What Now?

What's the difference between China and Canada? China keeps its currency down vs. the American dollar by legislative fiat, while Canada does it by making the markets nervous with endless political shenanigans.

More seriously, in the aftermath of yesterday's dress rehearsal for a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons, I thought the clearest commentary came from Chantal Hebert in the Star who wrote,

"This morning, more than ever, Canadians are presented with two competing narratives.

The first, put forward by the Liberals, depicts the Conservatives as a power-hungry, opportunistic opposition willing to make a pact with the devil - in this case the sovereignist Bloc Québécois - to precipitate a premature election before all the facts on the sponsorship scandals are in.

The second, put forward by the Tories and the Bloc, features a Prime Minister so desperate to cling to power and escape the wrath of voters that he is willing to milk the public treasury and subvert the democratic will of Parliament to do so."

It seems pretty clear to me that both narratives are true, which doesn't speak too well of any of the major political parties.

I guess the question now is, what's next? Prime Minister Paul Martin has committed to having a vote on the budget next Thursday (the 19th), no doubt out of a desire to let the B.C. election get completed before the Federal government steal the spotlight.

So one of two things will happen:

1) If the vote on the budget is defeated then we'll have an election this summer. This would be good for political junkies like me, and (hopefully) also for the Green Party which should benefit simply by virtue of not being a part of the current parliament, but I'm not sure it would lead to a government any less dysfunctional than the current one.

2) If the budget passes then it's not so clear what happens next. Will the Conservatives/Bloc admit defeat and stop trying to bring down the government, or will they continue to try to topple the government at every opportunity hoping to sway the one or two MP's whose support they need to get a vote of non-confidence passed? It seems as though, even if the Liberals get the budget passed, the government is not likely to make it too much further or accomplish too much between now and the fall (when Martin has already promised to hold an election after the Gomery Inquiry wraps up), but I'm no political insider so your guess is probably better than mine.

CEO overpay cons

It's always interesting to see what searches bring people to this site. So far my favourite was a recent visitor who searched for "CEO overpay cons" - a search for which this site comes up a respectable 8th on google.

In honour of that search I direct your attention to this post by pogge in which he rightly takes Thomas d'Aquino (president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives) to task for his hysterical, hyperbolic reaction to the deal between Paul Martin and Jack Layton to cancel corporate tax cuts in the federal budget.

Says Thomas,

"By reneging on the corporate tax cuts in the 2005 budget, the deal announced today will sacrifice Canada's ability to foster more high-paying jobs and to ensure that our economy grows fast enough to pay for the massive federal commitments to expanding social programs and equalization payments,"

As pogge notes, given that the federal corporate tax rate has already been reduced from 28% to 21% since 2000, it seems a bit absurd for supposedly serious people to be making statements that not cutting the rate further for a few years is going have some huge negative impact on our economy.

Personally, I think Paul Martin should have stuck to his guns on this one, and on principle I worry about deals which increase spending but don't increase revenue to pay for it (the spending occurs now while the corporate tax cuts didn't take effect for a few years - and Martin is now telling the Conservatives he's going to go ahead with the cuts anyway), but we're not talking about a huge amount of money on the scale of the federal government and it would be nice to discuss it like adults rather than having flacks like d'Aquino making ridiculous statements with no connection to reality.

The Last Days of Paul Martin

Interesting times at the Federal parliament these days, what with Paul Martin taking Jack Layton up on his offer to support the Liberal's minority government in return for changing the budget to get rid of some corporate tax cuts and increase spending on students, the environment and foreign aid (among other things).

My thoughts on this are pretty much Calgary Grit's thoughts. I'd be surprised if this modified budget ever gets passed and it looks like we'll be heading to another election soon - an election where the big story will be how much Liberal support collapses and whether it defects to the NDP, the Conservatives or the Greens.

It's a good thing that nobody can take away Paul Martin's legacy as the Finance Minister who helped put (and keep) our fiscal house in order, since I'm guessing that the history books will (somewhat unfairly) not look too kindly upon his brief time as Prime Minister.


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While I'm on the topic of CalgaryGrit, check out this post as well, if only for the excellent title. I wish I'd come up with that one.

Just a Side Order of Democracy Please

Jim Travers has an interesting take on Missile Defence in the Toronto Star.

"Back when Martin was toppling Jean Chrétien, the malevolently misnamed Son of Star Wars project was so low profile that Ottawa could have negotiated a role without much risk."

but now...

"Along with measuring growing opposition to the missile shield, EKOS Research finds that a majority of Canadians now think the issue could be important enough to justify a federal election."

and as a result...

"Liberals are now expected to bow to changed political realities at their March convention by confirming their antipathy to Star Wars."

with the lesson we take from this being that,

"Tough decisions demand that leaders lead. Seizing opportunity requires courage.

"This Prime Minister is falling short on both, first by failing to proselytize his policies and then by doing nothing. Now, he can only read today's poll and mourn what could so easily have been."

So if I'm reading this right, Travers is saying that Martin should have approved missile defence before Canadians learned enough about it to seriously oppose it. Interesting view on democracy, a little paternalistic if you ask me.

Update: Jonathan, over at No More Shall I Roam goes into more detail on why all those 'misguided' Canadians might have good reasons not to support Missile Defense.