Federal Politics – Page 107

Where our New Democrats are headed?

March 9, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Now that Canada’s New Democratic Party has some thinking and articulate players running for the national leadership, we better pay some attention. The hope is that Canadians will find out where the former Co-operative Commonwealth Federation—the party of Tommy Douglas—is headed in the 21^st Century. The not so subtle nudging we are seeing today is towards something called Democratic Socialism.

But the problem is that few of us understand the term. The current interest in it was launched by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders during the run-up to the American Democratic National Convention of 2016. Bernie used the term to distinguish himself from the elitist control of the Democratic Party by people such as the Clintons. It was Bernie’s energy and enthusiasm that both helped and hindered Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Bernie was a pied piper to the younger Americans who agreed with the vision he presented and the excitement it built. Bernie countered the blandness of the Clinton campaign with ideas and proposals that made sense to the young who were facing an uncertain future once they completed university. America needed these new ideas.

Rhetorical argument abounded in the political science realm over the use of the Democratic Socialist label but who says the Senator did not have the right to establish his own interpretation.

While traditional socialists wanted the control of the means of production to be operated solely for the benefit of society, it would not work in modern society. In today’s Democratic Socialism, the corporations must be required to work for society in a socially responsible manner. The problem is that America’s out of control corporate giants are too bent on creating a tiered society of castes controlled by the one per cent.

What the New Democratic Party needs to do is to finish dumping the airy-fairy LEAP Manifesto and start to define a democratic socialism that could work in the 21^st Century. This could be a democratic socialism that recognizes the liberal emphasis on individual rights. The time has long gone when the individual had to submit to a dictatorship of the proletariat.

In Canada, we now have 14 people running for the leadership of the Conservative Party. There seems to be no interesting direction in their presentations. We can only hope that the four NDP leadership candidates now in the field can bring fresh thinking and new ideas to Canadians.

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And we thought Harper was an autocrat?

March 5, 2017 by Peter Lowry

It was Pierre Trudeau in 1970 who said “Just watch me,” and showed us the real power of the Prime Minister’s Office. Later it was Stephen Harper who showed us how a Prime Minister can abuse that power to use it to his own ends to keep his sheep-like party in power. And yet there is no one challenging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s complete control of the Liberal Party of Canada. He has converted what once was an open and democratic party into a top-down, one-man oligarchy.

The Liberal Party has become Justin Trudeau’s personal automated teller machine (ATM) for non-public funding of what Trudeau authorises. His party executive has become his police to ensure correct thinking in the party. The party organisation is a rubber stamp for those candidates for office he selects.

Toronto Star national affairs writer Chantal Hébert wrote the other day of her surprise at Trudeau’s interference in the Quebec electoral district nomination for the April 3 bye-election in Saint-Laurent. Frankly, many wonder what was the last truly open nomination meeting in Quebec after Trudeau’s own nomination by the party?

Since Stéphane Dion the former M.P. for Saint-Laurent won it in the last nine elections, it is considered greased rails for someone Justin Trudeau wants in his cabinet.

There is no guarantee though in John McCallum’s former Markham-Thornhill riding. It looked ridiculous when the party cut off the new member sign-ups retro-actively. It looked worse when a possible candidate was forced to quit the race. We can only assume there was an acclamation for the candidate from Trudeau’s office. Markham-Thornhill has interesting demographics and it will be the party that has the best ground game and with the correct ethnic balance running up to April 3 that could have the edge in the bye-election.

If Trudeau throws himself into that Toronto area bye-election during March, it will also be interesting to see what Toronto’s concerned environmentalists do to him to show up his hypocrisy. If they miss the opportunity, they are not likely to have another chance until the 2019 election.

And there will not be many Liberals who will have a chance to argue with Trudeau about his environmental betrayal at party gatherings. Policy discussions under his autocratic rule are rigidly regimented. As anyone can call themselves a Liberal, pay no membership fee, it will be the size of the donations to the party that will be noted.

It is very sad to see that a Liberal Party that Pierre Trudeau helped make a leader in promoting individual rights has been neutered by his eldest son.

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Asking the right people.

March 4, 2017 by Peter Lowry

The report from Ottawa is that the Liberal government wants Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) to advise politicians and Elections Canada on computer security. Just why these should be the people to ask is the important question?

And since the listening agency is no longer so secret, one can now ask that question. It was in the early days of World War II that Canada started to develop a lead in signals intelligence when its researchers were listening in to the short-wave conversations of the Nazi regime and Vichy France. Combined with the learning from the Hydra operation on signal propagation at a top- secret training camp on Lake Ontario just west of the Oshawa General Motors properties, Canada came out of the war a leader in radio technology.

That is why nobody really questions the CSE expertise in listening to worldwide communications. In an era of digital communications, they have also become very expert in using computers to help them do their job. Whether the organization would also be adept at preventing hacking or even have expert knowledge of the processes is a question that needs answering. Nor do we expect the other partners in what has been known as ECHELON or the ‘Five Eyes’ (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States) have more such expertise in house.

We need to remember that most hacking of major computer systems is done by insiders. They can walk out the front door of the organization with the information and nobody can track it on them. Whether inspired by greed or a grudge, all organizations are vulnerable. The supposed expertise in Moscow or Beijing in computer hacking seems more inspired by Hollywood thrillers than reality.

And hacking a properly distributed voting system in an election is highly unlikely. A hack attempt using bots (robotic programs) would be immediately tracked and eliminated. A hack using the proper codes could only hack one voter at a time. Many years ago, we called that ‘personation.’ Attempts at such hacking can be tracked and the perpetrators will find a very old law applies and they could go to jail. It is not worth it.

Secure, fast, efficient and inexpensive distributed government servers can handle national elections electronically with ease. You could vote from home, from a telephone, at work, at your local library at any government office or at the local riding returning office. Canada has the computer expertise and the political experience to do it today.

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Canada’s Conservative Conundrum.

March 3, 2017 by Peter Lowry

It is fascinating studying the 14 aspirants in the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. It is also hard to believe. Just where would any of these people lead the party? There is certainly no John George Diefenbaker in this baker’s dozen.

Yes, a baker’s dozen is really 12 plus one but it appears this race has a backfield of 12 and two that are at some point going to be left broken and bleeding on the stage because the others are fed up with them.

Whether Kellie Leitch or Kevin O’Leary survive is in the hands of the 12-person jury of their peers. The very fact that Leitch and O’Leary are the two best known candidates is not only frightening but why either of them thinks they can win is confusing. O’Leary lives in Boston, Massachusetts, does not speak French, knows nothing about the job of leader, has never been elected to anything and has nothing to contribute. And he can hardly use bigotry al a Trump because Leitch got there first.

Leitch is pathetic in her attempts to fuse the Trump bigotry with her big-eyed, little girl pose. As someone who has taught public speaking, it was painful to watch as much as we did of her recent and obviously heavily edited video trying to explain her “Canadian values” pitch to Conservatives. She even goes back to the Mike Harris “Common Sense Solution” in reaching for code words that appeal to the right-wing of her party.

Kellie Leitch’s only asset is that she is a sitting Member of Parliament. Her electoral district is in that swath of ridings across central Ontario where they have periodically tried to put a bounty on Liberals. She might be a frontrunner but will not grow much in the ballot counting.

What Leitch and O’Leary will have a hard time overcoming is the voting system the Conservatives will be using in May to determine their next leader. Each electoral district across Canada will be equal and the voters can indicate their second, third, fourth votes and so on. As nobody is the least bit likely to have 50 per cent plus one on the first few ballots, it really will be an election where the losers are the choosers.

But that will not prevent us to from producing a morning line for the punters who want to see the odds on the race before placing a bet. The good news-bad news is that there are lots of longshots for the gamblers.

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Ralph Goodale: The Great Obfuscator.

February 28, 2017 by Peter Lowry

One of the secrets of individual longevity in politics in Saskatchewan is that nobody in the province can tell a Conservative from a Liberal. This came to mind last weekend watching Global Television’s program The West Block. The new program host, Vassy Kapelos, asked Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale a couple questions and virtually turned the program over to him.

With more than 40 years in both federal and provincial politics, veteran Ralph Goodale is never at a loss for something to say. In fact, he is about the most boring politician in Canada.

What Vassy got was vintage Goodale. A question to him is an opportunity to take off on a flight of fancy. The only appreciation you can attain from the experience of listening is that you are thankful when he finishes. At one point Vassy looked like she was falling asleep. And he never really answered one of her questions.

When Prime Minister Trudeau first appointed Goodale, John McCallum and Stéphane Dion as the greybeard triumvirate of his cabinet, you could assume that the newbies in the cabinet would gain from the experience but have few chances to speak.

John McCallum will be forever known as the Canadian Minister of National Defence who was not aware of the role of Canada in the Dieppe Raid during the Second World War. To be fair though, he earned approbation for the fine job he did as Immigration Minister in the early Justin Trudeau cabinet on the Syrian refugee file. He might have crossed swords with Trudeau though when he urged restraint on higher numbers of refugees in the following year.

But for whatever reason, Minister McCallum has gone on to his reward as Ambassador to China.

It was not as easy to dump Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion. A cerebral friend of the environment, Dion might not have been the most willing of the cabinet to go along with Trudeau’s decision to approve the Kinder-Morgan pipeline expansion in B.C. Dion might have seen the various environmental trade-offs by Trudeau as betrayal.

Dion created an interesting problem for Trudeau when he at first turned up his nose at taking the ambassadorial role offered in Europe. Yet, who could resist the challenge of being ambassador to both Germany and the European Union simultaneously? Mind you, the German elections coming up later this year could end the German dominance of the EU and that would make the job more difficult.

And this is why Ralph Goodale’s role in cabinet has become more important. As the last guru and greybeard, right-wing influence and obfuscator, we will likely be seeing more of Goodale than we really want to.

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Of politicians and sleeping dogs.

February 22, 2017 by Peter Lowry

It is hard to believe that anyone would want former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to be brought out of retirement—even just to sing an Irish ballad! And for those of us who have always considered Mulroney the epitome of sleaze in Canadian politics, he should be right at home in the loving arms of his good friend Donald Trump.

Brian Mulroney has been constantly surprised throughout his life at how much he could achieve. The achievements were helped by a somewhat serious lack of scruples. From that time, in the early 1980s when he brought down his ‘friend’ Joe Clark, Mulroney built his dreams on the backs of those he climbed over to get to the top. When he finally read the portends and got out before the election debacle of 1993, he was the most reviled prime minister in Canadian history.

It is not that Brian Mulroney is not a pleasant person. If you are of any importance at all, he will cozy up to you. All he wants to know is what you can do for him. He was close pals with U.S. President Ronald Regan but nobody knows just how far Regan was lost to Alzheimer’s at the time.

He has been buddies with Donald Trump for the past 25 years. The Donald likes being buddy-buddy with a former prime minister and Brian seems to be most at home with billionaires. God forbid that he does not have his gated community in Florida to get away from those rotten Canadian winters.

Maybe it is Brian who told his friend Donald that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) needs some tweaking. After all, Brian gave away the store when his people negotiated the original deal. Canada has been bleeding away manufacturing jobs ever since.

But it is Mulroney’s contacts with the senior Republicans and their minions in Washington that has brought him out of retirement. These people are all reassuring the Canadians that President Trump will be Canada’s friend.

Mind you, come the day that Trump wakes with a belly-ache, all bets are off. He will strike out at the first thing he sees among the ‘fake’ news of the nation’s television networks.

And Brian Mulroney will be sleeping in at his Florida retreat. Can you not see the sign: do not disturb!

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Is the political middle just one?

February 21, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Nobody seems to be able to nail down this middle ground in politics. It is like the middle class that Justin Trudeau chased in the last federal election. Did Trudeau even suspect that they would add up to almost 40 per cent of the voters? And were they all centre-right voters or was there a mix of centre-left voters included?

But somewhere in Canada, there must be that one person who stands squarely in the middle of the political spectrum. Whomever this person might be, could it be another person next week?

And what does this political centre represent? Does it fight to maintain a fully funded Medicare or does it allow the encroachment of for-profit medicine for those who’s money allows them the right to jump the queue? Does this centre encompass environmental standards along with pipelines for tar sand’s bitumen? And how does a centrist government so blindly accept the European trade agreement that was negotiated by a right-wing government?

But does a right of centre government pay out tax money in the form of a child tax benefit? Is this not the same as we used to call a Baby Bonus? And why in the last election did the left-of-centre New Democrats insist on having balanced budgets? Why do these left, right and centrist parties not stay in place to help the voter make a decision?

Yet the truth is that a large part of the Liberal vote in the last federal election came from both the left and right. There was a clear desire across the political spectrum to end the Conservative Party of Canada oligarchy under Stephen Harper. It had run its term. It was tired and needed renewal. It was becoming too mean-spirited and defeated itself.

And we still have no idea whether Canadians expect the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau to rule from the right or the left. As long as the government keeps that ambiguity going, it might keep enough support from both sides to stay in power.

But how far is this government from the ideal of a centrist government? Is it protecting our individual rights and freedoms? Is it addressing the problems connected to our old and creaky constitution or is it wallpapering them? Are its elitist appointments to the Senate and the higher courts just tired solutions of an elitist right? We have chosen a leader but do we know where the hell he is going?

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Watch out, the bigots are out.

February 20, 2017 by Peter Lowry

The problem for the pundits today is the presence of bigots in the Conservative Party. They are not the majority. They are barely a faction. They exist. They hurt the cause. They are something of a wild card.

But some of the candidates for the Conservative Party leadership will cater to this faction. It hardly helps though when some Liberal MPs do not know the difference between bigotry and a deep-seated psychological disorder. Bigotry and Islamophobia might produce some of the same consequences but a motion in the House of Commons is not likely to help cure a phobia. A motion such as the one proposed should serve to put bigots on notice.

It is just that making this subject a matter of debate in the House is going to bring out the bigots who relish the argument. They want the exposure. They want the heated arguments. They are delighted to hear of the 50,000 (sic) communications claimed to be received by a Muslim M.P. It gives the bigots amongst us support.

A few years ago, we saw a predominantly Muslim area (Thorncliffe Park) in Toronto organized to protest against a revised sex education curriculum for schools. It was a clear indication of the power of Ontario Conservatives to organize and use that community for its political purposes. It was a warning.

That foolish ‘hijab’ debate in the last federal election was another example of political use of bigotry. Thomas Mulcair thought he could use the subject to help hold Quebec seats. He had already lost most of those seats, so he paid the price for the error in Ontario. Yet the argument helped the Conservatives hold some of their Quebec City area seats.

It was also in that election that M.P. Kellie Leitch got her start at a ‘barbaric cultural practices’ tip line. Along with then Conservative M.P. Chris Alexander, this announcement was roundly criticized as pandering to bigotry.

And yet, here are both those spokespeople for their party, running for its leadership. Chris Alexander had the disadvantage of losing his seat in the last election and that puts a serious crimp in his campaign. Not that Kellie Leitch is expected to do much better. Her strength will be concentrated in her first-choice ballots. She will be second choice of only a few.

But that is also what makes the federal Conservative race so hard to dope out. Conservative Party voters can indicate their preference in order. If many go past a third or fourth choice is up to them. It is what makes this race one that will be decided by the losers.

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More fallout from voting reform.

February 16, 2017 by Peter Lowry

This subject would have been ignored if another commentary on it had not run in the Washington Post. The writer accused the Canadian prime minister of looking “both incompetent and cynical in abandoning the promise of (voting) reform.” It would have become an international incident but we have reason to think the writer is Canadian.

There was also the national day of protest last Saturday organized by Fair Vote Canada. It looked like a couple dozen people turned out in Nathan Philips Square in Toronto with their signs saying Justin Trudeau let them down. There were similar efforts in a few other cities—everyone gets together with their homemade signs, their bluster and their tired arguments and then head for the nearest pub to get warm, quaff a few and argue some more.

It is hardly that Prime Minister Trudeau was being cavalier about the subject. He was obviously sincere—though wrong—when he said in the last election campaign that 2015 was the last election under first-past-the-post. He got the Fair Vote people excited and Canada’s New Democrats and Greens on side fast enough. It proved that he had not read the entrails on that election very well. He seemed to have no idea how well he was going to do.

And it was not as though he did not try to keep his word. He might not have given the file to the smartest member of his cabinet but she seemed to be doing as she was told. After a false start with a Liberal majority committee, he agreed to having a more balanced special committee created to investigate the best route to follow.

That committee certainly worked hard. They listened to so-called experts from across Canada and from selected countries. They even listened—grudgingly—to some non-expert citizens. They spent the summer of 2016 in cloisters in Ottawa doing their duty. They did marathon travelling around the country in the fall. And they filed their report.

They were insulted by Prime Minister Trudeau’s minister for not providing an answer. They did the best job they could. They reported that there is no perfect answer. They reported that Canadians were either divided on the issue, happy with first-past-the-post or possibly just not interested. It was obvious that a great deal more work needed to be done.

So what did anyone expect Prime Minister Trudeau to do? As a politician, he listened to his cabinet, his caucus and to parliament and to the citizens of his country. After due deliberation, he admitted that we will just have to use first-past-the-post again in the next election.

He is not the first politician to break a promise to the voters. He will not be the last. He admitted he made a boo-boo.

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Wasted hours in Washington.

February 14, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Did you think President Trump was going to slice and dice our prime minister for lunch the other day? First of all, Donald Trump seemed to like Justin Trudeau. He would think of Trudeau as a younger version of himself. This young guy was manor born. It is all so easy for him. He was polite and always seemed to say the right things.

If he even thought about it, Trump would seek Trudeau’s approval. More likely it was just some down time to stay out of trouble.

Whoever dreamed up that stunt of the meeting with the female business executives was lucky Trump did not recognize he had been had. It was an effective piece of manipulation.

It is also lucky the current U.S. President is no student of history. He is too young to remember when U.S. President Johnson grabbed Canadian Prime Minister Pearson by the lapels in the Oval Office and told him not to piss on his rug. He would not understand that informality in the relationship between the two countries.

And it is certainly not Trump’s style to put his arms around Trudeau and hug him as President Obama could. Nor would Trump understand President Ronald Regan and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney singing Irish ballads to each other on a stage in Quebec City.

Mind you this could be the reverse of John Kennedy’s relationship with Prime Minister Diefenbaker. Diefenbaker gave Kennedy the creeps.

The worst president-prime minister relationship between the two countries was President Richard Nixon and Justin Trudeau’s father. Nixon was reported to have called the elder Trudeau an asshole. Trudeau later responded that he had been called worse things by better people.

It will probably be a long time before Trudeau writes a memoir and admits how he felt about Trump. It will probably not be flattering.

It was probably just as well that Trudeau brought a lot of back-up from his cabinet. It would have been a waste of time for what Trudeau and Trump got out of that meeting.

Trump looked bored; Trudeau looked wary. Neither could get on to their normal way of doing things soon enough.

The obligatory invitation to Trump to come to Ottawa will be some time in future. Trump is certainly in no rush. He will not be getting an invitation to address Parliament.

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