Liberals shouldn't have followed Conservatives on partisan ten percenters

The Globe and Mail carried a story on July 30, Liberals slapping back against Tories' partisan flyer tactics, about how Liberal MPs have now also started to send out partisan "ten percenters" after complaining about the Conservatives' ten percenters to no avail.

Other Liberal bloggers have applauded this move, but I disagree.

The partisan ten percenters had been energizing and motivating Liberal party supporters and other voters. A lot of people were angry at these mailings, told us so, and I think we could have capitalized (were capitalizing!) on them to build up our own organization.

Instead, this is looking like out-of-control, pre-writ, partisan mud-slinging funded, unwillingly I am certain, by the tax-payer. It's not going to help us solve some of the structural problems with Canadian democracy like voters getting turned off by politics and disengaging from the political process. (problems that Conservatives are less concerned about, since it serves their interests)

My feeling is that Liberals are not going to realize a net profit by choosing this route. I can't see, for example, that it's going to help the Liberal party pick up members and supporters.

It's (already) a disaster, not a buying opportunity, Mr. Harper.

A lot of people have already commented but here is my take on Stephen Harper's statement to reporters yesterday (Oct. 7, 2008), "I think there are probably some great buying opportunities emerging on the stock market as a consequence of all this panic" and the statement on the Conservative Party website related to the belated release of their election platform, "The Liberals and the NDP are both a vote for financial disaster" (their emphasis).

Look, it's already a financial disaster (I won't quote somebody else. I'll back that statement up with my past years of experience working in the financial markets). If the Conservatives really believe a vote for the Liberals is going to turn this situation into one, they don't understand what's going on. Maybe they don't want to, or can't. Hey, C's! It's already a disaster guys.

Note how the Conservatives are lumping the Liberals and NDP together so that they can criticize the Liberal Party on economic management. From the Financial Post, Stephen Harper said, "The Opposition proposes raise taxes. In particular, and look at the stock market today -- where the big hits are on energy and commodity prices. And the Opposition proposes carbon taxes. The Opposition proposes to raise taxes on companies in the energy business and other commodity businesses." They have to add in the NDP's plan to cancel planned business tax cuts. They can't simply criticize the Green Shift any more, especially with the publication of the open letter from 230 economists supporting a carbon tax as the best way to fight global warming.

Look, nobody is blaming the financial disaster on the government. This is an international problem, but it is a disaster. Hey, C's! It's already a disaster guys.

The questions Canadians should be asking themselves as they head to the polls on October 14th are, "Who is going to acknowledge the economic crisis as more than a buying opportunity on the stock market? Who has economic management experience? Who will, given that a recession is a near certainty, also look out for the vulnerable members of our society?". That would not be the Conservative Party.

Conservative candidate fabricates "facts"

(gosh, if the Conservatives are going to manage Canada's economy, maybe plagiarism isn't so bad, at least not as bad as acting on purely fabricated "information")

Have a look at this posting by Conservative candidate Brian Abrams in Kingston and the Islands. I took the screen shot in the early morning hours of Oct. 1, 2008. Look at the very bottom where he attacks the carbon tax by using that "fact" the German unemployment rate is 12%. The number immediately struck me as high. In fact, you can easily check online that the German unemployment rate was 7.6% in September and 7.7% in August. Brian Abrams just made up his unemployment number out of the blue.

The link is here but who knows how long it will remain uncorrected.

You know if Mr. Abrams is elected and if the Conservatives are returned to power, he may very well become a cabinet minister. Harper's bench is not very deep. Anything could happen.

With the economic storm clouds gathering, it would be a lot safer to send one less "economic fact fabricator" to Ottawa. Vote for Peter Milliken in Kingston and the Islands!

MKJA report also shows GHG reductions

The MKJA report quoted in the Green Party press release yesterday also answers the question (in a political sort of way because the Conservative government was in possession of this 'secret' report) that many critics have posed about how much and when greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced under a Green Shift or Green Tax Shift.

Check out Table 3 of the report, entitled "Emissions Reductions Under GHG charges". The authors of a report have a model with which they can give a rough idea of when and how much emissions will be reduced under a certain level of carbon tax.

Of course all of this is less important than the fact that this report shows that the economic impact of the proposed carbon tax, either by the Liberals or the Greens, would be to reduce GDP by only about one-tenth of one percent in the first five years or so, but then actually increase the GDP 15 years down the road. The Conservatives knew that this information was in the report by MKJA that they did not make public, and yet they persisted in claiming in the first week of the election campaign that the Green Shift would "plunge Canada into a recession" and threaten national unity. If you can't be honest with yourself, how can you be trusted to run somebody else's (the country's) affairs?

Conservative campaign workers are easier to train

Yesterday I got my first taste, I think, of the Conservative Party ground campaign for the 2008 federal election. I had on my Tournant Vert button and was walking around downtown Kingston, Ontario. A fellow out of the blue turned to me and muttered some anti-environmentalist stuff ending with "... green shaft" before walking away.
Then it occured to me that the C's have an easy time training their volunteers. I can imagine it now. One guy with a bullhorn shouting, "Repeat after me, 'greeen shaaaft'".