Monthly Archives: August 2015

Aug 13 2015
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Democracy, Politics

Trumping American reason

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Many times over the past decades have we shaken our Canadian heads and clucked our Canadian tongues at the sight of the circus that is, so often, U.S. presidential politics.

There was former movie star-cum-California governor Ronald Reagan “horsing around” on talk radio about “bombing” Moscow in 1984.

There was George W. Bush stealing (literally) the presidency away from Al Gore in 2000.

There was Mitt Romney who effectively lost his bid for the White House after engaging in a peculiar bit of social calculus in 2012:

“There are 47 per cent of the people who will vote for the president (Barack Obama) no matter what. . .47 per cent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

But no one, and I mean no one, has come close to the audacity, vulgarity and caustic cynicism of Donald Trump, the billionaire real estate tycoon and former reality show producer and host, who, to the astonishment of many in the still flappable mainstream media, enjoys a public approval rating of 23 per cent in a field of 17 Republican candidates for president.

That may not sound impressive to our north-of-the-border ears, where our own candidates for prime ministerial vainglory are flirting with a three-way draw of about 30 per cent. But consider that, in the U.S., the next nearest in line to Mr. Trump for civic approbation on the right hand of the political ledger, Jeb Bush, enjoys a mere 12 or 13 per cent, followed in descending order by Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Chris Christie and the rest of the gang.

All of which may only prove that the steady doses of abuse, insult, and villainous misrepresentation that have defiled the American electoral system have finally become politics-as-usual – in other words, no big deal.

Apparently, it’s no big deal when Mr. Trump questions Senator John McCain’s war record. Neither is it any great cause for alarm when “The Donald” calls comedian Rosie O’Donnell a “big, fat pig” and a “slob”.

Indeed, according to Esther Yu-Hsi Lee, writing in ThinkProgress online “Trump has a long history of sexist comments. Soon after the first Republican presidential debate ended, Trump retweeted a comment deriding Kelly as a ‘bimbo’. . .In 1991, he told Esquire, ‘it doesn’t really matter what (the media) write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of (expletive).’

More food for thought, courtesy of Ms. Lee: “When a lawyer once asked for a medical break to pump breast milk for her daughter, Trump reportedly told her ‘you’re disgusting’ before walking out of the room. Trump said that the women on his reality show The Apprentice all flirted with him because ‘I believe we’re all equal except women still have to try harder and they know it. They will do what they have to do to get the job done and will not necessarily be demure about it.’”

Thank you for sharing. Still, this is the guy who once said, not too long ago, that political correctness is killing America. Perhaps this is why a goodly number of Americans appear ready to send him the White House next year.

We Canadians may occasionally deride the lack of decorum in our own campaigns for office.

Under the circumstances, though, Stephen Harper’s most recent attack ads seem downright adorable.

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Aug 13 2015
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Culture, Humour, Politics, Satire

A good end to a sad era

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He was, inarguably, the finest fake journalist the United States ever produced. That he was, by training and inclination, a comedian only sweetens the irony – almost as much as do the dozens of accolades dedicated to him and written, eulogy-like, in the past tense.

But Jon Stewart, host and producer of The Daily Show (until last week, that is) has not passed beyond the veil. He’s just moved on. As for his reasons for leaving the satirical TV program that has all but saved critical thinking in the mainstream media and, by extension, society at large, he said in April, “Honestly, it was a combination of the limitations of my brain and a format that is geared towards following an increasingly redundant process, which is our political process. . .Watching these channels all day is incredibly depressing.”

I’ve been a political junkie for years – long before the 50-something Mr. Stewart came down the pike. Still, this former MTV host made the ritual skewering of elected officials, bureaucrats and, frequently, members of my own profession utterly exhilarating to behold.

His 2004 exchange with the hosts of the CNN political program, Crossfire, may have been the apogee of his particular craft.

“I would love to see a debate show,” he told the hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. “You’re doing theatre when you should be doing debate, which would be great. It’s not honest. What you do is not honest. What you are doing is partisan hackery. . .Stop hurting America.”

As the Globe and Mail correctly pointed out in its farewell to the man last week, “In his Crossfire rant, Mr. Stewart wasn’t trying to end a debate show; he was trying to provoke it into engaging in real debates – actual contests of ideas, an actual search for truth – rather than staged fights where professional self-promoters wearing colours of left and right, Republican and Democrat, put on the rhetorical equivalent of a professional wrestling match in the service of entertainment, not enlightenment.”

Of course, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart managed to be both. Recognizing this, even some its frequent targets managed managed good-natured goodbyes during the taping of the host’s final show last week.

“I’ll never forget you Jon, but I will be trying,” said New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Added presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton: “And just when I’m running for president, what a bummer.”

As for Canada, Mr. Stewart seemed to have a soft spot. In anticipation of his sign-off, the CBC recently pulled together a compendium of “7 memorable Canadian moments” from the show, the top one being coverage of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford

Reports the CBC: “Amid the first reports he’d (Mr. Ford) been caught on video smoking crack. . . .Stewart told his audience. . .’Hey, hey, don’t judge him. . .Maybe he’s cleaning up the city – by smoking all the crack in it.’ The May 21 episode featured Canadian-born correspondents Jason Jones and Samantha Bee. Bee downplayed the scandal, insisting that smoking crack is ‘one of Canada’s most cherished pastimes’ and that Canadians frequently trade sexual favours for the drug. Stewart revisited Ford’s troubles later that year as the scandal widened to include allegations of drunk driving, snorting cocaine and consorting with a suspected prostitute. ‘This. . .guy is a one-man episode of Cops,’ Stewart said, before setting up a clip in which Ford refuted an allegation that he’d sought oral sex with a female staff member with the comment that he was a ‘married man’.

Ah, yes, good times. Jonny, Canada salutes you.

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Aug 13 2015
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Democracy, Politics

The almost-ready-for-prime-time leaders

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We knew them not so much by the ideas they conveyed or the words they uttered, but by the roles they assiduously embraced.

There was Prime Minister Stephen Harper assuring his audience, like a narrator in a Thorton Wilder play, that his avuncular governments have, over the past 10 years, had only the interests of the common, ordinary folk in mind.

There was fighting-fit Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau throwing left jabs and right crosses (sometimes even landing a few) in a mighty attempt to show fans of political pugilism that he was, indeed, a heavyweight ready for the main event.

There was a professorial-looking Thomas Mulcair, studiously reminding Canadians that good governance is serious business and only the highest-minded among us are properly equipped to meet the challenges of providing universal day care and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

In fact, the only leader in the first debate of the federal election who didn’t appear to assume a role for the benefit of the voting public was Green Party chief Elizabeth May. Bully for her and for a brand of plain-speaking one can almost endorse.

“We have a weak and shrinking economy and it’s the wrong time for austerity measures,” she said at one point. Turning to the prime minister, she added acidly, “We’re in a recession under your watch for the second time.”

As for the condition of Canadian democracy, she declared, “Instead of fixating on this splitting-the-vote non-problem, vote splitting, we need to focus on the real problem, which is that 40 per cent of Canadians in the last number of elections haven’t voted, and vote abandoning in my view is a much bigger problem than vote splitting.”

Under the circumstances, it’s a shame that Ms. May’s appearance last week is likely to be her single debate opportunity in this election cycle. On the other hand, one wonders what these dog and pony shows actually accomplish, either for the candidates or for the electors.

Are they any more articulate about their plans and priorities for having spent a chunk of time in front of a camera taking pot shots at one another’s records, statements, misstatements?

Are we any better informed about the issues that concern us most?

When, in the debate, Mr. Harper said, “the other parties are proposing literally tens of billions of dollars of additional spending, permanent spending, to be financed by permanently higher tax rates and permanent deficits,” are we sure he was telling us the whole, unvarnished truth?

Likewise, when Mr. Trudeau complained that Mr. Mulcair’s “minimum-wage plan actually will only help less than one per cent of every Canadian who earns minimum wage,” and that this, in effect, amounts to “false advertising”, do we believe him?

In the end, though, as political debates go, this wasn’t an especially dreadful affair. If we didn’t learn much more than we already know, we did recognize the players for their various scripts generally courteous comportment.

As it happened, on the very night last week that Canada’s leaders’ debates proceeded, the Republicans in the United States hosted their own verbal cage match.

According to a BBC report, “(Donald) Trump. . .most uncomfortable moment came when moderator Megyn Kelly challenged him on his views about women. ‘You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals,’ she said. He answered by joking that he only said that about actress Rosie O’Donnell and stating that political correctness was one of the country’s biggest problems.”

We should, perhaps, be grateful for the political actors we have here in the Great White North

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Aug 06 2015
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Humour, Politics, Satire

In Fat City, the name is the game

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Welcome, dear webinar participant, to the 14th annual, interactive session on politics in the early 21st Century.

Now that we are about to enter 2056 – also known as the Glorious Acquisition of Wisdom in Democracy (GAWD) year – we must be vigilant in remembering how our society was radically changed for the better when our fearless, nonagenarian leader, Sun King Stephen Harper, chose to dispense with formality and address his political opponents by their first names or, indeed, by any names that came to his exquisite mind.

Let us, then, cast our thoughts back to the summer of 2015 and the first leaders’ debate in that year’s general election campaign. To be sure, we go not far enough to declare that the event changed the entire world.

Here, then, is a partial transcript of that momentous, felicitous event:

Mr. Stephen Harper, recent Prime Minister and current Conservative Party of Canada Leader: “Thank you, (moderator). Let me say what a great pleasure it is for me to address the citizens of this great nation and to lock horns with my eminent colleagues, Gumby and Pokey, standing over there in the corner trying to figure out how to turn on their mics.”

Mr. Justin Trudeau, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada: “Excuuuuse me! I object strenuously to Mr. Harper’s tone and characterization.”

Mr. Thomas Mulcair, Official Opposition Leader (New Democratic Party of Canada): “As do I. In fact, this may be the one thing young Justine and I actually agree on.”

Mr. Trudeau: “That’s JUSTIN to you, Tiny Tommy!”

Mr. Mulcair: “My deepest apologies, Pierre-Light!”

Mr. Harper: “Gentlemen, gentlemen. . .please let’s just all calm down. Or, maybe Gumby can jump on Pokey’s back and, together, they can ride away into the red and orange sunset that frames their electoral fortunes. Hmmmm? Whaddya think?”

Mr. Trudeau: “Well. . .only if I get to be Gumby.”

Mr. Mulcair: “Not on your life, Pokemon! I’ll do the riding around here. . .Anyway, maybe we should ask our esteemed colleague, Steve, how he intends to fix the Canadian economy now that he’s broken it.”

Mr. Trudeau: “That’s a fair question from my esteemed colleague, Dimbulb. What say you, Steverino?”

Mr. Harper: “Well, now, let me address this issue by asking Messrs. Turduckin and Mohair how they will handle falling confidence in the wit and wisdom of their respective leaderships amongst their own ranks – otherwise known as the pinko, Birkenstock-cobbled, hipster, media elite.”

Mr. Mulcair: “Allow me to field that one. . .For one thing, Mr. Prima Donna Stavros Harpy, I am just as stiff and uninspiring as you in front of a camera. I am just as unenlightening and disengaged as you in a press scrum. In other words, I possess all the qualifications that prime-ministership in this country requires. And one more thing that is crucially important. . .I can grow a beard.”

Mr. Trudeau: “That’s right, Beardy McBeardyson can grow facial hair. . .But is that any reason to elect him to the highest office in the land? My fellow Canadians, I shave semi-regularly, which ought to be some indication of my abiding commitment to personal hygiene.”

Mr. Harper: “Mr. Moderator, I see from the clock that our time is rapidly running down. The only real question Canadians must address in this election is which name they prefer for their fearless leader: Gumby, Pokey or. . .Sun King. Let history be the judge.”

All of which proves, dedicated students, what history always reveals: Greatness is never properly appreciated in its own time.

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Aug 06 2015
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Humour, Politics

Long-distance running

Resurgo is action in latin. And that's a dead language. Get 'er done boys and girls

Resurgo is action in latin. And that’s a dead language. Get ‘er done boys and girls

And they’re off, not exactly sprinting (more like strolling or, perhaps, gambolling) to the finish line.

Now, the chore of explaining the strategic imperative of subjecting the Canadian populace to the longest federal election since John A. Macdonald toasted his victory in 1872 falls to the chattering class.

Where might we begin?

Clearly, Prime Minister Harper and his fledgling squawkers in the PMO are determined to distract the public from the inconvenient, albeit pedestrian, truth about an economy that has turned sideways and shows every sign of heading south.

According to Statistics Canada last week, national GDP shrank by 0.2 per cent in May (annualized). That followed four months of straight drops, including a first-quarter dip of 0.6 per cent. Said Bank of Montreal economist Doug Porter: “There is no sugar-coating this one. It’s a sour result.”

Under the circumstances, then, what’s better than a general election to get one’s mind off dwindling manufacturing, a plummeting Canadian dollar, and persistent joblessness?

It’s not as if Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has been getting any traction criticizing the reigning Tories for their demonstrable exaggerations about the health of the economy or, in fact, their ministrations on its behalf. A long election campaign isn’t likely to pose any great danger of the Grits suddenly catching fire as they struggle to reorganize their talking points.

Meanwhile, as the Globe and Mail reported yesterday, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair – who appears to have usurped Mr. Trudeau in the affections of voters – is too busy honing his rhetorical skills to comment substantively about the perils of government posturing.

“Mulcair has been waging mock debates, squaring off against fake opponents to prepare for the federal election campaign’s first leaders’ debate, which will test his ability to connect,” the Globe revealed. “He has taken the matter seriously, interrupting rehearsals for a single partisan rally in Montreal, and spending the rest of the election campaign, so far, outside the public’s view.”

Of course, calling an October election on the first of August also gives the Conservative machine sufficient time to explain away the otherwise disappointing economic numbers – to, as the publicists say, get ahead of the issue – even as they fill the summer airwaves with all manner of attack ads against their opponents. Lord knows, they have the money burn without wincing.

In any case, the long and winding road to democratic denouement has, itself, become the one election issue that all Canadians can get behind. To wit: It’s too long and winding.

“In his decade of power, Stephen Harper has rarely made himself or our ministers available to Canadians or the Canadian press,” Globe reader Robin Hannah wrote in a letter published earlier this week. “Yet he and they are suddenly everywhere. Now I face 11 weeks of scrambling for my mute button.”

Another reader of the newspaper, one Rod Yellon, noted, “Aside from who wins and whether victory is affected by the length of the campaign, perhaps the most interesting question will be the potential effect on voter turnout. . .Will the endless speechifying, photo ops and political ads encourage voters to tune out?”

Regardless, at least one Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist in the United States – where the election cycle can be as long as a year – thinks we’re all nuts up here. In a witty commentary for the Globe yesterday, David Shribman quoted former New Hampshire attorney-general Thomas Rath thusly: “The Canadians’ 11-week election is the same duration as a full season of The Apprentice.”

That’s a good point. Plus, we don’t have to worry about Donald Trump running for prime minister any time soon.

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Aug 06 2015
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Climate, Economy, Energy, Government

Mum’s the word on climate change

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Whole election campaigns have been sacrificed on the altar of global warming. Entire political careers have been cremated under the magnifying glass of climate change. Remember poor Stephane Dion?

Is it any wonder, then, why this year’s contenders for the democratic throne of Canada are treading gingerly around the subject?

Well, for the most part.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair had a moment earlier this month when he told a Hamilton radio talk-show host that the federal government’s inaction on climate change is tantamount to wartime isolationism.

“Whenever we’ve taken on these big fights internationally, we were always one of the smaller players,” he said.

“But it didn’t mean that we didn’t go in. In the Second World War, the same argument could have been made. ‘Oh, we only represent a couple of per cent of the forces.’ But we knew that we had a job to do. This is a battle that the world has to take on. Climate change is real. Reducing greenhouse gases has to be made a priority. It can be done. Mr. Harper doesn’t believe in the science of climate change, so he’s not doing anything.”

In reality, what the current prime minister has never done much of is talk about global warming. That’s been both deliberate and shrewd. For the cunning and the calculating, there is almost nothing to be gained by weighing into the debate (let alone becoming a thought-leader, as did Stephane Dion) in a country where attitudes are so mightily polarized. Indeed, there’s every indication that they’re about to grow even further apart, thanks to research released last month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

According to an article by Katherine Bagley, writing for InsideClimate News, “The long-debated hiatus or pause in global warming, championed by climate denialists who tried to claim it proved scientists’ projections on climate change are inaccurate or overblown, probably did not happen at all.

A new study by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration finds that the world’s warming never really stalled during the last 15 years – it was just masked by incomplete data records that have been improved and expanded in recent years.

Remarked Tom Karl, the director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information and principal author of the study: “The rate of temperature increase during the last half of the 20th century is virtually identical to that of the 21st century.”

That’s the sort of comment that gets “denialists” howling mad. Just ask New York based financial and business writer John Steele Gordon. In a recent Wall Street Journal commentary, he insists, “climate science today is a veritable cornucopia of unanswered questions. Why did the warming trend between 1978 and 1998 cease, although computer climate models predict steady warming? How sensitive is the climate to increased carbon-dioxide levels? What feedback mechanisms are there that would increase or decrease that sensitivity? Why did episodes of high carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere earlier in Earth’s history have temperature levels both above and below the average?”

Indeed, he ponders pointedly, “If anthropogenic climate change is a reality, then that would be a huge problem only government could deal with. It would be a heaven-sent opportunity for the left to vastly increase government control over the economy and the personal lives of citizens.”

In a country – namely ours – that depends so heavily on greenhouse-gas emitting fuels, politicians (with a few notable exceptions) have clearly decided that when it comes to climate change, discretion is the better part of, if not valour, political survival.

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Aug 06 2015
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Business, Humour

Return of the grifters

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I now pine for the good, old days of the Internet when a transparently idiotic con artist would invent his persona in the form of a disenfranchised Nigerian prince, looking for a place to park his money in a safe country.

Just give him your bank account number and, hey presto; you, too, could be a winner. “We would be willing to pay upwards of 100 million Euros just to protect the balance of our estate from rebels and authorities,” I remember one entreaty promising some years ago. “Won’t you help us?”

Well, no, actually, whoever you are, located at Dupont and Dufferin Streets in Toronto’s Upper Annex. (Yeah, that’s right; scammers aren’t the only ones in possession of common location technology. Ping that, bro!).

But in the past few weeks, Internet and phone grifters seem to have gotten my various numbers and their deluge has been like a hurricane. It’s not that they’ve grown frontal lobes (they’re still incredibly stupid); it’s that they’re more persistent than ever before and. . .well, downright rude.

To wit: I’ve received three automated phone messages in the past week threatening me with “a lawsuits” if I don’t contact “the CRAs” and settle my substantial, “outstanding billings” to the “Governments of Canadas”. The only thing is: I don’t owe a dime to the “Governments of Canadas”.

Hey man, don’t you know you can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar? I mean, seriously dude, reconcile your tenses. You do know to whom your talking. . .right?

Then, there’s this priceless bit of tripe, which appeared in my inbox just the other day: “Hello & Good day. . .I hope my email meets you well and expect it to come to you as a surprise as you do not know me personally. I am a private investor in Tokyo, Japan with a strong investment desire in search of viable business opportunities for a massive investment project which will also (sic) of immense benefit to you financially and otherwise.”

I can only swoon at the thought of “otherwise”. Free trips to the Sushi garden at the Tokyo airport, perchance?

My recent favourite, however, is from an address that I won’t bother to list. From these sun-starved folks located in a basement apartment (no doubt) in rural Idaho, I may find “peyment advice” in a “Secured PDF file assesible by only” little, old me.

Naturally, I’ll be following up right away.

According to a Washington Times report last month, “A 68-year-old Vermont widow who nearly gave $60,000 to a scammer is warning other potential victims to ditch them. Louise Brown turned to the Internet to find someone to talk to after the death of her husband. When the man she had been bonding with began begging her for money, she gave him $60,000 before her bank flagged her account and warned her of the con. AARP (American Association of Retired People) officials say Vermont has seen an explosion in the number of Internet scams. Greg Marchildon, the director of AARP in the state, says criminals build trust with their victims and try to get them into a heightened state of feeling. The Vermont attorney general’s office is pushing for legislation requiring online dating websites to notify users when they’ve communicated with known scammers.”

Methinks we in this dispirited, economically challenged neck of the woods might turn the tables.

Come one, come all to the Great New Brunswick real estate sell-off. Every house goes for $500,000 – a bargain at twice the price.

Sure, and we’ll mail you the keys once the cheque clears.

Aug 06 2015
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Communications, Culture

Between a rock and a loud space

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Back when the only noise-making machine on any self-respecting scribbler’s desk was a manual typewriter (mine happened to be a vintage Underwood I inherited from my grandfather), a person might actually hear the birds chirping outside his distinctly non-hermetically sealed window.

No more, alas, no more.

I write one of these a day, sometimes more, and I can’t remember the last time at least one of my various computers didn’t startle me with a flood of alerts and notifications (emails, text messages, tweets, voicemail, etc.), momentarily goosing my 55-year-old heart rate to dangerously high levels and generally throwing me off my game.

My younger, more tech-sanguine colleagues laugh when I periodically complain (as I do here). “Just turn down the volume, old fella,” they say. “Better yet, turn off the features altogether and go grab a nap.”

And I would, except for one unavoidable anxiety: I’m afraid I’d miss something.

What if a nuclear broke out, and I slept right through it? How embarrassing would that be for a journalist of my seasoned flavour? What would I write for my next blog posting? How radioactive dust makes a great fire-starter for the summer barbecue?

Worse, what if I missed the latest Gap ad, promoting blockbuster savings on men’s skinny jeans, or advance word of the next episode of The Vampire Diaries on iTunes?

Apparently, I’m not the only one in this tricked-out, wakeful world caught between a rock and loud space.

Pointing out that “noise” is no longer a merely audible phenomenon, but also a visual one, Daniel Levitin, James McGill professor of psychology and behavioural neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, recently wrote in The Guardian, “When trying to concentrate on a task, an unread email in your inbox can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points.”

He continued: “Our brains are busier than ever before. We’re assaulted with facts, pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information. Trying to figure out what you need to know and what you can ignore is exhausting.

“Our smartphones have become Swiss army knife-like appliances that include a dictionary, calculator, web browser, email, Game Boy, appointment calendar, voice recorder, guitar tuner, weather forecaster, GPS, texter, tweeter, Facebook updater, and flashlight. They’re more powerful and do more things than the most advanced computer at IBM corporate headquarters 30 years ago. And we use them all the time, part of a 21st-century mania for cramming everything we do into every single spare moment of downtime.”

And, yet, say the great minds of history, silence truly is golden.

In fact, William Penn once insisted, it is “the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.”

Confucius scooped him by a couple of millennia when he declared, “silence is the true friend that never betrays.” Indeed, Walter Bagehot observed, “an inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.”

Or as Henry David Thoreau noted, “silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment.”

So, then, the conundrum comes down to a choice: How much of the modern world shall we tolerate in our quietest moments? Going without our various feeds, alerts and notifications, altogether, seems absurd and absurdly precarious (given the degree to which our economic survival, these days, depends on these beeps and bells).

Still, perhaps we can sit back and just listen to the birds every once in awhile.

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Aug 06 2015
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Democracy, Law, Politics

Courting Canada’s Conservatism

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Much has been written about the country – our country – that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has wrought over the past decade. Indeed, this is not the Canada that Pierre Trudeau, or even Brian Mulroney, left behind.

Still, every individual lucky (or unfortunate) enough to occupy the official residence at 24 Sussex Drive makes his or her mark on the political and cultural landscape of the nation – for better and for worse.

For his part, Mr. Harper clearly hopes that however the election in October plays out he and his crusty crew of Tories will be remembered and admired as competent fiscal managers, demonstrably capable in all matters concerning the economy. And, until about a minute ago, that might have been a fair expectation.

The current condition of Canada’s commercial and labour markets has all but undermined the current government’s fondest dreams of a legacy on economic grounds. Two consecutive months of negative growth, stubbornly low commodity prices, moribund employment in just about every sector and region of the country have done quick, nasty work to the agenda.

Yet, there is one area where Mr. Harper may well have secured a place for himself in the history books: The judiciary.

In a fascinating and bravely reported piece in a recent edition of the Globe and Mail, that newspaper’s justice writer Sean Fine observes, “Mr. Harper’s battles with the Supreme Court are well known. The court has struck down or softened several of his crime laws. When the Prime Minister named an outspoken conservative, Marc Nadon, to the Supreme Court in 2013, the court itself declared Justice Nadon ineligible. Mr. Harper would go on to publicly assail the integrity of Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, turning an institutional dispute into a very personal battle.”

But a closer look behind the curtain reveals a far more successful campaign to remake the country’s judicial system in a decidedly Conservative image. As Mr. Fine reports, “While those public conflicts were playing out, the government was quietly transforming the lower courts. The Conservative government has now named about 600 of the 840 full-time federally appointed judges, or nearly three in every four judges on provincial superior courts, appeal courts, the Federal Court and Tax Court.”

Why does this matter as long as the Supreme Court retains at least a modicum of ideological independence? The answer is that the high court doesn’t actually do the daily heavy lifting in our judicial system. The courts with which Mr. Harper is most concerned are, Mr. Fine writes, the ones that, “at the appeal level, decide how the government’s crime crackdown is to be implemented. At the trial level, they decide high-profile cases. In constitutional cases, they rule on social and legislative facts – anything that establishes the real-world context in which a law plays out, such as whether prostitution laws endanger sex workers.

“Higher courts, including the Supreme Court, do not change these facts, unless they view them as wildly wrong. Constitutional rulings depend on these facts. The judges, who can serve until they are 75, may be sitting long after other governments have come along and rewritten the laws. They also are a farm team or development system for the Supreme Court.”

In effect, “They are Mr. Harper’s enduring legacy.”

Economic conditions run hot and cold, but matters of justice, law and morality are enshrined in the democratic institutions we embrace and on which we depend.

This is where Canada’s new conservatism will root itself and ensure, among other things, that Mr. Harper will be remembered long after he’s left the political stage.

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Aug 06 2015
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Environment, Personal History, Society

In the lemur cage

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Almost nothing incinerates in me that odd, albeit infrequent, mood of reticence more thoroughly than a ring-tailed lemur perching gamely on my shoulder.

To be sure, this was not how I expected my day to unfold when I grabbed my camera and headed out to the Magnetic Hill Zoo in the outer burbs of Moncton. My job was routine enough: Snap a few pics of the establishment’s manager, Bruce Dougan, for a magazine piece I had been writing.

Mr. Dougan, a burly man with an Arctic fringe of beard and a safari leader’s comportment, is a born showman. He has to be. Without an effective promoter at the helm, a zoo can become as endangered as many of the wild animals they house.

So, it really shouldn’t have surprised me when he led me into the lemur cage to pose with a handful of friendly, inquisitive primates. Suddenly, the joint was bustling with dozens of the human variety, their noses pressed against the chain-link fence, delighted to watch the photog struggle to regain control of his camera from the creature attached to his forearms.

I am a little embarrassed to admit that in the 20 years I’ve lived in Moncton I’ve only been to the zoo three times – two of those occasions within the past month (once with one set of grandkids; the other on the aforementioned photo assignment). Frankly, I really haven’t known what I’ve been missing.

On one of my trips, the line of young families and old folks waiting patiently for admittance stretched all the way to the far end of the parking lot. A recent CBC story provided the context when it reported in June that “The Magnetic Hill Zoo in Moncton is opening a $1.4-million exhibit that will showcase three big cats. Visitors will be treated to a new exhibit featuring two Amur Tigers – Alik and Anya – and a leopard, named Katushka.

“Jeremy Nelson, a board member of Friends of the Zoo and chair of the fundraising campaign, said the new exhibit is the biggest project the zoo has ever undertaken. ‘I can’t believe we’re finally here today. There’s not a person who won’t be wowed when they walk in,’ he said.”

Added Mr. Dougan, in a statement: “It’s amazing that we have two of the most endangered cats in the world right here in Moncton.”

I’m not sure “amazing” is the right word. After all, the city’s public website describes the facility thusly: “The Magnetic Hill Zoo. . .is committed to safeguarding animal species and raising public awareness of endangered species. The zoo is designed with the well being of the animals. . . in mind.”

What’s more, “The staff of the. . .zoo is very concerned with protecting endangered animals. They follow national protection movements closely and participate in diverse repopulation programs. The . . .zoo is the provincial headquarters for the Frog Watch program, an initiative of the Canadian Minister of Environment to gather environmental information on Canada’s diverse frog species. . .In 2010 and 2011, the. . .zoo worked in partnership with Parks Canada to implement the Piping Plover Recovery Program. Eggs from abandoned nests from two maritime National Parks were brought to the . . .zoo for incubation and hatching.”

Protecting endangered species – or at least raising awareness of them – appears to be in the zoo’s organizational DNA.

Still, Mr. Dougan’s amazement is well taken. It stands to reason that a city – whose latin motto “resurgo” means, in English, “rise again” – should boast a zoo where reticence is impossible – especially in the lemur cage

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