It only took a hundred days, but the NDP membership finally got some kind of a public mea culpa from leader Thomas Mulcair over the way the last election went down, and good news – he takes full responsibility for what happened! But much as Rebecca Blaikie’s interim report goes soft on what Mulcair did wrong, Mulcair’s own reckoning of events is still going pretty soft on things that happened as opposed to some of the myths that are being built up. Things like the balanced budget pledge, which Mulcair said overshadowed the “social democratic economic vision” where they thought they could squeeze all kinds of money out of corporate taxes, CEOs and tax havens, which any competent economist will remind you that you certainly can’t get the kind of money they’re talking from any of those sources. Mulcair goes soft on the observation that they lacked an over-arching narrative that could be easily communicated, when problem was less of a lack of an overall message, but a really poor message that they settled on, which was then badly communicated because, well, the message was poor to begin with. The message, of course, being “good, competent public administration,” and after Canadians had put up with a prime minister who had all of the pizzazz of dull wood varnish, Mulcair would show up to debates, smize like his life depended on it, and proceeded to look like someone on Valium because he was more intent on controlling his temper than he was in engaging with real ideas to present rather than some tired – and in come cases baffling – talking points. And this is what they sent up against most dynamic and charismatic political leader in over a generation. Couple this with some pretty disastrous policy rollouts – recall the initial release of their “costed platform” that didn’t actually have any breakdowns of numbers, but had some nonsense headings like “helping Canadians in need” that journalists rightly questioned, and when we did get numbers, they were based on some wrong assumptions. Campaigns matter, and both Mulcair and Blaikie have been downplaying that it was a poorly run campaign. Mulcair’s letter also contained some rather cryptic references to “overhauling the way caucus works,” but it’s vague, and isn’t owning up to their over-centralization that made the Conservatives’ centralisation efforts look elementary. That centralization has been carrying on to this day, which, when compared to the Liberals’ governing by cabinet rather than the leader’s office, and where their ministers are answering the bulk of their questions off-the-cuff and on their feet while the NDP (Mulcair included) have their scripts in front of them every time they rise in the Chamber, it looks stifling and controlling. So far, I’m not seeing much of a willingness to confront these truths so that they can do something to change them, which the party membership is going to have to weight when the leadership review comes in April.

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/697642773235695616

Good reads:

• At the NATO meeting in Brussels, the US defence secretary said that they are intensifying the campaign against ISIS, with Canada’s increased commitment.
• Briefing notes prepared for the prime minister talk about how assisting the Kurds in Iraq may inevitably lead to later instability in the region as they are separatists.
• While in power, the Conservatives spent 53 cents for every dollar budgeted for their vaunted Canada Job Grant™ programme.
• The government may or may not have an ad hoc cabinet company to deal with the stalled procurement projects, which has the Conservatives crying foul.
• The federal and Ontario environment ministers are trying to downplay any notions that a climate plan is going to happen in the next few weeks.
• The Liberals have no immediate plans to change the controversial Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor’s office.
• Putative Conservative leadership hopeful Kevin O’Leary doesn’t support air strikes…or any mission other than peacekeeping.
• Atlantic premiers want more investment in the region before their economies become unsustainable.
• One bank estimates that the softening economy could mean that the government could run a deficit of $90 billion by the next election.
• Andrew Coyne has a few things to say about Liberal deficit targets.

Odds and ends:

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in Ottawa today to meet with Trudeau.

Here’s a look at the PM’s principal secretary and his willingness to engage critics over the Twitter Machine (in a respectful manner, no less).