Is There Room For CTV News Channel?

The Sun News Network is changing the landscape of Canadian media, and I can think of a few people that have to be really pissed off about this new reality. Don Newman and Jane Taber were probably the two most vocal opponents who tried to stomp out the idea while in its infancy. Despite losing its bid for the must carry status that CBC Newsworld and CTV enjoy and being available on millions fewer television sets, Sun News is overtaking the competition after just 4 months on the air. One thing is clear, CTV News Channel is getting its ass kicked and is a distant 3rd place. If you ask me Jane Taber drove that network into the ground, to the point where we need to ask if there is even room for Taber's network in the new Canadian media. Back when the CRTC was deliberating whether or not to give the Sun must carry license Jane was vilifying Kory Teneycke on an almost daily basis. Ironically, now that the Sun Network has been born, you don't see the same mud slinging anymore.

Stephen Harper Attends Hockey Games

Stephen Harper may or may not attend the Winnipeg Jets home opener in over 6 weeks, and evidently this is headline news at the CBC (must be a slow month). "Call it a perk of holding the highest elected office in the land: if there's a big game in the life of his hockey-mad country, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems able to snag a ticket, even when an event is sold out and his attendance is arranged on short notice." Today's poll question; does it bother you that the Prime Minister attends NHL hockey games? When the PM attended a Stanley Cup finals game in Boston, the opposition erupted in outrage despite Harper paying for his own ticket. It is quite common for politicians to attend sporting events, but rarely does it lead to media criticism. This is quickly becoming a new theme by which the left is attacking the PM.

Meanwhile at the Globe Jane Taber is accusing Stephen Harper of creating his own brand of populist nationalism which includes embracing the British Monarchy and being a hockey fan; and you can expect a lot stories like that from Jane over the next 4 years. To say that Stephen Harper should not be allowed to attend NHL hockey games would be absurd, just as it is to accuse him of having a sinister hidden agenda when he does attend.

Should Canada Have Internet Voting?

Today's poll question; should Elections Canada adopt Internet voting in federal elections? That option is currently being explored as a means of increasing voter participation while also allowing them to scrap the publication ban on early election results. Ironically, the most recent election saw CBC Newsworld break the publication ban on early results, showing footage of Atlantic Canada results well before the polls closed in Vancouver. Rather than enforce a penalty, it looks like Elections Canada is just going to change the rules. On May 2nd 2011, I sat in my living room in Vancouver and saw results that looked very encouraging for the Liberal Party hours before my local polling station closed. Then after a few minutes the screen went blank. When the clock finally did strike 7pm, I tuned back in to see the Liberals throttled.

Logistically I'm not a fan of Internet voting because it makes electoral fraud substantially easier and you can't verify the identity of the person doing the voting. At polling stations, Elections Canada requires you to prove that you are who you are supposed to be. That's not logistically possible with Internet voting. It is a bad idea, and I'm not exactly sure why Elections Canada is considering online elections. Do they want to turn our federal elections into Canadian Idol?

Ezra Levant Vs Evan Soloman

Every afternoon at the same time Sun TV's Ezra Levant's television show goes up against that of the CBC's Evan Soloman. The Soloman Show is available on nearly twice as many television sets, but to be fair Sun News is only 4 months old and not mandated by the CRTC to be included in cable packages. So what is the ratings difference between the two competing politics shows? Well according to the latest ratings, there is very little difference in their audience size. Soloman is on 10.6 million TV sets and had 59,000 viewers while Levant is on 5.5 million TV sets and had 57,000 viewers. CTV News Channel finished in a distant 3rd place, though their keynote politics show Power Play is currently on a summer vacation.

Evan Soloman had a head start when he took over the afternoon slot, inheriting Don Newman's audience. I'm not sure what size of audience Newman had prior to his departure, but it had to be better than Soloman's haul. It would be very interesting to see the historical ratings for the Soloman Show since its inception in 2009, data that the CBC is mandated to track but doesn't share publicly, among other things.

Stephen Harper, The 2nd Greatest Prime Minister?

I'm not sure what is the bigger news story, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is now regarded as the greatest PM (since 1968) by 19% of Canadians (putting him in second place, well ahead of Jean Chretien), or that 36% of Canadians still think Pierre Trudeau is the best in a new Angus Reid poll. The momentum however belongs to Harper, who has jumped from 11% last year to 19% after winning a majority government. By the time he wins his 2nd majority, Stephen Harper should be the unanimous choice as the greatest leader in the history of Canada...

I'd be curious to know how Quebec sovereigntists voted in this poll since they have never had one of their own in the top job. 48% of respondents picked either Trudeau or Chretien, so that should provide some indication of who Gilles Duceppe and his ilk might have selected as Canada's greatest Prime Minister.

Battle Of Ontario Heating Up

According to Nanos, the Ontario Liberal's attack ads accusing Tim Hudak of treating Ontario voters like "dolts and chumps" have been effective (at least among women) and Team McGuinty has now closed the gap with the provincial Tories. It's funny because Liberals will so often cry foul and play the victim card when they are the targets of negative advertising, but have no problems when they are the ones doing the attacking. To add irony to insults, nothing Tim Hudak has ever done compares to the flagrant contempt Dalton showed for Ontario voters when in he repeatedly pledged in his first winning election campaign that "I will not raise your taxes". Dolton kept promising in TV commercials (aired hundreds of times) not to increase taxation while simultaneously pledging to increase spending by billions of dollars. What happened in his very first budget? Massive new taxation. If you ask me, that is truly treating voters like dolts and chumps.

With the data showing that women are driving the momentum towards McGuinty, one can only draw the conclusion that women like paying more in taxes. If you love new taxes, increases to old taxes, and just paying more to the taxman in general, then Dalton McGuinty is the best possible Premier you could have. All that being said, you have to question just how reliable political polling is in the month of August when many Canadians are on vacation, spend less time at home answering phone calls, and are generally disinterested in politics.

G8 Spending Cover-Up?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Today the NDP has been on the offensive against Tony Clement for allegedly covering up meetings and reports surrounding G8 Summit projects in his riding. Charlie Angus held a press conference to unveil the documents he obtained via a simple access to information request as proof of an elaborate cover up. The information was requested and the government provided it, yet this is supposed to be a cover up? Martha Hall Findlay was just on the Soloman Show decrying this alleged controversy as an example of our democracy being destroyed. Martha basically accused the government of "eliminating the paper trail", but obviously that information was not destroyed and was available by making a simple request.

And do you know why the NDP would have even known to make an ATI request? Because Sheila Fraser already investigated this matter and determined all the spending had been properly accounted for. The accusation of a secret elaborate slush fund doesn't hold water. This is just a retread of an old controversy. You can debate how much money should have been spent making Muskoka look nice ahead of hosting leaders and media from around the world, but the conspiracy theory is a little rich. On the bright side, at least Evan has something to talk about in the middle of August. He kept waving around the documents today. It was quite comical. I'm sure the other dozen people watching found it as amusing as I did...

What To Do About Syria?

The debate is growing in the Western world about what should be done to deal with Syria, a country that has been massacring its own people marching for democracy. Should the same type of military action used against Libya be used against the Assad regime? That is today's poll question. Sanctions are fine in principle, but in practice they often end up hurting the very people they are supposed to be liberating more than the regime they are trying to punish. Does the civilized world have the responsibility to fight against brutality?

If there is going to be an international force carrying out a Syrian mission, I trust NATO far more than the United Nations. Syria and Libya are close enough that you could probably use the same military base as the staging point for a new operation.

Solving Problem Of Overcrowded Prisons

Sometimes it can be difficult to follow the left's condemnation of the Tory tough on crime agenda, with frequent criticisms of plans to expand our prison capacity, followed by outrage that we have more prisoners than our prisons were built to hold. There is a consensus that our prisons are indeed overcrowded leaving Corrections Canada to repeatedly cram multiple inmates into cells designed for single occupancy. The argument is what to do about it. The Rosemary Barton Show today discussed the overcrowding issue and is running a poll question asking if the Conservative tough on crime agenda is increasing violence in prisons (65% of their audience say yes the rise in prison violence is the Tories fault). The contention is that overcrowded penitentiaries create violence, and that the Tories are responsible for the overcapacity problem. The Mark Hollands of the world might not want to come right out and say it, but their solution to the overcrowding problem seems to be putting fewer people in prison. Too noble by half if you ask me.

Today's poll question; what do you think should be done to solve the problem of overcrowded prisons?

CBC Warns Government Cutbacks Can Lead To Riots

On Tuesday Rosemary Barton was on our publicly funded broadcaster discussing the riots in London, speculating that "government austerity measures" can lead to public violence. Did you hear that Canadian government? Consider yourself warned! Try to roll back the CBC's cost expenditures, and it could lead to hooligans out in the streets of Ottawa throwing Molotov cocktails at police cars. Rolling back the number of climate change jobs at Environment Canada could lead to looting and widespread civil unrest. Sure, CBC employees might have a conflict of interest when discussing government spending, but there are many historical examples where spending cuts have led to public employees gathering in large numbers to protest (with some of those deteriorating into violence).

Does this mean that we should avoid doing the right thing because a small number of hooligans might become upset? Something feels inherently wrong about appeasement made under the threat of violence. If you believe that reducing government spending is a noble and necessary cause, then you should not compromise those values because a small number people are violently opposed to the measures. I'm not suggesting that Rosemary Barton or any of her CBC colleagues are threatening violence if their budgets are reduced. For all the things I've had to say about Milewski, Soloman, or O'Malley, I would not expect to see any of them on TV setting fire to coffee shops or smashing windows (though I wouldn't be shocked to see Terry throw a garbage can at the Prime Minister's limo). Typically when public union protests deteriorate into violence, it is the result of a small criminal element taking advantage of the public gathering and intense emotions.

We should figure out the best way to isolate and separate criminals from innocents when people gather publicly, but we should not avoid "government austerity measures" because the CBC says it could lead to violence. A lack of government austerity in the United States and Europe is why our global economy is teetering on the edge of catastrophic collapse. Two words, "sovereign debt".