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.

Our weekly look back at all we saw and heard.

Monday. Adjust your cuffs and carry on
Tuesday. ‘I have the feeling that nothing will satisfy the honourable gentleman’
Wednesday. Comedy, tragedy, but no inquiry
Thursday. What this is about

While we await the long overdue day when “politician engages with magic computer thingy” isn’t a particularly novel idea, there is news this morning that the Prime Minister will stream his reply to the Throne Speech—due in about 10 minutes—on YouTube, then invite you to send along your questions. All of which will apparently play out here.

Behold, the future.

Charlie Brooker considers politicians.

The exciting conclusion is here.

Ta-Nehisi Coates considers modern political reportage.

There is, in the press, a profane bias toward political success, a sense that success is strictly defined by elections won. Left uninterrogated is the ends to which those elections serve.

What we’re really talking about is the fake “objectivity” which the press worships. Serious policy reporting necessitates making calls, and making calls open you up to the charge of political bias. A good one to avoid that charge is to cover elections, in the way you cover sports. Ron Jaworski may love the Eagles, but if they’re sucking it up, he has to say as much. Likewise, a reporter can be a socialist in his private life, but by covering the horse-race he’s magically become objective.

I’m not sure there’s much of anything to be learned from last week’s unpleasantness, but Susan Delacourt sees some significance.

This explains, and I don’t say this lightly, why some people in government have a hard time finding jobs after politics. Employers in the private sector, for the most part,  actually have little use for folks with highly developed skills in haranguing, bullying and intimidating people. The “communications experts” who believe that you can  manage the media with threats, for instance, aren’t so much in demand outside politics.  In short, the methods that some political people use to get their own way here  are not transferable to the private workplace, unless you  have career aspirations in the direction of  pro wrestling.

The sad thing about Guergis’s tantrum is that in Ottawa, it almost looks like business as usual.   Fifty yards away from Parliament Hill, as the old saying goes, it’s a little harder to get away with this nonsense.

Glen Pearson draws lessons too.

Conservative guru Patrick Muttart sends British Tory leader David Cameron unsolicited, and perhaps ultimately dismissed, advice.

In the documents, Mr Muttart says Mr Cameron should ‘practise staring down Brown while the camera is focused on the moderators, other leaders. Makes your opponent feel uncomfortable’. But he adds that when Mr Cameron is ‘attacking/rebutting’ he should ‘look at his opponent’s shoulder and not his face. Facial reactions can be distracting/destabilising’.

Personal attacks, meanwhile, should be ‘well-timed and well-constructed’ but used infrequently ‘for the biggest impact’. Most of Mr Muttart’s advice is listed under a section entitled ‘key presentation points’. It states: ‘Ensure Cameron has room-temperature water. Cold water (with ice) tightens the throat. You should control his water – not the TV studio.’

Matthew Yglesias considers Packer.

I consider this another reason to try to enhance understanding of the fact that when it comes to political outcomes it’s the fundamentals that matter most. Interest in the horse-race aspects of politics is to some extent inevitable, but to understand the horse-race properly you need to spend more time trying to understand what’s actually happening in the country and less time paying attention to spin and positioning.

George Packer considers the way we discuss this stuff.

Broder wasn’t analyzing Palin’s positions or accusations, or the truth or falsehood of her claims, or even the nature of the emotions that she appeals to. He was reviewing a performance and giving it the thumbs up, using the familiar terminology of political journalism. This has been so characteristic of the coverage of politics for so long that it doesn’t seem in the least bit odd, and it’s hard to imagine doing it any other way. A couple of weeks ago, the Times ran a piece by its lead political reporter, Adam Nagourney, about a Republican strategy session in Hawaii: “Here in Honolulu, the strains within the party over conservative principles versus political pragmatism played out in a sharp and public way, especially as the party establishment struggled to deal with the demands of the Tea Party movement.” The structure of the sentence, and of the article, puts the emphasis entirely on tactics and performance. This kind of prose goes down as easily and unnoticeably as a glass of sparkling water, with no aftertaste. Readers interested in politics drink quarts of it every day without gaining weight. And Broder and Nagourney are at the top of their game.

Be careful what you say in public.

Here’s how the Tory memo quotes him on marijuana: “I am a big fan of decriminalizing marijuana.” Young people tell me we should make it legal and “take the money and do something with it. I understand that.”

Here’s what he said when asked about legalizing marijuana: “Yeah, I’m not a big fan of that. I am a big fan of decriminalizing marijuana. I understand the argument. And I tell you . . . this has been raised at schools like Auburn and Dartmouth High, the kids are saying, look, why don’t you make this legal, take the money and do something with it? I understand that. I just don’t know that we are at a place where we need to be legalizing more things that are dangerous.”

According to a new estimate from Elections Canada, 37.4 of Canadians aged 18-24 voted in the 2008 federal election.

At 58.8 percent, the official turnout at the October 14, 2008 general election is the lowest turnout rate in a federal general election since Confederation. As was noted in Elections Canada’s previous studies of voter turnout by age group2, the decline in Canadian electoral participation has been the focus of considerable academic research and analysis, particularly since the 2000 federal general election. While such research has identified a number of factors related to non-participation, the major reason for the decline in Canadian voter turnout over the past two decades can be traced to the continuing drop-off in voting among the youngest cohorts of electors. As confirmed most recently by Blais and Loewen (2009), there has been a persistent downward trend in the turnout rate of new cohorts of electors, beginning in the 1970s. Coupled with a noticeable decline in the life-cycle effect over the same time period, the result is that younger generations of electors are no longer replacing older generations at rates that are sufficient to maintain overall levels of turnout.

I’ve posted this before somewhere, but for various reasons it feels appropriate to post it again. it’s from Vaclav Havel’s Summer Meditations, about his experiences as president of Czechoslovakia, later the Czech Republic.

Journalists, and in particular foreign correspondents, often ask me how the idea of “living in truth”, the idea of “anti-political politics”, or the idea of politics subordinated to conscience can, in practice, be carried out. They are curious to know whether, finding myself in high office, I have not had to revise much of what I once wrote as an independent critic of politics and politicians. Have I not been compelled to lower my former “dissident” expectations of politics, by which they mean the standards I derived from the “dissident experience,” which are therefore scarcely applicable outside that sphere?



There may be some who won’t believe me, but in my second term as president in a land full of problems that presidents in stable countries never dream of, I can safely say that I have not been compelled to recant anything of what I wrote earlier, or to change my mind about anything. It may seem incredible, but it is so: not only have I not had to change my mind, but my opinions have been confirmed.



Despite the political distress I face every day, I am still deeply convinced that politics is not essentially a disreputable business; and to the extent that it is, it is only disreputable people who make it so. I would concede that it can, more than other spheres of human activity, tempt one to disreputable practices, and that it therefore places higher demands on people. But it is simply not true that a politician must lie or intrigue. That is utter nonsense, spread about by people who – for whatever reasons – wish to discourage others from taking an interest in public affairs.



Of course, in politics, as elsewhere in life, it is impossible and pointless to say everything, all at once, to just anyone. But that does not mean having to lie. All you need is tact, the proper instincts, and good taste. One surprising experience from “high politics” is this: I have discovered that good taste is more useful here than a post-graduate degree in political science. It is largely a matter of form: knowing how long to speak, when to begin and when to finish; how to say something politely that your opposite number may not want to hear; how to say, always, what is most significant at a given moment, and not to speak of what is not important or relevant; how to insist on your own position without offending; how to create the kind of friendly atmosphere that makes complex negotiations easier; how to keep a conversation going without prying or being aloof; how to balance serious political themes with lighter, more relaxing topics; how to plan your official journeys judiciously and to know when it is more appropriate not to go somewhere, when to be open and when reticent and to what degree.



But more than that, it means having a certain instinct for the time, the atmosphere of the time, the mood of people, the nature of their worries, their frame of mind — that too can perhaps be more useful than sociological surveys. An education in political science, law, economics, history, and culture is an invaluable asset to any politician, but I have been persuaded, again and again, that it is not the most essential asset. Qualities like fellow-feeling, that ability to talk to others, insight, the capacity to grasp quickly not only problems but also human character, the ability to make contact, a sense of moderation: all these are immensely more important in politics. I am not saying, heaven forbid, that I myself am endowed with these qualities; not at all! These are merely my observations.



To sum up: if your heart is in the right place and you have good taste, not only will you pass muster in politics, you are destined for it. If you are modest and do not lust after power, not only are you suited to politics, you absolutely belong there. The “sine qua non” of a politician is not the ability to lie; he need only be sensitive and know when, what, to whom, and how to say what he has to say. It is not true that a person of principle does not belong in politics; it is enough for his principles to be leavened with patience, deliberation, a sense of proportion, and an understanding of others. It is not true that only the unfeeling cynic, the vain, the brash, and the vulgar can succeed in politics; such people, it is true, are drawn to politics, but, in the end, decorum and good taste will always count for more.

The new Liberal ads get a broadly favourable review from friend Wells. Not so much from me. Can we please dispense with the Damien: Omen II mood music and snarky, insinuating voiceovers, the same stylistic devices used in every attack ad ever made? I know its only been several million times, but it’s really starting to get old. Just once, can we have a level-headed discussion about how we’re governed — without all the cheap theatrics?

Here’s the ad I’d like to see:

Rather than answer serious questions about its handling of prisoners in Afghanistan, the Conservative government has shut down Parliament. Your Parliament. The heart of our democracy.

This has got to stop. For years, governments of both parties — Conservative and Liberal — have been treating Parliament with contempt, gutting its powers, reducing its ability to hold governments to account. And now it’s come to this.

We’ll take our share of the blame for Parliament’s decline. Because we’re serious about fixing it. We want to put Parliament back at the centre of our democratic life.

Read the complete plan at Liberal.ca.

Or something like that.

It only takes about 30 seconds to read. But imagine if a party actually said something like that — if it talked to us as if we were adults? No cheesy crash-chords, no over-blown dramatics, no appeals to paranoia. Just level with us: lay out the problem, and suggest a solution.

I know. Never going to happen.

So: Parliament has been prorogued. What is to be done about it? Answer: not bloody much.

Certainly there’s no evidence the public is up in arms about it, notwithstanding the Star’s typically tendentious headline. Smug Tory types whose response to every principled objection is “nobody cares” are, unfortunately, right: the 38,000 plus who have subscribed to that facebook page are indicative of very little: most, I would bet, are opposition partisans. Were their situations reversed, they would be saying the same things the Tories are.

Neither can we expect much from the opposition leaders: neither Ignatieff nor Layton could apparently be arsed to postpone their vacations — though Iggy at least managed to release a wan op-ed piece denouncing the government in the series of sentence fragments (“Messy. Inconvenient. Frustrating. Democracy is all those things.”) that are the preferred idiom of the contemporary politician. “Last week’s shutting down of Parliament was a key moment,” he writes. “It was one of those moments of supreme clarity. The audacity. The epic scale of the cynicism. The arrogance of a regime that thinks it can get away with just about anything.”

But that’s all going to change now. The opposition leader isn’t going to take this lying down. Nosir. No, to protest this outrage, he’s going to … go on a listening tour. “Mr. Harper may not want to face the public, but we will get out there and meet Canadians in universities, in town hall meetings and other public events from coast to coast to coast. We will seek their views and exchange ideas.” That’ll show ‘em. Just wait till he gets back from the south of France.

But as for more substantive protests — such as convening a mock Parliament, as suggested by A. Hothead — n’incluez nous pas.

In a way, I can’t blame them. You can only rouse the public to defend something if the thing is generally considered worth defending. But so degraded is Parliament’s condition already — the consequence of many previous such assaults on parliamentary rights, each of which was thought too trivial on its own to be worth making a fuss — that it’s hard for the public to see what is being lost. It’s only Parliament, after all. It’s not as if it’s something important.

This is the problem. It’s not prorogation, on its own, that puts us on the path to despotism. It’s the cumulative weakening of our democratic defenses, and more important, of our democratic instincts. Each new precedent conditions us to accept the next, and the next, to the point that if we ever do arrive at the end of the Tyranny line, no one will even know, let alone care: we will have nothing left to compare it to. (We scoff at such overheated rhetoric now, but if Canadians in the 1950s had been presented with the package of changes that have occurred since then in the way we are governed, they would have risen up in revolt.) And if the public doesn’t care, neither will the opposition. You might think it was the job of a political leader to get out in front of the public on this — to, you know, lead — but if so, you don’t know Canadian politics.

In any case, the party leaders are in something of a conflict of interest. For one day they will be in government, or hope to be, and the powers and prerogatives the Harper conservatives have arrogated to themselves will be powers and prerogatives they may wish to enjoy. As, if experience is any guide, they almost certainly will. If there is one sure lesson of Canadian history, it is that no political principle long survives its first encounter with power. What most provokes a party leader in opposition is what he is most likely to practice once in government.

This isn’t really a contest, in other words, between the parties. It is between Parliament and government — present or prospective. If anyone is to defend the rights and privileges of Parliament, it will not be the party leaders. It will have to be ordinary members of Parliament.

But how likely is that? If MPs had the kind of backbone that would induce them to come to Parliament’s defense, they would have done so long before this. But of course they don’t. Any MP who showed the slightest tendency in that direction would find himself unable to get his nomination papers signed, and without the party’s backing could not hope to be elected. Independence of mind has been bred out of our MPs, much as dogs are bred not to bite.

So nothing is going to come of this, I’m afraid. It might, if Parliament mattered much, but as Parliament does not matter, it won’t.

UPDATE: In the interest of equal time, I should point out that there is also a facebook page for Canadians FOR Proroguing Parliament. So far they have 19 members, but one of them is Ezra.