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Yes, the government is still the government.

Yes, the Official Opposition is still the Official Opposition.

Yes, the turnout was low.

Yes, nothing really changed.

Yes, the punditocracy reads too much into by-elections.

But, but, but: four by-elections happening on one day is nothing to shrug about. And, if you poke through the entrails, there is a warning to be seen.

For the Conservatives.

We know, we know: the Tories crushed the People’s Party leader, Maxime “Max” Bernier in Portage-Lisgar. Pierre Poilievre’s candidate got three times as many votes as Bernier.

Big deal. Bernier and the PPC have never won a seat in the House of Commons, not once, in hundreds of individual attempts since the PPC was formed half a decade ago.

Besides: Poilievre’s problem was never Bernier, now fading into nothingness in his rear view mirror. His problem is the guy on the road up ahead of him – Justin Trudeau.

It’s dumb to read too much into by-election results. Sure. But, stretching back to December’s Mississauga-Lakeshore result – where the Liberal vote went up, the Tory vote went down, and the dastardly Grits won – a worrying trend is developing for Conservatives.

The trend, which continued in this week’s by-elections, is this: the Liberal vote share went up, and the Conservative vote dropped. On by-election voting day, when it really counts, Trudeau’s Grits have outpaced Poilievre”s Tories.

Yes, yes: media polls continue to show Poilievre’s team ahead. But media polls are generally worth what you pay for them – nothing. Dogs, as former Conservative leader John Diefenbaker famously noted, “are the one animal that knows the proper treatment to give” to poles and polls.

The Tory base, who typically swoon at the mention of Pierre Poilievre’s name, don’t want to hear any of this. They’ll swarm the comments section of this column, wherever it appears, bleating that by-elections don’t matter, their guy held their two seats, blah blah blah. The usual.

But the reality is this: against the worst Liberal leader in generations – against a Liberal Party that has been adrift in a sea of scandal and controversies for months – the Poilievre party (because that is what it is) is not winning on the ground.

Don’t take our word for it. Former Conservative Erin O’Toole quit politics this month, too, and passed along  some truths that every Tory should heed, but few will. Tories, said O’Toole last week, “have to win more votes in suburban and urban Canada.”

This week, following the four by-elections, O’Toole’s former chief was more direct. Longtime Tory stalwart Fred DeLorey was succinct: “What the heck is going on?”

As in, why has the Liberal vote increased, and the Conservative vote decreased, in multiple by-election results? There are a lot of “red flags” in the by-election numbers, said DeLorey to Postmedia, adding: “by-elections are strong indicators of where things are going…How are we going to win this election?”

O’Toole and DeLorey are good soldiers, and hasten to add that they support Pierre Poilievre and want him to beat Justin Trudeau and become Prime Minister. So do millions of Conservative voters.

But right now, based upon the available real-world evidence, Poilievre isn’t doing that. He isn’t winning when it matters.

His problem remains now what it has been since he became leader: Poilievre is beloved by the Tory base.

But the Tory base, increasingly, is out of touch with the country, with the cities and the ‘burbs.

And that’s why the real-world Liberal vote has been going up, and the Conservative vote has gone down.

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Want to protect classified government documents?

Tuck them in old bound volumes of legislative committee proceedings. Nobody will ever find and read them, guaranteed.

Unfortunately, however, people in government have a bizarre fetish for stamping every document SECRET or TOP SECRET in bold red letters at the top. Which presumably makes the person doing the stamping feel important.

And which all but guarantees the TOP SECRET document that isn’t really TOP SECRET will always get read first.

And, sometimes, kept.

That was Donald Trump’s dilemma, Tuesday afternoon, as his entourage piloted their way to Miami’s federal courthouse for his arraignment: he had succumbed to the seductive power of TOP SECRET-stamped documents. He had taken some 13,000 government documents when he was kicked out of the Oval Office, prosecutors allege, and more than 300 of them bore classified markings. Like TOP SECRET.

Trump’s problem isn’t that he was sloppy with allegedly sensitive government information. No less than Hillary Clinton did likewise, a few years back, and she was admonished by the FBI for “extremely careless handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

The former President’s problem is this: he took secret stuff with him when he left town, and he hid them all when politely asked to send back the secret stuff. Hell, Trump even – prosecutors say – hid his stash of classified documents in gilded bathrooms and ballrooms and bedrooms at his Mar-a-Lago compound from his own lawyer. His own lawyer!

Why? Why would he (allegedly) do something so deeply, profoundly dumb as that?

It could be that he actually believed he had already declassified them by “thinking about it,” which he has claimed presidents can do. It could be that he was convinced that the obscure Presidential Records Act – which I guarantee you he has never read, and never will – permitted him to hold onto classified information.

Could be. More likely, methinks, is that holding onto those documents – many spilling out onto the floor of a Mar-a-Lago bathroom, photos of which were helpfully attached to the indictment on 37 counts – made him feel important. It made him feel powerful.

That, certainly, seems to be the legal theory of the taciturn federal prosecutor, Jack Smith, who previously worked at The Hague and squashed war criminals like they were June Bugs. That Trump – according to the indictment he grimly received on Tuesday afternoon – showed the classified documents to Mar-a-Lago guests and said: “See, as president, I could’ve declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

Still a secret.

Ouch. That’s mens rea and actus reus right there in two pithy sentences, folks: Trump allegedly admitted he took secrets, and he knew they were secret. Boom. Gotcha.

The prosecution Donald J. Trump is facing in Miami isn’t like the one he is facing in New York City. The latter is seamy and sordid, involving alleged hush payments to a whackadoodle porn star, and a novel legal theory that seeks to magically transform state misdemeanors into federal felonies. It’ll fail.

The Miami prosecution is very, very different. Most of the time, those caught stealing U.S. government information plead guilty, because the cases are virtually impossible to defend.

If Trump had sent the classified stuff back to Washington, it wouldn’t have mattered that it was more than two years after the fact. He would’ve gotten away with it, as Hillary Clinton did.

But Trump willfully – and, yes, allegedly – took steps to hide the fact that he had TOP SECRET stuff. That’s his big, big problem. Never the break in, always the cover up: it’s the cover up that always gets you. (Take note, Justin Trudeau.)

As he contemplates possibly running for President from a cot in a jail cell, Donald Trump may well finally understand one truth. It’ll make his predicament feel way worse.

Namely, most of the government documents always stamped SECRET?

They just aren’t.

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Dr. T. Douglas KINSELLA, CM, BA, MD, FACP, FRCPC.

Like some men, and as was the practice in some families, my brothers and I did not hug my father a lot. As we got older in places like Montreal, or Kingston, or Dallas or Calgary, we also did not tell him that we loved him as much as we did. With our artist Mom, there was always a lot of affection, to be sure; but in the case of my Dad, usually all that was exchanged with his four boys was a simple handshake, when it was time for hello or goodbye. It was just the way we did things.

There was, however, much to love about our father, and love him we did. He was, and remains, a giant in our lives – and he was a significant presence, too, for many of the patients whose lives he saved or bettered over the course a half-century of healing. We still cannot believe he is gone, with so little warning.

Thomas Douglas Kinsella was born on February, 15, 1932 in Montreal. His mother was a tiny but formidable force of nature named Mary; his father, a Northern Electric employee named Jimmy, was a stoic man whose parents came over from County Wexford, in Ireland. In their bustling homes, in and around Montreal’s Outremont, our father’s family comprised a younger sister, Juanita, and an older brother, Howard. Also there were assorted uncles – and foster siblings Bea, Ernie, Ellen and Jimmy.

When he was very young, Douglas was beset by rheumatic fever. Through his mother’s ministrations, Douglas beat back the potentially-crippling disease. But he was left with a burning desire to be a doctor.

Following a Jesuitical education at his beloved Loyola High School in Montreal, Douglas enrolled at Loyola College, and also joined the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps. It was around that time he met Lorna Emma Cleary, at a Montreal Legion dance in April 1950. She was 17 – a dark-haired, radiant beauty from the North End. He was 18 – and a handsome, aspiring medical student, destined for an officer’s rank and great things.

It was a love like you hear about, sometimes, but which you rarely see. Their love affair was to endure for 55 years – without an abatement in mutual love and respect.

On a hot, sunny day in June 1955, mid-way through his medical studies at McGill, Douglas and Lorna wed at Loyola Chapel. Then, three years after Douglas’ graduation from McGill with an MD, first son Warren was born.

In 1963, second son Kevin came along, while Douglas was a clinical fellow in rheumatism at the Royal Vic. Finally, son Lorne arrived in 1965, a few months before the young family moved to Dallas, Texas, to pursue a research fellowship. In the United States, Douglas’ belief in a liberal, publicly-funded health care system was greatly enhanced. So too his love of a tolerant, diverse Canada.

In 1968, Douglas and his family returned to Canada and an Assistant Professorship in Medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston. More than 35 years later, it was at Kingston General Hospital – in the very place where Douglas saved so many lives – that his own life would come to a painless end in the early hours of June 15, 2004, felled by a fast-moving lung cancer.

Kingston was followed in 1973 by a brief return to Montreal and a professorship at McGill. But an unstable political environment – and the promise of better research in prosperous Alberta – persuaded the family to journey West, to Calgary.

There Lorna and Douglas would happily remain for 25 years, raising three sons – and providing legal guardianship to grandson Troy, who was born in 1982. At the University of Calgary, and at Foothills Hospital, Douglas would achieve distinction for his work in rheumatology, immunology and – later – medical bioethics.

He raised his boys with one rule, which all remember, but none observed as closely as he did: “Love people, and be honest.” His commitment to ethics, and healing – and his love and honesty, perhaps – resulted in him being named a Member of the Order of Canada in 1995.

On the day that the letter arrived, bearing Governor-General Romeo LeBlanc’s vice-regal seal, Douglas came home from work early – an unprecedented occurence – to tell Lorna. It was the first time I can remember seeing him cry.

As I write this, I am in a chair beside my father’s bed in a tiny hospital room in Kingston, Ont.,where he and my mother returned in 2001 to retire. It is night, and he has finally fallen asleep.

My father will die in the next day or so, here in the very place where he saved lives. He has firmly but politely declined offers of special treatment – or even a room with a nicer view of Lake Ontario.

Before he fell asleep, tonight, I asked him if he was ready. “I am ready,” he said. “I am ready.”

When I leave him, tonight, this is what I will say to him, quietly: “We all love you, Daddy. We all love you forever.”

[Warren Kinsella is Douglas Kinsella’s eldest son. His father died two nights later.]

[From Globe’s Lives Lived, June 15, 2004.]

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Reason over passion.

Pierre Trudeau become famous for that one. Some academics claim that Trudeau actually said “reason before passion,” but it doesn’t really matter. The sentiment is clear.

Namely, that we should always be rational. Not emotional.

It was a nice sentiment, and one that people liked at the time. But it described a far-away world that we all aspire to live in. And not, you know, the world in which we actually do.

Because, down here on planet Earth, people continue to make a lot of important political decisions based on passion and their gut. Not reason, and certainly not intellect.

The most successful politicians understand this the best. Ontario Premier Doug Ford is one of them.

Earlier this week, when asked about the certifiably-insane decision to move convicted child murderer in Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison, Ford said this:

“He’s nothing but a scumbag. This SOB needs to be in jail 23 hours a day. As a matter of fact, I’d go one step further – that one hour he’s out, he should be in general population. That’s what should happen to this SOB.”

In effect, Ford was likely calling for Bernardo to be killed. That’s what often happens when “skins” – sex offenders – get placed with other inmates. They get killed.

“Visceral and vituperative,” the Toronto Star’s editorial board sniffed, alliteratively. Ford was “bellowing,” the Star tut-tutted.

Elsewhere in the pages of the Toronto Star, someone with the John Howard Society – an organization that advocates for prisoners – said that “public hatred of a prisoner should not justify harsher confinement.”

Similarly, a bureaucrat who formerly oversaw the federal prison system told the Star that such prison transfers “should not be based on revenge… we, as a country, gave up torture quite a while ago.”

See that? If you are upset about a man who raped and tortured children being sent to an “open campus model” prison – well, you are a vengeful, visceral and vituperative monster who favors torture.

As such, you’re probably opposed to Bernardo getting “stress management training” at his new home. They offer that there. (More family visits and “recreation and leisure time,” too.)

So, the Toronto Star editorial board and some special interest types are okay with Paul Bernardo getting a nicer place to rest his head at night. But I’ll wager most Canadians aren’t. When pressed, most of them probably side with Doug Ford.

That’s because politicians like Ford are better at what political consultants call “the values proposition.” That is, when discussing values – hopes, fears, the ineffable stuff of life and death – conservative-minded politicians do better. Progressive politicians get tongue-tied.

A few years ago, for my book Fight the Right, I predicted that the Tea Party movement would take over the Republican Party. And that the Tea Party’s erstwhile leader, Donald Trump, would become a lot more powerful as a result.

Ironically, some Democratic Party thinkers agreed with me.

Stanley B. Greenberg, a US pollster who was married to a Democratic Party congresswoman, noted that “voters are generally turning to conservative and right-wing political parties, most notably in Europe and in Canada.” Why?

Because, he said, voters believe “government operates by the wrong values and rules, for the wrong people and purposes. The people I’ve surveyed believe the government rushes to help the irresponsible, and does little for the responsible.”

Another notable American progressive, Geoffrey Nunberg, agreed. Said he: “The Right is better at values. The Right has a natural advantage, in the modern context, because a lot of the issues they are promoting are emotional issues.” Canadian progressives, like American progressives, Nunberg told me, are basically “clueless” on the values stuff.

Which is why Doug Ford hasn’t really experienced much blowback about his comments on Paul Bernardo’s fate. Because progressives know, deep in their beating (and bleeding) hearts, that anyone who rapes and tortures and murders children on video has forfeited his life. Period.

So, sorry, Mr. Trudeau. Reason over passion is fine.

But Paul Bernardo still deserves an hour in general population.

And most of us would be there to cheer. Passionately.

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David Johnston’s astonishing decision – to conclude that Canada does not need an inquiry into Chinese interference in our democracy – will be remembered for what it doesn’t do, not what it does.

Here are the five things it doesn’t do.

One, it won’t enhance David Johnston’s reputation. At all. Before Tuesday, the former Governor-General enjoyed a pretty stellar reputation. Honorary degrees, Order of Canada, decades of public service.

And then, on Tuesday, Johnston shredded all of that with a decision that validates everyone who questioned whether Johnston was the right person for the job – because of conflicts of interest, because of his position with the Trudeau Foundation, because of his long friendship with the very Liberal leader whose conduct needs to be examined. Johnston will now forever be known not for the good things he did in his life – but for this appalling, shocking decision at the end of it.

Two: Johnston’s abdication of responsibility won’t stop the torrent of leaks about China’s willingness to maul our democratic institutions. In fact, it’ll do the reverse: it’ll lead to even more leaks.

The CSIS agents – and others – who have been providing the media with details about the Chinese regime’s crimes haven’t been doing so for their health. They’ve been doing so at great risk – to their careers and to their liberty. And they’ve obviously done so to prod the Canadian government into taking action to counter the Chinese threat.

Johnston’s ghastly report will give the Trudeau Liberals the pretext they wanted to continue to cover up this scandal. But it won’t stop the bleeding. The leaks will continue to happen, and they will get worse. Johnston will have made things immeasurably worse for the government he clearly set out to protect.

Three, it won’t improve public opinion. It’ll make Canadians angrier, and more willing to lash out at the Trudeau regime.

Months ago, polls showed self-identifying Liberals wanted the same thing Conservative partisans did: a public inquiry. China’s belligerence and thuggery had done something that very rarely happens: united the public.

In these divided and disputations times, it is harder and harder to find consensus on any public policy issue. China’s interference in our democracy is the exception. David Johnson had an opportunity to take advantage of that unprecedented degree of consensus. And he blew it.

Four, Johnston’s terrible, horrible decision will not deter the news media from pursuing the story. That is particularly the case now that Johnson has adopted the Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump approach, and labeled those of us in the media as purveyors of “false news.”

That tactic did not work for Justin Trudeau in the SNC Lavalin or WE charity scandals, and it has not worked for Donald Trump – ever. Calling the media liars, as David Johnston effectively has done, will simply force the media to work even harder to prove that he is wrong.

Fifth and finally: Johnston’s decision will not satisfy our allies, who have become increasingly unhappy with the way Canada is dealing with a real and manifest threat to Western interests. And, most of all, it will not make the story go away. It just won’t.

An unhappy intelligence establishment. An unhappy voting public. An unhappy media. All will combine to ensure that this story continues to fill the front pages of newspapers, until someone in power does the right thing.

Whatever the opposition parties do now – and one of those things must be shutting down Parliament until an inquiry happens – is almost secondary. This issue is not going away. It is not disappearing.

But David Johnston should.

For good.

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