No matter what they say, MPs have to sound ridiculous when trying to defend their unwillingness to be held accountable.

So let’s call that “baseline stupid.” Anything other than “Sure, here are the records” is going to be at least baseline stupid. And then there’s the next level:

“She is an employee of the house,” Liberal MP Scott Andrews said. “We appoint her. So why would she audit the people who appoint her?”

Oh god.

This post at Impolitical links to a Toronto Star online poll showing overwhelming public support for Sheila Fraser to have access to MP’s receipts. In this case I’m willing to believe the online poll results. The post ends up wondering, “Why no party is grabbing this issue for advantage… is a mystery.”

It’s no mystery. Even someone with only “legitimate” expenses is going to have something that they’d be forced to apologize for if someone else decided to make an issue of it. Then there’s all the illegitimate expenses. Nobody would come out of this looking good. Even if there are a few scattered individuals who could make it through an examination, within each party there will be at least a few bad spenders who make the entire party look bad. Frankly it would probably undermine confidence in our entire political representation. You could argue that so will not giving them up in the first place, but that’s not true, people forget things quickly.

For the record I’m for MPs having to give up their receipts to the auditor general, and think it’s horrible that they’re not. I’m just saying it’s no surprise.

So apparently a (female) Conservative senator said “We’ve got five weeks or whatever left until G-8 starts. Shut the fuck up on this issue.”

According to The Star, “Ruth’s remarks, intended more as friendly advice than a warning, were met with gasps of disbelief and even anger…” The article’s framing makes it seem as though it wasn’t a threat, but an attempt at help. The way a complicit mother might say to an abused child, “Please, just stay in the closet for tonight.”

Which is of course more disconcerting than if it were just some loony making threats. We’ve seen that before. In this case it seems much more indicative of vindictive policy decisions, which would seem to constitute something of a pattern.

It’s true that the leading party should have some discretion over where funds go. But a leading party in a minority government needs to tread more carefully. Or should need to.

I think we’ll get the hang of this minority thing eventually, once “coalition” stops being a bad word.

The most recent Conservative Party post, in its entirety:

The Liberals, Bloc Québécois and NDP came together today at the Canadian Heritage Committee just as they did when they tried to seize power through their undemocratic Coalition.

They voted AGAINST a Conservative motion to require CBC executives to explain themselves for using Frank Graves, a Liberal-supporting and self-described “progressive” as the network’s “neutral” pollster on party politics. By voting against this motion, they are endorsing Graves’ call for a “Culture War”.

Graves’ “Culture War” is designed to divide Canadians – East against West, young against old, urban Canada against rural Canada. It’s also ideologically consistent with the world view of the Liberals, Bloc Québécois and NDP.

At the next election, Canadians will have a clear choice between a strong Conservative Government, or a reckless Coalition that will aggressively wage a divisive “Culture War” to divide our country.

First, no matter what I’m against any political involvement in the CBC. I’d be happy to support a constitutional amendment ensuring their separate existence and guaranteed funding.

Having said that, I’m not exactly clear on how when three parties representing a majority of the country come together on an issue, that’s somehow “undemocratic.” I also don’t understand how something being “ideologically consistent with the world view of the Liberals, Bloc Québécois and NDP” is wrong. Because it excludes a single party?

Here’s the basic logic as I understand it (and I’m pretty sure I do). If YOU want it (no matter how many of you want it), it’s undemocratic. If WE want it (no matter how many of you don’t want it), it’s democratic.

It’s tempting to think that Canadian Conservatives are importing that sort of thinking from their batshit insane bretheren to the south, but I have a feeling it’s just a distinguishing feature of the right-wing mind.

Discussing the perpetually growing US deficit, Ezra Klein says “But at the end of the day, our deficit problem is likely to get worse slowly, and then get much worse all of a sudden. And it’s the consequences of that ‘all of a sudden’ that are likely to spur action, as the decisions are too hard for politicians to actually take responsibility for.”

He says some other good stuff too, in the post, which is worth reading.

And it’s not a deficit-fighting issue, it’s an any-large-problem issue.

This is the way I feel about climate change. If it can’t be solved at the last minute, we can’t solve it.

So the government owes Parliament the Afghan detainee documents, or at least a discussion on how to provide them. It doesn’t sound like this will go to the Supreme Court. It’s not especially interesting that Harper wouldn’t take this to the Supreme Court, but it would have been interesting to see whether the opposition parties would have taken it there had Milliken decided differently.

Sharpen your reading glasses.

Everything has a price, so without specifics it’s hard to really come down on either side of do/don’t sell Toronto Hydro, but in a purely selfish respect I happen to think Smitherman is right here:

Front-runner George Smitherman, former deputy premier to Dalton McGuinty, and a former Ontario energy and infrastructure minister, told the audience that the city must hold on to ownership of Toronto Hydro. It’s about the way they are treated as customers, he told them.

“They’ve seen what happens when we lose control of public assets like we did with Highway 407,” he elaborated in a brief interview after the debate.

I regularly deal with both Enbridge and Toronto Hydro. Toronto Hydro is usually (not always) surprisingly good to deal with. Surprising compared to Enbridge, which always manages to disappoint no matter how low my expectations get. I’ve had the exact same issue with both companies (wrong meters being applied to wrong people) be resolved in two different ways:

1. “Ok, we’ll make those adjustments and send over revised billing” (which was then sent over).

2. “Ok, we’ll have to launch an investigation, which typically takes about six months” (which then took slightly less than six months for a letter to arrive with a conclusion, with no supporting documentation, and no return of several voicemails requesting any backup/documentation for the result.”

You can guess which was which.

So the throne speech includes this: “Canadians live within their means and expect their governments to do the same.”

That sounds familiar: “But families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.” Obama said that not too long ago.

In both cases the remarks are vague enough to be both true and disconcerting.

The throne speech comment is followed immediately with “Spending designed for a rainy day should not become an all-weather practice.” Again, vague enough to be both true and disconcerting.

Spending isn’t necessarily bad. Spending more than you make isn’t necessarily bad either. So long as the spending is useful.

Also, I don’t know about the rest of the country, but there’s clearly a housing bubble in Toronto. You can rent for well below the cost of owning. Maybe this is a demographic thing with too many 20- and 30-somethings buying a house just because it’s what you’re supposed to do? I don’t know, it’s a hypothesis I’m not going to examine right now. Or a rush ahead of the increased restrictions? Are there readily available data on the types of mortgages being taken out? When everything crashes, the next mayor’s going to be fucked.

Harper will soon appoint new senators to give the Conservatives a plurality, if not a majority, in the Senate.

The original plan was basically to cap terms as a first step to abolishing the whole thing. Since he couldn’t get that accomplished, Harper said “Fine, y’all can go fuck yourselves” and made a bunch of appointments.

That’s not so much hypocritical as it is highlighting problems by creating those problems yourself.

But Harper could soon have a majority in the Senate. And he could have one in the House, depending on how things go in the next six months. If he gets both, and then doesn’t move on Senate reform, at that point he’d have some serious explaining to do. Though at that point, maybe that means there won’t be enough people caring to demand it.

I never liked Ignatieff. From the beginning I found his statements lacking, from either a political or intellectual perspective. But I knew people who liked him, smart people. And those people no longer like him. It seems Liberal support has settled on the level of people-who-vote-Liberal-no-matter-what. Those who actively require vision have left for NDP or Green. Those who are assholes have left for Conservative.

With a potential election always potentially months away under a minority government, it’s not easy to replace a party leader without seeming to put the party into a position of election unpreparedness. I think the main Liberal strategy right now has to be not about how to take down Harper, but to determine the optimal timing for selecting a new leader. And the whole party had better quickly get behind someone (as they did behind Ignatieff), because any infighting will only hurt.

Despite (or because of?) his unwillingness to govern, I have a feeling we may be seeing Harper for quite a while still.

The CBC image of the prorogation notice was 7:08pm.

The article at canada.com is from 8:06pm.

This blog post from the Prime Minister’s Office is from 4:23pm (according to the timestamp on my Google Reader):

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced that the second and final phase of Canada’s Economic Action plan will be launched following the Olympic Games with a new Throne Speech on March 3 and a federal Budget on March 4.

“Our priority in the new session of Parliament will continue to be rapid and effective implementation of Canada’s Economic Action Plan to benefit communities, workers and businesses,” the Prime Minister said. “At the same time, we are already looking ahead to future challenges. These include restoring a balanced budget once our economy is fully recovered and building a strong foundation for our economic future.”

Almost a year ago – in the face of the deepest worldwide recession since the Second World War – the Government of Canada responded to extraordinary times with extraordinary action. It introduced Canada’s Economic Action Plan, which included one of the most comprehensive stimulus packages in the industrialized world.

“While we see tentative, early signs that the economy is emerging from recession, the recovery is still fragile,” Prime Minister Harper said. “Now is no time to change course. In fact, we must press on with the second year of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.

“Our plan remains helping those who need it now, stimulating new job growth, protecting existing jobs and ensuring that our economy emerges from the recession in a stronger position than it entered it.”

The irony of the first two paragraphs is overwhelming.

Well it’s apparently official. Parliament’s been prorogued until March 3, 2010. Two months (and a bit) without governing.

Throughout the day there was no shortage of good reactions to the possibility of prorogation and a few of the potential effects.

Given the notably scarce conservative reaction, it struck me that this whole prorogation thing was just an idea being floated, to see the response, to see how it would play politically. Would it hurt among supporters would be the main question, since the non-supporters aren’t likely to be brought over anyhow. It seems the answer to that would be negative, given the assbackwards conclusion-first reasoning of some of the popular party dullards.

And here we are.

Does this happen elsewhere? Is this a surprisingly common thing in parliamentary democracies? I’m asking seriously, because I don’t know. But what I do know is that wherever it happens, it’s completely fucking ridiculous and seems the kind of thing we should be taking to the Ottawa streets over, though of course those of us who feel that way are also (as I’m sure the Conservatives figured) the people who have a general sense that being governed by nobody at all might be better than being governed by Harper.

Well, mark your calendars, enjoy the Olympics, and remember on March 3rd that Harper has to stop ignoring parliament, stop making us look ridiculous on climate change, and create 265,000 jobs. And that he’s just had a two month vacation and is a douchebag.

The Royal Canadian Mint has found its (now) $20 million of missing gold.

Well la de da, if you need me I’ll be head deep in my couch.

Speaking of lists where the US looks like a 3rd world country, I always enjoy the “Countries and territories that retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes” list:

Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Botswana, Chad, China, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad And Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States Of America, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zimbabwe

I think a half-decent way to govern a country would be to simply institute a policy of “Don’t be on any list that includes North Korea unless it’s ‘Countries that are not landlocked.’”

To be fair, pretty much all US executions occur in the South (Ohio is the only one carrying the torch in the North–yes, with god, all things are possible), and of those pretty much most of them occur in Texas.

We understand. We’re just slightly more peaceful about it.

This point, too, was in the National Post op-ed (emphasis added):

Some may say the PBO is non-partisan and independent, unlike other government organizations that have their own political incentives. But public choice economics tells us that we shouldn’t expect Page’s PBO to behave any differently than any other government-financed organization. In fact, observers have accused the PBO of being politically active, contrary to its mandate.

Of course “observers have accused” isn’t much better than “some people are saying” or the even worse “some might say.”

It’s one of those alarms that means the person saying it is probably arguing from the gut and some sort of an asshole.

Apparently that’s what the PBO needs, and I say give it to ‘em.

Kevin Page has said he needs a million dollars more each year, taking the PBO budget from $1.8 million to $2.8 million, which seems to make a little more sense.

A blog isn’t a bad idea either. I guess they’re a quarter of the way there with an rss feed. A blog is definitely an excellent way to give a sort of plain language executive summary of PBO findings.

As Kevin Milligan points out in the previous link a key aspect of the legitimacy of such an office is past performance. Ezra Klein says about the CBO: “Their estimates have been at the center of every legislative battle since the late-70s, and they’ve managed to preserve their credibility and reputation. That’s no mean feat.” Getting rid of the PBO three years into its existence probably isn’t giving it a fair shot, and would hopefully be a political problem as well.

Kevin (Milligan) also picks out the the following quote from the National Post op-ed that started it all:

In addition to the multitude of private organizations supplying economic forecasts and fiscal projections, others still go to great lengths to scrutinize the accuracy of government budget numbers and assess its fiscal policies and programs. These include think tank institutions (including our own), lobbyist groups, and professional and academic economists. In a sense, the government already has multiple “watchdogs” keeping it honest and disciplined.

Kevin wonders where they are. Certainly they exist for major items. Any time a budget is released you’ll hear some in-depth private sector analysis. But the PBO can be used for more mundane items that a private company might have little incentive to create. Yes, the government could pay them, but then they would get to choose who they use to produce the report, which probably (i.e. definitely) creates perverse incentives.

But even if they do exist, they’re less likely to be accurate. (I know I recently read a post somewhere making this exact point, with recent examples, but I can’t find it now and it’s killing me.) People working in the private sector have a large incentive to hew to the average. That way when they’re way off, they can say “Hey, don’t look at me, everybody was way off, nobody could have predicted this.”

Hmmm, here’s something. Not what I was looking for, but something I’m happy to have found. Also, looks like I’m not the only one questioning the 1:10. Hopefully Shock Minus Control picks up a bit, I like what I saw while finding the above post.