Buckle Up, It's Iggy!

Mere days after Dion's resignation, the Liberal caucus has endorsed Michael "Iggy" Ignatieff as interim leader. As readers of this blog will know, I was a supporter of Bob Rae's leadership bid. Like Bob, I wish that the LPC had decided to engage the entire membership in the leadership process, but time and circumstances appear to have dictated otherwise. No matter. The Liberal Party has a number of difficult problems on its plate, and continued political infighting about the leadership need not be one of them. Bob Rae himself has been tremendously gracious about his withdrawal, and has unequivocally given his support to Iggy. From Bob's blog:

I offer my full and unqualified support to Michael, a friend and colleague of more than forty years standing. I call on my friends and supporters to do the same. I know Michael to be a person of wisdom and generosity. He will make a great Prime Minister.

Though I'm disappointed that Rae is out, I think it's time to move on. I still believe the OMOV system will be an important mechanism for the LPC to generate funds and interest, and to connect with grassroots supporters. But this debate is better saved for the convention. For now, it's time for Liberals to focus on the new leader. Iggy's greatest task in the coming days will be to bring the party together and devise a strategy to deal with the inevitable CPC attacks prior to and during the upcoming parliamentary session. If he is to succeed, he will require the party's full support, and he should have it.

Dion's Gone...Now What?

Now that Stéphane Dion has officially offered his resignation, a few thoughts on the current state of the Liberal nation.

• Despite the rather ignominious manner of his departure, Dion should always be remembered as a man of intellect, honesty and integrity.
• Don't rush. Although the weight of support seems to be behind Ignatieff (Dominic LeBlanc has just given a press conference in support of Iggy), the Liberals need to avoid "installing" him as leader via a backroom deal.
• Open up the leadership process to the membership. A One Member One Vote system would serve the dual purpose of offering an inclusive and transparent process, and re-connecting with grassroots supporters.
• Fire every single person working on the Liberal marketing team. Now. The Liberals have to understand that good ideas don't just sell themselves, especially not in the face of a vicious and ruthlessly well oiled CPC attack machine. While they search for a new leader and a new message, they need to hire PR types that are as shrewd as their Conservative counterparts to sell their vision to Canadians.
• Keep up the pressure on Stephen Harper. Make no mistake, King Steve isn't spending even one minute navel gazing about what he could have done differently. He is sitting somewhere, seething at the the way in which he was betrayed by the opposition parties, and he is already plotting his next move. Be prepared.
  

Pushin' Out The Ritz

Here's the new Liberal attack ad, harshly criticizing |Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and the Conservative response to the listeriosis outbreak.

I can't say I'm a big fan of this particular spot. I've never liked negative advertising, although I suppose I understand the reason behind it in this particular case. There's been a lot made of Minister Ritz's insensitive remarks and off-colour joke about Wayne Easter, including a new video game. His comments were flat out stupid, no question. But in and of themselves, they were merely emblematic of a larger problem within the Harper government - that of a fundamental shift towards deregulation.

It's really the inevitable endpoint of continual tax cuts, which must be paid for in some manner. The Harper government has chosen to balance the books by axing, amongst other things, federal regulatory programs, betting that a shift of responsibility to the private sector (in the form of industry self-regulation) would go unnoticed by the public. We've seen this movie before, in Walkerton Ontario under the Harris government, and just recently south of the border. There is a heavy price to be paid for deregulation.

A recent editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) blasted the Conservative government for failing to adequately ensure the integrity of public health.

Harper has called an "independent investigation" into the listeriosis epidemic that has killed at 16 people. But the editors said that under the terms of reference:

• The investigator will not have the power to subpoena witnesses or documents.
• The investigation will not be public.
• There is no commitment to publishing the findings or reporting to Parliament.

Such flaws will make the investigation inferior compared to those that probed Canada's tainted blood scandal, the Walkerton tainted water crisis and the SARS epidemic. Those inquiries made governance and medical recommendations to better protect Canadians, the editorial said.

The Harper government's insistence on allowing private industries to regulate themselves is puzzling, to say the least. Conservatives will argue that industry has an inherent interest in promoting public safety. Crises such as the listeriosis outbreak, they say, will impact public confidence in Maple Leaf Foods and in turn lower profits. As Thomas Walkom points out:

Now, government inspectors in many areas – including meat – do little or no real inspecting. Instead, they rely on companies to monitor themselves and spend most of their time analyzing industry-compiled data.

It's what Harper calls a "joint effort."

The theory behind this is that firms have a long-term incentive to make consumers believe their food is safe.

Which, perhaps, they do. But they also have a powerful incentive to make short-term profits for their shareholders. At times, the two incentives can collide. What Gerry Ritz doesn't seem to understand is that when this happens, the results aren't funny.

It's 3am. The Phone Rings. It's Jason Kenney.

Well now that the campaign is on, the Conservatives have started continued doing what they've been doing all along - smearing the opposition with attack ads. Only today, they started early - 6am to be exact. The attempt, of course, was to "control" the media agenda by beating the other parties to the punch. Unfortunately for the CPC, the strategy backfired.

But Monday morning's unveiling of a new series of campaign ads attacking Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion received no live coverage on any of the major national television networks.

Instead, CBC Newsworld cut to the question-and-answer session after the announcement, when Conservative MPs Jason Kenney and Lawrence Cannon faced a series of tough questions.

The pair made no substantive policy announcements, choosing instead to target Mr. Dion and the main plank of his campaign platform, The Green Shift.

I find it more than a little odd that a party so rich and so adept at spin doctoring is also so catastrophically inept at organizing press conferences (anyone remember the infamous fire-escape exit after the RCMP raid?).

Meanwhile, Sweater-Vest Man was out here in Richmond, campaigning in someone's backyard. When asked by a reporter if he would stop in & out financing pending the investigation, he said something to the effect of "we will continue to follow election financing laws as they are currently interpreted and as they have been interpreted in the past". In other words "I'll keep breaking the law until someone's throws my ample ass in jail".

Finally, there's been some discussion over at Red Tory's about Dion's announcement today that, if elected, he would implement a full ban on all assault weapons. While I agree that this is hardly a susbstantive initiative one way or the other, and that Dion runs the risk of re-opening the Gun Registry debate, I would suggest that the real motive behind this announcement is to play into his ongoing attempt to frame this election as a choice between Harper's right wing agenda, and Dion's "kinder, gentler Canada". Forcing gun control onto the agenda will likely widen the urban-rural split, but will help to paint Harper as a Bush-ian extremist (as Dion has already been alluding to). Anyways, it's merely the opening salvo in what promises to be a long campaign on all sides.

Conservative Conundrum

Uncle Steve won't be happy about this...

The Canadian Press Harris/Decima survey asked respondents to choose the kind of split they'd ideally like to see in a hypothetical Parliament of 100 seats. The results, on average, gave 36 seats to the Liberals, 31 to the Conservatives, 15 to the NDP, 10 to the Bloc Quebecois and eight to the Green party. Projecting those percentages to the actual House of Commons of 308 seats, the Liberals would end up with 111 seats rather than their current 96 and the Tories would have 95 instead of their present 126.

One could certainly argue that these numbers should be sobering for both the Liberals and the Conservatives. But Stephen Harper would be well advised to keep in mind that the Liberals have been largely under the Conservative boot this past year. They have had precious little in the way of positive media coverage, and have been at the mercy of a well-funded CPC attack machine. And yet Canadians still feel uncomfortable handing the reins of power to the Conservatives. Perhaps instead of perpetually casting darts at others, Harper should direct his gaze inward, and contemplate why his tactics continue to fail so miserably.