Harper’s Controversial Quotes

On April 25, a 500 page document was allegedly handed to the Liberal Party of Canada by Conservative insiders that contained an organized inventory of all of Stephen Harper’s controversial quotes ranging from abortion to western alienation.

The investigation was headed by Harper’s right hand man Tom Flanagan who wrote, “When I became chief of staff in 2003, one of the first things I did was organize a 'Harper research' program to collect everything he had ever written or said in public,” in his book Harper’s Team. He refused to comment on how the binder got obtained by the Liberals.

A Tory source who was familiar with Flanagan’s project told CBC that the binder was genuine and that it included all of the up-to-date installments of their research which started in 2003.

For a brief period of time during the election, the Liberals released parts of these documents on their website and they are now available for viewing here.

Read Full Article from April

Did the Conservatives declare mutiny on Stephen Harper?

The Documents that Contain Harper’s Controversial Quotes

Harper's Most Controversial Quotes Part 1 Harper's Most Controversial Quotes Part 2 Harper's Most Controversial Quotes Part 3

The Dust Barely Settles after Back-to-Work Legislation becomes Law

During the filibuster last week as the Conservatives tried to forcefully end the standoff between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, an apparent agreement between them failed and insiders are pointing at the Prime Minister’s Office. All the while, the union said that it will be legally challenging the back to work legislation.

Possible PMO Involvement

The NDP has accused Harper of taking a hard line in the dispute to send a signal to other public sector unions as he plans a long road of cuts.

“Obviously the (Prime Minister’s Office) got involved in there. I believe that Stephen Harper wanted to send a message across the country,” said NDP MP Yvon Godin.

Mail stopped flowing as a dispute arose between CUPW and Canada Post. As a result, Harper proposed back to work legislation last week. However, it was seen as unfair by the NDP and CUPW because it imposed a wage settlement that is less than what had been offered by Canada Post and used a ‘winner-takes-all’ approach to select the final offer where each side would present a final offer and an arbitrator would choose one.

As a result, the NDP launched a filibuster to delay the legislation in hopes that a settlement could have been negotiated.

It should be no surprise, however, that the Conservatives chose this plan of action. In 1997, Harper stated that ending the monopoly in the postal service "will ensure that Canadians are never held hostage by another postal strike." It is likely (almost certain) that the post service wasn’t the only monopoly that Harper has looked at and with cuts planned to dominate upcoming budgets, it is likely more workers and unions could be deeply effected and take to the streets so Harper decided that he would use the postal service as an example of what he would do to future disputes.

The fact that Harper chose to settle a wage increase below what management offered was a clear sign that it was intended as a punishment.

During the filibuster, Godin and Joe Comartin, a fellow New Democrat MP acted as the links between Labor Minister Lisa Raitt, CUPW and the Canadian Labor Congress.

Before the filibuster happened on Thursday night, the NDP thought a deal had been reached to amend the legislation to take the final offer selection out and replace it with eight weeks of mediation overseen by an arbitrator.

An hour after the negotiations, Raitt’s office said ‘there is no deal.’

“I don’t know what happened. There’s lots of speculation. Some people thought maybe the Prime Minister’s Office had a hand in it,” an official who was part of the discussions said on Wednesday.

On Friday, the two sides of the dispute came close to a settlement where the two sides would find middle ground with their issues.

Comartin and Godin met with Raitt and agreed that if there was an agreement, the legislation would be withdrawn.

By Friday evening, the two sides had come to an agreement on key issues such as the wage rate and other issues would be sent to arbitration.

A source told The Star that Raitt’s office rejected that deal Friday night.

Harper denied having a “political interference” when he crossed the floor to speak to Layton where he was questioned.

The NDP then ended the filibuster and let the bill pass.

Harper’s aide Andrew MacDougall said that suggestions that the PMO was involved were ‘categorically false’ and said,

“As much as the NDP would like to sidestep the blame for the delay, they can’t,” he said Wednesday.

“The bottom line is that the NDP was blocking legislation that would have ensured the resumption of mail delivery to Canadians,” he said in an email.

“To be clear, only the Federal Mediation Service and the Minister of Labor were involved with CUPW and Canada Post,” MacDougall said.

CUPW Will Fight Back to Work Legislation

The CUPW will mount a legal challenge against Harper’s Back to Work Law.

While the union is looking at whether it will challenge it piece by piece or as a whole will be determined, but in the meantime, mail will trickle its way back into flow, even as the law is contested.

The union will also be making a complaint to the Human Rights Commission claiming that the situation brings discrimination against new employees who will not have the same pension benefits as older employees.

The union said that it hopes that a new collective bargaining agreement can be made before the arbitrator makes a decision.

Nanos Poll Gives Tories 14 Point Lead

A new Nanos poll shows the end of the NDP honeymoon as their poll numbers are slipping. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are growing, the Liberals are recovering and the Bloc Quebecois remain crushed.

Nationwide

	Current	Election Day	Change
Conservatives	41.8	39.6	+2.2
NDP	30.6	28.0	-1.4
Liberals	18.9	22.3	+3.4
Green	3.9	3.7	-0.02
Bloc Quebecois	6.1	3.4	-2.7

Broken Down

Region	Atlantic Canada	Quebec	Ontario	Prairies	British Columbia
Conservatives	36.9	24.3	44.2	59.0	43.3
NDP	30.4	40.0	20.4	23.3	29.2
Liberals	26.6	19.1	31.8	13.8	18.3
Green	5.1	1.9	2.6	3.4	8.7
Bloc Quebecois	--	13.8	--	--	--

The NDP Inevitably Lost their Fight for Postal Workers

Jack Layton imposed a 58 hour filibuster to try to stall a Conservative back to work bill that would do more than just send postal workers back to work with a lower pay increase than the management’s last offer. As a result, Canadians can expect to get their mail on Tuesday and can expect a return to regular service. The bill easily passed in the house of commons on Saturday and easily passed through the senate on Sunday as both houses are held in majority status by the Conservatives.

Canada Post said in a news release that “With unprocessed mail in the system and accumulated mail received from other countries that has not yet entered our system, it will take some time to stabilize [their] operations and to return to [their] normal delivery standards."

The 48,000 postal workers were locked out on June 14 after 12 days of rotating strikes. Canada Post reported that it will take 24 to 48 hours to call them all back.

It is rare that a Senate sit on a Sunday, but after 7 hours of interviewing witnesses and looking at the back to work bill, they passed it 53-26.

"I'm happy to be working for Canada post, but I want to be treated fairly for the work I do," postal worker Pierre Brisson of Montreal said after the bill was enacted.

The law imposes a four year contract on the workers, specifies a lower pay increase than what the management last offered, and leaves other disputed issues to binding arbitration. It also imposes a $1000 per day fine on any worker that does not comply.

In the senate, Liberal James Cowan accused PM Stephen Harper of using a “sledgehammer” approach to solving a dispute.

"His solution was clear: break the monopoly of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers."

The senator read a quote from Harper’s past which suggests that this was inevitable as it was part of Harper’s overall strategy.

In 1997, Harper stated that ending the monopoly in the postal service "will ensure that Canadians are never held hostage by another postal strike."

Canada Post CEO Deepal Chopara told senators that the corporation "wants to welcome back employees in a special manner" and begin "long-term healing."

CUPW vice-president George Floresco said that he would comply with the legislation but insisted the union would "carry on the struggle for a just collective agreement and just working conditions” amidst the stiff fines that will be charged if they don’t comply. 

"We'll deliver the mail, but this isn't the end of it," Floresco told CBC News from Ottawa. "We'll continue to work with our allies who have been out on the street with us and supporting true negotiations, and we're not going to let this die."

The strike lead to the clash of two opposite parties which lead to Jack Layton’s filibuster that held parliament hostage for 58 hours. Jack Layton fell for the Conservatives’ bait as they fought an unwinnable war and as they bought or lost political points in the process, they proved that they have the guts to take the government hostage for what they believe in but that their beliefs are relatively extreme.

The conflict could have been dealt differently by the NDP that could have found compromise to improve the law instead of poking the bear and having it passed in full condition without amendments. While this dispute was mainly between the Conservatives and NDP, there are many Canadians and companies who rely on the mail for money transfer and government and important documents.

Inflating an already bad situation will not help the NDP and slapping labor in the face won’t help the Conservatives either. While we did not hear much from the Liberals, now the third party in the house, they did release a statement on their website that stated the way they would have handled the situation.

Instead of hammering out a filibuster and war, they would have proposed amendments to remove the ‘bias’ from the existing bill.

Liberal Amendments:

1. Remove “guiding principles” in Section 11(2) to allow parties to fully and fairly bargain
2. Remove Section 13(3) in order to allow the parties to come to a negotiated settlement on salaries once the bill has passed.
3. Remove the defined salary ranges in Section 15 which are lower than management’s last offer.

While this may not have been the best solution to the problem, it certainly been a lot more effective than the circus that was created to end up in the Conservatives’ favor.

“The Conservatives threw gas on the fire at Canada Post in order to provoke confrontation, and the NDP took the bait hook, line and sinker,” said Liberal Human Resources & Skills Development and Labor Critic Rodger Cuzner. “Now we’re stuck, and the only way out of this mess is to allow for a constructive debate on specific amendments to the legislation – because what we’re doing now clearly isn’t working.”

“While the Conservatives and NDP are locked in a stubborn ideological debate, Canadians want to know when they can expect their mail,” said Liberal Leader Bob Rae. “The sterile and hopelessly polarized debate between left and right cannot go on forever. It’s time for parliamentarians to put an end to this shambolic debate and find a solution to the impasse.”

The best solution, regardless what any of these parties would have said would have been to have a meeting between the government, management and CUPW and define an agreement from these negotiations.

At the end of the day, postal workers are left with a losing deal and maybe a more subtle approach would have been better. However, while these workers will dub the NDP their guardian party, it is worth noting that the situation wouldn’t have escalated if the NDP didn’t try to wage a war to make the bill oppositely polarized and impose left-wing ideology.

On behalf of the Conservatives, it seems that their right-wing bias and ideology was not only a way to wipe their hands from dealing with the issue, it was a strategic and clever way to downplay the intelligence of the NDP in a manner to play an ideological fight at the expense of workers and the economy. The big losers at this point are the postal workers, and it wouldn’t have gotten this far if the NDP took a more realistic and diplomatic approach.

With that said, the winners coming out of this crisis are the Liberals because they wanted to find a way to find compromise rather than have an ideological war and in time, they will look a lot more appealing given that Jack Layton and Stephen Harper will look like the same person on different sides of the spectrum. Although, one must give Layton for credit for having faith in the idea that the filibuster would give the two sides more time to get a deal before the vote took place but the result was inevitable.

As a result of having two oppositely polarized parties at the highest ranks of power (government and official opposition), Canadians can expect more partisan games and wars that will continue to try to tug the country and its people in opposite directions based only on ideology and the quest for power or the maintenance of power. The question now is, how strong is that rope?

Opinion: Liberal-NDP Merger: A Disaster in the Making

There has been a lot of speculation around Liberal-NDP merger and while the Liberal Party has swiftly stopped its main proponent Bob Rae from being able to discuss the topic, the NDP kept itself open by rejecting an internal proposal to prevent future talks of merger. While many people have different takes on a proposed merger, what would be the consequence if they chose to or not to merge in the near future?

It is no secret that the Conservatives won their long awaited majority because of the NDP surge that split ridings in Ontario. It is no secret that the vote split between the two center-left parties has been the biggest factor in the continued growth and stability of the Conservatives.

While people who are for it state that the merged parties would have formed a 186 seat government in the last election, it is extremely unlikely that the merge will happen without voters looking elsewhere. There are certainly reasons as to why Liberal voters didn’t vote NDP and why NDP voters will never vote Liberal. Not to mention that throughout the history of the NDP, the Liberals have always been their favorite target.

With an NDP culture of Liberal-hatred, a common trait with the Conservatives, it has become a wonder whether the mission was to destroy the Conservatives or the Liberals. In the 2011 election, while the NDP hammered both the Liberals and Conservatives, it appeared that the theme from the war room was ‘anything but Liberal’ while 60% of the population that voted feared a Harper majority while the other 40% are at odds.

Getting down to the nitty-gritty, an Environics post-election survey suggests that only 21% of Liberal voters supported the idea of a Liberal-NDP merger. Not to mention that other polls have suggested that the bulk of both the Liberal and NDP voters listed Conservative as their second choice on the ballot. In order to overturn the results of the last election, a University of British Columbia election forecaster noted that 79% of Liberal voters would need to support the merger.

Side Note:

This is how the following class of voters would react if their party disappeared. Seeing as to how repelled they are to each other, a merger would have the same results. Take the sum of the 33% of Liberals that would shift their vote to the NDP and 38% of NDP that would support the Liberals and this would be the amount of support that would remain. If they merged, they would only receive a maximum of roughly 71% cumulatively of the vote they received in 2011.

If the Liberal Vote Collapsed,

The Conservatives would gain 23 seats and NDP would gain 11

• 2/3 Liberals would go Conservative if the party disappeared

If the NDP Vote Collapsed,

The Conservatives would gain 40 seats and Liberals would gain 19 while the Bloc Quebecois would gain 43

• 40% of NDP voters would go Conservative if the party disappeared

If the NDP Vote Collapsed and the Bloc Quebecois wasn’t an option,

The Conservatives would gain 63 seats while the Liberals gain 43

• 62% of NDP voters would go Conservative if the party disappeared

Resource: Election Forecaster

Liberals who were surveyed on their reasoning for voting Liberal chose the candidate as the overall reason. If the Liberal candidates stay in a merged party, it is likely that the supporters of the candidates will stay and form a big chunk in the rest of English Canada.

Looking at Quebec, a very unstable political landscape that determines the rise and fall of many political parties overnight, this merged party would run into problems. The NDP will have a hard time keeping its seats in Quebec as they try to please the nationalists and separatists at the same time. If the NDP merged with the Liberals, a stronger stance against Quebec separation would be adopted by the party which would send most of those voters back to the Bloc Quebecois.

The biggest weight on the Liberal party in Quebec has been the sponsorship scandal and should the Liberals and NDP merge, many of the NDP voters that voted for change would be turned off. Meanwhile, Liberal voters outside Montreal would turn to the Conservatives.

The forecaster made a seat prediction and stated that a Liberal NDP merger could land an election result where the Conservatives strengthen their majority to 180 seats, the Coalition gets 120 seats and the Bloc Quebecois would get 10 seats. Each of these would be give or take.

Note that it would take 79% of Liberal voters to vote for the new party for it to overturn the results.

The bulk of Liberal voters can be seen as relatively center-center right and vote for the party because of the social policies that the Conservatives represent. Also take a note that Layton’s $70 billion in new spending plan wouldn’t sit well with many Canadians who are conscientious about the economy. Taxing business is a bad idea, and Layton and the NDP tend to make the terms ‘big oil’, ‘big banks’, and ‘big business’ their central talking points when they take the side of Labor unions.

When investors heard that the NDP was gaining ground – whether its supporters read and supported its platform or not – markets slumped which shows a big discomfort in the business community. This can be seen in two ways, one way is that business is abusing its labor force and the labor force will finally have a voice, or the regulations and restrictions, and taxes, that will be put on the businesses will drive their headquarters out of Canada and force these businesses to shrink to be able to afford the new regulations.

Note that a tax hike to business translates in higher prices, and an environment where these businesses leave the country and well, less revenue for that $70 billion spending plan and job losses. Do the math and it sums to large deficits and high taxes, or a slap in the face to the NDP program: large cuts. For those skeptical of this view, while Layton chanted that it was checked by economists, he was forced to cut a large part of his environmental plan and go back on his idea of centralizing the Bank of Canada midway through the campaign because the numbers didn’t add up.

This in itself drove voters, Liberal voters, to vote blue as they didn’t see a chance for the weakening Liberals who proposed a greatly lessened extent of a similar framework and voted Conservative in fear of the NDP – this is notable in Ontario where the entire business community went from Liberal to Conservative.

However, a merger would stop that vote split that caused 16 seats to go Conservative – enough seats to prevent a majority. Within 4 years, things can change. The Progressive Conservatives under Campbell after Mulroney left crumbled to 2 seats as Chretien’s Liberals took over.

In Quebec, the political landscape can change overnight. A good example is the Action Democratique du Quebec Party (ADQ) which was lead by Mario Dumont. Current Premier Jean Charest has had 3 mandates. The first was a majority with Parti Quebecois Official Opposition and the second was a shocker. In the second election, Quebec entered a minority government where the PQ was sent to third party position as the ADQ became a massive Official Opposition. In 2008, Charest copied Harper and declared an election on the account that the opposition parties didn’t want to cooperate and work together. Unlike Harper, however, Charest managed to come back with a majority with the ADQ being wiped out to only 4 seats.

In 4 years, a merged Liberal-NDP party could stand different grounds with voters, end the split and form the government. Or, the NDP could collapse and the Liberals come back kicking with fresh leadership – notably Trudeau – and a new platform that will hopefully return their party to its identity as being a more centrist party – rather than the recent leftwing shifts in 2008 and 2011 which turned off voters. Or, the NDP wipe out the Liberals completely and form a government, likely a minority one.

However, apart from the Bloc Quebecois and the Greens, depending on whether their votes concentrate enough in ridings to get seats, the merged party could bring a two-party dynamic to Canada. This would mean shifts back and forth for four year terms – or eight if reelected, just like in the United States.

While a two-party system directly solves the vote-split problem for both the left and right, it means that for each term, there is no Opposition as they can holler and scream and the House of Commons will approve legislation with the majority of MPs being part of the governing party.

From these lenses, a Liberal-NDP merger could be a disaster in the making, unlike the right-wing merger that brought us Harper’s Conservatives. Maybe if the NDP didn’t put all their resources into attacking the Liberals and cooperated with them to get rid of a mutual enemy, maybe the NDP would have more influence and power today than its 102 seats that ironically have less say in today’s Parliament as Official Opposition than as a fourth party with less than half of that.

Perhaps if the NDP hostility to the Liberals would have ended, the Conservative’s anti-Liberal propaganda wouldn’t have been so effective and they wouldn’t have swayed so many Liberal voters to become small-c Conservatives. However, if one thing is for sure, the Liberals need to learn that their name and historical reputation won’t guarantee them votes anymore and that they will have to work.

This being said, whether they merge or not, the Conservatives will have the advantage if they continue the current track and don’t run into big trouble or anger too many people with their upcoming cuts.

Whether it be vote splits or a lack of confidence in each other, a merged opposition is essentially forcing two hostiles to work together and regardless how similar they are becoming, their internal rivalries will keep them from progressing and the NDP’s ‘momentum’ will send them in the power-hungry direction and we will all witness a disaster in the making.

The NDP can easily fall into the same predicament as the Liberals if they put power ahead of principle, something that has ultimately killed the Liberals to date. Being the opposite of the Conservatives is good to get attention and political points, although a drastic shift to the left would be detrimental to our right-leaning economy.

Four years won’t be a long ways away and while merger talks will be in the air, it is less likely that it will happen. Looking at the numbers, it would be bad political strategy and would strengthen the Conservatives – unless they do something bad enough to scare their hardcore and soft-core support away – like what happened to the Liberals with the sponsorship scandal.

The real solution to the vote split and future vote splits would be a new voting system that makes every vote count for the country and not the individual ridings.

See: Is there Something Wrong with our Electoral System?

What do you think? Is a Liberal-NDP merger a recipe for disaster?

Baird Condemns the Probe into $50 million in spending as a “PR stunt”

The controversy over the G8 summit didn’t die as the Tories desperately try to defend themselves after $50 million that was supposed to be spent on border upgrades was instead spent on various projects in Tony Clement’s riding. Former Liberal MP Marlene Jennings asked the RCMP to ask for an inquiry into the spending while Tory attack dog John Baird claims that it is all a PR stunt.

The Mounties say that they haven’t launched a formal investigation into the $50 million in potentially misappropriated funds, but they have looked into Jennings's claim that there is something wrong with the expenses report. Earlier this month, the auditor general report concluded that the government “did not clearly or transparently” explain how the money was going to be spent when it sought Parliament's approval for a G8 legacy fund.

Jennings’s suspicions come from the less censored report that was leaked to the Canadian Press during the election campaign which more bluntly explained how the Conservatives “misinformed” parliament in its spending decisions.

In a letter sent to the director of public prosecutions on April 15, Jennings said that the government may have willingly violated two appropriations acts and the Financial Administration Act which state that the government must prove and display how it intends to spend money when it seeks parliamentary approval for funding.

She said that she didn’t hear any feedback until the March 24 letter from the RCMP that advised her that "the matter is with A Division Commercial Crime Section."

A day after the final copy of the auditor general report was released, she received a call from Cpl. Ray Warner who asked her to meet with him.

When the news broke out in the House of Commons, the NDP jumped on the opportunity to get the spotlight as Charlie Angus dubbed Clement as “the missing Member for Muskoka” and urged him to “come clean.”

“If he gets away with this $50-million scheme, then start counting your spoons and silverware dear public, because they've just given this man the keys to the Treasury Board,” Angus charged.

In the meantime, the Conservatives have responded by calling the ordeal a “public relations stunt.” Baird said that the auditor general’s report found no evidence of a deliberate attempt to mislead parliament on the G8 spending. He also noted the $5 million in under spending as an example of how the claims are false.

Liberal MP Denis Coderre confronted the attack and asked Clement and Baird if they had been approached by the RCMP and asked if they would cooperate with the investigation. Neither answered, but Baird said again that it was a PR stunt as he dismissed it.

“We don't have all the facts in front of us," Official Opposition leader Jack Layton said. “It's evident it was a totally bizarre and unacceptable process, to have $50 million spent like that, with no defined process.”

Liberal leader Bob Rae said, “Whether in the end it produces more serious consequences, we'll just have to see. But I think when you look at something like this, funds that are allocated to one area that are then diverted to another, I think it's a legitimate area of inquiry.”

If the Conservatives didn’t have any wrong doing, then an RCMP probe shouldn’t frighten them and they are to be held accountable like every other government that will take power, whether they are innocent or guilty will be decided by the RCMP. Rejecting the probe and condemning it as a PR stunt doesn’t help sell the point that you’re innocent.

The government was approved for an $83 million border infrastructure fund but didn’t know that $50 million of it would be spent 300 km away in Tony Clement’s riding. It was spent on 32 projects including gazebos, parks, public toilets, and other beautification projects hours away from the summit site in Huntsville.

Auditor General John Wiersema said that the word “misinformed” was removed from the final report because he could not find any evidence to prove that it was deliberate, but was concerned about the complete absence of documentation which he called “very unusual and troubling.” He said that he had never seen anything like this in his lengthy career as an auditor.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the Commons that the border fund is “frequently used for projects that are not in border communities.”

In the end of the day, it will be up to the RCMP to decide how the government stands on its $50 million spending spree and the people of Toronto still await that public inquiry into the way that the police decided to deal with protestors during the G20 summit.

Canada Going Backward on Crime Initiatives

The Americans have been fighting the war on drugs for more than 20 years with their tough-on-crime agenda. However, the Americans are now moving away from mandatory minimum sentences without any chance of parole as more than 20 states struggle to afford it in the current economic times. All the while, Tory PM Harper plans to impose their failed justice system on Canada.

Both Republicans and Democrats have acknowledged that the tough-on-crime, one-size-fits-all sentences have failed, however, Canada’s Conservatives feel that this tough-on-crime agenda that failed in the United States will work flawlessly in Canada.

"Most police officers are fairly conservative and we want to see people go away for a lot of time but we're also realists," Lt. Richard Santangelo from Belmont Massachusetts said.

Prisons in Massachusetts are currently at 140% capacity and costs the state roughly $50,000 per year for each of its 11,000 inmates which is why Santangelo said that he was reluctantly open to sentence reforms.

"The prisons are so overcrowded right now, most of them, if we can free up a little space for the more hardcore drug offences, it might be what we have to do."

The Governor of Massachusetts has introduced a bill that would remove mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses and shrink drug-free school zones rom 300 to 30 meters. People who would be caught dealing drugs within that radius would face 2 years in jail.

The Democrat representative Will Brownsberger for Belmont and a former state assistant attorney general has published research concerning these drug-free school zones and writes, "The idea of a school zone is a place that should be especially safe," he said. "But if you define very broad school zones, then basically any place that anybody might deal drugs is a school zone with the result that they don't have any incentive to stay away from schools."

His research concludes that there is no difference in the density of drug deals near schools or farther away and says that school zones only create mandatory minimums that basically apply to the majority of territory in cities.

The nearby state of Rhode Island recently scrapped all mandatory minimums for drug offences. Mark Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-DC think-tank, said, "Governors need to balance their budgets, and if you want to do that in the short-term you can't possibly do that without looking at the cost of incarceration.” He also said that as a result, these new measures are becoming wide-spread.

Tim Cruz, the district attorney of Plymouth Count isn’t thrilled by the governor of Massachusetts’ plan saying, "I believe, living and working in a community that I currently am in right now, I believe first and foremost that drug-dealing is a violent activity.”

Cruz also describes himself as the state’s most Conservative DA and says that he is proud at how tough the state has been on drug dealers. "If an individual sells drugs, whether it be Class B, which is cocaine or crack, and they sell above a certain weight, over 200 [grams], is a 15-year minimum here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If you do that within 1,000 feet of the real property of a school then you're also looking at another two years on top of that for a 17-year mandatory minimum sentence in jail," he said.

Republican State Representative Dan Winslow said that he didn’t always feel that the mandatory minimums that he imposed were right during his eight years as a circuit judge in the Massachusetts lower trial course.

"I think I'm the first judge ever to serve in the state legislature so I bring with me the experience of seeing these laws in effect."

Winslow said that he recalled a case where he had to sentence a man with no record and was a college student on a full hockey scholarship to two years and a day in prison.

While Cruz argued that mandatory minimums result in consistent treatment and prevent one state from being tougher than another on its criminals, Winslow argues that they hand the sentencing decision from the judge to the prosecutor.

"It didn't feel very good. It didn't feel just. I do think that when you do the crime you have to have some consequences but I also think that the consequence should be tailored,” Winslow said.

"The issue is whether minimum mandatories as a concept works for non-violent offenders," he said. "You know we've had the benefit now of seeing the war on drugs. Can we really say we're winning it?

"Should you treat somebody who has never ever been in trouble with the law and has clearly made a mistake, screwed up, so to speak, the same way you would somebody who has a long record of drug abuse or violence? I don't think so."

Republican State Representative Dan Winslow

All the while, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have increased spending on his tough on crime agenda by over 35% since he came to power in 2006 and plans to spend billions on new prisons to support the system that the Americans are currently phasing out. All the while, his finance team speaks of cuts to rebalance the nation’s budget, although, if one thing is for sure, the mounting cost of Harper’s crime agenda will be exempt from the knife.

Harper’s Department Broke Expense Rules

The government’s tough rules for hospitality spending have been repeatedly broken by Stephen Harper’s own department, an internal report suggests. The report analyzed how the Privy Council Office spent $340,000 on hospitality and found widespread abuses to a basic rule – public servants can’t spend any money without getting approval from a supervisor.

The review of 2,100 hospitality claims in 13 months found that employees repeatedly racked up expenses without getting the green light first.

The average claim was for drinks, meals and other largesse and cost an average of $160.

Senior managers assured auditors that the problem has since been corrected. As a result, auditors randomly selected 20 more recent hospitality claims and found that half of them were not authorized.

"For the majority of hospitality expenditures, Accounting Operations receives the pre-authorization form after the expenditure has been incurred," the report said.

Treasury Board President Stockwell Day announced last November 24 that there would be another crackdown on hospitality citing the abuse of a $31,700 reception in 2005 which was thrown by Statistics Canada for 400 people.

The Canadian Press later reported that $47,000 for an event for 600 Privy Council Office employees was approved by Harper.

The 2009 budget imposed a government wide two-year freeze on spending for travel, conference and hospitality. PCO reduced its bill to $3 million in 2010-2011 from $3.8 million in 2009-2010 on those items and $4.1 million in the previous year, PCO spokesman Raymond Rivet said.

Appointed Conservative Senators Change Their Tunes on Senate Reform

While the provinces of Ontario and Quebec were quick to pounce on Harper’s proposed senate reforms, it turns out that Harper’s newly minted Conservative majority in the Red Chamber are rejecting the plan as they fear that retiring at an earlier age than 75 will greatly reduce their pension payments. Harper defended his appointments at the time stating that the purpose was to pass senate reform.

The part that the senators hated in particular was the 9 year limit to terms which was introduced by Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal, along with the province-held elections.

In the current system, senators are appointed by the Prime Minister and serve until the age of 75.

Pierre Claude Nolin is one of the senators from the Mulroney era that openly opposed senate reform.

Some of the newer senators appointed by Harper object due to the fact that they would have to retire before the age of 75 and be left with smaller pensions.

Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs reflected on the Conservative change of heart and said, "Well, there is nothing more convenient than changing your mind once you sit in the comfortable pew.”

The only elected member of the senate, Alberta;s Bert Brown wrote an open letter stating that they should stick to the plan and that their “loyalty is to the man who brought us here, the man who has wanted Senate reform since he entered politics, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper."

Harper told the Conservative caucus that if senators won’t support the reforms that he plans to make without opening the constitution, he will open the constitution and abolish the senate.

Former Liberal Senator Lavigne Sentenced for Fraud

Former Liberal senator Raymond Lavigne was ordered to serve six months of house arrest and donate $10,000 to charity after being convicted for fraud and breach of trust charges.

Lavigne, 65, resigned from the senate after his conviction.

After his sentencing, Lavigne could have been faced with 14 years in prison but the Crown only asked for a sentence of 12 to 15 months.

Crown prosecutors pointed at Lavigne’s repeated transgressions, lack of remorse and motivation for financial gain as the main factors to be considered in his sentencing but the defense argued that his reputation had been tarnished due to the charges and that he has paid some of the money back.

Lavigne indicated that he plans to appeal his convictions and sentence and muttered, "It's not justice," when leaving the court.

Lavigne was appointed to the senate by Jean Chretien in 2002 and was an elected Liberal MP on three occasions before being named to the Senate.

Conservative Party goes at Full Steam Ahead

The Conservatives are going full steam ahead with their agendas. The throne speech went through without debate or a vote, Baird defends the ever-growing cost of the Libya mission, and the Conservatives won’t go to the Supreme Court of Canada to get the green light for senate reform. All the while, the Auditor General slammed their secrecy over G8 spending.

Auditor General Slams Tories

The Auditor General report that wasn’t allowed to be viewed during the election campaign said that the Harper Government didn’t tell Parliament about its plans for a $50 million G8 fund, which essentially boosted funding for Tony Clement’s riding.

The report was released on Thursday and said that the government "did not clearly or transparently" identify how the money would be spent when asking for parliamentary approval for the funds that paid for G8 legacy infrastructure projects.

The government put in its place a border infrastructure fund of $83 million when it came to the vote in the house.

"When government presents a request for funds to Parliament, it should be transparent about the intended use of money," Interim Auditor General John Wiersema said Thursday.

Wiersema said that the government knew that they were misleading Parliament.

"It was presented to Parliament as part of the border infrastructure fund when everyone at the time it was going to be used for the G8 Legacy Fund," he said. "Asking for money for one purpose and using it for another purpose, is a serious problem."

Clement defended his actions saying, "As a government that is committed to openness and transparency, we want to ensure that parliamentarians receive the information that they need.”

"As such, I have already directed Treasury Board Secretariat officials to look at how this perhaps anachronistic process can be improved,” he said.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said that the government "will be taking steps to ensure that the process going forward will be more robust" when it wants to request funds from Parliament. 

The report criticizes the lack of documentation that was associated with the government’s 32 infrastructure spending projects.

Federal Auditors were not able to find documentation on how and why the government chose the 32 projects that were completed out of 242 that were potential runners as well.

"Supporting documentation is important for transparency and accountability," Wiersena said.

"This was an entirely secretive, political process for which there was no public accountability and absolutely no process that meets any kind of smell test or any kind of test that we would apply to public spending of this dimension," Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said.

Another chapter in the report said that by separating the security costs for both the G20 and G8 summits, the government made it difficult for parliamentarians to understand the total cost of security for the summits.

The report suggests that the total cost of security comes to $664 million which is well below the projected $1.1 billion. However, the auditor general said the reason for cost savings is due to over-budgeting by departments and the creation of extra contingency funds in the planning process which were caused by poor co-ordination.

Rae said that regardless the $664 million price tag, the cost of security is still too much for the summits considering that France spent only $29 million on their security on this year's G8 summit in Deauville.

After draft versions of the report were leaked, former Auditor General Sheila Fraser refused to release the documents by request of all the major parties and used the election as the reason. She has since retired from her job and Wiersema took over.

In late April, a Toronto woman launched a lawsuit in Federal Court to try to get the document released but the judge said that there wasn’t time to hear her case before the May 2 election.

Libya costs $26 million and Growing

To date, Canada’s mission in Libya has cost $26 million and the price will likely double by the fall, Defense Minister Peter MacKay said at a NATO summit.

Canada is a participant of the NATO-led mission to protect Libyan civilians from Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.

"The cost of this leadership, with respect to Canada's contribution to protect civilian lives, is estimated currently at $26 million until June 2, and we need to continue the momentum we've achieved thus far," MacKay told a news conference Wednesday in Brussels.

On Tuesday, MPs will vote on whether Canada should extend the four-month-old mission to September to be in line with NATO’s timeline. MacKay said that doing so would bring the cost to $60 million.

While Libyan rebels made progress in their uprising, they have since hit stalemate. NATO Security-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that NATO has no plans to remain in Libya after the conflict ends.

All the while, John Baird defended the government’s position to stay in Libya.

Senate Reform Doesn’t Need a Supreme Court Ruling

It turns out that Harper has no intention of asking the Supreme Court if it ha the power to unilaterally reform the senate.

Tim Uppal, minister of state of democratic reform said that the government is confident that the government has the constitutional authority to proceed with two modest Senate reform bills which are to be tabled for the fourth time later this month.

One would impose limits on the length of a Senator’s term and the other would encourage provinces to take the weight of establishing the election mechanisms.

A number of provinces maintain that constitutional reform is required to make these amendments and must be approved by 7 provinces with 50% of the population. Quebec has threatened to take the matter to the country’s top court if the government persists on going on its own.

Several provinces, such as Ontario, have mentioned that the Senate should be abolished, but the Conservatives would rather make it more expensive and elected – so much for the spending cuts…

The Conservatives justify their actions with the fear of bring in constitutional fights that are in no one’s best interests.

Uppal responded to Quebec’s threat by saying that they’re going ahead anyway – it is likely that the Quebec population will respond with electing a PQ majority government – the PQ is Quebec’s separatist party. In the end of the day, senate reform might be ugly.

 

Quebec headed for a snap election?

While the Liberals are currently in power in Quebec, there has been speculation that Premier Jean Charest will call a snap fall election on the basis of controversy in the PQ leadership with the resignation of 4 prominent MNAs. Despite the weakened poll numbers, the PQ is still favored to win the next provincial election.

Speculation comes amid of a drop in PQ support and an evening of his numbers in the polls,  recent PQ turmoil, the fear of a new party that is being formed by Francois Legault that is gaining popularity despite its non-existence.

The Charest Liberals urged Legault to be fair and make a party now if it plans to run for election. The party would likely contribute to the PQ bleed out over the past few years.

The PQ bleed out has stopped and regardless of Marois’ weakened poll numbers, she is still considered the favorite to win any imminent election. She said that when the election comes around, voters will look beyond recent PQ troubles and at Charest’s three years of incompetence and cronyism.

"Our team has everything it needs to return this fall and have an election, if necessary. We'll be ready, with our platform, to respond to people's expectations and propose projects for a future Parti Quebecois government,” Marois said.

Despite the reasons why an election would be favored by Charest, he never said he would do such a thing – although he didn’t say that he would copy Harper in 2008 and claim that his minority wasn’t going well to dissolve and come back with a majority mandate.

Recent Crop Poll and Seat Count from threehundredandeight.blogspot.com

Party	Poll	Seats
Liberal	27%	43
Parti Quebecois	26%	59
Quebec Solidaire	17%	8
Action Democratic du Quebec	15%	15
Greens	9%	0
Other	7%	0

PQ minority – 3 short of a majority.

It May be Time for Canadians to Tighten Their Belts, but not the PMO

As the Conservatives announced cuts and user fees to come to public services and new austerity measures, Stephen Harper used his business jet to go to Game 4 of the Cup finals in Boston. Due to security reasons, Harper, his daughter Rachel, and Heritage Minister James Moore used a government Challenger Jet to get to the TD Garden for the game which cost $3,285 per hour to operate on the tax payers’ tab.

Opposition leaders pounced on Harper’s decision to use tax funded transport to go to the game.

“I do think that if it is a private visit and he is going to watch a hockey game, that’s not something that the taxpayers should be picking up,” Liberal Leader Bob Rae told reporters.

“It seems to me that’s something one has to look at in a slightly different way than one would look at an official visit. I have got nothing against people going to watch a hockey game, but you know, I don’t think you can hardly say that’s an official visit by the Prime Minister of Canada to the United States,” Rae said.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said, “He’ll have to defend that, won’t he? I won’t be on the plane.”

Layton added that he’d be watching the game on television.

Andrew MacDougall, a PMO spokesperson, said that Harper paid $500 for his and Rachel’s tickets at face value. He said that Harper is the first prime minister to reimburse the government with the equivalent of a commercial fare ($1,000) for the use of the Challenger.

This comes shortly after he asked Canada to vote for the name of his new cat which ended up being named Stanley.

All the while, it won’t be all fun and games in the finance department where Treasury Board President Tony Clement announced that he is open to introducing user fees as part of the biggest program review in 15 years.

Clement said that there are questions for 67 departments that will be getting slashed by 5-10%.

"Should we still be doing this — and doing it in this way? Does this have to be delivered by this organization? Why does it cost as much as it does? Can we find savings? Is it achieving the expected results efficiently? Is this a government priority, and is it affordable during a period of fiscal restraint? Are we achieving value for money?" he said.

The spending review is part of the Conservative plan to rebalance the books after it fell into deficit before the recession.

In October 2008, Paul Martin, former Prime Minister and the man who cleaned up Mulroney’s deficit and created the $13 billion surplus that was left to the Conservatives to squander said:

"Our deficit has not been gutted, not been eviscerated because of the financial crisis, but because the government cut the GST and then embarked on the biggest spending spree in government history."

A left-wing think tank estimated that the cost of cutting the GST by one percentage point, which is the equivalence of a saving of 1 cent per dollar spent by tax payers, or $1 dollar per $100 spent, was $34 billion.

As of yet there is no indication as to which programs will be targeted by the Conservatives in the coming year, but like in the 1990s, Canadians can expect to feel a pinch in their pocketbooks.

However, Clement did say that he would be looking at operating expenses, including wages, salaries, and professional services contracts along with grants and contributions, capital and payment to Crown Corporations.

"But I do want to make one thing very clear: this review will not touch major transfers to provinces, territories and individuals. Nor will it look at public debt charges," Clement added.

It is also worth mentioning that Harper’s cabinet is the biggest and most expensive in history as well costing over $9 million.

All the while, Harper borrowed money and military equipment from the taxpayers to take a friend and his daughter to a hockey game for their personal pleasure.

Flaherty intends to copy the Liberals

The Conservatives promised that they would get us out of deficit by 2014. However, such a promise won’t be visible in the upcoming budget. The Conservatives are well aware of the Liberal Party’s prudent economic abilities and plan to copy it. Jim Flaherty, Canada’s Finance Minister has declared that he doesn’t how to fix the economy, but knows that if he can figure out how the Liberals fixed the previous Tory mess, he can clean up his own.

Flaherty has asked for a review of the former Liberal government’s spending cuts in the 1990s a year before the Conservatives hinted similar actions. A briefing note to Flaherty, obtained through the Access to Information Act examines program review (found below), the way the Liberals cut $13.3 billion in expenses in 1994. When the cuts were finished, the government eliminated 55,000 positions from the public sector and raised revenue by introducing user fees.

The Conservatives have tried to keep their images clean by saying that the types of cuts won’t be the same. During the election, Flaherty said he would avoid the “slash-and-burn” tactic that the Liberals used in program review when he announced that he would get the surplus a year sooner.

Critics, however, say that the current government has a large task ahead of them.

“For all we know, [Flaherty] made those statements after he looked at these [program review] documents and said, ‘no, I can’t deal with this,’ Gene Swimmer, a professor emeritus at Carleton University, who studied the mid-1990s cuts told CBC.

“He certainly couldn’t deal with it in a minority government. Maybe now they can. From a policy perspective, it makes sense to know what happened in the past and to keep your options open.”

Tony Clement said that the Conservatives won’t cut funding for healthcare and transfer payments to the provinces like the Liberals did.

“We made that clear. The budget will make that clear as well. So it’s an entirely different circumstance than that,” Clement said.

Clement said that he would trim $11 billion by not replacing retiring bureaucrats and scraping programs that have effectively died.

During the 1993 election, Jean Chretien’s Liberals promised to cut government spending by 3% of the country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product), a goal that he wasn’t able to complete when he was finance minister. When the Liberals came to power, they were criticized for not cutting enough in their first budget. Chretien responded with the “Program Review” initiative.

Every expense except for Aboriginal peoples and children, including transfer payments for provinces, healthcare and social programs was on the table. Instead of cutting across the board, Chretien’s Liberals focused their primary cuts on transportation, privatized airports, and ended business subsidies.

One section in the 2010 background on program review focuses on the mistakes that the Liberals made by cutting too much in certain places.

“In retrospect, some departments cut too deeply, and reinvestments and course corrections became necessary in subsequent years. It became rapidly clear in the Department of National Defense, for instance, that the rent expected as a result of the end of the Cold War would not materialize. Missions became more numerous, more complex and more costly.”

It is expected that the Conservatives will exempt sectors while making the cuts. The Liberals exempted Aboriginal people and children and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development at the time received a 12% increase in funding between 1994-95 and 1997-98 fiscal years.

The Conservatives indicated that they would leave transfer payments for healthcare alone and follow suit with the Liberal and NDP promises to increase funding by 6% annually. They also wouldn’t touch their tough on crime initiatives where the Conservatives have increased funding by 32.5% since 2006.

Critics point to National Defense as the way to save money. With Canada’s reduced commitment in Afghanistan, money can be saved. However, the Conservatives have locked in a fighter jet deal that will pose as large expenditures.

Clement said that once the 2011 budget will be passed, which will signal that spending cuts is the direction, “We’re going through a process over the next year, and then those decisions will be found in the 2012 budget.”

Unlike the Liberals who had to slay a $37 billion deficit in 1995, the Conservatives, will have to slay a $34.4 billion deficit, lower than the $40.5 billion that was expected.

NDP Surge Gave Tories Majority Government

A new poll finds that the NDP surge wasn’t a fluke, but instead is here to stay, however, that didn’t stop 16 seats from going blue as a result. These vote splits mainly occurred in Ontario at the expense of the Liberals. Meanwhile, there is speculation as to whether the NDP’s Quebec counterpart the Quebec Solidaire would ride the same wave. A recent poll also suggests that if Quebec voted today, the separatist Parti Quebecois would form a majority government.

NDP Gave Conservatives Majority

Below is a break down from ThreeHundredandEight.com outlining that the NDP were indeed the cause of the current Conservative majority government.


Had the NDP not split the vote in these 16 regions, the Conservatives would have been 4 short of a majority government.

Several of these ridings were close as well.

Bramalea-Gore-Malton went Conservative with only 500 votes leading.

Mississauga East-Cooksville was won with a 700 vote lead.

Etobicoke Centre was won by only 100 votes.

Nipissing-Timiskaming by only a handful of ballots.

In Michael Ignatieff’s old riding, 5,000 new NDP votes helped hand the seat to the Conservatives.

While the NDP gained between 2,200 and 13,500 votes, they only finished second or third.

However, the NDP weren’t completely to blame, in York Centre for example, the 2,200 NDP gain didn’t affect the 6,400 vote gap between Ken Dryden and the newly-elected Conservative MP Mark Adler.
Other ridings that were tossed to the Conservatives due to the NDP were Winnipeg South Centre, Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe, Labrador, and Yukon.

In New Brunswick, the NDP’s growth created a three-way race electing Conservative Robert Goguen.
In Labrador, the 700 NDP votes prevented the Liberals from overtaking the Conservative with only 200 votes behind. In the Yukon, the 1,000 new votes for the NDP prevented the Liberals from holding the seat which they lost by only 100 votes.

While Stephen Harper reaped the benefit of Michael Ignatieff’s failings, he can thank Jack Layton for the 16 seats that bumped him to majority status.

NDP set to become Natural Opposition Party

All the while, the NDP surge wasn’t a fluke, a new Harris Decima poll suggests that Layton secured his position as Official Opposition Leader. Of the poll’s more than 2,000 respondents, the Conservatives got 37%, down from 39.6% on election day, the NDP got 34%, up from 30.6%, the Liberals got 15%, down 4.

"What's happened is the loyalties of traditional Liberal voters continue to be transferred over to the New Democrats," said pollster Allan Gregg, the chairman of Harris-Decima.

"We've got the New Democrats at an all-time high virtually everywhere except British Columbia right now."
The center-left people seem to have started to back the NDP which could make it Canada’s natural opposition party.

In Quebec, where the NDP made the most gains, Harris Decima suggests that the voting intention holds: 46% NDP, 21% Bloc Quebecois, 18% Conservatives, 10% Liberals.

Will the NDP Surge Help Quebec’s Quebec Solidaire Party?

Meanwhile, there has been speculation whether Quebec’s provincial party the Quebec Solidaire would ride the NDP wave. It is Quebec’s sister party to the NDP and like the official opposition Parti Quebecois, the Quebec Solidaire are a separatist party.

Threehundredandeight.com has compiled the provincial data and found that if an election were to be held today, Quebecers would oust Jean Charest’s Liberal Party and elect a major Parti Quebecois majority government which would put Quebec separation back on the table in Quebec. Provincially, the Parti Quebecois would get 78 seats, while the Liberals would get 27, the ADQ, Quebec’s right-leaning party would come in third with 15 seats and Quebec Solidaire would gain 4 more seats to get 5.

A CROP poll suggests that the PQ have 34%, the Liberals have 23%, the Action Democratic du Quebec (ADQ) has 16% and Quebec Solidaire has 12%.



Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois has plenty to be happy about and if the trend continues as Jean Charest’s popularity deteriorates in the province, the election that has yet to come in 2 years may give the Quebec separatist movement the keys to the National Assembly. In the end, the Quebec Solidaire didn’t pick up the gains as a part of the NDP surge in Quebec.

Conservatives go in Two Directions when it comes to the Israel Issues

During the G8 summit, Stephen Harper stood alone in rejecting Obama’s peace offer that would have Israel use its 1967 borders as a standing point for peace negotiations with independence seeking Palestinians. Now, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is singing a different tune from his leader, supporting Obama’s initiative.

“We support, obviously, that that solution has to be based on the ’67 border, with mutually agreed upon swaps, as President Obama said,” Baird said.

Although the international community widely accepted Obama’s plan, the American and Israeli governments have no desire to share Jerusalem with an independent Palestine. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Obama’s plan.

Stephen Harper is a staunch supporter of Israel and refused to support Obama’s plan even though it reflected Canada’s official position. At the G8, his lone message wasn’t well received, a British Official said, “Mr. Harper clearly is the odd man out on this one, and it won’t do him any favors.” Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has a stance that favors the Arabs and has criticized Israel. He said that Obama “turned a corner” and built a common front. He called Obama’s speech “bold” and”visionary.”

Due to Harper’s positions, Canada has been left out of the initiatives.

In 1967, Israel fought Egypt, Jordan and Syria in a six-day war capturing the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Sinai Peninsula, and East Jerusalem. All of the territories were kept but Sinai that was returned to Egypt.

The West Bank and Gaza Strip are currently governed by semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority and East Jerusalem is a major striking point for negotiations.

Baird said that his statement wasn’t an about-face in Conservative policy, but wasn’t familiar with the 1967 UN declaration that called on Israel to pull its troops back called Resolution 242.

Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae demonstrated his knowledge of the issue with a casual reference to 242.

“Go back to President Nixon, Mr. Kissinger, all that, all the efforts, the Madrid process, the Oslo process, all the events, the Annapolis process, more recently the effort that President Obama began. All these efforts since what, 40 years, are based on 242.”