HARPER
VS.
MARTIN

It is the unknown that makes politics exciting. It's like baseball that way: there are more pundits than players and occasionally nobody gets it right.

It was not so long ago that Paul Martin seemed destined to become an unbeatable prime minister who would deliver record majorities to the Liberal Party of Canada. His only foe was Stephen Harper, who by all accounts was an unlikable, uncharismatic leader destined to waste a few years in the opposition benches until the Conservatives could find someone electable to replace him. Times changed. Paul Martin left public life to spend quality time with his money, and Canada became governed by the angry dad.

BE STRAIGHT WITH US, STEPHEN | DEC. 6, 2005

The federal election campaign has finally officially begun. After sizing up the week-one performances of both the Tories and the Liberals, all I can say is this: Wow, what a pack of arseholes.

The prime minister of Canada starts off the campaign of his lifetime by acting hurt because the Tories have said the Liberals are in bed with organized crime. Paul, I hate to break it to you, brother, but nobody cares if people call you names. In fact, everyone in Canada has used far worse words to describe the Liberals than anything Stephen Harper is allowed to say on television in prime time.

Stephen Harper, to give him credit, has set the agenda since day one. He came out swinging and made it loud and clear that his number-one priority was that he, Stephen Harper, was against gay marriage. Thanks for the clarification there, Stephen. We get it. Despite the poofy new hairdo, the full makeup and the mock turtlenecks, you're not gay. Let it go.

Eventually, of course, he started talking about something people care about: tax reduction. And why not? A Stephen Harper government would reduce the GST to 5 per cent. And just to drive that point home Stephen Harper walked into a grocery store, covered up the 7 per cent GST sign with his own 5 per cent GST sign. A very sexy photo op, leading one to believe that if he becomes prime minister, he will reduce the GST to 5 per cent. Not true. Read the fine print. Stephen Harper will reduce the GST to 5 per cent in 2011. The year two thousand and eleven—when we're all driving hovercars and eating dehydrated turkey pills.

Stephen, why don't you do us a favour? Tell us what you'll do for us if you win this election, not the one that's going to happen five years from now.

So all in all, not a bad start. Basically: name-calling, BS and outright lies. My advice is that both parties should go to their corners, think about what they've done, turn around, come out and start all over again.

NEW MEDS, PLEASE | FEB. 14, 2005

Parliament's been back in session for two whole weeks now and I'm guessing that at any moment Canadians might actually notice. But I've got to tell you—as far as sessions go, this one has been very exciting. Every day, Stephen Harper and Prime Minister Martin are in there hammering at one another on the major issues of the day.

And never before have their positions been so clear. Look at Iraq. The big rumour is that at any moment George Bush is going be on the phone asking Canada to send forty troops to help train Iraqi soldiers. You'd think Stephen Harper would be all over this. After all, he was the guy who stood up in the House of Commons before the war and wanted Canada to send our army into Baghdad guns a-blazing. When he heard about the coalition of the willing, he was so willing he almost wet his pants.

But now, apparently, he's had a change of heart. He says he's against the operation, and if Bushy calls we've got to say, hell no, we won't go. Harper is like a goldfish. He says one thing on one side of the bowl, and by the time he's turned around and swum to the other side of the bowl he's completely forgotten what he said over there and has to make up something new. To cover himself, he's saying this time that he's against sending forty troops to Iraq, unless, of course, he can become personally convinced that they will be 100 per cent safe and then they can go.

Does this guy even watch the news? It's Iraq—of course it's not going to be safe. Armies don't get sent to safe places. That's the whole point of armies. It's easy, Stephen: find a guy in uniform, ask him. But at least we know where Harper stands on the issue. He's against it, unless he's for it.

And what about Prime Minister Martin? What's his opinion? Who knows. He's got this new trick on the go where any time he's asked a direct question, he acts so completely baffled nobody knows what the hell he's talking about and then he gets really excited or really sad. Yes, watching these two guys go at it is like watching two superheroes. Although it's not so much good versus evil, it's ADD boy versus bipolar man.

The future's clear, Canada. We need new meds.

MARTIN CAN TAKE A PUNCH FEB. | 28, 2005

Prime Minister Martin finally got some good news last week and my guess is, he's more surprised than anyone.

The week started out the way most weeks do for Paul Martin, with lots of bad news. The biggie being The Economist magazine, which called him Mr. Dithers. For most of us, The Economist is something we might accidentally see on a newsstand, but for Martin, this is brutal. He looks at The Economist the way teenage boys look at Maxim. Yet the same week, out of the blue, for no reason, his personal approval rating went up.

Now I follow these things, and for the life of me I can't figure out why this happened. Conventional wisdom says that if you're the prime minister and you do something clever or smooth, your numbers go up. Likewise, if you act like Paul Martin, your numbers should go down. But not this time.

The poor old Tories must be ready to jump off a bridge, because compared to Martin, Harper couldn't look more like a leader if he'd been whipped up in a lab. With Martin, you ask him a simple question, he breaks out in bumps, whereas Harper is so calm it's freakish. He's the kind of guy who could have his foot caught in a thresher and he'd just carry on like everything was normal.

All I can figure is that Canadians are starting to admire Martin in the same way that we admire someone who can take a punch. He's like George Chuvalo. He's standing there taking blow after blow to the head. And we know he should be spitting out teeth and hitting the mat, but nope, Martin just stands there with a great big goofy grin on his face.

In many ways this is very Canadian. When push comes to shove, the trait that we most admire in a leader is not honesty, integrity or grace under pressure. It's who can take the biggest smack.

HARPER'S DULL EDGE | MAR. 7, 2005

Conservatives all across the country are gearing up for what could be the very exciting founding convention of the Conservative party.

Yes, I find these things exciting. Bear with me.

This is the official opposition, and yet the actual members of the two parties that merged to form this new party have never been together in a room before. And the exciting part is, they hate each other. Stick 'em in a room, give 'em a few drinks, the place could go up—total implosion.

I know, Conservatives always say the same thing: that too much is being made of the fact that there are differences of opinion in the Conservative party. That we should focus on what they agree on, not what they disagree on. And they love to point out that there are deep divisions inside the rank and file of the Liberal party—which is true but doesn't matter, because the Liberals, when push comes to shove, will always stick together.

Unlike the Conservatives, the Liberals would sell their own mothers to stay in power. In fact, I believe that is the founding principle of the Liberal Party of Canada: “We'll sell our mothers.” It's in Latin on a crest somewhere.

The Conservatives are the total opposite. They would rather self-destruct than compromise just a little bit. That's what they've done for over a decade. In many ways, it's what they do best. In fact, that could be their founding principle: “We rise up, and then we screw up.”

Maybe this time it will be different. Stephen Harper is the leader now, he's going to give the keynote address and there's no doubt about it—he can suck all the energy out of a room. So maybe this time duller heads will prevail, and at the end of the day they'll come out of this thing more united than ever before. For the sake of the party I hope that's true. But you have to admit, it wouldn't be much fun, would it?

PRETTY UNLUCKY | AUG. 8, 2006

The Tory caucus gathered in Toronto last week for a miniature policy retreat, and something truly shocking happened: policy was announced. This is a big departure for the opposition and it could have severe consequences. If they keep this up, people might confuse them with a national party.

The big news is, the Conservatives are proposing a $400 million tax break for people who use public transit. It's aimed directly at big-city urban voters. When I heard this, I couldn't really believe it—because, well, it makes so much sense. In fact, it makes so much sense that I can only assume the Liberals will have stolen it by this time next week.

Unfortunately, Harper's announcement didn't cause much of a stir in the media because, in the battle for space on the front page, the Tories once again had their asses kicked. As luck would have it, on the day Harper was making his public transit announcement in Toronto, Paul Martin was in Ottawa introducing Canada's new governor general, Michaëlle Jean.

To be fair, Harper tried his damnedest to compete with the prime minister's photo op. He invited the media to take pictures of him getting off a Toronto streetcar with his son. In Harper's world that is pretty dynamic stuff.

You can't really blame the newspapers on this one. When it comes to photos, Michaëlle Jean is just downright way better looking and more interesting than Stephen Harper, no matter what character from the Village People he happens to be dressed as. It must have been devastating for him, though, when he saw that practically every paper in the country ran with the picture of Michaëlle Jean instead of the one of him on the streetcar. Of course it didn't hurt that our new GG just happens to have the cutest daughter in Canada.