The current incarnation of Garth Turner, MP was a lightning rod for criticism and political chatter of all sorts from the beginning. (I wrote “current incarnation” because I know almost nothing of his previous turn in Parliament before the Liberal landslide of 1993.) Anyway, from my perspective this is often a good thing for the individual member (especially a backbencher with a wee bit of wit and some stage ability), but it rarely does much for the party. A party on the Opposition side may be the exception but that’s certainly not always the case.

However, Mr. Turner has also recently represented himself as politician with certain strong principles and his actions today muddy that water quite a bit. He presented fairly sensible arguments for why joining the Liberal caucus does not violate his stated principle against MPs joining other parties without going back to the electorate. And, given the opportunity this move provided to challenge the government over its own late arrivals, today’s announcement was an effective political tactic. But, Mr. Turner’s actions, no matter what he says, do not represent a triumph of principle (at least not the one about MPs and party membership).

It is my contention that in politics principles are guidelines at best, rhetorical frosting at worst, and usually something in between. I don’t have much interest in arguing whether this is bad or good, but rather to establish a base of reference. This is a reality that I find is often obscured by proselytizing for one partisan side or another, and indeed for our civic religion itself, i.e. the idea of democratic government as the saviour from all ills. With that said, before today I would have placed Mr. Turner well over on the guidelines side of the political principles continuum and nothing I’ve read today has changed that.

My interest here is not to besmirch Mr. Turner (even if it were my opinion of him is quite irrelevant) but to elevate the bar of principled action and to make a point about politics in general. Being truly principled is very nearly impossible (I personally fail to be so every day), but I would appreciate if more politicians acknowledged that directly. Often an unequivocal statement is made, possibly with good intentions or maybe just to make a point in a verbal joust, and then later some circumstance requires that this be mediated or abandoned. There are times when I would accept an argument that such turns of events are evidence of hypocrisy, but despite my cynicism about politics I’m unwilling to say that’s always the case.

I’m not sure how I would have approached this situation if I were to be in Mr. Turner’s place. It seems to me that he made his decision by giving more weight to other considerations, in particular his desire for more influence in Parliament, which is entirely valid. And, I can’t say with certainty that any of the alternatives would have improved my view of today’s events. (I’m most certain Mr. Turner will be criticized no matter what he chose to do or say; as I said earlier he is a political lightning rod.) Would it have been better if he had simply announced his intention to seek the Liberal nomination in Halton? How many people would appreciate the nuance of an Independent MP joining with a Parliamentary caucus without joining the party itself?

In the final analysis, I think Mr. Turner’s statement on this comes very close to acknowledging the distance between his earlier statements and today’s announcement. It may just be that in the dirty world of modern politics everything gets dragged down into the muck. And so, I remain a little bit disappointed and just as cynical and pessimistic about this whole politics thing.

Just for the record, I dislike most of the politicians I’ve actually met in person, I’m firmly in the non-partisan camp, and I generally don’t vote. However, following the sometimes amusing and occasionally horrify spectacle that is politics in Canada (and it’s fellow democracies) is a guilty pleasure. You should need no further evidence than that to convict me of hypocrisy.

The Tories (who have a lot of money to spend on such things) have created an ad campaign that tries to sell the fact that Grit leader Stephane Dion is not decisive enough to do the job. It would appear they’re trying to raise the specter of the Tories’ greatest asset from the last round: Mr. Dithers, a.k.a. former Liberal PM Paul Martin. From my perspective, the party machinery is trying to strengthen their base before the official campaigning starts. Once the election is called they can come out with their focused five (or whatever number they choose) priorities message and appear more positive. And, the truth is, it will probably work out very well for them. That’s regrettable, but that doesn’t mean much in politics.

There’s been some commentary about how this is an American-style campaign. I disagree that the Americans have a monopoly on this stuff; I think this is a very Canadian-style campaign. The only thing that might make this an American-style campaign is if the Conservative Party were to run these ads (and only these or similar ads) during the official election period. Negative personal attacks have been common enough in every election I’ve experienced. The only difference in the US elections is that down south nearly every ad is a personal attack whereas here in Canada the parties seem to prefer mixing in more of the warm and fuzzy positive messages.

I don’t disagree with the fact that past negative campaign ads have ad little or even negative effects, but there have also been other factors at play. For example, in 1993 I think the Tories were cooked no matter what they did.

All of that aside though, I still hate these kinds of ads; they always strike me as incredibly juvenile and arrogant. Like a lot of political statements and Question Period “questions” it tends to come out sounding like a middle school playground. Did too, did not, did too, etc. And, on top of that, these particular ads come across very elitist. That is, the common folk are not able to figure out on their own whether Dion is a good leader or not. As for the flip-flops: every politician in a prominent position (and who wishes to hold onto said position) has done some flip-flopping. It’s the nature of our system.

Oh well, no one has yet convinced me it’s worth my time and energy to vote whenever they do get around to calling another election.

Over the years a number of people have been killed while riding in the back of pickups generally due to being thrown out in an accident. I’m unaware of specific statistics on such fatalities, but my intuition is that they form a relatively small part of overall traffic fatalities. However, these type of accidents tend to receive a great deal more attention than others which may lead to a perception of more significance than is warranted.

Regardless of that, I really don’t like the whole idea of this legislation. Yes, riding in the back of pickup truck is more dangerous than riding in the cab, but it is also obviously so. In other words, for a sensible person to ride in the back of a pickup it requires consciously accepting some risk. I often ride in pickup boxes, usually because I’m helping to transport items that need to be steadied. I do this well aware of the risks and in what I regard as a safe manner.

In my view, we need to apply a common sense measure to things like these. Just because someone died doing something a little bit or a lot foolish doesn’t mean that activity needs to be banned. Of course, one look around shows that we’ve gone a long way down this road already. Keeping on this way will only lead to more regulation of our lives.

This is one of the problems of having “professional” legistlators: if we pay people to make laws they will have to find things to make laws about whether such laws are truly required or not. A politician on the campaign trail wants to be able to demonstrate that they’ve done something. Creating laws to ban some kind of dangerous and foolish activity are a notably effictive way to achieve that goal.

Unfortunately for me, all indicators point to the majority of my fellow citizens disagreeing with me on this point. I can rant and rave all I want, but my view effectively irrelevant.

Anyone who knows anything about Pelican can tell you that the level of the lake is critical to the health of the lake. I think this is true of most the lake in the area. The thing is that Pelican is most valuable as a viable fish habitat and sailing lake. Left to its own devices (i.e. with no reliable natural inflow) the lake would likely be neither. It makes no sense that the minor habitat of the inlet should dictate the management of the whole lake.

In the end I’m sort of glad the opposition decided to call out the government today. Ever since the Gomery Report and especially in the last weeks Ottawa has been in election mode. And, once that cat is out it doesn’t go back in the bag easily. So I don’t think the choice was between a holiday election campaign or one in the spring. The choice was between a shorter official election campaign now or electioneering from now until March or April.

However, the fact that it doesn’t surprise me doesn’t mean it doesn’t annoy me. In the article I linked the legislation is defended with fear: terrorists and pornographers are using the Internet and therefore CSIS and the police must be allowed to eavesdrop. That’s a legitimate argument (eavesdropping is a well established police procedure) but please don’t try to convince me it’s a good idea to allow it without requiring a court order.

It’s going to take a good while before the passage becomes really viable and at that point there’s nothing anyone (especially not the Canadian government) will be able to do to prevent some heavy environment impact. (I think it’s a relatively sure bet that a ship will at some point spill something nasty while traversing the northwest passage.) However, right now the possibility of an open passage raises the geopolitical question of “who’s in charge?.” And, quite honestly, given the likely candidates and my current knowledge (as always, admittedly limited) I’d prefer see the answer to remain Ottawa.

What bothered me about this fight was the escalation of the rhetorical battle without (so it appeared) any formal discussion. I’ll admit that I don’t know a lot about the ecological issues but looking at the geography of Devil’s Lake it seems plausible that the basin contains some unique organisms. And, in any case, I don’t see the point of having a boundary waters treaty if it’s not invoked over a dispute like this one.

But, what I really wanted to say was this: I think that Michaelle Jean is an excellent choice. As I noted above, the job is mostly about being a public face for governement and Canada. The power remains in technicalities alone; the job is a performance. And, performance is going to be familiar to someone who has made their living as a television presenter.

Of course, the similarities with the current Governor General do give this appointment the appearance of formula, but the proverbial advice to not fix what isn’t broken applies to the PMO as much as anyone else.