Why is the PM a no-show?

(August 26) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper came close, but he didn’t quite get here. He managed to get to Kitchener, where he flipped some burgers at a Conservative riding association event, but no further.

He didn’t drive down Highway 7 and into the only by-election being held west of the Quebec border. Gloria Kovach had to excuse herself from the Action Read all-candidate debate to go over to Kitchener to get her picture taken with her leader.

She was quoted in the local press as saying if Harper was to visit here during a by-election, her campaign "would be left to shoulder the costs associated with security.”

This is an odd thing for her to say for a couple of reasons. It sounded as if the local campaign was making an end run around election financing rules. If he comes here, the locals pay. If she goes there, the taxpayers pay.

As it turns out, she was wrong. I asked Elections Canada about it. I sent the query through their web site on Wednesday evening, and got a phone call back from a man in Ottawa on Thursday morning.

No, he said, the security and other costs associated with his visit would not be considered a campaign expense. Not for the Prime Minister nor any other party leader. He suggested that if I wanted to know why Harper didn’t come to Guelph, I “should direct the question to the Prime Minister’s Office.”

Kovach was obviously poorly informed on this important matter. So we are left to wonder why hers is the only party leader to avoid the Guelph by-election. I didn’t have a chance to ask the PMO directly, but a visiting MP from Alberta supplied another possible answer.

Brian Jean, a Conservative, said it was because the Prime Minister doesn’t want to influence the outcome of the by-election. This is more nonsense. It is the job of party leaders to influence elections. Stéphane Dion is doing it. So are Elizabeth May and Jack Layton. Are we to conclude that the Conservatives know his influence will only be negative?

Two of the issues in this by-election are accountability and the environment. These put three albatrosses around Gloria Kovach’s neck. The combined weight of Stephen Harper, John Baird and Brent Barr will stop her from leaving her city council desk.

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I used to have a Facebook account, but gave it up.

Among other things, I came to view it as the Wal-Mart of the Internet. Big, greedy, domineering, arrogant and evil. All the same adjectives apply. The difference between them is that you can easily get away from Wal-Mart. There are other places to shop. It seems harder to get away from Facebook if you want to bring an issues based campaign to the Internet.

All four of the major local campaigns are trying to steer us towards a Facebook account. It’s hard to find Frank Valeriote’s Facebook thing. The other three have links from their websites, but you have to do a bit of Googling to find his.

For what it’s worth – and I think that’s not very much – each of their Facebook pages keeps track of the number of “supporters” or “friends” they have. As of last Friday morning, the numbers were: Kovach 171, Valeriote 275, Nagy 424, King 854. That’s likely more a measure of the demographic of their support than the depth.

As far as I can tell, it’s impossible to know how many of these are real people who live in Guelph. I just hope more than 1724 people vote on September 8.

Let the Winner Win

(August 19) - If you’re enjoying this political banquet of a by-election, don’t leave the table too quickly. There could be a second helping waiting in the kitchen. If you are full, though, I have a challenge to make that could please all but the most obese political gluttons.

All the clever people in the big city newspapers are predicting a general election as early as October. It all depends on what we do here, and what some other people in similar circumstances do in Quebec. If anyone but Gloria Kovach wins on September 8, Stéphane Dion could find the spine to defeat the government. If she wins, the Liberal brain trust will go back into hibernation. We’ll have the Harper government around our necks until October 2009.

But she isn’t going to win. If things keep going the way they seem to be going, she will be lucky to come in fourth. Regardless of where she places, one of the other three is going to come first. If you have one of their lawn signs in front of your house, don’t pull it out too quickly. You might need it again.

So here’s the challenge. The decision made by the people of Guelph in September is not likely to change in October. The winner of the by-election should work for more than just a month or two before reapplying for the job. The four local riding associations should meet together soon, well before election day. Even before the advance polls open. They should hammer out an agreement that three of them will not field a candidate if the next general election is called in 2008. If we get through Christmas without one, then everything goes back to normal.

The whole country is watching us during this by-election. We should have a chance to rest and recuperate and watch them from a distance while they make their choices. This would obviously set a precedent, but it wouldn’t be the first time Guelph sat one out.

In 1957, when Alf Hales was first elected, the general election was on June 10. The election in Wellington South – our riding name at the time – was deferred to July 15. It would be interesting to hear from some of our local historians about why this happened.

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Could we sit another one out? Should we? Maybe, if it comes up too quickly. The local Greens are campaigning with an eye to a quick turn around. They are telling us it won’t change the national political make up if Nagy wins. We can get back to normal behaviour when we wake up the morning after.

They say we’ll make history and be the talk of the western world if we elect North America’s first Green MP. It doesn’t have to be a lasting commitment. A brief flirtation will keep them happy. It only needs to endure until the next televised leader’s debate. A vote for Nagy is a vote to put Elizabeth May on television.

You don’t have to be Green to be green. Everyone has a position on the environment. The Liberals have their carbon tax. The NDP have their Kyoto Bill. The Greens have their ideas. The Conservatives have John Baird. You have a choice.

Killings Hit Close to Home

(August 12) - The National Rifle Association should be declared a terrorist organization. All its members should be rounded up and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay. Ordinarily, I couldn’t care less what the American government does about American organizations. Times are changing. The idiots recently struck close to home, hitting right inside my comfort zone.

A couple of weeks ago, a shotgun wielding whacko went into a Unitarian Church in Knoxville Tennessee and killed two people and injured seven others. It was right in the middle of a children’s musical performance. The gunman carried his shotgun in a guitar case, and people thought he was part of the event. Until he started blasting into the pews.

His reason for doing it? The Unitarian Church approves of same sex marriages, while he doesn’t. My sister-in-law Nancy lives in Knoxville and attends the Unitarian Church with her partner Dawn and their two children. In 2003 they were married in Guelph. Thirty-something years ago Nancy was a vice-president of the Central Students’ Association at the University.

They weren’t at that performance a couple of Sundays ago. She and Dawn had scored tickets to take their kids to something at Dollywood. Otherwise, they would have been. They were close friends with one of the two people who was killed. She happened to be sitting in one of the pews he pointed the gun at. A man was killed when he stood up to shield some others.

Both dead people were heterosexuals. They were killed in an open assault on the rights of gays and lesbians. If that’s not terrorism, I don’t know what is. Any politician who continues to oppose stricter gun controls should not be elected. Anywhere. Ever.

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The Make Poverty History coalition has set up shop in Guelph for the by-election. They were a bit slow getting here, with their first local organizing meeting coming on the Tuesday after the writ was dropped. Better late than never, though. They want to raise issues of poverty and urge you to vote for the party that pledges to end it. Who wouldn’t sign this pledge in the heat of an election campaign? What candidate will say publicly that poverty should continue?

Don’t worry about what they say. Worry about what they do. Or don’t do. Between the two of them, the Liberals and Conservatives have been governing Canada for the past 140 years. If they wanted to end poverty, they could have done it by now. If we keep rotating the two of them in and out of power for another 140 years they still won’t get it done.

You would think the federal Liberals could coordinate things a bit better with their provincial cousins. The federals say they will shift taxes and increase the National Child Tax Benefit by $350 per child. Yet the provincials continue to claw back half this benefit from single mothers on welfare. On top of that, they just cancelled the back to school clothing allowances for poor families.

Ironically, the Make Poverty History organizing meetings keep conflicting with the campaign commitments of the very people most likely to support its goals. The first one was at the same time as Jack Layton was in town to kick off the Tom King campaign. The second was last night, when Elizabeth May was here to boost Mike Nagy’s chances.

Who will tax greed?

(August 5) - A couple of Fridays ago, my wife and I went around the north west corner of the city putting up signs. The by-election had just been called, and we are a couple of real keeners when it comes to democracy. We’re not the only ones. There were volunteers from all four parties out, all doing the same thing. It was quite a pleasant and congenial experience, except for those moments when we had to pound in wooden stakes with a mini-sledge.

Whenever we’d run across other sign planters, there’d be a round of well wishing and we’d all get on our way. Some in little cars, some in big cars, but all in cars.

No one was carrying large signs in the back of a Smart Car. I didn’t see anyone using the trunk of a high end hybrid. All had fairly ordinary vehicles that run on high priced gasoline. That started me thinking. We love to bash cars and the carbon tire tracks they leave everywhere, but we can’t get away from them. So I thought I’d ask each of the four candidates for their position on the price of gas and if they intend to do anything about the excessive profit taking by the oil companies.

I sent an e-mail before work on a Monday morning. It went out at 8:45. At 9:02 I got an answer back from Anna Muselius for the Liberal campaign. I think at first she was a bit suspicious about what I was up to. I assured her that this column wouldn’t be used as a campaign tool, and she promised to get back with an answer. By the end of the week I still hadn’t heard from any of the other three.

That’s not surprising. I used to be a campaign manager, and perpetual suspicion is a job requirement. It should also be an essential part of the voter’s mind set. If not suspicion, then certainly skepticism.

There are two things you must always remember about politics.

The first is that you will never encounter a political party with which you agree one hundred per cent. Judge them on balance and go with the one you agree with more often than not. I forget what the second thing is.

Maybe a by-election isn’t the time for it, but I’d like to hear a political party say it’s time to tax greed. Oil companies. Banks. Credit cards. Cell phones. Retail ruffians. All act with a “king of the sandbox” arrogance. They think they can get away with anything because no one is tough enough to stop them. Someone needs to take them out behind the barn and kick them in the profits.

I don’t know about you, but I sorely miss David Lewis and his railing against corporate welfare bums. Politicians need to get some fire back into their bellies. John Diefenbaker had it. Pierre Trudeau had it. Tommy Douglas had it. Who now will rage against the machine?

This election is a tough one to predict. Just about any one could win it. There’s no sense saying that everyone is a winner if they get their point of view across. It’s not true.

Playing olitics is like playing darts. Coming second isn’t good enough. So I’ll say to all the candidates what Lynne and I said to the other sign planters on the other side of the Hanlon two Fridays ago: good luck.

It doesn’t mean much, unless you’re an astrological numerologist, but this is the second time there’s been an election on the day next to my birthday. The last one was on September 6 1990. We can all remember who won that one.