Entries Tagged 'Canada' ↓

For the vast majority of pop drinkers, if the restaurant doesn’t have Coke, Pepsi will do just fine. And to many Canadians, the difference between the Liberals and Conservatives is like that between Coke and Pepsi: not worth worrying about.

I believe this explains a big part of the ‘NDP surge’ that has pushed the NDP well past the Liberals in the polls. Canadians can see that Ignatieff’s Liberals are not much different than the Conservatives, as much as they try to make out like they are worlds apart. Both Ignatieff and Harper would have put our troops in Iraq, both love the tar sands, neither has any sort of plan to meet environmental commitments like CO2 reduction or to ‘green’ our economy the way prosperous economies like Germany, Norway, Denmark, and even China and Brazil are doing.

In short, both Ignatieff and Harper will continue to follow the United States, even as the U.S. economy continues to stagnate and American moral authority continues its decline.

The Liberals are well known for ‘campaigning from the left and governing from the right,’ and I think Canadians just decided it was time to vote for the real thing. Too many broken promises by the Liberals over the years have eroded trust in their ‘brand.’

Coke and Pepsi spend billions on marketing to get you to buy their products, but ultimately there’s not much difference. Looks like Canadians have decided it’s time for a switch.

With all due respect to Jean Chretien, he is a big part of the reason that many Canadians no longer trust the Liberal Party. It wasn’t just Adscam, during which Mr. Chretien was the:

Prime Minister of Canada at the time the Sponsorship Program was established and operated. The Gomery Commission, First Phase Report which assigned blame for the Sponsorship scandal cast most of the indemnity for misspent public funds, fraud on Chrétien and his Prime Minister’s Office staff, though it cleared Chrétien himself of direct wrongdoing.

That was bad enough. But for many of us, there is a long history of big talk and little action. To give three prime examples:

1. The Liberals campaigned against NAFTA – but then embraced it once elected
2. The Liberals campaigned against the GST – but then embraced it once elected
3. The Liberals signed Kyoto – but then did less than nothing to meet that commitment

Tell me again why we should trust Liberal promises?

For me, the Kyoto betrayal offers a particularly compelling reason to not vote for the Liberals. Had Mr. Chretien’s government redirected oil and tar mining subsidies to green energy – say solar thermal, wind, and geothermal – then today there would be thousands of clean and green jobs in these fields in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The prairies would be an ‘energy superpower,’ but in clean energy and high-tech jobs, the way Denmark and Germany are today.

Subsidies to tar mining amounted to approximately $1.5 billion taxpayer dollars per year in 2010. Multiply that by the number of years since Kyoto was signed in 1998 and you get a heck of a lot of money: $19.5B in today’s dollars. That’s also a lot of jobs:

• Siemens plans to build a CDN$ 120M wind turbine factory in the UK, anticipated to create ~2,200 jobs
• GE plans to build a CDN$ 160M wind turbine factory in the UK, anticipated to create more than 2,000 jobs
• The Pembina Institute estimates that “for every million dollars invested, an average 36.3 jobs are created in the energy efficiency sector, 12.2 jobs in the renewable energy sector, and only 7.3 jobs in the development of conventional energy.”

That was an opportunity squandered and an international commitment broken. Using the Pembina Institute’s figures, Jean Chretien’s Liberals could have put us on the path to creating 237,900 jobs in the prairies just from the subsidies alone.

The Liberals campaign from the left and govern from the right, and it looks like Canadians have finally had enough and are going to elect the real deal.

The polls are pointing to another Conservative minority – but that will very rapidly translate to an NDP minority or NDP/Liberal coalition. (All this assumes that current polls are roughly accurate. And as a disclaimer, I admit that I am in favour of an NDP-led government this election.)

Even if the Conservatives manage a minority, they will be pulled down by the NDP; they really don’t have a choice. It’s not some big conspiracy; if the Conservatives did not have the confidence of the other parties before the election, they certainly won’t have it now. Put another way, the NDP and Liberals voted non-confidence in the Harper Government about 30 days ago, and so they cannot support that same government now without losing tremendous credibility.

Mr. Harper may get a week or so, but will be shot down at the first opportunity. It may be a defeated budget (budgets are always confidence motions), or the NDP and Liberals may simply put forward another motion of non-confidence.

Following that, Jack Layton will approach the Governor General and ask to form a government. The Liberals will certainly agree to support them, as Mr Ignatieff will be in the process of stepping down as leader and the party will need time to re-rebuild after two disastrous elections. The first one they blamed on Stephane Dion; this election shows that the problem was not Dion, but the Liberals themselves. They failed to inspire Canadians with any sort of vision and many Canadians still don’t trust them.

What will Mr. Layton and the NDP do once in power? This, I admit, is an open question. I suspect that they will fairly quickly reverse some of the Harper Government’s less popular decisions, like the no-bid fighter jet purchase, reinstate the long-form census, and so on.

I hope he will also publicly unmuzzle Canadian government scientists; even if the NDP do not, I suspect that the civil service will feel free to speak out under a worker-friendly NDP government. This is good news for truth and government transparency, and certainly for getting some action on climate change.

The NDP has also committed to redirecting tar mining subsidies to renewable energy, and they would be wise to make this a priority. If Jean Chretien had done this the day he signed Kyoto, many thousands of ‘green’ jobs would have been created in the prairies by now and Canada would be a world leader in renewable energy.

There will be a lot of people nervous about an NDP government; they are either CEOs of major corporations or they are average folks who bought the line about the NDP being spendthrifts.This is not true; the NDP has done decently governing the provinces they have led, for example. It would be a smart move for Mr. Layton to have several ‘fireside chats’ to explain to people what his government is planning and why. It will settle nerves and reduce resistance to change.

Because, in reality, an NDP government will change Canada – I think for the better. In many ways, it will be a return to values so many of us hold dear, from peacekeeping to a sound public health system. We will be less influenced by the United States and instead will align more with European/Nordic values.

This latter is very good for Canada, as the United States is in economic and moral decline while over the pond there are several examples of sound economies embracing the future: Germany, Norway, Denmark, and others are aggressively moving to renewable energy, net-zero housing, walkable cities, and much more. All of this is vital in a world where the price of oil keeps going up – along with concerns about climate change.

The reason that the Harperites are so terrified of an NDP-led government is this very reason. The last time the NDP had a significant influence, we got universal health care, the Canada Pension Plan, the 40-hour work week, and a whole lot more. Another stint at the wheel by the NDP could forever sink Conservative dreams of following the U.S. in every possible way, from participation in various wars of occupation to mandatory imprisonment for minor transgressions to slashing the social safety net to ribbons.

The Cons are petrified that Canadians will start to take a serious look at countries like Germany, Denmark, and Norway, and then wonder why we can’t have six week vacations, union members on the Boards of Directors of corporations, and a solid resource and manufacturing economy.

I was speaking with a friend of mine the other day, a staunch Conservative and normally willing to put up with Harper, who said there is no way Bruce Carson is getting the job he did unless he knows where the bodies are buried.

If the Conservatives want to reward a crony – and my friend would admit they do it, point out that the Liberals did it and will do it again, and so what, it’s the way of the world – then they put him in a position where at least he can’t do them damage. You don’t put a disbarred lawyer with multiple fraud convictions – does it really matter two or five? – a bankruptcy or two, and a twenty-two-year-old ex-escort wife in the PMO. You just don’t.

If you do this kind of stuff, and certainly I agree that the Liberals did and will again if given the chance, and that the Conservatives are doing it now and will do so again if given the chance (one reason I’m going NDP this time), then you don’t put cronies with dirt that could reflect on you in positions where that dirt is very likely to be uncovered. Like the Prime Minister’s Office.

It’s like a gang of bank robbers making a guy on the FBI ‘Wanted Posters’ the lookout.

So why on earth would Harper appoint such a guy to such a high profile spot, unless, as my (possibly formerly) Conservative friend said, he knows where the bodies are buried? Does he have some leverage on top echelons of the Conservative Party, either thanks to knowing dirt or being responsible for bringing a lot of money their way?

And then after his stint in the PMO, it looks like the Conservatives took care of him with a nice gig:

After politics, Carson was appointed executive director of the Canada School of Energy and Environment in Calgary, apparently after an international talent search. The school received $15 million in start-up funds from the federal government in 2007 and its deputy director, Zoe Addington, was a former aide to Industry Minister Tony Clement and former cabinet minister Jim Prentice, when he had the industry and Indian affairs portfolios.

What does Carson have on the Cons?