Doug Finley bribes Cadman, becomes unelected Senator. Some democracy?

Doug Finley a Senator? Is this the same Doug Finley that attempted to bribe Chuck Cadman? Isn’t it a criminal offense to bribe elected Members of Parliament? Do Senators have immunity?

This country is going down the drain. I guess nobody cares? That was the motto of General Motors when I worked there in the early 80's. Nobody cares. Myself excepted.


Harper Names New Senators, Including Campaign Manager

By Greg Quinn

Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed nine members to the country’s Senate, including the director of his party’s last two election campaigns and his former spokeswoman, saying they will help pass crime bills being stalled by opposition parties.

The new members include Doug Finley, the Conservative Party’s national director for the 2006 and 2008 campaigns, former spokeswoman Carolyn Stewart Olsen, and former Montreal Canadiens head coach Jacques Demers. The appointments will bring the Conservative Party’s membership in the Senate to 46, compared with 53 for the Liberal Party, and six from other parties or independents. There are no more vacancies.

Harper repeated today he wants elected Senators, and until provinces agree to hold elections, he must rebalance the Senate through appointments to help pass bills approved by the House of Commons. Today’s list adds to the 18 members Harper named in December. The Conservatives on May 28 also introduced a bill seeking Senate term limits of eight years.

“Until senators are elected, this government will ensure that we have in the Senate people who work hard and will support the elected government of this country,” Harper told reporters earlier today in Quebec City, Quebec. “That includes passing our anti-crime legislation and passing our democratic reforms, which have been blocked in the Senate.”

Lack Majority

Harper’s Conservatives also lack a majority of seats in the elected House of Commons, meaning they need the support of at least one opposition party to pass laws. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has signaled he may try to force Harper from power after Parliament returns in September in a non-confidence vote.

“Putting Doug Finley, who runs the Conservative campaign machine, on the public payroll is just odious,” New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton said in a statement.

The list of new Senators also includes former Northwest Territories Premier Dennis Patterson and journalist Linda Frum Sokolowski.

Harper announced the appointments in an e-mailed statement from Ottawa today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Quinn in Ottawa at gquinn1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: August 27, 2009 16:43 EDT

A Tim Horton's explanation of Flaherty's HST

Looming HST hit will be talk of Tims

TheSpec.com - Opinions - Looming HST hit will be talk of Tims
Jim Coyle
The Hamilton Spectator
(Aug 26, 2009)

The fresh-faced young blond behind the counter at the Tim Hortons in Campbellford, Ont., had taken the old fellow's order and, as she fetched the coffee and muffin one recent mid-morning, was also -- Premier Dalton McGuinty not being available -- taking a piece of his mind.

The codger was loudly tallying for her benefit, and that of the growing line behind him, what the premier's proposed harmonized sales tax was going to add to the cost of such modest treats when fixed-income seniors like himself dropped by next year -- assuming they lived that long given the insult and injury headed their way.
To her credit, the server maintained her sunny smile -- even as her eyes grew more glazed than the doughnuts -- and clucked commiseration at her irate customer.
It was a bottomless cup of double-double outrage for a tax he's still 10 months away from paying.

The odds are good that Liberal MPPs have heard variations on the tirade at barbecues and ballparks and farmers' markets all summer. At their caucus meeting today, many will be hoping the premier's brain trust has come up with a way to help them market the tax change.

To date, their problem is simple. Anyone can explain in five seconds why they hate the HST. It takes an op-ed page and a few economics credits to explain why you're in favour.

As most veteran campaigners will tell you, if you can't explain it simply at the door, you're in trouble.

In all, the McGuinty package has the sort of marketing challenge Brian Mulroney had with his Meech Lake accord. Just as that constitutional contraption was famously cobbled together behind closed doors by 10 white guys in suits, the McGuinty plan was inked in private with the feds and dropped in MPPs' laps to sell.

By all accounts, that's not proving easy. Worse still, any tax change that comes with a package of sweetening cheques and rebate contortions worthy of the Kama Sutra usually leaves voters smelling something fishy.

That's why the Sept. 17 byelection in St. Paul's will be watched so closely. Byelections are usually an electoral Rorschach blot. People see in them what they will. Wind-turbine foes and anti-nuclear activists are already inviting St. Paul's to send a message to the government. For opposition parties, the message is the iniquity of the HST.

Newly elected Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak sees ground to be made. Hudak's an economist by training. He gets the argument for harmonization. But he worked only briefly as a dismal scientist. He's been a politician for 15 years. And few sounds are sweeter to opposition politicians than the angry murmur of nascent tax revolt.

As it happens, Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter is the newest member of Canada's first ministers' club. He's a down-to-earth guy with a good instinct for how popularity is built.

He was saying at his first Council of the Federation meeting in Regina earlier this month that when he led the students' union at the University of King's College in Halifax he helped establish one of the more popular student pubs in the country. Nothing he does as premier is apt to win him such enduring goodwill, he laughed.
Nova Scotia has been through harmonization. And Dexter told the Toronto Star's Rick Brennan recently that McGuinty had best prepare Ontarians better than it appears he has for the hit they are about to take.

"I don't think there's anything that inspires people to go to their local Tim Hortons and talk like a tax increase," Dexter observed.

Just ask that clerk in Campbellford.

Jim Coyle writes on provincial affairs.

In search of an enlightened politician

Today Eric Reguly of the Globe writes about something that I have been commenting on for almost three years in an article entitled The trillion-dollar buyback threat in which he finally acknowledges why CEOs are so loathe to give up the corporate model (in favour of other shareholder models like the income trust model), which is the practice of corporations engaging in share buybacks for reasons motivated by how these CEOs are compensated, namely stock options.

In summary, share buybacks do nothing to add economic value to a corporation and yet trigger artificial gains in a corporations “earnings per share”, which is the imperfect measure by which the market assigns value to corporations. To the extent that share buybacks can artificially inflate the value of a company, then CEOs who are compensated by stock option gains, will pursue stock buybacks till the cows come home, as opposed to generating increased earnings per share by actions that achieve REAL economic growth versus ARTIFICIAL growth

I am pleased that Eric Reguly has caught up with my preachings of the past three years by today writing: “The [ills of share buybacks] will not change unless the stock option-based compensation model is taken out behind the barn and shot.”

This is where the need for an enlightened politician comes in, as the initiative for taking stock option compensation out behind the barn and shot is not going to come from the boardrooms of Canada, nor is it going to come from John Manley of the CCCE, it needs to come from an enlightened politician who acknowledges that the tax treatment of stock option gains at half the rate of the income from employment that it represents is inherently unfair and inherently unjustified from a public policy perspective, since this tax loophole only serves to foster a situation and related practices that are counter to the well being of society, as made abundantly obvious by the root cause of the global financial meltdown namely executive compensation schemes that promote bad behaviour and undesirable outcomes.

Or are we going to pretend that there was no global financial meltdown and that no changes to the status quo are required?

A change in tax policy is what Eric Reguly and others should now be calling for, as I first wrote about in April in a piece entitled: Two POPULIST tax revenue increase measures for the Liberals

Just requires an enlightened politician?

Why so Much Lying in Politics?

By W.T. Stanbury, Professor Emeritus, University of B.C.
August 17,2009

Lying, misrepresentation and other forms of deception are regrettably common in Canadian politics. I am not talking about “puffery;” or lying for reasons of state such as national security. Columnist Angelo Persichilli (The Hill Times, Feb.26, 2007,p.15) has said: “Question Period is the most deceitful reality TV show and should be rated ‘R’. The MPs lie every day. They lie when they ask questions and they lie when they give answers. Who are the liars? I can’t name names because I don’t have the same Parliamentary immunity they give themselves, but needless to say, politicians are citizens who have the legal right to lie in the House of Commons Chamber. They slander, assassinate characters and lie on a daily basis.” Michael Ignatieff, chosen as leader of the Liberal Party in December 2008 after spending most of his career abroad, was asked what has surprised him most about politics? “Bad faith… People often attack you knowing full well that what they’re attacking you for has no substance in fact.” He pauses. “It was very innocent of me to think otherwise” (David Herman, Prospect, March,2009).

The purpose of this piece is not to document the obvious (there are several websites that do this for Prime Minister Harper, for example), but to try to understand the reasons why lying, misrepresentation, and other forms of deception are so common in our politics.

Definition: Lying is usually defined as making false statement with a deliberate to deceive. Thus the liar knows what he is saying is not true. This can be distinguished where the speaker (writer) does not know if the statement is true, and has failed to try to ascertain the facts. This is a case of negligence, or playing fast and loose and ignoring what could be serious adverse consequences for the subject of the statement. Then there is intentional deception where words are parsed very carefully so that a statement is not false, but because it is incomplete, the effect of which is to mislead.

Bare-faced lies are less common in politics than are various types of deception: highly selective use of facts (contrary information is omitted); mischaracterization of facts often through the use of inappropriate adjectives (this is the essence of most smear campaigns); and distortion through exaggeration. For example, taking a small failing beating it to death to give the impression that the person has never done anything worthy of respect in his (her) life; pleading ignorance or no memory when aware of the truth or lie; hair splitting in the use of language – recall Bill Clinton on the definition of “is”); and diversion and obfuscation to avoid speaking the truth or acknowledging errors. (Recall Brian Mulroney claiming that the reason that key details about his relationship with big-time lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber did not come out was that the questions posed to him were not sufficiently precise.)

Not all lying and deception in politics is reprehensible. There is a well worn, but insightful joke which says that a diplomat is an otherwise honorable man who lies in the service of his country. It is taken for granted that spies lie to the enemy. Winston Churchill said that in some cases the truth is so precious that “ it must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.” Effective action against terrorists requires deception, flat-out lies, and surreptitious interception of their communications.

My research indicates that a wide variety of explanations have been advanced to try to answer this question. I summarize a number.

Strategic Context and Opportunism: The strategic context in which politics is conducted may be an important factor contributing to the prevalence of lying and deception. The strategic context is characterized by the following: the presence of at least a few rivals for power who hold conflicting views on matters that are important to them; there is asymmetric and costly information; there is ambiguity about certain important rules of conduct; and the context is dynamic due to both the interaction of rivals and exogenous events.(On the importance of uncertainty in the political arena,see Stanbury,The Hill Times,July 20,2009,pp.16-17.) Further, the shortness of news cycles means that “hit and run” tactics based on lies may not be caught. Lies may be hard to ascertain—except perhaps with a lag—after which there in no practicable remedy.

The essence of opportunism is self-interested behaviour based on the identification and exploitation of opportunities in one’s environment where that behaviour also involves deceit or guile. Two attributes of political markets facilitate opportunism: asymmetric (and costly) information, and differential transactions costs. Thus politicians make election promises that they know (but voters do not) will require increases in taxes.

On the other hand, it is been argued that it is now harder for politicians to lie as there are so many people online who are able to check out statements that seem questionable—just ask Hilary Clinton, Trent Lott, and others .But can you think of an example of a Canadian politician who was caught out by netizens and who paid a serious penalty for lying?

Insufficient Penalties: Lying may be frequent because, on balance, it is beneficial in the sense that “crime pays.” That is, the odds of getting caught are low and the penalties are modest or non-existent co the expected costs are less than the expected benefit from lying. Lying very often “works,” not just in the short run as noted above, but in the longer run in the sense that the liars are seldom held accountable – at least on this earth. So…when lying is found to pay, it tends to expand. MPs can slander each other in the Commons chamber—all in interests of free speech. If they say the same thing outside the chamber, they may be sued for damages. There are no laws against false or misleading advertising by political parties or candidates (unlike businesses—see the federal Competition Act ). Thus the Tories’ attack ads focused on the last two Liberal Party leaders could incorporate as much mis-representation, toxic innuendo, and simple lies as seem useful in the game of framing the opposition leader in highly unflattering terms. The frequent use of negative ads suggests that this tactic “works” from the perspective of the advertiser.

Columnist John Robson puts it this way: “It is manifestly clear that [politicians ] can say whatever sounds good, then change their story months, weeks or even a single day later without political consequences. And psychologically, once you discover that you can utter self-serving fibs and pay no price the temptation becomes enormous…”(Ottawa Citizen, May 29,2009).

The Public Doesn’t Want the Truth: It has often been argued that politicians lie is because the public doesn't want to hear the truth. Columnist Robert J. Samuelson (Newsweek, February 21, 2005, p. 39) wrote that the public seems to “prefer to be deceived rather than face the difficult choices posed by Social Security or the government’s budget.” He concludes by saying, “Americans dislike deficits but dislike them less than the alternatives – higher taxes or lower spending. There’s a quiet clamor for hypocrisy and deception; and pragmatic politicians respond with massive borrowing schemes that seem to promise something for nothing. Please spare us the truth.” Are Canadians any different?

Psychopathic Personality; More than a few politicians (and top business executives, interest group leaders) are psychopaths, but of the non-violent and usually non-criminal variety. Such persons, however, are intensely ambitious, have great skill in manipulating people and organizations (ie, they are skilled con artists). Most importantly, they lack empathy for other human beings. So lying causes no twinge of conscience or remorse – even when it causes direct, serious harm to others. Where the penalties for lying are low, the tendency will be reinforced.

Hyper-Partisanship: Intense partisanship, coupled with the fact that elections usually occur only every several years or so, creates enormous pressures on candidates to do “whatever it takes to win.” Hyper-partisanship may increase the use of lies (or egregious distortions) to weaken opponents. “True believers” seem to breed intolerance sometimes extreme intolerance (see Eric Hofer, The True Believer).So an opponent is not merely wrong, he (she) is damned to perdition like a “heretic”. Political zealots may be so inflamed with righteousness that they lose their ability to reason critically when dealing with an opponent. (Recall that Prime Minister Harper—on the basis of much evidence-- has been called “a pathological partisan.”) Zealots may not even recognize that their statements contain lies. This does not justify such statements because any kind of ethical behavior requires the ability to reason to sort our right from wrong and truth from lies.

Need to be Ingratiating: Being in politics seems to require that one to be ingratiating to almost everyone regardless of one’s feelings and regardless of being on the receiving end of nasty behavior by others. Being “on-stage 24/7” imposes a huge burden on politicians—they feel that they must not offend anyone – even inadvertently (particularly in this era of political correctness). This requirement goes far beyond the normal hypocrisy of every day life where we dissemble (and more often curb our tongue) in the interests of amity and comity.

Politicians are almost forced to become professional actors in what amounts to an often changing role ( the uncertainty factor again). But, regardless of the new personnel on the stage and the changes in the script necessitated by changing circumstances, the actor must not offend – at least overtly. (The upper class English are the masters of using polite words to inflict gross insults.) A “false front” is part of the role. Nothing is as it seems. Almost all relationships in the political arena are conducted on the basis of present and anticipated future advantage. No wonder newcomers to Ottawa are advised: “If you want a real friend, get a dog.”

Truth as an Option: Shameless lying and distortion appear to be rooted in a serious lack of respect for truth as an ideal. When this is the case, the truth (or reality) is seen as an inconvenient obstacle to the achievement of political (or personal) goals. Thus the truth is simply one of several options (alternative courses of action backed by words) to achieve one’s goals. If the truth is convenient, and expected to be the best option under the prevailing circumstances, it will be used. But if it is not, then lies, distortion, and the supply of misleading information become the means employed to achieve the desired ends. The truth is not seen as important in itself. Situations are assessed in terms of what a sort of cost-benefit analysis—one done on the fly with limited information.

Post Modernism: Perhaps politicians lie or mislead so frequently because they have implicitly adopted a post-modern sensibility—one characterized by the belief that truth doesn’t exist in any objective sense outside our own position. So what others call lies are seen as simply different personal or subjective interpretations of reality. In fact, in a post modern perspective, there is no objective reality. There are only individual, subjective perceptions that are true for that person. The "mini-narratives" of post modernism are always situational, provisional, contingent, and temporary. They make no claim to universality, truth, reason, or even stability. The circularity of this position for politicians making election promises should be apparent.

Good advice from Jeffrey Simpson

Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe writes today:

“The Liberals' biggest challenge (they have many) lies in having failed this summer or before to develop a “line,” or an easily digestible overall critique of the government. It's a crude game, politics, and an opposition party to win needs one word or one phrase that sticks in the public's mind about the government – time for a change, corrupt, incompetent, uncaring, the tool of big business. Whatever. It's not at all clear what that word or phrase is that the Liberals have hung around the Conservatives' neck.”

This is the WASTED OPPORTUNITY of the income trust issue in the hands of the Liberals, for it meets all of Jeffrey Simpson’s prerequisites:

“Corrupt”......$35 billion of 2.5 million Canadians’ hard earned savings were lost on Harper’s policy lie called tax leakage, in order to benefit a very few rich and powerful

“Incompetent”........instead of stemming alleged tax leakage , this inane income trust tax CAUSED tax leakage......just ask accounting firm Deloittes.....here.

“Uncaring”.......Harper promised he would “never raid seniors nest eggs” and did that very thing nine months later by blaming the victim and calling these people “coupon clippers”

“Tool of big business”....for that I will turn to the Globe and Mail an their account of how this trust tax came into being.....talk about Harper being a tool of big business:

“High-profile directors and CEOs, meanwhile, had approached Mr. Flaherty personally to express their concerns: Many felt they were being pressed into trusts because of their duty to maximize shareholder value, despite their misgivings about the structure. Paul Desmarais Jr., the well-connected chairman of Power Corp. of Canada, even railed against trusts in a conversation with Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a trip to Mexico.”

Opportunities like Harper’s income trust tax fiasco are political manna from heaven.......that is being squandered by the Liberals who seem reluctant to portray Harper as being “corrupt, incompetent, uncaring, the tool of big business”.

Why?

NDP to merge with Green Party?

At their upcoming Halifax convention, members of the NDP Party will vote on the following resolution:

7-26-09 Exploring Merger with Other Political Party

BE IT RESOLVED THAT if this reporting process indicates that the party
members and riding associations are open to the possibility of such a merger,
the federal party should initiate discussions with the Green Party of Canada to
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consider a merger of the two parties, possibly beginning with an agreement to
work together in an electoral alliance or partnership in the next federal election.

Harper on "manufactured excuses"

Here’s Harper’s take on the further house detention of Aung San Suu Kyi: “Harper accused Myanmar's ruling generals of having "manufactured an excuse to keep Aung San Suu Kyi in detention.””

Harper is an expert on “manufactured excuses” having manufactured the excuse that income trusts cause tax leakage to benefit those, like Manufacturers’ Life, in order that they could employ the government to kill their competition, and in the process limit Canadians’ investment choices and destroy $35 billion of Canadians hard earned life savings. Which regime is worse? Burma’s military junta or Harper’s corporate junta?

Harper calls Aung San Suu Kyi's sentence 'vindictive'
AFP
August 12, 2009

Prime Minister Stephen Harper "strongly condemned" yesterday the additional 18 months of house arrest handed to Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, saying it is "unwarranted, unjustified, and vindictive."

"Canada strongly condemns the Burmese regime's decision to sentence Aung San Suu Kyi to a further 18 months house arrest," Harper said in a statement. Canada refers to Myanmar by its former name of Burma.

"This decision is clearly not in accordance with the rule of law: the charges laid against her were baseless and her trial did not come close to meeting international standards of due process," he said.

Harper accused Myanmar's ruling generals of having "manufactured an excuse to keep Aung San Suu Kyi in detention to ensure she will not be able to participate in the proposed 2010 elections. Canada calls for the regime to unconditionally free all political prisoners."

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