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December 24, 2008

In my own defense

I feel like, over the past few weeks, I've found myself taking one lonely position after another defending the Harper Conservatives, to the point that Maderblog risks moving from a right wing blog to an affirmatively Conservative one - a move I have no intention of making, at least for the time being. I've often said that I'm an ideologue, rather than a partisan; and the truth is that I have no particular desire to become Stephen Harper's defender-in-chief. So a word of explanation.

There are many reasons for people across the political spectrum to disagree with Stephen Harper. Indeed, there are an almost limitless number of ways for reasonable people to complete the sentence "I disagree with Stephen Harper because X." My hobby, lately, has been to probe many of these declarations to figure out just what that X is, and then to evaluate the merits and weight of X as against any proposed alternative.

Often the X is political or ideological: "I disagree with Harper because he doesn't seem to support significant direct economic stimulus, and I do;" "I disagree with Harper because he wants to eliminate public funding for political parties, and I don't." That's great; that's politics. But increasingly I find that--at least among the commentariat--the X is (for lack of a better term) emotional: "I disagree with Harper because he's mean;" "I disagree with Harper because he's a hypocrite."

The problem with emotional disagreements is that they're almost impossible to evaluate on objective grounds. My first post on the constitutional crisis explored this area: I took issue with criticism of Harper for being mean, pointing out that many a Liberal had exhibited the same characteristics--for better or for worse. Paul Wells suggested that the difference was that mean Liberals achieved Liberal ends, while Harper was failing to achieve Conservative ones; but while that's fair enough, I doubt most media critics of Harper's meanness wish him to be a more successful Conservative - they wish him to be out of government entirely.

[I recognize that many Conservatives are upset with Harper for precisely this reason, and I think it's a perfectly valid reason to be upset with him. I just don't think that the ranks of the professional commentariat contain very many such Conservatives.]

Often the emotional X is simply a front, however, for a more objective ideological or political X. For many, "Harper is mean" was a shorthand for "Harper is Conservative." Again, there's absolutely nothing wrong with disagreeing with Harper because he's Conservative. But in the context of, for instance, a constitutional crisis, when the Prime Minister's faults are being evaluated not merely for sport but as a ground on which to justify an unprecedented transfer of power, a simple ideological or political disagreement has less purchase. Put plainly, one might disagree with Harper's approach to stimulus, but as he was recently returned to office it's his prerogative to pursue that approach, and - I submit, though I don't think it's too controversial - a simple political or ideological disagreement is insufficient to justify a transfer of government power without an intervening election.

What I've been trying to do, over the past few weeks - and intermittently - is to expose the X in popular media criticisms of the Harper government. I'm more concerned with the media than with the opposition parties, because the opposition parties can be expected to assert political or ideological Xs, dressed up to a greater or lesser extent in emotional language. But the press is, or ought to be, expected to be more straightforward; at least, I expect the commentariat to strive for that sort of directness. If you disagree with Harper because you disagree with his policy positions, say so; that facilitates a policy discussion, and it allows a comparison between the opinions of the commentariat and the opinions of the nation (where polling data is available). And if you disagree with Harper because you just don't like him, say so; that way readers can evaluate further commentary in light of an admitted dislike for the subject.

Ultimately the people will decide these issues - which is why I continue to believe that if the Government falls in January, the GG should call an election. And while I have my own policy preferences with regard to many of the recently-discussed Xs, I don't think there's any need to recite them ad nauseum here - you can guess what they are, and someone else (probably Andrew Coyne) has already put the point better than I ever could. When I speak up, it's because I think that something in the national political discussion bears comment - and recently, what I think bears comment is what I perceive to be an increase in simple dislike for the Prime Minister that is having the effect of coloring quite a bit of contemporary political commentary.

I could, of course, be wrong.

Posted by David Mader at 05:31 PM | (0) | Back to Main

A Bit More on the Senate Appointments

Charles takes issue with my comments below. He writes:

Leave it to Mader to draft up a fancy pseudo-syllogism for what boils down to an old Alliance one-liner about "stacking". What have you demonstrated here? All you've done is re-state your presumption about stacking. Take out the words "stack" and "hacks" in your third paragraph and just put in "appoint" and you see what I mean.

"[T]he Liberals are able to pursue this line of attack without exposing themselves to criticism because nobody expects that the Liberals would ever do anything except appoint members to the Upper House".
Maybe you've read an article about the Liberals attacking the credentials of the appointees, but I haven't; they're just highlighting another failure of the ideology Harper arrived in Ottawa with and continues to pay lip service to while acting in a different manner.
I think Charles is criticizing me for taking a substantive position on the merits and demerits of the Senate and its members, but I'm not. Maybe Senate reform is necessary; maybe the Senate is ok the way it is now. My point is simply that (a) the Liberals have acted in a way that suggests they believe it's ok now (at least as to the appointment process); (b) the Harper Tories announced a policy of reform based on the assumption that reform was necessary; (c) with these recent appointments, the Harper Tories have taken a course of action consistent with the belief that the Senate is ok the way it is now (at least with regard to appointments); (d) the Tories have thereby opened themselves up to a charge of hypocrisy; and (e) the Liberals are only able to take advantage of that opening, while remaining insulated from collateral attack, because they have never indicated any desire or appetite for reform.

Of course, if you believe that the Senate (and particularly the appointments process) is ok the way it is now, then my observation as to the Grits has no rhetorical force; but if that's the case, the hypocrisy charge becomes exceedingly narrow: Harper is a hypocrite because he's doing something he said he wouldn't do, but he was wrong to say he wouldn't do it - so there's no intrinsic problem with his doing it now; the only problem is secondary, namely that he (mistakenly or misguidedly) said he wouldn't do it in the first place.

Hardly a resounding argument!¹

If, on the other hand, you believe Senate reform is necessary, then the Liberal criticism founders given the fact that they're criticizing the Tories for doing precisely what they'd have done had they been in office. This weakens their hypocrisy argument - already tenuous, as I've argued - because, to those who believe reform is necessary, the Tory position - principle (temporarily?) abandoned - is (at least arguably) better than the Grit position - no principle.

In other words, the Liberal critique will resonate with those who don't believe reform is necessary, although it's not a very forceful critique; and it will fail to resonate among those who believe in reform. In other words, it's a straight-up (generally partisan) political squabble - not, as so many in the press would seemingly have it, further evidence of Harper's failure as a leader.

As for the underlying dispute re: the value of the Senate and the hackery or non-hackery of its members, I should say (1) whether an appointee is or was a party hack doesn't necessarily have any bearing on whether they should be a Senator, or whether they will be a good one; (2) the hack language is hardly limited to the old Alliance - I refer you to, oh, pretty much any article covering this week's appointments; and (3) unlike many folks on both sides of the debate, I don't favor abolition - I believe unicameralism is a bad idea even in a government of explicitly defined separated powers and a general principle of legislative supremacy, which makes it an even worse idea in a government of only a customary and, in many instances, nominal separation of powers and a constitutional guarantee of legislative supremacy.

And if this is all more incoherent than usual, I blame it on my head cold.

ADDENDUM: After some further back-and-forth, Charles has convinced me that my post yesterday was horribly worded in such a way that it conveyed a partisan position that I didn't mean to take. My basic claim had to do with the assumptions implicit in media criticisms of Harper, but as those assumptions involved the Grits, it was possible--heck, it was easy-- to read my post to involve the assumptions underlying the Grit criticisms themselves.

Whether or not the practice of appointing political insiders to the upper chamber constitutes "stacking" the Senate with "hacks" is, I think, wholly immaterial to my post. But much of the press criticism of this week's appointments used precisely that language. "Harper's choice to stack Senate same old politics," said the Regina Star-Phoenix. "Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to stack 18 vacant Senate seats with Tory loyalists before Christmas was denounced by opposition MPs Thursday as a cynical move which contradicts past pledges to reform the upper chamber," reported CTV. "Harper does about-turn on stacking Senate," said the Globe and Mail.

The point I was trying, but clearly failed, to make, is that these press criticisms, insofar as they were designed to be political criticisms of the Harper Tories, were necessarily predicated on the recognition that the Grits would not have acted differently. But if the Tories are to be criticized for "stacking the Senate," then the Grits are subject to the very same criticism; or, both Tories and Grits are to be treated equally so that, for instance, the CTV report above would read "Harper's plan to appoint 18 Conservative senators was denounced . . . .'' That would have focused the criticisms on the hypocrisy charge which, as I noted originally, is not without some force.

Which leads to my second drafting error -- my inclusion of an aside regarding the merits of the hypocrisy argument, and my terribly worded transition from that aside back to my basic point. The hypocrisy claim is a political one, in that it has far more purchase among those inclined to criticize Harper in the first place than among those who don't. Beyond my aside, I didn't mean to take a strong position on it, and insofar as my post suggests otherwise, I retract it.

p.s. Yes, comments are broken. It's all TypeKey's fault. I've got a bit of time off coming up, and if you're all nice to me I may spend part of that time installing a shiny new version of Movable Type, which should make all of our troubles disappear.

¹ And this assumes that the hypocrisy charge can be evaluated in the abstract, rather than in context--the context being, of course, the possibility that Harper's government will be defeated and replaced by a coalition of the opposition parties. There's a whole debate to be had regarding the relative legitimacy of Harper appointments now versus coalition appointments prior to the next election; but that whole debate is context for the decision to appoint now, and at least some legitimate positions in that debate would support immediate appointments in a way that reduces, or even eliminates, the hypocrisy charge. In plain English: the appointments embargo was not a suicide pact, and nothing about Harper's policy suggested that he was willing to forego appointments entirely where the alternative was appointment by an unelected left-wing coalition whose existence depended on the signature of Gilles Duceppe.

Posted by David Mader at 02:48 PM | (0) | Back to Main

December 23, 2008

Speaking the Unspoken

[NOTE: I have partially retracted some of the claims made in this post.]

A very brief thought about the flap over the Senate appointments. While most of the hand-wringing in the media seems to reflect the shock - shock! - that someone would dare to play politics with Senate appointments, there is, I think, one line of criticism that can stick, and that is that Harper and the Tories are (apparently) doing what they said they wouldn't do.

As an aside, I'm not really sure how much force this line of criticism has; after all, while the goal of the appointment embargo was Senate reform, surely the second-best option, from a Conservative point of view, was the appointment of Conservative - rather than Liberal-Democratic - senators. Maybe the embargo was wrong-headed from the start; but if so, then the proper course would have been to appoint these senators one-by-one over time, rather than all at once. Net difference: zero - except, of course, that doing it all at once, and after the fact, feeds the media cycle.

In any event, whatever its merits, the hypocrisy meme seems popular this morning. So let me just make explicit what's implicit in every such column you'll read: the Liberals are able to tag Harper as a hypocrite because he is doing something he said he wouldn't do - stack the Senate; the Liberals are able to pursue this line of attack without exposing themselves to criticism because nobody expects that the Liberals would ever do anything except stack the Senate with party hacks.

At least Harper tried.

Posted by David Mader at 10:01 AM | (0) | Back to Main

December 15, 2008

Fair Enough

Paul Wells very kindly quotes me (at some length) in a blog post today, responding to my suggestion that his latest print column indulged in a bit of Harper hatred instead of taking the Prime Minister on his own terms and finding fault there. In today's post Wells does just that, conceding that many of Harper's recent actions might be defensible in the abstract as consistent with small government conservatism, but arguing that in practical effect Harper has betrayed the small government cause by painting himself into such a corner that he can only survive by adopting big government initiatives.

I responded in brief over on the Maclean's servers, but because I was the 152nd to the party over there, and because lots of folks are heading over in this direction, I'll repeat my response here. And the response is: fair enough! In response to the print column I had written that “it may be that Harper’s sin is failing to recognize that his brand of conservatism is destined to cause divisions that, in a minority parliament (or a dysfunctional confederation) are bound to be fatal.” At the time I was thinking that such conservatism could be said to be fatal to the minority parliament or, at a stretch, to confederation. But Wells makes a compelling case that it might also be fatal to small-government conservatism itself.

It's hard to make that sort of evaluation on the fly; at the very least we'll have to wait for January's budget. One could argue that in this economic climate, some sort of big-government initiative is inevitable, and that whatever the Tories do on that score will be better, from a small-government perspective, than what the Grits - or the Liberal Democrats - might have done. But Wells makes the persuasive point that the comparison shouldn't be to what another party might have done, but rather to what Harper might have done had he not stirred up a hornet's nest.

At the same time, insofar as Harper's expected nanny-statism will be a result of that hornet's nest, it's a bit unfair to blame Harper entirely; after all, though some righteous reaction to the funding cut was inevitable (which is why I said I wouldn't have done it), it was really up to the Liberal Democrats to decide how outraged they would be. I don't think any of us expected that they'd go nuclear right away.

So maybe that was Harper's original sin - in failing to anticipate the eagerness with which Dion, Layton, and the rest would latch on to an admittedly impolitic policy to create a swarm of hornets (I'm trying desperately to escape that metaphor) disproportionate in size to the rock that disturbed it. In any case, as Paul says, small government conservatism has missed an opportunity, and that's a real shame.

Posted by David Mader at 07:32 PM | (0) | Back to Main

December 05, 2008

About That Conventional Wisdom


CPC LPC NDP GP BQ
COMPAS 51 20 10 6 8
Ipsos 46 23 13 8 9
Ekos 44 24.1 14.5 8.1 9.2
Poll of Polls 47 22.4 12.5 7.4 8.7
Seat Projection 206 40 15 0 45


POP QUIZ: Which party leader has the Globe and Mail not called on to resign? Is it (A) the one whose party's poll numbers have risen 30% since October; (B) the one whose party's poll numbers have fallen 25%; or (C) the one whose party's poll numbers have fallen 28%?

Did you say (A)? Wrong: the Globe called for Harper's resignation today.

Did you say (B)? Wrong: the Globe wrote off Dion as a leader for good today.

Did you say (C)? You're right! Despite his presiding over a greater proportional decline in party support than any other national leader, the Globe and Mail has not yet called on Jack Layton to resign his leadership of the NDP. Congratulations, Jack!

And congratulations, Globe and Mail!

Posted by David Mader at 02:31 PM | (0) | Back to Main

December 02, 2008

The Critics Continue to Rave!

Montreal Gazette:

The idea that two parties totalling 114 MPs can supplant a governing party with 144 seems surreal precisely because it is alien to the Canadian tradition; not illegal, but not quite the Canadian way, either. Our constitution, much of it unwritten, includes an element of tradition and practice, and nothing like this has ever happened before federally. Our only other coalition, during the First World War, arose slowly over an issue of substance, conscription, not overnight because parties feared losing their subsidies. . . .

The proper way to choose a government for Canada is at the ballot box, not by cabal and closed-door deal. Yes we're all tired of elections, and yes Harper brought this on himself. But all the same, if the Liberals and New Democrats are determined to punish Harper, then Governor-General Michaëlle Jean should issue a writ for a new election. Let the people decide.

Victoria Times-Colonist:
But the issue should not be the legal possibilities, but what is best for the country.

And the proposed coalition is not in Canada's interests. Stéphane Dion would become an interim prime minister, until next May's Liberal leadership convention, although only 26 per cent of voters supported his party. The new Liberal leader would then govern for at least another two years under the coalition plan before facing the voters. The sharing of cabinet posts by Liberals and New Democrats raises the prospect of policy uncertainty.

And the entire arrangement rests on the support of the Bloc Québécois, greatly strengthening the power of a party that seeks to divide Canada.

Vancouver Province:
What is going on in Ottawa is disgusting. If the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party get their way, our country will be run by a coalition government that not one Canadian supported in an election.

Millions of Canadians voted for the Liberals. Millions voted NDP. But no one voted for the coalition of these two parties: a milquetoast mutation that will say and do whatever it takes to keep each other in power.

This coalition has not taken its platform to Canadians. This coalition has not put forth an ideology that even one single citizen has had the chance to support at the ballot box.

If it passes, it will mark the lowest point in Canadian political history -- an appalling act of backroom gamesmanship that stands as an affront to every taxpayer in this country.

Making the situation even more odious is the reality that this coalition survives only if the Liberals and the NDP play ball with the Bloc Quebecois -- a party that wants to separate from Canada. . . .

Let's hope enough people in the opposition caucuses have the integrity to not support this garbage.

If they don't, then let's spend another $300 million on an election.

Edmonton Journal:
Rather than watch the now-officially-unified opposition parties defeat the government next week, the PM must prorogue the House of Commons to allow a cooling-off period over the holidays. Governor-General Michaelle Jean should either sign off on that, or, perish the thought, call for a general election in the event of a successful non-confidence motion.

The other main option -- installing a coalition Liberal-NDP government led by Stephane Dion -- a leader recently roundly rejected by Canadians along with his botched central policy, now propped up by the separatist Bloc Quebecois, would be an insult we cannot tolerate, even for a few months. This is the sort of dicey caretaker deal we expect from emerging or deeply troubled states, not from the stable, sensible success story that is Canada. If undeniably historic and dramatic, Monday's agreement between the three opposition parties -- guaranteed to last at least 18 months with Bloc support -- still lacks basic electoral legitimacy.

Calgary Herald:
Nevertheless, a government reliant upon the support of a party conceived for no other purpose than to facilitate Quebec's exit from Confederation has the legitimacy of a police force maintaining public order with the assistance of a biker gang under contract. For this reason alone, the Governor General should reject the coalition proposal. . . .

Heaven knows nobody wants another election, but given the options emerging from this mess, it is starting to look like the safest for the country, the least offensive to democratic principles and the course of action we would recommend to the Governor General, in the increasingly likely event that she finds herself obliged to adjudicate this complex dilemma.

Windsor Star:
On one hand, there is nothing to prevent the NDP and Liberals from toppling Harper and forming a coalition. All that's needed is the Governor General's approval.

The alternative would be another election less than two months after the last vote.

The real concern should be where a Liberal-NDP coalition government would lead the country, and what kind of credibility it would have. While both parties have been quick to blame Harper for his failure to come up with an economic strategy, neither the NDP nor Liberals have come up with a detailed plan.

It's also troubling that the coalition would depend on the Bloc Quebecois to stay in power. That means separatists would be playing a huge role in governing the country at one of the most economically sensitive times in our history. . . .

While Stephen Harper's Conservatives might not be everyone's first choice to lead Canada, the government offers the best chance to provide stability and steady leadership when it's most needed.

Posted by David Mader at 01:00 PM | (0) | Back to Main

December 01, 2008

May I Suggest a Name?

Since we're looking to jolly old England for our Constitutional precedents, why not use the perfectly serviceable Liberal Democrats?

Posted by David Mader at 08:47 PM | (0) | Back to Main

Prime Minister Dion

So let's get this straight: Stephane Dion is going to be the prime minister; the coalition is going to last "at least one year"; and there will be a Liberal leadership contest in May of next year.

So the Liberals intend to impose not one but two unelected Liberal prime ministers on the nation?

Posted by David Mader at 02:39 PM | (0) | Back to Main

Survey Says...

National Post:

Right now, certain childish high spirits are expressing themselves boisterously in favour of a Canadian government of the left -- one specifically supported by a party pledged to Canada's dissolution. The claim is that even though the Conservatives have signalled a willingness to negotiate on the funding issue, Mr. Harper has lost all credibility with the country because his fiscal update doesn't contain the same waterfall of billions being pumped out by other governments in response to the nascent global recession.

This is a ridiculous pretext to overturn the result of October's election.

Globe and Mail:
That does not mean, however, that the interests of Canada during tumultuous times would be best served by a Liberal-NDP coalition, propped up by separatists. Such an unwieldy group would, at the least, need a very strong hand at the helm. The Liberals are presently in no position to provide one. They should be focused not on cobbling together an unholy alliance with sovereigntists and social democrats, as they are charging ahead with despite backtracking by the Conservatives over the weekend, but by moving in the short term to settle their own leadership questions.
Toronto Star:
As for Harper, he could yet try to head off the coalition with a genuine attempt at compromise in the coming days. But if he charges ahead, it is he, not the opposition leaders, who should shoulder the blame for the political uncertainty that will follow.
I score that two opposed and one neutral. Hardly a ringing endorsement for the leftist union by the three national newspapers.

UPDATE: The critics are raving!

Montreal Gazette:
But now the other parties, scenting blood in the water, are talking about toppling the Conservatives and forming some kind of coalition. We can imagine few worse ideas.

The over-caffeinated opposition seems eager to subject us to weeks of political tumult and improvisation - in the name of economic stability. We hope Prime Minister Stephen Harper's comments last night have deflated the opposition's balloon; this hare-brained notion should be abandoned.

Calgary Herald:
The last thing Canadians want is to spend precious time and millions of dollars on another election. Nor are the parties financially or mentally prepared to head to the polls and the Liberals are in the middle of a leadership campaign. At the same time, the alternative of a Liberal/NDPcoalition government with Bloc backing would be calamitous for Canada, considering the ND's and Bloc's fiscal policies. The scenario carries the possibility of economic and political instability at a time when there's more than enough uncertainty.
Vancouver Sun:
The Liberal party, which sees itself as the "natural governing party of Canada," needs to give its collective head a shake and back off from its arrogant attempt to grasp power from the duly elected Conservative government.

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper pointed out in his address to the nation Friday, Liberal leader Stephane Dion -- who wants to be the prime minister of a coalition government -- was clearly rejected by Canadians, and his party had in October its worst showing in an election since Confederation.

To have the temerity to try to foist himself on Canadians after getting clobbered at the polls is not just hubris; it's slap on the face to voters who gave the Conservatives a stronger mandate than they received in 2006 to govern in a time of unprecedented economic uncertainty. . . .

In fact, Dion -- who campaigned on the basis that the Liberals would not form a coalition government with the New Democratic Party because its economic policies would be disastrous for the country, now wants to do exactly that.

That's simply irresponsible and unpardonable behaviour when Canadians have more pressing concerns such as holding on to a job and an income to support their families.

We don't need political instability in a time of economic uncertainty. So it's time for everybody to take a deep breath and get their ambitions under control.

Edmonton Journal:
Although it's understandable why the long-suffering opposition is excited by the prospect of some sort of coalition government, the last thing Canada needs right now is more turmoil. Even if something could be put together for brief interval, the prospect of a two-party government -- led by one with a lame duck leader -- operating at the pleasure of the Bloc Quebecois is revolting.
Has any major daily newspaper endorsed the leftist union?

Posted by David Mader at 09:38 AM | (0) | Back to Main

An Honest Question


Is it possible that the opposition parties--all opposition parties--had an agreement in principle to bring down the government and form a coalition prior to Thursday's economic update? And that the political funding amendment was merely a very, very opportune trigger?

Posted by David Mader at 09:16 AM | (0) | Back to Main