Month: January 2006

My colleague Robert Fife is reporting that Frank McKenna will not run to lead the Liberal Party of Canada. McKenna had announced last week that he would resign his post as Canada’s Ambassador to the United States. McKenna had been appointed, of course, by the Paul Martin government and, with Stephen Harper taking over as Prime Minister next week, McKenna thought he would be less effective as ambassador.

McKenna is a former premier of New Brunswick and was widely seen as the front runner to replace Martin, who annnounced on election night he was going to step down.

 

A senior Conservative strategist circulated the following Top Ten list e-mail on the Saturday before the federal election on Monday, January 23. The result of the election, of course, was a narrow Conservative minority government.

THE LIBERALS’ TOP TEN SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS

10. Billions in pre-campaign announcements.

9. Free ride for Harper before Christmas.

8. Beer & Popcorn and the Klander Komics

7. Dissing Charest & attempting to “Referendize” the campaign in Quebec.

6. Buzz Off: Strategic voting/Harper as separatist.

5. Notwithstanding.

4. “We’re not making this up.”

3. Great battle plan for last war: Expected Harper to be negative/lunatics rampant

2. All tactics, no strategy.

1. The Liberals brought a knife to a gunfight.

Just about every day, Sean McCormack (left), spokesman for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, holds a Q & A session with reporters who cover the State Department or who have a specific interest in the relationship between the U.S. and one or more countries in the world. And so it was that, at his briefing on Jan. 24, McCormack was asked about the results of the Canadian federal election. The transcript — provided by the State Department — of his remarks follows below. Nothing earth-shattering in it but an interesting exchange nonetheless:

QUESTION: Change of subject? Any parting words for Paul Martin?

 MR. MCCORMACK: You caught me off guard there for a second.

 QUESTION: He's not dead. But he's gone.

 MR. MCCORMACK: Shocking. You know, the Canadian elections have taken place. The
 Canadian people have spoken, and the — I believe that there's going to be a
 new government in Canada led by Mr. Harper. We look forward to working with Mr.
 Harper and his government, just as we would look forward to working with all —
 any Canadian government. Canada is a good friend, a good friend and ally, and
 we look forward to strengthening our already strong bonds, and that we
 certainly wish Mr. Martin well. I believe that he's going to continue to
 participate in political life. We had a good working relationship with the
<!–D(["mb","  Prime Minister. The Secretary went to Ottawa just a short time ago, a couple
 months ago. She had good meetings with him there. And that certainly his voice
 will continue to be heard in Canada.

 QUESTION: But the new government is already — has already spoken openly about
 trying to improve relations with the United States, not that they\'re not great,
 but that of course you can always improve, right? So is that something that you
 believe will happen, that these already strong bonds will be strengthened with
 Mr. Harper\'s arrival?

 MR. MCCORMACK: You know, again, we look forward to working with — working with
 the new government. If there are opportunities to work on areas, resolve areas
 of disagreement, of course we look forward to doing that. That\'s something that
 we worked with Prime Minister Martin\'s government on as well. In any
 relationship that\'s this close and this important, you\'re going to have areas
 of disagreement. We talk in an open manner about those areas of disagreement.
 We talk in an atmosphere of mutual respect about those areas of disagreement.

 And I expect that over the coming months and years there are going to be issues
 which we can work well with the Canadian Government on and there are going to
 be areas where we continue to have differences. So we\'ll see. We look forward
 to working with Mr. Harper\'s government and look forward to building on the
 already strong foundation that we have.

 QUESTION: Do you think the missile defense question may be reopened under a
 Harper government?

 MR. MCCORMACK: We\'ll see. We think that, you know, our views — our views on
 missile defense cooperation are well known. If it\'s something that the Canadian
 Government wants to talk about, I think of course we\'d be open to talking about
“,1]);//–> Prime Minister. The Secretary went to Ottawa just a short time ago, a couple
 months ago. She had good meetings with him there. And that certainly his voice
 will continue to be heard in Canada.

 QUESTION: But the new government is already — has already spoken openly about
 trying to improve relations with the United States, not that they're not great,
 but that of course you can always improve, right? So is that something that you
 believe will happen, that these already strong bonds will be strengthened with
 Mr. Harper's arrival?

 MR. MCCORMACK: You know, again, we look forward to working with — working with
 the new government. If there are opportunities to work on areas, resolve areas
 of disagreement, of course we look forward to doing that. That's something that
 we worked with Prime Minister Martin's government on as well. In any
 relationship that's this close and this important, you're going to have areas
 of disagreement. We talk in an open manner about those areas of disagreement.
 We talk in an atmosphere of mutual respect about those areas of disagreement.

 And I expect that over the coming months and years there are going to be issues
 which we can work well with the Canadian Government on and there are going to
 be areas where we continue to have differences. So we'll see. We look forward
 to working with Mr. Harper's government and look forward to building on the
 already strong foundation that we have.

 QUESTION: Do you think the missile defense question may be reopened under a
 Harper government?

 MR. MCCORMACK: We'll see. We think that, you know, our views — our views on
 missile defense cooperation are well known. If it's something that the Canadian
 Government wants to talk about, I think of course we'd be open to talking about
<!–D(["mb","  it.

 QUESTION: Would you initiate that in any way or ask for a reconsideration?

 MR. MCCORMACK: I\'m not sure that it\'s something that we would raise. I think we
 certainly remain open to talking about that as well as other issues.

 Yes.

 QUESTION: President Bush will meet on Friday with Lebanon member of parliament
 Saad Hariri. Is Secretary Rice expecting to meet with Mr. Hariri and can you
 tell us anything about this visit and the timing of it?

 MR. MCCORMACK: I believe — I have to check her schedule, but I believe she is
 going to be meeting with him. I\'ll double-check that for you.

 QUESTION: Okay. Can I have one more question?

 MR. MCCORMACK: Mm-hmm.

 QUESTION: President Assad of Syria gave an important speech, I think last
 Friday, and he said he will not allow any demarcation of borders between Syria
 and Lebanon because this will serve the interests of Israel. And another issue,
 he said that he will not accept giving an interview to the UN investigating
 team in the assassination of Hariri because the sovereignty of Syria, as he
 said, is more important than or beyond any resolution from the Security
 Council. Do you have any reaction to this?

 MR. MCCORMACK: Well, on the second of those, 1636, which compels Syria to
 cooperate with the UNIIC investigation, is a Chapter 7 resolution. What that
 means is it is required — it\'s not optional — for states under Chapter 7
 resolutions to comply with the terms of those resolutions. We continue to urge
 Syria to comply with all aspects of 1636 an
d 1595. To date, they have not fully
 cooperated. That is, I believe, a source of disappointment, shall I say, among
 the members of the international community.

 Syria has also failed to comply with all aspects of Resolution 1559. There was
“,1]);//–> it.

 QUESTION: Would you initiate that in any way or ask for a reconsideration?

 MR. MCCORMACK: I'm not sure that it's something that we would raise. I think we
 certainly remain open to talking about that as well as other issues.

 Yes.

Google Inc. is coming under fire in some quarters for agreeing to tailor  — censor, is the operative word for some — its services so that they do not offend the government of China. China is the world’s second largest Internet market and Google is keen to be a part of that market:

Google said on Tuesday it will block politically sensitive terms on its new China search site and not offer e-mail, chat and blog publishing services, which authorities fear can become flashpoints for social or political protest. Those actions go further than many of its biggest rivals in China.

“I didn't think I would come to this conclusion—but eventually I came to the conclusion that more information is better, even if it is not as full as we would like to see,” Brin told Reuters in an interview in Switzerland.

Google, whose high-minded corporate motto is “Don't be evil,” had previously refused to comply with Internet censorship demands by Chinese authorities, rules that must be met in order to locate business operations inside China—the world's No. 2 Internet market. [ Source: Reuters via PC Magazine, Jan. 26, 2006]

To illustrate the “information distortions” that Google is allowing as it seeks to expand in China, Sidney Karin, director emeritus at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, takes a look at the results returned when you search for images with a “tiananmen” tag at Google China and compares that to the results you get with the identical search at the Google everyone else in the world uses. Remarkable.

The syntax, incidentally, is nearly identical for both searches but a different Google server is being queried each time.

The syntax for Google China:
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen

The synatx for Google everyone else:
http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen

Oddly enough though, as Sam Smith points out, the query returns identical results, regardless of the server, if you capitalize Tiananmen.

These results seemed identical at 6:30 pm EDT on Jan. 29:

The syntax for Google China:
http://images.google.cn/images?q=Tiananmen

The synatx for Google everyone else:
http://images.google.com/images?q=Tiananmen

Google’s senior policy counsel Andrew McLaughlin tries to explain the rationale behind the company’s decision. “Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population, however, does so far more severely,” McLaughline writes.

 

“…according to [our] polls, there is no stigma associated with Stalin today. In fact, many Russians hold ambivalent or even positive views of him. For example, one-quarter or more of Russian adults say they would definitely or probably vote for Stalin were he alive and running for president, and less than 40 percent say they definitely would not. A majority of young Russians, moreover, do not view Stalin — a man responsible for millions of deaths and enormous suffering — with the revulsion he deserves. Although Stalinism per se is not rampant in Russia today, misperceptions about the Stalin era are. Few of the respondents to our surveys could be classified as hard-core Stalinists, but fewer still are hard-core anti-Stalinists. Most Russians, in other words, flunk the Stalin test.”

From “Failing the Stalin Test”
Sarah E. Mendelson and Theodore P. Gerber
From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006

The Airbus A319 carrying Conservative leader Stephen Harper in seat A-1 has
just touched down in Calgary.
Earlier in the campaign, journalists had dubbed the plane Mr. Happy's Flying
Circus. It was meant to be an ironic recognition of the early Liberal
strategy of painting Harper as too angry to be PM.
And yet, if the latest polls hold, we will be flying back to Ottawa Tuesday
with someone in A-1 who truly is Mr. Happy.
Harper headquarters will be the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary.
Harper himself has already voted — he did the deed back in Ottawa —
mailing in his ballot at a post office box near Stornaway.
Laureen Harper, however, has not voted and will do so at 2:45 pm. That will
be the last we'll see of the couple today until the time comes for his
concession or victory speech.
An exciting day, to be sure, for political junkies. I just wish I didn't
wake up this morning with a whopper of a cold.
DAVID AKIN
————————–
CELL: +1 613 220 7935
Blog:
http://david-akin.electionblog.ctv.ca
Full contact info:
http://www.davidakin.com

The campaign is over for Stephen Harper. He closed out his rally speech and
his campaign with these words:
“Stand up for Canada! Thank you very much for your effort! Merci beaucoup!”
The Harper campaign will spend the night in Vancouver and then fly to
Calgary. The plan right now is for wheels up at Vancouver at 1030 Pacific
on Monday and wheels down in Calgary at 1300 Mountain time.
DAVID AKIN
————————–
CELL: +1 613 220 7935
Blog:
http://david-akin.electionblog.ctv.ca
Full contact info:
http://www.davidakin.com

We are in a community centre in Sydney, B.C., near Victoria. There are over
1,000 in the room.
The races on Vancouver Island will be tight ones and mostly between the NDP
and the Conservatives. Gary Lunn, John Duncan, and James Lunney are the
three Conservative incumbents. Duncan and Lunney are in tough, particularly,
against NDP challengers.
Jack Layton has campaigned extensively here and in B.C. over the last week
and it shows in the polls with growing support.
It's a balmy +7 C here. Some of us are in shirtsleeves.
DAVID AKIN
————————–
CELL: +1 613 220 7935
Blog:
http://david-akin.electionblog.ctv.ca
Full contact info:
http://www.davidakin.com

Howler of the campaign so far came tonight in St. Catharines where more than 1,200 people (that's right — 1,200 in St. Catharines!) heard Harper lead off a section of his standard stump speech with this line …

“As you listen to the misquotes and misinformation that will spew out of Mr. Martin's office and out of his ass …”

Or at least that's what everyone heard. It brought the house down. Even Harper's wife Laureen, standing on stage beside him, started giggling.

Now if you listen closely to the tape, he actually said:

“As you listen to the misquotes and misinformation that will spew out of Mr. Martin's offce and out of his ads.”

He seemed, though, to drop the 'd' in “ads” and it came out “ats.”

Harper himself didn't seem to realize what he almost said and after a brief pause where he seemed a little confused at the reaction the line got, continued on hammering away at Paul Martin — and his ads.

 

The New Democratic Party has just issued a press release saying that the NDP candidate in the British Columbia riding of Abbotsbord, Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson (left), was offered a bribe by the Liberal candidate in that riding to withdraw from the race.

I have asked the Liberal War Room to respond to this accusation but, at 12:49 pm, do not yet have anything. I will post something as soon as I have it.

This is the riding that was held by Conservative Randy White. White is retiring and is not running for re-election.

Thank you to all who sent in links to the sworn affidavit.

Here is an excerpt from that affidavit written by NDP candidate Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson and filed with Elections Canada. Hansen-Carlson is describing a meeting he had with Abbotsford Liberal candidate Dave Oliver (pictured left) and Gordy (possibly Gurdip) Kahlon, the Liberal campaign manager.

The meeting was a private one held at the Liberal candidate’s office:

“I was shocked when Mr. Khalon spoke, “I hear you have civic aspirations?” Immediately I knew the meeting was set up to bribe me, but for what I was not sure. In the November 2005 Local General Election I ran for Abbotsford City Council, unsuccessfully.

As the conversation progressed I gathered from Mr. Oliver and Mr. Khalon that they felt the race was so tight between the Liberals and Conservatives in Abbotsford that if the Liberals could some how gain a couple thousand NDP votes they would win the riding.

They requested from me a statement to the press, to my supporters and volunteer, which would be a directive to support the Liberals out of fear of what the Conservatives will do to our community and our country, based on the assumption that the NDP is not a big player in this riding.

If I was to sell out the NDP they guaranteed me a win in the next local general election and they also said a job in Ottawa would be waiting for me if Mr. Oliver did in fact win the riding. They also discussed that I would be a “hero”, that the option to join the Liberal Party would always be there, and that they would be prepared to bill this political move as being my own, to net me even more respect from within the Liberal ranks.”

The complete affidavit is online at: http://www.ccnmatthews.com/docs/npdstat.pdf

Here is the NDP press release:

NDP Files Complaint With Elections Canada: Abbotsford BC Liberal Candidate
Alleged to Have Offered Bribe to NDP Candidate

OTTAWA, ONTARIO–(CCNMatthews – Jan. 13, 2006) – The NDP has written to
Elections Canada requesting an investigation into allegations that the Liberal
candidate in Abbotsford, B.C., offered the NDP candidate in that riding a bribe
in exchange for dropping out of the race, NDP Federal Secretary Eric Hebert
said today.

The NDP candidate, Jeffery Hansen – Carlson, submitted a notarized statement
federal NDP headquarters that outlines a meeting he had with the Liberal
candidate and campaign manager on the evening of January 10. That sworn
statement is attached, along with a copy of Hebert's letter.

“Mr. Hansen-Carlson's statement contains troubling information about Liberal
Party actions that we believe to be contrary to the Canada Elections Act, and
we had a responsibility to the voters in Abbotsford-and, indeed, voters
throughout the country-to formally ask Elections Canada to investigate,” said
Hebert.

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

OTTAWA
January 12, 2006

Mr. Raymond Lavigne
Commissioner for Elections Canada
257 Slater St.
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0M6

Mr. Lavigne,

It has just been brought to my attention that on the evening of
January 10th, 2005 the Liberal campaign in Abbotsford requested a
meeting with our candidate in that electoral district.

Please find attached a notarized statement by our candidate Jeffrey
Hansen-Carlson of the events that took place. At this meeting a
proposal was made which appears to be in contravention of section 481
(1) of the Election Act

481. (1) Every person is guilty of an offence who, during an
election period, directly or indirectly offers a bribe to
influence an elector to vote or refrain from voting or to vote or
refrain from voting for a particular candidate.

This allegation is a very serious matter, and questions the integrity
of the Liberal campaign and could involve a serious breach of the Act
governing the electoral process in Canada. I urge you to investigate
this matter as soon as possible.

If I can be of any assistance in these matters, please do not
hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely yours,

Eric Hebert
Federal Secretary, New Democratic Party of Canada