Canadian Youth

A Polemic Against the Alberta Advantage

2009-02-20T12:56:00.006-07:00

Oil extraction and the oil-money-financed Box City

The Alberta government’s conception of the province’s social situation is at the same time fascinating and discouraging. It is fascinating to watch as the province accepts the ideology of relatively unfettered resource extraction, leading to immediate wealth maximization. It is incredible to watch so much natural capital get exported, yet so much of the financial capital that is then imported being concentrated in very few hands. It is discouraging to watch the great accelerated plunder of a non-renewable resource, one that can only be expected to increase in value over time if left underground, and no evident policy to use the massive financial wealth to build a more economically diverse, sustainable, socially just society for future generations of Albertans.

Alberta is probably one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the world. It is replete with massive oil wealth, most of which is found in the huge tarsands land in the Northeastern part of the province. This immensely valuable resource is being consumed at a very fast rate, facilitated by what is effectively a scheme of subsidization from both the provincial and federal governments: the lack of a carbon price that would ensure that these companies internalize the costs of climate change that the process is creating; lax environmental regulatory standards, again allowing the industry to externalize the costs of its activities; low corporate income tax rates; policies that seek to reduce labour costs for the industry; funding for new technology and exploration startups; infrastructure to reach and reap the sands; etc.

The extraction process is intensely energy dependent and produces massive quantities of greenhouse gases. There is also evidence that it imposes serious environmental and health harms on the surrounding communities, evinced by a local doctor’s observation of increased rates of disease and the death of hundreds of birds when a migrating flock landed in an uncovered, onsite tailings pool.

Yet, despite all this rush to create private profits for energy companies and investors, relatively little of benefit has come to Albertan society, besides Calgary’s (and its surroundings) boon of increasingly large homes and trucks. Unfortunately, the boon of Calgary itself has created something of a disaster, leading to a city layout that ignores ideas of new urbanism and instead has created a hundred suburbs surrounding a tiny and underused (almost entirely office tower) urban core. Calgary has given the box store its paradigmatic city, exactly what these soulless and depressing behemoths could ever ask for: a lot of relatively cheap space for endless parking and awe-inspiring grandeur, but no creativity, no character, and no identifiable face (except for the smiling circular charmer who rolls back prices). Indeed, Calgary has become a box city; Calgary even suits the box store’s great paradox: there is nothing that you could ever want that Calgary (or Walmart) does not have—yet, there is nothing Calgary (or Walmart) has that you could ever want.

The problem: political expediency and corruption

Calgary’s (lack of) urban planning is only one example that demonstrates how the entire province is beholden to short term interests that want monetary wealth creation to be maximized in the shortest order, with investments in social capital minimized. The province has such massive influx of wealth that it is capable of engaging in inspired and visionary social projects that, while expensive in terms of upfront capital, would pay off for decades to come. Yet the Band-aid solution of short-term politics continues to dominate. Essentially, Alberta has chosen to apply temporary fixes, to solve problems only as they arise and only in a manner that will solve the problem for another few years. This is not financially efficient in the long run: the band-aid provides only a short term solution, and this relatively small capital expenditure must be remade many times over. This becomes very costly in the aggregate, in fact more costly than the visionary long-term solution.

But the Band-aid is politically expedient. The long-term solution requires upfront capital in a way that is adverse to near-term political interests. The politician is beholden to the next election cycle. To succeed in that environment, the politician must offer immediate benefits: not only to solve the problem quickly and at low cost, but also to balance the budget immediately and to give tux cuts (or rebates!) immediately, before (and fresh in mind during) the next election. All of these militate against long-term, visionary solutions that are costly upfront, even though they are most socially beneficial in the long-run.

Perhaps more egregiously, Alberta’s politicians are not only beholden to the electorate’s nearsighted voting decisions—they might also be subservient to powerful special interests. The status quo is, of course, most beneficial to the wealthy—they are wealthy, in part, because of the laws and government systems that presently exist. Visionary policy that transforms society, as a whole, for the better also challenges the current ruling elite. This is because visionary policy requires upfront taxation and changes to the vested expectations of certain industries who depend on the status quo social order. Fortunately for the ruling elite, they have the resources and wherewithal to disproportionately impact the government’s policy decisions. Some, from a certain ideology, refer to this as supply-side economics and see it as socially beneficial policy: pleasing the wealthy because they, in theory, provide so much economic development for the province. I call it corruption. The last thing the province needs is more and faster economic growth, leading to more intense and immediate aggregation of wealth for the presently wealthy, with socially disastrous consequences for most of the province. But, due to corruption, the government fails to act in the public interest and acts instead in the interest of a wealthy few who are able to fund political ambitions.

Example 1: Urban sprawl

Three examples illustrate this tragedy of political expediency in one of the world’s wealthiest polities. But one of these is too obvious to discuss: weak environmental provisions that facilitate oil exploration and extraction processes that cause intense environmental harm. Two other examples of the tragedy are less apparent.

The first relates to urban planning. The tax base in Alberta affords the opportunity to begin to build the most modern and dynamic two large cities in the world (Calgary and Edmonton) and the most modern and livable four mid-size cities in the world (Fort McMurray, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and Red Deer). Both levels of government can accomplish this with urban planning programs and visionary infrastructure investment. Urban sprawl is most notable and detrimental in Calgary, where ugly suburban subdivisions crawl out from the city in virtually all directions, with dire social consequences.

The politically expedient solution is the one that our governments have taken. It involves adding another commercial zone for a depressing box store strip mall for ease of access by local residents, adding or extending a freeway to alleviate the transportation demands of sprawl, and sometimes extending a laughable mass-transit line and adding a parking facility for that line. The visionary solution would see both levels of government working together to restrict urban sprawl, to force vertical expansion within the city. There would be extensive investment in an all new and improved transit system, with high-speed underground connections through the core of the city: Calgary’s above-ground C-train through downtown is, to me, an embarrassment and an ineffective way to move people. And the governments would stop enabling the single-person vehicle culture by facilitating the urban sprawl through relatively cheap freeway expansion.

But this would offend certain vested interests. The wealthy want another bigger lot, with a bigger home, even further outside of Calgary’s disgusting “reversion” haze every ten years. They want a bigger car, with bigger lanes to drive on. They want accessible box store shopping so that they can collect their amenities in the least amount of time possible, considering that their lives are spent on freeways. The powerful energy industry, meanwhile, wants the lowest taxes possible, precluding visionary infrastructure development. They also want a population that is dependent on energy intense modes of transportation, demanding that the single-person vehicle mindset be facilitated, or at least that government choose not to undermine that mindset through mass-transit policies (and create a visionary precedent for the rest of the continent).

Example 2: Under-(or conveniently)-educated masses

The second example is the social forces that are contributing to an under, or conveniently, educated population. The effect of “quick and easy money” on Alberta’s young people has been obvious for almost a decade. Albertan’s are dropping out of high school in relatively high numbers and are foregoing postsecondary education, because easy money can be made in Fort McMurray without the need to delay this income with education. Why go to school when you can make a fortune in three years with little to no formal education? So, the trend in Alberta is for relatively fewer young people to become learned in the natural and social sciences or arts and humanities, important contributors to sustainable and culturally enjoyable societies.

However, the effect was not only a result of “market forces”: government policy has encouraged this trend. Despite Alberta’s enormous tax base and wealth, it’s post-secondary institutions have remained solidly second-tier among Canada’s schools, demonstrated by the Maclean’s ranking guide (http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2008/12/19/our-18th-annual-rankings/). Alberta has the ability to create the best post-secondary institutions in the world, but instead fails to stand out from the middle crowd in its own country. Alberta has under-funded these institutions and continued to increase tuition rates in the meantime. The government’s mindset is demonstrated in this quote from Murray Smith, a former Klein cabinet minister, delivered when he was Alberta’s representative in Washington, D.C., advocating for Alberta’s oil industry:

“Alberta has 10 percent of Canada's labour force and we employ 20 percent of the apprentices. We need to shift the focus of university education. I know communications and film editing and art forms are important, but so are pipefitting, plumbing, electricity, and welding. A welder makes $150,000 a year in Fort McMurray today.” (emphasis added).

Understood on its own, this quote might seem reasonable: there is a lack of trades people in the province. In reality, however, this evinces a policy to entrench the oil industry and undermine other long-term sustainable industries in Canada. One of the fortunes of natural resource wealth is the opportunity to develop a sustainable economy and society that will outlive the resource. This can be done, for example, by encouraging other industries and developing appropriate infrastructure while the province is raking in wealth. One of the most effective ways, though, is to educate the population in the new intellectual and green economies of the future: science, ecology, engineering, arts, culture, etc. This allows the province to continue to prosper in the long-term and to develop a greater quality of life.

Instead, governmental officials can be heard advocating for the limited funding to post-secondary education (and it is severely limited) to be reoriented towards training that serves the interests of the oil industry. The resulting population is undereducated for the purposes of sustainable economies. But it is also conveniently educated for the purposes of the unsustainable, short-term economy that funds the present Alberta government. Public money is used to give the training that the industry would otherwise be required to give. Worse, though, the population is not trained to work in other industries, providing more labour to the industry at a cheaper cost because the population does not have other options. This is not the result of market forces. This is the result of de facto subsidization for oil industry labour. It decreases the costs of the industry and makes it more profitable.

Perpetuating dependency

The policies discussed above do more than support the oil fields with public money, thereby effectively subsidizing this unsustainable and dirty industry. They do more than divert funding from other important social programs. They do more than create cities that become gradually less pleasant, more polluted, more sprawling, more boxy, more amenable to soulless corporations that out-compete local business with charm. No, these are not even the worst of it. These policies perpetuate the province’s dependency on the oil industry.

For example, the policies that exacerbate urban sprawl mean that even more people are driving vehicles that use even more gas: making us even more dependent on oil to just get around, get to work, get to the store. The policies that forego mass-transit funding also perpetuate this dependency. The government’s policy that refuses to impose a price on carbon furthers it too: why switch to more efficient cars or public transit when the cost of gasoline is subsidized by the fact that we do not pay for the full social cost of fossil fuel use?

The education policies seem even more egregious. The actual people of the province are encouraged to become trained in ways that make them dependent on employment within the industry. How can the province ever overcome the unsustainable influence of oil interests when the population is beholden to the industry’s labour opportunities? Recently, with the industry slowing down, universities and colleges in Alberta are apparently receiving a large increase in applications over previous years: people recognize the need, at this precarious time, to avoid becoming dependent on this volatile industry. Unfortunately, they will find under-funded programs that are geared toward serving the industry itself.

The result, of course, is a vicious cycle. As the industry gains a greater hold on the province, the province loses the power to serve the province’s interests where they diverge from the industry’s. The province becomes more and more dependent on the industry and, in turn, more and more subservient to it.

Are Albertans better than their government?

Was this on purpose? How much of the dependency has been design and how much accident? In other words, has the government intended to act in the interests of Albertans at each phase over the course of these bad decisions and has only failed in the result; or has it purposely entrenched this dependence so as to benefit a powerful industry with whom the government is closely aligned?

For me, this question is interesting, but irrelevant. Either the Tory government is ignorant, uninformed, and incompetent and has therefore failed to understand that its policies would only benefit certain Albertans in the long-term at the expense of most Albertans in the short-term. Or that government has concertedly sought to benefit those few Albertans (and foreign corporations) because it is corruptly aligned with those interests. Either way, the solution is the same: to bring an end to the incompetent or corrupt government. The only question is: do Albertans care enough, do they see the need to secure the future of younger generations? Judging by a string of elections and some ignorant political ideals in the province, the jury is still out on that one, and I'm not betting on a flattering verdict.

Alberta's Dirty Secret

2009-02-10T14:24:00.002-07:00

The corporations who have profited so disproportionately from Alberta’s oil wealth will be in D.C. every day trying to get the attention of the new admin, in order to offer Alberta’s dirty oil as the solution to the U.S.’s foreign oil problem. Indeed, Alberta’s government, beholden to these wealthy contributors, is undertaking this job itself with public funds, with its full-time representative of the province in Washington:

http://www.international.alberta.ca/553.cfm

Two of the four priorities of Alberta's D.C. office are "reinforcing to U.S. political and business decision-makers that Alberta: [1)] has the commitment and capacity to be a secure, reliable and growing energy supplier[; and 2)] develops its world-scale energy resources in an environmentally responsible way."

Here is a quote from a keynote speech by an Alberta government representative at an energy industry conference:

“Secondly, each year the U.S. reserves deplete by 1..1.15%. (Reversed in 2005 due to high prices). You can imagine the hamster on a wheel, no matter how hard you run, it continues to run out. Whereas, with oil sands, you mine it, you build it, cash flow it for 30 years and then it drops off and finishes. So, if you put the two together, you will see that with oil sands growth we can help satisfy a lot of the change in economic growth and the change in depleting production.”

It is up to us—especially those Albertans who feel their consciences piqued by the great global harm wreaked by the source of our material wealth—to argue against these powerful forces, to ensure that Alberta’s North is not blighted by excavation’s dirty scar, to ensure that Alberta’s reputation is not blighted by the industry’s dirty deed, and to ensure that global humanity is not blighted by the oil elite’s dirty greed.

We must demand social justice and equity: both for the communities of Northern Alberta who suffer disproportionately from the local environmental travesty and profit little or not at all; and for the communities of the planet who suffer disproportionately from climate change and do not benefit from fossil-fuel combustion.

For more info:
http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/campaigns/tarsands
http://obama2canada.org/

Harvard Law School Theme Song: Ivory Towers

2008-12-13T17:02:00.007-07:00

To be played to "Little Boxes": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONEYGU_7EqU

Ivory towers, on Jarvis Field, Ivory towers named for dead jurists.
Ivory towers, Ivory Towers, Ivory Towers & free coffee.
There is Pound Hall and Langdell Hall and Austin Hall and Hauser Hall,
Ivory Towers named for dead jurists and they all have free coffee.

And the 1Ls in the towers all went to their universities,
And they all got put in towers, ivory towers all the same.
There was activists and organizers and left-wing ideologues,
And they all got put in towers and they all come out the same.

And they all work through the weekend and vie for the partnership,
And they all have giant mergers, and the clients pillage the land.
And the clients pay the law schools for more towers on the field,
And the towers fill with 1Ls and they come out just the same.

While Parliament Shuts Down...

2008-12-05T10:51:00.009-07:00

The elected legislature of Canada comes to a halt and this might seem to some that Canadian state actors quit, go home and hang out for awhile. Indeed, I think that we might be lulled into believing that the prorogation of Parliament is a passive choice, ensuring inaction of government over the next little while so that all major choices are on hold until the "crisis" passes and they have come to a compromise or some other solution. This is the unabashedly positive frame of prorogation: an unsettled Parliament is not going to actively commit the country to programs domestically or engagements abroad.

The reality is much different. In effect, prorogation is not a passive choice for government inaction. Instead, it is an active choice for the status quo. Canada's present commitments, programs, and engagements are ongoing, without the considered reappraisal by Parliament. This is an active selection of the present situation (indeed, the only reason we, as a populace, might fail to recognize this is a part of status quo bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias - we do not recognize the moral reprehensibility of decisions when action is not taken - or, rather, when the action (the action of omission, an oxymoron, I know) is not apparent). Therefore, this is not ideologically neutral. In particular, two major policy issues come to mind that are implicated by selection of the status quo and each shows an ideological influence.

Neoliberal economics: during this time of global economic collapse, governments around the world are engaging substantively in their domestic economies. Prorogation, for however long it ends up lasting, largely commits our government to inaction. Whether this is right or wrong depends on your ideology, values and ethics - far be it from me to pronounce an economic theory that is best for the country. However, it is certainly not idelogically-neutral: government inaction - whether by affirmative choice in Parliament or prorogation of Parliament - is a decision of the government.

Foreign military intervention: far more important, to my mind, Canada has committed troops abroad, most substantially to Afghanistan, and this decision goes unconsidered by Parliament over the prorogation. For months, journalists have speculated about the political reaction to Canada's 100th military death in Afghanistan, when it would occur. It happened today, so (and this is more than philosophical): with nobody in Parliament to hear it, did it make a political sound?

Less than three years ago (and four years after the engagement in Afghanistan began), I exalted Canada's respect for its soldiers' lives resulting from our less militarized society. Today I am ashamed of my own naivity, reflected in the following quote: "our 'peacenik' society has created an atmosphere where we respect the individual life of each soldier to a greater degree." At the time I attempted to honour our 8 Afghanistan deaths as an example of that respect - I made a point of remembering each soldier and his hometown. Today, our Afghanistan dead are too numerous for this. Are we now dissensitized? Have we lost the respect for life that we once had - or did we never have it?

To say the least, this is an important decision for the country, but the symbolism of the moment will go unrecognized by Parliament, because Parliament (for all practical purpose) no longer exists. Canadian soldiers dying in Afghanistan: that is the status quo. That is what prorogation chooses. As the Liberal Party once chose not to go into Iraq (over the objections of the Conservative Party), the present government now chooses to prevent Parliament from reconsidering the current plan to stay in Afghanistan until 2011.

Let us not forget this. The inability of Parliament to question status quo is not an unfortunate consequence of the present circumstnace. It was chosen by PM Harper's request for prorogation and GG Jean's acquiescence to this request.

What is in a Democrat?

2008-12-04T10:33:00.003-07:00

As (some) Canadians sit on the edge of their seats and await the choice of Prime Minister by an unelected "representative of the Queen", it is becoming increasingly obvious that "democracy" (the principle, the system, the institution, the ethic, the theory) is a much more subjective and context-specific concept than we otherwise like to admit.

Certainly, we have constant reminders of democracy's subjectivity and interpretive flexibility. We find an obvious example in our electoral system's lack of proportional representation. As an example, compare the number of seats for some parties from the 2008 election compared to the seats they would have received based on their share of the national vote.
Conservatives: 143 - 116 (23% deviation)
Bloc Quebecois: 49 - 31 (58% deviation)
NDP: 37 - 56 (34% deviation)
Green: 0 - 21 (100% deviation)
Of course, during majority governments, these numbers are often even more skewed: it usually takes only 40% of the vote in Canada to achieve majority status in the House.

Most Canadians, nevertheless, believe that Canada is a democracy. Evidently, democracy is not, itself, a precise concept. It is subject to balancing, relativity, subjectiveness, and context specificity. A survey of "democratic" political systems around the world could support the theory that the principles of democracy are applied ad hoc.

Despite these constant reminders, though, it seems that most people do not, as a matter of daily consideration, understand democracy as a highly vague and manipulable concept. Instead, we tend to see it as the natural standard, almost universal in its propriety: an ideal to be achieved without mitigation rather than a mere consideration to be balanced against other factors (of, for example, federalism and assurances of meaningful representation for each province, the desire for stable majority governments in a Parliamentary system, placation of separatist forces, entrenched hegemony for the old, elite, tried-and-tested political parties, etc.). This fiction, this idealistic and unproblematized view of democracy has never been tenable, but it has remained a powerful (though perhaps latent) sentiment within us, the populace, and our self-identity as Canadians.

The eagerness of both political parties, this week, to evoke the ideal of democracy for their own position evinces the enduring privilege that we grant to democracy the concept. The word was manipulated by both sides: Harper stating that the new coalition would be undemocratic, taking control of government and the PMO without returning to the "people" (who never voted for this coalition or "PM Dion") and our (ostensibly) democratic elections; Dion arguing that the democratic process has taken its course and resulted in the current Parliament, whose MPs are welcome to coalesce behind the PM and government they have confidence in. Both sides wield "democracy" as a political trump card or, at least, a very persuasive argument. This suggests that "democracy" continues to mean something in the public ethos.

But does it? Both sides invoke her preference (perhaps this is provocative (chauvinistic?), but for purposes of illustrative imagery, lets refer to democracy as a female entity - perhaps this is also accurate to iconery, as "Lady Liberty" is recognized as a symbol of democracy around the world). They do so for directly contradictory purposes. So, it becomes all too evident that she is meaningless in practice. Or, to be fair to democracy, she has no role within the confines of this particular political struggle, as her interpretive flexibility is too broad to play a meaningful role in settling the dispute at hand: she has nothing coherent to say about whether Mr. Harper or Mr. Dion's position is, in fact, democratic. These two graying white men (joined on one flank by two more graying white men) will fight over her endearment, battling for her affection--but neither has an obvious claim to her preference. Indeed, her fancy is wildly ill-defined.

Still, we defer to her judgment to resolve our political crisis. This is in part because we have no other option (our largely unwritten constitution is neither explicit nor has precedence directly tested this specific circumstance) and partly because she, despite her unsettled mindset, retains a powerful rhetorical force in Canadian society. This raises two great ironies.

She is embodied here by an unelected official. Governor General Michaëlle Jean (an immigrant woman of colour choosing the fates of the aforementioned "democratically" elected homogeneous class of white men - but lets not get into that fascination) makes the ultimate decision about whether to prorogue Parliament to delay a vote of non-confidence in the house and allow Mr. Harper to maintain the Prime Ministership. I see that she made this choice minutes ago: Parliament has been prorogued. She (the GG and democracy) retain important roles in this controversy though. First, Parliament has been prorogued until January 26, but this can (constitutionally) be extended for a much longer period if the crisis has not been resolved. Second, assuming the coalition's intentions remain solid through prorogation, she will still have to make a decision once a vote of non-confidence proceeds: she will have to decide whether to choose a new PM (Mr. Dion) or whether to return Parliament to the electorate for the fourth election in less than five years. Important decisions will be made, in our "Parliamentary democracy", by an unelected representative of the queen.
The answer to this political, indeed democratic, crisis is apparently to prorogue Parliament. The very recently elected legislature of Canada has now been shut down. If this is democracy in action, it demands a spectacularly nuanced view of the concept. And perhaps it is the correct solution. Far more Canadians did not vote for any party at all than voted for any of the parties in the House of Commons.

It may be, therefore, that no Prime Minister is the "right" democratic answer to this specific controversy. This argument can certainly be made, but it raises, once more, the entire point of this post: if that is democracy's bidding, we need to reevaluate what, if anything, democracy means. This has repercussions for our domestic political decisions and our international relations with purportedly "undemocratic" states around the world. It is time to embrace relativism - not only so that we can get along in our wonderfully diverse world outside of our borders, but so that we can settle on some acceptable outcome at home.

Canadian Pride in the World's Greatest Superpower

2007-05-22T00:00:00.000-06:00

Sitting in Logan airport, waiting for my flight home, and in between Travel Association of America commercials (in which various travel industry workers speak their way through a Bush speech about overcoming terrorism, with Bush’s version resonating in the background) as well as periodic news blurbs about some sick Texan who decided to microwave his 10-month old daughter, I was wondering what the hell I am doing down here and, worse, when I will be able to go to Canada without being a “visitor”; when I will be able to enjoy the greatest country in the world without having to dread departure.

I often talk about the great turn around in Canadian self-image. Up until our parents’ generation, our nation was plagued with an infamous underlying inferiority complex. Our generation, meanwhile, has developed an intense national pride. In part this lies in our fervent feelings of moral superiority over the world’s falling giant, the U.S.A. It derives also from having been raised with a variety of facts and information about how country.

We have been regaled with stories of our grandparent’s exceptional bravery in the World Wars, unmatched around the world for their reputations as selfless and courageous defenders of freedom. We’ve been taught that we are the only nation in the world to engage in every U.N. peacekeeping mission. We know that this is the greatest country in the world, and we have been told this as often as not by the U.N. in the last couple of decades. All we have to do is look around to recognize the outstanding beauty and wonder of our environment. And Canada is blessed with a caring people who are committed to the health, safety, and success of our fellow citizen: whether this is witnessed in a conversation with a stranger in Trudeau airport as opposed to Logan, or a national poll demonstrating our overwhelming support for an expensive but universal and egalitarian health care system.

I am excited by our generation’s love and pride in this country. But we must also be cognizant of the great responsibility this carries. Nationalism often has a propensity for arrogance and even evil; this has been seen far too often in the super-powers of history and it remains recognizable today, perhaps as much or more than ever. Canada, of course, is in no danger of attaining super-power status. The greater concern, I foresee, is for our generation to sit on the laurels of our ancestors, to become subsumed with inflated self-importance, with the scourge of “Canadian comparative self-righteousness”, where we accept our relative moral-superiority to the U.S. as a success.

Fortunately the Canadians who came before us have given us the Canada that we know today – but Canada has so much to work for. Despite our ratification of Kyoto, we have never attempted (and now will not even pretend to attempt) to reach those targets: we will be unique among parties in the immensity of our failure to allay the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Despite our exceptional achievements and commitments to Rwanda, Bosnia, and now Afghanistan, we have followed the world lead in ignoring Darfur. Despite our world-leading position against Apartheid and in developing South Africa’s new constitution, we have lost clout in human rights by playing the U.S. lap-dog role and failing to ensure proper treatment of detainees in Afghanistan. Despite the great international Pearson challenge to attain foreign aid levels equivalent to 0.7% of GDP, Canada has fallen behind most of the developed world, again only worthy of self-applause when compared to America’s number.

The optimism that can be extracted from this state of affairs lies in the opportunity to effect change and to work towards a greater country and a better world. A part of my enthusiasm for attending school in the States was the excitement that goes with the challenges that nation’s problems present. The longer I am there, however, the more apparent it becomes that this once great beacon of freedom and democracy is rapidly plummeting into a lost cause. This leaves Canada in a fascinating era. We have the chance to retake our lead in moral authority and our traditional stance as a leader – not in military affairs, but in important causes like ridding the world of landmines. We have the chance to maintain our position of proximity with the U.S.: not to accept their foreign affairs or domestic screw-ups as our own, but to act as a bridge, to bring them away from their own demise and ignorance of the planet, to bring them into the fold of global improvement that is essential on so many of our fronts against evil (allaying global warming, mitigating species loss, opposing genocide for humanity’s sake and not strategic economic reasoning, ending the development of nuclear weapons, fighting over-population, disease and poverty in the developing world, etc.).

For these reasons, I pledge to devote my life and career to Canada. I cannot wait to return to my homeland, the place I miss every minute that I am gone. I have always been patriotic – everyone who knows me knows that “Canadian” is what I consider to be my greatest quality. But, I had no idea how important the True North was to me in such a fundamental way, and at the risk of sounding pompous and self-important, I do not think that any Canadian knows quite how amazing Canada is or how important “Canadian” is to our identity until you spent a significant amount of time abroad.

Maybe I am riddled with guilt for choosing an American education. Perhaps I regret that I failed to recognize that Canada’s commitment to multilateralism puts it in a better position to give me a well-rounded international education. But, either way, I know that when you miss something this bad it only makes sense to return. While I have to leave for another two years, the way to cope better next time is to bring a part of Canada that I love most back with me in September … and hope that the country can forgive me for borrowing her.

The Gas Price "Problem"

2007-05-21T23:56:00.000-06:00

It is amazing to watch CNN’s coverage of a congressional investigation of rising gas prices and observe this country’s severe disconnect with reality. Members of Congress cannot figure out “how [they] got themselves into this mess”. It seems that America’s obsession with market forces go only so far: when they have the fortuitous potential benefit of curving Americans’ dependence on fossil fuels for their god-granted U.S. lifestyles, the market becomes something that needs to be controlled.

Of course, the high gas prices are a direct consequence of the world’s exploding demand for a finite, non-renewable, and now quickly dwindling resource. In fact, it may even reflect some of the early (and inadequate) forces of regulation and taxation that are finally being set-up to dissuade the use of fuels that are detrimental to both local and global environments. When a commodity’s supply becomes limited relative to demand, or the industry becomes subject to sin-taxes and maybe even litigation for the problems they are causing to world health (including most recently in the U.S. a case against major oil companies for their contribution to Hurricane Katrina’s devastating strength), prices rise and the market has a widely lauded ability to encourage the development of alternatives that (allegedly) allow society to move beyond a dying, destructive dependence.

But oil and gas prices threaten American lifestyles. They have the potential to render the hundreds of millions of automobiles in the nation obsolete, and of leaving suburbanites stranded in their sprawling, fake-lake communities. So it has become incredibly politically appealing to talk about what can be done to undermine this beneficial effect, such that the anti-environmentalist movement coalesces against their old friend, the free-market system, for the benefit of their better friend, the oil industry.

So, the country’s leaders devote their energy to finding a way to fighting against the function of the market, to allow the public to continue its gas-guzzling habits, and sheltering the nation from the pressures that will force it to move towards the alternative energy sources of the future, so that when the need becomes even more apparent in two decades, the United States will be stuck in a decades-old economy and unable to compete in the world of Kyoto and innovation.

Sure enough, the next news clip on CNN reports on the record-driving travel plans of Americans for Memorial Day weekend. In true American-defiance-fashion, these embittered U.S. drivers will burn on with their internal-combustion engines, emboldened by their determination maintain the freedom of their SUVs and Hummers and facilitated by the cheapest gas prices in the world – because in the infamous displays of American exceptionalism, they fail to notice the rest of the world taking measures to supplement the market forces with severe taxation schemes to incentivize their citizens to turn off their CO2 spouts.

This post reflects two parallels of hypocrisy for me: the hypocrisy of someone who has flown 15 (about to be 16) times in the last year, and the hypocrisy of a Canadian who takes pride in its environmentalism because it compares itself to its Southern neighbour’s Texas-sized oil infatuation. We can take pride, however, in the knowledge that our politicians are not tackling the gas price “problem”. And we can commit ourselves to engaging in an alternative course to the world’s Epimetheus; North America has the pioneering history, but now we need to follow the pioneering innovation of the soon-to-be great European Prometheus.

When the sea rises over Manhattan, who sues the lawyers?

2007-02-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

It is truly unfortunate that politicians are so prone to ignorance, inaction, and stagnant gutlessness. It is also too bad that their ranks are so inundated with lawyers, though perhaps this is the same complaint. It is even more unfortunate that the leftovers are filled with economists and social scientists. I could think about it forever, but I cannot come up with a natural scientist turned politician and the world is sorely in need of scientific leaders.

Perhaps I am ranting at the wrong side of the coin. Maybe it is the scientists who need to get more involved politically. Unfortunately, there is really a mismatch between those apt to be politicians as opposed to scientists: whether it is because of the lonely nights in the lab or the years of obsession with minute details of molecules, neurons, and computer models, scientists are almost always charismatically disabled – maybe they could find a genetic cause.

Whatever the reason, the consequence is depressing: there is a massive divide between science and policy. The scientific method, the Hippocratic oath of the science profession, disallows a scientist from ever asserting a “theory” with 100% confidence. We all know this, but somehow we forget it. The “Theory of Evolution” cannot logically be disputed by anyone, but it remains a theory and will forever: the scientific method demands it.

So, when scientists say that there is a greater than 90% probability that man is causing the global warming phenomenon that we are experiencing, that is truly remarkable – for any practical purposes, it should be taken as certainty. For some reason, however, policy makers do not seem to understand this. I do not enjoy referring to our politicians as ignorant idiots, but I refuse to accept that the alternative is true: that they are maliciously leading us towards certain (though gradual) disaster because of their morbidly shortsighted self-interest. So, lets give them the benefit of the doubt: they are stupid.

As hopeless dumb asses, however, you would think that they would defer to the vast majority of scientists (and the only ones of any respectability who publish in peer reviewed journals anymore) on complex scientific issues like global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) even tried to make it easy for them last Friday, by releasing the very shortened version of their scientific report specifically for policy makers (the IPCC evidently recognized the idiocy that they were up against). So, why do they leave grave and real warnings unheeded?

Well, it just so happens that among their ranks are a few exceptionally savvy, but unfortunately pro-economic growth politicos with very loud voices and very wealthy (i.e. powerful) friends. So, I am always so curious about what drives these people, what leads them to ignore the science, how could they possibly choose to make the decisions they do – what leads them to the belief that they can ignore the people who actually know?

It amazes me that in 2007 I am still able to find great examples of the sort of right wing, anti-scientific, anti-intellectual ignorance that has dominated our policy-making positions for too long. But alas, on CBC on Monday, Ezra Levant (a lawyer… and co-founder of the Western Standard magazine (my Alberta heart swells with pride)) decided to denounce what he, in his scientific wisdom, has decided is junk science. He explained that Canadians will no longer accept “the fact that the number one global warming gas is water vapor, which is 97% of it; the fact that over 90% of the CO2 is naturally occurring.” So, “don’t trouble people with those details.”

Now, I like to think that Canadians can grasp these facts and also have the additional intelligence to believe the scientists and recognized that these facts have absolutely no bearing on the issue at hand. Mr. Levant is right, greenhouse gases are naturally occurring. In fact, their state of homeostasis on the planet has provided a perfectly equilibrated setting for our wonderful life-promoting temperatures – without them, far too much solar heat, in the form of infrared radiation, would escape the planet and we might as well join the long-lost planet Pluto.

Of course the very problem is that this natural homeostasis is being drastically affected by humans. When we increase CO2 (we have actually caused a 35% increase since the beginning of the industrial evolution, so I do not know where 90% comes from), we throw the whole balance out of whack and temperatures rise. We do not need to be the “majority” source of CO2 for our impact to be significant and disastrous. This is not a difficult concept for Canadians, so I do not quite understand why it is for so many Canadian conservatives. With the 97% figure, Mr. Levant is able to twist wording to his advantage: water represents 97% of the greenhouse gases, but it is not 97% of the greenhouse gas effect, because some greenhouse gases have a stronger heat capturing ability than others (water is very weak). So, CO2 has a much larger effect, and even worse is methane (whose concentration in the atmosphere is also anthropogenically inflated). Therefore, if you understand that our CO2 emissions would still have an effect on global temperatures despite Mr. Levant’s facts, and if you are Canadian, then you have not only proven him wrong about the intelligence of our people, but you have demonstrated to him that he is one of the few Canadians who actually does not grasp the facts.

Nevertheless, Mr. Levant is unfortunately much more vocal and powerfully connected than most Canadians: in fact, he is a nearly incessant proponent of our current prime minister and government. Oddly, he is currently arguing against Mr. Harper: but only his newfound greening on climate issues. He is advocating a stance by the Conservatives that is strong in rhetoric, but weak in substance (much like the Liberal record on climate change). He says that because the Canadian electorate cannot be convinced of his “facts”, Canada’s Conservatives, which purportedly have a monopoly on rationality in this country, should pander to us lowly, environmental Canadian idiots with small, token gestures to appease us, and move on. We are sniveling, irrational children who cannot understand that every currently publishing scientist is wrong – therefore, when we ask for the candy store, Harper should give us a lollipop to shut us up, so that he can go back to the discussion at the adult table: it’s the economy, stupid.

Which is the real, underlying problem of our reluctance to tackle climate change. Our nation’s leaders all have an obsession with GDP growth and economic expansion. They fail to recognize that GDP is not a decent indicator of quality of life in a country whatsoever (and in fact can be the opposite: for instance, GDP rises when major natural disasters occur and people are killed and infrastructure is destroyed, because of the great expansion in business that results in the construction, emergency, and health efforts), and also fail to realize that continuous economic expansion is not possible in a closed system (of course, you would not expect thermodynamics to be a political idiot’s strong suit). Unfortunately, this frame of mind is unlikely to change: I have come to realize that our policy makers are destined to remain of the Homo economicus species variety of humans, probably because a legal education (I have come to discover) is so drenched in economic theory (a subject for further discussion) and so centered on money as the indicator of all human worth and happiness.

Which brings me back to blaming the ills of the world on lawyers.

Canucko-Yankeean Distinctions

2007-02-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

I have decided to start a series on my observed differences between the United States and Canada, a widespread phenomenon that is sometimes underestimated, but that I happen to take a lot of pride in. The intention is not to highlight Canadian superiority, but the tendency for superiority-in-fact will make this difficult to avoid (along with my – now evident – personal biases).

The overall breadth of distinctions will hopefully provide a commentary on the reality of my new favorite Canadian slogan:

“Canada works better in practice than in theory.”

I feel that my experience away from the True North Strong and Free has really accented the truth of this statement for me. America, in so many ways, has a certain foundational, ideological, and inherent greatness, perhaps best exemplified by its strong Constitution (though this is merely an example of theoretical greatness, and one among many). Canada, on the other hand, seems to excel in practice – or so goes the theory.

The image of the eagle may have rhetorical value as an awe-inspiring specimen of majestic flawlessness, but we all know that the quiet, plodding, hard-working nature of the beaver leads to much more significant accomplishment: just compare the pathetic eagle’s nest to the impressive beaver dam. (Despite the ungainliness of this metaphor, it’s worth continuing: eagles were once endangered in the U.S., only to be returned to significant numbers in the late ‘90’s. Unbeknownst to Americans, this was possible because of a program of transferring eagles from Nova Scotia to the U.S.).

Although the collection can promise only to be a montage of random thoughts I happen to come to on the matter, there is a certain improbable prospect that it might demonstrate or refute the aforementioned “slogan” (or truism).

Anyway, feel free to suggest your own entries.

Evil or Ignorant?

2007-02-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

As we watch right-wing politicians drop out of the competition to be the most ignorant of good science, let us try not to forget the long denials of these same politicians that have put us more than 10 years behind the eight ball on tackling the most threatening issue facing humanity, and our planet.

The conservative leaders of the United States and Canada have finally accepted the existence of this phenomenon and that it is caused, or at least severely aggravated, by our effects. For some reason, it required massive popular sentiment for them to overcome their obsession with ignoring the majority of good science. Their stubbornness in maintaining their increasingly ignorant positions led them to a pathetic dependence on the half-baked opinions of a minority of scientists who have not published in any peer-reviewed journals in several years.

Let us not forget that they were wrong, that they promoted this wrongness in to the public, and they held to this wrongness in a fashion that recklessly (or perhaps intentionally) put the world community in a far more difficult position to tackle the problem.

As they finally denounce ignorance and pretend that they were never so stupid (or malicious) as to argue with the most and the best scientists in the world for 15 years, we need to remember what they have done: they could easily have accepted the science, and begun the mitigation that is necessary to preserve some semblance of our Earth. In the meantime, they might have encouraged the sort of technology that will be necessary for our future energy needs; rather than fall competitively behind in these great, burgeoning, and sustainable economies to come.

Instead, they have mortgaged our future for their own temporary economic benefit and that of their industrial and energy-sector friends (and sponsors). Never mind the great financial debt that will be unloaded on the shoulders of the youth to pay off: imagine the huge ecological debt that will burden us and untold numbers of subsequent generations. They claimed that the science was too uncertain to cause such substantial harm to our nations’ economies. This was the prudent route, not to act to quickly, we were told – and in this delay, the cost will be much more dear… and the most damning fact is that they were told, with a nearly unified scientific voice, that this would be so. The question is not whether they can be forgiven for making a singular wrong decision: it is whether their incessant choices that condemned us to severe and terrifying consequences were knowingly malevolent or just extraordinarily stupid; i.e., was (is?) the right-wing evil or uncontrollably ignorant?

Kyoto will come and go for the United States and Canada: the U.S. because they failed to ratify, Canada because we will fail to comply. This was our great multilateral opportunity. The conservative forces bellowed that it was insufficient – a ridiculous criticism when their alternative was to do nothing. Kyoto offered great symbolism as a jumping-off point: if successful, it would demonstrate the promising potential of future, more “useful” measures.

So, do Canada and the U.S. not now have the moral responsibility to take their own measures and catch up with the rest of the developed world (never mind the undeveloped world at whose expense this will really come: they will have to find a way out of extreme poverty and hunger in ways that do not release greenhouse gases)?

The U.S. Secretary of Energy flatly rejected the idea of unilateral limits on emissions: “We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world, so it’s really got to be a global solution.” Kyoto was a global solution: this administration seems to forget that, while also forgetting that as only 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. contributes a quarter of its GHG emissions, number one on the list of nations.

The only question left for science is how quickly and to what degree doom will arise. There are many questions for our politicians. Will they choose to acknowledge that they are not scientists and that they cannot choose the science that agrees with their wallets and ambitions for power? Will they accept the wave of technological change and bring us into a new economy that will allow our nations to prosper from foresight? Will they prevent 20-foot rises in sea levels, the complete flooding of island nations and low-lying coastal regions, drastic weather events that threaten to bring immense disasters, massive draught and famine?

So, as we go forth from here and finally have almost everyone in agreement that something has to be done, let us hold those who put us in this position to a higher standard. Let us expect them to undertake the difficult choices and changes that they have forced upon us.

When Harper Breaks a Promise, the Country is Better Off

2007-01-16T17:05:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Harper has charged himself with “fixing the fiscal imbalance”, a cliché term designed to sway those voters with the greatest provincial pride. The idea is that more money should be given to the provinces from the federal government, because of any of a number of reasons: reduce federal government budget and spending, decentralize fiscal power in the country, grant the provinces the resources they need to deal with their jurisdictional responsibilities, etc.

For many, this sounds great. However, the entire notion ignores a key element: the provinces are free to exercise whatever taxing schemes they choose and to cull their revenue just as the feds do (though this is not constitutional, the federal government has granted such powers). Yes, the provinces do carry the greatest burden of social programs, including the two heavy weights: education and health care. But, the provinces have every right to increase their taxes and scream bloody murder at the feds for keeping their taxes too high and forcing the feds, politically, to reduce their tax revenues. So, what is the real reason for “addressing the fiscal imbalance”: why does the federal government tax more than they need, in order to give the money to provinces who have their own taxing power?

Well, as I see it, there are three purposes, two of which are political. First, it allows federal governments in power to buy votes from provinces. Giving money to provincial governments for greater provincial self-control is very popular in several provinces across the country, notably Quebec and Alberta. Harper is certainly playing off of this sentiment to amass favour with Quebecois (though Alberta, with its immense wealth, has grown less and less concerned with federal money). Second, it vests power over policy in the federal government: the Chretien-Klein saber-rattling of the last decade demonstrated how federal money can have strings attached, most notably forcing provinces to conform to the Canada Health Act in order to receive funding (another example of overriding the constitution: provinces have constitutional jurisdiction over health care, but federal money can often speak louder than mere founding documents).

The third reason is equalization. By not leaving provincial governments to their own collection of revenue, economic disparity between regions of the nation can be relaxed. The federal transfer payments, whereby federal money is transferred to provinces, is based on a complicated formula that considers several economic factors. The result is that federal revenue is given directly to some provinces, the have-not provinces, without any strings attached. In recent history, this means that Ontario and Alberta, and usually B.C. (though they slipped out of the “have” province status under their NDP reign, they recently slipped back into the net payer column), are net losers from the program, while the other provinces benefit.

No money is taken directly from any province: instead, the money that is “transferred” comes from the federal coffers. The net effect, however, is, of course, that the residents of all provinces are more highly taxed in order to fund the program - and those of the non-beneficiary provinces do not see it returned to their provincial governments (as the beneficiaries do).

The program’s rationale is that it spreads some of the disparity of wealth across the country. It is, frankly, a comparatively small amount in terms of gross governmental revenue, and is not intended to afford Nova Scotians the great prosperity of Alberta; it’s scope is limited to helping provide at least comparable social services (such as education and health care) across the nation. Any Albertan who thinks that they have some God-granted monetary right to the oil that their province happens to be lying on should be immediately reminded of the fish sent West from the Maritimes during the dirty thirties. Under different circumstances, we have all benefited from transnational altruism.

However, equalization payments have always been controversial – and now they are coming under renewed attack. One factor that has been kept out of the calculations has been, specifically, non-renewable natural resources. This largely benefits Alberta, Saskatchewan, and now Newfoundland. Alberta, however, will never receive any funding under the program, so the biggest opponents to including these revenues are the other two. Under a new proposal that is ostensibly a part of tackling the “fiscal imbalance” (but is really just a more accurate translocation of economic prosperity), Harper is looking to back out of a campaign promise made largely to Newfies, and is poised to include 50% of non-renewable resource revenue in the calculation.

This will be met with great howls from both Newfoundland and Saskatchewan. The promise arose out of a brief attempt by the Martin Liberals to enact a similar modification, which lead to an altercation that included the maple leaf being lowered across Newfoundland at the command of Premier Danny Williams. The issue became a hot potato, politically, in Newfoundland. In the subsequent election, candidates scrambled to promise not to include the revenue in the measure. Now, Harper is looking to back out of an explicit campaign pledge.

This certainly smells foul with hypocrisy: Conservatives have long decried broken Liberal campaign promises. It is a similar smell for the Harper government, it reminds one of Halloween when it was announced that income trusts would, as it turned out, be taxed. And the idiocy of the promise itself certainly deserves derision. However, the overall result of this broken promise has another similarity to the income trust decision: breaking the promise is better for the country.

Someone needs to explain why we would provide incentive to provinces to gain revenue from non-renewable (read: non-sustainable) resources. These revenues have the exact same effect on the economies of these provinces as those that are attained by manufacturing or agriculture or hydroelectric power. The only difference, I can conceive of, is that non-renewable resources are generally much worse for the Earth, they are, by definition, unsustainable as revenues for the province, and they are received largely by chance and the generosity of nature. The exclusion of these revenues reminds me of Canada’s exclusion of gambling winnings from taxation: why would we tax fortuitous Lotto 6/49 jackpots when we have the income of hard-working Canadians to feed off of? Analogously, why would we include the happenstance resource wealth of a couple of provinces when we obviously want to deter the kinds of long-term, sustainable industries that will employ Canadians for generations to come?

The greatest thing about a promise being broken is that it tends not to be done lightly or for no reason – people, or at least the media, tend to notice. The upshot is that breaking the promise tends to be the right decision for Canada; much like keeping the GST and remaining in NAFTA were good broken red book promises. Interestingly, we see both sides here. If Stephen Harper really tackles the “fiscal imbalance” as he promises, all that this would accomplish is to supplement provincial revenue (which, if the provinces so decided, could be sufficient through their own taxation) and accomplish a major conservative goal to tie-up future federal revenues: politically, it would be hard for future federal governments to either reduce payments to provinces or to increase taxes, confining them to a reduced power. But in breaking the equalization promise (equalization, a horizontal federalism notion, being distinct from fiscal imbalance, which is concerned with vertical federalism), Harper is doing well: he is creating a more accurate and fair basis for spreading the wealth of the nation.

- - - - - The Economy Today at the Cost of Everything Tomorrow: Anti-Environmentalist Idiocy - - - - - Preface (Part 0): Rot & Rhetoric

2006-05-20T16:10:00.000-06:00

When I was a little pre-teen environmentalist, I was engaged in an argument about the impending detriment of global warming with a middle-aged professional. This, in itself, was no problem; I have always relished the intense exchanges of a good debate and this one was especially engaging.

Yet, for almost ten years now, this discussion has replayed in my head – in actual fact, I can seriously claim that it has haunted me, because of one premise that my opponent turned his case on. He reiterated a lecture he had recently heard from a professional speaker that argued that even if global warming existed in fact, the fear of rising ocean levels is erroneous because ice is less dense than water and therefore when the ice melts, the net volume of the ocean will ultimately decrease.

Even as a 12 year old, I got the impression that this claim was wrought with an unscientific line of reasoning – it had the aura of the same kind of logic used in the “science” of economics (to paraphrase David Suzuki, who has also been frustrated with the input of economists in the global warming debate: Economics is not science. It does not use the scientific method and it is not bound to the rigorous requirements of proof that science is held to). I think that this was my first exposure to the usurpation of real scientific findings by right-wing reactionaries who are recalcitrant in their refusal to acknowledge that the very nature of our economy is putting our future on Earth in peril. Since this time I have heard dozens of these arguments being made either by economists, conservative politicians, or scientists employed by the world’s biggest polluters.

While I remember asserting that the global scourge of climate change does NOT boil down only to rising sea water, unfortunately I did not have the understanding of physics to realize that the argument that sea levels would actually fall was, in fact, idiotic. It does not take a physicist to understand that the weight of any ice flow would displace the same amount of water in its solid state as it would in its liquid state. Of course, the ice that exists underwater would have a smaller volume than water; this is mandated by the lower density of ice. However, that volume difference, between the underwater portion of the ice flow and its ensuing existence as water, is the same as the volume of water that will be added when the ice ABOVE water is melted. This is a necessary aspect of how weight, floating on water, displaces the water underneath: the same mass of water or ice will make no difference on the level of the container water, such that ice flow melting will have no effect on sea levels (not, in fact, decrease them as suggested).

I regret to this day that I also did not realize how conveniently ignorant the argument was: while the ice that is already in the sea will have no effect on the height of the ocean, the H2O that is locked over land in solid forms will raise the seas dramatically were it to melt and flow, ultimately, into the world’s oceans. I was too immature to recognize the great fallacies of this very educated man’s contention; luckily, my dad, who is much less educated (and holds a much less valued position in society reflected in his much reduced earning potential), had the sense and logic to recognize that, despite the ostensible soundness of the argument, it was actually baseless and foolish rhetoric from a person who recklessly promotes economic growth at any cost to life on our planet.This post serves simply as an example of the ridiculous contentions and rhetoric spewed by opponents of measures we must take to tackle climate change. These people profess to be advocating against senseless international accords that, if carried out, will cause mass stagnation in the world’s economies. I cannot quite tell why they so readily and so frequently abandon logic and shun scientific findings; whether it is because they are so blinded by their intense conservative, anti-hippy ideology, or if their great financial interests in a heavily industrial and excessively hydrocarbon-dependent society have commandeered their sense of reason and moral consciousnesses.

What I do know is that the foundations and structures of their arguments are so flawed and have even been systematically proven incorrect on so many levels and from so many angles that any less powerful of an interest group would have, by now, crumbled under the rot and excessive weight of their incredibly unrealistic and increasingly rebutted contentions.

The debate on this issue is so complex and touches on so many diverse specific disagreements that a single article cannot endeavour to engage them all. Instead, let this be the harbingering preface to a series of editorials that seeks to academically dismantle, issue by issue, a reactionary ideological structure that should no longer exist in a world where climate change is indisputably occurring and it threatens every aspect of our lives… including the economies that these recalcitrant old men (both “old” and “men” should be taken as psychological symbols of the types of people I’m talking about and not actual, written-in-stone qualities of these people) claim to protect.

Who Needs Optimism When Life’s This Good?

2006-03-01T23:06:00.000-07:00

At the risk of turning this blog briefly into a notice board of personal musings, I just wanted to express the fact that, every now and then, we need to recognize how good life generally is, despite the insubstantial complaints we often sound and the way we take so many great rights and privileges for granted. We need to be thankful for life's little joys.

Tonight, after recovering with a torn ligament in my knee, I have strengthened my leg with my brace enough to take my dog out for a good walk, for the first time in five weeks. That is surely the longest period, in the twelve years that she has been my best friend, that I have not enjoyed this most special time with Babes.

This time has made me realize just how much I cherish this simple pleasure. And, perhaps it is only the endorphins speaking, released from my first exercise in so long, but I am profoundly thankful for everything that allows Babes and I to share our walks. I am glad that the climate is not so destroyed, so that the weather is seldom too extreme to disallow us from venturing out, even if her paws were frozen with ice balls. I am happy that the air is clean enough outside and that when we return thirsty, the water is pure enough to drink. I am thankful that our food is not so full of prions, or flu viruses, or carcinogens that we are too weak, diseased, and debilitated to move. I am content that there are still enough jack rabbits left for Babes to sniff out and herd. I am grateful that the Alberta government and some insurance have paid for my knee brace so that I don’t wreck my leg worse in gopher holes and I am comfortable knowing that if I rip some cartilage, my black and white buddy won’t leave my side out in the fields where we stroll.

And I am forever overjoyed that someone loves me so unconditionally and accepts me as completely as my sweet old mutt, even after I haven’t been able to take her out and have scarred her with freight by hobbling around with big and daunting metal sticks.

To Babes, my best friend, who makes everything in life that much better.

Parliamentary Prostitutes

2006-02-07T00:18:00.000-07:00

I can’t even count how many times I’ve heard Conservative supporters put Belinda Stronach down since May of last year, when she switched to the Liberals, saving their government from defeat. Considering the end result the Conservatives received by waiting 9 months for an election, perhaps she should be thanked instead. But this is beside the point. She switched sides. I have no major problem with this, and despise the NDP idea to hold a by-election for anyone who changes teams: what a waste of money. However, the unfortunate thing was that she was concurrently given a government portfolio and it was fairly evident that personal ambition was the real incentive, not her moral revulsion to the Tories.

Well, on January 23, Stronach’s switch over yielded her a spot on the opposition bench, and although she was resoundingly reaffirmed by her constituents, it is unlikely that she could politically pull off another colour change. She got what she deserved.

What she did not deserve, however, were rude, sexist, demeaning remarks made against her, and the demonizing of her character as the cause of all of the Conservative Party’s failures. In reality, of course, the Conservative Party has issues that are founded way deeper than any one MP, obvious from the paltry minority they achieved after the most public scandal in Canadian history – a result that they seem to be ecstatic about.

The worst of it all, now, is that the Conservatives have taken on their own ship jumper. David Emerson may be highly qualified and may have switched at a less controversial time. Nevertheless, his movement from his campaigning for the Liberals, putting down the Conservatives forcefully in speeches, to the new Conservative Minister of International Trade seems wrought in ambition itself. Harper’s alleged reasoning is that Vancouver needs representation in government. This seems relatively legitimate. But he also knows that his party may need every vote they can get, and he just partook in pulling a “Belinda” – after griping over her move for almost a year.

The moral of the story is that I don’t really care if someone switches sides. If it is that big of an issue, they’ll be trounced in the next election, and if not, well… the voters are never wrong (or so I hear). But the hypocrisy of complaining about someone’s actions as the bane of your entire political existence and the root of all your failings, then partaking in the same action, is disgusting.

Stronach’s shift was maligned by Harper as “just ambition” and that there was “no grand principle” behind it – I struggle to see the difference with Emerson. Far worse than this, though, Conservative supporters in Ontario and Alberta actually referred to her as “a dipstick-an attractive one”, and “a little rich girl who is basically whoring herself out to the Liberals.”

I guess I just won’t be happy until someone belittles Harper by suggesting that the fancy hair on his head is to make up for what little is inside, or exposes Emerson for the gigolo that he is. Hey, maybe sexism is one of those root problems that cause conservatives so much trouble appealing to Canadians. Or maybe double standards, or even hypocrisy. For some reason this never occurs to them, so maybe it’s ignorance. No… it must be the one MP who, obviously having no moral fiber whatsoever, switched sides – at least Conservatives would never allow that.

An Eternal Voice of Peace

2006-02-02T11:53:00.000-07:00

Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995)

In continuing my apparent obsession with amazing, eloquent, and powerful speeches, I am now posting one by a man whose existence as a beacon of peace is much larger and much greater than any person could be on their own. It is depressing to think of how the world could be better were he here today, and yet optimistic to realize that his great intentions and inspiring brilliance, having arisen once, could arise once again in another great leader.

Yitzhak Rabin first became Prime Minister of Israel in 1974, but resigned soon after because his wife held a US Dollar bank account, which was forbidden in Israel at the time. He continued in politics, heading the Ministry of Defence for a long time in the late 1980’s, and at this time he enacted severe measures in attempting to break the first Intifada, saying at one point that they “Should break [the rioting Palestinians’] arms and legs.”

But Rabin was elected Prime Minister again in 1992, and underwent a transformation that is reminiscent (in a prequel fashion) of Ariel Sharon’s change from the “Butcher of Lebanon” to the Prime Minister who ordered the forced evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. Through the secretive 1993 Oslo Accords he afforded partial control of the Gaza Strip and West Bank to a newly created Palestinian Authority, an effort that lead to being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 along with Yasser Arafat (whose chief negotiator in the talks was Mahmoud Abbas, current President of the Palestinian National Authority) and Shimon Peres (Sharon’s Foreign Minister and successor).

Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, by Yigal Amir, an Israeli right-winger who was angrily opposed to Rabin’s Oslo commitments. While his death hastened the halt of the peace process and the political rise of the Israeli Right, the terrible consequences of a horrible act, he is now a national symbol of peace in Israel.

At the signing ceremony for the Declaration of Principles (DOP) that came out of the Oslo negotiations, the Palestinians and Israelis recognized each other for the first time in public, first with a famous handshake (in which Clinton tactfully ensured that Arafat would not be able to kiss Rabin, the common Palestinian greeting), then with powerful and motivating rhetoric through their speeches. Posted here is Yitzhak Rabin’s speech in its entirety.

When he addresses the Palestinians directly in the third paragraph the passion for cooperation that his words express make it seem that this speech was given in another world – but it was actually just over a dozen years ago, September 13, 1993, on the South Lawn of the White House. Rabin was years before his time in understanding that Israel’s security was worsened, not strengthened, by controlling the home of an angry oppressed minority. He also recognized that to be a real democracy, the right to vote would have to extend to the people in the controlled territories of Gaza and the West Bank, but that the Palestinian birthrate (much higher than the Israeli) would lead to the loss of the Jewish state within a couple of generations.

At a time when Hamas is assuming control of the Palestinian legislature and there is an uncertain transition in Israeli politics, it is heartening to hear a voice from a time of great prospect for peace.

---------------------------------------------------

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

This signing of the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles, here today, is not so easy neither for myself, as a soldier in Israel's wars, nor for the people of Israel... not to the Jewish people in the Diaspora who are watching us now with great hope, mixed with apprehension. It is certainly not easy for the families of the victims of the wars, violence, terror, whose pain will never heal. For the many thousands who have defended our lives with their own - and even sacrificed their lives for our own - for them, this ceremony has come too late. Today, on the eve of an opportunity for peace, and perhaps an end of vioence and wars, we remember each and every one of them with everlasting love.

We have come from Jerusalem, the ancient and eternal capital of the Jewish people. We have come from an anguished and grieving land. We have come from a people, a home, a family, that has not known a single year not a single month in which mothers have not wept for their sons. We have come to try and put an end to the hostilities, so that our children, our children's children, will no longer experience the painful cost of war, violence and terror. We have come to secure their lives and to ease the sorrow and the painful memories of the past to hope and pray for peace.

Let me say to you, the Palestinians: We are destined to live together on the same soil, in the same land. We, the soldiers who have returned from battle stained with blood, we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our eyes, we who have attended their funerals and cannot look into the eyes of their parents, we who have come from a land where parents bury their children, we who have fought against you, the Palestinians -

We say to you today in a loud and a clear voice: Enough of blood and tears. Enough. We have no desire for revenge. We harbor no hatred towards you. We, like you, are people people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love, to live side by side with you in dignity, in empathy, as human beings, as free men. We are today giving peace a chance, and saying again to you: Enough. Let us pray that a day will come when we all will say: Farewell to the arms.

We wish to open a new chapter in the sad book of our lives together, a chapter of mutual recognition, of good neighborliness, of mutual respect, of understanding. We hope to embark on a new era in the history of the Middle East. Today, here in Washington, at the White House, we will begin a new reckoning in relations between peoples, between parents tired of war, between children who will not know war.

President of the United States, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our inner strength, our high moral values, have been derived for thousands of years from the Book of Books, in one of which, Koheleth, we read:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.'

Ladies and Gentlemen, the time for peace has come.

In two days, the Jewish people will celebrate the beginning of a new year. I believe, I hope, I pray, that the new year will bring a message of redemption for all peoples: a good year for you, for all of you. A good year for Israelis and Palestinians. A good year for all the peoples of the Middle East. A good year for our American friends, who so want peace and are helping to achieve it, for Presidents and members of previous administrations, especially for you, President Clinton, and your staff, for all citizens of the world: may peace come to all your homes.
In the Jewish tradition, it is customary to conclude our prayers with the word 'Amen'. With your permission, men of peace, I shall conclude with words taken from the prayer recited by Jews daily, and whoever of you volunteer, I would ask the entire audience to join me in saying 'Amen':
"He maketh peace in His high places. He shall make peace for us and for all of Israel. And they shall say: Amen."(translation from Hebrew)

Prior Posts

2006-01-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

The previous seven posts are all election related, and frankly do not hold much water anymore! However, I don't have much time to write right now, so this post is simply to direct you to the links on the right hand side, to read previous posts: anything below "How Canadians Support Our Troops". The speeches of RFK are a personal favourite!

Green Party Wins Sierra Club Analysis

2006-01-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

The Sierra Club of Canada has released its "Analysis of Environmental Platforms of the Federal Parties" for this 2006 campaign. Here are the scores for each major party (out of a possible 103), with the whole document accessible as a pdf: http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/vote-canada/2006/scc-vote-2006.pdf. The following are the complete "comments on platform" sections for each party, excluding the Bloc Quebecois, because I continue to refuse to consider them on this site:

The Green Party of Canada
The Green Party has substantially improved its platform since 2004. The policy proposals are, for the most part, well conceived and grounded in much of the existing policy debate. Although the structure of this analysis has no extra points to award, it should be noted the Greens also oppose the use of federal subsidies for the seal hunt, support phasing out nuclear power, establishing an Index of Well-Being to augment the GDP, ratifying the Cartagena Protocol and eliminating harmful aquaculture practices. The Green Party would also make the right to a safe environment, clean air and safe drinking water a Charter right. The only negative comment is that the platform intrudes into provincial jurisdiction on issues of forest policy (such as banning clear-cutting), reflecting that the policy capacity of the Party is still evolving.

The New Democratic Party
The NDP Platform includes a number of innovative and sensible suggestions. The most detailed and evolved section of the platform is in the area of climate change and energy. The platform has improved over the 2004 platform in that there is more attention paid to nature issues, national parks and non-urban environmental concerns. Some issues are simply missing, but would likely be supported by the NDP traditionally. Other issues that are worthy of note include action on aquaculture and establishing a National Conservation Fund for National Wildlife Areas, currently woefully under-funded. The NDP platform explicitly supports the construction of an east-west power grid. The proposal to establish new building codes is perhaps misstated, but appears to intrude into provincial jurisdiction.

The Liberal Party
This platform is a significant improvement over that released in 2004, which consisted of only one new commitment, expansion of investments in wind energy. The strongest environmental commitments of the 2006 Liberal Party Platform, as in the case of the NDP platform, are in the area of energy and climate change. The weakness is that the same platform that pledges action on climate change and greenhouse gas reductions also encourages increased greenhouse gas emissions from the Athabasca Tar Sands, trumpets the potential in offshore oil and gas and supports the Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline, in a different chapter of the platform (at page40). Not part of the template for grading, and on the positive side of the ledger is support for International Polar Year.

The Conservative Party
The Conservative Party platform has a number of good ideas on specific issues, particularly for the fishery, including a reference to sustainable harvesting. It should be noted the Conservative Party explicitly commits to maintaining the New Deal for Cities for the current five years, although expanding it to include highways and other projects outside the current commitments to only sustainable green infrastructure. The transit pass tax exemption is a good idea, as well, and qualified as a "tax shifting" notion. The transit tax deduction proposal is, however, problematic as proposed. In the Conservative Party fiscal plan it is listed as costing $2 billion over five years, with the source of funds identified as the Climate Fund. The entire Climate Fund, announced last April within Project Green, is $1 billion over five years, so it appears the Conservatives would cancel that programme, which is aimed at delivering 100 megatonnes of carbon reduction. The transit pass deduction is estimated to have an insignificant impact on carbon reductions. The question of the source of the other $1 billion in the Conservative transit pass deduction is unanswered.

Clearly, the Conservative position on Kyoto and its refusal to comply with Canada’s legally binding international commitments makes its platform unacceptable.

The Conservative Party commitment to enshrining private property rights in the Charter is a source of concern. The private property rights provision of the U.S. Bill of Rights has been used in many state legislatures to overturn environmental laws, such as those to protect wetlands and stop shoreline erosion.

NDP Hypocrisy: Strategic Voting, Proportional Representation, and the Environment

2006-01-17T00:26:00.000-07:00

The NDP is given high accolades for running a tight and issue-based campaign. It is unfortunate for them and for clean, positive democracy that they have been left behind in the Conservative/Liberal battle that has consumed the nation since the beginning of the New Year. As the Conservatives have pulled away from the Liberals, though, and demonstrated their confidence and calmness as national leaders, the NDP has worked itself back into the political discourse of the country, perhaps as a more effective opposition than the Liberals.

What is most refreshing about the NDP and its campaign voice is its presence as an “outsider”, throwing stones from beyond the central, established political leaders. From this position, they can speak on issues relatively apolitically, truly concerning their platform with the best interest of the nation. Unfortunately, though, the NDP also positions itself as an established “third choice”, a party that belongs on the traditional political spectrum. In this capacity, the NDP sacrifices its idealist position: the rhetoric that it uses to bring itself into the mainstream consciences of Canadian voters contradicts the stones it throws from beyond the mainstream.

One very obvious example of NDP hypocrisy in the current campaign, that has not been identified by any pundit that I have heard or read, concerns the issue of strategic voting. The NDP electoral support is subject to the whim of a large set of individuals who find themselves in substantial agreement with the values and beliefs of the party, but are so concerned about a Conservative government that they are susceptible to Paul Martin’s calls for strategic voting. This occurred in the last federal election and it appears that strategic voting will again play a role this Monday. Obviously afraid that PM PM’s plea will funnel a landslide of support from the orange side, the NDP has rightfully expressed great disdain for the Liberals’ assumption that they are the strategic home of all leftist Canadians. It is truly unfortunate that voters can be swayed from their ideological home to fit under a tent that does not speak to their wishes as voters, and the NDP should be upset about Martin’s fear tactic.

However, the NDP’s aversion to strategic voting is only deep-rooted in their convictions when the practice will hurt them. Often on the same day as you can find Jack Layton on national news condemning the attempts of Paul Martin to scare far-left voters to the Grits, you can find any of a number of B.C. NDPers complaining that the Green Party’s support in the province could, and do, hurt their efforts in several ridings. This is blatant hypocrisy because it demonstrates the same arrogance that the Liberals have when they assume that NDP voters belong with them.

When NDP candidates make such comments, they demonstrate their ignorance to the facts: that only about a third of Green Party votes are pulled from the left of the spectrum; the rest come from the centre and the right about evenly (it is no coincidence that the death of the Progressive Conservative Party lead to an enormous growth in Green Party support at the subsequent election). As mentioned before, the Green Party transcends the political spectrum, with strong beliefs in fiscal responsibility and a commitment to the elimination of the debt (so that it is not pushed on generations that are not responsible for it). Considering that most NDP voters, were there no New Democratic Party, would vote Liberal, it is even more obscene for the NDP to whine about Green Party support than for the Liberals to complain about losses to the NDP.

It is difficult to take a party seriously when their ideological stance is undermined by their flexibility, changing their minds to whatever benefits themselves. However, this is also the situation that you find when you look at their policy on proportional representation. The New Democratic Party is vocally supportive of a more proportional electoral system where the true will of the nation’s voters would be reflected in the composition of Parliament. However, the provincial counterparts of the federal party (which are actually quite connected, the NDP being far more affiliated with its provincial parties than the other two mainstream parties) that have been in power have never undertook democratic reforms to include some form of proportional representation. This includes current NDP governments in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and former governments in Ontario and B.C. In fact, in B.C., it took the Liberals to beat the NDP in order for the provincial electoral system to change.

So, why the contradiction? Well, when the NDP gains government provincially, they have benefited from our undemocratic first-past-the-post system that artificially inflates the victory of the winning party (much as how the Conservatives may get a majority with only 40% of the vote this election). Therefore, they chose not to introduce the reforms. Federally, the NDP would benefit greatly by proportional representation, because they are under-represented in Parliament due to their support that is spread across the country. In fact, in the last election, the NDP’s 15.7% would have given them 48 seats, a huge amount of power relative to their meager 19 MPs (only 6.7% of seats). So, once again, the convictions of the NDP fluctuate with what suits the best interests of the party, rather than the nation.

NDP hypocrisy carries over into its environment policy. While the NDP proclaims itself the best party for the environment and admonishes Green Party voters for weakening their potential to oppose poor Liberal. Their platform looks, on the surface, to be very strong on environment policy, however they are so invested in helping unions, whether forestry or auto production, that their platform could never unfold effectively if they were in government.

To demonstrate this inherent contradiction in the party, here are several facts. In Ontario, the NDP government supported the construction of the Darlington Nuclear Power Plant. The NDP government in B.C. supported the clear cutting of Clayoquot Sound’s ancient trees, leading to the largest mass-arrest in Canadian history, where all types of people, from students to grandmothers, who were opposing the clear cutting of the old growth forest, were arrested. The NDP Premier of BC later made the comment that “Environmentalists are the enemies of progress.” I am not sure how protecting unsustainable jobs that are held up by an industry that destroys nature can be seen as pursuing progress, but this seems to be the NDP’s greatest delusion.

In 2004, the federal party supported $100 million in subsidies to Ford and in March of 2005 they supported the Liberals’ $200 million subsidization of GM, ostensibly to protect Canadian Auto Worker (a huge union that controls much of the party) jobs. Of course, the inevitable fate of both of these companies means that any job saved is only temporary, susceptible to being lost unless the country pays your tax dollars to these huge (and reluctant to be environmentally sound) American companies again. The NDP also forced the resignation of Layton’s Chief of Staff, Rick Smith, because he opposed the brutal and cruel commercial seal hunt in Newfoundland (a practice that threatens to instigate a massive European boycott of all Canadian fishery products).

Most recently, the NDP catalyzed the fall of the federal government just before the most important conference to follow Kyoto, held in Montreal, putting its short-term political interests ahead of the long-term interests of the nation and the Earth.

All in all, the Conservatives are always trashed for their refusal to help the environment… but is it worse to put corporate interests ahead of nature than to put union interests ahead of it? In reality, both platforms will help old-school businesses stay alive in a world that should encourage the growth of innovative companies that have accepted the need for sustainability and environmental conservation. Instead, the NDP pays companies to keep Canadians temporarily employed in industries that are major players in the destruction of our planet.

It has been shown that the NDP presents two faces to important issues in our generation, yet they achieve a lot of support from our demographic. The only reason that they are able to do this is because the other two parties have such poor records in these matters that they cannot call on the NDP’s hypocrisy. It is time for the young electorate of Canada to become involved and informed politically, so that the NDP can’t just take their support for granted. This way, they can take a hard look at any of a number of parties that have their own merits; at least when the Conservatives oppose environmentalist measures and proportional representation they SAY that they oppose them. The NDP should not be allowed to establish itself as the harbinger of vital reforms when its record shows that it will inevitably adhere to the old-line policies of the mainstream parties, which have held back Canada for far too long.

Christian Right Assuring Us that Harper will Lead with His Faith?

2006-01-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

The following is a mass-mail out from someone who has access to the Conservative Party email lists. It is from the "National Council", and in specific someone calling themselves Don (pretending to be the Chair of the Conservative Party, Don Plett). I just thought that the entire public should have the opportunity to read the christian right's view and hope for Stephen Harper. It may surprise some people that the Canadian public wants to restore "the Christian values we all hold dear," [emphasis added] and that the christian right is downplaying the admission that Harper has "evolved" to be more socially progressive in order to appeal to the larger public. The email is trying to convince the voters that Harper is still a bible-thumping, gay-bashing wingnut, and make it appear that the message is from the upper echelon of the party. The fact that this mail-out, which easily could have been authentic before the beginning of the campaign, is fraudulant alludes to the success of this campaign in silencing its religious right (such as the Concerned Christians Canada).

Dear Fellow Conservatives,

These are exciting times. Here we are in the home stretch….on our way to victory inElection 2006! In just a few more days, our Leader, Stephen Harper will become the next Prime Minister of Canada!

As your Chair, I want to thank each and every one of you for your work in bringingus so close to the victory. During a campaign like this one, it is not always possible or wise to speak aboutevery detail of our plans. Don't be confused or upset by Stephen saying that he has "evolved". After all, winning is the name of this game.

When we form Government on Jan 23rd, be rest assured that we will not let you and your families down. As promised, all the issues that are precious to you will be dealt with. We will have the power to get on with repairing the social fabric of this country and restoring the Christian values we all hold dear.

Keep the faith, keep up the pressure and God Bless Canada.

Don

Notwithstanding Our Weak Constitution…

2006-01-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (CCRF, a.k.a. the Charter) historically polls extremely well in Canada, much better than any single party or leader. That’s why the Liberals have established themselves over and over again as the protectors of the Constitution in the last several election campaigns.

In Monday’s English language debate, Prime Minister Paul Martin (PM PM) dropped a constitutional bomb shell: that he would open up and take a run at the amending formula in an attempt to remove the Notwithstanding Clause from the Charter. It is very evident that this is entirely a political ploy, designed to provide an issue on which a debate over gay marriage can be built in the last two weeks of the campaign. Remember that it is only a couple of months ago that Paul Martin announced publicly that he would use the clause to protect the right of churches to refuse to marry homosexuals, should that issue arise. This is hypocrisy in the purest form for two reasons. First, a restaurant would not be allowed to refuse service to gays and lesbians, so why can a church that marries for profit decide to discriminate in this fashion? Second, and most relevant here, how can anyone take PM PM seriously when he admonishes the Conservatives for refusing to repeal the clause when he suggested a situation where he would invoke it himself (a case that is surely only years away)?

However, the substance of the suggestion raises an issue that, fifteen years after the Charlottetown Accord, is due for a national discussion. This is an issue that could inspire controversy in all social circles, from the grassroots activists to the greatest constitutional academics of the nation.

Canada’s constitutional rights are watered down from three angles relative to the American constitution. One is the s. 1 Oakes test that allows Parliament to contravene any section of the constitution if it is for a worthy reason and opposes the entrenched rights and freedoms as little as possible. Another is only in regards to the admissibility of evidence that contravenes a right: s. 24 reads that if the exclusion of the evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute, it should be admissible. The one that is most flaunted in the public eye, though, is the “Notwithstanding Clause”. It was once a necessary insert in order to ensure acceptance of the Charter in the Constitution Act, 1982. It is found in s. 33, and reads as follows:

33. (1) Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, that the Act or a provision thereof shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in section 2 or sections 7 to 15 of this Charter.
(2) An Act or a provision of an Act in respect of which a declaration made under this section is in effect shall have such operation as it would have but for the provision of this Charter referred to in the declaration.
(3) A declaration made under subsection (1) shall cease to have effect five years after it comes into force or on such earlier date as may be specified in the declaration.
(4) Parliament or the legislature of a province may re-enact a declaration made under subsection (1).
(5) Subsection (3) applies in respect of a re-enactment made under subsection (4).

The main argument in defence of the Notwithstanding Clause is that it provides a Parliamentary check on the great judicial powers provided by the Charter. Because the Constitution has a history of being interpreted progressively (as a “living tree”) the Supreme Court has a tendency to gradually “discover” new rights and freedoms that did not initially exist. The fear is that this invests too much power in an institution that is not elected, but rather appointed by the Prime Minister (with no requirement for confirmation by anyone). The clause allows our elected, legislative bodies to execute their supremacy in the formation of law, because any law can contravene the specified sections of the Charter as long as the Parliament or legislature expressly declares its intention for the law to exist despite its contravention of entrenched rights and freedoms.

This is a very valid argument. The Charter with the Notwithstanding Clause allows our nation to strike a balance between the unchecked supremacy of Parliament in Britain and the omnipotence of the Supreme Court in the States. However, although PM Martin did not propose removing the clause from the Charter for the right reason, it truly does not belong in the Constitution of our nation. The arguments that support its removal are largely theoretical, but the potential for a Conservative government to invoke its use to prevent homosexual marriage has recently made the reasoning hit home, and provides the context in which Martin decided to drop his debate bombshell.

Reluctance to eliminate the clause is supported by the fact that the federal government has never used it, so why put an effort into opening the Constitution to remove it? Well, opening the constitution costs a lot of political capital and, in fact, very little actual government capital, so if the Liberals want to invest what support they have left in a constitutional struggle, so be it, because they stand to lose the most.

From a purely theoretical point of view, the fact that government has never invoked the clause does not provide a good argument to keep something that weakens our nation’s democratic guarantees for minority rights. It is even suggested that we have developed such respect for the Charter in society that we have created a political climate that would never allow it to be used: it may be political suicide to invoke it. But, instead of this making us reluctant to remove the clause, it should make us content to eliminate dead weight.

The clause has never been used positively by Parliament to “check” the power of the Court and it has the potential to allow minority rights to be prevented by the whim of the majority, a terrible and unnecessary risk to our democratic guarantee of consideration for minority rights. Our guarantee of equality rights for a variety of groups, which has served this nation well, could be under attack by a looming Conservative government that has suggested they would invoke the clause to remove marriage rights for homosexuals (though apparently, now, they would not invoke it… flip-flop anyone?).

Nor is the check on judicial power a well-founded argument. If Canadians have heartburn about the amount of legal influence wielded by an appointed and unconfirmed body of nine old white people, the answer is NOT to weaken our fundamental rights and freedoms. The answer, instead, is to demand that the nomination process of justices be amended to involve more voices; this does not even require a constitutional amendment, but instead only an amendment to the Supreme Court Act, which has never been entrenched.

So, while I am not impressed by the Liberals bringing up a constitutional issue as a last-ditch effort to scare an electorate that is developing immunity to fear-mongering, I am excited and intrigued about the potential of a renewed discussion about the constitution. While this may not seem appealing to those who remember Meech Lake and Charlottetown, I look forward to an open national debate, rather than political cowardice towards an issue that freaks politicians out almost as much as abortion (and hell, we could even throw that into the debate).

National discussions are good for motivating the public to involve themselves politically, and for the development of innovative approaches to our problems. If we opened the constitution, we could eliminate the provinces’ notwithstanding rights too! In order to do this, we may need to barter some deals around the table that would provide a number of other beneficial constitutional changes: please Alberta with a Triple E Senate, entrench greater obstacles to secession so that federalist Quebecers can silence the perennial nationalist blow-horns that call for referendums, look at more fair electoral systems that incorporate the qualities of proportional representation, and so on.

Our democratic system is wrought with loopholes, imbalances, failures, and old world ideas. We can use this opportunity to introduce the massive reforms needed to create a democracy that prevents corruption and scandal and makes our representatives accountable, that reflects the actual will of our votes, and responds more quickly to equal rights for all Canadians. But, alas, no party will ever actually undertake this vision; because once they gain government it is themselves that they would be restricting and disadvantaging, and in the Canadian political world, the party always comes before the nation.

Child Care = Subsidies for Baby-Making

2006-01-12T16:13:00.000-07:00

It was not predicted by many, but health care has taken a back seat to other issues in this campaign. Perhaps it is because the Liberals have exhausted Canadians’ fears of a Conservative two-tier system (a scare tactic used in several elections, especially Chrétien v. Stockwell, with the famous “prop”), or perhaps it is because the public realizes that no one is offering anything substantial that has the potential to solve our problem that looms to be a catastrophe. Worse than this, maybe the public thinks that the First Minister’s agreement on health actually solved it.

Whatever the reason, the bigger issue in this campaign (along with national unity and gun violence) is child care. This is probably because the Conservatives think that they can “out-fund” the Grits on something, and the Liberals think that they can “out-family” the Tories on something. In reality, neither has a sound policy.

Apparently, child care is an incredibly expensive proposition. The Conservatives have pledged $10.9 billion to child care over the next five years, while the Liberals have said $6.2 billion. As with all government numbers, these seem largely dreamed up, but what is most scary about the numbers game is that both of our potential governments seemed to be proud about the huge amounts of money they plan on dropping on the subsidization of baby-making.

I hesitate to comment on which plan is better. Both plans will spend extremely large amounts of money at a time when our federal budget surplus has shrunk to an estimated $4 billion dollars from 18 billion in the 2000/01 budget year, and when over half a trillion dollars in debt remains that costs us a quarter on every tax dollar to service. Canada simply does not have enough money to bring up people’s children, a responsibility that parents have chosen to take on themselves. The federal government should also not encourage birthrates to rise at a time when the Earth is being strangled by excessive population, and refugees around the globe would give their last penny to pursue their dreams and a better life in Canada.

Neither party is being responsible with the money of those Canadians who chose not to produce children en mass so that they can be herded into day care programs for hire-a-mommies to deal with. Rather than giving charity to parents who have made the decision to bring up children, this money could be far more significantly employed to provide a greater opportunity to the 1.2 million children in poverty in Canada. One in every six Canadian children has been born into poverty, through no fault of their own, to go through life at a disadvantage in every step.

Since there seems to be no choice in whether we want money to be thrown out to parents, I am going to come out in favour of the Liberal plan. This is partly because of the fact that their plan devotes less money to child care, but partly because it provides for a government program to create more child care spaces. The Conservative plan, meanwhile, provides for $1200 per pre-school child per year to be given to parents, clear and free, to do as they wish with it in addition to the program to create more spaces. This will be available for about 2 million children, which means $2.4 billion dollars per year (while the federal budget for student loans, grants and scholarships currently lies at $1.8 billion).

I recognize that government programs tend to be ineffective with funding, but frankly I would rather that the money is lost to government jobs and contracts than for parents to spend our money on, yes I’ll say it, beer and popcorn. While this comment from Liberal communications director, Scott Reid, sparked a lot of controversy, I can be candid because I am not in politics. While it was not a politically correct comment (apparently you can’t put down parents) it was accurate: I would prefer that this money was spent on other programs in dire need, but if it is going to the subsidization of kids, it should at least be protected from misuse by individual parents.

As I said, the country really has no other option here: the NDP has a similar plan to the Liberals, and I am sure that they would throw even more money at it. Therefore, it seems that we are about to live in a country that, whether we chose to have children or not, we are going to be paying other people to do it. And, frankly, we don’t have the money for that.

And in a distant third...

2006-01-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

I just want to exercise due diligence, and explain why the NDP was excluded from the previous post (Conservatives vs. Liberals, 2006). While I am certain that the brothers and sisters of the NDP would disagree, the recent Liberal/Conservative battle has displaced the New Democrats to the fringe in the minds of most Canadians, where they can join their policies.

Everyone interprets the debate differently, but what I saw was Harper calmly grinning his awkward smile through attacks and Martin passionately fumbling through his great, tainted vision of Canada. Duceppe seemed uncharacteristically confused by the English moderator (he has been touted as the winner in former English debates!), and Layton was spieling his infomercial from the corner (and hoping someone won't change the channel).

I am not saying that you can entirely blame Jack Layton. He does have a freakish posture and makes a prissy gesture with his hands. He also has a sleazy salesman demeanor and seems to approach the issues as if they are a used pink convertible that, with enough breath spray, he will get you to take off the lot for a good deal because you are a special guy (wink, thumbs-up). Again, though, it is not all his fault. He is being squeezed out of the campaign, partly in a concerted effort by the Liberals and partly because he looks like a child trying to join the grown-ups table.

The Liberals will do well to avoid any mention of the party from now on, in order to continue the image that the NDP is not battling with the big guys. The more it becomes obvious that the election result will swing on just how close the Conservatives are to a majority, the more the left will fall in line behind Martin as the only legitimate contender to Harper. In fact, the Conservatives may find it in their interest to leak some supportive comments about the NDP to help the other side in the Liberals’ two-front war.

At the same time, though, the NDP can not permanently blame their misfortune on strategic voting. The last convention I saw, the NDP members still referred to each other with the creepy, unsettling monikers “Brother” and “Sister”. This is only demonstrative of a comportment that reconfirms the image of the NDP as a washed out socialist party of the extremely hailed out. This is rooted in their big-labour base, which is the source of many problems for the NDP.

The party has retained an archaic and undemocratic voting structure in their policy conventions (and leadership votes) that gives the big labour unions disproportionate representation in party decisions. This sentences the party to stagnation and an old-line labour attitude at a time when the unions have lost favour among many Canadians because so many strikes have been waged that are inconvenient to the public and fight for higher pay for groups that are already making a lot for largely unskilled labour. In addition to the dues forced upon workers and the tendency for unions to strangle businesses into bankruptcy (most notably in the auto industry), these have lead to a loss of compassion for the big labour unions that the NDP is beholden to.

The labour issue also forces a great contradiction on the party. The NDP presents itself as the green, environmentalist option, and its platform is often widely commended by environmentalist groups, often receiving a better score on the “report cards” these organizations produce than the Green Party does. The largely accepted reason for this is that the Green Party has far less money to develop the extensive and complicated policies required to tackle environmental concerns, and there is some merit to this contention because the Green Party is never accused of being on the wrong side of an issue, just lacking a policy altogether. However, I would suggest that the biggest reason for the acclamation of the NDP platform is their false promises; pledging everything under the sun makes it easy to get an A+. Performing, however, is much more difficult.

While the NDP has pledged to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons, and protect our depleting forests, their union commitments will make this largely impossible. An NDP government cannot effectively prevent our contribution to climate change and at the same time heed their obligations to the Canadian Auto Workers Union, because this requires them to subsidize the factories of the big three American car companies that are the slowest to reduce their vehicles’ dependence on large amounts of gas. In other words, although the NDP triumphs its own acceptance of the Kyoto requirements, it supports the use of our tax money to help huge American companies keep their factories open in one of Canada’s richest provinces, Ontario (car companies that cannot turn a profit because of the power of their workers’ union, the NDP’s biggest boss). The same logic applies to forestry workers and the NDP’s support of industries that gain revenue in such an unsustainable manner as destroying our trees, including old-growth forests.

The NDP’s dependence on unions has locked them into a position that will maintain them perpetually as Canada’s distant third party. The NDP should be able to remove itself from the grip of labour because of Chrétien’s campaign finance reforms that prevent labour unions (and large corporations) from funding parties so heavily as before, and the fact that union leaders have very little pull over the political allegiances of their members. Yet, they have retained their convention system that entrenches the power of unions (Layton had the support of many unions in his leadership campaign).

The NDP will therefore remain the niche party that they have been for decades, indebted to special interests and missing its once great visions such as Medicare. They will appeal to an ideological 1/5th of the country, but this will always fall on election day because of strategic voting and the acknowledgement that the NDP will never accomplish any more federally than occasionally holding the balance of power. In the dead heat between the other two major national parties, they are especially marginalized in this campaign, much as they will be by Canadians on January 23rd.

If you’re wondering how I can cut down the NDP so badly for their lack of support, yet support the Green Party myself, I just want to relieve you from the obligation of complaining to me:
I never said not to support the NDP. If they best represent your values, then this is a great reason to vote for them. I also realize that the Green Party only has a niche of support, however in them I see a greater potential to grow because they are not on the fringe of the orthodox political spectrum, but instead transcend this spectrum. This also makes them less likely to lose support to strategic voting, because their voters have not been able to align themselves with the old-line, traditional parties.

Conservatives vs. Liberals, 2006

2006-01-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

As the Liberal stronghold in Canadian opinion polls continues to disintegrate, the political scene in Canada is exploding. The polls promise that election night will hold the biggest fireworks since 1993. I am excited because of the prospect of change: while I am not a Conservative supporter in the least, the side of me that purely seeks intrigue wants to see what happens when a government changes for the first time in over a dozen years, when our generation was in elementary school. In addition, it is healthy for a nation and the legitimacy of its democracy for the faces of its leaders to change…and for those of the corrupt to be slapped.

The 2004 election demonstrates that nothing can be taken for granted with over a week left, especially with the unmatched ability of the Liberal back roomers to pique Canadians’ fears of reactionary social conservatism. However, never in the 2004 election did the polls suggest so strongly that the Tories would come out on top and it is starting to look like even the grit of the Grits will not pull them through this time.

Since New Year’s, national opinion polls have shown incredible movement from the Liberals and the NDP rightward to the Conservatives. An excellent page has been set up by a researcher at Simon Fraser University that displays all of the polls since the start of the campaign (can be found at: http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/polls.html). The most recent, by Ekos, has the Conservatives at 39% and the Liberals at 27%. This represents the height of the split that has gradually widened throughout the last week and a half.

The first reaction I want to give to these dynamic polls is to weaken my recent contentions that the Conservative Party’s social conservative base will prevent it from ever forming a majority government. While I am fairly confident that the ultimate numbers will show that this 39% is inflated, considering very little actually changed in the campaign to cause this huge opinion swing, I still have to acknowledge that this number is biting at the magic 40% number that can create a majority (thanks to our brutal first-past-the-post system).

I also suggested that the Conservatives would never make a significant foray into Ontario and would never appeal to anyone in Quebec (itself a prerequisite to appealing to Ontarians). The election may very well prove me wrong. The Conservatives are actually leading in Quebec, pulling back weak-federalist votes from the Bloc, and setting them up to win between two and six seats! This has made Stephen Harper a contender in the province, and helped sell his attempt to image himself as “prime ministerial” (for Ontarians, no one can seem prime ministerial who maintains an antagonism with the Quebecois).

While I admit that Eastern Canadians are actually capable of realizing that their precious Liberals have failed the country, which I thought would never happen, it only came because the Conservatives have presented a more moderate view. It seems that for years the political amnesia of “central Canada” has allowed them to forget the many scandals the Liberals have put the country and our tax dollars through (remember that this started well before sponsorship, in the forms of Shawinigate and the gun control boondoggle, to name a couple). This time, though, it seems that they have forgotten even more easily that the former Alliance (who now controls the Conservatives from the grassroots) was adamant to vote to send Canadian troops to Iraq.

The Conservatives new found moderateness has allowed them to put a veil over the eyes of the people who were once afraid of their social conservatism. I forgot how short-term the Canadian political memory can sometimes be. However, personally, I will never forget how ingrained archaic moral values are in the consciousness of the western conservatives that rule the base of the CPC. If Harper is to form government, he will either have to pander to this base, which is my prediction, or he will risk the spin-off of another ultra-right party; Stockwell Day recently lamented his party’s platform this campaign as “Liberal Light”, and talk is brewing in the political world (based in Toronto, of course) about disgruntled Alberta rednecks potentially fleeing the Tories.

Of course, this will not happen. As long as the Conservative Party is actually ran by a former Alliance member, whose base is overwhelmingly shored up by Alliance members, and who lives in the heartland of Alliance membership, the Tories will uphold their social conservative convictions in Parliament. A “traditional marriage” onslaught will be unleashed against homosexual rights. Then, taxes will fall, tuition will rise, and Canada will join the US in undermining the multilateral standards of peace and environmental conservation. I don’t know how Harper will try to sell this with Ontario, but maybe he will just ask them to forget; I know that he won’t test western memories, because they tend to last much longer.

Still, the recent polling data has made me abhor the idea of making any more predictions, so I won’t concede that a Conservative government is inevitable. Up until the debate, the Liberals have seemed too much at ease and I am pretty certain that they still have something up their sleeve. Since they haven’t utilized it for all it’s worth yet, I would bet that they will remind everyone that if the government had been run by the right in 2003, we would be joining the Americans in their house of horrors that is Iraq. The Liberals have historically had a tight grip on what central Canadians are allowed to feel and think and they have shown themselves to be masters at exploiting this.

The Conservatives, however, are a much different party from 2004. The mud slung at them from the Grits isn’t sticking this time and is instead only demonstrating where the Liberals are throwing it from: knee-deep in a big pile of it. And the Conservatives have one huge weapon that no one is talking about yet, but I think has the biggest potential to catapult them across 154 (half the seats): they can now tell the country that they are the only hope of preventing another election within the year, a tactic that has been used successfully in Canadian campaigns many times before. It will be interesting to see if their campaign organization has matured enough to use this weapon effectively. If so, never mind a majority: with the great dynamism of Canadian opinion already demonstrated, an epic landslide might even be in the works!

How Canadians Support Our Troops

2006-01-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

Americans are famous for “supporting their troops”. This is evident in the widespread displaying of the magnetic yellow ribbons on the backs of vehicles all over the United States; though these are now found in Canada, the majority that I see in Southern Alberta is the American variety on Montana, Idaho, and Utah licensed vehicles. It has become so culturally ingrained in the U.S. to vocalize one’s championing of the military that this has become the strongest defence for proponents of the war in Iraq: in opposing the war, foreign doves in that country are labeled as unpatriotic, and are guilty of undermining and discouraging the efforts and sacrifices of the young men and women who serve their country.

Canadians, on the other hand, are often perceived as letting their troops down. We are perennially accused of under-funding our military, persistent in denying them the proper equipment and weapons. However, in Canadian debates, it is rare that we find that arguments for peace are criticized as unpatriotic and offensive to our military. Most Canadians recognize and are proud that there is a different mentality in this country. In a rather convoluted way (logically) I believe that it is beneficial to our nation and promotes a greater respect of our troops.

This is not to say that we should dissolve what military we have or devalue the work of our soldiers by under-funding them, as the Canadian way is assumed to be. That is not at all what this post intends. Instead, it is to suggest that our “peacenik” society has created an atmosphere where we respect the individual life of each soldier to a greater degree.

In the United States, 2179 soldiers have died since the Iraq war began in March, 2003. At this point, it is impossible for the country’s conscience to be focused to each casualty. This is truly unfortunate: they have died for a great cause, their country. Whether the war is justified or not, the democratic process of their country has determined that their efforts and sacrifice have been made in their nation’s defence and their will to uphold this is truly honourable. So, it is a disparaging reality that individual soldiers are dying with horrific frequency, thousands of future achievements precluded and multitudes of plans for life thwarted, while none of these heroic men and women are unique enough in death to draw wide public attention from the nation that sent them to their fate.

About 1020 days have passed since the invasion of Iraq, and although this is a gruesome and unsympathetic statistic when describing people’s lives, over 2 soldiers have died on average in each of these days. There were 797 more deaths on September the 11th, 2001, than American soldiers killed in Iraq; at this rate, that difference will take about 375 more days of war. At this point, as many heroic and brave, mostly young, US soldiers will have died as Americans on 9/11.

This will be a terrible day for American society: the proponents of the war will have to question their reasoning considering that the attacks against the US homeland were the justification for going to war, along with the WMD that do not exist. The suggestion may be that unless the US undertakes such military actions, more loss of life will occur on their own soil. However, considering al Qaeda’s bourgeoning presence under Ayman al Zawahiri in Iraq since the invasion and the development of this war-zone as a terrorist haven, the efficacy and logic of this justification is highly questionable. However, this is beside the point: whatever the real reason for the war, sometime in early 2007 the American reaction to their horrible tragedy will be equally as tragic in terms of lives lost.

This post is an opportunity to thank the powers that kept Canada out of the war in Iraq, whatever and whoever they may be. The statistics above are not the type of which Canada wants a share. The conservative circles of America are frequently touted as promoting a “culture of life”. I find this odd and even ironic. We need to maintain a culture in our nation that values the lives of fellow Canadians by not sending them to their death. In doing so, we have developed a people who take notice of and grieve over the deaths of our heroes and defenders.

I will never forget the moment that the bodies of our four soldiers, killed by American friendly fire in Afghanistan, were returned to Canada and lowered from the plane that brought them home. As Peter Mansbridge commentated live for CBC, people across Canada shared at least a little bit of the grief that the loved ones of these men were experiencing. For me, it was a defining moment of our nation, a demonstration of why we are distinctly Canadian, and an hour I will never forget.

Since that day, Canada has endured other emotional events, including the incredibly moving ceremony at Edmonton’s Butterdome for the RCMP officers who died in the Mayerthorpe tragedy. Most recently, we have lost another soldier in Afghanistan, and two RCMP officers, one in Laval and the other in Haiti. In each instance, the country has shown its desire to cry for those who keep us safe, and also to say thanks.

We need to appreciate and value that in the society we live in violence is so abhorred and peace so sought that each soldier and even domestic police officer killed is honoured at a national level. So, while we have been accused of failing to support those who protect our lives and values, we can at least be proud that, as an entire country, we can show how highly we regard the sacrifice that brave men and women have made for us.

This post is not intended to be politically partisan, except for one brief comment: remember that there were people in Ottawa who adamantly and loudly advocated for Canada to join in the horror America has suffered. I do not wish to politicize this any further, because it would draw from my purpose: to honour, here, the individuals who have, in recent years, made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.

Eight Canadian soldiers have been killed in the mission to Afghanistan.

On April 18, 2002, while carrying out a live-fire exercise near Kandahar, four Canadian soldiers were killed when Major Harry Schmidt of the U.S. Air National Guard mistakenly bombed them, thinking that their exercise was hostile surface-to-air fire. Their unit was the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and the soldiers who died were: Sgt. Marc D. Leger, Lancaster, Ontario, 29; Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Montreal Quebec, 24; Pte. Richard Green, Mill Cove, Nova Scotia, 21; Pte. Nathan Smith, Porters Lake, Nova Scotia, 27.

On October 2, 2003, two soldiers were killed in a roadside that destroyed their jeeb, southwest of Kabul. They were Sgt. Robert Short, Fredericton, New Brunswick, 42; Cpl. Robbie Beerenfenger, Ottawa, Ontario, 29. On January 27, 2004, Cpl. Jamie Murphy (Conception Harbour, Newfoundland, 26) was killed by a suicide bomber while on patrol near Camp Julien, near Kabul. Pte. Braun Woodfield (Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia, 24) died on November 24, 2005 when the armoured vehicle he was in rolled over on a highway to Kandahar.

There have also been six RCMP deaths that have touched the hearts of Canadians, one abroad and five within our borders.

On March 3, 2005, the nation will remember well that four RCMP officers were killed near Mayerthorpe, Alberta, by a mentally disturbed individual who abhorred authority and whose name need not be immortalized by mention here. The officers shot and killed were: Const. Brock Myrol, 29; Const. Lionide Johnston, 33; Const. Peter Schiemann, 25; Const. Anthony Gordon, 28.

On December 14, 2005, Valerie Gignac, 25, was shot by a high-powered rifle shortly after arriving at an apartment bulding for a routine call. She was honored in an emotional service in Laval that was, as usual, attended by thousands of officers from across the continent. On December 20, 2005, Mark Bourque, 57, from Stoneham, Quebec, was shot and killed while on UN security duty in Port-au-Prince, capitol of impoverished Haiti, where he was helping to train Haitian police for the upcoming elections.

All of these individuals had exceptional histories of service and displayed great bravery in their acts. A quick internet search will show that each had a promising life ahead and were very involved individuals. Canada is very right to be sad for having lost them.

Speeches of Robert Francis Kennedy: Unheeded Words of Wisdom

2005-12-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

I feel that I have neglected this site in recent weeks, and want to make amends. I have been very busy, and continue to be busy, so I am not able to spill out the incessant drivel that I am so prone to post.

Instead, I will be thieving the thoughts of a legendary American politician from the most legendary of American political families (no, not the Bushes). The thoughts that have come from his mouth make me so envious; that I might ever think or write them, never mind speak them so eloquently, is one of my greatest personal dreams.

I have always had an incredible interest in the Kennedy family, barring on a fondness. I don’t know whether the root of our infatuation with this family was their pure ideals, their service and patriotism for their country, or their undeniable charisma. Perhaps it rests instead on the scandals and myths behind their many mistakes and misfortunes, or maybe the legend lies solely in the fact that Jack and Bobby died. Whatever it is, politicians of all stripes have evoked the Kennedy name for their own political gain (just remember the 1988 Vice Presidential debate when Dan Quayle compared himself to the former President), and we probably each have our own reasons for holding them in our memory.

For me, though, both JFK and RFK epitomized the hope and idealism of a generation of young people who sought major change in a society buried in inequity and injustice. I have often thought that I was meant to grow up in the ‘60’s, to embrace the social movement of the time. Never in my life have I observed a culture of youth who spoke up for their interests and countered the common rhetoric of politics and challenged the norms and mores of society at its very foundation; the Kennedy’s were the beacon of hope for this generation, the men to take the grassroots ideals to the functional treetops of our culture.

Bobby especially was attacking the American structure that had never been taken on. Unlike any other popular politician since him, in either Canada or the U.S., he passionately proposed the ideas of the idealistic youth. In this regard, I present two speeches to exemplify how visionary he was.

In the first major speech of his campaign for the Democratic nomination, in March of 1968, Kennedy warned against the ultimate consequences of our societal evaluation of success. What I want to impart is how forward-looking the speech was, how astonishing it is that a major political candidate would espouse these ideas at the time, and how accurate it remains today; this is most saddening, because it is evident that we have not listened.

“Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over eight hundred billion dollars a year, but that GNP — if we should judge America by that — counts air pollution and cigarette advertising and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

“Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

This strikes at the heart of our economic structures and financial ambitions that too often have the effect of destroying our communities, our environment, and sometimes even our lives. Less then three weeks later, Martin Luther King Jr., perhaps the loudest voice of the most significant cultural achievement of the last century, was assassinated while RFK was flying to a campaign speech in a dangerous ghetto of Indianapolis – he learned of the event as he disembarked from the plane. His security warned him against continuing with the event, realizing that emotions would be raw and angers may flare.

Much like his brother, though, Bobby was adored by the African American community of the country, and he was adamant that he must speak. So, throwing out his stump speech, without any preparation for what he was about to say, the next President of the United States strode up to the podium and realized that the enthusiastic black crowd had not yet heard. This is how he broke the news to them, and turned the horror into an optimistic call for non-violent protest and a move to justice and cooperation.

“Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

“I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

“For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

“We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

“For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

“But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

“My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: ‘Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.’

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

“So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

“But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

“Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

“Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much.”

Frankly, I think that this is the best post, the truest words, and the most eloquent language ever used on this blog. Though they were spoken over 37 years ago, and received by the youth with excitement and eagerness, far less has changed than the baby boom could ever have imagined at the time. Our parents were fortunate enough to experience the rising sentiment of revolution at the time, and yet they will leave us with a world that is largely the same. But at least they spoke up for freedom, peace, justice, and equality: although little resulted, this is far more than can be said for our generation.

Robert Francis Kennedy was killed less then two months after his MLK speech, shortly after winning omni-important California in the Democratic primary. With him died the hope of a generation, who eventually turned to violence, anger, and drugs, to be followed by the outlandish materialistic self-concern and reactionary thought of the ‘80’s. Today we have the most extensive communication abilities of the world, the greatest opportunities to cooperate and seek friendly relations. Yet, instead we continue to find war, poverty, environmental destruction, racial hatred... and the most silent and apathetic youth in fifty years. It makes me sorry that such a great man died in vain. Now, one last quote to express the great hopeful idealism and dreams of a legend, someone that the world so direly needs today:

“Some men see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and ask, ‘Why not?’”

- A favourite G.B. Shaw quote of Robert F. Kennedy’s that was repeated by Edward F. Kennedy at his funeral.

The Response of a Youth Activist or Youth Millitant?

2005-10-26T16:13:00.000-06:00

This post is in response to the letter from Lisa Pasolli entitled Is the Debt the Only Thing to Focus On?

Lisa,

Admittedly, we disagree on a few points and you know that I will be compelled to defend my opinion. However, I think that we also agree on more issues than our respective posts suggest. I also admit that the purpose of the post went beyond simple opinion, on my part, and that I had the obvious intention of shocking some readers. I’ll try to dissect the background of certain comments so that the objective behind their making is clearer.

First, we do legitimately disagree on the use of public surpluses. I stand by my comment that any money over expenses should be used to pay off our massive and seriously debilitating debt. We could truly argue about this for hours, but I am not kidding when I say that a quarter of all federal revenue is lost to interest payments; this is statistically accurate. I am having a hard time finding data on the proportion of use of public funds, but if I am not mistaken, this is the single greatest expense of the federal government (I am quite confident that no program receives more than 25% of federal revenue). That is why I believe in devoting all surplus to repayment of the “Black Hole” (my little nickname for it). Now, I have to qualify this comment. What I mean by devoting all surplus to debt repayment is that moneys left over at the end of the budget year (after program funding) should not instead be used for a cash hand out.

Now, I never intended to suggest that the purpose of paying off the debt was to be able to introduce major tax cuts, as you assert. I can see how this is the impression I gave because I suggested that all money saved from eliminating debt servicing payments could be used to introduce major tax cuts that would put today’s payouts to shame. While I stand by the comment, this would not be my plan for the money. I only suggested it to show why it is more valuable now to pay off debt than to get tax cuts. People tend to respond to the idea of tax breaks, and I all I meant to point out was that if we had no debt, we could pay 25% less to the government and maintain the current level of program funding!

So, the “ultimate result” I espouse is not to give the saved interest in massive tax cuts; I think that our usage of that money could be determined when it arrives (someday, hopefully). I only wanted to show why debt relief makes more financial sense then tax relief.

I agree that social spending is important, and it would very likely be a high priority if the country were to find large amounts of revenue all of a sudden (as we would were the debt repaid). I believe that health care is a universal right and this obviously requires large commitments of funding; I also believe that our postsecondary institutions need to be brought in line with the best in the world, while at the same time guaranteeing access regardless of “daddy’s” wealth. However, at the same time I believe that the health care system currently functions largely effectively: as someone who has experienced it extensively, I feel that the bad scenarios appear prominent only because they are given press. I also believe that in addition to cash infusion in our universities, we need to restrict access to the universities on the basis of academic merit so that they can maintain a certain prestige and thereby elevate to a greater level of academic performance.

So, I don’t believe that surpluses, over and above the spending that we originally partitioned to social programs, need to be devoted to increased spending at this time. In terms of “ensuring that future Canadians have access to the same benefits we do”, we have to realize that certain programs will not be supportable when we have to provide for the health care of a massive elderly population and at the same time service their debt. For the benefit of future Canadians, we certainly need to maintain the status of our grade school education systems as among the very best in the world. But we need to remember that government budgeting is actually just prioritization, and that, for instance, providing expensive health care access to the elderly MUST be done at the expense of reduced education funding, higher taxes, or limited debt relief. So, once again, we need to recognize the value of “free money” arising from the elimination of the Black Hole; money that otherwise will continue to flow from our pockets and into oblivion rather than into necessary programs.

Now I should comment on the “shock value” of my posting. I was hoping, by attacking older generations, that people from these generations would take notice of the impact that their debt will have on us and realize that they are not entitled to tax relief or rebates (essentially the same @#$%, different pile) at the expense of our future. I don’t want to suggest that they are “our enemies” OR that they “have some sinister scheme”. I believe that they haven’t even been made to realize the effect of their excessive spending and cash grabs on the future providers of this nation. I DO believe, however, that they have massively disproportionate voting influence and that they use this (as many would) to their own benefit: politicians are eager to ensure enormous spending for elderly health care and to distribute tax revenues to them by means of rebates so that they can harness this electoral powerhouse. You can’t blame middle-aged and elderly people for acting in their own interest – but I am making a call to action to young voters to act in their own interest and reduce the hold that older adults have over the political system.

The fact is that the elderly voters have not paid for “the subsidized education and health care systems that we now benefit from”. On the contrary! They have left this for us to pay for in the amount of several years’ worth of entire annual budgets! Never has the nation seen such a large work force from which to acquire income tax revenue (the baby boom), and yet never has the nation ended up owing so much to other people. I am trying to promote the interests of the people who will have to accept this debt burden and AT THE SAME TIME pay for the retirement and health care costs of the largest elderly population ever and the largest elderly to worker ratio ever. So I hesitate to suggest that they are our enemies; but I am not nearly so convinced that their generation has acted in our best interest.

Is the Debt the Only Thing to Focus On?

2005-10-26T16:09:00.000-06:00

The following is a response by Lisa Pasolli to the October 16 post, TheRebate Debate: Liberal Idiocy. I felt that the quality of the postmerited a spot on the front page itself, and believe that the points raised are important and valuable ones.

I agree with you - to a point. Part of me says that it just makes sense to devote some of the surplus to paying off the debt - after all, if I were swimming in debt, the first thing I'd do is pay off my credit cards and start from zero (to use a very simplistic example).

On the other hand, I can't agree with you that "any and all surplus should be used at this time to eliminate the debt," with the ultimate result being to introduce major tax cuts once the debt is paid off. What about social spending? While I'll be the first admit that public social programs are far from perfect, I still believe that a committment needs to be made to maintaining them and ensuring that future Canadians have access to the same benefits we do. Just like you say, we should have a conscience regarding future generations, but that applies to much more than just reducing their debt burden.

And since when were the "semi-elderly to severely-elderly voters of the nation" our enemies, who have some sinister scheme to burden us with the debt while being rewarded with cash rebates?? These "severely elderly" voters have contributed their whole life to the subsidized education and health care systems that we now benefit from, so it seems a little harsh to suggest that they have burdened us with a lifetime of debt and don't care about our future. The tax dollars they (and we) pay have value to us - I, for one, would not be in favour of paying lower taxes if it meant that my tuition would increase by $10 000 per year.

What is the answer? I'm definitely NOT suggesting that cash rebates are the answer. But really, I have no idea. I think I know what the answer isn't, though: devoting the entire surplus to debt reduction. Of course we don't want to heap the entire burden of the debt onto our children's shoulders, but we also want to ensure that they have access to affordable education, adequate health care, and to live in a society where tax cuts are not an all-consuming priority.

Randy White: Coming or Going?

2005-10-26T01:46:00.000-06:00

During the last federal election campaign, the Conservatives came across a familiar skeleton. They had nearly made a tradition of allowing discrimination and bigotry to leak through the party’s public message, to the point that the inevitable event almost seemed like a choreographed development to rile support from their social conservative, grassroots activists. The tradition was sealed when Randy White made comments in an interview about the need to invoke the s.33 “notwithstanding clause” in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

White brought out a party secret that had up to then been effectively concealed by the Tories. Should the Conservatives have gained power, the party would use the notwithstanding clause to override an ensuing Supreme Court decision that traditional marriage is unconstitutional. In this way, the equality rights guaranteed in s.15 of the Charter could legally be infringed by invoking this unfortunate s.33 addition that was required to bring less visionary minds to agree to the Constitution Act, 1982.

The comment set up a firestorm that saw the Conservative poll numbers plummet from a clear lead midway through the campaign. The most damaging effect was that Stephen Harper refused to deny that this was indeed the party’s plan upon attaining government.

But for me, the most telling quote came from Randy White himself: “If the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is going to be used as the crutch to carry forward all of the issues that social libertarians want, then there's got to be for us conservatives out there a way to put checks and balances in there.” He effectively proposed that there be “checks and balances” against basic rights that are fundamental to a just and functioning democracy.

The notwithstanding clause never belonged in the Charter, weakening the document itself in a way that the American Bill of Rights has never had to endure. Yet, here was a vocal MP espousing its use to prevent the nation’s exercise of equality between all individuals. It became suddenly so clear why the Liberals, despite their decade of mismanagement and financial blundering, were seemingly so popular at election time.

Socially progressive Conservatives screamed with what little voice they had left that such bigots would never yield power in a Conservative government. Yet, Mr. White was a member of the shadow cabinet at the time, and it seems so obvious that if the party wouldn’t silence him during a month of intense public scrutiny of political parties, why would he be silenced the rest of the time?

Indeed, Randy White has taken a leading role in a favourite Tory policy right now. He has been acting as the party’s front-man on their push to lower gas-taxes, a concern that Mr. White calls an “Emergency situation”. If Mr. White thinks gas taxes are an emergency, then I suppose that he just needs someone to give him a Vancouver transit map; that’s just his reasoning, I guess. But surely the Conservatives don’t think that Canadians are dumb enough to forget that this archaic-minded MP was meant to be left in the dark to fossilize with the rest of the social conservatives, merely another familiar skeleton in the Tory backbench?

Never underestimate the power of religion-propelled social conservatism in the Conservative Party of Canada. Just this last spring, Randy White announced his decision to not seek reelection, and it was widely agreed (though publicly denied) that this was at the party’s urging as it seemed obvious he was a liability to them. Yet here he is presenting the party policy on a situation that the Conservatives really hope to use to gain traction with mainstream voters. With the party’s perpetual need to satisfy its bible-thumping base, it would be hard to be surprised if he ends up deciding to run in the Abbotsford riding one more time!

The Rebate Debate: Conservative Idiocy

2005-10-26T00:34:00.000-06:00

This post follows The Rebate Debate: Liberal Idiocy, below.

The Conservative Party recognizes very legitimately that the Liberal rebate program is simply a vote-buy, whether it is a “surplus” rebate, or a home heating rebate. They know that this scheme has worked well for Klein, and are afraid that the Liberals can buy themselves a majority government with public funds (what else would Liberals use?).

However, the main Conservative criticism of the plan is not that the government should instead focus on its massive and engulfing debt, but rather that “the plan excludes over 90
percent of Canadians who are looking for real tax relief at the gas pumps.”

I understand that Canadians are annoyed and maybe even afraid of the gas prices. I know that people have seen the prices rise exponentially over the last few years and that this is costing them more to drive. This, however, is not something that the government should feel responsible to relieve. Reducing taxes on gas will only offset, for now, the price of gas. Prices would continue to rise thereafter, and because of the momentary relief at the pump, Canadians would remain dependent on gasoline and continue to exist at the mercy of global energy reserves.

The Conservative Party accuses the Liberals of rushing “into a stop-gap measure with no strategic long-term energy plan.” But in the next breath they suggest that “a Conservative government led by Stephen Harper will stand up for consumers … by lowering gas taxes.” There is a significant disconnect to this logic. I can’t tell whether the Conservatives are mocking the Liberals for no long-term plan despite having none of their own, or if they think that cutting gas taxes actually is a long-term plan.

Cutting taxes on gas would surely lead to an immediate reduction on price. Drivers would rejoice at how much cheaper it is for them to release carbon from its long-term underground dwelling and push it out into the atmosphere. Those who have driven up gas prices the worst by driving the largest and least economic vehicles to work each day (by themselves) would benefit like no one else. There would be no need to worry about reducing our driving or buying smaller vehicles, and Ford, GM, and Chrysler would jump at the market that would once again be willing to purchase the only thing that the Big Three ever sell anymore: trucks.

Meanwhile, North Americans as a whole would continue (in fact intensify) their climbing per capita oil consumption, and China would continue to exercise its right to use just as much oil per person as the rest of us. The cost of a barrel would reach NEW unfathomable heights, and gas would follow suit as always. Canadians would soon wonder why prices are the same as before the tax break, and continuing to rise; while at the same time wishing that they had never come to need gas so dearly.

While this may seem to Encana or Petro-Canada as an excellent long-term energy plan, anyone who has any perspective on the end result of a situation where a limited supply is asked to fulfill an unstoppable demand would recognize that this is sheer idiocy as energy policy.

I understand that the government should not have to take precautions against people’s own stupid actions – but with an entire party advocating this as a long-term energy plan, it seems evident that people are just stupid enough to require assistance. Regardless of the intelligence of government babysitting its citizens, though, the tax cut plan still carries no logical weight. As mentioned in the Liberal Idiocy post, government budgeting demands a prioritization of its finances: in reducing gas taxes, replacement money would have to come from somewhere. As long as revenue for our vital programs has to be earned somewhere, I would much rather it come from a sin-tax for purchasing a commodity that (upon usage) pollutes our air and lays smog on our great cities then demand it from the incomes of hard working middle-class Canadians who carry the brunt of the tax burden already. This way, government gives them the choice to fund services through their consumption rather than government relieving them involuntarily of their take-home pay.

Honestly, I truly believe that Canadians are in general more intelligent than the Conservative party; I believe and hope that they are smart enough to develop independence from gasoline on their own. But this doesn’t take away from the fact that encouragement is needed to get cars off of the roads in Canada’s metro areas, and people into alternative modes of transportation; probably more encouragement in the form of gas taxes then we have even now. This would clean up the air we breathe and relax the demand on the municipal infrastructure that is so stressed (building more and more lanes can only work for so long anyway). When combined with initiatives to harness energy from other sources, especially renewable ones, this truly is a “long-term” energy policy. It is actually incredibly comedic to think of how short-term the Conservative plan would be!

Does Google Ever Lie?

2005-10-22T16:51:00.000-06:00

Go to Google (www.google.ca) and search for "Failure", and select the first link, or else click the I'm Feeling Lucky button.

Yup, that's right. And the great thing is that they can't be held liable for defamation because it's accurate!

The Rebate Debate: Liberal Idiocy

2005-10-16T15:31:00.000-06:00

In Alberta we have recently been given word of two different potential cash gifts, one from the provincial government and one from the federal. I will not debate, for today, the intelligence and merit of paying out $400 from a massive provincial surplus that cannot be used to pay off a debt, as none remains in this province. I do question the economics of paying for the process of collecting money in taxes, then redistributing it directly back to the people; it seems that it would have been easier and cheaper if this had never been taken in the first place or perhaps not taken next year. But this can wait for another post.

The federal situation, however, is completely different. While the federal government will finally be required to use the first $3 billion of any surplus to pay off debt burden, surplus beyond this threshold can instead be used for additional spending or tax deductions and rebates.

The major problem with this is that the federal government currently has over $500 billion dollars in net debt (gross federal debt minus financial assets). We pay nearly $40 billion dollars in interest on this debt each year, which represents nearly a quarter of government revenue. This means that when this generation comes into the work force, we will take on a debt, created entirely by a previous generation and due to no decision or expense of Canada’s youth, that will require us to pay a quarter of every tax dollar we spend to a massive black hole. So, while we are trying to fund the immense cost of elderly care (especially health care) after our parents retire, we will also be paying the servicing for their debt that already consumes a massive chunk of what could have been used for program funding.

So what I cannot understand is why any money, whether a rebate or a tax deduction, should be awarded to the people who are putting us in this situation. What is most vital at this time is to collapse that black hole, and free up that money that is used for debt-servicing. Imagine getting a 33% raise, getting 1/3 MORE money per year than you had before. Imagine what you could do with that money! That is the situation that we have been left with in this country. And I’ll be damned if the semi-elderly to severely-elderly voters of this nation have so much power as to convince the government to heap the weight that should burden them onto our shoulders; because for some unexplained reason they need and deserve that money.

Any and all surplus should be used at this time to eliminate the debt. Once this is accomplished, never mind the small, token tax-breaks that the government gives these days: taxes could be lowered by 25% for EVERYONE who pays without losing any funding at all!

People need to realize that government fund allocation is a continuous chain of compromises. When government offers money, this is taken from somewhere else. In this case it is given carelessly at the expense of retaining a mortgage on the future of young Canadians! The economy in Canada is holding steady and strong, and does not require any form of Keynesian cash infusion. To the contrary: now is the time to eliminate the cost of past “economy-bolstering” (and needless waste, for that matter), as espoused by Keynes himself, in times of economic prosperity. In fact, the risk of an economic breakdown in Alberta sometime in the distant future warrants this same philosophy from a preventative viewpoint: investment now, rather than senseless rebates, could be used instead of future debt incursion.

For years the Liberals have accomplished an incredible act for politics. By under-estimating the expected surplus of the federal government, calls for tax-relief were silenced and the “unexpected” extra money could instead be used to pay off the $15,000 per person that the debt represents (man, my parents are going to jip me out of a Smart Car). But the Liberals are truly missing the boat here. What we need is a cushion against the financial death blow of baby-boomer aging. Instead, the baby-boomers themselves are just going to get more, perhaps to help them recover emotionally from the guilt of burdening their children, who knows. At the average rate of repayment over the last few years, it should take around 50 years to repay the debt. At 3 billion dollars a year it would take closer to 170 (assuming that surpluses are consistent). I guess at least that way we would get to “pass it on” to the next several generations. Hopefully we have more of a conscience then this, even if we are our parents’ children.

Conservative Environment Platform a Little Lacking

2005-10-15T17:53:00.000-06:00

I was looking through an old set of mass-send-out emails from the Conservative Party of Canada, and discovered won from two months ago entitled "Stand up for Clean Air / Changeons pour un air pur". Naturally, I assumed that the email was sent out to highlight the party's policy on the environment, an effort to capitalize on the state of smog in the GTA, where breathing warnings were issued in the spring this year!

Unfortunately, when I opened the email, the content of their plan for clean air was a little light. The following is the email I received:

"To unsubscribe, click the link below (and then the link to unsubscribe)".

Now, perhaps this was done as a joke, or perhaps Mr. Harper asked the party's grassroots relations group to send out an email detailing the party's environment policy, to show Canadians that the Conservatives worry about the toxins and carcinogens we are taking into our lungs; not realizing that they actually had no policy at all!

However, my theory is that the email was sent out so that anybody on the list-serve who actually cares enough to look at an email about the environment will then remove themselves from the list serve, so that their email volume can be a little easier on their systems. Unfortunately, I have too much fun analyzing the party's policy (or lack thereof), and refuse to concede this defeat.

Another point of interest is that this was the last mail-out with a French and English title. Perhaps they recognized that with those individuals who should have removed themselves from the last email gone, there was no francophones left to cater to.

Well, maybe these are merely untruths and unfounded theories. But isn't the idea that the party doesn't have ANY environment policy whatsoever even worse?

Propeace Site a Beacon of Hope for Youth Power

2005-10-06T21:40:00.000-06:00

I just thought that I would lead you all to a very interesting site that is attempting to harness an entire movement. The site is called the Propeace Community Site, and is itself a blog that you can sign up to so that you can post to it as a member:

http://www.propeace.net/

The site advocates the formation of a Department of Peace in the United States. This proposition has come forth as a bill sponsored by fifty-nine congressmen (lead by Kucinich, a very liberal candidate for the 2004 Democratic nomination), and one Senator (which tends to be a more moderate body). In this way, there would actually be a secretary devoted to the interest of maintaining peace in contrast to seeking war; someone to advocate the (now foreign) concept in that nation that young soldiers’ lives should not be sacrificed in the name of family feuds and a desperate quest for the increasingly invaluable black gold. Someone to continue the function of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was pushed out to make room for Bush’s growing militia of hawks.

The site really espouses a puritan-peace and Utopian vision that was once the founding principle of an entire movement of young people. We have not seen such a mass ensemble of peace-activists in my generation, and never since experienced such incredible influence wielded by the youth. They were truly effective at creating and promoting a social revolution that expanded its scope and lead to massive civil rights progress, major social cooperation, an unprecedented vocal demand for peace rather than violent patriotic nationalism, and gradual steps in the direction of equality for all genders, sexualities, races, and ages. This all culminated in the Marches on Washington of the 60s and 70s that attracted immense crowds, consistently in the hundreds of thousands, and was directed against Republicans and Democrats alike; they truly dissented against all whom weilded power and sent the nation into an immoral war.

Today, the youth have once again come to a situation of severe disillusionment with the political system and those who control it. However, our generation has tended towards either injurious apathy or depressed capitulation. We know that the wealthy, middle-aged to elderly white men do not serve our interest. Unfortunately, what we do not recognize is that this is in part because they do not have to: we just don’t exercise our voting power to any degree that would compel them to heed our opinions or concerns. And we don’t assemble or organize to the extent that has any resounding influence on the perceptions of the public as a whole or the course of our nations’ governments.

Sites like this, however, exist as surrogates for the movement that was, but is no longer. The new blog (“web log”) phenomenon is really catching favour with the “voting-age youth” (those between 18 and 35), and provides a medium through which their dissent can be shared and proliferated. The effective use of the internet in this manner was so evident when Howard Dean came so close to taking an insurmountable lead in the 2004 Democratic primary. This depended heavily on the internet campaign system that was so well setup to utilize the numbers and abilities of college students from across the country. And it was later hypothesized that Dean might very well have been able to excite and attract the apathetic but strongly ideological left, as Kerry was unable to accomplish.

I don’t know what it takes to initiate another movement capable of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people on the National Mall in D.C., and I don’t know that this is ever possible again. But through sites like the one above, perhaps the strong feelings that I know are out there can eventually be harnessed into an advantageous and usable force to espouse the values that so many young people share. In this way, our governments might some day decide to concern itself with the people that their decisions will most profoundly effect for so much longer than the voters that they listen to.

Feel Free to Argue Back!!!

2005-10-04T12:29:00.000-06:00

Some of the topics that this page is starting to tackle should be certain to cause some kind of controversy. The purpose of the blog is to identify and explain various points of view relating to the Canadian and global socio-political scene. If you have a belief or opinion that contradicts a posting, do not just feel free to express it, feel obliged: it is in the interest of all readers that all view-points are shared.

Simply click the link at the bottom of the post that says how many comments have been made (they're all zero right now), and identify yourself as an "other"!

Christian Organization "Dragged" Before Human Rights Commission... Surely, Not a CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION!?!

2005-09-24T16:46:00.000-06:00

Here is my letter in response to the Concerned Christians Canada Inc. send-out, posted below. The letter questions some of the most fundamental aspects of the social-conservative movement, some of the positions that they have that are never backed up. Interestingly, their send-out was made in the same style as the PCIB response to the Jamieson letter (also below), which led me to investigate the CCC. It turns out that the CEO of the organization is the same Craig Chandler as the Executive Director of the PGIB. Small world.
-BT

Mr. Chandler,

Once again, I am going to have to inquire as to your method of communication. I suppose in this case, however, the intended audience is the choir to whom you are preaching, because the intent is to conjure up donations. Nevertheless, you will have to inform me as to how your send-out is received, as I would deem it , with my limited knowledge about Christianity, to be a moderately unchristian attack on an equal rights icon in this country.

First, am I supposed to be appalled at the events because it is a PASTOR and a CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION being “dragged” before a Human Rights Commission? You’ll have to inform me as to whether your organization believes that this is worse then any other persons being “dragged” in our rightly secular country.

Also, I need to understand how you and social conservatives see that the homosexual lifestyle is being focused at our youth. You know, as a young heterosexual man, I feel especially accosted, in Alberta, by the forces that oppose homosexuality. Yet at the same time, I don’t feel as though the “homosexual lifestyle” is being pressed on me from any angle. Must be that AIDS thing that God is using to keep their numbers down, right?

You will also have to describe to me how Lund is an “active pro-homosexual militant who opposes freedom of religion and freedom of speech”. Did you know that in our nation the dissemination of hate does not, and should not, fall under the types of speech we are free to make? Does Mr. Lund have a history or reputation of denying your right to be Christian… or does the belief that homosexuals should not have equal rights actually deny their right to NOT be Christian?

I find the right-wing Christian position fascinating from the angle of the self-righteousness that suggests to them that their lifestyle is of better moral standing then the rest of society.

Response to Chandler Email

2005-09-24T15:50:00.000-06:00

This is my response to Mr. Chandler's email, pointing out the loss of impact that his opinion has as a result of the personal attacks, and informing him about how the vast majority of Canadians from my generation view his party and their policies.
-BT

Mr. Chandler,

I just wanted to express my disgust at being drug into a personal email feud between you and Ms. Jamieson.

I found your email to be a very personal attack against her. I want to point out that the tone and content of the email was, from my point of view, severely detrimental to your position and the justified points that you were attempting to make. If she in fact lied or mislead on various facts, this is extremely disappointing, and I commend you for providing the service of setting the record straight and pointing out her untrustworthiness. However, certain comments, I believe, only served to further intensify the polarized sentiment around Stephen Harper; those that you will convince will only be those that are already convinced, preaching to the choir in its purest form.

In pointing out that she aligned herself specifically with a “transvestite candidate” is not necessary in the least and will not attract those of us who see the Alliance take-over of the PCPC as a social conservative triumph. And the fact that Enza was not serious about running for leader has a certain parallel to your alleged reason for running for the PCPC doesn’t it? Of course I say alleged because my memory of your race (against Peter MacKay, not McKay) is that both Scott Brison and Jim Prentice (who you didn’t mention) were supporters of the “merger” at the time. So wasn’t the merger vote already represented, and vote-splitting was counter to the goal?

Pointing out that Ms. Jamieson was “not liked” in a campaign is a qualitative argument that amounts solely to a personal attack, and is not likely to convince anyone of anything (is anyone likely to say: “Ooh, she wasn’t liked, she must be crazy?”).

Lastly, I want to inform you out of respect that you are not going to form government (“We are only going to form government when we keep our fights to ourselves and save our battles for the leadership races.”)

It would be wonderful if some day the party could prove me wrong by appealing to the majority of mainstream Canadians ACROSS this country, and end the Liberal rule and mismanagement. However, my predictions about the Conservative party have been exactly accurate thus far: take over by the Alliance (due to sheer voting power), establishment of a social conservative powerbase and the inevitable inability to silence the redneck comments by candidates during the campaign. I would love to be wrong and wake up tomorrow with Peter MacKay heading the party, but I a have not yet been wrong and won’t be. With you out there telling people to “shut up” (the only thing that you cannot say to someone in the house that I grew up), it is so evident that the far right CPC mainstay will never appeal to enough people to defeat the Liberals (the perennial big-tent experts). And as long as we can blame the failures on Ms. Stronach, no one will even know the real reason why: Canadians, as a whole, are more the inclusive types.

Just some thoughts and some predictions.

PASTOR AND A CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION BEING DRAGGED BEFORE A HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

2005-09-23T15:08:00.000-06:00

The following is a mass-email sent out by Concerned Christians Canada Inc. (CCC) rallying support against a hate crimes charge filed against them by a University of Calgary Professor. While it may not be entirely responsible of me to post these emails, I think this falls under "No Harm No Foul" because by posting them their message will be more widely disseminated.

IMAGINE A PASTOR AND A CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION BEING DRAGGED BEFORE A HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION FOR SIMPLY DISAGREEING WITH THE HOMOSEXUAL LIFESTYLE?

Imagine No Longer! Freedom Is On Trial

IF YOU BELIEVE IN FREE SPEECH & FREEDOM OF RELIGION
YOU WILL SUPPORT OUR http://www.freetospeak.ca/ CAMPAIGN

ON OCTOBER 29TH WE START FIGHTING BACK! - JOIN US!

Calgary Pastor Stephen Boissoin and Concerned Christians Canada Inc. (CCC) are co-accused by Dr. Darren Lund, a University of Calgary Professor, of the propagation of hatred and discrimination against homosexuals. Lund is an active pro-homosexual militant who opposes freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

Pastor Stephen Boissoin, the former Executive Director for the Concerned Christians Canada Inc. (CCC) wrote a letter condemning the propagation of the homosexual lifestyle and militant agenda directly focused at our children and youth. Now in our post Bill C-250 era a Pastor and a Christian organization are being dragged before a Human Rights Tribunal. Pastor Boissoin is presently a fulltime minister at the Cave Youth Outreach Center in Calgary, Alberta.

In order to combat the well funded militant pro-homosexual agenda, we need your help and you can help in one of 2 ways:

Donate to the cause for free speech and freedom of religion. Please go to http://www.freetospeak.ca/ and find out how a Pastor and Christian organization are being persecuted in the post Bill C-250 era. After you read the information on the Free To Speak website and the information at http://concernedchristians.ca about this issue please donate online or call 403-720-1911. Visa & MasterCard are also accepted.
Attend the "Free to Speak" Awareness & Fundraising Benefit, hosted by Stephen Boissoin & Concerned Christians Canada Inc. (CCC)
Where: The Coast Plaza Hotel, Calgary, AlbertaWhen: Saturday, October 29th, 2005, 5:00 PM Refreshments & Networking, 6:00 PM dinner Cost: $65 per person or $360 for a table of 6
Speakers: Calgary Bishop Fred Henry, Western Standard Magazine publisher Ezra Levant, Ron Gray - National Leader of the Christian Heritage Party, Rev. Tristan Emmanuel - speaker, activist and author of the book Christophobia: The Real Reason Behind Hate Crime Legislation, Dr. Chris Kempling - RCC and other prominent guests.
To Register: Call our office in Calgary at 403-720-1911 or go to http://www.freetospeak.ca/
25% of proceeds go towards Dr. Chris KemplingÂs legal battles. See http://www.freetospeak.ca/ for details.
10% to a Calgary AIDS Hospice.
65% for legal defence and related costs.
Evil flourishes when good people do nothing!

For more Information contact Concerned Christians Canada Inc. (CCC) at 403-720-1911

Answer to Carol Jamieson Letter

2005-09-22T15:23:00.000-06:00

The following is an answer to the Carol Jamieson letter posted below, from a staunch supporter of "conservative unity", Craig Chandler, who ran against Peter MacKay for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada leadership, in order to promote unity. He failed miserably, and this is likely to explain his blatant assertion that he did not run to win, but to "deliver a message of unity" (oddly, though, two other candidates were running pro-unity campaigns: Jim Prentice and Scott Brison, so why seek to split this vote if this was your cause?). Anyway, here is his response, which is at times very personal, and perhaps demonstrates the disconnected chronies that Ms. Jamieson was speaking of.
-BT.

Dear Carol,

I am in receipt of your "Open Letter to Conservative Party of Canada Members" that apparently was a letter clarifying "many untruths and rumours".

After reading this divisive letter, we felt it necessary to let people know the real truth about you.

However, before I proceed I should introduce myself. My name is Craig B. Chandler of the Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB) one of the groups instrumental in helping unite the former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and the old Canadian Alliance into a new united party. Infact, the PGIB felt so strongly abut this that I was encouraged to run for leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada against Peter McKay, Scott Brison, Heward Grafftey and David Orchard. I ran not to win, but merely to deliver a message of unity. The members of PGIB raised $250,000 for my campaign in a mere 4 days. If you wish further information on our efforts you can go to http://www.pgib.ca/2cards/pages/english/entrance/index.htm and read for yourself.

However, I want to clear up some myths in your letter to all of us:

You Claim: To be the Vice Chair of the GTA Presidents Council.
Fact: This is false, as this Council no longer exists in the new Conservative party of Canada.

You Claim: To be a long-time political organizer.
Fact: The only organizing you have ever done is opposing everyone. You aligned yourself with Enza the transvestite candidate who was not serious about running for leader in the Canadian Alliance race against Stockwell Day; you were a mere helper stuffing envelopes etc... with Belinda Stronach's campaign and were not liked; you tried to get Mike Harris ousted as leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party even though he delivered back to back majorities and you tried to get Joe Clark to resign as leader of the former federal Progressive Conservative Party with a similar attack campaign.

You Claim: Stephen Harper did not reach out to Belinda Stronach organizers.
Fact: Stephen Harper not only put Belinda Stronach in the front row and gave her an incredible portfolio, but he reached out to all her supporters since he has been leader throughout Quebec and Ontario. Despite our warnings to Harper that Belinda Stronach was a Liberal plant he did everything in his power to reach out to Belinda personally and to her foot soldiers. Harper united 2 parties and stopped the bickering something Charest, Clark, Manning and Day could not do.

You Claim: That after the vote results of the last election Mr. Harper did not tour or was not seen.
Fact: My relatives in Ontario saw Mr. Harper in rural Ontario, friends of mine in Newfoundland met him personally and I was at a rally in Calgary and Edmonton during the summer of 2004. Just because the Liberal media does not report it does not mean it did not happen. Just because he did not focus on your little centre of the universe (Toronto) does not mean he is not talking to other Canadians. Canada is more then just Toronto.

You Claim: that "Harpers door was not open for input from either his MPs or grassroots"
Fact: Not only does he seek input from MPs he even allowed free votes in the House Of Commons the only leader that allowed his member to vote as they wish. As for the grassroots his voting patterns prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he listens. Further, even at his own Town Halls he takes questions from the floor and returns e-mails in a prompt manner.

You Claim: At the Montreal convention "There was a squad of 200 delegates who moved from session to session to skew the results...including the showdown with Peter McKay over fundamental terms of our merger.
Fact: There was no such "squad" but merely people who disagreed with you. We were all elected delegates and representing our ridings. Also, I know first hand that their was no orchestration of a showdown relating to Peter McKay, feel free to call Peter yourself and he will verify this. The only conspiracies going on in our party are in your head. The party gave Mr. Harper an approval rating of over 84%. There are no monsters under the bed.

You Claim: Stephen Harper is losing ground and that the polls show a decline.
Fact: Brian Mulroney said it best: "The only poll that matters is the election" and that fact that you quote Leger a well known Liberal marketing firm for your numbers says it all. Every election from the Reform Party, Canadian Alliance to now even the Conservative Party of Canada the Liberal pollsters have had us behind and we end up further ahead every time. Heck when I ran for the Reform Party of Canada in Hamilton Mountain the pollsters said I would only get "3% of the vote if I was lucky" I finished with over 10,000 votes and 23% of the vote.

Carol, if you really were a "long time political organizer" you would know that all the Liberal media wants and desires is conflict amidst our ranks.

It is interesting that the Liberal media has completely ignored the 2 Liberal candidates in Le Devoir who ran in the 2002 By-elections who demanded Paul Martins resignation only two weeks ago. Is this division in the Liberal Party ignored by media? Or is the Canadian media just lazy? I think we both know the answer and you are either being played or are a Liberal yourself.

Carol it is sad that the only time you ever get media attention is when you are attacking someone else. Do us all a favour and join the Liberal party with your friend Belinda Stronach or learn from the Liberals and shut up in public and support the leader.

Admittedly, the Liberals do deserve credit for not constantly attacking each other publicly. At least Liberals stab each other behind closed doors.

We are only going to form government when we keep our fights to ourselves and save our battles for the leadership races.

You would have thought we would have learned by now.

If you are sincerely concerned about our party then do us all a favour and shut up!

Yours In the Fight,
Craig B. Chandler
Executive Director
Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB)

Answer to: An Open Letter to Conservative Party of Canada Members From Outside the Bunker

2005-09-21T12:48:00.000-06:00

This is my email answer to the originial email from Carol Jamieson posted below, and expresses my feelings as a young, socially progressive, anti-merger fiscal conservative.

Ms. Jamieson,

I am a proud former youth member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. I agree with so many of your assertions, and commend you for speaking out so clearly and truthfully on the subject. The only disagreement I have is the contention that the CPC will not survive should Harper hang on. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this is so obviously inaccurate; it will forever remain the eternal government in waiting, but surely the party will survive. There are enough right-wing hardliners and red-necks to ensure that it survives, and they surround themselves with so much like-minded opinion that they will forever believe that they are on the verge of really tapping into the sentiment of average Canadians. Perhaps this has escaped you because you are from Ontario, and are not surrounded by these people (though this is only a suggestion).

Unfortunately, while I accept most of your premises, I disagree with a fundamental aspect of your proposed course of action. While I concur that Harper is only going to hinder the party, I see no indication that the CPC would select anyone with any more common sense. For me it was obvious from the start that the merger was an Alliance take-over; this was evident from the sheer numbers of membership. This doomed the party to a Western, middle-age, white man policy-line, something that would never work to any great extent East of Manitoba, but a mind-set that was self-perpetuating because of the concurrence with such archaic ideas among the group with power within the party.

This is why I opposed the merger. While it is true that the PCPC showed no sign of attaining power in the near future, the combined party (dominated by old-Alliance) shows no sign of ever attaining power. At least the PCPC could potentially some day break into Ontario, concern itself with issues important to women, and be even remotely palatable to my generation, as long as it maintained its socially progressive stance. The Conservative Party has never shown such potential, and is highly unlikely to unless another Western right-wing sect roles off again. I am truly sorry and disappointed that you and other merger supporters didn’t realize this at the time, but for me it made obvious political sense, and all predictions have come to fruition.

I do not know WHERE the cause for fiscal conservatism in Canada should go from here. But I do know that I am only a de facto member of this party because of my old PCPC membership. The future is not through this socially conservative mainstay, and unfortunately the party of Mulroney exists no more.

With great respect, and predominant agreement,

Benjamin Thibault.

An Open Letter to Conservative Party of Canada Members From Outside the Bunker

2005-09-21T12:39:00.000-06:00

This is an email I received from a Conservative Party organizer from Etobicoke, M. Carol Jamieson, on September 21, 2005. It is very interesting, shows inside-the-party information, and explains the well-grounded position of an outcast member of the party.
-BT

An Open Letter to Conservative Party of Canada Members From Outside the Bunker

by M. Carol Jamieson, Vice Chair GTA Presidents Council, CPC; Director, Etobicoke North and Etobicoke Lakeshore Electoral District Associations; and longtime political organizer.

I find myself in the center of a storm of controversy that requires some explaining. Since many untruths and rumours are swirling around, let me tell you about this in my own words.

Like you, I find myself in a political party that currently has little or no possibility of running this country anytime soon. Indeed, I have begun to think I may be stuck with a tax and spend Liberal Government in Ottawa for the rest of my life! I voted for the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance because I believed that it would end the Liberal stranglehold on Ottawa by giving Canadian voters ³choice².

So why hasn¹t that worked? What has gone wrong?

Let¹s review these events. The newly minted party, The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), needed a new Leader following the merger so that there would be no baggage carried over from the legacy partners.

Naturally, many people considered the prospect of leading a conservative party with a real chance of forming a Government. Peter MacKay, though interested, knew that the Party was a clean sheet of paper and should have a fresh face. Stephen Harper, either missed that section of the text in Political Science 101 or, saw this as a way to finally get rid of that pesky Progressive Conservative Party that had been standing in the way of his destiny, 24 Sussex Drive.

There was more than one little problem created by that move, but essentially it became the best example ever witnessed of winning the battle and loosing the war. Once Harper had declared his intentions, all of those who knew that he had spent the previous 2 years consolidating his strangle hold on all aspects the CA understood that the race was over. Tony Clement, (the perpetual candidate) threw his hat in the ring anyway.

Fearing that Harper¹s agenda and positions were un-salable to the electorate, many conservatives, myself included, helped to recruit Belinda Stronach to take Harper on. We knew from the git-go with the head start that Harper had, it was impossible to get our candidate elected. But that wasn¹t the real goal. There had to be a place for those people in the party who did not feel at home with the CA leadership. This is simply good politics. Keeping everybody inside the tent was the most important thing at that time.

Following his victory, Harper as the new Leader made the first of many colossal political missteps in making no attempt whatever to reach out to those who had toiled in the trenches for Belinda Stronach. Despite the fact that many of the best organizers in the party were on her lists, none of these folks were given a nod or the time of day, let alone invited to help plan a conservative victory in the looming election. The Harper bunker was full! By not embracing these organizers the new party not only lost those people but effectively their entire networks.

But indeed, these folks were not really required on the Harper journey. Harper and his pals knew they had ³right² on their side and were light years ahead of Mr. And Mrs. Average Canadian. Surely it was only a matter of time before Mr. And Mrs. AC would see the light, correct? It was just an issue of communication.

Harper entered the General Election period with interest in the new party running high and the polls promising, but the new party had no real platform or policy positions and in the absence of same, the Liberals were only to too happy to provide their spin on what the CPC was all about. More particularly, they were happy to inform the Canadian electorate that Harper was ³scary² and was sure to mess with some of their strongly held beliefs. This combined with several candidates falling way off message and nothing on the ground in Quebec was enough to deny the CPC a mandate.

And what about after the vote results of June 25th, 2004Š did Harper go out and about to show the electorate the error of their ways? Not a chance. In fact, he was not seen for the entire summer. New MPs, defeated candidates, Campaign Managers, Riding Presidents and many others waited in vain for the calls from their Leader.

And what about when the new Government took its seats in the House of Commons, was Harper¹s door open for input from either his MPs or the grass roots? Did he look for feedback from anyone who disagreed? Apparently not! I¹ve even heard he chewed out his caucus at a meeting in BC and told them that they were not an advisory board. He was the one who would set party policy and he did not need to discuss it with them. This cemented the dictatorship style of management and our caucus members have been cowering ever since.

At the CPC Founding and Policy Convention in Montreal in March of this year, Harper was so concerned about what would come to the floor that his office organized and coordinated a squad of 200 delegates who moved from session room to session room to skew the results in an "acceptable direction" including causing the showdown with Peter MacKay over fundamental terms of our merger. This created even more mistrust amongst the former PC party members.

Buoyed, however, by the apparent approval rating of 84% (highly suspicious if you ask me, but that is another whole story that would make the election in the Ukraine look like child¹s play), Harper left Montreal with his boxing gloves at the ready and a perceived mandate to bring down the minority Liberal Government. Despite all the evidence that the electorate was not craving an early election, Harper was determined. Endless energy went into controlling the situation, having all hands on deck, screaming at the Government benches, accusing the Liberals of "wanting power at all cost" and alas, there were too many mouths but too few ears involved.

So, Harper made his move. The Liberal Budget that was, in his words 5 minutes after it was tabled, "almost a conservative budget' became the target vehicle in one of the biggest political flip-flops ever. One by one the MPs rose in the House to be counted and when the Speaker broke the tie, Harper had lost his gamble. You can blame Belinda Stronach or the independents that voted with the government but what about the guy who couldn¹t hold it together? How much effort would it have really taken to give a little bit of recognition to his chief opponent in the leadership race? Keeping your enemies close is another fundamental rule of politics that should never be broken and he can blame nobody but himself for that one blowing up in his face. How long did he think that someone who was CEO of one of Canada¹s most successful companies would sit there and be insulted both behind her back and to her face, and play no effective role in the party?

And what about that Grewal story with the illegal tapings? Harper has admitted that he and Grewal discussed the tapings. So now the party Leader is known to condone stupidity on top of everything else.

Meanwhile, with his numbers falling, falling, falling, Harper jumps into a new strategy. Instead of hiding out in the bunker in the summer of 2005, why not get out on the BBQ Circuit. Quite the strategy! Let¹s see, first, let¹s tell the world that we know our public image is bad; second, let¹s announce to the world how we intend to fix it and how; third, let¹s contrive a way to roar around all summer (while the world is on holiday) and flip burgers for the conservative voters we already have. Did I get that right? Oh yeah. That should work. Mr. And Mrs. Average Canadian will LOVE the man by the end of the summer. I know I personally thought the "Harper does the Calgary Stampede" look was his best "casual' ever! Made him much more approachable.

So where did this all get us? Are we any closer to seeing Conservative Government in my lifetime?

According to the recent polls we are further from this goal, despite the admitted Liberal Sponsorship corruption in Quebec playing in the background of all the horseplay in the House of Commons. And whom do the pollsters blame for these circumstances? More than one has said the blame must be put at Harper¹s feet. See the latest comments in the Leger Poll. The Liberals are happy that Stephen Harper is our leader. The only thing that they fear is that we will change the game on them.

The new Conservative Party of Canada had no chance of convincing the Canadian electorate that it was any different than the Canadian Alliance once it picked Stephen Harper as its first leader.

Politics is a tricky game and political leadership is even trickier. No amount of burger flipping can fix the image problems of this leader. He can continue to fire staff in the OLO, get new communications people, change his wardrobe, try more cornball commercials but nobody can hear our conservative message if they can¹t stop looking at the pitch man in disgust.

The time has come for Stephen Harper to stop dreaming that his destiny is 24 Sussex Drive. That day will only come if one of its residents invites him over because they are looking for a stick-in-the-mud dinner guest.

Harper did a good thing (as Martha would say) in engineering the merger and in doing so, has made a valuable contribution to the conservative cause in Canada. However, the Canadian electorate is finished with him, they have made up their minds and have spoken in poll after poll. For him to stay now merely adds insult to the injuries and further damages the conservative franchise in this country.

If Harper does not recognize this and move on, the electorate will be finished with us too and the CPC will not survive. Think about this. Many of you are sitting in the weeds whispering "Oh well. He¹ll be gone after he loses the next election anyway, so let¹s not bother ourselves and just wait him out". What does that do for this struggling young party? How does that help us
convince Mr. And Mrs. Average Canadian that we hear their concerns and know we have the wrong message and the wrong Leader? How can we swing the "natural conservatives" (to the extent they still exist) back to trusting us? Regaining TRUST is the hardest thing in politics.

So,..why do I want Harper gone sooner rather than later??? Because, what matters to me, and what should matter to all of us is the recovery and survival of the Conservative Party of Canada beyond Harper. According to Mr. And Mrs. Average Canadian, his 15 minutes are up and they don¹t plan to invite him over for BBQ, so lets get on with it!

Emacs!

Stupid Conservatives, Stupid conservatives. Part IIA: Dumber

2005-08-09T23:53:00.000-06:00

The small “c” conservative opposition to same-sex marriage not only represents political stupidity, as with the Conservatives, but also moral and practical stupidity.

The grassroots conservative citizens of the nation harbour a disparate set of views, values and ideals regarding the many issues that concern Canadians. They are said to be connected by a set of common beliefs, but these are general and abstract concepts such as smaller or less dependence on the state, decentralized government, and embracing of “family values”. Each is so oblique, however, that they can be applied to issues in different manners in order to produce the many opposing opinions between conservatives.

Certain conservative ideals have great merit and should be embraced. It is foolish to argue against responsible government, as excessive borrowing places a mortgage on our nation’s future, and it seems intrinsically logical to protect children against sexual crimes with the harshest of penalties.

The new Conservative Party, however, is run by the vocal and faithful social conservative grassroots of the former Alliance Party, a very specific and ancient breed of conservative. This is so obvious when candidate after candidate expresses ill-will towards minority factions during campaigns, but was further demonstrated by the land-slide decision to again elect an Alberta social conservative to lead the party. This has failed so many times before, and shows the importance that the party faithful place on the social conservative agenda: it is apparently more important than ever gaining seats in the East and forming a Conservative government.

So why is the most vocal conservative sentiment voiced in the country motivated by senseless, long-held prejudice and bigotry? An analysis of conservative argument against gay marriage might shed light on the reasoning behind their ferociously guarded ideals.

CONT… Part IIB

Stupid Conservatives, Stupid conservatives. Part I: Dumb

2005-07-01T15:08:00.000-06:00

After a year and a half on the Liberal agenda, same sex-marriages were finally made legal across the country on June 28. This is a proud moment for equality rights in Canada, supporting Canadians’ reputation as a progressive people, being only the third country after Belgium and the Netherlands to legalize same-sex marriages. In practice, of course, the vast majority of Canadians lived in a province or territory that had already attained equality in the eyes of the law through judicial decisions undertaken in the highest courts of these jurisdictions. The vote that brought the rest of the country into the fold was therefore equally important as a symbol of our commitment to inclusiveness and acceptance as it was in practical terms.

But as proud as we can be for our country’s forward view, there remains an irrational and repressive opposition to this very logical legislation, and it is the howling point for Canada’s social conservative movements. And right in step, never failing to miss the essence of logic behind progressive social policy, is the Conservative Party of Canada.

Now this essay should certainly not be interpreted as an advocacy (or "sponsorship"…) of the Liberal party. In fact the history of debate on this issue is to a large degree another black eye on Grit faces. As aforementioned, the legislation was on the party’s agenda for over a year and a half, starting as one of Chrétien’s legacy initiatives in 2003. Granted, eighteen months on the Liberal agenda is actually quite swift relative to the death row of promises that have been waiting since 1993. Nevertheless, shoring up equal rights for gays and lesbians is a process that has taken far too long, and the Liberal party’s full acceptance of equality was far too slow too develop. It was, of course, Trudeau who argued so succinctly and so sensibly for the decriminalization of homosexuality by affirming that “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.” This was as Justice Minister in 1967, nearly forty years ago; a time when the party, if nothing else, could at least be touted as forward-looking and innovative.

No one expects the kind of impassioned leadership demonstrated by Trudeau from today’s politicians, but by this account we can totally forget forward-looking policies in government – our leaders for the last several decades have been barely cognizant of contemporary lifestyle choices and cultural realities. Neither Chrétien nor Martin had the fortitude to embark on this landmark advancement of society without what they hoped to be the support of the Supreme Court of Canada, stalling the legislation to ask them to decide that the legislation was required under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The SCC refused to answer this specific reference question, pointing out that it is not the responsibility of the court to legitimize or endorse a party policy, and it would not be used as a mechanism for swaying public opinion in a political debate.

So, while the Chrétien/Martin Liberals may claim this victory as a demonstration of their heroic commitment to inclusion and compassion for minorities, they settled into this decision with little political risk, and no leadership. However, the country will see them as they have branded themselves because they are compared relative to an incredibly pathetic political standard: the Harper Conservatives.

While the Conservative Party of Canada was born of the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance Party and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, it has truly turned out to be (as was easily predictable) an Alliance take-over. The old PC party recognized the need to combine socially progressive policy with conservative and responsible fiscal ideals. They recognized that it was not necessary to infest good money management concepts with senseless, ancient, redneck prejudices. Unfortunately, the current conservative alternative to Liberal waste carries these unnecessary, divisive, and harmful beliefs.

The PCPC also recognized that a conservative government would require support well beyond rural and Western Canada. They recognized that for any real success of a right-wing party, it needed seats in both urban and Eastern constituencies. Maybe even more important, it recognized that for long-term political success, it would have to court today’s youth who are tomorrow’s voters. When I asked Joe Clark about this during the days of the merger, he was quick to recognize that the new party would have no future in Canadian government if it did not embrace the equal rights and just values held by today’s young people. In fact this became the basis of Mr. Clark’s argument against the combined party over the following few weeks, and his most serious warnings came true. The new Conservative party tows the Alliance line on the vast majority of major issues of concern: against same-sex marriage, against Kyoto, against decriminalization of marijuana, and for tax reduction as opposed to the elimination of our national debt, the mortgage on the future of Canada’s youth.

So, while Conservatives need urban and Ontario support, and some kind of symbolic breakthrough in Quebec (that will at the very least soften the party’s image with Ontario voters), Stephen Harper has come out adamantly against the recent bill, vowing to rescind the legislation should a Conservative government be elected. Instead of accepting pragmatism as the only way to attain government in this country (unlike our Southern neighbour), as the Liberals have accomplished for 12 years, he panders to his Western and religious base that has maxed out at the current Tory seat number: around 100. So it is an inescapable conclusion that the man is either extremely stupid, ignorant, or a staunch ideologue who despises the idea of married men in loving families to such a degree that he would ruin his own political ambitions over it. However, Harper’s past political loyalty as a Trudeau Liberal (whose progressiveness was previously noted) basically rules out this latter possibility.

So this leaves stupidity and ignorance. As hard as I try, I can't think of any arguments against these characterizations.

Closure Finally, or Just Another Chapter?

2005-06-16T23:36:00.000-06:00

As the latest update to the Terri Schiavo story, the doctors who performed the controversial autopsy on the woman who long awaited death until last March reported on their findings Wednesday.

The autopsy established that Terri's condition was absolutely irreversible and that there is no way that she responded to the site of loved ones as the video clips allegedly suggested. It was found that the occipital lobe of her brain was completely lost, and that she therefore suffered from cerebral blindness; totally unable to see anything at all.

This does not come as a surprise to the vast majority of medical doctors that held that she would never improve. The autopsy only serves to put to rest an impassioned disagreement as to her prognosis before dying, to prove conclusively what was already known through medical scans.
What is incredible, however, is that such falsehoods could be created and disseminated to so many ardent supporters of Terri's "right to life". Whether or not Terri should have been let to die is a moral question that can not be answered in any conclusive manner (though legally, the rulings followed the letter of Florida law). But the manner by which one position was advanced can surely not be considered moral in itself.

Finding the few doctor's that will promote a medical view that caters to your opinion, and then attempting to prevent an autopsy that was certain to discredit this view demonstrates the intention of deception harbored by the right to life movement. This is but one example of set of terrible decisions made by this group, which also includes misappropriation of donation money and a series of deplorable media and public relations tactics that go beyond even those found in Ottawa or D.C.

Hopefully with the new found power wielded by the Christian right in the U.S. others from this group that are accredited with re-electing a president will treat their clout with more prudence and demonstrate that along with their social conservative views they will at least embrace the classical liberal ideals of openness, full disclosure and honestly. However, recent events in that country, beyond this specific case, do not provide for much optimism in this regard. Perhaps at least the nation will recognize that along with their "moral superiority" comes great expense that undermines some essential principles of modern democracy.

Anti-Alberta Sentiment PART I: Justified or Jealousy?

2005-05-11T13:29:00.000-06:00

The other day on CBC Newsworld, Pamela Wallin, Canadian Consul General to New York, put forth a compelling argument that there exists more diversity of opinion and ideology within our two countries then between Canada and the United States. This is a line derived from one used by many politicians and diplomats in recent years to try to ease relations at a time when our mutual differences are repeatedly highlighted by the media.

In fact the argument is accurate. There exists a multitude of Americans throughout that country that espouse homosexual marriage, universal healthcare, international cooperation, and major pollution and greenhouse gas controls. At the same time there are plenty of Canadians that believe in the “traditional” definition of marriage, private health care systems, capitol punishment, and intensive media censorship. The fringes of our ideological extremes greatly overlap; placed on spectrums our beliefs appear quite congruous, especially relative to the socially democratic Scandinavian countries, known as the cradle to grave societies, and certain rightist nations that exist in Eastern Europe, where progressive taxation has been eliminated (adored locally for their obvious juxtaposition to the Soviet empire).

However, during a “Your View” segment the next day, CBC played three call-in opinions haranguing the suggestion that Canadians might be like Americans. One in particular asserted that the speaker himself is not like Americans at all, that he finds them rude and terrible people and that he has no desire to meet another or travel to that country. He finished his argument by expressing that the only people he has met that are like Americans are Albertans.

Is this opinion justified or, as Albertans like to preach, is the rest of the country just jealous of our economic and fiscal situations? Are Albertans more American than they are Canadian or is the province actually a leader in the country, a successful model to which the rest of the country should aspire? Depending on the aspect of interest, Alberta represents both of these extremes. All in all however, Alberta is really just a Canadian (emphasis on Canadian) Texas, as will be demonstrated in posts to come.

For Terri, for life, or for a Christian dominated nation?

2005-04-03T16:47:00.000-06:00

Florida’s most recent drama is all but over. A battle may yet ensue concerning the fate of Terri Schiavo’s remains, but after a decade and a half of a persistent vegetative state, the prolonging of her bodily life has ceased.

It is impossible to prove that this is what Ms. Schiavo wanted, but it is also impossible to prove otherwise. I believe, however, that the scariest aspect of the story is not her ultimate death from dehydration, but the possibility that she spent 15 years conscious of inner thought, but devoid of external stimulation. It is so frightening to imagine that in the event of such tragedy, someday we could be forced to experience such incredible boredom. If nothing else, the situation has brought the taboo of death to open discussion and demonstrated the importance to draw up living wills or personal directives.

However, the actual motives of her parents and husband, the true desire of Terri to live or die, and the real medical prognosis that Terri had will all never entirely be known, but these have little consequence on the nation-wide effect of this case. The real precedence that is set is the adamancy demonstrated by Christian groups to guarantee what they saw as her right to live. It is not so much that they harbour this ideology, but the political tactics they used and the rhetoric they spread that should insight great concern.

During interviews and political panels throughout the event, the Christian talking heads compared the struggle for Terri’s right to life to the struggle of Jesus, and even less pertinent, the struggle for African American civil rights. They described the repeated court decisions to remove her feeding tube as “judicial murder” (famous evangelist Pat Robertson) and “an act of medical terrorism” (Republican House majority leader Tom Delay). Jeb Bush’s counsel in the case said: “We’re replacing the sanctity of life with the quality of life in this country,” as if this is a bad thing. They passed emergency legislation to send her case to the federal circuit, thereby utilizing the judicial system for their own political gain, a branch of government that must, for a functional democracy, be fully separate (though Canada is further from actual separation).

The courts had held the decision to follow the spouse’s orders for over a dozen decisions already, a testament to the sound jurisprudence that this was the correct decision under the common law. Florida law states that in the absence of a personal directive, the spouse has priority as the surrogate decision-maker. What this means is that regardless of your belief on the “sanctity of life”, one can easily argue that in neglecting to draw up a personal directive, Terri made the decision to leave discretion to her husband. To attempt to deny this is to silence the only apparent “wish of Terri’s” that had legal standing.

Of course people have diverse opinions on the matter, and of course everyone is entitled to this. But to politicize her death is unacceptable. Tom Delay happened to be going through public investigation into a wide range of ethics violations when he became the biggest proponent of legislation supposedly for Terri, but more likely for media deflection. In fact personal decisions related to his own family suggest that he has no moral abomination to ceasing the medical extension of someone’s life. Yet his calculations told him to work to “Delay” Terri’s death; which really means to politicize it, and not to prevent it. It was also discovered that Mr. Schiavo had sold a list of mailing information of all the donor’s that had given to the family’s legal cause to a Conservative organized fundraising group. These are only examples of an entire set of horrible decisions made to take advantage of a helpless lady’s life and death: to give the Christian right an upper-hand in all right-to-life debates, especially abortion, contraception, and assisted suicide.

While I understand that Christians were found on both sides of the debate, and the most disgusting examples are the acts of only a few, I couldn’t find another title for the "re-insert the feeding tube" group. It is indisputable that they were predominantly Christian, and not restricted to the Christian right: many Christian democrats and left-wing advocates like Rev. Jesse Jackson argued for prolonging the vegetative state. It is not difficult to surmise that the Christian set of religions was responsible for the extra half decade that Terri spent in her condition, and the spread of fear that any American’s right to die might be challenged by “right-to-live” legislation that would force them to live in this state. Perhaps it is time for Christians to restrict the imposition of their higher moral values to themselves, and allow the state to truly separate itself from the church.

LETHBRIDGE LOCAL: Does Someone Maybe Need a Speech Writer?

2005-03-24T17:37:00.000-07:00

In an interview on Shaw Cable news yesterday, Mayor Bob Tarleck fielded questions about Council's decision concerning a proposed low-rent housing development in the downtown core. It was truly a moment for pride, as Bob's vote was the tie-breaking vote (as is customary for a Mayor's vote that is cast in a 4-4 tie) in a truly common-sense decision that will bring more people downtown, provide affordable housing, and take advantage of guaranteed provincial and federal grants.

However, true to form for the now two-term Mayor, Bob's pride carried over into elitist display when he closed the interview with a quote that he thought effectively expressed the success of council in reaching a decision on a controversial issue without vocal and childish animosity (as was the custom during the "Days of Dar"). The quote was obviously prepared and pre-planned.

Now, I am generally one of the greatest (perhaps only) proponents of elitism in government, because I don't understand why public leaders should be like you and me. However, it works best when the expression of one's own intelligence is accurate and eloquent. Bob finished the quote by attributing it to one of the Fathers of Confederation, and mentioned that the "quote was said" ... [brief pause ... confident grin ... high-horse demeanor] ... "sometime around 1775." Now, I'm not going to suggest that this is inaccurate because I don't remember the quote or the person, so you can draw your own conclusions. But man, that Father of Confederation must have been OLD in Charlottetown in 1864. I wonder if he said this quote down in the States during their Independence conferences.

The right to live or the right to die?

2005-03-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman living in a “permanent vegetative state” for the last 15 years, is the current case of mass-politicization of a very personal and incredibly sad story. Last Sunday night, Republican and Democratic congressmen held an emergency vote on a bill quickly signed by G.W.B. to put the family argument through another round of court discussions. The situation has created thousands of experts on the will and desires of this woman who has not spoken for the better part of two decades.

In reality this is an impossible situation, one of those unanswerable questions. The issue had innumerable shades of gray, except perhaps for those people who believe that your life is not really your own, but rather God’s, and you can never decide to end it. For them it is very clear-cut, and I suppose that is fine for them, except for two aspects of their position: 1) they have no proof that God owns MY life (maybe their own), so they cannot legitimately tell me that I have no right to chose when I die, and 2) their arguments extends beyond the simple premise that our lives donn't belong to us, into other issues where I disagree with them:

These people are suggesting, against all unbiased doctors’ opinions, that she is conscious and responding to those she loves. They are suggesting that they know that she would not want to end her life, that she’d have changed her mind since last suggesting to her husband that she wouldn’t want to live in this condition. They are even suggesting that Michael Schiavo wants her to die so that he can marry his common-law wife with whom he has two children. How anyone would know this is beyond me, and I certainly don’t.

However, they also suggest that no drastic action is being taken to prolong her life; that being fed represents a need that we all share. They say this in order to differentiate from those people who are on “life support”, who allegedly need much more to live. What I don’t understand is the differentiation: I don’t need to be fed by a tube, as they suggest I do, anymore then I need a respirator to breathe or a circulation device to pump my blood. While I agree that a feeding tube is not a complicated medical device, I do not see how it is inherently different from other life support mechanisms.

Lastly, they proclaim that it is illegal for us to treat dogs this way, to deprive them of food and water, so how can we do this to a human? While I do not see how this applies, because these dogs are fully conscious and aware, I also think that this is a ridiculous analogy. If we are to concern ourselves with how she dies, instead of whether she should die, then we would be better to talk about legalizing assisted suicide: giving her a painless injection to end her life, another right that we in fact afford to our dogs. However these same people, from the Christian right, are the people who will prevent any progress towards legalizing euthanasia, so that this option will never be available for any of us, no matter how much pain we are in or how tired we are of an existence where we are conscious of the fact that we have no perception of, or input from the outside world. The fact that we only allow crude and brutal deaths is not an argument against letting someone die, but instead a call for more humane treatment of the severely ill.

I don’t know any of the answers to any of these issues, but this is another situation where I am tired of the politicization and both sides suggesting that it is black and white, as Americans have become so good at doing. I think that in the end at least we can all know that doctors say that in dying from hunger she will in fact not feel pain, and as her muscle breaks down toxins will be released that will give a sense of euphoria. Because, despite what people on both sides are trying to make it, that is actually what this should be about: what is best for Terri Shiavo.

My First Blog

2005-03-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I think that we all knew that the day would come when I would stop sending you irritating emails, mostly designed to pretend that anyone would want to listen to me. Well, no more. From now on, you have to come here instead, because I will quiz you to ensure that you visit from time to time, but at least I won't be filling up your inboxes.

As you can see, the blog is called Canadian Youth, partly because I feel that this is one of the best ways to describe me, and partly because it is this demographic that I think my beliefs most concern, but this is only because it is this age group that will have to live with today's decisions the longest.

I don't know how this will work, and it will probably end up being a dismal failure because I don't always have a lot of time to be posting to this site like most bloggers. Actually, I don't even really want to think of it as a blog, because I don't think that I would make much of a "blogger", since I hate computers with such a passion. Regardless (note: NOT "irregardless") of this, blogging is apparently where it's at for posting personal opinion, so it will be interesting to see if anyone is intrigued enough to type the easy URL in everyonce in awhile.

Well, thanks for coming once anyway. The next post, when I get around to it, will hopefully be a little mission statement for the blog, once I get it figured out (like, if you all can add opinion every once in a while, and such).

Ben.