The Recalibration of Stephen Harper

September 3, 2010: Guy Giorno, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most senior adviser, is stepping down, as the Conservatives seek to recalibrate after a politically troubled summer.

December 30, 2009: “This is the time to recalibrate, consult and deliver the next stage of our plan that we outlined last year in Budget 2009,” said spokesman Dimitri Soudas.

A Propos of Nothing

August 11, 2010: Michael Ignatieff’s principal secretary and top Quebec aide quit because the Liberal Leader doesn’t know the province “from Minnesota,” Stephen Harper’s strategists say.

The gloating memo, sent to Tory MPs and supporters Monday, was inspired by the departure of Jean-Marc Fournier. A former member of Quebec’s National Assembly, he left Jean Charest’s government in November, 2008, and went to work for Mr. Ignatieff.

Mr. Ignatieff’s office has been a bit of revolving door so it’s not great for him to see such a senior aide, especially one from Quebec, leave.

I'm curious if Guy Giorno had a hand in that memo...

End of Summer News Bits

1. Bloc MP Carole Lavallée is upset with Stephen Harper:

La députée bloquiste Carole Lavallée juge inacceptable que le premier ministre Stephen Harper ait écrit aux élèves du pays afin de les encourager à visiter les parcs nationaux.

Dans cette lettre expédiée en mai aux élèves de deuxième secondaire au Québec et de huitième année dans le reste du pays, M.Harper rappelle que le gouvernement fédéral offre un laissez-passer valide pour 12 mois permettant de visiter gratuitement les parcs nationaux et les lieux historiques gérés par Parcs Canada.

«Allez explorer nos montagnes, nos forêts, nos champs de bataille, nos forts, nos campings et plus encore», écrit M.Harper.

«En tant que Canadiens, nous avons la chance de vivre dans un pays qui a une riche histoire et une véritable beauté naturelle. Ce laissez-passer vous permet d'en apprendre plus sur l'histoire et la nature que partagent tous les Canadiens. En tant que futurs leaders, vous tenez le Canada entre vos mains. Le meilleur moyen de vous préparer à diriger est d'en savoir le plus possible sur ce grand pays qui est le nôtre. Profitez-en bien?!»

Of all the grievances I have with Stephen Harper, I must confess that encouraging High School students to visit National Parks is fairly low on my list...


2. Jack Layton's decision to hold a free vote on Bill C-391 likely means the death of the long gun registry. Again, there are probably worse things to complain about than a leader letting his MPs vote their conscience, but Layton and his urban MPs will wear this one.

As they should.

Layton has taken delight in mocking the "Liberal-Conservative coalition" and exploiting divisions in the Liberal caucus at every opportunity. On social issues, on foreign policy - how many times have we seen an NDP bill designed to split the Liberal caucus down the middle?

Each time, Layton called it a lack of leadership on the part of the Liberal leader. So if Jack is going to let a program he supports die, a program which was just called "cost effective and efficient" in an RCMP report - well, he deserves to shoulder the blame.


3. We likely won't have a fall election, but a 4 riding mini-election could give the political junkies out there their fix.

Stampede to the Polls: Ric McIver Profile

If I'm going to earn the right to keep the "Calgary" prefix on this blog's name, I feel it's my responsibility to cover Calgary politics. As such, I begin the first of my 764 part series, profiling the gaggle of candidates vying to replace Dave Bronconnier as Mayor of Calgary.

Sadly, with Craig Chandler siting out the race, Calgary doesn't have a mayoral candidate as nutilly right wing as Rob Ford. This is something I will take great pleasure in pointing out the next time a Torontonian tries to portray Calgary as conservative backwater.

However, after 20 years of Liberal mayors, we do have a Conservative frontrunner in this race.

Ric McIver

About Ric: Don't let the mustache fool you, McIver is as conservative as they come. His first campaign manager was none other than the aforementioned Craig Chandler and you can find pictures on Ric's flickr account of him volunteering for Stephen Harper and speaking at a rally against the undemocratic socialist separatist coalition. The site also contains pictures of Ric wearing nothing but a Conservative Party t-shirt.

On council, McIver has spent the last 9 years as the unofficial "opposition leader" to Mayor Bronconnier, earning his "Doctor No" nickname. He has railed against wasteful spending. He led the yellow ribbon charge. He's opposed Bronco's attempts to build bridges.

So it comes as no surprise to anyone that McIver is running for mayor or that he leads all other candidates in terms of name recognition.


Website
(Appearance: 7/10, Functionality 7/10, Content 4/10, Uniqueness 3/10, Overall 6/10)

McIver has run a cautious campaign, and he has produced a cautious website. Candidate smiling in front of Calgary? Check. Donation, Volunteer, and Take Action buttons? Check. Some pictures here, some press releases there? Check. But really, there's little to get excited about on this site. Which is fine - McIver has name recognition, money and volunteers. He doesn't need an aggressive online presence.


Social Media

892 Twitter followers - Ric tweets every few days
1691 Facebook fans
1995 Youtube views - but all his channel has are 2 slide shows


My Take: I actually don't have a problem with Ric, and not just because I made a bet last year that he'd win this election. Even if I don't agree with him, he's always been consistent and true to his principles.

However...colour me unimpressed with his campaign to date. The man has gone from Doctor No to Mister Sure. Airport tunnel? Sure! Ring road? Sure! If you read Ric's "vision" of Calgary, it certainly doesn't sound any more conservative than NDPer Bob Hawkesworth's. Hell, Hawkesworth is against the airport tunnel because it's too expensive.

Beyond that, McIver's one page vision is nothing more than municipal buzzword mad gab.

"Building complete communities where Calgarians can live, work and play without long commutes."
"Thoughtful development of our transit system, continued work on our road network and
intelligent downtown parking policies will help re-vitalize the core."
"Budgeting will be responsible, taxes justified and transparent"

This isn't just me being a jerk and picking out select lines - in McIver's one page "complete vision", the most exciting piece of policy he tosses out is a promise of "smart snow removal strategy". I have no clue what this means, but I'm hoping it involves Mr Plow.

In fairness to Ric, there's no need for him to release his full platform this early in the race, and I expect the surprise entry of Barb Higgins will lead to a bolder campaign than he would have otherwise run. But, so far, McIver appears content running a typical frontrunner campaign.

Two Month Old News As It Happens

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone:

OTTAWA — Veteran Liberal MP Maurizio Bevilacqua is resigning, paving the way for a mayoral bid in his hometown of Vaughan, Ont.

Bevilacqua says he informed Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff Wednesday that he won't be seeking re-election and the leader thanked him for his years of service, a party official said.

He's expected to formally resign his parliamentary seat, which he's held for 22 years, later this week.

This will set off an interesting fall in Vaughan, with a hotly contested mayoral race and a hotly contested by election.

Complicated

Vic Toews calls on all Canadians to be "vigilant against terrorism", to help the government apprehend terrorists.

I'm not sure what specifically we can do, but I guess this means we'll all have to force ourselves to watch the next season of Canadian Idol now...

So You Think You Can Dance Canada

I, for one, say we just scrap the whole election and go straight to a dance off!





So what's the verdict? I think I may have to reluctantly give the edge to Harper.

Who has the better dance moves?
	Iggy
	S-Harp
pollcode.com free polls

New Brunswick Votes

The writ drops today for the New Brunswick election, with the opposition Conservatives led by David Alward trying to oust Liberal incumbent Shawn Graham.

I must confess that my knowledge of New Brunswick politics is mostly limited to Frank McKenna and Bernard Lord leadership rumours, so I don't have many insights to share. I really like what I've seen of Shawn Graham - he's tried bold moves to turn around the province's economy and I liked the philosophy of government he espoused as a guest speaker at the 2006 Liberal Leadership Convention.

Of course, given the fiasco over the sale of New Brunswick power, and his putrid approval rating, he's certainly going to be in tough. I invite anyone more up on the election to share their comments below (Eric at 308 has a good primer).

Voluntary Admission

It's been well publicized that the former two Chief Statisticians in this land were against the Census changes - one of them led the charge against change, and the other resigned in protest over it.

Not surprisingly, their successor also acknowledges the results from a voluntary long form won't be comparable to those of past surveys:

The results of the voluntary National Household Survey, which will arrive in Canadian mailboxes in spring, “will, of course, never be comparable to census data,” Wayne Smith said in an internal Statscan publication obtained by The Globe and Mail.

Tough On Crime

Police chiefs promise to wage public, political campaign for long-gun registry

Police take on Harper over census