Category Archives: Politics

Jul 30 2013
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Culture, Politics, Security

Where did all the bad guys go?

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Enamored as it is by the sound of its own panic alarm, the federal government will have a hard time justifying its contention that Canada is riding a crime wave in the wake of new data that show just the opposite.

“The police-reported crime rate, which measures the overall volume of crime that came to the attention of police, continued a long-term decline in 2012, falling three per cent from 2011,” Statistics Canada reported last week. “The Crime Severity Index (CSI). . .also decreased three per cent.”

In fact, the numbers-crunching agency says that the crime rate in Canada has “reached its lowest level” in 41 years. The CSI, meanwhile, was off 28 per cent from 2002, with 415,000 incidents of violence in 2012.

Still, one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s signature social policies is his “tough-on-crime” agenda, made manifest by omnibus Bill C-10 (now the Safe Streets and Communities Act), which places unusual emphasis on the so-called rights of victims.

A government website outlines the guts of the legislation, thusly:

“Part 1 creates a new act entitled the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act;

Part 2 amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) and the Criminal Code; Part 3 amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA), the International Transfer of Offenders Act and the Criminal Records Act; Part 4 amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act; and part 5 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. . .Part 3 . . .makes changes to the CCRA’s principles (and) reforms in four main areas: Enhancing sharing of information with victims; increasing offender responsibility and accountability; strengthening the management of offenders and their reintegration; and modernizing disciplinary actions.”

One of the legislation’s features that continues to stick in the collective craw of community activists, family welfare advocates and even a few international observers is the unreasonably harsh treatment it metes out to young offenders. Last year, The Canadian Press reported, “The UN committee on the rights of the child has finished a 10-year review of how Canada treats its children and how well governments are implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In particular, the committee says Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act complied with international standards until changes were introduced earlier this year.”

Specifically, CP indicated, “Bill C-10 ‘is excessively punitive for children and not sufficiently restorative in nature,’ the committee wrote in a report. ‘The committee also regrets there was no child rights assessment or mechanism to ensure that Bill C-10 complied with the provisions of the convention.’ The committee also repeatedly expressed its concern that aboriginal and black children are dramatically overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Aboriginal youth are more likely to be jailed than graduate from high school, the report said.”

Flash forward to the present day, and here’s what Stats Can stipulates on the subject on youth crime in this country: “Police reported that just over 125,000 youth aged 12 to 17 were accused of a criminal offence in 2012, about 11,000 less than the previous year. The youth accused rate fell seven per cent while the youth CSI declined six per cent.”

What’s more, “The majority of youth accused in 2012 were involved in non-violent incidents. The most common type of youth crime was theft of $5,000 and under, committed by 18 per cent of youth accused. Common assault (level 1) was the most common type of violent offence committed by youth in 2012, accounting for 11 per cent of youth accused. Other relatively common offences committed by youth were mischief (11 per cent), administration of justice violations (10 per cent) and cannabis possession (10 per cent). In 2012, 44 per cent of youth accused were formally charged by police, the rest were dealt with by other means under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.”

All of which paints a somewhat more wholesome picture of Canadian society – one that is, in fact, broadly consistent with those of other developed nations, where crime rates are also dropping – than the red meat crowd in Ottawa would have us believe.

If course, power politics is about nothing if not inventing problems to solve.

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Jul 29 2013
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Energy, Oil and Gas, Politics

Forging a confederation of common cause

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Typically, when Canada’s premiers gather to discuss the state of the federation, they produce enough hot air to float several trial balloons, all drifting in different directions at once. But last week’s gathering in Niagara-On-The-Lake suggested that provincial leaders might be warming to the idea of pinpointing one or two destinations at which to touch down together.

New Brunswick’s David Alward can take much of the credit for forging at least the semblance of common cause among his colleagues this year. He has been a vocal and effective critic (whether or not you agree with him) of federal changes to both the Employment Insurance system and labour market agreements. He has emphasized the shared impact of these moves across the country.

He has also reached out to other premiers in a consistent and collegial way – not seen since the Frank McKenna era – on the subject of energy, which is rapidly becoming the most important file on the interprovincial agenda. Even in the notoriously self-absorbed central Canadian press, his name tends to come before all others in stories about a dearly imagined west-east oil pipeline.

“They’ve all been very open to that discussion – I don’t have any concerns at all,” he told the Globe and Mail last week. “We’re bullish on the project because it’s a nation-building project, it’s going to have a positive impact on Canadians from coast to coast to coast. . .We feel very good about the work that is taking place and I have full confidence in the next steps.”

Reflecting on Quebec Premier Pauline Marois’ refusal to discuss the pipeline in the wake of the Lac Magentic tragedy, Mr. Alward was circumspect: “In discussions with the Quebec government thus far in our working groups, in terms of the pipeline, have been excellent, and we look forward to continuing to work with them,” the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal quoted him in Friday’s edition. “A catastrophe in their province, the derailment. . .I don’t believe Premier Marois is commenting out of respect for that. . .And I respect that.”

In fact, Mr. Alward was one of the first Canadian leaders to recognize the project’s symbolic significance to the country, as whole. He likened it to a new “national dream”, as big and bold for this century as the transcontinental railway was to the 19th. The argument resonated immediately with Alberta Premier Alison Redford, whose overriding priority is to get her province’s crude to refineries (any refinery) as soon and as cost-effectively as possible.

It’s clear, from her quote in the Telegraph-Journal last week, she hasn’t changed her mind. “We believe it is terribly important that this be considered exactly what it is,” she said. “(This) is a commercial transaction that must be approved by the approval processes in each province that has to take into account the integrity of the project, as well as the environmental impact of the project.”

Moreover, she said, “I’ve heard nothing (at the premiers’ meeting) that in any way suggested to me that there was any possibility that there were any new developments that would change this – that each jurisdiction that is touched by this project will do the work that it needs to do to make sure it does receive the approvals.”

Translation: Stay tuned, but matters are proceeding apace.

The pipeline company, itself, seems to agree. Last week, the Globe and Mail broke news that TransCanada Corp. was nearly chafing at the bit to execute its Energy East strategy sooner, not later.

“(The company) says it has garnered significant support for its quest to ship Western crude to refineries in the East, as premiers seek consensus on a politically charged cross-country pipeline,” the newspaper reported on Thursday. “The Calgary-based company (said) it has received major backing from producers who want to ship crude on its Energy East pipeline, and will make an announcement in the coming weeks. ‘We are very optimistic about the project,’ Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada’s president for energy pipelines, said in an interview.”

For New Brunswick and the rest of Canada, this is one trial balloon that may be getting ready to come down to earth.

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Jul 29 2013
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Culture, Economy, Politics

The myth of the middle class

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In Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” – the 1939 classic film about graft, greed and coercion in American politics – Jimmy Stewart – playing the protagonist, possessed of both naivete and moxie, in equal measures – lambastes his senatorial colleagues for their cynicism and corruption.

“Just get up off the ground, that’s all I ask,” he chimes. “Get up there with that lady that’s up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won’t just see scenery; you’ll see the whole parade of what Man’s carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so’s he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That’s what you’d see.”

Then, just before he collapses in exhaustion, he declares, “You all think I’m licked. Well I’m not licked. And I’m gonna stay right here and fight for this lost cause. . .Somebody will listen to me.”

There was something decidedly familiar about America’s real “Mr. Smith” who went down from Washington to deliver a speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, the other day. Familiar, and cinematic.

“With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball,” U.S. President Barack Obama cried. “And I am here to say this needs to stop. Short-term thinking and stale debates are not what this moment requires. Our focus must be on the basic economic issues that the matter most to you – the people we represent.”

He pounded his pulpit like a preacher. “I will not allow gridlock, inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way,” he said. “Whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I’ll use it. Where I can’t act on my own, I’ll pick up the phone and call CEOs, and philanthropists, and college presidents – anybody who can help – and enlist them in our efforts. Because the choices that we, the people, make now will determine whether or not every American will have a fighting chance in the 21st century.”

Fade to black. Roll credits.

Mr. Obama is on his last legs, and he knows it. Almost nothing he has tried during his nearly six years in office has worked. His country is even more divided than it was when he first marched into the White House in January 2009 (Oprah’s happy tears, notwithstanding). So, when all else fails, cue up the teleprompter. It’s time for rhetoric.

Speechifying is what Mr. Obama does best. And his dwindling cohort of ardent admirers still appreciate his soaring orations. But when he talks about reviving the middle class in America, one wonders whether he has missed the lessons of history, whether he understands the principle of cause and effect.

Washington’s “gridlock, inaction, or willful indifference” of which he speaks is not chiefly responsible for the wreckage skilled wage-earners and professionals now face; it is the result of years, even decades, of systematically dismantling the institutions, regulations and protections the middle class needs in order to survive, let alone thrive. The crew that now “represents” the people – the neo-cons, lunatic libertarians, science deniers, sneering accommodators – can’t help themselves. That’s how they were raised in the me-first, avaricious era of the late 20th century.

For this sea-change in attitude, government, itself, has been largely liable. Through Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations, lawmakers did everything they could to break unions, discourage small businesses, encourage corporate consolidation, and succor the most predatory instincts of free-market capitalism.

Some got rich. More got poor. Today, almost no one believes in the durability of so-called middle-class values. Why would they when the once-sturdy bargain between an employer and his employee can, and does, perish in an offshore agreement with a cheap, foreign supplier of human capital?

At the end of Capra’s ode to the working man, Mr. Smith triumphs, having taught his confreres a little something about decency and dignity. He even gets the girl.

But, of course, that was only a movie.

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Jul 16 2013
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Politics

The shuffling of deck chairs

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper has installed eight new smiles, and plenty of old ones, to greet him at this year’s Conservative Party’s national policy convention, which falls, thanks to the gods of irony, on Halloween.

But Canadians need not wait for the pagan holiday to appreciate the dimension of change the new federal cabinet heralds. The tricks and the treats have been in the works for months; certainly, ever since public opinion polls started granting the youthful, would-be usurper, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, a commanding lead over dear, old Father Harper.

Following the swearing in on Monday, the PM described his shuffle thusly: “I think this is a good mixture of some young and promising talent we have in our caucus and some experienced hands. . .This fall, the government will move ahead with a renewed policy agenda set forward in a speech from the throne. . .And our new agenda will have new faces to bring it forward. The team Canadians elected. . .is deep and it is talented.”

Indeed, it is. It’s also huge – 39 cabinet ministers, in all, will sally forth across the land, preaching the virtues of small government to increasingly skeptical audiences who have, by now, grown accustomed to political spin masquerading as plain speech.

Still, the appointees, themselves, are auspicious picks. Comprising the cohort of newbies are: Chris Alexander, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration; Michelle Rempel,  Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification; Shelly Glover, Heritage Minister; Candice Bergen, Minister of State for Social Development; Kellie Leitch, Minister of Labour, Greg Rickford, Minister of State for Science and Technology; Kevin Sorenson, Minister of State for Finance; and Pierre Poilievre, Minister of Democratic Reform

Standing sturdily, right where they were, are Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Treasury Board President Tony Clement. Meanwhile, some old standbys are moving on, including Peter MacKay, former Defence Minister, who assumes the Justice portfolio.

The question, of course, is what, if anything, do these personnel changes say about the promised “renewed policy agenda.” Many of the federal government’s signature plans and priorities have been stuck in neutral for more than a year.

Trade talks with the Europeans are going nowhere. Relations with Washington remain cordial, but cool. Keystone is but a wish to be contemplated. The new fighter jet project is all but grounded. And, despite Mr. Flaherty’s and his central bank’s best efforts, the Canadian economy, has not rebounded in convincing fashion from the downturns of the past decade.

These items crowd the list of the old agenda, and they are not going away. They are, in fact, the baggage Mr. Harper and his new cabinet must haul during the scant years before the next general election. Worse, the signs that Canadians are increasingly weary of having to watch their elected members carry this burden from one committee room to another, from one public announcement to another, are plentiful.

“A new poll shows the federal Liberals continue to pound the Conservatives, with Canadians saying for the first time leader Justin Trudeau would make a better prime minister then Stephen Harper,” The Montreal Gazette reported in June. “According to a new Léger Marketing poll, 27 per cent of Canadians now think Trudeau would be a better prime minister than Harper, who has a score of 23 per cent. New Democratic Party Leader Thomas Mulcair is seen as the best prime minister by 14 per cent. It’s the first time Léger has reached such a polling conclusion since Trudeau took over the party April 14, said Léger vice-president Christian Bourque. ‘It’s the Trudeau phenomenon,’ said Bourque. ‘In our polling it’s the first time that he’s. . .ahead of Stephen Harper.’”

If the prime minister hopes to improve his party’s standing among Canadians, he would be wise to grant both old and new faces around the cabinet table greater authority to offer fresh, even independent, perspectives on the issues that, for the moment, fall within their purview only titularly.

That would be the neatest trick, and a welcome treat, at this year’s Halloween policy gala.

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Jul 16 2013
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Politics, Society

My softening sentiment toward the monarchy

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We are not, in my my family, mindlessly wedded to the notion of constitutional monarchy. The reason may have something to do with a latent strain of Scottish republicanism that I detect, especially on those occasions when we discuss the gathering independence movement among our ancestral tribesmen.

Still, I have noticed that some of the members of my extended households – as fine and as highly tuned as their intellects are – revert to an atavistic state of hero worship whenever they pass a copy of HELLO! Canada on a newsstand. The  comments invariably devolve into versions of vacant fashion statements.

“Doesn’t Kate look marvellous in her condition? Why, she’s eight months pregnant, and you wouldn’t know it.”

“It’s too bad Wills is losing his hair at such a young age. In every other respect he’s the picture of youthful kingship.”

“My, how good the Queen looks. She just keeps going and going.

This little item in a recent edition of HELLO! literally commandeered one relative’s attention for a good 10 minutes:

“They might be an unlikely pair, but Prince Charles and Cara Delevingne got on famously as they chatted in the grounds of Clarence House. The 20-year-old model clearly found Charles to be a hilarious host, and laughed heartily as she spent time with the amiable royal. Cara was among the guests at a ball thrown by Charles and his wife Camilla in support of the conservation charity The Elephant Family on Tuesday evening.”

Even I have found myself softening, in recent years, to the British Royals. I was once an ardent republican – the sort who inveighed loudly and frequently against their irrelevance, cost and annoying tendency to dominate the summertime headlines. Who cared which garden party which aristocrat at the top of the food chain attended to the delight of genteel supplicants foaming at their mouths to obtain their audiences?

Nowadays, I’m more likely to roll my eyes at the people who insist the monarchist  institution and tradition in Canada present a clear and present threat to their liberty. People, like the ones now involved in legal action against the federal government, which requires them to swear an oath of fealty to the Queen before their landed immigrant status can be transmuted to full citizenship.

As the Globe and Mail reported last week, “A small group of landed immigrants with republican views who have refused Canadian citizenship because the ceremony involves swearing an oath to the Queen will be in a Toronto courtroom. . .facing off with the federal government in an attempt to have this citizenship requirement declared unconstitutional.”

“The court fight is the latest chapter in more than 20 years of failed legal challenges to the citizenship oath spearheaded by Trinidadian-born Toronto activist and lawyer Charles Roach, who died last year at 79, never having become a Canadian citizen. Mr. Roach. . .refused to swear the oath and become a citizen because he believed the Queen was a symbol of imperialism and because of injustices done to his ancestors in the name of the British monarchy.”

Fair enough, I suppose. But, as the Globe pointed out, it’s an uphill battle.

Polls taken last year showed Canadian support for the monarchy was actually rising. A Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey found that 51 per cent people thought that maintaining a connection to the British Crown was a good thing. That was six points better than the results from a poll in 2009.

Some, such as Quebec historian Jocelyn Letourneau, have observed that the Harper government has deliberately raised the profile of the Royals in this country. “The restoration of royal symbols (central to British heritage in Canada as a constitutional monarchy) and the importance given to the War of 1812 (presented as a pivotal moment of resistance to American invasion and the preservation of the country’s distinctiveness) are not the expression of a foolish plan on the part of a disconnected government,” he wrote in a Globe commentary recently. “These initiatives are contributing to the reconstruction of Canadian identity at a time when the country is looking for a new symbolic basis for its current reality.”

Perhaps, but it’s just possible that the Royals represent certain virtues that have all but vanished from the political landscape in Canada. Their popularity may have to do with the simple fact that they, alone, give no offence.

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Jul 09 2013
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Economy, Politics

Re-inventing the N.B. economy

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No statistic serves ruling political priorities more faithfully than the monthly jobs number. When it’s up, governments rush to congratulate themselves for their acuity. When it’s down, they go out of their way to remind voters that deepening unemployment can’t possibly reflect a wayward policy agenda.

So it was, mere days ago, when Statistics Canada confirmed that in June New Brunswick posted the worst jobless rate in years – the worst, in fact, in Canada. According to a CBC report, “At 11.2 per cent, New Brunswick had the highest unemployment rate in the country for the first time while Newfoundland and Labrador saw its unemployment rate dip to just below 11 per cent to 10.9, a significant decrease of 1.9 percentage points from a year ago, the biggest year-on-year decline in the country. . .Manitoba and British Columbia saw the biggest employment increases in June, gaining 7,300 and 8,900 jobs, respectively.”

Meanwhile, “Ontario’s unemployment rate inched up slightly in June, rising 0.2 percentage points to 7.5 per cent. Employment was up 1.6 per cent in the province compared with a year ago. An increase in part-time work in the province was offset by a decline in full-time work, which was also true for the country as a whole.”

The news left New Brunswick Liberal Leader Brian Gallant salivating. Quoted in the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, he said, “We’ve lost 7,000 jobs since the government came to power and as we’re waiting for them to come up with a plan we see that New Brunswickers have to leave our province. We’re the only province in the country that saw its population decrease last year.”

To which Energy and Mines Minister Craig Leonard appeared to retort, in a statement, “We are building new jobs and new industries through our recently announced $20 million investment over five years to support research and innovation in New Brunswick as part of our $80-million innovation strategy.”

He then blathered on, in predictable fashion, about the job-killing predilections of his Grit rivals, whose support of a moratorium on shale gas development, he insinuated, threatens to upend longterm economic development in the province.

Leaving aside, for the moment, the wisdom of hitching New Brunswick’s fortunes to the deeply controversial prospect of onshore petroleum production, this government wastes its time defending its record in the face of the June unemployment metric. It might argue just as convincingly that the jobless rate in that month was good news, for it could have been much worse.

For some time, New Brunswick’s economy has been undergoing profound, even structural, changes, most of which have had little to do with the partisan identities of those who have ruled the roost in Fredericton. Governments of both Progressive Conservative and Liberal persuasions have been broadly feckless in their management of economic opportunities.

There have been the “prosperity plans” and the “growth agendas,” the “blueprints for change” and the “roadmaps for sustainability.” There have been the “big gets” and the “major announcements.” Sprinkled throughout the years have been new slogans, old slogans and, occasionally, no slogans to reflect New Brunswick’s salient dilemma:  A fundamental lack of direction.

People, here, are aging. Young people are leaving. Aging people are leaving. The problem is not, essentially, that they can’t find rewarding work; it is, increasingly, that such work is temporary, fleeting, rootless.

Economic development is not about plans, priorities and programs. It’s not even about tax breaks. It’s about building capacity from the ground up. It’s about nurturing a culture of innovation, enterprise, self-reliance and self-determination. It’s about incubating entrepreneurship.

“What makes Silicon Valley so successful?” asks the website Internationalboost.com. “It’s the story of a number of pioneers who were able to produce an environment that stimulated the emergence of entrepreneurial talent and, most importantly, attracted more of this same talent into the area. . .Silicon Valley is not only the place where companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Apple can literally be founded in a garage – it is the foundation for these companies to continue to re-invent and innovate, becoming world-dominant players in ever-evolving markets and technologies.”

If New Brunswick’s political establishment finally grasp what ought to be self-evident about the province’s prospects, then the monthly job numbers will look after themselves.

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Jul 09 2013
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Politics

The rise of Trudeaumania, redux

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Charging twenty-thousand bucks to a charity that looks after old folks for speaking at one of its fundraising events would be, for anyone, tantamount to committing political suicide. Anyone, except the ridiculously telegenic Justin Trudeau.

The federal Liberal Leader, it seems, can do no wrong, which is not how Conservative and NDP oddsmakers hoped the world would be working by now, mere months after the Grit convention.

As the Saint John Telegraph-Journal reported last week, Mr. Trudeau’s offer to return his appearance fee to the Saint John-based Grace Foundation has met with stony silence. According to the story, “Kate Monfette (spokeswoman for the Leader) said the Grace Foundation is the only organization so far to indicate it wants a refund,” and yet, she said, “We have made initial contact with all organizations and so far we have not received a request for a refund.”

Methinks, the organization has thought better of its original decision to tap Mr. Trudeau for the largesse. The firestorm of controversy that erupted in the wake of its highly public request barely singed the young politico.

Indeed, recent public opinion surveys tell a convincing tale

“A new poll shows the federal Liberals continue to pound the Conservatives, with Canadians saying for the first time leader Justin Trudeau would make a better prime minister then Stephen Harper,” The Montreal Gazette reported late last month. “According to a new Léger Marketing poll, 27 per cent of Canadians now think Trudeau would be a better prime minister than Harper, who has a score of 23 per cent.

New Democratic Party Leader Thomas Mulcair is seen as the best prime minister by 14 per cent. It’s the first time Léger has reached such a polling conclusion since Trudeau took over the party April 14, said Léger vice-president Christian Bourque. ‘It’s the Trudeau phenomenon,’ said Bourque. ‘In our polling it’s the first time that he’s edging ahead of Stephen Harper.’

In fact, the newspaper added, “The national poll, conducted for The Gazette and Le Devoir, showed the Liberals under Trudeau would have rocketed into a majority government had an election been held this week. With distribution of the undecided vote, the Liberals now stand at 37 per cent in the polls – up seven percentage points from March – followed by the Conservatives at 29 per cent – down two from March – and the NDP at 21 per cent – down three points from March.”

Meanwhile, it seems, Atlantic Canadians are warming even more steadily to the prospect of federal Liberal government. According to a CBC News story last week, “The federal Liberals opened up a wide lead in party support in May, earning the support of 49 per cent of Atlantic Canadians, compared to 24 per cent for both the Conservatives and the NDP.

“Don Mills, the chief executive officer of Corporate Research Associates, said the Liberals received the jolt in popularity after Trudeau won his party’s leadership.

‘He has had, obviously, a pretty significant impact in the resurgence of the Liberal party. It was only in 2011, just before the election, where the Liberals fell to the lowest support ever in 25 years of tracking in Atlantic Canada,’ Mills said in an interview. ‘Now we see the NDP are falling back to more traditional levels of support and the Liberals are seeing the highest amount of support in eight years.’”

What accounts for Mr. Trudeau’s rock-star status, particularly on the East Coast, has less to do with his policy statements – which are, frankly, as thin a gruel – and more to do with who he is not; namely Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair. That and the fact that he appears genuinely happy to be wherever he is found, captured on video, compensates for his youth, relative inexperience and the odd misstep.

For all the legitimate criticism he could draw for charging charitable organizations for the pleasure of his company, none of it will stick. The Grace Foundation’s silence might only signify its dawning realization of the reality of their own awkward circumstances.

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Jun 30 2013
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Politics

The passing art of political oration

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When I die, it’s a safe bet former Prime Minister Jean Chretien will not attend my wake. But if – against astronomically long odds – he does, I hope that he will speak straight from the heart, as he did the other day about former Fredericton Member of Parliament Andy Scott, who passed away at the tragically young age of 58.

“You know,” Mr. Chretien told CBC Radio, “he was no shit disturber. He was a good guy. I liked him very much.”

In fact “shit-disturbing” is how I roll, and I make no apologies for it. But the point is that the “little guy from Shawinigan” demonstrates in retirement what Canadians crave, and no longer get, from their political leaders in active service: clear evidence that blood, not antifreeze, courses through their veins.

The zombieification of public officials, which has been underway for some time, respects no political boundaries and makes no ideological distinctions. It is an equal-opportunity malady that renders its victims cold to the touch.

Consider these brittle bromides from the Conservative Party of Canada’s website: “(We believe) in keeping families strong. . .Due to our strong record of tax relief, we’re helping the typical family save over $3,100 a year.  Going forward, our Government is committed to keeping taxes low for families and all Canadians.”

Here’s what the Liberal Party of Canada declares on the same subject: “(We believe) that when individuals and families are given the opportunity to succeed, the economy grows and Canadians become stronger. That’s why equality of opportunity is a fundamental Liberal principle.”

Not to be outdone, the New Democratic Party of Canada also “believes” in families, specifically, “(we believe) in a progressive tax system, taxing capital gains at the same rate as salaries or wages, ensuring that large profitable corporations pay a

fair share of taxes, targeting tax reductions to help the middle class, working families, and the poor, and combatting tax shelters and money laundering.”

How so very brave of them.

Still, compare and contrast this to remarks British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered to the Canadian parliament in 1941 on the war effort: “There shall be no halting, or half measures, there shall be no compromise, or parley. These gangs of bandits have sought to darken the light of the world; have sought to stand between the common people of all the lands and their march forward into their inheritance. They shall themselves be cast into the pit of death and shame, and only when the earth has been cleansed and purged of their crimes and their villainy shall we turn from the task which they have forced upon us, a task which we were reluctant to undertake, but which we shall now most faithfully and punctiliously discharge.”

Granted, the world is no longer engaged in a conflagration of WWII proportions. But that’s no excuse for boring people into a torpor. Did tedium serve the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau when he addressed the Royal Proclamation Ceremony of the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982?

“The Canadian ideal which we have tried to live, with varying degrees of success and failure for a hundred years, is really an act of defiance against the history of mankind,” he declared. “Had this country been founded upon a less noble vision, or had our forefathers surrendered to the difficulties of building this nation, Canada would have been torn apart long ago. It should not surprise us, therefore, that even now we sometimes feel the pull of those old reflexes of mutual fear and distrust.”

As it happens, the recently departed Mr. Scott was, himself, a pretty good speech-maker. Here’s some of what he had to say at the Assembly of First Nations Annual General Assembly in 2004: “I’m a new minister in a new job, but you have my commitment that I will work with you as a partner in good faith. . .Generations that will follow us will look on this time in Canada and this leadership for how we responded to the new spirit of cooperation that was there for all to see at the roundtable. I say with the deepest sincerity and conviction: we will not let them down.”

Unlike many of his peers in political life, Mr. Scott never dulled his tongue lest he appeared too human.

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Jun 30 2013
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Oil and Gas, Politics

Hail to the chief “Keystone Kop”

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Some call it oil. Others call it tar. Still, U.S. President Barack Obama appears disinclined  to call the whole thing off over a simple matter of nomenclature.

In a speech at Georgetown University on Wednesday, the second-term Commander in Chief, mired in legislative gridlock, makes one thing more or less clear: Alberta bitumen must pass his administration’s litmus test for environmental benignity before it gets piped to refineries in Texas.

On whether the sandy crude should, in the alternative, be railed to said locations (and, therefore, cause more carbon pollution than a pipeline ever could), he doesn’t venture an opinion. Such is the kookiness of Keystone politics these days.

Clearly, Mr. Obama – who is as lame a duck as a president can get – has nothing to lose, and he knows it. The “audacity of hope” minstrel is back in full-throated glory, appealing to every possible constituency under the setting sun of his mandate.

“The 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in the last 15 years,” he roars to the delight of environmentalists. “Last year, temperatures in some areas of the ocean reached record highs, and ice in the Arctic shrank to its smallest size on record – faster than most models had predicted it would. These are facts.”

Here are some others: “2012 was the warmest year in our history. Midwest farms were parched by the worst drought since the Dust Bowl, and then drenched by the wettest spring on record. Western wildfires scorched an area larger than the state of Maryland. Just last week, a heat wave in Alaska shot temperatures into the 90s.”

In fact, he says, “The question is not whether we need to act. The overwhelming judgment of science – of chemistry and physics and millions of measurements – has put all that to rest. Ninety-seven percent of scientists, including, by the way, some who originally disputed the data, have now put that to rest. They’ve acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it. . .As a President, as a father, and as an American, I’m here to say we need to act.”

That is the zig; now for the zag.

“One thing I want to make sure everybody understands. . .This does not mean that we’re going to suddenly stop producing fossil fuels,” he declares to the relief of the oil lobby. “Our economy wouldn’t run very well if it did. And transitioning to a clean energy economy takes time. . .I know there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the proposal to build a pipeline, the Keystone pipeline, that would carry oil from Canadian tar sands down to refineries in the Gulf. . .I do want to be clear: Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

Ah yes, something for everyone. Most of all, perhaps for Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, who’s still hung up on the whole “tar sands” versus “oil sands” business. “There is no tar in the oil sands,” he told a news conference in Ottawa, following Mr. Obama’s speech. “Not everyone understands that.”

But on the broad stokes of the president’s address, Mr. Oliver was sanguine. “We agree with President Obama’s State Department Report in 2013 which found that, ‘approval or denial of the proposed Project is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the rate of development in the oil sands, or on the amount of heavy crude oil refined in the Gulf Coast area’.”

All of which reasons strategically for an eastern pipeline into Saint John. After all, the more Alberta oil that can be diverted away from the American marketplace, the more persuasive the argument for Keystone becomes in Washington.

Some say “to-may-toe”. Others say “to-mah-toe”. Still, it seems clear, they’re calling the whole thing on, and everybody wins.

Except, perhaps, the planet, which stubbornly refuses to appreciate the nuances of politics.

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Jun 26 2013
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Humour, Municipal Affairs, Politics

Mayors set vastly different examples

 

Sitting while burgermeistering turns the Twitterverse agog, we say

Sitting while burgermeistering turns the Twitterverse agog, we say

It is with a certain chill that one wonders how Toronto Mayor Rob Ford might have handled flood-ravaged Calgary had he been the burgermeister of that fair, if water-logged, city.

Would he have blamed the heavy rains and bursting riverbanks on left-wing conspirators determined to prove that climate change is real? Would he have taken the opportunity to sweep the streets clean of the homeless and disenfranchised, relocating them by means of bus and pick-up truck to the ex-urban hinterland? Would he have headed for the high country to wait out the storm with nary a peep of support for his fellow citizens, the ones he left behind?

However he might have managed the emergency – which is, by no means, over – one suspects his response would not have come close to matching the gold standard set by Calgary’s actual Mayor Naheed Nenshi, whose status as hero seems secure for all time. The Twitterverse loves the guy, and for good reason.

No finer example of leadership in action currently exists at any level of government, anywhere in Canada. Mr. Nenshi’s instincts have been razor sharp: He’s been selfless, cogent, organized and, perhaps most importantly, available.

His advice to his community has fairly flowed with common sense.

On national television he said, “We live in this urban, cutting edge city but like everyone else we live in nature; we live in this world. I am very familiar with this river (the Bow). It is part of my heartbeat the way it is a part of the heartbeat of every Calgarian, and no Calgarian has ever seen it this high and this fast. . .We can fix stuff, we can replace stuff; we can’t fix people.”

In one of his innumerable public updates, he declared, “I can’t believe I actually have to say this, but I’m going to say it: The river is closed. You cannot boat on the river. I have a large number of nouns that I could use to describe the people I saw in a canoe on the Bow River today. . .I am not allowed to use any of them.”

CBC News reports his Twitter feed as a litany of useful minutia:

“Latest update: water cresting, lots and soon. Stay away from riverbanks, stay tuned for further instruction.”

“Getting a first-hand look across the city. I’ve never seen levels this high and fast. Worst is yet to come.”

“And with that, a day that started 43 hours ago comes to a close. It included one plane, two helicopters and 3:45 am and 8:30 pm press briefings.”

“Did you lose precious family photos? Local photog @gabemcclintock offers to help make new memories.”

“Donate your grad dresses to young women in High River who lost theirs.”

“South line C-train service to downtown will be a while yet. We still recommend staying away from downtown if you at all can.”

“Big news: C-train service back in downtown tomorrow! Blue line back except city hall and centre street, NW line to 8th street.”

It’s often true that adversity brings out the best in people. But not always. Consider the sorry example Mr. Ford now sets in Hog Town, where his administration sits under a cloud laden with controversies, both minor and distinctively otherwise.

Did he or did he not smoke crack with known drug dealers? He refuses to sufficiently clarify the alleged circumstances as police continue to probe the matter. Meanwhile, his reputation stinks like burnt toast.

“Uh oh,” begins the blurb for a new Android gaming app called Stay Mayor.  “Looks like the Mayor’s in a buttload of friggin’ trouble with that alleged video of him smoking crack! And who knows if it even exists, amiright? But juuust in case, why don’t you help him collect a heap of cash to buy it before The Gawker does. Only your twinkle toes can out-maneuver the Blood Thirsty Media to help him collect more than they did in that damn ‘Crackstarter’ campaign. $201,255 to be exact. And hey, everyone needs a little boost now and then, so make sure you collect power up buckets of deep-fried courage for more footballs to throw at life’s problems. . .but make sure you avoid those pesky crackpipes!”

If all mayors are equal, then, some are more equal than others.

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