I have known for some time. Even long before that scandal regarding Liberal campaign co-chair, Daniel Gagnier erupted today all over the news pages. I knew the Liberal high polling numbers of late were fragile at best. For a few days, it looked like a trend was happening. Some of those torn between NDP and Liberal going to the Liberals as the best means of being rid of Stephen Harper. Now that Trudeau’s campaign has flown off the rails or at least, about to be (Latest EKOS poll showing a 1.5% drop in potential support, expect it to drop even further), it is possible those swing voters may see that Harper is going to come back anyway, why not vote my conscience? Don’t chear NDP partisans, your guy may go up in the polls but not enough to form any kind of government. It will only further increase vote split to help Harper up the middle again, probably to a majority. I really should start taking bets on this.
I will start with the latest.
In the email Gagnier sent on Monday, he told five people at TransCanada Corp. to target the right people in a new government as quickly as possible so they can help shape either Liberal or NDP decisions on a national energy strategy.
Such a lobbying effort would be needed to ensure the planned “in-service” dates of projects like Energy East aren’t put at risk, the email said.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
For a registered lobbyist — which again, Gagnier is not — to provide strategic, if speculative advice on the post-Oct. 19 political landscape while simultaneously co-calling the shots on a campaign would almost certainly be seen as conduct that would raise questions — and eyebrows — if his or her party were to wind up in power.
There are no similar prohibitions on political multitasking by those who provide on-demand insight to private companies hoping to get a foot in the door with the federal government, of course, which means that the Liberals are technically correct when they claim that no ethical rules were broken, for the simple reason that no such rules exist.
It may not have been illegal, but the optics are very bad on this. It looks bad to Jane and Joe Six-pack who know nothing except what is fed to them by their newspapers. The NDP and the Harpercons can and already are using this to bash Trudeau over the head.
It’s all Trudeau Camp’s fault here. The point is that it was known for some time now that Daniel Gagnier was problematic. A story came out in 2014 by APTN about Gagnier and his links to Bruce Carson, disgraced former Harpercon senior aid. Why the Liberal camp decided to let Gagnier stay is frankly, mind boggling. He should’ve been cut loose back when that story came out last year. Haven’t they learned it’s all in the optics and Jane and Joe Six-pack who are otherwise not politically engaged generally don’t view lobbyists favourably? Again, it’s all about optics.
The NDP filed a formal complaint to Lobbying commissioner Karen Shepherd. He faces an investigation. My question is who leaked it to the Canadian Press earlier today? NDP? Harpercons? IF it was one of those two camps, my question becomes why wait til the last minute? Though I already know the answer to that. Wait until it is too late in the campaign to do anything about it. Make this stain the last thing voters remember before this Monday. Sure Gagnier should face the music and yes, the Liberals should take responsibility for this latest snaffoo, but I find it sleazy that whoever leaked this information decided on now instead of sooner? Doesn’t make them much better.
Latest is that Gagnier has resigned. Ok, good, but too little too late. Again, he should’ve been gone much sooner. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been hired at all.
Silly Liberals and your partisans (goes to NDP and their supporters to, but to a lesser degree as their guy will not be forming any kind of government), don’t you know that you all have to be so clean that you squeak when you walk? Silly Liberals, scandals and lobbying ethical issues are for Harpercons.
One thing I’ve always noticed and it’s being talked about on Facebook today: there is a double standard. Harpercon scandals, too many to mention: In and out scandal, Robofraud where voters were called, misleading them to wrong polling stations, Pierre Poutine (one is already in jail over this), Spending issues (Dean of Gastro was in jail– appealing his sentence, I understand), Mike Duffy, Nigel Wright and the 90,000$ pay off and subsequent cover up, scandals which have far surpassed the Sponsorship scandal. Rob Ford can smoke crack and be caught hanging with gangsters. Harper even had a drummer accused of pedophilia in his old Herringbone band. Disgraced senators and senior staffers. But all that is ok if you’re a conservative. In fact, all of those scandals are forgiven. As one conservative supporter said to day, basically, he doesn’t care if they fuck with sheep so long as his taxes are down (Or at least believes the illlusion that his taxes are down). Yet, they’re still quick with the Sponsorship scandal. I know that many here in La belle province still remember it.
Case in point, Harper is only too happy to accept endorsements from the Ford Brothers. He is enthusiastically attending their event. Why not? Ford Nation is still very much alive and kicking. Rob Ford who was caught smoking crack at a crack house and photographed with known gangsters, but those same Ford Nation people– Harpercon cheerleaders, inlcluding Harper himself, have hissy fits when Justin Trudeau admitted he smoked a joint of pot at a private dinner party with friends. Double standard.
Long before today, I knew Harper would win a majority. I knew the Trudeau campaign would derail somehow.
Also, Trudeau just asked the public to vote him a majority. Again, remember the double standards here. It’s ok for Harper to ask for a majority. Jane and Joe Six-pack are only too willing to give it to him. They don’t want to return to the polls in less than another 4 years as they have proven. They have bought Harper’s low taxes hook, line and sinker. For a long time now, pundits, journalists commentators have always said the Conservatives basically provide adult supervision, while support of the other two parties are “sugar buzzes” (a term coined by Paul wells a long time ago referring to a poll with Trudeau riding high after he took leadership). However, Trudeau asking for a majority, well, folks would say there go those Liberals thinking they’re entitled again. Plus, as Don Martin and the pundits said tonight on Power Play, it is likely that support will plummet because folks might think he would be ok with a minority under adult supervision, but alone with a majority, no, Jane and Joe Six-pack wouldn’t trust him.
Folks, from any progressive stripe. Please learn to spend time and talk to Jane and Joe Six-pack. Learn the fine art of cohesive messaging. Learn right winged discipline. I’ve always said if you want to beat someboday at their game, you must learn it and then play it better. Typical non-politically engaged voters vote with their hearts and guts, not the intellect. Bumper sticker snappy slogans that are easy to understand.
Those politically engaged progressives overestimate their fellow citizens. The truth is they believe strongly that oil sands in Alberta and Big corporations with low corporate taxes will somehow lead them to the promised land. They like being able to write off little Johnny’s pee wee hockey. They love tough on crime and are scared of Muslim boogie men hiding under their beds. No one has found a way to get them to change their minds. An uphill climb. However, instead of preaching to our own choirs, start engaging with Jane and Joe Six-pack.
Lastly, for the longest time, I’ve noticed that Trudeau and Mulcair attacking each other, as well as their respective supporters only gains one of them the keys to Stornoway and not 24 Sussex. This kind of partisan nonsense helped Harper get his majority in 2011. Nobody has learned their lessons from 2011 election. In fact, I’ve had nothing but a sense of Deja-vu since the campaign began. With the exception of perhaps different leaders, 30 new gerrymandered seats and a marathon long campaign, absolutely nothing has changed from 2011.
Should Harper get his majority, it won’t be conservative voters I’ll blame but both the NDP and the LIberals themselves along with their supporters.
Anybody thinking I’m nuts, please remember that I predicted a Harper majority from the day Rob Ford was first elected mayor in 2010. Everybody thought I was nuts, basically and I was dismissed. We all know how that turned out now don’t we?
LIke I said, I really should start taking bets.
![[small-web-version_harperfree_poster.jpg]](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WGczmWu7Wwc/SdCJyy2LN1I/AAAAAAAABWE/ABYCkbJaKaQ/s1600/small-web-version_harperfree_poster.jpg)
The problem with “engaging” with the Conservative Party base is that they cannot be engaged with, only manipulated. If they were intellectually capable of intelligent political discussion, or eager to educate themselves to that level, they would have already done so and then left the Conservative fold. Authoritarianism is fine with them. They like hearing that economics is more important than politics. They like knowing that government can break laws whenever it wants, because they would do so if they had the power, and they hope that one day the government will break laws for them. Because they lack even a high-school-level understanding of basic science and history, they are entirely uninterested in such high-falutin concepts as the rule of law or scientific theory.
There are presumably Liberal and NDP strategists who are aware of this (but I doubt they would phrase it that way even in private) and who, out of either resignation or a similar sort of narrow-mindedness of their own, simply don’t care enough to sacrifice their own partisan national interests for the sake of the nation.
Since people of that intellectual calibre now control the education systems in most provinces, we can probably rest assured that the problem will only get worse, not better.
[Reply]
Will Harper win a majority? I do not know. He may. If he does it is because deep down in their hearts Canadians want things to stay exactly the same and Harper knows the psychology of voters. Canadians may say publicly that they are concerned about the environment and the world’s less fortunates. But in the privacy of the voting booth when people are thinking, “My job depends on the extraction of that resource”. And, “Screw them, more refugees will supplant my job.”
I think Canadians want Canada to be known for letting in refugees and helping the environment without actually having to take the risks and do the work of letting them in or doing the work necessary for the environment. Why go to the trouble of being something when you can believe you’re that already and no one around you will say otherwise because they want to live in the same fantasy?
The national myth is that Canadians are a compassionate people who care deeply about nature and have high ideals. The national reality is that in private we’re the same fearful, selfish, duplicitous scumbags that everybody else on the planet is. As the Christians would say, we are all sinners, the difference being that the Christians admit it and the non-Christians do not.
Canadians want things to stay exactly the way they are right now, and to hell with everyone else. Canadians are inherently selfish. And Harper knows it.
But they don’t want to be caught saying anything like that.
So they’re going to vote for Harper because they know he’ll say it for them. Harper says the things that Canadians dare not say in public but at the polling booth, that is exactly the way they think.
The majority block of Canadians who are supposedly compassionate and reasonable and who will rise up to defeat Stephen Harper do not exist.
The Liberals as of late did not help matters for themselves. Those Canadians who are familiar with the practices of that party over the decades know nothing has changed. The Liberals will drive Canada into an economic and cultural hole from which there will be no escape and if that is the best alternative, (which it is) then Harper retains his majority easily.
[Reply]
Katabole — if it is true that Liberal policies have not changed in decades, then there is nothing to worry about on the economic front. Canada has had many Liberal governments over the past several decades and none of them were economically disastrous.
Since the majority of Canadians oppose Harper and the majority of those who cast ballots cast them for parties other than the Conservative Party, I think it is safe to say you are wrong on that score too. And I say that as someone who has very grave doubts about how “reasonable” most voters are when coming to their decision.
I think that the real problem is that many Canadians, by definition all Conservatives but quite possibly most supporters of other parties as well, have very little understanding that there might be real issues at stake. One party in this campaign, for instance, is running on the platform that it should be permitted to break electoral law more or less with impunity, that it should be allowed to decide which citizens are allowed to cast ballots, and that it should have the power to remove people’s lawfully acquired citizenship. And yet these are not issues that have figured prominently in any major political discussion.
[Reply]
I have only two words for the this morning Sister
– Ha Ha.
[Reply]