Safe Injection Sites: France Not Convinced

France rejects "safe injection rooms"

As Vancouver's InSite continues to be quietly controversial, the French government has decided not to adopt them as part of a French harm prevention strategy.

French Prime Minister Francois Filon -- represnting the Union for a Popular Movement party -- has rejected a move by his government's Minister of Health, Roselyne Bachelot to open the so-called "shooting rooms", where hard drug users will be able to inject under supervised conditions.

For her own part, Bachelot is not prepared to let this matter go away quietly.

“A study has confirmed the benefit of these supervised injection centres where heavily addicted drug users can go to avoid contamination from viruses like hepatitis C or HIV/AIDS,” Bachelot insisted.

Bachelot isn't the only one prepared to go to bat for the shooting rooms.

Secretary of State for Families Nadine Morano suggested that the shooting rooms would help users get off of drugs. “When drug addicts are able to take their drugs under supervision and if we manage to get them off drugs, I think we will have won a battle.”

If the shooting rooms proposed by Bachelot feature on-site detox centres, as does Vancouver's InSite, Morano may have a valid point.

The other issue clearly linked to safe injection sites is the matter of crime.

Yet a 2008 study by Simon Fraser University Professor Neil Boyd actually found that InSite has had no adverse affect on crime rates in the surrounding neighbourhood, and that InSite had improved public order due to a significant reduction in discarded needles in the neighbourhood.

Many argue that Canada's Conservative government hasn't weighed the evidence regarding InSite carefully enough -- and they have a point. While stronger measures to get InSite users into detox and long-term treatement may be in order, InSite has succeeded as a harm reduction measure.

Safe injection sites such as InSite and the shooting rooms proposed by Roselyne Bachelot currently operate in 45 cities in eight countries. They also function in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Australia, Norway, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. In each of these countries they can claim similar successes.

Francois Filon is being misguided and short-sighted in ruling out safe injection sites so quickly.

They Broke In to Alcatraz. Think About That.

John Trudell is an American aboriginal poet and artist whose eloquence was once described by the FBI as "dangerous".

Trudell was also well-renowned as an aboriginal activist.

In activism, one measures commitment by how far one is willing to go -- whether or not one is willing to do things that their opponents are not willing to do.

In 1969, Trudell led a group of aboriginal activists to occupy Alcatraz Island. Up until just six years previous, Alcatraz was a prison that was home to the United States' worst of the worst -- including Al Capone.

No one is known to have ever escaped from Alcatraz, and the United States still claims no one ever did -- although more than a few tried unsuccessfully.

When John Trudell went searching for an activist stunt to captivate the imagination of American aboriginals, he led a a group of aboriginals to occupy Alcatraz.

They broke into a prison that it was -- and still is -- believed no one could break out of.

There are few ways Trudell and his group could have demonstrated their dedication any more strongly.

Tea Party North? That Actually Sounds Like a Great Idea

Frances Russell grossly mischaracterizes conservative agenda

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

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

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

Russell contends:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Russell identifies as neoconservatism is not neoconservatism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inception and Leonardo DiCaprio's Scary Ideas

Warning: the following post contains significant spoilers about the movie Inception. Those still interested in seeing this film should consider themselves forewarned.

Then again, the movie's been out for a month. If you were planning to see it, you proably would have seen it by now. So quit bitching.



The trailers for Inception portray it as a typical summer blockbuster.

In the film, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaptrio) is an extractor. By entering other people's minds as they dream, Cobb is able to steal their secrets from them. Along with his partner-in-crime Aurthur (Gordon Joseph-Levitt), Cobb is the best there is at what he does.

As the film opens, Cobb has infiltrated the mind of Saito (Ken Watanabe), a Japanese business man in search of a skilled extractor to attempt a very dangerous mission.

He wants Cobb and Aurthur to break into the mind of Robert Fischer (Killian Murphy) and perform a different act -- that of inception.

Simply explained, inception involves implanting an idea in the mind of another human being. The idea is ultimately meant to make that individual act in a manner the implanter desires.

Fischer's father, Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite) is dying of a terminal disease, and will soon inherit the family energy conglomerate. Saito explains that Fischer's conglomerate will soon put all of its competitors out of business, leaving them with a complete monopoly on the global energy market.

Aurthur is immediately skeptical about inception. He insists it cannot be done.

But Cobb knows differently. He did it once before to his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard). After having spent 50 years with her in a limbo dream state, Mal convinces her to wake up from the dream by implanting an idea in her subconscious mind -- the idea that the world in which she lives isn't real.

Of course, Cobb only wants her to doubt the reality of the limbo dream state. But upon waking she cannot shake the belief that she is still dreaming, and kills herself believing she'll wake up -- but not before telling the police that Cobb has threatened her life, hoping that he'll choose to kill himself as well.

At face value, Inception seems to be a typical summer blockbuster, with an atypically complex plot.

With the assistance of Aurther, Saito and the rest of his team, Cobb leads Fischer through three separate levels of dreaming -- a dream within a dream within a dream -- to confront his father. Fischer has been led to believe that a safe in the dream will contain a will that would break up his father's company.

When Fischer opens the safe, it contains the will -- and also contains a child's windmill. Clearly, the windmill alludes to renewable energy, and may have been inserted into the script upon DiCaprio's influence (DiCaprio is widely known as a proponent of renewable energy).

In order to understand how this particular details colours the ideas of Inception in a sinister manner, one has to go back to The 11th Hour, a documentary film DiCaprio produced.

The ideas contained in The 11th Hour -- hinging around reconceptualizing human design to be less wasteful -- are, on their own, less than threatening. But when one weighs that idea using the ideas of Inception as a counter-balance, they become rather alarming.

Reconceptualizing human design is a perfectly and remarkable unthreatening idea, so long as it's done voluntarily.

However, the ideas implanted in Fischer's mind violates his free will. He may break up his father's energy conglomerate willingly, but only because his mind has been violated and twisted to someone else's ends.

Saito insists that the world depends on Fischer deciding to break up his company. But he has an ulterior motive: if Fischer doesn't agree to break up the company, Saito will lose his own company, and lose his own wealth and power.

Saito dresses up his self-interest in benign platitudes, but his self-interest cannot be denied. And it's in serving is own self-interest that he ultimately violates the sanctity of Fischer's mind in order to compel him to act against his own self-interest.

Cobb has his own self-interest at heart -- his desire to return home. He dresses that self-interest in his children's need to have their father in their lives, but his self-interest is undeniable. In order to puruse his own self interest Cobb, too, violates the security of Fisher's mind and compels him to act against his self-interest.

Moreover, while the film explores the moral dilemma as it pertains to Cobb implanting the idea that ultimately led to Mal's suicide, it never addresses that moral dilemma as it pertains to the manipulation of Fischer.

In fact, in the film's closing moments, Fischer is seen smiling contentedly. The implicit suggestion is that the act of inception waged against him by Cobb and Saito has helped him make peace (however artificial it may be) with his father.

In a real-world situation, this would all be purely hypothetical. The rational impulse is to suggest that acts such as inception cannot actually be done.

However, the truth is that they very much can be done. Moreover, they can be done to broad portions of society. Enterprising leftists have long found the means to commit subtle acts of inception -- a matter that will be discussed in a post in the near future.

Don't Get Caught in The Last House on the Left

Every so often, the medium of film produces a villain who is so contemptible that it is actually a pleasure to watch as their lives are extinguished.

The Last House on the Left provides just such a villain.

A remake of a 1972 film by the same name, The Last House on the Left provides a nightmare scenario: having taken someone who grievously harmed a family member into your own home, and being trapped with them.

Moreover, they are psychopaths.

In the film, Dr John Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn) and his wife Emma (Monica Potter) have moved with their daughter Mari (Sara Paxton) to live in their lakehouse in the Pacific Northwest.

No sooner have they arrived than Mari starts asserting her independence. She wants to live in the guesthouse rather than in the main house with her parents, and she wants to take the car into town to visit a friend.

But while in town she encounters Justin Stillo (Spencer Treat Clark) whose gentle nature belies his extremely dangerous father, Krug (Garret Dillahunt), uncle Francis (Aaron Paul) and his girlfriend Sadie (Riki Lindhome).

A carefree afternoon spent smoking pot with Justin turns into a horrifying ordeal when Krug, Francis and Sadie return to the hotel room where Justin has been left alone.

Mari and her friend are taken hostage. Later, after an escape attempt, Mari's friend is cruelly murdered -- left to die of two knife wounds meant to cause a slow and painful death -- and Mari herself is raped and shot.

With their vehicle damaged during the escape attempt, Mari's assailants (with Justin in tow) wind up at the Collingwood home, where they receive shelter from an incoming storm.

The Collingwoods, worried over their daughter's absence, are about to be confronted by the horror of having their daughter's psychopathic assailants in their own home.

The lack of reason for Krug, Frances and Sadie to take Mari hostage, and the casualness with which they clearly plan to kill her mark them as clear psychopaths.

And while American law provides for the possibility of the death penalty -- the only means by which a psychopath can truly be dealt with in a humane manner -- Canadian law doesn't even recognize them.

Shortened significantly, the psychopathy checklist developed by Dr Bob Hare checks for the following behavioural and personality traits:

-Glib and superficial charm
-Grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self
-Need for stimulation
-Pathological lying
-Cunning and manipulativeness
-Lack of remorse or guilt
-Shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness)
-Callousness and lack of empathy
-Parasitic lifestyle
-Poor behavioral controls
-Sexual promiscuity
-Early behavior problems
-Lack of realistic long-term goals
-Impulsivity
-Irresponsibility
-Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
-Many short-term marital relationships
-Juvenile delinquency
-Revocation of conditional release
-Criminal versatility

Krug, Frances and Sadie can be determined to exhibit any of these behaviours as can be exhibied within a two-hour movie.

Yet in Canada, where Dr Hare's Psyophathy Check List (PCL-R) was commissioned by, and then upon receipt shelved by, Corrections Canada, individuals such as these three would never be identified as psychopaths by Corrections Canada and treated accordingly -- because of an ideological view of criminal justice that refuses to accept the possibility that an individual cannot be redeemed.

A psychopath, by their very nature, cannot be redeemed. Canada's justice system needs to recognize this fact, or risk being utterly impotent in the handling of individuals similar to the Stillos.

By the time it has concluded, The Last House on the Left has walked a fine line between tense suspense/thriller and brutal revenge film. As Frances comes in search of sexual gratification from Emma and Krug discovers that Mari is the Collingwood's daughter, and with no help available to them, John and Emma are forced to dispatch their now-unwelcome houseguests.

Krug, in particular, shows no remorse whatsoever for his actions, and even brags about them while embarking on protracted self-aggrandizing speeches on "being a man" -- that such an individual would think that raping and murdering helpless teenage girls makes him a man is certainly a testament to his parasitic lifestyle.

In the end, the only law left available to the Collingwoods is the law of the jungle.

Canadian law could not suffer the same to be commonplace in Canada -- and so must get realistic in the handling of psychopaths. Considering the parole of Karla Holmoka, and how close she came to receiving a pardon, it's clearly in dire need.

Not Nearly So Fast, Lizzie May

Elizabeth May cooking the numbers in bid to cling to leadership

With the media reporting that Green Party leader Elizabeth May received the support of 85% of party members in her bid to avoid a leadership contest -- as told to them by the party itself, a deeper exploration of the numbers surrounding the online/mail-in vote actually tell a rather different story.

Democratic Space's Greg Morrow seems to have the goods on the vote. He reports that, of the approximately 8,200 current members of the Green Party, only roundly 1,500 voted on the resolution to skip the constitutionally-mandated leadership contest.

That's only 18% of Green Party members.

Of that 1,500 members, 1,250 members supported May's leadership. So May did, indeed manage to gain the support of 85% of Green Party members... of the 18% who voted in the first place.

Morrow's examination of the numbers also reminds one of another key fact -- the fact that, of the 10,500 members the Green Party had one year ago, 2,300 have left the party.

Speaking to the Guelph Mercury, former candidate Bill Hulet suggests that May used some actually rather-undiginified means to retain her leadership. Basically, she threatened to resign the party leadership immediately if it voted to hold a leadership contest.

“She used her privileged access to [the membership list] ... saying she would have to resign if the membership didn’t vote the way she wanted them to,” Hulet said. “It was an abuse of her leadership privileges to intervene.”

May would prefer Canadians to think that she's secure in her leadership of the Green Party. But the current state of the Green Party, as well as her conduct before the vote, tells a different story:

May is clinging to power, and she's cooking the vote numbers in order to publicly justify it.

After all, May's party has, at best, expressed 15% support of her, when the voting results are compared to the entire party membership.

Meanwhile, 22% of her party's membership has left it in a single year -- a fact that May would almost certainly have to account for. It's an issue that Sylvie Lemieux could have scored some serious points on, had she the opportunity to use it against May in the course of a leadership contest.

Perhaps the knowledge of the rate at which the party has hemorrhaged members under May's stewardship would have been enough to help a contender unseat her.

But numbers rarely lie. The Green Party is headed for some serious trouble with Elizabeth May occupying its leadership -- especially if she keeps cooking the numbers in order to justify it.

Let Canadians Put Their Money Where the Opposition's Mouth Is

Liberals, NDP demand "emergency debate" on long form census

With all the fervour surrounding the Conservative Party's decision to transform Canada's mandatory long-form census into a voluntary long-form census, the opposition has decided that the matter is quite the emergency.

In fact, they're calling for an emergency debate in the House of Commons.

NDP leader Jack Layton accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of an ideological opposition to the kind of government action information from the long form census has supported.

"Mr Harper doesn't believe in government action so he would prefer not to see the facts about what's going on in Canada," Layton insisted. "I think that's the more sinister dimension of this pigheaded approach they're taking."

Liberal deputy leader Bob Rae echoed Layton's sentiments.

“When the fish rots, it rots from the head,” Rae remarked. “It’s very, very clear that this is a problem with Mr Harper. This is a problem with the way Mr Harper’s government conducts itself, it’s the way its staff conduct themselves. And it’s the way they talk to the Canadian people.”

Layton's solution to the issue seems to hinge on eliminating any jail time for anyone who declines to fill out the mandatory long-form census -- he considers this a compromise, one that the opposition is prepared to pass quickly.

Industry Minister Tony Clement has rejected this as a reasonable compromise. He doesn't believe that any sanction should be applied to those who decline to fill out the long-form census.

In the end, that is half of what this issue will ultimately be about.

The other half is about what Canadians think the role of the government should be, and how much information they think the government needs in order to fulfill that role.

In other words, this is about Canadians putting their money where the opposition's mouth is.

If Canadians agree that the government needs the information contained in the long-form census, they will fill out the forms. If Canadians don't think the government needs such information, they won't.

It really is that simple.

This particularly applies to efforts such as that by the Federation de Communautes Francophones et Acadiennes, a group suing the federal government over its decision to change the long-form census, as well as for the other minority groups declaring that information contained in the long-form census is especially important to them.

Perhaps the idea that giving Canadians this power to shape the size and role of government seems a little too democratic to the opposition. The FCFA have evidently decided that such democracy is equally inconvenient for them.

Of course, the elimination of government means to coerce Canadians into providing information they may think the government doesn't need may be seen as an emergency by the would-be social engineers in the Liberal Party and the NDP.

Other Canadians likely will not agree.

The Broken Window Effect and Petty Assault

Playing the titular role of Harry Brown, Michael Caine plays a retiree living in a crime-plagued council estate in Southern London. By day he visits his comatose wife in the hospital and enjoys the occasional drink at the local tavern. By night he hides out from the brazen and fearless criminals who inhabit his neighbourhood.

The law has given them nothing to fear. Continually insisting that crime is decreasing in their neighbourhood, they are able to perpetrate petty assaults on the weak and defenseless at will, and often commit more violent assaults uninhibited by police.

Finally, when his friend Leonard Attwell (David Bradley) is killed, Brown decides to fight back.

Leonard has been mercilessly harrassed by a pack of gang-affiliated youths on the subway until one night he can't take it any longer. With police declining to help him, he takes a bayonette with him to defend himself. Instead, he's stabbed to death.

Brown, having lost his last friend in the world -- having previously lost his comatose wife -- can take no more. He buys a gun from a local drug dealer and sets about the task of cleaning up his neighbourhood.

A former Royal Marine who served in Northern Ireland, Brown proves to be a formidable force in his neighbourhood until his age finally catches up with him.

Even as a heart attack slows his progress in hunting down Leonard's murderer, his age makes it difficult for Detective Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer) to convince her superior officers that Brown is the vigilante wiping out the criminal element that has infested his community.

In criminology, there is a theory known as the broken windows theory. This theory argues that when petty crimes such as vandalism are rigorously pursued, crime will be halted.

The theory holds that something such as a broken window serves as a visual cue to criminals that such crimes are tolerated, and it encourages them to attempt more serious acts. If petty crimes are allowed to go unaddressed for long enough, very soon crime will spiral out of control.

Harry Brown clearly applies the broken windows theory. There is certainly a broad difference between spitting in the face of an elderly man and the brazen and cowardly murder of a woman from the back of a motorcycle, as portrayed at the beginning of the film.

But through the process of normsetting -- whereby the permitted behaviour of a neighbourhood is established -- the tolerance of such minor assaults sends a message that security of the person is not protected. Once security of the person is unrespected, crimes such as aggravated assault and murder are nearly inevitable.

Not only does it send a message to criminals that such matters are tolerated, but it also sends a message to the citizenry that they will not see crimes against them enforced, nor will they be protected from acts of retaliation should they report crimes against them.

It's situation such as this that lead to a glut of unreported crimes that in many cases can contribute to any decrease in criminal activity. Law enforcement officials -- particularly those who don't work on the front line of enforcement -- convince themselves that their crime reduction strategies are working when, in fact, they are failing badly.

Left in the lurch are innocent and otherwise-defenseless citizens, especially the elderly.

Not all the Harry Browns of the world are fortunate enough to be ex-Royal Marines with fighting skills honed battling the IRA. Society has an obligation to protect them. Should society literally choose not to do so, the final recourse must be vigilante justice.

Considering that vigilante justice has socially-destructive elements of its own, it must be avoided at all costs. If that means that law enforcement must more rigorously deal with crimes they don't consider worthwhile, that is what will have to happen.

Follow Your Rules, Lizzie May

Green Party leader cements status as sanctimonious hypocrite

If one were to judge Green Party leader Elizabeth May by her statements regarding Prime Minister Stephen Harper, one would think that rules are really, really important to May.

After all, she frequently accuses Harper of breaking the rules, including in her book.

All the rule-breaking, she contends, is just awful.

Unless it's May herself breaking the rules.

The leadership review mandated by the Green Party's constitution won't take place, although a resolution by Sylvie Lemieux that would require a leadership contest proceed as planned received enough support to be discussed at the upcoming Green Party convention.

While the elimination of any prospect of the Ottawa Group of Four extending their iron grip over the party will likely be good for the Greens, the violation of the party constitution by way of a dubious online/mail-in vote unequivocally is not.

For one thing, as Tasha Kheiriddin points out, May's rationale for wanting to avoid a leadership contest is rather weak.

"News to the Greens: in a minority government situation, there is always the risk of an election," Kheiriddin writes. "One could argue that an early spring election, when the government puts forward its budget for a confidence vote, is more likely than one this fall. So watch for the continued presence of Ms May on a television screen near you into 2011."

"If the Greens want to be taken seriously, they have to start by respecting their own rules," Kheiriddin later continues. "That means holding a leadership contest when they say they will, and attracting a strong roster of quality candidates to the race."

In other words, not only does the Green Party need to hold a leadership contest, but it needs to attract stronger candidates than Elizabeth May or Sylvie Lemieux. Perhaps attracting David Chernushenko to take another run at the leadership would help. Perhaps even a lunatic like Kevin Potvin to liven things up.

But it's clear that May thinks she's been written carte blanche to simply disregard the party rules.

"[The convention] will be a good occasion to get together and recharge our batteries," May muses. "Then I will be back to British Columbia, where I have the certainty of knowing I don't have a leadership race to deal with so I can concentrate on winning my riding."

In other words, May is treating the defeat of Lemieux's resolution -- which must pass through the workshop phase in order to reach an odd green light/yellow light/red light voting process whereby 60% of delegates would have to support the resolution for it to pass.

That 51% of voters in the aforementioned dubious online/mail-in ballot would support this resolution suggests that it may have legs at the convention.

That would be a long way to go for Sylvie Lemieux -- who herself holds some alarming policy plans for the Green Party -- just to get Elizabeth May to respect her own party's constitution.

Canadian politics' queen of sanctimony needs to start playing by the rules, not just by her own rules.

Welcome to Macleans Magazine... Land of Irresponsible Lefty Fervour?

Every so often, a publication will produce an article that is far more interesting for its online comments than for the article itself.

A recent blogpost on the Macleans Magazine website by Aaron Wherry is an interesting case of this.

In the blogpost, Wherry notes that Defense Minister Peter MacKay has declared that the government is examining all the options in terms of a possible extension of Canada's mission in Afghanistan beyond 2011. Wherry asks a simple question "what options?"

Your not-so-humble scribe decided it would be best to explain the best rationale for extending Canada's presence in Afghanistan beyond 2011 -- especially if Canadian aid workers will remain in Afghanistan beyond that date. A Canadian military presence would be necessary to protect Canadian aid workers.

The response, in terms of comment voting, is rather puzzling:

As of the time of this writing, the idea that Canada would protect its own aid workers in Afghanistan had been voted down a minimum of three times.

By the time the denizens of the denizens of the Macleans comment forums are finished with it, one only knows where it will wind up.

Which brings one to a startling conclusion: either the far-left denizens of the Macleans comment forums are voting down comments from individuals they judge to be too conservative, or they actually oppose the idea of Canadian troops being used to protect Canadian aid workers in a combat zone.

Neither choice seems particularly flattering. Whether the response of Macleans commenters to this notion is born of knee-jerk anti-conservatism or irresponsible foreign policy views is nearly anyone's guess.

A Crash Course in Reality for Linda McQuaig

McQuaig contemptibly refuses to acknowledge reality

The government's recent decision to purchase F-35 fighter jets to replace Canada's aging fleet of CF-18 Hornets has driven at least one point home to the Canadian public:

The Toronto Star seems to have attracted a stable of peacenik writers who simply refuse to acquaint themselves with reality.

Previously, it was Michael Byers, the foreign policy "expert" who implicitly suggested that Canada simply doesn't need fighter jets. Now it's Linda McQuaig.

Writing in an op/ed, McQuaig starts out by suggesting that Canadians simply don't want a new fleet of fighter jets.

"Of all the things Canadians want from their government, my guess is that new military fighter jets would probably rank close to last," McQuaig writes.

"But new fighter jets are what we’re getting," she complains. "Despite the enduring popularity of peacekeeping among Canadians, the Harper government continues to ramp up war-oriented military spending, most recently with its announcement of plans to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin."

McQuaig is clearly clinging to the Pearsonian model of peacekeeping despite the fact that the nature of modern conflicts -- which, as opposed to being inter-state conflicts tend to be ethnic or religious conflicts -- has rendered it obselete.

Few know this better than the person whom McQuaig likely hopes her criticism of this purchase would benefit -- Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Ignatieff has made it clear on numerous occasions that the peacekeeping model people like McQuaig favour is simply no longer applicable to modern conflicts -- including Darfur, where McQuaig has previously made it clear she would like to see Canadians deployed.

During a 2008 speech at the University of Alberta -- carried in full exclusively at the Nexus -- Ignatieff cast doubt on a Darfur deployment as a peaceful alternative to deployments such as Afghanistan.

"The problems in Darfur are extremely serious. Sometimes people can say that 'if I can just go there. Why Afghanistan? Why not Darfur?'. The only thing to bear in mind when you say that is just think about what a deployment of Canadians in Darfur would look like.

It's 55 degrees centigrade. There's no cover anywhere. Do you think the Janjaweed are going to get off their camels and walk up when they see a Canadian flag and our hand? No. It's a combat mission."

In a combat mission such as that in the Sudan, the paramount goal of Canadian forces wouldn't be to advance McQuaig's far-left hippie ideology. It would be to accomplish the goals of the mission with a minimum of casualties.

That demands air cover -- the kind of air cover provided by helicopters, and by a fighter jet like the Lightning II, that can hover and deliver its munitions in close combat situations.

McQuaig, however, clearly refuses -- simply refuses -- to acquaint herself with this reality.

Even McQuaig's insistence that the looming end of Canada's combat engagement in Afghanistan should lead to a reduction in military expenditures is highly suspect.

After all, the reduction in Canada's hard power capabilities led to situations like in Rwanda, where an under-sized, under-equipped and under-supplied contingent of UN peacekeepers -- under Canadian command -- were forced to stand impotently by while more than 800,000 were ruthlessly slaughtered.

In Canada, the lack of political will to make the appropriate contribution to that mission was compounded by the lack of political will to even have that capability in the first place.

Simply put, when people like Linda McQuaig criticize Stephen Harper's government for investing in Canada's military capabilities, they are simply talking out of their ass.

L:nda McQuaig doesn't know the first thing about these kinds of issues, and she never has. By the force of her own will, she never will.

McQuaig's commitment to a discredited peacenik ideology not only fails to save lives overseas, but would actually put the lives of Canadian servicemen at an unacceptable level of risk.

One could offer Linda McQuaig a crash course in reality, but any attempt to educate her in such matters will plummet to Earth faster than Canada's fleet of CF-18s will if not replaced in the near future.

The Wrong Crowd to Sell Weaponized Racism To

On August 4, 2010, the Tea Party Express organization held a press conference in Washington, DC. At this conference a number of black conservative leaders and thinkers hosted reporters from a number of media outlets.

Those assembled -- including, among others, Alan Keyes, Star Parker, and the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson -- discussed their involvement in the Tea Party movement, and answered questions regarding the charges of racism lobbed against the movement.

In recent weeks, a growing collection of smoking guns regarding the American far left, the Tea Party and weaponized racism have become apparent.

Journolist member Spencer Ackerman declared that questions regarding Reverend Jeremiah Wright should be shut down with accusations of racism, and more recently former Civil Rights Commissioner Mary Frances Berry publicly mused about the success of using racism as a political tactic in order to distract Americans from real issues.

"Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats," she remarked. "There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November."

"Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness," she concluded.

As far as smoking guns go, it may be even more damning than Ackerman's.

It's with this candour in mind that one turns to a question asked at the Tea Party Express press conference by Joyce Jones of Black Enterprise when she recycled the claims of the Democrat Congressional Black Caucus that they had been serenaded with racial epithets by Tea Party protesters.

"John Lewis put his life at considerable risk and danger so you could stand here and speak about freedoms," Jones began. "I want to know why it's so impossible for you to believe that someone did spit on him or call him the N-word?"

"Why would he lie about that when he's experienced so much worse?" she asked.

William Owens responded very simply: there is no evidence. So Jones asked a follow-up:

"Why is his word not good enough?" Jones asked.

"On the stage of public opinion, evidence is paramount," Owens explained. "It's one person's accusation against another. It was so public it should not be a difficult time to find evidence, and there is none."

Jones' explanation that she was there quickly faltered in the face of an admission that she didn't hear the epithet spoken, but that "there were crowds" present.

Alfonzo Rachel then responded by asking why the word of others aren't accepted with the same value -- including the word of those accused. Jones effectively had no answer.

The episode serves as a reminder of the McCarthyite tactics adopted by those executing Spencer Ackerman's and Mary Frances Berry's game plan.

When Senator Joseph McCarthy orchestrated his reign of terror over the United States, he orchestrated a rhetorical environment in which denials were treated as admissions of guilt, and only admissions were accepted. In a perverse distortion of any reasonable standard of evidence, McCarthy allowed his own suspicions to stand as evidence, and abused the powers granted to him to pursue his own personal anti-communist crusade.

Those working so hard to brand the Tea Party with accusations of racism -- to the extent that they have to distort and fabricate evdience -- are utilizing the same tactics. The question of Joyce Jones -- why the words of Represenatives John Lewis and Emanuele Cleaver aren't simply accepted despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary -- is a stark reminder of that.

Needless to say, black conservatives are clearly the wrong crowd to which to attempt to peddle weaponized racism.

That in itself should speak volumes.

The Hard Turn of Labour's Class Warfare

Abbott: New Labour "contaminated" by big money

As the Labour leadership campaign creeps closer and closer to balloting, candidate Diane Abbott is taking a new approach to her leadership bid:

Class warfare.

Some may recall that, as the 2010 general election approached, then-Labour leader (and then-Prime Minister) Gordon Brown tried to stir up class warfare sentiments when he targetted Tory leader David Cameron over his education.

Abbott has evidently decided to adopt the same tactic. The difference is that she's directing it within her own party, as opposed at a partisan opponent.

Her principle complaint is that some of her competitors have received far more campaign donations than she has. She declares this to be evidence that New Labour was "pretty much contaminated".

"It is odd that David Miliband has £400,000 and I have £5,000," Abbott complains. "He's got the big Blairite money and the big Blairite backers."

It's the kind of move that must lead one to question how serious Abbott is about her leadership bid.

After all, to be seen attempting to divide Britons at large against one another based on wealth is one thing. To be doing it within her own party is another entirely.

After all, election campaigns cannot be contested without money. Under Abbott's best-case scenario, in which wealth is a pervasive enough wedge issue to help her win the Labour leadership, she risks dividing the party membership against those most likely to donate to contest the next election.

The dangers of this stategy speaks for itself: a Labour Party under Diane Abbott's leadership isn't likely to progress any closer to power in a future election, but is likely to instead find itself further away.

Moreover, if Labour rewards Abbott's petty class warfare, it will deserve to be.

Mr AUTO, (Don't) Tear Down This WALL

It was once said that the greatest flaw of conservatism is that it doesn't present any view, whatsoever, of utopia.

Certainly, some intellectuals within conservative folds have often tried their hand at utopian imagineering. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged -- wherein the enterprising classes abandon their counterparts, reduced in Rand's mind to collectivist-minded chattle -- is a good example of this.

If WALL-E represnts any particular view of a utopian society, it's Atlas Shrugged turned on its head.

WALL-E presents utopia as any true conservative invariably recognizes it -- as a dystopia. Set nearly 1000 years in the future, the Earth of WALL-E is one abandoned by humanity. The wasteful excesses of consumerism have left the Earth covered in garbage and rendered toxic to life.

Instead, humankind now dwells on massive spaceliners, commissioned by the very mass-consumption-based companies that helped create the mess on planet Earth.

WALL-E (voiced, as it were, by Ben Burtt) is the last of thousands of robots left behind on Earth to clean up the mess. He spends his days compacting refuse into cubes, and building massive piles out of them.

EVE (voiced by Elissa Knight) was sent back to Earth to determine if it's safe to inhabit.

There's only one problem. The Axiom's co-pilot, AUTO (voiced synthetically with computer software), is under orders never to allow the ship to return to Earth and re-colonize, no matter the efforts of the ship's Captain (Jeff Garlin).

And the humans on board the Axiom desperately need to return to Earth. Presumably among the wealthiest and most prominant humans of their time -- after all, travelling into space for an indefinite period is an awfully expensive proposition -- the inhabitants of the Axiom represent not the self-sufficient and enterprising superman Rand imagines, but rather the aimless and sluggish masses they abandon.

Carried about on hover beds, the utopia created for these most wealthy and prominent of humanity has instead enslaved them, and transformed them into something unrecognizable even by the standard of today's epidemic obesity.

WALL-E and Eve ultimately become supporting players in the struggle between the Captain and AUTO. Eve was designed to ensure that evidence of Earth's inhabitability leads to a return to re-colonize Earth.

AUTO, acting in the role of the inflexible bureaucrat -- the foot soldier of progressive visions of utopia -- is determined to prevent her from accomplishing this mission. Orders, after all, are orders, and AUTO is under orders that are more than 700 years old.

In the end, WALL-E presents the Captain -- and the humanity he represents -- with a choice. On one hand they can reclaim their lost humanity, and forsake what seems to be guaranteed survival for the opportunity to, on the other hand, truly live with no such guarantees.

The notion of guaranteed survival in a world rendered perfect -- or at least as close to perfect as its creator can imagine -- is central to utopia.

Conservatives, on the other hand, must understand that reality is never guaranteed. Nor is the answer to simply abandon a world plagued by troubles in favour of building anew.

In the end, WALL-E -- a tool designed in a failed effort to clean up that mess -- becomes instrumental in helping reintroduce humankind to its humanity, even though he often seems as if he's simply being drug along for the ride.

Conservatism is just fine without a vision of utopia. IN fact, political ideologies that rely on utopian thought for their survival are all the poorer for it.

It's Called "Tough Love", Pakistan. Get Used To It

Emotional blackmail is bad diplomacy -- Pakistan has a problem

British Prime Minister David Cameron has been under diplomatic fire from Pakistan of late over some "frank" comments about Pakistan's relationship with terrorism.

"We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world," Cameron asserted. "Democratic states that want to be part of the developed world cannot do that. The message to Pakistan from the US and the UK is very clear on that point."

Pakistan has not responded well.

Pakistani President Asif Zardani has declared that coalition forces are losing the war against the Taliban.

Unfortunately for Zardani, if coalition forces are losing the war against the Taliban it's largely because of the support elements within his country's military provide to both the Taliban specifically, and to Islamic militancy in general.

The anti-India agenda pursued by many of those within Pakistan's military is particularly problematic.

Former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan Chris Alexander stated that General Ashaq Kayani had prepared a plan to destroy Indian consolates and their embassy in Kabul.

According to OneIndia, Kayani has, in the past, told President Karzai that he could negotiate peace with the Taliban if only he would expel Pakistan's diplomats from the country and close their embassy and consolates.

General Kayani is said to be dedicated to fighting Islamic militancy. But his evident obsession with India only takes much-needed focus away from that problem.

David Cameron needs to remind Asif Zardani that he has two options: the first is to address the problems within his country that contribute aid and comfort to the Taliban, or he can decide to not do so.

Should he decide not to do so, he has no place complaining about any criticisms he may face for that decision.

David Cameron, on the other hand, needs to continue to focus international pressure on Pakistan to address these problems. If this means confronting Pakistan with the prospects of diplomatic and economic isolation, this is what simply has to be done.

It's called "tough love". Until it starts living up to its international responsibilities, Pakistan needs to get used to it.

Thank You, Jack Pickersgill

Stockwell Day makes a fool of Mark Holland

Students of Canadian political history may well remember a Liberal by the name of Jack Pickersgill.

Saddled with delusions of potency, Pickersgill had such a penchant for self-humiliation that John Diefenbaker was reportedly able to use his name as a punch line for nearly any joke he wanted.

Marky Holland, the Liberal MP for Ajax-Pickering, has clearly become the heir to the throne of self-humiliating Liberal buffoonery. From complaining about an income trust fraud investigation that rendered a conviction to parading around documents "lost" by the Conservative Party which were in fact clearly marked for delivery by House of Commons staff, Holland always has his six-shooter at the ready -- and it's always aimed at his own foot.

Even on matters that others would consider to be slam-dunk triumphs, Holland has a unique gift for ineptitude. As a case in point, one should consider the recent "controversy" surrounding Treasury Board Presdient Stockwell Day explaining the government's decision to spend billions of taxpayer dollars building new prisons.

The tale began at a Stockwell Day news conference, when a reporter asked Day how the Stephen Harper government's commitment to eliminating the deficit could be trusted as the government spends billions of dollars building prisons even as Canada's official crime rate shrinks.

"People simply aren't reporting the same way they used to," Day explained. "I'm saying one statistic of many that concerns us is the amount of crimes that go unreported. Those numbers are alarming and it shows that we can't take a liberal view to crime which is, some would suggest, that it is barely happening at all."

"There are too many situations of criminal activity that are alarming to our citizens, and we intend to deal with that," he added.

With Day questioning Canada's crime statistics, Marky Holland must have thought he'd hit paydirt.

He has suggested that the Stephen Harper government "doesn't have any respect for facts."

"You don't make up statistics to try to scare people and use crime as a wedge issue," Holland added.

Unfortunately for Holland, these statistics are far from made up, and it seems to be Holland himself who has no respect for facts.

As John Ivison points out, the surveys Day refers to are very much real. In fact, through the Crime Victimization survey -- a self-report survey in which Canadians report crimes they have been a victim of -- the period of 1991-2004 was marked by a decline in the reporting of crime to police.

In 1991, 42% of crimes were actually reported to police. In 1999, that figure was 37%. In 2004, that figure was 34%.

In other words, Canada's shrinking crime rates aren't the result of any kind of successful preventative program by the government. They've been the result of fewer and fewer Canadians reporting crime to police.

In the wake of such a revelation, one may want to ask the question: who is really playing the game of wedge politics, and who is being responsive to the needs oc Canadians? Is it Stockwell Day and the Conservative Party? Or is it Mark Holland and the Liberal Party?

Another story provides the answer. The Conservative government has more recently moved to add offences related to illegal organized gambling, prostitution and drug trafficking to Canada's list of "serious offences".

Surprise, surprise, Holland is against it.

"You have a government that's entire solution -- its whole tool kit -- is all focused just on locking people up. All the things that we know work, we know save money, save lives ... they ignore," Holland complained. "This government, any time it gets into trouble, any time there's a situation where the water starts getting very hot for them politically, starts dumping on the table a rash of crime bills and more often than not, they're not thought through."

The problem for Holland is that some of the Liberal Party policies -- such as the long-gun registry -- can not only not be shown to have saved a single life, but can be shown to have failed to save lives.

The Liberal Party record on crime is unabashedly a failure. One hardly expects Holland to admit it.

Fortunately, the admission of the modern Liberal Party's answer to Jack Pickersgill isn't necessary in order for this fact to be true.

Until Mark Holland musters the honesty and dignity to admit to this, few would blame Stockwell Day if he were to simply take to using Holland as the punchline for virtually any joke of his choosing.

Holland's certainly accomplishing that well enough on his own.

Less Proud? No. More Contemptible.

Lawrence Scanlan evokes Nazism in anti-Harper tirade

Writing in the Ottawa Citizen, Lawrence Scanlan seems to be out to produce a "greatest hits" package of anti-Stephen Harper tirades.

What emerges is a rather contemptible smear-job on the sitting Prime Minister and his government. Indeed, one that actually goes so far as to implicitly envoke first Nazi Germany, and then later communist East Gearmany.

"Ursula Franklin -- the celebrated physicist, pacifist, author and Companion of the Order of Canada -- recently spoke to CBC Radio's The Current. She had survived a Nazi death camp and come to Canada hoping for better. Now 88, Franklin is 'profoundly worried about the absence and erosion of democracy in Canada.'

Democracy, I heard her say on the radio, is a slow and messy process. When Franklin sees cabinet ministers holding press conferences to discuss legislation not yet debated in the House of Commons, she sees that process being skirted. And when she hears the prime minister saying he does not 'trust' the Opposition, she sees contempt for democracy itself. 'Who wants to live in a country,' Franklin asked, 'where those who don't think like you are deemed untrustworthy?'"

Ursula Franklin is certainly entitled to her opinion. As the survivor of a Nazi work camp -- Franklin spent her time during her imprisonment during World War II repairing bombed buildings, not performing the kind of aimless hard labour undertaken at the death camps -- she has earned that right in a manner harder than most.

But for Scanlan to exploit the wartime plight of this woman is actually rather contemptible. Scanlan simply must know how many Canadians would be reluctant to criticize the views of a Nazi work camp survivor.

Nonetheless, Franklin's views on democracy are clearly in error on a number of points.

First off, in suggesting that cabinet ministers discussing legislation in the media before debating it in Parliament skirts democracy, Scanlan clearly misunderstands the true nature of democracy.

Democracy isn't merely something that takes place in the halls of Parliament. Rather, in a healthy democracy issues and ideas -- including legislation -- are discussed in as many forums as possible, including the media. Cabomet ministers discussing legislation with the media before debating it in Parliament haven't skirted anything -- they've engaged in a democratic discourse that will reach the citizenry far faster than anything recorded in Hansard.

Moreoover, Stephen Harper is actually quite entitled to distrust the opposition, especially considering the kind of character assassination the opposition has waged against him for the better part of 20 years.

The question Franklin asks about living in a country where "those who don't think like you are deemed untrustworthy" is one that has applied to Canadian conservatives for the aforementioned better part of 20 years, wherein they were often denounced as dangerous, reactionary, undemocratic and anti-Canadian -- all for thinking differently than the Canadian left.

Under these circumstances, it's only natural that Canadian conservatives would come to distrust their political adversaries. Their political adversaries have long sought to sew distrust of them, and relied on a combination of conspiracy theories, deliberate disinformation and McCarthyist tactics -- in which denials are treated as evidence of guilt, and only admissions are accepted -- in order to do so.

Sadly, Scanlan isn't done with Ursula Franklin just yet:

"Ursula Franklin defines peace as the presence of justice and the absence of fear. Which is ascendant in our home and native land -- justice, or fear? Canada Day chest-beating and fireworks failed to counter other evidence that this country has morphed so radically that one has to wonder if Lester B Pearson would, today, even recognize the place. The tar sands, our pathetic stance at the Copenhagen conference on climate change, the prison farms/super prisons debacle, ongoing asbestos mining, the shift from peacekeeper to major player in a dubious war, Afghan detainees: what's appalling, and indeed what has perhaps enabled all this, is our apathy. And there's a price to be paid for apathy."

Apparently, in Scanlan's mind, if Canada isn't pursuing his ideological idea of justice, then all that can be left is fear.

If Canadians were afraid of their government, that would be one thing. It would be a very bad thing.

Yet individuals like Scanlan spent nearly 20 years blatantly fear-mongering against the party that currently governs Canada. It seems that perhaps fear was a good thing, so long as it served Scanlan's ideological agenda.

Perhaps the most perverse part of Scanlan's article is that he implicitly envokes Nazism one moment, then declares a war to keep one of the most Nazi-like regime of the late 20th century (perhaps second only to the Khmer Rouge) from returning to power to be "dubious".

If Canadians were truly less proud of their country, that would be another thing.

But just as with Scanlan's fear implication, all the evidence is to the contrary.

While many Canadians were quite rightly concerned with the excesses of police power during the G8 and G20 Summits, the aftermath was not a Canadian people afraid of their government. Rather, it was Canadians enraged at the anti-democratic actions of black bloc rioters who share a similiar agenda to Scanlan's.

Moreover, the evidence is not that Canadians are less proud of their country. The evidence is that Canadians are more proud of their country.

Unless, of course, one is Lawrence Scanlan, whose pride in his country clearly hinges on its adherence to a far-leff-wing ideological agenda. Then, perhaps, one is not so proud of their country.

But it's time that individuals such as Scanlan learn that they aren't any more Canadian than anyone else, and that their personal politics don't entitle them to distort facts or historical truth in order to demonize their adversaries.

Is Canada any less proud for having Stephen Harper as Prime Minister? Not at all.

But Lawrence Scanlan is all the more contemptible for the lengths he has gone to in order to suggest this.

Elitism... It's What's For Dinner

Andy Burnham obsessed with New Labour "elitism"

When Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham suggested that the leadership of the Labour Party was too elitist under Tony Blair, he must have been satisfied with the results.

After all, that was June. Now it's August, on the verge of Labour members voting on their new leader, and Burnham is lobbing accusations of elitism again -- this time at David and Ed Miliband.

The Miliband brothers, he alleges, are both the result of the Labour party recruiting from "the elite".

As such, Burnham charges that the Miliband brothers -- one of whom will likely assume the party leadership -- represent the worst of the old party leadership.

"At its worst, it was self-indulgent, arrogant, elitist, Londoncentric and all of that has to change," Burnham contends. "It looked hollow and rootless at times."

Who is the antidote to Labour party elitism? Why, Burnham proclaims that it's none other than himself.

"I didn't have well-connected parents," he declares. "People are looking for politicians who have real life experience."

Whether or not Andy Burnham was born into any power elite establishment, however, is irrelevant. While Labour was in government under Gordon Brown, Burnham served in a pair of Minister of State roles -- for health and sport -- as well as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

In other words, Burnham is among the elite MPs of his party.

So while Burnham can pledge that he will be an anti-establishment candidate, this is repeatedly undermined by the detail that he, himself, is a member of the establishment within his own party.

He could certainly pledge to be less elitist -- as the Miliband brothers themselves have done -- but to be pretend that he isn't himself now a part of the elite defies credulity.

A Brief Statement on the State of the Canadian Blogosphere

The state of the Canadian blogosphere is: remarkably peaceful.

And it's much better off that way.

Certainly, John Baglow occasionally says something remarkably insipid, and Jay Currie occasionally points it out. Other remarkably-uninfluential asshats continue to flail away at the ideologically-unsoothing march of reality.

But other than that, since the Canadian blogosphere's resident sociopath decided to go on "hiatus", things have been remarkably peaceful in the Canadian blogosphere.

And it's much better off this way.

One shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that pure harmony will now reign supreme, and that conservatives and progressives alike will set aside their ideological slings and arrows.

But since certain vile individuals have blessed the Canadian blogosphere with their silence, it's remarkable how much the "personality warfare" decried by one blogger has subsided.

And while certainly, there are some things that could be said about this -- most notably, that an individual who accused others of spreading animosity has managed to largely quiet the guns of said personality warfare by his departure -- but very little needs to be said, because the state of the Canadian blogosphere is pretty evident.

It's remarkably peaceful, escpecially compared to how it used to be. And as far as your not-so-humble scibe is concerned, it can stay that way.

Unhiding the "Hidden Agenda"?

"No new social welfare programs". Shocking!

Writing in the Guelph Mercury, William Christian must think he's an awfully clever fellow.

A former Political Science professor at both the University of Guelph and Mount Royal University, Williams has dropped his most recent grand revelation in the pages of the Mercury.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as it turns out, doesn't have a hidden agenda. Rather, his "hidden agenda" is rather open!

For rationally-thinking Canadians, this is no great revelation. The hidden agenda accusation was a canard employed by a Liberal Party that had no real answer for Harper or his policies. It was a fear-mongering tactic, pure and simple -- albeit one that worked until the Liberals finally pushed their luck to far between institutionalized corruption within their party apparatus and indifference to corruption within governmental apparaatus.

Christian clearly never clued into this little detail, seeing as how in the Harper government's cut to the GST, he seems to have found his answer:

No new social programs:

"Virtually no economists of stature supported cutting the goods and services tax from seven per cent to five per cent. However, the decline in tax revenues limits the government’s ability to introduce new social programs. The public resistance to the introduction of the harmonized sales tax in Ontario and British Columbia shows how difficult it would be to increase the GST."

Of course, this was nothing Christian disovered on his own. After all, none other than Tom Flanagan suggested that Harper was "tightening the screws" on government by depriving it of the revenue it would need to institute new social programs.

But it gets even better than this. Christian even goes so far as to suggest that the government's economic stimulus program -- instituted upon the demand of the opposition -- is part of this same agenda:

"Second, as anyone who has drive around Guelph or Waterloo Region will know, the Harper government spent a massive amount of money stimulating the economy during the recession. They spent it on infrastructure. The federal government will run a deficit for the foreseeable future. The size of the deficit will prevent the introduction of new social welfare programs. The commitment to spend some sixteen billion dollars on the purchase and maintenance of new stealth fighters for the Canadian armed forces will further tie up money that a future, more welfare inclined, government will not have available."

Last but not least, Christian suggests that even the decision to render the long-form census voluntary rather than mandatory -- something that is already a de facto state of affairs so long as Statistics Canada declines to pursue charges against Canadians who decline to fill out the long form -- is part of the same agenda:

"Once a future government has the money it will have great difficulty introducing new social programs. Pity poor Tony Clement, the federal industry minister. A bright and decent guy, though without the backbone to resign, he has to take the fall for the prime minister’s decision to cancel the long-form census. Without the details provided by the long-form census, future governments, both provincial and federal, will not have the information effectively to introduce social welfare programs."

"No money, no information. Bye-bye, social planning," Christian concludes. "Maybe Harper’s agenda is becoming less hidden."

To which any Canadians who paid any modicum of attention to Canadian politics at any point over the past six years cannot help but respond to as such.

"Well, duuuuuuuhhh."

It all comes back to the earlier "well, duuuuuuuhhh" moment in Christian's column.

"As an economist, Harper believes in the limited role of the government in the economy," William writes very near to the beginning of the column. "This might account for the many apparently irrational steps he has taken since attaining office."

Fucking duh.

The Canadian left, in particular, should find this far left than shocking. Harper broadcasted his views on the size of Canada's social welfare state as early as 1997. It has, in fact, been the left's favourite Harper speech; the infamous "Northern European welfare state" speech.

The left has long delighted in treating the speech as an expression of hostility toward Canada. It was, indeed, a warning flag (something the far left naturally regards as hostile to their ideological agenda for the country).

In the speech, Harper outlines some of the consequences of devotion to the kind of social programs Christian so clearly cherishes:

"Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States."

In this speech, Harper makes his agenda rather clear: returning the role of economic management largely to the market, and a scaling back of existing social programs. Harper's agenda was never the implimentation of new social programs -- as William Christian very clearly desires.

Thus, the revelation that Harper intends to make it difficult for the state to increase in size by forcing any government that would like to increase the size of the state to make difficult decisions before they can.

That may be surprising, shocking and even frightening to someone dedicated to keeping the social footprint of the state as large as it can possibly be. It shouldn't be surprising or shocking to anyone who's paid attention to Harper and his politics.

As for frightening -- there's no sense in trying to talk sense to those whose psyches are saddled with an irrational and ideological fear.

All that can be done is for Canadian conservatives to wave politely at such individuals as they -- and their ideology -- are relegated to the history books.

Farewell, professor Christian. Next time, kindly save your "revelations".