Responding to Paul Wells…

Today Paul Wells wrote a piece in which he supported the thesis of a post I wrote back on July 22. However, he thought he noted a bit of an inconsistency between my post and later tweets,

I’ve been mystified by Stephen Harper’s willingness to squander so much political capital on an issue as trivial as the long-form census. Only slightly less so by the media’s piling on, treating this as a matter of great national importance, and by the level of emotional investment so many apparently attach to census-gathering.

The opposition? They’re just reveling in the unexpected bounty of low-hanging political fruit, and Tory self-inflicted injury.

I don’t get it. It’s just not that big a deal – either way.

— Charles W. Moore, New Brunswick Telegraph Journal, today

Stephen Harper seeks to diminish or destroy the Liberal Party to replace them with the Conservatives as Canada’s default choice for government. His greatest challenge is to dismantle the modern welfare state. If it can’t be measured, future governments can’t pander.

— Blogger Stephen Taylor, July 22.

That’s the choice, I suppose. Either what the Harper government is doing with the long-form census doesn’t matter, or it does. Obviously Moore has a lot more company than Taylor does. Indeed, lately Moore’s company includes Taylor: since July 22 this whole business has gotten too hot for Stephen’s liking and in his blog and on Twitter he’s joined the nobody-cares crowd, arguing that this whole business is an invention of the “push media,” by which he means news organizations that cover a story he doesn’t like for longer than he likes.

There is obviously a bit of confusion because after I wrote that blog post, I took to twitter and wrote this:

When members of Parl ConCensus Gallery aren’t push reporting stories on Census/Prorogation, they’re auditioning for Iggy’s PressSec on #lpcx — @stephen_taylor

I noted a similarity to that earlier sleepy story of the year called prorogation when the Toronto Star breathlessly plastered its front page describing a “fury” of Canadians against prorogation because 20,000 people had joined a Facebook group! Sure enough, while 20,000 people seeded interest in the story, the media took the ball from there and covered it and covered it for the next three weeks and it wasn’t too surprising that the millions of dollars in free media coverage netted that Facebook group over 150,000 members!

To address Wells specifically, he sees a bit of a disconnect between my suggestion that the PM is really using the census issue to dismantle the welfare state and my assertion that “nobody cares” about this story.

However, in my original article I wrote this:

QMI’s David Akin exclaimed surprise that from his cell within the beehive of special interests that is Ottawa, he was shocked to find that a full half — that other half — of Canadians aren’t upset about the changes to the census when it seems that’s the only thing the other bees seem to be buzzing about. The story that “just won’t go away” is a flurry of activity “inside the beehive”, because until you go outside, you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Two things: I still standby my thesis that I believe that chucking mandatory nature of the long-form is a move to dismantle the welfare state (and that this is a move in the right direction). And two, nobody cares outside of the beehive. It’s the media that is pushing the story outside of the beehive walls propelled by the loud buzz of special interests.

If you were to poll typical Canadians and asked them, “what is the biggest issue facing you and your family”, I’d venture a guess that most would not respond that “the changing of the long-form census to a voluntary survey” ranks high on their list.

“Nobody cares” is a simplification; nobody cares outside of the beehive. The swarm of special interests sure does care. Other Canadians? They’re at the cottage, or BBQing on their decks. Does bugspray keep bees away too?

As for my trouble-making behaviour, I make no apologies. Sometimes it’s fun to throw rocks at beehives.

Selected readings from Derrick Snowdy’s Facebook wall

Derrick Snowdy, the private investigator behind the allegations of drugs and “busty hookers” that got Helena Guergis kicked out of cabinet, has recently become a very public figure. Since the time when he (probably) sourced The Star’s Guergis story, he has been a bit unreachable, jetting off to the Bahamas and… locking down his Facebook profile.

Here are some of Snowdy’s recent status updates from Facebook. I’ll only quote updates that are relevant to the media scrutiny of Guergis/Jaffer/Gillani/Snowdy.

Derrick Snowdy is planning a few days away from the circus. I think next week looks like a good time to go to DisneyWorld
Yesterday at 7:58am via Facebook for BlackBerry

Derrick Snowdy no hearings huh, hmmm me thinks someone spilled the beans toJack. now he wants it hushed
Mon at 8:14pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

[name withheld] Taliban Jack?
Mon at 8:23pm

Derrick Snowdy Yep, I guess he knows now how close this is going to hit home with a certain NDP and he needs time to prep
Mon at 8:25pm

Derrick Snowdy today was interesting… if you all only know what I know now!!!
Mon at 12:08pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

Derrick Snowdy is changing the tune
Sun at 12:47am
2 people like this.

[name withheld] Heh, when do we hear about the book deal?
Mon at 11:56am

Derrick Snowdy is a about to spill the beans on just how much the Liberals paid him………yeah right…like i would take money from Liberals….they so don’t know me at all
April 17 at 9:21am

Derrick Snowdy GONG SHOW journalism….the killer is
nobody is investigating Gillani
April 17 at 9:34am

[name withheld] take thier money and then donate it to the conservatives 🙂 once you hit your cap buy more guns with the rest 🙂
April 17 at 9:35am

Derrick Snowdy is dividing up the 13 million….who wants some. Does anybody think somebidy will start asking about CATSA soon?
April 17 at 1:38am

Derrick Snowdy is thinking that the first reporter to pay my cell phone bill will get an interview
April 15 at 7:43pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

Derrick Snowdy I can’t come to the phone righr now, I’m busy driving around in my Tank burning 100 dollar bills
April 16 at 10:04am

Derrick Snowdy is wondering where this media gets this weird story from……
April 15 at 7:30pm

[name withheld] and which weird story would that be?
April 15 at 7:32pm

Derrick Snowdy This lost money investor thing
April 15 at 7:43pm

Derrick Snowdy They are claiming I fucked over all the employees at epic and stole all the money. As manager of HR Geoff what do you think
April 15 at 11:42pm

[Geoff] Nonsense. I’m not sure how ensuring your workforce transitions into equivalent positions at another firm constitutes screwing your employees but I’m all ears if someone can explain it to me.
April 16 at 12:25am

[name withheld] They have no clue what you did at the end for the employees of Epic. You could have just locked the door and walked out, but you didn’t. Like you said to me way back when… The only thing you cared about was giving people jobs.
April 16 at 11:32am

Derrick Snowdy Feel free to send them an email, Kinnaird is sending lots of annon garbage
April 16 at 11:36am

[name withheld] It’s the cover story on the cover of the Star. But they spelt your name wrong.
April 15 at 6:00am via Facebook for iPhone

Derrick Snowdy they always do
April 15 at 10:29am

Derrick Snowdy suggests reading tomorrows Toronto Star….Mr. Kevin Donovan
April 14 at 11:09pm

Derrick Snowdy believes that everytime Michael Ignatieffs opens his mouth he confirms the fact that somewhere a village is being deprived of its idiot
April 12 at 11:49am

Derrick Snowdy is heading out of town for a few days. Message me if you need me
April 11 at 1:09am via Facebook for BlackBerry

[name withheld] Does this have anything to do with all those papers you were shredding the other day ???? 😀
April 11 at 2:56am

Derrick Snowdy I shredded nothing….lost, misplaced and encoded are another story LOL….
April 12 at 11:48am

Derrick Snowdy hmmm, this will be interesting. break out the paper shredder
April 9 at 12:56pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

Derrick Snowdy as a life long Conservative the proposed itax has me ready to puke…
April 1 at 9:52am via Facebook for BlackBerry

and in case you were wondering… Snowdy does play Mafia Wars on Facebook.

The pulse of a nation

measured by Facebook

It was quite a game yesterday and one of those defining moments sure to be included on an updated version of the Canadian immigration quiz. I awoke yesterday hearing Foster Hewitt’s classic cry “Hennnnnderrrsssson” from the classic 1972 Canadian-Soviet series when Henderson scored with 34 seconds left in the final game, playing over and over in my head. I didn’t know then but it turned out to be a good sign.

When Zach Parise scored a tying goal with just 24 seconds left, almost 30 years to the day of the famed American “Miracle on Ice”, Canada’s heart felt a jarring palpitation as seen by the first spike of status updates in the chart above.

The second spike would come about half an hour later when Sidney Crosby scored the overtime goal against the US to enrich an already golden games for Canada.

ASIDE: I was somewhat amused (and actually impressed) by Jack Layton’s ability to find a camera as we all watched the gold medal game. Jack was watching at Gretzky’s bar in downtown Toronto and kept popping up in reaction shots when CTV would show different crowds watching the game around Canada. I missed it the first time, but our friends at the Torontoist show us Jack’s gold medal determination at a sport he has dominated for quite some time.

I believe / J’imagine Jack.