City issues.  Okay, really just the arena.

I wrote to my city councillor this week.  I'm happy to share.

Mr. Sohi:

I love the Oilers. I spend money to make sure I'm in the arena a few times a year to see them in person. I pay again to own and wear their jersey. My opinion is the opinion of someone who has no desire to see the team leave.

I've been reluctant to write because Daryl Katz's Seattle stunt enraged me. When the Katz Group negotiates with the city about building an arena, they're happy to define the responsibility for the team as going beyond the financial ownership. The Oilers are more than a business, they argue, it's integrated with the community - the team is a part of who we are as Edmontonians. This has been the argument of many team owners, across sports and leagues, all over the continent. The argument is offered again and again because it has truth to it. It's why a threat, however empty, to move the team has such power.

I've been reluctant to write, because I wanted my anger to fade. I wanted to calmly and rationally examine Mr. Katz's insistence that he only wants what's best for the team and the city. But time is running out before the meeting next week that the Mayor has asked Mr. Katz to attend, and it's telling that despite his apology letter that seemed to acknowledge that he hadn't done enough to communicate with us his side of things, he hasn't left the impression he or anyone from the Katz Group will be attending that meeting to answer questions.

As a private citizen, it makes no difference that I continue to be angry about this. With the lockout, I can't even refuse to attend games to express my displeasure with Daryl Katz. I know that as an elected official, you can't afford to be angry the way I am. You need to make decisions in a calm, rational, professional manner. I would like to offer a suggestion, however.

I was never very happy with the arena deal put together last October - I think Katz got the better of council. Still, like lots of Edmontonians, I think I was willing to say my piece at the time and then go on. In fact, I wasn't angry enough about it to bother writing to you. But things are different now. Katz's Seattle trip was a ham-handed effort to play hardball with Council. Council needs to be willing to play hardball right back.

Make clear that the October 2011 agreement is not a minimum that the Katz Group can hold you to - it's not an initial offer. It was an agreement. If Daryl Katz isn't happy with the terms, council will be happy to withdraw it and start again. In fact, make sure the agreement has a publicly-known expiry date. I know Council worked very hard to come to that agreement. But you have to be as willing to back out as Mr. Katz is, if you're going to negotiate on even ground.

Make clear that Council doesn't think the NHL will allow Mr. Katz to take the team elsewhere. Gary Bettman has indicated that he thinks it was a mistake to allow Winnipeg and Quebec City's teams to move. If the NHL is now willing to double down in Phoenix, where only the Canadian ex-pats care about hockey, they aren't going to quietly let the Oilers leave town. But be equally clear that we aren't going to be blackmailed, even if the NHL backs Katz's play. The Oilers sell some of the most expensive tickets in the league, they have a terrible winning record, and they fill the rink every night. There must be other owners around the league who wouldn't mind moving into this market at all. How happy can Glendale taxpayers be that they continue to subsidize a team that isn't even playing? Be clear that while Edmonton needs the Oilers, the Oilers need Edmonton more. There are very few hockey markets as attractive as ours, and I think it's fair to say there are none that aren't already served by a team.

Finally, offer an alternative. If the city is going to foot essentially the entire bill for a new arena, perhaps we should operate it and enjoy the financial benefits for the good of the entire city, not just one man. I'm sure we could do okay with the Oilers as a primary tenant forty-five nights a year. If the Katz group won't pay for the development, they can't expect to get a piece of every other event that passes through town. Alternatively, sell him Rexall Place, and let him do what he likes with that space. Downtown will continue to revitalize just fine without an arena, thanks.

If none of these deals, including the one he got from Council last year, sound attractive enough to Katz, then to hell with him. Let him try to negotiate with increasingly bankrupt American municipalities instead, if he find the grass so much greener. Best of luck to him.

I don't know the specifics of the financial situation well enough to know which of these suggestions are practical, though in fairness, since Katz refuses to open the team's books, neither do you. What I'm really suggesting is the basic advice - don't be afraid to play hardball with the Katz Group. Don't assume that because he owns a popular team, citizens are on his side in this negotiation. I'm not, and I haven't spoken to anyone who is. We know which side is working on our behalf. In fact, right now, while the lockout has fans even angrier than usual at NHL ownership, this may be your moment to get the best deal for taxpayers. Take a hard line, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how many citizens, including hockey fans like me, will be willing to cheer you on.

He responded, quickly and with pretty much the text of the statement you can find on his website.  The real test will come when Council meets this week.

Surprise

Given my expectation of a WRP majority, this is certainly a better result. In fact, if Redford governs from as far left as she campaigned (not, you know, super far left, but better than the last many years), it might be a good result. But the "how" mystifies me a little bit. Stelmach did the same thing, polling not nearly as well as he finished on election night. Is there some sort of "vote Tory" programming in Albertans that only kicks in when faced with a ballot in their hands?

Walking

 I'm sure, if the Legislature seems to be shaking out to be in minority territory with an advantage to Wild Rose this evening, there will be some talk about which of the elected PCs can be talked into walking the floor to get WRP to a majority and shut the smaller parties out of the process. If this does in fact come to pass,let me be the first to issue a warning: the PCs that win tonight will owe those victories to not being Wild Rose. If they switch allegiances, they should remember that the WRP has promised a recall process. I'm just saying.

Strategic voting, again

There's been lots of sturm und drang the last couple of days regarding a video produced with some Calgary youngsters, promoting a plan of "hold your nose and vote Tory."

 Here's the thing: there's a certain sympathy to this strategic vote plan. Going by this campaign, the Progressive Conservatives are much more moderate than the Wildrose party. Of curse, going back 41 years, maybe less so. Ted Morton's still a Tory, right?

 I digress. My point is that if you live in a riding like Airdrie, sure, vote PC to beat a WRP'er. We get that the right-wing has to split many more ways before other candidates are in a serious run. But if you're in Edmonton, in almost any riding, red or orange can win the day so long as people don't assume blue is the only colour capable of stopping green. Vote with your heart in the two big cities, and you'll be amazed at what can happen.

Your local candidates

You know, I could accept Allan Hunsperger's "gays will burn in hell" nonsense, if it was left there. But it wasn't. Hunsperger went on to complain that Christian schools that fell under the auspices of the public school system would have to follow board policy, which says "The Board is committed to establishing and maintaining a safe, inclusive, equitable, and welcoming learning and teaching environment for all members of the school community. This includes those students, staff, and families who identify or are perceived as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, two- spirit, queer or questioning their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. The Board expects all members of our diverse community to be welcomed, respected, accepted, and supported in every school."

In other words, he opposes a public policy which disallows him from making students feel unwelcome, disrespected, rejected, and unsupported for their sexual identities. That's not about his role as a pastor at some reactionary church, that's about his role as an educator. That's not about the afterlife, that's about the lives of children under his authority today.

By the way, Hunsperger is pastor of something called "The House Ministries of Tofield", which sounds associated to no popular denomination of my experience. Here's a link to the site for his church, which gives me, as a practicing member of a major denomination, pause.

Me too

I heart taxes

By that logic

According to Vic Toews, because privacy advocates are concerned about the significant overreach found in the government's new internet surveillance legislation, we are "stand[ing] with the child pornographers".

I suppose it's objectively true that the makers or distributors of child pornography may share my distaste for this legislation. It is likewise true that this sort of legislation would appeal to totalitarian regimes.

So, I'll tell you what, Vic. We can both accept that reasonable people can honestly disagree about how to strike an appropriate balance between public safety and the personal right to privacy. Or your critics can start calling you a Nazi with impunity. You pick.

The CWB and the Rule of Law

Kady O'Malley laughs off the notion that the Governor-General will have any reason to consider Bob Rae's request that Bill C-18 should be put in a drawer until such time as a court rules the bill consistent with the rule of law.

O'Malley suggests there's no precedent for this, and she may be right. But there are two fair questions that follow:

- Is there any precedent for a government legislating in the face of a court ruling telling the government to stop, pending appeal?

- If Parliament is in violation of the rule of law, who else but the Governor-General or HRH is in a position to defend the rule of law?

Now, the government could have the CWB hold a plebiscite, as the court insists is required to end the monopsony. The government could appeal the ruling, which it is doing. But for the government to ignore a court ruling and legislate anyway is the thin end of a very dangerous wedge. This government spent so many years under the restraints of minority rule, it seems that now that they've won a majority they think anything goes. I don't know if anyone in this government understands that there are still limits to Parliament's authority.

I hope the Governor-General, unlike Kady O'Malley, takes Bob Rae's request very seriously.

Grudging respect

I have, over the past couple of years, found myself increasingly appreciating the writing of Canadian ex-pat and Dubya speechwriter David Frum. Perhaps it's because he comes from a type of conservatism that exists in reality, instead of wherever Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann live.

His article in the current issue of New York magazine is required reading for anyone looking on at US politics this US Thanksgiving and wondering what went wrong.

Rather than workable solutions, my party is offering low taxes for the currently rich and high spending for the currently old, to be followed by who-knows-what and who-the-hell-cares. This isn't conservatism; it's a going-out-of-business sale for the baby-boom generation.

I hope he still has enough influence in that party to at least shift the discussion. But for the very reasons he outlines, I doubt it.

You win

Brothers and sisters of Occupy Wall Street, I was initially saddened to hear of your forced eviction from Zuccotti park overnight. When Mrs. Revmod and I visited you in October, on a day you were scrubbing the park clean to avoid an eviction then, we told a few of you that we thought you had already changed the world. I believe that more even now. Concepts like "the 99 percent" are universally understood. Many now understand that average citizens are paying the price for the greed of investment bankers and the malfeasance of public officials.

You can spend a lot of time and energy fighting your way back to a physical space to occupy. Don't. It's time to step away from physical occupations, and start to flex the political muscle you've been developing. Without the necessity of anonymity, leaders can emerge, so that not every argument looking to return to the gold standard or legalize pot has to be held in the same regard as those who want to see strong financial regulation.

And on that topic, it's important that leaders are allowed to emerge. Leadership is not anti-democratic. If the best and brightest among you (and there are so many of you in that category) don't step up, people who had nothing to do with the movement will get ahead of it, co-opt your principles for their own benefit, and leave you fighting unnecessary battles about what the movement really believes.

The Occupy movement doesn't need physical space to continue, at least for now. It's time to take on the difficult political work to come. It's time to pick some political battles and begin waging them.

The Arab Spring becomes the American Autumn

Occupy Wall Street is continuing to grow. The American media seems flummoxed by them, I suppose because they aren't dressed like overweight American revolutionaries. Good thing that everyone else seems to get it.

For the Record

As I predicted, farmers prefer to maintain the monopsony maintained by the Canadian Wheat Board. Coming up: Gerry Ritz doesn't care.

While the markets crash this morning....

I watched a little of the Sunday talkies this weekend, and it seemed like almost no one was willing to talk about what S&P actually said in their report when they downgraded the US debt. I only heard John Kerry describe it as "The Tea Party downgrade", which is rhetorically clever but should have been directly backed up. To most people, it sounded like the downgrade was accompanied with a declaration of "a plague on both your houses."

But here's what it actually said:

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now
assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012,
remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority
of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise
revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act. (page 4)

I argued on Thursday, and will argue on forums around the net again today, that the biggest risk the markets see in the US right now is the fact that sixty members of its House of Representatives are willing to put a gun to the head of the entire economy for the sake of ideology. Worse, the rest of the government capitulated to their demands. Worst, they rejected the deal anyway.

The upside? This may have been their moment in the sun. Between primaries which will put Michelle Bachman's simplemindedness on full display, and a wider realization that taxation has to be part of the United States' long term debt solution (as higher-taxed parts of the world flourish comparatively), their fidelity to Grover Norquist's no tax oath, and their general resistance to government as a possible force of good will look much less attractive to voters in 2012.

Kent Brockman: "I've said it before, and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work."

The United States is making the best argument ever for Westminster-style Parliamentary democracy:

Decades of gerrymandering have turned most congressional districts into unassailable fortresses for a single party. The real fight for seats in the House of Representatives comes during the primaries, where extremism serves better than moderation.

Constant primaries feeding into fixed elections of some type or another every two years means a constant election cycle, far more so than even Canada's four elections through minority parliaments.

Money is so important to winning that nearly every representative arrives with a full slate of positions bought and paid for, leaving no room to negotiate or think.

We complain about the smaller voting role of individual members in our Parliament due to whipped votes, but when every member needs a little juice for his or her state or district in order to vote for this or that piece of legislation, or refuses to see the bigger picture when defense cuts are going to close a Boeing plant where some of their constituents work, you can see why governing to the advantage of every individual congressional district becomes prohibitively expensive.

And so here we sit, watching an unbelievably dangerous game of brinkmanship played out over a decision by the United States Congress to raise the debt ceiling - essentially to agree to pay for the stuff they already bought. I'm not sure what sort of democratic reform could possibly fix this clearly broken system, but I sure hope something does before they pull us all down with them.

Final

I note the Boston Vancouver Pizza ad on the board behind Thomas. Shouldn't Tim Horton's also be sporting a temporary name? I recommend "Roberto Raymond's".

More on the CWB

Some farmers are calling on a referendum on the Canadian Wheat Board's monopsony on wheat and barley sales. Responds Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, we already had a vote on the future of the CWB. "It's called a general election," says Ritz.

So, in conclusion, the last chance you had to consult with this Government was May 2. They'll see you again October 2015 for their performance review.

Shorter Benjamin Netanyahu:

Our peace plan proposal involves everyone else surrendering.

Why does Stephen Harper hate farmers?

It's been clear for a long time that Conservatives hate the Canada Wheat Board. They've been trying to break the single-desk marketing board since they first formed government, but up until now, they've only really tried through the board itself, to convince the farmer-members to eliminate the Board, or the board's monopsony. Farmers have consistently elected pro-monopsony members to the board, frustrating the CPC. Of course, they argue that "real" farmers want open marketing options, just as they're sure that all workers feel enslaved by their unions.

If you want to see how the Conservative Party ignores democracy when the people don't produce the results the CPC wants, their behavior toward the Canada Wheat Board is an excellent example. Sure enough, they'll break the single desk from above, if the farmers won't do it themselves. The only question is if Harper will try to wait until the SCC is also leaning in his favour, because that's where this fight will end.

A Tory majority is good for the market

The TSX Composite is down 450 points since the close of business on May 2. I wonder if I need to create a gadget to track this for others to put on their websites.

I don't remember that promise from the campaign

A CPC member backpedals comments about an eventually completely voluntary census. Now that I mention it, I don't remember the destruction of the long-form census being discussed before it happened, either. Does the Secret Agenda begin to rear its head?