Bow. James Bow.

I wouldn’t normally do this, but I’m about to wilfully violate the stated copyright terms of another blogger’s website.

Conservative Party supporter Sandy Crux has launched a website. As she is not a fan of the mainstream media and the bias she perceives in their reporting on all things Stephen Harper, she has taken it upon herself to set up a website listing the accomplishments of the Harper government in its over two years of power. Here’s a selection:

(3) Age of consent from 14 to 16 effective May 1, 2008 (Link)

We should note that, thanks to all party negotiations and the efforts of NDP MPs, a “reasonable age range” exception remains in place, which prevents the criminalization of sex acts between experimenting fourteen year olds. That’s reasonable, and a reasonable thing to mention in the accomplishments list. We don’t want to go down the path of absurdity seen in the United States.

(11) Chinese Head Tax — government apology on June 22, 2006 (Link) (Link)

That, I must admit, I appreciated.

(19) GST — Goods & services tax cut from 7% to 6% and then to 5% (Link)

This, as I’ve said before, may be politically expedient, but poor policy. More of our tax dollars are now being wasted in the administration of this tax, whose cut amounts to two pennies off a cup of coffee at Tim Hortons’.

(16) Fixed Election Dates — An Act to Amend the Canada Elections Act (Bill C-16), passed May 3, 2007 (Link) is an Act primarily for majority governments since minority governments can fall at almost any time when the opposition express a lack of confidence in the government.

Note the weasel words to get around the fact that Stephen Harper is threatening to violate the spirit of his own legislation.

The point is, it’s an unabashedly partisan document, which is fine and dandy as things go. The points Sandy raises as accomplishments are a good starting point, I guess, for a debate over what the Conservative government has actually accomplished. And debates abound. For instance, Sandy credits the Harper government for increasing military spending “to a post-war peak, including the delivery of four C-17 Globe Master strategic airlift aircraft”, but doesn’t mention that, late last week, the Conservative government quietly scuttled “multibillion-dollar plans to purchase a resupply ship for the navy and new patrol vessels for the coast guard.”.

But a debate is a debate, isn’t it? Sandy can make her arguments and we can make our comments, taking down any faulty logic. In the course of the discussion, we all learn things and come out stronger, right?

Except that Sandy has an odd little proviso on her website, which reads as follows:

Since election fever is in the air, consider this permission to use this list or URL in “conservative” election material or campaigning. It is one way to let the Canadian people know, from coast to coast to coast, what the Harper conservative government has actually done in their two and half years in power.

However, let me remind opposition supporters that this is copyright material and this is NOT permission for anyone other than conservatives to use.

Oh, really?

Oh, dear. I’m not a Conservative Party supporter. I’m likely to vote Green this time around. So, therefore, I’m a supporter of an opposing party, and I’ve just reproduced a portion of the list in the above website. What will Sandy do now? Sue?

And just how far do you think she will get?

Although we are currently embroiled in an act to reform the current Copyright Act, the old Copyright Act still applies in cases like this, and the act does talk about fair use and fair dealing. Furthermore, the concept of fair dealing has been significantly clarified by the Supreme Court of Canada in a 2004 ruling. While the decision does not contain exceptions for parody and satire, it does say the following:

“The fair dealing exception is perhaps more properly understood as an integral part of the Copyright Act than simply a defence. Any act falling within the fair dealing exception will not be an infringement of copyright. The fair dealing exception, like other exceptions in the Copyright Act, is a user’s right. In order to maintain the proper balance between the rights of a copyright owner and users’ interests, it must not be interpreted restrictively.”

(link)

What is one of the six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing?

“In general terms, those who deal fairly with a work for the purpose of research, private study, criticism, review or news reporting, do not infringe copyright.”

(link)

Criticism. Review. Or news reporting.

Criticism. Check.

Not only is Sandy Crux’s attempt to limit use of her publicly available work only to partisan Conservatives ultra vires, it’s quite simply undemocratic. She makes these fairly bold claims about creating a comprehensive list of Stephen Harper’s accomplishments, she tries to distance herself from the Conservative Party to enhance her credibility as an average voter, and she’s made the list available to fellow party members, and only fellow party members. What are they supposed to do with it? Print it out, and frame it? Or perhaps fold it up and stick it under their pillow to ward off the scary “Liberals win!” dreams at night? Or is it meant to be a set of talking points to engage the media and remind them of the good news behind Harper’s record? My money is on the latter. Clearly, they’re a set of weapons to be used to beat back opposition criticism.

And what are we who don’t necessarily agree with these debatable points supposed to do in response? Nothing?

Well, forget that.

The intent of the Copyright Act was to prevent the creation of derivative works — stuff that takes Sandy’s effort without accreditation, and which presents itself as its own original copy. I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure that if anybody were to take Sandy’s entire website, rebrand it a bit, and market it as their own original work, Sandy would be incensed, regardless of whether the individual was a Conservative Party supporter or not, and in spite of the fact that this is theoretically what Sandy gave blanket permission for that Conservative Party supporter to do.

Sandy does not seem to tolerate criticism very well. Various posts on her blog, and even on the Harper Accomplishments list have an interesting tendency of disappearing when the initial thrust of the post has been blunted by sufficient counter-argument. Her attempt to copyright her list For Conservative Eyes Only seems a spiteful swipe at those who would criticize the list, and an attempt to shut down debate on the points it raises.

Frankly, I’m disappointed. I thought she was bigger than that.

A story we should be watching over the next five days (though what, if anything, anybody can do about it is anybody’s guess) is the progress of tropical storm Gustav. Currently located between Haiti and Cuba, this storm has killed 22 people so far. More importantly, its most likely track puts it into the Gulf of Mexico where it will likely intensify. It will likely hit the United States as a major hurricane, possibly even New Orleans as a Category 3 storm.

Which, in cosmic terms, just simply isn’t fair.

The website to watch at the moment is that of Dr. Jeff Masters at the Weather Underground. He knows his stuff and has been tracking these hurricanes for years.

In the meantime, it seems we’ll have to pray for New Orleans. Again.

Note: current standings in the House of Commons:

Conservatives: 127
Liberals: 95
Bloc Quebecois: 48
New Democrats: 30
Independents: 4
Vacant: 4

In my previous post, complaining about the possibility of Stephen Harper going back on his word and violating the spirit of his fixed elections legislation, one thing I could not understand was the need for it. We’ve seen previous minority governments rise and fall. We know that there is an easy way for Harper to live up to his word and still go to the polls, and that is to engineer his own defeat in a confidence motion. Why not take that simple measure when Parliament resumes on September 15?

Theories abound, but one intriguing explanation came from the commentator Breath of Fresh Air from this post:

Well, he COULD if Dion and team would show up in the Commons to vote….

This presumes, of course, that Dion continues to bow to Harper’s confidence motion threats in order to avoid an election, which I doubt. I suspect he himself knows that this tactic is starting to wear a little thin. I also think that he senses that the electorate is more in the mood for an election, now, and with the numbers of all parties going nowhere, there may not be much to lose in going now compared to going later. But then, he might lose that backbone he’s been growing. I won’t know until he goes back to parliament.

You won’t find a fan of Dion’s chickenhearted tactics of ducking confidence measures, here. Centrists such as myself, and many on the progressive side of the blogosphere have been increasingly incensed at Dion allowing flawed legislation to pass rather than risk losing an election. His strategy can be easily labelled cowardly, spineless, leaderless, take your pick… That is, until the Conservative Party starts complaining that Dion won’t take the bait and force an election.

You are a Conservative, why should you be complaining here? Your agenda is being passed piece by piece. Dion is being made to look like a fool. The only place where the Conservatives have any argument that parliament is being obstructed is at the committee level, and most Canadians, I think, won’t see it that way. They’ll note that much of the committee obstruction has been at the Conservatives’ own hands, and repeated complaints about the actions of the committees will lead some Canadians to wonder, just what is it that the Conservatives have to hide? At the very least, it will be seen as the government calling the pot black, and if Harper takes it further and calls an election without losing a confidence vote, breaking his own hyped promise, then it has the appearance of Harper stomping his feet, gathering his marbles and going home.

But if Dion won’t play ball and bring this government down, there is a way to bring the government down yourself, without breaking your fixed election dates law. As an extra bonus, it turns the Liberals’ own tactics against them.

Say you have a bill which has been deemed as a vote of confidence. Better yet, wait for a motion of non-confidence that Layton and his NDP are more than likely to bring forward this fall session. Check your numbers. The NDP and the Bloc Quebecois are likely to stand up as one and vote against the government. If Dion blusters, continues to disparage the government, but says that now is not the time to call an election, get ready. This is where it gets fun.

Give the motion of non-confidence an afternoon, then call a vote. Watch as the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois stand up to vote against it. Now watch the Liberal side. Hopefully Stephane Dion has shown up as the lone Liberal MP to cast his symbolic but ultimately useless vote against the government. Let him justify showing no confidence in this government without accepting the responsibility of bringing it down. Let him vote, let him sit, and then look at his face as he sits across from the Prime Minister, alone in a void of 94 empty Conservative seats, including his entire front bench, about to cast one of only 33 votes in favour of his government.

And then we sit and wait for the Liberal reaction. Will there be a mad rush to their chairs as Liberal MPs stumble in to (giggle) express confidence in this government? Or will there be stoic acceptance that, despite Liberal cowardice, the election that more and more Canadians appear to want is finally happening. Will the motion of non-confidence bring down the government by a vote of 83 to 33?

And if the Liberals complain about the Conservative tactics, just shrug and say, “we were sorry to hear that X number of Liberal MPs were unable to show up to vote, so we thought we’d match their numbers, so that their voice in parliament would be fairly represented,” recalling the Parliament tradition of the government and opposition MPs pairing off on critical votes, so that the absense of an MP on one side due to illness is matched by the absense of an MP from the other side.

If you’re feeling particularly creative, start coming up with funny excuses for each Conservative MP’s absense. I had to walk the dog, and he chased Kyoto up a tree. I was caught in traffic behind a Liberal limo. Deborah Gray ate my portfolio and I had to get a new one. Each time a reporter asks, and gets a funny story to print, it’s yet another reminder that this is exactly what Liberal MPs have done several times this past year.

Yes, it’s a game, but unlike the other foolhardy moves, this is a game that Dion has started. Harper gets the boost from finishing it. He works within the procedures of parliament, and doesn’t violate his own fixed election dates law.

Just a little free advice. Take it for what it’s worth.

Looks like an election is a distinct possibility in Canada between now and the end of the year. It must be something in the water, or possibly the barbecue sauce, as the various party leaders have come back from the summer break, energized and belligerent.

Harper in particular has been playing to his base, suggesting that he might have to think long and hard whether the current parliament is workable enough for him to bother with a fall session of parliament, or if he should just chuck it all in and try his chances with an election.

“Quite frankly, I’m going to have to make a judgment in the next little while as to whether or not this Parliament can function productively,”

(link)

As an aside, it is a little rich for Conservatives to moan about opposition obstructionism, especially considering that it has been Conservative members who have been doing a fair amount of obstructing at the committee level, and that the party itself wrote the book (literally) on how to obstruct the proceedings of parliament when the situation looked unfavourable.

The wording here is critical. We’re not talking about Harper and the opposition staring down the barrel of a confidence motion, either negotiating hard or playing chicken. That’s a day in the life of any minority parliament. That’s democracy in action. No. We’re talking about Stephen Harper leaving 24 Sussex Drive without provocation and making the trek to the Governor General’s residence to say that he has no control over parliament anymore, and that parliament should be dissolved and an election called well before the traditional four-year mandate of parliament expired.

That’s not without precedent, either. Most recently, Prime Minister Jean Chretien surprised the opposition by calling an election in 2000, roughly three and a half years into his mandate. In terms of minority parliaments, the 1957 government of John Diefenbaker was dissolved without a confidence vote, after the newly elected Liberal leader, Lester Pearson, made an ill-advised speech asking Diefenbaker that the Liberals be returned to government without an election because of an economic downturn.

There’s no doubt, under old rules, Stephen Harper could call an election whenever he wanted, however he wanted. There’s just one problem: there are new rules. In one of his first acts as prime minister, Harper and his Conservatives pushed through a bill that fixed election dates. No longer, he crowed, would a sitting prime minister have the unfair advantage of surprising the opposition with a snap election.

Some Conservatives have expressed doubts or frustration over the idea that Stephen Harper would dissolve parliament and call an election rather than wait to be defeated in a vote of confidence. Others, however, have been scrambling to justify Harper’s actions, to keep an election call off his list of broken promises.

Yes, I know all about the fixed election date legislation. But, two points must be considered: the first is that the legislation ONLY relates to majority governments and secondly, the possibility of “contingencies” have been written into the legislation. So, there are two reasons for an election before October 2009 — the government is a minority government and the functions of the government are currently in a state of “dysfunction.”

…

Without a doubt, if the PM pays a visit to the Governor General, you’ll have the usual suspects condemn him for breaking his word. But, given what the fixed date legislation really states, he certainly would not have done that. He is acting as a leader should and the average Canadian will simply see that he is a statesman who can make the tough decisions when it is necessary.

(link)

And here:

The fixed election date legislation was designed to prohibit a Prime Minister who has been given a full, majority mandate from voters from going to the polls early or later when it is politically opportune, ala Jean Chretien in 2000, a mere three years into his 1997 mandate. For some reason, Conservatives have been incapable of effectively communicating that point.

(link)

The suggestion that this legislation doesn’t apply to a prime minister of a minority government is, frankly, silly. Harper himself made sure of that when he set the clock ticking for an election in October 2009.

Ask yourself: why 2009? His government came to power in June 2006, and our constitution allows individual parliaments (not governments, parliaments) to maintain their mandate for five years. Tradition has dictated that majority governments call an election roughly every four years. Four years translates to an election in mid-to-late 2010. Five years translates to 2011. Harper picked 2009, or an election after just three years. While it is unusual for a minority parliament to last that long, it’s not unheard of. So the year Harper voluntarily picked to end his government’s mandate strongly suggests that he wanted to show that his legislation applied to his government as well.

I don’t doubt that loopholes exist in this legislation. I’m not expecting Harper to be hauled off in handcuffs if he approaches Michaelle Jean asking to dissolve parliament. I am aware that there was no constitutional amendment to wrest the power the Governor General has to call an election when advised to do so by our prime minister. But the fact remains that Harper would be breaking the spirit of the law if he called an election now rather than engineering his defeat in a confidence motion as previous minority governments have done.

Harper specifically brought in this bill to counter what previous governments sought to do: calling an election before the expiration of the mandate whenever the conditions were most favourable for them, and this is what he is doing now. Any excuses that Harper brings forward for going forward with an election now: obstructionism from the opposition; a need to clear the air and firm up the mandate, et cetera, can be brought forward by future governments when they feel the law should not apply to them. Harper, in passing this legislation, sets the precedent. If he disobeys the spirit of his own law, it becomes a law that isn’t worth respecting, and the “achievement” has to come off of any list of Harper Accomplishments for that list to remain credible.

Truth to tell, Harper’s broken promise would be, at most, a one day story. In the heat of the election campaign, other issues and other campaign miscues will take over the headlines, so I’m perplexed why so many partisan Conservative supporters are so desperate not to give one inch of ground, here. Yes, there may be bad optics in the fact that Harper broke a promise that McGuinty managed to keep, but it’s a small promise in a small issue.

But for me it’s another piece of the disturbing pattern that has materialized over the course of Harper’s two years in office. He was elected in 2006 promising to stop government power grabs, to be open and accountable, and to stop playing these games. He has failed to follow through on all counts. Indeed, if Harper breaks this promise and calls an election, it is yet another sign that he believes that the rules don’t apply to him.

And that’s just the sort of arrogance that got the Liberals punished in 2006.

Further Reading

• Harper’s Accomplishments
• Harper’s Broken Promises

(Update: 9:09): Mr. Sinister Greg offers up more evidence that this law is supposed to apply to all governments, majority or minority:

Tories are saying that Harper is not breaking the law because this is a minority Parliament and the law was only meant to stop “majority” prime ministers from pulling the plug and calling an early election. That is a wonderful and imaginative theory, but that is not what the government’s own House Leader and Minister of Democratic Reform (Rob Nicholson) said during the debate on the bill (emphasis added):

I believe all parties share the view that elections belong fundamentally to citizens. They belong to the people. All parties agree with the principle that the timing of elections should not be left to the Prime Minister, but should be set in advance so all Canadians know when the next election will occur.

I will begin with the description of the current process for calling general elections and I will discuss some of the difficulties associated with it. This will be followed by a discussion of the many advantages associated with fixed date elections. Finally, I will be very pleased to present the specifics of Bill C-16.

Currently, it is the prerogative of the Prime Minister, whose government has not lost the confidence of the House of Commons, to determine what he or she regards as a propitious time for an election to renew the government’s mandate. The Prime Minister then requests dissolution of the House from the Queen’s representative and if the Governor General agrees, he or she proclaims the date of the election.

What we have is a situation where the Prime Minister is able to choose the date of the general election, not based necessarily on what is in the best interests of the country, but what is in the best interests of his or her political party. Bill C-16 would address this problem and would produce a number of other benefits.

That sounds familiar. Has the PM lost the confidence of the House? Nope.

More here.