— Musings —08.12.2015 02:24 AM
KCCCC Day 11: the campaign, measured in tweets
- Where’s the NDP war room? As I tweeted to the universe yesterday, I’ve so far seen plenty of evidence that the CPC and the LPC are taking strips out the NDP’s hide and more – but not much evidence indicating return fire. What gives? It’s not like they didn’t know a campaign was coming. It’s not like they don’t have the dough. So what’s the problem? They’d better fix it, and pronto – the somnambulist-style electioneering is having an effect.
- When “no neg” means “go neg”: As I recall, and as I also tweeted, Justin Trudeau repeatedly and solemnly promised never to go neg in this campaign. Fine. Me and others thought that was a big mistake, but whatever. Now, stuff like this is starting to seep out of the Liberal campaign. Personally, I think those anti-NDP spots are pretty darn good – but aren’t they now doing, you know, what Trudeau said he wouldn’t do?
- When you can’t throw the candidate under the bus…: Throw a whole province under the bus! Linda McQuaig’s nutty suggestion that we leave all that oil in the ground – and what are her campaign signs made of, anyway? – flatly contradicted what Angry Tom had been saying for two years. Now, however, NDP campaign staff say the controversy fault isn’t McQuaig’s – it’s the fault of Albertans. Great strategy there, Team Orange.
- The issue that isn’t: Remember how everyone was talking dope about dope, endlessly, two Summers ago? Remember how it was supposed to be a great big election issue? Well, er, it isn’t.
- I’m confused, as usual: Let’s do this logically. (a) Kathleen Wynne said, if elected, she’d put together a new pension plan. (b) She got elected, big time. (c) She started to put together a pension plan because she, you know, had a mandate from the people to do so. So how’d it become an election issue, with Conservatives who don’t have a mandate to kill Wynne’s pension plan? Beats me. Wynne’s only doing what she said she would do. That kind of thing used to matter, to Conservatives.
- Finally – take that, Messrs. Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau! In Ottawa, at least, I kick your ass on social media!
“Throw a whole province under the bus”. Exactly what Harper has done with Ontario. In fact, he is delighted to do so.
Hardly. Running against Kathleen Wynne is a deliberate strategy to *win* votes in Ontario.
Yeah, that’s why he gave billions and billions to bail out Ontario’s auto industry. For starters. Get a grip.
On the pension plan, it’s a VERY significant power play.
It’s about financial independence for the province of Ontario, which the federal Cons are not fans of. The more we collect here (Ontario) for Ontarians, the less dependent we are on decisions from Parliament Hill and the CPP. It’s essentially what Alberta’s fund was all about (until the Cons destroyed it). An Ontario-funded pension could potentially have a mandate of considering Ontario ventures and companies first before looking outside the border, balanced with a mandate of maximizing ROI.
In the past, the CPP has been significantly over-weighted in resource stocks, including oil, mining and other related industries, benefiting resource dependent provinces (eg. Alberta). A forward-looking Ontario can instead invest in renewable projects, technology companies and other ‘local’ businesses that benefit the people of Ontario.
Even though I personally find the attacks embarrassing for Stephen Harper, the federal Cons have made it an election issue because (a) they can easily describe it as a tax, (b) it distracts from their complete failure to manage the economy as they pretend they do and (c) they are attacking Liberals in the process. People tend not to differentiate between provincial and federal politics, so it’s an easy win for the Cons.
Liam you are delusional. This has nothing to do with the Conservatives trying to ‘enslave’ Ontario. Ontario has the constitutional right to impose any tax or ‘pension plan’ it so chooses. What it doesn’t have the right to do is to get other provinces to pay for the administration of said tax or ‘pension plan’. BTW the Alberta Heritage fund was a boondoggle from the get go. It is not now nor never was any kind of pension fund nor was it intended to enhance Alberta’s independence. It was a meant to be a political slush fund that could be used to buy political favours. What’s more it worked.
The CPP isn’t mandated to help companies in one province vs another, or even Canadian companies vs. foreign ones.
The CPP has this mandate:
“Our mandate is set out in legislation. It states that:
• We invest in the best interests of CPP contributors and beneficiaries.
• We have a singular objective: to maximize long-term investment returns without undue risk, taking into account the factors that may affect the funding of the Canada Pension Plan and its ability to meet its financial obligations.
• We provide cash management services to the Canada Pension Plan so that they can pay benefits.”
If an Ontario Pension Plan is to be successful at all, it must have a similar mandate. If it has anything other than the interests of all its beneficiaries as part of its mandate, then it will in fact become what it’s detractors claim – a roundabout way of collecting money to fund targeted Ontario pet projects.
Now regarding Wynne’s mandate and Harper’s mandate… I guess they’re reading very different polls about the popularity of an Ontario PP? Maybe the new pension plan has lower popularity in the specific Ontario ridings targeted by the CPC, and they don’t give a damn about the rest?
“Linda McQuaig’s nutty suggestion that we leave all that oil in the ground”
I and others pointed out that McQuaig is correct. We may have a leave a lot of oil in the ground if we are going to reach our global warming goals. If anything saying “may” wasn’t strong enough. Not unexpectedly, the global warming deniers disagreed, but I don’t think anyone else did.
One could say it wasn’t a wise communication strategy to state this particular truth, but I don’t think it is fair to call it nutty.
War Room: I think the NDP thought that they would have done far better and Trudeau far worse during the debates (enough that there would be something they could use at least), so they’re trying to find something else to use for their attacks (such as using old CPC talking points).
On “No Neg”: I believe the point was not to go negative in a personal way. Attacking policies and the way they are presented is fair game. Nothing out of context, nothing about hair
On throwing candidates under busses: What’s interesting is how they throw one candidate under the bus for, three years ago, indirectly talking about how certain people discuss Israel, but defend to the death the fellow who was directly pro-Intafada 25 years ago. I guess there is a calculation involving time and the closeness of the association with ‘offending’ remarks to result in one being tossed and the other not.
On MJ: Probably didn’t have to be an issue, but the CPC have doubled down with Harper’s recent anti-drug announcemnt, so it will at least be talked about a bit during the election.
On Wynne: To be fair, Kathleen did fire the first salvo during the election. And she isn’t being particularly clear on how things are supposed to work. Note that even those on the left that previously supported it during her election win, are now having reservations (related to exceptions that make it less likely to align with the CPP). There are likely people quite receptive to Harpers combative stance. Of course, I’m not sure he should have said anything about Notley’s Alberta, given she has been trying mightily to stay out of the fray (to the point as to not even campaign for Mulcair).
Actually, it was Morgan Wheeldon who resigned. It’s not at all clear that this was because of pressure from the NDP HQ, as far as I know.
That was the initial story (that Wheeldon resigned) but he’s starting to give interviews to counter the possibility that he could be tarnished by the anti-semite brush. He’s mentioned that he was forced to resign.
Here is a more recent HuffPo story on the subject: Morgan Wheeldon Speaks Out About Being Forced To Resign As NDP Candidate (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/08/11/morgan-wheeldon-ndp-candidates-israel_n_7973876.html)
Thanks for the link. I stand corrected!
“aren’t they now doing, you know, what Trudeau said he wouldn’t do?”
Well, at least he’s keeping the pledge to hold open nominations, right?