Transferable skills

Edmonton Journal columnist Lorne Gunter has succinctly identified in his column today why Helena Guergis's airport tantrum is particularly obnoxious.  

Given her power position, too, her behaviour amounts to bullying.

Bullying has been much in the news the past week or so in the U.K., because of reports that some of the PM's staff sought counselling help for bullying treatment in Gordon Brown's office. There's been a bit of debate in Britain -- but not here, so much -- about whether bullying is just an occupational hazard in the realm of politics. Politics, the argument goes, is such a place of high drama and ego that you just have to expect that tempers will get out of control.  

I look at another way -- as yet more evidence of politics' increasing irrelevance to the lives of normal citizens. It doesn't resemble any workplace we recognize, at least not any functional workplace. Tantrums and bullying may be part of the ordinary working day here in Ottawa for some folks, but when those tactics are exported to the realm where most of us operate -- an airport lineup, for instance -- they are exposed for the sociopathy they are.  Ditto for when you try to use political-discrediting techniques on non-political people such as bank CEOs or public servants. 

This explains, and I don't say this lightly, why some people in government have a hard time finding jobs after politics. Employers in the private sector, for the most part,  actually have little use for folks with highly developed skills in haranguing, bullying and intimidating people. The "communications experts" who believe that you can  manage the media with threats, for instance, aren't so much in demand outside politics.  In short, the methods that some political people use to get their own way here  are not transferable to the private workplace, unless you  have career aspirations in the direction of  pro wrestling. 

The sad thing about Guergis's tantrum is that in Ottawa, it almost looks like business as usual.   Fifty yards away from Parliament Hill, as the old saying goes, it's a little harder to get away with this nonsense. 

Your Liberal research bureau at work

The Conservatives' worksheet has been analyzed in record time by the Liberals and -- please note the government said this wasn't an *exhaustive* list of what MPs had been doing -- here's how the Grits sum up the prorogation-duty report.

Here is a breakdown of how many days each Conservative MP worked (according to the document the Conservatives just released). Note that between January 1st and today, there has been exactly 40 work days for most Canadians.

 

The list says 68 of their MPs worked, leaving 77 Conservative MPs who didn’t work a single day.

 

 

 

1 day - Inky Mark

1 day - James Rajotte

1 day - Jay Hill

1 day - Joe Preston

1 day - John Duncan

1 day - LaVar Payne

1 day - Merv Tweed

1 day - Mike Allen

1 day - Mike Lake

1 day - Patrick Brown

1 day - Phil McColeman

1 day - Pierre Poilievre

1 day - Randy Hoback

1 day - Randy Kamp

1 day - Royal Galipeau

1 day - Stephen Woodworth

1 day - Steven Blaney

1 day - Steven Fletcher

1 day - Ted Menzies

1 day- Barry Devolin

1 day- Bruce Stanton

1 day -Candice Hoeppner

1 day- David Sweet

2 days - Cathy Macleod

2 days - Chris Warkentin

2 days - Christian Paradis

2 days - James Moore

2 days - Lois Brown

2 days - Nina Grewal

2 days - Rob Merrifield

2 days - Rob Nicholson

3 Days - Andrew Saxton

3 days - Brian Jean

3 days - Chuck Strahl

3 days - Diane Ablonczy

3 days - Larry Miller

3 days - Scott Armstrong

3 days - Shelly Glover

4 days - Bev Oda

4 days - Dean Del Mastro

4 days - Gail Shea

4 days - Lisa Raitt

4 days - Peter Kent

4 days - Rob Moore

4 days - Rodney Weston

4 days - Rona Ambrose

4 days - Stockwell Day

5 days - Gary Lunn

5 days - Gerry Ritz

5 days - Jim Prentice

5 days - Josee Verner

5 days - Leona Aglukkaq

5 days - Peter Van Loan

5 days - Vic Toews

6 days - Jason Kenney

6 days - John Baird

6 days - Lawrence Cannon

6 days - Lynne Yellich

8 days - Denis Lebel

8 days - Jean-Pierre Blackburn

8 days - Keith Ashfield

9 days - Helena Geurgis

9 days - Peter Mackay

10 days - Gary Goodyear

11 days - Diane Finely

12 days - Jim Flaherty

15 days - Tony Clement

21 days - Stephen Harper

Your Conservative MPs at work

It runs 13 pages and lists all the ways that the Prime Minister, his cabinet and backbenchers have used their time since Parliament  has been  prorogued.  Gordon O'Connor mentions this list in his letter (see previous post) and the PMO has now passed it along to this blog.

Here it is, in its entirety.

Download List of work conducted by Conservative Parliamentarians from Jan 4 to Feb 12 2010 (2)

Talking, part 2

The   lineup of speakers for the Liberals'  big thinkers' conference in Montreal has been released today.  You can find the full list here. There are some prominent names -- Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman business school at U of T; Tom Jenkins, chairman of Open Text in Waterloo; former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy;  Janice Gross-Stein, from U of T's Monk Centre,  to name a few. There are also lots of not-so-usual suspects.

One intriguing participant is Derek Burney, former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney and the man who headed up the transition team for Stephen Harper when he took power in 2006. If nothing else, Mr. Burney's participation should make it exceedingly difficult for the Conservatives to pull out the "talking-to-yourselves" silliness (see previous post), though that should also be the case with participants such as Mr. Martin, Mr. Jenkins, and Ms. Gross-Stein, who are assiduously non-partisan as far as I've seen.

"Talking to yourselves"

Conservative Government Whip Gordon O'Connor has sent the Liberals a rather chippy (defensive?) little note, offering assurances that his party is keen to get back to work next week too when Parliament's back in session.

But he also takes a couple of shots at the Opposition roundtables, implying that all the participants were Liberals (which they were not, and really, haven't we had enough of this juvenilia from the PMO?) and that Liberals didn't hold any roundtables during the Olympics (which they did, ie, in Moncton this week.)  I guess this gives us a hint of the tone of debate to come when Parliament does return next Wednesday.

Here's the full copy of  O'Connor's  letter: Download Whip_Letter

Endangered landmark

The Heritage Canada Foundation has an annual contest to identify neglected, historic landmarks. Or, as the organization describes it: "sites at risk due to neglect, lack of funding, inappropriate development and weak legislation."

It has occurred to me, and others working here in the once-beautiful, historic National Press Building across from Parliament Hill, that we might just be working in one of those blighted zones. 

For reasons unclear to many denizens of this building and the Sparks Street area, the federal Public Works Department seems to be in the midst of reducing this prime political real estate in Canada to nothing but a pile of construction rubble and soulless office cubicles. As I write this, there's a banging and clattering going on that prompted one of my colleagues to yell: "We're down here! We're almost out of water."  This week, The Hill Times also wrote about what kind of mess is being made of lovely landmarks such as the old Bank of Montreal Building next door to us, not to mention the West Block, across the road. What other country -- not in the middle of armed conflict in the capital -- would allow such a mess to develop around its national legislature?

Allow me to share some photos depicting what's being done to this building, which once used to house most of the national media in this country, including CBC, Global TV  and CTV (since moved to swankier office buildings a block away.)   

On the left, you can see the Toronto Star offices here on the fourth floor (our pals at Macleans are just down the hall).

On the right, have a look at the state of the stairs, walls and floors here in this construction zone.  

Here on the left, political nostalgics might want to avert their eyes. Yes, that's the old National Press Club, long gone, broke, bankrupt and silent.

Even if you aren't a political junkie, or a particular fan of the media, you do have to wonder what's the plan here. This is Canada's political main street and thanks to construction and some mysterious Public Works, strategic plan,  the whole area is growing increasingly uninhabited and uninhabitable. All these buildings you see below, stretching from here to the Prime Minister's Office at Langevin Block, are basically empty or in the midst of being turned into cubicle jungles. I'd say that fits the Heritage Canada Foundation's definition of "inappropriate development." 

A PM encore?

This weekend, at the big Black and White Opera Soiree in Ottawa, the scheduled musical performers include Bob Rae and Justin Trudeau,  according to this  National Arts Centre blog  --  which also mentions, kind of cryptically,   others "to be confirmed."   

So if you enjoyed this or this, you might want to buy a ticket. Of course we don't know that the Prime Minister is thinking about doing any kind of return engagement to the NAC, but it might be amusing to see him performing  on the same stage as Rae and Trudeau.

Mini-prorogue

This blog will return on Feb. 22, 2010, after a brief recalibration of its author, in warmer climes. Enjoy the Olympics; try not to let an election or martial law be declared in my absence. 

Senate "strategy"

Tom Flanagan has offered some Senate advice to the Prime Minister today in a Globe and Mail column. Apologies to readers whose eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the Senate,  and with all respect for Mr. Flanagan, I think some of his assertions/assumptions don't stand up.  In the order he offers them: 

1. Stacking the Senate with a bunch more of appointed folks would "showcase Mr. Harper at his strategic best"? How's that prorogation thing going again? But let's assume that Mr. Flanagan is correct -- that Canadians would see the subtle difference between this "tricky power play" and the more blunt instruments Harper has used to roll over his opposition, which aren't earning him any new supporters if I read the polls correctly. Flanagan is assuming that citizens would see this as a  bold move for the sake of "democracy". Good luck with that. 

2. Liberals can't be expected to vote for something in the Commons because it requires a constitutional amendment? Was Mr. Flanagan AWOL during Meech or Charlottetown, when Liberals in the Commons voted both times in favour of the constitutional measures, as one step in the process? Liberals have said that Harper can't unilaterally change the composition of the Senate -- that provinces and the courts need to be part of the process. I don't understand how that translates into a decision to abstain from  Senate reform. But perhaps Mr. Flanagan knows more about the Liberals' strategic thinking than the rest of us. 

3. An election on Senate reform? Sounds like a riot, except that the way politics get polarized these days, the choice will likely boil down to Senate or No Senate -- reform or abolition. I'd bet that abolition wins. Again, Meech and Charlottetown taught us that if you ask Canadians what they want to do with anything surrounding the Constitution, they answer "throw the bums out."  Even if that isn't the question.  I don't think that's the solution Mr. Harper is seeking. 

4. "A direct reference by the federal minister of justice to the Supreme Court is a bad idea because it suggests that the government harbours doubts about its own legislation." Someone maybe should have told the current government about this before it referred its national-securities-regulator proposal to the court, where it now sits. As well, Jean Chretien did the country a service when he asked the Supreme Court to lay down the terms by which secession could occur. We now have a "Clarity Act" -- which was Stephen Harper's idea in the first place, if I recall.   A court reference isn't a strategy -- it's sound governing and can provide welcome clarity. 

5. Arguing that Senate reform needs a constitutional amendment doesn't make one an opponent of reforming the Senate.  That's a little gratuitous -- the kind of thing you'd expect to find in PMO talking points, not in any serious discussion of Senate reform. 

6. Finally, I am still puzzled by why ardent Senate reformers would want to make the chamber elected -- without fixing its other big problems, notably the under-representation of Alberta and British Columbia. Imagine 105 elected people in  the "other" chamber -- half of them from Quebec and Ontario, another one quarter from the Atlantic provinces, and just six senators each from the booming Western provinces.  

 You're going to end up with a bunch of  politicians  in the Senate, claiming a legitimate mandate from the people, where Alberta and B.C.'s senators could be constantly outvoted and overwhelmed by Central Canada. That's not what the Senate reformers in the West wanted, is it? 

Okay, that's it for Senate reform. Apologies again to those who don't share my obscure interest in this issue. 

Book plug (for political junkies)

Brian Topp first told much of the story online over at The Globe and Mail website several months ago, but now his tale is coming out in old-fashioned, book form too. Here's the notice that arrived this afternoon:

A behind-the-scenes account of the NDP-Liberal bid for federal power

More and more of Canadian politics happens offstage these days, in Ottawa’s back rooms. Brian Topp, a senior NDP strategist and negotiator, pulls the curtain aside in this detailed political memoir.   Topp has written the inside story of the negotiations which almost brought down the Harper government in November 2008. His book, How We Almost Gave the Tories the Boot, will be published on February 20, 2010.   Topp participated in many key meetings to get the coalition underway.  His narrative is built around the words of the participants, front-line as well as backroom, as they worked to find a deal, and then hold on to it. “My BlackBerry buzzed non-stop for more than 20 minutes as my various pen-pals let me know what they thought about what they had just seen,” Topp says, talking about one key stage in the process of putting together the short-lived coalition deal.   Canadians who aren’t political insiders will get a rare view of the character of many of the key players in Ottawa then and now, including Michael Ignatieff, Stéphane Dion, and Jack Layton. Liberal backroom operators loom large along with senior NDP and Liberal figures like Roy Romanow, Ed Broadbent, Allan Blakeney and Jean Chretien.   Topp gives a candid account in this day-by-day insider’s account of how the coalition was put together – and how it fell apart. Topp is frank about his views on the mistakes he and the other promoters of the coalition made, and the openings they gave the Harper Tories to fend off almost-certain defeat. He also makes a strong case that an open, public approach to coalition-building can offer Canadians a government more in line with their political views. BRIAN TOPP was born and raised in Montreal. He became active in the NDP in the 1988 federal campaign and first went to Ottawa in 1989. For many years he was a senior staffer for the Saskatchewan NDP government. He managed his party's war room in the 1997 and 2004 federal campaigns and was campaign director in 2006 and 2008. He is the executive director of ACTRA Toronto, the Canadian performers’ union. This is his first book.