8 lessons from one (or two) campaigns

At the outset of the last election, I rattled off a little blog post that seemed to strike a nerve (not to mention some hilarious additions I couldn't post -- yes, I'm looking at you, Mr. MacDonald in Washington.)

In the nearly two months since the election ended, I haven't blogged a whole lot (that's deliberate -- needed a wee break), but I have been out every now and then babbling to various audiences about what I observed/hypothesized/concluded from Canada's 41st election.

This morning, for instance, I was on a panel with the CBC's Julie Van Dusen and  McLoughlin Media's Laura Peck, moderated by Tobi Cohen of Postmedia. The event was a breakfast at the Rideau Club by the WXN (Women's Executive Network.)

I thoroughly enjoyed the event, by the way -- and not just because my mom was there too. It's worth checking out one of these gatherings if they happen to occur in your hometown.

Anyway, since I haven't blogged much on any of the topics we discussed at WXN, and now, with the benefit of some reflection, I thought I might lay out some of these thoughts here.  Call them a bookend to the 10 lessons I posted at the outset of the campaign.

1. There's been a lot of talk about "how did the media get it wrong?" in the wake of the last election.

I find this odd.

The strangest essay  in this vein has to be Marjory LeBreton's piece in the most recent Policy Options, which argues that journalists spent too much time on the leaders' buses, too much time on  social media, too much time arguing for more questions from the PM, and thus (get your basketball shoes on,  we're about to make a leap in logic): we were wrong about everything.

If I understand that argument correctly, we should stay away from the buses because no one tells the truth there, and not insist on more questions from the politicians because, well, they're tiresome to the folks on the bus, who are too busy not telling us the truth to let us get on with the more proper job of declaring the Conservatives the likely winner in all our reports. Confused? Yeah, me too.

So, here's my simpler solution: Why don't we reporters stop trying to call winners and losers and just do our jobs? (Which, sorry, involves asking questions of impatient prime ministers and then telling the public what they said.) I took that view back in 1993, when the reporters organized an election pool aboard the Liberal campaign tour  and posted their  vote predictions  by the bathroom door in the plane. "No way," I said. "I'm not calling the election."  At a stop in Quebec, guess what Jean Chretien did?  He told his loyal Liberal crowd about the pool entries he'd perused on the  plane  and said, "see, even the media think I'm going to win." Eeww. Not our job. We're not supposed to be judged on how well we tell the future; it's how we recount/analyze   what happened in the near or distant past.

2. How are women doing in politics overall?

Much better, thanks. A record 25 per cent has finally been hit in terms of numbers in the House of Commons. This is actually the second surge I've seen in my career here as a political reporter. In 1993, again, women's numbers jumped from 13 per cent to 18 per cent and in this election, from roughly 20 per cent to 25 per cent. Women do well when voters are in "the mood to kick the bums out," as Jennifer Lawless said at an event in Ottawa shortly before the election. Women are definitely not seen as "more of the same." 

That may well be why Elizabeth May, excluded from the TV debates, pushed to the fringes of media attention in the campaign, actually won this time. It was an outsider's election: Conservatives and New Democrats campaigned against Ottawa, the NDP successfully cast the Bloc as consummate insiders of Quebec politics. Liberals, for some strange reason, after five years in the wilderness, are still seen as the picture of resented power in Ottawa and so they lost because they were seen as part of a government they hadn't run since 2005. Lesson: You must run against the system you want to control.  Shades of Rob Ford. Mark that well.

3. Have women "arrived" in politics?

Yes and no. There's no question the numbers are getting better, but the ceiling is still there. Don't forget, in 1993, when a record number of women were elected, Canadians harshly rejected the two parties led by women (Kim Campbell for the Conservatives, Audrey McLaughlin for the NDP). Women MPs, okay, but women leaders? May is an interesting exception, but we'll see. I still sense a certain hesitation or invisible limits on women getting too much power.

4. Is the situation the same for women reporters?

A bit. There are more women reporters in the press gallery today than ever before -- about 35 per cent by my rough count yesterday. That's just excellent news. But there are very few women columnists (I count two full-timers, compared to at least a dozen men) or bureau chiefs -- those jobs are almost totally dominated by men. Two of our leading women broadcast hosts, Jane Taber and Kathleen Petty, are leaving their high-profile spots at CTV's Question Period and CBC's The House, respectively.

Women are more likely to be found in the reporting ranks, doing the same jobs they did when they arrived in Ottawa (as mentioned in previous posts, so enough about that.)

5. Social media, like Twitter and Facebook... are there opportunities for women there that don't exist in the traditional political media?

It is true that the wild-west nature of the new media has made it easier for dynamos like Kady O'Malley and Rosie Barton to become dominant voices in the brave new frontier. But a large survey of Canadian Online Political Participation, released earlier this year in preliminary form at the Canadian Political Science conference, shows women severely lagging in the political blogosphere.

Just 12 per cent of the participants in the study (including yours truly) are women bloggers on politics. But when you break down the numbers according to the type of participation, some interesting findings: women form only 7 per cent of the unabashedly partisan blogs, associated with political parties; 14 per cent of bloggers "identified" or leaning in a certain direction and 30 (!) per cent of non-partisan political bloggers. So, the closer you get to power and authority in the blogosphere, the women retreat. Kind of reminds you of the lack of women leaders and columnists, doesn't it?

6. Will decorum and civility be any better in this House of Commons than the last one?

Call me an optimistic skeptic. I'd like to think so, but I'm also aware that there are more rewards for bad behaviour in politics than there are for good behaviour. Negative ads work. Character assassination is quotable. TV panelists are constantly being urged to mix it up more to make their shows "lively" for the viewers. Need I say more?

7. Will the Liberal Party survive this period in the wilderness?

I don't know. (See answer to question 1.) I give it a 50-50 chance. (How's that for a prediction?)

 

8. What was the most important lesson you took from Election 2011? (This was, in fact, the last question asked at today's event.)

 

Here's the longer version of what I replied, since we were pressed for time by this point:

I have a degree in politics and a career in journalism. Both are fields that were "professionalized" in the mid-to-late 20th century. The idea, popular in the 1950s and 1960s, was that everything could be a science; measurable, predictable, operating under certain, mechanized, routinized rules. (That's why kitchens, incidentally, started to be designed like hospital operating theatres in this era. Science fixed everything.)

My view is that the public is no longer   "buying the science," as they say. (Shades of last year's census controversy, or, for that matter, the climate-change debate.)  I think the public was more influenced by skewed, partisan ads in this election -- certainly when it came to the Liberals -- than they were by journalistic reporting or political debate on a level playing field.

I think we journalists have to grapple with the fact that the public is perhaps more willing to believe a blatant partisan report than a perhaps complicated work of journalism.  Repetition works; even when the facts being repeated are wrong. It may mean that this 50-year-old experiment, treating journalism and politics as a measurable science, with absolute rights and absolute wrongs, is coming to an end. And what rises up in its place?

 

 

Senate reform: In case you were wondering

Like many people, I had some questions today about the Senate-reform legislation unveiled by Minister Tim Uppal. Like other people (okay constitutional nerds) who have some questions about how this will work, I told the minister's office I would like to know more. And I was invited to submit my  questions via email. 

Anyway, thought you might like to see how this whole reporting/answering thing works in the bold new days of the stable Conservative majority government. Have a look -- but don't try this at home.

Here were my questions:

1. As in the national securities legislation, Quebec is saying it will challenge this bill in court. Unlike the national securities legislation, Ottawa hasn't sought its own Supreme Court of Canada reference. Why not? How will Ottawa reply to any court challenge?

2.  This bill retroactively changes the terms for appointees after Oct. 14, 2008. What is the significance of that date and why does the government believe that it can retroactively change terms for senators -- when that was NOT done when mandatory retirement  was introduced?

3. How quickly does the government expect this bill to become law? Will there be any talks with provinces?

And here are the answers replies I received, courtesy of the minister's office. 

Our Government received a strong mandate to reform the Senate.

That is why we are taking action to make the Senate more democratic, accountable and representative of Canadians.

Regarding term limits, we have specifically chosen terms that are long enough to maintain the essential characteristics of the Senate as a chamber of sober second thought, while still providing regular renewal in Senate membership.

Senators appointed after royal assent of the bill will be subject to nine-year non-renewable terms.

Senators appointed after October 14, 2008, will also have their terms limited to a non-renewable nine-years starting with the royal assent of this bill.

The retirement age of senators, regardless of when they were appointed, will remain at 75.

We look forward to working with the provinces in bringing about meaningful senate reform. We encourage all provinces to follow Alberta's lead and implement democratic processes to give Canadians greater say in the selection of their Senate nominees.

For additional background information, I will direct you to the backgrounder found here:

http://democraticreform.gc.ca/index.asp?lang=eng&page=news-comm&doc=news-comm/20110621

Senate reform and lost income

The Senate-reform legislation has been introduced (see link here) and if you were wondering why some (not all) of the Harper appointees had reservations, perhaps here's a bit of an explanation.

Under this bill, senators appointed after 2008 will have to leave the Senate nine years after the act takes force.  The only exceptions are senators appointed before 2008 and Harper appointees who will turn 75 in the next decade.

Here's a handy guide to what that means to the Harper appointees, assuming the law comes into force next year (and that's a big 'if' by the way.) 

Fabian Manning,  entitled  to retire in 2039, will lose 18 years of potential income, as will Don Meredith and Claude Carignan.Other big losers include Patrick Brazeau, who has to retire 28 years early, Leo Housakos, 22 years early; Yonah Martin, 19 years early.

 

Michael MacDonald,  entitled  to retire in 2030, nine years  lost income. Pamela Wallin, seven years; Salma Ataullahjan, six years;  Larry Smith, Elizabeth Marshall, five years.

Stephen Greene, is entitled  to retire in 2024. So it's just three years lost income for Greene, as well as Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, John Wallace, Percy Mockler.  Four years lost income for Judith Seidman and Don Plett. Dennis Patterson and Dan Lang would lose only two years.

Fred Dickson is   due  to retire in 2012. No lost income. Ditto for all these senators, who are due to retire before these term limits  have an effect: Vim Kochhar, Bert Brown, Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis, Irving Gerstein, David Braley, Michel Rivard, Bob Runciman, Mike Duffy, Doug Finley, and Carolyn Stewart-Olson.

I should say -- I have no clue which of these senators is objecting to the reforms (if any) and whether those objections revolve around potential personal income loss. What is clear, though, is that their support of nine-year term limits has a real, material cost.

 

Interview with Bob Rae

In advance of this weekend's "extraordinary convention" of the Liberal party, I sat down this week for a chat with interim leader Bob Rae. Of course, as usual, a lot more was said than I could fit in the paper, so I thought interested folks might want to read a bit more here. Bob was in fine spirits. The actual offices for the party on the fifth floor of Centre Block  are still a bit of a ghost town -- hiring of new staff, etc. will probably take place over the summer, while Rae is travelling. (And no, it won't be like last year's Liberal Express tour -- this will be much more low-key. The caucus retreat will be in Ottawa, to save money. Not beautiful Baddeck, where Liberals met last summer, when hopes were still high.)

Rae  gave some   glimpses of behind-the-scenes dynamics in this new Parliament, which I found interesting, especially the tension between Liberals and New  Democrats. Here's what he said, when I asked if the House overall is now more "polarized," as everyone predicted when they saw the May 2 election results. 

 

No. Partly because there’s a kind of sanctimonious overtone that I think prevents people from really being themselves and I think that’ll break down. I don’t think that’ll last forever. I think we’re already seeing it beginning to fray at the edges a little bit. And also because I think as I see it, there will be a lot of circumstances where people will want to hear from whoever is in the House and if there’s an interesting alternative third point of view, there’s another way of looking at it, then they will do so. You know, I don’t feel that … I feel quite comfortable in the House. In some ironic way, there’s lots of ironies in it, I’m sitting not far away from where I sat when I first got there…

Who's in your old seat?

Elizabeth (May, Green Party leader.) She has the seat of honour. But you know the great thing about the House of Commons is that there’s no bad seat in the House of Commons. When you’re there, you’ve got a role to play, the Speaker recognizes you and with the great benefit of television, when you stand up, if I watch CPAC coverage and I’m standing up, no one knows where I am in the House. I’m just right there…

How's the relationship between you and Layton and Harper?

I would say Jack is quite a lot cooler, more distant. But I think that’s partly a product of probably feeling that there’s some kind of competition going on, whatever. And I think there’s a certain sense…. I don’t know whether to talk about this, but the whole moving of the offices thing was just bizarre. I was moved out of an office by an NDPer whose name I won’t mention. Her office was being taken over by a Liberal. Like we were all moving around and you thought, there’s got to be an easier way to do this…

This whole civility thing is overdone… In committees, it’s always been the rule that the three parties got the first three questions, the first three sets of questions. In one committee we learned today, the NDP and Conservatives joined up to say you get the fifth question. So there’s just a lot of little games being played.

They (the NDP) want to let everybody know that they’ve arrived, so they’re going to exercise all their full rights and powers and duties. You’ve got to let them get that out of their system.   … Even the little things. They wouldn’t let Elizabeth May and the four Bloc guys sit with them. We have a very tiny space (behind the curtains, in the Commons lobby). They had nowhere to sit. So I said, you sit with us, if they’re not going to let you sit with them, we’ll make space for you. So we literally rearranged the furniture, so you have your own phone, your own little place here, your own cup of coffee there, you don’t have to sit outside… It’s truly stupid, right. But these are the signs of triumphalism that never work because they always come back and bite you in the end. But I guess they have to get it out of their system.

On how it's going, generally, for the Liberal party. 

Things are what they are. Things are going as well… I guess you’d say  as well as can be expected under the circumstances. We took a big whack on May 2. There was a lot ... a  lot of people kind of reeling from the shock. Not so much now…

We had a party last night, a reception given by the Quebec assistants in the East Block courtyard. Well-attended, good spirits. Caucus morale is very good. Caucus meetings are very productive. We’ve got the senators and the MPs working well together on issues. We’ve changed the format of caucus meetings and we’ve gone from having people up on a dais to everybody being around a table together. So it’s a very dynamic kind of meeting process and that’s been very productive. I think people are in a good mood, good humour.  And a lot of jokes, a lot of people socializing, going out for dinner, seeing each other, all the little signs of how things are going in terms of morale that you pick up on.

Everybody realizes that we have to put the old battles behind us and we really have to get rid of some of that lingering kind of distrust and animosity and build a stronger feeling where everyone feels value. I think with the membership of the party, I think it’s going to take more time. With MPs you can see them, with senators, they’re part of the political process. But as we broaden it out to talk to more and more of the membership and people that we would like to be members, that we would like to be in the movement, I think it’s going to take some time.

The other thing that’s better is that the party and the parliamentary structure, the office, the people, the staff, have to work more closely together. They will simply have to work more closely together because there’s just no choice. Again, you take advantage of that to make changes. It’s painful at the beginning because some people will have to be let go, will move around. Those are always difficult changes. But once we’ve got those new structures in place, people will feel have a keener sense of where we’re going next, how we’re going to proceed.

On timing, urgency of rebuilding:

We’re about to adjourn for the summer. I keep reminding members, we have five summers before the election. So let’s pace ourselves, let’s not pretend… We’re all adjusting to the new pace of a majority government, which is that you’ve got to recognize, that this is all going to take time, that there are going to be days and even weeks when you’re not in the public eye very much…

Is it hard to be the third party? Has your past helped prepare you for this?

It’s not hard for me. I spent a lot of time out of the public eye when I was working on other issues, so I don’t mind. In a way, this is kind of like a classic restructuring job. It’s a big one, because it’s a political party and it has no parallel to a lot of things you do in the charitable world.

I did the restructuring of the Red Cross, I did the restructuring of the Toronto Symphony. A lot of it’s the same thing. You’re trying to get people working in the same direction, you’re trying to persuade everybody as to why certain changes are necessary, … and then you spend time with the reluctant people, let them vent, let them kind of get all the stuff out of their system and then you figure out how do we move on….

In each case you’re looking at organizations which have great histories and great potential but have been through difficult times. And you’ve got to say how do we restructure, how do we refocus the mission. In the case of the Red Cross, you are giving up a large part of what they used to do. There was a lot of …. There had been a lot of agony over the blood tragedy. And so when I was brought in, my job was to settle those cases and those claims and to redirect them, rather than fight them, the Red Cross’s efforts to its relief work, its international work, its work at home and I think people would most say now, if you did any poll about do you have a positive impression of the Red Cross, people would say yes, they still do.

Similarly, with the symphony, you’re trying to change, help an organization to change so that it can build on its reputation but also get people to actually come and listen to them. And again, there, it’s not about me, it’s about who do I find who will do the job that has to be done?

When asked about predictions/fears of the death of the Liberal Party.

My own thinking is that that’s not right. That .. When you actually look at the facts, say we went from, under Mr. Chretien, we went from the high 30s to the low 30s or mid-to-low 30s under Mr. Martin, then to the high 20s under Mr. Dion and then down to the final result…. Under Michael’s leadership we were usually in the high 20s or low 30s…So … What’s wrong with thinking that way is that it assumes a kind of permanence of defeat which I think is a big mistake.

I do think we’re in a very dynamic situation and if you look at the politics of Quebec  right now, the politics of Ontario, you know the two biggest provinces, plus the B.C. election, which will probably be in the fall, other provinces voting in the fall, a lot of movement around, a lot of shifting, and I do think there’s a lot of open possibilities. It relly depends on how successful we are in coming together at the beginning and then really starting to rebuild at the level of the constituency and  at the   level of the regions, that says now we’re in a stronger position and that’s partly a function of just the mechanics of paying attention and going back to people who were there before and saying we want you back and getting new people in who haven’t been there before. But it’s also partly a question of policy. It’s about ideas, it’s about what are the ideas that you can help drive that can help to move people and help to move people to where you want to go.

 Does the Liberal Party need a thinktank? Its own Fraser Institute or Manning Institute?

There’s talk of that. I mean, sure. You look at the Fraser Institute, the Manning Institute, you know the question is can we get the kind of money that would allow that kind of thing to happen. We certainly have to work much more closely with the thinkers and treat them with respect and with the policy groups that are out there. But you know the interesting thing is that even the concept of an institute or the concept of a policy conference of a Kingston or whatever people want to talk about, to me, it’s like everything has been changed by the Internet. The digital world has changed everything.

We need to become Wiki-Liberals. We need to think about how we build up the networks and participating on social media, really engaging with people. And there’s no reason why on policy we can’t  get people participating much more quickly and conversations about particular items of policy and how to develop it.  Even the whole idea of having resolutions is a terribly old-fashioned way of thinking… The idea that you put something down in stone and say well that’s the policy. Well what if everything changes over the next four years. What is that?

On dancing with the one who brung you

We're hearing from CBC  that some of Harper's own Senate appointees are miffed about limited terms and elections. As fellow Conservative senator Bert Brown reminds his colleagues in a note today, this seems a little, uh, forgetful of how they landed in the red chamber.Here's  a  note he reportedly sent out today, which we here have obtained, and yes, Brown  uses the "loyalty" word. 

Dear Senators,
Yesterday, in Senate caucus Minister Uppal was showered with complaints about Senate elections and a nine year term.
Senators need to be reminded that when I came to the Red Chamber there were 19 Conservative Senators and 73 Liberals plus 5 independent and PC's. Despite all efforts to speak to the Liberals from the Senate and the Commons, they would not budge from appointments. When we had 18 vacancies Harper appointed very good Senators to fight fire with fire. It became obvious that he could only get a majority vote by appointing those who agreed to vote for Senate reform.
Those of us who came to the Red Chamber were there to get a majority vote for reform. Those in the Senate before Harper became Prime Minister need to realize that, had he not made appointments, the Conservatives appointed by Mulroney would now be a very small group struggling to do anything!
Every Senator in this caucus needs to decide where their loyalty should be and must be. The answer is simple; our loyalty is to the man who brought us here, the man who has wanted Senate reform since he entered politics, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper.
Sincerely,
 
Hon. Bert Brown, Senator

 

Here's a new idea

Last week, Liberal party president Alf Apps proposed an expansion of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to include social and economic rights. The proposal, excerpted in the National Post this week, has prompted reactions ranging from aha to what the heck is he thinking? 

Face blank, having been here a while and written the odd book, I've decided it's maybe useful to remind folks (and Apps?) of Section B of the Charlottetown accord, circa 1992, meticulously negotiated, universally rejected by the Canadian population. Would this be what the Liberal Party president is talking about? 

B: CANADA'S SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC UNION

4. The Social and Economic Union

A new provision should be added to the constitution describing the commitment of the governments, Parliament and the legislatures within the federation to the principle of the preservation and development of Canada's social and economic union. The new provision, entitled the Social and Economic Union, should be drafted to set out a series of policy objectives underlying the social and the economic union, respectively. The provision should not be justiciable.

- providing throughout Canada a health care system that is comprehensive, universal, portable, publicly administered and accessible;

- providing adequate social services and benefis to ensure that all individuals resident in Canada have reasonable access to housing, food and other basic necessities;

- providing high quality primary and secondary education to all individuals resident in Canada and ensuring reasonable access to post secondary education;

- protecting the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively; and,

- protecting, preserving and sustaining the integrity of the environment for present and future generations.

The policy objectives set out in the provision on the economic union should include, but not be limited to:

- working together to strenthen the Canadian economic union;

- the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital;

- the goal of full employment;

- ensuring that all Canadians have a reasonable standard of living; and

- ensuring sustainable and equitable development.

A mechanism for monitoring the Social and Economic Union should be determined by a First Minister's Conference.

A clause should be added to the Constitution stating that the Social and Economic Union does not abrogate or derogate from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

5. Economic Disparities, Equalization and Regional Development

Section 36 of the Constitution Act, 1982 currently commits Parliament and the Government of Canada and the governments and legislatures of the provinces to promote equal opportunities and economic development throughout the country and to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services to all Canadians. Subsection 36(2) currently commits the Canadian government to the principle of equalization payments. This section should be amended to read as follows:

Parliament and the Government of Canada are commited to making equalization payments so that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

Subsection 36(1) should be expanded to include the territories.

Subsection 36(1) should be amended to add a commitment to ensure the reasonably comparable economic infrastructures of a national nature in each province and territory.

The Constitution should commit the federal government to meaningful consultation with the provinces before introducing legislation relating to equalization payments.

A new Subsection 36(3) should be added to entrench the commitment of governments to the promotion of regional economic development to reduce economic disparities.

Regional development is also discussed in item 36 of this document.

6. The Common Market

Section 121 of the Constitution Act, 1867 would remain unchanged.

Detailed principals and commitments related to the Canadian Common Market are included in the political accord of August 28, 1992. First Ministers will decide on the best approach to implement these principles and commitments at a First Minister's Conference on the Economy. First Ministers would have the authority to create an independent dispute resolution agency and decide on it's role, mandate and composition. (*)

 

The "big society" in Canada

While the Conservative convention was taking place on the main stage in Ottawa over the weekend, a whole other set  of conversations about conservatism was  also taking place in the capital, not far away from the congress centre. 

It was the Manning Centre's policy shop, set up temporarily in the basement of the Chateau Laurier, and packed to the rafters with conventioneers who were eager to hear some of the ideas now being bandied about by the founder of the Reform Party. 

I sat in for most of the afternoon on Friday, and was most immediately struck by how many times the "Big Society" project in the United Kingdom was referenced by attendees. It's possible that David Cameron is being seen as a trail-blazer for modern conservatism, in the same way that Margaret Thatcher was an exemplar for many of these Canadian conservatives in the 1980s.

It definitely fits with the Manning Centre "barometer" poll released last week (see previous post), which reportedly finds that Canadians want the government of the future to be a "facilitator." 

So what does a "big society" look like? According to the U.K. cabinet document referenced above, it looks like this: 

We want to give citizens, communities and local government the power and information they need to come together, solve the problems they face and build the Britain they want. We want society – the families, networks, neighbourhoods and communities that form the fabric of so much of our everyday lives – to be bigger and stronger than ever before. Only when people and communities are given more power and take more responsibility can we achieve fairness and opportunity for all.

Building this Big Society isn’t just the responsibility of just one or two departments. It is the responsibility of every department of Government, and the responsibility of every citizen too. Government on its own cannot fix every problem. We are all in this together. We need to draw on the skills and expertise of people across the country as we respond to the social, political and economic challenges Britain faces.

The document then gives five plans of action: give communities more power; encourage people to take a more active role in their communities; transfer power from central to local government; support co-ops, mutuals, charities and social enterprises; and publish government data. 

Some of these ideas do dovetail with Stephen Harper's talk of smaller government and the Canadian Conservatives' emphasis on everything local. But this whole business of openness and publishing government data doesn't fit with the notoriously secretive nature of Harper's government and probably explains why the Manning Centre's discussions were not part of the official convention agenda. Power and policy talk, as Liberals have found, are often incompatible. 

Still, I'm  also not sure that the ideas of the "big society" can be claimed as uniquely Conservative. The idea of "networked" government was also floated at the Liberals' big policy conference in Montreal last March (much to the general bafflement of the punditry and spectators present, it should be noted.) 

** Update ** On the Huffington Post front page this morning, another view of the Manning Centre poll (from someone reasonably well known to me), arguing that this barometer shows Canada moving in a progressive, rather than Conservative direction.

At any rate, if you're looking to see where the puck is headed (see? I can do hockey metaphors too), in terms of conservatism, I'd keep an eye on the big-society project in the U.K. Certainly Manning and his fellow conservatives are -- and they've blazed some trails of their own in the past. 

Chretien: The original modern Conservative?

This morning, the Manning Centre unveiled its second annual poll  about how Canada is increasingly turning Conservative blue. It's called the Manning Centre Barometer and you can find it by clicking here.

Present for the (remarkably long, nearly 90-minute)  press conference  was  Reform Party founder Preston Manning (it's his centre, after all), as well as Allan Gregg from Harris-Decima and Andre Turcotte from Carleton University. Readers of the Star blogs will remember that Turcotte was one of our political-marketing bloggers during the election campaign.

Though I have immense respect for all the presenters this morning, I found myself a little puzzled by their description of what they describe as conservatism. In fact, as they were rhyming off "generally ascribed" Conservative values,  it seemed to me they could be describing Jean Chretien's philosophy to governing as much as Stephen Harper's. Question: Is this conservativism or pragmatism?

"Equality of opportunity," for instance, is billed as a Conservative value, (as opposed to the supposedly lefty emphasis on equality of results) even though Chretien put "equality of opportunity" in all kinds of Throne speeches throughout his rule. Smaller government too -- last time I checked, it was Chretien who  slashed government spending hugely in the 1990s,  while Harper has increased it over the past five years.  Have a look for yourself at the presentation (available at the link mentioned above) and see whether you'd accept the premise of the poll's description of Conservatism. For anyone who followed Chretien's government, as I did, almost everything here sounds very similar to his governing style. 

That said, there are some "values" I'd definitely associate more with Conservativism, especially Harper's brand. One of those is   a greater  emphasis on  patriotism and the military, where Harper has definitely veered in a much more pro-military direction than Chretien did. Another would be  a belief that the private sector has better ideas than government. But in  those uniquely Harper-ish  terms, Canadians' support for those values  is actually waning, the poll shows.So how is it possible to say that  conservatism is on the rise?

I asked about all this at the press conference, and here is the rather substantial reply I received from all three. If I'm not mistaken, I think they may agree with me. It picks up with Turcotte, first of all.

Turcotte: I don't think this (conservatism) can be traced to the last three, four, five years. I think that this is something, as Allan mentioned, you could probably go back to 1988 or the 1990s and we don't ascribe, we don't actually say who's responsible, because everybody who was in power, everybody who was involved in the political discourse over that 12-15 years has played a role. Without a doubt, the style of government that Chretien adopted -- he won three majorities -- and there is some similarity between the two (he's referring to Harper here.)  This is not .... We try to go beyond the day-to-day fluctuation. We want to take a longer view. And we are suggesting that this change has been going on and Harper is trying to capture this.... He's concentrated on the most prominent (views) among the electorate...

Gregg: The difference, I think, is that he (Harper) has tried to make a virtue out of doing nothing. (Laughter from the room.) No, I'm serious, you see this again and again.

Manning: Which is what Chretien did too.

Gregg: Chretien didn't try to make a virtue out of it, he just did nothing.But no, if you talk to him personally, he says government's role is not to generate change, it's to deal with it once it arrives. To the larger question about the role of government, I challenge anyone to tell me one major initiative that's emanated out of government for the last 20 years. Tell me.

[At this point, there was a small discussion among reporters and the panel about whether maternal leave counted as a major initiative from the federal government.]

Resuming the discussion, on the point of decline in support for patriotism and the military.

Manning: I think this is predictable, Susan, when countries actually get engaged in warfare, there's a declining... people get weary of it and worried, rightfully so. And I think that since the Afghanistan thing, and the longness, that's the main explanation we can see for that decline. 

Me: But isn't this the whole Don Cherry thing, standing up for the soldiers, and you say Canadians are getting tired of that?

Gregg: Oh, I think there's no question on Afghanistan, there's been a huge fatigue. I mean, Stephen Harper's tired of it. That's why.

Turcotte: Your point about the Conservative government making a stand on that. I think it was probably more true four or five years ago than now. I think that's one indication.

Gregg: And when we talk about the country becoming more Conservative... it's becoming more uniquely Canadian Conservative. Not American Conservative. In fact, the faith in the private sector has declined the last year as well. There's an argument that the country has become less Conservative in traditional, big C, or small-C, or American-C conservative values over the last year. But it's this emphasis on moderation, tradition, incrementalism, facilitation that I think is so dominant that it's become an orthodoxy in the country. (

[**  And here I'm thinking to myself --  so we're not turning Conservative at all, we're just redefining Conservativism, and it happens to resemble Chretien's Liberalism? *** ]

Turcotte: Yeah, we make the point, that this is not Republican-style, Tea-Party-style rejection of government. This is not what we're saying. It's Canadian!