Then again...

As noted yesterday, Ipsos' latest poll puts the Cons in majority territory. It's worth remembering, as a commenter to yesterday's post reminded me, that polls of this sort are hardly the last word, so maybe it's not time to panic yet. Indeed, EKOS also just came out with a poll of their own suggesting that the Cons, while ahead, are not anywhere near a majority. This poll is a lot more consistent with most (not all) recent ones.

Of course, if after the election the new parliament is pretty much the same as the old one, we'll be right back where we started... unless the opposition tries to form a coalition again. Unfortunately, this seems unlikely, since the Cons have been absurdly successful in painting coalitions as something evil and unbecoming of Canadians. Why this idea resonates with the public I have no idea, but it does. So we'd have yet another Conservative minority government... and quite likely a one-way trip back to Massachusetts for Iggy.

More signs of panic in the Conservative ranks

You have to wonder. They're under fire on a couple of fronts already -- the war and the census. So what do they do? They draw our attention to the gun registry:

The senior Mountie in charge of the controversial long-gun registry is being replaced on the eve of a vote about its future, the RCMP has confirmed.

Both Liberals and New Democrats are accusing the Conservative government of trying to silence dissent as a result since the officer is strong proponent of the costly program.

CBC reported the move Tuesday night, saying that RCMP Chief Superintendent Marty Cheliak, head of the Canadian Firearms Program, is being “bounced” from his post to French language training.

NDP justice critic Joe Comartin said this sends a “terrible message” about democracy. “If you in any way challenge them you’re gone,” he told The Globe on Wednesday.

The Grits agree. “I think it’s pretty clear it’s deliberate. This is a pattern,” Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland said. “Any time somebody stands up to them, any time they have a differing opinion, they are either fired or moved somewhere where they won’t make as much noise.”

Now to be fair, I'm less sure about the gun registry than I am about most other issues; I do recognize that the cost is a significant hit on rural Canada. Depending on who you listen to, the registry either has or has not been shown to save lives. But what seems clear is that most police officers like the idea. And as Antonia Zerbisias (h/t pogge) points out, the timing of Cheliak's transfer is rather convenient for the government:

As a result of the move, Supt. Cheliak will not be able to attend the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police annual meeting in Edmonton next week. He was to present a major report at that meeting that was expected to underline the effectiveness of the registry.

Supt. Cheliak presented part of his findings to a Commons committee in spring. The committee was examining the private members’ bill by Manitoba Tory MP Candice Hoeppner, which is aimed at scrapping the registry. But the senior officer’s remarks bolstered the opposition’s case for keeping the registry.

Can't get more blatant than that, can you? (Well, yes you can, but let's hope we don't have to go there). When you combine this with the way they've responded to criticism on other issues, you are left with a picture of a PM and cabinet who are increasingly under fire, and must by now have some suspicion that they will never get their coveted majority. So they're panicking, which hopefully will hasten their downfall. I'm sure Iggy is suddenly feeling really good, because Harper may be making him electable.

Soft landing for Iggy?

Depends who you believe. There are whispers of a job for him at the U of T:

It’s not a scheduled stop on this summer’s gruelling bus tour but the University of Toronto is looming as the Liberal leader’s final destination. Michael Ignatieff is being touted as an eventual successor to Janice Gross Stein at the university’s prestigious Munk School of Global Affairs.

Returning to U of T where he has strong ties would provide a soft landing for Ignatieff if the next election doesn’t go well for the Liberal party and its leader. The Munk school begins an intense international search for Stein’s replacement this fall. Sources say the university would also welcome Ignatieff’s return if he chooses to fill the post it offered in 2005 to bring him back to Canada from Harvard.

From the Star. Iggy is denying it, of course, but we'll see if he's singing the same tune in a couple of months.

The budget passes

It seems all the Cons' fulminations about calling an election in the fall may have had some effect:

It took a long night and many words of despair from both Liberals and independents but the Senate passed a contentious omnibus budget bill Monday that contains measures its detractors say have little to do with the budget.

Bill C-9 is now law after opposition attempts to amend it were defeated by a vote of 48 to 44. It received royal assent late Monday night and the senators have been released to begin their summer vacations.

From the Globe. But wait -- I thought that the Cons didn't have a majority in the Senate yet, despite their best efforts to stack the deck. Oh, wait...

The Liberals say they tried to get enough of their members in their seats to stop the bill. Senator Terry Mercer of Nova Scotia, who has been laid up with a bad back and was not expected to make it to Ottawa for the vote, was in the chamber. But seven of his Liberal colleagues did not show up.

From the same Globe story, my bold. Funny thing that; there have been whispers of this in the freaking news media about this for a month and a half, yet somehow the Liberals weren't able to get their acts together to ensure everyone showed up for this vote. But then, we all know that the most important thing is for Iggy to keep the keys to Stornoway for as long as possible.

Coalition would do well with right leadership - poll

The latest Angus Reid poll suggests that an NDP-Liberal coalition could gain substantial support from the public, depending on who led it:

In one respect, the results of an Angus Reid poll to be released on Monday are not surprising — the Conservatives are at 35 per cent, the Liberals at 27 and the NDP are at 19 per cent; in Quebec, the Bloc leads with 37 per cent.

However, the poll also asked Canadians how they would vote if the Liberals and NDP went to the polls offering Canadians a coalition government, and here things get interesting.

According to the results published in Monday’s edition of La Presse, the Conservatives led by Stephen Harper would defeat a coalition led by Michael Ignatieff 40-34 per cent.

With Bob Rae as Liberal leader, the coalition and Conservatives would be tied.

However, if the coalition were to propose Jack Layton as prime minister, according to the Reid poll, it could defeat the Conservatives by 43-37 per cent.

From the Globe. I don't expect this to happen, but it's an interesting result. If nothing else, it sends a message to the Liberals about their leadership...

Iggy borrowing a page from Steve's book?

Harper is, of course, infamous for muzzling his backbenchers, lest they say what they actually believe (remember this guy?) It seems, though, that the Liberals are muzzling at least one of their potential candidates:

This morning, the Ottawa Notebook wanted to know about Mr. Rebagliati’s attendance at the two-day Liberal winter caucus meeting, which begins tomorrow. The athlete had put up a note on Twitter saying he was flying to Ottawa today to attend. He said he was returning to British Columbia on Wednesday.

“Ross’s speech will be on his experience as an Olympian, and how it relates to his choice of becoming a Liberal candidate – pride of representing his country, desire to serve needed commitment, etc.,” a senior Liberal official said. And that was it.

So we tried calling Mr. Rebagliati. We spoke to his wife, Alexandra, who also helps him out with media relations. She said the Liberals had emailed her, told her they had been in touch with The Globe and Mail, and that her husband need not add any more. She said he would not be making any comment.

From the Globe. I wonder if his views on certain issues are in conflict with Iggy's?

While Mr. Rebagliati has not spoken about his views on legalization of marijuana, Mr. Ignatieff was asked last week about it when he was on tour of university campuses in British Columbia:

“I never make comments on the personal lifestyle choices of my colleagues and friends, and I’ve never felt that marijuana use or, for example, possession of small amounts of marijuana are to be criminalized or that anybody should suffer consequences for personal recreational uses of marijuana,” he said, according to a National Post blog post.

“But then I have to say to people who then ask me if I want to legalize marijuana, and I know you don’t want to hear me say this, but I’d say no.”

Bummer, dude.

"Interro-Gate" continues to haunt the Cons... but to what effect?

Well, General Walter Natynczyk now admits that at least one prisoner handed over to the Afghan authorities was tortured, The pressure for an inquiry is growing, so on the surface it least it would appear that the Cons are in a bind. But are they? Bruce Anderson certainly thinks so:

A while ago, I wrote that there would need to be more evidence to corroborate Mr. Colvin and a process by which that information came to light, in order for this issue to create political consequences. Both of those conditions have been met, and while Copenhagen, Christmas and the Olympics will all give breathing space to the government, the government is now faced with a risk-filled dillemma.

If an inquiry is inevitable, they should avoid looking as though they were dragged kicking and screaming into it. If they gamble that stonewalling will work, they may lose that gamble, and look like they cared too little about doing the right thing to safeguard the international honor of Canada.

On the other hand John Ibbison thinks there will be no long-term consequences for the government:

Objectively, the abuse of Afghan detainees is hugely important. Canadian soldiers and officials might have been complicit in violating the Geneva Conventions. Their political masters were cavalier, at best, or negligent, at worst, in how they handled the matter. Heads should roll.

But politically, this is an issue that doesn't resonate outside Ottawa. The revelations haven't moved the polls. The Liberals are in what is turning into typical disarray. Firing Mr. MacKay is the one thing Mr. Harper could do that would undermine his own party while helping to unify his opponents.

You think Stephen Harper is nuts?

I wonder. Ibbitson's article rings true in a lot of ways; the government can stonewall for quite a while, and as Anderson concedes, the timing of this is potentially quite convenient for Harper and his cronies, with first Christmas and then the Olympics as convenient distractions. But contrary to what Ibbitson implies, we're now seeing polls suggesting that Canadians don't believe the government's claims that they knew nothing of what was going on. How much effect this will have on people's voting intentions remains to be seen, though. And Michael Ignatieff hasn't got a whole lot of credibility on this issue either:

To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils: indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war.

He wrote that five years ago, in the New York Times.

Iggy adopts Steve's attitude to cooperation

So now Ignatieff has ruled out a coalition as well:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff vowed Friday that his party would never enter into a governing coalition and said he could make Parliament work without such a deal.

"In January, we did not support a coalition, and we do not support a coalition today or tomorrow," Ignatieff told reporters in Ottawa.

Ignatieff said he wouldn't need to form a parliamentary pact because, unlike Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he doesn't treat political adversaries as enemies.

Source. I don't know, saying you'll never form a coalition, no matter what, sounds a lot like treating your adversaries as enemies to me. Fair enough to say, "we have no plans to form a coalition at this stage", but to categorically reject the idea seems a bit extreme.

To be fair, the idea of a coalition has been badly smeared over the last year, so it's understandable that Iggy might see it as something best avoided, but I think it would be a lot more constructive to try to sell the public on the idea. Most of Europe is governed by coalition governments most of the time, for instance. Of course, most of Europe has proportional representation, so the parties know from the start that they're unlikely to ever get a majority government. The prospect of that tends to focus the mind wonderfully. But as long as the Bloc is a major player, majority governments are pretty unlikely here, too, so it's high time the Liberals and Conservatives acknowledged that fact. Maybe then we could make Parliament work.

Liberals going to bring down the government... again

Again, you say? Well, it's worth remembering that this isn't the first time:

“Our party is united in its determination to face Mr. Harper down.” – Michael Ignatieff to meeting of New Brunswick Liberals, Telegraph-Journal December 6, 2008

“We've put down a very clear marker. This government has to get the money out the door … If this government fails to meet these targets, it will not survive for long." – Michael Ignatieff, CBC.ca, January 28, 2009

“Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is looking to June as his first chance to defeat the Harper government over its handling of the economic crisis, according to his finance critic.” – Globe and Mail, February 27, 2009

"I want to make Parliament work but I don't write blank cheques. That's not what my voters sent me to Parliament to do," he said less than three hours before Liberals approved the fund. "If the government wants to make Parliament work, we can find a way to make it work. If they don't want to make it work, look out." – Michael Ignatieff, Hamilton Spectator, March 25, 2009

“Michael Ignatieff declared Thursday that federal Liberals are united, out of debt and "basically ready to fight an election" if an impasse is reached in Parliament.” – Canwest News, April 30, 2009

“The leader of the federal Liberal party has threatened to push for an election if the minority Conservative government doesn't support proposals to reform the employment insurance system.” – CBC.ca, May 3, 2009

“Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says the party will decide next week whether to try to bring down the Harper government and plunge the country into a mid-summer election.” – Canadian Press, June 3, 2009

From here (hat tip to Devin Johnston). Think it'll be any different this time?

Harper-Ignatieff deal to study EI averts summer vote

Again, not surprising:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff reached a deal on Tuesday to examine employment insurance reform, averting the possibility of a summer election following days of speculation over the fate of the minority Conservative government.

Earlier this week, Ignatieff had threatened to withhold confidence in a budget estimates vote on Friday unless Harper provided answers on a series of issues, including the Tories' unspecified plans for more EI proposals in the fall.

But after a series of face-to-face meetings in recent days, the political rivals agreed to create a working group on employment insurance that will have three members selected by the Liberals and three by the Conservatives.

Source. While I'm happy not to have to work on yet another election campaign this summer, I have to wonder what Iggy is actually going to get out of this. When Jack Layton cut a deal with Paul Martin to avert an election in 2005, Canadians got billions of dollars worth of investment in things that matter to everyday folks (housing, transit, education, etc). I have to wonder what's going to come of this "working group". Oh well, I'm sure we'll see soon enough.

Harper willing to talk with Ignatieff to avoid election

Not a big surprise:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he is willing to meet Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to discuss his demands to avoid triggering a summer election, including further changes to the country's employment insurance system.

But Harper insisted Ignatieff was not taking a "realistic approach," saying major changes to EI "cannot be done on the back of an envelope in a few days."

He instead called for "dialogue" with Ignatieff over the summer on potential EI changes to be introduced in the fall.

“Mr. Ignatieff said he doesn’t want an election,” Harper told reporters Monday afternoon at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa.

“I don’t want an election. I don’t think anybody wants an election.”

He's right about that, of course; few people in this country want another election right now. So it's a reasonably safe bet that Harper and/or Ignatieff will compromise on this position. Hopefully this will result from Harper backing down, rather than Ignatieff.

When you think about it, Jack Layton wasn't far wrong when he said this:

"We have a new coalition now on Parliament Hill -- it's a coalition between Mr. Harper and Mr. Ignatieff," Layton said shortly after Ignatieff announced his conditional support for the Tory budget.

He's not the first person to say this, of course; I seem to recall a columnist saying the same thing a couple of years before, because of the number of times the Liberals supported the Tories on confidence votes. That's not to say I want an election right now either, but I do hope Ignatieff doesn't sell his support too cheaply. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking it's not a coalition, since the Liberals didn't get any cabinet seats, but the effect is pretty similar).

Why the Liberals pulled out of the coalition

As we all know, after Harper prorogued Parliament last fall to avoid a non-confidence vote, the Liberals backed out as soon as the prorogue ended. Well, it seems that as a result of Lisa Raitt's recent difficulties, some very interesting things have come to light. Close to the bottom of the article, we find this:

Later in her conversation with Ms. MacDonnell, Ms. Raitt tells the man driving them around Victoria that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had backed down from defeating the Conservative government on a budget a few days earlier because he got a message from Canadian bankers.

“They did it at the Canadian Council of (Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood up in the room — and this is not from cabinet so I can talk about it — stood up and said, ‘Ignatieff, don’t you even think about bringing us to an election,’” said Ms. Raitt.

“'We don’t need this. We have no interest in this. And we will never fund your party again.’ That was very powerful. So he heard it from very powerful people in the industry. He was definitely muzzled.”

Liberal finance critic John McCallum, who was present for the closed-door Jan. 20 meeting with about 100 executives, says they were against the coalition and an election, but there was “not even a hint of a veiled threat,” and bankers would never make such a threat in a meeting with so many people present.

So let's get this straight. A Minister of the Crown casually discussed a blackmail threat against the Leader of the Official Opposition. And the body making the threat was a bunch of CEOs, many of whom Raitt is almost certainly acquainted with in the course of her career. Not to mention, Raitt's party is the chief beneficiary of the blackmail. Surely this qualifies as extortion, doesn't it?

346. (1) Every one commits extortion who, without reasonable justification or excuse and with intent to obtain anything, by threats, accusations, menaces or violence induces or attempts to induce any person, whether or not he is the person threatened, accused or menaced or to whom violence is shown, to do anything or cause anything to be done.

Criminal Code of Canada. Just sayin'.

Iggy and Steve patch up their differences

Not a big surprise:

The Liberal party will only support the minority Conservative government's federal budget if Prime Minister Stephen Harper agrees to an amendment calling for a "clear marker" of regular updates to Parliament on the impact of economic stimulus projects, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Wednesday.

The move by Ignatieff appears to have staved off the immediate defeat of the Tories. Hours after Ignatieff's news conference, Tory House Leader Jay Hill said the government has no problem with the amendment.

"The government will be supporting the Liberal amendment to the budget," Hill told reporters. "We're very pleased as well the Liberals have decided to support our budget. We look forward to working cooperatively with them."

From the CBC. I think Jack Layton put it best:

Layton refused to specify whether the coalition between the Liberals and NDP was dead, saying only that: "We have a new coalition on Parliament Hill. It’s a coalition between Mr. Harper and Mr. Ignatieff."

Of course, the coalition was always a hard sell with the public, but I guess we'll have to put up with Steve for a while yet.

To be fair, not everything in the budget is totally awful, but the pros are often very mixed. Take the environmental initiatives therein:

The federal budget contained more than $3 billion in spending to address the environment, but it fell short of markers set by those who had called on the Conservatives to deliver a "green" economic stimulus plan.

The big-ticket items, including a $1 billion fund aimed at developing clean technologies over the next five years and a program to help pay for environmentally sustainable infrastructure, also worth $1 billion, were announced prior to yesterday.

The budget also included $300 million to expand an existing home retrofit program that gives grants for improvements to energy efficiency, $10 million to better monitor water and air quality and greenhouse gas emissions, and $292 million to help develop the Candu nuclear reactor and operate the Chalk River facility.

"The provisions in the budget relating to the environment are very significant," Environment Minister Jim Prentice told the Star. "When you add all this up, it's certainly the largest green stimulus that we've ever seen."

But critics say the federal government's plans fall far short of national public transit and other infrastructure needs while spending too much taxpayers' money in Alberta's oil sands and not enough on renewable energy.

"The only green measures in this budget ... of any importance go to nukes or carbon capture and storage," said Stephen Gilbeault of Montreal-based Equiterre.

From the Star. While I'm not as negative about those technologies as some, they have some serious issues. Besides the well-known concerns about nuclear waste, there's the fact that nuclear plants are ridiculously expensive and take a long time to build. Think of how many wind turbines and solar panels that could be built in the time taken to build a nuclear plant. In some parts of the world they might still be necessary (i.e. in places where there isn't enough hydroelectric capacity to stabilize the grid) but most of Canada has no need of additional nuclear plants. As for carbon capture, it's still pretty much hypothetical at this stage.

There is one bright spot in the budget, though. Maybe:

There is a good chance no one was applauding the federal government's decision to provide $50-million Institute for Quantum Computing in Tuesday's budget announcement louder than Research In Motion co-chief executive officer Mike Lazaridis.

The Institute was the brainchild of Mr. Lazaridis as well as several other researchers who founded the group in 1999 to advance the University of Waterloo's research and international standing in the areas of computer, engineering, mathematical and physical sciences.

From the National Post. Maybe this will enable us to be a world leader in something. Hopefully, though, we'll turf Harper soon, and move back in the direction of being a world leader in things we're known for (such as peacekeeping, social programs, etc), while keeping such nice research institutes as the aforementioned one. Surely we can do both?

Will Iggy pull the plug on Steve?

The NDP and Bloc are thoroughly dissatisfied with the budget, as we know. Not without good reason I think; here are some of the NDP's reasons. The folks at the Progressive Economics Forum have some more points. Here's something that's worth noting:

The infrastructure investment overall is very modest in size and falls well short of what the cities and environmental organizations were looking for. At about $5 billion per year the total package, if spent, might create only 50,000 jobs.

The Budget does not remove or limit the current costly and time-wasting mandatory requirement to actively consider P3s to access the Building Canada Fund, and the launch of the P3 Fund combined with required city support for new projects will likely give yet another boost to P3s moving forward.

The second point is critical. If a municipality wants to access the infrastructure money, they have to accede to the Tories' ideologically driven demand that they look at the highly questionable "public private partnership" model, presumably so that Harpo's buddies get their share of the cash.

So will the Liberals vote for it? Probably. Ignatieff is likely nervous about whether the Governor-General would allow the coalition to take power, and also is probably reluctant to become prime minister at a time when the economy is just starting to tank. Expect the Liberals to pass the budget "with reservations".