As mentioned earlier, this blog will now go on temporary hiatus. Abbreviated service may resume in June / July, but normal service will be resumed for certain in September. (Now I get to find out if blogging is addictive.)

If you ever want to know why Stéphane Dion’s summer tour isn’t going to yield the results his handlers are hoping for, you only have to look at this essay in the latest Policy Options, written by Dion himself.

No, I wouldn’t call it the actual text of the speech he’s likely to give — and repeat — in the various rubber-chicken events he’ll need to go to, but you can bet he’ll allude to at least two of the themes he mentions here, in whatever speech he does decide to give. Of course, I’m not entirely sure why, because there’s nothing even remotely exciting about what he’s written here. Shall we brave a closer look? Yes, we shall.

The first four paragraphs indulge in more than a bit of historic self-congratulation, saying how successful the Liberal Party was in the last half of the 20th century (thus, implying a juggernaut that couldn’t possibly run out of steam). In a touch of loyalty to the Chrétien era, he then writes fondly about the government’s efforts to wipe out deficit spending, and then — wait for it — endorses the idea of lower corporate tax rates as “sound fiscal policy.” Not something that the progressives in the Party could get excited about.

Dion then goes to poverty and Aboriginal rights, saying the Liberals have got a 30/50 anti-poverty plan for the former and that something needs to be done about the latter. He then throws in some lines about early childhood education, saying the government should be doing something about that too. And this is then followed up by saying that the governments main priority should be about climate change. (You know, this is starting to sound a little — shall we say — Paul Martinesque?)

Actually, the above isn’t quite fair — the fact that Dion spends an entire page and more of a six-page essay on the subject of climate changes suggests he really wants to make this a priority.

So what does a Dion Liberal government propose to do about it? Well, Dion talks about what the Americans are doing, what the Harper government is doing (which of course Dion doesn’t like), what the B.C. government is doing, and what regular citizens are doing, and after all that he says: we’ll do a carbon tax. No specific rates or bases mentioned, just . . . a carbon tax. He then throws in a paragraph or so about investing in alternative energy sources, but since he spends more space justifying the carbon tax, you can guess what he’s going to stress once he starts his election campaign.

What else? Well, Dion wants to work with international organizations like the UN to bring down carbon emissions worldwide, which I think is slightly oxymoronic — international conferences tend to be great sources of hot air, don’tcha know. That kind of desire is nothing new for Dion.

And really, that’s it. For the article, for Dion’s summer tour, and (judging from the level of tedium in this essay) any hopes of Dion’s personal popularity getting above 35 percent in the opinion polls. The man’s simply not going to set afire anybody’s barbecue. (Too much carbon would result, he’s probably thinking.)

According to this week’s Hill Times, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion is going on yet another summer tour, so that Canadians can get to know him better.

[Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez] said Mr. Dion’s cross-country tour will give Mr. Dion another opportunity to let Canadians get to know him better.

“He will be touring but a lot of us will be touring also. For Mr. Dion, it’s a great opportunity to get better known. He’s a man, the more you know him, the more you like him. So, being close to the people and having a chance to talk directly with Canadians will be very good,” said Mr. Rodriguez.

“[The purpose of this tour is] Making sure that Canadians understand what we stand for and this is very very important for us. We have to communicate our message a little bit better and explain the key differences between us and the Conservatives on the environment on social issues.”

Now, this isn’t a new idea. Dion has did this before, last year as I recall. And, based on the results of the last two rounds of by-elections, it actually worked. Canadians did get to know the real Stéphane Dion. The only trouble is, a lot more of them didn’t like what they saw than did. Which the current Liberal brain trust either don’t understand, or do know but are going through the motions for the sake of something to do.

Mind you, I’ll be curious to see what Dion’s message this summer actually is. So far, the only message I’ve been seeing from the Liberals is “The Tories are screwing up, so of course you have to put us back in.” Which, no matter how you look at it, simply isn’t good enough.

I’m also not entire convinced that this latest summer tour is going to help Dion all that much. Why? Mainly because of the other article that’s appeared in this week’s Hill Times. The one which suggests that Michael Ignatieff’s “didn’t get ‘er done” line will still haunt the Liberals:

Environment Minister John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.), who often uses the “didn’t get the job done” line and its inverse, that the “Conservatives are getting the job done,” said outside the House last week that Mr. Harper’s comments on Kyoto were about “an approach to a problem” as opposed to the actual climate change issue.

He said the line is just as relevant today as it was when it was said, in 2006. “Stéphane Dion says his great accomplishment is his success on the environment file and his own deputy leader said he ‘didn’t get it done.’ I think it just underlines a complete lack of credibility in the Liberal Party on environmental issues. They talked, they were great on the canapé and Chardonnay circuit of receptions, but they never accomplished anything,” he said. “The reality is we are accomplishing things and getting things done.”

I don’t propose to talk about the Tory environmental record in comparison with the Liberals. (Frankly, I wouldn’t care to be John Baird’s shoes, defending baby steps when pole vaulting is called for.) Instead, let’s look at the real point of Iggy’s remarks, which I’ll concede were made in the spirit of political competition.

What Iggy was trying to stress was that Dion, despite being environment minister, despite being a likeable person (which the Liberals say was true then and are hoping to sell now), and despite being earnest and sincere, was unable to convince his government to implement a comprehensive plan to bring the country into line with its Kyoto commitments. This goes straight to the question of leadership quality and the role Dion was supposed to play in his government — at a time when he actually had the power to effect change in government policy.

This isn’t just Tory partisan rhetoric; it’s actual history. Dion may have done a few things as environment minister, to get people to practice being green a bit more, but Canada failed to meet its Kyoto commitments during the Chrétien / Martin era, and that failure rests at Dion’s door.

Which raises the burning, and always eternal, question: What is the difference between Stéphane Dion 2008 and Stéphane Dion 2004, that would qualify him as a successful leader of a nation rather than a mediocre head of a government department?

Any Liblogger who can answer that convincingly will move Dion one step closer to the keys for 24 Sussex Drive. Really, though, it’s Dion’s job to do that — and I don’t believe that he can.

Sometimes MPs will use their member’s statements to celebrate people who otherwise wouldn’t make the headlines, not even at home. Usually it’s a senior citizen who’s retired, and people who reach their centenaries are almost always guaranteed a mention. Sometimes, though, it can be a staffer in the MP’s own office, who’s doing something important.

And one of Laurie Hawn’s staffers is definitely doing something important:

Mr. Speaker, Canada’s mission to help the Afghan people is the focus of much of my work here.

My staff feels the same way. Some weeks ago, one of them asked if I minded if she went to Afghanistan as part of the Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency. Yesterday we received a phone call in the office: she was accepted to go to Kandahar to help support the Canadian Forces.

The Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency employs civilians to support the supply chain, deliver programs and services for the troops and perform other important roles. These civilians are among the unsung heroes who represent the best that Canada has to offer the world.

For the next six months, our mission in Afghanistan will be lucky to have her. Over the past year that she has been in my office, Jane Houser has been a wonderful staffer. I hate to lose her, even for a little while, but it makes me very proud to have such courageous, honourable staff who are willing to make such a commitment to help our servicemen and servicewomen and the Afghan people. She is an example of the Canadian spirit: generous, courageous, and helping others despite the sacrifice it entails.

We wish Jane the best of luck on her new adventure. We will miss her and await her safe return.

It’s an important thing to highlight. We don’t often hear about civilians going to Afghanistan, unless they’re journalists or Foreign Affairs people; thus we sometimes forget that there are other people who want to do their bit.

Yes, that was a pretty embarrassing headline for the provincial Liberal government, wasn’t it? And yet I wonder if anyone ever bothered to read the actual TD Economics report, which is available here (and in full PDF format here).

The question we want to ask here is, how much of Ontario’s pending “have not” status is Dalton McGuinty’s fault? The answer, according to the report, is not much:

A closer look reveals that the relative decline is not so much a story of Ontario weakness as it is of booming economic strength in Canada’s commodity-based economies. In fact, despite its manufacturing woes, Ontario’s GDP per capita grew by 3% per year during the 2002-07 period – a healthy rate taken on its own, but one that paled in comparison to the sizzling 5-8% annual advances turned in by the four westernmost provinces. Incidentally, Newfoundland & Labrador managed to take top prize among Canada’s provinces, as rising offshore oil activity fuelled a double-digit annual increase in GDP per capita over the six-year period.

So — it’s not that Ontario’s economy shrank, it’s that the West (and Newfoundland) have managed to do oh-so-much better (because of the high demand for resources such as grains and oil). Granted, Ontario’s corporate and other taxes haven’t exactly helped matters, but it’s a naive political observer indeed who says “Lower your taxes, and all will be well.” Dalton McGuinty cannot be expected to stop Alberta from selling oil.

And what does Ontario have to do to not become a “have-not”? Apparently nothing — the report concludes that the current formula for calculating equalization payments needs another re-visit, which means it’s Jim Flaherty’s ball now. And, given that the current formula is only a year old, I’m not so sure that he’s willing to do another round of negotiations. Especially since everyone else seems happy with their lot.

I have no intention of saying anything about yesterday’s “in-and-out” cacophony. Instead, I’d like to draw your attention to one of the final statements of the Conservative MP for Red Deer, Bob Mills, who has decided not to run in the next election. The text of his member’s statement yesterday is as follows:

Mr. Speaker, as you know, I have decided not to run in the next election and my replacement, Earl Dreeshen, has been chosen to run for the Conservative Party.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the constituents of my riding of Red Deer who have, at each election, given me an increased mandate for each of five elections. At close to 80% of the vote, I guess I was afraid to try it one more time.

For the past 15 years, my constituents have treated Nicole and me with unbelievable courtesy and respect and have thanked us profusely for our service. These thanks are what kept both of us going over the years.

I will always remember my first question when I stood as foreign affairs critic for the Reform Party and how André Ouellet was so kind to me.

I will remember the stained glass windows and the feeling of honour in representing my constituents in this place.

I will remember the Monday to Thursday speech on Kyoto when I tried to tell the Liberal government and Canadians how hard it would be to hit the targets by 2012 and how we needed to start now.

I will remember the scrums, news conferences and interviews with people like Don Newman, Mike Duffy and Julie Van Dusen. Honestly, they treated me fairly. Not many politicians can say that.

I want to thank my staff in Ottawa and in Red Deer, especially Louise, who has been with my for 15 years. I also want to thank my constituents, Albertans and Canadians.

Fifteen years is a very long time in federal politics. So it’s important to recognize Mr. Mills’ time in, and to thank him for his work.

The Hill Times has published their “Best Dressed / Politically Savvy Survey,” their annual poll of the parliamentary staffers who work on the Hill. It’s fascinating to see what the staffers think of the MPs who work there, and how they vary with the opinions of the rest of us politicially aware people.

One thing that got my eyebrow raised was how often Michael Ignatieff’s name pops up in the various categories. He shows up as:

#1 Best House Orator (the PM is ranked no. 2)

#2 Best Speeches Outside the House (here the PM is ranked no. 1)

#1 Best Opposition MP in Question Period

#1 Best Opposition MP, Caucus

#3 Most Quotable MP (tied with Government House Leader Peter Van Loan)

#1 Most Ambitious MP (well, that’s a given)

#2 Biggest Self-Promoter (tied with Garth Turner — that’s a surprise, I’d've thought Garth would do better here)

In comparison, our Prime Minister doesn’t do too badly. Besides the speeches category, Stephen Harper is ranked:

#3 Worst-Dressed Male (he’s tied with Stephane Dion here — let’s face it, Harper will never live down that godawful cowboy outfit)

#1 Worst Sense of Humour (mind you, he doesn’t have a lot to laugh about these days)

#1 Most Discreet MP (i.e. the most closed-mouthed. Members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery won’t argue about that one)

#1 Biggest Scrooge (tied with Peter Van Loan — well, I should hope that we’d get a PM who’s tight with a buck)

#1 Most Quotable MP (well, the fact that he’s PM might have something to do with that one)

#1 Best Fundraiser

#1 Best Power Lunches (which helps explain his standing in the Worst Dressed category — he’s not worried at all about his gut, is he?)

#1 Hardest Working MP

You know what’s especially telling about this survey? The number of times Stéphane Dion appears on it: three times. Ranked #3 Worst-Dressed Male (beside Harper), #2 Worst Sense of Humour, and #3 Best Speeches Outside the House. And that’s it.

You might think that, given his role as Leader of the Opposition and therefore PM-Presumptive, Dion would have better visibility at the very least among the people with whom he works, especially compared with his deputy leader. I think you can say that it’s yet another nail for Dion’s political coffin (which won’t be hammered in until after the next election).

As a side-note: my riding’s MP, Paul Dewar, scored #3 Best Hair (Caucus Staffers Only) and #2 Best Constituency MP. That last one is going to make Ottawa-Centre Tory candidate Brian McGarry’s job all that much harder.

In order to understand the subject of this blogpost, it’s important that you read Mike Brock’s post on Bill C-51, which is coming up for discussion in the House next Monday.

I happen to agree with Mike that the passage he’s upset about needs to be deleted, or at least some severe re-working so that bureaucrats don’t get to invade your home just because they think you need a lesson. He’s prepared to quit the Conservative Party of Canada, and that’s certainly one approach.

And I can offer an amendment to it. This page is the automatic contact link for the Conservative Party website. If you’re a party member and you don’t like this bill, you could set the comment ID field to “Donations” and tell the party that you won’t be sending the Party donations untill Bill C-51 is amended. (You will need to be truthful about your contact information; if the website gets flooded with comment spam the party brass may not pay as much attention to this bill as it warrants.)

There is another route to take as well. Because this affects the powers of the Minister of Health, the members of the House Standing Committee on Health will probably want to address this bill next week. The important members of this Committee are as follows (slightly amended so that they don’t get hit with autospam):

Chair: Joy Smith (CPC) Smith dot J at parl dot gc dot ca
Vice-Chair: Christiane Gagnon (BQ) Gagnon dot C at parl dot gc dot ca (le correspondance doit être en français)
Vice-Chair: Lui Temelkovski (Lib) Temelkovski dot L at parl dot gc dot ca
Member: Dr. Carolyn Bennett (Lib) Bennett dotC at parl dot gc dot ca
Member: Patrick Brown (CPC) BrownPA at parl dot gc dot ca
Member: Judy Wasylycia-Leis (NDP) Wasylycia-Leis dot J at parl dot gc dot ca
Member: Patricia Davidson (CPC) Davidson dot P at parl dot gc dot ca
Member: Stephen Fletcher (CPC) Fletcher dot S at parl dot gc dot ca
Member: Susan Kadis (Lib) Kadis dot S at parl dot gc dot ca
Member: Luc Malo (BQ) Malo dot L at parl dot gc dot ca (le correspondance doit être en français)
Member: Robert Thibault (Lib) Thibault dot R at parl dot gc dot ca (correspondence preferred in English)
Member: David Tilson (CPC) Tilson dot D at parl dot gc dot ca

And if you don’t feel that’s enough, here is a list of associate members, who might also be persuaded to speak on this issue.

The idea here is to show that, yes, people are very worried about this bill, because of its potential to violate civil liberties and the right to privacy. (The two recent Supreme Court judgements on sniffer dogs, you can remind them, speak exactly to that right; and does the Government really want the expense and embarrassment of going for a Supreme Court judgement?) We want to convince the government that, at the very least, this section of the bill needs to be reviewed by an appropriate committee, and the appropriate public servants need to come before Parliament to explain and defend its necessity.

One other thing: this is not the time to get partisanly snarky. No name-calling, no “scary Harper” mongering. If opposition MPs want to do that in their statements, that’s their business, but it’s important to show that we’re not playing games with this one.

And if the bill passes as is? Well, that’s what the Senate’s for. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Will this do any good? I don’t know, but at least this way people opposed to this section can say that they tried to do something about it.

It can be instructive, sometimes, to read stuff by pundits from other countries, if only to see what the world thinks of you.

As expected, the London Times’ Gerard Baker doesn’t write much about Canada, but the U.S. election process does get his pen going, and I find this passage in his latest column surprisingly instructive:

American presidential elections turn as much on the characters of the candidates as they do on the saliency of policies. Democrats, of course, think this is all rather crass. They think voters should confine themselves to the “issues”. But Americans understand their government a little better. They know the limits of presidential office and they understand the president’s role as head of state is as much about leadership of the nation as it is about implementation of policy.

The instructive bit comes in the use of the comparative: “Americans understand their government a little better.” Better than what? Judging by the prose, the Democrats, i.e. the Democratic Party. In other words, what Mr. Baker seems to be saying is that Democrats are not Americans.

Technically, of course, it’s a legal absurdity, but from a socio-cultural standpoint it does make sense. What Baker is pointing to (and what other pundits have observed) is a disconnect between the American political “class” (professional politicians, civil service, the media) and the rest of its citizens. The disconnect, in this case, takes the form of agenda-setting: the Democrats are, right now, talking mainly about each other instead of what to do about the economy and how to weather the recession.

Is this problem solveable? Yes — but not this year: both Democratic candidates are too far along in their campaigns to ask for a do-over. The punditic “nightmare scenario” will of course be over this summer, but in the meantime they may as well endure it.

I’m sure you’ve seen Joanne’s take on the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruling against Christian Horizons, a residential home operator, for firing an outed employee. (Here’s the link to the Kitchener-Waterloo record story, and here is the text of the official decision.)

A few comments:

• This is not a case of a gay-rights group making mischief with a Christian organization, as was what happened with the Knights of Columbus wedding hall. The complainant apparently realized her orientation after her employment by Christian Horizons, which is not that uncommon.
• It would be overly facile, and naive, to suggest that the complainant should simply have quit the job upon realizing her orientation. The complainant was too integrated into the community, too committed to her work, for that to be an option.
• Which brings up a point about the line between professional and personal behaviour. While I realize that Christian Horizons wants to ensure that its employees behave like Christians, I think that code is too much of an intrusion into personal lives. I would not want my employer trying to take me to task for the way I behave after hours; that’s my business and maybe God’s business, but it’s not theirs.

You need to read the full text of the decision to understand my sympathies. It’s a record of actual suffering from an individual at the hands of a community — in this case, CH. One thing I always understood about Christianity is that it’s meant to accept flawed people, both to minister to and to do the administering. CH may have licence to run a mission, but our current labour laws don’t give them licence to operate like a monastic order.