How to lose friends and alienate people

For the talk that Conservatives (large and small-c) make about decentralization and leaving things out of the hands of the federal government, Jim Flaherty sure seems meddlesome. According to the National Compost he's going to discuss his "expectations" for the Ontario budget. Oh really, gee Jim, as I recall, we didn't elect your party last time out so we don't really care around here what you think.

I have an idea, Jim Flaherty, why don't just lay out there and declare your intention to run for John Tory's job? I have a hunch that's why you're really doing this.

How Much Trouble Is Ontario In?

The Star has an editorial about how the Ontario government is going to have quite a time crafting a budget. I think it's only a matter of time before something like Dutch disease will set in here. What does this mean for Southern Ontario as an economic zone? Should we all start looking at the want ads and the real estate sections of the Calgary newspapers?

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.

Ontario's Unquiet Revolution

Ontario, as numerous others have pointed out, has historically seen its interests as a province and the interests of Canada as a whole as being virtually one and the same. We are the the biggest province in population and our manufacturing sector was long seen as driving this country's economy.

We have had it very good from an economic stand point. We weren't laid low by the collapse of the cod fishery nor were our major industries subject to the meddling of something like the National Energy Program. If smaller provinces wanted equalization or better representation in the House of Commons, we were inclined to go along.

This is starting to change. Peter Van Loan's insult to Ontario was only the beginning. As the high dollar helps Alberta and hurts Ontario, this province is going to become more focused in its demands of Ottawa. For a long time politicians would fight over Ontario seats without offering up much that was explicitly directed towards Ontario - this is going to change I suspect. We've been something a silent partner in confederation for far too long.

How Small of You to Criticize Us for Shortchanging You

Impolitical has the goods on Peter Van Loan's idiotic comment about Dalton McGuinty yesterday. I guess Alberta was the "small man" for raising a fuss over the National Energy Program. I wonder how that sounds to the Conservative Party's Western overlords?

Ontario Gets Ripped Off

It's really beyond me why the federal government is going to screw Ontario out of ten additional seats in parliament. Except it's not, it's a blatantly partisan move by a party that views everything as a partisan opportunity - the Conservatives do better in Alberta and BC, it's that simple. I guess "representation by population" is passe, now we have "representation by partisanship."

The next step for the Conservatives I suppose is to attempt to politicize the drawing of riding maps - that's the way it's done in the US. Here comes the gerrymandering. Don't believe me? It's already been tried by Tories in PEI.

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...

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.

You Down with MMP?

Those opposed to MMP got a nice fat bit of media attention this morning from the launch of their campaign.

The principle talking-points this morning seemed to center on a couple of ideas. One was that MMP would mean that the "backroom" types of political parties would control the list of candidates. Anyone who knows anything about contemporary Canadian politics knows that a candidate favoured in the backroom can find a nice safe seat in which to run. Riding associations themselves are highly susceptible to being taken over by all manner of special interest groups and/or lackeys for a particular candidate.

I fail to see how MMP would make this worse.

Just as I fail to see how minority governments (the second concern of the no-MMP crowd) would make things worse. Given that Canadian governments are increasingly the creatures of the first minister's unelected advisors, maybe having to justify this policy or that decision to a coalition partner might actually be healthy. Most backbenchers are all too eager to toe the party line in hopes of getting some real responsibility in the government.

Jim has more.

Scott has more.

Ontario Election 2007: Why not make auto insurance an issue again?

It's amazing sometimes how you can forget about something that, only a few years ago seemed really significant. Take the last Ontario election where there was a fair amount of background noise concerning auto insurance. It seems we have pretty much forgotten it all and gone back to accepting the same old high prices.

A line in this post by Sean in Saskatchewan mentioned Saskatchewan's lower car insurance rates. I was also reminded recently of BC's lower auto insurance rates. The common factor in both provinces is that auto insurance is a publicly run system administered by a crown corporation. Now I know that free market ideology says that this simply cannot be, and yet it is.

Now the hacks at the Fraser Institute will tell you that somehow rates are lower in provinces with private insurance, and yet, everyone I know who moves to a jurisdiction with public insurance ends up saving money. They also don't pay attention to Fraser's insistence that public auto insurance kills you (methinks the institute doth protest too much). I'm talking about people who save money who are young and old, male and female. Who's really getting all these savings from private insurance then?

Moreover, we did we in Ontario, after raising a bit of a fuss, go back to accepting higher rates?

Doing the Dalton or How Not to Steal from Your Opponent's Playbook

As Ontario heads for another election the principle critique of McGuinty's government is that he promised quite a bit and did not deliver as much as he said he would. The main areas of concern in this regard are probably the health tax (if you lean right) and/or the coal plants remaining open (if you lean left).

Well, I guess it's time for the opposition to roll out a more modest, achievable platform. Uhhh, not quite, at least if you listen to what John Tory is saying.

I'm starting to think that by the time October rolls around the bullshit will be piled quite high in this province.

Kicking the tires on Chrysler

I think the FP is right in thinking that a Magna bid would be a prelude to a break-up of Chrysler. (HT) Quote:

"Mr. Stronach has stressed, however, that Magna does not want to risk losing the business of its major customers, namely Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. by competing directly with them. Taking an ownership position in Chrysler may put it in that situation. A more likely outcome is that Magna would invest in Chrysler’s vehicle production operations in a way that’s palatable for Magna’s main clients."

This whole move has made me question whether this is more than simply one company picking over the carcass of another one. The auto industry is home to some of the most powerful brands in the world - nameplates from Lexus to Chevrolet bring an instant association. In many industries though, big brands don't make anything anymore, it's all contracted out. The only things that Nike owns (aside from its offices and retail outlets) is the swoosh and the name. Same thing, so I understand, with most apparel manufacturers.

Is it possible for the auto industry to be divided similarly. On one hand there'd be the brands and their dealer networks, on the other hand, there'd be manufacturing and distribution networks. Some companies might remain vertically integrated, but most of them would simply contract out their manufacturing. Magna already does this for DaimlerChrysler in Austria where they assemble SUV's. I'm not an economist, or a business major, but is this plausible? What are the implications for all those unionized auto-worker jobs in Ontario? What are the implications for new vehicle prices?