Choice of new resources minister could ignite old feud

The Financial Post is reporting that Alberta oil interests would like to see the federal natural resources portfolio assigned to a senior cabinet minister to reflect accurately the role the oil and gas industry plays in the Canadian economy.

"The Liberal administration looked on energy as an annoyance, which makes sense in that their stronghold, central Canada, is made up of energy consumers. It was the job of the natural resources minister to keep the consumers happy," Mr. [Frank] Atkins [, a University of Calgary economist] said. "The West is an energy producer, so now we'll get the proper perspective on that.

The choice of natural resources minister may resurrect the old rivalry between the established oil producers in Alberta and the new centres of oil wealth on Canada's east coast.

Ian Doig, an oil analyst based in Calgary has been a long-standing critic of oil and gas exploration and development offshore Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Doig is familiar in Newfoundland and Labrador as a constant critic of the Hibernia project. His views, which often reflect the general opinions in the Alberta oil patch, haven't changed in the past 20 years. As he told the Globe and Mail recently about increased interest by Husky in the east coast offshore:

However encouraging the signs, the fact remains that there has not been a significant discovery of oil offshore of Newfoundland in two decades, said Ian Doig, a long-time observer of the East Coast industry and publisher of the industry newsletter Doig's Digest.

Mr. Doig said any deep-water exploration is difficult, but that the Orphan Basin is tough even by that standard. Chevron said the ocean in the Orphan Basin is five to 25 times as deep as the Jeanne D'Arc Basin.

He said Newfoundland's chief success in recent years has been to secure royalty concessions from the Liberal federal government.

"They've been more successful with energy riches in Ottawa than offshore."

Having an Albertan as natural resources minister could also reinforce efforts to draw more and more Canadian and American oil and gas policy attention to Alberta.

Alberta's success in promoting its own oil and gas resources are easy to see. Both the Government of Alberta and the federal Liberal government worked to attract American interest in the oil sands, including planning a visit by vice-president Dick Cheney last fall.

Veteran United States Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has already predicted Canada will surpass Saudi Arabia as the leading supplier of oil to the United States. But Hatch's attention is firmly focused on Alberta, describing it as the 800 pound gorilla sitting immediately above Montana.

CBS News' 60 minutes also profiled the oil sands recently, describing them as likely to become more important to the United States than Saudi Arabia.

Try finding any similar attention being paid to the east coast offshore. True there has been an uptick in calls for exploration bids, but there is nothing to rival the recent attention paid to Alberta in the major markets south of the border.

The east coast oil and gas industry still faces significant challenges, not the least of which is making its regulatory regime both effective and competitive. It simply isn't clear whether or not the provincial government is interested in a genuinely competitive, modern oil and gas industry. Turning the province's hydro corporation into a neophyte oil and gas company, the premier's instance on piling on local benefits to projects, and the nomination of Andy Wells to head the offshore regulator all suggest a return to a policy straight out of the unsuccessful past.

That policy is distinctly out of step with the new federal Conservative government's philosophy of economic development and that is ultimately where the problem may rest. Alberta is surging ahead on an agenda of innovation, local entrepreneurship and attracting new outside investment. That matches perfectly with the Conservative view.

What happens offshore Newfoundland and Labrador in the next few years will depend very heavily on who sits as the federal natural resources minister come February 6. If it winds up being an Albertan or someone sympathetic to Alberta's approach - either of which is almost a certainty - Newfoundland and Labrador might find itself in a difficult spot.

We've been in that same spot before and we don't need to go there again.

Double talk can't protect double dip

No matter how hard Loyola and Loyola try and double-talk the coming changes on the Equalization program, there's little doubt the Equalization offsets in the Atlantic Accord will be factored into the calculations.

After all, the 1985 Accord and the 2005 deal are both designed to hand this province Equalization as if oil revenues didn't exist.

The new Harper proposal is designed to hand us Equalization as if oil and gas and other non-renewables didn't exist.

And in the Rob Antle story below, you'll even see Loyola talking about the new Equalization proposal as an Atlantic Accord in perpetuity.

So, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that if the new Equalization deal is done, there is no need for Ottawa to double pay the province with offsets on things that don't need to be offset because they are already offset.

Confused? You would be if you listened to Loyola.

Or Loyola.

No one is going ask for the money back - Loyola is an old enough war horse to understand you can say something silly like that knowing full well it won't come true.

It's called misdirection.

Of course what neither Loyola will say is the simple truth:

In all likelihood, the money already received or provided under the Atlantic Accord (1985) will be looked on as an advance on any new Equalization entitlements. It will be deducted from future payments. Once the advance is gone the old Danny Deal will be dead, just like the offset provisions of the Brian Deal.

There's no way to keep the Equalization offsets off the table.

Thursday, January 26, 2006
"‘Can'’t turn back the clock"’
By Rob Antle, The Telegram


The Williams administration is welcoming prime minister-designate Stephen Harper'ss planned changes to the federal equalization program.

But Finance Minister Loyola Sullivan said the $2-billion up-front payment from last year'’s Atlantic Accord agreement should not factor into any modifications to the formula.

"“That was a deal, it was an up-front payment with no strings attached, as a minimum payment,"” Sullivan told The Telegram Wednesday.

"“We can only go forward, we can'’t go back in the annals of history and do adjustments to the past."”

Harper'’s policy platform included a pledge to exempt non-renewable resource revenues, such as oil and gas, from equalization calculations.

Such a change would likely add more dollars to the provincial treasury, Sullivan said.

It would also effectively enshrine the key principle of the Accord - — sheltering 100 per cent of non-renewable revenues, such as oil and gas, from equalization - — for all provinces.

"“We'’re going to get that break forever, if he took non-renewables out and left them out,"” Sullivan said. "“It'’s going to be an Atlantic Accord in perpetuity."

The Accord deal signed last year expires in 2012, with a renewal provision that could see it extended to 2020.

As part of the agreement with the outgoing Martin government, the province received an upfront payment of $2 billion for enhanced offshore benefits.

Sullivan insisted that cash should not be included in any future fiddling with equalization rules.

"“Look, the federal government has booked this and paid it out in the '’05-'’06 fiscal year. That'’s gone. That'’s an expenditure; that'’s booked. That'’s going to show up in their public accounts for the last fiscal year.

"“They can'’t come back and say, '‘Uh-oh, we want money back two years later on that.'’ If we go forward with a new formula - they can'’t turn the clock back on that."

Conservative MP Loyola Hearn - — pegged as a likely pick for Harper'’s cabinet - — said he doesn'’t think it will be a problem.

"“What we'’re talking about is something above and beyond the deal that was done entirely," ” said Hearn, MP for St. John'’s South-Mount Pearl.

"“It certainly shouldn'’t play any role, from my perspective. I don'’t think it will. I'’ve never heard it mentioned in that light.

"“When we got the commitment on the Accord, then (the Liberals) tried to fool around with every little loophole that they had. I mean, that'’s what we fought against, so we'’d be a bit hypocritical to try and play the same game."”

Harper is expected to take over as prime minister within two weeks.

Sullivan said he will write the new finance minister then to broach the topic.

By the end of the 2006-07 fiscal year, the province will have spent $541 million of the $2 billion Accord pre-payment, Sullivan said.

That leaves $1.46 billion he said should remain exempt from review.

Accord aside, the planned equalization changes should benefit the province, Sullivan said.

Nearly 20 per cent of the province'’s total revenues derive from the oil and gas sector, he noted. That'’s a much larger proportion than most other provinces.

And other non-renewable resources - — such as the mining sector, with Voisey'’s Bay coming on stream - — would also be exempted from equalization, the finance minister said.

"“We would benefit more than we would benefit just by having this Atlantic Accord now,"” Sullivan noted.

Equalization is an important issue for the province.

Newfoundland and Labrador received $861 million in equalization from Ottawa this year, according to the province'’s 2005-06 mid-year fiscal update.

That'’s in addition to hundreds of millions in offshore royalties and new Accord benefits.

The overall budget clocks in at about $4.3 billion.

The planned equalization changes could be detrimental to other provinces, however. Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, for example, have relatively little or no revenues from non-renewable resources.

The Conservative platform promises "“we will ensure that no province is adversely affected from changes to the equalization formula,"” but does not offer further details.

rantle@thetelegram.com

Vox populi

Canadian Publius has an interesting point on the results of Monday's election and an Environics poll conducted for CBC.

As Publius puts it:

According to Environics, of the 36% who voted conservative, 54% voted that way because they wanted a change, only 41% because they wanted a conservative government.

In plain English, only about 17% of Canadians want a Conservative government. The remaining 19% who voted conservative felt the Liberals needed a kick in the pants.

Turn the dial on your time machine and head back to the Conservative minority of May 1979. As Jeffrey Simpson described it in Discipline of power, the Conservatives discovered that for all the promises of action and uplifting rhetoric, more than anything else voters crossed to the Conservatives "not because of the promises made during the campaign, but because they were tired of Trudeau and wanted a change."

Allan Gregg, then the Conservative's pollster, described it this way: "The reason for the nationwide impact on voting behaviour undoubtedly stemmed from the almost unanimous belief it was time for a change....Equally, our core support - that is, 1979 voters who identified with the PC Party and claimed they always voted PC - comprised a mere 18% of the electorate, or about one half of our May 22nd support...."

Back in 2006, the Environics poll found strong support for two Conservative promises. Canadians like getting tough on crime and on electing senators, but they were divided almost evenly on cutting the GST, getting rid of the gun registry and dismantling the national daycare system established by Paul Martin.

Health care and the health system remained the single most important issue for most Canadians polled by Environics with honesty/ethics and accountability coming second.

Respondents are almost evenly split on whether or not the Conservatives would be good for the country.

The upshot of all this is pretty straightforward. The Conservative minority will have a challenge as it moves to implement its platform. Some elements, such as the accountability sections, will likely garner easy support. Support for senate reform is such that the prime minister-elect could move quickly on that as well and could build support for even more significant changes than the ones he is proposing.

Of course, Environics did not poll the provincial premiers.

They are lining up for federal cash.

And that's a whole other can of political worms.

Is this next time?

In 1990, the lapel buttons circulating on the floor of the convention read "Next time, Clyde."

Earlier that year, there was widespread support across the country for him. He remains a widely respected leader who governed based on principles. Tackled a massive economic problem and helped turn it around.

So I say to you:

"The next is here!"

Process is the key

Andy Wells, still supposedly Danny Williams' choice to head up the board regulating offshore oil and gar operations, is in political hot water over the way in which he and his council colleagues gave themselves a raise.

Retroactive to 2002.

A nice raise.

How nice?

Well, 18% nice for Wells who will see his salary go from $81, 975 to $96402. The Telegram reported yesterday that Wells was due a cheque for retro pay worth over 20 large.

The issue here is not about the value of the job or running the city but of how council decided, unilaterally to give itself a raise and extend the raise back to include councilors defeated in the recent municipal election.

As CBC put it:

Council made the decision without consulting with city staff or hiring an outside consultant, as previous councils have done in the past.

Appearing on a radio call in show, Wells appeared to be somewhat confused about the whole matter, claiming he knew nothing about how much retroactive pay he was due.

So much for his being honest and blunt, that is, unless we are to believe that he missed a minor detail like the fact he had just voted himself a hefty annual increase as well as a bonus cheque itself equal to what many minimum wage earners pouring Andy's double-double every morning would love to see.

Just once.

And this is the guy the premier wants to oversee an industry worth tens of billions of dollars to the province?

Hey, it's assault

Remember this incident?

Some people e-mailed to take issue with my contention that the tall fellow in the turtleneck was likely guilty of assault for restraining the reporter, at right, who was attempting to follow a Conservative candidate and interview him at a campaign event in Toronto.

Well, here's the final paragraph of a decision rendered by Harold Porter, a judge of the Provincial Court of Newfoundland and Labrador in a case involving an altercation between several young women at a party. The context is different, but the law is clearly stated:

Thus, while there were some difficulties with the evidence, including the fact that the evidence of the complainant was not corroborated about being pushed over a table, ultimately the accused and the complainant agree that the accused touched the complainant without her consent. The non-consensual application of force by one person to another is an assault: the accused is guilty. [Emphasis added]

The prosecution rests.

PMO 101: gimme your lunch money, dork

Stephen Harper will have a steep learning curve as he prepares for his new job.

When it comes to provincial premiers, it's actually really simple. Harper probably thinks that because he is a provincialist - Province, Province Uber Alles - he will have an easy time.

Perhaps Steve should have run to replace Ralph. I digress.

Anyway, in the interest of saving Steve some time, here it is in a nutshell:

As far as premiers are concerned, and irrespective of their individual political party, being prime minister means your job as prime minister is to be:

1. the scapegoat for everything wrong with the country; and

2. the source of endless cash to be transferred to the premiers' bank accounts without strings and with as little back-talk as possible.

In short, as far as Ralph, Danny and Dalton are concerned, Steve's new job is to be their bitch.

Or lemme put it another, slightly more familiar way:

It's Grade 5, Steve.

The jocks and jerks are coming for your lunch money.

Just like they used to.

Every day.

Every nerd in the country knows that pain.

[Left: Premier Ralph Klein said yesterday he was looking forward to his first meeting with incoming Prime Minister Stephen Harper.]

Federal Liberal Leadership: the first truly interesting suggestion

Stephane Dion.

Inkless Well and then Le devoir.

The sense of humour evident at the end of the Le devoir piece: someone from Jean Chretien's camp - clan is indeed more accurate, Helene - talking about a campaign of ideas.

Offshore regulatory changes on Conservative agenda

A passing mention in Stephen Harper's victory speech Monday night could hold a clue to changes at the board that regulates the province's offshore oil and gas industry.

Harper mentioned allowing Atlantic Canadian provinces more control over their resources. What he meant by this is unclear since these provinces already control their resources. For Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador there was no specific mention in the Conservative platform of offshore oil and gas resource management.

One section of the platform, however, does mention the External Advisory Committee on Smart Regulation:

Streamline regulatory processes related to the mining industry. We will implement the recommendations of the External Advisory Committee on Smart Regulation related to mining, such as a "single window" approach to federal regulatory bodies in the North for the oil and gas and mining sectors.

Set up in May 2003 by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, the Smart Regulation advisory committee was a team of experts appointed to review federal regulatory processes, identify areas of concern and recommend new approaches.

Some of the strongest recommendations made by the Smart Regulation group were for greater co-ordination not only within the federal government but also between the federal and provincial governments. [Recommendations 9, 10, 11]

Co-ordinators - single points of contact - were recommended for entire industry sectors such as offshore oil and gas.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, that single point of contact would logically be the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (CNLOPB). The offshore board is established under the Atlantic Accord (1985) as the joint federal and provincial regulatory authority for the oil and gas industry offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

Currently, the regulatory process can be daunting in a competitive industrial environment that is global in scope. Industry representatives have pointed to problems for several years. As the Smart regulatory team reported:

The Committee heard that the current regulatory framework for the offshore falls short of these objectives. For example, according to industry sources, the average regulatory approval time for projects in Canada's Atlantic offshore exceeds 600 days, compared to approximately 200 days in the United Kingdom and Norway and just under 400 days in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Atlantic Energy Roundtable similarly notes that the regulatory process cycle time, that is the length of time for regulatory review and approvals for offshore projects, is longer in Newfoundland and Labrador than anywhere else globally.

The White Rose project - the most recent to be approved - took 21 months, compared to 10 months for a comparable project in the Gulf of Mexico and a mere 13 months for the much larger Hibernia project. This time does not include the period of negotiation between proponents and the provincial government over royalties and local benefits.

While recognizing that there are overlapping areas of federal and provincial jurisdiction in the offshore, the Smart Regulation group did not suggest any devolution of federal powers to the provinces, nor does the Conservative Party make such a recommendation. Rather, the Smart Regulation team believed that the correct approach would be agreements and memoranda of understanding to eliminate duplication of regulation and administration.

This Conservative commitment may put into a different light the possible appointment of Andy Wells as chairman and chief executive officer. Wells' evident lack of experience in federal and provincial regulatory administration would make him ill-suited to the day-to-day task of overseeing development of a new streamlined approach.

The changed regulatory process would also involve extensive changes to the communications processes, something not currently provided in the legislation governing the board and something Wells himself has never been keen on. As mayor of St. John's for example , Wells has steadfastly refused to employ communications professionals, believing his own blunt - some would say crass - approach is superior to anyone else's skills.

There is some possibility that Wells would be appointed to serve as chairman, a position already identified as a stand-alone appointment requiring the approval of both orders of government. In that scenario, Max Ruelokke, recommended by the three person panel that reported in December, would serve as chief executive officer of the offshore board, again, an arrangement provided in the Atlantic Accord (1985).

While Wells' possible appointment has slipped from public notice for some time, federal interest in changes to the offshore regulatory regime could bring the matter back into focus. It is not clear what position the incoming Harper government will take on its role and responsibilities in regulating offshore industries.

However, it is possible that Wells' appointment, if it occurs, will not be the full-time one he anticipated.

Back to the future, redux?

Does any of this sound familiar?

Seldom has a party leader put forward so many promises....To show that the Conservatives were ready to govern [the party leader] offered a dizzying array of goodies, most based on policies developed by the Conservative caucus, hoping that individual policies would appeal to particular segments of the population and produce a Conservative majority government. During the campaign, [one not-for-profit association] circulated to its members an outline of the Conservative platform containing 211 general or specific promises made by the party in Opposition and in the campaign.

That's just one excerpt from Discipline of power, Jeffrey Simpson's 1980 study of the brief Clark regime, specifically, p. 64. While I am no fan of directly translating one historical episode into current events, it is rather interesting to see the parallels to the Harper election campaign.

It's also interesting to see the lengths that some Conservative spokesmen are going to distance themselves from the 1979 Clark experience of a disparate group cobbling together a platform and gaining power in a minority government from a Liberal Party which was tired and falling increasingly into disfavour with voters.

Take a gander at some of Clark's 1979 speeches, some of which Simpson reprints in part, and you can see their echoes in Harper's speeches. You can also find an interesting analysis by Allen Gregg pointing out that the Conservatives had gained power in May 1979 by capitalizing on negative attitudes toward Liberals rather than positive attitudes towards the Clark Conservatives. Their platform had been designed to appear competent and comprehensive; it was written to appeal to identifiable segments of the population but the whole platform betrayed internal contradictions that could not be concealed or ignored for very long.

There are some significant differences between the 1979 Conservatives and the 2006 version, but some of the similarities are quite striking. Some of the challenges remain the same; how Stephen Harper manages his newfound success will determine his longer-term future.

An elected, equal and effective senate

One of the things Stephen Harper can find agreement on among the parties in the House of Commons is reform of the national parliament.

It is long overdue.

Reform doesn't necessarily mean moving to proportional representation, although the New Democrats are pushing that issue again.

Rather, reform - genuine reform - would mean changing the composition and selection method of for the federal senate.

This election showed as much as any in Canadian history the extent to which national elections focus almost exclusively on the interests of the most populous regions of the country. The population is already well-represented in the Commons and , if you look at some of the Conservative promises, Stephen Harper's idea of reform is to add more seats to the already well represented people-rich provinces.

Stephen Harper's other idea is to merely elect senators by some means.

But that is the only change Harper has proposed for the chamber where Canadians should be represented based on where they live. Harper's version of senate reform as presented would merely add 100-odd new elected officials with the majority coming from the same places the majority of members of the Commons currently come from.

Let's elect senators; that reform is long overdue.

At the same time, let's move to a model of the senate that sees an equal number of senators coming from each of the provinces, with some possible allowances being made for specific aboriginal representation.

The advantages of this approach have been well-argued for decades and used to be part of the old Reform Party platform. Too bad that good idea didn't survive into the Conservative party agenda. One of the adv antages of an elected senate could be that a governmenr defeated in a inority parliament need not trigger an immediate election - Canadians could get a more responsive Commons without shfting the whole electroal system around radically.

If Stephen Harper wants to move quickly on a matter he can win with support across the legislature, let him reform the national parliament. Let him create a senate that is elected, effective and having equal representation from across the country, by province.

It didn't take long...

for Loyola Hearn, Connie incumbent in St. John's South-Mount Pearl and likely federal cabinet minister from this province, to explain what he thinks about the federal presence issue.

After he was safely re-elected.

Speaking on a local radio call-in show, Hearn said that federal jobs just come from our tax dollars and aren't really sustainable. The real value in jobs will come from creating jobs in the private sector. Hearn linked the whole thing to the Connie Equalization changes which would remove non-renewable resources from the calculation of federal Equalization entitlements.

In one of his campaign brochures, Hearn said:

Since 1993, the number of people employed in Newfoundland and Labrador with the federal government has fallen by over 30 percent. This decline will stop under a Conservative government.

He also pointed to putting a handful of weather forecasting jobs back in Gander.

A new Connie government can send the dozen or so forecasters back to Gander and meet Hearn's total commitment. Whether they do it or not will depend heavily on the costs involved. As for the promises to Goose Bay, the only thing the Connies can actually do is send the unmanned aerial vehicle squadron to Goose, for a hundred full-time jobs or fewer.

Anyone who thought a Conservative federal government will relocate thousands or even hundreds of federal jobs to the province can guess again.

Here's the thing, Hearn also made a point that he noticed the two ridings involved went Liberal, despite the Conservative promises.

For those who drank the local Connie KoolAid on federal presence, this issue will be an interesting one to watch in the next 100 days or so.

The Zen of Fabian Manning

Fabian manning won the Avalon riding for the Conservatives based on one thing:

Fabian Manning.

The guy is firm in his convictions and has displayed personal integrity throughout his career. His performance during the confrontation with Danny last year made Fabe look good and Danny look kinda dumb, but in the long run fabe won by simply being himself.

That stuff wins respect of constituents in a riding like Avalon and it gets rewarded.

Fabe traveled the riding, talking to constituents and meeting with them on their own turf. He went to their homes and asked for their support. His courage shone through.

That isn't to say that Bill Morrow and Eugene Conway are lesser humans than Fabe. Far from it. Manning just had a head start with his provincial political experience such that his political reputation and his actual performance matched up in what proved to be an unbeatable combination.

More people can learn from Fabe's example.

A la prochaine

A. Biggest winner of the night?

Andy Wells, the acerbic mayor of St. John's who may finally get a job at the province's offshore board. Danny wants him, for some completely inscrutable reason, and Harper is unlikely to give a rat's ass.

The only question now is whether Wells become the unqualified chairman and chief executive officer or the part-time chairman with a full-time, highly qualified chief executive in Max Ruelokke. Smart money would say the latter, but this is a case of asymmetrical information and Williams isn't about to share what he's up to..

Runner-up goes to a bunch of Liberal candidates who won in ridings despite being targeted by a range of forces. Piss on all those forces, those without better things to do with bodily fluids.

B. Biggest loser of the night?

Yet to be determined.

1. Despite a clever games theory of a campaign, the Conservatives just couldn't crack through and win the elusive majority. There is lingering doubt about the team and what it may do. It remains a major contender for this award.

2. Among the loser nominees are Stephen Harper, who may find himself channeling either John Deifenbaker in 1957 or Joe Clark in 1979. We may find out the policy wonk from Calgary will set up his own model for prime minister in a minority government. Time will tell.

3. Big loser nominee would have to be some of the nation's pollsters, including former Conservative Party poll guru Allen Gregg. His polls and predications turned out to be as valuable as stuff pumped out by Jo Jo's psychic alliance for Jean Chretien. Warren the K can be embarrassed for his unreserved endorsement of Ipsos' last foray and in particular its spectacularly off-base seat projections.

C. Best Performance by a Prime Minister?

Paul Martin. In his speech tonight, Paul Martin proved why he was a competent and able prime minister who never deserved the schoolboy smears of the incoming government and its byte-sized lackeys.

Martin's resignation marks the end of his tenure as leader and Prime Minister and begins the process of rejuvenation of the party that has governed the country, with reason, for most of the last century.

Those who think they are dancing on its political grave should note the shifting sands already rising above their ankles.

Skip over most of the names already jockeying for contention. The list will quickly narrow down to the most likely choices. Don't count on it being anyone who served under Chretien.

Other coming changes?

The departure of Loyola Hearn. With his second pension assured, Hearn will fade into the woodwork before the next election to make room for Ed Byrne.

Hearn is unlikely to be a note-worthy federal cabinet minister from Newfoundland and Labrador.

He will likely occupy the only job he wanted - fish minister - and the only job the mainlanders think about when they think of the province, other than minister of employment insurance. Mainlanders seem to forget Don Jamieson (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister) or John Crosbie (International Trade and Connie wunderbar gauleiter of the east coast protectorate when it comes time to hand out the cabinet jobs.

At a time when our province should be in a more prominent national light, we are likely to be locked into being perceived as the place always with its hand out.

Paul Antle as provincial Liberal leader. It might be a faint hope, but someone needs to come forward who actually has had a genuinely new idea in the past 30 years and who isn't a captive of those in the party establishment who seem hell-bent on taking it on another lengthy sojourn in the Land of Political Irrelevance.

Hi ho, Steverino!

As Antonia Zerbisias points out, bloggers had very little discernible impact on this election campaign.

True that some, like Stephen Taylor of Blogging Connies will disagree, but when it all comes down to it, blogs and bloggers are little more than another course of commentary in a universe that is full of information and commentary.

We can forgive his insistence that bloggers provide "brilliant editorial opinion." There is no love quite like self-love but at some point even the masturbatory quality of that bit of self-stroking beggars credibility. The value of blogs is decided in part by the readers. Some blogs, like some news media, gain attention not for the quality of what they put out but because of their current popularity, their current score on the Chic-o-meter.

Taylor cites the income trust story as one that bloggers broke and which the mainstream media supposedly ignored. Truth is, they didn't. They just made a judgment about it early on that there was little evidence of a crime having been committed and chose to give it an appropriate level of coverage. Taylor thought it was exciting, not on the facts of the matter, but because as the chief Connie blogger in the country it fit his world view. It had to be a scandal since Liberals were involved and there was an election on in which his team was driving the Liberal scandal line.

Antonia has a solid point here. Blogs had very little impact on this election, at least in terms of breaking stories no one else would touch. Their impact came from being a source of commentary other than the usual talking head suspects.

Most bloggers became an easy source of streeters, the staple of news reporting for decades and one spoofed so cleverly by Steve Allen.

[Left, Don Knotts, as Bang Bang Morrison, in a streeter opposing gun control. Aired on The Steve Allen Show.]

As for the impact of this little corner of cyberspace, judge for yourself based on the frustrated outpourings of some local Connies.

I always wanted to channel Louis Nye.

Hi ho, Steverino!

Women voters

The candidate who better recognized and responded to issue-based appeals that speak to the concerns of women, especially career orientated women will win this election.

Warbicycle

Over the course of this campaign, I've had a few e-mail exchanges with the guy who blogs under the name Warbicycle. His post on women voters is an interesting one since it reflects his experience of campaigning on behalf of a woman candidate and noting, albeit anecdotally, the response of women in the riding.

His post on women voters is an interesting one since it points to some observable differences between male and female voters. Rather than respond to an e-mail he just sent, I thought I'd toss in a few comments of my own.

There is a sex difference in vote intention: women tend to vote for a party other than Conservative

Most public opinion polls released during this campaign didn't report demographic data, even though every poll collects some information on reported or apparent sex, age and so forth. This is unusual since there is often useful information to be gleaned from doing what is called a cross-tabulation, that is of comparing vote preference by certain fixed characteristics like age and sex.

Ekos' most recent poll, released on 21 January, reports that 34% of women respondents are report their intention to vote Conservative, compared to 28.6% for Liberals and 20.8% for New Democrats.

A poll of Atlantic Canadians by Bristol/Omnifacts, a Halifax-based research firm, showed that 50% of decided females respondents favoured Paul Martin as prime minister, compared to 29% of decided females who felt Mr. Harper would be the best prime minister.

On the face of it, both these polls, one national and one regional, show a fairly clear difference between males and females in vote choice. An assessment by Simon Fraser University showed comparable differences in vote intention between males and females although, as the SFU assessment notes:

[b]y the end of the campaign period, however, the gender differences became much more muted as some shifts occurred. The differences in support for the Liberals had largely disappeared, but a new one emerged for the NDP. In the Ipsos poll conducted between January 17 to 19, even the gender differences in support for the Conservative Party had greatly narrowed; 36% of women and 40% of men said they would likely vote Conservative. 21% of women said they would vote NDP, compared to 16% of men; 27% of women were willing to support the Liberals, and 25% of men said the same. These results indicate a net movement of 8% of women away from the Liberals, with 3% going to the Conservatives and 5% to the NDP.

Possible explanations of the sex gap

Differences in vote intention between males and females has been the subject of considerable academic research.

One study concluded that :

Despite the change in the economic context and the advent of budget surpluses, women clearly remain more skeptical of the virtues of free enterprise, more supportive of the welfare system, and more reluctant to endorse market solutions than men in the 2000 federal election. The fact that these gender gaps could not be explained in terms of differences in women'’s and men'’s material interests lends weight to the socio-psychological argument that women tend to be less individualistic than men. The gender gap in views about crime and punishment also provides support for a socio-psychological interpretation of the gender gap phenomenon.

There are other studies that generally confirm the conclusions of the one cited here.

Whether or not one accepts any or all of the possible explanations for the difference, there's no question a difference exists.

So, the simple answer, Warbicycle is that your anonymous commenter would be correct if you actually said all women think alike. You didn't. You simply reported a phenomenon that has been reported for some time: women vote to the left of the political spectrum.

Anecdotally, I can add that some older males in one campaign found the male/female difference in vote intention difficult to comprehend or difficult to acknowledge. They dismissed the idea that Liberal media buys should be skewed toward 35+ females. It has been generally accepted for some time that women tend to vote to the left of the political spectrum and that they have considerable influence on household consumer decisions, including political decisions.

This admittedly small group of older males dismissed the idea out of hand. Go figure.

Another local Liberal candidate attracted some critical comment for his radio spot that focused on this very issue. Criticism of him came primarily from Conservative callers to local radio call-in shows. Too bad he didn't more argue forcefully in favour of his position: the facts were with him.

Will the male/female difference in voter intention make a difference in the final outcome, as Warbicycle contends?

Potentially. Women outnumber males in a number of ridings across the country, including my riding of St. John's South-Mount Pearl. The current election will depend very heavily on how many people are motivated enough to get out to vote.

Sadly, some of the local campaigns in the metro St. John's area on the political centre-left dismissed simple, factual arguments and/or failed to properly capitalize on the issues involved.

The fruits of those decisions may well be seen tomorrow evening.

ctv.ca prompts head-scratching

Check out this little timeline compiled by ctv.ca on the Parti Quebecois political history.

For those of us who have found CTV's coverage of this election peculiar, perhaps it has something to do with this sort of goof-up:

May 22, 1979
The Liberal Party led by Pierre Trudeau wins the federal election

Huh?

The May 1979 general election brought us the Joe Clark government.

The last time a Conservative minority ruled Canada

Purely for the sake of nostalgia, let's all remember one of the high points of the 1979 Clark administration.

This is the one Harper referred to as being "stupid".

The world is a different place now and the Progressive Conservatives are long gone from the political landscape.

Mystery Man with the Harper national tour?

Is this guy with the Steve Harper tour or is he merely a "local volunteer" as some stories have identified him?

Something tells me The Grabber wasn't some stereo salesman from Scarborough who got a little overzealous on his day off.

By the way, I kinda like the way Mr. Furious, The Spleen and The Blue Raja are there backstopping for the latest Mystery Man.

Hunt on for missing Connie candidates

Thomas Steenburg of Mission, British Columbia is shown at right holding the cast of a footprint he claims is from a Sasquatch.

Mr. Steenburg has been contacted by Elections Canada and many national news media outlets to organize a search for Conservative candidates missing from this election.

Mr. Steenburg said he won't take up the hunt for the Connies, noting that he has a better chance of finding the legendary, large hairy beast of the Rockies.