Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Interesting to see all of the bluster that, just a little while back, was being puffed out of NDP mouths everywhere has now faded to mere indifference. The rhetoric has gone from “we’re gonna drive the CPC back into the caves from which they emerged!”

to:

“meh”.

Jack, a few months ago (June 22): (1)

‘Anybody who’s holding their breath and thinking that’s going to change should think twice,’ NDP Leader says

NDP Leader Jack Layton says his party will not prop up the Conservative government if the Liberals move a motion of no-confidence in the fall.

“Our party has opposed the direction of Stephen Harper 79 times in confidence motions so anybody who’s holding their breath and thinking that’s going to change should think twice,” Mr. Layton told a press conference on Monday morning.

And now (September):

“I think that everybody involved would want to see us co-operate in the House of Commons and get some results for people — especially those that are struggling right now: the unemployed and people being left behind,” Mr. Layton said as he inched away from reporters at an archway opening in Toronto.

“So that’s going to remain our preoccupation.”

Personally, I don’t mind if Jack props up Stevie for a while since I am not convinced that this is the best time to defeat the ReformCons (plus it will give many a good belly-laugh). Yes, Iggy had not choice but to throw down the proverbial gauntlet, but realistically the best the Grits can hope for, IMO, is a slim Grit minority. They still need more time to re-build the Grit brans and more specifically, the leader’s brand.

But hey, I don’t get paid for these opinions, so I can say what I like, eh?

So why has the NDP cooled their jets? Likely resources – or a lack thereof. The Dippers would dearly like a few more months to build up their war chest and get their issues into the faces of Canadians. The Grits and the Harperites have grabbed the “helping out the downtrodden and unemployed” banner in recent weeks and Layton and his team will have to work hard to get it back.

And that will take some time.

1. Original article was in the G&M but is now archived and only accessible on a fee-for-service basis.

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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!

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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!

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper and New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham raise their arms during a human wave at the World Men’s Curling Championships in Moncton on Wednesday.

Wow. Look at how enthused he is. Wow.

My name is Stephen and I have to pretend like I’m enjoying this.

Again, further evidence to support my 5 year old’s contention that our PM is a robot.

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The Grit leader says that he will support the budget only if the neocons agree to provide clear budget updates in order to track fiscal progress.

Stevie should be able to live with this.

I hope.

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Jonathan Kay writes for the ReformCons version of Pravda and is generally a pretty good analyst – albeit from the right-leaning side of the spectrum. I have found his columns to be informative and well-written and they often reveal what may be going on in the marbalised minds of the neocon elite.

Take this article for example. He puts forth the premise that, as evidenced by the election results where a large majority of Canadians voted for a vision other than that espoused by the Conservatives, the left would do well to form a new amalgamated party of the Left. Just like the ReformCons did a few years back.

He says:

About two-thirds of Canadians voted for this vision on Tuesday. Canadian conservatives, who long complained under the Liberals that a left-wing government was betraying the country’s true character, must now face an unsettling truth: Our government now skews right compared to the Canadian political centre. Only thanks to vote splitting does Mr. Harper remain this country’s Prime Minister.

Which invites the question: Why doesn’t the left get rid of a few parties, so they can make their nightmarish nanny state a reality?

Well put Jon. You state the obvious. Good ol’ democracy does not quite work the way it should in the first-past-the-post system. We will be governed for the next couple of years (at least) by a party that does not represent the interests of the vast majority of the electorate.

As with the unite-the-right movement, the obstacles are essentially cultural. Bloc folk would bristle at integrating into a project run by federalists. The NDP would resent surrendering its dedicated union support base into a larger left-wing consortium that includes a lot of Bay Street lawyers and money men. Ditto the Liberals and their various ethno-political fiefdoms.
Moreover, what would the new party be called? It can’t simply be The Liberal Party — the junior partners would insist on that as a matter of pride and principle. Instead, we’d get something like The New Liberal Democratic Coalition (or some such), thereby erasing (or at least diluting) the Grits’ powerful brand.

Absolutely. The obstacles are many and lots of egos would have to be parked at the door.

But let me put it to you this way: if the neocon press is starting to openly fret about the prospect of a united Left, then should we of the Left give this some serious thought?

As for a name – how about the Liberal Democrat Environmental Party?

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I’m a bit biased since the author is one of my oldest friends. But Michael has always been insightful and this skill is once again at the forefront in this piece that he recently penned for The Telegram.

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Quick post.

I’m going to comment in detail about the results of the 14th a little later… have lots to say.

But one realisation that has bashed me full on in the noggin has been that we of the left of the spectrum are screwed unless we combine our efforts.  We Grits, Dippers and Greens have to unite in a common cause on a common front. There is not an alternative. Seriously.

For what it’s worth, I set up a Facebook group : http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35183086127

More importantly, I want to start a dialogue between like minded minds over the next little while.

We have to quickly and honestly confront some tough questions.

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This is most telling.

We need to change the way we pick the folks who represent our interests. It has never been so clear.

Is no one listening?

Electoral dysfunction, yet again

Greens deserved more than 20 seats – voting system also punished New Democrats, western Liberals and urban Conservatives

Once again, Canada’s antiquated first-past-the-post system wasted millions of votes, distorted results, severely punished large blocks of voters, exaggerated regional differences, created an unrepresentative Parliament and contributed to a record low voter turnout.

[Note: The following commentary is based on returns at 2am ET.]

The chief victims of the October 14 federal election were:

- Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.

- Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.

- Urban Conservatives: Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.

- New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.

“How can anyone consider this democratic representation?” asked Barbara Odenwald, President of Fair Vote Canada.

Had the votes on October 14 been cast under a fair and proportional voting system, Fair Vote Canada projected that the seats allocation would have been approximately as follows:

Conservatives – 38% of the popular vote: 117 seats (not 143)

Liberals – 26% of the popular vote: 81 seats (not 76)

NDP – 18% of the popular vote: 57 seats (not 37)

Bloc – 10% of the popular vote: 28 seats (not 50)

Greens – 7% of the popular vote: 23 seats (not 0)

Fair Vote Canada also has data for each province on the number of seats won and number of seats actually deserved by each party.

Odenwald emphasized that any projection on the use of other voting systems must be qualified, as specific system features would affect the exact seat allocations.

“With a different voting system, people would also have voted differently,” said Larry Gordon, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada. “There would have been no need for strategic voting. We would likely have seen higher voter turnout. We would have had different candidates – more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We would have had more real choices.”

Fair Vote Canada (FVC) is a national multi-partisan citizens’ campaign to promote voting system reform. FVC was founded in 2001 and has a National Advisory Board of distinguished Canadians from all points on the political spectrum

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