Preparing to Disappoint the World

With less than a month to go before the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen the Harper government is already preparing to be a major roadblock for consensus on a world plan to deal with climate change. Refusing to do anything unless the developing world is held to the same standards Harper is like a two-year-old wailing "I won't clean up my toys until everyone else has" instead of acting like an adult and choosing to lead by example.

In response to Harper, Professor Tim Flannery of the Copenhagen Climate Council told The Canadian Press that Canada faces an international credibility crisis because it is "by far the biggest defaulter" on previous Kyoto Protocol obligations.

Without a doubt Harper is preparing Canada to be an international embarrassment in a few weeks. Now with the US starting to take steps on climate change we're the ones who are going to be left behind as the only country refusing to take action on a serious global issue.

Soft on Crime

Well the Conservatives proved tonight despite the rhetoric they're the one's who are soft on crime by pushing through the abolishment of the long gun registry. Police services across the country have said that the registry is a key tool for police and public safety, accessing it millions of times a year.

Yet just like with mandatory minimums the Conservatives ignored the experts advice in favour of partisan opinion. Sadly they weren't the only one's who voted to abolish the registry. One can only hope that after the committee hearings that some MPs will change their minds and vote to keep the registry.

Go Train Update

Well the Star has picked up on the story of the Conservatives turning Go Train cars into giant "Action Plan" ads that I blogged about earlier this week. It also comes with a better picture of the train car:


According to the article the Conservatives claim to have spent $46,000 on turning two cars into giant ads that run on the Lakeshore line. Go Transit says that normally costs $75,000 to wrap a train car for two weeks but is prohibited from revealing the details in their contract with the Conservatives. This means that the Conservatives could have spent as much as $150,000 on the Go Train ads alone. I think it's more than clear by now that the "Action Plan" has very little to do with creating jobs for Canadians and everything to do with trying to get Harper his much coveted majority.

This is a Good Use of Taxpayer's Money?

When I got a job in downtown Toronto a few months ago I decided to commute in by Go train. Since then I've seen the occasional Go train car that has been repainted to advertise something, generally a big movie like Harry Potter or Terminator. Given that there are very few of these ads and they don't seem to appear for more than a few weeks I assume the cost of one is exorbitant. So imagine my surprise when I get off my train this morning and pulling away from one of the other platforms is a train with a car that has been repainted Conservative blue with the Action Plan logo in the centre, an orange construction sign on each end and some slogan about creating jobs for Canadians that I don't remember the exact wording of. I managed to snap a picture of it with my phones camera, though it's blurry as the train was moving.

It will be interesting to see how long the car remains repainted as the cost of using that as an advertisement could easily surpass the cost of some of the projects the stimulus money was actually spent on, such as doorknobs.

It's Time for the Liberals to Change Their Strategy

There's been quite a lot written about polls recently. While all polls outside of an election can't be taken too seriously as campaigns matter, etc. we should all be worried about the trend in the polling numbers in recent weeks.

Ever since we announced our intention to have an election the poll numbers have been slipping, things like Denis Coderre didn't help that. Now, if the latest EKOS poll is to be believed we're behind in every region of the country, which, if true, is disastrous. Even if that's not the case the trend from all the polling companies shows us falling further and further behind in Ontario, where we now risk loosing more seats. We're also falling behind with female voters which was typically a safe demographic for us.

The main problem is we haven't sold Michael Ignatieff to Canadians. We made the same mistake we did with Stephane Dion and let the opposition define him before we could. That's allowed the message that he's only in it for himself to take root in voters minds.

It hasn't helped that we haven't presented any policy as a way to differentiate ourselves from the Conservatives. We seem to have decided that our entire plan for winning the next election is to wait for Harper to mess up big enough that we get voted in. But the message of Harper is bad for Canada no longer resonates with the majority of Canadians who have watched him govern for the past four years and have decided he's doing an okay job. Neither I nor other Liberals I've spoken with have any idea of what the Liberal plan is for the economy, or climate change, or any other topic you can think of. If party members who follow politics don't know what the Liberal plan is then how can we expect the average voter to want to vote for us when they have no idea what we'd do if we got into office?

Furthermore, to continue so much of our focus on winning in Quebec is to ignore the elephant in the room that is redistribution. When more seats are added to the House the lions share of them will be out west in BC and Alberta. Neither of those areas are Liberal friendly right now. If we want to start winning again then we can't continue to assume that the Bloc will simply disappear and we'll go back to taking a majority of Quebec seats. The past few years have shown that the Bloc is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Therefore we have to get serious about building the party out west. We also have to accept that process will take a long time and be ready to commit to taking that time instead of simply trying to find ways to get instantaneous results.

Our focus right now should be on fixing the party in Quebec (which recent event have shown to still be an absolute mess), building the party out west, and creating policy that will clearly show Canadians what they would get with a Liberal government vs what they are currently getting with the Conservatives. If we simply continue pushing for an election without addressing any of these issues when the election finally comes we're likely to do worse than we did last time. We can't continue on simply hoping that the Harper government will defeat itself and we'll be swept back into office. We need to actually rebuild the party and offer an alternative to Canadians even if that means we stop pushing for an election for a couple of years.

Tim's vs. the UN

Consistent with his position on climate change Harper decided to ignore Barack Obama's address to the UN on climate change in favour of a photo-op at the Tim Hortons Innovation Centre.

He's also got Jim Prentice out making laughable comments about what the Conservatives have "accomplished" on the climate change front. Prentice is also criticizing China for not clearly commiting to greenhouse gas reduction targets as they've only set intensity-based targets. Perhaps Prentice has forgotten that Canada has also only set intensity-based targets.

This all simply proves that the idea that Harper takes climate change seriously is clearly laughable.

Another Example of Helena Guergis' Good Judgment...

Helena Guergis is the MP for the riding that my cottage is located in, so I get to read what people think of her in the local papers. There always seems to be plenty of people around willing to question both her judgment and competency. Now we're hearing reports that her husband, former MP Rahim Jaffer has been arrested and charged with impaired driving and possession of cocaine after being pulled over for speeding. The next round of weekly papers up at my cottage are sure bound to be interesting.

The Separatist, Socialist Coalition

Well after decrying the Liberals for working with the "separatists" and "socialists" Harper now finds his government only surviving because of the separatists and socialists. The Bloc has agreed to support the ways and means motion on Friday in order to pass the home renovation tax credit. While the NDP is going to support the Conservatives until the EI changes are passed.

Personally I would rather see the EI changes become a permanent change instead of just temporary ones. It will be interesting to see if any party, the NDP in particular, tries to propose that as an amendment, and what the Conservatives do if it is.

We're Back

Well the House is back from it's summer break and thus so is this blog.

Naturally election speculation is also back with the common wisdom being that we're heading for an election unless the NDP decides to support the government, or failing that the Bloc (my personal opinion is that it'll be the NDP or no one, but I've been known to be wrong before). Either way we're looking at an interesting fall session.

This is a “Shovel Ready” Project?

There was recently an announcement made in my riding by our Conservative MP, Paul Calandra, that King Township would be receiving some of the stimulus funding to build a new arena/community center in the town of Schomberg. Now Schomberg certainly needs a new arena, however even some of the municipal councilors have been questioning receiving the funding as a) they don’t have the design plans for the arena finalized and b) they don’t even have a location to put the arena as they have yet to buy any land.

Councilor Mortelliti also wondered how, under the Stimulus Find, the project qualified as construction-ready if the designed of the facility has not yet been finalized.

It seems to me that this is just more proof that this stimulus funding is designed to lock up votes in Conservative ridings instead of for investing in shovel ready projects to stimulate the economy.