Parliamentorama

Wow, weird stuff going on in Ottawa these days. I don't usually cover federal politics per se, given we are a community paper, but I covered it in today's paper from the point of view of our local, very popular, Conservative MP. I also wrote a "comment" on the topic too pasted below.

I have another conference call with Mr. Strahl in about three hours so we'll see how this develops.

By Paul J. Henderson
phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com

The attempted move last Thursday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his minority government, including our own Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon MP Chuck Strahl, was either one of earth-shattering cynicism or was a massive miscalculation.

The fiscal plan outlined by Finance Minister Joe Flaherty—which really was not much of a plan at all—was one thing, but to also announce the elimination of public financing of political parties was like trying to sneak an elephant in on the back of a fly.
How could they not have seen that the plan would backfire? Or did they know it would, and did they hope their party would end up looking the lesser of two or three evils?

Tough to say, but Strahl held a conference with local media on Thursday and truly seemed bewildered at the kerfuffle this caused among opposition parties.

And while the opposition Liberals and NDP were up in arms about the lack of measures in the fiscal plan, that, of course, wasn't really what they were upset about. What got their backs up was the elimination of the $1.95 per vote subsidies for political parties.

Back in September I was interested in those who promote a more representative, if possibly even more unstable, form of government in proportional representation. (This system, basically, would mean that the votes for each political party across the country would be directly reflected in the number of representatives in parliament.)

I asked Strahl on Sept. 22 about the wasted votes in his riding where he has always won handily but where on Oct. 14 nearly 18,000 people voted for someone else. At that time he said: "One of the things that has made it fair is that all political parties get some compensation for every vote that's cast on a yearly basis—$1.95 a vote per year—so it's never really wasted."

When asked by the Times on Nov. 27 about the move as a seeming election-triggering stunt Strahl genuinely seem surprised at the uproar.

"I can't say this is the issue we want to go to the people on," he said. "I can't believe anyone would say that should trigger an election. Certainly that's not our intention."

But if not, then why make a move that could do nothing but gut the three opposition parties and all but kill the up-start Green Party?

The bigger point underlying all of this is that the so-called financial crisis the planet faces is being met with a shrug from the Conservatives.

"People, and even the opposition in the House are watching too much American television," he said.

In relative terms he's probably right, just don't tell that to any Chilliwack residents who have lost their jobs. But, more importantly, what if Strahl, Harper and company are wrong? What if the economic crisis does affect Canada drastically over the coming months? Shouldn't there be a plan beyond cutting taxes and eliminating party subsidies?

The opposition parties have in response acted in a way that may only increase voter cynicism about them too. The reality is that no matter what happens in the future, the Conservatives will, like all governing parties do, either take credit or shift blame: If things work out OK for the local economy Strahl will credit his party's tax cuts and civil servant pay cuts; if things don't work out so well, the media will be blamed for killing consumer confidence.

If the latter occurs, I apologize in advance.