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Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com. This summer I am joined by Keir Wilmut and Omar Soliman.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Paging Rupert Murdoch
For a variety of reasons, I have largely refrained from commenting upon Conrad Black's legal issues. In case you're wondering, I remain as confident as ever that he will be vindicated at trial, and I will probably have more to say on the subject in 2007.
But I cannot let this pass: Anyone taking an interest in this case, and in particular those who saw the all-out sliming of Lord Black and his wife in a recently-excerpted passage from a new "biography" by Tom Bower printed in the London Sunday Times and New York Post, should take the time to read this.
Lord Black's response is, I believe, what is known as fisking. And be sure to get to the last paragraph.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:13 AM
Monday, October 30, 2006
Moving on from Dog-gate
Friday, October 27, 2006
Just an observation
The people who run the website at www.ctv.ca deserve a medal. These guys are running an amazingly well-put-together, efficient, info-filled website. Critical videos go up within minutes if not seconds after the events occur. As someone who does not have cable, I don't know what I would do without this site.
They are really putting the CBC site to shame, so much so that the CBC site is hardly worth visiting anymore. (The only worthwhile thing the CBC has online anymore is the archives page, one of my all-time-favourite procrastintion sites.)
Private sector triumphs again!
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 5:50 PM
National Post endorses Rae?
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Klein on Rae
As we've seen plenty of times (Lucien Bouchard being a good recent example) retired or close-to-retired politicians are great entertainment because they can speak frankly. Ralph Klein is certainly no exception to the rule:
Alberta's shoot-from-the-lip Premier Ralph Klein says federal Liberal leadership candidate Bob Rae is a "dumb politician." Klein, never one to mince words during his 14-year term, told the Sun yesterday that "education bears no relationship to intelligence" and that for all his education, the former Ontario premier is "dumb." "Bob Rae is a Rhodes Scholar. He's well educated, but he's dumb when it comes to politics," said Klein, a high school dropout who later completed his education in a vocational school after a brief stint in the air force. "He knows nothing about street politics." He said the former NDP leader "just added to the accumulated debt in that province and drove up the deficit" after taking over the premier's office from the outgoing David Peterson Liberals. "God knows what he did. He's the only person that I know of that had a day named after him: Rae Days," Klein said, referring to the unpaid holidays provincial bureaucrats were required to take to cut costs. The outgoing dean of Canadian premiers didn't explain why he harbours such animosity for Rae, but conceded he has disliked him since Rae hosted a premier's conference in Toronto. Calling the gathering "the worst meeting I have ever attended," Klein recalls that Rae chastised him for his tardy arrival. Oh, we'll miss him. Sort of.
UPDATE: There's more.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:11 AM
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Perhaps the oddest article ever written
Haskett is in
According to my friend and informant ALW, Dianne Haskett was confirmed as the Tory candidate tonight in London North Centre. This riding hasn't fallen in the Conservative column since 1984, but don't be surprised if it does this time, or at worst, comes mighty close. Name recognition can help an awful lot in a byelection.
PS - Let the media barrage begin.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:15 AM
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Aga Khan is coming to town
Dr. Roy has beat me to the punch on this -- I, too, was glad to hear that the PM is going to meet with His Highness, the Aga Khan. I have many Ismaili Muslim friends and can attest to what Dr. Roy said. The Aga Khan is a wonderful example for all of humanity.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:52 PM
Open thread: best campaign ads
I'm addicted to watching the US campaign ads. I like this one, it's got a good mix of positive and negative while putting forward the facts. If anyone out there knows of good ads online please post them in comments.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:37 PM
You wanna talk about an effective ad?
I hate to say it, but it almost makes me wanna vote Democrat. Damn, that is powerful. I know what Ann Coulter would say about this, but I'm not gonna go there. Although I thought he was Canadian?
UPDATE: Compare that to this joke from the GOP. Sorry guys, but Congressional Republicans are in no position to be lecturing on "reckless spending."
UPDATE II: There is some talk that Fox went off his medication for the taping of the ad. Although this seems conspiratorial, I have to admit that I have never seen him this bad before, so it's plausible.
UPDATE III: Just for the record, I really like Jim Talent and consider him to be amongst the best Republicans have in the Senate. I hope he wins.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:10 AM
Monday, October 23, 2006
Opponent: Hillary was ugly
My former New York Sun colleague Ben Smith, now with the New York Observer, has today landed himself at the top of the wires across America by reporting disparaging comments by Hillary Clinton's no-chance-of-winning-in-a-trillion-years opponent, John Spencer. (Spencer has apparently been denying all day that he made these comments but, according to Ben's blog, he told a TV show tonight that he actually did say this.)
Hillary Clinton's Republican challenger is getting personal and it's not pretty: He says the senator used to be ugly - and speculates she got "millions of dollars" in plastic surgery. "You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," said John Spencer of Clinton's younger days. "I don't know why Bill married her," he said of the Clintons, who celebrated their 31st anniversary this month. Noting Hillary Clinton looks much different now, he chalked it up to "millions of dollars" of "work" - plastic surgery. "She looks good now," he said. Well, at least he noted the improvement. There Ben, if you're reading this, you can claim your story went international!
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 9:03 PM
Catching up: on clean air and nations
I've finally come to grips with the fact that there's simply too much going on and not enough time to write about everything I want to write about. But, sitting here at the law library, there's at least two things I'm dying to address.
One, the Tories' Clean Air Act, which someone requested I write about in comments. What concerns me about this legislation is not so much it drawn-out timeline and rather unambitious goals, but 1) the way it was presented and, 2) the means by which the government will attain the legislation's objectives.
On the first, the Conservatives broke one of the sacred tenets of smart politics that is taught at all campaign training schools: always under-promise and over-deliver. The government built up expectations for weeks about their environmental package, even going so far as to hold a "pre-announcement announcement" media event in Vancouver with a handful of cabinet ministers to trumpet the forthcoming green plan. It was wrong and politically unwise to get people's hopes up and then deliver a legislative package that -- whatever its merits -- was bound to be spun as unsatisfactory.
On the second, all of the targets set by the government in terms of smog and emissions reduction are done by top-down government regulation. From what I can tell, having read only the news stories, there is little here in terms of incentive-based, free-market oriented ideas in the proposed bill. Why not? We knew the environmentalists would hate whatever was brought out. It was a lose-lose situation, just like kicking Garth Turner out of caucus. So why not use this opportunity to propose cutting-edge, conservative environmental policies that actually get results?
So, not only is the bill not conservative in any sense of the world, thus disappointing those on the right, it is also not going to do that much -- at least not immediately -- for the environment, which disappoints those who care about those issues. (And judging by polling, that is a lot of Canadians, especially younger ones.)
I'm now beginning to wonder if just taking the Liberal approach -- professing a commitment to Kyoto without actually doing anything to implement it -- would have been a better idea. At this point, it seems like it, as the bill is almost certainly going to die in the House and never be implemented.
Two, the whole "Is Quebec a nation?" issue, which is in the news today after the Liberal Party's Quebec wing ratified the idea. As has been written by the commentariat today, this is a sharp break with the Grits' Trudeauvian/Chrétienite past. Québec = une nation is one of those existential Canadian issues where the two solitudes have a deep, deep divide that is difficult -- if not impossible -- to reconcile. Some of it has to do with language: as French speakers know, the connotation of the word nation in French has more to do with the sociological sense of the term and has far less to do with independent statehood than in English. This complicates matters considerably.
I find that more often than not opinions on this issue break down by the diving line of those who either currently or have lived in Quebec, and those who have no connection to or haven't spent a lot of time in Quebec. (There are always exceptions, of course -- I'm not saying that someone who hasn't lived in Quebec cannot understand it, although I'd make the case that it would be quite difficult.)
Those who know Quebec -- and after living here for more than two years, I'm starting to get there -- will tell you that Quebec constitutes a nation. It isn't even a debate here. That issue was decided a long, long time ago. The debate in Quebec is whether the French Canadian nation ought to live in Canada or outside of Canada.
I don't know, as I haven't made up my mind yet, whether the Quebec nation ought to be officially recognized in the constitution. I am open to it. I know the idea is not popular outside the province, and there would be legal and political consequences for the whole country if it were ever implemented. Maybe we should just throw Will Kymlicka and Andrew Coyne in a room and let them duke it out.
But what I hope people understand, as I get the impression that a lot of people don't, is that whether or not Quebec is a nation is a closed issue in Quebec. And it has been for a long time. The issue up for debate is whether the Quebec nation should live inside or outside the Canadian state, and if the former, whether recognition of that nation should be included in the Constitution Act or not.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:08 PM
Sunday, October 22, 2006
The return of Dianne Haskett
The next "negative" news story for the Conservatives is about to be unleashed.
The Prime Minister has dropped the writ in two by-elections to be held Nov. 27. The Tories are holding their nomination meeting in London Tuesday night and the nominee is expected to be Dianne Haskett, the former mayor.
Haskett, readers may/will recall, became infamous for her refusal a few years ago to proclaim Gay Pride Day in the city and was fined by the Ontario Human Rights tribunal.
But the gay pride issue isn't the only thing that will get the nation's newsrooms in a tizzy: After leaving the mayor's job in 2000, Haskett moved to Washington DC where she's been working ever since as a soldier in the conservative movement as, amongst other things, an advisor to Senator Elizabeth Dole.
So the Tory candidate in the London by-election (assuming she gets the nod) is a socially conservative evangelical Christian who supports the Bush Republicans and who hasn't even lived in London for six years. Only a few degrees different from Michael Ignatieff, yes, but the liberal media is going to have a field day with this. Remember, the great Canadian virtue of "tolerance" applies to everyone but those with conservative views.
Expect a story within days or even hours beginning "In the latest blow to Stephen Harper's efforts to make inroads with mainstream central Canadian voters, the Conservatives are running ..." or something along those lines. First person to identify such a story in comments wins a prize.
Reports are also saying that Liberal party national president Mike Eizenga and new Green Party leader Elizabeth May may throw their hats in the ring, which will make this riding one to watch regardless.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 2:22 PM
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Worth it just for the title
I'll definitely be picking up John O'Sullivan's new book as soon as it comes out. Been waiting for a while for a book on this subject.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:55 PM
Friday, October 20, 2006
When it rains, it pours
The major media in big cities suffer from groupthink. I saw this when I worked as a journalist in Toronto and Washington. On any given story, a narrative starts to develop and everybody starts to embrace it. Few people, if anyone, dissent from the concensus.
The groupthink view in the Ottawa press gallery right now seems to be that the Harper government's fortunes are declining. That's why all the stories coming out this week are so damaging, and why the negative coverage will continue: each of them fits neatly into the consensus narrative or helps to confirm old impressions.
Garth Turner booted from caucus: "This is just one more example of how Stephen Harper cannot handle criticism and dissention."
The Clean Air plan: "Expectations were built up, and the government underdelivered. This proves that Harper doesn't really care about the environment. Things are just getting worse and worse for the Conservatives."
Peter MacKay calls Belinda a dog: "Boy, things are looking grim for the Tories, and this outburst is probably a result of the stress of sagging fortunes and bad opinion polls."
UPDATE: Belinda's latest is so offensive. For her to turn this into a partisan issue -- trying to paint this stupid heat-of-the-moment comment as indicative of Conservatives' disregard for women -- is beyond the pale.
UPDATE II: Olivia Chow takes the cake. (See video "Female MPs discuss the comment.") Brace yourselves: she actually linked the dog remark to "domestic violence" -- wait for it -- "sometimes resulting in death." But it gets better. She then tried to tie this kind of "aggressive attitude" to our involvement in Afghanistan. This is just silly. By the way, Conservative MP Helena Guergis put in a good performance.
UPDATE III: On Don Newman's show tonight, apparently Greg Weston from the Toronto Sun noted that Don Martin dined with Belinda last night, and she told Martin she didn't care about the comment. So I guess she had quite a change of heart today.
(Hopefully last) UPDATE IV: The National Post hits the nail on the head.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 4:27 PM
A tale of two polls
Self-promotion
Thursday, October 19, 2006
I'm at a loss
Read the very last paragraph of this story first, and then start at the top and go down. Can ANYONE explain to me what Chris Morley's statement has to do with the actual subject of this news story?
UPDATE: Guy Giorno, one of the most brilliant political strategists and staffers I have observed first-hand, has more, including a memo he wrote on this subject more than five years ago when Mike Harris was Premier and he was Chief of Staff.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:55 PM
I'm not the only one saying it
A few days ago I noted that a big reason for the Tory slip in Québec is that no one is defending their policies in the province. The people who matter apparently agree:
"What I've said for a long time is we have to communicate better, and that includes myself," Mr. Fortier said. "In doing that, I think we will win favour with Quebeckers." Mr. Fortier was responding to questions about slipping support in recent public-opinion surveys, including a Strategic Counsel poll for The Globe and Mail and CTV that found the Tories and Liberals tied at 32-per-cent support. Tory support in Quebec dropped from 30 per cent in May to 16 per cent in the latest survey. Quebec MP Sylvie Boucher, who is Prime Minister Stephen Harper's parliamentary secretary, said she agreed with Mr. Fortier. "When we're at 16 per cent of voting intentions, there is a 'son de cloche,' " she said, using a French phrase that roughly means a warning from the public. So do something about it!
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:48 PM
Canada's John McCain
I don't know why, but lately I can't make up my mind on a lot of issues. This is odd because normally, I'm the most unequivocal, black and white guy around. Garth Turner-gate is the latest example.
I have never met Garth Turner, but I like him for many reasons. I like his independent streak, I like how he was anti-statist and anti-deficit when it wasn't in vogue, I like how he built his career in business and journalism outside of politics. I agreed with him when he opposed David Emerson's defection and immediate joining of the Tory cabinet. And I especially like how he's pushing the idea of online interaction with MPs. What he's doing now is going to be done by nearly everybody in the future. The Internet is the greatest tool man has had in a long time -- maybe ever -- in the movement to spread freedom and democracy around the world.
All that said, I also don't like a lot of what he's done. It's one thing to have a healthy independent streak, but it's another to consistently not be a team player and work against your side. Garth has lately started to remind me of John McCain, another politician whom I've held in high regard at various times. Like McCain, Garth has taken the maverick thing too far.
The bottom line is that what happened is unfortunate, but from what I'm told, the public story that the Conservative caucus is pushing is the truth: this was a case of no longer being able to speak honestly and frankly in caucus without fearing it would show up online.
This was a lose-lose situation. If he stayed in caucus, the confidentiality concerns would have remained. By kicking him out, he's able to speak even more freely about what went on, the minority government is further imperilled, the Liberals can say the Tories don’t tolerate dissention and all the rest. I don’t know. This is a tough one.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 7:28 PM
Pandering to the base
Michael Ignatieff's latest is disappointing. I wanted to think he was different. Now, he's just another Liberal. I expected better. Really, I did. Oh well.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 7:14 PM
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
So much going on
This is a big news day, and unfortunately, this is the busiest week of the fall for me. I hope to comment later this week on Garth Turner, Lucien Bouchard's latest salvo, and the new poll showing a statistical tie in national voting intentions.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 4:16 PM
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Mark Steyn is alive
Mark Steyn is doing the media rounds to promote his new book, America Alone. You can see him in a very rare TV appearance from last night's Hannity and Colmes show. To see it, go here, click on "top video", then "shows", then "Hannity and Colmes" and there he is at the top.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:14 AM
Monday, October 16, 2006
Is Ignatieff toast?
I've largely refrained from commenting on the Liberal leadership. I don't know why, other than I haven't found it that interesting. I find the U.S. congressional elections more exciting. But it now looks like there is some serious momentum shifting going on given the ever-lengthening list of gaffes by Michael Ignatieff.
I think Chantal Hébert is a bit too harsh in her assessment here, but she's correct on the general trend, which is that Ignatieff is looking un-leader-like and undisciplined. He is showing poor judgement, and judgement being without question the first quality required in a leader, that's bad news. What's more, Ignatieff looks absolutely exhausted, as in this interview from yesterday's CTV Question Period, in which he looks like he might fall over before finishing the answer to the first question.
Honestly, I don't mind Ignatieff. This blog has been tracking his political career ever since the first story mentioned the possibility of him running for parliament. I think he's an impressive person (despite his terrible cruelty to his younger brother) and he's worked hard in life and achieved much. I did not join in the collective furor over his suggestion to reopen the constitution because I'm partial to his view. The conservative movement in this country will never achieve its potential until that issue is settled, and I was saddened at the reaction he got for proposing that.
He could still win. Anything can happen in a month and a half., and Iggy still leads the delegate count. But if he wants to pick up any support on subsequent ballots, he better start getting things in gear because a whole lot of Liberals are thinking Bob Rae is looking pretty prime ministerial right now.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:18 PM
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Wake-up call
There's a new poll out this morning showing the federal Conservatives with only 17% support in Québec -- nearly 8 points lower than what they received in the January elections. This is not that surprising, and a variety of factors are at fault, some of which are beyond their control. But one that is fixable, as I wrote in French recently, is the lack of public figures supporting the party and its policies.
Where is Maxime Bernier? Where is Josée Verner? Where is Lawrence Cannon? You never hear anything from them. You can't expect people to support your policies if no one will defend them in French.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:51 AM
Friday, October 13, 2006
If it moves, tax it
I want to be intrigued and engaged by the Liberal leadership race, but it's proving to be quite difficult. Why is it that the fix to every problem for these guys seems to be a higher tax or more big government? Can we not talk about some innovative solutions for a change -- ones that don't always involve stealing people's money?
The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan once observed that in the U.S., the Democrats had become intellectually vacuous, while the Republicans had become "the party of ideas." His words may no longer ring true on his side of the border, but they do on ours.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:55 AM
Thursday, October 12, 2006
The missing party
In checking out some of the campaign sites in the more hotly contested races in the U.S. midterms, I noticed a recurring trend. Check out these three sites, for example.
What is it?
The word Republican is nowhere to be found!
Signs of the times.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:16 AM
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Coming clean in a campaign
One of the first things you learn in candidate training schools is to come clean about skeletons in your closet and other unseemly events from your past early on in a campaign. If you don't, chances are they will be exposed by your opponents or the media later on and ruin you. (Exhibit A: Mike Huffington's failed campaign for the Senate in 1994, where days before the vote it was discovered he had employed an illegal alien as a nanny.)
But this, found on the website of Paul Rexe, a candidate for the mayor's job in my hometown of Peterborough, Ontario, is taking the "coming clean" principle to a whole new level. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before. Rexe is a nice man that I knew when I was in high school, and I wish him the best -- but one can't help but think these disclosures would have a tremendously damaging effect on his candidacy.
If anyone knows of any other online examples on candidates' websites that would trump this one, I'd be curious to see it.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 5:11 PM
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Should make for great TV
Readers in Ontario (or outside of Ontario with satellite) will definitely want to check out The Agenda with Steve Paikin tomorrow night. Paikin has managed to get Bill Davis, David Peterson, Bob Rae, Mike Harris and Ernie Eves -- the last five Ontario premiers -- all together for a joint interview. The video will hopefully be online after the show in case you miss it.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:58 PM
"The quiet illusion"
Illusion Tranquille is a new documentary out of Quebec that promises to shake up the political establishment and question many sacred cows in the province. Some may recognize some of the characters interviewed for the film, which will hopefully be broadcast on a TV near you sometime soon. Check out the website.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 3:11 PM
Sunday, October 08, 2006
The mid-term elections and the fate of the GOP
Reading over the posts of late, I've noticed how restrictive I've been to Canadian politics. That's not necessarily on purpose, it's just the way things worked out. I have actually been following the American mid-terms elections and the ugliness that has recently ensued with keen interest.
The Mark Foley scandal is so bad for so many reasons, not the least of which is the disgraceful and immoral behaviour of the former congressman. But, as noted in quite a bit of commentary, it has also reinforced extremely negative perceptions of the Republican Party, exposed internal divisions, and may even seal its fate in the fall elections, as noted in this excellent analysis by the conservative pollster Frank Luntz:
The Republican Party of 2006 is a tired, cranky shell of the aggressive, reformist movement that was swept into office in 1994 on a wave of positive change. I knew those Republicans. I worked for them. They were friends of mine. These Republicans are not those Republicans.
The leaders of the Republican Party in 1994 were bold, passionate visionaries with the courage to go to the people with a clearly defined agenda. Issues and principles drove them. Today, their agenda stretches no further than the next election. The same people who were elected on a platform of change have become the establishment bulls who fight change today.
The Republican Party has "lost its way" narrative may be getting pretty stale, but that doesn't make it wrong. Actually, it's 100% correct.
Some of the issues hurting congressional Republicans are beyond their control: the President's unpopularity, the war in Iraq and the bungling of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. But much of this is their fault. Indeed, the GOP reminds us of another political party we know and love: marred by corruption, lack of vision, weak leadership and a rudderless (read: non-existent) agenda.
Most analysis I've seen has teetered back and forth on who will win this November. Seems most people think the Republicans will hang on to the Senate but may lose the House. Unless things improve in the next month, I would say a possible House loss is looking like a probable loss.
For more good reading on this file check out George Will's column from last week. Also, I love the picture atop this article, which strikes me as a pretty accurate assessment.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:31 PM
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Full court press
I had wondered why we hadn't seen much negative coverage from the liberal media of the Tories' announcement of $1-billion in spending cuts. Now I know why: they were waiting.
By my count, done at 12:13 am tonight, no less than 6 of the top 15 files currently on the CP wire are negative stories about the Harper government. Jennifer Ditchburn's article takes the cake, though:
OTTAWA (CP) - The federal Conservative government says it will no longer fund women's groups that do advocacy, lobbying or general research, leaving some to wonder what's left. The drastic change to the mandate and operation of Status of Women Canada also drops the word "equality" when listing the agency's goals. Previous objectives such as helping women's organizations participate in the public policy process and increasing the public's understanding of women's equality issues have been eliminated from government literature. Organizations that receive funding from the Trudeau-era agency were stunned. "When you look at this Conservative government's policy it's like, 'Be good girls, be quiet.' It's shocking really," said Monica Lysack of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. Nothing like starting out with total hyperbole ("leaving some to wonder what's left") and then going to a hardcore Harper hater -- the head of the pro-national daycare lobby -- for a comment on cuts to Status of Women.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:16 AM
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Read to Lead
I thought a bit about the requests below to see Peter Naglik's reading list for young conservatives, and decided it would be a nice tribute to Peter to post it. Here it is. This is just one of many versions of the list. It dates from about the year 2000.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 9:22 AM
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Two items
I've been a little short on time lately, and any "blogging time" I've had has ended up being spent deciding how I can possibly blog on all the stories in the news right now. Also, much of what I wanted to say has already been said on other blogs, and I'm a big believer in not wasting people's time with what has been said elsewhere. So:
1. Liberal leadership: See Paul Wells, who seems to have done a sound analysis of the situation. If Ignatieff really only needs one of four delegates from those who will drop off, it will be tough to beat him. Anything can happen, of course. But if were a betting man, I'd say one scenario could develop in which Ignatieff could lose: a Dion v. Ignatieff last ballot. I was on a panel this weekend with Scott Reid (not the MP, the Liberal guy, who is actually quite a nice person) and he made the point that at this point in its history, the Liberal Party would be very hard-pressed not to pick a pure laine francophone as leader if such a person were on the final ballot. That's a good observation, and it makes sense to me. The Liberals (well, at least the thinking ones) know the West (outside of B.C.) is a lost cause for the forseeable future and that they must rebuild in Quebec if they want to win.
2. Harper at the francophonie summit: I was astounded at how this story was reported in most Canadian media. Reporters claimed this was an example of Harper's "pro-Israel" stance. What Harper did was not pro-Israel, it was just not overtly anti-Israel, which the original resolution was. Harper wanted the resolution changed to recognize both Israeli and Lebanese victims of the war, not just those on the Lebanese side. That is example of diplomatic objectivity and neutrality, not favouring only one side as the other francophonie nations wanted.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 2:48 PM
Monday, October 02, 2006
Peter Naglik, RIP
I cannot go to bed tonight without saying something about the passing of a friend. When I heard the news that Peter Naglik had died, I was completely dumbfounded. I had known Peter for almost 10 years, through my involvement in politics. You never want to think someone you know could die in such a horrendous and tragic way and at such a young age. (For more info on Peter, see here and here.)
I first got to know Peter when he was one of the crackerjack staffers at Queen's Park during the Mike Harris years who manned the caucus research office. (That place was full of brilliant people.) He was amazing in that job and always seemed available to help out by sending along research, talking points or whatever I needed when I needed help. (As the head of the party's campus wing at the time, he had absolutely no obligation to help me at all but did so out of pure kindness.)
Peter went on to work for MPP Gary Guzzo and then to Ottawa, where he worked for Jason Kenney, Stockwell Day and in other capacities in the Canadian Alliance and Conservative Party. In his youth he had been active in the Liberal Party, but, being a committed social conservative, grew disenchanted with that party's position on the issues he cared about, and left. He had recently started an Ottawa consulting firm with his longtime friend Mark Spiro.
Simply put, Peter Naglik was the most devoted and principled movement conservative I knew. He ate, lived and breathed politics and committed his life to fighting for the causes he held dear. He was a meticulous reader of newspapers and magazines and knew nearly every book ever written about conservatism and modern politics. (He'd probably read most of them, too.) He also loved sharing his love of reading with others: he encouraged young conservatives to "read to lead" by making lists of important books they ought to devour. Years later those lists are still sitting in my email inbox.
Peter was the kind of person who was always doing favours for others, never expecting anything in return. While I was writing the book last year, he would send along newspaper articles he came across that he thought would be of interest. He also liked to challenge people -- challenge them to better understand why they believed what they purported to believe and to gain new political knowledge. When he spoke or wrote, you listened because you knew he would be conveying something worthwhile and important. That's just the type of person he was. I never had a chance to properly thank him.
What I have written here doesn't do Peter justice. He will be missed by everyone he knew and worked with over the years, Conservative or Liberal. He was a wonderful human being and a friend to all. My thoughts and those of many others I know are with his family.
UPDATE: Joan Tintor weighs in, in a way that only she could.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:43 AM
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