A loonie boondoggle: Ostentation in a time of austerity

Jun 17th 2010 | Ottawa

FOR all his gifts as a political tactician, Stephen Harper, Canada’s Conservative prime minister, may have miscalculated how much Canadians want to pay to host the G8 and G20 summits from June 25th to 27th. As the government struggles to close a large budget deficit, it is spending C$1.2 billion ($1.2 billion) to host the world’s leaders-60% more than Japan, the previous record holder, coughed up for the G8 gathering in Okinawa in 2000.

Mr Harper points out that Canada is holding back-to-back summits-doubling the cost, he says. The government also notes that it can hardly be blamed for providing airtight security. It has built a steel fence around the woodland cottage resort at Muskoka that will receive the G8, and deployed special forces on overtime to lurk in the water and surrounding forest.

But critics counter that Mr Harper could have saved money by inviting the G20 to Muskoka as well, rather than receiving them separately in Toronto, 200 km (125 miles) to the south. Moreover, they note that much of the budget has gone on items of dubious utility and taste. The prime minister has become the butt of jokes for commissioning an artificial lake, complete with mock canoes and recordings of the call of the loon, for the G20 summit’s media centre-which sits just yards from the real Lake Ontario. In Muskoka taxpayers are on the hook for a refurbished steamboat that won’t even float until the summit is over, and new outdoor toilets 20km from the meeting site. So much for small government.

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• Norm Spector: “Personally, I’m with Mr. Chrétien on this one. Who better than he—having run successfully three times against a divided right—to understand that the division of the opposition vote, if it continues, will likely mean the election of a third consecutive Conservative government?”
• Brent Noiles: “Liberals shouldn’t summarily dismiss the NDP as a fringe party of socialist wing-nuts, and NDP members shouldn’t pretend they are so morally superior that they can’t co-operate with anyone but themselves. The combined arrogance must end. Instead of dismissing each other, their parties and their policies, the respective leaders might try rising above the small stuff for a change. A closer, more honest look might reveal there’s more that unites than divides.”
• Browne and Lang:  “Coalitions, governing accords, or other novel arrangements might not be the best option in the minds of many Canadian progressives — particularly Liberals who are used to winning government without making concessions to other parties. But new approaches might be the only option to forming a progressive government any time soon in light of these structural political trends.”

And that’s just this morning.

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This is wonderful news – and long, long overdue.

To celebrate, here’s a detail from Bill Reid’s extraordinary Spirit of Haida Gwaii sculpture – which you may have spotted at Vancouver’s airport, or the Canadian embassy in Washington, or (almost certainly, since 2004) on the back of a twenty dollar bill.  To me, he was the greatest Canadian artist.

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Here, my young Daisy colleague opines for CITY-TV.  Way to go, Rob!

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B.O.F., favourite of the bureaucrats, here, versus two super-smart women, here and here.

In my books, aways go with the latter.

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I first linked to PostSecret a few years ago, and it set off a huge response with the folks who come to this web site. It continues to be fascinating and sad and compelling.

I’m going to go black for a couple days – June 15 approaches – so best wishes to you and yours. Hug your parents.

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Former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow is ignoring the wishes of the Liberal and NDP leadership and forging ahead with attempts to bring the two parties closer together.

Mr. Romanow, who was the leader of the Sasketchewan NDP from 1987 to 2001 before heading a federal inquiry into health care, said in an interview that the idea of closer collaboration with the Liberal Party is “nothing new.”

“Even in the 1990s, when [Liberal leader Jean] Chrétien and I were in office, we would frequently discuss this,” he said.

Mr. Romanow urged the current leaders of the NDP and the Liberal Party to have the courage to “discuss new ideas.”

And…here.

And…here.

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There are tens of thousands of gallons of oil that continue to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, destroying the environment and peoples’ lives. Since April 20, as many as 100 million gallons have spewed into the sea – which, last time I checked, is a body of water that connects pretty much everyone.

By now – with the oil reaching throughout the gulf, and expectations that it will hit much of the Atlantic coast by Summer – it is apparent that BP is not doing nearly enough. President Obama made a mistake in assigning so much of the early responsibility for a fix to the company that created the problem in the first place.

Not surprisingly, BP’s net worth has plummeted, and many expect they cannot survive the calamity. That is a problem because their ability to cap the pipe, and clean up the mess, is directly linked to their financial position. At some point soon, BP will petition itself into bankruptcy protection and attempt to walk away.

That can’t be allowed to happen. At this stage, I think the U.S. government needs to seize BP assets – and take full control – to ensure that remediation efforts continue.

A petition to that effect is found here.

Sign it if you feel as I do.

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This and this. Oh, and this, spotted by a reporter friend.

Anyone know what I’m getting at?

Comments are open.

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A few years back, I had the pleasure to work for Kory Teneycke. He was an environmentalist back then, and I was working with a bunch of hardcore Conservatives.

It’s true. Kory was part of an outfit that was pushing green fuels – ethanol, specifically – and he hired me over the Conservatives I worked with (they didn’t like him, and he didn’t like them).

I can’t say anything about the campaign, but I will say that one of the best parts of it was working with this gangly, genial right-wing guy who looked young enough to be carded. Previously, he’d advised Preston Manning and Mike Harris. He was sharp as a tack. Still is. I trust him, and I think he trusts me.

We’ve been on opposite sides of the false political divide, in the intervening years, but we’ve tried to stay in touch. Often, I see him waging war with some of my 2,700 Facebook friends. Knowing Kory, he probably sees it as a unique opportunity to have some fun, and stir up 2,700 Liberals at once.

When I heard about his plans to set up an ersatz Fox TV thing in Canada, I smiled. (And I was a bit bewildered by some of the overreactions.) If there is anybody who could pull off such an ambitious venture, it’s this 36-year-old Conservative wunderkind.

He likely sees it as a unique opportunity to have some fun, and stir up many more thousands of Liberals at once.

UPDATE: BCL points out how Kory could be swimming in libel writs, if he’s not careful. Words worth heeding!

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