Didn't I Just Say That?

Thank you, Paul Wells:

Harper plays chess… while Rome burns

...So, drawing his inspiration from Jo Moore, the Downing Street spin doctor who thought 9/11 would be a “very good day” to get some embarrassing news releases out, Harper decided an economic crisis would be an excellent cover to use for a little political kneecapping. What could be more clever? That’ll show them he’s a serious guy.

So the real outrage of yesterday’s economic “update” is not that it seeks to impose on most parliamentarians a change to funding rules that most of them would never ordinarily accept; it’s that it accomplishes nothing else. It’s that in the most dangerous economic times Canada has faced in 20 years if not far longer, this prime minister can’t wipe the smirk off his face and grow up a little.

What comes next is beyond my ability to guess. The forces facing Harper do not look more encouraging, for me as a taxpayer, than the forces arrayed around Harper. But so what? Too much of our politics in recent years has been given over to warring camps who don’t care what their guy does as long as he’s their guy and he wins. A lot of the rest of us care less about the colour of the winning team so much as they desperately hope that whoever it is, he might take the job seriously.

At least since September, we have not been so lucky. Stephen Harper is my prime minister and for all I care he can go on being my prime minister as long as he cares and can win the little fantasy confrontations that so excite him. But he is acting like an idiot and I am ashamed of his behaviour.

BTW, I came home from work tonight to discover that my blog traffic had nearly tripled over the course of the day. I assumed that either Garth or KKK-Katie had given me some link-lurv that I was not aware of, but apparently this was merely the result of the entire progressive blogosphere going UTTERLY APESHIT.

This is fun!

Comment of the Day

The best thing about the leak of the PMO's "Talking Points for Dummies" memo is that most of the ConBots appear to have been struck dumb in the comments section for fear that they may be caught cribbing.

One conservative who did manage to find his own words had this to say:

Tom Radcliffe from Kingston, Canada writes: As a true conservative--that is, one who values the traditions of Canadian parliamentary democracy, which have proven sound in over a century of Canadian practise and many more centuries of practise and evolution in Britain before that--I am appalled by the Harper government's radical and innovative interpretation of our representative democratic process.

Governments must have the confidence of the House. If the government of the day loses the confidence of the House, the Governor General may ask any group of MPs who can plausibly claim to have the confidence of the House to form a new government. This is the traditional, conservative, way that Canadian parliamentary democracy works, and anyone who calls it undemocratic is either ignorant of Canadian history and politics, or some kind of wild-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth radical who certainly does not deserve the name "conservative."

That the Harper government is choosing to engage in this kind of childish, anti-democratic, radical brinksmanship in a time of great economic uncertainty is clear proof that they are far more concerned with party than country, and it is a good thing that they are going to engage in a campaign this weekend to clearly announce that to Canadians.

Canadians aren't stupid. If we are forced back to the polls by this bizarre game of political chicken we will remember whose government created that situation, and why. That knowledge will quite probably be reflected in the election's outcome.

No More Games

Alway the curious type, I thought I'd take a look at what sort of reaction recent events were getting over in BT land. So I screwed up my courage and wandered over to That Other Steven's place.

I found this almost as amusing revolting as Peter MacKay's 'chicken' comment:

The trap is set

The latest news is that the potential of Bloc-Liberal-NDP coalition government in waiting is shrinking a bit now that the Conservatives have promised to remove required confidence from the party welfare issue.

This is bait of course.

If the BLN coalition backs down now, Canadians will understand that their opposition to the economic statement really wasn’t about the “lack of stimulus”, the rescue of Canadian jobs, or the “protection of rights of women and workers”. The opposition and brinkmanship that was threatening a fresh election or constitutional crisis would have been about parties that are so fresh out of ideas, so unable to inspire, that they were ready to go to political war over their $1.95-per-vote handout from the Canadian taxpayer.

Here's the thing, Steve. And Steve. THIS IS NOT A GAME.

As disgusted as we progressives are by Flaherty's refusal to take bold action to stimulate the economy, this is not just about money. As outraged as we are about Harper's blatant attempt to bankrupt his rivals, this not just about democracy. And as delighted as we are by the idea of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives being kicked to the curb by a progressive coalition, this is not even remotely about power.

Listen carefully.

By using the current economic crisis as an opportunity to gain permanent partisan advantage and ram through ideologically-based provisions that have nothing whatsoever to do with 'fiscal prudence', while at the same time ignoring the advise of both opposition parties and respected economists by doing absolutely nothing to help Canadians, Stephen Harper has finally proven that he is incapable of running our country like a grown-up.

For him, and apparently for his acolytes, politics is nothing but a game. I imagine he thinks of himself as a brilliant political chessmaster, but his behaviour is more like some twelve-year old boy with behavioural issues playing double-dare-you and bloody-knuckles and leaving burning bags of dog shit on the front porch at Stornoway.

It is now clear that even in the most dire circumstances, when hundreds of thousands of Canadians are suffering, our current Prime Minister cannot restrain himself from obfuscating, manipulating, and playing the most petty partisan games, even with something as important as a statement intended to update Canadians on the state of our imperilled economy.

To quote my favourite political movie, we've got serious problems, and we need serious people. Time for the grown-ups to take the toys away and send little Stevie to his room.

When Chickens Attack

Peter MacKay: "When they play chicken, they wind up looking up like chickens"

That just speaks volumes about the attitude of the Conservative Party, doesn't it?



It's really remarkable how badly Harper and Flaherty have miscalculated here. So much for the Conservatives' legendary "psychic powers". You know - the ones that enabled them to intuitively know what actions to take to simulate the economy way back when they are now insisting that nobody could possibly have known that a crisis was coming and had no reason to think they needed to do anything but purely by coincidence ended up doing exactly the right thing anyway?

Ta da!

And for his next trick, Jim Flaherty will pull a deficit out of... wait... Jim? Jim? Where'd he go?!

Fine. I'm in. Just make it stop.

I've been tossing around all day between outrage, exhilaration, and a feeling of impending doom. Mostly, it's that weird, scary, excited feeling that you get when you realize that you have absolutely no idea what is going to happen next.

It's certainly interesting. In that "oh God oh God we're all going to die" sort of way.

To focus my thoughts, and to give myself something to do besides making inaccurate predictions and contemplating the simultaneous implosion of our economy and our government, I've decided to jump on this bandwagon:



I'm still not sure how or if this could possibly work on a practical level (word is that 'Prime Minister Dion' is not an option), but whatever. They can draw straws. I'm beyond caring.

What I do care about is this: that whoever ends up running the government stop playing silly buggers, stop constantly manoeuvring for political advantage, stop using every crisis as an open door to sneak in otherwise unacceptable bullshit (a ban on union strikes? seriously?!?), and RUN THE GODDAMNED COUNTRY ALREADY!!

Today, Stephen Harper proved himself utterly incapable. Time to try something radical.

Flaherty Fiddles While the Economy Burns

Unbelievable. Our economy is going down in flames, our manufacturing industry is at death's door, tens of thousands of people are facing unemployment - largely in Jim Flaherty's own riding - and THIS is what our finance minister has for us?

Tories expected to slash party funding

Symbolic cuts to politicians' perks, temporary relief for pension plans and a political grenade – ending the $30 million public subsidy to parties – are expected highlights of Thursday's federal economic statement.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will ask the five political parties to give up the $1.95-per-vote subsidy they get to pay for staff and expenses.

...Stephen Harper's Conservatives, who won the most votes, stand to lose $10 million.

But proportional to revenues raised last year, the taxpayer subsidy represents 37 per cent of the totals raised by the Tories.

That's far less than the 63 per cent chop for Liberal coffers, 86 per cent for the Bloc and 57 per cent for the NDP. The Greens stand to lose 65 per cent of total revenues.

This is such an obvious, cynical ploy to screw the opposition parties and gain permanent political advantage that even Stephen Taylor cannot restrain himself from gloating. And yet, the Conservatives are painting this as 'an austerity measure'; 'leading by example'; 'tightening our belts' - despite the fact that none of this would come into effect for at least a year anyway, by which time the current financial crisis will be well past the point where a lousy $27 million will have the slightest effect.

Just for the record, here are five reasons why public funding of political parties is a good idea:

- Chretien brought this in for the same reason he brought in the donation limits: to reduce the influence of money in politics. That's a good thing.

- Public funding takes the pressure off MPs and parties from having to spend all their time begging for cash and puts more emphasis on their performance.

- It adds an element of proportionality to the system, allowing smaller parties like the Green Party to participate more fully than they would otherwise be able to.

- It encourages people to vote by making sure that their vote counts for something even if their chosen candidate has no chance of winning.

- As Mark Francis pointed out, the government already subsidizes political donations to the tune of 75% for donations up to $400, and 50% for someone donating the $1275 maximum would get half their money back (how much does that cost?). But that's only if they could afford to donate that much, and only if they actually made enough money to get this non-refundable credit back. Therefore, relying on donations only gives advantage to parties that appeal to the wealthy. Public funding, on the other hand, allows all voters regardless of income to financially support their party of choice simply by voting for them.

In any case, electoral reform is a debate for another day. Right now, all of the opposition parties must demand that this item be removed from the economic statement. If it is not, they must vote against it and consider approaching the Governor General about forming a new government.

If this is allowed to stand, there will be no end to it.

Tuesday Night Toon Blogging

I can't remember why, but I was suddenly inspired to go and look up my all time favourite Warner Brothers / Merry Melodies cartoon:



Oh, YouTube - is there nothing you cannot do?

And then there's that one WB/MM toon that I absolutely cannot stand to even think about so don't get me started because it will give me bad, bad dreams.

You know. The one with the frog.

Brrrrrr!!!