Question and Answer: Stephen Harper, Winnipeg

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 12:30 PM - 13 Comments

Deadline day so blogging will be sparse. Here’s an audio clip of my question to Stephen Harper at the news conference he held today in a vegetable warehouse. Also: His answer. Also: The applause, from vegetable-company employees and Conservative candidates and campaign workers, that accompanied his answer. (My question makes reference to issues discussed here.)

Click here to hear voices!

How Green Was My Lawn: Liveblogging Stephen Harper's happy Vancouver home invasion

By Paul Wells - Monday, September 8, 2008 at 12:32 PM - 37 Comments

We’re here in Richmond, B.C., to which destination the Stephen Harper campaign plane (official motto: “At Least We Have One”) flew from Quebec City last night, a five-and-a-half hour flight. We are ready to start the day’s only event. We are in a typical family’s back lawn. There are 40 journalists, a playhouse and the most astonishingly green lawn you ever did see. Tonight there will be pictures.

12:34:48 PM (Eastern)
“All right, cue the spontaneity,” one of the cameramen said once he’d set up. And as if on cue, here’s the PM. In a sweater-vest! Well, more a matching v-neck sweater with matching powder-blue shirt. “Look,” said a cynic in the press corps, “it’s Perry Como.”

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Listening is a process not to be rushed

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 11:43 PM - 0 Comments

Stéphane Dion demonstrates that he was listening all summer by implementing a policy change his rural MPs were already pleading for in the spring. Could the listening, perhaps, have benefited from being a bit more front-loaded?

Brinksmanship, or, The Winnipeg Very Limited Strike

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 7:23 AM - 0 Comments

The Conservatives are on the brink of a majority! But wasn’t the Green Shift supposed to help? No, the Green Shift is really not helping. Here are some thoughts.

First, somebody is always on the brink of a majority when you’re the Globe and there’s an election around the corner. The paper used the same brink-of-a-majority language for its poll coverage in 2004, only then it was the Martin Liberals who were on the brink of a majority. And then they turned out to be on the brink of something else. I intend no prediction here, nor any particular criticism of the Globe; I’m only pointing out the natural tendency to want to ratchet up the drama when you’re about to pummel your readers with a month of campaign coverage. Have I mentioned this is the third Most Important Campaign Ever in four years? We are truly blessed as a nation. Or two.

Second, why do you suppose two news organizations timed their big, expensive national polls to come out on the morning of a Liberal caucus meeting? Because Canada’s top editors know Liberal MPs well, my friends! And they know there is no better way to get them in a panicky, mutinous mood than to suggest their next victory is not about to be handed to them on a silver platter.

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You think it's easy to make scheduling?

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 12:46 PM - 0 Comments

Stéphane Dion has requested the pleasure of our company at the National Press Theatre at 2:15 this afternoon. If Kady doesn’t liveblog it, I’ll blogblog it shortly after it concludes.

Carbon scheme's cost: "brownouts, high fuel taxes and lost jobs"

By Paul Wells - Monday, July 28, 2008 at 1:07 PM - 0 Comments

I refer, of course, to the Conservative carbon scheme. My source is Jack Mintz, the noted Communist leftard economist, writing in that biased MSM rag, the National Post.

To be fair, Mintz (whose piece a month ago has probably not received enough attention; at least, until this morning, it hadn’t received any from me) says the brownouts, layoffs and massive terrifying Gotham-style chaos “could” be a result of the Conservatives’ carbon policy, Turning the Corner. “Could” because it depends on (a) the Conservatives actually following their plan (b) large emitting corporations reaching into their own backsides and failing to fish out the large quantities of horseshoes that would give them the luck they need to avoid nasty side effects.

If the Conservatives follow their policy and the oil patch’s luck is only fair, then things get really nasty really fast.

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Mr. Dion has a plan

By Paul Wells - Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 2:58 PM - 0 Comments

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

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

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PermanentTaxOnEverything: A little perspective

By Paul Wells - Friday, June 20, 2008 at 3:13 PM - 0 Comments

It’s actually a lot of fun watching everyone get excited, both admirers and detractors, about a policy idea in Ottawa. But this might be a good time for everyone to remind themselves that Dion’s PermanentTaxOnEverything™ is a suggestion for allocating $15 billion, four years out.

The government of Canada plans to spend $200 billion this year.

So (a) If this is the apocalypse, it doesn’t take much to have an apocalypse these days; (b) The same message goes out to everyone saying this plan is the equivalent of a federal budget, or a replacement for the old Red Books. Um, no, it just isn’t; (c) This means that if he wanted to, Stéphane Dion could have three or four more days like yesterday  before an election. He just needs to find some other issues on which his ideas are markedly different from the government’s, and on which the virtues of early exposition would outweigh the advantages of pre-writ secrecy.

Because the amazing thing is not that the Leader of the Opposition managed to set the agenda this week. The amazing thing is that we ever got to the point where it would be considered a novelty when the Leader of the Opposition managed to set the agenda. Folks: that’s what leaders of large political parties with a long history of governing the country are supposed to do, and more than once.

PermanentTaxOnEverything: If you're going to get beaten up, you might as well fight

By Paul Wells - Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 3:02 PM - 0 Comments

I went camping with my brother and his hilarious kids a couple of weekends ago in Algonquin Park. We got eaten alive by blackflies. It was fun. In the gas-guzzling SUV on the way back to Mark’s home in Oshawa (Liam: “Dad, when are we gonna get there….”), I noticed the acre on acre of new housing developments, eerily Truman Show-esque subdivisions of truly immense new homes. Yes, Mark said, people are flocking to Oshawa, even though property taxes there are roughly double what people pay in Toronto, because Oshawa’s municipal council has decided to build up local infrastructure and try to make the place more livable. Incidentally, the mayor who made that call was re-elected in 2006 with nearly three-quarters of the vote.

This is only the umpty-dump-jillionth demonstration that people don’t build their whole lives around their tax bills. If you like a place, you are willing to take a tax hit to live in it. If you like a policy, you are not likely to fuss too much about its tax cost. This may be some consolation to the Liberals, because like Andrew Coyne, I don’t see anything revenue-neutral about their PermanentTaxOnEverything™. Nor do the Liberals even put much effort into pretending otherwise. Their pamphlet (which is easily three times longer than it should be; the Liberals must hand it over to an elementary-school grammar teacher, chosen at random, for the basic edit it should have received long before today) handily divides fiscal measures into “Personal tax reductions,” “Business tax reductions,” and “Additional support.” Hmm. Additional support. Government programs.

The Liberals will take serious criticism for this. They could have avoided it by arguing frankly, from the outset, that their scheme shouldn’t be revenue-neutral because the federal government exists to do things and it needs revenue for the job. Continue…

PermanentTaxOnEverything: The cavalry appears, from an unexpected direction

By Paul Wells - Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 9:27 AM - 0 Comments

Those lying Lieberal leftards at the American Enterprise Institute explain the advantages of carbon taxes (sorry, green shifts) over cap-and-trade mechanisms.

Shifting greenfully with Stephane Dion: We have a time!

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 10:52 AM - 0 Comments

Hot off the e-presses:

For Immediate Release
June 18, 2008

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion Announces the Liberal Green Shift

Date: Thursday, June 19, 2008
Time: 10:00 AM
Location: House of Commons
Railway Room
253-D Centre Block
Ottawa, Ontario

Please note that all details are subject to change. All times are local.

Will you be tricked, National Post?

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 8:57 AM - 0 Comments

Apparently so:

Liberal MPs urge review of party’s carbon tax plan
Tories claim it shows split within Dion’s caucusThree Liberal MPs have voted for a motion calling for a review of the effects of a carbon tax on agriculture and seeking protection for farmers, just days before the party plans to unveil a policy it hopes will be key to winning the next election.

As anyone who was up last night reading ITQ after midnight already knows, I’ve already devoted far too much time to unspooling the spin on this story – follow those links for background  – but here are a few quick notes on the Post’s version of events:
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