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Jack Layton's positive campaign bears unexpected fruit
(Originally posted at True North Perspective.)
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I admit it. Neither I, nor anyone else here at True North Perspective, saw it coming. And even now, there is an aura of doubt, of disbelief, as we watch the polls and see the continuing ascent of the New Democratic Party under Jack Layton.
Can this really be true? we wondered last week, when the New Democrats began to poll even with Canada's one-time Natural Governing Party. One poll led to another and another and another.
If stated intentions turn out to be votes on Monday, it looks like it really is true.
If present trends continue, it's just (barely) possible that Monday night will see Layton elected Prime Minister of Canada.
The Droz Report #5
Apr. 14th, 2011 02:58 pm
Kim Campbell's revenge
(Nothing new in the boys' room)
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After two debates and an in-person attendance at a rally, I'm finding myself kind of depressed about the election, enervated instead of energized. Though I still think the choices facing us are important — Very Bad versus Not Very Good — it's not easy to get excited by the latter.
And it's not easy to get excited by canned rhetoric, by half-truths contending with lies, lies with half-truths, or by the fact the most inspirational actor in either the French- or the English-language debate was a separatist whose primary goal is to destroy the most successful and successfully complex civilization in the history of the world (ask me what's good about Canada some day!).
Tuesday and Wednesday nights saw me staring at the television, and Wednesday morning hopping on my bike for a hurried ride into downtown Ottawa, where Jack Layton was holding court at a Bank Street eatery at the ungodly hour of 8:00 o'clock in the morning.
Layton was introduced by my local MP who got predictable cheers for asking the partisan crowd of maybe 150 people who won the previous evening's debate.
Layton himself was, more or less, the same as what I've seen on television. Clear and concise, kind of funny, and a just a little stiff, as if even after decades in politics he's still not entirely comfortable speaking to a crowd. He stuck very close to his script; aside from a joke about the political points to be made from kissing "ma blonde" after the debate, I had already heard everything he said at breakfast almost verbatim on Tuesday night.
The NDP, it seems, is pro-family and pro-small business, anti-Senate and anti-credit card companies; pro-environment and pro-health care, against over-paid bank CEOs and, er, Stephen Harper — the rhetorical specifics are already fading, as are those from the "debates" themselves.
Harper's self-serving 'apology' exposes the cowardly venality lurking beneath his unbutoned shirt
"... if anybody is kept out of any of our events that's there to hear our message we obviously apologize to them. Our interest is in having as many people out to hear our message as we can. We're having huge meetings, we had another huge one last night and we want people to hear our message." — Stephen Harper 'apologizes' after being asked if he would take responsibility for a teenager's eviction from a rally because her Facebook page included a photo of herself with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.
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On April 3rd, two young women, students at the University of Western Ontario, attended a Conservative Party rally and were taught a valuable lesson about Conservative values and ethics.
About a half-hour after being admitted, both Awish Aslam and an un-named friend were hustled out of the meeting, publicly berated and had physically stripped of the stickers pinned to their shirts — all because they had both had the naive temerity to post a photo of themselves taken while meeting Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff on their Facebook profiles.
The London Free Press broke the story on April 5th.
"A week ago, Aslam, readying to vote federally for the first time, attended a Liberal rally in London where she and a friend snagged a photo with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. Both made it their Facebook profile pictures.
"A few days later, the pair attended Harper’s rally, for which they signed up in advance online.
"But about 30 minutes after arriving, Aslam says, they were ordered out by a man who accused them of having "ties to the Liberal party through Facebook."
"He ripped Conservative stickers off their shirts, tore them up and ordered them out, Aslam says."
Note that no one accused Aslam or her friend of being disruptive in any way. They weren't demonstrating, or passing out leaflets or even asking questions — they were just, y'know, watching.
Further note that the Conservatives consider it an efficient use of their time to stalk the Facebook pages of attendees at their rallies, that they consider public humiliation of teenagers appropriate behaviour (Ms Aslam was reduced to tears) and that, as we'll see, Stephen Harper himself sees nothing wrong with any of this.
The Globe and Mail ran the story and followed up with the Prime Minister Who Would Be President himself.
Harper ducked the issue. "The staff runs our campaigns," he said, "and I can't comment on individual matters like that," typically passing the buck of blame to those below him.
See An apology means never having to say you're sorry for more.
A spectre is haunting Canada
Apr. 1st, 2011 04:29 pmThe main issue of this election is personal
"This government is willing to sacrifice Canadian soldiers to bring democracy to Afghanistan and Libya. But it cavalierly dismisses democracy at home.
Cynics hold that Canadians don’t care about such abstract matters, that as long as our bellies are full we will put up with anything. We shall see. The cynics have been surprised before." — Thomas Walkom, in The Toronto Star, March 25, 2011.
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| Photo by The Phantom Photographer; image manipulation by Geoffrey Dow. |
It's been a week since the Conservative government of Canada (also known as "The Harper Government", about more of which anon) was finally defeated in the House of Commons. Stephen Harper had decided to roll the dice and put Thomas Walkom's claim that Canadians do care about such abstract matters as integrity and democracy to the test.
Having survived two and a half years, there was no great surprise that the government was defeated on a motion of non-confidence; what was (or should have been) a surprise was that that motion also declared that the Harper government had not just lost the confidence of the House but that it was in contempt of Parliament, an historically-unprecedented occurrence.
Some have no doubt argued that the charge was strictly political — and maybe it was — but sometimes the strictly political is based in reality.
In this case, the opposition had insisted — quel horreur! — that the Harper Government provide cost estimates for its proposed "anti-crime" bills (I use the quotation marks deliberately, and will return to Harper's "tough on crime" posturing in a future column). Contemptuous of Parliament indeed, the government of the Prime Minister Who Would Be President simply refused to tell the House of Commons — and by extension, the people of Canada — what the new prisons and guards, etcetera, would cost, insisting the measures be approved on faith.
Such a patently unreasonable stance can only mean that Stephen Harper wanted the election, no matter how much he protests otherwise. Harper was gambling that he could campaign his way into that ever-elusive majority government at last — at which point, if it happens, the gloves will come off and the spectre haunting Canada will will solidify into a very real neo-conservative nightmare.
