Northern Reflections

Rejecting The Frame

2012-02-01T09:45:00.000-05:00

In the last six years, the Harper Conservatives have been very good at defining the terms of debate. That is, they have set the premises of those debates, and the opposition parties have accepted those premises.

Their first -- and overriding -- premise was that trickle down economics works. They continue to hold to that premise, even though thirty years of evidence has proved that the benefits of rewarding the rich have not trickled down to those on the bottom rungs of the ladder. In the last election, they argued that coalition government was illegitimate because it would require cooperation with the Bloc Quebecois -- even though the Harrperites had proposed such a coalition to topple the Martin government.

Now they argue that Canada's Pension system is "unsustainable." The term is the prime minister's. But two days ago, Bob Rae rose in the house and destroyed that premise. There is indeed a crisis. But the problem is not that pensions are unsustainable, he said. The problem is income inequality:

Yes, there is a crisis. The prime minister’s answer to that crisis is to make the rich richer and make the poor poorer. Conservatives have no problem saying that they will split incomes for middle-class families. They have no problem granting a significant advantage to people by doing that income splitting, but they have a serious problem with respect to the social justice of the people who are making less than $30,000 or $40,000 a year. That is the problem they have and that is where we have to say, yes, everyone wants prosperity, but we want prosperity to be shared. We want the prosperity to be sustainable, but we want that sustainability not to be applied and supplied on a selective basis.

The Conservatives will deny that Canada has a problem with income inequality. For them, it is a simple fact of life. But what they accept as a fact does not have to be accepted by all parties. In fact, the Conservatives are in denial. They have a record of ignoring facts. Mr. Rae has signalled that his party does not accept income inequality. One hopes that the NDP will also send a similarly strong signal on the subject.

Things will only begin to change in Canada when the opposition parties begin to define the terms of debate.

Brain Dead?

2012-01-31T09:05:00.000-05:00

Richard Cohen writes this morning that Herman Cain's endorsement of Newt Gingrich is proof positive that the Grand Old Party is brain dead:

It’s hard to know who is the more ridiculous figure — the grandiloquent, bombastic and compulsively dishonest Gingrich, or the beguilingly ignorant Cain, a man who has never held elective office and who was reduced to speechlessness when asked a question about Libya. Nonetheless, Gingrich, his Alfred E. Neuman grin on his face, accepted the endorsement and then went on with his nihilistic campaign for the White House. This has been an exceedingly silly political season.

In fact, the Republicans have become the silly party, precisely because they cannot accept the concept of nuance:

If you ask me what I think of abortion, I’d say, “It depends.” It depends on whether you’re talking about the ninth month of pregnancy, the first, the health of the mother, the fetus — or, even, the morning-after pill. But in the Republican contest, the answer to the question is always the same: no, no and no again. Thanks for giving the matter such careful thought.

It is the same with taxes. Should they be raised? It depends. It depends on economic and fiscal conditions — and on whose taxes will be raised and by how much. The answer cannot be “No, never.” That’s not an economic position; it is an ideological one and exhibits a closed mind.

And so it is with all issues -- global warming, the Iranian nuclear problem, relations with China. The answers are all simple. The problem is that the world isn't. And the Republican Establishment -- if it still exists -- has not had the courage to bring this to the party's the attention. For too long, Cohen writes, the movers and shakers in the party have

been mute in the face of a belligerent anti-intellectualism, pretending that knowledge and experience do not matter and that Washington is a condition and not a mere city.

They are now reaping the harvest of their neglect.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Canada's Newt Gingrich

2012-01-30T09:16:00.002-05:00

Susan Delacourt writes this morning that when the Liberals made budget cuts in 1995, they sold their program by using fear -- fear that we were about to hit a debt wall, fear that our children would be left to clean up the mess we had made. Now, she writes, the Harper government is whipping up public anger:

Now, 17 years later, I'm intrigued by how fear has been largely replaced by anger. When we cast around looking for where the cuts are coming, we look at where the government and its allies have been trying to whip up scorn and rage: the CBC, the public service, generous pensions, unions, provinces, (certain) foreigners, and pretty much anyone who is seen to be standing in the way of Conservative dreams of prosperity.

The same scenario is being played out south of the border by Newt Gingrich. He gives voice to angry white men who like to think that they are undeprivileged. But its clear that the money which backs Gingrich does not come from Mom and Pop. The privileged -- particularly Sheldon Adelson -- are intent on keeping their privileges.

And so it is with Stephen Harper. He speaks for -- and whips up the anger of -- those who have benefited from the very policies which almost sent us over the cliff in 2008. When he speaks of "transformation," he speaks for more of the same -- the concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands. Anyone who opposes his vision is "an enemy of Canada."

It's strange that the man who claims he is the friend of the private sector and who last held a private sector job as a teenager -- which he obtained by relying on his father's connections -- should resort to a strategy which would never work in the private sector. Delacourt writes:

It's interesting -- this is something that probably couldn't work in the private sector. (And probably shouldn't.) When downsizing cuts are made in this realm, our bosses have to go to some lengths to prove that the job losses weren't the result of a grudge or personal antipathy. Funny how when it comes to government, or at least this government, we simply assume that those being cut are going to get cut down first in the eyes of the public.

Harper, like Gingrich, is a demagogue. Bob Rae is right. They deserve each other.

Seizing Expediency

2012-01-29T08:57:00.000-05:00

The cuts Stephen Harper wants to make to Old Age Security are driven by ideology, not necessity. Consider the Public Appointments Commission and the Employment Insurance Financing Board. Both departments were set up by the Conservatives. And, although both agencies are on record as having nothing to do, the government intends to keep them going.

Neither agency has been part of the government's review of spending. Yet Harper claims that -- while such zombie departments can be tolerated -- the Old Age Security program is "unsustainable." That claim, Tom Walkom writes in the Toronto Star, is pure Harperian balderdash:

True, the government predicts that the cost of pensions for the elderly, now about $35.6 billion, will triple by 2030. That sounds dire. In fact it means that the pension bill will grow by about 5.6 per cent a year during the period.

And when baby boomers start to die off, as they will from about 2020, spending on the elderly will start to decelerate on its own.

Harper claims that he is merely saving Canada from the kinds of problems which Europe is facing. But his diagnosis of the cause of those problems -- an out of control welfare state -- is simply wrong. Walkom writes:

In fact, the European debt crisis is far more complex. Spain and Ireland, which do not offer generous social programs, are in trouble. Germany, which does, is not.

Arguably, the real root cause of the crisis was the decision by countries with vastly different economies to use a common currency, the euro — a decision that encouraged too much public and private borrowing during the good times and makes repayment now near impossible.

The truth is that Stephen Harper will cut what he doesn't like -- not what doesn't work. The man who insists he's the smartest guy in the room is really not a very bright fellow. Still, he has proved in the past that he has a talent for seizing expediency.

Making It Easy

2012-01-28T07:50:00.000-05:00

Susan Riley wrote in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday that federal politics these days is truly baffling:

It is hard to decide what is more astonishing: Prime Minister Stephen Harper's inconsistencies and course corrections, or the fact they have done no serious damage to his standing in the polls.

For a man who claims to offer no surprises, Stephen Harper has been remarkably inconsistent:

He accused critics of wanting to "cut and run" in Afghanistan, but, after nearly a decade of futile struggle, conceded the war was unwinnable and began withdrawing Canadian forces. He was never going to downplay China's human rights abuses in the name of the "almighty dollar" - until it became useful, recently, to ardently court China as a customer for tarsands oil.

There were other surprises: Mulroney-style Senate appointments, the unsavoury Chuck Cadman affair, the creative use of G8 funding to help Tony Clement secure re-election, the inexcusable defence of an EI watchdog agency that has done no work, has no immediate work to do, yet has already cost the treasury $3.3 million, with no end in sight.

And then there was that promise to be accountable to Canadians, which certainly didn't square with the government's concerted attempt to destroy information -- as in the case of the long gun registry or the long census form -- or simply attempting to keep information under wraps -- as in the case of documents relating to the treatment of Afghan prisoners.

In the end, Riley wrote, Stephen Harper's lack of charisma has put many Canadians to sleep, while others have simply given up:

They turn their back on politics, don't bother to vote, even imagine it is fashionable to remain aloof.

They claim all politicians are the same, but they aren't. They claim it doesn't matter which party holds power, but it does.

If Occupiers had simply voted en masse in May, we wouldn't have a majority Conservative government today.

Stephen Harper is firmly ensconced in Ottawa and now lectures Canadians and Europeans on how they should run their economies -- even though the decisions which benefited Canada were made by others.

And he does so, even though a clear majority of Canadians didn't vote for him. As long as that majority remains divided, they will make it easy for Stephen Harper to succeed.

Full Of Himself

2012-01-27T08:58:00.000-05:00

On the same day that the Globe and Mail reported on Stephen Harper's "grand plan to reshape Canada," and on Tony Clement's announcement that the "budget axe could cut deeper, sooner," Jeffrey Simpson wrote that, "In the first five years of the Harper government, the number of information officers in the federal government grew by 16 per cent, to 4,459 from 3,855."

The growth in the number of information officers is curious. For the Harper government has been all about releasing less information, not more of it. The truth is that the Conservatives are obsessed with information -- or more specifically, the control of information. Simpson writes:

Everyone with even the slightest acquaintance of this government knows of its mania for information control. Although information officers have grown in number throughout the government, all messaging (down to the finest details) is controlled in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office, where, predictably, the number of people working on information has also grown.

Despite their emphasis on information control, however, the Harperites got their signals crossed. While Clement ensured his audience that neither Canada Pension nor Old Age Security payments would be cut, Harper was telling his audience in Davos that Old Age Security was unsustainable. This is still the gang that can't shoot straight.

This is the government which says it is dedicated to small government, while it adds non functioning departments .Greg Weston reports this morning on yet another Conservative initiated agency which has nothing to do. One might get the impression that the prime minister doesn't know what he's talking about.

Nevertheless, at the World Economics Forum, Harper lectured European governments on their penchant for initiating services for which they refuse to pay. Strangely enough, the Europeans aren't buying what our prime minister says. They know what every Canadian should know by now: Stephen Harper is full of himself.

Lots of Pictures

2012-01-26T08:46:00.000-05:00

This week's summit between First Nations chiefs and the Prime Minister played out according to Stephen Harper tightly scripted wishes. It was all pictures, good wishes and no substance. Harper works very hard to stage manage his appearances; and this summit was supremely stage managed. There was no mention of the fact that, six years ago, the prime minister tore up the Kelowna Accord.

But, for a government that is on record as not paying attention to statistics, there are a few which should be on every Canadian's mind:

• More than half of the First Nation population in Canada is under 23.
• The aboriginal birth rate is double that of many regions of Canada.
• Sixty-one per cent of First Nation adults aged 20-24 have not completed high school, compared with 13 per cent of non-aboriginal Canadians.
• The unemployment rate for First Nation peoples living on-reserve is 25 per cent, three times the rate for non-aboriginal Canadians.

There is rebellion brewing. The government has been warned that an Aboriginal Spring is around the corner.

Years ago, I sat in on a meeting of African American kids from ghettos in the southern United States. It was 1969, a year after Martin Luther King's assassination, and American cities were burning. I was one of a group of white middle class kids who were getting a taste of what life was like for the kids we only saw on television.

One of us said to a young lady who was vocal, but not hostile, "There are 22 million of you and 180 million of the other guys -- and they have more guns than you do."

"I'd rather die standin' up," she said, "than on my knees."

If people get desperate enough, all hell can break lose. Mr. Harper is sitting on top of a volcano. The pictures from that eruption will not be carefully stage managed.

Money Means Free Speech?

2012-01-25T08:50:00.001-05:00

In this morning's Globe and Mail, Gerry Nicholls takes on critics of the recent National Citizens Coalition ad attacking Bob Rae. He complains that our laws:

impose severe legal restrictions on how much money citizens or independent groups can spend on “political advertising” during federal elections.

According to the law, “political advertising” includes any ads that support or oppose a political party or candidate or which simply take a stand on any issue that might be associated with any political party or candidate.

In short, it’s a gag law that makes it virtually impossible for unions, environmental groups, church organizations, taxpayer advocates or any group or individual to effectively or freely express political opinions at election time – the most crucial period of any democracy.

Nicholls' position is essentially a carbon copy of the argument made by Citizens United in the United States. That argument -- upheld by the Supreme Court -- is that money is the equivalent of free speech; and any attempt to limit the amount of money directed towards political advertising is an attempt to limit free speech.

The consequences of that decision were readily apparent during the recent presidential primary in South Carolina. E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post wrote:

You cannot watch the morning news shows in South Carolina without confronting an intricately confusing blitz of ads, some paid for by candidates, others by the supposedly independent PACs. One kind is indistinguishable from the other.

Nicholls would turn Canadian airwaves into a northern version of those in the Palmetto State. For him, there is no question of fairness. He is not worried about what happens when those who have the most money possess the biggest megaphone:

The point is, the political consequences of the ad should be irrelevant. Nor should it matter that the ad is negative. All that does matter is that the NCC, and indeed all Canadians, should have the right to engage in the political process through advertising, even if thin-skinned politicians don’t like it.

Mr. Nicholls misses what has become the central problem in Canada and the United States: Money has corrupted our politics.

Would Ike Be A Republican Today?

2012-01-24T09:29:00.003-05:00

As Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich tear away at each other -- claiming that each benefited mightily from the government they both claim to despise -- Lawrence Martin reminds his readers that there used to be a Republican president who consciously sought a middle way:

Dwight Eisenhower, Martin writes,

didn’t become a Republican until 1952, the year he campaigned for the presidency. He had never been schooled on political partisanship. “My only appeal to you,” he said during the campaign, “my only appeal to America … is to place loyalty to the country above loyalty to a political party.” He forbade his staff to issue personal attacks against opponents. He was dismayed by the primal political instincts of his vice-president, Richard Nixon.

In the end, Eisenhower did not have much praise for Nixon. When asked to name an important decision Nixon had participated in, Eisenhower responded, "If you give me a week I might think of one." Given what happened during Nixon's presidency, historians may one day write that Eisenhower's greatest contribution to his country was keeping Nixon away from the levers of power.

But, most importantly, Ike understood the limits of military power. He kept U.S. troops out of Suez and Vietnam. And he warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. The man who led the D-Day invasion told Americans:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Republicans have come a long way since Ike's day. One doubts that he would recognize his party, let alone vote for it. He'd probably call himself an independent -- which is what he was before he became president.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Stephen Harper's Wooden Head

2012-01-23T09:05:00.001-05:00

"Learning from experience," the American historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, "is a faculty almost never practised." The truth of that claim is readily apparent in Canada. In fact, Stephen Harper is the incarnation of Tuchman's axiom.

In a report for the Centre For Policy Alternatives, David MacDonald examines three possible scenarios for government belt tightening. Unlike the Liberals in the early nineties, who travelled the country explaining how their budget cuts were going to be administered, the Conservative budget cuts are shrouded in secrecy.

But regardless of which scenario the government finally decides to follow, MacDonald estimates that some 60,000 public and private sector jobs will be lost -- with Ottawa and the Atlantic provinces being hit the hardest:

“Depending on the scenario, the national capital region could be hit hard — losing over 22,000 positions — followed by Atlantic Canada with its already high unemployment.”

The Harperites are intent on cutting jobs as the Canadian economy shows signs of slowing. Austerity is the only way forward for the Conservatives, who are -- by Tuchman's definition -- the epitome of wooden headedness:

It consists [Tuchman wrote] in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.

The Harperites have never based policy on facts. They have never started from the premise that you deal with the world as it is. They have always begun from their own ideal of the world as it should be. And, from their perspective, the world would be much better off with much less government. If that makes the world less fair, more violent, more poverty stricken -- well, that's the kind of collateral damage that people will have to live with.

When I was a child wooden headed puppets were very popular among the younger set. We called them dummies.

Labour In The Crosshairs

2012-01-22T09:17:00.001-05:00

The day before thousands of people gathered in London to support Electro-Motive's locked out workers, Jim Stanford wrote in the Globe and Mail that labour is facing a brave new world:

In the current bargaining environment, companies (especially multinational firms) hold the best cards. And executives are increasingly willing to precipitate their own work stoppages – through management lockouts – to enforce demands for lower wages and benefits.

A recession -- particularly this one -- always puts management in the catbird seat. High unemployment gives workers few options. That's where government could play a crucial role. In 1935 -- in the middle of the Great Depression -- the Roosevelt administration passed the Wagner Act, which gave workers something they had never had before -- the right to organize. It also set up the National Labour Relations Board to act as a mediator in labour disputes.

The Harper government, of course, has gone in exactly the opposite direction -- as its response to both the Canada Post and Air Canada strikes makes crystal clear. And it has been absolutely silent about the situation at Electro-Motive. Selling oil is on its radar. Canadian manufacturing jobs aren't.

There is a clear agenda behind the government's response. And the results, writes Stanford, will not be good for the Canadian economy:

This trend is troubling, for macroeconomic as well as ethical reasons. As employers ratchet down compensation, income shifts from consumers (who spend every penny) to corporations (which sit on a growing pile of uninvested cash). That undermines aggregate spending and weakens the recovery. And the more employers succeed in driving down wages, the greater the danger of setting off a cycle of deflation in wages and prices (such as the one that bedevilled Japan for a decade).

The prime minister claims to be an economist. But that claim -- like so may of the other things he has said -- does not stand up to scrutiny.

Blowing Hot Hair

2012-01-21T09:32:00.000-05:00

Tom Walkom has a way of pricking the hot air balloons which the Harper Conservatives keep trying to launch. In today's Toronto Star, he writes that Canada's current international swagger is firmly rooted in hot air:

It depends on one commodity and one country. The commodity is oil; the country is China.

Right now both are going gangbusters. The Chinese economy surges along. That surge keeps the price of oil at its current, near-stratospheric, level. This, in turn, makes oil producers rich and keeps the rest of the Canadian economy above water.

Recent history should remind us all that what goes up can fall quickly to earth. The simple truth that what soars into the stratosphere -- like so much space junk -- eventually crashes.

The National Energy Board estimates that the price of crude oil, now roughly $100 a barrel, will have to stay in at least the $90 range if new tar sands projects are to be profitable. Yet no one worries.

The reigning assumption seems to be that the price of oil will never, ever, significantly go down again — that there will be no new technological advances that might allow existing reserves to be exploited more efficiently.

Given history, it is a heroic assumption.

As for China's roaring economy, Canada needs only cast an eye towards its closest neighbour to take a cautionary lesson. Japan, too, provides all high flying countries with a warning:

Who can forget the Japanese miracle? It was the way of the future. Just as Harper today makes pilgrimages to China, former prime minister Brian Mulroney voyaged to Tokyo to see the new wonders and sell Canadian energy.

In biz-speak, phrases like “quality circles” were the rage. Japanophilia even hit the pop charts: “That’s why I’m turning Japanese/I think I’m turning Japanese/I really think so,” crooned the Vapors in 1980.

Yet the miracle eventually ended. The Japanese economy crashed in the 1990s and has never fully bounced back. No one talks about quality circles any more.

Yet the Harper Conservatives continue to strut about the world stage, blowing hot air -- no lessons learned.

About Those Capital Gains Taxes

2012-01-20T09:17:00.001-05:00

Mitt Romney has so far refused to release information on his taxes. There is a good reason why he hasn't. If those documents see the light of day, it will become immediately apparent that Romney is a poster child for precisely what is wrong with the American economy.

Paul Krugman writes that you don't have to go back thirty years to see what has happened. The last twenty years provides plenty of evidence to support the notion that the game is rigged:

Since 1992, the I.R.S. has been releasing income and tax data for the 400 highest-income filers. In 2008, the most recent year available, these filers paid only 18.1 percent of their income in federal income taxes; in 2007, they paid only 16.6 percent. When you bear in mind that the rich pay little either in payroll taxes or in state and local taxes — major burdens on middle-class families — this implies that the top 400 filers faced lower taxes than many ordinary workers.

The main reason the rich pay so little is that most of their income takes the form of capital gains, which are taxed at a maximum rate of 15 percent, far below the maximum on wages and salaries. So the question is whether capital gains — three-quarters of which go to the top 1 percent of the income distribution — warrant such special treatment.

The problem with such special treatment is that it acts like a vacuum cleaner, sucking all the wealth to the top of the economic pyramid. The bottom eventually collapses, bringing down the whole house of cards -- and leaving in its wake the Great Depression and the Great Recession.

Some argue that special treatment of capital gains creates jobs. The argument that Romney's Republican opponents are making is that it destroys jobs, while creating profits for investors. But they can't have it both ways. And that is the bind they are in.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

So Much For Republican Populism

2012-01-19T09:20:00.000-05:00

When the Tea Party surged to the polls two years ago, some commentators saw a right wing populist movement taking control of the Republican Party. But E.J. Dionne writes this morning that the race for the Republican presidential nomination proves what has been the case for a long time -- big money is in the driver's seat:

The power of big money has been amplified in this campaign by the super PACs let loose by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and lax regulation.

You cannot watch the morning news shows in South Carolina without confronting an intricately confusing blitz of ads, some paid for by candidates, others by the supposedly independent PACs. One kind is indistinguishable from the other.

What is different about his year's campaign is that Republicans are breaking Ronald Reagan's eleventh commandment : Never speak ill of a fellow Republican:

Rick Perry’s backers take on both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Ron Paul assails Gingrich and Santorum, too. Romney’s supporters have piled on with ads against Gingrich. Gingrich flicks aside Santorum and Perry with faint praise in his speeches, as he did at an event here on Tuesday night, maintaining that “the only effective vote to stop Mitt Romney is Newt Gingrich.”

The end result is that the Republican Party in 2012 looks distinctly unsavoury. They seem bent on their own destruction. Unlike the man they idolize, none of the candidates project a sunny disposition. There is no Republican populist movement. It is no longer "Morning in America."

The Passsive Investor

2012-01-18T10:36:00.000-05:00

Daniel Veniez argues that, under Stephen Harper, Ottawa has become a "passive investor" in the provinces. Harper's view of the Canadian Constitution is that of a Biblical fundamentalist -- the words in the BNA Act are immutable. The problem is that recent governments have paid too little attention to chapter and verse. He argues that, in 1867, John A. Macdonald and his associates favoured a highly decentralized federation.

Yet that is a curious argument. Veniez points out that:

The Fathers of Confederation designed a constitution where the federal government was the lead government. Our first Prime Minister, Conservative Sir John A. Macdonald, believed that a strong and dominant national government was vital to developing a sense of shared nationhood.

Stephen Harper's Conservatives forget that Canada was born in the wake of the American Civil War. Macdonald was adamant that the kind of fracturing which had occured in the United States not occur here.

Harper lacks Macdoanld's national vision. In fact, his politics are closer to Alexander Mackenzie's than Macdoanld's. Mackenzie believed that a national railroad which crossed the Rockies was simply inefficient. He suggested that the route meet American railways further south and then turn north to Vancouver. Macdonald argued that the railway was about national unity, not just economic efficiency.

Canada's health care system is the 21st century equivalent of the CPR. To Stephen Harper, it is an accounting problem. There are consequences to Harper's view of Confederation. Veniez writes:

Strengthening the spinal cord of the nation requires leaders – in Ottawa and the provinces – that believe this is important. The consequence of ignoring the real power of a cohesive national action on various fronts is a more fragmented and dispersed federation than ever before. One need look no further than the skirmishes and cleavages on everything from energy and climate change policy to health care, securities regulation and immigration, just to name a few.

Stephen Harper would preside over the dissolution of Canada -- if it meant turning a profit.

The Myth Of The Reluctant Politician

2012-01-17T09:05:00.000-05:00

We all yearn for a modern day Cincinatus, who -- so the story goes -- left his quiet life on the farm to serve Rome. In truth, Cincinatus was a Roman aristocrat who, because of political reverses, had been exiled there until circumstances allowed him to return.

Lawrence Martin argues that political parties are at their best in the hands of career politicians, be they John A. Macdonald, Wilfred Laurier, Mackenzie King or Stephen Harper. It is for that reason, he writes in this morning's Globe and Mail, that the Liberal Party is in good hands:

What Liberals are encouraged about is not new policy but the fact that the party is now in the hands of a seasoned political pro, one who has demonstrated a surefootedness that has been absent under the three previous leaders.

There are those who will strenuously disagree with Martin. Many of them are card carrying Liberals. But, for the present, it's hard to argue with Martin's assertion that:

For Liberals, the experience and professionalism Mr. Rae brings are what is needed at this time. With an election four years away, policy can wait. The one big issue he emphasized in his closing convention speech was income inequality. He sees this as a good prong with which to attack the Conservatives’ economic record.

The Conservatives assume that income inequality is a natural state of affairs.They do not see that it is their Achilles Heel. If Mr. Rae's political acumen can clear the way for a clear shot at such an obvious political weakness, the Liberals have a future.

Several commentators have opined that this weekend was a blast from the past. We shall see. Martin writes that:

The message from Bob Rae was that the Grits are and will remain the non-ideological party, the party of the pragmatic centre where reason allegedly triumphs over gut prejudices of the left or right.

If the new prime directive in Canadian politics is that gut prejudice trumps reason, then we are, indeed, in deep trouble. Those who operate on that principle should be exiled to their farms.

The Rebuttal

2012-01-16T08:51:00.001-05:00

Roy Romanow and his associates have penned a must read rebuttal to the Conservative government's new vision of healthcare. In today's Globe and Mail, they write:

Successful nations are built on unifying infrastructure. Think railways and the Trans-Canada Highway, seamless telecommunications networks, the armed forces, regulatory and judicial processes. Health care is a level up in importance because health is a fundamental precondition for full participation in society.

The last part of the last sentence bears repeating -- health is a fundamental precondition for full participation in society. It should be obvious by now that Conservative success depends on decreasing citizen participation. In every federal election in which Stephen Harper has run, voter participation has shrunk. The fewer citizens who vote, the more Stephen Harper will succeed. The Conservatives know this; and they work hard to make it so.

But Romanow and his confreres point to what should be another obvious fact -- Harper and Company, all claims to the contrary, are economically dense. Romanow and his associates insist that, "A high performing nationwide public health system contributes enormously to the economy."

Businesses don’t have to design and fund complex health plans for their employees. Workers don’t have to worry that taking a job in another province will compromise their health care. Only leadership from Ottawa can guarantee a common set of programs and standards and ensure that program enhancements are available to all Canadians.

Now Mr. Harper proposes to wash his hands of medicare and simply write cheques. In his six years as prime minister, he has never held a first ministers conference. There are some who hail this "executive federalism" as the wave of the future. The truth is that a meeting would mean that Mr. Harper would have to face his opposition; and -- as he has proven in the past -- he would rather prorogue it than face it.

Perhaps that's because opposition rebuttals show up the prime minister for the shallow, shrivelled leader he is.

Math Challenged

2012-01-15T09:06:00.000-05:00

Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty announced recently that his government is going to get serious about cutting costs:

"This is hard work," he said. "And of course, there can be numbers between five and 10 per cent and some departments can do more than 10 per cent."

As part of that cost cutting exercise, the government plans to reduce the number of Service Canada offices from 120 to 20. As offices and staff have been reduced, the result has been a two month delay in issuing unemployment cheques to 1.4 million Canadians.

In the wake of this news, Carol Goar writes that tax breaks account for a sizable portion of the cost of government. The government has decreed that information on those tax breaks is not to see the light of day:

But over the years, frustrated public officials — a former auditor general (1986), a researcher in the parliamentary library (2006) and Canada’s parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page (last June) — have disregarded this directive, seeking to provide Canadians with a rough idea how much is going out the back door.

In that tradition, here is the value of all the tax expenditures in the 2011 report, released this week: $152 billion.

To put that in perspective, the government’s total program spending in 2011 amounted to $248 billion.

And, as anyone who has followed Stephen Harper's progress knows, the number of tax breaks has been growing. Goar enumerates some of them:

Here is a sample: the children’s fitness tax credit, the children’s arts tax credit, the universal child care benefit, the public transit tax credit, the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit, the volunteer firefighters tax credit, the working income tax benefit, the family caregivers tax credit, plus two sheltered-savings vehicles, registered disability savings plans and the tax-free savings accounts.

Yet, by accounting sleight of hand, none of those breaks show up as costs. It's an old trick. George W. Bush kept the cost of two wars off the books for eight years.

Those of us who remember Mr. Flaherty's tenure as Minister of Finance for Ontario know that he has great difficulty balancing the books. But, in truth, the call isn't his. It's Stephen Harper's. And Harper -- for more than a decade -- has been selling the notion that he is an economist.

Both gentlemen are math challenged.

Presidents and Busineesmen

2012-01-14T10:09:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney, whose reported net worth is somewhere north of $200 million, argues that he knows how to make all Americans wealthier. In what is perhaps the deepest irony of this presidential season, Newt Gingrich echoes William Jennings Bryan -- who declared, "No one can earn a million dollars honestly."

Paul Krugman has attacked Romney's honesty in earlier columns. But on Friday, he dissected Romney's argument that, because he is a successful businessman, he knows how the economy works:

But there’s a deeper problem in the whole notion that what this nation needs is a successful businessman as president: America is not, in fact, a corporation. Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits. And businessmen — even great businessmen — do not, in general, have any special insights into what it takes to achieve economic recovery.

The solution to America's problems is not simply to increase corporate profits. That's a notion that those who have gained from globalization love to repeat. They have done well by slashing costs. However,

Consider what happens when a business engages in ruthless cost-cutting. From the point of view of the firm’s owners (though not its workers), the more costs that are cut, the better. Any dollars taken off the cost side of the balance sheet are added to the bottom line.

But the story is very different when a government slashes spending in the face of a depressed economy. Look at Greece, Spain, and Ireland, all of which have adopted harsh austerity policies. In each case, unemployment soared, because cuts in government spending mainly hit domestic producers. And, in each case, the reduction in budget deficits was much less than expected, because tax receipts fell as output and employment collapsed.

During his tenure at Bain Capital, Romney and his partners purchased 77 companies. 22% of those businesses were shuttered. But Bain made money even when firms went belly up. Romney has said that, by the same logic, he would have let GM and Chrysler fail. Besides the jobs at both companies, the multiplier jobs -- at auto parts plants, tire plants, steel companies -- would have also gone down the tubes.

Romney succeeded because of a narrow focus on profits. Countries are about more than making profits. Krugman reminds his readers that the last two presidents who claimed to be businessmen -- George W. Bush and Herbert Hoover -- left shipwrecks behind them.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Lise St. Denis

2012-01-13T09:06:00.002-05:00

The New Democrats are understandably furious at Lise St. Denis. But, as Chantal Hebert points out, her decision was hardly self serving:

Lise St-Denis could easily have continued to collect her pay as the MP for Saint-Maurice—Champlain on the NDP benches for the foreseeable future. Battling cancer at 71, the retired teacher could have bided her time before quietly going home. That would have been the path of least resistance.

The truth is that -- having been abandoned by the Conservatives, mortified by the Liberals and isolated by the Bloc Quebecois -- Quebecers parked their votes with the New Democrats in the last election. True, Quebec politics have been left of center for a long time; and the NDP platform was a good fit. But more than anything else, Quebecers voted for Jack Layton.

Many Canadians had forgotten -- or simply did not know -- that, despite all his time on Toronto City Council, Jack Layton was a native son, who moved as effortlessly between French and English as Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney did before him.

On top of all that, St. Denis occupies Jean Chretien's old seat, which the old fox occupied -- except for a brief hiatus -- for nearly forty years. If she has had her ear to the ground, she knows that her constituents are not rock solid Dippers.

It's beginning to look like the Liberals and the New Democrats are preparing for an ugly battle in Quebec. That would be a mistake for both parties. Hebert correctly notes that:

The problem is that precious few Quebecers signed up for a fight to the finish between the Liberals and the NDP or for a left-wing crusade last May. More than a third of the party’s 2011 supporters voted for Jean Chrétien in 2000. A significant number are poised to vote for the new right-of-centre Coalition Avenir Québec in the next provincial election.

It was Layton’s ecumenical approach to politics that drew so many Quebec voters to the NDP. Based on his 2008 advocacy of a governing arrangement with the Liberals, he seemed best placed to reach out of the partisan box and build a progressive coalition sturdy enough to take on the Conservatives.

The next time around, both parties would do well to follow Nathan Cullen's advice and form a strategic alliance. The Harper Conservatives will -- you'll excuse the pun -- turn blue. But they will not be able to claim that the opposition is a "separatist coalition."

In the end, it will take such a coalition to stop the Conservative juggernaut.

Oil Is Their Lifeblood

2012-01-11T08:27:00.000-05:00

If there was any doubt that the Harper government is owned by the oil companies, Joe Oliver's rant last week against foreign "billionaire socialists" should put an end to any misconceptions. As Jeffrey Simpson points out, Oliver's oxymoron was yet another example of Harperian hypocrisy. Canadian money flooded Washington a year ago in support of the Keystone Pipeline:

To influence U.S. opinion, both at the level of legislators and the general public, Canadian companies poured untold millions into the fray. They papered Washington with lobbyists, including someone who was once high up in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic nomination and two former U.S. ambassadors to Canada. The Harper government put Canada’s entire diplomatic apparatus in the U.S. behind the Keystone campaign. The Prime Minister himself went to the U.S. and declared approval of Keystone a “no-brainer.”

Even more disturbing is the government's attempt to shut down the environmental assessment hearings. As is this government's practice, it seeks once again to tar its opponents. But they will not back down:

Sierra Club of Canada Executive Director John Bennett accused the government of engaging in an unprecedented effort to damage the credibility of the “mainstream” environmental movement.

Of the Northern Gateway hearings, Bennett said, “People are just exercising their democratic right to be heard on an issue that will impact all Canadians, present and future. The purpose of an environmental assessment is to ask tough questions and hear the answers. Why does Mr. Oliver so strongly object to this? Do we no longer live in a democracy? Do our citizens no longer have the right to ask tough questions and express their opinions?”

Bob Rae argues that the government's tactics are tantamount to interfering in a law case. But, as the recent passage of the bill to abolish the Canadian Wheat Board proves, the Harperites believe that the law is an ass -- unless they make the law. Oil is this government's lifeblood.

So Much For Senate Reform

2012-01-10T08:53:00.001-05:00

"The Upper House remains a dumping ground for the favoured cronies of the prime minister," a righteous Stephen Harper proclaimed back in 2004. As is always the case with this prime minister, it is instructive to compare his past statements with his present practice.

His recent Senate appointments provide yet another lesson in just how principled a leader Stephen Harper is. Stephen Mahar reviews the newest members of the chamber of sober second thought. Harper appointed Norm Doyle who:

wisely opted not to run in the 2008 election after voting with Harper and against his province on the Atlantic accord. The Senate appointment is his reward for voting against the clear wishes of the people who elected him, which is exactly the sort of thing that used to send smoke pouring out of the ears of the Reformers who pushed so hard for an elected Senate.

The same pattern applies to most of the other new arrivals:

CFLer David Braley, who donated $46,500 to that long-ago leadership campaign, and tens of thousands more to other Conservative candidates.

Leo Housakos, a key Quebec organizer who learned the ropes fundraising in Montreal at the provincial and municipal level.

Former CFLer Larry Smith, who ran unsuccessfully in Quebec, and complained when he was appointed that he was taking a "dramatic, catastrophic" pay cut.

Patrick Brazeau, the only prominent aboriginal leader to support Harper, who wanted to keep picking up his paycheque as a leader while sitting in the Senate.

He appointed campaign manager Doug Finley, fundraiser Irving Gerstein and spinner Carolyn Stewart Olsen, where they can help him behind the scenes while we pay their salaries.

So much for Senate reform. But then again, "reform" for Stephen Harper has always meant marching backward.

A Passion For Politics

2012-01-09T09:01:00.001-05:00

There has been a lot of talk over the last couple of years about reforming Canada's democratic institutions -- electing the Senate, moving to proportional representation, and cleaning up Question Period. Changing all that machinery might make things better. But, as Robert Asselin points out, none of those changes carries a guarantee:

We could do all this. And probably solve some of our problems at the margin.
But it won’t make our politics better.
It won’t produce statesmanship.
It won’t empower us as fellow citizens.
As such, these institutional reforms won’t bring more civility and substance into the public discourse.

For none of those reforms solve our real problem -- which is civic apathy. What Canada desperately needs is an engaged citizenry. Asselin continues:

In a recent iPolitics column, Allison Loat, who leads the wonderful initiative called Samara, wrote that “Canada needs to cultivate more political citizens”. I think it captures the essence of our challenge. We can’t afford to see politics as something that belongs to a few insiders. We can protest – and we certainly should when it is needed – but what about occupying the vehicles that can make change happen, namely the political parties? We can also create new ones if you we don’t like the ones we have.

Some of us, myself included, have wondered when Stephen Harper will reach the tipping point -- when the citizens of this country will rise up and say with one voice, "we have had enough." They did it with Brian Mulroney. They did it with Chretien and Martin. But, so far, they have grumbled and remained passive during what Lawrence Martin has called a "year of moral bankruptcy."

As long as we are willing to take it, Stephen Harper will be more than willing to dish it out. Canada needs citizens who have a passion for politics -- people, for instance, like Norman Bethune.

Selective Memory

2012-01-08T09:05:00.000-05:00

In his song,The Boxer, Paul Simon sang, "A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest." Frank Bruni points out, in this morning's New York Times, that this human frailty is particularly true of the Bushes -- father and son -- and the place they hold in the present Republican narrative: In the case of Bush the Younger, Bruni writes that:

They seldom mention Bush positively. They seldom mention Bush negatively. They also never mention the Bush before Bush — the other slice of bread in the Clinton sandwich — and have thus turned the father and the son almost wholly into ghosts.

You’d think Ronald Reagan, who is invoked incessantly, was the last Republican president, and you’d think he was not only a flawless chief executive but a sinless adherent to current Republican dogma.

The eight years when the last Republican president occupied the White House have gone down the memory hole. That loss of memory is quite purposeful:

[The] debt has indeed risen at a terrifying pace over the last three years, but for reasons that have a great deal to do with ... George W. Bush. The perpetuation of his tax cuts, the continuation of his new prescription drug benefit, the management of his wars and the interest payments on debt that he accumulated account for a crucial share of the additional sum Obama has amassed. And while the details of Obama’s stimulus spending and bailouts can and should be seriously questioned, the need for action stemmed largely from a severe economic downturn that began under 43.

Even more interesting is how Bush the Elder has been air brushed from the Republican pitch. His fiscal record is the exact opposite of his son's:

FOR real, brave fiscal responsibility, Republicans should refer to and lionize the 41st president, the other George Bush. Much of his record, including his decision to exit Iraq after removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, shimmers in retrospect.

At great political cost, he allowed a tax increase appropriate to the fiscal circumstances. More than a few economists believe that it set the stage for the boom of the Clinton years. But 41’s budgetary approach is less likely to draw attention from present-day Republicans than 43’s. It runs counter to the party’s anti-tax obsessions. It’s anathema.

Instead, to the uninformed it appears that the last Republican president was Ronald Reagan. But, even in his case, Republican memory is highly selective:

As one prominent party strategist laughingly reminded me this week, Reagan allowed a dozen tax increases by some counts and measures; put Sandra Day O’Connor, an eventual disappointment to conservatives, on the Supreme Court; and signed the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration reform act, which gave amnesty to three million illegal immigrants. The liberal in Obama must be green with envy.

The truth is that neither the Bushes nor Reagan fit the present narrative. Republicans are cherry picking evidence to fit their thesis. It may work as an advertising ploy. But it's disconnected from reality and the truth.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

A Long Way To Go

2012-01-07T08:52:00.002-05:00

After the last election, Peter C. Newman wrote an obituary for the Liberal Party. Some of us thought it was premature -- if only because a week is a long time in politics. The coming Liberal convention will allow us to have a peek inside what Stephen Clarkson once called "The Big Red Machine" to determine how much life is still in the party.

Robert Silver writes in The Globe and Mail that those who expect the old party to rise like Lazarus after the convention will be disappointed. It's not that there aren't important changes needed to the Liberal constitution. And the proposal to abandon the monarchy is bound to generate some heat. But, Silver writes,

We still need to develop a new, coherent policy proposal for Canadians that is very different from the one we have put forward in the past. We still need to decide what our new voter coalition looks like. We still need a new leader who’s economically literate, has a clear plan for the party and the country and can dedicate 15 years to the job. In other words, while small progress has been made since May, most of the really tough decisions and trade offs remain. None of that was ever going to happen at this biennial.

The one thing that Liberals have in their favour is time. Unfortunately, Stephen Harper can -- and will -- do a lot of damage during that time. But for the first time in a long time, the Liberals do not have to prepare for an election. If they are wise, they will use their convention to lay out an action plan which will accomplish what Silver says needs to be done. There is still a long ways to go.

Where Are The Ideas?

2012-01-06T09:26:00.000-05:00

Susan Riley writes this morning that Canada is in desperate need of new ideas:

We need (another) overhaul of the tax system, to remove boutique credits that add complexity at the expense of fairness; and to close loopholes that allow the wealthy to shirk their responsibility. We need to bolster public pensions, get serious about energy conservation and strategy, and get creative about health care.

Instead, we get more commentary on the horse race, who stuck it to whom, and more voter apathy. Stephen Harper flourishes in such an environment. He came to Ottawa to stick it to a lot of people. And he has ideas:

There are rumours the Conservatives will move the retirement age to 67, for example; there is a good chance Canada will involve itself in a war against Iran, or Syria. These are not, necessarily, good ideas but they are more worthy of contemplation than, say, Senate reform.

If those ideas are adopted, the consequences are clear. It is no accident that income inequality is now rising faster in Canada than in the United States. But the NDP is focused, as it should be, on picking a new leader. And the media are focused on whether or not Bob Rae will stay on as permanent Liberal leader.

The Liberals got lost in the weeds of personal ambition and forgot the people they were supposed to represent.One hopes that the NDP will not make the same mistake. The only way to gain public support is to develop a program that people will buy.

If the Liberals are smart when they meet next week, they will focus on ideas -- not Bob Rae.

Working For The Man

2012-01-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

Back in October, when 6,800 Air Canada workers rejected a second offer from Air Canada, the Harper government intervened immediately, claiming that the strike endangered the Canadian economy. Air Canada is a private corporation. But the Conservatives claimed that, because transportation fell under federal jurisdiction, they had to intervene.

When 420 workers at Electro-Motive Canada were locked out by their employer five days ago -- and were told to take or leave a 55% pay cut -- the Harper government remained silent. Such was not the case in 2008, when Stephen Harper appeared at the plant to announce $5 million in tax breaks to locomotive buyers and another $1 million in tax breaks for capital investment in the company.

Electro-Motive is a private company also involved in transportation. But it's owned by Caterpillar. And therein lies the difference. During the last election, Mr. Harper claimed that he was working for Canadians. The Electro-Motive strike and the Air Canada strike prove that Harper is working for the man -- or men -- who, according to Hugh Mackenzie's report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, earned as much in the first three days of this year as the average Canadian earns in a year.

And he sees nothing wrong with the workers at Electro-Motive earning 55% less this year. Behold the Prime Minister of Canada.

Fathers And Sons

2012-01-04T08:05:00.000-05:00

In the wake of Mitt Romney's eight vote win in Iowa, Maureen Dowd offers a column on the volatile relationship between fathers and sons: "American politics," she writes,"bristles with Oedipal drama:"

Sons struggling to live up to fathers. Sons striving to outdo fathers. Sons scheming to avenge fathers. Sons burning to one-up fathers. Sons yearning to impress fathers who vanished early on. Sons leaning on fathers. Sons using fathers as reverse-play books.

Mitt Romney appears to be haunted by the ghost of his father -- a good man who made the mistake of admitting that he had been "brainwashed" by propaganda on Vietnam. Whatever the younger Romney's faults, being brainwashed does not appear to be one of them. His real problem seems to be adhering to the party line.

Then there is the case of George H.W. and George W. The jury is still out on their legacies. But historians will surely note that both men had their own Iraq Wars. There is also the case of Al Gore Sr. and Al Gore Jr. Both Gores rose to become senators from Tennessee. But Junior almost became president, winning the popular vote but losing in the electoral college.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did not have to deal with political fathers -- however, they both lost their fathers early; and both had to adjust to stepfathers.

These days, political ambition seems to run in the family -- like father like son. Dowd writes:

Even though Mitt is far more conservative these days than his moderate dad, he loves talking about his parents on the trail, recounting the time they took him in the Rambler for a cross-country drive to see monuments. He has called his dad “the real deal” and the definition of “a successful human” and explained his political ambition as “a family gene.”

It's undeniable that some fathers cast long shadows. Whether -- in the case of political candidates -- that's good or bad is surely a legitimate topic for debate.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Whose Brain Is Half Full?

2012-01-03T09:03:00.000-05:00

Kelly McParland recently nominated the Occupy Movement for The National Post's "brain half full award." He scornfully described the movement as:

People lying around in tents in downtown parks because somehow that will combat “corporate greed”, or solve one of the two dozen other complaints they had, which essentially boiled down to: “I want the world to be different, but I don’t want to have to put out any effort myself, other than hanging out in this tent.” In the U.S. there was real reason for protest; in Canada it was mainly, “Hey, look what they’re doing in New York. I wanna do that too.”

But reports this morning in The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star suggest that the Post's collective brain is half full. Consider the position of Canada's top 100 CEO's:

The 100 highest paid chief executives whose companies are listed on the S&P/TSX composite index made an average of $8.38-million in 2010, according to figures pulled from circulars by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-leaning think-tank.

During the same period:

Regular Canadians, on the other hand, have seen their wages stagnate over the past few years. In 2010, after adjusting for inflation, average wages actually fell.

Put another way, on this -- the third day of the year -- the average Canadian CEO has made more money than the average Canadian will make all year. Hugh Mackenzie, the author of the report, says that Canada's business elite and the rest of Canadians are living on two different planets:

“The people at the very top of the income scale — and CEOs are at the top of the top — have really launched themselves into a kind of economic interplanetary travel. If the rest of us are on earth, they're off somewhere else in a different world. I think that's unstable.

And Stephen Harper says that cutting corporate taxes will create more jobs, while .E.I. contributions should be raised. Something's wrong with this picture. Those folks in the tents know what's going on.

The Wrong Analogy

2012-01-02T08:07:00.000-05:00

No doubt the folks at the Heritage Foundation will pillory Paul Krugman for his column in this morning's New York Times. Their disrespect for him matches his own disrespect for them. On the subject of the national debt, Krugman writes:

Perhaps most obviously, the economic “experts” on whom much of Congress relies have been repeatedly, utterly wrong about the short-run effects of budget deficits. People who get their economic analysis from the likes of the Heritage Foundation have been waiting ever since President Obama took office for budget deficits to send interest rates soaring. Any day now!

And while they’ve been waiting, those rates have dropped to historical lows. You might think that this would make politicians question their choice of experts — that is, you might think that if you didn’t know anything about our postmodern, fact-free politics.

The problem, Krugman claims, is that right wing ideologues have chosen the wrong analogy. They claim that the U.S. government is like a family who has taken out too big a mortgage. But that's simply not the case, for two reasons:

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.

Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.

Of course, Krugman's critics will say that's absurd. America is on the hook to China. But, according to Krugman:

It’s true that foreigners now hold large claims on the United States, including a fair amount of government debt. But every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns more from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors. If your image is of a nation that’s already deep in hock to the Chinese, you’ve been misinformed. Nor are we heading rapidly in that direction.

Krugman repeats the argument he has been making for a long time. Politicians should be focusing on unemployment. When people go to work, tax revenues go up -- and deficits go down. But that won't happen until those in charge get their analogies right.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

It's All About Contempt

2012-01-01T10:42:00.002-05:00

When the Harper government was found in contempt of parliament, the prime minister defined the problem as a not having enough votes. It was, he said, "simply a case of the other three parties outvoting us." With a majority, he now argues, there can be no such thing as contempt.

But, in Friday's Globe and Mail, Peter Russell asks a seminal question about how we are governed: "Does it matter if our laws are passed illegally?" The question arose after the government decided to ignore a federal court decision which held that Bill C-18 -- the bill to abolish the Canadian Wheat Board -- was illegal. The Harper government simply decided that it could ignore all legal precedents and kill the Wheat Board.

Previous legislation guaranteed farmers a referendum about future changes to the Wheat Board. Russell writes:

The government has defended its action constitutionally under the banner of parliamentary sovereignty. But against this position is the view that Parliament can bind itself as to the “manner and form” of future legislation, a view supported by many constitutional scholars in Canada and other Westminster parliamentary democracies. Taking this view does not mean that Parliament can never change its mind and rescind legislation passed by previous Parliaments. But if it is going to depart from a process of law-making that an earlier Parliament committed to, it must do so explicitly and repeal the legislation.

The government took the position that, with its new majority, it can do what it wants. It has no responsibility to honour promises made by previous governments. By that logic, it has no obligation to honour previous promises about the Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security or Medicare. A majority government only requires approval in a general election. All other checks and balances then become null and void.

Russell warns his readers that:

Canadians should understand that at stake here is not just a technical point of law, but the integrity of parliamentary government. In placing Section 47 in the Wheat Board Act, Canada’s 36th Parliament made a commitment to grain growers that it would not consider changing the rules for marketing their crops without their consent. To hold that such a promise means nothing once another party has a majority in the House of Commons is to deny Parliament the capacity to make such commitments to citizens whose interests are so directly affected by legislation.

It should be obvious by now that the Harper government stands for contempt -- contempt for parliament, contempt for the courts, contempt for the press and, ultimately, contempt for citizens. When those citizens gave Mr. Harper his majority, they did not give him carte blanche do do as he wishes.

Quebec Awaits

2011-12-29T08:56:00.005-05:00

It has been remarkable how sanguine political commentators have been about the place of Quebec in Stephen Harper's Canada. Back in August, in the Globe and Mail, John Ibbitson wrote:

The fading of Quebec in federal politics is not a temporary event. It has been going on for years and will continue for years to come.

If the federalist answer to Quebec separatism is to enmesh Quebec within the federal fabric, that answer is failing.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that the province will settle into its own parallel universe and quietly let the rest of Canada -- read "the Harper government" -- go its own way.

But Robert Asselin writes that Quebec is a land of unfulfilled expectations. Even though a new provincial party, the Coalition pour l'avenir du Quebec -- the Coalition for Quebecs's Future (CAQ) -- and an official NDP opposition promised a brighter future for Quebec, not much has happened:

Under the weak political leadership of Nicole Turmel, the inexperienced NDP caucus fumbled, offering a mediocre parliamentary performance. On the most important issues, the NDP was unable to get traction on most attacks they launched against the government, leaving Prime Minister Harper almost alone on the ice.

On issues that were crucial to Quebecers, they were invisible. To make sure Quebec’s opposition to the Conservatives’ omnibus crime bill (C-10) was heard, Quebec Justice Minister had to come to Ottawa to denounce it. On the appointment of unilingual anglophones to the Supreme Court and Auditor General positions, the NDP was remarkably inefficient. People who thought this new cohort of NDP MPs would bring some edge and renewal in Ottawa are now perplexed.

As for the CAQ, Asselin writes that the party's leader, Francois Legualt, is more of a beancounter than a leader. His "accountant’s instincts outshadow his visionary pulses."

So the powers-that-be have concluded that Quebec has gone back to sleep. Those who have reached that conclusion are profoundly ignorant of life in la belle province. It is precisely when Quebec is "sleeping" that revolution is brewing.

Those who ignore Quebec do so at their peril.

Just a brief postscript. My wife and I will be gone for the next couple of days to attend our son's wedding. I'll be back posting in the new year. Happy New Year to all. Bonne annee a tout le monde!

Canada's John Bolton

2011-12-28T08:23:00.000-05:00

John Bolton, the former American Ambassador to the United Nations, once quipped that:

There's no such thing as the United Nations. If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

And for that bit of folderol, George Bush sent him there. John Baird, whose name will live in infamy at the UN, has another way of putting it:

"Listen, I mean, we don't go along to get along. That's just not a phrase."

But it is a phrase -- which Baird only adopted after Canada lost its bid for a seat on the Security Council. It was only then that "the Harper government" discovered that giving the world a middle finger salute has consequences. They then retreated the the defence that they stood on principle. But the world had figured out early that the Harper regime stood for profit, not principle.

So, Mr.Baird declared yesterday that Canada would not stand for a Security Council seat this year. Why be embarrassed yet again? Why be exposed -- again -- as the hypocrites they are?

One wonders if Baird calls Bolton for advice.

To The Right, March!

2011-12-27T08:22:00.000-05:00

In his review of the year which has almost ended, Lawrence Martin writes:

In 2011, Canada took its sharpest turn right in its history. It will go down as the year of transformation in Canadian politics, the year when the political right gained unprecedented control, when the traditionally dominant centre was hollowed out and when the party of the left, for the first time, became the country’s official opposition.

That observation will stand the test of time. The question is, was 2011 an aberration or an omen of things to come?

Many Canadians have been shocked by Harper's ascendancy. And some of those who are no longer with us must be in turmoil. Martin writes:

This Prime Minister’s rightward trajectory no doubt has Pierre Trudeau rolling over in his grave, which is exactly what Mr. Harper wishes. Old Tories like Robert Stanfield are probably doing the same.

And some of those who are still with us are not happy. Jean Chretien certainly isn't. And, although he's never said so publicly, one gets the distinct impression that Brian Mulroney isn't, either.

The real question is how long it will take Canadians to cotton on to the fact that they've been had. The election results suggest that 60% of Canadians aren't buying what Stephen Harper is selling. That makes no difference to the prime minister, of course.

But opposition is building. It's coming from the courts -- who recently struck down the Conservatives' plan for a national securities regulator. And it's coming from the provinces -- who will not take the death of the gun registry or the government's plan to defund medicare lying down.

Last but not least, I suspect that the Harperites will rue the day they threw Helena Geurgis out of the party. Whatever her faults -- and they are glaring -- she will get her revenge.

Unleashing The Ugly

2011-12-26T08:14:00.000-05:00

Conservatism, like Dr. Jekyll, has undergone an ugly transformation. Those who claim that mantle these days say they stand for liberty. However, they have long forgotten Edmund Burke's caveat: "But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint."

And, on the subject of restraint, they have also forgotten Burke's dictum: "I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business."

Instead, they have turned to Ayn Rand, who confidently proclaimed: "If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject." For Rand, selfishness was a virtue. The central problem each human being faced, she wrote, was simple: "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

And these days, the question of who is going to stop me is particularly important when one considers the problem of truth telling. In Canada, Stephen Harper's Conservatives have implied that Irwin Cotler -- who made an international reputation helping Soviet Jews emigrate to Israel -- is a closet Anti-Semite.

In the United States, Newt Gingrich has accused Barack Obama of being "the best food stamp president in history." Mitt Romney has resorted to a flat out falsehood:

“President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing — the government.”

Presumably, that is why Wall Street and General Motors have recovered so nicely -- and why corporations are sitting on so much cash.

The simple truth is that today's Conservatives are not conservatives. They are radical libertarians, who have unleashed some ugly demons. It's time for truth in advertising.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Dickens For The 21st Century

2011-12-24T09:02:00.001-05:00

Every year, as Christmas approaches, I think again of A Christmas Carol. The world has always been opposed to the idea of Christmas -- unless it can be turned into a money making proposition. If Christmas can serve the ends of business, by all means, it should be celebrated.

But, as Marley's exasperated ghost reminded Scrooge: "BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business!" The common welfare has always been under attack by the forces of greed -- no more so than in the last three decades -- when those forces have established well protected bunkers in both Ottawa and Washington.

And, all too often, religion and capitalism have formed a noisy alliance -- like the chains Marley's ghost dragged around with him. The result has been an assumed Divine Sanction, wherein Christianity is proclaimed to be on the side of the wealthy. That is why the Ghost of Christmas Present warned Scrooge:

There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

That alliance has produced darkness -- the perfect metaphor for ignorance. If there is a common theme among many of those who stand for office these days, it is how little they know. "Darkness is cheap," Dickens wrote, "and Scrooge liked it."

Scrooge's journey is from darkness to light -- from ignorance to wisdom. For one hundred and sixty years, readers and audiences have cheered when he finally gets the point his ghostly visitors have been trying to teach him:

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

Once again, hope dictates that we must not shut out the lessons that they teach.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Hell Hath No Fury

2011-12-23T08:30:00.002-05:00

When Helena Geurgis melted down almost two years ago at the Charlottetown Airport, she received little sympathy. When she was asked to take off her boots for a security screening, she exploded. According to The Toronto Star:

Guergis "slammed her boots into the bin" provided by security personnel and then, according to the account, said to one of the airport staff: "Happy f---ing birthday to me. I guess I'm stuck on this hellhole."

It was a typically Harperian response to what she perceived as a problem. But, when Geurgis's husband -- former MP Rahim Jaffer -- got into trouble last year, Harper moved quickly to cut all ties with her. He kicked her out of the cabinet and the party and he called in the RCMP to investigate Geurgis's suspected criminal behaviour. He did not ask her to resign, pending the investigation. He simply made her persona non-grata. Some called that strong leadership.

But even Conrad Black -- who at the time was having his own legal troubles -- argued that Geurgis should be accorded due process:

I know something of the presumption of guilt, the pre-emptive strike on a person’s reputation and the media lynch mob. Let those who defamed Ms. Guergis, sacked her from Cabinet, expelled her from the Conservative caucus, disqualified her for renomination and selected another candidate in her place — let them tell us why they did this. Not a word of alleged misconduct has followed this defenestration, beyond vague grumbling about her husband’s touting himself as a contact with MPs, not an offence and not imputable to his wife.

And that really is the issue. Following on the Conservatives acknowledged "reprehensible" treatment of Irwin Cotler, and his duly noted "contempt" for Parliament, Geurgis' lawsuit once again puts Stephen Harper in a highly unflattering spotlight.

One should expect that the spin machine which blackened the names of Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff will rev up yet again. But this time the arena is the courts, not the House of Commons. And, as the Supreme Court illustrated yesterday, they are places where Mr. Harper can be outvoted.

More than that, when Ms. Geurgis puts you in her sights, life can become very unpleasant. Hell hath no fury like her.

Lies and Damned Lies

2011-12-22T08:56:00.000-05:00

The Harper Conservatives refused to admit that they were spreading misinformation when they told the constituents of Mount Royal that Irwin Cotler's retirement was imminent. But the prime minister claims that opponents of the Tar Sands are spreading misinformation about Canada's gold producing tar pit. As Michael Harris writes at iPolitics:

As proof, he said that Alberta’s bitumen is no dirtier than other heavy oil. This tawdry piece of sophistry completely disregards the real comparison his words so carefully avoid – the relative emissions from conventional versus tar-sands oil from well to refinery.

But, as when he was confronted with crime statistics or the long form census, facts have absolutely no relevance for the man who likes to call himself an economist:

As the European Union discovered before issuing its Directive on Fuel Quality that eschewed Alberta bitumen, tar-sands oil is 22% dirtier than conventional oil, emitting 107 grams per megajoule of CO2 equivalents as compared to 87.5 grams from light, sweet crude. The corporate Tories and their enabling army of flat-earther, climate-change deniers may seethe, but the science is what it is.

How can one justify such a blatant lie? Well, like Conrad's Mr. Kurtz, perhaps Stephen Harper is hollow at his core. Or perhaps Gerry Caplan has it right:

Like the American conservatives whom the Harperites so envy, our government has concocted a new reality of its own that it is systematically imposing on the Canadian people. The values and moral code of Mr. Harper’s new Canada are clear.

Whatever the reason, what comes so confidently from Mr Harper's mouth usually has no relation to the facts. There are lies and damned lies. Increasingly, the Harper government shows a fondness for the latter.

The Man Who Hated Health Care

2011-12-21T09:59:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has followed Stephen Harper's political career should not be surprised by Jim Flaherty's take it or leave it offer to the provinces. And those who fear for the future of medicare should recall what Stephen Harper has said in the past. Back in 1997, as President of the National Citizens Coalition, Harper declared that: "It's past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act."

It was all part of Harper's take on the country. Universal public health care was a sign of Canada's second rate status:

Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status, led by a second-world strongman appropriately suited for the task.

Like his promises to kill the long gun registry and to get tough on crime, Harper intends to eventually get rid of medicare. Flaherty's ultimatum, Thomas Walkom writes, is the first step:

Stage two has not yet been announced. But it is intriguing to see that Ottawa still wants to continue talking to the provinces about health, even as it insists that the main topic of contention — money — is non-negotiable.

What will they talk about? My guess is “flexibility.” Having warned the provinces that he plans to eventually starve them of cash, Prime Minister Stephen Harper can now tell the premiers that he’ll turn a blind eye if they try to make up this shortfall through creative solutions — even if such solutions (delisting of all but core services? user fees?) run directly counter to the letter and spirit of medicare.

For Harper, talk of flexibility is merely a smokescreen to hide his long held intention. It is all part of his long term plan to remake the country. The prime minister refused to follow his father's wishes and become an accountant. But he has no qualms about putting accountants in charge of the country. And what was that about a "second world strongman?"

Leadership By Bean Counter

2011-12-20T09:06:00.000-05:00

In his academy award winning film, Roger and Me, Michael Moore documented what happened to the world's largest corporation after a bean counter was put in charge. After Stephen Harper tore up the Kelowna Accord, he called on Sheila Fraser to audit Canada's native communities. Lawrence Martin writes this morning that Ms. Fraser smelled a rat:

Ms. Fraser’s department had done a report before the Tories came to power showing that an average band produces close to 200 reports a year. If the bands didn’t file audited financial statements, their funding was cut off or delayed. The AG’s office thought that for any government to pretend it didn’t know where the money was being spent was foolhardy. There was likely some abuse, but no more or less than most other organizations.

The Conservatives’ motivation in pushing for the band audits was political, the AG’s office suspected. They wanted to score points with their base and the chiefs were an easy target.

Having been stiffed by the recently retired Ms. Fraser, Mr. Harper has returned to his original game plan. Come hell or high water, his government will rely on bean counters as their first line of defence in its dealing with Canada's first nations.

Attawapiskat is the tip of the iceberg -- an iceberg which has only increased in size and complexity over more than a hundred years. If Stephen Harper thinks that the solution to the problem lies in appointing talented bean counters to solve it, he should consider the recent history of General Motors.

Is Keynesian Economics Dead?

2011-12-19T07:35:00.000-05:00

Robert Samuelson asks that question -- and gives his answer -- in this morning's Washington Post:

Governments have ceded power to bond markets by decades of shortsighted behavior. The political bias is to favor short-term stimulus (by lowering taxes and raising spending), which is popular, and to ignore long-term deficits (by cutting spending and raising taxes), which is unpopular. Debt has risen to hazardous levels, undermining Keynesian economics as taught in standard texts.

Were Keynes alive now, he would almost certainly acknowledge the limits of Keynesian policies. High debt complicates the analysis and subverts the solutions. What might have worked in the 1930s offers no panacea today.

The problem with the austerity solution is that when governments slash spending, they also decrease government revenues -- and deficits continue to balloon. Austerity has not improved Greece's financial situation; just as it did nothing to cure Japan's decades long slump. It's an old story. By focusing on the forest, policy makers don't see the trees. Austerity does not create growth.

It's true that bond markets possess more power than they warrant. One needs only to recall that Moody's, Standard and Poor's and Fitch's rated those sliced and diced mortgages -- which so enriched Wall Street -- as gold plated investment opportunities. The real question policy makers should ask is, "Why do the bond raters still have any credibility?" Instead, we kneel before them, humbly seeking their approval.

Debt is a problem. But austerity now makes the problem worse.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Our Third World

2011-12-18T08:21:00.001-05:00

Anyone who has been to a northern reserve knows that Attawapiskat is not an aberration. Bob Rae is right. Northern native communities are "our third world." And it's most revealing that the Harper government's first response to the tragedy at Attawapiskat was, as Tim Harper wrote last week, to "send in an accountant." When faced with a crisis, Stephen Harper only has three responses: send in an accountant, send in the troops and -- if those two strategies don't work -- prorogue Parliament. Imagination is not this prime minister's strong suit.

And, if Harper does meet with people, it's on his own ground. He'll talk to Canada's native peoples in Ottawa. But, although he is fond of visiting the north, he does not visit native reserves. The Red Cross has been there and seen it all before. According to John Saunders, the Red Cross's Ontario Director for Disaster Management:

“Some of the living conditions here with the shacks that we’re seeing here are pretty extreme,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s certainly not unusual to many [aboriginal] communities across the country.”

Rae says it's time for Stephen Harper to visit Attawapiskat and other native reserves. It's time to show the people who live in the North -- which Harper vows to staunchly defend -- a little respect.

I don’t think he has a great deal of credibility with the people who are living here, or the people who are living in a great many other northern communities, because this is not about planes flying by or about defending the north from the Russians,” he said.

“This is about defending the north from poverty, from terrible conditions in terms of housing and poor substandard education.”

Harper, says Rae, “has to wear this thing, he has to take personal responsibility for what’s happened.” Don't expect the prime minister to do that. He's much better at pointing fingers than taking responsibility. But, as Harry Truman used to say, the buck stops on his desk. And Harper claims to know the value of a dollar.

Punishing the Young

2011-12-17T08:48:00.000-05:00

At Durban two weeks ago, a young woman rose and addressed the delegates:

I speak for more than half the world’s population,” declared Anjali Appadurai of Maine’s College of the Atlantic. “We are the silent majority. You’ve given us a seat in this hall, but our interests are not at the table. What does it take to get a stake in this game? Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money?”

Out of the mouth of babes. Conservatives howl that we are burdening our children with a mountain of debt. But they will not lift a finger to stop the crisis that will engulf us all. Thomas Homer Dixon writes in this morning's Globe and Mail:

The climate negotiators lie to each other and the world when they claim the world can still limit the planet’s warming to two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, the point at which many experts believe the risks from climate change rise sharply.

It’s a lie because we’ve already experienced 0.8 degrees warming, and we’ve got at least another 0.6 degrees on the way due to carbon already in the atmosphere. Given that global carbon dioxide emissions of about 35 billion tons each year are now growing at an average of 3 per cent a year – which means they’re doubling every 23 years – it’s virtually certain we’re going to use up the remaining 0.6 degrees of leeway. In fact, the emerging consensus among climate experts is that we’ll be lucky to limit warming to 4 degrees.

Our best and our brightest have become very accomplished liars. Last week, the Speaker of the House ruled that spreading lies about Irwin Cotler was "reprehensible" but acceptable. The next day the press revealed that the company which had spread the lies had helped Scheer get elected. International Development Minister Bev Oda claimed she had not altered a document -- and then admitted that she did.

No one has been relieved of his or her duties. One would expect that the government would issue an apology for its treatment of Cotler. No, said Peter Van Loan, the Conservatives were merely exercising their right to free speech. And, unlike the impotent elites in Europe and the United States, Canada's government is getting things done.

But the young are not fools. They know for whom things are done -- and it's not for them.

What Do You Think Of Me Now, Dad?

2011-12-16T08:41:00.000-05:00

Jeffrey Simpson writes this morning that:

Those who thought the Harper government would ease up a bit after winning a majority were wrong. Noblesse oblige is out, or, rather, was never in. If anything, the Harper government is more bullying, scornful of dissent, intent on controlling every utterance, contemptuous of the media and determined to carry on political war at all times and by all means.

Stephen Harper has a chip on his shoulder as big as the country. Some may wonder where it came from. I'm no psychologist: but it seems to me that, like all bullies, Stephen Harper is a painfully insecure human being. And I'm willing to bet that the root of that insecurity goes back to Harper's relationship with his father.

A recent article in The Vancouver Sun gave Canadians some perspective on young Stephen Harper: When he dropped out of the University of Toronto and headed west, Harper boarded with Imperial Oil Executive Frank Glenfield and his wife, Mary. Glenfiield told reporter David Staples:

"Stephen had broken with his family because they had wanted him to be a chartered accountant at the University of Toronto, where his brothers were. He decided he was going to be a pioneer, he was going out West. He was going to find his own way.

"I was virtually told to hire him, but I did. And he was a very troubled boy when he came. I think what upset him the most was rebelling against what the family wanted him to do.

Harper was not the first son to knock heads with his father. Nonetheless, that relationship was critical. The elder Harper made sure that his son found a job. And, Mary told Staples, the rebel's opinions were decidedly different than they are today:

Harper was conservative in his habits, "dead dull in some ways" as Mary puts it, but he wasn't Conservative at first in his politics. As Frank said: "When Stephen first came to Edmonton, he was a Trudeau Liberal. He thought Trudeau was God."

But, essentially, "He was very self-absorbed," Mary said. "I would say he's absorbed by two things. One is himself and the other is: Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the thing that I should be doing?"

Harper was promoted to a job in the computer services department; and, when the department moved to Calgary, Harper moved with it. Later he enrolled in the University of Calgary, which according to Glenfield was "right . . . of the Ayatollah Khomeini, as you probably know, and he became very much under that influence." Like many converts, Harper became more Catholic than the Pope. And he became a man who brooks no rebellion and no opposition.

Harper's story is a cautionary tale for all fathers. Like George W. Bush, the prime minister had something to prove to the old man. And his fellow citizens are bearing the consequences.

Fuddle Dudde Encore

2011-12-15T08:48:00.000-05:00

Justin Trudeau had his fuddle duddle moment yesterday. When Environment Minister Peter Kent responded to Megan Leslie's criticism of the Conservatives' performance at Durban by saying she had no right to criticize the government because she had not been there, Trudeau lost his cool.

After all, it has been long standing Canadian practice for opposition members to accompany government representatives to international conferences. But the Harper government has put an end to that practice. Elizabeth May went to Durban on her own -- and was seated as a member of the delegation from Papua-New Guinea.

To accuse Leslie of ignorance because the government had refused to let her attend the conference was dumbfoundingly hypocritical. Hence, Trudeau's response -- for which he immediately apologized. Lawrence Martin writes this morning that:

Justin chose a low-taste phrase for which he should be reproached. But we’re not exactly in an era of eloquence. Profanity is increasingly used and accepted, privately and publicly. Swear words sell.

On the one hand, what happened in question period yesterday is a sad example of how irrelevant Parliament has become. Yesterday, Gloria Galloway reported in The Globe and Mail that the Conservatives are proposing "to move more of the debate at Commons committees behind closed doors."

Someone has to call a spade a spade. Peter Kent is not a piece of excrement. But what came out of his mouth yesterday was.

Bait and Switch

2011-12-14T09:17:00.000-05:00

Stephen Harper claimed that, with a majority, his government could focus -- laser like -- on the Canadian economy. But since their return to Parliament Hill, the Conservatives have paid no attention to the economy. Instead, they have passed legislation to abolish the Canadian Wheat Board; they passed their omnibus crime bill; and, last night, they passed a bill to add 30 more seats to the House of Commons.

Yesterday, Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae pointed to the difference between Tory promise and performance:

Although the Government has pretended that it was the economy all along that has been its preoccupation, and that in fact it’s the economy they wanted to drive their activities, the facts tell us something very different,” Rae told reporters. “They have not been focusing on the economy this fall. They have been focusing on issues that are frankly of secondary importance to Canadians, that are not top of mind for Canadians. The top of mind issues for Canadians is jobs and work. It is the economy, it is health care, these are the issues that dominate every poll and they certainly dominate every meeting that I have in my constituency or across the country.

No one should be surprised by the Conservatives' bait and switch campaign. Their recent attempt to tar Irwin Cotler was more of the same. Speaker of the House Andrew Scheer found that behaviour "reprehensible" but "technically" allowable. Let's be clear: the Conservatives staged an organized campaign to lie -- but "technically" that's alright.

The Harper government claims it is focused on the economy. But, in fact, it is engaged in "reprehensible" behaviour. Pure bait and switch.

Smearing Irwin Cotler

2011-12-13T08:48:00.000-05:00

Andrew Cohen writes that Stephen Harper has had Irwin Cotler in his sights for some time. Two months ago, the Conservatives spread the rumour that Cotler --three and a half years before the next election -- was about to resign. It wasn't the first time they had been so underhanded. Cohen writes:

Cotler’s stature among Jews notwithstanding, the Conservatives brazenly distributed a flyer to his constituents in 2009 claiming that he had attended “the anti-Semitic” human rights conference in 2001 in Durban, South Africa. Didn’t you know that Cotler is a closet anti-Semite?

The Harper line is that anyone who doesn't support the present government of Israel is anti-Semitic. And, their candidate, Saulie Zajdel, spouts that line. Cohen writes:

Zajdel, you should know, couldn’t carry Cotler’s briefcase. He is all-Israel all the time, convinced that it’s the only issue of interest to Jews in Canada. Or should be.

Behold, the Conservative Jewish strategy: outflank the Liberals on Israel. Paint them soft on security. Be more Zionist than Theodor Herzl.

The point is to make Canadian Jews — who have historically supported the Liberals as urban, progressive, internationalist centrists — one-issue voters.

It's classic Harper wedge issue politics. And it has nothing to do with Israel. For the Conservatives, Stephen Harper is the anti-Trudeau; and Pierre Trudeau is the Anti-Christ. Irwin Cotler sits in Pierre Trudeau's old seat, which they covet. Their goal is to plant their flag on Mount Royal. And they will stop at nothing in their quest to raise it there.

Storm Clouds Over Europe

2011-12-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

Paul Krugman reminds his readers today that tough economic times can sow the seeds of authoritarianism. He then offers an analysis of what is happening in Europe. The economic crisis there, he writes, is killing the European Dream:

Specifically, demands for ever-harsher austerity, with no offsetting effort to foster growth, have done double damage. They have failed as economic policy, worsening unemployment without restoring confidence; a Europe-wide recession now looks likely even if the immediate threat of financial crisis is contained. And they have created immense anger, with many Europeans furious at what is perceived, fairly or unfairly (or actually a bit of both), as a heavy-handed exercise of German power.

And the truth is that, historically, what happened in the United States in 1932 -- the election of a leftist government -- was the exception, not the rule. Europe appears to be following the rule:

Right-wing populists are on the rise from Austria, where the Freedom Party (whose leader used to have neo-Nazi connections) runs neck-and-neck in the polls with established parties, to Finland, where the anti-immigrant True Finns party had a strong electoral showing last April. And these are rich countries whose economies have held up fairly well. Matters look even more ominous in the poorer nations of Central and Eastern Europe.

The more the political elites on both sides of the Atlantic preach austerity, the worse things will get for ordinary citizens. And, as their anger grows, there is no guarantee that they will turn to another Franklin Roosevelt -- even if such a leader is available.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

What's A Border For?

2011-12-11T08:12:00.001-05:00

Perhaps it was inevitable. Historians for a long time now have been predicting Canada's eventual integration into the American Empire. The agreement which Stephen Harper and Barack Obama signed last week is just another step along the way. And, besides, say the commentators, it's not just inevitable -- it's painless.This week, a Globe and Mail editorial called it "a good thing." Most Canadians will not notice the changes we have accepted.

It's all about paperwork. Less paperwork makes business more profitable. But to make business more profitable, we have paid a price. Tom Walkom notes that "the agreement requires Canada to adopt more U.S.-style security measures — and share more information on Canadians with the U.S." However, those measures are vaguely defined: the agreement refers to "informal information sharing." Ask Maher Arar what that phrase means.

Canada has agreed to share information informally with a country which, since 9/11, has drastically infringed upon the rights of its own citizens. Walkom reminds his readers that:

As a result of the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. has suffered a kind of psychotic break. It spies on the most mundane habits of its people, such as which library books they read. In at least one case, it has carried out the extrajudicial execution of an American citizen.

Its agents are no longer permitted to torture people on their own. But even Obama has refused to renounce the practice of so-called extraordinary rendition — sending suspected terrorists to third countries to be tortured.

It maintains a prison camp at Guantanamo Bay that, in the understated language of a 2010 Supreme Court judgment, has engaged in the “improper treatment” of detainees — including a Canadian.

But, as the government's new crime bill makes abundantly clear, Canada's justice system is now more about punishment than rehabilitation. Robert Frost claimed that "good fences make good neighbours." If that's not true, what's a border for?

The History We Don't Know

2011-12-10T08:12:00.001-05:00

Jeffrey Simpson is full of praise for Richard Gwyn's two volume biography of Sir John A. Macdonald. And he mourns the place which history holds in modern Canada:

In schools, history remains an orphan, barely taught, often entirely neglected. In the media, ahistoricism reigns. Even in universities, it’s alarming to be among graduates for whom Pierre Trudeau is a vague figure, Sir Wilfrid Laurier an inconnu, and Sir John A. the man with a big nose on our currency.

The Harper government's plan to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 illustrates how little history it knows. But then that's not surprising for a party whose historical memory begins with Preston Manning.

Many people laugh at Sir John's weaknesses. Some years ago, as we were entering Bellevue House -- Macdoanld's former residence in Kingston -- I asked our ten year old son what he knew of Macdonald. "Canada's most famous drunk," was his answer. Simpson and Gwyn do not excuse Macdonald's failings:

Macdonald was a man of many imperfections, which is perhaps why he expected less-than-angelic behaviour from his fellow men. He drank a great deal, went missing in action for stretches (including long vacations in England), held the Indian affairs portfolio but made egregiously wrong decisions at key moments.

But those very failings enabled Macdonald to free himself and this nation from the prevailing ideologies of the time. Simpson writes:

he had a vision of a country with all its crinkled diversity and improbable distances. He loved the British connection, but, as Mr. Gwyn explains, always sought distance between the Mother Country and the new creation, the strategy adopted by his successors until Britain ceased to be a world power. He held the English Protestants and the French Catholics together more in a marriage of convenience than a tight embrace, despite factional tensions over language and religion. They’re still together in that distant but enduring relationship.

In an age noted for its inflexibility, Macdonald was notoriously flexible. He understood the country to its core -- something the present government doesn't. Rather than accepting Canada as it is, the Harper government seeks to remake it in its own image.

Harry Truman once said, "My debt to history is one which cannot be calculated. I know of no other motivation which so accounts for my awakening interest as a young lad in the principles of leadership and government." It's a shame Mr. Harper didn't bring Truman's knowledge of history to his job.

Abuse of Power

2011-12-09T09:31:00.001-05:00

Jennifer Ditchburn reports this morning that, having installed a new unilingual auditor general, the Conservatives would rather not hear from him:

Five different individuals – inside and outside Auditor-General Michael Ferguson's office – told The Canadian Press this week that officials there expect the opportunities for him to testify on his quarterly reports will be reduced.

This from the government which came to power touting its Accountability Act. But after two prorogations of Parliament, limiting debate on government legislation and ignoring a court decision that the government's plan to abolish the Canadian Wheat Board is illegal -- because there was no vote from the farmers who supply it with product -- this government's character has been firmly established.

All input from opposition parties is rejected. Ditchburn writes:

This week, Conservatives on the public accounts committee rejected a Liberal motion to call the newly appointed Mr. Ferguson to testify about the controversial G8 legacy infrastructure fund. The committee is actively studying the fund, and has heard from ministers with responsibility for the file.

Mr. Kramp said interim auditor-general John Wiersema had already answered more than 50 questions about the G8 legacy fund over the course of various appearances, the last on Oct. 5.

But it has been long-standing practice for the Auditor-General to testify at committees on the general content of reports, as Mr. Wiersema has done, and then to return later to comment on specific aspects. On those occasions, government officials from relevant departments are also called in so they can respond to recommendations and criticisms.

The Harperites threw out longstanding practices long ago. They have interpreted the election results as a mandate to do as they choose. But Ed Broadbent, a member of the advisory committee for the auditor general's office, speaks truth to power. “It goes to the heart of the accountability of spending that is so crucial to a parliamentary democracy, so ... if it proceeds, [this] is an outrageous act.”

There have been all kinds of outrageous acts since Stephen Harper became prime minister. Abuse of Power -- it's become this government's nom de plume.

Canada At Durban

2011-12-08T08:38:00.001-05:00

David Olive writes in today's Toronto Star that Canada has many "firsts" to its credit:

First in North America with universal health care and prudent branch banking. First on this continent to take up arms against the fascist overthrow of Europe, and first with peacekeeping. First to spearhead the Commonwealth sanctions that hastened the demise of apartheid in South Africa. First with insulin and first to explore the potential of stem-cell research.

But when it comes to the world's most pressing problem -- climate change -- Canada is racing to the back of the line, and trying to get other nations to follow. It is deeply ironic that the Harper government -- which claims to know how to manage the nation's economy -- should be so pig headed about climate change:

To be crass about it – and maybe that’s what environmentalists should do – the financial punishment we inflict on ourselves by failing to reduce emissions translates to between $21 billion and $43 billion in lost economic activity for Canada by mid-century.

That’s the financial price we’ll pay for global warming, calculated not by NGOs but Ottawa’s own National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy. And that estimate is based on a modest degree of global warming.

Moreover, trumpeting their majority, the government refused to accept Elizabeth May as a member of the Canadian delegation. So she sits at Durban, representing Papua-New Guinea. The latest polls suggest that Ms.May speaks for the majority of Canadians:

The latest polling on environmental attitudes, reported by Environics Research Group late last month, finds that even at this time of peak concern over the economy, more Canadian identify global warming as the greatest threat to the world than terrorism or any other issue.

And 56 per cent of Canadians want Ottawa to sign onto a new global climate treaty, even if its more ambitious CO2 reduction commitments mean job losses at home and higher prices for energy.

Canadian proclamations at Durban make absolutely no sense, until you remember that the Government of Canada is headed by Stephen Harper -- a man who, according to Peter C. Newman, has "the best medieval mind in the Commons."

Morally Adrift

2011-12-07T08:54:00.001-05:00

There has always been an unpleasant stench of righteousness about the Harper Conservatives. I use the word "stench," because they obviously don't practise what they preach. They lack a collective conscience. But, Frances Russell writes in The Winnipeg Free Press, "the Conservatives' penchant for playing hardball and dirty tricks against opponents -- and fast and loose with the truth -- could be catching up to them."

The latest example of Conservative contempt for the truth is the organized campaign to plant the notion -- with three and a half years to go before an election -- that Irwin Cotler intends to resign. Then there was Peter Mackay's participation in a "search and rescue" exercise."The minister was called back from vacation and used governmental aircraft only for government business and that is appropriate," Stephen Harper said.

Russell takes a closer look at the record:

MacKay joins a growing list of ministers caught being more than a little economical with the truth. There was International Development Minister Bev Oda, who last spring repeatedly told Parliament she had no idea who had inserted a scribbled "not" on a signed official document cancelling government funding for a humanitarian aid agency offside with the government's philosophy. Much later, she admitted to Parliament that she was indeed the insert's author. But she paid no price whatsoever and continues in her portfolio to this day.

And who can forget Industry Minister Tony Clement and the scandal over the $50-million border infrastructure fund that magically transported itself some 200 kilometres north to spruce up his Parry Sound-Muskoka riding with gazebos, fancy toilets, sidewalks and parks in the run-up to an election -- causing the auditor general to cite the government for misleading Parliament. Clement was then promoted to Treasury Board president.

Misleading Parliament -- according to British Parliamentary tradition -- is a firing offence. But no Harper minister has resigned or been fired for misleading Parliament. That is because the Conservative Party of Canada has no respect for parliamentary tradition.

One can only hope that the voters of Canada have more respect for the truth than the "Harper government." -- which is, obviously, morally adrift.

Canadian Republicans?

2011-12-06T08:07:00.001-05:00

At the end of his reflection on the border security agreement which Stephen Harper and Barack Obama signed this week, Lawrence Martin writes:

In many respects, we have what might be described as our very own Republican Party at the helm in Canada. Public opinion prevents it from going as far in social areas as the GOP. But on war, on the security file, on trade and in many other policy domains, the similarities are apparent.

It's hard to disagree with that conclusion. A review of the government's record and future plans -- the omnibus crime bill passed the House last night, and yesterday Peter Kent announced that Canada will withdraw from the Kyoto protocol -- suggests that we do, indeed, have a government which has wholeheartedly bought the Republican narrative.

Given the farce which is presently taking place in the Republican Party these days -- Paul Krugman calls it a contest between the cynics and the clueless -- Canadians have many reasons to worry. Martin speculates that the Harper government has triumphed because Canadians have matured. "With age," he writes, "Canadians have become more secure about their independence."

That depends on who you talk to. The natives of Atawapiskat displayed their independence yesterday by telling Mr Harper's third party manager to take a hike. And, if one considers the recent election results, only 25% of Canadians buy the Harperian definition of independence.

The simple truth is that Stephen Harper -- despite his triumphal pronouncements -- has always been prime minister by default. Canadians have grudgingly put him where he is. It's an appropriate response to a man who bears a perpetual grudge.

Stephen Harper may be a Republican. It's too much of a stretch to claim that Canadians have become Republicans.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Newt's Resurrection

2011-12-05T08:42:00.001-05:00

Paul Krugman writes that to win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, "there are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or to be totally clueless." Mitt Romney is the cynical candidate:

Romney embodies the first option. He’s not a stupid man; he knows perfectly well, to take a not incidental example, that the Obama health reform is identical in all important respects to the reform he himself introduced in Massachusetts — but that doesn’t stop him from denouncing the Obama plan as a vast government takeover that is nothing like what he did. He presumably knows how to read a budget, which means that he must know that defense spending has continued to rise under the current administration, but this doesn’t stop him from pledging to reverse Mr. Obama’s “massive defense cuts.”

All the others are clueless -- except Newt Gingrich. He's not clueless. But he's no towering intellect, either:

He is by no means the deep thinker he imagines himself to be, but he’s a glib speaker, even when he has no idea what he’s talking about. And my sense is that he’s also very good at doublethink — that even when he knows what he’s saying isn’t true, he manages to believe it while he’s saying it. So he may not implode like his predecessors.

More importantly, he is a deeply flawed candidate, who is the incarnation of what the Republican Party says it despises. He has effectively turned government to his personal advantage. But it would appear that Republican loathing for Romney and Obama could make Newt king.

Newt's resurrection says even more about the Republican Party than it does about Gingrich.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Behold The Party

2011-12-04T08:50:00.001-05:00

When Peter Van Loan admitted this week in the House that the Conservative Party had been behind a campaign to spread the rumour that Irwin Cotler was resigning, he did so without a hint of embarrassment. More than that, Bruce Anderson writes, " he took cynicism to an new jaw dropping level:"

No mumbling the normal apologies about “overzealous workers, blah, blah, blah, won’t happen again, etc.” Instead, Canadians were told that this kind of grime should be considered vital free speech – and must be protected, not prevented, by our laws. Efforts to rein it in would have worse consequences than letting it continue. This was the sound of a politician who had left home without an ethical or moral compass that morning.

It was yet another indication that the Harper government lives in an Orwellian world -- where War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength and Freedom is Slavery.

Anderson, however, pulls no punches. This was not some kind of clever political strategy:

this is wrong. Not clever, not amusing, not evidence of a more sophisticated political machine that works all the angles while others are asleep at the switch. Just wrong on every level.

Yet this government professes to be tough on crime. It stands for family values. Its base claims to be militantly Christian. But it admits telling lies and it calls them free speech.

"A man is but the product of his thoughts," Gandhi said. "What he thinks he becomes."

Behold Stephen Harper's party.

The Anti-Trudeau

2011-12-03T08:52:00.001-05:00

Stephen Harper despised Pierre Trudeau. He was nine years old when Trudeau became prime minister, and twenty-five when Trudeau retired. Watching Harper pontificate and react, one gets the impression that Mr. Trudeau was the bogeyman who haunted Stephen Harper's childhood nightmares. Indeed, it's not too much of a stretch to believe that -- somewhere in the prime minister's office -- there is a portrait of Trudeau which Harper uses as a dart board.

Nowhere is Harper's disgust for Trudeau more apparent, Lawrence Martin writes, than in the right wing nationalism Stephen Harper trumpets:

Patriotism pivots on pride in a resurrected military and morality-based missions. Pride in country is now linked to our refurbished armed forces and what Harper sees as moral crusades. National security, law and order, tighter immigration standards and bumper-sticker sports populism are among the features of a new right-wing nationalism. It is an accelerating trend and many Canadians worry that Harper, the anti-Trudeau, is taking it too far.

Martin then goes on to enumerate the various manifestations of Harper's right wing mania: message control, anti-democratic instincts, anti- labour policies, and anti intellectualism. But most disturbing of all is the Harperite cult of the leader. Recently released e-mails illustrate how the government has sought to define itself as the product of one man's vision. And, for five years, we have seen the flip side of that equation -- smearing the leader's opponents, whether they be Stephane Dion, Micheal Ignatieff or, more recently, NDP environment critic Megan Leslie, who the Harperites accused of treachery.

Pierre Trudeau had his faults. But he understood the horrendous consequences that accompanied the right wing nationalism espoused by leaders like Maurice Duplessis and Adolph Hitler. His opposition to that ideology was based on the results of its application in the 20th century.

Unfortunately, all of that history is lost on Stephen Harper. And he appears quite willing to repeat it.

Plenty Of Blame

2011-12-02T07:31:00.001-05:00

Richard Wagamese writes that Attawapiskat is not an isolated case. There is plenty of blame to go around for the tragedy there and on other native reserves. The problem, he writes, is that the elites -- in Ottawa and at the AFN -- have chosen to look the other way:

The real shame of Attawapiskat is that the people who knew these conditions existed never told Canadians about them. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives knew. Shawn Atleo’s Assembly of First Nations knew. But it has taken a tragedy to reveal the stark truth.

The Harper government's first reaction was -- predictably -- to define the problem in financial terms, and then to seize control of whatever levers were available:

Rather than initiate immediate physical action, Mr. Harper scheduled another meeting with Mr. Atleo. Then he put Attawapiskat under third-party management. What this effectively means is that the government put the blame squarely on the Indians. The subtext is that native leaders mismanaged millions and put their own people in danger. Meantime, nothing was being done for the people freezing in unheated tents, beyond the generosity offered by the Red Cross and fellow Canadians.

It was classic Harper strategy -- point fingers, assign blame and never accept responsibility. Those who have looked at the amount of federal funding for housing at Attawapiskat have pointed out that it is no surprise that people there are living in third world conditions.

But Wagamese writes that Shawn Atleo is also responsible for the tragedy at so many Canadian reserves.

Mr. Atleo failed to show leadership long ago. I’ve been a journalist since 1979, and I know how easy it is to craft a press release, hold a news conference and inform the public. But you have to want to do it. You have to want to confront wrong and demand change. I wonder if having his budget depend on a cozy relationship with the government prevents him from doing that.

These problems predate Mr.Atleo. The truth is that, for most Canadians -- living in large cities in the south -- conditions on northern native reserves are out of sight and out of mind. And, therefore, we all bear responsibility for the tragedy we must now confront.

Big Man, Little Boy

2011-12-01T08:17:00.001-05:00

We certainly are raising a peculiar crop of leaders these days. Since he was elected, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has frozen out the Toronto Star. He has told his staff that they are to have no dealings with the paper -- including issuing press releases to the largest daily in the country. His anger at the Star stems from an article the the paper published while Ford was running for mayor.

John Honderich writes this morning that:

There is no purpose served in rehashing the details. However, the Star has always stood by the story, noting it was carefully checked by our lawyer before publication.

Candidate Ford was furious and filed an immediate notice of libel, which is entirely and appropriately his prerogative. But he never followed up, as required, and his suit has now lapsed.

Mayor Ford has repeatedly said his freeze will stay in place until the Star runs an apology above the fold on page 1. As he recently told reporter Daniel Dale, “I don’t talk to the Star till you guys apologize. You guys (are) liars.”

Ford has every right to be furious. And he has every right to take legal action. The fact that he has let the case slide suggests the mayor knows his complaint won't survive legal scrutiny. And, if he does not want to personally talk to Star reporters, he can exercise that option. But he has gone farther than that. Honderich reports that:

The mayor’s staff was holding a briefing on arts funding and other members of the city hall press gallery were told about it privately. In this case, they were also specifically asked not to tell the Star about it. In other words, the mayor’s staff was trying to use other journalists to enforce its freeze. Thankfully, they did not go along.

Ford is the big kid who insists on bringing his own ball to the game; and -- when he doesn't get his way -- he picks it up and goes home. As I have written before in this space, the children are in charge. And, like most children, they are going to leave it to others to clean up the mess they create.

The Harper Government

2011-11-30T08:26:00.001-05:00

Much has been written over the last few days about the "Harperization" of Canada's government. As much as the term "Harper Government" is an affront to to all Canadians, it is an absolutely accurate characterization of what has happened under this prime minister.

Jeffrey Simpson argues that the present government is not -- nor was it ever -- a conservative government. He makes the point, not by comparing the Harper government to previous Liberal regimes, but by harkening back to the record of the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney. Since returning to Parliament, the Harperites have moved to quickly end debate and pass legislation which would abolish the long gun registry and the Canadian Wheat Board. And, of course, there is the omnibus crime bill:

Mr. Mulroney’s party, enjoying two huge majorities, never moved on these fronts. The PCs had a minister of state for the Wheat Board who was committed to the institution’s proper functioning. They tweaked the criminal justice system but they never dreamed of an all-fronts “tough on crime” approach in the face of overwhelming evidence that such an approach wouldn’t work. And, if anything, they wanted to toughen gun-control legislation, not weaken it, although, in fairness, the long-gun registry came after Mr. Mulroney left office.

All of these initiatives sprang from the government's Reform Party roots. And, as Simpson makes clear, anyone who thinks the Reform Party is dead is whistling into the wind. Traditionally Conservatives have stood for conservation. But we have it on the authority of Environment Minister Peter Kent that conservation is nowhere on this government's agenda. They are a 166 member wrecking crew, focused on overturning Canadian institutions -- not the least of which is Parliament itself. As Andrew Coyne notes:

Parliament, in this version, is not a body of legislators charged with scrutinizing bills and holding government to account. It is simply an electoral college. Its sole function is to convert a minority of the popular vote, through the alchemy of the first past the post electoral system, into a majority of the seats. Should it fail in that responsibility, delivering what the British call a “hung Parliament,” the government is entitled to carry on without it, as governments have in recent years: ignoring confidence votes, or proroguing Parliament to avoid them.

The simple truth is that the government of Canada has become government of one man, by one man and -- in the final analysis -- for one man.

Stephen Is Watching You

2011-11-29T08:07:00.001-05:00

Stephen Harper -- a fat man in a flight jacket -- is promoting Canada's military. The latest installment in this carefully orchestrated campaign occurred during last weekend's Grey Cup game. As Lawrence Martin writes this morning in The Globe and Mail:

For our part in the NATO Libya campaign, the Defence Minister took bows on the field. A Canadian flag was spread over 40 yards. Cannons boomed.

But there is much more Orwellian spin going on in Ottawa these days:

The propaganda machine has become mammoth and unrelenting. The parliamentary newspaper The Hill Times recently found there are now no fewer than 1,500 communications staffers on the governing payroll. In the days of the King and St. Laurent governments, there were hardly any. In recent decades, the numbers shot up, but Mr. Harper is outdoing all others, a primary example being his institution and maintenance of a master control system wherein virtually every government communication is filtered through central command.

Conservatism, as preached by the Harperites, is supposed to be about small government -- about getting government out of people's lives. But, as Martin points out, government is everywhere in Stephen Harper's Canada:

State surveillance, the rationale being security, is being taken to new levels. The Conservatives are bringing in legislation that will compel Internet service-providers to disclose customer information. A Canada-U.S. agreement is on the way that will contain an entry-exit system that will track everyone.

And ignorance -- state proliferated ignorance -- has become the prime directive:

Research that contradicts the government line is discarded. Civil liberties fade, new jails proliferate. Those who speak out better watch out. When the NDP’s Megan Leslie stated an opposing view on the Keystone XL Pipeline, she was accused by the government of treachery.

The Harperites are continually searching for new Emmanuel Goldsteins. Dissenting voices -- within and without -- are silenced. And all of this has been accomplished with the support of 25% of Canadian voters.

Cynical and Cowardly

2011-11-28T08:12:00.001-05:00

The Harper government has made it official. It will celebrate Christmas by pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol. Peter Kent, the Minister of the Environment, announced Sunday that "Canada goes to Durban with a number of countries sharing the same objective, and that is to put Kyoto behind us."

Admittedly, this is not really news. But it does confirm what the rest of the world has known for sometime: Canada is becoming an international pariah. Whether the issue is refusing to declare asbestos a hazardous substance or letting the planet warm to cataclysmic levels, Canada puts profits before people.

NDP environment critic Megan Leslie, who Kent recently accused of "treachery" -- when she travelled to Washington to voice her party's opposition to the Keystone pipeline -- called the decision "cynical and cowardly." That assessment applies to most of the government's agenda -- be it economic policy, criminal justice or the Canadian Wheat Board.

Mr. Harper has been able to attract people like Mr. Kent and Senator Mike Duffy to his ranks. Their media savy is considerable. Unfortunately, the prime minister has not been able to attract a brain trust of wise men and women.

When it comes to the Harper government, the old adage is still true: empty barrels make the most noise.

Send In The Clowns

2011-11-27T08:28:00.001-05:00

I first became interested in politics in 1960, as a twelve year old kid growing up in Montreal. That was the year Jean Lesage defeated Antonio Barrette and the remnants of Maurice Duplessis' Union Nationale. That was also the year John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon. Sitting north of the border, I had no voice in that election. But I was for Kennedy. I distrusted Nixon. And he lived down to everything I suspected.

In 1964, the Republicans chose Barry Goldwater as their candidate, and it has been downhill ever since. The advent of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush merely confirmed what I believed fifty years ago: Republicans are clowns.

The present batch of Republican candidates illustrates that claim in spades. Jeffrey Simpson has correctly assessed the modern Republican Party: "the Republican Party is an angry, boiling, roiling mess, throwing up a gaggle of second-and third-rate would-be candidates."

It appears that, after watching each of their saviours -- Bachmann, Perry and Cain -- implode, the choice for Republicans comes down to Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Simpson writes:

Mr. Romney, slick, packaged and rich, has changed positions on key issues more times than Jennifer Aniston has changed boyfriends. No matter how much he tries to pander to religious Republicans, Tea Party frothers, antigovernment ideologues, isolationists and the close-the-border crowd, they just don’t see him as a True Believer.

And Gingrich, who smugly condemned the Occupy Protestors -- because, he said, they lacked a moral centre and needed a bath -- should never have come back from the dead:

Earlier in the campaign, those who know Mr. Gingrich best – his entire top political staff – resigned en masse. They saw arrogance when none was warranted, insufferable wordiness, political immaturity and a candidate who would listen to no one but himself.

From where I sit -- still north of the 49th parallel -- not much has changed. When it comes to both candidates and presidents, the Republican Party keeps sending in the clowns.

There Is A Long Way To Go, But. . .

2011-11-26T09:06:00.001-05:00

Things are moving in the right direction. Despite the evictions of protesters from public spaces across Canada, Linda McQuaig writes that the Occupy Movement has managed to "change the public discourse, putting inequality front and centre — something activists and writers, myself included, have failed to accomplish despite decades of trying."

Even members of the elite are switching sides. Last week a retired Philadelphia police chief was arrested "at a New York protest where he told the cops they were just 'workers for the 1 per cent.'” And former prime minister Paul Martin -- who slashed social spending when he was finance minister two decades ago -- has come on board:

The fact is (the Occupiers) have touched a chord with Canadians and, I’m sure, with Americans,” said Martin. “Look, there’s something fundamentally wrong here . . . For the last hundred years, certainly in North America, every generation has felt it’s going to have a better life than their parents. For the first time, that’s not there.”

It's a little late for Martin to come to the table. But, like the retired police chief, he's there. Their presence does not mean that the battle has been won. As Murray Dobbin warned his readers last week, the people who make the decisions in Ottawa, Washington, New York and Toronto are still in charge:

Those decisions involve power and as the occupiers are discovering anew, that power is entrenched, protected and ruthless, and it will not be denied easily what it has accumulated over the decades.

Like Franklin Roosevelt, Martin and the police chief will be called traitors to their class. But McQuaig writes that the Occupiers deserve our admiration:

Wow. After only two months, the Occupy movement — without backing from billionaires or governments — seems to have moved us into a new era. Not bad for a leaderless group that sleeps in tents and doesn’t even use microphones.

This is a dark time. But it is not a time without hope.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

The New Generation Gap

2011-11-25T08:05:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, Elections Canada released a study on the problem of youthful apathy on voting day. The study suggests that "young Canadians don't vote because politicians aren't able to connect to the issues that matter to them." That conclusion isn't all that surprising. But when you dig down into the numbers, things get interesting:

The study also selected several specific groups of youth — aboriginals, the disabled, unemployed, ethnic and youth in rural areas — to determine why they said they voted in lower numbers than the general population.

In the case of the unemployed and aboriginals, which includes First Nations and Inuit groups, only 42 per cent of those surveyed said they voted. About 55 per cent of those with disabilities and 61 per cent of ethnic youth asked said they voted.

Put simply, those who could be helped most by government don't vote, perhaps because they have figured out that government -- at least as it is presently constituted -- has no intention of helping them.

And, even more importantly, knowledge of Canada's current political landscape is a good predictor of who will and who will not vote:

Political knowledge and interest were major factors the study suggests affect the likelihood someone will vote. Only 28 per cent of youth who aren't interested in politics voted, compared to 88 per cent who said they were interested in politics and did vote.

All of this suggests that progressive parties have to take voter education seriously. After the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, political activists in the United States fanned out across the country. Their mission was simple: to get out the vote.They obviously did not solve all their nation's problems. But the United States has its first African-American president.

There is a lesson there. Things will only change in Canada when the opposition parties find new ways to communicate with the young, the disaffected and the marginalized.

Who Tricked Who?

2011-11-24T09:31:00.001-05:00

Ezra Klein wonders how smart Republicans were when they talked Barack Obama into automatic spending cuts once the supercommittee failed:

Imagine if the Democrats offered Republicans a deficit deal that had more than $3 in tax increases for every $1 in spending cuts, assigned most of those spending cuts to the Pentagon, and didn't take a dime from Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare beneficiaries. Republicans would laugh at them. But without quite realizing it, that's the deal Republicans have now offered to the Democrats.

That outcome is not without huge risks. As Klein points out, in an already weak economy, the consequences could be dire. Still,

the Democrats are in the driver's seat. Gridlock means a deficit deal that they [the Democrats] could never have imagined getting any other way. Basic negotiating theory would suggest that whatever the Republicans offer them must somehow be better even than that. And yet, that's not how either party is acting. Republicans don't seem particularly worried about the triggers and Democrats don't seem particularly interested in pressing their advantage. At least for now.

But it's hard to imagine that, in an election year, the Democrats won't press that advantage. Grover Norquist is taking bows these days, noting that Republicans fear to cross him. But, like Captain Ahab's crew, their maniacal refusal to raise revenues could sink the Republican ship -- with only one or two Ishmaels left to tell the tale.

Who Do You Serve?

2011-11-23T08:24:00.001-05:00

As Toronto police cleared St. James Park this morning, one of the few remaining protesters yelled at an officer, "Excuse me! Who do you serve? That's the basic question behind the Occupy Movement. And every elected official needs to answer that question -- in the context of what the figures tell us.

Jeffrey Simpson writes that, in the United States -- where the Occupy Movement began -- the non partisan Congressional Budget Office has offered a pretty clear picture of what has happened:

The CBO looked at the years 1979 to 2007. It found that, whereas average household income after inflation grew by 62 per cent, the top 1 per cent of the population had enjoyed income growth of 275 per cent. The bottom 20-per-cent’s after-tax income had grown 18 per cent. Said the CBO: “As a result of uneven income growth, the distribution of after-tax household income in the United States was substantially more unequal in 2007 than in 1979.”

Unfortunately, no politician in the present presidential race is talking about income redistribution. And, in Canada, that phrase would never cross the lips of any member of the Harper government. They will tout the number of jobs created; but they will say nary a word about the quality of those jobs or about the income they generate. The reason is simple. That information indicates that the country is marching backwards.

Even more importantly, it's interesting to compare the government's priorities to the priorities of Canada's citizens. In a recent survey

the share concerned about poverty/income inequality was 30 per cent, behind health care (of course) at 47 per cent, unemployment/jobs at 39 per cent and taxes at 37 per cent. That ranking showed an increase in concern about poverty/income inequality, since it now ranks well above crime, immigration, environment and climate change.

But most Canadians -- as indicated by the last election results -- don't vote. Until they do, things will get worse. And the police will continue to serve their present masters.

Premature Obituary

2011-11-22T08:33:00.001-05:00

Predictions are in the air these days. Not long ago, Lawrence Martin predicted that, after spending time in the wilderness with Bob Rae, the Liberal Party will be led to victory by Mark Carney. Peter C. Newman predicts that the party will not rise again: "I maintain that instead of being a punishing time-out, it's game over for the Liberals," he confidently asserts in The National Post.

Newman accurately recounts the reasons for the Liberals fall from grace:

The Grits lost their once unassailable electoral fortresses in Toronto and most of Ontario, as well as their former strongholds in Quebec and the Maritimes. West of Kenora, they remained an endangered species. Theirs has been a political self-immolation seldom equalled in Canadian history.

The problem with Newman's analysis is his assumption that Quebec and Ontario are lost forever to the Liberals.The wholesale disgust Torontonians feel for Rob Ford -- Stephen Harper's ally in establishing a foothold in the GTA -- suggests that beachead is already crumbling. And Tim Hudak's implosion during the recent Ontario election suggests that the Conservative brand is still not a household word in Canada's largest province.

As for predictions about Quebec, those of us who grew up in the province know how volatile the province's politics are. Anyone who thinks that the NDP will be a powerhouse in that province for more than one election cycle doesn't understand the place.

I have no crystal ball. But experience suggests that those who are writing obituaries for the Liberal Party need to remember Mark Twain's reaction to his own premature obituary. Reports of the death of the Liberals are greatly exaggerated.

And, when it comes to Stephen Harper's long term political future, it would be wise to remember Mr. Newman's assessment of the man. Harper, he writes, has "the best medieval mind in the Commons."

True North

2011-11-21T08:40:00.001-05:00

In today's Globe and Mail, Robert Redford -- who lately has spent a lot of time in Vancouver -- offers another take on the Canadian-American partnership, which Stephen Harper trumpets so loudly:

I want to be very clear that I’m not pointing a finger at the people of Canada; neither is any American I know. We’re all in this together, and that’s the only way we’ll turn it around. We need to stand up, Canadians and Americans as one, to draw the line at tar sands.

The Harperites have never believed that we are all in this together. They believe that the basic principle which guides the inhabitants of this planet is, it's every man and woman for him or herself. When that principle was applied to oil production in Alberta, the results became devastatingly clear:

In Alberta’s great boreal forest, one of the last truly wild places on Earth, tar-sands producers have turned an area the size of Chicago into an industrial wasteland and international disgrace.

Where spruce and fir and birch trees once rose and waters ran fresh and clean, tar-sands production has left a lifeless scar visible from outer space, a vast repository of enduring pollution that threatens fish, birds, animals, public health and an entire way of life for native people.

And for every single barrel of oil produced, at least two tons of tar sands are excavated and tapped, a processing nightmare that generates three times more carbon pollution than is released to produce conventional North American domestic crude.

Redford writes that he has always been inspired by the Canadian concept of "True North." When two members of Canada's official opposition visited Washington recently to voice their opposition to the Keystone Pipeline, the Minister of the Environment called their trip "treachery." Redford understands the meaning of True North. Canada's present government doesn't.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Limited Intelligence

2011-11-20T08:32:00.001-05:00

When Megan Leslie and Claude Grevelle went to Washington this past week, Environment Minister Peter Kent was furious. The two NDP members of the House, he said, were taking "the treacherous course of leaving the domestic debate and heading abroad to attack a legitimate Canadian resource which is being responsibly developed and regulated."

But, as Tim Harper wrote in The Toronto Star:

They went to Washington to provide a different point of view on the Keystone XL pipeline project and to tell American legislators that, contrary to the cheerleading of Stephen Harper and his cabinet, not every Canadian was a proponent of Alberta’s tar sands.

None of the Conservatives mentioned, of course, Stephen Harper's trip to New York after Jean Chretien choose not to join the "coalition of the willing." Harper told Americans that he spoke for "the silent majority" of Canadians who supported the American invasion of Iraq. Nor did they mention Mr. Harper's speech to the Council for National Policy, an American Think Tank, where he proclaimed:

"[Y]our country [the USA], and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world."

The irony is so thick you can cut it with a knife. But Mr. Harper, Mr Kent and the rest of their party have no appreciation for irony. I've always believed that an inability to detect irony is a sign of limited intelligence.

Pension Shell Game

2011-11-19T08:40:00.001-05:00

Tom Walkom writes that the only real pension is a defined benefit pension -- the kind of pension which allows you to know how much you will receive in retirement -- like the Canada Pension Plan. For the past thirty years, private pensions have been disappearing, through company bankruptcies. Or they have been replaced by what Walkom calls bogus pensions -- defined contribution plans, where workers know how much they contribute, but they have no idea how much money they will receive when they retire.

Last week the Harper government introduced a new "pooled pension" scheme. These pools of capital are essentially group RRSP's, which -- like all RRSP's -- are voluntary retirement plans. It all sounds very wise. But, as is the case with so much of this government's legislation, more is less. Walkom writes:

And the best real pension plan going is the CPP. It is solvent, big enough to remain that way and relatively cheap to operate.

It is also compulsory, which prevents free riders — either employees or their bosses — from gaming the system.

Certainly, an expansion of the CPP is the best way to deal with the 60 per cent of workers — particularly younger workers in non-union shops — who have no other pension plan.

It doesn’t rely on the good intentions of employers (which appeals to labour unions). And by taking the strain from programs like Old Age Security, it saves taxpayers money — which appeals to fiscal conservatives.

And, until Quebec and Alberta sabotaged Jim Flaherty's plan to beef up the Canada Pension Plan, it looked like Canadians could count on real pensions. Now the government has presented a plan that will do nothing for those close to retirement; and it will offer no security to the young, who -- for that reason -- will probably opt out of it. The only people who will benefit from the new proposal are those who work for financial institutions, which will administer it. Remember, this government is pathologically adverse to government involvement in anything -- with the exception of defense.

If the government is intent on implementing an opt out provision, I suggest it let Quebec and Alberta opt out of an expanded CPP. I suspect that the residents of those provinces -- when they see what is happening -- will clamour to get on board the train before it is too late.

That's the best way to put an end to the pension shell game.

Spreading The Gospel

2011-11-18T07:55:00.001-05:00

Rick Salutin writes this morning that the real question facing the Occupy movement is not "Should I go, or should I stay?" The real question is, "Join us or join them?" The second question is the right one. The relevant lesson, Salutin writes, comes from Spain:

The 15-M movement began there last May 15. It wasn’t an occupation. It was a protest held in Puerta del Sol square over the economic crisis that became an overnight occupation. Then it was dismantled by authorities, then it turned into a see-saw conflict over whether they would stay or go. A month later, when they finally went, it was by choice. One veteran of 15-M (there are no leaders) said: “It was a strategic move that led to the survival of the movement.” Almost happenstantially they had evolved another preference: to fan out into districts of the city (and elsewhere in Spain) and conduct regular meetings with local residents. These then forwarded proposals to a weekly “assembly” held in the square.

While the public may focus on what is happening in the parks, the real battle has always been political. It has always been about generating support for progressive policies instead of the tired -- and obviously failed -- bromides of the last thirty years. The solution lies in elections.

Paul Krugman, in today's New York Times, comes to the same conclusion. Instead of wringing their hands about the imminent failure of the Congressional Supercommittee, he writes, Americans should rejoice:

The gulf between our two major political parties is so wide. Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different priorities; they live in different intellectual and moral universes.

There can be no compromise when the gap between the parties is so wide:

Eventually, one side or the other of that divide will get the kind of popular mandate it needs to resolve our long-run budget issues. Until then, attempts to strike a Grand Bargain are fundamentally destructive. If the supercommittee fails, as expected, it will be time to celebrate.

We had an election in May. Canadians voted for more of the same -- except the majority of Canadians chose to stay home on election day. If things are going to change, progressives have to do more than occupy the public square. Like old fashioned evangelists, they are going to have to use that square to spread the gospel -- and toss the moneychangers out of the temple.

The Heat Is On

2011-11-17T09:11:00.001-05:00

Even though he gives Toronto's Occupy Protesters credit for being civil, Peter Worthington has no sympathy for them:

Although the campers (to give them a polite description) have been served with eviction notices, they've been given a reprieve until at least Saturday, thanks to injunctions and Charter of Rights hearings and the mumbo-jumbo of lawyers and the sober considerations of the judge.

No matter. For all practical purposes the month-long long protest and park sleep-in is over. Patience has run out.

On the other side of the argument, Toronto law professor David Schneiderman argues that the protesters have a right to stay put. There is an important principle at stake:

At what point did the exercise of constitutional rights become intolerable? The city has simply issued an ultimatum without seemingly taking into further account the protesters’ objectives and their preferred means of expression. This is not a carefully calibrated assessment of the protesters’ rights and the city’s obligation to preserve public property but an outright ban.

And, yesterday, in response to a question from Nycole Turmel -- has the government listened to the message behind the protests? -- Stephen Harper proclaimed that the NDP's focus on the Occupy protests merely proves that they are "unfit to govern."

Mr. Harper likes to think he supports the Arab Spring. However, he forgets that the movement started as a protest against scarcity -- scarcity of jobs and resources. He and Mr. Worthington live on another planet. Unfortunately, it is not the planet most of us occupy. That's why they are unmoved when the heat is on.

Harper and Iran

2011-11-16T08:50:00.001-05:00

Israel is moving -- inexorably -- towards a confrontation with Iran. As Tom Walkom points out in today's Toronto Star, the Israelis do not necessarily believe that Iran will unleash a nuclear attack on their country. The result would surely be mutually asssured destruction. But the bomb is Israel's trump card. The Israelis are:

terrified that the loss of Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the Middle East would weaken its hand in its dealing with other enemies, a weakening that, in the long run, might encourage Jewish citizens to abandon a country that prides itself on being a Jewish state.

However, recent events have also led the Iranians to some rock hard convictions about nuclear weapons:

The 1980 war with Iraq, however, reawakened Iran’s appetite for weapons of deterrence.

By 2001, Iran faced Saddam Hussein’s hostile Iraq on one side and an equally hostile U.S. operating in Afghanistan on the other.

The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq eliminated Saddam. But it also demonstrated that countries without nuclear weapons could be easily picked off — which spooked Iran even more.

In short, both nations see nuclear weapons as the guarantors of their existence. In the past, Canada wisely stayed out of such conflicts, believing that discretion was the better part of valor:

We sat out the brief 1956 Suez war that pitted Britain, France and Israel against Egypt. We avoided involvement in America’s bruising Vietnam War and explicitly rejected Washington’s entreaties to join its 2003 invasion of Iraq.

We went into Afghanistan only after the United States invoked a clause in the NATO treaty that obligated us to do so.

But that was then. Stephen Harper's foreign policy does not depend on discretion. He believed that Canada should have joined in the invasion of Iraq. And his support for Israel is unconditional.

Walkom puts the choice quite succinctly:

Is it better to let Iran follow in the footsteps of the U.S., France, Britain, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea by acquiring nuclear weapons?

Or is better to unleash another Mideast war?

For Canadians the question is, which choice would Stephen Harper make?

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

A Rae Of Hope

2011-11-15T06:59:00.001-05:00

Lawrence Martin -- who admits being inspired by MacKenzie King -- looks into his crystal ball this morning and predicts that Bob Rae will lead the Liberals in opposition and Mark Carney will lead them back to power. At the moment, both predictions are a bit of a stretch. However, Martin accurately notes that Rae is off to an "impressive start."

Those who believe that the centre has dropped out of Canadian politics will not be impressed. And, truth be told, rehabilitating the centre will not be easy:

Although Stephen Harper is brandishing his ideological stripes in some policy domains, in the area that counts most, the economy, he is showing himself to be adroitly capable of moderation. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s decision last week to put back his deficit-elimination target was an example.

Nor will it be easy for the Grits to make gains on the second-place New Democrats once that party has selected its new leader. It has a strong list of candidates to draw from.

Despite his pronouncements, however, Canadians know that Mr. Harper does not occupy the political centre. His present legislative agenda proves that. Moreover, the last three elections have proved that Mr. Harper, even with his majority, is not where most Canadians are. Regardless of the cheerleaders at The Globe and Mail and The National Post, the facts tell a different story. And whoever leads the NDP will be faced with the problem of holding a restless caucus together.

The Liberal Party of Canada has a long road ahead of it. And, at this stage, it is folly to predict who will eventually lead the party. But Martin is right on one other point: Bob Rae is "probably a big enough improvement on previous leaders to save the Liberal Party."

They Don't Know What They're Talking About

2011-11-14T08:34:00.001-05:00

The Hill Times reports that an invitation has gone out to all Conservative MP's and senators to come and network at the Albany Club on December 1st. The speical guest for the occasion will be Treasury Board President Tony Clement. The menu is part of the draw:

a 10 oz. U.S. bone-in prime beef filet mignon, braised Alberta buffalo stew, vodka smoked salmon among the main course fine meals and French valette goose foie gras terrine among the appetizer delicacies.

Every Conservative Prime Minister from John A. MacDoanld to Stephen Harper has been a member of the club. But the membership fees are a little steep: "up to $4,500, with a further $2,400 in annual dues for the business men and women it draws from Toronto." Obviously these folks continue to believe that Toronto is the centre of the universe.

Charlie Angus has it right:

This is the old boys’ network. They’re sending a real clear message that these are not ministers who are accountable to the people, they’re not accountable to Parliament, but you come hang out at their exclusive club and you get access.

These folks are not concerned with democracy. But Stephen Harper's Conservative Party -- "the new Conservative Party" -- has never been about democracy. And, more to the point, those who preach austerity -- like Mr. Clement -- don't know what they're talking about.

Angry Old Men

2011-11-13T08:34:00.001-05:00

Last week, in The Globe and Mail, Brian Topp wrote that a little discussed part of the government's Omnibus Crime Bill represents a significant change in policy at Canadian prisons:

To be specific, the Tories want to amend article 4(d) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (1992). The relevant clause establishes the principle “that the service use the least restrictive measures consistent with the protection of the public, staff members and offenders.

Apparently that change had been recommended in a report to former Public Security Minister Stockwell Day back in 2007:

The panel believes that this principle has been emphasized too much by staff and management of CSC, and even by the courts in everyday decision-making about offenders. As a result an imbalance has been created that places the onus on SCS to justify why the least restrictive measures shouldn't be used, rather than on offenders to justify why they should have access to privileges based on their performance under their correctional plans.

Anyone who has followed this government over the years should not find this bit of information surprising. In fact, it is entirely consistent with the worldview of the present powers that be. But as a former senior official of Corrections Canada told Topp:

I've had meetings with prison administrators, and then I've explored every corner of our prisons right down into the hole. I know what's going to happen if they take that clause out of the Act. What's going to happen is that guards are going to feel free to use more force, a lot more force, to control inmates. There's going to be an enormous rise in violence in our prison system.

All of this confirms what should be perfectly obvious by now. The Harper government is a government out for vengeance. Topp writes:

In all of this, the Conservatives are demonstrating the real character of their government. This is rule by angry old uncle. A character in many families, not without his charm and soft side, who shouts his angry views for the hundredth time, demanding firm measures and an end to many abuses, even if the facts all point the other way.

These folks aren't simply grumpy old men.They are angry old men. Even Minister of Labour Lisa Raitt, when she muses about declaring the economy an essential service, sounds like an angry old man. The Prime Minister of Canada -- at the ripe old age of fifty-two -- is an angry old man. One gets the impression that he was an angry old man when he was in diapers.

They Get It

2011-11-12T08:17:00.001-05:00

The reaction is starting to set in. The Occupy Protesters have been evicted from their camps in London and Halifax. Mayor Rob Ford has told the people in St. James Park it's time to go. John Gardiner, who calls himself "an old hippie," writes that the civic officials who are evicting the protesters don't get it:

They don’t understand why people are willing to endure the squalor and the cold to try to change the system. And that’s because for most older middle-class people, life has been good. They don’t understand what there is to complain about.

They are the powers that be. Back in the 1960's, they were called "The Establishment:"

Back in the 1960s, the Establishment was just getting its footing, just starting to entrench itself in our societies. Today, it’s everything and everywhere.

It’s what sets the price of oil. It’s what starts wars where poor people fight it out. It’s what causes big banks to collapse so the little people can pick up the pieces. It’s so powerful that governments bow to it and bail it out when it gets itself into trouble. It’s the Establishment, plain and simple.

The protesters, Gardiner writes, are 21st century hippies:

Its members are people who can see the future and who want to change it. Just like the hippies, who were like the canary in the coal mine. When they died – and die they did – we should have seen the so-called writing on the wall. We should have known there was poison in the air. But we didn’t get it. And the results are all around us.

There were those -- the Establishment -- who called the hippies naive. There were hippies -- like Jerry Rubin -- who went to Wall Street and became part of the Establishment. And, most of us -- because we had to pay the bills -- accepted that the world had always been a cruel and unforgiving place.

And, in the meantime, the world became more cruel and more unforgiving. Gardiner, I'm afraid, has got it right:

I’m convinced that a thousand years into the future – if we can stagger that far forward – our current era will be known only for its barbarism, both economic and physical. It’s a time of great darkness, regardless of the apparent gains in technology.

Like the hippies of another time, the Occupy Protesters are simply trying to make the world a better place. They get it.

Remembrance Day, 2011

2011-11-11T07:57:00.001-05:00

I awoke this morning to the refrain, "And the band played waltzing Matilda." I thought of my father, who spent some of World War II in Australia. Most of the time, he was behind anti-aircraft guns -- the kind that fire large shells and make a lot of noise. Understandably, by the end of the war, he wanted nothing to do with guns -- large or small. I never saw him go near one.

However, he did not feel the same about the army. He said it taught him self-discipline, how to organize on the fly, and how to fix things. And, when he returned, it offered him an education. Late in his life, he told me that he owed his return not to anything he did but to "pure dumb luck."

When we buried him a couple of years ago, two of the men he served with came to the grave site -- with their wives and their walkers. "If ye break faith with us who die," John McCrae wrote, "we shall not sleep."

Today we keep the faith.

It's More Than The Economy

2011-11-10T08:41:00.001-05:00

Chantal Hebert writes in today's Toronto Star that the Liberal Party is floundering because Canadians believe Stephen Harper is a competent economic manager:

The global economic downturn has become to Harper what the unity debate was for a string of successful Liberal governments — a defining file that he is managing to own.

So far, no opposition figure is emerging to give the Harper/Flaherty tandem a real run for its money. The opposition narrative on the government’s economic management is failing to find traction with the public.

But, once again, Hebert focuses on only part of the narrative. The Harperites have been ramming through highly ideological legislation -- which has infuriated different segments of Canadian society. The Omnibus Crime bill has both Quebec and Ontario up in arms. The bill to abolish the central desk at the Canadian Wheat Board has alienated a significant number of Canadian farmers. Killing the gun registry -- and the data base that goes with it -- has created significant opposition in Canadian cities. And the government's prohibition of strikes in the private sector has unions seething.

Anyone who thinks that Mr. Harper's attempt to restructure Canadian society is a political no brainer should look at what has happened in the United States during this week. E.J. Dionne writes that Republicans are taking a "shellacking:"

This week’s elections around the country were brought to you by the word “overreach,” specifically conservative overreach. Given an opportunity in 2010 to build a long-term majority, Republicans instead pursued extreme and partisan measures. On Tuesday, they reaped angry voter rebellions.

In Ohio, voters rejected Governor Kasich's attempt to restrict union bargaining rights. In Maine, voters exercised a "peoples veto" of Republican attempts to outlaw same day voter registration. And, most surprising of all:

In Mississippi, perhaps the most conservative state in the union, voters beat back a referendum to declare a fertilized human egg a person by a margin of roughly 3-to-2. Here was overreach by the right-to-life movement, which tried to get voters to endorse a measure that could have outlawed popular forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization.

Since coming to power, Mr. Harper has followed the Republican model. It would appear that American voters have looked at the Republicans and have had buyer's remorse. One wonders if Stephen Harper is paying attention.

Ultimately, voters will judge him on much more than his stewardship of the economy.

When Every Vote Counts

2011-11-09T08:57:00.002-05:00

Every several decades, David Shribman writes, the United States has an election in which "the country seems to approach one of the hinges of history." The election of 2012 will be such an election. While a significant number of voters may be in the center, the nation's two political parties are not:

Sometimes, it seems as if the two parties are occupying different universes. In Congress, where liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats once made common cause, the chasm between the two parties is wider than the aisles that separate them – indeed, wider than at any time in memory. In fact, for the first time in the modern era, there’s no ideological intersection between the two parties. The most liberal Republican, a phrase that increasingly is an oxymoron, is more conservative than the most conservative Democrat, a phrase that also seems an antique.

Faced with such a stark choice, a lot of voters could choose to stay home. They did that recently in Canada, where the Liberal Party -- which has always occupied the political center -- was almost reduced to an historical footnote. But, as Canadians are discovering, even with the support of only 25% of the voting public, the winning side is proceeding -- full speed ahead -- on its agenda.

So, one way or another, Americans are going to get the complete package. Their problem will be to decide which package they prefer. Shribman writes:

Here are some of the questions at issue: Should the country press ahead with a comprehensive overhaul of health care or peel away at the Obamacare program passed in 2010? Should Washington regulate how banks and other financial institutions behave and pay their executives? How should the country pay for retirement supplements and health-care obligations undertaken when the country was richer and younger, now that it’s poorer and older? Are central banks such as the Federal Reserve redoubts of tyranny or tools to tame, or spur, the economy? Are taxes the price of civilization or a threat to freedom?

This will be an election where every vote counts -- and where every decision not to vote also counts.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Dull But Brilliant

2011-11-08T08:30:00.000-05:00

Canadians tend to think that their country's history is dull. But like William Lyon Mackenzie King -- one of Canada's longest serving prime ministers -- there is much that is brilliant below the surface. Lawrence Martin writes that King was unquestionably a weirdo:

Few knew that seances, table-rapping sessions and communing with the likes of William Gladstone, Wilfrid Laurier and other stiffs occupied big stretches of King’s time. In contemplating affairs of state, he ascribed great significance to the formations of his shaving cream. At breakfast, it was the configuration of tea leaves that arrested him. Before heading off to work, he would shoot the breeze with his dog, Pat.

But King spent his youth as a labour negotiator; and he was, in his mother's apt phrase, "the Official Harmonizer." King's style of governance defined the Liberal Party for eighty years:

His exemplary displays of centrist brokerage politics, his placing of national unity at the forefront and his securing of Quebec were pillars that endured for decades. But the fracturing began under Mr. Trudeau and was accelerated by Mr. Turner, who clashed with both Mr. Trudeau and Jean Chrétien. The party took sides, dividing into long-lasting Trudeau/Chrétien and Turner/Paul Martin blocs.

Today we live among the ruins of King's legacy. Stephen Harper -- who is as wily as King -- is trying to get the country to do a one hundred and eighty degree turn. The difference is that King, for all his weirdness, had a gut feel for the country. Stephen Harper -- who, in some ways, is equally dull -- suffers from a Louis XIV complex.

King knew that his grandfather would have been appalled to hear his grandson proclaim, "l'etat c'est moi!" So he worked hard at being dull -- but brilliant.

The Sun Also Rises

2011-11-07T08:53:00.000-05:00

Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times that solar power is no longer the Impossible Dream:

. . . progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy,” with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year.

This has already led to rapid growth in solar installations, but even more change may be just around the corner. If the downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.

While the United States waged war in Iraq, the cost of solar power declined dramatically. However, the fossil fuel industry -- in both Canada and the United States -- has funnelled billions into the conservative parties of both countries:

Let’s face it: a large part of our political class, including essentially the entire G.O.P., is deeply invested in an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels, and actively hostile to alternatives. This political class will do everything it can to ensure subsidies for the extraction and use of fossil fuels, directly with taxpayers’ money and indirectly by letting the industry off the hook for environmental costs, while ridiculing technologies like solar.

Fifty years ago, the oil industry made war on the electric car. That war was so successful that it has only been in the last decade that people have seriously considered battery powered automobiles. We should expect the same reaction now.

The question is: Are we going to be bulldozed a second time?

The Problem of Political Courage

2011-11-06T08:26:00.000-05:00

Chantal Hebert argues in today's Toronto Star that the repatriation of the Constitution in 1981 unleashed a tide of populism which has paralyzed Canada's parliamentary institutions:

In the three decades since the patriation conference, the parties and the politicians who have espoused the new culture of populism have thrived; those who clung to the old ways have wilted. Canada’s traditional parties were in the latter category. So were the country’s parliamentary institutions.

Perhaps. But it's also quite possible that the problem lies not in the institutions so much as in the leaders who followed patriation. Much more saliently, Hebert writes:

Over the past 30 years, political courage has become a rarer commodity in Canada. As in the case of other more tangible commodities, the rule that if you don’t use it you lose it applies to this near-extinct virtue.

She claims that the two phenomena are linked: the rise of populism has led to a decline in political courage. Our leaders have, indeed, lacked political courage. But I'm not convinced that populism is to blame. To begin with, the so called populist revolt has given us Stephen Harper, one of the most dictatorial prime ministers in this nation's history. One would think that populism would serve as a check on the prime minister's power.

Secondly, Hebert takes no notice of the corporatist forces which have grabbed the reins of power in almost every Western democracy. The corporatist agenda has led to our present crisis. Populism is not the cause of our problems. The concentration of wealth and power got us into this mess.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are part of an almost universal populist movement. Rather than causing our problems, populism may be what gets us out of this mess -- provided our political leaders can rediscover the true meaning of courage.

Sophocles Knew How The Story Went

2011-11-05T08:59:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, I applauded as European leaders finally forced their mega banks to take a haircut. But events this week have illustrated how fragile their plan is. The union is too multifaceted to deal with the extraordinary mess the so called best and brightest have managed to create.

As Tom Walkom points out in The Toronto Star, what began as a noble experiment fell victim to arrogance:

The arrogance emerged in 1999 when Europe’s leaders, smug with success, transformed this quite workable trade agreement into a far more ambitious scheme — a full-fledged monetary union.

Based on a new currency called the euro, that union was a step too far. It tempted fate.

And in the end, it brought on itself the wrath of the gods who, as the ancient Greeks knew well, like to smack humans when they get too uppity.

The idea of a common currency -- like the so called "liar's loans," which fueled Wall Street's profits for over a decade -- came with problems no one thought were of consequence:

From the beginning, the monetary union was fatally flawed. That it attempted to link entirely disparate economies through a single currency was difficult enough. Economically, countries like Portugal and Spain had virtually nothing in common with Germany, France or the Netherlands.

But its real flaw was lack of back-up. A central bank was established to issue the new euro. But unlike the Bank of Canada, this European Central Bank is explicitly forbidden from acting as a lender of last resort when regional institutions get into trouble.

More important, and again unlike the Canadian or American federations, the 17-member eurozone has no mechanism for transferring money from rich areas to those in need.

That, too, is explicitly forbidden.

It's possible that the Europeans can save themselves. But creating a bigger pot of money is only a stop gap measure. They need a central bank with more sweeping powers than just the ability to print money. However, those powers would infringe on the national sovereignty of all seventeen European nations. Getting to that kind of agreement is much more difficult than getting the private banks to take a haircut.

Sophocles knew how the story went.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Science is Useful

2011-11-04T10:26:00.000-04:00

When the Harper government encounters facts which contradict its preconceived notions, it simply ignores them. That is certainly the case with the government's tough on crime agenda. As Jeffrey Simpson writes in this morning's Globe and Mail, homicides in Canada are at their lowest level since 1966; and, because homicide rates are considered a "social barometer," those numbers should be taken seriously:

Peel back the general statistics and look more closely at homicides. For example, 13 per cent of those accused of homicide in the past decade were suspected of having a mental or developmental disorder. “Tough on crime” measures are hopeless in these cases.

The government stiffens penalties for gun-related offences, even as the number and rate of firearm-related homicides are falling. More people are killed from stabbings and beatings than guns. So why don’t we crack down on knives and baseball bats?

And, as it cracks down on firearm offences, the government abolishes the gun registry and delists sniper rifles and the semi automatic rifle which was used in the Norway massacre. Then it tells the provinces they must bear some of the cost of its anti-crime agenda, even though it refuses to reveal the projected costs of the legislation. The problem, Simpson writes, is that:

Homicide rates in Ontario and Quebec are also falling. Both rates are below the national average, and Quebec’s is also at the lowest level since the mid-1960s. No wonder, then, that the governments of both provinces are annoyed by the Harper government’s crime bills.

Ontario’s beefs seem mostly to be about costs, a complaint understandably shared with other provinces. More criminals in jail mean higher prison costs, which will fall on provinces. Ontario, like others, wants recompense from Ottawa, which has thus far steadfastly refused.

Quebec's Minister of Justice, Jean-Marc Fournier, has put things most succinctly: “Science is useful. At some point, someone discovered that the Earth is round.” But, as far as the Harper government is concerned, the earth is still flat.

Harpocrisy

2011-11-03T09:14:00.001-04:00

Tony Clement was grilled yesterday by a parliamentary committee reviewing spending for "border security" in his riding. But, as Lawrence Martin writes this morning, "It's John Baird who is on the hook for G-8 money games." The trouble is that Baird sees only a picayune bureaucratic transgression:

It should be noted that the $50-million was more than just a top-up. It was the bulk. The border fund was only $33-million. Baird’s add-on made it $83-million.

Baird explained that the border fund was used as a way of trying to expedite things. He wanted the legacy fund projects – which included things like new sidewalks, outdoor furniture and landscaping, some of which was far away from the Huntsville summit site – to get rolling quickly. But what kind of morality is at play when a senior minister of the Crown feels it’s justifiable to camouflage a major expenditure under a different budgetary category for the sake of hurrying things along?

Remember, these were the folks who were apoplectic about the Sponsorship Scandal. They howled about the rot which had engulfed the Chretien government. But this, says Mr. Baird, is small potatoes. The two transgressions -- both uncovered by the auditor general -- were not of the same order of magnitude.

Baird is effective at disarming critics and was so again at the hearings. It was like, ‘Ah well, we made some mistakes, we agree with the Auditor-General, we’ll do better next time, let’s move on.’

Baird's hypocrisy is extraordinary. It's so egregious it deserves a name of its own. Call it "Harpocrisy."

A Place To Talk

2011-11-02T09:26:00.001-04:00

Dan Gardiner, in the Ottawa Citizen, asks the most important question Canadians are facing: "Why have a Parliament at all?" The question has become front and center because, as Gardiner points out, Stephen Harper has been imposing unprecedented time limits on debate:

Harper has imposed time limits at a much higher rate than Chrétien did, even at his most imperious, and he is on track to set an all-time record. But let's not get distracted by trivia, as the PMO flack would say.)

Of course, Harper's strategy is contemptuous of parliament. That's what the last election was supposed to be about -- but somehow it got lost in the scuffle. And, therefore, Parliament these days is not about debate. Gardiner writes:

One may note that almost one-third of MPs have never debated these issues in the House of Commons and, if Parliament is to be something more than a fig leaf covering the prime minister's naughty bits, parliamentarians must have the right to stand up and debate as long as they damned well want.

Parliamentary debate ensures good legislation. Tony Doob, a criminologist at the University of Toronto, recently pointed out in committee that the government's omnibus crime bill was flawed:

The government has often said the bill will create a mandatory minimum of six months in jail for anyone who grows at least six marijuana plants for the purposes of trafficking. It's supposedly a measure targeting gangsters, but that, frankly, is nonsense. The legal definition of "trafficking" includes selling, giving, or offering any quantity, so we can be quite sure that most people who fall within the ambit of the law are not Hells Angels and wouldn't know one if they tripped over their big leather boots

But read the legislation. There is a second mandatory minimum of nine months in jail that applies under certain circumstances. One is when the marijuana plants are grown "on real property that belongs to a third party." So if you grow pot in a condo, it doesn't apply. But grow it in a rented apartment and it does. And there's no cut-off. Even a single plant would trigger the mandatory minimum.

The Conservatives blamed that oversight on the NDP. The government, however, is supposed be be responsible for its own legislation. Had there not been a forum to discuss it -- as limited as that forum was -- an already bad bill would be even worse.

Nevertheless, the Conservatives plan to continue limiting debate. They really despise the place we have set aside to talk about the issues.The problem with that policy is that it assumes infallibility. The last time I checked, we elected a Prime Minister, not a Pope.

The People They Refuse To See

2011-11-01T08:27:00.000-04:00

As Stephen Harper jets off to Cannes, trumpeting his government's economic performance, someone should follow him with a copy of the latest Food Banks Canada Report. That report, which was released today, contains some very disturbing numbers:

More than 851,000 individuals visited a food bank in March alone, a number that’s little changed from last year’s record and still 26 per cent above prerecession levels.

And the picture gets bleaker:

The findings reveal that recipients span the spectrum. Nearly 100,000 of them are first-time users and one in five actually has a job or has recently been employed. More than one in ten are immigrants or refugees – many of whom are highly educated, and usage is growing among seniors.

The monthly numbers are not an aberration. According to Craig Alexander, chief economist at the Toronto Dominion Bank, they reflect long term trends:

While the number of jobs lost in the recession has been recouped, many new positions aren’t as well-paid as the former ones. Wage growth has not kept pace with inflation. Globalization, outsourcing and technological changes have eliminated many middle-skilled, middle-income jobs. And displaced factory workers are having trouble re-entering the work force.

Worse still, the present government doesn't want to see these trends. It has worked hard to sweep the numbers under the rug:

The federal government no longer produces national welfare statistics, and not all provinces publish their social-assistance caseloads. Unlike the U.S., Statistics Canada doesn’t publish how many unemployed people run out of EI without finding work. And the agency’s data on incomes is published with a two-year lag – meaning the last national indicator on poverty rates is from 2009.

The gap between the poor and the rich is widening, a recent Conference Board of Canada paper found. It said income disparity has risen more rapidly in Canada than in most of its peer countries, including the United States, since the mid-1990s.

Mr. Harper won a majority claiming that, for Canadians, things were getting better. The Food Banks Report makes clear that his claim was cynically untrue. This government is allergic to facts. It's also allergic to the poor. It simply refuses to see them.

The Ultimate Irony

2011-10-31T09:41:00.000-04:00

I have long felt that modern conservatives lack a sense of irony. I can think of no credible explanation for this impediment. Perhaps it is genetic. But, as Paul Krugman points out in Monday's New York Times, whether they're aware of it or not, their irony is showing.

Krugman credits Barney Frank with a phrase which accurately describes them -- "weaponized Keynesians."

Right now the weaponized Keynesians are out in full force — which makes this a good time to see what’s really going on in debates over economic policy.

What’s bringing out the military big spenders is the approaching deadline for the so-called supercommittee to agree on a plan for deficit reduction. If no agreement is reached, this failure is supposed to trigger cuts in the defense budget.

What is truly fascinating is that the modern Republican Party, which holds that government spending is wasteful spending, is wholeheartedly in favour of spending for the military. Never mind that one of their own -- Dwight Eisenhower -- warned Americans of the danger of the military-industrial complex.

Why favour spending on guns and bombs rather than roads and bridges? Krugman writes that the answer lies in "a point made long ago by the Polish economist Michael Kalecki: to admit that the government can create jobs is to reduce the perceived importance of business confidence."

Republicans have argued all along that government inhibits business confidence -- and that the cure for the present malaise is an increase in business confidence. The problem, they say, is that confidence is in short supply. A dearth of demand is of no consequence.

If Republicans possessed a sense of irony, they would see the hypocrisy behind their position. But to compensate for that lack of irony, they have doubled down on outrage.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

2011-10-30T09:10:00.002-04:00

Chantal Hebert writes in today's Toronto Star that, while the growing list of NDP candidates "has all the makings of a decent future NDP cabinet, it has few of the trimmings that project strong leadership." However, after the party chooses a leader -- Gerry Caplan writes in The Globe -- the party's success will depend on how successfully he or she makes peace within the ranks:

The leadership process makes conflict almost inevitable and deeply divides the party. In politics, a party leader is a big deal. If you decide to run it’s because you’ve come to believe you’re the best person for the job. From there it’s a short hop, skip and jump to being convinced you’re the only person for the job, indeed the indispensable one. Soon you have not a soupcon of doubt that if anyone else won it would be a disaster of irreparable, epic proportions.

As the campaign goes on, and especially when the candidates are forced to meet repeatedly in debate – listening for the hundredth time to each other’s tedious gags, spin lines, talking points, personal stories, promises, banalities – their animosity, even contempt, for each other steadily grows. Only the potential need for a second-ballot deal prevents a public eruption. When the losers are forced to line up behind the victor after the final ballot, you can be sure they’ve been strip-searched for hidden weapons.

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Therefore, opportunism is the name of the game:

the bitter antagonists [are] obliged to work together or the winner choos[es] the loser as a lieutenant, as in Mulroney-Clark, Chrétien-Martin, JFK-LBJ, Obama-Clinton, Ignatieff-Rae. The high profile Romney-Perry fiasco has yet to play itself out of course, but it does seem likely one will punch the other’s lights out on national TV one night, a fitting climax indeed.

But if acrimony is the lasting legacy of the race -- as was the case with Mr. Chretien and Mr. Martin -- the party can destroy itself from within. Jack Layton wanted his legacy to be a country which could rise above its bitter partisan divisions. The race for the leadership of his party will demonstrate if those who wish to succeed him have taken that legacy to heart. The NDP's success will be depend on what kind of peacemaker it elects.

War Is Peace

2011-10-29T09:21:00.000-04:00

The Harper government has turned Von Clausewitz' dictum -- that war is "politics by other means" -- on its head. For this prime minister, politics is war. Last week, he moved to finally obliterate the long gun registry, records and all. The Canadian Wheat Board is next in his sights. Eight years ago, he demolished the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. And, in the last election, he almost did the same to the Liberal Party of Canada.

His next target, Lawrence Martin writes, is organized labour. Mr. Harper sees the NDP's ties to labour as its Achilles heal. And he's betting that union bashing wins votes:

A series of recent anti-labour moves by the Conservatives have been judged as politically popular. Lisa Raitt, the union-bashing Labour Minister, has racked up points in using heavy-handed tactics to prevent strikes by postal workers and Air Canada flight attendants.

In a sure signal of the government’s hard-line intent, she said last week that she was considering changing the Canada Labour Code so that the economy will be defined as an essential service. In that almost any strike could be said to affect the economy, such a move would give the government extraordinary arbitrary powers.

The Harper government has no intention of serving as a mediator between management and labour. It has made it clear that, in any negotiation, it sides with the bosses. And recent history is on the side of the bosses:

The strength of unions has declined significantly over the years. They accounted for 38 percent of the Canadian work force in the 1980s, but only about 30 percent now. Big labour supporters argue that just as unions have declined so has the middle class and so has the gap between rich and poor increased. It was the unions that were a major force in creating middle class prosperity, they say.

Mr. Harper says that his government stands up for the little man. But the growing income inequality of the Harper years belies that claim. Like all modern conservatives, Stephen Harper has declared war on the poor -- and anyone else he considers his enemy.

Some years ago, taking his cue from Sun Tzu, David Horowitz wrote a book titled The Art of Political War. But before Horowitz, George Orwell reminded us that Big Brother needed perpetual war -- with interchangeable enemies -- to successfully remain in power. That war was fought under three banners: War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery.

Sound familiar? It's time for the opposition parties -- all the opposition parties -- to get their act together.

And That Has Made All The Difference

2011-10-28T08:47:00.000-04:00

Paul Krugman has been arguing against the doctrine of "epansionary austerity" for sometime. That doctrine holds that, if governments make deep budget cuts, the economy will expand. It has become a theology among American Conservatives. Until yesterday, it was a doctrine which the leaders of the European Union trumpeted at every opportunity. And Stephen Harper has made it clear that he, too, worships at that altar.

Krugman revisits what has become the all too familiar rationale for taking an axe to government expenditures:

This doctrine was sold both with claims that there was no alternative — that both bailouts and spending cuts were necessary to satisfy financial markets — and with claims that fiscal austerity would actually create jobs. The idea was that spending cuts would make consumers and businesses more confident. And this confidence would supposedly stimulate private spending, more than offsetting the depressing effects of government cutbacks.

He then examines what has happened in the countries which have applied that medicine:

Greece has been pushed by its austerity measures into an ever-deepening slump — and that slump, not lack of effort on the part of the Greek government, was the reason a classified report to European leaders concluded last week that the existing program there was unworkable. Britain’s economy has stalled under the impact of austerity, and confidence from both businesses and consumers has slumped, not soared.

And then he turns to Iceland -- which three years ago was an economic basket case. Instead of following the conventional wisdom, Iceland made a different choice:

Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net. Where everyone else was fixated on trying to placate international investors, Iceland imposed temporary controls on the movement of capital to give itself room to maneuver.

Did Iceland fall into the abyss?

Iceland hasn’t avoided major economic damage or a significant drop in living standards. But it has managed to limit both the rise in unemployment and the suffering of the most vulnerable; the social safety net has survived intact, as has the basic decency of its society. “Things could have been a lot worse” may not be the most stirring of slogans, but when everyone expected utter disaster, it amounts to a policy triumph.

Yesterday, the Europeans decided that it was time for their banks to take a haircut. It will cost the masters of European finance fifty cents on the dollar. Merkel, Sarkozy et al. also significantly expanded their bailout fund. In the grip of economic disaster, they chose another path. It's not a novel solution. In fact, it's as old as John Maynard Keynes. But, as Robert Frost wrote, that choice -- in the end -- will "make all the difference."

A Pattern Is Emerging

2011-10-27T09:42:00.000-04:00

When Stephen Harper appointed Angelo Persichilli as his new Director of Communications, he raised eyebrows. Mr. Persichilli is bilingual in a country with two official languages. But Mr. Persichilli's two languages are English and Italian. All of which is well and good. But some of us have come to think that high public office in Canada requires fluency in both English and French.

Apparently, Stephen Harper does not agree. Last week he nominated two jurists for the Supreme Court of Canada -- one of whom, Michael J. Moldaver, does not speak French. Judge Moldaver, we're told, is an excellent jurist. I assume that is so. But why -- in a court which hears arguments in both languages -- not choose an eminently bilingual justice?

Yesterday, the prime minister proposed that Michael Ferguson become Canada's new auditor general. Mr. Ferguson has served as New Brunswick's chief auditor. He is unilingually English in Canada's only officially bilingual province. One assumes that Mr. Harper believes that what worked in Fredericton will work in Ottawa -- even though the job description requires fluency in English and French.

Harper and his party -- particularly the party which launched his political career -- has a record on official bilingualism. Perhaps they assume that Canadians have forgotten the federal election of 1997. In that year, the British newspaper, The Independent, carried a story which began with the following two paragraphs:

Vancouver - On his small square patch of Canada, surrounded by a nine-foot fence of English laurel, Reform Man is railing against the Frenchmen who run the bloody government, and dropping remarks about Chinese drivers.

"I admire a lot of those other cultures, but in their own country," said Sid Blanchett, a diesel engine mechanic. Mr Blanchett lives in north Vancouver, a hotly contested riding in the 2 June election. There are two signs outside his fence: one for the Reform Party, and another that says "No More Prime Ministers from Quebec". He's proud to be a racist and a redneck, he said, if that means defending his own culture, religion, and traditions.

The "No More Prime Ministers from Quebec" signs also bloomed like dandelions in my Ontario riding. Mr. Harper's recent appointments, his destruction of the gun registry, and his omnibus crime bill are all reminders that, despite the repackaging and the pictures with kittens, Harper's base is -- and always has been -- solidly redneck. If further proof is required, consider Rob Ford's recent abuse of Toronto Police Dispatchers.

These appointments are deliberate. A clear pattern is emerging. Ignorance is in the driver's seat.

The New Scapegoats

2011-10-26T08:47:00.000-04:00

Tom Walkom writes this morning that, when times get tough, people look for scapegoats:

In Germany after World War I, the scapegoats were Jews. In Canada during the slump of 1919-20, popular anger was taken out on Polish, Finnish, Russian and Ukrainian immigrants believed to be Bolshevik agitators. Many were rounded up and jailed without trial at the Kapuskasing internment camp in Northern Ontario.

But the Harper government isn't quite so openly xenophobic. Those it seeks to blame for our current economic malaise are unions:

This is the significance of its extraordinary intervention in two Air Canada labour disputes.

While it is common for governments to beat up on their own workers, it is most unusual for them to take sides in private sector disputes, particularly in a competitive area like air travel.

The government’s stated reason for intervention in the Air Canada disputes — that it was protecting the economy — was laughable. This was particularly true in its first intervention, against striking ticket agents.

That strike, which did not involve air crew, would not have stopped Air Canada from
flying..

It's a tactic which has been tried recently in Wisconsin and Ohio -- although it's interesting to note that, in Ohio, Governor John Kasich's attempt to destroy the state's public service unions is up for recall. And, according to Talking Points Memo, the tide is running heavily against Kasich:

The Quinnipiac poll showed that 56% of Ohioans think that SB 5, the new anti-union law passed by the Ohio Legislature and signed by Kasich, should be repealed, with 32% saying it should be kept. Independent voters favor repeal 52% to 33%, and even a little more than a third of Republicans want it scrapped. State residents may have that chance this November, as pro-union forces delivered more than five times the needed amount of signatures to force a ballot referendum.

All of this is immaterial to the Conservatives, of course. As Texans suggest that Harper's plan to build more prisons is fiscal folly, the government -- like the Titanic -- speeds ahead towards the iceberg. If it were really paying attention, the government might take a good look at Ohio -- because what goes around, comes around.

Scrooge's Children

2011-10-25T09:16:00.001-04:00

Last week, Brian Topp had the temerity to suggest that it was time to raise taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. Jim Flaherty, predictably, called that notion "dreamy." In the last federal election, none of the parties dared make such a suggestion. When Michael Ignatieff wondered aloud on the issue, everyone rained on his parade. But, Lawrence Martin writes this morning, things have changed:

The tax breaks of the affluent class are becoming an issue everywhere. Debts and deficits, which were accrued in good part because of ideologically inspired tax-cutting, have reached threatening levels. As the global downtown drags on, the ever-growing income gap between haves and have-nots is being showcased. Economic nostrums such as deregulation are increasingly being called into question.

More than that, there is the simple question of social justice, a phrase which is absent from the Conservatives' vocabulary. Instead they speak glowingly of their management of the nation's finances:

They trumpet the splendid economic fundamentals, many of which – an example being the regulation of the financial sector – were put in place by previous governments.

Historically, Canadians have accepted higher taxes as the cost of a just society. While interim leader Nycole Turmel does not have the gravitas to make the argument, there are many in the NDP caucus who do have the necessary skills. "In Mr. Topp, Thomas Mulcair, in Peggy Nash and others they have an impressive set of leadership candidates who are unflinching."

During the minority years, the opposition parties blinked continually, afraid to bring on an election. Now, while the Harperites use their new majority to ram through all kinds of regressive legislation, the opposition parties have the time to define this government. The Harper crew is the spawn of Ebeneezer Scrooge. It's about time someone had the courage to say so -- again and again.

When Mean Rules the Roost

2011-10-24T09:09:00.001-04:00

In today's Washington Post, E. J. Dionne reminds his readers what the Republican Party used to stand for:

The Grand Old Party instituted the Homestead Act and created land-grant colleges, the interstate highway system, student loans, the Pure Food and Drug Act and even a prescription drug benefit under Medicare.

It was Richard Nixon who supported laws establishing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In signing the OSHA bill, Nixon called it “one of the most important pieces of legislation, from the standpoint of 55 million people who will be covered by it, ever passed by the Congress of the United States, because it involves their lives.” Yes, government regulations save lives, a view now heretical in the GOP.

Now Republicans see government as the root of all evil. Beginning with Ronald Reagan, they have campaigned on the slogan, "Government is not the solution to the problem, it is the problem." And, therefore, the best way to kill -- or starve -- the beast is to cut taxes. But Reagan championed across the board tax cuts. These days, Republicans consistently favour tax cuts for the rich and -- in a new twist -- complain that the rest of society doesn't pay enough in taxes.

Dionne writes that, even if the less affluent don't pay income taxes, they "still shell out a significant share of their earnings in payroll, sales and (directly or through their rents) property taxes." Thus, the party of Lincoln has completely abandoned its historical base. They have forgotten his warning: "These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people."

Put simply: in today's Republican Party, mean rules the roost.

Is The West In Charge?

2011-10-23T09:27:00.000-04:00

John Ibbitson wrote in Friday's Globe and Mail that the ascension of the Harper government confirms a power shift which has been happening in this country for over two decades. "The West," he writes, "isn't just in. It's in charge."

What does this mean for our politics? A powerful government that prefers market-based approaches rather than regulation, as the Wheat Board bill shows. A greater emphasis on Asia-Pacific issues: Mr. Harper is travelling to Hawaii, Australia, Thailand and probably China – for the second time in three years – in the coming weeks. And a federal industrial strategy, to the extent there is one, that will focus more on broadening the base in Alberta and B.C., and less on scraping the rust off the Ontario manufacturing belt.

Certainly that is what the Harper government believes. But Mr. Ibbistson is given to overstatement. Despite his majority, the election results -- recently confirmed in provincial elections -- suggest that Stephen Harper is, and always has been, prime minister by default.

Like the George W. Bush Republicans, who squeaked into office in 2000, the Conservatives are interpreting their victory as an historic realignment of the country -- a realignment which was supported by 25% of Canadian voters. Canadians know who Mr. Harper is and they will tolerate him -- for awhile.

There is a recurring theme in Canadian newspapers -- nearly all of whom supported the prime minister in the last election. And that is that the Conservatives will be "in charge" for a long time. They would do well to remember Karl Rove's rosy predictions about a stable Republican majority.

Politics is simply too volatile these days to gloat over one's prospects. However, that has not stopped Mr. Ibbitson -- or Mr. Harper -- from doing so.

Suspicion Is The Prime Directive

2011-10-22T09:01:00.000-04:00

Jonathan Kay is not a noted critic of the Harper government. But, in Thursday's National Post, Kay takes aim at Bill C-10, the government's omnibus crime bill. The Conservatives won a majority by claiming they know how to prudently manage the nation's finances:

But Bill C-10 will actually cost billions in the form of police resources and new prisons. That's why cash-strapped American states - which have long played the populist game of lock-'em-up - are moving in the other direction. Reformers in Texas, in particular, think we're nuts for copying the policies that they're now trying to dismantle.

The Harperites claim that mandatory minimum sentences will put real deterrents into the system and better protect the public. They say this as crime rates drop, and as Canadians -- according to the Canadian Index of Well Being -- "report high levels of personal safety; the proportion feeling safe walking alone after dark increased from 86% in 1993 to 90% in 2004."

What. exactly, is going on? It's seems pretty clear that the Conservatives believe they represent the majority of Canadians. The last election put the lie to that delusion. Most Canadians did not vote for them. Nonetheless, if they are paranoid, the Conservatives claim that the majority of Canadians are paranoid.

Suspicion is their prime directive. No one is to be trusted. The government has taken on the personality of the man at the top. He and they live in a Nixonian world.

Mitt's Pursuit of Futility

2011-10-21T07:44:00.000-04:00

Mitt Romney's pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination has cost him a great deal -- a great deal of money, a great deal of time, and a great deal of integrity. At the last candidates' debate in Nevada, he was in everybody's sights. His health care plan -- which served as the model for Obamcare -- was pilloried. Mitt walked away from it.

He once favoured abortion. Now he condemns it. And, as Paul Krugman reports in Friday's New York Times, even though he once stood for environmental regulation, he now demands that those regulations be loosened.

Romney is simply getting in step with his party. Republicans are citing a study from the American Petroleum Institute which claims that removing restrictions on oil and gas extraction will create jobs:

If you take the study’s claims at face value, it offers little reason to believe that dirtier air and water can solve our current employment crisis. All the big numbers in the report are projections for late this decade. The report predicts fewer than 200,000 jobs next year, and fewer than 700,000 even by 2015.
You might want to compare these numbers with a couple of other numbers: the 14 million Americans currently unemployed, and the one million to two million jobs that independent estimates suggest the Obama plan would create, not in the distant future, but in 2012.

None of this is surprising. Republicans have been in the pocket of the energy lobby for a long time. What is surprising is Romney's about face on the issue. When he was governor of Massachusetts, he supported environmental controls on coal fired power plants. “I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people," he said.

During the last election cycle, John McCain waved the flag of Republican orthodoxy and saved his Senate seat. Perhaps Romney believes he's saving a spot for himself in the Oval Office. But, by trying to appease the Republican base, he has become a modern Sysiphus -- the personification of futility.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.