The '04 leaders debate

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 3:53 PM - 72 Comments

Mr. Harper says the Conservative party “allowed” Mr. Martin to govern after the 2004 election. Mr. Duceppe says what Mr. Harper says now is the opposite of what he said then. Mr. Layton says Mr. Harper was prepared to form government.

“What Mr. Harper was intending to do, it’s absolutely crystal clear to me, was to attempt to become prime minister even though he had not received the most seats in the House. And that letter was designed to illustrate that such an option is legitimate in Canadian constitutional traditions and there was no question about it,” Mr. Layton told reporters Sunday morning in his first new conference of the election campaign. “I was in meetings where this was discussed” … “For me it’s a question of trust. I do not believe you can trust Mr. Harper with his word,” Mr. Layton said. “And I think this recent position that he’s taking now that the idea of parties working together is somehow contrary to Canadian institutions and totally unacceptable is a false outrage because he was willing to do that himself when he would have become prime minister.”

Mr. Ignatieff seems not to have much sympathy for Mr. Harper. This from a meeting with reporters a short while ago here in Montreal. Continue…

The summer of 2004

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 4:29 PM - 101 Comments

Gilles Duceppe again offers his version of events.

“When he says only the party that received the most votes can form a government, he said the opposite in this letter. He lied this morning.” The Bloc Leader said there was a key meeting in a Montreal hotel where the subject of the opposition parties banding together against Mr. Martin was thrashed out. “He (Mr. Harper) came to my office and said: ‘What do you want in the speech from the throne’?” Mr. Duceppe said.

Furthermore, via Twitter, Mr. Duceppe says that Mr. Harper “definitely talked about a coalition” when they met seven years ago. Add that to the accumulated testimony and evidence collected to date.

For whatever it is worth, here is what William Johnson wrote in his biography of Mr. Harper about the immediate aftermath of the 2004 election. Continue…

The rules of our democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 9:07 AM - 52 Comments

The Prime Minister will momentarily arrive at Rideau Hall to ask that Parliament be dissolved. Meanwhile this morning, Michael Ignatieff has released a statement on how he would handle a minority government.

This election is not just an exercise in democracy, it’s about democracy.  So as we begin the campaign, let’s be clear about the rules.

Whoever leads the party that wins the most seats on election day should be called on to form the government.

If that is the Liberal Party, then I will be required to rapidly seek the confidence of the newly-elected Parliament.   If our government cannot win the support of the House, then Mr. Harper will be called on to form a government and face the same challenge.  That is our Constitution.  It is the law of the land.

Continue…

What was Stephen Harper up to in 2004?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 9:01 AM - 230 Comments

In response to the charge yesterday during Question Period that the Harper government had shown contempt for democracy, John Baird offered the following.

Mr. Speaker, it is the leader of the Liberal Party who is showing contempt for Canadian voters. He does not accept the fundamental democratic principle that the person with the most votes wins elections. He wanted to establish a coalition government with the Bloc Québécois and the NDP and now the coalition is back again. That shows utter contempt for Canadians.

Mr. Baird’s invoking of fundamental democratic principles was particularly noteworthy in light of what Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe had said two hours earlier in their respective news conferences. Continue…

Why Svend Robinson speaks so well of Harper

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, March 7, 2011 at 3:30 PM - 2 Comments

Photographs by Mitchel Raphael

Does Bev Oda know?

These have been rough times for International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda. Just before the scandal surrounding the addition of the word “not” into her department’s funding recommendations blew up, she had eye surgery, resulting in her having to wear sunglasses most of the time in the House. It’s also meant the notes she refers to have to be supersized, a feature not lost on some Liberals who sit in the gallery above Oda and who told Capital Diary they can read what the notes say.

Photograph by Mitchel Raphael

Svend Robinson rumours

With the announcement that NDP MP Bill Siksay would not be running in the next election, there were whispers on the Hill that Svend Robinson, the man who held the seat before him, might make a comeback. Siksay was Robinson’s aide for many years and ran after Robinson bowed out of politics. Robinson did try a comeback in the 2006 election, going up against Hedy Fry, but lost to the Teflon Liberal who has had big name after big name try to defeat her. Robinson was recently on the Hill meeting with MPs who are on the HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis (HAT) parliamentary caucus founded by Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla. Robinson told Capital Diary there is no chance he will run. He likes his job with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which involves working with elected officials all over the world to secure funding. Robinson notes that the Harper government increased funding to the Global Fund last year by 20 per cent and he is happy to give credit where it is due: “The buck stops at [the PM's] desk. Good for Stephen.”

Continue…

Statistical probabilities

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 9:18 AM - 51 Comments

Pollsters continue to debate the meaning and prominence of their work.

Gregg said the proliferation of sometimes conflicting polls and the hypeventilating analysis that frequently accompanies them does not strengthen democracy. On the contrary, he said: “Rather than have a public that’s informed, you have a public that’s misinformed.” He said he’s not arguing that polls should be ignored; only that their import needs to be interpreted much more cautiously. Rather than pontificate on weekly fluctuations in individual polls, he said it makes more sense to average the results of various surveys and look at the trends over longer periods of time.

It is probably important to consider, as Eric Grenier did this week, how much and how often polling responses change when an election campaign is conducted. Consider, for instance, that the last three changes in government were not obviously foretold by publicly available polling data released immediately before the election was called. Continue…

Stephen Harper and Canada, a love story (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 55 Comments

After Paul Martin’s campaign mocked Mr. Harper’s response to a question about love of country, Jason Kenney demanded an apology for the attack of Mr. Harper’s patriotism. He then cast aspersions on Mr. Martin’s.

A Tory MP holding up a Liberian flag as a prop ripped into Paul Martin for calling into question Stephen Harper’s love of Canada. The war of words over patriotism continued yesterday, with Paul Martin’s corporate past coming back to haunt him. ”When the prime minister was the owner of Canada Steamship Lines, when he was the president and CEO of CSL, he took down the Canadian flag off those ships and put up flags of convenience for the Bahamas, Liberia and other tax-dodging regimes,” recalled Jason Kenney. “So why is it the prime minister is all full of fire and brimstone when it comes to questioning the patriotism of his opponents, but he’s all too ready to treat the Canadian flag like one of convenience when it comes to protecting his own financial interests?”

Mr. Harper responded himself in a speech to supporters. The following is from Susan Riley’s account at the time. Continue…

What was Stephen Harper thinking in 2004?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 9:01 AM - 59 Comments

On September 9, 2004—two and a half months after that year’s federal election—Stephen Harper appeared at a news conference alongside Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe and NDP leader Jack Layton to announce what Mr. Harper would describe as a “co-opposition” agreement. The three presented a series of reforms intended to give the opposition parties more power in Parliament as Paul Martin prepared to lead Canada’s first minority government in more than two decades.

Mr. Harper, Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Layton had also sent a letter to the Governor General—Adrienne Clarkson at the time—to suggest that, should Mr. Martin seek to dissolve Parliament, she should “consult” with the three opposition leaders and consider her “options” before exercising her authority.

Below you will find an audio recording of that September 2004 news conference in its entirety.

At the 11:20 mark, the three opposition leaders are first asked to explain their request that the Governor General consult with them—specifically whether they are prepared to form a government. Continue…

'More focus and purpose; less process and cost'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 at 5:08 PM - 20 Comments

The Liberals and NDP are both taking issue with the size of Mr. Harper’s cabinet and ministry (though previously two separate things, Mr. Harper doesn’t make any distinction). As noted below, it is once more one of the largest in this nation’s history—including the Prime Minister, the government House leader, the leader of the government in the Senate, 24 ministers and 11 ministers of state.

When Mr. Harper unveiled a ministry of 32 in February 2006, he said “the structure is designed to promote accountable, efficient and effective government—more focus and purpose; less process and cost.”

In an interview with the Toronto Star at the time, Derek Burney, chief of Mr. Harper’s transition team, projected the reduction from Paul Martin’s set-up—cabinet of 33, ministry of 39—would save between $15 and $20-million per year. The Star’s report after the jump. Continue…

The downside of fear-mongering

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 11:35 AM - 66 Comments

Former NDP campaign Brian Topp links the public’s relative acceptance of Stephen Harper to Paul Martin’s fear-based campaigns against him.

Here the Prime Minister continues to be the long-term beneficiary of Paul Martin’s foolish 2004 and 2006 campaigns, which set out to paint Mr. Harper as a demonic figure who would destroy the planet if elected. He would point guns at your face; unload troops on your lawn; and fill the skies with black smoke. Mr. Harper has done none of these things, so far – and so he continues to benefit from the expectations game created for him by his less politically skilful predecessor.

Oddly, that description of the boogieman is rather reminiscent of a certain campaign ad that ran during the 2008 campaign… Continue…

Mitchel Raphael on how the sex trade divides all the parties

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Cotler wants to see more of this Tory trend
Some Conservatives are upset over one aspect of David Johnston’s appointment as the new Governor General: Stephen Harper gets no credit for his non-partisan appointments. One cabinet minister says some in the party have pushed Harper to make partisan appointments, especially with key ambassador posts, but almost without exception, the PM refuses. His first Supreme Court judge appointee, Marshall Rothstein, was picked from a list drawn up by the previous Liberal government. When asked about the new GG, former justice minister and Liberal MP Irwin Cotler says, “I can’t think of a better choice. I would like to see more [such] appointments. If that could be the emerging trend, I would be very happy.”

The business side of prostitution
Soon after Ontario Superior Court Justice Susan Himel struck down key prostitution laws as unconstitutional, the Conservative government appealed the ruling while the Green party “welcomed” the decision. But all the national parties are divided on this issue. All have members, including cabinet ministers, who are fine with decriminalization, and members who aren’t. The Liberals have get-tough-on-johns Judy Sgro doing the talk shows, but Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay says, “I would much rather see [prostitution] regulated for the safety of the individuals involved. I don’t support the criminalization of the activities around it: I think it is an attempt to band-aid the issue. Treat it like a business so you can regulate employee rights, health and safety, zoning. Municipalities can pass laws, just like when people don’t want a bar in their area. I would take the moral judgment piece out. Police could crack down on those who abuse these women if we treated it like a business.”

Continue…

Duceppe's version

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 5:10 PM - 0 Comments

John Geddes has related a recent conversation he had with the Bloc Quebecois leader.

After the government side made much of the story today, Mr. Duceppe also discussed the issue—and what happened between he and Stephen Harper in 2004—with reporters after QP. Here are his English comments. Continue…

Mourning Mario

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 11:27 PM - 0 Comments

Ottawa tonight mourns the passing of a lovely giant of a man. Condolences and reflections on the passing of Mr. Lague from Stephen Harper, Jack Layton, Paul Martin, Stephane Dion, Glen Pearson, Ralph Goodale, Tim Powers, Paul Wells and Susan Delacourt.

Michael Ignatieff: At the fair

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, August 8, 2010 at 3:18 PM - 0 Comments

Mr. Ignatieff was greeted with a food basket, then posed with a group of small children who had apparently spontaneously arranged themselves at the entrance to the fair grounds. He was then led a short ways away to where crowds had formed seven deep on four low hills overlooking a field of well-watered mud.

With Justin Trudeau in tow, Mr. Ignatieff worked the crowd. A firefighter—firefighters standing by to assure the safety of what was about to ensue—was concerned that the Liberal leader watch where he stepped. “I’m in Ottawa, I deal with horseshit all the time,” Mr. Ignatieff assured. A woman in the back row stood and queried Mr. Trudeau to account for the GST, a nuanced discussion of provincial consumption tax policy ensued.

Mr. Ignatieff then returned to a spot overlooking the mud pit and was handed a green flag. Six windowless cars—little more than spray-painted metal frames on wheels—entered and assumed their positions. At the appointed time, Mr. Ignatieff held the flag above his head and then dropped it to the ground, officially starting Heat #3 of the Comber Agricultural Fair demolition derby. Continue…

And we're back

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, August 7, 2010 at 12:19 PM - 0 Comments

Greetings from downtown London, Ontario. The Liberal Express and my vacation have arrived in roughly the same part of the country and since you can never fill a magazine piece with enough local colour, I am once more on the road.

Actually, to be perfectly honest, I’m here primarily because tomorrow’s tour stop at the Comber Fair happens to coincide with the opening heats of the Comber Fair demolition derby. I somehow managed, despite more than a decade spent living in Essex County, to not once make it out to Comber to attend the demolition derby. And so now being paid to possibly attend the Comber Fair demolition derby didn’t seem like the sort of opportunity I should frivolously pass up.

Mr. Ignatieff is due at the market here in London around 4:45pm. Tomorrow morning there is a breakfast event in London, then the fair and then a rally with Paul Martin in Windsor.

The new breed

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, June 26, 2010 at 2:22 PM - 4 Comments

Interesting observation from the Prime Minister near the conclusion of this news conference today.

“I’ve never been at a summit where leaders seemed to more deeply feel the necessity of common action and common purpose. Why is that? Some of it may be some of the personalities around the table and the generational change that’s taken place in the G8 over the past few years.”

There is perhaps something to this.

Mr. Harper succeeded Paul Martin in 2006. Since then, in roughly this order, Nicolas Sarkozy has replaced Jacques Chirac, Dmitry Medvedev has filled the spot of Vladimir Putin, Silvio Berlusconi has returned to power in Italy, Barack Obama has succeeded George W. Bush, David Cameron has succeeded Gordon Brown and Naoto Kan has replaced Yukio Hatoyama. Of the eight leaders who attended the Prime Minister’s first G8, at St. Petersburg in 2006, only Mr. Harper and Germany’s Angela Merkel remain. And of the new arrivals, five—Harper, Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy and Medvedev—are 55 years old or younger.

All the good things and the bad things that may be

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, June 4, 2010 at 10:59 AM - 164 Comments

Scott Reid, the former aide to Paul Martin, notes the important distinction between a pre-election coalition and a post-election coalition.

Indeed, from a Liberal perspective, a pre-campaign coalition of the centre-left is far worse than a bad idea. It is a betrayal of the party’s identity, history and future prospects. Why? Because what’s being proposed is not a true parliamentary coalition. It is a political combination or, more accurately: a merger.

It’s important to clarify these terms. Typically in Canadian experience, a coalition between parties is understood to mean a parliamentary alliance established in the aftermath of a general election – usually a minority circumstance. This is in keeping with accepted traditions of both the country and the party. Post-electoral coalitions of a formal and informal nature have populated minority parliaments frequently over the past century and Liberals have often taken part. Consideration of such coalitions should definitely be maintained in future.

The Commons: In search of loose change

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 6:17 PM - 49 Comments

The Scene. Michael Ignatieff began with an attempt to weave together various disparate strands to form a basket. A basket within which he could carry his message from one middle-class suburban door to the next.

Or something like that.

The Bank of Canada, he reported, had today hiked—the only word one can use when describing this action—interest rates. Canadian families are already more indebted than households anywhere else in the G20. The government is spending a billion to secure three days of meetings of G20 world leaders later this month. How, he wondered, could the government explain putting so much into the latter in light of the former?

Here, though, the Prime Minister stood with his own basket to weave. The interest rate hike, he said, was due to Canada’s sound economy. The G20 meetings, meanwhile, would bring as many delegates as the Olympics had athletes with even greater security risks. Ipso facto, the money simply has to be spent. Continue…

Searching for the Liberal Party. Day 1.

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 9:41 AM - 100 Comments

Greetings from Montreal, where, for the next three days, we’ll be hanging around the Liberal party’s Canada 150 conference. Herein a running diary of the proceedings.

9:36am. First things first, a requisite description of the surroundings. The conference centre at the Hyatt Regency doesn’t look anything like a conference centre. It looks like a terribly hip Swedish bar. The light fixtures are these silver blobby things hanging from the ceiling and the walls at either end of the room are emitting red light. The foyer is all white light and includes an actual bar. I believe the Cardigans are playing a set here tomorrow afternoon.

9:57am. Paul Martin has arrived. Let the party renewal commence. Continue…

Harper's rut

By Paul Wells - Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 179 Comments

“In support of building a stronger Canada,” said the Harper government’s Speech from the Throne, “the government’s agenda will be clear and focused.”

Perhaps I should specify. That’s what they said—or gave unto Michaëlle Jean to say—in their first Throne Speech. Four years ago.

In the latest Throne Speech, earlier this month, Stephen Harper and his crack team of recalibrators had a bit more to say. They pledged to “launch a digital economy strategy.” To “extend support for…prototyping of new space-based technologies.” To “ensure that unnecessary regulation does not inhibit the growth of Canada’s uranium mining industry.”

Continue…

Stick to the story

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 11:04 AM - 72 Comments

A diplomat tells CBC she warned Paul Martin’s government in 2005 about the risk of torture.

Meanwhile, CBC obtains a power point presentation prepared for Peter MacKay in the spring of 2007 that advised the government to stick to its story.

The hidden agenda, exposed

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 12, 2010 at 1:49 PM - 20 Comments

The Sun details Stephen Harper’s interior decorating habits.

One difference between the two administrations is flowers. While former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin’s administration didn’t spend anything on them, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office has spent $2,670 over the past three years.

According to the documents, Harper’s office was one of the few to spend anything on flowers. Andrew MacDougall, spokesman for Harper, said the flowers were purchased for meetings with dignitaries.

And then there were two

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 12:48 PM - 14 Comments

A symbol of defiance or history, the Progressive Conservative flag flies, or hangs at least, from an upright pole, down a quiet corridor of the Centre Block, just outside the office of Sen. Elaine McCoy.

From 1942—when John Bracken, Progressive premier of Manitoba, assumed leadership of the federal Conservative party, creating a party that would come to stand for moderate centrism—through 2003, some 675 individuals sat in the House of Commons under the PC banner. More than 100 PCs have, at one time or another, served in the Senate. But seven years after the Canadian Alliance and PC party merged, only two people formally identify as Progressive Conservatives on Parliament Hill: senators McCoy and Lowell Murray. When Murray retires next year, the party of John Diefenbaker and Brian Mulroney will be down to an Internet-savvy, sixtysomething policy wonk, who was appointed by Paul Martin and has little time for the agenda of Stephen Harper.

A protege of former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, McCoy won Lougheed’s seat in the legislature when he stepped down in 1986. As a minister in Don Getty’s government, she spoke openly about gay rights and favoured a 50-cent hike in the minimum wage. But when she ran unsuccessfully for the provincial PC leadership in 1992, she pledged to cut spending and debt. (When a report circulated that half of cabinet might resign if a woman won the race, McCoy suggested that was a good opportunity to shrink government.) “When I was a cabinet minister, I was approached to cross the floor to the Liberals,” she recalls. “It was when Getty was really down in the polls and things weren’t getting done quite as well as they might. It was very tempting, but I just couldn’t. In the end, my stomach clenched and I just couldn’t do it. There’s something about sticking with who you say you are.”

Continue…

Note to Stephen Harper: It’s not so easy cutting federal spending

By John Geddes - Friday, January 22, 2010 at 4:42 PM - 135 Comments

Federal spending cuts are coming. Prime Minister Stephen Harper promises them. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is to map out the strategy—though maybe not many specifics—in his March 4 budget. Stockwell Day, in his new job as Treasury Board President, is supposed to stare down any bureaucratic resistance.

But where will the Conservatives cut? Start anyplace, a jaded taxpayer might say. After all, federal governments haven’t exactly looked frugal in recent times. Even before last year’s massive deficit-financed stimulus injection to fight the recession, spending rose more than four per cent a year, under both Liberals and Tories, in six consecutive budgets.

Yet the notion that layers of glistening blubber are just waiting to be hacked off is only a comforting delusion. There must be fat, sure, but the federal books are well marbled—the less-than-unassailable spending tends to be finely integrated into essential programs. No use pretending that finding savings huge enough on their own to balance the books again is merely a matter of will.

In fact, some of those most experienced on the subject think the task impossible. Start with two key architects of the famously successful deficit-slaying strategy overseen by Paul Martin when he was finance minister: Scott Clark, who was Martin’s deputy minister from 1997-2000, and Peter DeVries, the department’s fiscal policy director from 1990-2005.

Now retired from Finance, Clark and DeVries shared with Maclean’s a draft version of budget analysis they recently co-wrote. In it they offer trenchant observations on everything from fiscal projections (“One certain thing about a medium-term deficit forecast is that it will be wrong…”) to the hot-button issue of appropriate tax levels (“…a credible budget will require that taxes be raised.”).

Where to cut, however, is the most pressing issue of the moment. But first, how much? Their starting point is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer is not far off when he estimates the structural deficit—how deeply Ottawa will remain in the red after the stimulus gush is spent and the economy is reasonably healthy again—at about $20 billion.

So $20 billion at least must be reduced from spending, assuming Harper and Flaherty mean it when they vow not to hike taxes. Overall program expenses run about $208 billion. But $108 billion of that is transferred to provinces and individuals, and the Tories promise not to significantly cut those payments. That leaves $100 billion to be sliced by a fifth.

And that might seem, while pretty tough, within the realm of the possible. Except in the real world the whole $100 billion is not on the butcher block, as the chart at the bottom from Clark and DeVries shows.

They point out that fully $18 billion pretty much can’t be touched. That includes, for example, more than $2 billion spent by Canada Mortgage and Housing, money which is subject to long-term agreements, and more than $3 billion in federal payments Ottawa must make to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia under offshore energy deals.

Which still leaves more than $80 billion to shrink by a quarter. However, Clark and DeVries subtract another $35 billion as “sensitive”—programs like Defence, First Nations, and student assistance. Armchair fiscal disciplinarians will scan down this portion of their table and exclaim, “Aha! These aren’t areas that truly can’t be cut, they’re just sacred cows.”

And there’s something to that. But at the very least the “sensitive” list reminds us that wide swaths of spending can’t be seriously cut without inflicting real damage. Canada still lags in R & D—so do we really want to whack research? In the post-Haitian earthquake era, and with our solemn commitments to Afghanistan and Africa, would we really contemplate deep foreign aid cuts? Does anyone believe we spend too much on the homeless?

So what’s left as the prime base for restraint? Clark and DeVries tally up only about $47 billion. Not even the most hard-nosed government is going to whack $20 billion from that total. Based on their experience of the program review imposed by the Liberals in 1994 to find savings, the two former mandarins suggest a five-per-cent reduction, or about $2.5 billion, is more reasonable.

Five per cent might sound like a pittance. After all, back in his landmark 1995 and 1996 budgets, Martin mapped out a fiscal austerity program that set a target of 22 per cent less spending across all federal departments by 1998-99 than in 1994-95. But that (and here I’m making my own observations rather than following Clark and DeVries) never happened. Instead, program spending declined six per cent in the key 1995-1999 period. So how did the Liberals balance the books? The answer: tax revenues soared by 26 per cent in those five years, thanks to steady, strong economic growth.

Growth of that sort, however, is not in anyone’s mainstream forecast for the next few years, so the Tories can’t credibly hope the fiscal problem will be solved that way again. That leaves the solution Clark and DeVries arrive at: increase taxes. More on that in a future posting.

Source: Public Accounts of Canada 2009