Politics and Self-Fellation

Every year the Hill Times runs a poll of various politicos where they nominate themselves as the most "effective" and "valuable" politicians at work today.  It's mostly a farce, of course, a way for those in power (since the ones in power tend to have the most votes available) to pat themselves on the back and try to dredge up some publicity.  It's also something for die-hard party supporters to point to when making arguments over whether so-and-so is an effective politician.

This year, surprising nobody, Stephen Harper came in first place.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who dazzled Cabinet ministers, MPs, Senators and staffers last Wednesday night in Ottawa when he held an impromptu rock concert for the Tories' Christmas party, was voted the year's most valuable politician, according to this year's 14th All Politics Poll: The Best and Worst of Politics in 2010.

Notice the language here? Harper "dazzled" cabinet ministers, resulting in 21% of the votes cast in the poll. This, the article claims, "in spite of an uneven year, as thousands of Canadians took to the streets to protest the decision to prorogue Parliament, academia, and NGOs slammed the modifications to the census, and the government took a battering during the fall on how it decided to buy $16-billion worth of F-35 fighter jets." But of course, the PM was nevertheless "respected by respondents of all political bents" for his economic policies and the like.

Contrast that sort of language with the article's write-up of the third place winner, Jack Layton.

In third place, and after a concerted campaign by NDP staffers who strategically voted in this year's unscientific survey, is NDP Leader Jack Layton (Toronto-Danforth, Ont.). While it may have been a whipped vote for the New Democrats, respondents had a variety of reasons for nominating their leader, including not whipping his party's vote last fall on repealing the long-gun registry.

Emphasis mine.

Harper won first place! What a wonderful survey that reflects reality as we know it.

Layton won third place. Well, that's just because of strategic voting. Also, it's an unscientific survey so, you know, whatevs.

(Harper also came in as the third least-valuable politician according to the poll, but the article doesn't really bother explaining why or how. Modern journalism, folks!)

An eye-opening commentary on the whole spectacle came from Megan Leslie, NPD-Halifax, who won "Favourite up-and-comer" with 21.6% of the votes:

"Whether it's The Hill Times or other polls, we have always seen women in up-and-coming categories because women who are up-and-comers are not threatening, right? If you look at who are the 'powerful people,' who are the 'skilled ministers,' it isn't women. And that's because we're talking about positions where there actually is power.

"To be an up-and-comer, you know, it's nice, it's cute, you get a pat on the head, and 'Isn't that great to see Megan rising up the ranks,' but it's still not threatening. So I think we still need to have a gendered lens when we're looking at these kinds of polls," she said. "It doesn't mean we've broken through."

Anyway, the first link in this post goes to the article reporting the circle-jerk in question. Go ahead and read it, it's worth a laugh.

So, Iggy's approval rating is now sitting at 14%.

Dion's rating, three days after leading the Liberals to defeat in the 2008 election, was 23%. That was considered bad enough that they gave him the boot.*

So, when's Iggy tendering his resignation?



*Okay, that's not quite true. He was given the boot as much because the "natural governing party of Canada" felt they shouldn't stoop so low as to enter into a coalition with the NDP as any other reason. In other words, they're delusional.

Hey, Remember Kyoto?

...because Harper sure doesn't!

From the Globe and Mail:

Federal Environment Minister John Baird arrives at the global climate summit Tuesday looking to administer last rites to the Kyoto Protocol, at least in its current form. But the funeral may have to wait for next year’s session in South Africa.

For Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the end of Canada’s commitment to Kyoto would achieve a long-standing goal, as he has opposed the accord since its inception in 1997 and distanced his government from it since taking office five years ago.

Harper refuses to support Kyoto because it's destined to fail. He knows this, because he does his level best to sabotage it. But don't worry, Harper knows that environmental issues are important to Canadians, so he'll make sure to come up with something better later... Maybe even something his big buddy the U.S. will sign onto!

Officially, the government denies it is aiming to kill Kyoto. However, it vocally supports the political deal reached last year in Copenhagen that would change key elements of Kyoto by demanding binding emission targets from major developing countries.

“We are seeking a legally binding treaty that includes all major emitters, which is what the Copenhagen Accord was all about last year,” Mr. Baird’s spokesman, Bill Rodgers, said. “That includes the emerging economies of China and India. It also includes the United States, which did not ratify Kyoto and has no intention of doing so.”

See, it's really important to get the U.S. on board because without the U.S. it's really just an empty gesture, so we'll follow their lead in whatever they OH WAIT!

The Harper government has no plans to follow a U.S. initiative to slash the greenhouse gas emissions of big polluters — even though Ottawa has pledged to harmonize its climate policies with the Americans.

The White House, stung by its failure to legislate a cap-and-trade bill before the recent congressional elections, has a Plan B set to be implemented within weeks.

The new U.S. rules — passed by executive order — are aimed at curbing emissions from large industrial facilities like refineries and cement factories. They go into effect Jan. 2.

Canadian climate experts say this country could contain the pollution growth from its own industries, notably the oilsands, by introducing similar standards north of the border.

But newly minted Environment Minister John Baird downplayed the plans from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as “patchwork.”

Baird goes on to say that the Plan B south of the border is just too weak so we won't be bothering with it. They'll do something better, for sure. They just won't say what their better plan actually is.

They'll say what it isn't, though! Like the Kyoto protocols. Because the U.S. isn't bothering with that, so we shouldn't, either. But they're very serious about this issue, for reals. They really aren't just waffling and stalling as long as they can in the hopes of getting out of even limp-wristed emissions standards.

Promise.

Tories Boost Liberals in Byelection?

From the Hill Times:

A top Tory from Winnipeg told The Hill Times that had the Conservatives mounted the same candidate who ran in Winnipeg North in the 2008 election, Ray Larkin, whose daughter Marni Larkin is a senior director and organizer for the federal Conservatives in Manitoba, NDP candidate Kevin Chief would likely have won.

Instead, late last summer, after Mr. Lamoureux defeated a prominent member of the large Filipino community in the riding for the byelection nomination, the Conservatives dropped Mr. Larkin and selected a little-known member of the Filipino expatriate population, Julie Javier, who barely ran a campaign, avoided candidate debates and media interviews, featured a mobile poster mounted atop an automobile that sporadically appeared in the riding, and drew criticism from even Conservative party members for her lacklustre effort.

The end result gave Ms. Javier a paltry 1,647 votes, which NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.) says came largely from a diehard knot of Filipino Conservative supporters who supported the tough-on-crime agenda Prime Minister Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) drew attention to on his only low-profile visit to the riding. Had Mr. Larkin been the Conservative candidate, after having won 5,033 votes and 22 per cent of the vote in the 2008 election, Liberal candidate Kevin Lamoureux, who resigned his provincial legislative assembly seat to contest the byelection, would have lost, the senior Conservative said.

It appears that despite allegations the Conservatives put up Ms. Javier to draw votes from the Liberals, the opposite was the case—Prime Minister Harper and the Conservatives wanted Mr. Lamoureux to win.

Party insiders say there is one main reason: They want Mr. Ignatieff to be leading the Liberal Party into the next general election. Mr. Ignatieff has the lowest personal voter support ratings on the federal scene, perhaps since Brian Mulroney, although not for the same reasons, and he has been unable to bring the party's support above the 30-per-cent threshold in public opinion polls.

More at the article. This is really getting pathetic. Really, they traded Dion for this guy? And yet, they're still convinced they're the natural party of Canada, that all they have to do to win a majority is wait it out.

I wish it were true, but it isn't. You really do need to give people a reason to vote for you (besides "ooga booga scary tories," I mean.)

Harper Advisor Calls for Assange's Assassination

Why are conservatives so hateful of transparency that they'd rather see people murdered than know more about what world governments get up to when they think the plebs aren't watching?

Mr. Flanagan, it's not "being manly" to call for such. It's being so incredibly insecure that you can't face the idea of an independent media revealing the truth.

Either that, or it's having a tremendously small penis and needing to call for assassinations on public television to compensate. But I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, here.

UPDATE: I really have to wonder... All those people (some of whom are in powerful positions in the media) calling for Assange's death, what was their stance on the fatwa against Salman Rushdie? Or are such calls okay when it's a white guy making them?

And Another Liberal Myth Bites the Dust

Ever since the Ignatief and Rae came out in favour of an extension to the Afghanistan mission, LPC apologists have been claiming that there's tons - tons, I tell you! - of Liberal MPs who are up in arms about the stance the party leaders have taken. These anonymous MPs, so the apologists say, vehemently oppose the measure.

Warren Kinsella, whose web page I've linked to before, would be one such apologist.

This claim may, in fact, be true. Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter because these anonymous Liberal gainsayers never bother to actually speak up. Not even when it comes to the Bloc's largely toothless Afghan motion, which has been defeated 209-81.

Every single Liberal MP present voted against the motion.

Every. Single. One.

The Liberal Party of Canada is a bunch of useless twats, no matter what their apologists might claim. If they can't even manage a largely meaningless moral stance on this issue, then there's really not much point in making any "big tent" claims, because the only opinion that matters is Iggy's.

UPDATE: There were four Liberal MPs absent from the vote: Cuzner, Fry, Volpe, Folco.

Really, guys? Really?

This is the best you can do?



Ugh. Really, NDP, I'm embarrassed for both of us.

Cookies > Media

Here's Steve Duckett ducking questions by reporters by eating a cookie.


"I'm Eating My Cookie!" - Watch more Funny Videos


For context, this is the conservative hatchet-man who was responsible for bringing in private health care during his time in Australia.  Now he's President and CEO of Alberta Health Services, and is no doubt planning to drown that province's health care system in the tub in the name of profit.

His contempt for the public really couldn't be any more palpable, could it?

The Afghanistan Mission and the Liberal Party

 It's been quite a week for the Liberal Party.  It's also been quite a week for anyone who, like me, grows increasingly sick of Ignatief's weak, half-arsed "third way" leadership.

Now, like most Canadians I've never been particularly fond of Dion as the party leader, but Iggy's making me look back at Dion's brief days with nostalgia.  Thanks to Ignatief, the Liberals have come to be some of the Conservative Party's staunchest allies.

Oh, I know it doesn't look that way on paper.  At least, not with a cursory glance.  Pay attention, though, and you'll notice a pattern of Liberals being conspicuously absent from strategic votes - witness the way the vote for Bill C-300 went down (and that was their own bloody bill!) - making their efforts to battle Conservative policies highly disingenuous.  They're letting the CPC basically get their way with everything, from privatizing Crown corporations, to weakening environmental laws (even those related to offshore drilling, of all things), to killing important progressive legislation, and now their efforts even include extending the Afghanistan mission by a good three years.

Last week, I blogged about this last issue briefly, but I feel the need to return to the topic for a variety of reasons - one of which is the fact that even Warren Kinsella has come out against the Liberal handling of the Afghanistan issue:

You know, I was busy with last night’s gig (and a big shout out to my buddy BCL, who came by to take in the show) and feeling sorry for myself for my Man Cold©, so I didn’t get a chance to fully reflect on the following:
1.  The Prime Minister said last Fall that our combat mission in Afghanistan would end, and would be “a civilian humanitarian development mission after 2011.”
2.  The Liberal Party’s leader said this Spring that his party also favoured “a different role focusing on a humanitarian commitment” after 2011.
3. “Humanitarian.” They both used that word.
4.  After the Liberal leader abruptly changed his mind about all this “humanitarian” stuff, so did the Prime Minister.  Both of them now favour extending the war, and yet more combat roles for at least 1,000 troops.
5.  There’ll be no debate about any of this in Parliament, which is, you know, the Supreme Legislature of the People.  No one seems to give a shit about that.
6.  To drive in the final nail in democracy’s proverbial coffin, the Prime Minister emasculates his Minister of Defence, and sends out his press secretary to tell the rest of us that we’ll be at war for a few more years.  On political info-tainment shows.
7.  Got all that?  Whiplash-inducing reversals on all sides, open contempt for the legislature, cabinet ministers neutered in public, unelected hacks wielding the power of the executive.  Oh, and, more war.
8. More war.  Just like that, in the week where we are all supposed to be remembering why war is a bad thing.
9.  And political people actually wonder why both the Liberals and the Conservatives are dropping below 30 per cent in the polls, and why the NDP is moving up.  And they wonder why people are growing more and more cynical about democracy, and democratic institutions, and are angrily lashing out at politicians.
10.  Wonder no more.

For context, this is the same Warren Kinsella who's long been a Liberal party hack and even a high-ranking campaign coordinator.  Him coming out so strongly against a party's stated position is very rare.  So rare that I don't think it's ever actually happened before.

So, why would the Liberals stake out such a terrible position?

Basically, because Iggy, much like his "third way" liberalism, is stupid.  I strongly suspect Iggy was trying to stake out a position that would attract Red Tories of the CPC (the old guard who are supposedly non-crazy) away from Harper's neoconservativism and toward the Liberals.  Basically, they wanted to out-conservative - or at least pre-empt - Harper.  "Extend the mission with 400 troops?" they asked, scoffing, "Why, stop being such a girly man, Prime Minister!  You should have a full thousand!"

The problem with this plan is that it can't possibly work.  Harper's the one who made the announcement of the extension - trying to impress the less-than-30% of voters who actually like the idea by throwing a larger number out isn't good enough to attract them away from the CPC, because pro-War has long been the CPC's territory.  Harper basically has two choices at this point - he can say, "Nah, 400 will manage," at which point the pro-War crowd will continue licking Harper's feet and praising him for his wisdom, or else he can say "Sure, a thousand's even better," at which point he'll have conquered the idea as his own and the Liberals don't get any credit for it.  (Turns out, Harper actually said both, in the order I listed above.) 

 But by even making the suggestion in the first place, the Liberals can't speak out against the idea of the extension without coming across as a bunch of waffling wimps.

Which, of course, they are.

Which is why, of course, this is exactly what they did

“How many trainers? Where are they going to be? Are they going to be out of combat? How much is it going to cost? Why is it impossible for this government to give simple answers to clear questions that Canadians need to have answers to before they can approve any mission by this government,” Michael Ignatieff demanded.

These are meaningless and weak questions, and Ignatieff doesn't actually expect any answers - at this point it's just flailing.  Even NPD turncoat and third-way liberalism champion Rae admits that the Liberals can't do anything to really fight the CPC on this issue:

But, for now, they are hostages to Conservative policy, as Mr. Rae admitted. "We have done an unusual job for an official opposition and we are not -we are not in a position to negotiate a plan, we are not in a position to do anything...," he said after Question Period.

I've seen it speculated that the real issue here is the Liberal war chest.  Namely, that it's empty - if they were to go to election too soon, the party would implode from lack of funding.  So, they move politically rightward at every chance, hoping to eat away at CPC support, while biding for time to refill the war chests.  This hasn't been working, of course, because war chests get filled through strong leadership and brave ideological stances - something good leaders like Layton and Harper* have understood for some time.

Honestly, the state of the Liberal party, the poor leadership Iggy's giving them...  It really makes me miss Cretien.  Pepper-spray and all.

*Here I use the term "good" to mean "effective," not "kind" or "righteous" or the like.  Which should be obvious, since Harper's one of the few politicians in North America I'd unironically describe as evil.

The Afganistan Withdrawal Hornswoggle

For years now, we the public have been told that 2011 will be our last year of involvement in Afganistan.  As most are likely aware, this is no longer the case - Harper has announced that we'll be keeping 400 Canadian soldiers there to operate in a training capacity, and the Liberals countered his announcement with the suggestion that we should increase that number to an even thousand because...  well, because they're Liberals and the Liberal party is pretty shit right now.

Of course, this move surprises no one who's been paying attention.  Pogge pointed out, way back at the beginning of October, that the official line from both U.S. and Canadian governments weren't really meshing well with their own message:  namely that our planned withdrawal was putting the mission at jeopardy, that "it will be impossible to replace Canada's more than 1,000 combat troops without diminishing forces elsewhere in the country."  The reason this objection didn't make much sense is that our withdrawal was meant to occur at the same time as the planned drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan - which suggests that, in truth, the U.S. Government has little intention of actually reducing their forces.

The number of troops we're going to be keeping there during this farce of nation-building is yet to be determined - don't think for a second that the four hundred number Harper gave is in any way accurate, not with the Liberals giving him ample opportunity and excuse to boost that upwards considerably, nor with the concerted campaign to convince us that we really actually don't want to pull out anyway.  Our withdrawal may not even end up as a drawdown, at this rate.

Omar Khadr set to Plead

Omar Khadr, a young man who was taken prisoner in Afghanistan while fighting NATO forces alongside the Taliban in 2002. He was 15 at the time; he captured while wounded, probably tortured, interrogated at length, intimidated and threatened with many things including rape and murder, and held for years without access to a lawyer. He was eventually given not a trial, but a tribunal, and is currently in the midst of his second military tribunal to determine his guilt or innocence.

He's also a Canadian citizen, albeit one whose plight has been largely ignored by Canada's reigning governments.

Indeed, successive Canadian governments have refused to seek extradition or repatriation despite the fact that groups like Amnesty International urged doing so. In fact, not only did Canada fail him - as established by the Canadian Cabinet, the Federal Court of Canada, and then the Supreme Court of Canada, resptively - we've spent $1.3 million making sure that he stays in Guantanamo... Rather than fighting for his Charter Rights.

According to the buzz in the media, he's about to plead to a lesser charge. As a result, he'll serve eight years, and will likely be made to withhold any formal accusations of torture - much like what happened with John Walker Lindh's own plea bargain.

I'm not going to talk about this, though, because I'm sure there are plenty of news sites, and plenty of other blogs, where you can hear all about this stuff. Instead, I'm going to focus on a narrative I fear is about to grow through certain media sources - one which I find incredibly ugly, particularly given everything this young man has already been forced to endure.

There are certain groups who are doing their level best to make sure Khadr's repatriation won't happen. This includes one purported "expert on evil" by the name of Dr. Michael Welner:

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Michael Welner says Khadr is known to have expressed peace-loving intentions only to "those advancing his public image" from behind the razor wire at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Welner also discounts much-cited comments by some U.S. guards at Guantanamo that the Toronto native is a "good kid" and "salvageable" - calling them "shallow in their prognostic significance."

"When one leaps to the conclusion about Omar Khadr's future because he is friendly, one might recall that Osama bin Laden has always been described as gentle, likable and charming," New York-based Welner told Postmedia News.

"There is no record of (Khadr's) publicly repudiating al-Qaida, as civilized Muslims should, not even a letter composed for him by Dennis Edney," he added in a reference to one of Khadr's two Canadian lawyers. There is "no call . . . to radical Islamists to mature beyond their elemental intolerance."

Welner, 46, spoke as the Canadian government faces the prospect of soon receiving a call for Khadr to be transferred to a Canadian jail in the event he is convicted of war crimes charges he faces in a Guantanamo military commission.

This Doctor, and I use the term loosely, has created what he calls "the Depravity Scale," purportedly a "achieve a scientific-legal standardization of evil." I expect this Doctor, again a term I'm using loosely, will get a lot of face-time from certain news sources.

Let's be clear, though: The man's a quack. There's no such thing as a scientific measure of evil. The whole idea doesn't even make any sense.

Looking through the sources Welner used to build his scale reveals all of a single reference to an actual, academic journal (Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law). His scale never went through any sort of peer-review process, either - it was an editorial. This is exactly as scientific as measuring someone's skull to determine whether they're likely to commit murder. Or, to use a more modern example, diluting medicine to make it more effective.

And yet Dr. Welner is trying to use this system he invented whole-cloth from his imagination to make Khadr's situation even more miserable.

This poor man has spent a third of his life in prison, terribly mistreated, denied a fair and open trial, and now is likely to spend yet another eight years behind bars. But this still isn't enough Dr. Welner.

For shame, Dr. Welner. For shame.

This is the Best Campaign Attack Ad

Well, it is.

BONUS POST! That Sure Didn't Take Long...

Argh!  I just couldn't wait until Wednesday to blog about this one...

The PCs have barely gotten into power, and they're already talking about selling off Crown property.  Y'know, like how the Libs tried to sell off NB Power, and it got everyone all pissed off about it?  And then of course the Tories utilized that anger in their campaign...

It's not NB Power this time, though.  No, it's NB Liquor that they're talking about selling off.

Allain said the corporation is well run and profitable and that employees do a good job. But given New Brunswick's $749-million deficit, he'll look at whether privatizing it makes sense.

I can save you some time there, Allain. It doesn't.

This makes even less sense than the sale of NB Power, since NB Liquor is, by their own admission, an even better-run company.  And unlike NB Power, there's little to no chance of NB Liquor ever running in the red anytime soon.  It is, and shall remain, a viable source of income for funding government works and paying down the deficit for decades to come...  AS LONG AS YOU BASTARDS DON'T SELL IT.

The fact that this is even under discussion, particularly after the last NB Election, should scare New Brunswickers.

It's just so maddeningly stupid, and so very much against the tone of their campaign ("Don't vote Liberal, they tried to sell off Crown property!  Crown property that belongs to all of you!") that I cannot help but feel lied to.  Of course, they didn't campaign specifically on the promise of not selling off NB Liquor, so I guess that will give die-hard Tory voters a talking point to fall back on should they ever be called on putting these jerks in power.  Allain doesn't even officially start the job until Monday and he's already pissing me off!

Oh, and get this:

Earlier this month, the Crown corporation refused to release the internal report on NB Liquor's compensation packages for executives.

Allain said he doesn't approve of witholding information.

"New Brunswickers own NB Liquor right now, so the owners should have access to transparency. That's one of the fundamental beliefs that this government has and we're certainly going to be doing that."

However, Allain would not commit to releasing the report.

Emphasis mine.  It's like they're not even trying! It just makes me want to... want to...

GRRR!  ANGRY!

How To Decipher a CPC Press Release

From here.

On Tuesday, Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, and Christian Paradis, Minister of Natural Resources, released an update on our Government’s economic and fiscal projections – for the first time showing a return to a balanced budget.

...by "balanced budget" they mean "largest deficit in history."

(In the interest of fairness, and to make sure I'm not misleading my readers, this is true in terms of raw numbers. As a percentage of the GDP, though, Mulroney's deficit was larger. So depending on how you look at it, this might only be the second-largest deficit in Canadian history. NOICE!)

With help from Canada’s Economic Action Plan, Canadians are recovering from the economic recession, and getting back on their feet. In fact, since July 2009, our Conservative Government has helped create over 400,000 new jobs across the country.

Notice they don't mention anything about all the jobs that Canada's been bleeding out lately. Nor does it point out how many of those 400,000 jobs are full-time, how many are part-time, and how many are seasonal. I won't go into any spoilers here, but here's a hint: Knowing these things makes that 400,000 figure a lot less impressive.

And while we continue to help Canadians make ends meet, our Government is looking ahead to balanced budgets, and building a strong foundation for future economic growth.

Help Canadians make ends meet... Except for all those Canadians who are unemployed. Or underemployed. Or having trouble with the rising costs of food or education or whatever. But it's not like they count.

Today’s update shows that our Government’s plan is on track. The federal deficit will be lower this year than previously forecasted.

This is really easy to do. I can do it myself, in fact. Watch.

Me: "I predict that I will lose $200 at this casino."

*enters casino, bets $150 at the craps table, loses it all*

Me: "My losses are much less than was previously predicted. Yay me!"

And for the first time since the global recession, we are forecasting a balanced budget.

"Forecasted." This means that they're really, really hoping the economy will grow enough that they can keep doing what they're doing and then, maybe, by 2015, everything will just magically fall into place.

I'm not kidding. 2015 is the year that they're talking about when they say

While Canada is on the right track, our recovery remains fragile. That’s why our primary focus must remain jobs and growth.

*cough* seasonal, part-time jobs... *cough*

Clearly, the Harper Government is helping solidify Canada’s recovery. By contrast, the Ignatieff/ NDP/Bloc-Québécois Coalition plans to raise job-killing taxes such as payroll taxes, by bringing in a 45-day work year. This would halt our recovery in its tracks and, according to experts, kill almost 400,000 jobs.

Ah, yes, the coalition boogeyman.

"Beware the Coalition!  It comes to devour your child-folk!  Ooga-booga!"

 Our Conservative Government will not put the economic recovery in jeopardy.  We will continue to prioritize the economy and the implementation of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.

This is the same Action Plan that I've previously made fun of. Well, aspects of it at least. To be fair, there are significant parts of the CEAP of which I'm in favour, even if I suspect it's not really being implemented in the best way.

* * * * *

By the by, if you're wondering what the 45-day work year this press release was talking about, it's a reference to Bill C-308. This was a Bloc bill that reduced the number of days required to qualify for EI benefits to 45. There's a bit about it here.

That evil coalition obviously doesn't have much of a united front, since Ignatief's Libs killed it.

Said Ignatief:

Ignatieff said upgrades of the EI benefits, an idea he once supported and an issue over which he threatened a year ago to force an election, are too expensive and no longer needed.

Just so's you know how big a shitheel Ignatieff is, when he supported the bill unemployment was at 8.3%. It's currently at 8.1%. WHY YES IGGY THAT IS ONE HUGE POLICY-CHANGING DIFFERENCE THERE.

To this unexpected change of vote, Layton rejoined:

"I guess there's not much room for the unemployed in the big red tent."

Oh, snap!

Alward and Voting Reform

Yesterday, our new Premier David Alward unveiled his cabinet accompanied by some very strong words on the New Brunswick economy. Or perhaps they just seemed strong to me; it's pretty standard for a new government to remark in a slightly-optimistic way on the great challenges that lay ahead and how it will require solidarity with the voting public to meet them and blah blah blah. Still, when you use the word "despair" in your speech? I dunno, that doesn't strike me as a terribly good sign, even if it's as part of a sentence not asking people to fall into it.

Still, reading about his cabinet team and the overwhelming majority government they'll be heading up brings to mind the sad state of affairs found with our electoral process, which has been getting a lot of attention in the press lately.

In 2006, Bernard Lord claimed he was going to initiate a referendum on voter reform as a result of the 2005 report by the Commission on Legislative Democracy. He promised to do this once he was elected, Scout's honour. I have my doubts as to whether he would have gone through with it or if it would have become part of the PC government's traditionally high number of broken promises,* but it's all academic because the fact remains he wasn't elected. Instead, we received a Liberal majority with a minority of votes.

This last election was even worse, with 76% of the seats going to the PC party, while only receiving 49% of the votes. Of course, nothing will ever quite match the hilarity of 1987's election, where the Liberals managed to turn 60% of the popular vote into 100% of the seats in the Legislature. That was really something.

And yet, it still wasn't enough to get New Brunswickers to agitate for a change to the system.

Credit where it's due - I had no idea that Lord had promised any such referendum until it was pointed out to me recently. It still surprises me... And even if it was an empty promise, that's more than I would have expected from either of our big two.

I wish that Alward would follow in Lord's footsteps and call for a Referendum on the Commission's recommendations.** I'm not going to be holding my breath, though. While the system as it stands is pretty fundamentally broken, it's broken in a way that works for both the Grits and the Tories. They've both been bitten by the system, but it's also benefited them greatly in turn. Fundamentally, neither party likes having to compromise - governing from common ground, making deals with other parties to form and enact legislation, these things are much harder than just holding out until you get the majority (which you'll do eventually, you just have to be patient). Then you can get all the stuff you want pushed through without much problem.

What's the answer? Well, amazingly, the papers I've been seeing lately have been helping - a number of editorials have been calling for Proportional Representation. But that's not enough. I tend to think that, absent a sudden NDP/Green welling of support in New Brunswick (two parties that support PR and the Commission's recommendations), Elsie Hambrook is correct in that it really needs a champion.

I'd be ecstatic if it turned out to be the current Tory government, or even elements within it, that became that champion. It would prove most of my thoughts about them wrong. Like I said, though... I'm not holding my breath.

If you feel like I do, you might want to consider joining the Facebook group New Brunswickers for Proportional Representation.  Not that Facebook groups count for much, but at least it's somewhere to start.

* = Not that the Liberals are much better. About the only major party in New Brunswick that's never broken its promises is the NDP, by virtue of never having won more than a single seat at a time. Ugh.


** = For those interested, Elsie Hambrook wrote what those recommendations were:

In the mixed-member proportional representation that was recommended for New Brunswick by the Commission on Legislative Democracy in 2005, about 35 MLAs would be elected as per usual, from ridings, and 20 regional seats would be filled from a list of candidates presented by parties, according to each party's share of the vote. Voters would cast two ballots, to elect a local MLA and to choose a party.

Another Nation May Back Out of the ACTA

This time it's Mexico.

The ACTA stands for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, basically a bunch of international standards on intellectual property and copyright that's being hammered out by a bunch of different countries - including Canada.  (This is why the Tories want to pass bill C-32, to get us up to snuff with the ACTA should it pass.  This is a topic on which blogger Michael Geist has written at length, and he's far more informed and up-to-date on this issue than I am.  Head over to his blog if you want to educate yourself.)

Thing is, a lot of the nations involved in the negotiations have become less and less keen as time has gone on.  The EU parliament, for example, is making noises that they may ultimately reject the agreement due to a lack of transparency throughout the process, combined with worry about "giving governments a blank cheque to write draconian anti-counterfeiting laws that endanger citizens' fundamental freedoms."  Many have also suggested that some parts of the ACTA have proven to be overly preferential to corporate interests.

And Mexico's now unofficially rejected the ACTA in a non-binding agreement.  Which may amount to nothing, but is more likely an indicator that Mexico's going to make its withdrawal official pretty soon.

Canada's still all up ons, though.  So, congratulations, Canadians!  Our government is now officially more secretive and beholden to corporate interests than Mexico's government.

Tea Party rumblings in Canada

According to a recent poll, Canada may be seeing the first glimpse of a home-grown tea party.  Nothing official, of course, but the sentiment is there.  (Perhaps we'd call it the Red Rose Tea Party?  Pity.)

Of course, the above article is flawed in that it just lumps up distaste with government on all sides of the political divide and calls it "Tea Party-like," which is a poor descriptor.  The Tea Party in the United States is about a particular kind of distaste with government.  It's the sort of distaste that advocates for government getting out of health care (except for Medicare, of course, because that doesn't count for some reason.)  They're the sort of people whose distaste in government leads them to call for ever-lower taxes, and the dismantling of public transportation programs paid in part by tax dollars, but then yell, whine, and kvetch when there aren't enough buses to get them all to one of their rallies.  The sort that wants to privatize everything because government can't do anything right, except maybe kill brown-skinned people overseas and keep those gays from getting married.

However, by the data presented in the article, a significant portion of those in Canada fed up with "government and elites" are of the conservative bent, which suggests that crazy ol' Stevie isn't crazy or reactionary enough for them.  I do not consider this a good thing for reasons that should be obvious.

Just in case it isn't, though, let me present a case study of the sort of mentality the typical Tea Partier has.

Here's an example where an essential service is neglected out of greed.  Really, it's hard to get more essential than firefighting, but the people in Obion County didn't feel like setting something up for themselves - likely because of the costs involved in doing so.  The nearby city of South Fulton, in what I can only imagine was a fit of charity, offered to provide fire department coverage for Obion County.  As this was out of city limits, this was not something they could force on them; furthermore, it was not something they could simply do for free, because this sort of thing costs money.

The simplest solution is the socialized one - roll the fee into property taxes and ensure everyone's taken care of.  Obion County decided to make it an opt-in system - if a homeowner wanted the Fire Department to service his or her property, then that homeowner would pay the nominal fee of $75 a year.

You may have heard of this story already, as it's made a lot of distance over the blogging parts of the internet.  Anyway, the end result is that a guy named Cranick decided not to pay, his house caught fire, and when he called the Fire Department to come save it, they refused.  They eventually did come out, but only to save his neighbour's house when the fire spread.  Even when they were there, though, they still didn't help the guy out because he hadn't paid and by the time they got there it was too late for him to change his mind.

It's easy, for someone like me who lives in a country with universal access to health care, to get all morally indignant at the firefighters.  The U.S. doesn't have our health care system, though (because SOCIALISM!), and firefighters' work insurance coverage south of the border tends to be laser-precise.  There's a good chance that if they'd tried to help the guy, and one of them got injured, they'd be footing the bill themselves because their insurance simply doesn't cover them fighting fires outside of their jurisdiction.  That's outside of potentially losing there jobs due to disobeying orders from their superiors who are worried about the free rider problem inherent in the situation.

And it's not like Cranick couldn't have paid.  This wasn't some poor subsistence farmer scraping to get buy.  The home that burnt down is a 34-acre farm with three houses on it.  It's a beef cattle farm, and he likely still owns a second farm in Kentucky.  If he'd just applied a third of his USDA subsidy from last year to pay for this service fee, he'd still have his house.

He didn't, because

[quote]"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.[/quote]

The guy tried to game the system (a system he probably had a hand in setting up, by voting not to have a county fire department) and he lost.  And that's the Tea Party mentality for you, in a nutshell.

A mentality that's simply unsustainable for a culture such as ours - one that decries the taxes needed to ensure the health of our most cherished institutions, yet refuses to give up those institutions.  One that looks for loopholes that benefits oneself at the expense of one's neighbours, all the while bragging about bootstraps and free markets, and screaming about vague, barely-concealed racist fears of "the other."

A mentality that, sadly, we may be seeing the first glimpses of in our own Great White North. 

The irony here is that, despite the contempt in which I hold the Tea Party and likeminded individuals...  I still think they should be able to get make their voice heard democratically through proportionate representation.  I'll just do my best to shame them at every opportunity if a Canadian Tea Party ever does form.

In Which I Lament the State of New Brunswick Politics

The results of the NB election were not too surprising for most, but I'll admit they weren't what I expected.  I really thought the People's Alliance would act as a bigger spoiler for the PCs than they turned out to be - really, they were pretty much a non-factor in almost every riding.  In the end, the Tories took 76% of the seats with only 48% of the vote...

Hooray for the FPTP system! [/sarcasm.]

Really, we badly need voting reform in this province, and this country.  That the NDP should get ten percent of the vote and end up with no seats - a clear indication that a good portion of the populace want them as representatives in the Legislature - is shameful.  Unfortunately, it's only the third parties who ever talk about any sort of voting reform...  With good reason, since voting reform (i.e., greater democracy) only ever harms the power base of entrenched political interests.

If we had a more proportional representation system, "coalition" wouldn't be a naughty, scary word - it would simply be the way things are done.  Indeed, parliamentary systems evolved specifically to accommodate them.  Government should be a matter of finding compromise and common ground, instead of a contest between two parties winner-takes-all.  Governance shouldn't be a game that people are trying to win, it should be a matter of finding the best way to represent a the will and best interests of the populace.

Instead, our FPTP system encourages a game of musical chairs.  The Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives have very, very similar policies in many regards.  The Libs got spanked this election in large part because of their attempted sale of NB Power...  Putting the Tories in charge.  But the Tories tried to sell off NB Power themselves back in the 90's, so it's not like they make a sterling alternative on that issue.

It's very easy to get discouraged.  Speaking out in favour of reform for a system that's been designed to make it tremendously difficult to reform sometimes feels like tilting at windmills...  It requires people to vote against the two traditional parties in favour of an alternative - and since the bar of entry for third parties is so high, it requires them to do so in great numbers.

Still, one cannot give up.  Mere voting is not the end-all, be-all of democratic participation.  The responsible citizen must educate, agitate, and participate whenever the opportunity presents itself.  Change is a messy, unwieldy thing, which makes it that much more important.

NB Election 2010 - The New Democratic Party

Website: http://nbndp.ca/
Platform: http://nbndp.ca/sites/default/files/2010-NDP-Platform-English.pdf

The provincial NDP is lead by Roger Duguay. They've billed themselves as the "middle class party," marketing that hasn't really meshed with the public - but then that's no surprise since all of the parties (save maybe the Greens) try to market themselves in exactly the same way.

The NDP has long had a reputation for being fiscally irresponsible, a reputation they earned largely due to the provincial party of B.C., where to this day the mere mention of "fast ferries" will likely cause locals to foam at the mouth with rage.  They generally haven't had much luck in the Maritimes, with the exception of very recently in Nova Scotia where they were given control of the provincial legislature - an event nobody was really expecting, particularly the Nova Scotia NDP.  Last time I checked their popularity was once again deteriorating, but from what I can tell they've been doing pretty well governance-wise.  (Take that with a grain of salt - I haven't been a Nova Scotian in a very long time, and I haven't exactly been paying anything more than very vague attention to N.S. politics in the past year.)

The main thrust of the New Brunswick NDP's efforts right now is to convince the electorate that they're fiscally responsible.  More specifically, that they're fiscally responsible in a way that will ensure the maintenance of provincial health care.  While this is something all the parties are trying to convince the electorate of, more or less, the NDP's particular angle is to point out that the two main parties are both promising tax cuts while stating that health care (and senior care) won't receive any cutbacks - and the math, the NDP state, doesn't really add up.

(As a matter of fact, Dr. Tony Myatt, an economist at UNB, is running for the NDP in Fredericton-Silverwood. He's co-written economic textbooks with Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. So, they're actually in a pretty good position this year to put forth the "fiscally savvy" narrative.)

So, without further ado, let's get down to the nitty-gritty.

The Economy:

First off, the NDP gets huge points in my book for including their full proposed (balanced) budget in their platform document.  They're the only party that bothered.  Not even the PC Party, who present themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and conservatism, did this.  Neither did the People's Alliance, who present themselves as even more PC party than the PC party.

This puts the NDP in a unique position:  When someone wonders "How are you going to pay for [promise X]?" they can respond by pointing to their budget, where it's all laid out in black and white.  The best that can be said is that the budget is optimistic at points, but even an optimistic budget is better than none at all.

At the heart of their economic development plan is their "New Job Tax Credit," which is intended to create jobs by reducing taxes for businesses that employ new workers.  It's designed to be available to all businesses, which neatly sidesteps the whole nepotism/patronage problem that comes hand-in-hand with job-creation grants.  Since, y'know, it's not a grant.

At one point, the document claims that this tax rebate (15%) will create 17,000 new jobs.  This statement directs the reader to a footnote which is, sadly, non-existent. I found myself highly irked at the fact this number was being thrown out and clearly referenced something, but that something was nowhere to be found.  Where were they coming up with this number?  I wasn't about to just take it on faith, any more than I was willing to do so with the other parties' platforms.

So, I wrote the NDP.  Apparently, the footnote wouldn't format correctly, so they removed it (bad idea, that), but since I asked they gave explained how they arrived at the number:

[1] New job tax credit programs have been extensively researched in the United States. The key parameter is the “responsiveness of labour demand to changes in labour cost”. The work of Daniel Hamermesh (1993) remains the foundation of this research. After extensive review of the literature, he concluded that this responsiveness was “probably bracketed by the interval [0.15, 0.75], with 0.3 being a best guess” (Hamermesh 1993, 135). This is obtained by multiplying the 15% subsidy by the responsiveness parameter, and then multiplying the result by total current employment.

So, colour me impressed once again; not only is the logic explained, but they actually cite an expert and give me a reference for further research if I were inclined. This is completely unique in all five of the platform documents I've read since Wednesday.

Another big pillar of their economic promises is to "hold the line on taxes." As the document puts it:

New Brunswick needs to have a
conversation about taxes. If we want world-class public services, from
roads to hospitals, we have to pay for them. We will hold the line on
income, corporate, and sales taxes for two years. During that time we
will hold province-wide consultations on what we want our government to
do and, in light of those consultations, develop our long-term economic
strategy.

In the meantime, they'll refrain from implementing the planned Liberal tax cuts to ensure that "front-line public services" can remain fully intact. Personally, I'd prefer that they come up with a "long-term economic strategy" for the province before they get elected, rather than after... But at least they're showing us their short-term plan. Like I said, it's a huge step more than the other parties were willing to go with their platform documents.

Next, they want to end Business New Brunswick, which has (fairly or not) earned a rather poor reputation over the years for some of its shadier dealings on behalf of sitting governments. They promise to make every effort to redeploy BNB employees elsewhere, though. As they put it: "Its failure is not due to [workers] and they should not be penalized." Still, it strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater - surely, even if you put an end to government loans to businesses, there's still functions BNB can perform? Well, anyway.

Lastly, they plan to save $210 million each year by ending "March Madness." This is a phenomenon wherein departments that are approaching the end of the fiscal year make a mad dash to spend whatever left-over money they have so as to avoid budget cuts the following year. I'm honestly uncomfortable with this idea - some years are more or less expensive than others for well-run departments, but legislatures tend to view them as static expenses, which is where the "tradition" came from in the first place. However, the NDP points out that Nova Scotia already introduced prohibitions against this sort of spending to good effect, so... Hey, worth a shot.

Tobacco:

Although a minor point, I give this its own section to draw attention to it, since for some people this will be a Pretty Big Deal (TM). The NDP wants to increase tobacco taxes by ten cents per cigarette over for years, at a rate of 2.5 cents per year. This will, they state, bring New Brunswick's tobacco taxes into line with Nova Scotia and PEI (and will incidentally lead a lot of smokers to quit, since the Canadian Cancer Society cites higher prices as a reliable means of reducing the smoking population.) So, yeah. You've been warned.

Energy:

With regards to promises, the NDP wants to "work to meet the New Brunswick Renewable Portfolio Standards, which state that within ten years the government must provide 25% of New Brunswick's energy needs through sustainable energy." Personally, while that's certainly not a bad thing, I'd be happier if the number were somewhat higher. Ten years, 25%? Eh. Doesn't exactly get me excited.

Also of not is the Energy and Utilities Board; apparently, ever since McKenna's Liberals, the EUB has only been allowed to review rate increases by NB Power that are over 3%. So, over the years when NB Power increased the rate by 2-3% on ten separate occasions, that fell outside the EUB's purview. (Then in 2006, Bernard Lord fired the head of the EUB when it was going to recommend against a 13% proposed increase... which kind of defeats the point of having the EUB in the first place.) The NDP promises to undo the break-up of NB Power, and restore autonomy to the EUB - as well as remove that 3% requirement.

Oh, and the sale of NB Power is off the table.

Governance:

First, and most importantly, the NDP wants to introduce a mixed-member proportional vote for the provincial legislature, getting rid of our current first-past-the-post system. I could go on for hours about how badly we need electoral reform in our country, so... I consider this an unqualified good thing. (If you're inclined to find out why I consider it so, feel free to poke around the Fair Vote Canada website. It should prove enlightening if you've never been there before.) This is an issue they share in common (actually one of several) with both the People's Alliance and the Greens.

They also promise to cut MLA pay by 20% and pensions by over 50% (their 20/50 bill), and give control over benefits to an independent commission.

They also want to make public every government document and meeting, except in cases where there's an explicit reason not to do so. Charges for filing Access of Information requests, likewise, would be removed.

Finally, they want to ban all contributions to political parties by businesses and unions. Strikes me as a good idea, but your mileage may vary.

Health Care:

Among the most important of the Front-Line services that the NDP wants to protect. Here, they want to introduce a "Helping Hands Tax Credit" to help those "looking after loved ones who are disabled or elderly."

A much bigger deal, in my mind, is their promise to introduce a provincial pharmacare program - they point out that currently, along with PEI, we're the only province not to have one. It's really rather shameful, and I'm glad that four out of the five provincial parties are looking to fix this (the PC plan I don't count because it's so limp-wristed.)

Mostly, though, their big promise here is to make sure nothing gets cut.

Miscellaneous:

The NDP promises to introduce a provincial public auto insurance program. This has been tried in many other provinces to resounding success. Really, it's only fair - if drivers are going to be forced to buy insurance, they should at least have the option of getting it through an organization that isn't designed to profit off of it.

They also promise to introduce pay equity legislation to eliminate wage descrimination between men and women, modelled after Quebec's pay equity laws.

The document talks about reducing poverty, and their main strategy here is to eliminate literacy, which they cite as a mere 56% according to StatsCan.

Finally, the Dippers promise to keep their promises. I shit you not, it's right there in the document. It's actually funny at first blush, then when you think about it it's kind of depressing since, y'know, they're including that to help distinguish themselves from the provincial Tories and Grits.

* * *

Overall, while there's plenty that's lacking herein (little to nothing about student debt, sigh), overall it's the most solid of the platforms presented by the parties. By "solid," I mean it has two main things going for it:

-The NDP isn't afraid to give you context, to cite programs in other provinces that have been proven to work, or to cite expert research to back up their points. In fact, they're the only party that does this, and it lends them a great deal of weight.
-Their promises are somewhat optimistic, but also realistic. Whenever I found myself wondering about how they'd pull something or other off, I'd have that budget at the end of the document to show me that they'd put a lot of thought into everything they included.

This isn't to say that it's completely devoid of empty platitudes - such can be found here, too. There's just a much, much higher content-to-platitude ration here than in the Lib or PC documents.

* * *

Originally, I was going to take this into tomorrow, giving the Greens and People's Alliance their own half-reviews. I'm exhausted, though, so I'll be leaving that undone. Maybe next election. Still, you can review their platforms yourself if you like (and in fact, you should; I found both the documents quite enlightening, as the parties hold certain views I did not expect them to hold):

People's Alliance: http://www.panb.org/PoliciesFinal/PANBPolicies.pdf
Greens: http://www.greenpartynb.ca/images/stories/green%20platform-english.pdf

At the very least, give the Greens' platform a look-see. It's truly a thing of beauty. If I thought they had even the slimmest chance of getting a single seat, I'd be voting for them. Seriously, the world that the Greens of New Brunswick want to bring about? I wanna live in that world. It sounds like it'd be awesome.

NB Election 2010 - The Progressive Conservatives

Once again, all of yesterday's posts warnings of the strategy I used to review the Liberals' platform apply here. So...

Their Website: http://www.pcnb.ca/
Their Platform: http://www.pcnb.ca/files/PCNB_ForAChangeBooklet_ENfin_UPDATE.pdf

The Progressive Conservatives are headed by Dave Alward. They have no official ties to Harper's Conservatives, but unofficial ties are strong - many members have publicly endorsed Harper's party in the 2004 and 2006 elections.

I'm pleased to say that, compared to the larger Liberals platform document, the Progressive Conservatives have more meat to their own... barely. This is really damning with faint praise, though - it's like saying you won't starve quite as quickly with .2 grams of beef rather than .15 grams of oats.

There's also lots of promises of consultation... So many, in fact, that one gets the idea that they really aren't entirely sure what to do about a lot of issues, and are looking for the electorate to do all the hard thinking for them.  As a good example, take this:

Create a “Taxpayers First” website for people to submit their ideas
on where to save money in government to reduce the deficit and
where to invest in better programs and services.

"We have no idea how we'll build a budget to do all the things we want to do... Um... You got any suggestions?"

That's honestly kind of pathetic. As much as the provincial Tories would love to bill themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility, they give almost as little an idea of how they'll manage to pay for all their promises as the Liberals... And just like the Liberals, they don't bother including any sort of proposed budget in their document. Particularly given that they're planned tax cuts will result in $235 million less for the province annually (they don't tell you this themselves, though.) Weaksauce, fellas.

Well, since I'm kinda-sorta on the topic already, might as well start with...

The Economy

Plenty of promises to work with private industry and the like. This always gets my hackles up when conservatives of any party talk about that sort of thing. One gets the distinct impression they would love to delegate managing our country's taxes to Irving or similar companies. The CBC would gleefully be given to Conrad Black. Environmental Protection laws would all be drafted by BP. CSIS would be, I dunno, given to Google or something. Actually, that last might make for a much more effective intelligence organization, given how adept Google's proven itself to be at invading the privacy of people all over the world. (Here's a hint: When a corporation's slogan is "Don't be evil," that's a really good indication that they've joined the dark side.)

Anyway.

The PC party makes a promise to "rewrite the Public Purchasing Act and other related legislation and regulations to ensure that New Brunswick-based businesses have a fair chance to bid on provincial government contracts," which is I suppose an improvement over the status quo. I wonder how much it will help, mind, since most provincial companies have a hard time winning bidding wars against larger, out-of-province companies... But maybe the PCs will also introduce runner-up prizes or something. I dunno.

They also mentioned introducing a $99 business incorporation package. I have no idea how awesome an idea this is, or even if it's awesome at all. But I guess it sounds good, if not exactly far-reaching.

They promise not to increase the HST, and to cancel tax cuts for those who have an income of over $450,000. This will, the Tories say, result in $120 million more over the next four years. Again, though, that doesn't cancel the above-mentioned loss of $235 million in tax income for the province due to keeping the corporate tax rate where it is (10%, the lowest rate in the country), and lowering the small business tax by half.

Lastly, they promise to "target a two percent reduction in wasteful and unnecessary spending while protecting spending on priority programs in health, education, and services to those in need," which will result, they claim, in savings of $150 million annually. They give no indication of where that "wasteful" and "unnecessary" spending will be found - and I suspect that what they would call wasteful and unnecessary would be given much more positive adjectives by much of the electorate.

Innovation

Four ideas worth mentioning here:

-They want to double the government's R&D budget. Once again I have no idea how they intend to pay for this because THEY DON'T WANT ME TO SEE THEIR PROPOSED BUDGET but okay.
-Create a Digital Media Tax Credit to help stimulate the development of digital media in-province. This is a decent idea - it costs little in lost income, which means it's a low-risk endeavour that might pay off pretty well, who knows? I certainly can't see it hurting much.
-They want to build on New Brunsick's "world-class postsecondary education institutions" by implementing a "Smart New Brunswick Plan" that positions New Brunswick as a knowledge hub. (We have world-class post-sec institutions? Since when?) I can't comment on the proposed plan since they offer me no details, but at least they didn't call it "New Brunswick Smart" or I'd have to imagine the title read off by Moose from Archie Comics.
-"Strengthen the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation with a new $2 million matching fund program for researchers." I have no idea if this is included in the above-mentioned "doubling" but okay.

Regional Development:

Much like the Liberals, a lot of thought has been put into developing Northern New Brunswick; here, the PCs want to establish a $200 million Job Creation Fund covering the Acadian Peninsula, Restigouche, Chateur, Madawaska, and Grand Falls. They'll also put $50 million into job creation in Miramichi.

Immigration, Energy, Tourism, Transportation, the Environment, the Forestry Industry:

I lump all these categories together because they all have so little worth mentioning about them.

Save for the wording of their empty platitudes, the PCs' platform is pretty much identical to the Liberals. Very little of substance is offered that the Liberals don't also offer, such as a promise to establish "a new skills accreditation process to ensure [immigrants] have their formal education and training recognized."

This is especially surprising in terms of energy, given how loudly the PCs have been blasting the Liberals over the attempted NB Power sale. Then again, they were planning to do much the same thing once upon a time, so maybe they're just opposed to the sale of NB Power to Quebec, rather than the sale in general? Who knows...

Oh, there is one area related to both the Environment and the Forestry Sector that I wanted to share:

Establish timber objectives for both hardwood and softwood
that will be supported by a multi-year silviculture plan for both
Crown Lands and private woodlots. Under the multi-year plan for
silviculture, we will increase funding every year in order to increase
planting levels as well as to improve wages for workers.

I point this out because the PCs explicitly mention hardwood here. Now while they don't explicitly state that the "increased planting levels" would include hardwood trees, this is sort of implied in this paragraph nevertheless through the simple acknowledgement that hardwood trees have value too - something very rare in this age of using hardwood-killing pesticides to ensure more room for the faster-growing softwood trees, damaging our ecosystem in the process. I'm going to be generous and assume that what I read as implied is, in fact, true - in which case, kudos to you Mr. Alwaryd.

(Then again, maybe I'm wrong in my uncharacteristic optimism. In which case, well, screw you too, PC party.)

Transportation gets two main promises: To increase brush-cutting along the sides of the province's rural roads by 50%, and to re-open 22 rural garages on a year-round basis. I'll admit I don't have enough context to understand how much these will help, but at least they contain solid numbers so I mention them here anyway.

For Tourism, guess what their only noteworthy idea is besides consulting others for noteworthy ideas? They want to develop ATV and Snowmobile trails. That's about it. Ain't exactly knocking them outta the park here, PCs.

Agriculture:

Two things worth mentioning, one for the purposes of mockery. Specfically this bit:

Simplify the fuel tax rebate system for farmers by using trust and common sense.

No. No, the words "trust" and "common sense" have no place when making government policy. That you would actually include this in your platform suggests that either you hold the electorate in contempt, or you have all the cognitive power of a lump of mold. And not particularly smart mold, either - this mold probably dropped out of mold high school or something.

Actually, I'm not being entirely fair, here, and I do want to be fair, so I should mention that they also want to "take advantage of renewable agri-fuel to generate heat and electricity," thereby creating secondary revenue sources for farmers. This is a solid idea that could help out our agriculture sector considerably if handled properly.

Healthcare

Some solid ideas here. I don't like all of them, but at least they give me details to talk about. Like their plan to eliminate Shawn Graham's ambulance fees - that tells me everything I need to know about the proposal right there. I don't like the $130 fee any more than any other New Brunswicker.

But then, even when they give details, a lot of their proposals are eminently milquetoast. Like their promise to set higher targets for recruiting physicians. Here's a news flash for you, Alward: Setting higher targets without any idea how you'll meet them will just result in you failing harder.

No bonus points for their promise to introduce a drug-subsidy plan for low-income New Brunswickers, because they give me no idea how they'll define those "in need," and really I think we need a much stronger system for pharmaceuticals than a wimpy little subsidy. (We should follow an approach similar to what they do in the UK, with a national drug plan. That would save consumers a whole bundle of money, and lead to less waste in the industry by a significant margin.)

Senior Care:

The PCs want to permanently freeze property taxes for all homeowners over the age of 65, provide tax breaks for home renovations that make houses senior-friendly, and reinstate the $5.5 million home heating subsidy program. Very little for me to make fun of here, really, so they get decent marks from me in this category - no big surprise there, as seniors are some of the party's most reliable supporters, so the Tories are eager to keep 'em happy.

Education:

Some good mixed with some bad here; the focus is largely on K-12, with lots of promised support of teachers (both noob and veteran) and a promise to re-examine the early immersion issue.

Post-secondary issues are rather swept under the rug, though. Notably absent is any mention of anything to address rising tuition costs. Why, oh why didn't the 70's generation win their fight for free tuition? Sigh.

Governance

The Tories want to reduce the number of Cabinet Ministers to 15, reduce the number of deputy minister level positions in the province (they don't say by how much), and introduce regulations on paid out-of-province travel for provincial representatives. They don't mention anything about the pay raise, though, and I'm a little leery of the deputy minister reduction - plenty of deputy ministers do very important jobs and removing them will result in a much weaker, slower government.

They do promise to remove fees associated with Right to Information requests, which is an unequivocal good thing in my mind, info-hippy that I am.

And that's about it. Like I said, I gloss over lots of stuff that strikes me as meaningless platitudes, or stuff that might have a bit of info but no context and no jumping-off point for further research so I pretty much ignore it. But the link to their platform is right at the top of this post, so you're welcome to review it yourself.

Tomorrow, I'll be going over the NDP platform.