Let's Talk About "Serious", Shall We?

Bill Siksay clearly not serious about human trafficking -- or crime

Weeks after Conservative MP Joy Smith's private members' bill setting a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for child trafficking was passed by the House of Commons, at least one of the MPs who voted against it is still making excuses.

NDP MP Bill Siksay -- who, along with Libby Davies, was one of the only non-Bloc Quebecois MPs to vote against it -- insists that the government isn't being serious about child trafficking.

But Siksay is defending his actions based on the same limited ideology on criminal justice: the insistence that criminal law exists only to prevent crime and rehabilitate convicted offenders.

“I voted against it because I don’t believe this bill will do anything to prevent the crime, to stop human trafficking or to assist the victims of the crime,” Siksay insisted. “Mandatory minimum sentences have been proven to be utterly ineffective as a crime prevention tool and there’s just absolutely no evidence that they do anything to make the situation better.”

But Siksay is missing the mark. Locking human traffickers away does help protect their victims. Benjamin Perrin notes that "In order to come forward, the victim needs to know they are safe."

Or at least, needs to believe that they will be safe. Keeping their assailant behind bars would go a long way toward creating that sense of safety.

There is one valid point that Siksay does raise: the handling of victims by officials often provides a distinct disincentive for them to come forward.

“Victims are often deported from Canada if they’re discovered and often that puts them right back in the hands of the traffickers who sent them here in the first place,” Siksay explained.

This is a good point. But it's no excuse for Siksay to not support Smith's bill.

For example, Siksay could have offered his own private member's bill devoting more funding to the investigation and pursuit of human trafficking rings. He could have tabled a private member's bill that would automatically extent refugee status to people brought to Canada against their will by human traffickers.

Nothing about Joy Smith's bill would permanently close the books on the topic of human trafficking.

Even then, it's odd that individuals like Siksay simply can't grasp the notion that people who traffick in other human beings -- especially children -- belong in prison for the protection of those who would be their victims if they were allowed free.

Bill Siksay doesn't get it. He just. Doesn't. Get it. And he most certainly is not serious about the topic of human trafficking, or about crime.

If he were, he would have discarded his ideological views on crime and supported Joy Smith's bill.

The Nobel No Prize

Nobel Peace Prize as much a burden as an honour for US President

As various leftist sychophants continue to preen over US President Barack Obama recently being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the lion's share of the commentary over the matter seems to revolve around whether or not Obama actually deserves the prize.

Almost certainly, he doesn't -- not yet, not even by the specious line of reasoning used by Rachel Maddow.

But even under the questionable reasons given for awarding the prize to Obama -- encouraging him to embrace diplomacy over American force -- the award committee hasn't truly done Obama any favours. In fact, as Andrew Cohen posits, the "promisary note" award may actually prove to be a millstone around Obama's neck.

In many ways, it turned out to be precisely that for Lester Pearson, who received his Nobel Peace Prize before ever becoming leader of the Liberal party, let alone Prime Minister:

"...The prize may have been the worst thing that ever happened to Mike Pearson. To many it turned him into a peacemaker and a pacifist. It conjured up an enduring image of a toga-clad high priest atop a stony mountain, uttering mystical mantras into the winds.

Pearson was just embarking on a feverish decade as Leader of the Opposition and Prime Minister. Twice, in both roles, the prize would come to haunt him.

In 1963, Pearson reversed his party's stand and agreed to accept the deployment of US nuclear weapons in Canada. It was a political master-stroke that helped split John Diefenbaker's Conservatives and propel the Liberals to power that spring.

But Pearson angered his party's left wing. His critics couldn't believe that a Nobel laureate could countenance nuclear weapons. An angry Pierre Trudeau famously called him 'the defrocked prince of peace' and refused to run as a Liberal that year.

In 1965, as prime minister, Pearson came under pressure to urge Lyndon Johnson to end the bombing of Vietnam. The question arose: how could our poster boy of peace remain silent during the greatest aerial bombardment in history?

Once again, Pearson acted as a conscientious, practical politician, not as a pacifist. He had long tried to contain 'thermo-nuclear weapons,' as he called them, but believed that Canada had to honour its commitment to accept them as a member of NATO, which he had helped conceive and shape in 1949.

He opposed the war in Vietnam and gave a contentious speech in Philadelphia proposing a halt in the bombing. For his trouble he was picked up and dressed down by LBJ the next day. Ever the pragmatist, Pearson then went silent in public, worried about damaging relations between the two countries."

Pearson's experience demonstrates that the kind of expectations produced by a Nobel Peace Prize win can create expectations that would, if satisfied, permanently divorce that individual from realism. Moreover, observing diplomacy just for the sake of diplomacy can often paint a leader into a corner in which they can't criticize the actions of another country for fear of offending them.

For Barack Obama, the problems of living up to the expectations set for him by a Nobel Peace Prize are obvious. They are the same as the problems of living up to the expectations set for him by the progressive movement that so deftly delivered him to power in the first place.

If Obama continues -- as he must -- to prosecute either of the two wars his country is currently engaged in (and abandoning Afghanistan is simply not an option for him) he will certainly disappoint many members of the global "peace" movement who believe his Nobel Peace Prize should provide the impetus for retirement from the field of battle.

Obama is almost certain to disappoint and anger a great number of people no matter what he does from here on out.

At the very least, however, the Rachel Maddows of the world, suffering from the sycophantic strain of Derangement Syndrome, will still applaud no matter what.

Tony Blair: The Non-Destined President

Blair Presidency not inevitable after all

As Michael Cockerell notes in Tony Blair: The Inside Story, Tony Blair ascended to the Prime Ministership of Britain riding a wave of enthusiasm that had marked him as a "figure of destiny".

When he finally left the Prime Minister's Office, it was a tide of discontent that hastened his departure -- and now threatens to wash his Labour party away.

Recent speculation suggested that Blair may ride a similar wave of enthusiasm into the soon-to-be-established Presidency of the European Union. That enthusiasm is said to have deeply taken root in the European leaders who will ultimately elect the EU President.

But, as it turns out, there seems to be some opposition to a Blair Presidency crystalizing. Some may feign surprise that much of this opposition is emerging from left-wing elements in European politics, although it really isn't all that surprising.

French Socialist MEP Pervenche Berès phrases the cause for the objections rather succinctly.

"A lot of Socialists have not forgotten Blair for his wholehearted support for the US-led war in Iraq," Berès said. "He does not represent the views of real Socialists and there is no way he should be considered.”

Berès' sentiments were echoed by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the joint leader of the European Green Party. "There is no way Blair should get this job," Colin-Bendit insisted. "He did nothing to defend European interests when he was Prime Minister and has done even less as a Middle East envoy."

One would expect that at least the British Labour party cacus in the European Parliament would be in favour of a Blair Presidency. But Richard Howitt, a Labour Member of European Parliament, doesn't buy into the notion of the inevitable Blair Presidency.

“Some say Blair is the only credible candidate but I don't see it that way at all," Howitt said. "I am sure he wants the job but there are other outstanding candidates who should be considered."

Even with some high-profile endorsements -- such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- there may well be enough residual bad will toward Blair lingering from the days of his close association with George W Bush to torpedo his bid for the European Presidency.

At the very least, reports that Blair has it all locked up are clearly greatly exaggerated.

Turner Turned-Over?

Garth Turner quits Liberal party

the dark clouds swirling around Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff have gotten darker still, as Garth Turner has decided not to run for the party.

Tired of waiting for Ignatieff to finally allow a nomination meeting in the riding of Dufferin-Calderon (his new riding of choice since being defeated by Lisa Raitt in Halton), Turner has decided to quit as a candidate for that riding's nomination.

"In Dufferin-Caledon, I have been the only nominee for MP candidate since August," he wrote in a press release. "I'm interpreting the leader's failure to allow a nomination meeting as a signal my views are unwelcome."

Turner has voiced particular disappointment with Ignatieff's insistence that he wouldn't raise taxes as Prime Minister.

"It's hard to see what the coming election will be about if we're not prepared to discuss the options in the wake of the Harper fiscal disaster," Turner complained. "Economic growth alone won't wipe out an historic debt load or the need for spending cuts and tax hikes."

Moving forward, one may wonder what lies ahead for Turner: whether he plans to quit politics altogether, or simply join another party.

Many Canadians may remember the speculation that Turner would join the Green party shortly after his expulsion from the Conservative caucus. If Turner plans to continue his political career, he may not have many other choices.

Turner has burned both of the bridges that could ever lead him back to government -- at least in this lifetime. And while joining the Green party would only serve to confirm him as a consumate politician, with no real principles to ground him, there's no question that Elizabeth May and the Greens would love to have him.

At least it's a more appealling idea -- if no more realistic -- than Turner attempting to join the NDP.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Chucker Canuck - "Iggy Machine Grinds I-dotting, T-crossing Garth Turner"

Democracy Under Fire - "Digital Democracy in Canada Takes a Hit"

Russ Campbell - "No Garth Turner to Kick Around"

Mark Francis - "Often What They Don't Want is What We Need"

The Wildrose Alliance and the Future of Alberta's Left

"Unite the left" campaign reemerges in Alberta

When Paul Hinman unexpectedly won the Calgary-Glenmore by-election, virtually everything was said to have changed for conservative politics in Alberta.

Amidst reports that up to 10 Tory MLAs may defect to the Alliance and that Guy Boutilier may join, the Alliance has jumped to second place in the polls.

Clearly, with all of this going on, the Wildrose Alliance clearly believes the Tories are vulnerable. But they aren't alone.

Speaking in Red Deer, Alvin Finkel, the co-chairperson of the self-styled group calling itself the Democratic Renewal Project has renewed calls for a united left-of-centre alternative to the Stelmach Tories, insists that uniting the Liberal, NDP and any willing independents is the only way to defeat them.

Moreover, Finkel must recognize that time is of the essence. If some kind of arrangement -- be it a merger or a Manning-esque electoral coalition -- isn't reached, the improving fortunes of the Wildrose Alliance could leave the provincial Liberals and NDP simply facing a new conservative monoliith, with the same dim prospects of defeating it as before.

Fellow DRP member Phil Elder argues that contention between the Alliance and PCs could lead to a tremendous opportunity for Alberta's left-of-centre parties.

Moreover, he takes NDP leader Brian Mason to task for arguing at the recent NDP convention that the party could overcome vote-splitting with the Liberals by working hard over future election campaigns.

"Did Mr Mason mean to imply (wrongly) that under his leadership NDPers have merely not worked long and hard enough to win?" Elder asks. "Or, after eleven consecutive Conservative majority victories, have Mason and the New Democrat executive not yet learned the obvious lesson that splitting the vote is fatal?"

Indeed, the NDP convention rendered cooperation between the two parties to be a dead issue, even after Hinman's unexpected victory.

The quickly-shifting political atmosphere in the province, courtesy of the Wildrose Alliance's improving fortunes, should provide further impetus for Brian Mason and the NDP to reconsider their options on forming an electoral coalition.

In Alberta, the political game could be changing for the first time in nearly forty years. Whether or not it changes in the Liberals' and NDP's favour will depend entirely on them.


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Listening Yet?

Liberal Senators draw ire of prairie Premiers

As Joan Fraser and the Liberal party's senate caucus plot their next move regarding their controversial ammendments to a bill that would abolish 2-for-1 sentencing provisions, they may want to consider a joint press release written by he Premiers of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

In the press release Alberta's Ed Stelmach, Saskatchewan's Brad Wall and BC's Gordon Campbell reiterate their support for the bill to abolish these sentencing provisions. They add their voice to Manitoba Premier Gary Doer, who had previously voiced his displeasure over the matter.

“Our provinces all agree that eliminating the two-for-one credit would help our provinces fight organized crime and keep our communities safe,” said Wall.

“Albertans expect a system that represents their values and instills confidence,” added Stelmach. “Double credit for time served doesn't work for Alberta."

“Criminals should not be able to manipulate the justice system to their advantage by getting extra credit for time in remand,” Campbell said. “The amendments proposed by this unelected Senate water down the strength of Bill C-25."

Previously, Doer had suggested that the matter helps demonstrate the case made by those who call for the abolition of the Senate.

"We believe the Senate should be abolished — and if we ever saw a case for the Senate being abolished, we just saw it last [Wednesday] evening," Doer fumed. "Elected people in the legislatures of the country, elected people in ... Parliament should be making decisions."

As noted previously, support for Bill C-25 came from across Canada, from across partisan boundaries. Stelmach governs Alberta as the leader of the Progressive Conservative party. Wall governs Saskatchewan as the leader of the Saskatchewan party -- Sasktachewan's primary conservative party (a Progressive Conservative party remains registered but doesn't field candidates in elections). Campbell governs BC as a Liberal, and Doer is the outgoing NDP Premier of Manitoba.

If Canadians needed any further indication of precisely how unresponsive an institution the Senate has become, this particular issue certainly presents it.

With its current Liberal majority, the Senate doesn't seem to care what the people of Canada, their elected representatives, or the provincial governments of Canada have to say on this issue.

They plan to go their own way, and drag the rest of the country along with them. They just aren't listening.

Gary Doer predictably toed the (rather frightening) NDP party line on abolishing the Senate. Canadians clearly don't favour this option -- numerous polls have demonstrated the Canadian preference for an elected Senate.

But in the absence of an elected Senate, perhaps other reforms should be considered. Legislation allowing provincial governments to summon their Senators before the legislature could at least improve the responsiveness of Senators to the constituents they're expected to represent.

Better still would be legislation allowing provincial legislatures to dismiss Senators deemed to have insufficiently represented their constituents -- perhaps with a 75% vote.

Such reforms could at least force Canada's Senate to listen to the people they're expected to represent. As recent episodes have shown, Senators like Joan Fraser simply aren't listening.

Dwain Lingenfelter: The Tory Who Wasn't

Grant Devine: Lingenfelter "trapped"

When the Saskatchewan NDP recently elected Dwain Lingenfelter to replace Lorne Calvert as their party leader, it raised many eyebrows.

After all, Lingenfelter had just finished up eight years as an oil company executive in Calgary. Not exactly the kind of individual who normally ascends to the leadership of a party that tends to slag oil companies.

However, according to former Saskatchewan Premier Grant Devine, who governed the province as a Progressive Conservative during the corruption-plagued years of 1982-91, this may be the least surprising thing about Lingenfelter's leadership.

Devine suggests that Lingenfelter could just as easily have been a Progressive Conservative.

"I think in part Dwain may have just ended up in the wrong party. I mean, he loves politics; he's a great speaker. He's very good in the house, but he's trapped," Devine suggests. Devine also expects that Lingenfelter will find his economic policy constrained by a party that "won't let him be an entrepreneur".

Devine seems convinced that Lingenfelter would have done much better as a Tory.

"If you had turned Dwain loose as a Progressive Conservative minister of economic development and he was free to use his imagination to build, I mean, that would be great energy to have," Devine muses.

Devine's thoughts may come as a shock -- or perhaps even as distressing -- for certain silly individuals who are so enamoured with Lingenfelter that they'll blog about any inconsequential detail that presents itself, all while making their seething hatred of anything even remotely conservative evident for the world to see.

It wouldn't be the first time a political leader had emerged from a party that may not altogether suit them -- a great many Liberals may be thinking the same thing about Michael Ignatieff right now.

The Privilege to Waste Your Time

Joan Fraser sites undefined privileges in complaint

More details have emerged over the faux-outrage surrounding Alison Redford and Dave Chomiak's exit from a Senate Committee on a justice bill eliminating the two-for-one bill regarding time served.

Liberal Senator Joan Fraser recently demanded that Redford, the Attorney General of Alberta, and Chomiak, the Attorney General of Manitoba, face contempt of Senate charges because they attended a press conference with federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson before going to the airport.

They had told the committee that they needed to be excused so they could catch their flight.

“Ms Redford misled the committee about the reason for curtailing its hearings," Fraser complained. "She left the committee with the clear impression the reason why she and Mr Chomiak were leaving ... was to catch planes west.”

“Misleading committees is a serious matter,” Fraser added, and later complained that "Our privileges have been breached."

One may wonder precisely what privilege Fraser is talking about. Considering that Redford and Chomiak were scheduled to be before the Senate committee for one hour, and instead spent an hour and ten minutes at the committee, it would seem that the privilege that was "breached" was either some imagined privilege to set the schedules of ministers of the crown, or the privilege to waste their time.

Either that, or Fraser can't appreciate Redford's tact. After all, "we have to catch our flights" is a more polite way to terminate a conversation than "you're clearly wasting our time".

Of course, one knows that Fraser's objection really has nothing to do with misleading a Senate committee. Instead, this is an attempt at a vengeance burn, pure and simple. Fraser is angry that her amendments to the bill in question -- granting 1.5 for one time served -- are being criticized.

At least one Senator present wasn't prepared to tolerate Fraser's obvious attempt at silencing criticism of the Liberal Senators' ideological wrangling.

"It does not matter whether they wanted to go to McDonald’s for a hamburger or they needed to go the restroom or whatever," countered Bert Brown.

As the only elected Senator in the chamber, Brown has a moral authority on this particular matter that Fraser would do well to consider. Likewise, Redford can speak with a similar authority.

“I’m at a loss. We see what goes on in jails and in the courts. People don’t have confidence in the system. The Senate is not in touch with the real world,” said Redford. “I’m an elected official. People voted for me. The idea of the Senate holding a provincial minister in contempt. What can they do? We have a serious problem here. This is like Disneyland.”

There may be another important motive underlying Fraser's move -- drawing attention away from the fact that the Attorneys General from each Canadian Province, including governments from each of Canada's federal political parties (no, the Bloc Quebecois doesn't count) supported the bill in question.

Fraser cannot pretend that the government's outrage over the matter is purely partisan. Conservative, NDP and Liberal provincial governments approved of abolishing two-for-one sentencing provisions. Nor can Liberal justice critic Dominic LeBlanc.

As pitiful as this matter truly is, it may be a good opportunity to consider another possible reform for the Senate.

The Liberal Senate caucus has yet to explain themselves on this matter. As Dave Rutherford notes, they claim that abolishing the two-for-one sentencing provision is unconstitutional, but they won't explain how or why.

Perhaps the Senate should be reformed to allow provincial legislatures to summon Senators before them to explain themselves. They could finally be required to explain the alleged unconstitutionality of the bill in question, aside from their own say-so.

At the very least, the Alberta legislature would be able to use such powers to summon Joan Fraser to explain how it is she thinks she can dictate the schedule of a provincial Minister.

Turnabout Has Got To Be Fair Play

Darwin, from the Creationists ought to be countered with Jesus, from the Darwinists

Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort did the intellectual discourse surrounding religion a few -- but not many -- favours when they took Brian Sapient and Kelly O'Connor from the Rational Response Squad and spanked them on national TV.

The debate, in which both sides exchanged some silly arguments over the question of whether or not God exists -- an insipid topic for a formal debate -- revealed Sapient and O'Connor for the vapid, pretentious and self-righteous thinkers that they are, and spoke droves about those who have chosen to fall into lock-step behind them in their so-called "Rational Response Squad".

Now Cameron and Comfort are replicating the feat -- this time by embarking upon an endeavour that reveals themselves for the vapid, pretentious and self-righteous thinkers they truly are.

There has been a great deal of discussion about Cameron and Comfort's plan to distribute 175,000 copies of The Origin of Species on college and university campuses.

This, however, isn't any ordinary edition of Darwin's benchmark work. Rather, this edition features a special foreword written by Comfort outlining what they describe as Darwin's "undeniable" links with Adolph Hitler, Nazism and the Holocaust.

In a way, they are right. But only half right.

Comfort's writing is expected to suggest -- if not outright state -- that Darwin's theories were directly responsible for the Holocaust and the eugenics program carried out under Hitler's Third Reich.

Certainly, many people get offended when it's suggested that there are links between Darwinism and Nazism. This is an insipid outrage. As unpleasant as it is to recognize it, there very much are links between Darwin's theories, the body of facts that supports it, and Nazism.

Where Comfort goes awry is in distorting the scope and context of those links.

In carrying out his eugenics program in particular -- an endeavour formulated feverishly in Hitler's mind -- Hitler relied heavily on Darwin's writings. Hitler was known to have been fond of this particular passage from The Descent of Man:

"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

In Expelled, Ben Stein (who is Jewish) uses this same passage in his attempted indictment of Darwin.

The problem is that this particular reading is incomplete. The following paragraph is extremely enlightening as to what Darwin's thoughts on the matter really were:

"The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage."

History shows us that Hitler didn't share this particular opinion.

Hitler's partial reading of Darwin's work -- taking only what was useful to him for his purposes, and discarding outright anything that is very telling. In fact, it shows us that the links between Darwinism and Nazism are actually born of the misuse of Darwin's theories.

Hitler's partial reading of Darwin's work is also reminiscent of the "Christian" who accepts only portions of the Bible that justify hatred of non-Christians and homosexuals, and discards entirely the benevolence and compassion of Christ's message.

It's on this note, however, that perhaps those who support Darwin and his theories ought to consider responding (somewhat) in kind. Perhaps distributing an annotated edition of the Holy Bible outlining how, just as an incomplete and misguided reading of Darwin's theories can be used to support historical atrocities such as the Holocaust, incomplete and misguided readings of the Bible have been used to justify the oppression of women, religious minorities, and homosexuals.

Anyone bold enough to formulate such a response would be doing the intellectual discourse surrounding religion and evolution a big, big favour.

Healing a Sick Health Care System

One has to be very careful when approaching any film by Michael Moore.

As one approaches Sicko during a time of turmoil over American health care -- the debate is as fierce as it has ever been -- one has to be especially careful.

Sicko isn't specifically a film about health care. It's more a film about the American health insurance industry. In highlighting many horror stories about the actions of this industry, it paints a very unflattering picture.

Many Canadians have objected to the use of Canadian horror stories -- including that of Shona Holmes -- as part of the debate over health care reform. It's certainly little fun for Canadians to watch these stories paraded out in the debate in a foreign country.

Sadly, these horror stories very much are fair game. By the same token, however, so are the horror stories of the American private insurance system.

Even -- especially -- in a system in which private for-profit health insurance exists alongside government-paid insurance government regulation is necessary to ensure equity in dealings with these firms.

There's little question that many corporations employ bean-counters at various levels of their organization who are concerned with one thing and one thing alone: ensure that the company isn't spending more money than it needs to. At surface level this isn't that innoble a pursuit. However, when these individuals become determined to carry out their duties at the expense of the service being provided to their clients -- service their clients have paid for -- such a practice becomes morally bankrupt.

Interestingly, the French health care system minimizes the incentive for health insurance companies to deny care by paying 70% of the cost of health care, leaving the remaining 30% of the cost to be paid either by the patient or by their health insurance company.

Sicko also provides a very familiar reprise of the debate that raged when Hilary Clinton, during the administration of Bill Clinton, proposed a universal health care system in the United States.

It's very familiar because it's nearly identical to the debate that is currently raging right now, which could be seen as another message of Sicko: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Break the Cycle When They're Young

Vancouver a key piece of Canada's aboriginal puzzle

As the weather in most of Canada turns colder over the coming days and weeks, many homeless aboriginals will begin migrating west, to the BC coast.

They will share similar stories: the economic hardship of living on reservations, abysmal family conditions and substance abuse problems, and the strains of living under various other social ills.

Some living in Vancouver's Eastside may be tempted to view the influx of aboriginals as a problem. But for Canada there is actually an opportunity to be found among the social desolation these people have experienced.

Organizations like the Urban Native Youth Association deal with many of these issues first-hand. They're often the organizations these aboriginals turn to when the promise of newfound prosperity fails to materialize. “It’s the bright lights they talk about. But they come here and find out there’s not really many bright lights, or they’re not shining in our community,” explains UNYA executive director Lynda Gray. In Vancouver, aboriginals account for 30% of the city's homeless population. In the downtown Eastside, they account for 10% of the population, period.

The conditions there are symbolic of the suffering of aboriginals across Canada. Indeed, nearly every First Nation in Canada is represented among the downtown Eastside's population.

“It’s really a sign, a symptom of a larger problem of how native people exist within this community,” says Gray. “It’s the most blatant and obvious sign of damaged spirits.”

Canadians remain hopeful that the damaged spirits of Canada's aboriginals can be healed. But decades of ideologically-motivated aboriginal policies have failed to accomplish this important task.

As much as those who continue to push those discredited ideological policies may refuse to admit it, a change in approach is desperately needed. Vancouver's lower Eastside could serve as an invaluable policy laboratory.

Dissent to the discredited ideological coonsensus on the matter of aboriginal poverty and its accompanying ills tends to overwhelmingly favour breaking a perceived cycle of dependence by aboriginal people on government largesse.

As laudable a goal as this actually is, it cannot reasonably be accomplished until the task of abolishing the social ills that pervade amongst Canadian aboriginals -- both on- and off-reserve -- is well underway.

Dances With Dependency author Calvin Helin offers a solution that may surprise many of his critics -- healthy doses of community outreach. Moreover, Helin insists that this outreach needs to be focused on reaching children in order to break the spell that generations of dependency has cast over their culture.

“We need to be able to show kids that they have an opportunity to make their lives better and it can be something different from what they have experienced so far,” Helin insists. “Sometimes it may not be possible to reach the generation of their parents, so we need to get to the children ... In the Eastside there are a lot of kids who have both parents in jail or don’t get a meal in the morning, so we’ve got to reach them.”

Gray seems to agree with this particular sentiment, and notes that the promotion of aboriginal culture can help break these old cycles of dependence.

“I would say 90 to 99 per cent of aboriginals who are leading healthy, strong lives [are doing so] because they have a strong sense of self, primarily through culture,” Gray says.

Naturally, any outreach program should be rooted in Aboriginal culture, but there may be a need to reassess the current paradigms of the promotion of Aboriginal culture. Naturally, this assessment can really only be done by Aboriginals, and by Aboriginals alone.

But those who want to change the manner in which Aboriginal affairs policies are formulated need to understand that the best time to try to break these old cycles of dependency, by whatever means it is done, is when Aboriginals are young. It will continue to require a healthy government investment in Aboriginal education, health care, and poverty-fighting initiatives.

Breaking the cycle of government dependence -- actually not the same as convincing them to embrace "self-reliance", per se -- will be a long-term, not a short-term, project. And it will depend heavily on the success of poverty-fighting measures, which may depend upon successful policy experimentation in a real-life laboratory like Vancouver's downtown Eastside.

It wouldn't necessarily be a popular initiative -- treating human beings, particularly human beings as belleagured as Canada's aboriginal people, as if they were labrats (even in a benign policy experiment) rarely is.

But Canadians cannot afford to continue tolerating failed Aboriginal policy. The old way forward -- which has actually led us backward -- has failed. A new way forward is desperately needed.

Wailing, Gnashing of Teeth, Interrupted

Reports of the demise of conservative intellectualism greatly exaggerated

As one delves deeper and deeper into the depths of Canada's ideological extreme left, one thing becomes immediately clear: these people hate conservatives with the kind of passion that would seduce the most devout nun.

But perhaps even more than they hate conservatives, they hate conservatism.

These particular individuals despise conservatism and its every trace and vestige as an obstacle to their extreme left-wing agenda.

It's one of the reasons why they're so eager to declare intellectual conservatism to be dead. In stylings befitting of the typically vapid etchings posted at Enormous Thriving Plants, that blog's proprietor recently insisted that Jonah Goldberg somehow stands as evidence that conservatism, as an intellectual force, is dying:

"Living illustration of the death of conservative intellectualism...

...is 'unconcerned' about the death of conservative intellectualism.

Goldberg seems blissfully unaware of the history of the machiavellian employment of populism to 'smash through the gates'. How ironic, given the subject matter of his last populist-oriented work.It was nice, however, of Jonah to admit that the rejection of integrity and intellectual appeal in favour of an ends-justify-the-means pursuit of populism has been a deliberate and conscious choice amongst some on the US political right.

...Gotta love the conservative penchant for self-infliction of wounds. Not to fret,though Conservative intellectuals: there's always Meghan McCain and Sarah Palin to save the future of the ideology!"

Certainly, one imagines that Audrey would like to believe that intellectual conservatism is dead. And so long as Audrey is willing to take her insistence that Goldberg is the embodiment of its death on her own say-so, one may even accept this to be the case.

But Audrey -- who frequently insists that "reality has a liberal bias" (which basically shows us that she has yet to realize that reality, by its very nature, is unbiased) is moving much too quickly to gloat over the grave of intellectual conservatism. If she were to take off the blinders she has so eagerly donned -- and stop insisting that others wear them as well -- she would quickly realize this.

Audrey's announcement of the death of intellectual conservatism is one made by many denizens of the far left, and as Goldberg helps to point out, it stems from the left's refusal to acknowledge intellectual conservative thinkers until after their passing.

Barry Goldwater, William F Buckley Jr, Ronald Reagan and Irving Kristol were despised by the left during their lifetimes. Its only now that they're dead that they're given their intellectual due.

Likewise -- particularly north of the 49th parallel -- thinkers like Tom Flanagan, Preston Manning, Adam Daifallah and Tasha Kheiriddin, among others, are particularly despised by the political left.

David Frum is a Canadian conservative thinker particularly detested on both sides of the border.

At the end of the day it becomes entirely evident that the preening announcement of the death of intellectual conservatism made by people like Audrey are based on two things: waiting until after the death of a conservative thinker to recognize their prowess, and lowest-common-denominator denunciations of fringe movements like conservapedia and various right-wing bloggers who don't in any sense represent conservative intellectualism.

It's a pronouncement made of equal parts cherry-picking and self-fulfilling prophecy -- moreover, a prophecy that is self-fulfilling by design.

It's only someone deeply invested in their own artificial sense of intellectual superiority who could pretend that intellectual conservatism is dead even while Brian Lee Crowley's Fearful Symmetry emerges hot on the heels of Barry Cooper's It's the Regime, Stupid.

One shouldn't expect Audrey to forgive conservatives if they decline to wail and gnash their teeth over the alleged death of intellectual conservatism.

Intellectual conservatives know full well that it's alive and well -- even if one can fully expect Audrey to never, ever admit it.

They Perpetually Just Do Not Get It, Thredux

Senate Liberals amend crime bill

Canada recently came very close to finally closing a loophole many criminals were using to shorten their time in prison. That is, until, the Liberal party's Senate caucus used their majority in the Upper Chamber to amend the legislation.

A portion of the bill that would have abolished two-for-one sentencing provisions for time served prior to trial. Instead, the bill will allow for judges to grant 1.5 days for every day served prior to sentencing, with two-for-one sentencing permitted under extreme circumstances.

According to Liberal Senator Joan Fraser, the Senate simply exercised its prerogative to exercise "sober second thought".

"The whole point of having the Senate is for the Senate to give, as John A Macdonald said, 'sober second thought' to legislation that has been passed by the House of Commons," she inisted. "There's no point in giving sober second thought if it does not include the right to make such corrections as the Senate deems appropriate."

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, for his own part, isn't buying that.

"It's very disappointing," said Nicholson. "There's nothing wrong with this. This bill is perfectly constitutional -- we've looked at it very carefully. It has support of attorneys general from coast to coast. The idea that a couple of Liberal senators have a better idea on these things, I completely reject."

While Fraser and her Senate colleagues were second-guessing the time to second-guess the judgement of politicians who can actually be held accountable by their constituents, they also found time to try to find Manitoba and Alberta Justice Ministers Dave Chomiak and Alison Redford in contempt of the Senate for attending a press conference before flying out of Ottawa.

As justice issues continue to be vaulted to the forefront of the political agenda in Ottawa, the predominance of old ideologies on the topic of criminal justice remains as strong as ever in the Senate, where Liberal Senators seem to be intent on fighting "prison overcrowding" by doing whatever is necessary to ensure that criminals don't have to serve their time as mandated by the court.

Joan Fraser and her colleagues seem to think that they know better than everyone -- even as criminals continue to exploit two- (now one-and-a-half-) for-one sentencing provisions by doing things such as declining bail.

At some point enough has to be enough. Perhaps this recent abuse of prerogative will finally spur Canadians to stand up and overwhelmingly demand an elected Senate so that Senators can no longer impose yesteryear's ideologies without ever having to defend themselves in an election.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Rick Newman - "Senate Shenanigans"

Joseph Uranowski - "Conservatives Say 'No' To Checks and Balances"

Injustice Cannot Be Abided

In Law Abiding Citizen, Gerard Butler and director F Gary Gray send a message to the world's criminal justice systems that should not be ignored.

In the film, Clyde Shelton (Bulter) is an unassuming engineer living out his life with his wife and child until the night Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte) and Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart) invade his home. Darby rapes and kills his wife, then slays his child.

Wanting to preserve his 96% conviction rate and unwilling to risk a defeat, prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) opts to accept an offer by Darby to testify against Ames. Darby even perjurs himself on the stand by insisting that Ames committed the murders.

As any man would be, Shelton is devastated.

10 years later, however, Shelton returns to attempt to correct the system. Darby has served a mere three years for the murders he convicted, and Ames has finally exhausted his appeals and is about to receive a lethal injection.

Shelton compromises the solution injected into Ames, resulting in an agonizing death for the condemned man, then slowly tortures Darby to death.

When police come to arrest him he goes without a fuss, then promptly swings a minor deal with Rice in return for a confession that doesn't promptly come. Despite his promise of a confession, Shetlon nearly recieves bail before his indignant berating of the judge results in being held in contempt of court.

He quickly beings demanding more deals. His skills as a CIA master assassin help him quickly amass a bodycount even as he remains in solitary confinement.

Rice is issued an ultimatum: cut another deal -- drop all charges against Shelton -- or eventually face his own death, but not before watching all of his colleagues taken before him. Detective Dunnigan (Colm Meaney) suggests that Shelton is saving Rice for last.

Rice quickly learns the consequences of disappointing a man who -- despite having taken many lives during his time with the CIA -- simply cannot abide injustice.

Plea bargains have long been controversial in matters of criminal justice. They can secure convictions in cases where perpetrators may otherwise go free, and are considered to help relieve the population demands on prisons.

But in cases where perpetrators may be willing to fallaciously testify against accomplices it can lead to the wrong people being convicted of the wrong crimes. In cases such as the real-life case of Jessie Misskelley, the member of the famed West Memphis Three who was badgered and intimidated into testifying against his fellow accused, it can be used to attain convictions that are not justified by evidence.

In cases of crimes that are comparatively minor, a plea bargain can be defensible. But in cases of murder -- where lives have already been taken and further lives are at stake -- plea bargains should be judged to be utterly unacceptable in a court of law.

Injustices like the one perpetrated in Law Abiding Citizen simply cannot be abided. Fortunately, incredibly skilled sociopaths like Clyde Shelton are few and bar between in real life.

Otherwise, this is a lesson unscrupulous justice officials would likely learn in blood.

They Perpetually Just Do Not Get It, Redux

Libby Davies votes against anti-child trafficking bill

A few days ago, in a blog post published on the National Post's Full Comment blog, Jeff Jedras demonstrated one of the weaknesses of Canada's ideological left: the inability to get it right on the topic of crime.

NDP MP Libby Davies recently underscored this troubled ideological attitude toward crime when she voted against an anti-child trafficking bill.

The bill, introduced by Conservative MP Joy Smith, is one of the rare bills to achieve quick passage through the House of Commons and is expected to quickly pass through the Senate as well.

The bill will institute five year mandatory minimum sentences for child trafficking, with tougher sentences if the child is killed, kidnapped, or sexually abused.

By the estimation of anyone who understands what human trafficking entails -- which is only more disgusting when it involves children -- one also understands that five years is actually an extremely lax sentence for such an act. In fact, the mandatory minimum sentence is not nearly hard enough (for this particular offence, the mandatory minimum sentence should be life in prison).

The problem of human trafficking is particularly troubling in Vancouver's downtown east side -- the riding that Davies represents.

"Whenever I give public presentations across the country, I bring up the Downtown Eastside," explains UBC Law professor Benjamin Perrin, who helped draft the bill. "It's the end of the line for people who have been exploited. Trafficking victims are found there under the control of hard narcotics. Why is the elected official of a riding in this horrible state of sexual exploitation unwilling to take a stand against the traffickers of children?"

The answer, as it turns out, is pure ideology.

"This is another ad hoc approach by the Conservatives to appear tough on crime when there is no evidence to show mandatory minimums have any effect on deterring human trafficking," Davies insists.

Once again, Davies has missed the mark incredibly in the name of an ideology that believes the only role of criminal law is to deter crime and rehabilitate offenders.

Once again, Davies has forgotten two key principles of the law: punishment and protection.

In fact, Smith's bill is important not only for the protection of those who would be victimized by human traffickers if allowed free again, but for the protection of those they've already victimized.

"In order to come forward, the victim needs to know they are safe," Perrin explains.

Not to mention the fact that there really are few punishments befitting the vile act of human trafficking. A proper-thinking country would maintain the death penalty for dealing with criminals who are this immoral and this dangerous. Moreover, human trafficking would be one of the few instances in which it would actually be used.

One can imagine that Libby Davies -- who is currently involved in a challenge to Canada's laws on prostitution and has seemingly never found a far-left cause she isn't eager to front -- would bellow to high heaven if such an act were ever contemplated by government.

Libby Davies, Jeff Jedras, the Bloc Quebecois and the other two other NDP MPs seem to share one common affliction:

The inability to separate the issue of crime and justice from ideology. It's one of the key afflications that prevents Canadians from taking them too seriously.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Jamie Lee Hamilton - "Rabid Reporter Hasiuk Again Takes Aim at Libby Davies"

Demanding Better, part three

An Idea Crazy Enough to (Never, Ever) Work

Liberal leadership -- or Tory membership -- should be farthest thing from Ruby Dhalla's mind

Writing in a blog post on the National Post's Full Comment blog, Dan Arnold drops an interesting thought regarding rumours that Ruby Dhalla is among the Liberal MPs that may cross the floor.

Arnold provides what he must imagine to be a very persuasive reason for Dhalla to stay put with the Liberal party: defecting will hurt her chances to be leader of the Liberal party.

It's hard to decide which prospect is more unlikely -- Dhalla being admitted into the Conservative party, or winning the leadership of the Liberal party. Not only is either incredibly unlikely, but both are terrible ideas.

The reasons for both come back to one central issue: Dhalla's recent private member's bill that would extend pension -- admittedly, not a full pension to immigrants after only three years of residence.

The bill has drawn near-universal condemnation, and for obvious reasons: not only is it an extremely cynical piece of legislation, but it's incredibly irresponsible to boot.

Even Judy Sgro, normally a close ally of Dhalla's, has announced she will vote against the bill. Usually private member's bills stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing. Dhalla's bill is likely better compared to a single snowflake in the eighth ring of hell.

The Conservative party would have to publicly renounce virtually all of its principles in order to accept Dhalla within their ranks.

The Liberal party, meanwhile, would not only risk alienating its fiscally-conservative wing, but also risk alienating communities of immigrants who came to Canada and earned their position in this country -- not having a government cheque mailed out to them before they had so much as earned their citizenship, as the recipients of Dhalla's bill would recieve.

It's hard to believe that Dhalla wasn't imagining a windfall of votes from immigrants whose parents are receiving an extra government cheque every month. Her bill is so incredibly cynical that it could only be born of sheer opportunism.

Of course, there are deeper problems with Dhalla's bill than simply paying these people a pension. There's something deeply wrong with the idea of admitting immigrants to Canada who are past retirement age unless they are capable of supporting themselves financially.

Cases where an individual is in immediate peril of being persecuted or killed by their state is another matter entirely. Admitting these people to Canada (regardless of age) and extending them financial aid if need be is the right thing to do. (Canada has no business to accept refugees only to live in poverty.)

But cases where an elderly individual is coming to Canada under no such state of peril is another matter altogether. If they are coming to Canada on their own, they'd better be able to support themselves. If they're being admitted under a family reunification program, their family had better be able to support them.

It's in the sense that Dhalla's bill spits on these basic principles that it truly represents Barry Cooper's politics of self-service. The Liberal party has already been bitten hard by the consequences of embracing these politics too closely. The Conservatives would do themselves -- and the country -- a disservice by following suit.

Fortunately, the Conservatives won't be embracing the politics of self-service, at least in the form of Ruby Dhalla. She's already announced that she won't be crossing the floor.

"The rumour mill is in overdrive again," Dhalla wrote in an email. "These people need to find a topic of discussion that doesn't include the name Ruby Dhalla."

The Liberals may not be so fortunate. If Michael Ignatieff can't right the Liberal ship, the party may be in search of a new leader soon. If Dhalla hasn't jumped to the NDP by that time, one can only wonder if she'll make every Liberal's worst nightmare come true.

They Perpetually Just Do Not Get It

Some people aren't necessarily soft on crime -- just soft-headed

In virtually any election or pre-election campaign, if there's any topic that it's largely safe to campaign on, it's crime.

There's a very simple reason for this. Canadians of all political stripes recognize that crime detracts from their quality of life, and Canadians of all political stripes want crime dealt with.

One thing that Canadians are certain to represent is when crime is treated as an ideological issue. Unfortunately for Canada, one particular ideology reigs supreme in Canadian justice: the belief that all individuals can be rehabilitated, and that law's role is simply to deter criminals, then rehabilitate them when they do offend.

Unfortunately, the individuals who subscribe to this particular ideology have over looked at least one of the law's other roles.

Jeff Jedras seems to be one of these individuals:

"I remember being dumbfounded during the 2005/06 election campaign, when the Paul Martin Liberals included support for mandatory minimum sentences for some (gun-related) crimes in the election platform, a move to echo ineffective Conservative policy proposals that was also adapted by the NDP.

Mandatory minimums don’t work, the evidence on that point from the US is pretty overwhelming. Criminals know what they’re doing is wrong and they know there are consequences; mandatory minimums aren’t a deterrent. They do nothing to prevent crime, they only increase prison populations. They're about appearing tough on crime without doing the heavy-lifting to actually prevent crime."

What Jedras -- and so many members of the the so-called "smart"-on-crime crowd don't seem to get is that deterrence is not the only purpose the law serves.

The protection of society seems to be the legal missing link for his particular crowd. They complain that mandatory minimum sentences "only increase prison populations". They don't seem to understand that, at the end of the day people who commit violent and gun-related offenses belong in prison.

In cases where an individual is a repeat violent offender -- and that they cannot be effectively rehabilitated, as is the other pillar of any effective criminal justice system -- they belong in prison longer. Probably even indefinitely.

This is not a difficult concept to understand. Yet somehow the ideologically-blindfolded "smart"-on-crime crowd seem to manage not to.

Jedras goes on to complain that the Conservative bill would institute mandatory minimum sentencing on "simple possession". This is actually untrue.

In fact, Bill C-15 would introduce mandatory minimum sentencing in cases where someone is convicted of trafficking or growing marijuana without a medical permit. There's actually a big difference.

While Jedras makes a much stronger case regarding recent suggestions by Justice Minister Rob Nicholson that he may introduce legislation allowing police to randomly administer roadside breath tests, it's hard to see how one could miss the mark any more on the topic of mandatory minimum sentencing.

It should be noted that most criminals can be rehabilitated, and should be.

But people who commit violent crimes or traffic kdrugs belong in prison. Every day that such individuals are prison is a day that they aren't on Canadians streets peddling their wares or committing said violent acts.

Every day that they are in prison protects Canadian society from their misdeeds.

This isn't that difficult a concept to understand. The problem may not be that some of Canada's left-of-centre parties are "soft" on crime. It may just be that they're soft headed on crime.

Wildrose Alliance Attracting Big Fish...

...And lots of them

As the Alberta Progressive Conservatives look on at the Wildrose Allaicne leadership campaign they must be feeling a certain combination of fascination and trepidation.

As the Alberta Alliance and the Wildrose party, the Alliance is a party that has dwelled on the margins of Albertan politics. But as popular discontent with the leadership of Ed "Stalemate" Stelmach is spreading, so is the membership of the Alliance.

In June, the party had a mere 1,800 members. Now, the party's leadership has exploded, adding 10,200 members in the intervening months.

But amongst the masses flocking to the Alliance are conservative magnates such as Tom Flanagan and Betty Unger. And most recently, former Alberta Minister of Public Works and Agriculture Ernie Isley has joined the party.

Isley has, in particular, pointed toward the Stelmach government's approach to health care.

"[You] give up a billion dollars in revenue and then shortly thereafter you start coming up with a program whereby you're going to make your seniors pay more for prescription drugs. That doesn't seem to me to be the direction to go," Isley explained. "We appear to be going through the slash-and-burn era of the early '90s."

The vibrant conservative debate taking place between Danielle Smith and Mark Dyrholm has a lot to do with the new loyalties the party has been attracting.

Although sonme of the predictable themes of conservative leadership campaigns have emerged -- with each candidate accusing one another of either being too extreme or too uncommitted -- the campaign is attracting a great deal of attention for a party that holds only one seat in the Legislature.

This very much could be taken as a sign that Albertans are finally ready for a change.

Or, in time, it could be just another case in which the promise of political change was snuffed out by the status quo.

The Achilles Heel of the Liberal Paty?

Jean Chretien's backroom leadership games hobbling party

Followers of Canadian politics as seasoned as Charles Lynch and Allan Fotheringham have long offered an interesting thesis explaining the tenure of the Liberal party as "Canada's natural governing party".

This thesis basically holds that longstanding tensions over the leadership of the Conservative party cost the party its key organizational impetus, allowing a united Liberal party to fill the void.

The machinations of Dalton Camp against John Diefenbaker, Brian Mulroney against Joe Clark, and practically everyone in the party against Richard Bennet is thus argued to continually undermine the party on a national basis -- and especially in terms of its organizational capabilities in Quebec.

This disunity resulted in decades-long periods in opposition for the party, with the Liberal party alternating between majority and minority governments.

Canadian history has now dawned on a new century, and the tables have essentially turned.

Writing in the Toronto Star, Angelo Persichilli suggests that the recent leadership woes of Michael Ignatieff -- particularly having to soothe bruised egos over the Martin Cauchon/Denis Coderre affair -- is actually the work of Jean Chretien, who is perpetually flexing his muscles behind the scenes.

Persichilli draws attention to what is actually a rather important fact: whatever unity the Liberal party has ever enjoyed has been a fragile one. Historically, there have been countless tensions at work within the party: young Liberals pitted against old Liberals and left-wing Liberals pitted against right-wing Liberals.

Over time, these competing dynamics settled into two camps that have quietly been at war within the party.

Persichilli's column suggests that the Liberal party hasn't been fully united since the 1980s when John Turner defeated Chretien for the Liberal leadership. The conflicts that have emerged since -- Chretien vs Martin, Dion vs Ignatieff, Ignatieff vs Rae -- have been reflections of the Turner vs Chretien divide.

This particular divide can actually be found to have deep roots in the Mitchell Sharp vs Walter Gordon rivalry of the 1960s and 70s.

Chretien's success in the 1990s may have led Liberals into the kind of false sense of security that kind precipitate this kind of inernecine tensions. After all, 11 years of uninterrupted majority government can be an extremely heady experience.

Perhaps they believe they've been in a strong enough position that they can afford to infight over leadership.

But Chretien also enjoyed the luxury of facing off against right-of-centre opposition that was divided and left-of-centre opposition that was vulnerable. The Liberal party no longer enjoys this position of comparative strength. The Conservative party is very much a united force (despite what those who choose to pimp reported tensions between Murloney and Stephen Harper would desire) and the NDP enjoys greater confidence and self-assurance than it has since Tommy Douglas retired.

It's in the face of these political conditions that the Liberal party needs to put its leadership question to bed for good.

But therein lies the problem. Michael Ignatieff came to the party leadership not as the result of a genuinely competitive leadership contest, but rather after his principal opponents, Dominic LeBlanc and Bob Rae, were pressured to jump behind Ignatieff.

It should be no great surprise that some Liberals may be covertly organizing their next leadership campaign.

That Jean Chretien would quietly work to undermine the party leadership, however, is and should be viewed as entirely inexcusable.

A Delightfully Blasphemous Idea Whose Time Has Come

International Blasphemy Day strikes blows for free speech

Various atheist groups came together this past week in what emerged as an interesting -- and somewhat valuable -- exercise of free speech.

On September 30, the fourth anniversary of the controversy over the Jyllands-Posten Mohammad cartoons, atheist, agnostic and skeptic groups across the world gathered to facilitate discussion about blasphemy and censorship by, well... blaspheming.

"We're not seeking to offend, but if in the course of dialogue and debate, people become offended, that's not an issue for us," explained Ontario Centre for Inquiry Director Justin Trottier. "There is no human right not to be offended."

"We live in a democratic society, which means you get offended and you better get used to that," he added.

In a cultural era in which religious believers can get upset about something so silly as a fictional novel that treats Jesus Christ as a mortal human and not divine -- or will riot over the drop of a hat upon the publishing of the wrong cartoon -- blasphemy has become a new staple of comedy. TV shows such as Family Guy and South Park have plied their trade on pushing people's religious buttons (among other things).

There can be great value in determining what offends people. Offense signifies the values that people -- or a society -- holds dearest, and of the patterns of belief that underly them.

Offending people can be a good way to encourage people to challenge these values and beliefs.

But the act of offending someone also subverts the value of dialogue: the greatest value of dialogue is to help achieve a mutual understanding. The act of offending someone -- particularly deliberately offending them, as some of the participants in International Blasphemy Day almost certainly set out to do -- is not an action that promotes mutual understanding. A contemplative person may understand someone better after they have offended them, but the person offended will hold little interest in understanding their offender.

When the very purpose of an expression seems custom-designed for the purpose of offending someone -- such as is clearly the case with "Jesus Does His Nails" (a painting pictured above) -- its value to the public good of dialogue (and, as Benjamin Barber would note, dialogue very much is a private guood) is severely limited.

Even so, limited public dialogue is better than no public dialogue at all. For this reason alone, blasphemous expression unequivocally should not be censored, and International Blasphemy Day should become an annual event.

About Reality and that "Liberal Bias"

"...they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever."

Like blogging about anything that resembles an actual idea.

Or acknowledging voting intentions stated well in advance.


"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing."
-George Bernard Shaw

Oh, Gerard...

Issue of war resisters not akin to Vietnam, and Kennedy ought to know it

Writing in a blog post on the National Post's Full Comment blog, Gerard Kennedy submits what may be considered an impassioned plea for Canadians to support his bill to provide asylum to American war resisters.

In his plea, Kennedy envokes the memory of the Vietnam war and argues that Canada should offer asylum to American soldiers who come to Canada to avoid service, as consientious objectors were during the Vietnam war:

"A generation ago, Canada accepted thousands of "draft-dodgers" and also thousands of resisters who left active military service in the United States because of that conflict.

Have the intervening years since the Vietnam War really made us that much more timid as a people?"

It should be noted that, while the second question actually opens the article, it seems to be a much more appropriate

Kennedy's comparison of the current state of affairs is only one part of his post. Gerard Kennedy being Gerard Kennedy, he does help himself to an opportunity to throw in a partisan attack on the Conservative government.

But Kennedy would be well-advised to look in his own partisan back yard before casting stones at the government over this matter. After all, his own leader has raised significant concerns about sheltering American war resisters in Canada:

"Many, many very deep and and close friends of mine when I was an undergraduate at the University of Toronto came up to Canada to resist the draft. A Prime Minister that I very much admire made that a principle for Canada to give refuge to people who, for reasons of conscience, could not serve.

But I think that without pronouncing finally on the issue, I think there are some substantive differences between the situation in the '60s and the situation now. The individuals concerned volunteered for military service. The draft is not involved. Compulsion was not involved in the Iraqi case. I've met some of them personally. They volunteered for service and then came to have moral difficulties which they have every right to have. Now they want to stay.

The difficulty I have is that we are allies of the United States. Being an ally doesn't necessarily mean we approve of their policies in Iraq, but we're shoulder-to-shoulder in Afghanistan.

I'm uncomfortable about saying that people who volunteer for military service for a NATO ally should be given refuge in a country that is also an ally actively involved in combat. I'm not pronouncing finally on this, I'm just trying to be open and honest about my actual difficulty. This is an actual difficulty for me.

I don't want us to sacrifice our tradition of being a country that is a haven for people who have problems of conscience with military service, but I don't see that there is a perfect fit between what we did in the 1960s and what we're being asked for in [2009]."

Ignatieff made these comments in 2007, during a visit to the University of Alberta.

But Ignatieff is perfectly right to point out how difficult the issue of war resistors really is.

There is some room to evaluate these individuals based on their individual cases. Situations in which war resistors have been "stop lossed" (essentially press ganged into another tour of duty, which is effectively a form of conscription) or situations where an individual may have a legitimate religious objection or medical condition, there is clearly some room for discretion.

But in some specific cases -- such as that of Brad McCall, who enlisted in the US military after the war in Iraq was already in progress, ought to not have a prayer.

(McCall also had the temerity to move to Canada and start a blog insisting that "War resisters welcome here" -- as if he, not a non-citizen of this country, has any kind of right to make that pronouncement.)

Ignatieff is right to note that the matters surrounding US war resisters in Canada has grown significantly more complex since the end of the Vietnam war. To pretend that the situations are one and the same does no one any great service.

Whether Gerard Kennedy's bill is born of genuine concern over the issue or just a blatant attempt to pander to the anti-war movement is another matter entirely.

Tony Blair's Tender Legacy

As alluded to in part one of Michael Cockerell's Tony Blair: the Inside Story, many politicians spend a great deal of time and energy concerning themselves with their legacy.

Unfortunately for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he will very likely share a legacy with US President George W Bush. It likely will not be an entirely positive one.

Like George W Bush, Blair's departure from office was mired by tension with his successor. Just as Bush's departure from office has been mired by increasing tensions with his Vice President, Dick Cheney -- who believed Bush had stopped taking his advice during their second term -- Blair's final days were marked by tensions beteween himself and Gordon Brown, his Chancellor of the Exchequer.

For Bush and Cheney, the matter was clearly the war on terror. For Blair and Brown, the issue was the prospects of Britain replacing Pounds Sterling with the Euro as Britain's currency. Blair favoured this, and Brown did not.

Like Bush, Blair's legacy will be decided by whether or not he led his country to war under false pretenses. Like Bush, Blair's legacy will be impacted by personal controversy. For Bush, a lingering controversy was the outing of CIA agent Valeri Plame. For Bush, the lingering controversy was the suicide of Dr David Kelly, a British arms inspector who had been accused of helping falsify evidence justifying the war.

Like Bush, Blair's efforts to reform the civil service badly backfired. There was a palpable backlash against Blair's proposed reforms for hospitals and schools. Meanwhile, Bush led a dismantling of regulatory economic agencies that eventually helped precipitate a global economic recession. Bush's educational and health care reforms were widely lampooned. At one point, Bush even vetoed a Democrat bill that would supply health care to millions of uninsured children.

Like Bush, Blair left office amidst a push within his own party to minimize its association with him. While Brown worked behind the scenes to collectively push and shame Blair out of office, Bush failed to show up to his own party convention in order to best keep his distance from Presidential nominee John McCain.

Like Bush, Blair was viewed as a liability to his party. In a 2005 election that proved to be a significant setback for his party, Blair was targeted by the opposition Conservative party of Britain as an individual who had lied to take Britain to war in Iraq, and would lie to win an election. Bush was encouraged to stay as far away from the 2008 federal election campaign as he could in order to avoid associating McCain too closely with Bush.

(These efforts were mitigated when McCain hugged Bush at a political rally.)

Like Bush, Blair's time in office was marked by a savage terrorist attack. For Bush, 9/11 eventually wound up writing the story of his time as President. For Blair, 7/7 will be central to his legacy. Unlike Bush, however, who led his country to war partially as a retaliation for a terrorist attack, 7/7 could be viewed as a retaliation for Britain's involvement in Iraq.

Just as Bush's government had received ample warnings about the impending 9/11 attacks, Blair's government had received numerous warnings about the "inevitable" attacks that finally came to fruition on 7/7.

Like Bush, Blair led his party into office as a well-organized political machine, ready to do its country's business. Like Bush, by the time Blair departed, his party was in shambles, with its premier political opposition -- in this case, the David Cameron-led British Tories -- poised to knock them off in the next election.

For a man who came to power at the head of an overwhelming Parliamentary majority, Blair must be very disappointed to look back at his time in office and see such a disappointing record.

Blair came to office as a "destined" Prime Minister, with big hopes and huge expectations to live up to. Like many such leaders, the dizzying heights of his expectations could only be matched by the dispirting depths of disappointment.

Tony Blair: Is There Life After Death?

Former British PM's EU Presidency campaign has real momentum

As Michael Cockerell seems to infer in Tony Blair: The Inside Story, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair rode to his premiership at the head of nearly unprecedented enthusiasm and hope.

Blair arrived in office with sky high expectations, but managed to squander his surplus of political capital amidst infighting with his Chancellor of the Exchequer and questionable foreign policy decisions (namely, the Iraq war).

But if there's life after death in politics -- or at least new beginnings after "the end", as Blair himself described his departure from No 5 Downing Street -- Blair seems to have found it.

Speculation seems to hold that Tony Blair will win the Presidency of the European Union.

Much of this may, however, simply be wishful thinking on the part of Blair's supporters. Blair's close association with former US President George W Bush solidified a place for him as the world's second most unpopular politician -- at least for a time.

While Blair's personal unpolularity seems to have subsided -- Bush continues to be able to draw a good protest almost anywhere he goes -- memories of the invasion of Iraq, the various debacles that ensued, and the United States and Britain thumbing their nose at the United Nations can't be that far removed from the minds of many European leaders.

Then again, Europe has changed significantly since French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder fumed over the affair.

Chirac's successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, has voiced his support for Blair, although Schröder's successor, Dr Angela Merkel, is reserving judgement.

Blair must be waiting on baited breath to hear the results of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland. But he isn't alone.

British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has suggested that his party may hold a referendum on withdrawing from the treaty. If Ireland -- who, for the record, have previously rejected the treaty -- ratifies the treaty and Tony Blair is elected EU President by the time the 2010 election rolls around, Cameron will have an undeniable dilemma on his hands.

It would be considerably more difficult to withdraw from the treaty after ratification -- and with a Brit (a former Prime Minister, no less) holding the Presidency, such an act could be politically troublesome.

It takes a special brand of leader to be able to cast a spell like the one that led Blair to victory in the 1997 British election. It takes a leader of yet greater calibre to be able to do it again after as rocky a tenure in that office as Blair had.

Whether or not Tony Blair is that special a leader is something that only time -- and Ireland's decision on the Lisbon Treaty -- will tell.

Dr Hedy Fry: Kinda Stupid

Liberal MP embarrasses party, self -- again

One simply had to rest assured that if the Liberal party had a Rob Anders of its very own, it would be a kinder, gentler Rob Anders.

Those who follow Canadian politics even passingly know who Anders is: he's the Conservative MP for Calgary West, and generally a disgrace to Parliament, his party, and himself.

Among the various controversies Anders has stirred up included denouncing Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist, and firing the manager of his riding office over a financial dispute.

But the Liberal party has a Rob Anders of its very own, and it bears the very unthreatening guise of MP Dr Hedy Fry.

Like Anders, Dr Fry is well-known and recognized as a general embarrassment to Parliament, her party, and herself.

Among the various controversies Fry has stirred up included claiming cross burnings were taking place in Prince George, BC, and sending out mailings that seemed to imply that Canada's military was no longer proud to wear the flag on their ruck sacks.

But today Dr Fry seems to think she's finally hit that partisan home run she's been itching for, when she drew comparisons between some Olympic gear the Hudson's Bay Company are selling to commemorate the Vancouver Olympics and the Conservative party logo.

Dr Fry insists that the logo being used for the gear "bears a striking resemblance" to the Tory logo.

Even blogging magnate Jeff Jedras has taken the bait.

One assumes that a great many Canadians would be surprised to find out that HBC is actually secretly a Conservative party front -- perhaps none more than HBC itself.

Who Is It That Wants An Election, Again?

Justin Trudeau simply must be confused

Speaking to a Liberal party fundraiser in Kitchener, Liberal MP Justin Trudeau seemed to be confused over who, precisely, is jockeying for an election in Canada and who isn't.

Trudeau said that he believes there will be an election very soon.

“My suspicion is [the election] will be before Christmas,” Trudeau predicted.

“Mr Harper wants one desperately and he is going to try and bring this House down,” Trudeau insisted.

Many Canadians would be surprised to hear that. After all, it's the Liberal party that has filed a non-confidence motion in the House of Commons. It's Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff who has been telling any Canadian who'll listen how serious he is about bringing down the government this time.

Trudeau must certainly be looking to Stephen Harper's increasing margin of advantage of in various polls, and talk that the Conservatives believe they are on the cusp of a majority government.

If the Conservatives do want an election, one thing is for certain -- they aren't talking about it.

In fact, the Conservatives have consistently denounced an election as "irresponsible". If the Tories had to justify themselves before a cynical electorate -- and Canadians very much know a poison pill when they see one -- they know full well that they would be the ones to look irresponsible.

Justin Trudeau must understand this -- or he must be confused. After all, Canadians know full well who it is that really wants an election right now.