And the winner is...

Dan Arnold, the Calgary Grit himself, has won the 2011 gaffe pool, with an entry of CPC 16 / LPC 8 / NDP 8 / BQ 2. Two remarkable things about this guess - hitting a record high score for the Conservatives on the nose, and forecasting a reasonably low-gaffe election generally. At just eleven points from correct, it appears I'll be making another donation to a Liberal candidate come 2015.

Edited to add the final scores of the parties, because it's time to take the picture from the top of the page.

Dear economists:

If Harper's so fking good for the market, why is the TSX down 180 points in 90 minutes?

Edited to add: 242.14 at close. I'm not saying this is all, or even partly, caused by Conservative majority government. But I guarantee that had there been any other election result, the business media would be talking about the effect of uncertainty (or of socialism) on the market.

Moods

I guess I should be relieved that the Prime Minister no longer needs to tear up the constitution to rule like a dictator.

I suppose I should be thrilled about the historic NDP breakthrough.

I know I'm supposed to be happy that the BQ has essentially disappeared from the political map.

I feel I should be happy that Stephen Harper is going to be holding the bag when Vancouver's housing market takes much of Canada's housing market, and eventually consumer spending, down with it. When interest rates expose the problem of unsustainable consumer debt, no one will be able to blame socialism for the problem, and that can't be bad, right?

But I'm not happy, for a single clear reason: Stephen Harper is not going to be less dangerous with more power. The next few years are going to be about watching this man like a hawk.

I suppose I'm supposed to be saying something about "the people have spoken, blahdy-blahdy-blah." But I'm not the leader of a political party, I'm not a representative of a political party, and I'm not a member of the paid media. So I can just say it - what a terrible mistake for Canada.

Smear

It looks increasingly like Sun Media's Layton smear (I couldn't be bothered to link it) has backfired, so that makes for one essential ingredient of a gaffe. The other requires a source from a political party, and I think the chance of that is near zero, because I think this was probably Sun Media on their own. So, congratulations, Ezra Levant, on finally collecting some payback from Stephen Harper for his callous treatment of you in Calgary Southwest way back when. I'd like to believe the entire Western Standard / Sun News Network right-wing media nonsense has been part of your plan for this moment, when you could take something from Stephen Harper that he wanted as badly as you wanted that seat. Revenge is a dish best served with a side of Mohammad cartoons, I hear.

Leader gaffe goes almost unnoticed

I don't know why it's so hard to find Layton's direct quote in his interview with Thomson Rueters, wherein he expressed an opinion about interest rates, leading to criticism from other parties and a mea culpa from Layton on Friday.

It's good that he took the step back. He's right, that interest rates are going to strangle a generation of debt-addicted Canadians, but that's at least partially the fault of the historically-low interest rate we've had in Canada since the recession started. Too many Canadians have purchased houses and increased other personal debt based on the affordability of the carrying cost, without considering what happens when rates reset to normal. But holding the rate low would extend the problem, and start to produce unsustainable inflation. It's the debt itself, not the interest rate, that's the real problem.

On the larger scale, governments can only take hold of so many levers of the economy at one time without breaking the entire machine.

I can be pretty forgiving of Layton for a while yet, because he did back away from involving himself in Bank of Canada decisions so quickly. He's never governed, and no one in the NDP has any institutional memory of governing federally, so there's no one to steer him away from this sort of mistake. If he ends up Prime Minister, he's going to have to put some extra trust in the civil service, particularly in the Department of Finance, until his cabinet gets some experience under their belt. I think he's smart enough to know this.

Nonetheless, it exposes a real weakness about the NDP, and the other parties have used Ralph Goodale and Jim Flaherty to stress the point. It's a gaffe, no matter how ignored the story is. Prom 3, Sig 1 = 3 for the NDP. Sig should be higher, but the media's eyes tend to glaze when there's math. It's kind of pathetic.

Thank goodness for alert readers

This one completely escaped my notice, and Google alerts. (I might need to tweak my search.) Cam Stewart, a Liberal candidate in Calgary, complains that his south Asian opponent has his workers intimidating and threatening opponents' volunteers - fair game to call that out - "like Indian Politian's" - whoops!

The press release came out following an altercation between South Asian CPC supporters who gathered to support their candidate at a nearby Pakistan Canada Association meeting, and what appears to be South Asian campaign workers at the Liberal candidate's campaign office. Here's more of the press release, as reported in the story:

Devinder Shory is running his campaign like Indian Politian's do, intimidating and threatening opponent candidate's volunteers and supporters. This behaviour is not acceptable in our civilized democracy.

Would I be wrong in saying that doesn't sound like the sentence construction and word choice, much less the spelling and apostrophe use, of someone who writes in English as a first language? I think it's possible Cam Stewart is covering for a campaign worker's mistake here.

Anyway, he took responsibility, and immediately apologised, and he's not going to be winning the seat anyway. 1x1 = one point for the LPC.

The West Wing election

Once again, the campaign is starting to have eerie parallels to the 2006 Presidential election. You know the one: Santos - Vinick.

Okay, maybe not a lot of parallels. But we did have the chickens. Now it turns out, the best opposition research is done by one's own people. Thanks, Tom Flanagan! Forget everything I said about you. Oh, except that thing where you called for the murder of Julian Assange. I stand by that being entirely dickish. But still! This makes up for it some!

Burying the lead

Pogge has expressed his frustration at the clear disparity between what Michael Ignatieff said to Peter Mansbridge, and how it was reported. Now let me express my concern that Stephen Harper's interview is being likewise misrepresented:

Here's the headline:

Harper vows not to form government without most seats

And here is my transcription of the key part:

Peter Mansbridge: What if the situation was reversed, and Mr. Ignatieff or Mr. Layton was in first place....
Stephen Harper: Right.
Mansbridge: ... with the most seats...
Harper: They will form the government.
Mansbridge: They will form the government.
Harper: Yes.
Mansbridge: And they...
Harper: Now, I shouldn't speculate that, because I'm – we’re in this to win, and I think we're going to win. But that's, that's…
Mansbridge: I appreciate that, but you've raised the issue of the hypothetical situation, so...
Harper: Yeah.
Mansbridge: ... that's one as well. Whoever, whichever of those two parties does not gain the confidence of the House. The Governor-General comes to you, because that's the way it has to happen, and says "Mr. Harper, second-place party, the first place party couldn't achieve the confidence of the House. I’d like you to try"
Harper: Well, look, I think if the other guys win, they get a shot at government, and I don't think you challenge that unless you're prepared to go back to the people. And I think one of the reasons...
Mansbridge: So you would say no to that.
Harper: Yeah, because I think one of the reasons...
Mansbridge: You'd say to the Governor-General "No, I wouldn't do that."
Harper: (over Mansbridge) Yeah, absolutely. No, because I think, no, because I think one of the reasons, people don’t want another election. And that's another thing about this whole discussion...
Mansbridge: No, but that would be a way of preventing another election.
Harper: ... But Peter, these guys throwing up these scenarios, where govern... party may win, but we’re not going to let the government govern, we’ll be into another election before too long. That's why I think we need a majority mandate. I think this has gone on long enough. I think we’ve got a good record, so obviously we're appealing to the people to get behind us, and let's move the country forward. We have some pretty important economic challenges that remain in the world, in this country, and I don't think we can afford to continue to go around in circles like this, with any kind of minority.
Mansbridge: Alright, alright, I just want to be clear, because it is a different position than the one that you suggested in the letter that you wrote with Mr. Layton and Mr. Duceppe in 2004 about the Martin government, when you wrote the Governor-General suggesting there were other options, and one can assume that had to be the option you were talking about.
Harper: One doesn't assume that, because the option I was talking about, Peter, was that we try to influence the government's agenda, and if we want to defeat the government, we have to get our own mandate. I never suggested otherwise.
Mansbridge: Why do the two of them swear up and down that there was no question that what was on your mind was to become Prime Minister.
Harper: Why are they saying this now, instead of saying the opposite, they didn’t say this in '04. The reason, Peter, is because they're considering the option of combining with the Liberals to form a government without an election. That's why. That's why they changed their story.

So, the headline is strictly true, but not the most interesting thing here, I don't think. Let's parse this a little:

- The 2004 letter to the G-G. The reason Peter assumes the letter must be to request a shot at governing following a defeat is because there's no other practical reason to contact the G-G at that moment. Harper et al wrote a letter telling the G-G they are going to try to influence the government's agenda? "Good for you!" replies the G-G, "but what's this got to do with me?" "Oh, nothing," says Harper. Yes, that sounds like an entirely likely scenario.

- He implies earlier in the interview that he intends to introduce the same budget the government introduced before the government was defeated. He then says here that Canadians don't want another election. So, if the budget is immediately rejected by the other parties, representing the views of the pluralities that elected those members, either result - another party tries to gain the confidence of the house, or we go to another election - is antidemocratic. Therefore, the only democratic choice for opposition parties is to go along with what the government says. Neat!

- He thinks he can turn down a request from the Vice-Regal representative of Her Majesty. Stephen Harper is a republican, in the truest sense of the word. But we already knew that, didn't we, when he successfully pressured our last G-G to prorogue Parliament, in the face of the single guiding principle of a Westminster parliamentary system - the supremacy of the individual member. Stephen Harper either doesn't understand that, or doesn't approve of that, and Stephen Harper is a pretty smart guy, so one of those seems more likely than the other. There's your lead.

Don't you people know how to dog whistle?

A Conservative incumbent candidate from Saskatchewan thanks local anti-abortion groups for the signatures that helped defund Planned Parenthood International. Bring on the conversations about the hidden agenda!

My short read of Brad Trost's history seems to suggest he's one of the useful idiots the CPC likes to have around. They don't want to be seen as social conservatives, but they do want social conservatives to be motivated to vote Tory. And so, a fellow like this gets a long leash to complain about his own government's financial support of Toronto's Pride Week, for instance.

Anyway, I suspect he's been told by his party that there's a right time for talk like this, and that the writ period isn't it. A prom of one to a backbencher who will never be anything else, but a sig of two (or three? Discuss) for bringing hidden agenda talk to the fore.

What's going on?

Campaign teams, I count on you to screw up. A lot. Did you learn so much from the pre-debate tomfoolery that you've all straightened up your acts? What happened to our error-prone candidates?

Oh! They're hiding.

(h/t pogge)

Inevitability

Thank goodness I'm not scoring the Green Party, or we'd have to have some discussion about this jackass:

A Green Party candidate in British Columbia has resigned after concerns were raised about him posting a comment about rape on his Facebook page.

Alan Saldanha, who was running in the riding of Fleetwood—Port Kells, resigned Wednesday afternoon after it was revealed he posted, "If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it!" on his Facebook profile. The comment has since been taken down.

So, here's the thing. This probably isn't meant as literal advice, but as a metaphor - rape standing in for some terrible or at least unpleasant inevitability beyond one's control. The specifics of Saldanha's use here, I can't imagine - the story doesn't make it clear. Maybe Saldanha didn't specify. (Maybe he didn't get it as a metaphor either, which brings up other concerns about the candidate's competence.) But others who have used the same line have traditionally been more specific.

Don't get me wrong - it's a terrible metaphor. But the conversations are nonsense unless we admit that it is a metaphor.  The story describes the line as "... a comment about rape...".  Hey, remember when Ignatieff was attempting to say nothing about coalitions, and the media would talk about the elephant in the room?  Yes, I certainly enjoyed all those news articles about elephants.

I heard Newsworld anchor Carole MacNeil suggest candidates should consider sensitivity training before running, and perhaps that's true. But meanwhile, the media should take some courses in literary devices and comedy, because they seem completely deaf to both.

Edited to add: CBC reporter Kris Reyes did acknowledge the candidate's explanation a few minutes after noon MDT, but dismissively. My favourite part what when she explained that the candidate had been told it was a quote from Confucius "... but I hardly doubt that," she helpfully gaffes. I believe the candidate has confused the real historic figure and the old joke construction suggesting barroom wisdom of some sort, "Confucius say...". In fact, two minutes of Google searching turns this up:

22 July 1971, Winnipeg (Canada) Free Press, pg. 1, col. 6:
Winnipeg Police Chief Norman Stewart countered municipal opposition to one big Greater Winnipeg police force Wednesday with the flat statement that such a force is inevitable.
(...)
Quipped the chief:

“To them I say what Confucius said: ‘When rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.’”

So, in conclusion, I think the CBC should be better funded, so it can afford some fancy Googling contraptions.  Or something.

Set dressing

A Tory operative sends out a letter asking local ethnic organizations to bring members wearing "ethnic costumes" for tonight's event with the Prime Minister in Etobicoke. I might have let this slide, if the Conservatives hadn't already treated brown faces as props, rather than as voters. 1 x 1 = 1.

Edited to add, Friday morning: I underestimated the ire this was raising among ethnic voters. This dominated a news cycle that included post-debate analysis. SIG = 2, though I have no choice but to take the CPC at their word about who was responsible, so PROM remains 1. Going forward, the Tories may have to carry a "very ethnic" penalty for any perceived cultural insensitivity, because that's become a big part of this election narrative.

Twitter is the "no zone defense rule" of the gaffeometer.

Is the basketball reference too obscure? How about "Twitter is the removal of the red line"? Twitter makes scoring more likely, is what I'm saying right here.

Anyway, an attentive reader notes another Tory twitter dimwittery, this one from an Ontario incumbent. Stephen Woodworth insensitively uses the word "crippled" in the punchline of a joke, leading to much faux outrage and a faux apology, and then the deletion of the Twitter account. The joke was not funny, not because of the insensitive language but because it wasn't funny, so overall it seems like a big waste of ink (well, electrons) to me. If you want to see actual insensitivity married to actual comedy, may I suggest Gilbert Gottfried's recent twitter work?

Anyway, another 1 x 1 for the CPC.

Non-gaffe (so far)... edited to add, now a gaffe.

Montreal Conservative candidate Larry Smith says it's normal for government-held ridings to see more government largesse. "Normal" is interesting, but the rest, that it happens thusly, is objectively true, even if you aren't supposed to say it out loud. So we'll see if he backpedals, gaffing it up in the process.

Edited to add, Saturday morning: He hasn't apologised or changed his tune that I've seen, but Harper is contradicting him, thereby saying something objectively false. This one might turn into a score yet.

Edited to add, Monday morning: I rethought this over the weekend, and decided if the leader of your party has to contradict you, it's gaffish enough. 1 x 1 = 1.

Where's the gaffe?

Wednesday: "Look, I think when the other guys are complaining we're turning people away, and they can't get people, I think that tells you how this campaign is going, I want to get our message out to as many people as are interested in hearing it... I think it's better when you’re turning people away than when you can't get people to come out."

Thursday: "If anybody is kept out of any of our events that is there to hear our message, we obviously apologize to them."

Making people who are interested in attending the Tory Leader's tour events register was not a gaffe, it was a plan, so that doesn't score. Keeping out or removing anyone suspected of showing less than full-throated support for the Prime Minister was part of that same plan (the term "bubble boy" has begun to spread in the media), so that doesn't score either. But, in the face of criticism, Wednesday's lame attempt to pivot served only to give the story more oxygen. Prom 3 x Sig 2 = 6.

I leave Thursday's quote here as well, because to my way of thinking, this was no apology at all. There are very few in the media agreeing with me. Perhaps they understand this is as close as we'll ever get to hearing a real apology, so like an exhausted parent, reporters decide to say "close enough" and let it slide. I'm prepared to add more points if the narrative changes, but for now, it seems these words, letting a few unregistered students into last night's event, and releasing the platform this morning has finally ended this story. Total, six for the CPC.

Liberals on the board

John Reilly might be a star candidate in some ways - a prominent judge, published author, and expert in the field of restorative justice. But he's running in Wild Rose, where the Liberal Party hasn't cracked 15% in at least 25 years. Prom = 1

Reilly argued against mandatory minimum sentencing on Dave Rutherford's radio show, arguing that a charge like Sexual Assault covers a wide spectrum of actions, and that mandatory minimums take away a judge's opportunity to differentiate along that spectrum. Agree with this or not, this argument appears to me to be well within reasonable political discourse. Mark your calendars - Tom Flanagan and I agree.

But no - wait! The Conservatives pointed this out to the media, who dutifully went crazy, and both Reilly and Ignatieff apologised unreservedly, so now it's a gaffe. And the timing couldn't have been worse for the Liberals (and gosh, do you think this is why the Tories were scouring the hustings for anything that could be trotted out this way?), producing a story that would run side-by-side with Harper's non-apology for the rally vetting. The timing is what pushes this to a Sig = 2. Total, 2 points.

Scorecard now, explanations in the morning.

Decisions have been made, but I'll spare you the details until coffee is involved. Cons 10, Grit 2, Bloc 3, NDP's shutout continues. They must have with Luongo in goal.

LOOOUUUUU!!!!!!!

But does he have any promises for the 41st Parliament?

Stephen Harper promises another tax break, this one an extension of TFSAs, to be applied just as soon as the budget is balanced. Of course, even by the government's own budget projections, that won't happen until 2016, by which time even Harper's wished-for majority is going to have to call an election.  I suppose that's unless that government has suspended elections, in order to protect us from the anti-democratic possibility of a coalition.

It's worth remembering also that the Conservatives reduced corporate taxes last year, making it harder to balance the budget. I'm sure they were relieved to find out that they didn't have to wait for a balanced budget to get their cut.

On a gaffe-ier note, the Prime Minister mumbled his way through a not-apology ("If anyone was removed from a meeting who was there to listen, behave, and cheer wildly at each pronouncement, then I'd feel kinda bad about that..." I don't have the precise quote, but it was mealy-mouthed) for the rally ejections, and I'm definitely scoring something for the whole debacle. Tonight I'll attempt some precision.

Score?

I heard it on the radio this morning, but I can't find a link, and no one seems to have noticed or cared, so my initial instinct to score this was perhaps wrong.

I'm talking about Harper joking about vetting rally attendees, saying it was better to have to turn people away than it is to have to beg people to come. Really? How are people not pointing at this as evidence of the Prime Minister's arrogance?

Comments encouraged.

Edited to add: found a link, anyway.

Preemption

Dated racist mutterings or memberships, even discovered during the writ period, is not a gaffe in the current campaign.

Dear Bill Mah, Edmonton Journal:

Here's some other stories you could do:

Salespeople at Goldline say it's a fantastic time to invest in precious metals.

A car salesman at a car show says it's an exciting time to be a car buyer.

Here's someone in the business of selling private islands. He gives tips to help you determine if a private island is right for your portfolio. (Spoiler alert - it is!) The story is a bit outdated, but certainly as of October of 2009 there was never a better time to buy a private island. You know, you should give Chris Krolow a call, because I bet he'd confirm there's still no better time to buy a private island.

Look. I'm not saying Real Estate will go up, I'm not saying it will go down. I'm just saying that writing a real estate projections story, using only the predictions of someone who makes his living convincing people to buy real estate, is just short of churnalism.

Mock the vote

The CBC reports on young people who won't cast ballots opening with the following:

University of Toronto linguistics student Filip Tisma voted in the last federal election, but has no intention of casting a ballot this time.

"I'd rather just not vote and send a message that way that I'm unpleased with how the voting system is turning out in this country," said Tisma, 22.

Bad news, Filip - the few people who notice you missing from the polls on May 2 will assume you're just another disengaged twenty-something among legion. Political parties will continue to prefer the issues of concern to older voters, safe in the knowledge that post-secondary funding and addressing youth unemployment are not vote winners. The more Filips out there who are not casting ballots, the more the choice falls to people like me - married white men in our forties and in comfortable financial circumstances. More power to me! Nuts and gum, together at last!

(Filip seems to be complaining about the system - the constituency-based first-past-the-post system. No doubt advocates of proportional representation will use the low turnout and quotes like this as evidence of the need for change. I'll save my own thoughts on that for another post, but in this case I think Filip might be making an excuse.)

Helping to discourage young voter engagement is the Conservative Party of Canada, screening event attendees for radical affiliations, like being a Liberal. I'm certain the Conservative Party will say that they're only trying to avoid hecklers, or people who would make a scene. And why not? That's for CPC MPs themselves to do.

I've been asked if kicking people out of their events is a gaffe by the Conservatives for scoring purposes. I think the only gaffe is that they got caught. It's unbelievably stupid, and I hope it continues to blow up in their faces, but keeping the crowds friendly through screening was premeditated as part of their communications strategy, and therefore not a gaffe.

FWIW, QOTD goes to Michael Ignatieff: "We are in a very bad place when you have got a prime minister who does a background check on his audience at a democratic crowd and doesn't seem to do a background check on the people he hires in his Prime Minister's Office, like Mr. Carson." FTW.

Thanks goodness for readers (Cons 4 BQ 3)

Another alert follower of the Gaffeometer has let me know about BQ incumbent Yvon Levesque's racist nonsense. Actually, he was only saying that his constituents are racist, but let's not split hairs:

Yvon Levesque, the incumbent MP for the riding of Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, had to apologize Friday after he said "certain voters won’t choose the NDP anymore because they are fielding a First Nations candidate."

Wow! That's pretty stupid, especially in a riding that contains much of Quebec's north. It's pretty stupid, from a party that represents themselves as left-wing, but appeals to a certain pure laine cohort whose Quebec nationalism doesn't include immigrants or Quebec's first peoples. It's pretty stupid.

Actually, I will split hairs. Levesque is probably right, in that some of his constituents are precisely the sorts of ethnic nationalists Mordecai Richler wrote about nearly twenty years ago. But unless the context of his remarks (which I haven't really found) was "They won't vote for the NDP candidate because he's Cree, and that's a terrible reason to vote against someone," it doesn't get a pass.

I'm uncertain how prominent Leveque is around Quebec, but he seems from here like a bit of an invisible backbencher, so I'm going to tentatively say (Prom)1 x (Sig)2 = 2 more for the BQ.

Leftover gaffes (Cons 4, BQ 1, Liberal and NDP no score)

This is the last time I'm going backward, I sincerely hope.

Commentors point out that I've ignored a couple more minor gaffes. First, right on day one a Conservative incumbent tweeted the name of the Liberal leader as "Igaffi". Then she apologised, again via tweet. Honest to God, if I start reading every candidate's Twitter feed to keep track of boneheadedness, then Dan will be proven wrong here - parties will only be able to dream they can hold a score to 33. 1x1 for Cheryl Gagaffey Gallant.

BQ candidates won't talk to Maclean's, except that they will. I'm not sure I can chalk this up to anything more than one staffperson, albeit one who is consistently identified as a "BQ spokesperson", feeling pissy that afternoon. But she does seem senior enough, and as I keep mentioning, apologies are usually deciders for me, and one was issued here. 1x1 for the BQ, already surpassing their 2008 blank card.

As for a French-language Liberal ad, which included an audience shot of a former NDP candidate and presumably current NDP supporter, they dropped her from the ad as soon as she objected. As far as I'm concerned, she was in the crowd, so the Liberal party can hardly be blamed for having her in crowd shots. As for their use of stock photos, so what? Common practice. No score.

Working backwards

I've been asked to pass judgement on a few more gaffes, some dating back to the opening weekend. Let's get to them:

Stephen Harper has some trouble putting on a pair of gloves. A Google News search for "Stephen Harper work gloves" produces the story I linked, and only that. This, plus a single tweet from one reporter, even repeated by Kinsella, does not a gaffe make. No score.

John McCallum discussed the Liberal plan to roll back the most recent corporate tax cut, acknowledging under direct question that "minor job loss" may occur. He went on to argue that there would be a net job gain as that tax money was redistributed toward the middle class who would create jobs by spending it. One blogging Conservative have tried to make some hay of this through a tightly edited youtube audio post (we can't hear McCallum's follow-up answer? And this is supposed to prove something?), but I refuse to punish candidates for spelling out policy. It was close call, but no points.

Finally, when campaigning in Montreal, Michael Ignatieff messed around with some guy's lute (? I'm going with "lute"), and as he returned it, the lutist (loutist? I'm in pretty deep water here) acknowledged that he'd be voting for Thomas Mulcair, the NDP candidate. That's what you get in a democracy - voters can tell candidates to their faces that they're voting for the other guy. So what? Better that than the sort of super-tight controls a campaign would need to make sure this never happens. No gaffe.

Did I get them all? The score remains unchanged: 3-0-0-0.

You people (Cons 3, all others zero)



Mrs. Revmod and I were watching the news on Sunday night when we first heard the "you people" from Harper, speaking in front of an audience of South Asians. And when I say "in front of", what I mean is that every brown face in the room seemed to be sitting behind him, playing the role of wallpaper to his speech. When the broadcast took a wider shot of the room, the crowd facing the other way seemed to be entirely white.

Now, the Tories can make legitimate claims at diversity. I'm sure they're falling short in several ways that opponents could itemize, but they're diverse enough to deflect most criticism. Still, they're making specific efforts, some of them questionable, to appeal to recent immigrants. That's why the "you people" was so tone-deaf.

I wanted to find an escape route for Harper. I wanted to find him using "you people" commonly in non-racial contexts. I wanted to prove to myself that I'm just being lefty-sensitive. I failed. I'm tentatively awarding prom3 x sig1 depending on the legs this story has (so far, to my surprise, none). The scoreboard has to wait until the end of my work day.

The early gaffes

I'll save the obvious one for the next post. Let me start with the reader tips.

Shelly Glover, a Winnipeg Conservative incumbent described a neighbouring 68-year-old Liberal incumbent as "past her expiry date." Cue the (false?) outrage from seniors. But here's the thing - it's clear to me from the context of the comment that she wasn't saying Anita Neville was too old for the job, she was saying Ms Nevelle has been doing it for too long.

Speaking of doing it for too long, I have a precedent for scoring this one. In 2006, Peter McKay told Alexa McDonough to "stick to your knitting." There was much (false) hue and cry about sexism. And McKay issued an apology. I scored it then only because of the apology. That precedent stands. Right now, Glover's campaign has issued a clarification, but not an apology. If she sticks to her guns, no score.

The next reader suggestion notes that the Prime Minister stumbled over the word "election" and mentioned "unnecessary erections" instead. Sorry. No score for Mumbly Joeisms.

Finally, Liberals have produced audio of a Tory candidate claiming his office staff has been helping him "process immigration files or anything else." I'm withholding judgement on this one. Until the candidate or the staff clarify what they've actually been doing, I don't think we can judge if the candidate was overselling what they actually do (giving out phone numbers of the appropriate channels, perhaps), or conversely if the campaign office was overstepping its authority with the active participation of the Minister of Immigration (which is what the Liberals seem to be implying).

So, so far, no score, though two of these might turn into a score yet. But I'm skipping the big one for the next post. You people will just have to wait.

Deadline

I already have a couple of suggestions for early scores to go up on the big board. Because entries don't close for a couple of hours yet, I'll be deferring any scoring until then. Once entries close, the gaffeometer AT gmail address will serve as an excellent contact point to keep me up-to-date about the latest jackassery. The comments sections serve almost as well, but slower.

Start your error-prone candidates!

Gaffeometer deadline

Between the weekend writ-drop and the lack of gaffes over this opening weekend, I'm deferring the prediction deadline to Monday midnight. Tell me at gaffeometer AT gmail the scores each party will generate over the campaign for a chance at a donation made to your favourite local candidate. And, no - just because I've excluded the Greens from the gaffeometer doesn't mean you can't make me send money that way. It will taste like acid, but I'll do it. I'm that committed.

I digress. Monday, midnight.

May 2

Wow - short campaign. It suggests to me that Harper sees some downside potential over the course of the campaign, and not so much upside. I guess when you've spent millions of dollars and a couple of years defining your opponent, you don't want to give very much time for Ignatieff to break out of that box.

The short campaign might explain why everyone seems to have started throwing swings.

An ounce of prevention

It's becoming obvious from the action in the House of Commons today that the Conservatives will say "It's us, or it's an antidemocratic coalition of socialists and separatists" every time they get in range of a microphone for the next six weeks.

Do you know when would have been a good time to talk about the great tradition of coalition governments in Westminster-style Parliaments? Constantly, and for the last two-and-a-half years. Unfortunately, the opportunity is past, and the argument won't work as well during the campaign, because the Liberals won't admit until the last possible moment that they might do anything other than win overwhelmingly. Nice work, Liberals.

Before it all gets going:

It's not a gaffe, per se, but the NDP may have found the dumbest doorstep issue of all time to treat as a marquee issue: a promise to exempt home heating from the GST.

Let me get this straight: Canada's left-wing party is proposing a tax break which will give the greatest benefit to the rich owners of huge houses and those who are the most wasteful with hydrocarbons. The energy-efficient and those who live more simply will see less, and renters who have baseboard heating rolled into the price of their accommodations will probably see none of the money, because their landlords will pocket it. Genius! It's like the opposite of a carbon tax, because we all know how unpopular that was last election.

Seriously, am I going to have to vote Liberal this time around?

Edited to add: Calgary Grit was on this months ago.

Reminder

Previous final scores:

2004:


2006 included six points for the Liberals, earned by Scott Reid. (I believe that prompted the only time I tried to explain the scoring to a media outlet.):


and the remarkably low-gaffe election of 2008:

It's that time again

Unless Canada's punditocracy is wildly off-base (and when has that ever happened?), this week should see the beginning of Gaffe-o-meter 2011, and to a lesser extent, an election campaign. Does everyone remember the rules for scoring?

1) The scoring will begin on the day the writ is dropped for the Federal election - entries will be cut off midnight the next day. Entries will include the predicted total score for each party.

2) Two numbers determine the score - the quality of the gaffe ("sig") and the rank of the gaffemaker ("prom"). Both scales will score on a range from one to three. GaffePoints ("GP") for an individual gaffe will be calculated by multiplying "sig" by "prom". Party scores will accumulate by adding the GPs of each gaffe.

3) Contest entries will be scored by measuring the distance (plus or minus) between the prediction and the score for each party - lowest total difference wins.

4) I am the final and only arbiter of the quality of the gaffe ("sig") and the rank of the gaffemaker ("prom"). Debate, however, is encouraged in the attached comments section - Good or entertaining arguments have made me rethink before.

5) Scoring will close at 0800 MST on the day following election day. SPECIAL PARIZEAU RULE: Scoring will double for gaffes made on election day, including acceptance and concession speeches.

6) For the purpose of the contest, "gaffe" is defined as an unplanned error in fact or judgment. It might be a mistake for the NDP to release a platform paper advocating gender segregation of schools, to the derision of the Canadian electorate, but it's not a "gaffe". On the other hand, if Jack Layton explains the policy by making an aside about high-school boys being distracted by the firm and supple bodies of women in the full bloom of their hot, hot youth, that would be a "gaffe".

The prize: the reader who guesses closest to the actual final result will win a $20 donation to the local candidate of their choice next time around, if only you tell me who that candidate is. I've offers to each of my winners, but I haven't had to issue one donation yet. Third time a charm?

Send your predictions for total gaffe scores, by party, to gaffeometer AT gmail. Meanwhile, I have a graphic to produce.

Suckers

Gary Bettman (pictured here) and Daryl Katz must think we're idiots.  Rexall Place sells out for every Oilers home game, and Phoenix is a more viable team because the hockey rink is so much better, empty though it is every night?

Edmonton taxpayers might be willing to put up some money for a new rink, if we can make sure we get value for the money, but I don't think Edmontonians are going to respond to blackmail.  Gary, you didn't do the case for a new rink any favours on Saturday.

March 29th?

Prime Minister, I want to quickly remind you, as I did a few years back, that you legislatively stripped yourself of the power to call elections at random times without a defeat of your Government.  It's possible your 2008 election call only violated the spirit of the bill, but not the letter, but it's worth noting that since it was your government's idiot bill in the first place, maybe you should make some effort not to violate it at all.

Having said that, if you're so attached to going to the polls in March, I'm certain you can arrange to have your government attempt to pass something so terrible that you can lose a vote in Parliament, and then complain about the alliance among the socialists and separatists that forced your hand.  The scripts write themselves!  But if you could see your way clear to delay by even a few weeks, I could really use the time to get the next Gaffe-o-Meter up and running.  I know you won't want to deprive the world of that, and you surely don't want to deprive my employer of my full time and attention.

Thanks in advance.

Why do I have to go all the way to New Zealand to get my dose of Gwynne Dyer?

Dyer tends to be pretty on the nose about things.  He says Hosni Mubarak is done, and he'll be leaving Egypt soon. 

So what happens once Mubarak leaves? Nobody knows, because nobody is in charge of this revolution.

One thing that's come clear - Western governments, including our own, who have not dared to risk their favoured relationships with the friendly dictators who run the place now, will not be asked for advice when Egypt forges a new path.  Let's at least be wise enough to give full-throated support to the democratic process, so that even if a government not to our liking emerges, Egyptians will retain the tools to replace them without going to this week's extraordinary measures.

Edited to add, Feb 5: In answer to the title question, I don't.

Steady, Eddie.

I think we're going to miss Ed Stelmach as Premier.  I think we have too few people in politics who sincerely see public service as service, but I think the Premier does.  And I think if Ted Morton is next in line, as some have suggested, followed by Danielle Smith, we're going to be thinking fondly back to the Stelmach era for years to come.

It's been a while...

... not only since I posted, but particularly since I posted bearish predictions about the real estate market.  However, with Jim Flaherty's announcement yesterday, I think the moment has arrived.  Home Equity Lines of Credit are no longer insurable by the CMHC.  The CMHC won't insure 35 year amortizations.  HELoCs have been reduced to 85% of the total equity in your home.

Last year, Flaherty also made mortgage rule changes, tightening qualification rules, and it pushed demand forward enough that the last half of the year has been very slow for the real estate business (forget the news stories from the last couple of weeks spun out by the real estate and banking industries, because even a cursory examination of year-over-year numbers from the last few months will show the supply of buyers drying up).  The same effect might happen again, once again creating the appearance of a boom, but don't be fooled.  Once these rules take effect, the path down will be clear to anyone who can see it.  The only question is whether the Tories can sneak in an election before the housing market, the consumer debt market, and as a result the retail reno market, dries up and slows the entire economy with it.  This is going to hurt.

Killing the messenger

I'm not surprised the American government would like to see Wikileaks shut down. What I'm surprised at is how easily non-government actors fall into line to help out.

Fundamentally, Wikileaks is a news gathering organization, and yes, a quarter million classified documents is news. Wikileaks didn't break confidentiality by publishing the documents, because they aren't required to hold these documents in confidence. Sure, the US government of the time wanted to keep the New York Times and Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers, too, but life is filled with disappointments.

Now, as private organizations, Amazon and PayPal are under no obligation to help Wikileaks work, but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask what principle Wikileaks has violated to earn this sort of exceptional scrutiny. I can't think of one, myself - they received confidential documents, and they're publishing them.

Anyway, they can continue to be found here. Twitter has proved extremely useful, as their opponents try to play hide and seek with the site, but since this is an IP rather than domain name, it should hold solid.

As for my title, well, some take it more literally than others.  Can you still collect a paycheck from the University of Calgary after advocating the murder of a newsman?  Apparently so.

Seen in the Wikileaks dump

Here's a memo relating a conversation between a State Department official and the then-head of CSIS, Jim Judd. Judd expresses concern about the about-to-be-released video of Omar Khadr's interrogation by Canadian officials. The specific concern was that:

...the images would no doubt trigger
"knee-jerk anti-Americanism" and "paroxysms of moral outrage,
a Canadian specialty," as well as lead to a new round of
heightened pressure on the government to press for Khadr's
return to Canada.

But not to worry, reassured Judd. The Canadian government could hold firm on being deaf to the concerns of citizens.

What else we got?

Regarding Alexander Keith's IPA

Dear Labatt's:

If I wanted to drink Ontario piss water, I already have plenty of options. I guess Corb Lund is right, again.

Congratulations, Toronto!

On the heels of Calgary electing a progressive, urbane young Harvard-educated professor, Toronto also commits to a new direction.

Rob Ford, fat f*ck.

Rob Ford isn’t repugnant and offensive because he’s fat. Being fat is only one part of a full package of traits that trigger disgust and apprehension in anyone who doesn’t pick fights with the press, doesn’t assault his wife (charges dropped), doesn’t lie about getting shitfaced and telling off civilians at a football game, doesn’t call AIDS your own f*cking fault, doesn’t praise Orientals for working like dogs, doesn’t drive impaired in his natural home, Florida, and isn’t a boorish, backward daddy’s boy. And he’s fat.  [asterick in place of the letter "u" is mine - Don]

I'm sorry, that's His Worship, Mayor Rob Ford, fat f*ck.  Enjoy!

Congratulations, Obama and Harper!

The American and Canadian governments have avoided the embarrassment of trying Omar Khadr.  Now they don't have to explain why throwing a grenade on a battlefield when most of your compatriots have been killed by the attacking force can be called murder, why a child soldier should be tried as an adult, and how being buried under a pile of rubble didn't prevent Khadr from throwing the grenade in the first place.  Further, they won't have to explain why they began torturing Khadr while he was still blind and broken from the battle.  The Canadian government won't need to explain why they didn't provide consular services to a citizen.  They won't need to explain why they made no effort, unlike every other western nation, to repatriate a citizen from Guantanamo.

So, to everyone involved in this case who have self-awarely sacrificed Khadr on the altar of saving face, eat a bag of dicks.

Happy, happy surprise

I met Naheed Nenshi over twenty years ago, working long days on a campaign until late each night, when I would give a few members of the team a lift home in my old rattletrap of a car.  I don't doubt some of his committment to safe, reliable public transportation was formed while he listened to the whine of my engine struggling up 36th Street, drowning out the strains of Pachelbel or Meatloaf, depending on the evening.

As I write this, Naheed is showing a 6000 vote lead with about half the polls counted, though given Barb Higgins' early lead, I don't think it's safe to call it over yet.  But Calgary seems on the verge of making an excellent decision, very possibly electing a whip-smart, visionary young man.  Tell him "Duke" says hello.

Edited to add: Congratulations, Naheed!

To virtually no one's surprise

It turns out the Tories are a bunch of lying liars who lie.  I still can't figure out why they've bothered.  Do they really have such an ideological hate on for the long-form census that this is the hill they're willing to die on?

You know, during the 2006 election, I kept hearing how the Sponsorship scandal was evidence that the Liberals had become too arrogant, and how some bench time would remind them they need to answer to Canadians.  It seems like less than five years in government, and the Conservative government is well overdue that same lesson.

I understood their battle on the long gun registry.  Never mind that it's many degrees cheaper to administrate than it was to set up, or that law enforcement agencies were lining up to beg the law-and-order party to keep the registry as a tool in the police arsenal.  Never mind all that, because the Conservatives had made a commitment to their base, and in particular to the farmier portions of their base.  It's tough to entirely fault them for attempting to follow through, even if they got involved in some pretty ugly tactics in the process.

But the long form census?  Who did they promise this scrapping to?  Who cared about this issue, until the Conservatives decided it was a good idea?

Well, as we discovered today, no one cared, outside of a few nutty constituents who warmed up their pencil crayons and sent the government a good scribbling.  I don't doubt a couple of those came pre-packaged with tinfoil and hat assembly instructions, to help out.

So I ask again, without irony or preconceived answer.  What am I missing on the benefit side of the calculation, that the Tories continue to feel is worth this ever-steepening political cost?

Funny/Sad

The Fraser Institute sends Paul Wells an invitation to a $200-a-plate fundraising lunch, using data produced from the long-form census in the pitch.  Four days later, they send another fundraising request, bragging about being on the cutting edge of wanting to tear up the mandatory long-form census.

Drink up!

Surprise!

British PM David Cameron comes out and calls Gaza a "prison camp".  Someone call Stephen Harper and let him know that you can be a Conservative without giving Benjamin Netanyahu a "ready, aye, ready" every time Israel's government does something stupid or mean.

Gooooooooooooooooaaaaaaallllllll!

A right-wing wacko explains why soccer is anti-American, and therefore beloved by the liberal media.  Sure does make me want to cheer for the USA side, to make tea partiers crazy.

Crazy Talk

I am almost certain that this is just nonsensical blog talk, as opposed to serious consideration.  Why the CBC is reporting this merger talk nonsense, already rejected by the leader of the Liberal party as "absurd", as anything but punditry wankage is beyond my understanding.

Calgary Grit has made the arguments and done the math, and if the only point of an NDP-Liberal merger is to win the election, well, there's no reason to believe that the merged party would accomplish that (though a Liberal-Conservative merger would be tough to beat).  (Forgive the huge poach from that post, Dan, but I think your point here needs to be widely understood.)

Let's run a quick experiment on the 2008 vote totals. Let's say 80% of the Liberal vote decides to vote for the new Liberal Democrats and their catchy Red and Orange colour scheme, 10% votes Conservative, and 10% stay home and watch American Idol. For NDP voters, I doubt the transfer would be quite as fluid - after all, the new party would be led by a Liberal and if NDP voters really cared about stopping Harper or being in power, they'd just vote Liberal in the first place. So, maybe half of them go along with the deal, a quarter vote green, and a quarter stay home. In terms of popular vote, that would actually work out to a 73% vote transfer to the new party, similar to the PC-Alliance merger rate.

So what would be the end result of this?

CPC 163 seats
LD 93 seats
BQ 50 seats
Other 2 seats

Hell, let's assume 80% of both Liberal and NDP voters join the new party, with the others just staying home - not a single former Liberal casts his or her vote for the Conservatives. The end result is still a narrow 7-seat Harper minority.

For the record, as longtime readers know, I favour the "catchy Red and Orange colour scheme".  But the rest of the merger idea is just dumb, and seems once again timed to distract from real issues dogging the Conservatives.  Could the Liberal Party be more dimwittedly self-destructive?

Edited to add: Evidentially, prominant Liberals agree with me, and are stepping hard on this foolishness.

"But nobody else has to!"

This is the thinking, rejected by kindergarten teachers everywhere as a sign of social immaturity among their charges, that passes for Israeli foreign policy these days.  Israel is rejecting the UN's request for an investigation of Monday's flotilla raid:

An official in the prime minister's office said there is "no case in recent history" where a democratic country's army involved in the deaths of civilians in an overseas operation has been subjected to an international investigation.

Since most democratic countries' armies aren't killing civilians overseas as a rule, this may be objectively true.  But let's remind ourselves of one Canadian experience with it, which resulted in murder charges and a half-decade of national soul-searching.  So maybe, instead of telling us what they won't do, Israel's government could tell us what they will do, and maybe they could try to sound at least a little apologetic while they're at it.  Except that contrition would suggest the possibility of guilt, and it seems that the golden rule of Israel's foreign policy is to never, ever admit fault.

Isolation

So, perhaps my initial reaction was too strong, too angry, and certainly too unrealistic.  However, I've been clear enough about my feelings that I have objected to much of Israel's behavior toward its neighbours in the occupied territories and beyond over the last decade.  I've said as much on this blog on occasion.  I believe that Israel's government prefers bullying its neighbours to learning to get along with them.  I'm offended at how strongly the world believes that Iran's nuclear ambitions are a threat to world peace, but that Israel's current possession of nuclear weapons isn't, as if the former wasn't a direct result of the latter.  I haven't faced accusations of anti-Semitism, which I appreciate, and yet I've seen other more popular writers face that charge when they write similar things on their own blogs, so clearly I haven't been the staunchest defender of the current Israeli government.  In fact, watching moderates in that government being held hostage by an extreme right owning the balance of power in nearly any coalition keeps me from supporting Proportional Representation in Canada.

So what I have to say now might be dismissed as easily as the fellow interviewed by Global yesterday at the Legislature protest, who said the right things and sounded perfectly reasonable, except that he was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh over his nose and mouth, obscuring his face, and honestly, could you look more like a scary terrorist to anyone who might have otherwise been sympathetic to what you were saying, you idiot kid?  I digress.

Israel, you're losing friends.  Some of that is for dropping on to a humanitarian aid ship in international waters, guns-a-blazing, in order to enforce a blockade that large swaths of the world are already unsympathetic toward.  But some of it is for your flat denial to acknowledge that you've done something wrong, for your attempt to portray peaceful international political activists as terrorists, and for your continued attempts to claim hatred is the only reason anyone would not unquestioningly swallow your version of events as the unvarnished truth.

There are more ships coming to run your Gaza blockade.  It is probably true that these six ships you boarded on Monday were more interested in bringing world attention to the blockade by loudly defying it than they were in delivering aid.  When the next ships come, you had better find a diplomatic solution.  No tank, no airplane, no nuclear warhead is going to guarantee your long-term security.  That comes from peace, trade, and interdependence.  Your isolation works against all of those things.

Missed opportunity

You know, if we were ever going to take the opportunity to stand up for our NATO allies in Turkey, telling Netanyahu that he was being held here while we investigated his government's attack of a ship flying a Turkish flag in international waters would have been a good chance.

Alternet has a short-and-sweet article to unspin the nonsense Israel's press relations office has been trotting out all day.  And Salon asks "Just ponder what we'd be hearing if Iran had raided a humanitarian ship in international waters and killed 15 or so civilians aboard."  Hat tip to Pogge for the latter.

Friday Night Videos


Via POGGe, via Stageleft, your Friday night video. Enjoy the phat beats of the lying liar (or possibly forgetting forgetter. Will he be asked which one by reputable media?) Jason Kenney.

When they're done asking him about this disagreement between his words and the verifiable facts, will he get out of the way of MPs trying to find out exactly how complicit Canada is in torture? Please? Because I really think we should know.

When even the bank sounds bearish, what's on the horizon?

A CIBC economist has predicted that Canadian housing prices are due a correction, albeit slow and steady over the next couple of years. Given that the bank has a vested interest in the bullish side of the real estate business (Step one, issue mortgages. Step three, profit!), this can't bode well.

But don't worry, the Chief Executive of Century 21 Canada says everything's fine, and he'd have no reason to lie.

Over? OVER?!? It's not over until we say it is!

First of all, I have to say something you'll rarely hear on this blog: Stephen Harper's government is right. Taxing banks in order to create a bailout fund is a very bad idea. Primarily, it will destroy whatever small sense of moral hazard remained in the market. Not only will a bailout be expected, it'll be guaranteed, so go ahead and continue whatever ridiculous derivative inventing and market manipulation you like, knowing there's absolutely no downside. Responsible institutions get to pay for the mistakes of the irresponsible ones.

This is a better idea, producing big downsides for shareholders and bondholders of irresponsible banks, as well as upper management that is paid heavily in options. It also would make unwinding a failed bank instead of bailing it out more attractive, because the liability side of the final ledger would be missing all of the bondholders that would otherwise expect first claim to the bank's assets.

The market's shedding another percentage or two of its value today, approaching the low point of last Thursday's panicked selloff and immediate bounce. We might be watching the slow deflation of another market bubble, fueled by emergency interest rates and worldwide government debt spending at a rate that can't be sustained. We need to be ready for more choppy waters ahead. We need something smarter than the proposed bank tax.

Finally, a reason to follow Twitter

Best feed ever.

Now she tells us

Helena Guergis, yesterday:

I feel as though they've thrown the rule books out the window, that they're not respecting due process at all. I find it very undemocratic.

Gee, ya think?

The ball in the Prime Minister's court

The Speaker's decision is pretty clear - when it comes down to it, the House has the right to insist on whatever documents it wants.  However, he's given the government two weeks to find an accommodation with Parliament about how to release these documents and still protect the national interest.

One of two things will happen now: 

The Prime Minister will take seriously the decision, and will begin to negotiate with the opposition leaders to find that middle path. 

Or, the Prime Minister will consider the two weeks an opportunity to play more games, trying to work around this decision. 

The first choice would be good for Canada.  The second would not.  Guess which one of these paths I think this particular Prime Minister will take?

Decision Day?

I was hoping to be safely tucked back into my own domain before another election brought about Gaffe-o-Meter IV: The Gaffinating, but there is some buzz that the Speaker's decision regarding the contempt of Parliament motion made weeks ago might send Canadians to the polls.  However, I will do what I need to do, if the Prime Minister decides that it's easier to ignore his own fixed-date election legislation for the second time rather than respect the institutions of Canadian democracy.

However, I don't think things will happen as fast as all that.  Then again, I never seem to see it coming until we're on top of it, so what do I know?

As Bear604 always liked to write, "For those of you scoring at home"

Two weeks after banks bumped mortgage rates 6/10s of a percent, here comes another quarter.  This will be a wilder ride than even I thought.

On a four hundred thousand dollar mortgage (not an unreasonable amount of loan to buy a pretty boring run-of-the-mill single family detached house in Edmonton), in two weeks your debt servicing costs just went up by $3400 a year - almost $300 a month.  If there are two more fortnights like this before your mortgage renewal date comes up,  you'll need to come up with an extra $850 a month, so I hope your family income has gone up by $30,000 a year since your last renewal so you can convince the bank you can afford that.

Update, April 27: here's another 0.15%, rounding the increase to a full percentage point in a month.  It's possible that even the bears don't know how far this can go.

Good news at last

The Oilers have the first draft pick in the 2010 entry draft, so that was totally worth sucking all year long.

Here I am

If it wasn't for messing around with the blog, I'm sure I would have something pithy and entertaining to say about Rahim Jaffer or Dave Taylor.  I'll see what I can come up with later today.

Meanwhile, this generic template is very much like my original back in 2002, so I might have some fun with it before I return some variation of blinding red and orange.

Today's the day

Blogger stops supporting FTP transfer on the first of May. I've been using FTP transfer to publish my blog for nearly a decade. I also have my own URL and several side pages. So, long story short, this is going to be interesting.

Fortunately, no one reads me any more except me, so no one should notice if I break everything. Wish me luck!

Edited to add: It didn't go as well as I'd hoped, and now it seems I can only manually change the pages at revmod.ca.  This will be my temporary home until I have the time to repair it all.

We will now begin our descent. Fasten your seatbelts.

I don't think I'm a genius for predicting interest rates were due to rise, but apparently many people were surprised by this sudden turn of events, and are responding to the change by.... er, assuming a mountain of debt while they're still allowed to. But don't worry - this couple won't spend more than they can afford. They're both personal fitness trainers! I gather that's a lucrative career.

So, today. A day later. The Conference Board of Canada says that twenty percent of Canadians can't afford their housing. But instead of laying the responsibility on the shoulders of housing inflation completely disconnected from the rest of the economy, "The report found that private-sector developers have tended to focus on building homes that are aimed at higher income Canadians." Just to be clear, one builder in Edmonton will sell you a 1200 square foot house in Leduc for $320K. Going by a standard affordability calculation, which says that historically a house should cost about three times the family's annual income, this would be aimed at higher income Edmontonians, the average family earning just over $90K/year. But I don't think anyone is mistaking 1200 sq. ft. as a mansion, nor Leduc as a lucrative location. In other words, I think the Conference Board of Canada is smoking crack.

The easy money has been flowing, and it's kept housing prices hyperinflated. But this isn't the tulip bubble - the Conference Board's report makes clear that overpriced homes have real consequences for real people. The piper will have to be paid. The day will arrive sooner than anyone seems to think.

International news

So the United States finally has public health insurance.

What? Really?

Okay, so the United States finally has universal health coverage.

No! Really?

So, I'm led to believe that the United States finally has health coverage extended to many more people. Yes? Whew!

Anyway, David Frum explains the difference in the interests of the Republican Party and the Conservative Entertainment Industry, and how the health care bill illustrates that the former is paying the price for the selfish interests of the latter. Gosh, that's too bad, Republicans! Boo hoo hoo! Maybe if you'd call out Glenn Beck's bullshit or quit apologising to Rush Limbaugh, this wouldn't have happened! But you didn't! Boo hoo hoo!

And now, Inflation

Just a week ago, analysts were expressing concern about the rising dollar and inproved job situation, and hoping for an interest rate increase much sooner than September, Mark Carney's hoped-for date of moving from zero. Those analysts are worried that, while we all want the economy to recover from recession (and for jobs to appear in greater numbers), if we overshoot, we can move into an inflationary spiral.

Well, this morning, StatsCan reported 2.1% inflation for February, much higher than expected. The Bank of Canada really only has one lever to pull, and so I expect interest rates must start upward sooner than Carney wanted. If the supply of essentially free money in the economy isn't choked off, too many dollars will continue to compete for too few goods and services, and inflation goes much higher than anyone wants.

The only good news in this situation is that after Carney's extensive promises of holding the rate through the summer, it won't take much of an interest rate hike to have an overcompensating psychological effect. This good news is its own bad news as well, though - the recovery is still fragile enough that even a shot across the bow could shatter it. What's a Governor of the Bank of Canada to do?

I think, in having to choose between a little medicine now or a lot later, the correct choice is obvious.

Either way, we're rapidly reaching the end of fire sale interest rates. This will have an obvious cooling effect on the housing market. And since I think the housing market is already hyper-inflated (Follow the full story here, here, here, here, and here), this is another reason why a little medicine now beats requiring a lot later.

Generational theft

In the face of a growing deficit and lower oil and gas prices, the provincial government has elected to return to the sort of fire-sale royalty rates we charged for our oil and gas before Ed Stelmach was elected leader of his party on the promise of a review of those rates.

So, unlike other jurisdictions that have responded to major recessions with one-time infusions of cash into their economies, Alberta is responding to an oil-price-related slowdown of our overheated economy with a price cut on our resources that will forgo $363 million in revenue for each of the next two years, and unknown amounts beyond that, while hoping to deplete our finite resources more quickly. In fact, if they don't, this policy will be called a failure.

Because the only thing better than leaving our children with a debt burden is making sure they don't have the natural resources to sell in order to help pay for our greed. Hilarious!

Another reason I preferred Stephane Dion

POGGe has been pointing out occasions when Israeli Apartheid Week, described as a "pro-Palestinian teach-in" on university campuses across the country and indeed around the world, has exposed several of our nation's leaders as anywhere between timid mouthers of platitudes to rabidly pro-Likud and pro-occupation and expansion.

Among the first set are people who are frightened by the use of the word "apartheid". Ontario legislators unanimously passed a resolution condemning IAW, claiming among other things that

The term "Israeli Apartheid Week" incites "hatred against Israel, a democratic state that respects the rule of law and human rights, and the use of the word 'apartheid' in this context diminishes the suffering of those who were victims of a true apartheid regime in South Africa," said [Ontario Tory MPP and resolution mover, Peter] Shurman.

Compare this to Desmond Tutu, who aparently is willing to diminish his own suffering, because he compares Israeli government policies to apartheid, arguing that they neither respect human rights nor the rule of law in their relationship with the Palestinian people, whatever the Ontario Legislature might say.

Which brings me to the title of my post. Micheal Ignatieff has condemned IAW, implying it is anti-Semetic, racist, and intolerant. Never mind that his earlier descriptions suggest he understands the situation on the ground just fine; this most recent statement regarding IAW shows he is willing to be cowed by a sufficiently strong lobby. At least our current government is honestly taking a side in the conflict, even if it is the side of the oppressing government.

Calling Israel's policy in the occupied territories "apartheid" is certainly tough language. But condemning that language serves to stifle the debate, to stifle criticism, not the other way around as Ignatieff claims.

Dear Olympic attendees who got curling tickets as part of a package instead of events you really wanted to go to:

I'm sure you don't know any better, but this is unbelievably rude. So is this. Would you scream and yell at golfers about to take a swing, or as the first article suggests, ring a cowbell through a figure skating routine?

It's partially the venue's fault for not having someone holding up a "quiet, please" sign. Although if it turns out there's an electronic board that flashes "Make Some Noise", I'm going to have some strong words for VANOC.

A true test to see if Danielle Smith is as savvy as everyone says - will she say "Thanks anyway"?

My one-time M.P., crazy-ass Myron Thompson, is now sitting on a Wild Rose Alliance constituency association board. So, lucky them.

This has the potential to be interesting

In the face of the Wild Rose Alliance becoming a force in Alberta politics, and watching neither the provincial Liberals nor the NDP (who I continue to dutifully belong to and donate to, barring a better alternative) show any desire to renew themselves after taking an election pounding that was at least partially self-inflicted, I'm ready to hear other ideas.

So is the Alberta Party.

(Thanks to Dave Cournoyer for the heads-up about the twists and turns in the Renew Alberta saga.)

Math

I'm becoming increasingly concerned about the changes Flaherty announced on Tuesday, so I've been crunching some numbers. I posted large swaths of this in the Edmonton Real Estate blog comments section this morning, but I thought it bore repeating here:

I'm more than a little concerned that the delay before the change will create a bubble all its own, quite aside from any debate about a current bubble. Surely there are some first-time buyers out there who are going to rush in while they can still get more money/debt based on the variable rate. And I'm also sure there are lenders who will happily give them those loans calculated at absurd variable rates while they still can.

At ING's posted variable rate of 1.95%, according to their own calculator:

On a family income of $50,000, they'll lend someone $375,000 with payments of $1233 a month. At their five year fixed rate (still a low 3.89%), payments go up to $1629. At a still historically below-average rate of 6%, this family will now be paying $2120/month, over half of their gross income, on this mortgage.

$100,000 gets me $780,000 with payments of $2567/month. 3.89% raises that to $3388. And 6% takes us to $4409 - once again, over half their gross income, so God help them if one of them goes on maternity leave or long-term disability.

The banks will do this because they have no skin in the game - they're securitising the debt the same way American banks did, and it's all guarenteed by you and I through the CMHC anyway.

So quite aside from any bubble I might currently see us in, we're going to have a hard landing when this pool of mad-rush driven buyers dries up, and another when the rates go up, as they inevitably must.

Changes

Jim Flaherty has announced a few changes to CMHC rules in the hopes of deflating a bubble that he insists doesn't exist.

Some people may chalk up the timing of this announcement as the government wanting it to be ignored in the face of Olympic fever. I think it shows how quickly we've gone from zero to consensus that Canadians are living with a housing bubble, and that the government wants to curb that talk as quickly as possible, without curbing the market.

Unfortunately, the talk is due to an actual housing bubble, and the market has to curb to end it. Flaherty's changes will only force the people closest to the edge to take a step back, and not much of a step at that. I think we'll see more at the budget, if the talk doesn't slow between now and then.

Edited to add: The CBC article linked above keeps changing as details emerge and reaction is considered. One reaction at the end of the article almost knocked me out of my chair:

"This is a little bit late in telling Canadians we need to be more cautious in taking out a mortgage," Royal Bank chief economist Patricia Croft said in reaction to Flaherty's announcement.

Though she stopped short of calling Canadian real estate in bubble territory already, she said the April 19 date for implementation is actually likely to cause more short-term stimulation of the market, as people scramble to get in under the deadline.

"If you wanted to buy a house, wouldn't you now do it before April?" Croft asked. "It's even more evidence that house prices are going to cool down later this year."

When you hear a banker, for whom profits come from issuing mortgages and securitizing the debt, tell you the market is inflated, run for the hills. Run for your lives. That, or Patrica Croft deserves a medal for honesty in the face of her employer's short-term self-interest. Or, she's hoping to have some deflationary effect herself, better sooner than later in the eyes of even the financial industry.

The last actually seems most likely. It's entirely likely that banks have looked at the wreckage wreaked by the housing bubble and burst in the United States, and would just as soon avoid the worst of that, even at the expense of a few short-term dollars. Consider it a side benefit of having a financial system operated by a tiny oligarchy - they have the luxury of looking beyond the next quarter's profits.

Before the market tanks...

... it's fun to celebrate a little something. Congratulations to Alexandre Bilodeau on Canadian gold!

You read it here first

The Wall Street Journal yesterday asks interesting questions about a Canadian housing bubble.

Canadian Economy Death Watch, part 2

In the United States, the inevitable failure of sub-prime lending threatened to pull down banks and insurance companies directly, and the ensuing recession managed to bring the car industry to the brink. In Canada, our banks may be huge sub-prime lenders, but backed by the government via the CMHC, the bubble looks isolated from the rest of the economy (so long as the massive extra government debt paying off the investors in securitized mortgages isn't considered part of "the economy", even though it's inevitable that it'll result in increased taxes for reduced program spending). When it all spins apart, will only the foreclosed-upon, and the Canadian taxpayer, carry the burden?

Well, the construction industry would certainly struggle - no one will be interested in buying a new home in a deflationary market. That would trickle down into the rest of the economy. So would layoffs or wage rollbacks in the public sector, a possible step toward balancing a CMHC-caused deficit. (Never mind that public sector workers had no part in causing the problem, unless that public-sector worker is Jim Flaherty.)

A few extra mortgage defaults, caused by wage cuts or job losses, will add to the snowball. Alberta is already dealing with the highest rate of mortgages in arrears in the country, adding a hundred a month from under a thousand for over two years now, breaking 3500 in November (the PDF really has to be downloaded to be readable). Many more motivated house sellers makes for a weak and even deflationary housing market. Lather, rinse, repeat. Spread the recession around to the retailers of everything from soup to Nutz.

Short of stocking up on gold and guns, and hiding in your bunker trading recipes for squirrel stew, what can we do, individually and collectively, to protect ourselves from this? I don't pose the question intending to answer it. I also don't pose it rhetorically. I'll be spending the coming days and weeks asking some very smart people. I'll let you know if the answers are useful. Do I need to point out that I think selling your real estate, particularly property you don't actually live in, particularly in the most overheated markets, would be an important step?