The Tory Race #nlpoli

Ches Crosbie announced last week he is going to take another shot at entering the family business. The son of former Mulroney cabinet minister John Crosbie will spend some time travelling the province, getting to know provincial Conservatives and building a campaign for the party leadership in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Ches, whose grandfather was a delegate to the national convention, tried for a federal nomination for the 2015 election.  The federal party rejected him, apparently because of some donations he'd made to the Liberal party federally.

That's really no nevermind as Ches has as good a shot at anyone of taking the party leadership.  If he did so,  Ches also has a shot at succeeding his father and his great grandfather.  They were both named John, both were cabinet ministers in St. John's and elder of the two Johns served briefly as Prime Minister of Newfoundland in 1918.  The younger John wanted the job but never got it.

Ches' launch last week was not accompanied by great hoopla but his media interviews were as polished as one might expect of a professional political family.  Crosbie undoubtedly had some help in getting ready from veteran political consultant John Laschinger.  He's an old family friend, having run John's campaign for the Tory leadership in the 1970s and later helped provincial Progressive Conservatives win general election after general election.

Cripple you say? #nlpoli

Unnamed Conservative “insiders” have been talking about the Ches Crosbie nomination fiasco as if it was a rejection of a new Tory Jesus or something.

The way they talk you’d think people are waiting breathlessly for the pictures on Jane Crosbie’s Twitter feed of young Ches taking his first steps across Virginia Lake, just as his father and grandfather did at his tender age without getting so much as a bunion moistened.

Some of these nameless Conservatives   - to use the words from the CBC story – .”believe Ches Crosbie could have raised at least $100,000 by now for his run in Avalon. Many of those donors will now sit on their wallets rather than give cash to another candidate.”

Now that’s an interesting claim.

Premier Mulligan #nlpoli

The news on Monday was not Frank Coleman’s announcement.

The news was in the reaction of provincial Conservatives to word that Coleman wouldn’t be Premier after all.

They skipped past the obligatory expressions of concern over Coleman’s unspecified family problem and quickly went on to talk up the chances the party now had to hold a “proper” leadership contest.
Conservatives were relieved that Frank was gone.  You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief.

Shawn: Prince of Denmark #nlpoli

The provincial New Democrats have dropped to single digits among respondents to the latest Corporate Research Associates quarterly omnibus poll.*

Other than that everything in the party choice results is the same as it was before Christmas. 

For the Conservatives – up by three points, but well within the margin of error of 4.9% for the unadjusted party support figures – the party has been at the same level in the polls since last May.

Competition #nlpoli

When they got up on Wednesday morning, everyone in the province who was paying attention knew that Bill Barry was going to launch his bid for the provincial Conservative Party leadership later that afternoon in Corner Brook.

Barry made his plans clear the week before.  He’s the only one definitely in the race so far.  On Tuesday night,  Barry posted an invitation on facebook for people to come out and join him if they were alienated from provincial politics and fed up with the way things were going.

Any news hunter scanning the radio dial on Wednesday heard about the Barry newser, but just before 8:00 AM,  VOCM news director Fred Hutton played the tape of an interviewed he’d bagged the night before with former Liberal leadership contender Cathy Bennett.  No one had heard from her since the Liberals elected Dwight Ball, but there was Bennett telling the audience of the province’s largest privately owned radio network that she was definitely running in Virginia Waters in the next election as a Liberal.

Gone was the Bennett of her campaign, at times brusque and stiff.  In her interview with Hutton, Cathy Bennett displayed displayed all the skills she’d learned from her hard months on the campaign trail.  She was articulate, confident and professional.  Bennett  affirmed her commitment to the Liberal Party and spoke confidently of the change she wanted to bring to the province as part of a future Liberal government. 

The Jim Bennett Effect #nlpoli

Having tried to slide by without renewing their party,  the provincial Conservatives are now talking up the joys of change.

They’ve talked about everything else. 

Change is the only thing they haven’t talked about.

So now it’s their new talking point.

Problem is that they don’t seem to be doing much to … well… change.

Forget the rinse. Just repeat. #nlpoli

The same people saying and doing the same things as they have always done won’t change anything

A provincial Conservative started out the week explaining why he cut a deal with a couple of provincial Liberals so he could get re-elected.

As part of his speech on Monday, Paul Lane said:

While there are indeed many people doing quite well in this economy…there are still many people who are  not experiencing the positive impacts of our economy. As a matter of fact for many people, this economy is causing many people to fall further behind…

Those people include seniors, people with disabilities, people on fixed and low incomes, and in many cases, children. Government must focus on matters important to these people and the  “everyday person”, said Lane.

Another provincial Conservative changed his political life last week.  On Friday, Tom Marshall became the 11th Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.  After talking the oath of office, Marshall said:

So it is therefore very important to me that all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians shall share fully and fairly in the benefits of our newfound prosperity, and have a voice in the way it is distributed.

So let us ensure that the fight against poverty and inequality intensifies in our province and we never forget the needs of those who are aged, who have disabilities, who are infirmed [sic], and who live on fixed and low incomes.

The words may be slightly different but there is no make that they both said the same thing:  government must now turn its attention to something new. 

There’s also no accident that the two said pretty much the same thing.  Tom didn’t figure out what to say after hearing Paul.  Far from it.  Much of what Paul said  - like when he spoke about “our” government - sounded like a speech he had planned for a Conservative audience.

What they were both reciting is the last script the Conservatives are turning to in their effort to find the magic message that they think will make the polls bounce upward again.

There was a lot of that  - reciting talking points - among provincial Conservatives last week.

So when’s the next election? #nlpoli

Since Kathy quit and Tom Marshall taking over on Friday morning, people are wondering when we will go to the polls.

There’s talk about a snap election.

There’s talk about the clock starts ticking on Friday so the election has to be done within the next 12 months.

To help guide you through it, here’s an overview of the issue.

Connies drop

So much for all those polls showing the Conservatives were on fire.

Ekos’ most recent poll puts the Connies at 32% with the Liberals at 27%. The pollsters at Ekos put it down to the usual pattern of Canadians getting queasy about the idea of a majority Conservative government.

 

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Blaming liberals and the news media

You can find the Premier’s remarks at the annual Conservative Party fundraiser online at cbc.ca/nl.

He’s been down this road many times before but never this intensely.  And he finishes by telling us how much money the government spent.

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A leaf from Harper’s political playbook, by J. Layton

Jack Layton and the New Democratic Party want the federal government to drop the goods and services tax on home heating costs.

Layton had a wonderful story to go with his call, as recounted by Aaron Wherry at macleans.ca:

“Mr. Speaker, Frank Rainville is a senior in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario who told me about how his bills for basic utilities have gone up by $20 a month just this past month because of the government’s HST,” the NDP’s Jack Layton reported a short time later. “He asked me how he could cope with heating bills when he has to turn the thermostat on because it is cold up there. The fact is heating bills are going up all across the country and working families are struggling right now. Will the Prime Minister show some leadership, join with us and work to take the federal sales tax off home heating fuel now?”

Yes, folks, Jack Layton and his fellow new Democrats are standing up for the working poor, people and fixed incomes and all sorts of downtrodden, hard-done-by people. Well, at least that’s what the die-hard Dippers out there will tell you.

But just think about it for a second. Mr. Rainville is going to have to cough up an extra $20 a month for heating thanks to what Layton has taken to calling the Harper Sales tax.  Rainville’s on a fixed income and that 20 bucks will come in handy.  Even though Layton’s little HST cut is aimed primarily at voters in Ontario and British Columbia where the HST is very unpopular, there are plenty of Mr. Rainvilles throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and the same cut to the heating costs will help them out, too.

Yay, Jack.

Well, not so fast.

These sorts of blanket tax cuts – the stock in trade of conservatives  - have the wonderful effect of cutting costs and they have the even more wonderful effect – from a Connie perspective of helping rich people proportionately more than people like Mr. Rainville. In St. John’s someone in public housing will get a break, but the person down in King William Estates or one of the other swankier neighbourhoods springing up in St. John’s East will just love the cut on heating oil or electricity that it takes to make their blimp hangers all the more cozy in the cold January night.

If Jack Layton really wanted to help people on fixed incomes, he’d go for something other than a blanket tax cut. Layton and his crew would offer rebates or  - better still - tax breaks tied to income. That way the people who need the help the most could get it and those who can well afford to heat their massive homes can carry right on doing so while footing the bill for their choices.

And actually the problem is not just with giving a disproportionate big break to the wealthy – as the NDP idea would do – or carrying a huge public deficit while helping out the wealthy.  That’s all bad enough just as it is bad enough that the average Republican looking at this scheme would embrace Layton as a discipline of Karl.  

Jack Layton’s tax cut idea is also damned poor environmental policy. Canadians don’t need to be rewarding energy inefficiency or giving people the chance to consume more energy.   An across-the-board tax cut does just that.  It potentially makes the NDP vulnerable on the left from the Greens, but there seems to be a conscious effort in the NDP thinking that they should just look for more votes in places where they can fight Conservatives, like out west or in a couple of ridings in Newfoundland.  That’s pretty much in tune with the NDP position on the gun registry as well.

Now the NDP position isn’t all bad.  They do want to bring back an energy efficiency incentive program.  That’s a great idea and coupled with a targeted tax break scheme, it would be a progressive social policy.

Unfortunately, this isn’t about progressive social policy:  the New Democrats are playing politics like Stephen Harper.  This HST thing is just Connie-style retail politics.

And politically, it is a sensible  - if monumentally cynical - thing to do if you want to get elected.  Jack Harris in St. John’s East will win re-election handily with such an idea.  All the well-heeled people in his district will love his conservative policies while the people on fixed and low incomes will get a bit of cash to make them happy too.  Over in St. John’s South-Mount Pearl, the same thing applies even if there aren’t as many people with giant houses there.

Basically these sorts of Conservative-looking policies might help sagging New Democrat fortunes in a place like St. John’s where, as bizarre as the idea might seem, Conservatives will vote New Democrat if they can’t vote Connie for some reason.

It might work.  Too bad for Jack Layton and the New Democrats there likely won’t be an election for some months yet.  By the time people head to the polls federally, this sort of thing will likely be long forgotten.  But in the meantime it is interesting to see just exactly how much influence Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party have had on Canadian politics.

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Tail-gunner Bob: equality is not “a realistic philosophy”

Bob Ridgley, the Premier’s parliamentary assistant, lays out his own political philosophy:

I think she [NDP leader Lorraine Michael] did lay it out clearly. She laid out very clearly the stark difference between their party and the governing party. There was a reference down in the Leader of the NDP’s speech, and she said, "It is the job of elected government to create systems that work for everyone, not just for some." They work for everyone, not just for some.

She went on to say, Mr. Speaker, "It is the job of elected government to make sure that the communal pot is shared so everyone is living in a healthy and nurturing society." An ideal, Mr. Speaker, worthy, I suppose, of us pursuing, that everyone would share equally from the communal pot.

We remember the days of Communism, Mr. Speaker, and I suppose, if you want to pursue that, it may be a worthwhile ideal that we are all equal, but I do not think, in reality, it is a realistic philosophy for the society in which we live. It is not a share and share alike. There is no element, I suppose, of Robin Hood in it: rob the rich and give to the poor. [Emphasis added]

That explains everything:  equality is a lovely idea but it is unrealistic.

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Don’t blame me, redux

Your humble e-scribbler cannot be blamed for voting into office the obviously incompetent twillicks who will drop this country into such massive deficits over the next two years.

It will take years to dig the country out of the fiscal mess just like it took years the last time.

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How rigged was my rally? Stand up for Canada version

The federal Conservatives must be really running scared at the prospect of a coalition ousting them before Christmas.

You can tell because someone evidently connected to the Connies has a website announcing rallies to be held "coast to coast" to stand up for Canada.  The party that has spent more time than any part other than the Bloc sucking up to provincialists and separatists is suddenly wrapping itself in the flag.

Such hypocrisy is not going unnoticed.

Heck, these goomers can't even tell when there's a flag in the room or if there is a flag what it actually means.

But hey, at least there will be rallies for the country in every part of the country, right?

Not likely.

New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador are all missing from the rally list.

This whole sham rally thing is all too familiar for people in Newfoundland and Labrador. A "stand up for Newfoundland and Labrador rally".

They've seen it before, just like they've seen a lot of things done by the federal Conservatives that look very familiar.

It is a sensitive subject, comparing the two Conservative parties, as the Premier said in the House yesterday: "Don’t try and compare us to what the Harper government has done in Ottawa."

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The old Connies make a come back

Hiding candidates from the media and shoving reporters who try and ask a question.

Yeah, not like we haven't seen that before.

Will CTV look for assault charges to be laid?

"The non-consensual application of force by one person to another is an assault."

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The politics of strange bedfellows

Bob Ridgley is the Provincial Conservative member of the House of Assembly for St. John's North and part of a family clan that dominates a significant chunk of Conservative vote in the metro St. John's area.

Since his provincial district sits almost entirely within the federal riding of St. John's East where more and more incumbent MHAs (all Provincial Conservatives by the way) seem to be turning out in support of the New Democrat's Jack Harris, it's a fair bet that Bob will be voting Orange in October.

That's hardly surprising given that the Liberal  - Walter Noel - is a former provincial cabinet minister and the Conservative candidate is a guy who has been a perpetual thorn in the side of Premier Danny Williams.  Former journalist Craig Westcott did a game job today of defending Stephen Harper following a speech by the Premier at the Board of Trade,  but it's got to be getting harder and harder for Westcott to keep up a defense of the clearly indefensible.  He said the words but they lacked conviction. It's too bad to see a decent guy like Westcott - the contrarian's contrarian - do this kind of damage to himself.

But that's digression.

CBC News this evening included an interview with some local politicians on the federal campaign.  Energy minister Kathy Dunderdale  - a provincial Conservative - proudly announced she'd be working for the Dipper's Harris.  Not surprising given that she punted Noel to the curb in 2003.

But what of the others, like Ridgley?

While he didn't say so in a Telegram interview on Tuesday, Ridgley made clear a couple of other things. 

First of all, it's pretty obvious he is a Conservative - Provincial and usually federal - right down to being a voter in the merger election that saw Stephen Harper elected. 

Yep.  It is a Family Feud at heart and no one should be naive enough to believe that in a few years time this whole thing won't have snapped back to the usual friendships, relationships and voting patterns.

But here's an even more interesting  turn of phrase in Ridgley's e-mail response to the Telegram reporter:

When Stephen Harper was running to be the leader of the 'new' Conservative Party, I supported Belinda Stronach;  I thought she was as shallow as a saucer but I believed that she was the only one who had a chance of stopping Harper...

Ridgley keeps going, saying next that he was persuaded Harper was alright a little later on.  Ridgley's conversion to the Harper cause survived two federal elections.  Ridgley evidently kept pounding doors or whatever a key local Tory organizer does to get Stephen Harper elected despite the concerns raised about Harper, the evident problems Ridgley had at the time Harper became leader and well, just about anything else that might have given him pause.

Okay?

Well, not really.

You have a guy here who was prepared to get into political bed with someone he believed wasn't qualified for the job  - lacking in intellect is the polite version of what he said - because he believed that candidate was the only way to stop someone else from winning about whom he claims he had serious misgivings at the time.

How serious?  Well serious enough to vote for someone who to him seemed too shallow to be a national party leader.

What's the word for that sort of logic? 

Facile.

Well, yeah. 

But there's a better one.

Shallow? 

Yeah, shallow.

When that first shallow bit of logic didn't work out, Ridgley changed his mind and got into bed with Stephen Harper.

If that's not enough to make you a little uneasy, there's maybe the whole reference to Stronach as being "shallow as a saucer". 

That's gratuitous. 

It's a cheap shot.

It's a pretty low personal attack, along the lines of calling someone a quisling or a traitor or showing a puffin crapping on the leader of a rival party.

If nothing else, it was totally unnecessary in the context of the e-mail on any level and that too says as much about Ridgley's judgment as the other stuff.

It will be interesting to see how Nancy Riche, among others, reacts to having Ridgley knocking doors on behalf of Jack Harris. Does Bob share Jack's views on choice and equal marriage for example?  There's a set of questions to pose to the Blue Crew who are turning Orange suddenly.

Ridgley's backing the ABC thingy  for a very specific reason and when the reason goes away he and the rest of his "progressive" Conservatives will head back home, just as he was prepared to switch from Belinda to Steve when it suited.

Politics can make for some truly strange bedfellows.

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The 800 pound gorilla in the election

Correction:

After 24 months of Conservative government, productivity sits low for the third consecutive quarter, the longest continuous period of decline in 18 years.

For the first time since the Conservatives were last in power, the federal government may have to consider running a federal budget deficit.

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[The above replaces this lede which was wrong:  "After 24 months of Conservative government, productivity is at its lowest level in 18 years - the last Conservative government - and sits low after three quarters of consecutive decline."

H/t to Andrew for pointing out the mistake. (See comment)]  

Fear and loathing on the campaign trail, Labrador version

Federal fish minister Loyola Hearn couldn't help but try some old-fashioned politicking.  He took a swipe at a provincial cabinet minister - calling the guy an idiot - and accusing the Liberal member of parliament of being negative. As Hearn put it in a Telegram interview:

When discussing that region's issues, the outgoing federal Fisheries minister said the people there, especially in Goose Bay, have to learn to help themselves, which he said they haven't done at the polls.

"They have an idiot for a provincial member (of the House of Assembly) who just goes out there yelling and bawling (and) doesn't have a clue about what he's talking about. They sent a federal member to Ottawa
who's left no impression except to be negative and sarcastic," said Hearn, MP for St. John's South-Mount Pearl.

Okay, we can see that Hearn loathes his political opponents, especially those within his own party but what's this help themselves stuff?

Maybe some fear mongering that links voting and political pork.

Gee, it's not like voters in Newfoundland and Labrador haven't heard that stuff before.

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An abuse of our men and women in uniform

The federal Conservatives gave Canadians a lesson in Halifax yesterday, a lesson most of them likely didn't want.

A group of Second World War veterans were trotted before the cameras alongside Peter Mackay, the national defence minister as props in a campaign announcement.

The lesson was Manipulation, Cynicism and Crassness 101.

Ostensibly they were there to announce that the Halifax Rifles - a disbanded militia unit - would be reactivated.  The veterans had fought with the Canadian Forces during the Second World War, many of them receiving their initial training with the Rifles.

But here's the thing:

No one knows what this unit will do.

No one knows where the soldiers for this unit will come from.

No one knows where they will train.

In short, there is no Halifax Rifles, any more than there are the various battalions of soldiers promised by the Conservatives to any town and city in the country that wanted one.

The regional commander of the army stated the problems, albeit in the guise of making it sound like this was a good thing that the army was squarely behind:

Simply getting people to join will "be a challenge because there’s a lot of demand on reserve (units for) folks that are very, very good," he said.

"Both industry here as well as the Canadian Forces and all the other units are going to be competing for the same quality folks. . . . That’s why it’s going to take a little bit of time to actually stand up the unit and get the folks in there."

He expects it will take three or four years to fully re-establish the regiment.

You see the Friends of the Halifax Rifles have been lobbying for years to recreate the Rifles.  They've worked every room they can to get the name back on a uniform.  They are well-intentioned and sincere with a justifiably love of their former unit and desire to see their own cherished memories continued.

But up to now both the Canadian Forces and the politicians who over see the military have understood that we cannot create military units for what essentially amounts to sentimental reasons. 

The military cannot and should not be used for anything other than the reasons we have soldiers, sailors and aircrew.  They don't exist to proper up failing local economies.  And they don't exist in the active military force to serve - essentially - as living relics of another time, looking good on parade, chewing up scarce cash and human resources and no really contributing anything to the defence of Canada.

There is a fine reserve infantry unit in Halifax already, one that has to work hard to keeps its ranks full.  It's not so different from the other reserve units for the army, navy, and air force in Halifax and the surrounding areas or anywhere else in the country in that respect.  All of them have well defined missions and they are set up within areas where the competition for talent is already fierce.  They recruit hard and they train hard all year long to do a job. Adding another reserve unit doesn't increase the capability in the area;  it just sets the military to competing with itself for people. 

At one point, the Friends were suggesting that the Rifles could be a reconnaissance unit, an idea that appears in this latest announcement.  What they had in mind at one point was buying a whole bunch of civilian type jeeps.  Soldiers would spend their training time bombing around the coasts of Nova Scotia keeping an eye out - on the weekends only, of course - for enemy submarines or smugglers.  All wonderful ideas a half century ago but all hopelessly out of touch with the current reality.

What makes this announcement crass, cynical and manipulative is that people involved in the announcement on the government side know there is very likelihood the promise will ever come to light. National Defence has already been through the debate between the professional military and the amateurs and wannabes who came into office a couple of years ago over where the Canadian Forces should put its priority for the defence of Canada.  The whole episode wasted valuable time and chewed up valuable cash resources for absolutely nothing except to show seeds of confusion in some cases.  Thankfully that was short-lived.

There will be no Halifax Rifles in four years times just as there will be no rapid reaction battalion in Goose Bay or any of the other hare-brained schemes cooked up in Conservative backrooms to fool just enough naive voters to get the party elected.

In this case, a group of very sincere and well meaning men have been taken advantage of.  They are proud of their service to the country and Canadians should be respectful of them.

Instead, the defence minister has done little more than stick a "Kick Me" sign on their backs.  He could easily have stuck bunny ears up behind their heads for the cameras and been every bit in keeping with the substance of his announcement.

He certainly couldn't have been more disrespectful or abused them - and us - in any greater way.

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Backuppable Tom to run for federal Connies?

The Family Feud could get infinitely more entertaining if local political rumours hold true.

Former Provincial Conservative Premier Tom Rideout is looking at running for the federal Conservatives according to CBC's David Cochrane.  When Rideout quit Danny Williams' cabinet a couple of months ago, Bond Papers had Rideout looking at a run against incumbent Liberal member of parliament Scott Simms in central Newfoundland.

The specific riding isn't as important as the idea of the guy who ran through the 1989 provincial general election like the love child of Speverend Rooner and Mrs. Malaprop running for the federal Conservatives in the fall federal election.

Rideout's departure from provincial politics was never just about a million dollars of roadwork, despite what some people would have you believe. There's quite obviously some considerable animosity between Rideout and Williams, likely dating back to Rideout's leadership win in 1989.

Rideout - who served in key roles in the Williams administration - is in a position to know where more than a few bodies are buried in the Provincial Conservative backyard.  He'd also likely attract a fair bit of support from long-time Provincial Conservative voters and backroom workers who are dissatisfied with the internal party strife resulting from the ongoing Anything But Conservative campaign, as the Family Feud is officially known.

The scrappy veteran campaigner would also be inclined to smack back at any attacks from his former Provincial Conservative caucus and cabinet mates.

Even if Rideout worked behind the scenes or as a spokesperson for the federal Conservatives in the province, the Family Feud could turn out to be the surprise hit of the fall political season. The Family Feud likely won't shift too many votes, but it would be political theatre of the kind the province hasn't seen in years.

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