by PATRICK BAUD

While visiting his British counterpart last week, the Prime Minister commented that “Losers don’t get to form coalitions. Winners are the ones who form governments”. If in after the next election, whenever it may come, the Liberals and New Democrats (each with fewer seats than the Conservatives) attempted to form a coalition, it would be illegitimate. The Prime Minister was right, but only in part. Parties do not win and lose elections. Members of parliament do. There are no parliamentary political parties without members to belong to them and likewise no government without members to shape and vote for its policies.

This is a key part of our constitutional system which depends not on our party loyalties but on our parliamentary traditions. Stephen Harper has unfortunately shown little respect for the latter nor for his constitutional duties as Prime Minister which involve a responsibility towards Canadians not as voters but citizens. Much as the Prime Minister is the head of government in this country, he is also the guardian and steward of its democracy. This responsibility is all the more crucial because this area of the constitution is governed nearly entirely by convention.

Stephen Harper neglects that after last month’s general election in Britain, leaders among both the Conservatives and Labour met with Liberal Democrats to determine whether they might be able to form a coalition or reach some other kind of agreement for government. While some may have thought privately that a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition would be less legitimate than the Conservative-Liberal Democrat one which was eventually formed, they largely did not say so publicly. What all leaders and parties emphasized was the need for clarity and stability to tackle Britain’s pressing challenges. Some of that language may have been faux statesmanship, but at many points, it felt like the real thing.

I will not have been the first to correct the Prime Minister on this question, but what worries me most is not his mischaracterization both of what happened in Britain and what the constitutional rules are in Canada, but the attitude to which it attests. We should evaluate the Prime Minister here not on the basis of whether we agree with his political views or his policies, but on how this boorish and pugilistic constitutional politics affects the vitality of our democracy. We should not prohibit our leaders from exploring options for forming stable government and we should not led them prohibit themselves from doing so.

This kind of talk from the Prime Minister might lead some to think that we should codify the rules governing how we should determine who “won” a given election and how the transition between governments works. Such written rules already exist in internal Privy Council Office documents, but are not publicly available. Elections in this country were once administered according to partisan interests, but were gradually legislated into the impartial, well-respected ones which we now enjoy. Writing down these rules would be complicated and controversial. They would need to leave room for negotiation between parties.

Creating such laws would open post-election negotiations up to judicial review in a way that decisions made about conventions are exempt today. But without the intervention of the Supreme Court, several groups of Canadians would be excluded from elections today, including Canadians abroad. The challenge in this area of law would be that partisan interests would be very much tied up in the outcome of any given case. Moreover, the delay would lead to the kind of instability that these laws would be designed to avoid. The respect for the constitution which such a system would require is greater than that needed to replicate the frank and honest negotiations which lead to the current British coalition.

Developing the kind of constitutional maturity needed to do so will not be easy, but that does not make it any less necessary. The chief virtue of this area of our constitution is that it is both flexible and stable. It allows for Canada’s political leaders to find creative solutions for how to govern this country. This they cannot do without respect for their right and that of their colleagues to do so. They must moreover come to understand that it is their duty alone to do so. It should not be up to the Governor General or the Supreme Court to do so, unless we seek to radically alter the constitutional nature of those offices.

Losers and winners alike have an equal right to try to form a government. What they do not have however is a right to put the future of Canada in jeopardy to ensure their own political success. Indeed, if they would ever dare to do so, they do not deserve our votes, no matter our political opinions.

Absent in debates about Senate reform in Canada is a sense of what we expect of and hope for our Senators. We argue endlessly over how and whether they should be elected, whether the provincial (and territorial) delegations should be equal or (roughly) proportionate to population, and what kind of constitutional wrangling would be required to change anything about the red chamber. In these discussions, the fact that these Senators are not merely anecdotes for public consumption, but actual legislators is often lost. Not only is what Senators actually do ignored, but so is what we want them to be doing differently.

We even give up the ability to imagine and demand something different from the members of Canada’s upper house. To forego this crucial democratic commitment is to entrust the vitality of our national institutions into the hands of those who are motivated principally by interests more narrow than the common and public good. What we need is more substantial than the generic definition of what an upper house does provided in any comparative politics textbook nor the broad outline provided in the Constitution Act of 1867. If we really want to have a serious, substantial debate about Senate reform, we need to be able to discuss what we want Senators to do.

Not only must we be able to articulate clear positions about this question, but we must also be able and willing to reach an agreement about what we, as a society, want Senators to do. This latter category will doubtless be narrower than the sum of all of the expectations and hopes that individual Canadians have of the Senate, but such is the nature of founding (or in this case, refounding) an institution which will enjoy broad, substantive public legitimacy. This is no simple assignment.

Part of challenge is that we are not used to talking about our institutions, especially ones surrounded with such pomp and circumstance as Parliament, in this way. Deference and tacit respect are preferred to taking ownership and responsibility for what public institutions do on our behalf and how they do so. In some activist circles, this kind of rhetoric is nowhere near novel, but even there it is grounded on a certain cynicism which presumes that these institutions are opposed to the public good almost by design. This is only true if we allow it be.

We are especially not used to talking about the Senate in this way because it feels inappropriate to do so. Senators, after all, are not directly responsible to us in the same way as are our MPs, nor are they even indirectly responsible to us as are the Prime Minister and his or her ministers. In recent Canadian political history, there have been few disputes about appointments to the Senate, aside from some half-hearted attempts to discredit the qualifications of the Senators which the Prime Minister has recommended that the Governor General appoint since December 2008. Certainly these disputes seem to have little impact on the political fortunes of the Prime Minister’s party.

That we are not accustomed to having this kind of discussion certainly does not mean that we can not or should not do so. Nor does the fact that Senators are not directly (or indirectly) elected by us mean that we should not see them as responsible to us. Advocates of Senate reform who argue that electing Senators would at last make them responsible to Canadians ignore the fact that Senators already represent Canadians. It may be the case that the Senate would better represent us if it were elected, or it may be, as sceptics have argue that they would do far worse.

There are persuasive arguments to be made about why it is that we should want Senators to continue doing exactly what they are doing now: carefully considering (and amending where necessary) legislation passed by the House, proposing its own legislation and conducting its own studies (usually on issues too politicized or sensitive to be properly examined in the House). Likewise, there are equally persuasive arguments about why the importance of these functions mean that the Senate should in fact be directly elected.

For instance, Steven Fletcher, the minister responsible for democratic reform, recently reintroduced a bill which would create eight year term limits for all Senators appointed since the last general election. If we believe that high turnover is good for the Senate because it prevents Senators appointed by a past government from stalling the legislative agenda of a government of a different party and it ends the tradition of the Senate being a “plum” appointment, then we should support this change. If we believe, however, that the best Senators (that is those who make the most useful contribution to chamber and committee work) are those who are the most experienced, particularly those whose experience has lasted through several governments, preferably governments of different parties, then we should oppose this change.

Aside from the mention of “democratic values” in the preamble to the bill, the government has provided no substantive justification why term limits would help Senators better accomplish what it is that they wish it to do. The opposition has done no better. What matters in debates about Senate reform is defining what it is that we want from the Senate. Until we can do that, debates about term limits or methods of election will remain wholly academic because the ones which we select if and when we reform the Senate will depend entirely on what we want Senators to do.

First, they represent a response to the perceived national sentiment. Barack Obama’s brilliant Presidential campaign captured the imagination of a public disenchanted with the brutally incompetent and malicious Bush Administration. Yet campaign narratives also aim to mould the national sentiment, driving crucial wedges into the electorate and staking out the ground on which a campaign will be fought. Britain’s election has become a three-way race, increasingly dominated by a supercharged Liberal Democratic narrative. Labour seems content to dig in its heals and repeat words like “competence, experience, prudence” etc. The Conservative narrative initially seemed the most compelling when Labour was its only rival. Yet after the recent debates it’s clear that Cameron and his crew have yet to reshape their campaign adequately to counter the surging Lib Dems. Here’s a summary of the campaign narratives as they appear in the party manifestos:

Labour “A Future Fair for All”: Stay the course: maintain fiscal stimulus that has kept Britain from sinking deeper into recession; aim for deficit reduction over the course of several years but keep funding for critical public services like education and healthcare. Essentially a “substance over style” shtick. Gordon Brown made sure to drive this point at the start of Thursday’s debate.

Conservative “An Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”: Big Society not Big Government, shrink the “bloated” state: cut spending in all areas except health and foreign aid; allow charities, trusts, voluntary groups and co-operatives to set up new Academy schools, independent of local authority control, and to run other public services; reduce immigration; aggressively reform government by removing 150 MPs from the House of Commons and giving more power to communities and local councils. Cut civil service and offer positions to members of the public in schools, libraries, etc; resist deeper integration into Europe and put future European treaties to referendums.

Liberal Democrat “Change that Works for You/A Fairer Britain”: Resist the “old politics” and the two-party duopoly; make the electoral system fairer by allowing citizens to “sack” MPs perceived to be corrupt and introduce Single-Transferable Vote; maintain front-line services and gradually reduce dept; scrap the expensive Trident nuclear programme and apply a prudent foreign policy autonomous from the United States; pursue a closer relationship with the European Union

So, given these narratives, what is the public sentiment that they are responding to? What exactly are they trying to achieve in terms of moulding the mood of the electorate?

Of all three, the Conservative narrative is the most ideological: fundamentally, it is founded on the principle that the state is a large and bureaucratic leviathan whose many functions could be better served by “people power” and the entrenchment of “traditional” values. Whatever one thinks of this (I don’t personally agree with any of the consequent policies such a belief produces) it makes for a compelling narrative, particularly after thirteen years of Labour governance and a multi-billion pound deficit. Its effect is enhanced by the manifest disillusionment among the British electorate following the expenses scandal, which tainted the public perception of all things political and, most of all, of politicians themselves. It is a variant of the basic conservative narrative which tries to rally support by creating or taking advantage of suspicion about the state in order to make it smaller and “give power back to the people”. In the case of this Tory manifesto, the title actually states this explicitly. But there is a flaw in this narrative which dulls its sharpness among the class-aware British electorate. David Cameron already suffers from a perception that he’s an out of touch member of the ruling class (not entirely unfairly; he is a fifth cousin to the Queen). The underlying message of the Conservative manifesto [“An Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”] sounds particularly naïve given this perception. The very notion of a “Big Society” over a “Big Government” doesn’t sound very attractive during a recession in which governments around the world have had to take unprecedented measures to secure and stabilize their economies. The manifesto goes even further, suggesting that parents effectively take over schools and sub-contract responsibilities currently held by local councils to private companies (based on the Swedish “Free School” model). The narrative of mass public participation in social services and schools is a compelling one, even if it’s not the least bit viable in practice. Moreover it risks alienating vast swaths of the electorate, particularly in the working and lower middle classes. What kinds of parents, in reality, have time to do the work of local councils responsible for education? In practice, the notion of mass public participation pitched by the Tory manifesto could only ever be a reality for the upper echelons of the middle class. Thus, rather than bringing together disparate class groupings within the electorate, this kind of populism is more likely to exacerbate existing perceptions of the Conservatives as a party which is fundamentally class based and out of touch. Even if David Cameron becomes the Prime Minister (somewhat likely given recent polls although a Conservative majority seems improbable) he’ll find that his narrative of “change through the Big Society” will be unattractive to a sizeable chunk of Great Britain.

*As a side note, a second component of the Conservative campaign consists of leveraging Britain’s (many) right-wing tabloids to lob personal attacks at Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown. None of these attacks seem to have made any impression on recent polls.

The narrative contained in Labour’s manifesto hardly merits such a detailed analysis. Quite simply, it tries to build on Gordon Brown’s reputation as a competent economic manager; suggesting that a Conservative government of any kind would lead to critical cuts in health and education (not an unfair assessment). Labour support is so concentrated that even its 5-8 point dip in the polls brought on by the Liberal surge has hardly hurt its likely share of seats in the next Parliament. Even if the incumbent party places third in the popular vote (as polls suggest it may) it could emerge with the  single largest seat count in New Westminster. More recently, Labour has tried to tweak its approach by calling for a campaign of “substance over style” (a clear attempt to portray the Liberal Democrats as idealistic, spend-happy dilettantes…very similar to the charges routinely directed at the NDP here in Canada). Overall, this technocratic approach to the campaign hasn’t paid off for Labour.

Now to the Liberal Democrats who haven’t received much attention until recent weeks. Nick Clegg’s stunning debate performances have already led many commentators to predict the demise of Britain’s two party system with many speak of an “existential crisis” within the Labour Party. Polling surges of the kind are hard to gauge, especially when the draconian First-Past-the-Post electoral system obscures the potential for pure democratic representation. (To give an example, even if all three parties received exactly 33% of the vote, the Lib Dems would take home just over a hundred seats while Labour and the Conservatives would each get well over two hundred). Yet there does seem to be something irresistibly compelling about the Liberal Democratic narrative: as a member of Canada’s NDP, I’m used to seeing the message of “resisting the old politics” have only limited effectiveness (in truth, the functionality of our electoral system is even more broken and indefensible than Britain’s but I digress…) but, in the context of the expenses scandal and, among other things, the Iraq War, this message seems to be catching on like wildfire. There seems to be an attitude among many centrist/non-ideological voters that the two regular alternatives represent failed policy and, for want of a better phrase, the “old politics”. The Liberal Democrats opposed the Iraq War, support reforming the electoral system, and have succeeded in opening up a serious public discussion about the future of Britain’s nuclear arsenal. It’s highly unlikely that Nick Clegg will become his country’s next Prime Minister but, given the success of the Lib Dems and their narrative of “change” in recent weeks, major shifts could be occurring beneath the bedrock of British politics.

Other Parties: Besides Britain’s regional parties (like the Scottish and Welsh nationalists) the two key parties to observe beyond the principle three are the British National Party (BNP) and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). Both represent right-wing populist revulsion about immigration and integration into Europe. The former has roots in the English fascist movement and a (deserved) reputation for racism and particularly anti-Semitism. Yet the party has grown by leaps and bounds under its leader Nick Griffin, who has expanded BNP policies into a national platform and gained a wider public platform for the party. Griffin is himself campaigning in a Labour stronghold in East London, hoping to blame unemployment in working-class communities (brought on by the recession) on immigration to secure support. The BNP won two seats in the 2009 European Parliamentary Elections with this message but, in the context of a general election, it can expect much greater scrutiny and is unlikely to win any seats. UKIP recently emerged as the second largest UK-based party in the European Parliament (tying Labour with thirteen seats). Unlike the BNP, UKIP seems very poorly organized and is very unlikely to enjoy electoral success: (a video recently posted by the BBC shows its leader unable to identify key points in his own manifesto). In the context of such intense voter disillusionment, both parties won major victories in the European Parliamentary Elections, in a development which many believed would lead to a surge in support for Euroskepticism and anti-immigration politics. The existence of parties like the BNP and UKIP deserves attention, but unless one of the major parties implodes during the next two weeks, both are likely to remain on the fringe of British politics.

Pantalone moved to Toronto from a village in Sicily at the young age of thirteen. Initially speaking no English, he attended Harbord Collegiate and later obtained a degree in geography at the University of Toronto. In 1980, after four failed bids for a council seat, he was elected and has served on City Council ever since.

In addition to his experience, Pantalone hopes to wage a campaign centered around efficiency in the public sector, preservation of existing services and fiscal austerity. Transit will likely figure as a major issue throughout the campaign with other prominent candidates promising to reverse David Miller-era policies and projects like Transit City, and scale back the level of city involvement in transit through privatization and changes in the governance of the Toronto Transit Commission. Rocco Rossi, for example, has promised to freeze existing transit projects and to replace the Commission’s board with private-sector experts.

Speaking to a packed room at Montecassino Event Venue in North York on Wednesday, Pantalone made his approach clear: “I will continue to enthusiastically support Transit City. There are those who want to tear down our vision of fast trains crisscrossing the city north – south and east – west and for the first time providing fast public connections for people living in Scarborough with Etobicoke and vice versa…[but] Transit City is needed. Transit City is real. Transit City is funded and Transit City must be built!” Pantalone also argued against proposed cuts to other city services like energy and garbage collection: “Privatization seems all the rage for those who know so little about our city. I want to keep these assets for the public good of all Torontonians.”

Yet while the crowd consisted largely of left-leaning city councillors and activists, prominent members of the business and local ethnic community leaders were also present. Though Pantalone spoke with many of the typical undertones used by left-of-center members of city council (at one point he cheesily quipped “I went to Harbord, not Harvard!”) he also spoke of the value of public/private partnerships which, he says, were vital to the construction of popular projects like the BMO Field on the lakeshore: “I led the negotiations for the BMO Soccer Field…the private sector contributed much more money than the city…and we still own it!”.

This mixed approach may serve Pantalone well in the race. It may help him appeal to progressive voters supportive of projects like Transit City, while also bringing in voter concerned with fiscal responsibility and prudent government at City Hall. With the support of key members of City Council (nine were present on Wednesday) and experienced political staffers like former David Miller Campaign Manager John Laschinger, Toronto’s Deputy Mayor may just have a shot at the city’s top job.

Published in The Newspaper, April 1st 2010

Parliament, that ancient institution, that powerful symbol of peace, order, and good government, is almost entirely dysfunctional. Maintaining optimism in the face of this simple, virtually incontestable fact has been a challenging exercise. Crosby’s goal helped for a couple of days, but just as getting drunk temporarily relieves the anguish of a break up, the Olympics provided a few weeks’ shelter from the juvenile rhetorical melee of Question Period. Ultimately, I found myself right back where I’d been in January (except I had a splitting headache). Reality has a nasty way of creeping back in.

It hasn’t been like this forever, though. Even during Paul Martin’s short-lived and tumultuous tenure, there were major developments on economic and social issues: the right of same-sex couples to marry was recognized under the law; Ottawa tranfered major investments in health care; and Canada removed itself from participation in the apocalyptic American “Star Wars” adventure.

I don’t wish to suggest that the Martin era was an idyllic liberal Camelot. Like its predecessor government, it was riddled with scandals and used legislative loopholes to stifle dissent, cancel opposition days, and avoid confidence votes (something few Liberals today will acknowledge, even as they moralize and weep for the sanctity of Parliament).

These trends continue under the current regime, albeit with a much more sinister undertone. With each passing session, Canada has spiralled further into an effective minority dictatorship. When the House becomes inconvenient, it can be disposed of on a prime ministerial whim. In the subsequent legislative purgatory, “President” Harper rules by decree.

If this seems like hyperbole, consider the amount of executive power the Conservative leader currently wields. He muzzles his cabinet. Even his most senior ministers must seek the approval of his office before they speak. Cancerous rogue MPs like Bill Casey (who rejected a budget because it shafted his constituents) are cut from the government’s flesh altogether. Serious decisions like shutting down Parliament or refusing executive orders from a majority of MPs fall to Harper alone.

If only it ended there. The concentration of executive power (and its rampant abuse) in the Prime Minister’s Office is only the tip of the iceberg. The small, regionally specific Reform Party base from which the Conservative Party was built needs the same constant reassurance demanded by a jealous lover. For example, when funding was cut for KAIROS (a widely respected faith-based ecumenical NGO), Development Minister Bev Oda announced it was because the organization “wasn’t meeting government priorities.” Weeks later, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney revised the pretext for the move at the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, saying, “We have defunded organizations…like KAIROS, who are taking a leadership role in the boycott [of Israel].”

There were accolades within the reactionary Conservative base. Ezra Levant wrote, “It is sometimes difficult to support the federal Conservatives, usually when they are not being very conservative. But stories like this one remind me why I like this government.” Minister Kenney later wrote in the Toronto Star that the cuts had nothing to do with the organization’s stance on Israel. With brazen insincerity, the Harper Conservatives arbitrarily cut funding for a major NGO and then lied about it, all in an effort to stroke the sensibilities of a narrow portion of their base.

But the Conservative strategy goes deeper than this. Fundamentally, it seeks to realign political discourse, shifting Canada along with it. One only has to watch a few minutes of Question Period to see how far the Conservatives have taken this strategy. Take the issue of Afghan detainees. Isn’t it perfectly reasonable to ask, given the testimony that’s been presented, about the nature of detainee transfers by our troops? Apparently not. If only the opposition cared as much for the welfare of our soldiers than for Taliban prisoners! Polls have revealed that many Canadians aren’t concerned about the abuse of Afghan prisoners. By sticking to their guns, the Conservatives have successfully re-shaped the debate into one about patriotism. Torture be damned!

What about the government’s “law and order” agenda, most of which has nothing to do with either? Crime rates have been dropping steadily for 10 years, and yet the legislation the Conservatives brag about the most concerns “getting tough on crime.” Forget that such an approach has led to crowded jails and soaring crime rates south of the border. Yet a new study shows that a majority of Canadians are, once again, in favour of the death penalty and support harsher punishments for convicts.

On each issue, the government crafts a simple, “common sense” position and then repeats it ad nauseam. Those who care about the abuse of Afghan detainees hate the troops. Those who care about judicial autonomy are “soft on pedophiles.” The list goes on. Prorogation during an inquiry of critical public importance is “recalibration” and shutting down Parliament to avoid a confidence vote is “patriotic.” Yet with each issue, the framework in which reasonable discussion can occur shrinks further. Meanwhile, the opposition parties shriek beneath the fray of Question Period, struggling to be heard.

Published in The Varsity on March 29th, 2010

(Original Version available @ http://thevarsity.ca/articles/29677)

Duceppe is a brilliantly gifted politician and it’s unlikely that this radical rhetoric is anything less than a calculated shift in the BQ’s message. Threatened perhaps by a rising NDP presence in the province and at least ten years in ideological limbo, the “temporary” Bloc Quebecois Party, which changed the face of Ottawa in 1993, may be showing its age.

1. Something big is about to happen to the Conservatives. The only thing to account for such an amicable tone from the professional attack dog of the Tory Party is something on the scale of an opposition motion holding the PM in contempt of Parliament. (One was proposed to Speaker Peter Miliken last week but it’s unclear whether or not he’ll accept it.)

2. The absence of Stephen Harper and the venom which he unleashes almost daily allows for a resonable discussion between adults.

Keep an eye out on Monday.

Not really. The rationale behind this unbelievably boring document is that reducing the federal deficit is the primary concern of the government. Certainly, the deficit is a major issue which needs to be confronted. In addition to the billions spent on economic stimulus, an aging generation of baby-boomers is expected to greatly reduce the federal tax pool and, once retired, will need major investments in pensions that will further deplete government resources. In response, the Tories have proposed to radically shrink the size of the federal government: freezing salaries and departmental growth. They’ve refused to hike taxes and have instead lowered corporate taxes to their lowest rate in at least ten years. There’s a real logic to this kind of policy: it’s predicated on a particular notion of “growth” which it assumes happens from the top-down and not from the bottom up. The only problem is that “growth” of this kind usually relegates its benefits to a select few, while doing nothing to combat deficits or fund social programs to help those who really suffer during a recession. Slashing the deficit by shrinking government also gives small-c conservatives something scrumptious to chew on. (Who needs a government anyway when there are nice, friendly corporations who care about public welfare and the environment?)

Perhaps as a distraction from this drab and unimaginative document, the Conservatives threw a little motion into the pot to amend the lyrics to our national anthem to make them more “gender neutral”. Unsurprisingly, the most angry reactions came from the party’s own base, with the proposal prompting a small grassroots insurrection on Facebook and in the blogosphere. Two days after announcing it, the PMO cancelled the plan releasing a statement saying the government had “gotten the message loud and clear” that there was no desire among Canadians to change the national anthem. It’s likely most of the Conservative caucus, including Mr Harper himself would have been against such a move but, being the shrewd tactician that he is, the Prime Minister successfully controlled the news cycle for a couple of days and deflected attention from his lacklustre budget. His only sacrifice was a minor, and quickly forgettable, squabble with a tiny portion of his base.

Yet one burning question remains unanswered. The small issue of the Afghan detainee memos, demanded in un-redacted form by a majority of MPs in Parliament in December, is yet to be resolved. In trying to prevent the release of these memos, the Prime Minister is not only disobeying a direct order from the country’s democratic representatives, but hinting strongly that they contain evidence which will seriously injure the credibility of the government when made public. There seems to be no other explanation for a move which could result in members of the government being held in contempt of Parliament. During the Parliamentary break former Conservative chief-of-staff and Harper mentor Tom Flanagan made headlines when he criticized the explanations given by the government for its prorogation during a CBC interview: “The government’s talking points don’t have much credibility. Everyone knows that parliament was prorogued in order to shut down the Afghan inquiry”. Last week’s developments, which have seen the Conservatives increasingly on the defensive about releasing the documents and desperately trying to downplay the issue, lend even more weight to this argument.

Though on the surface not much has changed about the daily proceedings of the House since December, the government now sits about twelve percentage points below its comfort zone in the national polls. It also faces two sustained efforts by all three opposition parties: one to check the powers of the Prime Minister’s Office by regulating the rules of prorogation, and another to secure the release of un-redacted versions of the documents concerning the Afghan detainee issue. More the first time since the early days of December, 2008 the Conservatives find themselves very much in hot water.

But today’s post is not about any of these things: it’s about Rocco Rossi. A leading candidate for mayor whose campaign strategy is so interestingly boring that it needs to be discussed. Rossi’s slogan is “Take Back Your City”, a phrase which encapsulates the entire ethos of the campaign. It wreaks with the stench of right-wing populism: an oxymoronic pro-business yet “for the people” approach which has succeeded in electing some of the most inept and reactionary governments in recent history (Thatcher, Harris, Reagan, Bush). I’ll go into this in more detail below, but first a little bit about Rossi.

An experienced businessman and political hack, Rossi’s greatest problem is that he’s never held an elected office (while all of his main rivals have). Actually, this fits right into the above strategy. Editorials supportive of the campaign have said things like: “Rossi’s greatest weakness may be his biggest strength — he’s never been elected dog catcher and yet wants to preside over a $9.2-billion-a-year corporation.” (Toronto Sun, Feb 25th) I couldn’t find much in the way of substance on Rossi’s website. There is no platform posted and only a small number of (equally) vacuous speeches from which to draw the faintest hint of substance. Wikipedia (a great tool by any measure) reports that, if elected, Rossi would “remove bike lanes from major streets, freeze construction of rapid transit lines and replace the Toronto Transit Commission‘s board with private sector experts”.

Here’s where the strategy gets interesting. Even though the policies, such that they exist, are pretty common center-right fare (privatization of public services, cancellation of public projects, etc) it is the sentiments underlying these policies that give them their strategic weight. Below is a summary of this strategy – tried, tested, and true – as I understand it.

Since the garbage strike over the summer, there has developed a palpable sense of malice towards public sector workers and public services in general. So much has this been the case that David Miller promptly announced he wouldn’t be running again (and the collapse of Adam Giambrone’s campaign leaves only deputy mayor Joe Pantalone to represent his legacy). This kind of anti-public fervour is the ideal ground for right-wing privatization arguments. Selling off city assets seems perfectly reasonable to most people when there’s a deficit. Add to this the widespread (and false) belief that David Miller’s tenure as mayor has sold off the city to “special interests” (namely, its employees) and you’ve got fertile ground for a candidate like Rocco Rossi. He’s an outsider, a business maverick who’s going to fix the bloated bureacracy at city hall and fight the special interests (the malicious green ideologues who want bike lanes and environmental regulation and the union members who want adequate pay). This is the genius of the strategy because it [paradoxically] unites big business with populist appeal. In reality, of course big business and democratic governance mesh together about as well as nutella and marmite.

It was recently suggested to me that Rossi’s campaign is actually some kind of “trojan horse” for the McGuinty government. It’s true that he and George Smitherman (who seems like the lesser of two evils at best) have both worked for the Liberal Party in the past. It’s also true that the latter has worked for a government which has had pretty sticky relations with the current regime at city hall.

It’s early days yet for the mayoral campaign but with a conventional conservative populist and a liberal hack (either candidate fits both these profiles) as the current front-runners, things aren’t looking very good for people who want a green city that pays adequate wages and controls its own destiny.