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Posted by Scott Tribe on January 26, 2012, at 7:12 am |
I was reading a column that Martin Reg-Cohn wrote yesterday on the continuing saga in London where as those who’ve followed it know, Caterpillar has locked out it’s workers in a draconian effort to get them to slash their wages by half – this as the CEO earns a million $ salary and the company worldwide made profits in the billions of dollars.
I agree with the column where he says it is now time for the Premier and by extension, his Labor Minister Linda Jeffery, need to do something more then just issue statements saying they are “hopeful” the 2 sides will moderate their tone. Let’s cut to the chase; Caterpillar is the one that has initiated this lock-out by negotiating in bad faith. The only one that needs to moderate their tone is them by coming back with a more reasonable offer to the table.
Caterpillar is also going to do no such moderation while it faces no external pressure to do so. There’s a time for moderation and a time for action. If Harper isn’t going to do anything (and there’s little reason to believe he’ll step in), McGuinty should be trying to do something more then give speeches. The time for hopeful words is over, Mr Premier, and Minister Jeffery – who I’m astounded said she hadn’t considered trying to implement a Manitoba law that mandates compulsory arbitration if the 2 sides in a labour dispute drag things out for too long. That option should have been considered yesterday, as well as other options.
UPDATE @ 6:08 pm: Caterpillar has announced record profits:
Caterpillar’s fourth-quarter sales and revenues in 2011 were an all-time quarterly record at $17.243 billion, an increase of 35% compared with $12.807 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. Fourth-quarter profit was $1.547 billion compared with $968 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. Profit of $2.32 per share was 58% higher than the $1.47 per share in the fourth quarter of 2010. This follows record third quarter profits which amounted to $1.14-billion, up 44% from a year earlier.
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 24, 2012, at 7:12 am |
I’ve not seen another article come out yet on the meeting that Harper had with the First Nation’s Chiefs other then this one, but from the First Nations perspective, their concerns appear to have been taken rather lightly by the PM, to say the least:
First Nations leaders will be listening closely to the words Prime Minister Stephen Harper chooses in his speech at the Crown-First Nations gathering Tuesday after he left chiefs feeling underwhelmed by his response to their presentations during a special, two-and-a-half hour meeting with a delegation Monday. Harper told chiefs that they should consider contacting their MPs and that he can’t just focus on Aboriginal issues because he has to run the country, according to three chiefs who were present at the meeting…
Harper, you see, can’t be bothered with dealing with Native poverty or unemployment or so on: he’s too busy trying to ram an oil pipeline carrying tarsand oil through some of BC’s pristine wilderness, and branding those who oppose it as being disloyal to Canadian interests.
Of course, that pipeline he wants to build runs through several of Canada’s First Nations territory, who have got a say on whether it can proceed through their lands or not, so I’d have thought he’d have at least remembered that before curtly dismissing them to talk to his toadies (who I didn’t realize had such influence with Harper).
UPDATE on Jan 25: Seems delegates weren’t too impressed with what Harper had to say. As for the final announcement/communique, very short on specifics.
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 23, 2012, at 7:05 am |
Who made that declaration a couple of days ago in the US? The Nation? Daily Kos? Some other left-wing publication?
Nope. Slate did – and Slate isn’t exactly known for its left-wing tendencies. A rather unflattering portrait of it’s northern neighbour:
It’s well known that America’s dependence on foreign oil forces us to partner with some pretty unsavory regimes. Take, for instance, the country that provides by far the largest share of our petroleum imports. Its regime, in thrall to big oil interests, has grown increasingly bellicose, labeling environmental activists “radicals” and “terrorists” and is considering a crackdown on nonprofits that oppose its policies. It blames political dissent on the influence of “foreigners,” while steamrolling domestic opposition to oil projects bankrolled entirely by overseas investors. Meanwhile, its skyrocketing oil exports have sent the value of its currency soaring, enriching energy industry barons but crippling other sectors of its economy…
OK, so our friendly northern neighbor isn’t exactly Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. But neither is it the verdant progressive utopia once viewed as a haven by American liberals fed up with George W. Bush. These days Canada has a Dubya of its own.
…and that’s just in the first paragraph of the article. If Harper and the Conservatives wanted to get noticed world-wide, and to the south in particular, he’s starting to succeed.. though I’m not sure many Canadians like this new-found attention – not in this manner anyhow.
In related news, it seems that Harper and company have been ranting along about “US foreign interests” trying to derail their oil pipeline through BC, when in reality, it is the First Nations communities that are the much bigger threat to them. They just haven’t descended into any rantings about that as of yet, since that would plunge them into dangerous rhetorical territory.
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 19, 2012, at 6:52 am |
Those are the findings of one specific poll. First the poll #’s and the pollster’s speculation:
Buoyed by high approval ratings for interim leader Bob Rae, support for the federal Liberals is on the rise, according to a new poll. The Forum Research survey found support for Rae’s Liberals at 25 per cent, a four-point increase since the pollster’s last survey in mid-December. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives received 35 per cent, Nycole Turmel’s NDP had 28 per cent, while the Bloc Québécois and Green Party earned 6 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively….Bozinoff suggested the Liberals’ popularity increase may be attributed to Rae — the interim leader’s net approval rating among Canadian voters was 24 points higher than Harper’s, according to Forum.
It’s still a long way from the Liberal federal leadership convention, much less a federal election, and Rae hasn’t even declared himself running for the permanent leadership position just yet, but those poll #’s would be encouraging for him.
As for marijuana, the Liberal’s endorsement of marijuana legalization may again be one of those under the radar issues that get them back into the political ballgame; it won’t do it on it’s own, but it may be a start, particularly if this is accurate:
marijuana legalization… according to another Forum poll, released earlier this week, had 66 per cent support among Canadians.
When support for an issue climbs (and opposition falls) to levels that are higher then the Conservative’s vote tally in the election, that is a potential wedge issue that can be used against them. I know a lot of pundits were ridiculing this motion when it was brought forth by the Young Liberal wing, but evidently, the folks in the YLC had their hand on the pulse of a lot of Canadians with this issue.
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 17, 2012, at 7:18 am |
I’ve seen this logo floating around on some blogs - a suggestion to upgrade the Liberal Party logo:
I’ve seen it on some Blogging Tory blogs critical of the legalizing marijuana resolution that was passed, and on some Liberal blogs with people just having fun with it.
Personally, I think our Blogging Tory friends should be careful of passing that logo around too much; when the National Post unexpectedly comes out with an editorial supporting the Liberals stance on marijuana, you know the Liberals might be onto something that helps more then hurts them.
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 16, 2012, at 7:29 am |
As you might expect, though I was not at the Convention in Ottawa this weekend, I did monitor how events went, and here is my take on things:
Things I liked:
- The election of Mike Crawley as Liberal Party President. It was a bit of a surprise win, according to some I was reading at the Convention. One statement I read from an observer was that a lot of Liberals expected Sheila Copps to win, but they all voted for Mr. Crawley. Apparently, enough like-minded people did the same thing, and we now have a President who was preaching renewal, and also was promising to do it behind the scenes (that’s the other benefit: Alf Apps is no longer the President). I hope he follows through on both parts. I look forward to seeing his ideas put into place.
I also hope, from my own biased point of view, that as someone who came out publicly in support of having bloggers of all stripes officially accredited as journalist status, not observers who had to either shell out 1100$ to get there, or else beg a mainstream media outlet to sponsor them, that he will work to get that particular policy reversed the next time the Liberals hold a convention like this. I fully intend to bug him about it as well.
- With regards to the motions, as a Liberal who has long supported electoral reform, I’m pleased that the delegates voted to endorse having Canada run elections under a system known as Preferential balloting (in simple terms, this is the system where you rank your candidates in order of preference who you’d like to win – lowest candidate gets knocked out until you have a winner from all the choice). I realize my colleagues and acquaintances at Fair Vote Canada will harp that this is not a proportional representation type of voting, but you can only beat a dead horse for so long. Voters in multiple provinces have rejected that model, and I for one am willing to accept incremental change over none, which is what happens when the voter model purists insist that it’s all or nothing on PR. This preferential voting model is also very easy to explain to people (no need to explain about picking politicians from a list, and so on), which is another problem supporters of STV and MMP in Ontario faced. There will be no fearmongering on this model.
I also liked the marijuana legalization vote, but for a different reason then I supporting that (I don’t feel too strongly one way or the other on it). I was pleasantly surprised to see Bob Rae come out and not run from a potentially controversial issue that will provide fodder for the Conservatives barking about Liberals being “soft on crime” yet again (nothing new in that line). He publicly proclaimed the war on drugs in Canada has been a colossal failure, knowing full well the attack dogs at CPC HQ were listening. Good on him.
- The party voted to have a new class of supporters that would be able to vote for the next Liberal Party of Canada leader. That opens up the party and is good in that it attempts to create some buzz/excitement, and also attempts to get more Canadians involved in the political process. All good things.
That leads to one thing in particular I didn’t like: the rejection by the delegates (it was approved by 56% or so, but needed 2/3 as a constitutional amendment to pass) of a US based primary system, or at least staggered regional primaries. Without primaries, it’s a bit unclear to me how you’re going to get these new “supporters” to come out and vote for the leader. We’re surely not expecting them to come to a Convention and vote alongside regular Liberal delegates; are we expecting them to show up at local nomination meetings in individual ridings to help vote for delegates? I’m thinking that will be a bit of wishful thinking as well on our part. So, that is going to be the next challenge, how to set up a system that allows these “supporters”to come out and vote for the LPC leader.
There were other things here and there that I could write about that might have gone better or we could have left well enough alone (I think we went overboard on all the Peter C. Newman references) but I think it’s safe to say that the overall weekend appears to be a success for Liberals. Many left saying they were proud to be Liberals again
It’s good to feel proud, but that pride needs to carry over in resuscitating the Liberal party. I recall a lot of people being proud after the 2006 leadership convention, and that didn’t help us win the next election. Results are what we should be ultimately be proud about. We’ll see if this is the first stepping stone to that. The next task at hand is to pick a permanent Liberal leader.
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 12, 2012, at 7:02 am |
As those politically inclined know, the Liberal Party is holding a convention in Ottawa this weekend, where delegates will be voting to elect different candidates to various party positions, and also to vote on several different policy resolutions. One of those is to adopt a US primary-style system to open up a Liberal leadership vote to potentially hundreds of thousands of Canadians, rather then the 1000 or so delegates that have traditionally done it.
I’ve not had a strong opinion really one way or the other on this one, though it would serve the purpose of opening up the voting system to more Canadians. I’ve read a column by the Star’s Bob Hepburn, arguing for the Liberals to adopt this system, that has me “leaning” towards thinking it might not be a bad idea:
Despite their many flaws and bitterly fought battles, U.S. primaries are fabulous exercises in democracy, sparking widespread voter excitement, massive news coverage and generally producing a presidential candidate “acceptable” to most party supporters. Over the past two decades, dozens of states have implemented open primaries, mainly to build the parties from the grassroots. Voters take the primaries seriously, with huge turnouts…
…Primaries aren’t perfect, but are more democratic than anything now used by Canadian parties. They get millions of voters involved; they test the abilities and intelligence of candidates; they allow challengers time to recover from an early setback; they remove the final say of who will lead the party from the hands of a small group of party insiders and loyalists.
The last argument is the most appealing to me: anything that opens up the voting system like this and removes “inside politics” of choosing a leader is nothing but a good thing. We’ve read in the news the more controversial policy resolutions (ie legalizing marijuana, removing the Queen as head of state), but this one seems to me to be one of the more inportant indicators about whether the Liberal Party wants to do something bold to regain its way.
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 10, 2012, at 6:53 am |
Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, is apparently mad that his government’s plan to dump an oil pipeline through some of British Columbia’s pristine wilderness and have oil tankers come through to pick it up (and why should anyone be concerned about that, right? Exxon Valdez… cough) has been slowed down by environmental review hearings and thousands of people wanting to comment on it (and presumably express their opposition to the plan). He’s taken to calling Environmental groups and others who oppose this as “radicals”.
Pressed on what he defines as radical, he came up with a remarkably good explanation:
In an interview on CBC News Network, Oliver said radicals are “a group of people who don’t take into account the facts but are driven by an ideological imperative.”
Putting aside the debatable charge that belonging to the Sierra Club or being a member of a First Nations band concerned about the effects of a potential oil spill in their land means they and others who oppose this is “radical” (yet another attempt by the Conservative government to demonize its opponents and call them “enemies of Canada”), Joe Oliver should know what a radical is: his government has a long series of decisions that fit that definition precisely: dismantling the long-gun registry, wanting to build a series of multi-billion dollar prisons, destroyed the effectiveness of the long-form census, among other decisions, without taking into account anything to do with facts that support their decisions.
He speaks from first hand experience; this is one of the more radical governments in Canada’s governing history.
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 3, 2012, at 7:14 am |
The big news down in this area the past few days – specifically in London – is that the big company Caterpillar decided to lock all of its employees out at its London based ElectroMotive plant. It is trying to force its employees there to take more then a 50% wage cut in salary and benefits, as well as trying to get rid of the pension plan. You might think the company is in a bad position, but it has profits in the billions of dollars, while it gives its CEO a multi-million dollar salary. Times aren’t tough for it – it’s just decided it’s going to try to break the union and hang the threat of leaving the country and replacing the London plant with a plant in Indiana.
This is the same company and plant that Stephen Harper was touting tax breaks for three years ago, saying it was essential to keep the plant open in London. He has so far been silent on this issue – perhaps hiding behind the holidays as an excuse. It is no different today in London – a city that has close to 10% unemployment and cant afford losing several hundred more jobs because of corporate greed. Harper and the government should speak up publicly – as a company three years removed from getting a big tax cut that Harper himself announced shouldn’t be getting away with this type of behaviour – the very stuff the Occupy Wall St. movement was born over – and remind the company it wasn’t given tax breaks only to threaten to leave three years later, if the blackmail it’s trying to attempt on its workers fails.
Posted by Scott Tribe on December 27, 2011, at 3:04 pm |
I’ve been off for a few days enjoying the holidays – I’ve not gone anywhere online – don’t worry 
Anyhow, to all my political friends, foes, and in between, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, and I wish you the best for the upcoming New Year.
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