Mario Lague

It is with sorrow and disbelief that I'm reporting the death of Mario Lague, Michael Ignatieff's communications director. Lague died in a motorcycle accident this morning on his way into work when his bike collided with an SUV, according to the CP report. He was just 52 years old, and leaves his wife and two children. 

I intend to do a larger story in the next few hours, but I do want to say a few personal things. Just last weekend, I was on the road with Ignatieff's tour, as was Mario. He'd switched assignments to cover this leg of the journey, and I'm so glad he did, now in retrospect. 

On Sunday, he was out on the road with his current boss and his former one, Paul Martin. If you look closely in the picture to the right, you'll see Mario beside Ignatieff at a Tim Horton's. I'm sorry that's the best picture of the most recent ones I have; I'll look out some more later.  Just a couple of nights ago, Mario sent me a picture of myself at a demolition derby: "In case anyone doesn't believe you were there."   

Mario was a gentle bear of a man, who loved his family, his work and his friends. Just a couple of weeks ago, we talked about what jobs we imagined ourselves doing at this age when we were in our 20s -- where did we dream of working? Mario, somewhat surprisingly to me, told me he'd wanted to be a filmmaker; he'd gone to school for that. But he somehow glided into the political communication business, working first for Quebec premier Robert Bourassa, then landing in the civil service, then becoming Paul Martin's first comms director when Martin landed as prime minister.  Martin appointed Mario to the ambassador's spot in Costa Rica; then, after a stint in Switzerland with an environmental organization, he landed last fall as Ignatieff's communications director.  He was doing a lovely job, as anyone on the summer tour would attest. And he loved the job. Maybe not the hours (14 a day during the week, 6 to 8 a day on weekends).

On Saturday night, we had dinner and drinks, as we often did on the road. We were in London, sitting on the outdoor terrace of the Ceeps, and Mario was talking, among other subjects, about the motorcycle he'd bought. I expressed my misgivings about motorcycles (I had a bad fall off one many years ago), but Mario assured me that he was a cautious driver. I'm sure he was. 

I can't imagine the grief now being felt by all those on the tour, let alone Mario's family. I'm finding it hard to believe, frankly. My profound sympathies and condolences to all who knew and loved Mario. 

Ignatieff and the media

Yesterday, aboard the Liberal Express, we got several glimpses into Michael Ignatieff's feelings about the media.

There were, first of all, these comments, about his personal feelings toward the arts, CBC and the Canada Council. Essentially, Ignatieff  told the crowd in Kingston that his personal past is all tied up in these institutions, so they could all be reassured of his allegiance if he becomes prime minister. 

But there was another, more provocative question posed to Ignatieff yesterday as well, about how Liberals could try to regain favour with the national media. Given that my own newspaper has delivered a bit of a kick to him this morning, Ignatieff's answer is probably worth noting:

There are representatives of the national media here. I say that for a reason. It’s a waste of time in politics to blame the messenger. It is a waste of time to try to manipulate the messenger. These guys have got a job to do. ... (CTV national reporter) Roger Smith is five feet away from me here and he’s got a job to do. And we welcome him here and he can report any darn way he wants. And if I get it wrong, it’s my problem, not his problem. So let’s get out of the Harper mindset, which is: we’ve got to control this, we’ve got to spin this, we’ve got to manipulate this, we’ve got to keep them 45 miles away, we’ve got to set up a roster of which questions get asked and which can’t get asked. If the bus breaks down, we don’t tell them some story. We try to get a replacement bus and try to get them on the bus as soon as possible. And we did.  I don’t know any other way to do it, other than ‘what you see is what you get’. And you go to Canadians and you make your pitch.

Later on last evening, on the patio of the Holiday Inn in Peterborough, Ignatieff and his wife Zsuzsanna convened a dinner of reporters travelling with him. I was there, along with the National Post's John Ivison, Sun Media's Brian Lilley, The Globe and Mail's John Ibbitson and Matthew Pearson from the Ottawa Citizen.  The talk was pretty much the same kind any folks would have over dinner -- movies, books, sports and  travel were the main subjects. Scotland figured heavily into the discussions, funnily enough, because three of us have direct roots there (Ivison had just returned from a visit to his homeland) and Ignatieff's daughter has just graduated from the University of Edinburgh. Other than that, no great state secrets were revealed. If it's true that an exit strategy from politics is being contemplated, as my paper is reporting, Ignatieff gave absolutely no hint of that over dinner with the media.

Oh, and before anyone is tempted to start carping about cozy dinners between reporters  and Liberal politicians, I should note that Stephen Harper also had many social contacts with the media before he became prime minister and continues to invite reporters over for garden parties and Christmas gatherings.  If memory serves, I believe I was at a small dinner party at Harper's house only a couple of months before the 2005-06 election.

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.

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.

The Green Shift & EcoTrust in, "You shoulda taken out title insurance"

An editor once warned a reporter friend of mine that originality isn't exactly a commodity in Canada, especially in politics. "There's only been one original story in the past 100 years - man walks on moon. All the other stories have been done before."

Politicians are learning this with the environment. Every time they try to come up with a nifty name for their new and improved, green program, it's taken.

The Conservatives found this out in the spring of 2007 when they tried to dub a plan "EcoTrust." Turns out, that's the name of a long-standing non-profit in Canada and the government backed away from the title - not for any legal reason, but to prevent "confusion."

Now we're learning that the Liberals' "Green Shift" is taken too, and at least one Conservative blogger out there is predicting that they'll have to "cease and desist" in using the name.

(One line of argument I found intriguing: speculation that the company could be punished for being confused with Liberals. Who would be doing that punishing, I wonder? And does that mean that it's better for private firms to have ties to the Conservatives? Isn't that called patronage? But I digress.)

Actually, as some commenters to the blog have pointed out, names and titles don't fall under copyright protection. Anyone who's written a book knows this - you can call your book War and Peace or Little Women if you want. You just can't copy the words of Tolstoy or Louisa May Alcott and pass them off as your own. I relearned this lesson myself - from a 14-year-old - in the fall of 2003, when I had released a book on Paul Martin, called Juggernaut, and Lawrence Martin released his book on Jean Chrétien, called Iron Man. What neither of us knew is that we'd borrowed the names of comic superheroes for our books on the Liberal arch-rivals.

I'm pleased to report that neither of us faced any retribution, especially the kind a superhero could dole out.

UPDATE (June 24): The formidable Kady O'Malley, blogging for Macleans, has been tracking the possible role of Conservative agitators in whipping up confusion and angst over the Liberals' use of the "Green Shift" name. She asks the very worthwhile question - why would the Green Shift firm be getting a wave of phone calls, unless it was part of some campaign?

Dion goes with hunch, Harper skips lunch

We interrupt this carbon-tax-announcement day to point out an interesting contrast, on the Canada-U.S. political front.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is planning to stay away from John McCain's lunch in Ottawa tomorrow - not wanting to get himself (any further) embroiled in the U.S. presidential election.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, however, is planning to attend the Democratic convention in Denver this August, where Barack Obama's candidacy will be officially sealed.

Usually the Liberals hold their end-of-summer retreat around the final week in August. But caucus sources say that this year's gathering, in Winnipeg, has been pushed to the first week of September so that Dion can be in Denver.

UPDATE: New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton will also be in Denver, we've learned. Layton has long made no secret of his admiration for Obama.

UPDATE 2 (June 20): I learned later last night that Stephane Dion, while he did consider  participating  in some event at the Denver convention, has decided not to accept the invitation.  The Winnipeg caucus gathering is still in September, a week later, but Dion will be watching proceedings in Denver like most of us - from afar, through the TV.

But Layton will be at the Democratic convention. That plan hasn't changed.  And Dion's office expects that some Liberal MPs will be in the crowd too.

For whom the bells toll

Presumably to play some mischief with the carbon-tax announcement, the Conservatives have called a vote for about 11 am. All the time Dion is talking, the Commons' bells are ringing in the background.

Dresssing up the message

It sounds like the Liberals are making quite a green show out of the carbon-tax announcement. Lots of green hats and swag, one staffer reports.

If that reminds anyone of the sea of green Dion scarves at the Liberal convention, that's probably deliberate. More as the announcement unfolds...

UPDATE: More photos:

Liberal MP Navdeep Bains, who usually wears a red turban, wore green today:

The Liberals take a swipe at the Tories short-lived "grease spot" character: