Modeling Journey

Michael Ignatieff has presented voters with his view of what the voters really face in the next election (coming next year or the year after):

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says that if an election is called in the coming months, his party is the only true alternative to the Conservatives.

In an interview with CTV's Question Period, Ignatieff says that a vote for Jack Layton's NDP or Gilles Duceppes' Bloc Quebecois is essentially a vote for another Conservative government.

"What I'm saying is, it's time for Canadians to make a choice between two governing parties," Ignatieff said.

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When you've stopped sniggering, think about it. That is exactly what Gordon Brown is now doing – a U-turn from opposing a coalition to becoming the midwife delivering one:

Any commitments the Tories make on electoral reform will be confined to inquiries and referendums, and the Tory party itself , and possibly Cameron, will not change settled policy. Even though they have offered a referendum on the alternative vote, they might not agree to whip the Tory MPs to support the enabling Bill. And even if they did, lots of Tory MPs might ignore the whip. The sanctions imposed by the Tory leadership for such indiscipline might be light. All this, by the way, will be late in the parliament, and too late for the Liberal Democrats to do much about it.

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With Cameron desperately trying to stampede the LibDems into a quick deal by arguing the country needs stability now, and trying every which way to avoid any meaningful electoral change (especially proportional representation), Gordon Brown, the bumbling, plodding, dour leader of the Labour Party, used Labour's nuclear option today: he will quit in September.

Gordon Brown announced tonight that he is to step down as Labour leader but wants to remain in No 10 for a few more months as part of a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats.

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This post tells why Clegg is not pushing a referendum on proportional representation in talks with Cameron, why the Labour counter offer will fail, and why a Canadian professor can keep Gordon Brown in his post as prime minister for the next two to four years.

The penny has finally dropped, and the actions of Nick Clegg and his fellow-leaders of the Liberal Democrats can now be understood. Nick Clegg WILL sell out the referendum on proportional representation in the deal he is cutting with the Tories.

After years of finding themselves shut out of power because their support is spread more evenly over the British political and geographic spaces than that of their rivals, the Tories and Labour, the LDP set a goal of trying to gain more seats in parliament by advocating electoral reform through some type of proportional representation (PR).
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We need look no further than the Greenies and the Dippers, according to Bob Plamondon in today's Globe & Mail:

Whither Michael Ignatieff? Other than inheriting the legacy of Canada's natural governing party, he doesn't have much of a coalition left to lead. The Liberals have been crowded out of the centre by the Tories, and the NDP and the Greens are eating his lunch on the left.

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The Cat wishes him a speedy recovery, and a fast return to the active political scene. Layton brings honour, integrity and respect for our democratic ways to our politics, and we are well served with him as leader of one of our most significant parties.

Come the next election, the NDP will ride the wave of popular discontent with the widened, deeper, unjustified HST to win a few more seats, at the expense of the Liberals and Tories.

And not all Liberal MPs agree with being whipped into shaped by Ignatieff on this issue. Some correctly believe that the HST at this moment is the wrong tax at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons.

"Ignatieff said the vote on the HST implementing legislation will be “whipped,” meaning all Liberal MPs will be expected to support it.

That may yet prove difficult for some.
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Seems that his announced policy of supporting the Harper Tories until such time as they finally get around to passing legislation to up the EI payments for some 160,000 jobless Canadians might cause Jack Layton to run the risk of serious eye injury:

"The Conservatives face other upcoming confidence tests -- one on budget implementation measures that include the home renovation credit and another on a controversial levy that would collect $68 million on softwood lumber exports to the U.S.

Trade Minister Stockwell Day said the government is forced to introduce the measure to comply with an international trade tribunal ruling Canada lost to the Americans.
"We lost the final ruling. We owe $68 million in back taxes," he said.

Government sources dismiss suggestions the bill is an attempt to provoke an election. Liberals won't support it, and Layton warned there are limits to his party's support.

"If Mr. Harper starts throwing poison pills and poking people in the eye and adopting policies that are completely unacceptable and he knows it, well, then I think he's provoking an election," he said."

Better get some good goggles for all your NDP MPs, Jack: you are going to need it.

This Prime Minister just cannot avoid taking advantage of every political edge that comes his way, and believe me, he is going to ram as much through Parliament – with your support, of course – as he can before he legislates the EI funds.

So get ready to bob and weave, and send someone out for a few dozen goggles, fast!

Layton says he is doing that to ensure that $1 billion of new funds reach jobless Canadians as a result of Harper's latest manoeuvre.

However, let's put that in perspective. The NDP, with Layton in the forefront, has time after time said in and out of Parliament that they do not think the Tory government is doing enough to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

We in the Liberal Party agree.

That is why we believe the time has come to vote the Tory government out of government and have an election so that Canadians can get the government they really need.

And we believe this is necessary because the economy is in deep trouble, and changing that will require a government with a different view to that of the Tories.
And that is more important than a small fix to the EI problem.

How big is the problem (which Layton's NDP is prolonging by its support of the Tories)?

Read this from the Globe & Mail's Daybook for September 30 to get an idea:

"One measure of a recession's toll is the amount of unused capacity, or slack, in an economy. Empty warehouses, unemployed people and idle assembly lines offer stark examples of the deepest downtown in a generation. They also indicate how far an economy has to go before it can climb out of the slump. Today, Daybook looks at industrial capacity.

INDUSTRIES
PRODUCERS
Textile mills are running at half capacity. Oil and gas firms have slowed their activity. Paper mills are closing. And operations in 32 mines were closed or suspended during the first half of the year…

CAPACITY
Across the country, industries are running at just 67.4 per cent of their capacity utilization rates, the lowest level in at least 22 years, Statistics Canada says.
All sectors except food manufacturing saw their capacity use fall in the second quarter. The mining sector, for example, operated at 50 per cent of capacity.

Transportation equipment factories ran at 46 per cent. And primary metal makers used just 62 per cent of their capacity - a record low.

To put that in perspective, in 2000 when the economy was abuzz with the high-tech boom, Canadian factories were humming along at 87.1 per cent of capacity."

Jack, take note of the steep curve facing our economy: capacity utilization at 67.4% versus 87.1%.

And every day you support Harper's do-little and stall-a-lot government simply delays the steps needed to improve the capacity utilization, and provide good jobs to Canadians.

Are you sure that you and the NDP really want to do that?

It is not too late to put Canadians first.

Layton has lead his NDP party into supporting the Harper Tory minority government, in return for a promise to inject a paltry $1 billion more into EI. This is the crux of Layton's reasoning:

"He did reach out. The $1 billion he is proposing to spend on improving EI benefits isn't enough, of course. Too many unemployed won't benefit from these changes. And critics have called it "peanuts" and a "bone." But that's absurd. Only Bernie Madoff ever believed that $1 billion is peanuts and he has, I suspect, recently changed his views.

For us, though, the real question is how to use political leverage responsibly when you have it. Do we support this measure, which will get much-needed financial help into the hands of people whose benefits will be running out this winter and may end up on social assistance? We fully appreciate that doing so means an election will not happen right away, and will leave in place, for a time, Stephen Harper's minority government, whose right-wing agenda we have vigorously opposed."

Layton's reasoning is suspect and faulty. If he really is concerned about the plight of the many unemployed, and about the inadequate unemployment regime Harper is now applying across our country, then he should have followed his "real question" of how to use political leverage responsibility to its logical end.

And that end is simply this: Given that many Canadians are hurting because they or their family members have lost their jobs; given that many more will lose their jobs in the next two years; given that many of the replacement jobs will pay far less and be less stable than the jobs lost in our manufacturing sector; given that the Harper Tories do not believe in changing the ability of Canada to compete and provide high paying, stable jobs for all, through the use of partnerships between the federal government and Canadians; given that the Bloc support in Quebec means it is unlikely that there will be a majority government (Tory of Liberal) in the near future, then the question is – How should the NDP best exercise the political leverage it might have in Parliament in order to properly protect and help Canadians in the short, medium and long term?

Jack Layton's action in accepting the mess of porridge offered him by Harper is flawed because he looked only to the short term, and not the short, medium and long term.

The bulk of Canadians would be better off if we had a minority Liberal government in power right now, supported by the NDP and if needed the Bloc in order to provide progressive governance to Canada.

Layton should re-consider the timeframe of his decision, and vote the current government out of power.

That would be the proper way to act in the interests of most Canadians.
Revert to your principles, Jack, and think of the alternatives. You do have a choice.

… and again and again, to learn what your minority Tory government has to do to avoid an election in November or December or January or February or March or April or May or June …

Why? Because Jack Layton has issued his first menu of changes in your unruly behaviour that he wants you to undertake in order to win the NDP support for your precarious government:

"The NDP could save the Conservative government from a fall defeat if the Tories make strides to boost pensions, slay bank and credit card fees and help the unemployed.

Senior New Democrats suggested the 36-member caucus could save the country from an unwanted fall vote if Prime Minister Stephen Harper agrees to support key NDP priorities.

“The Prime Minister needs to decide if he wants to call an election or call Mr. Layton,” said NDP national director Brad Lavigne.

Lavigne said the caucus would take a wait-and-see approach to the Liberal non-confidence motion expected this fall. The NDP is prepared to fight an election but it hasn’t closed the door to working with the Tories, he said.

“If (the Conservatives) want to start making gestures in the interests of all Canadians such as working on pensions (and) bank fees or other things that are of interest to Canadians then I don’t think we will have to foist the fourth general election on Canadians in five years,” said NDP deputy leader and finance critic Thomas Mulcair."

But perhaps you had better ask yourself how you felt when the Liberals put you on probation, for a period of some eight months. You did not like that, I bet.
Now ask yourself how you and your supporters will feel if the 'socialists' put you on probation on a monthly basis, with the first four demands to be followed by another set and another set and another set …

Because Jack Layton will have to justify to his supporters and to Canadians that he is always getting something meaningful (as judged by the NDP standard of what is meaningful) in return for every bit of propping up of your government that he holds his nose and does.

Have a nice Christmas.

According to statements and reports, both the NDP and Bloc have said that they are prepared to support the Tory government on a 'case by case' basis:

"A source has told The Canadian Press that NDP Leader Jack Layton is set to announce he will support the government on a case-by-case basis if the Tories back New Democrats' private member bills on issues ranging from EI benefits to regulating credit-card rates.

Layton will hold a news conference on Thursday to speak about his party's position.
Earlier, Harper sounded downbeat on the possibility of working with the NDP.

"I have no indication of that from Mr. Layton," Harper said when asked if he thought the NDP could work with the government.

The prime minister said Layton's goal was to have a coalition government between the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP.

That aside, Harper said he was willing to work with any party that has "ideas to help the economy."

In a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said he would take each issue in Parliament one by one, but that he was willing to topple the government if necessary.

"Our position was never to ask whether or not we want elections," Duceppe said. "We vote on the value of a proposal. If it's good for Quebec, we vote for it.""

This case by case response is good for a few sound bytes, but is really nonsensical. Sooner or later both the Bloc and the NDP will have to fish or cut bait when it comes to their continued support of Harper's Tories.

My guess is that they will decide to fish sooner than anyone thinks they will.

The acid test will be the series of confidence votes that are looming. Some can be precipitated by the Tory minority government, who might introduce a second budget on September 14 designed to flush out the three opposition parties, and to provide the Tories with an issue to fight the election on:

""It wasn't any grand scheme that we hatched in March," said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "If they vote against [the home renovation credit], they vote against it. They can pretend it means whatever they want, but it means the (credit) would be defeated."

A spokesman for the Canada Revenue Agency also confirmed the credit will die if the second budget bill isn't passed, meaning Canadians won't be able to claim the credit on their tax returns for 2009."

The NDP might seek shelter by buying into the Tory framing of this issue, and vote for the budget to avoid the homeowners' losing their tax credits this year. The Bloc might do the same.

However, the Liberal response can be simple: undertake to ensure that homeowners entitled to the tax credit can claim it, by the new government (most likely to be a Liberal minority one), tabling legislation to make it so (even if retroactively). If properly managed by the Liberals this should defuse the issue, even though the Tories will proclaim to the heavens that such a course is impossible or highly inconvenient or more costly. If the Liberals do not prepare for this particular framing battle, they could, of course, screw it up and lose the next election over it. Being prepared is not just a scout motto…

Even if the second budget passes this time, the Bloc and NDP will face further confidence votes, brought about by the government tabling legislation which ensures this, or the Liberals introducing votes of no confidence when entitled to do so.
And then the test will be whether the Bloc and NDP will run the risk of angering their supporters by propping up the Harper government even when that government is introducing matters which go against the grain.

After all, how long can the Tories govern without upsetting these two parties?
And if Jack Layton sides with the Tories, then voters are going to ask at what price? Just how many concessions will he make on principles in return for thirty shekels?

The NDP in particular runs the greater risk, in that it has consistently said that it does not have confidence in the Tory government because it does not trust Harper or his party any more. How on earth can it then continue to prop up the same people by accepting promises from them with respect to future actions?

There is no way that Harper can allow his government to be run by (in his mind) the socialists and the separatists. He might be able to put enough goodies on the table once, or twice, but within a very short while he will find that the price demanded of his government is just too high, and he will try short-changing either or both of these parties.

And then the election will come, and he will lose power.