Public Funding for Political Parties

The Conservative Party will make campaign finance a central pillar of its reelection platform in the next federal election, which observers expect this coming spring or fall.

Under the Conservatives’ plan, political parties will retain the power to issue tax receipts to individual donors. Political parties will also remain entitled to receive reimbursements for authorized campaign expenditures. But gone will be the direct subsidies that grant political parties roughly $2 for every vote they get at the polls.

That strikes me as not only fair and reasonable, but also quite right. I think it’s a winner.

If there is a compelling reason to disagree with the Conservative Party on campaign finance, I cannot think of it, particularly given how well Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the point here:

I think we’ve been pretty clear that we don’t think there’s really strong justification for this direct subsidy to parties. … Our view is that there is a role for some public finance, but it has got to be tied to a party’s own efforts, or to the willingness of voters to actually contribute this money.

It remains to be seen, though, whether the rest of the Conservative Party’s platform will earn my similarly enthusiastic support.

The New Conservative Cabinet

Today, Mark Kennedy speculates on a looming federal Cabinet shuffle.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with an eye on a potential spring election, is contemplating a cabinet shuffle to re-energize his team and bring greater focus to his government’s priorities.

Let’s assume Kennedy is right. Who should be shuffled in, shuffled out, promoted, demoted?

Keep in mind that the Conservatives have a new addition to their team: Julian Fantino, the former Ontario Provincial Police commissioner who was recently elected in a Vaughn by-election.

Let me kick things off with three recommendations:

1. Fantino would fit in well as Minister of Public Safety, a portfolio currently held by Vic Toews. If current National Defence Minister Peter MacKay does indeed step down in the days/weeks ahead, as some have suggested he might, then Rob Nicholson, the current Minister of Justice and Attorney General, could take over at Defence and Toews, a lawyer, could fill the office vacated by Nicholson.

2. Larry Smith, the former CFL commissioner whom the Conservative Party is said to be courting, should be appointed to the Cabinet even without a seat. Smith would then be expected to contest an election at the first available opportunity, either a general election or a by-election. (Appointing someone without a seat in the House of Commons to the Cabinet is unconventional but not unprecedented: Jean Chretien appointed Stephane Dion to the Cabinet in January 1996 long before Dion had won a seat in the House.) Where would Smith go? One option is for Smith to takeover for Tony Clement at the Ministry of Industry, and Clement could then replace Chuck Strahl (who is rumoured to be leaving) as Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

3. The prime minister needs to find room for Michael Chong. He is just too good to be left out of the Cabinet.

That’s my advice for the prime minister. What’s yours?

The Temporary Departure of Jim Prentice

Jim Prentice has just resigned his Cabinet position as Environment Minister and has announced his intention to vacate his seat in the House of Commons by the end of the year to accept an senior executive position with a leading Canadian bank.

But if you think politics has seen the last of Jim Prentice, think again.

I would bet a large amount of my minuscule savings that Prentice, only 54 years old, will return to politics within the next decade to mount a campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

This “temporary departure” strategy would be par for the course in Canadian leadership politics. John Turner, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper–each has in the past done precisely what Prentice is now doing: retreating from active political life to the comforts of corporate Canada.

When the leadership of the Conservative Party once again becomes available, Prentice will be well positioned to run a frontrunner’s campaign. Tempted by new corporate contacts, Bay Street fundraisers, organizational muscle and campaign operatives, Prentice will have a hard time resisting the siren song of politics.

True, Prentice will not have an easy ride to the prize. He will face a strong cast of potential contestants for the Conservative leadership, including perhaps Peter Mackay, Stockwell Day, Maxime Bernier, Rona Ambrose, John Baird, Tony Clement, Jim Flaherty, Peter Van Loan, Jean Charest and Bernard Lord.

But given his strong Cabinet performance and the Bay Street glow that is sure to envelop him in the years ahead, Prentice would be a leading contender in the next Conservative leadership race.

Dueling Videos about Michael Ignatieff

Remember long ago when the Conservative Party released a series of “Just Visiting” videos about newly-appointed/elected Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff? Here are three of them and their titles: Just Visiting, Economy, and Arrogance.

Recently, the Liberal Party released a video of its own. It’s a four-minute video that serves to introduce–or rather, to re-introduce–Ignatieff to Canadians. Here it is.

It is effective. Actually, it is very effective.

But it may be too late to undo the image of the Liberal leader that has already hardened in the minds of Canadians.

The moral of this story is clear: define yourself as you want to be seen before your opponent defines you the way he wants others to see you.

Which Party–Liberal or Conservative–Believes in Multiculturalism?

The Liberal Party condemns the Conservative Party for choosing “again and again to divide communities–by race, religion, language and national origin–for partisan advantage.”

But in reality there is little daylight between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party when it comes to multiculturalism policy. Both parties even use the same metaphor.

Conservatives recognize the “regional, cultural and socio-economic diversity of Canada” and are committed to “embracing our differences and respecting our traditions, yet honoring a concept of Canada as the greater sum of strong parts.”

For their part, Liberals “believe that Canada is much more than the sum of its parts, and that we are stronger not despite our differences, but because of them.”

So, which party believes in multiculturalism?

The answer is both.

Conservatives Dominate Another Fundraising Quarter

To say that the Conservative Party raised the most money in the last quarter would be to give you only part of the story.

The story would not be complete without repeating what has now become a familiar refrain in Canadian federal politics: the Conservative Party dominated yet another fundraising quarter.

Here are the most recent fundraising numbers for the quarter ending March 2010, as detailed in the political financing database of Elections Canada:

Conservative Party: $4,023,923.14
Liberal Party: $1,589,953.81
Bloc Québécois: $123,069.64
NDP: $900,198.01
Green Party: $233,285.57

To put it in other words, the Conservative Party raised $1,177,416.11 more than all other political parties combined.

What is more, the Conservative Party attracted just about as many contributors as all other parties put together: there were 32,466 Conservative donors versus 32,537 donors for the Liberal Party, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, and the Green Party.

Just a few years ago under the leadership of Jean Chrétien, the Liberal Party was firmly entrenched as the dominant force in Canadian political fundraising. But no longer.

In recent years, the Conservative Party has consistently outperformed the other parties, both with respect to dollars and donors.

What explains this contemporary reversal of fortunes? I suggest two possibilities: this man and this law, which was amended by this important Act in 2004.

Do any other possibilities come to mind?

Branding in Canadian and American Politics

It’s fascinating to try to make sense of the cultural, social and political differences that set Canadians apart from Americans.

Take politics for instance. A recent poll from Rasmussen Reports shows that Americans regard the label “conservative” more positively than the either of the two labels “liberal” or “progressive.” The conservative brand is in fact three times more appealing to the electorate than the liberal brand, and twice as appealing as the progressive brand.

I would be shocked if the same were true of Canadians.

Although the Conservative Party has been in power since 2006, I suspect that Canadians nonetheless still identify most closely with the label “liberal.”

Let me be clear on this: I am not suggesting that Canadians define themselves as members of the Liberal Party. What I am instead suggesting is that the brand of liberal resonates most intensely with Canadians, both as an ideological descriptor and as a general cultural orientation.

Two points in particular strike me as worthy of some discussion. First, why do Canadians situate themselves more comfortably in the liberal camp while Americans are more at ease in the conservative camp? And, second, how and how often do these preferences evolve?

Any thoughts from readers here at The Politic?

Federal Dream Team

Joan Bryden is reporting that the Prime Minister will unveil a new Cabinet within the next month or so. I use the term “new” loosely because the Cabinet shuffle will apparently not include any new faces.

Some might justifiably regard that as a shame. After all, there is a lot of talent in the Conservative Party, and many backbenchers can quite plausibly make a strong case for having earned the right to prove themselves in Cabinet.

In your view, which Conservative backbenchers should be considered for the Cabinet? And for which portfolio?

Let me start our discussion with a suggestion: Michael Chong, the principled and accomplished Member of Parliament for Wellington-Halton Hills, could make an excellent Minister of State for Democratic Reform. The current occupant of that post, Steven Fletcher, could then be promoted to a full Minister of the Crown.

Thoughts?

Obligatory Copenhagen Post

Having not authored a post in a while, I figured I would rise today and wax polemic about Copenhagen, the massive  conference at which our government and all enviro-sinner nations, i.e. the West — of which Canada with its oilsands is the worst, we are told — will be compelled to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by set proportions regardless of the detrimental, yea disastrous, effects it might have on our economies, while also promising to transfer even more wealth from the ingenious companies and hard-working citizens of this nation via taxation to the governments and companies of poorer nations so they can combat “climate change” without hurting their economies.

Vox Day rightly argues that this is historically, scientifically, economically and politically insane.

It is historically insane because we know the planet was more than two degrees warmer as recently as 500 years ago. It is scientifically insane because we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the world is not warming according to any of the predictions based on models which are based on the idea that higher carbon dioxide levels produce higher temperatures. It is economically insane because it strengthens the contractionary forces that are already in the process of plunging the world into the greatest depression of the modern era. It is politically insane because it reverses more than 300 years of advancing human liberty and democracy.

Adding to the insanity is the specter of “approved” middlemen, a global governance structure, managing the transfer of wealth and enforcing environmental targets.  The rank hypocrisy on display at Copenhagen leads one to believe the scams resulting from global emissions management, some of which have already started to unfold in Europe, would make the UN Oil-for-Food scandal look like petty theft.

The first impression one receives of the summit is the sheer hypocrisy of it. Here are green campaigners who damn the rest of us for the size of our “carbon footprints” and challenge us each to reduce our carbon output by one tonne per year. Yet they themselves are flying in using a squadron of private jets, hiring a fleet of limousines and gorging themselves on expensive food flown in from around the world.

In all of Denmark, there are only a few of dozen limousines for hire. So more than 1,000 of the gas-guzzling, carbon-belching behemoths have been driven to Copenhagen from Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France. Since, at most, 140 heads of state and heads of government will attend the week-long conference, the bulk of these land yachts are being delivered for use by United Nations officials, the heads of environmental organizations and celebrities. All these people preach environmental sustainability for others, yet do not practice it themselves.

Digressing a bit, I suspect the governing “Conservatives” are thinking long and hard about their play at Copenhagen given their stronghold in Western Canada, oil country.  I’ve no doubt they’ve been inundated with queries and demands from the grassroots in light of the CRU leak, and I suspect they will take a beating on the hustings and in the pocketbook should they capitulate to the anti-freedom forces in Copenhagen and/or align Canada in any way with a carbon trading scheme.  If the CPC has any hope of forming a majority government, they’d best steer clear of these local landmines.

Back to Copenhagen, which, of course, is merely step one in the twisted world of enviro-fascism.  Oh, you didn’t hear?  Yes, the AGW prophet, Al Gore, served notice that the bar has already been raised.

Even if a deal is reached at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen next week it will only be the first step towards the far more radical cuts that are needed in global carbon emissions, Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, told The Times last night….

He insisted that the present goal set for Copenhagen of stabilising world emissions of carbon dioxide at or below 450 parts per million — enough to prevent a rise in average global temperatures of no more than 2C — was insufficient and a safer target would be 350 parts per million.

“Insufficient.”  A fitting conclusion to an obligatory post about Copenhagen, for it reminds us that no matter what we do it will never be enough for the enviro-fascist leftards seeking to destroy Capitalism and Western freedom.  It reminds us that environmental policy has a fascist chassis and a socialist economic engine.  It reminds us that Copenhagen and all such global management endeavours are fundamentally about the transfer of power from the individual to the State.  It reminds us that freedom is being bartered under the guise of “being green.”  It reminds us to punish the CPC if they buckle.

Update 8 PM EST: Ice core context.  An absolute must see.  (Hat tip SDA.)  As has been mentioned previously, the issue is not whether we are currently in a warming period. It’s whether it is unprecedented and whether the cause is assuredly carbon dioxide and man-made emissions.

Why Canada Needs Another Tory Majority

Richard serves up some red meat for the Conservative base in his most recent op-ed, this time in The Hamilton Spectator.  He spells out some very good reasons for Canadians to root for a Conservative majority in the next election (whenever that may be).  Here’s a taste:

When Brian Mulroney rode a rising conservative tide to the biggest majority government in Canadian history 25 years ago, he was lauded for finally breaking the Liberal deadbolt on the gates to 24 Sussex. Not since John Diefenbaker’s triumph in 1958 had the political right formed a majority government.

But Mulroney’s election was not as much a victory for him or his party as it was for Canada and our democratic institutions. Today, with an election looming on the horizon, the best argument for a Conservative majority is neither that Stephen Harper wants one nor that the Conservative Party has earned one, but rather that Canada needs one.

Putting aside policy issues, Richard makes some very strong points in the column.  No matter what Thomas Friedman says, a nation is stronger when there are multiple viable governing parties.  Despite any disagreements I’ve had with the Harper governmnet, I’m very happy that he has led the party back to respectability.

Y’all should read the op-ed.

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