vintage

Personally, I like my proroguies with sour cream.

Anyway, it’s old news by now: Parliament has been prorogued and will not sit again until January 26. In that time period, the Conservatives are expected to unleash a flood of election-campaign-style material, the Liberals will lick their wounds and probably get rid of Stéphane Dion a few months earlier than planned, and Gilles Duceppe will go on doing whatever he feels like doing.

Interestingly, Wikipedia actually has an ongoing article about the current dispute with a great deal of collected background information, so that is worth checking out as well.

John Manley, former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister, has written a column in the Globe & Mail today calling for Dion’s speedy replacement. It seems that that is probably the best (well, perhaps the only) option for the Liberals at this point; they really need to come out swinging when Parliament resumes in January, and the only way they can do it is by replacing Dion, either with an interim leader or by somehow having their leadership convention early and finding a permanent one. Obviously, if they plan to bring down the government, a permanent leader would be more stable, but at this point I think the reigning sentiment is “anyone but Dion”.

I hate to see him go, but the last week was not exactly convincing, and as much as I think he has the fight in him, he has not done a good job convincing us of that and he has to move over to make room for someone who could bring the Liberals back on track.

Coming soon: my top 10 releases of 2008 (I’ve almost finalized my list) as well as top 10 concerts I got to see this year. Bear in mind that I work at Massey Hall now, so the list is considerably more diverse than it otherwise would have been — a pretty awesome side effect of getting a new job. See you soon!

PS: I saw Neil Young on Thursday night at the Air Canada Centre. He played all the hits. “Cortez the Killer”, “Powderfinger”, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”, “Heart of Gold”, “Rockin’ in the Free World”, “The Needle And the Damage Done” … etc. The list goes on forever, and the set was capped off by a cover of “A Day in the Life” for the encore, which was totally amazing. In summary, it was absolutely worth the $65 — yeah, I cheaped out and bought 3rd-tier seats, but they ended up being really great. I also hope that I am as cool as he is when I reach retirement age.

I can practically hear all the political junkies’ glee from my bedroom. Canada’s political landscape is more interesting than it has been in a very long time.

Tonight at 7PM Eastern, the two battling leaders made addresses to the country on national television. It is rare that a Prime Minister will ask for network time, and when they do, it is likely in a time of crisis. We are currently experiencing not only an economic crisis, but a political one; everyone is on tenterhooks waiting to see what our government will look like from day to day. It’s been a while since this many people were interested in politics — certainly more than there were during the federal election, which is pretty sad if you ask me.

I don’t pretend to be unbiased; I lean Liberal and I will freely admit it to anyone who asks. I am, however, not without my qualms about the coalition government. It is completely legal and within the bounds of our parliamentary democracy, but the timing is perhaps questionable, given the constraints Dion has to obey (namely, having already agreed to step down in May 2009).

Anyway, Harper’s speech clocked in at less than five minutes (surprising, given that the networks were given a ballpark of around ten minutes), and he didn’t really say anything new. Most irritating was Harper’s continued tendency to refer to the coalition as being “a coalition with separatists” — may I remind you, Prime Minister, that the Bloc Québécois is not a member of the coalition. The proposed new government is between the Liberals and the New Democrats; the Bloc has pledged their support, but is absolutely not a member. Continuing to paint the picture of three leaders forming a coalition instead of two is a lie.

Also very strange was the lack of a mention of proroguing Parliament or any sort of reference to the Governor General. General consensus is that Harper will ask Her Excellency to prorogue Parliament in his meeting with her tomorrow morning, but no one really knows what he will say, and that is now the most awaited development in this real-life political thriller.

Stéphane Dion had some trouble getting his address off the ground (unfortunately, that seems to describe his latter days as Liberal leader); the tape was delivered late to the news stations, and as such they had to overrun their 7:30 cutoff time. Already a strike against the leader of the Official Opposition. Dion’s video looked unfortunately like he had filmed it in his bedroom on a Macbook, but aesthetic qualms aside, it had a good deal of conviction. Dion talked for substantially longer than Harper did and outlined his reasons for forming a coalition government, and ended with a brief promise about what would happen if he were to become Prime Minister. While there wasn’t a whole lot of new information in his speech either, it was certainly more satisfying than Harper’s — slightly longer and with a little more to go on, rather than a direct regurgitation of what has been going on in question period for the past week.

In question period recently, Dion quoted Harper’s words from 2005 back at him, reminding him that when Paul Martin was trying to evade a confidence vote in 2005 — much as Harper is trying to do now — Harper called it a “violation of the fundamental principles of our democracy”. (story) Seems like that’s exactly what Harper’s trying to do now. I’ll remind you that a coalition government is perfectly legal and constitutional, as well as within the bounds of the parliamentary democracy that Canada enjoys.

Again, I think that the one thing these Parliament Hill shenanigans is reinforcing is the fact that we need electoral reform. First past the post isn’t working for anyone anymore, and it is time for some proportional representation. This is what the coalition is fighting for; while I am not a wholehearted coalition backer, this is one of the reasons why I think it might be a good idea.

And of course, if the coalition goes ahead, politics will be a damn sight more interesting than they will be if Parliament is suspended. That’ll be pretty nice too.

Sound off, ladies and gentlemen! The comments are open (although if you are too nasty and slanderous, no matter who you support, I may have to delete you; please be nice, articulate, and state your case like a civilised person).

For further good times, here’s a little collage of some question period antics. By the title you may guess that it is put together by someone who is against the coalition, but no matter who or what you support, it is kinda fun watching everybody get angry at each other. Around 3:32 I am a bit afraid that Dion might burst a vein or something. O Canada!

EDIT Here are some YouTube videos of the national addresses tonight. I can’t guarantee these will stay up, but have a look while they are; if there are any posted by news organisations, please let me know. And where is Elizabeth May in all this, anyway?

Stephen Harper
Stéphane Dion (comes in partway through, unfortunately)
Jack Layton
Gilles Duceppe

NDP, Liberals reach deal to topple minority government

A deal has been negotiated between NDP Leader Jack Layton and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion that would see them form a coalition government for two and a half years, the CBC’s Keith Boag reported, citing sources.

The NDP would be invited into cabinet and get 25 per cent of seats, Boag said, adding that the party wouldn’t get the position of the finance chair or the deputy prime minister’s post.

We’re in a really sticky situation here, and I suspect that instead of becoming the beacon of Canadian democracy everyone is hoping for, it will just piss off the entire country instead of the majority who didn’t vote for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.

On one hand, a majority of Canadians did not vote for the ruling party. This means that ousting him is likely a good development for most of the country, and will potentially make up for the fairly useless and expensive election we just experienced. No Harper means that the substantial left wing will be better represented in government.

However, as much as I’d like to see him become Prime Minister, Stéphane Dion is hardly in a position to govern at this point. He has led the Liberal Party to a crushing defeat, lost support from his party, and agreed to step down in May 2009. A leader that has already effectively resigned is not the most logical choice to suddenly govern the nation. Layton would be a difficult choice as well, though, considering his party’s small showing in the House and his own current problems. Had the Liberals finished with a leadership convention, this would be a little less of an issue, but as it stands you can already see the Conservatives shouting insults at the coalition plan.

Since the BQ are not entering into the coalition (but have said they will support it, which also means that the coalition has to support them pretty substantially), the numbers look a little questionable too. The Conservatives currently have 143 seats in the House of Commons; the Liberals and NDP combined have 114. With the support of the BQ’s 46 seats the coalition has a majority, but the Bloc is neither obligated nor expected to vote completely with the new government. In fact, it is certain there will be at least a handful who vote with the Conservatives. This is a shaky situation.

It would be nice, though, to show Harper that breaking his own fixed-election law was an unwise idea, and that the recent (now reversed) proposal to cut the public subsidy for political parties was not appreciated. The Conservatives rely much less on the public funding than the opposition does, of course, and so the move was widely viewed as a badly disguised attempt to destroy the opposition. “Sticking it to the man”, though, is not an entirely credible move in federal Parliament.

The CBC has posted a question-and-answer with a political science professor on how the coalition might work, and he has refused to even speculate on what a coalition between the Liberals and the New Democrats might look like. It is almost completely unprecedented, and the situation is very precarious. It’s impossible to determine who really would lead, though Dion says he believes he has the right to do so.

This coalition, though, is probably the only option. With Harper’s Conservatives floundering around and still half-denying the economic crisis, the opposition was bound to defeat them sooner or later (the vote will happen on December 8); they do not seem to be catering to the needs of the average Canadian. But will this coalition be any better? I’d love to hear your thoughts, because I am a little up in the air.

The fun never stops on Parliament Hill!

(I apologise for the lack of sources other than the CBC — I was just reading the site and linked to various posts. I hope you’ll forgive my unintended bias.)

I may still be suffering from a slight turkey stupor, so forgive me if this post is a bit incoherent: I experienced my first American Thanksgiving on Thursday night with a great big hearty dinner in Williamson, New York, just outside of Rochester. It was a good time, and of course my accent got made fun of when I said things like “house”. It’s fun being the only Canadian and trying to explain why we recently had an election for no apparent reason (I don’t know either).

SPEAKING OF WHICH, some absolutely crazy things are going on in our country at present. I will reserve my comment for later, as I just found out about all this today (don’t get much news about Harper and Friends when you’re down south), but perhaps this guy might actually get a turn?! Well, we’ll see.

Enough about that. Three weeks ago, The Bicycles released a terrific sophomore album called Oh No, It’s Love, and then followed that up a few days later with a smash hit CD release party at Lee’s Palace in Toronto. It featured a grab bag of musical guests, including Hooded Fang, $100, Forest City Lovers, Matt Murphy, Brent Randall, Sloan, Sebastien Grainger, and many others, and was probably one of the more joyful nights I have experienced this year.

I can’t comment on the entirety of the show in an unbiased way, since I was involved. The album features a horn section on many of the tracks, and I’m in it; since they wanted to play every song from the record (which they did, excepting one track, “Green Light”) they brought us back too. It was a total blast playing that show, since the Bicycles are an incredibly energetic foursome and are out-cuted by no one. Seriously, the most adorable band ever.

I did get to see a whole lot of awesome stuff that I wasn’t in, though, and it all added up to one terrific night. They backed up all those aforementioned musical guests Last Waltz-style (the Bikes, being their usual sugary selves, labelled it the “Last Schmaltz,” a continuation of the 2006 CD release for their first album, The Good, The Bad and the Cuddly), and seeing Matt Murphy and the Bikes play “10 Lbs” from the Super Friendz’ iconic Mock Up Scale Down was pretty amazing. Sloan playing “I Hate My Generation” was similarly terrific — both of these especially fun because of the excitement spilling off the stage from the four Bicycles. I don’t blame them. I’d be thrilled too.

The album is just as exciting as the show was. There are 19 tracks featured on Oh No, It’s Love — a pretty substantial length, even though all the songs are around 2 minutes long (the longest is 3:22). One of these tracks, though, is a decidedly unfunny comedy/spoken word track - not featuring any of the Bicycles - which really interrupts the flow of the record. It’s a bit like an unexpected shortcut, where you’re driving along a nice paved highway, turn off onto the bumpiest of gravel roads for a minute, and then are back on the highway again. Wouldn’t it be easier and more pleasant to stay on the highway the entire time? Yeah. In terms of the flow of the record, that’s a major flaw, but the only one I’ve noticed.

The whole thing sounds great, though. Like the previous Bicycles record, the vocals are mixed too low — it’s never possible to understand everything that vocalist/guitarist Matt Beckett is saying, but this time they included the lyrics! — but everything all together is a sweet and poppy package that leaves very little out. They try out a lot more musical styles and genres on this album, and bring in a host of guests that include Laura Barrett, Basia Bulat, Bob Egan (Wilco, Blue Rodeo), and Andy Lloyd to round out the cast, and it works really well; the surprising variety combined with the sheer number of tracks means this record can stay in your car CD player for a ridiculously long time before you get sick of it.

Have a listen: End of a Good Thing

I should be blogging reasonably more regularly in the next few weeks (or so I’d like to think, anyway). End-of-year lists are looming, and I’m starting to decide what my ears thought were the best things that happened to them in 2008. Got any suggestions? The comments section is wide open! See you soon.

I just want to say thanks to those of you who have been reading and linking to my previous post. It has created a huge spike in blog traffic, and is already the top post on this blog by a huge margin. I appreciate all the support — maybe political writing is my calling! Please keep debating in the comments, it is always great to hear what other citizens really think of the way politics are going in this country.

In music: for those of you who are unaware, Canadian favourite Final Fantasy has released two new EPs (Spectrum, 14th Century and Plays to Please). Check out the review at Pitchfork. The records feature Beirut, Alex Lukashevsky and Andrew Bird; Pallett’s upcoming LP Heartland, due for a 2009 release, will include contributions by Mantler and $100.

I’m not sure if this is news to anyone else, but Panic At The Disco seem to have recently gotten rid of the annoying exclamation point in their name. However, the annoying music is unfortunately still with us.

In Canada, Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail and Dick Pound of VANOC have created quite a stir. Pound caused a great deal of controversy by referring to the Canada of 400 years ago as “a nation of savages,” which understandably enraged most of the First Nations communities in the country. Wente then ran a Globe column supporting Pound’s claim and saying that the aboriginal people of Canada were uncivilized. Pound has since apologized for his comment and issued a statement that said the ethics commission “found no intent of racism,” but most still aren’t convinced, and there are many calling for the dismissal of both.

And in American politics … well, I think I’ll let the headlines speak for themselves.

First, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (R) was convicted today on corruption charges. This is a huge blow to the GOP, and particularly to the Alaska Republicans. Between this and Sarah Palin’s increasing drop in the polls, Alaska is getting hit pretty hard. So far, Stevens has made no indication of dropping out of the race to be re-elected to Senate, but in a curious turn of events, he may not be able to vote for himself.

Two skinheads were arrested today in an alleged attempt to assassinate Barack Obama. The men were planning to kill 88 civilians and 14 African-Americans, with Obama being their last casualty. This is pretty scary business — nobody’s even been elected yet.

And finally, on a lighter note: the New Mexico Sun Times is a bi-weekly newspaper, with the next issue (October 26th through November 8th) hitting newsstands a week before the election. The editors decided to take a different path than most, and the latest Sun Times headline boldly proclaims Barack Obama the winner of the United States presidential election. Claiming the honour of being the first to report the results, the Sun Times still encourages everyone to go out and vote on November 4.

It’s been a fun week!

(a slightly modified and probably improved version of something sent to the man himself, which you can also do if you are so inclined.

I also just noticed that my election post was entitled “straight talk,” which was supposed to be a Sarah Palin reference — but in an amusing coincidence, it is also the English title of Dion’s book about Canadian unity. Excellent.)

Mr Dion:

I want to apologise for this country.

I’m nineteen years old, and a completely starry-eyed idealist. I’ve been awaiting my turn to vote in a federal election for years, and allowed myself the slight ridiculous hope that the country might decide to kick Stephen Harper out to the curb. You know better than most, of course, that that didn’t happen. It was a real defeat, I think – not just for your party, or Mr Layton’s or Ms May’s either. It was a defeat for most Canadians, the ones who didn’t vote blue. There were a few of us, or perhaps more than a few, who were hoping we’d hear someone shouting “Prime Minister Dion” at the end of the night; instead, I turned off the TV before all the polls had finished reporting.

I’m not a card-carrying Liberal. I’m actually not a card-carrying anything. I’m a student, an artist, a supporter of equal rights and freedoms. I’m the kind of voter everyone probably wants – the one who reschedules plans in order to go to the all candidates’ debate, the one who reads every party’s pamphlets and platforms in an effort to really determine where her one vote should go. I have a hopelessly idealistic view of politics, and I have a hard time getting my head around attack ads, mudslinging and generally childish behaviour. I do understand that politics isn’t a party, and people don’t just sit around and offer each other tea and cake and work out compromises; sometimes, though, I think a tea-and-cake approach might be what this country needs.

Forgive me if I’m jumping to conclusions, but I think you might be a tea-and-cake sort of prime minister if you got the chance, and I mean this in a good way. You’re a nice guy, Mr Dion – a really nice guy. Headlines these days say things like “Dion bows out with grace”. No one uses the word grace to describe Mr Harper, and with good reason. The Conservative campaign was dirty and unfair, and they portrayed you badly; that CTV interview fiasco was absolutely awful. I think a lot of people felt bad for you by the end, even if they weren’t Liberal supporters. Of course, no leader wants people to feel bad for them – you wanted people to rally behind your cause and get the Conservatives out of office. It didn’t work, but we’re left with an image of the real Stéphane Dion: gracious, honourable, and absolutely unwilling to stoop to Mr Harper’s level.

I’m not saying the Liberal campaign was perfect, nor that it was terrible; my point here isn’t to criticise or offer advice on what’s past. What I am saying, though, is that you and yours ran a cleaner and fairer campaign than the current ruling party, and I respect all of you for that. Perhaps I am too childish in my expectations, but sometimes I wonder how Mr Harper’s advertisers can sleep at night. In my eyes, you had conviction; you thought about it and said “the Green Shift is what I want for Canada; the carbon tax is going to make their lives better”. Then you tried your very best to sell it. You didn’t back down, even when it meant your party suffered serious destruction at the hands of the Conservatives and the left-wing voter split. Of course, looking back on that might yield the wisdom that it wasn’t the best strategy, but the point is: you did what you believed. This is the sort of politics I believe in, stand behind, and wish there was more of. In other words, even though I don’t live in your riding, I felt like I was represented in some way by your actions.

I’m sorry it had to end this way, with you accepting your fate and watching the Liberal party get out their knives. I genuinely hoped you might be prime minister for a while, even if just to affirm that yes, nice guys make it. I’ve never had the honour of meeting you, but I think that if I did, you would pay attention to what I had to say and remember it later in Parliament. I appreciate that kind of thing, and I’m sure the constituents of St-Laurent-Cartierville who voted for you these past six elections do too.

So thanks: for showing Canada that there are still good men in the House of Commons, and for proving that not all politicians are dirty and underhanded. Maybe nice guys do finish last, but you made it pretty far. You might not be our Prime Minister, and pretty soon you won’t be the Liberal leader anymore either, but I have a lot of respect for you — that’s a victory in itself.

Allow me, if you will, to take a brief break from the usual subject matter to talk about politics. Canada has just had a general election and the results are, from my point of view, dismal.

For those of you who are unaware, Canada elects our prime minister indirectly. The country is divided into electoral districts, or ridings, based on population; the residents of the riding elect a representative, who is affiliated with a political party (note: there are independent candidates as well, but the majority of those running for office are party-based). Whichever political party has the most representatives forms the government, and the leader of that party becomes the prime minister.

There are 308 seats in Canadian Parliament; 155 are needed to form a majority government. If the ruling party has less than 155 seats, but has more than any one of the other parties, it is a minority government (this is incredibly confusing if you haven’t encountered it before, but the numbers following will help, I hope). This means it’s kind of unstable and could fall at any time due to a non-confidence vote, which essentially means that the electorate has lost faith in their government and an election will be called.

Our previous government was a minority, and our Conservative prime minister called an election (breaking his own fixed date law in the process, I might add) in the hopes that he would win a majority. Not so, my hero. Let’s check it out.

The data

Unofficial numbers of the 40th Parliament, as of just before midnight Eastern:

Conservative 143
Liberal 76
Bloc 49
NDP 38
Other 2

All right, let’s have a look at this. Here are the numbers of the 39th Parliament upon its election in 2006:

Conservative 124
Liberal 103
Bloc 51
NDP 29
Other (Independent) 1

The tally

Okay. So that means a net gain for Harper’s Conservatives of just under twenty seats. This is a pretty strong showing — especially considering that the Liberals lost nearly thirty seats, and many of those probably went blue. This is a colossal disappointment for Dion and company, and means there will definitely be some shakeups there fairly soon.

Layton and Duceppe, however, are doing pretty well; the New Democrats picked up nine seats, including a key spot in Québec, and the Bloc managed to hover around their previous numbers (they do have a majority over the Conservatives in their province). Unfortunately, the Greens yet again did not pick up a single seat despite party leader Elizabeth May’s bold predictions of up to eight elected MPs; indeed, even May lost her race against Central Nova incumbent Peter MacKay, Conservative.

The grumbling

The only other prime minister in Canadian history to win back-to-back minority governments was Lester B. Pearson, in 1963 and 1965. This is more of a point of interest than anything else. Pearson was also a Liberal.

Stephen Harper essentially wasted $300 million of Canadians’ money on this election, and he didn’t get what he wanted. In the latter days of the campaign, he was quoted as saying he would be happy with another minority — but he won’t be entirely happy about it. He called this election to win a majority, and he didn’t. Still, he gets to keep his job … which is more than some people can say.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion is in for some major trials, which will likely cost him his job. The Liberals have posted one of the worst showings in history, losing almost thirty seats between elections. Dion was a long shot to win the leadership in the first place, and took far too long to prove himself an effective leader; he did excellently in the final weeks of the campaign, but by then it was too late. For the record, I really like Dion and I think he could be a terrific leader, but unfortunately, it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards. The party will likely be expecting him to step down in the coming weeks to avoid a costly leadership convention, and candidates like Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff will step up to battle for his job.

I’d also like to address the problem of the Bloc Québécois. Here they are calling themselves a federal party, yet they only run candidates in one province, and their mandate only covers that province. I understand that there are separatists out there, but — if you’ll pardon me — in terms of being a national party, I think they can stuff it. If you’re running in a federal election, you cover the entire country. Case closed. It should be illegal to do what the Bloc is doing, and unfortunately, it is not. I don’t agree with their inclusion in the general election, and I think those candidates would be better served in the Liberal party.

That being said, Gilles Duceppe is totally awesome and should be our prime minister (provided he drops the Québec-first business).

On Québec being recognized as a separate nation, etc: I read an editorial the other day that said mothers with more than one kid might have a favourite, but if they put that in writing or even just say it, it’s total disaster. The same goes for putting one province’s interest above all the rest so blatantly. What about the aboriginal culture in the north, or the hodgepodge of influences in the Atlantic provinces? What about the Acadian and French heritage in New Brunswick (very similar to Québec’s)? The Québec thing implies that the other provinces are less important, and that’s the last kind of division we need.

In short, I hope at least one country does something right.

(These views are mine, I’m not trying to offend anyone, yes you are welcome to debate or challenge my views — or, heaven forbid, agree with me — and no, those tallies are not official numbers. And no, I don’t officially endorse Stéphane Dion, Gilles Duceppe, Barack Obama or anyone else I mentioned in a faintly positive light.)