ModlrMike said:
As you say, it may have belonged to the liberals initially, but ownership has passed to the CPC. One has to look no further than the installation of that bumbling bureaucrat Fantino, who's obfuscation, ignorance, ego, thick skin and insensitivity know no bounds.jollyjacktar said:
And, as others have beat me to say, a Conservative government doesn't look like, even when in a majority position, it's done much about it since 2006.E.R. Campbell said:
Agreed, wholeheartedly - we'll see if the right thing gets done.E.R. Campbell said:
under the Introduction to the 1995 Tables means to me is if you were lucky to get your disability ruling prior to 1 Apr 06, you would not get the assessment under the new Tables. Additionally, for the reassessment, your disability is being assessed on the 2006 Tables, not the Tables originally assessed by, but VAC cannot take away a previous assessment, thus grandfathered. No wonder reassessments are very probably not often favorably granted.
Bill Casey’s comeback is bad news for Harper
SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
Campbell Clark
The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Nov. 24 2014
Stephen Harper must feel like a ghost is returning to haunt him. It’s been years since Bill Casey was a thorn in his side.
He’s one of the few Conservative MPs who clashed publicly with Mr. Harper. Now he’s coming back as a Liberal.
Mr. Harper booted the former Nova Scotia MP out of the Conservative caucus in 2007 for voting against his own party’s budget because it unilaterally altered the Atlantic Accords – and that made Mr. Casey an icon in his home province.
As an independent, Mr. Casey ended up in remote backbenches, next to a new Liberal MP named Justin Trudeau. When Mr. Casey quit politics, he kept in touch. “Whenever I got upset, I rattled off an e-mail to him. And he rattled one back. And that’s been going on for about six years,” Mr. Casey said in an interview.
Mr. Casey’s comeback is bad news for Mr. Harper. In Atlantic Canada, Mr. Casey brings bad memories for Conservatives. It’s hard to target an icon. And the Liberals will hope he serves as a symbol in the rest of the country, too, as they seek to portray Mr. Harper as an autocrat.
Mr. Casey had been a veteran Tory, first elected in 1988. He stayed with the merged Conservatives in 2004 when some Atlantic Canada Red Tory MPs walked away. But his showdown came when Mr. Harper undid a signed deal between Nova Scotia and Ottawa over oil-and-gas revenues, a change inserted into the 2007 budget. Mr. Casey voted against it, and was expelled.
Mr. Casey was hailed in his home province and re-elected as an independent. Some of the Atlantic Canada anger over the accords still echoes now. You can feel it in Friday’s editorial in the St. John’s Telegram, which recalled how Newfoundland Conservative MPs of the day “all backed their prime minister.” The Telegram noted approvingly: “[Mr.] Casey decided his allegiance was with his province.”
His return as a Liberal is another blow for the Conservatives in Atlantic Canada, where they’re already far behind in polls. If Mr. Casey wins the Liberal nomination, he’ll run against Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley Conservative MP Scott Armstrong – and Mr. Armstrong’s Conservative riding president has already jumped ship to Mr. Casey.
The Conservatives have taken shots at Mr. Casey. Industry Minister James Moore tweeted that he won’t fit with Liberals because he’s pro-life – but Mr. Casey said he’s pro-choice, and voted against a Mulroney government abortion bill he said restricted abortions. He once voted against gay marriage, but happily admits he’s changed view, saying he’s learned since.
He was on the left of the Conservatives, but felt like MPs didn’t have a say, anyway, he said. He recalled sitting on a Commons committee considering a motion against cluster munitions, and receiving a note instructing Conservative MPs to vote against. “We’d never talked about it,” he said. “I wrote back, ‘I don’t like cluster bombs.’”
The “mission” that motivated his comeback – at 69, five years after leaving politics, and surviving a battle with cancer – is restoring the role of MPs, he said.
He said he’s tired of seeing questions in Parliament rebuffed with partisan attacks, and MPs told how to vote without discussion. Even MPs’ statements before Question Period are now party-scripted attacks (two New Brunswick MPs read attacks on him this week.) He rails against omnibus bills, packed full of hundreds of disparate items, which don’t allow an MP to hold government to account on each. Mr. Casey insists that, to his surprise, people seem interested in those issues.
But in the past those inside-Ottawa issues have not really motivated many voters. Still, the Liberals like the narrative: Mr. Casey promotes the idea that MPs can’t bring local views to Ottawa because Mr. Harper doesn’t listen.
And the Conservatives might find that Mr. Casey is a hard man to attack. He’s not a hard-nose. He responds with respectful compliments. He said he was relieved Mr. Moore had no better shot than his abortion tweet because “he’s a really smart guy.” He won’t say a bad word against the Conservative MP he’ll try to unseat, Mr. Armstrong – who used to be Mr. Casey’s riding president.
“I have a lot of respect for Scott Armstrong. I just don’t think he can do his job,” Mr. Casey said. “I know for a fact he can’t.”
The NDP’s poisoned chalice
LYSIANE GAGNON
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Nov. 26 2014
For most of the New Democratic Party’s existence, Quebec was the impossible dream, impossible to penetrate even as Tommy Douglas, David Lewis and Ed Broadbent did their successive best to overcome the steady resistance of French-speaking Quebeckers. The conventional wisdom was always that the NDP could never form government without making at least some inroads into Canada’s second-most populous province.
But then, lo and behold, in 2011, by an extraordinary turn of events, Quebec became the party’s main stronghold, with more than half its caucus hailing from the province. It remains so, even if the warm and likeable Jack Layton, who won Quebeckers’ hearts, has been replaced by the more abrasive figure of Thomas Mulcair – a man with a better intellect but who looks angry even when he’s smiling.
According to a recent CROP poll, the NDP is now the first federal party in Quebec, ahead of the Liberals by 12 points with the francophone voters who control most of the province’s ridings.
Mr. Mulcair was the most frequent choice as “best prime minister,” ahead of Justin Trudeau by seven points. Moreover, the NDP is eating away the last support the Bloc Québécois clung to after the 2011 election rout. Under the lacklustre leadership of hard-line independence advocate Mario Beaulieu, the Bloc is down to just 14 per cent support, two points behind the chronically unpopular federal Conservatives. CROP’s poll shows that the Bloc can’t even count on a majority of Parti Québécois voters – 31 per cent of those intend to vote for the New Democrats, 18 per cent for the Liberals and 7 per cent for the Conservatives.
These numbers suggest that the NDP will keep most of its earlier gains in the next election, although some of its ridings – those with substantial anglophone populations – will go to the Liberals.
Even though many nationalists still fume at the mention of his father’s name, Mr. Trudeau is generally well received wherever he goes – on the weekend, he was signing copies of his autobiography at the Salon du Livre, the Montreal book fair – and he attracted a long line of fans and well-wishers as well as curious onlookers. Mr. Mulcair doesn’t have the same celebrity aura, but for now, at least, his party seems well entrenched in Quebec. His aggressive performance in the House of Commons, as well as his impeccable French, have won him the reputation of being serious and responsible.
But the NDP’s good standing in Quebec comes with a price. Elsewhere in Canada, the party is losing steam, seemingly returning to the traditional third-party role it held before Quebec propelled it to Official Opposition status.
The party’s vote share has declined in nearly all of the by-elections held since 2011. It failed to win Toronto Centre, an urban riding that should be part of its natural constituency. It lost Trinity-Spadina, the former riding of Mr. Layton’s widow, Olivia Chow. It came a distant third in Whitby-Oshawa, parts of which made up a riding once held by Mr. Broadbent.
This slide is mainly due to the rise of the Liberals, as well as the resilience of the Conservatives. But is something else at work? Have the New Democrats lost part of their national appeal because they’ve had to accommodate their Quebec MPs (including many sovereigntists) and cater to the nationalist francophone voters who now constitute their main base? Is the NDP too close to Quebec for its own good?
Finance Minister Joe Oliver on crafting an election-winning budget
KONRAD YAKABUSKI
The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Nov. 27 2014
It’s going on five decades since Joe Oliver left Montreal— for Boston, New York and ultimately Toronto—but he still crosses the street like a Montrealer. That is, wherever he wants, in defiance of traffic lights. His jaywalking rattles the Ontario-bred aides who tail him. Tough luck for them.
Oliver is no less Type A behind the wheel. And don’t get him started on Toronto drivers. They cut you off, he gripes. He blames this form of one-upmanship on the “politics of envy.” Torontonians just can’t stand to see anyone else get ahead of them. If a Montrealer cuts you off, it’s only because he’s genuinely in a hurry.
That’s Joe Oliver’s theory, anyway, and he’s sticking to it.
Canada’s 38th finance minister knows all about being in a hurry. A latecomer to politics, Oliver didn’t forgo a cushy retirement accumulating corporate board seats to twiddle his thumbs as a backbencher. He came to make a mark. At 74, he knows the chance won’t come around again.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has handed Oliver perhaps his government’s most critical assignment. The budget he will table in early 2015 will frame the message Conservatives take to voters in the election later in the year. The Tories want to be seen as able fiscal managers. Oliver is the messenger. With surpluses anew, the Harper government has room to slash taxes, increase spending and reduce the federal debt—all at once.
A chunk of future surpluses is already spoken for to fulfill a long-standing promise to allow income-splitting for couples with young children and to boost the $100 monthly child care benefit to $160. But there are still big choices to make that could shape Canada for decades to come. Oliver is Harper’s choice to execute the Tory game plan, interrupted by the recession, to permanently shrink the size of the federal government. Weaker oil prices, a housing crash and a shaky global economy could all rain on this parade. But Oliver seems to relish the challenge.
Oliver’s predecessor, Jim Flaherty, flawlessly choreographed the return to surplus after indulging—to the horror of true conservatives—in a massive bout of stimulus spending during the recession. His March retirement, and sudden death a few weeks later, left Harper with a massive hole to fill.
Oliver doesn’t enjoy the affection that Flaherty built up over eight years as a folksy finance minister with his ear tuned more to Main Street than Bay Street. Oliver, an investment banker, has credibility galore on Bay Street. But his take-no-flak style and sarcastic wit do not generally go over well in sound bites.
By the time he became finance minister in March, Oliver had earned his reputation as a right-wing political scrapper. The attack-dog label does not do him justice, however. Yes, he may call you an idiot. But he means it in the nicest way, really. He’s very likeable—cantankerous-uncle likeable.
Professionally, Oliver is best defined as a wonk who revels in complex problem-solving. His outward opinions belie an inner commitment to evaluating all options, even those that don’t fit with his free-market doctrine. It’s why he twice left jobs in investment banking to work in less remunerative public policy-oriented jobs. Friends and adversaries alike grant that he is a deep thinker.
“He’s just smart as hell,” says Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. “I don’t think Canada has had a finance minister with such a strong working knowledge of markets and finance in a long, long time. We’ve had many great performers. But none with so much specific knowledge of the task at hand.”
Liberal MP Irwin Cotler calls Oliver “the best defender of an indefensible case I know.” The two have been best buds since their McGill University days in the 1960s. And though they disagree about almost everything, Cotler thinks Harper made a wise choice. “I thought Joe was the best person for the [Finance] job because he knew the file, would read his briefings, engage his civil servants and understand the policy options.”
Oliver is universally liked and re-spected by his cabinet peers. That makes him unusual, since past finance ministers have often been seen as rivals by others in cabinet with their sights set on the leadership. Oliver has no such ambition, though that could also free him to defy the boss. “My sense is that Joe would stand up to the PM if he had to,” Cotler says. “But I also believe he is more in synch with the PM [than Flaherty] and, therefore, would have less reason to stand up to him.”
Oliver’s upcoming budget is easily the most important the Harper government has delivered since the recession. “The point is, this doesn’t have to be an austerity budget,” Oliver says. “This can be a budget where we’re able to do a number of different things for Canadians.”
If he gets it right, Oliver may even get to keep his job beyond the next election. “I think I’m the edge of the sword,” he says of the coming campaign. “The critical message we’re going to be conveying to Canadians is that we are good economic stewards and the country is strong, doing better, despite the external risks.”
Oliver’s sarcasm picks up where the carefully prepared talking points end. “Besides, we’re not running against God,” he scoffs. “There may be some irritations or things [we do] that people get upset about. But if they’re responsible, they’ll ask themselves: ‘Who do I trust to manage our $2-trillion economy?’”
Oliver is sitting in a booth at United Bakers, a Jewish diner and temple to Formica in his Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence. This is where he comes to press the flesh and tune into the zeitgeist. Oliver is something of a rock star here; his status as Canada’s first Jewish finance minister is a big source of pride in the community. Politics aside, Oliver comes here for the menu. “Basically, they’ve got a formula for the type of food people want,” he says of owners Philip and Ruthie Ladovsky. “There are a lot of restaurants that sometimes do well, then they get bored with their own menu. Their customers aren’t bored. But [the owners] get bored and change it. Then they’re out of business.”
It’s a lesson Oliver thinks applies to politics, too. And the voters of Eglinton-Lawrence, who had elected Liberals since the riding’s inception, seem to like Oliver’s menu. Unlikely as it seems, he is an able retail politician. Lest anyone suggest he’s getting too old for the job, he retorts that he knocked on 38,000 doors to take this stronghold in 2011. And he’s pumped to do it all over again in 2015.
That’s an ambitious feat for someone who had quadruple-bypass surgery in 2013. But the mountainous cheese Danish he inhales in front of me suggests Oliver is not overly preoccupied about his health. He’s rail-thin, but exhibits the energy of a horse, criss-crossing the globe for back-to-back G20, IMF and APEC meetings. He’s also happy to oblige Tory backbenchers seeking a star for their fundraisers. It all makes for a superhuman schedule. But underlings say he’s got more stamina than much younger cabinet colleagues and is sharper, to boot. Working for Oliver is Yes Minister in reverse.
“It couldn’t be better,” Oliver says of life near the pinnacle of power. As a sign of his confidence in Oliver, Harper made him vice-chairman of his inner cabinet, the pivotal Committee on Priorities and Planning, which sets the government’s agenda. (Harper chairs the P&P.) “I do believe people make a difference. Individuals make a difference,” Oliver offers. “I’m in a position to help advance our economic agenda. Our objective is to create jobs and make the country grow and be more prosperous. If I can add to that accomplishment, I will have done something quite meaningful for Canadians.”
E.R. Campbell said:
Harper must aim for a majority or bust in 2015
SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
Campbell Clark
The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Dec. 22 2014
A poll this week showed 48 per cent of Canadians think the country is on the wrong track, and only 37 per cent think it is moving in the right direction. Stephen Harper would probably think: “Not bad.”
His party has always thrived without fretting that it doesn’t have a majority on its side. In Mr. Harper’s time, the Conservatives have rarely exhibited enough support even to win a majority government – the critical exception being the brief surge in the 2011 election.
But for Mr. Harper, winning a minority government in 2015 probably isn’t winning at all. This time, opposition parties would face a lot more pressure to oust him quickly.
This will be the year when a minority PM must become a majority man. Or else.
That’s why his government is already on a spree of spending announcements, often on contested political turf, using a tried-and-true recipe for swaying swing seats.
Right now, Mr. Harper’s Tories will feel pretty good. A year ago, the Senate scandal had them reeling. They’d dipped to 26-per-cent support. Some suggested Mr. Harper might not run again. Six months ago, his party trailed Justin Trudeau’s Liberals by a wide margin.
They’ve bounced back. Mr. Harper presented a prime ministerial image, taking Vladimir Putin to task and showing fatherly concern after the Ottawa shootings. And his government spread money with promises of bigger child bonuses.
Now, an aggregate of polls compiled by threehundredeight.com puts them at 32 per cent, four points behind the Liberals, effectively neck and neck to form a minority government.
That’s in the traditional range. Under Mr. Harper, the Conservatives have only once or twice hit the 39- or 40-per-cent mark usually required for a majority. The last time was in 2011, when a surprise NDP surge fed a Liberal collapse – helping Mr. Harper’s party win Ontario seats. Otherwise, Mr. Harper has always had minority-government support.
He managed to navigate two terms of minority government before, and get re-elected, despite a few scares. But that was when Mr. Harper’s Conservatives were still relatively new to power. Most voters expected them to be given a chance. The opposition was weak, divided among three parties, and didn’t seem to have an election issue to rally behind.
Now, whatever happens, after almost a decade in power, Mr. Harper will be the issue.
If he wins only a minority government, anti-Harper voters won’t appreciate an opposition party that props him up in power. The NDP and Liberals know that if it comes to a repeat election, they’d still be fighting for the mantle of the party of change. The party that embodies that change will get most of the anti-Harper vote.
So Mr. Harper must aim for a majority or bust. But the opportunities are limited.
After a decade in power, voters have mostly made up their mind. Only 42 per cent of Canadians would consider voting for his Conservatives, according to a Nanos poll released last week. They are far behind in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, and far ahead in Alberta, so the battle is for a limited number of swing seats, mostly in Ontario.
It’s too late for Mr. Harper to change stripes, but he is shifting them slightly.
His year-end interviews saw him play down oil pipelines to the West Coast, for example, and emphasize his government`s support for manufacturing in central Canada. That’s partly because oil prices are falling, but also because of where the contested seats are.
He’ll emphasize his status as a veteran PM on the world stage. Instead of playing hard to his Conservative base, he’ll probably emphasize the fatherly manager.
And then there are the little politics. Last week, Mr. Harper was in Quebec City – the area that offers his best hopes for winning Quebec seats – announcing $35.7-million for historical projects. The week before, Ottawa announced $6.5-million for transit across the river in Lèvis.
There’s already been a noticeable acceleration in that kind of announcement, for snowmobile trails or community centres or local public works, and we can expect more in 2015. It’s an age-old tactic to try to squeeze out a few more seats – and Mr. Harper can’t afford to fall short of majority this time.
