The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Conservatives Helping Conservatives

This is news?

A new political fundraising trend has developed over the past five years involving Conservative Party supporters who donated as much as they could to the party under electoral law limits in the past two elections as well as intervening years and also contributed as much or thousands of dollars more to a right-wing lobby group that has indirectly supported the Conservative government in those elections, a Hill Times review of political financing reports to Elections Canada shows.

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

King's College Circle, University of Toronto

A Minister of Immigration

Jason Kenney lives up to the job title:

"Some of the people who have lower language proficiency have come in through these investor schemes that we've had to shut down because they were quite dodgy, and some provinces were allowing consultants to run fast and loose and attract people who had a lot of money but no language proficiency," Jason Kenney told reporters Thursday, while providing an update on the federal government's Provincial Nominee Program.

The shocking thing here is that this is an issue. Isn't acquiring a basic proficiency in either official language one of those things that everyone, Right or Left, understands is necessary? It's 2012 and the Minister of Immigration is making headlines for trying to make sure dodgy people, with little command of either official language, are kept out.

Jason Kenney is perhaps the first true Minister of Immigration we have had since the 1970s, seriously thinking about the why and how of immigration. While he has built on the work of his predecessors Monte Solberg and Diane Finley, since 2008 Kenney has made a name for himself in this portfolio. Since the late Trudeau era there had been a steady shift away from viewing new Canadians as part of a nation building process, toward seeing citizenship as a sort of divine right granted to anyone who showed up.

Years ago I meet a refugee who proudly declared, in her few bits of semi-broken English, that Canada belonged to everyone. Little darling had never worked a day of her life on Canadian soil, or paid a net cent in taxes to the public fisc. She existed on a variety public and private handouts. Dressed in black from head to toe with only the face visible. Her lifestyle was pitiful by Canadian standards. Yet for someone who likely grew up among goat herders it was a considerable improvement.

Here in the Imperial Capital you meet all sorts. The immigrants who in spirit and deed match the old romantic images of Ellis Island and Pier 21. International drifters running away from debts, relationships and the law. Those with money for whom Canada is a safe if rather cold bolt hole. Representative of every class, creed and race on earth with only one commonality, a desire to escape from whence they came.

Most nations do not have an immigration policy. Having nothing but people they export them to whoever will accept their native surplus. For a select few rich nations an immigration policy is a necessity, they are destinations for the world. Only the United States is held in higher regarded by the world's emigrants than Canada. The choice for us is who to let in and why. It is a choice we have made rather haphazardly over the last few decades.

It is far harder for someone from Portugal to immigrate to Canada than from most of the Third World, regardless of education. I've known trained engineers, equal in skill to Canadian graduates, in fields begging for such skills, being forced to wait years for legal admission. This while hordes of the unemployable are admitted under the rubric of family reunification. Let us not even mention the horrors of a refugee policy that seems adept only at excluding the desperate and welcoming the criminal.

While conservatives are mostly keen on market solutions to social and economic problems, on the topic of immigration they often lean toward government intervention. Skeptical of the ability of newcomers to integrate, as well as the burdens rapid population growth place on overstretched public infrastructure, they want to reduce the net inflows. Allow time for existing populations to integrate and for public finances to strengthen. In time, once the economy revives, the topic can be revisited.

Had the Boomers not largely failed to reproduce themselves, far too many opting for one child families, this might have been an option. The demographic clock is ticking and immigration, often from cultures far less advanced than ours, is the only way to make up the population gap between workers and retirees. 

An immigration policy that brings in productive workers is an enormous net gain to the country. Their education and upbringing costs were borne by the country of origin. Canada gets these workers at their most productive with little outlay. An immigration policy that burdens the nation with those who add nothing to our economic life, is a double disaster. More dependants on the welfare state to add to the drawers of CPP and OAS, while also being one less contributor. Since our immigration system functions by quota, every unproductive immigrant takes the place of a potentially productive one.

Without the welfare state this would be of minimal concern. Immigration numbers would be largely driven by the demands of the labour market. The government's role could be kept to screening out the violent and the fraudulent. Lacking a public education system that would preach multiculturalist propaganda, the newcomers would in time integrate, as generations before have done. A low tax policy would make it easier for couples to have larger families, forestalling the type of demographic crisis we now face.

The New Jerusalem is not yet upon us. The electorate expects its portion of taxpayer subsidized goodies. Free stuff that they believe someone else is paying for. Free immigration and a generous welfare state are incompatible. Severely limiting benefits newcomers could obtain would help mitigate this problem, yet the current political situation would make that approach impractical. Whatever might be legislated by a federal government, would have to be implemented by provincial and municipal governments. The lower the level of government, the more radicalized the politics.

In this fallen world Jason Kenney represents a great improvement. He is insisting that new Canadians acquire basic proficiency in the language, an understanding of our traditions and customs and shifting immigration back onto an economically sustainable basis.  The taxpayer subsidized multicultural hotel is beginning to fade away. A federal ministry is a very large and slow ship to turn around. Let us hope the Prime Minister is wise enough to keep Minister Kenney in place for years to come.

Thursday Night - North By Northwest

Moonbase Gingrich

So this is what's left of the Republican Party?

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is promising to establish a permanent base on the moon by 2020 if he's elected.

Gingrich, the former House speaker, told an overflow crowd gathered on Florida's space coast Wednesday that he wants to develop a robust commercial space industry in line with the airline boom of the 1930s. He also wants to expand exploration of Mars.

The pronouncements appeared to thrill the crowd of roughly 700 people. Florida's space coast is still suffering from a recent round of federal cuts to the space program.

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Manitoba Drive, CNE Grounds

The East Wants Back In

Really Preston?

“We kind of joke about this eastern alienation,” he says. “But then I usually sober them down and say, ‘You remember how you felt when you thought you were out of it. ... Nobody in the country should ever feel out of it like that again.’ It’s interesting, audiences will applaud that ... they remember.”

I wouldn't worry too much. Ontario is still the 800 lb gorilla of Confederation. Quebec's population is greater than that of all the Prairie provinces. Unlike the West, la belle province still votes in a bloc like fashion. The interests of Alberta do not always match with those of Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Quebec is always Quebec.

Manning's big worry isn't Ontario, it's the precincts to the east of the Ottawa River. These are regions, however, that have always felt alienated. The Maritimes because they are small and removed from the economic heartland of the continent. Quebec feels alienated as a matter of principle. A people dedicated to elevating a persecution complex into an art form.

As always the Reform Party founder is talking about more than mere regional power brokering. His skepticism of big federal solutions remains as strong as ever, pushing instead for greater actions by the provinces and the private sector. Quebec not feeling the love? Well Alberta and Quebec both sell energy to America, so why not build a common front there? The East is starting to feel left out?Create a national free trade agreement that mirrors the one hammer out by the Western provinces.

There is also Manning's usual political realism. The Canadian electorate has not become conservative by voting in a Conservative majority government. They are skeptical of big government, though not necessarily enamoured with small government. The half-way house Manning envisions is of government as a partner and enabler, rather than an over bearing paternalist. Hardly ideal, yet better that what we've seen over the last four decades.

The more militant libertarians and conservatives might scoff at this pragmatism. Big government, however, is like an addiction. After generations of being given free stuff, directed by a distant federal government, it won't be easy to wean them off. Brave souls might suggest going cold turkey. Canadian electorates are rarely brave. We were inched toward socialism for decades, we will have to inch away from it, helped along by the occasional fiscal and demographic crisis.

Now after reading that last paragraph you might be wondering how my praise for incrementalism can be matched with my clock-like repetitive criticisms of the Harper Tories. After all these years have I finally seen the light? Not in the slightest. I'm fine with incrementalism. The Canadian public isn't ready for anything faster or stronger. Easy stages. Over the last six years we have not seen incrementalism from the Harper Conservatives, at least not in the direction of a smaller state.

Jim Flaherty's tweaking of the Health Transfer, to keep it within fiscally sane bounds, is a good though very small start. The noises coming out of Treasury Board and Finance suggest we might get some real cuts in the 2012 budget. Perhaps the Harper Tories will partially redeem themselves and balance the books in a reasonable time frame. A long spell of minority government limited what the Harper Tories could do, yet that does not explain the exuberance with which they spent. 

My complaint isn't that Stephen Harper is an insufficiently conservative Prime Minister, it's more that he is an excessively risk averse one. But the majority is still young. Who knows what the future might bring? Perhaps even a balanced budget. Hope springs eternal.

Wednesday Night - The Remains of the Day

I Guess They Just Forgot

Rolling back the frontiers of the state?

In the six years since the Harper government came to power, Canadian taxpayers have spent millions of dollars on supporting a federal appointments commission that doesn't exist.

The money has disappeared into a bureaucracy set up to support the commission — a bureaucracy that seems to have just about everything except a commission to support.

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Nunavut Road, CNE Grounds

Ban the Bob

Harperism's long hand reaches out to the "interim" Liberal leader:

Federal interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae is accusing New Brunswick's Progressive Conservative government of stopping him from appearing at a community college in Edmundston.

Rae said in an interview on Monday that he had planned to visit the community college but that stop was halted late last week.

“On Friday, the provincial government cancelled that part of the visit, which is I suppose a sign that we can’t get rid of petty politics no matter how hard we try,” he said.

The actual reason given by the college? They haven't had their grand opening yet. The administrators have said they are keen to have the Bob back some other time, just as soon as they fully open and ready to receive official visitors. I take it that this small community college doesn't have a Super Elite status among visitors.

So an obscure college in back of the beyond New Brunswick doesn't want the Bob messing up the carpet until everything is setup. Naturally this smacks of a vast-right wing conspiracy. Since coincidence is the bread and butter of conspiracy theorists, and grand standing politicians, let us examine the ominous parallels at work. The college is in the federal riding of minister Bernard Valcourt. Minister Valcourt's sister is the New Brunswick minister of post secondary education, as well as the MLA for the area. Oh, what a tangled web!

The Bob wants to do a low-grade photo-op in the middle of January. His official position is "interim" leader of the third party in the House of Commons. Technically he is about as important as a local town councillor. Since the hicks in the sticks didn't immediately re-arrange their plans for the former Premier of Ontario, it must be a Conservative conspiracy to silence the Bob. 

I can just imagine the Prime Minister, in between jetting to Davos, renegotiating treaties with the aboriginal tribes and hinting to Jim Flaherty where to put the axe, turning to one his staffers and saying: You know what we need to do? We need to screw up one of Bob Rae's photo-ops. Maybe in some small town that no one outside of the Maritimes has heard of. Just because.

To be fair to the Bob, we are nothing if not fair to former members of the NDP, he is accusing the provincial Tories of screwing up his photo-op. He is leaving it up to the minds of intrepid members of the MSM to fill in the blanks about the PMO's role in all this. Despite the fact that the college is OK with the Bob coming, just not coming whenever it is convenient for the "interim" Liberal leader.

Does Bob Rae actually believes his own BS? Or is it that after years of practice his feigned outrage has become a pavlovian response. When he gets cut off on the highway does he scream that the driver must be a PMO staffer? If the barista gives him a grande rather than a venti, are Tim Hudak's minions at work? Should he trod in some cow mature in the vasty fields of Saskatchewan, is Brad Wall to blame? 

It probably doesn't matter. Most politicians have a healthy capacity for self-delusion. Having spent most of his adult life in politics, the Bob fell through the looking glass some time ago. He is also playing a very weak hand. The Liberals are widely believed to be a spent force in federal politics. They have little in the way of constructive policies, unless you are both pro-marijuana and anti-monarchy. Unfortunately for the Grits the libertarian-republican vote is rather small in Canada.

When you don't have something important to say, just say something outrageous. This is a trick municipal politicians are especially adept at practicing. Few pay attention to politics in Canada, fewer still care who is supervising the garbage pick-up in their commuter suburb. So long as the petty thieves and the raccoons are kept in reasonable check, the ordinary voter is content to let sleeping pols lie. 

Should you be ambitious to get into municipal politics, this will require getting people's attention. Since this is Canada and not Bolivia, the water generally works and the garbage is usually picked up. This leaves the political challenger with only hyperbole to try to knock off the incumbent. It is little wonder that Carolyn Parrish fled to Mississauga City Council after having been booted out of the Liberal caucus. There she spent several years throwing spitballs at Hazel McCallion, a woman too experience and wily to be anything but annoyed.

Bob Rae has sunk to the level of Carolyn Parrish. Throwing spitballs at a well established, essentially competent incumbent. Having nothing to say, the Bob does this Seinfeld style shtick, proclaiming injustice and conspiracy in everyday misunderstandings. This has worked pretty well at getting the Grits much needed free air time. At some point, if the Liberals intend on becoming a serious party again, they will need to tell the Canadian people what they are offering the nation. Aside from daily bouts of feigned outrage.

 

Tuesday Night - A Star Is Born

The Mother Corp Strikes Back

From the Red Star:

“We had the idea of sending them a bill … we’ve given them a lot of content,” Lacroix joked Thursday at a meeting with the editorial board of the Toronto Star.

He presented a survey detailing the extent of Sun Media’s negative coverage of the CBC since September 2009. It spiked dramatically in December 2010, when Sun TV started operating.

Asked whether the negative campaign had damaged the public broadcaster, Lacroix said, “No … but when they come at us with so-called facts that are completely false … we will do whatever we can to make sure people know the truth.”

Sun TV began broadcasting in April of 2011. But hey, I'm just a blogger. Keep on truthing...

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Ontario Place

Landlord Dippers

The NDP joines the rentier class:

The Hill Times took a look at the NDP’s annual financial returns from Elections Canada, comparing the party’s capital assets in 2003 to 2004. In 2003, the NDP’s capital assets consisted only of furniture and equipment. But in 2004, in addition to furniture and equipment, the NDP had acquired land and building capital assets at a cost of $4,102,053. The purchase of the building was finalized in February 2004, said Ms. Housser.

“Where the Conservatives invested large money in developing and building an [database] infrastructure to raise money, the NDP took advantage before the rule change to get their supporters and their partners in labour to get them a building that they could then use as collateral,” said Mr. Coletto.

Now if a large corporation had been similarly generous with the Tories, would it have taken eight years for this information to come to light? What if that money had come from a Calgary based oil company? Seemingly every other column on the Prime Minister highlights his "close links" with the Alberta oil industry. Rather less mention is made of the support of the NDP by its union friends.

According to this Hill Times article, until the banning of union donations, the Dippers received a little less than a fifth of their budget from organized labour. That's a large chunk of dues money flowing into Orange coffers, yet it understates the benefit the Dippers get from their alliance with Canadian Labour. At election time union members often volunteer to help with canvassing, nailing in lawn signs and driving voters to polling stations. They are the foot soldiers of social democracy.

The MSM mostly turns a blind eye to the Dippers' union links, yet thinks nothing of spinning tales of vast Right-wing conspiracies between conservative activists and the oil industry. The difference here is that corporations try to make profit, which is sinful in the eyes of the Left and Centre-Left. Unions are not about profits, we are solemnly told, they are about the rights of workingmen and women. Those images have been fixed in the public's mind for the last century, and so are easily leveraged by journalists and politicians.

Profits and wages are two different types of benefits paid to economic actors. The former is based on equity and risk, the latter on work without equity. Morally there is not the slightest difference between them. Belief otherwise is just the logic of class warfare still lingering on in the early 21st century. People who wear suits and ties trying to benefit themselves, that's bad. People wearing hard hats trying to benefit themselves, that's good. It's an illogical bit of discrimination held together in the minds of some by hazy images of Dickensian workhouses, which incidentally were government institutions.

The NDP gets favourable coverage because it poses as the benefactors of the poor and weak, idealists engaged in politics for the benefit of others. That a member of the House Commons, whatever his social democratic credentials, makes well into the six-figures is less noted. Corporations are selfish exploiters and the Conservative Party is their enabler. Therefore anything a Tory MP or staffer does or says is viewed through that lens. Their actions are selfish and their superiors driven by greed and power lust.

Karl Marx, whose dead hand still deeply influences the Left, observed that rentier capitalism, where income was derived not through risk or effort, but simply as rent from land or property, was capitalism at its most decadent and parasitic. There is something rather too fitting now that the NDP have become rentier capitalists themselves. They could rely on the small contributions of ordinary supporters, but that's not always a reliable source of income. It only makes sound business sense to diversify their income streams. Hopefully the NDP frontbenchers remember that the next time they are denouncing corporate greed.