If I could be partisan for a moment...

Trying to be objective (or at least non-partisan) in my writing about politics this term has led me to some interesting discoveries.

For one, no matter how appalling the government's treatment of Afghan detainees, or Canadian citizens abroad, or the Canadian public's intellect, may seem at any one moment, these charges will slide off the government like so much Teflon within a few weeks (at the most). They might be - and in my opinion, are - legitimate grievances, but there are simply too many of them, and the opposition transitions from one to the next so quickly, to create any sort of public stir.

Contrast this to Ontario's provincial government, where the opposition seems to have a one-note tune with the HST. While the HST is good policy which many assume PC leader Tim Hudak would even support if he viewed it through conservative (rather than Conservative) eyes, the Ontario opposition has been enormously effective at mobilizing public support in opposition to the HST.

A tax change that will save the majority of Ontarians money overall is meeting vocal opposition, but a government that is quite transparently doing nothing but looking out for itself (and, when necessary, its supporters) raises barely a peep.

Funny, that.

I don't know if the problem is that the Conservatives are too good at spinning their message or that the opposition isn't good enough at spinning theirs. In either case, it's a horrible reason - politics have become more about managing public opinion than about any actual governance.

Journalists aren't helping. If a newspaper reporter interviews a Liberal about something, he is pressured into interviewing a Conservative for 'balance'. Could you imagine this applying to any other type of journalism? "I'm going to interview this executive from a company, but I'd better talk to an executive from their chief rival too." "It's not enough to talk to these people who had their house burn down, I'd better talk to some people who didn't have their house burn down."

Even worse is the acceptance and complicity of journalists who know they are being spun - it's okay to report political spin even if it didn't answer your question in the least. It's better than nothing. There have been a few instances of reporters fighting back and demanding that politicians actually answer the questions asked, but these show up rarely and don't make any tangible difference.

The political talk shows on CBC and CTV's cable news networks aren't any better - they're so afraid of being accused of bias that they have panels of an MP from each major party, a Senator from each major party, a strategist from each major party. These panels are more theatre than journalism - everybody involved and everybody watching knows that nothing will come out other than the party lines, but they do them anyhow.

And to those who say 'the people are too smart to fall for spin'? They're not. I've been following the current CRTC hearings related to the relationship between TV networks and cable service providers for another class. The CRTC recently opened up a website to solicit public opinion on the matter.

The result is extremely disappointing - form letters copied and pasted directly from the pages of the interested parties, and people whose understanding of the issue seems to be solely either the 'Stop the TV Tax' commercial or the 'Local TV Matters' commercial (whichever they saw first) - neither of which, of course, are about public good or anything other than making more money for the people behind them.

I have my doubts that the CRTC will even bother to sift through all the spin to find the handful of insightful, worthwhile, intelligent comments. Won't be much longer until politics goes the same way.

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So what's next for this blog? My class requirements are done - with one extra post because this and a couple of others have skirted the bounds of what I was supposed to be doing. Also finished is my latest "hey guys, here's the music I'm listening to aren't I all hipster and awesome?!?" series.

The blog will probably slow down over Christmas, as it always does. Maybe worse, because The Sputnik is my first priority this year. Plus Dan has a job now, so he'll be posting even less than usual.

But we'll carry on, with a mix of news commentary, pop culture analysis, and cool/bizarre things we found on the Internet.

In that spirit, this lady is painting herself having sex with every American president, chronologically. (Not safe for work, obviously.)

--Ryan

Enough about me, let's talk about you

(This was the most interesting GIS result I found for 'interactivity'. It's not the type of interactivity I meant, but it'll do.)

Why do I blog?

I've touched on this before, of course. I like to write, and I have an interest in writing about current events - thus, a blog would seem to be the best outlet for combining both activities. And it is.

But more to the point, I'm interested in hearing from people who either agree or disagree with me. That's why I have comments open (and unmoderated if on a post from within the past two weeks, moderated past that only so I can track new comments on old posts). That's why I link to this blog from pretty much any profile I have anywhere on the Internet (for the first year or so, it was even my MSN status message).

Not everybody follows this line of thinking though. Some people in my class have turned comments off completely, and others leave them on but try to avoid seeking them. Their reasoning is that they're not sure they would respond well to negative feedback - either they're not emotionally able to handle it or they're not going to be able to rebut.

I understand their feelings to a degree. Especially because they were forced to blog - they wouldn't have done it on their own, and they're not going to keep it up once the semester ends. However...it's a journalism class. They're all journalism students. Presumably this means they want to be journalists. And maybe I'm wrong in my thinking, but it's my understanding that working journalists will get feedback from people they've never met. Usually negative feedback - strangers are more likely to tell you you're doing something wrong than you're doing something right.

So if they can't handle negative feedback from complete strangers now, what makes them want to pursue a career where they're virtually guaranteed it in the future?

There's also the matter of people - and I'm not sure our class had any of these - who disable comments because they want you to know what they think, but they don't particularly care what you think. People who would rather have their opinions be thought of as fact than have any sort of debate. This is possibly the biggest turn-off I ever see in a blog - and I wonder if there's something to the fact that most of the time I see it, it comes from people with a political ideology somewhere to the right of mine.

I've generally been pretty lucky with the feedback I've received on this blog. Most of it comes from friends, fellow bloggers, and assorted other people I already know. These people read almost everything, comment on only what interests them, and are always respectful and (aside from one devout supporter of Ughur freedom) leave political biases aside.

Aside from that, there's a smaller group of commenters who are dedicated to a particular issue (the concept of micro-news comes into play here, I guess), and only visit my blog as often as I talk about that issue. For example, the person who commended me for pointing out that Maple Leaf and Maple Lodge are not the same company, even though they sound similar and even grocery store workers (like I was at the time) can get them confused.

Finally, we come to what everybody is afraid of: the malicious comments tearing apart everything you say. I can only recall one instance of this happening to me, and it's a recent one - the maliciousness blunted quite severely by the fact the attack came from the Esperanto lobby of all people.

It's very hard to take organized attacks on your blog seriously, because to me it means that provoking that attack means you're doing something right. If what you say causes an entire group to respond, especially if the responses all seem to be along the same lines, they're probably doing it because something you said is not in the best interests of their group.

*insert segue here*

I've always felt like the intelligence (and quality) of feedback was inversely proportional to the reputation and popularity of who was receiving it. I'm far from the first person to independently come to the conclusion that Youtube comments are the lowest form of Internet-based discourse, but there's definitely a ring of truth to it. Youtube is immensely popular - at this moment, Alexa ranks it as the fourth-most-visited site on the Internet - and so the people who comment on Youtube videos are those who don't have anywhere better to offer their opinions. I suspect that most of the 'stupid Youtube commenters' are nine-year-olds who really are doing exactly what you'd expect of a nine-year-old. Most of these people may have migrated from AOL.

Then you come to the obvious legitimate news sites - the Globe and Mail, TSN, CBC, et cetera. These are a step up from Youtube in the sense that people commenting on stories at these sites are at least a little bit engaged with the news, able to string together coherent sentences, and understanding that these are reputable websites. However, whatever they type into the comment box is exactly the same as what they would say to the newspaper or the television set had they seen the story on those media - still not exactly well-thought-out, and certainly not about to engage in anybody in serious debate.

Finally, blogs. Nobody just happens to stumble upon a blog. Nobody kills time by going to an unknown blog the way they do going to CBC.ca. If you're reading a blog, it's because you're already interested in what is being said, and who is saying it. If you're commenting on a blog - and I'm talking about a real standalone blog here, not a 'blog' written by a Toronto Star reporter for the Toronto Star's website - it's because you're interested in the topic, want to make your own thoughts known, and are interested in having a debate.

In that sense, blogs are the best form of journalism when it comes to fostering public debate, ergo blogs are the most democratic form of journalism.

--Ryan

Google me this

Despite this being another JN229 post, it has nothing to do with politics. Instead, I complain about our understanding of technology.

For an assignment in another class, I had to cover a Brantford city council meeting. One of the items discussed was a proposed extension of Old Park Road on the outskirts of the city's west end.

To get a better understanding of just what would have to be uprooted for this road to come into place, I used Google Maps to take a look at the area. Particularly, I was interested in what a local imam said about the road possibly going over a cemetery. Here's what Google Maps had to say:


Pretty simple, right? Oak Park Road carries on a little past the end of civilization as we know it at Hardy Street, and then you get a dead end.

Except that's not what happens. Switch to satellite view, and you get this:


There's other roads there. Some of them may be dirt (further zooming is mostly inconclusive although a couple are definitely paved). There's even a bridge over the Grand River.

Then I had the thought: I've seen this before. Google doesn't seem to add new roads to their maps - so since the satellite photos were added after Google Maps debuted, the satellite maps will show roads that the regular maps don't. Likewise, Street View will (where applicable) show even newer additions to the infrastructure.

One question jumps to mind right away. If 9/11 were to happen today, how long would it taken before the World Trade Center wasn't part of Google Maps? Google Satellite Maps? Google Street View? It's not like they update these things often.

I'm not suggesting that this is a glaring error on Google's part - at least not yet. After all, would you be able to stay on top of every new road and building that goes up around the world?

Down the road it could be more of a problem if my hunch is correct and the original Google Maps is never updated - at least a problem for Google, as they'd likely lose market share to more up-to-date maps. In this sense, the in-car GPS manufacturers' tendency to release an updated data pack every year or two is less money-grabbing than it is providing a useful service.

But there are two things that jump out at me. For one, it suggests that Google has a tendency to work on one of their services, get it as close to perfection as possible, and then abandon it when they have something new to play with (i.e. satellite photos). Considering Google's public reputation for being objective and infallible, this is a major blemish on their record. (Heck, the alleged objectivity of Google could be a nice blog post on its own if I were feeling a little more motivated tonight.)

Also, it leads me to think of Google Maps as less "this is the world, this is how the world is" and more "this is how the world was a few years ago" - but in a good way. Google can essentially act as historical cartographers for the entire planet, keeping archived maps of the entire world that would be tremendously useful for future researchers to see the evolution of cities.

Whether Google can be trusted with all that power is an entirely different debate - but it's not like we aren't already trusting them with far more.

--Ryan

On celebrity

Sarah Palin is back in the news thanks to the impending release of her book and a recent appearance on Oprah Winfrey's show.

The main effect of all this seems to have been for journalists to write about the renewed possibility of Palin running for - and maybe winning - the American presidency in 2012. (My favourite line, and I've seen it in too many places to attribute it to just one person, is that this is what the Mayans were expecting.)

President Palin, the conventional logic goes, would be a disaster. A combination of celebrity and neo-con, she would be able to enacted a Bush-like agenda with far more support because of her Clinton-like folksy charm.

In reality, I'm not so convinced that a Sarah Palin presidency would spell the end of Western civilization, or even the more realistic option of an increasingly laughable America.

American presidents do not really have all that much power - look at how far Obama has had to stray to the right to accomplish even a tiny fraction of what he'd like to. Why would Sarah Palin be any different? Wouldn't Congress still be able to impose its will on her orders?

More importantly, Sarah Palin is not a hard ideologue like Bush Sr. or Obama or even Jimmy Carter - she is perhaps the most malleable politician we've ever seen. If anybody can convince her that something is a good idea - and it seems pretty easy to do just that, Palin must be either incapable of or unwilling to engage in any sort of critical thought - she will back that idea until her dying breath.

I don't think she realizes how stupid some of the things she says will seem. I think she honestly believes that she is doing what's best for America. In that sense, at least, she has the right motivation.

The problems arise if she chooses to surround herself with people who might be less scrupulous, less willing to suggest policies which are good for the country, and more willing to suggest policies that are good for the people suggesting them - which, given that this is the GOP we're talking about, seems like a foregone conclusion.

It's okay to want to be president for the ego boost - didn't Obama spend the first month of his reign inviting different musicians and celebrities to the White House? What's worrying is when you're so caught up in the celebrity of the presidency that the business of governing the country comes second (or third, or fourth, or...). Especially if the people you delegate it to aren't the right people for such a task. That's why I'm terrified of Sarah Palin.

-----------------

Speaking of celebrity (how's that for a forced segue?), it was one of the thousand or so topics that came up in class today. Basically, the argument was that the primary purpose of blogs is not to provide journalism - bloggers don't actually care about reporting the news on their blogs, they're just hoping to get noticed and become (on some level) celebrities.

At first, I disagreed with this idea. Specifically, I thought of this blog - I've never considered it a celebrity-making endeavour. It's a place for me to hone my writing and analytical skills. If people happen to enjoy reading my random brain droppings, great - that's why it's open to the public. But it's not like I go out of my way to court an audience.

Well, that last bit isn't exactly true. Or true at all, really. Case in point: tomorrow's issue of The Sputnik has a little plug for this blog.

I could take the easy way out and claim that it doesn't really count as seeking publicity when it wasn't my idea. But when it was suggested to me, I still said yes. And beyond that, I've put stuff up on Twitter in the past if I've been particularly proud of it.

There is literally nothing that would attract people to this place over any of the million other blogs out there, aside from a personal connection with me. Bad nursery rhymes, links to websites people already know about, and mildly amusing personal anecdotes aren't exactly high-quality material.

And yet, I publish our URL in the school paper, in the hopes that it'll attract another reader to my bizarre and often incomprehensible writings. (Which would give us a grand total of, what, maybe three?)

So I guess somewhere, deep down, I do want to be a celebrity, no matter how much I may deny it on the surface.

Just don't put me anywhere near TMZ.

--Ryan

(P.S. To our new third reader, I'm not always this introspective. Nor this cynical. Honest.)

They're creepy and they're kooky; the Royal Family

Last night, I turned into The National - like most who've made their opinions known, I'm not a fan of the new format - to see what the At Issue gang would be talking about. I did so more begrudgingly than usual - I was expecting more talk about how Ignatieff isn't connecting with the public, or how the government is either bungling or doing a perfect job of doling out H1N1 vaccinations, or maybe, if they were feeling particularly topical, talk about the new immigration booklet.

Instead? They talked about the Queen. And the royal family. And the governor-general. If any of them matter to Canadians. If any of them should matter questions.

And save for Andrew Coyne inexplicably referring to Prince Charles as 'Paul', it was a pretty good discussion. You can replay it here.

My thoughts? While we obviously need to have something to act as a check on the Prime Minister, I'm not sure that the Crown, in its current practice, is the best way of going about that.

Consider the current disconnect between the Canadian people and the royal family themselves - they're an ocean away, and every few years one of them comes over here for a visit. Of course it's going to be hard for Canadians to accept that these people have actual power over us - they're never here, how could they possibly know what's best for Canada!

Coyne proposed an off-the-wall suggestion to this problem - bring over Prince Harry (or whomever), call him King Harry, and have him start up a new branch of the dynasty, one with strong Canadian roots. Although I don't think he ever explicitly states it, I assume Coyne means that the Governor-General position would thus be abolished.

I can't be in favour of that. Britain is currently mulling over the monarchy in their own way - the biggest argument being that one family, accustomed to privilege, should maybe not be the ultimate rulers of the United Kingdom. Regardless of whether that argument is right or wrong, why transplant it over here when we have the opportunity to do something better? And do we really want to bring in our own version of the tabloid culture that surrounds the family in Britain?

My suggestion is a simple one: change the process of who picks the governor-general. Right now, it seems like the trendy thing to do is to pick a GG who falls into an ethnic minority because if we ever get accused of only letting old white guys into our political elite we can just go 'nuh-uh!' and point at the GG.

The problem with this is that the people who become governor-general are not people who have any particular qualification to be our country's ultimate ruler - either political or popular. So when something like last winter's parliamentary crisis comes along, people are left with doubts that the GG either understands their duty or will ultimately make the right decision.

Solution: get better governors-general. Jean Beliveau. Rick Hansen. Romeo Dallaire. People who have the respect of the public and embody the Canadian spirit. People with no known political affiliations. People who have such a mythical aura about them that Canadians would unflinchingly accept that, in a time of crisis, these people will know what to do.

The appointment process is also a bit of a tricky issue - as long as the Prime Minister is the de facto selector, there will always be an element of politicization in the GG position. My first thought was that maybe the Supreme Court should become the torch-bearers for this, in a sudden burst of relevance. But this time, I have to defer to Coyne - have the highest-level members of the Order of Canada select the GG, who because of the criteria I outlined above will likely be among their ranks already, in a similar fashion to how the College of Cardinals selects new popes.

Nothing else would change. The GG would still be required, by convention, to follow the PM's advice in all but the most dubious of times, and the British Crown, again by convention, would follow the GG's advice essentially always.

Is it likely to happen? Probably not. The amount of work it takes to change even one word in the constitution is likely to scare off any politicians from trying these changes, and our propensity for minority governments means that we're unlikely to see any PM with a mandate to make this sort of change for a long time anyhow.

But it's a nice thought.

--Ryan

Swine flu doesn't kill people; guns kill people

I know I've been neglecting this place yet again. It's been a combination of "I need to keep writing about politics for class so I want my next entry to be political" and "there's nothing interesting going on in politics".

(Dan's excuse, if you were wondering, is that his new netbook makes him blind.)

One thing I'd considered writing about was MPs' pay - every so often, you hear about how politicians could use a raise, but won't suggest it for fear of public backlash. Brantford city councillors, for example, are only classified as part-time and some need second jobs to supplement their income.

Then I decided to do some simple fact-checking - and it turns out that Canadian and Ontarian politicians are paid very well indeed. My suggestion would have been to introduce legislation tying MPs' pay to the national average - but something tells me that it'd be hard to convince even a single MP to go along with that.

So salaries were out. But then, seemingly out of the blue, another issue crept up and grabbed my attention - the gun registry.

Within the span of a few days, we went from Conservatives making noise about reopening the debate on gun control to a vote that the Toronto Star claims will "in principle kill the gun registry".

Before this issue came to the forefront, my understanding of the registry was pretty rudimentary, and limited to what the popular narrative seems to be - a great idea in principle, but ridiculously expensive to maintain and overall a failure.

As it turns out - and John Geddes over at Macleans has been doing an excellent job explaining this - police find the registry extremely useful. If they're responding to a call, it tells them if there is likely to be a gun involved.

It might not be stopping the flow of illegal guns. It might not be stopping gun crime dead in its tracks. But if it's helping the police do their jobs, it seems to me like it must be doing something right.

And it's not like registering your gun means you're not allowed to use it - even the most ardent supporters of firearms would admit that they can be used to kill people, and so why not maybe let the government know you have a gun in case it ever falls into the wrong hands?

More to come later. Stuff that's a little more fun.

--Ryan

On objectivity

Last week in class, I had to give a presentation on this blog.

At the end was some time for questions and answers, and somebody asked me if I consider my political reporting in this blog - since that's what the presentation was on - to be objective.

My reply was that unlike most political blogs, I do consider my political commentary (at least the stuff I've done for class thus far) to be unbiased, mainly because it deals with issues that go beyond the boundaries of partisan politics.

However, on further reflection, I find it extremely difficult to honestly consider this blog objective.

A better term might be 'bipartisan' (or, in the Canadian context, 'tripartisan'). While I might not be ripping into the Liberals or Conservatives for whatever manufactured scandal is all the rage this week, my "everybody can agree on this" solutions pretty much stop at the three major parties. Leaders being far too powerful in the Canadian system, for example, is not an opinion with which anyone advocating a dictatorship would agree. When I suggest that a strong, united Canada is a good thing, I'm sure the Bloc Quebecois would think otherwise. And so on.

It might not be impossible for a journalist to be truly objective and unbiased, but it's definitely difficult. One example a professor has used a few times - and this is the one that finally got me clued in to what he was talking about - is the example of "profits are good, and more profits are better". If we see a business story about Company X making $10 million for its shareholders, and right beside it Company Y making $15 million for its investors, we'll think Company Y is the healthier (or stronger or better) company. In reality, maybe Company X had an operating profit of $20 million, but decided to reinvest it into the company, while Company Y passed on all of its profits. A company making a profit is really only good for people with a stake in that company - there are other things they could do with that money, many would argue, that would be preferable.

Today in class, we discussed Wikinews - it tries to present all news from a 'neutral point of view', so what does that mean for objectivity? According to Wikinews itself, even this website - with its legions of writers and editors cross-examining anything that might contain the slightest bit of bias - cannot be fully objective. One of its most prominent failings is that it reflects the culture it comes from - just because news might seem objective to an Anglo-American audience, doesn't mean it will to somebody reading it in China or Somalia, and if these two people disagree, it obviously cannot truly be objective.

(Of course, it is only the English-language Wikinews that has an Anglo-American slant; I would assume that each Wikinews is slightly and unintentionally biased towards the worldview of those who speak that language.)

There is a bigger question, though, and that question is as follows: Does it even matter if journalists are not unbiased? Or at the very least, if their biases are the same as those of the society in which they live/work?

My opinion, ill-informed as it may be, leans to the negative. Historically, journalists have been described off and on as "mirrors of society" - a description which I think fits quite nicely. Journalists are not historians, and should not be counted on to explain exactly what is happening - especially considering that during the most historically important moments (I'm thinking 9/11 here), journalists, much like the rest of us, don't know exactly what is happening.

The better function for journalists, in my opinion, is to reflect their society. This serves two purposes. For one, it provides an easy method for outsiders to learn the ins and outs of a culture they are unfamiliar with it. For two, it's more likely to resonate with the culture in question - people tend to read what they agree with, and even if we were to somehow find a true globally objective viewpoint to every story, entire cultures would disagree with this view, and the end result would be akin to a communist watching FOX News.

It's sort of like Esperanto, the poorly-conceived and short-lived attempt at a global language - the problem wasn't that people don't like learning new languages, it was that different regions and cultures are so distinct that it is impossible to treat them in the same way and expect a favourable reaction.

Are journalists objective? Not even close. Can they be? It's difficult, but it's possible. Should they be? I don't think so.

--Ryan

The most popular man in the world

As part of following politics for this blog and my class, it's been recommended that I use Google News to figure out what people are talking about in the realm of Canadian politics. I haven't been doing this - I consume enough news elsewhere to know what the big stories are, and I'm trying my best to avoid the big ones anyhow - but that's not to say Google News doesn't have its uses.

This morning, I ran a search through Google News for the names of all major party leaders, and certain other well-known Canadian politicians. My goal was to see who gets talked about, and who doesn't. Going by essentially every news article from the past week, here are the standings:

6552 - Stephen Harper
2070 - Michael Ignatieff
866 - Lawrence Cannon
854 - Peter Mackay
588 - Jim Flaherty
534 - Jack Layton
523 - John Baird
444 - Jean Chrétien
319 - Bob Rae
253 - Stephane Dion
190 - Gilles Duceppe
171 - Brian Mulroney
171 - Gary Goodyear
149 - John McCallum
143 - Thomas Mulcair
71 - Elizabeth May

It's no surprise to see so many Conservatives near the top - and as partisan as I am, you're sure not going to see me complain about a conservative bias in the media or anything like that. The Conservatives are the ones in power, they're the ones making the announcements and handing out the (ethically-ambiguous) giant cheques. Of course it's the government who will get the lion's share of the press coverage, that's how the system works. No complaints here.

What's a little more jarring is the gap between the party leaders and everybody else. Stephen Harper gets nearly eight times the coverage of his top minister, and Ignatieff gets his name in the paper more than six times as often as any other active Liberal. (Chrétien is an aberration, because he was in the news this week for being named to the Order of Merit.)

(Incidentally, look at the URL to that last link - anybody else find it funny that 'eacute' seems to be Toronto Star shorthand for 'é'?)

It makes some sense with Harper, because he - or at least the media narrative of him, although it seems to have a good deal of basis in fact - likes to centralize power with himself, and doesn't like anybody else (even in his caucus) shining too brightly.

But Ignatieff? The Liberals have tried, both in the 2008 campaign and since, to emphasize that they are a team, yet here's their leader getting far more media coverage than anybody else on the team. It's not because he's a star - plenty of journalists like to criticize him for not having enough of a personality.

Instead, the problem is with this perception among the media that the leader is all that matters - a problem that many have claimed will in fact cause the leader to become all that matters. Right now, Canadian MPs are expected to vote however they are told to vote, and say whatever they are told to say. Nothing else, and certainly nothing that might look bad on their party. Andrew Coyne and others have claimed that this is, on the whole, bad for Canadian democracy - MPs who represent their leader to their constituents, rather than the other way around.

I think the media is part of the problem. If the media were to focus less on the party leaders - since, ultimately, don't they just have one vote out of many? - it might lead to less of a star factor among the leaders, a greater role for backbenchers, and ultimately a healthier democracy for Canada.

But maybe I'm just a pie-in-the-sky idealist.

--Ryan

The one and only Stephen Harper

I didn't want my next post to be about politics. Really, I didn't. But this is just far, far too good to pass up.



For years, Canadians have wondered what it would take Stephen Harper to show a personality. Suggestions included everything from 'a majority government' to 'it'll never happen'. Apparently, the correct answer was 'Yo-Yo Ma'.

I've mentioned before that I'm not a big fan of our Prime Minister. I - and many others - find him to be cold, calculating, manipulative, and seemingly interested in nothing other than power, which he then uses to do nothing except...get more power.

Apparently we're wrong. Which brings up a glaring question - why? Why would Stephen Harper choose to hide the fact that he can, in fact, have fun?

It is a choice, by the way. During the last election campaign, when the Conservatives ran ads depicting Harper, clad in a smile and a sweatervest, talking about his family and his life outside politics, it was seen as nothing but an attempt to humanize the PM, make him more appealing to centrist voters. In all the coverage I saw of those commercials, not once did I see the suggestion that *that* was the real Stephen Harper, and the 'master strategist' was the fake personality.

But I'm starting to think that's the case. A few weeks ago, Harper was at a photo op (as is his wont). Noticing an unattended piano, the PM shocked the media by covering the Rolling Stones. Combine that with the joyful expression on his face in the video above, and it's clear that Stephen Harper does have a passion for music.

Against his current crop of opponents, that's fine - personality isn't anyone's strong suit, so Harper can come across as the best of a poor choice. But Canadians tend to respond well to politicians who show themselves to be a little something more than an empty shell. Jean Chretien was a regular guest on Royal Canadian Air Farce, Brian Mulroney told Peter C. Newman to do something anatomically impossible, and just about everybody lip-synced to Trooper.

Stephen Harper should follow their example. It's okay to laugh at yourself. Especially if you're a politican

--Ryan

Hypocrites anonymous

On the surface, things are pretty easy to figure out in Ottawa these days. The Liberals have lost confidence in the government and want to send Canadians to the polls; the NDP and Conservatives are working together because they'd rather help Canadians get employment insurance than have another election.

Of course, this is Ottawa - where nothing ever is as it seems. In today's Globe & Mail, Jeff Simpson argues that despite the posturing, it's the Conservatives who want an election and the Liberals who don't. Over at Macleans, Paul Wells points out that this would be pretty much the best time, strategically, for the NDP to want an election.

The biggest problem with all of this? Nobody seems to see anything wrong with it. It has become acceptable, perhaps even expected, for our elected officials to outright lie about their motives for the sake of political posturing.

What's the cause of all this? I don't know. Perhaps it's the media's fault - there seems to be a sense among Parliament Hill television shows that you just can't go a full hour without having a panel of party strategists, who are understandably less concerned with policy or governance than with appearances. I've seen suggestions that Parliament is a mirror of the Prime Minister, in which case it's all Stephen Harper's fault (although to be fair, could you see Jack Layton or the political version of Michael Ignatieff being any different in this respect? Me neither.). Maybe it's reciprocity - the public doesn't care about Ottawa, so Ottawa's decided to stop caring about the public.

I don't know what's causing this ridiculous Parliamentary situation. But smarter people have tried to explain it, and provide solutions. Last week, CPAC aired a two-hour special debate on "is Canada's democracy broken?" - and since the panelists more or less agreed that it was within five minutes, the bulk of the time was spent on "how do you fix it?". Panelists included, among others, John Ralston Saul and former NDP leader Ed Broadbent. Video of this debate can be found here.

I'm not getting my hopes up that the current political culture will change anytime soon. It'd be nice, though.

--Ryan

Don't go into politics; you'll end up dead

You might notice me talk about Canadian politics a lot over the next few months. Not like I don't already talk lots about Canadian politics, but there's another reason for it this time.

For one of my courses this term, each student has to keep up a blog (minimum ten entries) on a news issue of their choice. It is permissible to use an existing blog, as long as there's some way of setting the class-related posts apart from the rest (hence the 'JN229' tag at the bottom). So that's why I'll be talking more about Canadian federal politics - and most likely the constantly-on-the-brink-of-an-election gamesmanship as opposed to anything, well, substantive.

Let's get to it.

We'll start off with the big story from Ottawa this past week - at least the big one that doesn't involve Aboriginals and body bags - Stephen Harper and his Conservative government being propped up by socialists and separatists, which is particularly amusing considering how that term first entered the political lexicon.

What surprises me the most about this? At least two parties (haven't heard it from the Bloc, but that doesn't mean they haven't said it) and the vast majority of political pundits have decreed that nobody wants an election. The same pundits will mention that while the NDP might lose some credibility for supporting the government when they were boasting up until very recently about how they'd never supported the Conservatives, but conclude that overall this is a positive step for Canada and for Canadians, seeing as, once again, Canadians don't want an election, thus anything that could avoid one must be a positive.

Yet these pundits will, in the same breath, as CBC's At Issue panel did this week, claim that Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals are the big winners in all of this. Why? Because now they can 'act like a real opposition' and vote against the government every chance they get.

So let me get this straight. Canadians don't want an election, and political parties should be doing everything they can to avoid one. Yet the big winners of the past week are the party which refuses to support the government on anything...which would, you know, cause an election?

I mean, I always knew that Canadian politics were weird. I just thought that, even in their weirdness, they made some sort of sense. Guess not.

Should be an interesting twelve weeks, anyhow.

--Ryan