Tuesday 26 November 2013

On the Byelections in Brandon-Souris, Provencher, Toronto Centre, and Bourassa

Byelections are often seen as a snoozy affair.  This time around was a bit different.  In Toronto Centre both the Liberals and NDP ran star candidates.  The NDP had strong hopes of winning the riding while the Liberals needed to hold onto a riding that usually supports them, almost without fault.  In Brandon-Souris, Manitoba, recent polling had the Liberals leading by as much as 29% in a riding that had elected Conservatives in all but one election in the past 60 years, with 64% in the last election.  The media seemed intensely interested in the story of a resurgent Liberal party and a troubled Conservative government and so that was the narrative we had been fed in the days leading up to the byelections.  It also seems to be the narrative that continued on the nightly news despite results that do not entirely tell that tale.
The results ended up being, for the most part, more of the same.  The Conservatives were re-elected in two safe Manitoba ridings and the Liberals were re-elected in two safe Liberal ridings.  In Brandon-Souris the Conservative candidate won narrowly over the Liberal candidate.  This, in a riding where the Liberals barely registered with 5% and a fourth place finish in 2011.  This riding should be a cake-walk for the Conservatives.  It should not be on the Liberals' radar.   In Toronto Centre and Bourassa the Liberals won by a comfortable margin.  The NDP came in a respectable second. They did not take the Toronto riding as they had hoped, despite their star candidate and the widely appreciated performance of Thomas Mulcair in the House of Commons.
The byelections alone do not say much more than this.  Considering what else is going on right now, however, the byelections indicate a lot more.  For the NDP it says they really have an uphill battle to remain the second-place party.  With the attention that the media is giving Justin Trudeau and his Liberal party it will be very hard for Mulcair to get any.  The media is now on this resurgent Liberal narrative, combined with the 'scandal-plagued' Conservative narrative it leaves very little room for the NDP.  The results tonight also do little to dispel this narrative.  In both the Manitoba ridings the NDP went from solid second-place party to way back in third.  A bit of a silver lining is that they do seem to have a solid base of support in Montreal and Toronto.
For the Liberals it appears to be nothing but good news.  The media can be relied upon to feed the Liberal narrative to the public.  Liberals vastly increased their support and came close to winning in ridings where they barely registered before.
What  is important to remember is that this is in the midst of the most intensely negative news cycle that the Conservative government has faced.  It has been very difficult for the government to turn the page and important accomplishments have gone unnoticed.  CETA, for instance, is one of the most significant policy developments of the past couple of decades.  CETA deserves, and will eventually get, more attention.  When that happens it will be a good thing for the Conservatives.  That is not to say that coverage of the scandal is unwarranted or unfair; the government brought it on themselves.
Byelections are typically hard on the governing party.  It was a chance for constituents to express distaste for elements of the Conservative record without actually kicking out the government.  It is safe to presume that the results would be vastly different if the voters knew that, in fact, their decision could change the government.  The level of support that the Conservative candidates in all four ridings received is worrisome but only if it resembled a more permanent change in voting preferences and not a temporary snub to a governing party.   If all this hullabaloo has already reached its peak then Conservatives can easily move on, and up, from this low point.
Justin Trudeau remains an underwhelming parliamentarian and an inexperienced politician.  The prospect of such a rookie, whose only two notable attributes are his name and his looks, as Prime Minister is one that is truly suspect.  The Liberal party brand goes no further than the leader and is otherwise no less in shambles than after the election in 2011.  The longer that popular distaste for the Harper Conservatives lasts, however, the more that the Trudeau Liberals become the default choice for an ever-increasing pool of Canadians.  Thomas Mulcair is a calculated, capable, and formidable politician but he also faces a struggle for media attention and the uncertainty surrounding his, and his party's economic positions.  The Conservatives remain the clear choice for voters concerned about economic stability.  Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have a great policy record to stand on.  One that can surely win the next election if only he, and the party, can get ahead of this 'scandal'.  They need to figure out how to do so, and fast.

Tuesday 19 November 2013

On the Rob Ford and Senate 'Scandals'

It has been nearly a year since my last blog post.  I am attempting to get back into it and there is certainly a lot to talk about. 

Since my last post the love-in with Trudeau seems to have waned; although you would be hard-pressed to tell with some of the fan-girls in the national media. Trudeau II continues to make blunder after blunder and thanks to the work of bloggers and Sun News, followed by the acquiescence of the mainstream national media, these gaffes are actually getting out there.  Based on this and the fact that Liberal support started to decline and Tory support began recovering until the senate scandal re-reared its head, I would question if most of the increased ‘support’ for Liberals is a temporary phenomenon.  As horrible as the whole Rob Ford ordeal is it may have been a PR blessing for the Conservatives; now the media party has another dead horse to flog.

It sort of saddens me to have my first post back be about things I do not think deserve the attention that they have been getting.  Focusing an entire blog post on a money-scandal or the personal misfortunes of a mayor whose policies I respect seems distasteful, but the urge to write is back and so I digress.

I will say a few words on the senate scandal.  Spending scandals have always and will always occur in democratic nations.  The people doing the misdeed should face justice and, if possible, reforms should be put in place to ensure similar misdeeds do not occur.  Canada, despite what I fear is being portrayed in the coverage of this scandal, holds its elected officials to a high account.  While more could be done, reforms have been instituted by this and previous governments.  I rest assured that we, as a nation, will continue to perfect our system and create ways to hold our politicians to ever-higher account.  That being said, Senators are not elected. They are appointed. The Senate is not transparent; it is shrouded in secrecy.  They are not held to account by the people because they are not of the people; they are apparently for the people, although forgive me missing how exactly.  Perhaps this scandal has woken up more Canadians to the absurdity of how the Senate operates and has created, in earnest, a demand for more accountability of Senators.  As far as the $90,000 cheque, I really could not care less.  A Senator got caught doing what, on some level, I am sure most of them do.  The media party wanted their story and the PMO, or some operatives within it, misguidedly offered Duffy a cheque to make it all go away.  The rest is the stuff of tabloids.  I hope that the RCMP does its job and that whoever needs to be held to account, is.  I had hoped that the reputations of seemingly good people like Duffy, Wallin, and Wright were not to be tarnished.  I hope that those in the PMO responsible for the mucking up of all this learned lessons.  Perhaps, that throwing a friend and ally under the bus is never a decent thing to do.

I feel that ‘scandals’ such as this one and the Rob Ford one say more about the media and the people consuming the news than the people involved.  What it does say, in many ways, is not nice.  Much of the coverage is distasteful, it wreaks of spite, and is completely vacuous.  “Look: It’s a fat mayor smoking crack! Hehehe! Look: He admitted it now. Asshole!”, is the best I can gather from most of the headlines.  That is not to say I haven’t read some thoughtful articles about both.  Indeed, those close to mayor Ford have gone too far with their enabling.  If he had of exited early and sought help he could have come back and been more successful than ever.  His policies are good.  People like him.  He was, in many ways, one of those larger-than-life conservative characters that appears every so often and galvanizes support.  He feeds off the antagonism of his enemies, and since they seem to number so many now, Ford may be around longer than we expect.

It may be safe to assume that the bad taste in my mouth regarding these scandals is largely because they involve ‘my guys’.  But there is more to it.  I do not delight in watching others’ misfortunes played out in the national media.  I think back to the sponsorship scandal (the parallel has been drawn before and I will reiterate here: $90,000 vs. Millions) and while I was happy it was causing more people to look seriously at the alternative, I was not happy to see Paul Martin's reputation destroyed by a mess that, largely, was not his. Thankfully time, I think, has been more generous to him. I also did not care to see it all play out.  I do not appreciate the gotcha-ism of it all and the way that the media does not provide more context, or perhaps that people do not seek out more context, to the stories. These ‘scandals’ are just too scandalous; while a part of me is drawn in, another part of me feels I am above it all. Here is to hoping that once the dust settles and the media circus is over we can reflect and make sound judgements about the people involved, without all the sanctimony, based on all they did, not just one overblown scandal.