Paul Godfrey's plan to make Canada a Conservative one-party state

Posted by John Deverell, Catch 22 campaign

Paul Godfrey has turned his attention from promoting US baseball and football in Toronto to helping Stephen Harper remake Canada’s parliament in the Conservative mould. Godfrey, a lifelong Conservative and former chairman of Metro Toronto, this summer led Postmedia Network Inc. in the acquisition from the collapsing Asper empire of the newspaper assets of Canwest Global.

Godfrey, fronting a consortium anchored by American investors, is now in command of a bully pulpit which includes the National Post, Vancouver Sun, The Calgary Herald, Ottawa Citizen, and Montreal Gazette along with their portfolio of digital media and online assets including canada.com.

Important evidence of how he will use this political leverage popped up in The Calgary Herald today as Harper’s hometown paper editorialized brazenly for Harper’s drive to eliminate democratic per vote subsidies to political parties.

Subsidizing separation: Party funding that favours BQ must change

Godfrey’s newspaper doesn’t call it a Harper campaign against democracy, of course. It pretends the PM’s goal is not to kneecap the Liberals, NDP, Bloc Quebecois and Green parties, but rather to fight Quebec separatism.

Campaign finance will be a key re-election platform for the Harper Conservatives. It is an issue we support for many reasons. Foremost among these is the unfair advantage the current system gives to the Bloc Quebecois. It is ludicrous that Canadian taxpayers heavily subsidize a party devoted to breaking up the country.

The Herald goes on to attack all independent candidates and regional parties. Its thought experiment in crude electoral manipulation would be laughable – except that it’s inspired by Prime Minister Harper and his University of Calgary ally Tom Flanagan.

The ”Calgary vision” of political party finance is a diversionary tactic based on naked lies – but it might work. The lies appeal to regional and ethnic emotion and attempt to inflame existing divisions.

Why diversionary?

Bloc Quebecois voters are taxpayers too. Tax money directed by them to a political party they support does not infringe the right of other Canadians to direct their tax support with their votes. The per vote subsidy treats every voter equally, making it the only unequivocally democratic element in the entire Canadian political system.
The real problem in Quebec is the federal voting system. Time after time it gives the BQ two thirds of the province’s 75 seats on less than 40 per cent of the popular vote. Quebec’s federalist voters, a divided majority, have been denied fair representation for six elections in a row. The Bloc profits – but it didn’t invent the voting system. True Canadian federalist patriots, if they existed, would make the voting system democratic.
Democratic voting reform would honestly break the Bloc stranglehold on Quebec, but it would also break the Conservative chokehold on Alberta and Saskatchewan and the Liberal and NDP throttlegrip on Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Voting reform would provide democratic representation for all Canadians in all regions and preclude phony majority governments. Who wants that, and who doesn’t?
Stephen Harper says talking to potential voters is unworthy political activity, but begging private interests for political donations merits a taxpayer subsidy. This is the naked self-interest of the Conservative party speaking. It has nothing to do with the public interest or national unity.
If Harper and his Conservatives really opposed unfair subsidies to parties they would focus on the political tax credit. It costs more than the per vote subsidy, and privileges a tiny group of Canadians for no compelling reason.

Is any of this likely to enter the reasoning of Paul Godfrey, Postmedia Network Inc and its influential newspapers? Don’t bet on it. Why would a Godfrey newspaper let democratic principle stand in the way of Conservative majority government by fair means or foul?

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Comment by John Deverell on January 25, 2011 at 10:02pm: CK Twight finds me too oblique. A majority of Quebecers do not vote for the Bloc, whatever their reasons. They deserve a majority of Quebec's 75 seats, which a fair voting system would provide.
Governing politicians, if they were truly bothered by the separatist bonus and the threat it poses to Canadian unity, could remove it by making the voting system democratic.
They don't.
My conclusion? They fear democratic representation and democratic government more than they fear separatism.
John Deverell

Comment by Elizabeth Rosenau on January 25, 2011 at 7:03pm: Obviously progressive people are going to have to find ways of rebutting this nonsense. There was a really good episode of Cross Country check-up on the CBC this past Saturday on this topic. One thing to remember is that this costs taxpayers 27 million per year and helps parties that represent the ordinary Canadian families that struggle to put food on the table. The G20 cost 1.2 billion dollars initially, but the myriad of inquiries and court cases that have stemmed from it promise to cost taxpayers more and more and more.....

Comment by Gretchen Schwarz on January 25, 2011 at 6:32pm: It has taken a few years, but I have come to realize that Harper will say anything/do anything at all if it convinces voters to do what he wants them to do. He is everything that I was raised NOT to be: a liar, a cheat, and a bully. I began to become concerned when Peter McKay signed away the PC's after lying to David Orchard about merging with the Reform/Alliance Party. These guys have no scruples and Canadians are too busy trying to make ends meet, and so on that they don't have time to notice anything other than the headlines, which are apparently going to be written by another Harper lapdog.

Comment by CK Twight on January 25, 2011 at 4:35pm: Time after time it gives the BQ two thirds of the province’s 75 seats on less than 40 per cent of the popular vote. Quebec’s federalist voters, a divided majority, have been denied fair representation for six elections in a row. The Bloc profits – but it didn’t invent the voting system. True Canadian federalist patriots, if they existed, would make the voting system democratic.

Majority of Quebecers-true federalist patriots. No, those would be a minority and today, since the pre-referendum exits of 1980 and again somewhat in the 90s, I would say even less so. I would even venture to say that when the next referendum on sovereignty comes, we won't see such a mass exodus, whether the yes or the no side is winning. It is one of the reasons I'd say the Bloc is successful, while separatism has not yet gained excitement, I'd say that strong sense of federalism in this province is also dead. The only true patriot Federalists in Quebec are those NIMBY WASPs in West Island Montreal ridings who will vote in Larry Smith; very conservative and just love stephen Harper. Those who vote Liberal, do so out of habit or are simply smart enough to see how far to the right Harper is and are not quite ready for that (they're center right though).

I'm saying the Bloc would probably still prevail in Quebec even under a different electoral system, just as Alberta would still vote Harpercon (who else would the Conservative heartland vote for?)