You know, because we only pay on average 42% of our incomes in taxes. Surely, more tax dollars in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats is what’s needed. Muskoka could always use a new gazebo or two.

Yet while the Harper Government© has failed abysmally to live up to the allegations that it would have a hidden agenda, Mallick has screamed from the rooftops during this election that should a majority result, the Fifth Horseman of Apocalypse would be wearing blue sweater.

• “For a man whose very hair is screaming to escape from its tyrannical overseer, he sure doesn’t understand what the northern nations do with their money and why they gleam internationally.” – April 16, 2011
• “With a Harper majority, evangelicals will be openly part of government.” – March 29, 2011
• “The Conservative hate machine will swivel toward you like a Dalek and advance. You’re doomed. A Harper majority government wouldn’t just lash out generally. It would hunt down its enemies.” – March 28, 2011

To be sure, some of the anti-Ignatieff rhetoric has been equally as over the top. For starters, he is not Chairman Mao reincarnate, nor is his wife a fair target for partisans.

So come on partisans and columnists. Share an opinion. Have an angle, but stop this kind of over-the-top fear mongering. Anchor your opinions in fact and reality. You and what you have to say will be more respected for it.

The federal long-gun registry has finally begun to stare death in the face as it emerges from the Public Safety Committee. As every opposition member on the committee is staunchly supportive of the program, it is no surprise that it voted to recommend that the House not pass Candice Hoeppner’s Bill C-391. 

The House of Commons is a bigger fish bowl however, and swimming in it are 21 opposition members who voted for the Bill at Second Reading. Of these were 12 New Democrats, 8 Liberals and 1 independent. All Bloquists voted “nay”. Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff has now promised to whip his rebel MPs into shape despite the convention that all private members bills be free-votes and Bloc is expected to vote as it did before. This leaves NDP leader Jack Layton unwillingly holding the proverbial bullets to shoot down the long-gun registry.

Will Jack Layton whip his caucus as well? Can he succeed? Will any whipped Liberals or (potentially whipped) New Democrats simply abstain or catch the “Ottawa flu’?  Regardless of what happens, here is how the vote might go down:

According to these figures, the Bill has a living chance of passing in most scenarios with the obvious exception of all opposition parties voting together. Even if both the NDP and Liberals where whipped, some of their dissenting members would feel tremendous pressure from constituents to break party lines and vote for the Bill regardless, or at the very least not vote in opposition.

In the last noted scenario  – that of all dissenting Liberals falling in line with their leader’s whip and all dissenting New Democrats sitting on their hands – the bill would be defeated by a single vote. Since Second Reading however, pro-registry New Democrat Judy Wasylycia-Leis has resigned to run for the mayor’s chair in Winnipeg, bringing the vote to an exact tie.

Much drama awaits the fish bowl of Ottawa!

News in today that Iggy Pop will be whipping his caucus with more discipline than the hair of a washed up 80’s perm-job. It’s an attempt to appease pro long-gun registry militants in his caucus who criticised his leadership for allowing party dissidents to vote their conscience on Candice Hoeppner’s private members ill, C-391.

Iggy isn’t the only leader guilty of breaking the convention that all private members business be free-votes, but he is the latest. Time will tell if Mr. Layton attempts the same with his caucus – which was proportionally even more divided – in order to appease it’s respective militant wing.

“It’s dead!” you cry, but do not dispare. Ottawa is known for flash-flues that prevent certain groups of MPs from showing up to vote. Heck, even a few MPs vote like independent minded representatives. Once in a while. Sort of.

“It’s passed!” you now shout in reply, but do not take my sunny perspective as gospel. Any vote is bound to still be close on either side, and that is assuming that the government allows the bill to actually come to a final vote for 3rd reading.

“Its…a work in progress?”. Agreed.

Devo – Whip It
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Today, Philip Resnick and Reg Whitaker in The Tyee wrote an open letter calling on the Liberal, New Democratic and Green leaders to make such a deal.  While infinitely shorter than the Harper and Flanagan essay, the letter’s tone and suggestions are remarkably similar, especially in its call for electoral cooperation and a coalition government.

Some may cry foul over any coalition government overthrowing a party with a plurality of seats, such as last winter’s ill-fated attempt.  While that coalition arrangement was illegitimate in the eyes of most voters, a coalition that is announced before voters cast their ballots – knowing that such an arrangement will follow should no party win a majority of seats – would be legitimate. The quality of such a government is an entirely separate debate.

One cannot help but see “Our Benign Dictatorship” leap off the page of this open letter in both the diagnose of the “problem” (in their respective times) as well as the prescription for what should be done.

Coderre has been “reserving” safe or highly winnable seats for star candidates and party insiders, sometimes justified as affirmative action.  The story has been portrayed as a fight between two men with ambitions to one day replace the current leader, with each invoking higher powers to do their bidding. Coderre’s decisions stand because the leader has a veto over all candidates, while a former minister of the crown has been reduced to having Bob Rae and Jean Chrétien ask nicely that he be allowed to run.  The thought that the Liberal voters of Outremont are the only legitimate people to decide who will be their candidate in the next election is an afterthought.

That leaders or their appointed minions have the ultimate power to decide who is allowed to stand as a candidate – and not the party members or supporters  – in a given riding is a testament to the autocratic nature of Canada’s political system.

Even in ridings where a nomination race is allowed to proceed, party brass normally have an interest in ensuring that their anointed candidate wins, and therefore fix the timing and rules in their favor.  That the other candidate is even to be allowed on the ballot is seen as a privilege, not a democratic right.

At the very heart of Canada’s oft touted “democratic deficit” is the over-centralization of power, but one simply cannot wish it away.  To decentralize power – on both sides of the House – the incentive structure needs to be altered in a way that the primary loyalty of MPs it not directed to their leaders, but to their electors.  This is especially so in “safe” ridings, where the most important ballots cast are in nominations (where they are allowed to take place) and not in general elections.  Competitive nomination fights – without manipulation by party brass – are needed most for Conservatives in rural and western Canada, Liberals in Toronto and western Montreal, and anywhere that MPs feel that they can relax and focus on Ottawa.

This can begin by removing nomination powers from party leaders and executives, and placing them with a non-partisan entity like Elections Canada.  From there, a move to primaries where all party supporters in a given riding can select their candidate openly and fairly will go a long way to ensuring that whoever the MP for Outremont is, they are representing their electors, and not their party.

UPDATE

Magnifique! So minutes after writing about the autocratic nomination tiff in Outremont, it was announced that Michael Ignatieff bowed to pressure and “allowed” Martin Cauchon to contest the Liberal nomination in that Montreal riding.  That no candidate will have a hand laid on them and blessed as the appointed candidate is a positive development, but reinforces the point made above only a few minutes ago.

That no vaguely democratic nomination race would be have been allowed to take place without such a high profile stink being raised, by a man who – regardless of his politics – is certainly not a fringe candidate within Liberal circles, speaks to the corrupted nature of how we select candidates, regardless of party.  If Mr. Cauchon had been an unknown “community organizer” that wanted to be the Liberal candidate, the only hoops that he should have had to jump through would be to collect signatures for his papers, file a deposit, and win the most votes in a democratic contest.

Does anyone believe that in Canada’s nomination system, Barack Obama could have won a party nomination over Hillary Clinton?

UPDATE

Former Liberal National Director Sheila Gervais launch a blistering attack on the autocratic nomination process in Canada, with a criticism that was bang on true for all political parties.  Her comments should be heeded by Harper, Ignatieff, Ducceppe, Layton and the brass of their respective parties.

For a former national director to stand up against entrenched interests this way takes guts, and Sheila Gervais should be commended for it.

*Cross Posted at taxpayer.com/blog