Sexual politics

Amidst the swag at the Liberal convention, the young Liberals are handing out bright red condoms, with an expiry date of February 2010. One Quebecois observer picked up the French letter and said "you know what they've got these for? Because they're going to screw Quebec."

Media shmedia

Bob Rae began to sound a bit like Stephen Harper on the media at a bearpit session today.

When asked about how to unify his party, he said Liberals shouldn't "be afraid of a debate, but we shouldn’t be afraid of the occasional joke. I’ve told a few and others have told a few at my expense…we should all learn not to take things too personally. I think that’s one of the great lessons that I’ve learned in politics, people can say lot of nasty things, even, may I say so, some journalists have been known to say some bad things." (Laughter from the audience.)

"Somebody once said the definition of journalism is the person who goes through the battlefield and shoots the survivors." (Big laughs)

"But I wouldn’t say that." ( Bigger laughs)

Then Rae hastened to differentiate himself, lest he be compared to the Conservative leader. "But let me say to my friends in the media, the two of you who are out there, (giggles all around) that those of you who have dealt with me in the past, that access is never a problem. And another thing, controlling the message is not something I’ve ever been able to do and I don’t intend to start trying now."

Map to the Scars

Some Liberal delegates arriving at the leadership convention are getting a handy tourist map to local attractions. But it’s a guide to Montreal sites that most Liberals would rather forget. In a little bit of mischief making, observers from the New Democrats are handing guides to local spots that were at the heart of the sponsorship scandal that sparked the ouster of the Liberals after more than a decade in power.

"As a confluence of cultures, language and commerce, Montreal is a city of great history – though recent history has been less than great for the Liberal Party of Canada,” the pamphlet says. "Having lost the support of more than 760,000 Quebeckers, it is easier to find a Toronto Maple Leaf fan than a Liberal MP in today’s Montreal," it reads.

Titled "Map to the Scars," the brochure points visitors to such spots as:

• 200 Rene-Levesque Blvd. W., site of the hearing room where the Gomery Commision held its probe into the sponsorship mess from February to June 2005. "Pay us a visit and relive the accusations, the denial and raw absentmindness" of the witnesses.
• 75 Sherbrooke St. W. The offices of Groupaction Marketing Inc. the "home of money for little or no work."
• Suite 840, 6020 Jean Talon East, the former constituency offices of former public works minister Alphonso Gagliano.

The playful guide also helpfully gives directions to 759 Square Victoria, the headquarters of Canada Steamship Lines, which Paul Martin once headed before turning the wheel over to his sons.

In the best tradition of tourist maps, it offers a handy map and a detailed description of all the locales.

Baring no baggage

At a lunchtime bearpit session, Bob Rae was asked by a self-described  uncommitted delegate about the former Ontario Premier's "baggage".

Rae, who skinny-dipped with the Newfoundland comic on national TV, quipped in reply: "Anybody who saw me on Rick Mercer would know I don't have a lot of baggage."

The fickle camera eye, and other observations

The fickle camera eye

And so it was that a thicket of television cameras sprouted up around Bob Rae, and followed him and a procession of sign-waving supporters as the candidate signed in for the convention. The group paraded around the main hall of Montreal’s Palais des Congrès, where another crowd of Gerard Kennedy supporters were awaiting their candidate’s arrival. There was no

West Side Story-style confrontation, but the Rae gang did cut through the Kennedy crowd to go up an escalator.
The cameras abruptly swiveled onto Kennedy, and then, as Ken Dryden stood to answer a few questions, swiftly abandoned the former Canadiens great to follow Stephane Dion.
Lest Dion feel special, the gaggle then dropped him to follow former prime minister Paul Martin.

It's a good thing, sort of

Humility can be learned everywhere in politics – even at gas stations. On their way to the convention in the famous  big red bus, Martha Hall-Findlay and her team stopped for gas at a station near Yonge and York Mills.  The gas station attendant did a double take, seeing the huge picture of Hall-Findlay on the bus and the woman herself, standing not far away. He asked: “Is it Sears or the Bay?”

Hall-Findlay knew immediately the source of the mixup. “No, I’m not Martha Stewart,” she said. Apparently, the attendant assumed this was a promotional vehicle for the houseware maven’s line of merchandise.

Shake a paw

Dion’s team is clearly cultivating the dog-lover’s vote at this convention. A hotly-sought button at the Palais features Dion’s name in red on a white background, with a dog’s pawprint representing the “o” in his last name. It’s not officially sanctioned campaign material – the buttons were drawn up by the Quebec wing of the Dion team but they’re so popular they’re now hard to obtain.  The Dionistas chose the dog motif in honour of the candidate’s own dog, named Kyoto after the international air-quality protocol.

Book learnin's overrated

Capped off by his trademark green Stetson, Eugene Whelan, agriculture minister during Pierre Trudeau's years in power, seemed an unlikely sort to be backing Gerard Kennedy, one of the youngest candidates. Was it only 22 years ago when Whelan was himself a candidate at one of these things, talking about gold flake on the windows and corn flakes in the bowl? Whelan says he's heard some of the criticisms of Kennedy, including the fact that he does not have a degree. "I don't give a hoot and a hollar and counterfeit dollar about that," said the former federal agriculture minister, who ran unsuccessfully for the leadership in 1984.

A cookie in every hand

Toronto MP Ken Dryden is not one of the top four competitors as Liberals gather in Montreal to elect a new leader. But that hasn't dampened his relentlessly sunny outlook about all things Liberal. So last weekend, he mustered 39 friends and supporters to volunteer to bake 500 dozen chocolate chip cookies in advance of the party's big convention. The cookies are being driven to Montreal, where they will be bagged and handed out one apiece to every delegate compliments of Mr. Dryden. It may not sway many voters but it shows that Dryden does think "big."

Hosting the unbribeable fourth estate

Michael Ignatieff hosted a small party last night for the senior Liberal MPs who support him and invited the national media along. Ignatieff, resplendent in his McGill University tie, offered some tongue-in-cheek parting gifts to the journalists, including an Ignatieff scarf, his book Agenda for Nation Building, and a copy of a biography of longtime friend and leadership rival Bob Rae, penned by the Star’s own Thomas Walkom. The book is entitled Rae Days, The Rise and Follies of the NDP. The back cover touts the book as a “damning account” of Rae’s single term as Ontario New Democrat premier in the 1990s.

Prime Minister Celine Dion?

Much -- but perhaps not enough -- has been made of the hubris of rookie MP Michael Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore) deciding, after spending 34 of the past 36 years abroad, that he can guide Canada from the northern wilderness if he becomes Liberal leader next week. But Sean Mallen, host of Global TV's Focus Ontario, managed to cut to the chase better than most on this intriguing issue in an interview to be aired Saturday at 6:30 p.m. across Ontario. It's worth tuning in for just to see the discomfort on Iggy's face:

SEAN MALLEN: A lot of people talk about your most impressive resume in the U.K. and in the United States. You’ve been a close observer of politics in both those countries. I wonder if you think if a person in your kind of situation, that is someone who spent so much time out of the country, could be able to make a serious run at either the White House or 10 Downing Street?

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: That’s a weird kind of hypothetical. No look, think about it this way. There are something like a million, a million and a half Canadians, living outside the country, making us proud. Think of Celine Dion, think of Louise Arbour. I’m one of them, one of those Canadians who went overseas. I think did well, wants to come back because this is the only home we’ll ever have, this is our country. This is the only place you can be a citizen.

SEAN MALLEN: And you want to become prime minister.

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: And we want to do some public service. And it seems to me that Canadians are attracted to that. They welcome that. They think that’s a good idea. They want to make sure that you can connect to, you can understand, you can grasp how tough it is to be a working man and woman here. Sometimes life is tough here. They want to have a sense that there’s someone here who understands, respects, stands with you in your struggles. That’s what they care about. Believe me, I think I’m that kind of person. And I think they also think that being outside the country gives you an advantage, gives you a sense of how important this country is in the world, gives you a sense of how to lead this country in the world. I mean what I get from my vote, from my people in my riding in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, is a sense that Canada is in the world. They want a leader who understands Canada’s place in the world. They don’t want to take Canada out of the world, they want to have Canada be a leader in the world. And that I think, is one of the reasons why they’re drawn to my candidacy.

Meet the real boss

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s uneasy relationship with the media has been a hallmark of his rocky 10-month tenure at the helm of a minority Conservative government.

This morning in an appearance in Toronto, Harper acknowledged during an appearance with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller that reporters have an important role to play.

During the question-and-answer period after disclosing that Ottawa would beef up laws to deal with gun crime, the Prime Minister was forced to wait while a roaming microphone could be placed in front of the reporters asking him questions.

"The powers that be in Ottawa insist on taping everything I do," Harper said in an aside to the premier and the mayor.

"I thought you were the powers that be," cracked Miller.

"Some days I wonder," replied the Prime Minister.

He’s not the only one.

Political hearing loss

It's one of those cases where the left hand doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing.

Toronto newspapers -- including the Star -- published news stories today about the Ontario government voting Tuesday night cutting off public hearings into its controversial new human rights overhaul.

And yet the government, through the Legislature's standing committee on justice policy chaired by a Liberal MPP, still placed ads in those newspapers telling concerned citizens that they could apply to present their views to the committee over the winter.

Oops!

Perhaps someone should alert the Progressive Conservative party's new website asking for tales of government waste at www.wastebusters.ca.