The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

Deathbed Conversion?

Jim plans to balance the chequebook:

The Conservative government’s fall economic update will set the stage for some big-ticket tax cuts ahead of the 2015 federal election.

The updated numbers that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will unveil Tuesday in Edmonton are expected to show a surplus for 2015-16 that is significantly larger than earlier estimates. Mr. Flaherty has hinted that the number won’t be “tiny” and Treasury Board President Tony Clement said over the weekend that the update will show a “comfortable” surplus that year.

That is unless the polls tell them to spend, spend, spend to stop Justin. Then to heck with the whole fiscal conservative stuff.  Remember back in 2008, almost exactly five years ago, when Stephane Dion attempted a coup d'etat? Along with Happy Endings Jack and The Mooching Traitor? Yeah. In order to hold onto power the Tories started throwing money at the opposition. That, ladies and gentlemen, is when the Tories began their long slide to fiscal incontinence.

At the time we were assured by the Tory Wisemen that as soon as they had a majority government, that wondrous day, the budget would be balanced in a New York minute. It's those awful opposition parties that stopped them. Thing is that the Tories balanced the budget in their first minority term, but not in their longer majority term. They've had two years to set the books right. They haven't.

Keep in mind that this is a projected surplus. Government projections are even more nebulous than government promises. For all we know in 2015-2016 the books will be bleeding a Trudeau-style red.  Does anyone at this point doubt that, if either Mulcair or Trudeau are within striking distance of power, that the Tories will not jettison their alleged fiscal conservatism? That the spigot will not be turned on at gusher force to keep them in power?

Tuesday Night - Paths of Glory

Mavis Batey (1921 - 2013)

The Telegraph:

Mavis Batey, who has died aged 92, was one of the leading female codebreakers at Bletchley Park, cracking the Enigma ciphers that led to the Royal Navy’s victory at Matapan in 1941.

She was the last of the great Bletchley “break-in” experts, those codebreakers who found their way into new codes and ciphers that had never been broken before.

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

Thirty Love Max

Your Tax Dollars at Work:

Acting on behalf of the Honourable Denis Lebel, Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, the Honourable Maxime Bernier, Member of Parliament for Beauce and Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism, and Agriculture), today announced the awarding of funding for the renovation of the outdoor tennis courts and service building in Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce municipal park, in the Robert-Cliche RCM.

“By supporting the rehabilitation of Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce municipal park, our government is fulfilling its commitment to help improve the quality of life in our communities,” said Minister Bernier.

Say it ain't so Max, say it ain't so.

Tell me there Monsieur Bernier, what brand of libertarianism argues that it is the role not just of the government, but of the federal government, to renovate tennis courts? The tennis courts in question are located in Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, which oddly enough is located in the riding of Beauce. The riding of Beauce is represented in the House of Commons by, drum roll please, Maxime Bernier!

It wasn't even a bridge to nowhere Max. Not even a plausibly useful bit of infrastructure. It profits a man nothing to sell his soul for the whole world, but for municipal tennis courts? 

The mature thing to do is to shrug it off. This is the way the game is played. Voters are a greedy lot and those in La Belle Province are greedier than most. The desire for the unearned is overpowering, even when it's for something useless. How many people do you guess use municipal tennis courts? Enough to justify the $75,731 the Feds forked over? Probably not.

Someone look up the French word for hypocrite. 

Monday Night - Rob Ford

‘I wasn’t an accident, I wasn’t an anomaly’

No Kim, you were just a mistake:

Kim Campbell says there’s no doubt that, in the 20 years since she served, very briefly, as Canada’s first female prime minister, we’ve come a long way toward making Ottawa a more woman-friendly place. But as so many female members of Parliament can probably attest, there’s still quite a long way to go.

With Brian Mulroney's negative coattails I doubt a Tory Archangel Gabriel could have won in 1993. Still it might have been a less spectacular collapse. 

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Ford?

Remember when this was a boring sensible town? Yeah that was nice:

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's jaw dropping use of explicit language on live television to deny another allegation against him was once again a heaven-sent gift to late night comics who can't seem to get enough of the ongoing saga.

"God bless Canada, what a gift the Canadians have given us," Tonight Show host Jay Leno gleefully said Thursday night in his monologue as he joked that Ford's desire to run for re-election despite his admission of drug use and drinking could just be a "pipe dream."

"It's official, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is the best," quipped Late Night host Jimmy Fallon.

"This guy is unbelievable."

You can say that again. 

It's not the vulgarity and the horrible personal life that I mind, it's the lack of professionalism. Yes there are plenty of Leftist politicians with skeletons in the closet, skeletons carefully ignored by the MSM. Thing is that they emit a basic level of professionalism. Sure it's the profession of parasitism and deceit, but at least they can finish a press conference without sounding like a boob.

Let's imagine an alternate Rob Ford, a man with the same demons but also with a touch of gravitas. A man who smokes and dopes his way through the day yet can, when necessary, pull himself together.  Rob Ford has trouble doing that last part. Canadian politics has never had a shortage of personally questionable politicians. John A was a legendary drunk. Sir Wilfrid was rumoured to have fathered at least one child out of wedlock, apparently with his law partner's wife. Mackenzie King's mind was a Freudian wonderland. John Robarts would routinely get smashed in the evenings while Premier of Ontario in the 1960s.

Some of this stuff was known publicly at the time, most of it wasn't. Thing is that the pols in question would show up and do their jobs properly without too much fuss. John A was a better politician drunk than most pols stone cold sober. Robarts was famous for his binges, yet every morning he would show up at Queen's Park sharp as a tack ready to do the people's business. Rob Ford has been an effective mayor, but that effectiveness depends on his ability to lead City Council. He can't do that anymore. It doesn't matter if it's fair, it matters only that it happened.

However vicious and unprincipled the MSM, Rob Ford has brought this mockery and contempt upon himself. He has no one to blame but himself. Remember Mel Lastman? For all his faults he was a decent enough mayor of North York and then of the newly minted MegaCity. There were gaffes certainly, quite a few actually, but the gaffes were the exception to the rule. With Ford the gaffes are approaching a kind of crescendo. One half expects HD video footage of a Roman Orgy in Nathan Phillips Square with the Mayor in full regalia leading the proceedings.

What we really need is someone with Rob Ford's principles and someone else's personality. Herein lies the tragedy. This boorish and deeply flawed man has one thing which his more refined conservative rivals lack: Guts. 

There are other conservatives on City Council, quite a few actually. The impression that Toronto is run by crazy Leftists is an exaggeration. Most of the former suburbs, such as North York and Etobicoke, send fairly right-leaning pols to Council. The Lefty nutters are mostly concentrated in the downtown area. There is something about high urban density that allows such beings to exists. In free open spaces they would likely die from lack of WiFi.

The more polished conservatives are too polite to say what needs to be said, too afraid of offending some crucial though obscure voting block. Their personalities are too cautious, too constrained to genuinely connect with the voters. Their language too careful to say anything clear. They censor themselves until nothing remains except a moderate with a slight rightward limp. 

With Rob Ford there is only Rob Ford. This vulgar beast of a man who is what he is. There is no artifice. His frequent lies have a childlike obviousness that defies satire and even compels pity. An awkward Falstaff stumbling through the life of a city that, well within living memory, was called Toronto the Good. Yet there he is. A very sick, very brave man who tried hard to do his best. A tormented man who served his city well until he destroyed himself. The MSM often criticizes those on the Right for their alleged callousness toward the flawed and weak, yet they have shown no mercy to this man. Had his politics been different they would have hailed him as a hero. 

What comes after? Someone smoother, more polished in their deceits, yet ultimately a timorous non-entity or a craven power luster. Rob Ford must go. Yet there is no one better to replace him.

 

 

Friday Night - Blithe Spirit

He Shoots! He Bores!

Stephen Harper, hockey historian:

Indeed, Mr. Harper has given us a remarkably meticulous academic account of events that, when considered after reading and distilling them, are objectively fascinating. I suspect that’s what he set out to do, and it would be churlish to begrudge him the accomplishment or to pretend I expected a thrill-a-minute page-turner. He says he wrote it himself, and I absolutely believe him. But with a looser analytical lip and some judicious editing — if not a ghostwriter, full stop — the Prime Minister might have given us something considerably more enjoyable.

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

Joe Clark Attacks!

Being Savaged By A Dead Sheep:

Clark now argues in a new book How We Lead: Canada in a Century of Change that Harper's heavy hand is causing a morale crisis within our foreign service that is wrecking Canada's once proud diplomatic tradition.

[...]

In a recent excerpt of the new book (it comes out this week) in the Toronto Star, Clark claims that, with the exceptions of Afghanistan and trade, there has been a recurring pattern in the Harper government actions: "It is unusually assertive in its dramatic gestures and declarations," but then retreats from actions designed to actually resolve critical problems abroad.

That why Canada has "drawn back from the fight against international poverty, peacekeeping, Kyoto, arms control, a broad presence in Africa, and Canada's customary leadership in the United Nations, Commonwealth and related multilateral institutions."

The rest of the article, which goes onto quote former senior civil servants, bemoans Team Harper's indifference to bureaucratic advice. In the words of one ex-Clerk of the Privy Council: "Ideology doesn't need analysis, and if you have the answers you don't need questions." The bureaucrat doth protest too much. The upper reaches of the PS are just as ideological as the PMO, they're simply less partisan.

Take the laundry list of ideas that Joe Clark went through: International poverty, peacekeeping, Kyoto, arms control, a broad presence in Africa, and Canada's customary leadership in the United Nations. These are not purely objective policy issues, each has assumptions which might be obvious to a former Clerk of the Privcy Council, but are contentious to many others.

Take peacekeeping. Why do it? That might seem like a stupid question, after all isn't every humane and decent person in favour of peace? Certainly decent people are in favour of peace, however intelligent and erudite minds through out history have disputed the best way to obtain peace. Then there are issues broader and more important than those of peace and war: Freedom and Slavery. The easiest way to preserve peace is to surrender to tyranny, or more precisely the easiest way to avoid international conflict is to surrender to tyrannical governments. Tyranny by its nature is a constant war of a government against its own people, which occasionally spills into other countries.

Placed in that context peacekeeping isn't a prima facie good. Would it have been noble for Canadian soldiers to have peacekeeped the recently captured Sudetenland in late 1938? Is it in Canada's national interests to peacekeep between two primitive tribes that have no real interest in peace, who are simply using Canadian forces as pawns in a wider struggle? Does Canada even have significant national interests outside of Europe and the Pacific Rim? Whatever your own views on these questions they are, in the end, views. Theories based to one degree or another on facts. Pearsonian foreign policy is as much an ideology as anything rattling around in the heads of those twenty something fart catchers in the PMO.

Joe Clark and the former Clerks real complaint isn't about ideology trumping evidence, it's about a power struggle gone wrong for them. Red Toryism is dead as a political force. Pearsonianism, and its intellectually relatives in other countries, is largely dead in international affairs. The emerging powers of Brazil, India and China are indifferent to a multilateral system designed post-1945 by and for the Anglo-Saxon powers to preserve a particular view of a North Atlantic centered world. A world about as relevant to the 21st century as poodle skirts and vinyl records.

The Age of Harper promises to be about as crass as the Age of Hooper. A falling off there has been certainly. There is a poignancy in these complaints. These men in their youth once mocked and attacked John Diefenbaker for being old fashioned, stuck in an imperialist mindset for an empire that was just then dissolving before his eyes. A man of sentiment in a cold technocratic age. Now the circle has spun again. It took half a century to go from the Edwardian to the Pearsonian age. We are now half a century from Pearson to the present day. The clock has run out.

Stephen Harper, for all his faults, knows that. Joe Clark, for his all occasional virtues, doesn't. 

 

Thursday Night - Anchorman