Posted by Scott Tribe on February 8, 2010, at 12:39 pm |
Via Kady O’Malley, we see that CAPP is thinking of doing several things; changing what its acronym stands for, becoming incorporated as a non-profit organization, and more substantively, trying to educate people about democracy and activism:
Following the resounding success of the nation-wide rallies held January 23rd, CAPP organizers have begun planning the future of the movement. Hoping to maintain the momentum achieved by those demonstrations, organizers have begun initiating plans in support of a greater long-term strategy. The strategy involves educating the public about democracy and their rights as citizens through the creation and administration of an independent database of information.
Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament is in the process of structuring itself as a non-profit entity, likely to be known as Canadians Advocating Political Participation (pending a vote by supporters). Organizers hope to leverage the brand recognition achieved through the acronym ‘CAPP’ and grow the organization into the vanguard defender of citizen democracy in Canada.
To achieve this, the organization is planning on establishing various chapters throughout Canada. These chapters will provide local-level concerns and guidance to the central organization; the chapters will also exist to provide public educational forums meant to strengthen the base of democracy in Canada.
CAPP has also initiated a new month-long campaign called ‘31 Days of Action’, where participants are encouraged to individually achieve a set of 31 goals relating to political activism. On March 2nd CAPP will hold a special press conference in Ottawa and present
a brand new website, which is currently under construction.
I personally think that CAPP could be taking a more activist role right now in what it does to stay in the public eye (for instance, publicly denouncing these new 10 %’er ads from the Conservatives we’ve been hearing so much about as another instance of them trying to use a red herring to escape public accountability on the Afghanistan Detainee question), but it’s encouraging the group is not just standing still.
I do like the idea of a name change while keeping the original acronym, because once Parliament eventually resumes, that original group will have lost its effectiveness, since prorogation will have ended. Whether the one they have chosen now is the one I’d use, I’m not so sure about. I’ll be following the discussions on this closely.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 7, 2010, at 12:04 pm |
I couldn’t help but laugh at the picture and caption the Toronto Star is using of Jim Flaherty coming out of an igloo up in Iqaluit where the G7 Finance Ministers are meeting.
The caption reads:
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty exits an igloo in Iqaluit on Feb. 6, 2010, moments after destroying the snow-brick entrance arch of another igloo. Locals had built the snow structures to welcome the G7 delegates.
Flaherty obviously has a knack for wrecking things that he touches, both figuratively and literally.
UPDATE @ 12:25 pm:Here’s another example of a great picture of Flaherty (and homemade description that Steve V very generously decided to add to that photo).
…Daycare in Toronto is extremely difficult to find, not to mention unaffordable. The “waiting lists” are hardly transparent. To find a spot requires perseverance and continual lobbying. My story highlights some of the problems with this system. I can only imagine the difficulty in finding a subsidized spot, which are even fewer and farther between.
The $100 Universal Child Care Benefit we get from the federal government each month covers just less than one day at some city-run daycares. The maximum tax deduction you can make for child care is $7,000 per child. At the rates being charged in Toronto, families pay $10,000 to $18,000 a year for each preschool-aged child in the family. There are so many ways this system can be improved but it requires focus, time and resources. When will this issue get the attention it deserves?
The answer to that last question – at least for me – is when the Conservative government is defeated. That’s why I was pleased to see Ignatieff commit to re-introducing a national daycare program. I am hopeful when its details are released that it will be even more comprehensive and “national” then the program Prime Minister Paul Martin signed with the provinces, before Harper and the Conservatives cancelled it, in an attempt to prevent it being entrenched as Medicare is. They won’t dare touch universal Medicare, but they were able to kill this attempt at a national daycare program before it got fully established. I am pleased to see that we will attempt to re-establish a daycare program with (hopefully) national standards and (hopefully) universal access for all who need it, if Ignatieff and the Liberals get elected.
(H/T to Brandie Weikle, parentcentral.ca and healthzone.ca editor for the Toronto Star)
UPDATE: If I’m not mistaken, that 100$ benefit the government sends out also gets clawed back, so it ends up being considerably less then 100$ a month, and even more useless for covering childcare costs.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 4, 2010, at 2:00 pm |
Realizing that prorogation was the worst political mistake since Pierre Trudeau handed John Turner a list of his friends to find jobs for, the PMO is starting to throw furniture out the windows, in a vain attempt to get the Langevin Block to levitate.
Courtesy of Greg over at Mr Sinister, who has a bit more following that great description on the PMO hoping cancelling all upcoming holiday breaks will get Canadians to forgive and forget their blunder. At the moment though, more new polling from Ekos today shows they aren’t in such a hurry to do so. Liberals have marginally increased their lead nationally, and lead in several key areas of the country.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 3, 2010, at 11:59 am |
Michael Ignatieff came out yesterday with a strongly worded appeal to the Prime Minister to support safe abortion and family planning programs abroad if he was serious about wanting to aid in improving the lives of women overseas.
One of the PMO’s spokespersons, or at least a spokesperson for Harper, came back with this angry retort:
Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for Harper, said it was “sad” and “pathetic” that the Liberals were using women’s health as a “political football.”
That quote comes today at the same time we see the Conservative Party planning to send out a new 10%’er ad they’re about to release which tries to use soldiers as a political advantage for the Conservatives by accusing the Liberal Party of attacking/not supporting Canadian troops and of questioning Canadian soldiers actions in Afghanistan. That of course is ridiculous; the only thing the Liberals and other opposition parties are questioning are the Conservative government’s actions and what they knew was going on over there.
The point I’m trying to make is; Dimitri and the Conservatives have a lot of nerve trying to accuse the Liberals and Ignatieff of trying to use women’s health as a political football, when they’re doing even worse in hiding behind Canadian soldiers and smearing Liberals as being unpatriotic/un-supportive of our troops. This is an obvious attempt to distract Canadians from the prorogation uproar and the fact they were trying to avoid accountability on the issue. This new strategy is an apparent extension of that.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 2, 2010, at 2:02 pm |
The Peterborough Conservative MP Dean Del Maestro decides it’s his turn to try and explain prorogation. First he pulls out the already tried “it’s been used so many times before!” excuse, before finally settling on “it’s the media’s fault for covering this!” excuse.
Here’s hoping the voters of Peterborough helps Dean get a long rest after next election. Perhaps if CAPP decides to go with a strategy to target certain Conservative MP’s to aid in their defeat, I’m hoping Dean will be at the top of their list.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 2, 2010, at 9:29 am |
It’s been nice to see not only the Liberals capitalize on the Conservatives proroguing of Parliament by showing up for work on the Hill, but actually doing some substantive announcements and round-tables on policy, and this is probably their biggest and best one to date – promising to implement a national childcare/daycare program, regardless of how big the deficit is:
Ignatieff unequivocally declared on Monday that if he becomes prime minister, there will be no delay in delivering a national program – and lack of money won’t be an excuse. “This is the number one social priority of an incoming Liberal government,” Ignatieff said during a break in an all-day discussion on poverty and homelessness in Canada.
Ignatiff did not offer specifics on dollar figures or how many daycare spaces he believes that the plan he has in mind would create, but I like the fact he’s clearly staked out a specific difference between himself and the Conservatives on this issue. The latest poll from Decima talked about in my prior blogpost shows the Liberals have regained the lead from the Conservatives with women voters, and I’m thinking an ambitious plan like this will help them with this voting demographic. In my opinion, the Conservatives 100$ a month “program” is neither a national daycare program, nor does it do much in aiding families to pay for childcare costs, and it is vulnerable to a well thought out national plan that covers all. We will need to see what Ignatieff has in mind with the specifics of this plan – I would like it to be more of a “national” program then what the Paul Martin Liberal administration offered – but details are sure to come.
Of course, as the Star article mentions, Ignatieff may be fighting past Liberal records of promising a national daycare program, and then putting it off due to money concerns, but this statement from Ignatieff seems pretty unequivocal that a program will be implemented regardless of the deficit at the time.
As an aside, kudos from this corner to Ignatieff and the Liberals on taking advantage of “Conservative prorogation month” as a way to offer some alternative policy to the Conservatives on policy, knowing the spotlight would be primarily on them in Ottawa with the government off on its Olympics holiday/recalibration tour. I hope they keep it up.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 1, 2010, at 5:04 pm |
Another poll out; this one a new one from Harris-Decima, which shows that Canadians are still up in arms over the prorogation of Parliament:
Over the last two weeks, the Liberals and Conservatives are now tied in voting intentions. Nationally, the Conservatives stand at 32%, the Liberals 32%, while the NDP is at 15%, the BQ 10% and the Greens 9%.
The specifics for the regions of Canada can be found at the linked-to PDF file above, but I found the summary from Allan Gregg on the poll really interesting. Here’s some really bad news for the Conservatives; the Liberals have reversed their declines in key voter demographics:
…”it is clear that the Liberals are making some substantial inroads in battle ground constituencies. They are emerging as the dominant federalist alternative to the BQ in Quebec and they are now ahead in riding-rich Ontario for the first time since September…seats that looked to be in the Conservatives win column in the 905 area code are once again competitive and the Liberals are regaining their historic advantage with women voters. In sum, the Conservatives slow motion redrawing of the Canadian political map that we were witnessing for the better part of 2009 is now being erased in first weeks of 2010.“
Remember all those analysts that said Canadians wouldn’t care about this prorogation? Remember those that say CAPP at Facebook was a “media-driven event”? Or even those who perhaps acknowledged there was anger, but that it would probably fade? It appears that Canadians have not yet forgiven or forgotten the Harper Conservatives for this prorgation stunt, and it appears they’ve given the voters a reason to give the Liberals and Michael Ignatieff another hard look/2nd chance. In that regard, the “return to work” and unveiling new policy initatives/workshops daily during this prorogation period has seemed have gone over pretty well.
The Conservatives claims about needing to recalibrate and focus on the Winter Olympics have gone over like a lead balloon on the other hand (which everyone knows aren’t the real reasons they prorogued anyhow).
UPDATE @ 6:27 pm: Whoa. Gregg’s analysis of the poll’s results at the Globe & Mail includes this hum-dinger on Stephen Harper, who he says is the reason for the Conservatives losing all their gains in those key voting demographics in late 2009:
Mr. Gregg lays the blame on Stephen Harper. He said the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue Parliament has added to what has always been a character issue. “It’s about a guy who looks a little sneaky and un-Canadian in some respects, pressing an advantage like a bully.” The government’s handling of the Haitian earthquake won praise, but hasn’t shaken doubts about the prime minister. “It’s overcome by lingering animosity toward a political leader who has done something that Canadians clearly think is untoward,” Mr. Gregg said.
If I had said that, I’d be accused of being a Liberal “hyper-partisan”, but for a respected pollster to say that is quite an indictment of Harper.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 1, 2010, at 12:57 pm |
One of my commentators in the comments section of my blogpost (who runs Progressive Blogger affiliate Views From the Lake) condemning the CBC’s new licensing scheme with American copyright “protectors” iCopyright has come up with another angle on this business:
I think it’s a great business opportunity. I plan on heavy trolling of the Blogging Tories looking for breaches to report to iCopyright. A million bucks is a million bucks!
This is a very good point. He’s referring to the Boing-Boing article which states that “iCopyright offers a reward of up to $1,000,000 for snitching on bloggers who don’t pay Danegeld to Canada’s public broadcaster to quote the works they funded.”
So there you are, progressive bloggers of all stripes; keep an eye out for Blogging Tory sites who are quoting the CBC’s news articles without an iCopyright license, and report them. See how many of you get a 1 million $ bounty! Talk about a “get-rich-quick” scheme; this surely is one!
(On the more serious side of things, this might be 1 issue that both sides of the political blogosphere can be on the same side as).
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