Stephen Taylor

Consider the following quotes:

“The Americans ask us to do things in terms of the border; I think there’s an obligation on their side to work with us to prevent gun-smuggling into Canada.” — Paul Martin, October 25th, 2005.

“First of all, we have no evidence there are more guns being smuggled into the country now than ever before,” Ms. McLellan said. “Sometimes people easily blame the United States for a smuggling of guns. That too is a simplistic response.” — Deputy PM Anne McLellan, Edmonton Journal, August 25th, 2005

“Regardless of what their domestic gun laws are state by state, they have taken for years a very, very tough line, one of the toughest in the world in relation to guns being smuggled into their country or out of their country.” — Deputy PM Anne McLellan, Edmonton Journal, August 25th, 2005

There’s a new report out by the Fraser Institute today by Mike Harris and Preston Manning titled Caring for Canadians and it outlines the vision of these two conservative leaders for a better Canada regarding the distribution of wealth between the federal government and the provinces. Of course, conservatives will be pleased to hear that Manning and Harris’ conceptual reconfiguration of Canadian federalism favours the provinces. In the 102 page document, the two Fraser fellows argue for:

• Federal respect for provincial jurisdiction.
• Services to be provided wherever possible by levels of government and
  delivery organizations closest to those they serve.

• Maximization of freedom of choice for service recipients and acceptance
  of greater responsibility for choices and personal well-being.

Now choice is a beautiful thing of course and the document reads in a very practical sense. Manning and Harris recognize the current balance in the state/individual dynamic that currently exists and they prudently nudge their ideal towards that which favours individual choice in the delivery of social services that fall within the provincial realm of jurisdiction (education, healthcare, welfare).

Particularly Harris and Manning note the success of the provinicial administration of education that thrives without much federal interference. As such, the two men argue that this lack of federal manipulation allows greater flexibility within the system and permits greater agility to meet its own needs.

Essentially, the document argues for the severance of the strings attached to the provinces as manipulated by Ottawa.

Caring for Canadians offers a formalization of the healthcare approach which is currently a reality in our country. While advocating for a universal system accessible to all regardless of one’s ability to pay, Manning and Harris propose a mixed system of private and public delivery of healthcare delivery, payment and private insurance.

The Conservative Party of Canada will be happy to hear many of their positions reflected within this new Fraser Institute publication, especially on the topic of childcare. Not surprisingly, Manning and Harris decry the new creeping federal attention to this matter of provincial jurisdiction.

The report has just become publicly available this morning. Download Caring for Canadians by Mike Harris and Preston Manning

I got an email at about 7pm last night from a reader encouraging me to post about an NDP youth poll that I could help swamp by getting the word out especially on the Shotgun blog and through some other conservative blogging friends. After writing a post on the Shotgun, encouraging its conservative audience to participate in the poll and after successfully suggesting to Kate that she should also encourage her readers to do the same, the numbers went wild for Stephen Harper. Free Dominion also contributed heavily to skewing the numbers in the Conservative leader’s favour.

The NDP poll question is:
In your opinion which federal leader has done the best job of standing up for students?

It has three options: Paul Martin, Stephen Harper and Jack Layton.

By 12:09am, the following were the results of the poll:

Well, I thought, we’d successfully bombarded the NDP poll with the power of the conservative blogosphere and internet. So, when I got a call from some friends to head out for a pint, I decided that the ball was rolling and the damage for the most part had already been done.

However, when I got back from some late night wings and drinks, the following graced my screen.

Somebody woke up the NDP webmaster! Those logs must have been crazy too. The poll went live yesterday morning and registered little activity throughout most of the workday until we coordinated our attack just after the dinner hour. During that time, Freedominion, the Shotgun and the busiest blog in Canada (Small Dead Animals) were all referring conservative-minded people to vote. I was laughing by the time I logged off when we had captured 78% of the 545 vote total of the day.

However, between the hours of 12:09am and 2:40am, 8 people voted for Paul Martin, 108 people voted for Stephen Harper and Jack Layton’s vote went up by 912! The vote total had tripled during these short early hours. How could this be?

In a few keystrokes, the NDP Youth webmaster likely added 900 votes to Jack Layton’s total. (He had 97 votes up until 12am)

In fact, FD poster Vek noticed the same at 1:49am.

So, either the NDP blogging power kicked in at 9x that of the conservative blogosphere at about 1:30am, or the numbers were manipulated. Vek’s observation shortens the NDP supposed “surge” (or likely manipulation) to a window of 1h 40min.

This isn’t very honest. I laughed when I imagined the NDP webmaster’s discovery of the poll results but I expected him/her to remove the poll entirely. However, the numbers were most likely manipulated to give Jack Layton a 900 vote boost sometime during the wee hours of the morning (12am-2:30am). A period in which the highest traffic blog in Canada (and the Shotgun, and Conservativelife and Freedominion) only contributed at most 108 votes to Stephen Harper.

Also, isn’t the idea of such a poll on a partisan website a silly idea? An NDP poll on an NDP site asking visitors to choose the most effective federal leader is hardly scientific. Their audience bias is obvious. Nobody would take any stock in Jack Layton winning the poll. Perhaps that’s why it was so funny that we hammered the poll and had Stephen Harper winning (by legitimate votes).

I guess I can’t be too hard on them though. We did the same thing to them on their silly insignificant web poll that they did to Terry Fox during the Greatest Canadian contest. However, when the CBC didn’t like the result, they didn’t suddenly dump a truckload of votes on Pierre Trudeau.

UPDATE: 12 hours after I last took a screenshot, votes are still coming in for Stephen Harper. In fact, Harper is up by 280 votes, Jack Layton is up by 70 votes and Paul Martin is up by 8 votes. Two observations: (a) Layton’s 70 votes seems to be consistant with their actual rate of legitimate voting over twelve hours. During yesterday’s vote, Layton had 97 votes by midnight. (b) Harper’s votes are still streaming in from various Conservative websites even though it has been revealed that voting for Harper in this poll may never allow him to win.

as of 2:40pm EST, October 21st.