Will the really smart Trudeau - Sacha - please stand up?

Dear Justin,

I was very disheartened to hear our current PM today distort your thoughtful positions on restoring diplomacy with Iran and pulling out of the bombing campaign in the Iraq-Syria joint civil war.

That said: nice ad!

I have to say though, that I was previously crestfallen to see all Liberals in HoC vote for C-51 because it is such an aberration; yet I know the victory taken from the NDP on their vote against was purely Pyrrhic, as the bill was going to pass with or without either party's votes, and I believe your braintrust presumed it was mostly only a set-piece to provide the Cons (literally now, given Del Mastro's new status) with fodder for attack ads.

However, it does speak to how desperate Harper must be, with so much of his bench dropping off. If the likes of Pollivere (forgive me but I really don't care if I am misspelling his name, which itself is as pretentious as his very ken), and Kenney and Raitt and Lebel and Kirstie Alley - or, you know, the one that looks like her and wants to single-handedly breathe dragon-fire onto the Supreme Court, Ambrose or something - if they constitute Peevey Stevie's shining Cabinet stars,... that tells me his cupboard is just about bare.

I looked with an open mind at the NDP platform today, and while my progressive-minded bent was aligned with much of what they put out there, in a practical sense, I couldn't square much of their plans with the individualized needs of the provinces (standardized daycare, Senate abolition, and minimum wage in particular). The line you spoke last week in response to the Senate was perfect - that when you get the ear of the provincial premieres, the conversation should focus on bread and butter issues; not some navel-gazing exercise with horse-trading for constitutional tweaking this way and that, as Senate abolition would constitutionally require. That was only a burning issue for a week, really. Not a game-changer, so I think once people think about it, they'll see your stance is the best one of the major three parties.

With so many Liberal provincial governments currently in power, doing right by the provinces is a winning strategy, as their own ground troupes might be more invigorated to fighting for you, and it does nothing to irk most voters. As a former GPC supporter, I was particularly wowed by the stuff proposed on realchange.ca and I hope there will be more like it.

Mulcair has a singular option for Proportional Rep that we are bound to swallow should he win in October. Your 18-month consultative plan is much better policy. So is most of the LPC policy. Keep putting it out there and explaining in plain language where it surpasses NDP policy and don't ever forget to use the other differentiator: the LPC is the only party that is not in the hard-line hawkish Israeli back pocket. Hopefully Duceppe - a hard-scrabbly type who won't get bested by the NDP twice - will do the heavy lifting in shining this light on the NDP for you. His francophone sovereignist constituency was turned-on by Layton and can be equally turned-off by Mulcair, knowing how fully he stands behind whatever Israel does, no matter how horribly the Palestinians fare under their occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Lastly, keep being you. Resist kowowing to the cynical politics of most of our political class, and please continue to speak off-the-cuff without fear. Your genuineness is what made people believe in you from the get-go, after all. Mulcair is stronger and fiercer, yes, but the soft power you so effortlessly harness is what sets you apart.

P.S.: Do tell me that your bro Sacha is not going anywhere; because as long as he remains the RFK to your JFK, I think the "Not Ready" meme is going to be DOA (imperfect as that metaphor admittedly is).

Warm regards, Scott Murray (formerly of Papineau riding, now in Dorval) - 30 -

The Inconvenient Truth about Thomas Mulcair's "Four-Car" Garage Swiftboating

So my dad and "Tom" (Thomas Mulcair) met up at Briarwood Park in Beaconsfield the other day.

Yeah, really. Two grandfathers laughing it up with a couple of toddlers. They didn't know each other beforehand, but my dad can still spot a pol with a national profile, and the wily salesman that he is, he was none too shy about starting up a conversation.

I had no idea the leader of the Opposition was my dad's neighbour, nor that he had long-since been, for roughly 30 years, since about the time we ourselves moved there from Sherbrooke.

Will wonders never cease? I wanted to know: What street does he live on? Beaconsfield Blvd? The ritzy Hyde Park perhaps? No, no, probably the more laid-back hippie-wetdream champagne-socialist Kirkwood Avenue?

"Lynwood, I think," was my dad's reply.

"Lynwood?"

"Lynwood."

I defy anyone to find a more pedestrian, unpretentious, straight-up homey suburban road in this entire country than Lynwood Drive in Beaconsfield, Quebec. Go ahead and Google-map it if you don't believe me.

So interestingly, I was out visiting my folks just the day after learning of this, bringing my own two kids and upping the grandkid quotient in hopes of divining a follow-up visit from the potential next Prime Minister of What We Hope Will Still Be Somewhat Recognizable as Canada After The Harpercons Have Had Their Way.

I reckon this was about the same time this despicable smear job was being prepared for print, replete with skillfully photoshopped pic of a "four-car" garage (nobody could own a house with that much garage space unless they were psychotically trying to guzzle enough tarsands-derived gasoline to ...insert maniacal slobbering laugh... bloody-well guarantee climate change hell for all the misbegotten creatures of the Earth, of course).

Yeah, Dr. Evil has nothing on our Tom.

For what it's worth, I am not a big fan of Mr. Mulcair, although he is a darn sight better than probably 90% of the people you might find yourself hemming and hawing over on Election Day.

Anyway, on my way down to visit my folks last Sunday, I decided to venture down Lynwood Drive, perhaps the only road in that southwest sector of Beaconsfield where I never once took up delivery of the Gazette in the late 1980s.

I just wanted to see which was the nicest house on that street, the kind of house a man of his stature might deem worthy of himself to have as his domicile. I have to say, I went right past 109, purportedly Mulcair's address, without even considering it, it was so ordinary.

What does this tell us? That Mulcair owns perhaps the middlest of middle-class cottages, while the homes (former and present) of such Canadian political luminaries as Pierre-Elliot Trudeau (Town of Mount Royal) and Brian Mulroney and Jean Charest (Westmount, both) are among the poshest of posh to be found on the island Jacques Cartier named Ville-Marie over 350 years ago?

Big whoop.

And with Warren Kinsella piling on pathetically, (complain about something real, Warren, okay?) all I can say is that my respect for Mulcair has just shot up ten-fold.

And as for that "four-car" garage? Take heart Tom, because if that's the best they can do, they got nothin'.

Just saw the english Mulcair ad

My reaction: Why is this man on my TV looking all psycho-eyed in a suit and trying to make nice with me?

As an anglo Quebecker, I really don't like the Sherbrooke resolution that got so many Bloq supporters to vote NDP. I consider that a classic and shameless sell-out move on the party's part.

I have a big problem with anyone kowtowing to the separatists, because their project is rooted in xenophobia, and my very existence on Québec soil is an irritant to many of them. Their vision of Québec has no place for me.

There's a reason Chretien passed the Clarity Act.

The NDP is a party replete with such short-sightedness, and I see no indication of a change of direction on their part. If anything, I imagine their next move will be to become more corporate-friendly (especially given the carefully rendered signals of this ad, wherein Mulcair is wearing a dark suit and situated in a board room).

I would hope the left-of-centre Liberals and the Greens could eventually merge with the NDP and get a real solid leftist alternative in place. Then maybe we could have a party that would feel strong enough they don't need to make such concessions. But I won't hold my breath.

Jack Layton: A real gentleman and a citizen politician - 1950 to 2011

I am privileged to have once met and interviewed The Honourable Jack Layton. He was introducing three local candidates at Bar Bobards on boulevard St-Laurent during the 2006 election.

At least two of those candidates, it should be noted, were fervent Québec nationalists whose acceptance speeches left little doubt they were steadfastly looking for a platform to push Québecois separatism.

I should note that I had previously formed a rather withering opinion of Jack's father (the Honourable Robert Layton) when as a cub reporter during the 1988 election, I saw him in action as a Mulroney Progressive Conservative incumbent, getting booed at an all-candidates debate for suggesting Lac St-Louis water would become clean enough to drink if Mulroney was given a second mandate. As it turned out, Robert Layton was easily re-elected by West Island voters who ultimately voted for him as default support for passage of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States.

Utterly honest
So I was curious to ask son Jack, back in 2006, why he'd spoken so reverently of his father - who had himself succumbed to prostate cancer some four years earlier - on the two occasions I had come out to see him speak as NDP leader. Well, Jack looked me square in the eye and said he had great respect for his father, but that didn't mean they saw eye-to-eye on very much, politically. In fact, he related, that was the one area they were always at loggerheads, notwithstanding having a loving and respectful relationship as father and son.

Can you imagine a more honest, human, and respectful answer? Not I. And I have no idea if my question - which I only posed because I had never heard him asked it before - caused him to rethink his stump speech. But I never again heard him speak of his father's influence when introducing himself as the NDP leader, as if he had determined the astute voter might be as confused as I was, given their almost diametrically opposed politics.

It is in this spirit that I remember and revere the man whom I unfortunately must still blame (partially, at least) for putting Harper in the PM chair, by whipping his party to vote down the Martin government; something historians will doubtlessly argue was or wasn't a seminal moment in the NDP's existential journey as an independent political force.

A mixed legacy on policy
I also recall his insistence on going cap and trade instead of carbon tax when the latter made more sense, and finding his reasoning on that choice rather wanting. I recall with sadness his decision to have his party vote against a 2007 (?) Liberal motion to end the Afghanistan mission in July, 2009, based on the fact they really should be brought home immediately (he was quite right on that point of course), which unfortunately ended up with the misguided mission continuing on much longer. Also, Jack's reticence at allowing Green Party Leader Elizabeth May to be included in the 2008 election debates rankled.

Meanwhile, I championed Jack Layton grandly for forcing the 2005 Martin budget to be amended to halt planned corporate tax cuts while increasing social spending in the period where the NDP held the balance of power. I even voted for one of his throw-away candidates while living in the Outremont riding after Paul Martin had parachuted a former Bloc-Québecois founder (Jean Lapierre) in to take Martin Cauchon's place.

And yesterday morning I cried - yet not so much as on last July 25, when we all saw death tapping impatiently on Jack's shoulder - to hear of his passing.

Despite anything else, Jack Layton was a good egg. He tried. He fought. He brandished humour and a forthrightness that was touching and palpable in both official languages. He worked with dedication to his ideals with true and rare conviction. In short, he stood for something, and he made sure that it was a something he could get fully behind. Then he would make a convincing argument that you and I and every other Canadian could get behind it too.

As long as we listened to our hearts.

What next?
Now, a huge gabble of neophyte NDP Québec MPs will have to find their way in the HoC. They also must prove their worthiness to their constituents, despite being stripped of the coattails of the one guy in whom the voters put their full-throttle faith. And that was no small leap of faith either. These voters bravely abandoned their BQ candidates who had mostly done nothing less than tirelessly represent their constituents' interests in Ottawa with pride and passion for several years.

No, the Bloquistes can only blame their party's connection with separatism on their historic defeat to the mostly unknown Dippers that won their constituents' votes based almost solely on Jack Layton's endorsement. Continued NDP support in Québec will be a very tough sell, regardless of Thomas Mulcair's considerable respect in this province.

But that sort of speculation should be explored another day. For today, I am pleased that our Prime Minister has been honourable enough (against type) to bequeath a state funeral for Jack Layton.

Hard to believe as I type his name that he is no longer with us.

Jack, all in all, you did good by us Canadians. Posthumous gratitude in spades. Many, many thanks. RIP, if that is at all possible for you!

- 30 -

Greens, NDP to merge; Layton and May step aside, with support of key Liberal defectors

Could you just imagine a headline like that? Only if you accept the fact that the federal Liberal party is finished as a viable political entity. It was this particular realization, coupled with Warren Kinsella's post earlier today, that got me thinking along these lines.

Michael Ignatieff, since wresting control of the Liberal Party of Canada a year ago, what have you accomplished? You raised some cash and bored people to tears at every lectern that would plug in a mic for you. Then last Autumn, you boldly stated you were going to challenge the PM in an election at the first opportunity. Then you backed down sheepishly and announced you would be hosting a fabulous thinkers' conference the following Spring.

Allow me to let you in on something (I pray you are sitting down): believe it or not, within hours of its closing, scarcely anyone in this country noticed your big ol' "thinkers conference" even took place. Your middling popularity perpetually wanes like the attention of students listening to a meandering lecture on the nuances of meaning in a post-modern world; their minds wandering as they wonder how their liberal education will ever help them land a meaningful job with hope of putting more than a bit of food on their families' tables.

Meanwhile you and your party are getting railroaded at every turn by a wily, unscrupulous opponent. Your brightest stars and best ideas are the equivalent of Ovechkins and Kovalchuks on otherwise directionless teams, fizzling out hopelessly when the time comes to put up or shut up. Not since Robert Stanfield has a major party been led by someone with such a mix of blandness and dubiously-principled mediocrity.

I hope it hasn't escaped your attention that, when lumped together, the Greens and the Dippers are the favoured option of more Canadians than your own party, historied and entrenched as it is. As a scholar, I trust you can see the significance of this. Tilt at your right-centre windmills all you want, but it isn't getting you anywhere (least of all, into 24 Sussex).

Jack Layton, dear Jack, please please, do go (yes, now). You have done a decent job making your party politically relevant again without completely selling the furniture. You and your party's members have been stalwart cage rattlers and fought the good fight (mostly). Alas, you have had your chance to get the country to trust you and it just hasn't happened. Face facts, Jack, and step aside to allow a fresh face to come forward that can inspire more than just your base.

Elizabeth May, dear Elizabeth, you have gallantly tried to unseat a nasty bit of work in Peter MacKay, and have sold out too easily in launching yourself across the country in search of that magic riding that can propel Canada's first GPC member into the HoC (oh, teehee, would that be you, personally ***blush***?), but this is starting to get ridiculous. No other candidate is helping the cause - if that is the true goal - except by providing more federal dollars to the party coffers just by being so hopelessly listed on the ballots of all the nation's ridings; and thus giving the local Harpercons an even better chance of coming up the middle to win those ridings without any real support. This strategy has sadly failed you and the Greens for two elections now, despite owning the moral high ground definitively. You are an eloquent and intelligent leader, but it just is not going to happen. Please understand this and step aside for a new leader to take hold of a new, merged party.

So who are the party backroomers with the courage, pull and good sense to will this sort of merger to happen? Which individual has the fire, moxie, charisma, wherewithal, smarts and financial backing to make a run of it in leading such a party?

Who will lead the United Progressive Party of Canada?

- 30 -

Outremont est Ouvert: Iggy, Coderre concede to Cauchon

Well! No sooner had I suggested in the comments over on Pogge's excellent blog that the Liberals would be wise to allow Martin Cauchon to try and unseat the NDP's Thomas Mulcair in his old Outremont stomping grounds than the G&M reports that they are apparently taking my advice.

Party insiders say Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has decided to allow an open nomination contest in the prized Montreal riding of Outremont.

Earlier this week, Mr. Ignatieff declared that the riding had been reserved for businesswoman Nathalie Le Prohon.

Mr. Ignatieff made that decision despite Mr. Cauchon's expressed interest in making a comeback in the riding he represented for 11 years before retiring from politics in 2004.

But insiders say Mr. Ignatieff relented in the face of a fierce party backlash and decided to give Ms. Le Prohon another Montreal riding – Jeanne-Le Ber.

Amazingly, I even called the bit about offering up Le Prohon to Jeanne-Le Ber. Cauchon was a Chrétienite whom Paul Martin Jr. didn't want hanging around too long once he became leader. Why he stayed out of politics with Dion's return is unclear, but if the Liberal tradition of alternating english and french leaders continues, then maybe that has something to do with Coderre's earlier reticence at welcoming him back.

At any rate, Cauchon was a fine Justice Minister who fought the good fight on Same-Sex marriage and he deserves to have a crack at winning the nomination in his old riding. And it's good to see Ignatieff has enough grace to admit when a mistake has been made, and then reverse it.

But not so fast, Iggy: what about Stéphane?

(H/T to Mark Francis over at Secion 15)

- 30 -

Advice to the GG: if asked to Prorogue, Make him Sweat!

I see that to top it off, Harper has embarrassingly inconvenienced the office of the Governor-General of Canada. With Michaëlle Jean forced to cancel her trip and fly home early, I suspect Harper will pull out all the stops and ask her to prorogue Parliament before the Opposition benches have a chance to vote in line with their oft and clearly stated position that his government has lost the confidence of a majority of the MPs.

If he does request a prorogation, one suspects that he will hold out as long as possible first while he shores up support for this action among his caucus and grassroots, in order to minimize the negative reaction to "pulling the fire alarm" in this way.

Now, I am no constitutional scholar, and I don't suppose Jean would be very comfortable in not granting a prorogation should Harper request it; but here is an interesting idea to let the G-G off the hook (at least partially):

What is to stop her from deciding to consult with her advisors and take say, a few days' deliberations before making her decision on whether to grant the request? That could even take her as much as a week, perhaps. And if the Opposition acts on the floor of the House to formally declare non-confidence in the meantime, then would not the prorogation request itself be prorogued (or negated?)

Call it the "Let me get back to you when I get back to you" option.

You're quite welcome, your Excellency

- 30 -