The 2008 Canadian Election- Merged Thread

[JBG]

We’re not going to get anything like “least bad” with Dion’s Green Shaft Shift; it is not that a carbon tax is bad, it is that the whole Liberal plan is designed to raise even more money to spend on programmes that too few of us need and only some of us even want.

It is just plain poor public policy.

You mean $1000 CDN Canadian flags in Quebec (with $200 to the LPC) isn't something that most people want?

 

[Rodahn]

Well on my way home from work today, I took a round about route, and noticed a grand total of 1 Conservative, 4 NDP,  and 0 Liberal signs. This in a riding that during the last election voted for a Liberal candidate, who had previously been a Reform party member. I'd personally hate to be represented by the party who's leader is Taliban Jack, especially considering CFB Esquimalt is within the riding.

 

[Edward Campbell]

There appear to be problems within the Dion campaign team, according to this article reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080915.welectionliberals16/BNStory/politics

Insiders hint at unrest in Liberal ranks

JANE TABER

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
September 15, 2008 at 10:28 PM EDT

OTTAWA — Stéphane Dion's Liberals are becoming frustrated over their lacklustre start in the election campaign, a lack of coherent message and theme and confusion as to who is in charge.

As the Liberal Leader begins his second full week of campaigning, one veteran MP said there is “a lot of soul-searching right now about what the Liberal Party did” in choosing Mr. Dion as leader.

“Everybody looks in the mirror all of a sudden at a potential disaster and then they start saying, ‘could they have made a better choice to make it easier for themselves,' ” the MP said. “But I am sure there are some members who are actually pinching themselves …”

However, there is no sense yet of “any kind of mutiny,” said the MP, adding, however, that Mr. Dion “needs to refocus or recalibrate.”

Last week, when the Tories were making gaffes – communications director Ryan Sparrow was fired over an inappropriate statement – life on the campaign trail wasn't going well for the Grits either. Mr. Dion has yet to “get some traction with the public,” a source said.

Significant, however, is the fact that senior campaign strategists, including campaign director Gordon Ashworth and party pollster Michael Marzolini, are being marginalized, according to an inside source.

Their advice is not being heeded. “Nothing [Mr. Marzolini] has done has had any affect,” the source said.

It seems, too, that Mr. Dion and his chief of staff, Johanne Senecal, are calling the shots on the campaign, said the source: “She's sending the directives on the campaign because everything is being determined by him as far as we can tell.”

As well, the Liberals were slow in getting out television ads, ceding that ground to the Tories and allowing them to define Mr. Dion's leadership, because the leader vetoed ads that were to be broadcast last week. An English-language ad came out Monday that looks at the Green Shift plan and tries to contrast Mr. Dion's leadership with that of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

“The ads were rejigged to suit the leader's preferences,” according to a well-placed source. “No leader has ever vetted his own ads.” Element Agency, a firm in Vancouver, is the Liberal ad company.

Meanwhile, the main complaint from senior Liberals is that the campaign has no coherent theme: “They don't seem to see one there. They are seeing very random and non-planned [events] …,” the well-placed source said.

Some eyebrows were raised among senior Liberals, including some MPs, over the way the tour and events were conducted last week.

Why, they wondered, did Mr. Dion go to a high school in Walkerton, Ont., to talk to about 600 students – only a handful of whom could vote – about meat inspection? There was also some confusion about the point of a roundtable discussion of female candidates in Streetsville, Ont. The candidates, some of whom were incumbents, listened to Mr. Dion extol the virtues of female MPs and then spoke around the table to each other, not taking questions.

“It was kind of bizarre,” said a Liberal who attended the event. “I never understood who dreamed that concept up. He [Mr. Dion] didn't really have an announcement. I didn't understand what our messaging was.”

The other issue revolves around the communication of the main Dion platform piece – his Green Shift plan to put a tax on carbon fuels and shift the revenue to tax cuts for Canadians.

Some candidates and their volunteers are having trouble explaining the program at the door. One campaign worker said that the national campaign has not supplied any materials to help, such as brochures, buttons and talking points.

Sources say that Mr. Marzolini spoke about the problems with communicating the plan at the recent caucus meeting in Winnipeg. He said, according to the sources, to simply wave it and say that “this is our plan” but not to read from it, as Mr. Dion has done at some events.

“You wave it. You don't read from it, you don't refer to it,” said the source about what the pollster told the national Liberal caucus. “You wave it and say, ‘This is our plan, we have a plan, we've got the people, we can make a difference. ... I share your values, I share your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations …' ”

It's not surprising that among some Liberals this week there is sense of “resignation to do our best,” says the well-placed source. Others say candidates are concentrating on their ridings and their own campaigns as opposed to worrying about the national campaign.

And Liberals are putting many of their hopes on a stand-out performance by Mr. Dion at the October leadership debates, sources say.

But one veteran Liberal MP said it's simply too early in the campaign to write off Mr. Dion and the party. The immigration policy announced on Saturday is playing well in various communities, the MP said.

As well, there is a sense that the Harper Tories are peaking too early.

“There is only one way to go, down. And down he [Mr. Harper] will go,” the MP said.

This stands in sharp contrast with Harper’s organization and, despite the puffins and Mr. Sparrow, disciplined Tory and NDP campaigns.

I heard/saw David Herle (former manager of the 2004 Liberal (Paul Martin) election campaign) on just this topic. He said, roughly: Pri 1 is to stop the bleeding – admit (privately, within the party) that there is a problem, make real changes (in staff and direction) to address the problems; and Pri 2 is to get back into the fight, with the ‘new’ plan, message, team etc. I wonder if he was using the TV news to ask for a job.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is Jeffrey Simpson’s take on the impact of the Wall Street crisis on Canada and the current election:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080915.wcosimp16/BNStory/specialComment/?query=

There is no shelter for Canada from the gathering economic storm

JEFFREY SIMPSON

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
September 16, 2008 at 12:17 AM EDT

The strange and frightening Bush years are coming to a close, appropriately enough, with the twin warnings of intensified hurricanes and stock-market meltdown.

More and stronger hurricanes are what scientific experts have predicted for some years now, as the climate warms and weather patterns change. The market meltdown is what critics of U.S. financial systems and fiscal exuberance have been warning about, to little avail.

Through George W. Bush's years, the administration derided climate change, and forestalled national policies because the President argued he did not want to harm the U.S. economy, as if New Orleans and now Houston do not offer glimpses of economic costs. In those same years, deficits and debts piled up and the answer to them was always the same: lower taxes.

The Bush years, in these and other policy areas, featured denial mixed with certainty, problems papered over with patriotism, ideology trumping careful reasoning, blind faith over rational discourse. And what a mess the new president will inherit.

All through these years, Americans consumed more than they produced, borrowed beyond their assets, paid for wars with borrowed money, went deeper into personal and collective debt. They are now confronted by two presidential candidates who want to cut taxes further.

There is little less useful for Canadians than to flaunt moral superiority toward the U.S., but it is verifiable fact that during the Bush years, our governments tended to their knitting.

By the time Mr. Bush arrived in office, the U.S. and Canadian national budgets were in surplus; in Canada, courtesy of the Chrétien-Martin governments. The Canadian government has since run surpluses and debt has been reduced, while the U.S. government has run deficits, and debt has skyrocketed.

It is cold comfort, however, that this tidy management cannot entirely shelter Canadians from the storms, literal and figurative, south of the border. Our economies are too integrated, our financial systems too entwined, our energy systems too interlocked for safe refuge.

More difficult still is the apparent unwillingness or inability of Canadians, and elected leaders, to focus on their country's economic fundamentals, in addition to its fiscal ones.

Gross domestic product declined in the first quarter by 0.8 per cent and grew by only 0.3 per cent in the second. About 40,000 jobs were shed over the summer. Worse, already weak productivity went in the tank: down 0.2 per cent in the second quarter after declines of 0.6 per cent in each of the previous two quarters. Statistics Canada reports that this is the "longest series of consecutive quarterly declines since 1990."

What hid these doleful figures somewhat were high prices for oil and other commodities. When these slide, especially the oil price, the stock market takes an additional hit, and Canadians face the reality that theirs is a commodity-dependent economy, despite all the rhetoric from governments that suggest otherwise.

Thus far in the campaign, the parties' debate about hitting the economic skids, and the long-term challenges, is woefully inadequate.

The NDP, perhaps predictably, is promising new funds for "green" industries, picking industrial winners, and otherwise injecting the government into business. All of this spending is to be paid for by eliminating (wait for the ideology) "unproductive," "untargeted," "fiscally irresponsible" corporate tax cuts.

Somebody should tell Jack Layton that the single fastest way of killing the very jobs he wants to create is to raise corporate taxes when companies are struggling with lower-taxed jurisdictions in the U.S., Scandinavia (where corporate taxes are low and personal income taxes high) and Asia. Capital is mobile, as almost every country in the world understands, including those run by social democratic governments.

The Liberals are also tempted by dreams of an "industrial policy." They want to inject money here and there without addressing the underlying keys to productivity improvements.

And the Conservatives claim to be interested in these issues, but then do really stupid things for competitiveness such as cutting the GST instead of income and corporate taxes, offering itsy-bitsy tax breaks to selected political groups and forking over billions to the provinces to solve the imaginary "fiscal imbalance."

Simpson’s ‘litany of sins’ (”Americans consumed more than they produced, borrowed beyond their assets, paid for wars with borrowed money, went deeper into personal and collective debt”) parallels DeCoet’s which I quoted here.

Simpson quotes GDP figures as though they actually mean something, in and of themselves. They do not - not unless they are read as part of a table showing other countries’ GDP, all measured over time so that we can see and compare trends. Dion also likes to quote GDP figures – they are equally meaningless when he does so. He’s not even scaring anyone.

Simpson's advice to the three real party leaders is mixed. He’s right: Jack Layton’s proposal to increase corporate taxes will destroy jobs and hurt ordinary Canadians. He’s right, injecting money without addressing some of the underlying productivity issues (most cannot be addressed by governments), as Dion proposes, is also a bad idea. And he’s right: the Conservatives are playing politics with taxes rather than helping the country. But what does he think they should propose? Simpson is usually full of ideas, but not today - maybe he doesn't understand the problem, either.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Maybe Dion (and/or his team) is finally getting things right.

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is an article that says he’s finally getting off the Green Shaft Shift and talking about economic management:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080916.welexndioneconomy0916/BNStory/Front

Dion shifts focus to the economy

CAMPBELL CLARK

Globe and Mail Update
September 16, 2008 at 2:24 PM EDT

HALIFAX — Stéphane Dion' catch-phrase has long been that his policies are “good for the planet, and good for your wallet, too.” Now, there's much more emphasis on the wallet.

With a U.S. financial crisis walloping stock markets and recession fears rising sharply, Mr. Dion is hitting hard at Stephen Harper's economic record, and invoking the Liberal brand to argued that the deficit-cutting records of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin show that his party knows better.

The Liberal Leader has moved to try to knock back confidence in Stephen Harper's ability to manage the economy, as his campaign has clearly decided that the Conservatives cannot be allowed to enjoy an advantage on that issue when economic turbulence is dominating front pages.

It has so far been Stephen Harper's issue, and the Liberals are hoping to take it away. Polls have repeatedly indicated that more Canadians pick Mr. Harper as the leader who can steer the economy in uncertain times – and Mr. Harper has framed the campaign around that issue, painting Mr. Dion and his Green Shift as “risky.”

At a lunchtime rally in Halifax, Mr. Dion attacked Mr. Harper for his economic performance, telling the crowd of about 150 Liberals that in the first half of 2008, Canada has had the worst economic performance in the G8, and since 1991. He led the crowd through a series of economic indicators, like growth and July job losses that hit their lowest level since the early 1990s, prompting a refrain.

“Since?” Mr. Dion asked.

“Brian Mulroney!” the crowd chanted.

His rally speech focused not on climate-change, but rather on how his proposals like tax breaks for energy-saving home renovations would save people money on rising fuel costs, at the same time as it offers income-tax breaks.

He scoffed at Mr. Harper's proposal to cut diesel fuel taxes by two cents a litre, four years from now, as “inconsequential” and portrayed the Conservative Leader's stay-the-course appeal as denial.

“We know where the Harper course has taken us. Our economy has hit a brick wall. So when Stephen Harper continues to say, everything is fine, to sing the old song, ‘Don't Worry, Be Happy, there is no bloodshed yet, he is ignoring what we all know. That the tough times are already here,” he told the Halifax rally.

“Either he is trying to mislead Canadians to get their vote, or he does not understand the Canadian economy. That he doesn't have what it takes to be prime minister in tough economic times.”

Mr. Dion's new lines were designed as an attempt to use the Liberal brand as deficit cutters – he called for a plan with the “iron-clad fiscal discipline that we inherited from Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin” – to overcome the advantage that polls show Mr. Harper has as an economic leader. And clearly to bloody Mr. Harper's economic image, too.

“Stephen Harper has no plan for the future and a record that is clear: economic growth down, productivity down, inflation up, job losses up. But most important, when it comes to the prime minister himself, credibility down, confidence down,” Mr. Dion said.

He added later: “We are the party that eliminated the deficit. We are the party that gave you surpluses. We are the party that will create jobs, jobs, jobs. We will create green, green jobs.”

For Mr. Dion, it was supposed to be a day that focused on health care.

At Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax, he announced a basic national pharmacare program that would pay for the high-cost drugs for chronic and critical illnesses like kidney cancer or multiple sclerosis.

That program, pegged at a cost of $900-million over four years, is aimed mainly at Atlantic Canada, because most provinces outside the region already have such drug coverage, and would get money instead.

But the economic turmoil has caused him to veer towards a focus on the economy, changing even the emphasis in his explanations of his “Green Shift” plan to cut income taxes but raise levies on carbon fuels.

Now his focus is more on the income-tax breaks and credits that middle and low income Canadians would receive – arguing that Canadians who receive more take-home pay and help in cutting their energy bills will be better off, even if his extra carbon fuel taxes would make most people pay, by his estimate, “$1 a day more” on energy bills.

Mr. Dion has faced repeated criticisms about whether he can sell that plan – and as they slide in the polls, Liberals have grumbled about his performance, and his campaign.

In a feisty mood this morning, Mr. Dion said he will ignore published criticisms of his leadership and campaign from unnamed Liberals.

“Anonymous sources don't interest me. It's never stopped me in politics,” Mr. Dion said.

He added: “I do nothing with that. And I never did. When I did the Clarity Act, I had a lot of anonymous sources against me. When I saved the Kyoto protocol I had a lot of anonymous sources against me – a lot,” he said.

This week, senior Liberals who contested the 2006 leadership race against Mr. Dion are being brought onto the leader's tour to emphasize the team the Liberals hope to sell to Canadians – and to contrast that with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's control of power in his hands.

Yesterday, Bob Rae, the former Ontario premier and Toronto MP who would be widely expected to run for the leadership if Mr. Dion fails in this campaign, joined the Liberal leader's tour in Halifax to campaign with him – and went out of his way to express his support for Mr. Dion.

“I am tremendously proud of our leader, Stéphane Dion. I'm tremendously proud of the campaign that we're running,” he said.

But while Mr. Dion connected with the enthusiastic crowd at his lunchtime rally in Halifax, his performance still lacked the easy flash of Mr. Rae's introduction, who skewered Mr. Harper to the delight of the crowd.

Mr. Rae blasted Mr. Harper for breaking his law on fixed election dates, saying he can now not be believed on his withdrawal date for Afghanistan.

He accused Mr. Harper of appearing on TV in a sweater to try to lull Canadians into believing he called a snap election to get another minority government, when he's trying to “dupe” them into giving him a majority.

“There's something about the way Mr. Harper looks at us on television and says things about income trusts and says things about fixed elections, and we know they're not true. And we have what's called the Little Red Riding Hood factor at work. As we look at Mr. Harper and we instinctively say, ‘Granma! What big teeth you have.'”

Dion needs to remind Canadians that:

• They actually dislike and mistrust Stephen Harper – even if they do respect him;

• Dion is rooted in the Chrétien/Martin ‘team’ that Canadians liked and to which Canadians give considerable credit for good economic management – even if monkeys on marijuana could have managed the Canadian economy almost as well through the '95-'05 decade.

He also needs to stop ‘selling’ himself and his Green Shaft Shift and start selling the respected, trusted Liberal brand and the better liked Liberal team.

Even if he does that he is still going to have an uphill struggle to unseat Harper but he will have a very good chance of returning Harper with a smaller, less tenable minority and then winning in late fall 2009 or spring 2010.

 

[Edward Campbell]

There are three new polls, here (Ekos) (Cons = 38%, Libs = 23%), here, Harris-Decima (Cons = 38, Libs = 27%), and here, Nanos (Cons = 38%, Libs = 31%).

All three have the Conservatives at 38% but they have quite different figures (an 8% spread – 23% to 31%) for the Liberals .

The Ekos people go so far as to make seat projects; a mug’s game, I think, but here is their guesstimate:

EKOS’ SEAT PROJECTION
EKOS ELECTION.COM – September 2008

[OTTAWA – September 16, 2008] A seat projection based on the latest EKOS rolling poll shows the Conservatives now clearly in majority territory. Although the 38% support that the Conservatives enjoy in the most recent EKOS poll is low by historical standards to produce a majority, in the current configuration of party support, with the opposition split four ways, the Tories benefit.

According to this projection, the New Democrats are near to pulling abreast with the Bloc Québécois as the third largest party in Parliament, and are also closing on the Liberals.

The projection is done using a model that takes into consideration both the mathematical impacts of regional splits in party support and historic patterns.

A seat projection of this kind is not a prediction of the election outcome, certainly not this early in the race. Moreover, the model suggests that the margin of victory in 62 seats – roughly 20% of the total – is currently less than five percentage points.

What this seat projection does do is serve as a guide to what Parliament might look like if the vote split this way on election day.

BQ: 44
Conservatives: 161
Green: 0
Liberals: 65
NDP: 38

A note on our methodology:

This seat projection is based on the results of a recent poll conducted using Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator.

Taking our three-day rolling sample (September 13-15) of 2,848 decided voters (including leaning) from across Canada, we have run them through a model that takes into account both the special arithmetic of our first-past-the-post system, and the parties’ historical patterns of support.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Well, I do think that Ekos got the Green Party seat numbers about right 

 

[Edward Campbell]

I don’t, normally, agree with very much that Jeffrey Simpson says about foreign policy, although I do respect his knowledge of Canadian politics and his firm grip on the Ontario position. These are normal times, despite the election.

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is Simpson’s most recent column in which he whinges about a lack of foreign policy debate:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080916.wcosimp17/BNStory/specialComment/home

In election 2008, as in 2006, the world just doesn't exist

JEFFREY SIMPSON

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
September 17, 2008 at 1:22 AM EDT

There's a big, wonderful, dangerous world out there. You'd never know it from Canada's election campaign.

Canada's parochial political leaders spent the entire 2006 campaign never once talking about international affairs. And it looks as if this campaign will be a repeat of the last one: The world just doesn't exist. The politicians don't talk about it, the media don't ask about it and the public doesn't seem to care. All this in a country that wallows in the bookstore-chain motto: The World Needs More Canada.

Afghanistan might have provided fodder for a debate, at least between the Conservatives and Liberals. (The NDP favours an immediate pullout and negotiations with the Taliban, assuming they could be found and wanted to talk.) But the two parties agreed to a pre-election compromise, and now Prime Minister Stephen Harper has closed off any possibility of Canada's remaining in Kandahar after 2011. Since the Liberals agree with this position, no debate will happen.

When Canada does pull out, where will the withdrawal leave Mr. Harper's already threadbare boast about Canada's being back as a real force in the world?

The only tangible commitment underpinning that boast was the Kandahar commitment. Now the world knows Canada is pulling out, leaving its soldiers in a dead-end mission, our allies perplexed and the boast even sillier than before. Silly, because the record of the government's foreign policy has been much longer on image than substance.

It used to be that when Canada wanted a seat at the United Nations Security Council, the country worked at getting one and always succeeded. Now, however, this government's policies make winning a seat touch and go, at best.

The government's one-sided approach to the Middle East has cost Canada support in the Muslim world. The stick-in-the-eye policy on China has frozen us out with the emerging superpower. The refusal to support the desire of Japan, India and Brazil for Security Council seats has irritated them. The indifference toward Africa has been widely noted on that continent.

Okay, so maybe being on the Security Council is overrated - although tell that to the Australians and others who are campaigning hard for a seat. What about the world's most important countries?

By embarrassing Barack Obama with leaks about NAFTA, and deliberately absenting himself from Ottawa when John McCain came, Mr. Harper succeeded in annoying both presidential candidates. By refusing to attend the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing and by generally giving China the cold shoulder, his government has left Chinese relations in the cooler.

Serious trade agreements have been few and far between. As usual, Canada was unhelpful in world trade talks, because it defended to the end the stupendously high tariff walls around supply management in agriculture.

On aid, as on trade, the accomplishments have been steady increases largely committed to by the previous government.

On climate change, a huge international issue, foreign governments have already seen through Canada's hypocrisy. The Harper government is parading around a 20-per-cent reduction target by 2020 for Canada that every independent group in the country says will not be achieved and that foreign governments agree will not be reached if Alberta's emissions grow by 20 per cent.

Mr. Harper burned through Peter MacKay and the hapless Maxime Bernier as foreign affairs ministers, then unfortunately lost to retirement David Emerson, who had the intellectual ability to do the job. Ask this question now: Which Conservative minister or MP by training, interest and experience could be foreign affairs minister? Answer: None.

The New Democrats are scary on foreign policy. They have almost no one with a rounded view of the world and international experience, and who is untainted by the visceral anti-Americanism and anti-Israel attitudes so deeply rooted in the party and much of the Canadian left.

The Liberals actually do have some people with a lot of international experience, although not their leader. Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff are internationalists, and MP Bryon Wilfert knows Asia.

But the Liberals don't talk much about foreign affairs, either, perhaps because they're searching for coherence or, more likely, because they understand that, in Canadian election campaigns, all politics is parochial.

Let me deal with Simpson’s whinges, with a few of which I do agree, in some (small) part:

• “Afghanistan might have provided fodder for a debate” – yes, and it might have been a useful debate IF anyone in either Dion’s or Harper’s teams had anything new or insightful to say. They don’t – as far as I can see;

• “It used to be that when Canada wanted a seat at the United Nations Security Council” – true and, apparently, we now care less about the place. Now that IS fodder for a good debate because the parties, I think have different views, BUT I doubt anyone in either the Conservative of Liberal Parties thinks the debate will attract any interest amongst Canadians;

• “The government's one-sided approach to the Middle East has cost Canada support in the Muslim world” – probably true but here is an un-stated assumption that we had Muslim support for e.g. a UNSC election. I’m not at all sure that’s true;

• “The stick-in-the-eye policy on China has frozen us out with the emerging superpower” – yes, true, and it is a bad policy (albeit it’s good politics with the ‘base’) and the Conservatives’ feet should be held to the fire on it, BUT, few Canadians know or care;

• “The refusal to support the desire of Japan, India and Brazil for Security Council seats has irritated them” – yes, it probably has, but what’s in it for us? Not much;

• “The indifference toward Africa has been widely noted on that continent” – hu-hum, BUT see here. Africa will matter, again, but not in anything like the way Simpson hopes;

• “By embarrassing Barack Obama with leaks about NAFTA, and deliberately absenting himself from Ottawa when John McCain came, Mr. Harper succeeded in annoying both presidential candidates” – highly unlikely, despite being overplayed in the Canadian media it is forgotten;

• “By refusing to attend the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing and by generally giving China the cold shoulder, his government has left Chinese relations in the cooler” – yes, but see above, ’asked and answered’ as the lawyers say on TV. This appears to be Simpson ‘padding’ his thesis;

• “Serious trade agreements have been few and far between” – agreed and, again, it is poor policy for which the Conservatives should be made to answer. BUT there are so many protectionists in the Liberal Party that it’s not gonna happen;

• “As usual, Canada was unhelpful in world trade talks, because it defended to the end the stupendously high tariff walls around supply management in agriculture” – yes, indeed, BUT see here. No one in Canada, especially not the Liberals, is going to argue for good public policy or the national interest on this issue;

• “On aid, as on trade, the accomplishments have been steady increases largely committed to by the previous government”  if this even made sense it would still be partisan rubbish!

• “On climate change, a huge international issue, foreign governments have already seen through Canada's hypocrisy” – yes, indeed, and we have seen through theirs, too. Who amongst the OECD countries, I wonder, does Simpson think will keep heir Kyoto promises?

• “Which Conservative minister or MP by training, interest and experience could be foreign affairs minister? Answer: None” – arrant, partisan nonsense!

• “The New Democrats are scary on foreign policy” – true;

• “The Liberals actually do have some people with a lot of international experience, although not their leader” – true, but it s just as highly partisan and nonsensical as his comment about the Conservatives having “None.” It is nonsense and Simpson does nothing but tell us that he doesn’t much like Conservatives and worships Liberals; and

• “But the Liberals don't talk much about foreign affairs, either, perhaps because they're searching for coherence or, more likely, because they understand that, in Canadian election campaigns, all politics is parochial” – yes, agreed. So, what, besides slagging Stephan Harper and providing free advertising for the Liberals, was the point of the column?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail are some pertinent question, about one of the real issues, from historian Jack Granatstein:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080916.wcodefence17/BNStory/specialComment/home

There's no life like it? Tell us more, Mr. Harper

J.L. GRANATSTEIN

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
September 17, 2008 at 1:22 AM EDT

Canadian defence specialists generally agree that Stephen Harper's Conservatives have built on the Paul Martin government's budgetary and planning foundation to improve the condition and capabilities of the Canadian Forces. But there are still questions that need to be asked of Mr. Harper, not least because he seems to be on the cusp of a majority government.

The first questions concern defence procurement. The government did well in acquiring four C-17 Globemaster transports, the huge aircraft that can move mountains. But it has done much less well in placing orders for three Joint Support Ships as replacements for the navy's 40-year-old tubs. Nor has it placed orders for search-and-rescue aircraft or, as yet, for Arctic offshore patrol vessels, necessary for the government's signature Canada First policy and its emphasis on Arctic sovereignty, or for Chinook helicopters, desperately necessary for the Canadians in Kandahar. And there are more delays with announced equipment purchases elsewhere. Why?

What's wrong with military procurement is history. In the mid-1990s, the navy, for example, cut back the number of procurement specialists, moving them sideways to fill vacancies in operational roles. Better a ship driver than a ship design specialist. More than a decade later, with ship design back in vogue, the navy has too few members on its procurement teams and nowhere to find them quickly. Meantime, the Alberta boom is taking skilled workers west, leaving shipyards and construction firms scrambling to find trades workers. On top of this, rampant inflation has increased steel and metal costs.

Thus the order for three Joint Support Ships gets scrubbed because none of the bidders can make a profit on what the government is offering. Will there be more money? More important, what will the government do to fix its defence procurement system? Will it consider setting up an arm's-length procurement agency, as Australia has?

Then there is recruiting. The Canadian Forces remain woefully under strength, both in regulars and reserves. There are lots of recruits but also many retirements, as specialists and technicians hit their 20-year mark and depart with pension. Others, after a tour or two in Afghanistan, decide enough is enough, while still more, worrying about the impact of repeated overseas postings on their families, decide to leave a service they love. What will the government do to keep such people in the military? Will it offer retention bonuses? Or increase the training system's capabilities so more recruits can be put through their basic and specialist training?

Moreover, what will the government do to encourage the recruitment of visible minorities? If immigrants from Asia, Africa and Latin America are Canada's future, how can the military begin to reach into these communities for its recruits? And what about reforming Canada's all but invisible Supplementary Reserve, made up of those retiring Canadian Forces members who choose to join, so that everyone who leaves the military must belong and thus be available in a crisis? Anything else simply wastes the skills and training the members of the Canadian Forces receive at public expense.

And, finally, there is the war in Afghanistan. Those Canadians who support the war - and those who fight it - were heartened by Mr. Harper's remarks during his 2006 visit to Kandahar. Canadians don't cut and run, he said, and then he pulled off a piece of political legerdemain by getting the Liberals to agree to the extension of the mission into 2011. Terrific, but that was then and this is the election. We're leaving the combat role in 2011, Mr. Harper tells us now, abandoning the Afghans to fend for themselves. Just how will this end date work?

And what will it do to the credit that Canada has built up with its allies by taking up such a heavy burden? Mr. Harper told our allies to do their part, but which other allies will follow Canada as it slinks away? What will his announcement do to the perception that Canada keeps it word even when the going gets tough? And what extra dangers will an early departure put on our troops as the Taliban watch their resolve weaken?

These are important questions, and the Prime Minister owes Canadian voters - especially Canada's men and women in uniform - some detailed answers.

J.L. Granatstein is senior research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute./i]

Good questions, all.

I'm not holding my breath for answers from Harper,  or promises from Dion.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is an interesting analysis of Liberal misfortunes:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080916.welectionanalysis15/BNStory/politics/home

Liberals' leftward tilt throws campaign off balance
Party fears legacy for balancing progressive politics and hard-nosed economics is fading

BRIAN LAGHI

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
September 16, 2008 at 10:39 PM EDT

OTTAWA — Pierre Trudeau had John Turner, Jean Chrétien had Paul Martin, Lester Pearson had Robert Winters and they all had Mitchell Sharp – men whose economic pedigrees gave the Liberal Party the balance that has perpetuated its hegemony.

But the party that has been so skillful at complementing its progressive arm with a business side appears to be flying on one wing these days. The so-called natural governing party of old has allowed itself to be characterized as just one of a cluster of parties on the left of the political spectrum, competing for limited votes. In the second week of the election campaign, the Liberals who slew the deficit in the mid-1990s are portrayed by their political opponents and commentators alike as a risky economic choice.

“I think the Liberals have not properly calculated a response to this,” said Robert Bothwell, a University of Toronto expert on the party and a long-time member. “It makes me uneasy.”

While most Liberals are not surprised that Leader Stéphane Dion is focusing on social issues such as the environment, poverty and the return of the court challenges program, they are anxious that he hasn't also moved loudly to retain credit for cutting the deficit in the early 1990s, and to highlight areas such as productivity or industrial policy.

This pigeonholing comes at a time when economic management is at the forefront of voters' minds and just five years after the Chrétien/Martin tandem earned back the economic bona fides lost during the Trudeau years. The risk is that playing down the economic message will send the right-of-centre voters that Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Martin had successfully courted over to Stephen Harper's Conservatives.

“Tell me about it. It's a huge issue and it goes to the core of my very existence as a Liberal,” said a senior Grit on the business wing of the party. “The Liberal coalition of necessity has to include the centre right.”

The ramifications of playing down economic issues are clear, adds Steven MacKinnon, the party's former national director and executive assistant to former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, a leader who married his socially moderate views to an emphasis on robust economic growth.

“We get crowded out of the political centre, where people fail to see in us a reflection of their economic aspirations,” he said. “There is a risk that our sterling economic leadership under Chrétien and Martin is being obscured.”

Mr. Chrétien took the need for a balanced party seriously when he became leader in 1990, two years after the 1988 election in which Mr. Turner opposed free trade. Mr. Chrétien was in the Trudeau cabinet during the years when the government was widely perceived as mismanaging the economy.

As prime minister, he made Liberals with economic backgrounds a keystone of his cabinet. They included the so-called Four M's: Mr. Martin in finance, John Manley in industry, Roy MacLaren in trade and Anne McLellan, the energy minister who accomplished the near impossible by repairing relations with the Alberta oil patch.

Mr. MacLaren helped to underscore the need for business awareness when he said notions like fibre-optic technologies were neither right-wing nor left-wing issues. That sentiment was picked up and modified by Mr. Chrétien during a formative policy conference in Aylmer, Que., in 1991 that set the table for the Liberals during the 1990s and early parts of this decade.

“Globalization is not right-wing or left-wing, it is simply a fact of life,” he said at the time.

And so Mr. Chrétien built a cabinet that included the Four M's and more left-wing members such as Sheila Copps and Brian Tobin.

Ironically, the influence of business and economic Liberals began to wane under the prime ministership of Paul Martin, whose advisers identified New Democratic Party voters on the left as the easiest pickings for growth. The Martin Liberals earmarked billions for child care and assistance for native Canadians under the Kelowna Accord. While most were considered by Liberals to be important, the left-of-centre vote didn't come together enough to save Mr. Martin's government. The Liberal strategy seems similar this time around.

Mr. Dion won the party leadership with the eventual backing of social Liberals like Gerard Kennedy and Martha Hall Findley. Since then, it has maintained a focus on social issues, with business-minded Liberals complaining that members of the party's right – people like Scott Brison, Ralph Goodale and Michael Ignatieff – have not been given the prominence of their economic predecessors, like Mr. Sharp, Mr. Turner or Mr. Martin.

It's perhaps not surprising, given the leader's background. A political scientist, Mr. Dion came into politics as intergovernmental affairs minister under Mr. Chrétien for one reason: to keep Quebec within the country. In Mr. Martin's government, he moved to a social portfolio, the environment. He never took on an economic responsibility during his years in cabinet, an omission in the CV of a man hoping to take the mantle of prime minister.

But others argue that Mr. Dion and the party are not left-wing. Toronto political scientist Stephen Clarkson says Mr. Dion has worked hard to balance his Green Shift's carbon tax with tax cuts at other levels, and adds that all parties were substantially on the left in the recent past, when there was a general agreement among all parties in the need for a social safety net and a more interventionist role for government in economic affairs. Liberal business icons like C.D. Howe were deeply involved in creating big infrastructure programs.

Mr. Clarkson makes the case that Mr. Harper has skillfully manipulated the issue with his rhetoric to make Mr. Dion and his party look more left-wing than they are.

Nonetheless, it's hard to dispute that the Liberals have not delivered a counterpunch to that argument.

Donald Johnston, a cabinet minister under Mr. Trudeau who was part of the economic group, argues that balance is crucial if the party is to thrive.

“I think the reason that the Liberal Party has been in power for so many years is because I think it was more successful in striking that balance than other parties,” he said. “I would hope the Liberals are able to maintain that.”

I wonder if Canadians are smarter than I generally give them credit for being. I wonder: does the old adage that Liberals “campaign Left and govern Right” actually reassure Canadians - who are not fooled by the campaign promises? Is Don Johnston’s assessment of “balance” correct? Do Canadians vote Liberal when they ‘see’ the balance and vote Tory only when the (preferred) Liberals lose their economic balance?

 

[a_majoor]

I for one am not surprised at the hard left direction the Liberals have taken; looking/listening to such "Liberal" luminaries as Bob Rae, Justin Trudeau etc. is kind of like being in an echo chamber with Jack Layton. By allowing these characters to enter the Liberal fold (or even encouraging them as with the young Dauphin) and making an open alliance with Elizabeth May and the Green Party they have openly moved away from the business end of their traditional coalition of brokerage politics and are now busy fighting it out with two major and several minor parties for the "Left".

This may have seemed like a sensible move at some point in the past; @ 66% of Canadians identify with the political "Left" so the pool of potential voters is much larger than the "Center" or "Right" of the political spectrum. On the other hand, "Left" wing voters have had decades to be entrenched with real Left wing parties like the NDP, so the Liberals are now finding the "Left" part of their brokerage coalition is realizing "why vote for the Liberals when we can have the real thing?", while the "Right" part of the brokerage coalition has migrated towards the new and improved CPC.

Given the opportunistic nature of most politicians and their bagmen, I would think there would be few takers for the task of rebuilding the wreakage of the Liberal party after this election, and given their party's limited resources, even the most energetic and zealous Liberals won't have a lot to work with anyway. Should the seat count turn out anything like the EKOS poll, the Liberals will be reduced to a rump Ontario party hovering on the fringes of the political spectrum, and will become as relevant as the "Progressive Canadian" party

 

[Old Sweat]

It's a little early to count the Grits out with almost four weeks left in the race. However I can't understand what their brain trust is thinking when they put Bob Rae front and centre, especially if he talks about economic issues. Bob, after all, was christened Buffalo Bob for the boost he gave to that city's economy during his term as Premier of Ontario.

There are crack's appearing in their iron discipline with even some of the denials of discord seeming insincere at best. Under the previous financial rules the Liberals could survive a humiliating electoral defeat and bounce back. They have done it twice in my lifetime. Now, with funding restricted to a relatively paltry thousand dollars per individual and union and corporate donations banned, they are behind the financial curve. If their vote drops, this will reduce their per capita grant from the taxpayers and put them even farther back. With unpaid debts from their last leadership race as well as one owed by the party, and the some of the costs of this election to be repaid, the Liberals are in a difficult - I don't want to use precarious or dangerous yet - position. Perhaps they have the intelligence, discipline and vision to pull themselves out of the mess. Certainly some businesses manage to do so, while others crash and burn. However, based on their tactics during the campaign, I am not betting on success.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Ottawa Citizen, is an opinion piece by William Watson that is very worth a read:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=b0d4aa57-5817-4f6d-aff2-6940d54b14d0

William Watson
Beware economic promises
We'd be better to ask which politician is least likely to mess things up further


William Watson
Citizen Special

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Something you hear a lot in the current federal election campaign is that Canadians should vote for the party that can best "manage the economy." Ha! After Monday's financial implosion it becomes clear they should vote for the party that, like a rodeo rider "managing" a bucking bronco, can best hang on.

"Manage the economy" has always been a speechwriter's conceit. A modern economy is a big, complex, interconnected system, a lot like the eco-sphere. Beware the politician who promises to "manage" it.

What we need instead are politicians who pledge to do their very best not to screw up the economy.

Usually, not actively doing harm to the economy means letting it be. Not overtaxing it. Not over-regulating it. Not picking pet sectors for promotion or, in the case of oil and banking, persecution.

What a government should "manage" is the government. Do that well and good things will follow for the economy.

Good management of the government means: not wasting money on feel-good policies whose main virtue is to make a show of concern for social problems; paying for current spending out of current taxes, not loans; and raising revenues with broad-based taxes and few exemptions so you can keep tax rates low and not discourage the activity being taxed, for if you tax something, you generally get less of it.

In terms of not screwing up, how do the parties measure up so far?

The three main parties and the Greens, too, have all got religion on deficits. Whether that's because they understand the economics (which actually forgive the occasional deficit in tough times) or because Canadians will punish any government that runs a deficit isn't clear and may not matter.

The Liberals had a good track record of deficit control in the Chrétien-Martin years -- though deficit control was easier during the Roaring Nineties. The Conservatives have a longer-standing doctrinal antagonism to deficits and the additional motivation of wanting to prove the Mulroney years were an aberration. The NDP is a relative newcomer to fiscal sobriety, even if its founding leader, Tommy Douglas, always warned about the perils of going into hock to bankers. You've got to think Jack Layton would be the first fiscal back-slider. Whether the Tories or the Liberals would be second is hard to say.

As for low-rate, broad-base taxation, the Conservatives want to halve the excise tax on diesel fuel from four cents to two, an underwhelming change that, as they say, is "modest, affordable and practical," thus making a virtue of cautious incrementalism.

They also want to raise to $500,000 the annual income below which businesses qualify for the special small business rate, which obviously will appeal to their small-business base. The old adage that the way to start a small business in Canada is to buy a big business and wait is not all the fault of special low tax rates for small businesses. Still, most economists would argue that all business should pay the same (low) rate of tax and then the market should decide who grows and who stays small.

Unfortunately, all parties pander to small business. The two big parties at least agree on a low rate for business taxes. As Stéphane Dion says, twitting Jack Layton by pointing to socialist Sweden's low corporate tax rate: "Let's be real - a low corporate tax rate is not a right wing policy or a left wing policy. It is a sound policy."

As for Mr. Dion's Liberals, their main tax plan is the Green Shift, an emphatically non-incremental change that would raise taxes on carbon fuels - except gasoline, which they think is taxed enough already - and lower them on income. If you think carbon's an environmental plague, a carbon tax makes sense. And using it to reduce income taxes helps offset what's bound to be a wrenching change for the economy. The trouble is, the Liberals' promised income taxes are targeted, not general.

The current plan is that the Green Shift should be revenue-neutral, so the government doesn't grow simply because carbon is bad for the environment. Fair enough.

But it shouldn't just be revenue-neutral. As much as possible, it should also be impact-neutral. Everybody who burns carbon will take a hit with a carbon tax, rich people probably more than poor people, Albertans and Newfoundlanders clearly more than other Canadians. To minimize this impact and maximize buy-in to the Green Shift, carbon revenues should ease the hit on carbon junkies, even if they're well-off.

To help keep tax bases broad and tax rates low, carbon revenues should go into lower income taxes across the board, not just for favoured groups.

William Watson teaches economics at McGill University.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008​

Here, and it deserve to be repeated in big, bold letters, is the key bit: "Good management of the government means: not wasting money on feel-good policies whose main virtue is to make a show of concern for social problems; paying for current spending out of current taxes, not loans; and raising revenues with broad-based taxes and few exemptions so you can keep tax rates low and not discourage the activity being taxed, for if you tax something, you generally get less of it."

A carbon tax, à la Dion’s, that applies at the gas pumps and home heating fuel tanks, too, is a good idea if, as Watson says, it is both revenue and impact neutral. Dion’s Green Shaft Shift tax does none of those three essentials: it is targeted to ‘reward’ Torontonians who drives their SUVs to the convenience store, it is not revenue neutral and it is not impact neutral, either. It is a bad tax embedded in a weak plan - according to this card carrying Tory.

 

[GAP]

Tories Well Placed to Take Military Votes
Experts say equipment purchases, reassurances of importance are key to gaining soldiers' support.
By Jeff Davis
Article Link

After being elected to office in January 2006, the Conservatives came out strong and bought the military plenty of expensive and much-needed equipment. Even more important, they reassured Canada's airmen, soldiers and sailors of the important role they play in Canadian society.

Now, despite extending the Afghan mission till 2011, military watchers say, soldiers are not unhappy with the government and predict they will continue to vote Conservative this time around.

"I would suggest that most of the members of the Canadian Forces would probably vote Conservative in this election," said retired colonel Alain Pellerin, executive director of the Conference of Defence Associations. "I think the message from the current Conservative government probably resonates more with the troops."

In the last election, the Conservatives succeeded in winning many ridings that are home to soldiers and their families. There are some 62,000 registered military voters in Canada.

Embassy examined the top 10 ridings in which military ballots were cast in the last election. Nine of these ridings contain major military bases. The Conservatives won five of the top ten, the Liberals three, the Bloc Québécois two and one went to independent Quebec MP André Arthur.

Canadian military historian and senior research fellow with the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute Jack Granatstein expected similar results this time around.

"I suspect [the military vote] will stay heavily Conservative," he said. "They essentially gave the Afghan force everything it could possibly want, except for helicopters. My guess is that the Tories have earned the vote."

In the same vein, the executive director of the Royal Canadian Military Institute, retired colonel Chris Corrigan, said the Conservatives should net the soldier vote for the "very obvious reason that they have rebuilt the military."
More on link

 

[Edward Campbell]

This report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail website, may refer to good politics but I’m not sure it is good policy, yet:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080917.welxnharperafghan0917/BNStory/politics/home
My emphasis added

Harper OKs release of Afghan cost report

MARTIN O'HANLON
The Canadian Press

September 17, 2008 at 11:48 AM EDT

OTTAWA — Stephen Harper says he will allow the release of a report on the true cost of the Afghan war — information that could dash his hopes for a majority government.

Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page has tallied the full cost of the mission — past and future — and said he would like to release it. But he was worried about interfering with the federal election and asked for all-party consent.

All opposition parties gave their blessing Tuesday, and the Prime Minister agreed Wednesday.

The minority Conservative government has estimated the cost of the six-year mission at under $8-billion. If the new figures are much higher, it could be bad news for Mr. Harper.

Polls have repeatedly shown that Canadians are lukewarm to the mission, especially in the key electoral battleground of Quebec, where Mr. Harper must make gains to have any chance of winning his coveted majority.

And critics suggest cost overruns in the Afghan mission could erase the government's shrinking surplus and put the country into deficit, especially given the economic slowdown.

The Afghan mission has been a heavy burden for Canada with 97 soldiers and one diplomat killed. Canada has more than 2,000 personnel based in the dangerous Kandahar region.

The awkward timing of the Afghan report came as Mr. Harper made his most direct pitch yet for a majority government. He said Tuesday that he needs a “strong mandate” to fight crime and preserve law and order.

He also said the country will need a forceful government to weather economic uncertainty.

Poll results in the first week of the election campaign suggested the Tories were in majority territory. But they have since slipped, as some voters leery of a Conservative majority apparently had second thoughts.

The latest Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll suggests the Liberals are gaining on the Conservatives, whose lead has shrunk to 10 points from 15 last week. The survey put the Conservatives at 38 per cent support and the Liberals at 28.

All the party leaders were out on the hustings again Wednesday.

Mr. Dion was first out of the campaign blocks with a $600-million promise to boost support for students and research.

In a speech at the University of Western Ontario, Mr. Dion said Canada's productivity and economic success depend on investments in research and development.

He said a Liberal government would increase education grants and bursaries, and guarantee low-interest loans.

Mr. Layton was next with a multibillion-dollar national child-care plan. He promised to create 150,000 daycare spaces in the first year of an NDP government, at a cost of $1.4 billion — on top of current programs.

More money and spaces would be created in future years as funding permits, he said in Toronto.

Mr. Harper was in Welland, Ont., promising tough new measures aimed at discouraging access to tobacco and marketing to children.

He said his government would ban the use of flavours and additives, like bubble gum and cotton candy flavouring. He would also prohibit tobacco advertising on Internet sites and in publications that appeal to youth.

Green Leader Elizabeth May was in Halifax releasing her party's full platform, led by tax breaks for low-income earners and for industries that cut carbon emissions.

Like the Liberals, the Green are also proposing to cut income taxes and raise taxes on fossil fuels.

Ms. May also promised to:

• Hike the GST by one percentage point to help municipalities pay for improvements to their crumbling infrastructure and public transit.
• Allow income splitting.
• Reduce contributions by employers to Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan.

My understanding, from some previous reading, was that Mr. Page had two concerns:

1. He wanted all party support to release the report during an election; and

2. It is a very first DRAFT report and he was not satisfied that he has all the right and necessary information in useful forms and only the right and useful information, ie everything leaders need to know to understand the costs, without extraneous details.

Anyway, here it comes, and I am 99.99% certain that both politicians (all parties, including my own) and the media will misunderstand and misrepresent the data.

 

[Celticgirl]

"I suspect [the military vote] will stay heavily Conservative," he said. "They essentially gave the Afghan force everything it could possibly want, except for helicopters. My guess is that the Tories have earned the vote."

No kidding. Just looking at the poll results on this thread thus far, it is fairly obvious that Tories will get a majority of the military vote(s) this time around. What have the Liberals and NDPs offered to do for the CF besides rip our troops out of Afghanistan?

 

[Snafu-Bar]

No kidding. Just looking at the poll results on this thread thus far, it is fairly obvious that Tories will get a majority of the military vote(s) this time around. What have the Liberals and NDPs offered to do for the CF besides rip our troops out of Afghanistan?

Knockoff Kit, fake tanks,planes and ships(recycled cardboard cutouts) and food even the most hardened criminals would put back on the cart.

Cheers

 

[Edward Campbell]

Yesterday Celine Stéphane Dion was blasting Stephen Harper for “coming close to a deficit.” Now it appears that he’s promising to actually deliver one!

This article is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of he Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail web site:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080917.welxndiondeficit0917/BNStory/politics/home

Dion refuses to categorically rule out deficit

CAMPBELL CLARK

Globe and Mail Update
September 17, 2008 at 11:51 AM EDT

LONDON, Ont. — Stéphane Dion is lauding Liberal budget discipline, but refused this morning to categorically state that he would never allow the federal government to go into deficit if the economy slides.

"I will not speculate about how much an economy may go down. I just want to tell you that we need to have strong fiscal discipline. To never overcommit, to come with strong policies that are well-targeted, to never use the money of the taxpayers unwisely," he told reporters in London, Ont.

Asked twice more if he will commit to keeping Ottawa out of deficit even if the economy falls into deep recession, Mr. Dion refused to say the words. He promised fiscal discipline, prudent budgeting with a $3-billion annual surplus cushion, and rigorous costing of his promised — but not, in so many words, to avoid a deficit at all costs.

"I promise you the best fiscal discipline. The most effective budgetary plan that any party can present at this time," he said.

His refusal to make a commitment may undercut the chief tactic he has employed on his campaign this week — invoking the Liberal brand as prudent money managers and deficit cutters in the 1990s in his attacks on Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's management of the economy.

Mr. Harper was quick to pounce Wednesday.

"If you look at the tens of billions of dollars of announcements they are making, the only way these can be financed are not simply through big increases in taxes…but it would mean deficits and large deficits, big deficits" said Mr. Harper.

Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin made the no-deficit pledge a potent political advantage since the country climbed out of deficit in 1997, and often used the warning that opponents would plunge the country back into the red to Liberal gain.

Economists don't place the same importance on crossing the red line of a budget deficit, as long as it's only in a small, temporary way — but for more than a decade it has been the third rail of Canadian politics, a symbol of prudent management to maintain hard-won gains. And many believe it now imposes a rigour on federal governments.

Mr. Dion invoked the Liberal fiscal brand in attacking Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Mr. Harper, who said Tuesday he needed a strong mandate because opposition has "sabotaged" the economy.

"Who sabotaged the economy over two years and a half? It's Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Harper. They received an economy that had a surplus of $12-billion, thanks to the hard work of Canadians and the good sound management of the Liberal government," Mr. Dion said.

"Now we have the worst economic growth of the G8. We are close to a deficit, and close to a recession, thanks to Mr. Harper and Mr. Flaherty."

Mr. Dion insisted that his platform pledges are not as costly as his opponents say, and that each will be fully costed with specifics in a Liberal platform document that will explain where the money will come from. That document is to be released later in the campaign, he said.

He said that will include a $3-billion "prudence" cushion like the ones Paul Martin, as finance minister, usually included in his budgets, and that a Liberal government would seek to run surpluses beyond that sum.

With a report from Brian Laghi in Welland, Ont.

Actually, that may be the smartest thing he’s said all week. Tax revenues will be down. Canadians will not want big programme/spending cuts – except that they do like cuts to the arts and defence. Ergo income may be less than expenses – for a year or two.

 

[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

Leaders focus on the children

BRIAN LAGHI and CAMPBELL CLARK AND BRODIE FENLON

Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press
September 17, 2008 at 2:41 PM EDT

The federal election campaign took on a family focus Wednesday, with the NDP and Liberals pledging billions for childcare and Conservatives vowing to crack down on the youth tobacco market.

At a campaign stop in Kitchener, Ont., Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion promised to spend $1.25-billion a year on a new national childcare program.

Mr. Dion assailed Stephen Harper's Conservatives for abandoning Liberal plans for a national childcare program when the Tories took office in 2006, and promised to renegotiate deals for child-care spaces with the provinces and territories.

“As every parent knows,” he said, “no space means no choice.”

Earlier in the day, NDP Leader Jack Layton made a similar promise, vowing to create 150,000 spaces across the country within the first year of a mandate at a cost of $1.4-billion.

“And as finances permit, we're going to steadily build on that funding until the full program is phased in,” he said. “The ultimate goal is to create a space for every child who needs it.”

Mr. Layton would not reveal what his final price tag would be. Party officials later said the annual funding would reach $2.2-billion by Year 4. But that would only pay for 220,000 spaces, making a truly universal program still a work in progress.

Mr. Layton also said he'd pass a law to ensure the program's survival, similar to the way the Canada Health Act governs medicare. The law would require provinces to follow standards of care and show where federal dollars would be spent.

The idea of a national day-care program has been kicked around for years. Advocates say a nationally subsidized child-care program would help working parents make ends meet and ensure that kids are in a high-quality learning environment.

But detractors say the idea is too expensive and unworkable.

In Welland, Ont., Mr. Harper announced his government would crack down on the marketing of specialty tobacco products to children. Although so-called kiddy packs of cigarettes are already banned, items like cigarillos are not subject to the same prohibition. The government plans to prohibit the inclusion of flavours, like bubblegum, that are currently added to the products.

The products are already illegal for sale to children under 18.

“Today's announcement is not about curtailing freedom for adults, it's about blocking tobacco marketing to which children are susceptible,” Mr. Harper said. “Canadians expect their government to provide strong consumer protection.”

Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Dion proposed a revamp of the tax system for students and broader access to financial aid, including the introduction of $3,500 bursaries for poorer students.

At a stop at University of Western Ontario in London this morning, Mr. Dion said that he would replace the system of tax credits students receive for things like tuition, books, and the GST with a $1,000 a year credit paid in cheques sent up front every three months.

The current system is too complex, and revolves around students transferring their expenses to their parents for credits on their income tax, Mr. Dion said.

He also promised that if the Liberals are elected, the current needs-based system of student loans would be replaced by universal access to a loan of up to $5,000 a year. He said too many middle-class students are refused student loans because their parents' incomes are judged too high.

"Middle class families are not always able to offer their children the money they need to go to college or university," Mr. Dion said.

The broader student aid package would cost $500-million over four years, he said.

In addition, he pledged a system of 200,000 $3,500 bursaries for students in low-income families within four years, and access grants of $4,000 for students from groups that are under-represented in universities, like aboriginals or persons with disabilities.

Those bursaries and access grants would be financed out of a an education fund the federal government would build up to $25-billion in 20 years.

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.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And, as usual, Ekos, Harris-Decima and Nanos all have new polling data:

Ekos says: “Structurally, the single most important change from the last election is a drop in the Liberal vote. So where are those voters going? Well, pretty much everywhere. In fact if you compare voters’ current vote intentions with how they report having voted in 2006, you’ll see that former Liberals are the single largest source of new recruits to every other party.”

Harris Decima says:

• In Ontario, the race continues to narrow, with Conservatives at 39%, Liberals 36%, the NDP 14% and the Greens 10%. The Liberals have picked up 6 points from a low-water mark last week.

• In Quebec, the BQ continues to poll well back of its 2006 numbers. Over the last four days, the BQ leads with 33%, the Conservatives follow with 25%, the Liberals with 22%, the NDP at 11% and the Greens at 7%. Among men in Quebec, the BQ leads with 35%, the Conservatives have 28%, the Liberals 18%, the NDP 13% and the Greens 5%. Among Quebec women, the BQ holds 30%, the Liberals 26%, the Conservatives 23%, the Greens10% and the NDP 10%.

• In Atlantic Canada, the Conservatives lead with 34%, followed by the Liberals with 33%, the NDP 19% and the Green Party with 10%.

• In British Columbia, the Conservatives lead with 38%, followed by the NDP with 25%, the Liberals with 22% and the Greens with 13%.

Nanos says:

• Tories slide in Atlantic and Ontario, up in Québec and West; and

• Dion drops in leadership index

BUT, re: the Nanos numbers, the margins of error are in the ±5% to ±10% range and, since the differences are all in the 2 to 4% range the numbers are, likely, meaningless.