Quid pro quo?

The Gazetteer informs us that The Washington Times had chimed in again on the Canadian election. And it looks like John Reynolds is now making Canadian foreign policy:

. . . John Reynolds, official opposition house leader, said while trade disputes between Canada and the United States will remain, the tone of political discourse will change. "We had a government that for 12 years in Canada has called [Americans] words like 'coward' and 'stupid,' " said Mr. Reynolds, who co-chairs the Conservative elections campaign. "That would change. Our party is not filled with anti-American people like it is within the Liberal Party."
Mr. Reynolds, who spoke to The Washington Times after a boisterous rally of Conservative sympathizers in a downtown Montreal hotel Wednesday, said Conservative leader Stephen Harper and President Bush should sit down and work out the trade problems.
"We've been friends and neighbors for a long, long time," Mr. Reynolds said. "We are major trading partners in the world, we've got a lot to offer each other and we have to get that friendship back on track just like you'd have with your next-door neighbor."
Mr. Reynolds said the first practical step in improving security cooperation between Canada and the United States would be to restart discussions about joining the anti-ballistic missile program.
"We've got to sit down and discuss this. There is a quid pro quo for everything," he said.
But how far the Conservatives push their social, political and economic agenda will depend on whether they manage to gain a majority in Canada's 308-seat House of Commons, or will have a minority government . . . On the foreign policy front Mr. Harper has promised to improve Canada's relations with the United States, but also to take "a tougher stand on international trade disputes."
Prime Minister Paul Martin, on the other hand, has run an uninspired campaign full of gaffes. And his attack ads trying to paint Mr. Harper as a religious zealot with a hidden agenda, or as an American lapdog, have backfired. One of the ads quoted from a Washington Times opinion piece by Patrick Basham where he claims that, "If elected, Mr. Harper will quickly become Mr. Bush's new best friend internationally and the poster boy for his ideal foreign leader."
Speaking to reporters Thursday Mr. Martin again went on attack. "We've never seen a major political party with such a conservative agenda as this one, an agenda which has really been taken from the extreme right in the United States," said Mr. Martin.

The Gazetteer asks what the quid quo pro is going to be. I wonder too.

An unnamed whale

We can be grateful for small mercies -- at least the whale wasn't around London long enough for some newspaper to give him a name!
That said, I always find it remarkable how much people can care about the fate of an animal in trouble, how quickly we come to their aid, and how much effort we can put into trying to save them.
The BBC reported that "As the rescuers moved the whale applause broke out among the 3,000 onlookers . . . as the whale passed beneath." Yes, I would have applauded, too.
(AP Photo/Tom Hevezi)

Fun with Fotos

Martin leaps over barriers:

Photo by Paul Chiasson,CP

while Harper runs into brick walls:

Photo by REUTERS/Andy Clark

"Its not him, its us"

Its like the old break-up line "Its not you, its me."
I fear a Harper election partly because of what he would do, but mainly because of what such a victory would say about us as Canadians.
Here is a description about what has happened to people in the United States over the last decade, which purports to explain why they vote for Republicans. It is what I DON'T want to see happening in Canada:

Looking at the data from 1992 to 2004, Shellenberger and Nordhaus found a country whose citizens are increasingly authoritarian while at the same time feeling evermore adrift, isolated, and nihilistic. They found a society at once more libertine and more puritanical than in the past, a society where solidarity among citizens was deteriorating, and, most worrisomely to them, a progressive clock that seemed to be unwinding backward on broad questions of social equity. Between 1992 and 2004, for example, the percentage of people who said they agree that "the father of the family must be the master in his own house" increased ten points, from 42 to 52 percent, in the 2,500-person Environics survey. The percentage agreeing that "men are naturally superior to women" increased from 30 percent to 40 percent. Meanwhile, the fraction that said they discussed local problems with people they knew plummeted from 66 percent to 39 percent. Survey respondents were also increasingly accepting of the value that "violence is a normal part of life" -- and that figure had doubled even before the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks.

And when we also get the news that American conservatives are licking their chops about a Harper victory, that scares me too.

Great line of the day

Michael Moore speaks out on the Canadian election:

. . . Far be it from me, as an American, to suggest what you should do. You already have too many Americans telling you what to do. Well, actually, you've got just one American who keeps telling you to roll over and fetch and sit. I hope you don't feel this appeal of mine is too intrusive but I just couldn't sit by, as your friend, and say nothing. Yes, I agree, the Liberals have some 'splainin' to do. And yes, one party in power for more than a decade gets a little... long. But . . . There are ways at the polls to have your voices heard other than throwing the baby out with the bath water.
These are no ordinary times, and as you go to the polls on Monday, you do so while a man running the nation to the south of you is hoping you can lend him a hand by picking Stephen Harper because he's a man who shares his world view. Do you want to help George Bush by turning Canada into his latest conquest? Is that how you want millions of us down here to see you from now on? The next notch in the cowboy belt? C'mon, where's your Canadian pride? I mean,
if you're going to reduce Canada to a cheap download of Bush & Co., then at least don't surrender so easily. Can't you wait until he threatens to bomb Regina? Make him work for it, for Pete's sake . . .

Emphasis mine.
Well, Michael, thanks for noticing, and we're trying our best.
Thanks to From the Heartland for noticing this story.

Cerberus sums it up

In The Final Weekend: Final Thoughts, Cerberus writes exactly what I was thinking -- how did they know?
Anyway, go read it if you want a concise summary of just about everything important for this election..

Where have these people been? (Part Two)

Part One is here.
And its about time people started speaking out.
Here's the most recent list of Conservative opponents, from the :Toronto Star:

- The Canadian Climate Coalition complained that the Tories were the only party that refused to respond to a questionnaire on the Kyoto Protocol, and accused Harper of moving Canada 'into the same camp as U.S. President George W. Bush.'
- The Council of Canadians expressed concern about recent comments by Conservative MP James Lunney favouring bulk exports of Canadian water, and called on Harper to clarify his position on the issue.
- Sixty-six economists signed a joint statement warning that the tax breaks being offered by the major parties would leave a huge deficit in social services and hurt the poor. They took special aim at the Conservative proposal to eliminate taxes on reinvested capital gains, saying it would 'deliver very large tax savings to a tiny group of high-income Canadians.'
- Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said he's not satisfied by recent comments by Harper that the party supports the principles of the Kelowna native deal, but not the final agreement and dollar amount. 'Any suggestion that one supports the objectives and the targets but not the approximately $5 billion allocated to these targets is of great concern to us because we won't be able to meet the targets without money,' he said.
- The gay-rights group Egale warned: 'Stephen Harper goes ahead with his plan to reopen the divisive equal marriage debate, it will lead Canada into a legal swamp.' On Monday, 104 law professors wrote an open letter to Harper saying that his plan to reopen the equal marriage debate would lead to "legal confusion, a lack of uniformity, and unnecessary, protracted and costly litigation."
- Harper also faced questions from reporters Tuesday on claims that the Tories harbour a secret agenda to reopen the abortion debate. On Monday, Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the father of the pro-choice movement in Canada, had said Conservatives can't be trusted on the abortion issue. But Harper maintained he "won't be initiating or supporting abortion legislation." "I'll use whatever influence I have in Parliament to be sure that such a matter doesn't come to a vote," he added.

Yeah, Stephen, sure. Surprisingly, I'm sure, your influence just may not be quite enough...
And if you need any more talking points, Rabble associate publisher Duncan Cameron provides this concise summary of why the Conservatives would be a bad choice for Canada:

On policy, Conservative leader Stephen Harper is clear. He is not bound by a parliamentary decision to approve same sex marriage. Nor would his government support the international convention on climate change known as the Kyoto Accord, or the federal-provincial agreement on aboriginal issues reached recently at Kelowna.
He is ready to re-start negotiations to make Canada a partner in the American first strike missile system known perversely as missile defence.
The reason Harper favours the so-called traditional definition of marriage is not just to ensure that gay and lesbian Canadians are made to feel insulted and demeaned. He also wants to prove to the courts that the House of Commons is not bound by legal decisions Conservatives do not agree with.
Similarly, with the Kyoto accord, he can demonstrate how a Conservative government can step down, and walk away from an international treaty ratified by Canada, in order to show solidarity with the Bush Republicans, and the U.S. . . . Just in case anybody missed it, under a Harper government, payment of the capital gains tax will be waived if you “re-invest” the gain within six months by buying a summer cottage, a speculative property to rent out, or some more stocks.
This capital gains holiday is super expensive to implement, and worthless to society. It could, however be dangerous, having the power to provoke speculative booms, and accelerate busts. Since it will favour the wealthy greatly, it has not been subject to rigorous examination in the media
Announced for the first time with the rest of the Conservative program last Friday, the capital gains measure far overshadows the attention-getting proposed one per cent reduction in the GST, trumpeted at the outset of the election campaign as a measure of social justice. It turns out the Conservatives do favour the rich even when they pretend to be looking out for working families. Their tax policy proves it.

If the Conservatives win, its time to get into the house flipping business, I guess.

Scalia Lite

Well, Harper just couldn't keep his inner "Refooorrrm" quiet any longer -- its been two months since he could actually say what he thought, and the real Harper just had to break loose.
Here was today's Globe and Mail headline, above the fold: Harper warns of activist judges.

. . ."I am merely pointing out a fact that courts, for the most part, have been appointed by another political party. But courts are supposed to be independent regardless of who appoints them and they are an independent check and balance," he said. When one reporter asked if he believed judges are activists with their own social agenda, Mr. Harper replied: "Some are, some aren't." . . . Mr. Harper's former Reform and Canadian Alliance allies have cried loudly about judicial activism, with many complaining that liberal judges have imposed such things as same-sex marriage upon an unwilling populace.
Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler responded with a scathing attack on Mr. Harper, arguing that his opinions are unfit for a man who aspires to lead the country. "To me, [it] is irresponsible for a political leader to be impugning the independence and the integrity of the very institutions he should be protecting," he said. "We need someone who will respect the rule of law, who will respect the independence of the judiciary." Mr. Cotler said that the suggestion judges are Liberal-biased demeans and insults the judicial system. And he defended his own judicial appointments, saying they have been scrupulously apolitical.
In 2003, after courts in British Columbia and Ontario recognized the legality of same-sex unions, Mr. Harper, who was then the leader of the Canadian Alliance, accused former prime minister Jean Chrétien of stacking the courts with sympathetic judges for that very purpose.
"They didn't want to come to Parliament, they didn't want to go to the Canadian people and be honest that this is what they wanted," he said at that time of the Liberals. "They had the courts do it for them; they put the judges in they wanted, then they failed to appeal, failed to fight the case in court."
. . . Mr. Harper says there is a particular type of person who would get those jobs if he were prime minister. "What we will be looking for is what I call the judicial temperament," he told reporters. "And that is the ability to competently and shrewdly and wisely apply the laws that are passed by the Parliament of Canada."

Sounds like the Conservatives will be looking for men like Antonin Scalia.
Oh, Myrtle, we're in trouble now...

Trend is up

.SES tracking poll Jan 18 -- Conservatives 37, Liberals 32.
Finally, the Liberals seem to hae stopped sliding and they have found a ladder to climb.

Some good news

Here: Poll suggests Liberals back in lead in Ontario
And here: Martin's Values, Hopes, Dreams ad

Already with the excuses...

What is Harper doing here? Not even elected yet, but he's already setting up the civil service or the Senate or the courts to take the blame for his failure.
Are there some promises he had made that he doesn't really want to keep? Harper said today that a Tory majority would not have 'absolute power'. Well, that will be news to the voters. The Liberals did it their way for 12 years; now if the Conservatives win a majority then the voters will expect them to do what they promised. And if they don't, they really can't blame it on the Liberals.

Who not to vote for

Vote Marriage Coalition has published their list of 150 candidates who they say do not support gay marriage.
Well, now you know who NOT to support in Alberta, British Columbia,
Manitoba, New Brunswick , Newfoundland and Labrador , Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia , Nunavut, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan , Yukon .
Its notable that so many of these bigots are Conservatives -- which means that if the Conservatives win this election then they will have enough votes in the Commons to overturn the gay marriage bill.
And now 100 legal beagles have sent Harper a letter about how stupid this all is: "It appears to be your intention to pass a law that you know is almost certainly unconstitutional and then leave it to the courts to clean up the mess."
But these law professors don't understand priorities here -- given the choice between taking a responsible approach to governing, and pandering to their base, which way does everyone think the Conservatives will go?

"The best record in Canadian history'

Rob McGowan, editor of Politics Canada endorses the Liberals -- he finds too much that is wrong with the Conservatives, and lots that is right with the Liberals:

Paul Martin assumed the mantle of power in December 2003 bringing about a series of significant changes to accountability, a new accord on Healthcare emphasizing wait-time improvements, the Atlantic Accord, funding for cities, Parliamentary Reforms, free votes, terminating the Sponsorship Program, increased military funding, signed the helicopter contract, tightened financial controls, greater co-operation with the provinces, resolved the BSE cattle export dispute, and achieved a drop in duties on softwood lumber. He did this while dealing with the aftermath of Chretien's ill-fated Sponsorship Program as well in a minority setting passing more legislation than any other Prime Minister in a minority. Should the Conservatives take power they will inherit a country in much better shape than the last Conservative government left it. In 1993 interest rates and unemployment were high, and a government burdened with two decades of deficit financing and burgeoning debt. Today the Liberal record of sustained economic growth, balanced budgets, debt repayment, exceptionally low interest and low unemployment rates is the best record in Canadian history as well as the best record among the G7 countries.

Yes, this sums it up quite well.

$388

As The East End-Underground reports, the Conservative's child care allowance proposal evaporates once you figure in the income taxes. From a Caledone Institute study: "a two-earner couple in Ontario raising two children (one under 6) and earning $36,000 . . . would end up with a net Child Care Allowance worth just $388 - only 32.3 percent of the $1,200 face value payment."

Great line of the day

In my Comments page for the last post, the Dave the Galloping Beaver writes: "All platforms being equal (relatively worthless), the indicator of the real agenda of a political party and its leader is the direction of those organizations which support them. In checking them all, Harper's leave me cold." Emphasis mine. And I will keep checking his blog for more on this topic.