Maybe it is just that Berlusconi makes Clinton and Mitterand together look prudish, but one has to envy Lawrence Canon being in Italy so close to the action. With a few loosely connected salicious rumours strung together into a series of questions, this could be an interesting news conference. Canon has a hard enough time answering questions on issues that he ought to know. Imagine what his response be to "Minister Canon, is it true that your partook in the customary orgy after meeting with Prime Minister Berlusconi?"

And now for ...

Tough Love

Gerald Caplan’s cynicism on the current state of politics seeps through today's Globe and Mail. There is much truth to what he writes.

The government did almost nothing constructive and the Official Opposition offered almost no alternatives, with many media reporting their most fatuous spins at face value. Poor Canada.

But they saved the NDP from itself. Jack Layton had boxed himself into the tightest of corners, going nowhere fast. He and a few self-loving communication types who now seem to run the NDP, with nary a piece of substance to be found, are sighing sighs of relief. The NDP is in no better shape to fight a campaign that the Liberals, and everyone knows it. But both parties routinely assert the opposite.

The leader has reshuffled the front office, but the new efficiency has yet to be proven. The leader stepped into his role with his panniers filled with new ideas and a desire to get things done. His book “Speaking Out” reflects his inspiration and thoughtful ideas. Nowadays, he comes across as a talking bobble head, repetitively trying lines on you. When speaking to him, it is clear that the thoughtful policy mind, the part of him that is still passionate about environmental innovation, is still there. That part is masked behind the TV Layton.

This past session was the time for new ideas, especially on the economy. The Conservative government spent the last month introducing and debating crime and punishment bills while the recession continued to rage on. It is clear that they are devoid of policy ideas, aside from seriously flawed mandatory sentencing and victim of terrorism right to sue bills. The Liberals, following the Green Shift fiasco, are too scared to introduce new policies and are relying on a single idea changing the eligibility requirements for EI. The NDP is traditionally viewed as weak on economics. Now is the time to start shifting that view. The common view that opposition parties are their to criticize out of fear the governing parties will steal the good ideas should not apply to the NDP. We are a fourth place party that constantly fights the criticism of redundancy. Now is the time for new ideas. We promoted the green car policy in the last elections, and then the government turns around and gives billions in loans to the auto manufacturers (loans that will likely never be repaid). Perhaps there was an opportunity missed somewhere in there?

That is not to say that NDP MP’s have not been working their butt’s off. For example, on the last day that the House sat, the Conservative government reversed their stance on Abousfian Abdelrazik, having been converted to the idea of Canadian citizens having rights, and decided that reform of the much maligned NCC was needed. Ottawa Centre NDP MP has been working tirelessly on both matters (see here for praise of Paul’s work on the Abdelrazik, and check out the House of Common’s website to see the similarities between Paul’s private members bills and what the government is proposing on the NCC). As Caplan noted on in an earlier piece,

Luckily, Paul Dewar carried the ball, repeatedly embarrassing though not shaking
an intransigent Harper government. At this low moment in our political life, Dewar reminds us what public affairs should be all about.

Although, the NDP take the brunt of Caplan’s tough love, the media does not go unscathed:

Alas, given the stunted the level of both politics and most reporting in this country, we are, I fear, doomed to return to the same old, same old from the very moment the House returns. Instead of asking how we can fix our country, the only question will be when either of the two big parties thinks it has a momentary advantage worth forcing an election.

Although the NDP is responsible for its own direction, the media’s interest in 15 second sound bites, tabloid tales, and election fever encourages politicians to push theatre over substance. Was it really a news story when Layton said that with the coalition dead he would refocus on making Parliament? Had that not been a news story, would Iggy have contemplated a confidence vote to test the NDP’s resolve? Was it even a story that Canadians cared to read that Iggy, after a weekend’s consideration and two meetings with Harper, decided not to push the election issue? We are caught in a spin cycle where matters of substance barely get covered (quick: what were there main issues debated in Committee regarding mandatory sentencing?) and election speculation is all the rage. It is an easy front page story for the Liberals to suggest that they may bring down the government – whether or not people actually believe them.

On being underpaid

It was never that I lacked the courage to do it. If I trained, I too could have held a tape recorder behind my bosses back for minutes - SEVERAL minutes in fact. And I am just as good about talking about "my Minister" over drinks after work as the next hack.

I just wanted something a bit more rewarding. You know that feel good feeling that you have when you actually accomplish something with your day. Of course, rewarding work is also the sort of job that does not pay well. Thus, I am an underpaid lawyer. Woo is me. Please cry for me Canada.

Why didn't I take the $120,000 a year and a false sense of self-importance? I am such an idiot.

NOTE: The NDP are the only party with a unionized staff. This means that they are the only staffers on the hill that maintain some semblance of job security. This also means that no staffer gets paid 120,000 of tax payers dollars as all staffers get a respectable wage. Other parties may pay certain individuals $120,000, but that means someone else only gets paid $25,000 (that is the junior - mentor relationship that the article talks about during the Chretien / Martin years.

Three Cheers for Paul!

I have been tormented about what to write on the Abousfian Abdelrazik affair. Here was a man so obviously wronged by his country, that the only words I could think of to describe my sentiments were unpublishable. For your country to abandon you is perhaps one of the most hurt insults to be handed.

With the Conservative Government finally attempting to rectify this sad situation that they had helped to propogate, it is time to move into a new direction. Liberal MP Glen Pearson does a nice bit reaching across the aisle with his pen in describing his experience with the matter:

But the one person who stuck on this file and deserves full praise for the
victory yesterday was the NDP’s Paul Dewar. Simply put, I found him
indefatigable in the cause of justice for Abdelrazik. And I speak from personal
experience, as we both sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Against all
odds, Dewar exhausted every parliamentarian option, time after time, not just in
an attempt to exonerate an innocent citizen, but to prove that the Canadian
parliament could be relevant in such a case. I watched as the government members
of the committee fought him vociferously. But he worked the system - very
well. In key votes on the case, the three opposition parties worked together and
won by one vote each time, Paul’s example being the key cause. I witnessed the
discouragement on his face every time as the government refused to abide by the
will of the committee on this. I would even text him on his Blackberry during
committee in an attempt to keep him assured. The hardest day came only
three weeks ago, when the Foreign Affairs Minister pointed his finger in anger
at Dewar over the issue, in a manner that was beneath the conduct of someone in
such an exalted position.

Four very important things happened yesterday. Above all, a innocent
exile is coming home to his family. Second, the opposition members weren’t so
much a coalition as a combined group of individuals who believe in human rights,
defending the ultimate rule of law over unprovable suspicion. Third, Parliament
worked yesterday in a way that surprised all of us and ultimately prevailed. And
finally, one man who believed in the system achieved his own freedom. A very
able parliamentarian who had been plagued by rancor and repeated defeats proved
to all of us, and himself, that a public servant dedicated to our freedoms can
be shining light that leads us into a better future. Well done Paul. I
love this kind of politics and you deserve the kind of summer reserved for
champions.

It is a nice way to end the Parliamentary session by paying compliments for the hard work of your fellow colleagues. Well done Glen.

Odd Job Bob

Flipping through the weekly Ontario Reports - a tree killing, questionably useful publication forced upon all Ontario lawyers - there displayed was a page long add for Bob Rae. Not an add for the Honourable Bob Rae M.P., but an add for the mediation and arbitration services of the Honourable Bob Rae P.C., Q.C.

Two possibilities arise from Bob Rae's renewed interested in schlocking his services to the legal community: (1) he needs the money; (2) he needs the diversion.

Considering that as a Member of Parliament he is racking in $157,731.00 per year, one can assume that it is not for want of money. On the other hand, he did previously work for a Bay Street firm and perhaps this meager MP's salary is not enough for his post-NDP lifestyle. In all fairness, there is not big money in the run of the mill mediation and arbitration. However, if he decides to go towards international arbitration, he could really supplement his MP salary.

But, it just might be that with the appointment of his old friend Iggy as Leader of the Liberal Party, Bob is less interested in sticking around Parliament. This is a man who has spent his life serving for the betterment of his community, province and country. Moreover, unless Iggy gets hit by a truck, the sense of manifest destiny that propelled Rae towards the Prime Ministership has come been crushed.

$14.6 million or a promise to meet

From the ediotrial desk of the NDP:

What can you get to prop up a government?
Wed 17 Jun 2009
New Democrats delivered billions, Ignatieff delivers talk

OTTAWA – After long hours at the negotiating table, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff walked away with nothing of substance in exchange for his continued support of the Harper government and its failed policies.

“When I sat down with Paul Martin in 2005 and avoided an election by negotiating a new budget, I delivered for Canadians,” said New Democrat leader Jack Layton. “New Democrats got $4.6 billion in new investments in housing, education and transit. Today, Michael Ignatieff got a working group in exchange for his ongoing support of Stephen Harper.” In 2005, New Democrats turned corporate tax breaks of $4.6 billion into $1.6 billion for affordable housing, $1.5 billion for post-secondary education, $900 million for transit, $500 million for foreign aid and $100 million for pension protection.

In 2009, Michael Ignatieff could only manage a “blue ribbon panel” on Employment Insurance with limited scope that won’t report until September. “This working-group talk-fest is cold comfort to the 1.5 million unemployed Canadians dealing with a deeply flawed EI system. Ignatieff did nothing to fix EI, nothing to create jobs, nothing to stimulate the economy.”

“How did the Official Opposition fail Canadians so badly? Did Michael Ignatieff get
steamrolled or does he just agree with Harper’s policies?

14.6 million versus a promise of working group.

Chantal Hebert has looked into the emptiness of Ignatieff's stance:

All Michael Ignatieff has really wanted since Monday is a fig leaf to
justify his continued support of the minority Conservative government.
That minimalist quest is the only possible rationale for the absence of clarity of
his original position, a feature whose main (and only) merit has been to give
the Liberal leader the latitude to clutch at whatever straw may come his way,
courtesy of the Prime Minister.

Months after the NDP and the Bloc raised the EI issue, the Liberals have attempted to take it over as their own. It has now become the only issue that the Liberals seem willing to take a stand on.

As NDPers, there is no problem with the Liberals stealing our good ideas. We are used. We are just disgusted when they steal the idea and do nothing with it.

E-Day in NS

Hate to count the chicks before they hatch. There are enough examples of the polls being wrong. But the excitement bubbles with the possibilities.



Either way today will be historic - either it will be an historic NDP victory or it will be a historically bad day for pollsters.



Here is an interesting twist on the burger poll - the Resort Options.

UPDATE:

A historic result - in all the rights ways.

Link in

An impressive contest. An exciting convention. Quite the finish. Link is in.

Lingenfelter won with 55% on the second ballot, defeating Ryan Meili by 45%. The two represented very different routes. Link ran on pragmatic appeal, promising a return to power and a steady as she goes policy of waffling to business and waffling to the government interests as the period may call. Meili ran on renewal. Through youthful vigour he sought to reconnect with people.

Yens Pedersen also played the youth card and surprisingly, at least to me, triumphed over Deb Higgins. Higgins, who has been an effective cabinet minister and a community MLA, ran an ineffective campaign. Slightly slow to get the campaign going, she never seem to gain the traction needed to mount a serious challenge.

An ovation for all candidates. The race went from a near coronation to a serious debate on diverging ideas.

The fact that a youthful leader like Ryan Meili can rise to the occasion and claim 45% of the vote shows both the division in the party and the talent that lies within. The fact that some MLAs went, particularly the younger ones, went to Meili on the second demonstrates that Lingenfelter must reach out and listen to this call for renewal. Moving forward the party must reconnect with its electoral base, listen to rural Saskatchewan, heed the warnings of environmentalists.

Power will come. But the party is only as strong as those that support it.

The way forward: Sask NDP 2009

June 6.

Regina.

One person will be hoisted up to lead the Saskatchewan NDP.

But where will that leader take us? To government because we are not on the right? Perhaps a step to the left to become reacquainted with the ideals that formed the party? Or perhaps, to the people of Saskatchewan?

The question of the leadership race: What does it mean to be a New Democrat in Saskatchewan?

Since 1944, the NDP has been in power 47 of the past 65 years (or, since Saskatchewan became a province, 47 out of 104 years). From Douglas to Blakeney, Romanow to Calvert, the NDP has carved out a niche as the pragmatic left - managerial democratic socialists. It is an umbrella held together by their support of crown corporations, medi-care and memories of Saint Tommy. As government, the NDP has consistently applied a patient approach to the management of resources and the expansion of the welfare state. They have maintained an eye on the finances and a hovering foot over the brake peddle on social programs. Only when the finances permitted did social change get the green light.

But years in government has also taken it's toll on the party. The idealists have often taken a back seat to the economic stewards - perhaps more so under Romanow and Calvert then under previous NDP administrations. The NDP has been successful because it has carved out the centre, thereby crippling the Saskatchewan Liberals. But it has compromised its progressive values in the process. The Saskatchewan NDP has been characterized as the Saskatchewan version of the federal Liberals - a party that pursues power by being flexible with its views - although perhaps a little less smug. The Saskatchewan NDP has proven adaptable, changing with the times, while consistently being solid managers. On the eve of a rare leadership convention, it is time for Saskatchewan NDPers to ponder where they want their party to go. Broadly speaking, is it a party in pursuit of power or does it want to risk being in opposition a little longer while espousing social democratic values?

The answer to this question will set the path for answering a number of other issues facing the party. For example, how does the NDP reconnect with people in rural areas now that their convenient excuse that international trade agreements tied their hands has worn thin. How do you deal with poverty, particularly in first nations communities, in a free market economy? Is Nuclear really the clean energy that the industry wants us to believe that it is? How do you take the riches of from resources to diversify the economy?

The Jurist has not a marvelous job of describing what the leadership candidates stand for and I will not repeat that here. Obviously, the leader selected this coming weekend will pave the route that the Saskatchewan NDP will take, but will that route answer the question of what it means to be a Saskatchewan New Democrat?

The routes are as follows:

All for power - Dwain "Iggy" Lingenfelter. After encouraging business away from Saskatchewan for the better part of this decade, Dwain has returned to fulfill his destiny. His policies are safe, and his experience long. His campaign is that he can defeat Brad Wall. This small print is that power is more important the party.

Progressive foot soldiers - Ryan "Netty" Meili. Ryan has been a breath of fresh air. He has occupied the same space that Netty Wiebe did in 2001 as the progressive outsider. His campaign has been the most innovative (at least from a virtual stand point), and he has been the only candidate with clear and well thought out policies. He marks a return to roots.

Happy Middle - Deb Higgins. Her heart is in the right place. Her campaign focused. Deb is the link between Dwain and Ryan. She maybe short on policy debate, but she is to the point. I have a lot of time for Deb. The party would do well by electing her.

The Lawyer as outsider - Yens Pedersen. Unfortunately, I cannot at much about this candidate.