Month: June 2008

Today is a key date so far as the financing goes for those who ran for the Liberal leadership. Those leadership contestants must have either paid off their debts today or filed some details with Elections Canada about the nature of their outstanding debts and provide a plan and a timeline to pay off those debts.

Some leadership contestants, notably the guy who won, Stephane Dion, have not yet paid off their debts. The Liberal's political opponents believe there is some hay to be made of this fact. You may soon see, in fact, some political advertising from the Conservatives or others about this fact.

The Liberals put out their own press release today trying to undo some of the spin they expect their opponents to foist upon reporters and the public.

Here are two scrums in the House of Commons foyer today from those opponents. One is Pierre Poilievre (click on the image left to view the scrum), the Ottawa-area Conservative MP who is also the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board. You'll notice in Polievre's scrum that he is sticking to his talking points, talking points which very much attack Dion. Reporters are keen to get Poilievre to more carefully explain or back up some of his statements but Polievre, by and large, does not do that.

NDP MP Pat Martin (click on the image right) takes a slightly different tact. He is attacking “loopholes” in election financing laws and believes Elections Canada itself is to blame. By inference, though, Martin is also attacking the Liberals but in a more roundabout way.

Technorati Tags: election finances, Pat Martin, Pierre Poilievre

Jennifer Stoddart, Canada's Privacy Commissioner, released her annual report [full report PDF | Press release] today and here is its thesis:

Too many data breaches are occurring because companies have ignored some of the most basic steps to protect personal information

But, as Stoddart herself has often complained, the federal privacy commissioner can do little to change that beyond telling us, year in, year out, that too many data breaches are happening. While it's true she can take serious cases to the Federal Court of Canada, the Privacy Commissioner rarely does that. Her biggest weapon to force compliance with federal privacy laws is the power of censure. Last week in Germany, there were plenty of cries for telecom giant Deutsche Telekom to be publicly censured:

FRANKFURT — Germany was engulfed in a national furor over threats to privacy on Monday, after an admission by Deutsche Telekom that it had surreptitiously tracked thousands of phone calls to identify the source of leaks to the news media about its internal affairs.

In a case that echoes the corporate spying scandal at Hewlett-Packard, Deutsche Telekom said there had been “severe and far-reaching” misuse of private data involving contacts between board members and reporters.

The disclosure, which was prompted by a report on Saturday on the Web site of the news magazine Der Spiegel set off a storm of protest from privacy advocates, journalists, and labor representatives at the company.

The German government, which effectively controls Deutsche Telekom through a 32 percent stake, demanded a thorough investigation, describing the spying operation as a “serious breach of trust.”… [Read the full story]

Technorati Tags: jennifer stoddart, privacy, deutsche telekom, data mining, surveillance, telecommunications

Alexa McDonough, left, a former leader of her party, says she has run her last election as the NDP candidate in Halifax:

“In my beloved city, in the very room I officially launched my political career 29 years ago, I am here today to announce I will not be running as a candidate in the next federal election, whenever that may be,” said McDonough.

“For almost 30 years, it has been my great privilege to serve the people of Halifax, the people of Nova Scotia, and, for 13 years as a federal parliamentarian, people throughout this vast and wonderful country,” said McDonough. “With vigour, enthusiasm, and conviction, I will continue until the next election as Member of Parliament for Halifax, and as NDP critic in whatever responsibilities are entrusted to me.”

“This is a pretty emotional moment for me. I am deeply indebted to the people of this great city and province for the trust they have placed in me again and again,” said McDonough. “However, I know this is the right decision. I don’t know if I can fully explain it but I know in my heart that it’s time. It’s the right time.”

Neat. This is an “official” photograph from the UK Prime MInister's Office. I've actually walked up those stairs when I was covering Harper's first visit to 10 Downing Street in 2006 (A Mr. T. Blair was the occupant at that time).
I believe the the photos you see lining the stairway are portraits of the various prime ministers that have occupied the house at 10 Downing since George II gave the place to Robert Walpole in 1732.

Writing in The New Yorker, George Packer takes a long look conservatism in the U.S. and wonders how Obama and McCain will affect the movements death and revival:

John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, … and his likely Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, “both embody a post-polarized, or anti-polarized, style of politics,” the Times columnist David Brooks told me. “McCain, crucially, missed the sixties, and in some ways he’s a pre-sixties figure. He and Obama don’t resonate with the sixties at all.” The fact that the least conservative, least divisive Republican in the 2008 race is the last one standing—despite being despised by significant voices on the right—shows how little life is left in the movement that Goldwater began, Nixon brought into power, Ronald Reagan gave mass appeal, Newt Gingrich radicalized, Tom DeLay criminalized, and Bush allowed to break into pieces. “The fact that there was no conventional, establishment, old-style conservative candidate was not an accident,” Brooks said. “Mitt Romney pretended to be one for a while, but he wasn’t. Rudy Giuliani sort of pretended, but he wasn’t. McCain is certainly not. It’s not only a lack of political talent—there’s just no driving force, and it will soften up normal Republicans for change.

…[Modern conservatism's] philosophical roots were older and deeper. It extended back to William F. Buckley, Jr.,’s mission statement, in the inaugural issue of National Review, in 1955, that the new magazine “stands athwart history, yelling Stop”; and to Goldwater’s seminal 1960 book, “The Conscience of a Conservative,” in which he wrote, “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones.” By the end of the century, a movement inspired by sophisticated works such as Russell Kirk’s 1953 “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot” churned out degenerate descendants with titles like “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must). . .

…Polls reveal that Americans favor the Democratic side on nearly every domestic issue, from Social Security and health care to education and the environment. The all-purpose Republican solution of cutting taxes has run its course. Frum writes, “There are things only government can do, and if we conservatives wish to be entrusted with the management of government, we must prove that we care enough about government to manage it well….

…Last year, National Review ran a cover article on global warming, which Lowry, like Brooks, Frum, and other conservatives, listed among the major issues of our time, along with wage stagnation and the breakdown of the family. Although the article, by Jim Manzi, proposed market solutions, the response among some readers, Lowry said, was “ ‘How dare you?’ A bunch of people out there don’t want to hear it—they believe it’s a hoax. That’s the head-in-the-sand response.” …

It being the first day of a new month, it's time to look back at the activity here for the last month. In May, more than 102,000 visitors dropped by, some just once, some several times. Regardless of the frequency of your visits, thanks for the interest.

And here are the posts that those 102,000 visitors in May found most interesting, as measured by their page views. The top 20 of of the 1,933 posts archived at this blog are ranked here from those with the most views in May to the least, with their original posting date in brackets.

1. Mercedes' SmartCar (Thu 20 Jan 2005 01:03 PM EST)
2. Apparently the sky was not the Liberal limit (Mon 05 May 2008 01:36 PM EDT)
3. Tories to accredit bloggers for convention (Mon 19 May 2008 05:46 PM EDT)
4. F-35 – Test Flight (Wed 10 Jan 2007 03:07 PM EST)
5. This is great: UK band puts state surveillance to good use (Wed 14 May 2008 06:38 PM EDT)
6. Why we spent billion on those four C-17s .. (Sat 03 May 2008 08:37 PM EDT)
7. David Steinhart (Fri 16 May 2008 04:04 PM EDT)
8. Conservatives clean up with fundraising (Thu 01 May 2008 03:52 PM EDT)
9. So tell me again: Why did we spend $3.4-billion on these things? (Fri 23 May 2008 10:08 AM EDT)
10. Bev Oda's limousine addiction (Thu 08 May 2008 07:21 AM EDT)
11. No Tories for you, Jennifer Smith (Wed 21 May 2008 10:16 PM EDT)
12. The TSX media centre (Thu 01 Apr 2004 10:38 AM EST)
13. The Hill anti-abortion rally (Thu 08 May 2008 12:50 PM EDT)
14. Ex-Minister Bernier (Mon 26 May 2008 08:12 PM EDT)
15. The RAF's C-17 Globemaster (Fri 11 Aug 2006 09:25 PM EDT)
16. Just get the stuff to Burma … (Tue 13 May 2008 11:04 PM EDT)
17. “Who is Gordon Brown?” (Sat 13 Oct 2007 05:33 PM EDT)
18. Goodale's factors for “a rationale for change” (Mon 05 May 2008 09:50 AM EDT)
19. Yer basic bare-knuckles, knock-'em-down Public Accounts Committee Meeting (Tue 13 May 2008 10:46 PM EDT)
20. Olberman: Why Sen. Clinton was wrong, a remarkable rant (Fri 23 May 2008 11:11 PM EDT)

David Runciman, writing in the London Review of Books, says the British media has been too “slow” with their coverage of the U.S. presidential primaries:

If nothing else, the existence of the internet has destroyed the claims of the mainstream media in Britain to be able to offer any insight into this election. The BBC, whose coverage of British politics looks increasingly lame, has been hopeless at Obama v. Clinton. It’s not enough any longer for a correspondent to paint some local colour about the weather or the quirks of the voting system before asking a seasoned observer from the New York Times or Washington Post to explain to a British audience what it all means. The seasoned observers no longer have even the appearance of a monopoly on wisdom. They are just shouting to be heard like everyone else.

Technorati Tags: blogs, journalism, david runciman, mainstream media

The British version of the account of the meeting between Prime Ministers Harper and Brown is on the British PM's Web site.

The Canadian version was distributed to reporters travelling with PM Harper during his visit to Europe and, as I was one of those reporters, I reproduce it below:

Prime Minister Harper met Prime Minister Brown at 10 Downing Street today where they discussed the forthcoming G8 Summit and a range of issues including the global economy; the international development agenda and Afghanistan.

They also discussed the environment and the Prime Minister's address earlier in the afternoon to the Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce on the theme of climate change.

As well, they agreed that the forthcoming Canada-EU Summit should see real progress on the Canada-EU economic agenda.

Shortly after that meeting concluded, Prime Minister Harper met with HM, Queen Elizabeth.

The British note, about the same meeting, is a bit different and gives more emphasis to Afghanistan. Brown's PR people says the issue of Zimbabwe was brought up; the Canadians made no such reference. Brown's people said there was discussion of the Millenium Development Goals.

These differences are important as we saw with Italy.
Shortly after Italian PM Sylvio Berlusconi met with Harper, Berlusconi put out a statement saying he would reconsider the caveats that are restricting Italian soldiers in Afghanistan.
But there was no word from PM Harper's communications people that they touched on this issue. Here is the note sent around to reporters after the Berlusconi meeting:

Prime Minister Harper met Prime Minister Berlusconi in Rome on May 28th. It was their first meeting.

The leaders had a long private meeting which spanned a variety issues and concerns common to both countries. As well they discussed the forthcoming G8 Summit.

Their meeting continued with an informal and wide-ranging discussion over dinner, which lasted two hours.

Coming only several weeks after Prime Minister Berlusconi assumed office, the meeting established a solid, open and friendly basis for the ongoing relationship between Canada and Italy.

The Toronto Star's Allan Woods, today, reports on the PMO Communications staff when they are abroad. You may wish to read that and reflect on the fact that you've just read the sum total of what Canada's prime minister had to officially say about two meetings with two NATO leaders.