The worst attack ad imaginable for Justin Trudeau is one showing how similar he is to previous unsuccessful Liberal Leaders Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. The Conservatives may not stoop that low, but it appears Liberals will.

Because just as his predecessors never responded soon enough to stop the Conservatives from defining them, Justin Trudeau appears to be doing the exact same thing.

Though the new and quickly released Conservative attack ad against Justin is weak, the live-action one the Liberals are making by having him act just like Dion and Ignatieff and not fight back is pretty damn strong.

2007, his first year as Liberal Leader, Stephane Dion wanted to admirably stay positive. When faced with a barrage of negative commercials labeling him “Not a leader”, Dion confidently claimed the ads were so misleading they would backfire. They didn’t.

After Stephane Dion’s defeat, the new Liberal Leader . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: Liberals’ Attack Ad Against Trudeau

Tiny socialist caucus raises ruckus at NDP convention Party forces protesting delegates to put away anti-drone banner By Laura Payton, CBC News What a bunch of middle of the road drones the NDP has become…now there is a muzzling of dissent?

I have always voted NDP – not because I agreed with them on everything – since they are way too timid on many issues that need a strong voice and a strong response – but because they were closest to my personal philosophy of social justice..as the years went by, and the Party skewers further and further the centre, I am made uncomfortable, but again, the devil you know…

And now this..I hate the fact that as my Party of choice gets closer to power on a Federal level, instead of maintaining the core principles of socialism, we find our leaders turning into centrist control freaks, sending the ‘security . . . → Read More: Left Over: Droning on and On at the NDP Convention…(but no drones, please!)

104,552 votes, yes just over 80% of the people who registered for the Liberal party of Canada leadership election ended up voting. A statement that was said quite often that night was that in this election more votes were cast than in any other leadership election. This is well…… true if we are talking about federal political parties.

In 2003 the Conservative leadership election
97,397 votes were cast
In 2012 the NDP leadership election
65,108 votes were cast

Although if we include provincial leadership elections the Liberal leadership election just held yesterday would only place second. The party that has obtained the most votes when it comes to electing a leader in Canada goes to the PQ (Parti Quebecois) in 2005. Yes in 2005 105,259 members of PQ voted to elect André Boisclair as leader of the PQ in Quebec.

Justin Trudeau first test as leader will be coming in the following month. That test will be the By-election in Labrador (which the Liberals are looking very likely as the winners). Justin Trudeau will most likely as all new leaders start to spike in the polls the important thing to watch here is how high will Justin Trudeau go. If Justin Trudeau ties with Harper or will Justin Trudeau lead and if so how much. All this is very important, because from the spike we can usually expect the true solid support to be anywhere 5-10% below.

What will also be interesting to watch is when will the new Conservative attack ads come, but right now it’s the honeymoon. The Liberals are trying now to sell the new leader bit as much as they can to fund raise as much as possible, and the high poll numbers and media will help Liberal fortune’s in the short run. The real show begins in the Fall session of next year, where Harper will have to start directing his attacks at either Mulcair or Trudeau.

… I KNOW that the only poll that matters is the one held on E Day, but for Libs like me, this is encouraging: The latest Nanos tracking numbers reveal that national support for the Liberal Party is at 35.4%, just ahead of the Conservatives at 31.3%. Liberal support has been slowly increasing since the [...]

Group also launches national letter-writing campaign calling on House Committees reviewing federal Conflict of Interest Act and MP and Senate ethics codes to recommend key changes to strengthen ethics rules, enforcement and penalties
Ethic…

Brian Mulroney is going to be part of Canada’s official gaggle of groupies at Maggie Thatcher’s Bukkake party on April 17, 2013 in London, England.

Yes, that Mulroney; the disgraced former prime minister who took bribes, defrauded Canadians of millions of dollars, cheated on his taxes and resigned under a cloud of corruption (not necessarily in that order). Stephen Harper, Canada’s disgraced current prime minister, is the shithead who invited him for the free ride.

No doubt the dishonourable John “Angry” Baird will be there too. He met Thatcher once, and even named his cat after her. What a pussy! guess his uncloseted love for multinational corporations, greed and authoritarianism allowed him to overlook the glaring fact that Thatcher brought in the anti-gay Section 28 law in 1988.

I expect Mike Duffy, the gluttonous, thieving senator from P.E.I. Ottawa will somehow . . . → Read More: The Ranting Canadian: Brian Mulroney is going to be part of Canada’s official…

In the election of the next Liberal Leader, Joyce Murray and Martha Hall Findlay don’t deserve to lose, but most of their supporters do.

Like those who supported Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff in their leadership bids, Liberals who are supporting any other candidate besides Justin Trudeau for Leader are making a grave mistake, and that’s failing to recognize popularity trumps policy every time.

It is the academics, the politicos, and the policy wonks that criticize Trudeau’s lack of policy who deserve to lose. They are the ones who are so out of touch with ordinary, mostly apathetic Canadians that think policies like ending supply management or electoral co-operation will magically get out the vote. Under our current electoral system this is a losing proposition.

Some may mourn or complain about how sad it is that celebrity should be priority in selecting a political leader, but they couldn’t be more . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: The People Who Deserve To Lose Liberal Leadership

When Canada recently announced its withdrawal from the UN Convention on Combatting Desertification (UNCCD), professional do-gooders and political partisans began howling with righteous outrage.  For example:

Elizabeth May (tweeted): “So upset Harper pulled us out of another global env treaty. He’s making us a rogue nation. The North Korea of environmental law.”

Toronto Star: “… The Harper government’s latest nose-thumbing at the UN is a baffling move that lacks any obvious political advantage to balance out the sizeable blows it inflicts on the government’s domestic and international credibility. …”

Craig and Marc Kielburger: “… walking away accomplishes nothing.”

Oh, COME ON! Cut the hyperbole!  With all due respect to the Kielburgers, rather than “accomplish nothing” Canada announcing its withdrawal has had at least two very beneficial effects: 

(1) Until then, no one, least of all the above complainers, had ever even heard of the UNCCD.  Now it’s their cause célèbre.

(2) Canada has, once again, drawn attention to the wasteful uselessness of the UN.  Most UN activities, UNCCD included are, at best, unproductive talk-fests that use UN conventions as an excuse for over-paid bureaucrats to regularly gather in five star hotels in exotic locales.

This can only boost real action towards combatting desertification and reforming the UN, something you’d expect the Lizzy Mays, the T-Stars and the Kielburgers would be applauding rather than bitching about. 

It’s not that a solid majority of Canadians don’t trust Sideshow Steve Harper or find him ethically sleazy.   That should come as no surprise.

I suppose what is impressive, from a Conservative perspective, is the size of the minority that thinks Steve’s okay or simply isn’t sure.

In the last election two out of five Canadians voted for Harper, three out of five wanted someone else.   That translated into a solid majority for the Harper Cons.  His numbers are down a little bit in the latest Ipsos poll but a guy like Steve can engineer the political of anti-matter when he needs to top that up.

Three out of five versus two out of five.  I suppose that tells us that the Canadian public has pretty much made up its mind on this underhanded, double-dealing, secretive bastard.

Steve knows that two out of five gives him a controlling position on . . . → Read More: The Disaffected Lib: We Don’t Like Steve. We Don’t Trust Steve. Steve Doesn’t Really Care Because “We” Don’t Matter.

It’s not that a solid majority of Canadians don’t trust Sideshow Steve Harper or find him ethically sleazy.   That should come as no surprise.I suppose what is impressive, from a Conservative perspective, is the size of the minority that thin…

Until 1985 it was a criminal offence under the Lord’s Day Act to fire a gun on a Sunday. Pierre Elliot Trudeau changed that, not with a bang, but with a signature on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Conservatives can take pride that they helped stamp out the waste of money that was the repressive gun registry (though scrapping it only wasted more public funds), but gun owners should remember that it was Trudeau’s Liberal government that had perhaps the largest impact on easing restrictions on the use of firearms. 

In 1906 the Canadian Parliament passed the Day Act, it was legislation designed to keep Sunday holy by prohibiting certain actions, such as stores being open and the shooting of guns.* This law was in effect and enforced until 1985 when the Supreme Court of Canada struck it down in R v Big M Drug Mart for infringing . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: Liberals Have Helped Gun Owners The Most

“The biggest distinction between a Liberal Party led by me and Stephen’s Harper’s Conservatives is one of tone …” – Justin Trudeau (Toronto Star print edition, April 6, 2013)

Exactly. Many of us have been saying for years that the main difference between the pro-corporate, pro-globalization Liberals and the pro-corporate, pro-globalization Conservatives is style, not substance. Liberals campaign like socialists but govern Tories. Whenever things come down to the wire, the niceties are stripped away and the Liberals take the side of the wealthy elites against the rest of us.

On all the major issues, especially when in office, the Liberals have more in common with the Conservatives than they do with the other parties. Why they still get lumped in with “the Left” and “progressives” – despite all evidence to the contrary – is mind-boggling. Don’t get fooled again!

. . . → Read More: The Ranting Canadian: “The biggest distinction between a Liberal Party led by me and Stephen’s Harper’s…

RBC declares war against Canadian workers:

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is firing dozens of its employees in Canada and replacing them with lower-paid temporary foreign workers. RBC is forcing their soon-to-be-unemployed Canadian employees to train their own replacements. RBC made $7.5 billion in profits in 2012. Also about a year ago, they increased their service fees.

The RBC website insanely claims that it is:

One of Canada’s “Best 50 Corporate Citizens” One of Canada’s “50 Most Socially Responsible Corporations” One of the “Best Workplaces in Canada” Canada’s 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures

Don’t be confused into believing latest scandal is the end of their treachery. If RBC gets away with stabbing Canadian workers in the back this time, they will repeat it over and over, and other companies will follow suit. Even if they temporarily back down due to bad publicity, they will do it again later unless . . . → Read More: The Ranting Canadian: RBC declares war against Canadian workers

In 2006 the Liberal Party was ashamed for accusing Stephen Harper of wanting to put armed soldiers on every street; yet somehow in 2013 Liberals are proud that their next Leader fondly recalls how his father actually did put armed soldiers on every street.

Two weeks ago Justin Trudeau was asked whether he could really defeat Stephen Harper, his response was, “Just watch me.”

The phrase was of course first his father’s. Pierre Elliot Trudeau had made the remark in answering a question of how far he’d go in reducing civil liberties during the October Crisis of 1970.

The with Justin Trudeau making such a quotation is that it references one of the most controversial decisions ever made by a Prime Minister. With two Quebec cabinet ministers kidnapped, Pierre Elliot Trudeau enacted the Wartime Measures Act, the one and only instance the drastic emergency legislation has ever been . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: Trudeau, Soldiers With Guns, and Ironic Pride

It’s been more than 701 days since Elections Canada first became aware of a nation wide malicious robocalling scheme to misdirect non-Conservative voters away from legitimate polling stations for the May 2, 2011 election where Stephen Harper swept to power as a majority government. I don’t think Michael Sona, who has been charged by Elections [...]

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Canada has no real national monuments.

Mostly it’s because of the irony; towering statues and obelisks that promote pride in Canadian humbleness or simplicity would tend to miss the point. But that problem assumes Canadians would look upon a 100ft copper maple leaf with arrogance and not their common reverence for the natural world around them.

Some may say we don’t need any large showy structures, that national monuments are grandiose and idealistic. However there’s nothing more idealistic than believing Canadians are so above human nature that they have no need for symbols to inspire them.

We are known for pragmatic and humble, but those traits should not stop us from lifting them up in stone or steel to remind us of what we aspire to be. We have never let us being humble stop us from doing great things and we certainly shouldn’t let it now.

Our lack . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: The Need of a Canadian National Monument

British general Bob Bruce, commander of Task Force Helmand, says now’s the perfect time to let Afghan army troops take over the job of battling the Taliban.   General Bob added, “We will not let them fail. When they really need us, we will in…

British general Bob Bruce, commander of Task Force Helmand, says now’s the perfect time to let Afghan army troops take over the job of battling the Taliban.   General Bob added, “We will not let them fail. When they really need us, we will intervene.”

What went unsaid was the caveat, “this year anyway, next year we’ll be out of this hellhole and they’re on their own.”

Brigadier Bob also said something that you weren’t likely to hear from guys like Sideshow Steve Harper or Rick “Big Cod” Hillier.

“This is their problem. This is their . We know for a fact there is no military solution to the insurgency; there is no way the military is going to win a counter-insurgency [war] because it is essentially a political issue. It is a battle of offers: the offer the government makes to the people and the offer the insurgents make . . . → Read More: The Disaffected Lib: “We Will Not Let Them Fail” – At Least Not Yet

The Conservative heavens aligned and brought us the magic of Thatcher, Reagan and Mulroney.   The Gang of Three then introduced us to the era of free trade, outsourcing and the wonders of the “knowledge economy.”  In the new era we wouldn’t toil with our hands any more but with our minds and endless riches would befall us.

Like all conjuring tricks it seemed to work well enough, for a while, but not forever.

America’s manufacturing economy has been gutted, shelled out, lifted up and transported across the seas.   Easy money and low, low interest rates made it possible to extend the illusion of prosperity for decades as real wealth was transferred quietly out of the blue and white-collar middle class and to the richest of the rich.

New wealth did not come from foundries and shipyards and assembly plants but from computer entries and slips of paper passing back and forth.   New wealth was to be bubble wealth, grand illusions of immense prosperity.

Former Republican insider, Kevin Phillips, in his book American Theocracy explored how economic superpowers go through this process of crafting their own demise by outsourcing the manufacturing base that established their wealth and shifting, in its stead, to a knowledge economy, a FIRE (finance/insurance/real estate) economy, generating huge returns in the short and mid-term by using their wealth to grow their eventual successor’s manufacturing economy.

In essence, the legacy of Thatcher/Reagan/Mulroney has been the utter selling out of their own nations in pursuit of a deeply flawed ideology.

Now Britain is discovering, quite painfully, that this ideology inevitably leads to a nation in decay.

Britain has been finding it difficult to recover from the financial crisis not just because of its austerity policy but also because of its eroding ability to engage in high-productivity activities. This problem is most tellingly manifested in the country’s inability to generate a trade surplus despite the huge devaluation of sterling since 2008.

Compared with its height in 2007, the pound has been devalued about 30% against the dollar, 50% against the yen, and 20% against the struggling euro. Yet despite the huge incentive to export created by such devaluation, Britain is still running trade deficits because it has lost the productive capacity to respond.

Despite the devaluation, Britain’s service exports have fallen – average annual service exports for 2008-11 were 8% lower than for 2005-07. This may be understandable, given the poor state of its financial sector – rocked by one scandal after another and hemmed in by a slow tightening of global financial regulation.

However, manufacturing exports, which were supposed to make up the shortfall created by the services sector, also fell by 8% after the devaluation. This is highly unusual. For example, back when South Korea had a devaluation of similar scale after its 1997 financial crisis (the won, its currency, was devalued by 35% against the dollar), the country’s manufacturing exports were 15% higher (comparing the 1998-2001 average to 1995-97).

The only reason the British balance of payments situation has not been worse is the large increase in primary commodity exports – oil, minerals and food. These were on average 22% higher in 2008-11 than in 2005-07. In other words, since the crisis the British economy has been moving backwards in terms of its sophistication as a producer.

All of this means that, without addressing the underlying decay in productive capabilities, Britain cannot fix its ailing economy. To deal with this problem, it urgently needs to develop a long-term productive strategy through a broad-based public consultation involving not just the government and private sector firms, but trade unions, educational institutions and research institutes.

The strategy should first carefully identify the industries, and the underlying technologies, that will be the future motor of the economy and then provide them with the necessary support. This could be in the form of subsidies for R&D, loan guarantees for small firms, or preferences in government procurement, and should be targeted at “strategic” industries, although they could also be in the form of policies that are apparently not industry-specific.

For example, infrastructural investment needs to be co-ordinated with the broader industrial strategy. Infrastructure is by definition location-specific, so depending on the industries you want to promote, you will have to build different types of it in different places. Similarly with education and skills. Without there being some national strategy, it is difficult for educators to know what kinds of engineers or technicians to produce, and for potential students to know what professions to study for.

Now, ask yourself what is Canada’s industrial strategy?   What are we doing to align infrastructural investment to a broader industrial strategy?  Where lies the future motor of our economy?

If you haven’t got a clue, well, neither does Stephen Harper and the same goes for the Liberals and the New Democrats.   That much was obvious as far back as 2009 when the Harper Cons, supported by Iggy and the Libs, passed the farcical stimulus budget, the Pinata Budget.  Remember?  That was the one where the government and opposition, instead of focusing stimulus spending in support of a broader industrial strategy, recklessly squandered it on giving you tax breaks to put a new deck on the family cottage, putting the cost on the tab for your kids to repay.

A study by the Pembina Institute concluded for the mountain of borrowed cash Harper & Iggy tossed haphazardly into the Canadian economy, they could have (and should have) generated 238,000 jobs.  Instead they achieved just 84,000.

Like Britain, like the United States, Canada too needs a healthy industrial economy.  We’ve become reliant on fossil fuel exports.  We’ve seen how that has wracked Alberta’s economy through boom and bust cycles.   Why would we want to import that vulnerability and instability to the national economy?   Yet that seems to be all Harper can come up with.   He can see no further and he doesn’t even try.  He is the embodiment of the One Trick Pony.

Forget this nonsense that’s been drummed into our heads about the evils of duties and tariffs.  As former U.S. deputy treasury secretary, Paul Craig Roberts, has pointed out in The Failure of Free Market Capitalism and the Dissolution of the West,  

“The U.S. economy did not develop on the basis of free trade.  If the costs that free traders attribute to trade protection are real, the costs did not prevent America’s economic rise.   Indeed much historical research concludes that trade protection was the reason for America’s rises as an industrial and manufacturing power.”

It’s now becoming increasingly accepted in America and in Britain that the way forward from here may be the way back.