The Gods of the Copybook Headings

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.

 

Monday Night - The Wrath of Khan

The Donald

Brian Lee Crowley

One of the best Canadian politicians of his generation, Macdonald left behind him an enduring and powerful legacy. No, no, not Sir John A. The other one: Donald S. Macdonald.

A Trudeau-era cabinet minister, Macdonald is best remembered for his job post-politics. At Trudeau's behest he headed the Macdonald Royal Commission, which reported in 1985.

Dry-as-dust history? Hardly. A quarter of a century later we forget how Macdonald's report led us out of a historical cul-de-sac and revolutionized our economy. It is a feat we need to repeat today, so Macdonald's triumph deserves our attention.

 

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Northern Dancer Blvd

The Dalt & Don Show

The Dalt outsources his job to Don Drummond:

Some procedures simply won’t be available, such as the arthroscopic knee surgery he wants removed from OHIP lists. (“No value,” he says; it just delays knee replacement for a year.) Fees paid to doctors for cataract surgery and radiology would come down because the time required has been slashed, but not compensation to physicians.

There’d be fewer Caesarean sections and hysterectomies. “The numbers are off the charts in Ontario,” says Drummond. “You’re not going to say to a doctor, please take less money, but that needs to be reflected in the fee schedule.”

For years I've been saying that Medicare will be dismantled in Canada, not through direct and open action but by stealth through the process of delisting. Well, here you go. If a Conservative Health Minister had suggested such cuts, he'd be flayed alive by the Toronto Star. Since a non-partisan, politically moderate economist, working at the behest of a Liberal government made these suggestions, well it's just one of those things.

Dalton McGuinty's great success in political life, at least in the sense of winning two majority and one near majority governments, is due in no small part to his sheer nebbishness. Canada's least threatening politician. He could walk right past you on the street and not be noticed. The second most powerful man in Canada is a non-entity. When he faced a credible competitor, like Mike Harris and even Gerard Kennedy, he either lost or barely scrapped a victory.

This lack of substance, which in theory should be fatal to a major political figure, has worked brilliantly for McGuinty. He's a hard man to hate, because there ain't much there to hate. People could take sheer delight in despising Pierre Trudau, Mike Harris or Brian Mulroney. It would seem positively cruel to direct anywhere near the same level of vitriol at Ontario's  current Premier.

It therefore seems very fitting, with the province's finances looking ever more Greek as the time passes, that rather than man-up and face the crisis square on, the Dalt has decided to bring in a pinch hitter from the private sector. This isn't the first time that a provincial government has asked for expertise from the productive sector of the economy. John Robarts tapped high-level executives for advice in the late 1960s on making the public sector more efficient. This is a wee different.

Certainly the Dalt has made it very, very clear that he will make the final decision. OK. So why make such a fuss about hiring Don Drummond? He even created a secretariat for Drummond with a staff and three other commissioners. This isn't to say that Mr Drummond is not an able man with an excellent reputation both in Ottawa (where he worked for 23 years) and on Bay Street (where he worked for TD Bank). Bright fellow. But there are lots of bright fellows with advanced degrees in economics. More than a few work in the public service of Ontario.

I have a dark suspicion that much of what Don Drummond is recommending has already been suggested by the Mandarins who hover around Queen's Park. Cheap jokes aside, the chaps running the public service aren't foolish or ignorant. They are, however, quite careful about keeping a low profile. High profile public servants run the risk of being viewed as political creatures. That makes their jobs that much harder. So they make the suggestion and let the politicians handle the flack.

Let's say, however, you are an especially spineless politician, with a credibility gap the size of the Canadian Shield. Before you is an epic fiscal crisis. The markets are beginning to regard your promises to balance the books a bit warily. Even the wider electorate thinks you are the lesser of two more bumbling evils. You also don't like taking the blame for things. Entering into office you promised to be kinder and gentler than your predecessors. In government there is nothing more expensive than kindness. Now you need to cut, you need to be cruel to be kind.

Enter Don Drummond, celebrity economist with no obvious partisan or political ties. A high browed, large brained technocrat who loves to read government reports and find "waste." There is, as this blog has often observed, no waste in government as all spending benefits someone. Still, who is going to question a former TD Bank economist, hard nosed chap that he is, about what is and what is not waste? 

Dalton McGuinty has found excellent political cover. It might be his decision, but you see he is just following the advice of a top-flight neutral technocrat, so no malice or political calculation is involved. Just doing what is practical and necessary. The Premier has outsourced his job, which is making tough decision as opposed to signing off on them, while providing himself a perfect scapegoat.

The Dalt is not a highly intelligent man, but he is a very clever one. 

A Royal Sail

That's the thing about the House of Windsor. They do things with style:

The elevated spectacle of a slow moving pageantry on the River Thames celebrating the diamond jubilee of the world's preeminent hereditary monarchy promises to captivate the attention of the largest television audience in history. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee pageant will showcase one thousand ships - the biggest collection of boats in 350 years - each of which will take 90 minutes to pass any one spot. Applications from across the Commonwealth were three time overscribed. A million waving and cheering people are expected to line the Thames.

Friday Night - Random Harvest

Roman Childhoods

From TLS:

In his superb Children in the Roman Empire, first published in Dutch in 2006, Christian Laes argues that we have a lot of modern baggage to chuck overboard. For one thing, the Romans were simply not interested in what we would now call child development. To all intents and purposes, Roman childhood was treated as a single undifferentiated life stage. Laes notes the absence in both Greek and Latin of words corresponding to the modern subdivisions of childhood, “baby”, “infant”, “toddler”, “schoolchild”, “adolescent”. At most, a Roman might distinguish a young child (infans) from an older one (puer), but the line between the two was “crude and schematic at best”.

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

1 Spadina Crescent

Necessary Steps

Michael Taube on the making of "Harpertism."

The first stages of Harpertism began to take shape just after the 2004 federal election. The Conservatives shed a number of ideological skins to become more professional and less "scary." The Alliance/PC commitment to fiscal conservatism was maintained in the early going, but social conservatism was watered down or kept in check. Reformstyle populism was frowned upon, meaning political candidates had to toe the line and stop spouting off about everything under the sun.

Yes, I know, "Harpertism" is a ghastly name. How about "Harperism." What on earth is that "t" doing in the middle? Dump the "t" Michael. Just saying. If you're trying to coin a phrase it has to be pithy and roll off the tongue. That damned "t" doesn't allow for any tongue rolling. Focus on marketing your neologism more effectively.

Leaving aside ill placed consonants in political nomenclature, Mr Taube is getting at a very important point that facile commentators - Hello Lawrence Martin! - have missed. The most important thing Stephen Harper brought to the Conservative Party, as well as the broader conservative movement, was professionalism. No matter how soaring the rhetoric or compelling the vision, political activism requires commitment, long range planning and the ability to execute. All the things Conservative political leaders have usually lacked since John A's time.

What happens without professionalism? Typically nothing. You might get elected, perhaps even re-elected. If the voters are in a really grumpy mood you get movements like the United Farmers of Ontario and their contemporary cousins out in Alberta. Phenomenons that seemed to appear from nowhere in the early 1920s and vanished with the Great Depression, absorbed by the old line parties with the organizational and leadership strength to survive.

But let's say you have a great leader. A historic figure who will be remembered down the ages? Still doesn't matter. Professionalism is vital for long-term survival. Take John Diefenbaker, a brilliant orator who, at the height of his power won a massive majority government, crippled the Liberal Party into near irrelevance and was revered as a living icon in much of the West. That was in 1958. By the 1962 election he was reduced to a small minority government. The next year he was out. In 1967 he was left pitifully trying, and failing, to hold onto the leadership of his party.

Dief might have been the Chief, but he had no idea how to run a government, manage people or establish concrete goals. It is hard to think of anything Stephen Harper has said in office that is half-way memorable. A bland orator with a blander persona. His speeches evoke some of H.L. Mencken's nastiest comments about Warren Harding. Between dull and meaningless. Yet he has the goal oriented mind and no-sense approach that are hallmarks of successful executives. More of a Theory X than Y manager, yet successful none the less.

After Dief was Bob Stanfield. A genial Red Tory from an old Maritime industrial family. He seemed to have been recruited from Central Casting with the call: "decent middle aged rich WASP."  Cary Grant, circa North by Northwest, could have played the younger more dashing brother. With the exception of 1972, in which the Grits ran an awful campaign and nearly lost, Trudeau did not so much defeat as pirouette around Stanfield. The Liberals had the machine and they had a strong leader with a clear vision and brand.

The Tories replaced Bob with Joe, or as the Toronto Sun memorably put it: "Joe Who?" A hardworking and somewhat earnest man, Joe Clark was a bit too conceit for his limited abilities. He got Trudeau on an off moment and out fought the Grit machine in 1979. It was just an electoral tantrum. The Big Red Machine rolled back and won power in 1980. Plus ca change...

It took the NEP, a nasty recession and some fairly silly antics for the people to finally push Trudeau out. Had John Turner played his cards better 1984 might have seen a Liberal minority government. Instead it was slaughter. Reviled as he was to become, Brian Mulroney was a fine public speaker with a machine politician's keen understanding of how elections are won and lost. He was a professional pol who might have permanently displaced the Liberals. Then he goofed.

If Stephen Harper can be faulted for being too cautious, Brian Mulroney can be faulted for being too reckless. He gambled and won big with Free Trade, then lost with Meech. A natural deal maker he was little interested in policy details or political principles, wearing his conservatism loosely. It's unlikely PM Harper, whatever his personal views, would have taken the risk of proposing free trade. It's also fairly certainly that he would have avoided the constitution like the plague, letting the separatist fever die out.

The meaning of Harperism (or Harpertism if you insist) is professionalism and prudence. Keeping the loud mouths in line and away from live microphones, making sure the money keeps flowing and defending the brand at all costs. Conservatism became respectable under Stephen Harper, even as it became less conservative. Five years of minority rule, capped off with majority, all without a significant presence in Quebec. A brilliant political accomplishment.

Yet to what end? How much more conservative is Canada today than in 2006?

 

Thursday Night - Paths of Glory

As The Ass Widens

This is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a burp:

The problem of American waists that are too big for seats meant to accommodate them is certainly not new. Today, everything from love seats to toilet seats can be built bigger to accommodate wider profiles, and the seats offered on public transportation are no different.

Each time an agency decides to purchase new trains or buses, it must consider whether to make its seats wider, knowing that a decision to do so could come at the expense of passenger capacity.