Harper's Defamation Action Folds Like an Old Lawnchair

Prime Minister Harper launched a defamation lawsuit against the opposition Liberal party for alleged comments they made allegedly implicating him in an alleged bribing attempt of deceased Independent MP Chuck Cadman for his vote in the Commons. Late Friday it was announced that the action was dropped by Prime Minister Harper.

Sorry to be using “allegedly” so often in this post but since nothing is proven and the combatants have gone silent as a result of the “settlement” of the lawsuit. We know nothing for sure and I don’t want to be sued on this matter either. Too bad the author Tom Zytaruk who taped the interview with Harper that formed the key evidence in this theatre of the absurd did not get an apology from the PM. He obviously deserves one now that Harper has folded.

We can draw some conclusions and implications from these events. Harper’s dropping the suit hardly makes his claim that the Liberal party comments on the issues and allegations were “the biggest mistake they ever made.” High hubris by Harper then and he has some very cold crow to munch on now.

The damage claim in Harper’s law suit for loss of reputation at $3.5m is now reduced to dick and each part pays their own costs in the action. That means that Harper wins nothing and the Liberals lose nothing and neither party will comment further. The downgrading of a political reputation loss allegation from millions to nothing and in fact costing the Plaintiff money for his own legal fees for pursuing the adventure come off like posturing and puffery at best.

This all may mean the Harper is hankering to govern now that he has to admit and accept that the country is in crisis and to stop bullying the opposition as his primary political goal. Heaven knows the country needs him to make the shift. My money says he has not really made the leap and will now be in leadership limbo and drift into disinterest and do neither.

Obama Invited to Alberta

I see Premier Stelmach has invited President Obama to come to Alberta and visit the oil sands.

Good move but more needs to be done to make this effort effective. We clearly need to be sharing information, developing a deeper understanding and looking for ways to make the exploitation of this vital resource more responsible and sustainable.

Albertans are up for that but we need our business and policians to catch up to the enlightened consciousness of the citizenship.

I see President Obama is planning a mere 5 hour meeting in Ottawa with Stephen Harper on February 19th. He clearly sees meeting with Harper as not a very productive use of his time. I will do a blog post soon on what I think will be and should be on the agenda.

Alberta Needs to Start Thinking for a Change. Ontario Is!

I am intrigued by the Ontario government’s support for taking advantage of the current economic crisis as an opportunity to transition to a creative economy from a dying industrial age. I guess it helps that Richard Florida who writes on urban cultural creatives has recently moved from the States to Toronto as his preferred city of residence. I like Florida but prefer the deeper insights of Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson’s work “The Cultural Creatives” about similar themes.

Florida has teamed up with Roger Martin the Dean of the U of T’s Rotman School of Business to write a report commissioned by Ontario’s Premier Dalton McGuinty to be released today. The report is Ontario-centric but is said to be transformational and transferable to all provinces and will show how to move from an industrial society to a creative one. Ontario has been studying the link between prosperity and productivity for some time now. They are clearly leading the way to add a creative link as a means to future prosperity as well. I am looking forward to getting a copy of the report and giving it a careful read.

Alberta is in need of this kind of thinking for a change. Alberta is still striving too much to sustain a sense of yesterday. For example we continue to subsidize conventional oil and gas drilling activity by reducing royalties and industry accountability for sound environmental practices and duties to reclaim abandoned sites. We have fragmented the boreal forest with well sites, seismic lies, roads and right of ways so badly that its sustainability for wildlife is under serious threat.

It is not all bad in Alberta but there are few serious signs of any significant transformational shift happening in Alberta anytime soon. We need to quit compromising to conventional industry demands and to embed a new consciousness of innovation and adventure that will take us to a new level of diversification. Examples of that kind of leadership thinking are around but they are sparse and segregated and mostly insignificant.

We have some political champions in Alberta for such a change but they don’t seem to be winning the agenda and priority battles in Cabinet and Caucus. Alberta seems more intent on perfecting yesterday with more and more concessions being granted to the conventional industries from oil and gas, to forestry to agriculture in an effort to try and sustain old models and methods in the conventional economy.

We Albertans have the necessity to adapt and change because fossil fuels have limits that are economic and environmental. We have the fiscal resources to change. We have the institutional and intellectual infrastructure and human ingenuity horsepower in our universities, technical schools and the Alberta Research Council to change.

We have a very creative group of people in our cultural industries and environmental and social services sectors as well. We can transform the province if we choose to. We seem to lack the visionary leadership in politics and business to actually engage in the new world we can see coming. We are too "successful" and complacent to have any sense of urgency and intentionality to get serious about the inevitable changes that are coming. We seem content to passively react rather than actively respond.

This recession is a perfect opportunity to revisit, revise and to shift to a new trajectory and to actively eschew the tyranny of the dead ideas of the past. Speaking of the tyranny of dead ideas, I just bought Matt Miller’s book of the same name. I intend to read it carefully. I will also be rereading Thomas Homer-Dixon’s “The Ingenuity Gap” to find a reframing of my own consciousness about these concerns about the need to rethink and transform our economy.

Time for Alberta to start thinking for a change. Ontario is on to it. Why not us?

Ignatieff Shows Strength of Character and Wise Leadership

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff understands and respects representative democracy. He has shown those qualities of character by the way he consulted and enabled those Newfoundland and Labrador members of his Caucus to take a stand and vote against the Harper budget. The wanted to take such a stand because the Harper budget serves to single out and punish their region and their constituents. Good for him and good for them.

Old line partisans who think political leadership is about dictating to Caucus in all circumstances and punishing transgressors will call this enlightened approach a mistake and a sign of weakness on Iggy’s part. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ultimate consequences of those 6 members taking a stand and representing the interests of their constituencies are insignificant in the large scheme of things but symbolically important to them and their people.

Politics is all about perception and the Harper cons will mule and mock as is their wont about this action shows Iggy can’t control his Caucus. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The overarching perception that needs to be appreciated here is the flexibility and wisdom of Iggy in accepting the principled position of those 6 disgruntled Liberal MPs. These PMs are supposed to represent the best interests of their region, an area of Canada that is being screwed by the Harper government – yet again.

The luxury of opposition is that the same level of party solidarity is not as necessary for the governing party. The risk in a minority government situation is too much of this self-actualization of MPs could actually unwittingly topple a government. Well that was undoubtedly considered at the MPS met face to face with their leader to discuss the situation and work out a solution. No fear of an inadvertent election happening in this case. This situation shows us Ignatieff’s superior wisdom, judgment and leadership qualities, not to mention his demonstrable personal respect for representative democracy.

You sure can’t say anything close to that about Mr. Harper. Last time Harper had a dissident MP was Bill Casey. His principled stand was to vote against the Harper position on the Atlantic Accord that screwed Nova Scotia where his riding is. Casey was drummed out of the Harper Party Caucus but got his revenge in the last election when he ran as an Independent and won his seat again.

Now the shameless Harper Cons have filed a bogus complaint to the RCMP against Casey making unfounded allegations of election spending irregularities. Bush-league Rovarian tactics are still alive and well in the bosom of the Harper Cons.

Compare the leadership qualities of Harper and Ignatieff in these two parallel circumstances and ask yourself why you ever voted for Harper in the first place. Don’t make the same mistake next time!

Ken Chapman on CBC Wildrose (Jan. 28, 2009)

Here is my lastest column on CBC Wildrose on the Federal Budget and what it means - especially to Alberta.