Quotulatiousness

April 15, 2012

Increasing taxes on the “1%” won’t close the gap — and might make it worse

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:13

Joseph Brean in the National Post:

That the rich should contribute more than their current share to the common good is a proposal with popularity. From Paris and London to Nova Scotia and Alberta, “tax the rich” has become a dominant theme in budget debates and elections around the world.

In Ontario, for example, NDP leader Andrea Horwath’s proposal to create a new tax bracket for people who make more than half-a-million dollars a year, illustrates the persistent attraction of such schemes for governments in deficit.

“The issue really is one of perceived fairness,” said Robin Boadway, a taxation expert and professor of economics at Queen’s University, who notes that the income of the highest earners has been increasing much faster than the middle and lower ranks. Taxation, to a great degree, relies on the goodwill and trust of citizens, he said, and inequality in tax codes can violate that trust.

Governments acting like Robin Hood, however, have tended to provoke unforeseen problems, most recently in Britain, where an effort to tax the rich ended up — quite literally — costing the government deeply.

It always seems to be a surprise when people respond to incentives in creative ways … and this applies especially to creative ways to avoid paying higher taxes. People will adjust their behaviour to minimize their tax burden — both legally and not-as-legally. This is after all one of the reasons that there are so many tax provisions: the government wants to encourage certain kinds of behaviour (and so gives a tax credit) and discourage other kinds of behaviour (and so levies a specific tax on it). Flexibility occurs on both the tax-levying and tax-paying sides of the fence.

One of the complaints of middle-class taxpayers is that there are few mechanisms they can use to legally reduce their tax burden, while the wealthy have lots of ways to do this. This isn’t going to change if the government increases the top rate of tax — in fact it will encourage more creative use of the tax-lowering provisions of the law (and lawyers and accountants will benefit by helping their wealthy clients ot take advantage of those provisions).

April 1, 2012

Scott Feschuk: “Thomas Mulcair didn’t say much at the convention. But at least he said it fast.”

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:05

For those of you who don’t follow Canadian politics, Thomas Mulcair is the new leader of the Official Opposition, the NDP (New Democratic Party). His performance at the convention inspired Scott Feschuk:

Most New Democrats who’d be choosing the party’s next leader had voted before the convention even began. Thomas Mulcair could have used his 20 minutes of stage time before the first ballot to repeatedly punch a cat in the face — and still he would have won the leadership. As a bonus, smacking around a kitty would have earned him less hostility and criticism than he took for his speeches.

Mulcair’s performance during the candidates’ showcase began with a line of drummers snaking its way through the hall. This was meant to go on for three minutes. It went on for 10 because, hey, who doesn’t love an interminable drum solo, right? Suddenly up against the clock, Mulcair could have chosen to pare his remarks — but clearly the man didn’t want to deprive us of a single syllable of genius. And so out came the words, fast and then faster. Sweat formed along his brow and down his nose. By the end, Mulcair sounded like a guy reciting a legal disclaimer at the end of a radio commercial. No one remembered a word of it.

After the vote, the winner’s speech to the party faithful:

The first five minutes of Mulcair’s acceptance speech were devoted to thank yous. In any campaign, many are owed a debt — and public gestures of appreciation are a key currency of politics. But even here, the address had its odd moments. Mulcair gently ridiculed the labour-inspired NDP tradition of referring to one another as “brothers and sisters.” He carefully followed a written text in issuing words of thanks to his relatives. And then came this line, delivered in French but translated on TV: “To my mother — my Mom, who with her brothers and sisters is up north watching us: Hello.”

Should Mulcair fail over the course of his leadership to develop a common touch and connect with Canadians, these four words may serve as his political epitaph: “To my Mom: Hello.”

Mulcair then got to the meat of his speech. It made for tough chewing. He said things like “Young people are active in their community groups.” He said things like “Leadership comes in many forms.” Mulcair spoke with all the dynamism and charm of an economics professor, his face buried in his text. Voters of Canada, the NDP would like to introduce you to its new leader: the top of this guy’s head!

March 17, 2012

The Globe & Mail criticizes Ed Broadbent for still having opinions at his age

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:22

A fascinating editorial at the Globe and Mail stops just short of telling Mr. Broadbent that his role as “elder statesman” of the NDP requires him to take on the political opinions of the royal family — that is, none expressed in public.

Ed Broadbent, by his withering attacks on NDP leadership front-runner Thomas Mulcair, has forfeited his role as elder statesman of the party in favour of that of a cranky partisan.

A widely respected figure well beyond the NDP membership, Mr. Broadbent took sides early in the campaign when he endorsed former party president Brian Topp, and this week he spoke of Mr. Topp’s abilities in rapturous language: “His depth, his intelligence, his commitment to the party, his strategic sense, his commitment to social democracy.”

[. . .]

No doubt Mr. Broadbent felt he had a responsibility to speak out. But whatever harm he has done to Mr. Mulcair — and it is unclear how much influence the former leader retains — there is as great a risk of aggravating divisions and harming the party’s ability to unite behind the new leader. That would be a sorry addendum to his legacy.

Or, in brief, “Can someone get grampaw Ed his medicine? He’s bothering the guests.”

August 27, 2011

Fulford: NDP offers “alternative to reality” to supporters

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:11

Robert Fulford will win no friends on the left with this article:

Jack Layton led the NDP more successfully than anyone else but what he led was as much a fantasy as a political party. Over five decades, under half a dozen different leaders, the NDP has evolved into a dream, a means of escape from ordinary life for those who feel the need of it. Layton’s successor will be required to embrace an elaborate and much-loved fiction.

The way it’s worked out, the central function of the NDP is to help members and supporters pretend that they are not living in a society built on capitalism. Democratic socialism is a fairy tale that they tell themselves as consolation for having to exist in a distressingly grubby, money-driven world. New Democrats don’t like business, even if they happen to work for corporations. They know and have always known that the profit motive is not a good thing. Many of them are prosperous, many take pride in their expensive houses, exotic vacations and pensions administered on Bay Street. Some have inherited large sums of money. Even so, they don’t care to be reminded that corporations make the comfort and convenience of their lives possible. They love their electronic devices but they don’t wish to dwell on the fact that computers and iPads exist (and reach us at low prices) because of the burning desire to maximize profit. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), out of which the NDP grew in 1961, stated its principles as the Regina Manifesto of 1933. It advocated many ideas still dear to Canadians but made one point absolutely explicit: “No CCF Government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism.”

August 23, 2011

Blatchford comes not to praise Jack, but to bury him

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:16

Christie Blatchford displays great courage in saying publicly in her column what others may only be thinking in the privacy of their own minds:

Yes, his death at 61 was sad and too soon; yes, he made an enormous contribution to his party and a significant one to Canada (though I would quibble with NDP MP Libby Davies’ characterization that “He gave his life for this country”); yes, he fought a brave battle against cancer, as, mind you, does just about anyone who has it; and yes, he was a likeable, agreeable, smiley man.

Yet what was truly singular about him was how consumed by politics he was and how publicly, yet comfortably, he lived.

How fitting that his death should have been turned into such a thoroughly public spectacle, where from early morn Monday, television anchors donned their most funereal faces, producers dug out the heavy organ music, reporters who would never dream of addressing any other politician by first name only were proudly calling him “Jack” and even serious journalists like Evan Solomon of the CBC repeatedly spoke of the difficulty “as we all try to cope” with the news of Mr. Layton’s death.

By mid-day, after Prime Minister Stephen Harper had offered a few warm words about Mr. Layton’s death and rued that their oft-talked-about jam session had never happened, Mr. Solomon even expressed sniping surprise that “Jack Layton wasn’t the sole focus” of the Prime Minister’s remarks.

Mr. Harper, who clearly had not spent the day watching the national broadcaster and thus was unaware that the NDP Leader’s death was the only story of note, had gone on to mention the families of the 12 people (including six-year-old Cheyenne Eckalook; now there’s someone who died far too young) who perished in the Arctic plane crash on Saturday and the tumultuous events in Libya.

She also addresses the mawkish over-sentimentality of people who probably never met Mr. Layton leaving bunches of flowers, notes, and the like (at least in this case, we’re being spared the teddy bears) as public marks of grieving:

Held out as evidence of Canadians’ great love for Mr. Layton were the makeshift memorials of flowers, notes that appeared at his Toronto constituency office and on Parliament Hill, and in condolences in social media.

In truth, none of that is remotely unusual, or spontaneous, but rather the norm in the modern world, and it has been thus since Princess Diana died, the phenomenon now fed if not led online. People the planet over routinely weep for those they have never met and in some instances likely never much thought about before; what once would have been deemed mawkish is now considered perfectly appropriate.

Certainly, Canadians liked Mr. Layton, but the public over-the-top nature of such events — by fans for lost celebrities they never met, by television personalities for those they interviewed once for 10 minutes, by the sad and lost for the dead — make it if not impossible then difficult to separate the mourning wheat from the mourning chaff. His loss — his specific loss and his specific accomplishments — are thus diminished.

August 22, 2011

Jack Layton, RIP

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:24

I’m sad to hear of the death of federal NDP leader Jack Layton today. Here’s the official notification:

We deeply regret to inform you that The Honourable Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, passed away at 4:45 am today, Monday August 22. He passed away peacefully at his home surrounded by family and loved ones. Details of Mr. Layton’s funeral arrangements will be forthcoming.

Layton’s party achieved a breakthrough in the most recent federal election, winning enough seats to qualify as the Official Opposition for the very first time. Jack Layton had a lot to do with that impressive performance, and it’s not clear if his party will be able to retain their popularity without his leadership.

Update: The National Post has a full obituary.

Jack Layton has lost his battle with cancer, dying Monday morning at his home, surrounded by those closest to him.

The charismatic, 61-year-old politician had recently stepped down as federal NDP leader, but had expressed hope that he would return when Parliament resumed next month.

“I was deeply saddened to learn this morning of the death of Jack Layton,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement.

Harper offered his condolences to Layton’s wife, MP Olivia Chow, and family.

“When I last spoke with Jack following his announcement in July, I wished him well and he told me he’d be seeing me in the House of Commons in the Fall.

“This, sadly, will no longer come to pass.

“On behalf of all Canadians, I salute Jack’s contribution to public life, a contribution that will be sorely missed.

“I know one thing: Jack gave his fight against cancer everything he had. Indeed, Jack never backed down from any fight.”

June 8, 2011

Ontario’s (pathetic) choices in the next election

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

Read ’em and weep:

Dalton’s McGuinty’s record is so well known it barely justifies repeating: the health tax he promised not to introduce, but did. The HST. The eco tax. The soaring power bills. The epic borrowing. The multiple boondoggles. The “wage freeze” that turns out not to apply to police, nurses, civil servants or anyone who actually gets paid by the government. The big bonus for eHealth workers for overseeing a billion dollars in wasted spending. Stop me before I break into tears.

Tim Hudak says he’ll end the agony, but can’t be believed. Sorry Tim, but it’s true. If the campaign platform recently released by the Tories was handed in as a project in a first-year finance class, it would be returned with suggestions that the author find another line of interest. Like line dancing; something that doesn’t involve numbers, or adding and subtracting. Mr. Hudak says he’ll raise spending on all the important programs, but make up for it by finding “waste”. We all know that isn’t going to happen. Politicians never find waste. What they find is that if they keep spending money, their chances of re-election improve. The federal Tories have been promising to find waste for five years now, and have jacked up spending every year.

It’s been widely understood that this election was the Tories’ to lose . . . and they’re determined to do exactly that. This is how the NDP might finally get another chance to form a government . . . perhaps the misery of the Rae experiment has finally been forgotten. Between McGuinty and Hudak, the NDP could run a cardboard cut-out of Jack Layton and be (significantly) more appealing to the average Ontario voter.

May 28, 2011

Jack Layton: “I’m proud to call myself a socialist … But I don’t go around shouting it out.”

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:29

Chris Selley takes a longer look at Jack Layton, the man who would be king prime minister:

Ask a socialist with revolutionary tendencies if Mr. Layton is a socialist, however, and the answer will probably be a resounding “no.” Mr. Layton, writer Stan Hister complained on Rabble.ca in 2004, “is a political doughnut. All sugar icing on the outside (or make that maple glaze) and a big hole in the middle.” The doughnut hole ought to be filled with “an alternative to capitalism,” he argued. “But it’s been a very long time since the NDP even pretended this was on its agenda.”

He’s right about that. And good heavens, just look at where it’s gotten them. Nobody inside or outside the New Democrats saw 103 seats coming on May 2, of course — 44 of them purloined from the Bloc Québécois, 17 from the Liberals and seven from the Conservatives. But if you ask those who have followed Mr. Layton’s political career since his days as a left-wing standard-bearer in Toronto municipal politics, be they friend or foe, you’ll find they don’t put much past Mr. Layton’s political abilities.

“There’s no question that Jack became leader of the NDP not because he wanted to forever lead a band in the wilderness. He took on the leadership of the NDP because he optimistically believed the NDP could be a major, if not the major force in government,” says Myer Siemiatycki, a professor of politics at Ryerson University and long-time friend of Mr. Layton.

Circumstances had to conspire in Mr. Layton’s favour, of course. Even he won’t admit to doing anything much differently on the campaign trail this time around. (Was his smile bigger, perhaps? “My mouth is the same size,” he laughs.) Reasonably centrist people had to be fed up enough to vote for a party that had once been to the left as Reform was to the right, and that had never governed federally. And it was nice of the Liberals to release a platform calculated to woo NDP-leaning voters, inadvertently making Mr. Layton’s party seem even more anodyne.

May 6, 2011

Chris Selley on those new “orange posts”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:13

The new NDP youth wing gets lots of fun poked at it (some of it here), but Chris Selley has hopes that they may force the House of Commons to revisit the worst aspects of parliamentary behaviour:

Look. It’s easy, and frankly appropriate, to laugh at the gaggle of orange poteaux — “posts,” as Quebecers call cipher candidates — soon heading to Ottawa to take their seats as New Democrat MPs (and to move into their very first apartments!). But whatever their shortcomings, it’s safe to assume they’re full to bursting with idealism and self-esteem. Many of them aren’t long out of high school. Try to bully them and by God, they’ll probably call the police.

There’s 57 new NDP MPs from Quebec — almost 20% of the House of Commons. They have a real opportunity to make a difference in the way Parliament conducts its business. Jack Layton himself has said he intends to officially oppose the government in a more dignified manner. And it’s hard to think of anyone in a better position to hold him to his word than, say, a 21-year-old student with $600,000 or so coming to him over the next four years, representing a riding he’s barely visited (if at all) and constituents who didn’t (and don’t, and may never) really give a damn who he is.

The complaints of ex-MPs detailed in the Samara report go far beyond Question Period. One ex-parliamentarian said he profoundly regretted toeing the party line on an emotional issue — almost certainly same-sex marriage, although it’s not specified — and recalled colleagues weeping as they voted against their consciences. Another tells of being tasked, very early in his career, with delivering a speech on the mountain pine beetle infestation in British Columbia, which he knew absolutely nothing about, on 20 minutes’ notice.

One of the weaknesses of our system is that there are not stronger supports for MPs voting freely rather than following the direction of the party whips. The constituents are not being represented if their MP is not allowed to vote in line with their preferences but instead has to subordinate their concerns to that of the party. SSM and the long gun registry are recent examples where the outcome was dictated by party leaders refusing to allow their MPs to vote freely.

It’s good that MPs recognize, at least in hindsight, that partisanship fries their brains and makes them act like monkeys. But hindsight isn’t good enough. Unless MPs grow some … uh, courage, when it actually matters — refusing orders to act foolishly or speechify on subjects they know nothing about, or to waste hours filling chairs on “house duty” when they could be out doing something useful, or to vote against their own or their constituents’ beliefs — this is never going to change.

May 3, 2011

Conservatives win majority, NDP break through to official opposition

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:26

A political earthquake in Canada, as the Liberal party vote collapses across the country and the separatist Bloc Quebecois vote collapses even further in Quebec. The result of division on the left is a majority for Stephen Harper’s Conservative party.

As I’m writing this post, the current numbers are:

  • Conservatives — 167 seats
  • New Democratic Party — 103 seats (historic high)
  • Liberals — 34 seats (with leader Michael Ignatieff losing his own seat)
  • Bloc Quebecois — 3 seats (below “official party status”, with leader Gilles Duceppe losing his own seat)
  • Greens — 1 seat (historic high, as party leader Elizabeth May wins the first Green seat in parliament)

As I posted in a Twitter update a few hours back, this is the same situation that allowed Liberal leader Jean Chretien to win three straight majorities: a divided opposition. This time, instead of the Progressive Conservatives fighting the Reform Party on the right, it’s the Liberal Party fighting the NDP on the left.

The test facing Jack Layton is how to manage his hugely inflated caucus in the new parliament (with new Quebec MP’s in the majority) and perhaps finding ways to keep the rump of the Liberal party willing to work with his new official opposition.

It must be a great day to be an NDP supporter, with historic gains for the party and new respect for leader Jack Layton.

April 30, 2011

The Toronto Sun goes full gonzo on Jack Layton

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:52

In an earlier post, I was wondering if the mainstream media was going to give Jack Layton and the NDP the same kind of coverage that they had been devoting to the Liberal and Conservative campaigns. Instead of doing the same thing, one of Toronto’s newspapers decided to channel their British tabloid counterparts:

Jack Layton was found laying naked on a bed by Toronto Police at a suspected Chinatown bawdy house in 1996, a retired Toronto police officer told the Toronto Sun.

The stunning revelation about the current leader of the New Democratic Party comes days before the federal election at a time when his popularity is soaring.

When the policeman and his partner walked into a second-floor room at the Toronto massage parlour, they saw an attractive 5-foot-10 Asian woman who was in her mid-20s and the married, then-Metro councillor, lying on his back in bed.

Layton was cautioned by police and released without being charged.

So no crime was committed, no charges were laid, and it happened in 1996. Perfect time to pull it out at the very end of an election campaign.

April 29, 2011

Stephen Gordon: Layton needs to avoid disruptive monetary policies

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:20

It’s almost as if nobody bothered to read what the NDP had in their platform until last week . . . and paying even less attention to what Jack Layton said on the campaign trail. They’re paying attention now:

In my recent post on the prospects of a possible NDP government, I came to the conclusion that not very much would change; their platform had none of the transformational elements that had been a feature of so many NDP campaigns in the past.

But if recent reports are correct, and if Jack Layton seriously thinks that it would be a good idea for a Prime Minister to instruct the Bank of Canada to keep interest rates low, then this benign assessment no longer holds. Such an intervention would be a serious mistake that would seriously endanger the recovery, and could generate another spiral of higher inflation and higher interest rates.

The first thing that would happen after such an order is that Governor Mark Carney would have no choice but to resign. This would be a serious shock to the financial system, and unless his successor could extract a promise that no further orders would be forthcoming, the Bank of Canada’s credibility would simply disappear.

You remember all those smug, self-congratulatory pieces about how well Canada had weathered the recession and how well positioned the country was to take advantage of economic growth? Perhaps this is the imp of the perverse coming back for a revision of all that hearty back-patting.

NDP surge extremely taxing for . . . NDP candidates?

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:35

I’ve worked on political campaigns for minor party candidates (provincial and federal Libertarians) who had to keep their campaigning to the weekend and after-work slots because they still had to earn a living during the election. I find it hard to believe that so many candidates for a “major” party are running part-time candidacies:

There’s a standard-bearer in Quebec who went on a Las Vegas vacation for a week because she didn’t want to lose her deposit. She also reportedly spoke French so poorly that a local radio station had to scotch an interview rather than air the exchange. Another candidate went to the Caribbean and one travelled to France. There’s a Toronto candidate who has not campaigned at all, can’t be reached, and, judging by a Toronto Star report, quite possibly is an apparition. There are all kinds of students who, presumably, did not have the pesky constraints of full-time work that weighed down Mr. Larkin.

None of these things are unusual — third-place parties usually have a fair bit of cannon fodder — but it is unusual for anyone to be asking about them. And that’s what’s happening to the NDP. People are asking about them, and about the party and its platform, far more than they were last month, or even early last week.

It’s what naturally happens when an also-ran finds itself suddenly very much in the running. The key question for the NDP is: Can it manage four days of impromptu scrutiny?

That will depend on how the traditionally Liberal media handles this unexpected surge from the left: they know how to find awkward quotes and disreputable connections for candidates on the right, but generally have treated leftists with a faint air of “isn’t that cute?” rather than as serious campaigners. Can they apply the same standards in a mirror image?

It’s possible that they will give Jack Layton a much rougher ride than they have so far:

Jack Layton himself is also now facing a different sort of question about his own policies from reporters travelling with him. He was asked on Thursday about how his platform, which calls for a price on carbon, would affect gasoline prices. One analysis says the NDP plan would add 10¢ a litre at the pumps. Mr. Layton insisted that an ombudsman would be able to keep oil companies from raising prices for consumers, but he disagreed that he was proposing to regulate gasoline prices. Reporters described the exchange, which included questions about the AWOL candidates, as “testy” and “heated,” which has been rare for the NDP leader thus far. And testy exchanges lead to stories about how a leader is “on the defensive” or “responding to critics.” Eventually they can become “embattled.” (In the case of Mr. Ignatieff, a report on Thursday referred to him as “beleaguered.”)

“Tone matters,” explains Prof. Matthews. “People do respond to the media. Not everyone, of course, not the partisans and not the people who aren’t paying any attention, but there are people who take their cues from the coverage.”

Update: Publius points out that the situation could be at least as good as last season’s CBC offerings:

Everyone has been stunned by the NDP surge. The newly minted Sun News has started calling it an “Orange Crush,” which is a gross insult to a fine fizzy beverage. No one has been more surprised than the NDP. For years the party has run non-entity place holders in most ridings, as they did this time around. One of them is a Quebec barmaid who took a vacation mid-campaign, which says everything you need to know about the NDPs organization in Quebec. Now some of those ridings are competitive. We could have MPs in the next Parliament that were “accidentally” elected. There’s a sitcom in there somewhere.

April 26, 2011

CBC headline: “Layton open to constitutional talks with Quebec”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:32

Oh, crikey. Because that’s exactly what we need to do to continue our recovery from the recession — re-open the constitutional debate all over again:

NDP Leader Jack Layton is willing to reopen talks on the Canadian Constitution in an effort to get Quebec to sign the document once there was a “reasonable chance of success.”

Layton was asked about the issue of constitutional talks on Tuesday in Montreal, where he is trying to capitalize on an apparent sharp increase in support for the NDP in recent public opinion polls.

The NDP leader, however, said he does not think the federal government should enter into constitutional negotiations with the provinces until “there is some reasonable chance of success.”

“It’s not a question of appeasing anybody. We have an historic problem. We have a quarter of our population who have never signed the Constitution. That can’t go on forever,” Layton said.

April 24, 2011

Duceppe throws down the gauntlet: “This election is a battle between… Canada and Quebec”

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:20

The rise of the NDP in Quebec is forcing Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe to take a much stronger line against Jack Layton:

The NDP’s newfound status proved jarring enough for Duceppe to make a strident, emotional appeal to his base Saturday:

“This election is a battle between… Canada and Quebec,” said a message Saturday from the Bloc leader’s Twitter account.

He later erased that note and replaced it with a toned-down appeal for all sovereigntists to back his party. The message is a clear departure from previous campaigns that saw Duceppe work to broaden his appeal beyond sovereigntist voters.

“This election is not a left-right battle, but a battle between federalists and sovereigntists,” said the later message from Duceppe’s account. “Between the parties of the Canadian majority and Quebec.”

There are even anti-NDP attack ads, including a new one from the Liberals featuring a yellow traffic light and the message, “Not so fast, Jack.”

The Liberals have been forced to pay more attention to the NDP than they had planned, especially with the parties in a statistical tie in the latest polls. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was even booed loudly at at hockey game last night, which has only been lightly mentioned in the media. His low personal popularity is starting to be seen as a big reason for the Liberals’ plight in the polls — although it can’t be the only reason.

The NDP’s financial promises are one area the Liberals can safely attack:

The Liberals are pointing out a series of alleged exaggerations in the NDP platform, saying the promises are based on invented revenues like a supposed $3.6 billion that would come in the first year of a climate cap-and-trade system. The Liberals call it, “fantasy money.”

The Liberals also heaped ridicule on the NDP promise to hire 1,200 new doctors and 6,000 nurses for the bargain-basement rate of $25 million.

They said the NDP promise to save $2 billion by slashing subsidies to the oil sands overstates the possible savings by four times, and that the math is similarly wonky on the NDP’s pledge to crack down on foreign tax havens.

“It’s time to take a close look at what Jack Layton’s saying to the Canadian people. The numbers add up and up and up,” Ignatieff said.

“Mr. Layton has got a platform that when you look at it closely has . . . $30 billion of spending, which we think is not going to be good for the economy and he derives it from sources we just don’t think are credible.

“He’s got a cap-and-trade system that’s going to deliver $3.5 billion in the first year. We don’t even have a cap and trade system. It’s science fiction.”

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