Liberals still wince, a little bit, when reminded of Stephane Dion’s Green Shift. Some of them even attempt to rewrite history, and suggest they never supported it when it was party policy in 2008.

But everyone did, including Justin Trudeau, who – like a good soldier – came out to Vancouver in October 2008 to stump for votes for Dion. News reports of their rally at Science World make no mention of Trudeau attempting to shift away from the Green Shift. None. Given how successfully the CPC demonized the Green Shift in 2008 – and how they have campaigned against carbon taxes, for years – that is significant.

And, perhaps, that’s why Trudeau’s environmental policy announcement yesterday – in Vancouver, again – was also significant. The Green Shift is referenced in the headline over Akin’s column, but I can’t fund any other reference to it in the coverage of yesterday. Did the media ask Trudeau about Dion’s plan? Did it come up at all? We don’t know. But the NDP and Tory responses to what he said, I thought, were desultory – they seemed to be phoning it in.

It’s still early, of course, and attack ads may be in the works as I write this. But perhaps things have changed, in the intervening years, and carbon taxes/green shifts aren’t as radioactive as they once were. We shall see. In the meantime, here’s an amazing (and revealing) photo of Trudeau and Dion on that day back in October 2008.

Caption contest!

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In this, the NDP leader frankly looks not unlike a megalomaniac without a shred of principle. But, then again, the main source is Dimitri Pseudas (a guy who allegedly has been investigated by the Mounties for stuff like this, according to the Globe), and the author is Martin Patriquin (a guy who trades in inaccuracy and prejudice, according to the Quebec Press Council).

So NDP stalwarts will likely shrug it off. Should they?

UPDATE: Mulcair is denying it all, pretty categorically. Will Pseudas and Patriquin’s anonymous sources now pony up real evidence? Doubt it. Looks like an LPC war room fail until they do.

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He’ll beat her.

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There has been a ton of commentary about what the ad is. There hasn’t been a lot of commentary about what it isn’t.

It isn’t:

1. Proprietary: The CBC has tried to claim it is, but the CBC is mistaken.  There is no copyright in news.  Geist slices and dices Mother Corp., here: “The CBC is simply wrong. Its guiding principle is wrong and its attempt to use copyright to take down an offensive advertisement is wrong.”
2. Ubiquitous: I don’t know about you, but the only place I have actually seen that ad is online.  All the stories say that – and the 45-second length of the spot makes me wonder if it can be effectively broadcast, too. There’s an excellent chance, therefore, it’s a classic political bait-and-switch – drive some critical attention to a story that is unhelpful to your opponent, but do it without spending a cent.
3. Effective: It overstates its case.  It’s like those toxic abortion leaflets landing in mailboxes all over Canada in recent days – to make their point, they rely on horrific images of the very thing (fetuses) they profess to be concerned about (fetuses). A better design of the ad could have made the same point without using ISIS’ own imagery.

That all said, the spot reminds me of Willie Horton.  That, too, enraged the chattering classes and progressives.  But those weren’t the folks Willie Horton was aimed at – and, in the end, Willie Horton worked with the American voters the GOP were courting.

Bottom line: most of the job in politics, now, is simply getting people to pay attention.  My hunch is that the hue and cry about that CPC/ISIS/JT ad has helped to achieve the mission’s key objective: i.e., to get the electorate to pay attention in the sleepy Summer months and agree, yet again, that Justin Trudeau “just isn’t ready” to deal with the horrors that seemingly occur daily in this world.

That may make you mad.  But it’s unlikely you were ever part of the audience the CPC had in mind when they did the thing up on some staffer’s computer, for about ten bucks.

 

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Smart. (Shows what I know.)

UPDATE: My former North Van pal Shahriar Shahabi has invented a name for it – it’s the Mulcair Hair!

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So:

1. If you’ve got the dough, and the NDP does;
2. If you have achieved historic levels of popularity due to the other parties’ spending scandals, and the NDP has; and
3. If you want to campaign against the Senate, and the NDP does…

Would you make this issue a hill to die on? From The Hill Times:

With MPs’ expenses still accumulating in their ridings during the summer recess and the House administration reportedly set to reject claims starting July 1, sources say the Board of Internal Economy’s battle with the NDP could hurt the party’s finances as well as its messaging in the upcoming election campaign.

“If the Board of Internal Economy starts pulling those funds back from a large number of NDP members, that’s hitting them at a really unhelpful time. They’re popular in the polls … they’re competitive in a way that they’ve never been before, and now they’re going to have [the] Board of Internal Economy sticking a spoke in their wheel?” said Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella, president of Daisy Consulting Group, in an interview last week.

“[It would] affect their ability to pay for all kinds of things at exactly the wrong time,” he said.

Can someone explain the strategy to me, here? As I’ve written before, this is the kind of issue that could seriously derail the NDP’s upward ascent.  Why the Hell didn’t they just pay the money back when they had the chance?

 

 

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Justice Kennedy’s closing paragraph this morning. Read. 

  

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It’s a lot of fun until voters start checking out the lyrics to NIN’s Closer, Naheed and Rachel!

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A few years back, when I was briefly helping Ignatieff, Dean del Mastro, Darryl Kramp et al. would take shots at me in the House of Commons. They’d do it there because they couldn’t get sued for what they said.

Eventually, Peter Milliken brought down the hammer on MPs using their Parliamentary privilege to slime private citizens – me and others. But, before he did, this is what I came up with for my good friend Dean.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed his perp walk, this afternoon.

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