God Save Us, It's 1917 But Worse

At first I thought this election was going to be like 1972, with Iggy as Stanfield. Then seeing how HQ is falling into Con traps, I thought it was 1958, with Iggy as Pearson. But now I am genuinely scared it's 1917. with Harper as Borden and Iggy-Duceppe-Layton combined as Laurier. And this is worse than 1917, because the large majority of QC seats in this linguisticised (in 1917 they said "racialised") parliament will be held by separatists, representatives of a "nation" recognised as such by the HoC and all parties, as a result of Iggy's idiocy (with an assist to Hogue & Co.). It would be almost unprecedented for PLQ to win a fourth election in a row. So we could be soon be faced with a bitter post-1917 situation, QC represented by separatists federally & provincially, virtually no Quebeckers in the governing party and the hated anglo demon Stephen Harper as PM. Geez, I wonder if that might be a good time for a referendum, were I a separatist?

We cannot have an election under these circumstances. Harper's a pyromaniac and Iggy's a matchstick girl. They are about to set the country ablaze. Iggy must go. He must go now before he makes things even worse. I just got an email from a fairly prominent youngish Liberal in response to Iggy's Devoir interview and his pro-deconstruction of Canada position. This guy is someone who's been quite outspoken in the past and has been critical of me. He wishes to remain anonymous, so you can tell yourselves I'm making this up, if you wish, but I'm not: "It is not what I want at all. If this is true, I completely withdraw my support for Michael Ignatieff and will push for a new leader after the next election."

I was surprised to get this note, from this source. But I fear he is mistaken. If we are to avoid 2009 becoming 1917 and its awful consequences, Iggy must go now. I know I'll be told that's impossible, ridiculous, etc.. But read up on those elections, 1972, 1958, 1917. Which one is this turning into? And we have the Bloc. And the PQ can win gov't in QC with up to 5% less votes than the PLQ and the next election here will be Charest's 5th, he'd be going for four in a row - Gouin & Taschereau did it at in early 20th century, and Duplessis in 1956, and that was the last time anyone got more than two mandates in a row, before Charest did his majority-minority-majority trick. Four in a row, with electoral map against him?

Iggy & Harper are leading us down the road to hell, and their partisans, blinded by belief and ambition, are pushing us to follow. The NDP can never win power. Harper is not about to leave, as a sitting PM about to win again. The only player we can change is Iggy. I am genuinely scared of how badly these fools are messing things up. It was darkly amusing for a while, when I thought the worst that could happen is one or both would leave office. But Harper's & Iggy's discourses, and Iggy & co.'s ineptitude, are terrifying. This cannot go on. We need a proud pan-Canadian leader with a personal, familial connection to French Canada, who can speak for Canada, to all Canadians, especially French Canadians, without being either oversensitive or overcompensating. Kennedy, Trudeau, whatever, I don't care. But someone.

Please, don't view this through your usual short-term partisan screen. Think about it. Read up on the references I'm making. I don't want to be a Cassandra. I hope to hell I'm wrong. But I don't see anyway around it - I think we're headed for a terrible debacle. Change must come. It must come now. If not, this election may be the beginning of the end of Canada.

If You Love QC Nationalism, Vote Iggy!

If you trust Hébert, he's not convinced we need a national securities regulator, and anyway, wants to ask the Supreme Court if it's constitutional (uh, 91.2). But it gets better, in Beaulieu's editorial she notes he's fine with QC speaking for itself INTERNATIONALLY*. Great. Selling out federalism for eight (8) seats? Yay. Are my fellow Liberals really sure this is what they want? This is the program they didn't vote for at a convention/confirmed?

*George Ignatieff is rolling in his grave.

Leak? More Like Con Plant & HQ Fell For It

Since it's been obvious since prorogation that the Cons would run on coalition (I got timing wrong though), I suspect that this supposed leak of Harper rallying the Conbots is actually some Con black-ops. What better way to get their real campaign theme out there than by getting their opponents to do them a favour and release it themselves to the CBC and give it more weight? It reeks of Doug Finley's foulness. Now they'll go, "Oh, you caught us. Oops. Time to come clean: we are indeed most worried about the separatist-socialist coalition. We'd hoped to avoid it by continuing to govern, but since the power mad Libs want to force an election on poor Canadians, just when we were about to fix crime, the economy, EI, etc. ad. nauseam, I guess poor little old us are going to somehow have to fight a campaign on the theme of Standing up for and Defending Canada from the Red-Separatist hordes. We can only hope that Canadians will hear our message despite the evil liberal MSM and vote to defend our great country. (Break into O Canada, weep, look noble, and try to hide cheshire cat grin - and win majority)." I hope I'm wrong, but knowing Finley et. al., it seems more than likely, and indicates just how screwed up things are with the gullible youth at HQ.

As I said in that aforementioned December post: "Whether Harper manages to get the Opposition to defeat him on a confidence matter of his predilection or simply asks the GG for dissolution, claiming Canada’s Government cannot function effectively in the national interest because of the socialist-separatist sword of damocles that hangs over it makes no odds, he will have his justification and get his election.

Were you him, when would you rather strike, sooner or later? If sooner, while the other parties remain impoverished and disorganised, in transition (we Liberals, certainly), would you act before or after the Liberal Party has received a week’s worth of free publicity at their convention where they will “confirm” their new leader? Would you not act asap so as to profit from public outrage over the supposedly anti-Canadian Coalition? And were your goal a majority, and you realised last election that 10 seats might in fact be the maximum the Cons can win in QC, do you not think that those last 12 seats the Cons need to form a majority might best be found elsewhere, to profit from the anger over the Coalition while the public still remembers it (aided by constant Con advertising)? And of course, no other party has the means to counter the Cons ad blitz.

(...)However, as mentioned, a Coalition seems unlikely. Which means, to repeat, the LPC will enter the next election with an American Empire/Iraq War-cheerleading, torture-justifying, nation resolution-instigating, Dion-destroying, appointed, unelected & even unconfirmed leader. Red Liberals will be unmotivated. Ideological parties like the Cons, Greens, NDP & Bloc will be very motivated and have very enthused voters. The soft centre of Canadian politics, which Liberals represent, feeling wary of its apologetic one-time embrace of the Coalition, will not be. It ads up to a Con majority, a reduced Liberal Party, and ascendant Bloc, NDP & Greens.

This outcome will be a direct result of how many in party treated Dion from 2006 onwards and how the party elites eventually installed Ignatieff. They will have brought it down on themselves, except they won’t. It’ll be the party as a whole, and the country, which will pay the price.

The only chance is to make the case for the coalition, take power and introduce electoral reform. Or to hope that Ignatieff, who looks good on TV, can win over the absent-minded short-term memory of the Canadian electorate. But we don’t operate in a vaccuum re. the other parties or our own or the media, so that seems unlikely. Having committed to the Coalition, we should stick to it. But who thinks we will?

Ignatieff-supporters: always too clever by half."

Coalition? If 1st=Unnecessary, 2nd=Impossible

Short version: Iggy screwed us. From CC, 1) The party with most seats, by constitutional convention, is asked by the Queen (or GG on her behalf) to try to from a government, ie., maintain the confidence of the House. Should the Cons have even just one more seat, that would be them. Any attempt by opposition to defeat them on first vote that comes up (throne speech) would be extraordinary. One could wait for first substantive confidence vote and then defeat them, let's say another budget, so as to replace them with a coalition. However, because under Iggy we Liberals caved on our own pro-coalition position and then went on to deligitimise it in public statements by the Leader and others, the conservative position and rage has been grossly strengthened, and it was already strong enough once to scare us off. We could do it. I hope we will, if circumstances present themselves. But politically, I think we've dug our own grave on this one. Rae had the right instinct. He knew we had to grab the chance when we had it and not be intimidated, not just for the short term but for the long game as well, as this situation is sure to recur and every retreat from our principled defence of parliamentary democracy gives the game away to the Cons. But that is what Iggy & co. did and have done. We are well on the way to a new constitutional convention, no "separatist supported" coalition may rule Canada. We'll see how it all shakes out. But the odds we would have the guts, against the strengthened position of the Cons and their media supporters and outraged ignoramuses, to do it, is extremely thin. We can still do a Lib-NDP coalition if the numbers add up to more than 154. But otherwise...well it I wish it wasn't so. But that's where this bunch have gotten us.

2) Dear CC,
you are mistaken re. how GG would proceed in the event of party with most seats losing confidence vote. Her concern would be ensuring stability AND democracy. She will only turn to party with less seats if they can give her assurances they will be able to govern with support of House for extended period. Read up on Lib-NDP arrangement in Ontario in 1985. Important point - while Libs had less seats than Cons, by signing formal Accord with NDP they were able to guarantee stable government. As NDP was only other party, the Accord ensured a majority of MPs would be onside. That is not the case here and now. Again, the GG would need to be sure of stable government, and might turn to Libs, but Accord with NDP would be insufficient if the two parties don't represent a majority of seats. In which case, Bloc would have to be associated in some formal way, like last time. (Dion's an arch-federalist poli sci prof, so believe me, the agreements concluded were the minimum he thought he needed to gain power). Anything less and the GG, facing an incoherent and unstable House, loath to substitute herself for the public's democratic self-expression, and in so doing imperil constitutional monarchy and the role of GG, would declare another election, which as guarantor of Canadian democracy, is her role. so you see, there is no way around the need for a formal agreement with NDP &/or Bloc, depending on seat count, to ensure a stable majority of MPs in support of govt, in the event the Libs win the same or less seats than the Cons (tie goes to incumbent - would get first chance to try to maintain confidence of House - could do same if had less seats, but unheard of.)

Amyot & Lévesque vs. Misuse of History

Lévesque : "Il faut quand même noter qu'on n'est pas dans un goulag! On n'est pas dans un contexte - je me rappelle le temps du FLQ, ce délire de l'action - qui appelle ce genre de comportement. Dieu sait si, quant à moi du moins, le fédéralisme canadien est un système de broche à foin qui trop souvent gêne notre développement. Mais par ailleurs, c'est quand même un système où les gens ont la liberté de respirer, de dire ce qu'ils ont à dire y compris celle de prétendre à un autre régime à l'intérieur même du régime actuel, comme on l'a fait, nous. C'est un contexte qui exclut d'autres émancipations..."

Amyot : "Tout cela et bien d’autres progrès qu’aucun retour nostalgique au Régime français ne saurait remplacer. L’idée que de ne pas parler de l’événement puisse contribuer à « réparer » l’« humiliation » de la « Conquête » (alors qu’il s’agit en fait d’une cession) n’est qu’asservissement intellectuel. Pour paraphraser Tocqueville, le nationalisme a fréquemment pour effet d’endormir les esprits les plus critiques, lesquels sont pourtant impératifs à la survie et à l’épanouissement de la démocratie."

Lecture essentielle pour "William" et autres naïfs

Pratte vous explique où vous vivez et à qui vous avez affaire : Le moulin à propagande - Commentant la décision du gouvernement Charest de se dissocier de l'événement en raison de la lecture du manifeste du FLQ, les organisateurs du Moulin à paroles ont dénoncé cette «censure». «Le Moulin, c'est une centaine de lecteurs, de voix qui résonneront plus fort que celles des censeurs, de leur mesquinerie, leur malhonnêteté et leurs considérations bassement électoralistes», peut-on lire dans le communiqué publié samedi dernier. Or, les censeurs ne sont pas là où on croit.

La controverse suscitée depuis plusieurs mois par la commémoration de la bataille de 1759 est une parfaite illustration de la manière dont s'y prennent les indépendantistes pour imposer leur interprétation de l'histoire du Québec.

Premier acte: les souverainistes ont obtenu, à la suite d'une virulente campagne, l'annulation de la reconstitution de la bataille prévue par la Commission des champs de bataille nationaux. La reconstitution ne plaisait pas à tous, évidemment, mais elle faisait partie d'un ensemble d'activités par lequel la Commission avait cherché à ménager les susceptibilités des différents courants d'opinion. Cette «victoire», les souverainistes la doivent surtout à leurs éléments radicaux, avec à leur tête Pierre Falardeau et Patrick Bourgeois, qui ont laissé planer la menace d'incidents regrettables si la reconstitution avait lieu.

Deuxième acte: les souverainistes ont mis sur pied leur propre spectacle de commémoration. Le problème ne venait donc pas de ce que la Commission cherchait à «commémorer une défaite», comme on l'avait dit alors; le problème, du point de vue des indépendantistes, c'était qu'ils ne contrôlaient pas l'événement. Une fois chassé le fédéral, les Plaines étaient libres pour une commémoration à saveur souverainiste.

D'où le projet du Moulin à paroles. Un projet original, qui aurait pu rassembler les Québécois si telle avait vraiment été la volonté des organisateurs. Cependant, quand on veut rassembler, il faut être à l'écoute de ceux qu'on veut réunir et faire les compromis nécessaires. En choisissant le manifeste du FLQ, on allait immanquablement susciter un profond malaise chez beaucoup de Québécois. En faisant fi de ce malaise, on abandonnait l'aspect rassembleur du projet pour privilégier sa vocation de propagande.

Commémorer ou célébrer?

On aurait tort de prêter aux organisateurs du Moulin l'intention de faire l'apologie de l'action politique violente. Toutefois, en choisissant le manifeste de 1970 comme un des textes marquants de l'histoire du Québec, en le faisant lire par une vedette tel Luck Mervil, ils lui confèrent une importance et une légitimité qu'il ne mérite pas.

Dans son contenu, le manifeste ne dit rien que l'on ne retrouvait pas dans le fatras de textes gauchistes de l'époque. Il n'a été connu de la population que parce que ses auteurs ont enlevé un homme et menacé de le tuer si on ne diffusait pas leurs élucubrations révolutionnaires. On ne peut donc pas dissocier le texte de l'action terroriste. En lui accordant une place de choix dans une telle manifestation, on banalise les gestes violents qu'il servait à justifier.

D'ailleurs, on voit cette banalisation à l'oeuvre dans beaucoup des propos tenus au cours des derniers jours. Pensons à Gilles Duceppe affirmant hier que la bataille des plaines d'Abraham a fait «beaucoup plus de morts que la crise d'Octobre» (c'était une guerre, M. Duceppe!). Le chef du Bloc a aussi comparé le pamphlet du FLQ à la Marseillaise (le manifeste felquiste serait-il l'hymne national d'un Québec indépendant?).

Qu'aurait fait M. Lévesque?

Hier, le leader autochtone Konrad Sioui a déploré le choix du manifeste et indiqué qu'il profiterait de sa participation pour lire un texte pacifique. On aurait aimé entendre les politiciens et vedettes indépendantistes exprimer les mêmes réserves. Au contraire, ils cautionneront la lecture du manifeste du FLQ par leur participation en grand nombre: Pauline Marois, Gilles Duceppe, Louise Beaudoin, Pierre Curzi, Maka Kotto, Bernard Landry, Françoise David, Jean Dorion, Yves Beauchemin, Emmanuel Bilodeau, Gilles Vigneault, etc. L'événement aura un effet très rassembleur... pour les indépendantistes.

Ceux-là devraient se demander ce qu'aurait fait René Lévesque dans les mêmes circonstances. On imagine fort mal ce grand démocrate s'associer de près ou de loin à tout événement où on ferait la part belle aux écrits des felquistes. Ne serait-il pas plutôt scandalisé, comme il le fut en 1981 lorsque les militants du PQ ovationnèrent Jacques Rose, complice de l'assassinat de Pierre Laporte?

Les vrais censeurs

Le gouvernement libéral a refusé de subventionner le Moulin à paroles et a critiqué l'événement. Où est la censure? Québec n'a pas tenté d'en empêcher sa tenue. Au niveau fédéral, la Commmission des champs de bataille permet que le Moulin se déroule sur ses terrains. Aucun leader d'opinion fédéraliste n'a menacé d'en perturber le déroulement, comme l'avaient fait des souverainistes l'hiver dernier à l'égard de la reconstitution.

Les censeurs sont du côté du Moulin à paroles, pas ailleurs.

Keynes, Cassandra, Tuchman, The World & Me

When I read about, say the state of economics or Afghanistan, etc., I think about Keynes' preface to his Essays in Persuasion, "Here are the collected croakings of twelve years-the croakings of a Cassandra who could never influence the course of events in time. The volume might have been entitled 'Essays in Prophecy and Persuasion,' for the Prophecy, unfortunately, has been more successful than the Persuasion...". It's a sad stupid world after all. The March of Folly, indeed. Keynes, Tuchman, I'd recommend them except that they'll probably just make you wiser, sadder and more frustrated with your fellow man. What's the point of even saying "I told you so"? No-one ever learns. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce? Wrong, Karl, more like a dark farcical spiral, like l'Illusion comique, farces of farces of farces, ad nauseam (heavy on the nauseam, as a consequence). Upon reflection, biology, neurology & psychology may be the only worthwhile disciplines: why can't we learn?

Reflections on "A card no one has in their hand"

I don't like this discussion at all*. Who's got the most diverse caucus? The most women? Etc.. I agree it's important for our leadership to not be excessively unreflective of our inherent demographic differences. I'm in favour of fair representation of all. But I've always thought this was more a question for "black box" organisations. That is, in recent times governments have generally done a fair job with hiring policies designed to ensure more demographically representative organisations, and as public bodies, all is pretty transparent. But in the private sector (including NGOs, unions, whatever), virtually all organisations are black boxes and they do seem to tend to have a tendency to reproduce the existing demographics within them. This is why I was such a fan of the unfairly decried employment-equity legislation of the Rae NDP, which, if memory serves, obliged large employers , and some medium, to produce reports outlining their demographics and their HR plan to increase representation of under-represented groups, but did not force quotas on anyone, contrary to Harrisite myth (ie. it forced to study and make plans, but it didn't force them to apply them, just update them). It was the least coercive method possible to pursue a worthwhile social and economic end and it was worth remembering that when Harris cancelled it, most of the large corporations announced that they planned to continue updating and applying their plans since they'd discovered, surprise surprise!, that better representation meant better business - there's gold in them there 905ers, y'hear?

I say all this as prelude to explaining why I don't think there should be any quota system for increasing representation within parliamentary caucuses, since they are arguably the most, maybe the only, truly open employment organisations that exist. You want to be an MP? Get a membership. Get lots of memberships for your supporters. Run for nomination. More Supporters? You're a candidate. Run for election. Electorate likes you better than opponents? You're in.

Political backrooms are something of black boxes that could use some opening up. And at the constituency level, as Copps has pointed out, if anything there's an over-representation of women (and an under-representation as MPs, she'd say).

So basically everywhere but legislatures are black to off-white boxes. But legislatures are not. And so, crowing about representation and comparing who's "better or worse" is silly, it seems to me. Tommy Douglas was an old white guy, after all, and he was OK, eh? I'd take 308 MPs like him, or Trudeau, etc., over 50% Poilivres and 50% Cheryl Gallants (or Anne Cools) any day. Point being, how enlightened a legislator is doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with their demographic profile in the most reductionist sense.

*Once written, typically prolix, I couldn't get this comment to fit in Macleans comment box. So just throwing it out there, uh, here.

Kenney & Co. Are Iggy's Best Political Allies

I read this and I was struck that while Kenney quotes things that I have or could have said myself in the past, my reaction was to feel a rare bout of sympathy for Iggy and revulsion for Kenney & Co., not necessarily in that order. Somewhere the a(im)moral but occasionally insightful Paul Wells wrote something along the lines that both Iggy & Harper would want to spend the next campaign talking about the other guy and not themselves, since the more Canadians know and think about them, the less they like them. Anyone who reads my occasional posts knows my views on Iggy, yet when I read or hear the Kenneys, Poilievres (no accent grave? hmm), Bairds etc. attack him, even I can't help feel myself more sympathetic to him than to them, and were their attacks not partisan, I agree with their basic criticism of Iggy's character.

Now my view that Cons' mesquinerie are Liberals' best friend is not novel (Diefenbaker himself recognised the problem conservative anger at society's failings posed for their popularity) and it may well be wrong. Going door to door last campaign, reading the polls and reflecting on the results makes one understand just how effective some negative campaigning can be for the Cons in bringing over that crucial sliver of the Canadian electorate they need to win (and screw the heightened distaste of the other 55-65%, in their view). I think that while it can be a fruitful short-term strategy, it carries within it the seeds of its own long-term annihilation, as eventually people become just so sickened it's 1993 all over again. But from their point of view, knocking off Martin and 11 years of Liberal rule and the exigencies of minority parliaments and the difficulties of growing their support given their base, views and attitudes, perhaps mean that they felt the short-term rewards were worth the long-term risks and that it's the only option they feel is open to them. If there is an election, and I think Iggy will be making Pearson's mistake of 1958 if there is, it will allow, as I predicted (though wrong on timing), the Cons to run on the one issue that might apparently mobilise sufficient numbers of my fellow under-educated Canadians to bring about a majority government, namely the whole anti-democratic separatist-socialist coalition falsehood (given validation by Iggy himself, of course, in yet another of his seemingly endless history of misjudgements).

I felt that Stéphane Dion should have remained as leader for many reasons. One was that like Rob Silver and others, I didn't see how the basic matrix of the party could be magically rewoven through a simple change of leadership. But I also felt and continue to believe, that Dion had the opposite problem to the Cons, Harper & Iggy, that he can be hard to like at first, but the more you know him, the better you like him. That was one crucial difference between the 2006 leadership race and the general election. Liberals know and like Dion, knew and liked him enough to make leader ahead of 7-10 other notables (10 if you include dropouts). Canadians didn't and could easily be turned against him. But it's intriguing that the most attentive political commentators, left, right and centre, also tended to like Dion, since they knew him well, having covered him for years, whether or not they agreed with him (ex: Ivison's scotch admiration for a fellow hardhead). Few of them, even (especially?) those who agree with him, like Harper, or have grown to like him more. More the reverse. Same seems to be happening with Iggy.

Dion could easily have become a Doer-McGuinty-Dexter type, a figure of fun at first whose character and public service idealism leads him to gain the respect and affection of the general public, so after losing an election or two, leads his party to multiple victories. Given the nature of the post-Chrétien/Martin LPC, 'twas not to be, sadly.

But it is worth noting that today, upon reading Kenney's slithering, one of the Liberal bloggers most consistent and vocal in his criticism of Iggy, actually found himself wondering whether there wasn't something to be said for the man after all, in the context of the despicable Cons. If I can be made to feel this way, how many other Canadians might? The problem of course is that Iggy is no Dion and will only become increasingly unpopular the better people get to know him. So whereas if Dion had remained leader he might have profited from such revulsion as other "good chaps" have, the Doers, Dexters, McGuintys, etc., Iggy won't, I don't think. But you never know. The media elite in QC love Iggy as they see him as a vehicle for their agenda, and will give him a push, the same way they were determined to destroy Dion. Iggy & Liberal HQ may outcampaign the Cons. But judging from what we've seen of Iggy's campaign skills (2006 leadership with elites solidly behind him) and HQ's current abilities (scheduling, going dark for a month, polyanna, etc.), it seems unlikely.

There, something relatively nice about Iggy. Happy? That's my quota for the month/year/decade/century/millenium, or until the next slithering Con opens his big fat shitty gob.