The new campaign battleground: 'Society' vs. 'state'

This column by the New York Times' David Brooks (also reprinted in today's National Post) doesn't mention Canada, but it is required reading for anyone who's trying to figure out the underlying politics of our next election campaign.

It revolves around how Conservatives are on the rise in Britain because they've changed - not just their strategy or tactics but their entire thinking.

The role-of-government debate is over; "quality of life" is the new discussion. Raw individualism is out; "society" is in.

"They want voters to think of the Tories as the party of society while Labor is the party of the state. They want the country to see the Tories as the party of decentralized organic networks and the Laborites as the party of top-down mechanistic control," Brooks writes.

It doesn't take too much thinking to see the parallels here in Canada. The child-care debate leaps to mind as a good example of society versus the state.

While the Liberals weren't looking the last few years, Canada's own Conservatives have roughly tacked their policies along the same path, modelling their tax and social platforms around society and neighbourhood and communities. Liberals will try to pitch this simply as the Conservatives' lack of faith in government and institutions - and some of that characterization is well-founded - but they will risk looking anachronistic if they allow themselves to be cast as the advocates of big government. The same is true for the New Democrats. The Greens, interestingly, probably do more talking about society than they do the state, which may explain why they're on the upswing here too in recent years.

We do know that Conservative strategists have been borrowing from the playbook of their counterparts in the U.K. - the high-tech "war room" in Ottawa's suburbs is a direct imitation, according to senior campaign planners.

So it's probably a good idea to look closely at what the U.K. Conservatives are teaching Canadians, and vice versa, about the nature of the political debate in the 21st century.

The Great Communicator

After a long hiatus, Bob Rae is back to blogging - in the voice of Stephen Harper. Seriously. This morning, deadpan, Rae posted a letter he says he got through Access to Information - from the PM to the president of Tim Horton's.

The letter praises the decision to fire an employee for giving away a Timbit, because "it's really just the beginning of the end."

It also contains some communication advice for any negative fallout: "Stick by your original plan. The bad publicity will come and go. Don't answer questions. Attack the questioner. Challenge their credibility. Smear Coffee Time."

UPDATE: The blog entry has been "disappeared." Apparently Rae's sense of humour isn't universally shared and he voluntarily took it down after someone didn't find his fake letter funny. It's one thing, I guess, to call Tim Horton's cruel and heartless for firing an employee, but it's just going too far to compare the doughnut empire to the Harper regime.

Who CAIRS about access to information?

Of passing interest is why Prime Minister Stephen Harper keeps saying that the Coordination of Access to Information Requests System (CAIRS) - which has been killed by his government - was set up by the Liberals.

Here's a 2002-03 report from the Information Commissioner, specifically stating that CAIRS was set up in 1989.

Sure, that was nearly 20 years ago, but I'm pretty sure a Conservative government ruled Canada at the time.

Taking out the trash talk

Over the past weekend, CBC Radio's The House performed a bold experiment. It featured a panel of MPs, talking on the economy, but set ground rules: no using the airwaves to trash your opponents. The House host Kathleen Petty warned participants that producers would simply edit out any negative remarks directed at other parties.

You can listen to the result here.

The show is inviting the audience to call/write and say whether these new rules of engagement are welcome.

This may be an idea whose time has come. Anecdotally, you hear a lot of fed-up talk around Ottawa these days about the state of these panel discussions. When MPs or strategists simply come on the air to recite a list of "talking points" generated by central party command, the result seems to be simply noise.

For fun, I took the transcript of a panel discussion yesterday on CTV's Question Period (see below) and did a similar type of editing. By my rough count, you lose about half the number of words in this discussion if you get rid of the snipes against others.

CTV Question Period Transcript for Sunday, May 4, 2008 – MPs panel

OLIVER: The Prime Minister says the economy's in good shape, don't worry. However, the Governor of the Bank of Canada says we could be into a slowdown for a whole year. Which is it, and what are the plans of our political parties to do anything about it? Well we're joined from Calgary by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance Ted Menzies who's standing by in Toronto, John McCallum a former banker who's now the Liberal finance critic, and Peggy Nash who is the industry critic for the NDP. Mr. Menzies, let me get to you first. Which is it? Is the economy in pretty good shape or are we heading into a recession?

TED MENZIES (Parliamentary Secretary – Finance): Well certainly the economy is in good shape and I would agree with the prime minister, but we can't help but look across the border and see the difficult challenges that the Americans are facing. And we're very dependent on trade with the Americans so we need to be cautious. And that's why in the fall economic statement, the Finance Minister addressed those issues and put in $60 billion worth of tax cuts to stimulate the economy, and businesses reacted. We heard positive comment from all across this country, from industry groups and from private individuals, that those tax breaks stimulated new business, stimulated new jobs. We're looking at, since this government has taken power, nearly three-quarters of a million, over three-quarters of a million net new jobs. And yes people are, jobs are being rationalized. There's people that are losing their jobs, but there's over three-quarters of a million net new jobs in all regions all across this country.

OLIVER: Alright, Mr. Menzies has brought us straight to tax cuts, Mr. McCallum. In a slowdown, are tax cuts the answer, and then I'm going to get you to answer the same question Ms Nash.

JOHN MCCALLUM (Liberal Finance Critic): Well I think Ted has a bit of a Pollyanna view. And I would argue that the basic problem is that this government spent like crazy over the last couple of years when the economy was strong, and now when we're looking at a weak economy the fiscal cupboard is bare and some are even saying we're in deficit, and so there's very little fiscal room now thanks to their overspending during good times. And the other point I would make is it's extremely unhelpful when Ontario, which is bearing the brunt of this storm, the government keeps attacking Ontario calling, saying that it's the last place to invest or that Dalton McGuinty is the small man of confederation. I think Canadians want their governments to work together, especially in Ontario when times are difficult, and this government should work with Ontario and stop trashing the business climate of Ontario.

OLIVER: Go ahead, Ms Nash?

PEGGY NASH (NDP MP): Well, you know, Craig, this week we had three different studies that came out that told us some pretty troubling news on Tuesday. We heard that just so far this year Canada has lost 55,000 manufacturing jobs, and that adds on to the hundreds of thousands we've already lost. On Wednesday we heard that the economy is stalled and in fact is shrinking, and on Thursday we had the StatsCan report that looked at the last generation, the last 25 years, and found that those who are very wealthy are getting wealthier, those at the bottom are falling further and further behind, and those in the middle are working harder, longer just to tread water, just to stay in place. So I don't think that the government's handling the economy well at all. I think Mr. Harper has turned his back on the manufacturing crisis. He's turned his back on Ontario. And he's turned his back on the real pressing needs that certainly people in my community are telling me that they're facing. They've got the lowest savings in their generation, they've got the highest debt in the country's history, and they're really struggling.

OLIVER: I want to get back to Mr. Menzies. There is a real economy and then there's the political economy, Mr. Menzies. Is your government worried about Ontario where you need votes and a third of the ridings in the country are there if you have any chance of getting a majority at all, you're going to get them with the kind of answers you've got about the Ontario economy, because that's what the problem is, isn't it?

MENZIES: Well let's talk about reality, as I stated, and Peggy didn't seem to hear my comment, that we have over three-quarters of a million net new jobs in this country. Jobs are changing.

NASH: But, Mr. Menzies, when you lose your job at General Motors like a thousand people did this week, if you lose a thousand jobs at General Motors, what's a job at Wal-Mart?

MENZIES: Craig, I...

OLIVER: Okay, we better get Mr. Menzies, I want to let Mr. Menzies make his point here.

MENZIES: Thank you. It's very important to realize that no one that graduates from high school today would expect to stay in that same job. Jobs are changing. People are moving. Eighty percent of these over three-quarter of a million new jobs are high paying jobs. People have employment. They're moving to new jobs. They're commuting to better stronger jobs. But to go back to Mr. McCallum's comment about spending, let's take into account what the Liberals have suggested we should do. Just last week, I believe it was on your show, Craig, the leader of the official opposition suggested that we should put a higher tax on gasolines and heating fuels. That's not what's going to help Canadians.

MCCALLUM: Actually he didn't say that.

MENZIES: That's not going to help Canadians survive through this summer and through a winter of cold conditions.

OLIVER: Mr. McCallum, I guess what I'd like to hear you say is a comment on this whole business of tax cuts. Is that what Ontario needs as its economy slips?

MCCALLUM: Well it's in the liberal DNA not to go back into deficit after we got rid of the huge Conservative deficit in the mid-90s, so everything I say is subject to not going back into deficit. But I think manufacturing is hemorrhaging jobs, and it's not much comfort to those losing their jobs to be told that jobs are going elsewhere. And I think we have already announced, subject to money being available, a one billion fund to help support the manufacturing sector. Much of that would be in Ontario.The government is ideologically opposed to measures of that kind. But I think when we have US Governors in the southern states giving huge subsidies to lure our companies and our jobs out of Canada we have to support our manufacturing sector as well, and this is a big difference between what we would do as a government and what this government is refusing to do.

OLIVER: The Bank of Canada Governor says we are into a slowdown, Miss Nash. Who's right here, because the Prime Minister suggests things are in great shape, or is it just Ontario we're talking about and we've got one nation and two economies, Ms Nash?

NASH: Well I think if you're in the commodities sector, you know if you're in the oil and gas sector things are looking pretty rosy. It's not only Ontario that's in manufacturing. If you're in a paper mill in British Columbia, and that mill is closing, you feel the impact the same as someone in Ontario. But because Ontario, and Quebec to a lesser degree, but Ontario especially is the manufacturing heartland, here's where we're really feeling the impact of the manufacturing crisis. And just on the issue of tax cuts, you know, Mr. Dion goaded the Prime Minister to cut taxes further and faster so he did and the Liberals supported that but, you know, it's the wrong way to go. What that has done, it's rewarded those very profitable companies that are already doing very well. Taken money out of the national purse that we ought to be spending to assist the manufacturing sector, but also meet people's needs in housing, social services, health care. That's what we should be doing.

OLIVER: Mr. Menzies, let me ask you about something I think you said, or I think it's where you're going, if you're out of work in Ontario and the economy of the west is booming move west where there are jobs. Isn't that in effect what you're saying? And I'm not being critical of that.

MENZIES: Well that isn't what I suggested at all. When I'm suggesting that people may travel to a job it's a short distance. But let's look at the facts. There's over 85,000 jobs in the province of Ontario that are producing products for the oil and gas sector in Saskatchewan and Alberta. That's where the jobs are going. They're going into building houses, into building new infrastructure in Ontario. They may not be building cars, but they have jobs. They have good paying jobs that are supporting the Canadian economy.

OLIVER:Quickly now, Mr. McCallum and Ms. Nash, you have to keep it quick, what are the chances that the Conservatives may suffer in Ontario politically, Mr. McCallum?

MCCALLUM: Well I think the fact that they keep insulting Ontario and attacking Dalton McGuinty and saying he's the small man of confederation rather than working with Ontario is one strike against them, and the fact that they have nothing to support the manufacturing sector having used up all the money during good times, they have nothing left to give and they're ideologically opposed to helping manufacturing anyway, and there's no consolation to those manufacturing people losing jobs to tell them there's jobs in Alberta. So I think they have two strikes against them.

OLIVER: Since then, by the way, the Prime Minister did say some nicy nicy things about Dalton McGuinty. But, Ms Nash, finally you?

NASH: Well, you know, we've seen 25 years mostly boom times and I think that boom was squandered. We didn't make the right decisions to invest where we needed to invest, both in infrastructure and in defending our value-added sectors, the manufacturing sector, and those that ignore that today I think do so at their peril. Canada cannot afford to lose its manufacturing sector. We're seeing the impact. It's hurting people very deeply.

OLIVER: That's it. That's got to be it, and I want to thank all three of you for giving us your time this Sunday. We appreciate it very much.

MCCALLUM: Thank you, Craig.

NASH: Thanks, Craig.

MENZIES: Thanks, Craig.

OLIVER: Just ahead, our journalists and our weekly cheers and jeers section.

Can you put that in writing?

One penultimate word on the New Orleans summit - the ultimate word apparently belongs to U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, who's holding a lunch today to brief reporters more on what happened when Prime Minister Stephen Harper got together with President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon this week.

Not everything we learn, naturally, can get into a news story. So perhaps readers might find it helpful to see the contents of what's called the  "read-outs" from PMO, summarizing the discussions, developments  between Harper and his North American counterparts.

While we stared somewhat quizzically at the empty briefing area set up in the filing room in New Orleans (it simply gathered dust; no one from government ever used the desk, microphones and podium), we did receive these  emails from the PMO's communications director, Sandra Buckler throughout the two-day meeting.

On the one-on-one  session between Harper and Bush:

The Prime Minister and President Bush held a meeting that lasted for over one hour.

They discussed a wide range of issues including: the recently concluded NATO summit in Bucharest and cooperation in Afghanistan; border issues such as the need for a new crossing in the Detroit-Windsor corridor;  the need for concerted international action on climate change; and the importance of NAFTA as strong regional and international trade regime.

On what Harper did on Tuesday:

Today, the Prime Minister met with Lt. Brad Tollefson. Below are some details about this Canadian living in New Orleans.

Lt. Brad Tollefson

▪  Lt. Brad Tollefson was born and raised in Mississauga, ON.  Currently, he lives in Picayune, Mississippi with his wife and step-daughter.

▪  In 1993, he moved to Maine and became a member of the Waterville Police Department.

▪  In 1997, Lt. Tollefson moved to Louisiana to join the New Orleans Police Department, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant in 2004.

▪  During Hurricane Katrina, Lt. Tollefson remained in New Orleans and acted as the Deputy Commander for New Orleans East, one of the hardest hit parts of the city.

On the tree-planting ceremony for Earth Day:

The tree being planted today is an oak tree. This type was specifically requested by the City of New Orleans, as Oak Trees suffered the worst damage during Hurricane Katrina.

The plaque says:

In celebration of Earth Day and the 2008 North American Leaders Summit, George W. Bush, President of the United States of America, Felipe Calderone Hinojosa, President of the Unites States of Mexico, Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, planted a Shummard Oak Tree to honour the spirit and resolve of the citizens of New Orleans.

A tour of a hurting New Orleans

PHOTOS: BOB FIFE (CTV) AND PETER HARRIS (GLOBAL)

Photos show the devastation still felt from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans's Ward 9.

For reasons not entirely clear to us, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not opted to do any public tours of areas of New Orleans still devastated nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina put the city under water.

He did, to be fair, dine with presidents Bush and Calderon this morning at a well-known restaurant called Dooky Chase, not far from a flood-condemned housing project. But as far as we know, no time has been set aside for Harper to do a more expansive viewing of New Orleans.

However, with some help from the logistics crew at the PMO and a local driver recruited to ferry journalists around this summit, several of us went out early this morning to see Ward 9, the worst-hit area, still struggling to rebuild.

Dwayne, our bus driver, is from East New Orleans, a father of six. His house was under 12 feet of water; he had to leave New Orleans and settle temporarily in Mississippi, then Atlanta before returning to rebuild his life and his community. The first thing they rebuilt was the church, he said, and the homes of what he genteely called "the elders."

He took us from our hotel up Canal Street and then we headed east. One of us on this trip, Peter Harris of Global TV, was here for nearly two weeks covering the immediate aftermath of Katrina. He showed us where boats had been parked; he directed our eyes to markings still on houses, showing emergency crews where bodies and gas leaks were.

As we headed into wards 7 and 8, we saw schools and houses still boarded up and abandoned. The water-line marks, some as high as the second storey, are still visible.

Then we headed over the bridge to Ward 9, which is still the site of wreckage and devastation. Dwayne told us that it's a slow process, often involving three levels of bureaucracy. Trailers and temporary homes dot the area.

But it's right near the rebuilt levee where the damage still is staggering. All that's left of once-vital areas are foundations, sidewalks and the occasional porch or fence. Weeds and flowers grow through the cement. It's incredibly quiet.

Dwayne took us down his street, where his home was rebuilt after about six months. He showed us his parents' place just down the street, still abandoned. "Still just gutting it out and cleaning it up," Dwayne explained.

He took us to his rebuilt church, St. Paul the Apostle, a Catholic congregation. "I"m real proud of this church," Dwayne said, hoping to let us in and see it, but it was too early and the place was locked up. Then we went out back to the school, which once had 600 students in 14 classrooms, from kindgergarten through Gr. 12. It's still being rebuilt.

As we were driving back to the hotel after the all-too-brief, 90-minute tour, Reuters reporter David Ljungren, who was the force behind getting this side trip organized, asked Dwayne how the city is mentally adjusting, three years later.

"When it rains still, a lot of kids have trouble," he said. Dwayne explained how even he had a hard time coming back, seeing what had happened to his beloved city. The hardest thing, he said, was to have members of close-knit communities spread out all over the United States in the immediate wake of the damage.

As we neared our hotel, just 10 or 15 blocks from the summit site, we saw a little tent city set up under the Highway 10 overpass; dozens and dozens of little tents. We were told these are people who still haven't found jobs or accommodation after Katrina.

"It does take a toll on you," Dwayne said.

It does indeed. And it's a shame, we agreed, that our Prime Minister didn't get to see all of this while he was here.

Update: As it turns out, Harper did get a tour of the Ninth Ward late today. Canada's ambassador to the U.S., David Wilkins, took the Prime Minister for a brief, 10-minute look around the area, according to PMO spokesperson Dimitri Soudas. Our understanding is that it was added to the PM's agenda late in the day.

PM mum on RCMP 'visit'

On the way to New Orleans for the leaders’ summit, among the reporters, all the talk was of Sunday's strange events and why the Conservatives picked and chose among journalists for a special briefing on last week's RCMP raid at Tory headquarters.

I'm glad to see we've stopped trying to call it a "visit," as Conservatives insisted last week in their public statement. Now it's the RCMP "stormed" party headquarters.

Any attempts to raise this with Harper's entourage so far today have been unsuccessful. Dimitri Soudas, one of the communications aides in the PMO, came back and greeted journalists on the plane to New Orleans this morning, but when asked about all this business, he said simply he was focused on government, not the party.

We don't expect Harper to entertain any questions from Canadian reporters today -- true to form when he's travelling abroad. Our only glimpse of him has been on arrival here an hour or so ago at a private strip near New Orleans airport, where Harper was serenaded with a brass band from Preservation Hall.

Also, from what we can gather, it does seem that Canada has abandoned its usual practice of holding a separate news conference for its own reporters at these summits. (I've been coming to these things since 2004.) Now, our only chance to pose questions of Harper will be at the final news conference featuring all three leaders, in which only six questions are permitted -- two from each country.

And further to that....

A few observational updates to the two items below:

On Hillier, we find it odd here that he adamantly refused to talk to CBC reporter Julie van Dusen, but lo and behold, here he is talking at length to the National Post about his decision to step down.

On the RCMP raid, at least one blogger and Liberal insiders have noted the somewhat comical coincidence that the Conservatives dubbed this "stronger justice week" in Parliament.

And on both, there are some people theorizing it's not an accident the two stories landed together on the news agenda today. The PMO communications office is known for attempting to diffuse bad news with other, bigger news. Is it possible that the government decided to let loose the Hillier news to throw media off the trail of the RCMP? Or the screwups of Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier?

This just in....

Things have suddenly become very busy here in Ottawa, with two blockbuster bulletins from CBC.

1. The RCMP has reportedly paid a call on Conservative party headquarters, in relation to the so-called "in-and-out" scheme regarding 2005-06 election expenses.

2. The chief of defence staff, Rick Hillier, is stepping down.

#2 we expected, sort of. #1 is a bolt out of the blue.

The cone of silence

We here in the Star's Ottawa bureau have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the communications operation in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government. If you're one of those people who believes that all this is just the whiny media, you might as well stop reading now.

If you're interested, however, first, there are these two fine articles in today's paper, by our own Richard Brennan.

And then there's the experience of Allan Woods, who accompanied Harper on last week's trip to Bucharest and Poland.

Let's jump right ahead to the end of the trip and the return flight. All the reporters on the plane were offered a 10-minute, off-the-record conversation with Harper — all except the Star's reporter. Participating reporters also received a bottle of vodka as a gift.

(We should note here that the Star bureau, as a rule, is not in the habit of having off-the-record conversations with prime ministers, of any political stripe.)

Why, though, was Woods not offered a sit-down with Harper? Well, as far as we can figure, it's because he had tried to ask the Prime Minister a question — about anti-gay slurs made 16 years ago by Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski.

The Star operates on the quaint notion that reporters are paid to ask politicians questions on the news of the day — and that politicians should not try to control or intimidate the questioners. PMO officials complained that Woods was being "rude" and "inappropriate" for daring to ask the question at the end of a photo opportunity. And so the Star was punished, so to speak, with no invitation to chat with Harper on the way home.

Harper, readers should know, has developed a bit of a habit of travelling abroad, on the taxpayers' dime, and avoiding contact with reporters (whose trip costs are paid by their own news organizations, usually in the realm of several thousand dollars). This has resulted in ridiculous situations, including several occasions when Canadian reporters have had to rely on foreign governments to brief them on meetings our own Prime Minister holds with other international leaders.

This latest trip was no exception. It started out well enough, with Harper even doing a panel discussion in Bucharest.

But then the silence descended. The Prime Minister and his delegation made their way to Poland for a visit to Auschwitz and a session with Lech Walesa. What did Harper have to say about all this? Nothing. All he would permit were photographs.

Do other leaders of major nations do this? Uh, no. Can you imagine George W. Bush trying to avoid the White House media travelling abroad with him — saying no questions, only pictures?