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You could tell the Liberal rookies after the 2015 election there was a kind of new car smell and puppy dog naivet about them.

One veteran MP shook his head as he recalled how the new government allowed its opponents to control the agenda.

Once we got elected, people thought it would be just like the village council everybody would get together and make Canada a better country, he said.

It was all peace, love, unicorns and rainbows. Harper ran it like Robert Mugabe but we went to the other side. The first piece of business we undertook at the human resources committee was a study by Niki Ashton of the NDP to review Employment Insurance. So weve been out of power for 10 years and the first thing we see is a motion by the third party.

The Liberals chased a legislative agenda for much of their first four years, frustrated by the opposition in the House of Commons and the Senate.

By summer 2018, only 39 per cent of the legislation introduced in the House had been passed (excluding appropriation bills, which always sail through).

By the end of the 42nd Parliament, that number was a more typical 78 per cent but that conversion rate required the kind of iron-fisted power plays the Liberals used to decry.

Trudeau is banking on lessons having been learned during the first mandate otherwise the current parliamentary session is likely to be an historic exercise in futility.

Stephen Harpers majority government passed 77 per cent of the bills introduced into Parliament, but his two minorities were much less productive a 48 per cent conversion rate between April 2006 and September 2008 and just 44 per cent between November 2008 and April 2011.

Justin Trudeaus Liberals have already had a taste of minority government. The opposition parties combined to defeat the government in the very first vote held in the 43rd Parliament last month to create a special parliamentary committee to examine Canadas relationship with China.

You dont fix problems that you dont have to. You dont make decisions you dont have to

That committee met on Monday and spent an eternity debating sub-amendments to clauses governing a sub-committee.

At the best of times, parliamentary committees are cul-de-sacs, down which ideas, patience and the will to live are lured and lost. From the governments point of view, these are not the best of times.

At the Liberal cabinet retreat in Winnipeg, Trudeau offered some sense of his priorities legislation implementing the new NAFTA trade deal will be introduced immediately. A new bill on medically assisted dying will come next month to comply with a court ruling that invalidated much of the existing law last fall.

And the government will bring forward a new law to outlaw the sale of assault weapons.

Beyond that, the prime minister talked in vague terms about fulfilling election pledges. Aside from the pressures of getting legislation through parliament, Trudeau has to keep one eye on spending. The debt to GDP ratio that he promised would continue to decline, even in times of deficit, is set to rise this year and thats before most of the $57 billion in election promises are added.

Were just getting started, Trudeau told reporters in Winnipeg.

In reality, though, the level of ambition in this Parliament will be more aligned with the reality of minority government.

Trudeau is being judicious in his public statements, an apparent attempt to manage expectations in a way he did not in his first term.

As one of Jean Chrtiens closest aides told his biographer Lawrence Martin: You dont fix problems that you dont have to. You dont make decisions you dont have to. Nobody was sitting and saying: Christ, were just maintaining the status quo why dont we do something exciting?.

Doing nothing much for the past three months seems to be working for Trudeau. A new poll by Mainstreet Research has the Liberals in majority territory at 40 per cent support, a number that has likely been bolstered by the prime ministers adroit handling of the downing of Flight 752.

As Chrtien and Harper were quick to discover, good government is boring government.

With luck, Trudeau has realized belatedly that jumping on your horse, in Leacockian fashion, and riding off madly in all directions is not the best way to run a country like Canada.

Email: jivison@postmedia.com | Twitter:

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John Ivison: The lesson Trudeau hopes Liberal MPs have learned good government is boring government - National Post

Semi-automatic AR-15's are for sale at Good Guys Guns & Range on February 15, 2018 in Orem, Utah.George Frey/Getty Images

An Alberta-led federal petition opposing a ban on military-style assault rifles without first having a debate has received more than a hundred-thousand signatures in just a short period of time.

As of Saturday, the 60-day petition, known online as e-2341, has received more than 107,000 signatures since launching on Dec. 17. The petitions main problem is how the Liberal government plans to impose a ban on military-style assault rifles through an Order in Council instead of having it debated in the House of Commons.

Medicine Hats Brad Manysiak, who started the petition, said how the government is approaching this doesnt sit well with him.

Thats an egregious overreach of parliamentary power, he said. When we change laws in Canada, historically, its debated, it goes to the Senate, it has a specific path it has to take in order for something to become law. Usually, there has to a lot of public support for it. This is a slippery slope.

A spokesperson from the Minister of Public Safety in an email said a ban is coming.

Military-style assault rifles have been used in Canada to target women and students, the spokesperson said. Police chiefs in our country have been advocating for restrictions on assault weapons for more than four decades. Weve listened, and, as promised to Canadians in the recent election, we will ban military-style assault rifles.

The spokesperson said the ban would not affect rifles and shotguns designed for hunting and pest control.

Ottawa is also looking at introducing a buyback program but the cost to do so is estimated to be in the hundreds of the millions. Public Safety Minister Bill Blair told reporters months ago that there are about 250,000 semi-automatic assault rifles legally owned in Canada.

Manysiak called this a kneejerk reaction by the government, especially in light of an increased amount of handguns used in Toronto-area shootings. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised he would allow municipalities and provinces to implement handgun bans if they so choose.

Its not being directed in the proper way, Manysiak said. Its not directed at the problem.

He said owning a gun in Canada is a long and arduous process and even when someone passes, a gun owners name is constantly being run through the RCMPs database to ensure no crimes have been committed.

Medicine Hat MP Glen Motz is expected to present the petition in the House after its closed on Feb. 15. Manysiak didnt believe it would be enough to change the governments mind but will send a message to the Liberals given the amount of support and media attention the petition has received.

With files from The Canadian Press

jlabine@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/jefflabine

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This is a slippery slope: Petition against Liberal assault rifle ban receives thousands of signatures - Edmonton Journal

About half of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters (47%) describe their own political views as liberal, including 15% who describe their views as very liberal, according to an average of Pew Research Center political surveys conducted in 2019.

The share of Democratic voters who describe their political views as liberal has changed little over the past few years after increasing steadily between 2000 and 2016.

Liberals outnumber moderates (38%) and conservatives (14%) as a share of Democratic voters. Yet combined, conservatives and moderates continue to make up about half of Democratic voters (51%).

This analysis of changes in the self-identification of ideology among Democratic registered voters over time is based on a compilation of 239 phone surveys conducted by Pew Research Center from January 2000 through September 2019. These surveys were combined into a single, large file that allowed us to analyze data across a range of demographic characteristics, with comparisons made across different time periods. When combined, the 239 surveys represent over 150,000 interviews with Democratic or Democratic-leaning registered voters, or more than 8,000 interviews with this group each year. Yearly averages are calculated by combining all surveys for the calendar year, with appropriate weights applied.

While the ideological composition of the Democratic coalition is not much different than in 2016 when liberals constituted 45% of Democratic voters liberals make up a larger share of Democratic voters than they did in earlier presidential election years.

In 2012, when Barack Obama was reelected, a somewhat larger share of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters called themselves moderates (40%) than liberals (37%), while 19% described their views as conservative. And in 2004, when George W. Bush was reelected after defeating John Kerry, just 30% of Democratic voters called themselves liberal, while more than twice as many (66%) described themselves as moderate or conservative.

The subset of Democratic voters who describe their views as very liberal has similarly increased since 2000, though they remain a relatively small group within the party. In 2000, just 6% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters said their political views were very liberal. By 2019, 15% of Democrats described their views this way.

White Democrats remain more likely than black or Hispanic Democrats to describe themselves as liberal. In 2019, a majority (55%) of white Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters identified themselves as liberal, an increase of 27 percentage points since 2000. Among white Democrats, 19% called themselves very liberal in 2019, compared with 6% in 2000.

By contrast, more black Democratic voters continue to characterize their views as moderate rather than liberal. In 2019, 43% of black Democrats called themselves moderate, 29% called themselves liberal and 25% called themselves conservative.

Since 2000, the share of black Democrats who describe their political views as liberal has changed little, while liberal identification among white Democrats has nearly doubled.

Among Hispanic Democratic voters, 38% described their political views as moderate in 2019, while 37% called themselves liberal and 22% conservative.

A majority of Democratic voters with postgraduate experience (62%) described their political views as liberal last year, as did 56% of college graduates with no postgraduate experience. The share calling themselves very liberal was 19% among those with a postgraduate education and 18% among those with a college degree.

Fewer Democratic voters among those with some college experience but no degree (43%) and those with no college experience (34%) characterized their political views as liberal or very liberal in 2019. Just 13% of Democrats with some college education and 11% of Democrats with no college education described their own views as very liberal.

Americans descriptions of their political views are distinct from, but strongly related to, their attitudes on specific issues. Most Americans continue to express at least some mix of liberal and conservative attitudes, but the share with either uniformly liberal or uniformly conservative attitudes has grown in recent years.

Note: This is an update of a post previously published Sept. 7, 2017.

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Liberals make up the largest share of Democratic voters, but their growth has slowed in recent years - Pew Research Center

Clerk of the House Cheryl Johnson and House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving deliver the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill, January 15, 2020. Following are impeachment managers House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, Rep. Val Demings, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, and Rep. Jason Crow.(Tom Brenner/Reuters)

In a column published at Law.com in December, one commentator argued that senators who refuse to be impartial should be disqualified from participating in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. A few days ago, an ethics lawyer from the George W. Bush administration called Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) a perjurer for taking the oath to do impartial justice in the trial after saying he would not be an impartial juror. They might want to reconsider their position.

If these people really mean what they say, of course, any senator who has taken a position on the presidents guilt would have to bow out. In that case, say goodbye to Senator Kamala Harris (D., Calif.). On Monday, Jan. 13, she spoke on the Senate floor and stated, as a fact, that Trump pressured a foreign nation to interfere in our elections. Thats an almost word-for-word recitation of the first impeachment article, which states that Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government . . . in the 2020 United States Presidential election.

Harris went on to say that it is unacceptable for a president to shake down a vulnerable foreign nation for personal or political benefit. This too echoes the first impeachment article, which claims that Trump used the power of his office to obtain an improper personal political benefit.

If publicly accusing a defendant of the specific offense for which he has been impeached, in virtually identical language as that impeachment, is not refusing to be impartial, what is? Harris, however, is far from alone.

Senator Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii), who had rejected the presumption of innocence during the confirmation process for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, has said she would vote to convict unless Trump could actually exonerate himself. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) says that the impeachment articles are supported by a wealth of undisputed facts. And Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) was even more direct, say that the case is clear: President Trump tried to trade away our national security for a personal political favor. As if reading directly from the same talking points, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) says that President Trump put our national security at risk in order to obtain political favors. And Senator Christopher Murphy (D., Conn) insists that the bottom line is this: President Trump abused his authority by using taxpayer funded aid to pressure a foreign government to help him win re-election in 2020.

Senate minority leader Charles Schumer, (D., N.Y.) has similarly attacked McConnell, accusing him of refusing to be impartial. Yet, as CNN has reported, leading up to President Bill Clintons impeachment trial, Schumer repeatedly said that the Senate is not like a jury box. Indeed, when running for the Senate in 1998, he asked people to vote for him precisely because he would be a vote to acquit Clinton.

Impartiality, anyone?

House Democrats rigged the rules to guarantee a pre-determined impeachment result. Now Senate Democrats are trying to rig the jury pool by trying to exclude senators not likely to convict. We all know how this is going to end. Try the impeachment and lets move on.

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Liberals Keep Using the Word Impartiality, but It May Not Mean What They Think - National Review

Forty years ago, the federal Liberals were keeping their leader inside a bubble that their opponents wanted to burst.

That's because Pierre Trudeau and his party were in the midst of an election campaign, which saw them leading in the polls with a month to go before Election Day.

And the party was employing a so-called "peekaboo campaign" strategy that was seeminglybuilt around limiting Trudeau's exposure something Peter Mansbridge said wasamarked change from the previous election cycle.

"This year, with an apparent big lead, things are a lot different," Mansbridge reportedon The National on Jan. 18, 1980.

"Trudeau quietly reads from a prepared text, he rarely answers questions and his party platform still lacks detail."

Alan Frizzell, a pollster at Carleton University, said the lead the Liberals held did not ensure their eventual victory at the polls.

Noting the shift in thepolls that had then favoured the Liberals, Frizzell said a fickle electorate could easily movein a different direction.

"If it can swing one way, it can swing the other," he said.

The election outcome would all come down to what voters decided, of course, including whether they approved of the Liberals' campaign strategy.

"Surely, leaders can be judged on the basis of their unwillingness to speak to the issues and that's the risk they take if they choose a tactic that doesn't permit the voters to make an informed judgment on the basis of issues," said Fred Fletcher, a political science professor at York University.

The Liberals' strategy had been under some scrutiny before the campaign had reached its mid-point, however.

Earlier in January of 1980,CBC had reported on the Liberals'decision not toparticipate in a televised leaders' debate, leaving PC Leader Joe Clark and New Democrat Leader Ed Broadbent without a platform to square off against Trudeau.

Liberalstrategists had confirmed that doing so was a purposeful part of their campaign strategy.

Broadbent called the decision to skip the debate "the height of arrogance" andClark had then suggested the Liberals were "trying to induce Canadians to forget what Pierre Elliott Trudeau did during the 11 years he was prime minister."

Before 1980, Trudeau had led his party through four elections, winning three of them and serving as Canada's prime minister for almost allof the 1970s.

But the 1979 election saw the Progressive Conservatives take power in Ottawa as a minority government and Trudeau eventually stated plans to step down from politics.

His plans changed when Clark's government was defeated, triggering the 1980 election that returned Trudeau and the Liberals to power.

Excerpt from:
The 'peekaboo campaign' the Liberals hoped would return them to power - CBC.ca