Environment and Afghanistan

The two big news stories this week are Afghanistan and the Environment which do seem to be hurting the Tories a bit. Below I will summarize my opinion on each of them

Environment

A baby step in the right direction their plan, but still falls well short of what could be done. They seem to be doing the bare minimum here as I think 33% by 2025 as Gordon Campbell proposed as opposed to 20% is a better balance that is both doable but challenging. Otherwise we should push ourselves here, but make sure our targets are achieveable. My biggest problem here is the intensity targets since we need absolute reductions not decreases per unit, since this can still lead to an absolute increase in GHGs. If this part was removed, I would probably accept the plan as an acceptable compromise although not ideal, but this part is the one part that makes it unacceptable..

Still I have my concerns with the opposition response. If we set the bar so high and take and all or nothing approach, my worry is the Tories will figure this is a file that they shouldn't bother with and we will get nothing done. I would rather we make some progress than no progress.

As for meeting our Kyoto targets, breaking our international commitments is never a good thing, but I worry that it is probably too late to meet our Kyoto targets. Still we should strive to get as close as possible and however much we miss them by, we must agree to more aggressive targets in our second round. So if we were to fall 10% short, we have to cut 10% further in the second round than those who did meet their targets.

I also disagree with the idea of totally blaming the past government. As Andrew Coyne pointed out, Canadians are hypocrits on the environment since we say we are concerned and want action, but when asked to pay the price, we scream loudly against it. In Europe, where they will meet their Kyoto targets, they pay $2.00/Litre for gasoline while here people start screaming at a $1.00/Litre. It is time to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk. That means we need to stop buying SUVs, turn down the temperatuer to 15C in the winter when out of your home and 25C in the summer when away, use public transit, bike, or walk wherever possible and quit complaining when gas prices go up. The reason the Europeans are going to meet their Kyoto targets is they are willing to make the necessary sacrifices. As Eddie Goldenburg pointed out, the Liberals didn't meet Kyoto mainly because there would have been a public backlash against it once the actual measures were put forward.

The Liberals have every right to criticize the plan, but we can only have credibility here if we have a fully costed plan with actual targets, not just saying we will meet our Kyoto targets with no plan. If we can forward a stronger plan, we can beat the Tories here, but if we have no plan, our attacks won't work well.

Afghanistan

I am very concerned about the torture case and believe a full investigation is needed. O'Connor should resign as minister since even though he may have not been directly involved, the buck always stops at the top and he needs to take responsibility here. But this plays to my bigger concern about us being in Afghanistan altogether.

Whenever one goes to war, this is always a risk of this happening, which is why we should avoid going to war unless absolutely necessary. We've been in Afghanistan longer than we were in Europe during World War II and the threat posed by Afghanistan was far less than the one posed by Germany during World War II. I believe we should pull out at the earliest date possible, which is why I condemn the NDP move to vote against the Liberal motion calling for a 2009 pullout.

Even if not their first choice, I don't believe in this idea of my way or the highway type politics, which unfortunately I feel too many in politics advocate. If the first choice is not feasible, then one should go for the best option available. And the applies in the case of the environment. Otherwise meeting our Kyoto targets is the best option, but if it cannot be done, get as close as possible. Had the NDP supported this motion, we could at least be out of Afghanistan by 2009.

News Items

As usual I've been quite busy so cannot blog on every issue. Unlike when at university or only working contract jobs, I work a full day now and quite often work overtime. Anyways I number of events have happened in the last few days that I would like to discuss

Manitoba Election

Manitoba will go to the polls on May 22nd as Gary Doer will try to seek a third term. Since I am a Blue Liberal and the Liberals have almost no chance at winning in Manitoba, I will endorse Progressive Conservative leader Hugh McFayden. He is also more moderate than Stephen Harper and considering the fact former PC MP Rick Borotsik (who didn't vote for Stephen Harper) is running under his banner, I suspect his policies will be more centrist like the old PCs were. I also hope the Liberals gain seats since having a two party polarized system is not exactly the best.

Virginia Tech shooting

What happened in Virginia was certainly a tragedy and my full condolensces to all who died including the one Canadian. There has been much talk about gun laws over this. My view is America's gun laws are too lax, but because they have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms tightening gun laws will be a lot tougher than most think. This would probably require a constitutional change, which means they need at least 30 states on side, and considering tougher gun laws are only popular in the Northeast and West Coast, this will be next to impossible of doing. Thankfully in Canada we don't have such right so we can have more sensible gun laws. Some have used this as an argument to keep the gun registry, which although I am for tough gun laws, I support effective gun laws and therefore my opposition to the gun registry stands. Other measures such as requiring all hand guns used by collectors to be disabled so they cannot be used as well as requiring target shooters to leave their guns at the range are measurs I support. I would also support doing regular reviews for all gun licencees to ensure they are still fit to use one. And it is important note that registeration is simply about registering each individual gun, one must still have a licence to purchase a firearm and I fully support licencing of all long guns.

Dion runs Liberal ads

On the whole I thought the ads were reasonably good. Some say they should have been nastier, but lets not decend to the Tory's level. If we have to go nasty leave it until the election. The point of the ads should be to define our leader since much of his lower poll numbers is due to the fact we've let our opponents define him and off course they will define him quite negatively. Part of the reason we thumped Stockwell Day in 2000 and Stephen Harper in 2004 is we defined them before they could define themselves.

Stephen Harper appoints Bert Brown

Stephen Harper certainly has the right to appoint whoever he wants, but I would not call this a democratic appointment. Bert Brown was elected over 5 years ago and considering how much politics can change in such a time period, I don't think one should assume a mandate then is still relevant today. In addition, the Alberta senate elections were farces as it was a choice between right wing and even more right wing. Centrists and leftists had no option, and although it still likely would have resulted in a Conservative one, non-right wing Albertans should have someone to vote for. A more sensible solution would be to promise Ed Stelmach he would appoint whoever won the senate ballot in the next provincial election and then you would at least have some move towards democracy. Besides I support abolishing the senate, so if I were in charge, I would leave all vacancies vacant.

The Charter at 25

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Charter, which is a significant milestone in Canada's evolution. It is hard to believe that something so important and ingrained in the Canadian psyche didn't exist at the time I was born, which was only 26 years ago. Being only a 1 year and 28 days old, I obviously have no memories of the negotiotions involved, but certainly have felt the impact since then.

I am disappointed Harper and his cabinet will not speak at the event commerorating the signing, but I've attacked Harper enough of the Charter, so I don't know to elaborate on this further as my views in the past have been very clear and have not changed. Instead I will focus on what the Charter has meant.

Getting 7 of the 10 provinces with 50% + 1 of the population is no easy task and does making some compromises. It is why we have the notwithstanding clause and don't have property rights in the Charter. Some would argue depending on which side of the political spectrum you come from that the Charter shouldn't have been signed without either dropping the notwithstanding clause or including property rights, but I would argue that an imperfect charter is far superior to no Charter at all. More importantly using the notwithstanding clause has become so politically risky, that few politicians dare to use it. In the case of property rights, likewise, our property rights are just as strong as the United States who has it in their constitution and I would argue since it is so ingrained in the Canadian psyche, any politician who routinely violated property rights would be turfed.

However, other rights, especially equality and language rights weren't so popular amongst the public at all times and therefore it was essential they were put in the Charter so that minority rights couldn't be overriden when not popular. The Charter may have not been perfect, but when considering how difficult it is to achieve a consensus on something as major at this, it was about as good as it was plausible and that is something to be very proud of. Regardless of one's political stripe, it is something that benefits all Canadians as it weakens the power of the government and strengthens citizens and when people are stronger and have more rights we are more successful as a country. And when all citizens regardless of who they are have rights, society is better off than when just some have rights or some have more than others.

Liberals not running a candidate in Central Nova

In an effort to reach out to Green supporters, Stephane Dion has agreed not to run a Liberal candidate in Central Nova. I can understand why Dion would look for May's support since it gives him more credibility on the environment. Likewise I can understand why May would prefer the Liberals over Conservatives and I suspect she wants to avoid being in the same place as Layton is now where his willingness to attack the Liberals more than Tories has angered many of his supporters. The reality is most in the centre or on the left side of the spectrum would take the Liberals any day over the Tories even if they sometimes disagree with the Liberals.

As for my opinion on this, I personally disagree with the move. While this may increase the chance of the Greens gaining a seat next election and since MacKay's riding will be less secure he will have to spend more time in his home riding than campaigning nationally. However, the big issue for me as that not having a Liberal candidate robs all Liberal supporters from being able to support the party of their choice. Voting is not just about choosing the lesser of two evils, it is about voting for something and making your voice heard on who you think will be represent your interest no matter how small a chance they have at winning the riding. That is why I believe the Liberals (and likewise the Tories, NDP and Greens too) should run candidates in every riding. I did not know where the Liberal voters will park their votes, but the reality is Liberals shouldn't have to talk about who is their second choice, they should be able to vote for their first choice.

As for the chances of May winning, I still contend May has zero chance at winning considering the Greens only got 2% in the riding last election. I agree MacKay is more vulnerable now simply because the NDP only lost by 8% and if enough Liberal votes bleed to the NDP, they could pull this off. Likewise MacKay only needs to pick up a 1/3 of Liberal voters and he will be close to the 50% mark. My guess is MacKay will hold his riding, but if he doesn't it will be the NDP who takes it.

Belinda Stronach's decision not to run

I noticed many Tories are rejoicing at this, while Liberals are mixed on this. I on the whole was generally impressed with Belinda Stronach as a politician since as much as Tories hated her, she represented your typical 905 type conservative much like Garth Turner did who are fiscally conservative, but socially moderate and have little interest in the hard right policies than many from Western Canada and Rural Ontario support. I felt her suggestions at making the party more grassroots were also quite helpful. While some think she is doing it since the polls suggest the Liberals won't win the next election and she doesn't want to be in opposition, I am less sure about this as politics is a very difficult job. As an MP you really don't have much of a life other than work, so I can understand why so many are not running again.

As for all the Liberals not running again, I see this as a mixture of positive and negative. On the one had the lost of incumbency could put some of those seats in jeopardy, but by the same token getting new fresh blood in the party could help renew the party and bring new ideas. While in some cases such as Jim Peterson, Bill Graham, and Paul Martin, I doubt their loss will make much difference in terms of winneablity as those are all safe Liberal ridings. Also Bill Matthews riding was potentially vulnerable up until the budget was dropped, but with Danny Williams promising to campaign against the federal Conservatives and the Tory candidate Cynthia Downey from last time quitting the party, I think that one will stay Liberal. At the same time some ridings such as Fredericton and Newmarket-Aurora which we should have easily won are now up for grabs and could go either way, others like Guelph will likely go Liberal, but not a guarantee, while the worse loss was in Huron-Bruce, which I highly doubt we will hold considering how conservative the riding is and the fact Paul Steckle was generally well to the right of most of the party. Newmarket-Aurora is an outerlying suburb like Burlington, Halton, and Whitby-Oshawa so it is not a solid Liberal riding like Markham, Mississauga (save Mississauga South), Brampton, and Richmond Hill areas which are very ethnically diverse and quite cosmopolitan. On the other hand it is not a safe Tory one like the exurban areas such as Durham, York-Simcoe, and Wellington-Halton Hills, so tough to say how it will go.

Anyways while the Tories hated her much like Garth Turner (and I will admit she had her fair share of flaws), I suspect many disliked her less over personality and more because they saw her as too moderate for the party since many of these same people have no problem with people like Rob Anders, Myron Thompson, Randy White, Cheryl Gallant, and Jason Kenney who are even to a staunch fiscal conservative like me are downright terrifying. I think her defection was our gain and their loss.

Conservative Attack Ads and War Rooms

The Conservatives already have their war room set up and are spending much of their donations preparing for an election, which leads me to one conclusion, the party obviously wants one. As much as I would like to see Harper turfed, we've had two elections in three years, so many of us are electioned out for now. While the party certainly has every right to spend their donations on whatever they would like, I do hope the party focuses more on governing than electioneering. I agree with the Liberals plan to support the senate bill creating fixed election dates as we have in BC and Ontario. This would not mean we couldn't have a sooner election if the government fell on a non-confidence motion, it simply means the PM cannot call one for opportunistic reasons.

The second ad was in Newfoundland & Labrador against Danny Williams' claims the Tories broke their promise. While I tend to side with Williams, I think every party has the right to explain their policies so I have no problem with these although they should focus on stating the facts rather than personal smears. My only concern here is this might just escalate the confrontation. While it is true Williams is certainly more than willing to pick a fight with the federal government, trying to egg him on is not a good idea. More than anything a PM should be about uniting Canadians from all province, not pitting one against another, which I fear this could do. I understand Williams anger at the federal Tories, but maybe he should tone it down a bit. Otherwise be forceful like Rodney Macdonald is and make clear their dissatisfaction, but don't go so far that that the relation is so poisoned a deal is not possible. In addition Williams does not have the power to defeat Stephen Harper, so while I hope Harper is defeated in the next election, it would be foolish for any premier to base their policy on a certain party being in power since elections are unpredictable and we have no way of knowing who will win or what type of government they will form. There is also some merit to keeping your fights behind closed doors as Gordon Campbell does. Looking at his positions and those taken by the current and previous governments, I am sure he has had his disagreements with them, but he always does is quietly and it seems to have paid off. In fact all the attention BC has gotten can largely be attributed to Gordon Campbell's ability to work well with leaders from both parties.

Toronto Raptors make the playoffs

Okay, this is my first sport blog, but since a number of my other political friends were posting on the Canucks, I thought I would do something on sports. I've never really been a hockey fan, however I use to be a basketball fan back when Vancouver had the Vancouver Grizzlies and I am now begginning to become a Raptors fan.

Despite having no star players, the team has played really well as a team and therefore has made the playoffs and is in third seat in the Eastern conference. While I cannot see them winning the NBA championships, I would love to see them make it to third round, which they've never done and maybe even the Finals since the strongest teams are in the Western conference as opposed to the Eastern Conference. I am also glad to see Phoenix in second in the West since their star player Steve Nash is Canadian so if Toronto cannot win the championships, it would be great to see a team whose strongest player is Canadian win it.

In addition it is easier to cheer for the Raptors and Blue Jays than either of the Hockey teams since I don't have conflicted loyalties due to the fact I live in Toronto, but lived most of my life in Vancouver.