Appearing in the National Post today was something that could be considered Eddie Greenspan's last public words. In the article he condemns Prime Minister Stephen Harper's approach to crime.
He calls Harper's approach to crime "scary."
"We know of no person knowledgeable about criminal justice in any democratic society who has ever proposed imprisonment for all convicted offenders. But earlier this month, Canada’s Public Safety Minister, Steven Blaney, who oversees our penitentiaries, bluntly told Parliament that 'Our Conservative government believes that convicted criminals belong behind bars.' No qualifications, no exceptions.
An opposition MP understandably replied, 'Mr Speaker, that is scary to hear.' Scary? It’s more than scary. It is hard to imagine such a statement being made by someone who supposedly has knowledge about crime and the criminal justice system."
Of course, Minister Blaney's comments in Question Period should not be confused as a comprehensive position on crime, as Greenspan seems to have done. But as a general principle -- criminals belong behind bars -- one could do far worse. Greenspan himself manages.
"Imprisonment is certainly appropriate for some offenders. But it is
worth examining two arguments that are often made for imprisoning
offenders who could be punished in the community. Some believe that
crime will be deterred if punishment severity were increased. Scores of
studies demonstrate this to be false. This is inconvenient for Mr.
Harper since many of his 86 so-called 'crime' bills (33 of which have
become law) are based on the theory that harsh sentences deter. Canada’s
first prime minister, John A Macdonald, understood deterrence better
than does Mr Harper. Macdonald noted that 'Certainty of punishment …
is of more consequence in the prevention of crime than the severity of
the sentence.' Mr Harper, who could benefit from empirical evidence,
chooses instead to ignore it.
Some believe that offenders learn from imprisonment that 'crime does
not pay.' This, too, is wrong. Published research — some of it Canadian
and produced by the federal government — demonstrates that imprisonment,
if anything, increases the likelihood of reoffending. For example, a
recent study of 10,000 Florida inmates released from prison demonstrated
that they were more likely subsequently to reoffend (47%
reoffended in 3 years) than an almost perfectly equivalent group of
offenders who were lucky enough to be sentenced to probation (37%
reoffended)."
Why are these two paragraphs so terrifying? Because Greenspan was considered an elite criminal defense lawyer, and so represents the legal thinking of Canada's legal establishment. And because it's perhaps the most shortsighted and limited view on criminal justice imaginable.
For one thing, the study Greenspan cites is perhaps one of the best examples of unisolated variables on record -- Florida is not exactly a jurisdiction known for its historic dedication to rehabilitation. As one of the key pillars of any criminal justice system, rehabilitation is key to preventing inmates from reoffending. Florida has pursued this route with renewed diligence only since 2011.
Prior to this renewed focus Florida's inmate population had grown by 40% in 11 years. It doesn't require a criminal defense lawyer to recognize this as undesirable. But Florida's growing prison population was not due strictly to imprisoning criminals, but rather what the state was not doing for them on the inside.
So there's the first point on which Mr Greenspan's final words are disturbingly lacking.
Mr Greenspan treats imprisonment of a criminal strictly as punishment. And while it is punishment, it serves a goal key of any criminal justice system: protecting victims from their victimizers by keeping them locked away.
So Mr Greenspan seems to prefer punishing criminals "in the community." Which often entails releasing criminals into the same communities in which those whom they victimized live. And Greenspan, as a criminal defense lawyer, was very successful in helping push this agenda into policy.
What did this bring us?
Well, the RCMP report on missing and murdered indigenous women is very illustrative. Hauntingly illustrative, in fact.
Indigenous women were disproportionately likely to be murdered. More than this, they were disproportionately likely to be murdered by a family member. More still, they were disproportionately likely to be murdered by someone with a prior history of violent crime. Even more yet: they were disproportionately likely to have been a prior victim of a violent crime at their killer's hands.
And via the Gladue ruling, a worrying number of aboriginal are effectively turned loose in their communities under a preference for so-called "restorative justice techniques." And while the Gladue ruling is often treated as inapplicable for more serious and violent offenders, and repeat offenders, this has often come far too late for missing and murdered indigenous women. Far too often the recidivist crime to which Gladue was considered inapplicable was their murder.
That's a tad too late for "restorative justice" and "punishment in the community," as Mr Greenspan clearly preferred.
I've previously written that there in fact should be a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, but not on the terms that the activists, lawyers and social workers who created this problem would prefer. Instead, this should be treated as an opportunity to call the legal establishment that created this problem on the carpet, and put them and their policies on trial once and for all.
Were he alive today Eddie Greenspan would almost certainly be among them: called to answer for the problem that his ideas, his agenda and his shortsightedness created.
Fortunately for him he did not live to see such an inquiry. Which is by no means a reason why he should be excluded from such scrutiny now that he's passed on.
Showing posts with label Stephen Harper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen Harper. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
The Unberable Lightness of Michael Harris, Part 2: Mowat Logic
Michael Harris' Party of One has finally arrived. And as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not been the sort of politician that provokes impartial thought -- very few media types have been up to this task, and many who lay claim to a reputation for impartial thought most certainly haven't -- very few impartial reviews of the book are available.
But when I first set myself to the task of examining Harris' "journalistic" work at iPolitics, I made a prediction: that given how stale, banal and amateurish his work at iPolitics was, we could expect his book to be pretty much more of the same.
The book either hasn't disappointed, or has disappointed, based on whether or not you think more of the same stale, banal and amateurish work is a bad thing. Today, the following page of the book was tweeted by a critical reader:
In this excerpt from the book, Harris invokes Farley Mowat -- who served bravely as an officer during the Second World War, God bless his soul -- to rage against the very idea, often attributed to Harper, that Canada is a "warrior nation."
Earlier in the book, Harris makes the case that this so-called "transformation" of Canada into a "warrior nation" was rationalized largely around Canada's participation in the Afghanistan War. Harris also blathers a little about the War of 1812 -- apparently he's rather disturbed that the Canadian government would commemorate a key anniversary in Canadian history -- and a little bit about Libya, but it's mostly about the Afghanistan War.
Mowat fumed that "this son of a bitch incited Canada into becoming a warrior nation."
The logic is altogether absent. If Canada truly has recently become "a warrior nation" -- and has not always been at least partially so all along -- and that transformation was predicated on the Afghanistan War, then that transformation pre-dated Harper's time in office.
After all, it wasn't Harper who was Prime Minister when Canada committed its troops to the decade-plus-long conflict. It was Jean Chretien. He did so without a Parliamentary vote, and without any significant debate. Quite the contrast to how Harper handled the extension of the Afghanistan mission, the Libya mission, and the now-ongoing Iraq mission.
(So much for Harper the anti-democrat.)
Not to mention that Liberals were supportive of the deployment of CF-18s against Muammar al-Ghadaffi in Libya, and against ISIS in Iraq. While Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has chosen to play politics with the latter in hopes of picking up a few stray votes from the NDP, the fractures in his party are crystal clear. It's obvious that were political roles reversed Canada's contribution to the two conflicts would be every bit the same.
So there's a rather glaring factual and logical error. Perhaps we can expect that from Mowat, who for all his writing talent and his iconic Canadian writings was also known to be a little eccentric -- and who was apparently enamoured enough with Pierre Trudeau so as to gift him a dog -- but as a journalist, part of Harris' job is supposed to be to mediate such remarks against facts and against at least basic logic. He seems to have made no effort to perform that vital task in these pages.
Perhaps because if he had the natural and unforced conclusions would hurt his narrative.
All the same, I get the sense that Michael Harris' book has had its 15 minutes of fame. Booksellers don't seem to be especially enthusiastic about it, and I imagine the anti-Harper nutjobs who are the totality of the book's intended audience have already bought their copies.
I don't expect to hear much about the book in future. Excerpts such as the one above make it clear why.
But when I first set myself to the task of examining Harris' "journalistic" work at iPolitics, I made a prediction: that given how stale, banal and amateurish his work at iPolitics was, we could expect his book to be pretty much more of the same.
The book either hasn't disappointed, or has disappointed, based on whether or not you think more of the same stale, banal and amateurish work is a bad thing. Today, the following page of the book was tweeted by a critical reader:
Earlier in the book, Harris makes the case that this so-called "transformation" of Canada into a "warrior nation" was rationalized largely around Canada's participation in the Afghanistan War. Harris also blathers a little about the War of 1812 -- apparently he's rather disturbed that the Canadian government would commemorate a key anniversary in Canadian history -- and a little bit about Libya, but it's mostly about the Afghanistan War.
Mowat fumed that "this son of a bitch incited Canada into becoming a warrior nation."
The logic is altogether absent. If Canada truly has recently become "a warrior nation" -- and has not always been at least partially so all along -- and that transformation was predicated on the Afghanistan War, then that transformation pre-dated Harper's time in office.
After all, it wasn't Harper who was Prime Minister when Canada committed its troops to the decade-plus-long conflict. It was Jean Chretien. He did so without a Parliamentary vote, and without any significant debate. Quite the contrast to how Harper handled the extension of the Afghanistan mission, the Libya mission, and the now-ongoing Iraq mission.
(So much for Harper the anti-democrat.)
Not to mention that Liberals were supportive of the deployment of CF-18s against Muammar al-Ghadaffi in Libya, and against ISIS in Iraq. While Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has chosen to play politics with the latter in hopes of picking up a few stray votes from the NDP, the fractures in his party are crystal clear. It's obvious that were political roles reversed Canada's contribution to the two conflicts would be every bit the same.
So there's a rather glaring factual and logical error. Perhaps we can expect that from Mowat, who for all his writing talent and his iconic Canadian writings was also known to be a little eccentric -- and who was apparently enamoured enough with Pierre Trudeau so as to gift him a dog -- but as a journalist, part of Harris' job is supposed to be to mediate such remarks against facts and against at least basic logic. He seems to have made no effort to perform that vital task in these pages.
Perhaps because if he had the natural and unforced conclusions would hurt his narrative.
All the same, I get the sense that Michael Harris' book has had its 15 minutes of fame. Booksellers don't seem to be especially enthusiastic about it, and I imagine the anti-Harper nutjobs who are the totality of the book's intended audience have already bought their copies.
I don't expect to hear much about the book in future. Excerpts such as the one above make it clear why.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Unforgiven: Defeatists, Partisans & Peaceniks Need to Put a Sock In It
Today Canada was the victim of a low-grade 9/11-style coordinated terror attack. Shots were fired at four locations in Ottawa, including Parliament Hill and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. One Canadian Forces member is dead. So is his killer, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, reported as Canadian-born and a recent convert to Islam.
Many have taken to social media to insist that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to blame for this: that Canada is under such attack only because we have sent CF-18s to bomb ISIS militants in Iraq.
The logic is flawed, and the greater implications of it are nothing short of alarming.
The attack in which Zehaf-Bribeau participated is only one of two in the past week. Martin Rouleau, also a Canadian-born convert to Islam, attacked Canadian Forces members in what many have described as a Lee Rigby-style attack. (In actuality, Ahmad de Converti -- Rouleau's chosen name -- was far more cowardly than Rigby's murderers, who at least stayed to face the police who arrived to shoot them.)
Not long ago I wrote a blogpost noting that we're fighting ISIS in Iraq so that we don't have to fight them here. Well, as it turns out they're already here, and now we are fighting them here.
While I remain adamant that we must not treat Canada's Muslim populations as if they are all ISIS members or even as if they're potentially ISIS members, we can no longer deny that fighters for the Islamic State are walking amongst us. Perhaps not many, but clearly some. Two attacks within a week, with two victims, speak for themselves.
So suppose that we were to do what the various people who want to pin the attacks on Harper seem to want us to do: withdraw our warplanes from Iraq, abandon our alliance with Israel, and essentially allow them to dictate our foreign policy to us in order to placate these ISIS fighters already hidden in our midst. What would we have just done?
We would have just submitted to living under de facto occupation. Perhaps living under occupation by a force that we may not otherwise be confronted by, but under occupation no less.
We would have handed to ISIS, on a silver platter, Canada as their first conquest in an empire of fear.
I'd be tempted to tell these assorted defeatists (who seem to think we cannot defeat the Islamic State), partisans (who simply point the finger for political gain) and wannabe peaceniks (who seem to miss the detail that there can be no peace with organizations such as ISIS, by their own accord) that they're welcome to live like this.
But if they live like that, so do we all. So they aren't interested in it. And if they aren't content to face the reality of today's events then they just need to put a sock in it.
Many have taken to social media to insist that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to blame for this: that Canada is under such attack only because we have sent CF-18s to bomb ISIS militants in Iraq.
The logic is flawed, and the greater implications of it are nothing short of alarming.
The attack in which Zehaf-Bribeau participated is only one of two in the past week. Martin Rouleau, also a Canadian-born convert to Islam, attacked Canadian Forces members in what many have described as a Lee Rigby-style attack. (In actuality, Ahmad de Converti -- Rouleau's chosen name -- was far more cowardly than Rigby's murderers, who at least stayed to face the police who arrived to shoot them.)
Not long ago I wrote a blogpost noting that we're fighting ISIS in Iraq so that we don't have to fight them here. Well, as it turns out they're already here, and now we are fighting them here.
While I remain adamant that we must not treat Canada's Muslim populations as if they are all ISIS members or even as if they're potentially ISIS members, we can no longer deny that fighters for the Islamic State are walking amongst us. Perhaps not many, but clearly some. Two attacks within a week, with two victims, speak for themselves.
So suppose that we were to do what the various people who want to pin the attacks on Harper seem to want us to do: withdraw our warplanes from Iraq, abandon our alliance with Israel, and essentially allow them to dictate our foreign policy to us in order to placate these ISIS fighters already hidden in our midst. What would we have just done?
We would have just submitted to living under de facto occupation. Perhaps living under occupation by a force that we may not otherwise be confronted by, but under occupation no less.
We would have handed to ISIS, on a silver platter, Canada as their first conquest in an empire of fear.
I'd be tempted to tell these assorted defeatists (who seem to think we cannot defeat the Islamic State), partisans (who simply point the finger for political gain) and wannabe peaceniks (who seem to miss the detail that there can be no peace with organizations such as ISIS, by their own accord) that they're welcome to live like this.
But if they live like that, so do we all. So they aren't interested in it. And if they aren't content to face the reality of today's events then they just need to put a sock in it.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
The CCPA CRA Audit Explained, As it Were
So, the Canada Revenue Agency is auditing the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives for potential violations of the Income Tax Act related to charitable or non-profit organizations. The operating suspicion is that the CCPA has engaged primarily in political activities, as opposed to educational activities.
That's ridiculous, right?
Well... maybe not so much.
Writing in the Huffington Post, CCPA "economist" Toby Sanger sets out to challenge Prime Minister Stephen Harper's assertion that corporate tax cuts have not harmed Canada's overall corporate tax haul.
As it turns out, Sanger's argument hinges on the following graph:
Comically, the graph actually directly contradicts Sanger's claim. Pay close attention to how corporate income tax revenues interacted with CIT rate cuts between 2008 and 2014. Notice anything? Such as, say... modest yearly growth?
Certainly, Sanger can demonstrate an absolute decline in CIT haul between 2006 and 2014. Apparently the reader is supposed to simply presume that this is attributable to CIT rate cuts. Yet Sanger seems to have left out one crucial event that undoubtedly, undeniably affected Canada's CIT haul: the 2008 recession.
Go ahead: search Sanger's screed for the word "recession." You won't find it. It's not there.
How can an allegedly-seasoned economist like Sanger simply not mention the recession?
I think the answer is remarkably simple: mentioning the 2008 recession would remind readers that there is more to the absolute decline in CIT haul than simply CIT rates. Once the drastic drop between CIT hauls in 2006 and 2008 is revealed to be attributable to factors other than CIT rate cuts, the very premise of Sanger's article evaporates. And my bet is that Sanger knows this.
According to the Income Tax Act, charitable and non-profit organizations are tax-exempt if they engage in educational activities. But in deliberately excluding not only pertinent information -- but in fact the most pertinent information -- from his article, Sanger has crafted a piece that is not educational or even informational, but is in fact disinformational.
As such, it is inherently political.
And while neither Toby Sanger nor the Huffington Post saw fit to disclose his involvement with the CCPA, the question is still begged: does the nature of Sanger's work in the Huffington Post reflect the nature of his work for the CCPA?
If it does, the Canada Revenue Agency's audit of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is in fact well-justified... and it will likely not end well for the CCPA.
That's ridiculous, right?
Well... maybe not so much.
Writing in the Huffington Post, CCPA "economist" Toby Sanger sets out to challenge Prime Minister Stephen Harper's assertion that corporate tax cuts have not harmed Canada's overall corporate tax haul.
As it turns out, Sanger's argument hinges on the following graph:
Certainly, Sanger can demonstrate an absolute decline in CIT haul between 2006 and 2014. Apparently the reader is supposed to simply presume that this is attributable to CIT rate cuts. Yet Sanger seems to have left out one crucial event that undoubtedly, undeniably affected Canada's CIT haul: the 2008 recession.
Go ahead: search Sanger's screed for the word "recession." You won't find it. It's not there.
How can an allegedly-seasoned economist like Sanger simply not mention the recession?
I think the answer is remarkably simple: mentioning the 2008 recession would remind readers that there is more to the absolute decline in CIT haul than simply CIT rates. Once the drastic drop between CIT hauls in 2006 and 2008 is revealed to be attributable to factors other than CIT rate cuts, the very premise of Sanger's article evaporates. And my bet is that Sanger knows this.
According to the Income Tax Act, charitable and non-profit organizations are tax-exempt if they engage in educational activities. But in deliberately excluding not only pertinent information -- but in fact the most pertinent information -- from his article, Sanger has crafted a piece that is not educational or even informational, but is in fact disinformational.
As such, it is inherently political.
And while neither Toby Sanger nor the Huffington Post saw fit to disclose his involvement with the CCPA, the question is still begged: does the nature of Sanger's work in the Huffington Post reflect the nature of his work for the CCPA?
If it does, the Canada Revenue Agency's audit of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is in fact well-justified... and it will likely not end well for the CCPA.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Why PM Harper Deserves Consideration for Nobel Peace Prize
Previously on Bad Company, I took the signatories to a petition demanding that the Nobel Peace Prize committee reject Prime Minister Stephen Harper's nomination out to the woodshed. They didn't like it.
Not one of them substantively answered the criticisms contained in that blogpost. The reason for this is obvious: it's because they can't.
And of course they can't. The only reason to demand that the NPP committee circumvent the process of considering nominations made to it is that they're deathly afraid that Harper will get serious consideration, if not the award itself. Personally, I expect that Prime Minister Harper will get serious consideration, although I don't necessarily expect he'll win the prize.
I don't disagree with Frank Dimant that Harper has shown remarkable, even unique, moral clarity on the issue of Israel. Unlike those who signed this ridiculous petition, Prime Minister Harper knows were the blame for the conflict, and for civilian deaths in Gaza, belongs: on Hamas. They, who go out of their way to start armed conflict with Israel, then put their civilians in harm's way.
That being said, that's not the reason I think Harper warrants serious consideration for the award.
The reason in my mind is the maternal health initiative Harper has championed on the global stage. It was once said that mother is the name of God on the lips of a child. Prime Minister Harper is well aware that when you take steps to improve the health of mothers and their children you take a vital step toward alleviating health crises in the developing world.
Now I'm certain that many signatories to the "deny Harper" petition will object strenuously. Their idea of "maternal health" seems to be funding abortions in countries where the procedure is often contrary to law. Harper has wisely defied them by refusing to fund abortions as part of the MHI. This is another reason why he should be considered.
I'm not holding my breath for Prime Minister Harper to win the prize based on this achievement. If helping to stem the devastation wrought by AIDS in Africa wasn't enough to win President George W Bush the Peace Prize -- and having accomplished nothing was enough to win President Barack Obama the prize -- the Maternal Health Initiative likely won't secure it for Harper.
And that's OK, so long as the award goes to a more deserving nominee. I'm entirely open to that possibility. I'll be waiting... and watching... to see who ends up winning.
Not one of them substantively answered the criticisms contained in that blogpost. The reason for this is obvious: it's because they can't.
And of course they can't. The only reason to demand that the NPP committee circumvent the process of considering nominations made to it is that they're deathly afraid that Harper will get serious consideration, if not the award itself. Personally, I expect that Prime Minister Harper will get serious consideration, although I don't necessarily expect he'll win the prize.
I don't disagree with Frank Dimant that Harper has shown remarkable, even unique, moral clarity on the issue of Israel. Unlike those who signed this ridiculous petition, Prime Minister Harper knows were the blame for the conflict, and for civilian deaths in Gaza, belongs: on Hamas. They, who go out of their way to start armed conflict with Israel, then put their civilians in harm's way.
That being said, that's not the reason I think Harper warrants serious consideration for the award.
The reason in my mind is the maternal health initiative Harper has championed on the global stage. It was once said that mother is the name of God on the lips of a child. Prime Minister Harper is well aware that when you take steps to improve the health of mothers and their children you take a vital step toward alleviating health crises in the developing world.
Now I'm certain that many signatories to the "deny Harper" petition will object strenuously. Their idea of "maternal health" seems to be funding abortions in countries where the procedure is often contrary to law. Harper has wisely defied them by refusing to fund abortions as part of the MHI. This is another reason why he should be considered.
I'm not holding my breath for Prime Minister Harper to win the prize based on this achievement. If helping to stem the devastation wrought by AIDS in Africa wasn't enough to win President George W Bush the Peace Prize -- and having accomplished nothing was enough to win President Barack Obama the prize -- the Maternal Health Initiative likely won't secure it for Harper.
And that's OK, so long as the award goes to a more deserving nominee. I'm entirely open to that possibility. I'll be waiting... and watching... to see who ends up winning.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Anti-Harper Petition an Exercise in Intellectual Cowardice
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and the far-left desn't like it.
Front and centre in the increasingly-public spectacle of the far-left losing their minds over it is a petition started by Calgarian Liberal hack Ed Tanas. Tanas was so outraged by the nomination, by Frank Dimant of B'Nai Brith, that he was driven to anti-Semitic comments.
I've spent some time slowly peeling back the layers of Tanas' mania at High Noon. He's not an individual bursting with credibility. So not much has to be said about he himself here.
But I will speak at further length about his petition, and just how, frankly, cowardly an effort it really is.
As explored masterfully by the Calgary Herald's Susan Martinuk, almost none of the 20,00 unhinged signatories have produced even a single valid reason why Harper's nomination should be denied:
"The real drivers behind any support for the petition can easily be detected in the comments made by its supporters. Most are a nebulous collection of hateful phrases that have no facts or logic to support their claims. According to them, Harper has 'committed crimes against Canadians' and has 'beady eyes.' He is also 'a disgrace to mankind,' 'a warmonger,' 'evil' 'an oppressor,' 'a fascist' and a 'social monster' who should be charged with 'treason.'
Frankly, these people should spend a year or two living under the rule of a Third World dictator. Maybe then they can comprehend the real meaning of such words.
Comments that state reasons (still not facts or statistics) invariably focus on Harper’s unwavering support for Israel, the 'evil, mass-murderer that kills innocent children.' A few others mention unexplained reasons such as aboriginal policies and dismantling Canada’s health-care system."
So more or less all of it is generic left-wing rhetoric, and absolutely none of it is true,... save that Harper does, in fact, support Israel. Although what the signatories say about Israel is false. Which makes that a wash.
Now here's the thing: signing this petition is an act of intellectual cowardice.
If they were true, the reasons cited by the signatories would indeed be damning of Harper's nomination. There's no question whatsoever about that. If the Nobel committee found these things to be true, there's no way Harper would be considered seriously for the award.
So if the signatories really had any confidence whatsoever that the things they say are true, they would have no objection to the Nobel committee considering Harper's nomination. By attempting an end-run around the evaluation process by petitioning the committee to reject the nomination out-of-hand, they're instead demonstrating that they have no confidence in the things they say; that they are aware that the things they say are untrue, and simply expect the nomination committee to accept them unquestioningly.
This is not to say that if the Peace Prize is awarded to someone other than Harper that what these nutjobs say about Harper is true, merely that there was a more deserving candidate. Which is, frankly, how these awards should be awarded.
There is a pro-Harper petition as well. It hasn't been circulating for as long as the anti-Harper petition, but if you believe the Nobel Peace Prize committee should consider Harper''s nomination, you could do worse than to sign it.
Front and centre in the increasingly-public spectacle of the far-left losing their minds over it is a petition started by Calgarian Liberal hack Ed Tanas. Tanas was so outraged by the nomination, by Frank Dimant of B'Nai Brith, that he was driven to anti-Semitic comments.
I've spent some time slowly peeling back the layers of Tanas' mania at High Noon. He's not an individual bursting with credibility. So not much has to be said about he himself here.
But I will speak at further length about his petition, and just how, frankly, cowardly an effort it really is.
As explored masterfully by the Calgary Herald's Susan Martinuk, almost none of the 20,00 unhinged signatories have produced even a single valid reason why Harper's nomination should be denied:
"The real drivers behind any support for the petition can easily be detected in the comments made by its supporters. Most are a nebulous collection of hateful phrases that have no facts or logic to support their claims. According to them, Harper has 'committed crimes against Canadians' and has 'beady eyes.' He is also 'a disgrace to mankind,' 'a warmonger,' 'evil' 'an oppressor,' 'a fascist' and a 'social monster' who should be charged with 'treason.'
Frankly, these people should spend a year or two living under the rule of a Third World dictator. Maybe then they can comprehend the real meaning of such words.
Comments that state reasons (still not facts or statistics) invariably focus on Harper’s unwavering support for Israel, the 'evil, mass-murderer that kills innocent children.' A few others mention unexplained reasons such as aboriginal policies and dismantling Canada’s health-care system."
So more or less all of it is generic left-wing rhetoric, and absolutely none of it is true,... save that Harper does, in fact, support Israel. Although what the signatories say about Israel is false. Which makes that a wash.
Now here's the thing: signing this petition is an act of intellectual cowardice.
If they were true, the reasons cited by the signatories would indeed be damning of Harper's nomination. There's no question whatsoever about that. If the Nobel committee found these things to be true, there's no way Harper would be considered seriously for the award.
So if the signatories really had any confidence whatsoever that the things they say are true, they would have no objection to the Nobel committee considering Harper's nomination. By attempting an end-run around the evaluation process by petitioning the committee to reject the nomination out-of-hand, they're instead demonstrating that they have no confidence in the things they say; that they are aware that the things they say are untrue, and simply expect the nomination committee to accept them unquestioningly.
This is not to say that if the Peace Prize is awarded to someone other than Harper that what these nutjobs say about Harper is true, merely that there was a more deserving candidate. Which is, frankly, how these awards should be awarded.
There is a pro-Harper petition as well. It hasn't been circulating for as long as the anti-Harper petition, but if you believe the Nobel Peace Prize committee should consider Harper''s nomination, you could do worse than to sign it.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
The Unbearable Lightness of Michael Harris
Here's the general theme of my writings about Michael Harris: he's a lightweight. An intellectual lightweight.
He's proven it time and time over. But never so much so as in his (second) most recent iPolitics column. Published June 16, to the uninformed reader it appears to be a knockout punch. But to the informed reader it's a big swing and a big miss.
It contains some rather comical misrepresentations of the issue which it is purported to be about. For example, Harris claims -- at length -- that Justice Marc Nadon was forced off the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court judged him as unqualified. This is false. The court did not question his qualifications, it ruled that (because of a purely technocratic detail) to be ineligible.
That's one thing. But the following is another entirely:
"A former Harper cabinet minister told me that there was a very good reason the Harper government didn’t celebrate the 25th and 30th anniversaries of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
First, the charter was Pierre Trudeau’s creation. Harper has a pathological hatred of both the Liberal party and its most famous modern leader. Looking forward to the 150th anniversary of Canada’s founding, the Harper government commissioned a huge poll to find out who Canadians admired the most. It was the guy who gave us the charter.
And then there are Harper’s problems with the charter itself, which the former cabinet minister spelled out for me: 'Harper hates the charter because it transferred power from Parliament to the people. There was a higher authority than the government of the day which he just can’t accept — even though many of his own MPs have a copy of the charter hanging on the walls in their offices. He doesn’t seem to care that is an integral part of Canada now.'"
There is so much amiss with this that it isn't even funny.
First off, it's not even difficult to induce who this "former Conservative cabinet Minister" is. Of all the former Harper government ministers, only one has a big enough grudge against Harper to talk to a wingnut like Harris: it's obviously Helena Guergis.
Now, when Guergis was a minister in the Harper government, the Canadian left declared her to be public enemy number one. Her misbehaviour in a public airport was fodder for the left for weeks. Then Guergis was fired from cabinet. Suddenly she became a cause celibre of the left. Oh, and Harris himself wrote a column about her pretty much parroting anything she had to say about her alleged "victimhood" despite the fact that she lost her lawsuit against Harper.
Guergis was the enemy so long as she was a Harper minister. But when the left got what they demanded time and time again, suddenly Harris is kissing up to her for fodder for a good anti-Harper hitpiece. It's fickle politics at it's finest, but that's Harris in a nutshell.
Then there's the most basic intellectual flub afoot in this: this idea that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms gave power back to "the people" reflects a jaw-dropping lack of understanding of the Charter.
Simply put, the Charter didn't "transfer power from Parliament to the people." It in fact transferred power from Parliament -- and with it, the people -- to the courts.
Over the past several years, courts have routinely referenced the charter in their decisions to refuse -- simply refuse -- to comply with tough-on-crime legislation that polls indicated, time and time again, that the Canadian populace supported. Those laws were passed by the Parliament of Canada, which is governed by principles of responsible government that are supposed to behold MPs to their constituents.
In other words, if you take power from Parliament you've taken it from the people. And as no Canadian has ever had the opportunity to cast a ballot to elect a judge, any argument that courts embody the will of Canadians is absolutely non-existent.
Perhaps Guergis was thinking of the American constitution when she gave Harris this comical quote. And for his own part, Harris -- who clearly understands the Canadian constitution no more than that -- never gave it a second thought. No columnist worth his or her salt would stand to be embarrassed like that. But somehow Harris did.
Made by a less experienced "journalist" -- a label for which Harris doesn't really qualify -- it would be a rookie mistake. In Michael Harris' case, it's a lightweight mistake, one that (to his advantage) his left-wing nutjob audience aren't smart enough to receognize.
He's proven it time and time over. But never so much so as in his (second) most recent iPolitics column. Published June 16, to the uninformed reader it appears to be a knockout punch. But to the informed reader it's a big swing and a big miss.
It contains some rather comical misrepresentations of the issue which it is purported to be about. For example, Harris claims -- at length -- that Justice Marc Nadon was forced off the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court judged him as unqualified. This is false. The court did not question his qualifications, it ruled that (because of a purely technocratic detail) to be ineligible.
That's one thing. But the following is another entirely:
"A former Harper cabinet minister told me that there was a very good reason the Harper government didn’t celebrate the 25th and 30th anniversaries of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
First, the charter was Pierre Trudeau’s creation. Harper has a pathological hatred of both the Liberal party and its most famous modern leader. Looking forward to the 150th anniversary of Canada’s founding, the Harper government commissioned a huge poll to find out who Canadians admired the most. It was the guy who gave us the charter.
And then there are Harper’s problems with the charter itself, which the former cabinet minister spelled out for me: 'Harper hates the charter because it transferred power from Parliament to the people. There was a higher authority than the government of the day which he just can’t accept — even though many of his own MPs have a copy of the charter hanging on the walls in their offices. He doesn’t seem to care that is an integral part of Canada now.'"
There is so much amiss with this that it isn't even funny.
First off, it's not even difficult to induce who this "former Conservative cabinet Minister" is. Of all the former Harper government ministers, only one has a big enough grudge against Harper to talk to a wingnut like Harris: it's obviously Helena Guergis.
Now, when Guergis was a minister in the Harper government, the Canadian left declared her to be public enemy number one. Her misbehaviour in a public airport was fodder for the left for weeks. Then Guergis was fired from cabinet. Suddenly she became a cause celibre of the left. Oh, and Harris himself wrote a column about her pretty much parroting anything she had to say about her alleged "victimhood" despite the fact that she lost her lawsuit against Harper.
Guergis was the enemy so long as she was a Harper minister. But when the left got what they demanded time and time again, suddenly Harris is kissing up to her for fodder for a good anti-Harper hitpiece. It's fickle politics at it's finest, but that's Harris in a nutshell.
Then there's the most basic intellectual flub afoot in this: this idea that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms gave power back to "the people" reflects a jaw-dropping lack of understanding of the Charter.
Simply put, the Charter didn't "transfer power from Parliament to the people." It in fact transferred power from Parliament -- and with it, the people -- to the courts.
Over the past several years, courts have routinely referenced the charter in their decisions to refuse -- simply refuse -- to comply with tough-on-crime legislation that polls indicated, time and time again, that the Canadian populace supported. Those laws were passed by the Parliament of Canada, which is governed by principles of responsible government that are supposed to behold MPs to their constituents.
In other words, if you take power from Parliament you've taken it from the people. And as no Canadian has ever had the opportunity to cast a ballot to elect a judge, any argument that courts embody the will of Canadians is absolutely non-existent.
Perhaps Guergis was thinking of the American constitution when she gave Harris this comical quote. And for his own part, Harris -- who clearly understands the Canadian constitution no more than that -- never gave it a second thought. No columnist worth his or her salt would stand to be embarrassed like that. But somehow Harris did.
Made by a less experienced "journalist" -- a label for which Harris doesn't really qualify -- it would be a rookie mistake. In Michael Harris' case, it's a lightweight mistake, one that (to his advantage) his left-wing nutjob audience aren't smart enough to receognize.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Michael Harris Under Theresa Spence's Cone of Silence
If I didn't know better, I'd swear that iPolitics columnist Michael Harris had been out to the scandal-engulfed Attawapiskat reserve and been threatened with arrest. Simply nothing else could explain the cone of silence he's placed himself in -- at least in regards to that subject -- since Chief Theresa Spence's commonlaw spouse, Clayton Kennedy, was charged with theft and fraud.
Strange, that. After all, Harris was so obsessed with the RCMP investigation into former PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright that, following the RCMP dropping the investigation, he took to Twitter to suggest -- to very nearly insist -- that the case showed that the national police force's independence was now in question.
Yet Kennedy is now facing charges stemming from alleged theft and fraud that took place under Spence's watch and... silence. Nothing to be said from the esteemed Mr Harris.
This would make it seem as if Harris, who previously was one of Spence's biggest boosters in the Canadian media, had only suddenly taken leave of this particular story. But the truth is rather different: he took leave of it long ago.
For example, let's take a look at what Harris wrote about Spence on January 3, 2013:
"...Last December 11, it was shocking to see someone actually want to talk to the prime minister as the country’s most important employee, not as an imperial figure who lives at the top of an unapproachable mountain shrouded in mist. Chief Spence had the audacity to think that she was important because her concerns were important. She was also sufficiently committed to the notion of democracy (however battered it may be in Canada) that she believed talking to the prime minister — nation to nation, as promised — might benefit everyone."
She was committed to the notion of democracy, was she? Well, it turns out that her devotion didn't last the year. In August, 2013 the Attawapiskat band held an election. Spence was reelected, but election had been run with a caveat: if you live off-reserve -- more than half of Attawapiskat band members do -- you were required to travel back to the reserve to vote. The move effectively disenfranchised any band members who wouldn't or couldn't.
Only 507 votes were cast. The Attawapiskat band has 3,351 members.
In a vote held on-reserve, the majority of band members voting approved a band election code that would give all band members a ballot, whether they lived on- or off-reserve. Under the leadership of Chief Spence, Michael Harris' model democrat, Attawapiskat band council refused to ratify it.
Quite the democrat, Theresa Spence is.
Yet even after having given her his official seal of approval, to to speak, Harris had clammed up on all matters Attawapiskat long before then. And now that thousands of dollars in fraud and theft have taken place under his model democrat's watch, Harris is silent again.
But not so silent on Nigel Wright. Harris took to Twitter to fume that the RCMP owes an explanation regarding who made the decision to clear Wright, and why. It's not at all hard to imagine that Harris imagines that he would be the one collecting such an explanation. In the absence of such an explanation, Harris seems quite content to impugn the independence of the RCMP -- quite the cavalier attitude towards the law if there ever was one!
There is something important that these three stories have in common: it's what they actually don't have in common. And that is Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Chief Theresa Spence, in faking a hunger strike, was making Harper look callous in the eyes of many. Because she was harming Harper's political image, Harris endorsed her not knowing that her common law husband had seemingly been stuffing his pockets with Attawapiskat band cash. (It seems fair to at least strongly suspect that Spence herself was a beneficiary of that larceny.)
The speculation by RCMP investigator Corporal Greg Horton that in giving now-suspended Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to pay seemingly-improperly-claimed expenses back to the taxpayers Nigel Wright had committed fraud was ammo in the arsenal of the opposition for months. The story hurt Harper, so of course Harris mentioned it as often as he could.
But Clayton Kennedy being charged with theft and fraud? Well, that has nothing to do with Harper. So because the story doesn't harm Harper politically, Harris steers clear of it.
If I'm being unfair to Harris he can feel free to correct the record at his leisure by explaining his evident disinterest in the Kennedy story. It seems to be clear at this point that whatever got Harris' dander up about Wright, it wasn't the speculated -- never even alleged -- fraud. Remember: Kennedy (linked to Spence) has been charged and Wright (linked to Harper) was cleared.
So is Michael Harris huddled under a cone of silence? Or is it more of a code of silence -- a left-wing Omerta?
Only Harris knows for certain. And he may feel free to explain at his earliest convenience.
Strange, that. After all, Harris was so obsessed with the RCMP investigation into former PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright that, following the RCMP dropping the investigation, he took to Twitter to suggest -- to very nearly insist -- that the case showed that the national police force's independence was now in question.
Yet Kennedy is now facing charges stemming from alleged theft and fraud that took place under Spence's watch and... silence. Nothing to be said from the esteemed Mr Harris.
This would make it seem as if Harris, who previously was one of Spence's biggest boosters in the Canadian media, had only suddenly taken leave of this particular story. But the truth is rather different: he took leave of it long ago.
For example, let's take a look at what Harris wrote about Spence on January 3, 2013:
"...Last December 11, it was shocking to see someone actually want to talk to the prime minister as the country’s most important employee, not as an imperial figure who lives at the top of an unapproachable mountain shrouded in mist. Chief Spence had the audacity to think that she was important because her concerns were important. She was also sufficiently committed to the notion of democracy (however battered it may be in Canada) that she believed talking to the prime minister — nation to nation, as promised — might benefit everyone."
She was committed to the notion of democracy, was she? Well, it turns out that her devotion didn't last the year. In August, 2013 the Attawapiskat band held an election. Spence was reelected, but election had been run with a caveat: if you live off-reserve -- more than half of Attawapiskat band members do -- you were required to travel back to the reserve to vote. The move effectively disenfranchised any band members who wouldn't or couldn't.
Only 507 votes were cast. The Attawapiskat band has 3,351 members.
In a vote held on-reserve, the majority of band members voting approved a band election code that would give all band members a ballot, whether they lived on- or off-reserve. Under the leadership of Chief Spence, Michael Harris' model democrat, Attawapiskat band council refused to ratify it.
Quite the democrat, Theresa Spence is.
Yet even after having given her his official seal of approval, to to speak, Harris had clammed up on all matters Attawapiskat long before then. And now that thousands of dollars in fraud and theft have taken place under his model democrat's watch, Harris is silent again.
But not so silent on Nigel Wright. Harris took to Twitter to fume that the RCMP owes an explanation regarding who made the decision to clear Wright, and why. It's not at all hard to imagine that Harris imagines that he would be the one collecting such an explanation. In the absence of such an explanation, Harris seems quite content to impugn the independence of the RCMP -- quite the cavalier attitude towards the law if there ever was one!
There is something important that these three stories have in common: it's what they actually don't have in common. And that is Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Chief Theresa Spence, in faking a hunger strike, was making Harper look callous in the eyes of many. Because she was harming Harper's political image, Harris endorsed her not knowing that her common law husband had seemingly been stuffing his pockets with Attawapiskat band cash. (It seems fair to at least strongly suspect that Spence herself was a beneficiary of that larceny.)
The speculation by RCMP investigator Corporal Greg Horton that in giving now-suspended Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to pay seemingly-improperly-claimed expenses back to the taxpayers Nigel Wright had committed fraud was ammo in the arsenal of the opposition for months. The story hurt Harper, so of course Harris mentioned it as often as he could.
But Clayton Kennedy being charged with theft and fraud? Well, that has nothing to do with Harper. So because the story doesn't harm Harper politically, Harris steers clear of it.
If I'm being unfair to Harris he can feel free to correct the record at his leisure by explaining his evident disinterest in the Kennedy story. It seems to be clear at this point that whatever got Harris' dander up about Wright, it wasn't the speculated -- never even alleged -- fraud. Remember: Kennedy (linked to Spence) has been charged and Wright (linked to Harper) was cleared.
So is Michael Harris huddled under a cone of silence? Or is it more of a code of silence -- a left-wing Omerta?
Only Harris knows for certain. And he may feel free to explain at his earliest convenience.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Stephen Harper Must Tell Madame Marois "Non"
A little history lesson:
The year was 1995. The place was Quebec. There was a referendum going on that would decide whether or not Quebec would seek to separate from the rest of Canada.
Jean Chretien was the Prime Minister of Canada. Lucien Bouchard was the Premier of Quebec. Chretien was reluctant to get involved in the referendum. And Bouchard took full advantage of that.
Mr Bouchard promised Quebeckers the moon: after separating from Canada Quebec would not accept its share of the national debt. Quebec would continue to use Canadian currency. Quebec would continue to benefit from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) without negotiating their way into it.
None of these things were possible. But Chretien made no forceful attempt to dispel Bouchard's delusions (some would say lies). And Quebec very nearly voted in favour of separating from Canada.
That was 1995, nearly 20 years ago. Now the year is 2014, and Quebec's is having an election. Quebec's current Premier, Pauline Marois, is making very similar promises to what Bouchard promised. Marois has insisted that a sovereign Quebec would continue to use Canadian currency, and would have a seat on the board of the Bank of Canada. She also suggests that Quebec would effectively have no borders with the rest of Canada.
It seems reasonable to suspect that Marois will also insist that not only would a sovereign Quebec not accept its share of the national debt, but won't give up the transfer payments that effectively fund its lavish lifestyle.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper must not repeat the mistakes of Jean Chretien. To all of this he must say "non."
Marois' suggestions are in now way acceptable or even possible. Given how her government chooses to manage the Quebec economy -- discouraging, if not outright refusing, economic development -- the rest of the world has a right to its input on the desirability of doing business in Quebec. That pretty much requires a Quebec currency to fall like a stone against the Canadian dollar on international markets. With the Parti Quebecois in power, fall like a stone such a currency would. Guaranteed.
The idea of a sovereign Quebec without borders also flies in the face of the very concept of sovereignty. Having borders is a precursor of any semblance of sovereignty. Any 100-level political science student in Quebec presumably understands this, even if Madame Marois does not.
I understand that Prime Minister Harper is reluctant to get involved in the Quebec election. There is some good reason for this. But this is not an acceptable reason to remain silent and allow Marois to deceive the citizens of Quebec about what independence would mean for La Belle Province.
Ju me souviens, Mr Harper. Remember what happened in 1995. Do not repeat the mistakes of that year in 2014.
The year was 1995. The place was Quebec. There was a referendum going on that would decide whether or not Quebec would seek to separate from the rest of Canada.
Jean Chretien was the Prime Minister of Canada. Lucien Bouchard was the Premier of Quebec. Chretien was reluctant to get involved in the referendum. And Bouchard took full advantage of that.
Mr Bouchard promised Quebeckers the moon: after separating from Canada Quebec would not accept its share of the national debt. Quebec would continue to use Canadian currency. Quebec would continue to benefit from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) without negotiating their way into it.
None of these things were possible. But Chretien made no forceful attempt to dispel Bouchard's delusions (some would say lies). And Quebec very nearly voted in favour of separating from Canada.
That was 1995, nearly 20 years ago. Now the year is 2014, and Quebec's is having an election. Quebec's current Premier, Pauline Marois, is making very similar promises to what Bouchard promised. Marois has insisted that a sovereign Quebec would continue to use Canadian currency, and would have a seat on the board of the Bank of Canada. She also suggests that Quebec would effectively have no borders with the rest of Canada.
It seems reasonable to suspect that Marois will also insist that not only would a sovereign Quebec not accept its share of the national debt, but won't give up the transfer payments that effectively fund its lavish lifestyle.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper must not repeat the mistakes of Jean Chretien. To all of this he must say "non."
Marois' suggestions are in now way acceptable or even possible. Given how her government chooses to manage the Quebec economy -- discouraging, if not outright refusing, economic development -- the rest of the world has a right to its input on the desirability of doing business in Quebec. That pretty much requires a Quebec currency to fall like a stone against the Canadian dollar on international markets. With the Parti Quebecois in power, fall like a stone such a currency would. Guaranteed.
The idea of a sovereign Quebec without borders also flies in the face of the very concept of sovereignty. Having borders is a precursor of any semblance of sovereignty. Any 100-level political science student in Quebec presumably understands this, even if Madame Marois does not.
I understand that Prime Minister Harper is reluctant to get involved in the Quebec election. There is some good reason for this. But this is not an acceptable reason to remain silent and allow Marois to deceive the citizens of Quebec about what independence would mean for La Belle Province.
Ju me souviens, Mr Harper. Remember what happened in 1995. Do not repeat the mistakes of that year in 2014.
Monday, December 23, 2013
It's Callted "Research," Michael...
Research! You would think, perhaps, that iPolitics' Michael Harris would have heard of it?
Well, if you read his most recent column with a careful eye, you may be forced to conclude that, no. He hasn't heard of it.
In something of a desperate bid to confuse the Harper governments Economic Action Plan ads for the Liberal Party's own Adscam, Harris winds up making some rather scurrilous comments about the ads:
"No one is better at giving himself straight As than this PM. The new explanation went something like this: The ads were worth it because after seeing their key message — that Canada was doing better than any other developed country in tough economic times — Canadians would burst with pride at what a good government they had.
Setting aside the neck-snapping shift in the justification, there was another problem with the ads. They weren’t true either. Canada does not have the highest growth rate in the G7 — the United States does. Outside the G7, the economies of Australia and some Scandinavian countries also grew faster than Canada’s did."
Looking back on 2012, we can quickly see that Harris' claims here are tacitly false. The United States GDP outgrew Canada's... in the third quarter. Through the entirety of 2012, the GDP of Canada and the United States each grew at 2.1%. It took an unexpected third quarter for the US to pull even with Canada in 2012, but the shine wore off through the final quarter.
It's especially worth noting that Canada out-performed the United States in per-capita GDP growth, widely considered to be a better predictor of overall economic growth.
So in other words, Harris would have to make a single quarter a microcosm for the entirety of 2012's comparative growth, ignoring all other quarters, for Harris' claims to even seem true.
It certainly also helps that Harris is using current economic numbers -- the US has once again had a strong third quarter -- when the numbers used in the ads, aired during the 2013 NHL playoffs, were most likely from the first quarter of 2013. Canada's GDP numbers blew the US away in quarter number one. Talk about shifting the goalposts in truly epic fashion.
It's enough to make you wonder about the editing that takes place in the iPolitics offices. This is far from the first time Michael Harris has thrown caution to the wind and committed a savage burn on his oblivious readership. It's actually become quite routine.
Well, if you read his most recent column with a careful eye, you may be forced to conclude that, no. He hasn't heard of it.
In something of a desperate bid to confuse the Harper governments Economic Action Plan ads for the Liberal Party's own Adscam, Harris winds up making some rather scurrilous comments about the ads:
"No one is better at giving himself straight As than this PM. The new explanation went something like this: The ads were worth it because after seeing their key message — that Canada was doing better than any other developed country in tough economic times — Canadians would burst with pride at what a good government they had.
Setting aside the neck-snapping shift in the justification, there was another problem with the ads. They weren’t true either. Canada does not have the highest growth rate in the G7 — the United States does. Outside the G7, the economies of Australia and some Scandinavian countries also grew faster than Canada’s did."
Looking back on 2012, we can quickly see that Harris' claims here are tacitly false. The United States GDP outgrew Canada's... in the third quarter. Through the entirety of 2012, the GDP of Canada and the United States each grew at 2.1%. It took an unexpected third quarter for the US to pull even with Canada in 2012, but the shine wore off through the final quarter.
It's especially worth noting that Canada out-performed the United States in per-capita GDP growth, widely considered to be a better predictor of overall economic growth.
So in other words, Harris would have to make a single quarter a microcosm for the entirety of 2012's comparative growth, ignoring all other quarters, for Harris' claims to even seem true.
It certainly also helps that Harris is using current economic numbers -- the US has once again had a strong third quarter -- when the numbers used in the ads, aired during the 2013 NHL playoffs, were most likely from the first quarter of 2013. Canada's GDP numbers blew the US away in quarter number one. Talk about shifting the goalposts in truly epic fashion.
It's enough to make you wonder about the editing that takes place in the iPolitics offices. This is far from the first time Michael Harris has thrown caution to the wind and committed a savage burn on his oblivious readership. It's actually become quite routine.
Monday, November 11, 2013
So Exactly What Was it All For?
So, Prime Minister Stephen Harper got his way. Senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau have been suspended without pay, presumably because they allegedly violated Senate spending rules -- although Canadians still don't know for certain whether or not they did.
And now that they have been suspended, what do we find? That Senator Brazeau won't have to pay a dime on his alleged expense bill for the duration of his two-year suspension.
Presumably he won't be alone to this end. Which once again provokes a very serious question:
What exactly has all of this been for?
It obviously wasn't to get to the bottom to the entire affair. In fact, the suspension of Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau seems to have been calculated to avoid the sort of due process that would lead to a definitive answer to just what, if anything, these three have actually done wrong.
And it very clearly wasn't to prompt Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau to get the money repaid. Duffy paid -- part of an ethically-dubious deal hatched with the PMO -- despite the conclusions of a Deloitte audit that found his total ineligible expenses was much lower than the $90,000 Nigel Wright gave him to repay. And on top of all this, we now have the revelation that Brazeau won't have to pay for quite a while because of his suspension.
The Senate scandal has been a textbook case of how the actions taken to head off an embarrassing incident can balloon into an embarrassment far greater than that, and in time grow into a quite-genuine scandal.
In the wake of this revelation, Stephen Harper owes Canadians a damn good explanation. What was the rush to suspend Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau really for? At this point only Harper really knows for certain.
And now that they have been suspended, what do we find? That Senator Brazeau won't have to pay a dime on his alleged expense bill for the duration of his two-year suspension.
Presumably he won't be alone to this end. Which once again provokes a very serious question:
What exactly has all of this been for?
It obviously wasn't to get to the bottom to the entire affair. In fact, the suspension of Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau seems to have been calculated to avoid the sort of due process that would lead to a definitive answer to just what, if anything, these three have actually done wrong.
And it very clearly wasn't to prompt Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau to get the money repaid. Duffy paid -- part of an ethically-dubious deal hatched with the PMO -- despite the conclusions of a Deloitte audit that found his total ineligible expenses was much lower than the $90,000 Nigel Wright gave him to repay. And on top of all this, we now have the revelation that Brazeau won't have to pay for quite a while because of his suspension.
The Senate scandal has been a textbook case of how the actions taken to head off an embarrassing incident can balloon into an embarrassment far greater than that, and in time grow into a quite-genuine scandal.
In the wake of this revelation, Stephen Harper owes Canadians a damn good explanation. What was the rush to suspend Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau really for? At this point only Harper really knows for certain.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Stephen's Chosen, But the Hope of the Party Remains
As I recently noted on this blog, I've lost confidence in Stephen Harper as Prime Minister and as Conservative Party leader. His refusal to rein in the secretive backroom behaviour in the Prime Minister's Office, and his determination to double down on that by circumventing due process have become an utterly untenable position for anyone who values democracy.
That being said, I'm not pulling a sonakent. What I mean by this is that, unlike some, I never supported or joined the Conservative Party merely as a means to gain political prominence. Rather, I supported and joined the party because I cherish the values for which it stands, and principles upon which it was built.
To allow the political destiny of Canada to be dictated by unelected officials in a backroom of the PMO flies in the very face of that. It's the reason why then-Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay turned his back on the demands David Orchard made in such a backroom and put the destiny of that party before its membership.
Stephen Harper should know this very well. In the end, he was a beneficiary of that decision. It allowed him to negotiate the merger of the PC and Canadian Alliance parties. The events that followed culminated with him becoming Prime Minister of Canada. He seems to have forgotten this. But I haven't.
Today, rank-and-file delegates at the party convention voted to tighten party rules regarding financial reporting. It's an imperfect means to discourage -- if not outright prevent -- unilateral decisions to use party funds for questionable purposes, but it does serve to one very specific, and important, end: it reminds party brass that they are not to simply use party funds for any purpose they deem fit, up to and including making potentially-embarrassing episodes go away.
Interestingly enough, a number of labour unions in Canada -- those who donated funds to help Pat Martin fight a defamation lawsuit that he eventually settled -- have a very similar issue of their own to plumb. I'm not aware of any of these unions holding a convention since these donations became public knowledge, but whether or not rank-and-file union members try to head off such actions in the future will be interesting to see. As it will be interesting to see how hard their leaders may resist such rule-tightening.
The Stephen Harpers and Nigel Wrights of the party brass need to take note of the message rank-and-file members have sent today: we expect that party officials will take their direction from party members, and that unelected bureaucrats will take their directions from elected officials, not vise versa. Any of you who cannot abide this had best vacate your positions.
As for myself, I will not turn my back on the party and on my fellow party members; not so long as they continue to stand for the values and principles for which this party -- and this country -- stand.
That being said, I'm not pulling a sonakent. What I mean by this is that, unlike some, I never supported or joined the Conservative Party merely as a means to gain political prominence. Rather, I supported and joined the party because I cherish the values for which it stands, and principles upon which it was built.
To allow the political destiny of Canada to be dictated by unelected officials in a backroom of the PMO flies in the very face of that. It's the reason why then-Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay turned his back on the demands David Orchard made in such a backroom and put the destiny of that party before its membership.
Stephen Harper should know this very well. In the end, he was a beneficiary of that decision. It allowed him to negotiate the merger of the PC and Canadian Alliance parties. The events that followed culminated with him becoming Prime Minister of Canada. He seems to have forgotten this. But I haven't.
Today, rank-and-file delegates at the party convention voted to tighten party rules regarding financial reporting. It's an imperfect means to discourage -- if not outright prevent -- unilateral decisions to use party funds for questionable purposes, but it does serve to one very specific, and important, end: it reminds party brass that they are not to simply use party funds for any purpose they deem fit, up to and including making potentially-embarrassing episodes go away.
Interestingly enough, a number of labour unions in Canada -- those who donated funds to help Pat Martin fight a defamation lawsuit that he eventually settled -- have a very similar issue of their own to plumb. I'm not aware of any of these unions holding a convention since these donations became public knowledge, but whether or not rank-and-file union members try to head off such actions in the future will be interesting to see. As it will be interesting to see how hard their leaders may resist such rule-tightening.
The Stephen Harpers and Nigel Wrights of the party brass need to take note of the message rank-and-file members have sent today: we expect that party officials will take their direction from party members, and that unelected bureaucrats will take their directions from elected officials, not vise versa. Any of you who cannot abide this had best vacate your positions.
As for myself, I will not turn my back on the party and on my fellow party members; not so long as they continue to stand for the values and principles for which this party -- and this country -- stand.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
What Stephen Harper Should Have Done Right
Apparently, my last blogpost here was something of a bombshell. I think I've made it quite clear what I think Prime Minister Stephen Harper is doing wrong.
But I haven't yet made it clear how Harper should have handled the matter.
There's one thing Harper isn't wrong about: perception matters. Which is actually why, in making the decision to harangue Senator Mike Duffy -- a Senator he himself appointed to the upper chamber -- into repaying allegedly-ineligible expenses, he committed more than a simple error.
It's because perception matters that issues such as the one confronting Harper over Duffy and his colleagues Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau should have been handled in the open through due process, and should have been seen handled in the open via due process. The only role Harper should have had any point in this entire sad affair was calling a public inquiry to sort through the allegations against Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau and sort through the explanations each has -- none of which I find to be tacitly incredible, one way or the other.
That's exactly how the PMO should have handled the entire matter as well. And while Nigel Wright may or may not have acted without Harper's knowledge -- my opinion is that he likely did -- he was acting within Harper's stated wishes. It was Harper's desire that this go away quietly instead of the requisite questions being answered through due process that drove Wright to act as he did.
No one can argue that Harper isn't responsible for the actions of the PMO. Even if he didn't know what was going on -- the absolute least of which was Wright's cheque -- he should have. After issuing a directive that the Senate scandal be made to go away quietly, he should have checked up on exactly what was being done to make it happen. Of course, even this never should have happened, because Harper never should have even been so involved.
And now that Harper has been so involved he's attempting to roll on everyone else involved. He's changed his story on Wright so many times in so many ways that it's nearly impossible to keep track of it all.
He did it to himself, seemingly out of nothing more than a disdain for letting the matter be handled through due process out of the fear -- the mere fear -- of due process. And it may now be too late for him to turn back.
\Over this one comparatively inconsequential issue he's managed to lend fire to one of the left-wing Twitterverse's most impotent slogans; for the first time, Prime Minister Harper must resign.
But I haven't yet made it clear how Harper should have handled the matter.
There's one thing Harper isn't wrong about: perception matters. Which is actually why, in making the decision to harangue Senator Mike Duffy -- a Senator he himself appointed to the upper chamber -- into repaying allegedly-ineligible expenses, he committed more than a simple error.
It's because perception matters that issues such as the one confronting Harper over Duffy and his colleagues Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau should have been handled in the open through due process, and should have been seen handled in the open via due process. The only role Harper should have had any point in this entire sad affair was calling a public inquiry to sort through the allegations against Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau and sort through the explanations each has -- none of which I find to be tacitly incredible, one way or the other.
That's exactly how the PMO should have handled the entire matter as well. And while Nigel Wright may or may not have acted without Harper's knowledge -- my opinion is that he likely did -- he was acting within Harper's stated wishes. It was Harper's desire that this go away quietly instead of the requisite questions being answered through due process that drove Wright to act as he did.
No one can argue that Harper isn't responsible for the actions of the PMO. Even if he didn't know what was going on -- the absolute least of which was Wright's cheque -- he should have. After issuing a directive that the Senate scandal be made to go away quietly, he should have checked up on exactly what was being done to make it happen. Of course, even this never should have happened, because Harper never should have even been so involved.
And now that Harper has been so involved he's attempting to roll on everyone else involved. He's changed his story on Wright so many times in so many ways that it's nearly impossible to keep track of it all.
He did it to himself, seemingly out of nothing more than a disdain for letting the matter be handled through due process out of the fear -- the mere fear -- of due process. And it may now be too late for him to turn back.
\Over this one comparatively inconsequential issue he's managed to lend fire to one of the left-wing Twitterverse's most impotent slogans; for the first time, Prime Minister Harper must resign.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Stephen's Chosen
Some may recall a blogpost entitled "Stephen's Choice." It was written very shortly after Brent Rathgeber left the Conservative Party caucus over the unacceptable gutting of his public service transparency bill.
In case you don't want to read the entire post again to get the gist of it, the message was fairly simple: that the Conservative Party of Canada, as Harper has built it, would either live or die based on the direction Harper took it in a party leader. If the party returned to its principles of open government by elected officials, the party, as Harper has built it, would live. If he allowed the trend of important decisions being made in back rooms by non-elected officials the party, as Harper has built it, would die.
Harper has made his choice. The party, as Harper has built it, has died.
A motion to suspend three former Conservative Senators without pay is an odd funeral. And yet here we are. And the same nonsense that has been going on ever since the allegations of impropriety against Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau arose seems to have flowed right out of the nonsense that surrounded Rathgeber's departure from caucus.
Today, Senator Patrick Brazeau reported that the government leader in the Senate, Claude Carignan, offered him what amounted to a backroom deal: if Brazeau agreed to apologize to Canadians for allegedly filing fraudulent expense claims, the punishment would be less severe.
"At approximately 10:20 am this morning, I was outside this chamber in the back and the leader of the Senate, the leader of the government in the Senate, took me aside. And I'll be very careful about my words here, but I was essentially offered a backroom deal," Brazeau explained. "And the backroom deal was that if I stood in this chamber, apologized to Canadians and took responsibility for my actions, that my punishment would be lesser than what is being proposed."
For his own part, Senator Carignan insists that he didn't intend to unduly threaten Brazeau, and that his words to Breazeau were meant as advice to a friend. Carignan insists Brazeau misinterpreted him. But given some of the interactions between Senator Duffy and the PMO, as well as some of his fellow Senators, I personally find that difficult to believe.
Whether phrased to Brazeau as an explicit offer/threat or not, Carignan was continuing a trend that allowed this affair to blow up as it has in the first place. Keep in mind that none of the allegations against Duffy, Wallun or Brazeau have ever been proven using anything even resembling due process -- something that Wallin noted when speaking in the Senate. There have been numerous audits that have supported, in turn, both the claims of impropriety and the defenses offered against them. This matter is far from settled in the mind of any fair-minded Canadian, one way or the other.
In the end, this is what the motion to suspend Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau is: an end-run around that due process; a desperate attempt to try to make this entire affair go away without the allegations ever being raised and sorted in a public forum of any sort. As Peter Goldring pointed out today, this is wrong and arguably a violation of the accused Senators' Charter Rights.
All of this when the best way to deal with all of this was, for better or worse, to deal with the entire mess out in the open, and to be seen dealing with the whole mess right out in the open. Where everyone can see what is happening, judge the evidence against Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau for themselves, and judge the government for its response to it.
Now the third of these three things is taking place, and because of the government's refusal to deal with it out in the open, that judgement has been overwhelmingly negative.
Inexplicably, Harper doubled down on this today. In an interview with John Tory, Harper insisted that the facts against the Senators were crystal clear. Given that some of the audits -- particularly those regarding Duffy's expenses -- actually support Duffy's claims, that Wallin and Brazeau each claim to have received approval from the Senate for the expenses they claimed, the only thing that is crystal clear is that nothing about this is crystal clear. At least not for those who haven't pre-judged the entire affair.
So in Harper's hands, the Conservative Party, as he promised all Canadians it would conduct itself in government, has died. There may now be no resuscitating it.
The form of this death should not be mistaken for the death that opponents of the party crave. The party exists, will continue to exist, and even though Harper's stubbornness and carelessness is currently dividing this party, there are still those within the party who can unite it again.
I'm by no means withdrawing my support for the Conservative Party. But I have withdrawn my confidence in the leadership of Stephen Harper. There's still time for the party to be revitalized and reunited under new leadership, provided that Harper can find it in himself to offer his resignation.
Keep in mind that the only viable alternatives to Stephen Harper as Prime Minister are within the Conservative Party. His principal opponents, Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair, are fools who have no business even imagining governing this country, let alone ever actually doing it.
Stephen Harper has made his choice. Now he has to live with it. But the very least he can do is allow the party to find new life with new leadership.
In case you don't want to read the entire post again to get the gist of it, the message was fairly simple: that the Conservative Party of Canada, as Harper has built it, would either live or die based on the direction Harper took it in a party leader. If the party returned to its principles of open government by elected officials, the party, as Harper has built it, would live. If he allowed the trend of important decisions being made in back rooms by non-elected officials the party, as Harper has built it, would die.
Harper has made his choice. The party, as Harper has built it, has died.
A motion to suspend three former Conservative Senators without pay is an odd funeral. And yet here we are. And the same nonsense that has been going on ever since the allegations of impropriety against Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau arose seems to have flowed right out of the nonsense that surrounded Rathgeber's departure from caucus.
Today, Senator Patrick Brazeau reported that the government leader in the Senate, Claude Carignan, offered him what amounted to a backroom deal: if Brazeau agreed to apologize to Canadians for allegedly filing fraudulent expense claims, the punishment would be less severe.
"At approximately 10:20 am this morning, I was outside this chamber in the back and the leader of the Senate, the leader of the government in the Senate, took me aside. And I'll be very careful about my words here, but I was essentially offered a backroom deal," Brazeau explained. "And the backroom deal was that if I stood in this chamber, apologized to Canadians and took responsibility for my actions, that my punishment would be lesser than what is being proposed."
For his own part, Senator Carignan insists that he didn't intend to unduly threaten Brazeau, and that his words to Breazeau were meant as advice to a friend. Carignan insists Brazeau misinterpreted him. But given some of the interactions between Senator Duffy and the PMO, as well as some of his fellow Senators, I personally find that difficult to believe.
Whether phrased to Brazeau as an explicit offer/threat or not, Carignan was continuing a trend that allowed this affair to blow up as it has in the first place. Keep in mind that none of the allegations against Duffy, Wallun or Brazeau have ever been proven using anything even resembling due process -- something that Wallin noted when speaking in the Senate. There have been numerous audits that have supported, in turn, both the claims of impropriety and the defenses offered against them. This matter is far from settled in the mind of any fair-minded Canadian, one way or the other.
In the end, this is what the motion to suspend Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau is: an end-run around that due process; a desperate attempt to try to make this entire affair go away without the allegations ever being raised and sorted in a public forum of any sort. As Peter Goldring pointed out today, this is wrong and arguably a violation of the accused Senators' Charter Rights.
All of this when the best way to deal with all of this was, for better or worse, to deal with the entire mess out in the open, and to be seen dealing with the whole mess right out in the open. Where everyone can see what is happening, judge the evidence against Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau for themselves, and judge the government for its response to it.
Now the third of these three things is taking place, and because of the government's refusal to deal with it out in the open, that judgement has been overwhelmingly negative.
Inexplicably, Harper doubled down on this today. In an interview with John Tory, Harper insisted that the facts against the Senators were crystal clear. Given that some of the audits -- particularly those regarding Duffy's expenses -- actually support Duffy's claims, that Wallin and Brazeau each claim to have received approval from the Senate for the expenses they claimed, the only thing that is crystal clear is that nothing about this is crystal clear. At least not for those who haven't pre-judged the entire affair.
So in Harper's hands, the Conservative Party, as he promised all Canadians it would conduct itself in government, has died. There may now be no resuscitating it.
The form of this death should not be mistaken for the death that opponents of the party crave. The party exists, will continue to exist, and even though Harper's stubbornness and carelessness is currently dividing this party, there are still those within the party who can unite it again.
I'm by no means withdrawing my support for the Conservative Party. But I have withdrawn my confidence in the leadership of Stephen Harper. There's still time for the party to be revitalized and reunited under new leadership, provided that Harper can find it in himself to offer his resignation.
Keep in mind that the only viable alternatives to Stephen Harper as Prime Minister are within the Conservative Party. His principal opponents, Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair, are fools who have no business even imagining governing this country, let alone ever actually doing it.
Stephen Harper has made his choice. Now he has to live with it. But the very least he can do is allow the party to find new life with new leadership.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Stephen's Choice
In the wake of the tale swirling around Edmonton-St Albert MP Brent Rathgeber, one thing is becoming crystal-clear:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a choice to make: the Conservative Party of Canada -- his very own creation -- can live or it can die. And he has to make that choice pretty much right now. Yes, it is that simple.
The story is alarming: Rathgeber had a private member's bill before Parliament that would require the government to publicly list any federal government employee who earns $144,000 or more. Seven Conservative MPs voted in committee to bump that threshold up to $400,000. There wouldn't be very many public servatns on that list. In terms of determining what it costs to pay the wages of Canada's public service it wouldn't be spectacularly useful information.
So Rathgeber decided to resign from the Conservative Party caucus. He insisted that the seven MPs who voted to gut his bill did so under instructions from the Prime Minister's Office. But apparently the Prime Minister himself may never have been involved. The directions -- effectively orders followed by seven elected Members of Parliament -- are said to have come from appointed PMO staffers.
That is so backward it isn't even funny. Since its inception as a country Canada has ostensibly been a democracy. That means that appointed staffers in the office of the head of government should, if anything, take their direction from elected officials. Not the other way around. Otherwise, it isn't democracy.
That's a big part of the principles that the modern Conservative Party was supposed to have been founded on. And if Prime Minister Stephen Harper cannot find it in himself to -- as hinself an elected official -- set this balance of power right, he will have so thoroughly lost sight of the most fundamental principle that justified his leadership not only of his party, but of this country. And if that's happened there's not a single reason for any Conservative MP who continues to cherish the principles on which this party was founded to continue following him.
Can the Conservative Party survive in its current form without Stephen Harper's leadership? At this current time, I don't think so. Even if Harper were no longer party leader his leadership -- in some form -- would still be integral to the party's continuing ability to function. If Harper undermines his own credibility, he will be undermining the party's prospects of survival.
So Harper has a choice: he will either work this issue with Brent Rathgeber out, restoring the balance of democratic power, or he won't. In doing so he will choose whether the Conservative Party, in its current form, will live or if it will die.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a choice to make: the Conservative Party of Canada -- his very own creation -- can live or it can die. And he has to make that choice pretty much right now. Yes, it is that simple.
The story is alarming: Rathgeber had a private member's bill before Parliament that would require the government to publicly list any federal government employee who earns $144,000 or more. Seven Conservative MPs voted in committee to bump that threshold up to $400,000. There wouldn't be very many public servatns on that list. In terms of determining what it costs to pay the wages of Canada's public service it wouldn't be spectacularly useful information.
So Rathgeber decided to resign from the Conservative Party caucus. He insisted that the seven MPs who voted to gut his bill did so under instructions from the Prime Minister's Office. But apparently the Prime Minister himself may never have been involved. The directions -- effectively orders followed by seven elected Members of Parliament -- are said to have come from appointed PMO staffers.
That is so backward it isn't even funny. Since its inception as a country Canada has ostensibly been a democracy. That means that appointed staffers in the office of the head of government should, if anything, take their direction from elected officials. Not the other way around. Otherwise, it isn't democracy.
That's a big part of the principles that the modern Conservative Party was supposed to have been founded on. And if Prime Minister Stephen Harper cannot find it in himself to -- as hinself an elected official -- set this balance of power right, he will have so thoroughly lost sight of the most fundamental principle that justified his leadership not only of his party, but of this country. And if that's happened there's not a single reason for any Conservative MP who continues to cherish the principles on which this party was founded to continue following him.
Can the Conservative Party survive in its current form without Stephen Harper's leadership? At this current time, I don't think so. Even if Harper were no longer party leader his leadership -- in some form -- would still be integral to the party's continuing ability to function. If Harper undermines his own credibility, he will be undermining the party's prospects of survival.
So Harper has a choice: he will either work this issue with Brent Rathgeber out, restoring the balance of democratic power, or he won't. In doing so he will choose whether the Conservative Party, in its current form, will live or if it will die.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Barbara Falby's Excellent Adventure? Or Is It a Bogus Journey?
A fun letter to the editor of the Toronto Star has been making the rounds today. It goes a little something like this:
It goes a little something like this:
Step one - Google "Barbara Falby"
Step two - chortle chortle chortle
The results came up a little something like this:
"Whitewashing the Tarsands:"
The Royal Society of Canada didn't find the claims convincing, either. They've been holding out for more evidence. The punchline is that Babs wrote this a year ago in August 2011... well after AHS and the Royal Society reported.
"VOW Resolution: the Delegitimization of War:"
It sucks, but sometimes wars have to happen. So to delegitimize war is a nice thought, but an impossible idea.
"Development of the Oilsands - The Elephant in the Room:"
Oh, she's also against the construction of new housing units, apparently:
There's probably more. But with responses to Falby's ridiculous Toronto Star letter clogging up the Google canal, it would take a lot of digging to find it all. Maybe that would be an alright project for some enterprising smartass who isn't myself.
Many opinions have been expressed about the shooting of 24 people in a Toronto community housing project, and the shooting of 82 in a Colorado movie theatre. Admirably, the CBC is explored the role of extremely high temperatures as a trigger for violent behaviour. I know that living in a small, hot, airless room would motivate me to strike out at people.
Other organizations are exploring the “pistolization” of North American society; i.e., gun availability and the media’s role in legitimizing their use. The time has come to recognize Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s part in both of these scenarios.
Extremely hot weather has been allowed to escalate, because Mr. Harper pretends there is no such thing as climate change, having cut funding for many scientific studies, and having denied climate scientists access to media, without PMO approval, despite increasing evidence of species extinction (bats, frogs, bees, etc.), extreme heat (severe drought causing massive crop losses) and freakish weather (disastrous flooding and increase in tornadoes). Mr. Harper can take credit for blocking serious efforts by scientists who wanted the Canadian government to deal with this impending disaster.
The pistolization of Canadian society has increased because Mr. Harper has consistently argued for Canadians’ right to own long guns. Media talk seldom distinguishes between handguns and long guns, although some U.S. press reports emphasize that the Colorado shooter was able to wreak severe damage with both.
Many leaders, including American presidents, have been assassinated with long guns, so Mr. Harper’s naivete on the subject astounds. Most importantly, because many media reports simply repeat Harper’s words without comment, a clear debate about the idiocy of abandoning the long gun registry is lost on many.
Canada’s disaffected youth only hear the message that everyone should have the right to own a gun. By destroying an important piece of Canadian legislation, such as the Long Gun Registry Act, Mr. Harper and his government can now be regarded as accessories after the fact, aiding and abetting the increase in gun violence we are now seeing.
Because the Harper government, in these two areas, has played a large part in the rise of gun violence, it should do the decent thing and step down. Previously, gun violence in Canada has been held in check by government programs and regulations. This leader and his henchmen, however, have managed to abolish well-meaning legislation intended to protect the Canadian public.
How can a government, whose members’ ridings have shown widespread evidence of voter suppression techniques, such as robocalls, and outright fraud, accomplish such an outright abuse of power?
Furthermore, Mr. Harper’s singular lack of imagination in policies regarding the environment, and social policies, etc. show that he does not deserve his position of power. I pray that the justice system will quickly step in to remove illegitimate ministers, senators, and MPs by any logistical means possible, as quickly as possible. Injunctions, forbidding them from entering Parliament could be one such effective measure.Did you get all that? If you're anything like me, you probably didn't. I couldn't get through the first two paragraphs before writing this Barbara Falby off as a complete lunatic. So I decided to conduct a two-step experiment to find out if Babs Falby is really this crazy, or if this is some kind of aberration.
It goes a little something like this:
Step one - Google "Barbara Falby"
Step two - chortle chortle chortle
The results came up a little something like this:
"Whitewashing the Tarsands:"
Unfortunately, there are probably many silent victims of the tar sands – the families afflicted with cancer because they drank downstream water. Not only they, but their families are those suffering – how does one explain to an infant that the mother’s death was justified because the oil that caused it was “ethical oil”? There is a rising mortality rate in several small communities that is magnified because those communities are very small and very isolated. Substitute stones for oil, and the harm is just as great. In fact, the damage done to the boreal forest and to the wildlife population is unconscionable. We are all affected when our oxygen supplies are threatened and our rivers poisoned.Apparently, Babs didn't get the memo when Alberta Health Services looked into the Fort Chipeywan cancer scare and found that the "elevated" cancer rate at Fort Chipeywan was within the standard deviation... and was accompanied by various lifestyle markers, including elevated rates of hypertension.
The Royal Society of Canada didn't find the claims convincing, either. They've been holding out for more evidence. The punchline is that Babs wrote this a year ago in August 2011... well after AHS and the Royal Society reported.
"VOW Resolution: the Delegitimization of War:"
Whereas: military wars have directly or indirectly caused unconscionable suffering and/or death for millions of men, women, and other species; and
Whereas: military emissions form an unnecessary part of the world’s CO2 count, by adding to its rise, which threatens to eliminate one sixth of its human population, and up to three quarters of its ecosystems,
Be It Resolved that: The Canadian Voice of Women for Peace renews its call for the immediate delegitimization of all violent conflict and international war, by urging the federal government of Canada to support the goals of the UN Charter by embedding this policy in all of its practices, and furthermore, to urge all nation states to adopt these same policies and practices as soon as possible.
Moved by: Barbara Falby Seconded by: Elizabeth RaymerYes, Babs. War is awful. We get it. We even agree. However, sometimes war is also necessary. Think World War Two. The Korean War. The Star Wars Trilogy.
It sucks, but sometimes wars have to happen. So to delegitimize war is a nice thought, but an impossible idea.
"Development of the Oilsands - The Elephant in the Room:"
I believe that more attention could be focused on demand, rather than supply. I urge all governments immediately, to abandon the policy of providing free flights for elected representatives and staff. All governments would thereby cancel a direct subsidy, and be forced to look at alternative, less emitting forms of travel.
News media could participate by refusing to follow politicians unless they refuse to fly.But I imagine that celebrities who fly all over the world to sound the alarm over "human-induced climate change" are all hunky dory. But I think it's worth asking: how did Alana Mitchell get from Dana Point, California to the University of Toronto's Trinity College to receive an honourary doctorate? That was Falby's idea.
Oh, she's also against the construction of new housing units, apparently:
Why are we continuing to allow the huge emissions that are produced by such projects? The greenest building is the one that is already built. With extreme weather events like floods and droughts, affecting millions of people in far off countries, we are at the tipping point of runaway climate change, with the CO2 count now at 391 ppm, and ocean plankton and coral reefs unable to survive counts above 360 ppm. Ocean plankton, by the way, provide us with one half of the world's oxygen. For the first time, the Everglades in Florida have produced more CO2 than oxygen. The Toronto City Council and the OMB should be ashamed of themselves for allowing such monstrously wasteful and destructive projects.Good gawd. It's not all about plankton and coral reefs. People need places to live, too! Sheesh.
There's probably more. But with responses to Falby's ridiculous Toronto Star letter clogging up the Google canal, it would take a lot of digging to find it all. Maybe that would be an alright project for some enterprising smartass who isn't myself.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Justin Trudeau: Ideology First, Canada Second
Son of Trudeau turns out be a barely-hidden separatist
Those familiar with Canadian history have become familiar with one basic, overwhelming fact about it -- that there are, in fact, two different versions of Canadian history.
There's the fairy tale Canadian history, in which Pierre Trudeau is allegedly the father of the nation, a luminescent figure and separatist fighter who is at all times above reproach. Then, there is the real Canadian history -- wherein Trudeau precipitated a near-permanent national unity crisis for the sole purpose of being able to sign his name to the repatriated Constitution.
Pierre Trudeau was the kind of Prime Minister who always put himself and his agenda first, and put Canada second.
Now, it turns out that his son is not a whit different.
In an interview with the french language CBC, Trudeau suggested that he would embrace separatism if Canada were to become too conservative under Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- the very Prime Minister who, for the first time in 30 years, is setting about repairing the damage Pierre Trudeau did to the Canadian state and polity.
"I always say, if at a certain point I thought that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper - that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways - maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country," he declared.
"If I no longer recognized Canada, I know my values very well," he added.
"But I believe deeply in Canada," he added, almost as an afterthought.
Yes, it turns out that Justin Trudeau is just another of the kind of far-leftist Canada has become all too familiar with in the most recent years -- those hell-bent on transforming Canada into a far-left construct, for the sole purpose of the implementation of their demagogic agenda. Or at least, if they've already convinced themselves that Canada was such a place, the preservation of that.
It's nothing new. It's nothing shocking. We've already seen it in the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire partisan who currently sits as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. Her name, as you know, is Nycole Turmel.
During the 2006 election, Turmel endorsed not candidates of the NDP -- the party she currently leads on an interim basis -- but Bloc Quebecois candidates. Turmel was the President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada at the time, and she declared that BQ candidates were more likely to support PSAC's agenda.
That the BQ's agenda is to destroy Canada is a detail that seems to have entirely evaded her attention.
Now, Justin Trudeau -- the heir apparent to the man who gave life to the separatist crisis that nearly dismembered Canada in 1995 -- has revealed himself to be a member of this particular club: the Canada Second Club. Where their ideological agenda is the only thing that matters, and Canada can be damned as far as they care.
Those familiar with Canadian history have become familiar with one basic, overwhelming fact about it -- that there are, in fact, two different versions of Canadian history.
There's the fairy tale Canadian history, in which Pierre Trudeau is allegedly the father of the nation, a luminescent figure and separatist fighter who is at all times above reproach. Then, there is the real Canadian history -- wherein Trudeau precipitated a near-permanent national unity crisis for the sole purpose of being able to sign his name to the repatriated Constitution.
Pierre Trudeau was the kind of Prime Minister who always put himself and his agenda first, and put Canada second.
Now, it turns out that his son is not a whit different.
In an interview with the french language CBC, Trudeau suggested that he would embrace separatism if Canada were to become too conservative under Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- the very Prime Minister who, for the first time in 30 years, is setting about repairing the damage Pierre Trudeau did to the Canadian state and polity.
"I always say, if at a certain point I thought that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper - that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways - maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country," he declared.
"If I no longer recognized Canada, I know my values very well," he added.
"But I believe deeply in Canada," he added, almost as an afterthought.
Yes, it turns out that Justin Trudeau is just another of the kind of far-leftist Canada has become all too familiar with in the most recent years -- those hell-bent on transforming Canada into a far-left construct, for the sole purpose of the implementation of their demagogic agenda. Or at least, if they've already convinced themselves that Canada was such a place, the preservation of that.
It's nothing new. It's nothing shocking. We've already seen it in the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire partisan who currently sits as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. Her name, as you know, is Nycole Turmel.
During the 2006 election, Turmel endorsed not candidates of the NDP -- the party she currently leads on an interim basis -- but Bloc Quebecois candidates. Turmel was the President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada at the time, and she declared that BQ candidates were more likely to support PSAC's agenda.
That the BQ's agenda is to destroy Canada is a detail that seems to have entirely evaded her attention.
Now, Justin Trudeau -- the heir apparent to the man who gave life to the separatist crisis that nearly dismembered Canada in 1995 -- has revealed himself to be a member of this particular club: the Canada Second Club. Where their ideological agenda is the only thing that matters, and Canada can be damned as far as they care.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Desperation Cubed
When Jean Chretien ascended to the office of Prime Minister after the 1993 federal election, Time Magazine hailed him as "yesterday's man".
It was, in every sense, a deeply cogent pronouncement. Chretien was a relic of a Canadian politics many considered to be long past, one that could only prevent the ascension of a new political regime by vilifying it. When Chretien was in office the target of relentless vilification was Preston Manning and the Reform Party. By the time Chretien was finally shuffled out the door by Paul Martin, it became clear that the politics envisioned by Manning and the Reform Party were very much the politics of Canada's future.
That future would never come with Manning at the helm. His predecessor, Stockwell Day, proved himself to be uniquely vulnerable to the character assassination tactics favoured by the Liberal Party. They were able to destroy Day's leadership prospects to a degree they previously could only fantasize about.
Then along came Stephen Harper. And while the fear-mongering could hold Harper off for a time -- for two years to be precise -- it couldn't destroy his Prime Ministerial hopes the way the Liberals had hoped.
Not that they didn't try. God, did they ever try. They forecasted the destruction of Canada as we knew it: the repeal of same-sex marriage, the end of abortion freedoms, even soldiers -- with guns -- in our cities. They called it Harper's hidden agenda. The only reason why no one else could find any evidence of Harper having such plans was because it was so, well, hidden.
On February 6, 2006, Harper became Prime Minister of Canada. And something remarkable happened: all the horrors the Liberals assured us were forthcoming never came. They never happened.
For a time, they assured us that they just hadn't happened yet because Harper only had a minority. The "hidden agenda" meme lived on in their imaginations, even though Canadians further rejected it in 2008, when they reelected Harper with a stronger minority government.
Fewer and fewer Canadians believed Harper had a hidden agenda. In 2011, they reelected his government again -- this time with a majority government.
Now, it seems, the shit has truly hit the fan. Now, Jean Chretien has come out of hiding to insist that Harper has a hidden agenda.
Of course, he didn't say as much to the Canadian public. He said it in a fundraising letter sent out to his Party's dwindling followers.
"Next may be a woman's right to choose, or gay marriage. Then might come capital punishment. And one by one, the values we cherish as Canadians will be gone," Chretien wrote. The Harper government has already walked away from the Kyoto Protocol Chretien's government signed then never implemented, and the long gun registry which they claim reduces gun violence, but actually does nothing. "Unless we are bold. Unless we seize the moment. Everything we built will start being chipped away."
It's all terribly yawn-inducing -- so dreadfully reeking of desperation that it's tempting to simply discount the Liberal Party altogether.
This is a party that has nothing new to offer. It had nothing new to offer when it offered Jean Chretien, and Canadians only accepted that because they thought he was better than Kim Campbell or Joe Clark, and less scary than Preston Manning or Stockwell Day.
By both counts, they were wrong. Chretien embarked on a directionless and self-indulgent romp through Canadian politics, demonstrating just how ill-suited he was to mold Canada's present, or plan for Canada's future.
Now, with the Liberal Party's desperate reach into the past in a desperate bid to ensure its future, they've shown that this quality isn't unique among Liberals to Chretien. Rather, it's pandemic among Liberals.
They're desperate to survive. Desperate to matter. Desperate for your attention.
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