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: Inkless Wells

Two weeks

by Paul Wells on Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:13am - 132 Comments

Greetings from an Undisclosed Location between Afghanistan and Ottawa. My reflections on the former will appear in the next issue of Maclean’s. As for the latter, I’ve kept close watch. It’s a bit of a mess. I leave you people alone for 10 days and…

A few thoughts.

Saddest moment: Not the Dion cellphone video, but his explanation for it when Gilles Duceppe accosted him later. “We’re not used to being in opposition,” Dion said.

To which the only rational response is: why the hell not? The Liberals were in opposition, with Stephane Dion as leader, for almost precisely two years. That’s roughly as long as the Korean War lasted. The position from which the Liberals had to appeal to the Canadian people on any issue was the position of opposition. The resources at their disposal were the resources of opposition. The privileges they enjoyed on Parliament Hill were an opposition party’s privileges. Dion’s office was the office previously occupied by Preston Manning, Stockwell Day, Bill Graham and other luminaries. Now, I’m told Dion used to be some kind of academic. Maybe he could look those people up. He would discover that they were opposition leaders. But then, as I wrote in June, the distinguishing feature of the office while Dion was there was that he refused to decorate it. Because he refused to believe he was sitting in it.

I did not believe a man could raise denial to a more elevated level than Paul Martin and Joe Clark did. But Dion stands, permanently, as the most appalling example of failure of introspection I have ever seen in a political leader. He has wiped out most of the considerable admiration I ever had for him. I think it is time, for instance, to shift much of the credit for the Chretien-era national unity strategy away from Dion and back to his cabinet predecessors, Alan Rock and Marcel Masse (I do wish I could do accents on this borrowed computer), and to the boss, Jean Chretien. As for more recent events, I simply don’t know whether Dion is capable of measuring his own role in the consummate debacle that was his career as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. His capacity for blaming others is jaw-dropping. Not that any of this matters any more, but it all still leaves me breathless.

The big picture: In October Stpehen Harper had a reinforced minority against an enfeebled Liberal Party led by a man who had no support in his caucus. A long, expensive, divisive leadership race lay ahead for the Liberals. Harper delivered an economic update whose central tenet was that Canada, alone among nations, was not seriously threatened by economic upheaval and did not need to provide economic stimulus. So sure was Harper of his strategic superiority that he pushed the assorted demons tormenting him — opposition parties, labour unions, wage equity — back as hard as he could, presuming none would dare challenge him.

It took two days for him to drop the party-funding and strike-breaking provisions. His finance minister no longer appears in public except to plead for a chance to survive long enough to provide economic stimulus. Harper faces a Liberal party that stands solidly behind its new leader and does not need to incur the expense of a genuine leadership race. (I do not admire the process that led to Ignatieff’s coronation and am not part of the man’s fan club, but I have a hard time seeing how the Liberals are weaker strategically today than they were three weeks ago.)

Parenthetically, but worth mentioning, when Parliament resumes Canada’s most important foreign-policy interlocutor, the United States, will be led by a team that resembles the Harper cabinet about as closely as Neptune resembles a tennis racket. I hear the new energy secretary will be a Nobel prize-winning physicist; could we please arrange a meeting between him and Stockwell Day somehow? Pretty please?

Oh oh oh. And Harper’s best friend in Quebec, Mario Dumont, is unemployed. By running essentially as the true Quebec opposition to Harper’s government, Jean Charest has strengthened his own hand. Most commentators say the Parti Quebecois was strengthened in the home stretch by Harper’s hyperventilating in the midst of a crisis he created.

It is difficult to defend the thesis that Harper has had a good month.

On cynicism: Normally when I criticize a Liberal and then criticize a Conservative, somebody comes along to call me a cynic. I have never understood this. I do not believe confusion and retreat on all sides are either necessary or cheering sights. I much preferred covering Jean Chretien on his best days or watching Preston Manning fail nobly, and even Stephen Harper succeed roughly, at producing a viable conservative alternative that could compete reliably for power. Charest’s late-career maturation has been one of the best political stories I’ve covered in 14 years. I prefer competence and high purpose to… well, to most of what we’ve seen lately.

But when our politics is a mess and nobody looks good doing it, I see no point in taking partisan refuge (“Well, at least my side isn’t as bad as your side”) or handing out medals for second-worst. Our prime minister’s behaviour lately is appalling (more on this in our next print edition). The opposition has been a mess in response. Better days may lie ahead, but these sure aren’t good days for our politics.

A conversion: One rough division of labour here at Maclean’s has long held that Colleague Coyne advocated for electoral reform, whereas I didn’t care. Those days are over. Part of the recent crisis was due to the way our electoral system affords the Bloc Quebecois far more space than the other parties are willing to afford it legitimacy. If we don’t think a separatist party has as much right as the others to determine who keeps or loses power, then it makes no sense to hang onto an electoral system whose many insanities include its tendency to give the Bloc more seats than its share of votes. I will be looking for a mainstream party that credibly and seriously advocates major electoral reform, to bring our Parliament more closely into alignment with the voters’ wishes.

Tags: Michael Ignatieff, Stéphane Dion, Stephen Harper

More by Paul Wells

http://ragingranter.blogspot.com Raging Ranter

Oh, and keeping taxes higher so you can provide aid to struggling industries is a terrible idea. Why should we build up a slush-fund to bail out mismanaged or simply obsolete companies? That merely preserves outmoded economic activity, and makes us less productive.

I would have much preferred income tax cuts, but I’ll take ANY cuts before I take massive government intervention in rescuing large firms.
http://canadianmalcontent.net/ Blair

“I will be looking for a mainstream party that credibly and seriously advocates major electoral reform, to bring our Parliament more closely into alignment with the voters’ wishes.”

Welcome to the NDP, Mr. Wells.
http://www.sensnation.com/talk Darrell

Undisclosed location…

You’re in Dubai, aren’t you? Lucky *******.
JVSCant

- – Jean Proulx – “Whoops, ignore the above.” – -

Only?
Andrew

This discussion seems to have gotten fairly interesting, with the exception of the one or two people who do ten consecutive posts. I tend to think that the problem is not with academics per se, but with the Social Scientists in particular. These, and particularly the Political Scientists, Economists and Sociologists (that would cover all three of our major party leaders) tend to come in two different varieties. There are the ones who aren’t all that intellectually minded and get their graduate degrees with the expectation of going straight into politics, journalism or the bureaucracy. They tend not to approach problems intellectually or analytically, and most of their academic research and publications are really just extended op-ed pieces, wrapped up in post-modernist academic jargon to sound authoritative but ultimately no more wise or significant than what anyone with a blog has to say. Jack Layton and Stephen Harper (in light of the fact that he’s about to spend us back into deficit, it is rather ironic that he wrote his M.A. Thesis on the ways in which excessive, counter-cyclical government spending disrupts the business cycle) belong to this category, as does (though he is much more respectable as a scholar and thinker than either of them) Michael Ignatieff.

The other kind of social scientists tend to think of themselves as modern platonic guardians, and look at most problems in the abstract, constructing elaborate conceptual models (and often equally tendentious statistical ones) for solving them that fail to take practical realities, the likely reactions of the broader public, the difficulty of implementing anything particular complex when faced with a rigid bureaucracy and determined, interest group opposition etc. That would be Stephane Dion, with his green shift, the waffling over all major decisions etc.

Even though both of these groups are filled with people of enormous talent who could contribute significantly as advisors, or think tank researchers, I think on the whole we will get better government from hardheaded businessmen and lawyers, and even the occasional corrupt machine pol, who tend to be more pragmatic and have both an understanding of what is necessary to run an organization and a sense of the limits of what they can actually expect to accomplish.

The Quebec issue, frankly, has been done to death. The only observable rule in Quebec politics is that no one ever knows what the hell is going on from one week to the next, least of all the politicians and the journalists. There is an overwhelming consensus among Quebec pols, including the supposed conservatives, that the status quo of socialist, Ottawa subsidized and union dominated economics should continue indefinitely. And even the die hards stopped believing long ago that separation was achievable. Why would they even want to separate when they can just pretend to be a more or less indepent state, duplicate all of the services of the federal government at the local level, and still get money from Ottawa? So Quebec elections now get decided based on boredom and trivialities, with the Bloc cleaning federally because it is essentially a none of the above vote, a meaningless gesture of collective solidarity that has no practical implications. Until that is, Dion made the idiotic decision to try to bring them into a coalition government. Intelligent English Canadians should realize by now, after endless attempts to seduce Quebec with one bribe and special power after another that their case is hopeless. The smartest move the Liberals, the Tories and their followers could make would be to simply write the whole province off politically, create thirty to forty new seats in the West and Ontario to make it possible to win a majority without Quebec support, pass some kind of law that would make federal funding contingent on running a hundred candidates to bankrupt the BQ, and then respond to all further attempts to extort the federal govt. with threats of separation by saying “if you want to try to make the federation work better, then make the case and we’ll negotiate. But if you want to manufacture a crisis or extort us by threatening to leave, then just go ahead and do it. You’ll be bankrupt in less than a decade. We’ll have more money, greater stability, and a federal govt. that can function in a logical manner.”
macphear

Not going to defend Dion a la Jean Proulx but I will say he did change the view I had of the Liberal party away from the sleaze of the end of the Chretien era and the mean-spiritedness of the Martin era. He gave some character, morality and dignity back to the party which wasn’t fully reflected in the October election results. The stories of his inept management of his office and campaign do sadden me though.

In the end the Liberals may be all about power but there is no specific agenda to dramatically change Canada and that’s why they always come back.
Reptile Yuks

Paul, I’m curious as to why you are not part of Michael Iggnatief’s fan club. Am I correct in guessing that the reason runs something like, “I see no reason to be a fan of someone whose primary accomplishment in public service so far is not screwing up too badly yet?” If not, could you please clarify.

Similarly, who *are* you a fan of in Federal Politics these days?
LindaL

“Cutting GST by 2 points when the economy was chugging along very nicely? Bad move. ” Actually, I think it is a bit tiresome for people to go on and on about the GST cut and how it was a bad move. The GST cut was an election promise — a rather popular one as I recall. It was essential for a brand new government to follow-through on such a promise. The argument that income tax cuts are better for stimulating the economy is purely academic.
Paul Wells

Reptile Yuks: Pretty close. I’ve promised to myself I won’t write much, good or bad, about Ignatieff until I’ve had more time to watch him up close. I thought his arguments on Iraq, the Quebec nation and Qana in 2006 were kind of wildly all over the map. But perhaps he’s grown.
Jean Proulx

Paul Wells – I apologize if my comments to you yesterday were overly harsh. I have a lot of respect for Dion and didn’t appreciate seeing people pile on the past few days.
hosertohoosier

Paul Wells,

I, likewise, have been convinced of the need for electoral reform. Even if the coalition succeeded, it would not last long because of the high variation in election prospects associated with first-past-the-post. Those able to think longer than a few years ahead should surely realize that having elections every 2 years is hardly a sign of stability for the country.

I would be willing to accept PR, even though I prefer ranked preference voting (though I already preferred that to FPTP). Canada needs majority governments or workable coalitions.

That said, I think finance reforms (ironically Harper’s funding move would have done this) can restore Canada to a 2.5 party system. By eliminating the cap on election spending and the public subsidy, the Bloc and Greens would be crippled, and the NDP hurt. I do think the Liberals have the potential, because they have a wide base of support, to get at their own grassroots and compete with a flush Tory party.

So as I see it there are three options that could give us stable government. The problem is that each would produce outcomes preferred by one party and not others.

Finance reform -> Tory majority
PR -> Lib-NDP coalition (or some alliance of centrist and left parties)
Ranked preference voting -> Liberal majority

I think the best solution would be a move to ranked preference voting, coupled with finance reforms. This would make minor parties other than the NDP become obscure also-rans, and produce something like the stable 2.5 party system that Canada has enjoyed for most of its history. It would produce governments that have to reach out by definition, and ultimately govern from the centre.
hosertohoosier

“The other kind of social scientists tend to think of themselves as modern platonic guardians, and look at most problems in the abstract, constructing elaborate conceptual models (and often equally tendentious statistical ones) for solving them that fail to take practical realities, the likely reactions of the broader public, the difficulty of implementing anything particular complex when faced with a rigid bureaucracy and determined, interest group opposition etc. That would be Stephane Dion, with his green shift, the waffling over all major decisions etc. ”

I think your distinction is essentially that of public intellectuals versus academics (and it makes a good ground for contrasting Michael Ignatieff, the very definition of a public intellectual, and Stephane Dion, who was a serious academic – Ignatieff was far more famous and successful, but nobody really takes his work seriously, and it isn’t theoretically driven anyway). It is a good distinction, though I am not sure I agree with your conclusions.

Firstly, I think you sort of waste your first two paragraphs, since you draw out the distinctions between kinds of academics and then declare that both kinds make bad leaders, relative to businessmen and lawyers. I think they make different kinds of leaders, but not necessarily worse ones.

The overall distinction that seems to underly your argument sounds like NT vs. ST, to use the Myers-Briggs terminology. Basically, you have big picture people that have grand ideas, and detail-oriented people that “get the job done”. Generally the latter has succeeded much more in politics. However, I would suggest that most public intellectuals are of the latter type, and that this is precisely why they aren’t in theory-driven academia, but instead, visit the Kurds in Iraq or whatever. They don’t like the commitment to theory-building because the way they think is reductionist and usually full of inconsistencies if drawn out.

Many public intellectuals have been successful in politics, both here and in the US. I would consider William Lyon Mackenzie-King, Pierre Trudeau, Condi Rice, Newt Gingrich, Preston Manning and Ed Broadbent as examples. If you want to add Jack Layton and Stephen Harper to that list you can, but either way you have a list of very successful people (I consider Reform Party and NDP success in a relative sense). I think ultimately, they have the same qualities that make businessmen and lawyers successful – a lack of commitment to overarching principles or ideas. Each of these leaders has shown at least some degree of flexibility.

I agree with you that serious academics make poor leaders, most of the time. The only clear examples I can think of in North America are Stephane Dion and Woodrow Wilson. However, they are better at thinking of new ways to approach problems – they excel at strategy and suck at tactics. Wilson’s league, Dion’s green shift, and the Dion’s grand coalition all failed, but that isn’t to say the ideas weren’t taken on later by others and perfected. As in history, you have your Greeks, and then your Romans – thinkers then doers. Dion awakened Canada to the possibility of coalition government – it looks to have failed, but over the next 5 years, a good salesmanship job from Iggy and Layton can very well pave the way for coalition government in Canada. The green shift will probably happen too, though marketed as “make polluters and oil companies pay”, with the tax benefits being marketed separately. Linking the two only complicated the sales pitch.
David Bakody

So where are we to-day in all this worldly mess….. another day older and deeper in debt…. perhaps Paul we should suggest to all politicians they turn in their shovels! Politics could be defined as: “The art of compromise” and here in Canada there could be no better place to start. With out sounding too anti Reform I would like to say that Mr. Harper’s primary task was not to compromise… M. Dion was and is a man with great concern and respect for all things good. Jack Layton represents people who stop and think and see through the eyes and visions of Tommy Douglass….. while M. Duceppe is the type of politician we all would like to have represented us…especially the, I in us…. he continues to state: If it is good for Quebec I will vote for it…. Separation is only a tool albeit a workable option in their eyes… but Quebecers vote with their hands on their pocket books… a good Quebec friend told me that many years ago…. most other people do so also, but Quebecers have a common cause while the rest of fight amongst ourselves… such is life in Canada…. A smart politician must see this and bridge the gaps and throw the trashy stuff to the wind…. Harper in not that kind of man…. Is Ignatieff ? only time will tell but from what I have heard him say so far there are indications…. his talk has more we than I and his words such as from coast to coast, wanting to see the books/ our taxpayer dollars and speaking of rural Canada and yes even barn yards… they reminded my of childhood days growing up in rural Ontario…. slipping on cow slip… and long hours in market garden fields. Nice to hear for a change…. sometimes when things do not work out…. change is good… I hope to continue reading and tapping away Paul…. MacLeans has a special part in our Canadian culture and we need good journalist and news producers… the world is moving fast…just look at our past couple of weeks… heavens to mercy in my younger days this was years worth or more!
PolJunkie

“But my point was/is that the electoral system so skews things that this not at all likely. It’s still blackmail or what?? Even if it’s what Quebers like it this way, i don’t have too.”

Kc, I’m a Quebecer and I don’t like it either. I also hate having to utter the words “Prime Minister Harper” but, again, that’s democracy, not blackmail.
catherine

Great column, Mr. Wells.

“I hear the new energy secretary will be a Nobel prize-winning physicist; could we please arrange a meeting between him and Stockwell Day somehow? Pretty please?”

Yes, that would be hilarious. Steven Chu can be pretty blunt.
Kaplan

Oooooooh! An ‘Undisclosed Location’! You roving, mysterious international man of mystery, you!
catherine

With Chu as energy secretary, I wonder if carbon taxes might fly. Their lower cost, compared to cap and trade, has attracted a lot of support in the US behind the scenes, and Congress has been well briefed on the advantages of a carbon tax.

Rep. Larson is speculating that with the current economic crisis, even if people don’t understand the significantly higher costs of cap and trade, they might be feeling a bit skeptical of markets.
Paul Wells

Jean Proulx, please say whatever you want about me within the limits of the libel laws, but do try to say it in fewer than 14 posts. That was what was ridiculous, not your criticism.
Steve Wart

Jean is an out of control ConBot designed to discredit the LIberals
Alex B.

I’d like to see anyone that writes “ConBot” or “Fiberal” IP-banned from macleans.ca for life(Steve’s joke excluded).

William Shatner’s SNL advice to Trekkies applies here for the well-established group of usual suspects that post the same partisan personal attacks on every blog entry on the site.

Anyway, I’d like to thank Mr. Wells(and Andrew/Kady) for continuing to provide a great read, and I’m sure that he is aware that he hits it on the nose a lot, judging by how often he is attacked from both sides on the same topic.
PolJunkie

Some of you people take yourselves way too seriously…
Ti-Guy

I’d like to see anyone that writes “ConBot” or “Fiberal” IP-banned from macleans.ca for life(Steve’s joke excluded).

I’d like to see Conservatives take greater issue with the value of repeating talking points supplied to them by the Party. When you look at the Party’s web site, with its snazzy little interface that automates all the work required to express an opinion in the media, the ConBot characterisation seems completely apt. Frankly, I’m not even sure at this point why they even bother with user input at all.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across any Conservative who’s criticised the mindlessness of that whole enterprise.
A Cdn in Europe

Paul, great to see you’ve finally come round on electoral reform. Coyne has it right. Hope you follow this up. I know some LIberals out West are putting together a ginger group to push for electoral reform – they want to get some poli sci profs and a few retired parliamentarians together to ask: Which electoral system (of the three major alternatives to the status quo) would be best for Canada? And which detailed version of each system is optimized for the Canadian context? Hopefully they’ll get their report written well before the next election, so we can all think about the options and invite the Parties to take a stance.

On another topic: for such a smart fella, you do sometimes come up with puzzling perspectives. Two examples: I could never quite figure out why you had much admiration for Stephane Dion (nice enough guy, in his awkward way, but clearly not leadership material) — please explain — nor why you are so down on Michael Ignatieff (nice or not, he’s clearly leadership material) — please consider writing a piece totting up Ignatieff’s pros and cons as you see them. I know both gentlemen slightly — have spoken to each a number of times — and it didn’t take long to figure out which one has the stuff, and which does not. I’ve always been puzzled that someone as bright and experienced as you saw it the other way round.
Steve Wart

Ti-Guy you’ve never stated your political affiliation but I find it offensive to be continually accused of spouting “talking points” when I’m not a member of any political party, and I never have been one.

My arguments are based on my own opinions, nobody else. I waste my time posting here because I care about what’s best for my family and my community, not about blind loyalty to a party or this week’s leader.

I don’t feel that the partisan Liberal commentators here are as honest as they claim to be. In fact, I would appreciate it if you would go back to your riding associations and clarify exactly what the hell it is you’re supposed to be telling us, because you’re not making much sense at all.
grey wall

“Reptile Yuks: Pretty close. I’ve promised to myself I won’t write much, good or bad, about Ignatieff until I’ve had more time to watch him up close. I thought his arguments on Iraq, the Quebec nation and Qana in 2006 were kind of wildly all over the map. But perhaps he’s grown.”

Please don’t deny us what’s been brining us back all these years. Having read every one of your posts and your book over the last 3 years, I wouldn’t go so far as to call you the cynic. A cynic by definition is seldom disappointed. Wells is more an eternal optimist, always trying to pinpoint greatness in our faulty leaders and, then, being surprised that they weren’t able to overcome their faults when it was all so clear. I probably making a mess of what I’m trying to say but, I think you’ll get my meaning.

There are few journalists today who try to hold politicians to a higher standard, but Wells is one of them.