Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

Mr. Dion has a plan

by Paul Wells on Thursday, July 24, 2008 2:58pm - 0 Comments

From this week’s print edition: my column is built around an interview with Stéphane Dion. I have spent much of the past four months writing more about Stephen Harper than Boswell did about Johnson, so I was happy for a chance to concentrate on the other guy. An excerpt:

“The Conservatives call it Stéphane Dion’s Permanent Tax On Everything. Dion had detailed replies to every question I put to him. He quoted the chief statistician of Norway and economists like Jack Mintz. The danger, during a campaign, may be that Permanent Tax On Everything fits onto a postcard, whereas the chief statistician of Norway would face a tight squeeze.”

As always, there was stuff in the interview that didn’t make it into the final column. I asked Dion about whether he wants Elizabeth May to take part in televised debates; he said he sure does. But others, especially the Conservatives, oppose that because May’s bottom line is that Dion should be the next prime minister instead of Harper, I said. So you’ll have two party leaders onstage who want the Liberal to be prime minister. “That’s her right in a democracy,” he said. “If Jack Layton reaches the same conclusion, we’re not going to bar him from the debates, are we?”

Ah. But is May’s participation a pre-condition of Dion’s? “No. I want to be there.”

I should note that the interview, like almost every conversation I’ve had with Dion over 13 years, took place in French, so I could be the one struggling with accent and vocabulary challenges. Here’s how it all turned out.

Tags: Inky Wells, permanent tax on everything, Stéphane Dion

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Scott M.

Shorter than I expected — how long did the interview last?
http://www.todaysautonews.com jwl

Paul Do you know if Dion speaks French well? I remember people use to joke about how Chretien couldn’t speak either official language and Dion struggles with English. Are we going to be hearing more Chretien-type jokes if Dion wins election or is his French ok?
Paul Wells

Scott: the interview lasted about 45 minutes. The column is my “usual” length, a little over 900 words, but you’re right; we’ve been running a lot of jumbo extra-length Wells columns since I got back from the old country.

jwl: Dion’s French is impeccable. I’ve heard it speculated that it’s *so* erudite and kind of France-French (more in vocabulary than accent) that he might turn off regular-folks voters in Quebec, but I don’t buy it and when I run that theory past francophone colleagues, they tell me it’s dumb. Dion is obviously having trouble appealing to francophone voters so far, but the way he speaks French isn’t the problem.
http://chuckercanuck.blogspot.com chuckercanuck

Is the press gallery really split that way? Isn’t there just a tiny, little, micro-cabal that’s happy with Dion because they are happy with Harper? :)
Lakeshore

conservative journalist? that’s funny.

Well, I know you think conservatives are all paranoid when we complain about media bias, but how do you explain that there is never a small c conservative ever represented on these so-called journalist panels (ie CTV Question Period, Don Newman). How can a Jim Travers, Craig Oliver, or a Susan Delacourt honestly count?
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com bigcitylib

Plan seems to be working. Dead even in the polls and with some policy to point at when people ask what the Libs stand for. What’s funniest is how Harper has had to disappear his own green plan to make the “it’ll wreck the economy” argument, because he had previously admitted that the Tory scheme would itself imply consumer pain. Now it appears as though he’s back to the old “we don’t give a damn about the environment” line.
http://arandomprocess.blogspot.com/ Andrew E

I frankly don’t understand what Dion is doing. He defends the Green Shift by basically saying that it’s the right thing to do, and people will need to change. Which is a great approach if you already have a majority government and can ram through whatever legislation you like, knowing that the benefits will pay off (or people will forget) by the time you need to face the electorate again. But it’s a terrible way to sell a program. And in your interview, his sales pitch never seems to get very far away from the speculative.

When he pulls the plug on Harper, he can pretty much write off support from any energy-producing region of the country: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. Quebeckers already don’t like him very much, and the Liberals have never had much of a presence in BC. So his best hope would be to sweep Ontario, which kept Chretien in power for years. But the Green Shift is making Ontario farmers nervous — and these are people who already voted for Harper in the last election. It’s hard to see any scenario in which the next parliament will look any different than the current one.
http://www.todaysautonews.com jwl

Thanks Paul, that’s interesting. I have the impression Francos are more accepting of ‘erudite’ politicians than Anglos are, so that shouldn’t hurt Dion in Quebec at least.
Mike T.

If someone of either party can win an election because their main argument is only a sentence long, we have to ask ourselves if we truly deserve the great democracy we have built for ourselves.
http://chuckercanuck.blogspot.com chuckercanuck

“It’s hard to see any scenario in which the next parliament will look any different than the current one.”

oh, I can imagine a scenario or two. but they aren’t the kind that makes Liberals happy.
JK

Paul

Did you ask Dion what his GHG reduction level targets where for each year?
Wayne

Well said Andrew : I would add though that Dion really has no choice he needed a ‘ Hail Mary ‘ and the only real area the Lib’s can take us Conservatives on is the environment and to give him credit his effort has changed the channel on the media constantly on his case re: leadership issues. Personally as a Harper fan I am not surprised though because as of day one with my boy Stevie in the PM’s chair I could sort of see this coming as one of the most brilliant strategic moves was the PM’s choice of fixing an election date – all the pundits were saying the usual – what was he thinking and terrible move bla bla bla … but look at the consequences, usually in a minority gov’t the media drives the PM to distaction about when will the election be bla bla bla however Stevie deftly manouvered Dion into the corner and allowed the PM to then behave as a PM should and get to work with legislation, then with Dion under the hammer contantly he moves in with a knock out punch a series of confidence motions again always resulting Dion losing his balance not to mention his grip on his own party – brilliant – the result here is new historical record which is about to be played out not only will the PM be the longest serving PM of a minority gov’t in history but also one that got their whole platform legislated and without serious amendments – this boggles the mind! So to wrap things up I hope Dion does try to force an election this fall and I also hope that the PM let’s him as let’s face it it is not just Dion that can force an election because if the NDP decide they can wait until 2009 then that changes things doesn’t it?
Lakeshore

JK, has any reporter?

http://stevejanke.com/archives/269212.php

Check that out too. Lazy or biased journalism, take your pick.
Shenping

Right now I think both parties’s main argument is “We’re not the [insert other party here].” That’s one sentence.

I think the reason Albertans and Saskatchewanians dislike Dion is because he is a Liberal. We tend to think of the Liberals as The Party That Represents Ontario And Québec.
jad

A for effort, PW, but what is the point ….? (Other than your reputation, since you supported him quite strongly.) This guy is howling at the moon.
sbt

Some people are going to get mighty upset once they read that Paul Wells called it the “so-called Green Shift”. That’s got “the Green Shift”-denier written all over it. Is there no end to the media’s conservative bias?

On a more serious note, did you bother to ask Dion what he is going to do about the BC Carbon Tax? He said he would do something about it in his proposal and I was wondering if that was going to be to allow them to opt out. If yes, would other provinces be allowed to opt out if they applied their own provincial carbon taxes?

Finally, was this interview before or after Dion’s foray into carbon tariffs? What’s up with that? Is he going to be applying carbon tariffs to American made goods if they don’t get this cap-and-trade up and running after the next election? And what does he mean by poor nations? Is he going to be applying carbon tariffs to Chinese-made goods? I think it would be useful to know before e-day.
Lakeshore

The media have pretty much ignored the fact that the Green Shift calls for a tax on jet fuel, diesel fuel and carbon tariff.

The whole carbon tarriff thing was in the plan from day one and is only starting to get media attention now. No serious scrutiny of a plan that would complicate Canada’s international trade.

Dion hasn’t received a free ride on his carbon tax so far, but he surely needs to be asked some more serious questions.
Brian

And then Dion asked “Paul, will you rub my feet for me?” and Wells obliged after mentioning that he has a huge man-crush on him.

Then they rode off into the sunset, hand in hand.
http://deleted Sandi

Brian – childish. Besides, Wells has given more than his share of kudos to Harper – so your paranoid rant is exactly that…paranoid and childish.
http://www.todaysautonews.com jwl

Sandi I agree with you. I think Wells throws the snark and/or praise around evenly, which is how it should be.
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com bigcitylib

Jwl,

Wells lulls you into thinking that. In fact he is a Reform Party fist in a Moderate glove.
dan in van

yeah, Lakeshore’s right. Stop not asking the hard questions!
Like Harper, what’s the deal with your secret nuclear energy plan?
Hey Harper, your environmental plan is what again?
Hey Harper, is your litigious strategy exactly the opposite of what you promised, and why since your election have we caught you and now allegedly your party in contravention of election spending laws?
Darn that ‘liberal-leaning’ media, anyhoo.
JK

Lakeshore.

Thanks on the Janke Hat tip.

Janke is one of my favorite bloggers, and like always is on point. but let’s face it, all you have to do in this country is say I will meet kyoto and the PPG will call you a hero. You don’t need a plan you just have to say ya I am with al gore, and the PPG will shill for you.

Harper should just send out a press realese saying he will meet the 90 level kyoto targets with no plan no nothing and the PPG and the enviromentilist would cheer.

Well I doubt they would but at least it would make Dion actualy have to come up with a realistic plan. Not some 40 odd page gibberish, that has nothng to do with the enviroment and more to do with getting back the 2 percent cut in the GST.

But come out with a realistic plan with targets that are reasonable and you are a denier…
JK

Dan in van says

“Hey Harper, your environmental plan is what again?”

You understand there is this thing called the government website right?

http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/virage-corner/2008-03/541_eng.htm

Now I could careless about climate change I am more concerned with conservation and smog which Harper actualy deals with.

If you don’t think the CPC is doing nothing on the enviroment I suggest you start with this Web page and go from there. And also for people who do care about the enviroment and it is not some fad with them, there is more to the enviroment then climate change.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=714D9AAE-1
JK

Sandi

I agree with you Wells is fair. And also I believe he is the best politcal writer in Canada.

No matter who you favor he can write a good article on them, but he can also tear them apart, and his sword cuts both ways. But it is always a good read.