occasional tough choice, and soberly taking stock of what your real interests are.

This is a very different thing from shopping, which involves passively letting sitcoms melt your brain all day long and then jumping straight into the TV screen to buy a Southern Style Chicken Sandwich because the slob singing "I'm Lovin' It!" during the commercial break looks just like you. The joy of being a consumer is that it doesn't require thought, responsibility, self-awareness or shame: All you have to do is obey the first urge that gurgles up from your stomach. And then obey the next. And the next. And the next.

And when it comes time to vote, all you have to do is put your Country First — just like that lady on TV who reminds you of your cousin. U-S-A, baby. U-S-A! U-S-A!

I bring this to your attention, not to further mock Sarah Palin (and no, I haven't seen tonight's Vice-Presidential debate yet, although I did tape it), but to encourage you to see the pathetic mockery of the democratic process currently unfolding in the U.S. as the logical extrapolation of our own.

Read that excerpt again, and imagine for a moment that he is talking, not about the obviously superficial, celebrity-driven U.S. election, but about our own. Think about the fact that incidentals like policy and integrity have at long last become totally irrelevant in our current discourse, supplanted by telegenics and charisma and dog whistles, and whichever politician is best at convincing you that they're "just like you".

I'm sorry, but I don't want a Prime Minister who is "just like me". If I did, I'd run myself. I want someone who has a a broader perspective, with a better understanding of how government and economics work, and who is smarter than me (and I've got a pretty kick-ass IQ).

I don't give a rat's ass if you have a hunting license or a brood of kids or if you play piano or wear sweater vests. I want to know that you have great ideas, and a vision for this country that approximates mine, and a solid, practical plan for how to get us there.

I've said it before - if Stephane Dion, for all his intellect and ideals and bold, forward-looking vision turns out to be unelectable in this country simply because he has a heavy accent, it will say more about us than it does about him. Gods help us all.

Did I hear that right?!?

Harper on the Volvo plant closure and the loss of 500 jobs:

"I understand some people lost some jobs. It's a terrible thing. I understand - I've been between jobs before."

Between jobs?! Holy crap what an asshole!

How's This For a Campaign Slogan?

"The only thing Garth Turner likes more than the sound of his own voice... is the sound of yours."



Consider it yours, Garth. Good job tonight.

Live Blogging the Halton Candidates Debate

Tune in to Cogeco 14!

8:40 - Ok, I just finished eating dinner. First impressions: Rob Wagner isn't very good at this. And who let the Christian Heritage Party guy in?! I don't think Raitt has answered a single question so far without first mentioning a) that she's been going around talking to people, or b) that she has young children. And Garth needs to stop saying, "Having said that" so much.

8:45 - Garth got to go up after Lisa on poverty, and used the opportunity to address the lie she's been pushing that the Liberals will take away the $100 a month childcare benefit. Score!

8:50 - Mister Christian Heritage has kids too, and apparently he's shocked that so many kids walk to school by themselves. Garth brought up family income splitting (one of his pet projects), and then Amy Collard pointed out that the Greens are the only ones with income splitting actually in their platform. Score one for Amy!

8:55 - Did I mention that Mister Christian Heritage speaks in a nasal, oddly accented monotone while staring straight into the camera? Garth just held up Lisa's expensive glossy colour mailer that claims the Liberals plan to eliminate the childcare benefit, and called on her to explain why she's lying. I wait with bated breath...

... and she leads with "Mr. Turner, you don't get it". I see. Wow, she's really on her high horse now. She's all indignant, bringing up the 2006 Dion interview to prove that a statement from two years ago from someone who wasn't even the party leader then somehow proves that the Liberals are going to do what they have said they will not.

Who knew local debates could be so exciting?

9:00 - When Lisa was 10 her father had a stroke, so she understands all about seniors care. Groan. And she's brought up income splitting for seniors, which as I recall was something Garth had personally championed and got passed while he was a Conservative. Too bad he didn't get a chance to mention that (oop! he just did).

9:15 - The Christian Heritage Party doesn't believe in global warming, apparently. Lisa brings up the usual screed - 13 years of Liberal inaction, crazy schemes, tax on everything, blah blah blah. Happily, Garth got to rebut.

9:25 - Final statements. Amy says other parties copy ideas from the Green Party because they're good ideas.
Garth pushes the direct democracy angle - Garth the maverick, the servant of the electorate, the voice of the people, standing up for the little guy - say AMEN, brother!
Christian Heritage - my gods, he's a bus driver. Ew!
Lisa Raitt doesn't believe in picking fights, apparently. She will be our representative. She has the full support of the riding association - they're watching right now! She finds it rich to be lectured by a man who went to Ottawa as a Conservative and came back a Liberal. Oh, and the Conservatives will control spending. Someday.
Rob Wagner says "Don't let them tell you it can't be done!"

And we're done!

(I'm sorry - was there some other debate you wanted me to live blog?)

By Any Means Necessary

It's come to this.

After all my railing against strategic voting, and after spanking Garth Turner once for even suggesting such a thing, I have found myself spending the past few days on blog after blog actually defending strategic voting. All the while I kept telling myself that this was only me staying open to the idea, or playing devil's advocate or some damned thing, but after at least half a dozen comments I am forced to admit that I've finally crossed the Rubicon.

My name is Jennifer, and I support strategic voting.

I'm still reeling from all this, but let me try to explain my reasoning by collating some of what I've said elsewhere this week. This is going to be long and somewhat disjointed, so bear with me.

First off, when I say 'strategic voting', I'm not talking about that vote-swapping site or candidates dropping out or suggesting that everyone vote Liberal because everything else is a wasted vote. In fact, what has always put me off of the whole notion is that in its crude form it tends towards a two-party system, and that is most definitely not what I want to see. Diversity is one of the great strengths of both our country and our democratic system, and Canada would not be what it is today without the influence of its third and fourth parties.

What has turned my thinking around is the approach - and the numbers - presented on the Vote for Environment website I spoke about in my previous post. Because by voting in the way they suggest - strategically only in close races, for the candidate with the best chance of beating the Conservative regardless of party - we could actually increase the representation by non-Liberal/Conservative MPs by 20%. The NDP alone would potentially pick up a dozen more seats than they would otherwise, and the Greens would have a much better chance of getting a seat for their leader.

Now, I understand there are a number of people out there who seem to think that the Liberal party is almost as bad as the Conservatives and that they could never in good conscience vote for them. My opinion of that assessment is a debate for another day, but all I can say is that if you really feel that way then by all means, don't vote Liberal. Just understand that not everybody feels that way.

Other than a revulsion for the Liberal Party, the principle argument against strategic voting I've been seeing a lot is that democracy only works when people vote for their first choice of representative. While that is true in theory, my first question would be, what factors do you take into account when you make that choice?

There's the party itself, but how do you judge a party? By their track record? What if they don't have one, or if they're going through some significant changes? By their policy platform? Are they actually equipped to enact that platform once in power? By their leader? How are you judging them? Then there's the local candidate to consider.

Personally, if I were to just go by party platform, the closest to my wishes and beliefs would probably be the NDP. But I've seen what happens when a party with no experience governing unexpectedly takes power, and it's ain't pretty - plus, I just don't believe the country could afford everything on Jack's wish list. The local candidates? Garth rocks, although he's still got some rather annoying conservative tendencies like his fondness for itty bitty governments. The NDP guy is sweet but slightly naive. And the Green candidate apparently thinks that greenhouse gases cause peanut allergies.

So, should I vote for my favourite candidate, leader or party?

My point is, nothing is simple, least of all democracy. There are a whole lot of factors that go into deciding who to vote for, and I see no reason why one of those factors shouldn't be a calculation of the likelihood of defeating the candidate of a party you despise.

Unlike previous elections where calls for strategic voting were coming almost entirely from the parties which stood to benefit (not that some Liberals aren't above capitalizing on that sort of thing even now), this time it really does appear to be a legitimate and growing grassroots movement. As soon as the Conservatives started edging into majority territory in the polls, it seemed like a dozen initiatives and websites sprang up overnight, from the vote-swapping Facebook page to Danny Williams' "ABC" website to the highly focused "Vote for Environment" strategy.

And it's not just the political wonks who are looking for a work-around:

The Star poll found that more than half of Liberal voters (54 per cent), and almost half of NDP (47 per cent), and Green (44 per cent) voters would seriously consider "strategically" switching their votes against their preferred candidate if it looks like another party has a better shot at winning, and could block a Conservative.

Many have suggested that we should be fighting for democratic reform instead of 'cheating' like this. The thing is, I have fought for democratic reform in the form of proportional representation and have watched in frustration as the people in my province responded with a resounding yawn. There are other types of reform, of course - Dion has suggested preferential balloting - but in the end, any type of democratic reform is likely to take years or even decades to bring about. Because there is one way in which Canadians are inherently conservative: we are rather stubbornly resistant to institutional change. And frankly, we just don't have that much time.

Which brings me to the one overriding reason why I am supporting this specific form of strategic voting in this election: Stephen Harper.

I have lived through nine Prime Ministers, including four Conservative ones. I lived through Brian Mulroney. I even lived through the Harris years here in Ontario. I've voted Liberal, NDP, Green, and even Progressive Conservative once. And out of all those Prime Ministers and Premiers, some of whom I profoundly disagreed with and even protested against, Stephen Harper is the first one who has actually made me fear for my country.

If Harper's Conservatives win a majority, I don't think I want to live here for the next four years. How's that for a reason?
________________________

UPDATE: Some people are claiming that Vote for Environment might be Liberally biased. I have seen no evidence of this myself, but in case you don't like their numbers, DemocraticSPACE also has riding-by-riding analysis and seat projections, as well as a Strategic Voting Guide. Perhaps you'll find their numbers more palatable.

And just to make you even happier, DemocraticSPACE is specifically NOT endorsing strategic voting for the vast majority of Canadians. It's only in those very close races where it could actually make a difference that they make recommendations, and just to be fair they also offer advise for Conservatives who want to keep the Liberals out (no, not that...).

The vast majority of ridings in Canada are NOT appropriate for strategic voting whatsoever (in that it will not impact the outcome). There are only 13 ridings where it is appropriate for Conservative supporters, 16 ridings for Liberal supporters, 30 ridings for NDP supporters and 37 ridings for Green supporters.

So unless your riding is listed below, DO NOT VOTE STRATEGICALLY.

Halton is listed. Saanich-Gulf Islands is not. Go figure.