Too good to last

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 28, 2011 at 3:27 PM - 29 Comments

If you scroll down down to yesterday’s post on those new Conservative ads—”The no context zone“—and click on the video, you will receive the following message.

This video has been removed by the user.

By-election brouhaha

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 9:02 PM - 118 Comments

You are looking live… at your computer, where, if you so desire, by-election results for Vaughan, Winnipeg-North and Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette will be posted gradually after polls close at 9:30pm EST.

Elections Canada results will appear here. Wikipedia profiles for the respective ridings are available here, here and here. 308′s election day projections have the Tories taking Vaughan, the NDP holding Winnipeg and the Tories holding Dauphin. Vaughan will be your narrative-defining contest of the evening.

For however long as seems necessary, I’ll be here with updates, tangents and the like. Feel free to leave questions in the comments below and I’ll try to offer snappy or thoughtful responses as time warrants. Continue…

Samcam comes to Downing

By Leah McLaren - Friday, November 12, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 1 Comment

Steve Back/Rex Features/CP, Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Samantha Cameron might just be the perfect political wife. Serene, stylish, shrewd and hard-working, during the Conservative campaign last spring she was unveiled as “the Tories’ secret weapon,” and has been described by party insiders as “Dave’s best look.” The fact that she was luminously pregnant at the time with the couple’s fourth child (a girl, Florence, born three weeks premature a few months after her husband David’s Tories took power) only added to her photo-op appeal.

But Samantha’s easy smiles and effortless style conceal hidden depths of character. Those who know her say she is unflappable, impeccably mannered and also genuinely warm—a woman of “famously even temperament,” according to a recent profile in the Sunday Times. It’s a quality that has held her in good stead in the last year and half, an exceedingly turbulent period that’s included the death of her oldest child, the birth of another, the death of her father-in-law and the not insignificant matter of her husband becoming Prime Minister. Oh yeah, she works for a living, too.

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The progressive response (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 11:11 AM - 0 Comments

Alex Himelfarb considers how progressives can respond to anger.

Canadians deserve an alternative that recognizes that, yes, the system is failing the poor and squeezing the middle and that more of the same won’t cut it;   that we are all made weaker when inequality deepens, our environment deteriorates, and our democratic institutions erode; that only through greater equality and democratic revitalisation can citizens retake some measure of control of their lives and their country.   A laissez-faire approach of ever lower taxes and less government simply gives a free reign to the very rich and powerful – but in the end serves no one’s interest.  Yes we do need to reinvent government,  but not to undermine it.  We need to open up government, focus it on what it does best, show the value citizens are getting for their taxes, and challenge citizens to get engaged and share responsibility for the future.

The progressive response

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 3, 2010 at 3:38 PM - 0 Comments

Brian Topp explains how the left should respond to what the right is currently selling.

They say government is too big. We should say poverty, unemployment, and injustice are too big.

They say taxes are too high. We should say there are more important things to tackle right now than reducing taxes for rich people.

They say they’ll give everyone some of their money back. We should say paying for tax cuts by running deficits is theft from our children.

They say it’s time to sell off and privatize schools, hospitals and public services. We should say there are some important things best done together – like good public education for our kids and good health care no matter how big your wallet is.

How do you feel about Quebecor’s plan to launch a conservative news network in Canada?

By macleans.ca - Monday, June 14, 2010 at 5:59 PM - 94 Comments

Rising Star: Kelly Block

By John Geddes - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 11:55 PM - 4 Comments

ADRIAN WYLD / CP

Given how often the House is compared to an unruly schoolyard, it’s not inappropriate that this year’s rookie MP of the year began her political life by signing up for a playground committee. Conservative Kelly Block says that modest first step, taken back when she was a stay-at-home mom with four young children, led to her serving on a rural Saskatchewan district health board, then as mayor of Waldheim, Sask., and finally as MP for Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar after winning the seat in the 2008 election.

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Hardest Working: Ted Menzies

By Colby Cosh - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 11:55 PM - 3 Comments

Photograph by Peter Bregg

“Lobbyist has become a bit of a dirty word these days,” admits Alberta MP Ted Menzies. But the former president of the Western Canadian Grain Growers is not afraid to acknowledge his past as an L-word. He was elected to the Commons in 2004, at 52, after a dual career as a working farmer and globe-trotting representative of Canadian agriculture. “When I’m sitting in a committee,” he says, “I never forget what it’s like to be there as a witness, on the other side of the table. Not every politician has that experience.”

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Parliamentarian of the Year: John Baird

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 11:55 PM - 56 Comments

Photograph by Peter Bregg

On a sweltering morning one week ago, the standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics convened in Parliament’s West Block to hear the testimony of Dimitri Soudas, the Prime Minister’s director of communications. Only the government, in a new test of parliamentary democracy, had decided it would no longer allow its staff to appear at such hearings. And so, in Soudas’s place, the Prime Minister’s Office sent John Baird.

What followed was a great tempest. But while opposition members fumed—“This in my view is a subversion of Canadians,” snapped Liberal MP Wayne Easter—there were caveats for Baird. The Bloc’s Carole Freeman lamented that he was not who the committee had asked for, but welcomed Baird personally: “I’ve got nothing against Mr. Baird attending the committee. I even find it charming.” That adjective was then seconded by the NDP’s Bill Siksay. “I think,” offered Conservative Pierre Poilievre at one point, “we could probably pass a motion to that effect if it were so moved.”

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Spoken like a true Conservative

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, April 26, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 40 Comments

Jacques Boissinot/ CP

Let’s just pause for a moment to consider what an extraordinary thing Maxime Bernier is attempting. The former minister in the Harper government is widely said to be preparing the ground for a future leadership bid. How has he been going about it? Since January, Bernier has been methodically laying explosives beneath the government and detonating them at regular intervals, in speeches and writings that, while not overtly criticizing Conservative policy, point in precisely the opposite direction to that on which the government happens to be embarked.

In a January speech to Calgary Conservatives, Bernier called for a policy of “zero budget growth,” an absolute cap on government spending—as distinct from, say, the seven per cent per annum growth track of which the government often boasts. As Bernier noted, such a policy would require that “every new government program, or increase in an existing program, has to be balanced by a decrease somewhere else.” Indeed, it would imply a diminishing government share of the economy over time. Conservatives, he said, “have to convince people that we’re not simply aiming to be better managers of a bigger government; we are aiming to be better managers of a smaller government.” The implied rebuke was made explicit in his penultimate line: “If we want conservative principles to win the battle, we have to defend them openly, with passion and with conviction.” As opposed to stealthily, with furtiveness and deception.

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Figureheads need not apply

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 9, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 7 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

In a contribution to Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis—a collection of essays published shortly after Stephen Harper escaped defeat to a Liberal-NDP coalition in December 2008—York University professor Brian Slattery presents what might be the worst-case scenario for Canadian democracy: a governor general made to deal with an incumbent government that, though defeated in an election, refuses to relinquish power. “It is her role,” Slattery writes, “to ensure that the principle of responsible government is observed and not flouted . . . She is the ultimate protector of the constitutional order.”

Whatever else Michaëlle Jean might eventually be remembered for, this could be her legacy. In negotiating the Prime Minister’s request to prorogue the House of Commons in December 2008, and another controversial prorogation last December, she may have re-established the viceregal as something more than a reminder of Canada’s heritage.

“We’re likely to have minority Parliaments for the foreseeable future,” says Sujit Choudhry, a University of Toronto constitutional law professor. “The governor general is going to find him or herself in the midst of a political thicket quite often. So being thoroughly familiar with the operations of parliamentary government and knowing who to take advice from, and not being afraid to call political leaders on their interpretations of these conventions, I think would be very good.”

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'We have to be consistent'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 15, 2010 at 8:09 AM - 45 Comments

Maxime Bernier delivered a speech to the Manning conference this weekend on conservatism and Quebec. The prepared text is here.

Conservative policies don’t need to be watered down to appeal to a substantial portion of Quebec voters. On the contrary, as I said to a Calgary audience recently, I believe that to succeed, we have to be consistent, to defend our principles openly, with passion and with conviction.

What conservative principles need in Quebec is to be sold with a particular attention to Quebec’s specific political culture, just as they are tailored to be attractive to an English-speaking audience. They have to be crafted as a way to solve the problems of all of Canada, including Quebec, and not as a reaction from one region against another. If we succeed in doing this, conservatism has a brilliant future in this country.

Rob Silver considers the implications.

An empty, almost flippant budget

By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 5:11 PM - 178 Comments

Let’s get the good news out of the way first. The unilateral elimination of all remaining tariffs on production inputs in today’s budget is terrific public policy, a shot in the arm for Canada’s manufacturers, and a timely example to the rest of the world. It will lower costs, save on paperwork, and improve productivity. It will make Canada the G20’s first tariff-free zone, and as such is likely to prove an attractive incentive to locate a plant here.

End of good news.

He looks so human. Encore, encore!

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 5 Comments

Enjoyable though it was, Stephen Harper’s performance of a Beatles song at a ritzy Ottawa gala may wind up being a moment we come to regret. It raised the stakes to the point that all future political photo ops will require, at minimum, a pair of hip-hugging satin trousers and a “surprise” appearance during Tango Night on So You Think You Can Dance. Be warned: even as you read these words, Jack Layton is grooming his chest hair and thinking, “Right foot back, left foot pass—and then I rip open my sequined blouse.”

The “humanization” of Stephen Harper has been almost a decade in the making, and frankly it’s a relief to finally see some progress. There have been so many failures along the way—when he hired that lady to pick out his ties, when he sent his kids off to school with a firm handshake, when he publicly devoured the flesh of the weak (I’m paraphrasing). No matter how many times he pretended to write a book about hockey, he just couldn’t connect with the common man. Continue…

A cow, some goats and MPs, oh my

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 12:22 PM - 2 Comments

So an astronaut, a lawyer and a journalist walk into Oink Oink…*

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, July 7, 2008 at 2:15 PM - 0 Comments

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED AND CORRECTED.

CBC Radio stalwart Anne Lagacé-Dowson has (temporarily, at least) left the mother ship to run for the NDP in the upcoming by-elections in Westmount. Now, before anyone cracks wise about the NDP’s chances in the place of “11,000 City trees plus a myriad of carefully tended private lawns and gardens” (not my words, I assure you), it’s worth remembering that a hirsute, fire-bellied fella named Thomas Mulcair won a seat for the Knee Dippers in Outremont last year.

Westmount is/was as much a spendy Liberal bastion as Outremont, and is afflicted with a similar bourgeoisie stereotype that masks a sizable middle class reality: south of St Catherine Street for Westmount, and east of, say, de L’Epée for Outremont.

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Well, that about wraps it up for Oily

By kadyomalley - Monday, June 9, 2008 at 3:54 PM - 0 Comments

UPDATE – Wells has the details of the contract – which does exist, although it is between the Conservatives and Retail Media Inc., Fuelcast and Retail Media Inc., which, presumably, would have bought the ads on behalf of its client, and which apparently was informed by Fuelcast this morning that the network doesn’t run political ads.

In a curious confluence of events, it was Retail Media Inc. that disassociated itself from certain receipts that the Conservative Party claimed had been submitted for regional ad buys.

From the Globe and Mail:

For instance, one invoice in the amount of $39,999.91, filed on behalf of Steve Halicki, candidate for the Ontario riding of York South-Weston, was on Retail Media letterhead, the affidavit states.

When executives with the company were shown the invoice, one said “the invoice must have been altered or created by someone, because it did not conform to the appearance of invoices sent by Retail Media to the Conservative Party of Canada with respect to the media buy,” the affidavit states.

Will Oily be freed from the bonds of video screen advertising, to live out the rest of his days as a virtual spokesblob on the campaign website? Or will the Conservatives force Fuelcast to air party ads against its will? Tune in tomorrow! Or possibly later tonight.

From the latest CTV update:
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