#TellVicEverything

The #TellVicEverything meme has exploded on Twitter today, in response to Vic Toews' proposed legislation to force Internet service providers to monitor their customers’ online activities and turn the information over to the government (without a warrant). On Monday, Vic said "you're with us or you're with the pornographers"...and it appears many Canadians have chosen a side.

As far as protests go, it's fairly mild and a bit passive-aggresive, but it sure beats occupying a park.

The Drummond Report

The eagerly anticipated Drummond report has been released - if you're into horror stories, by all means curl up by the fire and read the full 562 pages here.

In it, Drummond offers 320 recommendations. The initial reaction by many pundits is that this puts NcGuinty in a bind, since he will never agree to reverse tuition cuts or scrap full-day kindergarten.

Actually, the report might prove to be a political saving-grace for McGuinty. Tough cuts are coming, and this report offers McGuinty the political cover he needs to implement them. Because if those on left holler about cuts, McGuinty can calmly put his hand on their shoulder and in his best Premier dad voice say "I know it's been tough, but it could have been a lot worse"; this gives him an opportunity to present himself as the saviour of green energy and education all over again.

Politics is all about managing expectations, and anything McGuinty brings forward now is going to seem a lot less draconian, when measured against the Drummond benchmark.

Mind you, that's assuming McGuinty brings forward a serious budget this spring. If he just plugs his ears and ignores the bulk of the valuable advice Drummond offers, then McGuinty will have effectively used taxpayer dollars to help develop the backbone of Tim Hudak's next election platform.

Stay tuned.

Who will win the race for Stornoway?

Leadership races are tricky beasts to project, due to their insular nature. There are few meaningful polls, the media is being spun in twelve directions, and the air war rarely corresponds to the ground war. Name recognition and a spiffy social media campaign are a lot less important than having organizers who can deliver hundreds of membership forms.

So when some compared Brian Topp's leadership bid to the Paul Martin 2003 juggernaut back in September, it was premature to say the least. It would be equally premature to call Topp's campaign dead after a few weeks of bad press, when we haven't reached the membership deadline yet.

The fact is, there's very little for anyone (especially for those of us outside the NDP) to go on when it comes to handicapping this race - but here are how the candidates stack up on a few metrics:


The "donations" and "donors" columns come from the most recent fundraising numbers, with "media" merely being the number of news stories that pop up on a google news search under each candidate's name. The "poll" column refers to an IVR poll of NDP members released by Paul Dewar's campaign yesterday. If you don't know what Facebook and Twitter are, then get with the times.

With five different candidates leading these seven metrics, it's hard to know what to think. Clearly, this won't be decided on the first ballot, and we shouldn't be surprised by anything short of an Ashton or Singh victory.

Inspired by Pundits Guide's look back at the 2003 NDP leadership race, I've decided to go back and see how useful these different factors have been in predicting first ballot support in past leadership contests. Behold the table of correlation values!


The numbers are all over the place, but that's to be expected when you consider these races all had different rules, fundraising restrictions, and voting systems.

Still, there are a few take-home messages.

1. MP (or MPP/MLA, as the case may be) endorsements and fundraising totals are both moderately useful at giving a sense of the race, but they're hardly perfect. After all, Stephane Dion was sixth in fundraising in 2006, and you could count Christy Clark's caucus support on one amputated hand in 2011.

2. Social media may be an important element of leadership campaigns, but there isn't enough data out there yet to suggest it's a good barometer of a candidate's strength.

3. Polls among party members are likely the most useful predictor, though they remain rare.

It should be noted that polls among the public are worthless (correlations generally between 0.1 and 0.4), but every leadership poll among party members I've found has tended to stack up fairly well. Still, the Dewar poll should be read with caution given the source - after all, the opportunity for massaging the data exists, and we know he wouldn't have released the numbers if they didn't look good for him. I'd be a lot more confident in the numbers had someone leaked a membership list to a polling company instead.

But at this juncture, Mulcair has a 9-point lead in the campaign's only poll, has three times the MP endorsements of anyone else, and has the most donors, if not the most money raised. He might still be too polarizing a figure to win, but at this point I'd put down $20 (or $10,000 if Mitt Romney comes calling) that Mulcair will be ahead of Brian Topp on the first ballot.

A Taste of the Danforth By Election

The by election in Toronto Danforth (or, as it must be referred to in every article on the subject, "Jack Layton's old seat") has been called for March 12 March 19. If you're looking for political excitement, by elections may be as good as it gets over the next three years of majority government politics.

By elections are notoriously hard to handicap, but a glance at last year's results makes the favourite obvious:

Layton (NDP) 61%
Lang (Lib) 18%
Koenig (CPC) 14%
Mugnatto-Hamu (Green) 6%

A 43-point margin is daunting, but not insurmountable. After all, three of the seventeen Harper era by elections have seen one party pick up at least 25 points - the NDP in Outremont (+30), the Liberals in Winnipeg North (+37), and the Tories in Cumberland Colchester (+37). There were unique circumstances in play for all three, but the death of the most popular politician in Canada is fairly unique, so a win by the Grits isn't impossible.

But it won't be easy.

While the Liberals held the riding from 1988 to 2004, local demographics favour the NDP. On my nifty regression spreadsheet that projects vote based on demographics, Toronto Danforth is the 16th best NDP riding in the country and the 60th best Liberal riding. The riding has been orange provincially for over a decade, and the Ontario Dippers took it by 23 points in the fall. In short, voters on the Danforth are the type of people who vote NDP and they've tended to vote NDP of late.

That means the NDP will have a lot of votes ID'd on the ground, and a good organization in place - even if many volunteers are distracted by the leadership race. The Grits should be a bit more focused and there are still a lot of Liberals left in Toronto to pitch in, so they should be able to at least match the NDP on the ground. Or at least they would have, had they not given the NDP a one-month head start by waiting so long to nominate their candidate.

That candidate will be Grant Gordon, an ad executive who made a stir online with a humorous nomination pamphlet. Gordon is a fine candidate, but he's not the "star" George Smitherman and other insiders not-too-wisely speculated about last month.

Gordon will be up against an equally solid-yet-unexciting NDP candidate - law professor Craig Scott. Communications consultant Andrew Keyes will carry the banner for the Tories, but they haven't been above 15% on the Danforth since the merger. Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu will once again run for the Greens.

As unpredictable as by elections are, all signs point to the NDP defeating the Liberals, albeit with a reduced margin.


Be sure to check out Pundits Guide for an update on the campaign-to-date.

This Week in Alberta: Redford's First Budget

I've spent much of the past two days trying to draft a blog post on Alberta's 2012 budget. After all, this was not only Allison Redford's first budget, but a pre-election document - surely, there would be plenty in it to critique and/or praise.

But really, this may be one of the most innocuous budgets in the province's history. Take a look at the official budget highlights and tell me if there's anything newsworthy in there:



Of the thirteen key bullet points, three use the word "continued", three mention rosy revenue projects, and three talk about something Redford didn't do (raise taxes). The only newsworthy changes in the budget are new funds for handicapped Albertans and children - two feel-good spending initiatives even Danielle Smith wouldn't dare criticize.

Even the budget name sounds like it was focus group tested to find the title least likely to offend: Investing in People. After all, who's against investing in people? And who's against spending a bit more on health care and education, holding taxes steady, and just kind of hoping the price of oil increases so that everything works out? Things seem to be going fairly well in Alberta and Redford seems to be fairly popular, so why do anything even remotely controversial that could rock the boat, with an election on the horizon?

Well one reason to rock the boat is that Liepert's budget speech itself concedes the province relies too much of resource revenue and needs to change its fiscal framework. Not that he's doing anything about it, mind you.

But my real beef with the budget is that it continues the visionless drifting we've seen in recent years. Alberta is one of the few provinces with the resources to support boldness, and all Redford has delivered is a cautious, aimless plan.

I might not like their vision for the province, but Premier Morton and Premier Smith wouldn't shy away from being bold. Premier Mar would try to reform the Health Care system. Premier Manning would have pushed through environmental initiatives and democratic reforms. The Alberta Liberals released their election platform this week, and it calls for increased taxes on businesses and the rich, with the payoff being, among other things, the end of school fees and free tuition. It may not be good politics or even good policy, but at least it has whiffs of boldness in it.

Which is a lot more than can be said for Redford's painfully safe budget.

Mandatory Response

Lorne Gunter's article on today's release of short form Census data is so bad that it necessitates a response. Point-by-point:

So the 2011 census results are being released today, or at least some results are. Is anyone else as surprised as I am that there is any data to announce? I mean in the summer of 2010, you would have thought the statistical world was coming to an end and taking much of the intellectual foundation of modern civilization with it just because the Harper government had decided to make the long-form census voluntary rather than mandatory.

To start off, the population data being released today is based on the short form Census, which remains mandatory (as does the farming Census). Why? Because there's nothing wrong with a little state-enforced coercion.

Experts were recruited from the United States to tell the Toronto Star that the Tories move would “lower the quality and raise the cost of information” gathered by StatsCan.

The funny thing about experts is they're often right. While I'm sure there were some American experts telling this to the Toronto Star (after all, the US quickly scrapped the idea of going the voluntary route after a disastrous trial), there were also experts of the Canadian variety, including the two most recent heads of Stats Canada, Alex Himelfarb, Don Drummond, 100-some organizations, and basically everyone besides Tony Clement. Oh, and the Toronto Star was joined by the pinkos at the National Post and Calgary Herald, among others, in decrying the demise of the Census.

It was Canadians’ “civic duty” to comply with government demands for information about ethnicity, education level, sources of income, types of housing, number and ages of children and their activities, sexual orientation, family relationships, divisions of household labour, recreation and so on.

Some of the above information is still mandatory - the short form, for example, asks for the names and ages of your children so that nefarious governments can build schools near them.

Sources of income is also asked on another mandatory form we'll all be filling out in the coming months.

On the other hand, if you were sceptical about government’s ability to solve big problems, no matter how accurate the inputs it uses to analyse the sources and solutions, you tended to think a voluntary census would be just as useful as a mandatory one, and far less destructive of individual rights in a democracy.

OK, let's say you hate big government and believe we'd be better off in a state of anarchy. If I'd lived under an Alberta PC government my entire life like Mr. Gunter, I'd be skeptical about government ever being a source of good too.

But the thing is, the long form Census is also used by hospitals to offer services and fight pandemics. Masters students, like Stephen Harper, use it to write thesis papers. Think tanks, like the Fraser Institute, use it to prove their kooky right wing theories. And businesses use it all the time – just think of restaurants and grocery stores that sell ethnic foods or cater to specific client demographics

But, really, are the figures produced by having StatsCan select 18.8% of homes based on pure statistical theory going to be so much more useful in setting public policy than the figures from 23.1% of self-selecting, voluntary homes?

Yes.

I don't want to turn this post into a statistics webinar, and I don't need to, because Gunter answers the question himself earlier in the paragraph when he mentions how aboriginals and immigrants are less likely to complete the Census. Also, there are studies on this topic (warning: these studies are by experts).

Besides, I have my doubts about how untainted data from the mandatory census was anyway. When I wrote about this issue two years ago, I received a handful of messages from former census planners telling me that it was routine practice at StatsCan to send long forms to the same households census after census. If a household had shown itself willing to fill out a long form before, it was likely to receive another the next time.

This is just factually inaccurate. I worked as a Census Rep in 2001, and every fifth household got the long form Census. So if house 2 got the long-form, houses 4, 6, 8, and 10 wouldn't, and house 12 would. Lather, rinse, repeat. Even if StatsCan wanted to employ faulty methodology, there's no way they could.

And my favourite: The Tories’ move was “enormously destructive” of morale at Statistics Canada. Huh!? How could that possibly matter?

Well, having competent employees resign on principle, and having others demoralized isn't good for any organization. I mean, just imagine how demoralized reporters like Mr. Gunter would be if newspapers started publishing factually inaccurate information. I mean, the entire industry would...well...never mind...

Canada's Population

33.5 million or 9 million, depending on who you ask.

I blame the scrapping of the mandatory long form census for this discrepancy...

Stories of the Week

After spending the week talking about Liberal leadership on this blog, a brief look at what else is making news.


1. The Harper government has made noise about pension reform, prompting a round of howls from the opposition benches about Harper throwing grannies out on the street. I'll reserve judgment until I see the final plans, but I'll give Harper some credit for tackling such a politically charged issue. At the recent Liberal convention, the party made a big deal about "fact based policies" and the fact is Canada has an aging population, so it's foolish to pretend the existing system is perfect and doesn't need to be reformed.

And now is the perfect time for the Harper government to make these reforms. This will be their first majority government budget, and it comes at a time when neither opposition party has a permanent leader in place. The Conservatives don't have to worry about an irate electorate for another three years, so why not make some tough decisions now? After all, they can always buy voters off with a nice tax cut in 2015.

Moreover, I'm not even positive the public opinion backlash would be as devastating as some predict. Sure, you ask people if Seniors should get old-age security benefits at 65 or 67 and OF COURSE they'll say 65. Any poll which asks "do you want more or less" is going to break at least 3:1 in favour of "more". The real question is what kind of backlash this move would lead to?

So what if the changes are grandfathered in so they don't affect anyone over 50, and what if they're announced along with plans to scale back MP pensions ("we're all making sacrifices")? Suddenly, I'm not so convinced this would be the PR nightmare everyone is predicting.


2. Jim Flaherty’s budget will also be Tony Clement’s: So get ready for a gazebo tax credit program...


3. Speaking of tough medicine budgets, it sounds like Dwight Duncan's budget will also be Don Drummond's. Drummond's much-anticipated report is rumoured to be released on February 15th, laying the ground for the Ontario budget.


4. The 2011 fundraising numbers are out, and the Tories are still well ahead of the competition.


5. Also released are the NDP leadership fundraising numbers, which show just 3% of NDP members have donated to a campaign.

Liberal Leadership Straw Poll

After looking at some of the people who might run for Liberal leader (part 1, part 2), I figured it's worth puting the question to a completely unscientific vote.

I've listed three questions below. The first asks who you think will run for Liberal leader - by all means, click on as many names as you think there will be candidates, and suggest others in the comments section.

The second asks for candidates you'd consider supporting if they ran. I know there are half a dozen names on that list that appeal to me, so click on any you could see yourself voting for (and if you're not a Liberal, put on your Liberal hat for a minute to answer the question).

The final question asks for what qualities the next Liberal leader should have. Again, if you're not a Liberal, pretend for a minute you are (then shower afterwards), and pick the three or four qualities you think the party needs most from its next leader.

Who will will run for Liberal leadership in 2013?
	Bob Rae
	Dominic LeBlanc
	Justin Trudeau
	Dalton McGuinty
	David McGuinty
	Marc Garneau
	Scott Brison
	Denis Coderre
	Martin Cauchon
	Gerard Kennedy
	Mark Carney
	Naheed Nenshi
	Gregor Robertson
	Ralph Goodale
	Amanda Lang
	Mark Holland
	Navdeep Bains
	Martha Hall Findlay
	Siobhan Coady
	Geoff Regan
	Jane Stewart
	Sheila Copps
	Jean-Marc Fournier
	Borys Wrzesnewskyj
	Robert Ghiz
	Belinda Stronach
	Kevin Lamoureux
	Phil Fontaine
	Jim Karygiannis
	Glen Murray
pollcode.com free polls

Who would you consider supporting for Liberal leader?
	Bob Rae
	Dominic LeBlanc
	Justin Trudeau
	Dalton McGuinty
	David McGuinty
	Marc Garneau
	Scott Brison
	Denis Coderre
	Martin Cauchon
	Gerard Kennedy
	Mark Carney
	Naheed Nenshi
	Gregor Robertson
	Ralph Goodale
	Amanda Lang
	Mark Holland
	Navdeep Bains
	Martha Hall Findlay
	Siobhan Coady
	Geoff Regan
	Jane Stewart
	Sheila Copps
	Jean-Marc Fournier
	Borys Wrzesnewskyj
	Robert Ghiz
	Belinda Stronach
	Kevin Lamoureux
	Phil Fontaine
	Jim Karygiannis
	Glen Murray
pollcode.com free polls

What qualities are most important in the next Liberal leader?
	Young
	Perfectly bilingual
	Policy positions you agree with
	Policy positions voters agree with
	An outsider
	Political experience
	Business experience
	Real world experience
	Name recognition
	Current MP
	Long-time Liberal
	Intelligent
	Someone voters can relate to
	Shares your values
	Passionate
	Principled
	Good communicator
	Strong leader
	Popular in Quebec
	Popular in Western Canada
	Able to unite the party
	Represents real change
	Will give a voice to grassroots
	Appeals to NDP voters
	Appeals to Conservative voters
	Able to beat Stephen Harper in a debate
pollcode.com free polls

An update on all the people not running for Liberal leadership - Part 2

Yesterday, I looked at the ten names being tossed around most frequently for Liberal leadership - Rae, Leblanc, Trudeau, McGuinty^2, Garneau, Brison, Coderre, Cauchon, and Kennedy.

Today, a look at some long-shot candidates.


Mark Carney: The Bank of Canada governor would have instant credibility on the economy and, unlike many bankers, he's not uncharismatic. There is, of course, still the question of whether or not he's a Liberal - but no one seems too concerned about that.


Naheed Nenshi: The superstar Mayor of Calgary set Twitter abuzz when he tried out his French at a Toronto speech last year. I'd love to see Naheed toss his cowboy hat into the ring, but we're still 5 or 10 years away from having this conversation. At the rate we're going, the Liberals will have cycled through another three leaders by the time Nenshi is ready to run.


Gregor Robertson: Like Nenshi, the assumption is that Vancouver's Mayor will one day run provincially or federally. Yes, he was an NDP MLA provincially, but that's never stopped anyone from running for Liberal leader before, nor should it.


Ralph Goodale: There's a movement afoot to convince Goodale to run. Admittedly, his age and his french would make him a long shot, but the race would benefit immensely by having a Western Canadian of his stature in it.


Amanda Lang: To the best of my knowledge, there is only one Liberal in the country floating her name as a possible leadership candidate, but it may not be as far fetched as it sounds. We've seen media personalities jump to politics before, and as a business reporter she could make the economy her issue. And hey, her dad was a Liberal MP! I have no idea how she'd fare in the political game, but the idea of a well-spoken, attractive 41 year old woman from Manitoba leading the party certainly sounds good on paper.


Mark Holland: Young and fiery, Holland can give one heck of a speech. Even if he doesn't run for leader, I'd be shocked if he doesn't try to win back his seat in 2015.


Navdeep Bains: Another young star who lost his seat last May. Bains could count on widespread support from the Sikh community if he ran.


Martha Hall Findlay: Rev up the engine on the big red bus! The darling of the 2006 leadership race would enter this contest with a higher profile and would be treated as a "top tier" candidate by the media out of the gate.


Siobhan Coady: Any tour of "defeated rising stars" should include Coady, a well liked MP who can ask tough questions with emotion and confidence.


Geoff Regan: As a Liberal MP who has been in Ottawa for a decade and is still young enough to run, Regan should not be overlooked. Jane Taber recently floated his name as a possible candidate.


Jane Stewart: She's an accomplished women, with an impressive resume inside and outside of politics. As the "Draft Jane" team says, "everybody loves Jane". She's said she isn't running, but so has everyone else - we may yet get a "See Jane Run" headline or two.


Sheila Copps: She ran her presidential campaign as if she was running for leader. Even though she didn't win, she raised her profile and put a team together - two things that could be useful should she decide to try for the top prize again.


Jean-Marc Fournier: It wouldn't surprise me to see a provincial politician jump into this race, a la Kennedy in 2006, and Fournier is the name I've heard the most rumours about. Quebec's Justice Minister worked in Michael Ignatieff's office so he has federal connections to complement his 15 years of experience in provincial politics. Of course, with a resume like this, he might have his sights set on Jean Charest's job.


Borys Wrzesnewskyj: The Epoch Times, the must-read source for all your Liberal leadership gossip, reported that Wrzesnewskyj is planning a leadership bid, much to the horror of journalists everywhere who will now need to learn how to spell and pronounce his name.


Robert Ghiz: The 37 year old Premier of PEI has said "never say no" but wants to spend time with his two young children.


Belinda Stronach: She made some noise prior to the convention, so I wouldn't rule out a return to politics.


Andrew Coyne: There are Facebook ads and buttons, making this the best funded campaign to date.


Frank McKenna: You all knew this was coming as the punch line. Yet two commenters on David Akin's blog and one delegate I talked to in Ottawa suggested McKenna un-ironically. Some rumours will never die...


That's 28 names I've floated over the past two days, and I expect we'll hear a few others before all is said and done. By all means, float some more in the comments section.

Given the mood for change in the Liberal Party, it wouldn't at all surprise me if someone we're not even talking about ends up winning this thing.