Taking notes, anyone?

Now here's an example of how to raise money in an intelligent way.

Beats fear and loathing, doesn't it?

The Green Shift & EcoTrust in, "You shoulda taken out title insurance"

An editor once warned a reporter friend of mine that originality isn't exactly a commodity in Canada, especially in politics. "There's only been one original story in the past 100 years - man walks on moon. All the other stories have been done before."

Politicians are learning this with the environment. Every time they try to come up with a nifty name for their new and improved, green program, it's taken.

The Conservatives found this out in the spring of 2007 when they tried to dub a plan "EcoTrust." Turns out, that's the name of a long-standing non-profit in Canada and the government backed away from the title - not for any legal reason, but to prevent "confusion."

Now we're learning that the Liberals' "Green Shift" is taken too, and at least one Conservative blogger out there is predicting that they'll have to "cease and desist" in using the name.

(One line of argument I found intriguing: speculation that the company could be punished for being confused with Liberals. Who would be doing that punishing, I wonder? And does that mean that it's better for private firms to have ties to the Conservatives? Isn't that called patronage? But I digress.)

Actually, as some commenters to the blog have pointed out, names and titles don't fall under copyright protection. Anyone who's written a book knows this - you can call your book War and Peace or Little Women if you want. You just can't copy the words of Tolstoy or Louisa May Alcott and pass them off as your own. I relearned this lesson myself - from a 14-year-old - in the fall of 2003, when I had released a book on Paul Martin, called Juggernaut, and Lawrence Martin released his book on Jean Chrétien, called Iron Man. What neither of us knew is that we'd borrowed the names of comic superheroes for our books on the Liberal arch-rivals.

I'm pleased to report that neither of us faced any retribution, especially the kind a superhero could dole out.

UPDATE (June 24): The formidable Kady O'Malley, blogging for Macleans, has been tracking the possible role of Conservative agitators in whipping up confusion and angst over the Liberals' use of the "Green Shift" name. She asks the very worthwhile question - why would the Green Shift firm be getting a wave of phone calls, unless it was part of some campaign?

Green battle continues online

Since we've linked to the Conservatives' attack ads on the carbon tax, it seems only fair to link to the new Liberal ads promoting it.

Here's one featuring caucus members clapping, an ad probably inspired by this Make Poverty History  campaign video featuring finger-snapping celebrities.

Here's another of the video that was shown just before Dion announced the green-shift plan last Thursday. This one reminds me a little of the film footage that Liberals were showing at their leadership convention in between votes in December, 2007.

 

PMO pushes, CTV pushes back

Yesterday, at the end of  CTV's Question Period broadcast,   there was some strong and remarkable evidence of journalists pushing back against the Prime Minister's Office.  Rather than explain the story, why don't I just put the transcript here? I would imagine we'll be hearing more about this in the days to come:

JANE TABER: Craig, we've got to address a complaint. We received a complaint from the Prime Minister's director of communications Sandra Buckler about something you said on the show about the fact the Environment Minister or the Finance Minister would not come on to talk about Dion's green plan.

CRAIG OLIVER: And it was accurate for me to say they had both turned us down. However, they did offer us Jason Kenney, the Minister of Multiculturalism, to attack the government's green plan, and we said, sorry, we're not talking about multiculturalism, we're talking about taxation or we're talking about environment. And so they're insisting that we should take their person. And the question really is who's producing the show? Are we producing the show or is the Prime Minister's office producing the show? Would somebody tell me?

TABER: I think Sandra Buckler has an idea about who's producing the show, and I think that she, when she offers someone, she expects...

OLIVER: She thinks we should take her candidate.

TABER: Exactly.

OLIVER: Any time somebody's offered by her, that's the person we should have on the show. Not somebody we choose.

TABER: And we have to say that Jason Kenney of course did appear on the show, but we spoke to him in a panel situation with other MPs about, you know, what the accomplishments of the government were.

OLIVER: And we were glad to have him.

TABER: We were very glad to have him, we're always glad to have Jason Kenney on the show. So that's the complaint, we've addressed it, and as we leave you we're going to leave with you pictures from the studio of Parliament Hill and the preparations for the July 1st celebrations. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next week.

Green plan spurs online tactics

Yesterday on my local CBC Radio morning show, bloggers Stephen Taylor and Jason Cherniak (Conservative and Liberal, respectively) were described as being "as influential as the mainstream media."  Beyond having their own websites, these bloggers also run large, aggregate sites that assemble a wide variety of blogs of the same political stripes: www.bloggingtories.ca and www.liblogs.ca.

Taylor, true to form,  was busy at his computer last night, putting together a knock-off of the Liberals' Green-Shift website. Taylor's is called www.theshiftygreen.ca and it is laid out exactly like the Liberal one, including the little tabs where you can "meet," "share," "support" and "calculate." If you click on the "calculate" tab, you get an opinion piece from John Williamson of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, who seemed to be sharing talking points with the Conservatives yesterday when called upon to comment on TV about the Liberals' plan. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised by the allegiance - Jason Kenney, the government's designated spokesperson on the green shift, was the head of the taxpayers' federation in his previous life.

It should also tell us that the Conservatives, wise to the ways of the digital world, have organized a viral attack/response for the Liberals' green shift, complete with spokespersons in interest groups.  Liberals, however, are also doing the same. Cherniak describes the "unprecedented" way the party prepped its spokespersons across the country for the green-shift announcement:

"Yesterday, the Liberal Party held an unprecedented briefing for Liberals across the country. Starting around 6 p.m. EST, there were simultaneous online presentations and conference calls to explain the most important part of the plan to candidates, riding presidents and donors. To the extent that bloggers fit into those categories (and most do), we also received briefings. These briefings even included personalized logins. As a result, the Liberal Party knows who each individual was who joined the conference and who was invited but did not attend. I was quite impressed with this massive effort at real grassroots democracy and I hope the story on how the logistics worked and who was responsible comes out some day."

I'm told that the Liberals deliberately courted potential critics or skeptics for these briefings, too.

What does this all mean for us in the mainstream media? It means we have to range farther than Parliament Hill or prime ministerial scrums for reaction to big policy announcements. The more the message spreads, the more these events look staged and predictable. (Though it's always fun to see a prime minister call something "insane."  Never let it be said that Stephen Harper doesn't like intelligent debate.)

Dion goes with hunch, Harper skips lunch

We interrupt this carbon-tax-announcement day to point out an interesting contrast, on the Canada-U.S. political front.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is planning to stay away from John McCain's lunch in Ottawa tomorrow - not wanting to get himself (any further) embroiled in the U.S. presidential election.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, however, is planning to attend the Democratic convention in Denver this August, where Barack Obama's candidacy will be officially sealed.

Usually the Liberals hold their end-of-summer retreat around the final week in August. But caucus sources say that this year's gathering, in Winnipeg, has been pushed to the first week of September so that Dion can be in Denver.

UPDATE: New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton will also be in Denver, we've learned. Layton has long made no secret of his admiration for Obama.

UPDATE 2 (June 20): I learned later last night that Stephane Dion, while he did consider  participating  in some event at the Denver convention, has decided not to accept the invitation.  The Winnipeg caucus gathering is still in September, a week later, but Dion will be watching proceedings in Denver like most of us - from afar, through the TV.

But Layton will be at the Democratic convention. That plan hasn't changed.  And Dion's office expects that some Liberal MPs will be in the crowd too.

For whom the bells toll

Presumably to play some mischief with the carbon-tax announcement, the Conservatives have called a vote for about 11 am. All the time Dion is talking, the Commons' bells are ringing in the background.

Dresssing up the message

It sounds like the Liberals are making quite a green show out of the carbon-tax announcement. Lots of green hats and swag, one staffer reports.

If that reminds anyone of the sea of green Dion scarves at the Liberal convention, that's probably deliberate. More as the announcement unfolds...

UPDATE: More photos:

Liberal MP Navdeep Bains, who usually wears a red turban, wore green today:

The Liberals take a swipe at the Tories short-lived "grease spot" character:

Bloc blocks recess, Liberals burn carbon

The Bloc Quebecois, true to its name, has stood in the way of an attempt to shut down Parliament today for the summer through unanimous consent of all parties. Reportedly, Bloc staffers were being booed behind the curtains in the opposition lobby, by MPs and staffers keen to see this session end.

This means that the Commons will sit until Friday (unless some other way is found to get around the Bloc block) -- and that it will be sitting when Liberal leader Stéphane Dion unveils his carbon-tax proposal tomorrow.

Questions were being asked today about why neither Bob Rae nor Michael Ignatieff have been in the House either on the eve of this big Liberal announcement. Are they voting with their feet? Conspicuous with their absence?

Actually, both men have issued statements in recent days, explaining why they are no-shows this week -- at least so far.

Ignatieff is in Amsterdam. He'll be back tonight and presumably around for the big carbon-tax unveiling.

Rae is in Israel. According to a media advisory sent out Friday, he planned to "deliver the keynote address to a conference commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Halbert Centre for Canadian Studies at Hebrew University. Mr. Rae, who was honoured in 2002 with the Scopus Award by the Friends of Hebrew University, will speak on June 16th and spend several days in the country and the region."

Wonder if Rae and Ignatieff bought carbon off-sets?

Car and driver

Industry Minister Jim Prentice gets ready to test-drive (or test-ride?) a new Ford Flex, made in Oakville, on Parliament Hill this morning: