Leading by example

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 10:35 AM - 0 Comments

The Prime Minister raised the issue of MP pensions in his interview with the CBC earlier this week, but, as the Finance Minister has noted, it is beyond the official purview of the government. Today the Globe reports that support for the reforms will come from the Conservative caucus. Tony Clement meanwhile muses of leading by example.

“I think you’ve got to be fair to the employee [the MP] but you also have to be fair to the taxpayer,” he told CTV’s Don Martin. “We are very cognizant of that.”

He added that no decisions have been made and that already the government is leading by example as MP and cabinet-minister salaries have been frozen this year. MPs earn $157,000 a year; cabinet ministers make $233,247 and the Prime Minister earns $315,000.

Granted, whatever they are paid, those cabinet ministers presently comprise the second-largest ministry and second-largest cabinet in history—the minister now seven larger and the cabinet now 12 larger than the groups Mr. Harper presented upon first taking office. Back then, one of Mr. Harper’s advisors enthused that reducing the cabinet from 39 (as it was under Paul Martin) to 27 would save $15 to $20 million per year. Presumably, reducing it from 39 (as it now is under Mr. Harper) to 27 would save roughly the same amount now.

Liberal Biennial Convention 2012 Ottawa

By Mitchel Raphael - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8:12 PM - 0 Comments

Martha Hall Findlay (left), Michael Igntieff.

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The ghosts of Liberal backrooms past

By Adam Goldenberg - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:42 PM - 0 Comments

To Canadian political journalists, Liberal fratricide is mother’s milk. Trudeau-Turner begat Turner-Chrétien begat Chrétien-Martin, and Dion-Ignatieff begat Ignatieff-Rae. Liberals only stand behind their leaders, it is said, to stab them in the back.

What rubbish. Sure, there are divisions in the Liberal party. There are divisions in every party. Take an old-time Newfoundland Tory for a pint, and ask him what he thinks of the Reform Party. In the months before the last election, I met at least one New Democrat MP who couldn’t stand Jack Layton—and don’t even get him started on Tom Mulcair.

Political people are, well, political, and that’s both a vice and a virtue. What makes the Liberals different is that internecine warfare is part of the party’s modern mythology, perpetuated by a persistent minority of aging backroom boys who’ve never met a dead horse they don’t want to beat. Continue…

Villains: Gadhafi reign of fear in

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments

Eric Vandeville/Getty Image

Of the three dictators who have thus far been toppled by the populist uprisings known as the Arab Spring, the cruellest, strangest and most depraved was Moammar Gadhafi of Libya.

He ruled the country for 42 years, after seizing power in a 1969 coup. It was not enough for Gadhafi to lead Libya; he tried to remake it. Gadhafi wrote a manifesto, his “Green Book,” dealing with subjects from the economy to horsemanship, but all fall under the principle of “jamahiriya”—a made-up word that roughly translates as “the state of the masses.”

In reality, though, the masses had no say over how they were governed. Gadhafi’s rule was total and arbitrary. He banned alcohol and private property. He closed tea shops because unemployed men hanging around in them made Libyans appear lazy. The only constant was fear. East Germans helped him set up the secret police. They built networks of informants, arrested dissidents, tortured and hanged them. Even Libyans abroad were not safe. Eleven protesters, plus British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, were gunned down outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984.

CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT MACLEANS’ OTHER NEWSMAKERS OF 2011

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Attawapiskat math

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:35 PM - 0 Comments

While the government has now assumed control of the reserve, Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan told a parliamentary committee yesterday that officials from his department visited Attawapiskat in October, but that it did not receive notice of an emergency until last week.

The Star and Canadian Press report from the community. Paul Martin calls on the government to consider the Kelowna Accord. The Globe and Star editorialize.

In response to questions today about government funding for Attawapiskat, the department of Aboriginal Affairs sent along a spreadsheet covering fiscal years 2006/2007 through 2010/2011. That spreadsheet is available here as an Excel file. The prominent totals break down as follows. Continue…

‘Prudent planning’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Scott Clark and Peter DeVries find the Finance Minister’s budget update to be “lacking in transparency, accountability, and a realistic assessment of economic and fiscal prospects and risks.” And they suggest Mr. Flaherty start planning like Paul Martin did.

Mr. Martin’s lesson was simple. Once you have chosen the policy actions you believe are required, and given the economic assumptions, choose “risk adjustments” or “allowance for prudence” that will virtually guarantee you will not miss the target. Such a situation is “win-win” for the government. If the economy turns out better then you get credit. If the economy performs as bad as assumed you also get credit for your “prudent planning” …

Mr. Flaherty wants to now claim that he will eliminate the deficit in 2015-16. This is a mistake because the risks and evidence are stacked against this happening. It is virtually certain that he will have to revise his planning assumptions before or in the 2012 budget. It will be even more embarrassing if he has to revise it immediately after the budget.

‘More rhetoric than reality’

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 10:39 AM - 0 Comments

Steve Sullivan, the former victims ombudsman, reviews the government’s crime legislation.

In the hundreds of pages of would-be law, I found only a few that deal with victims. Among those are several provisions that enhance the rights of victims in the corrections and parole system. These are important provisions, but were first introduced in 2005 by the Liberal government of Paul Martin.

The provisions to toughen sentencing for sex offenders will be welcomed by most. Few of us lose sleep over child-sex offenders spending more time in prison. But some of the reforms will toughen the sentences for low-risk offenders, with low rates of recividism. They won’t make children safer, but will cost five times more than what is being invested in Child Advocacy Centres that support abused children.

Consult widely

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 1 Comment

Lorne Sossin calls for a return to the 2005 model for Supreme Court consultations.

As originally developed during the Liberal government of Paul Martin, the screening committee involved members of Parliament, but also leaders in the legal community and representatives from non-partisan bodies within that community. The advisory committee developed in 2005 included an MP from each party, a retired judge and, from the region where the vacancy arises, a nominee of the provincial attorneys-general, a nominee of the law societies and two prominent Canadians who are neither lawyers nor judges.

… This hybrid model was far from perfect, but it signalled that, while the voices of elected parliamentarians matter, it was also vital that the selection of judges not be, and not be seen to be, simply an expression of majority will. The court’s mandate to be vigilant over minority rights and interests is a fundamental aspect of Canadian democracy. 

Paul Martin’s prescription

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:15 PM - 16 Comments

In between cups of coffee—15 per day? Really?—Paul Martin explains how the world and Canada should be reacting to global economic turmoil.

In Canada, he would like to see the federal government take advantage of this country’s relatively strong finances to quickly make needed investments in infrastructure, education, and research and development. Those, he says, will be the key to Canada’s prosperity in a world where success will hinge on the ability to compete with, and tap into, Asia.

“Our economy is slowing down, we’re going to be affected by the [downturn in the] United States and we’re going to be affected by Europe,” he says. “We have to penetrate those rising Asian markets, and we’re not going to do that unless we have got the best-educated work force, unless we’ve got the best infrastructure, and unless we are creating our own Apples.”

Good to be lucky, lucky to be good

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 2:58 PM - 6 Comments

Ian Brodie quibbles with the suggestion that luck explains Stephen Harper’s success.

Merging the Reform-Alliance into the Conservative Party may have looked easy to outsiders obsessed with the drama of David Orchard’s efforts to block his Party’s ratification of the merger deal.  But Harper had worked long and hard to overcome years of Reform-Alliance hostility to Toryism, and reaped the benefit of that work when the time came to do the deal.  Keeping the new party unified and focused in the face of predictions of the coming Martin “juggernaut” may have looked easy to outsiders, but required careful internal leadership and work.  Snatching victory from the jaws of victory in the 2005-06 campaign looks, in retrospect, like the inevitable unfolding of history, but required two years of brutal, disciplined work.  And is it lucky to be in charge during a mammoth economic crisis?  Does having an excuse for spending billions on economic stimulus lead to political success?  Please, someone, ask Barack Obama.

If Brian Mulroney had been lucky enough to be in power during a long, global economic boom with very low interest rates, he and Mike Wilson would have balanced the federal budget.  Instead, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin were the lucky ones.  But let the Liberals keep on thinking that Harper’s success is the result of luck.  Let them believe their current crisis is the result of bad luck.  Whatever we do, don’t ever persuade them they need to change their approach.  Let them keep rolling the dice and betting the house.

Jack Layton 1950-2011

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 22, 2011 at 9:03 AM - 11 Comments

A statement issued this morning by the family of NDP leader Jack Layton.

We deeply regret to inform you that The Honourable Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, passed away at 4:45 am today, Monday August 22. He passed away peacefully at his home surrounded by family and loved ones. Details of Mr. Layton’s funeral arrangements will be forthcoming.

9:11am. Bob Rae, Carolyn Bennett, Hedy Fry, Wayne Easter, Cathy McLeod, Keith Martin and Governor General David Johnston are among those paying their respects.

9:23am. John Geddes explored Jack Layton’s life and times for this Maclean’s cover story last June. We wrote about his new fight with cancer for this cover story earlier this month.

9:28am. Condolences from Rodger Cuzner, Lewis Cardinal, Colin Carrie, Mike Sullivan and John McCallum.

9:36am. NDP deputy leader Libby Davies talks to reporters in St. John’s.

“He was a great Canadian. He gave his life to this country. His commitment to social justice and equality and a better Canada in the world and at home and I think that’s how people saw him,” Davies told reporters. “They saw him as someone who deeply, deeply cared for people. And they saw that in the campaign and all his work. They saw the courage that he had. He faced cancer and he kept on working, doing his job, because he felt so strongly about what he believed in, so I think people think of him as a great Canadian and we think of him as a great leader, in a political sense but (also) in a personal sense.”

9:43am. More on the life of Jack Layton from the CBC, Toronto Star and Canadian Press.

He was a believer. He made that clear in the first sentences of “Speaking Out Louder:” ”Politics matters. Ideas matter. Democracy matters, because all of us need to be able to make a difference.”

9:54am. Mr. Layton’s Facebook page has become a makeshift memorial.

9:59am. Greg Fingas marks the NDP leader’s passing.

After spending a decade laying the foundation, Jack Layton has tragically died before getting to complete the house that so many said couldn’t be built. For now, there’s little to do but to offer condolences and grieve the loss of a great Canadian and friend. But hopefully Layton’s inspiration will only encourage us to finish what he started.

10:01am. A statement from the Prime Minister. Continue…

That old deficit war re-revisited: the tale of the taxes

By John Geddes - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 12:25 PM - 16 Comments

How much can a government afford to cut spending if economic growth is tepid? It’s a question Finance Minister Jim Flaherty must be asking himself these days, poor guy. No doubt Flaherty would like to keep cutting to shrink the deficit, but as the economy weakens, he’s coming under pressure for another round of stimulus spending.

This was not a problem then-finance minister Paul Martin faced back in the mid-1990s. In those days, economic growth was bettering all expectations, and spinning off more tax revenues that Martin’s fiscal strategists foresaw. I’ve argued this helped him mightily in his deficit-shrinking task, easing the need to reduce spending.

My colleague Andrew Coyne says I’m wrong. Continue…

A different take on Canada’s deficit-fighting story

By John Geddes - Monday, August 15, 2011 at 4:53 PM - 40 Comments

With the United States and European Union staggering under debt burdens, Canada’s success in sorting out its fiscal problems a decade and a half ago is often held up as an example to emulate. But it’s a model I often don’t recognize, even though I covered the turnaround story back in the 1990s.

For instance, there’s this recent Washington Post piece, which touts the “Maple Leaf Miracle.” “Facing an unprecedented fiscal crisis, Canada got down to work,” it says. “The country passed a landmark budget in 1995. The plan tilted heavily towards cutting expenditures but also included some new revenue (the ratio was about $7 in cuts for every $1 of revenue). Canada cut the civil service by about 25 percent and overhauled its pension program. The plan worked.”

An American or, say, German fiscal hawk might well perk up at that prescription—cut public spending ruthlessly, laying off one in four government workers, while boosting the tax haul only very modestly by comparison. Sounds like a plan. Except it’s not the one that actually transpired in Canada.

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Mrs. Harper’s run-in with some hoary marmots

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, August 15, 2011 at 8:59 AM - 5 Comments

Mitchel Raphael

Wild kingdom

Laureen Harper has gone on an annual summer hike for a few years now. It started off as a solo venture, plus the mandatory RCMP detachment, but soon blossomed into a group event that includes women such as Minister of Public Works Rona Ambrose. This year the group went to the Yukon, for a trek through Tombstone Territorial Park. Mrs. Harper noted, “It never got dark so we could hike until 11:00 at night.” Last year the group had to scare off bears. No bears this year, but Mrs. Harper says there was other company. “We did run into lots of hoary marmots [large ground squirrels]. The valley bottom was very boggy so we had to walk up on the mountain ridges, and the marmots would hike along with us for a while.”
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Canada's best prime ministers

By Norman Hillmer and Stephen Azzi - Friday, June 10, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 62 Comments

CP; Chuck Mitchell/CP

Stephen Harper has his majority government. The Liberal party is in tatters, and the Bloc Québécois is devastated. The NDP, inexperienced in the limelight and leaning to the left, is a reliable target. No one now doubts the Prime Minister’s capacity for raw politics, or his staying power.

Harper is one of a select few Canadian leaders to have won three consecutive federal elections. When his current term ends, he will have been in office longer than many past titans, including Brian Mulroney, John Diefenbaker, and Lester Pearson.

All that remains, and it is a great deal, is to discover what Harper will make of his new lease on parliamentary life, and what history will make of him. To set a benchmark, we’ve undertaken Maclean’s second rankings survey on Canadian prime ministers, to determine the greats, near greats, and also-rans, as well as the ingredients of success and the reasons for failure.

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Harper on health care: hard to make it a vote-driving issue

By John Geddes - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 12:31 PM - 23 Comments

The Liberals have been making a late-campaign push to turn Stephen Harper’s past remarks about health care into a big election issue, and it’s hard to blame them. Those painstakingly selected quotes from Harper are certainly more germane to an actual policy file than any of miscellaneous old Michael Ignatieff lines the Conservatives creatively cut and paste into their attack ads.

Still, I doubt dredging up Harper’s past pronouncements on health is doing him much harm. He has a solid track record of not tampering with the status quo. His calls for Ottawa to step away from dictating health policy and let the provinces overhaul the system date from back before his creation of the new, more cautious Conservative party in 2003.

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Harper's been pondering coalitions for longer than I thought

By John Geddes - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 4:38 PM - 43 Comments

How far back can we trace Stephen Harper’s intense interest in the possibility of coalition government?

Most likely you would answer that Harper’s been preoccupied with the idea since the fall 2008 bid by the Liberals and the NDP to form a coalition, backed by the Bloc Québécois, to supplant his minority.

Or perhaps you would speculate that he must have been pondering the coalition permutations and combinations back in late 2004. That’s when he signed that much-debated letter to the governor-general with Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe, suggesting that one or more of their three parties might somehow govern—without an intervening election—if the Liberal minority of the day fell.

Even though Harper, Layton and Duceppe evidently had in mind some looser form of Parliamentary cooperation (Harper denies even that much), their discussions must have at least touched on the notion of a full coalition—if only for long enough to reject it.

But I’ve come across an old campaign-trail quote that suggests both those answers for the advent of Harper’s concern about coalitions are wrong. Continue…

Nardwuar v. Ignatieff

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 11:45 AM - 35 Comments

As he did with Paul Martin, Jean Chretien and Jack Layton before, the incomparable Nardwuar did the hip-flip with Michael Ignatieff the other day in Vancouver.

What it sounds like

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 10:57 AM - 75 Comments

Last night, preceded to the stage by Paul Martin, Michael Ignatieff addressed a crowd of something a thousand people at a community centre in Edmonton. This was his first speech since the Sudbury outing and among the signs held aloft in front of him was a single one that read, in big, block letters, “Rise Up.”

"I'm not interested in having multiple debates"

By Paul Wells - Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 10:48 AM - 176 Comments

During the televised four-headed leaders’ debates of 2006, Paul Martin went off on one of his trademark tangents, declaring he would be delighted to debate Gilles Duceppe anywhere, any time, about the future of Quebec’s place in (or, to be fair, out of) Canada. Then he got cut off and the moderator changed the subject and the moment was lost.

But Duceppe, no fool, announced in Montreal the day after the debates that he would be delighted to take Martin up on the offer. “Here I am!” he announced gleefully.

The then-prime minister made himself small while his staff put out remarks to the effect that he had a full schedule and couldn’t be expected to do another debate after the two (French and English) just televised. But somebody else would. Stephen Harper. Continue…

A lot can change in seven years

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 11:49 AM - 18 Comments

Joan Bryden compares the Stephen Harper of today with the Stephen Harper of 2004.

A reporter asked whether Canadians might not “get the impression that you’re trying to run the government here even though you’ve lost the election.”Harper responded: “It is the Parliament that’s supposed to run the country, not just the largest party and the single leader of that party. I guess that’s a criticism that I’ve had and that we’ve had and that most Canadians have had for a long, long time.”

Separately, Mike De Souza finds that future Conservative senator Mike Duffy reported government-forming musings among Conservatives at the time. Continue…

Stephen Harper and constitutional convention

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 9:48 AM - 54 Comments

Tom Flanagan, a former advisor to Mr. Harper, is asked for his opinion on the 2004 gambit.

Asked if Mr. Harper might have had a different motivation for sending the letter to Ms. Clarkson — one other than ensuring that she explored the option of Conservative-led minority if Martin’s government fell — Mr. Flanagan replied: “I can’t see what other point there would have been in writing the letter except to remind everybody that it was possible to change the government in that set of circumstances without an election.”

Meanwhile, John Geddes talks to Don Desserud, who finds Mr. Harper’s understanding of convention to be “odd.”

"An odd (!) understanding" of how Parliament works

By John Geddes - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 8:29 PM - 68 Comments

As I did yesterday, I turn to Prof. Don Desserud, the University of New Brunswick expert on our parliamentary system, for insights into what is being said by Stephen Harper about that much-debated episode in 2004—you know, back when he was cooperating, but not coalition-conniving, with Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe.

This time, I asked Desserud about the prime minister’s fuller explanation today of what exactly he had in mind when he signed that joint letter to the governor-general with the NDP’s Layton and the Bloc’s Duceppe.

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Coalition matters: the Coshist talking points

By Colby Cosh - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 5:23 PM - 149 Comments

1. The grouches who are complaining that the election talk so far has focused too obsessively on coalitions and post-election hypotheticals are apparently incapable of seeing that discussion goes faster in the 21st century. That they are making this complaint all the way into the official first full day of the election should have served as a hint to them. (You’re exhausted already? Poor lambs.) There is plenty of time left to have this conversation, and to obtain desirable assurances from various party leaders. Particularly ones that are (or were, until yesterday) trying to get away with being a little mealy-mouthed about it!

2. The coalition chit-chat, after all, concerns a field of ethics and procedure in which there are few firm rules and novel, still-unresolved complexities. Canada is trying to govern itself with a separatist party close to (and unlikely to be driven very far away from) the fulcrum of power in its popular assembly. It is worth taking a little while to get this right. Continue…