As the Grit leader heads off on his summer tour, one main question comes to the mind of this middle aged bald fellow:

Will this be a tour of triumph, like the U2 tours of the 1990′s… complete with spectacular polytechnics, revolving stages and great solos?

Or will be more like a farewell tour? Like one of those aging bands that played at Bluesfest recently, is this one final grasp and grasp at the brass ring?

Well, unfortunately for MI, his Great Canadian Adventure started out looking more like the Moody Blues than Bono and The Edge.

Aren’t buses destined for a long summertime journey not checked for mechanical soundness beforehand?

At least they have a red tow truck..

The Cons, of course, were all over this:

“This can’t be a great start to the tour… Hopefully the local mechanic services imports,” Conservative talking points said.

So, what can he do to rescue his own and his party’s fortunes? Is there anything. Really?

My thoughts are that this question must be broken down into two separate questions.

First, can he save his own personal fortunes as the leader of Canada’s Natural Governing Party?

I doubt it. He has been branded too deeply by the Harperites as an arrogant, distant intellectual… sorta the same as Harpy except for the “intellectual” part. But the Timmies crowd has bought into this hook, line and sinker and I really don’t know what Iggy can do to reverse this. Mitigate it, maybe… but not reverse it completely. The Con machine came together on this one.

The second question is : But he can shore up his party’s fortunes by cementing the core supporters into place for the next election?

Maybe. If he listens to advice like the following.

Mr Ignatieff:

Don’t go to rural areas where Con support and coffee shops abound! Forget about the Prairies! Stick to places where there has historically and recently been strong support for your party! Stick to the cities and ‘burbs, not farms and small towns. The countryside has been lost – for now-  so leave it up to the next leader to mend those fences and broaden the base.

Go to Toronto. To Ottawa. Vancouver. Montreal. And other urban centres where, if your core support comes out to vote for you, Canada’s hopes to avoid a Con majority may be realised.

Cuz we all know what THAT would mean!

• Mandatory religion “education” in schools.
• Mandatory jail time for possession of any amount of pot.
• Obliteration of environmental regs.
• State-imposed censorship through selective information dissemination.
• Easing of gun laws.
• Laws restricting abortion.
• Reintroduction of the death penalty.
• More gutting of government services…

Wait a minute, am I talking about what would happen if Harper got a majority or the tea-partiers nut bars in the States?

Hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Yeah, I know that is a lot to speculate about – but give Harper a term or two with a Majority and we’ll see if I’m just being alarmist!

Sincerely, from a non-Grit and non-partisan,

Trashy

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Warren Kinsella penned a very good note recently on all of the Grit/Dipper Mergecoalicooperation (new word!) which drew some equally insightful comments… as Kinsella’s columns often do…

James Bow correctly pointed out the following:

You need to be clear about what’s on the table, here. Electoral cooperation, coalition and merger are three very different things, each with wholly different implications for Canadian voters.

And I agree. There is some confusion over these terms that are being thrown about rather haphazardly these days.

Electoral cooperation

This is akin to voting strategically, except on the side of the parties rather than on the voters. There are certain ridings where, in the pursuit of defeating Harpy and having a House with a Progressive Agenda, there can be tacit agreements that the Grits will support the Dippers in some way, or vice versa depending on the circumstances during and election campaign.

For example, say the Cons won a seat by a small margin and one could realistically expect some voters from the 3rd place party to support the second place party if encouraged to do so by the third place party. Take Nunavut for example:

2008 General Election Results:

Even if only 25% of the NDP voters went to the Grits, that would be more than enough to unseat the Cons because it would be highly unlikely that any of the Dipper votes would vote for the Cons… most Dippers would rather burn their union cards than do THAT!

The cooperation could take many forms. Sharing workers, running low-keys campaigns or weak candidates, even an outright endorsement of the opponent – all are possible. But do not. I repeat, do NOT run less than a complete slate of candidates. That is a coalition – not cooperation. And the Harperites would pounce on that like a mongoose on a cobra!

I predict that this is the most likely development we will see in the next election. And it may, just may further the Progressive Agenda.

Coalitions:

Yes, they are legal. Yes, western democracies do use coalitions as a way to bring together different parties under one banner with an agreed upon legislative agenda. Nothing wrong with it.

However, because of the way that the Cons portrayed the last unsuccessful attempt at a coalition between the Grits and Dippers (and NO, the Bloq was NOT as part of the coalition) any notion of a working coalition by the two should be stated up front in the course of the campaign. Give the voters the opportunity to vote for a Progressive vision and still allow them to keep the faith for their own respective parties.

This scenario might happen. But I’m not sure Iggy has the balls or the inclination to do so. His ego might get in the way.

Merger:

Admittedly this is my preference but for a variety of reasons, I don’t think it will happen in the near future, and here is why:

• Too easy a target for the ReformCons. Can’t you see the ads? “Michael Ignatieff and the liberal party have chosen to partner with the tax and spend, nationalizing, pro-Taliban socialists”. Yes, a pile of crap, but the Tim Horton crowd would eat it up.
• Many Blue Grits would rather head for the DeceptiCons than merge with Jack Layton. And many Dippers would just stay home. There is a long history here and to ignore it would be perilous. The combined party – at least right now – may garner fewer votes than the two parties combined as separate entities. That being said, the two parties of the Left and centre Left MUST coalesce at some point in the future if we are to avoid years and years of right-wing bullshit.
• Don’t forget that it took 4 or 5 years before the current Cons won as high a percentage of the vote as the PCs and the Alliance put together during the 1997 & 2000 election campaigns. The internal schism, even if it was temporary, would open the door to a Harper majority; something all Progressives in this country definitely do NOT want to see!

But, hey, for political junkies like me, these are the best of times!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

• 8°C High
• -1°C Low

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

In today’s G&M, Lawrence Martin is exploring a topic that is along the same lines as one that I discussed in a posting a little while ago. Ignatieff and the Grits have been presented with a perfect opportunity to latch on to an issue that can define them from the ReformCons -  the American portrayal of our health care system.

It would be a natural fit for Iggy to defend Obama’s proposed program and universal health care in general. Both men are liberal,  well-spoken members of the educated class.  One would think that Obama’s team would welcome such an ally.

As Mr. Martin says:

These are rocky times on the bilateral front. Trade volumes are declining, border fences have gone up. Financial tumult has walloped America and its paramountcy is challenged, at least to some degree, by Asia’s rise. This country can’t ride its coattails as it used to.

These are big challenges for big thinkers. We expected Mr. Ignatieff to respond by unhesitatingly seeking a close alliance with a liberal President whose popularity in Canada is enormous. Mr. Obama is a busy man but surely, given his contacts, Mr. Ignatieff could have received entry to the Oval Office by now, as opposition leaders before him have done.

It is not too late to hitch his wagon to this train; but Iggy and the Libs should not wait very long into the fall sitting.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Canada’s health care system has been under a barrage of attacks both in the blogosphere and in the MSM lately – not to mention the mass idiocy that is taking place at those so-called “Town Hall Meetings”. What a crock. Here’s an excerpt:

In one particularly heated exchange, Craig Anthony Miller, 59, stood inches from Mr Specter’s face screaming at him and waving a copy of the US Constitution.

“You are trampling our Constitution,” Mr Miller yelled while police officers hovered nervously around him. “One day, God is going to stand before you, and He is going to judge you and the rest of your damn cronies [in the Congress], and then you will get your just deserts,” he ranted to loud applause before storming out of the room.

Seriously. How do these morons summon up the brain capacity to breathe and talk at the same time?

These attacks have been well-coordinated and organized by the usual right-wing nut groups whose alleged motivation is the preservation of good health care and free enterprise but whose real impetus is the protection of their own collective ass.

I haven’t said much about this whole health care thing – and I have been saving a sort of “omnibus” entry about our system for a later date. Yet, what I do see at the moment is a perfect chance for Iggy and Grits to define themselves as the defenders of the faith – if you will.

What a great issue to latch on to and gain exposure from!

What a high profile and attack-ad proof way to define the leader’s persona and purpose than to vigorously defend an institution that most Canadians identify as being a hallmark of our society!

Yes, most of us realize that it has its blemishes and warts and I don’t differ from this view. It is indeed a system that is in need of a new focus and new thinking. But that being said, it is a fair and modern system of which we should be conditionally proud. And from coast to coast, I would guess that this would be the consensus opinion.

But will Ignatieff step up to the plate? The Harperites are, of course, silent on this. They know that by defending a system that their core supporters (the religious right and the ultra right wingnuts) view with suspicion, they are opening themselves up to internal dissent. And we all know that the ReformCons go tut-tut at any type of dissent.

How about it Grits? Here is a tailor-made, made-in-Canada, attack-ad-proof issue for you to grab and run with? Are you going to take it?

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Never one to miss a chance to score some political points, Stevie lays the groundwork for blaming the Grits et al if the refugee claimant system isn’t “fixed”.

Mr. Harper insisted the visa obligation for Mexicans will remain in place until Canada’s refugee system is fixed, calling on opposition parties to join his party in reforming Canada’s refugee system to discourage bogus claimants.

“The visas will stay as long as the problem exists,” he said.

“Parliament should be seized with this issue [and] I hope our Parliament will take advantage of the attention that’s been brought on this issue to deal with this problem,” Mr. Harper said.

Next to come will be:

• blaming the previous regime (the Liberals) for not doing something about this during their (brrr…) reign of terror

• the introduction of legislation that will be just contentious enough to fall outside the “we’ll sign on the dotted line” zone of approval for one of the Opposition parties.

• attack ads labelling Iggy as being soft on bogus refugees and hence soft on terror… or something like that. The words “soft on” will most definitely be used.

Just watch. He is becoming so bloody predictable.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Seems like the combination of anti-Iggy ads and the Grits thumping on the election war drum has given the ReformCons a bit of an edge in the polls. While this does fall a bit within the “who cares” territory – after all, no election till at least the fall – it does point out that the Liberals do have some work ahead of them before the next drop of the writ.

Specifically, they need to better define the Iggy brand. It is not enough for the leader of the party to make election threats and fire cannonballs across the bow of the blue ship, Canadians need to better understand who he is all “about”.

Hitting the summer BBQ circuit will help rebuild the grassroots support that will be absolutely crucial to future electoral success, but it will do little to better define the brand.

My humble suggestion is that Grit staffers spend their summer canvassing all ridings – but especially those that are “winnable” – to clearly understand what is on the minds of Canadians and the role they see for the Liberal Party. From this, put together a brand spankin’ new set of policy statements that are clearly different from the CPC as well as the Dippers and the Bloqistes.

In fact, if they are smart, they would have started this months ago and are right now putting together said statements.

The party needs to distinguish itself from the trash that surrounds it. Both the party as the brand and the leader as the brand must stand out as the only viable alternative.

All that being said, I believe that the Harperites’ rise in the polls is temporary and largely reflects the desire of the nation to avoid an election at this time.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

On the political stage

Just noticed that Iggy has laid down some conditions that the Harperites will have to meet in order to avoid a no-confidence motion and a summer election.

According to Ignatieff, the government must meet the following four conditions:

• Provide more details about improving the employment insurance system before the House of Commons votes on budget estimates at the end of the week. The government has said it will introduce unspecified new EI proposals in the fall.
• Give more information about the rate of stimulus spending than included in last Thursday’s progress report.
• Show more details on the government’s plan to contain the ballooning deficit, instead of offering what Ignatieff called “rosy projections.”
• Provide clearer answers on the government’s action plan to deal with Canada’s medical isotopes shortage.

Ignatieff said the government’s answers and performance so far on these issues “just aren’t good enough.”

This is a type of “haggling”. The Grits are playing from a strong position in that the economy has nose-dived, the have a new and semi-intelligent leader, the polls are pretty good and, of course, Steve is still a robot. And no one likes robots.

What Iggy is saying is the following:

I will support you and we can all have a nice, election-free summer if you at least give the appearance of cutting me a deal by meeting me halfway and following through on my demands. Or at least some of them.

Due to it’s unpredictability, it’s a dangerous game when you engage in political haggling. The seller (in this case Harper) can back away and say “Forget it – I’m calling your bluff.” In which case, the one in the role of the buyer (Iggy) must risk losing the “good” that he is bargaining for (the avoidance of an election) or backing down himself and risk losing credibility.

As much as this Trashman would love to see Harper and his merry gang of ReformCons heaved out onto a pile of half-cured compost, he is very nervous about this game that the Grits are playing. It may just backfire and we’ll end up at the polls this summer. Canadians may take out their frustration on the new kid on the block instead of the robot.

Yikes. Careful Michael, careful…

At the store

The teen-monster is doing some training to ready herself for her 3 week stint as a kid’s camp counsellor and last week was my turn to deliver her to said training centre. For whatever reason – and I didn’t want the details… scaaaaarrrrrrrrrrryyyy – the kid was obviously having a bad day / week and it culminated that day in a ruined shoe. Somehow (again, no details please) she caught a lace in a fence and this tore the footwear asunder.

I actually heard about this earlier in the day when she texted me “Daddy – I need new shoes!”

Feeling particularly magnanimous that day, I suggested that on our way home from the training (which was totally “lame”)we stop at the Billings Bridge plaza to see if we couldn’t outfit her in a new pair… was gonna be a rush since closing time was about 15 minutes away. Hurriedly, she tried on a few sizes before settling on a pair and size that she really liked.

“How much?” I asked the sales-dude.

“$89.99”.

“Yikes!”, said I, “how about a discount?”

“Sure, I’ll give you 15% off.”

Huh. It was that easy? I just had to ask? I may be middle-aged, but in no way resemble a senior.

And any commenters claiming the contrary will be immediately flamed and ridiculed.

Our western culture is anti-haggle, with some exceptions. Haggling over the price of a car or a house or negotiating a price at a garage sale is perfectly OK, but we aren’t like those in many Asian or Middle-Eastern nations where the “back and forth” is the norm.

I’m thinking that I’ll do this more often!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Possible summer election

As much as I’d like to say that I’d like to see an election this summer I have to counsel caution… leadership numbers still too soft, unpredictable and therefore the Grits are vulnerable to the slightest slip-up. Give Iggy the summer. The Harperites will no doubt stumble some more and give the Grits some firm wedge issues on the leadership front.

The risk is that we really are seeing the beginnings of an economic recovery and this will bode well for the Harperites. I doubt that this is the case and that we are at least a year away from seeing real recovery. And even then the manufacturing sector in Ontario will still be undergoing a long period of restructuring.

Regardless, give the ReformCons the summer to (pick one or all of the following:

• Say something stupid about race, religion, immigration or language
• Leave Top Secret docs on an OC Transpo bus
• Leave Top secret docs in the washroom of the Spark Street CBC studios
• Reveal information that links a sitting ReformCon MP to a white supremacist group or a  loony religious sect
• Miss a photo op with other world leaders
• Wear a leather vest or something equally unflattering – like a sweater vest for instance

Sprawl

Ottawa will expand the boundaries of the City by a few hundred hectares.  Despite the Official Plan provisions that intensification projects be preferred over more suburbanization, the City staff and politicians will undoubtedly give in to pressure from developers and allow a further stretching of the designated urban area.

I am a Planner by training. Have a Masters degree in the field as a matter of fact. And, in planning school we were taught that sprawl was bad. Infrastructure costs are higher, a sense of community is more difficult to foster, there are higher GHG emissions due to higher automobile traffic, etc., etc.

Haven’t we sprawled enough? Time to give up the quaint notion of the Greenbelt and plan our City more sustainably.
The kids who are running the government

Is it my imagination or does it seem like most of the staffers who work with the ReformCons are under 30? Not to put down those who have yet to experience the delights of middle-age, but the inexperience is beginning to show. Witness the problems that various Ministers have experienced lately that have been the direct result of ill-prepared staffers.

Still. The buck stops at the Minister’s office, doesn’t it? Folks like Lisa Raitt have to accept responsibility and not use the poor kids as scapegoats.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t be giving bandwidth to propagandists like this.

But it is the ill-informed and self-serving agents of the Politics of Cynicism that make me wish that there were an election just around the corner… when we can reduce the ReformCons to a rump in the boondocks of Alberta and rural Canada.

What pisses off RefoooormCons more than anything else is the ability of others to formulate a vision for the country that is not simply an anti-whatever-the-other-guy-is-saying. They are incapable of this and are envious. I guess I’m a little sorry for them.

I may not be Iggy’s biggest fan but I’m 100 % behind him as he tries to put together a forward motion that is NOT cynical and vindictive. This sets him apart from the Harperites.

Stay above the fray M.I.! Leave the gutter sniping to the gutter snipes!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario