Jack be Nimble; Mr. Layton be Quick, Mr. Jack Layton be Classic!

Jack be Nimble; Mr. Layton be Quick.

Every child mimes a rhyme and every child’s rhyme has a moral dimension. The same with Jack and the candlestick. Although most parents would probably prefer a clever and timely child, as long as he's not a little rascal, every parent knows that a clever child is not necessarily timely; and punctual kids are not necessarily clever. In politics unfortunately, when you're not nimble and not quick, you're out of luck. And Jack can't afford snuffing out the candlestick before the term ends.   That’s why Homer’s Ulysses is such a remarkable character: he plans his interventions well and leads his trained crew well.  That’s why Homer is such a classic- whatever may be troubling or overwhelming about the political arena of gods and men, destinies are never unresolved. Classic figures, with a little help from divine friends,  always find the inner strength to either succeed or transcend their failure.  In the case of Ulysses, the underlying narrative is home and family, the values honor and love.

So, Mr. Layton, if a classic rhyme can trigger an imperative and an initiative, 'be nimble and be quick', lest fortune snuff out the candlestick! Then it's worth the following recall.

Our May 2, 2011 posting had predicted a majority Progressive Conservative Government; a Liberal oust and a Bloc rout, and recognized the NDP as Parliament’s new opposition.  By doing so, the Mr. Layton and the NDP changed Canadian Parliamentary history: it was the first time since Confederation that the NDP had assumed the role as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.  To say the least, the May 2, 2011 election result blindsided the leadership of the NDP party, regardless of what they contend. Had the virtue of Messrs Layton and Mulcair been premonitory, professing virtue (virtu) in the most endearing of machiavellian senses,  the selection and availability of candidates would have been more vigilantly curated. On the other hand, thank heaven that the new NDP candidates are enthusiastic and unmarred by political whines. The rejuvenation and earnestness of a young whingeless opposition may indeed mark the beginning of an unorthodox parliamentary session and help counter their leadership's caution. Yet, at some point, euphoria, wishful thinking and rationalization will dissipate, and the people and more particularly the media, will lend a serious ear to the realpolitik being deliberated on Parliament Hill.

The same May 2 posting reminded Mr. Layton of his obligations towards Canadians, and Central Canada in particular, that had opted for change, and had chosen to resend some weather-worn elected officials and a group of novice enthusiasts to represent the interests and aspirations of an opposing electorate, to check the government, and mostly act as an alternative government in waiting. I owe the latter notion to a former Conservative Rt Hon John George Diefenbaker from a speech delivered in 1949 to the Empire Club in Toronto.In view of this serious responsibility and ultimate end, the NDP must be pragmatic, and demonstrate courage and wisdom.  

More than two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle judged that of all governments, Democracy was the most desirable, although he also considered it as the most fragile of all the forms, as did Churchill  more than two millenia later when the latter proposed the epitaph "Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world… No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." As a result of this intrinsic frailty, it is the duty of party leaders to ensure that their respective legislators are best equipped with resources and adequately trained to exercise their rhetoric in the House of Commons and in the Committees. After all, politics in a Parliamentary Democracy takes a highly Rhetorical form, and the best at eloquence and substance ultimately win the day. It is then natural and wise to seek out the best orations by opponents to the government in Parliamentary history as a springboard for one's own preparation.  Suffice to browse, for those with some time to spare, the interventions of Messrs Pitt the elder, Pitt the younger, Peel, Disraeli and Gladstone, David Lloyd George and Churchill in the UK, Messrs Tommy Douglas, Diefenbaker, Stanfield and Broadbent in Canada, in order to evoke the voice and temperament of fearless and ferocious opposition. If one may humbly suggest, although the latter all warrant lecture, among these, there is probably no better prescription of the role of the opposition than a speech delivered by the Hon. John Diefenbaker in 1949 to the Empire Club in Toronto. It is an elegantly structured, marvellously argued and a profound historical rendition of the nature and role of Canada's Loyal Opposition. It should be a staple on the Opposition bench and visible to the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, although we surmise that The Prime Minister and the better of his bench have gem in memory.

If cautions can be suggested, avoid the simplistic resonance attributed to George Tierney 'oppose everything and propose nothing' or the monologous, para-filibuster undertaking of the 1993 Bouchard Official Opposition centered largely on Quebec which undermined the  ‘loyalty’ of the opposition regardless of its officialism. Notwithstanding all the effort and good faith Mr. Bouchard demonstrated, it is difficult to represent 'loyalty' when the principles dictating the postures of the Government and the Opposition are fundamentally different and diametrically opposed.  This was best articulated by Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural speech wherein he affirmed that belief in the same principles permits differences in opinion and policy, arguing that it reflects and is the foundation of the party system, and underlines the dynamic of a healthy political opposition.

Within the difficult context of a Majority Government and an emergent inexperienced Loyal Opposition, the challenge for Mr. Layton is to ensure the soundness of his platform and credibility of his legislators. Both Mr. Layton and his executive are accountable to the Canadian people for the quality and quantity of work that the Opposition must perform. Failure on either count may entail the unravelling of the party and the demise of Layton/Mulcair as serious political figures.

Greek political thought had given enormous significance to the quality of legislative efforts and polities. Aristotle (Ethics Bk X: 1180b28ff), in particular, demanded that legislators be properly and practically trained and educated by experienced politicians before entering the political arena. This advice on the importance of a legislator's education is confirmed by figures no less outstanding than Thomas Hobbes  and Voltaire, and success in the matter entails, according to Aristotle 'no better legacy...to their state, and no greater distinction ...for themselves...' (Ethics Bk X:1181aff).

Paraphrasing Machiavelli: it’s not the titles that ennobles the person; it is the actions of a person that give value to the title. So too, it is the duty of  leadership to equip and motivate its legislators. So let the media put aside its speculations and ramblings on the causes for success or failure of this Opposition until later in the term. Only at that moment can both Media and History evaluate Messrs Layton and Mulcair on their ability and resolve to have assumed responsibility and organized a serious and respectful Loyal Opposition.

This post contends that Messrs Layton and Mulcair will succeed. This post hopes that Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition of the 41st Parliament will become one of the most inspiring displays of serious and responsible deliberation in Parliamentary History.

Jack is nimble and Mr. Layton is quick, and Mr. Jack Layton shall clear the candlestick!

'Watermen' and the Liberal Leadership

A previous article dated May 16, 2011 noted that

The leadership of the Liberal Party requires weather-worn individuals-    analogous to what Polynesians called the ‘watermen’. According to tradition, it takes some time to become a ‘waterman’…The Liberal Party of Canada, notwithstanding its frailty, does have some very good ‘watermen’.

I owe the waterman anecdote to a remarkable book: The Wave written by Susan Casey. Casey tells the story about Big men facing Big waves; Big Brains and Big Money trying to figure out Big Waves and their Big Risks,  and Big Waves usually beating the sense out of the three groups.  Once in a while, a Wave, when it notices a bold facsimile of human valor, opens a portal into its universe and allows the brave an inkling of its structure before wiping-out the fortunate.   That’s a classic moment- for both surfers and wave scientists, and hopefully the insurers! A classic waste!  The waterman, of course, is the precursor and the combination of all latter types.  Best left to Casey’s stimulating description:

‘waterman’ [is] a code that required a surfer to be as all-around confident in the ocean as he was on land…Like Duke [Kahanamoku] and the Hawaiian kings before him, a true waterman could swim for hours in the most treacherous conditions, save people’s lives at will, paddle for a hundred miles if necessary, and commune with all ocean creatures, including large sharks. He understood his environment. He could sense the wind’s subtlest shifts and know how that would affect the water. He could navigate by the stars. Not only could he ride the waves, he knew how the waves worked. Most important, a waterman always demonstrated the proper respect for his element. He recognized that the ocean operated on a scale that made even the greatest human initiative seem puny.

In particular, it focuses on the relationships and exploits of a band of four surfers: Dave Kalama, Darrick Doerner, Brett Lickle and one Laird Hamilton, considered by some to be the greatest Big Wave surfers in the world.  What is remarkable about the subject is that the players are remarkable, and what makes them exceptional is their account of failure and triumph, but moreso of failures and defeats- the near-misses, wipe-outs surging doubts and ensuing fears.  Yet undermining this need to triumph is the underlying danger of hubris-the classic underpin of the human species- the flaw that underscores all valor. ‘As soon as you think, I’ve got this place wired. I’m the man! You’re about thirty minutes away from being pinned on the bottom for the beating of your life’… ‘not death but rather being pounded so bad that psychologically you don’t recover’  That was Lickle, Hamilton and Kalama respectively. It took Dave Kalama three years and ‘baby steps to build my confidence back up.’

Surfing remains the paradigm of the tragic flaw. From Gilgamesh, through Homer and Greek antiquity, Virgil and Dante, Shakespeare and Milton, Goethe and  Wagner- with gods as with men, with angels as with demons, hubris clouds foresight by blindsight, like fortune clouds the brave in Machiavelli. The only difference may be that hubris is an internal stain whereas fortune, somewhat like fate, but more insidious, is an external actor rooted somewhere unknowingly in the gods, in the heavens or in chance or a combination of these, and maybe other forces unknown to us.

‘Watermen’ like leaders, embody a trait that should be presumed readily for any skill one intends to master: knowing everything about the thing! A good captain must master the terrain, like a good ship’s captain must know how to read the weather and the oceans; and from knowing one’s theatre, one develops leadership on the terrain… to surf great waves, the surfer integrates a team; he evolves from a ‘getter’ as each of this foursome is and was- 'rescuing anyone who needed help, even surfers they didn’t know or whose boneheaded actions had virtually guaranteed a fall’ to seizing the moment that will optimize on the phase speed of the wave, on its celerity…and then onto the deep dark grey primeval forces of quantum wave physics to surf it….

Their experience of failures and defeats, the recoveries and humblings, and the remorse of losing it all through age while looking into the windows ‘of scientists trying to explain and predict a ‘… universe [that] is constructed of waves…it’s craziness…Water waves [are] more complicated than electromagnetic waves because they’re non-linear.’

Consider the lines in Machiavelli’s later Discourses (Bk III, chapters 38-39)where the Florentine enumerates the prerequisites of a good leader. He must be eloquent, radiate great confidence, he must be respected by his colleagues and respectful, know the strategy and tactics of engagement and most of all, know the contours of the theatre where successes or failures are decided.

So too, the theatre of politics, of public policy and public finance, of global diplomacy and commerce requires a set of prerequisites in order to enhance the probability of success in a universe of eruptions and disruptions.

There is no one better prepared to surf Canadian waters as Mr. Robert Rae. He was a former Premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populated community,  who challenged traditional economic policy with an approach that has been recovered by the greatest economies in the world including the United States. A champion of employment and economic parity, he is fiscally innovative, and socially responsible. Notwithstanding, he was deposed and exiled from politics. He was resuscitated by fortune and enlisted by the Liberal Party of Canada. He has acted as a member of the Shadow Cabinet of the Liberal Party and Foreign Affairs Critic for the Official Opposition. He constructed a platform and organized a following that is serious and reputable and has bayed his critics for the last three years while the rest of Parliament’s elected keep cover or stay fools. If I must caricature Mr. Rae, I would suggest Dante's Farinata not so much for the latter's address, but moreso for the moral grandeur Dante attributes to the Inferno's greatest occupant and certainly one of the Dante's favorite characters. He has been both blessed and damned, like Farinata in Dante’s Inferno, he outsizes hell itself, holding his own, and holding the inferno in total spite. Dante’s favourite personage, his greatest creation and without a doubt, as much as he was damned by his enemies, he was admired by the Poet. No one knows the terrain as well as Mr Rae; no one masters the languages as well as Mr. Rae; and no one is better equipped with passion and eloquence, judgement and analytics, a fine mind and public ethos as Mr. Rae. So too, no one needs executive bicker and chatter less than Mr. Rae.  Of all the watermen that the Liberal Party of Canada lists, Mr. Rae best satisfies the requisites of the Big Wave surfer. No one has navigated rougher waters, no one has been challenged by more shifting and ferocious winds, no one has planed more difficult waves, and no one has endured the critic’s spotlight under harsher conditions than Mr. Robert Rae.  Fortune, after dishevelling Robert Rae, has handed the Liberal Party of Canada an opportunity: Mr. Rae is the best candidate for the Leadership of the Liberal Party.


Notwithstanding, for lack of superlatives to emphasize the hyperbole- the Party executives have now convened, invoked and imposed an archaic rule that precludes an Interim Leader from aspiring to permanent leadership of the Party regardless of credentials. Yet, contrary to media and some party pundits, rules should not preclude the  candidacy of a ‘marred’ and ‘aging’ Mr. Robert Rae who, supposedly, can never carry Ontario. To posit fledglings instead is to engage the Liberal Party of Canada in a most pretentious and pompous commerce of political illiteracy,  and meddle in the throngs of fortune,  to dismember the wrangling of fortune.

Is there anything more inconsistent than relieving a leader from his duties after having successfully rebuilt the organization. What greater loyalty than an organization embedded in its leader’s ethos and charisma. Party executives should learn from the country’s national pastime; do you shelf an acting General Manager after a successful interim term, or a successful coach after a successful interim regular season. Take lessons from Calgary Flames and the New York Islanders respectively.  It’s time to oust that exclusive rule before it dissembles the Liberal Party forever.

Indeed, Mr. Robert Rae has trekked  that terrain since his early years. He has been praised and damned by the same constituency. He has been rebel and conservative, shown brilliance and eclat. Some corner his ambition; others highlight his articulate passion. In all cases, Mr. Robert Rae exemplifies the best in the Canadian Liberal Tradition, and naturally embodies the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. 

Trudeau, Captain, my Captain

 
An earnest Mr Justin Trudeau displays humble dispositions when asked by CBC's simpatica  Ms. Heather Hiscox whether he plans or considers running as leader of  the fragmented Liberal Party of Canada. Among his depositions he lists his riding groundwork and door-to-door exchanges, the ethnic community overtures and interactions, and expresses  his filial relation to a former Liberal Parliamentarian of nineteen years and Prime Minister of Canada,  recognizing the importance of hereditary links but voicing his own desire to go beyond the de facto to affirm a more independent political identity.  His entourage was probably satisfied with the Riding outcome.  Mr. Trudeau should neither dismiss history nor sidestep his genetic dowry, nor should he attempt the detour.  Machiavelli humbly suggests in the first chapter of the Prince that hereditary princes are well-disposed and are more effective in managing and relating to their constituencies when their ancestral predecessors were admired. Not to blindly follow that cleverest of advisors, but perhaps Mr. Trudeau should voice his roots more auspiciously and audaciously by anchoring his own platform within an historical continuity. The large majority in all cross-sections of the Canadian population will appreciate the prowess and filial piety.  Mr. Trudeau is the son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and he possesses, by nature and some nurture, a degree of eloquence and savoir-faire that should make him a fine politician. Those that liked the Trudeau legend will most likely appreciate the son; those that didn't were probably not liberals-in that case it matters not! False modesty is a particularly bad tactic especially in the ensuing context of  leadership reflections  In Mr. Trudeau's case, it may fuel the smirk and finesse the smirch of petty skeptics and cynics who would doubt the credentials of the incumbent Mr. Justin Trudeau, and cry out "feign". Above all, false modesty  is often viewed by Main Street as contained pretension and leaves a blundering stain when it spills over onto a classic Waterville-Maine Hathaway.

The column's Subject-designate ‘Trudeau’ is intentionally ambiguous. The invocation is a variant to Walt Whitman's classic 'O Captain! my Captain!' -  well-known to most filmgoers as Mr. Robin Williams' lesson in life in the remarkable film Dead Poets Society.  Walt Whitman wrote the poem as a commemoration of both great triumph and great loss- which duality ultimately defines the intrinsic duplicity of life. According to some the commemoration has roots in the end of the American Civil War and the ensuing assassination of Abraham Lincoln respectively. The poem, however, is moreso an intergenerational eulogy consecrating the creative force of responsible action and daring leadership traditions handed-down and embraced respectively from elders to youth, from parents to children, from a nation to a community and from peoples to other peoples.

Yet, what Whitman inspires, Machiavelli's Discourses cautions: It is not titles that ennoble men;  it is men that ennoble the titles. In the latter Chapters of Book III of that classic read, Machiavelli recommends that leaders and captains, and there is no distinction between the two in Machiavelli, must possess exceptional qualities and skills. They must be both inspiring and trustworthy, and they must also be strategically and tactically competent-acquainted with their theatre-understand the contours and tradeoffs of the terrain. They must have the ability to organize and communicate effectively, the courage to listen attentively; the wisdom and prudence to respect and protect values that are not necessarily one’s own. They must, above all, know how to benefit from one’s own and other’s triumphs and failures, and better still, if great triumph and great failure.  

Although the National leadership is certainly for the valiant, what worked at the riding level may not be immediately commutable to the national terrain. What worked for Mr.Trudeau at the Riding level was the Name. Ethnic communities are very loyal polities with intergenerational memories, prone to appropriating their mythic ascendants, even resurrecting political colors. History warrants some caution; especially Canadian electoral history.

However, it may be the appropriate time to assume a captaincy in wake of the Liberal dirge. Mr. Trudeau will certainly be more effective in the short term and better off in the long run.

The leadership of the current Liberal Party commands not only a national but also an international theatre and audience. The role of leadership must be representative; it must convey impassioned resolve, sound judgement and responsible action. Its theatre is not only defined by local historical constitutionally designated geographies, but often extends to foreign terrains where the regional and hemispheric interests and values of their audiences may be quite sensitive by what is said and done, or not said and not done,  and where complex socio-political economies can be affected inadvertently in Canada by Canadians. The leader must master the polite and incorrect, mitigate the banal and the serious, weighing the measure of a people’s aspirations with their realities.

The leadership of the Liberal Party requires weather-worn individuals-analogous to what Polynesians called the ‘watermen’. According to tradition, it takes some time to become a ‘waterman’. This may not be Mr. Trudeau's moment to lead the Liberal Party of Canada. His time will come. The coming parliament's term for Mr. Trudeau is a welcome start.

The Liberal Party of Canada, notwithstanding its frailty, does have some very good ‘watermen’.

That's our forthcoming column.


 

TowverH

Mr. Harper, Machiavelli and Games

A previous  May 2, 2011 article distinguished between Mr. Harper's win and Mr Layton's victory. Pïerre de Coubertin's well-worn reserve in his London speech of July 24, 1908, phrases it best : "... l'essentiel [c'est le combat] ce n'est pas d'avoir vaincu mais de s'être bien battu" ('the essential thing is [..the contest] not to have won but to have fought well.').

The purpose was not to indulge in an affectation or pander pedantry.  There is good reason to distinguish between the political results. The same article commented on both results. The evident matter is the result of government; opaque is the matter of how the country will be represented in the Government.

Mr. Harper's win commends because it was masterfully planned and executed; it falls short because it was both a no-brainer and a no-contest. To his credit, hindsight tests him perfectly on both counts.

For those gamers who enjoy dabbling, consider the following.  Mr. Harper recognized the features of this election's zero-sum game;  democratic party politics do not configure a nonzero-sum game. There were only two bona fide players or opponents in this federal election: Mr. Harper and the Others. The Harper tradeoff was an option for/against a parliamentary majority. It was a non-ambivalent, unambiguous platform, for many outright outrageous- to other electors and some analysts, it even reaped of political suicide, until the last few weeks when it dawned on the more enlightened of the pundit class that Harper had foreseen the unravelling of the singular, most machiavellian scheme in Canadian political history. And I do not intend machiavellian as a demonic and caricatural fashion after the skewed readings of the Tudors, Elizabethans or french Renaissance,  but to that observer of human polities who neither conceived nor  framed the machiavellian moment now associated to his name,  to one of history's most brilliant political analysts, and "the founder and master of policy," who professed that political success is determined by courageous insight and calculated foresight-the combination of which are exceptional modes of great leadership or as Machiavelli contextually coins it "virtu".  

Mr. Harper's prerequisite for a win was  that the conservative electorate base would show up at the polls.The only way Mr. Harper could not win is if this original premise was overly presumptuous! Unfortunately for the Others, it wasn't.  His assumption was valid, the probability that  large regional contingents of conservative sympathizers would show up at the polls on election day was validated, and the game was played out with the  non-conservative base divided between three parties and ending up in two routs: the Liberal Party and the Bloc Quebecois.  A vote against Harper, was a split-vote, in other words, a half-vote! Well, math confirms that it takes twice the amount of non-conservative half-votes to supplant a whole conservative vote, and there weren't that many non-conservatives showing up, although there was a record turnout at the polls.

In this context, Mr. Harper's unwilling machiavellianism is more reminiscent of the rational deliberation depicting a Von Neumann-Morgenstern lottery. It is inconceivable to imagine anyone else in Ottawa in the same company as Machiavelli and Von Neumann with the exception of Conrad Black. Unfortunately the latter is not in Ottawa.  Mr. Harper, on the other hand, is in Ottawa. He does have a challenge in living up to that pedigree and fortunately, he is confronted by the optimally classical moment. 

The results of history will validate the rest. Whether Mr. Harper can rise above the storms that will characterize his term will depend on his leadership, because storms are already brewing on the horizon. Whether Mr. Harper can appease the expectations of Quebec that defined its fortune with the Others, will demand virtu...something that many pundits and dilettantes refuse to recognize he possesses in great quantity.

But then pundits, political dilettantes and  staffers, not only those in Canada, do not recall what fortuna and virtu denote and connote. Most recall, if at all, that Machiavelli  wrote the Prince and claimed that the end justifies the means.  There is a cultural tendency to predicate gratuitously and incorrectly the machiavellian moment to a world of intrigue, deceit and ruthlessness. Virtu is that responsibility and skill of leadership to improvise a novel vision in the face of fortune-a set of unforeseen novel events and circumstances. In Mr. Harper's case, fortune has presented the Federal Government with a Canadian dominion in which apparently, Quebec's constitutional dilemma is shelved and its traditional bloc voices are cloistered. Is Mr. Harper experiencing the last breath before the great plunge- an hyperbole to Tolkien's. Is this Quebec's tacit warning that if this doesn't work, then the Rubicon. What a Pyrrhic victory Election Canada 2011 would have been for Mr. Harper.

Personally, I think Mr. Harper is a stricter Machiavellian than the English and French Renaissance diminuitive traditions have transmitted, and as such, much more politically integral and constructive than anyone will expect. Mr. Harper is certainly, a reader of the Discourses, not of  the Prince. 

Mr. Harper, Mr Layton, Mr Ignatieff and Quebec

Mr. Harper's was a classic win, Mr. Layton's was a classic victory and Mr. Ignatieff's a classic failure. Harper's win was strategically brilliant-the master tactitian, most probably the most brilliant Canadian politician of the modern era. Layton's victory was passionate and visionary, rising above the traditional rhetoric of populism to address the needs and passions of the peoples of the country.  Ignatieff's failure was tragic, homme engagé fed by the hubris of a thin organization that settled for its own mediocrity and destroyed an institution that pillared men like Laurier and Trudeau. Therein the worse tragedy.     

The first major task for Prime Minister Harper is to integrate, for all intents and purposes, a non-conservative Quebec into his government without courting a senate selection.  He should shun the obvious conversions of those that never supported the Canadian dream and favor his vision and discretion with members of the official opposition without persuading them to retire their colors. This would mark great leadership in the context of a great challenge. Mr. Harper must recognize that Quebec cannot be shunned; if anything, Quebec should be praised for having democratically stood up against a potential majority conservative government that it viewed as suspect. The Quebec electorate ousted bloc, liberal and conservative incumbents from their ridings and limited access to candidates of the same three to the country's Parliament, thereby  ennobling and voicing its concerns that 'Things cannot remain as they are! Things must change!' not only in Quebec but also in Canada. Once again, Quebec participated in changing the Canadian political scene in a radical way.

Mr. Layton, as leader of the official opposition, must demonstrate classic prudence: he must not be cornered into the same lethargic rhetoric that isolated Quebec, preventing the rest of Canada and the world from seeing Quebec as a creative and dynamic force within Canada. Mr. Layton must avoid the confrontational forum of recent years that unfortunately and sometimes inadvertently demeaned Quebec's aspirations and realities. The leader of the official opposition must honor the great trust that has been given to the NDP by the Quebec electorate.

Mr. Ignatieff should show classic courage and appreciate the writing on the wall.

This election has historic dimensions. It is a classic study in Democracy and Rhetorics: its ups and downs, decisions and indecisions, reversals and achievements are almost literary. It is also the opportunity to label an appropriate moment: The Harper moment-little doubt that Mr. Harper has solidified his reputation. The Layton moment-the jury just walked in and is watching.

If not....