willbillyblog

Politics Is US!

2010-12-31T15:20:00.000-08:00

While I know a number of you have probably totally tuned out politics, and with the nasty blood sport it seems to have become, its difficult to blame you.
However, there is a worldwide crisis with democratic process brewing, and the longer we ignore it, the worse its going to become.
Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, politics plays an integral part in every waking hour of our lives. It determines where we live, how much we pay to live, what we eat and how much we pay for it. Politics determines where our kids go to school, what they learn there, what it costs to send them there, and how they develop while they are there. It determines the quality of the world we live in, where we can go, what we can do, and whether our world survives. Our incomes, what we do to get by, how we think, who we know, and how our lives unfold, are all contingent, at least in part, on the political structure around us.
We can no more ignore politics than we can afford to forget to breathe, eat and sleep!
In Canada, we have become complacent about the elephant in our room. Half of us have tuned it right out, or so we think! But we can no more tune it out, than we can forget to clean up after ourselves, before we are overrun with problems.
Last year at this time, five days after promising he would do no such thing, our Prime Minister suspended our parliament! Those who recognized the threat in that move, immediately hit the streets, using modern technology to organize. Despite how it was portrayed in the press, this was Canadian people reacting to a very serious assault on our democratic process. We had a Prime Minister suspending democratic process without the support of the people! He claimed he had the “confidence of the house” but this PM has never had any such thing!
Later in the year, we watched as both the UK and Australia faced similar circumstances to ours, where no one party achieved enough seats to govern. But what happened in both the UK and Aus, was totally different than what happened here. In the UK and Aus, the parties were forced to sit down together and work our a deal. If they hadn’t, there would have been rioting in the streets. In Canada however, we just sat by while one politician and his party decided to try to govern without enough seats to pass legislation, and we let him! In the UK and Aus, where people take such matters seriously, the people forced their leaders to find compromise, cooperation and consensus. The end result, in our sister countries, the governments have been forced into a position where they have to enact legislation according to the will of the majority. On the other hand, here in Canada, by our own inaction, we are left with a government that has been given permission to force the will of a minority onto the majority!
As a result, we have a government decreeing people can’t be helped, and international aid agencies can’t get help from Canada, if the aid agencies have in anyway encouraged, participated in, or even appeared to condone abortion. Since when do Canadians refuse to help people in need based on the agency providing that help having contributed to a medical procedure that is perfectly legal in Canada?
We also had our government, in the middle of a recession and perhaps the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, shut down all business of the House for an Olympic games! That’s only happened once before in modern history. In Germany in the mid 1930s! And the person who did it went on the become one of the greatest mass murderers and tyrants in history! His name was Hitler!
Then we had our government, again in the middle of an economic crisis, guarantee over a billion dollars in our money to security for those Olympic games. Security, at least in part, that was used to hassle peaceful demonstrators while a gang of thugs in hoodies and face masks were allowed to vandalize a good portion of downtown Vancouver with impunity!
Six months later, the same thing happened again, only this time with a far more dire outcome. Over a billion dollars was spent, and secret laws enacted, to prevent the people of Toronto, and Canada, from demonstrating, or even watching others demonstrate! We had policemen threatening young people for blowing bubbles. We had police, with badges and other identification removed, violently attacking people who were merely watching what was going on! There were police cars inexplicably left unattended, with all their weaponry mysteriously removed beforehand, in the middle of demonstrations! People were detained, threatened, abused, and otherwise mistreated for simply being on the streets of the city where they live! And sadly, in the months after, we were lied to by both police and the government about what went on! Actions were covered up, charges dropped, and a cloak of secrecy lowered! And still, the vast majority of Canadian people said nothing!
All the while this was going on, we had a government in Ottawa totally breaking almost every promise it made to the Canadian people in order to get elected. Thousands of seniors were duped of their life savings when the Harper government changed its tune on Income Trusts. Then, as major corporations faltered, or claimed to falter, under the weight of economic hardship, the government rushed to help those companies protect their assets, while allowing the pension plans of those companies’ workers’ to be foreclosed upon, or otherwise extinguished!
What’s more, in the midst of all this, after being told we’d be out of Afghanistan by 2012, the government, with the help of the other major party, backtracked on that promise! In the middle of the worst economic crisis in our history, when people are losing their jobs and homes, and there is apparently no money available to help them, we are told we can continue to pour billions of dollars into the armed occupation of a country where most independent observers, and history itself, say we don’t have a chance of succeeding!
And while all this was going on, our government was busy committing $18 billion to new fighter jets, under the auspices of homeland protection. Jets, which by the way, are being built for assault purposes, not defense!
Perhaps even worse, and more threatening, while all this was going on, our PM, who does not have the support of the Majority of Canadians or Parliament, was busy using technicalities to stack our Senate with like minded appointees, for no other purpose than insuring his partisan agenda will meet little opposition when it comes to passing bills through that chamber! And he’s doing it after assuring the Canadian people that he would not appoint senators, or engage in the very patronage practices, he railed against the former government for years about!
This is “more threatening” because it undermines the balance of power in Ottawa. Our Senate, which is supposed to be a chamber of “sober second thought” is being turned into a rubber stamp factory, where anything the current government wants will be passed without any sort of second thought, sober or otherwise!
All this, and I’ve not even begun to touch on changes being made to our national healthcare system, which has begun to allow for-profit clinics, creating a secondary health care system that caters to rich, while receiving funding from those of us who cannot afford such convenience!
What’s more, this same government, which does not have the support of the majority of Canadians, has embarked on a behind the scenes attempt to raise taxes on goods and services! An act that has resulted in rising prices for goods and services, while the average Canadian is having trouble meeting their bills! Yet, this same government, in cooperation with the Provincial governments, continues to extend tax breaks to the richest top ten percent of people and corporations, claiming those breaks will result in breaks for the working people, but belied by the fact those same companies and people are raising their prices to the consumer, not lowering them!
In the end, we are being transformed from a democracy, where the people have the power, to an oligarchy, where the few dictate to the many!
And yet, Canadians are busy, working, paying bills, trying to enjoy their limited leisure time, and doing their best to ignore the elephant in the room, which is stripping them of that leisure time, making them work harder, fret more, and stress more over the difficulties they are experiencing.
Moreover, the same government and people who are behind the mess, are being given free run because the people who are too stressed, are buying into the plan. While government and politicians turn our national debate into a schoolyard brawl, complete with personal attacks, character assassinations, name calling, smear campaigns, the people are looking at it and saying to themselves: “What nonsense, I don’t want anything to do with this crap!” And so they are disengaging, the end result of which, is to remove any opposition, feeding right into the government plan. A plan that, at its core, is to keep the people so preoccupied and tuned out, they offer no resistance as their rights and benefits are stripped away!
We come to perhaps the greatest threat of all. The threat to our planet, to the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat! Everyday we see how our environment is changing: more pollution, weird weather, less green space, less clean water, erratic seasonal changes and the like. Yet we have a national government that basically denies there is a problem, and when they do recognize it, feebly tell us we must follow the “American lead” on these matters. We’re basically being told we have to follow the lead of a country that has one of the worst environmental records in the world, and is contributing far more to its destruction than most! It’s a stark contrast to the Canada of a generation ago that was out to be world leaders in such things a global science, environmental protection, and preservation!
Then again, this whole situation a far cry from the Canada of a generation ago who were out to be world leaders in word peace, science, healthcare, education, quality of life, leisure, diplomacy and democratic process!
I’m not telling anyone anything new here. We all know what’s going on. One thing I can say about Canadians is, we’re not stupid. We know! But we’ve become apathetic! We’ve become soft! We’ve become pushovers! We’re letting the bullies, the small but very vocal and vicious Minority, have their way simply because we don’t want to become embroiled in the battl!. Instead of challenging the abuser, we’re letting the abuser take us hostage! We’ve, collectively, become the residents of small town Europe who, in the days of Fascism, said nothing when the brown shirts came for their neighbours, for their crops, for their homes, and who, in end, had no one to turn to when the brown shirts came knocking at their door! We’ve taken on the mantra of “its none of my business and does not affect me personally”, or “I’m only doing my job and taking care of my own business”. And that my friends, was the same mantra US soldiers heard when they interviewed the residents of towns like Auswitch after World War II, and asked those residents why they’d allowed the tragedy to unfold on their doorsteps!
We as Canadians are losing our democracy, and it ain’t because of our politicians and our weak leaders! Its because we ourselves are allowing it to happen! Its because we ourselves can’t be bothered to wade into the fray and say, “enough is enough, I want this to stop now!” Its because we’ve allowed ourselves to be distracted by all the name calling, personal attacks, character assassination, and the twisting of our national debate into some sort of personality conflict we don’t want to get involved in! And its in no small part because, instead of taking the time to really look at the situation, break it down, and see what is at its core, we choose instead to disengage! Its because at least half of us aren’t even bothering to show up at the polls and exercise our democratic responsibility! Its because we’ve allowed ourselves to become so preoccupied with our own little corners of the world and we can’t be bothered to step outside and look at the bigger picture!
I’m not trying to tell you how to vote, how to live, or what to do. But I will say these few things.
Generations of our families either fought and died fighting against, or fled, tyranny to come to Canada. They did this so you and I could lead free, happy, abundant and fruitful lives. They did not hide in their homes as the world around them fell to pieces! They did not capitulate! They reached out, took a stand, and made a difference! We are beholden to them, and to our children’s, children’s children to follow their example! Our forefathers and mothers gave us Canada, and it up to us to give Canada to our kids!
If an election is held and no one votes, we end up with tyranny. And if we end up with tyranny, there will be no Canada for our children and their children!
Inform yourself, educate yourself, participate! Step beyond the name calling, the smears, the lies, the deceit! Look at the issues! Learn about the parties and what they represent! Meet the people who are running for office! Engage your community and your democracy! Let your conscience by your guide! But most of all: Lead by example and make a difference!
VOTE!
Either that, or turtle, put your head between your legs and kiss you ass goodbye, because life without the freedom to live it is no life at all!!!

Harper Prorogue Absolutely Undemocratic

2010-01-04T11:18:00.001-08:00

There is absolutely no way parliament should be recessed, prorogued or otherwise dismissed without a majority vote, in the house, in favour!
Nor should any request have been made of the Governor General without the approval of the majority of the house. Nor should the Governor General have entertained any request from the Prime Minister unless the PM had the approval of the majority of the house.
In a democracy, majority rules, period. If there is a law that allows the Minority to overrule the Majority, then that law should be changed. The reason there are provisions, in parliamentary democracy, for minority governments and coalitions is, in part, to prevent a Minority from overruling the majority. We did not elect Mr. Harper to be Governor, or President, or King. We elected a Minority government. His party got more seats than any other single party, not more seats than all the other parties combined. If he had a Majority of the seats in the house, then fine, but he does not. Mr. Harper is the first PM in history to successfully be granted a prorogue without Majority consent.
The Opposition, if they are against this prorogue, should make it known to the GG and demand that parliament be recalled according to the parliamentary schedule that was in place when the house recessed. They should also, in my opinion, approach the Supreme Court, for a ruling on whether this prorogue is constitutional or not. They should also demand immediate recall of the house to vote on whether or not parliament should be prorogued. It should not be left to the GG or the PM to decide whether or not the house should sit without majority consent!
If the Opposition does nothing to have the prorogue reversed, then they are giving the PM pre-emptory right to govern without Majority consent, which in other words would constitute a Dictatorship!
Aside from the obvious issues, like parliamentarians getting paid not to work, and the scrapping of all current legislation, there are other concerns here. One, the people have not been told what the GG's reasons were for granting the prorogue! As citizens, we have a right to that information. Secondly, the Olympics have been mentioned. What on earth does a sporting event have to do with the function of parliament? Third, Canada is likely to be under heightened security alert during the Olympics, yet the PM is leaving Canada without watchdogs over the RCMP and Military Police during this period! That seems a mite irresponsible! If there is a security issue at the Olympics, what happens? Does Stephen Harper have the right to declare Martial Law without the consent of the house? There are just too many "what ifs" that could happen while parliament is not in session!

I think Canadians need to take the bull by the horns and do the job our parliamentarians are either refusing to do or being denied the ability to do. We need to phone and write our MPs, the GG, the Queen, and even the courts to demand the fundamental democratic principle of Majority Rule be adhered to by our PM and the house. If we do not, then we too are giving the PM permission to govern without Majority consent, and are in fact, signing away our democracy.

Pot Decrim in Canada

2009-12-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

What was the cost of last summer’s pot busts in Kaslo?.
How much did it cost the police to conduct these investigations and raids versus how much the defendants paid once they were convicted, if they were convicted?
When was the last time police went out to bust up a liquor still?
Point being, if pot were decriminalized and sold in a similar manner to alcohol, would we need to waste police resources, time and money, on busting pot growers?
If pot were decriminalized, would these growers even be interested, or willing, to continue operating illegally?
In Holland, pot is decriminalized and sold in licensed “coffee shops”, growers are licensed, and taxes are paid on the businesses and income from the activity. ” Possession of small quantities is permitted.
The result, according to the Dutch government, is many millions added to the tax base, a freeing up of police resources to deal with harder drugs, less court resources taken up prosecuting minor pot charges, and very few illegal grow ops (its easier to buy a license and do it legally).
Socially, there is less pot in the streets (its more comfy to go sit in a coffee shop) and a major reduction in the number of young people taking up the habit (the same thing happened when alcohol prohibition ended).
At a time when government revenues are tumbling, it seems odd a government claiming “fiscal responsibility” would continue to prosecute an activity that costs more than it yields. It also seems odd, while most reports indicate decriminalization, licensing and regulation of pot would create a major windfall for government coffers, the feds stringently hold onto their ideologically driven opposition. Franky, its fiscally irresponsible not to reconsider.
Another factor is the ongoing negative perception of the RCMP. They give lip service to the concept of “community policing” but seem more interested in getting neighbours to tattle-tale on each other. Community policing should be more about serving and reacting to the concerns of the community where the police are situated. Were the busts in Kaslo this summer conducted as a result of local pressure, or were the police operating under ideologically-based directions from Ottawa?
Most studies and reports indicate the “war on pot” is not working. Prohibition is resulting in gang violence (just as it did with alcohol), making criminals rich, and costing taxpayers untold millions.
Obviously, it is time we tried a new tact, especially when we need means of boosting the tax base! Most reports indicate decriminalization would do just that!
It is also time to face the fact that pot is not going away, just as we once acknowledged about booze.
How long will it be before common sense supplants unsuccessful ideological positions?
When will we finally learn from the mistakes of the past? When will our governments actually begin to demonstrate the fiscal responsibility they give so much credence to?
Finally, we can always give it a try and see if it works. The nice thing about laws is, we can always change them if they don’t work out!

Canada 09 vs Germany 39

2009-12-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

I grew up listening to stories about the "Great Wars." In school we learned about the politics behind those wars.
We were told Hitler was trying to conquer the world, end democracy, and institute an international dictatorship. Repeatedly it was explained how he went from being a fringe player, seldom taken seriously, to having a minority, to overruling the majority in his own parliament, to unleashing a period of unprecedented terror on the world.
Step by step his actions were explained, with the intent of making sure, we would never forget, and would not allow such a tragedy to occur again.
Hitler began with a small group of radicals. They complained German society was too "liberal", crime was out of control, outsiders were destroying society and hording resources, that Germany needed to build a strong army to reclaim its greatness.
Unfortunately, the German people did not take Hitler seriously. He seemed an odd man, surrounded by fringe characters. His politics were not widely shared. Few believed he would ever get elected, let alone become Chancellor. His party seemed to be little more than a group of disaffected losers who liked to complain about everything, and wanted to take the country backward, not forward.
His party's tactics of name calling, of accusing the opposition of being in league in with Germany's enemies, of claiming other parties were suffering from moral decay, only seemed to reaffirm he was a marginal character of no real consequence.
Even after being elected Chancellor, with a slim minority, few took him seriously. His claim that crime was out of control seemed ridiculous because most Germans lived relatively peaceful lives. Yes, there were serious economic problems, but no one really believed it was caused by immigrants. People were confident, his party was in the minority and there were plenty of checks and balances in the German political system.
When he began to chip away at the judiciary, appointing like minded people to the German courts, few challenged him. When he allowed the police to do their business without oversight, few complained. When he mocked his opposition, calling them names, accusing them of being traitors, few challenged his assertions. Most people found the politics of the time so negative, they simply ignored it. Even when Hitler began to outrightly overrule the elected majority, people continued to call him “inconsequential”.
The German people, by and large, viewed the ultra-nationalist, law and order, militaristic Nazi platform as a minority view, that would go away if ignored. Hitler represented the few and in time would be voted out.
We all know what happened next!
I’m grateful to be Canadian. The accident of my birth saved me from war, starvation, most disease, and dictatorship. I’ve been free to speak my mind, move about unfettered, and had a say in how I’m governed.
However, I do remember the lessons I was taught by those who experienced fascim, oppression and deprivation! Because of those lessons, I remain keenly aware of the warning signs.
When a people become complacent, ignoring the signs, more concerned about their individual wealth than the well being of the many, when they allow their democratic institutions to be chipped away, when they ignore the rantings, name calling and unfounded accusations being tossed around, they are ripe for dictatorship!
There is an old adage: “All it takes for evil to thrive in the world is for one good man to do nothing.” It seems to me, in Canada today, there are a lot of good people choosing to do just that!
That said, there is only one thing I want for Christmas. I want my fellow Canadians, all of them, to stand up for the most precious gift we have in our possession, our democracy!

BC Liberals, a tired, old, outdated platform

2009-04-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

US Senator John McCain, when he was running for President last year repeatedly stated: "The fundamentals of the US economy are strong."
Canadian Prime Minister, before the Opposition forced him to come clean last winter, repeatedly stated the financial crisis in the US would not have a significant impact on the Canadian economy.
BC Premier Gordon Campbell, in his most recent campaign ads, repeatedly states our province will not be severely impacted by the global financial crisis, and that "BC is the envy of other provinces."
The common link between these three individuals is they all adhere to the policies of deregulation (making things easier for business), privatization of healthcare and social programs, and tax cuts.
Curiously, John McCain would eventually flip flop on deregulation, and towards the end of the campaign, start advocating for more oversight. Prime Minister Harper would take a similar tact, praising Canada's regulatory systems for preventing a total meltdown of the country's banking system. Only BC Premier Gordon Campbell has stuck to the deregulate, privatize and tax cut mantra.
US President Barack Obama, who soundly defeated John McCain for the office, refers to the policies of deregulation, privatization and tax cuts, as "rehashed, stale, tired, old ideas." And most of the worlds most respected economists agree. In fact, they have pinned the worlds current financial crisis on "deregulation, privatization and tax cuts."
All I'm saying is: British Columbians should be thinking about these things when we go to the polls on May 12.

RCMP should not relax recruitment rules

2009-04-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

On Friday March 27, the CBC reported the Royal Canadian Mounted Police intend to relax their recruitment rules in order to fill an anticipated need for 2,000 more officers in the coming few years!
The report stated the RCMP are experiencing difficulty attracting new members, and that applicants with minor charges in the past, will now be considered for enrollment.
Among those expressing concerns about this plan is former Vanouver Mayor, one time Vancouver coroner, and ex-mountie Larry Campbell. Campbell’s major concern is the new rules are apparently not clear enough!
My concerns are much greater, and more widespread. And while I agree that a person with a minor conviction, such as possession of a small amount of marijuana, should not be automatically rejected, I do not believe this is the time for the RCMP, or any other police force, to relax recruitment rules.
In fact, if anything, police forces should be making their rules of recruitment more stringent, especially when it comes to education, esperience, psycological and aptitude testing.
One need look no further than the Braidwood Inquiry into the taser death of a Polish immigrant at Vancouver International Airport, or the tasering of an 82 year old in a nursing home, to realize there is a serious problem with police recruitment.
Clearly, from their testimony at the Braidwood inquiry, the four police officers involved in the Vancouver airport tasering are not the sort of individuals who ever should have become police officers. And despite police claims that tasering an 82 year old nursing home patient was warranted, any person who finds such an action justifiable, or necessary, should not be a police officer. One must wonder how police officers dealt with such situations prior to the advent of the taser.
While much ado is being made about whether or not tasers should be used at all, the real issue is the taser users, not the taser itself. Quite simply, it takes a finger to pull the trigger, and its the individual that finger belongs to, who should be put under scrutiny, not the trigger!
If anything, police forces in this country, and around the world, should be focussed on improving the quality of people they attract, not loosening the prerequisites. Anyone applying to become a police officer should have to clearly demonstrate superior skills and ability when it comes to issues such as honesty, mental stability, conflict resolution, emotional, mental an physical well being, social consciousness and personal integrity.
The real problem in policing is quality, not quantity. Relaxing recruitment rules will do nothing to resolve the crisis in policing, and may well serve to further exasperate what has become, by all accounts, a critical problem.
Another issue here is attracting the right personnel. With all that has gone down at the Braidwood Inquiry, and in other police related inquiries and lawsuits across the country, one can easily see why police departments are experiencing difficulty attracting good candidates. Who on earth would want to become a police officer at a time when the policing has become among the least trusted and respected professions in the country? To relax the rules now, only serves to deepen the mistrust and suspicion.
One of the first things that needs to happen, to restore public faith in the police, if for the police themsleves to do something to restore public trust. The bad seed must be sorted and removed, yes, but even more, the good seed must be identified, nurtured, and encouraged. Step one in that process would be for the police, especially the RCMP, to come clean. And it won’t be enough to simply fire the officers involved in the taser death at Vancouver airport. Moreso, there needs to be a total change in the “us against them” culture inherent in most police forces. To that end, every police force in this country needs to, without delay, open itself to public scrutiny and immediately put an end to the practice of self-investigation. When cops do wrong, the last people who should investigate them is other cops!
Another action that needs to be taken is to immediately require all potential recruits to have some sort of advanced education before qualifying for recruitment. One should have at least a BA in forensics, criminology, social work, law or other related field before qualifying. What’s more, preference should be given to those with even higher education, or a lengthy history in community service, combined with a degree. Such an action would of course require police forces to increase salaries, benefits and other renumeration, in order to attract the more qualified candidates. However, this is where quality over quantity comes into play. Better qualified police will reduce then need for more police!
Lets take the Vancouver airport incident as an example. One officer, with the ability to speak Polish, and some background in human psychology, would most certainly been able to resolve the issue there without the need for any force at all. Instead, four ill-trained officers, with no apparent cultural sensitivity, took less than a few minutes to unnecessarily kill a man who was simply frustrated, tired, and unable to communicate.
Another issue requiring urgent redress when it comes to police recruitment, is the source of the recruits. It is high time police forces in this country started recruiting officers from the communities where they will eventually serve. These recruits should be people who have garnered respect in thier home communities, and who have earned the trust of the people they will eventually serve. This is particularly true of the RCMP, who have engaged in a practice of cycling their officers out of the communities where they live every few years, much to the force’s detriment. The RCMP do this in order to prevent their officers from becoming to entrenched in the communities they serve, and to better enable them to assign officers to unpopular locations. But the real problem is in the quality of the recruits. If more well-suited individuals are recruited, then the RCMP won’t have to worry so much about their members becoming corrupted through entrenchment. If they are recruiting from the communities they will eventually serve, those recruits will be only too happy to serve where they live.
There’s an old adage; Sugar attracts more favourable results than vinegar. To that end, the police need to rethink the whole para-military approach to law enforcemnt that has become so prevelant over the past few decades. This is not to say we don’t need SWAT specialists, terror specialists, an organized crime units. However, there is a crisis in public confidence in policing that will not be resolved if the current focus on militarism persists. Police forces need to stop giving lip service to the concept of “community policing” and start actually practicing it.
When I was a kid, the cops in my hometown walked the beat. We all knew them by name, and they knew us by name. If your car broke down, they’d stop and help you get going again. If a woman was struggling up the street with a load of groceries, the beat cop would help her out. If there was dispute on the corner, the cop would do what he could to help resolve it. If the police are ever to regain public confidence, then they will need to begin to revert to practices that put them in touch with the people, and the people in touch with the police. Today, the police are feared more than respected. It should be the other way around, but it won’t get there until the police begin to do something to realistically change that perception. And of itself, such a change, would go a long way to helping with recruitment. When police once again become the servants of the people, the friend of the people, then people will once again become friends to the police. When police become people the people look favourably upon, perhaps the people will begin to view becoming police officers as a favourable profession.
Unfortunately, relaxing the rules of recruitment, while it may fill the seats at the academy, is only going to result in those seats being filled by people who really ought not become police officers. And that, my friends, is a scary thought.

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You, Demand It!

2009-02-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

It was the American president, John F. Kennedy, who said: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Those words have echoed for a generation. They are clever, and sound right, but are they?
Way back at the time of the Magna Carta in England, a group of noblemen rose up against their government, demanding it pay attention to the needs and rights of the citizenry. At the time, the King was the government. He made all the rules and the people had no alternative but to obey, lest they be imprisoned or worse. In fact, all the people were expected to do for their country, and the government was beholden to none. The King could do whatever he wanted.
Similar events occured in other countries, such as France. Many centuries later, in the American colonies, it was the same story all over again. When the colonists complained their government, led by King George, was ignoring them, not allowing fair representation, and ruling without regard for their rights, they too rose up. They were in fact demanding the government “do for them” and were quite sick of “doing for their country” while their country did nothing for them. In the end they formed their own country, a country that was “for the people, by the people.”
This latest slogan, in the years since, has become the founding phrase for democracies all around the world. It seems to fly in the face of what JFK said. In fact, democracy, at its core, is founded on the notion that a country, and its government, must do for its people, not the other way around!
Yesterday I was in a cafe where I overheard the young server complaining about people who are forever expecting their government to do for them. Its a common complaint. Anyone who is expecting their government to help them out is somehow a welfare bum, a miscreant, a ne’er do well. At least that’s what many of us have come to believe, but is it reality?
Seems to me the whole point of democracy is governence for the people, representing the people, by the people, not the other way around. Government, in the democratic system, is meant to represent the people against the power.
Today the corporations and the wealthy have replaced the king. And in democratic systems, the task of government is to balance the people’s interests against that power. Its the whole purpose of elections, to give the people a say in how they are treated by the power, and to keep the power in check. At least, that’s what is supposed to be going on!
Unfortunately, somehow, it is not what is going on. We have supposed democratic governments that spend the lion’s share of their time representing the interests of the power, corporations and industry, against the people. The current economic mess, and bailout plans, are a prime example. Banks, the auto industry, big corporations, the rich, are all being handed huge sums of the people’s money. Yet, if its even suggested that money should be going directly to the people, all of a sudden we hear cries of “socialism” as if it would be anti-democratic to help the people. Yet it is somehow okay to help the powerful!
Why is socialism okay for big corporations, but not for the people? Its a question no one can answer. We’re told its because the big corporatons create jobs, but all the evidence says otherwise. Every study ever done illustrates it is not the big powerful coroporations that create jobs, but small business! Small businesses run by the people are the primary sources of new jobs in every economy in the world. Big business is better known for cutting jobs, for moving jobs offshore, for polluting, for using tax lawyers to get around paying taxes, for reaping huge profits while cutting manpower. Yet our governments continue to bend over backwards to keep big business in business, while everyday people, and the businesses they operate, go under!
For all intent and purpose we’re back where we were when the noblemen launched their protest and created the Magna Carta. We’re in the same place France was, when the people stormed the bastille and overthrew their king. We’re in exactly the same place we were in the when the colonists climbed aboard the ships in Boston harbour and had themselves a tea party! Our government has become the servant of the rich and powerful and the mantra is: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” We’re being called upon to go along with the premise that we should ask nothing of our governors, and gracefully accept whatever they decree for us.
We’ve been here before and it is not too difficult to imagine what will happen next. The king must capitulate or lose his head!
As much as I’ve been taught to honour the memory of John F. Kennedy, and I have, his creed reads more like golden rule of Fascism than Democracy! And it shouldn’t be a matter of asking what our government can do for us! The point is, the government, in a democracy, should be doing for us without us having to ask!
Perhaps we all need to ask what our country has done for us of late, before we go blindly asking what we can do for it. Our governments have stood by idly while we lose our jobs, while our health and educations systems deteriorate, while our houses are forclosed on, while our young men and women are sent off to fight unwinnable wars, while our environment is driven to the brink of disaster, while we pay more and more and more, for less and less and less!
No, JFK had it backwards. We should be demanding our country do for us what it is supposed to be doing for us. And if it doesn’t, then we owe it to both ourselves and our country to do the one thing we can do for our country! That is the thing the nobles did in England, the peasants did in the Bastille, and the colonists did in Boston. If our country won’t do for us, then we should change it!
Ask not what your country can do for you, demand it!

Bail Out the People, Now!

2009-02-16T11:19:00.000-08:00

If I had a business and failed to keep abreast of the times, didn’t retool to meet customer demand, had poor customer relations, spent too much on perks for myself, and invested badly, then went under, would I get a bail out?
No!
So why is it OK to bail out banks and big corporations, that failed to do what they needed to do to remain fluid, but not the people or small businesses?
Politicians and CEOs will tell you its because bailing out big banks and corporations saves jobs. But does it really? Or does it just save those jobs for a little while, prolonging the inevitable?
Take the auto industry for example. Economists, environmentalists, and everyday people have been calling for more fuel efficient and alternative energy automobiles for decades now. Meanwhile, the industry has ignored the demand, accepted large grants and tax breaks from government, while rewarding their CEOs, moving jobs offshore, and reaping record-breaking profits! Now, in no small part due to their own folly, they’re going under, and government’s are clamouring to help them out.
Yet, no such offer is being made to people, who through no fault of their own, find themselves in dire economic straits. Both governments and big business bristle at the suggestion of bailing out private individuals, helping homeowners pay for defaulted loans, restructuring the EI system so people who paid in are better covered, upping social assistance rates for those on the bottom rungs.
“That’s Socialism” we hear them cry!
Why is Socialism OK for big banks, big auto, big industry, but not for the small guy?
And why is the media not asking this question? (Could it be because they are all owned and operated by the big corporations now at the public trough asking for bail outs?)
How much would it cost us to top up the annual incomes of people living below the poverty line? How much would it cost to cut cheques to people who are having difficulty, due to unemployment, making their mortgages? And what would be the result of putting the billions, were tossing at failed industries who continue to move jobs offshore and lay off workers, into the hands of every day people?
Would they not spend it paying down their mortgages, buying food from the local grocery, rebuilding their savings, education and retirement funds, investing in their local communities?
If anyone is going to be bailed out, it should be the people who have been victimized by big business and the banks, not the big businesses and the banks! And if we’re going to give money away, and go into debt for years doing it, that money should be going to where it can have the most positive effects, in our own communities. It should not be going to the individuals and businesses who, through their own folly and greed, created the meltdown in the first place.
Its time to end corporate welfare and bail out the people, now!

BC Liberals Gang Response Equals Social Bankruptcy

2009-02-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

If all we need do, to effectively deal with gang violence, is hire new police and prosecutors, and build a few more jail cells, then why didn't our provincial government go ahead and do just that when economic times were good.
Could it be because our Attorney General and Premier have seen the results of similar practices in the USA, and know more police, prosecutors and jails will do no good?
Why waste money on efforts that do no good? Unless, it is politically expedient to do so.
The announcement today, by the BC Liberals, is designed only to appease a frustrated public, who desperately need to see something being done. Sadly, it also speaks to the ever more apparent bankruptcy of ideas and strategies in the Campbell government.
Ending gang violence will require a multi-pronged solution, involving not only law enforcement and justice, but social and economic measures. Before it will end, we will have to remove the impetus that drives our young people into gangs in the first place. The effort will not only need to be long term, but perpetual.
We cannot continue to pour all our political and economic capital into mega projects, tax cuts, bailouts and deficits, while ignoring the very real life tragedies of poverty and wholly inadequate social services.
What we need more than anything is fresh ideas and strategies that work. Unfortunately, we won't see either of those things until we start electing people who are actually in possession of such qualities.

Saving Canada Newspaper Industy

2009-02-06T11:50:00.001-08:00

When was the last time you picked up a newspaper and read anything new, controversial, or different?
These days, it doesn’t matter if you’re getting your news from TV, radio, or the papers. Its all the same stuff. You can pick up a Toronto Star or a Vancouver Sun and read all the same stuff, from the same perspective, with all the same subjects.
Is it any wonder people have abandoned the newspapers for sources like the internet, where one can at least get another side of the story?
Most papers in this country now go at the news from one particular angle, business! Reporters no longer ask how events affect people in their home communities. They ask how it affects business! It may come as a surprise to many of our modern day editors and publishers, but not everyone is interested in the business perspective.
The other major issue is what I call “mob mentality.” Take politics for example. All the reporters are gathered in one place interviewing the same people. Heck, some of them don’t even bother to ask their own questions. They just stick out their recorders and later transcribe all the same questions and answers.
When I was a kid I recall how folks would wait outside the St. Catharines Standard offices waiting for the paper to be printed. Sometimes they’d be pushing each other aside just to get copies when the paper was finally delivered to the box. Once people had their copies, they’d step aside and start reading, then the debates would begin.
It would be the same scene ten miles down the road in Niagara Falls, where a whole different set of stories and perspectives would be covered. Most folks would in fact buy The Standard, The Niagara Falls Review, and the Welland Tribune, just so they would be up to date on all the different news, from all the different little towns in the region. When they wanted a wider perspective, they’d go buy a Globe and Mail, a Hamilton Spectator, a Toronto Star, or even a New York Times.
Nowadays it doesn’t matter which of those papers you buy, one is as good, or bad, as the other. And the same picture on the cover of the Globe is more than likely going to show up in the Standard. Why buy more than one, when all the news and perspective you’re going to get is in one?
In my opinion, you can blame it all on the Blacks, both Conrad and David! Conrad began the process, buying up over half of the papers in the country and homogenizing them to the point where they all looked, smelled and tasted the same. David has taken it one step further, nearly eliminating any sort of news at all (especially local), and focussing the giant share of the papers’ content on advertising. These days you can get as much local information from a “Buy and Sell” as you can from most traditional newspapers.
Now, the industry seems intent on carrying through on their slow suicide by laying off their reporters and photographers, relying even more on the news wires and centralized information sources. With less reporters and photographers, local papers can no longer cover their own courts, police beats, neighbourhoods. Sadly, this results in less and less people turning to the local papers for information, mostly because there’s no new information in them.
This has a domino affect on advertising too. People stop reading the paper, and advertisers realize no one is reading the paper, so they stop advertising in it.
Sadly,this whole scenario is also starting affecting radio and TV. It no longer matters which radio or TV station you tune in. The news is all the same, and so is the opinion. Pretty soon, all we’re going to need is one national paper, one TV station, and one radio station.
But its not all doom and gloom and there is a solution. One example is right here in the West Kootenay. Out of New Denver BC there is a fledgling little paper called “The Valley Voice.” Its not well written, the photos are often grainy and out of focus, and it doesn’t have a lot of flashy ads. However, when that paper hits the street, everyone in the region makes sure to pick it up!
Why? Because there’s news in that little paper that can’t be found anywhere else! The opinion pages, at least two or more full pages every issue, are full of local voices, and the editorials are entirely from a local perspective. What’s more, the publisher of the paper is not entirely focussed on the bottom line. He’s not trying to make a million. His bottom line is producing a rag that people will read, while earning him a modest living. And the biggest threat to his business comes not from a lack of readership, but from big conglomerate, widely circulated, papers that suck up the lion’s share of advertising dollars from large corporations and government sources, and control the source of paper and ink. To him, the failure of these big sheets is good news, because when they finally go under, he will be left standing.
All this considered, if we really want to salvage the newspaper industry in this country, it is imperative the newspaper industry go back to its roots, and begin delivering news people want to read, the news going on down the street, up the block, and around the corner.
The solution is not in laying off reporters and photographers, but in hiring more of them to cover the stories in our home communities. Moreso, the resolution to the current problems in the newspaper industry is not to be found in more coroporate control.
Newspapers were invented for no other purpose than to give a voice to the people. For as long as they were the voice of the people, they thrived. In modern times newspapers have become parrots for big business and government. Therein is the real issue. To survive, they must once again become the place the people turn to hear what their neighbours have to say.

What the Liberals Must Do!

2009-01-27T17:14:00.000-08:00

Short of somehow talking the Conservatives into accepting a major amendment to the current budget, I don’t see how the Liberal Party can accept it.
Such an amendment would have to include removing the clause calling for the sale of federal properties and corporations, upping the entitlement period and payment schedule for Employment Insurance, financing current inter city construction projects, and taking a giant leap towards the introduction of large scale fuel efficient and sustainable power technologies, to name but a few items.
Other items include large scale green infrastructure improvements, a no nonesense environmental police, overhauling the countries social welfare and education systems, huge funds for metropolitan and rural transit, and nationalized daycare.
But glueing an amemdment to the budget is not the Grits only issue.
A major concern for the Liberal Party is their standing as the official opposition. Should they vote in favour of the budget, as is, or without significant amendment, they themselves will be the party propping up the minority. They will be in a coaliton with the Conservatives!
What happens then? They can no longer argue against the government, because they already gave the go-ahead. Nor will they be able to argue economics, because they will have already approved. What’s worse, in the long run, they would capitulating and saying to the voter, ‘this government has it right.’ That would be one heck of an endorsement for Stephen Harper to have in his pocket going into the next election.
Really, the decison Liberal Leader Ignatief faces today, is not whether to reject the budget or not, but to decide who he wants to climb in bed with! Does he go for the new improved more cuddly Mr. Harper, or does he stick with the parties he’s already arranged a pre-nup with?
I would suggest, if he turns his back on the pre-nup, and either holds his nose and curls up under the Tory blue sheets, or decides to refrain from voting, he will soon be wearing spectacles and studdering in Franglais.
Then there’s George Bush’s big buddy Steve, with his Winnie the Pooh smile, soft belly, and surface warmth. Underneath, he’s still the same old good old boy. Like a whale in a barnyard pond he is. Flopping this way on the Senate, flipping that way on the deficit, flapping around with his PR department, flayling about with his leaks and never speaks. For all his sudden amicablity, he continues to go after womens equity, the CBC, the arts and tax cuts.
Does anyone really believe this guy will give Iggy the chance to change a thing? Is he really going actually agree to equal pay for equal work, for help to fix the ceiling over adding a rec room, to keeping the CBC in tact and properly funding it, to alternative energy, to cleaning up the oil sands? No, if anything, the big Pooh Bah is more likely to try to find a way to co-opt his main opponent. He’ll give, but not too much.
And that will put the slim gym Ignatief in another predicament. Does he settle for less. If he does, once again, he will soon be wearing spectacles and studdering in Franglais.
Whatever the Liberals do is bound to be unpopular in many circles. Its a catch-22 in so many ways.
Perhaps it comes down to the rules of order. Parliament is set up in a manner that not only allows, but encourages coalitions. The voters haven’t moved much in years. If another election were held, we’d likely be right back where we are. With no one at the top really wowing the masses, that’s unlikely to change. Mr. Ignatief’s question then becomes, “who can I work with?”
There is one other question, that must be considered. Would Mr. Ignatief like to be Prime Minister of Canada by this time next week?
I think he would! And it may be his only chance!

Building Sound Infrastructure

2009-01-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

As we move forward into times of environmental concern and economic difficulty municipal governments need to reassess how they've always done things, and start adopting methods that encourage more environmentally friendly, and less expensive modes of transport.
In the past, the priority has always been to get the cars and trucks moving. But with more and more people being asked to leave their cars at home, and more and more out of economic necessity, being forced to leave their cars at home, municipal governments need to begin accommodating the move away from the private automobile, and towards public transit, bicycles and feet!
Its not just the municipalities that need to pay attention, but the provincial and federal governments as well.
We're hearing a lot about how the feds and provinces are going to put money out for infrastructure, partly to encourage job creation, and partly to provide the people with safer more efficient transport.
But I have to wonder if governments are really paying attention. What good will rebuilt roads and bridges be if the people can't afford to drive? Further, what good will fixing up the roads be if they still don't accommodate cyclists and walkers?
The old adage "build it and they will come" springs to mind. If we build and maintain safe cycling routes, more people will use them. If we build walking paths that are easy to negotiate, and actually go where people need to go, more people will use them. In North America we're entirely focussed on making it easy for cars to go from A to B. The result is, everyone (almost) has a car. In turn, the fact everyone has a car is contributing big time to global warming and environmental destruction. Perhaps if we begin to build infrastructure that makes it easier for people to get around without using their automobiles, they will make use of it!
In Europe for example, most people own bicycles. More people use trains and bicycles than cars. The result is cleaner more people friendly cities and towns. The other result is healthier people. Europe has nowhere near the problems with medical issues, such as obesity, as a direct result of the fact that more people walk, cycle and use alternative transport. Perhaps its time we here in North America pay attention.
We keep hearing how we need to move away from our dependency on oil. Well, one way to achieve that is to move away from out dependency on the personal automobile. More people walking, cycling or using to public transit to go to and from work equals less people burning oil or other resources, such a bio fuels, which are not as environmentally friendly as they may seem.
If we are ever going to successfully combat environmental collapse, and save ourselves from economic ruin, then we need to make it easier for people to use alternative and less expensive forms of transport. One place to start, as I've said before, is to adopt new methods of dealing with things, like heavy snowfall, to make it easier for walkers and cyclists. The second place to start is to demand that our governments include infrastructure such as cycle lanes, walking paths and public transit in their planning and finance.

Polygamous Persecution is "Right" Thinking

2009-01-09T11:25:00.002-08:00

Earlier this week two men from a Church of Christ polygamist sect in Southern British Columbia, Bountiful, were arrested on charges of Polygamy. This group has been the subject of numerous investigations in past, including accusations of child abuse. None of those investigations has ever produced a conviction partly, authorities claim, because of a lack of witnesses willing to speak.
Let me be clear, if there is child abuse going on in Bountiful, the perpetrators of it should be prosecuted. However, for the BC government to go after people in the community for polygamy, because they failed to successfully prosecute child abuse allegations, smacks of deliberate persecution.
Every day in Canada courts subject parents to court ordered polygamy. How many folks do you know who are supporting more than one family? I know of several men and women, right here in the small town where I live, who are supporting more than one family, often families they themselves are virtually estranged from. It seems, our courts are willing to allow people to finance more than one wife, husband and family, but our justice department has an issue with a man being married to more than one woman! It seems a might hypocritical.
I also know of several unmarried people, who have multiple partners, support more than one family, and contribute to more than one household. And I can't count the number of people I know personally who are engaged in more than one "love" relationship. Yet I know of no instance where any justice official is prosecuting these people for being involved in more than one relationship.
So why are we going after the folks in Bountiful?
Our top provincial solicitor, Wally Oppal, says it is because "right thinking" British Columbians are against polygamy! This raises several questions. First and foremost is, who gave Wally Oppal the right to decide for other people what is "right thinking?" And who says these right thinkers are right?
From polls I've seen, most people don't care if the folks in Bountiful are participating in polygamy, although they do have grave concerns about allegations of child abuse, and want the government to focus on that issue.
Wally Oppal also states he wants a ruling from the court as to whether the BC law against polygamy is constitutional. Meanwhile, most constitutional experts, including two who have previously advised the government, say the law is not constitutional. But that's apparently not good enough for Mr. Oppal! Why?
Why is the BC government spending taxpayer money pursuing a court ruling on an issue most agree is unconstitutional? Why is the BC government focussing on the issue of polygamy, when allegations of child abuse are not being pursued?
Is this an example of "right thinking"?
Perhaps what Mr. Oppal means by "right thinking" is "right" politically. Perhaps what he really means is "right wing" thinking, which persecutes anyone, or any activity, the political right finds strange or foreign or different!
Unless someone currently living in a polygamous relationship in Bountiful comes forward, with a complaint they are involved in a polygamous relationship against their will, then the government has no business taking this issue on, period!
If however, Mr. Oppal's intent, is to prosecute polygamy as a means of getting information on allegations of child or spousal abuse, then he is off base. Basically, if this is his intent, then he is engaging in deliberate persecution. If the issue is abuse, then that is what he should be prosecuting, not polygamy.
Mr. Oppal's other argument, that he is pursuing these charges, to prevent abuse of children and women, is also hypocritical. He represents a government that has cut services to women and families in need, has cut welfare for single mothers and low income families, has done nothing to create housing for the poor, and has failed miserably at decreasing the incidence of child poverty in this province. If Mr. Oppal's intent is to help abused women and children, then why isn't he lobbying his party to do something about these issues in the greater population?
The issue of polygamy predates modern marriage by many centuries. Even our most ardent Christians must acknowledge that a majority of their biblical heroes were engaged in polygamous relationships. And besides, even if marriage is between "one man and one woman", as the right so often contends, what business is it of the government to get involved? The marriages in Bountiful are between the men and women involved, and as far as I've heard, none of the women involved are coming forward saying they want out, and when they have, they have left!
Meanwhile, there's the whole issue of religious freedom. Who is to say the government has any right at all to involve itself in the tenants of any religion? No one! In fact, our charter of rights and freedoms prohibits it!
Personally, I'm appalled by this government's "right thinking" and think it may be time for the voters to elect a few "clear" thinkers to replace them.

Senate Reform Not On Harper's Agenda

2008-12-28T10:13:00.001-08:00

A while back I received a comment on a piece I wrote about the need to do away with the Governor General. The writer, someone calling his or herself, the Radical Monarchist, argued that having the GG saves us from the unelected senate.
Personally, I don't know how anyone can argue that having an unelected appointee as head of state is better than having an elected head of state. Then again, these days, common sense doesn't seem to play much of a role in political argument. What seems to matter more is the ability to complicate issues to the degree that people just give up trying to figure things out, and accept the status quo, because its easier than fighting the status quo. "Acceptance", these new age pundits tell me, is the "key" to peace.
To follow the logic through, if a man is beating me about the head with a stick, I am better to just let him, because it will bring me peace quicker than fighting back will! To be fair, the argument makes some sense. If I just let the man continue beating me, I'll likely be dead soon, and there is some peace in that!
Way back in history, when I was a bona fide member of the media, I rode the Reform Party campaign bus in the days of Preston Manning. One of the main arguments Preston and his boys were beating like a dead horse, Stephen Harper included, was the need to reform and elect the Senate.
Now imagine, if Manning and his crew had succeeded in actually reforming and electing the senate, and based it on modern senates around the world, where not only are the senators elected, but the voter is given the opportunity to elect a chair, or president, of the Senate. If that had happened, Mr. Harper would have had to take his request for prorogue to the Senate, instead of to the stylin' lap dog he himself appointed to the GG's chair! Chances are, if he'd done that, he'd have met with the same response he would have won if he'd asked Parliament for the prorogue!
Yes folks, that means we'd now have a Liberal-led minority, with Mr. Harper in opposition!
Mr. Harper's claim, that he is merely trying to restore some "balance" to the Senate, and has chosen "reformers", is just more of the infamous double speak we've come to expect from him.
What Mr. Harper is really trying to do is increase the number of like minds in the Senate, so he can have his future legislation "rubber stamped", just as previous Liberal governments were able to do!
(Yes, I can hear the pundits on that side of the aisles crying, fair is fair, they had it their way, why shouldn't we?). But herein is the problem. The old way didn't work. It ultimately led the way for the formation of the Reform Party, and for their eventual co-opting of the Conservative Party! And if things continue as they are, it will lead to a similar amalgamation on the other side!
Mr. Harper earned his place in Canadian politics by appearing to be some sort of freedom fighter. He was going to end the legacy of entitlement in Ottawa. And one of the ways he was going to do that was by overhauling the Senate and making it elected! Now he has power, what does he do? He reinforces the status quo by stacking the Senatorial deck!
Conservative spin doctors are now explaining that Senate Reform would require too much work, that it is in fact, next to impossible to achieve. So, they say, we should work within the system that is already in place, but that's not what Mr. Harper was saying before he came to power, is it? Before he came to power Mr. Harper was saying it should be reformed, in no small part, so future governments could not stack the deck as he has now chosen to do!
There are some in this country who would like to do away with both the Senate and the GG. The NDP want the Senate abolished all together, and that's partly what keeps me from ever becoming a member of their party.
What really needs to happen, is Canadian governance needs to start reflecting Canadian political reality. Canada is unique in the world, with its large land mass and small population (for most countries it is the other way around). What we need is a system of representation that mirrors the Canadian reality.
For me, the solution is simple. First, we fire all current Senators, and the GG. Then we elect a new Senate, with every province and territory having equal representation in it, say five Senators per province and territory. That's five seats from each of the 13 provinces and territories, that's 65 seats. Then, we elect a President of the Senate, from the masses. Someone to chair the upper house and to occupy Rideau Hall, in sort of a domestic head-of-state role.
Doing this would result in several savings for the Canadian people. First, and most obvious, the number of senate seats would be pared dramatically, so we'd have to pay a lot less in wages, salaries and pension benefits. Secondly, it would give every province and territory equal voting weight, so the Regional District of York would have the same number of votes as Regional District Central Kootenay, thus balancing the population based parliament, against the rural land mass, and sparsely populated regions. Thirdly, no parliament or Prime Minister, would ever again be able to manipulate the GG, or to use an unelected official to prevent him from losing his job, or forestall the day to day operations of the house.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of all, would be the final end of the Monarchy in our democracy. Monarchy is the antithesis of democracy. It is the BIG roadblock that keeps democracy from being truly democratic. As long as the Monarchy, and its unelected emissaries are the de-facto heads of our government, we will never truly be a Democracy. We will always be subjects, under the rule of others, and not citizens of a truly free society.
Mr. Harper's recent Senate appointments do little more than bolster the notion that Canada remains a fledgling society, unable to control its own destiny, and in need of the oversight and discipline of our "betters." His actions stifle our freedom, not endorse or encourage it.
What's more, Mr. Harper's most recent actions should clearly demonstrate to all the old Reform Party supporters that, the new boss is the same as the old boss they worked so many years to get rid of!
Change does not come through the same old action. Change requires change, and Stephen Harper is changing nothing. The Emperor doesn't have new clothes. He's simply wrung them out and put them on again, and anyone who ever went out and bought a Reform Party membership, because they believed it was time for a new type of government, should now be seriously considering sending the Emperor to the cleaners!

Tory Dog and Pony Show

2008-12-28T10:11:00.001-08:00

When Stephen Harper prorogued parliament a few weeks ago, I thought we were all going to get a break from the dog and pony show in Ottawa, not.
You all know what a dog and pony show is, don't you? That's where someone tries to sell you a dog dressed up as a pony. The seller claims its a pony, and though it appears a little small, it is quite capable of plowing the fields and giving the kids a ride across the barnyard! Then, when you get it home, you find out its good for little more than snapping at the postal worker's heals, eating food scraps, and leaving little piles all over the lawn.
Since the Governor General granted Mr. Harper's Christmas present, at the expense of Canadian taxpayers, he has trotted out his finally dressed up dogs. The pooches are hybrids, Great Danes of sorts, but more akin to Greyhounds, busses not breeds.
These mongrels have been trotted out in two separate bands. One constitutes his "Economic Advisory" committee, their resemblance to real ponies so poor he is letting his good bud, Finance Flaherty, walk them down the kennel path, and his new "Senators", who are fearless, yet once anti-senate leader says will restore the balance in the "upper" house.
All mutt analogies aside, lets look at what the PM has done. In the midst of an economic crisis, perpetrated by billionaire financiers, chubby bankers and land developers, he has marched out a bunch of billionaires, bankers and land developers to save us all!
Then there's the senators. Does anyone out there remember Harper's old plan to do away with the unelected senate? Now he claims this bunch are reformers! Well, if they're really reformers, then why are they accepting appointment and not demanding they be elected?
Is anybody else getting this?
Now, to switch metaphors in mid stream, it appears Mr. Harper is going to stop the bank robbers by putting them in charge of security at the bank! Or, so to speak, throwing our countries economic future to the dogs! On top of that, he's appointing people to the senate who don't believe in the senate. Its like the Vatican appointing a Muslim pope!
Then there's the critters themselves.
First we have Mike Duffy, a St. Bernard of sorts, with a healthy girth, who made his living since I was a teeny bopper, presenting "unbiased" reportage of the goings on in parliament to the Canadian public. This is a guy, who since the days of Mulroney, has told the Canadian people that Ottawa has done right by them. He's been there, in the scrum, since Mulroney sold out the railway deal, opened the borders to "free" trade, and drove this country into debt deeper than his own esophagus. And Duffy has been faithful, like any good dog, the Man's best friend, all along, lapping up the table scraps tossed to him by successive governments for so long, his waistline has earned him the new name, Stuffy. He looks like a big old gelding, but really, he's nothing more than an aging, overfed, corporate mutt.
Then there is Nancy Greene Raine. Once a hero to us all, for propelling herself down a mountainside in France at break neck speed back in the '60s. She claims to have been a "Liberal" in her youth. A liberal recipient of great fanfare. Now she says, because she's older, she's become more "Conservative." Fact is, since she's become a billionaire ski hill developer, she's become more attached to governments that disregard things like "environmental policy" and favour development despite the long term cost. That's the trouble with aging Liberals, they lose their balance while sitting on the fence, and depending how much gold they have stuffed in their pockets, tend to fall off the fence on the right hand side! To be fair, perhaps Mr. Harper misunderstood what the Canadian people were telling him when they said they wanted him to be more "green." Once sleek and fast, Ms. Greene-Raine, has become an aging giant poodle, with failing insight.
Then there's Jimmy Pattison, the billboard king of the Coquihalla. A bulldog in his youth, Pattison is best remembered for two things. One, in true Social Credit pedigree, as a used car salesman who used to fire his least productive salesmen at the end of each month. His other claim to fame was as the CEO for EXPO '86, that big corporate orgy that cost the BC taxpayer nearly 10 years of economic hardship. Yup folks, he's the one who sold us the big beef bone that turned out to be a tainted chicken wing. While he barks a good howl, old Jimmy really is nothing more than a yappy Chihuahua, allowed to tear the stuffing out of the pillows because, when he's busy doing that, at least he's quiet.
The list continues. There are French Poodles, hairless pointers, some pinchers, a Shepherd or two, even a big web footed Newfoundlander, along with the odd mutt, but the point is, while Mr. Harper, and his kennel man Flaherty, want us to believe he's showing us around the stable, but his ponies are not ponies. They're dogs, Conservative lap dogs dressed up in fine saddles with blinders on their eyes. They will, like good pooches, go where directed, fetch what is tossed to them, and sit when instructed to sit.
In short, Mr. Harper's ponies, like all well fed dogs, are out to please only their master. And to anyone who thinks they will do anything but please their master, I have one things to say to you.
"Congratulations, you've just bought a pony! Careful it don't bite you!"

Harper's Intentions

2008-12-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

The question I'm not hearing, but want asked is: Should an unelected official be able to overrule the majority of parliament?
The answer seems obvious.
That said, I've been racking my brains for two weeks trying to figure out what Stephen Harper, the normally sly and masterful manipulator, is up to with such crass and blatant attacks on issues like Women's Equity, Campaign Finance, and Public Sector Unions. It seemed an odd approach from a Prime Minister who earlier pledged to work with the opposition.
My confusion was only increased when he responded to news of the coalition by raising the specter of Quebec Separation instead of bringing forward a revised economic plan.
All my befuddlement ended today when the Governor General set a precedent, throwing the issue of Monarchy into the already full mixing bowl, and granted the prorogue of parliament! It is now clear to me what Mr. Harper is up to.
Always a divide-and-conquer manager, it is clear to me our Prime Minister is out to wholly obfuscate matters to the point where things boil over and get out of hand. Why, I'm not sure. Perhaps he knows his only hope of ever achieving a majority is to throw Canadian society into such chaos the people opt for the strong-arm approach of a law and order party!
Should we be questioning the role of the Monarchy in our federation? Yes! But if we're going to fear anything, it ought to be Mr. Harper's intentions!

Time to Reaccess the Role of the Monarchy in Canada

2008-12-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

Perhaps now it the time to finally discuss the role of the Governor General in our governance. We have a non-elected official protecting a Prime Minister from facing a confidence motion. It amounts to the Queen interfering with the legislative process in this country.
Unelected officials should have no say in how parliament does its job. Now is the time to ask if we really want a government that can be directed by unelected officials. I say no.
If there ever was an argument for finally abolishing the monarchy and moving towards a republican style of democracy, it is now.

Vancouver Sun biased in favour of Harper

2008-12-06T10:29:00.001-08:00

A recent editorial from the editors of the Vancouver Sun, on the current kafluffle in Ottawa, suggests that Canadian voters gave Mr. Dion the brush off in the last election.
That's not quite true. What Canadians did was make it real clear to Mr. Harper that the Canadian people are not prepared to give him a majority, and want the checks and balances a minority provides.
If Mr. Harper isn't willing to operate as a minority leader, make concessions and cooperate, then perhaps it is time the other guys get a chance before we're thrown into another election.
The Sun editorial also suggested Mr. Dion he should give his "head a shake" for proposing a coalition
I think it is the editorial staff at the Sun who need to give their heads a shake.
One of two things is happening. Either Stephen Harper does not understand how the parliamentary system within a constitutional democracy works, or he is trying to pull the wool over the average Canadians eyes.
In the parliamentary system if the majority of parliament have lost confidence in the governing minority, they are obligated to do one of two things, either force an election, or form a coalition to govern in place of the toppled minority.
The Governor General has an obligation to ensure workable government. After two dysfunctional minorities in a row, the option of asking the opposition to form a coalition is well within her mandate.
More people voted against Mr. Harper then for him, in fact, the majority did! That makes his ongoing argument, supported by the Sun Editorial Board and other mainstream media, that the people selected him to be Prime Minister, or that the people gave him an expanded mandate (because he picked up a few extra seats), pure nonsense.
The majority of Canadian voters selected the opposition, so if the opposition can form a coalition, then it is they who should govern. This not a crisis! It happens in parliamentary systems everywhere. In fact, parliamentary systems are designed with minority rule and coalitions in mind.

Harper ignorant of parliamentary system

2008-11-29T11:33:00.001-08:00

One of two things is happening. Either Stephen Harper does not understand how the parliamentary system within a constitutional democracy works, or he is trying to pull the wool over the average Canadians eyes.
In the parliamentary system if the majority of parliament have lost confidence in the governing minority, they are obligated to do one of two things, either force an election, or form a coalition to govern in place of the toppled minority.
The Governor General has an obligation to ensure workable government. After two dysfunctional minorities in a row, the option of asking the opposition to form a coalition is well within her mandate.
More people voted against Mr. Harper then for him, in fact, the majority did! That makes his ongoing argument that the people selected him to be Prime Minister, or that the people gave him an expanded mandate (because he picked up a few extra seats) is pure nonsense.
The majority of Canadian voters selected the opposition, so if the opposition can form a coalition, then it is they who should govern. Its not a crises, it happens in parliamentary systems everywhere. In fact, parliamentary systems are designed with minority rule and coalitions in mind.

New Sign On BC's Political Road

2008-11-17T12:36:00.000-08:00

I know one fellow who is probably not sleeping so good these days. He works in Victoria and lives in Point Grey.
All across the province this past Saturday, voters, though their numbers were small, came out against the status quo, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the election, almost by landslide, of left leaning councils in the province’s two major cities.
On top of that, in most jurisdictions across the province, voters have chosen to toss out their incumbent mayors and councils. While some moved right, most went left.
It may be that we here in BC have finally caught the “change” wave coming out of America. Or it could simply be that, historically, here in BC, we have a penchant for changing lanes every eight years or so, but the sign for the provincial government is clear.
“Dead End.”
For eight years the Socred-Come-Not-Quite-Liberal-Liberals, under the direction of the drunk driving Premier Gordon Campbell, have coasted to victory with their mantra of develop, develop, develop. Only when it has suited their electoral favour have they shown any sign of willingness to consider social and environmental issues. In the process, they’ve clearly become the government of the well healed.
Trouble is, all of a sudden, thanks in part to the global financial crisis brought on by link minded leaders in the USA, the well healed are becoming the minority. No longer is it just the poor and homeless who are against the trickle down theories of the provincial government, but they have now been joined by the “soon-could-become-poor-and-homeless” majority.
For years now the well healed in this province have been shielded from the struggle so many of the less well healed have been facing. In the course of time the provincial government has been able to take a “do-as-little-as-possible” approach to the concerns of the province’s struggling. They have been able to do little things, like give disabled people a $50 a month raise in benefits, and make themselves appear civic minded, or institute a carbon tax, that really only works in the cities, and make themselves appear environmentally consicious. When push has come to shove, they’ve been able to appear concerned about economics by issuing rebate cheques, or issuing minor tax cuts to the middle class.
But all of a sudden, there’s that sign again: Dead End.
For many of us, those with decent forsight, the sign has been visible for some time. It was there from the moment these guys came to office. The good news for us, and not so good news for the current government, is that they are finally seeing the sign. That’s what happens when you’re busy playing with your toys while driving. You miss the important road signs, until you’re either on top of them or whizzing by at too fast a speed.
If Gordon Campbell and his crew are going to keep driving, they are going to have to do a U-Turn on some pretty major issues, or they are going to find themselves over the same cliff they drove off way back at the end of the Vander Zalm era.
Not only are they going to have to do a U-Turn, but they are going to need to put the brakes on, do some serious shifting, and give the toss to some of those folks who’ve been riding for free, before they can successfully turn this car around.
Trouble is, it seems, we have an insomoniac drunk driver at the wheel, and those folks getting the free ride are some of his best friends. They are, afterall, the ones who gave him the car and its keys. They aren’t going to take kindly to him pulling over, dumping them, then heading back to town to pick up those of us he’s left behind. Worse even, not many of us are going to be willing to hop in with him. So, if he’s not really careful, he’s going to find himself all alone driving off a cliff, and everyone is going to be glad to see him go!
All metaphor aside, Gordon Campbell and the Liberal Party of BC, need to wake up, apply the brakes, stop a moment to get their bearings, then turn this car around. They are going to need to do something very real and tangible about healthcare, homelessness, the environment, poverty and a whole range of issues they’ve been ignoring while on their eight year joy ride.
And lets not forget, four years ago more than 50 percent of this province’s voters made it clear they wanted electoral reform, and favoured proportional representation. In other words, while they were willing to give the premier the keys, they wanted him to take a different road all together. He hasn’t, and its led him to where he is today, facing down that new sign.
“Dead End.”
If I were him, I don’t think I’d be getting much sleep either. I only hope in his insomnia, he isn’t too drunk to read.
Then again, I’d just as soon watch him go over the cliff! Afterall, he’s never offered me a ride.

The mouse likes the cat (Harper happy about Obama

2008-11-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

Sure he does!
Last week, Canada’s Prime Minister, Steven Harper, made much hullabaloo about how happy he was to see Barack Obama become president-elect of the USA.
Caution: Don’t be fooled again! Mr. Harper is about as happy to see Obama take the presidency as most of us would have been to have Sarah Palin one heartbeat from the Oval Office!
First of all, Stephen Harper is a Conservative, no, a right wing ideologue, who loves the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and is against the whole concept of government funded health care, or anything else. Barack Obama on the other hand, is a moderate Liberal, intent on creating a healthcare system with strong governmental controls. He also wants to renegotiate NAFTA!
Based on those two points alone, Mr. Harper’s assertions, that he is pleased with Obama’s election, is nothing more than polite double speak, the sort we’ve unfortunately come to expect from our leaders.
When we really shine a light on the differences between Harper and Obama, the lie shines through. First, Democrats tend to be more protectionist than their Republican counterparts. As a result, and a rule, Republican administrations tend to be more lenient and cooperative with Canada. Then there is Iraq! Obama wants out of Iraq. Harper argued vehemently in favour of joining the US in Iraq! As large as the issues of healthcare and war are, there are many other differences between how these two leaders see the world. I will not take the time to list them now, it could take weeks.
Perhaps the more important question is not whether Mr. Harper likes Mr. Obama, but what Mr. Obama thinks of Mr. Harper.
Let’s remember, Mr. Harper once called George W. Bush, and his gang of “New World Order” cronies, a “light unto the world.” It wasn’t long ago that former Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat and supporter of Obama, was accusing Mr. Harper of being aided, financially and otherwise, by right wingers and industrialists from the US! Then there is Mr. Harper’s long history of lobbying and support of right wing causes in the US and the world. These are just some of the differences of opinion and belief systems that put Mr. Harper and Mr. Obama in direct conflict with one another. The two, although not direct opposites, are about as similar to one another as dogs are to cats. While they may both have four legs, keen senses of smell, and furry coats, they are not at all alike, and the chances of them getting along, are slim to nonexistent.
And here’s the worst part of it: Mr. Obama is a man who does his homework. He’s going to have a book on Harper, and be well briefed on the Canadian PM’s positions on everything from hot dogs to missile shields. He will understand that Harper is a political adversary, one with a forked tongue and a penchant for low brow politicking. If he is worth his salt at all, then any association he has with Mr. Harper will have, at its core, a foundation of mistrust. The two will have conflicting positions on most issues. For Harper, it will be like dealing with a brighter more communicative, and far more secure in his position, Stephen Dion. For Obama, it will be like dealing with George W. Bush, minus Bush’s colloquial language style.
When it gets down to it, Mr. Obama is not going to like Mr. Harper at all, to the point where his famous ability to reach across the aisle is going to be seriously impaired. Sure Obama will reach out, and do everything he can to work with the Canadian PM, but he’s going be about as comfortable with Harper at the table as Jesus was with Judas at the Last Supper.
The relationship between these two leaders, from the outset, despite the rhetoric, is going be, at best, uncomfortable, and that’s before the issue of the current economic crisis even hits the agenda!
America is in its worst economic crisis since the days of FDR. As a result it will be inwardly protectionist on a level we’ve never witnessed before. Neither men are going to want to see homegrown industry relocating to the other’s domain, and will fight any legislation that has the portent to hurt their own industry. If it comes to a fight, Obama is going to mop up the street with Harper’s pallid pink and abundant flesh.
He is also going to recognize that Mr. Harper’s support here in Canada is at best, soft like his belly. Obama will see Harper for what he really is, a desperate politician fighting for his political life with a minority of support. Tie that in with their political differences, and it will be in Obama’s best interests to frustrate and stymie the Canadian PM at every turn. While they may remain polite in front of the cameras, and across the diplomatic table, in private the relationship is going to be about as amicable the one, nearly 50 years ago, between JFK and Deifenbaker, only worse.
When Mr. Harper said all those nice things about Mr. Obama last week, he was doing what politicians are predisposed to doing, lie through their teeth. He was also doing something else we’ve sadly come to expect from him, trying to hitch a ride on the popularity of the new President’s coat tails. He won’t get far.
In my opinion, Mr. Harper would have been better off to take a hard line. It would have been wiser for him to express his disappointment, and challenge to the new president on his assertion to renegotiate NAFTA, on protectionism, Arctic sovereignty and any number of other issues the two will disagree on. He should have taken an aggressive stand, and made the new President come to him with the olive branch. Instead, he will now be the one who is challenged to back up his rhetoric with action. It is Harper who will now have to come forward bearing the olive branch, which, in very real terms, will be like the mouse going to the cat pleading, “please don’t eat me!”
Truth is, the mouse knows it is trapped, that’s the only reason it is playing nice. The mouse is clever, it knows niceness is its only hope. Trouble is, the new cat is a lot smarter and far more agile than its predecessor.
In the end, Mr. Obama, in true cat fashion, will let the mouse play a while, maybe give it a bat once in a while when it begins to wander out of reach, but when the crunch comes, and it will, that mouse is going to be toast.

Don't dance on the tables quite yet!

2008-11-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

I remember a November night way back in 1972 when I sat in my Dad’s yard listening to the US election results on a transistor radio. I’d gone to Ontario to visit my family at the time, and was missing my friends in BC. As it became clear Richard Nixon had won, hands down, my longing to be with my friends grew more intense. It was a dark day for them, and for me, and I wanted nothing more than to be with them, commiserating in the fact a war monger was being returned to office.
Last night I thought of those friends again. I haven’t seen many of them in decades. In fact, I only know where one of them is today. Some are dead, most have moved on with their lives. I’m sad the ones who have passed on did not live to witness what happened last night. A man of colour has become President of the United States. They would have been pleased.
We grew up watching and listening to Martin Luther King. He was a hero to many of us. In those days we witnessed first hand how people of colour were treated. Images of “white only” signs were splashed across our TV screens. While most of these images originated in the States, we knew too well that people of colour were also prejudiced against here in Canada.
In Grade Six we had a teacher who was black. His family had come north to Canada on the Underground Radio. This man was a decent teacher, not a great one. Perhaps the thing that really stood out about him was, he wasn’t much different than most of our other teachers. Still, we’d fuss over him, and often pay more attention in class then we would other teachers, but it wasn’t because he was a better teacher. It was because he was a different colour.
I was eight years old when Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech. At the time I was living in a foster home in Brantford Ontario. My foster parents at the time were pretty keen on keeping up with the world, and we’d all sit down after supper and watch the evening news together, often American news. They were also devoted Christians, members of the local United Church congregation. Each Sunday we would diligently attend both Sunday School and regular services, and we all took our teachings quite seriously. Hearing King’s rumbling resonant voice, I was convinced the man was a prophet. The words, “judged by the content of their character, not the colour of their skin” reverberated with me.
With the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, part of Mr. King’s prophecy has come true, but perhaps it is time we once again refer to the warning in his words. That warning is: The colour of a man’s skin has nothing to do with the content of his character!
Barack Obama is not Martin Luther King! He is the son of an African and a middle class white woman from Kansas. Barack Obama is not a church minister. He is a Harvard educated lawyer and former president of the Harvard Law Review. Mr. Obama is not even a civil rights leader, but a former Illinois state senator, and a one term US Senator from Illinois. Barack Obama isn’t a socialist, a communist, or in any sense a radical. He is a moderate liberal with exceptional organizational and communication skills.
The election of a man of colour to the highest office in America is truly a historic event, and may well indicate that America, a racist country, has finally begun to look beyond skin colour. However, the election of a moderate liberal to the presidency really is nothing new. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter and several others were moderate liberals. The only real difference between some of them, and the new president, is skin pigment, and people should not forget that.
While the election of Obama does indicate a change in US social conscience, it does not represent any drastic political change. And while it does demonstrate the American electorate’s desire to move away from the far right policies of the fledgling Bush administration, it does not mean a radical change in American political history.
Another thing for people to consider here is, while Obama and the Democratic Party did well in the electoral college, the popular vote only changed by a few percentage points. Almost as many people voted against Obama as voted for him. And while voter turnout jumped, almost as many new voters voted against the Democrats as voted for them. This was not a giant step to the left or right. It was a half step back, not a giant leap, away from the ideology of the past eight years. In fact, all things considered, the election of Barack Obama may well be considered a referendum on George W. Bush, more than a marked endorsement of the end of racism in America.
One of the more poignant moments in the election coverage last night, for me anyway, came just after Mr. Obama made his acceptance speech from Chicago. As Obama, Biden, and their families, stood on the stage waving at the crowd, a camera scanned the audience. There in the midst of it all stood former ML King supporter and Democratic presidential contender Jesse Jackson, openly weeping. Clearly, after his years of working with Mr. King, his decades in the civil rights movement, and his repeated attempts to end the culture of racism in the US, he was overjoyed to see a person of colour finally accepted. It was an emotional moment.
However, I found myself wondering, if Jesse Jackson had been the Democratic nominee, would the result have been the same. Somehow I doubt it. Mr. Jackson, for all his integrity, visibility, character, expertise, drive and qualifications, could not have won this race. In the minds of middle America, he would have been too radical and, I dare say, too black to have ever been elected to such high office! The election of Barack Obama does not signal an end to racism in America, it simply indicates that race is less of an issue than it once was.
It the truth be told, Mr. Obama would never have been elected if he’d preached a radical agenda. Had he come out against all war, and not just the war in Iraq, he would not have been elected. If he’d come out with a plan for universal healthcare, paid for by the state, he would not have been elected. If Obama has advocated welfare reform and argued for a guaranteed annual income, he would not have been nominated by his party, let alone elected nationally. If Obama had argued for wide spread strengthening of equal opportunity legislation, John McCain would be the President-elect of the United States! Chances are, if Obama had chosen black man, Jackson for example, to be his running mate, he would not be in the position he is in today.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as happy as anyone to see a person of colour elected to the presidency. The election of Obama clearly indicates that America has finally begun to view people according to the content of their character over the colour of their skin, but America has a long, long, way to go. Even with Obama at the helm, America is still the biggest threat to peace in the world. It remains an authoritarian superpower with a penchant for world domination. For all intent and purpose, Americans still be believe they are the biggest, the best, the most beautiful, and America still wants everyone else in the world to be just like it. America still has the most bombs, the most guns, and still meddles in the affairs of other countries. It still incarcerates more of its own citizens than any other nation on earth, and yes, it remains a racist country.
Yes, there is a change in America. Just as their is a change in a toddler when they break free of mother’s arms and take their first steps. America has a glow about it today, not unlike the glow on the face of a child who has walked a few steps for the first time. And yes, there is reason to celebrate, to be happy, to cheer them on.
However, taking a baby step in the right direction does not make a child a marathon runner, and like a runner in a marathon, America still has a long way to go, and no one really knows for sure if its up to the challenge.
The signs are good, and I will cheer them on, but it will be a long while yet before I do a victory lap, or go dancing on the tables.
Good start America, now where do we go from here?

How McCain lost

2008-11-05T09:49:00.000-08:00

John McCain would not have been a bad president. Contrary to Democratic spin, he would not have been another George Bush.
While he would have kept America in Iraq and Afghanistan, at home, McCain’s policies would have been far more liberal than projected. Remember, he would have had a predominately Democratic legislative wing to deal with, and any hardcore Republican policies would have been seriously tempered.
In retrospect, McCain’s strongest argument against Barack Obama was experience. It was an argument that had wings, and would have mattered when people went to the polling booth. Would have, until he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Regardless of all that’s been said about Palin, the one thing she really did to the McCain campaign, was remove the “experience” argument from the debate.
Had McCain chosen a more experienced running mate, perhaps a woman such as Elizabeth Dole, or someone from the middle, such as Joe Liebermann, or a former governor with more experience, a la Mitt Romney, the experience quotion would have remained in play.
Unfortunately for McCain, he chose inexperience, and ideology, catering to the hardcore right of his party, instead of reaching into the middle. The moment McCain made that decision, he also eliminated another major component of what made him attractive as a candidate. That component was his status as a “Maverick.”
John McCain gave into pressure from the Republican base. Mavericks don’t give in!
John McCain also gave in to the Republican base when he chose to run a “dirty” campaign. When his surrogate, including the Governor of Alaska, starting throwing around names like William Ayers, questioning the Illinois Senator’s religion and family origins, red-baiting, and patriotism, he lost something he’s always had throughout his many years in the Senate. That thing was his ability to reach across the aisle. When you start calling people “commies” and questioning their patriotism you don’t exactly encourage them to work with you.
When McCain laughed with the woman who called Hillary Clinton “that Bitch”, instead of challenging her, he alienated almost every woman who has ever been called by that name. When Sarah Palin did not respond to members of her audience when they shouted racist slogans, or called for Obama to be assassinated, the electorate, or many of them were sickened.
John McCain went along with his base because he thought it would win him the election. Once in office, I’m sure he meant to pursue the same policies and legislation he has championed his entire political career, including protecting the people from overt political intrusion by government. He would have sought money for education, and done what he could for the environment. In foreign policy, he would have chosen moderate secretaries of state and defense. The judges he appointed would have been less ideologically driven than those appointed by Bush.
John McCain would not have been George Bush. But when he picked up Bush’s team, and spouted Bush policy, and chose a VP George Bush would love, and began the politics of division, the real distinction between him and Bush became indistinguishable.
In the end, the only person to blame for John McCain’s failure to become President of the United States, is John McCain. A metaphoric gunslinger all his life, this time he shot himself in the foot, and injured feet don’t win marathons like this election has been.
John McCain could have gone down in history as a great president. Instead, he will be remembered for a failed campaign that was wrought with some of the most divisive politics and disturbing negativity ever.
The good news is: The Bush Era is over. Finally.

Hoping for Change

2008-11-03T12:53:00.000-08:00

A wise old woman once told me, “if it looks, smells and feels too good, it probably is!”
Her words come back to me every time I hear the name Barack Obama!
As much as I’d like to see change in America, in its approach to the rest of the world, and in the way it treats its own citizens, and as much as I’d like to believe the rise of Barack Obama signals such change, I’m skeptical.
To be sure, its a great campaign the man has run. His response to the onslaught of false accusation and bigoted commentary has given me hope. I find his cool calm, and great charm, heartening. However, I have also noticed a few things that lead me to believe he’s not quite what he appears to be.
At the Democratic National Convention in Denver there were some rather nasty confrontations between protesters and police. These events were not widely broadcast by the media. In fact, they were buried in the avalanche of “good news” coming out of the convention.
In one particular incident a “Code Pink” protester, a young woman, was smashed across the face with a billy-club wielded by a Denver policeman. The cop called the woman a “bitch” as he knocked her bleeding to the ground. This event was emblematic of what was going on outside the confines of the convention centre.
After viewing the clip, I wrote to the Obama campaign and asked if they were aware what was going on out in the street. Pointedly, I asked if the Obama campaign supported such actions by police, and if the candidate supported the right to peaceful assembly and civil disobedience.
Mr. Obama’s campaign wrote back, but made no mention of the incident I reported to them. Instead, they asked me for a campaign donation!
When they failed to address my concern, I wrote back again. Again, they responded, asking for a donation, making no reference to my concerns. For weeks after, my mailbox was full of mail from Mr. Obama, Mrs. Obama, vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden, and even the campaign manager David Plouffe. Nowhere in any of these mailings was there a mention of the anti-American activities of the Denver Police, but every single e-mail asked for a financial contribution.
Now, I am quite aware the Obama campaign at the time, and through out the course of the election, must be receiving a lot of mail. It must take them weeks sometimes to get around to reading it all. But months have gone by and I’ve still not received any mail from them that in anyway addresses the content of my original letter. One would think, with all the money the Obama campaign has received, some of it would be used to address the mail, and to respond to any questions being asked. Had they, at any point, by any means, responded directly to my expressed concern, then I would have been encouraged to believe that Mr. Obama’s message of “hope” and “change” was, on some level, genuine.
My second concern arose when Mr. Obama gave his acceptance speech in a Denver football stadium. Much ado was made of the set design and Roman style columns used as a back drop. Clearly, a lot money and construction went into the set design for that event. ‘Is this an example of what Mr. Obama will do with any extra money he should come into?’ I asked myself. Later on, my concern that Mr. Obama would use financial contributions frivolously was reinforced when he spent several millions buying a half hour block of TV time, just ahead of a World Series baseball game. To me, the man just looked like another politician, using his surplus cash to make himself look good, if not extravagant.
The third issue that leads me to feel a tad ‘queasy’ about the potential of a President Obama comes through the ‘reverse-negative’ campaigning style employed by some of his surrogates. On web pages such as John Amato’s “crooksandliars.com” great hay has been made of Mr. Obama’s opponents age, wealth, personal life, and physical frailties. While it is true Mr. McCain has run a filthy campaign, full of lies, innuendo, race baiting, red baiting, smears, and outright misrepresentation of fact, I do not believe such activity should necessarily excuse any similar activity by the Democratic faithful. It is like Martin Luther King Jr. argued, we do not change behaviour by engaging in the same ruthless actions as our enemies. Moreover, when we stoop to level of our enemies, we make ourselves no better than them.
I wrote to Mr. Obama’s campaign about that too, and received the same response I’d received before. They did not address my concerns, but made sure to ask for a donation!
All this said, I find myself inclined to believe Mr. Obama is simply another politician who has found a way to win people over. He’s no Martin Luther King! Then again, he has not claimed to be! Barack Obama is a centrist, not quite Liberal, member of the US Democratic Party. While his tax policies do tend to favour the middle class more than the wealthy, they also do not infringe too much on the top five percent of Americans who are wealthy in the extreme. He’s not going to hit the elite too hard, just skim a few more dollars from the cream atop their jugs. Its not like he’s going to strip them down and give their expensive loafers to some poor kid in the Bronx. The hue and cry that Mr. Obama is somehow a “Socialist” is a total misnomer. He’s talking about redistributing some of the wealth, not all of it! In fact, most of America’s top five percent are barely going to notice the difference, and when it all comes out in the wash, neither are the lower 30 percent. Most of them will still not be able to afford rent, let alone college educations for the kids.
About the only real difference an Obama presidency would make is in the selection of more moderate persons to sit on the US Supreme Court, but that can be said about any Democratic administration. To be fair, that’s no small difference. However, the choice of more moderate justices, over ideologues, is the norm, not the exception, when there is a Democrat in the White House.
Another aspect of change under an Obama led government will be its course in foreign wars. That said, anyone who thinks the election of Mr. Obama means there will be a pacifist peace-nick in the White House is delusional! Mr. Obama, while making it clear he wants out of Iraq, has also called for ramping up the war in Afghanistan, and for hunting down Osama bin Laden, no matter where he is! Most experts believe, if Osama bin Laden is alive, he is in Pakistan. While he’s not said so much directly, Mr. Obama’s rhetoric would indicate he is prepared to send US troops and/or operatives, into that country!
We must all remember the US economy is based on oil, and an oil based economy does real well when there’s a war going on. While Mr. Obama speaks of alternative energy, and energy independence, the US market is years away from bearing fruit from such development. While working on alternative energy sources, they will need to keep their economy buoyant, and the easiest way to do that will be to keep US industry busy producing and replacing the hardware required for war. Mr. Obama is not about to make himself a one term president by declaring peace and tanking the US economy at the same time. He’s way too clever for that.
All in all, while an Obama Presidency will mark a change from the ideologically driven Bush administration, in most areas his ascension to the executive wing will mean business as usual. While the rhetoric will be less warlike, and the willingness to compromise more apparent, America will still view itself as the most beautiful, biggest and best. It will still use its economic mite to get its own way, and its military power as an intimidation tool. The rich will still ride around in limousines, and the poor will continue to fall through the cracks. Much of the middle east will still be on fire, and the environment will remain endangered. Protesters will continue to be beaten with billy clubs, and the children of low income working people will continue to fill the ranks of its armed forces.
But there will be one difference, and it will be stark and noticeable, and it will give hope to people everywhere. The man standing behind the Seal of President of the United States will not have pink skin!
Over the past few months, while this contest has continued, we’ve all witnessed some of the worst bigotry, racism, stupidity and ignorance since the dark days of the 1960s civil rights movement. We’ve watched as national presidential and vice-presidential campaigns have stirred up some of the ugliest notions, opinions and divisiveness ever to see the light of day. For many of us who remember the dark days of the ‘50s and ‘60s, its been like a 24-7 horror show, a flashback to a bad trip we’d long ago tried to forget. The word “nigger” has been rebirthed and regurgitated onto our TV screens as if it were fair comment. We have been reminded, day in and day out, that the horror of degradation and nullification are not behind us, but bubbling just below the surface, ready to rise to the top and be unleashed.
We’ve all watched as an apparently legitimate political party, and its leaders, have not only enabled, but encouraged, the ranting and ravings of a lunatic fringe to be visited on our children and ourselves. In many ways these past months have been a nightmare relived, to the point where a lot of us are expecting a repeat of the dark events of the 1960s when people like Martin Luther King were shot dead for their courage. Even I, a political junkie of the first order, find myself afraid to turn on the TV, the radio, or my computer, for fear of the bulletin announcing we have gone nowhere these past 40 years, that we’re on a tread mill, not a path to the mountain top, that nothing, absolutely nothing has changed.
I hope it is not so. And for that reason alone, if I were an American citizen, despite my skepticism, I would be voting for Barack Obama.
Its not because I believe Mr. Obama will change the world, or even the United States. Its not because I believe Mr. Obama is any less or more a politician than his opponents. Most certainly, it would not be because of his party, or his policies. I would vote for Barack Obama because his election, quite simply, would mean that something in America has changed, that America has finally taken the first baby step we’ve all been waiting so many years for it to take. I would vote Barack Obama for hope. Hope that there will finally be change, even if I don’t really believe such change will come.
Barack Obama, if elected, will be a middle of the road president. He will appoint a few moderate chief justices, reform some tax law, and, if the force is with him, withdraw from Iraq. He will not bring peace to the world, save the environment, end racism, hunger, or poverty. The rich will grow richer and the poor poorer. America will continue to be mistrusted and loathed in many parts of the world. In many ways, it will be business as usual, but there will be one difference, and it will be a difference that keeps hope alive.
It will appear to the world that America has changed.

Harper-Baird Approach to Good Neighbourliness

2008-01-15T10:22:00.001-08:00

I’ve noticed a lot of Harper supporters, writing to local newspapers and in blogs, pointing out that some folks in the environmental movement can be perceived as hyporcites and therefore, their concerns about the Harper envirnoment no-plan should be dismissed.
They suggest that because some pro-environment folks, such as David Suzuki, who apparently likes soybeans, and Al Gore, who runs a lot of lights in his mansion, can be viewed as hypocritical, we should ignore the issue of climate change. These letters also support the Stephen Harper position of "wait and see" and "lets make the other guys do something first" approach to saving the environment.
Since when do Canadians wait and see what the rest of the world is going to do before we take the lead?
Had that been our approach to world affairs there would be no United Nations, no peacekeeping, no insulin, no telephone, no English ruled England (WWII), and no Canada Arm, to name a few things the world would be without if Canada always waited for other countries to pull up their socks.
Well written as some of these letters are, they are no more than a very clever way of shooting the messenger instead of hearing the message and taking responsibility.
Contrary to what these neocons have to say, our Prime Minister and his ministers took a very un-Canadian position at the recent conference in Bali. What's more, their approach to the environmental crisis we are now facing does nothing but exasperate the problem.
Lets put this in perspective.
What if I refuse to clean up my yard until my neighbour cleans up his?
What if that neighbour refuses to clean up his yard until I clean up mine?
Will either of us clean up our yard?
Then, when our neighbours see that neither of us are cleaning up, and decide they too will hop on the "I'm not cleaning up until they do" bandwagon, what's going to become of our neighbourhood?
The Harper-Baird show in Bali was an embarrassment to all Canadians, and clever plays on words in newspaper editorial pages and right wing blogs do no more to change that than the Harper-Baird plan does to fix the environment.
BTW: If I go digging around in these winger’s private lives, will I find some contradictions and hyprocracies?
We all have them. Would you like to be judged on yours?

What if? A new year's questionaire

2007-12-30T16:12:00.000-08:00

What if

What if George W. Bush is actually the reincarnation of Neville Chamberlain? That would certainly explain his penchant for “preemptive” strikes!

What if Dick Cheney is actually as he appears to be? Be afraid, be very afraid!

What if Stephen Harper is actually who he appears to be? Yuk! Barf!

What if Santa is actually Satan and the spelling of his name is just a typo? If the red suit fits, wear it.

What if the thing we think is the moon glowing at night is actually a gynecologist's headlamp and this world a birth canal?

What if we could live forever? Would we really want to?

What if Jesus were to actually return in some sort of great parade out of the sky to judge us all? Would you be shitting in your boots too?

What if we carpet bombed with rice instead of munitions? Would those foreigners like us any better?

What if we actually did stop building, and selling, weapons? Would we have to worry about weapons of mass destruction anymore?

What if everyone who was elidgible to vote actually voted?

What if we found out the world was going to end at midnight tonight? Would we treat one another any better?

What if, instead of spending billions on weapons, we gave every man woman and child in the country one million dollars? Would that make our national debt worthwhile?

What would happen if we all actually did make love, not war?

What would happen if we actually did, as John Lennon suggested, Give Peace a Chance? Will we ever know?

What if Jesus already did come back, and we did the same thing to him again already? Are we in trouble yet? Apparently no one knew who he was back then either!

What if we did make all our cars and other machines run on wind, air, water, hydrogen, biodiesel and anything but oil? Then could we let the folks in the middle east be?

What if we ignore global warming and conduct business as usual? Will Stephen Harper be proven correct?

What if economics were actually more important than everything else? Would this still be a beautiful world?

What if the private sector really could, and was committed to, providing services to the public? Would we even need a government?

What if employees were actually considered to be a company’s most important asset by the company?

What if one person could actually change the world? What would you do?

What if you vote actually does count? Will you ever bother to find out?

What if the subconscious is actually the concsious, and the conscious the subconscious? Who are you in your other life?

What if the dream state is reality and this is the dream state? Is yours pleasant or a nightmare?

What if we actually do control our own destinies? Where are you going?

What if the world is really as George Bush says it is? Would it be worth the bother?

What if Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Bobby Kennedy and Mahatma Ghandi had survived? What do you think they’d have to say today?

What if there had been a red under every bed? Would things be any different?

What if freedom really exists? Well, does it?

What if love really is all you need? Would you pass some on?

Spare me the JFK-style Bhutto hype

2007-12-30T16:11:00.001-08:00

It amazes me how quick we are to take up the government position on this murder and blame it on Al Queada (which really does not exist as an international entity but is a term used to describe several loosely knit or unconnected groups who for one reason or another have a bone to pick with the powers that be), or the Taliban.
I wonder what happened to the presumption of innocence, or is that just reserved for those of us in the west?
I also wonder about the concept of hard evidence. What happened to it? I've not seen, read or heard, anything that conclusively ties either the Taliban or the so-called Al Queada to this incident. It reminds me of the WMD argument that sent the US guns ablaze into Iraq.
In fact, based on all I've read and watched this past two days, I'd have to say the arrow points towards either Bhutto's opposition, or the Pakistani president.
The opponent, Sharif, is the one who really stands to gain from this action. With Bhutto gone, he stands to win big time. I'd say he looks like a likely suspect.
And if it is true the current president of Pakistan is as power mad as he's made out to be, then removing Bhutto potentially works in his favour too. It will be understandable now, according to many of our western pundits, if he were to crack down and cancel the coming election.
The big loser in all this is America. Bhutto was their candidate, her very presence back in Pakistan as a direct result of work by Condoleeza Rice and the Bush Administration. So I would suggest that rules out American involvement.
As an aside, I wonder how many people who are outrightly praising the slain former Prime Minister actually know much about her. Are they aware of her American ties, the fact she attended university there, and lived a good part of her life in the west.
Do they know about her government and the many charges levelled against it, some successfully prosecuted?
And what do they know about her party? Without a good deal of cooperation from the current President, and backing from the US, Bhutto would not have been able to get anywhere near the Prime Ministerial office in the upcoming election. She is being praised in death as having been the potential savior of Pakistan, but was she really?
I don't mean to diminish in anyway the woman's courage or conviction. Clearly she believed she was doing the right thing, and her death is truly and sad and troubling thing for Pakistan and the world. However, getting back to my intial point, I am very disturbed by some of the rhetoric I'm hearing and reading, and by the fact that both the people and the mainstream media seem to be going along with what they are being told, instead of digging and insisting the real truth be told.
If you feel bad about Benazir Bhutto, then it seems the proper thing to do would be to demand from our leaders, and the media, they get to the bottom of the vicious crime, demand an autopsy, demand independent investigation, apprehension and prosecution.
Most of all, I want to encourage everyone not to necessarily believe what we are being told by people who weren't there and did not see what went down.

Baird on the outcome in Bali

2007-12-16T14:45:00.001-08:00

First, John Baird does everything he can to undermine any sort of
firm commitments on Climate Change in Bali, then he laments the
agreement that was achieved set no firm limits!
As I remember it, the Conservatives campaigned on the idea of doing
things differently than their predecessors, instead we discover that it
is business as usual, double speak and spin, double speak and spin.
The current government of Canada is an embarrassment to Canadians,
and are quickly becoming the laughing stock of the civilized world.
When do we get to vote again?

What's Wrong With the RCMP

2007-12-14T12:53:00.000-08:00

As jobs go, becoming a member of the RCMP is a relatively easy task. It basically require six months training, Then poof, you're a mountie!
At very least members, or those folks wishing to become members of Canada's national police force, should have to already possess a BA in some related field, or have at least a couple years experience in social service, criminology, law, or some other field of expertise before being accepted at the RCMP academy.
As it is, just about anyone who passes a fitness test can become a cop. As a result, we end up with folks who have little or no experience, outside the six months basic training, being put in difficult situations they are not trained to deal with.
I would also suggest the RCMP training needs to last at least two years, and involve training in first aid, law, martial arts, cultural sensitivity, and a variety of other studies.
What's wrong with Canada's police?
The simply answer is, quite correctly, they are not properly prepared for, and many are not properly suited to, the job they have undertaken.

Break Up the Party in Canadian Politics

2007-12-14T01:21:00.000-08:00

The real problem in Canadian governance is the partisan politics, and the only way to resolve that problem is for the Canadian voter to reject the parties. Perhaps then we'll see some real
change in our national and provincial political scene.
Here again is another ploy to get people to vote for another political party. I've looked at the Green's policies. Yes they are strong on the environment, but their environmental policies are not far off from where the NDP's are. I've also looked at their economic policy. In the last election they were suggesting 50 per cent tax cuts, which would be disastrous to our social safety net if it were ever instituted. I've also looked at their social policies, which are somewhere right of the Harper Conservative's. Yes, I said "right" of Harper!
It is time for real change in Canadian politics, and I don't believe voting for any party is going to achieve that. The parties are the problem! If Canadians really want change, then it is incumbent upon us to bust up the party!
My suggestion is that we all seriously consider voting Independent.
Lets find the independent candidate who we feel best represents the riding, and who has a decent reputation in the riding for caring about the people and place. If such a candidate can't be found, then I suggest we vote for the independent candidate who is most likely to cause a
kafluffle in Ottawa, or Victoria, whichever the case may be. If we can't find a viable non-partisan person to elect, then lets send a loonie to the loonie bin, and really stir things up.
That aside, the one thing that could change the way politics is done in this country is to get all those folks who don't vote to finally vote, especially those people who are so disenfranchised they don't believe their vote matters. If we can just get the people who don't vote to vote, then we will at least have governance by the people, instead of governance by the wealthy, which is our current situation, because it is mostly the wealthy who vote.
Finally, anyone who believes one party or the other is going to save our country is living in a dream world. History shows that parties are partisan. Once they are in power, their greatest preoccupation is self promotion, not service. Parties serve the parties, not the
people.
An example of this is the Green Party leader's deal with the federal Liberals to run in Peter McKay's riding. Another is Stephen Harper's recent cow-tow to Quebec. Stephane Dion is unwilling to cause an election, despite the Conservative's inaction on the Kyoto Accord and a national debate on Afghanistan, because his party can't afford to run a national campaign. Then there's the NDP, who when they came to power in BC, promptly cut funding and services to hospitals and welfare. And let's not forget the phat MLA raise the provincial parties granted themselves this past year. We can fatten MLA pensions but we won't build houses for the province's homeless.

I hope we voters will soon give the parties what they really deserve, which is a good swift boot!

New Ways to Police, and to police the police

2007-12-14T00:56:00.000-08:00

Four members of the RCMP shot dead in Mayerthorpe Alberta. Two more mounties shot dead in separate incidents when they answered calls alone. Four Mounties taser a confused man at Vancouver International airport, and the man dies!
All these things, and many more, point to a serious problem at the RCMP, and that problem is training.
Being a policeman or woman is one of the most dangerous and complicated jobs in our society. Officers must deal with a wide variety of people, places and circumstances, probably more than in any other occupation in our society. Yet, to become a police officer in Canada, requires less training and education than most other jobs. In fact, the period of training required to become a police officer is less than the training required to become a cook, a carpenter, a first aid attendant, a bricklayer, and many other things.
All one needs to do to become a police officer in Canada is to be of reasonably good physical and mental condition, of age of majority, and willing to undergo six months basic training. One does not need a degree of any kind, and in some circumstances, does not even have to graduate from high school!
In fact, the training period is so short, and the prerequisites for being admitted to such a training program, so minor, that many choose to become policemen and women simply because it is "easy." Because of this, many people, who really should not become police, are actually becoming police.
I know one fellow who joined the RCMP simply because he had no other options, and decided that when our society goes to hell, he wants to be one of the guys who has a gun. Another I know, became a cop after failing to make the NHL. He went from the Edmonton Oilers training camp, where he was an early cut, right into the RCMP academy at Regina! In his hockey career this fellow had been an enforcer. Through school his grades were, at best, average, and his skills limited. It was while at training camp that he met a police officer who suggested joining the RCMP might be an good career choice, mostly because it did not require him to have to go further in school, and he had the physical fitness it takes to become a cop!
Another police officer I know became a cop not because she wanted to be a cop, but because her friends were cops.
If there is any job in our society where are best and brightest should be working, it is in police services. It should not be the other way around. Becoming a police officer should not be an option for people who can't find a job, don't possess the skills required to enter a profession, or have few other options. If anything, becoming a police officer should be an option for people who excel, who are bright, who have a wide range of options open to them, and who have a demonstrated sensitivity towards people, cultures, problem solving, conflict resolution, and an ability to think on their feet. By no means should policing be the realm of people who's only real strength is physical fitness. The fact you are a jock should not qualify you to become a cop.
While the focus, of the recent unfortunate incidents involving police, has been the use of tasers, I think the real focus of any judicial inquiry should be police training. In the video we've all seen, police move in and act, but the question that really needs to be asked is: Why did they act the way they did? To me, the taser gun is irrelevant.
Early on in the Vancouver Airport video we see a woman trying to communicate with the victim. Quite clearly this woman recognizes the fellow has a problem of some sort that is not being dealt with, and she does not feel at all threatened by the man's demeanor. We also hear, on the audio track, that several bystanders, and security personnel, have identified the problem has something to do with language. Clearly, average Joes, who are standing around, have a clear idea what the issue is. I found myself wondering why, when so many others had a grasp on the situation, the police weren't getting it.
What I saw was police who weren't interested in "getting it." What I saw was four guys who simply wanted to go in, take the guy out, then get back to whatever it was they were doing before they were called. I did not see any sign of professional policing, which is supposed to involve insuring the safety and security of the people. I did not see any attempt by police to determine what the issue was. I did not see any of the policemen consult with one another, ask questions, or pay any attention to what they were being told by witnesses. What I saw was a bunch of guys on a clock who wanted, primarily, to get in and get out, without any regard for the individual who was clearly displaying signs of distress.
When this is all over I'm afraid those officers are going to be fall guys. In all likelihood they will lose their jobs, or somehow find themselves restrained in their jobs. I also suspect that one or two of them will have serious regrets about how they handled the situation. Sadly, what we won't see is anyone in the RCMP or government taking any real responsibility for what was really going on. And what was really going on was these policemen had absolutely no idea how to deal with the situation.
Is that the officers' fault? I think not.
It is time for the federal, provincial and municipal governments, and for the police service boards of this country, to take a serious look at policing, how it is done, how officers are trained, and who is being trained for the job. It is also time for governments and police agencies to stop blaming individual officers for breakdowns in policing. There is a problem with policing in Canada, and something needs to be done about it.
In my opinion, that something begins with training. People wanting to become police officers should have to at least have a supporting degree, or some years experience on the community level, or in related occupations, before even being accepted to undergo police training. There also needs to be better compensation for police officers, so that police forces are able to attract higher educated and more experienced personnel.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to begin to look at how policing is done.
Is the current para-military approach to policing really working?
Do we really need for all police to be armed to the teeth and in constant combat ready mind sets?
Is it really effective to hire police based on physical prowess, as opposed to intellectual ability and social awareness?
Are there other ways to effectively police, apart from the flack-jacketed, heavily armed, big beefcake approach?
Yes there are, and we here in the Great White North had better change how policing is done before our police lose what little credibility they have left.

Private Enterprise Does Not Serve the People

2007-12-14T00:53:00.000-08:00

One of the arguments I keep hearing from right and center right parties, and sometimes from center left parties, is the notion that it is the private sector’s job to provide housing for the people of the country, and that government has no place in homebuilding.
The crux of this belief is that private enterprise, when provided with an opportunity, will take care of the needs of the people. The argument is supported by the theory that government has no place interfering with business, and that business, when unfettered by government control, will look out for the interests of the people.
This theory is often applied to other issues, such as daycare, medicine, the environment, labour law, education. The philosophy is that business interests can do a better job than government, and that government getting involved in things like building houses, providing daycare, education, health care services, only enlarges the beauracracy and leads to inefficiency in the delivery of services.
Its an ideological theory that really has no basis in fact. Simple truth is, if private industry could be trusted to deliver homes, educations, labour justice, daycare, healthcare and to do what’s right by the working class, then we would have no need for government. Heck, if business is looking out for the people, then there would be nothing for government to do.
Let’s remember for a moment why representative government came to be in the first place. In English speaking society that takes us to the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta was implemented by noblemen in order to insure the King did not run riot on them. In the Magna Carta, provisions were implemented to limit the power of the King, and to protect the rights and priviledges of the Kingdom’s citizens.
Representative government came about as a tool whose primary function was to strike a balance between the royalty of a nation and its people. You see, left to their own devices, the nobility simply ran riot on the citizenry. Basically, those that had took what they wanted, and the have-nots had no legal recourse to protect themselves from having what little they did have taken away. With the advent of representative government, neither the wealthy nor the poor could just take whatever they wanted. You might say that the whole purpose of representative government was to protect the have-nots from the haves, and to insure the haves provided the have-nots with their basic needs.
It is still government’s primary purpose today. Government, for all intent and purpose, is meant to be an advocate for those who do not have power and money. Its whole purpose is to make sure that every citizen of a country, rich or poor, is on a level playing field. It is not there to make the rich richer, the poor poorer, the rich poorer, or the poor richer. Government’s job, is simply to make sure everyone has a chance to live a good life, rich or poor.
Somehow, over the past many years, government, particularly here in Canada, has become more of a protectorate of the rich. While government’s primary responsibility ought to be as a voice for the voiceless, they have in fact become the voice of the already loud.
Herein are some examples of how, in Canada at any rate, government has become the bullhorn for the wealthy, and fails in its obligation to the not wealthy: Employment Insurance was orignally designed to help working people whose jobs were subject to seasons and market changes. The idea was, when a man was laid off or fired because there was no work, then he could still get by. However, in recent years, EI has become more and more difficult to get. The end result is that workers who are no longer able to collect benefits, because of more stringent requirements for benefits, now must take second, sometimes, third jobs, often at lower rates of pay, just to survive. This creates a situation where more and more people are looking for work, and allows employers a greater number of workers to choose from. If an employer is able to choose between an employee who wants $10 an hour, and one who is willing to work for $8 an hour, which is he most likely to choose?
Its the same deal when governments make it more difficult to receive social assistance. When people have nothing to fall back on, they become willing to accept less, because less is better than nothing.
Because of these actions by government, employers now get away with paying less than they were a generation ago, their profits are higher, and they have a greater choice of workers. Where thirty years ago a man could afford to support his wife and children on a single wage, he must now work longer and harder, and chances are his wife will also be forced into the work place, just to maintain the lifestyle he grew up with.
It was the same with health care. When hospitals and emergency wards were fully funded, everyone had equal access and no one had to pay extra costs. When funding to health care was axed, services became limited. Soon private health care agencies started to show up, offering services that used to be available to all, to those who could afford to pay a little extra. This helped to create more industry, and allowed wealthy business interests to make capital fromindustires that used to be unavailable to them.
Education was also a target. Growing up in Canada in the 1950s and ‘60s pretty much everyone was able to at least go to college without incurring great debt load. Nowadays, a two year college trade program will cost a student upwards of $50,000. even with grants and scholarships accounted for. This in turn has allowed private enterprise to get into the education business and make money where they were not able to make money before, by opening private schools and charging marginally lower tuition fees.
When it comes to housing, governments’ refusal to build houses is proving to be a total boon to private industry and an unmitigated disaster for the buying public. Because there aren’t enough houses to go around, the pressure on the real estate market is immense, driving prices up. About the only people making money off this situation are the developers and real estate agencies. The rest of us, renters or buyers, are paying exhorberant prices for homes, prices that, for most of us, are well beyond our wages.
If the government were to build houses, to reclaim unused buildings and renovate them for housing, and to develop social housing in urban areas, the end result would be a lessening of market pressure, a lowering of housing costs for both renters and buyers. Yet governments today continue to argue that it is not government’s place to build, why? Because government today serves as an advocate for business, instead of the advocate for the people it was meant to represent.
Getting back to the Magna Carta, and all principles of representative government, the whole idea was to protect the less powerful from the ultimately powerful. It was not necessarly to act as a balance between the two so much as an advocate for the less powerful. Today, instead of Kings and Royalty, we have millionaire industrialists and corporations. The purpose of representative government is to act as a protectorate for the concerns of people against the power of corporate wealth. Instead, somehow, government acts more like the protectorate of the power against the will and needs of the people, and its time we take it back to where it is meant to be, and to do the job it was meant to do.
There is absolutely no evidence anywhere in history that unfettered wealth will do what is best for the poor. Some will argue that wealth, such as the British Royalty, invented democracy, invented human rights, invented representative government, but the fact is, the royalty was dragged kicking and screaming into respecting and upholding the rights of its less advantaged citizens.
Today, government argues that corporate profits will lead to corporations spreading the wealth around, while the opposite is quite apparent. Why else would huge corporations be making record profits and laying off workers at the same time? Here in Canada we have federal and provincial governments continually reducing taxes and creating loopholes for the wealthy and for corporations, while the spending power of everyday citizens shrinks. We are being told over and over again that private enterprise will fix the problems in our society, yet the less we make them do, the less they do.
Take daycare as an example. A year ago our PM cut funding to the provinces for daycare and offered all sorts of tax relief and benefits to private enterprise to get into the daycare racket. Now, a year later, our PM has been forced to give the money back to the provinces because private enterprise wants no part of daycare. Sadly, the money that has gone to the provinces, in most cases, will not go into creating government operated daycare, but will be offered to private enterprise to go into daycare, and the result will undoubtedly be a lack of available quality daycare!
Whether its healthcare, daycare, housing, employment insurance, the environment, government today continues to argue that the solutions must come from the private sector, despite all the evidence of history bearing out the fact that, when left to its own devices, the private sector will take care of its own self interests regardless of what is happening to the public.
Instead of serving the people, government today serves the King, and for all intent and purpose, we’re right back to where we were when a small group of noblemen took up arms against the King and forced him to accept that the citizens of the kingdom deserved a voice in the decision making process.
So, next time you hear a politician argue that the solutions to the nation’s problems must come from the private sector remember, the reason we have respresentative government is because the private sector cannot be trusted to do what’s right for the general public, if they could be, then we’d have no need of politicians. Then give that politican what he or she rightfully deserves by replacing he or she with someone who recognizes what the purpose of government really is, to serve the people, not the power.
Its either that, or wait until things are so bad that we have no other choice but to rise up and overthrow the king again. Now that’s a war that might actually be worth fighting.

Real protestors don't wear balaclavas

2007-12-14T00:49:00.000-08:00

I was at the Gastown Riot in 1971. One of the concerns that night was that some off duty policemen participated in anti-police activities and helped to precipitate the riot.
Years later I was working a peace demonstration when a small group of men started chanting anti-police slogans and trying to rabble rouse the crowd. We quickly surrounded them, holding hands, and separated them from the demonstration. As our tactic began to work, one of the men identified himself as a police officer. We let him and his friends go.
I saw similar incidents in Victoria, at an anti-nuclear rally, at a rally in Comox later on, and other places.
There are always police at demonstrations. Some are obvious, in uniform, others are more covert, and depending on the situation, some are undercover. In some cases, it is in the best interests of the police to disrupt demonstrations, in others they simply gather information.
What disturbs me about the recent goings-on in Vancouver is that some people, hooligans, claiming to be demonstrators, are being allowed to go overboard. This last Thursday, some were allowed to commit numerous acts of vandalism, and while the police at times scuffled with them, they did not use their considerable resources to put a stop to the vandalism. All the while the television cameras whirred.
I find myself wondering if the police are not trying to help the situation along. If the protests are allowed to get out of hand then the city will have just cause to take extraordinary measures to quell the protests. I’m not suggesting the police are starting these problems, but they seem to be, on some level, enabling them.
Demonstrators are demonstrators, protestors are protestors, they have a right. Vandals and thugs are vandals and thugs, and they should be stopped in their tracks.
In case anyone in Vancouver, including the media, is having trouble distinguishing the two different groups, here’s a helpful hint. The idea of protest is to get out in the street and say: “Hey, look at me, I’m here because I’m either for or against this issue.” They want to be indentified!
Thugs and vandals are the ones in balaclavas carrying sticks and getting violent.
I for one am incensed that the police, the media, and this small band of thugs are being allowed to marginalize the legitmate concerns of the homeless and poor in this province.
And I am completely disgusted that no level of government in this country seems prepared to do anything real to resolve these problems.

Update on the blogger himself

2007-12-14T00:42:00.000-08:00

A while back someone asked me how I was doing. This is the answer he got.

Upheaval springs to mind, mostly because I'd like it to. Yeah, looks like Kaslo for the winter, but I'm off to Harrop for a month tomorrow, at least that's the plan. Then back here.
Autumn in full splendour with Indian Summer and bears in the yard. We have two this year. One fat black and a small Griz, who seemed to have paired up, at least for the time being.
Big fascist movement going on here. Nelson City Council denied the permit for the latest peace rally. The city police have been arresting American Draft Resistors and Deserters so that Canadian lawyers can make money bailing them out. Got people living in the streets. Rents are so high in Nelson all the poor folks have moved out. Even out here, and in the valley, the cost of land has gone up so high and the housing crunch is so tight, the poor can't live there either.
Meanwhile, the bears are in the yard cause their orchards and berry patches have been torn up to be replaced by monster houses built by Albertans who only live in them two months a year. Seventy percent of the houses in Argenta are now absentee owners, but locals have no place to go.
But its all okay because the Olympics are coming.
RCMP, who are supposed to be all cured up from their fiascos, tasered a Polish guy in Vancouver Airport last week. Poor guy was lost in the airport for 10 hours and couldn't find his way out or anyone to speak to him in Polish. Eventually he got excited and security called in the mounties who didn't even bother to try to calm the guy down, they just tasered him! And he died! Then some guy who recorded the whole thing on his camera gave it to the cops. Now the cops won't give it back because they've been telling the media that they did try to calm the guy down! I don't know why I put these exclamation marks in here, its really business as usual for a fascist state. Sad thing in this story is: the guy who died, his Mom was in the airport looking for him the whole time, and spent most of the day within a few meters of the guy, but on the wrong side of a security barrier.
We got fascists in Nelson, Victoria and Ottawa. We got fascists in Washington. Hell, we got fascists in the retail shops too!
Have your heard, our dollar is now worth more than the US greenback! But guess what, our prices haven't gone down. You know on books over here how there's always a US and Canuck price. Well, there still is, and they are still charging us 30 percent more than the Americans pay. Finally, something is pissing people off. You would hope it would be the environment, or Afghanistan, or water, or healthcare, but no, people are pissed off that they're getting over charged at the furniture store! Its worth being pissed off about, but I think we have bigger fish to fry. This creeping fascism for example.
Go to China boy! At least there's some sense of community there. This place is dog eat dog, and there's lots of dogs!
Oh, you asked how life's treating me! Oh fine, just fine.
Oh bullshit!
Here I am in my mid fifties, in the best shape of my life, I can crack nuts with my thighs, and my intellect is working overtime, but I can't afford a place of my own, the girls all tell me I remind them of their Daddy, and all my freinds are fat old farts who are mortgaged to the ears, and the biggest adventure in their lives is my travelogs! I'm still the kid in the room until I look in the mirror, which startles the hell out of me. Not because I'm so cute, but because, sometimes, I don't remember how it is I got to be as old as my father!
Man, I used to go to peace demonstrations where there was half a million people. We took up every road and parking lot in a 20 mile radius. Now I go and there's maybe 200 people, and the town is making us stay on the sidewalk.
Fuckin' TV.
Oh yeah, this was supposed to be about me. Obviously my testosterone levels are good, and I still have some fire in my loins, and I ain't given up hope, though I think Hope escaped to Costa Rica where she makes a living teaching Yoga to retired American Yuppies. I don't expect to hear from her much, but I do keep her in mind. Hell, maybe I should be in some southern clime teaching poetry to up and coming Yuppie Larvae. If I stay around here I might end up in Gitmo.
Wish bank robbery was still an acceptable practice. I'd walk on down the corner, make a withdrawl, and join you in China when my winter hibernate is through. Don't worry, not much danger of that.
I'd probably go to Germany, at least the politicians there are sane enough not to send their troops into southern Afghanistan!
Idiots are ruling the world, and I'm busy doing work shares just to keep from getting frost bite. That pisses me off.
Guess I'm just caught up in it all. When I was young I was always waiting for the world to come knocking at my door. Now it is and all I can think to do is tell it to bugger off!
Anyway my friend. I'm lonely. Got no one to rant at. Guess you're it tonight.
Glad to know you're well.
Go To China, if you come back here I'll enlist you in the revolution and you too will wind up doing workshares at 55 just to keep from Frostbite!

Harper does Chamberlain on Nuke Facility

2007-12-14T00:38:00.000-08:00


Canadian Prime Minister Harper's assertion today, that there would be no nuclear accident at  the Chalk River nuclear plant, reminds me a lot of former British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain's assertion there would be no war with Germany, even though all the experts were warning there would be.
Mr. Harper should be careful about such assertions, especially when Canada's nuclear regulatory agency, which is staffed by professionals, says there are safety problems at the facility. This is definitely one issue the PM would not want to have blow up in his face!

Vancouver Missing Women, We Share the Blame

2007-12-14T00:36:00.000-08:00

Like many others I am very glad to hear that someone is finally being held accountable in the Vancouver Missing Women's case. Having once lived in Vancouver, and being aware of the fear and trauma this case has caused to so many people, it is a great relief that some finally have closure.
However, after listening to court reports for the past many months, and reading the ongoing coverage, I find myself with more questions than answers. Yes, it is clear Robert Picton was involved and may have committed some of the murders, or at least have a role in the disappearances, it is also clear that many others were involved.
What about them, when will their day in court come?
What about Picton's associates, who brought the now deceased women to his pig farm?
What about the police, and municipal and provincial authorities, who committed too few resources to the case, and actually refused to accept that a serial killer could have been at work, while more and more women disappeared?
Is it true, if these had been white women from Kitsalano, the authorities would have acted sooner?
What about the women who disappeared while authorities continued to drag their feet, are those authorities not also somehow complicant in the case?
And because most of the victims were drug addicts, what about the way we treat drug addicted people in this country, like criminals instead of people requiring urgent health care and services? Had these women been provided with the services they needed, would they have been left in the vulnerable position that led them to Picton's farm?
What about our elected officials who continue to treat drug addiction and prostitution as criminality, rather than social malaise? What about those elected officials who continue to cut funding and support to programs that are proven to reduce the harm of drug addiction, prostitution, AIDS and other issues directly related?
Are they not also somehow culpable for what has happened to so many people and, by extension, are they not also somehow to blame for the deaths of the women Picton has been convicted of killing?
Finally, what about us? Are we, the people of this province and country, who continue to elect and support politicians and government agencies who continue to either sit on their hands, or blatantly cut support to programs that may have saved one or two of these women, not also to blame?
Robert Picton is guilty, yes, but we are all to blame for what happened to these women. Every one of us who has ever voted with our pocket book, being more concerned about our own bottom line than we are with the ills of our society, is to blame. Every one of us who has ever turned our back and called a junkie a scum bag, instead of recognizing them for what they really are, people who have been damaged by a society that is primarily concerned with looking out for number one, is to blame. Every one of us who has voted for a politician who we know is going to cut our taxes while also cutting social programs, is to blame. Every one of us who did not demand the police and other authorities act, when the missing women case first came to light, shares the verdict handed down to Robert Picton!
It is our society that creates drug addicted women who have little option but to turn to prostitution to feed their habits. It is our society that creates Robert Pictons. And it is our society that is responsible for those it lets fall through the cracks. It is our society, and that makes every one of us responsible, not only for what happened to these women, but for making the changes we need to make to insure it never happens again.
Robert Picton is guilty, but so are we, and we should consider that next time we get an opportunity to make changes.

Hypo-Moronic-Harper-Con

2007-03-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

Remember a year or two ago when MPs like Carolyn Parrish and Sheila Copps were being tossed for calling George Bush a moron. Do you recall what a fuss our current PM put up back then about how such statements were slanderous and dangerous and an afront to people.
In the past few weeks that same person, one Stephen Harper, has torn a page from the slandering book and accused one Liberal MP of being associated with the Air India bombing, and the entire Liberal party of being in bed with the Taliban, yet he’s not being held accountable, forced to resign, or censured in any way.
Apparently its not okay for members of government to call the lying, deceiving, war mongering president of the United States a moron, but it is okay to falsely accuse members of the Canadian parliament of being traitors and terrorists!
Remember way back, when the reform movement in Canada started, and how it gathered a lot of its support and political steam by abmonishing Ottawa for showing Quebec special treatment while the west got left in the cold. Do you also recall how Harper and his predecessors, Day and Manning, scolded the then Liberal and Conservative governments for being too friendly to Quebec?
Did you catch the budget last week? In case you didn’t notice, Quebec got a 34 per cent increase in its federal transfer payments in that budget. Meanwhile, the western provinces received only single digit increases! Anyone else catching the hypocracy in that?
Remember how our current PM scolded the Martin government for going on spending sprees just before election calls? Have you noticed all of Harper’s spending this past month as we grow closer to a possible election?
I do believe I could go on listing, for hours and pages, all the things Mr. Harper used to regale against, and now embraces, but the bottom line in such musing would be this, hypocracy! That’s what you call a person who says one thing and then does another. Another word that comes to mind is moron. A moron is someone who is of feeble mind or degenerate dispositon. One might rightfully argue that someone who is hyprocritical and uses things such as slander and baseless accusations against others is a feeble and degenerate personality.
All this in mind, it seems one of the questions Canadians must ask themselves before they mark thier ballots in the coming election is this: Do we really want a moronic hypocrite for Prime Minister?

Neo-Cons Helped by Separatists

2007-03-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

Let me get this straight. The only reason the Harper government will still be in power after the budget vote is because the separatists supported him!
So, we have a Conservative minority propped up by Quebec Separatists.
Tell me again how that is good for Canada!

Dear Gordon Campbell, You're the Best

2007-03-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

This is an open letter to the Premier of British Columbia. All tongue firmly planted cheekishly!

Dear Premier,
Congratulations on finally giving yourself the raise you weren't able to push through a year or so ago! Too bad you had to dress it up as a tax cut, eh.
Also, on behalf of all the slum lords around the province, I'd like to thank you for raising the Income Assistance shelter rates. That extra fifty bucks a month oughta make poker night at the Penthouse a little more interesting.
I'd also like to thank you for setting up all those extra emergency shelter beds. I was wondering where we were going to hide all the homeless when the Olympics get here. Now, thanks to you, we won't have to put them all on busses and send them to Alberta.
On behalf of all the real estate developers, landlords, speculators and developers I'd like to thank you for not wasting the surplus on building public housing. Building public housing would take too much pressure off the housing market and reduce the soaring cost of homes in the province. If you did that we would all have to work too hard to make a lot less profit. Now, thanks to you, we can get paid way too much and live fat and happy without all the fuss.
Methinks the banks are also grateful because the high prices of houses will allow them to forclose so much easier. Nothing like forclosing on the working people's dreams to keep the mood high down at the Gentlemen's Club.
Finally, I want to thank you for cutting funding to daycares. Last thing we want in this province is mom's going to work while their kids are learning their abc's from qualified pre-school teachers. Moms belong barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, and thanks to you a lot more of them will be where they belong.
Also, I really want to thank you for paying so much attention to the environment in your throne speech and then making no provisions for it in your budget. I was worried there for a moment that you might actually be concerned for the future of our world and our children. It would have been quite a shock if you'd been serious. My opinion of you would have been drastically altered. I'm really glad to see it was all hot air. That's the Premier we all know and love.
Anyway, Mr. Campbell, thanks again. You're doing a wonderful job and I'm sure all your rich friends have warm fuzzies for you.
With all due respect,
Will Webster

BC Tax Cut an MLA Raise!

2007-03-06T12:08:00.000-08:00

Remember just over a year ago when our MLAs attempted to give themselves a pay hike, and the provincial NDP went along with it until public opinion forced them to go back to the house and reject it!
Well, they finally got their raise, and no one is saying a word about it!
How’d they do it?
Remember when the BC Liberals tabled their budget and everyone earning over $25,000 annually received a ten per cent tax cut!
BC MLAs earn upwards of $70,000 a year. The tax cut provides people in the MLA’s tax bracket between $60 and $100 extra a month. Its not quite what they were asking for when they tried to give themselves a raise, but its a step towards it!
When the MLAs tried to give themselves the raise the opposition battle cry was that giving themselves a raise while so many were homeless and in poverty was unconscionable. Odd isn’t it, that when those same MLAs decided to okay a tax cut, there was no similar hue and cry.
Its bad enough the Campbell government would try to pass themselves off as “compassionate” by increasing the provincial welfare shelter rates as somehow benefitting those on relief, when it was really just a raise for slum lords. It was worse when they tried to appear like they were addressing the issue of homelessness, not by building houses, but by increasing the number of emergency shelter beds. But to disguise lining their own pockets as a tax cut, is the ultimate in cynicism.
And even worse is the NDPs silence on the issue.
When this tax cut, or MLA raise, was introduced, I wrote to every member of the opposition and suggested they send back their share of the tax cut and demand it be used to address homelessness and poverty in the province. Do you know how many of those MLAs I heard back from?
Not a single one!
Many in the middle class argue that the relief was needed, but ignore the fact that whatever relief was contained in the package will be eaten up by rising housing costs, increased government service fees, daycare costs and the like. They also seem to be ignoring the fact that failing to deal with homelessness and poverty will eventually lead to rising costs for justice and emergency services. In the end game, the tax cut will cost much more than it relieves.
Then there is the little matter of whether we should be giving out tax cuts while so many are falling through the cracks. If the middle class need tax relief, imagine how it must be for those who don’t have enough to feed and house themselves.
No, the recent tax cuts were not designed to help people up. They were designed to give the MLAs what they wanted to give themselves before but were denied.
Remember Liberal MLA Mayencourt’s tearful rail against the NDP for stopping the MLA raise? Methinks he has stopped crying now.
Meanwhile, the NDP, who just love to give lip service to the plight of the poor, are quietly taking their raise to the bank. Sure they will rant about how tax cuts to the rich are abominable, but they are not going to do anything to keep that money from reaching their wallets.
Next time you hear any MLA in BC, oppositon or government, talking about the pleasure of serving, remember, they are only serving themselves.

Wanna Fight! Your PM Will Pick One For You

2007-03-06T11:52:00.000-08:00

Way back in the late 1960s there was an idea floating around about what should be done about all the people who want to fight. The idea was to put them all in one corner and let them destroy each other! I thought it was a good plan.
I come from a generation, the sons and daughters of World War II veterans, who believed war could be ended. Our parents did not call the war they’d been through “the war to end all wars” for no reason. They simply did not want their children to experience the horror they’d gone through. The whole idea for most of them was they went to war to finally put an end to it, and they came back determined to make sure it never happened again.
Now, forty years later, what do we find? There on my TV is an ad from the Canadian Armed Forces calling on people to “fight, fight, fight.” Its enough to turn my stomach, and to make many from my parent’s generation turn over in their graves!
Yet we have a Prime Minister, one who has never had to go to war, and would not physically make it through basic training, urging our young people to join the armed forces so they can fight, fight, fight.
At the same time, this PM, argues that those of us who are opposed to his militaristic intentions are enemies of our armed forces, that we are unpatriotic, ill informed, even stupid, for not wanting to see another generation of our young people have their lives torn apart by foreign conflicts.
Meanwhile, it is in the true sense of patriotism, and devotion to those who gave their lives in the past wars, that we fight the notion that war is justified. Our PM wants us to believe that Canada can succeed where the USSR and the USA could not. He wants us to believe that we can force feed western style “democracy” on a civilization that is far older than ours. He wants us to believe we can right the wrongs in the world with military mite, contrary to all the evidence of history.
And while our PM is so busy force feeding us the notion that mite is right, and that we in the west know better what is right for people half way around the world, our own society is in tatters. We have tens of thousands of people living in the streets, people who are the sons and daughters of war heroes.
We have a PM who wants us to believe that we can fix the problems in other countries while ignoring our own issues.
All the evidence is showing that conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq are deteriorating. Heck, even some of the countries who were the most vocal about going into these places are now pulling out. Many of our NATO allies are refusing to allow their troops into the more dangerous areas, yet our PM insists we should go deeper and deeper into the conflict, spend more and more tax payer dollars on the fight, while shielding himself from any critical review of such action by refusing national debate on the issue and labelling the opposition unpatriotic and cowardly.
Truth is: Sending our armed forces into war without a national debate is the unpatriotic thing to do. How can we in good conscience send people to fight for a cause we are not certain is justified?
Isn’t such a move, all on its own, an act of uncaring towards our armed services personell and their families?
And as far as spreading democracy goes, all the facts demonstrate that this cannot be done. Democracy is not something that can be forced on a people, it is something a people must decide to adopt for themselves. It cannot be transfered or imposed, it must be developed from within.
The other aspect of it is this. The only way we can make “democracy” attractive to nations that do not have democracy is by making democracy attractive to them. We cannot do that by simply saying, our way is better, get with it. The way we make democracy attractive to undemocratic countries is by making it work here at home. We need to set the example. We cannot do that by letting the rights and feedoms of Canadians be eroded, which is what is happening when so many of our own people live in poverty. We do not inspire other nations towards democracy by curtailling democratic rights here at home. Stifling debate does not encourage other countries to open debate. No, when we do things like curtail debate, cut services to the poor while increasing funding to the military, take away rights of habeous corpus and legal representation, we do not inspire others towards democracy. We demonstrate to them that democracy does not work, and must be reigned in. Worse, we come off as total hypocrites.
If Stephen Harper and others of his political persuasion really want to export freedom and democracy then it is incumbent on them to make sure those institutions are working well here at home. The true leader leads by example, not by rhetoric. If we want people to follow us, then we have to walk the talk, not talk the walk. Its all very simple, although those in power seem intent on convincing us it is not.
To win the hearts and minds of the Afghan and Iraqi people, then we need to become a model for them to follow. We must first feed, clothe and house our hungry and homeless. Then we must make sure that every person, national or foreign, is provided with all their democratic rights. When our house is in order, when our own yard is cleaned up, then maybe our neighbours will be inspired to do the same. But if we are going to go around telling our neighbours to clean up their acts, while we ourselves are letting our home deteriorate, then they are just going to look at us and say, ‘worry about your own mess before you bug me about mine.’
We were right, way back, when we suggested that everyone who wants to fight should be put in one corner and allowed to beat the crap out of each other. Trouble is, we have some so-called leaders right now who belong in that corner, but are intent on dragging the rest of us in there with them.
Perhaps its time we took a page from their own book and learned how to “just say NO!”

Manufacturing a False Grassroots Appearance

2007-03-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

During the last federal election I wandered over to the Conservative stronghold of the East Kootenays hoping to discover for myself why that particular region is so intent on electing right wingers.
The first realisation I came to was that the region is hugely influenced by Alberta. Most of the visitors I met over there were from Alberta. The stores were full of goods originating in Alberta, and there were nearly as many Alberta plates racing down the backroads as there were BC plates.
It makes sense. Alberta is a lot closer than Victoria. Its a half day ride to downtown Calgary, but an overnight journey to the coast. There’s one mountain range between Cranbrook and Lethbridge, but no less than four between Fernie and Vancouver. What’s more, they’re on Mountain Time, not Pacific.
Economics were another factor. The East Kootenays is like a mini-industrail zone. There’s lots of logging and mining, lots of big trucks, big wide highways, and the Rockies. Simply put, the East Kootenays have a lot more in common with Alberta than with the rest of BC. It is only logical this would result in a closer political association with Alberta.
But it wasn’t until I walked into a laundromat in Fernie that I really got a sense of why the politics over there are so right compared to here on the western edge of the Purcells.
In the laundromat I found a letter tacked to the bulletin board. It was from a guy who claimed to be a single male, mid 40s, self employed. In the letter this person claimed to be non-partisan, and to be fed up with federal politics. It went on at great length to explain how consecutive Liberal governments in Ottawa had ruined the country, although a lot of the things it complained about, such as the GST, Free Trade, cuts to hospitals, the decimation of the railroads, etc. were the results of the Mulroney era. At the end of the letter, the author said he was looking for change and would therefore be voting Conservative.
As I read the letter I got the impression this guy was going to wind up telling me to vote NDP. It was, afterall, a letter that complained about big money, big industry, cuts to social programs, hospitals, schools, all NDP platform subjects. So I was quite surprised that a person complaining about such issues would suggest voting for Harper.
It was a well crafted letter, one that accurately described the state of the working people of this country. However, the end comment, urging folks to vote Tory, seemed to defy the logic of the text. I would have understood if the letter urged me to vote NDP, Green or even Independent, but Conservative! Who is this fool, I wondered to myself, going on and on about the plight of the working man, then promoting a Bay Street lawyer.
I checked the name of the author then went down to a local cafe to see if anyone knew of the guy. Turned out he was the owner of the laundromat, and secretary of the local Conservative Party riding association, and had been for years. One nice lady explained to me that he was in fact, one of the best known rednecks around, and had been an unsuccessful candidate for the riding in the past.
Then I remembered by experience as a reporter in the Yukon back in the early ‘90s when the Reform Party was making big inroads. I’d witnessed the same tactic up there, people who’d always voted on the right, pretending to be disillusioned ex-Liberals and NDPers, writing letters to the editor, claiming to have finally grown tired of liberal and centrist governments.
At the time I recall thinking it was a pretty clever idea, to pass oneself off as a discontented Liberal who had woken up, smelled the roses, and shifted cheeks.
Then one night I went out to hear the one and only Preston Manning speak. Despite his squeaky voice and nerd appearance, he was quite the charmer. During a question-answer period, I recall him urging his supporters to write letters to the editor, and to talk about their disatisfaction with the ruling parties. He asserted that such letters, if written properly, would be a magnificient tool in convincing the undecided to vote Reform.
The tactic worked, in many respects. It helped to win the Yukon Territorial election for the Yukon Party, a reform type movement, and earned the Reformers a rather strong showing in the federal election of the time, which routed Kim Campbell and put Jean Chretien in power, while reducing the ruling Conservatives to two seats, and sending a couple dozen Reform candidates to Ottawa.
Preston Manning did an incredible job, using tactics like the one described above, to manufacture an apparent grassroots movement. Over the next few years it would grow by leaps and bounds and become the official opposition. Trouble was, it also split the right and secured successive majority governments for the Liberals.
The federal Reform Party Candidate in the Yukon at the time was an affable fellow named Short Tompkins. He was a life long Yukoner, a grandpa, a miner, only moderately educated, and a guy who’d worked hard all his life. In many ways he was typical of the type of person who bought into Manning’s plan. I got to know Short, and quite liked him. I could not say the same for many of his party supporters though.
One election night I was assigned to his party headquarters. There were a lot of people there, mostly male, mostly single, mostly labourers. During the course of the night, whenever the TV showed Jean Chretien’s face, several of the Reform supporters would start hooting “Frog, Frog, Frog.” It was the same when then NDP leader, and Yukon MP, Audrey McLauglin was shown. The crowd would start chanting “Dyke, Dyke, Dyke”, or “Commie, Commie, Commie.”
Short seemed disturbed by this. It wasn’t his way to mock people, he was a huge cut above such activity. I could see in his face that the racist and sexist remarks of some of his supporters troubled him. So I asked him about it. I’ll never forget what he told me.
He said; “Preston Manning is like a bright light, and like any bright light, he attracts lots of bugs!”
Short went on to explain that the people engaged in this activity were not part of his campaign, and called them “hangers around.” We both knew he was just trying to distance himself from them, and that some of those partaking in the ridicule had been out stumping for him, a few had even turned up at my door.
We all now the story. The Rerform was successful. Lots of new folks joined the party. They would eventually toss Manning in favour of a more rightest leader, Stockwell Day, and eventually they would elect Stephen Harper, a Bay Street lawyer, with a right wing ideology, a man ideologically light years away from the more moderate Manning, but apparently more palatable than the born again Christian, Day. Eventually they would grow so strong the Conservatives were forced to join them and they would meld into what is today, Canada’s minority Tory government.
As the Reform moved away from Manning, it kept many of his ideas, especially his methods of creating or manufacturing a grassroots movement. However, while Manning’s Reform was actually a grassroots movement born from dissent towards the Mulroney Conservatives, the modern day Conservative Reform is more heavily dependent on the appearance and manufacturing of a seemingly “grassroots” movement than they are on actually being a grassroots movement. Today, the Reform and Conservative parties are one, financed by big oil, big corporations, Bay Street, US interests, and of course the fledgling reformers who really have nowhere else to go. For all intent and purpose, the Mulroney Conservatives have swallowed up the Reform, made a sharp turn to the right, in order to fully digest all the fringes of the old Reform party, the hooters and the chanters, and now present themselves to the Canadian people as half reform, half traditional Tory, and the only alternative to the Liberals.
They’ve kept what they consider to be the best of the two previous identities. They’ve kept the name “Conservative” because of its history and tradition, and they’ve also kept some of the more successful Reform Party practices, like the one where they pretend to be non-partisan in order to put up the appearance of being a
‘grassroots” movement.
Its quite a balance to maintain, being the party of Canada’s inception, the John A MacDonalds, while also holding on to their Preston Manning, rebel with a brain, persona. On one hand they must appear to be the compassionate Tories of Robert Stanfield, and on the other the dirt farm revolt of the Reform. They rail against the Liberal machinery like they just stepped off the combine, and at the same time portray themselves as the founders of confederation.
But the fact is, the current Conservatives and their leader, are neither the party of John A, nor the party of Manning. And they most certainly are not a grassroots movement, but an entrenched psuedo-Republican party financed by big money.
Still, whenever a story hits the news, and wherever the public are allowed to comment, Conservative Party insiders are there, passing themselves off as everyday people, not necessarily connected to any party, writing letters, offering opinions, and basically trying to influence the polls by appearing to be something they are not. Meanwhile, there leader, and his ministers, rail on about the insincerity and hypocracy of their opposition.
The pot is not only calling the kettle black, but the kettle is in fact, the pot, and the pot is the kettle, and neither of them are what they appear to be.
But then again, neither are the Liberals - who will promise anything to anyone to get their vote, the NDP - who have spent the last six months propping up the Harper government, or the Greens - who are offering 50 per cent tax cuts across the board, what they appear to be!
What’s the solution? Seems to me our best bet is start a real grassroots movement wherein every single Canadian voter shows up at the polls and marks an X beside the name of a candidate who does not represent any of parties, or failing that, marks an X beside the name of the person they feel will do the best job for them in parliament, regardless of their political affiliation!

BC Budget, Save the Rich, Starve the Poor

2007-02-23T11:08:00.000-08:00

The British Columbia Government legislates a ten percent tax cut, gives welfare moms and single employables and extra $50 a month for food, and $50 for their landlords. Meanwhile they ignore the need for social housing, setting up instead, new emergency shelters to hide the homeless during the Olympics. People earning over $70,000 annually get back about $40 a month. Persons on disability get $50 to give to their landlords, childcare is cut and all the while the province enjoys a billion dollar plus surplus.

If you’re earning $70,000 a year the new BC tax cut gives you about $40 a month.
What’s that, a light dinner out with and a movie with your best bud once a month. A good bottle of Scotch goes for about that these days, doesn’t it?
Tell me something, could anyone out there provide daily lunches for their nine year old on $40 a month?
I guess that’s why the Campbell Liberals gave the welfare mom’s an extra $50. Come to think of it, could anyone out there provide daily lunches to their nine year old for $50 a month?
Anyone out there looked at the rental ads in the papers lately?
Cheapest bachelor, or one bedroom pad you can find is about $450 a month, most are in the $500 to $800 range. The shelter allowance for a single person provides only $375 a month. A couple with one child now get about $750. Two bedrooms don’t start below $600, its worse in the big city, and are most often over $800.
Know what a guy earning $10 an hour with a wife and kid makes, about $400 a week before taxes. By time he pays the rent and the bills, over half his monthly income is gone.
Know how much he gets back in the tax cut? Nada, zero!
You know what happens when you give welfare recipeints a raise in their shelter allowance?
The rent goes up!
Know where that shelter allowance raise goes?
To a slum landlord!
You know what happens when you give welfare recipients and extra $50 a month for support and food?
Most often it goes to pay the part of the rent their shelter allowance doesn’t cover. If they are lucky enough to have a rent within the allowance, that extra money goes to food.
How many dinners does $50 buy you?
Know why there’s not enough houses?
Because if there were enough houses people wouldn’t be willing to pay so much for a house!
Know who that would hurt?
It would hurt developers and real estate markets.
Know how much money people in real estate and development make a year? Know how much their tax cut is?
Its a lot more than $40 a month!
How many nine year olds could you feed on a lot more than $40 a month?
Know who has to pay when housing markets are high?
The guy who’s currently getting a $10 to $40 a month tax break! That’s you buddy.
Know what would happen if the government were to build houses and turn abandoned buildings in apartments?
People would have homes!
Know how much they’d pay for those homes?
Less than now!
You know who building homes would help?
Well, the homeless for starters. The carpenters, masons, electricians, plumbers, drywallers, truck drivers, building supply companies, young couples starting out, retirement people looking for a smaller home. Most people, except maybe the folks who already live in great big houses they paid too much for, and of course, the developers and speculators, who would have to work a whole lot harder.
So, what are you going to do with your extra $40 a month?
I’ll tell you right now, you’re going to drop it on some government service that used to be free!
Too bad, it could have fed and housed a nine year old for a night!

I would like to challenge every politician in BC who claims to be concerned about the plight of the poor and homeless in this province, every social service worker, every mental health worker, every medical professional, every media employee, every school teacher, and anyone else earning a decent wage in the province of BC, who has ever expressed concern about homelessness and poverty, to send back their ten percent tax cut to the government and demand that it be used to build and provide social housing and decent income assistance rates for the down and out in this province.
I would also like to challenge every landlord in the province who is about to levy a rental increase on his tenants because of the new shelter allowance to give his or her share of the tax cut back to those tenants living on social assistance.
It is time to do more than just talk about the poor. We need to take action, and make it clear to the Campbell government that it is obscene to cut taxes whilst so many people are homeless, hungry or living in dire straits.
Yes, British Columbia may well be the most beautiful place on earth, physically, but lets also make it the most beautiful place on earth by showing our compassion for those who have not. And lets demonstrate to the provincial government that it is time to put our actions where all our rhetoric is. If the working people of this province make it clear they are prepared to anti up, to resolve the pressing social issues we face, then maybe the government will finally act.
Let’s do what our government is apparently afraid to do, let’s step beyond the rhetoric and take matters into our own hands. Let’s show the country that BC is not only beautiful, but its people are as well.

Why I harp on Harper and get so political

2007-02-20T10:25:00.000-08:00

I get asked two questions fairly frequently.
One of those questions is: Will, why are you so damned political?
The other is: Will, why do you harp on Harper so much?
To answer the first. Politics is the science of how people govern themselves. Because people seem unable to govern themselves individually, we need a system where by we govern each other. That is, the society is trusted with the chore of making sure that all the members of the society behave in a manner that makes the society safe for everyone.
Personally, I would love it if we could all govern ourselves. I could live in such a society, a society where it would be imcumbent on each of us to do the right thing, to be considerate of our fellows and to put the good of the all over personal gratification. Such a system could rightfully be called Anarchy. In such a system there would be no need for a central government, courts, or police. The trouble is, there are a lot of people in our current society who apparently have no regard for their fellows, and even those who do, sometimes have no idea how their actions affect others. As a result, if Anarchy were to occur, it would most likely be “every person for himself, and to hell with everyone else.” We’d all be looking out for number one, because if we didn’t, the other guy looking out for number one would run riot on us. Until we develop as humans to a place where we can govern our own actions, and treat everyone else in the society with the respect and consideration we desire for ourselves, then Anarchy won’t work.
We are left, therefore, with the chore of developing a system that enforces the notion that we are all equal, and insures that each and every member of our society is afforded the respect and consideration they deserve. We need a means of developing consensus as to what is acceptable and what isn’t. In Canada, that system is our federal and provincial parliaments. Their job is to agree what rules are appropriate and make them into laws, or to legislate. It then becomes the job of the Executive branch of the parliament to implement those rules. We also require a system of enforcing what the majority agree is acceptable. That is our courts, or the judiciary. In order to make all that work the parliament, the courts, and the legislature must appoint or hire individuals or groups to carry out the business of making sure every citizen is provided with full protection and opportunity according to the will of the society.
So far, in all of human history, no society has been able to develop a fool proof political system. We’ve tried a lot of different methods; monarchies, dictatoriships, serfdoms, communism, socialism. In recent history the ideal of democracy has become most acceptable and sought after. The idea of democracy is that each and every person in a society should have a voice in the society, they should get to choose who governs, how they govern, and for how long. In a democracy the majority rules, but the minority also has a say. Theoretically anyway, this prevents the majority from running riot on the minority.
In a democracy there are three pillars on which governance is built; The legislative, which divines a consensus and introduces legislation based on the will of the many; the Exectutive, which implements the will of the many; and the judicial which interprets the will of the many. In order for democracy to work properly, it is imperative that these three pillars remain separate, to keep one pillar from overpowering the others, and to keep things balanced. Its a system of checks and balances.
At best it is imperfect, but as long as each and every voice, or voter, has a say, or a vote, then there is a chance that each and every person has an opportunity to live a good and productive life within the society, and that the society will be good and productive.
So, the short answer to the first question is: I’m so political because politics is the mechanism by which I am able to live a good a productive life in our modern world.
Now to the second question; Why do I harp on Harper?
The short answer is: because I believe he is anti-democratic, and lets his personal interests and ideals supercede the best interests of the society as a whole! Yes folks, I believe he has the portent, and the desire, to interfere with me and others living a good and productive life.
The long answer goes something like this: Stephen Harper is a member of a minority. For the most part this minority is economically upper class, adhere to a rigid view of the society wherein the wealthy have more rights and opportunities, the poor are somehow morally deficient, and everyone is expected to look and act a certain way. He believes that people should abide by rules without questioning them, that leaders should govern, not serve, and that we should all abide by a strict moral code, or fundamentalism, based on latter day interpretations of psuedo-Christian ethics.
Furthermore, while Harper gives lip service to the ideals of democracy, he does not practice democracy. If fact, he seems to have little understanding of the principles of democracy and individual freedom. This is best exemplified by his absolute control over his cabinet, right down to answering their mail, and by his control over who chairs parliamentary committees. In recent weeks Harper has made attempts to merge the executive and the judicial, by seeking greater sway over who does and does not join the judiciary. Such a move would strengthen the executive, while somewhat disabling both the judiciary, by aligning them closer to the executive, and the legislative, by controlling the judiciary’s interpretation towards closer alignment to the will of the executive.
If I may use a metaphor here: Canadian democracy is like a house built on three stilts. As it was intended, the stilts are set apart, which allows the house to be built evenly atop them. Harpers plan to bring the judiciary and the executive more in line with one another, has the portent to make the house lopsided, with more weight going to the executive and less to the legislative. The end result will be a house that teeters atop three uneven pillars, rather that resting atop three evenly distributed foundations. It is at best a dangerous notion, and at worst a recipe for calamity. We would not build our own homes on an uneven foundation, why should we aquiese to building a government on uneven footing?
The second part of my reason for harping on Harper is his apparent hypocracy. When he was in opposition Harper consistently attacked his political foes for being power mad, opportunists, flip floppers, with a penchant for political patronage, double speak and constant electioneering. He often accused the Liberals of using the Canadian taxpayers time and money for their own political purposes, and was constantly damning them for pre-election spending sprees designed, not to implement legislation Canadians wanted, but to buy their votes. Now that he’s in power, and with another election looming, he is doing exactly the same thing he so adamantly accused his predecessors of engaging in.
Heck, one of his first acts as PM was to appoint one of his campaign chairs to the senate, an act of patronage equal to any the former government was guilty of. At the same time he managed to persuade a member of his opposition to cross the floor and join his cabinet! Yet, a few months earlier when one of his own party, Belinda Stronach, made a similar move, he decried it as a woeful sin against the parliamentary system.
If that weren’t enough, he next introduced an environment bill, the Clean Air Act, that promised to do absolutely nothing to fix the problem for 50 years. Weeks later, when he realized the environment was going to be a hot button election issue, he did a complete flip flop, and introduced an environment bill that went the opposite direction completely. His new bill, with some minor name changes and a little tweaking, was basically the same bill his predecessors had introduced, and which his party, while in opposition, had whole heartedly condemned.
In the midst of all this politickin’ Harper went ahead and committed major troops to Afghanistan, despite the Canadian militaries unpreparedness for such a mission. Then, when a good fifty percent of the population demanded an explanation and a debate on the subject, Harper retreated to a positon of patriotism, arguing that a debate on the role of Canada’s armed forces in Afghanistan would be a detriment to our armed forces personnel. It was Mark Twain, I believe, who said the last refuge of a coward is patriotism. All the while, sending our armed forces into a situation as dangerous as Afghanistan, without allowing the Canadian people an opportunity to ask questions and get answers, was the ultimate disrespect to those people. To accuse those of us who opposed the mission of not caring for our armed forces personnel was, to me and many others, the ultimate in hypocracy. Our concerns were based wholly in caring about our armed forces, not the opposite.
There are other issues and actions; Harper’s daycare plan to give every family 100 a month per child for daycare, while wiping out daycare subsidies; giving Quebec $350 million to meet its Kyoto targets while telling the rest of Canada that meeting the Kyoto targets would bankrupt the economy; dragging out the Maher Arar affair by refusing to apologize up front and blaming it all on the former government; trying to protect the RCMP when it was clear they’d been at fault in the Arar matter; selling the farm on the softwood lumber deal; runnning negative election ads when there is no official election campaign underway; sending out election-style pamphlets that referred to the current government as “Canada’s New Government” at taxpayers expense; and on and on.
The short answer why I harp on Harper so much is that he has no concept of what a democracy is all about, he can’t be trusted, and like his predecessors, his only motivation is not to serve the majority but to get re-elected. In short, he’s a total hypocrite!
I will agree with Harper on one thing. Canada does need leadership. However, I do not believe he is that leader, unless of course we want another flip flopping, self serving, patronizing, anti-democratic, fear mongering, do anything to get re-elected Prime Minister!
In short, to answer both questions, I get so political because politics is the system by which we humans govern ourselves, and I harp on Harper because he’s a hyporite and the most worst prime minister in Canadian history.

Family Reunification A Misguided Policy

2007-02-20T10:23:00.000-08:00

RE: Widespread News Reports of a Foster Child Committing Suicide.

I for one am not at all surprised to hear a 14 year old girl hung herself after being repeatedly returned to her family home by child welfare authorities.
While I sort of understand why child welfare might want to return children, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, to their family homes, I think the notion is entirely misguided. Children need stability and consistency more than they need to be reunited with their parents.
I know because I was one of those kids. From the time I was three until I turned fourteen I was moved from one home to another. In most cases I went from my family home to a foster home and then back again. The end result was that I attended 21 different public schools, never learned how to make long term friends, was subjected to numerous abuses, both at the hands of my biological parents and my foster parents, and have experienced serious life long issues as a result of this notion that kids belong with their biological parents.
News Flash: Just because a person can plant a sperm or push a baby from between their thighs does not qualify them to be a parent!
As a survivor of this misguided policy, of returning children to their natural parents wherever and whenever possible, I think it is imperative that this policy be discarded.
In my opinion parents should get but one chance. If children are apprehended once for child abuse, returned, then apprehended again, they should never be returned! I'm not saying they should not see or know their parents, but they should not have to live with them.
At age nine I was given an option by the Childrens Aid Society in Brantford Ontario. It was at the end of my fourth or fifth apprehension. We’d gone into care, my five siblings and I, after my Dad, in a violent rage, had whipped me 21 times with an electrical extension chord. The option I was given was to either return to my family or stay in the custody of the Children’s Aid.
Before making my decision I asked the Childrens Aid: Are my brothers and sisters going home?
I was told that my brothers and sisters were going home to my parents. As the oldest, I felt it was my responsibility to go home too, because someone would have to be there to protect them, and they were, after all, my family. It was an awful burden to place on a nine year old!
Three months later we were back in care. My Dad, in a drunken rage, had once again taken an extension chord to me!
It is all very fine to have alturistic ideals about how children should be returned to their biological families, and to their original cultural environment, but at some point reality has to set in. Kids can be returned to their cultural origins without being sent to their biological parents. But more importantly, kids need to go to safe homes where they will be cared for, loved, and supported, whether its with their biological parents and original culture or not. Better to be loved and cared for than to be stuck with people who hurt and abuse.
As I see it, part of the problem is that child welfare agencies are full of people who mean well, but have absolutely no clue what it is like to be constantly moved around, or stuck with people who hurt you. There are simply not enough system survivors working with child welfare. The reason for this is: Survivors of the child welfare system, as it now stands, do not grow up to be healthy enough to take jobs in the child welfare system. Most often, they become grown-up clients of the welfare system, and this happens because the child welfare system is more concerned with family reunification than the best interests of the child.
The notion that family reunification is in the best interests of the child is pure nonsense, and the child welfare agencies in this country need to get that, before more children meet unnecessarily tragic ends, like this 14 year old girl.

Stephen Hitl__, I mean Harper!

2007-02-13T12:03:00.000-08:00

Stephen Harper lost any hope of ever getting my vote way back when he was opposition leader. The issue that sank him was his position on Iraq. He wanted Canada to join George Bush in the invasion. As far as I’m concerned, that should have been enough to send him to the Canadian political toilet for good.
Since then I have had to accept that many Canadians do not agree with me. So be it, but nowadays I’m seeing more and more evidence that I’m correct. In fact, I’m not only seeing more reasons he should be sent to the outhouse, but a multitude of reasons why the Canadian voter should hit the flush button once he gets there.
There was his “Clean Air” act, which promised to do nothing for 50 years. Then there was his “convenient” switch to environmental consciousness following the release of polls that showed most Canadians view the environment as a major issue.
Last week there was his Evironment Minister’s fear mongering speech, in which John Baird claimed keeping the Kyoto commitment would bankrupt the country.
This week there was his attempt to buy Quebec votes by giving that province $350 million to help that province keep its Kyoto projections. (I guess Quebec can keep its Kyoto targets without breaking the country but the rest of the provinces can’t!).
Far more troubling to me though, is Harper’s apparent disregard for democracy and democratic processes.
It all began with his insistance that all correspondence to federal cabinet ministers and ministries be first channeled through the Prime Minister’s Office. Apparently he does not trust his own cabinet members, whom he appointed, to handle their own mail. What does that say about his confidence in them to handle the affairs of state?
Then there was the situation wherein the PM withdrew the right of parliamentary committees to choose their own chairpersons. He apparently does not trust the democratically elected members of parliament to democratically elect their own chairpersons, and insists on choosing the chairpersons himself!
All this was leading me to believe that Stephen Harper is not a man who believes in democracy or democratic process, but his actions this week have proven to me, beyond a doubt, that Stephen Harper not only does not believe in the principles of democracy, but abhores them.
What makes this accusation absolutely true is his plan this week to change how federal judges are appointed by changing the make up of the committee that nominates federal court judges.
Mr. Harper does not belive that a committee made up of parliamentarians, legal societies, the provinces and senior judges have either the wisdom or the experience or the knowledge to choose good judges. He now wants the police to have a say, and he wants to prevent any judges currently sitting on the bench from having a voice.
As I understand it, the police are hired to protect and serve. It is not their job to dictate public policy, but to enforce it. Police are not elected, they are hired. And they are not hired to set policy, but to enforce it. Why a police officer would be called on to help choose judges is beyond me. Its bad enough that police in this country are called upon to investigate themselves, let alone to call upon them to determine who should judge them. If the police are going to have a say in who becomes a judge, then perhaps we should extend the same to the criminals, that is, if we want our courts to be fair and impartial.
What’s more, if senior judges are to have no say in who becomes a judge, then perhaps no one should have a say at all, except the PM.
Judges know what it takes to be a judge. They know what sort of people are needed on the court. They know the cases and the case law. Who could possibly be better equipped to know what characteristics a judge should possess?
Clearly, Mr. Harper is trying to set up a situation where he can appoint judges who share his views and ideals. This means he wants people on the bench who are against harm reduction in the drug laws, support the incarceration of presumed terrorists without due process, mandatory sentencing, are anti-abortion, pro-life, and pro-police!
Mr. Harper, who is apparently a fairly smart man, realizes he can’t push his ideals through the democratically elected parliament, so he’s trying to get his way by creating a judiciary that supports his agenda.
While democratic governments around the world acknowledge the need to keep the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government separate, Canada has a Prime Minister who is actively attempting to bypass the legislative, and totally align the executive and the judiciary. There’s a name for that type of government, a few names, one of them is “facist”, another is “dictatorship!”
But this isn’t the worst of it. Harper is also trying to force his ideals in another sector. That sector is the scientific community. He recently began making appointments to the committee that decides what scientists may or may not research in the area of stem cell technology.
Yes folks, Harper not only wants to dictate the judicial but he also wants the right to determine which areas of science may be studied. From what I understand, Mr. Harper is a lawyer, not a scientist. That said, tell me please, what qualifies him to decide which scientific research is valid and which is not?
All this is scaring the hell out of me, and it should be scaring the hell out of you too, because it appears Canada has a leader who not only does not believe in democracy, but thinks he should also have the right to determine for Canadians what they can and can’t learn about.
There’s a word for that, “tyranny.”
I’ve been scouring the history books for another world leader who adhered to these principles of executive control over the judiciary and science at the same time. I have not had to look to far for a good example.
There are similarities. Like Mr. Harper this world leader was also first elected with a miniority government, assumed complete control over his own cabinet ministers (right down to controlling their mail), appointed his own judges and even directed the sceintific community in what they could and could not research.
His name was Adolph Hitler. Look him up!

PM dogs the wag to dizzying dismay

2007-02-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

When to United States decided to give Canada the shaft on softwood lumber our current Prime Minister knuckled under and sold the farm, settling for far less than we were entitled to.
When the United States refused to take Maher Arar’s name off the terrorism watchlist, our current Prime Minister made only a feeble and polite request that the US reconsider.
When US ambassador David Wilkins publically slandered Mr. Arar, our current Prime Minister said nothing.
When a Chinese official cautioned Canada’s trade relationship with China could be threatened by the Canadian government’s tough stance on human rights, our current PM started talking even tough.

'When a Canadian citizen is ill-treated and when the rights of a Canadian citizen need to be defended, I think it's always the obligation of the government of Canada to vocally and publicly stand up for that Canadian citizen.'—Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Does anyone else see the hypocracy here?
The US stance on softwood lumber violated the rights of Canadians employed in the lumber industry, and Canadian lumber companies, for a fair price for their product. Mr. Harper’s response was to let the US have its way. He cited the fact the US is one of our largest trading partners, and because of this, we should not be too harsh on them.
The US decision to leave Maher Arar’s name on the terrorism watchlist, and to refuse to allow him to travel to the US, violated Mr. Arar’s rights to travel freely. Mr. Harper’s response was basically to aquiese that the US had a right to do so. He simply is unwilling to press the matter too far, fearing it may affect trade with the US.
I hate to repeat myself, but does anyone else see the hyprocracy here?
From his comments one must assume that our current Prime Minister is willing to risk billions of dollars in trade with China because of its human rights record, but is totally unwilling to risk similar trade dollars with the US over its human rights record.
Speaking of human rights.
How many people does the US have imprisoned, without due process, all over the world?
How many Canadians are being held without charge in Guantanamo?
How many American citizens are currently being held in American jails without benefit of adequate legal representation?
How many wrongfully convicted people have been put to death, or held on death rows, in American jails?
How many innocent women and children have been killed by US munitions in Iraq?
If our current PM is such a human rights advocate, then why is he so willing to ignore the injustices currently perpetrated by the US, in the name of trade, but unwilling to extend the same blind eye to the Chinese?
The simple answer is that our current Prime Minister is not really concerned about human rights at all. His larger concern is image. He knows he’s taking a beating in the polls, and appearing to be tough on the Chinese, he believes, makes him look strong, and deflects some of the attention away from his inept handling of many domestic portfolios, including the environment, healthcare, education, childcare, and the RCMP.
Why is Stephen Harper willing to risk billions of dollars in trade with the Chinese?
The short answer is he is not. The Chinese are no more likely to break off trade relations with Canada than the Americans are. Both the Chinese and the Americans need what Canada has, oil, water, wood, minerals.
Fact is: our current PM is simply wagging the dog. No, he’s picking the dog up by the tail and doing a whirly gig! Its a desperate measure.
Have we had enough yet?
I’m getting dizzy! Then again, maybe that's the plan!

Harper attack ads on Colbert Report

2007-02-03T13:48:00.000-08:00

Did anyone else out there notice the Conservative Party of Canada attack ads during the commercial break on the US political satire program, The Colbert Report, on Thursday Feb. 1?
Can you say “DESPERATE”?
Do the Tories actually believe Stehpen Colbert is the right wing ideologue he makes himself out to be?
Its bad enough the Conservatives are running attack ads when there is no official election in progress. Its worse they are choosing an American sports program, the Super Bowl, as a vehicle for their negativity. But to buy ad time on a US program with a mostly center-left demographic!
This latest move is akin to running a Marxist-Leninst ad between segments of Coach’s Corner or asking Amenesty International to support eliminating the term “habeous corpus” from legal reference dictionaries.
What on earth are Harper and his spin doctors thinking?
Obviously the Tories are trying to reach out beyond their own constuency, but to dive into a hard core, university educated, 18 to 25 year old, center-left demographic with negative advertising! What the blazes is going on?
Methinks there must be counter revolutionaries working at Tory HQ!
If the Harper Tories think they are going to find soft liberal support in the Colbert audience then there is proof positive that eating Canadian beef definitely leads to brain damage.
At the best of times, running pro-right ads during the Colbert Report could be considered a waste of dollars, but in this case, its like Hilary Clinton asking George W. Bush to nominate her at the Democratic Convention.
Stephen Harper check your face, because I think you may have just bit your own nose off!
Then again, its all par for the course.
Remember, this is the same Stephen Harper who wants Canadians to believe his recent conversion to environmental concern has nothing to do with the polls, that a military solution can be successful in Afghanistan, that George Bush was right to invade Iraq, and that giving parents $120 a year per child is going to resolve their daycare issues.
NEWS FLASH FOR STEPHEN HARPER: Stephen Colbert is a political satarist who is only feigning his support of George W. Bush. His audience is overwhelmingly in the 18 to 25 year old age bracket, university educated, socially progressive, and as likely to vote for a right wing government as Saddam Hussein is to win a seat in the US Congress. The Colbert Report is not a post game sports program, but a comedy satire that makes fun of guys like you!

All I can say Stephen is that you’d better hope Stephen Colbert does not get wind of the fact you and your Tories have purchased ad time on his time slot, because if he does he’s likely going to make you look like the silliest politician since Pat Paulson.
Oh, too late. I already told him about it!

Canadian media bias in favour of BIG

2007-01-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

I find it very amusing how so many Conservative hacks, when realizing that blatant attacks on the Liberals only make them look bad, choose to blame the “liberal media”.
As a former member of the so-called “liberal media” I have to say they are not so “liberal” as they are populist. Look in almost any newspaper in this country and count the number of times you read the words liberal, conservative, Dion and Harper. Then look in the same paper and add up the number of times you read the words Green, NDP, Layton or (What’s the name of the new Green leader, it appears so infrequently I can’t recall what it is).
The point is this, the media tend to play the two big parties off against one another, like they were covering a boxing match or a hockey game. This serves to further marginalize the other parties. When you hear the NDP mentioned, it is more often as an afterthought. When the Greens are mentioned it is most often as an “also ran,” and in many cases you do not hear mention of them at all.
Worse yet, there is seldom any comment from the Independents, who unlike the Greens, actually hold some seats in the house.
If there is a bias in the Canadian media it is neither pro-Liberal or pro-Conservative but pro-Big Party.
In most newrooms, at election time, the senior reporters are assigned to cover the big parties. The newbies and interns get sent to cover the smaller ones. When the coverage is printed, the big headlines are assigned to either the Liberals or Conservatives, and the smaller ones to the “also rans”.
Facts is: the newspapers realize that most of their readership is middle of the road so they cater to the middle of the road, giving the lions share of space to the two big parties.
For anyone, Liberal or Conservative, to accuse the media of having a pro-Liberal or pro-Conservative bent is nonsense. If anything, the media has a pro-status quo bias. One example of this is right here in this whole kafluffle about the recent Conservative attack ads and the responses to them. Its all ‘what do the Conservatives think’ and ‘what do the Liberals think’, and there is so little attention paid to what the other parties and the independents think, one would swear that there are only Liberals and Conservatives, and no others.
If Canadian voters really want to do something to change the way political campaigns are managed and reported on in this country, then we need to ignore what both the big parties and the media are selling, and go out there and vote for people who are not members of either big party, and unrecognized by the media.
These attack ads, and the response to them by the media and party hacks, makes clear what is really wrong with Canadian politics. Us!
If we really want to stop all this negative BS then we need to stop rewarding it with our votes and our patronage. We need to stop buying and reading the papers, watching the TV, and lapping up the mudslinging. Then, when the election comes around, we need to vote for someone off the radar.
Maybe then the parties and the media will get their come-uppins and come around.

Expel Wilkins, Give Arar Diplomatic Immunity!

2007-01-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

So, despite being cleared of any connection to terrorism and of any wrong doing by a federal commission here in Canada, the United States still refuses to take Maher Arar off their terrorism watch list and prohibit him from travelling to the US.
Apparently the US is basing its decision, to ban Arar, on his travel history and his associations with certain individuals and groups in Canada and abroad. This means that Arar is banned from US territory because he’s been known to attend a mosque where suspected terrorists worship, he’s a Muslim, he’s been to Syria, has been supported by other persons on the terrorism watch list, and has spoken out about his experiences with US intelligence services.
The US terrorism watch list, which has existed for many years under different titles, has many names on it. One of those names is Mohammed Ali, former heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Once upon a time that list included the name “Farley Mowat”, because Mowat, the distinguished Canadian novelist, had admitted to firing his BB gun at US planes when he was a kid. Apparently I am also on that list, because I had the audacity to write to the US President and voice my opposition to his intitial invasion of Iraq! It must be difficult for them because I have exactly the same name as a former FBI and CIA director. There are many others on the list, and many of them are guilty of little more than having names similar to known criminals, or they have simply spoken out. Apparenlty free speech is allowed in the US as long as the free speaker does not attempt to exit or enter the US.
Today the US says it will not remove Arar from its watchlist, ever. They site his contacts and travel history. Based on that, there are several names that should be on the list that aren’t. One name I can think of is ‘Donald Rumsfeld.’ We’ve all seen the photos of him, glad handing and joyful, with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Another name that should be on that list is George Bush senior, who has a long history of association with the bin Laden family, and was a senior official with the CIA when Osama bin Laden became a CIA operative. A third name that should be on that list is Condaleeza Rice, who for many years, before she became a member of the current US cabinet, did the party circuit in Los Angeles, a circuit we know to be full of subversives. Then there is her known association with all sorts of terrorists both as National Security Advisor and now as Secretary of State. Her travel record shows her travelling frequently to so-called terrorist states all around the world.
Vice-President Richard Chaney would also make a good canidate for the list, based on his involvement with Enron and his widely publicised penchant for playing with guns. Should we allow known crooks and gunslingers into Canada?
If Arar is on a watchlist because of his travel history and his associations, then surely these people also need to be added to that list.
Better yet, maybe Canada should start a terrorism watch list of its own and start denying people on it entry to Canada based on their travel histories, associations, and personal history. One person who would definitely belong on such a list is the current US President. Many here in Canada believe he is the biggest terrorist alive today, and some have even worked to have him tried for crimes against humanity. Surely someone expected of such crimes would belong on the list.
Another name that would make that list is the US Ambassador to Canada. He belongs on it because of his links to the Bush family and to white supremists in the US. He’s also clearly a bigot who has little respect for due process, and a hypocrite who favours Canada handing over personal information about its own citizens but refuses to allow the same to be done in reverse. Moreover, his recent comments which impune the character of Maher Arar amount to nothing short of slander.
So, perhaps this is how Canada should deal with the US refusal to exonerate Maher Arar, and to remove his name from the watchlist. We should make a no-fly list of our own and place a bunch of US citizens on it, then refuse to remove their names, nor to explain why we refuse to remove their names.
To be fair, the Americans are simply erring on the side of caution. That’s why Mohammed Ali is on the list. There must be thousands of terrorists with that name. If they have to keep them all out to make sure the one who will do damage doesn’t get in, then so be it. Trouble is, there are probably terrorists named Barack Obama too! It is likely true of the name Maher Arar, there has to be a terrorist with that name, doesn’t there? The one we have here probably isn’t the one they need to be afraid of, but if they just remove his name, then the Maher Arar who is a terrorist, might get in, right!
Speaking of the list, you know who else was on that list? Most of the 911 bombers, that’s who! Apparently it didn’t stop them from boarding the planes and hijacking them, did it?
The US makes a lot of noise about freedom and justice. According to founding principles of justice, a person is innocent until proven guilty, and as such, no government has a right to act against any person, regardless of who they are, where they come from, or who they associate with, until such times as that person is proven guilty. Still, the US insists it has the right to prejudge people based on where they are from, where they have been, and who they have seen. At the same time the US disregards the principle of innocense until proven guilty, it asserts its right to force its values of ‘democracy and justice” on other nations and their citizens by assuming guilt until proven innocent, and even when proven innocent, the US still claims the right to punish based on suspicion of guilt. All this in mind, is it any wonder the US are not succeeding in spreading their “democracy” to Iraq?
The United States should not only drop Maher Arar from its watchlist, but it should compensate the man for his trouble, to the tune of millions. And if it doesn’t, then Canada should step up and protect Mr. Arar from any further injustice at the hands of the US government.
If I were Prime Minister of Canada, here’s what I would do. I’d start by recalling the bigot Wilkins to Ottawa and then I’d expel him, for impuning the reputation of a Canadian citizen. Send him to Washington with a clear message that Arar’s name is to be cleared from the list. If that doesn’t work, then add the names Rumsfeld, Rice, Bush, Chaney and Wilkins to whatever no fly list Canada has.
If that doesn’t work, then I’d offer Mr. Arar a job with Canada’s foreign service and provide him with a diplomatic passport.
Bottom line in all this, the US are being ignorant. They are acting like school yard bullies who, upon being found assaulting a defenseless schoolmate, are refusing to acknowledge the assault and the innocense of their victim. They are trying to hide the fact that they are bullies who have no just cause for their aggressive behaviour. We should treat them as such.

Harperons go Green!!!

2007-01-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

Suddenly, the Harper Conservatives have turned green!
What’s responsible for this unexpected concern for the environment?
Why are they giving money to save Stanley Park, to enhance green technology, and to save our planet?
Could it be the unexpectedly warm weather in Ottawa?
Could it be the dramatic winter on the west coast?
Could it be that every recent poll shows the environment is Canada’s number one election issue, and the Harperons realize they will soon be back in opposition if they don’t get on it now?
Methinks, beyond a doubt, its the latter rather than the former.
How many times when the Harperons were in opposition did we hear them rant and rave about how the Liberals only concern was polls?
How many times did we hear Harper himself express his dismay and shock that the Liberals were more concerned with public opinion than they were about principles?
How many times did we hear the Harperons bemoan the fact that the Liberals were a rutter-less party whose only concern was winning the next election?
How many times did he call the former government opportunists?
How many times did we hear him reiterate the promise that his party would be different, that they would act on principle, not polls, that their mandate would be based on party values, not power?
And now the Harperons are in power, what are we getting?
When Stephen Harper assumed the mantle of Prime Minister it became clear off the top that he had no intention whatsoever of making the environment a priority. In fact, he introduced an environmental policy that did absolutely nothing to address the issue, for at least 50 years. Now, a mere few months later, it has become his number one priority.
Why? I don’t think I need to answer that question for the people of Canada. We’re not stupid, we know why, don’t we?
Fact is, the Harperons were not so much elected as the Liberals were un-elected. We threw the bums out because of their opportunism, their double speak, their flip flopping, and their corruption. We did not elect Harper because he had a better idea. We elected him because we were sick and tired of his predecessors! Now many of us are wondering if that was such a good plan.
And what are we going to do about it?
Well, from what I’m hearing and reading, what we’re going to do is de-elect him, just as we did Mr. Martin. We’re not going to move to a party that has a better environmental policy. We’re not going to elect a bunch of independents because we want to send a message. We’re not going to move left. No, we’re going to elect anyone at all! We’re simply going to de-elect the current devil and, in all likelihood, put the old devil, who we know a little better, back in office.
The polls say the environment is our number one issue. If that’s true, we’d be on the verge of electing either a Green or an NDP majority. Instead, we’re most likely going to give the Liberals a minority. Why?
Seems to me we’ve got ourselves in a position where we can no longer go to the polls with the intention of electing a new government. No, we’re not even going to the polls with the intention of electing anyone. Instead we’re going to the polls with the sole purpose of getting rid of the current forked tongue opportunists.
I wonder how long we’re going to stay on this merry go ‘round.
If in fact, as the polls suggest, the environment is our number one priority, then lets not be foolish. Let’s do our research. Let’s find out which party has the best environmental policy and put them in power, coast to coast, with the biggest possible majority, so they can get the job done.
And lets relegate the rest of these wishy washy, do anything to get back in power, opportunists and bunglers, to where they belong, in the dust bin of Canadian political history.
Its up to us. We’re the ones with the real power, the power of the pencil on the ballot.

Dare a different approach to drugs

2007-01-15T12:08:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid we used to have police officers come into our school to talk to us about drugs. Us kids loved the occassions because it meant some time off from regular studies, and we could all get a good laugh about how little the cops really knew about drugs. And we’d often celebrate afterwards by slipping out into the school parking lot to share a fatty.
When I was 14 my Dad, who was convinced I was doing drugs, even though I’d never even seen them, sent me to see a movie called Riot on Sunset Strip. The movie had been reccomended to my Dad by local narcotics officers. I went to see the movie, which featured young adults smoking joints and floating around rooms, or eating LSD and having sex. Most of us kids attending that movie left the theatre wanting to try drugs. Hell, if drugs helped you defy gravity and made it easy to get sex, then why not.
It also played well into our teenage rebellion, if the cops, the teachers, and our parents were all against this stuff, then it must be good. As kids, we were also quite bright and could easily see the hypocracy. We all saw our folks stepping out and getting drunk from time to time while telling us we couldn’t drink. Most kids I know, including myself, set out at an early age to try booze. We all wanted to get drunk, mostly because we were being told we shouldn’t.
I knew a lot of kids who got into drugs, but before they got into illicit drugs, they tried alcohol, the only legitimate drug that really affected our minds. For many, most, our gateway drug was alcohol. We moved on from it, looking for highs that weren’t so damaging to our bodies and minds. When the push came to ward us away from the illicit stuff, more and more of us sought them out. If our authority figures were so hell bent against the stuff, it must be good.
Not much has changed. Alcohol is still the first drug most kids try. But alcohol is not such an easy drug to abuse without getting caught. It stinks, it makes you act weird, and it is not so easy to hide. Other drugs, such as THC, LSD, magic mushrooms, even heroin and cocaine, are much easier to disguise. They fold up into nice small packages that can be easily concealed, most have no scent at all, except pot, and unless a teacher or parent is skilled at detecting signs of drug use, it can be quite difficult to tell if a person is high. These drugs are also easily obtained. You meet your dealer in a cafe or a back alley, or out on the street corner. To get alcohol you basically have to hang out by the bar or the liquor store, where you can easily be noticed.
I grew up in the 1960s. Its a whole new century now, and still the police are using outmoded principles and ideology in their attempts to curtail drug use and proliferation. It didn’t work back then, and it isn’t working now. Twelve years ago less than 30 per cent of Canadians acknowledged trying illicit drugs. Today that figure is over 45 per cent, yet the police, who continue to support school programs like DARE, and to spend far more on enforcement than on harm reduction, continue to claim success! Its a sham.
People who abuse drugs and alcohol do so mostly because of social mallais. For instance, my own case. I got into drugs partly because my Dad was always accusing me of doing drugs. At one point I got sick of his accusations and decided to give him something to talk about. There was no communication at home, there was just an iron fist and a lot of preaching. I was in the throes of teenage rebellion and instead of understanding, I was receiving commands.
I was also a bit of a good boy. Yes, I was the kid with morals who’d bought all his Christian upbringing, a goody-two-shoes, so to speak. This made me a bit of a pariah in my youthful social circles. As soon as I tried drugs, that was cured. Suddenly I was popular as school! I was cool.
The other thing drugs and alcohol provided me with was an escape. I could get drunk or high and just forget about all the abuse at home. Under the influence I was transported out of my mundane existance and into a world that was colourful and exciting. Alcohol in particular, helped me to overcome shyness and gave me courage. For all intent and purpose drugs were giving me something I wasn’t getting at home. It didn’t matter if the cop at the front of the class said they were bad, drugs were working for me. They lifted my problems, helped me forget troubling things, made me popular with the other kids, and fullfilled my teenage desire to rebel. The cop at the front of the class just represented another authority figure I was able to baffle.
In the end, alcohol, not illicit drugs, almost killed me. It damaged my liver, removed my friends, lost me several jobs, robbed me of money, took away my self respect, and quite nearly killed me. I’d turned to it, forsaking most other drugs, because it was easier to get, and more acceptable in the society where I lived. I could get drunk and the cops would take me home. If I stuck a needle in my arm I could end up in jail. My original gateway drug eventually turned into my drug of preference.
Just about 18 years ago I gave it up. Not because of any teaching I got in school, not because of pressure from outside sources or family, not because I was afraid of jail time, but because it was killing me and I was ready to quit. At the time I also stopped using any sort of hard drug, including perscription pain killers, mood altering pills and the like. I did this not because of anything I’d been told, or anything I’d learned in school, or any trouble I’d had with the cops. I gave it up because I was ready to give it up, and I wanted to give it up. All the DARE programs in the world had no effect, what did have an effect was my own desire to do right by myself.
The long and short of it is this: Kids get into drugs because they are trying to deal with the issues in their lives. They get into drugs due to peer pressure. They get into drugs for escape. They do this despite the fact that police and other authority figures are constantly telling them they shouldn’t. No amount of badgering ever kept a kid from doing drugs, no threats of imprisonment or even death ever kept a kid from doing drugs. Kids get into drugs because that’s what kids do, they get into things they are not supposed to get into! Telling a two year old not to pull all the pots and pans out of the cupboard is not gong to stop a two year old from pulling all the pots and pans out of the cupboard. And telling a sixteen year old not to smoke pot isn’t going to stop a sixteen year old from smoking pot, in fact, it may well encourage a sixteen year old to smoke pot! Any police officer who stands up and says programs such as DARE work, is lying to his or herself. If anything, such programs only push young people to be more secretive and subversive about their drug use.
Since the 1960s many governments have gone on anti-drug crusades, increasing the number of DARE-type programs, increasing criminal penalties and sentencing for drug possession, and launching all-out anti-drug campaigns, while cutting services and financial aid to poor families, curtailling social services and harm reduction programs, and ignoring all the evidence that such actions do not work.
The USA is the prime example. The so called War On Drugs down there has done nothing to curtail drug use and has served only to increase the number of people incarcerated, so today the US has more of its own citizens in jail, per capita, than any country in the world. Still, the drug trade blossoms, even in the jails!
According to a recent study put out by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS , of the $368 million spend targetting illicit drugs, 73 per cent goes to law enforcement, and a mere 14 per cent to rehab, and less than three per cent to harm reduction, despite the fact that harm reduction has been proven time and again, here and abroad, to have a positive efffect on reducing the crime associated with drug use, and to increase the number of drug addicts seeking treatment for their addictions. Meanwhile the result of enforcement-based practises has been to increase the number of drug addicts, the level of drug related crime, and the spread of infectious diseases.
In countries were harm reduction, decriminalization, and rehabilitation take a front seat to law enforcement, authorities acknowledge not only a lowering in crime levels, but a reduction in drug usuage, AIDS infection, and an increase in revenues that can be applied towards harm reduction.
In Holland, for example, where soft drugs such as pot and hash have been decriminalized, and coffee shops are allowed to sell small quanitities, authorities report a decrease in the number of new users. At the same time, because of quality control inspections, authorities report less and less health issues related to the sale and consumption of bad drugs, or soft drugs that have been spiked with harder substances. Street dealing is almost non-existant, and revenue available to help combat drugs has increased.
During a visit there last spring, operators of so-called hash bars, told me that 90 per cent of their clientele comes from beyond their borders, and the number of local people using soft drugs has dropped.
Because the soft drug issue is in hand, and because of the revenues created through taxation of the coffee shops, law enforcement and health authorities have been able to focus their attention on the hard drug problem. They have taken a five step program approach to hard drug usuage and prevention. The components of this program include: shelter, income, access to care, daytime activities and safe drug use. If you are caught using hard drugs in Holland you are sent to a clinic. There you receive assistance finding a home, you are assisted with income generation, put in touch with social workers, invited to participate in healthy lifestyle activities, and provided with drugs that are clean and a safe environment and the tools you need to use those drugs. The result has been a dramatic curtailment of hard drug usage, a marked increase in the numbers of addicts seeking treatment, a decrease in criminal activity, a marked decrease in drug related death, and a slowing of the AIDS infection rate, unheard of anywhere else in the world.
According to Dutch government figures, there are between four and five thousand hard drug addicts currently living in Amsterdam Holland. Yet, when you walk the streets of Amsterdam you see little evidence of a drug problem. There are few beggars in the streets, very few pushers, and there is nowhere near the drug related crime that can be witnessed in any major Canadian city. You do not find broken needles on the curbs, people sleeping in back alleys, or dying from overdoses, that you will definitely see in cities such as Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal.
In Vancouver, since 2003, there has been a safe injection site. Businesses located in the area serviced by the safe injection site report a clear reduction in the level of petty crime in the area since the injection site opened. Health officials report a decrease in the number of overdoses and other health related issues in the area. Even some members of the police have come forward to say the site is working. It is saving lives and taxpayer dollars, yet the Government of Canada is waffling on whether to continue funding the site, saying they need more data.
In what I believe is a complete dereliction of their mandate to look out for the health and welfare of the Canadian people, the current Conservative government in Ottawa is pursuing an ideological approach to the issue rather than one of logic and reason. They are continuing to assert they need more proof the centre is doing some good, but what they really seem to be waiting for is some evidence to the contrary. While studies that support the overall effectiveness of the safe injection site, both in terms of health and law enforcement, continue to be released, the government continues to wait for any information that will allow them to close the site down.
What’s worse, is police forces across the country seem to be goose stepping right along with the anti-harm-reduction message. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they continue to claim anti-drug campaigns, such as DARE, are working. During the last federal election the RCMP went so far as to demand the safe injection site be closed. It was an odd interjection by the mounties into public policy, especially considering the RCMP do not play a large role in policing the area where the safe injection site is located, a location which is under the jurisdiction of the Vancouver City Police!
The RCMP seem more intersted in securing funding for programs that all studies show do not work, than they are in the public good. While anti-drug policies clearly are having little effect on curtailing drug usuage, they do make a lot of extra work for policing agencies, and police officers. Its seems Canada’s police forces are more concerned with making sure their members are taking home good paychecks than they are in actually doing something about the problem. Think about it, if police officers are no longer preoccupied chasing around small time drug dealers, then maybe there will be less need for police officers, which would result in less need to finance police departments. If there’s no criminals, there’s no need for cops. It seems cynical, but what other reason can there be for continuing to pursue programs that have been proven time and again to be unproductive and patently useless?
The reality is, if police were less preoccupied with busting grow ops and soft drug users, they would have more time to go after some of the bigger criminals in our society, like the drunken drivers, the fraud artists, corporate criminals, crooked politicians and other villians who do far more damage to our society than the couple smoking a joint in the park.
Canadians like to see themselves as world leaders. We profess a lot of ulturism and progressiveness in our view of the world. It is time we applied some of that leadership, ulturism and progressiveness to drug policy.
These are not strangers who are dying in back alleys, who are overdosing, who are succumbing to AIDS, or going to jail. These are our own sons and daughters, our own fathers and mothers, our own brothers and sisters. They are into drugs because drugs were there for them when we were not. Most of them either come from broken homes or from abusive. They got into drugs because they couldn’t find other ways to deal with their issues. Many followed this path despite the best efforts of the churches, the police, the teachers, and the parents, who told them not to do it. They got into it, but they’ll never get out of it until we start providing the ways and means for them to do so.
Remember the two year old, who would not leave the pots and pans alone, despite the fact you told him no, despite the fact you locked the cupboard doors, no matter how many times you punished him? Eventually he gave up the pots and pans, most often when you found other things for him to do, and when it stopped being such a big issue for you. You talked to him. You provided him with options and he eventually moved on.
We need to apply this same approach to our drug problem, and yes, it is our drug problem, not their drug problem! Not his or her drug problem. It is our drug problem, and all the preaching and and law enforcement in the world isn’t going to resolve it!
Decriminalization, harm reduction, and communication are working in many places. Criminalization, law enforcement, and preaching are not.
When are we going to get it?

Stop the Lawyers Party in our Parliament

2007-01-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

Its not often you will find me agreeing with a mad dog Conservative wing nut but, I think Garth Turner is onto something when he talks about electing a small slate of independents to the House of Commons.
I personally would take the idea of couple steps further and say, let's not only elect some independents, but lets make sure they are not lawyers, and lets elect more than just a few of them.
Think about it. Our current PM is a lawyer. The leader of the NDP is a lawyer. All four major candidates for the Liberal leadership are lawyers. More than half of our elected representatives, federally and provincially, are lawyers. Heck, even Garth Turner is a lawyer.
The idea of electing independents is a good one. The idea of electing independents who are not lawyers is an even better one.
Most of us folks out here are not lawyers. Heck, there's more nurses out here than lawyers, more plumbers, more carpenters, more janitors, more hair stylists, more cab drivers, more bus drivers, more engineers.
If our government is supposed to be a representation of a wide cross section of the general population, then why is so top heavy with lawyers?
Why?
Well, first there's tradition. Our first Prime Minister was a lawyer.
Second, there's subversion! Fact is, our parliament has been so full of lawyers for so long they've made it so anyone who is not a lawyer finds in nearly impossible to get into the house. There is one way to get into the house without being a lawyer, and this is if you have so much money you can afford to hire lawyers to help you get into the house.
Of course, there are ways to not be a lawyer and get elected to the house. Tommy Douglas did it. He was a preacher, but he had some very clever lawyer friends, and an idea the general population liked, healthcare. Chuck Cadman did it, he however had to experience a tragedy, the loss of a son, with which most people could empathize, even the lawyers. Sadly, these guys were the exception, not the rule.
Unfortunately, after so many years of lawyering, our parliament has become something of a post graduate frat house for lawyers, and even worse, so have the political parties.
Look at the top brass of all Canada's political parties. All of them are run by lawyers, even the Greens, and the NDP.
Our political parties today have more in common with university fraternities than they do with any sort of democracy orientated grassroots political movements. Folks, its not just the laws of this country that are written up so that you need a law degree to decipher them. The party platforms and mission statements are written the same way.
These lawyers have set up the parties in such a way that it really doesn't matter who the leader is or what that leader wants to do. If what the leader wants to do does not jive with the party establishment's view of what should be done, then the party can just get rid of the leader. Sadly, this leaves the voting public with little choice but to vote for a party rather than a person. It doesn't really matter who the person is, or what they stand for, what matters, thanks to the lawyers, is the party position. Unfortunately, that party position has been authored by a bunch of lawyers, who hang out with a bunch of other lawyers. In the end analysis, you wind up voting not for the person you think can best represent you, but for an ideal authored by a group of lawyers who may or may not even be aware that your constituency even exists.
Go downtown of Friday night. In one bar you'll find a bunch of people in working clothes drinking beer, in another you'll find a load of office workers with their ties loosened, in another you'll find the gays, in yet another you'll find half the law community. Walk into any one of those bars without the proper credentials, or clothing, and you'll find yourself feeling like a stranger in a strange land. Unfortunately, this is what our House of Commons has become. If you're not a lawyer, and you don't have a clear connection to any one party, then you stick out like a sore thumb, and chances are, unless you're prepared to give yourself a total make over, you're always going to be a square peg in a round hole.
Even more unfortunate, this has been going on for so long that most people just accept it as, "the way things are."
Well, it may be the way things are, but contrary to such popular notions, it is not the way it has to be. We can change it. And its not all that complicated, despite what the lawyers and their parties want us to believe. In one fell sweep we could take out both the lawyers and the parties!
How?
Its quite simple really, just vote for the candidate in your riding who has neither party affiliation nor a law degree. It doesn't matter who he or she is, what they're politics are, or what they do for a living, as long as they are neither a lawyer nor a member of any party!

Garth Turner says we should elect 15 to 20 independents to the house, and asserts that such a group could potentially hold the balance of power. This is true. However, if we elect 15 to 20 independent lawyers, we may do some damage to the parties, but we will not break up the frat house stranglehold the lawyers have on our government. If we really want to change things in this country then we need to take it a step further and get rid of the lawyers as well.
No, I'm not suggesting we get rid of all the lawyers. They do after all make up about three percent of the national population, and should rightfully make up about the same percentage of our federal house, but it wouldn't hurt to get rid of the lot of them for an election cycle or two.
Think about it kids. Imagine if our government made up laws that average Canadians could understand. Imagine if our members of parliament were looking out for the hair dressers and plumbers as well as the lawyers! Imagine if our foreign policy was designed by people who have lived in places where our foreign policy makes a difference!
What if our tax laws were designed by the people most affected, rather than by well-to-do members of the upper income tax brackets, to wit - lawyers!
What about the idea of a military spouse having some say in the nation's military, or a labourer having say in labour law, or an artist in cultural policy?
What if our laws were to be written by the grandma up the street who has always shown a great deal of common sense in her approach to community relations?
What would our public transit system look like if it were designed by someone who actually rides a bus?

What would happen if we not only broke up the party's stranglehold on our electoral system, but got rid of the lawyers as well?
Methinks we might get a taste of what real democracy is all about!
Keep that in mind next time you go to the polls.

Harper shuffles a face lift

2007-01-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

Let’s remember Stephen Harper, since he became Prime Minister, has kept a tight lid on his cabinet, not even allowing them to respond to mail sent to them without his approval. With that in mind, it is obvious ministers, such as Rona Ambrose, were acting wholly under the direction of the Prime Minister’s office. If Ms. Ambrose came under pressure for a poor job performance while in the Environment portfolio, it was at the behest of the PM, and therefore, it was not Ms. Ambrose who failed in the postion, but the PM, who not only selected her for the position, but directed her activities while in the job.
By and large this shuffle is an attempt by the PM to deflect criticism. While doing nothing to improve the environment, the PM can now say, “Look, I’ve made changes.” But has he really made a change?
No, and he really has no intention of making any real changes to his policies. Stephen Harper is a Bay Street industrialist. His campaigns have been largely financed by big league industrialists. As such, he’s not about to do anything that would seriously affect the support he receives from those sources. Any major attempt to clean up the environment and to institute environmental protection policies would have a serious effect on big business. Such policies would most certainly dig into corporate profits. This in turn would weaken the support Harper receives from those sources. With only a slim minority government, and with another election looming, it is not likely Harper will do much to hurt campaign finances. So, Mr. Harper has made a cosmetic change. He’s removed Ambrose from the portfolio, hoping to diffuse the situation. He is not introducing any new policy, or approach. He’s just changed the face, and is hoping that will be enough of a distraction to take the electorate’s mind off the problem.
In reality it doesn’t matter who the new minister is because his strings are still attached to Mr. Harper’s hands. Yes, the new minister will employ a few different tactics, as he already has by coming out and admitting “things are heating up.” His job will not be to change the Tory plan, but to appear to be more willing to listen and acknowledge the problem. However, when its all said and done, the new minister’s job will be to carry through the Harper plan, which is to maintain the status quo.
Mr. Harper has also appointed a few more ministers, most of them former Mulroney insiders. Why, because of recent news stories that claim Mulroney was the most environmentally conscious PM in history. Its a load of hogwash, but it seems to play well in the media. Fact is, the environment wasn’t a major issue when Mulroney was PM, so it was pretty easy to deal with. Truth be told, Mulroney wasn’t all that good for the environment, and it was during his years in the house that things really started to fall apart. Remember, it was Mulroney who changed the deal with Canada’s railroads and expanded the use of semi-trucks to transport our nation’s raw materials. Semi trucks are big time polluters, they require highways, which have their own negative effects on the environment, and they use fossil fuels. By and large trains are far more efficient than trucks. So, if Mulroney was an environmental thinker, why did he put more trucks on the road and less trains on the tracks?
It seems to me Harper and his cronnies are counting on Canadian’s short term memory with all this stuff about Mulroney. Mulroney was one of the most divisive political figures this country has ever seen. He presided not only over major over political and geographical divisiveness, but even managed to split the right, and quite nearly demolish his own party. It was during the Mulroney years that the Reform Party got their start and that Canadian’s decided to reduce the Conservatives from a majority to two paltry seats! The Canadian electorate was so fond of Mulroney and the Conservative party they nearly wiped them off the political map. At the time there were good reasons for that. Mr. Harper is hoping we’ve forgotten those reasons.
When its all said and done, Mr. Harper’s cabinet shuffle is little more than a trip to the coiffure, with a side stop for at the cosmetic counter. He’s hoping the new look will make us think better of him and his government, and while they may suddenly be easier to look at, underneath its the same old tired right wing loonie coming around looking for support.
From the start Harper knew the Environment portfolio was going to be contentious. He placed Ambrose in that portfolio with that in mind. He chose her to be his scapegoat knowing full well he would have to move her out. She was a relative unknown, not someone who was necessarily viewed as a Harper insider, and far enough away from the PM that he would not necessarily be tainted by her performance. He offered her up knowing full well it wouldn’t hurt him too much when she got shot down. Now he’s placed another relative unknown in the job, for much the same reason.

Now some pundits out there seem befuddled by the fact Harper has yet to bring long time supporter and reformer Diane Yabloncy into cabinet. Yabloncy is a major player in the Conservative ranks, and is a top contender to be the party’s next leader. She is also an experienced corporate dealer and business woman in her own right, and is quite smart for a righty. Her absence from cabinet is a mystery to some, but I think there’s good reason for it, and it has nothing to do with Harper not liking her. This is a woman who has run major Canadian businesses. She’s her own woman. Such a person is not going to be willing to operate in an environment where she’s not allowed to receive or respond to her own mail without first running it by someone else. The top-down management style of Harper is not the sort of work environment Yabloncy is going to want to get involved in. She likes to be on top!
There is also the matter of her future. Although she’s been a strong supporter of Harper, she’s also thinking about the future. Chances are she supported Harper because it was clear he would win. She likes to be in the winner’s column, and is smart enough to pick a winner. However, she’s also planning to one day lead the Conservative Party and she knows that appearing too close to Harper might not be the best prerequisite for that job. Harper is a divisive character, Yabloncy knows that. She also knows the current Conservative Party, and has seen them turn on their leaders before. Too close a relationship with the current boss could hurt her long term plan. For now she is keeping her mouth shut and towing the party line, but there will come a day when she positions herself against the current leadership in order to gain the leadership. At that time, she’s not going to want to be seen as having been part and parcel of the current regime. Its not that Harper doesn’t want her, its that she doesn’t want in under Harper!
When its all said and done the new Harper cabinet is lest garrish in hair style, the makeup is a tad more subtle, and the costuming less Hallweenish, but the emporer is still the same old emporer and nothing has really changed.

Saddam's Execution, Mother of All Cover-Ups

2007-01-01T12:50:00.000-08:00

The execution of Saddam Hussein, justice, or the Mother of All Cover Ups.
George Bush must be doing one helluva dance today. He calls it “justice served” but I for one wonder how he would feel to be tried in an Iraqi court!
Hussein should have been brought to trial in front of the world court, not the Iraqi court. His crimes were against humanity, not just Iraq.
Had he faced the world court he would have received a fair trial. It is questionable whether his trial in front of an Iraqi judge was fair at all. The situation being what it is in Iraq, it could be argued that neither the current Iraqi government, or its courts, are legitimate. Both exist at the courtesy of the American and British occupiers, and not, some would argue quite correctly, at the will of the Iraqi people.
Furthermore, had Hussein been tried in front of the World Court, he would undoubtedly still be alive. And if Hussein were alive there would still be a chance he would talk. If he talked, maybe he would explain how he became the president of Iraq, where he got his guns, who supported him, and why they turned on him in the end. With him dead, his lips are sealed, which is why I think Bush is probably dancing.
There is also the little matter of capital punishment. Death penalties are supposedly deterrents, but criminals do not think about deterrence when they commit crimes. Most criminals do not beleive they will be caught, so deterrence does not figure into criminality, at least there is no evidence that it does. Many US states still practice capital punishment, but there is no evidence the practice has resulted in less capital crime.
Revenge is another motive for capital punishment, an eye for an eye. However, there is no evidence that revenge ever solves anything, nor is there any evidence that it makes any of the victims feel better. I’m sure there are a lot of people glad Saddam is dead, but does his death improve their quality of life? Not likely. Iraq continues to be in deadly turmoil, even with Saddam gone, and it will continue to be in turmoil.
What is learned from executing criminals such as Saddam. When Hitler’s henchmen were hanged, did it stop the advent of neo-nazi movements in Europe. I think not. In fact, it gave neo-nazis some martyrs to rally behind. Has the execution of serial killers brought an end to serial killing? No!
When are the people of this planet going to learn? We don’t learn how to stop crime by killing criminals. Maybe, just maybe, if we kept them alive, studied them, interrogated them, watched them, ran tests on them, we might learn something about them. And if we learn something about them we might, just might, find out what makes them tick. And if we find out what makes them tick, then maybe we might, just might, find out how to prevent such people from committing crimes in the first place. If we kill them, then we never know.
Finally, what about the criminal. Seems to me that killing these people just lets them off. They never have to live with their actions, they don’t have to be around to see what thier crimes do to their victims. They never have to answer any questions. They don’t have to live with their actions. Some believe they are judged by God, but we have no evidence of that. In fact, to folks like Hussein, a death penalty is something of a reward. Saddam went to his grave believing himself a martyr to a cause. If he’d lived he would have had to face the rest of his life in jail, his power stripped from him, his cohorts gone, his wealth lost, his life ruined. If we really want revenge, would it not be sweeter knowing he had to live with himself and his actions?
Personally, I think the execution of Saddam was a crime against humanity because now humanity will never know the whole story, the history, and without that history in our consciousness, we mostly likely will have to relive the whole experience again, with some other tyrant.
But the worse thing about the murder of Saddam is that we will never know, from the horse’s mouth, just what role the US played in his ascension to power and his many years of abuse, and that amounts to the Mother of All Cover-ups, because his accomplises will never be named.
Methinks George Bush Sr. is also doing a dance today.

Sneak preview of the Harper election plan

2006-12-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

In case there is anyone out there who can’t figure out what Stephen Harper is up to, let me explain.
Gay marriage, human rights in China, Quebec nationalism, Senate reform, well, that stuff is all a smoke screen designed to do two things: 1. Keep parliament from voting on any economic issue or any matter that could result in non-confidence motion; 2. To keep the electorate thinking the current government is actually doing something to fix what is wrong with Canadian society and keep our minds off the real issues of the day: healthcare, environment and our foreign affairs policy, especially where it relates to Afghanistan.
You see, all Mr. Harper really wants to do is keep his government in tact until parliament breaks for the holidays so he can come back in the spring and institute his real plan.
What’s his real plan?
Listen up kids, here it is!
In the spring, when parliament resumes, Harper will introduce a budget full of tax cuts. He’ll come up with a further cut to the GST, raise the bar on the amount people can earn before they are taxed, cut taxes to medium and high wage earners, allow for primary household wage earners to share their tax burden with their spouses, increase the child tax credit and or the GST rebate, and increase the daycare rebate, among other things. This tax cut package will be so good that even the opposition will have trouble justifying a non-confidence motion over it.
The opposition however, for their own survival, will have to introduce a non-confidence motion, and they will do so on the grounds that Harper will not explain how these tax cuts will affect government services and revenues.
Harper will counter explaining the plan will be to create a user-pay system. It will seem to make sense to people. They’ll only have to pay for government services they actually use. For example, we could see a steep rise in the cost of getting a passport, which will only affect those Canadians who require a passport. People wanting to view their files under legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act, will find themselves paying more for such services. Again, it will only affect those who wish to use those services, or so Harper and his party will claim.
This will all make sense to those Canadians whose primary concern is how much money they have left in their banks accounts at the end of the work week, and will win over a lot of voters.
It will also divert a lot of attention away from the real issues of the day, healthcare, foreign policy, and the environment, thus making tax cuts the major election issue.
This plan will in many ways echo the US Republican Party’s election platform of 2004, where the issue should have been Iraq and government integrity, but became tax cuts and gay marriage.
Will it work? Well, yes, if the Canadian people are in fact more concerned about their individual bottom lines than they are the welfare of our society!
When the election call is finally made, if all goes according to Harper’s plan, we can expect the current PM to campaign on tax cuts with a liberal smattering of the politics of fear thrown in. Harper will harp on how corrupt and bungling the Liberals were and go on and on about how he tried to introduce a budget that was good for the “average Canadian” but the opposition was against it. If he has his way there will be nary a mention of issues like the environment, and when there is, he will refer to his “Clean Air Act” and say, ‘Well folks, I tried to bring in a clean air act but the opposition made me send it back to committee.’ He’ll say, I tried to fix the fiscal imbalance but the opposition wouldn’t let me. I tried to put more money in people’s pockets but the opposition didn’t think we should do that. I tried to cut the GST but they wouldn’t let me.
Of course, Mr. Harper will say nothing about how his proposed cuts will affect government revenues, the national debt such cuts will create, or how much service fees will increase. Instead he’ll just keep hammering away at how he tried to do all these wonderful things but the other guys kept getting in the way.
In the end Mr. Harper will fight his campaign on the political theory that all you need to do to win a vote is convince the voter that he or she will have more money in their pocket at the end of the day, and if you can convince them of that they will ignore what is best for the society at large.
On the other side of the aisle the opposition will be scrambling. They will be tempted to come up with some tax cutting proposals of their own in order to steal some of the PM’s platform out from under him. If they do this, they will be falling right into Harper’s trap, because the moment they start talking about tax cuts is the moment the debate shifts in Harper’s favour. On the other hand, if the opposition ignores the tax cut issue and pounds away at the real issues; healthcare, foreign policy and environment, than all Harper has to do is adopt the mantra “At what cost?”
The only hope the opposition have of keeping all this from coming down, the way I describe, is to launch a preemptive strike of some sort. In short, they have to find a way to bring down the Conservative minority before Harper can introduce his tax cutting budget, and they have to do it over an issue that is close to the Canadian heart. I believe that issue is Afghanistan, although it could be either healthcare or the environment, but in those instances it would have to be something specific, like a clear plan to immediately end wait times in surgical wards or dramatically reduce harmful emissions in a manner that does not affect the working persons’ wallet.
Unfortunately, with parliament about to recess for the holidays, the opposition seems to have already missed the boat. Unless Harper dallies, which he is far too smart to do, the dye is already cast.
The only real question that remains is: Will the Canadian people buy it?
This will depend on several factors. Are Canadian’s really more concerned about their own personal wealth than the are the overall wealth of the society? Will they be blinded to the certain debt creation that will result from dramatic tax cuts? Do we really believe that Harper’s recent introduction of issues such as the gay marriage vote, the Chinese human rights issue, Quebec nationalism, and senate reform are for real, and not just subterfuge? Are the environment, healthcare and foreign policy only surface issues and is our real concern high taxes? Do we really buy the assertion that all the problems the current government faces are the result of previous government bungling?
One other factor that will play a large role in determining whether the Harper strategy will be successful will be voter turnout. How many people in this country are just going to walk away believing their vote doesn’t really matter? Statistics show that most people who vote are from middle to upper income tax brackets, the same people who will benefit most from tax cuts. If, as in years past, the lower income householders, the ones who benefit most from things like universal healthcare, do not show up at the polls, then the scale will most definitely tip in Harper’s favour.
Like almost every government before them, the Harper Conservative focus has shifted from serving the people of Canada to getting reelected, not that the current Conservatives were ever really interested in doing anything but gaining power. This is something the Canadian voter admonished Harper’s predecessors for, being more concerned about maintaining power than serving the people. Last year, we punished the Liberal Party for their power-hungry ways, and for the corruption that results from power. Now we’re faced with a minority government that’s only focus is gaining a majority. What are we going to do about it? That’s the million dollar question!
Personally, I would like to believe that Canadians are well enough educated, skeptical enough of their politicians, and seriously enough committed to our national interests and institutions, to vote our consciences, not our bank statements. I want to believe that, I really do, but I’m not sure, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Our next election may be fought over tax cuts. It may be fought over healthcare, environment and foreign policy. But our next election is really going to be about the kind of Canada we envision for ourselves and our grandchildren!
How’s it going to turn out?
Well, that’s a decision you and I are going to have to make for ourselves!

Ten Reasons Why Harper Must Go

2006-12-12T12:35:00.000-08:00

1. Harper does not trust his own cabinet ministers, which is evident in his insistence that all correspondence to and from member of cabinet be cleared through his office. If Harper doesn’t trust his own people, why should Canadians?

2. Harper does not believe democracy works, which is evident in his not allowing committees of parliament to chose their own chairpersons. If Mr. Harper doesn’t believe in letting parliament act under the rules of democracy, how can he believe in it working for the Canadian people?

3. Harper does not believe the Canadian people are smart enough or well enough informed to make up their own minds regarding public policy. This is best evident in his refusal to allow an open debate on the Afghan mission and his refusal to lay all the facts in front of the Canadian people. If Harper is unwilling to let the Canadian people decide what’s best for our foreign policy, then what proof do we have he will act in our best interests?

4. Harper has no intention of keeping his election promises. This is best evident in his flip flop on the Income Trust promise and the failed vote on same sex marriage. Harper knew when he made the Income Trust announcement that he would have to do the flip flop, if he didn’t he is the most incompetent Bay Streeter ever. As for the same sex marriage thing, if he really wanted to challenge it he would have invoked the notwithstanding clause.

5. Harper lies, or else he’s incompetent. Once again the Income Trust issue is the best example. Many average Canadians with investments in Income Trusts realized well over a year ago that something would have to be done to stop major corporations from converting to Income Trusts. If average Canadians knew something was afoot, Harper, as a Bay Street insider must have known too. If he didn’t, then he really is the most incompetent finance man ever to come out of Bay Street.

6. Harper cuts funding to social programs in order to quell criticism of his government. The severing of funding the status of women is the example. He is refusing to fund any agency that challenges his government. What happened to free speech?

7. Harper refuses to take responsibility. It is clear to everyone that Maher Arar was falsely accused, illegally imprisoned, slandered, and publically abused by the mounties, the Canadian government, and the Conservative party. Yet Mr. Harper continues to play a blame game and refuse to act on behalf of all Canadians and apologize, sighting Mr. Arar’s lawsuit. This is a scar on the face of Canadian civil liberties and human rights.

8. Harper is hurting Canada’s image in the world. Arar, Afghanistan, environment, Kyoto, buddying up to Bush and on and on. Canada has begun to be viewed as a henchman for George Bush, and is seen as a country that does not even protect the rights and priviledges of its own citizens.

9. Harper is a divider, not a decider. When his government came under fire for its environmental stand and its refusal to be forthright and honest about Afghanistan he chose to raise the spectre of Quebec Separation, at a time when it was a non-issue, in order to distract Canadians from the real issues before them.

10. Harper is waffling on healthcare reform and finance. Need I say more about that.

There, that’s ten good reasons why the Harper government must be brought down. But the fact is there is one good reason why Harper should go. That is: Harper does not represent the majority of Canadians and, as such, he should not be allowed to do anything that affects the long term well being or international reputation of the majority.
So I ask, do the Canadian people need more than one good reason to get rid of Harper?

Liberals go for mediocrity, same old same old

2006-12-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

I don’t know who was handling the federal Liberal Party this afternoon but they sure blew it!
After days of hardknuckle campaigning the Liberals elected an apparent outsider, one who looks like he might just be the sort of character the Canadian people are looking for, and then they blow it all by letting Paul Martin introduce him, with Jean Chretien himself, posed in behind the two!
Guess all the real good spin doctors are working for Harper, or sitting alone in a snowy mountain landscapes far away from it all!
I can see the Conservative attack ads now; The picture of Dion, Chretien and Martin all holding hands with the caption: The Same Old Gang! Canada’s New Government or The Same Old Gang? Harper won’t have to release a single policy plank!
Yep Liberals, that’s what Canada wants, another rather odd looking fellow who speaks fluent Franglais and was a cabinet minister in a government remembered by most Canadians for boondogles and bribes.
Whoever was running the show in Montreal these past few days should of put Martin and Chretien on a bus to Beirut. Letting them onstage was a game a of Russian Roulette and this time the gun went off!
Party tonight at the Harper’s on Sussex Drive!
Meanwhile, over on the left side of the rink, sit the rest of the opposition. This is good news for them too. Well, mostly, and it depends a lot on their attitudes.
A Francophone, Dion speaks the Quebec language. He’ll win some votes just because he’s from there. He opposed Iraq, and seems to be concerned about Afghanistan, that will help too. His other ace is the environment. However, Quebeckers, overall, are going to see Dion as a weak choice, unable to win a majority. Much will depend on how he does in the rest of the country, but Quebeckers will go to the Bloc before they vote for a party that can’t win the big house.
Over at Jack Layton’s house everyone has loosened the top button of their blue shirts. Bob Rae winning would have hurt them bad. The fact a former New Democrat was even a contender in the race makes all NDPers seem a little more palatable. Now, if they can only get Rae to go study in Europe for a year or so! The NDP too must make use of the Dion, Chretien, Martin photo. They’d also be well advised to start reminding the public that it was their Grandaddy, Tommy Douglas, who introduced the idea of balanced budgets. If ever there was a time for the NDP to just talk economics and the environment, its now. But its also time to go medeival on the Conservative history of leaving gross debt in their wake. If they play it right, the NDP could be headed for the same postion Gerard Kennedy played at the Liberal convention, king makers.
To have any chance at all, it is in the interest of both the NDP and the Liberals to bring down the Harper government right away. The question is, will the Bloc will go along with it. Expect the Conservatives to deal with the Bloc. They’re not ready yet. They want a chance to bring down a budget.
Because Dion is a former environment minister, his selection is not good news for the Greens, although they may do well simply stealing disaffected Conservative voters.
Apart from how it affects the parties, the selection of a weak federal Liberal leader should be good news for the independent movement in this country. It most certainly enhances the chances of another minority government in Ottawa, no matter when the election is called. The presence of both Martin and Chretien onstage with the new Liberal leader is going to send many voters further from the party. Some of those votes will go to other parties. Who knows where the rest will go. A few independents could well wind up holding the balance of power.
To be fair, Dion was obviously trying to show party unity, and to heal whatever rifts had developed over the campaign. To that end, having his opponents on stage was a good idea. But Canadians, outside the Liberal party, were looking to see if the Liberals would come out of this convention with new vigor, new ideas, and new leadership. Unfortunately, that is not the message they are going to intitially get. It will take the new leader some time to change that public perception. A quick election might not give him the opportunity.

If I was a spin doctor, here’s what I would suggest in the way of strategy for each of the campaigns.

Liberals: Put Chretien, Martin, Goodale, Hedy Fry, and anyone else from that era, on a desert island somewhere, preferably where the North Koreans are planning a nuclear test. Leave them there. Offer Ignatief the foreign affairs file, if he refuses it, pretend he doesn’t exist. Trot Dryden out with a national daycare program, Bryson with an environmental plan, and the young Mr. Trudeau with a Quebec plan. Send Kennedy to Alberta to head up the western flank, and have Dion visit him frequently. Trot Bob Rae out with a national healthcare plan and have Martha Findlay take the point of the Status of Women. Let Belinda Stronach take on the negative fire against Harper and his cronnies. Put Dion in intensive conversational English classes and make him join Toastmasters. Find a way to take out the Conservatives asap.

Conservatives: Stay the course. Use the photo. Promise the moon. Fire the current US Ambassador and offer the job to Michael Ignatief.

NDP: Talk economy, environment and healthcare, with an emphasis on historical Conservative mismanagement of same. Use the photo. Call the Liberals, The Same Old Gang. Find three good canidates in Quebec. There must be three! Talk about secondary industry (value added) and education. Don’t react to everything that comes up. Get punchier. The election, afterall, will be about social policy, environment, healthcare and foreign affairs, all NDP strongpoints.

Greens: Ignore the current opposition. Develop a reasonable and realistic economic policy and communicate it. Target dissaffected Tories. Point often to the inaction of both Liberals and Conservatives.

Bloc: Stay the course. Talk about Quebec. Stay out of the rest of it. Use the photo on the Liberals. Always use the words “Afghanistan and Iraq when talking about the Conservatives.

Independents: Run on the sick and tired of being sick and tired of the same old gang platform. Talk straight. Point to the possibility of another minority. Tell the voters to send a message to the parties, elect someone who isn’t in one!

Canada is many nations, not just two!

2006-11-26T14:25:00.000-08:00

I have to hand it to our prime minister. He’s certainly managed to bury our government’s recent disgrace at the environment conference in Kenya. First he took on the Chinese over human rights, then he comes out and declares Quebec a nation.
There’s nothing like making a big stew over the obvious and apparent to take the voters minds off the changeable.
There’s not a lot we can do about human rights abuses in China, and the fact Quebec is a nation is something we’ve known since the inception of our country, when one of our earliest Governors General went back to Europe and announced he’d found two nations wrestling in the breast of a single state.
There is something we can do about our stand on the environment, but as long as we’re talking about China and Quebec, I guess that’s irrelevant.
So lets talk about China and Quebec.
First, China. We could sanction them, refuse trade, put our economy in a hole in the process, and still not achieve any sort of pro-active resolution to China’s human rights stance. Further, if we go too far down that path, we will be forced to look at our own human rights record which, when it comes to First Nations peoples and the poor, is not so good. China could also press us to apply some of our “holier than thou” rhetoric and criticism towards some of our other trading partners, such as the USA, who have an absolutely horrible human rights record at home and abroad.
China could quite rightly tell us, okay, if you want our trade then we want you to take the same stand with America as you do with us. Talk to them about the fact they have more of their citizens imprisoned, per capita, then we do, talk to them about Quantanamo and Abu Greb.
This must have come out in the conversation somewhere because our PM quickly shut up about it and turned his eyes on the Quebec issue.
So he stated the obvious, Quebec is a nation. Anyone who has ever been there recognizes that. Why such a statement should ruffle Canuck feathers is a mystery. He’s simply stating the obvious again, making a statement no one with any intellect could take issue with.
Nation - community of people of mainly common descent, history, language, religion etc, forming a state or inhabiting a territory.
Faced with the drubbing our current government was taking on the international stage over its snubbing of the Kyoto Accord and its amateurish attempt to use Canadian domestic issues as a springboard or excuse, then agravated by the hypocracy of the China statement, which could well be described as an “International Incident” our PM had to do something. There’s nothing like a statement of the obvious to distract the voting public. Why not shift gears by coming out with a statement that no educated person could possibly argue against?
It worked too! We’ve barely heard another word about the environment or China since the PM made this announcement. Nearly everyone agrees. Quebec is a nation, but is this really anything new or surprising.
NO!
Yes, Quebec is a nation. It is made up a common language group who descended from a few hundred families who originated in France and emigrated to North America. They share a common religion, Catholicism, a common history, conquest, and reside in a common territory, along the banks of the St. Lawrence River. All this was recognized by our founding fathers, who gave Quebec special rights within the Canadian state. Fact is, there is nothing new or provactive about this. Our leader is just reiterating what we’ve known all along.
However, there is a problem with it.
Back when Sir John A MacDonald and his fraternity were forging our country they were primarily concerned with, yes, wait for it, here it comes, White People!
Now if our PM really wanted to stir a pot of bees wax up, if he really wanted to challenge Canadians to think about our country in a different light, if he really wanted to kick off a constitutional debate that would force the Canadian people to re-evaluate what Canada is all about, he would have said something else. He would have said, “Canada is many nations in one state,” or more appropriately, “Canada was founded on racist principles!”
Whether you look it up in a dictionary, or in a political science text book, a nation, as I have previously noted, is ‘a community of people of mainly common descent, history, language, religion etc, forming a state or inhabiting a territory.’
Based on that definition, one must accord nationhood to such people as the James Bay Cree, the Six Nations people of the Grand River, the Inuit of the north, the Blood and Blackfoot, the Coast Salish, the Haida, and many other groups that have resided for millenia in common geographical areas, shared common language, religion, history and descent, long before the Europeans invaded North America.
Now, imagine what sort of firestorm the PM would have set off if he’d come out and said, “Quebec is a nation, but so are the James Bay Cree, the Haida, the Salish, the Blood and Blackfoot and many others.”
Now, one might get the impression our PM was trying to give the people of Quebec a fair shake and was trying to recognize and uphold the rights of an idependent people, but that is not what he was up to.
Our current Prime Minister was not out to protect the people of Quebec or give them any sort of special status within Canada. And he most certainly was not acting out of any special concern for the rights of individual peoples within the Canadian state. Our current PM was simply wagging the dog, hoping to take our minds off his government’s recent abysmal international boondoggles.
Its despicable, its an afront to our intelligence, and its racist! To recognize Quebec’s nationalism while ignoring the national rights of Canada’s Indigenous peoples is nothing different than what the Chinese have done in Tibet or the Dutch were doing in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Quite simply, our PM is playing politics with this Quebec statement.
Yes, Quebec is a nation, but it is not the only nation within Canada. There is also a white anglo saxon protestant nation, and many, many, native nations. If our PM is really intent on upholding the rights of independent peoples, then it is beholden on him to open the door to a debate on the basic tenents of the Canadian state.
Contrary to the argument put forth by our earliest citizens, that Canada is two nations wrestling in the chest of a single state, we need to acknowledge that Canada is, in fact, many nations wrestling in the breast of a single state.
How we deal with that fact, whether we redesign the Canadian political landscape to reflect the multi-national interests within the Canadian state, and how we go about accomodating those interests within the our political framework, is the real debate Canada’s parliament should be focussed on. Instead, we’re spending Canadian taxpayer dollars arguing the obvious and reiterating the apparent.
And what’s worse, while we’re so busy hagling over matters none of us has any real issue with, our environment is going to hell in a hand cart and nothing is being done, our Native peoples are living in poverty and without recognition of their national rights, we’re losing respect in the world community, and we have a government more concerned with spin and political capital than good governance.
Once again, while the current Conservative minority government likes to call itself “Canada’s New Government” they are making it quite clear there is absolutely nothing ‘new’ about it.
If Canada is to survive in the world then its high time we got around to giving ourselves a good look in the mirror and finally defining who we really are, a multinational, multicultural, multilingual, multicoloured collection of individuals and groups who reside on common ground. Its not us and Quebec, it all of us together.

Harper goes humanitarian

2006-11-18T17:01:00.000-08:00

Curious don't you think, just when Canada's interim government is about to take a serious public relations hit on its environmental platform, our Prime Minister steals away the headlines by asserting his right to talk "human rights" with governments in South East Asia.
Remember the movie a few years back?
Wagging the dog.
I get the odour of it all right, and expect you do too!
One wonders how far Mr. Harper will be willing to go with this.
Will he challenge those states in America that still apply the death penalty?
Perhaps he'll challenge George Bush on the fact the United States have more of their own citizens incarcerated, per capita, than any other country in the world, more than the Chinese!
What about those not so secret CIA prisons?
Quantanamo?
And what about human rights right here at home?
What about poverty, literacy, and the institutionalized racism towards our First Nations People?
For a moment, I thought Mr. Harper had been moved by all the tributes to the late Martin Luther King, even FOX carried those. I wondered for a sec if the late Mike Pearson hadn't somehow moved into Stephen's body. Was I seeing a shade of Dief the Chief, who actually cared about human consequences.
Alas, to live in such naivete!
How many times have you heard Stephen Harper and his band of Hair Doos argue the best cure for human rights abuses is trade?
If he believes that, then why would he risk trade relations by handing the leaders of China, North Korea and Vietnam what are basically cultural insults?
Why would he not simply do whatever he could to expand trade?
There's only one answer to that question!
Stephen Harper's recent humanitarianism isn't about human rights! Its about spin. Its about making the bunch of us bozos out here think about something else.
Its also about finding a hook issue, something to bind us, something we can all agree on.
Who's going to take the Prime Minister on over demanding repressive societies to clean up their abuse?
I certainly wouldn't, but because this isn't about human rights, its about other things. I for one feel at liberty to condemn Mr. Harper's recent actions.
This is a government that came to office on a promise of transparency and openness, on less spin and more action. It is a government that promised improved trade relations with our partners, not international incidents.
What we're getting instead is a lesson in spin, of blaming the opposition, of no accountibility, of flag waving and fear mongering, and now, most cynical of all, changing the subject on the backs of some of the world's most repressed peoples, using human rights like a dog to be wagged.
Everywhere I go these days I'm hearing the slogan "Canada's New Government". Perhaps its really is true. Maybe we really do have a "new" government.
Question is: Is this really the type of government we want?

Harper urges human rights

2006-11-18T00:33:00.000-08:00

Hi,
I'm happy to hear Stephen Harper is urging on human rights with our trading partners. I hope he will soon bring his message to other parts of the globe, such as the United States, where wrongfully convicted persons are still being put to death, where the death penalty is still practiced in many states, and where the US government has more of its own citizens imprisoned, per capita, than any other country in the world.
Even more so, when our prime minister is done with his human rights campaign in other parts of the globe, I look forward to him coming home to Canada and dealing with the many outstanding human rights issues we have defaulted on here at home. Homelessness, poverty, illiteracy, and institutionalized racism towards Canada's First Nations, to name few.
Its good our present leader wants so many other countries to clean up their mess, but I really think he ought to get to work cleaning up this house first.

US Midterm and a Rummy on the Run

2006-11-08T12:21:00.000-08:00

There’s a feeling of relief here in North America as the American people have finally shown some repulsion towards the war-like ways of their Republican Party. Many of us have been wondering when the residents of that so-called “civilized” state would stand up to the tyranny of their leaders. The feeling is somewhat bouyed by this morning’s news that the hawkish Donald Rumsfeld has decided to leave office, and we can only hope it is the first of a long line of Bush-men who will flee their boss.
However, the joy and relief is short lived. From our perspective here in Canada it is clear all the US citizenry have really done is replace one bunch of millionaire lawyers for another bunch, albeit a bunch that appears, on the surface anyway, to be less inclined towards international thuggery and bloodletting.
It is, at best, a step in the right direction. But unless the next step is to get rid of both the Republicans and Democrats, and elect a full slate of independents two years down the road, the move will come out more as a dance, in the safe confines of US imperialism, than a march in any new direction.
Until Americans stop rewarding the economic elite by furnishing them with offices on Capital Hill, nothing is really going to change. For so long as the send representatives of the rich and powerful to Washington, then the plight of ordinary citizens struggling to make ends meet will continue.
Really, this new mob is no better than the old mob, and their politics are not all that different. All of them depend on money from large corporations and affluent business interests to bankroll their candidacies. And when they reach the hill, it is the interests of their financiers that will be formost on their agendas. Americans are not about to see a national health care system, education and opportunities for their poorest citizens, an end to worldwide strong-arming, or any sort of strong environmental legislation, especially one that forces major corporations to change the way they do business.
What is more likely to come of all this is a softening in Republican rhetoric, a slight increase in education funding, and a slow retreat from Iraq. They may also see less and less of their president, who will now focus on trying to make himself look more presidential, more benevolent, and less agressive, which for George W. Bush will not be easy.
While the Democrats are likely to curtail some spending on the military, they are not about to do anything that could seriously affect US military mite. They won’t be stopping the US war machine from building bombs and selling them straight to the highest bidder. And while they are likely to put forward a few bills to strengthen environmental policy, we’re not going to see them take any drastic steps towards curtailing their consumption of fossil fuels, or forcing serious polluters to do anything more than mildly decrease emmissions. They may challenge some of Bush’s foreign policy, but in the end they won’t want to be seen as doing anything to diminish the US role as “saviour of the free world.”
And should the Democrats somehow manage to parlay the ‘06 midterm win into a presidential win in 2008, don’t be expecting the new president to do much more than appoint a few moderates to the supreme court and be a little more diplomatic in their approach to foreign policy. They will not change their policy on Iran, Isreal, Palestine or even North Korea, although they may change their rhetorical approach. Remember, since November 1963 the military industrial complex in the US has been running the show, and that’s not about to change so long as either major party holds the reigns of power.
The only thing that will really change America is if power is somehow wrestled from the grasp of big oil and big money, and that’s not likely to occur in a state where you pretty much have to have millions of dollars just to get elected to a national position. Money rules in America, and like Woody Guthrie lamented, you ain’t nothing if you don’t have the “dough ray me.”
Until then, and that may be for a long long time to come, the shift in power we witnessed in the US on November 7, 2006 will be little more than a song and dance routine, like the Virgina Reel, where the caller first has the boys step up, then the girls. In the end its just a dance and everyone is moving to the same tune.
In the end its not the dancers who call the tune, its the band. And as long as the tune is being played by wealthy industrialists and big corporations, Americans, and the rest of us, are just going to go round in circles.

Changing the RCMP, apologizing to Maher Arar

2006-11-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

Years ago, when I was a reporter for a daily newspaper in the
interior of BC, I was sent to investigate concerns of RCMP inaction
in a small village.
A group of Sikh treeplanters camped in the town had been subjected to repeated harrassment by a band of young people who were burning rubber and shouting racialslurs at the group.
After several complaints to RCMP went unheeded, one of the crew bosses pulled out a rifle and fired shots in the air to warn off the offenders. This finally brought the police out, who charged the crew boss with unlawful discharge of a firearm.
As a result of this charge, several local people expressed concern with
the way the police handled the situation. They believed police mismanaged the original complaints about the people causing the problem, and were concerned how the police responded to their complaints, by ticketing complaintants for parking on the wrong side of the street, a common practise in the village. Citizens also expressed concern about the frequent turn-over of police officers in the village, because of an RCMP policy that cycled officers out of the detachment every few years, and the appearance of special treatment towards persons who were related to the police and village big-wigs.
I took thier concerns to the local RCMP for comment, who responded with a rather smug, "no comment."
Shortly after the story was published I received a call from the district commander of the RCMP. He was upset with the nature of my article, the criticisms it contained, and wanted an opportuity to explain the RCMP's position.
We arranged a feature length article and interview with the officer, on RCMP practices and procedures, and their position on the particular case.
However, before we could do the interview, I received a phone call from the district commander's direct superior. He was coarse and unrelenting, even threatening, telling me I would never be allowed to interview any member of the RCMP at any time! He went so far as to speak to my editor in an attempt to have me dismissed.
I tell this story because nothing has changed. There is a culture of self-preservation and protection at the RCMP. Sometimes it is more important for them to protect one another than it is to protect the people they are charged to protect.
This is not unusual. Police forces everywhere culture an atmosphere wherein they are more like a brotherhood, or secret society, than a public service agancy.
To their credit, members of the RCMP take good care of one another, however, this same code of ethics becomes exclusionary for people not directly associated with the police or in high community postitions.
Resignations and firings at the top of the RCMP will not change this
situation. The discharged will only be replaced by other officers who have been trained to abide by the same ethics that led to the smearing of Maher Arar.
We need a complete overhaul of how the RCMP does business, and how they are governed. If ever there was a strong argument for the implementation of a civilian watchdog, with real teeth, to oversee the RCMP, than the Arar case is it. Clearly the RCMP made a mistake, which is forgiveable. What is unforgiveable is how they tried to cover it up by lying and violating Arar's rights.
The Arar case is not unusual. Many people have had serious issues with RCMP practises. One fellow I know, who has never had a charge against him, complained to the RCMP about activities of certain officers involved in a drug investigation.
Sometime later this same fellow applied for his RCMP file under the freedom of information act. He received over 100 pages, most of them blacked out. The file showed the RCMP had actually sent in undercover officers to investigate the man. It always struck me as strange the RCMP would have such a large file on a man whose only apparent indiscretion was to complain about police behaviour.
Heads should roll, from the commissioner in a straight line to whoever was responsible for slandering Arar, but the bigger job should be to totally revamp the RCMP, particularly where it concerns their response to criticism and complaints against the force or its members.
Finally, the current goverment's action, of blaming the previous government, and deflecting responsibility for Arar's incarceration and torture to the United States, is appalling. Mr. Harper, and others in his party, were quick to condemn Arar based on the circumstantial evidence. As opposition and as government, they contributed to the assault on Arar's liberty, and it is incumbent on them to set the matter right by making a full apology and compensation to Arar and his family, without further delay.

Liberal compassion in British Columbia

2006-11-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell is concerned about the plight of the province's poor, and is promising to up the shelter allowance for people on social assistance.
I have to wonder where his compassion was when he brought in such draconian measures as subjecting the province's disabled to an intense requalification process in 2002, or placed limits on how long people in need could actually receive assistance, and made it nearly impossible for the poorest of the poor to get any assistance at all.
Where was his compassion, and the media's attention, when he removed crisis grants for persons on long term disability, or, most recently, introduced a system wherein people on disability no longer have individual case workers. If Campbell is so concerned about the province's disabled, why has he removed the last vestige of human contact disabled people have with their economic caregivers?
Just before the last election we heard over and over again how the Campbell government raised the monthly disability stipend by $70. In fact, the announcement was made, and reported on, no less than three times, which led some residents of the province to believe he'd raised the rate three times. We did not hear, from the government or the media, how this raise was actually one legislated by the previous government, but rolled back when Campbell first was elected!
We're also not hearing, from Campbell or the media, how they compensated for the $70 increase by cutting things like crisis grants and case workers.
Here's a reality check on the the Campbell government's concern for the province's most vulnerable citizens: If a person on wefare or disability is robbed or somehow loses their monthly monies, they're out of luck. If a person on welfare or disability has a family member die, and they want to attend the funeral, they get no assistance from the ministry. If a person on disability is invited on a family vacation, or to attend an ailing family member in another province, and leaves the province for more than 28 days, despite maintaining their residence, they lose their benefits (which of itself is probably a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). If a person on disability cannot afford to pay their rent and eat, they get no help from the ministry. If a person on welfare has a problem and needs to speak with a worker, they are no longer able to contact one directly (they must now go through the front-end clerks, most of whom are not adequately trained to deal with issues such as mental illness, and operate, with good reason, in something of a seige mentality towards ministry clients).
Mr. Campbell's apparent, and rather uncharacteristic, compassion has its roots, not in human kindness, but in political expediency. Obviously his spin doctors have finally been able to make the link between the poverty problem and Campbell's popularity.
With the current surpluses, the Campbell government could easily raise welfare rates, drop some of the more draconian rules, hire more workers, and invest a lot of money into affordable housing without so much as a press release about it until the deed is done. Instead he chooses to make big promises and a show about what a socially responsible government he leads, sort of like the Pharisee who demonstrates his godliness by praying in public, while carrying on the same dirty deeds when no one is looking, and the media just laps it up.
There is another word for Campbell's recent show of concern. Let me look it up in my Oxford: hypocricy - false claim to virtue, insincerity.

Harper plays hide and seek

2006-03-30T21:20:00.000-08:00

Declaring federal cabinet meetings secret!
Ordering cabinet members to clear all public announcements and comments through the Prime Minister’s Office!
Banning cabinet members from speaking to the media on their way into and out of cabinet meetings!
Refusing to disclose a full list of his campaign contributions and contributors!
Barring debate on the role of Canadian forces abroad!
Threatening to ignore the ethics commissioner if he ruled against the Prime Minister!
Refusing to answer questions he deems “unsubstantial.”
Stephen Harper ran for office, in part, on a platform of openess and transparency. So far its working. He’s openly secretive and transparently dictatorial! We can clearly see that he does not trust his own cabinet to speak publicly, and it is no secret to any of us that he does not like answering questions.
What’s next, when people start questioning why he needs so much privacy in public office, will he declare the whole of parliament private!
Keep up the cloak and dagger approach Mr. Harper, and there’s going to be a lot of people looking to find out what’s going on behind the closed curtain.

Is the US calling Harper's shots

2006-03-17T09:47:00.000-08:00

Since writing the piece, "Time for Harper to show his cards" I have been receiving information from several sources that Harper did in fact receive US money for his campaign.
One roundabout source of information is former Conservative leadership contender David Orchard, who claims Harper did in fact receive US dollars, and the major job of the PM's spin doctors has been to conceal the fact and make Harper appear to be a moderate. We knew that.
Remember back in the debates when Harper said he'd publicly revealed the sources of his campaign contributions but no one seemed to be able to recall, or find evidence, of the disclosure?
Orchard is also pointing at the media who he claims are buying the misinformation wholesale. We knew that too.
What we didn't know is that former US Vice President Al Gore, in an interview from Utah, "http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20060131003149749" claims that: "The election in Canada was partly about the tar sands projects in Alberta. And the financial interests behind the tar sands project poured a lot of money and support behind an ultra conservative leader in order to win the election and to protect its interests."
In the same interview Gore also warned that financial interests in the US are urging Harper to back out of the Kyoto agreement.
We didn't know what Gore was saying because it wasn't widely reported in Canada, which is odd, because the Canadian media usually picks up on what Mr. Gore has to say.
If Gore's allegation are true, then there is some serious criminality going on with Harper and his gang. It is, as far as I understand it, illegal for Canadian political parties to accept money from foreign nationals for election campaigns!
I am also seeing signs of a media whitewash of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's dealings with billionaire Karl-Heinz Schreiber. Schreiber claims to have given Mulroney large sums of money. Mulroney says he had no dealings whatsoever with Schreiber. If what Schreiber says is true, then Mulroney could be guilty of perjury.
The media isn't talking about it much, some claiming its old news. It's only old news if one ignores how many former Mulroney cronnies are now taking high ranking jobs in the Harper government, including former finance minister Michael Wilson, who is now Canada's ambassador to the US!
So, from appearances, there seems to be some hidden agenda tied to US money going on behind the scenes in the Harper government. One must wonder how much this is influencing Harper's decision to disallow debate on our military role in Afghanistan. Could it be the PM is concerned that such a debate may lead to information about foreign financial contributions to his election campaign being revealed!
As a former investigative journalist, my cat instincts smell a rat here! My instincts are telling me there should not only be a debate on Afghanistan, and an investigation into Harper's campaign finances, but also into his personal financial profile.
Does Mr. Harper own any stock in oil, munitions or arms trading companies?
Its a legitimate question because, despite the fact his portfolio is supposed to be held in trust while he's PM, any half wit can figure out that his oil stocks will increase in value if there is a war going on!
While some folks are calling for the RCMP to investigate some of the allegations I've outlined above, I'd prefer a public inquiry. Personally, I don't think the RCMP can be depended on to properly investigate dealings related to the military industrial complex because, as a police force, they are inextricably tied to the that complex. A public inquiry, by civilian authorities, would be the only way to ensure an objective revelation of exactly what is going on.
I also have to wonder, if a little guy like me, working from his home, can find signs of serious conflict of interest going on in the PMO, then where are the media and other political parties, who have the resources and ability to investigate these things.
To me, this is just one more reason in a long list of really good reasons why there should be a national debate over Afghanistan right now. And that's not all, there should also be a criminal investigation into Harper's campaign finances as well.
I'm sure the PM won't mind, afterall, he campaigned on cleaning up Ottawa and its ethics.

Time for Harper to show his cards

2006-03-16T08:33:00.000-08:00

I must admit that Stephen Harper's recent visit to Afghanistan was a gutsy move. It took some courage to go there.
However, Mr. Harper's visit with our armed forces personnel does not change the fact that there needs to be a debate in parliament about Canada's role in Afghanistan and it needs to happen now.
It is also time for Mr. Harper, and his Minister of Defence Gordon O'Connor, a former lobbyist for arms and munitions interests, to disclose fully, in black and white, any and all contributions made to their election campaigns by arms manufacturers and/or persons with ties to the arms and munitions industries, and the current American administration. They need to do this now, so Canadians can rest assured there is no hidden agenda behind this action.
The Conservatives ran on the premise of transparency and ethics, therefore, in the interest of transparency and ethical governance, it is imperative they reveal this information immediately. It is also time for them to put their money where their mouths were during the election campaign.
Do it now Mr. Harper, so Canadians can confidently and knowledgeably get behind our armed forces.

Harper's five-out baseball

2006-03-10T12:49:00.001-08:00

About six weeks into the new minority Conservative government and the cracks in the fence are begining to show. We’ve all known from the start that this new government was just the old Mulroney planks glued back together again, with some of the missing pieces replaced by cheaply made vinyl, but some of us are still surprised how poorly the plastic board is holding up.

Some people in this country actually believed that Stephen Harper was going to keep his end of the ethics commitment, bring in a new ethics bill, and behave in an ethical manner. I for one did not believe him, and I am one of those who is not surprised.

First it was the appointment of a newly-elected Liberal to the Conservative cabinet.
Harper could have invited the fellow to join cabinet and keep his Liberal Party card, or he could have asked him to sit as an independent, and included him in the cabinet. Instead, he offered David Emerson a cabinet post if he would leave the Liberals and join the Conservatives. Strike One!

No one has missed the point that, if the shoe had been on the other foot, Harper would have been screaming blue murder. Imagine if Paul Martin had won, then turned around and offered Diane Yablonsky a cabinet post if she would switch parties. Heck, Harper would have been on the phone to ethics commissioner Shapiro whether Yablonsky accepted the deal or not. He’d have not only been calling for an investigation, but you can bet he’d be demanding a resignation, and Shapiro would be his man of the hour.
Instead, here’s Harper, defaming Mr. Shapiro, attacking the ethics commissioner for not having the moral authority to do such an investigation, and acting like it was Shapiro who thought up the idea. Truth is, Shapiro is doing his job, acting on information provided to him by members or parliament.

Harper says Shapiro doesn’t have any credibility to do the job. Based on what Canadians are seeing from Harper, its a situation where the kettle is calling the pot black. Harper’s own ethics plan calls for the institution of a rule that would prevent the Prime Minister from overruling, or discounting, an ethics commission ruling. Now, here’s Harper, as Prime Minister, doing all he can to discredit the ethics commissioner, and overrule him! Strike Two.

Then there’s the little matter of our troops in Afghanistan. On this issue I have to wonder who is handling the PM’s spin. All he really had to do was step up in front of the Canadian people and say, “Sorry about Afghanistan folks, but it was the Liberals who got us into this and made the commitment to stay there a year. If you want to spank somebody, get Paul Martin to drop his trousers!”

Instead, Harper and his new government stepped up to the pitch, even though it was crossing the plate well to the outside. First he used the Bush-ism, that it is not right to question the armed forces while they are engaged in battle, claiming such questions would undermine morale. Then he sent our top general, Hillier, out to inform the Canadian people about public policy ( a task that certainly goes above and beyond the call of duty because it is not the General’s job to set public policy, nor to explain it). When that didn’t go over so well, Harper sent out the new Defense Minister, one Gordon O’Connor, who accused the anti-Afghanistan movement of being thick in the head, and too slow to understand what was going on. When those two moves, combined, only served to increase the speed of the ball as it neared the plate, Harper came out arguing that a debate over the role of our armed forces in Afghanistan would set a dangerous precedent. The precedent, he seemed to fear being set, turned out to be the democratic principle of Canadians having a say in what their armed forces are doing in the world at large, which gave the anti-Afghan involvement pitch some real velocity, and had the ultimate effect of leaving the new PM swinging wildly at a pitch that was well out of the strike zone. Strike three!

But wait a minute, the batter is still at the plate!

Must be Canadian baseball rules, where the biggest guy on the diamond gets to swing at as many balls as he wants until all the other players on the field get bored and go home!

And that moment is coming soon.

It will begin with the childcare debate. The previous government guaranteed hundreds of millions of dollars to the provinces for a national childcare system. Harper wants to scrap it. This is not only going to get the back up players in the provincial duggouts in an uproar, but its certain to become a high fly ball on the federal field. Its not a matter of whether it will be caught or not, but which fielder is going to do the catching. The Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals are all in range, its just a matter of which one decides to get under it and wave the others off.

Now, despite the fact that Harper already has three strikes against him, and is about to put a fly ball out just behind second base, we Canadians are a generous lot, and are more than likely going to let him take a sixth pitch.

That pitch will come the day Harper and his team present their budget. What to watch for is one penny of that budget going into private health care. Yes, it appears, by his words at any rate, that Mr. Harper is against Ralph Klien’s “Third Way” approach to healthcare, which is basically a system where, if you have the coin, you can pass go and get your hemroids lanced ahead of the homeless guy who has been waiting in line since Jean Chretien wrote his book, Straight From the Heart! If there is anything in that budget that will allow King Ralph to go ahead with his plan, or that axes money already committed to childcare, or education, or wait list times at hospitals, then there will most definitely be a riot on the field.

Those of you who are watching this game closely will soon notice that the guys at first, second and third bases sending signals to each other. The gist of those signals will be: Look, this guy has had six pitches and he’s still not so much as managed a base hit. If we let him stay at bat we’re going to be here for a couple years and nothing is going to happen. We’ll keep lobbing balls across the plate and he’ll keep missing them. Let’s get him out of there and put in someone who at least can abide by the rules of the game.

At that point you can look for the players on the field to approach the umpire, that sexy little beast we all affectionately call GG, and ask her for a turn at bat.

GG will have to allow it, but first she’ll make all the players on the outfield don shirts of the same colour. If they do as she asks, she’ll have no choice but to call Harper out and send his crew to the outfield, from whence they came.

What will happen then, well the other guys, most likely led by the short guy with the “stache” will take a turn at bat. It will take some time for them to move through the order, and because none of them are real heavy hitters, we’ll be in for a few innings of walks and base runs, with the odd foul ball, and a few outs on over anxious base runners. They’ll stall a lot, swing at very little, bunt here and there, and maybe score the odd run. This will go on until the players all get tired of it and decide to trade in their baseball caps and gloves for hockey helmets and sticks, and get back to our second national sport, Federal Elections.

How long will all this take. Oh, I’ll bet we’re back at the rink about the same time the NHL players head to training camp and the kids return to school for the 06-07 season.

Gordon O'Connor, we are NOT dense

2006-03-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

Regarding this statement by Canadian Defennse Minister Gordon O'Connor, regarding the growing opposition to our government's role in Afghanistan.

"The population out there doesn't really understand right now why we're
there and what we're doing. You have to say the thing five, six, seven,
eight times before it really gets through to a large number of people." -
Defence Minister O'Connor instructs the foreign press.

There are a few things I'd like to tell Mr. O'Connor, and because I'm sure he is an intelligent fellow who can hear what people are saying, I don't suspect I'll need to repeat myself.

1. In a democracy, majority, right or wrong, rule.

2. The majority of Canadians voted for the opposition parties in the last federal election.

3. According to current polls, the majority of Canadians do not want Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

4. Most Canadians want a public debate on the role of Canada's armed forces in the world today, not just Afghanistan.

5. Just because people are questioning the role of our troops in Kandahar Province, and other places, does not mean they do not support our troops.

6. Our troops are our friends, neighbours and members of our families, and it is absurd to suggest that we don't have their best interests at heart.

7. Canadians are among the best educated people in the world, we do not need to be told over and over again. We can hear what we are being told and we do not need other people or government officials making up our minds for us.

8. In a parliamentary democracy, especially in a minority government, the role of that government is to represent the will of the people.

9. Clearly, the will of the people right now is to debate the role of our armed forces in the world at large.

10. It is very difficult to rally public support to a cause when you refer to the members of the public in derogatory fashion, ie. . . suggesting they are "dense" by saying things like:

 "You have to say the thing five, six, seven, eight times before it really gets through to a large number of people."

Canadian troops to Afghanistan, a mistake of Olympian proportions

2006-02-26T13:33:00.001-08:00

I think its disgraceful the new conservative government would use Canada's top soldier as a propaganda agent.
No one in Canada is going to directly challenge General Hillier, or his lieutenants, nor should they, about Canada's role in Afghanistan. Hillier's job is to follow orders, not set public policy. Therefore, it should not be Hillier who is appealing to the Canadian people to support our nation's involvement in the American-led, so-called, "war on terror." That's a job for our prime minister and the defense minister, not their underlings.
For Stephen Harper and Gordon O'Connor, to parade General Hillier in front of the Canadian people, hoping to drum up support for the mission to Afghanistan, is nothing short of extreme cowardice on behalf of our government.
Clearly there is much concern and many questions among Canadians about our new role in international politics and world affairs. There is even larger worry about our specific role in Afghanistan, and about our troops being deployed for any reason other than peacekeeping. Because of this, there needs to be a national debate in Canada about whether or not we want our armed forces changing their mandate from one of peacekeeping, to one of an assault force, which is what we are being used for in Kandahar province. And this is where the cowardice comes in. Harper and his government are afraid to put this issue to the people because they know there's a good chance the majority of Canadians will vote against it.
Make no mistake, Canada's new role in Afghanistan is not about protecting the Afghan people, as both O'Connor and Hillier have stated. It is about relieving spent US and British forces, and about propping up the failing US war strategy. Our new prime minister and his government are apparently so eager to please our American neighbours, that they are willing to put our armed personnel in harms way.
To be fair to our current political leadership, this is not entirely their doing. It was the Liberal majority, under Jean Chretien, who realized blanket support of the US led "war on terror" would be political suicide. So, instead of joining the Bush administration in Iraq, our former prime minister agreed to send troops to Afghanistan instead.
The Afghan invasion came about as a direct result of 911. Clearly, the Taliban had supported Bin Laden by harbouring him and his Al Queda forces. In the wake of September 11, 2001, it was clear the Taliban had to be removed, and Bin Laden's army usurped. Canadians supported that, just as we'd support our police going after a murderer. Al Queda attacked and killed innocent people. Canadians wanted him caught. But Canadians did not accept the pretense that the subsequent invasion of Iraq was part of that measure. Chretien knew, if he outrightly joined the US action in Iraq, the Canadian people would be up in arms. So he made a side deal. Basically, his government told the US; Look, we can't join you in Iraq because it would be politically disastrous, so we'll send our troops to relieve your forces in Afghanistan, and you can send those forces to Iraq. That way we'll appear to be fighting Bin Laden, and your soldiers will be freed up to help you out in Iraq.
Then, to cover his political backside, Chretien went down to Chicago and gave a speech that blasted the US for its foreign policy. You remember the speech, the one where Chretien told the Americans, "you are not trusted in the world." It was a very clever bit of spin, designed to help the Americans while appearing to keep Canada's role as an international peacekeeper in tact, at least in the eyes of the Canadian public.
Now our new government wants to take it a step further, by stripping away the pretense and openly supporting the US action.
This is clear from statements made by Defense Minister O'Connor, who this past week came right out and said his government intends to build stronger military association with the US.
By parading General Hillier out in front of the Canadian people the Conservatives are counting on the Canadian people not saying "No" to our service men and women. No Canadian is going to deny our brave soldiers the tools they need to do any job they've been ordered to do. So, by making Hillier the front man to the operation, the current government is avoiding having to address the backlash that would occur if the politicians were to go it alone.
If Harper were to stand up in front of the Canadian people and say, we're changing Canada's role in the world, we're no longer going to be just a peacekeeper, we're now going to become part of the American's world wide military doctrine of "bombing for democracy," he knows the backlash would swamp his government. So, instead, he parades out a widely respected General to ask that Canadians support his soldiers, knowing full well that Canadians are not going to deny that support.
Anyone who has graduated from high school in this country knows that places like Afghanistan and Iraq have been war zones since the dawn of time. Many of us remember the previous Gulf War and the Cold War, when the USSR tried for nearly ten years to take control of Afghanistan. We also remember how those actions ended in defeat. What's more, anyone who has studied the politics of that part of the world knows full well that armed occupations resolve nothing. In the end, its the people who live there who must decide for themselves how to resolve their own problems and armed occupations only exasperate the situation.
What Canadians really deserve, and what our government should be providing to us, is an open debate about our role in world affairs, and the role of our military in those affairs. Instead, we are being given no such debate, and are being manipulated into supporting US foreign policy under the guise of being supportive of our soldiers. To put it bluntly, our dog is being wagged but good!
What's at stake if we follow Mr. Harper's plan?
First, our international reputation as a peacekeeping nation will be severely damaged. We will be seen, potentially, as henchmen for the US. Yet Mr. Harper and his crew are serving it up as us being better neighbours.
Secondly, we will be inviting the terrorists onto our soil. Until now we have managed to avoid acts of terror here at home because we have appeared to not be involved. That will change to moment we start shooting up Afghan insurgents. Nothing builds a resentment like a kid watching his father get killed by someone with a Canadian flag on his shoulder.
Third, our ability to take a higher moral stand at the UN will be severely handicapped if we have innocent Afghani blood on our hands. How can we go to the people of the world and say "stop this nonsense" when we ourselves are participating in it?
Fourth, our national identity will be severely damaged. One thing we all have in common, here at home and abroad, is the perception that we are not American. People all over the world respect that about us. We're seen as the sober sister who tempers the happy trigger finger of our American cousins. If we relinquish that role, and go marching off in step with the US, that identity will be lost, and our bright red maple leaf crests will be seen as nothing more than the symbol of another American battalion.
Fifth, by allowing ourselves to become complicit with US foreign policy, we will lose our sovereignty. For all intent and purpose we may as well pack up, relinquish our national union, and join the US as states, because the moment we participate in the US incursions around the world is the moment we are going to need the US fighting force to protect us from the attacks that are certain to follow.
Sixth, our democracy itself is in peril. By not allowing and facilitating public debate on the role of our armed forces in world affairs, and on our role as peacekeepers, we are quashing public dissent, and when dissent is subverted, democracy is dead. If we are not allowed to publicly debate the role of our armed forces in world affairs then we no longer have a free society.
To be fair, Harper and his government, have not openly said there will be no debate on this issue. No, they've done something far more sinister. By parading General Hillier out to ask for support, they have attempted to stop the debate from ever starting. Its despicable, undemocratic, under handed and dishonest, and its downright Un-Canadian.
At a time when the national debate should be about whether we should even have a military, as opposed to a peacekeeping and disaster relief force, we are being dragged into a winless war that could potentially endanger each and everyone of us. At a time when Canadians should be discussing how we go about disarming the world, our soldiers are being marched off to kill or be killed. At a time when we should be leading the way towards the abolishment of war, we're being hoodwinked and spun into one. At a time when we should be questioning the intelligence and humanity of the American war machine, we're joining up with it.
Perhaps it is time for each and everyone of us to demonstrate what has made us great in the eyes of the world. Back in World War II Canadians demonstrated to the world that we are a brave nation. When former Prime Minister Lester Pearson took the idea of international peacekeeping to the UN, we demonstrated we were prepared to lead the world into a era where war would finally be abolished. Maybe its time we as people stood up to our politicians and made it clear that there will be no more Dieppes, and that peacekeeping is not some fanciful notion, but something we are willing to pursue regardless of how it affects our business relationships with corporate America.
How do we do it?
We get on the phone, we write letters, we talk to each other, to our leaders, and to people all around the world. We begin the debate that our current government seems so intent on preventing. We do it now, or we accept that Canada, instead of being the great nation we always believed ourselves to be, is nothing more than a "MIGHT HAVE BEEN", like the men's hockey team we sent to Turin.
We must act now, or we may as well fold up the Maple Leaf and add another star to the American flag.

Harper's transparent healthcare ploy

2006-02-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

There’s a suspicion out there among lefties and centrists that the current Canadian federal government is doing all it can to make itself appear moderate. It’s spin! The idea is to convince the Canadian people the Harper Conservatives are not the big blue facists their critics have made them out to be.
I think its true.
The idea is to appear compassionate, and to eventually go back to the polls and win a majority, having convinced the Canadian people the Conservatives are not going to venture too far from the middle of the road.
Its less than honest, and there are some signs of it.
Has anyone else out there noticed that everyone coming away from meeting with our new prime minister is talking about private health care?
Both the BC and Quebec governments have done just that after meeting with Harper!
Our health care system was doing just fine, until successive Conservative and Liberal governments under Mulroney, Chretien and Martin, took their fiscal axes to it! Now, instead of restoring funding, the present government is slowly and methodically introducing a two-tiered solution to the dilemna their predecessors created.
Is this what the Canadian people really want?
I think not.
If our federal government is serious about preserving our national health care system then it seems the logical place to begin would be in restoring full funding to health care. Once that’s done, they could, potentially, start identifying areas where more funding or other improvements are needed. Instead, the current government seems intent on altering the entire formula by which health care is delivered in Canada.
Is this what Canadians really want?
Remember back in the election campaign, how Harper’s opponents chastized him about where his campaign donations came from? At the time Harper declared he’d made full disclosure on that subject.
Have you ever seen the list of his campaign contributors? Has anyone?
I for one want to know, because if he received money from anyone at a private medical service provider, or insurer, then our Prime Minister has a serious conflict of interest on his hands. And its just the sort of conflict Harper railed against while he was in opposition!
Its clear big business supports Mr. Harper. He is well ensconsed in Bay Street and wildly popular with industry. One of the biggest industries in the world is the insurance business, a sector that stands to benefit, big time, if Canada moves towards privatization of healthcare services. Before he goes any further down the road towards private healthcare, Mr. Harper should, if he has any ethics at all, disclose any and all donations he received from persons or businesses with stock in the insurance industry.
Will he? I bloody doubt it.
While in oppositon Mr. Harper made an awful lot of noise about government corruption, integrity, and transparency. Now that he’s in power, I believe it is incumbent on him to demonstrate the ethics, integrity and transparency he once championed. Moreover, it is vital, if he is to preserve his own integrity, that he reveal just what his ties to the big insurance and healthcare providers are.
Will he? I bloody doubt it!
Instead, Mr. Harper is going to forge ahead. He’ll limit funding to healthcare and allow secondary service providers to be developed. Soon, people will start using these secondary providers, because they’re there, and, down the road, Harper will say its working, people are using it. Which takes me back to my opening paragraph.
Until such times as Harper is able to win a majority, he will continue to partially fun public healthcare and allow the private providers to fill in the gaps. In time people will become dependant on these secondary providers. In the short term it will work, people who do not want to wait for services will go to the privateers, and things like wait times will appear to shrink, thus allowing Harper to declare he’s fixed the system.
In turn, Harper will go to the Canadian people as the champion of health care and potentially win big.
If he does win big, and take a majority, then watch what happens. I guarantee the privateers will get even more room to grow, while the public system is choked off.
If he doesn’t win big, then he will have at least opened the door for the private providers. And you know what they say, once you get a foot in the door, you can jam it open!
Short of a vast majority of Canadians writing to the Prime Minister, demanding both full disclosure of his connections to private health care and insurance providers, and full restoration of funding to the public system, I don’t see how we’re going to avoid the total decimation of our public health care system.
Sadly, it may already be too late. And even more sadly, if Canadians fall for Mr. Harper’s ploy, of appearing to be a moderate, then we will get just what we deserve, an American-style, every citizen for his or herself, approach to the social safety net.
If you’re reasonably wealthy and can afford to purchase insurance from an organzation like Blue Cross, for example, then none of this matters. But if you’re from one of the majority of Canadian families who have both parents working more hours for less pay, then you’d better start pinching those pennies even tighter, because you’re certainly going to need them.
Will Harper’s ploy work?
Well, that’s entirely up to you and me!

Harper's a weak one

2006-02-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

Prior to his election as Prime Minister last month Stephen Harper had a lot to say about the democratic deficit and the arrogance of the ruling Liberal Party. He also campaigned on Senate Reform, promising to make the upper house elected.
Now, one week into his term, Harper has apparently turned a blind eye to those concerns.
First, he appoints a Conservative Party organizer to the Senate and makes that person a cabinet minister. Then he solicits an elected member of the Liberal Party to change allegience and join the Conservative cabinet. Finally, he stands by, not saying a word, while the Liberal-come-Conservative boldly announces he doesn’t care what the people of his riding have to say, he won’t quit, and he won’t call a byelection.
Imagine if the tables were turned, and the Liberals had won government, then approached one of the Conservative members to perform a similar flip. Harper would have been screaming blue murder. That’s for sure!
Across the board, on both the opposition and government benches, and from the constituents in the former Liberal member’s riding, there have been cries of “foul.” Harper, the champion of political ethics when he was in opposition, seems to be taking the tact, ‘ignore it until it goes away’. A ploy he was quick to denounce when he was in opposition.
Had Harper approached Emerson and asked him to join cabinet without relinquishing his Liberal Party membership, or if he’d asked Emerson to sit as an independent, before giving him a cabinet post, there would be no problem. Instead, he chose to offer the former Liberal a big raise in salary, and a high profile position, but only if he became a Conservative. Its nothing short of total hypocracy!
Harper’s appointment of a Conservative Party hack to the Senate is exactly the sort of cronyism the Conservatives have whined and complained about since Harper became their leader. Is this how Harper and his gang plan to change government, by conducting business in exactly the same fashion his predecesors did?
While Harper has been busy offering big perks to former Liberal insiders, and promoting unelected party hacks to well paid positions within his goverment, he has shut out some of his long term supporters, including people like Diane Yablonski. Therein may be the good news for Canadian voters.
The cracks in Harper’s ethics and integrity are clearly showing after one week in office. The internal cracks, which are bound to appear if Harper continues to overlook elected Conservative Party insiders in favour of unelected cronies and Liberals, will take a little longer to manifest. But the pressure is already building and sooner or later, if history is any indicator, that dam too will break.
Other cracks are soon to appear. It will begin when Harper begins to push some of his proposed legislation through a parliament where his governing party is outnumbered. The next big issue will be childcare. Harper wants to abandon the childcare deals currently in place between the feds and their provincial counterparts. He has even boldly stated he will have it through the house and into law by July. Its a bold gesture from a man who does not have enough seats to pass any kind of legislation, and his tact of telling the Canadian people its a done deal is certain to rile the opposition. At very least the other parties are going to delay the Conservative legislation, if for no other reason than to teach Harper that he does not have control of the house.
To make things even more difficult for Harper, the NDP have now formally requested the Ethics Commissioner look into the Harper-Emerson deal. How is Harper going to respond if the commissioner comes out against the deal? He’ll be in a catch -22. Will he ignore the commissioner and thus undermine that office, or will he have to eat crow and allow a byelection. Either way he comes off looking like a hypocrite.
If, on the other hand, the Ethics Commissioner sides with Harper, what damage will that do to the commssioners credibilty before a Canadian public that increasingly views all government agencies as corrupt?
In one week Stephen Harper has demonstrated to most Canadians that he is no better than his opposition. In seven days he’s managed to participate in outright cronyism, backroom deals, and arrogant disregard for the voters. His opponents, I’m sure, are looking forward with glee to seeing what he does with his second week.
It all makes for terrific fun for political observers, who can already see the next election on the horizon. Harper thinks he has at least two years before his government will be called to account. Based on his first week in office, the wait time will be much shorter.

Gay Marriage Debate Resolution

2006-02-03T09:04:00.000-08:00

I have the cure for the gay marriage debate.

It was former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who said the government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. Fact is, it has no place in our personal relationships either!
I’m not advocating abolishing the institution of marriage, but I do believe it should be divorced from the political and legal spheres.

People get married for all sorts of reasons, most of them wrong. They marry for taxes, for money, for security, for acceptance among their married friends. People are wed for family ties, for chances to live in democratic countries, for fame, for a lot of reasons other than love.

Marriage originated with the religions of the world. Until the last few centuries it remained in the sphere of the church. Somehow, even though church and state are supposed to be separate, marriage spilled over into the public realm, where it has become so entrenched as to become a civil contract.

The reason marriage became a civil contract is because people started circumventing the church in order to get out of marriages they no longer wanted to be in. It became more deeply entangled in civil law when people began to fight for compensation for time spent in marriages.

Today marriage takes up a good chunk of our courts, our law enforcement and our politics, a strange turn of events considering it was originally a religious right.

Removing it from the civil sphere would free up courts, police and put a lot of divorce lawyers out of work. It would allow those resources to be spent on larger issues, like the preservation of our environment, civil liberties, health and a myriad of other concerns that seem to be on the back burner while we go round and round, as a society, trying to determine what the proper definition of what was initially a religious contract should and should not be.

Personally, I don’t care if my neighbour has one wife or five. Nor do I care if the two guys next door have been declared married by some church minister. As long as my neighbours aren’t hurting the other people in our community, I don’t really care what goes on in their house, and the goverment should care even less.

Under civil law there are plenty of provisions to protect people who enter into written and verbal contracts with one another. Common laws can sue one another. You can sue me, and I can sue you, we can do that whether we’re married to one another or complete strangers. Having marriage as some sort of special state over and above the law, but bound to it, is not just unnecessary, its silly, and its discriminatory.

Married people get special consideration under the law, consideration that bachelors and spinsters don’t get, and all because a piece of paper somewhere says they’re married.

I think its time to put marriage back where it belongs, in the church. And for those who are not church going, marriage should be put back where it belongs, within the confines of the homes of the nation.

When two people are married, they’re married to one another. They’re not married to me, or you, or the other people in their neighbourhood. They’re married to one another and that’s where it belongs, between them. It does not belong in civil law because its nobody’s business but their own.

Again, I’m not out to denedgrade marriage. Simply put, I believe it is something very special, and being special, it does not belong in the public sphere, it belongs in the warm hold of those people who are in committed marriages.

Some will say I am trying to lessen marriage, to put it down, but not so. What hurts marriage is the partner who’s down at the bar with his paycheck while the family waits at home, its the man out in the redlight district paying a hooker while his wife is putting the kids to bed. What hurts marriage is the people who get married for all the wrong reasons.

It is not the two individuals who are totally committed to one another and want in some way to honour what they have found and built. To that end I think marriage should be celebrated, hell the whole damn town should turn out and whoop it up when folks decide to marry. But the moment the folks who got married cross the threshold, its between them. Its not a matter for the public to decide, and does not belong in parliament or the courts.

A Canadian Alamo

2006-01-27T17:38:00.000-08:00

One hundred and eighty years ago, in what is now Texas, a small group of 186 men held off an army of over 5,000 for nearly two weeks.
If that army had surrounded these men with about 1,000 soldiers, then marched its remaining battalions northeast, it would have easily conquered a flegling army of about 6 to 800 who were organizing to combat the larger army.
Instead, the larger force stopped for two weeks to fight the men at the Alamo in San Antonio. Meanwhile, Sam Houston, used the time to gather and train more recruits.
This all happened because the President of Mexico, Santa Anna, was too proud to let himself be defeated by such a small force. He was out to teach them a lesson, a lesson that wound up costing Mexico its future.
If Santa Anna had waited out the Alamo defenders, and marched on Houston, Mexico would be a superpower today. Its territory would include not only Texas, but New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California as well. All the oil in the gulf and in Texas would be Mexico’s. We’d be living in a different geopolitical world, and the USA would likely be bilingual, English and Spanish.
In the course of the two week battle at the Alamo, the defenders managed to totally embarass and make fools out of the Mexican commanders, going so far as to actually steal one of the Mexican’s larger cannon, and turn it on its owners in the end. By time the final day of the battle arrived, the Mexican troops were not only doubting their leaders, but were so psyched-out they went overboard, drawing, quartering and executing great indignities on the dead bodies of the defenders.
The day after the great battle ended, the Mexican troops woke up with a hangover and in total despair over their own savagery. They were so despondent it took Santa Anna weeks to mobilize them again, and when he did, they were demoralized.
Within a few months Santa Anna and his army were licked, and the President himself was captured by Houston’s army.

I tell this story to show what can happen when attacks are made on defenders who are willing to die for their cause.

Zoom forward to modern day Afghanistan. In the Kandahar Province a small group of Taliban have vowed to never be taken. Their fight is about two things, their way of life and the surrounding opium poppy fields.
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan they set out to destroy the poppy fields, and were very proud when they succeeded in doing just that in Kandahar. Since the US-British invasion of Afghanistan, and the subsequent defeat of most of the Taliban forces, the poppy fields have once more gone into cultivation. Mostly because people need money and opium sells, and because the Taliban are no longer strong enough to prevent it.
The invaders have tried to stop this, but they’re outsiders, they don’t know the country and they are not trusted by the people. Just as the police in urban centers are unable to close every grow-op, so are the occupiers unable to totally prevent the opium harvest in Kandahar.
For a few years now the US and British have been fighting the holdout Taliban in Kanadahar. The Taliban have chosen this place to be their Alamo, partly because othe thier past success in the region, and the occupying forces have fallen into the trap of fighting them there. In recent times the invaders have taken to search and destroy missions against the Taliban, much the same way that Santa Anna searched out and destroyed the fighters at the Alamo.
Regardless of the outcome in Kandahar, whether the invading forces manage to snuff out the remaining Taliban or not, one thing is certain, an awful lot of people are going to get killed before the last bullets are fired.
This week Canada sent 2,000 troops to fight this battle, relieving the exhausted US and British Forces already there. Many of the troops being relieved have already gone home, in body bags. Now it is Canada’s turn, apparently.
Since Korea, Canada has not deployed this many soldiers anywhere, and since Korea Canada has remained, by and large, a peacekeeping nation. Our job has been to protect people and to make sure humanitarian relief goes to people who need it. It has not been our job to search and destroy or to attack an enemy.
Also, in those years since Korea, Canada has not funded or designed its armed forces for attack purposes. Our focus has been on self-defense, policing, relief and reconstruction. We have not built up or even modernized our weaponry, nor have we provided our armed forces with the infrastructure or the training to be an assault force.
Now we’re sending them in harm’s way, not just harm’s way, but into a situation where we know full well their are going to be casualties.
On top of that, properly outfitted or not, we are also sending them into an Alamo of their own.
President Santa Anna lost nearly one quarter of his fighting force at the Alamo, how many Canadians are going to die in this ill-conceived predicament?
I think before we allow this to go any further we need to take a step back and ask ourselves some hard questions.
First: Is there not some way we can wait these guys out?
Two: Is this really the best course of action?
Three: Are the Canadian people really ready to have thier sons and daughters coming home in body bags and wheelchairs?
Four: Is it fair to send them there when they are ill-equipped and not properly trained for this sort of endeavour?
Five: What are the long term ramifications of our participation in this action?
Six: Are we going to now have suicide bombers in Canada protesting our involvement, do we lose our international reputation as peacekeepers by getting involved in this?
Seven: What exactly is the benefit, and likelihood of success, in this mission?
Eight: Is this really what Canadians should be doing in the world?

I fear for the members of our armed forces, most of whom joined Canada’s forces out of desire to be helpful and give something back to Canadian society. They are families, mothers, daughters, brothers and sisters. They did not go there to become warriors, they went their to become peacemakers.
I fear dark, dark, days ahead for my country if we do not get ourselves out of this situation before it is too late.

All 186 men at the Alamo died but the Mexicans, who won the battle, lost the war.
One day, all the Taliban in Kandahar will be dead too, but will the army that defeats them win the war?

History is scattered with Alamos, most of the stories turn out the same, battle lost - war won. We need to think about that!

Harper's stated priorities

2006-01-27T12:04:00.000-08:00

So, while he’s yet to be formally crowned King Of Canada, our new prime minister, Stephen Harper, has laid out some of his priorities.
They include: exercising Arctic sovereignty, a bill to combat corruption in the House of Commons, his childcare tax rebate and promised cut to the GST.
The bill to combat corruption should have no trouble making its way through the house. It is the one issue he has that all parties share. Although the NDP are likely to try to modify it somewhat, I wouldn’t expect them to have much luck. The Liberals aren’t likely to help the NDP out on this one, not wanting to extend them anymore legitimacy than they have to.
The Arctic sovereignty issue is all smoke and mirrors, a distraction, a made-up issue designed to do nothing more than calm fear that Harper will get too cozy with our American neighbours. He could choose to go to work on the Softwood Lumber issue, and would undoubtedly garner a lot of support from the opposition if he did, but he doesn’t want to do that. Harper prefers instead to go at Arctic sovereignty because he knows its a non-issue for the Bush administration, and he can score brownie points for apparently standing up to the US, while in reality doing nothing at all.
Watch for our new PM to avoid softwood for as long as he possibly can. He doesn’t want to engage in any real scrap with Bush. No, he just wants to appear like he’s scrapping with him. He knows that Canadians like a PM who stands up to our American cousins.
As for his childcare tax rebate plan. Expect this one to get some heat. First of all, Quebec is going to want assurance that this tax plan is not instituted in lieu of money for a childcare system. The previous government has already committed operating funds for the next year to Quebec’s widely popular and successful childcare plan. Canadians can expect that commitment to be maintained. And therein is the problem! How are the other provinces going to react if Quebec gets funds and they don’t. The opposition, particularly the NDP, are not going to like the idea. If Harper wants to pass this plan he may have to relent and beef it up to include money for some sort of public daycare system.
As for the cut to the GST. Harper may be able to pull this one out of the hat simply because the opposition are not going to want to be seen as opposing a bill that, on the surface anyway, seems like a good idea. Look for the Liberals, in particular, to fight this one. They know its a long way from another election and may be willing to take some negative press, in the short term, for resisting it. Look for the opposition to seek some sort of assurance from Harper that the cut will not be accompanied by a tax increase to cover the loss in revenue. They’ll be wanting something they can come back on Harper for later. The plan will pass, but not until Harper jumps a few hoops.
Another issue that is certain to rise on the agenda soon will be Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan. This week 2000 Canadian troops were sent to the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan. While there, the Canadians will be on a search and destroy mission against Taliban insurgents. While Canadians are not making much noise about this at present, it will only take a few soldiers coming home in body bags for that to change. This will be the first real hard test for the new government, even though it was the previous government who committed our troops to this action.
Look for issues related to proper funding to the armed forces to rise quickly on the national agenda. Depending on how the action in Kandahar goes, there might also be great debate about whether Canada’s armed personnel, primarily peacekeepers, should be involved in this type of exercise. If Canadian casualties mount, we can expect this to become a national crisis. Canadians will react to body bags in a manner the US public has not.
Another big challenge for Harper will come when he names his cabinet. It will be interesting to see how many of the “wingers” in his party will be named to important posts. Expect Harper to go for a middle of the road cabinet, and to exclude some of his party’s more ardent rightists. If members like Stockwell Day are given important positions, look for the opposition to get in a flurry. If they are not, then look for cracks to begin to develop within the Conservative ranks.
Another issue that will be placed on the back burner for as long a period as possible will be Harper’s promise to revisit Gay Marriage with a free vote in parliament. The longer he sits on it, the more he’ll aggravate the Christian right, and the longer he aggravates them, the closer he’ll come to a split in his party ranks. However, if he pushes this one forward, then he stands a very real chance of a serious fight from the opposition, and a short-lived honeymoon with the voters who, by and large, from every poll taken, do not to revisit the issue. If Harper does go ahead with his promise of a free vote on the issue, it will open one or two cans of worms. If it passes, the public will be furious. If it fails, his right flank will be incensed. Its a no win issue and Harper knows it. It will be interesting to see what he does.
One last issue worth watching for is Harper’s ability to deal with the divided parliament. There have been several biographies aired on national TV the past few days that clearly identify the problems Harper has had idealing with the issue of compromise. Clearly, the new PM is the sort of fellow who puts things out on paper, expects others to see its clarity, and then further expects people to fall in and abide by what he’s laid out. In a parliament where the majority of the seats are in opposition, this isn’t going to work.
Will Harper be able to deal with such adversity?
We’ll see! Stay tuned.

Caretaker Government, Canadian Election Analysis

2006-01-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

I’ve already had calls and messages asking for my opinion on yesterday’s Canadian Federal Election.
There is a lot to absorb and much to discuss. So here goes. I’ll do my best to put it in the following categories; 1. The Results, 2. What happened and what it means, 3. Things to look out for, and 4. What I think may happen, my predictions if you like.

The Results

On the strength of seats in every province the Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper, with just over 36 per cent of the popular vote, and just over 124 seats in parliament, won a minority government.
The Liberals, who had been in power about 13 years, the last 18 months with a minority, came in second with just over the 35 percent of the popular vote and just over 103 seats. Their leader, Paul Martin, announced he would be resigning as leader but remaining in the house.
The Bloc Quebecois, led by Gilles Duceppe, lost ground in Quebec, mostly to the Conservatives, but still put in a strong performance winning 51 seats, netting over 40 per cent of the Quebec popular vote, over 10 per cent of the national popular vote and a majority of the seats in Quebec.
The NDP were quite successful, earning more than 17 per cent of the popular vote and increasing their number of seats by 10, to 29. They were shut out in Quebec but did well in Toronto and British Columbia.
One independent was elected, a popular radio show host from Quebec, and the Greens had the worst night of the bunch, losing a couple percentile of the popular vote and electing none.

What happened and what it means

Canadians have elected a “caretaker” government.
From some of the blogs and other nonsense I’ve been hearing and reading, especially from ex-pats in the states, right wing groups, and even the BBC! you’d think Canada had just voted in a hard right government and were about to cozy up good and tight to the Americans and start slashing and burning social programs.
That’s not what happened!
In the end this election had two overriding influences.
The first was a sincere desire amongst the Canadian voting public to pull down the collective Liberal trousers and spank their bare bums with the business end of a hockey stick. That element was there from the moment the election was called.
Later, another factor had equal influence, that was the STOP HARPER backlash, which sent large numbers of voters to both the Liberals and the NDP.
Underwriting the election were three major issues; healthcare, corruption and Canadian American relations, in that order.
Other major influences included: Canada’s armed forces, law and order, and taxes.
Harper and the Conservatives, who are clearly right of center, were handed a minority government in a parliament where the majority of sitting members are either centrist or center-left. As a result, if the Conservative hope to pass anything but the most mundane and innocuous legislation, they will have to soften their positions on many issues, especially where health care, day care, and taxation policies are concerned.

Things to look out for

Budget time will be very interesting for his government.
Harper will have to relent on his plan to chop the Liberal’s daycare program. He has stated he wants to give every family $100 a month for every child under six. This plan is meant to replace any previously legislated daycare program. It means he would be cutting funding to the wildly successful universal daycare system now operating in Quebec. There is no way the Bloc will accept that, and they will have strong support from the NDP and the Liberals, who funded the program to begin with. If the Conservatives do allow the Quebec program to continue, then they will have to deal with the other provinces who will undoubtedly be lining up for daycare systems of their own, or financial compensation of some sort. A national daycare plan is actually a possibility, remember, it was the Conservative in a minority government who made Canada’s national healthcare system a reality, although it was a CCF, the forerunner of the NDP, motion.
Another program much ballyhooed by Harper during the election was his plan to cut the GST. The Liberals oppose this idea for economic reasons, and neither the Bloc nor the NDP are likely to go along with it unless it is accompanied by some sort of break for middle and low income families. Look for his opponents to demand a raise in the personal exemption, no new taxes, and maybe even increases to federal provincial transfer payments. Healthcare issues may also be used as bargaining chips before the Harper can get a positive vote on this issue.
Some policies are going to be easy and represent what little common ground the outnumbered Conservatives have with the opposition parties.
There should be no problem passing a government corruption bill, although it may wind up more closely resembling former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent’s plan than the current Conservative plan.
Our Armed Forces should also get a good shot in the arm, but their may be some hot debate about exactly what our role should be in places like Afghanistan before Harper is provided much leeway on the issue.
Expect fast action on healthcare, particularly where wait times are concerned. It will mean quick points for the Conservatives if they can get a deal done, and the opposition is unlikely to resist any positive step on this issue.
Don’t expect Harper to cozy up too close to the Bush administration. Bush is wildly unpopular in this country and his current popularity at home isn’t so hot either. Expect Harper, superficially at least, to take a well orchestrated hardline with the Americans on the softwood lumber issue. It is possible the US administration will do something to try to resolve the issue, as an olive branch, but don’t bet on it. Watch for the opposition to take issue with any sign of buddy-buddy between Bush and the new Prime Minister. Dissing American politicians is Canada’s second national sport, Harper isn’t going to want to put the stars and stripes on just yet.
Kyoto and the environment are not going to play a big role in this next parliament, except perhaps as a bargaining chip. Look for the opposition to demand some sort of action on the Kyoto Accord, but also look for them to make deal to shut up about it.
Another area where Harper and his opponents may find common ground is education. Although the Conservatives are far apart from the other parties on the issue, they know they will have to do something in this arena if they hope to have support in the house for some of their tax ideas.
Harper’s main fight will be with his opponents. I don’t believe what some wingers are suggesting, that the Conservatives will make a deal with the Bloc. First of all the two parties are not even close when it comes to policy, and neither party really wants to, or can afford, to give the other any more limelight than they absolutely have to. The Bloc does not want to encourage the Tory break through in Quebec, and the Tories know they’ve bled as much Liberal support as they are likely going to get.
His second, and perhaps more seditious opponent, will be the factions in his own party. He’s really going to need one hundred per cent support. Any more defections to the Liberals, or anywhere else, could be fatal. Its going to be difficult to soothe the far right of his party while the rest of parliament is forcing him to bend, even contort, on issues dear to their hearts, like US-Canada relations, gun control, abortion, tax cuts, the military and gay marriage. Look for the center of his party to be prominent in his cabinet, which may also tick off his wing.
Mr. Harper has some serious stress coming into his life. Will he rise to the challenge?
We’ll see.

Things to Look Out For - Predictions

Uncommon Ground!
For the first few months this parliament will resemble an evening out in polite company. A few bills will float through the house and much ado will be made about “cooperation” and “parliament working.”
It won’t last long.
The Liberals, once they get settled in their new seats, will begin to exploit the differences in vision between the Conservatives and the rest of parliament. Once they elect a new leader, and get their boat fixed, look for them to grow steadily more antagonistic. They’re also unlikely to get all that friendly with the other opposition parties, who largely benefitted from the aforementioned spanking.
Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals are going to want to be seen cooperating to closely with either the NDP or the Bloc. In turn, those parties are going to be looking to secure their support among their constituencies. If they are seen to be laying down and letting the Conservatives or the Liberals do all the talking, they’re going to lose support. On the flip side, to start, all the parties are going to try to look cooperative, but it won’t be long before the knives will have to be unsheathed. The problem for the NDP and Bloc will be a multi-front fight for air time.
Things will be pleasant for three to six months and then the threads will begin to fray. By time the Liberals hold their leadership convention in the Fall the rhetoric will have changed. The peace bond will likely be broken shortly after that.
Watch for the Liberal convention, it will be a good one. Expect Belinda Stronach to come out the winner, for several reasons. First, the party will be looking for a fresh face, one not tainted by the scandals of the two previous parliaments under Chretien then Martin. Expect disaffected former Conservatives Scott Bryson and Kieth Martin to play prominent roles. Rule out the old guard, John Manning et all. The party is looking to move on. Stronach strongest challenge will come from old guard like Newfoundlander Chuck Tobin, and current US Ambassador, will be seen as too closely tied to the old guard. Stronach, a Conservative refugee, will be seen as having no ties to the past. She also has good US relations, mostly tied to the Clinton era, so she’s not seen as to pro-Bush but US friendly, which is something the Liberals are going to need if they hope to take the middle ground. Stronach also has a war chest the other candidates will be unlikely to equal. Fact is, she’s rich enough to finance a campaign from her own piggy bank. She’s also a woman, and that may well be her biggest ace in the hole when it comes to battling Harper, who is not seen as all that “woman-friendly.”
Electing Stronach as their leader would put the Liberal party right square in the middle of the road, with their wing tips sticking far enough to the right to actually take a gash out of the Conservatives. Her left wing may be a little weak, but she’ll cure that if she can draw a few prominent left leaners to her side.
The NDP are going to struggle in this parliament, depending on how successful the Liberals are at drawing a clear line between their platform and Conservative policy. If the Liberals succeed in that endeavour, watch for NDP fortunes to sag. They won’t be destroyed but they’re on the crest of their wave right now. Barring a major fiasco, or a complete breakdown in the social safety net, the NDP are on a down shift.
Fortunes for the Bloc Quebecois will depend entirely one how much Harper bends. If he axes the daycare funding the Bloc will become the kings of Quebec. On the flip side, if Harper manages to bail out Healthcare and give Quebec most of what it asks for, then the Bloc will begin a slow march back into political obscurity.
Watch for slow bleeding of Conservative unity as factions begin to battle for position. Those fractures may begin as early as the cabinet is announced, but its unlikely they’ll manifest until the opposition turns up the heat.
The Greens are in trouble. Yes, they’ll eventually get back the votes they lost to the “STOP HARPER” backlash, but in the meantime their piggy bank has been shrunk. They will have to do serious work on their social and economic policies and begin to base them on the hard realities of our current socio-economic reality, rather than the Utopian model currently in use. They will also have to move left. A real big natural disaster might help them but they are years from electing anyone, unless proportional representation becomes a reality.
Look for Proportional Representation to get a good debate. Harper will likely try to circumvent it with his elected senate proposal, but Pro-Rep will be a hot topic for both the NDP and the Bloc who stand to benefit big time from it. Unfortunately, neither the Tories or the Grits are going to be too hot to trot on this issue. Pro-Rep would make majority rule very difficult to achieve, for any party.
As for the elected senate idea, its complicated. There will be all sorts of questions and concerns. Does the seat plan remain, with Quebec having special consideration. Will the provinces argue for equal proportions for each province. Will the Pro-Rep idea be applied to senate votes. Don’t look for the senate to change anytime soon, unless it happens as a result of some other deal, perhaps involving Pro-Rep. If, by the time the fighting really gets vicious, it appears the Liberals are going to make a big comeback, then you might see the Tories move on Pro-Rep.

As for the prediction most pundits are expected to make; How long will this government last?
I give it two years on the outside, more likely 18 months.
What’s going to happen in that time? Not much, this is a caretaker government!
What happens next?
The Liberals will be back. They’re the middle of the road and this is a nation of fence sitters!

Election Second Update - 7:45PM

2006-01-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

The vote percentiles have changed marginally and the national networks have declared a minority Conservative government. No real suprise.
At present, 8 pm, the Conservatives have 109, Liberal 88, Bloc 51, NDP 23 , with one independent.
The mariginal percentiles are apparent in the popular vote. This is a Conservative government that has only 35 per cent of the popular vote.
Herein is the problem as I see it. The Conservative platform is far different from the platforms of the other three parties. They will have to bend like gymnasts in order to move anything through parliament.
Say goodbye to Harper’s plan to give every family $100 a month towards childcare (in lieu of a childcare program) and hello to some sort of national daycare system. There is no way the Bloc will support having its renowned Childcare system cut, and if Quebec gets it, you can bet the other provinces will want something similar.
If Harper cannot bend, no, contort, we will be looking at a lame duck parliament.
Depending what sort of budget the Harper government produces, and how they deal with the other parties in parliament, in particular the NDP and the Bloc, this could be a short-lived government.
There is also a slim chance, if Martin, Layton and Duceppe can form a coalition, that they could act as a majority and petition the Governor General to allow them to form the government.
The chances of this are remote, but it could happen, especially considering no party, and no voter, is ready for another election.
This will be an interesting government.

Here in British Columba Southern Interior, with very few polls in, the NDP lead by a 30 per cent margin.

More later.