No elected MPs ever means Green Party has some growing to do
With Green Party leader Elizabeth May's bid to force her way into the televised leaders' debate thwarted by a federal court, presenting the case against May joining the debate may seem like a moot point.
But Michael Coren may phrased it most succinctly: "Win seats, become a serious party with serious support and you’ll be up there on the platform."
Simply put, to treat the Green Party as a serious player in Canadian politics is seriously premature. The Green Party has never elected an MP in Canada. In its 30-year history, it's had but a single MP, who joined the party after being punted from the Liberal Party caucus. He was soundly defeated in the 2008 election. He was replaced by John Weston, a Conservative.
This is important to note because in 2008 May -- who was working in close collusion with then-Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion -- touted the defection of Blair Wilson to the Green Party as justification for her party to join in the televised leaders' debate.
Many people considered it to be thin justification in 2008. In 2011, there's clearly even less justification.
Not to mention that the idea that having an MP automatically qualified a party to participate in that debate was fairly specious. Other parties in Canada have had MPs and were not allowed to participate.
Case in point: the Labour Progressive Party, also known as a polished-up front for the Communist Party of Canada. In 1943 Fred Rose was elected MP for Cartier under the Labour Progressive banner. Yet the Communist Party, even under the LDP banner, was never permitted to participate in the televised leaders' debate.
(It's worth noting that Rose was later convicted of spying for a foreign country, the only MP in Canadian history to have ever been convicted of such an act.)
To make matters even worse for May's argument, Rose was actually elected as a Labour Progressive candidate. Blair Wilson was not elected as a Green, and did not win reelection as a Green.
Not to mention that May doesn't really bring anything extra to the table. Since May took over leadership of the Green Party, it's basically become the ABC Party, the "defeat Stephen Harper" party.
In terms of Canadian politics, there's already an app for that. It's called the Liberal Party. And the NDP. And, arguably, the Bloc Quebecois (although one is probably better off considering them to be the "destroy Canada" party).
The Green Party's case may yet actually succeed in securing a ruling that it must be included in televised debates; but the case itself will likely not be heard until after the debate has taken place.
In that case, the ruling would remain useful to have the Greens included in future leaders' debates, and that may indeed be in the best interests of Canadian democracy. But in the end, only Canadians will be the best judge of that; until Canadians have seen fit to elect a Green Party MP, it will be hard to make that argument.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Labour's Immigration Dilemma
Labour Party still self-consciously clueless about immigration policy
It was a defining moment of the 2010 British election: Gordon Brown, after conversing with British everywoman Gillian Duffy, declared her to be "a bigoted woman".
Duffy, a lifelong Labour supporter, challenged Brown about his ability to tackle the UK's national debt while demand for welfare continued to be driven by immigration.
"We had it drummed in when I was a child … it was education, health service and looking after the people who are vulnerable," Duffy had declared. "But there's too many people now who are vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it."
"But they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more," Brown argued. "If you are unemployed you've got to go back to work. It's six months…"
"You can't say anything about the immigrants," Duffy complained. "But all these eastern European that are coming in, where are they flocking from?"
Brown replied that while one million immigrants were arriving from Eastern Europe, one million Britons had emmigrated elsewhere.
In frustration, Brown would later declare Duffy to be "a bigoted woman". He was still wearing a Sky News Microphone and had forgotten about it. It was a defining gaffe of the election for Labour.
The message -- which is still causing deep anxieties within Labour ranks -- was very simple: Britons were not yet prepared to accept multiculturalism as inevitable; at least not with what they had already seen.
As it pertains to multiculturalism, many countries have experienced some growing pains. But it seems that Britain has had it far worse than some other countries.
Britain is one of the only countries in the western world where Sharia courts were actually allowed to take root. The rot has penetrated so deeply that even the Archbishop of Canterbury has described the implementation of Sharia law as "inevitable".
It's on this general note that social patterns such as the troubling upswing in support for organizations like the British National Party have emerged. Many Britons, it seems, no longer recognize their own country when radical Islamists so frequently take to the streets to declare their intentions to bring the totality of British society under their extreme political ideology, which masquerades as Islam.
This is not a challenge that the British government will be able to tackle easily. Before the Labour Party will be ready to return to government, it will need to conquer its Gillian Duffy-related demons, and prepare a vigorous response to the troubled state of British multiculturalism.
It was a defining moment of the 2010 British election: Gordon Brown, after conversing with British everywoman Gillian Duffy, declared her to be "a bigoted woman".
Duffy, a lifelong Labour supporter, challenged Brown about his ability to tackle the UK's national debt while demand for welfare continued to be driven by immigration.
"We had it drummed in when I was a child … it was education, health service and looking after the people who are vulnerable," Duffy had declared. "But there's too many people now who are vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it."
"But they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more," Brown argued. "If you are unemployed you've got to go back to work. It's six months…"
"You can't say anything about the immigrants," Duffy complained. "But all these eastern European that are coming in, where are they flocking from?"
Brown replied that while one million immigrants were arriving from Eastern Europe, one million Britons had emmigrated elsewhere.
In frustration, Brown would later declare Duffy to be "a bigoted woman". He was still wearing a Sky News Microphone and had forgotten about it. It was a defining gaffe of the election for Labour.
The message -- which is still causing deep anxieties within Labour ranks -- was very simple: Britons were not yet prepared to accept multiculturalism as inevitable; at least not with what they had already seen.
As it pertains to multiculturalism, many countries have experienced some growing pains. But it seems that Britain has had it far worse than some other countries.
Britain is one of the only countries in the western world where Sharia courts were actually allowed to take root. The rot has penetrated so deeply that even the Archbishop of Canterbury has described the implementation of Sharia law as "inevitable".
It's on this general note that social patterns such as the troubling upswing in support for organizations like the British National Party have emerged. Many Britons, it seems, no longer recognize their own country when radical Islamists so frequently take to the streets to declare their intentions to bring the totality of British society under their extreme political ideology, which masquerades as Islam.
This is not a challenge that the British government will be able to tackle easily. Before the Labour Party will be ready to return to government, it will need to conquer its Gillian Duffy-related demons, and prepare a vigorous response to the troubled state of British multiculturalism.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Lizzie May vs The Media
Green Party leader offers windfall to CBC on one hand, attacks media with the other
As Green Party leader Elizabeth May continues to fight for what she considers her rightful place in the televised leaders' debates, she's chosen to make the media itself an issue in her campaign.
May promises to juice up the CBC with an additional $450 million per annum.
May seems to see the CBC as the only bulwark against what she sees as the steady degeneration of the Canadian media, a degeneration that she intends to put a stop to. She even infers that this may be why May has been excluded from the televised leaders' debate.
"Concentration in Canadian media, corporate control of news content, slashing of local news content, and the slow funding starvation of our national broadcaster — these are the issues the corporate TV executives would rather not see come up in this election," May remarked. "These are issues Canadians will not hear discussed if I am excluded from the national leaders' debate."
Not that May approves of all the CBC's decisions. In fact, May seems to think that the CBC has not been nearly antagonistic enough to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"I think the willingness of the CBC to be less than diligent in pursuing some of the things the Harper government has done, speaks to a concern and a fear of losing more funding,"
Frankly, this is the kind of statement that makes one think May hasn't paid attention to any of Terry Milewski's recent work.
Moreover, there's no evidence that Harper has threatened to cut the CBC's funding if he didn't like what was being broadcasted. Not at all like what Pearson-era cabinet Minister CD Howe threatened.
Then again, these kinds of hanging details are precisely what Canadians have come to expect of the Green Party leader.
For her own part, May is confident that she'll manage to win her battle with the consortium (which involves the CBC, and decided unanimously that she would not participate in the debate). For her own part, it's all about "fairness".
"I think in the end I'll get in the debate, but the media consortium has got to recognize they have done something that offends fundamental principles of fairness in a democracy," May remarked.
Elizabeth May could well be right about that. Her exclusion from the televised leaders' debate wouldn't be nearly as controversial if she had no argument.
As Green Party leader Elizabeth May continues to fight for what she considers her rightful place in the televised leaders' debates, she's chosen to make the media itself an issue in her campaign.
May promises to juice up the CBC with an additional $450 million per annum.
May seems to see the CBC as the only bulwark against what she sees as the steady degeneration of the Canadian media, a degeneration that she intends to put a stop to. She even infers that this may be why May has been excluded from the televised leaders' debate.
"Concentration in Canadian media, corporate control of news content, slashing of local news content, and the slow funding starvation of our national broadcaster — these are the issues the corporate TV executives would rather not see come up in this election," May remarked. "These are issues Canadians will not hear discussed if I am excluded from the national leaders' debate."
Not that May approves of all the CBC's decisions. In fact, May seems to think that the CBC has not been nearly antagonistic enough to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"I think the willingness of the CBC to be less than diligent in pursuing some of the things the Harper government has done, speaks to a concern and a fear of losing more funding,"
Frankly, this is the kind of statement that makes one think May hasn't paid attention to any of Terry Milewski's recent work.
Moreover, there's no evidence that Harper has threatened to cut the CBC's funding if he didn't like what was being broadcasted. Not at all like what Pearson-era cabinet Minister CD Howe threatened.
Then again, these kinds of hanging details are precisely what Canadians have come to expect of the Green Party leader.
For her own part, May is confident that she'll manage to win her battle with the consortium (which involves the CBC, and decided unanimously that she would not participate in the debate). For her own part, it's all about "fairness".
"I think in the end I'll get in the debate, but the media consortium has got to recognize they have done something that offends fundamental principles of fairness in a democracy," May remarked.
Elizabeth May could well be right about that. Her exclusion from the televised leaders' debate wouldn't be nearly as controversial if she had no argument.
Cap-and-Trade Bad For Saskatchewan, Bad For the West
Ignatieff's green plan could be Green Shift II
Looking back on the 2008 federal election, it becomes clear that then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion's vaunted green shift -- which would have re-designed Canada's tax system around a carbon tax -- was a millstone around the neck of the Liberal Party.
While Dion took the blame for that defeat, the carbon tax itself was actually an idea adopted from the current Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff. With Ignatieff now proposing a cap-and-trade system in the place of that carbon tax, he's again provoking serious concerns regarding its effect on Canadian industry.
For his own part, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has been trying to stay out of the 2011 federal election. But as the Premier of a province that would be hit hard by the proposed cap-and-trade scheme, Wall has been forced to start speaking out.
Cap-and-trade, he points out, would be bad not only for Saskatchewan, but for the west as a whole.
"There's already been speculation in the media that it could be very costly to the industry in Western Canada, to Alberta and Saskatchewan, not just to oilsands but to the fossil fuels industry," Wall explained.
Wall would be prepared to consider a cap-and-trade system if he could secure assurances that the funds accrued through the trading would remain in the province in which they are paid.
"We need assurances from all parties that if provinces are serious about dealing with the issue, and we are, that any proceeds from fines related to emissions stays in our province," Wall announced.
"Cap-and-trade is different," he declared. "Cap-and-trade is very much about a wealth transfer because it can't respect borders by definition. That's certainly the cap-and-trade that I understand. That's the one that some of the central Canadian provinces want."
It's also approximately what then-Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff said the Green Shift would do in 2008. Boshcoff was defeated by now-Conservative MP John Rafferty in the 2008 federal election, but is now running again.
"If it's different than that, that's what we need to know and we should know it soon," Wall insisted.
But if Michael Ignatieff approaches his Green Plan the same way Stephane Dion approached the Green Shift, Canadians should expect to not know precisely what this Green Plan entails. Dion evaded questions about how a Liberal government would replace falling revenue from a carbon tax. Until Ignatieff becomes more forthcoming, Canadians -- Brad Wall included -- shouldn't hold their breath waiting to hear the details.
Looking back on the 2008 federal election, it becomes clear that then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion's vaunted green shift -- which would have re-designed Canada's tax system around a carbon tax -- was a millstone around the neck of the Liberal Party.
While Dion took the blame for that defeat, the carbon tax itself was actually an idea adopted from the current Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff. With Ignatieff now proposing a cap-and-trade system in the place of that carbon tax, he's again provoking serious concerns regarding its effect on Canadian industry.
For his own part, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has been trying to stay out of the 2011 federal election. But as the Premier of a province that would be hit hard by the proposed cap-and-trade scheme, Wall has been forced to start speaking out.
Cap-and-trade, he points out, would be bad not only for Saskatchewan, but for the west as a whole.
Wall would be prepared to consider a cap-and-trade system if he could secure assurances that the funds accrued through the trading would remain in the province in which they are paid.
"We need assurances from all parties that if provinces are serious about dealing with the issue, and we are, that any proceeds from fines related to emissions stays in our province," Wall announced.
"Cap-and-trade is different," he declared. "Cap-and-trade is very much about a wealth transfer because it can't respect borders by definition. That's certainly the cap-and-trade that I understand. That's the one that some of the central Canadian provinces want."
It's also approximately what then-Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff said the Green Shift would do in 2008. Boshcoff was defeated by now-Conservative MP John Rafferty in the 2008 federal election, but is now running again.
"If it's different than that, that's what we need to know and we should know it soon," Wall insisted.
But if Michael Ignatieff approaches his Green Plan the same way Stephane Dion approached the Green Shift, Canadians should expect to not know precisely what this Green Plan entails. Dion evaded questions about how a Liberal government would replace falling revenue from a carbon tax. Until Ignatieff becomes more forthcoming, Canadians -- Brad Wall included -- shouldn't hold their breath waiting to hear the details.
The Case for Elizabeth May in the Debates
As the 41st Canadian federal election unfolds, one thing that is becoming clear is that the media has managed to make itself one of the main issues in the campaign.
On one front is the issue surrounding the number of questions Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking at each of his campaign stops: two from the national media in english, one from the national media in french, and another from local media.
The media is resentful of this, and not without cause. No one should blame Harper for wanting to keep control of the amount of time he spends answering questions. But answering a finite number of questions not only frustrates the media, but it focuses media attention away from his party's campaign and toward his own relations with the media. It reduces his party's ability to message.
But the media has its own controversy to handle. The decision to exclude Green Party leader Elizabeth May from the televised leaders' debate has proven to be unpopular in some circles.
This is especially the case within the Green Party itself.
"Fundamentally, we expect to be treated like the other national parties," May complained. "With the support of nearly a million Canadians in the last election, it seems pretty obvious that the Greens deserve a voice at the table."
May has even sworn to take this matter before a court to have the decision overturned -- a rather dubious act, as May cannot force the broadcasting consortium, who decided unanimously to decide only the parties represented in Parliament, to put her on television.
But there are many good reasons to include the Greens. This is only underscored by the recent support May has received from former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin and former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Joe Clark.
Martin spoke to the need for Canadians to be as well-informed about their electoral options as they can possibly be.
"Canadians are entitled to points of view of all of the valid players and Elizabeth May and the Green party are certainly valid participants," Martin insisted. "In terms of the popular vote, the Green party has demonstrated that there is a strong group of Canadians who are prepared to support that party."
Joe Clark echoed these sentiments, then continued to talk about the importance of democracy.
"The decision to exclude flies in the face of the worldwide demand of democratic citizens for more open-ness and more alternatives," Clark said in a statement. "As education and technology are forcing political systems to open up, this consortium proposes to use its power to limit the choices Canadians can consider."
"There are good arguments to change the format of these debates; there is no justification for an arbitrary decision to shut out a significant and legitimate political party, like the Green Party," Clark added.
There are many reasons to include the Green Party in the televised leaders' debates. Paul Martin and Joe Clark articulate them well.
This author isn't entirely decided on this issue just yet, but one thing is clear: the media cannot expect to complain on one hand that Stephen Harper is restricting their ability to ask him questions, then shut another party out of the debate entirely.
On one front is the issue surrounding the number of questions Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking at each of his campaign stops: two from the national media in english, one from the national media in french, and another from local media.
The media is resentful of this, and not without cause. No one should blame Harper for wanting to keep control of the amount of time he spends answering questions. But answering a finite number of questions not only frustrates the media, but it focuses media attention away from his party's campaign and toward his own relations with the media. It reduces his party's ability to message.
But the media has its own controversy to handle. The decision to exclude Green Party leader Elizabeth May from the televised leaders' debate has proven to be unpopular in some circles.
This is especially the case within the Green Party itself.
"Fundamentally, we expect to be treated like the other national parties," May complained. "With the support of nearly a million Canadians in the last election, it seems pretty obvious that the Greens deserve a voice at the table."
May has even sworn to take this matter before a court to have the decision overturned -- a rather dubious act, as May cannot force the broadcasting consortium, who decided unanimously to decide only the parties represented in Parliament, to put her on television.
But there are many good reasons to include the Greens. This is only underscored by the recent support May has received from former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin and former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Joe Clark.
Martin spoke to the need for Canadians to be as well-informed about their electoral options as they can possibly be.
"Canadians are entitled to points of view of all of the valid players and Elizabeth May and the Green party are certainly valid participants," Martin insisted. "In terms of the popular vote, the Green party has demonstrated that there is a strong group of Canadians who are prepared to support that party."
Joe Clark echoed these sentiments, then continued to talk about the importance of democracy.
"The decision to exclude flies in the face of the worldwide demand of democratic citizens for more open-ness and more alternatives," Clark said in a statement. "As education and technology are forcing political systems to open up, this consortium proposes to use its power to limit the choices Canadians can consider."
"There are good arguments to change the format of these debates; there is no justification for an arbitrary decision to shut out a significant and legitimate political party, like the Green Party," Clark added.
There are many reasons to include the Green Party in the televised leaders' debates. Paul Martin and Joe Clark articulate them well.
This author isn't entirely decided on this issue just yet, but one thing is clear: the media cannot expect to complain on one hand that Stephen Harper is restricting their ability to ask him questions, then shut another party out of the debate entirely.
The World Could Use a Hobo With a Shotgun
Rarely will one ever find a film as distinctly Canadian as Hobo With a Shotgun.
It isn't the kind of film normally associated with Canada. It seems to take a certain comedic thrill in the brutality of its violence; not the kind of quality normally associated with a Canadian film.
But Hobo With a Shotgun, based on a mock trailer produced for the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez joint double-feature Grindhouse, comes with tons of Canadian street cred. Filmed in Dartmouth Nova Scotia, the film features cameos by George Stroumboulopoulos and a trailer park boy, and even features a bizarre reference to The Raccoons.
The film features Rutger Hauer as the titular Hobo, who goes unnamed throughout the film -- much like The Bride in Tarantino's Kill Bill, and Sergio Leone's "Blondie", the man with no name.
The hobo is a simple transient, riding the rails into Hopetown. Hope has long since abandoned Hopetown, and the hobo has little ambition to bring it back. His dreams are simple: he wants to earn $50 so he can buy a used lawnmower from a pawnshop.
But when he witnesses Slick (Gregory Smith) accosting prostitute Abby (Molly Dunsworth), the hobo cannot simply let things pass. Considering that he had already witnessed Slick and his brother Ivan (Nick Bateman) committing a murder, he should have known better.
Slick and Ivan are sons of Drake (Brian Downey), the cartoonish villain who has corrupted nearly every corner of Hopetown, transforming it instead into the dystopic "Fucktown".
Pushed too far by the filth of Fucktown, the hobo turns in his humble dreams of mowing lawns for a living for a new way of life -- as a hobo with a shotgun.
He quickly begins to clear out Fucktown's criminal underbelly with extreme prejudice. Infuriated that anyone would so forcefully cut into his action, Drake declares open season not only on the hobo, but on all hobos. He threatens to kill all of Hopetown's children unless the citizens take up arms against the city's homeless population and kills them all.
The desperation to protect their children turns the citizens of Hopetown into vicious murderers.
Of all the residents of Hopetown, only one man has the courage to stand up to the denizens of Fucktown: the titular hobo with a shotgun.
It takes some stretch of the imagination to claim that Hobo With a Shotgun has a coherent theme. But if it actually had one, it would be the corrosive effect that desperation has on human society.
Left to their own devices by police who are in cahoots with a man who mass murders children, the citizens of Hopetown simply turn all of their rage on the most helpless people of all: homeless people who have no one to stand up for them.
Yet when crime is allowed to deepy take root, it isn't ordinary citizens who actually suffer the most. It's the most helpless and defenseless members of society: the people who sleep in the very streets where these crimes are allowed to run so rampant.
Certainly, not every homeless person is an innocent victim. Some of them get themselves into the situations they're in by getting too deep into a drug habit. Others are themselves involved in crime in order to survive.
But among the homeless population of any city are some truly innocent victims. For one thing, the homeless population features a disproportionate number of people with mental illnesses. Many homeless teenagers on Canadian streets are not runaways, as many people would believe, but children kicked out by parents unwilling to care for them.
When drug- and crime-related violence overwhelms city streets, its these people who are least equipped to cope with it, and least equipped to protect themselves. They're the unseen victims of crime.
There are things Canadians can do to help: the first is to either support local homeless shelters and youth emergency shelters. If you can't donate your money, donate your time.
The other -- perhaps even more important -- thing is to not allow a single crime to pass unreported on the streets of Canadian neighbourhoods. And if police are unresponsive to reports, to be active pressuring police to tackle crime anywhere and everywhere it rears its head.
The title of this blogpost is actually facetious. The last thing the world actually needs is a vigilante hobo with a shotgun. But there are some places in Canada where strong citizen engagement is going to be necessary to prevent that kind of bloodbath.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
The Uncomfortable Truth of Class War & Tax Evasion
David Miliband finds clever way to avoid paying tax he helped implement
Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has some 'splainin' to do.
In the year since Miliband's Labour party lost an election to David Cameron's Conservative Party of Britain he has moved from being a high-paid member of Britain's cabinet to finding clever ways to avoid paying the 50% top tax rate that the government he was a member of implemented.
As one of the fortunate strata of British society who earns more than 150,000 Pounds Sterling, Miliband would be paying a snowballing tax rate, wherein anyone earnign this amount has to pay an additional 50% of the 40% of their earnings they already pay in taxes.
However, it turns out that he doesn't.
Rather, Miliband has set up a company named "The Office of David Miliband Limited", which manages income that he earns through his work outside of Parliament. Instead of paying the 40% tax rate that he would otherwise pay on these funds (as well as the additional 50% of that figure), Miliband will instead pay a corporate tax rate of 20%.
This underscores a rather startling fact of life about many high-taxing politicians: they're more than willing to levy high taxes against other people, but they're frequently reluctant to pay.
It's true that corporations have many tricks to avoid paying taxes that private citizens often do not have at their disposal. As York University's Dr Neil Brooks explains, many corporations do this through shell companies established in the Cayman Islands.
While Miliband has stopped far short of setting up his shell company in the Cayman Islands, The Office of David Miliband Ltd, at least on its face, very much looks like a shell company.
Dr Brooks points out the costs to government of chasing down revenue otherwise lost through these shell companies, regardless of where they are registered. These costs should be on the minds of Canadians as they compare electoral platforms during the ongoing election.
After all, it isn't merely in Britain where politicians avoid paying taxes. In Canada, Michael Ignatieff's Liberal Party is campaigning on rescinding a promised corporate tax cut, even while former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin operates a steamship line which operates out of the aforementioned Cayman Islands in order to avoid paying the full share of taxes it would pay if it ran all of its operations in Canada.
That's the uncomrotable truth about class warfare and tax evasion: often those who push for the wealthy to pay the highest taxes are the first to look for ways to skip out on their own cheque when they join the wealthy elite they so eagerly attack.
Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has some 'splainin' to do.
In the year since Miliband's Labour party lost an election to David Cameron's Conservative Party of Britain he has moved from being a high-paid member of Britain's cabinet to finding clever ways to avoid paying the 50% top tax rate that the government he was a member of implemented.
As one of the fortunate strata of British society who earns more than 150,000 Pounds Sterling, Miliband would be paying a snowballing tax rate, wherein anyone earnign this amount has to pay an additional 50% of the 40% of their earnings they already pay in taxes.
However, it turns out that he doesn't.
Rather, Miliband has set up a company named "The Office of David Miliband Limited", which manages income that he earns through his work outside of Parliament. Instead of paying the 40% tax rate that he would otherwise pay on these funds (as well as the additional 50% of that figure), Miliband will instead pay a corporate tax rate of 20%.
This underscores a rather startling fact of life about many high-taxing politicians: they're more than willing to levy high taxes against other people, but they're frequently reluctant to pay.
It's true that corporations have many tricks to avoid paying taxes that private citizens often do not have at their disposal. As York University's Dr Neil Brooks explains, many corporations do this through shell companies established in the Cayman Islands.
While Miliband has stopped far short of setting up his shell company in the Cayman Islands, The Office of David Miliband Ltd, at least on its face, very much looks like a shell company.
Dr Brooks points out the costs to government of chasing down revenue otherwise lost through these shell companies, regardless of where they are registered. These costs should be on the minds of Canadians as they compare electoral platforms during the ongoing election.
After all, it isn't merely in Britain where politicians avoid paying taxes. In Canada, Michael Ignatieff's Liberal Party is campaigning on rescinding a promised corporate tax cut, even while former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin operates a steamship line which operates out of the aforementioned Cayman Islands in order to avoid paying the full share of taxes it would pay if it ran all of its operations in Canada.
That's the uncomrotable truth about class warfare and tax evasion: often those who push for the wealthy to pay the highest taxes are the first to look for ways to skip out on their own cheque when they join the wealthy elite they so eagerly attack.
A Quick Administrative Note
A lot has gone on in the world since the last time the Nexus was an active blog. That's a lot of ground to leave uncovered.
To fill in the gap, back-dated articles will begin appearing on the Nexus in the weeks and months ahead. They'll be promoted via Twitter for anyone who may actually be interested in reading them, but hopefully no one expends too much time trying to keep up with them.
In the meantime, confusion to our enemies!
To fill in the gap, back-dated articles will begin appearing on the Nexus in the weeks and months ahead. They'll be promoted via Twitter for anyone who may actually be interested in reading them, but hopefully no one expends too much time trying to keep up with them.
In the meantime, confusion to our enemies!
#Elxn41 Brings Out the Twittertards
With the 2011 federal election taking Twitter to new heights of political activity, one thing was absolutely certain:
Twitter would give some people an opportunity to highlight the depth of their complete ignorance.
There's something about giving absolutely anyone a political soapbox 140 characters at a time that has really managed to scrape the bottom of Canada's political talent pool.
Easily at the shallowest end of that talent pool is an individual by the name of Stephen Shakeshaft, who Tweets under the handle @Shanker420.
Wading into an exchange about Senate reform, Shakeshaft declares that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a little too close to the USA for his liking.
Pushed a little further on precisely why Canadians should think that Harper's coffee mug is a serious issue, Shakeshaft claims that Harper's choice in coffee mugs is very deeply calculated.
To support his argument, Shakeshaft eventually produced the following video, shot during an "occupation" of Harper's office in Calgary:
The first impulse of any rational individual is to offer a facetious "oh noes! Stephen Harper uses the 'wrong' souvenir mug at his Calgary office!" Where he... almost never is.
The detail that seems to elude Shakeshaft is that the Conservative Party ad cited in the video in question was shot in the Prime Minister's office in Ottawa.
For anyone counting, that's 3,330 km away from where the allegedly-damning US government sovenir mug is located. (It's 1998 if we want to mock Shakeshaft in miles instead.)
Yet despite the fact that Shakeshaft has offered the emptiest anti-American remark of the campaign to date, he claims that he's "by no means anti-American".
Which is very clearly complete and utter bullshit. Of all the Twittertards polluting the #Elxn41 discourse, it's very clear that Stephen Shakeshaft has the absolute least to offer. Even less than your standard Chickenwanker.
Considering Shakeshaft's "420" handle and his PotTV sources, it's just another reminder for all the kids out there: drugs are really, really bad for you.
Twitter would give some people an opportunity to highlight the depth of their complete ignorance.
There's something about giving absolutely anyone a political soapbox 140 characters at a time that has really managed to scrape the bottom of Canada's political talent pool.
Easily at the shallowest end of that talent pool is an individual by the name of Stephen Shakeshaft, who Tweets under the handle @Shanker420.
Wading into an exchange about Senate reform, Shakeshaft declares that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a little too close to the USA for his liking.
The first impulse of any rational individual is to offer a facetious "oh noes! Stephen Harper uses the 'wrong' souvenir mug at his Calgary office!" Where he... almost never is.
The detail that seems to elude Shakeshaft is that the Conservative Party ad cited in the video in question was shot in the Prime Minister's office in Ottawa.
For anyone counting, that's 3,330 km away from where the allegedly-damning US government sovenir mug is located. (It's 1998 if we want to mock Shakeshaft in miles instead.)
Yet despite the fact that Shakeshaft has offered the emptiest anti-American remark of the campaign to date, he claims that he's "by no means anti-American".
Considering Shakeshaft's "420" handle and his PotTV sources, it's just another reminder for all the kids out there: drugs are really, really bad for you.
(Not) a Coalition Red Flag
Proposed ministerial code of conduct a worthy idea
In another time and place, a recent proposal by NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar and former Public Service Alliance President Nycole Turmel would have been a warning sign that the NDP was planning to try to form a coalition government following the election.
Yesterday, it actually wasn't -- although it may yet be interpreted that way.
Together with Turmel, the NDP's candidate in Hull-Aylmer, Dewar announced the NDP's proposed code of conduct for government Ministers.
It's important to note that few details of the code of conduct have actually been released.
But over the past ten years in Canada, the behaviour of many government Ministers has grown intolerably out-of-control. Bev Oda's alteration of paperwork recommending funding for KAIROS is merely the most recent in a litany of Ministers failing to deliver the ethical goods for Canadians.
(The decision being implemented -- denying funding to KAIROS -- was actually the right one. It was the means by which the decision that was implemented that was wrong.)
Some may point to the proposed Ministerial code of conduct as evidence that the NDP has been giving thought -- a lot of thought -- to what they would expect of ministers in a Liberal/NDP coalition. But in reality it points to a great deal of thought to what Canadians hould expect from a government Minister, period.
The idea of a Ministerial code of conduct is an idea that should be embraced universally by all of Canada's political parties. It is admittedly a sad state of reality that neither of Canada's governing parties is likely to fully embrace it.
In another time and place, a recent proposal by NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar and former Public Service Alliance President Nycole Turmel would have been a warning sign that the NDP was planning to try to form a coalition government following the election.
Yesterday, it actually wasn't -- although it may yet be interpreted that way.
Together with Turmel, the NDP's candidate in Hull-Aylmer, Dewar announced the NDP's proposed code of conduct for government Ministers.
It's important to note that few details of the code of conduct have actually been released.
But over the past ten years in Canada, the behaviour of many government Ministers has grown intolerably out-of-control. Bev Oda's alteration of paperwork recommending funding for KAIROS is merely the most recent in a litany of Ministers failing to deliver the ethical goods for Canadians.
(The decision being implemented -- denying funding to KAIROS -- was actually the right one. It was the means by which the decision that was implemented that was wrong.)
Some may point to the proposed Ministerial code of conduct as evidence that the NDP has been giving thought -- a lot of thought -- to what they would expect of ministers in a Liberal/NDP coalition. But in reality it points to a great deal of thought to what Canadians hould expect from a government Minister, period.
The idea of a Ministerial code of conduct is an idea that should be embraced universally by all of Canada's political parties. It is admittedly a sad state of reality that neither of Canada's governing parties is likely to fully embrace it.
Yes, There Is Something Creepier Than Fred Phelps' Grandaughters....
...And it turns out to be a convert to the Westboro Baptist Church. Yes, shokcingly people convert to that particular hate cult.
Louis Theroux's Most Hated Family in America was a startling look behind the public face of the WBC. Upon returning to revisit the Phelps family, Theroux was confronted as a "sewer of inequity" by a former filmmaker turned hate cult member.
The amiability with which the former filmmaker compares Theroux to Pontius Pilate would almost be shocking if it wasn't just so damned creepy.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Same Old, Same Old Bloc Quebecois
Racism just keeps bubbling to the surface
Try as they might, it seems that the Bloc Quebecois just can't keep that familiar theme hidden: the inherent racism of the Quebec separatist movement.
Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe was busy on the campaign trail yesterday doing damage control after a BQ MP suggested that voters in his riding would not vote for NDP candidate Romeo Saganash because he is Cree.
Yvon Levesque currently represents Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou, Quebec's largest riding, but it may be fair to wonder for how much longer.
While Levesque won the riding by nearly 10% of the vote in 2008, it may be fair to wonder how many votes he has driven to either Saganash, or to the local Conservative candidate (the Tories came second in 2008).
Levesque quickly jumped forward with an apology, but the damage may already be done. The last thing he needed to do was remind any aboriginal constituents about what the real attitude of the Bloc Quebecois is toward them.
“My words were totally inappropriate and I retract them,” Lévesque wrote. “I hope that my unfortunate declaration will not harm the important advances of aboriginal communities that the Bloc Québécois has fought for, for years."
But even in the context of his apology, many aboriginals should quickly realize that it's not quite fully genuine.
After all, it seems that whenever a key issue related to aboriginal affairs in this country comes up, the BQ votes against them. For example, in 2007 the Bloc voted with the Liberals and NDP to kill a Conservative party bill that would have made the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applicable in aboriginal communities.
Yvon Levesque was one of the MPs who opposed human rights in aboriginal communities, then actually had the temerity to applaud himself for it.
Unbelievable.
So it makes it a little more unbelievable that Levesque, who voted to keep aboriginals across Canada living under the thumb of Chiefs who are far-too-often entirely corrupt, would pretend to be an ally of aboriginal people.
For his own part, Gilles Duceppe won't remove Yvon levesque as a Bloc Quebecois candidate, even if he does send a stark reminder to all Canadians -- in Quebec and elsewhere -- about what that party is really all about.
It's clear that they're counting on Quebec voters to simply look the other way. Maybe this is a smart ploy. After all, they so often have.
Try as they might, it seems that the Bloc Quebecois just can't keep that familiar theme hidden: the inherent racism of the Quebec separatist movement.
Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe was busy on the campaign trail yesterday doing damage control after a BQ MP suggested that voters in his riding would not vote for NDP candidate Romeo Saganash because he is Cree.
Yvon Levesque currently represents Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou, Quebec's largest riding, but it may be fair to wonder for how much longer.
While Levesque won the riding by nearly 10% of the vote in 2008, it may be fair to wonder how many votes he has driven to either Saganash, or to the local Conservative candidate (the Tories came second in 2008).
Levesque quickly jumped forward with an apology, but the damage may already be done. The last thing he needed to do was remind any aboriginal constituents about what the real attitude of the Bloc Quebecois is toward them.
“My words were totally inappropriate and I retract them,” Lévesque wrote. “I hope that my unfortunate declaration will not harm the important advances of aboriginal communities that the Bloc Québécois has fought for, for years."
But even in the context of his apology, many aboriginals should quickly realize that it's not quite fully genuine.
After all, it seems that whenever a key issue related to aboriginal affairs in this country comes up, the BQ votes against them. For example, in 2007 the Bloc voted with the Liberals and NDP to kill a Conservative party bill that would have made the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applicable in aboriginal communities.
Yvon Levesque was one of the MPs who opposed human rights in aboriginal communities, then actually had the temerity to applaud himself for it.
Unbelievable.
So it makes it a little more unbelievable that Levesque, who voted to keep aboriginals across Canada living under the thumb of Chiefs who are far-too-often entirely corrupt, would pretend to be an ally of aboriginal people.
For his own part, Gilles Duceppe won't remove Yvon levesque as a Bloc Quebecois candidate, even if he does send a stark reminder to all Canadians -- in Quebec and elsewhere -- about what that party is really all about.
It's clear that they're counting on Quebec voters to simply look the other way. Maybe this is a smart ploy. After all, they so often have.
President Paul? Which One?
It's hard to know whether a Rand Paul run at the Presidency would be what the Republican Party wants more, or what the Party wants least.
But speaking at the University of Iowa recently, Paul made it clear that he's considering a run... provided that his father, Ron Paul, doesn't make a run himself.
“The only thing I’ve decided is that I won’t run against my dad,” Paul said.
Like his father, Paul is accruing himself a reputation as someone who will speak out against his own party. Very recently, Paul has criticized his party over its reluctance to fully address the United States' fiscal woes.
For Paul, absolutely nothing is off-limits in the fight against the growing US deficit, not even that traditional sacred cow, the military.
“It’s what I call the inconvenient truth in Washington," Paul remarked. "Conservatives have to acknowledge that not all military dollars are well spent. We have to acknowledge that or we’re not serious about balancing the budget.”
It doesn't end there. Paul has also come out in favour of slashing all US foreign aid... including to Israel, itself often considered an untouchable corner stone of American foreign policy. Paul has even provoked the ire of Senate Democrats with that particular idea.
There's little question that a Rand Paul Presidential run would be revolutionary; not only for the Republican Party, but also for the United States as a whole. Perhaps even more revolutionary than a Ron Paul Presidential run.
Whether Republicans are ready for a Rand Paul Presidential run or not, they'll be waiting on baited breath for Ron's decisions as much as for Rand's.
The Deeper Perversity of Greenpeace China
In Ethical Oil, Ezra Levant finds the soft, vulnerable underbelly of a group that considers itself a world-class environmentalist rabble-rouser: Greenpeace China.
For a group that has prided itself on the ability to produce dramatic and stirring images -- small boats bobbing over calamitous waves while confronting gargantuan whaling ships, massive banners hung from flare stacks at Fort McMurray oilsands sites -- Greenpeace's relationship toward China has been remarkably docile.
As revealed by Levant -- well, perhaps Levant simply reminds readers more than revealing anything -- Greenpeace China, in order to simply exist at the mercy of an oppressive regime, must continually praise what it calls "progress" from China on environmental issues.
Yet, as part one of China reveals, China's environmental record is far from sparkling.
The rush to industrialize China at a rate faster than any previous in human history has led to environmental and human health disasters unimagined anywhere else in the world. In some places, toxic water has transformed cancer rates that were once believed to be one in 100,000 to one in 100 (although, to be entirely fair, some of the jump could be due to increased rates of detection as opposed to new cancers).
The images presented by Chinese activists in China are startling, and make anything produced by the most extreme anti-oilsands critics (such as "mutant fish" that are not actually mutated).
In fact, while China's environment brings cancer and death to so many of its citizens, Greenpeace China spends the bulk of its time complaining about recycling western celphones and disposable chopsticks.
To make matters worse, Chinese environmentalists who are not prepared to simply let these matters go out of deference to employment have very few resources available to them. Chinese law practically forbids suing the government, as lawyers are instructed that their prime goal is to ensure the continuation of the Communist Party political order... even if the communist economic order has long since been abandoned.
As badly as a lot of activists want to make the Fort McMurray oilsands the focus of the world's environmentalist rage, China is a much more dangerous polluter. As the film reveals, acid rain originating from sulphur dioxide emissions in China fall in Japan, Korea and probably Russia and India as well.
Yet Greenpeace refuses to drop the kid gloves with China.
Perhaps Ezra Levant is right: environmentalists love to pick on the oilsands because Canadians are so obliging as targets.
Friday, April 01, 2011
An Alternative Reform of Campaign Finance
Harper plans to cut per-vote subsidies
With Prime Minister Stephen Harper continually reminding Canadians about the ill-fated socialist/separatist coalition then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion cobbled together in the wake of the 2008 election, no one needed a reminder.
But Harper sent just such a reminder today, when he announced that he would eliminate the per-vote subsidy political parties receive in the wake of an election.
"Taxpayers shouldn't have to support political parties that they don't support," Harper declared. "[It's] this enormous check that keeps piling into political parties every month, whether they've raised any money or not, that means we're constantly having campaigns. The war chests are always full."
Harper says that he plans to end the continuous threat of an election by cutting those funds off, leaving parties to fundraise on their own.
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff responded with a blatant fear-mongering attack.
"We have a democratic system at the right price -- it's economical, it creates a level playing field," Ignatieff declared. "If he wants to attack it he will face the resistance of all parties."
"Do you defend Canadian democracy or do you want to import American-style democracy into this country?" Ignatieff asked. "I don't think so, because you get big money, you get corruption, you get all the problems that bedevil American democracy."
If only it were so. Harper's bid to eliminate the per-vote subsidy does not, on its own, re-open the door for corporate or union money to reenter Canadian partisan politics, even if Elizabeth May -- far from a renowned constitutional scholar -- seems to think that it should.
If Ignatieff were wise, he would offer some kind of alternative reform to keep the per-vote subsidy alive.
He would begin by proposing that any party wishing to receive the per-vote subsidy must run candidates in a minimum of 75% or 80% of Canada's ridings. Right now, there is only one major party that doesn't do this: the Bloc Quebecois.
Frankly, federalist Canadians are offended that the Bloc Quebecois, a country that wants to break Canada apart, gets to make their pitch to do so on the taxpayer dime. Ignatieff would not only win the approval of Canadians by cutting the Bloc out, he would also restore his party's tarnished image as a stalwart of federalism.
Ignatieff would further propose that any party that wants to receive the per-vote subsidy elect their leaders through a primary election process.
As respected a Canadian journalist as John Ibbitson proposed this very idea in Open & Shut. While many adherents of Canada's opposition parties would likely denounce this kind of reform as "too American", it would actually make Canada's electoral politics far more democratic and responsive than they are today.
As Ibbitson himself notes, without the primary process, Barack Obama could have never been nominated for President, let alone could he have won. (Although the results of Obama's tenure cast doubt on whether this was actually for the best.)
It would be a simple choice for Canadian political parties: they could choose to be open and democratic, and be rewarded with public support, or they could choose to be insular and parochial -- and receive no such reward.
But Canadian voters should expect Michael Ignatieff to make no such proposal. He's too busy fear-mongering in the current election while accusing Stephen Harper of doing it.
So far as campaign finance reform goes, such an implicitly democratic reform is just a sweet, sweet dream.
With Prime Minister Stephen Harper continually reminding Canadians about the ill-fated socialist/separatist coalition then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion cobbled together in the wake of the 2008 election, no one needed a reminder.
But Harper sent just such a reminder today, when he announced that he would eliminate the per-vote subsidy political parties receive in the wake of an election.
"Taxpayers shouldn't have to support political parties that they don't support," Harper declared. "[It's] this enormous check that keeps piling into political parties every month, whether they've raised any money or not, that means we're constantly having campaigns. The war chests are always full."
Harper says that he plans to end the continuous threat of an election by cutting those funds off, leaving parties to fundraise on their own.
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff responded with a blatant fear-mongering attack.
"We have a democratic system at the right price -- it's economical, it creates a level playing field," Ignatieff declared. "If he wants to attack it he will face the resistance of all parties."
"Do you defend Canadian democracy or do you want to import American-style democracy into this country?" Ignatieff asked. "I don't think so, because you get big money, you get corruption, you get all the problems that bedevil American democracy."
If only it were so. Harper's bid to eliminate the per-vote subsidy does not, on its own, re-open the door for corporate or union money to reenter Canadian partisan politics, even if Elizabeth May -- far from a renowned constitutional scholar -- seems to think that it should.
If Ignatieff were wise, he would offer some kind of alternative reform to keep the per-vote subsidy alive.
He would begin by proposing that any party wishing to receive the per-vote subsidy must run candidates in a minimum of 75% or 80% of Canada's ridings. Right now, there is only one major party that doesn't do this: the Bloc Quebecois.
Frankly, federalist Canadians are offended that the Bloc Quebecois, a country that wants to break Canada apart, gets to make their pitch to do so on the taxpayer dime. Ignatieff would not only win the approval of Canadians by cutting the Bloc out, he would also restore his party's tarnished image as a stalwart of federalism.
Ignatieff would further propose that any party that wants to receive the per-vote subsidy elect their leaders through a primary election process.
As respected a Canadian journalist as John Ibbitson proposed this very idea in Open & Shut. While many adherents of Canada's opposition parties would likely denounce this kind of reform as "too American", it would actually make Canada's electoral politics far more democratic and responsive than they are today.
As Ibbitson himself notes, without the primary process, Barack Obama could have never been nominated for President, let alone could he have won. (Although the results of Obama's tenure cast doubt on whether this was actually for the best.)
It would be a simple choice for Canadian political parties: they could choose to be open and democratic, and be rewarded with public support, or they could choose to be insular and parochial -- and receive no such reward.
But Canadian voters should expect Michael Ignatieff to make no such proposal. He's too busy fear-mongering in the current election while accusing Stephen Harper of doing it.
So far as campaign finance reform goes, such an implicitly democratic reform is just a sweet, sweet dream.
Amnesty International Needs to Butt Out
Amnesty becoming more interested in ideological politics than in human rights
Full disclosure: I write this post as a member of the University of Alberta chapter of Amnesty International, of which I have been a member since 2008.
Amnesty Internation used to be a wonderful organization, and a crucial voice for human rights. It once was, but is no longer necessarily so.
There has clearly been an ideological drift within Amnesty, as every group that believes they can link their specific agenda to human rights -- regardless of how peripherally -- have moved to colonize and capture the organization.
These ideological twists and turns are inevitably followed by partisan twists and turns, as seems to be the case with Amnesty's foray into the 2011 election campaign.
Denouncing the government's support for Israel, and complaining about funding cuts to various groups, Amnesty only declined to mention Prime Minister Stephen Harper by name. Yet it's clear that Amnesty is denouncing the policies of the current government.
"No longer the champion, more and more Canada is perceived to be a country that is reticent to take a consistently strong stand for human rights. Sometimes Canada now is also seen as part of the problem, not the solution," declared Amnesty Secretary General Salil Shetty. "There has been erosion of Canada's past policies, including a principled and non-partisan reputation in the Middle East."
Of course, principled and non-partisan stands on the Middle East isn't what Amnesty International is known for, either. In fact, Amnesty seems to increasingly be blatantly expressing a preference for terrorist organizations more and more often.
This was most eggregiously the case when Amnesty denounced the arrest of Amir Markhoul, a man who had been arrested for spying for Hezbollah.
Amnesty declared that Israel had arrested Marhoul for his human rights advocacy, but the facts presented at his trial showed differently. In a plea bargain, Marhoul admitted that he met with Hezbollah operatives, installed a coding program on his computer, and sent coded dispatches to Hezbollah during the 2006 Israel/Hezbollah war.
In his defence, Marhoul noted that he was reluctant to help Hezbollah, hesitated before he did, and regretted it after the fact.
Does Amnesty really expect anyone to believe that passing information along to terrorists is "human rights advocacy?" How about if the only people who get hurt by it are Israelis? Don't they have human rights?
"Serious violations committed by the Israeli government have on occasion been described as 'a measured response'," Shetty complained.
"Traditionally Canada approached those debates in a careful and principled manner and garnered a reputation as non-partisan," he continued. "That reputation has, however, been completely eroded in recent years as Canada has now adopted a policy of consistently voting against resolutions at both the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly that criticize Israel's human rights record."
Of course, whether Shetty and Amnesty care to admit or not, the UN Human Rights Council has been a joke with no punchline for a long time. The Council -- which features China, Saudi Arabia and Libya -- has had no problem at all criticizing Israel's human rights record, which is actually the best of any Middle Eastern country.
It also produced a report praising Libyan President Muammar al-Gadhaffi for human rights advancements in Libya. That report was eventually withdrawn when Libyan civilians began to die in fire raining from Libyan fighter jets.
The government of Canada has been entirely right in opposing the UN Human Rights Council being used as a stalking horse for the world's worst human rights abusers.
The report also complains that groups such as KAIROS have had their funding cut, claiming that "Canada's human rights movement feels under siege."
Amnesty and Shetty need to wake up to the fact that the government of Canada is not obligated, under any circumstances, to fund groups that promote an extreme ideological agenda under the guise of "human rights". Canada's government is slowly getting out of the business of funding fringe agendas. Amnesty and Shetty will simply have to get used to that.
In the meantime, Amnesty International needs to go back to its roots, and do what it was intended to do: promoting human rights, not political agendas. More importantly, it needs to live up to the standards it sets of others.
Does Amnesty want Canada to act as an "honest broker" in the Middle East? Maybe it should try a little honest brokerage of its own, rather than simply adding its voice to the shrill cacophony of the anti-Israel movement.
Most importantly, it needs to get its nose out of Canadian electoral politics.
Amnesty International was once a great organization. It can be again. But before it can be, it needs to get its priorities right.
Full disclosure: I write this post as a member of the University of Alberta chapter of Amnesty International, of which I have been a member since 2008.
Amnesty Internation used to be a wonderful organization, and a crucial voice for human rights. It once was, but is no longer necessarily so.
There has clearly been an ideological drift within Amnesty, as every group that believes they can link their specific agenda to human rights -- regardless of how peripherally -- have moved to colonize and capture the organization.
These ideological twists and turns are inevitably followed by partisan twists and turns, as seems to be the case with Amnesty's foray into the 2011 election campaign.
Denouncing the government's support for Israel, and complaining about funding cuts to various groups, Amnesty only declined to mention Prime Minister Stephen Harper by name. Yet it's clear that Amnesty is denouncing the policies of the current government.
"No longer the champion, more and more Canada is perceived to be a country that is reticent to take a consistently strong stand for human rights. Sometimes Canada now is also seen as part of the problem, not the solution," declared Amnesty Secretary General Salil Shetty. "There has been erosion of Canada's past policies, including a principled and non-partisan reputation in the Middle East."
Of course, principled and non-partisan stands on the Middle East isn't what Amnesty International is known for, either. In fact, Amnesty seems to increasingly be blatantly expressing a preference for terrorist organizations more and more often.
This was most eggregiously the case when Amnesty denounced the arrest of Amir Markhoul, a man who had been arrested for spying for Hezbollah.
Amnesty declared that Israel had arrested Marhoul for his human rights advocacy, but the facts presented at his trial showed differently. In a plea bargain, Marhoul admitted that he met with Hezbollah operatives, installed a coding program on his computer, and sent coded dispatches to Hezbollah during the 2006 Israel/Hezbollah war.
In his defence, Marhoul noted that he was reluctant to help Hezbollah, hesitated before he did, and regretted it after the fact.
Does Amnesty really expect anyone to believe that passing information along to terrorists is "human rights advocacy?" How about if the only people who get hurt by it are Israelis? Don't they have human rights?
"Serious violations committed by the Israeli government have on occasion been described as 'a measured response'," Shetty complained.
"Traditionally Canada approached those debates in a careful and principled manner and garnered a reputation as non-partisan," he continued. "That reputation has, however, been completely eroded in recent years as Canada has now adopted a policy of consistently voting against resolutions at both the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly that criticize Israel's human rights record."
Of course, whether Shetty and Amnesty care to admit or not, the UN Human Rights Council has been a joke with no punchline for a long time. The Council -- which features China, Saudi Arabia and Libya -- has had no problem at all criticizing Israel's human rights record, which is actually the best of any Middle Eastern country.
It also produced a report praising Libyan President Muammar al-Gadhaffi for human rights advancements in Libya. That report was eventually withdrawn when Libyan civilians began to die in fire raining from Libyan fighter jets.
The government of Canada has been entirely right in opposing the UN Human Rights Council being used as a stalking horse for the world's worst human rights abusers.
The report also complains that groups such as KAIROS have had their funding cut, claiming that "Canada's human rights movement feels under siege."
Amnesty and Shetty need to wake up to the fact that the government of Canada is not obligated, under any circumstances, to fund groups that promote an extreme ideological agenda under the guise of "human rights". Canada's government is slowly getting out of the business of funding fringe agendas. Amnesty and Shetty will simply have to get used to that.
In the meantime, Amnesty International needs to go back to its roots, and do what it was intended to do: promoting human rights, not political agendas. More importantly, it needs to live up to the standards it sets of others.
Does Amnesty want Canada to act as an "honest broker" in the Middle East? Maybe it should try a little honest brokerage of its own, rather than simply adding its voice to the shrill cacophony of the anti-Israel movement.
Most importantly, it needs to get its nose out of Canadian electoral politics.
Amnesty International was once a great organization. It can be again. But before it can be, it needs to get its priorities right.
Are We Prepared For an Alien Invasion?
With NASA and other groups continually searching for intelligent life, humanity has rarely seriously turned is attention to a very important question:
What would happen if intelligent life found us first? What would happen if it were hostile? There are, of course, a variety of scenarios on the issue, but there are basically two:
The first is that of a hostile alien invader that is simply too powerful for humanity to repel. The alternative is that of an alien invader that humanity can just barely confront.
Of course, this is an issue that can't be ignored indefinitely. Someday humanity will have to consider precisely how it will address these kinds of threats.
In the scenario presented in Battle: LA, the solution is very simple: guns. Lots of guns, and people who know how to use them. In the film, alien invaders seize the major cities of the world, and indiscriminately kill everyone they see. Defenseless humans die by the thousands.
Imagine them doing that in a state like Arizona or Nevada. Both states have open carry laws, meaning that citizens with the proper licences can carry their firearms. Or in states like Montana, where countless militias are not only well-armed, but well-trained.
Certainly, it helps to have masses of supremely-competent and courageous marines to turn back the tide. But when an alien hell-bent on annhiliating the human race sees you as something standing between it and your stockpiles of cheesy poofs, you don't want to have to wait around for the 82nd airborne. No, what you need is an AK-47 aimed squarely at ET's head.
There is, of course, the other scenario: one in which the alien invaders cannot be overpowered by conventional arms.
The government can prepare us for that, too: by criss-crossing the skies with planes emitting a specialized biological weapon -- one harmless to humans but that would be deadly to other forms of life -- could effectively innoculate the planet against habitability for extraterrestrials (and possibly Kimodo Dragons, which are fucking evil anyway).
That was, when aliens come looking for human brains to power their drones, as in Skyline, they'll be the ones dropping like flies.
The other solution to prevent this kind of scenario is to make human brains entirely unsuitable to any kind of practical use. This means we must begin slashing education funding immediately, and that everyone between the ages of seven and thirteen should immediately be forced to read Enormous Thriving Plants and Sister Sage's Musings on a daily basis. This should be enough to reduce the human brain to hate-filled mush, and make it undesirable to any brain-craving alien race that may happen to wander by our corner of the cosmos.
Last but not least, Canadians need to figure out a way to make Paul Hellyer -- Lester Pearson's former Minister of Defence -- the Prime Minister of Canada. Hellyer has been spreading the news about UFOs for decades, and if anyone knows how to confront a hostile alien force, it's him.
It's a very simple issue: extraterrestrial invaders are the ultimate illegal alien. Whether we care to consider it or not, a border fence will not keep those illegal aliens out... possibly unless we electrify the shit out of that fence.
Quite naturally, April fool's. As a side note, no one should ever watch Skyline. It is quite literally the worst thing to ever exist, although ETP & SSM aren't far off.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Dobbin, Mallick & Theilheimer: a Fear Mongering Trifecta
With the far-left decrying Prime Minister Stephen Harper's alleged fear mongering over the prospect of a coalition of losers, they have also taken this as an opportunity to... fear monger.
It's no great surprise. They've been doing it non-stop for nearly 20 years.
Some of the far-left's premier fear mongerers have dusted off their most dystopic nightmare to send one overhwelming message to Canadians: give Harper a majority, and Canada is over. Done for. History.
Everyone -- especially the authors of these diatribes -- know it isn't true. But these people being who they are, they're saying it anyway. Here's a brief round up.
First up, at Straight Goods Ish Theilheimer declares that, if given a majority, the first thing Harper would do is destroy public health care.
"Politicians and activists need to remind Canadians of how drastic the threat is. The record clearly shows that Stephen Harper loathes medicare," Theilheimer declares.
"Harper deserted Preston Manning and left politics in 1997 to work for the National Citizens Coalition, which was formed expressly to fight medicare, as chronicled by Murray Dobbin. In 1997, as NCC Vice-President, Harper said that Canada should scrap the Canada Health Act."
"Until 2005 Harper publicly professed to believe in two-tier care," Theilheimer continues. "When asked by the CBC about a parallel health care system, he said: 'Well I think it would be a good idea. We're alone among OECD countries in deciding that we'll have a two-tier system but our second tier will be outside the country where only the very rich and powerful can access it and [it] will be of absolutely no benefit to the Canadian health care system.'"
"In October 2002, Dobbin reminds us, Harper said, 'We also support the exploration of alternative ways to deliver health care. Moving toward alternatives, including those provided by the private sector, is a natural development of our health care system.'"
Of course to people like Theilheimer, who denounce "US-style health care" to anyone who will listen, the idea of parallel health care systems seems like a scary idea... until you consider that the best health care systems in the world feature mixtures of public and private health care delivery.
Meanwhile, Canada's health care system -- operating within the framework defined in the Canada Health Act -- continues to perform dismally compared to other health care systems. Perhaps Harper was right in 1997; perhaps Canada needs a new health care framework in order to correct the ever-growing list of flaws in the current system.
Speaking of Murray Dobbin, he too took the interwebs for some good-old fashioned Dobbin-flavoured fear mongering:
Dobbin spends the rest of his column chasing conspiratorial phantoms in the dark. Apparently, Dobbin believes in ghosts.
The rank anti-Americanism of Dobbin's column sets the table splendidly for Heather Mallick's contribution to the politics of fear, who is so brazen about her empty anti-Americanism that it's heralded in the title of her piece.
"We’re being conquered. If Stephen Harper wins a majority, the United States of Canada is what we’ll be. Maybe you’re fine with that. I am not," Mallick writes. "The Harperites’ attitude is Republican with a layer of Tea Party, a 'current of bitterness, an anger born of a sense of exclusion,' as Lawrence Martin wrote in his fine book Harperland, Conservatives 'viscerally hating their political opposition' in a way that was new and startling in Canada but old poisoned hat for the Americans. We will become more American in word and deed, in thought and feeling."
The only anti-American bogeymen Mallick seems to have missed are the Koch brothers and Sarah Palin (Mallick's self-humiliating vicious attack on Sarah Palin in 2008 managed to earn her a permanent place at the journalistic kids' table). Speaking of visceral hatred of political opposition, it was Mallick herself who openly admitted to experiencing a blubbering episode during the 2010 Olympics when Harper was simply shown on TV.
"The Harper Government does indeed love 'jets and jails,' as Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has been saying on the campaign trail," Mallick fumes. "Its plan for more jailing and less parole is at the core of the disastrous US prison explosion that even the Americans are horrified of by now (plus they can’t afford it)."
The Harper government may indeed love jets -- they are rather awesome -- but the salient fact is that no one loves jails. The difference between Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff is that Harper knows that Canada needs both.
Speaking of Ignatieff, he did once declare that the United States was his country, yet Mallick has nothing at all to say about that. Anti-Americanism, it seems, applies only to Conservatives.
Mallick even blames Harper for what she considers to be increasing public acceptance of racism. Comically, she refers to the "too Asian?" issue of Macleans magazine, but leaves out a central fact: that the issue was widely denounced by critics.
Facts like that clearly didn't matter to Mallick. They've been sacrificed at the altar of fear, Mallick's last resort to try to prevent a Stephen Harper majority government.
Fear served the Canadian far-left well for 13 years. Yet Heather Mallick Murray Dobbin and Ish Theilheimer have yet to realize that Canadians woke up from that coma in 2006 when they elected enough Conservative MPs to make Harper Prime Minister.
The bid to resurrect that fear in the minds of Canadians is sad and pathetic. Thankfully, it won't get them anywhere.
It's no great surprise. They've been doing it non-stop for nearly 20 years.
Some of the far-left's premier fear mongerers have dusted off their most dystopic nightmare to send one overhwelming message to Canadians: give Harper a majority, and Canada is over. Done for. History.
Everyone -- especially the authors of these diatribes -- know it isn't true. But these people being who they are, they're saying it anyway. Here's a brief round up.
First up, at Straight Goods Ish Theilheimer declares that, if given a majority, the first thing Harper would do is destroy public health care.
"Politicians and activists need to remind Canadians of how drastic the threat is. The record clearly shows that Stephen Harper loathes medicare," Theilheimer declares.
"Harper deserted Preston Manning and left politics in 1997 to work for the National Citizens Coalition, which was formed expressly to fight medicare, as chronicled by Murray Dobbin. In 1997, as NCC Vice-President, Harper said that Canada should scrap the Canada Health Act."
"Until 2005 Harper publicly professed to believe in two-tier care," Theilheimer continues. "When asked by the CBC about a parallel health care system, he said: 'Well I think it would be a good idea. We're alone among OECD countries in deciding that we'll have a two-tier system but our second tier will be outside the country where only the very rich and powerful can access it and [it] will be of absolutely no benefit to the Canadian health care system.'"
"In October 2002, Dobbin reminds us, Harper said, 'We also support the exploration of alternative ways to deliver health care. Moving toward alternatives, including those provided by the private sector, is a natural development of our health care system.'"
Of course to people like Theilheimer, who denounce "US-style health care" to anyone who will listen, the idea of parallel health care systems seems like a scary idea... until you consider that the best health care systems in the world feature mixtures of public and private health care delivery.
Meanwhile, Canada's health care system -- operating within the framework defined in the Canada Health Act -- continues to perform dismally compared to other health care systems. Perhaps Harper was right in 1997; perhaps Canada needs a new health care framework in order to correct the ever-growing list of flaws in the current system.
Speaking of Murray Dobbin, he too took the interwebs for some good-old fashioned Dobbin-flavoured fear mongering:
"It's been a long five years for Stephen Harper, his gaggle of ex-Reformers and the gang of three from Harris-era Ontario -- Jim Flaherty, John Baird and Tony Clement. Long and infuriating, I am sure, because for all that time they had to pretend that they were a government. They had to masquerade as people who believed that government could be a force for good. They even "stimulated" the economy. They were a minority government and the big ticket items they really wanted to get their teeth into were out of reach.There's very little of substance in Dobbin's tirade. The sole issue of great concern Dobbin raises is the "committee handbook" the Conservatives were caught passing about earlier in their tenure. As disappointing as that affair was, it's but a mere patrol boat in Harper's political game of Battleship.
They couldn't slash Medicare or gut the Canada Health Act. They couldn't cut transfers to the provinces, or further weaken EI. They left the public services unions with their rights intact. They had to leave education alone (more or less). And they didn't risk slashing the civil service they hate so much. Even the CBC has been spared (though they raised millions from their loyalists attacking it in fundraising letters).
The frustration level, especially for Harper, must have been almost unbearable. Remember, this is a man who got so frustrated being in Opposition as right-hand man to Preston Manning that he bolted from politics altogether. The place he chose to cleanse himself after all those years having to play the democrat was the National Citizens Coalition, by a big margin the most right-wing organization on the national scene. He said he was glad to be out of politics so he could say what he really thought.
Harper was hoping for revenge in the last election and blew it by attacking culture. He's eager for another try, making Jack Layton an offer he had to refuse. And if you want to see what real revenge looks like, give this crowd a majority and they will unleash the most destructive, nation-changing blitzkrieg in living memory. I can still remember the night that Brian Mulroney won the historic free trade election 1988. It was devastating. But Mulroney was a kindergarten teacher compared to Stephen Harper. Free trade started us down the road to Americanization. Harper will take us to the end of that road and beyond."
Dobbin spends the rest of his column chasing conspiratorial phantoms in the dark. Apparently, Dobbin believes in ghosts.
The rank anti-Americanism of Dobbin's column sets the table splendidly for Heather Mallick's contribution to the politics of fear, who is so brazen about her empty anti-Americanism that it's heralded in the title of her piece.
"We’re being conquered. If Stephen Harper wins a majority, the United States of Canada is what we’ll be. Maybe you’re fine with that. I am not," Mallick writes. "The Harperites’ attitude is Republican with a layer of Tea Party, a 'current of bitterness, an anger born of a sense of exclusion,' as Lawrence Martin wrote in his fine book Harperland, Conservatives 'viscerally hating their political opposition' in a way that was new and startling in Canada but old poisoned hat for the Americans. We will become more American in word and deed, in thought and feeling."
The only anti-American bogeymen Mallick seems to have missed are the Koch brothers and Sarah Palin (Mallick's self-humiliating vicious attack on Sarah Palin in 2008 managed to earn her a permanent place at the journalistic kids' table). Speaking of visceral hatred of political opposition, it was Mallick herself who openly admitted to experiencing a blubbering episode during the 2010 Olympics when Harper was simply shown on TV.
"The Harper Government does indeed love 'jets and jails,' as Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has been saying on the campaign trail," Mallick fumes. "Its plan for more jailing and less parole is at the core of the disastrous US prison explosion that even the Americans are horrified of by now (plus they can’t afford it)."
The Harper government may indeed love jets -- they are rather awesome -- but the salient fact is that no one loves jails. The difference between Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff is that Harper knows that Canada needs both.
Speaking of Ignatieff, he did once declare that the United States was his country, yet Mallick has nothing at all to say about that. Anti-Americanism, it seems, applies only to Conservatives.
Mallick even blames Harper for what she considers to be increasing public acceptance of racism. Comically, she refers to the "too Asian?" issue of Macleans magazine, but leaves out a central fact: that the issue was widely denounced by critics.
Facts like that clearly didn't matter to Mallick. They've been sacrificed at the altar of fear, Mallick's last resort to try to prevent a Stephen Harper majority government.
Fear served the Canadian far-left well for 13 years. Yet Heather Mallick Murray Dobbin and Ish Theilheimer have yet to realize that Canadians woke up from that coma in 2006 when they elected enough Conservative MPs to make Harper Prime Minister.
The bid to resurrect that fear in the minds of Canadians is sad and pathetic. Thankfully, it won't get them anywhere.
Jason Kenney's Refugee Legacy Not So Troubling
Kenney filling in gaps in immigration policy
With Jason Kenney's governmental responsibilities as the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration intersecting neatly with his party responsibilities as the pointman for outreach to ethnic communities, it was only a matter of time before someone popped up to take some shots at him.
It turns out one of the first is Jim Creskey. Writing in Embassy Magazine, Creskey outlines what he considers to be Kenney's "troubling" record as the Minister of Immigration. In some regards, it reads like a screed from an extremist organization like No One is Illegal.
Creskey's complaints circle around Bill C-49, an anti-human smuggling bill. Authored with help from Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, allows immigration officials to temporarily detain a refugee who arrives by irregular means, and to reevaluate them after five years to determine whether or not they are at risk if they return to their country of origin.
Creskey suggests that Kenney, Toews and Prime Minister Stephen Harper fabricated the idea that Canada has been "overrun" by illegal immigrants. If Creskey is attempting to claim that there is no problem with migrants illegally on Canadian soil, he is simply wrong.
Bill C-49 would be one thing if it were targetted at legitimate refugees who belong in Canada. But that isn't the case. Bill C-49 is targetted at refugees who lack a founded claim. In particular, its aimed at denying foreign terrorists entry into Canada, and deporting them promptly if they are already here.
Individuals linked to the Tamil Tigers have spent years terrorizing law-abiding Tamil communities in Canada, often demanding funds while making threats against any family they may have at home in Sri Lanka. They also commit comparatively petty crimes in Canada, including debit card fraud rings.
This on top of attempts to form a Tamil Tiger government-in-exile in Canada.
For years, a policy aimed at using refugee status as a gateway to citizenship has biased immigration policy into letting many of these so-called "refugees" roam free. When one of them is identified as having links to a terrorist or criminal organization, they simply vanish. There is an incomprehensible number of such individuals currently evading deportation orders in Canada.
This isn't to say that Creskey is entirely wrong about the immigration issue. In an earlier Embassy column, Creskey relates the tales of numerous refugee claimants, with entirely legitimate claims, who simply get lost in the system.
It's a sad fact that sometimes, in Canada's refugee system, people get lost in the cracks. Occasionally, Citizenship and Immigration bureaucrats even hand down some poor decisions, such as the decision to deport a blind man back to Algeria. Fortunately, the decision was overturned with the help of considerable public pressure.
Kreskey does the country a service by raising these concerns. But to complain so hyperbolically about Jason Kenney's moves to fill in key gaps in Canada's immigration policy does the country a profound disservice.
Jim Creskey too often sounds far too little like a reasoned, educated thinker on immigration policy, and too frequently like one of the demagogues at No One is Illegal.
With Jason Kenney's governmental responsibilities as the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration intersecting neatly with his party responsibilities as the pointman for outreach to ethnic communities, it was only a matter of time before someone popped up to take some shots at him.
It turns out one of the first is Jim Creskey. Writing in Embassy Magazine, Creskey outlines what he considers to be Kenney's "troubling" record as the Minister of Immigration. In some regards, it reads like a screed from an extremist organization like No One is Illegal.
Creskey's complaints circle around Bill C-49, an anti-human smuggling bill. Authored with help from Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, allows immigration officials to temporarily detain a refugee who arrives by irregular means, and to reevaluate them after five years to determine whether or not they are at risk if they return to their country of origin.
Creskey suggests that Kenney, Toews and Prime Minister Stephen Harper fabricated the idea that Canada has been "overrun" by illegal immigrants. If Creskey is attempting to claim that there is no problem with migrants illegally on Canadian soil, he is simply wrong.
Bill C-49 would be one thing if it were targetted at legitimate refugees who belong in Canada. But that isn't the case. Bill C-49 is targetted at refugees who lack a founded claim. In particular, its aimed at denying foreign terrorists entry into Canada, and deporting them promptly if they are already here.
Individuals linked to the Tamil Tigers have spent years terrorizing law-abiding Tamil communities in Canada, often demanding funds while making threats against any family they may have at home in Sri Lanka. They also commit comparatively petty crimes in Canada, including debit card fraud rings.
This on top of attempts to form a Tamil Tiger government-in-exile in Canada.
For years, a policy aimed at using refugee status as a gateway to citizenship has biased immigration policy into letting many of these so-called "refugees" roam free. When one of them is identified as having links to a terrorist or criminal organization, they simply vanish. There is an incomprehensible number of such individuals currently evading deportation orders in Canada.
This isn't to say that Creskey is entirely wrong about the immigration issue. In an earlier Embassy column, Creskey relates the tales of numerous refugee claimants, with entirely legitimate claims, who simply get lost in the system.
It's a sad fact that sometimes, in Canada's refugee system, people get lost in the cracks. Occasionally, Citizenship and Immigration bureaucrats even hand down some poor decisions, such as the decision to deport a blind man back to Algeria. Fortunately, the decision was overturned with the help of considerable public pressure.
Kreskey does the country a service by raising these concerns. But to complain so hyperbolically about Jason Kenney's moves to fill in key gaps in Canada's immigration policy does the country a profound disservice.
Jim Creskey too often sounds far too little like a reasoned, educated thinker on immigration policy, and too frequently like one of the demagogues at No One is Illegal.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Hook, Line & Sinker
Justin Trudeau falls for clearly-fake Craigslist posting
When Papineau MP Justin Trudeau turned in his teachers' books for an order paper as an elected Member of Parliament, it may have been for the best.
As an MP, he's demonstrated a distinct lack of critical thinking skills.
Recently, Trudeau has seemingly made a point of demonstrating precisely how shallow his comprehension of a lot of issues are. He stirred up a hornets nets recently, when he objected to the government referring to honour killings as a barbaric practice in a new citizenship guide.
"It’s meant to be pejorative," Trudeau complained. "There's nothing that the word 'barbaric' achieves that the words 'absolutely unacceptable' would not have achieved."
It was a clear sign from a politician with a coveted lineage simply doesn't get so many issues. Canadians judge honour killings perjoratively, and with good cause. Canadians simply don't accept cultural relativism related this issue, in any way, shape or form.
Trudeau's tendency to leap without looking bit him again this week, as he took to his Twitter profile to comment on a Craig's List ad calling for "right wing paid commenters".
"I think this is worth repeating, in case anyone actually thought social media trolls were genuine believers," Trudeau mused.
He made this comment despite the fact that the posting in question has been flagged and removed. And there's good reason for that, too.
The posting is very clearly fake, posted by someone who didn't bother to so much as run the ad through the spellcheck on Microsoft Word before publishing it, something no self-respecting public relations firm would do.
It's basically a case of "crash the Tea Party" tactics brought to Canada.
That an allegedly-serious MP seeking reelection would bother giving this kind of fakery the time of day sends a message about Trudeau's judgement: that he's too busy chasing non-issues around the Twitterverse and decrying suitable uses of the word "barbaric" to keep appraised of what the real issues are.
It should have some voters in Papineau thinking twice about casting their ballot for Justin Trudeau.
When Papineau MP Justin Trudeau turned in his teachers' books for an order paper as an elected Member of Parliament, it may have been for the best.
As an MP, he's demonstrated a distinct lack of critical thinking skills.
Recently, Trudeau has seemingly made a point of demonstrating precisely how shallow his comprehension of a lot of issues are. He stirred up a hornets nets recently, when he objected to the government referring to honour killings as a barbaric practice in a new citizenship guide.
It was a clear sign from a politician with a coveted lineage simply doesn't get so many issues. Canadians judge honour killings perjoratively, and with good cause. Canadians simply don't accept cultural relativism related this issue, in any way, shape or form.
Trudeau's tendency to leap without looking bit him again this week, as he took to his Twitter profile to comment on a Craig's List ad calling for "right wing paid commenters".
"I think this is worth repeating, in case anyone actually thought social media trolls were genuine believers," Trudeau mused.
He made this comment despite the fact that the posting in question has been flagged and removed. And there's good reason for that, too.
The posting is very clearly fake, posted by someone who didn't bother to so much as run the ad through the spellcheck on Microsoft Word before publishing it, something no self-respecting public relations firm would do.
It's basically a case of "crash the Tea Party" tactics brought to Canada.
That an allegedly-serious MP seeking reelection would bother giving this kind of fakery the time of day sends a message about Trudeau's judgement: that he's too busy chasing non-issues around the Twitterverse and decrying suitable uses of the word "barbaric" to keep appraised of what the real issues are.
It should have some voters in Papineau thinking twice about casting their ballot for Justin Trudeau.
The Ultimate Kangaroo Court
PressCore twists parliamentary law to eliminate political competition
Perhaps it was only a matter of time.
On second thought, there is no question that it was only a matter of time.
With Canada's opposition parties having done and said absolutely anything they could -- no matter how dirty -- over the past 18 years to prevent a conservative party from ever coming close to winning government, let alone a majority government, it must have simply been too much to see Prime Minister Stephen Harper lead the Conservative Party to the very cusp of a majority.
In their desperation, with nothing they do or say working to dissuade Canadians from giving him that majority, the opposition finally hatched what they must have thought was a simply perfect plan: they would arrange to have Harper's government held in contempt of Parliament.
Of course, this wasn't a genuine contempt of Parliament. First, the opposition would exploit their majority presence on a key Parliamentary committee to demand that the government provide them with more information than there was to provide. Even when the government provided them with all the information they had to give on their tough-on-crime agenda, and on the purchase of vitally-needed F-35 aircraft, the opposition declared that it wasn't enough.
Then, instead of adopting the committee's recommendation that the government be held in contempt of Parliament properly -- with votes in the House of Commons and the Senate -- opposition leader Michael Ignatieff instead referenced the committee's recommendation that the government be held in contempt during a non-confidence motion, toppling the government.
Since then, it's been off to the electoral races, even with the opposition knowing full well that they couldn't get a genuine contempt motion passed through the Senate. They've been telling Canadians the government has been held in contempt, when they know full well that isn't actually the case. Not officially.
At this point enters PressCore -- a fourth-rate "news" website -- and Paul W Kincaid. In a column on the website, Kincaid (one presumes it's his handiwork, for no author is identified) suggests that Harper and his cabinet are inelligible to run for re-election under parliamentary law.
"On Friday March 25, 2011 the Canadian House of Commons found Prime Minister Stephen Harper guilty of contempt of Parliament," Kincaid fumes. "According to parliamentary law, contempt of parliament is a federal crime. Being that Harper has been found guilty of a crime Harper is barred from seeking re-election on May 2, 2011. No federal government or cabinet minister has ever been found in contempt before."
Once again, this is simply not the case. Not only has nothing even remotely resembling a proper trial been held to "convict" Harper and the cabinet, the committee's contempt recommendation has not even formally been adopted.
"The vote by the Canadian House of Commons is very much the same as an impeachment of the president of the United States of America," Kincaid continues. "In the US if a president or US lawmaker is impeached (a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity) that person is removed from office and cannot run for office again."
Once again, Kincaid is wrong. The vote by the House of Commons is actually nothing at all like an impeachment of a President of the United States. For one thing, an impeachment in the United States is an actual criminal process, albeit one that takes place before the US Senate. A judge -- usually a supreme court justice -- is present to preside over the proceedings. Prosecutors and defense council present evidence on each sides of the case. The Senate acts effectively as a jury. None of this can even begin until the House of Representatives has agreed to issue articles of impeachment.
Nothing like this happened in the House of Commons. Michael Ignatieff introduced a non-confidence measure and the opposition, full of partisan fury, voted affirmative. No vote on contempt recommendation means no contempt finding. Not that this matters much to the howling demagogues of the far-left.
But the utter temerity of individuals like Kincaid -- so brimming with ideological hatred -- renders the matter crystal-clear. For individuals such as Kincaid, this is simply a means by which they can eliminate a politician whom they know they can't defeat fair and square. It's the ultimate political kangaroo court.
This may be the best reason why reform of the rules by which an individual or government can be held in contempt of Parliament desperately need to be reformed. Partisanship will almost certainly never be entirely eliminated from these sorts of procedings, but its role can be limited.
The best way to do this is to institute a method of formal trial, and to set a higher standard to which a contempt vote must be passed by the House as a whole. A rule stipulating that two-thirds of each house of Parliament -- the House of Commons and the Senate -- would reserve findings of contempt for cases in which they are truly and unquestionably warranted.
Rules could be instituted to allow committees to hold individuals in contempt of council in cases where a full-blown Parliamentary contempt finding aren't warranted.
But as it stands right now, it's far too easy for a desperate opposition to use the concept of parliamentary privilege to mask partisan desperation, and use the House of Commons as the ultimate kangaroo court.
In Canada, we now know this all too well. It happened just last week.
Perhaps it was only a matter of time.
On second thought, there is no question that it was only a matter of time.
With Canada's opposition parties having done and said absolutely anything they could -- no matter how dirty -- over the past 18 years to prevent a conservative party from ever coming close to winning government, let alone a majority government, it must have simply been too much to see Prime Minister Stephen Harper lead the Conservative Party to the very cusp of a majority.
In their desperation, with nothing they do or say working to dissuade Canadians from giving him that majority, the opposition finally hatched what they must have thought was a simply perfect plan: they would arrange to have Harper's government held in contempt of Parliament.
Of course, this wasn't a genuine contempt of Parliament. First, the opposition would exploit their majority presence on a key Parliamentary committee to demand that the government provide them with more information than there was to provide. Even when the government provided them with all the information they had to give on their tough-on-crime agenda, and on the purchase of vitally-needed F-35 aircraft, the opposition declared that it wasn't enough.
Then, instead of adopting the committee's recommendation that the government be held in contempt of Parliament properly -- with votes in the House of Commons and the Senate -- opposition leader Michael Ignatieff instead referenced the committee's recommendation that the government be held in contempt during a non-confidence motion, toppling the government.
Since then, it's been off to the electoral races, even with the opposition knowing full well that they couldn't get a genuine contempt motion passed through the Senate. They've been telling Canadians the government has been held in contempt, when they know full well that isn't actually the case. Not officially.
At this point enters PressCore -- a fourth-rate "news" website -- and Paul W Kincaid. In a column on the website, Kincaid (one presumes it's his handiwork, for no author is identified) suggests that Harper and his cabinet are inelligible to run for re-election under parliamentary law.
"On Friday March 25, 2011 the Canadian House of Commons found Prime Minister Stephen Harper guilty of contempt of Parliament," Kincaid fumes. "According to parliamentary law, contempt of parliament is a federal crime. Being that Harper has been found guilty of a crime Harper is barred from seeking re-election on May 2, 2011. No federal government or cabinet minister has ever been found in contempt before."
Once again, this is simply not the case. Not only has nothing even remotely resembling a proper trial been held to "convict" Harper and the cabinet, the committee's contempt recommendation has not even formally been adopted.
"The vote by the Canadian House of Commons is very much the same as an impeachment of the president of the United States of America," Kincaid continues. "In the US if a president or US lawmaker is impeached (a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity) that person is removed from office and cannot run for office again."
Once again, Kincaid is wrong. The vote by the House of Commons is actually nothing at all like an impeachment of a President of the United States. For one thing, an impeachment in the United States is an actual criminal process, albeit one that takes place before the US Senate. A judge -- usually a supreme court justice -- is present to preside over the proceedings. Prosecutors and defense council present evidence on each sides of the case. The Senate acts effectively as a jury. None of this can even begin until the House of Representatives has agreed to issue articles of impeachment.
Nothing like this happened in the House of Commons. Michael Ignatieff introduced a non-confidence measure and the opposition, full of partisan fury, voted affirmative. No vote on contempt recommendation means no contempt finding. Not that this matters much to the howling demagogues of the far-left.
But the utter temerity of individuals like Kincaid -- so brimming with ideological hatred -- renders the matter crystal-clear. For individuals such as Kincaid, this is simply a means by which they can eliminate a politician whom they know they can't defeat fair and square. It's the ultimate political kangaroo court.
This may be the best reason why reform of the rules by which an individual or government can be held in contempt of Parliament desperately need to be reformed. Partisanship will almost certainly never be entirely eliminated from these sorts of procedings, but its role can be limited.
The best way to do this is to institute a method of formal trial, and to set a higher standard to which a contempt vote must be passed by the House as a whole. A rule stipulating that two-thirds of each house of Parliament -- the House of Commons and the Senate -- would reserve findings of contempt for cases in which they are truly and unquestionably warranted.
Rules could be instituted to allow committees to hold individuals in contempt of council in cases where a full-blown Parliamentary contempt finding aren't warranted.
But as it stands right now, it's far too easy for a desperate opposition to use the concept of parliamentary privilege to mask partisan desperation, and use the House of Commons as the ultimate kangaroo court.
In Canada, we now know this all too well. It happened just last week.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Lizzie May's Priorities: Herself, Herself, Herself
As the possibility of a federal election looms large, Green Party leader Elizabeth May wants her party to fully understand what her priorities are:
They all hinge around herself; winning her own seat.
So she won't be walking the national campaign beat as hard as the other federal leaders. While Canada's other federal leaders are helping their candidates get elected, May will be focusing all her time on herself.
As it turns out, getting May elected is the top priority of all Green Party candidates. May seems to expect that getting elected themselves will come second for all other Green hopefuls.
"The Green Party nationally has decided this is a priority for all of us," May declared. "I am not going to be required to be crisscrossing the country as much as I did in the 2008 election."
"So, I can stay home, keep knocking on doors."
This leaves virtually all of the Green Party's candidates at an even greater disadvantage than they would have been otherwise: with next to no support at all from their party leader, they'll struggle to create a coherent federal brand for voters to respond to.
No one should be terribly surprised: after all, she is the same leader who butchered her party's own constitution so she could guarantee herself her position as the leader.
For Elizabeth May, the Green Party is all about her. Nothing else.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Canadian History X
White supremacy in Canada -- particularly in Alberta -- took centre stage recently, as a white supremacist group held a rally in Calgary.
The rally was, fortunately, met with a great deal of resistance from the local community. But underpinning that resistance is an encouraging fact: no where in Canada can these white supremacist groups survive on their own. In Alberta, white supremacist groups have been offering financial support to racists willing to move to Alberta from other parts of the country.
When these sorts of rallies are held, it seems that the natural impetus of Canadian society is to analyze Canadian history and Canadian society to determine what contributes to the creation of these movements in the first place.
The focus is, more often than not, on national history. Far too frequently do we bother to pay attention to personal history.
In American History X, the question of personal history in the adoption of white supremacist beliefs are explored when Danny Vinyard (Edward Furlong) turns in a book report on Mein Kampf to his high school history class. His principal, Dr Bob Sweeney (Avery Brooks) instructs Danny to instead write a report on his brother Derek (Edward Norton), just released from prison for the murder of two black men.
Dr Sweeney declares this to be a specialized history course: he dubs it "American History X".
Derek turned to white supremacism after his father, a Los Angeles firefighter, is shot while battling a blaze in an unidentified predominantly-black neighbourhood. His life quickly spirals into a morass of violence, not only against what he sees as the racial antagonists of his neighbourhood.
Following going to prison, Derek has had a change of heart. Racial loyalties on the inside are not what they are on the inside. Now Derek is a victim of the violence, as opposed to its perpetrator.
However, Derek makes an unexpected friend: Lamont (Guy Torry), a black man who works with him in the prison laundry room. In time, Derek begins to turn away from his white supremacist ideology, and leaves prison determined to turn Danny away from it too.
It isn't merely Derek's and Danny's personal experience in being turned to white supremacism that is useful for understanding how the ideology takes root, it's Derek's and Danny's experience in turning away from white supremacism that are useful in turning people away from the ideology.
The typical assumption is that white supremacists are bad people. This assumption is very natural, but it overlooks what may be a key question in approaching the subject:
If Canadian white supremacists were to participate in a Canadian History X history course, what would they produce? And what would it tell us about how to conquer racism?
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Rand Paul's Budget Solution: Gut the Government
Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce & Housing, and Urban Development on the chopping block
After the results of the 2010 midterm elections, it could be said that the Republican Party was sent to Washington with a very clear mandate: get the budget under control. Now.
One of the guiding lights of the Republican resurgence, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, has made this mandate his driving cause. He's frequently criticized his Republican colleagues -- in both houses of Congress -- for not being dedicated enough to fighting the deficit.
It's against the backdrop of this tension that Paul recently unveiled his 5-year plan to eliminate the US federal budget deficit.
Paul doesn't merely stop at the easy bargaining points -- programs and spending that many people in Congress could stand to see let go -- he also approaches some much more contentious spending, programs that many would argue are essential.
“There’s a lot of things in here that everybody could agree to, Republicans and Democrats, but nobody’s leading on the president’s side and on our side we felt we needed to put this forward to get the debate started, at the very least,” Paul declared.
On Paul's chopping block are entire government departments, including some that all but the staunchest fiscal conservatives would consider untouchable: the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce and Housing, and the Department of Urban Development.
Paul understands the crucial importance that many people attach to these departments. But Paul is trying to avoid a Greece-style fiscal collapse where the pain would be much worse.
“There’s an argument for every federal program up here," Paul conceded. "Nobody’s coming up here asking me for money that’s not for a good reason. But the alternative is that we get into a point of financial disaster where nobody gets any money.”
Paul is prepared to accept the criticisms of his would-be detractors.
“There may be some in this town who will disagree with the manner in which we’re proposing moving toward a balanced budget over a five year period. That’s fine, that’s understandable, that’s what this town is about," Paul said. "But to those who may disagree with it, to those who might want to attack it. I would ask that they come up with their own five year plan.”
If any number of Congresspersons could come up with their own five-year plan, one could rest assured that it wouldn't include purging the federal government of the Department of Education or the Department of Energy.
Simply put, any federal government has an interest in ensuring that education remains strong across the entirety of the country, and that some standards exist from state to state. Moreover, with the amount of American energy derived from imports, there's an extremely strong argument to be made against abolishing that department.
The other two major departments on Paul's chopping block -- Housing and Commerce, and Urban Development -- quite easily could, and probably even should be delegated entirely to state governments.
That's certainly what South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint seems to think.
“There are functions and departments at the federal level that need to be devolved to the states," DeMint declared. "Part of balancing the budget is restructuring and devolving federal functions back the states, local communities and people."
It's an interesting argument: that the federal deficit is driven largely by encroachments into matters of state jurisdiction. It's almost certainly true, even if it's an argument that many Democrat lawmakers would be reluctant to agree with.
Rand Paul certainly isn't entirely right with his five-year plan; Education and Energy are clearly two gaps in his plan. But he certainly seems to be on the right track.
After the results of the 2010 midterm elections, it could be said that the Republican Party was sent to Washington with a very clear mandate: get the budget under control. Now.
One of the guiding lights of the Republican resurgence, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, has made this mandate his driving cause. He's frequently criticized his Republican colleagues -- in both houses of Congress -- for not being dedicated enough to fighting the deficit.
It's against the backdrop of this tension that Paul recently unveiled his 5-year plan to eliminate the US federal budget deficit.
Paul doesn't merely stop at the easy bargaining points -- programs and spending that many people in Congress could stand to see let go -- he also approaches some much more contentious spending, programs that many would argue are essential.
“There’s a lot of things in here that everybody could agree to, Republicans and Democrats, but nobody’s leading on the president’s side and on our side we felt we needed to put this forward to get the debate started, at the very least,” Paul declared.
On Paul's chopping block are entire government departments, including some that all but the staunchest fiscal conservatives would consider untouchable: the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce and Housing, and the Department of Urban Development.
Paul understands the crucial importance that many people attach to these departments. But Paul is trying to avoid a Greece-style fiscal collapse where the pain would be much worse.
“There’s an argument for every federal program up here," Paul conceded. "Nobody’s coming up here asking me for money that’s not for a good reason. But the alternative is that we get into a point of financial disaster where nobody gets any money.”
Paul is prepared to accept the criticisms of his would-be detractors.
“There may be some in this town who will disagree with the manner in which we’re proposing moving toward a balanced budget over a five year period. That’s fine, that’s understandable, that’s what this town is about," Paul said. "But to those who may disagree with it, to those who might want to attack it. I would ask that they come up with their own five year plan.”
If any number of Congresspersons could come up with their own five-year plan, one could rest assured that it wouldn't include purging the federal government of the Department of Education or the Department of Energy.
Simply put, any federal government has an interest in ensuring that education remains strong across the entirety of the country, and that some standards exist from state to state. Moreover, with the amount of American energy derived from imports, there's an extremely strong argument to be made against abolishing that department.
The other two major departments on Paul's chopping block -- Housing and Commerce, and Urban Development -- quite easily could, and probably even should be delegated entirely to state governments.
That's certainly what South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint seems to think.
“There are functions and departments at the federal level that need to be devolved to the states," DeMint declared. "Part of balancing the budget is restructuring and devolving federal functions back the states, local communities and people."
It's an interesting argument: that the federal deficit is driven largely by encroachments into matters of state jurisdiction. It's almost certainly true, even if it's an argument that many Democrat lawmakers would be reluctant to agree with.
Rand Paul certainly isn't entirely right with his five-year plan; Education and Energy are clearly two gaps in his plan. But he certainly seems to be on the right track.
Monday, March 14, 2011
The High Cost of Retreating From Tyranny
There is truly nothing more frightening to the freedom-loving mind than the idea of having your country occupied by an oppressive and hostile force.
In Homefront, Kaos Games teams up with Red Dawn director John Milius to present a "what if?" scenario in which the emergence of a ruthless and competent North Korean leader intersects with a disastrous Iran-Saudi Arabia war (and accompanying oil price shock) combines to lead to the rise of a terrifying new global power: the Greater Korean Federation.
The game presents a chilling -- but historically familiar -- scenario in which North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong-Un reunites with South Korea and begins to annex countries around the Pacific rim, including Japan.
In the face of the rising threat, the United States has long since retreated from the Pacific rim while the western economy collapses. A bird flu endemic claims the lives of six million Americans while the Koreans slowly creep across the Pacific.
Although the threat grows on their very doorstoops, the "future history" of Homefront suggests that China and Russia do absolutely nothing to prevent it. Indeed, perhaps they make some plays of their own, using the growing power of the Greater Korean Federation as cover for their own moves (think a Chinese annexation of Taiwan, possible Russian seizures of Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet Republics).
If this sounds familiar one shouldn't be surprised.
During the 1930s and '40s, Adolph Hitler took advantage of a massive economic upheaval to creep across Europe entirely unopposed until it was nearly too late to stop him. When the allies finally decided to stand up to Hitler it was already too late; France fell quickly.
So humanity already knows the human cost of retreating from tyranny. It led to the costliest war in human history, one that claimed some 16,000,000 lives.
If any such threat really existed in the world today, it has become clear that President Barack Obama would not be equipped to deal with it. Like the fictional United States presented in the fictional Homefront game, Obama has made a habit of abandoning US allies, to the extent that they actually handed British nuclear secrets over to the Russians.
It's that kind of international disloyalty that contributes to the "America alone" scenarios that Milius so frequently presents. It's a rather simple and intuitive idea: when weak leadership renders the United States a liability rather than a reliable ally, its friends may decide to just stay home.
In the face of an enemy like the fictional Korean foe presented in Homefront -- one so indifferent to human rights and the laws of war that they would irradiate the Mississippi River in order to keep US forces divided -- the abandonment of one's allies can come with a steep cost:
It's the high and intolerable cost of retreating from tyranny.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
As a follow-up to Kosovo: Conflict Through the Centuries, Kosov: Life After Independence chronicles the early struggles of Kosovars to create and manage their own country following its secession from Serbia.
No matter how separatists may imagine it -- from Ulster nationalists in Britain to Quebecois separatists in Canada -- countries do not break up gracefully.
While ethnic Albanians were overjoyed by the Kosovar declaration of independence, ethnic Serbs in Kosovo were naturally ill at ease -- Serbian President Boris Tadic promised nothing short of complete defiance in his bid to overturn what he termed an illegal seccession.
In the wake of such a seccession, it's certain that there are some -- in many cases, even entire families -- that may never accept the seccession of Kosovo. The separation of Kosovo may even spawn future separatist movements within predominantly-Serbian portions of Kosovo.
When that time comes, ethnic Albanian Kosovars may have to swallow their own bitter medicine. Unless abated through a proper negotiation and reconciliation, the cycle will merely continue indefinitely.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Herman Cain: a President For America's Grandchildren
At an Iowa convention for the Faith Freedom Coalition, CPAC standout Herman Cain delivered another barn-burning speech.
Although Cain hasn't yet declared his candidacy for President of the United States, he seems to be clearly indicating that he will run. He's been hard at work outlining his vision for America. He predicates that vision on three foundational principles:
1. Do the right thing - A United States with Cain as its President would not do things like sue the state of Arizona for implementing immigration legislation that safeguards civil liberties more strongly than the federal law does, and certainly wouldn't do it as a tactic of wedge politics.
That leaders should do the right thing seems intuitive. Yet with a President whose administration sues states for protecting their citizens, or dismisses charges against militant groups who intimidated voters on the day he was elected, it seems that the United States has a President who's far more interested in justifying misdeeds after the fact.
Cain is promising better. It's worth keeping in mind that he shouldn't have to.
2. The United States needs to be an empowerment society, not an entitlement society - The American budget has become overbloated with programs that were founded to help people, but have grown beyond that mandate to become so-called "entitlement programs".
Cain wants to restructure these entitlement problems so that the states have enough power to restore them into what they were originally intended as: assistant programs.
This kind of promise should ring true with anyone who believes in federalism.
3. It's about America's grandchildren - Cain declares that this generation of Americans must become "the defending fathers"; that they must defend the founding principles of the United States, and its future.
In President Barack Obama, the USA has a President who is governing almost strictly for today. He doesn't seem to be concerned that the Obamacare health care reforms aren't fiscally sustainable. He doesn't seem to be concerned that the US' public debt now equals its GDP. In fact, he wants to increase the government debt ceiling so it can be driven even higher.
The United States may not necessarily need ain. But one thing is clear: it needs a new President, one that shares Cain's guiding principles.
Herman Cain would be a President for America's Grandchildren, born and unborn. Right now, they desperately need one.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Balkanization 101
In a world where the fomer Yugoslavia is often treated as an all-encompassing example of ethnic conflict, it should be considered unsettling that so few people understand the nature of the conflict there.
While the conflict within Serbia over the destiny of Kosovo -- whether the predominantly ethnic Albanian region will remain within Serbia, or whether it would separate (Kosovo eventually declared its independence) -- is but a fragment of the overall conflict in former Yugoslavia, it's a good place to start for anyone trying to get a better grip on the phenomenon of Balkanization.
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