The 2008 Canadian Election- Merged Thread

[Edward Campbell]

And, regarding those rolling polls: William Fox who authored the article that is reproduced below under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from todays’ Globe and Mail web site is the same Bill Fox who was Brian Mulroney’s press secretary back in the ‘80s. He is, therefore, a Tory partisan – like me – and you ought to take his views with a grain of salt, as you take mine.

That being said, what he suggests is interesting.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080917.welectionmedia17/BNStory/politics/home

Toronto, Atlantic Canada may be Dion's last battlegrounds

WILLIAM FOX

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
September 17, 2008 at 7:38 AM EDT

William Fox, author of "Spin Wars," has been at both ends of the campaign plane and is a student of political communications.

The measure of Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's stewardship of one of the world's most resilient political franchises will largely be determined by week's end.

Two major policy announcements - including a drug plan for Canadians coping with long-term illness - and a crucial tour through Atlantic Canada and the historically Liberal stronghold of Metro Toronto afford Mr. Dion his best, and perhaps last, shot at reversing the slide in Liberal support that has marked the campaign's early days.

Liberal organizers bemoan the fact that Mr. Dion's core message isn't getting through the filter of the mainstream press. There have been some successes at the margins. The Atlantic Canada tour allowed reporters covering the Liberal Leader to discuss the possibility of Liberal gains without straining credulity. The credit crunch that triggered the collapse of venerable Wall Street institutions gave Mr. Dion a hook to remind voters of the robust economy and budget surpluses that were a feature of the Chrétien-Martin years. Appearances by star candidates Bob Rae, Scott Brison and Michael Ignatieff underscored the strength of the Liberal brand.

But Mr. Dion, like many party leaders before him, is hostage to a campaign practice known as horse-race coverage.

Former prime minister Kim Campbell once famously said election campaigns are no time to talk policy. Mr. Dion is finding out firsthand that Ms. Campbell was at least partly correct.

The Liberal Leader wants to talk about his Green Shift. He insists his environmental policy, arguably the key element in his policy platform, is simple.

He is mistaken. It isn't. The Green Shift may be good public policy but it violates a core rule of campaign communications: If you can't explain it to your neighbour in a sentence of two over the back fence, you can't sell it politically. Ask Mr. Dion's candidates. They've tried.

But Mr. Dion's bigger challenge in getting his message out is the polls, or more precisely media reporting of public-opinion surveys and our collective response to them.

Communications theorists have established our predisposition to accept a dominant "frame" for a news story and the way we are "primed" to measure a political leader's performance against that ballot question. The public then passes judgment on that performance.

In earlier times, we had to wait for the actual vote tallies to know what that judgment was. But when social scientists developed public-opinion research, all that changed. We now give voice to that judgment instantly, even incessantly given the proliferation of media-sponsored polls.

Media analysis of public-opinion research in the campaign context of who is winning, who is losing, and how much time is left in the game has been a standard feature of political coverage since the 1940s. What has changed is the viral growth of these polls and the news stories they generate.

Poll reporting in campaigns was once a weekly phenomenon. With new media technologies, we report our reactions in real time.

Mr. Dion is caught in this vortex of poll-driven expectations. His standard response to daily media queries about his standing in the polls (I love it, I love to be underestimated) is both predictable and maybe even justifiable. He successfully defied the polls in the past, his victory in the Liberal leadership contest being the most spectacular example. And Mr. Dion's experience in guiding the Clarity Act through the House of Commons means he isn't likely to fret much over questions about his personal popularity.

The risk for Mr. Dion, indeed for any party leader, is the tendency to interpret these victories as evidence of infallibility in all things campaign-related.

And that means a recalibration in Liberal campaign strategy and the party's core message. In the absence of an overarching issue, this campaign boils down to a question of whether Canadians want to hand Conservative Leader Stephen Harper a majority.

Voters uneasy at the prospect are looking for a champion. Past patterns would suggest the Liberals are a logical choice.

But the polls, and the coverage of those polls, suggest New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton is beginning to crowd Mr. Dion in terms of public support.

So the strategic imperative for the Liberal campaign in general, and Mr. Dion in particular, is to put some distance between themselves and the NDP in the polls, and have that fact widely reported in the mainstream press.

And this is the week where that message must get through. The polls suggest Liberal support in the Greater Toronto Area is softening. Incumbent Liberal MPs in the suburban ring of 905 are skittish. There is even talk of electoral vulnerability in one of the Mississauga seats. Which is why this week's tour, the media coverage it generates and our collective response to it as measured by the pollsters, will be determinant.

Shakespeare wrote of the "tide in the affairs of men." For Stéphane Dion, this is the week the tide rolls in.

I’m not at all sure that I fully understand the power of communications – not just the obvious political bumph from the parties or the equally obvious media reports, but the subtle messages delivered by daily reports on the rolling polls and our reaction to them.

I think Fox has the question right: do we* want to give Harper a majority government? We are only ⅓ of the way through he campaign but I feel that Dion has already lost it. So, do we trust Harper enough? What’s more scary: Harper or the economic crisis?


------------------
* By ‘we’ I means Canadians at large. About 38% of us Canadians are firmly in the “Yes! We want a majority Conservative government in 2008” camp already – that ‘we’ needs a few hundred thousand of our fellow citizens – mostly in Ontario and Québec - to make the same choice.

 

[aesop081]

I watched May deliver her party's platform today. Sounded an aweful lot like what the liberals are proposing with a touch of " but but, but.....we're better than they are" mixed into it.

Not impressed in any way and look forward to her downfall apearance at the leader's debate.

 

[GAP]

I watched May deliver her party's platform today. Sounded an aweful lot like what the liberals are proposing with a touch of " but but, but.....we're better than they are" mixed into it.

Not impressed in any way and look forward to her downfall apearance at the leader's debate.

From the little I saw and read, I think the Green numbers are going to go the way of Dion....

 

[aesop081]

From the little I saw and read, I think the Green numbers are going to go the way of Dion....

Just listening to her speak is like nails on a chalk board. She sounds more like a child saying "please listen to me" than someone who is a candidate for PM.

 

[YZT580]

Fortunately for all of us, May is not, nor will she ever be, a candidate for Prime Minister of Canada.  The Nanos poll had a more interesting element to it than merely who would you vote for which went a long way towards answering Mr. Fox.  52% of Canadians would not be upset by a Conservative Majority.  Such a figure would suggest that the potential for vote switching if being reduced and people will support their traditional party rather than voting for the candidate with the best chance to upset the Conservative. 

But one thing is for sure, Harper will be looking for a new person to head up the Health Department. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

And further to my last: Earlier this week Celine Stéphane Dion, correctly, pointed out that our national accounts ran perilously close to deficit in the first quarter of this year. Now, according to this story reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail web site, Dion and Layton are proposing Billions each year in new spending – day care and education and, and, and ... Dion, at least, has a new not revenue neutral carbon tax to pay for it – but there go the tax breaks he also promises:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080917.welxnkids0917/BNStory/politics/home

I hope someone in the media is going to tally up the bills for all these wild, irresponsible promises. I want to know how big a deficit Dion is offereing.

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of today’s National Post, is one look at the spending promises:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/09/17/ka-ching-ka-ching-liberals-and-ndp-run-up-the-bill-of-election-promises.aspx

Ka-ching, ka-ching: Liberals and NDP run up the bill of election promises

Posted: September 17, 2008, 1:29 PM by Kelly McParland

The floodgates have opened. After a week of relative caution, the party leaders have started to raid the treasury, escalating the number and cost of new programs they pledge to introduce if elected.

The timing is a bit imprudent. The carnage on Wall Street is spreading and fears about the broader impact on the U.S. economy -- and, by extension, Canada’s economy -- are growing by the day.

Nonetheless, both the NDP and Liberals unveiled big new spending plans Wednesday morning. The Conservatives also issued a promise -- to ban flavoured cigarettes and curtail tobacco marketing aimed at children -- but no new spending plans. The Prime Minister went on to paint his rivals as irresponsible and called their spending promises "mind-boggling"

Here’s an updated accounting of the race so far.


Conservatives

Mr. Harper remains well behind his pace of the last election, though the Conservatives spent the weeks before the election doling out cash and related goodies. The Prime Minister maintains these don’t count as election promises because most were accounted for in earlier budgets and won’t add measurably to existing obligations.

• A ban on flavoured cigarettes and marketing programs, including on the Internet, aimed at the youth market.
• A $200 million program to provide a tax credit worth $5,000 to first-time home buyers.
• Self-employed Canadians will be allowed to pay employment insurance premiums and get maternity and parental benefits in return. Cost: $147 million.
• $50 million to restore allowances to Canadian veterans from Commonwealth or allied countries.
• $220 million over four years to increase the amount of income eligible for the federal small business tax rate to $500,000.
• $600 million to cut the excise tax on diesel fuel to 2¢ a litre from 4¢.
• The lifetime capital gains exemption will be indexed to prevent it being eroded by inflation.
• The threshold for reviews on foreign investments will be raised to $1 billion from $295 million.
• The allowed level of foreign investment in airlines will be raised to 49% from 25%. Foreign companies will be allowed to own Canadian uranium mines if Canada is given the same right in their country.
• A new test will be introduced in evaluating foreign investments to ensure they do not jeopardize national security.


Liberals

Stéphane Dion has been adding about a billion a day to the Liberal shopping cart this week. The party is now over $4 billion in new spending, on top of the the Green Shift carbon tax plan. It remains unclear whether the additional programs are to be financed with money raised from the new tax, which Mr. Dion has pledged will all be returned to Canadians. Deficit financing is out, as Mr. Dion has taken to flaying Mr. Harper for going too far in reducing the surplus.

• A new $1.2-billion program to provide grants, bursaries and student loans to post-secondary students.
• A new endowment fund the party hopes will grow to $25 billion over 20 years, for addional loans and grants and to finance post-secondary research.
•$900 million over four years for a “catastrophic drug plan” to help people hit with the high cost of medication for  cancer, diabetes, arthritis and other illnesses.
• A $420 million four-year fisheries plan to retire commercial harvesting licences, offer rebates and incentives on investments in green technologies, and improve small craft harbours.
• Spend $575 million over four years for a home retrofit program to include up to $10,000 per household for insulation, weatherproofing and new heating systems, interest-free “green mortgage” loans up to $10,000 for major energy-saving home retrofits, and $140-million to help upgrade low-income housing.
• Spend an extra $250 million over four years to halt the spread of the mountain pine beetle.
• Include “military assault weapons” on the list of prohibited weapons.
• Reinstate the Court Challenges Program and double its funding to $6 million a year.
• Spend $50 million on “a more robust food safety net.”
• Create an independent “Commissioner for Gender Equality” to ensure federal legislation and policies “are examined with an equality lens.”
• Reverse the new Conservative immigration legislation and spend $800 million to reduce the immigration backlog.


New Democrats

This is the kind of game the NDP is good at. Jack Layton has the longest list of promises, mainly aimed at “hard-working Canadians” (people who don’t vote NDP are known to be lazy). It remains difficult to quantify the total cost of NDP pledges, because some are open-ended or impossible to cost.

• A new childcare network, with 150,000 spots in the first stage, to cost $1.45 billion in the first year.
• $100 million for an expanded job training scheme.
• $200 million a year to increase the number of doctors and nurses being trained by 50% apiece, and to forgive student loans for graduates willing to spend their first ten years in family medicine.
• New laws to require full disclosure of fees charged by banks, cell-phone operators and others, including “the unfair practice” of charging more for cell phone text messages.
• Ban ATM fees.
• Stop “price gouging” at the gas pumps.
• Cap interest rates and fees charged by “fringe banks”.
• Cap interest rates on credit cards.
• Introduce a cap and trade system on carbon emissions.
• Create a $750 million “green-collar” jobs fund.
• Provide almost $1 billion a year for public transport and a home retrofit program.
• Introduce “Canada Environment Action Bonds” to raise money for anti-emission programs.
• Halt new tar sands development until emissions are capped.
• Cancel corporate tax cuts introduced by Conservatives.
• Invest in low-emission vehicle production
• Create a “Jobs Commissioner” to investigate corporate shutdowns
• Introduce new “manufacturing-friendly” trade policies to keep jobs in Canada and adopt a Made-in-Canada procurement policy for the federal government and its agencies.

Kelly McParland
National Post

By my calculation the totals are:

• Conservatives: $1.217 Billion
• Liberals: $4.335 Billion
• NDP:  $2.5 Billion

Given that the projected surplus for 2008/09 is only $2.3 Billion and for 2009/10 $1.3 Billion it appears that:

• The Conservatives are flirting with a deficit – not good;

• The Liberals are promising deficits year after year after year – very, very bad and totally irresponsible; and

• The NDP are promising continual deficits – very bad.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is proof of Harper’s wisdom in being the sole face and voice of his government:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080917.writz0917/BNStory/politics/home

Easter calls for Ritz's resignation

BRIAN LAGHI

Globe and Mail Update
September 17, 2008 at 10:01 PM EDT

Saguenay, Que. — Liberal MP Wayne Easter called for the Agriculture Minister's resignation Wednesday after he heard about comments made by the minister making light of deaths attributed to the listeriosis crisis, including a PEI fatality he hoped was Mr. Easter.

The remarks were made in a conference call on Aug. 30 at the height of the listeriosis crisis, between Gerry Ritz and members of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Mr. Ritz joked during the call that the crisis was causing the government a death of a thousand cuts “or should I say the death of a thousand cold cuts.”

When informed that one fatality had taken place in Prince Edward Island, Mr. Ritz is reported to have said, “please tell me it's Wayne Easter.” Mr. Easter is the Liberal agriculture critic.

“I've already called for Mr. Ritz's resignation over his handling of the listeriosis outbreak and his failure to tell the truth to Canadians about the government's role in it,” said Mr. Easter in a statement released Wednesday night. “I could never imagine he would show this kind of insensitivity. This is just one more reason he needs to be dismissed.”

A spokesperson for Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said Wednesday that the minister made an apology by telephone to Mr. Easter and also apologized at a speech in Ottawa. Mr. Ritz said although he doesn't remember the exact words, the gist of the reports were correct.

“I made a couple of spur-of-the-moment offhand comments, in particular one about my official opposition critic,” Mr. Ritz was quoted by a prime ministerial official as saying at the rally.

“My comments were tasteless and completely inappropriate. I apologize unreservedly.”

Mr. Harper was told of the incident Wednesday night, but had not spoken to Mr. Ritz, said Kory Teneycke, a spokesperson for Mr. Harper.

When asked if Mr. Ritz would resign, Mr. Teneycke said: “A resignation was not offered and was not asked for.

“These comments were clearly inappropriate and we are pleased that the Minister of Agriculture has made an unreserved apology for those remarks and that he has also apologized directly to Mr. Easter,” he said.

A representative of the Prime Minister's Office was also on the phone call, but Mr. Teneyecke could not say who it was. He did say the prime minister only learned of the incident Wednesday and the PMO official had not reported the remarks.

Mr. Easter said Mr. Ritz's comments were insensitive.

“I don't care what he said about me, but 17 people have died. That is no joking matter,” said Mr. Easter.

NDP Leader Jack Layton also called for Mr. Ritz to be removed from his agriculture post and as a candidate for the Conservatives.

“The minister's comments are simply and utterly unacceptable,” Mr. Layton said.

So far, the deaths have been linked to the recall of food products from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto. There have been 14 deaths in Ontario, and one each in British Columbia, Alberta and New Brunswick.

Last week, the party's chief spokesman, Ryan Sparrow, was temporarily suspended from his job for questioning the motives of the father of a slain soldier in Afghanistan who had criticized Mr. Harper's Afghanistan policy. Mr. Sparrow had suggested that the man was a Liberal.

Mr. Teneycke said he made Mr. Harper aware of the incident before he spoke to a Conservative function here.

With reports from the Canadian Press

Gerry Ritz is not an idiot nor, in my (admittedly limited) experience with ministers, is his ‘humour’ much different from that of others, in other parties. But he forgot what ought to be a cardinal rule: Think before you speak!

The problem – for all parties – is Gotcha! journalism that is (usually) factual enough but distorts the facts to discredit the protagonist. Ritz is a ‘victim’ but, thus far in the campaign, I would say that Dion has suffered more than any other from this particular curse.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is good news!

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is a report on Canada/EU free trade negotiations:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080918.wtrade18/BNStory/International/home

Canada-EU trade proposal rivals scope of NAFTA
Plan to lift barriers for goods and labour to be discussed at summit after election

DOUG SAUNDERS

From Thursday's Globe and Mail
September 18, 2008 at 2:00 AM EDT

LONDON — Canadian and European officials say they plan to begin negotiating a massive agreement to integrate Canada's economy with the 27 nations of the European Union, with preliminary talks to be launched at an Oct. 17 summit in Montreal three days after the federal election.

Trade Minister Michael Fortier and his staff have been engaged for the past two months with EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and the representatives of European governments in an effort to begin what a senior EU official involved in the talks described in an interview yesterday as “deep economic integration negotiations.”

If successful, Canada would be the first developed nation to have open trade relations with the EU, which has completely open borders between its members but imposes steep trade and investment barriers on outsiders.

The proposed pact would far exceed the scope of older agreements such as NAFTA by encompassing not only unrestricted trade in goods, services and investment and the removal of tariffs, but also the free movement of skilled people and an open market in government services and procurement – which would require that Canadian governments allow European companies to bid as equals on government contracts for both goods and services and end the favouring of local or national providers of public-sector services.

Previous efforts to reach a trade pact with Europe have failed, most recently in 2005 with the collapse of the proposed Trade and Investment Enhancement Agreement.

But with the breakdown of World Trade Organization talks in July, European officials have become much more interested in opening a bilateral trade and economic integration deal with North America.

A pact with the United States would be politically impossible in Europe, senior European Commission officials said.

A newly completed study of the proposed deal, which European officials said Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided not to release until after the election, concludes that the pact would increase bilateral trade and investment by at least $40-billion a year, mainly in trade in services.

Ottawa officials say they have overcome what they see as their biggest hurdle: the resistance of provincial governments to an agreement that would force them to allow European corporations to provide their government services, if their bids are the lowest.

Although Ottawa's current list of foreign-policy priorities does not include European issues, European and Canadian officials say Mr. Harper has been heavily engaged with the proposed trade pact.

The two governments have completed a detailed study of the proposed agreement that will be unveiled shortly after the election, should the Conservatives win.

Both Ottawa and Brussels have had staff work on a draft text for a deal they had hoped would be introduced at a Canada-EU summit, to be attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Mr. Harper in Montreal on Oct. 17. France currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and Mr. Sarkozy has said that he hopes to make economic integration with Canada one of his accomplishments.

Last Wednesday, a top Ottawa trade official wrote to Mr. Mandelson to propose “the launch of comprehensive negotiations toward a closer economic partnership at the Canada-EU Leaders Summit, to be held on October 17,” and stressed that all 13 provincial and territorial governments had agreed to the proposed pact at a July 18 meeting in Quebec City.

Because of the election, Mr. Harper appears to have decided not to unveil a full text of the proposed agreement, but instead to use the summit to inaugurate the trade talks with the launch of a “scoping exercise” that will quickly set the goals of the pact and lead to formal “comprehensive trade and investment negotiations” to begin in “early 2009,” according to communications between senior Canadian and European officials examined by The Globe and Mail.

Proponents, including all of Canada's major business-lobby organizations, are in favour of the deal because it would open Canadian exporters to a market of 500 million people and allow the world's largest pool of investment capital into Canadian companies without restrictions.

Because Canada's fractious provinces have killed attempts at a trade pact in the past, Europe is demanding that Canada accept a more far-reaching agreement than Canada and Europe had attempted before, in an effort to win a stronger commitment, EU officials said.

Major “deal-breaker” conditions, officials said, include full agreement by all 10 provinces, especially on the issue of European companies providing government services, and what are known as “geographic indicators,” which forbid products such as champagne and feta cheese to be produced under those names outside their nations of origin. Controversially for Canada, this may soon be extended so only English producers can use the name cheddar on their cheese.

However, both sides agree that there is far more political will to negotiate a major deal, on both sides than there ever has been.

“I am far more optimistic this time than I've ever been in the past. … I feel very confident that we will be able to launch something on Oct. 17 that will give us a better chance than we've ever had before to get a full deal in place,” said Roy MacLaren, head of the Canada-Europe Round Table, a pro-trade business organization that has been heavily involved in the negotiations.

As a trade minister in the Jean Chrétien government and later as a diplomat, Mr. MacLaren was involved in several previous attempts at a Canada-EU pact.

A few points:

• The problem of the provinces – “Because Canada's fractious provinces have killed attempts at a trade pact in the past, Europe is demanding that Canada accept a more far-reaching agreement than Canada and Europe had attempted before ... Major “deal-breaker” conditions, officials said, include full agreement by all 10 provinces, especially on the issue of European companies providing government services, and what are known as “geographic indicators,” which forbid products such as champagne and feta cheese to be produced under those names outside their nations of origin.” – is very real. Canada is pretty much the most decentralized federal state in the modern world* and Canadian provinces have, in some respects, more power vis à vis the national government in Otawa than do sovereign EU members states vs the EU, proper, in Brussels.

• Free trade deals are just that: deals. When we want (or need) something and the other guy(s) want (maybe need) something too a ‘deal’ is always possible. The trick is to understand what they want. While I believe free trade is, in and of itself, always a good idea and, eventually, always serves the best interests of all parties, at the start (say the first ten to twenty years!) one side or the other may get screwed.

• I wish we had concurrent negotiations with China. It is always nice, in big league negotiations, to have ‘options:’ to be able to say, “Well, I would love to sign that deal, but my other negotiating partner is offering me ________  and he only wants _____ ___ in return. Can’t you get a bit closer to his position?” The problem is that negotiations at this level require large teams of highly skilled experts – especially when dealing with partners whose markets are 15 or 30 times the size of ours. We, a small country, have a limited supply of such experts and maybe one deal is all we can manage at one time, BUT Harper should, at least, have gone to Beijing and started head-of-government level discussions so that we could wave a possible Chinese deal at the Europeans. Harper’s China ‘policy’ hurts Canada.

All that being said, it is still good news!


--------------------
* That’s not how the Fathers of Confederation planned it; quite the contrary, in fact, they were very conscious of the problems that had (just recently) led the US to a bloody civil war and they wanted a strong central government. The ‘problem’ was that the civil servants who drafted the Constitution got the distribution of powers ‘wrong.’

But, I hope Stephen Harper will go even further on decentralization.

 

[YZT580]

Humour is often used as a means to try and deal with stress.  Controllers forever called the tristar "the swamp crawler" and a citation a Munson Burner as proof of that statement.  Unfortunately, when talked about afterwards, even the author can seldom find anything humourous in his remarks and such humour has probably ended more than one promising political career. I suspect that this will be the case here.  He has hung himself here, hoisted by his own petard. We will forgive his raiding the till (if he ever did-not an allegation at all), but never his attempt at humour  Hence the term 'gallows' humour, I suppose. 

 

[GAP]

Black Humor is exercised by most people (if they have a sense of humor), but the false indignation by the press and opposition is over the top....yeah, he was dumb to say the stuff, but isn't that what mouths are for.....to put feet in?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail are two items:

• A report by Jane Taber suggesting, as I have done, that the Liberals need to shift away from new, big, green carbon taxes and onto the Liberals’ perceived traditional strength: prudent, competent economic management; and

• A comment by Norman Spector suggesting that while that’s probably a good idea it will be very difficult because too many Canadians don’t trust Dion to be a traditional, economically conservative Liberal.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080917.welection-liberals18/BNStory/politics/home

Dion urged to use Liberal strategy of the past

JANE TABER

From Thursday's Globe and Mail
September 17, 2008 at 8:56 PM EDT

OTTAWA — Stéphane Dion is being urged by senior Liberals to shift his focus from his Green Shift plan and adopt the winning strategy of the 1993 Chrétien campaign that emphasized “jobs, jobs, jobs” and a strong Liberal team.

“It [the 1993 campaign that delivered a majority for Jean Chrétien's Liberals] basically focused the message on jobs and economic growth while discrediting the competence of the Conservatives,” said a veteran Liberal. “The question is, which team is better equipped to deal with the economic turndown?”

The Liberal says the Grit leader should be taking “ownership” of the economic file in the campaign for the Oct. 14 election, promoting the fact that the Chrétien Liberal government managed the economy with finesse and success.

Although Mr. Dion has recently been speaking more about the economy and the poor economic record of both the Mulroney and Harper Conservative governments, it is not clear that the message from some of his party strategists is getting through.

He is still emphasizing his environmental plan, which would tax carbon and shift the profits to tax cuts. That plan is complicated and difficult to sell to individual voters; some of his team members want him to stop talking about it in so much detail.

“We're still throwing a lot of pasta against the wall, hoping some of it sticks,” a senior Liberal strategist said. “We all keep trying. No decisions, though.”

Liberals are twitchy because Mr. Dion was not seen to have had a good first week of campaigning. The national team has been criticized for getting out of the gate slowly, for not having a coherent message or theme and for having trouble finding a plane. (The plane is now being repaired after it had to make an emergency landing in Montreal on Tuesday night.) Strategists were concerned Wednesday when Mr. Dion refused a couple of times to rule out allowing Ottawa to go into deficit if the economy were to tank while a Liberal government was in office. However, he backtracked later in the day, promising that a Liberal government would never cause a deficit.

The Chrétien/Martin team was always careful to make a no-deficit pledge.

In addition, Mr. Chrétien also emphasized in the 1993 campaign that he had a strong Liberal team – Paul Martin, André Ouellet, Lloyd Axworthy, Sheila Copps and Brian Tobin among them.

Mr. Dion began to campaign with his team members just this week, bringing foreign affairs critic Bob Rae to an event in Halifax on Tuesday.

Former hockey great and Toronto MP Ken Dryden was with him Wednesday, and deputy leader Michael Ignatieff is scheduled to campaign with Mr. Dion over the next few days.

But the economy is becoming the real issue for many Liberals as dire forecasts from the United States dominate the news.

As they go knocking on doors, candidates are finding some resonance from the economic message that the Liberals are the deficit-slayers and the record of the Tories is one of job losses and escalating debt.

Long-time Liberal MP and candidate Maurizio Bevilacqua says that he is reminding his constituents in Vaughan, Ont., that the Liberals are better equipped to deal with a faltering economy. He reminds them of the Chrétien/Martin Liberal record that balanced the budget and slew the deficit.

“Stéphane Dion was an important member of that cabinet that brought about an economic renaissance in Canada,” he says, adding that Mr. Dion should play up this strength.

Meanwhile, national campaign co-chair David Smith, a Liberal Senator and senior member of the campaign teams that delivered the Chrétien majorities, said Wednesday that the team strategy is beginning to develop this week. He said that candidates such as Mr. Rae needed the first week to organize their own campaigns before being able to go out with the leader.

“There will be an obvious showing of the depth and showing of our very strong team,” Mr. Smith said.

He said that he is encouraged by recent polls that indicate the Liberals are closing the gap between them and the Tories.

With a report from Campbell Clark

And:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/Spector

The perfect economic storm (for the Conservatives)

Norman Spector, today at 7:12 AM EDT

It's understandable, as Jane Taber reports this morning, that the Liberals would be looking to shift their campaign away from Green and onto “job, jobs, jobs.”

However, in the current context, they will have a tough time selling the message.

For one thing, it's clear from Canadian media coverage that “the worst financial crisis since the 1930s”—as the Wall Street Journal calls it this morning—is international in scope. Moreover, to date, Canadian financial institutions have been sailing through the storm relatively safely.

On a personal level, unemployment and inflation—the so-called misery index—are both low by historical standards. Canadians will be concerned about their prospects—and that concern will be mounting daily–but they have not yet felt much pain themselves.

If these trends continue, Canadians will be voting for the party and leader that can best secure their economic future when they enter the ballot box on October 14. With weak leadership numbers, an advanced degree in sociology and political science and the air of an absent-minded professor, that choice is unlikely to be Stéphane Dion.

IF, and we are only ⅓ of the way through his campaign, so it’s a Big IF, Harper can:

1. Keep the ballot question focused on leadership in difficult times; and
2. Keep Canadians convinced that he, not Dion, is the best leader;

Then Dion cannot seize the economic high ground and, most likely, Harper wins – maybe a majority.

Uncertainty, even fear, is a weapon for Harper because he is, at this time, perceived to be the best leader. But if Canadians become too fearful they may be enticed, by, say, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, back to the ‘safe,’ comfortable, trusted Liberals.

Harper needs to calm fears while stressing the uncertainty of the global situation – the one NOT of his making – and the need for firm, fiscally prudent leadership. He also needs to continue to bash Dion for fecklessness and poor leadership.

 

[YZT580]

My feigned indignation allows me to appear to be ever so superior since I haven't been caught yet.   But he did exercise a monumental lack of good judgement.  Gallows humour on an open line conference call is just sticking your chin out and daring someone to take a swing.  

The other half of this conversation has been dealing with election promises.  Dion promised that the Green thing would be revenue neutral.  Is this the same Dion that promised to pay off his election debt before September?  Just curious!

 

[GAP]

The is also a way for the European Block to gain access to ALL of North America's markets, without having to negotiate with the US

 

[Edward Campbell]

The is also a way for the European Block to gain access to ALL of North America's markets, without having to negotiate with the US

Not unless the US agrees - the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement has 'third country' rules designed to protect existing tariff arrangements. I think the same (similar, anyway) rules are in the NAFTA, too.

 

[Jed]

Exactly GAP, we should be able to forgive anyone of making the odd inappropriate comment. What truly irritates me is over the top, drama and indignation regurgitated by other leaders who routinely practice hypocrisy as they outline and defend their own campaign platform.

Pretty easy to see which side of the fence I am on eh? lol

 

[GAP]

Not unless the US agrees - the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement has 'third country' rules designed to protect existing tariff arrangements. I think the same (similar, anyway) rules are in the NAFTA, too.

Fair comment, but I can still envision a Canadian supplier importing a European product, repackaging enough to allow a stamp of "Made in Canada"....the European supplier may not be so tied to a brandname as it is to making a massive sale of it's product under a generic brand name.

 

[YZT580]

A report by Jane Taber suggesting, as I have done, that the Liberals need to shift away from new, big, green carbon taxes and onto the Liberals’ perceived traditional strength: prudent, competent economic management; and

Have I pulled a Rip Van Winkle or something.  Since when were the LIEberals traditionally prudent spenders?  Seems to me that, with all respect to Chretiens economic record, it was the Libs. that created the mess that required fiscal prudence in the first place.  While at the same time they were short changing the military, closing bases, selling assets and generally creating a 3rd world nation.  The spending notions of Dion are more in line with traditional policies.

 

[Edward Campbell]

A report by Jane Taber suggesting, as I have done, that the Liberals need to shift away from new, big, green carbon taxes and onto the Liberals’ perceived traditional strength: prudent, competent economic management; and

Have I pulled a Rip Van Winkle or something.  Since when were the LIEberals traditionally prudent spenders?  Seems to me that, with all respect to Chretiens economic record, it was the Libs. that created the mess that required fiscal prudence in the first place.  While at the same time they were short changing the military, closing bases, selling assets and generally creating a 3rd world nation.  The spending notions of Dion are more in line with traditional policies.

The operative word is "perceived". I think most Canadians give Chrétien/Martin full, albeit undeserved credit for correcting a decade of perceived Conservative mismanagement.

The inconvenient facts are:

• Canada did not cause the global recession in the ‘80s – not even Brian Mulroney did that;

• Mulroney and the Conservatives did not set us on course for ever increasing deficits – Trudeau did that in the ‘70s; and

• Mulroney and Wilson actually balanced the programme budget. They got a grip on spending BUT they were afraid, during a recession, to take the steps necessary to deal with the rest of the deficit – the interest on the national debt. Chrétien was not; he just transferred the problem to AB, BC and ON by, unilaterally, re-jigging the equalization system. Canadians still paid and paid and paid but the ‘blame’ was shifted to their provincial premiers and ‘Tit Jean and whatisname Martin and the Liberal Party got the credit.

But facts don’t really matter to Canadians. They perceive the Liberals to be good, prudent managers who were able to slay the deficit dragon.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Fair comment, but I can still envision a Canadian supplier importing a European product, repackaging enough to allow a stamp of "Made in Canada"....the European supplier may not be so tied to a brandname as it is to making a massive sale of it's product under a generic brand name.

I don’t think that’s such a bad idea.

Look at item 5 in this list.

We should craft a customs union – which is how the EU started – with the USA. Effectively we, Canada and the USA, would deal with all of the outside world’s products (goods and services) in exactly the same way: same rules of origin, same tariffs and so on. The Canada/US border ceases to exist in so far as goods and services are concerned and there is a new, common border surrounding both, together. We are, already, about 95% there.

I would go further and recommend that we, Canada and the USA, craft a variant of the Shengen Agreement and remove the restrictions to the movement of people between the two countries. This is a bit, but not much, more complex than dealing with goods and services because the US would have to agree to adopt some tougher Canadian standards – especially for tourist visas. (Our tourism lobby is not as powerful, or as irresponsible, as the American one that would like a gold card to be the only document needed to enter the USA.) But, we are, probably, about 90% there and a few billion dollars spent dealing with landed immigrants’ documentation (on both sides of the border) would be recouped in border savings in a very, very few years.

 

[Rodahn]

Gerry Ritz is not an idiot nor, in my (admittedly limited) experience with ministers, is his ‘humour’ much different from that of others, in other parties. But he forgot what ought to be a cardinal rule: Think before you speak!

The problem – for all parties – is Gotcha! journalism that is (usually) factual enough but distorts the facts to discredit the protagonist. Ritz is a ‘victim’ but, thus far in the campaign, I would say that Dion has suffered more than any other from this particular curse.

There could be more of a backlash than anticipated, as one of the persons who died was in Ritz's own riding, and the son is livid. Granted they are still investigating how the contamination affected the woman.

Link here:

http://start.shaw.ca/start/enCA/News/NationalNewsArticle.htm?src=n091861A.xml