Should the National Citizens Coalition Lose Its Tax Exempt Status?

When it was learned this week that Bob Rae is now polling 24 points ahead of Stephen Harper, many of us wondered when the Harper attack ads would begin.

It took exactly 17 minutes and 43 seconds (Actually, they were already running them).

Careful not to make it appear that he is focusing on his political opponents and not the mess that our economy is in, Harper instead allowed his alma mater, the National Citizens Coalition,  to do his dirty work for him.

NCC had provided Harper with a stellar education in liberal bashing, under headmaster Art Finkelstein, Richard Nixon's former campaign strategist.  He had the know how, but darn it all, his hands were tied, what with being the prime minister and all.  Can't look petty and ... er ... desperate.

When Bob Rae was premier of Ontario, a group calling themselves Ontarians for Responsible Government, a spin-off of the NCC, launced a four year attack, headed up by Gerry Nicholls, Harper's former VP with the non-profit "public service" group.

So who better to get their hands dirty for you?  They already had the file, even if it is 20 years old.

Going on the defensive, they emphatically stated that "National Citizens Coalition 'never has, never will' work for Conservative Party".  What a farce.  They acted as a registered third party during the last election campaign.  They were certainly working for the Conservative Party then.

Glen McGregor has an excellent piece in the Ottawa Citizen, detailing the NCC's "not for  the Conservative party" assault, including a list of big donors.  (I thought you could only contribute $1100)

During the spring election campaign, the NCC raised $168,960 in contributions to advertisements, according to its third-party advertising return filed with Elections Canada.  But the NCC appears to have held on to the bulk of this money for, uh, later use. The return shows the NCC spent only about 29 per cent of the money it took in. So, Election 41 was something of a cash bonanza for the NCC.

And the donors ( public record)

Robert Colborne Calgary AB 2011-03-31 $10,000
John Elliot Midhurst ON 2011-04-28 $10,000
Darey Rector Toronto ON 2011-04-06 $10,000
Bruce + Robert Orr Vancouver BC 2011-04-20 $10,000
Wazir Seth Calgary AB 2011-04-11 $5,000
Rick Balbi Calgary AB 2011-04-19 $4,000
Kent Norris Victoria BC 2011-04-29 $3,000
Paul Greenhalgh Richmond Hill ON 2011-04-04 $2,500
Mrs. William P. Wilder Toronto ON 2011-04-15 $2,000
Robert Macdonald Calgary AB 2011-04-01 $1,500
Tom Skinner Kanata ON 2011-04-19 $1,200
Brian Buttler Saanichton BC 2011-04-21 $1,200
Bob Elliot Guelph ON 2011-04-06 $1,200
Tom Como Edson AB 2011-04-28 $1,000
Tara Sinanan Edmonton AB 2011-04-28 $1,000
Sandra Simpson Toronto ON 2011-04-28 $1,000
Rick Balbi Calgary AB 2011-04-20 $1,000
Paul Sunnen Chatham ON 2011-04-04 $1,000
John Elias Morden MB 2011-04-01 $1,000
James L. Attwood Toronto ON 2011-03-29 $1,000
Gerald Heffernen Toronto ON 2011-04-28 $1,000
Frans Feyter Fort Macleod AB 2011-04-21 $1,000
Ed Thiessen Strathmore AB 2011-04-20 $1,000
David Jamieson Red Deer AB 2011-03-31 $1,000
Bryan Bennett Mississauga ON 2011-04-08 $1,000
Brent Buchanan Edmonton AB 2011-03-31 $1,000
Bill Nicholls Cambridge ON 2011-04-19 $1,000

Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor, now with the NCC, while posing as a journalist, has strong ties with the Harper government.  And in 2008, when the NCC was giving Preston Manning its medal of freedom, a rather dubious honour, it was our man Harper who presented it.

If you are going to try to make the claim that you don't work for the Conservative Party of Canada, you might want to stop working for the Conservative Party of Canada.

The NCC is not a public service organization, but just an extension of our current government.  They should pay taxes like everyone else, and stop hiding behind their "watchdog" title.

These groups do not uphold democracy, but undermine it, and its time they were exposed.

The NDP's Trouncing in Saskatchewan Should be a Wake-Up Call

In the recent Saskatchewan provincial election, the NDP took a thrashing.  From the Huffington Post:

The Saskatchewan NDP suffered one of the most crushing blows in the party's history Monday night. The once dominant party was reduced from 20 to nine of the 58 seats in the legislature. NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter lost his own riding, a long-time NDP stronghold, and stepped down soon after. The Saskatchewan Party cruised to victory with 64 per cent of the vote, doubling the NDP total, and increasing their seat count to 49.

Losing Saskatchewan for the NDP is akin to the Reformers losing Alberta.  This was where it all began.

Steve LaFleur suggests that in order to regain power the party must focus on the fact that they had moved to the right in terms of placating big business.  He blames their demise on the unions.  However, LaFleur belongs to the right-wing Frontier Centre, another think tank whose staff move in and out of the Harper government.

He discusses the destruction of the PC Party in that province, but the fact is that Brad Wall was a member of that government, and the "new" party is the same old neoconservative party of Grant Devine.  Tom Lukiwski was their general manager and is now a Harper MP.  Senator David Tkachuk was another corrupt insider of those not so defunct neocons.

I think Murray Dobbin has a better take on the problems that the NDP are currently having.  In a posting before this trouncing, he discussed the direction that the party was taking, as reflected in some of the candidates for leader.

Of Brian Topp he says:

Topp was Roy Romanow’s closest advisor. But Romanow [former Sask. NDP premier] was essentially a small ‘l’ liberal and his administration slashed education and health budgets almost as much as the previous Tory regime. I once interviewed Romanow just before he became party leader and asked him about the role of social movements and he replied they were “completely useless.” His government reflected that attitude. Maybe Topp disagreed with him — but if he did, he had little influence.

And of Mulcair:

He is an unrepentant capitalist and big ‘L’ Liberal at heart who is barely out of synch with the 1 per cent the Occupiers have targeted.

In fact, when Thomas Mulcair first decided to enter federal politics, he couldn't decide whether to run for the NDP or the Conservatives.  Clearly he chose the NDP because there was more room to advance his own career.  Dobbin is right when he says:

One of the weaknesses of the party under Jack Layton was its preoccupation with tactical maneuvering at the expense of policy development. The party had almost no policy people but a lot of communications flaks. Topp had enormous influence with Layton and we can assume he was one of the architects of this approach — one that moved the party to the centre. At the same time, the party was accused of putting its interests ahead of the country’s — with some going so far as to blame it for allowing Harper to gain his first minority.

I like Paul Dewar very much and will be watching his bid closely.  Peggy Nash has an opportunity to capture the imagination of the electorate, but with the orchestrated and unwarranted attacks on unions by Canada's conservative movement, she could be in for a rough ride.

Thomas Mulcair would be an unmitigated disaster.  A Stepen Harper mini-me.  I haven't liked him since he attacked Libby Davies for drawing attention to the plight of the occupied Palestinians.

Surge and Decline

In 1960, political scientist Angus Campbell, brought forth a theory of "surge and decline" in American politics.  It mostly addressed the often conflicting results of the mid-term and presidential elections.  However, since then many have used the theory within a particular campaign.

The current Republican leadership race is a good example.  Michelle Bachmann "surged" one week, Rick Perry another.  Now they have both dropped significantly.

The NDP success in the last federal election was the result of a "surge" in popularity for Jack Layton.  Increased media attention led to advantageous name recognition, but had the campaign gone on another week or two, it's difficult to say if it would have lasted.

Saskatchewan was the NDP's mid-term election, and as I say, hopefully, their wake-up call.  In their quest to destroy the Liberals, they have forgotten who they are.  They will never outstrategize Stephen Harper, nor will they take over the Liberal Party, so they shouldn't try.

Two weeks ago the Liberals had a membership drive with a target of 5,000 new members.  They landed 5,087.  Their death is wishful thinking on the part of both the Reformers and the NDP.  The Liberal base is disappointed but not ready to jump ship.

The Right Did Not Unite, the Populist Parties Did

In 2002, the Fraser Institute published a report on the feasibility of uniting the struggling PC Party with the Reform-Alliance.  The right had been attempting such a thing since 1967, and Ernest Manning's Political Realignment.  The Report: An Analysis On The Differences Between the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada & The Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, by Laurence Putnam, stated that "The first misconception about the Reform movement is that it is a conservative party. The Reform party has all the characteristics of a Western populist party and very few marks of a conservative party."

What was interesting about the report however, was the analysis of the 1993 election that became a turning point in Canadian politics.  One of my readers recently suggested that Harper's movement simply took over the conservative base and that his supporters were already conservatives.  Putnam's analysis proves otherwise.

The Liberal gains in the West during the 1993 election came chiefly at the expense of the PC Party, whereas most Reform party gains came chiefly at the expense of the NDP, as was witnessed in Lorne Nystrom's shocking loss in the Saskatchewan riding of Yorkton-Melville to Reform challenger Garry Breitkreuz .... British Columbians who supported the NDP in the 1980's and supported the Reform Party through the 1990's did not expediently shift their political views from the left to the right, but rather they were voting for the populist, anti-establishment party that best represented their views at the time.

In British Columbia in 1988, the NDP won 19 seats, but in 1993, only 2. The PCs went from 12 to 0, while the Liberals from 1 to 6.  The Liberals and PCs were often interchangeable.  In fact PC leader Kim Campbell lost her seat to Liberal Hedy Fry.

The Reform-Alliance's success only came about when they bought out the rights to the PC Party and pretended to be Tories, allowing them to cash in on an historical tradition.  This won't work for the NDP because the Liberal Party is not currently on the auction block.

The Quebec surge knocked out the Bloc, who were often allies of the NDP, and vote-splitting knocked down the Liberals.  If the NDP hope to succeed, they have to come out as themselves and define what they stand for.
I have always thought that we did better under the Liberals when the NDP held the balance of power.  There is no reason to believe that an NDP government with a Liberal opposition, wouldn't do the same.  However, Jack Layton led  his party in a full frontal attack on the LPC, ignoring the stronger forces of the conservative movement.

As Murray Dobbin says:  "... we are facing possibly monumental social and economic change in the next few years. The [NDP] leadership race is being judged by trying to imagine who can defeat Stephen Harper in four years — but just what are people thinking the world and Canada will look like in four years?"

We need a progressive movement and we need it now.  In four years it may be too late.

Bob Rae is in a unique position, because he has led both the NDP and the Liberals.  Maybe he can find common ground.  We can't depend on "surges" because they inevitably lead to decline.

Fresh Merger Talks Raise the Question: Is it Time?

Thomas Walkom had a column in the Star this weekend, raising the possibility of Bob Rae as the next federal NDP leader.

A rather silly attempt at reminding Canadians that he once led the NDP in Ontario, even acting as premier. While in office, Walkom wrote a scathing book: Rae Days: The Rise and Follies of the NDP.

It's a one-sided rant, that fails to mention that before the balloons starting losing air on election night, the right-wing noise machine sprung into action. Another reaction to an NDP victory.

Gerald Caplan wrote an excellent piece for the Globe in October of 2010, in which he says:

Mr. Rae's government faced an unrelenting, brutal four-year onslaught that was unprecedented in Canadian history. The attacks came from all sides. It is no exaggeration to say hysterical fear-mongering and sabotage was the order of the day. Launched within the very first year of the new government, the attackers included every manner of business big and small, both Canadian and American-owned, almost all private media, the police (especially in Toronto), landlords and lobbying/government relations firms. Their goal was clear, and they had the money and power to achieve it.

They were determined to undermine the government every step of the way, to frustrate the implementation of its plans and to assure its ultimate defeat. In all three goals they were successful. The considerable achievements of the government – often forgotten or dismissed –were wrought in the face of a deep recession and ferocious obstruction.

The National Citizens Coalition created the Ontarians for Responsible Government, running radio ads and placing billboards in prominent places.

And of course, Walkom wrote a book.

Yet nowhere in that book does he mention Ontarians for Responsible Government, or Conrad Black who vowed never to invest a penny in the province under the NDP.

And even the rank and file abandoned him because he wasn't implementing the changes they wanted, failing to understand why it was almost impossible. Said Caplan:

... corporate interests threatened a virtual strike of capital unless the government relented on its intentions to introduce higher business taxes and to strengthen union rights, environmental regulations and equity programs.

Mr. Rae and treasurer Floyd Laughren made themselves easily accessible to business representatives, many of whom ran Canadian branch plants of huge American multinationals, only to be threatened with capital blackmail. The premier was warned that their U.S. head offices weren't about to invest further in Ontario unless the government abandoned most of the programs it had run on.

Bond traders declared that slashing government programs to reduce the deficit was a prerequisite to Ontario borrowing at competitive rates, even though Ontario’s deficit was equivalent to that of Conservative-run Alberta. Suddenly the entire media was fixated on the government’s threatened credit ratings, never mind that Ontario had the only Standard & Poor’s AAA rating in the country. The Social Credit government in British Columbia, the Conservatives in Alberta and Robert Bourassa’s Liberals in Quebec all had lower credit ratings. Yet only in Ontario was the government threatened.

What happened in Ontario then was an almost carbon copy of what President Obama is facing in the United States because he dared to suggest that big business should pay more, and wanted a universal healthcare plan, right down to the "debt crisis".  So I wouldn't put too much stock into anything that Walkom says about the NDP. He was part of the problem.

Pat Martin, one of my favourite MPs on the Hill, is again calling for a merger. A realist, he appreciates the challenges the NDP face from corporate interests. Unfortunately he was booed off the stage for suggesting they drop "socialism" from their mandate.

Martin is a smart man, and while there was much rejoicing over their latest victories, let's be real. Most of the gains were in Quebec and a surge of popularity for Jack Layton.

It resulted in the loss of many progressives from both the Bloc and Liberals. Hard working MPs replaced with paper candidates, and vote splitting that gave the neocons Ontario.

But how well will those paper candidates do next election, when they have to actually raise funds and campaign? Many never even had campaign offices. Their constituents didn't vote for them, only their leader.

I'm afraid that if the Liberals and NDP don't work together, whether in a formal merger or spirit of co-operation, we are going to end up with a neoconservative dynasty.

One thing that Walkom did get right, was his observation that Jack Layton was trying to move the party to the right, in an attempt to garner support from the mainstream.  However, Canada is not a right-wing country, and Stephen Harper's success is in large part due to the fact that he pretends to be governing from the centre, while moving the centre with his usual "stealth".

So if there is a new party created, they have to offer a real alternative for Canadians, not just give it lip service.

Personally, I would prefer that the Liberals rebuild, drawing in support from the old PCers, or "red Tories".  Canada had a unique political culture, in that for decades, we were led by centrist governments, who drew from the right and left.

The only drawback to that was that while the right wing Reform/Alliance earned concessions, and the left-wing NDP earned concessions, any fallout was placed on the party in power, and ironically, later used by those same people seeking concessions.

I don't want to lose the NDP because they gave us so much, including universal healthcare and prison reform.  But I don't want to lose our centre either, and that's where the only alternative to Harper should be.

Will Bob Rae and Jack Layton Attempt to Filibuster Back to Work Legislation?

Jack Layton has vowed to filibuster Conservative back to work legislation, and Bob Rae is standing in solidarity with postal workers.

Harper is being Harper, siding with management and throwing in a few 'economy, economy, economy'.

The 'economy' doesn't stop his taxpayer funded self-promotion ads or 'hospitality' extravaganzas. Or ballooning his own costs and bloating his cabinet with extra salaries, limos and expense accounts.

But fair negotiations with unionized workers, will cripple us?

Harper's National Citizens Coalition was very anti-union, and the PM personally hates unions almost as much as he hates liberals, so we already know what his tactics will be.

But this is a little different. The people I speak with are for the most part supportive of the postal workers. Wisconsin looms large, and fear that their own bargaining powers could be weakened, is a factor.

We are not just supporting postal workers, but the real meat and potatoes of the Canadian economy. Even if we work for a non-unionized company, that business is probably thriving because of good union jobs. Workers spend money in this country, and that's the real trickle down.

Corporations hold onto their dough, trying to keep more and more of it for themselves.

Today's debate should be interesting, though don't be surprised if Layton throws in a 'sponsorship scandal' or two.

Sigh.

Congratulations Ted Hsu on Your New Appointments

Kingston's Ted Hsu has been named to two positions in the Liberal shadow cabinet, Critic for Science & Technology, and for the Federal Economic Development Agency of both Southern and Northern Ontario.

Ted has a PhD in physics from Princeton, and is not only fluent in French, English and Chinese, but also speaks the language of science. Something the Harper government is completely illiterate in.

He's hard working and personable, and will be a great asset to the team as the party rebuilds.

Marc Garneau as House Leader, is also a good choice, as he presents a contrast to the bombastic Peter Van Loan, and often volatile Thomas Mulcair. And Ralph Goodale, one of the most likable and honest in the House, as Deputy leader is a perfect fit.

Bob Rae Chosen as Interim Liberal Leader

The Liberals have just named Bob Rae as interim leader.

A good choice.

He is an extremely likable guy, experienced and already weather beaten from Conservative attacks.

But Rae will be an important factor in earning trust from the business community as they rebuild without the democratic vote subsidies.

As Lawrence Martin said recently, many moderates will simply not vote NDP. So unless we rebuild the centre, many voters will go to the right and possibly stay there.

When they choose a permanent leader though, they must go with someone young and fresh.

As Glen Pearson says, we can't afford to mess this up.

Why Our Foreign Policy Should Not be Left to Children

If there has been one area where Stephen Harper has failed Canada the most, it's been in our foreign policy. He's managed to reverse decades of diplomatic accomplishments that made Canada a leader in peace brokering.

This week Bob Rae exposed what many already knew. That our foreign policy is now being directed by Harper's backroom boys:

"If they can't control it, if the 25-year-old jihadis in the prime minister's office can't control it, it doesn't happen, and that's what's wrong about this government ... "Our ambassadors overseas ... are not allowed to comment on anything, ever, without first referring anything they might say or could say, to be approved by people in the prime minister's office," Rae said." People in the prime minister's office have probably never been to the country in question, they don't know anything about it, probably in some cases could not find it on a map, and they're the ones who are deciding these people who have been in the field for 30 years are going to be able to do their jobs.

And yet unbelievably the topic for discussion on Power and Politics, was whether or not Rae went too far in calling these little rats 'Jihadis', instead of what it means to our security, when 25-year-old staffers, who probably could not find a country in question on a map, are directing our foreign policy.

This is why I can't watch Canadian political commentary shows. I envision people like Solomon, before the show, getting hooked up to a brain cell zapper, like the gizmos you'd see on old television programs. A colander on his head with wires protruding from every hole and smoke blowing out of his ears. It's the only explanation.

The Language of Protocol

When in opposition, Stephen Harper said of our diplomats, that they spent "too much time clinking glasses at cocktail parties", clearly not understanding the importance of not only "cocktail parties", but meeting foreign leaders on a social level.

When Sonja Sinclair wrote the biography of longtime Canadian diplomat, George Ignatieff (yes, Michael Ignatieff's father), she quoted his views on the importance of protocol and of course socializing.

"... protocol is really a language, a set of rules and conventions which enable people of different nationalities, social backgrounds, and political persuasions to feel comfortable with each other, to avoid embarrassing situations, even to enjoy each other's company." (1)

In a political discussion group last night, one of the members spoke of "respect". Respecting that the citizens of another country are just as important as the citizens of your own. And that is what diplomats try to do. To meet people at their level.

Harper's backroom boys are only concerned with the political leverage. How it will advance the party's fortunes at home. Diplomacy is not part of the agenda.

So when the Harper government drastically cut the social budget of the diplomatic corp, they were naturally upset, with such a simple minded action.

The reduced spending, which reflects restraint measures taken last year, has sparked criticism from one of several retired senior diplomats who have accused the Harper government recently of not respecting the importance of cultivating social relationships with key officials and politicians in foreign capitals. Paul Heinbecker, former ambassador to the United Nations, said chaining diplomats to their desks means the huge cost of establishing and running embassies abroad is squandered.

Now I realize that members of Harper's base, after learning of this, probably pulled the straw out of their teeth long enough for a "'bout bloody time!" and applauded the cost cutting measures. But what are we losing in the long term? Far more than just a seat on the UN Security Council.

In Embassy this week, on the editorial page, they spoke of the Bev Oda affair and it's implications.

The Bev Oda scandal will not endear CIDA to its detractors—including a prime minister and Conservative government who view the agency as a nuisance staffed by granola-eating hippies and lazy NGOs feeding off the system. (2)

How do you build from that? Our NGOs already live in fear that their funding could be cut at any moment. They are the people on the ground, trying to feed the world's poor and keep them safe. Those who "respect" the value of all of the world's inhabitants.

They now talk softly and carry a big picture of Stephen Harper. It appears to be the only thing that keeps them in business.

Pollster Nik Nanos this week suggested that Michael Ignatieff missed an opportunity to write his own narrative, allowing the Conservatives to write it for him, with their "just visiting" ads.

I think a good example of Michael Ignatieff the man, and how he views the world, comes from his book 'Blood and Belonging.' As the son of a career diplomat, he has travelled extensively, meeting world leaders, and "clinking glasses". But when working as a war correspondent, he interviewed war lords, peasants and soldiers alike.

Contrast that to Stephen Harper who never even had a passport before he became prime minister.

I've read Blood and Belonging three times, and one of my favourite passages deals with batons, of all the crazy things. When Ignatieff visited the grave of former Yugoslav president, Josip Tito (Michael's father was the Ambassador to Yugoslavia, from 1956-1958), he wrote of Tito and those seemingly meaningless pieces of wood.

He liked greenhouses. So he built himself a greenhouse. He used to rest there, among the poinsettias and the cactuses, like an old lizard in the sun. Now they have buried him in the greenhouse, in front of his residence in Belgrade. There is a large white marble slab, with bronze lettering which reads Josip Broz Tito, 1892-1980.

No one much visits any more, and the place is neglected. On the day I visit it is raining, and rain is dripping from a broken skylight on to the Marshal's grave. Nobody cares.

On his birthday in 1945, some teenagers ran a relay race from Kragujevac to Belgrade and presented him with a baton. Every year of his reign, the 'youth' of Yugoslavia repeated that race, and at the end of it they presented the old dictator with the relay batons. His birthday became 'Youth Day'. Twenty thousand batons are kept in the museum next to his grave. Nobody visits the batons any more. (3)

Those objects might not mean much to the casual observer, other than in why there are so many, but they once meant something to the people who grew up in the former Yugoslavia under Tito. They are part of their heritage, good or bad. Michael Ignatieff was able to give life to those batons.

This is not a hero worship for me. I don't expect to agree with all of his actions when he's prime minister. In fact I can guarantee that I won't.

And I don't expect him to have all the answers.

But in another huge difference between Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper. At least we will be allowed to ask the questions.

Sources:

1. The Making of a Peacemonger: The Memoirs of George Ignatieff, By Sonja Sinclair, University of Toronto Press, ISBN: 0-8020-2556-0, Pg. 62

2. ANOTHER NAIL IN CIDA’S COFFIN? Embassy Magazine, February 23, 2011, Pg. 6

3. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, By Michael Ignatieff, Vintage Press, 1994, ISBN: 0-09-938951-7, Pg. 38

New Survey: Who is Your Favourite Cartoon Character, John Baird or Dimitri Soudas?

Just when you thought Dimitri Soudas couldn't say anything more stupid, he outdoes himself. With John Baird shoving a pair of socks in Bev Oda's mouth to avoid accountability and transparency, Dimitri Soudas referred to Bob Rae's comments about Harper's backroom boys being Jihadists, as an insult to victims of terrorism.

Go right for the jugular.

This from a man who called environmental activists "terrorists", and created a "crisis" in Vancouver over peaceful protests against closing down the safe injection site. He only got involved because the wonderful Libby Davies stood with her constituents.

But Bob Rae has a very valid point and one we should be paying attention to. Those young boys in the backroom do control everything, while the people elected to represent us have lost their voice. Their only function is to read lines and take part in ridiculous little skits.

And Rae was not the first to sound the alarm.

In May of 2006, Bruce Champion-Smith wrote a piece for the Toronto Star: How Harper controls the spin

"What we're seeing here is a degree of control within the government, within the caucus ... that we haven't seen for a very long time .... That control extends to every corner of government.

Even the military

At a recent news conference, senior military officers were under government orders to answer reporters' questions only on the condition that they were not identified."I have to live within that limitation," Lt.-Gen. Walter Natynczyk, vice-chief of defence staff, told reporters.

And from our former ambassador to Afghanistan

Arif Lalani, Canada's ambassador in Afghanistan, is not allowed to speak with reporters without having each individual request approved by Ottawa, sources say. The Canadian International Development Agency has no one in Kandahar authorized to speak with reporters, even though development is ostensibly the focus of the extended mission.

And this tight messaging control caused a delay in the reporting of detainees. According to Brian Stewart of CBC:

All three of the independent military commands at that point (in 2007) — the Canadian, Dutch and British — knew that under international law they were responsible for the well being of all Afghans they picked up, even after they were handed over to Afghan prisons and interrogation centres. The Dutch were concerned enough to report immediately any handover to the local Red Cross
officials. Britain acted within 24 hours.

But Canada? hen Canadian soldiers brought in the usually hooded and tightly bound detainee, our military police on the spot would first inform the colonels and generals in the Kandahar mission control centre. But instead of alerting the Red Cross right away, like the Dutch and British, these commanders, following orders, sent the information to CEFCOM, the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command in Ottawa. his information would then be passed over to Defence Headquarters and to Foreign Affairs.

By the time the information was vetted, no one knew where the detainees had gone.

And in 2007 evidence revealed that Stephen Harper's office was already engaged in a cover up.

WASHINGTON–Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office used a "6,000-mile screwdriver" to oversee the denial of reports of Afghan detainee abuse when the scandal first erupted in 2007, according to a former senior NATO public affairs official who was then based in Kabul. The former official, speaking on condition his name not be used, told the Toronto Star that Harper's office in Ottawa "scripted and fed" the precise wording NATO officials in Kabul used to repudiate allegations of abuse "at a time when it was privately and generally acknowledged in our office that the chances of good treatment at the hands of Afghan security forces were almost zero."

"It was highly unusual. I was told this was the titanic issue for Prime Minister Harper and that every single statement that went out needed to be cleared by him personally," said the former official, who is not Canadian.

"The lines were, 'We have no evidence' of coercive treatment being used against detainees handed over to the Afghans. There were very clear instructions for a blanket denial. The pressure to hold to that line was channelled via Canadian military and diplomatic personnel in Kabul. But it was made clear to us that this was coming from the Prime Minister's Office, which was running the public affairs aspect of Canadian engagement in Afghanistan with a 6,000-mile screwdriver."

And even more alarming, according to Rick Hillier, Stephen Harper's backroom boys want to now run our wars from behind the safety of their junk food laden desks. (Hillier slams 'field marshal wannabes' in revised edition of his memoir, By: Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press, October 11, 2010)

Canada's former top soldier is warning that "field marshal wannabes" are angling to take a bigger role in directing the day-to-day operations of military forces in the field. Retired general Rick Hillier says a policy paper is circulating around senior levels of the Harper government that suggests the Clerk of the Privy Council and the deputy minister of defence take a greater role to "guide" the military.The former chief of defence staff writes, in a new postscript for the softcover edition of his memoirs, that there is a growing movement within the federal government to establish a system of micro-management that could extend from the highest reaches of Ottawa all the way down to individual combat units.

...The notion that the military needs greater guidance on how to conduct operations irked Hillier. "What crap!" Hillier writes in the new edition of A Soldier First, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press.

So when Bob Rae uses strong language to sound the alarm on Harper's Jihadists, we need to pay attention. This is a very serious issue. These young men are not elected and therefore don't have to be accountable to anyone except our dictator.

Stephen Harper and Vladimir Putin are Singing From the Same Songbook

Though not exactly musical propaganda, there appears to be an attempt by Harper and Putin to recreate Stalin's "cult of personality", as both of these leaders recently "treated" their flock to a bit of entertainment.

Harper ... hmmmm ... rocked out at his caucus Christmas party, while Putin treated a crowd to his best Fats Domino.

Is there no end to Vladimir Putin’s talents? The Russian Prime Minister already has a reputation as an accomplished fighter-jet pilot and Siberian tiger-hunter, and is a black belt in judo. Now you can add jazz crooner to the list.

The 58-year-old former KGB chief stunned an audience at a charity event on Friday that included Sharon Stone and Kevin Costner with his rendition of Blueberry Hill ...Putin, described as ‘alpha-dog’ in diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, is reported to have sung patriotic songs to a group of Russian agents after they were expelled from America in July. But before Friday’s show in St Petersburg, his musical prowess had not been noted. His spokesman said he learned the lyrics to Blueberry Hill as part of his English language studies.

So maybe if Harper learned how to fly fighter-jets, hunt Siberian tiger and gets a black belt in judo, we might not think he was such a doofus.

My favourite political idol performances though, are Jack Layton's Party For Sale or Rent and Bob Rae's Prorogation Song.

Enjoy.

My Crisis of Faith and What Must be Done to Restore it

I am having a crisis of faith. Not faith in my country but faith in liberalism. This is very serious in a country known for it's liberal values.

When the Progressive Conservatives were eaten alive, I supported the NDP, and while I still have a great deal of respect for many of their MPs, I lost faith in their leader. He no longer stood up for Canadian values but had become just another politician.

Then when Michael Ignatieff was named party leader, I joined the Liberals. The first time in my life that I had officially joined a political party. And putting my money where my mouth was, I contributed funds. In fact my husband and I will have contributed the maximum this year. The first time either of us have ever given to a political party.

But I had read Blood and Belonging and The Rights Revolution, and I believed in what Mr. Ignatieff stood for.

But where is that man?

The latest fiasco over the extension of the Afghan War has me wondering if I chose the right route to getting rid of our dictator.

That doesn't mean that I'm going to cut up my Liberal card or stomp off mad, because I still believe in the basic fundamentals of this party. But if they are going to agree with one of the worst decisions ever made by this government, without even telling us why, then the Liberal Party can no more call themselves liberal than the Conservative Party can call themselves conservative.

This is not what I signed on for.

I think I have a better understanding of the events leading up to the Afghan extension announcement. Bob Rae visited Afghanistan and saw an opportunity for a peacekeeping role. Stephen Harper got wind of it so made it political, as he does with everything, announcing the Liberal plan as his own. Then when the you know what hit the fan, he rallied the right-wing media, to spin the story, deflecting blame from Harper himself.

But I don't care. Our role as Peacekeepers should have been put in place years ago, before we allowed Rick Hillier to suggest that it is our military's job to kill people.

That ship has sailed.

I understand that sometimes if you want to help the world's most vulnerable, you have to take up arms against their oppressors. But in Afghanistan, we are the oppressors.

We are propping up a corrupt government and killing people. Lots of people. Women and children. The elderly. Innocent civilians. They no longer want our "help", trust me. They just want to be left alone.

Paul Krugman has an excellent column in the New York Times: The World as Obama Finds It, where he is questioning whether there is any difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.

On Wednesday David Axelrod, President Obama’s top political adviser, appeared to signal that the White House was ready to cave on tax cuts — to give in to Republican demands that tax cuts be extended for the wealthy as well as the middle class. “We have to deal with the world as we find it,” he declared.

The obvious point is the contrast between the administration’s current whipped-dog demeanor and Mr. Obama’s soaring rhetoric as a candidate. How did we get from “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” to here?

Obama was going to change the world.

In fairness he has had to face a lot of corporate funded opposition with the Tea Party and Fox News, who have been relentless. But if you really want to show that you are different, say to hell with them all. He'd probably find more Americans agreeing with him than he thinks.

In Canada we are facing the same corporate funded opposition, but it's time the Liberals said to hell with them all, and I thought I had seen a few signs of that.

Michael Ignatieff stated recently that while he opposed anti-Semitism, "...stressed that a balanced and informed questioning of Israeli policies was not anti-Semitism". We need more of that.

Michael Ignatieff agreed to decriminalize marijuana for personal use. We need more of that.

The Liberals will reopen the Prison Farms. We need more of that.

They helped to save the gun registry. We need more of that.

They promised to reopen the fighter jet contract. We need more of that.

They promised to end corporate welfare. We need more of that.

They promised to preserve Medicare. We need more of that.

What we don't need is more Stephen Harper, and that is what we are getting with this Afghan WAR.

The right-wing's latest convert, Chantel Hebert, has given Ignatieff his death notice. I'm putting him on life support. Don't make me pull the plug, by showing me there's some signs of life.

Michael, Michael, Michael. Decriminalize Marijuana Good. Extend War Bad. Talk to Me.

This should have been a good week for the Liberals.

Michael Ignatieff had agreed to decriminalize marijuana for personal use. It got Shelley Glover in a flap and anytime we can get that ditz in a flap is a good week.

That move would have brought out young voters.

Dictator Harper squashed a climate change bill voted on by Parliament and supported by the nation.

He single handedly extended our WAR by three years. We were angry.

So why Mr. Ignatieff, did you and Bob Rae agree to support this arbitrary move? If you had your reasons then you should have presented them. You should have demanded a vote in Parliament on an issue of such importance.

We are not prepared to replace one dictator with another, so please talk to us and do it soon. No rhetoric. Demand that this goes to Parliament and debate it. We can accept nothing less.

Canadians are tired of war and we're tired of Harper. We want an alternative and Jack Layton can't cut it. I thought you could. Give me a reason to believe that you can, and you can't do that by agreeing with this horrendous decision.

We don't need war, we need jobs. We need a strategy to end poverty.

I'm not ready to change parties, because I believe the fundamentals are sound. But damn it, fix this.

Three words: NO MORE WAR!!!!

Peter Braid Does Not Stand up For the Troops or Kitchener-Waterloo

It is almost painful to watch this member of Parliament from Kitchener-Waterloo gulp his way through this interview. He was obviously provided with talking points, and when they were called out, he simply couldn't defend his party's position on this issue.

I thought it was extremely polite of Bob Rae and Paul Dewar, to cut him some slack. If the tables were turned and it was a Liberal, NDP or Bloc in the hot seat, you can be sure the Reformers would not be so gracious.

What they are talking about is the horrible ten-percenter (taxpayer funded) attack ad that Braid's party has been distributing, suggesting that the opposition parties have been attacking the troops. In fact the exact opposite is true.

The Reformers have been hiding behind the troops, to avoid questions of possible war crimes, and as such, our troops are taking the blame.

I really like both Bob Rae and Paul Dewar and thought they handled the interview extremely well. I would have been mad as hell.

However, Mr. Braid has proven that he does not act well under pressure and just kept repeating the same old tired lines about our brave men and women. If they really cared about our brave and women, they would do the right thing and call a full public inquiry. Because if they don't, the International criminal court takes over and this is what will define the mission.

I've never supported the war, but will always stand up for our soldiers. I just wish Stephen Harper would do the same.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA? IS PETER BRAID REALLY THE BEST CHOICE FOR KITCHENER-WATERLOO?

Bob Rae Plays the Met. OK. Not The Met, Just the Piano. This is SO Funny

Bob Rae has got such a great sense of humour. It's a Canadian thing, eh?

Michael Ignatieff hosted a Facebook question period yesterday, and I missed it. I got busy doing other things, and completely forgot. However, the transcripts are available here.

Mr. Ignatieff and I have the same birthday, May 12, but he's just a few years older. That's my six degrees of separation I guess. Although, surprisingly he never mentions sharing a birthday with me. Oh well.

Here are some of my favourites:

Mario Lagüe (moderator): 3:02 [Brad Bossack] - Greetings, as a member of CAPP (Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament), I wish[...] to speak of changing the currant democratic structure to providing and endorsing more participation within the process decision making. As you have seen, there are many Canadians who are feeling very disenfranchised, and are rallying to be heard in a new way. What are your feelings and idea's on democratic renewal in this country?
Thursday January 21, 2010 3:09 Mario Lagüe (moderator)

Michael Ignatieff: Politicians need to get out on the road and answer tough questions face to face with voters. there:s a hunger for direct participation and involvement. Thats what I discovered on my tour of colleges and universitiesand I want to keep on going with town halls in every Canadian community I can get to.

Mario Lagüe (moderator): And here's a question from Brent Nellis - Mister Ignatieff, I will be finishing a degre[...]e in sociology next year and I am currently interested in pursuing graduate studies or working for Statistics Canada. However, the open disdain that the Conservatives have shown for science and research in the past is making me nervous about meaningful career opportunities in Canada. How would you guarantee permanent academic independence for Canada’s research institutions, such as Environment Canada and the granting councils, and how would you integrate the work of Canadian researchers into the government’s policy-development process?

Michael Ignatieff: conservatives have cut funding to our research and granting councils. I want to reverse these cuts in government and restore our investment levels in basic and applied science. Its the key to innovation, jobs and future growth. Im passionate about this.

[Comment From Mike Brown Mike Brown : ] Mr Ignatieff, I would like to thank you for your cross country tour of universities. I had the opportunity to see you speak here in Calgary. My question is as follows: I recognize that post-secondary education is a provincial issue but just like health care it can be influenced by the federal government. Here in Alberta we are facing large increases in tuition each year without a comparable increase in quality of education. In fact, the quality has tended to decrease. Should the Liberal party form the government, how do you hope to help students cope with increasing tuition and, as a result, increasing student debt?

Michael Ignatieff: You get the grades, you get to go. That needs to be our motto for higher education in Canada. In practice this will mean higher levels of student aid, more grants than loans, and where loans are applied, longer repayment terms and lower interest rates where possible. We also need to incentivize hiring of young graduates from colleges and universities. The current level of youth unemployment--double the national average--is just too high.

[Comment From Joe Turcotte Joe Turcotte : ] Mr. Ignatieff, your recent university tour and this online town hall seem to indicate that you're hoping to reach out to a new, and often overlooked, segment of the Canadian population-- the youth. Could you please explain what role you see for Canada's youth in politics today and describe any changes that the political system itself should take to engage/incorporate us?

Michael Ignatieff: I got involved first time when I was about 17 and once bitten at an early age, you stay bitten. Parties need to reach out and engage young people and give them responsability early on. I was a national youth organizer for Trudeau at age 21, and that was a challenge. Bottom line: I trust young people because when I was young someone was crazy enough to trust me.

You mentioned that one thing you learned from your tour is that Canadian youth are really interested in international development. Will the liberal party make improving Canada's aid (reforming CIDA, etc) part of the next election platform as a result of the issue's importance to Canadians?

Michael Ignatieff: We need to focus Canada:s international aid on poverty reduction. That means focussing on Africa. We also need to get our CIDA professionals out of Ottawa and into the field. And finally, we need to increase funding to our great NGO partners, who are often so good at delivering great programs efficiently to those who need it most.

Following is a very funny video of Jack Layton that I had posted before. Now if my girl Elizabeth could maybe play the drums, we'd have us a band.

Bob Rae Makes an Impassioned Speech to Parliament and Every Word is True

This government is riding high in the polls right now, so they want an election. However, they can't make it look like they want an election, so they do what they do best. LIE!

With scandals brewing over the way they have been handling the stimulus money, which includes giving money to their freind's private Christian school (not the first time for Flaherty), and the 'In and Out' finally hitting the courts, they need to get it out of the way.

John Ivison: Battle of the pork-barrel all stars
September 24, 2009

Pork-barreling in Canadian politics is hardly new. The task of the politician is to climb the tree to shake down the acorns to the pigs below, conceded Sir John A. Macdonald in a moment of, presumably drunken, sincerity.

Now we have Gordon Landon, regional councillor for the Town of Markham and the nominated Conservative candidate in the Ontario riding of Markham-Unionville.

In what will likely prove to be a career-limiting move, he admitted on live television that the reason his riding has not received federal funding for a medical testing centre is that the Member of Parliament is a Liberal.

It was against this background that Michael Ignatieff staged a press conference to accuse the government of breaching the public trust by funneling the bulk of the federal stimulus cash for infrastructure into Conservative ridings. After months of underperforming, the Liberal leader was finally out standing in a field - to be precise, a soya-bean field that would, he said, have been turned into a park, if stimulus money had flowed expeditiously.

Standing next to him in his shirt-sleeves, apparently rehabilitated in his leader's eyes after gifting the party Stéphane Dion, was former leadership candidate, Gerard Kennedy.

On Mr, Kennedy's initiative, the Grits contacted 946 of 1697 projects funded by the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund and found that only 12% were underway, in contrast to the government's claim that shovels are in the ground on 75%.

The reason for the delay, the Liberals said, was that the Harper government wanted to exert political control over the selection of projects.

Rather than flow half the infrastructure funds directly to municipalities using the Gas Tax Transfer, as the Liberals claimed they would have done, the government created a new program that resulted in a four month delay but allowed all projects to be vetted by the Harper government.

In a thorough, and one has to say convincing, report, Mr. Kennedy suggested that money was directed more often than not to Conservative ridings. In Ontario, Conservatives constituencies received, on average, 15% more dollars than Liberal ridings.

Four of the top 10 allocations for Ontario were given to ridings represented by Conservative Cabinet ministers and a fifth to the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary. They received two to three times the average funding, despite often having unemployment rates around half the provincial average. The pattern was the same in British Columbia, the report said.

"There is a systemic bias toward Conservative ridings," charged Mr. Ignatieff. "Canadians don't want political games played with infrastructure money, they want it to benefit all Canadians."

Nobody should be particularly shocked by any of this - it was ever thus, particularly under previous Liberal regimes. Yet for Mr. Ignatieff, it's a God-send. The Liberal leader has been flailing around like a punch-drunk boxer for months but if this line of inquiry has legs, it could be the Conservatives who find themselves kissing the canvas. (It's the National Post. They hate Liberals, but the fact that Iverson may actually be finding fault with the Reform-Conservatives is news worthy)

Such was the government's concern, it sent out its best bare-knuckle brawler, Transport Minister, John Baird, a man who has been known to turn a blind eye to the Marquess of Queensberry's rules.

The charges are "downright opportunistic","shameful" and "just plain wrong", he said, without getting into specifics.

"If the Liberals are concerned about the infrastructure projects moving forward and where they are located, they should talk to the provinces and municipalities who approved each and every one of these and agreed with us," he said. "In Ontario, every single grant we make under the ISF is done in partnership with Dalton McGuinty. You can accuse Dalton McGuinty of many things [but] conspiring with Stephen Harper to reward Conservative MPs and help Stephen Harper get re-elected, I would suggest is not one of them."

Of course, he's right. But there's one suspects that closer inspection of the infrastructure spending will unearth that as many provincial Liberal Cabinet ministers benefited from taxpayer largesse as federal Conservatives. It all conjurs up mental images of Tarantino-eque heist movie, where "Nice-Guy" John Baird and his provincial equivalent, George "Mr. Pink" Smitherman, meet to divvy up the loot.

The contention that the provincial Liberals are accessories does not invalidate Mr. Kennedy's point that this is old-style pork-barrel politics. The Conservatives have spent the past year criss-crossing the country, indulging in what Mr. Kennedy called Announce-A-Rama at our expense. My Canwest colleague David Akin has calculated that the government has made 1770 Economic Action Plan announcements since last year's election, making $71-billion in funding commitments.

You don't have to be as cynical as me to imagine that much of this money ended up in Conservative ridings too.

It is early days for evidence of dubious spending - although there is already uproar in Collingwood, Ont., over the decision by the federal and provincial governments to allocate $523,000 to a private school to build a soccer field for its 156 students. All they need now is a hint of genuine sleaze and the Liberals will have their own Three Graces with which to attack the Conservative government - waste, mismanagement and corruption.

Tony Panayi Continued: Ontarians for Responsible Government

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

By 1990, the Ontario Conservatives with a new party leader and new president, were in trouble.

There was good news and bad news for Brampton South MPP* Tony Clement right after the 1990 election. The good news was that he'd been elected party
president. The bad news came during his first day on the job, when he received a phone call from the party's chief financial officer. "Congratulations on becoming party president," said the CFO. "I just want to let you know that we're $5.4 million in debt. That means before we pay a nickel on staff, before we pay a nickel on brochures, anything, we have to pay in interest $625,000 a year —$13,000 a week. And right now we have about $4,000 in the bank."

That was the financial state of the Big Blue Machine following the 1990 leadership campaign. Mike Harris had inherited a massive debt, racked up during all those leadership campaigns. After the fall election of 1990, things looked grim for the Tories. With the party consistently at 15 or 20 percent in the polls, the $5.4 million debt sat like a huge boulder on a road, blocking any chance the Tories may have had of rejuvenating themselves. That's when Mike Harris made one of the toughest decisions of his political career — he shut down party headquarters. It was the only thing the party could do, but it meant that the once mighty Big Blue Tory Machine of Ontario no longer existed. Traditional Conservatives were aghast. It was unthinkable for them; it was akin to the Albany Club running out of twelve-year-old scotch. The Tories had no party headquarters and no paid political staff. (1)

The election held September 6, 1990, put the Conservatives in third place with 20 seats. But the results of this election would prove to be a blessing in disguise, because it gave Bob Rae's NDP a majority government, at a time when Ontario was heading into a severe recession.

But this also meant that a socialist government had taken the helm, and there was no way corporate Canada was going to allow this, so their advocacy groups swung into action. Leading the charge was the National Citizens Coalition, who created a spin-off group called Ontarians for Responsible Government, headed up by Stephen Harper's** former VP when he himself was president of the NCC, Gerry Nicholls.

Throughout the government of NDP leader Bob Rae, Gerry headed the NCC project group, “Ontarians for Responsible Government”. Among numerous activities this group erected anti-Rae billboards throughout the province. This style of billboard advocacy was imitated nationwide and was featured in Campaigns and Elections magazine. Besides overseeing and co-coordinating the NCC's overall political and communication strategies, Gerry also acted as the group’s media spokesman, edited its newsletters and wrote its op-eds, news releases and fundraising letters. (2)

Bob Rae didn't stand a chance. Nicholls describes the constant attacks.

The NCC’s Golden Age occurred in the early- to mid-1990s, when Bob Rae was the NDP Premier of Ontario. To be blunt, Rae was a disaster. His economic platform of high taxes, big spending, and massive deficits was wrecking the economy. Of course, this made him the perfect poster boy for the NCC. We lambasted his ruinous, socialist agenda with newspaper ads, radio commercials, TV spots, and billboards. At one point, we dubbed him the “Buffalo Business Booster Man of the Year,” because we believed that his onerous taxes were driving Ontario businesses to New York State. Another time, we put up a billboard which featured three photos: one of a mousetrap, labeled “Mouse Killer,” another of a fly swatter (“Bug Killer”), and, finally, a photo of Rae (“Job Killer”).

These ad campaigns generated a lot of publicity for our organization and attracted a lot of people to join the NCC as paying members. Rae’s ineptitude made it easier than ever for us to mount fundraising campaigns. Basically, all I had to do was write letters to people saying “We want to dump Bob Rae,” and they would send me back huge cheques to pay for more anti-NDP ad campaigns. In fact, I must confess to feeling something akin to pleasure — albeit slightly guilt-laden pleasure — in those days of bad economic news. After all, the worse things got for Ontario’s economy, the better things got for us.

What all this goes to show is that if you want to make a living from politics in any way, even if you are just engaging in advocacy work, you need a bad guy or a villain. To mobilize your supporters, you have to be able to point to somebody and say, “Hey, there’s a scary guy out there whose policies are going to hurt you. That’s why you need us.” (3)

Actually Bob Rae's tenure was not as bad as history suggests. He himself admits that he made mistakes, in large part due to inexperience, but he also accomplished a great deal.

The National Citizens Coalition put up billboards with Rae and Stalin side by side, and rich stockbrokers led a protest parade to Queen's Park and shouted for Rae's head. He never had a chance. Bay Street and big business shunned him and his government like they were lepers. Still, Rae managed to save the jobs of the Algoma Steel Workers in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and the jobs of the workers in the De Havilland plant in Toronto. The media was hostile to Rae's government. Today the media keeps talking about his NDP government, but never mention that he presided over the worst Ontario recession since the Great Depression. (4)

And those hostile attacks were often personal, and understandably rattled the premier.

The National Citizens' Coalition, a shadowy front group with big money, had already rented a billboard just around the corner from Queen's Park, displaying posters worthy of Allende's Chile. The huffing and puffing of right-wing types who could never bring themselves to go to Ottawa to worry about Mulroney and Wilson's deficits (much higher and far more out of control than ours) was set in permanent motion. They now have billboards fawning over Mike Harris. (5)

Rae was right. Mulroney had created the largest deficit in Canadian history. The largest of course until Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper would blow that record out of the water. Why was Rae's deficit, that helped to save jobs, wrong; and yet the Harper government's good when it has done little to protect jobs? Employment figures are misleading because many people are opting for part-time, or much lower paying jobs out of necessity.

It's for this reason that I don't think Jack Layton could ever be prime minister because these "shadowy" groups financed by the corporate world simply won't allow it. It's too bad because I really like Jack Layton and loved Ed Broadbent when he headed the party.

Footnotes:

*Tony Clement was not yet MPP. He wasn't elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario until 1995.

** In 2001 and 2002 Gerry Nicholls wrote fundraising letters and ad copy for Stephen Harper during his run for the Canadian Alliance leadership. His fundraising letters raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Harper campaign. (2)

Sources:

1. Right Turn: How the Tories Took Ontario, By Christina Blizzard, Dundern Press, 1995, ISBN 1550022547, Pg. 9

2. About Gerry from Gerry Nicholl's blog.

3. In politics, you need a bad guy, By Gerry Nicholls, December 3, 2008

4. Bob Rae would make a great prime minister, By Larry Zolf, CBC News Viewpoint, May 9, 2006

5. From Protest to Power: Personal Reflections on a Life in Politics, By Bob Rae, Viking Press, 1996, ISBN: 0-670-86842-6, Pg. 196

Tony Panyi Continued: A Shake Up in the Legislature

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Though the young Tories of Tony Clement were elated with the victory of Brian Mulroney and their role in his success, there was still a lot of work to be done in Ontario. The party under Bill Davis, was said to be moving to the left of the Liberals, as they worked to appease a more urbanized and progressive province.

Many members of the government, including Gordon Walker, Alan Pope, and senior cabinet minister Frank Miller, also believed the party had drifted too far to the he left, and saw in this group of young radicals, potential allies who could be used as shock troops, should they decide to run for leadership. (1)

They would soon be given an opportunity when Bill Davis announced that he would be stepping down. In a tight race, Frank Miller won the leadership race at their January convention, and was named premier on February 8, 1985, by appealing to those in favour of a swing back to the right.

One supporter was a backbencher from Nippising, who was drawn in part to Miller's previous plans to close a number of hospitals and consolidate urban services. His ideas failed because of opposition from within Miller's own party, but when this MPP from Nippising, later became premier, he, Mike Harris, would not fail.

At the time the PCs were at 55% in the polls, so Miller immediately called an election. It would prove to be his Waterloo.

Ontario Not Ready for Right Wing Revolution:

William Davis was a Red Tory, which is where the provinces' comfort zone lay. However, Frank Miller was not, and he may have been misguided to believe that he could draw the electorate in with a complete shift in policy. Bob Rae, then leader of the Ontario NDP, explains:

Miller was actually older than Davis, and cut from a very different cloth. He was affable enough, but determined to take his party to the right. His plaid jackets spoke of another era. His references to Reagan and Thatcher spoke of an ideological agenda that, to that point, had been foreign to the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.

Frank Miller's message seemed to be the one the party faithful wanted to hear in early 1985. When the Tory convention was held, the delegates rejected younger, more progressive voices. The great beneficiary of this choice was not me but David Peterson. I did not fully realize this at the time, nor did I understand that the more effective I was in demolishing Miller, the more I was simply opening up room for Peterson. Three-party politics in Ontario create a unique dynamic. For the better part of my lifetime, the success of the Ontario Tories had been their ability to occupy the middle, forcing the Liberals often to the right, and us to the left. (2)

Miller came on the scene in Ontario, in the same way that Barry Goldwater first shocked the moderate and progressive populace in the United States.

(Bob Rae is in the centre of the 1970 photo on the left, and to his left is someone you may have heard of: Michael Ignatieff. They were lifelong friends and roomed together when they were both at Harvard)

Rae continues:

The choice of Miller put the Tories well to the right, and created a generational divide as well. The Liberals' campaign in 1985 was well organized and well presented. Mine was less confident at first, and by the time we gained our voice it was too late. We didn't have enough money, so I had to share a bus with the press. Someone gave me an electric piano, and I drove them crazy with what I thought were clever songs about Frank Miller and the Tories. At the same time, David Peterson was cruising with confidence, promising beer and wine in the corner store, and looking and sounding more like a winner. (2)

But what also hurt the Tories, was Bill Davis's decision that it was time to provide equal funding to Catholic high schools. This definitely became an election issue. When the results were in the PCs were reduced to 52 seats, the Liberals had 48 and the NDP 25, giving them the balance of power. But in a surprise move, Bob Rae brokered a deal with the Liberals , promising support for two years, if his agenda was honoured. Peterson grabbed the opportunity and the PCs became the opposition for the first time in 42 years.

Miller resigned on August 20, 1985, having served as premier for just six months.

The accord with the NDP had proved a gift from God for the Liberals. The agenda that Rae demanded was wildly popular with the electorate, and the Ontario economy—recovering nicely, it seemed, from the early eighties recession—was more than able to accommodate the necessary increase in government spending. Environmental laws were toughened, the scope of rent controls widened. Money was spent on child care and affordable housing. Equal rights for homosexuals were entrenched in the province's human rights code. First steps were taken towards pay equity for women. And most important, the Liberals moved to ban extra billing by doctors, an increasingly common practice across the province. The doctors reacted by going on a limited strike. The government stared them down. The strike collapsed.(3)

Sources:

1. Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution, By John Ibbitson, 1997, ISBN: 0136738648, Pg. 33

2. From Protest to Power: Personal Reflections on a Life in Politics, By Bob Rae, Viking Press, 1996, ISBN: 0-670-86842-6, Pg. 89-90

3. Ibbitson, 1997, Pg. 35

Tony Panayi Continued: A Party Self Destructs

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In Ontario, on election night 1985, most of us went to bed believing that the Conservatives were being returned to power, albeit with a slim minority. But what wasn't foreseen, was the strategy of the NDP, under the leadership of Bob Rae, who entered into an informal coalition with the Liberals who had 48 seats to the Tories 52.

As Rae explained, his strategy "was to ensure stability, to show the people that minority government didn't have to constantly teeter on the edge of collapse." (1)

They brought down the government of Frank Miller at the throne speech*, and the NDP agreed not to try to topple Liberal leader David Peterson for two years.

This threw the Tories into disarray, as author Christina Blizzard explains:

By 1985, it was clear to some political observers that four decades of Tory rule were about to end. There was internal party strife, much of it coming from the Ontario Campus Progressive Conservatives in the persons of Tom Long and Tony Clement, who opposed what they saw as Red Tory policies – the SUNCOR bailout and full funding for separate schools. They bitterly denounced changes to the enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code tabled by Bob Elgie. The changes included the power to obtain material without a warrant and due process, which Long and Clement considered draconian ...

And then came 1985 – the Tories' very own annus horribilus. It was a year of turmoil, pain, and enormous upheaval for the Conservatives. Premier William G. Davis – Smilin' Bill, Brampton Billy, one of the most respected politicians in Ontario – resigned at Thanksgiving 1984. He'd been leader and premier of the province since 1971, winning general elections in 1971, 1975, 1977, and 1981. (His second and third victories produced minority governments.) (2)

Davis had resigned in October 1984, and:

Immediately, the party was plunged into a feeding frenzy ... This proved both costly and divisive ... The party disintegrated quickly. Frank Miller, Dennis Timbrell, Larry Grossman, and Roy McMurtry squared off for the job. Miller won on the last ballot; Grossman was second. Miller called an election for May 1985 and the party dropped 20 seats ... "It was assumed we were electing a new premier. There was a lot of bitterness, a lot of division, a lot of fighting There were huge, internal battles. The party faithful fought over delegate spots and fundraising, and the leadership candidates fought to make commitments and promises.

The Liberal-NDP accord was a bitter pill to swallow. They weren't used to sitting in opposition and had no desire to remain there long. Frank Miller even put a sign on Peterson's door telling him not to get too comfortable. "We'll be right back." (2) But soon there would be another leadership race and the young radicals from the University of Toronto, including Tony Clement, backed Larry Grossman, who won the title as leader of the official opposition.

But the party remained fractured: "It was bad, really bad for the party," Clement remembers. The Tories were riven with faction and mistrust. (3) And Bob Rae relished in the fact that it "... was the Tories, and not us, who became irrelevant." (4)

Another Election and More Bad News

After the two year agreed to coalition came to an end, David Peterson, riding high on the results of a strong economy, decided to call an election.

In 1985, voters hadn't slam-dunked the Tories out of power. On the contrary, the Conservatives technically won the election. But once the electorate got a better look at the newly made-over David Peterson, with his trendy hairdo and stylish clothes, the new, trendy, and stylish voters in Ontario decided that they really preferred him and the Liberals to the stuffy old guard Tories. By 1987, the voters were willing to do what they hadn't had the temerity to do in 1985 — they swept out the Tories and swept in the Liberals with a huge majority government. (2)

Larry Grossman was defeated in his own riding and decided to step down.

Once again the party was leaderless. And it was broke. Two elections and two leadership conventions had sent it deeply into elections debt, and the Bay Street donations no longer flowed to a party that wasn't even close to the prospect of governing. Worst of all, the Bill Davis Tories were in a state of trauma. Most of the mechanics of the defeated regime—Segal, Atkins, Tory, Laschinger—either headed into corporate life or headed up the 401 to Ottawa, where the Conservatives were still in control. -The grownups basically left—retired, quit, lost interest, or went to Ottawa," says Campbell. The only Tories left in the provincial party were either over fifty-five or under thirty.

With the support of the latter, [Tom] Long became party president. "It was horrible," he remembers. "If I had understood how much psychic damage had been done to the party through those two leadership conventions, I never would have run for president .... There were people who were not only angry with one another, they would not deal with one another. They were mindlessly vindictive and spiteful." (3)

But it wasn't all bad, from the perspective of the young radicals. Leslie Noble, who had joined the group in 1983, had gone to work for Larry Grossman after he won the leadership.

"I remember coming from a meeting with Larry, and he introduced me to Mike [Harris], and when we went into his office Larry said, 'You keep your eye on that guy. He's the next leader of the party. He's the smartest man in caucus, and he's going to places", she recalls. "From that moment on I started to pay attention to this guy." (3)

Footnotes:

*In 2004 after Paul Martin won a minority in federal Parliament, the leader of the opposition, Stephen Harper, possibly borrowing from Rae's playbook, formed a coalition to take Martin down at the throne speech. Martin went to the Governor General seeking another election, but she turned him down and told him to fix it or she would allow the Opposition parties to govern. He reached a consensus but Stephen Harper would continue to push the idea of a coalition throughout the next year, as revealed by the following video. Stockwell Day tried the same thing leading up to the 2000 election, but it backfired when Jean Chretien won another majority.


Sources:

1. From Protest to Power: Personal Reflections on a Life in Politics, By Bob Rae, Viking Press, 1996, ISBN: 0-670-86842-6, Pg. 95

2. Right Turn: How the Tories Took Ontario, By Christina Blizzard, Dundern Press, 1995, ISBN 1550022547, Pg. 1-4

3. Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution, By John Ibbitson, 1997, ISBN: 0136738648, Pg. 36-38

4. Rae, 1996, Pg. 104