The financial meltdown has taken on epic proportions. The thought  is that it can be fixed quickly by intense government intervention. And I mean intense.  The verdict is not in. Not long ago talk of such intervention would have been laughed out of court by the market wizards . I don’t hear much laughter now. Not much mea culpa either.  What about climate change?  Strong government intervention in the tax/regulation system   in support of carbon reducation  is derided right now  by the same market wizards  who said let the markets do their thing as they bulked up on toxic securities based on predatory lending.  Looks like someone should ask them to eat their shirt? Anyone out there in this election doing that? If they are maybe we should vote for them?

This information is noteworthy and should be read and internalized by all Canadians before heading to the polls on October 14. It is proof positive, yet again, that on October 14, the only right way to vote is Anything But Liberal (ABL) or Anyone But Dion (ABD) – emphasis added:

Strange, isn’t it? Along with other Canadian journalists, CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge (to cite only one example) uses the word “massive” to describe the $700-billion (U.S.) economic rescue package in the United States – but declines to use it to describe the cost of Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion’s election promises. Why this deference? Most analysts say that Mr. Dion’s promises would cost $80-billion (Canadian). Based on population numbers and using the usual 10-to-1 conversion ratio, Mr. Dion’s promises would thus cost the U.S. equivalent of $800-billion in supplementary spending. If the U.S. credit crunch expenditure is massive, Mr. Dion’s campaign promise expenditures must necessarily be massive, too.

Throw in a high-speed train service between Toronto and Montreal, which Mr. Dion has endorsed but hasn’t promised (at a cost of another $20-billion), and the Liberal Leader – his promises again expressed in cross-border conversion – hits $1-trillion in campaign commitments, making the credit crunch relief operation look quite restrained and, in an odd way, less important than the restoration of Liberal rule in Canada.

In this relative kind of comparison, useful in keeping things in perspective, Mr. Dion’s election promises exceed the cost of the U.S. government’s emergency credit crunch bailout. Yet Mr. Dion’s promises exceed the U.S. bailout in absolute terms – when compared on a per-capita basis. Mr. Dion’s promises would increase government spending by $2,424 for each man, woman and child in the country; the U.S. emergency funding package would increase government spending by $2,330.

Voters must stop expecting the impossible from government:

If Mr. Harper comes up with his own new plan for the economy, he could be accused of improvising and will undercut his campaign, during which he has accused Mr. Dion of making up policy as he goes along. If he doesn’t acknowledge the Canadian economy is vulnerable and fails to offer a solution, he may be accused of a “what-me-worry” attitude, the kind of approach that appears to have hurt him in the wake of the debate.

Newsflash: There is no solution to be offered up by government. This is a crisis brought on by human behaviour, such as greed, and the only thing to do is to ride it out with as steady a hand on government as possible.

The crisis now affecting global markets was caused by nothing short of sheer stupidity, with one average American summing it up better than any of the Goldman Sachs economists and analysts:

“You can’t give an $8-an-hour worker a $500,000 home.”

Nor is this a time for experiments, as NDP candidate Tom King has explained:

“Here’s one little story,” he tells the captivated audience in his baritone campfire voice. It’s about Stéphane Dion’s “revenue neutral” Green Shift program. “I’m reminded of a guy with a horse,” he says. “He feeds that horse hay on one end, then walks to the other end and checks to see if he gets the same amount of hay out — and in the same form.”

News Flash!

Conservative incumbent David Sweet representing the Hamilton area riding of Ancaster Dundas Flamborough Westdale says that “Stephen Harper is not the bad guy some make him out to be”. I could follow that by saying something like “details at 11″…. but there aren’t many details…again.

True to form for this riding and in many other currently conservative enclaves, the incumbent said little of substance during an all candidates forum recently taped for the local cable TV outlet. When pressed about his government’s action on climate change he did make the relatively shocking statement that (presumably under Mr. Harper’s leadership) “Canada is working toward a global consensus on climate change”.

These comments come in the last week of an election campaign, for the duration of which the local conservative candidate has added to his record of relative silence and inactivity in his riding. Could this be because conservative members (who according to Sweet, Mr. Harper is “prepared to hear from at open mikes” during caucus meetings) seem to be on a short leash in public or is it because their platform was only released this week?

Credit to Green Party Candidate Peter Ormond for raising the question of muzzling of conservative MPs by party leadership when it comes to Climate Change and Global Warming. The entire country has been muzzled it seems, not just conservative MPs.

For example Andrew Weaver a world renowned Canadian Climate Scientist has stated that there has been a “war against science” carried out by the the Harper Conservatives. You may recall that Weaver a member of the Nobel winning IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was snubbed by Prime Minister Harper who refused to attend a Parliament Hill event held earlier this year to recognize the IPCC’s Nobel prize. Weaver is not alone. The recently produced Health Canada report on the effects of Climate Change has been withheld and the public engagement process meant to go along with it cancelled by the Harper govenrment.

With NDP candidate Gordon Guyatt away in Europe at a medical conference, it seems that the riding is shifting into the widely endorsed hands of Liberal Arlene MacFarlane VanderBeek. The broad spectrum of support for her comes from within the riding as well from outside where climate change experts and concerned Canadians agree that the Liberal platform continues to hold out the greatest opportunity at the intersection of the environment and the economy.

Vous retrouverez ici les répliques les plus marquantes qui ont été échangées par les principaux chefs de partis lors du débat en français.

Note : Malgré un effort certes louable de sa part, Mme May n’est pas présente ici en raison de la qualité déplorable de son français. C’est regrettable pour le Parti Vert et ses sympathisants, mais il y a des limites à vouloir être équitable ou, pour employer une expression populaire, à vouloir « accommoder raisonnablement. »

La réplique la plus marquante de M. Dion

À M. Duceppe : « Quand est venu le moment de reconnaître la nation québécoise, le bureau de M. Harper m’a consulté et nous avons fait cela de manière à montrer que l’on peut aussi faire partie de la nation canadienne; ce qui est un problème pour M. Duceppe. »

À M. Harper (à propos des mesures environnementales qu’il propose) : « Je pense qu’on perd notre temps à discuter du faux plan de M. Harper. Il n’y a pas un seul expert qui a dit que c’était un plan sérieux. »

À M. Layton (qui dit vouloir rapatrier les troupes d’Afghanistan dès maintenant) : « On a pris un engagement. Nos alliés comptent sur nous (…) C’est une responsabilité qu’on a, comme quand on a pris nos responsabilités pour Kyoto, c’est la même chose. »

La réplique la plus marquante de M. Duceppe

À M. Dion : « Nous avons proposé des projets, par exemple que le français soit la langue de travail dans les banques, les ports, les aéroports, les télécommunications. Le NPD nous a appuyés, mais pas les libéraux qui pourtant reconnaissent que la loi 101 est une grande loi canadienne. »

À M. Harper : « Tout ce que vous avez trouvé à faire ce sont des politiques qui enrichissent les pétrolières. Semble-t-il qu’aux dernières nouvelles, elles n’ont pas de misère à terminer leurs fins de mois. »

À M. Layton (qui l’accuse de vouloir privatiser la santé) : « Moi je veux que ce soit un système de santé publique, mais c’est au Québec de décider en tout temps. Je pense que les Québécois sont capables de prendre eux-mêmes leurs décisions et ils n’ont pas besoin du reste du Canada pour venir leur dire quoi faire. »

La réplique la plus marquante de M. Harper

À M. Dion : « Vous proposez d’augmenter les taxes avec votre nouvelle taxe sur le carbone. C’est une politique qui va détruire l’économie. »

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L’article de Tristan Péloquin, disponible sur cyberpresse, nous apprend que les conservateurs refusent encore de divulguer leur position environnemental, s’il en ont une…

«C’est à la fois honteux et inquiétant que le gouvernement (et son parti) ne prenne pas le temps de répondre à des questions qui couvrent un enjeu prioritaire pour une grande partie de la population», déplore Steven Guilbault, coordonnateur d’Équiterre.

Effectivement, c’est la troisième élections consécutives que le Parti Conservateur du Canada refusent de répondre au questionnaire d’Équiterre, un organisme environnemental sérieux cofondé par Steven Guilbault, ancien porte-parole de Greenpeace Québec. Ce que je trouve le plus préoccupant c’est qu’Harper préfère se taire plutôt que de divulguer ses vrais couleurs, balayant ainsi la populaire question sous le tapis. Tout ceci ne laisse qu’envisagé des relations houleuses entre un futur gouvernement Harper majoritaire et les différents organismes environnementaux.

Sur une note plus positive, il est à noter que les quatre autres grands partis fédéraux ont tous eux des notes presque parfaites. Les Verts et le bloc mènent le chemin avec des notes de 12/12, suivi du NPD à 11/12 et des Libéraux a 10/12. Les résultats du questionnaire sont disponible içi.

It’s amazing what two and a half years in Ottawa can do to decent people. For starters, they lose of all sense of humour and creativity (National Post columnist Don Martin is a textbook example of that). Then, common sense is thrown overboard in giant-sized buckets – again, this is true of Martin but even more so of the Prime Minister, it seems:

Harper said Friday during an election campaign stop in Calgary that his government would ban the export of the heavy black oil from Alberta to countries with lax environmental laws, specifically countries with more lenient greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies than Canada.

Harper claims that this would be constitutional, as the federal government controls exports, but he may be seriously wrong on that point, as columnist Don Braid explains:

The worst they’ve ever done on that front, as part of the old National Energy Program, was to tax petroleum sales into the U.S. Alberta took Ottawa to court on that matter and won in March 1981. Back then, the provincial Tories treated the NEP like the invasion of the body snatchers.

Natural resources belong to the provinces; Ottawa has no legal say or control in such provincial assets. This is also why a federal carbon tax, as opposed to a provincial one, is unconstitutional (unfortunately, Stéphane Dion has not advanced in his legal studies far enough to understand that).

Whether it is taxes slapped on exports or an outright ban, the established case law from 1981 certainly applies in both cases. However, Ottawa has never allowed itself to be slowed down by “mere technicalities”. So, it must be assumed that this ban will go forward.

This will wreak havoc on the oil industry. One of the fundamental principles in doing business is stability and certainty. Do business in Venezuela, a country run by a lunatic who should be in a straitjacket around the clock, and you never know what to expect – such as your company being stolen (”nationalized”) right from under your nose by that very lunatic.

Alberta premier Ed Stelmach has done his own share in creating uncertainty in the oil business after announcing that he would increase oil royalties last year, but without being too specific on exact amounts and the timeframe. This has resulted in a high degree of uncertainty among the oil barons, many of whom have therefore shifted their focus to Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

If businesspeople are caught hanging in midair and never know what to expect from one day to the next, they will take their business to more stable environments.

Harper’s announcement will add to this insecurity, particularly so as this ban will most certainly be taken to the courts by the Alberta government, with Edmonton and Ottawa wrangling over the issue for who-knows-how-long up and down the various instances of the legal system. It is probably not overly pessimistic to predict a more accelerated pullout of oil companies.

As Don Braid writes, this could be much worse than the NEP (or Dion’s Green Shift) itself:

But as Liberal support begins to collapse, Harper can now claim he’s even gone them one better on the environment, with his own province carrying most of the burden.

Expect voter turnout in Alberta to drop even further after this. Albertans are already sufficiently cynical about politics and sick and tired of being pushed around. Harper’s latest move only reinforces one view that Albertans have held for a long time: It doesn’t matter who is in charge in Ottawa; eventually they will find a way to screw Alberta over (which is why I am an Anything-But-Liberal, Post-Partisan Sovereigntist).

Harper’s bitumen ban will not immediately enliven a separatist movement in Alberta, but it will be jotted down as yet another federal wrong visited upon Alberta. Wait for one or two more shoes to drop like this in the near future, and Alberta will have a sovereigntist movement and party that will show the Bloc Québécois how it is done properly.

Yours truly will be among those leading the charge.

In a Kingston This Week interview Rick Downes said that he has heard at the doorstep that people were worried that Harper would do to Canada what Harris did to Ontario and that the local Conservative candidate Brian Abrams was not a “Red Tory” but a Harris-Harper conservative. Downes claimed he was picking up support from Red Tories. He also said he had detected disaffected Liberals–those who think that it is time for a change in local representation. In a campaign news release Brian Abrams has challenged Peter Milliken to come to the North End of Kingston to explain why his party would add a tax on everything from groceries to home heating and to admit that the carbon tax will cost countless jobs. Meanwhile, there seems to be a dearth of all candidates meetings in the city. Candidates are talking to the press and to small groups of voters but not face to face with each other.

Michael Byers, (NDP Candidate – Vancouver Center), very passionately told an audience today the tar sands should be shut down. It is not the official position of the NDP, who want a moratorium on the pace of the tar sands development, pending studies on the environment.

However, there are many voices in this country, sending distress signals using the internet, that want the tar sands development to stop, yes stop, now, because it has become “the dirtiest oil on the planet”.

If one pauses before thinking the thought “that no matter what the cost, the world needs oil and Canada needs to be richer in the world”, then maybe it is possible to think about the kind of planet this will be if we ruin it for our children and theirs.

Surely if humans survived on this planet in previous centuries and millenia without such a huge dependence on oil, we can figure out a way to do it again before it is too late…

This morning I had the opportunity to talk for a few minutes to the Conservative candidate in the riding of St-Laurent-Cartierville.  Dennis Galiatsatos, told me that he has been going door to door in the riding and the issue which seems to be the most important is “taxes”.  

Let’s face it, we all hate “taxes”.  I said to the candidate,  “But taxes go hand-in-hand with services and people are also complaining about service cuts.”

The candidate replied to me, that he is totally aware of how voters seem to want their bread buttered on both sides….

I am asking, now, how it is we can have the kind of population who do not understand the relationship between taxes and services.   Afterall,  personal  income tax has come down since 2004 and Canada’s budgetary surplus.  But everyone complains about underfunding in so many areas!  Although complaints are especially about our most expensive program, Healthcare, (which the average US citizen has to pay a minimun of $500 per month for from their own take home pay), complaints about so many other issues which are often governed by provinces, cities and municipalities are also made.    Oh yes, and gasoline taxes!  Whose responsibility is that?

I look at the very privatized and unregulated US economy now and think, “Here is one of the most powerful countries in the world.  And now, with a laissez-faire approach to their economy, is now finding themselves facing bankruptcy. 

To close,  I would rather pay my share of taxes and have services I need in a somewhat regulated economy.  I also want to see monitoring of some of the most important resources we have to keep us afloat as an independant, parliamentary democracy.  That is also why I support and will continue to support the New Democratic Party.

Not bad for a guy who claims he could never tell a lie:

In a further attempt to recast the Liberal Leader, a second advertisement was released simultaneously, this one championing Mr. Dion’s fight to extend the Kyoto Accord in 2005 when he was environment minister. “This is Liberal leadership” and “Dion wouldn’t give up” are the two brand messages that viewers are meant to absorb. That commercial was scheduled to air on last night’s Emmy Awards.

Anyone who has followed Canadian politics for a number of years knows that this is a blatant lie. Dion, who always claims he is incapable of lying, has demonstrated with this ad that he can dish up some of the biggest lies imaginable.

Dion, when he was minister of the environment in a previous Liberal cabinet, didn’t care about the Kyoto Agreement or the environment. In fact, when he and his ilk were in power greenhouse-gas emissions went through the roof in Canada – while “evil” America substantially reduced its emissions. It is only now that emissions are finally coming down in this country – after a non-Liberal government was installed in Ottawa.

The ad, which mentions “Liberal leadership” on Kyoto and the environment, referring to Dion’s time as environment minister, is one big lie from beginning to end (emphasis added):

Dion Says Targets Can’t Be Met: Stephane Dion has conceded that a future Liberal government would be unable to meet its Kyoto commitment of reducing greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels. (National Post, July 1, 2006)

[...] As senior Liberal advisor Eddie Goldenberg admitted, the Liberals had no plan and weren’t ready to take any action on Kyoto: “Nor was the government itself even ready at the time with what had to be done. The Kyoto targets were extremely ambitious and it was very possible that short-term deadlines would at the end of the day have to be extended.” (Globe and Mail, February 23, 2007)

[...] In fact, Dion’s former cabinet colleagues like David Anderson and Christine Stewart have made it clear that Dion was not a supporter of Kyoto at all!

How exactly is having “no plan”, as Goldenberg put it, proof of “leadership”?

His own former cabinet colleagues have admitted that Dion never cared about these issues. He only discovered them during his Liberal leadership race when he realized he could paint himself green and sell his (Marxist) ideology without Canadians catching on.

As one Canadian voter puts it:

[H]ow was it that Dion was environment minister opposed doing anything to live up to the Liberal Party’s commitment to Kyoto – privately at the cabinet table. But on the other hand, in public, named his dog Kyoto to “demonstrate his commitment to Kyoto”?

Dion is the biggest emitter of hot-air gases in Canada, and given his bald-face lie in his latest TV ad, it is clear that he cannot be trusted.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Just today, I was watching OUTBURST, the show on CPAC where they ask average Canadians for opinions.

The allegedly “neutral” CPAC team made a major error in its opening of a segment called “What are your thoughts on dion’s proposed carbon plan?”.  Before asking people for their opinions, the segment began with host Glen McInnis standing in front of a gasoline pump saying that the carbon tax will be “passed on to consumers through home heating bils and at the pump”.

I was of course shocked to hear that CPAC made such an error.  The wording in the Green Shift Plan is clear: “Since the existing excise tax on gas at the pump is already at the equivalent of $42 per tonne of carbon, the tax at the pump will not rise.” (Green Shift p.6)
I am not purely pointing this out for partisan reasons.  This is the second instance this campaign where CPAC has gotten mixed up with the Liberals by stating something false.  The first instance I’m referring to concerned Garth Turner canvassing in Halton.

This is a knock to CPAC’s so-called neutrality.  If it is intending to be neutral, it should invest in better research before making statements on party policies.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion’s Green Shift plan, meanwhile, has been exposed as a tax grab and an anti-poverty program, rather than one that reduces greenhouse gases and protects the environment:

Albertans would pay far more than other Canadians if the federal government was to enact Liberal Leader Stephane Dion’s Green Shift, economic and environmental experts say. [A]t least one Ontario Liberal MP, Ken Boschcoff, has plainly stated the Green Shift is a way to transfer money out of Alberta into the rest of Canada, with roughly $9 billion of the $15.3 billion collected each year returned to Canadians with annual incomes of less than $40,000. Boschcoff called it “the most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years. The shift will transfer wealth from rich to poor, from the oilpatch to the rest of the country and from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians.”

Nothing about the environment; it’s just one of those outdated wealth redistribution schemes that will hurt the economy big time. Albertans, as the experts have confirmed, would suffer the most. In the unlikely event of a Liberal government, therefore, Alberta would have to see if it can negotiate with Ottawa, but if Dion is prime minister, that would not go very far, seeing how he is incapable of sense and reason. The next step would then invariably lead to the breakup of Canada, with Alberta picking up where the ineffective sovereignty movement in Québec has failed.

Voters should not forget either that Dion’s former cabinet colleagues have said that Dion never cared about Kyoto or the environment as a cabinet minister.

We should not forget either that Dion’s Green Shift is unconstitutional. Natural resources belong to the provinces, which means that the federal government cannot levy a tax on carbon. Provinces can implement carbon taxes, as British Columbia has done, but not Ottawa. The Green Shift carbon tax would therefore be a gross violation of provincial rights and completely unconstitutional.

Some people tend to rely on government for everything. Surely, some of them would like to be dressed and fed in the morning by government as well. It would be nice if we all had a benevolent government to watch over us and wait on us hand and foot. Only trouble is that we would have to hand over our hard-earned cash in taxes to make that happen – and even then it would not be nearly enough.

Government in Canada has grown way too big, particularly since Pierre Trudeau. The lesson that must be imparted now is that government must learn to do more with a lot less, to become leaner and meaner. The old Trudeau-style, utopian and socialist fantasies are nothing more than fantasies in today’s world. Anyone still clinging to those ideas should be examined, because he just might be a candidate for a padded cell, heavy psychopharmaceutical treatment and round-the-clock observation.

Various successive Liberal governments have done a lot of damage to Canada in this respect. Most of the problems we grapple with today are the direct results of a “Liberal legacy”. To put it more bluntly, this type of Big Government thinking has taken on the form of a disease that has infected even some Conservatives, such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his finance minister Jim Flaherty. Their government spending in the last two and a half years has set a new record and even exceeded any of the previous Liberal governments in recent history.
(more…)

Chantal Hébert writes that Liberal leader Stéphane Dion is running out of time:

Dion has at most a week to recast himself as a credible alternative to Harper or else the Liberals will find themselves on an irreversible course to a near-historical defeat next month. Based on current numbers, some Liberal projections give the party no more than 65 seats on election night. They also confirm that Dion is an albatross around the party’s neck.

One reader of Hébert’s column has seen through Dion’s Green Shift:

I’ve seen some of the details of the proposed tax “cuts” proposed under the Green Shift – besides a reduction in the bottom rate of a whole 1% there isn’t much except various tax benefit increases to people with kids etc. For the unmarried income earner making more than $40K it will mean nil, as usual. If Dion were serious about slashing all federal income rates to say maybe 12%, 18% 21% and 25% I would consider giving my vote but this sort of tax reform would be anathema to any Liberal so I’ll take the safe route.

Exactly, which means that Dion’s promise that his Green Shift would be revenue-neutral was a lie. Only very few and tiny groups of society would see some tax offset, whereas the large majority of Canadians would have to part with a lot more of their hard-earned cash.

Other readers and commenters have prefaced their comments with such headlines as “The wheels are coming off” and “No way Dion gets it together”.

Stephane Dion’s Green Shift has had a bumpy reception. But this is not because it is not a good plan, nor is it due to any communication failure on Dion’s part. Instead, this is simply a reality of trying to explain a complicated initiative that happens to be too Progressive.

The Green Shift is simply ahead of its time.

The Green movement in general, and Stephane Dion’s inner circle in particular, has misread the public’s tolerance for a ‘Green Shift’ by assuming that concern for the environment translates into knowledge and understanding of Global Warming. There are 3 big obstacles that need to be overcome before a ‘Green Shift’ will ever occur:

1) True Consensus on Canada’s Role in Global Warming must occur – A large (and vocal) minority of Canadians still believe that Global Warming is an ‘unproven’ theory. And even amongst some people that do believe that Global Warming is man-made, the case has been made that Canada’s contribution to fighting it is too small to matter. After all, why bother hurting ourselves for a cause that is unavoidable if the US’s, China’s, India’s, and Brazil’s of the world are unwilling to fight.

2)  A Deep-Rooted Understanding of the Issue must become Mainstream - Environmentalists and those who are knowledgeable about the issues of Global Warming are often shocked at just how ignorant the public is about the topic of Climate Change. Even individuals who cite the Environment as their #1 concern often have trouble articulating the problems and challenges of Global Warming. Talk to an average person about the issues and you are likely to hear more references to the Sun and Ozone layer than you are to hear about Carbon Dioxide.

3) A Generation of Environmental Activists must Mature – There is a marked difference in the perceptions of 20-somethings and their older brethren. Younger voters are much more likely to understand and connect with the issue of Climate Change and see it as a moral obligation. Dion and his team certainly see this as the case, but it’s hard to ram morality down the throats of those who don’t believe in it. Until this generation becomes the mainstream, this topic will not be adopted by the masses.

Adding to Dion’s message problems are the Conservative attack ads that do a much more effective job of delivering small, chewable, sound-bite-friendly snippets than Dion’s bumbling explanation. Unfortunately, with a plan this complicated, and an electorate this ignorant, Dion has no communication alternative.

Unfortunately for Dion and the Liberals, the Green Shift may be good policy in 2008, but it won’t be good politics until 2028.

I stopped by Liberal leader Stephane Dion’s town hall meeting at the University of Victoria on Friday, September 12th.  The event drew a surprising number of people, and Dion’s procession from his bus to the auditorium managed to generate an impressive surge of applause from the mostly student crowd assembled.  I failed to get into the auditorium itself, and it was difficult to make out what was being said on the speakers set up in the lobby to broadcast what was being said inside.

Despite not being able to listen to Dion, the event did give a hint as to the state of the Liberal Party machine in greater Victoria.  All three Liberal candidates in greater Victoria were present, though the bulk of Liberal supporters appeared to be  with Briony Penn’s campaign, the candidate in Saanich-Gulf Islands.  Her buttons were in ample supply for interested attendees and pinned to many who were present, and she had the most signs.  Surprisingly, the only Liberal incumbent, Keith Martin, seemed to have the least presence at the event.  Apart from a few vertical placards, his campaign had no indications of existence, no paraphernalia to hand out.

What this event suggests is that the strongest Liberal machine in greater Victoria (or at least the most enthusiastic) is in Saanich-Gulf Islands, where it is evidently hoped that Penn’s environmental and centre-left credentials will allow for the anti-Conservative vote to coalesce around her campaign.  Saanich-Gulf Islands in the last two federal elections has had a strong yet fractured anti-Conservative vote which has allowed Gary Lunn to win. 

It should be noted that the Victoria Conservatives were also present at the Dion event.  About a dozen or so members of Jack McClintock’s campaign (the Conservative candidate in Victoria) were handing out literature and waving signs.  They also managed to place several Conservative lawn signs along the path that Dion walked down on his way to the auditorium.  The local Tories (most of whom appeared to be of university age) also attempted to stand behind Dion during his scrum with reporters while holding up their blue signs, obviously in the hope that they would form the background in any television coverage of the scrum.  The effort was abandonned, however, after the Liberals responded by placing their own bigger signs between Dion and the young Tories.  

As a side note, in the bit of travelling around Victoria I’ve done, I’ve seen more Conservative lawn signs than anyone else’s.  The NDP come in second and the Liberals in third, with no sign of the Greens.

As Charlottetown NDP candidate Brian Pollard, a filmmaker and taxi driver, notes in this press release, it took less than a week into the campaign for Liberal MP Shawn Murphy to distance himself from the Liberals’ controversial carbon tax plan:

  “There’s no doubt in my mind that Shawn’s a decent and smart man, and that’s why I’m not suprised to hear him favour the NDP’s position over his own party’s,” Pollard said. “The Green Shift is the worst combination of giving corporations the right to pay to pollute, while imposing large burdens on the poorest people who will be the first to suffer under the imposition of such things as huge increases in the cost heating oil and foodstuffs”.

Predictably, on PEI, where most homes are oil-heated and people’s pocketbooks are already feeling strained, the Liberal environmental plan has been a very hard sell for its Liberal incumbent MPs.

Indeed, it was speculated, justifiably so, that one-time Egmont Liberal hopeful Robert Morrissey withdrew from the race because he know the Liberal plan would be an electoral millstone around his neck.

As reported by the Guardian – which covers the Island like the dew – Murphy faced hard questions about the carbon tax at a recent public meeting. He argued that the Liberal plan would not hurt low-income earners, but also said not too worry, he doesn’t imagine it would be quickly implemented:

“This winter, I don’t think you’re going to see the green shift even if the Liberals got elected,” Murphy responded. “There’s no question the lower your income, the more you benefit from green shift.”

So I guess the Liberals are throwing aside the argument that the NDP’s cap and trade climate plan is bad because it can’t be implemented quickly enough.

But Murphy went further, according to the Guardian:

Murphy said he will not single out big oil but he said he does believe there needs to be more than green shift. He said he personally wants to see a cap-and-trade system put in place and he hopes it is contained in the Liberal platform, which will be released later in the campaign.

Finally, Murphy indicated that he would not be in favour of doing anything to stop the environmental destruction of the Athabasca Tar Sands, which the NDP rightly pointed out its health and environmental consequences earlier this week:

“You may not be satisfied with that particular answer but if you want me to say I’m going to shut down the tarsands, the answer is ‘no, I’m not going to’,” said Murphy. “If you want me turn into anti-tarsands, I’m not going to do it.”

If a Liberal MP indicates the NDP environmental plan is better than his party’s and refuses to slow down the unsustainable growth of Canada’s biggest environmental shame, environmentalists might have to reconsider theur support for M. Dion and his party.

Funny, I thought Wayne Easter would have been the first Island Liberal to throw the Green Shift under the bus!

I took in some NDP free pizza and an information session at the UofR campus on Friday September 12, at noon. In attendance were 3 federal NDP candidate including Stephen Moore who is contesting the riding I live in — Wascana (Regina south east corner). Of course, Ralph Goodale has long held onto this riding, and will no doubt be the favourite. I spoke with Stephen briefly as we bumped into each other walking to work, and I asked him, “I hear you’ve got a shot this election?” to which he replied something to the effect that he’ll be working hard to win it.

I found it interesting that there were about as many provincial NDP MLAs and nominees there as there were federal nominees. The questions covered mostly education and poverty, with touches upon agricultural input costs which are skyrocketing with few profit returns on the same scale. Here’s a YouTube vide of McCall:

Former Education minister Warren McCall made a good point (I thought) about the voters in the province apparently rewarding Stephen Harper with votes despite a broken $800 Million equalization promise for which McCall’s government launched a (now canceled) court challenge over. He seemed incredulous that voters would choose to do that, and I admit I feel the same way. It certainly feels like the Conservatives knew they could take Saskatchewan’s seats for granted, so they could spend our promised equalization money elsewhere, to curry favour in battlegrounds like Quebec.

The NDP candidates promised to increase corporate taxes, and decrease taxes on the average Canadian person. They also stressed a desire to ensure small farms can compete in the world market without intimidation from Cargill or any large corporation they view as bullying the Canadian Wheat Board into non-existence. There was criticism for Harper’s attacks on the Wheat Board, which they called “illegal”.

During the first week of the federal election campaign NDP Leader Jack Layton took a lot of heat from ordinary Canadians who were livid about his attempt to block Green Party Leader Elizabeth May from the TV Leaders’ Debates.

Truth is Layton desperately did not want May in the TV Leaders’ Debates because he is afraid May will “rain on his parade” by being a much more effective advocate for a carbon tax, as well as a more devastating critic of the NDP’s environmental alternative, than Liberal Leader Stephane Dion – especially in the English Language Debate.

In the last federal election, there was not one all-candidates debate in Toronto-Danforth because Layton refused to take time from his leader’s tour to address and answer questions from the people in his riding who he is suppose to represent in Ottawa.

Already rumours are flying that, once again, Layton will not agree to attend any all-candidates debates in Toronto-Danforth during this federal election campaign.

I may be a little naive, but I thought a fundamental principle of democracy was to allow voters the opportunity have the candidates address them and answer their questions so they can better make up their minds who to vote for on election day.

I guess avoiding substantive debates is what the New Democratic Party is all about.

It may be old-fashioned, but I like the traditional democratic process of holding substantive debates with all of the candidates present.

If Jack Layton’s performance during the first week is any indication of the type of democratic reform that the New Democratic Party will bring to Canada if Layton becomes Prime Minister, then you can count me out of marching in lockstep to the Layton parade in Toronto-Danforth.