Harper's gamesmanship has Liberals at brink of failure

You’ve got to hand it to Stephen Harper.
In another life, the man might well have had a promising career as a bespectacled chess nerd, because his ability to master feints, launch gambits and manage momentum would make even a grandmaster blush with envy.
Right now, the Conservatives are about to succeed in having an underdog Opposition push for an election that only the Conservatives want, and only they can benefit from, without at all seeming like they had anything to do with the event.
Let’s put things in perspective: the Bloc Quebecois has nothing to gain from this election. A few seats here or there, won or lost, won’t make a wisp of difference to the separatists’ larger mission to milk the federal tax dollar for their province. Quebec has, and always will be, an overly large player in federal politics. The Bloc will not win more seats in the next election, they might lose, and at the worst, they will be a bit player in a majority. No, their greatest power is now, where they can try to play kingmaker in a dysfunctional Parliament.
The NDP will only lose in the next election. Jack Layton, perhaps the most likeable of all the federal leaders, is on the limp. His party has no traction, and has somehow lost the traditional support of the Prairie provinces (how?) and left-leaning voters in urban B.C. (how?) while utterly failing to gain any traction amidst the impoverished and working-glass Maritimer. (How, again?) Given the NDP’s propensity for tax-and-spend fiscal incompetence, and given the obvious financial instability of the world, voters won’t be willing willing to give the NDP any power to spend money we don’t have. The next election will be a bloodbath for the NDP, and anything close to losing only a half-dozen seats will be about the best the party can hope for.
The Liberals are hoping to strike it lucky by challenging the Tories on issues of morals and ethics. But here’s where the utterly un-prime ministerial Michael Ignatieff has fallen for a clever trick. The Tories have polls – they spend more of your dollars and theirs than any other government in history on such things – that show the Canadian people just don’t give a damn about a staggering litany of scandals. Part of this has to do with the Tories’ overloaded coffers, which allows the Tories plenty of pre-election election ads. Michael Ignatieff will never be prime minister.
But Stephen Harper will, again. He might not achieve many more seats than he has, but he will retain power.
Now, it’s not clear an election will give the Tories the majority they crave by positing the current governing party as a better option than the Liberals. But there's another way to victory: not by being better than the other guy, but by making the other guy appear less viable. In that light, Harper has allowed Ignatieff and company just enough room to think they have a chance – while also being certain that the Canadian public have little confidence in Ignatieff and the Liberals as a whole. The fact that Ignatieff decided the budget wasn’t his cup of tea (even though it was more Liberal than some Liberal budgets of years past) without even reading it will be portrayed by the Tories as evidence Ignatieff isn’t here for us – just himself – as all those quasi-slanderous Tory attack ads suggest.
The only fly in the Tory ointment is the departure of veteran (and likeable) MPs Stockwell Day and Chuck Strahl. But both B.C. politicians come from areas rife with die-hard Conservative roots. Short of a meltdown by the candidates in that area, both seats will be blue the next election. So what if Harper loses a few veteran ministers? It’s not like most of the government has any power other than to heed what comes out of the Prime Minister’s Office anyhow.
But even against that backdrop, Harper retains a master-stroke: people didn’t want an election, and if one is forced, he has the power to point out how the nasty Liberals and evil Socialists are responsible for this spring inconvenience. The message from the well-oiled Tory machine will be a simple one: “Don’t blame us. We had a wonderful budget that would have helped seniors and the poor and help build jobs, and now we’re just stuck trying to govern the country as best as we could despite those meddling kids.”
In the game of electoral chess, Stephen Harper has masterfully shuffled the political pieces on Ottawa’s checkered board such that regardless of whoever moves first, the Conservatives win.
If Ignatieff forces an election, he will lose. Alternately, the Opposition could cave and allow the Harper regime another year of life. Either way, the Conservatives are the only party that stand to gain from the current political turmoil, regardless of its outcome.
And that’s got much to do with the machinations of Harper: he hasn’t piloted a less-than-spectacular minority government to the greatest longevity in history by luck alone. Come Friday's non-confidence vote, the Liberals may well have allowed Harper to trick them into securing a Tory majority.
- Vern Faulkner is the Courier editor.

Please, just count this time, OK?

It was a Sunday, and the newsroom of the Prince Albert Daily Herald was abnormally packed.
Two "deskers" - an industry term for layout editors, a sports reporter, myself, and a general news reporter gathered around the television on a chill night. (They're all chill at that time of the year: one of the reasons I wanted to move here!)
We knew, we all knew, that the psyche of an entire province lay in the play ahead.
Grey Cup, 2009. Montreal trailing, Damon Duval - the Al's placekicker, who had struggled all day long - was about to try and seal his team's victory.
We all know what happened next. But for readers in this area to truly understand the impact of that last-second field goal, one has to try and wrap one's head around how Saskatchewan views its football team.
Folks on the Prairies bleed one of two colours: green, or white. Take your pick.
As I related in a column recently, it's a passion of unbounded proportions. Little old ladies will gab over offensive formations with a depth of understanding that most football coaches elsewhere can only struggle to obtain.
That's why this time, 360-odd days ago, the newsroom of the Herald was so busy. We had a four-page special section to put out, either celebrating the Saskatchewan Roughriders victory, or, alternately, marking the squad's defeat at the hands of Anthony Calvillo and company.
My job that night was to co-ordinate the feeds from The Canadian Press and Canwest News, as well as our own reporter in Calgary. The press was on alert, long told that we'd be running a little late with a special edition.
But to speed the process, we'd already gathered some images, forged a front cover for either scenario. The one for the Riders victory was super-special, with the nameplate running up the left side of the page: something that had never been done before. Go big, or go home, was the philosophy.
Now all that we needed to do was see whether Duval could split the uprights.
The memories of that moment diverge at the moment of the snap.
All else in the newsroom saw the snap, saw the kick push wide. Bedlam ensued.

Every seasoned football official I have spoken to has reported the same reaction: as others reacted according to fan persuasion, those of us who officiate the game at any reasonable level, were shaking our heads.
There's only one foul that deep officials will call at the snap of the ball.
In any officiating crew of five officials or more, the deep officials will count the defensive players. The referee and umpire will count offence.
Every official has his or own way of counting. Me, I block players out in groups of four.
One, two, three groups of four and all is good: it's basic Grade 3 grouping and number theory in action. More than three groups of four and we have a problem. Less than that - 11 men, not 12 - will usually provoke a "count 'em up" at lower levels of ball. A minor hint. Even 13 players will trigger such a call: it's a concept called "preventative officiating."
But at the pro levels, it's up to someone else to avoid such simple infractions as having too many players on the field.
"Too many men," I mumbled to a newsroom that was rather non-objectively celebrating what it thought was a Rider win.
My sports reporter looked at me, a jaded expression creeping over his face.
"It's a 10-yard penalty, and a re-kick. There's no way Duval will miss."
I lurched into my incredibly cold office to scrap the super-special cover and run with the "Al's win" version, even before the penalty had been announced to the world.

Although I tend not to work the deep positions as an official, I can only recall throwing a flag for too many men maybe two or three times in my career.
It's even rarer to see at the higher levels. At the college and pro levels, there is at least one on-field player who counts the team at every play. Smart special teams coaches make sure that a key player - a kicker for the offence, usually, and a linebacker or receiver for the receiving team - counts.
But not that day, not that play.
I've read some commentary from the deep officials of that game, referee-insider stuff from the Canadian Football Officials Association newsletter. Not one of the three officials responsible for catching that extra man could believe what they were seeing. One guy said he counted the defensive set three times, in disbelief.
Ironic, really, that an icon of Rider culture - the 13th man - would haunt them such. It cost them the greatest prize in Canadian football, and the collective psyche of the Rider nation is still smarting.

There are some odd forces at play, this year. It's not surprising that Montreal would return to the grand stage of Canadian ball: they are the current dynasty in the league, after all.
But the Riders had to fight, claw, and scratch to another Grey Cup berth.
Instead of Calgary, it's Edmonton as the site of the big dance this year. But no difference, for hundreds of melon-headed, green-clad, Pilsner-fuelled lunatics will have made the trek to see the 2009 combatants in a rematch.
And this year, one can be sure that there will be multiple eyes counting every special teams play.
So, if I may offer a wee bit of suggestion to the Riders before tomorrow's big game, this would be it, in Monty Pythonesque fashion:
Twelve is the number. Not 13. Eleven is sort of OK, but 14 is right out.

Thinking pink to prove a point

I’m still trying to piece together what, exactly, happened in St. George involving the assault of a gay couple.
But I can tell you this: it can’t happen again.
What’s more bothersome is that it seems to have stemmed from what the victim says were systemic incidents at Fundy High School, where he “came out” while in Grade 11.
He's graduated now, but says he doesn't want to come home, for fear of persecution by, well, bigots. Those are my words, not his.
As of the writing of this missive, I have left two phone requests for an interview with the principal of Fundy High School to address the state of homophobic bullying at FHS – with no response.
This would be the same school subject to some serious backlash last year when parents effectively muzzled a day aimed at preventing homophobic-triggered violence.
Now, it’s none of my business who sleeps with who in this community: that’s not something I’m interested in, nor something The Courier should care about.
But it is my business, I feel, as a visible figure in this community, to take notice when one of our citizens is treated unfairly, unjustly.
And this is one of them.
On Thursday evening, Fundy High School is hosting a community event. I have been invited. And I shall arrive – but I shall, tomorrow, wear a nice shirt. A nice pink shirt. I’m even going to buy a nice pink tie. And, if I can find one, I’ll also obtain a nice, glittery effeminate ear-ring.
I have no insecurities or questions over my sexuality, my sexual preference or any of those such things. And even if I did, I’m certainly not so much of a coward that I’d gather a few of my like-minded (narrow-minded) bigot friends and beat the snot out of someone who felt the urge to bed someone of a similar sex.
I don’t know who the cowards involved in the weekend assault are, exactly. But consider this an open invitation to step forward and show a little courage. Put your names in the newspaper, if you dare, and tell us all what moved you to track down a gay man and make his life miserable. In the meantime, I figure the least I can do don a wardrobe that might show the small-minded and bigoted of the county that they aren’t going to win.
Given some of the rabidly anti-homophobic comments I fielded when the Courier covered the rainbow flag issue earlier this spring, this may become my official St. George attire.
We in this community need to show those bigots who might be a bit upset over trifling things like sexual preference that violence cannot, must not be a part of our society.
So tomorrow, I’m wearing a whole bunch of pink.
Who’s with me?
And who’s got a really, really girly earring I can borrow?

Ignorance is hardly bliss

As timing goes, a press release issued by a group calling itself the Institute for Canadian Values could not have been worse – nor could it have possibly been better.
On Thursday at 2:19 p.m., the man claiming to be the group’s president, Dr. Charles McVety, issued a press release decrying a federal bill that aims to include transgendered individuals as people protected from discrimination.
What was interesting, however, was McVety’s use of the term “pervert,” to describe transgender individuals.
The irony, of course, is that McVety’s release came almost at the same time local media outlets learned that a transgendered individual, Michelle Rayner, had allegedly been assaulted in a bathroom on the St. Thomas University campus in Fredericton, apparently on the basis of her perceived sex (male).
Now, we fully acknowledge that not everyone is comfortable with transgendered individuals. And frankly, that’s OK. We live in a free society, and should be able to hold individual views that range from one extreme to the other on transgender issues, and to reasonable in-betweens – such as holding the view that governments should not fund gender-change procedures.
The latter is somewhat my personal view, by the way. I have no hatred or animousity towards transgendered people, and once knew a fascinating young lad named Melvin who became a lass named Melody.
Yet at the same time, it is difficult for me to see governments subsidizing $50,000-plus elective sex-change surgery when Grampa is on a 15-month waiting list for a hip transplant, and Samantha needs to have a biopsy done to see if she’s got a cancerous tumour in her breast.
But there is a considerable difference between holding a personal view, even an extreme view, and having an uniformed or inflammatory view, as McVety and the alleged assailant in the St. Thomas University bathroom did.
We teach our two-year-olds to “use your words.” The woman in the bathroom who allegedly assaulted Rayner could have done exactly that.
“Excuse me, but this is the woman’s bathroom,” would have been far preferable to a punch in the face.
McVety’s term “pervert” (the precise quote reads: “... our children will be exposed to perverts entering girls’ bathrooms, change rooms and even showers claiming transgender discrimination.”) is fear-laden and needlessly inflammatory. It also shows an interesting bias, in that McVety (president of the Canadian Christian College), didn’t use the term “boys’ bathrooms” even though there are transgendered individuals who are biologically female but either choose to express, or feel moved to express, as a male.
Although much-debated, some scientists have well-founded data linking genetic traits to transgendered individuals: some people, it seems, are hard-wired to be something other than a black-and-white, girl-or-boy outcome. If so, we note that genetics can’t be altered.
But ignorance can.
Many transgendered individuals experience some degree of psychological trauma, and more than a few suffer from mental illness attributed to challenges with gender identity: trauma directly linked to societal anger and misunderstanding, like assuming transgendered individuals are “perverts.”
Adding to that trauma isn’t going to help.
Understanding, however, will.
A line from an old Rush song, “Witch Hunt” seems appropriate, here:
“Quick to anger, quick to judge, slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice and fear go hand in hand.”
As an aside, evidence as to how attitudes in this country must change lies in location of the Canada.com story on Rayner’s claims.
It was filed under “entertainment.”

Potash decision pits Tory principles against wise governance

These are interesting times for the federal Conservative government.
And for those who watch Ottawa, it seems as if the Stephen Harper government is recognizing that good governance does not necessarily mean following a set of defined political ideals with unswaying passion.
Two mining-related moves underscore this shift in realization.
Last week, Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced that a proposed mine at Fish Lake, in the northern reaches of B.C., would not be allowed to proceed, due to considerable concerns about environmental impact.
The decision flies in the face of the stereotypes cast upon the Tories as a pro-business group unconcerned with the environment. Indeed, given the precursive protestations by environmentalists, one would have assumed that the Tories had all but rubber-stamped the approval.
Not so: and that’s a great thing for the government – and probably a wise outcome, given the very real impacts the proposed mine would have.
Today, however, the Tories are going to be tested on another key issue. The staunch promoters of de-regulated business, free market economies and free trade concepts are going to decide whether to allow a hostile takeover of Potash Corp., the largely Saskatchewan-based supplier of potash. Potash is a vital ingredient in fertilizer, and as such, a valuable commodity in a world that is pressing ever-harder to obtain as much food material from dwindling land resources.
The decision, set to come down today at 4:30 CDT, pits free-market, free-business principles against the very real concern of losing control over a material valuable to not only Canada’s economy (Potash Corp. has a mine in New Brunswick), but the global economy. The state-owned potash producer is a key generator of jobs, revenue and by its role in sustaining the agriculture of multiple economies throughout the world, a key player in the global economic landscape.
Lose control of Potash Corp. to foreign-owned BHP, and we collectively lose control of a valued resource. How valued? If the current hostile bid fails, a group of Russian investors is looking to obtain partial ownership of Potash Corp. to minimize future takeover bids – citing concerns about economic welfare for their nation.
This is heavy stuff.
The Conservatives can stick to their party principles and let the sale proceed.
Or they can follow a moral route and do what’s probably best for not only Canada, but many nations around the world.
In four hours, we’ll find out whether principles or morals win.

Halloween fear oddly ironic

Religion is a powerful force, indeed, it is one of the unifying elements of humanity – although one wouldn’t think so, to see some of the atrocities committed in the name of religion.
But belief is powerful. So powerful that it sometimes over-rides logic and reason, such as what will happen in McAdam this weekend, and what happened here some years past, when towns decided to unilaterally “move” Halloween from a Sunday date to the Saturday before.
The logic, of course, is that Halloween is seen as a non-Christian event, somehow in conflict with Judeo-Christian principles.
This, however, doesn’t bear the test of history.
In my former guise as a long-haired philosopher, I opted for the career path of studying religions. Now, there’s not a lot of want ads for long-haired comparative religions professors, which is why I fled the hallowed halls of higher learning and wiggled my way into the current career path.
But I still have a passion for that field.
Here’s an interesting tidbit: almost every major religion or culture has a celebration where there is a belief that spirits of the dead are somehow “closer” to the real world. Indeed, there’s a celebration in Catholic faiths called “all souls day” which is based on the thought that some of the souls of the dearly departed must be assisted to their final destination.
But back to the original thesis for moving Halloween, shall we?
The general gist, as I understand, is that Halloween is a pagan event and it is a conflict to celebrate a pagan event on a day reserved for Christian celebration.
That’s a nasty can of worms to open. For one, our culture is infused with celebrations rooted in pagan observations. Easter and Christmas are two examples. The very existence of the Christmas tree – a common practice in many households – is rooted in the practices of the British and Germanic Celts. A Yule log – often the same pole used in the fertility rite of the May pole – was burned on solstice night, the longest night of the year, to mark the death and rebirth of the horned consort to the mother goddess. (Variations exist in many European pre-Christian cultures.)
The Easter bunny, however, is likely tied more to Greek practices, and seems to be rooted in the sacrifice of fertility symbols (eggs, rabbits, pigs) to the chthonic (earth-bound) gods and goddesses held to be charge of plant growth.
This is hardly news.
But I find it a bit odd that we would embrace or ignore one pagan-rooted celebration in this culture, and provide another – Halloween – with such power.
It would make sense if churches banned Easter as well as most of the pagan trappings of Christmas.
But for the most part, they don’t, in large part because the pagan/non-Christian trappings of both celebrations have long been lost, removed from the realm of religion and incorporated into custom and culture.
Likewise, this forthcoming celebration of Halloween has long lost its roots in pagan faiths, long lost its history as a time when people would wear masks and costumes to conceal their identity from possibly vengeful spirits reaching across from the “other world” on a day when the veil between here and the afterworld was believed to be weak.
Nope, it’s a day for kids to dress up and gather far too many calories in short-chain, sugary molecules.
Unless, of course, one chooses to believe otherwise. Ironic, isn't it?

Baffled by New Brunswick politics

These few weeks are going to be tough, with general accusations that yours truly is biased, clueless, ill-informed, incompetent, irrelevant and a general waste of oxygen.
No, I’m not talking about the guts of football officiating season. It’s that time that every editor ever to put ink to print dreads: election time.
See, this is the time when various political aspirants want very desperately for newspapers to write stories that make them look utterly amazing. Of course, if we dare to do something to make said political aspirants look like they may not be entirely in touch.
As we edged closer to this campaign, I mistakenly thought I could draw on my previous experience from other areas: almost a score of municipal, provincial and federal elections.
Nope. Toto, we’re not in Kansas, anymore.
Let’s start with the Conservatives. Most times, the PC/Tory amalgam (Saskatchewan Party in my former domain, Liberals in B.C. before that) are skinflints that cut programs, cut cabinet, cut taxes but programs and cut spending.
Not here. Judging by the multitude of press releases I keep getting, the PCs must have the inside line on a whole lotta money, because their spending pledges are bordering on the utterly ludicrous. (If our finances are in dire trouble because of government incompetence, how is spending more money going to help? What happened to the fiscal part of fiscal conservative?)
Then you’ve got the Liberals, who are quietly hoping everybody has kinda forgotten that whole mess about selling off public property without consultation. Isn’t gutting state-owned property more of a Tory gig? And, more recently, the Liberals are pledging 20,000 new jobs. Gosh, nice idea: too bad it didn’t germinate two years ago.
And in recent days, they, too, are starting to spend money we don’t have.
Here’s a clue: when the house is falling apart, the roof needs repair and the electricity bill hasn’t been paid in two months ... don’t suggest going out to buy a 56” plasma TV, because you plain can't afford it.
But that’s just what both the big guns are doing.
And the NDP, frankly, baffles me. Typically, a NDP government taxes more than it should, and spends more than it should, stifles business while driving the coffers into mass deficits – but in the process, the governments build long-term infrastructure such as affordable housing, medical facilities and the like. (Two things this area needs, desperately.)
The NDP here can’t organize a constituency association in a riding that by all rational logic should be an NDP stronghold, and hasn’t a hope of forming even a bare-bones opposition Sept. 27. Yet, it is the only party noticing that gosh, the cost of promises made by both the Liberals and the PCs borders on the utterly ludicrous. Fiscal restraint? From the NDP?
I gotta go find a pair of size 11 red pumps. That’s the only logical explanation for what’s going on right now.