Five Point Plan to Save Canada from the Cons

1. Justin Trudeau announces his intention to resign as Prime Minister to the Liberal caucus and the Liberal caucus appoints an interim leader.

2. Justin Trudeau resigns as Prime Minister and asks the Governor General to select the interim Liberal leader as Prime Minister of a National Unity Government with Jagmeet Singh as Deputy Prime Minister and Elizabeth May in the Cabinet (in order to allow assured confidence and time for a new Liberal leader to be selected before the next federal election).

3. The Liberal, New Democratic, and Green parties announce they will not compete against each other in the next election, agreeing that whichever party (of the three) won the most votes in each constituency in the last election will not be challenged by the other two.

4. After the next election, if successful, the National Unity government will strike a special Parliamentary committee with expert researchers to consider expert and public testimony on electoral reform, followed by a report and legislation, with implementation of a new electoral system by Elections Canada.

5. The National Unity Government will be dissolved and a new election held under the new electoral system and a truly representative government that reflects the votes of the Canadian people will be elected.

Federal Election 2019 Reflections

The big surprise of the election has to be the Bloc Québécois resurgence, although I am sure they probably saw it coming even if the rest of us didn't. This certainly makes leader Yves-François Blanchet's position secure.

The other surprise was the late campaign resurgence of the New Democratic Party under leader Jagmeet Singh. I am sure many New Democrats are thinking if only they had another week of the campaign as his popularity surge does not seem to have peaked yet. If before the election there was uncertainty over whether they had made the right choice he has proven himself and his leadership is certainly secure now.

The Green Party under Elizabeth May is a different matter altogether. This was the election they were supposed to make a breakthrough and it proved not to be. While Elizabeth May may be a saint to many Greens, others have questioned her “leadership style”, to put it politely. To many the Green Party is Elizabeth May and that may be a problem in itself. The question for the future of the party may be is there a Green Party beyond Elizabeth May.

As for the upstart People’s Party of Canada (aka the “Mad Max party” or the “I'll get you Andrew Scheer party”), it went down in flames with even leader Maxime Bernier losing the seat he won as a Conservative in the last election. There will be no leadership change here as you cannot have anyone else but Max Bernier lead the Max Bernier party. What we will likely see is brave statements about this being their first election and they will be better organized next time, followed by the party slowly fading away.

This was supposed to be the election the Conservative Party under Andrew Scheer formed government, considering Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau's recent SNC-Lavalin and brown face scandals, to name just two. But that was not to be, leaving Max Bernier with at least something to celebrate. The knives were already out for Andrew Scheer during the last week of the campaign as many Conservatives foresaw what was coming. But it is not only leadership the Conservatives have to change, they need to find a way to move beyond their social conservative base that just scares away other voters.

As for the apparent winner, Liberal Party leader, and Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, the big question is going to be did he win a minority or lose a majority. To many observers this is the election where more people voted against the Conservatives than voted against the Liberals. It may indeed have been an election where the Liberals won despite, not because of, Justin Trudeau. I see it as similar to the last election Kathleen Wynne's Liberals won in Ontario. Discontent with her leadership of the province was only going to grow and she did not see it was time to step down and let the Liberals re-brand under a new leader if they hoped to win the next election. Will Justin Trudeau see this, or more importantly, will the Liberal Party.

So how many party leadership campaigns will we be seeing in the next few years.

Postscript - What if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had kept his promise and this election was not held under the First Past The Post system but under a system where every vote counted.

The Great Debate - My Predictions

As an almost unilingual anglophone I will not be making predictions on the French debate, but I am posting my English debate predictions now, so as not to be influenced by the media coverage of the French debate.

This has the makings of one of the country’s most historical events. It may very well be the turning point in this election that leads to real change rather than the normal superficial changes we usually see in federal elections.

Those of us who say that Jack Layton and the NDP can win this election do not say so frivolously. We know the debate will make the difference and we know that Jack needs to win the debate.

So what are my predictions.

Stephen Harper will be more of Stephen Harper, He will come across as a stronger more intense Stephen Harper. His core supporters will be delighted and see him as the winner. Those who have always opposed him will have their views reconfirmed. But most importantly, Harper’s soft support from traditional Progressive Conservative Party voters, who want to vote Conservative but have doubts about Harper and the new Conservative Party, will be placed in jeopardy.

Stéphane Dion will surprise many and come across better than expected. He will not do a terrible job in the debate, only a poor one. The Liberals Green Shift was a gutsy move but his retreat to the wimpy”we are in the middle” position will hurt him.

Gilles Duceppe will not be playing to his core Quebec francophone audience and that will show.

Elizabeth May will be a disappointment. The debate will give viewers a chance to see beyond her party’s Green label. All her efforts to get into the debate may come back to haunt her as she has to deal with the more experienced debaters.

Jack Layton will continue what he has been doing throughout the campaign and will show he has the leadership capability to be Prime Minister and that the NDP has the polices that ordinary working Canadians and their families need.

Why Green Party Supporters Should Vote NDP

“I'd rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as prime minister, because his policies are too dangerous.”
--Elizabeth May

The Most Hated Man in Newfoundland

Not being a Newfie myself, I might not use the same colourful language as Danny Williams or Loyola Hearn, but I have to say that I share their sentiments when it comes to Paul Watson. By his actions the man appears to be everything that they say he is.

Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society continue to spread lies about the Canadian seal hunt as a propaganda technique to raise money. The seal hunt has never been an environmental issue as the seals being hunted have never been an endangered species. While originally there may have been valid concerns about the humaneness of the hunt, the protesters won their battle years ago when the regulations and practices of the hunt were changed. It is time for them to move on to fight real environmental issues. However, because of the cash cow it provides the seal hunt protesters continue to use images of white coat seals in their fund raising campaigns even though they have not been hunted since 1987.

The last straw for Newfoundlanders, and all Canadians, came when Paul Watson expressed total disregard for the lives of Canadians who risk their lives in a dangerous occupation to provide for their families, and claimed that the deaths of seals was a greater tragedy than the deaths of Canadians. This was an act that caused Green Party Leader Elizabeth May to disassociate herself from Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Paul Watson, as the ring leader, should have been arrested along with the officers of The Farley Mowat, He is just as responsible as they are for placing the lives of Canadian at risk.

The Fifth Column supports Canadian sealers and condemns Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Society for their misrepresentation of the seal hunt and their total disregard for the lives of Canadians.

BACKGROUND:

CBC: Author Farley Mowat bails out anti-sealing protesters

CBC: Williams assails anti-sealing activist Watson as 'terrorist'

CBC: 2 crew members arrested as anti-sealing vessel seized

CBC: The Atlantic seal hunt – FAQs

The Cult of Personality Without The Personality

A cult of personality or personality cult arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create a larger-than-life public image through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships but can be found in some democracies as well.

A cult of personality is similar to general hero worship except that it is specifically built around political leaders. However, the term may be applied by analogy to refer to adulation of non-political leaders.

I have been in the government and opposition lobbies of the House of Commons a few times, all prior to the Harper government, and while I do recall seeing portraits and photographs of politicians, including the party leaders of the time as well as former Prime Ministers, they were all of a more formal or historical nature and did not dominate the walls. It was certainly nothing like the description provided by Elizabeth May, which strike me as being campaign type photos.

What may have been the most fascinating part of the afternoon was my time in the Government Lobby. Behind the curtains that run along the last row of benches on both sides of the House, are doors to long skinny living room areas. One is called the Opposition Lobby; the other the Government Lobby. In my pre-Green Party leader life, I have spent a lot of time in both. The Government Lobby was a frequent work space when I was Senior Policy Advisor to the federal Minister of Environment back in the mid-1980s. And I frequented both lobbies when I was with Sierra Club of Canada from 1987-2006. It did not strike me until I walked into the Government Lobby to await my turn as Speaker that I had not been in there since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister.

It used to have some paintings on the wall. Past prime ministers, certainly a formal portrait of the Queen. Landscapes. I know there was the occasional photo of current Prime Ministers, but when I walked in this time, I felt chilled to the bone. Every available wall space had a large colour photo of Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper at Alert. Stephen Harper in fire fighter gear. Stephen Harper at his desk. Stephen Harper meeting the Dalai Lama. Even the photo of the Queen showed her in the company of Stephen Harper. None were great photos. None were more than enlarged snapshots in colour. They didn’t feel like art.

This is, of course, “Canada’s New Government” led by the new Conservative Party without a past.

This is the government that decided using Canada’s official colours of red and white on the government websites just had to go because red is also the colour of the Liberal Party. So now we have blue dominated government websites, because blue is the colour of the Conservative Party. If only it was just a symbolic change, but we see so many examples off the new Conservative government’s attempt to politicize the Public Service, as well as independent public agencies.

This is also the government that wants to control how the press does it’s job covering the government and its actions and in particular Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

This is a party without a past, or at least with a past that it does not want to remind people of. It certainly does not want people to be reminded of it’s extreme right wing roots in the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance, and at the same time it does not want to be associated with those “progressive” elements in the old Progressive Conservative Party. In fact better not to have people think about party at all, but rather about a strong charismatic leader.

Stephen Harper is no Pierre Trudeau, and neither is he a John Diefenbaker. So what to do when you do not have a strong charismatic leader. How do you build a cult of personality without a personality. Images. But why the government lobby of the House of Commons when only insiders will see the images. The press of, course, also gets to see them but they apparently did not notice until it was drawn to their attention by Elizabeth May. Is support for Stephen Harper so wishy washy within his own party that they need to inundate Conservative Members of Parliament with photos of “The Leader”.

Perhaps it is all innocent and they are simply using caucus members as a “focus group” for the next election’s campaign images.