For now, at least

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Well, we aren’t going to see an election call (this week, at least). The Bloc Quebecois announced Tuesday that it would support the government on Friday’s budget vote, and Wednesday the NDP said that it would support the Conservatives’ changes to EI. And this probably serves everyone well- the Tories, the Liberals, NDPs, and Bloquistes, and, most of all, the voters.

For Stephen Harper, this is good news. As much as he talks about wanting a majority government, the odds of his winning one are slim, if the latest polls are to be believed. The biggest problem the Conservatives have is that everyone knows Stephen Harper and many people have decided they don’t like him. The party’s ability to grow its support in a federal election, which is a must if the party is going to form a majority, is severely limited. In fact, if these poll results hold true in a federal election, likely the Conservatives would have a weakened minority. Making the current situation work – even if they have to soften their policies for the benefit of “the separatists and the socialists-” is not only the best way for the Conservatives to stay in power, but is also the best way to prove that they can be trusted with power – which may, conversely, help them inch towards majority territory.

The Liberals, meanwhile, have finally figured out the “opposition” part of this Official Opposition business. While blindly opposing any future confidence motion isn’t the most responsible thing to do in a minority situation, it beats the hell out officially opposing such motions, but mostly abstaining from the vote, which was the Liberal strategy under Stephane Dion. Michael Ignatieff is trying to walk a delicate tightrope: his party needs him to take a firm stand against the government (see the Bloc Quebecois ad below), but his party is in no shape, politically or financially, to fight an election right now – much less an election the party would probably get blamed for. The NDP and Bloc have, in a way, let Iggy off the hook.

The Bloc's strategy: Harper and Iggy are the same person. From the Bloc Quebecois website.

The Bloc Quebecois is the party that would be harmed the least by an election. On the other hand, Quebecers really like the home renovation tax credit, which is the crux of the budget bill the party will support on Friday. Many Quebecers (like many Canadians) have undertaken home renovations this summer and would be rather irked if this thing wasn’t passed. Consequentially, the Bloc likes the home renovation tax credit and will vote for it. This is not a case of the Tories tailoring a bill to the Bloc’s taste, but of the Tories creating a bill the Bloc just happens to like. Besides, do you think the Bloc really wants to fight the Conservatives for voters in Quebec City on this issue?

Meanwhile, the NDP is using its position in Parliament to extract some concessions out of the Conservatives. Really, do you think the Conservatives would offer Jack Layton’s party that billion dollar Employment Insurance plan if it didn’t need the NDP’s support this fall? The unstated goal of any third party is to have leverage, to be in a position to use its standing in the house to influence government policy. It is not to mindlessly oppose the government because of ideology. Critics on the left can say the NDP’s sold out, that it could have done more, but I have to believe that 1-5 months more EI for 190,000 workers, in this economic climate, is a decent deal and probably the best the NDP is going to get out of the Tories right now. Considering the alternative is $300-million election campaign nobody wants, a possibly serious case of voter backlash, and that extra unemployment relief not being there, Jack Layton would have to be a fool not to make the deal.

Which brings us, finally, to us, the voters. We get to see how minority government is supposed to work – for now, at least. We get to see our men and women in Ottawa do their jobs instead of bickering over an election campaign – for now, at least. And we are spared the charade of an election campaign nobody really wants – for now, at least. Actually, that’s a bit harsh. If our friends on Parliament Hill continue to work together, though, this government can survive until at least winter – which can only be a good thing.

Poll Position, Part I

Since this poll was published last week, most interested parties probably already know about it. But there’s still a few of pertinent points to be gleaned out.

1. Getting Kelly Lamrock out of the education portfolio, replacing him with a far less stubborn minister, Roland Hache,  and reversing (for the most part) cuts to school support staff seems to have pulled Graham’s Liberals out of an almost-certain death spiral. The premier’s chair has to be a little more comfortable considering this is the first quarterly poll since March 2008 which has not seen a drop in Liberal support. The party, though, needs, not only to better define its vision and its path to self-sufficiency, it also needs no make itself likable again – Graham’s government has alienated quite a few voters over the last three years, and will need to expand its base over the next 9 months to feel comfortable during the election campaign.
2. David Alward and the PCs can oppose all they want, and good on them for doing so. Their health critic, Margaret Ann Blaney, has been far more visible on the doctors’ wage freeze controversy than Health Minister Mary Schryer, and the party as a whole has vehemently fought most of the changes and cuts carried out by the government. The problem they have – and that many New  Brunswickers have with the Progressive Conservative Party – is that they don’t seem to have any answers, they don’t seem to have a plan. Nobody really expects that cutting taxes deeper and not cutting services at all (it’s an oversimplification, but not by much) will help New Brunswick get through the recession any better.  The PCs have been spending the summer going across the province, supposedly finding out from New Brunswickers hat their priorities are. It remains to be seen if these priorities will be well reflected when the party releases its policy this fall.
3. Good golly, are things looking up for the NDP. While I’ll explain in a minute why their 22% support isn’t really 22% support, and also while the NDP reached these lofty heights between elections under Elizabeth Weir’s leadership, this poll marks a full recovery for a party which achieved barely 5% of the vote in the last election. If these numbers hold until the election campaign, the NDP has a very good chance of returning to the legislature with one or two seats. And if the new NDP government in Nova Scotia runs a tight (and popular) ship for the next 12 months, things should only continue to look up for the NDP in this province.
4. For me, though, the most important number in these polls is the percentage of undecided voters: 43%. That number is not reflected in the much-publicized percentages, mainly because undecided votes usually split close enough to the figures for decided voters that it hardly makes much of a difference. Then, however, you get elections like this province had in 1999. At the election call, Camille Theriault’s Liberals had a huge lead over the Bernard Lord’s reeling PC’s, but there were still a large number of undecided voters. Lord thoroughly dominated the stagnant Liberals, the undecided vote practically all broke in the PCs’ favour, and the Tories romped to their greatest electoral success ever. With that in mind, here’s my breakdown of the poll, with the undecided voters factored in. All possible errors in math are my own, but the numbers should work out.

Party……………………………..% of decided vote………………………% of all polled

Liberals……………………………………41………………………………………23.37

PCs………………………………………….35………………………………………19.95

NDP…………………………………………22………………………………………12.54

Undecided…………………………………0………………………………………..43

These numbers really speak to bedrock support, the kind of political support that likely won’t wane before the next election. Any party that wants to win the next election will have to take at least half of that undecided number. It’ll be a treat to see how these numbers move in three months.

Mary Schryer has no sweet clue.

I just listened to Hance Colburne’s interview with Health Minister Mary Schryer and was  utterly appalled by her total ignorance of the underlying issue is the doctor’s dispute. It’s not state-of-the-art equipment, medical schools, or the tax rate. Those are all good things for doctor recruitment and retention and government should continue to invest in those areas. No, the real issue, the sticking point in this whole disagreement, is trust.

Schryer’s government came to a tentative agreement with the Medical Society in December and, after the doctors ratified it, it then unilaterally threw it in the trash can. It passed a law that took away the doctors’ right (under the Canada Health Act) to arbitration, declared any previous tentative agreements null and void, and took away the doctors’ right to challenge any of this law in court (though this hasn’t kept them from trying and, if precedent can be believed, won’t keep them from succeeding). It has wage freeze regulations sitting on the Lieutenant-Governor’s desk waiting to be ratified. And Minister Schyrer honestly believes that doctors will take her invitation to renegotiate their deal  seriously, with that Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads?

If you didn’t trust your boss, you’d want to get a new job as soon as you bloody well could, and there’s no reason to think doctors are any different from you and me in that regard. If Mary Schryer is serious about renegotiating with the doctors, and if she wants to continue to recruit a good number of physicians to this province, she needs to give her head a shake and scrap this utterly inane law, at least. If she can’t or won’t, she should get out of the way and let somebody competent run the department. Otherwise, patients and taxpayers will be the big losers.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to this morning’s interview, as aired on CBC Fredericton’s Information Morning program, so you can judge whether the health minister has a point or is just spinning her wheels. I also added the paragraph breaks to make the post more readable.

Around the House (Cleaning House edition)

• This isn’t front page or exciting news, but Moody’s, a major international investment house, recently downgraded New Brunswick’s credit rating from AA3 to AA2 (thanks to David Cameron for the link). Now, while this in no way means that New Brunswick is near the infamous “junk” rating (that’s a B or lower), and while another investment firm, Standard and Poor’s, recently held their credit rating of the province firm at AA-, Moody’s move will mean the province will have to pay more interest on its debt (currently $8.2 billion, including this year’s deficity of around $700-million). That means less money for government services at a time when most departments are getting cut to the bone. The lower rating also means, so far as I can divine from the Forbes’ Investopedia website, is that firms may look at New Brunswick as a less attractive place to do business (PEI and Nova Scotia also have credit ratings of AA2, the latter earning that rating earlier this year), which could affect the Self-Sufficiency Agenda, this government’s raison d’être. Adding to the embarrassment is that New Brunswick is the first province in 12 years to have its credit rating fall, according to this Financial Post article. Incidentally, New Brunswick earned its AA3 credit rating in November 2006, two months after Shawn Graham took office.
• The province’s ongoing dispute with its doctors long ago turned into another national embarrassment, but this Globe and Mail column by Andre Picard is the most concise and damning summary of the situation I’ve come across yet. Worth noting is the fact that Picard never once names current Health Minister Mary Schryer, whose only statement on the issue since taking over the portfolio was a rather flimsy newspaper column published on August 18th. The Medical Society’s court date, incidentally, is September 16.
• UNB’s Saint John campus is getting it’s first CIS team – a track team. Those of you wondering why I’m writing this news on a political blog would be interested in knowing that the team would run out of its on-campus Canada Games Stadium and that the university, federal, and municipal governments have committed to funding desperately-needed renovations on the 24 year old facility. The provincial government, um, has not. Could this announcement be the university’s attempt to shame the government into ponying up the cash? Possibly. Don’t expect the issue of provincial university funding to go away soon, though – especially if contract negotiations with the university’s faculty turn sour.
• And Mr. Doer goes, not into federal politics, but to Washington. Considering his past experience negotiating with the Philippines government and his reputation as a genuinely freindly guy, he’s an extremely inspired choice by Stephen Harper, although opponents of the PM and the soon-to-be-ex-Manitoba premier will be sure to question the timing of this appointment and Doer’s departure from elected office.

• As a site news item, The Political Animal is moving back up to Fredericton Sunday afternoon and will be helping Holy Cross House welcome its first year students in style. Blog postings will likely drop off during that time, especially if the Cross has Internet problems. Again. Also, expect the move towards the Aquinian website sooner, rather than later. Now, you made it through the post, so have a good laugh.

Around the House (Exit, Stage Left edition)

• Nine lucky partisans people are exiting private life to serve in Canada’s Upper Chamber and Stephen Harper may have just overplayed the partisan card. While there were a few pleasant surprises among the appointments (Stanley Cup-winning hockey coach Jacques Demers, former Acadia University president Kelvin Ogilvy), three of the new senators are former Conservative Party staffers and 1 (Claude Carignan) ran and lost for the party in the last election. Especially curious is the new Senator from New Brunswick, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, Harper’s former press secretary. While she was an ER nurse in Moncton, she’s been working for the Reform, Alliance, and Conservative Parties since 1993 and, running with what scant information I can find on her, she has much less recent history with the province than its other 9 senators.  However, given her frosty (to be generous) relationship with the media, she may be in the Red Chamber just to keep Mike Duffy in check.
• Jack Layton’s not-unjustified posturing aside, the chances of a federal election this fall took a bit of a blow today when the Liberal Party said they were neither going to force an election on the issue of Employment Insurance nor bring down the government at its first chance in October. This is smart for several reasons, chief among them the fact that EI isn’t something people usually talk about at coffee shops. Also, the Liberals still aren’t ready physically or financially for a vote this fall and the party still needs to better define how it would run this country. The Conservatives have handed them tons of ammo this summer (the Suaad Hagi Mohamud case, rising unemployment, continuing debates about health care), but the Official Opposition has been mostly silent this summer.
• Speaking of Jack Layton, the federal NDP should be doing everything it can to persuade Gary Doer to lead it- even if it has to throw its current leader under the canola-powered bus. The Manitoba premier announced today that he would be stepping down this fall after ten years as premier and 21 as leader of the provincial New Democrats. He is, in my mind, the finest Canadian premier of this generation, not just because he leaves Manitoba in a better state than when he found it (socially and financially), but because he did it by listening to the people, hearing what their priorities were, and putting them into action. He is a left-wing populist whose efforts are reflected in his good work, rather than a left wing ideologue who preaches from a pulpit of self-righteousness. If the NDP is serious, not only about making a run for government, but about living up to the “New” moniker, they should embrace Doer, or at least someone like him. Otherwise, the party risks looking like it’s backward, anachronistic, and stuck in the 1960s.
• The Political Animal raises a bottle of Sam Adams to honour Ted Kennedy, the legendary Massachusetts senator, who died this week of brain cancer. Ironically, considering his reputation as the “Liberal Lion,” Kennedy’s biggest legacy will his record of bipartisanship, as details in this Time magazine story from May. He would very often compromise with Republicans on his bills before they passed, reasoning that if the bill still made things better, they could always be further improved upon later. “Never let the perfect get in the way of the good,” he said. If only more politicians thought that way.

The Case Against a New Brunswick Election

Politicos have tossed around rumours of an early provincial election since at least last fall, when David Alward was voted PC leader, and they picked up even more steam through the winter and spring. Every major political organization in the province, from the Progressive Conservative party to university students’ unions, has spent the spring and summer gearing up their respective machines, preparing for a fall vote.

But it’s not going to happen. Not this fall.

Actually, that line should read “it shouldn’t happen.” While it would make good sense not to call an election this fall, this Liberal government has far too often let sheer bloody-mindedness keep them from making the most sensible or expedient decisions (see French Immersion debacle, Doctors’ contract dispute, Polytechnic debate, etc.).  That said, here are some good, practical reasons why we shouldn’t have a provincial election this fall.

1. The Polls. In March, 2008, a Corporate Research Associates poll showed the Liberals at 63 per cent of voter support, the PCs at 26 per cent, and the NDP at 8. But support for New Brunswick’s governing party has dipped significantly since then. The Liberals have run headlong into controversy at nearly any opportunity, from French Second Language education and uranium exploration to school support worker cuts and the continuing dispute with the province’s doctors. Compounding those unpopular decisions was (and still is) public perception about both how government came to those decisions – with limited, if any consultation – and how fair (or, for the most part, unfair) those decisions were. Further complicating things with the Liberals was the change in PC Leadership: where interim leader Jeannot Volpe looked stubborn, obstructionist, vicious, and temporary, current leader David Alward looks gentle, conciliatory, sensible, and decent. Hence the June, 2009, CRA poll: the Liberals at 41 per cent (down 22 points over 15 months), the PCs at 40 per cent (their best numbers since the 2006 election), and the NDP, remarkably, at 16 per cent. Nothing the government has done this summer has given anyone good reason to think those numbers will rise by September or October and, since an election call is solely in Shawn Graham’s hands, it would be foolish of him to call an early election he has a good chance of losing.
2. The Liberals will lose two seats no matter what. The Liberals currently have 33 of the 55 seats in the Legislature. One of those seats Petitcodiac, is held by Wally Stiles, a former PC MLA who, with wife Joan McAlpine-Stiles, crossed the floor in 2007. Petitcodiac is as good as Tory strongholds get – they’ve won the riding 6 of 8 times since 1974 and Stiles won for the PCs in ’06 by over 2,500 votes. There’s still also plenty of resentment in the area over the highway tolls implemented my the last Liberal government – tolls removed by the last PC government. The smart betting money is that Stiles doesn’t get re-elected. Another likely loss for the Liberals is Grand Lake-Gagetown, represented by former cabinet minister Eugene McGinley. He only got reelected by 217 votes in 2006 and rather poor way his party has handled the ferry issue may spell his political doom.
3. The still-unresolved doctors dispute. The court challenge against the province’s monumentally stupid wage freeze law will be heard in September, but that decision may not be the end of the story, considering each side has the option to appeal. But, depending on how things go, the provincial medical society still hasn’t ruled out any sort of job action. While a doctors’ strike, like we had in 2001, is extremely unlikely, even a simple work-to-rule action would leave New Brunswick’s health care system in anarchy. Not to mention that the Opposition will use stories like this against the government any chance it gets, or how other unionized provincial employees will react to this issue, or whether doctors will advise their patients against voting Liberal.
4. Why are we voting again? With a fixed election law on the books in New Brunswick, voters need a compelling reason to go to the polls early. One of the big criticisms of the last election was that there was no good reason for it, even if there was a highly practical one (since otherwise, the government may have changed after a by-election). Only in 1963, when the election  essentially became a referendum on controversial changes to post-secondary education and the tax code, have New Brunswickers had a meaty reason for an early election – but even then, they re-elected Louis Robichaud’s liberal Government with only one additional seat. If Graham sends us to the polls this fall without a really good reason, he risks serious voter backlash.
5. The potential Federal Election. In New Brunswick, there’s a lot of organizational overlap between federal and provincial parties. That’s a fancy way of saying that the same people work for the same parties in any campaign. If we have federal and provincial campaigns back-to-back, most of the campaign teams will be exhausted by the end of it. And there’s a pretty good chance we’re going to be having a Federal Election in the fall, since nobody in Ottawa really likes how Parliament is working. Back-to-back elections can also feed into voter fatigue and possible voter backlash, not to mention the fact that the provincial campaign will likely still get lower billing.

Will we have a provincial election before the mandated date of September 27, 2010? Possibly. But barring a major scandal in the Progressive Conservative party or a bit of political stupidity on the Liberals’ part, we won’t be having a provincial election this fall.

Around The House (Missing the Point edition)

• Saw this article in the Globe and Mail today. The Conservatives (read: Stephen Harper) are now asking Canadians to give them a majority in the next election, because otherwise Canada will have to endure a Liberal minority or – horrors! – a Liberal-NDP coalition! Good on the Tories for being up front with their desires (and I’m not the only one to think so), but these scare tactics alone will not win them any more support. Many Canadians, especially in Ontario’s Rust Belt, think the government has too rosy a view of the economy, and there’s still the sense (especially with urban and suburban voters) that the Tories are still too socially conservative to be trusted with the power of a majority. Never mind that voters, I think, aren’t tired of minorities per se, but of the brinksmanship and petty power struggles we’ve seen in the last two or three Parliaments.
• Speaking of Harper needing to think things through better, here’s an interesting Toronto Star column about his famous mistrust of the press. Even many fellow conservatives (big C and little c) disagree with the Prime Minister’s virtual embargo of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Reporters (as opposed to editors or, ahem, publishers) try to report on people and events as fairly and accurately as possible because if they don’t they’re looking for a new career. Besides, if you hide from reporters, they may think it’s because you have something to hide.
• It seems Health Minister Mary Schryer spent her summer vacation studying flightless birds, because she’s doing a very good job of acting like an ostrich. Schryer’s article doesn’t address the biggest reason why the provincial medical society has declared the province physician unfriendly – the doctors’ total lack of trust in the government, as symbolised by the pound-foolish (and court challenged) wage freeze former Health Minister Mike Murphy pushed through in June. Unless Schryer extends a real olive branch towards doctors, they’ll continue to see this government as an obstruction rather than a partner.
• And finally, the non-sequitor:

Around the House (Return of the blog edition)

A few choice bits that caught my eye over the last little while:

• Those of you who paid attention to New Brunswick politics last summer no doubt remember the debate/debacle over the government’s changes to French Immersion. If you didn’t, the only things you need to know are that the Liberal government introduced an new intensive French program for fifth graders (+10 for good thinking, considering the old Core French model was a total waste of time and the intensive French pilots were successes) and pushed the starting date for early immersion back to third grade (-1,000,000 for bad thinking, since kids learn languages best at an earlier age, not to mention the points lost for the issue’s bad political style). Last week, the government released test scores they said proved that their new program was a success. Unfortunately for the government, these results mean zip-on-a-stick. While nearly every fifth grader in the province took intensive French this year, none of them took the full program the province is rolling out (practically no French language exposure until fifth grade) and the province won’t be testing those students for another four years.  What these results prove is that students who take four years of Core French followed by a year of intensive French are 29 times more likely to reach the province’s French comprehension benchmark than students who take five years of Core French alone. Whether results will continue to improve over the next many years remains to be seen and, to be honest, I still expect this issue to come up in the next provincial election.
• The New Democratic Party is still New, after all. Now, this is probably just the process wonk in me, but I’m slightly shaken about how it all fell out. The issue never officially came up for discussion because one-hour time frame for discussing such resolutions expired. This is mainly because much of the hour was used, not discussing the merits of the five resolutions scheduled before the name change, but arguing over piddlely points of order. This raises several important questions about the NDP, including these: why wasn’t more time set aside to discuss such resolutions (a solitary hour over a whole weekend seems rather pointless), was a small, vocal minority of the party really responsible for filibustering away any chance to discuss the issue, and why was the party spending so much time focusing on the style of the resolutions rather than the substance? With the exception of the Bloc, all the major federal parties (even the Greens) need to take some time to evaluate their identities, what they stand for, what’s important to them. The NDP just missed a golden chance for some very healthy and necessary self-evaluation.
• This story from Nova Scotia is why I bang my head against the wall when I hear people say (Progressive) Conservative governments are good fiscal managers. With possibly the exception of Bernard Lord’s New Brunswick government, I can’t think of a single Conservative government in my lifetime that has left the government’s books better than when they found it. There is a place for Conservatives in the running of a province or country, but let’s not colour them as economic messiahs when the evidence (Mulroney, Harris, and now Hamm and MacDonald) clearly suggests otherwise.
• Later this week, assuming other circumstances don’t get in the way, I’m going to be writing about why we won’t be having a provincial election in New Brunswick this fall. Later on, I’ll talk about federal election rumours. Also, sometime soon I’ll be moving my blog over to the Aquinian website at www.theaq.net. The site looks fantastic, and I’m proud to be part of the paper again this year. Till then, have a moment of Zen.

Happy New Brunswick Day

Last weekend, I took a trip to St. Martins for its annual book fair. With my luck, i got caught in the kind of traffic jam that would inevitably follow a parade down the town’s Main Street. Traffic crawled along past the flea market at the community hall and the small, temporarily empty school, past the Lions’ Manor, the expanding community library, and the country inn, and eventually past the wharf and across the covered bridge towards the caves and Fundy Trail. Yet the day was so fine and the sights so beautiful, I didn’t really mind. In fact, I decided to take the long way back home to Quispamsis, up Highway 121 to Sussex through rural Saint John and Kings Counties.

The trip reminded me of why New Brunswick is such a great place. The people of St. Martins were friendly and helpful, the backdrop couldn’t have been more attractive if it tried, and the bridges- the small, covered bridges- were charming,  rustic.

New Brunswick is a province of bridges. Anywhere you go in the province, you can find an attractive bridge nearby. Think the Harbour Bridge against the Saint John skyline, The Centennial Bridge spanning the wide Miramichi, or the twin majesties of the Hugh John Flemming and Hartland Covered Bridges. But more than mere architectural adornments, these bridges serve an important role – they connect people. They connect Riverview to Moncton, Northside to South, Perth to Andover. At Tide Head and Cape Jourmain, they connect provinces; at St. Stephen and Edmundston, they connect nations. Even cable ferries are a form of moving bridge – from just down the street at Gondola Point to the infamously imperiled boat at Gagetown.

But more than physical bridges, New Brunswick depends on more intangible connections, but ones that are just as vital. Rural and urban (and now suburban), town to city, community to community, government to the people. Perhaps the most famous bridge of this sort is the one spanning the widening gulf between English and French. For New Brunswick to succeed and, indeed, to survive, it must maintain these bridges as best as possible, even building new ones where necessary. It’s those bridges, those connections that will survive longer than any tax cut or generic slogan. We must not let these bridges fall into disrepair or victim to vandals who wish to do it harm. Otherwise, we will pay a hefty cost to repair or rebuild those bridges or, if we do neither, forsake the connections and become a number of disparate,  insular, and mortally wounded islands.

As New Brunswick Day Monday turns into Start-of-the-Work-Week Tuesday, I’m going to take to bed a glass of chocolate milk (Baxters, straight from Sussex) and a cupcake made by a very dear friend of mine. I’m going to tuck into F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, one of the books I bought in St. Martins. And tomorrow, I’m going to drive to work in one of the Saint John fog. And I’m going to feel pride in being a New Brunswicker as I do so.

Around the House (Long Weekend edition)

• Three, likely final, links about the T-J apology, all of more interest to media wonks than anyone else. Tim Currie, a Journalism prof at the University of King’s College, writes about how media deals with inaccurate information published online; Craig Silverman writes a column in the Columbia Journalism Review about editors adding items to their reporters’ stories; and St. Thomas Journalism chair Phillip Lee points out some minor media hypocrisy. If the paper has any more to say on the story, I’d wager it’d do so Saturday. The paper typically publishes stories defending itself on Saturdays (see the Carleton Free Pressand Matt McCann). Otherwise, short of the reporters, Jamie Irving, or Shawna Richer saying anything, this story will die a natural death.
• Victor Boudreau, Minister for Business New Brunswick and Communications New Brunswick, unveiled new license plates today with the province’s slogan on it in two languages: “Be… in this place” and “Être… ici on le peut” (or “Be… here you can”). The Political Animal has a quick not for the minister: a slogan should be self-explanatory. “The quicker picker-upper” and “Guinness is good for you” are  two of the best slogans of all time and they’re self-explanatory. The worst advertising slogans, like “The choice of a new generation” and “I’m lovin’ it,” are vague, undescriptive, and don’t sell the product. If you have to take the time in your press conference to explain “Be… in this place,” you’re doing it wrong.
• Finally, the latest political non-scandal comes from Britain, where Conservative Party leader (and presumed future Prime Minister) David Campbell is in trouble for making remarks about Twitter which weren’t appropriate for a morning radio show – and certainly not for a family website. Since this is the Political Animal, here’s Cameron’s quote anyway.

             ”The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it – too many twits might make a twat”

             A video clip of the quote is below. I’m still jealous I didn’t think of it first.