What's the Matter With Heather Mallick?

Panic clearly building at Toronto Star

When Heather Mallick agreed to write for the Toronto Star, the editorial board of that newspaper must have had one thing to say to her:

"Welcome home, Heather. Welcome home."

It would only be a matter of time before the Star would gleefully provide a willing forum for Mallick's famed political invective -- the one that eventually earned her a very short leash at the CBC.

Then, it was a disgusting hit-piece on US Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

In that tirade, she compared Palin to a pornstar, denigrated her family, and in the depths of feverish lunacy, suggested that Palin isn't even actually a woman.

It's in the spirit of such invective that Mallick has approached the ongoing election campaign to decide who will be the next mayor of Toronto. With polls suggesting that conservative candidate Rob Ford has pulled ahead of his competition, the Toronto Star has gone into full-blown panic mode.

It isn't a pretty sight.

In a column entitled "Rob Ford as Mayor? Are We Nuts?" Mallick doesn't provide any real logical reason why anyone in Toronto shouldn't want Ford as their mayor. Instead, she tries to needle long-simmering feelings of resentment against, of all things, gym teachers into a full anti-conservative boil:

"I have a degree of sympathy for Ford. We all knew him in high school. He was our gym teacher, the kind who laughed when the slender shy boys got their hair entangled in the trampoline netting."

Mallick being Mallick, that naturally isn't the full extent of the mud directed in Ford's direction. Mallick also pens the following:

"-He is what he is and, unlike most people, makes no attempt to conceal it. What I doubt is that he is like you. Have the police been called to your home to resolve a dispute with your loved one? Do you have a mug shot?

-Voters allegedly like candidates with whom they could happily sit down and have a beer, as was said about Bush. But you couldn’t drink with Bush. He was an alcoholic who no longer drank. And you wouldn’t drink with Ford because he gets angry rather than amiable as, in just one instance, some people in a neighbouring box at the Air Canada Centre discovered in 2006."

Mallick doesn't elaborate very far on either one of these two issues. There may well be good reason for this. Judging from this article by Linda Diebel -- who seems to have been pulled off her national affairs beat to help bolster the paper's anti-Ford efforts -- the official editorial line at the Toronto Star currently seems to be that they'll happily spread innuendo about Ford, but not make any concrete accusations:

"And that thing with his wife?

'Nothing happened. My wife got mad at me. She made an allegation that wasn’t true and the charges never even got to court ... I’ve never laid a hand on a woman in my life. Rule No. 1 in the Ford family: You never touch a woman.'

Other incidents seem muddier.

Did he tell a couple at the Air Canada Centre that the wife should 'go to Iran and get raped and shot?' He says he didn’t, but doesn’t clarify. In a letter to city hall, they claimed he did. He apologized.

'That was just stupidity. I feel terrible about it. My wife and I had a little bit too much to drink ... I made a mistake that will never happen again.'"

In fact, it eems to be one individual -- city councillor Kyle Rae -- who is publicly pusihing the "buffoon" angle.

Which is actually rather ironic. After all, it's Mallick herself who has earned herself a reputation as a very public buffoon. And it's in vein of realizations like this that the following pair of passages become actually rather comical:

"I am wary of the political truism that voters prefer candidates who resemble them. If a candidate resembles me, he’s a bookworm racked with emotion. I wouldn’t vote for me. Run away!

...Why should a politician’s notional resemblance to you recommend his candidacy? If you suspect that people find you buffoonish and a bit of a bully, would voting for your clone make it better to be you?"

Ironically, it's Mallick's reputation that establishes her as a buffoon and a bully. Even according to the reputation she'd like to think she has, the emotions Mallick is "racked" with have so often proven to be extremely ugly ones.

All of this is, of course, the public face of the Toronto Star's anti-Ford efforts.

Behind the scenes the Star has been editing Wiklpedia entries about the candidate and then attempting to disavow any responsibility.

So the question remains: what's the matter with Heather Mallick? A lot of things.

But those things also tend to be wrong with the Toronto Star. There's a reason why she seems so at home there.

Toronto Star Caught Red-Tongued

Liar, liar...

With the Toronto Star clearly behind Stephane Dion's Liberal party to the extent of distorting reality, it was only a matter of time until they tried to help Dion's erstwhile party leader, Elizabeth May (since she's writing his policies and all) win her uphill battle against Conservative deputy Prime Minister Peter MacKay.

Which they did yesterday when they dug up a story about a $16,400 bill for feeding some Passport Canada staff in March 2007. The author of the story, Dean Beeby, claimed that MacKay had "bent the rules" in order to approve the expenditure. But, as it turned out, some Toronto Star readers were kind enough to write in and reveal that the only one doing any bending was Beeby -- and he was bending the truth.

First off, we have Stephen J Leich of Mississauga, Ontario:

"I have been in private sector management for a number of years and I find the tone of this article to be unnecessarily antagonistic.

The total cost quoted in the headline looks like a big number and another example of government waste. Once you read the article, however, you can see that the amount spent comes to $42 per employee, over three weekends.

Most companies think nothing of providing lunches to employees working extra time for necessary projects; in fact, it is usually considered good employee relations. These Passport Canada staffers were dealing with a huge workload, caused by factors outside their control. If providing this minor amount per employee made it more palatable to them to put in this extra effort, I fail to see where it can be considered any sort of problem. Yes, it's unfortunate that the total was so high, and perhaps the deputy minister should have realized that this would be the case before the $5,000 limit was exceeded, but it appears he took steps to rectify the situation.

I know a number of people who were caught up in that backlog of passport applications, and I can't help but feel that this is not an unreasonable cost to minimize the impact on so many Canadians."

Ouch!

One would think that Beeby must have had a hard time explaining that one to his editor. (This is the Toronto Star we're talking about here, so probably not. -ed.)

But it's entirely possible, as some Liberal partisans will likely rush to insist, that Stephen J Leich is merely a Tory hack reacting on behalf of the party.

Fortunately, Toronto's Geoff Rytell pitched in:

"Breaking news: Peter MacKay bent government rules in giving the nod to $16,800 for passport officials' lunches. The facts, unfortunately, don't support the claim. The regulations say that civil servants can be fed at taxpayer expense if they're working overtime. If the cost is more than $5,000, the appropriate minister must approve. MacKay was solicited. He approved. The rules were followed. Assuming that the bureaucrats in question did not imbibe several bottles of Bollinger, where's the story? I, too, am anxious to show Stephen Harper the door but not at the cost of the truth."

Ouch.

That one must have been a little bit harder to take.

But in the end, this entire episode is considerably less than unsurprising. After all, this is the Toronto Star -- where publishing stories inflating mundane government business into manufactured scandals in the name of hurting the Conservative party is just another day on the job.

One would almost expect some kind of retraction of the obvious mistruths. But, then again (once again), this is the Toronto Star, where journalistic integrity isn't only something they talk about -- it's also something they discard.

At the very least, it's very kind of the Star to come out and actually say what they think of civil servants: they shouldn't be rewarded when they do more than what Canadians expect of them. Apparently, even a working lunch is too much to ask for the suddenly-converted fiscal tightwads at the Star.

As Seen in the Toronto Star...

Hmmmm. Looks familiar...

From today's Toronto Star:

"Environmentalists say greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 50 per cent to 80 per cent by 2050 to stop global warming."

Wait: 50 to 80 percent? By 2050?

Where has that been seen before?

Oh, yeah. In the Conservative Party Clean Air Act:

""Every single Liberal leadership candidate who has proposed targets for greenhouse gas emissions had proposed that those targets will be met by 2050. The difference is this ... we are committing today, for the first time ever, to introduce meaningful, tough regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 65 per cent by 2050. We'll do far more than the Liberals ever did."

-Jason Kenney

65 percent? That seems right in that 50-80% that the Star's vaunted environmentalists insist is necessary to curb global warming.

But wait: didn't the Star insist that the Clean Air Act was bad? That it was "failing Canadians"?

Apparently, the environmentalists they interviewed for today's op/ed article must not think so.

This has been another "accuracy in reporting" moment.

The Toronto Star Asks:

How low will the Conservatives go?

Not this low:



This has been another Accuracy in Reporting minute.

Democracy Not Irrelevant in Alberta

Just the opposition

Every so often, the editorial staff of the Toronto Star likes to toss a few stones westward, as was the case with an op/ed article, written by former Calgary Herald managing editor Gillian Steward, published today.

In the article, Steward -- oft-time writer and researcher for the Parkland institute and some-time compatriot of provincial Liberal leader Kevin Taft -- alleges that oil money has undermined democracy in Alberta. It starts by noting that, by golly, things are real good for the Alberta government:

"The Alberta government tabled a $37 billion budget last week that featured per capita spending three times the average level of other provinces.

Not that many Albertans are likely to notice. After all, only 41 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the recent provincial election. If elections don't catch most people's attention, it's hard to imagine that the day-to-day dealings of the government will."

Alberta's (frankly) disgustingly low voter turnout is often pointed to as evidence that, galldurnnit (galldurnnit isn't a word - ed) Albertans just don't believe in democracy.

Of course, one might have suspected that maybe, just maybe, the Star's editorial staff might have thought twice about where Steward is going with this. After all, Alberta isn't the only province that just endured a historically low voter turnout. In the 2008 Ontario provincial election, only 52.6% of eligible voters cast ballots.

Admittedly, it's a full 11 percent better than Alberta's turnout. But Ontario and Alberta aren't the only jurisdictions to experience declining voter turnout. The country, as a whole, has experienced a nine% decline in voter turnout since Confederation in 1867 -- although the 64.7% turnout in the 2006 federal election was a nearly 4% improvement over 2004's turnout.

In Ontario's particular case, however, the province doesn't have any oil money to blame for their decline. So one wonders what else could be responsible?

There is an answer to this. But first, back to Steward:

"Premier Ed Stelmach's Conservatives won 72 of 83 seats, which left the opposition – nine Liberals and two New Democrats – reduced to a tiny island surrounded by a sea of gloating government members.

That the opposition is practically dead on its feet is no exaggeration. They have just endured a draining election campaign and are now expected to take on one of the most powerful governments in the country. They have so few people and resources, not to mention money, that they will barely be able to keep up with the government's agenda."

They may not have much money, resources, or many people, but they certainly have plenty of excuses:

They insist their long history of defeat isn't due to their own failings. Among other things, they blame Alberta's first past the post voting system, allegedly unfair campaign laws that bilk them out of chump change, and oil money.

"This is not the first time there has been such a lopsided election result. In 1982, Peter Lougheed's Conservatives won 75 of 79 seats. In 2001, Ralph Klein won 74 of 83. But at least then most people turned out to vote. After this election, some are wondering if Alberta has become North America's first post-democratic state; a well-educated, wealthy jurisdiction where most people don't give a fig about democracy.

Peter McCormick, a political science professor at the University of Lethbridge, says Albertans seem to believe that democracy is obsolete and elections irrelevant. Another political-science prof told me that Alberta is proof that the Chinese are right: you can have capitalism without democracy. He was joking, but not entirely."

Which of course, is musing a little on the hysterical side.

In fact, Albertans do turn out to the polls when there's an actual contest, as was the case during the 2006 federal election, when 55% of Albertans turned out to vote. Still not exactly numbers to be proud of (nor are the federal numbers), but more significant still.

"The drift from a one-party state to almost complete apathy has been going on for some time. But in the West this disaffection with democracy is purely an Alberta phenomenon. British Columbia had a 60 per cent turnout during its last provincial election and is also the first province to establish a working citizens' assembly to explore alternatives to the first-past-the-post electoral system. In 2005, British Columbians were asked in a referendum if they wanted to change the way they elected their political representatives."

If only the issue really were the issue in the decreasing voter turnout in Albertan elections and the increasing marginalization of what passes for an opposition here.

Historically, whenever the Albertan government has been replaced, it's been done by either an entirely new party (as was the case with the United Farmers of Alberta and Social Credit party) or by a new incarnation of an old party (which was the case with the Progressive Conservatives).

One explanation for this is especially intriguing: that, as a party continues to try to defeat the government and, in successive elections, continues to fail, Albertans come to judge that particular party as unfit and unable to govern. As time draws on, the opposition parties become increasingly irrelevant, and often reinforce this themselves by offering platforms of policies that simply don't appeal to Albertans, and don't reflect Albertans' interests as viewed by them.

One thing can be said about Albertans' low voter turnout: the landslide victories it tends to produce certainly does suggest an implicit approval of the government and its policies. To assume this would be folly, but it's hard not to give the idea serious consideration.

Then there is, of course, the other elephant in this particular room: Ontarians, in the course of the very election that drew the lowest voter turnout in their history, voted down Mixed Member Proportional plurality in a referendum. Whatever the problems in Ontario -- that other province experiencing historically low turnout -- it clearly has little to do with the first past the post electoral system. Those Ontarians who do vote seem to like it just fine.

"Saskatchewan residents are fiercely political. In the 2007 provincial election, which saw the NDP turfed in favour of the right-wing Saskatchewan party, 75 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot. Manitoba had a 57 per cent turnout in 2007."

Of course, the prospect of electing a new government -- as Saskatchewan did in 2007, and Manitoba was expected to do (but didn't) -- may have had more than a little to do with the increased voter turnout.

"Stelmach said after the election that Albertans are "just happy with life, most of them." Could it be that with oil at almost $120 a barrel, more jobs than people to fill them, and relatively low taxes, Albertans believe there is nothing more for the government to do?

That was certainly Klein's vision. He often talked about wanting "the province to be on autopilot ... capable of running itself." That brings to mind a well-oiled machine, which of course describes Alberta in more ways than one."

If $120/barrel oil really is what Albertans think is "as good as it gets", it certainly wouldn't be out-of-line to be a little bit disappointed in the lack of political vision in the province.

But Albertan politics have always had a distinctly conservative, small-government flavour -- not one that all of Alberta's governments have embodied them.

But Ralph Klein isn't alone in favouring small-government models wherein things largely run themselves and citizens govern themselves. In fact, such principles are at the very heart of "strong democracy" models that are at the basis of demands for things such as proportional representation -- a demand that Steward scarcely masks here.

"It's well-oiled because petroleum taxes, royalties, permits and land leases account for a third of all government revenues and all those multi-billion surpluses. With a source of income like that, the government doesn't need to worry so much about keeping voters, particularly taxpayers, on side."

Except at election time. And of those voters who actually choose to cast ballots in Canada, the current government has been overwhelmingly chosen.

"So the money will flow, for the next year at least, and there will be very few objections. And why would the government listen anyway when it knows most Albertans are too busy, or too happy, to notice much of what it does?"

Except that Albertans seem to be extremely happy with the siting government -- after all, they keep returning it with overwhelming landslides.

Even those who support the government will quickly admit that, no, not everything in Alberta is perfect. But none of it is as bad as the province's minority left-wing opposition insists it is.

Democracy isn't what's irrelevant in Alberta -- the opposition is. The sooner that it recognizes this and adjusts in order to produce a relevant option for Albertans, the sooner its irrelevance will end.

Star Promotes Chalk River Conspiracy

Factually demonstrable isotope shortage "pure fiction", according to work of fiction

One has to hand it to the Toronto Star. They just don't get it.

In the wake of a poll that suggests Canadians have tired of partisan hackery, one may have guessed that Canada's most brazenly, blatantly partisan newspaper might have decided to change its stripes, if only a little.

Guess again.

In today's issue of the Star, Alan Kuperman proposes one of the most specious conspiracy theories ever proposed in a Canadian newspaper.

"When Canada's Parliament overrode the country's top nuclear-safety regulator in December, ordering the restart of a nuclear reactor at Chalk River in the absence of documented safety upgrades to guard against a core meltdown, most Canadians assumed such emergency action was necessary to assure a continued supply of vital medical isotopes.

But this assumption was false – a canard employed to persuade legislators to sidestep the safety officials, thereby protecting the profits of a private Canadian company at the expense of risking a nuclear accident.

The company, MDS Nordion, now admits that prior to the emergency legislation of Dec. 12, it already was receiving backup isotope supplies from a South African producer, NTP.

Two days later, Nordion started receiving isotopes from Europe, another backup that it knew was on the way prior to Parliament's action.

Such facts were not reported at the time, which leaves only two possibilities: The information was withheld by Nordion or by the government.

In light of these revelations, Nordion now insists that all potential backup supplies were inadequate to satisfy customer demand without also restarting the National Research Universal reactor at Chalk River."

According to Kuperman, the absence of an immediate isotope shortage in the wake of the Chalk River shutdown is apparently evidence that the federal government, Atomic Energy Canada Limited and MDS Nordion were colluding in order to protect the company's profits.

Kuperman is right about one thing: there was no immediate isotope shortage.

But virtually every medical professional in the diagnostic field disagrees with him regarding whether or not a shortage was imminent. In fact, in a 7 December, 2007 Medpage Today article (three days after the Chalk River shutdown was extended) Dr Edwin Palmer, nuclear medicine director of Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital, said, "The crunch will come next week if the shortage persists and it looks as if it will."

Thus, it would seem that the impending shortage very much was of concern, but don't suggest that to Kuperman. He must think that Dr Palmer was somehow in on the conspiracy.

In fact, even in Boston, hospitals were deferring some diagnostic tests, particularly those requiring isotope technetium-99m, which has an extremely short half-life (a mere 66 hours).

Where possible, hospitals were conducting such tests with other isotopes, but to pretend that the isotope shortage was overblown is clearly counter-factual.

Then again, who needs facts when there's a good partisan smear to perpetrate?

" Says a Nordion spokesperson: "None of the other commercial isotope reactors have the ability to do more than increase their collective production capacity by 10 to 15 per cent in this type of an unplanned event. These producers collectively cannot mitigate this type of a precipitous event."

But this latest Nordion claim also is false, according to a definitive accounting of global isotope production capacity presented at an international conference in 2005 by Belgian scientists from one of the world's largest isotope producers, Institut National des Radioéléments.

The report documents that European and South African reactors typically operate well below capacity, which is why they together produce less than 60 per cent of world demand, while Nordion produces almost as much at a single reactor. But at peak operation, the non-Canadian reactors are capable of producing a collective 160 per cent of world demand.

In other words, these foreign sources can increase production not by a mere 10 to 15 per cent, as Nordion claims, but several-fold, sufficient to fully satisfy global demand even during a temporary Canadian shutdown.

Obviously, Nordion has grossly understated the foreign backup capacity, but it is equally important not to exaggerate it. Overseas facilities undergo planned and unplanned outages, so the peak capacity of non-Canadian reactors at any point in time could be somewhat less than 160 per cent of world demand. Still, under typical circumstances, they are able to satisfy global demand.

Of course, peak capacity cannot be sustained indefinitely. Therefore, a permanent shutdown of the NRU reactor at Chalk River, in the absence of new reactors, would adversely affect the global supply of medical isotopes.

But a short-term shutdown, such as the several weeks that were required to connect backup power to the NRU's emergency coolant pumps, could have been compensated for by a surge in operation of the foreign reactors."

About this Kuperman may well have been right. But just because they theoretically can, doesn't mean they can in actuality.

It actually comes down to the most basic principles of economics. Manufacturers acquire the necessary inputs suitable to their production plans. They can't simply be conjured at the snap of a finger.

Reactors abroad may have enough excess uranium (and the personnel necessary to oversee the reactor) to increase production to 10-15% as the spokesperson for Nordium suggested. To imagine that they can magically begin producing at full capacity? Pure fantasy.

"Another concern is that overseas production could be constrained not only by availability of reactors but by the capacity of associated facilities that process irradiated uranium to extract the isotopes.

Typically, however, such facilities likewise operate well below peak capacity, so they too can surge in a crisis.

Finally, money affects production capacity. If a customer asks the operator of a reactor or a processing facility to operate overtime or during a scheduled vacation, it may have to pay extra for the privilege."

Precisely. And if the operator of the reactor determines that the opportunity cost (what is foregone in order to produce at a higher level -- in this case, profit) exceeds the marginal benefit (what additional profit can be made by producing more isotopes) they will almost certainly make the decision to not increase production.

"Nordion insists that it tried and failed to obtain isotopes from Europe during the NRU shutdown, but some European facilities actually were sitting idle. So the real obstacle may have been Nordion's unwillingness to pay a premium, rather than any alleged inadequacy of European capacity.

Last month, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission announced a jointly sponsored investigation of their actions.

Certainly an inquiry is warranted by a series of missteps:

AECL falsely assured regulators two years ago that safety upgrades were complete."

Not to mention the obvious lack of proper inspection of the facility, which would have revealed the incomplete work. Simply more proof that AECL president Linda Keen did not do her fucking job.

"The shutdown of the reactor was not reported for 12 days to the responsible cabinet minister, who waited three more days to start addressing the issue.

The government then intervened heavy-handedly, waiving the requirement for a safety review and firing the official who had demanded it, even though the review would have delayed the restart by only two days, according to AECL's own estimates.

The proposed inquiry, however, hardly qualifies as independent or comprehensive: AECL is deeply implicated in the events; the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has been neutered by the demotion of its courageous president Linda Keen; and Nordion is strangely left out of the equation."

"Courageous" AECL president Linda Keen who never did her job when she had the opportunity.

But Kuperman has done such a fantastic job of ignoring the facts up to this point. Why stop now?

"In light of the gravity of the public health, public safety and governance issues implicated by this scandal, a much deeper investigation is warranted by Canada's Parliament and independent watchdogs.

As the facts now appear, Ottawa quashed safety regulators to restart a potentially risky nuclear reactor, imperilling its citizens for the benefit of a private company, despite the availability of backup isotope supplies from abroad.

Canadian citizens have a right to know why."

Perhaps so, but even the partisan undertones of Kuperman's already-crumbly conspiracy theory crumble when one recalls that the government and opposition parties voted together unanimously in order to have the reactor restarted.

Not to mention the fact that medical exams were canceled worldwide, due to the actual worlwide isotope shortage.

Then, of course, there's the question of who really exaggerated the isotope shortage, even if we accept the basic premise of Kuperman's conspiracy theory -- that is, that it was exaggerated.

Would it be the Conservatives, who responded based on the opinions of the medical community, who were canceling diagnostic tests due to the shortage? Or the Liberals, who tried to exploit the situation for partisan gain?

(Then again, one expects partisan hackery from politicians. We don't expect it from our newspapers.)

That's a much more interesting question. But don't ask Alan Kuperman. He's hard at work on his next partisan conspiracy theory.

Star Reader Misses Point of Letter

Star readers asleep in Michael Byers' dreamland

Michael Byers' recent opinion article in the Toronto Star has managed to send a few ripples across Canada's political discourse.

Following the letter, Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Bernier naturally found it necessary to respond. In a 3 January letter to the editor, he wrote:

"This article by Michael Byers is so one-sided and lacking in objectivity that I feel compelled to respond. Let me first dismiss his claims about the recent Bali conference on climate change. Canada played a constructive role in Bali that resulted in an agreement that recognizes that all major emitters, like China, India and the U.S., all need to be on-board to reduce emissions.

It's also interesting that Byers quotes Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. In Bali, Canada and Australia held the same position and agreed on the final language that was adopted.

I also found Byers' claim that our government has "picked unnecessary quarrels" with China, Russia and Iran to be particularly risible. Our government is guided by Canada's key foreign-policy values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. I don't understand why our insistence on standing up for these values seems to make Byers so upset.

Finally, that he would see something sinister in the U.S. ambassador to Canada accompanying Defence Minister Peter MacKay to view American contributions to the UN-authorized, NATO-led mission in Afghanistan verges on the paranoid. Under the previous Liberal government, Canada's global influence declined while it diverted energy away from the important work of diplomacy and toward soft-power fantasies."

Bernier's letter is quick, concise, and covers the key points.

Yet it seems that, unsurprisingly, a few Star readers are willing -- seemingly even eager -- to swallow Byers' tripe. Such was the point of Tom McElroy's 5 January letter to the editor:

"I was amused by Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier's response to the opinion piece by Michael Byers. It is rather representative of the current government's use of rhetoric in place of logic in responding to the needs of the country. First, Bernier opens by accusing the writer of being "one-sided and lacking objectivity." This accomplishes two things in the propaganda battle. It suggests that the writer (Bernier) has the moral high ground in objectivity. It also suggests that Byers is in some way a flawed person. In fact, an opinion piece is not expected to be objective; it is supposed to express a viewpoint and promote the discussion of other options.

With respect to the Bali meeting, the comment about having an agreement with all nations on-board is one of the government's slickest pieces of rhetorical fallacy. Yes, we need everyone on-board in an agreement. But emerging nations cannot be compelled to agree to something they don't like. There must be an international agreement that everyone is prepared to live with (read compromise) and that provides a level playing field for international trade and development.

Bernier (re-)states the apparently reasonable view that "all need to be on-board" and leads the public to think that they are trying hard when, by demanding across-the-board, immediate cuts from nations with emerging economies, they are, in fact, undermining the concrete steps needed to be taken. This is a position that is immoral, unreasonable and impossible – in short, they are still rejecting the reality of climate change in favour of the economic development of the oil patch in Canada.

Canada seems to have become very flexible on where it is upholding moral principles these days. The minister is being deliberately obtuse in responding to Byers' claim that the government provoked negative reactions from China and others. Some details here are necessary to define exactly what the minister means before any credence can be granted to his statement. Finally, Bernier would do well to remember that Canadian soft power earned Lester Pearson a Nobel Prize."

First off, it's interesting that someone would accuse the government of "using rhetoric in place of logic" in defense of an article that is so wrought with factual errors, half-truths and rhetorical dead ends. And while McElroy may actually be entirely right in asserting that objectivity isn't expected of opinion articles -- the exact opposite, in fact -- McElroy declines to address why Byers' piece can't even maintain rhetorical coherence.

He then indulges himself in accusing the government of using Byers' piece as an opportunity to engage in a "propaganda war" despite the fact that Byers' article fits so neatly into Noam Chomsky's propaganda model, vis a vis historical engineering.

McElroy then actually resorts to making the government's argument for it -- that we need climate change agreements on which all countries can agree before dismissing the need for developing countries to also commit to fighting climate change as "immoral". Perhaps mr McElroy is entirely comfortable with manufacturing jobs migrating from developed countries to developing countries pumping the atmosphere full of the very same greenhouse gases the Kyoto protocol addresses, only in different countries, and to no net effect overall.

Then again, we aren't supposed to ask serious questions about Kyoto.

To top it off, McElroy insists that Bernier should conjure some details before dismissing Byers' complaints over the "negative reactions" "provoked" "from China and others". Yet Byers' article skimps on details in the first place, and with reasons that eventually became obvious -- his arguments collapsed under their own rhetorical weight once details -- or any facts whatsoever -- were added to the equation.

If Bernier's objections should be granted little credence, than it should be doubly so for Byers.

Last but not least, one would remind McElroy that the purpose of Canadian foreign policy is to represent and support Canadian interests abroad; it's not to win Nobel prizes for Prime Ministers, or make Canada seem "cool".

Toronto Star Makes Its Facts Up -- Again

GST cut allegedly the most disastrous thing to happen to Canada's economy since Lester Pearson

In an editorial published in today's Torotno Star, it seems their editorial staff has a bone to pick with Stephen Harper over the recent 1% (from 6% to 5%) cut to the GST.

In short, it seems the GST cut will be single-handedly responsible for all of the economic difficulties Canada is forecasted to experience in the coming year:

"Back in November, which in economic forecasters' time already seems like an eternity ago, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty presented a fairly sanguine outlook for the year ahead. For 2008, he saw growth moderating just a little, from 2.5 per cent last year to 2.4 per cent.

Turns out he was far too optimistic.

Yet, carrying over that unwarranted sense of optimism into his fiscal projections, Flaherty also boosted the projected surplus for this year almost fivefold – from the $3 billion figure in his spring budget to a whopping $13.8 billion in his fall economic statement.

He then applied almost the entire windfall to tax cuts, frittering away a full two-thirds of the projected surplus on the Conservatives' second percentage point cut in the Goods and Services Tax in as many years.

But now that Flaherty has almost emptied Ottawa's coffers with his cumulative two-percentage-point, $12 billion GST extravaganza, private forecasters are yet again marking down their growth projections for 2008. For example, TD Economics, which is the highly respected forecasting arm of the TD Bank, last month knocked one-half of a percentage point off Flaherty's November growth projection with a warning that "the risks (of recession) have become acute."

And with each decline in the outlook for growth this year reflecting the marked increase in pessimism about the prospects for the troubled U.S. economy, the small fiscal cushion Flaherty has left himself to deal with the steadily mounting uncertainly shrinks further still.

For Ontario, the combination of the high Canadian dollar, $100-a-barrel oil and a U.S. slowdown could cripple the hard-pressed manufacturing sector, especially the all-important auto industry. The manufacturing sector needs help, but as Prime Minister Stephen Harper keeps warning, Ottawa has almost nothing left after its tax cuts.

Flaherty, of course, would say that his two GST cuts are just what any economist would order for a weakening economy, namely billions of dollars of stimulus to encourage consumers to spend.

Unfortunately, more spending on Chinese-made products, which represents a good percentage of the goods you buy today, creates more stimulus in China than it does in Canada. Just as important, more consumption won't fix what ails our economy in that it will not make our struggling manufacturers more competitive with foreign imports.

That is why virtually every respected economist in Canada opposed the Harper government's cuts in the GST.

At the same time, cutting the GST was a regressive move in that it put most of the money into the hands of people who buy expensive cars and diamond rings as opposed to those who spend their limited incomes on groceries and paying the rent.

Those with the fewest resources will inevitably be the hardest hit by a downturn. For them, a better move would have been for Harper to implement an anti-poverty strategy that would cushion them from a slowdown and ease the hardship they endure even in good times.

Or had Flaherty given some of the $12 billion to cities, not only would the stimulative impact have been greater, but some of the deep-seated problems that plague our underfunded cities could have been solved.

With their GST cuts, the Tories have wasted an opportunity to make the economy stronger and more competitive, to address the plight of cash-starved cities that are engines of economic growth, and to lend a helping hand to millions of poor Canadians who are forced to live their own personal recessions even in the best of times.

And why? So Harper could have a "photo op" in front of shelves of foreign-made televisions, all showing the 5-per-cent GST on their screens, in a consumer electronics store on New Year's Eve. The foreign workers who make those TVs owe him a big vote of thanks."

It's terribly heady stuff, and gives one cause to reconsider the wisdom of the tax cut in question. Yet something doesn't seem quite right.

An October 31 Globe and Mail article reminds us why.

As it turns out, the $10 billion in tax cuts that the Star is complaining about has been accrued not exclusively from the GST cut, but rather combined across cuts to the GST, personal income tax and corporate income tax.

Part of those tax cuts were of precisely the nature that the Star and many publications like it have long clamoured for: an increase in the amount of money an individual can earn before having to pay taxes (to $10,100 by January 1, 2009), and a 0.5% cut to the lowest tax bracket, two adjustments long called for as poverty-fighting measures.

That was in addition to a modest 1% cut across all personal income tax brackets.

In fact, as it turns out, the tax cuts in question do indeed make Canada's economy more competitive. By 2012, Canada's business community -- including Ontario's manufacturing sector -- will enjoy the lowest corporate tax rate of all major industrialized countries.

Lower corporate taxes, naturally, make a strong incentive for businesses to open in, or potentially relocate to, Canada.

A previously-decided tax rate reduction for small businesses was also rescheduled to happen sooner.

As it turns out, the 1% reduction in the GST is actually worth $5.6 billion. Yet even if the previous reduction to the GST were included (presumably another $5.6 billion), the Star would still be wrong, as that $5.6 billion wasn't included in the $10 billion drop in Jim Flaherty's projected surplus as forecasted in the 2007/08 Fiscal Update.

Yet, in the entire 622-word editorial, there's no mention of this -- or any of the other tax cuts that the Star's annointed favourite, Stephane Dion, declined to stop when he had the opportunity to (no mention of that, either).

Once again, the Toronto Star has been caught being either editorially lazy or calculatingly dishonest.

One wonders why the Star would seemingly work so hard to misrepresent the Conservative party's tax cuts, and undermine its journalistic integrity. Then again, journalistic integrity tends to matter very little to activist journalists such as those at the Toronto Star.

Michael Byers and the Neo-Conservative Bogeyman Redux

Byers indulges himself in a feat of historical engineering

Michael Byers' recent op/ed article "From rogue nation to world leader", published in The Toronto Star, then mercilessly fisked and shredded all around the blogosphere, has garnered a lot of attention for Byers.

At first glance, it's easy to dismiss Byers' article as politically motivated. However, closer examination of the article uncovers something a little more sinister.

Byers' article isn't merely a politically-motivated dig at a sitting government aimed at inducing an election. It's a full-out act of historical engineering -- described by Noam Chomsky as the act of "designing the facts" in order to conceal historical truth.

According to Chomsky, historical engineering is conducted either by misrepresenting key facts, or by omitting them altogether. More often than not, under such conditions, the act of historical engineering can be identified by examining foreign media sources for such ommitted or misrepresented facts.

As previously mentioned, Byers' work is full of them.

He insists China shouldn't be agitated despite its atrocious human rights record.

He insists that the war in Afghanistan should be abandoned in favour of peacekeeping in the Sudan despite the fact that Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has announced UN Peacekeepers would be treated as foreign invaders (in other words, Byers suggests we abandon the war effort in order to attempt to peacekeep in a country where our peacekeepers would have war waged against them). Osama Bin Laden has also jihad against any UN peacekeeping force deployed to Sudan. (Pity Bin Laden cares so little for the victims of the Muslim-on-Muslim violence in Darfur).

Incidentally, he also ignores China's involvement in the Sudan.

He attempts to shift political responsibility for anti-terror laws that allegedly undermined the civil rights of Canadians away from the government that created it to the government that attempted to renew them. Despite the actually largely unthreatening and benign nature of the laws sunsetted, largely for partisan gain, somehow they were seemingly much more tolerable under a previous government.

He portrays the summer 2006 invasion of Lebanon by Israel as having been perpetrated over the abduction of a lone Israeli soldier, whereas Hezbollah had also been launching rocket attacks into Israel from Lebanese terrority, while the Lebanese government declined to prevent it.

He condemns the government for recalling its ambassador to Iran in protest of the Iranian handling (or actual lack thereof) of the Zahra Kazemi case, while continuing to raise complaints about the alleged torture of Afghan prisoners of war, and about the use of the death penalty on Canadians like Ronald Smith, who killed a Montana aboriginal to find out what killing is like. (When Iranian prison guards rape and batter Canadian citizens to death, Byers seemingly has very little to say. When Afghan prison guards torture their charges, somehow it's Canada that's responsible.)

He suggests we fight climate change by ignoring the countries in the world with the poorest enviornomental legislation -- something that writers like Naomi Kline would remind us attracts multinational corporations to increasingly base their manufacturing operations in such countries.

He suggests that we use Norway as a model to successfully fighting climate change despite the disastrous failure of that country's policies in regard to greenhouse gases.

Of course, when Byers says such things, and says them in a national newspaper, we're expected to beleive him. He's what you would call an expert.

Yet the facts, when uncovered, so eagerly contradict him. Furthermore, he's a man who is so atrociously out-of-step with even his own contemporaries that virtually everything he says has to be taken with a grain of salt. The factual omissions and half-truths loom large over the credibility of his work.

Some may be tempted to excuse such scholarly indiscretions as sheer ignorance. Perhaps Byers simply isn't the expert he claims to be, or is claimed to be.

Yet, if Byers isn't simply a third-rate foreign policy scholar with a political axe to grind, then certainly the misinformation contained in his article was intentional. That's very illustrative of an effort at historical engineering: it is, by nature, a calculated act.

Historical engineering, as Chomsky (whom Byers would, ironically, probably consider to among his contemporaries) theorizes, relies on dogmatic belief systems around which national identities are so tightly wrapped.

In his particular case, the dogma is that of Canada as a progressive country. The idea forwarded, based on this dogma, is that a progressive country must have a government that is progressive enough for Byers' liking. Once transformed into such a pervasive dogma, the theorem takes on a nearly religious quality. It may not be challenged without summary accusations of blasphemy.

It's unsurprising that Byers would apply such dogmatic arguments to a government that he essentially describes as all but blasphemous, even if he never actually resorts to using that particular word.

The dogmatic, religious quality of the arguments forwarded is also by design. It protects them from scrutiny, under which such arguments certainly would not -- and are proven to not -- stand up.

Most importantly, however, historical engineering, such as Byers has indulged himself in -- is a principally Machiavellian act. While faux-progressives like Byers may argue that ruthlessness in pursuit of a "greater good" still serves that "greater good" (however one may define it), it is still ruthlessness, is still a vice, and is still regressive in nature.

Above all, it is still propaganda, and fits snugly within the "Propaganda Model" that Chomsky elaborates in books such as Necessary Illusions.

As such, Michael Byers, propagandist, historical engineer, faux-progressive and foreign policy "expert" warrants very close scrutiny.

Michael Byers and the Neo-Conservative Bogeyman

Bali, Bono, and Bush -- oh, my!

When Canadians want in-depth analysis from an intellectually lazy ideologue, they need look no further than Michael Byers.

In what appears like it could be a concentrated effort by the Toronto Star to rally public opinion in favour of defeating the sitting Conservative government, Byers does what Byers has done best -- twisting the facts to find fault with absolutely everything about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government:

""So, how does it feel to be the citizen of a rogue state?"

The British professor asking the question was serious.

We were in Cambridge, England, and yet the words "Kyoto," "Bali" and "Canada" were on many lips.

For on the other side of the planet, Environment Minister John Baird was blocking an agreement that would have bound the world's wealthiest countries to specific targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions after 2012 – when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Canada, traditionally a proponent of multilateral co-operation and environmental stewardship, was thumbing its nose at the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the 2,500-member scientific body that had recently warned that the planet faces "abrupt and irreversible" damage unless greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized by 2015.

Canada was also ignoring the pleas of Kevin Rudd, Australia's new prime minister, who explained that an agreement was necessary because "there is no plan B; there is no other planet any of us can escape to.""

Yes, Michael. When the Prime Minister of Australia calls on us to sacrifice our economic future in the name of a panic-stricken pipe dream, we should reply "ready, aye, ready."

But, as he'll later allude, when the President of the United States calls on us to participate in the battle against terrorism -- as much a threat to Canada as any other country -- we should tell him to "fuck off" on principle alone.

Right.

"Instead, the Canadian delegation embraced the stubbornly unilateral, anti-environmental stance of U.S. President George W. Bush. They mimicked his demand – always intended as a deal breaker – that any specific binding targets include developing states."

And yet Byers never seems to want to explain why, precisely, requiring developing countries to contribute to the fight against climate change should be a deal-breaker. Or, rather, why it shouldn't.

Perhaps he'd like to overlook that most of the world's poorest countries also have the most lax environmental laws. Yet, in the name of staving off an "imminent environmental catastrophe" that is unproven to actually be imminent, he would issue such countries a free pass.

That is, fundamentally, the wrong approach by any regard.

"The move caught some foreign experts by surprise. Canada had previously shown the good sense not to join in Bush's most egregious mistakes, including the Iraq War.

But then Stephen Harper became prime minister, with views on foreign policy that parallel those of American neo-conservatives. Like them, Harper sees the Kyoto Protocol – arguably the most important treaty ever – as "essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations."

Harper's Bush-like views extend beyond climate change. In July 2006, he described the far-reaching destruction of Lebanese infrastructure as a "measured" response to the abduction of an Israeli soldier, souring our relations with Arab states and precluding a diplomatic role for Canada in the Middle East."

Of course, Byers is conveniently ignoring the fact that Israel was also responding to rocket attacks perpetrated by Hezbollah against civilian targets -- a war crime by any regard. Then again, Byers' analysis, as usual, depends on ignoring key facts.

"He has also picked unnecessary quarrels with China over human rights, Russia over the Arctic and Iran over ambassadors, rather than seizing opportunities to constructively engage these increasingly important states."

One may wonder how it is that, in an opinion article stressing, in part, Canada's need to lead on human rights, why Byers would dismiss quarrels with China over that very issue to be unnecesssary? One may wonder why Byers would dismiss Canada's confrontation with Russia over arctic sovereignty, considering that he actually grudgingly admitted, during a speech in Edmonton, that the Harper government has been the best of Canada's recent governments in regards to this issue. One may wonder why Byers would want to condemn Harper for recalling Canada's ambassador to Iran in protest to the treatment of the Zahra Kazemi case while he simultaneously condemns the government for refusing to seek leniency for Canadians facing the death penalty abroad. There's also a little something to be said for how Iran treats its prisoners -- a point seemingly lost on Byers despite the amount of protest he's raised over alleged Canadian complicity in the torture of Afghan prisoners of war.

The answer, it turns out, is actually very simple: his misgivings have nothing to do with human rights, arctic sovereignty or diplomacy. They have everything to do with ideology.

Of course, when waging ideological warfare against conservatives in print, Byers clearly takes no shame in sinking to any and all depths in order to link Harper to the political left's favourite omnipresent bogeyman:

"In Afghanistan, Harper has stubbornly opposed negotiations with dissident groups, shown a casual disregard for the rights of detainees, and seems to view the mission mostly as a way of currying favour with the United States.

Why else would his defence minister, Peter MacKay, invite the U.S. ambassador along for a Christmas visit to Canada's troops in Kandahar?"

Other than the fact that the United States and Canada are allies in the war in Afghanistan? We wouldn't know, mr Byers. Why don't you tell us.

"Closer to home, Harper has refused to repatriate Omar Khadr, a Canadian child soldier arbitrarily imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay. He has curtailed the practice of seeking clemency for all Canadians sentenced to death abroad. He's even sought to curtail the civil liberties of Canadians by extending our anti-terrorist laws – now, more than six years after 9/11."

But why does Byers have nothing to say about the fact that the anti-terrorist laws in question not only were enacted by a majority Liberal government, but also about the fact that the sunsetting of the laws in question has proven to have had a detrimental effect on the Air India inquiry -- the search for justice in the worst terrorist attack ever perpetrated upon Canadians.

Why does Byers have nothing to say about the fact that Khadr was, at 15 years old, a trained terrorist fighter who had already drawn blood in the battlefield? Faux-progressives like Byers may hold a good deal of disdain for the detention of enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay, but they should not fail to recognize that , whether they like it or not, Omar Khadr is an enemy combatant. If Byers wants to go so far as to suggest that Khadr should be issued a "get out of jail free" card, he should remember the experience Algeria has had with released terrorists.

Furthermore, one may wonder what to make of his suggestion that Canada should try to impose its views regarding human rights vis a vis the death penalty on the United States when he's already suggested that confronting China over human rights is "unncessary".

Of course, Byers wouldn't be a proper ideologue if his arguments didn't range from the specious and hypocritical to the outright fickle, like so:

"In September 2003, the cover of The Economist showed a moose in shades under the banner Canada is `cool'. Can anyone imagine us earning the same accolade today?"

That's right. That's what Canadian foreign policy is all about. It's not about supporting the interests of Canadians abroad -- it's about making Canada cool.

Readers may roll their eyes at their own discretion.

"Thanks to Harper, Canada has become the pliant instrument of a failed U.S. presidency. We are now, for all intents and purposes, a vassal state."

Despite the fact that Harper has actually stood up to the United States on a number of issues, including Byers' beloved arctic sovereignty pet issue.

But Byers now gets to the point. We can find out what all of these various intentional half-truths and flip-flops are all about:

"But in the same way that Harper's government has hijacked our foreign policy, so could a new government bring us back on course."

Yet one wonders what to make of this claim when they consider the "hijacked" foreign policy isn't really all that different than that of the previous Liberal government: Afghanistan, leading in the establishment of climate change agreements abroad while taking precious little tangible action at home and funnelling billions of dollars in foreign aid through unaccountable international organizations.

Somehow, a new government will be completely different, even if mr Byers can't assure us as to how.

"Canada, with its large and resource-rich territory, robust economy, and diverse and internationalized population, could exercise a considerable and beneficial influence on the world stage.

On climate change, geography gives us the potential to be a leader in wind, solar, geothermal and tidal power. Let's change our tax system to favour sustainable energy sources, and stop the lunacy of unrestrained development in the Alberta oil sands. Let's recognize – as the Danes and Germans have – that those who make technological advances first, reap the greatest gains.

Instead of dragging our heels on emissions reduction targets, let's be bold and brave. Let's decide – as Norway has – to become a carbon neutral country by the middle of the century."

Yeah, Michael. We all know how successful Norway has been on meeting its Kyoto obligations.

"Binding targets are not the problem. The problem is the lack of political courage to speak straight to Canadians and to implement fundamental changes to the way we work and play."

No, Michael. The problem is that governments that claimed to be concerned with climate change spent the better part of a decade doing absolutely nothing about it, and now campaign rigorously on the very same issue they did absolutely nothing about, expecting Canadians to believe they will somehow do something other than absolutely nothing in future, while foreign policy "experts" like Michael Byers insist such a government would do something other than absolutely nothing, past performance to the contrary.

"In Afghanistan, it's time to move from a combat-oriented approach to one that focuses on negotiation, peacemaking and nation-building.

It's time to ensure that Canadian soldiers are never complicit in prisoner abuse by stopping detainee transfers until the Afghan prison system has been comprehensively reformed."

This seems like a novel approach, but one wonders what the alternatives are. Would Byers like to suggest that Canadian troops establish a prison to hold prisoners of war in Afghanistan, thereby usurping a function of the state?

Progressives used to agree that imperialism such as that was a bad thing. Real progressives probably still would. Byers and his cabal of faux-progressives? Not so much.

"It's time to move NATO troops out, and UN peacekeepers in.

And then, let's get serious about the "responsibility to protect" where it's needed most: in Africa.

Let's make sure the UN peacekeeping missions in Darfur and Congo succeed. Let's help bring peace to northern Uganda and a change of government in Zimbabwe. Let's ramp up our overseas development assistance to those countries burdened by drought and disease."

Once again, Byers engages in the pacifistic fantasy of leaving the war effort (war is such a dirty word) to embark on a peacekeeping mission in a country in which the government has decreed that UN peacekeepers would be treated as foreign invaders. China, with whom confrontation over human rights is "unnecessary", is also involved in Sudan.

To top it all off, Byers then indulges himself in pontificating on yesterday's issues:

"On the perennial problem of nuclear proliferation, let's show leadership by admitting the obvious and formally declare Canada to be a nuclear-weapons-free zone.

Let's use the UN Law of the Sea Convention and Arctic Council as opportunities to make the Far North a zone of co-operation. Let's work with the Russians, Americans and Danes on mapping the Arctic Ocean and ensuring that shipping and resource development there is safe and environmentally sound."

For once in this sad little excuse for an op/ed article, Byers actually has a decent idea. But then he goes right back to beating the Bush-as-bogeyman drum, suggesting that, somehow, it's Canada's responsibility to manage the United States economy.

"As for the United States, let's face up to the economic mess that Bush has created with his tax cuts for the rich and vast increases in military spending.

Instead of shrugging our shoulders in dismay or complacency, why not seize the moment to change the balance of rights and obligations in NAFTA? The renegotiation of international agreements is a normal consequence of shifts in relative power, a shift that in this case favours Canada.

We are the United States' largest trading partner and primary source of secure energy, making them as dependent on us as we are on them. And our economy is now outperforming theirs.

So, let's rid ourselves of the NAFTA provisions that mandate U.S. access to Canadian oil and gas and require that the prices charged for energy exports to the United States not exceed those charged to Canadians. Let's opt out of the mechanism that enables U.S. companies to initiate binding arbitration whenever their businesses can claim to have been detrimentally affected by Canadian laws – including laws designed to protect our health and environment."

One wonders who Byers imagines western Canada, in particular, will export oil and gas to, considering that it isn't economically feasible to export it overseas, or even to Eastern Canada.

"To suggest this is hardly anti-American. It is merely to advocate exactly what they would do were they in our position.

On all foreign policy issues, let's not be afraid to conduct our own analyses, to have our own national debates. In the end, we'll likely decide to work with the United States about 95 per cent of the time."

And yet, when the Harper government elects to work with the United States on initiatives actually started under Liberal governments, they're somehow "pandering to U.S. interests".

Sheesh.

"On the remaining 5 per cent, let's not be surprised when the U.S. government expresses displeasure or even makes threats. That's what good negotiators do, as they prepare for the next bargaining round.

It's what happens over the long term that matters. And it's in the long-term interests of everyone – including Americans – to have a strong, friendly, yet independent country to the north of the United States."

It certainly is. But how does one balance this particular assertion on Byers' part against past practices on behalf of the Canadian government -- which seem to represent a sort of "good ol' days" that Byers is eager to return to -- which actually made us weaker and less independent than the practices of the current government?

The dreamland that Byers lives in and reality as it actually exists never seem to fully resemble one another. But Byers only proves that in the conclusion of his article:

"Bono said it best: "The world needs more Canadas." But the Irish rock star meant a particular kind of Canada – a Canada that is sovereign, compassionate, committed to peace, willing to co-operate, yet also prepared to lead.

This year, let's elect a government that shares this vision. Let's shake the "rogue state" label – before it sticks."

Sovereign. Compassionate. Committed to peace. Willing to cooperate. Prepared to lead.

Ironically for Byers, that does sound an awful lot like Canada's current government to those who, unlike Byers, aren't twisting fact to ideological ends.

Canada has strengthened its sovereignty by strengthening its military -- which provides us with the ability to defend that sovereignty -- and by re-staking its claim to its arctic sovereignty. Canada has proven itself to be compassionate by resolving to prevent the Taliban from returning to power in Afghanistan. Likewise is its commitment to peace (vis a vis ridding the world of states that harbour terrorists) and its will to cooperate with the NATO coalition. Canada has proven its leadership not only in establishing a productive framework within which everyone will be required to contribute to the fight against climate change (which is a serious issue, if not the imminent catastrophe that Byers and his fellow panic-mongers insist), but also within the United Nations, NATO, the Francophonie and the Commonwealth.

And Canada has done all of this under a Conservative government.

If Byers wants to twist facts and spread half-truths in order to try to suggest the opposite, that's certainly up to him. But it certainly casts serious shadows of doubt on the credibility of the Toronto Star that they would print his article without even bothering to fact-check.

Then again, perhaps they, like Byers, are simply hoping that Canadians will be so ideologically fixated that they won't bother to check the facts.

But this does speak volumes about Byers and his claim to a progressive world view. A true progressive -- or so many of us are led to believe -- would never engage in such blatant misinformation in pursuit of their political agenda. Fostering a debate based on such factually ignorant dogma is actually quite a regressive act, not a progressive one.

When one recalls that Leo Strauss -- a prominent neoconservative thinker who is largely credited with establishing this school of political thought -- advocated in favour of "the noble lie", it seems that Byers and the neoconservative bogeyman that he seems to fear so much aren't that dissimilar at all.

Halloween Spirit Permeates Afghanistan Rallies

"Canada out of Afghanistan" rallies touted as "huge success"

Ah, yes. Halloween. That time of year when adults and children alike disguise themselves as someone or something else for fun.

It should come as no surprise, then, that in the days leading up to Halloween, the “venerable” Toronto Star has been hard at work describing October 28’s “Canada out of Aghanistan Now!” rallies as something they weren’t – a success.

500 protestors marched through the streets of Ottawa (population 859,704). 200 protestors showed up in Halifax (population 359,111). 500 congregated in Montreal (population 3,326,510), and 600 in Vancouver (population 600,000). In Edmonton (population 937, 845), fewer than 100 turned up.

Success? Hardly. Not in one of these cases did so much as 1% of the city’s population turn out to agitate against Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.

“I get the feeling we’re making history here today,” said NDP leader Jack Layton. “Millions of Canadians are deeply concerned about this combat role.”

Layton, whose comments about Canadian involvement in Afghanistan have alienated Canadian military service men and women from his party, may have wanted to check his rhetoric before spewing this absurdity. If “millions of Canadians are deeply concerned about this combat role,” millions of Canadians might have actually shown up to these rallies.

Thousands (but barely thousands) of Canadians in 37 cities – far from what Toronto organizer Sid Lacombe implied when he said, “there are 37 different actions happening in Canada today, all the big cities, and even small towns.”
37 rallies in a country with a population of 32,000,000 hardly represents a huge success. In fact, a mere 37 rallies is a dismal failure.

Even more amusing is the common failure in logic. It seems that many protestors have confused the war in Afghanistan with the war in Iraq. “It’s an illegal war,” 60 year-old Ellen Schifren asserted.

The same charge leveled against the American war in Iraq. Of course, one might expect an obvious international law expert like Schifren to know that the war in Afghanistan is actually being conducted under a UN mandate.

Whoops.

This was hardly atypical. Many of the protestors carried placards portraying Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a war monger, despite the fact that it was actually the Liberal Party of Canada that committed Canadian troops to Afghanistan, and did so without a parliamentary vote, or even a debate.

Whoops.

While one certainly can appreciate the value of dissent on an issue as key and important as the war in Iraq, these rallies essentially turned out to be nothing more than a Halloween masquerade – protesters masquerading failure as success, Stephen Harper as George Bush, and the dumber as merely dumb.