Poilievre Gets an 87% Approval Vote

 CPC leader Pierre Poilievre won his leadership review vote with over 87%. What does this tell us? 

I'm sure that within Liberal party ranks, there is a certain amount of cheering going on, since Poilievre is polling well behind Mark Carney for "preferred PM".  Almost certainly if an election were held today, the Conservatives would lose (again).   While in the short term, Poilievre's victory might appear to be a boon for the Liberals, I wouldn't be quite so quick to cheer.

Having replaced Jenny Byrne with Steven Outhouse, I think we can expect to see yet another round of "rebranding" applied to Poilievre's image.  His speech last night gave some hints of that beginning.  There was a definite effort not to be quite as obnoxious as he has been in the last year or two (although I doubt very much that he's going to be able to pivot away from a reflexive tendency to attack after 20 years of practice).  Branding, or image, whatever you want to call it, does matter in politics today, and conservatives have a disturbing ability to make otherwise unpalatable candidates look "good enough" to voters who don't pay close attention. 

The real issue with the CPC isn't "the leader", and it really never has been - it's what the party represents and has become over the years from its beginnings as the prairie rump "Reform Party" through to its current form.  Reform was always a party of extremes - weirdly authoritarian and libertarian at the same time, and substantially driven by a bunch of Social Conservative (they aren't really conservative) grievance groups.  

As the party expanded eastward, it ran into a number of roadblocks where they just couldn't seem to make headway - especially in Ontario and Quebec.  That led to a shift and some rebranding efforts that tried to paper over the perception that the party was dominated by Christian Fundamentalists from the Prairies.  Fast forward through the merger with the old Progressive Conservative Party to today, and we need to spend some quality time reading through the party policy book and the policy motions.  

Unfortunately, in these documents lies a ton of policies that the party doesn't talk about - policies which ultimately are designed to implement many aspects of the socially conservative (regressive) state that Prairie Evangelicals have been pushing towards for decades.  Journalist Marci McDonald documented it really well in her book "The Armageddon Factor".  Although the book is now somewhat dated, it does document much of the drive for the religious right to gain control over the Conservative Party.  

Now, in part, we need to understand that when people are accusing the CPC of having a "hidden agenda", it's not that the agenda is "really hidden" - it's well known and documented.  However, when politicians sit there and say "oh, I won't do _THAT_", they're engaging in deceit.  Poilievre has done this repeatedly on the abortion topic, only his party keeps these topics alive in their policy declaration.  

In more recent history, in Alberta we've seen this deceit used by the UCP under Danielle Smith.  So much of what she said she "wouldn't do" while she was running in 2023 mysteriously became legislation starting in 2024.  At this point in time, I wouldn't trust any party that refuses to talk about any topic that's in their policy manual.  

This is fundamentally the core of where Poilievre has a problem - he is at the helm of a party that I characterize as half a dozen angry badgers in a trench coat.  No amount of rebranding is going to address the fundamental issue that the CPC has major players in it that have "views" that are radically divergent from those of most Canadians. 

I take last night's confidence vote in Poilievre as a sign that the CPC has turned inward.  They aren't receptive to the opinions of the broader public, rather they have decided that they are going to attempt to deceive Canadian voters into electing them so they can impose an agenda that is regressive at best.

Yes, Andrew, Democracy Is Under Attack In Canada

So, Andrew Coyne muses that Justin Trudeau should just step aside in the wake of a recent by-election defeat.  His reasoning?  Well - it's a bit of a jumble of deflection, redirection and obfuscation.  Oddly enough, he makes a far better summary of his reasoning in one post on X (FKA Twitter):

In his column, Cone opines as follows:  

But there is no equivalent in Canada to Mr. Trump’s attempts, by a combination of force and fraud, to overturn the results of a democratic election, or his threats to use the Justice Department to “go after” his political opponents, or his privately and publicly expressed desires to see some of them executed, or his efforts to intimidate officials in his several criminal trials and otherwise undermine the rule of law.

Is there no equivalent in Canada?  That's very much a matter of perspective.  Can we truly say that there is no Canadian equivalent to Trump's January 6 assault on Capitol Hill?  Not really - because only a year later the so-called "Freedom Convoy" would descend upon Ottawa not only with a demand that the Governor General dissolve Parliament and install the Convoy leadership as some kind of interim junta.  

Likewise, on the matter of going after political enemies, we cannot ignore Pierre Poilievre's recent hints that he would cheerfully invoke the Notwithstanding Clause (S33) of the Charter to insulate his laws from Charter scrutiny.  If you don't think this can be weaponized not only to realize his "tough on crime" agenda, but also to attack perceived and real political enemies, you aren't paying attention - because S33 is essentially a clause that puts Charter Rights in abeyance indefinitely.  Not only does that undermine the concept of "rule of law", but it creates an environment where the rule of law becomes arbitrary, and politicians can rewrite the rules pretty much at will. 

The politicization of nearly every public office – prosecutors, sheriffs, even judges elected on party political lines – has no equivalent here. 

I would ask if Mr. Coyne has been paying attention for the last decade.  Literally every appointment, every official action of the Trudeau government has been attacked and politicized - from committees and judicial appointments to things that have nothing to do with Trudeau himself.  We see a constant stream of invective directed at undermining Trudeau.  Here in Alberta, what is the first thing the UCP has done to attack the newly selected leader of the NDP?  Oh, they try to make him out as "Trudeau's Lackey".  

In fact, in my lifetime, I have never seen a Prime Minister subjected to such a constant stream of attacks - both legitimate and petty.  All of this has been clearly in the name of undermining Trudeau and making it as difficult as possible to govern.  

So it is more than a stretch for the Prime Minister to pretend that his own troubles are part of some worldwide trend to instability, or to insinuate that democracy is on the ballot in the next election. And if it were? If the Conservatives, or Mr. Poilievre, represented the same threat to democracy as Mr. Trump’s Republicans, or the same far-right philosophy as France’s Rassemblement National?

Here we come to the point where Mr. Coyne shows us exactly how wilfully blind he really is.  His position here ignores a whole bunch of facts and factors which are at play. 

As much as I would like to simply point at the Harper-led International Democrat Union (IDU) which really is a central piece of the worldwide movement towards fascism that we are seeing, it's not that simple here at home. 

First, there is a long-standing history of collaboration between conservatives in both Canada and the United States.  Canadian conservative politicians regularly attend major conservative political conventions like Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in the US; likewise they often attend US-based training at places like Morton Blackwell's "Leadership Institute" (LI).  There are a number of notable Canadian conservative politicians who have attended courses at LI - like Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney, and others.  Similarly, in Canada, we have the Canada Strong and Free Network (CSFN) conference, and mysteriously US conservatives attend and speak at it.  

A significant number of Canadian conservative politicians have worked for campaigns in the US - most notably recently being Alberta's Devin Dreeshen who was active in Trump's 2016 campaign, but we can't ignore guys like Rob Anders whose political career starts with being a paid heckler for a Montana GOP candidate in the early 90s.  

All of this is to evidence that there is a long history of collaboration and sharing of ideas, people, and skills between US and Canadian conservatives.  So, it is no reach at all to observe that what is done by conservatives in the US almost always appears in Canada in some form or another. 

So, let's look at the last decade of conservative attacks on the government led by Justin Trudeau for a moment.  From 2008-2016, we watched as the GOP in the US did everything it could to obstruct President Obama.  It was stunning to watch as the GOP basically refused to cooperate with anything that the Democrats attempted to do whether it be legislation or matters like judicial appointments.  

What have we seen in Canada? Exactly all of the same strategies. Either attacking the Prime Minister and his government for any action taken or anything even remotely associated with Trudeau was open to attack.  As has been shown with the WE scandal, no matter how unfounded the attacks, they were persistent to the point of breaking the target - anything to erode the credibility of the government.  While there are clear differences in the particulars, the fundamental strategy is consistent - do anything you can to discredit the target. 

There's no doubt in my mind that the fact that the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) chose Justin Trudeau as their leader that the conservatives lost their collective minds.  The hatred of Pierre Trudeau in the modern day CPC is as ripe today as it was in 1980s Alberta in the wake of anger over the NEP. They just directed all of that anger straight at Justin Trudeau. So, when the government passed a new environmental assessment into law, it was immediately reframed as an attack on Alberta, and the first Convoy protest was assembled.  In many ways, it was the trial run not only for the 2022 Freedom Convoy, but also for the January 6 attack on the Capitol.  Similar messaging, similar organizing techniques were used, and they were refined over time. 

More recently, we have seen the US GOP legislators implementing a vast array of legislation designed to attack transgender people and restrict their rights and ability to move through society.  Is there a parallel happening in Canada?  Absolutely there is.  We have several conservative Premiers who are implementing anti-transgender legislation, complete down to invoking the Notwithstanding Clause to insulate what is obviously a violation of fundamental rights from being challenged in the courts.  While the legislation in states like Florida or Texas is leagues more malevolent than even what Danielle Smith has proposed in Alberta, there is no doubt that the approach is basically figuring out how to impose similar legislation in Canada.  Conservative Premiers like Ford, Moe, and Smith have been more active in invoking S33 to insulate their legislation for some time.  The effect is predictable:  although people get outraged with the legislation initially, over time, they stop paying attention when it doesn't affect their lives directly.  

How does this connect to the Federal picture with Poilievre?  Let's pay some attention here.  Poilievre has already hinted that he is willing to invoke S33 to insulate legislation.  On top of that, he has also indicated that he doesn't think that trans youth should have access to puberty blockers and other medical interventions.  This is not an accident. 

I think it's also important to note here that conservative politicians have long histories of engaging in voter suppression strategies - and Poilievre's one piece of legislation was basically an attack on voting rights, and let's not ignore the history of the Harper era conservatives engaging in all sorts of shenanigans like redirecting voters to incorrect voting stations (Robocalls Scandal).  Where do you think those ideas are being imported from?  If you guessed the GOP, you're partly correct. 

It's easy to dismiss similarities between Trump and Poilievre as simply being "populism", not when it's clear that there are shared tactics and strategies. 

That's a lot of words to point out that Mr. Coyne is profoundly wrong when he suggests that the situation in Canada is not the same as that in the US.  In fact, the increasing alignment of the Trump aligned GOP and the CPC says otherwise.  

This Afternoon We Find Out

This afternoon, we find out which of the 50+ policy resolutions get adopted by the CPC.  Back here, I reviewed 3 policy resolutions in context, and questioned just how “broad” the conservative tent really is.  If any of those 3 resolutions is adopted, we can safely conclude that the CPC continues to tilt at the windmills of women’s rights, 2SLGBTQ+ rights, and in particular transgender rights. 

Make no mistake about it, by openly attacking transgender rights, the CPC is lining up to attack a whole host of social issues, ranging from education to women’s healthcare.

Something I want to emphasize is that the current focus of the political right on transgender women has enormous negative implications for women as a whole.  In particular, it represents a return to policing women’s bodies and appearance through peer pressure.  If you don’t look sufficiently “feminine” by someone else’s standards, you will find yourself challenged when you try to use a washroom in a public space - and by “not looking sufficiently feminine”, that could be as simple as wearing a bunch of old clothes when you pop out of the house to pick up some new paint brushes while you’re in the midst of painting your home. Whoops - you’re not dressed in the latest fashions, your hair isn’t done, and you *gasp* forgot your makeup!  I assure you that there will be someone who decides that means you’re not really a woman.  

I wish I was joking.  I’m not.  Stereotypes like the so-called Stepford Wives exist because in numerous religious subgroups, women are not merely expected to be “obedient to their husbands”, but they come under enormous scrutiny and pressure to conform (and while I write this from a generally Anglo-Christian perspective, these same pressures exist in many cultural milieus).  The ultimate goal here is very much to return women to the social role that they were forced into prior to the civil rights era, and potentially even pre-personhood where biology - specifically the ability to bear children - defines womanhood entirely. 

Transgender people present a fundamental threat to that worldview because they demand a separation of “the body” and the social roles associated with that body.  A core demand of feminism has always been autonomy, and in particular bodily autonomy.  Women have long sought the means to control their own fertility, but it has only been in the last 6 decades or so that the tools to do so have come to exist in a reasonably safe form.  To many, the changes that resulted from this autonomy, ranging from women having careers (and demanding equality in the workplace), to having actual public discourse about things like reproduction, have been an existential threat not only to existing power structures, but to their own sense of security.  The old models of “dad goes to work, mom stays home and looks after the household” have given way to much more complex structures that make old biblical adages about “the woman shall submit to her husband” very difficult to place in the modern world. 

Just as the recognition of sexual diversity has challenged the idea that “marriage” only exists for the purposes of producing children (a very utilitarian concept), or that sex only exists between “man and woman”, the mere existence of transgender people challenges previously rigid categories of “masculine” and “feminine”.  That is something which more socially conservative elements in our society have long regarded as an existential threat because not only does it require deconstructing and separating the social and the biological aspects of being human, it undermines centuries old scriptures that they hold as “divine truth”.  

That’s the whole problem here.  We have an entire segment of the population that is struggling to cope with change, and are completely unable to reconcile the “truth” of their faith with the world we exist in.  They desperately seek to roll things back to a “simpler time” where absolutes of the past still functioned - and they can only do that by erasing hard fought rights and freedoms.  

It may seem easy to look at it and say “well, they’re just going after trans people”, but spend any amount of time poking through the content on sites like LifeSite News and others that the Social Conservative set control, and it’s quite clear that if they were to ever gain actual power, a rollback of rights and freedoms across the board is their plan … in some cases think in terms of “yeah - mandatory church attendance” type stuff.  

This afternoon’s votes will tell us how much influence the SoCon right has over the CPC.  My guesstimate based on what I’ve seen over the last 20 years is that the answer is “far too much”.  Remember, this is the party which only grudgingly removed its opposition to same sex marriage in 2015 or 16 (and it did not endorse it - just removed their opposition to it), and coming up on the last election refused to admit that global warming is a thing. 

What Exactly Is A “Broad Coalition Of Conservatives”?

This morning, on the news one of the headline stories was about the CPC policy convention, where they are going to debate a range of policies, and two of them are outright eliminationist anti-transgender crap. (We’ll come back to that) One of the party talking heads said some inane drivel about the CPC being a “democratic party with a broad coalition of conservatives”. 

Besides being a somewhat silly attempt to define the party as “big tent”, what does the term really mean? It certainly doesn’t mean inclusion - the CPC continues to pander to extreme libertarians whose idea of “economic policy” is basically “let them eat cake”.  So if you’re somewhere in the middle and lower income ranges, they sure as hell aren’t including you - your pockets are the first ones they are going to pick through user fees, means testing programs, etc.  They also continue to be very much in the thrall of social conservative movements that want to exclude people who don’t fit into a particularly narrow idea of the world (usually one based on a bad reading of Old Testament texts).  So yeah, if you’re a woman, a member of the 2SLGBTQ community, or you belong to one of those “other religions”, don’t think for a moment that you’re safe in that party - you aren’t.

I did take a look through the CPC policy proposals, and there are some doozies in there.  Let's go exploring, shall we?

The Transformation Is Complete

 With Pierre Poilievre the newly anointed leader of the CPC, Canadians can take a step back and breathe a sight of relief - the masquerade is over. 

Ever since its formation in 2003, the CPC has been a hardline right wing ideologue party that cloaked itself in the moderate nature of the old PCs.  They called themselves Tories, and under Harper’s leadership, they were more or less able to maintain the appearance of not being quite as radical as many said they were behind the scenes. 

Then they won a majority in 2011.  No longer fearing losing power by way of a confidence motion in parliament, Harper allowed the party to begin implementing its more aggressive policies - although there was some restraint because Harper still believed he could be re-elected.  

Major project impact assessment processes were gutted, agencies stripped of their power to make rulings on substantive matters, laws related to citizenship were modified, making many Canadians’ citizenship conditional, and they tried enacting what amounts to a voter suppression law (guess who wrote that little stinker?  - Oh right - they party just picked him as their leader).  

Then there was the 2015 election.  Some very high priced advisors came in and the CPC introduced a series of policies that to be kind, most Canadians found appallingly racist at their core.  

That was just the party dropping the veil.  Way back in 2013, I wrote a piece on here comparing Harper’s governing style to the traits associated with modern day fascism (not Hitler’s fascism, but rather that fascists have become since the end of WWII).  I was surprised then by the number of boxes on that list that Harper ticked off.  It wasn’t just a few.  No, it was a lot.

Having watched the Reform party emerge from Alberta politics, I had always been suspicious of how easily that movement could slide into authoritarianism, if not into overt fascism.  There was an ugly underside to Reform that few outside of the “Alberta Bubble” seemed to recognize.  “Oh, they aren’t really that bad”, or “Once in power, the normal constraints on power will moderate their behaviour” were common refrains.  Then there was the reality of it - the radicalism, and fervent belief that they had the “Right of the Matter” in all things to do with government meant that they chafed at those restraints.  The 2015 election was merely where the party dropped any pretence of being “nice”.  

In selecting Poilievre, the CPC has signalled that the takeover is complete.  What remained of the old PCs is dead, done and buried. It was notable that on Poilievre’s “coronation night”, Peter MacKay declined to speak.  Even the last leader of the PCs couldn’t bring himself to say anything. 

The CPC may attempt to cloak itself in “reasonableness”, but that seems unlikely with a man like Poilievre being the public face of the party. He isn’t a man known for being reasonable to begin with.

Since the departure of Stephen Harper in 2015, the party has changed - the factions that Harper was able to hold in check through sheer force of will are no longer so easily tamed - they’ve seen how they can take a bigger slice of the pie - the MAGA movement in the US, and the Kenney-led UCP have shown them what they can do by being more overt.  

Poilievre has shown us through his run at this leadership that in fact he is perfectly willing to let the extremes off leash, and they have heard that message loud and clear. Expect the next policy convention to be a sharp turn even further right.  Topics that had been off the table under Harper will be on the table now - and it’s going to be ugly. 

On The Emergency Measures Act

If you've been paying attention at all, you are aware that the Federal Government has invoked the Emergency Measures Act to deal with the "Convoy". In this writer's opinion, this decision came a week late, and let me explain why. 

First, as much as the organizers have tried to make a carnival atmosphere around this protest - bouncy castles, hot tubs, bbq's etc to be found everywhere in the occupation zone, that is little more than a façade cover for what's really going on.  

Second, this is no ordinary protest where a bunch of people get pissed off about an issue and go and hold a rally on the steps of the Parliament buildings. Those protests have a pattern of organization and attendance that seldom lasts more than a few days at most. 

Structurally, there are several elements of this "protest" that indicate it is something else entirely. These range from blockading streets with heavy trucks to create what amounts to an occupation zone, setting up what are clearly military-styled bases for logistics and supply, coordinating actions with other units of occupation which had set themselves up at border crossings, and using sophisticated processes to raise funds to sustain the protest. 

These are major differentiators that show us that a level of organization and planning not normally associated with peaceful protest is at play here. I'm not saying that organization and planning don't happen with other protests.  It certainly does. However, it doesn't normally include this level of sophistication. 

We are already finding that there are connections among these protestors that are very concerning. Connections to white nationalist groups that want to start what they call a "race war" to found their bizarre idea of a white homeland (Vanilla ISIS anybody?).  Now, I'm not saying that the majority of the protestors _are_ connected to these various groups and movements.  I suspect most of them are what I would call "useful idiots" who got sucked into the emotional high of participating in something big.  They're being used by the core organizers as "cannon fodder".  They will bear the brunt of direct enforcement in the form of fines and criminal charges for harassment, property damage, and whatever other offences are happening within the occupation zone. 

However, let's not kid ourselves about the core organization of this "protest".  Their goal was never about "ending vaccine mandates" - that was merely a pretext.  The "MOU" that came out as they were driving into Ottawa made it quite clear that the goals had shifted to the overthrow of the government similar to that attempted in the Jan 6, 2021 assault on the US legislative buildings. 

Looking a little closer at this protest on the ground, it shows a disturbing shift. First, on the surface it looks a bit like the "Yellow Vest Convoy" a couple of years ago (complete with some of the same figures central to organizing it).  However, it also shifts in some very concerning ways.  First, while the the Yellow Vest Convoy certainly used heavy trucks as a symbol, this protest shifted to using them essentially as modern day siege warfare tools. Setting up logistics and supply bases at the edges of what became the occupation zone in downtown Ottawa is another hint of the emergence of a paramilitary/military mindset entering the picture. While they created a "carnival like" atmosphere in the occupation zone, they have actually engaged in a form of psychological warfare by using their vehicle horns to create a non-stop noise zone. 

Then there is quite a rogues gallery of people connected to organizing this "protest" (Seriously - read that article). They all hang out on the political far right, and move even further right when opportunity arises, but what's notable to me is the range of skillsets that they bring to the table. I do not think that is accidental, nor do I think that the connections to elected politicians are accidental. 

Then there is the funding for this thing. People started getting suspicious when the campaign on GoFundMe raised nearly $10M.  Let's be clear here - $10M is not chump change, and the GoFundMe campaign racked that up in weeks.  The quarterly donations to the CPC don't reach that kind of number even when they're doing well. When it shifted to a less well known Christian Evangelical fundraising site called "GiveSendGo", nearly $8M was raised in even less time. A data leak following a hack of GiveSendGo has made it possible to start building a picture of where this money is coming from.  Then the protest organization shifted to the much more shadowy world of cryptocurrency.  

Now ... does this sound like a "perfectly normal peaceful protest" to you?  Because to me, there's a ton of red flags going up here that say there are actors involved whose intentions are anything but. 

The Federal Government allowed this protest to go for a long time (3+ weeks) before moving to invoke emergency powers, and really this happened in large part because the US started pressuring over the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge (in particular) as a result of the economic impact of shutting down the automotive trade sector. 

Fair enough.  At 3 weeks in, there had been little to no attempt on the part of the conservative-led provinces to intervene in the protest and start to restore order. Premier Ford in Ontario eventually did declare a state of emergency, but even then refused to ask the Federal Government to assist with intervention. 

I suspect that the conservative politicians in Canada saw this as a golden opportunity to force Trudeau's hand into using the Emergency Measures Act.  So they quietly let Canada burn, and did virtually nothing. They were likely hoping that in doing so, the Federal Government would move with the military, and they would have all sorts of nasty video of the military moving in to quell the protests.  

Does this meet the standard set out in the Emergency Measures Act? While the Canadian Civil Liberties Association thinks it's a massive overreach, I think there is more than ample evidence that shows this goes beyond normal levels of civil protest and disobedience and has moved into being an attack on Canada itself. When the protestors themselves publish a document essentially demanding the duly elected government resign en masse, we have to consider that there is a reasonable probability that this protest represents a much more significant threat to Canada and its government than appears on the surface. 

I suspect that as investigators start digging into the financial and organizational structures behind this, they are going to find a lot of very ugly things connecting this "protest" to some of the darker corners of conservative political activism, and it will likely as not be very problematic for some very highly placed conservative organizers - both in Canada and abroad. Conservatism is one thing, fascists are another matter altogether - and aligning with fascists is a danger to all of us.

Lastly, as a nation, Canada cannot justifiably allow a part, or the whole, of a city to be held under siege for any length of time. It has a duty to its citizens in such matters that requires action. The failure of local and provincial authorities to act on this threat effectively earlier made it a federal problem. The investigation into what happened needs to inspect not only the actions and organization of the protestors, but the actions (or lack thereof) of police, municipal authorities, and provincial governments as well.  Those who were willingly complicit in this debacle must be held to account - regardless of how prominent they are, or the public positions they may hold. 

In the meantime, we get to watch the CPC attempt to play "gotcha" politics with Trudeau in the House of Commons, while they madly scramble in the backrooms to destroy the evidence connecting them to the protest itself. 

There Is No Such Thing As A "True Conservative"

In his column for yesterday's National Post, John Robson opines that the problems that Jason Kenney and Erin O'Toole are having with the electorate are because they aren't being "Real Conservatives" (or "Conservative Enough").  

No, Mr. Robson, that isn't it at all. Perhaps it's escaped your notice in the last couple of decades, but conservatism has changed, and the evidence of that change exists in many places. The selection of leaders like Kenney, Scheer, and O'Toole are evidence of that change. The change started decades ago, and it solidified when Harper engineered his take-over of the PCs and Canadian Alliance parties to form the current CPC.

Yet, every time a conservative runs headlong into the reality that they aren't winning, writers like Mr. Robson start opining that it's really because the politician isn't "a true conservative".  I don't know what this "true conservative" looks like, and frankly I suspect that such an animal doesn't really exist. 

Why do I say this? Because the claim itself rests upon a 'No True Scotsman' fallacy. Writers who make this claim are blinding themselves to the reality that is unfolding around them. Today's Conservatism is no longer some semi-idealized version of a politics that was opined into existence in the 19th century. It has changed.

Conservatives chose to rally around Harper, Kenney, Ford, and more recently O'Toole ... and frankly voters are turning their backs on this brand of populist, deceitful conservatism for good reason.  

Kenney has been sliding in the polls for at least the last year. Why? Because once in power he showed us who he really is with arrogance, condescension, and lies. He has earned the ire of voters in Alberta for a bunch of reasons - but he is very much the face of today's populist conservatism. 

O'Toole came out swinging in the election, and in some ways did far better than expected.  But - and it's a big but - he lost ground in the key province of Ontario. Since losing to Trudeau in 2015, the CPC has all but undone the gains made in Ontario that helped the party win in 2006. What was it that caused them to lose in 2015? Harper dropping the veil and showing us the ugly side of the CPC - whether that was an elitist view of citizenship, or the overt racism of the campaign (Old Stock Canadians, Barbaric Cultural Practices Hotline, etc.).  

You see, these, are the values that conservatism has come to hold in Canada. Language like "Traditional Social Values" no longer means what guys like Robson seem to think it does.  It has become code-speak for a miserable combination of elitism and bigotry drawn from the worst elements of the 19th century British Empire. Fiscal probity, something conservatives have long claimed to be the natural proponents of, has become coded language for letting the wealthy off from paying their fair share towards the nation, and throws in a side helping of corporate greed.  

Conservatism today isn't what Robson thinks it is, and the fix isn't for "Kenney and O'Toole to act more like conservatives" - they are what conservatism has become. 

Figure out what conservatism should be, and find a way to that place. Don't insult Canadians' intelligence by telling us that the worst leaders of the movement "just need to act better".  The movement needs to change. 

Of Patterns and Puppetry

I've noticed a few patterns in this country's right wing politics that make me deeply suspicious.

Consider the following:

1)  Andrew Scheer flies to London to "prepare a trade deal with post-Brexit UK"

2)  Jason Kenney travels to BC to "sell pipelines"  (Facebook only)

3)  3 Conservative Senators Travel To Washington DC to discuss the "consequences" of marijuana legalization. (with "conservative" US senators ...)

4)  Jason Kenney writes a letter to Ottawa demanding that our next senator be one of the names from the last "senatorial election" held in Alberta.

5)  Rob Ford "dumps" the media bus for his upcoming provincial election campaign.

There's more - a lot more I could draw from, but let's talk about the patterns lying just below the surface of this:

First of all, items 1-4 all have something in common:  They have conservative politicians trying to be seen to "be doing things".  They are part of a campaign to give the appearance of being serious.

On what basis does Scheer think he has any standing to represent Canada in discussions about free trade with the UK?  Those discussions have rightly already been framed by the government of the day, long before the Scheer's trip.  On this basis alone, I think we can dismiss Scheer's trip as little more than political theatrics.  Theatre intended primarily to "impress" an audience at home that has been cool to Scheer as a leader of the CPC, at least in part on the basis of suspicions that he represents a takeover of the party by socially conservative elements who were kept "under thumb" during Harper's tenure.

Likewise, Kenney's foray into BC to "sell" is more political theatre. Kenney is not the Premier of Alberta - he's the Leader of the Opposition.  Further, given his pugilistic comments regarding BC's opposition to the TMX pipeline project, any speech in BC he might give is undermined by the two-facedness of his presentation.  However, the speech I linked to above wasn't a "public speech" - it was a closed door event for conservatives.  (Note CPC flag in the background)  I was unable to find a copy of the video anywhere except Kenney's own Facebook account.  (Oddly, not even on Rebel Media's website - but we'll come back to that).  Kenney, to my knowledge, has never met with BC Premier Horgan, or face to face with any of the opponents of the pipeline ... at least not willingly.

Similarly, Canadian Senators seldom travel abroad to represent the government.  There is good reason for this - that's what we hire diplomats to do.  So, the three senators who travelled to Washington this week were doing this for partisan political reasons. It is important to note that Senator Batters has been one of the most vocal Harper-appointed senators, especially with regards to the legalization of marijuana. Again, this can have no official standing with respect to the position of the Canadian government, so all that we can surmise is that this is yet another attempt to show the conservatives in Canada as having "political gravitas".

Then there are the items related to media access.  Kenney has been good at this for years.  It is rare to find full media of his events, even more rare that you would find them anywhere except under his very careful control.  There are reasons for this.  He never wants to be caught out for what he says.  Mass media is rarely allowed in the room when he holds the microphone - a few trusted allies is all.  When he does face the public, it's always scripted within an inch of its life, and designed with a purpose.  So, when Kenney travels to BC, or when he "appears" on talk radio, it's always done in a context where he won't have to face awkward questions, or any missteps will be quickly edited out.  (Talk radio on the whole is notoriously oriented towards the right-wing outrage machine, making it an ideal place for Kenney).

Today, we have Doug Ford deciding to eliminate the "media bus".  Ever since his election as leader of the Ontario PCs, I've noticed that Doug Ford has become increasingly scripted.  If he doesn't have to say anything, he won't; and if he does, it's carefully engineered.  Clearly the party is worried about a "loose cannon" moment jeopardizing their chances of ousting Kathleen Wynne this spring.  The decision to make it more difficult for the media to keep up with his campaign during the election is interesting.  It echoes Harper's distaste for the media, and it erodes the ability of that media to actually cover his campaign - leaving him somewhat freer to pander to the "Ford Nation" base.

While I make no secret of my own distaste for the degree of direct control that media owners have come to exert of late, access to our politicians is an important dimension of our democracy.  Attempts by our politicians to hide from the media, or to restrict their visibility to "friendly" outlets is a dangerous trend that does a disservice to Canadians.

Okay, so what we have here is political theatre.  In terms of the governance of the nation, it's relatively minor, right?  Or is it?  All of this starts unfolding a month after the Manning Centre Networking Conference in Ottawa, which ran in early February.

So what?  Well - all of the major players mentioned in this post were also "featured speakers" at this year's conference.  It would be stunning if there weren't a significant number of backroom strategy sessions happening as the country heads into two or three years of back to back elections at provincial and federal elections. 

The similarities in strategies being executed is profoundly disturbing. I believe we are witnessing something unprecedented in Canadian politics:  a full court press by a political faction using the same strategies at all levels across Canada - and right in the middle of it all, you find a secretive non-profit that appears to be organizing the shots.  I have no problem with organizing politically, but the idea of a group of puppet masters pulling the strings from behind a curtain of secrecy is not only wrong, it's so wrong that it stands to damage our electoral processes and the credibility of any government.  

If you don't want Canada to follow in the footsteps of the United States, this is important. 

Reflections On The Post-Harper CPC

Whatever else you say about the results of the election on October 19, it was the end of Stephen Harper's career as leader of the CPC and Canada's Prime Minister.

By all measures, this election was the CPC's to lose.  They had control over the government and its messaging, they had a financial warchest rumoured to be many times the size of their competitors, and they had control over the timing.

So, what did they do wrong?  Lots.

Harper had spent his entire time as leader of the CPC consolidating his control over the party and its top ranks.  It had become the Stephen Harper Party, for better or worse.  Personal brand of the leader is often a powerful force in making a party's success.  Making the party all about the leader is never a good idea.  Leaders sooner or later lose their legitimacy, or they become tired of what they are doing and lose their "touch".  Although the CPC appeared unified behind Harper, that doesn't mean Canada was unified behind them.

The first thing that Harper did was run a campaign that was about fear and division.  He lashed out at Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, snidely calling him "Justin" at every turn, claiming that he had neither the smarts nor the experience to be the next Prime Minister.  He played the classic socialist bogeyman arguments against the NDP.  All this is pretty normal fare in Canadian politics, but somehow Harper took it to new lows - borrowing tactics from US Republican / Teaparty politics.

When attacking his peers didn't get him the traction he wanted, Harper turned on his own campaign manager, Jenni Byrne and brought in Australian Lynton Crosby.  Shortly after Crosby's name was floated, we got two gems out of Harper - "Old Stock Canadians" and the Niqab issue.  Both were distinctly vile to Canadian sentiments.  While they briefly got traction, they both backfired on Harper.  Yes, a somewhat ham-handed response by Mulcair destroyed his support in Quebec, that support didn't come Harper's way to any great extent even in Quebec.  Canadians saw this for what it was - KKK style racism, and they turned on Harper in droves.

Then, when Crosby jumped ship to save his "professional reputation" (as a purveyor of division and racism, I might add), Harper turned back to his usual stock approaches to campaigning, hoping desperately that Canadians wouldn't put together what his government was doing.

Harper ran a most un-Canadian campaign.  He threw people under his political bus.  His candidates weren't to be found campaigning on the ground in most ridings, even his cabinet ministers were nearly invisible most of the time.  That made the campaign all about him, and Canadians don't _like_ Harper.  They might have voted for him previously, but really that was because the Conservative attack machine had managed to assassinate their characters before the election - in essence, making Harper the least unpalatable option.

It didn't do the CPC any favours that in the last four years they had accrued the baggage of repeated scandal (Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau, Bruce Carson and others), a reputation for not answering questions in the House and a legislative agenda that more and more Canadians rightly saw as mean-spirited, if not downright malicious (Bill C-51, Bill C-24, the "Fair Elections Act").  No amount of sweater vests and kittens can overcome the shadow that casts.

So, what does the CPC need to do to rebuild?  A lot, and very little of the post-election analysis out of CPC members has even broached the realities.  MPs need to recognize that they are intelligent, thinking beings who should speak out for their constituents, not just act as party brass dictate they should.  A decade of "Harper's Trained Seal Act" has left the party with a deficit of ideas and original thought in the senior ranks.

Further, the party has to acknowledge that it has acted in an incredibly racist manner.  Yes, Jason Kenney (Minister of Curry in a Hurry) built up a lot of support within Canada's various immigrant communities, but he did so while part of an organization which gained much of its backing by playing off mistrust between groups, rather than unifying them.  The niqab issue, like the turbans in the RCMP 20 years earlier, is incredibly divisive and destructive.  It was a "throw an entire vote under the bus" moment, and the government's continued appeals even after losing the case in the courts merely cemented the overt racism of Harper's campaign.  The CPC cannot be seen to govern for all Canadians until it acknowledges that.

Further, legislation like Bill C-24 and the "Barbaric Cultural Practices" act are vile.  C-24 created a two tier citizenship.  Anyone who holds, or is eligible for, citizenship in another country is suddenly subject to further punishment, not at the discretion of the courts, but at the decision of the minister - making it a political decision.  I'm still not sure how many Canadians really understand how vile that really is.   The "Barbaric Cultural Practices" act was another part of the Conservative war machine.  It was designed specifically to attack the most visible crimes associated with the Muslim community (for acts which we already have laws against).  It was unnecessary, and again overtly racist - designed to whip up public outrage and fear, not to address a real gap or problem in our society.

If the CPC wants to come within striking distance of the keys to 24 Sussex again, they will have to acknowledge how they became the Harper Party, and what they did as that party.  Then, and only then, can they start to make the broadly inclusive coalition that is needed to ascend to power.  

Democracy, As Rob Anders Would Write It

Rob "Sleepy" Anders must be feeling the heat from having competition running against him for the nomination in Calgary Signal Hill.

Yesterday, he threatened to sue Ron Liepert over claims that Liepert's campaign made that Anders' campaign was making misleading phone calls to constituents.

Liepert responded with a statement that says Elections Canada is investigating the incident. 

"We've filed complaints based on specific instances of calls from the Anders' campaign phone number claiming to be the Liepert campaign," he said in an email.

Today, he comes trotting out to claim that the dreaded "Red Tories" are trying to hijack his "True Blue Conservative Party", complete with a bunch of "Wanted, Dead Or Alive" style leaflets naming the people that Anders thinks are "temporary Tories".

At a news conference on Thursday Anders revealed the first three names on his list — former federal Liberal candidate and nursing professor Janice Kinch, radio personality Buzz Bishop and Greg Schmidt, former president of the Energy Council of Canada.  

Anders characterized his battle with Liepert as a struggle for the soul of the Conservative Party. He said the political process is being hijacked by people who are purchasing Conservative memberships just so that they can cast a vote in support of his challenger.

Considering that the CPC has moved heaven and earth to protect Anders in past nomination skirmishes, I imagine he's feeling more than a little heat since the Party is somewhat cornered on the matter this time around, having committed to "open" nomination contests for all MPs who haven't faced a nomination race since 2011.

Rex Murphy: We All Know You Are A Tory Hack ...

... now just shut up about it and let the grownups talk, please.

Talk about pathetic.  In a previous column, Murphy was emphatic about how he speaks to his own beliefs and none other.  While one might almost believe that, when Murphy's "own beliefs" sound suspiciously like talking points out of the PMO, Murphy's audience needs to get a little more suspicious.

Generally speaking, the idea of political parties blending forces, making deals with one another during elections, is not a sound one. Political parties have identities, and those identities emerge from their policies and history — and from their differences with other parties.

Hmmm...I've seen this before ... back in 2011 as I recall.  It was drivel back then, and it's drivel now.  Mr. Murphy needs to look around the world a bit more - you know to countries which have routinely had coalition governments for years.  One might, for example, point to Israel whose electoral system more or less ensures that there will never be a majority government.  I don't believe that any of the parties in the Israeli system have "lost their identity" as a result of participating in a coalition, although to be sure, the parties who get pulled into coalitions find themselves living out the old adage about "politics makes for strange bedfellows".

Such deals are, of course, the enduring dreams of parties without a hope. For example, Elizabeth May’s Green party has often nursed the hope of some “strategic” co-operation with the Liberals.  

Ah yes, let's drag out the absolutist language of winners and losers.  How very partisan of you Mr. Murphy.  Canadians are supposed to disregard the reality that we elect our representatives and send them to Ottawa to form a functional government - whether that is a majority, minority or coalition is really quite irrelevant.

We all remember the ructions from the last time a coalition was sprung on the public.  It was a mere six years ago, after the 2008 election.  A "coalition of losers" ... There was a horrified recoil from the idea, which offended mathematicians and Hansard devotees in equal numbers....Naturally the thinking part of the nation was outraged.  It had all the odour of an insider's deal and, as it turned out, Mr. Layton had gamed it before the elections and was later heard to brag about his tactical prescience.  Despite the backlash over the idea they pressed on.  The very power of the idea of foiling Stephen Harper was so string in those partisan hearts, they could not resist attempt to finesse an election they simply had not won. 

Wow.  Talk about repeating the talking points, Rex.  People who actually understand how our parliamentary democracy is supposed to work were not outraged at all.  In fact, the real outrage was that our graceless Prime Minister of the day had the audacity to claim that a coalition was somehow "undemocratic" - in spite of the fact that the opposition parties in fact represented a greater percentage of the Canadian electorate than did the governing Conservative Party.

The claim that a coalition is somehow "undemocratic" is absolute nonsense.  That's language the Harperites reserve for when they aren't at the head of the proposed coalition, as Harper demonstrated in 2004.

Mr. Murphy, if you truly believe the nonsense you are spouting, at least respect Canadians enough to not so obviously parrot the talking points that the PMO is handing out.  If you are just being a shill for the CPC, kindly do all of us the favour of announcing that you are going to run as Stephen Harper's lead fluffer in the next election - that way we'll all know exactly where you stand.

 

The Future Of The CPC

Andrew Coyne made an excellent point in his column about the Manning Networking Conference that the Manning Centre is hosting in Ottawa:

So this is what a Conservative convention looks like.  After that bizarre lockdown in Calgary last fall - reporters harassed and penned in at every turn, the prime minister's defiantly empty speech, the air heavy with self-congratulation and paranoia - the annual Manning Networking conference exudes an altogether different spirit:  thoughtful, open, introspective and conservative.
...
The party that met in Calgary was not so much the Conservative party as the Harper party.  It was run by and for Harper loyalist - think Pierre Poilievre - people who are happy to do whatever the leader wants done, say whatever the leader wants said, even if that means abandoning every core conviction the party has ever held.  In its place is Harperism, less an ideology than a set of behaviours:  the nastiness, the ruthlessness, the almost universal gracelessness, of which the decision to exclude opposition parties from the mission to Ukraine was only the latest example.

If you are looking at this and wondering if I've lost my marbles - I usually don't agree with much of anything that Coyne says.  Philosophically speaking, he and I live in different worlds.  However, he is very correct in saying that the CPC has very much become "The Harper Party".  This has been emerging since 2006, and since 2011 it has become much more pronounced.

Who is not here?  No one from the Prime Minister's Office, it appears, nor any member of the party hierarchy, nor any member of cabinet, other than those invited to speak.  The speaker's list, by contrast, features Jason Kenney, the Employment Minister; Brad Wall, the premier of Saskatchewan; Jim Prentice, the form Industry and Environment Minister; Michael Chong, the backbench MP and author of the Reform Act. 

It would be hard to categorize them as a group, except that they are all from outside the circle of Harperite hyper-partisans.  And they have not been shy about expressing their discontent with the party's direction, albeit in the coded indirect language that politicians employ when they do not want to be accused of disloyalty.

I've said for some time that Harper is a totalitarian, with healthy dashes of authoritarian and fascism thrown in good measure.

Mr. Prentice, for example, admonished Conservatives to "take back the environmental debate," saying "we cannot be in the business of providing our rivals with the opportunity to portray us as being out of touch" with environmental concerns. 

Sounds eminently reasonable, and in fact Mr. Prentice is one of the more reasonable members of the CPC.   That said while Mr. Coyne's article suggests a more reasonable wing of the party is meeting in Ottawa this weekend, there's a little more to it.

As PressProgress points out, the far right groups are very much in evidence too.  "WeNeedALaw.ca", Campaign Life (the people behind LifeSite News), Focus on the Family and The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada are all represented at this get-together.  There is no secret that Jason Kenney is closely affiliated with the "pro-life" social conservative wing of things (and was no doubt a key player in connecting these groups with the Manning Centre and its organizing committee for this conference).

Do not be fooled, once Harper's iron-fisted grip on the party weakens, I fully expect the coalition of fiscal and social conservatives that he has welded together by sheer force of will to once again start openly pushing for their particular agendas much more vocally.

Just because Harper has not been willing to open the Abortion debate, or touch gay marriage since 2006, does not mean that others are satisfied with that stance.  The far right desperately wants to push a social agenda forward that is just as insane as the Tea Party wing of the GOP is currently trying to sneak in.  I fully expect the upcoming prostitution law from MacKay will turn out to be a piece of "red meat" to the social conservative base.  It won't criminalize prostitution per se, but by criminalizing the consumption of paid sex, it will reinstate exactly the same conditions that made things dangerous under the laws the Supreme Court just struck down.

The post-Harper CPC may not be as authoritarian as Harper has been, but I would not be optimistic about it returning to the much more moderate roots of the PC party under more adult parliamentarians such as Joe Clark either.

Thought's On Chong's Reform Bill

Michael Chong's Bill C-559 is a relatively short piece of work, but it has taken me a bit of time to go through it and start to understand the implications of the changes being proposed, mostly because it contains a series of small changes to much larger acts - in particular the Canada Elections Act, but also the Parliament of Canada Act.

As I read through the proposed changes (which required a lot of flipping back and forth to the current Acts to fully understand), I started to come to the conclusion that in some respects this bill is a resurrection of a piece of the original Reform party wish list.

At its core, it creates an environment which removes from the party executives direct control over the nomination of candidates.  In doing so, it removes from party leaders one of the bigger levers used to maintain control over their respective caucuses - namely the threat of the leader refusing to sign their nomination papers for the next election.

Consider the following changes:

Current Canada Elections Act S.67(4)(c):

• (c) if applicable, an instrument in writing, signed by the leader of the political party or by a person referred to in subsection 383(2), that states that the prospective candidate is endorsed by the party in accordance with section 68.

Proposed Amendment in Bill C-559:

(c) if applicable, an instrument in writing, signed by the nomination officer of the political party’s electoral district association for the electoral district that states that the prospective candidate is endorsed by the party.

You do have to read this a couple of times before it becomes clear what Chong's legislation does.  It completely removes the party executive from the nominations decision making process.  It creates a position at the riding association level called a 'Nomination Officer' who essentially has the final say over who the party nominee is going to be.

Superficially, this is not entirely a bad thing.  It hands a level of control to the riding association level in each party that has been constrained historically by the need for the party executive to "sign off" on candidates.

Is it a good thing?  That's a little more subtle and difficult to ascertain.  The Reform Party was big on "direct democracy" back in the day.  Then they started to discover that having things concentrated at the riding level meant that they got a fair number of candidates that were unelectable.  The PCs in Alberta ran smack into this a few years ago when one Craig Chandler engineered a takeover of a local riding association by his supporters and got himself nominated.  Even Ed Stelmach could see that was a good way to lose a seat, and killed Chandler's nomination.

This does create a problem to consider for party apparatus people to consider.  Can you deal with the inevitable selection of candidates at the riding level that are for one reason or another "bad news"?  If one looks at the candidates as part of the party's "marketing image", this could be seen as a significant problem.

The second part of Chong's bill is more interesting - it basically creates a mechanism through which MPs could trigger a leadership review process within a party.

(k) the extract of the party by-laws that provides that 

(i) a leadership review may be initiated by the submission of a written notice to the caucus chair signed by at least 15% of the members of the party’s caucus, 

(ii) a leadership review is to be conducted by secret ballot, with the result to be determined by a majority vote of the caucus members present at a meeting of the caucus, and 

(iii) if a majority of caucus members present at the meeting referred to in subparagraph (ii) vote to replace the leader of the party, a second vote of the caucus shall be conducted immediately by secret ballot to appoint a person to serve as the interim leader of the party until a new leader has been duly elected by the party.

MPs (or MLAs, come to that) are the people who have to work with the party executive on a day to day basis outside of elections.  The idea of MPs being able to trigger a leadership review based on the  actual work of the leadership team is not entirely bad.

However, I do think that Chong's legislation has some very fundamental problems here.

First, its threshold value is far too low.  15% of a party caucus could probably be found at any time - even when things are going well for the party.  This will create an environment where the focus is constantly on "finding enough supporters" to advance one's favoured leadership candidate, rather than handing MPs a set of tools which can be brought to bear when serious issues are found with party leadership.

The second problem I see is that there is no time fuse on when the leadership review has to take place.  The lack of a time fuse on the matter is problematic, as the leadership can then delay things as long as they choose.

The last problem, and perhaps the one that is most fatal to this proposal is that it effectively hands control over the party leadership to the MPs.  While triggering a leadership review seems like an effective tool for MPs to have access to, I do not think they should have the right to depose a leader without the consent of the party membership at large.

While I can appreciate Chong's frustration with the leadership of the CPC these days, and the overbearing control that the party discipline mechanisms are exerting on MPs, I am less than convinced that this legislation will actually have the effect that he is seeking.

The Rumbling Begins?

Harper's leadership is becoming increasingly shaky in the wake of the Senate Expenses scandal.  Rick Mercer's Rant this week hit the nail on the head as far as Harper's denials in the House of Commons are concerned:

"Either he is psychotic or he was in on it"

Perhaps more interesting is that some of Harper's backbencher's are starting to talk openly about curtailing the PM's powers.  

One of the solutions they have embraced – the cause of their shackles – is the removal of the leader’s power to veto individual candidates. Because it is difficult to win an election as an independent, Harper and the other party leaders have enormous power over their MPs, since no one can run under their party’s banner without their approval. 

Chong is expected to table a private members’ bill that would give veto power over a candidate to the riding association executive rather than the party leader or his designate, sources said. Chong’s riding association of Wellington–Halton Hills put forward a similar resolution at the Conservative convention in Calgary earlier this month. That resolution would have prevented the national party from appointing candidates — unless the electoral district association (EDA) failed to do so.

I'm not sure that legislation of this nature is actually going to stand up to scrutiny.  Such matters are largely a function of the party's constitution rather than an issue that is driven by legislation.  I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, but I wonder if it would be deemed an unreasonable constraint on the ability of an association to make its operating rules as it sees fit.  (Notably, similar motions have been defeated at CPC policy conventions)

However, it isn't the actual proposal that is of interest here, so much as it is a matter of understanding that Harper's back-benchers are starting to balk at the shackles that the Harper PMO has imposed on them.

The longstanding tradition in British parliamentary democracy by which the government is accountable to the House and the leader is accountable to the caucus is not the case in Ottawa “where everybody is accountable to the Prime Minister’s Office,” Rathgeber said.

If others in the CPC back benches are starting to see this same issue, then it is possible that someone in that group may yet rise to become Harper's Dalton Camp.  

This may be premature - it comes on the heels of a bruising couple of weeks for Harper and his allies on the Senate Scandal, so we may just be seeing a few taking advantage of opportunity to gain a little media exposure.

My personal estimate is that it will be at least twelve months before the forces within the party that are opposed to Harper to one degree or another can gain sufficient momentum to openly challenge him.

The Wingnut Base Is Still Firmly In Control

According to CBC, the CPC has passed a swath of policy motions which are clearly designed for the ultra-conservative (theocon) base.

Conservative Party members have passed motions at their biannual convention in Calgary, pledging not to support euthanasia or assisted suicide, and to scale back public sector pension plans. 

The policies don't necessarily become government policy, but tell the party's leadership, including the prime minister, what direction members would like to see. 

The party also adopted policies to:

• pledge not to support any legislation to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide.

• move public sector pensions to defined contribution plans rather than defined benefits, essentially scaling them back and bringing them into line with private sector pensions.

• reject the concept of legalizing the purchase of sex and develop a plan to target the buyers and third parties who profit off the sex trade.

• let faith-based organizations refuse the use of their facilities to people holding views contrary to their own.

• separate the CBC's TV and radio funding allocations.

So, let's go take a closer look at these, shall we?

On "sex-selective abortion", it takes a couple of minutes to find the resolution because the far right have learned that Harper won't touch anything with that word in it.  Here's the resolution:

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-26-157 - EN EDA – Langley
Section K - 70 - Women (MODIFICATION)
Amended:
The Conservative Party supports the full participation of women in the social, economic, and cultural life of Canada.
i) The Canadian workforce has evolved to include more women than ever. The Conservative Party believes all Canadians have the right to freedom from discrimination in the workplace and equality of opportunity.
ii) Individuals should be only judged on skills, qualifications and merits. Women must be entitled to equal pay for equal work.
iii) The Conservative Party recognizes the value of the caregiver. We will examine measures within the tax system to help offset economic costs without discrimination.
iv) The Conservative Party condemns discrimination against girls through gender selection 

Make no mistake about it, the faux issue of "sex selection" is nothing more than yet another attempt on the part of the Theocon base to open the abortion debate.  Intriguingly, it contains in it a none-too-subtle bit of racism as well.  It is a handful of cultures in the world who are known to engage in such practices, and trying to regulate this aspect of the discussion either involves calling people of those cultures liars when the pursue an abortion to end a pregnancy or it guarantees that they will lie about their motivations in the first place.  (Practically speaking, the motivations for having any medical procedure are between the patient and their doctor - if they even need to go that far)

On prostitution, they basically reworded an existing policy which meant more or less the same thing:

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-09-194 - EN EDA – Kildonan-St Paul
Section M - 97 – Sexual Exploitation in Canada (MODIFICATION)
Amended:
i) The Conservative Party rejects the normalization of prostitution and declares that human beings are not objects to be enslaved, bought and sold; and
ii) The Conservative Party will develop a comprehensive strategy to address and prevent the legalization of keeping a common bawdy house, living off the avails of prostitution, and communication for the purpose of prostitution.
i) The Conservative Party rejects the concept of legalizing the purchase of sex;
ii) The Conservative Party declares that human beings are not objects to be enslaved, bought or sold; and
iii) The Conservative Party of Canada shall develop a Canada specific plan to target the purchasers of sex and human trafficking markets through criminalizing the purchase of sex as well as the acts of any third party attempting to profit from the purchase of sex. 

Again, this boils down to nothing more than continuing to criminalize sex work, sex workers and those who engage with them.  Like the "war on drugs", the "war on sex" is a failed strategy.  Prostitution has been around as long as human beings have, possibly longer.  Anybody who thinks that making it illegal (and throwing people in prison) is kidding themselves.

More "red meat" for the base.

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-21-130 - EN EDA – Saskatoon Humboldt
Section J - Euthanasia (NEW)
63. Euthanasia
The Conservative Party will not support any legislation to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide.  

How effective.  There's a new issue that needs to be addressed constructively.  I know!  Let's bury our collective heads in the sand.

Euthanasia is not a simple subject, nor would I want anyone to believe that it is.  End of life issues are complex for all involved.  The courts have been clear that the current laws do not effectively address the issues involved.

Canadians need to have a constructive discussion about this subject.  Like the abortion debate, I suspect strongly that it is next to impossible to do so.  Those who have seen the suffering of those who live with long term terminal illness are no doubt far more sympathetic to the desire to have some control over when and how someone leaves this world.  The religious argument is no doubt going to continue to pound on the "every life is sacred" line.

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-15-159 - EN EDA – Mapleque
Section K - Pensions (NEW)
75. Pensions
The Conservative Party of Canada will include in its policy statement a commitment to bring public sector pensions in-line with Canadian norms by switching to a defined contribution pension model, which includes employer contributions comparable to the private sector. 

Role of Government, Taxation and Crime – 2-22-004 - EN EDA – Abbotsford
Section B - 3 – Public Service Excellence (MODIFICATION)
Amended:
The Conservative Party believes that all Canadians deserve an efficient, effective, and independent professional public service. We believe the government should build upon the whistle-blowing protection legislation to ensure that those who expose corruption and wrongdoing are protected from reprisal. We continue to support any measures which enhance public service effectiveness and accountability.
The Conservative Party believes that Public Service benefits and pensions should be comparable to those available to similar employees in the private sector, and to the extent that they are not, they should be made comparable to such private sector benefits and pensions in future contract negotiations. 

When it comes to the public sector, there is no shortage of hostility.  Aligning with "private sector pensions" is a bit of a joke.  Outside of former crown corporations, I haven't seen a private sector company that offers a pension plan of any sort for decades.  For the most part, they leave it to employees to contribute to RRSP plans and that's about it.

The second motion is the more interesting one, in my opinion.  It points to yet another area where the CPC will attack union workers in the civil service.

Canada’s Social Fabric – 1-13-152 - EN EDA – Souris - Moose Mountain
Section K – Faith Based Organizations (NEW)
75. Faith Based Organizations
The Conservative Party supports the right of faith based organizations to refuse the use of their facilities to individuals or groups holding views which are contrary to the beliefs or standards of the faith based organization without fear of sanctions or harassment and that discrimination based on the beliefs of a faith based organization be excluded from the definition of disallowed discrimination under Human Rights. 

Oh yes.  Let's institutionalize the right of certain groups to deny access to others who aren't "holy" enough.  We haven't seen this before have we?  Oh yes ... the Knights of Columbus issue in BC.

In yet another piece of red meat for the base, someone has decided that they want an "explicit" exemption for religious-based discrimination.  Who is this going to affect the most?  GLBT people, no doubt.  Annoyingly, the wording that is being used here is sufficiently broad that it could easily be stretched into the workplace, with business owners declaring their business a "faith-based organization", and presto, we have the same kind of insane crap that we regularly see in the US on matters ranging from discrimination to health insurance.

Make no mistake about it, the wingnut base is firmly in control of the CPC's policy direction.  They never have gone away or actually moderated.  Early on they were happy enough to comply with Harper's desire to gain power.  Now that they have a majority, the hard liners are once again reasserting their positions - albeit their language is a bit more vague than it once was.

Watch As Our Prison Costs Go Up

Travis Baumgartner was sentenced today.  He was sentenced to the equivalent of "40 years to life" for a bloody robbery that left three dead.

Previously, the standard sentence that Baumgartner would have received was "25 to life".  That was until the Harper Government passed a law which changed the sentencing rules for multiple murders.  Once a prisoner had served 25 years of their sentence in prison, they became eligible to apply for parole.  Baumgartner will be in his late sixties before he is eligible to apply for parole.

It seems to me that this more than a little bit pointless.  All it does is ensure that Baumgartner will be incarcerated for longer - at taxpayer expense.

This is somewhat pointless in my view.  If, after 25 years, Baumgartner is no threat to society, what is to be gained by incarcerating him for another fifteen years?  Precious little.  If he is a murderer as appalling as Clifford Olson or Paul Bernardo, then the parole evaluation should identify that and deny parole.

The notion of justice is complex and subtle.  It is a balance between rehabilitation and punishment.  Incarceration is, in our legal system, a legitimate form of punishment.  To make incarceration so severe that a prisoner has very little chance of being released before they are truly aged serves little real purpose.  What incentive is there for Baumgartner to put in the work to rehabilitate himself?  Precious little at this point.

Victim's rights groups bleat incessantly when an offender applies for parole - especially when that offender has been as high profile as Clifford Olson was.  They complain that even having a parole hearing is some kind of violation of the victim.  Perhaps it is, but I don't think that's really the case.  These people more often than not have confused justice with punishment.  Nothing can undo what has been done.  The world doesn't work that way.  But there is little to be gained by locking someone up indefinitely.

I'm not arguing that Baumgartner doesn't deserve a stiff sentence.  Nor am I arguing that at 25 years he should be paroled automatically.  I simply do not believe that some kind of injustice has been done because he can apply for parole at 25 years.  Even if he is paroled at 25 years, he remains under supervision for the rest of his life.  That's a pretty short leash, in my opinion.  Does that mean that Baumgartner will commit no further crimes once released?  No guarantees there, but justice isn't about guarantees.  It is about appropriately balancing punishment with rehabilitation.  People are not something that you can just "throw away".

Along with mandatory minimum sentences, this is another piece of the Conservative "tough on crime" nonsense which does nothing for society except increasing the taxpayer bill for prisons.

Ask yourself this - would you rather spend money on incarcerating criminals or would you prefer to see those funds used for public education or health care?  The United States has already tried this experiment.  It is now a country with the greatest percentage of its population either incarcerated or under "supervised release" (aka Parole or probation).  States like California have been driven to the brink of bankruptcy by these laws and the heavy handed approach to sentencing that they demand.