Political novel wins Leacock award

As reported a while back on this blog, politics can be funny and a political book has indeed won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.

The winner is Terry Fallis, for his book, The Best Laid Plans.

The announcement came at the awards lunch today in Orillia.

(MICHAEL STUPARYK PHOTO/TORONTO STAR)

Success is in the Star(s) for Harper

Today is Prime Minister Stephen Harper's birthday. Shall we check out his horoscope for the year ahead? According to the forecast in the Star....

If today is your birthday: A countdown is in progress. A big blast-off approaches. There will be some false alarms and misgivings, but your hard work and anticipation will be rewarded. This year, success is clearly in your stars.

Harper shares his birthday with Willie Nelson and this was also the day in history when George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States.

Update: Liberal leader Stephane Dion wished Harper a happy birthday in the Commons today and the Prime Minister replied: "I am 49 years old today and I intend to remain at that age for several years to come."

Federal chaos spills over the border

It seems that U.K. websites aren't the only ones abroad with some spirited discussion of Canadian politics. Daily Kos, a much-read site in the U.S., has a lengthy post on the whole business of Barack Obama and NAFTA, and whether the Canadian government interfered in a U.S. election.

That question, incidentally, is now the subject of a Canadian government investigation, contracted out to a firm that employs one of the people at the centre of the Airbus affair. See previous post ...

At any rate, the Daily Kos article has generated more than 300 comments as of this posting - most of them Canadian, the blogger says. "From the comments, to be sure, the vast majority of Canadian people are victims of their government as we are ours. They have my condolences. It might be good if they could spend some time demanding a real investigation."

The view from across the pond

A lively little discussion was going on this week about Canada and its politics at the Guardian newspaper website in the U.K. over an article called The Canadian Nixon.

The authors, Dimitry Anastakis and Jeet Heer, essentially are asserting that there's a larger force here at work in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's war with Elections Canada -- specifically, his campaign to dismantle Canadian institutions. They're not the first to make this point, (see below) but their point in putting this on the Guardian website, presumably, is to get readers from abroad, mostly of a liberal bent, to pay attention to developments here in Harper's Ottawa.

And it has prompted a little wave of discussion about Canada and its politics, not so long ago dubbed “cool” by another British media institution, The Economist. Here, though, it's a mix of Canadians and Canadian-watchers from abroad, talking about whether Canada is really a small-l liberal country. Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff also dwelled a bit on this question in his speech at the Royal York this week - part of a fundraiser to help settle his leadership-campaign debt. .

And Sinclair Stevens, once a Progressive Conservative cabinet minister, had some of the same things to say in an article he penned for the Star this week.

So what does all this mean, in the larger scheme of things?

Liberals, naturally, want all of this to serve as the groundwork for the next great election debate. They believe it's the narrative that underlies all of the actions of the Harper government -from its battles with the media, the CBC in particular, to its fight against Premier Dalton McGuinty's government.

Meanwhile, Conservatives, especially given the latest poll results from Angus Reid, would like the next election to be framed on leadership.

There's a worrying chance, however, that the next election will be about neither - that it will just be nasty, brutish and personal. CBC Radio and Rex Murphy are due to tackle that question later today on Cross Country Checkup, when listeners are being invited to call in with thoughts on this question: "Are finger-pointing, insults, and scandal-mongering, elbowing out real political discourse?".

 

Les Miserables

This makes one wonder what would have happened if Canada's Parliamentary Press Gallery had decided, together, not to take any nonsense about limiting our access to politicians.

For those who can't click on the link, or understand French, it is a story about how the political reporters in Paris rebelled when the French government erected a simple rope cordon around meetings of the Conseil des ministres. Here in Canada, we've been banned from the entire floor where cabinet meetings are held and we are not told when they're happening. Vive les journalistes libre.

Can you put that in writing?

One penultimate word on the New Orleans summit - the ultimate word apparently belongs to U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, who's holding a lunch today to brief reporters more on what happened when Prime Minister Stephen Harper got together with President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon this week.

Not everything we learn, naturally, can get into a news story. So perhaps readers might find it helpful to see the contents of what's called the  "read-outs" from PMO, summarizing the discussions, developments  between Harper and his North American counterparts.

While we stared somewhat quizzically at the empty briefing area set up in the filing room in New Orleans (it simply gathered dust; no one from government ever used the desk, microphones and podium), we did receive these  emails from the PMO's communications director, Sandra Buckler throughout the two-day meeting.

On the one-on-one  session between Harper and Bush:

The Prime Minister and President Bush held a meeting that lasted for over one hour.

They discussed a wide range of issues including: the recently concluded NATO summit in Bucharest and cooperation in Afghanistan; border issues such as the need for a new crossing in the Detroit-Windsor corridor;  the need for concerted international action on climate change; and the importance of NAFTA as strong regional and international trade regime.

On what Harper did on Tuesday:

Today, the Prime Minister met with Lt. Brad Tollefson. Below are some details about this Canadian living in New Orleans.

Lt. Brad Tollefson

▪  Lt. Brad Tollefson was born and raised in Mississauga, ON.  Currently, he lives in Picayune, Mississippi with his wife and step-daughter.

▪  In 1993, he moved to Maine and became a member of the Waterville Police Department.

▪  In 1997, Lt. Tollefson moved to Louisiana to join the New Orleans Police Department, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant in 2004.

▪  During Hurricane Katrina, Lt. Tollefson remained in New Orleans and acted as the Deputy Commander for New Orleans East, one of the hardest hit parts of the city.

On the tree-planting ceremony for Earth Day:

The tree being planted today is an oak tree. This type was specifically requested by the City of New Orleans, as Oak Trees suffered the worst damage during Hurricane Katrina.

The plaque says:

In celebration of Earth Day and the 2008 North American Leaders Summit, George W. Bush, President of the United States of America, Felipe Calderone Hinojosa, President of the Unites States of Mexico, Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, planted a Shummard Oak Tree to honour the spirit and resolve of the citizens of New Orleans.

Liberal president steps down

During 2006, I believe I saw Senator Marie Poulin every time I passed through an airport. She was campaigning hard to be president of the Liberal party, visiting every nook and corner of Canada.

Yesterday, she announced she was stepping down because she had suffered a small stroke. Though expected to make a full recovery, Poulin said in a press release that the Liberal party needed someone who could do the job on a full-time basis in advance of a potential election.

The word is that an interim, acting president will be chosen in the meantime. No word yet on who's the lucky designate. If there is no election this year (or even perhaps if there is), the Liberals are due to hold a policy convention in Vancouver in December, where a new president will be elected.

Canadians caught in protest crossfire

The tiny gaggle of protesters outside the summit in New Orleans had a somewhat colourful way of expressing their hostility to the event, including the mild-mannered Canadians who were here.

One man with a megaphone, accusing Bush of crimes such as a fake Texas accent, ripped into the group of we Canadian journalists and aides as we were exiting the security perimeter and trying to get to our filing location.

"Get out of my country, you scum-sucking globalists," he barked.

A tour of a hurting New Orleans

PHOTOS: BOB FIFE (CTV) AND PETER HARRIS (GLOBAL)

Photos show the devastation still felt from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans's Ward 9.

For reasons not entirely clear to us, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not opted to do any public tours of areas of New Orleans still devastated nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina put the city under water.

He did, to be fair, dine with presidents Bush and Calderon this morning at a well-known restaurant called Dooky Chase, not far from a flood-condemned housing project. But as far as we know, no time has been set aside for Harper to do a more expansive viewing of New Orleans.

However, with some help from the logistics crew at the PMO and a local driver recruited to ferry journalists around this summit, several of us went out early this morning to see Ward 9, the worst-hit area, still struggling to rebuild.

Dwayne, our bus driver, is from East New Orleans, a father of six. His house was under 12 feet of water; he had to leave New Orleans and settle temporarily in Mississippi, then Atlanta before returning to rebuild his life and his community. The first thing they rebuilt was the church, he said, and the homes of what he genteely called "the elders."

He took us from our hotel up Canal Street and then we headed east. One of us on this trip, Peter Harris of Global TV, was here for nearly two weeks covering the immediate aftermath of Katrina. He showed us where boats had been parked; he directed our eyes to markings still on houses, showing emergency crews where bodies and gas leaks were.

As we headed into wards 7 and 8, we saw schools and houses still boarded up and abandoned. The water-line marks, some as high as the second storey, are still visible.

Then we headed over the bridge to Ward 9, which is still the site of wreckage and devastation. Dwayne told us that it's a slow process, often involving three levels of bureaucracy. Trailers and temporary homes dot the area.

But it's right near the rebuilt levee where the damage still is staggering. All that's left of once-vital areas are foundations, sidewalks and the occasional porch or fence. Weeds and flowers grow through the cement. It's incredibly quiet.

Dwayne took us down his street, where his home was rebuilt after about six months. He showed us his parents' place just down the street, still abandoned. "Still just gutting it out and cleaning it up," Dwayne explained.

He took us to his rebuilt church, St. Paul the Apostle, a Catholic congregation. "I"m real proud of this church," Dwayne said, hoping to let us in and see it, but it was too early and the place was locked up. Then we went out back to the school, which once had 600 students in 14 classrooms, from kindgergarten through Gr. 12. It's still being rebuilt.

As we were driving back to the hotel after the all-too-brief, 90-minute tour, Reuters reporter David Ljungren, who was the force behind getting this side trip organized, asked Dwayne how the city is mentally adjusting, three years later.

"When it rains still, a lot of kids have trouble," he said. Dwayne explained how even he had a hard time coming back, seeing what had happened to his beloved city. The hardest thing, he said, was to have members of close-knit communities spread out all over the United States in the immediate wake of the damage.

As we neared our hotel, just 10 or 15 blocks from the summit site, we saw a little tent city set up under the Highway 10 overpass; dozens and dozens of little tents. We were told these are people who still haven't found jobs or accommodation after Katrina.

"It does take a toll on you," Dwayne said.

It does indeed. And it's a shame, we agreed, that our Prime Minister didn't get to see all of this while he was here.

Update: As it turns out, Harper did get a tour of the Ninth Ward late today. Canada's ambassador to the U.S., David Wilkins, took the Prime Minister for a brief, 10-minute look around the area, according to PMO spokesperson Dimitri Soudas. Our understanding is that it was added to the PM's agenda late in the day.

Bush hangs with Harper

It wasn't the newsiest of encounters, but we did get a chance today to see President George W. Bush and Stephen Harper hanging out together. We learned that New Orleans was Harper's father's favourite city and that Bush seems to really like the Canadian Prime Minister.

Here's a full transcript of the brief show for reporters, with pictures.