Full Comment

I started this blog in January of 2004 and it’s been a hobby that I’ve enjoyed immensely. The original purpose of putting permanence to my daily thoughts on Canadian politics was to support my somewhat ambitious bid to become the Conservative candidate in Kingston and the Islands. This blog served as a campaign tool to reach out to Conservative party members in that riding in order to do as any other hopeful politician would do: build a name, get out the vote.

In an unfortunate sense, the blog medium and its scope was national rather than local. I was writing about federal politics, the Conservative leadership race and my candidacy for nomination. I was using an axe where I needed a scalpel. As an early adopter of Canadian partisan blogging, I would say that the same effect would not occur today; one can effectively define a local niche while enunciating on federal politics because the vacuum of the new medium that existed has been effectively filled.

Yet, in perhaps its more critical sense, I see political blogging now as I did then. Blogging is an important outlet by which we, as stakeholders in our democracy, can discuss ideas of importance to us as a country, as members of various communities and as individuals. As someone with great admiration and support for the original Reform and Alliance movements, I can confidently say that our democracy is strengthened by the expression of a broad spectrum of ideas that come from individuals with diverse experiences. Blogging lowers the threshold of access to the forums of free expression in a true marketplace of ideas.

What used to be an effective tool of scoundrels who wished to twist this open system unfairly to their own view was to say that the views of others were unCanadian. This strikes personally and directly upon one’s sense of loyalties because if we are to consider what is paramount in our list of allegiances, most of us would consider family and country among the top two (some reasonable people would include God within their short list as well). At the root of family allegiance is consanguinity, but that to God and country is rooted in values. Most religionists and nationalists derive their loyalty from creed; while a familial bond can exist within both, it is the values of religion and state from which most people find their respective loyalty.

So therefore, we can look to first principles and determine that it is values that is fundamental to any attachment to a collective called Canada.

But yet, this collective is one of divergent values.

Some Canadians believe that Canada ought to fund universal, fully public access to healthcare while some believe that a private, free-to-choose, market-based system is better for themselves and Canada. Neither of these views is unCanadian.

There are Canadians that believe that Canada ought to fight for the security and reconstruction of Afghanistan while others say that Canada should not involve itself with the affairs of the Afghan people. Neither of these views is unCanadian.

Those that argue that private healthcare is “American-style” or that leaving Afghanistan is unCanadian are using our loyalties as leverage to support their views but they are being dishonest to our principle value which is open discussion and freely held positions on difficult issues.

I would argue that instead it is the prohibition of ideological diversity that is solely unCanadian, for the suppression of thought and the ability to express it within the context of the dynamic Canadian debate, is to remove the underlying value that is common among those which form the diversity of this country’s discussions. If we cannot freely consider all points in debate how does this fare for the legitimacy of our conclusions?

Most people would conclude that some positions are indefensible. While also inherently incongruent, the suppression of speech by a state defined by democratic debate is such a position. Despite this, I support the right of those that would wish to convince me otherwise, yet with their words rather than the state.

Happy Easter!

I hope that everyone had a good Easter holiday long weekend. We’re in the middle of two break weeks here in Ottawa so I thought I’d share some hard-hitting investigative journalism that I’ve been working on with you.

Well, no… not really, but check out what I found this weekend:

It’s the Nestlé Turtles Chocolate Egg

Serving size 1/6 of an egg? Really? I suppose this is designed to make this treat look like a reasonable 140 calories. Multiply that by 6 and you have 840 calories, more than half of the daily caloric RDI of a growing 8 year old child. Nobody is going to only dole out 1/6 of this catastrophic caloric confection to their child! Would more parents pass up this treat if it listed the calories as 840 per egg and the saturated fat as 78% of the daily recommended intake? Note too that these percentages are rated for adults. No wonder childhood diabetes is on the rise.

Wohn wahh…

By-election notes

– big loss for Stephane Dion tonight. In by-elections, the number of votes for the government usually goes down. In seat +/-, we see Stephane Dion -1 and Stephen Harper +1.

– Liberals will say that three out of four by-elections is a victory. All four ridings were Liberal, so anything less than holding those four with margins as strong as before is a loss for the Liberals.

– Stephane Dion’s hand-picked candidate lost in Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River. This is, of course, the riding in which Dion put an end to David Orchard’s hopes of being a candidate there and cherry-picked an NDP MLA to run as a Liberal. Political observers will remember Dion’s hand picked candidate Jocelyn Coulon in Outremont losing to the NDP in a big by-election upset months ago.

– In contrast, the Conservatives’ weak finish in Toronto Centre is a result of a poor history of electoral success for this incarnation of the Conservative party there and the party’s decision to drop their candidate in the riding. Dion’s move in Saskatchewan was to enhance electoral success, Harper’s Toronto Centre decision was in made in order to prevent divergent messaging that could have an impact outside of this riding in which Conservatives weren’t even competitive.

– Vancouver Quadra is also turning out to be a bitter win for Dion. Liberal vote share in that riding is down and Conservative vote share is up. While Harper is finding it difficult to increase share in downtown Toronto, the Vancouver result is encouraging. It appears that Conservatives are and will be competitive in that riding for the next general election.
UPDATE: Final margin in Vancouver Quadra is 151 votes with the Liberals just barely holding this seat from going Conservative. This is a big upset for Dion. UBC is within the riding and the riding is urban and generally quite well-to-do. This seat should have been solidly Liberal. Quadra just became a target riding for the Conservatives in the next election.

– By-elections are always experimental in that we sometimes see a preview of party strategy for general elections. In the Liberals, we see more of an emphasis on the team rather than their leader. In Conservatives we see primary focus on Harper’s leadership. A general election is leadership focused, however, as debates and daily news coverage have a bias towards leadership. Many voters, in all 308 ridings, cast a ballot for Harper or Dion, rather than the their local candidate or party. Paul Martin de-emphasized the Liberal brand and put his leadership in the front window during both 2004 and 2006 general elections. Dion would be wise to downplay his leadership and emphasize the Liberal brand. Martin hid the brand because it was tainted by the Sponsorship Scandal, and the man dubbed Mr. Dithers believed he provided strong leadership. Is the Liberal brand still sufficiently tainted by scandal? Despite this consideration, Dion’s leadership could not be emphasized over the Liberal brand; whereas we saw “Team Martin” sign instead of “Liberal” signs, we won’t be seeing “Team Dion”.

– Jack Layton also had a bad night. His vote share is down. While he works with the Conservatives to carve up Liberal votes left and right, he may find that he needs more time to accomplish this goal. A general election would hasten the dispatching of Dion, and bring forward a more competitive Liberal leader in most scenarios. Therefore, Layton and Harper should figure out how to loudly oppose each other while sustaining the life of this government for the longer rather than shorter term.

– Dion is going to find his front bench increasingly crowded with alpha candidates for his job. Liberals will be start looking seriously past Dion and it will be difficult for him to catch up.

– Conservative and NDP strategy should be to establish themselves as principled ideologues on the left and the right. Conservatives should emphasize good management and strong leadership. Jack Layton should challenge Harper to a one-on-one debate. Both parties should try to keep the government alive to draw out Liberal divisions.

– Luckily for Harper and Layton, Dion’s strategy is also to survive and the only way this can happen is for the government to survive. Liberals will be chomping a the bit in order to “get back to power as soon as possible” and most realize that this is impossible under Dion and much easier when they hold a leadership race and select a more capable leader. The easiest way for the Liberals to remove Dion is via a loss in the general election. The Conservatives and the NDP would be smart not to provide them with this opportunity. If the hunger gets too strong, the Liberals may start eating their own and we may see Dion swallowed whole. This would immediately trigger a general election as the Conservatives and NDP would be willing partners in increasing their respective vote proportions as Liberal voters stay home on election day.