All Your Content Are Belong to Us

Michael Geist links to a Canwest article suggesting that consumers may lose digital content they have already paid for under provision in the new copyright bill. It's truly disturbing to see how deep in the pocket of special interests Jim Prentice really is. This bill appears set to give them everything they want.

I know the Liberals are backing away from voting down bills these days, I guess reckoning that they can just reverse things when they get into power again, but damn it, they better stop this one!

Carbon Tax!

If it means a cut in income taxes I wouldn't mind. My car is pretty fuel efficient and the fiancee doesn't drive so we wouldn't likely add a second a vehicle. In other words, I'd probably come out ahead in this game.

From a strategic point of view, I think Scott is right too, the grits might as well go down fighting. It would certainly toughen up Dion's image if he took a bold policy stance.

Harper's Wonderful Precendent

Darren McEwen points out that if Harper is going to sue for libel, there are certainly no shortage of others that could do likewise.

Is it time?

There have been a few occasion where myself and other bloggers have called for the toppling of the Conservative government, but few of these calls has been as forceful or coherent as Scott's pair of posts on the matter (aided by JimBobby) in the last couple of days.

I think they're onto something here, particularly with the prisoner transfer. A couple of ministries in Harper's government have always been embarrassments. The reality though is that Harper could get away with that at, say, Environment because no one who really cared about the environment was voting for him anyway.

Now though, we see confusion and gross incompetence in one of the files that Harper seems to be really concerned about, the war. Steve's ideas about Canada being "back" on the world stage (where did we go?), his desire to improve US relations, and his general yearning for a "tough" image were all bound up in the Afghan file.

And his people have messed it up, botched a cover-up, and generally made fools of themselves. How his communications people aren't unemployed is beyond me.

Harper has now exposed a great deal of weakness on what was thought to be one of his most well-guarded flanks.

What Keen's Firing Says About Harper's Tories

I think the most straightforward lesson to take away from the tarring of Linda Keen as a Liberal hack and her subsequent firing is that we have yet another example of how the Conservatives view everything as a partisan opportunity. This is the Karl Rove strategy perfected in the US.

What I'm going to suggest to the Liberals and the NDP and the Greens is that, by Harper's rules, everything is fair game. Every time you can score partisan points, recognize that, if Harper was in your position, he would not hesitate. I don't know that this is the most tasteful way that politics is done, but you've got give as good as you get, right?

Deficits. Again.

Flaherty insists that the federal government will stay in the black, and yet, there continue to be whispers of a return to deficits. After the tough choices made by the Liberals in the 1990s, it would be a shame for the Conservatives to wipe all of that out.

Besides, they cut taxes, isn't that supposed to raise revenues according to the Wall Street Journal's economic theology?

Stephen Taylor is shocked! Shocked at the Liberal website!

According to Stephen Taylor, the Liberals may be using Photoshop! He documents the horror:

"A familiar technique has been used here to emphasize the dirty particulate colour of climate change (who knew that CO₂ was a sulfuric red/yellow/brown?)

The Liberals have modified an image of a smokestack in alarmist fashion with a sepia filter to exaggerate the evils of Canadian industry and economic production."

This is very bad since we all know that the Conservatives never alter any images on their website. Once again Stephen Taylor is distraught because other parties use the exact same political tools that his party uses. I'm sure that he longs for the day when every other party will roll over and play dead for him.

Minority Report

Despite all the talk about the message discipline and focus and accomplishments of Harper, despite all the accusations that the Liberals had a terrible leader in Dion, despite everything said by the Blogging Tories, Harper cannot put any daylight between himself and Dion.

The reality is that another election, barring someone really stepping in it, would probably produce either a thin Conservative or a thin Liberal minority.

Stand Up For Canada*

*Ontario not included.

The Star's editorial today is spot on about Ontario getting cheated out of representation by population. It seems that the job of raising concern over this has largely been left to Queens Park. The Liberals and the NDP need to be more vocal about this issue.

In general Ontario goes along to get along as they say. And sure, as long as we had all the money and a great deal of political power concentrated here, that was fine. Now though we have a Western-based party obsessed with non-renewable resources at the apparent expense of manufacturing and we need to stand the hell up and assert ourselves. We want our democratic rights, we want our votes to count! Stop trying to silence us!

Parties that pussyfoot around this issue for fear of losing votes elsewhere should not expect Ontarians' votes in the next election.

Criminalizing iPods

The Conservatives are set to unveil some kind of new copyright law that caters to the insane, vaguely suicidal music industry lobby. You can reasonably expect some kind of levy on, say, Mp3 players among other things. Saskboy has the goods on why this is a terrible idea. Of course I'd expect the Cons to yield to an asshole-filled corporate lobby group, but Saskboy raises this point to:

"Note the Liberal’s Minister partly responsible for the Copyright Act was also in the pocket of the CRIA, as was past minister Bev Oda."

That doesn't exactly fill me with hope. I know that there is a very Bay St.-oriented blue-grit wing of the Liberals that might well support this kind of let-the-business-lobby-write-the-law approach. What I want to see is how the opposition handles this law, and particularly what kind of Liberal party Dion is running. If you bend to the recording industry, why not the energy sector on climate change? I don't think it's too big of a leap from this comparatively venal (though important to music fans) law to something like emissions. Will they go for a US-style lawsuit-heavy industry-kowtowing law or will they vote against it? This is the kind of vote that separates the real progressives from the poseurs.

Letting the facts ruin a witty saying

Have you heard this tripe?

"A Liberal is a Conservative who hasn't been mugged yet."

Heh. The same blog post goes on to point out a rash of muggings near the Junction and some shootings in the Jane-Finch corridor. Okay, fair enough, now let's test this saying: How did the parties perform in the recent Ontario Election? Parkdale-High Park went NDP and York West went Liberal. Who thinks that either of these ridings will go blue in either the next federal or provincial election? I suppose the fact that Torontonians are not rushing into either Harper's or Tory's arms thus fulfilling the above saying somehow "proves" that Toronto is an open-air insane asylum.

A One-Sided Game of Brinksmanship

Once again the Conservatives table some legislation that the Bloc and the NDP oppose. The Liberals oppose it too, but not enough to bring down the government over it. At this rate it appears that there is little that will push Dion into an election. Depending on who you talk to this either makes him a sage politician or a coward, but the net result is that we probably have no prospect for a federal election until the spring at the very earliest.

One wonders what Dion will finally agree is enough to bring down the government. It's not a mini-budget, it's not an extension of Afghanistan, what will it be? In the meantime the overall perception in the eyes of many voters may be that the man is too calculating.

Unleash the Weasels!

Harper (to the surprise of no one) didn't make the throne speech so blatantly intolerable that a vote against it is inevitable. Instead, this morning his opponents are stuck dealing with a number of weasel-y statements that will trouble opposition.

He wants to leave Afghanistan but he needs just two more years until democracy rainbows shoot out of Karzai's eyes bringing peace and freedom to all Afghans. Come on! Just two years!

He's giving up on Kyoto because it can't be met anyway. Harper will really, really, totally fix this "so-called" problem. Soon. For real.

In both cases Harper did not go radical on anyone (he's keeping the crazy Reformers quiet - for now), yet even these still are opposite to positions already stated by the Liberals. So no, I don't think that were any poison pills per se. But Harper has weaseled in a number of ideas that may either force the hand of the Liberals or make them look like a bunch of flip-floppers.

Incidentally, Red Tory points out that the Conservative website had a very electionesque makeover.

Dion, don't sell out

I was meaning to do a post on this topic, but my thoughts have been captured fairly well here. If Dion wants to fight the "not a leader" meme, he should not back down from opposing the throne speech.

I know he will be rapped with the idea that he is wasting taxpayer's money by "causing" an election. This is the new talking point that the Conservatives are pushing - they want to govern and if there is an election, it's the fault of the opposition.

This is ridiculous. The Conservatives can count (I hope) and surely they are aware that they are in a minority situation. If they make a confidence bill that is unpalatable to the opposition, they will trigger an election. Dion needs to hit them hard on this point if he does trigger an election.

I'm gonna make them a throne speech they can't refuse

Isn't this just precious, Stephen Harper is putting on some kind of Godfather face in this picture. I suppose the ever-sympathetic National Post published this photo because it fits with the sort of stance that Harper is trying to project.

Once again I get the impression that Harper really wants an election sooner rather than later. I suspect he feels as though this is the time to hit the opposition parties. The fact that the Liberal party machine has turned into a bit of a gong show as of late probably gives Harper the impression that he has an opportunity to exploit right now.

He also has to be worried that his party has not been to pull away from the Liberals despite the Grits' very public woes. Nonetheless, I suspect his party figures now is the time to go. The only question is what will Harper do in the throne speech to render it unsupportable for all of the opposition parties. Of course the Post presents this as a "no-lose" strategy for Harper but that presumes that he would kill in any fall election. Given that he cannot put any daylight between himself and the Liberals I don't know that he can improve his standing in the parliament.

New Holiday?!

It appears that the Liberals are promising us a new holiday if they are re-elected. I'd agree that we need a day off in February - it is the most miserable time of the year - but calling it Family Day? It seems like they just picked the most politically safe name possible. I suppose Month-When-Most-Leafs-Fans-Start-To-Realize-It's-Futile Day was rejected as too Toronto-centric.

Sigh...

The Stephen Harper Retirement Plan

Hey, are you a Tory ex-premier who's been drubbed out of office by the electorate of your province. Don't worry, Canada's Newest. Guvmint. EVAR. has a deal for you! Our man Steve Harper will make you the ambassador of whatever country you want. Just look at Pat Binns who's now off to Ireland! He will have an exciting time representing Harper's, err... Canada's interests in Ireland which include, ummm, ignoring Bono?

Seriously, yes I know that the predictable Conservative response would be to point out that the Liberals do it, blah blah blah. Whatever, I'm not a Liberal party apologist, the point to me is that Harper got up and said all this stuff about clean, accountable government. It just means that once again with patronage pretty much every party is the same.

Devin has more.

Some Personal Firsts and More on MMP

In my new neighbourhood, I'm represented politically by a woman for the first time ever at the federal or provincial level. Also, both my MP and MPP are NDP members here - firsts at both levels for me.

What does this have to do with MMP? Well, for years I lived in a riding where the only parties with any hope of electoral success were the Liberals or the Conservatives. Even if I had ardently believed in the platform of the NDP, it would have mattered nothing if I had voted for them as they always ran a distant 3rd or 4th.

In Trinity-Spadina the situation is only different in the roles that each party plays, here the hypothetical Conservative supporter is left not being able to support the party of his or her choice.

Of course there are probably many more ridings in which the Liberal-Conservative duopoly exists. One wonders if those in the Liberal Party who oppose MMP (but to their credit, not all Liberals do oppose it) are worried about losing the soft-NDP voters who vote Liberal to stop the Tories.

Defective, err... defecting Liberals

Joe Comuzzi has gone over to the Conservatives and the overall reaction from Liberals has been to say "good riddance" and remind everyone that this guy has run afoul of several Liberal leaders. It reminds me of the Liberal response to Wajid Khan or David Emerson departing the party. In both cases the MP was dismissed as a weak-willed, idiotic traitor (or however we say that in polite prose).

Fair enough, maybe all these guys are duds, but I have one question for the Liberal Party: How many more dubious members do you have to shed and why do you let them all get elected as MPs?

Very funny, now get to work

So I saw the Young Liberal Mac-parody ads. I admit they are credibly funny (certainly more watchable than what Harper has put on TV). Anyway, one ad does not a campaign make, so I hope that the Grits (and the Dippers for that matter) are busy in their mountain fortresses (or wherever strategy is done, I don't know for sure, so I'll assume fortresses it is) concocting something that topple Harper.