Long time since the last post. I have been on vacation. Then I got a job - the director of a small news department in a college radio station.

My last post was on April 29th. Since then, a blue tide has washed over Canada, completely to the surprise of most pundits and commentators. The problem with Canadian politics is that everybody goes into an election with the idea that they know how things are going to turn out: that nothing ever changes, and that nothing interesting is likely to happen this time around.

Well.

So we have now four-and-a-half years of Conservative Majority government to look forward to, with an NDP opposition. As much as I was overjoyed to see the NDP break the 100 seat mark, I was in shock over the majority. I was also flabbergasted (I love this word) to see the Bloc Quebecois eliminated, and the liberals reduced by half.

I think it's important to remember that the liberals in many of the lost ridings didn't loose by all that much. Some places it amounted to about a couple hundred votes. One riding, it was something like four votes that determined the outcome. However, in this first past the post system, it doesn't really matter that it was four votes or four thousand. They still lost.

So Iggy is gone, and Bob Rae is in as Liberal interim leader. Maybe this should have happened much earlier. The received wisdom here in Ontario is that that would have been a suicide move by the Liberals, because everyone in Ontario remembers when he was premier in the early 90s. But I wonder if it really would have been that big a deal. He could not have been worse than Iggy. Rae kept his seat in the election, which is more than you can say for Ignatieff. For that matter, so did Stephane Dion.

Let's say this for Rae - he's a seasoned politician, and very able man. He has political baggage in Ontario from twenty years ago, but that doesn't necessarily write him off as a leader. 

Now the Liberals are pissed that the NDP are evicting Ralph Goodale from his office in the centre block of parliament. Which means that they've been reduced to playing musical chairs, and being sore losers at it to boot.

To change subjects, I'm dismayed at the Harper majority. I am not looking forward to what he has planned for the next four years. While he said that he wasn't going to touch gay marriage or rights of women, I say all bets are off. He has a majority in the house and the senate (yes, that matters now), so he can basically do whatever he likes.

Sun TV smears Layton

Do you remember that Sun Media released a TV news channel lately? No? Don't worry about it. Apparently only 4000 people actually watched it the week after it launched. What a disappointment.

Sun TV might make hay on the latest story they released about Jack Layton. According to an anonymous former cop, Layton was found naked inside a massage parlour by the police in 1996, yet he wasn't convicted of anything or investigated. This little story has gone nation-wide pretty quickly. The NDP are calling it a smear campaign, and are threatening to sue Sun media.

Muckraking is a great technique for a flagging news channel.  You pillory a politician, and you rake in the viewers. There are some problems with this of course, namely the anonymous source. While it's a well respected tradition in journalism to expose politicians and institutions through the use of the anonymous source, it's not always reliable. Also, you can't protect anonymous sources in this country. If a story causes a libel suit, the journalist usually has to reveal their anonymous sources, unless they can prove to the court good reasons for protecting them.

I won't argue that they have made up the whole story -- no one in the NDP camp is calling it a fabrication -- but it does seem like a timely smear campaign. Suspiciously timely. Considering that the links between Sun TV and the Prime Minister seem to go back a fair way -- the station is run by Harper's former top aide -- and with the NDP's recent surge in the polls which puts them a not-so-distant second behind the Tories, it looks like Tory sabotage. Or maybe it's the Liberals, who have been relegated to third place. Either way it looks nasty.

With three days to the election, the question is whether this scandal is going to make a difference; Is anyone going to care about an alleged indiscretion from the 90s? These scandals come with an expiry date on them, and I think it shows desperation that they couldn't come up with something a little more recent.

But good for Sun TV! You're well on your way to being "Fox News North." Keep muckraking your way to relevance!

last week of election.

School ate me alive two weeks ago, and I have just managed to crawl out from under it. To all five people who read this blog, I apologize for my absence.

It's unfortunate too, because a lot has happened in the last two weeks. I left you people at the English language leaders debate. I regret to say I missed the french language debate. Every time, I intend on seeing it, and I just don't. Probably because everyone who is not a French-speaking Quebecker is not remotely interested in it.

People should not have been so damn snotty about it; turns out, it could be the watershed moment of the election. Apparently, Jack Layton of the NDP really pulled a fast one on Duceppe, and has been winning support in Quebec ever since. Approval ratings of the NDP nationally are at 30% according to one poll, which compares favorably to the Tory  ratings of 35%.

Well so what? Firstly, this is a crushing humiliation to the Liberals, who for all their posing for being the only real alternative to the conservatives haven't managed to really set fire to the average Canadian's imagination. I feel bad for Ignatieff.

Secondly, this is a rebuke to both the Conservatives and Liberals for running such unimaginative campaigns in Quebec. I think both parties had written this province off as the territory of the Bloc Quebecois, and the  NDP success who that this is not altogether true.

Thirdly, it shows that you can experience success at a national level with a likeable party leader. This seems obvious, but the other parties have forgotten this. It might not be fair to judge a party by its leader, but I think this lack of connection between party leaders and the public explains why Harper's Tories are still begging for a majority five years after coming into power, and why the Liberals are being relegated to also-ran position.

Layton, unlike the other leaders, does not come off as either a doughy sociopathic man-child or ivy tower ex-aristocrat. Disagree with his politics all you like, but he looks like an approachable and hardworking kinda guy. Someone you could have a coffee and a donut with, someone you could form a connection with. 

Plus he looks like Popeye, which should play well with the voters. 

I feel I should say something in favour of the other parties to at least keep up the pretense of non-partisanship, but hell, it's my blog. So I'll be honest: as an NDP supporter, I'm pretty excited by this.

But I'm going to try and reign in my hopes. There's five days left to campaign in, and that's a long time in politics.

Post debate post

Strange stuff going on with the press conference with Jack Layton. Some random man in front of the press gallary shouted out "Why do you go to the debates, each time you lose?" Layton gave a pretty glib answer, which I won't go into detail about. The interesting thing was, the man who shouted out the question -- an Indian man in a dapper suit posting on his blackberry -- wasn't recording anything with a camera or sound recorder. Maybe he had a cameraman somewhere in the audience, but I think that man is a conservative staffer stirring the pot.

Last question

The last question is... too complicated for me. It's something about health care, but I honestly can't get the bearing of it.

Over here, the fact that Harper is not wearing his wedding ring is upstaging what the debate is about. Strange. We saw him walk up to the debate with the wife. Kinda reminds me about all those rumours that were going around about that marriage being over in December.

But apparently, there's nothing to it. The issue came up last election. He has a sensitivity to metals so he doesn't wear one. I buy that.


I'm not getting much out of this debate question to be honest. Iggy is pushing his family health plan.
Finally the moderator asks them how they're going to fund their health care plan. Harper's answer I didn't catch. Layton attacked Harper's plan. Iggy said raise corporate tax rates. Duceppe mentioned oil companies.

And the debate closed without any mention of the Afghan detainees, or the alleged human rights abuse in the g20. Can't really say who won. It was mostly the three opposition leaders trying to drag Harper down. But Harper wasn't in a debate, he was in a PR event, providing soundbites about the economy when he was under duress. It was smooth, sure, but I think it looked like he was avoiding the question. He was  on the defense for the whole evening, and it looked like he couldn't answer any of the questions honestly

It doesn't really change my opinion about any of the leaders, but I think Ignatieff won my respect a little this evening. Question is, how much did that change Canadian's opinions?

Fifth Question -"#fail"?

Skipped the fourth question. So sue me.

Ignatieff and Duceppe have been asked a question about the gun registry. This is not going to be a debate. This is going to be both of them slagging on Harper for six minutes.

Debate season is refreshing. All of the political dirty laundry gets aired. So far, we've covered the senate, the climate change bill, losing the UN security seat to Portugal the G20, and now the gun registry. Let's not talk about the economy, which has been brought up too many times.  If we can mention the Afghan detainee scandal and the mega jails. before 9:00, I think we've covered all our bases.


In reaction to the gun registry, Harper is falling back to his tough on crime platform. Well, it's better than hearing "We're pulling out of the recession before anyone else, our economy is the strongest in the world" and such hyperbole.

Layton just said that one of Harper's policies was a "hashtag-fail". Awesome!

Third Question

"Mr Harper, you haven't earned the trust of the Canadian people, because you don't trust the Canadian people." That was Ignatieff referring to the UWO student kicked out of Harper's meeting. "This is not strong leadership."

Harper will not look at the other candidates, even when he is answering their questions. He's talking to  the camera.

"You keep talking about parliament like it's some sort of debating society that doesn't matter. Well it isn't - it's the Parliament of the Canadian people!" and "It's time you showed respect for the basic institutions of the country."

Whenever Harper gets into trouble, he talks about the economy. He's totally in denial. My colleges watching the debate have suggested a drinking game where every time Harper talks about the economy, you take a drink. If they were drinking, I think everyone will get absolutely pissed by the end of the first half of the debate.

Layton has just dropped the first hint that he might be open to a coalition. Kinda sounds sleazy when he says it like that.

Now the debate has turned into how parties form government. This part is boring. Hey! he mentioned the Economy again! We can drink!