Justin On The Herb

Its not the policy itself that might get him in trouble; I suspect that the majority of Canadians support legalizing or a least decriminalizing marijuana, and I suspect that the party brain trust has polled and focus-grouped it and knows as much.  However, its a 2nd or 3rd tier issue at best and on its own won't win too many votes. Furthermore, the Tories, as I've argued before, will try to spin it as the LPC's main or only issue.  Indeed, they are already attempting that maneuver: Justin Trudeau’s Policy Priority – Legalizing Marijuana.  So care will have to be taken to lay out the other more substantive planks in the LPC platform in a timely fashion.  Otherwise, Irie.  Oh, and as for worries about the border:

@kinsellawarren Harder to justify that when two states just voted to legalize.
— Dan Arnold (@calgarygrit) July 25, 2013

PS.  Iggy, if anyone still remembers that guy, was pro-decrim, and he was the farthest you can get from a dirty hippy.

He Is Come To Scarborough

He will arrive in a silver space ship and descend in a roiling cloud of dry ice.  T-Rex will be playing in the background.  There has been some awesome food around that office lately; there may be biryani chicken.  But no promises, obviously.

Justin Ascends To Enormous Heights

This, then, is the measure of  the man!  O Glorious, GLORIOUS Justin!!!  Myself I wouldn't have offered a penny back to these silver-haired con-artists!  No!  I would have told them to go stuff it, and if that didn't appease 'em I'd  have  melted 'em down into bricks of Soylent Green and feed 'em to the wretched youth, whose  job prospects these days are looking increasingly grim as the riches of  the nation go towards maintaining our aged in the opulent manner to which they have become accustomed.  Guys my age and Justin's age won't  be able to retire until we're 80, and the folks younger than us will do worse.  All so that everyone in dad's generation gets a gold plated walker with a jet-back on the side...diamond inlays for their sports dentures!  The whole bloody works!  I'd've given 'em what for!  But Justin is a bigger person than me, and chose the way of peace.  This truly is what leaders are made of.

Justin Trudeau, Posing With Babes...

 Meanwhile here's the best Stephen Harper could do last time he visited Europe.

Compare And Contrast...

...the various parties on the painfully stupid and obviously racist decision by the Quebec Soccer Federation to disallow the wearing of Sikh Turbans for "safety" reasons.

From the CPC:

I see no valid reason why kids should be banned from playing soccer because of their religion. If you agree retweet. bit.ly/135yiS4
— Bal Gosal, MP (@BalGosal) June 4, 2013

 Not bad, but a back-bencher?  Where's the big guy, the leader?

Justin responded  as I knew he would...

Wearing a turban shouldn't stop you from playing soccer or participating fully in any other activity. The #QSF must drop its ban now.
— Justin Trudeau, MP (@JustinTrudeau) June 4, 2013

Subtle and yet vigorous.  Plain spoken and yet diplomatic.

Oh yeah, and this from the NDP:

The Opposition New Democrats say they've already urged FIFA to clarify its policy on turbans and have not heard back.

"If they (FIFA) would get their act in gear and respond, everyone would be able to move forward with this," said sports critic Matthew Dube.

Blaming FIFA?  Word to my commie brothers: are you trying to court Que. voters or grovel before them?  It makes a difference if you want to rule in the name of the whole country.

Justin Gives West/East Pipeline Yellow Light

After the B.C. election there was some speculation that Adrian Dix's sudden thumbs-down to the Trans Mountain Pipeline after a year or so of fence-sitting cost him votes.  I think that's wrong, but since the B.C. polls all turned out to crap, they can't tell us anything one way or another and we are therefore free to speculate as we please.  My opinion, FWIW, is based on the behavior of the B.C. Liberal campaign, which toughened its own anti-pipeline rhetoric in the last week of the race with Christy Clark's "we don't need Alberta, we don't need Canada" speech. In other words, the BC Libs worked to narrow the distance between the Liberal and NDP positions, not increase it.

Nevertheless some people seem to feel that a softer line on Alberta pipelines has become the politically expedient move.  Thankfully, Justin Trudeau is not among them:

The federal Liberal leader told the CBC’s Information Morning Fredericton on Thursday he has specific questions about potential toxins that may be used in the pipeline.

“I think it is a proposal that is extremely interesting. We are waiting to look at how they are going to deal with both the community, local, aboriginal concerns and the environmental concerns,” Trudeau said.

“The [substance] that they put to make that thick crude, thick bitumen run through those pipes can be very toxic. I want to see the plan for being environmentally responsible on it because it won’t go ahead if it will cost us on pollution, in degradation and in inefficiencies in the coming years.”

Now Trudeau is hardly going so far as to suggest that he will kill the proposal when he becomes PM (and its starting to look like he may).  He might simply be commenting on the general lay of the political landscape. Moreover, I think the line nine reversal will ultimately fail due to market disinterest rather than political machinations.  But its good to see that Justin is not simply abandoning the field to the pro-oil-patch forces on environmental issues.  He's showing a little bit of sand on the topic, and that's a good thing.

The Tide Has Turned

It has begun.  Labrador 2013.  General Election 2015.  PM Trudeau appoints me to Senate, 2016.  He also appoints my wife, and gives us two seats near the aisle for bathroom breaks.  We eat free at the Senate cafeteria (when you're a Senator you get a card), and sleep in the upper chamber like everyone else.  We never have to work again.  Life is sweet.

A Spin-Able Victory

Upshot:  the anti-Justin Trudeau attack ads, which debuted in the Maritimes so as to get Peter Penashue his seat back, did not work.  In fact, given that this is a Forum poll, they probably didn't work even worse than their top line number suggests.

My Wife On Justin In His Shorts

This is a kind of a guest post from my better half, adapted from a conversation we had earlier upon seeing the LPC message from Justin Trudeau in his khaki T and cargo shorts:

You want to counter the whole idea that Justin is the son of wealth.  So you put him in his backyard or someone else's back yard dressed like a common person. You want him to look like the guy you could invite over to a BBQ, and contrast him with Stephen Harper in an ugly suit.  That way you pull in NDP votes and the votes of guys who want the PM to look like "someone normal".  

Just to add to the dear wife's comments, I'd say Justin looked like half the guys in Ontario this weekend, including me, and its easy to imagine having him over for a few beers.  This guy...not so much.

The Most Interesting Thing About The Latest Harris-Decima Poll

...is how it shows that JT is stealing from the CPoC as well as the NDP.  For the conventional wisdom has 30% of the CDN population rock solid in Harper's corner, yet this poll puts them below that threshold. 

Will The LPoC Counter-Attack Ad Work?

How the heck am I supposed to know?  I will say one thing: you can watch this ad and not feel unclean at the end.  That in itself is in strong contrast to its Conservative counterparts.

Are The New Anti-Trudeau Ads Effective?

How the heck should I know?  You can see 'em here and make up your own mind.  A couple of things; Trudeau was stripping down and wearing the stash for charity.  And the Quebec quote was a paraphrase of his dad.  Interesting too that they are first being launched down East, obviously in context of the upcoming Labrador byelection where the Liberals are way, way up at the moment.  If this doesn't change significantly, they can be spun as failures.  And, as for the "turning the other cheek" stuff, well, presumably Justin won't do his own rhetorical knifings a la the early Stephen Harper.  He will stay positive, and let others draw blood.  That would be my advice, anyway.

PS.  A Trudeau insider responds:

We expected attacks, but we didn’t expect even them to attack @justintrudeau for raising money for cancer research. #cdnpoli #judgement
— Gerald Butts (@gmbutts) April 15, 2013

Justin Won't Cross

From the Don't Fly Porter website:

Porter Strikers visited Justin Trudeau at the liberal leadership showcase today and spoke with him about the strike.  

Justin said he did not know there was a strike on at Porter when he travelled Halifax to Ottawa. 

He did not see a picket line he said, or he would not have crossed.  Justin committed that he would not fly Porter Airlines until the strike is resolved. 

Apparently Justin has committed to fly Air Canada.  Talk about sacrificing for the cause.

Parsing The Martha Hall Findlay Apology

Dear Justin,

 My campaign for LPoC leader is so fucking doomed right now that its pathetic, and  afterwards I'll have nothing to show for it but debt.  Debt, debt, and more debt. And just when I'd managed to shovel my way out the first time, too.  Not that you'd know about what that's like, you pampered little...  

But anyway.  I beg you to forgive my harsh words of the other night, and also to consider me for a position in some future government.  A small thing.  Minister of String, Cans and Jars might be suitable.  Or a Senate appointment. Now that would be sweet.  I could sell my principal residence and pay off the angriest of my money men.  I would eat for free in the Senate cafeteria, and sleep in my seat, the way the other Senators do.  Otherwise I fear that when you next see me I will be pushing a shopping cart up Yonge Street, speaking into a toy telephone and living in a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere. 

Again, I cannot tell you how very, very... very sorry I am, Justin.  Sweet, beautiful, glorious Justin.  If you can see your way clear to forgiving this silly gal, and offering me some small but decently compensated post in what will surely be  a reign of historic greatness, I would be eternally grateful.

Yours,
Martha Hall Findlay

Its Only A Forum Poll

...but I like it:

Forty-one per cent of poll respondents said they’d vote Liberal in this scenario, granting the party 164 of the 308 seats in the house. The Tories would get 30% of the vote and 93 seats, and the NDP would get 20% of the vote and 45 seats.

I foresee a very short, very unexciting leadership "event" in April.

Justin's Speech...

...to the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference in Toronto yesterday, which is right here, is really quite good.

Dear West,

...we are still coming to civilize you.  We'll find other ways.

PS. Screw you Alberta.  Twice.  Kicked your ass on abortion, didn't we?  Huh?  HUH?

Sometimes A Witch Hunt Helps The Witch

If the Torys want to haul Justin Trudeau before House Natural Resources Committee to explain his Alberta statements, then let 'em.  Give the guy hours of looking handsome and acting human to lay out his leadership platform before a national audience.  Because, believe me, this will get covered wall-to-wall.  The One, getting nagged by the one with two chins.  Although I suspect Stephen Harper will find a means to  make this stupid idea go away.  As for us Liberals, of course we should all bust out a can of fake outrage.  But, really-- pray for this to come to pass.

Now Lets Move On

Pot decrim is indeed a common sense idea, esp. now that our Southern neighbors are coming around to it.  But it shouldn't be the headline policy of the LPoC or any LPoC candidate.  It should be outlined in a footnote on page 150 of the some new version of the Red Book.  Right now the federal Liberals have exactly one policy and it has nothing to do with jobs jobs jobs.  Painfully easy to caricature.  

That is all.

They Call Them Political Parties...

...because you always have to look like you're having one.  And Justin does.  Sure his party sometimes looks like its going to become an all night kegger, but he keeps advisers around to make sure that doesn't happen.  Never underestimate how far an outgoing, enthusiastic personality can take you in politics.

As for Forum, does it even matter anymore if their polls are crap, since crappy polls are all that's on offer these days?  They're basically treating their surveys as adverts for the company, and its working. Read the papers these days and you'd think they're the only polling firm in Canada.