Liberal Member of Parliament Justin Trudeau (L) and Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau fight during their charity boxing match in Ottawa March 31, 2012. REUTERS/Chris Wattie.

Well, my first foray back into the world of blogging about federal politics didn’t go so well the other day, as my piece about Justin Trudeau’s three round love tap with Senator Patrick Brazeau was resoundingly disliked by both Liberals and Conservatives. Liberals, because I dared decry the dauphin his due, and Conservatives because I questioned whether Patrick’s black belt had been dipped in the wrong colour dye.

Indeed, one fellow who commented on my blog suggested both his three-year-old son and Brazeau would maul me in the ring, should my courage ever approach a level whereby I would be willing to test myself against both a politician and a toddler. And while I suggest the fellow might be correct about his son, I’m still not going to give poor Patrick a break here. And anyway, being beaten by a three-year-old would not be some kind of great feat, as my own children can attest in victories of both a physical, but more definitely a psychological nature.

I also received fan mail from Liberals, who suggested I doth protest greatly or something, to paraphrase Shakespeare, and that Justin was every bit the champion of his father. One even demanded I email him a picture of myself, so that he could ascertain to what extent my physical appearance might be responsible for the obvious intellectual deficit that God Himself had saddled me with at birth.

But it didn’t end there. No, friends and frenemies, I also received a very terse letter from the “Sun News Network” about referring to their TV channel as “Sun TV” when they very clearly are not just “Sun TV”, but the “Sun News Network.” And although the word “Sun” and the medium on which they deliver their message is pretty much a colloquial commonality on Twitter, I suppose you’d get the same sort of angry reaction if you referred to Wayne Gretzky as “The Great Juan.” And I have now watched the full broadcast, thanks for asking.

I digress. Clearly, I was not clear enough that I did not view this gladiatorial debacle as the touchstone for our generation, a sort of 2012 version of my father’s 1972 Summit Series, or in any way, shape, or form, an indictment or validation of the grit and character of either fighter. I mean, if we were to adjudicate the character of men based on amateur boxing matches of a real or fictitious nature, then Sylvester Stallone would the President of the United States (which given the present state of affairs might not be such a bad idea).

But some writers and columnists went farther than I did in interpreting the meaning of this boxing match. My fellow Afghan war tourist Andrew Potter suggested that the two fighters “demonstrated more courage, sportsmanship, mutual respect and yes, honour, than most of their colleagues will in their entire careers in Parliament.” Which I suppose just goes to show that when you set the bar in ankle-deep water, nobody should be surprised when it turns out those people can swim. Or to put it another way, hyperbole hath no bedfellow so great as the managing editor for the Ottawa Citizen.

Even Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star took the opportunity to one-up Potter’s upsucking, opining that the sort of leadership demonstrated inside the ring has reawakened his contention for the Liberal leadership. How did he do this? Why, by proving that “a wealthy socialist dilettante who had once tried to paddle a canoe to Cuba” can best a man in a boxing ring, a thing that truly has never been done by anybody in the history of the world, excepting Ernest Hemingway, and perhaps a few thousand other people who I’m sure aren’t important.

But look, I do admire the courage it takes to get into a boxing ring for a gruelling six minutes with heavy 16 ounce gloves drenched in sweat and wearing nothing to protect one’s face but two inches of absorbent padding. I’ve never done it myself and to be honest I’m unsure I ever will. But then, I don’t think the prospect of my getting the stuffing knocked out of me would generate very much money for charity except in pity, nor would the Sun News Network have a vested interest in broadcasting my hubris unless I were hired by the CBC tomorrow.

Sufficed to say, for those people who were hurt by my comments about Justin, I’m certain he’ll find a way to carry on despite those remarks at four times the annual income of the average Canadian and who will be eligible for an MPs pension in about two years time, which is 40 years earlier than I’m ever likely to retire. And as for Patrick Brazeau, he too is likely consoled by his 38-year job security in the Canadian Senate, which is about 38 years longer than most Canadians enjoy.

Nevertheless, and at the risk of now flogging the rotting equine corpse, I do agree with Potter on one thing. It took “an honest-to-goodness fist fight” to raise the level of civility in Ottawa from passive aggressive swearing and sarcastic Twitter updates to settling the issue as our forebears used to, which is likely where the expression “beating the sense into him” comes from.

About a month ago I got into an argument on Twitter with a woman whom has been a sponsor of mine for a couple of years. I didn’t really mean to get into an argument with her, but I enjoy friendly debate so much that I sort of let myself be sucked into the quick retorts, which is an easy trapping of the Twitter medium.

The argument quickly devolved into ridiculous accusations by the woman, followed by her withdrawal of support. This was regrettable, not because I lost support, but because I didn’t mean to offend her. At the same time I was unable to walk away when it was clear she was becoming emotionally invested in the conversation and was clearly not being a rational actor.

It all began with an innocent tweet about the Liberals discussing the possibility of legalizing marijuana at their annual general meeting. Now, as far as I remember, the context of the tweet was nothing more than an automatic message created when I pressed a button on a media website. I do this roughly 30 times every day when I come across interesting pieces of news and information, a routine I enjoy because I get to share ideas and stories with Twitter followers.

I think when I first received the tweet from her, I was taken aback because I didn’t really even remember the context of her remark. For whatever reason, she had interpreted my tweet as some kind of implicit support for the Liberals and marijuana, whereas none was stated or even implied. As I tried to explain myself, I found myself confessing that although I’m not endorsing the Liberals or their policy, I don’t really have a problem with legalizing marijuana. More on this later.

Once I had confessed my support for legalizing marijuana, things quickly got silly. She accused me of supporting a crime that is akin to raping and murdering people, and in response I told her she was being ridiculous. Which she was. I mean, whatever side of the marijuana debate you sit on, the fact remains that somebody ingesting a substance into their body in the privacy of their own home is a personal choice that impinges upon the freedom of noone else and harms noone else other than those who may care for the health and welfare of that person.

Feeling as though I was unable to get through to this woman, I tried to create some form of understanding that would bridge our worlds. So, recalling that we’d had a drink together, I suggested that alcohol is like marijuana, in that it’s a psychoactive substance that inhibits cognitive function and temporarily affects the biochemistry of the brain, resulting in various choices, thoughts and actions that might not ordinarily occur while not under the influence. The key difference, I explained, is that it’s convenient for her that alcohol isn’t a social pariah.

Alcohol is disturbingly socially acceptable considering it is indeed a narcotic that results in far greater social disturbance, pain, suffering, disease and death than marijuana and all of its hunger-inducing bad movie-watching propensities. I mean, if we were to designate the legality of narcotics based solely on their relative dangers to human health, alcohol would be far and away the most illegal, most hazardous substance one could obtain. The statistics alone bear out this unassailable fact. If recent memory serves, it wasn’t a marijuana-fuelled crowd of frenzied Canucks fans who trashed downtown Vancouver last summer.

Frankly, I don’t really care if people think alcohol is perfectly harmless and marijuana is the devil’s weed, but I do find it bizarre that one is socially acceptable and the other is character maligning. For instance, if I went on Twitter right now and said I was going to go and drink until I blacked out, I would like receive validation for my choice, an assumption I was exaggerating, and a few “been there, done that” replies. If, however, I announced I was going to smoke weed until I was baked, eat a bag of chips, and then pass out comfortably in my bed, I’d come off as a drug addict and an irresponsible human being.

One could argue that marijuana has broken through some of these social stigmatas, especially on the west coast, rendering such a comparison to lesser relevance. But even if we change the comparison from alcohol to cocaine, I still think the importance should be the placed in the responsibility of the user of the narcotic and not the narcotic itself. Allow me to further explain.

If we can agree that almost everything that can be ingested is inherently harmful to a person, including things you can buy in a grocery store like Nyquil and Advil, then what we’re left with is personal responsility and all that comes with accepting the consequences of that responsibility. Curiously, at this very moment there’s a lawsuit from smokers against Big Tobacco, suing the very companies who provided them with the freedom of choice to take something they knew was damaging to their health, despite it being legal.

Eating too much salt or sugar can be a health hazard. Consuming red meat or foods high in saturated and trans fats can be considered a health hazard. There are innumerable foods and drinks one can absorb that, given the body’s chemistry and fitness, can be fatal. Indeed, before science and technology and supermarkets, eating the wrong plant or mushroom would kill you, and serve as a warning to your tribe or people that it wasn’t good for you. So, it seems to me that anything an adult person consumes is based on requiring the proper education and moderation to handle it.

In that vein, a person can irresponsibly consume copious amounts of salt legally, resulting in very poor health and high blood pressure, while a responsible person can consume moderate amounts of cocaine illegally, and retain a relatively strong state of mental and physical health. Keep in mind this isn’t really even opinion, this is just a logical reasoning of how the human body absorbs chemicals and nutrients.

In my opinion, the person who is able to be a functional member of society whilst ingesting or imbibing an illegal substance is a more socially responsible individual than the person who is less able to function in our society because of the assorted health issues associated with the abuse of a legal substance. What it comes down to, I suppose, is a belief that people should be endowed with the rights and responsibilities of what goes into their own bodies, and what they do with their own bodies, whether we’re talking about drugs, suicide, abortion, or nutrition.

The only conclusion that I can come to as to why people would treat responsible users of illegal substances with disdain and scorn is that some people are inherently afraid of freedom of choice. They want to be told what is good and bad without putting that to a test of logic or reason. It’s easier to get angry at me for choosing the rational argument than it is to question the authority that is based on irrational and arbitrary control of substances. The irony here, which continues to evade our lawmakers and politicians, is that the forbidden fruit tends to generate even more interest than one that is freely available for the plucking.

It doesn’t take much effort to look around at countries and jurisdictions which have taken a non-punitive approach to drugs to see that decriminalization or even legalization does nothing to proliferate them. On the contrary, Portugal showed greater reduced rates of drug abuse and the associated violence and crime under decriminalization than its European neighbours which maintain a U.S. style vendetta against free will and choice.

I recall watching an interview with Prime Minister Stephen Harper a couple of years ago in which he opined that drugs are controlled by dangerous and violent criminals, before proceeding to explain that’s why they have to remain illegal. The illogic of concluding that something that isn’t regulated or controlled would somehow be safer for the population when left in the hands of criminals did not escape me. One needs to look no further than alcohol’s prohibition as an example of what happened when the government absolved itself of responsibility, and banned the substance thoughtlessly and carelessly. Criminals moved in and created a black market for the product.

I don’t write this as an advocate for drugs or alcohol, and although I’ve consumed both in my life, I don’t presently do so. But to me it comes down to an issue of choice and the likelihood that a person can responsibly use a substance. There are a great deal of prescription drugs, like OxyContin, which are considered too dangerous and addictive to outright legalize. The question then becomes one of assessing the social harm to pushing something into the underground economy where criminals have no moral responsibility to care for a drug user in the same way that a drug company does.

The answer to that question is probably something similar to the legality of alcohol. Drinking responsibly, not driving, and offering a socially acceptable and welcoming means of escaping alcohol abuse, are all way of curtailing a problem which, for reasons of legality, we do not apply to drugs. It seems to me that the solution to many of the drug problems that exist is to take greater control of illegal substances, decriminalize drug use, and offer a more holistic approach to drug abuse that encourages people to seek out help before they become the sort of violent offenders and drain on our medical system.

Well, the anti-HST folks are practically wetting themselves with glee over the idea they’ve slain the HST tax monster, giddily boasting such contradictory and ridiculous claims as it being a great day for democracy and a step toward progressive taxes. What they’re happy about, exactly, I can’t say. I think it’s the sort of happiness that people had when Barack Obama was elected. It had less to do with the fact that Obama was a good fit for the White House than it did the fact people had their hearts set on the whole idea. Never mind his economic policies, presidential bona fides and experience. When the largely lazy, unread and assumptive voting public gets an idea about something, no amount of factual refutation is going to matter one little bit in their fatuous minds.

Are they happy about paying lower taxes? Well, they shouldn’t be. Everybody who has 25 cents and a phone book (made easier with cell phones and Google these days I suppose) can dial up the first economist named Abraham or accountant named Adams who will tell them they’ll now be paying more. Thanks, anti-HST crowd. Way to increase your own tax burden. For if there’s one certainty in life, it’s that the government will get their tax money from you, whether it’s in the HST, or somewhere else. It’s certainly not coming from the pay cheque of Christy Clark.

Which is another thing. Do these blissful idiots really believe the BC Liberals are harmed by this? Certainly it’s a political blow, but the party won’t pay for it. The people will. The damage that will be done to business will likely result in lower profitability, lower tax receipts, lower hires, and higher prices, higher personal income taxes and higher unemployment. Too grim a prediction?

Perhaps. I mean, it’s certainly not the end of the world. Yes, B.C. survived without a VAT, and it’ll survive without one again. But for unfunny comedians like Jim Sinclair to brag about this being a victory for workers, really just goes to show how disenfranchised some members of the working class — to which I belong, by the way — are from reality. The very businesses that Jim Sinclair and his band of angry anti-tax revolutionaries are accusing of shifting a $2 billion burden onto them, are the ones that write your paycheques.

So you won’t pay 12 per cent on restaurant meals in 2013 when the tax is finally gone for good. Congratulations. You can use a portion of your unemployment cheque to celebrate that fact, since it will likely coincide with the arrival of the NDP, stage two in B.C.’s suicidal march towards economic ruin. The BC NDP have revelled in their fight against a tax which, by all accounts, is an innocuous, efficient and fairly standardized form of sales tax the world over. That’s not altogether surprising. The NDP have never really been economists, if you follow me.

But the so-called conservatives in this province, who lavished praise on the anti-HST forces for their Quixotic destruction of the tax is flummoxing. I mean, the same pie-heads who giggled with glee as Stephen Harper heaped billions of dollars onto the backs of taxpayers with so-called stimulus spending that really amounted to a one-way loan to businesses, suddenly had a rash of socialistic panic that the good citizens of B.C. were going to be hoodwinked by evil corporations. Those price-cutting, jobs-creating, economy-growing bastards! How dare they?

Yes, friends, this does not bode well for so-called democracy. I’m not altogether sure we should be exporting democracy to Afghanistan, when here at home we say, ‘No, I don’t want a 10 per cent sales tax, I want 12 per cent! Like it used to be, damn it! Never mind why, that’s the way I like it!’ I still can’t understand how people could vote against a tax cut. Regardless of the dislike for the BC Liberals, money is money.

But let’s not give these people who voted Yes the benefit of the doubt. Let’s face it. These people spent about as much educating themselves about the HST as they did reading up on the history of Bill Vander Zalm’s credibility as a spokesperson for ethics. It’s as if Karl-Heinz Schreiber came back to Canada and led the goddamned Accountability Act into legislation. A joke heaped upon absurdity.

All you really need to know about the ignorance of these people is in my lede. A great day for democracy? Why? Because of the half of the people in this province eligible to vote, half decided they didn’t like the tax? Yeah, inspiring stuff. A great day for progressive taxes? Uh, the HST is regressive, true. It’s as regressive as the PST and the GST. Please take an economics course in your local high school if you really don’t understand the difference.

And finally, the real kicker is that people actually said they wouldn’t vote for the HST because they couldn’t trust the BC Liberals to lower it to 10 per cent after all the lying they’ve done in the past. Well, it’s true the BC Liberals have lied in the past. Which as a political precedent, is probably about 13,000 years too late. But here’s the funny thing. Here’s the beauty of their illogic.

If the Liberals were never going to lower it to 10 per cent, what makes people think they’ll repeal the HST now? The referendum isn’t binding. That was just good old Gordo’s last ditch desperate attempt to hold on to power, promising he’d honour a 50+1 per cent vote. Under Elections BC law, the Liberals could say, ‘We fart in your general direction’, and do nothing. And there’s nothing anybody could do about it because you need 60 per cent of eligible voters — and not just eligible voters today, but voters in the 2009 election. Crazy, eh?

Well, enjoy your PST, B.C. You guys deserved it. You asked for higher taxes, higher unemployment, and listened to the ravings of madmen. And really, you get the policy you deserve.

ADDENDUM

It’s not that I’m opposed to tax revolutions. Quite the contrary, I understand that people were upset about the tax burden in general and the HST was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But instead of getting upset at the load, people got upset at the straw. So instead of removing the burden, we’ve removed one straw, and will likely replace it with even more straw. Poor idea.

A better idea would be a reduction in services, a reduction in corporate and personal welfare, and a reduction in all levels of taxes. This is the solution. Not some ridiculous crusade to replace an efficient tax with one that will cost more, require more bureaucracy to operate, and put us more into public debt. I mean, it’s really just basic, common, childlike sense at this point.

Photo: AFP

I suppose some readers might be here to gloat about the Conservative majority and see if I’m lamenting the fact Canadians finally gave them the complete trust to lead the nation as they see fit. If so, they may be disappointed.

Although I don’t believe the party deserved this majority, it is gladly received for it will put to the test the question of how conservative this Conservative party really is.

There are many reasons to celebrate a Conservative majority. For the first time in five years the party won’t be able to make excuses and justifications for choosing expedience over principle. They have the political capital to make real priorities and the power to put their proclaimed visions for Canada into action.

With that power comes responsibility. Although I don’t expect radical changes — indeed, I suspect this will put paid to the myth of the hidden agenda once and for all — I do expect a greater amount of fiscal prudence and restraint.

This is a government who chose to inject billions of dollars into the economy during the recession in the belief it would stimulate the country back to prosperity. The jury is out on whether that worked, but the fact is that the government would have gone deeply into deficit with or without the stimulus spending.

We are now almost $100-billion above the spending budget of the 2005 Paul Martin government, and even if you take all of the military spending increases into account, there’s absolutely no reason we should increase the country’s budget by 33 per cent over six years.

Indeed, Maxime Bernier said just last July that the government should aim for a $250-billion ceiling with zero growth (and that’s zero growth without adjustments for inflation, population and GDP increase). The 2011 budget was nearly $50-billion larger than that.

So there’s finally hope for fiscal conservatives in a political party that has made every possible excuse to explain why it has had to outspend all previous governments in the history of the nation both as a percent increase and as a sum total.

It would also be a good time to start cutting government largesse, trimming programs and finding efficiency where there is undeniable fat. Fat that was put into place by this government.

Now the true test begins for the Conservatives. Can they finally implement policies that are true to the principles of the patient and faithful base who have endured the incremental shift to the centre to usurp the Liberals?

The strategy, it should be noted, has been a resounding success. The move to the centre pushed the Liberals to the left where they clashed with the NDP, ultimately leading to an exodus of soft support for the Liberals on both the right and the left.

The rise of the NDP can be attributed to the Conservative strategy to become the Natural Governing Party in the centre, leaving the Liberals with nowhere to go but implode.

In its place is a strong but ultimately impotent NDP, who will now symbolically represent the opposition in a House of Commons where it can defeat no votes. Still, they have to be pretty pleased with themselves.

A fortuitous coalescence of a weakening Liberal Party and a weak Liberal leader resulted in the near devastation of that party tonight. As if it were not embarrassing enough that Michael Ignatieff’s failure exceeded his predecessor Stephane Dion, at least the former leader won his seat tonight. The future for the former Harvard professor looks grim.

But it wasn’t just the collapse of the Liberals that was satisfying. The separatist party who formed the most unpleasant ally in the axis of “socialists and losers” also saw the death of sovereignty in Quebec tonight.

Gilles Duceppe accepted responsibility and defeat more humbly than his Liberal counterpart, stepping down. (Updated: Ignatieff resigned Tuesday). The Liberals and Bloc Quebecois now present a mere 37-seat coalition.

Last, and perhaps least, in the election “nobody wanted”, Elizabeth May secured the first seat for the Green Party in British Columbia. Proving what, I don’t know. Perhaps it was sympathy for having excluded her from the televised debates for yet another year. Voters are nothing if not vindictive and unpredictable in their predilections.

A Conservative majority now offers a hope for Canadians that hasn’t been available for decades. After years of reckless spending, government largesse, bloated programs, increased bureaucracy and hazardous government intervention, the Conservatives have a chance to scale back the obscene dependence Canadians have on the state.

Though I don’t expect miracles, I demand some inkling that their protestations of being hampered by the opposition were true. We can begin that good faith by eliminating the vote subsidies, which precipitated the massive about-face of the Conservatives in 2008.

It should be an interesting next four years.

John Ivison is an often underrated political columnist who really hits the nail on the head every once in a while. His Saturday column on Ignatieff needing to stop talking about Ignatieff is one perfect example of his perceptive proficiencies.

As every political poll, survey and focus group has told him, Michael Ignatieff has failed miserably to build his image and brand as successfully as Stephen Harper. In fact, he’s failed so badly that only fringe party leader Elizabeth May has a less alluring leadership brand.

And of all the things that have hampered Ignatieff, nothing has been so pronounced as his expatriate days when Canada was little more than a vacation home to return to and renew his membership card. As Ivison writes, “it reminds voters that here is a man who is not like them,” in any way shape or form. Regardless of how many times the man tries to explain it in soft light video with archival footage of Harvard, he only serves to further validate the “just visiting” charge from the Conservatives.

But that’s the fault of the Liberal war room. They don’t seem to be able to perceive that the greatest asset of the Liberal leader isn’t what he provides, but what he doesn’t provide: the cult of personality that Stephen Harper has built around himself.

The Liberals are never going to match Ignatieff with Harper in some political gladitorial showdown, as the prime minister is going to win that match every single time. It isn’t about intelligence or experience or wisdom. Some people just “have it” and with Ignatieff, baby, you don’t have it.

What they’re missing, however, is the chance to juxtapose the Liberal brand as precisely the opposite to what many Canadians have come to dislike and distrust about the Conservatives. Instead of promoting the Liberal leader as the central brand, focus on branding the political party as a group of people all working equally toward some common goal.

Instead of the centralizing power of the Conservatives where all political messages have to be filtered through the PMO and Party HQ, where party candidates and workers have to be vetted for common media interviews, the Liberals could focus on being what the Conservatives are not.

The contrast could be remarkable if done properly. Ignatieff could step back and say that it isn’t about him, it’s about Canada and the kind of vision all 308 candidates have for a Liberal vision of the country. The Liberal brand is obviously enduring enough that it can hold a quarter of the electoral loyalty, despite having a weak leader for much of the past half decade.

Of course, that will never happen. Because part of the reason the Conservative strategy works is that it’s true. Ignatieff didn’t come back to Canada to stand out of the spotlight and campaign for a better Canada on ideas alone. He came back to be coronated as the returning monarch of Canada by virtue of his superior human qualities.

And even if that can’t be articulated on a perfectly logical plane of thought, it is the gnawing instinct of mistrust that is what most likely provides the negative feedback loop the Liberals are receiving in polls.

Photo credit: Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press

I have a feeling that Friday evening went down something like this. Michael Ignatieff got back to Liberal Party headquarters after standing in front of the media and equivocating about a coalition and was quite literally yelled at for being the smartest idiot in Canada.

Perhaps realizing the political damage of his faux pas, Ignatieff got up before the media on Saturday morning and made clear that he wouldn’t be forming a coalition should an election restore us to the same debilitating status quo of the past seven years. But it was too late.

The coalition is on the table now, and the Conservatives will use it to their utmost advantage. In the chess game of politics, Ignatieff left a pawn hanging and the Conservatives have happily gobbled it up to enjoy a material advantage.

That isn’t to say that Ignatieff doesn’t want the Liberals to win a minority government of their own, as unlikely as such a prospect might be at this moment. But I think it’s safe to say that Friday’s press conference told us everything we really needed to know about the possibility of a backup plan if the election goes anything like the polls are currently indicating.

Curiously, the talk in the media today has nothing to do with the Ignatieff coalition gaffe, but an obscure moment in the ancient history of Canadian politics, back when the Liberals were in power and Stephen Harper seemed open to overthrowing the Liberals with a power-sharing agreement.

The discussion surrounding Harper’s own “coalition of 2004″ is dominating the journalist gossip stream, as though something Harper considered seven years ago has any relevance to what he believes today. Actually, one would be hard-pressed to find some relevance between what Harper said in October 2008 and what he believes today.

Seven years is a lifetime in politics. What Stephen Harper, or anybody else for that matter, wanted to do in 2004 has nothing whatsoever to do with the present political situation. Why, seven years ago we had an entirely different political makeup in Ottawa. The Liberals were on the wane of a decade-long power-drunk majority that had sapped the enthusiasm of Canadians. The Conservatives were a new amalgamation of formerly fractured elements of rightwing movements and political parties. Michael Ignatieff was a professor at Harvard University.

The truth is that whatever Stephen Harper was considering in 2004 has little to do with the present-day reality of Ignatieff’s “Plan B” coalition with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois. And it might sound like so much Conservative war room propaganda, had it not been for Ignatieff’s press conference slip-up.

There are those who get angry at the maligning of the idea of cooperation, saying that there’s nothing inherently wrong with a coalition in a parliamentary democracy, and that is precisely what Harper was aiming at in 2004. But this is a distortion of the facts.

The only political parties that ever agreed in writing to a coalition involving a separatist party is the NDP and Liberals, and Michael Ignatieff’s signature exists on that document. And even ignoring the unpleasantness of aligning with a separatist party in a greedy bid for power, there’s the fact that such an alliance presented a de facto majority against the Conservatives, who had actually won the most votes of any other single party. In most coalition governments — but certainly not all — the party with the most votes aligns with another from the opposition.

The reason the Conservatives can’t do that is they are already a coalition government, though nobody seems to recognize that. The party is made up of broad elements of social and fiscal conservatives, former Reformers, Alliance Party and Progressive Conservatives. The big tent party was forced to come together in order to avoid the problem faced by the current crop of leftwing political parties all striving for a piece of the 65 per cent of Canada that doesn’t vote Conservative.

Since the country is always likely to be divided between the unified right and the majority of left-leaning voters, there are only two logical options. One is a similar amalgamation of the political left into one party that can bridge the numerous differences present in the NDP, Green, Liberal and even Bloc Quebecois voters. The other is simply the coalition, which seems the most likely given the fact the writ has been dropped yet again.

The intentions of the Conservatives in 2004 remains a bit historically ambiguous, and though I’m sure it’s a fun talking point today for some people, it remains irrelevant. There is only one coalition of any importance, and it’s the one that Ignatieff seems destined to form after the Liberals lose yet another election to a minority Conservative government.

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

I dare not attempt to add to Andrew Coyne’s evisceration of Canada’s most notorious equivocator, but even I have to admit that I did not see this coming. Not only did the Liberals finally locate a spine in the House of Commons today, but they made apparent their intent to win by any means necessary this time.

I have no problem with the opposition defeating the government, as I think it sorely needs another consultation of the Canadian electorate. Nor do believe any of the rhetoric from the Conservatives that this is a reckless or irresponsible or costly thing to do. $300 million is certainly not chump change, but it’s only three times the amount the government was willing to spend on commemorating the 200th anniversary of a war the British fought.

But only days after accusing the Conservative war room of grossly misrepresenting the opposition as a coalition of democratic usurpers, Michael Ignatieff hands that same war room a gift so generous that the man may as well have planned it for the Conservatives himself.

I can already hear the narrator: “Michael Ignatieff won’t rule out a coalition with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois…” It fits the “just visiting” theme perfectly, and confirms just about every wild allegation and accusation hurled at the Liberal leader over the past two years.

The problem with Ignatieff isn’t that he refused to rule out a coalition government with the other political parties. It’s that he seems to have a problem that might be described as unique to politics. The man cannot seem to tell a lie to save his own life.

This isn’t a problem shared by Ignatieff’s ally in Toronto, Premier Dalton McGuinty. After losing an election to the Progressive Conservatives in 1999, the Liberal leader decided he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He proceeded to make every promise, every guarantee, every wishful thought that emanated from the mushy middle in order to coalesce support around an unaffordable platform.

Then, as soon as the man was elected, he broke dozens of promises, including the big one, by raising taxes. McGuinty has become a master of damage control, able to tell people what they want to hear now, and then do whatever he wants later on. And when the political damage becomes too great, McGuinty merely grants a few more unaffordable items on the taxpayer wish list, and all the lying and deceit is forgotten.

Similarly, Ignatieff should have denied any possibility of a coalition with the other opposition parties. He should have stood there and made grand statements about the Liberals and their intent to rule the next government alone. Not equivocate about red and blue doors and then flee when cross-examined by the media.

If he wins the election, he doesn’t have to worry about the support of a coalition except in passing legislation. If he loses the election he can spring the coalition into action, citing the imperative of being flexible to the shifting political dynamics of the country. Or something. I don’t know, I’m sure they have writers for this sort of thing.

The fact is that just because you say something now doesn’t mean you have to follow through with it later on. Stephen Harper has been equal to McGuinty in this regard, such as promising not to run deficits in October of 2008 and then changing his mind three weeks later. Nobody holds that against him anymore, despite the fact he broke his word, and it was a word he stated adamantly again and again, without any apparent room for flexibility.

History is written by the winners, and Ignatieff should understand that by now. He doesn’t need to tell the Canadian public that he won’t rule out a coalition government just because it might be true. If people elected truth-tellers there wouldn’t be very many people who are currently in Ottawa that would be employed right now.

As Coyne writes, Ignatieff must have known the question was coming. That he answered the question with such ambiguity is certain to seal the fate of the Liberal Party before the election campaign has even begun. All the Conservatives have to do is put that press conference on replay for the next three months and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Liberals lose even more seats this time around.

Perhaps even worse than anything else is that it reinforces the perception of Ignatieff as a “waffler”. A man who can’t make up his mind even when the brass ring of opportunity practically hits him on his formidably sized cranium. Truly this is a party that was cursed by Chretien on the way out.

This isn’t change. This is more of the same. Photo: Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press

I don’t know what’s happening to this blog lately. I mean, I know it’s not happening, mainly because I’m busy at school. But during the past four years I’ve always wanted to write, even if I haven’t had the opportunity to write. But these days I just don’t have the mental energy to go into it.

The main reason is that I think I’ve become disengaged in politics of late, even if I am keeping a peripheral interest. I’m just kind of tired of the partisan bickering, pointless arguments, inane scandals, and a general inability to hold government to account for flagrant abuse of the body politic.

There’s probably no excuse left not to defeat the Conservative government for their continued failure to live up to their own stated policies and principles, contempt for both parliament and the accountability they were elected on, and an almost shameless unwillingness to abide by their own election promises.

Not that there’s much to get excited about from a general election that would likely restore the Conservatives to power in a minority government. Which means we’d get more of the same watered-down liberal-lite policies, cumulative spending, bureaucratic largess and ongoing usurpation of the Liberal party’s core philosophies, including pandering to ethnic voting blocks that fulfill a vague strategy of gaining a majority.

The Liberals would be no better. Michael Ignatieff hasn’t had a coherent idea since he was teaching at Harvard. If anybody can identify what it is the Liberal Party stands for, they might as well apply to be cipher-breakers at the CIA. All Ignatieff can do is criticize what is, rather than tell everybody what should be. And vague promises about more aboriginals in post-secondary institutions isn’t it.

At least Pierre Trudeau never pretended to be one of us. He reveled in his intellectual and moral superiority, taking every opportunity to foist it on the Canadian public with an arrogant “watch me” attitude. Ignatieff, on the other hand, requires historical rewrites of autobiographical information easily contradicted. Trying to fit in with Canadians isn’t working, and it doesn’t seem likely it ever will.

But it isn’t just federal politics. I haven’t written about B.C. politics for several months now either, despite the fact that a radio show host somehow finagled her way to the leadership of the BC Liberal party and the position of premier of the province. All without being elected by anybody.

It is, quite frankly, appalling that a political party can, without apparent conscience, ignore the democratic will of the electorate so egregiously and flagrantly without having to face some sort of trial. The idea that the Liberals can shed Gordon Campbell and shuffle their cabinet around and all the lies, corruption and abuse of power can magically be snuffed from existence with a mandate that extends for another two long years is extremely demoralizing.

And just like federal politics, where you have the choice between a contemptuous government or the hapless nation-ruining alternatives, the province of B.C. is no better. The BC NDP are a Big Labour jobs-killing party whose best idea in the past decade was to knock off a leader who had the folly to suggest more business-friendly centrist policies to appeal to a more mainstream voting segment. Alas, they are once again the unappealing alternative to a government that deserves to be put before both a polling booth and a jury.

So what can I say? It’s all just kind of a dog’s breakfast out there, and writing about it only serves to remind me why I’ve decided not to vote any longer. A friend recently said she will make a good journalist because she can see the potential good in all sides. On the contrary, I think the reason I’ll make a good journalist is that I no longer have faith in our political institutions to represent my views in any capacity whatsoever.

Photo: Chris Wattie/Reuters

Sometimes I think that Jack Layton exists just to delight in teasing the Liberal Party. At any moment when the Liberals seem like they might be in danger of finding a section of vertebrae, the NDP sidle up to Stephen Harper and play “let’s make a deal.”

Not that I really think the Liberals will ever defeat this government on a confidence vote. Their near-perfect record of supporting the Conservatives has been untarnished for half a decade now, and there doesn’t seem to be any danger of that changing with Ignatieff’s suitcase at the helm.

Even as the socialists were having a frank talk with the Conservatives, I suspect Michael Ignatieff was still busy mulling over the possibility of doing something. With political reflexes like that, you’d imagine this man would have got around to declaring war on Germany in 1946.

What I find even more surprising is that the NDP made the deal in the maelstrom of the Bev Oda affair, which I suppose in the world of the 24-hour scandal cycle in Ottawa may as well have happened in ancient Babylon. Still, I expected a half-hearted squeak from the NDP, and the rattling of a few paper sabres. Sheesh, they don’t even go through the formality of impotent threats anymore.

The reason for the NDP’s eager announcement that they have wrung hard-fought socialist concessions from the Conservative government — like cutting taxes — is pretty clear. They’ve taken a beating in the polls of late, and would lose as many as 16 seats if an election were held today.

This is interesting, because even though the Liberals would gain 15 seats, it wouldn’t come at the expense of the Conservative Party, projected to gain a single seat. They would come all from the boys in orange, which makes their unwillingness to oblige even the unrealistic prospect of defeating the March budget nothing more than a spectacularly irrelevant work of fiction from Gloria Galloway.

It’s amazing that some pundits even entertained the idea that the opposition would play parliamentary roulette with the current poll results showing a resurgent lead over the Liberal Party. We’ve established the gutlessness of the Liberals, and the NDP have no interest in trading away their tiny presence in the House of Commons on the basis of principle.

And some might even ask what principle has to do with anything? The actual policies of the Conservative government are difficult to assail from a socialist perspective, their “sullen, haughty, can’t-be-bothered-tone” notwithstanding, of course.

It’s also rather difficult to criticize the Conservatives for their apparent flexibility of ethics, when the other contenders for the government seem to so willingly let these transgressions gather the dust of irrelevance in time for the weekend. Like so many other grievances that have disappeared in arrogant, contemptuous refusal to address them, the opposition has dutifully returned to their rightful place at the dog’s water bowl of power.

So, when do I expect the Conservatives to be answerable to the past two and a half years of malleable principle and rubbery promises? Well, I don’t know the date, but I do know that it will come at a time and in a manner of the choosing of the ruling party. To expect any differently would be to ignore the “not” in Oda’s memo.

Photograph by: Jason Payne, Postmedia

When the BC NDP look back on 2010, they can only wonder where it all went wrong.

After nearly a decade on the sidelines, the BC Liberals had hit rock-bottom support among people angry over the HST and Premier Gordon Campbell. The backlash was so severe, in fact, that it gave the NDP a reported 21 per cent lead over the Liberals, according to a Nov. 5 poll conducted by Angus Reid.

For the good of the party, and possibly the province, Gordon Campbell announced on Nov. 3 he would step down as leader of the Liberal Party, pending a convention in late February that will choose a new one.

The resignation left two of the four parties in British Columbia without a leader. The BC Conservatives ousted their leader, Wilf Hanni, immediately following the May 2009 election in which they failed to win a single seat.

For a time, the NDP were riding high, and seemed secure to become elected to government in 2013.

Then, it all went terribly wrong. NDP MLA Jenny Kwan and a group of at least a dozen other dissidents — dubbed the baker’s dozen for some reason that escapes me — decided to suddenly pick this moment to stab NDP leader Carole James in the back. The ensuing bloodletting from party infighting resulted in James stepping down to secure the peace, leaving three parties in the province completely leaderless.

Since that time, the BC Liberals have managed to revitalize their polling numbers, thanks to a large jump from popular CKNW radio host and former deputy premier, Christy Clark. A Dec. 23 poll from Angus Reid shows the NDP and Liberals tied at 38 per cent each, a swing of 21 points over just seven weeks.

Why the dissidents decided to suicide bomb their own party is unknown. While I’m sure they had their reasons, the party’s chances of winning the 2013 election now seem slim to none.

Carole James, who had been leader of the party since 2003, had never been overly popular in the polls. Only two months ago she was riding a 25 per cent approval rating, even as her party enjoyed support from 47 per cent. But opposition leaders have traditionally fared poorly in polling, and this is historically true in both provincial and federal politics.

Worse than ousting James at a point of great momentum for the NDP, it doesn’t appear as though anybody is ready to step in and take the reigns. MLAs Mike Farnworth and Adrian Dix are the frontrunners in early polling, but there’s a problem with either of those choices.

They’re men.

According to the BC NDP’s own constitution, the next leader of the party has to be a woman, unless the males currently occupying the positions of president or treasurer resign. The current president is Moe Sihota and the treasurer is Bob Smits, neither of whom would be likely to step down without a fight.

This only complicates matters further for the self-destructing NDP. Not only did they sabotage their own success at a critical moment of Liberal weakness, but they appear to have ousted the only candidate without a penis who could lead the party to a successful win the next election.

Nor has there been any talk about bending the rules of the constitution, meaning the one-third affirmative action policy will take precedence over picking the best candidate for the job.

A permanent leader for the party won’t even be chosen until April, meaning there will be at least two months in which the Liberal Party will have a leader who can heap scorn on the disarray that is the NDP party. Worse still, that leader will likely be Christy Clark, a charismatic and popular female candidate polling higher than any NDP candidates right now. The irony may quite literally devastate the NDP.