Mr. Speaker, ’twas the week before Christmas and all over the Hill
The self-absorbed Tories were imposing their will
The stockings in Muskoka were stuffed to the brim
But life on first nations remained woefully grim.
And at the North Pole, Santa’s problems abound
There was much work to do, but no workers around.
How can we do Christmas with no reindeer or elves?
The sleigh is a wreck, there are no toys on the shelves.
Costs have just spiralled, the elves threaten strike
They won’t work this Christmas without a pay hike.
Federal money for deer feed and vets
Has just been reprofiled for big jails and jets.
Heartbroken children would spring from their beds
The first Christmas ever shut down by the feds.
No presents for Christmas, Tories felt the frustration
So they saddled the elves with back-to-work legislation.
No reindeer or sleigh can stop our roof-topper
Call Coast Guard and send in a Cormorant chopper.
The moral I share: Tories lack rhyme and reason
Nonetheless, all the best for a great Christmas season.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Prepared for PM Harper and immediate staff attending APEC meeting in Hawaii

Re: November 13 meeting with President Obama.

1. Drawing on experience gained at first bilateral, the PM is reminded that the President does not appreciate being called “gangsta”.

2. Related to 1. above, the symbolic colours of the main political parties are the opposite to those in Canada. It is therefore advised that the PM wear a blue tie. But do not refer to it as “my gangsta colours” like the last time.

3. If Vic Toews is travelling with the PM, tell him that referring to The First Lady as “that hottie” when speaking to Ms. Clinton is not acceptable.

4. Please do not allow Mr. Polievre to speak to Ms. Clinton. At all. Our bilateral relations are still recovering from the last time.

5. Plead with the PM to not go on about the missed call by Kerry Fraser during the 1993 Leafs / Kings series. He won’t understand.

6. Pretend to understand basketball. It’s that sport played by very tall people who bounce an orange ball.

7. Don’t bring up Keystone. Really. He has heard enough.

8. Stay inside the beltway. Your security detail has been informed.

9. The President is not Martin Sheen. Never has been. Don’t listen to Baird.

10. You are not in charge here. Remember that.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Before scripted responses in QP. Before “messaging”.  Before every utterance from a Minister’s mouth had to be cleared by the PMO, sitting MP’s actually communicated directly with their constituents and other members of the public. All by themselves.

Yes. They did. I’m not making this up.

I know that on all sides of the House, there are Members who do good riding work…. no doubt. But in these days of über controlled messaging, rare is the MP who will just thrown out an email or letter in response to questions. No way. What if they said something that was counter to party lines? What if they strayed from the key messages that the PMO (or party leadership in the case of Opposition parties) wishes to convey.

The Resident Love Goddess was rummaging through some old boxes in the crawl space yesterday when she came across this letter sent to her by Flora MacDonald who was then the MP for Kingston and the Islands. She asked for some information to help prepare for a school debate.

She wasn’t even the MP for my RLG’s riding!

Imagine. Asking a number of specific question about an MP’s stand on different issues – some quite divisive – and getting a clear and unambiguous response… not a form letter sent by a staffer based on a template approved by the PMO.

Imagine.

And that is how it should be. Any and all elected representatives have as one of their duties, the obligation to answer questions posed to them by the public. MPs, MPPs, City Councillors and even School Board Trustees are obliged to communicate with the folks who elected them. They have a duty to go to community functions like association AGMs and other major functions, openings of businesses, breaking ground for a new arena and even school barbeques. My MP does a lot of this “riding work” and does it well. He was at our Community Association’s AGM last week and, just like I and several of other parents, flipped burgers at our local school’s year-end BBQ. (Oh, and for the record, our School Board Trustee was nowhere to be seen.)

In any case, the days that saw speedy and complete responses from our MPs are largely over. Public Servants like Mrs. MacDonald would have had a difficult time functioning in this climate of muzzles and straight jackets.

And just to note, the Honourable Flora MacDonald just turned 85 and is involved with a number of volunteer organizations.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Kinsella’s column in the Sun today pretty much sums up what I and other like-minded progressives have being saying since May 2.

You don’t like the fact that Harper thumbs his nose at Canadian voters in Newfoundland, Quebec who gave the boot to Smith, Manning and Verner? You don’t like what Clement is saying about program cuts after his boss emphatically stated during the election campaign that cuts to the PS would be achieved through attrition? Well:

You get what you pay for, folks. You get the government you vote for. Suck it up.

Gonna be a long four years. But, at the end of it, Harper will be gone and the Cons will be decimated. Canadians had a brain-fart this time. But they will have had a strong dose of antacid by the time 2015 rolls around.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

In spite of the very sad and sombre ocassion that brought subunit #2 and I to Parry Sound (and then to Mississauga in a little while), it is nice to see family again.

And, in spite of the fact that, with 2 dogs and three cats sharing a roof with me – and the resultant eye-stinging and chest constricting effects that said critters have on yours truly – it’s still nice to travel to the place of my upbringing.

But.

Then I saw THIS on the kitchen table, and spun back into the reality that is rural Ontario.

A lot of folks voted for Gazebo Tony in these parts; maybe even (gasp) members of my own clan. This is an incredible reality that this transplanted urbanite progressive has a hard time getting his head around.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Well, it’s better than Prime Minister Steve. But so would be PM Eeyore.

In my oh-so-humble opinion.

Man. I’m a poli-sci freak having the time of his life! Is it ’88? ’93??

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

First, before getting to the regularly scheduled Blog of the Week post, can someone please tell me that this is indeed an early April Fool’s prank!??? This cannot be serious, can it? Who the hell could conceive of spending $100 million to commemorate a 200 year old war???

OK.  BP dropping. All is good. Serenity now…

___________________________________________________________________________________________

You might have noticed by now that these BotW posts focus on blogs that are more or less aligned along a “theme”. Food and wine are two of my fave things, but both pale in comparison to my obsession (yup, if its not one, it’s close) with politics and more specifically with political data.

So it stands to reason that one of these BotW scribbles would sooner or later look at a political blog. And one that is not simply a series of partisan rants.

ThreeHundredEight is such a beast. The authors do a bang-up job in providing the reader with a balanced analysis of the latest polling numbers – not by focusing on one poll alone, but my looking at trends in the data over time and using a weighted average of all of the major polls. As a data geek, I can, from a professional perspective, appreciate the focus on trends and on the need to examine a weighted aggregate of the polling results.

Interpreting poll results is nasty business most of the time, but ThreeHundredEight ably navigates the briny waters admirably and uses methodologically robust tools.

Check out this text from the site’s Friday posts which talks about two polls that were released the day prior.

Yesterday, we were treated to two new polls, one from Angus-Reid and the other from EKOS Research. They told somewhat different stories, as Angus-Reid pegs the gap between the Conservatives and Liberals at 16 points, while EKOS has it at around seven.

How do we reconcile these two polls? We don’t! (emphasis mine)

I’m not going to compare the two polls as they aren’t comparable. Angus-Reid uses an online panel, while EKOS uses a telephone system. Angus-Reid polled on two days (March 8 and 9), while EKOS polled on nine days (February 24 to March 8, excluding weekends). Finally, Angus-Reid polled 1,021 people, while EKOS polled 2,892 people. The two polls aren’t at all the same.

But what the two polls do have in common is that neither shows a significant shift in support for any of the parties since the last time these pollsters were in the field.

Don’t compare the two! Not. Ever. THIS is why I like this site – no dancing around similarities in modes, MoEs or sample sizes. Just cut to the quick and say that only an utter fool would look at these two polls side by side!

YES! A victory for robust statistics! Woo-hoo!

OK, Trashy – chillllll…..

Another thing that I like about the blog is the effective use of charts as explanatory tools. I am a visual learner and can grasp a message presented visually much faster and clearer than when written down.  ThreeHundredEight takes the polling numbers – in this example, from the EKOS poll – and presents them like this to show the regional breakouts:

Clear and easy to understand.

Then, the results of recent polls are aggregated to show regional breakouts based on the aggregated and weighted results of the most recent numbers, thusly:

Then they go one step further and extrapolates these results to come up with estimates of how these polling numbers translate into seats on a regional basis.

Cool, eh?

Well, for me it is!

Anyhow, be you a data geek, a political geek or just like pretty charts with lots of colours, ThreeHundredEight should be a site that you plug into your RSS feed!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

The Harperites have scaled up their attacks against the CBC and the remarks made by EKOS President, Frank Graves.

“Make no mistake, we will continue to challenge Frank Graves’s credibility as a neutral pollster on party politics,” the Conservative Party says in a memo circulated to MPs and supporters.

“The public broadcaster is spending the public’s money, not Liberal Party money,” the memo says. “If the CBC is serious about reversing its declining status and influence within the Canadian population we recommend that they re-consider their position.

“At the very least Mr. Graves’s partisanship should be disclosed to viewers each and every time he appears on-air.”

What a bunch of clap-trap! Like I said in my post yesterday, of COURSE he’s biased! We ALL are! He is markedly less biased than most because of his job!

A good article in the G&M this morning notes that:

…They forget, for example, that the CBC has hired Kory Teneycke, the former director of communications to the Prime Minister, who is now being paid with taxpayer dollars to tout the Tory line and do Mr. Harper’s bidding.

The Reformatories, boys and girls, are practising what you might call hypocritical cherry-picking!

If the Cons are holding on to the “how dare you suggest that a wedge be driven into the country, thus dividing it“  call…

Dean Del Mastro, the Peterborough Conservative MP and parliamentary secretary to the Heritage Minister, had been pushing for the probe. He was outraged over Mr. Graves’s “culture war” comments, believing the pollster was driving a wedge between east and west after Conservatives have worked so hard to unify the country.

…then they need to look in the mirror a little more often! No Prime Minister since Trudeau (who I admire, but face it – he did pit east against west) has sought to divide this country more than Harper! West versus East, secular versus non-secular, rural versus urban… you name the schism and Harpy is there dancing merrily over it! Factional splits are seen as opportunities for the ever-cynical Harperites.

Look no further than the gun registry – a tool that needs some improvements but is a useful database that is used by police forces across the country. But for the Cons, it is more useful to exploit the registry for political purposes… ignoring its benefits.

If the argument that the ReformCons are hitching their donkeys to is the use of public funds for partisan purposes, then what about these?

But for me, the most enjoyable thing is a journey through ReformCon blog-land or a perusal of random comments on main stream media stories. Here’s a sampling:

From the Globe and Mail story:

The Party needs to reign in the CBC. It is primarily staffed by Socialists and Bolsheviks who are trying to undermine the State. If they won’t change their ways they should be brought in front of a government tribunal and made to explain themselves.

Hmmm… I wonder if there is someone named Lenin on the payroll…

If Harper was a genuine small-c fiscal conservative he would immediately begin to eradicate the deficit/debt by changing this embarrassment to a private pay for view station, sell the complete far-left bias and extremely unbalanced CBC and force the bimbos to get a real job, or simply shut down this bimbo-driven humiliation to humanity.

Bimbos? really?

From torydrroy.blogspot.com

Complain about grit hack frank graves

Senator Findlay wants us all to complain to the CBC about biased liberal hack frank graves. I have already written to the cbc ombudsman. I already give the maximum, I can  to the party. I urge you all to write to the cbc ombudsman and donate money to the Tories. Let’s teach the cbc, and the liberal hack frank graves, a lesson. I also urge you not to answer ekos when they attempt to contact you. We should boycott this liberal front organization.

From onwardjames.blogspot.com

There are times I think that we should have our version of the Tea Party, — a start with Ontario with manipulative Liberal Dalton McGuinty — however, I believe that Prime Minister Harper, perhaps the best Prime Minister in the history of Canada, considering the times and events, has done a superb job with notable ministers behind him for a UNITED CANADA.

You get the picture.

Supporters of the ReformCons like to pile on like a bunch of brain-starved zombies whenever they feel like they are being unfairly treated or portrayed!

And they call we lefties overly sensitive?

And here’s the kicker: over at a post called Inconvenient facts always ruin an attempted narrative at Scott’s Diatribes, the author cites a Tweet from Glen McGregor:

By my math, since CPC formed government, “Liberal partisan” pollster Frank Graves has done $5,657,710 in work for Harper govt.

Followed by:

Also, EKOS has done two polling contacts worth $131,440 for Privy Council Office under Harper.

Glen muses he perhaps should do a story on that in his paper. I really hope he does, to get it out there to a wider audience what a silly thing this attempted line of attack is. Sometimes, facts can be very inconvenient when you’re trying to push out propaganda.

Maybe now is the time for an election… gotta remove the DeceptiCons (Hey! I just made that up!) and their lemming-like minions from any position of power before they destroy all that has made Canada a great country over the past 140+ years!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

A cold winter’s day here in the nation’s capital sees many hunkered down in their houses with the furnace cranked and an extra blanket or two. Not so for me as I’m writing this on my way to work on the 7 am-ish 148. Not many of us on the bus this morning. No big surprise there. But I’m going to take the opportunity to get some concentration-intensive work done. This time of the year is relatively disturbance-free and one can accomplish much.

But on the way, I’m starting to think about what I will be relfecting on this time next year with regard to the Fools on the Hill… hmmm…

1. Harper will once again prorogue Parliament. This is getting to be old hat for the ol’ robotman and this seems to be as good a time as any… what with torture stuff still percolating and the endless risks of the Minions (MPs) speaking what they are thinking.
2. Spring comes. The threat of H1N1 ends. The economy is picking up steam. The Leafs are on the way to the playoffs… what a great time for an election! Stevo introduces legislation that would make the wearing of red ties punishable under the Criminal Code.  He also expropriates all of the country’s main hockey arenas to be used as regional “War Rooms” in the upcoming election. He likes the photo op potentials. All of the Opposition Parties vote against the Bill and a vote is called for May 16.
3. May 16. The ReformCons are re-elected. Again with a minority. None of the party’s popular vote changes by more than 0.7% compared to the last election.
4. The knives come out and are pointed at Stevo.
5. By mid-July, Stevo is out and little-known backbencher Candice Hoeppner. Being best known as the MP who introduced the Private Member’s Bill to cancel the Long-gun Registry, she decides to further capitalize on this fame by introducing another gun-related Bill – a Criminal Code Amendment making it an offensive to NOT carry a gun on one’s person at all times.
6. Every urban area in Canada – including Calgary and Edmonton – threatens to secede.
7. The Government is once again defeated in the House on a Grit-introduced Confidence Motion… making PM Hoeppner’s reign the shortest in Canada’s history!
8. An election is called for December 29th.

So, this time next year, I predict that I will riding to work that day, and preparing to cast my second federal ballot of 2010. And thinking of moving to a place with a more stable democracy. Like Italy, for example.

Happy New Year everyone!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

As someone in the information collection industry, I tend to look to look at polling numbers with a bit of a critical eye. Sample sizes and distributions, question wording and order and the presence of absence of any group (e.g., political) affiliation always plays on my mind when I see the “latest numbers”.

That being said, I have the utmost respect and admiration for how Nik Nanos goes about his business. He is informed, employs scientific, robust methodologies and has no apparent vested interest in the results that he produces.

This is why I don’t really give any great cred to most of the other polling firms. Most but not all (Environics and Decima are also respectable) have an agenda biasing their research that is more often than not funded by a political master or someone beholding to a political master. Not so with Nik.

I have the latest Nik on the Numbers emailed to me as soon as they are available and are often the highlight on my data-filled day.

Yes, I am that lame.

From collection ending Nov. 10:

Looking at which of the party leaders Canadians believe would make the best Prime Minister, Stephen Harper now leads by a significant, 17 point, margin over over Michael Ignatieff. This represents the widest gap since Ignatieff was elected leader of the Liberal Party.

Factoring the advantage in the ballot box and on the best PM front, the Conservatives currently have the upper hand. The dilemma they face is that their numbers are strong but it is difficult to take advantage of it politically because of the Harper communications mantra that “this isn’t a good time for an election”.

Likewise, with a defeat in parliament at the hands of the opposition parties not imminent, it is hard for the Tories to plead the instability or unworkability of parliament.

Dead on.

Harper is in an enviable situation. The economy is on the upswing. His MPs haven’t done anything way too moronic lately. He is looking less like a robot and more like a cyborg.

And there is really no serious opposition. The recent by election results have confirmed this.

The Grits are in big trouble as Iggy has yet to define himself in any meaningful way. I’m sorry Warren et al, but he just hasn’t done it for Canadians yet. This lack of an identifiable Opposition leader has given the ReformCons ample opportunities to slip in their agenda relatively unopposed because they know that if the Opposition were to bring the Government down on a confidence motion at the moment, a Harper majority – and possibly a large one – would be the result.  Then the Harperites could go back to pleasing their base of the support (western social conservatives) by passing legislation that will have little appeal outside of the West or rural, backwoods ridings. But it won’t matter at that point since he will have been given a firm mandate for 4 years and damn the bleeding hearts to hell if the abortion, capital punishment, anti-drug issues are back front-and-centre and environmental initiatives and social programs are shelved.

I have warned the Grits before that if they did not get down to the business of having Iggy grab an issue – any issue – and running with it, then the Cons would continue to frame the debate to their advantage. And they have.  This could have been mitigated if Iggy had:

• Not been invisible last summer
• Stood up as the champion of the Canadian health care system while it was being assailed south of the border. Even the Albertans would have applauded this!
• Clearly enunciated a distinctive environmental policy that would move us toward lessening our GHGs
• Fill in any other example you can think of

So what is Harpy to do? In my mind, he is correct from a strategic perspective to not force an election right now. Canucks are too preoccupied by the Piggy Flu, the onset of cold weather and how much the Leafs are sucking this season.

His chance will come in the spring when the economy has picked up a bit more steam, the flowers are blooming and Canadians from coast to coast emerge from their annual winter funk. Around the beginning of April, I reckon, Stevo will introduce poison pill legislation that none of the 3 Opposition parties can stomach.

And unless the Cons stumble badly over the winter, we’ll be looking a predominantly blue HoC by June.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario