In what may well turn out to be the run-up to a federal election campaign, Jeffrey Simpson is doing his duty as a loyal apparatchik for the Liberal Party of Canada by reassuring the base that all is well in the Leftist Echo Chamber known as Toronto.
Like a cop waving pedestrians past an accident, “Nothing to see here, folks, move along”, Simpson is assuring his narrow minded focused audience that all is okay in their elitist worlds/minds.
It’ll be interesting to see if the rest of the country has a different opinion.
actually, it’ll be interesting to see if the rest of Toronto has a different opinion too…
Jeff is respinning old themes here. He has long had a bugaboo about crime stats. fair enough, people arent worried about their neighbourhoods but have a general feeling crime is higher. Comes back to unreported crime, petty crime as an indicator (graffitti etc) and the coarseness of society…the language used, lack of manners and the crime that does show up is both serious and random.
Jeff has also not been “of the people” for a long long time. He is a quasi academic who is really good reporting on policy debates and bureacratic intrigue. Common touch, or having his finger on the pulse is not something I would ever associate with Jeff Simpson.
As for his main theme of is canada more conservatve. Well, lets saw it off at they are certainly less liberal, and they are definitely less Liberal. I hope the Conservatives dont make the mistake the Liberals made of taking groups and segments for granted, they will suffer a similar fate.
Jeff isnt anti conservative, he is anti Harper….he cannot abide him and Simpson is just disappointed that someone who is similar to himself, like Ignatieff, just cant make progress.
Jeff, please stick to discussions of fed prov relations, whos who in the ureacracy and intrigue at Finance, these are your strengths. Anything else is beyond your grsp at this point.
I live in Toronto and during the last election I had to phone my Conservative candidate 3 times to get someone to put a sign on my lawn for her. It’s like they are not even trying to unseat the Libs here. Am I stuck with Mario Silva forever?
Jeffrey Simpson is a moron, an entitled, myopic, Toronto-centric moron, IOW, the worst kind of “reporter”:
“It’s widely said these days that Canada is moving politically to the right and that Canadians are becoming generally more conservative in their outlook on public matters. It’s an assertion based sometimes on hope, often on conjecture, occasionally on fragmentary evidence, but never on serious facts and deep analysis.”
He then proceeds to provide serious facts and a deep analysis of his own based on one Environics Institute survey. He asserts at one point that “A staggering 88 per cent believe the gap between rich and poor has widened in the past decade, and 81 per cent believe the government should reduce the gap” [my emphasis], which just goes to show that the respondents of this Focus Canada survey have drunk the let-the-government-fix-everything Kool-Aid.
Simpson doesn’t mention that the gap between rich and poor is often the gap between public sector (government) and private-sector salaries. He doesn’t mention that as financial realities for most families worsen — exempting the entitled media scribblers like him and public sector workers doing exceedingly well on the taxpayer’s dime, heck, toony — it’s natural for a turnaround to conservatism, as families try to “conserve” their dwindling resources. It’s natural that as resources become fewer, most Canadians are looking for a halt to public spending on social programs, which often exclude them, the hard-working, lower-, lower-middle-income families and individuals, benefiting only “victim” groups that the Liberal$ have been so adept at creating and grooming.
Simpson’s head’s up his entitled, Toronto yin-yang. I wonder which neigbhourhood he’s from: Rosedale, Forest Hill, Baby Point, the Annex, Lawrence Park? I wonder what kind of privileged and entitled socialist he is?
The only point of contention I have with this piece is that line
“but they are overwhelmingly willing to think taxes are a public good to provide a good quality of life. By an astonishing 90 per cent to 4 per cent Canadians believe they have a better quality of life than Americans.”
I don’t think you can connect the fact that we’re unhappy with our tax burden to the fact that we think we have a better quality of life than Americans. I think that has more to do with general Canadian insecurity and entrenched Loyalist condescension.
Stephen
You’re right on about the level of civility in Canada by the way. I was spending some time in America and coming back I couldn’t help but notice a general rudeness in people. >:\
Why does the Globe find the need to compete with the uncompetitive CBC? Is there some sort of appeal to share the gutter?
The other juxtaposition with the Globe, is how it tries to portray itself as “Canada’s Business Paper” (when truly it is the FP), yet, the Mop & Pail espouses leftwing dogma and rhetoric from its editorial pages. The subscriber base is either one or the other.
May it fail like its counterpart at the NYTimes.
MacLeans magazine had an article about Harper recently and they looked at the voting patterns in the Toronto area.
2004,2006, and 2008.
Even when Liberals won the seats, the percentage of the vote they won by went down,down,down.
That’s why a breakthrough could be coming. Immigrants are now voting Conservative, since many new citizens that arrived within the last five years don’t know any government other than the Tories. Also Jason Kenney is a machine.
As for Simpson’s article he just cites a bunch of polls. Weak. Poll wording can skew even a smalldeadanimals reader. It’s what you do not what you say.
Is Canada becoming more conservative? Just try long and hard to remember what it was like to be conservative in this country in 2004 and then honestly ask if things haven’t changed for the better.
I had a headline dream.
“MSM finally joins the rest of society and becomes more conservative.”
Simpson runs by the biggest tell that his theory is incorrect.
Yes, healthcare is the biggest issue, but as he admits but does not comment on is that “a growing MAJORITY of canadians” want the ability to access private care. Thus a majority of canadians on the issue they most care about are considerably more conservative than the status quo and more and more canadians are agreeing with that conservative position.
That, and the fact that a majority of canadians are content with the CPC and PMSH’s guidance and – presumably – the more conservative direction that the CPC and PMSH have said they wish to take the country.
Simpson is a hack and has been one for a long, long time. The G&M should “retire” him.
“The Harper government can take heart that 52 per cent of Canadians are satisfied with the country’s direction, compared with 40 per cent who aren’t. That’s the second-highest satisfaction rating (after China’s) in the world.”
He must hate himself for having to write that.
batb, why don’t you tell us how you really feel.:)
Actually I agree 100%. Jeffrey is one of those Liberal elitist snobs that thinks they know what is best for all of us and just another little program here and another little program there will bring nirvana. Anybody that does not agree with that agenda is a bad Canadian.
Let me fix that headline for you:
“Little Jeffy putting out tofu salads and warm lattes for his choir.”
Dudes. Jeffrey Simpson works for the Liberal Party just as surely as if they signed his paycheck. What did you think he was going to say?
Jeffrey Simpson?
Do people still actually read him?
MEGO – My Eyes Glaze Over.
The question of conservative or liberal has become meaningless. If you asked 100 Canadians to define the terms you would get at least 100 different answers. Canada has passed a tipping point where there are now more Canadians reliant on government than there are contributing, hence the adage comes into play. “Democracy works until people learn they can vote themselves money from the treasury”. Canadians use to be a generous people, now they are not personally generous but rather claim to support governments who redistribute wealth, as long as they are the major benifactors. If pigs could vote, the man carrying the slop pail would be elected herdsman everytime, regardless of how many he was slaughtering on the side.
Jeff, actually it’s worse than that. Simpson doesn’t really cite a bunch of polls, he cites one. We have no idea what was in the poll or how the questions were asked. If you let me frame the questions, I can get any answer you want from ANY given group surveyed.
When you go to Environics’ site, quel surprise, no poll. In fact, Environics has posted none of their research since 2008. This isn’t surprising, as they make their money by surveying for the Liberal Party. Also no surprise that they would hand out tidbits to their favourite hacks.
Another interesting question is how many inconvenient poll questions and results did Simpson have to ignore to trot out the drivel that he did. Naturally, Simpson isn’t going to mention any of this either. Like Allan Fotheringham years ago, Simpson has long since passed the point at which he had anything either new or relevant to say.
Batb: “I wonder which neigbhourhood he’s from: Rosedale, Forest Hill, Baby Point, the Annex, Lawrence Park? I wonder what kind of privileged and entitled socialist he is?”
As a youngster, Rosedale I think. Just so you know exactly how privileged and entitled he thinks he is:
From Wikipedia:
Simpson was born in New York and moved to Canada when he was 10 years old. He was educated at the University of Toronto Schools. He graduated from Queen’s University in 1971 in History and Political Science. While at Queen’s he worked for the campus radio station CFRC. He won the University’s Tricolour Award in his graduating year. He then went on to the London School of Economics. In 1972–1973, he worked as a Parliamentary Intern in Ottawa where he worked for Ed Broadbent. A year later, he joined The Globe and Mail newspaper.
UTS: UTS is *public* although it was (is) run on private school principals. Entrance is by competitive entrance examination. Although UTS is derided by the socialist levellers as elitist, it receives less funding per student than most Toronto high schools, including Lawrence Park and North Toronto, and fees are much lower than UCC etc.
Queen’s: PoliSci
LSE: need I saw more?
Intern for Ed Broadbent.
*That* is how socialist he is.
And note: he is actually an American by birth. I wonder if he registered for the draft in 1967..?