So, the Kenney-led UCP government in Alberta wants to hold a referendum on equalization. Here’s the proposed question: I want to bring two points to your attention here. First, is the fact that this is about removing Section 36(2) from the constitution. To put it bluntly, this is a non-trivial
Continue readingTag: Political Strategy
The Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Strategic Two-Step #nlpoli
There’s a sheet of paper taped on the underside of one of the drawers in the Premier’s desk on the 8th Floor. It’s very old. No one knows for sure how long it has been there but there are countless rings from countless coffee cups on it and more than
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Austerity Budget Pantomime #nlpoli
According to the Oxford dictionary, financial austerity means “difficult economic conditions created by government measures to reduce public expenditure.”Reduce government spending.Three key words.The most important is reduce, meaning to lower o…
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Manipulation Manipulation #nlpoli #cdnpoli
/What a difference 36 years makes. There’s New Democrat strategist Robin Sears in a National Post piece complaining about the way the Liberal are running their guy named Trudeau in lots of situations that give him good visuals. “He isn’t running to be a boxer or a canoeist, he’s running
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Political Calculations #nlpoli
As you look ahead to the fall election, the bigger political addicts among you are likely trying to figure out different aspects like how the parties might run the campaign. We got a clue this week with the debate story. Apparently the front-runner Liberals never thought of forcing the media
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: For want of a nail… #nlpoli
Dwight Ball demonstrated last week how very simple things can turn into problems very quickly. He handed his political opponents a stick they can use to beat him with. The fact they really don;t have much more than innuendo and speculation doesn’t matter. He’s given them a weapon. Ball confirmed
Continue readingCuriosityCat: UK ELECTION: THE WINNING TORY STRATEGY
The Man who smote Miliband Who says strategy is not paramount? Cameron’s Conservatives had their course set for them by strategist Crosby, and it carried them to a victory that has surprised pollsters, decapitated three opposition parties, and divided the UK into Tory England and Scottish nationalists’ Scotland: While strategists
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The little things will get you #nlpoli
Maybe someone can point to this information somewhere please. Maybe your humble e-scribbler missed it. But in the past couple of days, there’s been a simple number missing from the discussion of long-term care beds in Newfoundland and Labrador. How many do we need? Seems like a fairly obvious question.
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Contending Political Strategies #nlpoli
Starting last Friday, the ironically-named Conservatives currently running the place started holding a series of “pre-budget” announcements. They started with news that to deal with the massive financial crisis they would be dumping 77 and a half teaching positions in the provincial school system. About twice that many would retire,
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Arseny Yatsenyuk and the Ukraine’s ‘End Game’
Foxy Yatsenyuk could be a Ukrainian Hero I have started innumerable draft posts about Ukraine over the past few weeks, but there was little room for anything but speculation. The tensions and factors underlying the ‘Crimean Crisis’ were pretty clear to see, but the interplay was too fast, and Russia’s
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Whose efficiency? what efficiency?
Efficiency is formidable. It rears its head most everywhere. Witness the tyranny of the target at more and more workplaces: from more greets per hour to more exam points per teacher. At the same time, efficiency also nurtures increasing tyrannies at home: get fit in 12 minutes per day instead
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Trudeau’s Liberals going for the Conservatives throat.
I am not a big fan of the accepted wisdom that politics happens on a left/right continuum. That creaking old paradigm does not mean much to most of the electorate. Perhaps I should be a bit more nuanced with that observation? While there are many Canadians who view themselves as
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: The relentless collapse of the Green Party of Canada’s grassroots.
Back in May I laid out the evidence to support my contention that the Green Party of Canada is suffering a sustained collapse at the grass-roots level. To summarise my arguments, the local Electoral District associations were largely formed to capitalise on the Revenue Sharing agreements between the Green Party`s
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Trudeau just SKEWERED all his critics in one fell swoop!
In a desperate attempt to take Justin Trudeau down a peg or two, the NDP and Conservatives have been crafting a narrative around Trudeau’s public speaking business, and his accepting fees to speak for charities. On my part, I do not think that Trudeau did anything wrong. He put his
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Green Party grass-roots haemorrhage: Liberals and Dippers be advised.
Well here we are, the Elections Canada filing deadline for Electoral District associations has come and gone, (June 1) so I thought I would update which GPC Electoral Districts are still alive and kicking. A little more than a month ago, I blogged on the slow motion collapse of the
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: BC Liberals Advertising for the Greens in Victoria!
Vote Green! Brought to you by the BC Liberals I was tooling around on Facebook this morning, and some of my Green Party of BC FaceBook friends were talking about this full-page advertisement for Jane Sterk and the BC Greens in the Times Colony. You know, one of the most
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Liberal Party open contested nominations: Awesome plan, but Pro-Life is the fly in the ointment.
At great risk to life and limb, I am going to open a can of worms that the Liberal Party is just going to HAVE to deal with soon. Over the course of the leadership contest, the bold experiment of opening up the vote for all Canadians through the supporter
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Actually, jury is still out on efficacy of Attack ads against Trudeau
Hmm, this is a bit embarrassing. Yesterday I posted that the Ipsos Reid poll commissioned by postmedia and CTV demonstrated that the attack ads were not working. The word I used was emphatically not working. Well I have to climb down a little (a lot) from that statement. I argued
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: An Opinion poll actually worth noting: Conservative Attack ads emphatically are NOT working.
Opinion polls can be extremely significant when they are used properly. When you are quantifying what things are of interest to specific people, you can garner useful actionable data, useful for political purposes that is. But the opinion polls that new organisations typically commission are next to useless. I mean,
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Attack ads are not the issue for the Liberals. It is the lack of money.
All this focus on attack ads! I do not normally have much to say about Air War aspects of political campaigning. Broadcast and media aspects of campaigns are important, but they are really outside my area of expertise. What I do know is that when the public gets engaged, money
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