Federal Politics – Page 170

Canadians exit the Khyber Pass.

March 17, 2014 by Peter Lowry

To the lament of a single bagpiper, Canadians took leave of Afghanistan this past week. We have been aware of being involved since the winter of 2001 when then Defence Minister Art Eggleton admitted that there were Canadian troops fighting in Kandahar Province. For 12 years, Canadian military fought in a war that they could not win.

And that was why there were no politicians to honour the small cadre of Canadian military and RCMP who lowered the Canadian flag in Kandahar for the last time. There is no popularity for this war left in Canada. World events are passing Afghanistan by and only the Canadian Ambassador was there to take the flag .

The regret is that for every Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorist Canadian soldiers killed, more were recruited in the extremist madrasa schools of Pakistan. And Canadians killed or wounded left their blood soaking into the ground that still grows opium poppies for the world. Canada’s shame was not that we did not try—oh, how we tried—but we made no difference. Along with our NATO allies, Canadians searched fruitlessly for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. All the time, he was doing his evil while comfortably housed across the border in Pakistan.

At least Canadians made more friends than the British did in 1842 when some 16,000 British and Indians that had marched so bravely up the Khyber Pass were slaughtered coming back down the pass in their attempt to escape from Kabul. Afghanistan history tells us that Afghans have been feasting on foreign armies rations for thousands of years.

We can only hope the Afghan soldiers Canadians trained will live longer for that training. The schools we built will probably just deteriorate with time. Hopefully, the friendships Canadians made will live on in the oral history of the time.

But Canada’s history will give our uniformed men and women short shrift. By shutting down veteran’s support offices, trying to get rid of the problems with buy-outs and their lack of interest, the Conservative government has once again shown their ruthless edge.

As an aide worker left behind in Afghanistan noted on Tom Clark’s West Block show on Global, Sunday. The government is cutting up the armoured troop carriers for scrap. Canada is not coming back.

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But the Hair heads for the unknown in Ukraine.

March 16, 2014 by Peter Lowry

There seems to be no limits to what the Hair will do to win votes next year. Like penguins shoving one of their number into the sea to see if he gets eaten, he sent Foreign Minister John Baird to Ukraine first and now he can go. Whatever he thinks he is going to achieve there is very much open to question.

We have no idea who he is taking on that Airbus A310 besides the hairdresser. Maybe he will include some heavily armed members of the Canadian Military’s elite Joint Task Force 2 for protection. They might even be helpful when he gets back to Ottawa.

This is all part of an extended spring holiday in Europe. One of his stops is in Germany where someone might give him some insight into what is really happening in Crimea. Why he would still be curious after he has been in Ukraine is because there are well over a million Canadian voters of Ukranian extraction.

One of those Canadians of Ukrainian heritage is the Member of Parliament for Toronto-Centre, Chrystia Freeland. As an experienced journalist she has spent time writing and reporting on Ukraine, Freeland should have waited to fly to Ukraine with the Hair. Well, she would have if she had been a Conservative MP instead of a Liberal.

But while Freeland was able to stay with an uncle’s family in Kyiv, the Hair will just have to stay at the best hotel the city has to offer. Where Freeland would have been able to question people in Kyiv about what is really going on, the Hair will only hear what the current government wants him to hear.

Whether the current government of Ukraine set off the events in Crimea is something that the Hair is not going to hear in Kyiv. Maybe Chancellor Merkel in Germany can tell him the background. Germany would have fairly good intelligence in that area. Whether the knowledge would help the Hair win votes next year is questionable. He might not find it important.

Of all the visits in this trip, the Hair probably wishes he had the opportunity to drop in on Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Mr. Putin is busy tallying the take on his Olympics and adding territory to his Russian empire. Maybe a visit with Putin might be bad optics back home but the Hair would surely like to hear Vladimirovitch’s thoughts on getting around these inconvenient elections.

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Comments: We are told we still don’t get it.

March 15, 2014 by Peter Lowry

The argument continues. People seem to think that federalists will help Quebec Premier Pauline Marois if they involve themselves in the provincial election. If these federalists are from outside Quebec, that might be right. Politicians love to take on bogeymen from some other place that cannot fight back. It is the federalist who is also a Quebecer that has to stand up to the separatists.

This commentator is sick and tired of the mealy-mouthed defence of Canada from Quebec politicians. We do not need to wait for another referendum to learn if you like being a Canadian. There is no specific time set aside for you to say you love this country.

Enough said about this argument.

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The Hair is hands-off Quebec.

March 15, 2014 by Peter Lowry

The Globe and Mail reports the Hair is urging federal opposition leaders and premiers to adopt a policy of non-interference in the Quebec provincial election. As a staffer reported, the Prime Minister is obviously trying to rise above the fray and wants the federal side to speak with one voice. Good luck to him.

When a Quebecer recently complained to this writer that Anglophones have no understanding of Quebec politics, we assumed that the comment was directed at the Prime Minister. This anglo has been studying Quebec politics for many years and the worst advice we have ever heard is for federal politicians to have a policy of non-interference in Quebec elections.

If Canadians are so stupid as to allow Quebec to be a closed society, what the hell is the point of keeping Quebec in Canada? Someone has to point out that Premier Pauline Marois’ Charter of Values is nothing but bigotry. It is not acceptable under Quebec law or Canadian law. And to vote for the Pequistes is to vote for separation.

The reality is that Quebec is economically tied to the rest of Canada and we have always believed it is worth it. A bilingual Canada is a prize beyond measure. And nobody is going to be allowed to cut this country in half so that they can oppress their own people. And why we continue to allow language laws that are designed to chase the non-pur laine from the province is beyond understanding.

And how can we be so stupid as to allow the news media in Quebec to be so dominated by separatists that the people outside of the main cities are denied the truth. The electoral maps of Quebec provincial politics tell the propagandists’ story. Honest media would decimate support for the separatists.

And then there is the hypocrisy of New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair that makes him an ally of the Hair and Marois. He will, of course, stay away from comment on the Quebec election. It would cost him too many votes next year.

There is no question but the provincial Liberals in Quebec are much more right wing than their federal counterparts but this is a case where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They deserve full bench press support from the federal Liberals in Quebec. Let’s put an end now to the separatist plans for another referendum. We must defeat Marois. We must defeat her scurrilous Charter of Values. We must defeat her propagandist Péladeau.

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When Liberal infighting is out.

March 14, 2014 by Peter Lowry

Campaign co-chair for the federal Liberals in Ontario David MacNaughton has made his first blunder. When somebody gives you their authority to do a job, you have to do it right. When he told Liberal Christine Innes she cannot contest the nomination in Trinity-Spadina, it made a mockery of Justin Trudeau’s promise of open nominations. Whether MacNaughton was right or wrong is irrelevant. He moved a party problem into the public view and needlessly embarrassed the party leader.

MacNaughton walked into a party problem that has been simmering for more than 25 years. It was in the 1980s that overt organization of ethnic groups in ridings became the norm for nomination fights in Toronto rather than the exception. Experts at this type of organizational fight at the time were two young organizers named Joe Volpe and Tony Ianno. Tony Ianno subsequently organized his own nomination in Trinity-Spadina, losing to Dan Heap in 1988 and then winning in the Liberal sweep of 1993.

Since losing Trinty-Spadina to Olivia Chow in 2006, Tony Ianno has concentrated on making a living and left the open political activities to his wife—long-time Liberal Party activist Christine Innes. It was Christine who carried the Liberal banner in Trinity-Spadina in 2008 and 2011, losing both times. She has been actively campaigning for another try in the by-election that has to be called in Trinity-Spadina this year.

The problem of taking over ridings with ethnic organization had ended with Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s less than democratic solution. He simply imposed a system whereby the party leader had to approve all party candidates. He then proceeded to destroy the validity of his solution by appointing candidates when and where he wanted. It greatly weakened the Liberal Party and there was little strength or enthusiasm left in the ridings when Paul Martin took over the party.

Recognizing the problem, Justin Trudeau endeared himself to activist Liberals by declaring that he would not interfere in open nominations. MacNaughton has now made Trudeau a fool.

The one thing for sure is that MacNaughton does not have the on-the-ground experience in the party to involve himself in the Trinity-Spadina situation. It is a problem that only the party can solve. MacNaughton and the leader have to butt out.

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The Hair holidays in South Korea.

March 12, 2014 by Peter Lowry

With parliament taking spring break from Senate questions and questionable election changes, the Hair and the hairdresser are holidaying in South Korea. It is a welcome respite for the Hair and he is celebrating the occasion by signing a lopsided trade agreement with the South Koreans. It is not the best deal that the Hair could have got but the best on the trading block this week.

After the Hair’s disappointing experience in Brussels’ with the European Community on his last trip, he might have looked silly if he only signed another agreement to study the question of free trade. The Europeans have already figured out that they need to sign with the Americans before bothering with the Canadians.

As South Korea had already signed a trade pact with the United States two years ago, there were only crumbs left on the table for Canada. When Canada has to give up its small tariffs on Hyundai and Kia automobiles within some three years but the Koreans have about 13 years to reduce their tariffs on pork products, you wonder what the point is to the Hair’s free trade deals.

The problem is that while there is general agreement that the world has to move towards freer trade, why does Canada always have to get shafted? Maybe it started when Brian Mulroney pulled Canada’s professionals away from the table with the Americans and replaced them with politicians during the North American free trade negotiations, the stage was set. Canada has become the world’s free trade patsy.

It is like the new bridge to the U.S. at Detroit. The busiest port of entry for Canadian goods to the U.S. and Canada has to pay for both sides of the damn bridge. And then Obama’s budget goes to Congress forgetting to add the money for the customs plaza on the Detroit side. That is just another insult.

But the Hair is reaping the soured relations with the rest of the world. The incompetence and perpetual pandering for votes of Conservative politicians has driven Canada’s relations with the rest of the world into the sewer. Canada cannot even win votes to put the country back on the Security Council where it served so nobly in the past.

Meanwhile, at home, the Hair’s bitumen and resource-based economic strategies are destroying the country’s manufacturing base and dividing Canadians. Here we have such a beautiful country and he wants to ship bitumen to countries willing to destroy the world environment. The Hair has much to answer for and so does that guy Harper who wears the Hair.

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On protecting Canada’s democracy.

March 10, 2014 by Peter Lowry

The last serious attempt in Ontario at changing how people vote was brought forward by the McGuinty Liberal government in 2007. It was a foolish and ill-conceived attempt to put a foot in the door for a form of proportional voting. Ontario voters gave the idea the brush-off in the referendum that year. It lost by close to two to one.

Yet, to their credit, there are still people who keep pushing for change. It would certainly help their cause if they had more cogent arguments for their ideas. What we all agree on is that democracy is not perfect. It is just better than the alternatives. The same can be said for our method of electing people to office.

To blame the system of voting for lower electoral turnout is ignoring other problems. Take a hard look at our lazy news media and you might have another answer. The news media will probably blame the disinterested voter while the politicians will blame the leadership cult that puts the weight of the election on the parties’ leadership. The last person we should blame is the voter who throws up his or her hands because nobody really addresses the issues of concern.

If you really want change you have to temporarily forget your great idea and start with the process. The process of change in this country is horrendous. More capable and intelligent politicians have thrown up their hands and given up attempts at change than you would have thought. We have to really get back to basics. We need the equivalent of a constitutional conference. It would be like revisiting the Charlottetown Conference, the Quebec and London Conferences—only democratic. Those conferences that created this country were never democratic. They were elitist.

And if we created this constitutional conference or congress or parliament, we would then have to take a long time to ensure that Canadians understood what was going on. There can be no closed doors. No caucuses allowed. Canadians need to know the how and the why of every recommendation. They need time to digest, argue, learn and understand the ideas being put forward. Then they can vote in a referendum on the whole package or at least the parts they like.

AN ADDED NOTE

It was more than seven years ago that Babel-on-the-Bay researched voting methods. The objective was to have a better understanding of the various methods. The result of this research is the Democracy Papers. They are available in the Babel-on-the-Bay archives (listed on the right hand column) and seem to be a standard for researchers around the world. Day after day, year after year, there is a steady stream of readers accessing these archives. They are there for anyone who wants to read them.

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The bother of bewildered blogs.

March 8, 2014 by Peter Lowry

There are bloggers who care. Some will even suppress that overwhelming desire to write about themselves and write lovingly of their country. They are often concerned liberals and progressives. They worry that all political parties are travelling a road to sameness, to the right and to greed and to uncaring. The only advice you can give these disillusioned progressives is that there is still hope. Somewhere in that vast, growing pile of horse manure in Ottawa, there has to be a pony!

One of the better blog writers wrote the other day asking his fellow bloggers to “Define ‘Progressive’?” He claims that Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau have no right to the ‘Progressive’ label. He feels that “progressivism is about policies and platforms that advance quite focused objectives, goals.” The only advice that you can be given is that there is always hope. To give up, to resign to misery, to just be a curmudgeon and deny your striving is to deny your existence, your worth.

Sure, the stones and slurs of fellow Liberals are the unkindest cuts. You can handle that. You are bigger than that. The scoffing of conservatives is but a minor irritant. And where is the Waffle that once so brilliantly pricked the smugness of New Democrats? Yet those who stand firm on the left of the political spectrum can still stand proud, heads high, seeing the future and it will be ours. Not just because we care; because mankind has to care. It is for human survival on this home earth.

It was almost 50 years ago that this country put its faith in Pierre Trudeau for all the wrong reasons. And we did the best we could for our country when we supported him. Today, we are asking that people put their faith in Justin Trudeau for different reasons. He is not an ideologue. He is not an intellect. What he can be is a conduit for our beliefs, for our aspirations and a better future. He is a leader and he cares.

Together—Justin Trudeau, along with the progressives, left wingers, visionaries and people who care about our country and its environment have to make the commitment to build the coalition that will take on the challenges of the 21^st Century. We can take up the ‘Just Society’ of Pierre Trudeau and nurture the caring society that is Canada.

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Watch the Orange Wave wave goodbye.

March 7, 2014 by Peter Lowry

Quebec Premier Pauline Marois has made a critical error. When she called the Quebec election, she did not realize who her enemies really are. Her separatists have not just taken on a novice provincial Liberal Leader Philippe Couilard and an inconsequential center-right Coalition Avenir Québec led by François Legault. She had no idea that in her Quebec election she is challenging Captain Canada in the person of federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.

This is a fight that Justin Trudeau can win and he has everything to win by doing so. While the tradition in Canada is for federal politicians to stay away from direct participation in provincial election campaigns, it is the rest of Canada egging on the young Trudeau. And if he can “win his epaulets” as Quebecers say, he will have a strong leg up to win the federal election in 2015.

By involving himself in the Quebec election, Trudeau will be doing something that Prime Minister Harper and Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair cannot do: win in Quebec. It is hardly a secret that Quebecers despise Stephen Harper and the size of his Quebec caucus tells the story. He would cause nothing but trouble interfering in Quebec matters and the rest of Canada knows it.

Thomas Mulcair is a Quebecer as is Trudeau but that hardly helps him when he has to pander to the soft separatists of the moribund Bloc Québécois to keep his shaky New Democrat seats in Quebec. Mulcair needs to worry about his own federal seat in Quebec before he thinks about keeping any of the seats won by Jack Layton in 2011.

But Trudeau is free to challenge Pauline Marois and the separatists and their bigotry. She needs a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge against her use of religious symbols as a political weapon in the Supreme Court of Canada to create her “conditions for a referendum.” Marois has laid out her path and it is Trudeau that can stand in her way.

Trudeau’s argument against the Marois Charter of Values is the embarrassment for Quebec in the eyes of a more tolerant English-speaking Canada. And he can make that argument at a time when Quebecers are more worried about the economy than another foolish “never-endum” referendum.

Other than that, Trudeau does not even have to promote the provincial Liberals in the Quebec election. All he has to do is show the weaknesses of the Parti Québécois position. Quebecers can sort the rest out for themselves.

But Trudeau’s real audience is outside of Quebec. If he just keeps Marois to a minority, he will be a hero to the rest of Canada.

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Larry, Curly and Moe represent Canada?

March 5, 2014 by Peter Lowry

This is disgraceful. Canada’s foreign affairs seem to be in the hands of the Three Stooges. Recent events in Jerusalem, Kyiv and Hollywood appear to be making the point.

First of all, Prime Minister Harper leads an invasion of Israel. That is a small country and they hardly need more gawkers, self-serving politicians and rabbis cluttering the landscape. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu obviously wondered at what they wanted, it was low tourist season in Israel and “Bibi” appreciated the hotel room bookings and restaurant revenue. And, not many people are satisfied with having a bird sanctuary named for them. It is like the stand of trees, named after more than 50 rich American Jews who are unlikely to check up on “their own” forest.

But when the Harper sent Larry (in the person of Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird) on a fact-finding mission to Kyiv, Canada’s foreign relations hit a new low. Having John Baird wag his finger at Russian President Vladimir Putin is hardly about to produce “Peace in our time.”

What Baird also does not understand is that diplomacy does not include comparing Mr. Putin’s actions in Ukraine to Adolph Hitler’s actions in the Sudetenland. While there are similarities in the situation, Mr. Putin hardly wants to destroy all of his possible gains at the Olympic Games in Sochi and, after all, Ukraine might have sold him the Crimean Peninsula for much less than $52 billion.

It is Curly (in the person of Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford) parading around Los Angeles who is is performing as our Ambassador Plenipotentiary. He might be Prime Minister Harper’s fishing buddy but he is sure not the ideal person to send out to represent us even on Grade B late night television. While some street people and local characters around Hollywood were delighted with the opportunity to have their pictures taken with Toronto’s enigmatic mayor, they might find he has a short shelf life.

You can probably lay all the blame on Moe (in the person of Prime Minister Stephen Harper). Moe was always the schemer and trouble maker—whether things ended up as he intended, or not. He was always asserting his authority by bopping his colleagues. It was not something we encouraged our children to emulate but we could only laugh at those antics in the early days of television.

But the world has changed. Larry, Curly and Moe are dated and shop-worn. They sit on today’s remaindered shelf, marked down and with few takers. It seems so appropriate for Mr. Harper and his friends.

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