u-g-l-y you ain't got no alibi

Harper wins minority, PM steps down

Harper-led Conservatives promise ethics overhaul, crime crackdown and tax cuts

Tuesday, January 24, 2006. 12:56 AM

SUSAN DELACOURT
OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF

The Conservatives have toppled Prime Minister Paul Martin’s government, winning a shaky minority.

Martin conceded defeat early today and announced he would step down as Liberal party leader after an orderly transition.

“I will not take our party into another election as leader,” Martin said at his LaSalle-Emard headquarters in Montreal.

The crowd of supporters cried, “No,” but the results of yesterday's election spell the end of a decades-long political journey for Martin and his team.

By winning a couple of dozen seats more than Martin’s party, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and his party have ended 12 years of Liberal rule and drawn the West and Quebec into a radically altered federal political landscape.

Still, Harper finds himself with a Conservative minority that is surrounded by three, strong progressive-leaning parties — the New Democrats have surged in strength and the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals retained some important strength in Quebec and urban areas.

This precarious situation raises real questions about which of the Conservative policy priorities Harper could realistically get through the Commons. His planned cuts to the GST could likely survive, for instance, but the combined strength of the opposition could thwart any of his harder-right conservative ideas.

That leads to the bigger question too of how long this government could last and when another election could be unleashed on the country. Tories see this as a first foothold. Diane Ablonczy, a long-time Conservative elected in Calgary and expected to be in cabinet, said last night:

“By definition, a minority government is a shorter term ... but I think it is a start. Canadians ... want to test drive the Conservative party and we’re quite happy. We’re sure they’re going to like the product.”

Harper will be leading a highly inexperienced, rookie government, facing an expert opposition, literally loaded with Liberal ministers who know how the system works.

With only a few exceptions — government House leader Tony Valeri, Seniors Minister Tony Ianno and Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell, for instance — virtually all of Martin’s cabinet held on to their seats.

Immigration Minister Joe Volpe, who was also the chief minister for Ontario and Toronto, kept his Eglinton-Lawrence seat. So did Human Resources Minister Belinda Stronach, Public Health Minister Carolyn Bennett, Defence Minister Bill Graham and Communities and Infrastructure Minister John Godfrey.

It was not the total rout of the Liberals that Tories were daring to dream about in the final days of the campaign — proof that some of the Martin scare tactics against Harper, and his “radical social agenda,” may have found their mark.

At Tory headquarters in Calgary last night, one adviser confided: “We certainly would have wanted more (seats).”

But the Liberal loss also showed that the Tories’ own attacks, specifically on government corruption, had finally chipped away the party’s hold on power.

Finance Minister Ralph Goodale said he had felt this more acutely than others. It was Goodale who figured largely in what became a mid-campaign bombshell — the announcement on Dec. 28 that the RCMP were investigating alleged leaks from his office to the financial markets about income trust tax changes.

Most pundits and strategists said this was the beginning of the end for the Liberals, that there was no recovery possible afterward.

“This has been a difficult and challenging day at the end of a long and challenging campaign; probably the toughest campaign I have ever experienced,” Goodale said last night after winning his own Saskatchewan riding.

It’s been more than 12 years since Canada had a Conservative government. Brian Mulroney, the last man to lead the Conservative party to power, praised Harper for leading the Tories to a minority government.

“It’s a tremendous tribute to Stephen Harper for what he was able to do in bringing about tonight’s victory,” Mulroney told CTV from West Palm Beach, Fla., last night.

“Reaching out to Peter MacKay to unify the party, then to move the party to the centre, then to devise a campaign strategy and finally to execute it flawlessly, these are marks of leadership.

“And Stephen Harper demonstrated that leadership in a great degree.”

The former prime minister was particularly thrilled with the Tories’ performance in Quebec,where early results gave the Conservatives 10 seats.

The final tally wasn’t even in when the first angry call came for Martin’s resignation.

“We’re heading toward a (Conservative) minority and he’s got to pack it in,” said MP Roger Gallaway, who was defeated in his Sarnia riding.

“I would think the sooner the better because this Parliament isn’t going to last.”

This wasn’t a unanimous sentiment expressed last night.

Michael Ignatieff, Liberal winner in Etobicoke-Lakeshore and one of the people seen as likely to run as Martin’s successor, said: “The Prime Minister fought very hard. He earned the respect of everybody who fought in the trenches. There’s no leadership question.”

Stronach, for her part, said she believed the party would give Martin time to re-energize and revitalize the party.

Gallaway said he was prepared to let Martin linger up to six months at the helm in order to give the party time to organize an orderly succession.

But he said the tightly knit clique of confidants who ran the Prime Minister’s Office and the disastrous Liberal campaign will have to go immediately.

“This thing has been botched from Day 1,” Gallaway said of the campaign. “If there’s going to be any peace and harmony, they’ve got to go.”

But at least one potential contender for the race to succeed Martin was more circumspect, warning that the party faces a massive rebuilding effort and can’t afford any more bloodletting.

“We do not have the luxury to not include everybody,” said Toronto MP Maurizio Bevilacqua.

“Tonight’s results should not become an opportunity for people to fingerpoint but rather an opportunity to focus on the future.”

Bevilacqua, who at 45 is one of the youngest putative successors, said the party needs to “reach out to a new generation of Liberals across the country” and put the infighting of the past behind them.

The Atlantic region did not produce the big gains that both the Conservatives and New Democrats had hoped to make. Liberals managed to retain their hold on the area, losing less than a handful of seats and retaining prominent figures such as Public Works Minister Scott Brison and Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott.

The Liberals’ old caucus chairman, Andy Savoy, was among the casualties — his New Brunswick seat of Tobique-Mactaquac falling to the Conservatives.

With a file from Canadian Press

dude where's my country going?

Friday, January 20th, 2006

Michael Moore Statement on Canadian Election

Michael Moore is currently in production on his next movie. As an avid lover of all things Canadian, he has issued the following statement regarding Canada's upcoming election on Monday:

Oh, Canada -- you're not really going to elect a Conservative majority on Monday, are you? That's a joke, right? I know you have a great sense of humor, and certainly a well-developed sense of irony, but this is no longer funny. Maybe it's a new form of Canadian irony -- reverse irony!

OK, now I get it.

First, you have the courage to stand against the war in Iraq -- and then you elect a prime minister who's for it. You declare gay people have equal rights -- and then you elect a man who says they don't. You give your native peoples their own autonomy and their own territory -- and then you vote for a man who wants to cut aid to these poorest of your citizens.

Wow, that is intense! Only Canadians could pull off a hat trick of humor like that. My hat's off to you.

Far be it from me, as an American, to suggest what you should do. You already have too many Americans telling you what to do. Well, actually, you've got just one American who keeps telling you to roll over and fetch and sit. I hope you don't feel this appeal of mine is too intrusive but I just couldn't sit by, as your friend, and say nothing.

Yes, I agree, the Liberals have some 'splainin' to do.

And yes, one party in power for more than a decade gets a little... long. But you have a parliamentary system (I'll bet you didn't know that -- see, that's why you need Americans telling you things!). There are ways at the polls to have your voices heard other than throwing the baby out with the bath water.

These are no ordinary times, and as you go to the polls on Monday, you do so while a man running the nation to the south of you is hoping you can lend him a hand by picking Stephen Harper because he's a man who shares his world view.

Do you want to help George Bush by turning Canada into his latest conquest? Is that how you want millions of us down here to see you from now on? The next notch in the cowboy belt?

C'mon, where's your Canadian pride? I mean, if you're going to reduce Canada to a cheap download of Bush & Co., then at least don't surrender so easily. Can't you wait until he threatens to bomb Regina? Make him work for it, for Pete's sake.

But seriously, I know you're not going to elect a guy who should really be running for governor of Utah. Whew! I knew it! You almost had me there. Very funny. Don't do that again. God, I love you, you crazy cold wonderful neighbors to my north. Don't ever change.

Michael Moore

(Mr. Moore is not available for interviews because he now needs to address the situation in Azerbaijan. But he could be talked into it for a couple of tickets to a Canucks' game.)

steaming pile leads the polls

Conservative juggernaut will crush Canada's ruling Liberals, polls predict

Telegraph UK

January 17, 2006

By Francis Harris in Toronto

Canada's Conservatives appear to be steaming towards a historic general election victory, opinion polls have predicted.

With less than a week until polling day on Jan 23, yesterday every survey showed that the party that has been out of power for more than a decade is poised to crush the ruling Liberals headed by Paul Martin, the prime minister.

The latest polls give the Conservatives a 10-point lead over the Liberals, with some showing a widening gap between the two parties.

Amid growing signals of panic in the Liberal ranks, the party has launched a series of crudely anti-American commercials. One stated that victory for the 47-year-old Tory leader, Stephen Harper, would "bring a smile to George W Bush's face".

Another described Mr Harper as "pro-Iraqi war, anti-Kyoto, socially conservative... Bush's new best friend".

But despite strong anti-Americanism among voters, the adverts have had little effect on the polls. Voters appear far more concerned about domestic issues such as corruption. The Conservatives have already promised not to send troops to Iraq.

Liberal sources have begun briefing journalists about widespread internal dissent. One Liberal told the Toronto Star that Mr Martin, in office since December 2003, would pay the price for a failed campaign.

"He'll be out of here on election night," he told the paper.

Senior Liberals publicly admit that they are in serious trouble. A senior campaign strategist, Mike Robertson, told a television interviewer: "I don't think any of us are going to disagree that if you look at the polls, there is no question that if the election were held today the Conservative Party would form a government."

Pollsters say that the Tories look certain to poll most votes but cannot yet be sure of winning a majority in the 308-member House of Commons. Frank Graves, the head of the Ekos polling organisation, said that was now the election's biggest question. "Clearly, he [Mr Harper] is going to achieve a government of some sort," he said.

In elections 18 months ago, the Conservatives also seemed poised to triumph but the party fell back as the Liberals launched a fierce last-minute assault.

But this time the Tory surge looks more sustained and their message clearer. The party is promising clean government, tax cuts, a tough line on crime and much increased funding for the hard-up armed forces.

The Liberals have been hurt by a bribery scandal when it was revealed that the party gave millions of taxpayers' dollars to allies in public relations agencies. Further questions over the party's ethics have dogged it through the campaign.

Canada now faces the prospect of a majority Tory government for the first time since the party's disastrous 1993 showing, when the prime minister Kim Campbell lost office in a tidal wave which reduced her party from 169 MPs to two.

Mr Harper is viewed by some as a strangely insular politician with an aversion to the press. Those who have watched him closely explain this as the result of the way he despises the politics of soundbites and stunts.

William Johnson, who has been researching a book on the party leader, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation he has "contempt for politicians, for the cheap tricks they play". Instead, for Mr Harper, politics is about policy.

Yesterday he emphasised a traditional Conservative interest: defence.

He said: "I have made no secret of our desire to rebuild the Canadian military to have the capacities of a sovereign nation, and to make foreign policy decisions that are not only independent, but are actually noticed by other powers around the world."

--

Excerpt from an article written by Henry Porter in the Guardian UK:

"If only on the grounds of Canada's economic success, Americans should take more notice. Last week, the Liberal government announced that it would cut C$30 billion out of the budget because of the enormous fiscal surplus, currently running at about C$13.4bn a year. Just over C$5bn is to be given back to Canadians on taxes collected this year. And in the future, some of the the surplus will be spent on training, the settling of new immigrants and student grants.

The main point, which you never hear in Britain or America, is that Canada alone among G7 countries is balancing its budget. When you compare its performance with the Bush administration's (the US trade deficit is $706bn; the budget deficit is predicted to be $521bn this year), it's a wonder Canadians aren't a bit more cocky. But during a week in Toronto, I didn't hear the tiniest bit of chauvinism, economic or otherwise.

Canadians are sceptical to a point where they appear simply unable to recognise that they live in a very successful and civilised country. 'We peer so suspiciously at each other,' Pierre Trudeau once said, 'that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege.'

He was right. Some 32 million people occupy a territory which is larger than Russia and is blessed with enormous natural resources. Canada is democratic to its marrow, relatively enlightened on environment, health and welfare issues and its political discourse, unlike America's, is recognisably connected to the rest of the free world. That is almost certainly because the centre ground of politics, the place where you find a nation's core values and you can most easily read its character, is some distance to the left of the centre ground in the US.

Canadians are obsessed by two things - politics and national identity. I am on a book tour here and have been amazed how knowledgeably and intensely these things are discussed in ordinary conversation. Canadians are engaged in their politics in way that Americans aren't, and they read obsessively. Canadians spend as much money on books (C$1.1bn) as on newspapers and going to the cinema and double the amount spent on sporting events.

To the outsider, Canadian politics is often mystifying and the conduct of the debate between Conservatives and Liberals seems slightly less genteel than a couple of ferrets in a sack. But on the big issues, the political class makes some good decisions. For example, Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister for 10 years who left office in 2003, refused to go to war with Iraq unless there was a second UN resolution, which is exactly the course Tony Blair could and should have taken. Canadians only grudgingly thank him for his sound judgment.

...Just at the moment, Canadians seem to have got things about right."

Uh huh. Sure we do. Canucks head to the polls on January 23rd - don't forget to vote... anyone but Harper!

http://www.greenparty.ca
http://www.liberal.ca
http://www.ndp.ca