What's the campaign issue?

Election timing punditry seems a national sport in anglophone media. As the speculation about a UK election on may 6th dies out, Don Newman treats us to his conclusion that "the election clock will start ticking" in the fall.

It all depends, of course, on whether the Tories find a campaign issue that would justify triggering an election. That's a gigantic "if". The Budget was voted through without too much ruckus and there doesn't seem to be any major political minefield on the horizon. We must find one witin the next couple of months.

A fall election is definitely the right way to go. The summer is a dead season where people are too busy attending festivals and sorting out arrangements for the next academic year. In winter we greet Flaherty's cleaver and wave goodbye to our hard earned cash: hardly an enthusing prospect.

What can keep voters interested in July and August and bring them to the polls in late September? Ignatieff won't throw us the Green Shift bone, we'll have to smoke him out. I recommend we keep it at home. I'd say we avoid all international policy except free trade. The Liberals are masters at milking the feel-good-about-yourself factor in that regard; we can out-milk them if we play the free trade card right.

The prospect of higher energy bills in the coming winter months could help using energy policy as a good starter. Quebec has a huge gas shale which, if developed properly, could make the region very rich. Chalk River needs replacing. There's still plenty of hydro energy to be tapped. As long as we stay away from bioethanol we should be fine.

Imagine the ballot question. A viable cleaner source of energy today (shale gas) versus an unsightly utopia tomorrow (wind farms, solar panels and perpetual motion).

All I'm saying is we have to relate our election trigger to people's pockets in more ways than just saying we will spend their money wiser.

Support is back.

At last some good news. The Tories are clawing back some support from the Liberals, and all seems to be well.

I don't particularly like the fact a lot of people believe the country to be on the wrong track, however Ignatieff has even greater cause for worry.

Surely if his party were to be the answer to the country's problems, the LPC would rule the poll and grow in preferences as the "wrong track" opinion gains traction. But it doesn't.

Despite Tory support growing in Alberta (where we wipe the floor with the opposition) and declining in BC (where we need to gain seats), the Ekos poll is a damning verdict for Ignatieff.

Canadians seem to trust the people who put us in the debt mess to pull the country out of it. Ignatieff will have a very hard time explaining that one.

Is the public warming up to us and the prospect of big cuts? Or are they still in love with big-government Conservative spending and dread a repeat of the Chretien slashes? A million dollar question indeed.

By the power of parma ham...

Question: what is the biggest threat to democracy, if Italy is the standard to go by?

Answer: a common sandwich.

The paninus vulgaris is knows to lure candidates' campaign managers and administrators into distraction, causing deadlines to be missed and said candidates being excluded from the elections. This cock-up is magnified by Italy's proportional system in electing regional assemblies, which means scores of Berlusconi's candidates ended up off the ballot.

All because someone wanted a sandwich.

The storm has so far resulted in a useless candidate re-admission law, endless comedy and Berlusconi proclaiming it's all a communist plot against his party.

It isn't. Your staff is incompetent. Moral of the story: hand in the paperwork a day early!

Take my exemption, but not all at once

My graduate association has brought to my attention that postdoctoral fellowships will be taxed beginning this year if the Budget passes in its current form. I read the relevant section and happen to agree with Flaherty's assessment.

The tax exemptions for grad stipends (like mine) are excellent because we study to get a qualification and the stipends would be, realistically speaking, quite small if the tax was applied. 

A postdoctoral fellowship is a larger paycheck, and the Government is creating 75,000 dollar whoppers to boot. Moreover, one is training for a faculty position which will earn not only a higher salary, but eventual tenure and lots of access to NSERC funding.

So there's nothing wrong with bringing postdoctoral money into the tax system. But is such an abrupt change the best way to address the issue?

If from one day to another you were whammed with a 20% tax you wouldn't be happy, never mind having to scrap plenty of plans. With a mortgage to pay or a child coming up, the situation becomes serious.

I would much rather the tax was introduced gradually over three years. Postdocs would pay 11% of the full rate in the 2010 fiscal year, 33% in 2011 and 100% in 2012. This way contingency plans can be made or an alternative, more lucrative career sought. Otherwise we are disgruntling a potential pool of non-liberal professors, which is a bit of a waste methinks.

Unnecessary lack of class

As I keep thinking about last week's events I can't help feeling like an old grumpy crank. I want to like this Budget and Throne Speech, but it would be an undeserved compliment. Flaherty's buzzwords for cuts in the public service aren't convincing, the estimates are a politician's ones and the spending freeze at 2010 levels is like climbing to the top of Everest and saying "we shall climb no higher".

In a minority government anyone's radical policies and vision need to be watered down. I appreciate this quirk of democracy, yet it doesn't oblige me to cheerfully lead choruses of praise.

The most bitter aspect of this saga is the O Canada wording fiasco. As we discover the Tories never intended to change the words of the national anthem we understand the callousness of the Throne Speech tactic: throw the media a juicy bone and distract everyone while the Budget is tabled and leaves the "fresh news" shelf. Burying potental sources of criticism is nothing new. Did we really need to use the Governor General to do so? When did Harper receive advice that such an unclassy move was OK?

Such desperation to divert the public's and media's attention betrays a deep insecurity about whatever is being buried. As a Tory I deduce that the Government is not confident its own budget can stand the test of scrutiny by its base and the opposition. It needn't be that way. It's a spending binge that was promised last year and will result in large cuts in the coming years. What's wrong with saying so?

Loyal party activists and conservative commentators have classified Harper as a big-government conservative for times on end. He has nothing left to hide, so he might at least have the courtesy of being honest and calling this budget for what it is: delaying the headache of a hangover.

Number-crunching the Throne Speech

Apparently the Throne Speech is 6000 words long and will take a whopping hour and a half to deliver. Let's crunch some numbers.

Assume the standard policy announcement goes as follows: "This government is committed to job creation in Canada following the most severe crisis in decades. Corporation tax will be reduced to incentivise hiring and investment". Twenty-six words. Political BS brings it up to, say, 35. We further assume 15% on either end of the speech is introduction, self-congratulation, ordinary administration, grandstanding and general bells and whistles.

I therefore expect 150 policy initiatives or changes to be announced. It'd better be close: this extended vacation has to yield impressive results or we will fail Canadians who actually trusted the Government to get cracking.

This Throne Speech and budget might be the swan song of this Parliament, while the Liberals play all-in to reverse the Senate majority. We are about to hear our campaign spiel and our to-do list for the next legislative session. There will be no more stalling in Senate committees and Canadians will want an ambitious and sufficiently Tory agenda.

How else can the base be energized to drum up support for a Tory majority? I am sure the PM knows what's at stake, which is why I expect nothing but a political masterpiece.

A good day for Luca

Today I am more free than I was yesterday. My thesis has been signed off for external review, which means I am very happy and very tempted to imbibe celebratory pints.

In other news, a friend of mine swore allegiance to Her Majesty today and became a Canadian citizen. Which made me look forward to the autumn of 2011 when I will file my application.

Maggie Thatcher sums up my feelings for today: "Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing: it's when you've had everything to do and you've done it".

Speaking of which, I still need to do laundry.

My letter to Pravda

This is a copy (with translation) of a letter I sent the editorial team of Pravda.ru following their publication of an article slamming Canada and the Vancouver olympics. I don't say much of substance, but here goes.

Уважаемая редакция Правда.ру,

Пишу из Канады прочитав отклики на статью Тимоти Бэнкрофта-Хинчи и комментарий В. Потапова.

Может Бэнкрофт-Хинчи действительно делает упор на факты, но его рассуждения и выводы предают фанатизм и глубокое заблуждение.

Во всех олимпиадах есть ошибки, и в Сочи их будет множество. Меня одно угнетает: Бэнкрофт-Хинчи надеется задеть комплекс глобальной неполноценности, которым похоже всё ещё страдает Россия и многие Россияне. Он выжал из этого статью и внимание, которого нарцисисту всегда недостаточно.

А вот насчёт тени США и Её Величества он вообще замахнулся. Остановлюсь на второй. Канада пришла к своей независимости без шума и без пыли, и было оставлено то, что работало, включая монархию и Генерал-Губернатора. Вместо балагана, крови, псевдо-национализма и реторики "незалежности" страна выбрала цивильный подход к вопросу. Чем ему это не понравилось?

Ваша газета достойна лучего, чем ТБХ. Он вас провёл своим незнанием, и выставил на всемирное посмешище. Жалко и страну Россию, чей стереотип комплексованнового гиганта опять-таки подтверждается никем иным, как британцем в вашей редакции через русское СМИ.

С уважением,

Лука Манфреди
Монреаль

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Dear Pravda.ru editorial team,

I am writing you after reading media reactions to TBH's article and V. Potapov's further comment. Maybe Bancroft-Hinchey relies on some facts, but his interpretations and conclusions betray fanatism and a deep ignorance. All Olympics have their mistakes, and Sochi will have plenty. One thing bothers me: Bancroft-Hinchey tries to stroke the nerve of the inferiority complex which Russia and many Russians seem afflicted by. He managed to squeeze from it an article and attention, of which a narcissist can never have enough. He really missed the point with his comment on the USA's shadow and Her Majesty. I shall expound on the latter. Canada came to her independence without noise and without dust, leaving the things that worked; these included the monarchy and the Governor-General. No brouhaha, no blood, no pseudo-nationalistic rhetoric: we chose the civilized approach to the question. What didn't suit him?

Your journal deserves better than TBH. He cheated you with his ignorance and made you a global laughing stock. I am also disappointed for Russia, whose stereotypation as a complexed giant is proved again by no other than a Brit in your midst.

Respectfully, Luca Manfredi, Montreal.

By the way, Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey is an anti-american and anti-Israeli nutjob. (here and here).

How the Euro weeds out the losers

Greece is astonishing. The country's economy is in the tank and sinking fast to the bottom, where it belongs anyway. Yet Greek unions somehow think the bonanza isn't over and have called a wave of massive strikes that have already crippled fuel supplies and will cripple the whole country beginning tomorrow.

Ports, borders, transport and tons of public services will all be shut to protest the austerity measures the Greek government is offering in exchange of an EU bailout. The economically savvy union leaders believe that imposing what amounts to an embargo on their own country will force the government to back down and return to spending lots of money.

They just don't get it, from leader to member. There's no money, their country's word on debt is junk. What is the EU doing discussing a bailout when the populace seems so oblivious to the basic rules of common sense?

Let them fail. Countries have defaulted before and survived. Greece, Italy and Spain are incapable of reforming when asked to. The purse strings need to shut tight and throw these spending junkies into the gutter. In the past the government simply leant on the Central Bank to devalue the currency, defrauding its investors.

Well, the party is over. Accountable to the ECB, Greece must now face the music. It should be made an example of, for all of Europe to see. A government's good intentions don't matter if the voters remain so obtuse. It's time for them to feel the hit. Maybe, just maybe, they will begin demanding fiscal responsibility from their rulers in the future.

No value is as traditional as liberty

Right wing candidates score brownie points by babbling about "Judeo-Christian" or "traditional" values. Sometimes they churn out the whole enchilada to the cheers of orgasmic crowds who are none the wiser that they're being had.

This reli-culous window dressing is most of the time used as a generic dividing line to isolate liberalism, secularism and Islam from the audience. Cheering said speaker is therefore absolution from all evil deeds and thoughts, comfortable in the knowledge of not being the bad guy. Bad news are in store.

The incompatibility and sometimes open contrast between the two religions are for everyone to see (but check this one out anyway). The smokescreen conceals a mixture of totalitarian agendas, ignorance or just plain naivete. How many times have we heard "traditional" and "Judeo-Christian" mentioned as arguments to ban abortion, discriminate against large swathes of the human populace, push an agenda or demean an opponent? Isn't the hawk who brags about his christian credentials guilty of the mortal sin of vanity?

The values that hold the Western world together and made it prosperous are values of respect, hard work, charity, loyalty, honesty, ambition and individualism. We can surely find them in Christian and Jewish texts, but these are eggs laid by the chicken of REASON. The same chicken that laid the whopper we call Liberty.

The same Liberty that built the free societies of today and is the founding value of the United States. The Liberty to own what is yours, to live as you please, to relate to others the way you want and to not be harmed. Advocates of traditional values who want to remove, for instance, the right of two people to enter into a contract of mutual relationship and commitment should be barely audible over the screeching of their own hypocrisy.

"Play with mortals and leave the saints alone" says the priest in Act I of La Tosca. It's time to use our God-given power of Reason to cut through the BS and stand up for those values and beliefs which really make men great. God might be glad to have time off from petty mortal politics.