Not the real Stephen Harper

Not the real Stephen Harper

 

Young protester

Young protester

 

Signs signs

Signs signs

 

Homemade mace

Homemade mace

 

10 minutes before protest

10 minutes before protest

Still not really crowded. I'm about 50 metres from the stage.
 

Reading, arithmetic and writing.... reports

In today's Star, I have a story on how education appears to be figuring largely in the Liberal platform plans. Though I let the PMO know I was doing the story, I never did hear from any Conservatives before I filed the story. (That's not a complaint, by the way. They have their hands full these days.)

This morning, though, I got  a little  note from Ryan Sparrow, a communications aide to Human Resources Minister Diane Finley. In the spirit of fairness, then, allow me to add his commment as a postscript to the story, regarding the cuts to the Canadian Council on Learning.

Just a clarification: CCL has never actually taught or educated anyone. They write reports.

CBC Radio's The House also had an excellent piece this morning, by Susan Lunn, on the Conservative government's cuts to various organizations in recent weeks.

Yep, he showed them

Prime Minister Stephen Harper boasted yesterday that he'd defied the odds and expectations by staying in power for four years. This morning, on the fourth anniversary of his 2006 election win, I went looking for all these naysayers, who apparently only gave him 18 months at best.

Here's what The Globe and Mail editorial said:

With such restrained opposition, ushering legislation through Parliament is do-able — but it will require finesse. Mr. Harper has a model that will likely guide him: the intricate web of bureaucratic and political consultations that kept Ontario premier William Davis in minority power from 1977 to 1981.

Calgary Herald columnist Don Martin offered this prediction:

But Harper should be dealing from a position of strength for a couple years, armed with policies no rival would dare force an election on in the short term. They include bills to clean up government and make it more accountable, lowering the GST to six and then to five per cent, kick-starting a child-care subsidy, finding a way to resolve the patient waiting lists, and bringing on tough justice.

Canadian Press:

OTTAWA - Prime minister-designate Stephen Harper began preparing yesterday for a minority Conservative Parliament that will have little wiggle room for major policy initiatives but that observers expect to survive for at least the next couple of years.

CTV's Tom Clark:

Well, you know, it occurs to me, though, that we have at least a year and a half before anything happens because the Liberals will have to go through a leadership campaign to replace Paul Martin. And that takes time and it takes a lot of money. So, the natural ally for the Conservatives, believe it or not, for the next year and a half is going to be the Liberal Party. Nobody else. Because the Liberals won't want to see this Parliament brought down before they have a new leader. So, I think we've probably got a little bit of time here.

Kitchener-Waterloo Record columnist Geoffrey Stevens:

But if he runs his government with the same control and discipline that he ran his election campaign, he could "pull a Dief." John Diefenbaker, like Harper an Ontario-born westerner, came to office in 1957 with an even weaker minority -- 113 of 265 seats. Like Harper, Diefenbaker managed to establish a base in Quebec -- with eight seats, compared to Harper's 10. While the opposition Liberals went about changing leaders, Diefenbaker positioned his government perfectly for the next election. In 1958, the Conservatives grabbed 209 seats (including an astonishing 50 in Quebec) and reduced the Grits to a rump of 48.

And here's a Liberal prediction:

John Manley, the former deputy prime minister to Jean Chretien, and one of the likely challengers for Martin's job, alluded to that point Monday night.

``If we lived in a perfect world,'' Manley mused in a CBC interview, ``maybe what would happen here is that some of the parties would agree to say: `Look, Canada really does not deserve to have another election for two years.

Reporting in Haiti

The Star's own Joanna Smith has been doing an amazing job reporting from Haiti, including riveting, vivid updates via Twitter. Here, at Ian Capstick's MediaStyle blog, she tells us what it's been like to report from the devastated ground there. An excerpt:

It was only several days into my assignment that I realized this was far, far worse in many different ways. You get used to a thing.

On the ground, everything is so much more immediate, obviously. I’m here. It is so difficult to describe the stench and even harder to understand how one gets used to it. I’ve stopped wearing my face mask, stopped noticing it on my clothes and stopped stepping around the garbage and just walking through it.

It feels surreal, as cliché a term as that may be when it comes to describing a disaster zone. I often feel detached, or as if I am on the set of a movie or in a wax museum. It is a very strange feeling to realize that you are seeing the things you are seeing and not breaking down into tears or getting sick. It’s a strange sensation to feel fine here, but something I am at the same time grateful for.

Joanna, incidentally, is on her way back home to us here in Ottawa, and we're hoping that she's able to attend Monday's Hill Helps  Haiti event. If you are in Ottawa, and interested in being a guest or sponsor to this worthy event, get in touch with my friends Tim Powers, Greg MacEachern   or any of the folks  over at Summa, who came up with this idea just a week ago and are putting it together with remarkable speed.

Bob Rae sings the prorogation blues

Stephen Harper isn't the only one, it turns out, who can put a piano and the Beatles to good use in politics. Here, with much thanks to blogger Jeff Jedras (A BCer in Toronto), we see Bob Rae at the keyboard at the Royal York last night, treating us to a musical protest against Harper's shutdown of Parliament.

Facebook protest: not just for kids

A newly released study  by the Rideau Institute asserts that nearly half of the people on the Facebook group against prorogation are 45 years of age and older. They're also regular voters.  This puts a dent in claims that those 200,000-plus people are disaffected youth. 

Here's some more data from the poll, courtesy of the press release that accompanied it.

Despite the popular perception that the online social networking site is the purview of young people who typically don’t vote, the study “Facebook and Prorogation” found that users who joined the anti-prorogation group were likely to be over the age of 45 (50%), to consider themselves somewhat or very “politically engaged”(88%), and to have voted in the last election (96%).

 For most of its members, this was the first time they had joined a Facebook group with a political theme (55%), and three-quarters felt that joining would “make a difference” (75%).

“This study shows that Facebook could provide an important means for political parties and interest groups to organize committed supporters or gauge public opinion,” said Steven Staples, President of the Rideau Institute.

This survey was conducted on-line from January 13 to January 16, 2010. An invitation to participate in the survey was posted on the “wall” and the discussion board of Facebook’s Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament group, and 341 people responded to the survey.