Canadian Queer History in the Making - Kathleen Wynne

Ontario's Liberal party - struggling on so many fronts these days - nevertheless made history yesterday in selecting Kathleen Wynne as their new leader, and by extension, the new Premier of the province.  The second woman to head the Ontario Liberals, Wynne will become the first woman to be Ontario's Premier.  And more excitingly for me, she will be the first openly gay Premier in Canadian history.  Now, whether the Ontario Liberals, who are in a fairly precarious minority situation right now, will be able to hold on to power for much longer, is an open question.  But in the short term at least, history has been made, and there will certainly be a new line in Canadian history textbooks marking this Canadian first.

Of course, many have asked in the past 14 hours why the adjective "openly" is always added into the newspaper headlines and mentions by media commentators.  This speaks to the rather interesting media culture in this country.  From all accounts, Wynne is not in fact the first gay premier in the country (for the highest-profile instance, do a quick search on New Brunswick's long-serving Progressive Conservative premier Richard Hatfield, who passed away in the early 1990s, or follow this link to a story in the Globe.).  But the media culture in Canada is loathe to out a politician who has not come out.  And so we've probably had other instances of gay premiers, and likely gay party leaders, cabinet ministers, etc. who were not openly gay.  In many of these cases, their sexual orientation was an open secret to the media, their friends, their close acquaintances.  But there is still quite the culture of privacy in Canadian reporting on this issue.

So, congratulations to Kathleen Wynne on being selected as Ontario's new premier, and to Ontario's Liberal convention delegates for selecting her as your leader.  It is a marker of how much has changed in this province over such a short period of time.

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Dalton McGuinty, GSAs and Catholic Schools - A rose by an ambiguous name

Over the past several days, Bill 13, the Accepting Schools Act, 2012 has been in committee hearings. This is the provincial government's anti-bullying legislation, meant to provide support groups in schools for various groups of students that have been victims of bullying, but, when it comes right down to it, is aimed to provide protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans students who have been blocked from forming support groups, particularly in the province's publicly-funded Catholic schools.

This saga has been ongoing for quite some time now, with a major flare-up last year in the summer prior to the provincial election, when the It Gets Better campaign was drawing tons of media attention to the issue of bullying queer youth. At the time, it seemed that the McGuinty government wanted to keep the issue off the front burner for the election campaign. With the election now behind them, the provincial Liberals have introduced this legislation.

This gets me to the crux of this post. Many gay organizations, foremost among them Queer Ontario and the Xtra! chain of newspapers, have been pushing very strongly for Bill 13 to explicitly include provisions that would mandate that support groups formed by students under the protection of this legislation would have an explicitly defined right to call their groups "Gay-Straight Alliances" or GSAs. Catholic groups, in particular trustees, have repeatedly stated that they won't permit this, citing directives from the Vatican, and have indicated that at best they would allow something called "Respecting Differences" groups. Queer organizations, with Xtra! reporter Drea Houston chief among them, have been pushing Education Minister Laurel Broten and Postsecondary Education minister Glen Murray (who had been the point person on this issue in the pre-election period) to be clear about whether these explicit protections would be incorporated into the legislation.

Now, one can debate back and forth as to whether the name of the group is a crucial issue. One can also make the case that insisting on the terminology might make it harder for groups to form that in practice would provide a supportive environment, regardless of what trustees might like (since it is remarkable what can happen under the guidance of a supportive teacher). I've had these discussions elsewhere. But what has been galling me is the cowardice and double-talk that has emanated from the government. Ministers Broten and Murray (the latter particularly on Twitter) have gone back and forth as to whether the bill, as currently worded, would require that schools accept groups named as GSAs - even in the face of trustees testifying before the committee that such names would be explicitly prohibited. They have also implied that they think that a group seeking to use such a name would have the protection of the Charter (as a free speech issue). And yet, they are not willing to take the step of explicitly incorporating the right to use this name in the legislation, claiming that this might violate Catholic school board rights under section 93 of the Constitution.

My problem with this stance is as follows. We don't currently know whether imposing GSAs (called such) on Catholic school boards would violate the Constitution. We do know that student groups want to use this name, and that Catholic trustees have vowed to stop this. So the question is: who ends up in the courtroom when this inevitable case comes before the courts, and who foots the bill for the extensive legal costs (because we're probably looking at a case that is Supreme Court-bound)? It seems pretty clear that the McGuinty government is trying to avoid being the "bad guy", imposing its will on the Catholic school boards, and would prefer that the rights issue be settled by a citizen group - with all the legal and political costs that entails. It's symptomatic, to my mind, of the lack of political leadership that we've seen in the post-Charter era on contentious social issues, where governments of all stripes try to avoid acting themselves and offload responsibility for defending or seeking rights onto citizens, and onto the courts to rule on them. It feeds into a conservative discourse of judge-made law, and it is something that progressives should be worried about. If our "supportive" governments refuse to show leadership on our behalf on issues they profess to believe in, then they are indirectly providing fuel for their conservative opponents who decry the increased power of the courts (and may yet start appointing judges more friendly to their interpretations).

I might feel differently about this issue if I thought that the provincial Liberals actually were not supportive of the GSA name. But I think that in this case, they are playing politics and trying to avoid a Catholic backlash at the ballot box. Which makes today's news that a majority of Ontarians support GSAs and oppose public funding of Catholic schools quite interesting indeed. A little food for thought for our confrontation-averse provincial government, perhaps?

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Pot-smoking hippie monarchists

Or as they like to call themselves, "The Liberal Party of Canada".

I see from my twitter feed that the monarchy resolution has been defeated by a wide margin. Surprise surprise.

But on a lighter (higher?) note, a resolution to support the legalization of marijuana has passed. A pity they didn't act on that while Chretien was in power and a Senate committee had endorsed it.

Fun and frolics at the Liberal Party biennial convention.

And now, back to my Sunday morning coffee.

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Anniversary Post and a Call for Political Advice

Pample the Moose is seven calendar years old today. I'm not sure how old that is in blog years. My posting has become more erratic in recent years, but I'm still committed to keeping it going for the foreseeable future.

So as to have some content here beyond a simple age statement, I'm hoping for a wee bit of advice in the comments section - and this is one of those rare occasions where I'll tolerate some partisanship. I'm making my end-of-year donations right now, trying to beat the deadline for tax receipts. I've figured out my charitable donations, but I had been considering making a political contribution or two as well this year. The trouble is, I'm not certain where best to donate. Over the last decade, I've voted for Liberals, NDPers and Greens, although to be honest my main consideration this year is Liberal vs. NDP. My dilemma is that both of the major parties are leaderless at the moment, and their future policies uncertain. I am an anyone-is-better-than-a-Conservative voter, and so like the idea of contributing to the efforts of the opposition parties during this post-election re-building phase. However, I'm not currently feeling energized by either campaign enough to want to take out a membership.

So, do I donate to the Liberals, the NDP, both or neither? Suggestions and rationales are welcome!

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Partisan dreck: Seat Redistribution Edition

The new seat redistribution bill recently passed the House of Commons, awarding new seats to Ontario, Quebec, BC and Alberta. Rarely have I seen commentary about legislation so thoroughly skewed by short-term partisan and regional interests, and it makes me ill.

I'll get my principles on the table. I favour representation-by-population in the House of Commons. If there are to be regional counterweights in our parliamentary and federalist system, they are supposed to be found in a Senate (which could be revamped) and in the provincial governments (which hold most of the key powers these days anyways). As such, I have no sympathy with the claim that Quebec's share of the House of Commons should remain fixed at a given percentage (a provision of the 1992 Charlottetown Accord that was widely denounced outside that province), and would have no difficulty with reducing the seat tallies of the Maritime and Atlantic Canadian provinces, overturning earlier legislation, if the appropriate legislative and/or constitutional changes were made. As such, there has been a lot for me to take issue with in the craven pandering that both the Liberals and NDP (the two parties I normally vote for) have been engaged in by objecting to this legislation.

And today, Twitter is abuzz with more partisan dreck in response to John Ibbitson's column hypothetically allocating these new seats according to the 2011 election results. This is not a "Conservative windfall". It's a long-overdue correction in an electoral system that has cheated urban Canada, and particularly Ontario, BC and Alberta of their equitable share of seats in the House of Commons. A decade ago the same allegation could have been made that such a change would have favoured the Liberals. Voting allegiances change over time, and seats are allocated based on population, not the party affiliation of the seats being divided and redistributed. It's not like the Conservative party is able to take the riding of Crowfoot (historically the site of some of their biggest single-riding majorities) and split it into 31 new ridings. And frankly, if you look at the Ontario provincial election, there is extremely good reason to think that new seats created in Mississauga-Brampton would be fair game for all three parties.

If our political discourse is devolving to the point where we refuse to engage in what should be routine corrections to the electoral map, then our system is completely broken. Perhaps the most ardent critics of these changes should openly admit that they are inspired by the political strategies of Maurice Duplessis, the Quebec Premier so well known for turning the rurally-skewed electoral map of his province to the advantage of the Union Nationale machine. It turns my stomach to watch one of the key principles of how Canadian democracy is supposed to operate being undermined for short-term political advantage and media soundbites.

Also, a word to the NDP and the Liberals. Do you honestly think that the Conservative Party of Canada is not keeping a detailed dossier for the next election of your quotes of why your party thinks Ontario, BC and Alberta don't deserve equitable representation in the House? How about making winning those new seats your priority, rather than trying to prevent their creation?

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Ontario Election 2011 - Tight Races, Bedtime for Me

As I head to bed at 11 PM, the Liberals are one seat shy of a majority government in Ontario, with a handful of seats still teetering in the balance. I'm extremely pleased that the Conservatives failed to capture the government. As I see it, one way or the other the McGuinty Liberals will need to come to terms with Horvath's NDP (or at least a handful of Conservatives). Even if they take that cherished 54th seat tonight, there will doubtless be recounts, and then the Speaker's election could well pull things back to an even split. And in the long-term, you know that at least one or two or more MPPs will leave politics, and the ensuing by-elections will throw the whole situation into flux again. So better to govern as if it is actually a minority and come to workable arrangements with the opposition parties, so as to provide this province with some stability. I'm content with this election result - it is far better than what I had been fearing over the past year, and as recently as the summer.

It's a bittersweet night for me though. This is the first election where I haven't been able to share thoughts and opinions with my Dad, which we had done for every provincial and federal election either in person or over the phone since I was a kid. I'm sure he would have been satisfied though, both that the Conservatives lost, and that my riding (Guelph) and his (Oakville) stayed Liberal red.

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Ontario Election: GSAs, Greens and Catholic Schools

The issue of gay-straight alliances in Catholic schools in Ontario has heated up again, this time in the Toronto Catholic District School Board, which voted this week to place denominational rights above other rights in implementing the provincial equity policies - which were supposed to guarantee GSAs in Ontario high schools. Clearly, the individual schools in the board are interpreting this as carte blanche to ban anything which explictly has "gay" in the name, going so far as to threaten disciplinary action against students who are fighting for these support groups.

I am pleased to see that this issue is not only getting attention from the gay and alternative media. The Globe and Mail has been devoting significant coverage to this issue, including today's commentary piece from Aidan Johnson.

I'm going to be very curious to see how this issue plays out in the provincial election campaign. So far, the approach of the McGuinty government has been to support the creation of GSAs, using gay Toronto Centre MPP Glen Murray as the main spokesperson on this issue. (Although I find it curious and significant that Education minister Leona Dombrowsky is largely MIA on this issue). But there is clearly reluctance to putting the full weight of the government behind a strategy of compelling the Catholic boards to accept these support groups, especially with the Liberal government in danger of losing the election.

The option of seeking a constitutional amendment to eliminate public funding for the Catholic boards - as was done in Quebec and Newfoundland - does not appear to register on the radar for the current government. I'm not overly surprised by this, given the stew John Tory found himself in in the 2007 election with his promise of funding for other denominational schools. I'm not sure if the gay community and their supporters will be able to mobilize this as a major campaign issue, particularly given the fact that the only major party to endorse an end to public funding of Catholic schools in the 2007 election - the Greens - have retreated from this platform promise, and so there will be no standard bearer for this approach.

I imagine that the Liberals (and the NDP, for that matter), will make vague promises about resolving the issue in the courts, which should tie things up for at least a few more years.

More's the shame, as it will be gay and lesbian teens who suffer in the meantime. I'm not at all surprised by the hateful position of the Catholic schools (having been educated in the system myself), or by the hesitancy of the major parties when faced with a sizeable Catholic voting block. But it does betray their cynical political calculations and lack of willingness to passionately advocate for one of our most vulnerable populations.

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Brooke Jeffrey, Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984-2008

As I write this review, Canada appears to be on the eve of an election call. It thus seems fitting to reflect on elections and campaigns past. For the past two weeks, I’ve been making my way through Divided Loyalties, Concordia political scientist Brooke Jeffrey’s account of the internal dynamics of the Liberal Party of Canada from the end of the Trudeau era to the selection of Stéphane Dion as leader in 2008. Unfortunately, there is little being written these days by academic historians about party politics, particularly with regards to the most recent decades, and so Jeffrey’s account is a welcome addition to the literature.

In some respects, Jeffrey’s account echoes Stephen Clarkson’s The Big Red Machine which effectively chronicled past Liberal success at campaigning from the left, and governing from the centre or centre-right. In detailing the internecine warfare of the Liberal party during the years of the Turner-Chrétien and Chrétien-Martin feuds, Jeffrey, a former research director for the party, is clearly sympathetic to the Trudeauvian left-wing camp of social liberals in the party, and generally critical of the business liberal camp that followed Turner and Martin. Yet despite this bias, she generally provides an engaging and perceptive account of why the party has encountered its various difficulties in the past three decades – and why it succeeded when it did. Although this is a weighty tome (at 621 pages), it is written in a largely accessibly manner, and is filled with proverbial palace intrigue to sustain reader interest.

Perhaps the most interesting analytical angle put forth by Jeffrey is that the split within the Liberal party was not only the highly publicized business vs. social one, but that the more important, and perhaps less easily reconcilable, division was over conceptions of federalism. In her view, the party has succeeded most when it endorsed a Trudeauvian centralist approach to federalism and put forth a vigorous defence of national social programs as a central aspect of its nation-building program. It is during these periods, she argues, that the party is closest to the beliefs of its core supporters, and that it fares best at the polls. However, she is dismayed at a growing trend, often endorsed by the business liberal camp, and particularly under Martin and his followers towards decentralized and asymmetrical federalism. Jean Lapierre, the Liberal-turned-Bloquiste-turned-Martinite is subjected to particularly vigorous criticism – and not undeservedly, in my opinion. It’s noteworthy that she believes both current party leader Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae to fall within the asymmetrical federalism camp – one which she believes does not tend to lead to a sufficient degree of Liberal voter engagement and support.

There is much in Divided Loyalties for the policy wonk. A former researcher for the party, it is not surprising that Jeffrey devotes such attention to the development of various party platforms and policies. At points, the level of detail regarding key personalities may become moderately overwhelming for those not intimately familiar with the party, but these sections are nicely interwoven with the overarching narrative of major constitutional and political events. Implicit in her argument is the idea that the party desperately needs a strong set of well-articulated and presented policies to maintain voter support, which she contends has been lacking since the end of the “Red Book” era.

There are some frustrating elements to the book. Jeffrey had access to many party insiders, MPs and Senators, and these interviews inform much of her analysis. However, many interviewees insisted on confidentiality, with the result that the book has as many anonymous “senior party officials” and “caucus members” as a series of Jane Taber columns. These insights are valuable, but the lack of attribution is frustrating for the historian. Although most of the book is incredibly detailed, this level of detail and analysis tapers off sharply almost immediately after Martin’s departure. After reading detailed analyses of the conventions won by Turner, Chrétien and Martin, it was surprising that the 2006 leadership race was scarcely touched upon, and the roles played by Ken Dryden, Scott Brison and Martha Hall Findlay barely mentioned. Given that the book was published late in 2010, it is also somewhat disappointing that the 2008 federal election was relegated to a footnote. Although academic publishing timelines may partly explain this omission, it was particularly upsetting given that the footnote referred to Jeffrey’s own published work with another press.

After 621 pages of detail and analysis, I had also hoped for a more satisfying general conclusion and broad-based reflection, rather than the two paragraphs that Jeffrey provides. That said, her contention that the party requires a more concentrated effort at regrouping and rethinking its priorities and policy directions, and that it needs to stop fighting and tearing itself apart in public, is highly instructive. Alas, if the polls don’t turn around quickly, I fear we will soon see a repeat of the electoral campaigns described in Divided Loyalties, with Liberal insiders, caucus members and “senior party sources” calling publicly for the leader’s head, rather than trying to pull together for the duration of the election.

I hope to be proven wrong.

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Wild election predictions

I haven't blogged nearly as much about contemporary politics of late as I did when this blog got started. In no small part, it's because I've found both federal and provincial politics to be rather depressing, and largely without policy initiatives to inspire me. I've also thus far refrained from most of the election speculation that has been running rampant. But since a former student asked me last night for my thoughts about what is increasingly looking like an election train pulling out of the station, here's my wild speculation on the outcome of such an election.

Best case scenario (from my perspective): Another Conservative minority. Some shuffling of the deck in terms of Conservative-NDP-Liberal seats, but overall more-or-less the same ratios in the house, and no major Bloc losses.

Worst case scenario (from my perspective): A Conservative majority. Bloc stays constant. NDP and Liberal losses, particularly in Ontario.

Why do I think this? I don't think that voters are nearly as outraged about the various contempt scandals facing the Conservatives as they were about Adscam in the Martin years, and Harper has wisely (from a strategic standpoint) decided to try to put out the fires rather than throwing more fuel on them (launching an inquiry, declaring his outrage, and stamping about like a ninny). Most Canadians, frankly, don't even understand the finer points of what his government has done wrong, and probably don't care, because they're so disenchanted with all politicians right now. And so, the major election issue that the Liberals and NDP are banking on, I think, will fizzle. Neither of their leaders is particularly beloved, and I don't think that will change either. I hope to be proven wrong on this. (And sorry, Elizabeth May, but the Greens are going to be totally marginalized this time.) But with the Conservatives able to spend way more money on advertisements than the other two parties, I think they'll get to set the narrative this time.

What are the outcomes of these scenarios. Well, the big one is that Iggy gets shown the door in both cases. (Jack will be allowed to stay if he wants to, because nobody is going to launch a coup against a leader recovering from medical treatment.) After that... well, my suspicion is that the Liberals then crown "Premier Bob", and let him go down in flames in Ontario in the following election. And then we might actually see some renewal in that party.

Thus endeth a really, really pessimistic and bitchy post. Do you see now why it's better to have me posting about historical issues?

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No Confidence in Parliament... at all!

I, for one, am shocked, absolutely shocked that the Liberals' non-confidence motion failed to pass in the House of Commons. I'm even more shocked that the NDP would chose to abstain on the motion rather than either support the government or the Liberals' motion. I mean, what sort of party would ever follow that particular tactic?

/end dripping sarcasm

At least Rick Mercer is back on TV to help me laugh at the absurdity of it all.


ETA: Hat tip to Canadian Soapbox who is more eloquent on who is winning in this gong show.

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Of Home Renovations and Elections

Never let it be said that Stephen Harper is not cunning. I've known for a while that the much-touted home renovation tax credit had not yet received official sanction from the House of Commons. Not that you'd know this from all the television ads and every home renovation store touting purchases as being eligible under the program. But you'd figure that someone in the Liberal party had to know that they hadn't voted on this yet.

It figures therefore, that this is the poison pill that the Conservatives are hoping to make the Liberals swallow. At best, Ignatieff will be forced to back down on his threat to vote against the Harper government at the first possible confidence opportunity, and wait until a subsequent vote when the party's bravado has a little less force. At worst, his party votes against a wildly-popular tax credit, and then has to explain to middle-class Canadians how his government will re-introduce the program whenever the House gets around to sitting again after the election - which I'd bet would not be any sooner than December.

My advice: swallow your pride, vote for the reno tax credit, and don't risk losing Ontario seats in the 519-905 belt. It's better than letting the election be branded on the theme of how the Liberals don't care about the middle class.

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"The fundamentals are sound" and other Liberal self-delusions

Although I was clenching my fists on election night, praying that we wouldn't get a Conservative majority, a bit of time to watch the post-election fallout has convinced me that such an outcome might at least have been good in terms of allowing - or perhaps forcing - the other parties to rebuild and rethink their positions on several issues. With that introduction, here are some thoughts on what we've seen in the last two weeks.

Cabinet shuffle: Let's start with Canada's new new government. I think that the shuffle shows a few signs that Harper is being intelligent (at least in some limited ways). He's moved his pitbull from the sensitive Environment dossier and replaced the anti-safe-injection site crusader in Health. I'm hoping that the appointment of Jim Prentice to Environment is a sign that we're going to see some constructive action on that file. Likewise, I'm pleased to see James Moore get a promotion to Heritage. I don't know why I keep seeing commentators praise the "great wisdom" of Jason Kenney - I don't think he needs any more clout than he already has.

Liberal leadership: Anyone who thought that the pummeling of the Liberals on election day would lead to some, er, sober second thoughts will have their hopes dashed. I spent time at a political science/history conference last weekend with a number of Liberal political scientists, historians, senators and party activists (I'd call them "Liberal insiders", but I would prefer to avoid becoming the Jane Taber of the blogging world), and was very disillusioned with the general discourse of the weekend.

The gist of the collective wisdom of most delegates was that "the fundamentals are sound", both with the Liberal party and its brand, and with Canada's electoral system more broadly. Panelist after panelist decried the regionalization of Canada's political parties and the rise of minority governments. When I suggested that perhaps some form of electoral reform might be needed, the panel turned on me like a pack of wolves. Their response: "Majority governments are good and bring stability. Liberal majority governments are good for Canada. When Canadians are thinking right, and not being 'tricked', they vote the way they should - for a Liberal majority." There was no acknowledgment that our current set-up came within a hair's breadth of producing a Conservative majority.

Moreover, the consensus seemed to be that the problem with the last several years has been the personal failings of Paul Martin and Stephane Dion. People at the conference - many of whom are warriors from the Meech Lake days - seemed to think that if the party could just find the "right" leader and the "right" platform, they would be rewarded with a majority. What I didn't hear much of was discussion of how that platform should be crafted, or what values it should reflect.

Beyond the academic world, I think we're seeing this same malaise in the leadership race itself. I'm not seeing any fresh faces in the race. I don't think that a new face is necessarily what the Liberals need, or that this would be a magic bullet. But the fact that we aren't seeing these faces could be a sign of the lack of vitality and enthusiasm for the party. Domenic Leblanc is far from an injection of new blood, as the scion of an old Liberal family in New Brunswick. When the great hope and speculation is whether Frank McKenna or John "Beaker" Manley might run, you know that the party is grasping at straws.

It's time for a more serious reflection than we're seeing. It might mean that the next election is a rebuilding election which results in another minority. But the Liberals need to realize that their house of cards is tumbling.

NDP/Greens: I should probably say a word or two about the other parties. Kudos to the NDP for increasing their vote and seat share (albeit slightly) despite having the Green party nipping at their heels. I am wondering if Jack Layton has done all he can to bring his party along, and if it might be time for someone with a bit more gravitas. That being said, I'm not sure who that would be, so he may well be safe for a while longer, unless the party really wants to gamble on Thomas Mulcair. I happen to think that the path to growth runs through Western Canada, but I could be proven wrong.

As for the Greens, I think that Elizabeth May's days are numbered. I found her to be a fresh voice on the national scene. However, she demonstrated the strategic sense of a toaster on too many fronts. Specifically, she violated several of my basic rules for riding selection for a representative of an outsider party:
1) Don't run against an incumbent in the Maritimes.
2) Don't run against a cabinet minister.
3) Don't run against a favoured son of an established Maritime family.
May managed to break all these rules, and in a remarkable combination - running against an incumbent Cabinet minister in the Maritimes who is a favoured son, and moreover, the son of a former Cabinet minister from the Maritimes from the same riding. Had she chosen another riding - even my own riding of Guelph - she might well have been in the House of Commons.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Parliamentary gong show.

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Dion, Post-secondary Education Funding and Liberal prospects

The blogosphere is predictably abuzz today with discussion of the Liberal party's platform. For personal reasons, I'm quite fond of the promise to increase funding to each of the government's three research granting councils - including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, which funds my research - by 34%.

However, what struck me while reading all of the punditry about the affordability of the platform, including whether or not it was a valid strategy to use the Conservatives' economic forecasts, is that this is the first time that I've voted in a federal election when I didn't really think that those discussions mattered in the long run. I write this not out of some deep-seated skepticism about election promises (although that would also be a fair assessment), but because I have no illusions that the Liberals will get a chance to fully implement this platform. The best that I'm hoping for is that they will help hold the Conservatives to a minority government. I would bet good money that the very best most Liberal insiders are hoping for is a minority of their own - albeit with the ensuing post-election compromises that would negate their ability to fulfill many promises.

I find the whole situation rather depressing. I'm pretty certain that I won't be voting Liberal in this election, but I find myself hoping that enough other Canadians will do so to stop a Conservative majority. The problem is that I have trouble figuring out why these "hypothetical Canadians" - the "Zoe"s of the Conservative playbook - would be convinced to do so on the basis of the Liberals' TV ads and general campaign strategy. So far, the Liberal ads look like they were made by a first year communication student's class project - even the NDP's ones are slicker! Yet if the voters of Canada are convinced, it probably won't be on the basis of the "Green Shift" and the positive aspects of the Liberal platform, but out of fear of a Harper majority. I don't think that the party is in for a massacre along the lines of the 1993 election, but it must be sobering for party members to think that a Liberal majority is completely out of the cards.

So yes, some of the elements of the Liberal platform are what I think of as good policies for Canada - but I also think that the mood of the country and its assessment of the Liberals to date is such that this amounts to some nice, hopeful, creative writing.

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Voter Apathy in the House of Commons? or MIA: One Official Opposition

You know, I took some solace two years ago from the fact that Canadian voters had decided to hold Stephen Harper's Conservatives to a minority government. Little did I know at the time that it would turn out to be an effective majority government. Tonight, eight out of every nine Liberal MPs happened to miss a non-confidence motion instigated by the NDP on the issue of climate change. Whether or not this was the particular motion to bring the government down on is an issue for debate. But by now there have been dozens of different issues over the past two years that the Liberals have either abstained completely on, or only provided token "no" votes, even though the policies in question went against the stated position of the Liberal party. Certainly at least one of those should have been reason enough for the party to actually vote for what they claim represents the best interests of Canadians. While over the past year I have found some of the NDP's rhetoric attacking the Liberals for their unwillingness to stand against the government to be rather shrill, at a certain point, the evidence in favour of their case becomes overwhelming, and I can no longer give the Liberals the benefit of the doubt.

Frankly, it's a betrayal of all those voters who marked their ballot for the Liberals to have so many MPs not perform such a vital part of their jobs. Every election, I berate my students to go and cast a ballot - doing my little part to increase voter turnout in the 18-25 cohort. I have told my students that they have no right to complain about what the government is doing if they don't bother to vote in the election. I'm not sure what to tell a student who went to vote for the Liberals, only to then find out that the MP they helped to elect isn't willing to vote for what they believe in - or even vote at all. If the government falls because of a position taken by MPs, and Canadian voters don't agree with the positions the MPs took in Parliament, then what right do those MPs have to continue to represent those voters? I can't wait to see the current crop of Liberal MPs engaged in "Get out the Vote" or some Canadian equivalent to "Rock the Vote". The sheer hypocrisy of the exercise would undoubtedly instigate the best Rick Mercer Rant ever.

Opposition MPs should be busy explaining to voters why they disagree with government policy, and trying to convince voters that they would provide a better alternative. Right now, the Liberal alternative looks like a promise to never introduce, criticize, vote on or otherwise alter current policies. The Chretien Liberal government might have been criticized for lacking a major overarching vision, but this is taking things a bit far!

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The Harper Majority

About two years ago, everyone was up in arms because Paul Martin's minority government was trying to govern as if it had a majority - and this was called Liberal arrogance. Right now, Stephen Harper's government is doing the same thing, and this is referred to as Stephane Dion's Liberal weakness. Funny how you can spin the same arrogance in two different ways - and it certainly is arrogance in both cases.

I am extremely disappointed in the current functioning of Parliament, and I suspect that with every passing week, "potential" support for the Liberals will quietly bleed away. I am not talking about the 25-30% of Canadians who will likely vote Liberal regardless of leader, policy, or platform. I am thinking about swing voters who are currently parking their vote with the Conservatives, NDP, Green or Bloc parties, but who might be convinced to vote Liberal, given a viable reason to do so. Right now the Liberals appear gutless. Dion's rhetoric about "making a minority Parliament" work is extremely hollow when it is clear that Harper has no intention of allowing any amendments to his bills, or accepting any input from the opposition parties. Setting up all of his legislation as matters of confidence is a clear indication that he wants to govern as if he has a majority, or head to the polls. The Liberals have rolled over and exposed their vulnerable bellies, and all the rhetoric in the world about "Canadians don't want an election" is not masking that.

Here's a idea - although I doubt it can be implemented. Rather than simply abstaining from vote after vote, the Liberals should pick one of the more egregious pieces of Conservative legislation and propose a whopper of a set of amendments which indicate a bold series of new initiatives. Try to amend the Omnibus Crime Bill to reflect a Liberal vision on this issue. Try to amend yesterday's financial package to replace the GST cut with an additional 2% cut on personal income tax - or spending of $10 billion on the start of a high-speed VIA rail system in the Quebec-Windsor corridor - or some other policy initiative that the Liberals want to highlight and advance.

This approach would let the event that triggers the election be the fact that the Conservatives and the other two parties are opposing a strong policy designed to appeal to the voters - one that the minority Parliament will not work together on in its current configuration. There are ways of trying to force Parliament to consider the agendas of the other parties - and possibly inflict negative spin on the Conservatives - but right now it appears that the Liberals are content to lick their self-inflicted wounds and allow Harper to cruise boldly forward with ill-conceived policies.

Until something shifts in Parliament, I'm afraid my posts will continue to be sporadic. There is only so much passion and interest that I can generate about the static, passive approach that the opposition parties are currently taking in response to the Harper agenda.

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MMP in Guelph

In my last post, I indicated that the all-candidates debate in Guelph helped me narrow down my choices to two: Liberal candidate Liz Sandals and Green candidate Ben Polley. At present, my voting intentions are being influenced by two main issues: the funding of religious schools out of the public purse and the move to a mixed-member-proportional electoral system.

In both cases, the positions of the candidates are leading me to support the Green candidate. The Green party position on the schools question is to support a constitutional amendment to eliminate public funding for the Catholic school board system. To my mind, this is the best way to deal with the question of equitable treatment of religious groups raised by the UN. It is also a route that has been successfully followed in Newfoundland and Quebec. The Liberals, meanwhile, are content to simply defend the status quo, which is preferable to the Conservative approach, but somewhat cowardly in terms of showing leadership.

As for MMP, on his website Ben Polley clearly states that he favours MMP. The Greens are, understandably, fully in favour of a system that will give them some representation for the 5-10% of the vote that they attract. The Liberals are not taking a firm position, although some have adopted a favorable stance. I contacted Liz Sandals to find out her stance on the issue. Her reply was as follows:

"In 2003, the Ontario Liberal Party ran on a platform that included giving Ontarians a choice through a referendum, for the first time ever, on how people are elected in Ontario. When asked to study our electoral system, a randomly selected group of 103 Ontarians came forward with the suggestion of using the MMP system. I am not advocating for either side in this debate. We called the referendum to ask voters which system they prefer, and I will follow the direction of the voters.

That, to my mind, is not showing leadership on this issue, which I expect from a politician. I would at least like to know where their personal preference lies. This, again, is a check in the Polley column for me.

I might yet be swayed back to the Liberals before election day, but it's looking less likely.

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Ontario election

So apparently an election has been called in Ontario. Who should I vote for? The governing Liberals of Dalton McGuinty, who hasn't done a great deal to excite me, other than proposing to ban fresh sushi-grade fish a few years back(and that wasn't the good kind of excitement)? The Conservatives of John Tory, who want to undermine the public school system, and perhaps allow the teaching of creationism - or maybe not? (Oops, perhaps I should be saying PC party, since the party seems to be running scared from the Conservative brand - so much so that the word does not appear on the entry page of their website). The tired NDP of Howard Hampton, who are "fighting for working families," a slogan that gets under my skin like no other, and are still trying to rid themselves of the albatross of the Bob Rae years? Or the Green Party of a leader who has made such an impression on me that I had to go look up his name (it's Frank de Jong) and have no chance of forming government?

As you can probably tell, while I'm pleased to be back in my home province, its political life is not exactly filling me with glee and excitement. I will, however, be diligent in trying to decide which way to vote, and inform you, my friendly readers, with what I find out about issues that are near and dear to my heart. I'll also attempt to put up some content about the referendum on changing the electoral system to a Mixed-Member Proportional system, which I am supporting. I'll also be placing a particular focus on my home riding of Guelph.

In the meantime, my first observation on the campaign is that I find it curious that in a province with a sizeable Franco-Ontarian minority community and a French-language services act, only one of the four aforementioned parties - the Liberals - has bothered to create a bilingual webpage. It's not like this election date wasn't set a long way in advance. If I were a francophone, I'd find this very insulting indeed.

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Heavy mudslinging in the off season

The new Conservative attack ads have been getting most of the media buzz this week, but clearly they aren't the only party that is terrified by Stéphane Dion's potential, and is upset that they aren't facing off against Michael Ignatieff.

My NDP membership, taken out while I lived in Outremont, home to Separatist Jean, lapsed a couple of years ago, but I still recieve regular appeals for donations. The most recent call was a six-page(!) letter from Jack Layton begging for money. First off, I don't know who told him that anyone would read through a six-page letter asking for money. But whoever it was should have thought twice before putting pen to ink. Amidst the attacks on Harper were some rather nasty digs at Stephane Dion. His main crime seems to be that he doesn't understand "ordinary Canadians and middle-class families" (I'd go after the nauseating political lingo, but that's another post - and don't get me started on "in solidarity"). That, and that he appointed the devil incarnate, Michael Ignatieff, who supported the Iraq war, as his deputy leader. Both the NDP and the Conservatives really want to play up the Iggy card against Dion. It makes you wonder what they would have done if he'd actually won the leadership.

I'm not an expert on the effectiveness of attack ads. But I do wonder how Canadians will respond to hard-core nasty political advertizing when there isn't even an election on. I also don't think that slinging mud randomly at Dion is going to be an effective tactic. Even though he isn't the most charismatic of leaders, I don't think that many people dislike him, or even harbour secret fears of him (unless they're Quebec separatists). I suspect that the Conservative ads will be perceived as the acts of a schoolyard bully attacking the geek with the knapsack, and the NDP attacks will be seen as an act of desperation. I expected this from the Conservatives, but from the NDP I find it disappointing. I said as much to the NDP fundraiser who called me two days after I received the fundraising letter. I'm a swing NDP-Liberal voter, and you aren't going to win my vote by attacking the other party that I'm considering. Convince me that your policies are better, and you might stand a chance.

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Shouldn't that headline have scare quotes?

From today's Globe and Mail website: Liberal Lapierre leaving federal caucus

Such a pity... I'm sure that Stéphane Dion would have made him intergovernmental affairs minister if the Liberals won the next election. As longer-term readers of this space know, I had the privilege of having Founding BQ member Jean as my MP while I lived in Montreal. It was enough to make me waste several good weekend hours handing out flyers for a no-hoper NDP campaign in Outremont. Recruiting him ranks high on my list of reasons why I disliked Paul Martin and questioned his judgement. The party will be stronger for losing him. Bu-bye Jean - don't let the door hit you on the way out.

As for the speculation about who should run to replace him, I have no problem per se with Justin Trudeau running for the nomination. But I think that he would do his party more good if he ran in a more contested seat, such as one of the Montreal ridings that the Liberals lost in 2006. Outremont is a very safe Liberal seat - heck, the party even held it with Jean Lapierre as their candidate - and I suspect the party would benefit more from keeping this seat for someone who might need a safer entry into the House of Commons, and would be a more impressive recruit. This is not to say that Justin Trudeau doesn't have star power, but he is not likely to significantly raise the party's profile in Quebec.

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Paul Wells, Right Side Up: The Fall of Paul Martin and the Rise of Stephen Harper's New Conservatism

I had been incredibly patient about reading Paul Wells' first book. I put it on my Christmas wish list, and then dutifully resisted several urges to buy and devour it before the holidays. But when my copy arrived in the mail as a Christmas gift from my sister a few days before the 25th, I could resist no longer. Which is why, at 7 AM on December 25th, I was contentedly sipping my morning coffee and reading its middle chapters on the couch in my in-laws' living room, while the rest of the family was still comatose.

On the whole, Right Side Up is a very enjoyable, entertaining and informative read. Macleans' columnist Paul Wells has set himself an ambitious goal: to chronicle both the collapse of the Liberal party and the concurrent rise of the new Conservative Party. In many respects, his book is like a work of old-school political history - the fates of both parties, in Wells' estimation, are intimately tied to the strategies and foibles of two white men: a cold and calculating Stephen Harper and an ambitious, but bumbling, Paul Martin. Wells constructs an entertaining narrative, drawing on his own observations as a journalist, those of his colleagues, and a host of political insiders, both named and unnamed. We, his readers, are treated to a rather sarcastic, yet highly insightful analysis of the careful planning which led to the reinvention of the Conservative parties' approach to federal politics, contrasted against the blind ambition for power that drove Paul Martin and his supporters to stage a their coup to take over the Liberal party.

It is often said that journalists write the first account of history, and this is certainly true when it comes to political happenings. Right Side Up might be considered a first-and-a-half account, written shortly after the events it chronicles - indeed, Wells includes initial observations about the Liberal leadership race which had not yet been concluded when the book went to press. This brings many strengths to the book, including current impressions about the motivations of the various players, and a very detailed blow-by-blow of the election campaigns of 2004 and 2005/6.

In other respects, his book can be frustrating. The intense focus on the Liberal-Conservative dynamic necessarilly leads to the marginalization of the roles played by the NDP and the Bloc. For example, the fall 2005 decision of the NDP to throw the Liberals to the wolves and end their temporary support of the government was not the subject of any analysis. There is also little detail on the policies of the Martin and Harper governments - once bills are passed through Parliament, they largely disappear from the narrative, with little follow-through on their implementation (or lack thereof).

Wells is very strong when analyzing politicking, and the manner in which the various parties tried to construct their voting coalitions among the various demographics of Canadian society. Future accounts of this period (should this turn out to be a more profound shift in Canadian politics), will need to ask the question of whether a more fundamental shift in Canadian political values and demographics is also occurring. Wells suggests that perhaps a change in lower middle-class and working-class voter allegiances is underway, similar to the shift in white middle-class male voting patterns which helped the Republicans rise to power after the Democratic 60s in the United States. This analysis will need to be followed up by other political scientists and historians.

Historians are always faced with the dilemma of deciding when to end their story. In this respect, I think Wells was poorly served by his editors. The last several chapters of his book deal with the events of summer 2006, dealing with unresolved (and sometimes minor) political spats and bills that had not been resolved. By the time the book was published (or almost immediately after), the dynamic had shifted. In particular, the Liberal leadership race should have been left out of this book. This chapter was dated by the time I read the book - less than two months after publication. Indeed, given the way that Gerard Kennedy, who turned out to play the role of kingmaker, was overlooked, this chapter seemed particularly weak.

These observations, it must be noted, reflect my own biases as a historian. It is the task of my own profession to go through the archival and journalistic record with a fine-toothed comb to flesh out some of these minor (or arcane) details, and to perhaps construct an alternative narrative (or narratives) to accompany these events. The political junkie in me greatly enjoyed this book, and found that Wells' analysis largely coincided with my own observations and recollections of the past three years. His wit and dry humour are always enjoyable, as are his equitable skewering of both Martin and Harper. Liberals in particularly would be well-advised to take his observations to heart, perhaps coupled with the analysis of Stephen Clarkson's Big Red Machine (my Christmas read last year).

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