tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1352634254515480392024-02-20T11:42:58.850-08:00Planète / Planet CanadaWhat political planet do you live on?
Sur quelle planète politique vivez-vous?Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-37571232819109434192013-01-16T11:10:00.000-08:002013-01-16T11:10:53.237-08:00The Hunger Chief and the GG: Why it makes sense
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<div class="Body1">
It's
tempting to get annoyed at the insistence of Chief Teresa Spence, now in her
second month of fasting on Victoria Island, that the Governor General be a full
participant in top-level meetings with Canada's Indigenous leaders.
Commentators of all stripes have duly noted that the GG can't get involved in
political discussions, because his role is strictly ceremonial. If Indigenous
leaders want meetings that will bring actual progress, therefore, David Johnston
- Canada's current Governor General - needs to be <i>absent</i>. Insisting on his presence seems somehow perverse, naive,
self-defeating; one might even say childish in its wrong-headed stubbornness -
but that would be an awkward reminder of the ideological underpinnings of
Indians' on-going subordinated legal status in Canada.</div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">And
it <i>is</i> easy to criticize Theresa
Spence; pundits have certainly not been shy about it. But she is actually
putting her health and her very life on the line. When have we ever seen such a
thing in Canada? And the thing is, Chief Spence has got it exactly right with
the Governor General. It is indeed a fact that in the ordinary course of
Canadian politics, the GG is and needs to be an apolitical figurehead. And
here's the rub: in the ordinary course of Canadian politics, nothing ever
changes for the better for Indigenous peoples (judicial decisions don't count,
being exactly that, <i>judicial</i>, rather
than a part of the small-p political process). So, what's needed is to step
outside of the ordinary course. How better to do that than to return to first
principles - in this case, the Canadian state's existence within the British
Crown's sovereignty?</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">With
regard to the Crown and its Number One representative in Canada (the GG), Prime
Minister Stephen Harper has sown the seeds of his own current troubles, and not
just once. First, in the so-called "coalition crisis" back in 2008,
he showed all Canadians that the Governor General actually matters, politically
and legally. Harper obtained from then-GG Michaelle Jean that she prorogue
Parliament in the face of his loss of the House of Commons' confidence, and
that is how he got to remain Prime Minister. On this occasion, the Crown's
sovereignty set itself squarely against the will of majority of the Canadian
people's elected representatives. According to at least one of his former
advisors, Harper was ready to appeal directly to Queen Elizabeth II if Jean was
to turn him down.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=135263425451548039#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><sup><span lang="FR"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="FR" style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: FR;">[1]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></sup></a><span lang="FR"> So much for Crown's
and the GG's apolitical role, especially in light of all that the Harper
government has done since 2008. </span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">Second,
the Prime Minister's Office pointedly corrected Jean on a later occasion after
she had said that she was Canada's head of state: Harper's people made it clear
that Canada's head of state is in fact Queen Elizabeth, and that the Governor
General is merely her representative. Technically, the PMO was correct, but
this was largely a distinction without a difference; the only reason for the
rebuke was to humiliate Jean. Still, this was another way for the government to
affirm the Crown's importance.</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">Third,
it has become clear through numerous initiatives that this government is
peculiarly infatuated with the monarchy. This extended, a year ago, to the
unprecedented and inaccurate branding of a high-profile meeting between top
federal officials and Indigenous representatives as a "Crown-First Nations
Gathering" (see my blog post about this on January 29th of last year).</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">So,
the Harper government likes to remind Canadians that we are all under the Crown's
authority. And it likes to wrap itself in the Crown's gravitas. Let's bring in
the Crown, then. But the constitutional fact remains that "the
Crown," in Canada, is first and last the Queen, represented federally by
the Governor General.</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">It
has now been thirty years since the federal government stepped away, in
rhetoric if nothing else, from its long-standing attempt at assimilating
Indigenous peoples. But the old policy has not actually been replaced, as
politicians (backed by the great majority of the population) can't be bothered
to deal seriously with Indigenous claims. That is why the only way forward,
sort-of, has been the courts. But this can only go so far: if there is to be
reconciliation, a new deal between Indigenous people and Canada, it can only
happen through political discussion. Given the general uselessness of
politicians in dealing with Indigenous claims, then, why shouldn't Indigenous
people turn to the Crown itself? Isn't this, in particular, a way to show that
the PM has no clothes?</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">Such
a strategy is inedeed especially relevant in the age of Harper. It has been
more than a little distressing to watch the <i>Idle
No More</i> movement develop, and Chief Spence's hunger strike add day upon
day, and week upon week, knowing that they are facing the government most
hostile to their aspirations in decades. The simple fact is that the Harper
government is not going to change its stripes: there is just no way that
Indigenous claims to sovereignty, to control over their territory and
development are going to get any traction with this government. The Prime
Minister did eventually agree to last Friday's meeting with Indigenous leaders,
but he did so in such a way as to deepen divisions among them, and to make it
impossible for Chief Spence to claim victory. As for the substance of the
meeting, there was never going to be any.</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">Calling
on the Governor General, which is to say "the Crown," to become
directly involved amounts to calling all politicians' 30-year old bluff. It
also says that talking to <i>this</i> Prime
Minister, in particular, is not going to get Indigenous people anywhere.</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div>
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<div id="ftn1">
<div class="Body1">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=135263425451548039#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><sup><span lang="FR"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="FR" style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: FR;">[1]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></sup></a><span lang="FR"> I have written about this
crisis in the 2010 and 2011 editions of <i>The
USA and Canada. Europa Regional Surveys of the World</i> (London, Routledge /
Taylor & Francis). Lawrence Martin
has written about the claim by Harper's former aide in his book, <i>Harperland. The Politics of Control</i>
(Toronto, Penguin, 2010).</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-26241727024345409692012-11-30T05:46:00.000-08:002012-11-30T05:46:26.512-08:00Bully Baird, Badass Canada
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<br />
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">What
can possibly be the motivation for John Baird to go to the United Nations
General Assembly and attack not only the Palestinian Authority but also the
General Assembly itself? Canada's Ambassador to the UN could easily have
registered the country's "no" vote - one of only nine to go against
the resolution granting Palestine the status of "non-member observer
state" - and be done with it. There were very few speeches on the
resolution, from either side.</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">Baird's
<a href="http://www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/speeches-discours/2012/11/29a.aspx?lang=eng&view=d" target="_blank">speech</a> focussed on the "unilateralism" of the Palestinian initiative
- unilateralism, so called, but backed by 138 members of the General Assembly
(with 41 abstentions). But this is precisely the problem, for the Minister: by
supporting the resolution, he argued, the Assembly turned its back on its
history of discouraging unilateralism in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Never mind that Israel acts unilaterally on a routine basis, setting back
whatever peace process had been agreed to (let's see: the continuing
development of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, the building of the
separation wall, etc.). Baird concluded: "As a result of this body's
utterly regrettable decision to abandon policy and principle, we will be
considering all available next steps." (Baird, Nov. 29, 2012)</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">"All
available next steps:" that's a pretty broad notion. Reflecting on Baird's
threat, Canadian media have pointed to the possibility of Canadian retaliation
against the Palestinian Authority; might they have been briefed, off the
record, by some Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT)
minions? But as the speech is as much a condemnation of the General Assembly as
of the Palestinians, "next steps" may well involve further attacks on
the United Nations. The Harper government is remarkably hostile the
"venerable organization" (Baird's ironic words), and its failure to
gain a seat on the Security Council last year cannot have mellowed its outlook.
A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Harper made a point of not showing up at the
opening session of the Assembly... while he was in New York anyway to receive
an award recognizing (among other things) his rock-hard support for Israel.</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span lang="FR">So,
what was the point of the Minister of Foreign Affairs making the trip to New
York to insult and generally antagonize the vast majority of Assembly members?
Obviously, Baird was not expecting to move anybody to his point of view.
Rather, he was going to make a lot of governments (not to mention people)
unhappy with Canada. What good can possibly come of this?</span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">It seems to me that the answer to this last
question is rather obvious: none. But I can't say that I have much of an answer
to the first, and main one. Just voting "no" would have made the
point, again, that the Harper government stands with Israel. After Baird's statements
supporting Israel's military offensive against Gaza over the last two weeks,
hardly anybody needed reminding but, whatever. But just voting "no"
was evidently not good enough. Giving </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">this</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"> speech at the General Assembly podium seems mostly like another salvo
in the Harper government's anti-UN campaign. And what does this do? Well, it
reaffirms its alliance with the American anti-UN hard right, which was well
represented among Mitt Romney's advisers and is rather disheartened right now.
The speech may be useful on this front, coming the day after the Canadian
government announced that it will follow the Obama administration's lead in
raising sharply fuel efficiency standards over the next decade. Then again,
it's perhaps only a matter of helping the world remember that Harper's Canada
is no longer mister-nice-guy. Don't be distracted by fuel emission standards.
Canada is badass.</span><!--EndFragment-->
Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-63637912931624491532012-04-19T07:34:00.000-07:002012-04-19T07:34:06.823-07:00While we’re at it, let’s blame the unions too<div class="MsoNormal">Oh boy, it wasn’t a one-off.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Over the past few days, Stephen Harper has been blaming Quebec for his own lack of enthusiasm regarding the Charter’s 30<sup>th</sup> anniversary (see my post from yesterday). Now, Treasury Board President Tony Clement is <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/handcuffed-tories-wont-reveal-full-details-of-cuts-till-next-spring/article2406714/?utm_medium=Newsletters&utm_source=Morning%20News%20Update&utm_type=text&utm_content=lsquo;Handcuffedrsquo;%20Tories%20wonrsquo;t%20reveal%20full%20details%20of%20cuts%20till%20next%20spring&utm_campaign=94385326">blaming the unions</a> for the government’s secretive ways with massive job cuts in the public sector. And he’s doing it while attending a conference on “open government” in Brazil!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">In last month’s budget, the government announced that it’s cutting 19 200 public service jobs over three years, but it won’t release sizeable chunks of information on what’s being cut until… spring 2013. Clement claims that he has no choice, but this is patently nonsense. And we already know (see the same G&M article linked above) that the initial plan by the bureaucracy was to release the information in May of this year; but this was overruled by Treasury Board, which instructed departments to withhold the data.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">So, here’s today summary: the government cuts jobs (unnecessarily, by the way) and hides the information; the minister blames the people being cut while claiming to be all about open government.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">It’s sick. Worse, there’s a method to their sickness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-47920915466220736232012-04-18T13:51:00.000-07:002012-04-18T13:51:56.153-07:00Blame Quebec, really: Harper and the Charter's anniversary<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">You have to admire the shamelessness. To hear Stephen Harper explain it, His government is not marking the 30<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms so as to avoid offending Quebecers. A nice thought, recognizing that the Quebec government still has not signed the patriated constitution, of which the Charter is a part, and that Quebecers are not pleased with this situation. But it is also a fact that in every poll dealing with the issue for at least the last twenty-five years, Quebecers have been saying that they like the Charter. So, mister Prime Minister, what gives?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">It’s no secret, really. Harper and his people hate the Charter for two reasons: first, because it’s a Liberal creation, which would be enough to earn it the hyper-partisan Conservatives’ enmity for ever; second and most importantly, because, for all its faults, it is intellectually and socially progressive (to a degree). Over the past thirty years, the Charter has been a key instrument in advancing the equality rights of women and of an impressive range of minorities: ethnic and racialized, sexual, disabled, linguistic, and I’m probably forgetting something (sorry). In Canada today, law and policy cannot be justified on the basis of such things as tradition, religious belief, or some arbitrary preference of the government of the day: they have to be grounded in the universalist languages of Reason and of human rights .<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">The list of things that social conservatives cannot do as a result of Charter jurisprudence (and legislative pre-clearance) is too long to go into; it is also well enough known - we’ll just let same-sex marriage and abortion rights stand for the lot. And although he tries hard to make non-social-conservative Canadians forget it, the fact is that Harper himself is very much a member of the social (and Christian) conservative movement. He is its member-in-chief, in fact, with close support from such senior cabinet ministers as Jim Flaherty (Finance), Jason Kenny (Foreign Affairs, after a long and important stint at Citizenship and Immigration) and Vic Toews (Public Safety), not to mention a gaggle of lesser... hmm... lights.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">The Charter (animated by claims-makers and the courts) is, in other words, one of the main obstacles standing in the way of this majority government’s conservative project for Canada. Honestly, it would be a bit much to expect Harper to celebrate its birthday. But he can’t very well own up to why he despises it: it would look cheap to complain that it’s the Liberals’ baby and, as he’s made himself electable by hiding in the social conservative closet for more than a decade, he’s not about to come out.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">So, what’s a Harper to do? Well, he can show his sensitivity to Quebecers’ feelings and aspirations by pointing to their unhappiness with the patriation: this will highlight his openness, reasonableness and moderation, perhaps make Quebecers feel bad for not supporting him more, imply how bad the Liberals were to create this situation in the first place, and deflect attention from his own (and his party’s) hostility to the damn piece of paper. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">But then let’s remember that an ultra-robust majority of Canadians (including Quebecers) like the Charter and the effect it has been having on the Canadian social contract. Let’s remember also that Harper’s own base is the only sizeable constituency anywhere in the country that dislikes it. So, while the median Canadian would likely approve of some sort of celebration, s/he is being told that there won’t be one because of... Quebec. Quebec, the eternal pain-in-the-ass that is sort-of standing aloof of Canada’s modern constitutional order, of which so many Canadians are proud (rightfully or not, is another story). Quebec, that is now standing in the way of acknowledging and celebrating how <i>rightful</i> Canadians are, thirty years on.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">Let’s summarize. Harper defers to Quebec’s sensibilities, which is to say that Harper blames Quebec. Harper the conciliator is Harper the divider. But, really, isn’t it a beautiful thing to see the PM show such solicitude for Quebecers’ feelings? It’s so beautiful, it’s scary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-80194216232621703882012-02-01T09:18:00.000-08:002012-02-02T11:38:46.796-08:00Flight from reality: a pension story<div class="MsoNoSpacing">We are getting used to the fact that the Harper government makes policy by ignoring reality. Its 2008 attempt cut sharply in government expenses, just as the global economic crisis was getting under way, was our first major taste of that propensity. Back then, the government was thwarted by an opposition that controlled the majority of seats in the House of Commons. The expensive omnibus crime bill, including an important prison-building programme, has been a government priority despite official statistics and unanimous expertise showing that crime - and violent crime especially – is on the decline; cabinet ministers have simply been telling us to ignore Statistics Canada data as untrustworthy. The insistence on purchasing super-expensive and seemingly badly flawed F-35 fighter jets is also a display of big-time willful blindness (and never mind the question of why Canada might need such equipment, even if it worked properly).</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">So, we should probably not be surprised by Stephen Harper & Co.’s latest flight from reality. In Davos last week, the Prime Minister suggested that the federal government’ Old Age Security (OAS) programme was unsustainable over the next couple of decades because of the aging of Canada’s baby boom-dominated population.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Common%20sense%20and%20the%20flight%20from%20reality.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a> While Harper’s Davos <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/26/major-changes-coming-to-canadas-pension-system-harper-says-in-davos-speech/">comments</a> were both dramatic and studiously vague, his staff and cabinet ministers made things clearer over the following days: Canada is facing a crisis, potentially of Greek proportions (dixit Peter Van Loan, government House Leader), if we do not reform something about the OAS and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) because expenses will explode over the “next generation” and there will be fewer workers to provide tax revenue. The solution being floated would push back the age of retirement from 65 to 67 years old.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">The problem for the government is that its own commissioned studies show that Canada’s public retirement programmes are healthy and will remain so through the baby boom’s retiring bulge. Over the past several days, Harper & Co. have simply been ignoring this, and keep repeating that a crisis is looming and reform must happen. Given this government’s well established stubbornness and its majority in the House, media analysts are already saying that, although the debate hasn’t even started, reform is a done deal and Canadians will have to learn to retire later.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Clearly, the disease – let’s call it Flight from Reality Syndrome (FFRS) – is well established in the Canadian government, and it goes far beyond these big-ticket policies to a large array of less visible initiatives. That would be bad enough. What’s worse for all of us is that FFRS seems to be spreading. While <i>The Globe and Mail</i> <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/research-belies-pms-warning-about-oas/article2320279/">reported</a> on Monday that the government’s OAS/CPP offensive ignores its own research and that a variety of independent experts also agree with the no-crisis analysis, the same paper is <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/pm-right-to-confront-need-for-pension-reform/article2321513/">editorializing</a> today that the “PM is right to confront the need for pension reform.” On the basis of common sense and the same bare-bones financial numbers flaunted by the government’s spinners, the editorial argues that Harper is “raising the tough challenges now,” and good for him. First, “changing demographics (are) obvious to the point of staring many of us in the face – each morning in the mirror” – thanks, editorial writer, for that bit of autobiography, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the sustainability of the system. Second, the cost of the OAS is set to almost triple (in nominal dollars) over the next twenty years – and this is supposed to be enough information for us to know that the system is going to crash; but not so fast, say the studies and other experts, as a lot of contextualising is needed, such that, in fact, we can conclude that the system is doing okay.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Then there is Andrew Coyne in <i>The National Post</i>, who <a href="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/30/andrew-coyne-stephen-harpers-long-overdue-talk-about-canadas-pension-crisis/">wrote</a> on Monday as if he were a retirement expert – lots of numbers, ratios, a fifty-year look back and another fifty forward – that there is a “pension crisis” looming and that doing nothing about it is the way of “madness.” But most of Coyne’s numbers are about the whole of Canada’s social programmes, and in the little bit of what he says specifically about the OAS, he cites the same spinned government numbers (let’s be explicit about those: $36 billion today, $108 billion in 2030).<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Common%20sense%20and%20the%20flight%20from%20reality.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span></a> Coyne ends up admitting that the OAS is not in fact such a big deal on its own. But </span>he writes that, in the context of the economics of Canada’s demography and social programmes, you need to start cutting somewhere, and “(r)eining in the costs of OAS is as good a place as any to start.”</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Why is it “as good a place as any,” one might ask? We get a cogent, and fully political answer in Frances Woolley’s <i>Globe and Mail</i> “Economy Lab” blog: she <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/frances-woolley/raising-the-retirement-age-consider-it-a-done-deal/article2319568/">wrote</a> yesterday that while the government will not save a whole lot of money from an OAS reform, “it’s not the absolute savings that matter, it’s the savings <i>relative to the political cost incurred</i>” (emphasis in the original). Her political calculus could be wrong<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Common%20sense%20and%20the%20flight%20from%20reality.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></a> but the point is, again, that the government is acting not out of its stated goal of averting a crisis (which is fictional), but for political reasons that have little to do with economic reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Why, though, am I saying that a <i>Globe</i> editorial and a Coyne column are worse for us than the government’s own case of FFRS? Surely, Harper & Co. are far more harmful than editorial musings, no matter how august? And of course they are. What’s scary is the evidence that FFRS is catching, and that the media are rather susceptible. Now, there’s nothing new in the media parroting government (and big-business) spin. But in the past, there has been a significant amount of media pushback when the Harper government stepped out of the reality-based community: the story of the crime bill vs. declining crime statistics is a good example of that.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Common%20sense%20and%20the%20flight%20from%20reality.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span></span></a> It could be that as the government fictions its way to slashing social programmes, economically conservative outlets and commentators are more likely to catch a bad case of FFRS. It’s small comfort that it was the same <i>Globe and Mail</i> that drew attention to the reality-based, government-commissioned reports that should have given its editorial board pause. <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Coyne, well, that’s another story. In any case, for the Harper government to succeed with its reality-free agenda, it needs the media to be at least weakened by and at best fully infected with FFRS. With the Davos-OAS story, it’s starting to look like at least some media are getting sick.</span></span></div><div><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Common%20sense%20and%20the%20flight%20from%20reality.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a> <span lang="EN-CA">Harper also noted that Canada’s science and R&D strategy, and associated productivity growth, are failing, and that his government will have to deal with that too. There would be a lot to say about this, as the Harper government has been cutting sharply in science expenditures over the last two years, and is set to slash much deeper in the context of its impending across-the-board cuts. The government’s general hostility to science and knowledge, again exhibited in this OAS story, does not augur well for how Harper plans to tackle the issue of a science and R&D strategy.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn2"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Common%20sense%20and%20the%20flight%20from%20reality.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span></a> <span lang="EN-CA">For a better documented and argued piece that can’t seem to quite make up its mind about the seriousness of the situation, see Mark Gollom <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/For%20a%20better%20documented%20piece%20that%20can%E2%80%99t%20seem%20to%20make%20up%20its%20mind%20about%20the%20seriousness%20of%20the%20situation,%20see%20Mark%20Gollom%20today%20on%20the%20CBC%20News%20website.">today</a> on the <i>CBC News</i> website.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn3"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Common%20sense%20and%20the%20flight%20from%20reality.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-CA"> The same point is made in Gollom’s piece referenced above, but see <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/27/messing-with-public-pensions-could-be-minefield-for-harper/">Derek Abma</a> in <i>The National Post</i> for an alternative perspective.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn4"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Common%20sense%20and%20the%20flight%20from%20reality.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-CA"> In <i>The Globe and Mail</i>, Kirk Makin <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadians-finally-getting-it-crime-is-on-the-decline/article2315266/?utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=Morning%20News%20Update&utm_type=text&utm_content=Canadians%20finally%20getting%20it:%20crime%20is%20on%20the%20decline&utm_campaign=92449119">wrote</a> last week that « Canadians (are) finally getting it : crime is on the decline », in light of a yearly poll showing a 9% increase, to 46% (not all that high, one would think, but improving), of Canadians believing that crime is going down. Considering the Harper offensive to the contrary, this is encouraging.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div>Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-39810590821687957042012-01-29T10:23:00.000-08:002012-01-29T10:23:57.619-08:00Harper's Crown<div class="MsoNoSpacing">Until this past week, the Harper government’s infatuation with Canada’s royal connection seemed mostly harmless, if a little creepy. The Queen’s portrait to be displayed prominently in all embassies, the insertion of the word “Royal” in the Canadian Air Force’s and Navy’s official designations: these initiatives were embarrassing in a minor key, at once laughable and cringe-making. They had the perhaps remote potential of increasing the disconnect between francophone Quebecers and anglophone Canadians, but it’s not as if the majority of the latter were either of English origin or all gung-ho for <i>Rule Britannia</i>: for the most part, nobody cares, and so be it. It was easy to believe that these royalisms didn’t matter.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">This all changed on Tuesday, January 24<sup>th</sup>, as the “Crown-First Nations Gathering” convened in Ottawa. This was a highly ritualised meeting between Prime Minister Harper and several of his cabinet ministers, on the one hand, and hundreds of Native chiefs led by the Assembly of First Nations’ National Chief, Shawn Atleo on the other. I’m not actually concerned with the meeting’s lack of substance, although much could be said about the on-going scandal of Canadian governments’ contempt for Indigenous peoples. There was and there remains a wide gulf between the government’s approach and that of the First Nations, in particular, and the “Gathering” changed nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">What I’m troubled by right now is the name that was given to the event and the way in which the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is framing the federal government’s role as that of “the Crown.” In the history of meetings between federal officials and First Nations, the use of this label is more than a little unusual. The opening lines of the PMO’s <i><a href="http://pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?category=3&featureId=6&pageId=49&id=4600">Outcome Statement</a></i> offer this context for the event: "Since first contact and the issuance of one of our founding constitutional documents, the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the evolving Crown - First Nations relationship has helped shape modern-dayCanada (sic). First Nations fought as allies of the Crown in the American Revolution (1775-1783), the War of 1812; and have continued their support ofCanadain (sic) every major conflict since. (...) In this year, the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 and with next year being the 250th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, it serves as an appropriate time to reinvigorate the Crown-First Nation relationships."</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Forget the poor writing, the non-existent copy-editing, the obsession with military conflict, and even the wildly incorrect linking of "first contact" with the 1763 Royal Proclamation. The insistent invocation of "the Crown" - not "Canada," not "the Canadian people" - tells us that there was nothing casual in the naming of the January 24th event as involving "the Crown."</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">But the federal cabinet <b><i>is not</i></b> “the Crown.” Neither is the Prime Minister – it’s bizarre to have to write this, but it seems apposite. So, what happened this week in Ottawa was emphatically not a meeting between “the Crown” and First Nations. Surely, Stephen Harper and his minions know this. How, then, should we understand that framing? First, it is now clear that these past months’ royalty-affirming moves were anything but weird little prime ministerial whims: they were early expressions of something much bigger, although it’s not yet clear what the royalist rhetoric will amount to.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Second, we might want to remember how Harper prorogued parliament in the Fall 2008 to avoid a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons, shortly after an election that had produced a hung parliament. The opposition parties had announced their intention of defeating the Conservatives in the House within days, and of asking the Governor General (GG) for the opportunity to form a new government. Instead, GG Michaëlle Jean acceded to Harper’s requested prorogation, allowing him to govern for several months without the support of the House – and indeed in the face of the opposition’s stated intention to bring him down. In acknowledging that he might not have obtained his request, Harper had noted that he would use all legal means to stay in power – but while some such means may be legal, they are not necessarily democratic. He didn’t say so, but Harper thereby called on the 17<sup>th</sup> century precedent of the absolutist king Charles 1<sup>st</sup>, who dismissed four parliaments and ruled for eleven years without recalling it rather than bend to its budgetary authority. Charles 1<sup>st</sup>’s absolute rule led to civil war, which was followed by the lasting compromise of a parliamentary monarchy. What would soon emerge as the democratic principle has thus been associated with parliament as counterweight to the Crown’s executive authority. In the British tradition, in other words, democracy has emerged and developed <b><i>against</i></b> the Crown.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Third, from his first days in office as a minority Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has not been shy about using his considerable discretionary power and making very little case of voices that oppose him and his government. This government has sought, often successfully, to curb democratic spaces within and outside parliament; it has ignored Supreme Court decisions that it finds inconvenient (eg. on the necessity of consultation with farmers on the future of the Canadian Wheat Board; on the obligation to consider alternative sentencing for aboriginals convicted of a crime); it is eliminating public financing of political parties, in a blatantly partisan move to cripple opposing parties, etc..<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Answering a reporter’s question on the weakened state of the other parties after the May 2011 election, in which 60% of voters had not backed the Conservatives, and the passing of NDP leader Jack Layton, Harper said that "the government is prepared to adapt and to listen to the Canadian population <b><i>when necessary</i></b>." (emphasis added)</span><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Harper's%20Crown.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: black;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #cfe2f3; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> </span></span>No doubt the Prime Minister thought himself magnanimous in saying so, which makes the statement all the more remarkable: how is it that a democratically elected government would care to listen to the people <i><b>only </b></i>"when necessary?" We might also ask what it is that will count as necessary, and who will decided that listening has indeed become necessary. The answer to the latter questions is painfully obvious: the Prime Minister will not think that listening is often necessary.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">It is in light of these features of Harper’s rule that his government’s increasing use of royal markers should be seen. While British monarchs have come to accept a much reduced role, “the Crown” as such has never been a democratic institution. It’s not a stretch, then, to suggest that Stephen Harper is keen to surround himself with the Crown’s aura so as to create an air of undisputed and indeed apolitical authority. Harper’s people evidently perceive a gravitas in “the Crown” that, once harnessed, would propel the government and the Prime Minister himself beyond politics, into the realm of sovereign statecraft. At this point, we may think of crossing the Channel to borrow from a French king the appropriately authoritarian motto for Stephen Harper: <i>L’État, c’est moi</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <!--[endif]--> <div id="ftn1"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cldenis/Bureau/Blog/Harper's%20Crown.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: FR-CA; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span lang="EN-CA"> Gloria Galloway, Layton’s death alters political landscape for Harper, in <i>The Globe and Mail</i>. August 25, 2011. </span><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/laytons-death-alters-political-landscape-for-harper/article2142562/"><span lang="EN-CA">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/laytons-death-alters-political-landscape-for-harper/article2142562/</span></a><span lang="EN-CA">. Accessed on August 25, 2011.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div><div><div id="ftn1"> </div></div>Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-76551957757054384502011-11-11T12:02:00.000-08:002011-11-11T12:02:12.616-08:00Les femmes autochtones et l'indifférence<div class="MsoNoSpacing">Les femmes autochtones sont assassinées, violées, kidnappées et généralement violentées à un rythme effarant au Canada. Au moins 582 ont disparu ou ont été assassinées depuis 30 ans, selon l’Association des femmes autochtones du Canada. Amnesty International a publié un rapport très documenté et critique en 2009. On s’indigne de temps en temps dans les média et la classe politique, et puis on passe à autre chose.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Il y avait un bon dossier d’Isabelle Hachey dans <i>La Presse</i> à ce sujet cette semaine (<a href="http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/201111/07/01-4465568-des-centaines-de-femmes-autochtones-tuees-dans-lombre.php?utm_categorieinterne=trafficdrivers&utm_contenuinterne=cyberpresse_B4_manchettes_231_accueil_POS4">http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/201111/07/01-4465568-des-centaines-de-femmes-autochtones-tuees-dans-lombre.php?utm_categorieinterne=trafficdrivers&utm_contenuinterne=cyberpresse_B4_manchettes_231_accueil_POS4</a>) (c’est de là que vient le chiffre ci-dessus). Le problème, c’est que Hachey n’avait rien de nouveau à nous apprendre. Elle nous a mis à jour sur la disparition en 2008 de deux jeunes filles de Kitigan Zibi, dans la Haute Gatineau, et sur la frustration de leurs proches. Elle nous a rappelés des cas classiques, au Manitoba et en Colombie Britannique. Elle a souligné le contraste surréaliste entre le cirque médiatique à l'occasion de la fuite de Kitigan Zibi d’un jeune lion, aussi en 2008 (que lui a rappelé le Chef Gilbert Whiteduck), d’une part, et l’indifférence dans laquelle baignent généralement les disparitions de femmes autochtones, d'autre part.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">On imagine qu’Isabelle Hachey a travaillé fort pour convaincre ses patrons de la laisser travailler sur le dossier, et ensuite de le publier en bonne place; elle mérite sans doute des félicitations pour ces efforts. Et paradoxalement, ses textes dans <i>La Presse</i> portent presque autant sur le silence et l’indifférence des média que sur les femmes autochtones elles-mêmes. Elle répète que ces femmes sont « assassinées depuis 30 ans… (d)ans l’indifférence des médias, de la police et de la population en général »; que « la réponse était toujours non, non et non » quand les familles demandaient aux média de parler de leurs filles et sœurs disparues; que « les médias ont largement ignoré la nouvelle » de l’assassinat de Tiffany Morrison, de Kaahnawake; que « presque personne n’est venu » à une conférence de presse à Kitigan Zibi.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Rien de nouveau, donc, dans <i>La Presse</i>. On n’apprend rien, strictement parlant. Alors pourquoi le dossier? Isabelle Hachey a l’air de trouver ça important, et peut-être quelqu’un d’autre aussi dans la salle de rédaction du journal. On peut voir le dossier comme un effort pour y mettre fin, à l’indifférence générale. On peut penser que cet effort ne peut sûrement pas faire de mal. Mais en fait, et encore paradoxalement, le dossier <i>peut</i> faire du mal – et il en fera s’il n’a pas de suites dans <i>La Presse</i> et si d’autres médias n’en prennent pas non plus acte. S’il est le début d’une campagne de presse pour faire la lumière sur ce scandale, il aura fait du bien. S’il n’est suivi par rien d’autre que le retour du silence et de l’indifférence médiatique, il n’aura servi qu’à donner un alibi à <i>La Presse</i> et à faire vendre des copies le 8 novembre. L'indifférence se nourrit de moments comme celui-ci: elle se donne bonne conscience en se scandalisant de l'horreur, et elle retourne à ses affaires.<o:p></o:p></div>Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-67471281469626553722011-11-04T13:45:00.000-07:002011-11-04T13:45:05.206-07:00Moderation and the slow boil<div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">If you’re the frog that’s been boiled slowly in a pot that started at room temperature, are you any less cooked than the one that was thrown in an already boiling pot? The story goes that, in fact, the other frog jumped out: of the two, you’re the only one that ends up dead and cooked. There is, in other words, nothing moderate about the goals of the smart cook who put you in tepid water and gradually turned up the heat: you <b><i>are</i></b> going to boil, baby!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">So, long-time CTV correspondent Craig Oliver was right this week when, in conversation with the CBC’s Anna Maria Tremonti of <i>The Current</i>, he burst out: Stephen Harper « is very determined to change the nature of the country, very determined. » (Nov. 1<sup>st</sup>, 2011) And there clearly is nothing moderate about that Harper goal. Contrast this with Andrew Cohen’s column of the same day that can’t seem to differentiate between <i>gradualism</i> and <i>moderation</i>: almost everything in this piece is on target, except for the headline that calls Harper’s majority “timid” and the last sentence that characterizes the Conservative government’s approach as “moderation with a message.” (see </span><span lang="FR"><a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Harper%2Btimid%2Bmajority/5635688/story.html"><span lang="EN-CA">http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Harper%2Btimid%2Bmajority/5635688/story.html</span></a></span><span lang="EN-CA">.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">I was being too nice to Cohen, just now. I’m not pleased, in fact, by his casual assents to Conservative militarism, crackdown on immigration/citizenship standards and goals, and rightward turns in the promotion of Canadian historical knowledge. Truth be told, Cohen’s timeline also deserves some tweaking – in particular the notion that the government’s monarchism “makes 2011 look like 1961.” He probably picked this ancient (!) year of 1961 more or less at random, figuring that 50 years into the past was long enough. In fact, you have to go back to before WWII to find the proper analogue, that is, before Keynesian economic policy and the development of the social state. Considering the current global economic crisis and this government’s continued neo-liberal preferences, you have to think that Harperism would be right at home in 1932: in the throes of global economic catastrophe, a Canadian government that can think of nothing better than giving market forces free rei(g)n and keeping public economic intervention to a minimum.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">In context, these are minor complaints. The thrust of Cohen’s piece is that the government aims to create a Conservative Canada, and is going about it “step by step, through soft, incremental change, a long march of patience and persistence, hoping your idea gains purchase over time. “ This is almost exactly right. I’d quibble with “soft” and I would add that if the ideas <i>don’t</i> “gain purchase over time,” well, too bad but the Canadian state will have changed anyway, bringing along society’s material relations. Three outcomes can ensue: after further delay, the ideas <i>will</i> gain purchase; or the Conservative party will be defeated and its policies will be rolled back; or the gap between the governed and the government will grow and harden… until something snaps.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">Cohen’s last sentence about the Harper government: “moderation with a message is their mantra.” But gradualism is not a synonym for moderation. Harper is not being timid; he’s being prudent and deliberate.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">I have been increasingly puzzled over the past couple of months by the absence of a big blow-up that would have prompted me to blog. It’s tempting to say that, having gained his majority, Harper has calmed down and finally succeeded in avoiding the impulsive rightward jerks that cost him so much in his years as a minority Prime Minister. But I’m not sure, now that I think about it, that it’s Harper who is acting differently. It might rather be that Conservative jolts are being absorbed differently by the opposition and the media (and me, among others): with no possibility of another election soon, the opposition doesn’t muster quite the same degree of indignation, perhaps out of resignation or of a sense that these things just don’t matter all that much; and the media can’t get quite as interested as when even small mistakes can cause the government to fall.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">There have been, clearly, a number of issues debated in and around Parliament that are relevant to this space’s concerns and that display the Conservative government’s radical colours at their shiny best . To name just a few: the government’s completely irrational crime bill that will force big expenses by the provinces and that is being fiercely resisted by a number of provincial governments, including (of course) Quebec’s; the elimination of the long-gun registry and the destruction of all its accumulated data, and the government’s refusal to allow provinces (including, of course and particularly, Quebec) to maintain access to those data; the nomination of a unilingual (English, of course) Supreme Court Justice and, this week, of an also English-only Auditor General; I’ll pass on such petty but significant things as the attack on Justin Trudeau’s insufficiently obedient Catholicism.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-CA">All that and more, and I haven’t blogged. Blame (or credit) part of it on the academic calendar, but really the main reason is that none of it has gotten me aggravated enough to start writing. I guess it’s time to pay more attention to the pot’s rising temperature. Andrew Cohen might want to jump out too, right about now, before he is fully cooked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-49911295752282451262011-08-31T14:45:00.000-07:002011-08-31T14:45:12.908-07:00Poll update: life after JackYesterday's <i>Huffington Post Canada</i> made a big deal of an obsolete opinion poll that indicated that the NDP might be weaker without Jack Layton (see my previous posting). Today, it's making a smaller deal (but still) of stronger NDP numbers in a poll done during the week of mourning after Layton's death. Who knows how robust these numbers are and how long they will hold but, as of now at least, they're not obsolete. Today's <i>HPC</i> article is at: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/31/ndp-support-surges-jack-layton-death_n_943377.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/31/ndp-support-surges-jack-layton-death_n_943377.html</a>.Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-4186849904024740532011-08-30T10:01:00.000-07:002011-08-30T10:01:12.524-07:00Harper in Quebec: the non-storyFor sheer insignificance, it's hard to beat the notion that Stephen Harper's popularity "jump(ed)" in Quebec after Nycole Turmel became the NDP's interim leader in July. And yet, this is what the <i>Huffington Post</i>'s Canadian homepage is trumpetting today, backed by an Eric Grenier article that "analyzes" the latest CROP opinion poll (at <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/30/layton-harper-quebec-leadership-crop-poll-numbers_n_940562.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/30/layton-harper-quebec-leadership-crop-poll-numbers_n_940562.html</a>).<br />
The poll was taken August 17 to 22, just before Layton's death. If you were CROP and were contracted to do a poll during that week (by Montreal's <i>La Presse</i> - whose own website is silent today on that poll,) you would do your job and ask your usual questions - which they did. In a June poll, Layton had scored 48% among Quebecers to Harper's 16% on the leadership question, as who would be "the best person to be Canada's prime minister." In mid-August, with the very sick Layton replaced by Turmel, Harper's leadership numbers were an underwhelming +5, to 21%. Turmel scored 11% and Bob Rae 10% (+6 vs June). Most of the change, in fact, went to a huge increase in "none of the above" and "don't know," which together went up by 23%.<br />
On the basis of the difference between the two polls, Grenier writes that "it is clear that the NDP's position in the province could be fragile." It's tempting to answer "Duh!" Since the very night of the election, commentators have harped on the possibility that the party's Quebec gains could be a one-hit wonder, tied to Layton's personal popularity. In any case, with little tradition in the province, heavy responsibilities in Ottawa, and complicated internal dynamics, the road ahead was bound to be difficult for the NDP. With Layton gone, things will be exponentially more challenging.<br />
But there are two key points against Grenier's article and (even more so) against the <i>HPC</i> frontpage. First, the numbers racked up by an interim leader, whether Turmel or Rae, against Harper are pretty much meaningless: it is when a new, "permanent" leader is chosen that we will need to pay attention to "the best person to be Canada's prime minister" numbers. It makes no sense to assess the NDP's prospects in Quebec, or anywhere else in the country, on the basis of a Turmel vs Harper confrontation.<br />
Second, even more importantly, this particular mid-August poll was rendered severely obsolete within hours of being completed, as a result of Layton's death. It's a cliché (!) to say that a poll is a snapshot of the electorate's feelings, but the usefulness of polls is that, on most days, the political world is not turned upside down. On most days, what was true on Monday remains the case on Tuesday; and may well remain true for a number of weeks or even months. But once in a while, something happens suddenly that changes the whole landscape. "Jack"'s death on August 22 was one such event.<br />
You can't blame CROP for having done its job, but you have to wonder what in the world is going on at <i>Huffington Post Canada. </i>There has been a steady stream of media stories ever since May 2nd, that attempt to plant in our heads the notion that the NDP is not up to the job, that it's a flash-in-the-pan, and now that it may not even survive Layton. But these have tended to come from conservative sources such as <i>The National Post</i>, <i>Sun Media</i> outlets, and <i>The Globe and Mail</i>. But <i>Huffington Post</i> is supposed to be left-leaning. So, what's up with them?<br />
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Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-65077525124656821792011-08-26T10:41:00.000-07:002011-08-26T10:41:30.995-07:00When Jack became bigger than politicsIt is beyond remarkable how Canadians are reacting to Jack Layton's death. The state funeral, the orange CN Tower, the orange Niagara Falls... These are the most visible, institutional expressions of a country-wide explosion of grief and affection, the scale of which could hardly have been expected. There is a way in which the outpouring of emotion is feeding on itself: the more people see what a big deal Layton's passing is for their friends and neighbours, and especially for the every-wo/man shown on T.V., the more they pay attention to the story, and to the media's portrayal of the man who wrote them this farewell letter - "... <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world." </em><span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(The letter is reproduced in full at </span></span><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/laytons-last-words-love-is-better-than-anger-hope-is-better-than-fear/article2137381/">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/laytons-last-words-love-is-better-than-anger-hope-is-better-than-fear/article2137381/</a>. This last paragraph is circling the world on social media, and is finding its way on t-shirts.)<br />
Jack Layton used to be well-liked, but for most of his political life he was only a minority's favorite. He had, after all, been the NDP's leader since 2003, and was making moderate, incremental progress from one election to the next. But he was not seen as fundamentally different from other politicians. Then, this year's electoral campaign happened and Layton caught fire. The man himself did not change for the occasion, really. Rather, <i>people responded</i> differently to "Jack." They started <i>seeing </i>"le bon Jack." What they started seeing, by the way, is beautifully rendered by Susan Riley in an <i>Ottawa Citizen</i> column at <a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/Layton+left+army+political+orphans/5309953/story.html">http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/Layton+left+army+political+orphans/5309953/story.html</a>. But Jack Layton, the good man, happy, optimistic, caring, sensible, thoughtful, etc. had been there all along - or at least for quite a while. But why didn't people see it? What happened now <i>to make them see</i>?<br />
I want to suggest that, broadly, two factors were at play: political circumstances and the way in which Layton was seen to handle his prostate cancer and repaired hip. But we must first remember that the NDP's performance in 2011 was bifurcated: in English-speaking Canada, incremental improvements continued, as the party went from 36 seats to 44, its percentage of the vote rising strongly from 20.3% to 28.2%; and in Quebec, where Layton led something of a revolution, all but eliminating the Bloc Québécois, going from 1 to 59 seats, from 12.2% to 42.9% of the vote. In other words, Quebecers <i>saw </i>"Jack" during the campaign and responded. Other Canadians started to take notice as a result of Layton's Quebec performance and then, in quick succession, they were shocked to see and hear a desperately sick Jack in late July, followed less than a month later by news of his passing, and then hours after that, the letter. The response to Layton's death that we are seeing now was built out of that series of shocks.<br />
The question needs to be rephrased: how is it that Quebecers started to <i>see </i>"Jack" during the electoral campaign? So, two factors. Let's deal first, quickly, with political circumstances, two components of which can be distinguished. First, what political scientists refer to the "political opportunity structure;" in other words, what the alternatives were to Layton and the NDP. In Quebec, the landscape was dismal: the Conservatives were not an option, Ignatieff disappointed while the Liberal brand remained damaged, and the Bloc Québécois ran a terrible campaign. Ducepped seemed grumpy, Harper was his usual sourpuss, Ignatieff failed to connect - and there was happy, positive, optimistic Layton. A second political component was also important, that added substance to Layton's sunny disposition: over the previous few years, the NDP had made a concerted effort to attract Quebecers by emphasizing its Quebec-friendly policies, and Layton never backtracked from those. As a result, if Quebecers could only start to pay attention, Layton and the NDP had something attractive to offer while pretty much no-one else did.<br />
Ironically, and in the end tragically, it is Layton's failing health that made people sit up. Or, rather, it is the way he handled himself in relation to both his prostate cancer and to his repaired hip that transformed - indeed, <i>transfigured </i>- his public image.<br />
Layton had always been a happy politician, "on" at all times; he liked politics, a lot. And for a long time, this wasn't helping him a whole lot: many people felt that he liked politics just too much. I happened to be his (and Olivia Chow's) neighbour across the hall in a housing co-op, around 1986-1988. Layton was a municipal councillor and Chow was beginning her career as school councillor. He was already a local NDP star, and very much the same happy Jack that he remained to the end. He was popular, his supporters loved him, but he was also seen by many as too much the politician, power-hungry, ready for any stunt that would help his career. He softened a number of edges over time, but Layton was always Layton. And after all, if politics is the dirty business that many people believe it to be, how can you trust someone who likes it so much? Layton was <i>in </i>politics, and was perceived through the distaste that so many people have for that career and enterprise. While he was likeable enough, the problem was that <i>he was a politician</i>.<br />
But then Jack came through cancer, the iconic killer of our death-denying times, universally feared, indifferent to privilege. His (unrelated?) hip surgery then left him with the cane that became the visual marker of his health issues. It is the combination of his smile, energy, optimism and the cane that, in the circumstances, transfigured Jack Layton - first in the eyes of Quebecers, and then for people across Canada. Layton was no longer merely a politician: here was someone who had just fought for his life, was still weakened, and who was carrying a message of hope, love and optimism. "Jack" transcended politics. Canadians now love him, evidently. They love him for all those things in his character, but also for somehow being bigger than that nasty game that so few people have a taste for. Jack became bigger than politics.<br />
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Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-36440041403348763492011-08-19T09:56:00.000-07:002011-08-19T09:56:59.118-07:00Pandering and democracy when "numbers are implacable"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">With the Turmel affair behind us, for now at least, the first substantive Quebec-Canada clash in our new post-Bloc Québécois dispensation is set to begin: the Harper government will add House of Commons seats for Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, while maintaining the number of Quebec seats constant. As Susan Riley writes in <i>The Ottawa Citizen</i>: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">"This overdue rebalancing will lessen Quebec's clout, not as a hostile strategy, but as the byproduct of simple math. Quebec now has 24 per cent of the seats in the 308-member Commons, and 23 per cent of the population. Because its population has not been growing as quickly as that of other provinces, its influence should, inevitably, wane. Numbers are implacable." (<a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Scratching+wounds+Quebec/5276019/story.html#ixzz1VUQhuutX" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; border-width: initial; color: #003399; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Scratching+wounds+Quebec/5276019/story.html#ixzz1VUQhuutX</a>) But the NDP is resisting this rebalancing, which leads <i>The National Post</i>'s Lorne Gunter (among others) to denounce the New Democrats as - you guessed it - "pandering" to Quebec and undermining democracy (</span><a href="http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Putting%2Bpandering%2BQuebec%2Bahead%2Bdemocracy/5275650/story.html">http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Putting%2Bpandering%2BQuebec%2Bahead%2Bdemocracy/5275650/story.html</a>).</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There is a real issue here, which won't go away by ignoring it or by calling it "old-style thinking" (a reader comment on <i>The Toronto Star</i> website, about my article on the Turmel affair). The House of Commons is an institution that is supposed to obey "Representation by population" criteria, and so it makes sense to reduce Quebec's relative weight as its population becomes relatively smaller. But if Quebec is a nation (or, as the House of Commons put it a few years ago, Quebecers form a nation) within Canada, it would also make sense for this characteristic to find its institutional expression(s) in the country's political-constitutional system. Canadian democracy as we know it is a complex multi-institutional construct, in which the federal government, the House and the Senate, the Supreme Court, and provincial institutions interact according to their own logics. (On top of this, civil society organizations and citizen involvement do much to breathe life in the institutions.)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The question is this: as the House of Commons rebalances Quebec downwards, how is Quebec's distinctiveness as a the national home of Quebecers to be expressed and protected in the system as a whole? This is essentially the question that the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords tried to answer a generation ago. Their failure, combined with the result of the 1995 referendum, put the question in abeyance. And it could stay there as long as no-one fiddled too much with the existing balance within and among the institutions. But, as Riley writes, "numbers are implacable:" the House eventually has to be rebalanced.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(Ironically, Paul Martin's prime-ministership was destroyed in its infancy by the sponsorship scandal because he felt it necessary to recall Parliament in early 2006 in order to pass re-districting legislation that had been put in limbo by Prime Minister Chrétien's unexpected prorogation in late 2005. Chrétien wanted to pre-empt the release of the Auditor General's report to Parliament until after he retired. Martin thought that, for the sake of democracy, re-districting was necessary before an election - in which he was hugely favorite to win a majority - and so he re-opened Parliament. This allowed the presentation of the AG's report, and the rest is history.)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Quebecers will not accept that their province's "influence should, inevitably, wane" (Riley). "Influence," however, is the wrong word: Quebecers don't care very much how Manitoba or British Columbia are governed, they don't seek to influence <i>that</i>. What they will not accept is that </span>the representation of their interests, in federal institutions, be eroded. Hence, in the short term, the NDP's attempt to forestall the change in the House. But this cannot be a long-term solution. The House is properly a "rep-by-pop" institution, and therefore the continuing expression of Quebec's distinctiveness must be found elsewhere. This means some sort of constitutional change. And if Canadians outside Quebec cannot countenance this, if they - largely through their politicians and media pundits - can only denounce "pandering," they will guarantee the return of the sovereigntist movement, with a vengeance.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I know that many people hear this kind of talk as a threat: do what we want, or else... And I understand how it can sound like this. But it is a fundamental misunderstanding of Quebec's perspective. Quebecers know, as a basic fact of their political life, that they want to have the means to express, protect, and enhance their nationhood. And they are open to a variety of means to achieve this goal. So far, the majority believes that it can be accomplished within Canada. But if it comes to believe that it cannot, well, all bets are off. This is not a threat to Canada. It is, in fact, a remarkably open way of dealing with something that can become an existential threat: how do we ensure our continued existence as a people (a nation, dixit the House of Commons), given our small population - a population that is getting proportionately smaller every day?</span>Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-3726403519435931912011-08-17T08:29:00.000-07:002011-08-17T08:29:51.643-07:00Truth in "Royal" advertisingNewsflash: Canada is a monarchy! As the Harper government re-establishes the <i>Royal </i>Canadian Air Force and the <i>Royal </i>Canadian Navy and explains the move in terms of celebrating the country's and its military's proud history, it's almost easy to forget that, <i>right now</i>, Canada is under Crown sovereignty. It's not for nothing, after all, that our naval ships have continued to bear the designation "Her Majesty's Canadian Ship" through the past decades of unified Forces and of the "Naval Command." But it's easy to not think about what the letters mean in the HMCS abbreviation.<br />
To the extent that people get excited about the "Royal" change, you would think that the political battle lines would be easy to predict: the broadly republican Canadian Left and the Québécois nationalists would be against, while more conservative sorts would applaud - or at the most not care very much. The change is also bound to be popular within the (now ex-)Forces and among veterans who have been clamoring for this ever since the late 1960s. But then you get Jack Granatstein, of all people, to rail against the return of the RCAF and the RCN as "abject colonialism" (see <i>The Globe and Mail</i>'s advertising of his live online discusion of the issue at <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/royal-ruckus-is-military-name-change-worthwhile/article2132133/">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/royal-ruckus-is-military-name-change-worthwhile/article2132133/</a>).<br />
Granatstein is conservative, pro-military, and a historian<i>.</i> Given that trifecta, what's not to like about the return to the military's "Royal" past? Ah, but Granatstein is also a Canadian nationalist, who came of professional age precisely in the years of royal erasure, starting in the late 1960s. Canadian nationalism is very good at forgetting inconvenient realities - starting with the unsettled three-way relation between Quebec, indigenous peoples, and Canada. The country's continuing ties to British monarchy are also something that we like to forget about, except when (supposedly) cute young royals come to visit our rugged northern shores. As this summer's visit by William and Catherine showed abundantly, it was just lovely to be able to claim them as, somehow, our own - and we did fly them around on soon-to-be-RCAF-redesignated planes.<br />
So, Granatstein's apparent pique points to a tension in the politics of the Harper government's celebration of our past and its royalist particulars. Yes, it aims to boost conservative strands of Canadian nationalism, and it might succeed at least to some extent. In this sense, it is oriented not to the past at all, but rather to a particular <i>Canada of the future</i>: the conservative Canada that Harper aims to make, bit by stealthy bit. But, given the diverse origins of contemporary Canada's population, Quebec's continuing indifference (at the least) to Britain's monarchy, and decades of trying to forget our (also) continuing ties to the Crown, there exists the possibility of some republican backlash... even from some unexpected quarters.<br />
Myself, I might be a little bit perverse but I'm all for the "Royal" change - under the heading of truth in advertising. I'm all about looking at the Canada of <i>now</i>: let's face the actually existing facts of "abject colonialism" in our daily and political-constitutional lives, and we'll see what happens.Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-30606727549637966122011-08-11T06:48:00.000-07:002011-08-11T06:48:04.422-07:00Canada, giver of financial lessons?"Been there, done that:" this is how some Canadians - including Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaking from Brazil - reacted to Standard & Poor's downgrading of the United States credit rating from AAA to AA+. Canada's rating was similarly lowered in the early 1990s, which opens the door to the superficial comparison: we were in trouble, we got our house in order, and now that the U.S. and Europe are in similar trouble (witness the rating drop), we are a model.<div>The quote above is from <i>The Globe and Mail</i>'s Barry McKenna at <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/barrie-mckenna/to-follow-canadas-example-us-tax-reform-essential/article2122284/">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/barrie-mckenna/to-follow-canadas-example-us-tax-reform-essential/article2122284/</a>. While McKenna offers a reasoned analysis of why the U.S. government needs to raise taxes in order to attack its deficit, he is also playing to the absurd notion that Canada's experience in the 1990s can teach the world something, at this juncture, about exit strategies and sound public finances.</div><div>In the early 1990s, the federal government's accumulated debt and annual budget deficits were high, and its credit rating was indeed downgraded. But the red ink was a result of two decades of slow economic growth outpaced by accumulating commitments of the welfare state. Many other developed countries were in a similar situation, and neo-liberal policy solutions were on the rise. The Canadian government returned to surplus budgets in less than a decade by privatizing (e.g. Air Canada, Petro-Canada, etc.), deregulating, downloading costs to provinces and municipalities, generally shrinking government commitments and payrolls, and profiting from the new Goods and Services Tax (G.S.T.). Canadian public finances were helped hugely by a fast-growing global economy. It was not a coincidence that the U.S. government during the Clinton presidency also came out of deep deficits and posted surplus after surplus.</div><div>And what have we now? There is no global economic engine that can pull a mid-size economy such as Canada's along, and most governments' policy preferrences (more neo-liberalism) will depress growth by trying too soon to put a cap on debt. In this depressed global economy, the U.S. and the European Union are struggling as much with their governance as they are with their debt: in very different ways, they are unable to establish the policies needed to stabilize debt while spurring growth. In the U.S. the Republican Party seems hell-bent on destroying the country's economy and, controlling the House of Representatives, it is in a position to carry out its threats. Meanwhile, the E.U. is suffering from a Euro zone that is either integrated too much or not enough, and member governments cannot agree on how to move forward. Canadian lessons, anyone? I think not.</div><div><br />
</div>Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135263425451548039.post-49640083501629542162011-08-10T11:53:00.000-07:002011-08-10T11:53:10.919-07:00Beginning with the Turmel affair and English-speaking Canadian blindnessSo, this is how the blog starts. As a long-time observer of the Canadian political scene, I've often been driven crazy by the nonsense and knee-jerk quality of media-political discourse, and I often want to say: "hold on, and think about this for a moment." But there's not always time to write an op-ed, and few submissions would be accepted anyway.<br />
In the past two weeks, several things happened that got me going. The first was the hysteria in English-speaking Canada about the ties to the sovereigntist movement of Nycole Turmel, the new interim leader of the New Democratic Party. I actually got an op-ed about that in <i>The Toronto Star</i>, that is getting some interesting attention. It can be seen at: <a href="http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1036360--english-speaking-canada-blind-to-turmel-affair">http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1036360--english-speaking-canada-blind-to-turmel-affair</a>.<br />
On the same topic, I will return soon, in French, to an op-ed from last week in <i>Le Devoir</i> by political scientist André Lamoureux.<br />
Thirdly - the topic of my next post - there is the silly notion that Canada faced a debt crisis in the 1990s that can offer lessons to US and European government on how to get out of the world's current crisis. I first heard this howler by commentators, but then Prime Minister Stephen Harper also offered it in comments to the media during his trip to Brasil. This is one that cries out for debunking.Claude Denishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05600883319996242114noreply@blogger.com0