Category Archives: Politics

Dec 16 2013
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Politics

Politicians say the darndest things

If only fatheads could float far away

If only fatheads could float far away

They don’t really mean the nonsense that, so often, trips off their tongues. They just libel can’t help themselves. Theirs is less an affliction than an occupational hazard. It comes with the territory upon which the politician must trod, oh so publicly, every day.

We shan’t soon forget this beauty, courtesy of former U.S. President George W. Bush, circa 2004:

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

Nor can we let current U.S. President Barack Obama off the hook for this campaign trail blooper some years ago: “I’ve now been in 57 states – I think I have one left to go.”

There’s the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan on the environment: “Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.”

There’s U.S. Congressman Joe Barton on wind energy:

“Wind is God’s way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it’s hotter to areas where it’s cooler. That’s what wind is. Wouldn’t it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up?

There’s former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on being gay: “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country.”

There’s former U.S. Representative Todd Akin on pregnancy resulting from sexual assault: “It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

There’s Canada’s former Minister of Public Safety on an opposition MP who criticized new government legislation designed to fight online pedophilia: “We are proposing measures to bring our laws into the 21st century and to provide the police with the lawful tools that they need. . .He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”

Now we witness Toronto Mayor (in name only) Rob Ford throw his hat into the arena with what is clearly a litigious attack on Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale, who has returned fire with a libel notice.

Mr. Ford’s remark in an interview with Conrad Black on The Zoomer TV show earlier this month was, verbatim: “Daniel Dale in my backyard taking pictures. I have little kids. When a guy’s taking pictures of little kids, I don’t want to say the word, but you start thinking, you know, what’s this guy all about?”

To which Mr. Dale’s lawyers responded, “This is a vicious libel of Mr. Dale. In its plain and ordinary meaning, Rob Ford is calling Mr. Dale a pedophile. . .This letter shall constitute notice under section 5(1) of Ontario’s Libel and Slander Act. . .ZoomerMedia and Rob Ford should immediately retract the false and defamatory statements in their entirety, and apologize to Mr. Dale – publicly, abjectly, unreservedly and completely – if they wish to even begin to undo the harm caused by the broadcast of Mr. Ford’s outrageous statements.”

Yeah, good luck with that.

Methinks Mr. Ford, who has admitted to smoking crack cocaine and being outrageously drunk in public and, yet, remains technically in office, believes his skin in made of teflon. And maybe it is.

Maybe that is the secret of public office: Regularly say the the most ludicrous things you can imagine and, pretty soon, people become inured to your absurdity.

Conversely, when a smart, articulate guy says something just a wee bit silly, the remark stands out.

Here’s New Brunswick Liberal MLA Don Arseneault critiquing the new Tory drug plan for the province last week: “If a single mother or anybody in New Brunswick misses a payment – maybe because of being out of the country or being in the hospital or just not being able to make ends meet – the government is going to multiply that fine by the number of days and the person can be fined up to $5,200. . .Do you think that is right?”

To which Health Minister Ted Flemming replied, “Any person who is in need is not going to be paying under this plan. . .To suggest that New Brusnwickers are a bunch of people who are not going to p[ay their bills is an insult. . .and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Careful, fellows. . .You are heading dangerously close to Rob Ford territory, where nonsense is a way of life.

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Dec 16 2013
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Government, Politics, Society

New Brunswick gets it right on drug plan

Maybe it, like health, will recover

Maybe it, like health, will recover

Three years ago, David Alward made catastrophic drug coverage one of the linchpins of his election campaign. The other was capping the Harmonized Sales Tax at 13 per cent. Thus began, perhaps, the premier’s complicated relationship with what economists term “inputs and outputs.”

Specifically, one actually needs to raise revenue before one increases spending or one tends to go broke pretty darn quickly.

Most householders in New Brunswick get this simple arithmetic. A $500-million annual deficit and a $11-billion long-term debt against the province’s accounts suggest that our elected lawmakers are not as perspicacious as the people they represent.

Still, every so often, a case can be made for a spending program in the absence of a new and ready source of revenue to cover its costs – especially when the administration of such a program will likely prevent the state’s extensive financial hemorrhaging in the future.

Indeed, such a case can be made for the Tory government’s comprehensive drug plan, announced last week, and its specific codicils for catastrophic prescription coverage. Apart from opposition Liberals in the legislature, most interested groups in the province seem sanguine about what they observe in the fine print, which splits the cost of the $50-million (per annum) plan almost evenly between consumers and the Province.

“We’re pleased to see this happening – it’s a moment in history for New Brunswick health care,” Anne McTiernan, CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society in New Brunswick, told the Telegraph-Journal last week. “It will make a huge difference on a go-forward basis for New Brunswickers. It will address both the financial barriers for people accessing important drugs.”

Added Barbara MacKinnon, president and CEO of the New Brunswick Lung Association, for the same piece: “This is an excellent plan. Although it is going to cost, it is really going to keep people out of the hospital. . .If you can get the right diagnosis, the right prescription drug plan, then you are not going to have a stroke.”

In fact, this plan is not likely to financially hobble anyone – not the province which is, arguably, already on skid row, or individuals whose premiums have been scaled to their incomes.

According to the Department of Health, “For individuals earning a gross income of $26,360 or less and families earning a gross income of $49,389 or less, the premium will be approximately $67 per month per adult ($800 per year). For individuals earning a gross income between $26,361 and $50,000 and families earning a gross income of between $49,390 and $75,000, the premium will be approximately $117 per month per adult ($1,400 per year). For individuals earning a gross income between $50,001 and $75,000 and families earning a gross income of between $75,001 and $100,000, the premium will be $133 per month per adult ($1,600 per year). For individuals earning a gross income of more than $75,001 and families earning a gross income of more than $100,001, the premium will be $167 per month per adult ($2,000 per year).”

Meanwhile, “Children 18 and younger will not pay premiums but a parent will have to be enrolled in the plan.  All plan members will be required to pay a 30-per-cent co-pay at the pharmacy up to $30 per prescription.”

There’s even a bone or two tossed to the approximately 80 per cent of New Brusnwickers who hold private drug coverage, to wit: “From May 1, 2014, to March 31, 2015, some New Brunswickers who have private drug plans but still incur high drug costs or need access to a drug covered under the new plan but not through their private plan may join the New Brunswick Drug Plan.”

After that, the province mandates that all private group drug plans “must be at least as comprehensive as the New Brunswick Drug Plan.” That means they must provide comparable coverage in terms of prescriptions and costs.

It has taken three years to craft a program that make sense. But, as Health Minister Ted Flemming points out, if it’s the right plan, it’s worth the wait.

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Dec 11 2013
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Culture, Politics

Conrad and Rob hate the press. Alert the media?

What goes up...needs hot air

What goes up…needs hot air

On the subject of embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, Conrad Black – former guest of the U.S. penal system, former millionaire newspaper-chain owner and current television talk-show host – has had a change of heart. Sort of.

According to Newstalk1010 Radio’s website, an interview last month with Mr. Black suggested that Mr. Ford was not the ex-media baron’s “candidate of choice in the last municipal election and (that) Toronto deserves someone with a little more dignity than a person like Ford. ‘People saying what kind of example he’s set’ (said Mr. Black). ‘Well, maybe it’s not a great example, but that’s what you have elections for.’”

Having had a moment or two to reflect, Mr. Black now thinks “the piling on to Mayor Ford has been excessive.”

One may speculate as to the precise amount of “piling on” Mr. Black considers acceptable, but his point is simply that Mr. Ford “was elected mayor of Toronto.” Therefore, reason allows, “those who do not like his style will be free to vote against if he runs again. If there is sufficient evidence to prosecute him with crimes, due process should be followed. But he should be accorded a full presumption of innocence unless he is justly convicted. Beyond that his accusers should put up or shut up.”

Mr. Black comes to these conclusions – posted to the blog site of his TV show, The Zoomer – following an hour-long chat with Mr. Ford last week. The interview appears tonight on the Vision network. After which, Mr. Black is sure to lament, “Gadzooks, the piling of the scrofulous media degenerates, exhibiting undiminished determination, continues unabatedly.”

For the moment, what we do know is that Mr. Ford doesn’t mind sharing. In fact, he tells his new chum, “If they want me to do a drug test, a urine test, I’ll do one right now. If there’s any drugs in my system, any alcohol in my system. . . I have no problem doing that test.”

To which Mr. Black responds with almost avuncular solicitude, “Rob, there is absolutely no need to do a urine test right now.”

That’s right, Roddie, old boy: At least wait until you’re done with the interview.

Some will see the pairing of Messrs. Black and Ford as odd.

After all, Mr. Black is a scion of the Canadian establishment, a recipient of a privileged and excellent education, a famously successful businessman, an accomplished historian and author, a British peer who renounced his Canadian citizenship, and an ex-con who was (he insists) wrongly incarcerated on trumped-up charges of fraud and obstruction of justice.

Mr. Ford is. . .well, none of those things.

Rather, he is the son plain, working stock, who grew up and went to public schools in Toronto’s vast suburban wasteland. As a politician, he’s a right-wing populist and a proud flag-waving Canadian who, somewhat incongruously, likes immigrants because immigrants, by and large, keep electing his impressively rotund rear end into office whether or not he admits to drinking to excess (he does) or smoking crack cocaine (again, he does) or referring to a certain part of the female anatomy in crudely animalistic terms (one of those “inflammatory malapropisms” Mr. Black, himself, has warned Mr. Ford to avoid deploying whenever possible).

Mr. Ford is bologna and white bread. Mr. Black is caviar and toast points. Mr. Ford is yellow mustard. Mr Black is Chablis Dijon. Mr. Ford is a pickup truck. Mr. Black is a Bentley Mulsanne.

Still, the combination works precisely because it is so bizarre. The various controversies and public outrages that have made their respective careers so publicly accessible unite them – one, elite; the other, hoi polloi – in a sentiment that a growing number of Canadians – regardless of backgrounds – share: the media, as Mr. Ford has inelegantly put it, are maggots.

Do you want to act like an idiot whilst holding public office? Forget it; it’s not going to happen. Blame the media.

Do you want people to stop asking impertinent questions about embarrassing circumstances, even though such circumstances are a matter of police investigations? You’d have better luck finding a snowball in hell. Blame the media.

And while you are at it, stay away from mirrors. Like TV cameras, they add ten pounds, mostly to that region between the ears.

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Dec 09 2013
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Politics, Society

Reflections on a great man’s passing

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The English language cannot proffer one more, fresh superlative to encapsulate the extraordinary character and near-mythic stature of the now-departed Nelson Mandela.

That’s why the words, ‘courage’, ‘human’, ‘giant’, ‘wisdom’, ‘achievement’, ‘justice’, ‘dignity’ and ‘freedom’ have framed an oddly collegial plagiarism-free zone fixed to the front pages of every major newspaper in the world since the great man’s death, at the age of 95, last week.

“What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human,” Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s president, said of his predecessor. “We saw in him what we seek in ourselves. Fellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called him “a giant for justice and a down-to-earth human inspiration. Many around the world were greatly influenced by his selfless struggle for human dignity, equality and freedom. He touched our lives in deeply personal ways.”

Said UK Prime Minister David Cameron: “A great light has gone out in the world.” Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama – never at a loss for words in such a circumstance (indeed, any circumstances) – bloviated, “He no longer belongs to us; he belongs to the ages. He took history in his hands and bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice.”

It fell to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to remind the world that it has “lost one of its great moral leaders and statesmen” and that this nation, which conferred honorary citizenship on Mr. Mandela in 2001, grieves with global community today.

The tributes, both heartfelt and fulsome, are, course, justified. By example and political fiat, South Africa’s first black president led his country out of the darkness that was apartheid.

But it says something about the malleability of the human mind that such  sentiments were not universally shared. Shall we forget the ritual abuse much of the western world once heaped on this now venerated freedom-fighter whose reputation rivals Gandhi’s and Mother Theresa’s?

Reporting for The Independent, back in 1996, Anthony Bevins and Michael Streeter culled the official House of Commons record (Hansard) in the UK and revealed a patchwork of decidedly imprudent remarks about the then-imprisoned political activist.

So said MP John Carlisle, prior to a screening of the Free Nelson Mandela concert in 1990: “This hero worship is very much misplaced.”

Three years prior to that, then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opined authoritatively, “The African National Congress (Mr. Mandela’s party) is a typical terrorist organisation. . .Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land.”

Meanwhile, in the mid 1990s, MP Terry Dicks wondered, “How much longer will the Prime Minister allow herself to be kicked in the face by this black terrorist?” His colleague, MP Teddy Taylor asserted, “Nelson Mandela should be shot.”

Even today, as Prime Minister Harper insists that the African statesman’s   “enduring legacy for his country, and the world, is the example he set through his own ‘long walk to freedom’ and that “with grace and humility, he modeled how peoples can transform their own times and in doing so, their own lives,” at least one member of his own party begs to differ.

According to a CBC report last week, “Conservative MP Rob Anders is clinging to his criticism of Nelson Mandela, remaining opposed to the man credited with bringing down South Africa’s apartheid system. . .Anders was the only MP to oppose giving the former South African president honorary Canadian citizenship in 2001. He denied the House unanimous consent for a motion on the matter, but MPs later voted and passed it anyway.”

Mr. Anders referred reporters to a Freedom Centre blog post by David Horowitz, who wrote last week, “if a leader should be judged by his works, the country Mandela left behind is an indictment of his political career, not an achievement worthy of praise – let alone the unhinged adoration he is currently receiving across the political spectrum.”

Of course, a good deal of the Nelson Mandela legend was his ability and determination to transform himself – regardless of both the accolades and criticisms that dogged his every move – into a crucial agent of change for millions of his countrymen and women.

That, perhaps, is the most important superlative to remember.

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Dec 09 2013
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Economy, Government, Politics

Burning down New Brunswick’s fiscal house

New Brunswick is surely on the horns of a dilemma

New Brunswick is surely on the horns of a dilemma

 

We’ve knelt around this bonfire before, watching the flames grow higher, hungrier. The kindling is the first to go, then the wild alder branches, and finally the great stumps of driftwood, charred black, vanish in the inferno.

Inevitably, we reach the point of knowing that time is short and we’re running out of fuel. Still, we can’t seem to move. Our feet and hands are stuck in the sand, to be followed, any day now, by our heads.

“Net debt is one of the most important measures of the financial position of the province,” New Brunswick Auditor general Kim MacPherson reminded us, with the patience of a camp counsellor, last week in her annual report. Although she’s led this sing-a-long for months, we still can’t remember the words.

“For the year ended 31 March 2013, net debt increased by $931.8 million to $11.1 billion. Net debt has increased $4.3 billion since 2007. The 2013-2014 Main Estimates budgets for an increase in net debt of $594.4 million for the year ended 31 March 2014. Based on 2013-2014 Main Estimates, net debt of the province could be in excess of $11.6 billion for the year ended 31 March 2014.”

We interrupt her just long enough to toss another log from our dwindling stash onto the fire. Excuse us, Ms. MacPherson, you were saying. . .

“This continued increase in net debt represents a very disturbing trend. An even higher demand will exist on future revenue to pay past expenses. Such continued negative trends impacted the Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the province’s bond rating from AA- to A+ in 2012. This rating change will ultimately result in more

expensive borrowing costs. As well, New Brunswick’s increased borrowing may constrain future borrowing capacity and affect future provincial operations and delivery of services. The A+ rating remained unchanged in 2013.”

That does sound serious, Ms. MacPherson. Do go on. . .

“Another way to assess the significance of the size of the province’s net debt is to compare it to the net debt of provinces with similar populations as New Brunswick in absolute amount, per capita and as a percentage of GDP.  Comparable provinces include Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. . .Over the last five years, within this comparable group, New Brunswick has had one of the highest increases in net debt (45 per cent) The rate of Net Debt growth has also increased in the past year (growing by nine per cent).”

You don’t have to be Finance Minister Blaine Higgs to realize that all is not well in the purple violet province, where the annual deficit now looms large at $538.2 million. But, it helps. He may be the only citizen of New Brunswick who isn’t stoking the all-consuming fiscal fire.

“While it is true that our expense reductions have prevented a much larger deficit, we cannot turn a blind eye to the revenue challenge that our province now faces,” he said following Ms. MacPherson’s report to the Legislative Assembly. “No one is immune to the fiscal situation we are facing in this province and we are asking our stakeholders to be prepared to discuss how we can get back to balanced budgets.”

Translation: Hey stakeholders, be prepared for more cuts.

In Higgsian terms, is New Brunswick’s infrastructure “bigger than it needs to be”? Is he correct when he says “we need to work on that”?

Is the solution, effectively, to downsize our infrastructure and with it our appetites and expectations?

Says Mr. Higgs: “When you look at he situation we have in the province with declining enrollment in our schools and the number of schools we have. . .if you look at the number of hospitals we have for a province our size. . .you look at the roads we maintain for a province our size. . .we have to look at serious changes in how we do business and how we can deliver services on a continuous basis in a more effective way. . .How do we give the best education unless we have the critical mass there to do that and do that reasonably?”

Of course, right-sizing the province would be the antithesis of “politics-as-usual”.

Then again, this is the one highly combustible commodity that we, in New Brunswick, should be happy to see finally go up in smoke.

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Dec 03 2013
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Government, Politics, Security

All our spies have come in from the cold

The light of democracy is dimming

The light of democracy is dimming

Former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden’s suggestion that this country’s espionage establishment colluded, perhaps illegally, with its U.S. counterpart to spy on allied nations – in peace time, away from the mayhem of battle, during the G20 summit in Toronto – is troubling.

But no more than what appears to be a growing consensus of reaction in Canada, as we trip over the shards of our democracy to pat ourselves on the back for our newfound swagger: good, old guts and glory to the rescue.

“If it wasn’t for our laws, and police forces and military employed to enforce those laws, the world as we know it would implode on itself,” a letter writer to a recent edition of The Globe and Mail observes. “To be able to monitor and catch the bad guys, we have to know what they’re doing and thinking. Of course we are going to spy. The bad guys are spying on us.”

Against which, this corner of the peanut gallery offers no argument. Only a complete naif would suggest otherwise. The distressing bit comes in the next sentence: “The media should be praising Canada for allowing the U.S. to spy. How else can we keep the world sane and without violence?”

Once upon a time in this country and in others, polite company considered spying on one’s friends to be. . .well, impolite, especially if such surveillance was also explicitly illegal. (The Government of Canada, it should be noted, denies any of this sort of wrongdoing). The whole cloak-and-dagger business, while a necessary evil, wasn’t something about which to crow like a cockerel in heat.

We were proud of our diplomats who helped write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We were proud of our prime ministers, such as Lester Pearson who was instrumental in creating United Nation Peacekeeping. We were proud of our scientists, engineers, teachers, and environmentalists; of our clergy, philosophers and writers. From time to time, we were even proud of our politicians – those who were able to muster the courage to shatter the status quo in the interests of a more civil society.

We certainly weren’t proud of the means by which our clandestine operatives obtained the ends of their shadowy missions either abroad or at home.

Times, however, have changed. They have become more discernibly black and white, as the once vast grey zone of dialogue, discourse, negotiation and conciliation in politics has vanished as utterly as has the middle class in society.

Today, we we are forced to choose between good and evil, rich and poor, criminals and victims, strength and weakness, resistance and compliance, national pride and wobbly thinking in the loathsome salons of the liberal elite.

Today, in this country, loose, unapproved talk about defending the environment from the depredations of a careless commercial sector – once a splendid exercise in participatory democracy – is tantamount to treason, punishable by several lashes of a government official’s tongue.

The oil must flow as surely as the pipelines must be built. As for the safety and security of the communities through which we send our dirty crude, leave that to the men in charge. They know best.

Today, from this country, international affairs gets bundled and exported to the world as a byproduct of something called “economic diplomacy”.

Gone is the emphasis on poverty reduction, human rights, child welfare and disease control. Welcome a new, golden age of liberalized trade for Canadian companies seeking to plant their corporate staffs in emerging markets, including those of China and India, Russia and Brazil.

Through these adventurous small and medium-sized businesses, Canada will achieve the greatness it so richly deserves and could never hope to acquire under any other sort of government than one that truly understands the prideful heart that beats strong and true in the breast of all “real” Canadians – those who, let’s just say, do not vote for Hollywood-handsome, marijuana-smoking mop-tops.

In this fresh impression of the cosmos, Canada’s spy agencies are not cabals of itinerant villains; they are chambers of patriots and heroes, as long as the information they obtain about our “friends” continues to elevates the nation’s interest.

And, apparently, by any means necessary.

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Nov 26 2013
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Environment, Politics

How to fight the good fight, especially when it’s wrong

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Those picket-line-protesters who may worry that their shoe leather will wear out before the shale gas industry’s resolve does should cheer up after reviewing a World Trade Organization (WTO) decision this week – a decision some are calling a victory for the hard-scrabbling, morally superior little guy.

Of course, it is hardly that.

The WTO has simply upheld the European Union’s (EU) 2009 ban on imported seal products (meat, pelts, oil, etc.), which affects Canada most among the world’s pinniped-hunting nations (a small club that includes Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Namibia).

In its ruling, the organization allowed that while the prohibition probably violates at least the spirit of impartiality in global trade, it nonetheless “fulfills the objective of addressing EU public moral concerns on seal welfare to a certain extent.” What’s more, it added, “no alternative measure was demonstrated to make an equivalent or greater contribution to the fulfillment of the objective.”

In other words, consumers’ decidedly non-commercial interests can and do trump those, however legitimate, of producers, either small or large.

That’s good news to all the assorted rebels with various causes among us, though, naturally, none of this is sitting well with the federal government or Canadian sealers who are screaming about the dirty they’ve been done at the hands of a powerful, disingenuous protest lobby.

In a statement from Ed Fast, Minister for International Trade, Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of the Environment, and Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the trio declared, “On February 11, 2011, our government requested the establishment of a World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel to challenge the European Union’s unfair ban on seal products in order to stand up for Canadian sealers and to vigorously defend the interests of Canada’s Inuit and Indigenous communities.

“The WTO panel confirmed Canada’s long-standing position that the EU ban is discriminatory and treats Canadian seal products unfairly. However, the panel also took the view that such a ban can be justified due to some of the public’s concerns regarding seal harvesting. Canada remains steadfast in its position that the seal harvest is a humane, sustainable and well-regulated activity. Any views to the contrary are based on myths and misinformation, and the Panel’s findings should be of concern to all WTO members.”

The government, of course, promises it will press on with an appeal. But, realistically, this battle is over. The Harper government is not likely to threaten the stability of its freshly minted European trade agreement over an industry that generates few economic benefits for citizens who live south of the 60th parallel – i.e., most Canadians.

All of which provides several object lessons for less mature social agitations, the first of which is that the “facts” at one’s disposal need not actually be true.

The trick to winning hearts and minds in the seal debate was always steadfastly ensuring that the message of carnage and cruelty on the ice floes was front and centre and before the public. Even after the industry effectively cleaned up its act (to the degree that any mass predation can be absolved of moral ambiguity), the message never changed, a fact which truly bugged even some ardent environmental pioneers.

“We have to be logical,” Jacques Cousteau reportedly once said. “We have to aim our activity first to the endangered species. Those who are moved by the plight of the harp seal could also be moved by the plight of the pig – the way they are slaughtered is horrible.”

The second lesson is that celebrities can vastly enhance a movement’s credibility.

In 2006, Paul McCartney and his then-wife Heather Mills, took Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams – who was linked to the show via a scratchy phone connection – to task over the annual cull. They called him by his first name and beseeched him, several times, to stop the killing. They were wrong on every account, every statement of fact. But, it didn’t matter. Subsequent polling showed that, in the eyes of the average viewer, they’d won the debate.

Was this sensible? Was this reasonable?

Who cares?

All’s fair in love, war and on the picket lines.

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Nov 18 2013
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Government, Media, Oil and Gas, Politics, Society

No room for pleasantries in real politics

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Despite his occasional partisan bluster – a necessity of elective office, regardless of one’s political flavour – the premier of New Brunswick is a genuinely nice guy who actually cares about other people’s feelings.

In fact, until recently, about the only way to get an authentic rise out of David Alward was to suggest the he and his government ministers were aloof to the concerns of their fellow citizens, content to play king and courtiers in their castle made of sand above the high water mark on Freddy Beach.

“It bugs me,” the pastor’s son (who is a certified psychological counsellor, a former community developer and an active rural hobby farmer) once interrupted himself in mid-interview with yours truly. “I don’t know how anyone could describe us as closed or uncommunicative or not inclusive.”

The truth, of course, is that openness has all but typified the premier’s political oeuvre since he came to govern one of Canada’s defiantly ungovernable provinces in 2010. Where his predecessor, Liberal Premier Shawn Graham, protected his counsel like a NSA agent under house arrest, Mr. Alward has done a contortionist’s job at public events, and in private meetings, explaining, in often exquisite detail, his plans and priorities; in effect, his thinking.

And that may be his biggest problem.

On Friday, the premier was in a rare uncompromising, even antagonistic, mood. Lashing out at anti-shale gas activists in the province, he declared that they represented the point of the spear aimed directly at the heart of natural resources industries here.

“This is not just about SWN (Resources Inc.) being able to develop,” the Telegraph-Journal quoted him. “This not just about Rexton or Kent County and SWN. Mark my words that the same groups that are against seeing SWN move forward with exploration are against projects like Sisson Brook or other potential mining projects we have in New Brunswick. They are against seeing pipelines come across our country to Saint John and creating the prosperity (they) can.”

The denouement of his point was simply this: “The question the New Brunswickers should be asking is ‘what is our vision for our province’? . . .Do we want to have our young people living here in our province building their lives here or are we condemning them to having no choice of where they are going to live in the future?”

These are, indeed, the questions. They have always been the questions. It’s just too bad that Premier Alward has waited until now – less than a year before the provincial election – to pose them with such cogency and force.

In fact, had he spent more time over the past 18 months unapologetically supporting industry’s efforts to ascertain the economic potential of shale gas (indeed, of all promising avenues of natural resources) – and commensurately less time defending his government’s decisions and convening public panels in vain attempts to win friends and influence people – the conversation in this province might now be profoundly different, and radically more productive.

The bottom line is that Mr. Alward’s generally laudable instinct to consult ‘the people’ has also been a lamentable liability of his leadership, and on more files than natural resources.

The awful state of the province’s books – its rolling $500-million deficit on a long-term debt of $11 billion – is not, strictly speaking, the premier’s fault.

Still, in a way, it is.

By refusing to consider raising the provincial portion of the Harmonized Sales Tax, because he promised ‘the people’ he would consult them first, in the form of a referendum, he effectively tied the hands of his Finance Minister and severely compromised New Brunswick’s fiscal recovery from the Great Recession.

Had he forced the province to swallow this bitter, but necessary, pill early in his mandate, the public accounts would have been far healthier than they are today, providing the governing Tories with more and better options for health, education and social policies.

It might even have influenced the debate about shale gas by having eliminated much of the monetary hysteria that now underpins it.

Make no mistake: The consultative, empathetic premier of New Brunswick is a genuinely nice guy.

But, oftentimes, as the saying goes, nice guys finish. . .well, not first.

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Nov 18 2013
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Municipal Affairs, Politics

Partygoer Rob Ford overstays his welcome

Ford Nayshun ahead. . .Lock up yer daughters Hog Town

Ford Nayshun ahead. . .Lock up yer daughters Hog Town

On any given day, I drink a glass of wine with supper. I do not show up at office parties in any state other than one of profound and sober resignation. And if, at any point in the evening, my wife asks me to leave with her, I am happy to oblige. Quietly.

For these reasons alone, I am fairly certain that I do not qualify to fill Rob Ford’s shoes.

If you’ve been off planet these past few years, you won’t know that he’s the mayor of Canada’s largest city, North America’s fourth biggest metropolis, the Centre of the Universe, Hog Town, Toronto.

You also won’t know that Mr. Ford admits that he has smoked crack cocaine and bought illegal drugs, that he knows people in low places, that, in a video, the 300-pound-plus baby throwing a tantrum over some sleight, real or imagined, is, indeed, his goodself.

He even admits that he might just need some professional help, even if that’s only a trip to beachfront bar in Fort Lauderdale this Christmas vacation.

The tragicomic antics of Canada’s very own Boss Hogg is not merely the biggest story in Toronto these days. It is the only story, numbing all who come within its orbit with vast doses of intrigue, mendacity and outright sleaze. If you’ve ever witnessed a train wreck in progress, you know that to look away is impossible.

“Did you hear the latest from that guy?” the cab driver asked me on the way in from Pearson International Airport last week. “He says he’s done all those things in a drunken stupor, and he still won’t resign. It’s like he’s proud of himself or something.”

I laughed and mentioned that his dear, old mum told an interviewer the other day that the only thing wrong with her sonny boy is that he’s packing a bit too much weight.

Without missing a beat, the cabbie quipped, “Yup, especially between the ears.”

Moments later, I found myself in the outer office of a Bay Street type, for whom I was doing some consulting. His assistant told me he had been delayed and asked if I would mind waiting. After ten minutes, my client emerged, red-faced and chuckling.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just had to see the end of the latest press conference. You know what? Television does not do justice to our colourful mayor.”

Of course, not everyone is laughing. The mayor’s public approval ratings, which actually shot up following his admission of cocaine use, are plummeting. Even his once ardent defenders and confederates are calling for his ouster.

Meanwhile, Canada’s national newspaper is beside itself with old-school Toronto opprobrium.

“How is this man still the mayor?” last Thursday’s Globe and Mail editorial beseeched. “He’s an admitted crack smoker, and an admitted liar about it. He’s been publicly drunk – ‘hammered’ and ‘extremely, extremely inebriated,’ in his own words – on several occasions. . .On Wednesday morning, he confessed to having purchased illegal drugs while mayor; by mid-afternoon, police documents ordered released by a judge were detailing a whole new series of allegations, by his own staff, of intoxication and drug use.”

In fact, there’s nothing especially instructive about any of this; no great lessons in civics and public administration may be plucked from this fiasco, save, perhaps, one:

It seems broadly absurd that Toronto, that most sophisticated of burbs, that beacon of commerce and culture, is utterly powerless over the machinery of its own governance. Why is there no code of conduct for elected officials, including the mayor, that makes things like illegal drug use, public drunkenness and bald-faced lying impeachable offences, the penalty for which is summary dismissal?

Rob Ford won’t quit for two reasons.

The first is he doesn’t have to.

The second is, despite his protestations to the contrary, he’s having way too much fun directing his own, personal psychodrama before the camera’s vacant stare. Every day that passes, he ups the ante by issuing fresh confessions, accusations or sundry pornographic observations lest the pot of public outrage and disgust stops boiling.

This is, after all, Rob Ford’s party and, apparently, we’re not allowed to leave.

Not yet.

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Nov 12 2013
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Economy, Politics

Toward a living thing in politics

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Across the River Styx, the heroes of the Underworld extend their hands to shake our own as they muse bravely about the future of this perdition that is New Brunswick.

Or, perhaps, “perdition” doesn’t quite capture the esprit de corps in Canada’s lagging indicator of a province. This is, after all, where the unemployment rate moves up or down by mere tenths of a point, and never more, around the 10 per cent mark.

This is the place where the annual rolling deficit assumes a life of its own despite feckless efforts to reign it back below $500 million.

Meanwhile, in this place, where we be, the trail of breadcrumbs leading our wee Hansels and Gretels due west grows ever broader, ever more inviting.

Perhaps, then, New Brunswick is not so much a country for the damned, but rather this nation’s one, true country for old men (and women).

What say you, provincial NDP Leader Dominic Cardy in your official response to the recent Throne Speech of the reigning Tories?

“We have to think of our seniors as an asset, not a burden, and their experience as an economic engine that can strengthen our economy,” he declared in the Telegraph-Journal this past weekend. “Engaging and unleashing the potential of seniors in the education and social services field will have a significant and immediate benefit.”

Well said, oh ye of great faith, if little actual experience governing anything. The same observation, of course, can be made about his opposite number, Liberal Leader Brian Gallant, who also has a thing or two to say about New Brunswick’s prospects.

“We have to ensure that we invest on ourselves and that we believe in ourselves,” he opined in Saturday’s T-J. “It is the best way to ensure that New Brunswickers can fill the jobs that are waiting for them and that employers can get the jobs that are waiting to be filled.”

It is entirely probably – even guaranteed – that Premier David Alward will voice similar sentiments – very nearly identical ones, in fact – in the weeks and months ahead. He seeks another mandate on the strength of his stewardship of the provincial economy and, again, on the supposition that things will get better if only we have faith in the future of the province’s commercially viable natural resources.

But where the Tories and their rivals part company is in the respective locations of their priorities. And this is substantially a matter of emphasis.

The Throne Speech is, in tone, an almost technocratic document. It talks about people, but largely in a perfunctory way; as the recipients of sound government planning and policy. Individuals emerge as passive participants in the political process and in their own lives, even though they are, and will continue to be, the subject of extensive “consultations” on just about every file in the legislative docket.

In contrast Messrs. Cardy and Gallant (the latter, in particular) proceed from an almost humanist perspective and fill in the policy agenda as they go.

“Investing in knowledge and in ourselves is by far the best economic investment, but, at the same time, it is the best social equalizer,” Mr. Gallant stipulated in his weekend commentary.”. . .All the people who lobby me talk about education or training, whether it is to start growing our economy, whether it is to help their specific businesses,  whether it is to help our children, whether it is to combat obesity, whether it is to increase our literacy rates, or whether it is to eliminate poverty. . .How are we going to do this? First off, we have to believe that we are capable of doing this.”

Implicit in all of this is the contention that New Brunswick is not “going to do this” by exploiting natural resources, alone.

The solution, he suggests, is nestled somewhere in a much bigger picture, a larger and more inclusive vision of the province’s future – a vision that posits classically liberal notions of intellectual and manual dexterity, rather than the machinery corporate exploitation, at the centre of a durable economy.

Messrs. Gallant and Cardy still linger, like the rest of us, in the Underworld, but their notions are beginning to resonate among voters, who are, in the end, the only arbiters of the future who matter.

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