Reason of the day to not vote Conservative: Obstructing Parliament

We all knew it was just an excuse, but still, that’s what Harper said: that Parliament had become dysfunctional. That’s why we needed this election.

And if anyone should recognize Parliamentary dysfunction, it’s the Conservatives. After all, they wrote the book on it. Literally. A 200-page manual on making sure your representatives in Ottawa cannot get their jobs done.

The handbook, obtained by National Post columnist Don Martin, reportedly advises chairs on how to promote the government’s agenda, select witnesses friendly to the Conservative party and coach them to give favourable testimony. It also reportedly instructs them on how to filibuster and otherwise disrupt committee proceedings and, if all else fails, how to shut committees down entirely.

Reason of yesterday to not vote Conservative: It’s the deficit, stupid

2023 commentary: Well, this argument has not aged well. Certainly some Conservative governments (like Trump’s) continue to run big deficits, but so do a lot of Liberal ones, including a number cited below. Plus, whether this is such a bad thing is more of a debatable point now, especially with interest that until recently were at record lows. I had more links to sources for these points originally, but of course many no longer work, so I removed them.

Why do people just automatically think that Conservatives, right-wingers, are better at economics? How did they earn such undeserved plaudits?

Because it seems to me, based on evidence of recent years, that what’s most notable about the economic record of conservative governments is the size of their deficits.

Bill Clinton turned Bush Sr.’s $300 billion dollar deficit into a $200 billion surplus, only to have Junior Bush tax-cut and “war against terror” into the biggest deficit in the country’s history.

Ontario’s much-maligned NDP government managed to get to a balanced operating budget in recessionary times, only to have the Harris PC’s turn boom times into the biggest provincial deficit ever. Ontario was brought into the black by McGinty’s Liberals.

And federally? Well, yes, there again, the biggest deficit to date was accrued by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. It was the Liberals, again, who brought Canadians into their current position of budgetary surpluses.

Until… Federal government runs a $157M deficit in April, May (CBC News, July 2008).

So the Conservatives came in with about a $13 billion surplus, and they have squandered it all.

Leaving us with less nothing in reserve to get through the looming economic downturn.

Cost of Conservative tax cuts and spending: $13 billion and change.

Cost of nevertheless having the reputation of being “best for the economy”: Priceless.

Reason of the day to not vote Conservative: Lying about gas taxes

This is from 2008. Re-reading in 2023, I had forgotten that the initial Liberal carbon pricing proposal would have exempted gasoline prices.

Well, I’m very pleased at this breaking news that Elizabeth May of the Green Party will be part of the televised Leaders Debate after all. And in honour of that, let’s look at an environmental issue today.

Monday, I received yet another one of those delightful (🤢), taxpayer-subsidized little Conservative polls in the mail.

This one had a headline from the Vancouver Sun on the front, with a graphic of a car fuel tank: “New 2.3 cent carbon tax sends gas price up a dime in places.” Inside, it says “Just imagine how much Stéphane Dion’s carbon tax will raise the price of gas…”

The Conservatives are lying. Knowing what a hot potato it is, the Liberal Green Shift plan is clear on this point: “This won’t include any extra tax on gasoline at the pump.” The justification for this exemption is that there is already a federal excise tax on car gasoline, set at a rate higher than that proposed for the carbon tax.

There is a debate to have here.

Is it good that diesel and natural gas prices will increase, while car gasoline prices do not? Some environmentalists would said no.

Or, what about getting rid of the excise tax and replacing it with a carbon tax? Some might think that would be a beneficial move for consumers, as gas prices might actually go down initially.

Could be an interesting discussion. Too bad we won’t hear it–because the Liberals will be too busy fighting the Conservative lie that the carbon tax includes gas at the pumps.

Why debate the facts when you can just fudge them, eh? The truth is for wimps.

Reason of the day to not vote Conservative: Preventing candidates from speaking to the media

First wrote this in September 8, 2008. This tactic has become considerably worse since. Now they don’t talk to media at all, never mind only waiting for “talking points”, and they routinely skip debates.

This is a small point, but still significant, I think.

Can’t find a link, but CBC Radio reported yesterday that they were not able to interview some new Conservative Party candidates in certain Toronto ridings. Reason? The party specifically instructed them not to speak to the media until they’d sufficiently guided by the party in how to do so. And when would that be? “That’s a good question.”

One can appreciate Harper’s desire not to be embarrassed by candidates who run amok, making homophobic or other inappropriate comments, as has happened in past elections.

But one might suggest that the party try to find better-quality candidates, rather than stifling the lot of them.

Because, it doesn’t matter that not everyone cares who their local candidate is. The fact is, that’s who we vote for to represent us. We have a right to know who they are. The only practical way to find that out is through the press.

If my potential MP sincerely believes the world was created in seven days, I want to know!

Reason of the day to not vote Conservative: For calling this election

While that not enthused about this election (Canadian elections are rarely very inspiring, are they), I’m not sure the timing itself is all that terrible. There was a good chance there would be one this fall or winter anyway—a few months sooner or later doesn’t make that much difference.

No, it’s the calling of this election I think should give you pause.

Stephen Harper looked us in the face and said it was unfair for the party in power to manipulate the timing of elections for partisan advantage. Not just empty words, either; he actually passed a law to that effect.

Has he actually broken the law? Well, until he and Ms. Jean are hauled out and arrested, I guess we have to assume he hasn’t—that the law has some wiggle room. That in a minority parliament, the party in power can, in fact, still find ways to manipulate the timing of the election.

But we all know that he has broken the spirit of the law. Because Mr. Harper was right back then; it is an unfair advantage for the party in power to control the timing of elections.

It takes a man of high-minded principle to give up power in the interest of fairness.

Mr. Harper has just demonstrated that he is not such a man. He was just pretending to be one.

Canuck election

Well, like it or not, here we go, with federal politicians trying to draw to your attention away from Obama vs. McCain long enough for you to notice there is another election—one that you can actually vote in!

Me, I’m thinking of voting Liberal. I don’t usually do that, but I like the green shift policy, dammit, enough that I don’t care that Stéphane Dion’s English isn’t smooth. But if you can’t fathom him as your leader, I can see why you might want to turn to Jack Layton, whose English and French is pretty good, and whose party  has some reasonable policies of their own. Or, shake things up with the Green Party, who really do need a few elected seats in the House.

I think any of those choices are defensible. The only vote I can’t agree with is that for the front-running and likely winner of this election, the Conservative Party of Canada.

The reasons? Oh, so many reasons! In fact, time permitting, I could probably post a new reason every day.

Dolls, Mad Men, and the US election

So I just finished Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls. It’s a novel about three beautiful women who all become rich and famous—but not without being victimized, betrayed by love, and addicted to valium (sedatives, the “dolls” of the title). It’s an addictive read, and while certainly not literary, I was left pondering just what the message was supposed to be here.

The novel is set between 1945 and 1965, or so, and the portrayal of women is something to behold. Like the assumption, throughout the novel, that a woman should quit her job—no matter how fabulous—the minute marriage or even just engagement is on the horizon. Pile on the more dramatic horrors of involuntary incarceration in a mental institution and choosing suicide over the potential loss of fabulous breasts to cancer, and you’re left feeling rather glad to be living in these times.

One gets a similar sense from the much-hyped TV series Mad Men, set in 1960. One character, Peggy, becomes the first “since the War” to do any copy-writing for the Stirling-Cooper ad agency feature. “It’s like watching a dog play piano” says one of the men, of Peggy’s writing abilities.

The most recent episode I watched focused on the Nixon-Kennedy election. The firm—which the creator notes is a “dinosaur”, destined to be rocked by the changes of the times, not participating in them—is backing Nixon. And having to accept that their man has been bested by the young, charismatic Senator from Massachusetts.

And here we are, with the year’s US election, and the old man of the Republican Party figures his best chance of defeating the young, charismatic Senator for Illinois is to put a young, dynamic woman on his ticket.

Good thing she didn’t quit her job when she got married.

My response to the Conservatives little Tax poll

Conservative MP’s keep mailing me. They give me these flyers that either say that they are great, or that some other party (usually the Liberals) are terrible, then ask me to check off a box on whether I agree with them and mail it back to them.

So far, I’ve only responded once, telling them I thought their GST tax cut was a stupid idea and they should really have just cut my income taxes. This is my response to their “Who do you think is on the right track on taxes?” question. After checking the Stephane Dion / Liberal box, I added this note:

You seem a bit confused by what the Liberals are proposing here. It’s not actually a tax on everything. It’s a tax on carbon emissions. Now, if that ends up affecting many products, that’s because our society has grown far too dependent on fossil fuels. Is this tax the best way to end that dependency? I don’t know. But it’s certainly better than doing nothing.

You also state that Liberals are desperate for money. Well, that’s a bit rich, isn’t it, from a government that has more or less squandered the big Liberal surplus on various spending programs and a very ill-conceived GST tax cut. Not too mention mailing me I don’t know how many of these silly little polls of yours.

But what’s more infuriating here is that the Conservatives are just hurling insults at the Liberals instead of engaging in an intelligent debate on this very important issue. The Liberal plan is crazy. It’s a tax on everything. It’s a trick that Dion devised downtown urban elites (and what does that one even mean? If you live downtown, it’s hard not to be urban, right? Which, of course, 80% of Canadians are. And “elites” just means smart, successful people—can’t imagine why Dion would think they have anything of value to impart!)

The Green Shift is not a tax trick; it’s a plan. You do tax carbon; you reduce income taxes. While designed to be revenue neutral overall, it’s not going to be revenue neutral to everyone, it’s true; those who pollute more will pay more.

Why don’t you talk about that? Why don’t you get into the specifics of it, and attack those where warranted, instead of hurling vague insults? Afraid that ordinary Canadians won’t get it, won’t understand? After all, they’re not very smart, not like those “downtown urban elites”… You said so yourself.

See, isn’t this fun? You should try it yourself.

Canada Day in Ottawa

Cross-posted at https://culturearchive.ca/ottawa-on-canada-day-2008/

Our planned trip to Ottawa for Canada Day did not start off auspiciously, what with 60% chance of rain predicted for every day we were there.

Fortunately, as has often been the case this weird summer, they were wrong about that. We had mostly sun for our entire visit, and the predicted probability of rain declined each day, til it was down to a 0% chance that day—a prediction that turned out to be right on.

And it’s cool to be there in advance and see the preparations—the stage being built and so on. On the Monday there was music from the stage on Parliament Hill, so we went closer to investigate. The name “Suzie McNeil” flashed on the big screen there. That might not excite most people, but I was a big fan of Rock Star INXS, and have kind of followed Suzie’s career since, through her stint on the We Will Rock You stage musical, her album, her song “Believe” being picked as an Olympic fundraiser. Anyway, we got to get up close to the Parliament Hill stage and watch her and her band rehearse that.

On Canada Day itself, when we back to Parliament Hill first thing after breakfast, it wasn’t nearly so easy to get close to anything. People. People everywhere. Seas of red and white. Of course, we knew there would be people, but this was really a lot of people. We managed to sort of peak at the Mountie musical ride performing—kind of seeing their little hats bob up and down—when we decided that was enough of that atmosphere and headed to the big Information Centre (much easier said than done, actually).

Continue reading “Canada Day in Ottawa” →

Maple flavour films

Cultural lessons in three movies… (Links are to YouTube trailers of same)

1

Last Saturday we wanted to go see The Stone Angel, but it was on at 7:00, and we just couldn’t get ourselves organized to get there on time. So as a kind of boobie prize, we thought, we decided to go see the comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Now, admittedly, that film had received pretty decent critical notices, which is why we considered it at all… But so did Knocked Up, and I was pretty underwhelmed by that one, with its many “man-boy” characters.

But Forgetting Sarah Marshall was different. It is what it is, which is unabashedly a sex comedy, but it rises above what I was expecting in that none of the characters were mere caricatures. Sarah wasn’t just a bitch. Her new boyfriend wasn’t just a stupid himbo. The main character wasn’t entirely blameless for the break-up. You kind of cared about these people. You kind of liked them.

We left the movie in a really good mood.

2

The next night we managed to get ourselves to The Stone Angel. It featured good performances (from the likes of Ellen Burstyn, Ellen Page*, and the yummy Kevin Zegers), moments of humour, and strong characters. But it is what it is, and that is a drama about a 90-year-old woman looking back at the tragedies of her life, and the decisions that led to them.

We didn’t dislike the film, but we weren’t in as good a mood afterwards.

3

By Thursday DH was a little movied-out, but I went to see Maple Flavour Films, a documentary about English-language Canadian movies, and why Canadians don’t go see them. (Ironically, very few people were there!) Various theories are put forward as to why that is—screens dominated by Hollywood movies; lack of star system; lack of promotion. But the director’s own view (he was there for the screening) was that Canadians make too many dramas, which never do as well as other genres. Why not make more of the types of movies people want to see—why not more comedies? Why wasn’t the low-budget, Scarborough-inspired Wayne’s World not made in Canada? “We need our Full Montey“!

And he may have a point. But I’m also thinking, even if The Stone Angel wasn’t a barrel of laughs, there are a number of Canadian movies that have a put big smile on my face. La Grande Séduction—OK, that’s a French-language film—but it’s still one of the damn funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Bon Cop, Bad Cop—bilingual—was rather a lot of fun as well. And Touch of Pink—all in English—was rather fun as well.

And—this sounds like damning with faint praise, but it’s not—some movies are lot more fun than their premise would make you think. Yes, in Saint Ralph, the boy is inspired to run because his mother’s in a coma… But the focus is on him, not her, and the journey is fun, funny, inspiring. Last Night is about the end of the world, but it’s Don McKellar, and to some extent, it restores your faith in humanity as you marvel at some of the absurd responses to this fact. Snow Cake begins with a terrible car crash (I’m maybe not helping the cause here), but gains considerable humour as the British driver involved (the lovely Alan Rickman) is thrust amongst Canadians in Wawa, of all places—including an autistic woman played Sigourney Weaver. And New Waterford Girl has overtones of Juno—a preternaturally smart and witty teenager finds pregnancy the only possible escape from her tiny home town, though in this case it’s a fake one (the pregnancy is, not the town).

And I’m not going to pretend that Les Invasions Barbares or Away from Her are anything but primarily dramatic, but they really do have a lot of humour, and they’re both just so good, everyone should see them.

Or maybe my tastes are weird. Certainly I see way, way more Canadian movies than other people do…

* In 2008, when this was written, this was the name of this actor.