It seems more peaceful when the politicians are away, doesn't it? Except of course they never really are. Just in time for Christmas a cabinet minister attempts to drag Santa into squabbles over polar sovereignty by declaring him a Canadian citizen. I suppose we should be glad they didn't try to appoint him to the Senate.
Prime Minister Harper now says the $4 billion the Canadian and Ontario governments have offered GM and Chrysler is probably just the beginning of the ill-considered dumping of public money into companies with bleak long-term prospects. If you've been enjoying the scintillating level of debate on this proposal you'll also enjoy this video: In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into.............. A Giant Hole?
So George Bush has decided to go ahead and dump a preliminary $17.4 billion in public money into the two least successful "Big 3" North American auto makers. It's not obvious where that is in the Constitution but the President explained that "These are not ordinary circumstances." So apparently the idea is that something that would be unaffordable folly if you had money is indispensibly prudent conduct if you don't. I somehow missed that in economic class too.
So that was a pretty good week in politics. We got rid of Stéphane Dion and Mario Dumont. True, we also got Michael Ignatieff ... but we shall see. The departure of Mario Dumont is welcome because he was a walking, talking satire of contemporary politics, including his prolonged masquerade as an alternative to it. Handsome, smooth, politically obsessed since childhood, head of his own breakaway party since age 24, he believed in nothing, passionately. He didn't even know if he was a separatist, let alone where he stood on market economics, social issues or anything else.
He almost won the 2007 election on a wave of popular willingness to try free market reforms in a drastically over-governed province. But at the last minute he found the courage of his lack of convictions, backed off, and tumbled. Now he's gone, squeaking comically about how "there has to be a life after politics." Well, yes, and ideally before it as well.
Mr. Ignatieff got that part right. After a successful career as an annoying student activist, he became a public intellectual, and only returned to politics, and Canada, in his late 50s. The question, though, is what desirable qualities he brings to the job.
Supposedly he is sexy. And one Citizen commentator praised his eyebrows, saying they'd be effective in Question Period. But at the risk of appearing picky, I'm hoping for something a bit more substantial.
Here's the question I want to ask him: Your party has not won a majority with an Anglophone leader since William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1945. I wasn't born then and neither were you. It also hasn't won a majority of seats in Quebec since 1981, which you maybe missed because it was during your nearly three decades abroad. But what, exactly, is it that you've got that will reverse this pattern? Other than cool, ironic brows?
My question does not reflect standard media obsession with political tactics. Rather, to the considerable annoyance of many of us, the Liberal party long defined itself, and won elections, as the party that knew how to keep Quebec happy within Confederation. But the days are long gone when it was enough to get you labelled a statesman if people in English Canada believed, however implausibly, that you appealed to Quebec (or, in Joe Clark's case, if you believed it all by yourself).
For that reason it is disquieting that Mr. Ignatieff doesn't even seem very clear on whether he supports the coalition Mr. Dion foisted upon his hapless party. It's bad enough not to know what he thinks about socialist economics. But surely he has an opinion on separatism.
His hesitation and silence are touted by his supporters as proof of his depth. But they might instead reflect timidity or malleability, especially given that on other important questions like "Is he for or against the Iraq war?" the answer is yes. (Ditto whether or not Israel is guilty of war crimes.) When, indeed, has Mr. Ignatieff ever taken a strong stand against prevailing opinion, or stuck to one when the popular mood changed? Aren't real intellectuals eager to challenge conventional wisdom rather than channel it? Even Pierre Trudeau, hardly the iconoclast the herd of independent minds took him for, staunchly and courageously opposed ethnic nationalism when it was trendy.
So where does Mr. Ignatieff stand on Quebec's place in Canada? It's the core issue raised by this coalition, whose partisans manifestly consider Quebec separatists more legitimate political players than people who despise Quebec separatists. Does Mr. Ignatieff agree, disagree, or need more time to answer the question?
I said months ago that a real Social Democratic Party would be good for our politics. But while such a thing would resemble this coalition in many important ways it would differ in three essentials: a) it would not contain people who want to destroy Canada b) it would be one party with policies, not a coalition with attitudes and c) citizens would be told about it during an election, not afterwards.
Is Mr. Ignatieff prepared to approach his coalition partners including the Bloc to discuss forming such a party? And if they refuse, is he willing to govern with them anyway? The question is not simply a partisan jibe about what happened to the Liberals as the party of national unity. It is a way of seeing whether Mr. Ignatieff is a man of ideas, or just enjoys the reputation.
At least Mr. Dion had his Green Shift. After two years we do not know why Mr. Ignatieff wants to be prime minister. Does he know? Or is he just an older Mario Dumont?
Don't raise an eyebrow at me, sir. It's a fair question, and yours need plucking.
[First published in the Ottawa Citizen]
Stephen Harper's cunning trap is closing on the hapless opposition parties. The Governor General's decision to prorogue Parliament until the January budget gives them more time to squirm. But no outcome now favours them.
I know, I know. Early commentary said the prime minister had set his own head on fire. But it is increasingly clear that his adversaries are the ones in a nasty spot. I'm not even sure what to call this bizarre combination of the Bloc, NDP and Liberals? Bl... ND... ral... The Blunderals? The Blendables? But with doubtful constitutional legitimacy and no popular mandate, it is unlikely even to serve the shallow ambitions of its key members no matter what happens next.
If the coalition dissolves in unseemly squabbling between now and late January, or backs down ignominiously on the budget vote, its members end up looking both weak and stupid. If instead they go ahead and vote the government down over the budget, they give the Governor General a constitutional problem that does nothing to alleviate their own political headaches.
The constitutional problem is not what it appears. This is no undemocratic coup attempt by a cabal. The prime minister babbled on Tuesday that "The highest principle of Canadian democracy is that if one wants to be prime minister, one gets one's mandate from the Canadian people and not from Quebec separatists." But in this country we do not elect governments or prime ministers. No such choice appeared on your ballot.
Under parliamentary self-government we elect individual members of Parliament. And a ministry holds office as long, and only as long, as it commands the confidence of the House of Commons that results. That's why I don't think the Governor General should have agreed to prorogue. Given genuine doubts about the ability of Her Majesty's first minister to face the House, she should simply have insisted that he make the attempt. In January he will have to anyway.
The problem is that if he loses that vote it would not be appropriate for Madame Jean to invite Stéphane Dion to form a government.
She should dissolve Parliament and call a new election.
I'm not even sure the Blunderal coalition could win a confidence vote in January either; some Liberal and NDP MPs must be finding this deal repellent or at least very ill-advised. But we could settle that question on the floor of the House.
The real reason we would need an election if the Harper government falls is much deeper. It is the fundamental constitutional principle that while a ministry must enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons, the House must enjoy the confidence of the populace. And there is precedent here. On two occasions, in 1784 and 1834, a monarch dismissed a British ministry supported by the Commons then dissolved Parliament and put the question to the public. In the first case the new Parliament sustained the King's action and in the second reversed it. Both times the result was conclusive.
Now consider Canada in 2008. No sane person cast a ballot in the last federal election unaware that Conservative members would favour the Harper ministry while Liberal, NDP and BQ members would not. But no one knew this coalition was even a possibility, while its hastily-cobbled-together program lacks key planks from each of its members' election platforms (the Green Shift for the Liberals, a corporate tax hike for the NDP and sovereignty for the Bloc). I respectfully submit that a House thus chosen has a mandate to bring down the Harper ministry if it chooses, but not to install the Blendable Blunderals. For that an appeal to the country is necessary. And it seems most unlikely this coalition could survive one.
Of course the Governor General might disagree and invite Mr. Dion to form a government. It wouldn't help. Even if the coalition somehow holds together for a year or two, its members must still one day face the electorate to defend a backroom deal deeply offensive to the West and many non-Tory Canadians' sense of fair play, headed by a bumbler who led his own party to its worst ever popular vote (26.2 per cent), allied to another party that has never reached 21 per cent of the popular vote and a third that wants to destroy Canada. Do you suppose Michael Ignatieff wants to face the nation in 2010 wearing this soiled garment? But leading a revolt to keep the hated Tories in power sounds ugly too.
If Mr. Harper didn't have most of this worked out in advance he's amazingly lucky. With no other way to get a majority, and unable to govern without one, he tricked his foes into a greedy, shameless lunge for power, baffling and offensive to the public.
Game set and match to Mr. Harper. Oh, and nice trap. Subtle, elegant and lethal.
[First published in the Ottawa Citizen]
So that was a decent night for the Democrats. Sort of. I know, I know, Barack Obama "will electrify the world."
He's a "supernova." Of course now the press are also saying he faces difficult challenges and is something of an unknown and we'd all better lower our expectations. But hey, when change has come to America, who wants to quibble?
Me, actually. I agree that the election of a black president is a historic triumph of America's open society and Americans' fundamental decency. I'm too right-wing to support John McCain and I think it's amazingly great that such a thing could happen. Only in America, folks. At least, it hasn't happened in Canada, Germany, France or Britain where they like to sneer at American prejudice.
Some people claim a substantial hidden bigoted vote reduced Barack Obama's vote total. In fact he got more of the white vote (around 43 per cent) than the Democratic average in the previous 10 elections (39 per cent). But in any event, if some voters secretly voted against Mr. Obama because of his race, millions openly voted for him because of it, so it doesn't explain the narrowness of his victory.
Yes, narrowness. And here I must poke many journalists in the eye for covering what they wanted to happen, not what did. The Globe and Mail declared Barack Obama the victor "in a landslide triumph, winning more than 335 of the 538 Electoral College votes, in striking contrast to the wafer-thin victories that sent George W. Bush to Washington in 2000 and again four years later." Pfui. A landslide is Reagan in 1984, with 525 of 535 Electoral College votes and 58.8 per cent of the popular vote, or Nixon in 1972 (520 and 60.7), LBJ in 1964 (486 and 61), or FDR in 1936 (523 and 61).
I don't care how much you hate Republicans. Three-sixty-four and 52.5 is not a landslide. Statistically this election resembles 1968 or 1992 ... except both those campaigns featured strong third-party candidates.
It's also hard to argue that John McCain, or Sarah Palin, alienated moderates. If final turnout is around 125 million, Barack Obama gets seven million more votes than John Kerry in 2004 including 70 per cent of new voters, a galvanized Democratic base and working Joes and Janes concerned about the economy. If it's much higher, John McCain approaches George Bush's 2004 total despite losing the Joes and Janes and core Republicans who never trusted him. Either way there's no room for a wave of defecting moderates. You don't have to approve of it. It's still true.
One normally sensible Canadian pundit warned the GOP that "many of its remaining moderates ... were brought down, leaving the party weakened and prey to the radical evangelicals and talk show hosts who dominate its right wing. If the GOP clings to that base, perhaps with Ms. Palin as its champion, the party has no future." Yeah. They'll end up running right-wing losers like Reagan instead of moderate winners like Bush Sr. and John McCain.
Margaret Wente, also normally sensible, wrote on election day that Mr. Obama "has made me proud of America again" because Americans "are turning out in record numbers to repudiate the leaders who disgraced and failed them." A fine explanation of the record turnout Obama landslide ... if it had happened.
[First published in the Ottawa Citizen]
Gas prices are down, and so am I. No, I'm not some sort of environmental nut. It's just that I know exactly what Susan Sontag meant when she said "I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them." And only last month I, as a consumer, was the victim of a vast international conspiracy. Those were the days. Back then I even had major politicians feeding my delusion. In September, Jack Layton called for a commissioner to review high gas prices; Stephen Harper told reporters it sure looked like gouging; and Stéphane Dion wanted more Competition Bureau powers to investigate price-fixing. Now prices are down, my political friends have gone silent and I'm a nobody.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard that gas prices both rise and fall in tandem because of the highly competitive nature of the industry, not the reverse, and are driven by actual or anticipated changes in the price of crude oil. But how lonely, how terribly lonely, to feel that it's all market forces, that I'm just a dust speck on the face of global trade. Of course politicians would rather be fearless crusaders against illicit plundering on an international scale than boring hacks mumbling populist clichés. And I'd rather be the target of such a conspiracy than just a guy struggling to make ends meet.
For the same reason -- to compensate for creeping feelings of insignificance, or insignificant feelings of creepiness -- I have frequently observed over many years that my investments invariably do what I wish my weight was doing and vice versa. Moreover, my mutual funds periodically jump up dramatically only to resume their steady painful day-by-day descent.
Just life in the market? Don't you believe it. Here's my theory: My holdings can't actually fall every day or they'd become worthless and the torment would stop. So once in a while the gnomes of Zurich engineer a sharp increase, over before I can enjoy it, then resume the long dreary decline. And while the "logical" explanation is that lots of people have the same problem, I don't open their financial statements. I'd rather sit alone brooding about a giant conspiracy pointed right at me. It makes me feel that I must really be somebody, when trillion-dollar international financial markets are rigged and jiggled daily just to make me feel bad. It sure beats sitting alone brooding that I'm sitting alone brooding.
So I'm not falling for any suggestion that I track the price fluctuations of my mutual funds to see if this fiendish pattern of occasional sharp rises and an overwhelming succession of small depressing declines even exists. No sir. They're not catching me with that one. I like feeling badly done to on a cosmic scale.
On the same basis I firmly refuse to track the long-term trend in gas prices adjusted for inflation. It risks revealing not only a fairly random pattern in the short to medium term, but also that gasoline is not more expensive now than in Henry Ford's day. Especially when you consider how much better it is. (Does anyone out there remember Johnny Cash's song about the guy whose filling station was put out of business by "high-test gasoline" that let cars whiz by on the freeway without constantly refuelling? If the name "Cisco Clifton" popped into your mind you may not be paranoid but you're certainly weird.) I say the tendency of prices to fall as well as rise just proves how clever they are.
Still, on a damp chilly October morning I can't shake the nagging suspicion that I am, at best, the victim of a third-rate failed conspiracy. Not for me fiendishness on the level of Ernst Stavro Blofeld or Fu Manchu or, to avoid the charge of making things up, the Masonic plot to take over the world and force us all to wear aprons or whatever it is they want.
It might be objected that the Masons have been so busy conspiring and hiding every single imaginable scrap of evidence except, um, that disquieting pyramid with the eye on the U.S. dollar that they've never really gotten around to doing all the sinister things their long-standing domination of everything permits. But I say that's a conspiracy where you get your money's worth: deep, patient, convoluted. The same way UFOs wouldn't be fun if the aliens crashed a spaceship on the West Block lawn in bright sunlight and a map and a medical manual fell out.
That's why I'm so disappointed with the gas price conspiracy. It turns out I'm the target of plotters on five continents and all I get is a lousy 90 cent per litre fill-up. What am I, chopped liver?
[First published in the Ottawa Citizen]