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"Canada at a time of tectonic shift - opportunity knocks for Conservatives" interview with Tony Clement Just six weeks before the Conservative leadership convention in Toronto, the auditor general’s damning report on the sponsorship scandal demolished the conventional wisdom that the Liberals were cruising to an easy majority in a spring election. While the Liberals plunged in polls that pointed to a minority government, or even worse, for them, the Conservative surge meant that the new party’s leadership was, suddenly and unexpectedly, an important job. Former Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement, then the least known of the three Conservative contenders but the only one with experience in government, sat down with Policy Options editor L. Ian MacDonald in Toronto in mid-February to discuss the political opportunity the Liberal scandals present Conservatives, and what he would do as prime minister — from the fiscal framework and health care to foreign and defence policies. "Stronach's equation: lower taxes, new investment, improved productivity = more jobs and higher living standards" by Belinda Stronach No one has achieved the office of prime minister who has not spoken of his, or her, ideas of this country before the Empire and Canadian Clubs of Toronto, where Conservative leadership candidate Belinda Stronach appeared on February 24 before an overflow crowd of more than 1,000 people. While a rank novice in politics with not even a rudimentary grasp of French, the former Magna auto parts executive has drawn large crowds across the country since entering the race in January. In this month’s Verbatim, excerpted from her Empire and Canadian Club address, she scorches the Liberal government for the sponsorship scandals and proposes an economic vision for a more competitive Canada in a global economy. "Parties leaving members, members leaving parties: the realignment of Canadian politics, Right and Left" by Desmond Morton With the NDP virtually moribund during the Chrétien years, the Liberals vacated the left and successfully covered their right flank for the last decade. But no longer are the Liberals beneficiaries of a feeble Left and a divided Right. With a media savvy new leader in Jack Layton, the NDP is bidding hard to fill the political vacuum on the Left, while a recently united Right gathers in Toronto on March 20-21 to elect a leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada. Certain to be challenged from both Left and Right for seats in vote-rich Ontario, with fully 106 of 308 seats in the new House of Commons, the Liberals are looking to gain seats from the Bloc québécois in Quebec. But the Bloc is itself showing renewed signs of life in the polls, riding a wave of discontent with Jean Charest’s Liberal government in Quebec as well as the spondonship scandal. Desmond Morton considers some of the forces and personalities shaping the realignment of Canadian politics. "Leading the united Right - from the imperative of Conservative unity to the opportunity of Liberal scandals" by Tom Flanagan The Reform Party and its successor, the Canadian Alliance, swept western Canada in three elections but could never score a significant breakthrough east of Manitoba. By the time Stephen Harper became leader in 2002, and following a disappointing third place showing in an Ontario heartland by-election in 2003, it became even more apparent than ever that only a united Right would ever be “capable of forming a government,” writes Tom Flanagan, manager of Harper’s leadership campaign. The Liberal sponsorship scandal has given the Conservatives a timely spike in the polls and a competitive advantage to Harper, as a principal architect of the merger and the most experienced candidate in the race. “It is not just about who will make the best leader of the opposition, nor who will make the best debating partner for Paul Martin,” writes Flanagan. “The Conservative leadership race is now about who is ready to become prime minister.” "A Conservative opportunity to build a big policy tent for a new century" by Donald G. Lenihan and Graham Fox Can the new Conservative Party build a big enough policy tent to accommodate the different interests and ideologies of social conservatives, neo-conservatives and moderate Red Tories? Yes, suggest Ottawa policy analysts Don Lenihan and Graham Fox, provided the new party can look beyond the social and governance issues that divide Conservatives to find common ground in an agenda for the future. For example, building a knowledge economy is critical to Canada’s competitiveness in a global economy. Then, “the learning society is the social policy counterpart of the knowledge economy.” Finally, societal diversity, particularly cultural diversity, can be “a powerful catalyst to learning and innovation.” While there has been very little discussion of such 21st century issues in the Conservative leadership campaign, the new party ”begins with a blank policy slate and the opportunity to address these issues.” "The perils of a one-party state and the consequences of perpetual Liberal rule" by Peter G. White and Adam Daifallah Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton famously observed. The sponsorship scandal, Shawinigate, and the billion-dollar boondoggle at Human Resources amply demonstrate the abuses of power that result from a weak and divided opposition, a culture of mediocrity in government, the bankruptcy of the policy process and ultimately the disengagement of citizens. The authors, early advocates of the Unite the Right Movement, survey the perils of perpetual Liberal rule and suggest that with the realignment on the Right and a revival of the NDP on the Left, the Liberals are finally under pressure at a time of explosive scandals that illuminate the consequences of one-party rule. "Paul Martin's moment of choice - Liberal opportunism or reform liberalism" by Tom Kent The Martin Liberals may now suffer heavy losses in the early election they had planned. To delay, however, is also dangerous. Their own troops may be further demoralized, while the new Conservative Party will certainly be enlivened by the possibility of power. The government could nevertheless gain by devoting some months to action instead of electioneering and waging war on Jean Chrétien. It would need a limited, focused program producing benefits that people promptly feel. The question for political strategists is whether Paul Martin is capable of winning credibility as that kind of reforming prime minister. Probably he is not, but possibly he is. "Politics in transition - a revived opposition and a new Liberal style of governance" by Stephen LeDrew Paul Martin was left with the legacy of the sponsorship scandal, but he has moved decisively to deal with it, asserts the former president of the Liberal Party. This signals a shift in both the style and substance of government, “a more open, collegial and consensual approach,” writes Stephen LeDrew, at a time when the opposition parties are reviving and regrouping on both the right and the left. While historians can begin to evaluate the Chrétien legacy, for better or worse, Paul Martin has already brought “refreshing accountability and new directions” to the federal government, which announce the beginning of “a new national experience.” "Family policy and preschool child care" by Gordon Cleveland In the old days, says Gordon Cleveland, we had a relatively well-established way of caring for children. It put most of the burden on mothers, and they handled it pretty well. But because women have vastly increased their participation in the labour force, even when they have young children, we now need a new set of mechanisms, of institutions, of social arrangements to provide care and education for young children in the preschool years. The current state of affairs in most provinces is not acceptable, says Cleveland. Faced with this policy vacuum, families do get by through various devices, but the quality of nonparental care that children get is probably, by any developmental criteria, mediocre to poor, on average. Paying a few thousand dollars a year purchases care that is more custodial than it is developmental, performed by a person who is often not very keen on doing what she is doing, with little preparation for the job. This points, argues the Toronto economist, to a clear need for public investment in a universal, developmentally oriented early learning and care system for all preschoolers. "Strengthening Canada's social and economic foundations: next steps for early childhood education and child care" by Martha Friendly Compared with Western European countries, Canada is a laggard in terms of progress toward a system of universal, high quality early childhood education and child care (ECEC). Martha Friendly, one of Canada’s most ardent advocates of such a system, reviews Canada’s evolution in this domain and, most importantly, charts the way to creating a universal daycare program. The first step is for the federal government to make a clear, public commitment to achieving a coherent, accessible and high quality system, says Friendly. Then, a specific action plan and a well-crafted public policy framework requiring close federal-provincial/territorial collaboration will be needed, as well as adequate public financing. Such a system she points out, would require a doubling of current spending over the next 10 to 15 years. Investing in ECEC, she argues, is fundamental to healthy child development and lifelong learning, and will pay off in its contribution to improving Canada’s social fabric, competitiveness and productivity. "Quebec's innovative early childhood education and care policy and its weaknesses" by Pierre Lefebvre Adopting a public policy perspective, family policy expert Pierre Lefebvre describes the $5-per-day child care program in Quebec and argues that much of the current debate about the future of this policy is tainted by wishful thinking. This state of mind, he suggests, is preventing the government and parents from facing important weaknesses, notably the fact that the policy favours higher income families, is unfair to families who choose to care for their children themselves or do not use nonparental child care, and is not well suited to parents working part time or nonstandard hours. Lefebvre also observes that the services provided to children are overall of mediocre quality and insufficiently dedicated to helping vulnerable children. He observes that Quebec has always provided more support for families than have the other provinces, but that the tradeoffs brought about by the reforms that introduced the $5 a-day-policy in 1997 lack transparency in terms of the real cost of the service and have distorted parents' child care choices. He concludes by proposing alternatives measures to deal with equity and efficiency issues, among them full-day public kindergarten for four-year-olds; more flexibility and diversity in child care services; home care allowances for parents of children under the age of three who do not use subsidized child care services; and increased resources for part-day preschool programs dedicated to at-risk children. "Conciliation travail-famille : quand les pays dits « libéraux » s'en mêlent" by Caroline Beauvais and Pascale Dufour In the comparative literature, liberal welfare states are categorized as not being inclined to intervene in the social sphere and limiting themselves to compensating for the market or private support systems in cases where these systems fail. Nevertheless, the authors tell us, this classification hides a more diverse reality. Their examination of recent policies adopted by the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada and Quebec with respect to work-family reconciliation shows that there are many modus operandii among liberal welfare states. These reforms are even evidence of a significant change in orientation with respect to the family and indicate that liberal states are evolving with the times to respond to new social problems. From this point of view, Quebec's policies appear particularly innovative, signalling a profound break from the historical logic of the liberal regime. But, the authors conclude, the uniqueness of Quebec's policies is also its principal weakness. "The politics of neglect of Canadian broadcasting policy" by Marc Raboy and David Taras In a massive report on broadcasting policy, the Commons Heritage Committee, chaired by MP Clifford Lincoln, recommended Ottawa hold the line on foreign ownership restrictions of Canadian broadcast media. If ownership restrictions are lifted, and foreign companies assume control, “the chances of Canadians ever reclaiming this vital cultural space will be small indeed,” write two communications professors who served as advisers to the Lincoln panel. They also suggest that in the age of convergence, there is no ownership distinction to be made between the pipeline and content of broadcasting. It’s not only a question of Canadian cultural sovereignty, they argue, but equally the economic imperative of assuring the future of a $14 billion a year industry employing some 80,000 Canadians. The ball, they conclude, is now in Paul Martin’s court. "Improved health benefits and the Kyoto Protocol: the role of air quality regulation" by Åke Blomqvist, Seamus Hogan and Milan Jayasinghe In addition to its goal of slowing global warming, implementation of the Kyoto Protocol may provide a benefit to participating countries of improved air quality and hence improved population health. This paper considers how these health cobenefits affect the analysis of what would be the cost-minimizing way for Canada to implement its obligations under the accord, and, in particular, whether Canada should limit its purchases of emissions reductions credits from other countries. The authors concluded that consideration of health co-benefits should not change the policies designed to implement Kyoto, provided separate measures are put in place for improving air quality. Book Excerpt: Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black The seminal event of the 20th century, writes Conrad Black in his epic biography of Franklin Roosevelt, was the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entry by the United States into the war against Japan and Germany, an event for which FDR had been preparing by building an arsenal and a case in public opinion almost from the outset of the Second World War. “With the sole possible exception of Abraham Lincoln’s conservation of the Union and emancipation of the slaves in the Civil War,” Black writes, “Roosevelt’s achievement in bringing the United States out of isolation, invaluably supporting the Allies, and engineering entry into the war by becoming a target of Axis aggression, was the greatest feat of any American statesman in the country’s history.” In this exclusive excerpt from Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Lord Black recounts the momentous events of December 7, 1941, famously described by FDR as a “day of infamy.” Book Review: Neil Cameron reviews Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black [summary not available] "Learning to love the psychopath" by Joseph Heath [summary not available] |
