Aperte.org » Politics

Crossing the border on eggshells

Jeremy Handcock — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:27:38 +0000

As someone who regularly crosses the Canada-U.S. border by road, I've been closely following the trial of Peter Watts, a Toronto sci-fi writer. He was charged with resisting and obstructing a U.S. border officer following a vehicle search last year. It's worth noting that U.S. officers conducted the search on U.S. soil as Watts was returning to Canada (a so-called "exit search"). Yesterday, a jury in Michigan convicted him.

Photo courtesy Arnold C, Wikimedia Commons

When I first read the story as it was popularized on BoingBoing.net, it scared the crap out of me. According to Watts' version of the events, an officer punched him in the face and maced him during the incident. At some point, the officer apparently ordered Watts to the ground and Watts asked what the problem was instead of immediately laying on the ground. That simple question, according to Watts' account of the trial, was a display of non-compliance and therefore a felony crime. Yikes. He's now awaiting sentencing and facing up to two years in a U.S. prison and a $2,000 fine. However you interpret these accounts and the incident in general, I think there's pointed advice in here for Canadians crossing the border:

The United States is a foreign country. Weird and unexpected things sometimes happen to people visiting foreign lands.
U.S. border officers might stop and search your vehicle before you re-enter Canada. (Personally, I didn't know they did exit searches.) So, don't be freaked out if you see U.S. Customs and Border Patrol vehicles in your rear-view mirror when approaching the Canadian border.
Whenever interacting with U.S. border officers, comply with their commands immediately without question. This point might seem like common sense to seasoned border crossers, but apparently even the slightest hesitation could land you in the slammer. The American slammer, no less. From what I've read, a U.S. prison ain't a pretty place.

Personally, I've never had any weird things happen at a Canada-U.S. border crossing. I've found the U.S. officers to range in demeanour from cordial to coldly stern, which is pretty much par for the course when crossing any border. After reading this story, however, I think my palms will be a little more sweaty than usual. Here's hoping for friendly future crossings for you and me! Share:

So you want an elected Senate? Think twice.

Jeremy Handcock — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:22:33 +0000

Senate reform in Canada has received newfound attention lately thanks to Stephen Harper's recent appointments that give the Conservative Party a plurality in Parliament's upper chamber. Conservative dominance in the Senate increases the likelihood that pending Senate reform legislation will be approved, notwithstanding any challenges to legislation's constitutionality by the provinces. According to recent polls, the majority of Canadians support reform and I think many consider the Senate to be a stodgy relic of the country's colonial days. The most popular option among reformists is to have an elected Senate, similar to how it works in the United States. At first glance, this seems like a good option: the more democratic the Senate is, the better, right? In my opinion, this view is short-sighted and I encourage Canadians to dig deeper as the reform debate is reopened.

Canadian Senate primer

For those of you not familiar with how the Senate works in Canada, the Governor General---the head of state and the Queen's representative in Canada---has the authority to appoint individuals to the Senate when seats become vacant. In reality, the Governor General only makes appointments on the advice of the Prime Minister, so the PM ultimately decides who sits in the upper chamber. Once appointed, a Senator holds his or her seat until the age of 75. The Senate was originally designed to provide representation balanced by each region of the country and sober second thought to legislation passed in the lower chamber of Parliament, the House of Commons. The Senate considers each bill passed by the House of Commons and may approve the bill, request amendments to the bill from the House of Commons, or reject the bill altogether. If the Senate approves a bill, the Governor General approves it and provides royal assent---a formality from colonial days---and then the bill becomes law. See the Wikipedia article on the Canadian Senate for more background.

Senate reform

Senate reformists in Canada generally support electing Senators rather than appointing them, or abolishing the Senate altogether. A recent survey conducted by Harris/Decima found that a majority of Canadians want Senators to be elected by the voters of the region they represent. The next most popular option was abolishing the Senate, while very few support the status quo. Advocates of an elected Senate believe that it should be a democratic institution and the actions of a Senator should reflect the will of the people that he or she represents. Moreover, the Senate should be responsible to the electorate. My issue with an elected Senate is just that: votes in the chamber would be highly influenced by the public opinion of the day. Facing re-election, Senators would pander to the latest polling numbers over the long-term interests of their region and the country. Raw partisanship in the House would bleed into the Senate as parties seek to differentiate and define themselves for the next election campaign. In this sense, more democratic isn't necessarily better. To me, the fundamental purpose of the Canadian Senate is to provide non-partisan review and sober second thought to legislation on balance with the will of the elected lower chamber. With this in mind, abolishing the Senate altogether is not an option. As broken as it may seem, the status quo or a variation thereof may best reflect this purpose.

How does the Senate currently behave?

Proponents of an elected Senate argue that Senators simply toe the party line along with their colleagues in the House, so the unelected Senate can block the will of elected House. If this theory is correct, the Senate behaves as follows:

If the Senate is dominated by members of the governing party, it will approve the bills passed by the House without amendments.
If the Senate is not dominated by the governing party, it will block bills passed by the House by requesting amendments or rejecting them.

Obviously, both of these behaviours are less than ideal, so I set out to see if there is actually any evidence of them. Using the LEGISInfo database from the Library of Parliament, I found all the occasions where the Senate amended or rejected bills introduced and passed by the House of Commons. I'd hoped to go all the way back to 1867, but LEGISinfo only has data from the 24th Parliament to the 40th Parliament (from 1962 to the end of 2009). For each amendment or rejection, I found out whether the governing party at the time had a plurality---the most seats of any party---in the Senate, which is a decent indicator of how easily the government could move bills through the Senate. Because the number of bills introduced and passed by the House can vary widely between Parliaments, I was really interested in the proportion of rejected or amended bills relative to the total number of bills that received royal assent in a given Parliament. As you can see, the proportion of House bills that were amended or rejected by the Senate doesn't seem to be directly related to whether the governing party had a plurality in the Senate at the time. In other words, the Senate does not behave in a purely party-disciplined fashion. Quite the contrary: there are many instances where the governing party had a plurality in the Senate but returned legislation to the House for amendment. You'll also notice that for most Parliaments, fewer than 10% of the bills were amended or rejected, meaning that the Senate has generally respected the will of the elected House. (By the way, the Senate rejects very few bills from the House. It has rejected only three bills in the past 50 years).

So, do you really want an elected Senate?

There is no evidence in these data to suggest that our current Senate system doesn't work according to the principle of providing non-partisan review. Also, there is no evidence to indicate that the Senate does not respect the will of the elected House. Without getting into the substance of each amendment, I'd say the Senate is not as broken as most people think. In fact, its current form is probably better than any of the alternatives. Given the behaviour shown above, I would much rather stick with the Senate we have instead of turning it into a poll-driven, elected body that is motivated to act out of short-term interest. There are as many opinions on senate reform as there are Canadians, although one thing is certain: there is a bumpy road ahead if the government decides to proceed with senate reform legislation. Keep these things in mind as you consider all the options. Share:

the ideal of authenticity: grad school?

Jeremy Handcock — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:23:08 +0000

I've been reading Michael Ignatieff's CBC Massey Lecture The Rights Revolution and I had to laugh a little when I came across this section regarding authenticity:

The central idea I absorbed then---chiefly, if not exclusively, from feminism---was that each of us has a right to choose the life we lead and that we must fight to exercise this right against all comers. This could be called the ideal of authenticity. In the name of this ideal, we all went off to find ourselves. This meant getting away from family, career, society, and going in search of the self's authentic impulses. Sometimes the results were laughable: the 1960s cult of authenticity produced dull conformity in no time. We all went in search of ourselves and ended up in graduate school.

Sounds about right! Ah well, at least grad school is more productive than bumming around a ski resort for two years. Beside that point, The Rights Revolution is a really excellent read about rights culture, civic and ethnic nationalism, and the balance between individual and collective rights in Canada. Ignatieff frames Canada as three distinct founding nations that coexist with a diverse and prominent immigrant population, and when you look at the country through that lens, it's pretty amazing that it still exists in one piece. It's even more amazing that the constitutional and legal framework has managed to satisfy---more or less---all of these different interests. There is still more to be done and although there have been bumps along the way and some very dark chapters, things could be much worse. Just read Ignatieff's Blood and Belonging. Share:

liberals en famille

Jeremy Handcock — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 01:04:20 +0000

I got a broadcast from the Liberal Party earlier today announcing En famille, a "Liberals-only online community forum which is designed to allow all members across Canada to collaborate, participate in policy debates and generally interact with each other (similar to delegates at a Party convention)." According to the letter, the immediate purpose of En famille is to solicit ideas on how to best handle the economic crisis in the wake of recent Conservative blunders. Any member of the Liberal Party of Canada can participate. En famille supplements Forum Liberalis, another Liberal-sponsored online forum that is open to all regardless of party affiliation. I was pleasantly surprised to receive this message because I think -- or at least I hope -- that it signals the beginning of the party's rebirth, and it does so in a ground-up, inclusive fashion. I have long been a supporter of Michael Ignatieff and I agree with his position that hearty policy debate is exactly what the party needs right now. Combined with his commitment to hold a Kingston-style policy conference after the leadership convention in May, I think En famille is a step firmly in the right direction. Share:

an incredible night

Jeremy Handcock — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:32:34 +0000

Congratulations to my American friends. This is your time to celebrate and you've earned it. I was incredibly inspired by your country last night. Thank you! By all accounts, last night was full of celebration south of the border. One of my friends in Seattle said it was "like the Super Bowl on Capitol Hill" after the TV networks declared Obama as the winner. (You know, if the Seahawks were to actually win the Super Bowl.) I first moved to the United States in the summer of 2005 and the landscape looked pretty grim: the Bush Republicans had recently received a fresh and powerful mandate, it was becoming clear that the wars were going to be protracted engagements, and it seemed that America had perhaps lost its way indefinitely. In the words of W himself after the 2004 election: "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it." It was a scary proposition and a slightly sour welcoming. As I'm wrapping up my work at grad school and getting things in order to move back to Seattle in the new year, I'll be going back to the United States with a sense of respect and admiration. Again, congratulations and thank you! Share:

it’s also the canadian way

Jeremy Handcock — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:23:43 +0000

In a recent post entitled "Political reform, the Mexico Way", Jorge offers a hilarious translation of proceedings in the Mexican Senate that led to the passage of energy reform legislation. The Guardian has an English article covering the same, although sadly it omits the colorful details of Jorge's source. The images I had in my mind while I was reading Jorge's translation were fantastic: Senators smuggle fellow Representatives into the building in car trunks to disrupt proceedings using metallic garbage bins. Representative Alvarez then accuses her party members of treason and begins repeatedly and inexplicably "throwing herself against the glass doors of the room." All the while, Senators name-call "bitch" and "motherfucker" at their colleagues. I'm not knowledgeable about the state of political comedy in Mexico, but this would make for a great SNL-like skit! Arguably, the scene in the Canadian House of Commons isn't any more civil. Rick Mercer recently wrote a funny piece on the shouting matches and "bad acting" that frequent the House:

I get embarrassed watching question period live and I've been naked on national television. Imagine going in to your office or your workplace tomorrow and the minute you see anyone you don't like, you just start yelling and screaming like a lunatic. You'd be fired. And there's a reason. Because when people act like that, nothing gets done at work. It's not acceptable in any Canadian workplace. Why is it acceptable on Parliament Hill?

He then goes on to propose that the House of Commons be outfitted with cameras pointed at everyone, not just on the members who are talking. I'm all for it. If cameras don't raise the level of discourse and refined behavior in the House, at least the rest of us will have prime comedic footage of our members acting in dysfunction. Share:

canada’s election: disappointment

Jeremy Handcock — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:48:51 +0000

If I were to choose one word to sum up Canada's 40th general election, it would be disappointment. Here is an overview of the seat count and vote share -- along with changes since the 2006 election -- for the five major parties (compiled with data from CBC.ca): For sure, the Conservatives were given a much stronger mandate: they narrowly missed a majority in the House by 12 seats. The Liberal party was all but beaten to the ground, winning its lowest ever share of the vote and shedding an astounding 27 seats. I was braced for a solid defeat, but I really didn't expect things to go so badly for us Grits. Even after the shakeup, however, we still have a Conservative minority government with Stephen Harper at the helm.

Lowest Voter Turnout Ever

The most disappointing result of the election is that we have hit a new low in voter turnout. Only 59.1 percent of eligible Canadians bothered to exercise their ballots, which I find to be extremely disturbing. It's even more disturbing that the two elections with the lowest voter turnout have occurred in this decade (the previous record of 60.9 percent occurred in 2004). It's nothing short of shameful.

Death of Climate Change Action

The second biggest disappointment of the election is the near death of federal leadership on climate change. Economic fears seem to have shifted the focus away from the environment in this election, which means that wet-noodle Conservative environmental policy will continue to drive Canada's embarrassingly poor performance in emissions reduction. As Gary Mason writes for The Globe and Mail, "... once again, cautious Canada will be playing catch-up." The Conservative campaign platform -- released no sooner than one week before election day -- has a small tidbit about implementing a cap-and-trade system between 2012 and 2015. 2015... seriously? That's just an insulting waste of pixels on my screen. For all his failings, I very much admire Stéphane Dion for putting forth the Green Shift, his proposed carbon tax system. Regardless of carbon tax versus cap-and-trade, I feel that we're unlikely to see more federal leadership on carbon pricing any time soon. I hope I'm wrong.

New Era of Conservatism in Canada?

Third, the results of this election may signal the beginning of a new conservative era in Canada. Stephen Harper has done an incredible job of transforming the right in Canada with the goal of replacing the Liberals as Canada's natural governing party. The crazies from his party's extreme right rarely see the spotlight of the media and, in general, the party's image has moved greatly toward the centre. All that considered, I think the Conservative Party's newfound appeal is fragile, simply because it seems to be based solely on Harper himself. Case in point: the Conservative Party's campaign was extremely light on policy but had an extra helping of Harper. His new and more approachable personality, his new sweaters, and his iron grip on caucus are currently what define the party. I'm confident in a strong renewal of the Liberal Party, but it's going to take a long time indeed. Until then, we may very well be headed into a new era of conservatism in Canada. Share:

cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax in canada

Jeremy Handcock — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:23:57 +0000

The environment is turning out to be a big issue in the current election campaign. The Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats (NDP), and the Greens all have a climate change action plan as part of their platforms, and notwithstanding the Conservatives, all parties are proposing that Canada lower emissions by putting a price on carbon. In terms of environmental economics, the two established methods of doing this are to implement a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. I'll assume you know the basics of each approach. In Canada, The Liberals and Greens both propose a carbon tax while the NDP proposes a cap-and-trade system. So, what's a better way to put a price on carbon: a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system? Regardless of the political rhetoric, strictly speaking, the two methods are economically equivalent. They are both taxes on carbon emissions. I think it's important for Canadian voters to understand this. Professor Willem Buiter of the London School of Economics explains this equivalence best on his Financial Times blog:

Every cap & trade scheme with an efficient secondary market for [CO2-equivalent] emission permits and a given way of allocating these permits is, from an economic perspective, equivalent to a tax on [CO2-equivalent] emissions and a given way of allocating the revenues from that tax. Equivalent from an economic perspective means that they have the same effect on incentives and wealth distribution and therefore supports the same allocation of resources.

I also think it's important for Canadian voters to understand the differences between cap-and-trade and a carbon tax in terms of policy implementation. I've done a bit of research on this lately and I've summarized some of the main arguments on each side below.

Unknown Variables

Each approach has different unknown variables when it comes to implementation. In a cap-and-trade system, the maximum emission level (the cap) is defined by the regulator and the price of carbon is determined by the market. The price of carbon is unknown in advance of the policy implementation. In a carbon tax system, the price of carbon (the tax) is defined by the regulator and the emission levels are unknown in advance of the policy implementation. So there are clearly trade-offs in each approach: the maximum emission level defined in advance by the cap-and-trade approach is desirable, as is the predictable price of carbon in the carbon tax system.

Implementation Cost

A disadvantage of cap-and-trade is that it requires creation of a new, secondary market for trading emissions permits. It also needs to be an efficient market for the system to function optimally, which isn't guaranteed. Furthermore, a cap-and-trade system requires negotiation of an initial allocation strategy for emissions permits, which is likely to be protracted and tedious. A carbon tax would be easier to implement in this regard: all you have to do is slap a tax on carbon-based fuels. The downside is that a policy with the word "tax" is a hard sell to an uninformed electorate, which makes a carbon tax decidedly more difficult to legislate. I'm quite sure that this legislative difficulty is the reason why both Barack Obama and John McCain advocate a cap-and-trade approach.

Influence of Special Interests

Negotiating the formation of a new market for trading emissions permits and an initial allocation strategy creates ample opportunities for special interests -- Canada's oil sands, for example -- to influence a cap-and-trade policy and limit its effectiveness in reducing emissions. The relative simplicity of the carbon tax approach offers little room for such influence.

Regressive or Progressive?

Contrary to a popular belief, one that is held even by some Canadian MPs, a carbon tax is not necessarily a regressive tax. Under a vanilla carbon tax implementation, yes: the tax is regressive because lower income consumers pay a disproportionate amount of their income toward the tax. The key is how the revenues from the tax are invested. If revenues are invested progressively, through rebates for low income earners and personal income tax reductions, for example, the regressive nature of the tax is offset. Carbon tax revenues that are shifted to personal income tax reductions are said to be revenue neutral, which both the Liberals and Greens propose in their platforms. The same regressive vs. progressive issue applies to a cap-and-trade system: a vanilla cap-and-trade system will effectively impose a regressive tax on consumer goods. If the system involves a public auction of emissions permits, how those revenues are invested determines the progressive or regressive nature of the effective tax on carbon. The NDP cap-and-trade proposal distributes the proceeds of an initial public auction to "green investments".

The Final Word

Given the time and cost of implementing a cap-and-trade system and the potential influence of special interests that might undermine its effectiveness, I'm inclined toward a carbon tax. In the long run, perhaps a combination of the two schemes will offer an optimal system to reduce emissions in Canada, but in my opinion, we're already playing catch-up. A carbon tax can be implemented right now and we should have been on this at least 6 years ago when Jean Chrétien's government ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Share:

the online campaigns

Jeremy Handcock — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:14:43 +0000

After witnessing the success of Barack Obama's web campaign in the Democratic Party's nomination race this year, I think Canadian political parties are starting to become a little more web-savvy in communicating their messages. We're only three days into the federal election campaign and the major parties have all mounted a pretty substantial web presence. The Liberals and Conservatives have both launched issue-specifc websites in addition to their standard party websites. The parties are also getting into social networks: the Liberals and New Democrats both provide links on their party websites to their communities on Facebook and YouTube. The New Democrats are even using FriendFeed, Twitter, and Flickr. I browsed through the different online campaigns today: Overall, kudos to the Conservative Party for its attempts at interactivity on the issue-specific websites, brilliant idea with the attack ad creator, but the juvenile mudslinging and crappy Flash applications leave a little to be desired. The New Democrats have social networking wrapped up the best, while the Liberals have kept things pretty vanilla on the high road.

Conservative Party

The primary message of the Conservative campaign is that Stephen Harper is the best leader for Canadians -- recent polls show that a majority of Canadians seem to think so -- and a lot of the Party's strategy has been to attack Stéphane Dion on his leadership abilities. NotALeader.ca is pretty much pure partisan mudslinging expressed in a poorly designed Flash application. Earlier today, the website had a picture of Stéphane Dion with a puffin defecating on him before the Party shut it down and Stephen Harper apologized. Hilarious, yes, but kinda shameful. Stay classy, Tories! NotALeader.ca also features DionBook, a faux Facebook profile for Stéphane Dion and other Liberal Party heavyweights. Generally pretty lame. (Note: As I'm posting this, DionBook is offline because it exceeded its bandwidth limit). There's also Kyoto's Dog Blog, a faux blog authored by Stéphane Dion's dog Kyoto: there's no coherent message on the blog and the content doesn't make a lot of sense. Also lame. The best part of NotALeader.ca is the ad creator. It's an interactive, Flash-based video editor where you pick and choose video clips to build your own Stéphane Dion attack ad. I think it's brilliant. Good times, even though I'm a card-carrying Liberal. Click here to view my ad (sorry, I can't embed the video). This is a transcript:

Announcer: Did you know Stéphane Dion eats his hot dog with a fork and knife? Stéphane Dion: No change. I am who I am. The solution... I have no magic solution to offer on that. Announcer: Is it any wonder Dion has been called "stuck in the summer of love"? Stéphane Dion. Not a leader. Not worth the risk.

Another issue-specific website by the Conservative Party is WillYouBeTricked.ca, a second example of why most Flash websites suck. The purpose of the site is to attack Stéphane Dion's Green Shift plan to implement a carbon tax offset by income tax reduction in Canada.

Liberal Party

The Liberals launched ThisIsDion.ca today, no doubt in response to NotALeader.ca and Harper's sweater vest ads. It emphasizes Stéphane Dion's past leadership accomplishments like his role in the Clarity Act. It also features a number of videos of Dion doing humanizing things like playing ball hockey, skiing, and hanging out with family. Thankfully, no sweater vest. The website's Flash version is easy enough to get around and they offer an HTML version as well. The Liberals also launched Scandalpédia today, a Wikipedia style catalog of all the scandals that have occurred under Stephen Harper's government. Although I'm not sure I'd classify them all as scandals, here are a few of my favorite entries:

Bernier Affair
NAFTAgate
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)
Lukiwski Tape (contains some offensive language)

TheGreenShift.ca is the online face of Stéphane Dion's plan to implement a carbon tax offset by income tax reduction. It has a nifty calculator on it that you can use to estimate your income tax savings to offset the carbon tax when the policy implementation is complete.

New Democratic Party (NDP)

The New Democrats took a play directly out of Barack Obama's book by putting a campaign donation request on the landing page. The first time you visit the NDP.ca, Jack Layton asks you for money. I'd be interested to see analysis of how much this strategy increases donations (if at all). The NDP is certainly more into social networking than the other parties: Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, FriendFeed, and Flickr links are all displayed prominently on the main page. Share:

why we’re having an election

Jeremy Handcock — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:43:48 +0000

After weeks of speculation, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is set to visit the Governor General tomorrow morning and drop the writ. It's actually going to be an exciting and potentially nasty campaign by Canadian standards, and it will be all the more fun to watch it unfold beside the U.S. presidential race. If the rumors hold true, we'll be headed to the polls on October 14. The circumstances under which we're going into an election are slightly more interesting than average affairs in Canadian politics, so I thought I'd devote a post to examining the context of the election call. For my curious American readers, you can find out more about how elections work up north in the Wikipedia article on Elections in Canada. In 2006, Harper's newly-minted minority government introduced legislation to set fixed election dates in Canada with the intent, as Harper put it, to "... prevent governments from calling snap elections for short-term political advantage." The spirit of the bill was to remove the traditional power of a Prime Minister to call an election on a whim, say when public opinion polls look favorable to the governing party. The legislation fixed the next election date at October 19, 2009, so how is it legal for Stephen Harper to call an election now? Of course a government can fall at any time and cause an election after a vote of non-confidence, but the bill as it received assent also maintains the power of the Governor General to dissolve Parliament at his/her discretion, triggering an election. The Prime Minister therefore maintains de facto power over the timing of an election, as the Governor General must act on the advice of the Prime Minister by constitutional convention. So Stephen Harper is acting perfectly legally by calling an early election, but flouting the spirit of a statute that he created carries some pretty terrible optics for him, especially given that he already has some trust issues with the electorate. So what's the deal, yo? Why are we having an election now? When Harper visits the Governor General, he'll tell her that the current Parliament is "dysfunctional" and cannot make any more progress. He met with opposition leaders earlier this week apparently to try to gain assurances that his government will be allowed to govern for another year, which Liberal leader Stéphane Dion called a "charade". Jane Taber retells details of Dion's meeting with Harper in today's Globe and Mail:

[Dion] met with reporters for a drink this week at his national caucus in Winnipeg, and described in hilarious detail his meeting Monday with Mr. Harper at 24 Sussex Dr. ... The meeting [with Harper] lasted a quick 15 minutes, five of which was taken up with talk about what they did on their summer holidays. Mr. Dion was offered a glass of water.

The fact that Dion met reporters for a drink reflects the vastly different views of openness in politics -- after all, Stephen Harper rarely speaks to the media -- but the tone of Dion's meeting with Harper also makes it pretty clear that the Prime Minister wants an election and it has nothing much to do with a dysfunctional Parliament. Notwithstanding repeated evidence that Conservative MPs are making good use of the Party's Parliamentary Obstruction Document, a 200-page manual providing instructions for MPs to deliberately obstruct parliamentary proceedings, Parliament is dysfunctional even on a good day. Just sit in on question period in the House of Commons and you'll get an idea. As Rex Murphy said earlier this week on The National, "If dysfunctional is the test, they'd drop the writ every single day after question period." The real reason we're having an election -- and it's not altogether subtle -- is that the Conservatives are sitting on healthy polling numbers and they're not likely to get any better any time soon. 37% of respondents said they would vote Conservative in a poll earlier this week, which is frighteningly close to the support necessary for Harper to form a majority government. This isn't unusual: Canadian political history is rife with examples of opportunism in calling snap elections, especially from sitting majority governments. Harper's statutory transgression on a fixed election date is opportunistic for sure, and it plays directly into long-standing sentiments of distrust and manipulativeness that Harper will need to shed during his campaign, but it's also a touch cowardly -- if not a little condescending -- to pass off a politically opportunistic election call as a result of parliamentary dysfunction. Grow a pair, man: we're having an election because the time is right for the Conservative Party. Share: