Stephen Taylor

Politics is at times a sport, but should always be a serious business

Yesterday, Ontario finance minister Dwight Duncan ‘leaked’ the news that Ontario would see a budget deficit of $18 Billion over the next two years.

We’ve been hearing hints of an Ontario deficit for a little while now. Of course, this is a communications strategy for mitigating bad news.

Just as the federal Conservatives did prior to the release of their own budget, PMO director of communication Kory Teneycke passed on the detail that the budget would be projecting deficit.

Strip the bad from the budget day headline and frontload some tax cuts and the other ‘silver lining’ elements on the day of the budget announcement. By that time, deficits are yesterday’s news and the media is biased towards reporting what’s new.

The federal Liberals protested when their Blue friends on the government benches did just over one month ago, while their provincial cousins are doing the same thing. Provincial Conservatives should avoid the same temptation.

Communications is necessary to move dry, plain or just ugly policy through the emotional and human crucible of the public forum. However, to burn at communications as a method instead of policy as substance is often too easy and while it may produce a bright flash, the flame is short and does nothing to get at the essence of debate.

We should not, however, dismiss real debate and positioning on issues. Some bemoan that politicians are ‘playing politics’ at a time of economic crisis. But, politics is getting to the core of an issue and at the methods by which it should be addressed. Let’s get past the bright flash and get down to it.

Some missed facts about that anti-Ignatieff piece in the Guardian

There was a bit of a buzz yesterday about an article published in the left-wing pages of the Guardian, a British newspaper, by Michael Stickings. However, most commentators missed a few important points about its significance. First though, here are some quotes from the piece,

“Why did Ignatieff do what he did? Because he has no interest right now in bringing down the government and thereby being compelled to share power. Because his political career has been about his own glorification, about his desire – for it seems to be the only reason he entered politics in the first place – to be prime minister. He may generously be called a chameleon, a shifty academic difficult to pin down, but perhaps more accurately he ought to be called an egotist who is sure of his own superiority and who seems to lack any real passion for the country he intends to lead.”

As the Toronto Star’s Haroon Siddiqui put it back in December, Ignatieff has been even more of a George Bush cheerleader than Harper:

As is well-known, Ignatieff supported the war in Iraq, a position he only semi-retreated from last year, in year four of the botched occupation. Even then, he argued that he had been wrong for the right reasons (saving the Kurds from Saddam Hussein), while opponents of the war may have been right for the wrong reasons (ideological opposition to Bush).

He also supported the use of such harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects as sleep deprivation and hooding, even while saying he opposed torture.

He was also an advocate for American exceptionalism in defiance of international law.

“To me, though, he has never seemed to be much of a Canadian, and certainly not enough of one to be our prime minister. It’s not that he has spent so much of his life overseas – mostly in Britain and the US. It’s that he has seemed to aspire actively to be anything but Canadian, and more specifically to be American. Which is fine, in a cosmopolitan sort of way, but he comes back to Canada with an air of condescension about him, as if he has seen the world and conquered it and has now decided, with the coaxing of a party eager for him to lead it back to the promised land, to sully himself in the world of politics supposedly on our behalf but really because he just wants to be prime minister, so great would it look on his resumé, a capstone to a long and successful career.”

So who is Michael Stickings? Some have pointed out that he’s a Liberal-minded fellow who writes a blog. But let’s dig a bit deeper.

Michael Stickings isn’t just some grassroots Liberal-minded blogger, he’s a senior policy adviser in Dalton McGuinty’s public service! Stickings is listed as a senior member of the Ontario government’s “Strategy and Results Branch” of which reports to the Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

Stickings, now a senior public service staffer in McGuinty’s government, supported Bob Rae for the latest round of the Liberal leadership,

“I supported former Ontario Premier Bob Rae for the leadership, but Rae pulled out of the race late last year”

What we’re seeing here is an explicit shot across the bow and not one by just some Liberal-minded blogger against the federal Liberal leader, this is much more.

A senior policy adviser to Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario public service and admitted Bob Rae booster wrote this about the Liberal who will run to be Prime Minister in the next election,

To me, though, he has never seemed to be much of a Canadian, and certainly not enough of one to be our prime minister. It’s not that he has spent so much of his life overseas – mostly in Britain and the US. It’s that he has seemed to aspire actively to be anything but Canadian, and more specifically to be American.

This isn’t just some wannabe Liberal hack. This shows that there are some serious questions about Ignatieff among well-placed Liberal supporters.

Leaked CBC memo shows Mother Corp will ask for more cash

According to my source that sent me this unsent internal CBC memo, this was intended to hit the inboxes of CBC employees tomorrow:

Tough Times

I wanted to give you an update on where things stand with respect to our financial challenges, as the SET just wrapped up a couple of days of budget planning. Not an easy task.

Our focus in this budget planning has been to do everything we can to minimize the effect of these tough times on our services, programs and our people. The decisions we will take must also be anchored in a clear vision of what we want and need to become as a 21st century public broadcaster. We must ensure we’re positioned to become a content company, the home of Canadian programming. We must be the leader in reaching Canadians on new platforms. And, we must be deeply rooted in the regions. Ultimately, what we must do to manage our way through these financial straights has to respect these priorities and sustain our ability to serve Canadians well. All of that, with the worst economic crisis in years as a backdrop.

Our industry is certainly caught up in the crisis with bad news every week – this week it was Transcontinental announcing 1,500 layoffs. As you know, we are now projecting a shortfall in advertising revenue that will be in the $55-65 million dollar range for the year ending March 31, 2009 (a drop of 17 percent from our budgeted amount, a 7 percent drop from last year), but we nonetheless still think that CBC/Radio-Canada will break-even for the current year. To do that, in addition to the freezes and cost-cutting measures we put in place in November, we have used all our reserves as well as the entire surplus carried forward from last year.

The more pressing issue is our budget for 2009-2010. The combination of a severe slump in our commercial revenues, coupled with rising costs of production is a menacing test that will demand some tough choices on our part. Tough choices that will affect, in one way or another, jobs, services and programs in our Corporation. We are still working away at finalizing plans. Nothing has yet been determined. My conversations with government are still continuing to try to obtain some financial flexibility to help our Corporation deal with these budgetary pressures, trying to find a way to spread the impact of this crunch over more than one year.

I can’t and will not predict the outcome of these discussions. Other avenues are being analysed at the same time including the sale of some of our assets to balance this budget.

You deserve to know that our situation is extremely difficult.

Let me tell you that I, and every member of your Senior Executive Team, remain entirely focused on these issues and on minimizing the effects on our Corporation, its people and its programs. But there will be consequences, even with the requested financial flexibilities. Our consolidated budgets and business plans will be reviewed one final time by the Senior Executive Team next week and will then be submitted to the Board in mid-March. You can therefore expect a more detailed picture toward the end of March. I’ll update you periodically as things evolve between now and then.

In the meantime, let’s keep CBC/Radio-Canada on course. I know that this uncertainty is not the best of times. Rest assured that I am working with SET to bring clarity to all this.

Cheers.

Hubert

(emphasis mine)

Of course, as noted, this occurs within the context of the global economic crisis. Despite this, CBC received $1.1 Billion from the taxpayer last year. According to the CRTC, CBC employs 10,200 people paying out $771,074,000 in salaries and benefits. This means that the average payout per employee at the CBC is $75,595.

Comparatively, the total numbers of employees at private broadcasters in this country is 7,402 with total salaries and benefits of $576,900,000. The average payout per employee is $77,938.

Is the CBC trimming the fat, or do they need some central planning from the government to help them do so? Months ago, it was reported that the executive VP for French-services expensed over $80,000 for travel, meals, and theatre tickets.

If any of this is making you sick, the next fact won’t make you feel any better. The CBC lost $15 million in 2006-2007 paying for 68,000 sick days for its employees.

In any self-respecting story about taxpayer abuse, there’s a no-expense-spared trip to Paris. The CBC doesn’t disappoint as that same executive VP that billed $80,000 in expenses also bought a $6,000 plane ticket to the French capital and billed over $2,000 in hotel, meal and cab expenses. Nice work if you can get it.

This lagresse is offensive when private news outlets such as Canwest and CTVGlobemedia are slashing jobs, dropping bureaus and cutting expenses. For example, CTV opted out of the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner this year while Canwest has cut 5% of their workforce and even asked reporters and staffers to voluntarily return their cellphones because the company can’t afford to equip everyone that needs one. Jobs have also been cut at the Globe and Mail. The news business is hurting across Canada and CBC asks the government for “financial flexibility”.