Transcend This, Frances

Frances Russell transcends reality

In a recent column in the Winnipeg Free Press, Frances Russell has found a unique partner for her periodic spleen-venting at Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Frank Graves.

That's Frank Graves of EKOS and "envoke a culture war" fame.

Russell seems rather puzzled that what she seems to believe is a progressive majority can't overcome Harper and his Conservative government.

The amusing thing is that she's tantalizingly close to the answers, even if she can't quite get over herself long enough to get there.

At one point, Russell seems to admit -- if one should indeed take this as a matter for admission -- that "Canada's progressive majority has fragmented". She cites a four-way split between the Liberal Party, NDP, Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois.

In other words: Russell seems to confuse the Liberals and Bloc for progressive political parties.

For the particularly intellectually-lazy denizens of the far left, it's an easy mistake for them to make. The laziness helps.

Certainly, there's a large progressive wing of the Liberal Party. But there's also a strong conservative wing of the party as well; one powerful enough to keep the party stable everytime it's pulled back to the right (more on this briefly).

The suggestion that the Bloc Quebecois is a progressive party at all is actually rather laughable. Although they frequently drape themselves in the trappings of left-wing politics, it's important to remember that the BQ is founded on racial politics, not welfare politics. If they believed that Quebec could be won accordingly, they could just as easily be the Quebecois equivalent of the British National Party.

People like Russell don't like to acknowledge this: the idea that the votes cast for the Bloc are cast in favour of a progressive ideology as opposed to one form or another of Quebecois parochialism is ideologically soothing to them, regardless of how ficticious it is.

But as John Ibbitson points out in The Polite Revolution, both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party are built out of two factions.

For the Conservative Party, it's a western wing built as the Reform Party and founded on the values of libertarianism and social conservatism, and an eastern wing built as the Progressive Conservative Party and founded on fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.

For the Liberal Party, it's a Mitchell Sharp/John Turner/Paul Martin wing of the party, founded on fiscal conservatism and decentralism, and a Walter Gordon/Pierre Trudeau/Jean Chretien wing of the party founded on social liberalism and centralism.

The Liberal Party is the party of Paul Szabo every bit as much as it's the party of Bob Rae.

If the Liberal Party were to fragment -- as Ibbitson suggests that both the Grits and Tories would under proportional representation -- the emerging coalition would clearly slide toward conservatism, provided that they could reach a detente over social issues. Perhaps the kind of detente that's been reached within the modern Conservative Party.

For Frances Russell, it should be an alarming prospect. But she seems to think she's found an answer: Frank Graves and cultural warfare. His weapons of choice seem to be the long-form census and the long-gun registry.

Of course, he doesn't want to seem like he's promoting cultural warfare, like he did to the Liberal Party. Instead, he wants it to seem like he's just trying to help Stephen Harper find the extra 1% or so of public support that he needs to win a majority government.

"I can't for the life of me figure out why a guy who needs two points, or one point, would start shoring up an already tenacious base with this red meat," Graves explains. "that doesn't appeal even to the six or seven per cent of new voters he captured in 2008."

"When he gets into a comfortable position and even when he's not, he and some of his closest advisers can't seem to transcend their core values," Graves continues. "How could anyone in his camp explain to him how doing the various things from prorogation to eliminating the long-form census, to launching a huge war to get rid of the long-gun registry to removing abortion from maternal and child health (would work). It doesn't make any sense."

Apparently, it doesn't occur to Graves that there are entire ridings -- such as NDP MP Peter Stoffer's -- that could quite easily swing over the long-gun registry. While the Liberal Party almost certainly plans to campaign on that topic in a future election -- using sophistry, fear mongering and emotional blackmail -- the ridings they will win on this issue are the ridings they already have. Canadiands could expect to see several Liberal rural ridings swing to the Tories.

The long-form census issue is a much more debatable topic. Unless the opposition finds the wherewithall to bring down the government before the next census is conducted, Canadians may well find the voluntary long-form to be far less painful than the so-called experts insist it will.

And it will certainly remind Canada's far left precisely how far Canadians really support their agenda. If they can't be convinced to provide their data voluntarily on the basis of their need for that information to justify vast portions of government programming, it will be hard to the statements Canadians will be making on the size and role of Canadian government.

For her own part, Russell seems to be acting on an impetus to help Graves turn the "culture war" narrative that he himself brought up on the conservatives by suggesting that it's Harper and the Tories who are waging a culture war.

It's laughable. The far left has literally begun to think of their ideology as definitive of Canadian culture. It's a shameful and selfish notion, but not one that Canada's far left has proven particularly resistant to.

Russell also wishes to pass Graves' advice to the Liberals along: he suggests that the Liberals, if in government, should cancel the construction of new prison space and the purchase of new fighter jets. He suggests that the Conservatives should produce environmental policy amicable to the left.

It's typical of a Liberal Party strategist: suggest that the Tories should acquiesce to their agenda, and advise the Liberal Party to govern irresponsibly.

Never mind that policies like the disgraceful 2-for-1 credit were deemed necessary due to poor conditions and over-crowding in Canadian prisons. Never mind that Canada's fleet of CF-18 fighter jets is currently reaching the end of their operating lifetime and need to be replaced.

One thing Canadians should remember is that the last time the Liberal Party came to government, oen of their first act was an irresponsible cancellation of a contract for new military helicopters -- and should remember that the lives of Canadian pilots were lost because of it.

Another thing Canadians should remember is that any proper statiscal analysis of reductions in Canada's crime rate is nearly erased in its entirety by decreases in the reporting of crime.

What Frank Graves recommends to the Liberal Party is political irresponsibility for partisan gain. Apparently, to Graves, this kind of irresponsibility isn't something that needs to be transcended, but conservative values are.

Frances Russel, Lawrence Martin, Linda McQuaig & Conspiracy Theories as Journalism

"FOX North" conspiracy theory jumps the shark

With SUN Media's new television network applying for a category one broadcasting license from the CRTC -- which would require cable and satellite services to offer it -- the far left's compunction for conspiracy theorizing has officially jumped the shark.

Writing for Rabble.ca, Frances Russell is alluding to an article by Lawrence Martin, wherein he himself alludes to anonymous "insiders" who infer that Prime Minister set to, at his earliest opportunity, appoint a CRTC chair and vice-chair who would be in favour of the network.

Martin goes on to suggest that Kory Teneckye, Harper's former communications director, has been molding what individuals like Martin already argued was a conservative-biased newspaper chain into a conservative-biased newspaper chain.

His evidence is the firing of Greg Weston, whom Martin suggest was fired as retaliation for breaking the G20 "fake lake" non-story. (The "fake lake" which was, for the record, a hit with international media. The Canadian government showcasing Canadian media technology to the global media -- what an outrage!)

Martin deliberately overlooks the detail that various news outlets have been tightening their belts in the current economic climate. (Perhaps if Weston spent less time chasing non-stories and more time chasing real stories, he may have escaped the axe.)

The irony is so deep it could be grilled medium rare and then eaten with a knife and fork: Lawrence Martin, the long-time Liberal party shill, declaring Sun Media to be a Conservative party shill.

Perhaps the most suitable response is to admit that he may be right: after all, it's long been said that it takes one to know one.

Moving beyond Martin, it's clear that vitriol, rather than any rational objection to a conservative news network, drove Russell's pen as she wrote this column. If not, one would wonder what to make of this:

"The tone of political discourse, already shifted sharply right with the advent of Conrad Black's National Post in 1998, is about to take a quantum leap further down that road. The signs are numerous and ominous: The internet is already doused daily with the vitriol of thousands of anonymous far-right bloggers who slander and libel politicians, the media and all opponents with vile, often illiterate postings. Parliament and the country's entire political culture is being dug ever deeper into a mire of character assassination, personal insult and attack, smear campaigns, relentless and ruthless partisanship and denigration and demonization of any and all opponents."

Naturally, Russell the far-left demagogue has nothing to say about the legions of far-left bloggers who not only do precisely the same, but are often even more vicious and ruthless about it.

Russell's next exhibit is a column by none other than the Toronto Star's perpetually-reality-challenged Linda McQuaig:

"'There's been a tendency in the Canadian media to dismiss the threat of a Fox News transplant on the grounds Canadians wouldn't fall for that sort of nasty, right-wing extremism,' she writes. 'But that comforting notion may be naïve.' Most people don't have time to follow politics in detail, she continues. 'If they hear constant sound bites suggesting global warming is a hoax or public health care just doesn't work, after a while the message starts to seem believable.'

She points out the media already blasts Canadians with a steady chorus of right-wing ideas. 'A Fox-style network here -- if Harper gets his way -- would turn that into a deafening cacophony.'"

Of course, McQuaig doesn't elaborate on this particular claim. Would it be the CBC "blasting" Canadians with "right-wing ideas"? The same CBC whose executives overwhelmingly donate to the Liberal Party?

Of course not. This is simply another case of McQuaig refusing -- simply refusing -- to familiarize herself with reality.

It's hardly surprising that for all the objection to SUN Media starting a TV news network, there isn't one rational, factual or even coherent argument among them. The worst-kept secret regarding media bias is that everyone is in favour of media bias: they simply prefer that the media would share their bias.

Underlying this controversy is the fact that Canada's left seems to want the CRTC to, for no rational or logical reason, enforce the maintenance of the the dominant bias they prefer -- and they're peddling some rather bizarre conspiracy theories in order to justify it.

Tea Party North? That Actually Sounds Like a Great Idea

Frances Russell grossly mischaracterizes conservative agenda

In a recent op/ed column published in The Tyee, aging Canadian leftist Frances Russell attempts to stir up tired hysteria against the Conservative government and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Harper and his government, Russell suggests, are merely advancing the agenda of what she calls "Tea Party North" -- a designation surely intentionally designed to try to spread panic among any Canadian leftists who fear grassroots conservative activism (which frequently seems to be all of them).

Central to this (gasp) small government agenda is the move to render the formerly-compulsory long form census voluntary instead.

Russell contends:

"An economist, the Prime Minister understands the value of statistics. He appreciates that authoritative statistics on the relative social and economic well-being of individual Canadians empower the disempowered to demand government programs (higher taxes) to reduce poverty and disparity and promote upward mobility."

As an economist, Harper may well understand what Russell has suggested. But as a conservative, Harper has a different idea altogether: allow individual enterprise, rather than tax-funded government programming, reduce poverty and promote upward mobility.

As an economist, Harper understands the effect that excessive social welfare programming really has on a society: it creates dependency, and hampers the kind of independent spirit that makes individual enterprise -- whether by the impoverished individuals themselves, or through free association by groups of individuals participating in charitable endeavours -- possible.

As Russell continues her op/ed column, it becomes quite clear that Russell considers the substitution of individual action for government action to be extremely alarming.

"He also appreciates the need to dumb them down to facilitate stripping government back to its core functions: a strong military to defend the nation abroad, more police, prisons and tougher justice to defend the citizen at home and an unfettered free market to create wealth and employment through ever-lower taxes, especially on business and the well-to-do. Addressing social and economic inequality should be left to individual initiative and private charity."

It's certainly true that Harper would like to roll back the role of government. But Russell's insistence that Harper wants an unfettered free market is easily discredited.

After all, it's Harper's government that has moved to establish a federal securities regulator. Russell mischaracterizes the conservative approach to the free market. A free market is good, but regulation is still necessary in order to uphold law and order.

Russell then goes on to offer some quotes from Harper, and other conservatives, that she considers to be quite alarming.

Stephen Harper: "I don't believe any tax is a good tax."

Which doesn't by any means, suggest that Harper doesn't think that any taxes are necessary.

Margaret Thatcher: "There is no such thing as society. There are only individual men and women."

This has long been recognized as a rare bit of bullplop out of an otherwise-accomplished former British Prime Minister.

Sterling Lyon: "If anybody redistributes my income, it had better be me."

A sentiment to which a great many Canadians would agree. Seemingly, Frances Russell would not.

Having set the stage with what she thinks are a collection of alarming quotes, Russell's next act is to introduce the opinions of a political scientist from the Coulter-speech-cancelling bastion of Canadian leftism, the University of Ottawa.

"University of Ottawa political scientist Paul Saurette says the Harper decision defines Canadian post-modern populist conservatism. It hopes to hit two home runs. Killing the long form compulsory census simultaneously rallies the Conservatives' 'Tea Party North' libertarian base and propels dismantling 'the octopus-like configuration of arms-length organizations' created by previous Liberal administrations that 'mine' Statistics Canada data to demand social programs.

Unlike British Red Toryism, which accepts a role for government in reducing structural inequality, Canadian post-modern populist conservatism considers inequality as natural, the outcome of individual free choice. Individuals, not governments, must 'bootstrap their way up,' Saurette continues.

Saurette notes that from the day it was sworn in, the Harper government was determined to eliminate government funding for any and all forms of social advocacy, their agencies and research, at home and abroad."

What Russell refers to in the "octopus-like configuration of arms-length organizations' are a collection of state-funded civil society organizations. They frequently describe themselves as "state NGOs". Britain long ago coined a better term for them: Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organizations.

Under the government of Pierre Trudeau, the government of Canada moved, under the Secretary of State, to fund and in some cases even establish so-called NGOs. In the years following this act, the selection of such groups for funding has been conducted on a more and more ideological basis. It has represented the embedded ideology of what Barry Cooper terms the embedded state.

In envoking Red Toryism, Russell may think that she's advanced her argument.

But what she overlooks is that Red Toryism is also founded on the principle of "organic societies" founded on the basis of free association.

There is no free association between Canadians and the collection of vested interest groups funded under the oft-overlooked Secretary of State. Often with little to no scrutiny, the Secretary of State distributed funds to many groups that Canadians know little to nothing about -- let alone whether or not they want to fund that particular group's pursuit of its agenda.

Russell also fails to recognize that, in many cases, the groups that have been funded under the Secretary of State often demand programs that far exceed simple eliminations in structural inequality and demand full-blown wealth redistribution schemes that in no way address the underlying causes of such inequality.

Conservatives believe in a level playing field, and are in favour of eliminating structural inequality. Conservatives also recognize that, once equality of opportunity is established, general inequality is morally neutral -- neither good nor bad.

Whether Russell or Saurette care to admit it or not, the choices made by individuals have direct consequences for the comparative levels of equality or inequality they will experience at any particular point in their lives.

"Canadian post-modern conservatives, like their American Tea Party counterparts, 'know that winning the war of ideas can offer significant returns for political movements' and 'have been explicitly planning what exactly conservatives need to do to win that war and capture the institutional structures and resources that dot the ideological battleground,' Saurette writes in the online journal The Mark.

Harper's ideological goal, he continues, is nothing less than 'the transformation of the broad public philosophy of Canada and the cultivation of an enduring set of conservative values and principles in Canadians.'"

So, in other words, Canadian conservatives are beginning to work toward the advancement of their agenda, and are working hard to convince other Canadians to share it.

Only an ideologue like Frances Russell would be alarmed at such a prospect -- that the far-left progressive agenda will have to work harder in order to compete with conservatism. Only an ideologue like Russell would so clearly resent this.

But the best kick at the "Tea Party North" can is yet to come, and it comes with Russell falling into the greatest trap of such tirades: simply not knowing what she's talking about.

"Harper is a graduate of the Calgary School, a group of University of Calgary political scientists, neo-conservatives all, who follow the teachings of German-American political philosopher Leo Strauss. Strauss had a deep antipathy towards liberal democracy and its 'moral relativism.'"

What Russell identifies as neoconservatism is not neoconservatism.

In fact, neoconservatism is a conservative tradition founded by anti-communist liberals who grew outraged at the mainstream left's soft approach to communism, and joined the conservative camp instead.

Neoconservatives actually favour government action on a braod variety of issues, leading other conservatives to brand them as "me-too conservatives", "big government conservatives", and "leviathan on the right".

Moreover, Leo Strauss has no real links to neoconservatism among those who are familiar with it. Moreover, the methods that Russell alludes to are embraced by individuals of varying political philosophies who embrace Machiavellian methodology.

"Harper, too, denounced the 'moral relativism' of the liberal state in a 2003 speech to the libertarian and socially conservative Civitas Society: 'Moral relativism simply cannot be sustained as a guiding philosophy,' he said. 'It explains the lack of moral censure on personal foibles of all kinds... [I]t leads to... tribalism in the form of group rights.'"

If Russell is truly so alarmed by Harper's preference for individual rights over group rights, she also needs to take issue with the historical legacy of Trudeau: he, too, was a champion of individual rights.

"Shadia Drury, Canada Research Chair in social justice at the University of Regina, is a leading expert on Straussian conservatism who taught at the Calgary School for 27 years. Drury warned in a 2004 interview with The Globe and Mail that the Strauss philosophy displays 'a huge contempt for democracy' and exploits populist sentiment to strip away the rights of minorities and dismantle what is left of the welfare state.

'They want to replace the rule of law with the populism of the majority,' she said."

Of course, an objective examination of the Harper government record demonstrates that Drury was wrong.

The rights of minorities have not been stripped away. Nor has the welfare state been dismantled.

Moreover, Drury must have simply forgotten -- or perhaps never known -- that it was quietly, nearly secretly -- that Canada's far left used the little-known office of Secretary of State to embed their ideology within the Canadian state.

It was Canada's far left that demonstrated an extreme contempt for democracy. Canada's conservatives are merely turning back the clock on this self-indulgence by the Canadian left.

"If you are determined to halt, if not roll back, Canada's advances in social and economic equality, turning the long form census into an unreliable statistical mishmash takes you a giant step towards your goal."

Here Russell again mischaracterizes the goals of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party.

The goal is not to halt, or roll back, "Canada's advances in social and economic equality". Rather the goal is to redefine the means by which this is done: by increasing the amount of civic space for individual action, by allowing Canadians the freedom to grow the size of their economy, and by allowing Canadians to keep more of their hard-earned money.

That is the same goal held by the Tea Party movement in the United States -- and the prospect of these ideas finding traction in Canada are far from alarming.

What Russell overlooks is that one of the first things a fully-fledged Canadian Tea Party movement would do is oppose the Conservative government's own stimulus spending, particularly as it becomes more and more obvious that a sluggish bureaucracy has harmed the efficiency of that program anyway.

What Russell must fear is that, even though a Canadian Tea Party would take issue with Harper and the Tories, it would take even greater issue with people such as Russell and the kinds of demands they make of the state.

While the Tea Party would demand greater fiscal conservaism from Harper, it would oppose even more feircely efforts by the Liberal Party and NDP to increase the size of the Canadian state: by, among other things, instituting a national public daycare system.

A Canadian Tea Party movement would likely also demand that governments start taking on public service unions and scaling back the corrosive influence these unions have had on the quality of services like public health care.

In other words, the Tea Party would represent a demand on the part of Canadians that the size of government be brought back under control.

Perhaps to people like Frances Russell, who would prefer that government be as big, cumbersome, inefficient and ineffectual as possible, that's what truly terrifies them.

Global Leftism Wears Its Mania on Its Sleeve

Frances Russell lays her cards on the table...

...And they're all jokers.

How else to explain the embarrassing (if only Russell had the sense to be ebmarrassed) op/ed, entitled "Banking, Smoke and Mirrors", published in the Winnipeg Free Press?

If any doubt remained that Russell is, in fact, an extreme leftist, this op/ed piece ought to dispell any such doubt.

In the article, Russell counter-factually insists that the Canadian government did, indeed, bailout its banks, and so should support the global banking tax being pushed by various Eurpean left-wing governments.

In order to make this case, Russell channels economics Jim Stanford and Michel Choussudovsky.

These are, of course, no ordinary economists. Stanford is currently in the employ of the Canadian Auto Workers union -- essentially a labour front for the NDP. The other individual, Choussudovsky, is currently involved with the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Describing itself as an "independent research and media group of progressive writers, scholars and activists committed to curbing the tide of 'globalisation' and 'disarming' the New World Order", the organization's website is an eye-opener on how seriously the organization should be taken.

Among other things, the organization has been a haven for 9/11 truthers ranging from the University of Lethbridge's Anthony J Hall to Louis Farrakhan.

A global bank tax would be a rather odd initiative for a group opposing the so-called "New World Order" to support. After all, attempting to impose such a measure is actually a globalizing influence. Clearly, the difference is that this is their globalization (which they believe to be good). It shockingly resembles measures proposed by left-wing globalist George Monbiot, who has embraced the climate change cause simply because it will aid his efforts to push for a global parliament.

In fact, a global tax on bank transactions was the means by which Monbiot has insisted that such a Parliament would be funded.

Based on something like this, it's nearly impossible for a rational person to see the global bank tax for what it really is: as a tool of imposing global leftism on the rest of the world. Which, apparently, is the good kind of globalization.

Russell concludes her op/ed by suggesting that Canadians should judge Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party by what she says they have done -- supporting de-regulation of banking -- and not by what they have actually done -- introducing a federal securities regulator.

Just as it's impossible to take the Centre for Research on Globalization seriously, it's becoming very difficult to take Frances Russell seriously.

Canada Can Stand to Change a Little

New thinking on foreign policy was badly needed

Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper took office in 2006, there have predictably been some people he hasn't been able to please.

Unsurprisingly, Frances Russell has been one of them. For good reason, Harper -- and many other Canadians -- don't seem particularly distressed by this.

Many Canadians have recognized this for a positive development -- particularly as it pertains to foreign policy.

As Roy Rempel would note, Canada has long lacked any kind of coherent foreign policy, and has instead relied on a network of finely-crafted platitudes wrapped around obselete Pearsonian peacekeeping missions that have often proven ill-suited to the current state of the world -- as in Rwanda and Somalia.

Russell, for one, longs for the dreamland of yesteryear.

"The federal Conservatives are proving every day they don't need a majority to transform Canada," Russell laments.

"Aside from their swift and generous response to the Haitian earthquake -- what better way to douse the rogue prorogue furor? -- the Conservatives are backing away from internationalism, expunging most if not all of Canada's powerful human rights and humanitarian language from the lexicon of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade," she continues.

(Sure. The response to the Haiti catastrophe had nothing at all to do with humanitarianism, and everything to do with the proroguement. Sheesh, it seems like Harper just can't win.)

The flipside of this claim is that it simply isn't true. The Conservative government has shown a robust -- although not unlimited -- commitment to Canada's mission in Afghanistan, a UN-mandated mission of combination state building and fighting extremism.

Moreover, Canada also signed onto the treaty banning cluster munitions -- although after securing assurances that Canadian commanders wouldn't be held responsible if allied forces used the (quite rightly) controversial weapons.

That is internationalism, even if it isn't the kind of internationalism that Russell prefers -- one built more on the platitudes of soft power without backing it with the capabilities of hard power. Even Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff recognized the danger of this a long time ago.

"According to Embassy, Canada's Foreign Affairs Newspaper, Conservative staffers directed DFAIT bureaucrats to stop using policy language created by the former Liberal government immediately upon taking office in 2006," Russell complains.

"Chief among the forbidden phrases are 'human security,' 'public diplomacy,' 'good governance,' 'gender equality,' 'child soldiers,' and 'international humanitarian law,'" she continues. "Instead, the Conservatives' lexicon features 'human rights,' 'the rule of law,' 'democracy,' 'democratic development,' 'equality of men and women,' 'children in armed conflict' and 'international law.'"

What Russell objects to is many of the same foreign policy concepts, albeit stripped of left-wing ideological qualifiers.

"Children in armed conflict" clearly denotes the sense that all children in the midst of an armed conflict pose a dilemma to the global community -- armed and unarmed children alike. "Equality of men and women" recognizes that equality means equality, as opposed to some of the thinly-veiled ideological causes sponsored under the guise of "gender equality" (a phrase that says nothing about men or women, but somehow has always been tailored toward women).

"International law" strips the ideological impetus from "international humanitarian law", and instead recognizes something that doesn't necessarily define international law, but rather must operate within its confines.

"Democratic development" clearly indicates that good governance tends to happen within democratic states, where citizens are empowered to decide the direction of their country. It's something that tends not to happen under communist states or dictatorships.

Even the Human Security narrative has returned with the Will to Intervene doctrine, a recent upgrade on the Responsibility to Protect Russell alludes to.

The same rejection Canada's former embedded state ideology applies to domestic developments that Russell predictably decries.

"Since 2006, the Conservatives have either axed or slashed funding for the Canadian Council on Learning, the Status of Women, the Canadian Council of Social Development, the Court Challenges Program, the Canadian Policy Research Networks, the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation, Volunteer Canada, the Canadian Health Network, the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, Family Service Canada and Centres of Excellence, among many others," Russell writes.

But it doesn't take Barry Cooper to recognize that the organizations and bodies that Russell alludes to represented the embedding of a left-wing ideology within the embedded state.

These are things that many Canadians would agree could have stood to change a little -- although many more Canadians (like Cooper) would insist that Canada could stand to change a lot.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has surely learned that you can't please everyone. Clearly, he isn't about to start with the defenders of a tired and discredited old leftism.

Putting a Whole New Face on the Proroguement

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's proroguement of Parliament has been nothing if not controversial.

In the most recent poll, the Conservatives are now tied with the Liberal Party at 30% support.

But this proroguement suddenly has a whole new face. Canadians will get the opportunity to judge it very soon.

The timing of Harper's recent proroguement of Parliament certainly cast the matter in a poor light. For one thing, it gave Canada's opposition parties the opportunity to claim that the Conservatives are simply trying to flee tough questions about the torture of detainees in Afghanistan.

Tom Flanagan believed it. John McCallum even went so far as to accuse the government of being guilty of war crimes.

But the revelation -- actually merely a reminder -- that the Liberal Party knew full well about the potential for torture in Afghan prisons while Canadian Forces were operating in Afghanistan, including during the negotiation of the infamous Prisoner Transfer Agreement in 2005 should change matters.

This doesn't excuse the Conservative Party's poor handling of the matter. But it should remind Canadians of an important fact about this proroguement:

If the proroguement of Parliament really was merely an effort to escape questioning over Afghan detainees, it's now evidently justified.

There is no reason in the world why the Harper government should willingly surrender itself to the tender mercies of a duplicitous official opposition that seems intent on holding it to account for a scandal that is actually of their making.

Certainly, one expects these revelations to hold little sway for individuals like Frances Russel, who wishes to compare Harper's proroguement to the 1873 proroguement sought by then-Prime Minister sir John A MacDonald.

The problem for Russel is that, in 1873, MacDonald's government very much had accepted bribes. The scandal was legitimate, and was of their own making.

137 years later, it turns out that there is indeed a scandal, but it's actually of the official opposition's making.

Russel's analysis will not find favourable treatment on the ash heap of history.

Likewise, Antonia Zerbisias will have to defend some of her recent analysis.

Zerbisias writes that the Facebook group protesting the proroguement of Parliament demonstrates that the spirit of populism is very much alive in Canadians. But what Zerbisias will now have to face up to is the reality that the traditional argument against populism -- that the average citizen often doesn't have the knowledge to make proper decisions or judgements -- now very much applies to the anti-proroguement movement and their Facebook group.

As it turns out, a great many of the Canadians who have opposed the proroguement -- perhaps even many of those who have been indifferent to it -- have been denied the information necessary to properly judge this proroguement. They've been misled by a Liberal Party that has chosen to lie by omission, and a media that -- until now -- has declined to report these facts.

In other words, these revelations have put a whole new face on what seemed to many Canadians -- including this not-so-humble scribe -- to be a largely routine proroguement, planned well in advance to give Harper the opportunity to prepare stage two of his party's economic program, reorganize the Senate, and take advantage of the diplomatic opportunity presented by the upcoming Olympic games.

The new face of this proroguement is that of an act of justified self-defense; a government defending itself against opposition parties that are bound and determined to disrupt the government during a key transition period in Canada's economic action plan by unjustly tarring the government with a scandal of the official opposition's making.

How well Canadians respond to the new face of this proroguement has yet to be seen.

Time to Open Canadian Politics

Preston Manning: If Britain can experiment, why can't we?

Throughout history, Canada has shared many things in common with Britain.

Our Parliamentary system is one of them.

In Open and Shut, John Ibbitson compares the 2008 elections in Canada and the United States and draws a disappointing conclusion: in Canada, there could never be a Prime Minister Barack Obama. There could never be a Prime Minister John McCain.

The reason for this has nothing to do with the virtues of either man -- although, speaking outside of hypotheticals, citizenship certainly must. Instead, Ibbitson concludes this because the Canadian political system is too closed, as opposed to the American system, which is comparatively open.

Ibbitson muses that an open primary system could not only improve participation in Canadian politics, but improve Canadian politics itself. While individuals like Frances Russell go into conniptions any time anyone suggests that Canadians "pollute" our Parliamentary system with American innovations, it seems that an innovation such as a primary system may not be as antithetical to our Parliamentary system as some may think.

Preston Manning seems to echo Ibbitson's sentiments in a column recently published in the Globe and Mail, and provides a surprising example to support his arguments:

"Earlier this month, Canada's electoral officers - officials of Elections Canada and their provincial and territorial counterparts - held their annual conference.

The main subject of discussion was what to do about declining participation in Canadian elections -- for example, the turnout of 59 per cent in the last federal election, the 51 per cent in the recent BC provincial election, and the abysmal 41 per cent last time out in Alberta.

It is good to know that our elections officials are concerned about this problem. They play an important role in informing and educating voters on election procedures and rules. But surely the primary responsibility for remedying Canada's democracy deficit rests with others -- with parents, educators, the media and particularly our political parties, politicians and leaders.

Often it takes a crisis of some sort to create opportunities for reform. In Britain, the recent scandalous abuse of expense accounts by members of the House of Commons from all major parties has created precisely such a crisis and opportunity."

To support his argument, Manning offers the example of the British Conservative party. In the riding of Totnes, they're replacing a discraced MP with a candidate who will be nominated through an open primary election:

"In order to bolster public confidence in its candidates for the soon-to-be-held general election, the British Conservative Party has become willing to experiment with democratic innovations.

One in particular is being introduced in the constituency of Totnes. It should be watched closely by Canadian politicians and parties.

The Conservative MP for Totnes, Anthony Steen, was recently forced to 'stand down' when it was revealed that he had claimed more than £87,000 over four years in parliamentary expenses on his country home.

Rather than choosing a candidate to succeed him by the conventional method of a constituency nominating meeting in which only card-carrying Conservative Party members can vote, the party has decided to experiment with an 'open primary' in which every voter in Totnes will be invited to help choose its candidate for the next general election.

The Totnes Conservative Association drew up a short list of 11 potential candidates which was then reduced to three on July 15. Starting last Monday, ballot papers were mailed out to the 69,000 eligible voters in the constituency. There was an all-candidate event Saturday where the three candidates were to receive and answer questions from voters. Thursday, the results of the Totnes 'open primary' are to be announced.

'This is the first time any political party in Britain has sought the views of the voters [on who should be the party's candidate] in such a direct way,' said Conservative Party Leader David Cameron."

While David Cameron has provided a glimmering example in regards to how to rebuild and rebrand conservative political parties, his party's efforts in Totnes may revolutionize the classic British Parliamentary system:

"Observers will be watching closely and seeking answers to several key questions:

To what extent will the voters of Totnes actually participate? Will that participation give that candidate any advantage in terms of public confidence and support over candidates of other parties nominated in the more traditional way? And, will the primary stimulate greater interest and participation in the general election itself?

And here in Canada, will any political party be willing to experiment with the 'open primary' to attract more Canadians into the process of putting candidates' names on the ballot and thereby, one hopes, increasing public interest in the campaign and election to follow?"

Perhaps an even better question is whether or not any of Canada's political parties would be willing to experiment with a primary election system -- perhaps not necessarily an open primary -- in order to elect their leaders.

If Canadians who support -- but haven't made the commitment of joining -- a political party were given the opportunity to vote on the leaders of each party one as to wonder who may be leading each of these parties.

Conservative leader Peter MacKay?

NDP leader Lorne Nystrom?

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau?

One would certainly at least have to wonder about the odds of individuals like Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Stephane Dion or Jack Layton to lead their respective parties.

Whereas, in the United States, the primary system has often foiled the ascent of allegedly "inevitable" Presidential candidates such as Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney.

In Ibbitson's mind, the affect of this influence has been overwhelmngly positive. Manning seems to agree:

"In North America, it is the United States that has made greatest use of the primary system, which is why Canadian liberals and social democrats -- pathologically averse to adopting U. political practices -- are unlikely to embrace it.

But what about Canadian conservatives? If the British Conservative Party -- far older and tradition-bound than any Canadian counterpart -- can experiment with such democratic innovations, why can't Canadian conservatives?"

Sadly, Canadian Conservatives don't always prove themselves to be the experimental innovators they purport themselves to be.

Don Mazankowski's long-forgotten proposal that the province of Alberta establish its own elected Senate within its provincial government seems to be a good example. if Albertans so badly want an elected Senate federally, showing that one could work at the provincial level is certainly a productive step. It's one that was never taken, and a proposal that was quickly forgotten.

Sadly, the Conservative party of Canada hasn't always been true to the populist principles that were supposed to be integral to its reformation:

"The federal Conservative Party has recently tightened rather than opened its nomination process by permitting incumbents to avoid a nomination contest unless more than two-thirds of local party members vote for one. But if this should prove to be counterproductive, in terms of rallying party member support for the next election campaign or public support for candidates who are past their 'best before' date, perhaps the British experiment with open primaries will find favour here.

And what about provincial conservative parties? Let's take the aging, long-in-office, Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta.

Forty years ago, I tried to persuade another aging, long-in-power provincial political party in Alberta to embrace a variation of the primary system as a means of injecting new blood into the party and new energy into the electoral process. The concept was rejected, especially by incumbent MLAs who saw it as a threat to their renomination and by 'gatekeepers' at the constituency level who feared it would reduce their influence.

Two years later, the party was out of office, never to return -- the opportunity to re-energize itself through democratic reform lost forever. Let us, therefore, watch the British experiment with interest, and not wait for a crisis before conducting similar experiments in Canada."

John Ibbitson may be surprised to find Preston Manning to be such a willing ally in helping institute such innovations in Canada: he shouldn't be, but he may be.

But Ibbitson and Manning are both right: it's time for Canadians to find new ways to open our politics. While the idea of a primary election system is promising, it's far from guaranteed to be the panacea that will solve some of the problems confronting Canadian politics.

But something almost certainly needs to be done. The time is as right now as it ever has been.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

The View From Seven - "Preston Manning: Building Democracy or Just Activist Influence?"

The Perils of the Politics of Patriotism

Stephen Harper, Frances Russell demonstrate dangers at the heart of politicized patriotism

There's something extremely shameful about the spectacle that too often surrounds the politics of patriotism.

Various political figures and commentators can often be seen spinning fervently about, trying like hell to rip the flag off the shoulders of their opponents while they try to wrap themselves in it.

That spectacle is at the very heart -- in any number of ways -- of an op/ed column written by the Winnipeg Free Press' Frances Russell, in which she suggests that Stephen Harper and the Conservative party have "nothing to teach on patriotism".

Russell begins by reflecting on the shameful and irresponsible "Just Visiting" ads the Harper Conservatives have been airing against Michael Ignatieff.

Russell notes that, on the eve of the release of Ignatieff's most recent book, True Patriot Love, the Harper Conservatives attempted to counter-brand Ignatieff as unpatriotic at best (and at worst impugned his citizenship in an extremely irresponsible fashion):

"The Conservatives' attack ads seek to 'frame' Ignatieff before he has a chance to do so himself. They're claiming he's unpatriotic because he repeatedly led people to believe he was an American during his years at Harvard University teaching, writing and broadcasting.

Toronto author and columnist Rick Salutin says Ignatieff owes Canadians an explanation, and he's right. If Ignatieff is smart, he'll provide one. Salutin suggests he admit 'it was immature and dishonest but I thought it would help me get ahead in the U.S.'"

Yet, as it turns out, Russell herself isn't above the politics of patriotism either, as she seems to define Canadian patriotism as strict adherence to a very narrow ideological view:

"But the ads are almost as risky for the Harper Conservatives. Canadians may well ask themselves who is more unpatriotic: Ignatieff, for passing himself off as a American citizen while living and working in a country that doesn't much like or listen to foreigners; or Harper, for his determination to jettison Canada's societal, political and governmental institutions and adopt those of the US?"

This particular passage is nothing more or less than the old "hidden agenda" smear again trotted out for deployment against Canadian conservative leaders.

Oddly enough, Michael Ignatieff himself has previously noted that there's nothing hidden about the Harper agenda, noting that the Harper agenda is as simple as changing Canada's course in a more conservative direction (which, apparently, only Ignatieff and Russell seem truly shocked at -- a conservative party wanting a more conservative Canada? Quelle Suprise!).

This, naturally, has led the Harper government in the direction of tax cuts -- in this case the GST and Income Tax cuts that Russell insists have led to a structural deficit, but declines to mention that this "structural deficit" is actually only present under conditions in which the government spends lavishly on whatever pet projects it may decide to pursue -- such as a superfluous long gun registry that runs billions of dollars over budget.

"With a system of government that has fixed elections every two (Congress), four (White House) and six (Senate) years, the US invented the perpetual election campaign and its ugly offspring, perpetual attack ads.

Animated by their Reform party base, Harper's 'Republican' Conservatives have never hidden their contempt for Canada's parliamentary democracy or stopped trying to twist its institutions beyond recognition to fit American forms: fixed election dates; elected senators; state (provincial) rights; perpetual campaigns: personal attack ads rather than debates on issues; the embrace, during last winter's parliamentary crisis, of American populist ideas about direct democracy with a strong (presidential) leader orchestrating and responding to spasms of popular will; the adoption of the American right's agenda of law and order, guns, social and religious conservatism, militarism."

In her fervour to denounce Harper as "un-Canadian" for finding anything of value in the American political system, Russell overlooks numerous facts.

First off, if any political party pioneered the state of permanent campaign in Canadian politics, it was the Liberal party. It was the Liberal party who spent the better part of their 13 years in government -- and the three years since -- taking any opportunity to portray their opponents as extreme, dangerous, and "un-Canadian".

Secondly, Canada's provinces are not a creation of the federal government. Rather, confederation -- and with it, the federal government -- is a creation of the provinces. As such, provinces very much do have rights. As a matter of fact, those rights are clearly outlined in the Canadian Constitution, a document that previous Liberal governments never hesitated to shred just a little whenever they had eyed a matter of provincial jurisdiction they wanted to tread upon -- such as natural resources, as they did with the National Energy Program (for just one example).

Furthermore, as deeply personal as the current Conservative attack ads are, they barely hold a candle to Liberal ads that suggested Harper would declare martial law over Canadian cities if elected Prime Minister.

Last but not least, Canadians have expressed their support for both fixed election dates and an elected Senate. (Sadly, Stephen Harper declined to stick by his guns on either issue, calling an election well ahead of his fixed election date law, and appointing 18 Senators when it appeared that he might lose government to an ill-conceived and undemocratic Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition government.)

It's on this last note that one may question the patriotism of Russell herself -- after all, how patriotic could someone who clearly has so much contempt for the opinions of her fellow citizens possibly be?

While one may question the patriotism of Russell, however, one shouldn't.

Patriotism, most simply defined, is simply love for and devotion to one's country. This doesn't necessarily mean that one will spend their entire life living in their country, or that they will always guarantee with the direction of their country.

In fact, one would argue that time abroad -- even as long a period as 32 years -- should strengthen the patriotism of anyone who truly loves their country. In fact, one should argue that a patriotic individual should wish to correct the course of their country if they feel it has gone awry.

A patriotic citizen should never be completely satisfied with their country. Their love of their country should continually drive them to seek ways to improve it. If a citizen believes that adopting certain features of another country's political system within their own would benefit their country, a patriotic citizen should prefer to have tiny-minded individuals like Frances Russell call them unpatriotic than to see their country proceed without that benefit.

To tell a citizen or a leader that whatever improvements they want to make to their country must fall within a specific ideological boundary under penalty of being branded unpatriotic is nothing less than the act of a selfish demagogue -- one who is unwilling to compromise on their narrow vision of the country so that it may grow and improve.

While the Conservative party's "Just Visiting" ads very much are incredibly irresponsible, so is Russell's rhetoric. She, no more than any other Canadian, has the right to impugn the patriotism of any Canadian who would seek to make Canada a better place.

It's Frances Russell who has nothing to teach Canadians about patriotism.