Politics in 2016

[Kirkhill]

... The one thing that Mr. Trudeau and his party have managed to do and do well is change the tone.  ....

You mean the press has changed the tone don't you?

 

[Remius]

You mean the press has changed the tone don't you?

I'm not so jaded as to think that the press sets the tone for everything.  Even conservative pundits acknowledge the change in tone from this government.

But you do bring up a good point in that by being more media friendly the LPC has managed to turn the media into their own PR machine.  Something the CPC refused to do to their detriment.  However you'll notice the CPC has been much more media friendly and are trying to adopt a new tone as well.  It is refreshing to see some of the talent in that party finally sound less like automotons and more like real people. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

... you'll notice the CPC has been much more media friendly and are trying to adopt a new tone as well.  It is refreshing to see some of the talent in that party finally sound less like automotons and more like real people.

And that'll continue until they get back into power - and I'd bet a loony this'll happen with PMJT, too, as he eventually will have to govern, leading to less-than-100%-satisfaction-rating solutions.

 

[Jed]

I'm not so jaded as to think that the press sets the tone for everything.  Even conservative pundits acknowledge the change in tone from this government.

But you do bring up a good point in that by being more media friendly the LPC has managed to turn the media into their own PR machine.  Something the CPC refused to do to their detriment.  However you'll notice the CPC has been much more media friendly and are trying to adopt a new tone as well.  It is refreshing to see some of the talent in that party finally sound less like automotons and more like real people.

'The medium is the message'    I think it is not a case of being 'so jaded' but more of a case of 'not quite ready to acknowledge the reality of the situation'.

 

[Kirkhill]

I would point out that the media had adopted the Liberal Party trope on Stephen Harper, that he was scary, while Paul Martin was still Prime Minister, back in 2004.  There seems to me to have been little reason for him to trust the same media to get his opinions out to the public.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I would point out that the media had adopted the Liberal Party trope on Stephen Harper, that he was scary, while Paul Martin was still Prime Minister, back in 2004.  There seems to me to have been little reason for him to trust the same media to get his opinions out to the public.

Which is why the party has to move beyond being seen as "Harper's Party" - it's still pretty early days when it comes to rebuilding the party, so we'll see how well they do.

 

[George Wallace]

Which is why the party has to move beyond being seen as "Harper's Party" - it's still pretty early days when it comes to rebuilding the party, so we'll see how well they do.

Likely an indication of why he is keeping such a low profile in 'Ottawa circles'.

 

[Kirkhill]

Which is why the party has to move beyond being seen as "Harper's Party" - it's still pretty early days when it comes to rebuilding the party, so we'll see how well they do.

Agreed to the extent that the party needs to present itself in a different light. In the same way that the Liberals had to shake off the images of Paul Martin (Mr. Dithers), Stephane Dion (feckless) and Michael Ignatieff (Just Visiting).

In my particular case I don't think that Mr. Harper has anything to apologize for, nor does the party.  But they do need a different image.  My concern is that the media and institutional Canada are overly comfortable with the Liberal Party in power.

 

[krimynal]

Agreed to the extent that the party needs to present itself in a different light. In the same way that the Liberals had to shake off the images of Paul Martin (Mr. Dithers), Stephane Dion (feckless) and Michael Ignatieff (Just Visiting).

In my particular case I don't think that Mr. Harper has anything to apologize for, nor does the party.  But they do need a different image.  My concern is that the media and institutional Canada are overly comfortable with the Liberal Party in power.

what I really don't like is that when the Conservative party was talking about budget and that it would come up a bit higher than expected , everyone was yelling and calling them the worst party out there.
Now with the liberals , every one that knows a bit about mathematics knows that most of their prediction is plain wrong and that they are WAY off budget estimate ... yet a lot of canadians are acting like it's okay and that it's no big deal.
I might be really old fashioned ... but ... if you base the whole campaign on fixing things , making everything right and blah blah blah .... how is this not a problem for most people if it was such a big deal 2 years ago?
Did we just come to accept that "hey it's the way it is, at least he's good looking" ....

 

[jollyjacktar]

Speaking of new images etc.  I have noticed how much Ms. Notley's direction has changed since she took power.  Gone are the kicking the oil patch in the gonads sounds and she comes across more like a Conservative-ish type of politician.  Reality must be a real bitch to deal with in a (recently) elected government like hers.

 

[Altair]

Speaking of new images etc.  I have noticed how much Ms. Notley's direction has changed since she took power.  Gone are the kicking the oil patch in the gonads sounds and she comes across more like a Conservative-ish type of politician.  Reality must be a real ***** to deal with in a (recently) elected government like hers.

carbon tax, emission limits on the oil sands, money for the environment, getting rid of the flat tax?

That doesn't sound conservative in the least.

And for the record, she was always for pipelines, she just said it would be a easier sell once more stringent environment policies were in place.

 

[a_majoor]

While the example is American, it fits exactly with the situation here, Any party which wants to try a new approach besides "Nice Hair" would do well to examine this aspect of out of control governance (as a bonus, eliminating costly and counterproductive regulation also mean getting rid of the bureaucracy that enforces these regulatory burdens, a long term saving for the taxpayer). Edward Campbell has long advocated for increasing productivity and innovation in the Canadian economy, as the article shows a deep streamlining of regulations would also unlock innovation and productivity as well:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/05/12/technological-progress-stagnation-regulatory-explosion-1970s-column/84225066/

Glenn Reynolds: Why we still don't have flying cars
Glenn Harlan Reynolds 12:03 p.m. EDT May 12, 2016
After regulation exploded in 1970, innovation hit a sustained speed bump.

We used to get rockets to the Moon. Now we get Facebook. That’s the essence of a complaint, published in the MIT Technology Review, that technological progress is slowing down, and becoming less useful. The author, David Rotman, writes:

In a three-month period at the end of 1879, Thomas Edison tested the first practical electric lightbulb, Karl Benz invented a workable internal-combustion engine, and a British-American inventor named David Edward Hughes transmitted a wireless signal over a few hundred meters. These were just a few of the remarkable breakthroughs that Northwestern University economist Robert J. Gordon tells us led to a “special century” between 1870 and 1970, a period of unprecedented economic growth and improvements in health and standard of living for many Americans.

Growth since 1970? “Simultaneously dazzling and disappointing.” Think the PC and the Internet are important? Compare them with the dramatic decline in infant mortality, or the effect that indoor plumbing had on living conditions. And the explosion of inventions and resulting economic progress that happened during the special century are unlikely to be seen again.

This theme is echoed by Michael Hanlon, who writes that progress has fallen off drastically since what he calls the “golden quarter” — the 25 years between 1945 and 1971. He argues that “Just about everything that defines the modern world either came about, or had its seeds sown, during this time. The Pill. Electronics. Computers and the birth of the internet. Nuclear power. Television. Antibiotics. Space travel. Civil rights." The list goes on. Hanlon writes, "Most of what has happened since has been merely incremental improvements upon what came before.”

Is this true? And if so, why did things slow down after 1970?

I think it’s mostly true that things are stagnating compared to the century, or quarter-century before 1970. Some of that is simply because we’ve snagged the low-hanging fruit: You can only invent radio once. But I think there’s more to it than that.

In the United States, which drove most of the “golden quarter’s” progress, 1970 marks what scholars of administrative law (like me) call the “regulatory explosion.” Although government expanded a lot during the New Deal under FDR, it wasn’t until 1970, under Richard Nixon, that we saw an explosion of new-type regulations that directly burdened people and progress: The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, the founding of Occupation Safety and Health Administration, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, etc. — all things that would have made the most hard-boiled New Dealer blanch.

Within a decade or so, Washington was transformed from a sleepy backwater (mocked by John F. Kennedy for its “Southern efficiency and Northern charm”) to a city full of fancy restaurants and expensive houses, a trend that has only continued in the decades since. The explosion of regulations led to an explosion of people to lobby the regulators, and lobbyists need nice restaurants and fancy houses.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that progress suddenly slowed down, but I don’t think so. Indeed, the Obama administration’s brilliantly successful policy for promoting private spaceflight ventures (basically one of benign neglect) can be seen as evidence that we can actually get the kind of progress we used to get, when we regulate lightly, like we used to. Who knows, if we regulated pharmaceuticals like we did in the early 1960s, perhaps we’d get as many major new drugs as we got in the 1960s. (“The time for a new drug candidate to gain approval in the United States rose from less than eight years in the 1960s to nearly 13 years by the 1990s,” notes Hanlon.)

Of course, excessive regulation isn’t just slowing technological progress, it’s also making us poorer. A recent study from the Mercatus Center found that the increase in federal regulation since 1980 has reduced economic growth by 0.8% per year — which over time means that the economy by 2012 would have been 25% larger, adding up to about $13,000 more for every American. The number would be much bigger, if they’d used 1970 as their baseline.

Not all regulation is bad, of course, but although there’s never a point of diminishing returns for bureaucrats, I suspect we’re well past that point where the rest of us are concerned. As Megan McArdle writes, one regulation may be "painless, (but) a million of them hurt."

I wish I had $13,000 more per year, and I suspect that an America that’s 25% richer would make a lot of people happy. And who knows, if we’d held back on the regulatory explosions, we might even have flying cars by now. That would really make me happy.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the Opinion front page.

 

[The Bread Guy]

In my particular case I don't think that Mr. Harper has anything to apologize for, nor does the party.  But they do need a different image.

Politics vs. optics - linked/overlapping, but slightly different fights, indeed.

My concern is that the media and institutional Canada are overly comfortable with the Liberal Party in power.

I've had similar concerns - we'll see what happens when PMJT has to make decisions that aren't 100% popular, and see how it unfolds.

 

[George Wallace]

If the Liberals campaigned on Harper not having a sense of the pulse of Canadians, they really are throwing rocks in a fragile glass house. 

Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau has shown this on a grand scale.  My serious advice to Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, who has NO official duties, holds NO official office, is NOT a Government Servant, and on and on; is to learn how to say "NO" to some of the requests she may have, as well, FIRE her current staff of four who are helping her manage her schedule and children.  Two nannies, a Chef and a Personal Assistant should be able to easily handle her needs.  If they are so incompetent as to not be able to, then FIRE them and hire people who can competently do so.

 

[PuckChaser]

She doesn't have to fire them, just pay for them herself. The Chef is fine as a taxpayer expense, I believe every Prime Minister has had one, and I'm OK with that.

 

[Journeyman]

According to CBC's idolizing drivel (a lame opinion piece that CBC has as their lead news  story), she's being picked on because she's some combination of "really smart, or really rich, or talented and famous, or.... really really really good looking."  Apparently Canadians don't like such people; that is the depth of CBC's self-proclaimed "analysis."  :not-again:


Thank you BBC and Al Jazeera, for providing real news and thoughtful, informed commentary.... rather than vacuous cheerleading masquerading as "news."  :facepalm:

 

[George Wallace]

She doesn't have to fire them, just pay for them herself. The Chef is fine as a taxpayer expense, I believe every Prime Minister has had one, and I'm OK with that.

Point wasn't who is paying for them; but that they appear to be INCAPABLE of handling her scheduling.  If four people can not take care of her and her children, then more competent people should be hired and the the current staff let go.  That, and she needs to learn to say "NO!" to some of the requests for her appearance at functions. 

Numerous examples are coming out, in the media, of 'mothers' who are juggling jobs, family and other extra-circular activities with no hired assistants.  Other than the CBC and the 'diehard' Liberal supporters who would elect a dog or cat if it was a Liberal, most sensible people are looking at this as a negative showing on the part of the Trudeaus.  The silence from the PM does reflect poorly on him as well. 

 

[ueo]

She "sorta" got slammed in todays TO Star. IMO as she has no official position beyond being the Younger's wife, she should get no official support. Also the optics of this request are terrible.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Also the optics of this request are terrible.

Not if you're like me and believe the new boss is worse than the old boss.  At least the old one gave an air of competence about him.

 

[GAP]

She "sorta" got slammed in todays TO Star. IMO as she has no official position beyond being the Younger's wife, she should get no official support. Also the optics of this request are terrible.

bull.....she was raised on high as poor misunderstood waif who only wants to do good, vs that Laureen Harper woman.gritting her teeth because of her husband....et al.....