In the last year and a half you have knocked on thousands of doors and have probably patted half the dogs in Leeds-Grenville. What have you learned?
(Laughing) I have learned that if I let the dog lick my hand, it stops barking long enough for me to talk to the owner.
Although many people have lived in Leeds-Grenville for generations, others have moved to Leeds-Grenville because of our strong communities and the beauty and recreational opportunities. And because of the Internet, a surprising number work from their homes. One guy manages a 400-person network in all parts of the world from his home in North Grenville. A woman works full time for a Bay Street law firm from her home in Gananoque. A Delta woman works for IBM from her home.
What is the ballot question for this election?
This election is about two things: one is the Liberal vs Conservative choices on what to spend money on; the other is whether people approve of Mr. Harper’s style of government.
The Conservatives are keen on mega-prisons and corporate tax cuts and sloppy military procurements. They’re often not bothering to get tenders and in the case of the F-35 jets, are signing on for something not completely developed yet. And they are stubborn enough to stay committed to it even as other countries are backing away.
Most economists agree that corporate tax cuts are not the best way to create jobs. Analysts at the Department of Finance, Jim Flaherty’s own department, have placed corporate tax cuts at the bottom of the job-creation list, well below investments in education and families.
The reason investments in families create jobs is that families will spend the money immediately, multiplying the economic benefit, while corporations are already sitting on hordes of cash.
The Liberals want to invest in education as well as other measures to help families get over the hurdles of raising kids, saving for pensions, and looking after gravely ill family members. And we have specific programs to do all of those things.
What about Mr. Harper’s approach to government?
I find it secretive, deceitful, and wasteful.
The most recent examples are their refusal to provide parliament or the public with the costs of the proposed legislation, of the cost to the taxpayers. Siphoning fifty million dollars of money intended for the improvement of our border infrastructure into washrooms and gazebos scattered around the riding of the Minister of Industry. The wasteful G20 photo op and the fake lake. More recently spending millions of dollars on taxpayer-paid ads to announce stimulus programs that had already expired.
Perhaps the most troubling thing about the Conservatives’ approach was that they shut down debate and fired or silenced anyone who disagreed with them. The head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Agency and the Veteran’s Ombudsman are but two of many examples of principled individuals fired for doing their jobs.
Why should we care?
There are so many issues we need to come to grips with as a country: jobs, climate change, dealing with our aging population, Canada’s place in the world. If we don’t have honest and substantive debates about these issues, we won’t find the right solutions.
Do the Harper Conservatives have too much respect for the free market?
I think they don’t see a role for government, so they’re offloading all responsibility for our economic direction and job creation to the big corporations, leaving our future in the hands of those whose chief requirement is to maximize quarterly profit. We need to balance the short-term thinking of the corporations with long-term plans and investments in education, research and technology. That’s the government’s job.
What things do people bring up most?
People are embarrassed and angry about question period. Teachers in particular complain about this. Personally I think we should try taking the TV cameras out of the House of Commons.
Jobs and job security are both huge issues. People who work for companies going through corporate transitions are seriously worried about the future of their pension plans.
I see lots of potential for jobs here. People with skills want to live in our communities. So let’s make sure we are as attractive as possible to startup and growing small businesses. Green energy is already creating jobs, and can create more.
Can tourism in Leeds-Grenville survive a high dollar?
I think it can because we do have a first class product in our land, our people, and our history.
As a landscape painter I take great joy in the beauty of the Westport area. One great opportunity is to prepare a Michelin-type tourist guide for artist’s studios and galleries in Leeds-Grenville, integrating our tourism and artistic communities.
How are the late stages of the local campaign going?
Not that I notice, but in my neighbourhood we’re winning the sign war, 8 to 6 (laughing).
Quite a few people have told me they plan to cast a strategic Liberal vote this time. I tell them their votes are safe with me. I’m a fiscal conservative, a social progressive, and a dedicated environmentalist. So I encourage those fed up with Stephen Harper’s behaviour to band together and make me their MP.
Steve Pettibone has a fine profile of Marjory Loveys at http://www.recorder.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3091585
On the Campaign Trail
March 26, 2011
Campaign Day 1: Whipped by a sign
A campaign sign consists of a three-sided 3/16” wire frame like a croquet hoop and a printed plastic bag which fits snugly over it. Two of the sides drive into the ground. The middle of the hoop holds the posts in position and supports the bag. Nothing to popping a few dozen of them into the ground, you say? Think again.
Saturday morning when the writ dropped it was cold. Fourteen of us set out across Leeds-Grenville to install signs. The ground was frozen solid. Emails began to fly. Ian Johntson wrote: “O.K., people. I have a question. How are we getting the signs in the ground? I used a large bar and it went in about two inches. What can I put on the end of my drill to make a hole to start?”
Marjory wrote back: “Ian, I was able to get a sign into our lawn by a series of taps, first on one corner, then the other, with a hammer.”
So away we went, frost or no frost.
Ever tried to pound a heavy wire frame into frozen ground with a hammer? The thing whips about mercilessly, and whenever the vibration touches bone it stings like a teacher’s strap. The only painless way to drive one with a hammer was to grip the frame loosely with a heavy leather mitt while leaning against the wire with fleshy body parts like calves and thighs to keep the thing from bending into a pretzel.
I had measured a frame at home and brought along a 3/16” masonry bit in my cordless drill. Of course a 3/16” bit isn’t very long, and the resulting hole wasn’t much help in supporting a two-foot sign. Besides that, most of the holes I drilled in the rough grass along the roadway I couldn’t find, so the masonry drill was a bust.
If I got lucky and found some softer ground and drove the frame in, it usually ended up too wide for the bag, splitting the frigid plastic, or so narrow I feared the sign would blow away. Turns out it’s best to measure the gap, add 2” for tension on the plastic cover, and then drive the frame in.
Adjustments are impossible after the plastic cover is in place.
With great effort I managed to place a dozen signs between Forfar and Rideau Ferry in the morning.
Promptly at noon fellow volunteer Moe Lavigne joined me and we headed south, but with some improvements. I replaced my drill bit with a 10” piece of 9 gauge brace wire. It worked pretty well at finding its way through frosty turf and mixed gravel and stones to the correct depth. Moe could find the hole by feel in the long grass to start the frame as I pulled the drill away, and he measured each gap between the posts so that we had a more consistent fit on the signs. The job is definitely easier with two, especially if the other member of the crew is a veteran of previous campaigns and doesn’t mind working on his knees on the cold ground.
A honk and friendly wave from a driver in Morton was very encouraging, especially because at that point we were tired, cold, and struggling to find another hole drilled in the grass.
After the loop to Lyndhurst and back to Forfar, I was worn out. Moe headed off with one of my improvised drill bits to plant more signs on his way back to Crosby Lake.
I’ll never look at one of those signs in the same way again. A campaign is hard work, but this is how we Canadians, in our polite, honourable way, bring about change when we are determined.
Make it worthwhile. Please vote!
Campaign Day 2: Sign teams overlap
Moe and I were approaching the Gananoque turnoff when we saw the flash of a red sign in the hand of a man getting out of a Jeep. We pulled over to say hello. Roger Haley had spent the morning working from Mallorytown to Gananoque along the river and then nipped up to plant a few of Marjory’s signs around the Hwy. 15 intersection. He said his drill’s second battery was well worn down.
We had shared the cordless drill idea with the rest of the crew by email. Everyone now used it except one holdout, Ross Howard in Grenville, who reported: “47 Signs up in rural North Grenville! Found that a 16 oz rubber mallet and a 12″ x 3/16″ common screw driver the best set of non-powered tools. The rubber mallet does not even leave a mark on the plastic!” Ross and his wife achieved this in seven hours of work over Saturday and Sunday.
Judging by the condition of the only two blue signs we saw, the local Conservatives have not yet twigged to drilling down to provide firm support for the posts.
Ian Johntson reported a driveway bristling with four blue signs in the Toledo area. That’s it so far for other colours.
On the other hand one guy in a house in Seeley’s Bay had three Marjory signs and two enthusastic daschunds digging up his front lawn. He wouldn’t tell us from where he got the signs, but offered them to us if we were short. It was quite an entertaining conversation.
Moe recognized Joan Delaney hiking down the Chaffey’s Locks Road so we stopped to chat. She talked us into a lawn sign for their property on Indian Lake. So we went there and planted it in their flower bed. Then we spent some time talking to Joan’s husband Bob about this year’s sugar-making. Like everyone else, Bob and Joan had to deal with a couple of dozen overflowing buckets – frozen solid. So they took them into the house to warm them up. Whenever this freeze ends, half the country will have white clouds of fog over syrup arches while they boil frantically to make up for lost time.
Michael and me
July 15, 2010
As a guest on the Liberal Express I got first interview of the day.
I was rather surprised when Leeds Liberal candidate Marjory Loveys invited me for a ride from Brockville to Kingston on the Liberal Express, Michael Ignatieff’s ambitious summer march through all of the provinces and territories of Canada.
Marjory Loveys is a terrific interview because she knows politics and has a nimble mind. I use her whenever I can for columns because they always turn out interesting. Whatever she told the crew, they treated me with considerable deference, and maybe a little fear.
While we were waiting through the media scrum for a chance to board the bus a pleasant blonde woman beside me started to chat. I explained that scrums were of no use to me: I’m too deaf, so I prefer a one-on-one interview, and that this was the first time I had left home to do one. “Normally they come to me.” She smiled, amused, and we talked about the freedom which comes when one reaches a certain age. The kids are grown up, and one can start off on a major endeavour.
I introduced myself. She shook my hand, “I’m Zsuzsanna.” Ulp! Embarrassed. She quickly put me at ease and bade me welcome aboard the bus. Good start: I hadn’t recognized Ignatieff’s wife! Sweet lady, though. If I were a puppy I’d curl up at her feet.
The first available seat was with a young man in red t-shirt, one of the crew of interns with the Liberal headquarters in Ottawa. He’s from a town near St. John’s, Newfoundland, majoring in economics at Western. When the guy in charge warned me I was first up for an interview, I left my seat-mate my camera and made sure he knew how to use it.
The bus is set up with a number of seats facing tables. All except the leader’s are loaded with cookie bags, stacks of newspapers, and surprisingly large young men in dress shirts typing steadily on laptops. The bus has Internet. Somebody told me the password so I logged on and dashed off emails until my time came up.
With pen and pad in hand I moved up to join the trio at the table. Marjory beamed from the other side and Ottawa-Orleans candidate David Bertschi looked pleasant, if a bit detached. Mr. Ignatieff shook my hand and introduced himself as “Michael.”
“I’d like to begin with a question from political science, if you will.” Michael nodded. “It concerns the political spectrum. In the early sixties the Liberal Party could be comfortably described as slightly left-of-centre, but does the left-right distinction apply any more when people vote their wealth, their ethnicity, their religion, even their xenophobia? Is there a better way to distinguish between points of view?”
Silence. The Ottawa guy’s jaw dropped. Marjory grinned knowingly. She’s faced my questions before. Michael collected his thoughts for several agonizing seconds, then began:
“Since the time of Mike Pearson, Liberals have been a centrist party, a party of fiscal responsibility, strong defense, pensions, Medicare, and federalism with attention to the rights of Quebec. That was the centre. Some suggest we should move to the left or the right. We have many ideas in common with the NDP, but we are not the NDP. We can get it done.
“Stephen Harper pretends to be centrist, but he wants to move the political centre ten degrees to the right, and the people of Canada can’t let that happen.”
O.K., he’s just affirmed the basic assumption of Canadian politics. Nothing radical there. Time for the follow-up:
“I once wrote in a column that Michael Ignatieff is a better conservative than Stephen Harper. What do you have to offer to the Progressive Conservative who feels queasy these days?”
He’d fouled the first one back, but Michael watched this pitch drift across the plate, then knocked it out of the park.
“My uncle was George Grant, an ardent Red Tory and Canadian nationalist. He wrote Lament for a Nation. I grew up in a family where Red Tories and Liberals mixed freely. Moderate conservatives and Liberals are part of the same family.
“I don’t think Stephen Harper is a Red Tory. The Conservative campaign playbook is lifted from the playbook of the American Republican Party. Red Tories have always been ardent Canadian nationalists. While his tactics come from the United States, Harper’s ideas come from those of the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance. They are no mystery.
“And there is definitely room in the Big Red Tent for Progressive Conservatives.”
I had my interview and time was running, so I closed with a general question about Leeds-Grenville Liberal candidate Marjory Loveys.
“What I like about Marjory Loveys is that she has put down roots here. She knows Ottawa and is unimpressed and unintimidated by it. She can get things done there.
“Marjory cares about ideas. I have talked with her in detail about economic development in Leeds-Grenville. We need for our young people to stay in the community. They shouldn’t have to leave for schooling, or for jobs. People shouldn’t have to travel away from their community for medical care. Marjory should make an excellent MP.”
From what I could see on the bus and in the interview, Michael Ignatieff takes a traditional approach to politics. He’s going about this tour the methodical way, stop by stop, talking with Canadians and picking up ideas and believers as he goes. For example, Michael commented with a smile at the end of our interview: “In four years in this business nobody has ever asked me an initial question like that.” But have you noticed how he slips “Progressive Conservative” into every speech now?
Prorogation: the view from Leeds-Grenville
January 4, 2010
For a column in the Review Mirror Rod Croskery asked candidates in the forthcoming federal election for their views on the recent prorogation of Parliament. At press time responses had arrived from MP Gord Brown and Liberal candidate Marjory Loveys.
MP Gord Brown’s office responded:
Thank you for your email.
On December 30, the Prime Minister announced that the next phase of our Economic Action Plan will be launched, following the Olympic Games, with a Throne Speech on March 3 and a Budget on March 4.
The call for a new Throne Speech to launch the 3rd Session of the current Parliament is routine. The average Parliament comprises three or four sessions (and three or four Throne Speeches) and some Parliaments have had as many as six or seven Throne Speeches.
This is the 105th time in Canada’s history that a new Throne Speech will launch a new session of an existing Parliament.
The economy remains Canadians’ top priority and our top priority and a new Throne Speech allows the government to respond to the country’s economic priorities.
The three economic themes of the new session will be: (1) completing implementation of the Economic Action Plan introduced in the last Session, (2) returning the federal budget to balance once the economy has recovered – which is a priority for Canadians – and (3) building the economy of the future.
As well, the new Parliament allows us to re-introduce important legislation. Since a Bill can not be introduced twice in any Session, a new Session is required to further a government’s mandate.
I trust this answers your questions.
And I hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Mark King
Legislative Assistant
Gord Brown
Member of Parliament
—
Liberal Candidate Majory Loveys:
Rod:
Thanks for the opportunity to comment on the issue of Mr. Harper’s premature prorogation of Parliament.
There are several aspects of Mr. Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament and close it for over two months that have been much discussed already.
First, it will enable the Conservatives to use their new-found majority in the Senate to gain more control of the Senate, including the Senate Committees. However, if this were the only objective there would be no need for a two-month Parliamentary shut-down.
Second, prorogation will delay many bills forcefully promoted by Mr. Harper as urgent and crucial, for example bills to reduce crime. His past bluster can now be seen as just that.
Third, Parliamentary scrutiny of the Afghanistan Detainee issue will cease. There has been much speculation that this was the real motive behind Mr. Harper’s decision, and I agree with this assessment.
However, in my view the impact of the duration of the closure of Parliament deserves more attention.
This two-months-plus closure will render Parliament mute until March. During this time Parliament will be unable to quickly respond to any emergency that arises, and the budget will be written with no input from the general public or our Members of Parliament.
If events create the need for Parliamentary action – for example to deal with a work stoppage that is causing hardship for Canadians – the process of recalling Parliament, electing a Speaker, etc. will slow any response. For this reason past governments have learned to prorogue Parliament just a few days before it is scheduled to be recalled. Mr. Harper did not take this precaution. He clearly does not care if Parliament is Missing In Action for months on end.
More importantly, before each budget Parliamentary Committees normally hear from a broad cross-section of Canadians and debate the ideas they hear. Their advice is given to the Minister of Finance well before the budget is written.
Mr. Harper’s stated intent is to recall Parliament on March 3 and have a budget the very next day.
Given this timetable, our elected MPs will have no opportunity to advise the Minister of Finance on actions to help us deal with the effects of the recession, deal with the deficit or improve our pensions. And the Canadian public will have no opportunity for their voices to be heard and participate in an open and transparent discussion on their proposals.
This means that Mr. Flaherty will hear the opinions of big companies who can hire lobbyists and the select few he invites to his meetings; those without an “in” with the government or big bucks to hire well-connected lobbyists will be shut out.
It is the unnecessary length of time that Parliament will be closed that will impact Canadians the most. It suggests that Mr. Harper is placing his partisan interests in shutting down uncomfortable questions about his decisions on our Afghan mission ahead of the interests of Canadians. Perhaps he even sees not having to listen to the likes of us about budget proposals as an added bonus.
In leaving Parliament unable to quickly respond to emergencies or to listen to the public and debate their concerns about the recession, the deficit and pensions, he is preventing our elected Members of Parliament from doing their work.
I can only conclude that Mr. Harper sees Parliament as an inconvenience rather than an essential voice of the Canadian people.
Note: These articles made their way to the Brockville Recorder and Times in its Friday, Janary 8, 2010 edition.
On federal politics: an interview with Marjory Loveys
August 14, 2009
Marjory Loveys worked for years in the Prime Minister’s Office. I leaped at the chance to talk to a woman who understands federal politics. Marjory is running for the Leeds and Grenville Liberal nomination.
Why is it important that the Liberal Party of Canada form the next government?
It’s worth looking at the current government and defining for ourselves what makes people so uncomfortable with Stephen Harper. For me there are two things: 1. he is mean and divisive, and I fear that over time Canada will become like him, meaner and more divided; 2. he seems to have very little ambition for Canada. I don’t see any big ideas coming from Stephen Harper; I don’t see big plans for progress for Canada. I don’t see him excited about new industries, new technologies, or major reforms of any kind. He likes the oil sands, law and order, and ethanol. That’s about it.
Yes, but he’s an oilman, from Calgary.
He’s no oilman. I worked with guys from the oil patch and they were builders. They wore iron rings and they built things. Stephen Harper is not a builder. He has plenty of ambition for himself, but not for Canada.
What’s Michael Ignatieff doing talking up the oil sands?
It’s a big industry and a big resource, and it has to learn to operate sustainably. In Calgary there are lots of iron rings and a can-do attitude. In terms of climate change if we had fewer economists and lawyers and more engineers, we could accomplish a whole lot. It’s like anything else. You don’t do it until you’re pushed, and the trick for government is that we will push them in a way that works for them.
Engineers are taught to solve problems, and that’s what politics needs: people to solve problems. That’s what I did for ten years in Mr. Chretien’s office: listen to all sides. Find an approach that is supportive, not destructive, that works for everybody.
One blogger suggested that Michael Ignatieff should stop trying to appear a statesman and speak to Canadians the way he would talk to members of a book club. Are there enough readers in Canada to make Michael Ignatieff our next Prime Minister?
I look at Mr. Ignateiff as someone who is learning very quickly in one of the toughest jobs in the country. He has a strong philosophical framework for the job. He has actually thought about the role of government. He is liberal in the finest sense of the word.
Mr. Harper is like Mike Harris: he doesn’t believe in the organization he is leading. He is there to weaken it, not to make it work well. He has instructed his MPs to make Commons committee work totally partisan and dysfunctional. If Conservative Party of Canada MPs don’t like where the committee is going, they often get up and leave.
Stephen Harper is caught up in an ideology of not believing in government. He does not believe in government as a force for good. By contrast Michael Ignatieff believes in a government which functions well and is doing the right thing.
George W. Bush’s ideology demanded that he cut taxes, deregulate, and wage war. He left the United States bankrupt. To what extent has this Republican trend influenced the Conservative Party of Canada?
One of the great myths is that Liberals are spendthrifts and Conservatives are good fiscal managers.
The Chretien Liberals inherited a huge deficit from Brian Mulroney. By the end of the Chretien years we had surpluses that were being used to pay down the nation’s mortgage. Stephen Harper increased spending and cut taxes to the point where the surplus was gone before the recession began. With no rainy day funds, the entire stimulus package was funded by going into debt. No prudent family would run their finances this way. We have seen this pattern in Saskatchewan, and in the United States in Republican years. The right wing ran up the debts and the left wing paid them off.
What local and national challenges will the next government face?
The big challenge for Canada over the next few years will be to recover from the recession. What I would push very hard for is more help for small business because they are spending lots of money on stimulus. If you are a car company it’s great, if you build infrastructure it is great, but the vast majority of enterprises in Leeds and Grenville are small businesses, and Ottawa hasn’t beefed up support for small business.
Your next hurdle is to gain the nomination. Why should members of the Leeds and Grenville Liberal association choose you as their candidate?
I know how government works and I know what it feels like to be in a small business and feel that you’re not being heard. I grew up in a village in Oxford County and I have seen a lack of understanding of rural and small communities in the federal government.
Mr. Ignatieff has made a commitment to use a rural lens on his policies. This is his way of recognizing that one size does not fit all and he is committing that all of his policies will work for small towns as well as for cities. I’m particularly interested in day care programs, for example. They will need to be designed quite differently in rural communities than in downtown Toronto.
Breaking up the logjam of Canadian politics
July 29, 2009
Jeffrey Simpson’s column in today’s Globe speaks of the four blocks in Canadian federal politics, and how they consign Canadians to minority governments for the forseeable future. The Conservatives hold the west and rural Ontario. The Liberals hold urban centres in Ontario, English-speaking Quebec, and the maritimes. The NDP pulls 15%. The Bloc controls Quebec. Simpson does not mention the Green Party in his analysis.
When speaking to veteran political observer and Leeds and Grenville Liberal nomination candidate Marjory Loveys this week I formed the impression that she is well aware of this logjam, but an interesting impression emerged from the discussion:
The philosophical differences between the NDP and the Liberals are certainly no wider than those of the Reform party and the Progressive Conservatives. When’s the last time the NDP tried to nationalize a bank? Oh wait: the Republicans did that. And Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party of Canada has practically nationalized the auto industry. Uh… so what’s keeping the Liberals and the NDP from forming a coalition of the left to balance the CPC? And the Green Party doesn’t fit anywhere on the political spectrum. It’s a trend, a fashionable place to park a protest vote. If the Liberal/NDP get a platform together and involve the Green trendites, a majority may well be within reach.
Don’t count the Left wing out just yet.
the Walnut Diary 