Republicans without borders

You might recall the occasion, one week ago, where a Columbus, Ohio firm, Front Porch Strategies was mentioned as having worked for the campaign of Dean del Masto. You might also recall that Front Porch Strategies appeared to have played a limited role in the Conservative campaign by hosting a Conservative townhall telephone event on their servers.

Why don't you quickly re-read that link above and come back.

Now, let your fingers do the work and find yourself over at Creekside where Alison has a nice picture and some nicely archived communications - all buzzing around Front Porch Strategies and its president - in Canada, during the 2011 federal election, working on CPoC election campaigns.

Other visits to make today:

The Wingnutterer brings this to our attention.

On the advice of his lawyer, a key player in the 2011 Conservative campaign for Guelph is refusing to answer more questions from Elections Canada investigators probing fraudulent robo-calls in the riding.

Andrew Prescott, the deputy campaign manager for Conservative candidate Marty Burke, has already conducted one telephone interview with Elections Canada investigator Al Mathews.

Julian Fantino is not yet finished with Elections Canada. In fact, he's not even close. Elections Canada is still auditing his campaign finance return. And perhaps, the stuff he didn't file.

Impolitical adds another check mark to the list in this post. It seems Preston Manning's lament over election telephone behaviour doesn't include having it, you know, exposed.

Oh yeah. Take a trip over to Front Porch Strategies and see the page they put up on the day the light was suddenly shone upon them. See if you come away believing that the Republican travellers know less about parliament than the Harperites know about Twitter archives.

Added: Yes, you'll want to visit The Gazetteer too.

I wield my scimitar through the fields of dragon dung

And Preston Manning, because Latin doesn't seem to be his strong suit, makes up words to go with his gut-gripping fiction.

We Canadians have many virtues, but we also have our faults. One of the most worrisome is our growing tendency to substitute discussion for action on key public issues such as health-care reform, productivity improvement and energy policy. 

We increasingly seem to think that a major issue is being “dealt with” when someone writes a paper, article, report or book about it. Further “progress” is then measured by the extent to which the paper, article, report or book has been peer-reviewed, conferenced, editorialized, blogged and tweeted, with the original discussants linked in and befriended by an ever-growing number of fellow discussants via the Internet.

Which Manning finds objectionable. Better to employ the Conservative modus operandi by not bothering to gather facts, study anything or read statistics before rushing headlong into the ideological abyss.

But who’s going to do something about what’s being discussed or proposed? Where’s the acceptance of responsibility to act on what has been proposed and discussed? Where’s the implementation plan and to-do list that translates interest, concern and discussion into actions that achieve results?

Good point. Clearly we're not getting it out of Harper. He and his herd of hillbillies ignore all of that in search of their conservative utopia.

Take health-care reform.

(If you didn't know this was coming you haven't been keeping much of an eye on the Manning conservative puppy-mill).

The federal government’s willingness to provide “no strings attached” health-care transfers to the provinces ought to open the door to systemic innovation. But, as yet, no province has produced an action plan equivalent to what Saskatchewan developed in the 1960s to lay the foundations of the current system, nor has any coalition of health-care reformers emerged in any province to move public opinion onto health-care reform ground such that the politicians will follow. On health-care reform, it’s still talk, talk, talk and no action.  

Now there's a different way of viewing events. Flaherty, a refugee from the Mike Harris disaster, shows up in Victoria on the pretext of entering negotiations (that would be action by the way) and blindsides provincial premiers with a no-discussion dictum and you wonder why they're still reeling.

I’m amazed when even some of my private-enterprise friends and acquaintances take the Leave It to Beaver approach. We give ringing speeches on the virtues of private enterprise and letting the markets solve problems, free of heavy-handed government intervention. Yet, when a challenge such as improving productivity or devising a Canadian energy strategy arises, far too often the reports we present to governments consist primarily of pleas for the government to do this or that. 

That's because your free-enterprise friends, or more correctly your corporate donors, are little more than welfare queens. But maybe you're right. Clearly cutting their corporate income tax didn't get them off their collective asses.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a place for discussing the great issues of the day.

You just said there wasn't. But I'm getting an idea.

Canada itself was born out of a conference of colonial politicians held in Charlottetown in 1864. But when it ended, the Fathers of Confederation went out and did something. They drafted a constitution, united the colonial economies, bought Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Co. and built the longest railway in the world. They translated discussion into action on a magnificent scale. 

Wow! Just like that! One day a bunch of politicians just got out of bed, realized there was no snow on the ground and created a country. That would be amazing if it was even the slightest bit true.

Blow away the Manning vacuum and you see that it took the better part of several decades of turmoil and discussion before the Charlottetown conference ever happened. It may be different where you went to school, but I seem to recall from high-school that most of this idea of establishing a Dominion started with the 1837 - 1838 Rebellions. And let's not forget the fact that William Lyon Mackenzie proclaimed a republic in Upper Canada a short time before Robert Nelson did the same thing in Lower Canada. Britain didn't even grant the combined colonies of Canada responsible government until 1848 because a corrupt minority of conservative leaders refused to acquiesce to the will of the people.

In short, Preston, it took a series of evolutionary reforms for Canada to be born. Unlike your chia pet version of national creation the actual road to nationhood took well over 40 years of debate, discussion and insurrection to reach what happened in Charlottetown.

I mentioned that I was getting an idea that could easily be put into action. Let's re-categorize one-sided political boot camps like yours and remove the not-for-profit tax status. Let's see what happens when you've got to pay full freight and your donors don't get a tax receipt.

Excrementum.Verveces tui similes pro ientaculo mihi appositi sunt.

"Here's how we fix Canada's political mess"

is an article by Preston Manning in today's G&M, in which his advice is to "dissolve the coalition" and "prepare for the next election" to "give Canada the broadly supported majority government it needs in times like these."

But first, let's review some quotes from a book Preston wrote with Mike Harris just last year, published by the Fraser Institute and "guided" by the Montreal Economic Institute, with help from Michael Hart, member of the Task Force on the Future of North America. You can read the whole thing yourself online :

International Leadership by a Canada Strong and Free :

~ Deepening integration with the US economy must be on the agenda as the best way for Canadians to increase our trade, prosperity, and leadership potential.

~For Canada, Mexico’s presence at the NAFTA table is no reason to avoid action on our urgent national interest in pursuing a formal structure to manage irreversible economic and security integration with the United States.

~The 2005 Security and Prosperity Initiative adopted by Prime Minister Martin and President Bush and confirmed by the Harper government a year later laid a promising foundation. Both governments now receive regular status reports on its implementation. The earlier Smart Border Accord gave security and access to the United States a higher priority than before September 11. Both, however, operate within existing laws and policies and are therefore limited in scope. Extracting the full benefit of deeper integration requires a more ambitious initiative.

~ The federal government should revisit the decision not to participate in the Ballistic Missile Defence program

~The central importance of good US-Canada relations to Canada’s interests across virtually every domestic and international issue requires that the federal government make that relationship its highest international priority.

~ In order to facilitate the integrated coordination of their two economies, the two governments need to create a customs union involving a common external tariff, a joint approach to the treatment of third-country goods, a fully integrated energy market, a common approach to trade remedies, and an integrated government procurement regime.

~Government has no place in the decision-making of Canadian consumers, importers, or exporters.

~If Canadians wish to contribute to global peace and security they can only do so effectively as partners with the United States.

~There is much to be said for Canada and the United States developing a North American energy security accord that looks at the best way to develop and distribute the continent’s resources to the benefit of people on both sides of the border.


Thanks, Presto, for coming out so clearly for Steve like this. As his political mentor, I'm sure he appreciates your continued support in today's G&M.

Cross-posted at Creekside

The Manning Centre for Building Democracy for Cons

Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, and Rona Ambrose pose with "the first graduates of the Manning Centre's Executive Program in Political Management at the Future Leaders Series Dinner held at the historic Chateau Laurier in Ottawa on April 18th, 2007"

... one of whom appears to be doing up his fly.

.

I didn't know about this rightwing think tank till I saw The Cylinder's post this morning with a link to Sooey for a G&M article from 2005 :

"Former Reform Party leader Preston Manning and a small group of friends have raised an initial $10-million from wealthy Albertans to launch a new non-political institution designed to promote conservative ideas in Canada...The aim of those supporting the Manning centre is to have conservative political forces win two of every three elections by changing the way Canadians view public issues, instead of losing two out of three, or three out of four, as conservative parties have done throughout Canadian history."

Ok so who'd ya get?

Preston Manning - founder of Reform and Alliance parties, Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute

Gwyn Morgan - EnCana Corp

Rick Anderson - ASCI-Anderson Strategic Consulting Inc and chairman of Hill & Knowlton Canada

Tom Long - chair of Ont Premier Mike Harris’ campaigns, co-chair of the founding convention of the Canadian Alliance Party

Tasha Kheiriddin - CBC Newsworld producer, Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, VP of the Montreal Economic Institute, member Fraser Institute

Nigel S. Wright - Managing Director of Onex Corporation aerospace and defence group

...and much much more!

.

Patrons - Mike Harris, Ralph Klein, Bernard Lord

Fellowships - Blogging Tory Stephen Taylor, seen here being recognized by Preston Manning "for outstanding contributions to conservative online communications"

Advisors - Andrew Coyne, Tom Long, Hon. Tony Clement, Michael Walker - founder of the Fraser Institute, Michel Kelly-Gagnon - president of the Montreal Economic Institute.

.

Incestuous little bunch, aren't they?

There's a "Student Leadership Seminar" coming up...Ottawa, Nov. 21 & 22

"Calling all students: Learn the effective practices for campus activism, and how to plan for political participation.
The intention is to ensure each participant develops the social and intellectual skills to realize their respective goals, and be an asset to Canada’s democratic-conservative tradition.
You will hear from some of our country's most respected politicians, campaigners, strategists, journalists, and activists."

And they are?

Presenters : Monte Solberg, Michael Coren, Tasha Kheiriddin, and Blogging Tories Stephen Taylor and Aaron Lee Wudrick.

Alrighty then.

A page of members' contacts and their specific areas of expertise is provided for media requiring experts to interview, thus going some distance toward answering the question of why the experts interviewed by the media are so often conservative.

They also support an online journal, C2C, featuring the writing of many of those mentioned above, plus David Frum, Tom Flanagan, Kenneth P. Green of the American Enterprise Institute, Christopher Sands of the Hudson Institute, and a not altogether surprising number of familiar newspaper editors and columnists from across Canada.

Do stop by the photo gallery to see Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien, Joseph Ben Ami, Dave Quist of the Institute of Marriage and Family, the guy doing up his fly, and, of course, Steve.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Who's paying for Manning's new CBC spot?

Preston Manning has been a little over-active lately. Suddenly he appearing on the pages of Fraser Institute documents, co-authoring a framework to hand Canada to the United States and now, he's going to have his own radio program.

Preston Manning is taking a page from Edward R. Murrow's book, hosting a new CBC Radio One series called This I Believe.

Like the famous newsman's 1951 series of the same name, it will feature the famous, and the not-so-famous, talking about their personal beliefs.

There is something quite stunning about this. Preston Manning attempting to emulate Edward R. Murrow? Are you kidding?

Manning said he hopes to include many ordinary Canadians in the 12-week series, to start May 14.

That's nice. But I still don't get why Manning is hosting this. Is this a program that CBC developed and then went looking for a host? Or, is this a Manning creation which he pitched?

Either way, Manning would seem to be an unlikely fixture in the halls of the "Mother Corp". Remember, this is the publicly-funded CBC from which Manning will be speaking. The same publicly-funded CBC that Manning and his Reform Party were intent on seeing scrapped. From Maclean's October 28, 1996 on the Reform Party Election Platform: (emphasis mine)

The glossy 23-page document sets out the kind of Canada that Reform envisions for the 21st century. It is a Canada that, among other things, would forgo public funding for such 20th-century institutions as the CBC , Via Rail and Canada Post, in favor of pouring more money into health care and education - not to mention bankrolling a proposed $2,000 tax cut for the average family of four. It is also a Canada where Ottawa would stop funding welfare programs and eliminate or drastically curtail its role in a number of other areas, including regional development, the Office of Official Languages and Indian Affairs.

From flip-flopping on the "gold-plated pension plan" to taking a position at the CBC, hypocrisy, thy name is Manning.

(Hat tip Bob)