T1B

Minority deal-making not a big surprise

Thomas S. Axworthy says by definition, a minority government has to balance interests


Stephen Harper has blasted the Liberal-NDP agreement to add $4.6 billion in social spending to the budget as "a deal with the devil." Nothing the Liberals can say about Harper's philosophy condemns him more than his own words.

On substance, while keeping the budget balanced, the new deal is excellent for cities as it invests $1.6 billion into affordable housing (a glaring omission in the 2005 budget as first presented) and allocates an additional cent of the gas tax towards public transit. Aboriginal leaders have especially been waiting for resources to flow to housing, and now this will happen.

The recent International Policy Review distressed many observers by not committing to a time frame to achieve Lester Pearson's goal of 0.7 per cent of GDP for development and now an additional $500 million is committed to this goal, too. For Liberals, the February budget was already good; now it is much improved.

If this is the work of Satan, it is Milton's Paradise Regained rather than Paradise Lost. Why the extreme reaction from Harper?

Before becoming leader of his party, Harper was a bona fide intellectual of the New Right and he knows that his neo-conservative economic philosophy is a truly radical force that has little to do with the traditional conservatism of Sir John A. Macdonald, William Davis or Robert Stanfield.

The strength of conservatism is that it places a priority on tradition and practical experience. In his classic essay Canadian Conservatism Now, historian W.L. Morton lauded Edmund Burke's view that society is an organic partnership between the generations, so "authority and tradition, then, are cornerstones of conservative belief."

But the New Right is anything but traditional: Harper told a Charlottetown audience in 2001, while endorsing the view of Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter about the "creative destruction" potential of capitalism, that "sometimes old structures do need to be demolished in order that new ones can be erected."

The main objective of government, then, in the words of F.A. Hayek, the intellectual godfather of the New Right, is not to "produce any particular service or product to be consumed by the citizens, but rather to see that the mechanism which regulates the production of goods and services is kept in working order."

Sir John A. used the state to build Canada; the New Right wants the state only to be a night watchman for the market system.

On process, Harper's complaints about the deal as "disgraceful" are simply nonsensical. By definition, a minority government has to balance interests, accommodate the other parties and shift with the winds.

The February 2005 budget was skilfully designed to attract Conservative support: Harper withdrew that support when his polls improved — consequently Prime Minister Paul Martin is working with the NDP.

Every minority government has to compromise. The issue is with whom and for what? A minority government wheels and deals — like Captain Renault in Casablanca, who discovers gambling at Rick's Place, "I'm shocked, shocked ..."

The key to the next election are the old Progressive Conservatives of Ontario. They are fiscal conservatives and social moderates. That is Martin, too.

In taking over the Conservative party Harper dropped the "Progressive" adjective. With his new budget deal, Martin can fairly claim ownership of that title.

tough love wrote:Who in poli-hell is Thomas S. Axworthy, and why is he telling Canadians to vote for the NDP?

Lloyd's gonna be pissed.

April 27, 2005

ETHICS? WHAT ETHICS?

AN OPEN LETTER TO STEPHEN HARPER AND PETER MACKAY

Dear Sirs,

You ceaselessly point your fingers at the Liberal government members in the House of Commons and pontificate about their ethical misdeeds, alleged and real. You demand that they come clean, confess to their malfeasance and accept punishment, long before the Gomery Commission is able to present its findings of fact and recommendations.

Now you want to force the whole country through an early and expensive election because of the ethical failures of the Paul Martin government! But who are you two to talk about ethics and “moral authority?” Are you not staring yourself blind at the speck in the government’s eye, while ignoring — and hoping that no one else would notice either — the beam in your own?

Let’s take a quick look at your own documentable lack of ethics:

You, Peter MacKay, signed an agreement with PC leadership candidate David Orchard at the convention in May 2003, the main plank of which was that you would NOT merge with the Canadian Alliance and that you would uphold the constitution of the PC Party in order to PREVENT a takeover by the Alliance (the PC party had adopted in 1999 a constitutional clause which required that the party would run candidates in all ridings in every federal election,) Your agreement with David Orchard and your signature on it enabled you to become the leader of the party.


After the signing of the deal, you shook hands with Mr. Orchard and said that together the two of you would build up the PC party. Then you promptly broke the agreement and railroaded your party into oblivion, with the relentless prodding and eager co-operation of Stephen Harper and your various political and financial supporters. At no time did you ask for nor did you receive permission from your party to break the agreement with Mr. Orchard and to proceed to do the very opposite; and you only “consulted” us party members through our decision-making bodies WELL AFTER you had signed an agreement with Stephen Harper to liquidate the PC Party which you were constitutionally obligated to defend and uphold. You were helped in this treachery by Stephen Harper whose Canadian Alliance members were urged to join the PC Party merely to vote it out of existence. After thousands did so, you and your assorted allies concocted a phony approval process — with no debate allowed at any level of decision making! — producing approval rates for the merger that are usually found only in dictatorships. This whole process was accurately described by Progressive Conservative senator Lowell Murray as “a coup d’etat.”

After having destroyed your party and utterly breeched your signed agreement with Mr. Orchard — which surely should have given you as a MP, a lawyer and an officer of the court some pause! — you and Stephen Harper have grabbed $70,000 of David Orchard’s campaign funds, funds to which you are not legally entitled. The Conservative Party has held on to these funds for a year and a half, while according to the legal contract Mr. Orchard signed as a leadership candidate he was to have them returned to him in 48 hours! The Conservative Party, under your combined leadership, has in effect stolen Mr. Orchard’s campaign donations, forcing him to take your party to court. You have thus defrauded the 257 donors to the Orchard campaign whose money you have put in your party coffers. Your party has formally conceded that the monies are owed to David Orchard, but is refusing to return them, in a “might makes right” fashion. You have no claim to these funds and you both know it!

Canadians need to know that your party that claims to be the Canadian citizens’ ethical watchdog is led by two dishonest and unethical individuals, who deserve to be called scoundrels.

Canadians need to know how a lawyer can sign a contract that gives him immense benefits, and then proceed to break it as if it never existed. Explain that if you can!

Canadians need to know that David Orchard’s campaign funds will be returned to him without delay, with interest, legal fees, and a huge apology. (Presently your party is paying high legal fees to merely stall on giving Mr. Orchard back his campaign donations. Do your members know that this is how you handle their funds?)

As you wish the next election to be about political ethics, it will most certainly be about your ethics as well. As the saying goes, “What is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.” It seems that with your immoral and unethical actions, you have cooked your goose, for a long time to come.

Sincerely


Marjaleena Repo
Saskatchewan vice-president
and Management Committee member of the PC Party of Canada, 2002-2003
President, PC Riding Association, Blackstrap, SK, 2000-2002
Senior Advisor for David Orchard in the 2003 leadership race

P.S. To refresh your memory — and to wake up your dormant conscience — MacKay–Orchard agreement, photos of the signing and legal documents regarding Orchard’s funds can be found on davidorchard.com

Marjaleena Repo
201 Elm Street
Saskatoon, SK
S7J 0G8
(306-244-9724
mrepo@sasktel.net

tough love wrote:
Marjaleena Repo???
Poli Damage = NIL.
Cunt doesen't even have a Canadian name, so who gives a crap about what the dotty says. :twisted:

Martyred wrote:The only "dotty" thing here is tl's panties this time of the month.
Go easy on her.

Otis wrote:

Martyred wrote:The only "dotty" thing here is tl's panties this time of the month.
Go easy on her.

Rack your sig btw..

I was wondering what happened to 'Paper Cuts'.
Cancer struck down another good one far to young..

It's not been a good year to have been a City reporter/broadcaster..

First Bill Cameron and now Bob..

Makes one wonder if Mark Dailey isn't sweating bullets about now..

Bad Air in Ontario:

A new Health Canada report says nearly six-thousand Canadians die each year from the effects of air pollution.
The estimate was based on air pollution and mortality data from East of Thunder Bay cities.
The agency says air pollutants can cause breathing difficulties and aggravate existing respiratory and cardiac conditions, plus mental degeneration resulting in Alzheimers

Mr. Martin quickly denied the allegation that he had interfered.

tough love wrote:GUITE' POINTS FINGER



MONTREAL -- The Prime Minister's Office scrambled yesterday to deny allegations that Paul Martin once intervened to ensure that a Toronto ad agency with Liberal ties would not lose its lucrative government contracts if it was sold to a foreign conglomerate.

The startling claim linking the Prime Minister to the sponsorship scandal was made at the Gomery inquiry by Chuck Guité, former head of the federal program.

Mr. Guité said that in early 2000, after leaving the bureaucracy to be a private consultant, he asked for assurances that Vickers & Benson Advertising Ltd. would not lose federal work. He said he was told that his ex-boss, former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano, had discussed the matter with Mr. Martin, then finance minister, and John Manley, former industry minister.

Mr. Martin quickly denied the allegation that he had interfered.

Otis wrote:

Guite's own testimony has contradicted himself.

It's heresay from a proven liar.

Typical Deflecting Liberal Wrote:
Let me ask you this tlracist, what do you think about the treatment of our native aboriginals.. the First Nations..
Do you think they are treated fairly or not fairly enough..

Typical Deflecting Liberal Idiot Volpe wrote in responce to The Liberanos Poster:
The Klan looks like it's still very much alive.

tough love wrote:
My Favorite of the week, so far.

Quote:
Mr. Martin quickly denied the allegation that he had interfered.

Hapday wrote:

tough love wrote:
My Favorite of the week, so far.

Quote:
Mr. Martin quickly denied the allegation that he had interfered.

I laughed when I read that too. I laughed even harder as Otis let go of Martin's nutsack long enough to post here and defend him. That's a good little lemming. Was the Koolaid cherry flavoured this morning?

Harper's curious definition of 'disgraceful'
>by Scott Piatkowski

May 5, 2005

Last week, Stephen Harper called the budget deal reached between NDP Leader Jack Layton and Prime Minister Martin “the most disgraceful thing I've seen in all my years on Parliament Hill.” Besides causing one to wonder whether Harper has, in fact, been napping for much of the time that he's been on Parliament Hill, the comment is instructive for a number of reasons.

First of all, how is it that Stephen Harper can say that “this is not how Parliament should work” when he had already negotiated his own deal with the Liberals as his price for endorsing the government's Throne Speech? Apparently, Parliament should work differently in the fall when he's the one extracting conditions from the government than it does in the spring when the NDP is holding the cards. Or, to put it another way, Parliament should work differently when he wants an election than when he doesn't.

But, more to the point, what is it that Harper thinks is so “disgraceful” about $1.6 billion for affordable housing construction, including aboriginal housing? Does he think that the people being housed with this plan would be better off on the street or parked on a ridiculously long waiting list? Or, with respect to the aboriginal component of the housing announcement, it could be that he agrees with one of his new “star candidates,” Jim Flaherty, who once pointedly distinguished between aboriginal people and “real people.”

One also wonders what Harper finds so “disgraceful” about a $1.5-billion increase in transfers to provinces for tuition reduction and better training through Employment Insurance. Every recent economic development study that I've read has emphasized the importance of ensuring that people without jobs have the skills needed by employers. Moreover, with most provinces increasing tuition at an alarming rate, the money for tuition reductions will ensure that more people have the ability to attend university or community college without incurring massive debt loads. And, Stephen Harper finds this concept to be disgraceful?

And, what is so “disgraceful” about $900 million in new money for environmental programs and one additional cent of the federal gas tax money devoted to public transit? Now that Harper claims to support the Kyoto Accord (which, given his previous pronouncements on the subject, I find doubtful), shouldn't he also be in favour of spending money to meet our country's commitment? And, given that he says that a Conservative government would honour the federal government's commitment to share part of the gas tax with municipalities (another recent conversion, given that his party convention voted against endorsing such a measure), why would he find it objectionable for Ottawa to increase its commitment by a penny a litre? Does he have something against buses and subways that we should know about?

I'd also be fascinated to find out what Harper finds so “disgraceful” about a $500 million increase in foreign aid, which would bring Canada in line with its promise to gradually increase our foreign aid budget to 0.7 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. Is he opposed to helping countries in the developing world to cope with famine, disease and the impact of war? Why wouldn't he want to use Bono's very public outrage on this issue to embarrass Paul Martin? It's not as if he's been particularly wedded to his own party's stances on other issues, so why not come out in favour of increase development assistance as well?

Lastly, what is it that Harper finds so “disgraceful” about $100 million for a pension protection fund for workers? There are countless examples of situations in which workers have voluntarily deferred part of their wages until retirement only to be left high and dry when the company declares bankruptcy. Does Stephen Harper not think that these workers deserve to have their pensions protected?

There are three key reasons that Stephen Harper really objects to the NDP's ability to gain concessions from the Liberals, and none of them has anything to do with the budget deal allegedly being “disgraceful.” Harper wants an election now, simply because he thinks he can win it. He's wrong (if Canadians wanted him to be Prime Minister, he'd already be way higher in the polls than he is now), but he's not going to stop pushing for an election until he defeats the government. Any deal that will see the budget pass robs him of the opportunity to be defeated at the polls.

The second reason comes down to petty jealousy. As the leader of the second largest party in the House of Commons, Harper could have been in the position to dictate the terms of the Liberal agenda (such as it is, having passed a mere two bills since the June 2004 election). But, in the case of the federal budget, Harper rolled over and played dead without so much as a whimper. Before Ralph Goodale was even done reading his budget speech, Harper was telling reporters that “there's nothing in this budget that would justify an election at this time. I'm a lot happier than I thought I'd be. The major priorities in this budget are Conservative priorities.”

Harper hasn't said so, but it would be easy to conclude that part of his opposition stems from his belief in even-bigger corporate tax cuts (rather than scaling back those tax cuts, as Layton convinced Martin to do). But, with even the TD Bank telling Harper that further corporate tax cuts will do little to spur economic growth or job creation, Harper's barking up the wrong tree on that complaint as well.

The bottom line that there was absolutely nothing wrong in the deal that the NDP reached with Paul Martin. Canadians don't want an election right now, but they are anxious to see their existing government do something positive. There's nothing “disgraceful” about that.

Scott Piatkowski writes for The Woolwich Observer, ECHO Weekly, View Magazine and Pulse Niagara. His column appears in rabble.ca each Thursday.

Hapday wrote:All of these issues the writer raises were promises we've heard from the gLIberals for 12+ years. Specially the gas tax. What is hillarious about the whole thing is that this is all just stuff that gLiberals downloaded onto the provinces to pay so they could run a surplus. I wonder they suddenly want to throw money around.............. :roll: :roll: :roll:

This writer is all giddy about money that was taken away by the gLiberals in the first place. I am going to that writers house, steal his TV then give it back to him a month later. He'll think I am a hero.

Hapday wrote:That fact you still support the gLiberals says a lot about your character, or lack thereof Otis.

Otis Wrote:
Guite's own testimony has contradicted himself.

Otis wrote: It's taken a decade to clean up the fuck'n fiscal disaster that your previous corrupt Conservitard government ran us into and left this country on the brink of bankruptcy.

Hapday wrote:

Otis wrote: It's taken a decade to clean up the fuck'n fiscal disaster that your previous corrupt Conservitard government ran us into and left this country on the brink of bankruptcy.

With that statement you just proved what a complete imbecile you turned out to be. Seriously. I always thought you were, but that just proved it.

The 1993 Canadian federal election was one of the most eventful in Canadian history. While Canada's traditional ruling party, the Liberals, was returned to power, the equally old Progressive Conservative Party was all but annihilated. The election also saw the rise of two new parties: the Bloc Québécois, which became the Official Opposition, and the Reform Party, which also won many seats.
The election was called by Progressive Conservative leader Kim Campbell, who had been Prime Minister for only a few months. She had replaced Brian Mulroney, who was considered one of the most unpopular Prime Ministers in Canadian history because of his failed constitutional reforms and the poor state of the Canadian economy. While she was expected to lose the election, she was forced to call one as the Tories' five-year mandate had almost expired.

The government was also battered from 1985 to 1987 by allegations that certain Cabinet ministers had granted inappropriate political favors or were guilty of misconduct. Several ministers were forced out of office, while the reputations of others were seriously damaged. The public criticized Mulroney, linking his Cabinet’s missteps to his own faults. The media and members of Parliament accused him of failing to provide clear direction to the government, of centralizing power in the hands of an incompetent personal staff, and of indulging his large network of political friends with favors. His critics accused him of breaking his promises and evading responsibility for the conduct of his ministers. Only 18 months after the election, the Mulroney government’s popularity had slipped so badly that the Conservatives fell behind the Liberals in voter preference polls.

In his second term as prime minister, Mulroney suffered an unrelieved series of problems that led to his political demise. The economy had a downturn, which polls showed many people blamed on the FTA. In 1989 the Conservative government lost additional popularity when it approved the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a broad sales tax that was slated to replace in 1991 a tax charged only on manufactured goods.

The most serious blow to the Mulroney government was the unraveling of support for the Meech Lake Accord during the summer of 1989. Critics persistently attacked the agreement, arguing that it would weaken the federal system by granting too much power to the government of Québec and would violate the principle of equality among the provinces. Many members of Canada’s First Nations vehemently opposed the agreement because it failed to address aboriginal rights. Mulroney made a valiant effort to save the Meech Lake Accord through a new round of constitutional negotiations in the spring of 1990, but Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador did not ratify it that June. As a result, the accord failed.

Even before the agreement failed, Mulroney’s senior Québec minister, Lucien Bouchard, and two other Conservative members of Parliament had resigned from the party to protest Mulroney’s willingness to renegotiate the accord’s terms. When the agreement failed, they formed a new party, the Bloc Québécois, to support Québec’s separation from Canada. The Bloc quickly gained support in Québec. Even moderate nationalists were upset because they saw the defeat of the Meech Lake Accord as English Canada rejecting Québec’s claim of distinctiveness as a French-speaking province. Québec’s Liberal premier Robert Bourassa warned the federal government that by 1992 the provincial government would hold a referendum on Québec’s status in the confederation. Faced with this ultimatum, Mulroney initiated a new round of constitutional negotiations, which resulted in the Charlottetown Accord.

By 1992 Mulroney was struggling to win public support for his major initiatives. His government had begun negotiating in 1990 with the United States and Mexico for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which would expand the FTA to include Mexico. Many Canadians opposed NAFTA when it was presented to the legislatures of all three countries for approval in 1992. Mulroney’s government also fared poorly with the Charlottetown Accord, which was finalized in the summer of 1992. The accord was put to voters in a national referendum that fall and was defeated—leaving Mulroney’s efforts to achieve a constitutional accommodation for Québec in complete disarray.

In February 1993, with polls indicating that his popularity had plummeted, Mulroney announced that he would resign as Conservative leader and prime minister in June. However, he was active during his last months in office. In May he signed the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, which called for the establishment of the territory of Nunavut in 1999, and Parliament ratified the agreement in June. Under pressure from Mulroney, the Conservative-dominated Parliament also ratified NAFTA in June, the day before Mulroney stepped down.

In June 1993 a leadership convention chose Kim Campbell as Mulroney’s successor. In the election that October—with the opposition parties associating Campbell with Mulroney and the Mulroney government’s record—the Conservatives experienced the worst defeat in their history. In Québec they were swept away by the Bloc Québécois and in western Canada by the Reform Party, while the Liberals won Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. The Conservatives lost all but two of their parliamentary seats.

Critics of Mulroney argue that his government did not do enough to reduce the federal deficit; that his unsuccessful efforts to reform the constitution widened the rift between Québec nationalists and other Canadians; and that the free trade agreements his government negotiated weakened Canada’s control over its own affairs.

Since his retirement from politics, public assessments of Mulroney’s leadership—as expressed in polls—have remained largely negative. This seems to reflect a belief that his government was too free in granting favors to its friends, a reaction to his flamboyant rhetoric that included promises he could not keep, and widespread dislike of the Goods and Services Tax.

Hap Wrote:
With that statement you just proved what a complete imbecile you turned out to be. Seriously. I always thought you were, but that just proved it.

tough love wrote:From this weeks Dept Of Poli_Funny:

Martin blames Harper for his disgraceful 60th anniversary of V-E Day tardiness...

Otis wrote: But that's Harper for you.. no class.

See for yourself how the film footage shows the padre being pushed aside and how overzealous members of the Martin entourage physically knock a Sri Lankan mourner to the ground–without apology.

See and hear for yourself how he shills the purified water of Zenon Environmental Inc., an Oakville-based company of which his lifetime mentor Maurice Strong is a board member.

See and hear some of the film highlights, including Padre Hardwick trying to do the job he was asked to do: namely honouring the dead. Padre Hardwick calls for a Moment of Silence. Fifteen seconds into the Moment of Silence, Prime Minister Martin ends it, saying, "Let’s go."

Swigging from a bottle of Zenon purified water, he says repeatedly, "C’est excellent!"

Martin passes the bottle to wife, Sheila, who swigs from it, pronouncing distinctly, "Better than at home!

NDP leader Jack Layton, who, when he’s in Canada, promotes himself to the public as a strong Prime Minister opponent, beams at the PM as the proudest of close personal friends. If you listen, you can clearly hear Layton ask as photographers line up the Zenon photo-op: "Is that the water? Is that the water?"

Mainstream Canadian compassion is understood globally. Average Canadians sent some $40-million to Sri Lanka--that has yet to arrive!

Their prime minister disgraced the image of ‘The Compassionate Canadian’ in a single photo op.

But even worse than that, Martin chose to shill for a Canadian-owned water company linked to his personal mentor in a Sri Lanka that was locked in heartbreaking grief.

Not only Canadians would agree that Sri Lankans deserve so much better than that.

Hapday wrote:Canadians know the truth, Martin can't be trusted.

This lame horse will be taken to the back of barn and put out of its misery soon enough.

A recent Strategic Counsel survey suggests Conservatives have the support of 31 percent of voters. The Liberals garner 27 percent and the N.D.P. are at 20 percent.

But the latest Decima Poll states the opposite. It gives Paul Martin’s party a big lead at 37 percent, while Stephen Harper’s troops march to war with only 28 percent strength. The N.D.P. remains in third at 18 percent.

But the biggest question may not be who leads nationally but in what another pollster, Ipsos-Reid, calls the “401 vote”.

Ontario remains the key battleground in this ongoing skirmish and it’s likely to be a fight to the finish.

“It really comes down to about 10 percent of the population who are shifting in their feet back and forth between the Conservatives and the Liberals, and right now they favour the Liberals,” suggests John Wright.

tough love wrote:As much as I agree with those who believe Canada would be better off served (short term for sure) without the Libby's, I have a knawing fear that we just may end up with a Libby majority due to Harpers miscalculations.