Bob Rae and the Naked Truth

Bob Rae was out on the road this week in Southern Ontario. I followed him for a bit of his trip and will have a fuller report in tomorrow's paper.
Though I've  been covering  Rae's speeches on and off  for years now, in a couple of his political incarnations,  I'd never heard this story he told to a crowd in London this week.

It was the 1979 federal campaign and Rae was out knocking on doors on a sweltering hot day in May. He rapped on one door and a woman's voice yelled out: "Just come on in."
He went into the house and found the woman sitting, watching TV, stark naked.
She said to him: "Oh, you're Bob Rae, aren't you?"
Rae, almost dumbstruck, managed to reply that yes, that was his name.
"Oh," she said. "I thought you were the Consumers Gas guy."

He said his only thought was that maybe he'd gone into the wrong line of work.

Where will he turn up next?

Apologies for the long lag in blogging. I have been on the road in Southern Ontario for a lot of the past two weeks. Without further delays, though, let's get back into the rhythm of things with a video, made in honour of a popular political assistant who marks his last day today working for Belinda Stronach. His name is Greg MacEachern and apparently he is the Zelig of his generation.

The Green Shift road show

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has taken his road show to Ontario today. First stop -- Mississauga. He's managed to get about 200 people out at lunch hour today. It's mainly a friendly crowd, though I'm told, and Dion hinted too, that there are Conservatives in the crowd. If so, they're not hecklers. The questions have been polite so far.

The NDP aims for the heart of the middle class

The federal New Democrats were quickest off the mark on the ongoing issue of bank-machine fees earlier this year, even drafting a bill against them.

And now the NDP is going after this idea of charging cellphone customers for text messages.

It's a petition campaign — "Stop the Text Message Grab."

Both of these are smart gambits, designed to get the NDP into the fray over who best speaks for the middle class in Canada. This is precious electoral territory, and Conservatives have big designs on those voters, too.

Meanwhile, however, in the current issue of This Magazine, James Laxer has taken another big whack at NDP leader Jack Layton. Laxer has long been a vocal critic of the way the New Democrats have banded with the Conservatives to label the Liberals as the number-one enemy of both.

In this latest essay, Laxer argues that Canada needs the NDP's ideas more than ever these days, but the party itself is too preoccupied with electoral strategy and gains.

Laxer ends his piece on an optimistic note, however: "I haven't given up hope for Jack Layton in all this. Whatever his shortcomings, Layton is by far the most accomplished leader in federal politics today, with a program that makes far more sense for Canadians than the alternatives.... An upheaval could do him good, but don't count on him to start it. That's up to the rest of us."

 

Lines of communication are open

This morning on CBC Radio One's The Current, the marquee guest was Scott McLellan, who's written a blockbuster memoir, What Happened, about many of his regrets as the former press secretary to George W. Bush.

Host Jim Brown, I'm pleased to report, brought the interview around to the subject of Canada and the type of media management we've been seeing here from the Harper government.  Brown asked whether the departure of Sandra Buckler presented an opportunity for Canada's government to rethink its tight message control.

McLellan didn't seem surprised by the question. In fact, he   gave the impression he'd answered it before, maybe many times. He said, essentially, that discipline is one thing, paranoia is another. "What you can't do is abandon candour and openness," McLellan said.

Buckler's replacement, Kory Teneycke, started on the job yesterday. He has already made it clear to members of the gallery, including yours truly, that he's interested in openness and that he doesn't believe  his only  role  is to serve as a barrier to information. That's a nice change and a promising start.

Harper, Bush now on a yo-yo basis

Please remember: This is a trained professional and no one (in Ottawa at least) should try this at home:

Women in politics

The next federal election is shaping up to be a good one for women candidates, according to this impressive website, which is keeping track of nominations in all parties.

The New Democrats, so far, have a whopping 40 per cent women candidates. The Liberals, true to Stéphane Dion's promise to run women in at least one-third of the ridings across Canada, are at 37 per cent.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are stuck back at 17 per cent in terms of women candidates, but they can boast the largest number of candidates nominated so far overall - 262 out of 308, or 85 per cent.

For some time now, most pundits have been predicting that the next election campaign will be a nasty one. But people have also been predicting that the tone of politics will improve when more women enter the fray. It may be interesting to see which prediction turns out to be true.

Layton stands in Obama's shadow

As we reported here a while back, NDP Leader Jack Layton will be in Denver this August for the Democratic convention. But that's not the only event this summer where he'll be standing in Barack Obama's shadow. Tomorrow, a day after Obama's speech to the Steelworkers' convention in Las Vegas, the NDP leader will be on hand as well.

“Unions that reach beyond borders, like the United Steelworkers, have a great deal of power to force change that will make our world a better place,”  Layton says, in a news release just issued by the NDP.

“By forming a united front, the steelworkers will have the ability to push international governments to act on issues like climate change, as well as to work together with their international partners for trade deals that are better for their members.”

The passing out of the torch

My colleague, present at the ceremony today, sends this dispatch:

Update 2, 11:49 a.m. - The band wasn't even playing the national anthem when a young clarinet player in the back row took a knee, becoming the ninth member of Canada's military to give way under the 1-hour, 45-minute change of command ceremony. Alas, it is now finished and the good men and women of the Canadian military can go have a long drink of water and a comfy seat.

Update 1, 11:41 a.m. - Natynczyk's first order as CDS. Was to place the honour guard at ease, for which he received a round of applause. He's indeed a "Gentleman Soldier" as the government insisted upon his nomination.

So what shape are the Canadian Forces in as Gen. Walter Natynczyk takes over as Chief of Defence Staff from Gen. Rick Hillier?

Two hours into an elaborate military ceremony with speeches, music, flybys and a 21-gun salute, no fewer than eight CF members standing at attention on the tarmac of an Ottawa airbase have collapsed.

The first two - male and female respectively - were from the air force. But the fallen have spanned the armed services. Army and Navy have also succumbed to the conditions.

It's not the heat - there's clouds and a cool breeze - but the length of the ceremony. Several journalists have remarked that the last CDS handover took place in a drill hall in downtown Ottawa with so little pomp that most didn't bother to attend.

But Gen. Hillier has made it his duty to promote the Canadian Forces brand and one suspects this was his last effort in a three-and-a-half year campaign.

Yes, there was a little blue

Last year on Canada Day, a local Ottawa radio station, Hot 89.9, called for a boycott of the festivities because of how Conservative blue had elbowed out traditional red-and-white in the colour theme of the Parliament Hill stage. Canada Day blue

As I recall, no one actually ever explained what the blue emphasis was all about. But this year, it was a little more subtle. So where was the blue in yesterday's festivities?

1. In the sky, fortunately. It was near-perfect weather for Canada Day.

2. In the light bathing the Parliament Hill buildings after dark. Yes, as night fell, all those lovely limestone buildings were immersed in a vivid blue hue.

3. On stage - Blue Rodeo was the marquee act, after all, and lead singer Jim Cuddy's brother, Loftus, was a Conservative candidate in Toronto-Danforth in the 2004 election.

It should be noted, however, that Cuddy has said he didn't vote for his brother and that, if memory serves, Jim Cuddy is more likely to be found at events in support of NDP leader Jack Layton (who holds the Toronto-Danforth seat.) Cuddy's politics