Adam Daifallah

Montreal needs a leader

2009-11-06T09:44:00.002-05:00

My column from Wednesday's National Post. Sorry for the belated posting.

Column in today's National Post

2009-10-21T21:11:00.001-04:00

On the disappointing results in the ADQ leadership race.

Assessing the Recession & Navigating the Recovery

2009-10-01T11:14:00.001-04:00

The c2c journal has posted a new issue entitled Assessing the Recession & Navigating the Recovery with an impressive lineup of contributing writers. Check it out here.

Liberal renewal

2009-09-30T21:35:00.001-04:00

Check out my column in today's National Post, which deals with the Martin Cauchon affair in the context of the larger theme of the struggling Liberal Party.

Lipsky on Kristol

2009-09-26T12:03:00.005-04:00

I cite this not just to commemorate the death of Irving Kristol, but also simply to read the art of proper memorializing. A fantastic piece by Seth Lipsky which shows that sometimes - indeed, many times - all we need to know about a man can be shown by telling a single story.

Cauchon

2009-09-21T21:50:00.004-04:00

Few cases better illustrate why the procedure of appointing candidates in ridings is at best wrong-headed and at worse, a disgrace.

The Liberals would have a very good chance at recapturing Outremont if Martin Cauchon were their candidate. Clearly, he wanted the job. It's easy to understand why: Cauchon has always wanted to be leader, and he smells blood. He knows that if Iggy loses, he'll likely resign and it will be the turn of a francophone to lead the federal Liberal Party. He also knows that he has now been out of elected politics for some time, and people are starting to forget him. It was now or never.

But Ignatieff's Québec lieutenant is man named Denis Coderre -- a man who also wants to be the next leader. There is no way Coderre is going to allow Cauchon to return. Instead, the party is running a relative unknown (sorry, but a high-profile business career -- especially in Canada -- does not make you a household name) and will stand a far greater risk of losing the riding for a third straight time to Tom Mulcair. Incidentally, Mulcair is likely to run (and in my view, win) the NDP leadership once Jack Layton steps down, which will pose serious problems in Quebec for the Liberals.

Iggy cannot defy Coderre due to all the support he's given him, so he's doing what he can to pay back his loyal soldier. This move is truly astonishing -- actually, its indefensible. Big winners here are the NDP, and to a lesser extent, the Tories.

2009-09-20T14:00:00.002-04:00

Belatedly, here is my column from last Wednesday's National Post on the Wildrose Alliance byelection victory.

Note: My Post column has moved from every second Tuesday to every second Wednesday.

Some good Senate appointments

2009-08-27T17:42:00.000-04:00

Much deserved!

Latest National Post column

2009-08-26T12:17:00.001-04:00

On the summer it's been in golf.

More on the Bloc

2009-08-12T10:31:00.003-04:00

I've received a fair bit of feedback about the below article speculating on what Gilles Duceppe's departure would mean for the Bloc, including this public retort from Gerry Nicholls. Much of the private correspondence I received was in the same vein. I also see the Globe has a piece by Konrad Yakabuski, a very respectable Montreal-based journalist, on the Liberal "revival" in Quebec which counters some of what I said:

The media narrative deemed that Tory cuts to the arts and a hard-line stand on young offenders drove Quebeckers into the Bloc's embrace. But post-election polling, analyzed by the Université de Montréal's Claire Durand, indicated very few early Tory supporters switched to the Bloc. Instead, most went to the Liberals. Despite their leader, Liberal support rose nine points during the campaign. Bloc gains (eight points) came almost exclusively at the NDP's expense. None of the switchers mentioned arts cuts or young offenders as the reason for their move, although “blocking Harper” was a prime motivation.

Now, as Mr. Harper more or less abandons any hope of a Conservative breakthrough in the province he once so assiduously courted, a strong Bloc may be key to keeping the Tories in power. If the Tories can't win Quebec seats themselves – and if the slate of candidates they present is as weak as it was in the last election, they likely can't – then they'd probably rather lose them to the Bloc than to Mr. Ignatieff.

Chantal Hébert has also weighed in the Bloc with some astute observations.

First, allow me to clarify that, contrary to Gerry's and many other commentators' assumptions, I never predicted the death of the Bloc. The Bloc will not go away after Duceppe leaves. What I wrote is that the Tories will still have a chance to make a comeback in Quebec without Duceppe at the helm. By this I meant they could win around the same number of seats they have now and avoid a much-predicted obliteration.

Second, we shouldn't read too much into polling data. One correspondent yesterday claimed there is no evidence in polling to support a claim that Bloc voters would be more likely to go to the Tories than the Liberals. Yakabuski cites similar research. True, polls do not show this. But they are hypothetical and deal with the present, not an alternative future scenario. No polls take into consideration a Duceppe-less Bloc. Recall the flurry of polling data cited by opponents of a Progressive Conservative-Canadian Alliance merger in the early 2000s that far more PC voters would vote Liberal as a second choice, and thus a merger would not work.

Total nonsense! Look what happened!

When faced with a new, untested Bloc leader and the Harper Tories running on a "Quebec-friendly" platform next time (you can be sure the mistakes of the last election won't be repeated), there is a chance the Tories could at least retain what they have now, especially if they appear to be winning the election.

UPDATE: A bit of aside here, but Hébert writes "The escalating debate over the public funding of the Bloc is really another symptom of the growing frustration over the fact that the party poses a formidable mathematical obstacle to the securing of a governing majority." This is not necessarily true, especially with the new seat redistribution coming before the next election. Although a highly undesirable result, it will now be quite possible for the Conservatives to form a majority with little to no Quebec support based on seat gains in Ontario, Alberta and B.C.

Duceppe and the Tories

2009-08-11T19:48:00.000-04:00

My column from today's National Post.

Column in today's National Post

2009-07-29T17:20:00.002-04:00

On the new public biking system that's taking Montreal by storm.

Tom Flanagan's Waiting for the Wave

2009-07-26T19:26:00.003-04:00

I reviewed Tom Flanagan's new book Waiting for the Wave (actually, it is an old book that he updated and reissued) in Saturday's Globe and Mail. Read it here.

About that "Depression"

2009-07-23T11:39:00.002-04:00

Ummmm, its over:

If the Bank of Canada's new forecast proves correct, Canada's first recession since the early 1990's lasted three quarters, making it one of the shortest downturns on record.

How did everyone get it so wrong?

Harper's communion faux-pas for dummies

2009-07-09T09:50:00.002-04:00

Paul Tuns tells us all we need to know.

Hudak's conservatism

2009-07-07T16:01:00.001-04:00

In today's National Post, I write about new Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak.

This is the first in what will be a regular column in the National Post, running every other Tuesday.

More frequent blogging will resume shortly.

I'm back!

2009-06-20T17:29:00.003-04:00

If anyone is still reading this blog, I'm still here and will be resuming regular blogging shortly. For now, please see this article which appeared in today's National Post.

Miss Ruby

2009-05-08T18:49:00.003-04:00

Ugly!

"I had to polish their shoes ... for Miss Ruby and her brother," Alvarez said in an interview from western Canada, where she is now living and working. "She has a lot of shoes, downstairs and upstairs."

Talk about a CLQ (Career Limiting Quote).

As if we needed another reason to not go to Mexico

2009-04-23T21:36:00.001-04:00

Alas, there is one.

Alive and well

2009-04-19T21:24:00.002-04:00

If there's still anyone out there reading ... sorry for the lack of posts, which some of you have commented on. My current employment situation just doesn't allow time for this. I am still following news and current events, but just can't blog. I hope this is a temporary situation and that I can get back to more regular posting soon. In the meantime, I don't have too much to say. I hope Tim Hudak wins the Ontario PC leadership race. I think he's the best candidate in the race. I've known him for a while and I'm confident he will re-instill conservative principles to the party. There should be an awfully good chance to win the 2011 election if things keep on as they are and Hudak would make a terrific premier. The Oliphant Inquiry is turning out to be an even bigger waste of taxpayer dollars than could have been imagined. The success of Ezra Levant's new book on human rights commissions is very good to see. Back soon.

Flashback

2009-03-06T06:52:00.002-05:00

To here and here. Let us hope that the Ontario PCs can recover quickly and leave this trail of disaster behind them.

Fun stuff!

2009-03-03T22:53:00.001-05:00

Making conservatism fun:

The battle being lost

2009-02-23T22:24:00.005-05:00

The question often comes up in political discussions as to whether conservatism is actually making any headway in Canada. Conservatives are split on the issue. There are those who see improvements and others who see us falling further and further behind.

The Harper government has made some strides, especially when it comes to tone (emphasis on the military, for example -- and when was the last time you heard anyone talking about the Charter of Rights?). In the the North American context, there have been so many victories over the past four decades it is hard to count them, which is what has led (in part) to the current crisis of faith in the Republican Party.

The Cold War has been won and communism is a marginal force. Tax cuts are accepted as mainstream even in some centre-left parties. Income taxes are so low millions of people don't even pay them in the US and Canada. Welfare rates remain low. Crime is so small an issue it barely registers in polling. And until the last few months with the onset of the global credit meltdown, no one would have ever thought of nationalizing private enterprise anymore. Recent events have dealt conservatism a blow. There is little doubt about that. It will recover, but it may take time. (The debate over the root causes of this crisis has also been totally lost by the right, due in large part to unilateral withdrawal from the intellectual battlefield, but that's for another day.) The immediacy with which governments around the world coalesced around the idea of state intervention to "solve" this crisis was nothing short of breathtaking. To get an idea of how bad it has been, consider that more than one commentator is saying that the Harper government has managed the crisis the most conservatively of all Western nations. Scary.

But where conservatism is definitely losing the battle and has for many years without any sign of push back is on what I would call the "nanny state" issues -- the gradual encroachment of state involvement into more and more areas of our lives through regulation. Smoking by-laws, banning this and that behaviour, boating licenses, gun registration, etc... are all rampant and there's no sign of it slowing down. And now this:

Edmonton — Mayor Stephen Mandel is calling for regulations around the sale of dangerous knives after an innocent city man was stabbed to death.

The man in his 20s was attacked early Saturday by a group of men, all of whom had been patrons at a west-end bar.

He was stabbed and left for dead behind a strip mall near 182 Street and 89 Avenue around 3:45 a.m.

“Like any citizen, I’m abhorred that this could happen to (anyone) whether it was someone innocent or not,” Mandel told Sun Media today. “It’s even more horrific when it’s someone innocent.”

The sale of large knives capable of inflicting fatal wounds should be controlled, he said.

I would be surprised if anything were to ever be done on this issue, but you never know. I thought we would have metal detectors at bus and train stations by now after that decapitation incident in Manitoba -- so far we don't, but we're heading in that direction. The battle against this kind of senselessness is being lost, in part because too few people are actually fighting it. Let's help those that are.

Bombing Montreal

2009-02-12T21:09:00.004-05:00

Can anyone explain to me why the most important nugget of information in this story is contained in its very last paragraph?

Inside Mr. Bulphred's apartment, hidden inside a box of Q-tips, police found a computer diskette. On it, the court heard, where bomb-making instructions, details on how to make TNT, details on the Via Rail train station and on Gentilly-2, Quebec's only nuclear plant.

That's not the kind of tidbit that's only worth a passing mention.

Interpreting the Quebec election results

2009-01-29T22:35:00.000-05:00

I published an article about the Quebec provincial election results on c2c, which you can read here.