Note: Scroll to the bottom to get to the new bit.
As predicted here a couple of days ago, loyal local Connie Liam O'Brien is defending his leader's backpeddling on custodial management insisting that Harper's Connies are indeed committed to taking custodial management of the Grand Banks.
Ok. Let's look at O'Brien's claims and then let's look at the evidence:
First, let's take the prediction...
**Prediction:
Conservative supporters will dismiss this as irrelevant, insisting Harper is still committed to the concept of protecting fisheries even if he has no commitment actually to do anything any more.
Some Harper loyalists will insist that saying you will do something and saying you'd consider doing something are the same thing.**
Then O'Brien writes:
"Stephen Harper's Conservatives have been committed to taking custodial management over the stocks on the Nose & Tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap for a long time now. Few statements make this clearer than the Party's 2005 Official Policy Document:
"...We will not hesitate to take custodial management of the stocks on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish cap.... " (Article 99 [ii]) [Emphasis added in O'Brien's original]
This [the Conservative commitment to custodial management] was re-enforced time and again in subsequent releases and visits to NL [sic]. Ed tried his best to read all sorts of things into the fact that the news releases aren't carbon copies of one another. He ignores the CPC's own black and white committed-to policy, the CPC's call for emegency debates [sic] on this very issue in the House, and the fact that this policy is indeed supported by just about everybody -- Liberals, NDPers, Tories, Unions, Industry etc..."
Then in classic Liam fashion he shifts to a different topic.
Let's stick with O'Brien and wipe that up first.
Liam is right. The Conservative statement in the policy manual from last spring, as the party was getting ready for what it thought was an election the, was absolutely unequivocal. "We will not hesitate..."
But if that is the policy, then why isn't it consistently repeated over and over again, as Liam insists it has been in the past?
When the wording of a political commitment changes it usually means the commitment has changed and one can't get any clearer than the Harper changes.
March 2005: "We will not hesitate to take custodial management"
December 2005: We will hesitate for five years; custodial management within five years in a media interview.
As he is quoted by CBC, it would be a top priority, occurring within five years. *Using the fishing village of Petty Harbour as a backdrop, Harper said the Conservatives would make custodial management happen during their first term in office.
"My hope would be that once we start to move in this direction the international community will come to the table and resolve the issue," he said. "It is a reasonable time frame."*
December 2005 news release (at the same event; not updated since): Vague - "Moving towards extending the 200-mile limit to the edge of the Continental Shelf, the nose and tail of the Grand Banks, and the Flemish Cap in the North Atlantic and exercising Canadian custodial management over this area". Like saying "in the fullness of time", "eventually" or "when we get around to it."
January 2006: Letter to Danny Williams. "A Conservative government would support extending custodial management of the Continental Shelf beyond the 200 mile limit, to the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap in the North Atlantic."
In the space of a year, we have gone from a firm Conservative commitment to custodial management expressed in clear language, through the equivocation of a public statement and a news release issued the same day saying different things through now to the point where what once will occur is something a Conservative government would support...
but what?
take no action on?
like it if someone else did it for them?
Liam.
Boobalah.
It's really simple.
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
Res ipsa loquitur. The facts speak for themselves.
Or do they not teach newbie lawyers anymore the basic idea that things are what they are?
Thing 1: Stephen Harper is backpeddling on custodial management.
Thing 2: Liam O'Brien insists that something that is changed substantially is still the same.
As predicted.
So the backpeddling and the shifts of language now are all the more strange, Liam, in light of the strong statements before and all the motions and posturing. You haven't undermined the argument I made; you reinforced it by pointing to the strength of the old Harper commitment.
The contrast between Harper the "Clear" and Harper the "Kinda When We Can" is so dramatic now as to be unmistakable.
Anyone can see it.
Now we just have to explain why Steve Harper is backpeddling.
Update: A lengthy addendum to his original post has appeared over at RGL. Liam uses smaller typeface which means that his explanation of his explanation of the consistency of the inconsistency is actually longer than the original explanation of the consistency where there is inconsistency.
Confuddled?
Evidently so is Liam. He tried everything from flat-out denials, to saying I just plucked out a bullet point, to promising more will follow at some point in the future.
But just to save Liam any further wriggling, here's a sample of what the three statements might have read if, and that's a big if, the Conservatives weren't backing away from custodial management.
March 2005: "We will not hesitate to take custodial management..."
December 2005 (speaking notes and news release): As stated in our policy manual, we will not hesitate to take custodial management of the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. Therefore, I am announcing today that a Conservative government will extend custodial management within its first term in office...
January 2005: As you are aware, I committed that a Conservative government will extend custodial management in its first term...
See?
That's consistent.
That's what a leader would say if he were genuinely committed to a course of action or a policy.
Compare that to "will", then "move towards", then "would support".
In Spain, they are noticing the difference as we speak.
Liam better hope more people who he is counting on to support his team don't notice what everyone else can see.
Upperdate: Three - count 'em - three posts and Liam is still boashing his head against the simple point that Mr. Harper is no longer as firmly behind custodial management as his party was less than a year ago. Actually it's one long post and two longer and then longer still add-ons, but we'll call 'em three.
He tries everything, from branding me as a Liberal (quelle surprise!) to saying I don't support custodial management (It's a legal crock) to a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with the point. He even resorts to repeating the lengthy quotes he quoted before and then quotes and quotes and quote some more, until as Dr. Seuss would add, the quotes pushed Liam out the door.
I have figured out a couple of things about Liam over time. One of them is that the longer his posts, the less he actually has to say. The other thing, related to that, is that the longer his posts, the more likely it is you have him skewered. The other other thing to learn is that the more Liam goes off topic, the closer to the truth you come.
That must be why he hates the term Reflexive Grit Loather so much.
So now we know:
Stephen Harper is backing away from his support for custodial management.