Month: February 2005

On Thursday, outside the House of Commons, Federal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale (left) took questions from journalists on the federal budget. Here is an edited transcript of his discussions.

Question:   How much has the rise in the Canadian dollar changed your planning for the budget that you plan to do on [Feb] 23rd?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: Well, back in November when I released the fiscal framework and the update, I indicated that the single most troubling downside risk was the movement of currencies and that that could have an impact on our ability to export and therefore on growth, that that was a worry for the government and for the private sector economists.  It would appear from some of the statistics that some of that downside risk is materializing.  Now I hasten to say don't jump to conclusions but some of the statistics have indicated some weakness in export performance, for example.  So that just says to me as you put together a budget keep very tightly focussed on issues like fiscal responsibility and discipline and live within the requirements of prudence to make sure that the books of this country stay solidly balanced.

Question:   (Inaudible) so far with the opposition is it clear to you that you have enough support for your budget to pass?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: Oh, I wouldn't jump to conclusions on any future vote in the House of Commons.  This is a minority situation and you take each vote as it comes.  I've had very useful discussions with all three opposition political parties.  There are points upon which we agree.  There are obviously points upon which we disagree.  It's obviously clear too that there are many points upon which the opposition parties disagree with each other.  So trying to bring that all together in a coherent package that reflects the right kind of balance is a real challenge but the discussion thus far has been very cordial and very constructive.

Question:   Will there be any broad-based tax cuts?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: Oh, I can't comment on any particular element whether it's in or whether it's not.  I think you'll just have to wait and see. 

Question:   Does it help you politically to get this tabled as quickly as possible?  Does it help you politically with negotiations?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: The budget?

Question:   Yeah, negotiating — does it help you to table the budget earlier?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: Oh, this is in the normal cycle.  The budget is usually the last week or so of February or the first couple of weeks of March.  So the date that I've selected on the 23rd of February is completely within the normal pattern. It's important to have the federal budget within that cycle because a lot of people in the country are depending on it – provinces, for example, for transfer payments, municipalities anticipating what may be in the budget for them, various groups.  So it's important to stick, unless there are truly extraordinary circumstances, to the normal pattern for the presentation of the budget and this is it.

Question:   Given your comments about then being focussed and prudent, isn't this going to put a hamper on these spending plans that you and the prime minister have talked about?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: No, I believe it's very important for the government to deliver on its commitments to Canadians and that is very much on my mind as I put together the budget package.  The real challenge for me is the projected profile of our revenue flows over the next five years.  We have, as you know, our normal prudence and contingency factors that go into the calculation of the flows but we have a good number for this year, as we indicated in the fall update.  Then we have two years in which our margin to manouevre really skinnies out and then it gets better again in year three and year four and year five.  The challenge is not, to my mind, the challenge is not the global amount of flexibility over the five-year period.  The challenge is the rate at which that flexibility appears. It's not a straight line projection one year after the next after the next.  It's a U shape and that's what makes the challenge of this budget for me particularly acute. I've got to somehow make our investment plans and our fiscal plans fit within an unusual flow of revenue that's not progressively moving on from one year to the next.

On Thursday, after Question Period in the House of Commons, Conservative Finance Critic was asked about his party’s positions going into the federal budget planning process. The budget is to be tabled by the Liberal government on Feb. 23. Here’s an edited transcript of his exchange outside the Commons. The questions are from journalists:

Question: Have you been consulted [by the Liberals about the budget] yet?

Monte Solberg:  Well, I have been consulted.  I've written a letter to the minister and I will be talking with him when I travel with him.  We're going to London tonight so I've got a meeting scheduled with him in London to talk about the budget.

Question:   Would your party be prepared to vote down the budget if you didn't — if you don't like what you see?

Monte Solberg:  Well, we're going to keep our options open but, you know, it's going to have to be a pretty bad budget for us to bring down the government of course but, you know, we're not going to — we certainly don't want to send the message they can do whatever they want in that budget.  We're going to be fulfilling our role as the official opposition and our default position is to oppose the budget and they're going to have to do some pretty impressive things if they want to get us onside.

Question:   Well, the minister keeps on talking about fulfilling all these spending promises.  Like you want tax relief.  Do you think they're going to be accomplished here?

Monte Solberg:  Well, yeah, it's going to be difficult for him to square this circle.  He's got three opposition parties and probably opposition in his own party on things that he wants to do so it's going to be difficult for him but, you know, one way to get people onside is to fulfill the commitment he made that was a demand of all the opposition parties which is to cut taxes and it was part of the Throne Speech amendments that they accepted.  And so we expect them to fulfill their commitment. 

Question:   So you're willing to go to the polls for tax cuts for the middle class. 

Monte Solberg:  That's not what I said.  I said that if they raised taxes or put us into a deficit, you know, that's something — that would be something where we would probably vote en masse to oppose the budget.  But remember that the Official Opposition always opposes the budget and it's up to the government to get the other parties onside to support it.  So this is not something that necessarily is completely in our hands. It's up to the government to ensure that they've got the support of the other parties

Monte Solberg, the Conservative MP for Medicine Hat, Alberta and his party’s finance critic, jumped into the blogosphere yesterday. He’s got a Blogger-powered blog where he promises to do a little real-time politicking.

The blog is an exciting technology that will enable me to keep in touch with people in my riding and other interested Canadians,” Solberg said in a press statement.  “Over the coming weeks and months, I look forward to providing real-time updates on developments that occur on the floor of the House of Commons and to provide additional insight into issues that affect the financial well-being of hardworking Canadians.”

In his first post, he talks about the budget planning process. The federal budget, to be delivered later this month, will be the first tabled by a minority government in Parliament in 25 years. And the outcome for that budget — it was Conservative Prime Minister’s Joe Clark’s government — was a failed vote, the fall of the government, and the end of Clark’s brief reign as PM.

So Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, Solberg says in his post, is actually consulting the Opposition before delivering his budget, something he never did before.

Solberg also notes that lobbyists, realizing that the Opposition, and the Tories in particular, have some real political leverage in this minority government situation, are thick as flies on honey at his office.

 

The National Union of Journalists, a trade union for journalists in Britain and Ireland and which as 35,000 members, is apparently calling for state regulation of journalists as a means to improve pay, working conditions and the general esteem with which the public holds journalist.

If you think a healthy, vibrant press is vital for a healthy, vibrant democracy — and I do — then this call by the NUJ is a really, really, really bad idea.

Journalism is all about free speech. When you regulate who may or may not participate in that pursuit you are, by definition, curtailing free speech. Nation states that are afraid of free speech — China, North Korea, Soviet Russia and Italy (!) apparently — regulate and license journalists because they know that kind of regulation is a teriffic way for the government to control speech and censor debate.

If they ever ask, just say no the NUJ’s bonehead idea.

 

Finance Minister Ralph Goodale annnounced a few minutes ago in the House of Commons that he will table the federal budget on February 23. Canada is first among the G7 countries when it comes to federal government fiscal health. Canada has a healthy trade surplus and a too-healthy budget surplus. In fact, the too-healthy budget surplus — something around $10–billion — is a big political problem. Does Goodale turn that surplus back to taxpayers in the form of a tax cut? Does he give more to the provinces for health care and education spending? Does our beleaguered military get a boost in spending? The Globe and Mail reports today that Goodale plans to spend some of that surplus on a national daycare program.

 

And this time, it's not just any Conservative, but a Member of Parliament who represents a Calgary riding. Calgary, for those following along, is the diocese of Roman Catholic Bishop Frederick Henry, who just recently made the front pages of the country for calling called on the state to use coercive powers to discourage homosexuality.

Jim Prentice (left) is the MP who declared today that he will support the Liberals' same-sex legislation, tabled yesterday in the House of Commons. Prentice was one of the candidates in the last Conservative leadership race, the race the Stephen Harper won. CTV News believes that of the 99-member Conservative caucus in the House, there are four Tories who will vote in favour of the same-sex legislation. Belinda Stronach, another Conservative leadership candidate, along with Nova Scotia's Gerald Keddy and B.C.'s James Moore have also declared their intention to support the bill. Meanwhile, the Liberal caucus has many dissidents within it and it is within that caucus that the legislation will either pass or fail. (The Tories will vote against while the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois are expected to support the bill, leaving it to Liberals to tip the scale one way or the other.)

 “I will use every single possible peaceful democratic tactic I can think of to defeat this legislation,” said London, Ont. Liberal MP Pat O’Brien.

 Here is the full text of the statement released today by Prentice:

February 2, 2005, CALGARY – Yesterday the Liberal government introduced their much-awaited marriage legislation. The decision I have come to has been a difficult one. I have spoken to many hundreds in my riding of Calgary Centre-North. I have met with many community leaders including religious leaders from Calgary and representatives of the gay community. I have held an open Town Hall Meeting and I have done my best to understand the legal and theological issues that this decision has raised. For me, the marriage question is one of individual liberty – of constitutional liberty. Let's be clear. I have been married to the same woman for 21 years, reflecting my own personal definition of what marriage is. It is also the definition of my own church, the Presbyterian Church of Canada. It is not, however, the personal definition of many of our fellow citizens who are homosexual and who have sought the protection of the Charter to obtain civil marriage licences from the government. Fundamentally the question is this: what right do we as a society have to refuse gay Canadians something that the rest of us are entitled to – namely, a civil marriage license. Set aside the legal debate, and ask the very simple question. What moral or political authority do we have to deny gay Canadians the issuance of a government marriage license? The answer in my mind is clear. We have no such right at all because whether two people of the same sex marry, and how and whether their gender enters into the relationship, is none of the government's business, providing they do no harm to anyone else.

“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” – John Stuart Mill

I am a conservative, and this is the philosophy that guides me in public life. Each of us has the right to fashion our own life to suit our own character without impediment from others, providing we harm no one else and providing we accept the consequences of our own decisions. If we have the right, as a society, to prohibit homosexual Canadians from civil marriage because their idea of a marriage differs form ours, do we have an equal right to prohibit some Christians, Muslims, or Sikhs from preaching aspects of their faith, which are not shared by the majority of Canadians? By parity of reasoning, would we not have an equally valid entitlement to suppress the literature, political opinions or political association of those who hold views different than our own? These are the modern liberties of our western society. They are the very liberties that underpin western society, and they are owed to each of us equally and unconditionally. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures that all Canadians must be treated equally at law, including the right to marry. Equally the Charter protects the rights of religions to carry on their faith according to their own doctrine. The vote for Conservatives is a free one. Stephen Harper has shown courage and leadership and his position has been very clear to Canadians. It is particularly disappointing that Mr. Martin did not have the strength of leadership to allow his entire Caucus to have a free vote on this issue. I have come to the conclusion that I will stand in defence of the constitutional right of homosexual couples to civil marriage, even though their definition of marriage is not my own. I will be equally vigilant in defending religious marriage and religious freedom, for it is equally clear that neither the Christian community nor the other communities of faith can be compelled to accept or perform same sex marriages. Religious freedom must stand sacrosanct and religious marriage must stand as the exclusive preserve of our communities of faith. I intend to vigorously support the Conservative Party amendments that would strengthen these protections of religious freedoms. This decision has been a difficult one. My riding has a diversity of opinions on this question. I appreciate that my decision will not make everybody happy. I will be accountable. In the final analysis, I have concluded that religious marriage is the authority of the church and that jurisdiction must be jealously guarded. But civil marriage, or governmental marriage, of two Canadians, must be available equally to all. Therefore, I will be voting in favour of this legislation and I will support Conservative Party amendments designed to protect religious freedoms.

“I write; I publish. And that used to be the end of it. Now, I write, I publish and a community of people who have special knowledge or who are deeply interested in the topic amplify, correct, modify, or extend the reportage. For a beat reporter, this is fabulous, because I now have more knowledge about my beat . . .”

That’s part of one my answers to some good questions that the wise Jay Rosen asked me as part of his preparation for a conference at Harvard University that looked at the relationship between blogging, journalism and trust. I’ve been asked similar questions over the last couple of years, in one form or another, by students, by other journalists, and by bloggers. And I’ve often prefaced any answer I gave by saying that I was till trying to work it out, to understand the form, that, as a tech reporter, this was all part of my job.

Well, I’m not a tech reporter any more and this blog is still going. It’s still going, I think, because Jay and some others who are interested in these issues forced me to think a little more deeply about why I was doing this. I can no longer use the excuse that I’m just fiddling around here so I can be a good tech reporter. I’m now doing this because it’s become part of the core communications tools, along with the phone, e-mail, and early morning breakfasts, that help me do my new job.

So Jay — who is the best kind of teacher in that he’ll seriously consider any and all ideas you have and make you feel special for having them even if he’s heard your crackpot theories fifty times —  took what I told him and put it up on his blog. Take a look at it. I’m curious about any feedback there or here.

Jay also asked me to take a look at the responses he blogged to that Harvard conference. He may post my thoughts about that but, regardless, I’d thought I’d put them up here. Here’s a lightly edited  version of what I told Jay about what I thought about the various reactions to the conference (which I did not attend).

For me, the ideas that Scott Rosenberg put forward before the conference began is probably close to my starting point for this discussion. That said: I'm glad these sorts of discussions are taking place.

I think it’s helpful to read Scott’s essay in conjunction with Jay’s pre-conference essay calling for an end to this “Bloggers vs. Journalists” debate. I think that’s a good starting point, too, for the conference’s focus.

I read the reaction by some conference participants and, as if fulfilling Scott’s prophecy, there wasn’t a whole lot there that was surprising if you’ve been following along or participating in this discussion. The conference and these post-conference thoughts will be, I think, useful to some people and for different reasons.

But I’m a Mainstream Media (MSM) reporter trying to juggle three or four daily deadline assignments plus a feature or two and there’s not a lot of stuff there that’s going to help me tell a story better or get a jump on my competition or get me out of the office any earlier. (In fact, once  you immerse yourself in the blogosphere, I guarantee you that you will be in the office longer!)

The conference and the reaction to it, it seems to me, would be great reading for newswroom managers; for strategists; and any others who, on a broader, big-picture scale are interested in this discussion.

I wonder when it will be time to put all the thought and energy that went into this conference into some more practical discussion or teaching for bloggers and journalists. For example, I've taught a Blogging 101 for Journalists at a conference for the Canadian Association of Journalists. Some of the attendees wanted to start their own blog but most wanted to know how blogs work as part of the newsgathering process. I was surprised at the hunger, if you will, by journalists to learn about this form; how bloggers do what they do; and how to tap into communities of bloggers.

Similarly, perhaps its time for someone to organize a Journalism 101 Weekend Workshop for Bloggers. Let those bloggers who want to learn a little bit more about the “walk we walk” see what it's like.

These sorts of workshops would be helpful with a 'news you can use' approach; showing best practices, tips, and self-study or further reading lists.