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:

Bloc blocks recess, Liberals burn carbon

The Bloc Quebecois, true to its name, has stood in the way of an attempt to shut down Parliament today for the summer through unanimous consent of all parties. Reportedly, Bloc staffers were being booed behind the curtains in the opposition lobby, by MPs and staffers keen to see this session end.

This means that the Commons will sit until Friday (unless some other way is found to get around the Bloc block) -- and that it will be sitting when Liberal leader Stéphane Dion unveils his carbon-tax proposal tomorrow.

Questions were being asked today about why neither Bob Rae nor Michael Ignatieff have been in the House either on the eve of this big Liberal announcement. Are they voting with their feet? Conspicuous with their absence?

Actually, both men have issued statements in recent days, explaining why they are no-shows this week -- at least so far.

Ignatieff is in Amsterdam. He'll be back tonight and presumably around for the big carbon-tax unveiling.

Rae is in Israel. According to a media advisory sent out Friday, he planned to "deliver the keynote address to a conference commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Halbert Centre for Canadian Studies at Hebrew University. Mr. Rae, who was honoured in 2002 with the Scopus Award by the Friends of Hebrew University, will speak on June 16th and spend several days in the country and the region."

Wonder if Rae and Ignatieff bought carbon off-sets?

Clear the tracks, here comes the tax

Well, here's the official announcement of the Liberal carbon tax:

For Immediate Release

June 18, 2008

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion Announces the Liberal Green Shift

Date: Thursday, June 19, 2008

Time: 10:00 10:30 AM

Location: House of Commons

Railway Room

253-D Centre Block

Ottawa, Ontario

Please note that all details are subject to change. All times are local.

UPDATE: In my travels today on the Hill, I ran across three fellows who are putting together the show for the carbon-tax release. They say there will be puppets. I believe they are joking.