Month: May 2008

On the topic of Maxime Bernier’s ex

Scandal period in Ottawa continued today as the Liberal Party, rather than ask questions about policy, grilled the government on their latest tangential interest: Minister Bernier’s ex-girlfriend.

The minister, who was to be shuffled from Industry to Foreign Affairs on a sunny August day last year brought a date when he was sworn in at the usually prim and proper residence of the Governor General, Rideau Hall. Julie Couillard then made headlines for her risqué outfit rather than the headlines she’s making now as the ex-girlfriend of a murdered biker-turned-informant.

Conservative partisans have been quick to dismiss this latest attack by Liberals as none of the nation’s concern, especially as it relates to governance. On the matter of private issues and personal relationships, I would agree. Some Liberals/BQ note that in the nightmare scenario this could have represented a significant security breach. On matters of security, we should always be mindful of such worst-case, though unlikely, hypotheticals. Not that the minister would reveal state secrets, but Bernier – knowingly or not – as some of the more imaginative observers have suggested, may have put himself in a position where he could have been blackmailed. Though, the unaware minister should not be faulted for letting his guard down as he tried to proceed to do what most of us try to do – have a personal life.

Despite this age of Google and Facebook, is one really expected to do this sort of negative vetting of all of their relationships (both potential and actual)? Call me old-fashioned, but any vetting that needs to be done is done during the dating process before two people tie the knot and such vetting is not related matters of national security. Is the minister responsible for the security screening of his dates, or is this the responsibility of those that protect cabinet? PCO has stated that they do not vet family members and spouses let alone romantic interests of cabinet ministers. Therefore, if Canada’s security services would not presume to screen a love interest, what’s the story here beyond politically-motivated hysteria induced by past hypotheticals?

Liberal partisans will latch onto this and show their grave concern for Canada’s national security, but on more broader and existential matters of Canada’s security, they fall silent, or worse, they advocate absurd ideas such as bringing Taliban/al Queda prisoners to Canada to be detained. When you ask Canadians which party is the party they associate with national security, defense and being tough on crime, it is in fact the most overwhelming of answers in focus groups; Canadians by and large choose Conservatives over Liberals on these issues. This is not a winning story for Liberals as Canadians aren’t particularly interested in the secret (private) lives of cabmins.

However, the national media, which is usually loathe to report on the personal lives of Ottawa politicos, is currently experiencing a catharsis of staid Canadian journalistic repression long ago released by their shameless UK counterparts that stain politicians by the barrelful of ink in that country’s tabloids. Therefore, as one seasoned political reporter told me this evening, after this initial brouhaha, the media will focus on other things. According to my journalist friend, this is the ‘one day story’.

Summary questions:
1) Can we reasonably expect our cabinet ministers to negatively vet their personal relationships to the degree that the Liberals demand?

2) How relevant is the past of a personal short-term relationship to the business of government, especially now that it has passed without incident?

3) Any personal relationship can potentially provide loose and exploitable ends at any number of degrees of separation. Does an MPs father have a gambling problem? Did a Minister’s foster brother have connections to a Toronto street gang? Are Denis Coderre and Paul Martin friends of Claude Boulay?

4) If Canada’s security services do not screen or do background checks on all of the past and present relationships of senior cabinet ministers, should they? If it is necessary, cabinet ministers ought to be afforded this level of protection due to their offices, not be liable for the lack of it.

5) Will the opposition start asking the government questions concerning governance?

6) Can we go back to respecting the private lives of politicos? This story hardly merited the breach of what was and should still be an Ottawa news media tradition.

UPDATE: Chantal Hébert writes,

Julie Couillard has no criminal record. She has never been charged with criminal activity and some of Quebec’s crack investigative reporters failed to find evidence that she has had links with bikers since a 1999 divorce.

It is just about unprecedented for a Quebec party to venture into the private life of a political opponent in this fashion. The Bloc, under Lucien Bouchard or even under previous incarnations of a more serene Duceppe, would not have touched a story that so barely passes the test of public interest. Nor, for that matter, would a Liberal party that had not lost its opposition rudder.

But desperate times, it seems, call for desperate moves.

UPDATE: Though it is topical, comments describing or speculating on the unpublished details of the private/social lives of other politicians will not be approved.

Strategy in a nutshell

Now that Stephane Dion has indicated that he won’t force an election before the fall, it might be a good time to look at the overall strategies of the four federal party leaders as Parliament winds down into the last days of the spring sitting before summer break.

Stephen Harper’s strategy is as it has been since Dion became leader of the Liberal party but has become much more evident with the Conservative leader’s latest chess moves. The Prime Minister aims to demoralize Liberals both partisan and reluctant. By making Stephane Dion eat the Harper secret agenda and ask for seconds rather than go to an election, the PM is showing Liberals that their leader is more interested in survival than in standing for principled positions. Just a few of the major capitulations by poor Stephane to mean Stephen have been the Liberal leader’s support of the extension of the Afghan mission to 2011, the wholesale Liberal surrender on the Conservative immigration bill and now, as we may still see, the reluctant and red-faced approval bill C-10 (it might as well be called the McVety bill to the Liberal base, but to Stephane Dion, it’s five minutes of oxygen). Stephen Harper wants to allow Jack Layton to rhetorically ask which party will stand up to the Conservative agenda.

Gilles Duceppe for some reason has indicated that he wants to go to an election. Perhaps he just wants to finally retire from politics. Duceppe stands to gain from having the House sit for some time longer as the Prime Minister’s branding of the Quebecois as a nation has not only taken fertile soil but has put down roots for Harper in the province inhabited by the nation. The damage is already done for the Bloc on this issue and Duceppe’s hope should be to tap into potential future RCMP and/or Elections Canada embarrassments for both the Conservatives (in-and-out) and the Liberals (on Adscam and Dion’s debt). This will allow Duceppe to point to the only other viable options in Quebec and say that those federalists are all the same. For a party that has no purpose left in Ottawa but to ensure the continued growth of their federal pensions, scandal seems like a better option for BQ sustainability than defense of Quebec’s non-interest in sovereignty.

Stephane Dion’s strategy has and will continue to be survival. The Liberal leader finds it more critical to parry the daggers at his back rather than thrust towards Stephen Harper across the House divide. The beleaguered Liberal leader would rather pass Stephen Harper’s agenda than face his own party. Therefore, the strategy that Dion will continue to employ is his threatening of the government and his insistence that everyone stands at the precipice of election. However, the threat is really meant for his own party as they cannot dispose of Dion so close to a potential campaign that Harper stands to win big if the Liberal party is left without, well, a leader. If Dion were to say that he will only cause the government to collapse after one year, senior party officials and those with ambitions on leadership would see such a window as a perfect opportunity to safely dispose of Dion. When Dion threatens election, he is only holding off those Liberals that are balancing the dispatch of Dion and the worser option of a (significantly more) disastrous election causing a potential Harper majority, with a faulty campaign led by the man that says it could happen any day (it really is Dion’s last refuge).

Jack Layton is probably rubbing his hands gleefully at thought of being the party of principle of the left that can be seen to oppose Harper. Ironically, this is being done as Layton effectively works with the Prime Minister to destroy any semblance of Liberal identity as liking the colour red and Gerard Kennedy’s taste in eyewear may not be enough to sustain party support under Dion’s leadership. The likes of Buzz Hargrove and Maude Barlow will carry less weight if they encourage NDP supporters to Stop Harper by voting Liberal. Indeed, the voting record shows that even when Dion is in the position to stop the Prime Minister’s agenda, he would rather make his stand defending Stornoway from the growing number of Liberal invaders. Jack Layton’s strategy is to play Harper’s game but he cannot do so too visibly without alienating his own base. However, there is a lot of room here for Layton to maneuver as only the Greens, despite their actual status as a Liberal proxy under May, stand to gain from any anger that the socialist base may have for Layton for strategizing to split the centre with Harper.

BoJo takes London

Great news today from our Conservative friends across the pond. Former Tory MP Boris Johnson has won the London mayoral election according to The Times. The charismatic Johnson known for his sharp wit has penned correspondence for first the Telegraph and then the Spectator for time spanning over a decade.

Johnson’s writing became known to me a number of years ago via his blog. He was an early adopter of the political niche of the self-publishing medium and it served as a useful tool for the distribution of his politically-inspired musings and hey, constituency outreach too!

Today’s news means that Ken Livingston – a charismatic man in his own right, yet a brutally ardent socialist with connections to Hugo Chavez – will leave the mayor’s office after holding it for the last eight years. During this period, of course, London and the UK as a whole churned internally as the western worldview became reconfigured since the events of September 11th, 2001 and then the Iraq war. Livingston, dubbed loathingly by his detractors as “Red Ken” famously referred to U.S. President George W. Bush as “the greatest threat to life on this planet” and shirked his diplomatic responsibility and organized a counter-demonstration to the President when the USA’s greatest ally in the Iraq war made a state visit in 2004.

Johnson’s election guarantees that the drama of London politics will continue for at least another term. Most importantly, now we’ve got our favourite member of London’s dramatis personae centre-stage.

Congratulations Boris!