Liberals Down In All Major Polls, Arrogance Is Up

Justin Trudeau is popular? It doesn't matter.

The federal Liberals are still extremely behind in the polls. The last three major polls conducted, with 100% accuracy, show the Liberal Party is far behind the Conservatives and in fact the Grits are at their lowest level of support in Canadian history. Those polls were of course conducted in the last three general elections and they are the only ones that matter.

A lot of Liberals will take refuge in a new opinion poll out that shows their party with an incredible lead, 44% to the Conservatives' 27%, with the NDP even further back at 20%. Other Liberals will dismiss those results recollecting the multitude of erroneous polling results from recent provincial elections.

But regardless of any calm rational thinking, this new poll will make all Liberals, at least in private, sneer and grin; as if they are already looking out their PMO staffer windows, peering down at all the Conservative MP assistants scurrying with scavenged cardboard boxes full to the brim with various framed pictures of Stephen Harper.

Liberals can try to publicly downplay this recent opinion poll in an attempt to lower expectations, to keep the focus on the government, or to just keep their party from getting complacent, but all of that will do nothing if Liberal officials fall victim to the same pervasive arrogance that just recently brought down the NDP in British Columbia.

For two years prior to the May 14 provincial election, the BC NDP were polling far ahead of the BC Liberals. To ensure supporters would still go out and vote, NDP Leader Adrian Dix repeatedly dismissed the numbers, claiming that he was in fact the underdog. But while he and his officials were publicly disavowing the NDP's popularity, privately they were letting arrogance cloud their judgement and ultimately cause their downfall.

For all the claims Adrian Dix made that the election was going to be close, the only explanation for him choosing not to run attack ads was that he was extremely overconfident that he was going to win. The same can be said for the New Democrats failing to use public information from the anti-HST petition and mobilize government opponents. Arrogance is also the only explanation behind the NDP spending money to produce an expensive video for election night that intended to introduce Dix as "the next Premier of British Columbia".

The lesson from BC NDP for the federal Liberals is not to rely on better polls or to try harder in lowering expectations, it's for their party officials, for their staff, to always keep on fighting, to never take anything for granted, and to simply not be arrogant.

Justin Trudeau and those around him can take pride in deciding not to run attack ads, but the idea that he doesn't need to shows the Liberals have a lot to learn.

Mike Duffy & Why An Elected Senate Would Have Made This Worse

Nobody really thinks Senator Mike Duffy received $90,000 in return for some political favour, but that public perception would most certainly change if he and every other Senator faced regular expensive election campaigns that depended on large contributions and even larger political favours.

An elected Senate requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars every four years for its members to run for office in much larger ridings would without a doubt only increase the likelihood of Senators exchanging votes for large financial contributions, both over and under the table.

In contrast, appointed Senators aren't as vulnerable to bribes or shady deals.

When news broke that Senator Mike Duffy had secretly accepted $90,000 from Nigel Wright, the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, under the pretense that Duffy would pay back ill-gotten living expenses, the general sentiment was that the Senator did not have the funds himself because of personal financial hardship due to an ailing wife.

Since then of course other details have emerged. It appears Wright, in an attempt to protect an asset to the Conservative Party, was eager to pay off Duffy's living expenses to prevent an audit from possibly revealing how the Conservative Senator double-billed taxpayers for even more funds.

And though it is very likely that more details will soon be made public, it is very likely none will show that the troubled senator took the $90,000 gift in some backroom in exchange for voting against good policy or for drafting legislation that would only benefit a privileged few.

It cannot be denied that what Senator Duffy and the Prime Minister's right-hand man appear to have done is wrong. But it also cannot be denied that with an elected Senate and Duffy in need of campaign funds it would have looked much worse, and probably would have been.

If the Senate was elected rather than appointed, not only would there be greater risk for all senators to appear to be in the pocket of rich millionaires, there would be greater risk of them actually being there.

Christy Clark Is Unstoppable

Christy Clark is unstoppable.

She became Liberal Leader with only the support of one MLA. Members of her caucus criticized her. 17 of them fearing defeat didn't run for re-election. Practically every pundit and journalist thought Clark was going to lose and so did every single polling firm. But last night she won.

Not only did she turn around a failing election campaign, Clark turned around a failing party.

Her predecessor with an approval rating of only 9% was the least popular Canadian politician in the last 40 years. The poorly implemented Harmonized Sales Tax had mobilized over 700,000 British Columbians against her governing party. And after 12 years in power, infighting and internal conflict only further weakened the BC Liberals, practically guaranteeing their electoral defeat.

But last night the BC Liberals won. Clark did something no one thought she could do. And because of that, no one will make that same mistake again.

Christy Clark is unstoppable. Not because she really is some unbelievable impossible force, but because no one else now has the credibility to say otherwise.

Christy Clark Loses & So Does Gender Equality

*UPDATE 05/15/13: With Christy Clark's amazing upset I am happy to admit the below post is wrong. BC has its first popularly elected female Premier. Congratulations, it is an incredible victory.



Christy Clark had as much chance of winning BC's election today as Canadian politics has gender equality, and that's close to zero.

With six female premiers, soon to be five, Canada looks like a pretty equitable place, but just as with Christy Clark's chances on election day, looks can be deceiving.

For instance, on the face of it, British Columbia looks like a province of better gender representation, Christy Clark wasn't its first female premier after all, Rita Johnston received that honour back in 1991. But considering the similarities between Johnston and Clark, what is clear is not gender equality, but its absence.

Before Kim Campbell was given the reigns of a doomed government serving as Canada's first female Prime Minister, it was Rita Johnston in BC who in 1991 became the country's first female Premier. Like Campbell she too was not elected into the top office by a general election, instead solely selected by her party of Social Credit. Johnston never had a chance, her predecessor Bill Vanderzalm had left government amid scandal and within seven months her party was drastically defeated.

Despite the expected narrowing of polls in the closing days of the 2013 BC election Christy Clark, like Johnston and Campbell, never had a chance. Though Clark became Premier in 2011, she only took power after her predecessor became the least popular politician in Canada in over four decades.

In bringing in the Harmonized Sales Tax despite promises to the contrary, former BC Premier Gordon Campbell not only caused his approval numbers to drop to the almost unheard of level of 9% which forced his own resignation, but he galvanized thousands of BCers to mobilize to draft the province's largest citizens' initiative. And with over 700,000 signatures an unprecedented petition successfully forced a referendum on the tax and its eventual repeal.

On top of all of that the BC Liberals have been in power since 2001, it was abundantly clear that they were doomed to lose in 2013, not just to 17 of the party's MLAs who chose not to run again. The suggestion that Christy Clark could have turned her Party's fortunes around is a superficial one that ignores the tremendous and historic amount of public disapproval with her party that existed prior to Clark taking office.

Her predecessor was the least popular politician in all of Canada for the last forty years, the BC Liberal brand had been fatally tarnished, and Gordon Campbell had organized and coalesced the party's own opposition by motivating hundreds of thousands of British Columbians to rally against it.

Like those women before her who were chosen to lead failing parties, Christy Clark didn't stand a chance. And unfortunately for Ontario Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne, Clark won't be the last.

Canadian politics may appear to have gender equality, but the thing about appearances is that they fade, inequalities don't.

Boston & Why Women Are Police Officers

Women are too soft and fragile to be police officers. With their hair and makeup they certainly can't fight in military combat. Nothing showed those sentiments to be more unfounded than the iconic picture of the chaos that erupted after the detonation of two bombs at the Boston Marathon, where it is a female officer with gun drawn already in mid-sprint who embodies everything a police officer should be.

Just seconds after explosives ripped through that Sunday, without knowing if there would be more bombs and more killing, police scrambled through crowds to face this unknown threat and to safeguard their people, the people of Boston. Every cop did his and her badge proud that day, and they did so regardless of gender.

Arguments against women serving in dangerous situations always involve questions of toughness and of instincts, the female officer in the above picture exemplified both, and exhibited an unparalleled courage in response to an unknown and deadly enemy.

But history and innumerable examples of women proving they can be cops and soldiers has not seemed to have done much. It was just this January that the US Armed Forces finally began to allow women to serve in combat (though they have been for years unofficially) and police forces, most notably the Royal Canadian Mounted Police still face many complaints of bullying female members.

And it is unlikely that this picture of a courageous female police officer in action will do much to change still stagnant social attitudes. But considering an unknown enemy didn't even make this woman cop so much as hesitate, certainly a known enemy for all women like sexual discrimination will eventually be shown to have never stood a chance.