Runesmith's Canadian Content

Occupy: Why Voting Isn't Enough

2011-11-21T18:41:00.003-05:00

Overhead view of the Occupy Toronto encampment, St. James Park (from Torontoist)

Al Gore's book, "The Assault on Reason" is one of the best treatises on American democracy I've ever read. Written almost five years ago, the book goes into great detail about the many ways in which that democracy has been undermined in recent decades, and gives this warning:

"The derivation of just power from the consent of the governed depends upon the integrity of the reasoning process through which that consent is given. If the reasoning process is corrupted by money and deception, then the consent of the governed is based on false premises, and any power thus derived is inherently counterfeit and unjust. If the consent of the governed is extorted through the manipulation of mass fears, or embezzled with claims of divine guidance, democracy is impoverished. If the suspension of reason causes a significant portion of the citizenry to lose confidence in the integrity of the process, democracy can be bankrupted."

This is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today - more so in the States, but also starting here in Canada.

We are brought up to believe that democracy is a pure and noble process, and that government can be a perfect reflection of the will of the people so long as the people exercise their franchise by voting. Unfortunately, the process itself has become so thoroughly corrupted and manipulated that many have come to believe this is no longer the case.

Nothing has demonstrated the impotence of democracy in the face of a corrupt system than the first term of President Barack Obama, which has proven once and for all that, in America at least, money trumps votes. Over the past four years it has become depressingly clear that a representative's first allegiance is not to the voters who elected him, but to the donors who paid for the election campaign that convinced those voters to elect him.

Things are only moderately better here in Canada. Unlike the States, we have stringent limits on campaign spending and corporate donations, but it is still a sad fact that the one who spends the most money is the one most likely to win an election. And now that the Conservatives have eliminated the per-vote subsidy, that money is now coming almost exclusively from those who can afford to or are actively motivated to donate to a political party, with the still sizable taxpayer subsidy now reflecting their preferences rather than those of the average voter.

But how is it that money can so profoundly influence our democracy? Aren't we all intelligent, free-thinking individuals whose votes are based purely on the merits of the candidate and their position on the issues?

Ok, you can stop laughing now.

As we all know, public opinion is disturbingly easy to sway. Gore talks at length about the differences between television and earlier forms of mass media and their effects on political discourse. Back in the days when American was first forming its democracy, the primary mode of mass communication was print. Newspapers - although hardly unbiased - were nevertheless lively forums for public debate, where anyone with a pen could write a letter and contribute to the discussion. For those with more to say, it was relatively cheap and easy for an ordinary person like Thomas Paine, for instance, to commit their ideas to paper, have them printed and distribute them to a wide audience.

The age of television ended all that. As more and more people began using television as their primary source of news and information, that sort of lively discussion became all but impossible. Not only is TV a one-way medium, but it is also very expensive - so expensive that only the very wealthy or those with wealthy (usually corporate) sponsors can afford access. Those sponsors found themselves with a power they never had before, and slowly began to manipulate the messages being transmitted to serve their own interests.

It used to be that governments controlled the media so they could control the people. Now, corporations control the media and the government, and nobody gives a rat's ass about the people.

Consider this: a candidate running for the U.S. Congress must spend over $1 million if they are to have any hope of winning, largely because of the costs associated with television advertising. This means that, instead of spending their time reviewing legislation and participating in debates, they must spend nearly all their time fundraising, year round. So if a major corporate donor says "Jump!", one can hardly blame them for asking, "How high?" They may want him to do something his constituents wouldn't like, but since those donors essentially control access to the media, chances are the voters will never find out about it. Or if they do, they will be convinced that it doesn't matter.

These days, of course, corporate interests aren't satisfied with merely paying for campaign ads on television. They now use their ownership of the television and radio networks themselves to directly manipulate public opinion through news and news-like programming.

Once again, things are better in Canada, but only by degree. The current spending limit for a candidate running in a Canadian federal election is around $100,000, depending on the size of the riding and other factors. That still sounds like a lot of money, and it is - although thankfully it's not enough for individual candidates to purchase television campaigns. The parties themselves can spend considerably more, but even they are subject to limits. Still, the trend towards year-round campaigning and the growth of third party advertising have shown just what a powerful effect money can have even on a Canadian election.

The result is that fundraising is given priority over all other party activities, even policy making, and that smaller parties representing minority voices will remain forever marginalized. Even those MPs who truly wish to represent their constituents are prevented from doing so because they are forced to vote along with their party in most matters, in order to maintain their good standing and benefit from the party's national advertising campaign.

This is why those who say, "Why don't you just get out and vote?" are being hopelessly naive.

Happily, all this is slowly beginning to change. As the internet gradually replaces television and other traditional media as our primary source of news and information, money will begin to lose its grip on politics. After all, the internet is by and large free and unrestricted, with infinite capacity for public access and participation.

This has actually been happening for some time now, but has only recently reached the tipping point where television may have begun to have less influence on public opinion than other means. And really - why would you wait for the 6 o'clock news to come on or for some network camera person to make their way down to where an event happened earlier, when you can watch it happening right now, live, unfiltered, through a dozen different camera lenses, and then draw your own conclusions about what it all means.

No wonder the corporate interests are so desperate to find some way to control it.

I would submit that the Occupy movement is perhaps the first large scale manifestation of this shift, and the first major victory in what will be a long battle to wrest control of our democracies back from the monied interests. For the first time in a generation, WE are setting the agenda. WE have changed the channel.

Ordinary people everywhere are suddenly talking about issues like the income gap and money in politics, not because the government or the television is telling them to, but because their friends are talking about it on Facebook, or at the pub, or they saw some video on YouTube. They might agree or disagree with the points being made or the tactics being used, but the important thing is they're engaged in a dialogue instead of just regurgitating talking points.

It's going to take a while for all this to filter through and make systemic changes. Just because television is having less of an influence on public opinion doesn't mean that influence is gone, or that politicians and parties are going to stop spending billions of dollars on TV advertising. And we must remain vigilant that those same interests that control traditional media don't succeed in controlling the internet as well.

There is also the persistant problem of the protests themselves overshadowing the message they are trying to get across. For instance, everyone now knows about Lt. John Pike and his can of orange pepper spray. Not many people know that the kids he attacked were there to protest a massive increase in their tuition fees.

Keep your eyes on the prize, people. Stay engaged. Stay focused. Turn off the TV. And what the hell - get out and vote anyway. You never know.

From the files of Rob Ford's psychiatrist

2011-10-26T16:54:00.000-04:00

Most people are unaware of the incident that traumatized Rob Ford as a child:

The CFUW Debate

2011-10-04T11:26:00.001-04:00

Four of Halton's provincial candidates came together at Milton District High School last Thursday to debate the issues and make another pitch for your vote.

Unlike some previous debates, this one had a sizable crowd attending, possibly because this would be the last candidates meeting with no admittance fee and the last one held in town. Or perhaps people just wanted to see if Progressive Conservative candidate Ted Chudleigh would appear.

Mr. Chudleigh, after saying that he would not be able to attend at all, later announced that he would be arriving around 8:00. In the end, he walked in the door at 8:13, which happened to be during the midway break. His elections signs preceded him, however, with dozens of them arranged chock-a-block, lining both sides of the road leading up to the school.

The event was organized by the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) and moderated by Milton District Principal Ian Jones, who got plenty of practice last year when he played the same role at the Heritage debate during the municipal election. In fact, the exact same format was used: candidates gave their opening remarks, then answered questions set by the organizers, and then were given questions submitted by the audience.

JOBS

The first question which all four had the opportunity to answer came from a student who was returning to Halton after graduating from university. They wanted to know what each candidate's party would do to create jobs in Halton suitable for those with a university education that did not involve retail or general labour. An excellent question given that, in Milton in particular, a common complaint is that those who work here can't afford to live here, and those who live here can't afford to work here.

Tony Rodrigues of the Family Coalition Party answered first, lambasting the Liberals' green energy investments and claiming that wind and solar power have been a dismal failure in Europe. He suggested that lower taxes and reduced red tape were the solution to creating jobs.

Indira Naidoo-Harris of the Liberals responded with her party's record of adding 200,000 new post-secondary spots and more jobs than the rest of the country combined, as well as the 50,000 clean energy sector jobs they are working on bringing to the province. She emphasized that the Liberals are looking to create jobs, not just for the next few years but "for generations to come".

Nik Spohr got a laugh when he quipped that his post-secondary job choice was "NDP Candidate", and made it clear that he understood the questioner's difficulties from first hand experience. He insisted that the best approach to job creation is to create an educated workforce that isn't crippled with debt, and outlined his party's plan to freeze tuition rates and take the interest off OSAP.

Ted Chudleigh of the Progressive Conservatives had a different approach, promising that his party would allow small to medium-sized businesses "do what they do best" by removing red tape, reducing business taxes, and allowing them to bid on government contracts along side large businesses.

He also made a curious comment regarding job creation in Milton. He claimed that the town was actually doing very well in that regard, with the 3M distribution headquarters opening last year and the national Target store warehouse coming soon, creating a total of 1,300 new jobs. "And those are good jobs!" he said.

A quick check of local warehouse job listings reveals that they pay on average $12.00 - $14.50 an hour and require an ability to "lift heavy items repeatedly". Good jobs, no doubt, but probably not what a university graduate is looking for.

EDUCATION

One question came from a grade 7 student wanting to know why there were 'split' classes with students from different grades. She complained that she found the grade 8 students in her class "distracting".

Interestingly, the increase in the number of split classes is a symptom of smaller class sizes. Different grades are given a hard 'cap', so if they end up with, say, ten extra students from one grade they are put in a class with the overflow from another. None of the candidates could come up with a better solution or even felt that it was much of a problem, although Mr. Spohr used the opportunity to talk about inequities in funding between school boards, and Mr. Rodrigues suggested doing away with trustees and school boards altogether to save money. Apparently he is unaware of how little a school trustee is paid.

ECONOMY

The candidates were then asked how they would pay for their parties platform promises without increasing the deficit or the debt. Mr. Spohr mentioned several places where the NDP planned to find more money, including increasing corporate tax rates while making tax breaks contingent on job creation, capping the salaries of crown corporation CEOs at $300,000, and eliminating the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs).

Mr. Chudleigh repeated his party's claim that government revenues have increased 80% over the last 8 years, while the economy has only grown 10%. He didn't cite his sources on this or realy clarify what he was saying, but a little digging reveals that in fact, the percentage of tax revenue to GDP has remained at a consistent 10% throughout both the Liberal and Progressive Conservative regimes of the past 16 years. He also claimed that the Liberals had doubled the debt from $120 billion to $240 billion.

Ms. Naidoo-Harris countered that the net debt to GDP has actually only increased by 25%, and pointed out that the Liberals had managed to bring the government out of the $5.5 billion dollar deficit they inherited from the PCs into a surplus situation by the end of their first term before the recent recession hit.

MISCELLANY

Mr. Rodrigues continued to provide his own unique perspective on many issues. He started by claiming that all the kids who ride his bus who were once in day care were rude, while those who were cared for exclusively at home were polite. He also suggested that if a sixteen year-old is old enough to have a "killing machine" placed in their control (i.e. a car), they should be old enough to vote. And a bit later, he asked, "What's the difference between pioneers and immigrants?", then, answering his own question, "The pioneers built this country, and the immigrants, they just took advantage of it. I am one of them too!"

OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE DEAF

There was a sizable contingent from Milton's large deaf community present at the debate, and the entire proceeding was interpreted by a volunteer sign interpreter. One of the more interesting questions came from this group, asking what the various parties had to offer Milton's large deaf community in terms of employment and opportunity. Mr. Spohr lead off by talking about increasing accessibility for all persons with disabilities, and increasing ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program) payments and reducing clawbacks. He also had the good grace to admit that he didn't know everything about the issue as it pertains to the deaf community and asked them to come to him with suggestions.

Mr. Chudleigh also promised to reduce the clawbacks on ODSP, and Rodrigues and Naidoo-Harris found something they could agree on: the desirability of teaching sign in schools and their personal regret that they never learned sign themselves.

GROWTH AND AGRICULTURE

When a question about growth and its effect on agriculture was raised, Mr. Chudleigh got his dates a little mixed up when he claimed that the extremely rapid growth in Milton was "caused by" the Province's 'Places to Grow' legislation. In fact, Milton started growing rapidly as soon as the 'Big Pipe' was put in in in 2001, whereas 'Places to Grow' wasn't brought in until 2005.

He also spoke about the Milton Hospital expansion which he said was "eight years too late", pointing out that it had been in the beginning stages back in 2003 when the incoming Liberals put it on hold, and would have been finished by now had they not done so.

Ms. Naidoo-Harris spun that around, saying "I agree that we should have had this hospital a long time ago... I think that we should have had our Member get this hospital for us a long time ago", and once again credited her own efforts with the Minister for the recent expansion approval.

Mr. Spohr hit closer to the issue of agriculture when he spoke about a young man he met recently who was lamenting the demise of the Halton Young Farmers Club, which is apparently down to its last four or five members. He also spoke about 'Ontario First' government procurement, more Ontario wines at the LCBO, and encouraging farm processing on site.

RECREATION AND UPLOADING

The last question had to do with recreation, and Ms. Naidoo-Harris used the opportunity to talk about the Government of Ontario uploading costs from municipalities - something I have discussed on this blog - to free up property tax money for things like recreation. Nik Spohr went further, raising the spectre of Toronto's threatened service cuts and suggesting that recreational facilities are public and should therefore be free.

Mr. Chudleigh concluded by saying that "there is only one taxpayer", and that "uploading or downloading shouldn't be a political decision", it should be an economic one based on "which level of government can provide the best service at the best price".

Of course there's a bit more to it than that, as Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion and many other municipal leaders have repeatedly explained. I suspect even Ted's friend Gord Krantz would have a thing or two to tell him about the inflexibility of municipal finances, and what he thinks about Mr. Hudak's reluctance to continue the uploading process.

Progressive Conservative candidate Ted Chudleigh

Liberal candidate Indira Naidoo-Harris (right) with
former Milton councillor Jan Mowbray

NDP candidate Nik Spohr

Family Coalition candidate Tony Rodrigues

__________________________

As we head into the home stretch of this election, I would like to say one more thing:

VOTE.

Vote with your head and your heart, not just your gut. Vote for which party shares your values, not who promises the most goodies. Vote for a leader's vision for the future, not their slogans. Vote for hope, not fear. Vote for your children and the kind of future you want for them. Vote for your neighbours and their needs, not just your own.

Just vote. And I'll see you on the other side.

Taking Attendance

2011-09-29T12:09:00.003-04:00

An interesting pattern began emerging during the Federal Election this past spring. At forums, debates, and all-candidates meetings across the country, Conservative Party candidates were simply not showing up.

There was always some excuse, of course - although the over-use of the "prior commitment" was making some wonder if there was perhaps a new species of virus called "Prior Commitment" that had everyone sick in bed. And to be sure, some candidates may well have had a legitimate reason for not being able to attend.

It was the high percentage of Conservative candidates who were finding somewhere they would rather be that began to raise eyebrows, to the point where campaign spokesman Ryan Sparrow had to step in and quash rumours that Head Office was ordering them not to attend. He even issued a statement:

We provide support for candidates to participate in candidates debates, but we don't instruct them not to attend debates. Most candidates would prefer to meet with voters one on one though instead of debating their opponents in crowds of committed supporters of the different parties.

Fast forward five months, and the same pattern is beginning to emerge among Ontario Progressive Conservative candidates.

The trend became particularly apparent last week when ridings across the province marked Education Day by conducting education-themed debates. Word got out that the PCs were going to give the whole thing a pass, but nobody quite believed it until reports started coming in of empty chairs behind PC placecards.

There was even an eerily familiar statement from a party spokesperson:

Alan Sakach, director of communications for the Ontario PC party, said “Our candidates make their own decisions on debate attendance based on time availability and other commitments. Candidates get a tremendous number of invitations for debates, meetings and town halls, and balance those requests with the need to door knock and canvass in their riding. Obviously they can’t make it to every event — there’s just not enough time.”

In the end it was confirmed: of the 20 education debates held in Toronto, not a single Progressive Conservative candidate turned up. Outside of Toronto, attendance was also abysmal. After a half hour search I could only find one - in Whitby-Oshawa - where the PC candidate took part.

Halton was no exception. As documented by reporter Stuart Service, PC incumbent Ted Chudleigh was absent from the education debate on the 22nd. He also failed to show at the four-riding debate sponsored by the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association on the 27th. So did the PC candidates from Oakville and Burlington (nobody from Wellington-Halton Hills turned up). Apparently they all had a "prior commitment".

Chudleigh hasn't only been avoiding education-themed debates. He also took a pass on the Halton/Oakville 'Policy Not Polls' debate, along with his Oakville counterpart, claiming that he did not attend "because it was taking place outside of Halton riding. I had a number of other things on my schedule that evening and I believe my attendance at those events was more important than this particular event, which was located in a different riding."

Admittedly, yes - the venue was about two blocks into Oakville territory. It's not like they have moat, though, and it is a pretty handy spot for a shared Oakville and Halton event. Besides which, he didn't seem to have any trouble making it to the Oakville Chamber of Commerce debate which took place much further south of the Oakville/Halton boundary.

(Liberal candidate Indira Naidoo-Harris also did not attend the 'Policy Not Polls' event. As far as I am aware, it's the only debate she has skipped.)

Tonight, the Canadian Federation of University Women is hosting a debate at Milton District High School. Mr. Chudleigh initially said that he would be unable to attend due to (you guessed it) a "prior commitment". However, the day before the event his campaign office let it be known that he would be able to attend after all - but only after 8:30, when the debate will be half over.*

A lot of people volunteer a lot of hours organizing these events, and even though they are sometimes sparsely attended, they do get widely reported in the local media and many voters use those reports to help them make their decision. So if the Ontario Progressive Conservatives have decided as a party strategy that debates and candidates meetings are not worth their time, then they should say so publicly and save everyone the time and trouble.

But this nonsense of every single PC candidate having a "prior commitment" on Education Day, or claiming that it's too far to travel two blocks south of the riding boundary for a debate? Sorry, but I'm calling bullshit.

Show a little respect.

*UPDATE: A few hours before the CFUW debate, Mr. Chudleigh's office sent out a memo stating that he would arrive at 8:00 and not 8:30. In the end, he split the difference and walked in the door at 8:13 during the midway break.

_____________________________________________________________

The Wall of Shame
(feel free to send me corrections or additions)

Ottawa Centre: PC candidate did not attend Education debate

Brampton-Springdale: PC candidate did not attend Education debate

Brampton-Gore-Malton: PC and Liberal candidates did not attend Education debate

Elgin-Middlesex-London: PC candidate did not attend Student Issues debate or Health Care debate

Toronto Centre: PC candidate has stated they will only attend one debate

Parkdale-High Park: PC candidate did not attend Sept. 13 debate

London West: PC candidate did not attend Health Care debate or Engineering debate

London West: NDP candidate did not attend Sept. 24th debate

London-Fanshawe: PC candidate did not attend Health Care debate or Engineering debate

York-South Weston: PC candidate did not attend Sept. 14th debate

Nickel Belt: PC candidate did not attend Social Planning Council debate

London-North Centre: NDP candidate did not attend debate at the University of Western Ontario (did not want to cross picket line)

London-North Centre: PC candidate did not attend Health Care debate or Engineering debate

Perth-Wellington: Liberal candidate did not attend Wind Concerns Ontario sponsored debate

Lambton-Kent-Middlesex: PC candidate did not attend Education or Agriculture debates

Peterborough: PC candidate did not attend three debates

Pickering-Scarborough East: PC candidate did not attend Education debate

Flamborough: PC candidate did not attend 'Free Flamborough' debate

Cambridge: PC candidate did not attend Cambridge Federation of University Women’s debate

Etobicoke: PC candidate did not attend Education debate

Scarborough-Rouge River: PC candidate did not attend Sept. 22nd debate

Scarborough-Agincourt: PC candidate did not attend Sept. 19th debate

Willowdale: PC candidate will not be attending any debates

Diary of a Film Festival Virgin, Part 1

2011-09-21T02:20:00.002-04:00

I have a confession to make. I was born and raised in Toronto, lived half my life there, I am a huge movie fan... and yet, up until this year I had never attended a single Toronto International Film Festival screening.

Every year there was some excuse: I had no time, I had no money, I was out of town, I forgot. Mostly I was intimidated by the whole process. So this year I just dove in head first and bought a stack of single tickets to anything that caught my eye. After all, what better way to celebrate losing your job at a video store than to spend your new-found free time and rapidly depleting final paycheck at a film festival?

I was fortunate that in addition to the five movies I bought tickets to, I also got to see even more as a volunteer for the TIFF Film Circuit program. Of course this meant some pretty tight scheduling, especially as I was traveling primarily by GO bus and TTC.

My shining logistical moment was squeezing in three movies at three different theatres in six and a half hours.

It was a wonderful experience. I got to see some incredible movies - some of which I hope to bring to the Milton Film Forum - I got to meet some terrific people, and on top of everything else it gave me a chance to fall in love with Toronto all over again.

Here, then, are my TIFF films for 2011:

Anonymous

What if Shakespeare's plays weren't written by William Shakespeare? It's an intriguing premise, and 'Anonymous' does a reasonably convincing job of advancing this elaborate proposition, as long as you don't look to closely at... well, the history.

The film is largely held together by the performance of Rhys Ifans, who is positively mesmerizing as Edward De Vere, the proposed ghost writer. Here is a character truly worthy of Shakespeare: noble by birth, yet orphaned and raised by the ambitious William Cecil who desperately tries to stifle his young ward's passion for writing and the theatre. But De Vere has his own plans, and crafts himself into a man of wit, wisdom, and surpassing talent. His is one of the most original, fully-realized characters I've seen in a movie of this scale in quite a while.

Ifans shines so brightly as the protagonist that the other characters seem almost dim. An exception was Vanessa Redgrave, riveting as usual as the elder Queen Elizabeth I, and the effect of casting her daughter Joely Richardson as the younger Elizabeth was downright spooky. Rafe Spall also held his own, playing William Shakespeare as an ignorant yet dangerous fool.

Unfortunately, the other principal characters - notably Ben Jonson and Cecil's son Robert - were written more as roles to be filled than as complete individuals, and were therefore less effective.

The twisted plot of Anonymous slowly progresses from intriguing to implausible, and ends in such a muddle that it requires an excess of exposition to untangle. Still, it's an entertaining ride for all its flaws, and fans of costume drama will not be disappointed. Historians will hate it, but just like Shakespeare, the creators of Anonymous are more than happy to sacrifice accuracy in the service of a great story.

Edwin Boyd

In any other country, the name of Edwin Alonzo Boyd would be as well known as Jesse James or John Dillinger. And for a brief time, it was. Perhaps we were only waiting for his story to be told on the big screen for us to fully incorporate it into our national mythology.

I'm not usually a fan of gangster movies, but of course this is a Canadian gangster movie so it doesn't exactly fit the mold. Scott Speedman's Edwin Boyd is so clearly just an ordinary guy who fell on hard times that you can't help but sympathize as he discovers just how easy it is to rob a bank - and then discovers how much fun it is. The same is true with every member of the 'Boyd Gang'. You can see exactly how they got from A to B, and while you can't condone their actions, you understand how they came to commit their crimes.

The film is explicitly Canadian, but in a good way. Americans will still get it, but Canadians will find everything warmly familiar, from the TTC buses to the snow to the layout and decor of the 50s and then 60s houses. Hard to believe, I know, but this is actually a Canadian story told by a Canadian writer and director, shot in Canada with a Canadian cast. It's nice to see, especially when so many other films are being fobbed off as "Canadian" when their only connection to this country consists of a government grant and a half dozen technical crew shipped off to film someone else's story on another continent.

[cough... 'Winnie'... cough]

(I wanted to post a trailer for Edwin Boyd, but from what I can tell there isn't one. And this is why Canadian films fail.)

The Mayors of Jane Jacobs' Toronto

2011-09-18T09:16:00.001-04:00

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs, a book which influenced generations of urban planners and municipal leaders and forever changed the way we think of cities. So what better way to celebrate than in the company of four former mayors of Toronto, the city Jacobs called home for nearly half her life.

David Crombie, John Sewell, Art Eggleton, and Barbara Hall were all on hand for "Jane Jacobs' Toronto", a panel discussion moderated by TVO's Steve Paikin and presented by the Centre for City Ecology. Tickets were free, and were snapped up so quickly that organizers moved the event to a larger venue at OISE - and even then they were left with a waiting list of over 150.

Given the overwhelming interest in recent goings on at Toronto City Hall, it's not hard to guess why.

All four mayors had known and worked with Jacobs after she moved to Toronto from the U.S. in the late '60s (she passed away in 2006). They shared memories of her as not only a great thinker but a consummate organizer and strategist who spent her years in Toronto in vigorous battle against what she saw as city-destroying projects such as the Spadina Expressway (which she helped to stop) and amalgamation (which she couldn't).

Sewell and Jacobs had a shared background as activists and community organizers, and they worked closely together even before Sewell was elected Mayor. He told a memorable story of the two trying to stop a developer from demolishing a group of houses near Dundas and Sherbourne to make way for two thirty story towers.

"A hoarding went up around the site, and I decide, my goodness, we've got to do some organizing! So we got a whole bunch of people out there on a Monday and a Tuesday and a Wednesday and a Thursday - we actually had about a hundred people out there on the street at about six-thirty in the morning so we confronted those workmen when they came, and in fact every day they went away.

"And then on Friday we again were out there, strong as ever - Jane was there, every day. And all of a sudden we look over the fence on that Friday, and we saw that in fact the workmen were beginning to tear down the porch on a house... And I turned to Jane and I said, "Jane, what do we do now, they're starting to tear down that house!"

"Well", she said, "if you're going to tear down a property in Toronto, you have to have a hoarding around it. So if we want to stop the demolition, we've got to tear down the hoarding." And I said, "Aw, Jane, now wait... now that's starting to break laws."

"Look, John" she says, "you want to stop the demolition? Tear down the hoarding."

"So I got everybody together and said, "Ok folks, were going to tear down the hoarding." We tore down the hoarding, the workmen went away, I called David in the Mayor's office who at that point was negotiating with the province to see if we could buy the site. We bought the site from the province, and that became CityCorp's very first non-profit housing project."

David Crombie also worked closely with Jacobs in the early days of Toronto's urban reform movement, but more as a city-builder than an activist. His most successful effort to turn her concepts into reality was the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, which has been lauded as a model of pedestrian and community-friendly planning.

Paikin asked the panelists what they thought Jacobs would like best about what Toronto has become, and what she would hate about it. The latter question generated the longest responses of course, and provided an excellent opportunity for the former mayors to comment on the performance of the current mayor. Interestingly, it was Eggleton - arguably the most conservative of the group - who was the most pointed in his criticism of the Ford administration. He believes that Jacobs would be "horrified" by Ford's plan for the Port Lands.

But Sewell made the best Ford joke. After the fifth or sixth subway train rumbled loudly beneath the hall, Sewell grabbed the mic and said that there was one good thing that might come out of Ford's tenure: the subways would run far less often.

As for what Jacobs would have liked, the panelists cited Toronto's cultural diversity, the local food movement, and the large numbers of people walking and cycling to work. John Sewell was unconvinced, however, maintaining that much of Toronto's development has ignored the basic principles which Jacobs espoused, especially since amalgamation.

One issue that kept coming up was the increasing hostility between downtown and suburban Toronto residents. Crombie in particular was greatly concerned that things were developing into a full blown "culture war". All four mentioned a need for public spaces and forums where people from all areas of the city can engage in dialogue beyond their local neighbourhoods. To illustrate, Barbara Hall asked how many members of the audience lived outside of the old City of Toronto - it was about 25% - and pointed out that having a more equal representation of all regions of the city at public meetings and deputations would lend them greater legitimacy.

When the time came for questions from the audience, I asked the panel if they thought that Jane Jacobs' ideas could be scaled to fit smaller exurban communities Like Milton or Oshawa, or whether (as she wrote at one point) they can only really apply to large cities. They all felt that her ideas of diversity, mixed-use, walkability, etc. would work perfectly in a mid-to-large town context - and in most cases already do.

While I had the mic, I also had to thank John Sewell for inspiring me to get involved with municipal politics, telling him about how I had been on 'Team Sewell' in our grade 9 mock election. Steve Paikin and the panelists seemed particularly interested when I told them that I had run for Milton Town Council last year, which is probably why I was approached by the organizers after the session to speak on camera for some follow-up video. I was happy to do it, although I was really wishing I'd brought a hairbrush.

While I was waiting for my close-up, I had the opportunity to speak to both Sewell and Crombie. Sewell seemed a bit standoffish - perhaps because of my earlier fan-girlish ebullience - but David Crombie was absolutely delightful, especially after I told him that my mother had attended Earl Haig at about the same time he did. We had a lovely chat about growing up in North York, municipal politics, and what was going on in Milton, and he encouraged me to run again.

Given what Toronto's current mayor has been up to, I would encourage Crombie to do the same.

NOTE: Full video of the event is available on the YouTube page of HiMY SYeD. SYeD was a Toronto mayoral candidate in last years election, and actually cornered Steve Paikin after the panel discussion to ask him why his producers refused to cover any but the top five or six candidates.

"When did we become for immigrants?"

2011-09-10T12:38:00.000-04:00

HT to Oakville Mayor Rob Burton (or as we like to call him, @OakvilleMayor) for pointing out the quote of the day from Burlington PC candidate Jane McKenna:

“We have 550,000 Ontarians who are unemployed and yet the government wants to pay $10,000 to hire immigrants for jobs. When did we become for immigrants? You should have one law that fits everyone.”

Wow. I got nuthin'.

Dalton McGuinty at Burlington Rally (with video)

2011-09-10T11:25:00.001-04:00

About 300 local Liberals was on hand to greet a special surprise guest at the offices of Burlington candidate Karmel Sakran on Thursday. The group included just about every candidate in the western GTA, as well as the now ubiquitous "Fire Fighters for McGuinty" in their yellow shirts and their big yellow bus.

The group is representing the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association, which has grave concerns over Tim Hudak's plan to alter the contract arbitration process for essential service employees who cannot go on strike.

Hudak claims that arbitration ends up costing municipalities too much and that he will insist that arbitrators take the ability of towns and cities to pay into account in their decisions. In fact, considering ability to pay is already part of the legislation, so it's unclear exactly what Hudak plans to do to enforce that and rein in arbitrated wage increases - especially since his former boss Mike Harris tried to do just that back in the 90s and failed to find a solution.

Regardless of whether or not the arbitration system actually needs fixing or not, Hudak's musings have clearly lost him the support of not only the firefighters but just about every other public sector union in Ontario. And having already lost the support of most municipalities because of his refusal to commit to continuing the uploading process, he's left with nothing to show for this politically.

Meanwhile, Dalton McGuinty has the support of the most beloved heroes of the public sector and a lovely yellow backdrop for all his campaign rallies.

(my apologies to Walt Elliot for misspelling his name in the captions)

The Orange and the Green

2011-09-06T16:36:00.001-04:00

When provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath announced this summer that her party wanted to reduce the HST on gasoline, I must say I raised an eyebrow. After all, the NDP is supposed to be (among many other things) an environmentally friendly party, and conventional environmental wisdom states that high gas taxes are an effective way to reduce consumption.

Now, it's one thing to argue against that premise, and certainly many have done just that. But to completely ignore the environmental implications of cutting an energy consumption tax and just drop it straight into the 'saving taxpayers money' file seems a little... well, un-NDPlike.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so.

NDP losing its green allies

In a stinging letter to Horwath, circulated to members of a green coalition, Environmental Defence executive director Rick Smith complained that her party had lost its way:

“Some of your existing policy positions are not in the best interest of environmental or human health protection,” Smith wrote last month.

“How can any party that claims to be concerned about global warming advocate de facto subsidies for buying oil and gas. This is absolutely the wrong direction.”

Significantly, Smith is a former chief of staff to the late federal NDP leader, Jack Layton, who made environmentalism a cornerstone of his campaigns in a way that Ontario New Democrats have not. The party’s former research director, Hugh Mackenzie, has also condemned its recent positions.

Ouch!

The article also calls into question Horwath's delicate dance around the issue of wind turbines, in which she seeks to simultaneously avoid offending either her green allies or her sizeable rural constituency without tying herself in a knot and falling off the stage.

I'm sure some political operative is telling them that this is the best way to capitalize on the perceived momentum from their federal cousins. And maybe they're right. But if the provincial NDP really wants to bask in the orange afterglow from Jack Layton's passage, they might want to try adopting his principles and his strength of resolve instead of emulating his opponents' political flexibility.

Halton Liberals Off to the Races

2011-09-04T01:22:00.002-04:00

Indira Naidoo-Harris and the Halton Liberals kicked off their campaign today with a good old fashioned open house and barbeque at their new campaign office on Main Street in Milton. They timed it nicely to coincide with both the end of the Farmers' Market and the beginning of the Steam Era Parade, so there were plenty of people on hand.

I must say, the office is much nicer than the last one I spent a campaign in. Housed in the former Joleens storefront on the south side of Main Street, it's got a ton of space and even has cubicles. Cubicles! Why, when I was working the phone banks for the '08 election we were all crammed cheek by jowl into a tiny windowless office with nothing but a headset and a breath mint between us.

But I digress.

All the usual suspects turned out, of course. Former Halton MP Julian Reed was there, along with former Halton MPP Walt Elliott. Naidoo-Harris was introduced first by Walt, then by current Oakville MP Kevin Flynn, and was followed up by Linda Jeffrey, Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources.

I must say, I was impressed by Naidoo-Harris' speech. Her polished communication skills are not surprising for a former broadcaster, but in this case it sounds like she was also aided by some fairly tight messaging from party HQ. The theme of "Moving Forward Together" was effectively hammered home, as was the litany of impressive sounding statistics on education, jobs, and hospital wait times we've heard on the TV ads.

Smart.

Local Liberals have also been giving Naidoo-Harris credit for the recent Milton hospital expansion approval, which might be stretching things a bit. She may well have had some influence - something along the lines of, "Get this done now or we don't have a hope in hell in Halton" - but I'm sure Ted Chudleigh feels he deserves some of the credit, and every member of Milton's municipal government who has fought for this over the past decade or so certainly does. Still, it was a huge victory, and if local Liberals want to benefit from the fact that it came under their government's watch... well, who can blame them?

It's not like every sitting government in the history of democracy hasn't done exactly the same thing.

Uproar over Uploading

2011-09-02T18:34:00.001-04:00

The recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) Conference presented a golden opportunity for Provincial candidates to make their pitch to just about every municipal government leader in the province. This hugely influential alliance of mayors, councillors and regional chairs was anxious to hear exactly what the party leaders had to offer Ontario's cities and towns, and they certainly got an earful.

Unfortunately, some candidates weren't telling them what they wanted to hear.

The biggest shock came when PC leader Tim Hudak was asked if his government would continue the 'uploading' of services from municipal and regional jurisdiction to the provincial level. This is a process that was started by the McGuinty Liberals almost as soon as they took office, designed to reverse the 'downloading' of costs for everything from transit to social services to court security onto municipalities by the previous Progressive Conservative government - a government that Mr. Hudak played a significant role in.

Downloading was essentially a shell game designed to make the new Provincial government look like economic wizards, when all it really accomplished was to transfer those costs from the income tax base onto the considerably less flexible property tax base. Municipal budgets have been buckling ever since.

The current Provincial government has been slowly (some say too slowly) reassuming those costs, as well as gradually eliminating the GTA pooling that saw Halton property tax dollars funding services in downtown Toronto. In Halton's case, those savings have been parlayed into much needed infrastructure investments, as well as easing the tax burden on homeowners.

The process is only about two-thirds of the way complete, which is why AMO delegates were shocked to hear that a Tim Hudak government would put the brakes on it until they can see exactly what the province's financial situation is. That has been taken as a nice way of saying that the uploading will stop, and may even be reversed again.

For Halton, and especially for Milton, this is of particular concern since one of the current items being 'uploaded' is court security - a very big deal in this prison town. Now Regional staff are estimating that halting the uploading of that and other remaining services will cost Halton an estimated $15.9 million per year in projected savings.

Reaction from AMO delegates and editorialists alike has been universally negative. One particular mayor was seriously pissed, especially when it was suggested that Hudak's comments were at all ambiguous:

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion said she wasn’t confused at all by Hudak’s position on uploading.

“He was very clear. He is going to stop it,” she said. “He supports it where it is at.”

Social costs must be taken completely off property taxes, she said. “Health is next then education,” she said. “The uploading has to continue in a major way and this is only the beginning. Property taxes were designed to take care of property, not humans.”

Note to candidates: irritating Hazel McCallion is NOT how you get elected in Ontario.

For the record, both the NDP and Green party leaders have firmly committed to honouring and even improving on the current government's uploading commitments. As for Hudak, it remains to be seen whether his handlers' attempts to downplay his remarks will appease voters.

They certainly haven't fooled anyone who was at the AMO Conference.

Top 10 Movies You Might Not Have Heard Of *

2011-02-27T11:25:00.001-05:00

*(but should definitely see)

As some of you may have heard, I recently had the honour of being appointed as the Assistant Returning Officer for Halton with Elections Canada. It's a tremendous opportunity for me, but unfortunately it also means that, in the interest of non-partisanship, my career as a political blogger is on hiatus for the interim.

Happily, this blog is also my film and television review forum, so I thought this would be a good time to resurrect my pre-Oscar round-up of film gems you may have overlooked this past year.

Chloe
You might actually have heard of this one, if only because it was the film Liam Neeson was in Toronto shooting when his wife Natasha Richardson died so tragically. The main focus, however, is on the relationship between Julianne Moore and the mesmerizing Amanda Seyfried, as a jealous wife and the escort she hires to tempt her husband into straying. Like most of director Atom Egoyan's films, it travels a long and winding road that doesn't end up anywhere near where you'd guess.

Cooking With Stella
I'm a big fan of both Don McKeller and Deepa Mehta, so seeing them both involved in the same project filled me with glee. It's a frothy little tale about the husband of a Canadian diplomat in India who asks their larcenous housekeeper for cooking lessons. The style borrows liberally from Bollywood, with plenty of humour, romance, and twists of fate. Just a whole lot of fun.

Don't Look Back
This is a strange and fascinating French film about a woman who finds herself transforming into... someone else. Flashes of memory that aren't hers. Clothes and furniture - and eventually, her family - that are suddenly not the way she remembers. Even her own face begins to transform, even though no one around her seems to notice. The whole thing leads in some unexpected directions, and is fascinating to watch beginning to end.

Exit Through the Gift Shop
A surreal and hilarious profile of one grafitti artist by another. How much is real, how much is performance art, and exactly who is making a movie about who, are all still matters of debate. But in the end it really doesn't matter. This one has been nominated for Best Documentary this year, which raises at least two interesting questions: 1) Is it really a documentary?, and 2) Will the elusive Banksy make an appearance at the Oscars on Sunday?

Get Low
A lovely, wise 'tall tale' starring Robert Duvall as an ornery old hermit in 1930s Kentucky who decides to throw himself a funeral party - while he's still alive to participate. In the process he manages to resurrect some ghosts from the past, and throw the life of the local undertaker and his assistant (Bill Murray and Lucas Black) into complete chaos.

Never Let Me Go
A haunting parable about three young people growing up in a world where they and their kind are raised for the sole purpose of being organ donors. It's a familiar premise in the realm of science fiction, but this is not a science fiction movie. It all takes place in a perfectly ordinary-looking world, and presents us with three perfectly ordinary people just coping with their own fate. It's a beautiful movie to look at, and the three leads are extraordinary.

Trucker
This was one of my big favourites this year (although it was apparently released in 2008), about an independent and heart-hardened trucker suddenly forced to be a mother to the 11 year-old son she deserted years ago. The film handles the situation in a completely unsentimental and unconventional fashion, and the performances will just take your breath away. And yes, you Browncoats can get your full dose of Nathan Fillion, too.

The Trotsky
This is one of those wonderful, quirky movies that can really only be made in this country. Jay Baruchel plays an earnest young man convinced that he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky, who attempts to live out that destiny by trying to unionize his fellow high school students. It's a refreshing take on the usual 'teen empowerment' fare, pulled off mainly by Baruchel's utterly deadpan performance. Colm Feore is deliciously villainous as the principal, and my beloved Saul Rubinek plays Leon's frazzled father.

The Wave
When I was a teenager back in the 80s, I remember being profoundly effected by a TV movie about a high school teacher who runs a bit of an experiment with his students who are having a hard time understanding how Nazi Germany could have happened. The story - loosely based on a real incident - stuck with me over the years, so I was very pleased to hear that it had been re-told in this German film. It's a brilliant thesis on fascism and how easy it is for ordinary people - especially youth - to be seduced by it.

Welcome to the Rileys
'The Sopranos' has made a lot of people forget what a talented and diverse actor James Gandolfini really is. This film should remind them. He plays an unhappy businessman in a lifeless marriage who finds a new reason for living in a surprisingly platonic relationship with a teen-aged stripper he meets on a business trip to New Orleans. The man, the girl, and the wife who comes to fetch him, are all deeply broken people who somehow manage to heal each other. It's a lovely movie that manages to be uplifting despite the often dark subject matter.

Winter's Bone
This is the only film on my list this year that has actually been nominated for Best Picture, and the recognition is well deserved. The story doesn't sound like much - a teen-aged girl raising her younger siblings in utter poverty in the Ozarks is forced to confront her drug-dealing, violent relatives in order to keep her home - but the effect is so much more. I can't explain it. A big part is the performance of newcomer Jennifer Lawrence, who in a perfect world would win for Best Actress. But it's more than that, even. Just watch it - you'll see.

So there you go. Get thee to a video store!

Harper, Energy and the Environment: It's the Politics, Stupid!

2011-01-05T15:27:00.000-05:00

This is getting embarrassing.

Up until recently, the best the Harper government could say about our dismal record on climate change, energy and the environment was that we were doing better than the Americans. But now that even the beleaguered Obama administration is making progress on this front, Canada's intransigence is starting to make us look like we're actually moving backwards.

U.S. to impose new emission rules on power plants, refineries

The Obama administration has announced plans to impose new greenhouse-gas emission rules on power plants and refineries, a move that will increase pressure on the Harper government to introduce its own national emissions regulations in 2011.

The U.S. Environment Protection Agency said over the holidays that it will propose emission performance standards for new and existing fossil-fuel facilities this year, despite opposition from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

The sad thing is, the Harper government's blinkered approach to the environment has translated into a bizarre, visceral aversion to anything remotely resembling a national energy policy. Which, for a party that continues to insist they are the best bet for the Canadian economy, may be their most insanely retrograde policy position yet.

Seriously - when even the oil companies are figuring out that renewables are the way of the future, you'd think their buddies in government would be willing to help them out with some sort of coherent policy that would bring us in line with their international competitors and customers.

Of course, now we have a brand new Environment Minister who might finally... oh, never mind.

With serious action ruled out in advance, the Harper government’s environment minister must be a smooth talker. He must be prepared to repeat things that are demonstrably false – as in Canada will reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 17 per cent by 2020 from 2005 levels – with a straight face while all those around you are cracking up in derision. When necessary, the minister must bluster.

Peter Kent, a former television presenter, should therefore fit the definition splendidly of what is required of a Harper government environment minister. Since all important decisions are taken by the Prime Minister anyway, it shouldn’t matter that Mr. Kent has no background in the file nor has ever shown any interest in the issues. He is there to rag the puck, so to speak.

To understand the reasoning behind this economically unreasonable position, one need look no further than the poll numbers for Ontario's Liberal government.

Dalton McGuinty has implemented one of the most ambitious and progressive energy policies in North America, and although it's not without its flaws (cough... nuclear... cough), lo and behold it seems that it's actually working. He's implemented a feed-in tariff, similar to systems in Europe, that has resulted in a boom in renewable energy projects and the creation of thousands of much needed manufacturing jobs in the green energy sector. He's well on his way (better late than never) to fulfilling a promise to shut down every coal-fired power plant in the province. He's investing millions in upgrading our energy grid to make it more efficient and less vulnerable to surges and blackouts, and allow for decentralized, greener power generation.

These are exactly the sorts of large scale, long-term projects that save economies but kill governments. Why? Because they cost money and/or raise prices in the short term, and that's all people see. Who cares if we're going to be world leaders in energy and green technology ten years from now when gas is $5.00 a litre and we're all charging our electric cars for pennies a ride? Dammit, my Hydro bill went up two and a half bucks!

Which is why the Ontario Liberals may well find themselves out of power come the next election, and by the time we start reaping the real rewards of their policies, the PCs will be there to gleefully take the credit.

(Of course the converse works as well: the inevitable results of the Harris/Eaves government's popular but short-sighted tax and program cuts have also taken years to take their full effect - just in time for the Liberals to wear that, too.)

These are the political equations which guide Stephen Harper's every move - not economics, and certainly not public benefit. Which is why he will continue to do absolutely nothing on the environment or energy files that won't immediately benefit him politically. In other words, nothing.

Short-term gain, long-term pain. That's how you stay in power.

Campaign Lessons Learned: What Would Don Draper Do?

2010-10-31T15:02:00.012-04:00

A municipal campaign is perhaps the purest form of politics there is. There is no Party, no political machine at your back - just you and the voters.

I didn't get the whole 'campaign' thing before. Not really. Not even after having been fairly deeply involved in one during the last Federal election. It all seemed so superficial - the phone calls, the literature, the tracking, the 'Getting Out the Vote', whatever that was. Surely the whole purpose of the exercise was to convince as many voters as possible that our candidate and our party had the best ideas and were therefore the best ones for the job. Right?

I get it now. I get that voters vote for all sorts of reasons, very few of which have anything to do with ideas or policies. I get that only a tiny percentage of people spend more than a couple of hours a year thinking about politics, mostly in the last days before they have to cast their ballot. I get that most people vote from their gut and not their head.

And you know what? That's ok. Because really, are any of us any different? Oh, sure, I read up as much as I can on what the various candidates and parties represent. But in the end, I have to confess - I often vote based on whether or not I 'like' someone. And so do you. It doesn't mean we're wrong, or that we're basing our decisions on incorrect information. It means that the people we are voting for have successfully distilled their message into a form that we can absorb on an intuitive level.

Understanding this brings the political campaign squarely into the realm of marketing - of using words and images to instantly convey a message on multiple levels and to associate your 'product' with ideas and feelings your 'customer' is already positively disposed to.

Want a master class on campaigning? Watch a few seasons of 'Mad Men'.

The genius of Don Draper is his understanding that advertising isn't about convincing people to buy your product. It's about making people feel good about buying your product. Whether it's cigarettes or a brassiere or a new car, Draper and his crew always manage to identify that one thing that people are looking for and then make sure they connect that thing - that feeling - with their product.

Of course, any political or advertising campaign can be constructed to give a false impression, although in most cases the deception is discovered soon after the product is sampled. In most cases, however, the 'impression' conveyed in a campaign is accurate even if specific promises end up in the dust.

Take Rob Ford (please!). Anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together knows that he cannot possibly deliver on anything he has promised, aside from maybe getting councillors to water their own plants. But that's not why all those people voted for him. They voted for him because he justifies their suburban values and, unlike those judgmental 'downtown elites', he actually makes them feel good about their SUVs and strip malls and cul de sacs.

None of this is actually going to lower anyone's property taxes or make anyone's commute any shorter, of course - any more than Stephen Harper has managed to make the federal government any smaller or more transparent. But the impression we have been given of the character of these men is still essentially accurate. Stephen Harper really is the kind of guy who believes that no taxes are good taxes. Rob Ford really does believe that we all have a God-given right to mow down careless cyclists with our SUVs. And their fundamental appeal is ultimately to those who share those beliefs, even if only on a subconscious level.

The challenge for those of us who are more progressively inclined is to harness these same tools for good and not for evil. And to stop looking down our noses at those who vote with their gut.

I'm Baaaack....

2010-10-27T13:13:00.001-04:00

Well. That was fun.

After slogging through nine months of municipal campaigning, it's a little weird waking up now with no doors to knock on, no meetings to attend, no literature to distribute, and no lawn signs to plant. I wish I'd won of course, but we knew it was a hell of a long shot going up against two (two!) incumbents, and some last minute candidates kinda threw a wrench into the works as well. Given all that, I did very well and have built up a solid base for next time.

I've also learned a lot about running a successful campaign, mostly from my extraordinary campaign manager Esther Shaye. Esther has run campaigns for both the Liberals and the Conservatives, so her help and advise were absolutely invaluable. I wouldn't have had a hope in hell if it weren't for her, and I'm looking forward to bringing some of that experience back to the Halton Liberals.

As I said on my campaign blog, this is only the beginning. I'm going to keep at it, and in four years I think we will see a very different result. In the meantime, I will be back blogging about political shenanigans on a more federal level on this blog, just as soon as I pull my head a little farther out of the local issues that have been obsessing me for nearly a year.

Hmm... this mining thing looks interesting...

This is not the campaign blog you seek

2010-09-12T10:28:00.001-04:00

If you are looking for Jennifer Smith, Candidate for Milton Town Council Ward 2, you've got the right person, wrong blog.

My campaign website can be found at www.jensmith.ca . What you see here is my all-purpose personal blog in which I discuss federal politics, world events, film and television, and whatever else strikes my fancy. Feel free to look around, but you will notice that a) there isn't a lot here on local Milton issues, and b) I haven't posted much here lately because, well... I'm not paying much attention to anything but local Milton issues right now.

I'm sure I'll start posting here again after October 25th but in the meantime, please go to my real campaign blog at www.jensmith.ca.

Fun Facts About the Census

2010-07-17T18:31:00.001-04:00

I must confess, one of the reasons why I am so engrossed in the issue of the long-form census is that I am a genealogist. And not just as a hobby - I've actually gotten paid to do research for others and even compiled a 1,300 page, 5 volume genealogy of the Truax family.

In other words, I know my census records.

So when people react with shock and dismay over the personal, intrusive questions in the census long form and moan over how this is the evil work of our modern bloated bureaucracy run amok, I have a hard time buying it. After all, these types of questions are hardly new.

Here are a few fun census facts:

~ The earliest census records include only the name of the head of the household - the remaining family members are listed only by gender and age range. Starting in 1841 in Great Britain, 1850 in the U.S. and 1851 in Canada, names of all family members were recorded - although not the names of slaves in the U.S.

~ The U.S. Census has always asked for 'race' (white, black, mulatto, later other races). The Canadian Census has always asked for 'origin', as in ethnic origin (English, German, Chinese, etc.), and didn't start asking for 'colour' until 1901.

~ The Canadian Census has always asked for 'religion' (this, along with 'origin', is a very useful marker for genealogists tracing a single family - especially one named 'Smith'). The U.S. Census has never asked for religion. Neither had the UK census until 2001.

~ As early as 1850, the U.S. census asked for things like 'value of real estate', literacy, and 'Whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict'.

~ The U.S. and Canadian census records list people where they normally reside, whereas the U.K. census lists people wherever they spent the night before. They always have.

- By 1901, the census for Canada included 36 columns of detailed questions about education level, employment and language. The 1900 U.S. census had 28 columns and asked for things like birth place of mother and father, number of children and number of children still living, and whether the property was rented, owned free or mortgaged.

~ Almost all census years have included a farm schedule / agricultural census that asks for details on acreage, crops, livestock, etc. Apparently Tony Clement still believes that this information is so important that it will continue to be a mandatory part of the census.

~ As of this year, the U.S. has replaced their long form census with a rolling "Community Survey" that goes out continually to 250,000 household per month. It is still mandatory, and asks for more information at a greater frequency of polling than the long form.

Just thought you should know.

Harper's Idiocracy

2010-07-08T11:18:00.000-04:00

One thing you've got to love about Libertarian-leaning Conservatives: they have absolutely no sense of irony.

James Travers has yet another excellent op-ed in The Star today on the census, where he elaborates on the difference between facts and truthiness:

In an instructive moment here a couple of years ago, Harper encouraged loyalists to ignore experts and go with their gut.

On that particular brisk Ottawa winter afternoon the issue of the day was crime. Despite falling rates, Harper was promoting a toss-away-the-key agenda that’s now forecast to add a staggering $5 billion annually to the tax bill of a nation already deep in deficit.

Focusing on feel-good retribution instead of effective rehabilitation isn’t just costly; it’s a proven U.S. failure. Still, keeping more people in jail longer easily passes the conventional wisdom test. Debunking it requires a hurts-the-head explanation too long and layered to fit on a campaign bumper sticker.

Crime is far from the only example of the partisan benefits of preaching simple solutions to complex problems. From climate-change denial to straw man attacks on a long-gun registry police chiefs insists saves lives, comforting illusions are routinely pitted against inconvenient truths.

And then of course some earnest soul comes along in the comments and precisely proves his point:

Straight Shooter
Jul 8, 2010 9:57 AM

Look at the 'agree' and 'disagree' percentages on the posts in this column. Your answer is right there. The reason why we not only 'tollerate' Harper but in fact support him is that there are (sightly or significantly) more Conservatives than Liberals and in our democratic society, that means we can do almost anything we want.

I had sworn off commenting on these things, but I did make an exception just to point out that if this guy honestly believes that comments on an online news forum represent a statistically accurate sample than he may well have a job waiting for him at the New Conservative Statistics Canada.

On the Census

2010-07-05T16:14:00.000-04:00

To: Milton Champion - Editor
Cc: Lisa Raitt , Tony Clement

Next year, Canadians will once again be required to fill out our census forms and be counted. But thanks to a decision by Industry Minister Tony Clement, some of us may count less than others.

Mr. Clement has decided that the long form census, which asks more detailed questions about income, employment, housing, immigration status, etc., will be replaced with a voluntary "household survey". Apparently some people find the questions on the long form to be too 'intrusive' and don't like being required to fill them out.

One wonders how they feel about filling out their tax forms every year.

Making the long form census voluntary may seem like a minor change, but it will have a huge negative impact on the quality of the census data because the people who tend to benefit the most from social programs such as recent immigrants, aboriginal Canadians, the poor and the disadvantaged, are the very ones who would be least likely to fill out a voluntary survey. This would skew the results to the point of making them useless.

We would essentially be basing vital government policy decisions on the equivalent of an online poll.

Accurate, detailed census data is crucial to allocating government funding and services. Federal, provincial, and municipal governments all use this data to identify which neighbourhoods require things like immigrant services, low income housing, child care and transit, as well as determining demographic changes and the efficacy of social programs over time.

Our own town councillors and staff make regular use of census data when making planning and budgeting decisions. They also use it to bolster their case when applying to other levels of government for funding for things like the hospital expansion.

Mr. Clement's ill-conceived, irresponsible and costly decision has been condemned by everyone from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to the former head of Statistics Canada. I join them in urging the Minister and his government to reverse this decision now.

The Big Picture

2010-07-03T12:04:00.001-04:00

This may be the sanest explanation I've read so far for why Black Bloc tactics are not just wrong, but ultimately counter-productive. From Thomas Walcom:

Two things stand out from the street riots and subsequent police actions that swept downtown Toronto last weekend.

The first is the state blatantly abused its powers. Summits legitimately require security; but in this one, governments went over the top.

...The second is that most people don’t care. Polls show that more than 70 per cent of Torontonians approve of these abuses.

For that we can thank the small group of rioters who burned police cars and smashed store windows last Saturday. The logic behind those actions (and yes there is a logic) flows from the theory that capitalism is based on violence, albeit violence that is usually veiled. By provoking the state, this intrinsic violence will be revealed, thereby radicalizing the population against both capitalism and the state.

The problem with this theory, as the Red Brigades and other left-wing terrorists found in the 1970s, is that such provocations drive the general population to authoritarianism, not revolution.

Faced with a choice between order and civil liberties, people almost invariably choose order. Think the Nazis in 1930s Germany; think the PATRIOT Act in post 9/11 America.

Which is why most people figured out long ago that non-violent resistance is a far more effective way to provoke a response, expose the intrinsic violence of the state, and (most importantly) gain the support of the public.

Here endeth the lesson.

Breach of Peace, Breach of Trust - now with Bonus Lies!

2010-06-30T21:04:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to write a post on the G20 protests for days now, but events keep overtaking me. And now there is only one overriding issue:

Chief Bill Blair has lied to the people of Toronto, and he must apologize or resign.

As others have pointed out, a police force can only function effectively if it has the support and trust of the community. When that trust is lost, when we can no longer believe what we are being told by those in authority, the whole system breaks down.

Chief Blair lied when he led us to believe that the Public Works Protection Act could now be applied to anywhere within 5 metres outside the G20 fence. And then he smirked - smirked! - when he admitted it was an intentional deception to "keep the criminals out".

Chief Blair lied when he said that none of his officers had used rubber bullets.

Chief Blair lied when he claimed that all of the items put on display at yesterday's press conference were "weapons" confiscated from G20 protesters. Even when he corrected himself to exclude the chainsaw.

Weapons? They were supposed to be decorative.

Police Chief Bill Blair used a cache of household items seized over the weekend to justify the force with which they disrupted protests. Prominent among the “potential weapons” were bamboo poles, the CBC reports.

But poles confiscated by police were never intended as weapons, their owners say. Had they not been confiscated, they would have been used to fly Pride flags at a picnic in Cawthra Park.

‘Weapons’ seized in G20 arrests not what they seem

Chief Bill Blair, who told reporters the items were evidence of the protesters’ intent, singled out arrows covered in sports socks, which he said were designed to be dipped in a flammable liquid and set ablaze.

However, the arrows belong to Brian Barrett, a 25-year-old landscaper who was heading to a role-playing fantasy game when he was stopped at Union Station on Saturday morning. Police took his jousting gear but let Mr. Barrett go, saying it was a case of bad timing.

In addition to the arrows – which Mr. Barrett made safe for live-action role playing by cutting off the pointy ends and attaching a bit of pool noodle covered in socks – police displayed his metal body armour, foam shields and several clubs made of plastic tubing covered with foam and fabric.

What else has he lied about? Did he lie to his officers about who they were and were not entitled to search and detain? Because these ones most certainly had it wrong.

Did he lie about conditions in the detention centre? Did he lie about how those police cruisers came to be set ablaze? How can people be blamed for speculating about bait cars and agent provocateurs when they are being lied to about everything else?

It's all starting to remind me of the mistrust we had of the Toronto police back in the days of the Cherry Beach Express. I had hoped we were long past that. But this week, Chief Blair reminded us all just how quickly and easily that trust can be breached.

UPDATE: Just when you thought you were getting a little paranoid, Joe Warmington of the Toronto Sun (the TORONTO SUN!) confirms that the police really were ordered to stand down and let the vandalism continue unimpeded.

I'm waiting for the admission that that really was a police officer smashing in the window of his own cruiser.

Reaching for my Tinfoil Hat

2010-06-30T18:50:00.000-04:00

I've been awfully sceptical of these claims that it was police provocateurs who started the vandalism and the car burning this weekend. Yeah, yeah, the boots - well, most of my anarchist friends love their heavy black boots too. And it's not like we had the kind of clear shots of the soles we had at Montebello.

But after watching these two videos, I'm really starting to wonder.

There's such a clear shot of the guy who started busting up that cop car (and nice buzz cut, BTW) that surely somebody somewhere can identify him or pick him out of another video.

If you know this man, please report to A Creative Revolution.

Steve Paikin's Twitter Feed

2010-06-27T00:26:00.002-04:00

Steve Paikin of TVO's 'The Agenda' tweeted his experiences this evening (@spaikin). Just one more disturbing story to add to the list:

i saw police brutality tonight. it was unnecessary. they asked me to leave the site or they would arrest me. i told them i was dong my job.

they repeated they would arrest me if i didn't leave. as i was escorted away from the demonstration, i saw two officers hold a journalist.

the journalist identified himself as working for "the guardian." he talked too much and pissed the police off. two officers held him....

a third punched him in the stomach. totally unnecessary. the man collapsed. then the third officer drove his elbow into the man's back.

no cameras recorded the assault. and it was an assault.

the officer who escorted me away from the demo said, "yeah, that shouldn't have happened." he is correct. there was no cause for it.

i can appreciate that the police were on edge today, after seeing four or five of their cruisers burned. but why such overreaction tonight?

the demonstration on the esplanade was peaceful. it was like an old sit in. no one was aggressive. and yet riot squad officers moved in.

police on one side screamed at the crowd to leave one way. then police on the other side said leave the other way. there was no way out.

so the police just started arresting people. i stress, this was a peaceful, middle class, diverse crowd. no anarchists

literally more than 100 officers with guns pointing at the crowd. rubber bullets and smoke bombs ready to be fired. rubber bullets fired

i was "escorted" away by police so couldn't see how many arrested, but it must have been dozens.

we must make a distinction between the "thugs" who broke store windows and torched cop cars and the very reasonable citizens who...

...just wanted to remind the authorities that the freedom to speak and assemble shouldn't disappear because world leaders come to town.

i have lived in toronto for 32 years. have never seen a day like this. shame on the vandals.

and shame on those that ordered peaceful protesters attacked and arrested. that is not consistent with democracy in toronto, G20 or no G20

I'm sure I'll be blogging more about today's events, but for now I just wanted to share that.

UPDATE: An update, of sorts, on the fate of the journalist.

The Curious Case of Byron Sonne

2010-06-25T11:19:00.002-04:00

Even before the G20 security blitz began, there was the "gardening incident".

At the height of outrage over the fake lake and the escalating security costs, word comes down of a potential home-grown Canadian terrorist. Armed with deadly fertilizer, complete with scary foreign accent, the police sketch of his terrifying mug was dutifully displayed on every news broadcast and newspaper in the country... right up until the authorities established that sometimes fertilizer is just fertilizer.

At the time, I marvelled at the convenient timing and wondered how many incidents just like this one go unreported every year and are quietly resolved without the hue and cry.

Then Byron Sonne was arrested.

When the news came that a man had been charged with possession of explosives, I didn't really question it. After all, that's a little more definitive than buying a few bags of fertilizer. But then my husband came home with a different story, told to him by a group of people who actually know Byron Sonne and who are raising serious questions about the characterization of this man as a terrorist.

It's pretty much the same story the Toronto Star was telling the next morning:

‘Middle-aged white guy’ doesn’t fit terrorist profile
Friends, colleagues baffled by charges against man they say likes to challenge security apparatus

At the Surveillance Club meeting, Sonne shared his plans to listen in on police scanners during the summit and disseminate information to protesters via Twitter, according to Hirsh and Andrew Clement, a University of Toronto professor who was also at the meeting.

This was the same tactic used by two protesters at last year’s G20 summit in Pittsburgh, a plan that ultimately led to their arrests. The charges were dropped.

According to Hirsh, Sonne knew his activities could attract unwanted attention from security officials. But at the same time, he did not seem like someone bent on causing mayhem and destruction, Hirsh said.

“He was more critical of the whole circus, as it were,” Hirsh recalled. “I suspect that this may just be a stunt and perhaps a stunt that got out of hand.”

Sonne may have also been deliberately baiting security officials, Hirsh said, and he mentioned wanting to purchase items online that would “trigger counter-terror alarms.”

“It was part of a larger critique or activist exercise to show the absurdity of what’s often referred to as security theatre,” said Hirsh, who didn’t know what items Sonne planned to buy.

This appears to be borne out by his Twitter feed (under the somewhat ironic moniker "torontogoat"), where he links to a map of security cameras, gives tips for scaling small gauge security fences (you can apparently thread large bolts through the holes), and advises people on their rights when dealing with the police.

What makes his musings a little more credible than most - and that much more irritating to the powers that be - is the fact that he's a well respected computer security professional who currently runs his own security consulting firm. So when he points to the flaws and cracks in Fortress Toronto, it doesn't seem very likely that he was doing so to aid and abet domestic terrorism. At worst, it sounds like this was his way of showing how smart he was and deliberately tweaking the noses of government security to try to get a reaction.

Yeah, I can see how that would be annoying. Provocative, certainly, maybe even worthy of further investigation. But seriously - how does that amount to an arrest warrent? And why does all this make me wonder if the 'explosives' in question were nothing more than a propane tank - or maybe a few bags of fertilizer?

Oh yes, and then there was this guy yesterday - who is looking more and more like just some poor schmuck on his way to the cottage with some tools and an unfortunate choice of target shooting equipment.

But the truth doesn't matter. Just as long as everyone stays scared enough to stop worrying about the billion dollar price tag and the suspension of civil rights in and around the fence.

UPDATE: Turns out the poor bastard they arrested yesterday does indeed carry that sort of stuff around with him all the time - because he lives in a trailer up north with no electricity or water. According to his father he's an otherwise perfectly gentle, intelligent man who tends to paranoia when he's off his meds. Thus the crossbow. Of course, is he actually paranoid when they really are, apparently, out to get him?

Credential FAIL

2010-06-23T01:42:00.000-04:00

Part of me really hopes that this turns out to be a hoax, but I have a sinking feeling that it's legit:

A billion bucks buys this?

A blogTO reader sent us this photo of his G20 security pass the other day, which reveals that world leaders congregating in Toronto have every reason to fear for their safety. There are grave problems with the security credentials that have been issued to residents within the safety zone. Problems that may see impostors from "Ontairo" freely enter the protected area.

Well, not really. But somebody's been a bit sloppy. In light of the massive sum allocated to protect the delegates and fortify the downtown core (not to mention the fake lake fiasco), you'd expect that organizers would be able to spell Ontario.

Or, might it be that the budget has gotten so out of hand that typos like this are left to stand?

Either way, the hallmark of any successful security effort is attention to detail. And on that account, this little mistake is anything but an auspicious sign.

(shamelessly lifted from blogTO)

Yes, this is the blog you seek

2010-06-15T00:37:00.000-04:00

I haven't redecorated in a while, so I thought I'd play with Blogger's new templates. I may or may not stick with this one - what do you think?

But seriously folks...

2010-06-14T01:11:00.002-04:00

This week has been one hell of a ride. But now that things have settled down and my fifteen minutes of fame is coming to an end, I have a chance to pause and reflect on the issue that sparked all this: the outrageous, growing bill for the G8 and G20 summits.

Given the nearly universal public backlash from the left and the right, I've been left wondering - what could Stephen Harper's motivation possibly have been? What possessed him to suddenly abandon his own party's avowed ideology and blow over a billion dollars on one wild weekend in the Big Smoke? Is it pure ego as the Liberals claim? Or is this some Machiavellian political strategy that went horribly awry?

Certainly incompetence has played a big role. As with most decisions based on politics rather than sound policy, the decision to host both summits in Muskoka and then suddenly move one to Toronto has cost the government a fortune in last minute preparations, including gaffes like hiring an overpriced and unlicensed private security firm.

The idea that all of this was some unintentional clusterfuck is terrifying, but is bolstered by the fact that the rationalizations given by the Conservatives have been more than a little confusing. First they were saying that this was just the cost of being a world player, and that events like this required extraordinary security measures because of 9/11 and dangerous demonstrators armed with spray cans. And yet, apparently all of the previous G20 or G8 summits - pre- and post-9/11 - have been pulled off for a fraction of the cost. Even in more expensive cities. Even in the U.S.

Once that was pointed out, the Conservatives suddenly switched tack. It's not just the security, they said - it's about "showcasing Canada to the world".

I thought Jim Meek did a fine job of taking that one apart.

Harper says the fake lake isn’t a fake lake, despite the canoes and the phoney docks. Harper insists it is really a reflecting pool that is part of a $2-million marketing pavilion to promote Canadian tourism.

This means the media centre for the G8 summit isn’t a media centre, but an element in a marketing campaign designed to transform 3,000 international financial journalists into tourism ambassadors.

So the media centre that is not a media centre, housing the fake lake that is not a fake lake, will allow reporters to experience the simulated joys of the G8 summit site — which they cannot visit.

...This begs two questions.

Is this summit a billion-dollar-plus tourism campaign, even though the reluctant travel writers can’t do any travelling? Or a summit of world leaders designed to stave off a second economic calamity, at which the financial writers can’t interview the designers of a shining new tomorrow?

The truth, of course, is that the government’s agenda is at cross purposes. Sorry, guys, you aren’t going to capture the hearts and minds of seasoned economics reporters by scaring them with virtual loon calls.

Nice.

About the only time this week that the Conservatives appeared to be on top of the G20 debacle was the "gardening incident", where an innocent fertilizer purchase was suddenly transformed into a national security threat, complete with police sketches and stock footage of Oklahoma City.

It also became a convenient justification for spending ungodly amounts of tax money on security. Which, of course, makes me wonder if all incidents of faulty fertilizer paperwork are met with such a well publicized hue and cry.

As for my little ditty, I'm happy to think that it has played some small role in galvanizing public opinion against this government. As one interviewer put it, when what you are doing becomes mockable, you know you're in serious trouble.

And when what you write becomes graffiti, you know you've really made a difference.

(found by a friend on College Street in Toronto)

Interview with Jerry Agar on NewsTalk 1010 (June 10 podcast, approx. 29:05)

Interview with Bill Kelly on CHML Radio, Hamilton (June 11, interview #3)

Interview on GlobalTV Toronto (June 10)

Holy Crap!!

2010-06-10T14:21:00.000-04:00

Well! It's been quite a day so far. Woke up to 11,000 views of the video (now ~~17,000+~~ ~~nearly 20,000~~ 23,601), three interview requests (now five), clips on 680 News, The National and God knows where else, and a really hideous screen shot of me with my mouth open on the front page of the Toronto Star.

Seriously, if I'd known this was going to happen I would have had my hair done.

Oop - gotta go. Global's interviewing me at 2:30. I'll let you know when it's going to air, but CHCH is supposed to be on at 6:00.

(UPDATE: Global interview will be on the 6:00 in Toronto)

If I Had a Billion Dollars - The Video!

2010-06-08T19:28:00.003-04:00

You asked for it, you got it: the musical stylings of Jennifer Smith, Iain Smith and Lesley Stankaitis with "If I Had a Billion Dollars".

Enjoy.

UPDATE - Welcome, Toronto Star readers! Oh, and National Newswatch too. Hello there!

If I Had a Billion Dollars

2010-06-07T23:49:00.002-04:00

(with apologies to the Ladies)

If I had a billion dollars (If I had a billion dollars)
I'd build you a lake (I would build you a lake)
If I had a billion dollars (If I had a billion dollars)
I'd buy you furniture for your lake (maybe a nice Muskoka chair, or a hammock)
If I had a billion dollars (If I had a billion dollars)
I'd buy you a steamboat (a nice reliant paddleboat)
If I had a billion dollars, I'd buy you vote

If I had a billion dollars
I'd build a gazebo in your town
If I had a billion dollars
We could put it where the general store was torn down
If I had a billion dollars
Maybe we could put a jumbotron in there
(You know, we could just take the steamboat there and hang out,
even though it's nowhere near the summit
Maybe we'll see Tony Clement! or Russians!
I love Russians!)

If I had a billion dollars (If I had a billion dollars)
I'd buy you rubber bullets (but not real rubber bullets that's cruel)
If I had a billion dollars (If I had a billion dollars)
I'd buy you an exotic meal (like a duck breast, or maybe fugu)
If I had a billion dollars (If I had a billion dollars)
I'd buy Diefenbaker's remains (All them crazy Prime Minister's bones)
If I had a billion dollars I'd buy your vote

If I had a billion dollars
We wouldn't have to walk to the shore
If I had a billion dollars
We'd build it in Toronto cause it costs more
If I had a billion dollars
We wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinner
(but we would eat Kraft dinner because we're trying to showcase Canada to the world here and Kraft Dinner is Canadian, right?)

If I had a billion dollars (If I had a billion dollars)
I'd buy you a canoe (but not a real canoe that's cruel)
If I had a billion dollars (If I had a billion dollars)
I'd buy you a fence (maybe concrete, or razor wire)
If I had a billion dollars (If I had a billion dollars)
I'd buy you a sound cannon (haven't you always wanted a sound cannon?)
If I had a billion dollars If I had a billion dollars
If I had a billion dollars
If I had a billion dollars...

I'd be Steve.

(with minor edits throughout the day, and video soon to come)

Another Decree from King Stephen I

2010-05-24T23:45:00.000-04:00

I've been wondering what it would take to rouse me from my municipal campaign-induced indifference to federal politics. This did the trick:

Ottawa bars ministers’ staff from appearing before committees
New Conservative policy says ministers, not their staff, should be held accountable

The Conservative government is launching another showdown with the opposition over the powers of Parliament, this time issuing an edict that only cabinet ministers – and not their political staff – can appear as witnesses before committees.

The new cabinet position, to be outlined in detail Tuesday morning, comes just days after the opposition and government resolved a heated dispute over Parliament’s power to see documents related to Afghan detainees.

This latest line in the sand will play out later Tuesday at the House of Commons access to information, privacy and ethics committee, where the Prime Minister’s director of communications, Dimitri Soudas, is scheduled to appear as a witness.

Mr. Soudas let it be known Sunday that he’s not coming.

Well, what could be wrong with that, you ask? Shouldn't a minister be the one to answer such questions and not their minions?

You would think so, except there's one little catch: a staffer, aide, or any other sort of ordinary citizen can be directly compelled to testify before a parliamentary committee. A minister cannot.

How convenient.

When I read all this, the first thing I thought was, "He can't do that! Can he do that?!" Well, no, he can't really. But he can try. And by trying, he can throw yet another wrench into the works of our parliamentary committees.

This option is starting to look better and better.

Breaking Out of the Echo Chamber

2010-04-06T12:49:00.001-04:00

Dan Leger of the Chronicle-Herald ran a thoughtful piece yesterday with the rather cumbersome title of "The insularity of Internet opinion factions".

As you might have guessed, this has only encouraged all the usual insular internet factions to spew forth in the comments section.

Leger's point - that the internet allows people to stay within their own self-reinforcing 'comfort zones' without ever having to hear or read a dissenting opinion - is one that has been made before. Somewhat more controversial is his assertion that mainstream media is somehow, by nature, the remedy to this. While I see his point, I have to disagree.

It is true that it's much easier to avoid stories you might disagree with on the internet than, say, while thumbing through a newspaper. Unfortunately, while most Canadian newspapers and broadcasters still make at least a token effort to present divergent points of view, one need only look south of the border to see how easy it would be for them to descend into tribal factionalism. Some would say it's starting already.

I know I've been guilty of spending time in the echo chamber myself. I tend to avoid reading articles in the National Post or watching documentaries I know I'll disagree with, and while on a recent trip to the States I kept the radio dial set firmly on NPR. I tell myself that I already know the other side of the debate and don't need to hear it again, but truth be told I just find it easier to tune it all out rather than try to sort out the crackpots from the voices of reason.

There is, however, one method I have found to make sure I do hear dissenting points of view. One venue where I am certain to hear a wide range of voices and opinions on just about any subject, and where I can debate and discuss the issues of the day rationally with others without rancour or malice.

It's called the pub.

It doesn't have to be a pub, of course. It could be a coffee shop, or a club, or anywhere where friends and acquaintances gather. In my case it's a local watering hole where a group of singers from our community choir gathers weekly after Tuesday night rehearsal.

You wouldn't think so, but it's a remarkably diverse group.

Some are from other parts of Canada and the world - Newfoundland, Kenora, Scotland, the Netherlands. Many are teachers and nurses. Some work for the Town of Milton. Some are commuters. Some are students. Some are retired. My friend Jim was in the Canadian military - I've learned a lot from him, although we still disagree on many things.

We are conservative and liberal, rich and poor, young and old. We talk about music, and sports, and our kids, and current events in our town and the wider world. We often disagree, but we're never disagreeable. I have learned a great deal at these Tuesday gatherings and have even changed my mind on a number of issues due to conversations with these good folks.

I like to think of them as my own personal focus group.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a group of friends like this, you might consider doing what one woman in Etobicoke did: she just started inviting her neighbours out to the pub. Or join a club. Or something - anything - just to open the doors and windows of your mind and let a little fresh air in.

My Canada 150 Presentation: "The Creative and Competitive Economy"

2010-03-29T18:08:00.000-04:00

What follows is an expanded version of what was supposed to be a five minute presentation at the Canada 150: Halton conference - and a MUCH expanded version of the 2 1/2 minutes I actually got to speak.
____________________________

Canadian Culture in the Digital Age

Canada has always faced unique challenges to establishing our cultural identity. We are geographically vast, culturally diverse, sparsely populated, multi-lingual... and we sit right next door to one of the most prolific producers of film, television and music in the world.

All we have to unite us as a people and as a culture across such vast divides are our stories, whether told through film, television, literature, music or journalism. But we need two things: the ability to create those stories, and the space to share them.

Looking at the rather vague subject of this challenge as a creative person, two questions interest me:

1) How do we develop funding models for the arts, film, television, and journalism in the digital age?

This is a problem not unique to Canada. The cultural industries and institutions of countries all around the world - especially in North America - are facing a crisis due to advances in technology and profound changes in how people access information, entertainment and culture.

Up until recently, reproduction and distribution of books, newspapers, music, film and television programming has been an expensive endeavor, requiring the participation of record companies, book and newspaper publishers, television broadcasters, film studios and so on.

Today, the function of these entities is eroding as technology enables many artists to produce and distribute their own work, and for their audience to access that work directly, all for minimal cost.

The problem is, people are used to the idea that they are paying for physical media. They buy records or CDs, not music. They buy DVDs, not films; books, not words; newspapers, not news.

Without physical media, how do we value these works, and how do we ensure that artists and writers are compensated for their work? Can we continue to use advertising and sponsorship as the primary means of monetizing broadcasting and news, or will we need to find more direct means as the functions of television and print media are increasingly transfered to the internet?

2) Is there still a need to protect Canadian culture?

The sad fact is, we know more about American history and American democracy than our own because these things aren't just taught in schools - they are taught by the movies and TV shows we watch and the books we read.

One example: my son's grade 9 Canadian History class did a unit on World War II, and spent 11 hours of class time watching 'Band of Brothers' because the teacher couldn't find any film or television productions which depicted the Canadian experience in that war. I find that horrifying.

Another example: during the coalition 'crisis', many Canadians were under the impression that they had elected our Prime Minister directly - possibly because they were influenced by watching the electoral goings on south of the border.

When I was a kid, I lived in the suburbs. But I knew about downtown Toronto by watching King of Kensington, where people of many cultures, races and ethnicities all lived and worked peaceably together. This contrasted sharply with what I was seeing on American shows like 'All in the Family'.

I had never travelled to the west coast, but I knew what it was like there from watching The Beachcombers. In fact, my first impression of Native Canadians was from watching that show.

I have never travelled to Canada's arctic, but I feel that I know what life is like there from watching 'North of 60'. The U.S. show 'Northern Exposure' aired during the same period, and I remember watching it and thinking, "what's with all the white people? I thought this was the North!"

Ensuring that Canadian stories are told in film and television isn't just about nationalism or patriotism - in a country this vast and disparate, this is fundamental to how we know ourselves and understand each other. Short of moving into someone's house, film and television are perhaps the most powerful means of generating understanding between people because they allow us to see through another's eyes and walk a few miles in their shoes.

Without that ability, misunderstandings arise and soon fester. If 'King of Kensington' had been set in Calgary, we might not have some of the problems we have today.

So, what do we do about it? To start, here are three practical things I would recommend:

1) Abolish simultaneous substitution in television broadcasting.

When you watch a show on NBC or CBS that is also being shown on CTV at the same time, CTV overrides the signal coming in from the U.S. and substitutes their own - including their own commercials. In other words, Canadian broadcasters are double dipping, and are therefore rewarded for re-broadcasting hit US shows all night long.

Our private broadcasters have long claimed that Canadian content regulations prevent them from being competitive, and lower the quality of Canadian productions by shielding them from competition with American shows. But in reality, it is simultaneous substitution that is in fact protecting and shielding the broadcasters from having to compete.

By doing away with simultaneous substitution, Canada's private broadcasters will no longer have a monopoly on the airing of U.S. programming in Canada, and will therefore have an incentive to create something different from what the U.S. networks are airing. Something, perhaps, Canadian.

2) Don't take the punitive copyright protection approach.

Copyright doesn't protect artists - it was never intended to. It was originally designed to protect the state's licensing and control of publishing and theatre, and today serves mainly to protect publishers, broadcasters and film producers.

One example: a member of my family who shall remain nameless does props and wardrobe work in the film and television industry, mainly as an independent contractor. On one recent production, he decided to make a duplicate of one of the pieces for himself on his own time.

When he tried to sell this piece online, he immediately heard from the studio lawyers who informed him that despite the fact that he had designed and made the piece himself, had never sold it to the studio, and had never signed anything giving them rights to his creation, it nevertheless was their intellectual property.

He was told to not just remove it from sale, but to physically destroy it and submit photographs as evidence of its destruction. Which of course he did, immediately, because we're just not the kind of people who can afford to hire a team of lawyers.

So no, copyright law is not generally designed to protect artists.

Instead of following the U.S. example of locking up teenagers for downloading movies and music, or digitally locking down media so that it cannot be transfered or converted by the person who bought it, look at alternative ways of compensating artists such as levies on recordable media including IPods and MP3 players.

3) Focus on funding Canadian film promotion as well as production.

Your average Hollywood film production spends nearly as much on advertising and promotion as on making the film itself. In this country, Passchendaele succeeded largely because they spent money promoting it, but most other Canadian films are produced on such minimal budgets they can't afford any form of promotion or advertising at all.

The result is that even the best films this country produces cannot begin to compete at the box office or even the video store because no one has ever heard of them.

Case in point: the two most nominated films for this year's Genie Awards are 'Polytechnique' and 'Nurse. Fighter. Boy.' You may have heard of 'Polytechnique' because there was some controversy about making a film about the Montreal Massacre, but most of you probably aren't aware of 'Nurse. Fighter. Boy.'

I can almost guarantee that you didn't see either of them in a movie theatre, unless you live in Quebec.

I went to Blockbuster recently to look for 'Nurse. Fighter. Boy.' hoping that the multiple Genie nominations might have inspired them to get at least one copy. I spoke to the manager, and not only had she never heard of the movie - she didn't even know what a Genie Award was.

While tax incentives and program funding are essential to film production in this country, more funding needs to be channelled into promotion and distribution. The government should also look into creative ways of promoting Canadian film and television in more general terms, as there continues to be an absurd stigma attached to our homegrown productions.

The digital revolution has created both challenges and opportunities fo Canadian culture. While technology has broken down many of the barriers we once used to protect our culture, it has also removed many of the financial barriers our creative community has faced relative to other countries by making production and distribution of their work affordable and accessible to all.

In a sense, digital technology and the internet have leveled the playing field. Musicians can create and sell digital copies of their own music without the need for studios or music labels. Film makers can finance relatively high quality films on a couple of credit cards and promote them independantly. Bloggers are challenging traditional journalism as the line between the two continues to blur.

Even television broadcasting is being transformed by PVRs and streaming video, destroying traditional restrictions of scheduling and dial position, opening up the potential for quality programming - Canadian programming - to finally break through the static.

With the right policies in place, 2017 will be a good year to be a creative Canadian.

Canada 150 in Halton

2010-03-29T09:24:00.000-04:00

In the few years since I've been engaged in party politics, I don't think I've ever encountered such a stunning clash between hope and cynicism as I have this weekend.

From the beginning, just getting our own local riding to support the idea of doing our own 'satellite' conference was a bit of a struggle. I can understand why. On the surface, this just looked like yet another way to placate the grassroots members with an invitation to provide input that would never make it's way to an election platform. Why should we bother?

Certainly time was a factor. From the day we got the details on how the Party wanted to handle this to the day of the conference we had about a month and a half. Happily, the group that came together to organize our event was small, motivated, and hard-working.

We had no idea how many people would show up. I was preparing myself for just our twenty panelists and moderators, but in the end there were at least 50 people attending through the course of the day. I hardly recognized any of them.

For me, the best gauge of how things were going came during the breaks. Instead of people just drinking their coffee or talking to their friends, the room and the hallway outside got downright noisy with animated conversations. People would seek out specific panelists to talk to or follow up with someone from the audience who had asked an intriguing question. I regretted not having brought business cards because they were flying left and right. I did manage to get cards from John Opsteen (Halton Region Federation of Agriculture) after picking his brains about food policy at the sandwich table, and from Dr. Jeff Zabudsky, the President of Sheridan College, who wanted me to send him links to my blogs.

The feeling in that room was like we had opened a window to let in the fresh air.

I can't even begin to list all the ideas that were presented and discussed. I can tell you that one item of agreement for everyone on our "Real Life Issues for Canadian Families" panel was the absolute need for a national child care policy. Several panelists talked about the $7 a day program in Quebec which, while it's had its problems, has also resulted in lower high school dropout rates, lower crime rates, more women in the workforce - a whole host of indicators that, among other benefits, result in lower costs and higher revenues across the board.

My only disappointment was with the panel that I sat on, which was supposed to discuss the "Creative and Competitive Economy". The topic was admittedly a difficult one to get a handle on, and our moderator had a rather draconian approach to time management, but for some reason I seemed to be the only one interested in talking about Canadian content in the film and television industry, punitive copyright vs. levies on media, arts funding models in the digital age, etc.

I was glad that at least Stephen Baker (owner of the Halton Compass) was there to help me talk about the impact of the internet on print journalism. Everyone else just seemed to want to talk about job training, productivity, and... I can't even remember what else.

I'll be posting what I wanted to say later this week.

After all the excitement and buzz of our own local event, it was a bit of a shock to emerge and read what the national media had to say about it all. I don't know why I expected anything different, but all the naysayers were still saying nay and all the cynics were still poo-pooing the whole thing.

And of course the Conservatives and the media all pounced when it became apparent that most experts (and apparently, most Liberals) still believe that a carbon tax is the most effective and the most fiscally responsible method of reducing carbon emissions. Go figure.

Still, there were some cracks opening in the wall of negativity. For one thing, even the nattering nabobs were forced to admit that the technological wonder of combining webcast, live chat and Skype to interconnect dozens of simultaneous events across the country was really pretty cool, and may in fact presage an evolution in how such events are conducted in the future.

Then, today, some of the other assumptions about Canada 150 started to crumble. For one thing, Robert Fowler shattered the notion that this was all going to be a non-controversial Liberal strokefest.

And then Michael Ignatieff surprised us all.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff concluded a landmark Liberal policy conference Sunday with an ambitious agenda that increases federal spending on the environment and health care, to be paid for by cancelling planned cuts to corporate taxes.

In doing so, Mr. Ignatieff made it clear that the next election, when it comes, will be between two clear alternatives: A Conservative government that emphasizes deficit and tax reduction, and a Liberal government that is willing to defer tax cuts and perhaps extend the deficit to target social programs.

“Do we rush ahead with further reductions to corporate tax[es] we can’t afford?” he asked the 300 participants at a Montreal, “or do we use these resources” to fund new programs.

A tax freeze, he said, would prove that the Liberals had “the courage to choose, to make the choices we have to make.”

Holy crap! You'd almost think he'd taken Robert Fowler's withering criticisms to heart.

Ok, so there's still the possibility that our leadership is going to back down, water it down, say no, of course, he didn't really mean to say that. God knows they've done it before. But right now, today, it appears that Michael Ignatieff has decided to nut up and stand firm for doing the right thing instead of just the electable thing.

Maybe the Liberals will end up standing for something again after all.

Forget Montreal - come to Canada 150 in Halton!

2010-03-25T14:25:00.001-04:00

Reading the various blog posts and op-eds about this weekend's 'Canada at 150' think-fest in Montreal, one might be forgiven for thinking that the whole thing is just some expensive, elitist wank designed to give the appearance of policy input without actually listening to anyone.

Of course, none of the nay-sayers and poo-pooers have bothered to mention the other Canada 150 events going on this weekend: the local 'satellite' conferences.

When the Montreal Conference was first announced, it was indeed planned as an exclusive event - just like Kingston, Aylmer and all the others were. Which is exactly why several grassroots members pressured the party to broaden the scope by setting up local events across the country, like the one I'm helping to organize in Halton.

The idea was to decentralize the whole process by linking these smaller events into Montreal via the internet. We would watch the webcast of the proceedings in Montreal, discuss the issues with our own group of thinkers and activists, then feed our ideas and conclusions back to Montreal.

That's the ideal. In practice... well, we'll see. Some ridings are just hosting watching parties for the webcast, which is rather sad. Others aren't doing anything at all.

To them, all I can say is you can't complain that no one is listening if you don't speak up.

Our event in Halton is going to be a real local version of what's happening in Montreal. We have over a dozen panelists including local municipal councillors, representatives from environmental and multicultural organizations, community activists for accessibility and social housing, local media - all sorts of people, hardly any of whom are partisan Liberals.

We'll be monitoring the Montreal webcast and will put it up on the screen if their discussions look particularly interesting, but mostly it will be a discussion between our panelists and the 30-60 guests we're expecting. Then a summary and any conclusions we draw will all get fed back to Montreal.

Whether the party chooses to do anything with our input will remain to be seen. I'm not holding my breath, frankly. But even if we end up binned, I will still consider this a useful exercise. For one thing, organizing all this with only five people in the space of a month and a half has proven my theory that the fewer organizers you have, the more you get done. Having no budget helps too.

For another thing, we have made some great new connections with local leaders and community organizations that will last long after this conference is over.

Lastly, even if our party leadership doesn't listen, our local candidate will be there soaking it all in. And when she is elected as our MP, she will be taking all our input and all these ideas to caucus with her.

Seriously - come to Halton on Saturday. Sheridan College, Oakville, Room G404. We're there all day, and it won't cost you six hundred dollars. Although if you want to throw us a couple of bucks to cover sandwiches and photocopying, we'd really appreciate it.

My Ann Coulter Theory - updated

2010-03-24T12:10:00.001-04:00

I watched Ann Coulter on Power Play today, or at least as much as I could stand. It felt rather like being choked by a giant blonde hairball, which makes me wonder why on earth anyone would pay good money to listen to her.

More importantly, why would anyone assign credibility to a woman who any sane person would instinctively cross the room to get away from at a cocktail party?

So I can certainly sympathize with the U. of O. students who chose to protest this dreadful person's presence at their campus. I would have too. But there is a vast difference between objecting to or even protesting a public speaker and threatening violence. Which makes me really wonder about this:

Ann Coulter’s speech in Ottawa cancelled

Right-wing antagonist Ann Coulter cancelled a University of Ottawa address last night after organizers decided it wasn’t safe to speak.

The move followed boisterous demonstrations outside that sponsors of the appearance feared could turn violent.

“There was a risk there could be physical violence,” said Canadian conservative activist Ezra Levant, who was scheduled to introduce Ms. Coulter.

Let me get this straight - the organizers decided it wasn't safe for her to speak? Organizers, as in Ezra Levant?!

Am I the only person to smell a PR stunt here?

Levant claims that "police advised [the event] was untenable for safety reasons". I would very much like to have that verified by the actual police, because the amount of mileage Coulter and Levant are about to get out of this ("BANNED IN CANADA!") is likely going to more than make up for the money they were getting out of the Ottawa speech.

UPDATE: I would say that this pretty much confirms my theory -

Right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter, who was forced to cancel her speech to the University of Ottawa Tuesday night over fears for her safety, says she’s the victim of a hate crime under Canadian laws.

She said she’s hired Canadian conservative activist Ezra Levant to prepare a human-rights complaint that will test how equitably these hate-crime laws are applied.

Quid pro quo.

FURTHER UPDATE: I can' find it right now on the CBC site, but one of their reporters who was there is stating that there were maybe 1,500 people there (Levant is claiming 2,000), but only a couple of hundred of them were actual protesters. The rest - some 1,200 by her guess - were Coulter supporters and curiosity seekers lined up around the building just waiting to get into the hall. The hall only had a capacity of 400, so there was some frustration at the inefficient and disorganized process of verifying who had and had not pre-registered.

She also reported that the protesters themselves were rowdy but hardly threatening, and that the police were present, but only to investigate the pulling of a fire alarm.

And then there's Ezra's performance as he announced that the speech was to be cancelled. The video is here - I'll let you judge his acting abilities for yourself. I'm thinking Bill Shatner should play him in the movie.

STILL MORE UPDATES: Our intrepid Kady O'Malley has confirmed that it was not, in fact, the police who shut the event down, despite what Coulter and Levant are claiming. She has also been unable to find a single mention of rocks, sticks, tar or feathers on Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else, except for the endlessly repeated claims by Coulter supporters that threats were made. Google it yourself - there's nothing.

It's all very interesting - go read.

The Logic of Margaret Wente

2010-03-20T01:07:00.003-04:00

Shorter Margaret Wente:

All the blogs I read are by men.

Therefore, all bloggers are male.

Slightly longer Margaret Wente:

I read a few blogs.

All the blogs I read are political.

All the blogs I read are by men.

Men like to spout off opinions without thinking.

The bloggers I read spout off opinions without thinking.

Therefore, men blog because they like to spout off opinions without thinking.

Therefore, all political bloggers are men.

Therefore, there are no female political bloggers.

Therefore, none of you exist.

Begone!

Lisa Raitt Back at Work

2010-03-11T10:27:00.004-05:00

You'd almost think this was a spoof, but it's not. These are the very thoughts that pass through the head of Lisa Raitt during Question Period, as expressed through Twitter:

lraitt

thinking about live tweeting QP
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

@kady @inkless @davidakin watching from above
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

hedy fry and geoff regan seem to be color-coordinated seat mates
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

@tonyclementMP has the coolest iPhone apps
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

@inklesswells is correct. these curtains are terrible
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

lots of purple on the other side of the house today
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

wow - some liberals are loud!
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

M. Bachand's tie is a little askew today
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

It's people like this who give blondes a bad name.

ZombieBread, Part 2: Still 'Fresh'!

2010-03-10T00:49:00.000-05:00

You may remember about a month ago I told you about the Bread That Wouldn't Die. This miraculous loaf was purchased some time around December 30th in Daytona, Florida, largely because it advertised itself to have "No Artificial Preservatives, Colors or Flavors" and "No High Fructose Corn Syrup".

Today is exactly two months and six days after the expiry date marked on the bag, so I decided to pull it out of the bread box again and examine it for signs of mould, decay or even staleness.

Nope. It's just as fresh and mould-free as it was the day it was purchased.

This is really starting to scare me. But what is truly terrifying is the knowledge that if I ever contacted the "Nature's Own" company to complain that their bread lasts too long, they would think I was out of my mind.

The Roger Ebert in my Head

2010-03-05T01:32:00.001-05:00

There's a lovely movie that came out last year called "Julie & Julia", about one woman writing a cookbook, and another woman writing a blog about her 50 years later.

A movie about cooking AND blogging? How could I not love it?

The young blogger Julie develops a special bond with Julia Child, a writer she has never met but comes to know through her work and by reading about her life. One person suggests that Julia is her 'pretend friend', and Julie agrees. After all, she is the audience Julie is writing for and hopes to emulate. She fantasizes about meeting her idol, but in the end her husband observes that it isn't necessary for the two to meet because she already knows her, and that the Julia Child that lives in her head is perfect.

Roger Ebert is my imaginary friend. Roger Ebert lives in my head.

We have long conversations in there - about movies, about religion, about democracy, about the health care systems in our respective countries. We've attended numerous imaginary screenings together, and I've explained to him many times exactly why his criticism of Spielberg's 'Artificial Intelligence' is based on an assumption that completely ignores the facts presented in the first five minutes of the film and is therefore fundamentally flawed.

He reluctantly agrees.

The Roger in my head looks and sounds just like he did the last time I saw him on television, and when I read his blog, that's the voice I hear. Of course I know that he doesn't look or sound like that anymore - not since cancer surgery and a series of near fatal complications left him without a lower jaw and without a voice. I had seen a couple of more recent photos, but Roger has generally kept his physical self to the shadows these past four years, so the old photo that graces his website was still the one in my head.

That all changed this week when I read a profile of Roger from Esquire magazine, which opened with an uncompromising full page photo.

The article is wonderful, and discusses a lot of the issues Roger himself has talked about in his blog - the things he's lost, the things he misses, the surprising things he's gained or rediscovered in the process, including his newfound passion for blogging. It talks about his amazing wife Chaz, about the new routine of their lives, and it describes his physical state in unflinching detail. It's not sappy, or maudlin, or voyeuristic, and after reading it I got over the momentary shock of the photo and started to feel like the Roger in my head had gained another dimension or two.

The article was followed by an appearance on an Oprah Winfrey special the other night which I didn't like quite so much. I'm not sure why, but it all seemed a little condescending to me, a little too much like trotting out the crippled kid at a tent revival for a bit of pity and inspiration. Hallelujah!

The one moment that redeemed the whole episode was when Roger got to demonstrate his brand new computer voice to his wife. The voice, which replaces the generic Stephen Hawking-like one he's been using, was created by a company in Scotland and uses actual samples of his own voice culled from hours of his DVD commentary tracks.

The result was so startling, it brought Chaz to tears.

So now the Roger in my head has a voice again. A real voice - not one half remembered with the 'At the Movies' theme music playing under it. It's still not the real Roger, but that's just as well. If I ever did meet Roger Ebert in the flesh I would probably fall all over my own tongue and embarrass myself utterly.

When I started this blog three years ago (God it's been three years?!), my first full post was entitled "Just Call me Roger". At the time, I fantasized about becoming Canada's Roger Ebert, or at least some brand of Professional Journalist, waiting to be discovered sitting at my own virtual Schwab's lunch counter.

It didn't quite work out that way.

Instead, my little blog transformed from being a place to post my reviews and work on my writing skills into a reasonably well respected (albeit minor league) political blog. That in turn led to attending a couple of political events, meeting some of the local players in the Liberal Party, diving head first into a political campaign, and eventually getting in up to my neck in riding politics. Meanwhile, I started writing about other subjects, from environmental sustainability to foreign policy to local issues and politics.

And now I'm running for Town Council.

Like Roger, and like Julie, blogging opened up a whole world for me that I never imagined I would be walking in at this point in my life.

Like them, I found my voice.

Thanks, Roger.

We. Are. Canadian.

2010-03-01T23:08:00.001-05:00

It doesn't take much for me to get all gushy and patriotic, so I've been on some serious maple leaf overload these past two weeks.

Long before the international press suddenly decided midway through that these were no longer the worst Olympics ever but quite possibly the best - even before our own pundits stopped whining about what a cock-up it all was and how we had set our sights too high - I was on board from day one.

I cried at the whales and the trees and the sight of all those First Nations dancers. I watched events all day at home and kept track of the scores on my Blackberry at work at night. I teared up every time our flag was raised or a crowd broke into a spontaneous chorus of 'O Canada'. I shouted myself hoarse over that final hockey game, and I positively squirmed with glee through the entire closing ceremonies.

Even that stupid 'I Believe' song chokes me up. Still.

So you'll have to forgive me if I find all this analytical puzzlement over our supposedly newfound patriotism passing strange, given that I feel this way most of the time and just sort of assume all Canadians do. I suppose the word 'patriotism' itself might be part of the problem, since we do tend to associate it with the sort of obnoxious, blinkered, 'my country right or wrong' patriotism of the United States. Let's face it - a lot of Americans give 'patriotism' a bad name.

Maybe we just need a different word. But pride doesn't seem big enough, and love is too generic. It's not nationalism because it goes beyond the limitations of the nation-state. It's not tribalism because our origins lie in every corner of the earth. It's not about being better than everyone else. It's not even about winning a hockey game.

Maybe it's just a feeling of familiarity. A recognition that this is us - this is who we are. Feeling part of the same rich tapestry woven from the threads of our individual and common experiences into this incredible landscape we share. Silly little touchstones like road hockey and maple syrup and tobogganing after that first snow of winter which, even if we haven't experienced them all as individuals, we still understand as being a part of our common culture.

In the end, it's just... complicated. We're a complicated people, which may be why our 'Canadian identity' is so notoriously hard to define. But if the past two weeks have proven anything, it's that just because something can't be defined doesn't mean that it can't be cherished, felt deeply, or shouted out from the rooftops.

And then there's what Denis said.

Ignatieff Wins Me Over. Again. For Now.

2010-02-06T14:33:00.002-05:00

I'm taking a little break right now between the Ignatieff's speech and the treasurer and VP Organization speeches. And practicing my thumb-typing. And avoiding the undoubtedly mind-numbingly boring regional meetings.

Ignatieff's speech was excellent, BTW. In fact, I just told him so as he walked by right now. I've never made any secret of my reticence towards our leader. It's a feeling that comes and goes, but I really liked what I heard today. So for now at least, he's got me back.

I told him that, too.

A question has come up amongst our group regarding the constitutional amendments we're supposed to be voting on later this afternoon. Specifically, where the hell are they? When I was at the federal convention last spring, we got the amendments weeks in advance so we could study them and decide.

Here, not only are they absent from our delegate packages, they aren't even on the LPCO website. At least not that I could see.

How hard is this, guys?

Doin' the Windsor LPCO AGM

2010-02-06T08:56:00.001-05:00

It's day two of the Ontario Liberal AGM, and I'm wishing I were still in bed. Yet here I am in Windsor, up earlier than I've been in a long while, getting ready to head over to the conference centre at the casino.

Must. Caffinate..

Yesterday was a lot of fun. Well, not so much the speeches - although Alf Apps was surprisingly articulate and passionate. But was fun getting to socialize with my fellow Halton Liberals as we wandered the halls looking for the next hospitality suite.

BTW, James Curran still throws the best party. Maloney's reception had us all packed in like cattle, barely able to hear each other, but Curran's was in a much nicer room, better layout, and it was a much younger crowd. And there was pizza. I'm not saying that's necessarily a reason to vote for Jim for VP Organization - I'm just sayin'...

I must be getting the hang of this whole convention thing - or maybe it's from becoming a candidate myself - but I'm finding it a lot easier to mix and mingle and not just hide out with people I know. I met a bunch of terrific people last night, including candidate Christine Tabbert from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke. That's Chalk River, AECL country, so she was very familiar with my blog and a big fan. Well shucks!

I'm doing my best to NOT talk about my municipal campaign with everyone, but I'm not succeeding very well. Hopefully immersing myself in training sessions and constitutional amendments all day will shake all that out of my head for a while.

BTW, I do not recommend the Days Inn on Goyeau. Just sayin'.

The Bread That Wouldn't Die

2010-02-05T00:26:00.000-05:00

I was in Florida over the holidays, camping with my family. During the course of the trip we learned more than we ever wanted to know about Southern American cuisine (here's a tip: never order the Sweet Tea - get the Unsweet Tea instead and add your own sugar).

At one point towards the end of our trip - it would have been a day or two before New Year's - we bought a loaf of bread. I wanted to avoid anything resembling Wonderbread, but I found something called "Nature's Own Butterbread" which claimed to have "No Artificial Preservatives, Colors or Flavors" and "No High Fructose Corn Syrup".

Excellent! I thought. So I bought a loaf, we used a few slices, and brought the rest home with us.

As of today, that loaf was exactly one month past it's best before date. And yet...

... it's as fresh and spongy and mould-free as the day it was baked. My husband just made a sandwich out of it the other day.

That is just so wrong in so many ways.

The company's website claims that the only preservatives they use are natural ones including vinegar and "cultured wheat flour", whatever that means. I suspect they are talking about the four lines of chemical-sounding ingredients on the label that are categorized under "dough conditioners" - one of which is something called azodicarbonamide. Go read the Wikipedia article. I dare you. I couldn't bring myself to look up the rest of the list.

So now this is an experiment: how long can a loaf of bread possibly continue to exist before going mouldy?

I'll keep you updated.

Rocco Rossi's New Friend

2010-02-04T14:20:00.001-05:00

You know, I really didn't mind Rocco Rossi so much while he was Fundraiser-in-Chief for the Liberals. Although I did raise an eyebrow when the big cash influx from the Convention was being touted as proof of his powers.

Then he started running for Mayor of Toronto, and it's like any semblance of Liberalism just seemed to fall away like a lizard skin.

But just in case any Liberals out there still feel the need to continue supporting our former National Director just because he's a good guy, consider who else is supporting him:

This Tory is backing a Liberal
by Michael Taube

I've written many words and phrases in my career, but I never thought I'd write this next line. Yet it's true: this November, I'm going to vote for a Liberal.

After some reflection, I've decided to cast my ballot for Rocco Rossi to be the next mayor of Toronto. I believe he's the best choice for Toronto-area conservatives and libertarians and I hope other like-minded individuals eventually reach the same conclusion.

Good enough for me. Then again, I don't live in Toronto anymore.

Crossing the Line

2010-01-30T01:29:00.001-05:00

I admit it. When I first saw the photo of Lisa Raitt on the cover of the Milton Champion last week, I laughed. And laughed, and laughed.

But then I started to think about it. And I stopped laughing, and I started to think like this person in the Letters to the Editor on Thursday:

DEAR EDITOR:

I’m writing in response to last Thursday’s article entitled ‘Raitt moved in MP shuffle.’

I found the choice of photo on the front page of my community paper very disturbing. The picture of Halton MP Lisa Raitt is horrible — unflattering to say the least. I think it was extremely rude and downright juvenile and malicious. I’m not sure who chose and/or approved that photo, but in my opinion it was a form of bullying. I almost felt that I was reading a gossip magazine.

In the three years that I have lived in Milton and read the Champion, I don’t ever recall seeing a photo of any member of our community that I thought one would be embarrassed by.

I don’t know much about politics and haven’t voted in 10 years, but I do feel that no one deserves to have a silly picture printed of them on the front page of their community paper.

Don't get me wrong. I think that Lisa Raitt is a terrible MP and an even worse Minister, and I was thrilled to bits when she was demoted to Minister of Labour. I've illustrated my blog posts with the Indecisive Lisa, the Pointy Lisa, even the 'I Almost Forgot My Binder Again' Lisa. And yeah, I've teased her a couple of times about the white suit.

But that photo crossed the line. It crossed the line because they didn't use it to illustrate a point about her political or ministerial performance, and it didn't just appear in some blog post read by a bunch of political wonks. This was on the front page of the Milton Champion. And the Burlington Post. And they just used it to make her look stupid.

Not cool.

I'm just a blogger. I have very few constraints on what I write aside from those I impose upon myself. I don't have any hard and fast rules beyond simple human decency, and sometimes I get carried away with my own wit and wander into the realm of spite. But I won't go after the family, I won't post the 'fat photo', and I do my level best to keep my criticism within the boundaries of political discourse. That's just the way I roll.

BTW, I was in the neighbourhood today, so I thought I'd stop by Raitt's constituency office and let her know what I thought of the photo. She wasn't there, and her staff had no idea when she would be back in the office.

I think that's worthy of criticism, even without a photo.

Leap Year

2010-01-30T00:21:00.001-05:00

Among the dozens of formulaic chick flicks Murray has forced me to watch, there seems to be a rather popular sub-genre that I have affectionately dubbed 'The Travelogue Rom-Com'. 'Leap Year' may well be the perfect example.

The plot is identical to nearly every other romantic comedy where the heroine has her sights set on some seemingly perfect but dull fellow, then finds herself falling for some obnoxious but charming lout instead. Jane Austin wrote a few of these. So did Shakespeare.

The Travelogue version simply takes these standard characters and arbitrarily ships them off to an exotic locale, usually in the Mediterranean, thus adding a 'fish out of water' element to liven things up a bit.

'Leap Year' flawlessly incorporates every element of this formula without offering a single surprise or twist. However, it does have the great advantage of being set in Ireland and thus giving us a tall, scruffy, utterly charming Irish lout to root for.

That's good enough for me. Three stars out of five.

(This will be my last review until after the October 25th election. Apparently critiquing films in the local paper once a month gives me 'unfair exposure'. Just as well - it seems that Murray and I really are starting to share taste in movies.)

NoProrogue in TO: The Video

2010-01-24T01:26:00.001-05:00

(my favourite moment: 'Spartans Against Tyranny')

NoProrogue in TO

2010-01-23T22:58:00.002-05:00

Some are saying 10,000. The police estimated 7,000. I heard one Conservative pundit swear that there were only 47 protesters, three lost tourists and a hot dog vendor, but I'm pretty sure he was actually in the lineup for 'Fiddler on the Roof' tickets.

Outliers aside, it was a HUGE rally.

I took the GO bus in from Milton with my friend and fellow municipal candidate Carey DePass, and we met up with Deb Gillis once we arrived in Toronto. We had hoped to meet up with a few other Halton friends at Dundas Square, but one look at the crowd and we knew we'd never find them.

And yet, within 15 minutes I managed to find fellow bloggers Jeff, Mark and JimBobby standing right behind me. It's those blogger pheremones - we're just naturally drawn to each other.

The most striking thing about this rally was that it wasn't your usual crowd. Most other protests these days seem to be largely populated by special interest groups out promoting their own agenda. But here, almost every single sign and banner was directed straight at Stephen Harper and prorogation. I saw a few banners for one union off in the corner, and a solitary Truther stood vigil beside the march route. But by and large these people were exactly what they appeared to be: ordinary Canadians, young and old, urbanites and 905ers, all compelled to speak out against a threat to their democracy.

One thing I did find annoying was the NDP signs. This was supposed to be a non-partisan event, and yet there were several people handing out bright orange signs with anti-Harper slogans and a very visible NDP logo on the bottom.

Not cool.

I overheard several compaints about this, and a few people even folded up or covered the bottoms of their signs to hide the logo. And I'm happy to report, there was not a single Liberal Party name or logo to be seen anywhere - except on the Deb Gillis button on my purse.

I'll have video for you later tonight.

This is what Democracy Looks Like

2010-01-23T01:25:00.001-05:00

This is important.

Wherever you are, whatever you were planning to do today - unless it involved your kids or your job, it probably isn't as important as attending an anti-prorogation rally.

Because people shouldn't be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Go to NoProrogue.ca right now to find the nearest rally, and go. I'll be at the Toronto Rally at Dundas Square along with about a half dozen friends from Halton. See you there.

Raitt Shuffled to the Bottom of the Deck

2010-01-19T09:48:00.007-05:00

Well, maybe not quite the bottom. I'm pretty sure her predecessor's job as 'Minister of Hockey Rinks' is considered a lesser role, but it's pretty close.

After all, what do you think Stephen Harper cares more about: workers... or oil?

Cabinet shuffle will see Raitt demoted, Ambrose get second shot

One of Stephen Harper’s youngest ministers is getting demoted in a cabinet shuffle Tuesday as Lisa Raitt will suffer the effects of a 2009 scandal where she was taped badmouthing colleagues.

Ms. Raitt, 41, is losing her job as Canada’s natural resources minister in a cabinet overhaul that’s bigger than the “tweak” initially signalled by Harper government aides. Ms. Raitt is expected to take on the junior Labour portfolio.

... Labour Minister Rona Ambrose, who was previously demoted for what was perceived as a weak performance in the Environment portfolio during Mr. Harper’s first mandate, was expected to receive a promotion, possibly to the Public Works portfolio vacated by Mr. Paradis.

Mr. Paradis appeared set to replace Ms. Raitt at Natural Resources, sources said.

... Ms. Raitt’s demotion suggests that although Mr. Harper defended her last year after an embarrassing controversy, he did not forget.

With the government under attack for the extended shutdown of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s Chalk River – which cut the supply of medical isotopes needed for tests and treatment to Canada and much of the world – her aide left a damaging tape on the desk of a reporter in which Ms. Raitt criticized a cabinet colleague, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, and then left confidential documents at the offices of CTV News.

Mr. Harper is now set to switch Ms. Raitt to a relatively minor post.

(P.S. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Stephen Harper values hockey rinks more than he values workers. Never mind then...)

Reaction to Raitt's Consultation Meetings

2010-01-16T00:24:00.001-05:00

The reviews are in, and it ain't pretty.

The Milton Champion seemed to be the most positive. Maybe I set the tone with the softball question I asked:

Residents jam room for meeting
Suspension of Parliament hot topic at meeting hosted by Halton MP Lisa Raitt

... Asked how she’d be serving area residents during the federal government’s prorogation, Raitt said she will spend two days a week in Halton doing “one-on-one consultations” with her constituents and the rest of the time in Ottawa working on projects in preparation for the budget.

“It (time) will go by very fast for me,” said the local MP and Minister of Natural Resources, addressing nearly 100 residents who jammed into a small meeting room at the Milton Sports Centre (MSC) for the first of three meetings for the day.

Meetings were also scheduled in Oakville and Burlington Saturday.

“And no, I won’t be going to Vancouver for the Olympics. Have you seen how expensive the tickets are? I’ll be watching them at home with my family like everyone else.”

The recent decision to prorogue Parliament until early March was a hot-button issue during the 90-minute meeting.

One man said he felt the move displayed a sense of panic on the Conservatives’ part and questioned why there was no economic contingency plan in place when top economists have been saying for over a year now that Canada’s economy is in dire straights.

“I don’t believe it’s a panic move at all,” replied Raitt, who said the prorogation allows the government time to forge a follow-up strategy to its two-year Economic Action Plan, which she stressed is working.

The Oakville Beaver reported on a somewhat more spirited discussion:

Raitt told to get back to work in Ottawa
Prorogation blasted at town hall forum

The presents were ready for attendees: Tim Hortons coffee and doughnuts and Canadian maple leaf lapel pins “compliments of” Halton MP Lisa Raitt.

But some of those who turned out to Raitt’s town hall forum Saturday afternoon in Oakville wanted to send the federal representative back to Ottawa with a gift as well — a message for her government to get back to work.

“I think Mr. (Stephen) Harper has been shocked by the reaction of the public,” said Mississauga resident Bob Stuart, referring to growing public criticism of the Prime Minister’s decision late last month to prorogue Parliament until March 3 instead of resuming the legislative session in late January, as originally scheduled.

...“The man (Harper) has become more of a dictator than Pierre Trudeau had ever done (sic),” said Paul Redvers, a Conservative voter in the last election. The Oakville resident said the government has broken campaign promises to cooperate more with other parties in Parliament and be more accountable to Canadians.

“Is your integrity so low you would rather stay on as a cabinet minister than confront Mr. Harper about proroguing government to avoid bad press?” Redvers asked Raitt.

Raitt denied the implication and said she has no fear of expressing local feedback to her caucus.

This was along with over a dozen letters and two editorials condemning prorogation.

And finally, the Burlington Post:

‘I’m as mad as hell about prorogation’: MP told at town hall

“I am mad as hell about prorogation,” said James Penton who was among approximately 50 people who attended the meeting at Tansley Wood Community Centre. Mass applause followed Penton’s outburst.

“It’s a shock and a national disgrace and you and your boss should give your head a shake,” Kevin O’Neill added to the chorus of discontent.

In defence of Harper’s decision to shut down the government until March 3 — the second time he has called a recess prematurely in the past year — Carol Joseph pointed out that the Liberals prorogued government four times when Jean Chretien was in power between 1993 and 2003.

“It’s hypocritical to scream at (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper...it’s not illegal or undemocratic to prorogue,” said Joseph.

Her lob rankled vocal objections from the crowd, prompting Raitt to demand civility. “Let her talk, this is a discussion,” said the MP.

In Matthew Powell’s mind, rationalizing the prorogation at a time when the country is at war in Afghanistan and unemployment is past the eight per cent mark, is frivolous.

“It’s not OK to say the other guy did it; it’s playground politics,” he said.

And that's the way it went in Halton.

Lisa Raitt Consults Her Public

2010-01-11T15:59:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Lisa Raitt carried out a blitz of Milton, Oakville and Burlington in the form of three rather hastily organized 'public consultation' meetings. She booked the small meeting room at the Milton Sports Centre for ours, which was announced less than a week in advance. All of which told me that she really didn't want or expect much of a turnout.

That, and the panicked looks on the faces of those running the registration desk.

The room is supposed to have a capacity of 35, but there had to be 50 or 60 jammed in, with at least a dozen standing in the back. Apparently it was the same at the other two meetings. And from the comments I heard and the questions that were asked, hardly any of them qualified as Conservative supporters. Not any more.

Her staff was there, of course. Former local Conservative Riding President Pat White was in the crowd, as well as a younger guy who seemed pretty partisan, but it was generally the same as what I've heard reported from the other two meetings: mostly critical, several neutral, and only a very few supportive.

Some got downright angry.

The event certainly drew the finest people. Some of the local personages who showed up were Donna Danielli, Colin Best, Mike Cluett, Mike Grimwood from the Rural Residents' Association, Joan from MiltonGreen, local reporters, and probably more I didn't recognize.

There were a few people who wanted to talk about energy and the environment, including one denier who droned on and on (they cut him off when he started quoting Lord Monkton). Other than him, the consensus was that that the Conservatives haven't done enough. Lisa took the opportunity to launch into a defence of the tar sands and 'clean coal', citing her Cape Breton roots as the reason for her affection.

We had one representative of an engineers group who spoke rather eloquently about AECL and the need to retain Canadian intellectual property. Apparently the AECL people completely swamped the other two meetings.

There were several very critical comments and questions on the HST - even Pat White said the timing was bad, and nobody was buying the line that the Federal government hadn't applied pressure to the provinces to harmonize. And then there were the usual random issues: income splitting, investment rules for horse farms, cheap imports, regional transit, Glenorchy Conservation Area, gun registry, family farms, pension reform and Nortel.

I asked the first question about prorogation. Lisa and her staff all know who I am, so I don't generally want to pound her too hard at these things and get dismissed as a Liberal partisan. Besides, I don't hold grudges, and she's always very friendly with me. So I just thanked her for holding these meetings today, and then I asked her how she was going to be filling the rest of her time over the next two months. She said that she'd be spending a lot of time in her constituency office and some in Ottawa - and then she said that she gets invited to a lot of local events like ribbon cuttings and Rotary functions, and this will give her a change to attend a lot more of those.

Seriously. Rotary lunches. Your MPs at work.

That seemed to break the ice on the issue because after that there were a number of critical comments about prorogation. The most intense came from Mike Grimwood, who really laced into her about it and wouldn't let it go. His best quote: "Why even bother with public meetings when the PMO makes all the decisions anyway?"

She didn't really address any of these concerns directly, even at later meetings where she just said that she would take our concerns back to Ottawa. But really - what is there to say?

Couple of funny moments: she still can't pronounce Nassagaweya and tried to laugh it off (note to all Halton candidates: if you can't pronounce Nassagaweya, you're as good as dead in the rural wards). She knew I was running for Council and congratulated me before the meeting, saying how much fun it was campaigning, and engaging in a little girl talk about all weight I would lose door-knocking.

Afterwards, she offered me this final piece of advice: "Don't read anybody's blogs but your own".

Thanks, but I'll not only read others' blogs - I'll even keep taking comments on my own.

(for a review of the Oakville meeting, check out Matt and Ashley's blog)

UPDATE: The Champion has a brief article about the event. I didn't count, but there's no way they fit 100 people in that room. I know - I rented the same room for a Liberal meeting tonight. Like I said, the room has a capacity of 35 and is only about 750 sq.ft. That would be like fitting 100 people into the main floor of my house. No way.

I'm Running

2010-01-08T23:00:00.004-05:00

In case you've been wondering why I haven't posted much lately, this might help solve the mystery:

A Fresh Start

My name is Jennifer Smith, and I am running for Milton Town Council, Ward 2. Welcome to my campaign blog!

Yes, it's true - I've really done it. The papers are filed, the bank account's set up, and now (of course) the blog. Next order of business: PayPal account for donations.

I'm going to need them.

Waiting to be Consulted by Lisa Raitt

2010-01-05T12:10:00.002-05:00

(the following letter was sent to the Milton Canadian Champion today)

To the Editor,

For the second time in just over a year, Stephen Harper has prorogued Parliament. Last time it was to avoid a vote of no confidence. This time it is to shut down the committee looking into the Afghanistan detainee question, and to re-set Senate committees with a majority of Conservative members.

These, of course, are not the reasons cited by the Conservatives, who keep insisting that this is all completely routine.

Let's be clear: prorogation is intended as a way to end a session of Parliament when the business of the government as laid out in the previous Throne Speech is largely completed. It is most certainly NOT routine to prorogue when more than half of the government's bills remain unpassed and committees are in the middle of important investigations.

To claim that this is just business as usual is a profoundly cynical attempt to once again play on Canadians' ignorance of their own political system. But judging by the level of outrage this latest move has provoked - even with most people off on holiday - it would seem that Canadians aren't quite as stupid as Stephen Harper thought.

Our Prime Minister claims that this extended break is to allow the government to "consult with Canadians over the economy". If that is the case, I will expect Lisa Raitt to be in her office every day between now and March 3rd and to start scheduling 'consultation' meetings with her constituents immediately.

I'll be checking, and I encourage others to do the same.

Yours truly,

Jennifer Smith

Avatar

2009-12-26T10:07:00.002-05:00

You're going to hear this a lot, but there's really no other way to say it: 'Avatar' is a mind-blowing and thoroughly entertaining immersion into another world, unlike anything you have ever seen before.

Much has been said about the groundbreaking 3-D technology created for the film, but what makes it so astonishing is that the effects are utterly seamless - so much so that after a while you are barely even conscious of them. The real breakthrough comes when the Na'vi and the creatures that inhabit their world become just as real to us as the humans.

Yes, the story is overly earnest at times, and the dialogue could really have used a few shots of Cameron's trademark humour. But in the end, Avatar has everything you could want from a movie plus a few things you never even imagined possible.

Even with the script's flaws, I'll give it five stars.

(Wow. It seems that, despite his best efforts to hate it, Murray loved Avatar as much as I did!)

Our Government's Work Ethic

2009-12-21T22:56:00.002-05:00

I'm blogging to you tonight from Georgetown, Kentucky, just north of Lexington, on my way down to Florida with the family.

We lost CBC somewhere near Toledo, but we've managed to keep the radio on a sequence of NPR stations, thus avoiding the canned pop music and right-wing talk that dominates the rest of the dial.

The big news down here, of course, is the health care bill passing in the U.S. Senate last night. While the question of whether or not this bill will actually improve health care remains unanswered, the point that caught my ear was this:

All 58 Democrats and the Senate's two independents held together early Monday against unanimous Republican opposition, providing the exact 60-40 margin needed to shut down a threatened GOP filibuster.

The vote came shortly after 1 a.m. with the nation's capital blanketed in snow, the unusual timing made necessary in order to get to a final vote by Christmas Eve presuming Republicans stretch out the debate as much as the rules allow.

Wow. I can't remember our MPs ever being late for dinner, let alone sticking it out into the wees.

No, our government is a little more laid back. Like those Conservative members of the Special Committee on Afghanistan who gave themselves an extra-long Christmas break, thanks to this note from Official Afghanistan Obstructionator Laurie Hawn:

Dear Ms. De Pape,

I am writing to inform the committee that Conservative Party members of the Special Committee on Canada's Mission in Afghanistan will not to be attending Tuesday's meeting called under Standing Order 106.4.

The Christmas and Holiday Season is a time to spend with family, friends, and loved ones. One would hope that only the most serious of emergencies should interfere with these moments.

There is presently nothing urgent needing study on the subject of Taleban prisoners. The alleged events in question took place over 3 years ago under two different Governments. Subsequently, Canada's prisoner policy was improved by the present Government and remains the "Gold standard" of our NATO allies.

Please pass this correspondence along to opposition members so they do not make unnecessary travel arrangements during this Christmas and Holiday season.

I would also like to wish yourself and all committee staff a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays over the coming weeks.

Oddly enough, that reads exactly like the note my son forged last week to get out of school on Friday. Except his said "Social Studies" and not "Taliban Prisoners".

No Surprise: AECL Officially on the Auction Bloc

2009-12-17T14:43:00.003-05:00

Shorter Lisa Raitt:

“Nuclear energy is experiencing a renaissance around the world that will reap huge profits for the industry, and our government is committed to ensuring that the Canadian public won't see a penny of it."

G&M Shuts Down the Haters

2009-12-16T21:34:00.001-05:00

Jane Taber ran a piece on the Globe & Mail website this afternoon about Scott Brison's Christmas card, which has a lovely picture of him with his husband and their dog:

Right below it you will find the following:

Comments have been disabled
Editor's Note: Comments have been closed due to an overwhelming number of hateful and homophobic remarks. We appreciate that readers want to discuss this issue, but we can't allow our site to become a platform for intolerance.

First, kudos to the Globe & Mail for not just shutting down the comments but for saying in no uncertain terms why they did it.

Second, this is an extreme example of something I've been noticing over the past six months or so: commenters on news sites are lunatics who simply cannot be reasoned with.

There used to be some semblance of rational discourse and debate on these things, similar to what you usually find on the 'real' blogs. But now the voices of reason have been completely drowned out by the haters, the fanatics, and the most intransigent of partisans all trying to shout each other down.

I used to think that posting the occasional sane comment on news sites somehow helped to balance the debate and maybe win some hearts and minds. But now I understand that doing so only encourages the bedlam, and I refuse to participate any more.

Consider this my early New Year's Resolution: I will no longer post comments to any newspaper or television news website.*

Let them have it.

*just for clarification, I am not including Maclean's in this boycott - at least not yet. It's a magazine, they have real bloggers over there, and the discourse hasn't quite descended to the 'pissing in the wind' level yet

Making forest preservation worth more than forest destruction

2009-12-16T17:56:00.004-05:00

In amongst the stories of pessimism, pranks, and angry mobs of frost-bitten delegates, there was a little ray of hope in the news from Copenhagen today.

An agreement has very nearly been reached on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), a mechanism by which developing nations would be compensated with cash or carbon credits for preserving their carbon-storing forests. The idea is to make the world's forests worth more alive than dead, thus giving developing nations a strong financial incentive to favour forest preservation over mining, grazing, or other less carbon-friendly land uses.

Think of it as the carrot side of the carrot-and-stick approach to carbon pricing.

One criticism of the agreement is that it is somewhat limited in scope. REDD began life as an agenda item at the 2005 Montreal Conference that specifically referred to developing countries, and even now the agreement is aimed almost entirely at preserving tropical forests in poorer nations, although word is that peatlands are now to be included as well.

This expansion has caused some to argue for the inclusion of other natural carbon sinks, particularly the boreal forests. Boreal systems are unique in that the comprise both forest and peatland, and thus store twice as much carbon per hectare as tropical rainforests.

While the current agreement only applies to developing nations, if expended this approach to carbon pricing could eventually have profound implications for Alberta's tar sands, which sit right in the heart of Canada's immense boreal region.

By placing a dollar value on the forests and peatlands being destroyed to get at the bitumen below, the Canadian government - or even just that of Alberta - would have a strong incentive to restrict tar sands development. And instead of forever cutting deals for the oil companies, they would be compelled to recoup the lost credit for forest preservation directly from them, making the already costly extraction process that much more expensive and therefore less appealing.

Combined with other forms of carbon pricing tied to more obvious emissions, the environmental costs of tar sands operations under such a regime would become apparent in terms that even our government should be able to understand.

(cross-posted from Canada's World)

Chaos in Copenhagen

2009-12-15T10:38:00.003-05:00

They waited. Hundreds of them, standing out in the freezing cold. No lines, no instructions, no organization, just a mass of people standing outside the Bella Centre in Copenhagen waiting to get in.

They waited for nine hours before they were told to go away and come back tomorrow.

These were not protesters. These were delegates and official observers and press waiting to be accredited so they could attend the conference. They were invited to be there.

They were... upset.

(H/T to Halton Does Copenhagen)

Sorry, Rocco

2009-12-15T02:20:00.000-05:00

You know I love you, man... but you lost me at "fire sale":

The latest contender for Toronto's mayoralty said he would whip the city's finances into shape by selling Toronto Hydro and other city assets if elected.

"I'm big, I'm bald and I've got bold ideas for this city," said Rocco Rossi, who until last week was the Liberal party's national director in Ottawa.

..."We're going to sell assets," Rossi told reporters. "We're going to start with Toronto Hydro."

Nope. Sorry. Been there, done that, didn't like it.

Happily, I don't live in Toronto.

Who Are You People?

2009-12-11T14:58:00.000-05:00

Between the Copenhagen Conference and the so-called 'Climategate' emails, it appears that the population (or at least the volume) of climate change deniers on the internet has increased exponentially over the past few weeks.

Once relegated to conspiracy sites and the editorial pages of the National Post, these warriors of the web now descend like a plague of locusts any time an article or a blog post mentions climate change or global warming, drowning out any productive discussion with the same old tired, discredited theories.

But who are these people really, and what motivates them to argue such an irrational position so vehemently?

I use the term 'irrational' quite intentionally, and with the full expectation of having the locusts descend on this post. Like most of the rest of us, your average online climate change denier has absolutely no education or training in the relevant sciences. But while most of us accept the conclusions of the overwhelming majority of those who DO have such training and knowledge (not to mention certain unavoidable physical evidence), they choose to believe people who have obvious and overwhelming financial and ideological motivations to lie to them.

To me, that seems irrational.

Those employed or funded by the oil and coal industry, or companies whose profit margins would be hurt by action on climate change, all have rational reasons to sow the seeds of doubt - just as Big Tobacco had sound financial reasons for insisting that their product didn't really kill people. It's despicable, but it's logical.

What I still don't fully understand are the motivations of the seemingly ordinary Canadians and Americans who spend their days screeching online about Climategate and solar flares and how pleasant Canada will be when we can grow bananas here. I'm fairly certain they don't all work of ExxonMobil. But I could be wrong.

There does seem to be quite a bit of the paranoid anti-government sentiment of the American 'Tea Bagger' movement evident in the denier camp. But it seems to me that the intensity of their passion more closely resembles a religious delusion of the sort experienced by proponents of 'Creation Science'. They even use the same narrative as the Creationists: "Scientists believe in science the same way we believe in God, and since their belief contradicts ours, therefore the science must be questionable; therefore, the fact that it is accepted as the truth by just about everyone is proof of a vast conspiracy between 'intellectuals' and the government/athiests/socialists/whoever."

Both groups even have their own documentaries.

There is, however, one significant difference between Creationists and Deniers: creationism is almost entirely ideological. Nobody is making billions dissing Charles Darwin - certainly not Ben Stein. The Climate Change Denial PR machine, on the other hand, has some very, very wealthy backers with a vested interest in the outcome.

Still, it doesn't really explain why people without that financial motivation would take up the cause and so vigorously defend the interests of oil companies and strip miners in their spare time.

Rick Salutin has his own theory: "Politics makes people crazy."

You can already see this on the level of mundane electoral politics, and I'm not even talking about the pros – I mean regular citizens. Many people follow their party or cause the way they follow their favourite team: Their spirits rise and sink with each game. They think about it (party or team) before falling asleep and first thing when they awake. Maybe this comes from a need to feel part of something larger than one's circumscribed self. But it leads to weird behaviour. There's a reason that “fan” derives from fanatic.

Now extend onto less average terrain and you get the “truthers,” who say 9/11 was a U.S. government plot masked by myths of hijacked planes; and the “birthers,” who insist that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. I use both since they are taken to represent the left and the right. I think it's worth hearing their arguments but, when you do, you sense that nothing anyone says can shake them. This is symptomatic of non-medical craziness.

While there is certainly an argument to be made that most 'civilian' defenders of anthropogenic climate change are just as unmovable in their beliefs as those on the other side, I'm not convinced that you can equate their motivations. After all, when you compare the most unhinged worst-case scenario of the "warmers" (millions dead, millions more displaced, mass extinctions, drowned coastlines, etc.) with that of the "deniers" (my taxes will go up and the rich will become less rich for no good reason), it really hard to see how the latter can inspire the level of sound and fury we're seeing.

Crazy? I dunno. I think I'll stick with irrational.

_____________________

Note: While I usually discourage the more ~~lunatic~~ avid denialists from commenting around here, since I've said so many disparaging things about them I figure it's only fair to give them free rein and let them respond - on this post only (not you, bocanut - your ass is still banned). However, in the interest of gathering data for my thesis, I would ask that you tell me a bit about your background and you motivations for posting before you make your comments. Who are you that I should believe you?

About that report...

2009-12-10T13:17:00.001-05:00

There is a vital Opposition motion before Parliament right now, in which the Liberal Party has demanded the release of all documents requested by the Afghanistan Committee "in their original and uncensored form".

One of those documents was read aloud by Gen. Natynczyk during his press conference yesterday. This single report, made by an anonymous section commander with no political axe to grind, has not only forced Natynczyk to completely reverse his (and therefore the government's) position that the person in question was not, in fact in Canadian custody and therefore didn't count - it actually vindicated Richard Colvin's testimony on several other points.

This passage struck me in particular:

"There were three individuals in a white van and they got a very weird feel from one of them. I had the interpreter along and he verified that an individual was in all probability enemy Taliban, due to his accent and his false story about being from Kandahar City."

Now, a soldier's life will quite often depend on acting on a "weird feel", and it may well be that the man in question was, in fact, Taliban - although even now that has not been made clear. But still, I would tend to think that if a "weird feeling" and an interpreter's assessment of someone's accent was all these guys were going on when they picked up some of these detainees, it would not be unreasonable to assume that they would come up with a fair number of false-positives.

This is actually something that Colvin has claimed:

In fact, Amrullah Saleh, chief of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, told Canadians most prisoners were later released – meaning they weren't likely high-value captures, according to the memo.

Mr. Saleh told Canadians that rank-and-file soldiers weren't very good at identifying the bad guys when rounding up suspects. “He suggested that, in general, conventional forces are not necessarily the best instrument for identifying high-value combatants … most of those detained by Canadian forces, he guessed, would subsequently have been released,” Mr. Colvin wrote in a memo.

There's nothing wrong with going on a gut feeling in a place like Afghanistan, of course. Better safe than sorry. And yet the government and the military generals are fighting even this obvious point, insisting that every single person picked up and handed over "posed a real threat to Afghans, and more than that, in some cases, had Canadian blood on their hands".

Clearly, if our soldiers are picking up people based on a "weird feel", it should be impossible for the military or the government to state with any assurance that they are all guilty. And yet they continue to do so.

The report also puts lie to the notion that this was an isolated incident:

"We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over to ensure that if the Afghan national police did assault him as it happened in the past, that we would have a visual record of his condition."

I had an interesting conversation with a Conservative friend a few nights ago. He's had a lifelong (if somewhat peripheral) involvement with the Canadian military, so of course he has opinions on all of this.

He doesn't see what the big deal is. Prisoners have always been abused and tortured and executed throughout the history of war, particularly by regimes as corrupt and uncivilized as that of Afghanistan. That's just the way it is, and civilians should get over their Pollyanna belief that these 'rules of war' actually apply in the real world.

(for the record, I don't think he's ever been in an actual battle)

This of course led to a philosophical argument on the nature and efficacy of war as a means of conflict resolution. But thinking back on it, I'm starting to believe that it's this sort of attitude that is really informing the intransigent position of the Conservative Government and people like General Hillier. They won't say it out loud, but you can hear it behind every sneering dismissal.

Apparently, human rights are for wimps.

"Survival of the Fattest"

2009-12-08T23:41:00.001-05:00

Wow. As a long time believer in 'art as visceral communication', I'm impressed.

From the artist:

The sculpture ’Survival of the Fattest’ is a symbol of the rich world’s (i.e. the fat woman, Justitia) self-complacent ‘righteousness’. With a pair of scales in her hand she sits on the back of starved African man (i.e. the third world), while pretending to do what is best for him.

Climate changes are caused by the western world, but the consequences hit the third world hardest. Even so, we are not willing to give up our way of life or make real changes. The poor countries are willing to do, comparatively, far more to lower CO2 emission than the western world. Still, the west all too often argues that they will have admissions and promises of further CO2 reductions from China, India, Russia and other countries that emit (and always have emitted) far less than the western world.

Copenhagen Conference Kicks Off With a Greenpeace Protest in Ottawa

2009-12-07T11:55:00.001-05:00

I don't always agree with everything Greenpeace does, but you gotta love it when a protest makes it to the top of the news:

How did protesters scale Ottawa's Parliament Buildings?

OTTAWA — The RCMP are investigating how 19 Greenpeace protesters in blue jumpsuits and white climbing helmets were able to scale two buildings on Parliament Hill undetected and unveil huge banners from the roof.

It's believed the 14 protesters who climbed to the roof atop the West Block used scaffolding at the back of the building to gain access at about 7:30 a.m. Monday.

I do find it amusing that CTV is desperately trying to make the story about the security breach and the mechanics of how they got up there.

Clean, Green & Prosperous in Milton

2009-12-03T14:32:00.000-05:00

I just got back from the "Clean, Green & Prosperous" meeting, which was hosted by our two young Liberal delegates to Copenhagen: Ashley Bigda and Matt Juniper.

It was a fun event, with two guest speakers and about 20 people attending. The presentations were interesting, although a lot of it was pretty familiar to anyone who has seen 'An Inconvenient Truth'. But the unfamiliar material was pretty shocking.

The first speaker was Lee Norton from The Climate Project Canada. Using the now familiar Al Gore PowerPoint format, he showed us some of the updated climate modelling that is both more precise and more ominous because it's taking into account feedback effects like reduced glare from polar ice and methane release from permafrost and now the arctic seabed. On the bright side, sulphur ajavascript:void(0)nd soot released into the atmosphere as plain old air pollution are having a slight cooling effect (great - smog will save us!)

The second speaker was Prof. Jay Malcolm from U. of T. He's an ecologist specializing in biodiversity, and he had some pretty disturbing things to say about exactly what effect even just a two or three degree global temperature increase would have on bioregions here in Ontario. The optimistic scenario would have southern Ontario looking like Georgia. The pessimistic scenario involves our climate changing too fast for plant and animal species to shift north, resulting in mass extinctions and the destruction of nearly all of our forests.

At that point, Matt and Ashley opened things up to the floor. It was a pretty lively discussion, with people talking about everything from local urban planning to green economic incentives to the relative effectiveness of traditional political engagement vs. environmental activism. Lots of smart ideas, lots of interesting perspectives.

It was really a terrific event, and I'm pretty sure everyone in that room will be following Matt and Ashley's Excellent Copenhagen Adventure very closely.

ForestEthics Pays a Visit to Lisa Raitt

2009-12-02T12:25:00.000-05:00

As a follow-up to their recent full page ad:

Hundreds of postcards sent to Raitt

Hundreds of Halton residents are calling on Halton MP Lisa Raitt to take a leadership role at the upcoming UN Climate Change Summit.

On Friday a dozen local citizens hand-delivered more than 830 postcards to Raitt’s constituency office in Milton urging her to take a stand on global warming and ensure clean energy for future generations.

The postcards were collected as part of ForestEthics’ ‘Your Vote, Their Future’ initiative, which encourages voters to push the federal government to tackle global warming.

“At doorsteps across Milton I’ve been hearing that people, in particular parents, are worried about what global warming could mean for them,” said Ian Carey, ForestEthics’ Halton outreach co-ordinator. “I have not heard a single person say they want more tar sands extracted and less action to tackle global warming, which is the current approach of the federal government.”

The UN Climate Change Summit will start this coming Monday in Copenhagen, Denmark.

This is not my Canada

2009-12-01T13:00:00.001-05:00

Respected British writer and activist George Monbiot has joined the pile-on of individuals, organizations and nations who are horrified by Canada's increasingly obstructionist approach on the climate change front.

So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.

Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.

I'm starting to understand how progressive Americans have been feeling for the past eight years. Stephen Harper has been in office for less than half that time and has already turned our country into an international embarrassment.

All of which makes me wonder: what do you do when the country you love, the country that you have been a proud citizen of all your life, starts becoming... something other? How long before all this stops being just about the actions of one Prime Minister and his government, and starts being about the choices made by the country itself?

I feel a little sick.

Ted Chudleigh on the HST: What a Difference a Year Makes

2009-12-01T11:38:00.000-05:00

Halton MPP Ted Chudleigh was ejected - again - from the Ontario Legislature a couple of weeks ago for using unparliamentary language in criticizing the McGuinty government's plan to bring in a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST):

“This HST thing has been building,” said Chudleigh.

“They’re totally misrepresenting this. They’re talking about this bill being revenue neutral and what a good thing it is for the people of Ontario. It does have some merits, as far as business is concerned, which we are very aware of, but it is not a revenue neutral bill. It’s a $3-billion tax grab. It’s going to take a lot of money out of people’s pockets at a time when the province is still in desperate straits.”

But is it possible that, like many of his fellow Conservatives, Mr. Chudleigh might have been for the HST before he was against it?

Quick, Sherman, into the Wayback Machine!

"Taxing businesses for their input costs is also a negative thing to do in an economy. It would be far better if we could find a way to harmonize the PST with the GST." (October 2, 2008 - Legislative Assembly Hansard)

Halton Does Copenhagen!

2009-11-30T22:12:00.000-05:00

We're all very excited here in Halton that two of our Young Liberals have been selected as youth delegates to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Ashley Bigda and Matt Juniper were recently featured in the local papers, and now they have their very own blog to share their adventures with us:

Halton Does Copenhagen

Drop in and say hi! Or better yet, come on down to their "Clean, Green, & Prosperous" event on Wednesday night here in Milton, where you can talk to them about what you would like to see accomplished at the conference.

Hope to see you there!

Orphan Drugs for Orphan Diseases: The Non-Profit Pharmaceutical Model

2009-11-29T15:21:00.003-05:00

(This post was written for my two-hour blogathon for A Dare to Remember. Please sponsor me!)

Whenever I need a fresh injection of hope, I like to wander over to The Skoll Foundation. Partly because they always have great stories about innovative and inspiring people, and partly because.. well, I used to be friends with founder Jeff Skoll in high school. If only I'd known that my little slacker buddy was destined to become a billionaire philanthropist...

Anyway. One of the organizations funded by the Skoll Foundation is the Institute for OneWorld Health. Founded by pharmaceutical industry scientist Victoria G. Hale, OneWorld Health is a non-profit drug company.

You read that right: a non-profit drug company.

The tragic flaw of America's gargantuan profit-based pharmaceutical industry has always been that so much of their considerable technical and scientific advancement has been dedicated to drugs and therapies for old, fat, impotent, rich white people - while millions of poor, malnourished children and working-age adults around the world die every year from silly treatable things like diarrhea and malaria.

A case in point is Black Fever, or kala-azar. Endemic in some parts of India, it is caused by a parasite transmitted through sandfly bites. Black Fever attacks the organs and destroys the bone marrow, causing the victim to die a slow, horrible death. Existing treatments were terribly expensive and not very effective, and of course the pharmaceutical industry had no reason to develop anything better or cheaper.

Enter Victoria Hale.

Hale found an existing antibiotic - paromomycin - that the drug companies had stopped producing because it was unprofitable, and OneWorld Health ran clinical trials to test its effectiveness against Black Fever. It worked, and the Indian Government approved it for use in 2006, arranging to buy it at cost - about $10 per treatment.

OneWorld Health is also investigating and developing new treatments for malaria, diarrheal diseases, and other diseases affecting the world's poorest people.

Victoria Hale recently left OneWorld Health to start a new venture: Medicines360, which takes a similar approach in developing new medicines for previously unmet health needs of women and children.

(cross-posted from Canada's World)

Will Uganda's New Anti-Gay Law Sabotage Anti-AIDS Efforts?

2009-11-29T15:17:00.003-05:00

(This post was written for my two-hour blogathon for A Dare to Remember. Please sponsor me!)

Stephen Harper has joined Gordon Brown and other Commonwealth leaders in condemning Uganda's proposed new anti-homosexuality law, which would proscribe the death penalty for anyone engaging in a homosexual act in which one person has AIDS, and would also give harsh prison sentences to anyone publicly defending homosexuality or failing to report known homosexuals to the police.

“I did raise it directly with the president of Uganda and indicated Canada’s deep concern and strong opposition,” Mr. Harper announced at the conclusion of the 53-country meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

“We deplore these kinds of measures. We find them inconsistent with frankly I think any reasonable understanding of human rights,” the prime minister said.

“I was very clear on that with the president of Uganda.”

Sadly, the Commonwealth appears somewhat divided on the issue, with some African and Caribbean leaders either quietly supporting the measure or dismissing it as "an internal matter".

Uganda is already well known as a really bad place to be gay. Homosexuality has always been illegal there, as it is in most African nations, but the fear that Uganda's gay population lives under is extreme, as one aid worker discovered last year:

"Thanks for meeting me," I said at last, making a timid effort to break the ice. I told her a bit about myself (I am Jewish and gay) and what had brought me to Uganda. I was volunteering with American Jewish World Service at a grassroots human rights organization that focused on HIV/AIDS advocacy and was interested in learning about the country's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

"What do you want to know?" she replied.

"I'm curious about your life; what it's like for you here."

"It's hard. Really hard. I got thrown out of school because of it. Thrown out of my home. You have to be careful if you want to survive. You have to be discreet. You learn to speak in ways that no one will understand. You know what I mean, yes?"

I did. Nothing could make a Ugandan more vulnerable than speaking frankly about homosexuality in a public space, especially with a white American. And so, we spoke in code—a reality that is all too familiar to the LGBT community in Uganda and in Africa at large.

The sad thing is, Uganda has been held up as a stellar example of an African nation successfully fighting AIDS. Their ABC program ("Abstinence, Be faithful, Condoms"), in combination with massive funding from the U.S. through their PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) program, has dramatically lowered the incidence of AIDS there.

But while there has always been some controversy about some of the requirements for PEPFAR, a larger problem appears to be the refusal on the part of participating nations like Uganda to allow LGBT groups to play any role in their anti-AIDS strategy.

The perception, of course, is that AIDS in Africa is entirely a heterosexual problem, spread mainly by husbands having extra-marital sex with prostitutes or other women while away at work, then coming home and infecting their wives. But while this is certainly one of the predominant means of infection, it is certainly not the only one.

In Latin America, MSM [men who have sex with men] are the major affected population throughout, and in much of the Caribbean as well. In Asia, MSM are a significant part iof the epidemic in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China.

In most Asian countries, MSM are the third part of the "triumvirate of concentrated epidemics," including commercial sex workers and injection drug users (and, of course, some MSM belong to all three groups).

Even in the continent of "generalized" (as distinct from concentrated) epidemics, emerging studies show that MSM play a surprisingly large role. In cities as diverse as Alexandria, Egypt; Khartoum, Sudan; Mombasa, Kenya; Dakar, Senegal; and Gabarone, Botswana, MSM contribute from 15-30% of the new HIV infections each year, and their incidence rate is much higher than other population groups.

Yet, very little effort has been devoted to exploring HIV and MSM in most countries, until very recently. Once the decision has been made somewhere to start looking, enormous barriers remain. Cultural terms of reference vary widely, as in the fact than in most non-Western countries, sexual orientation or diverse sexual practice is not usually a basis for identity, as in "I am a gay man."

Uganda's new law, if passed, will only further exclude this group and drive them so far underground that treating them will be all but impossible. And since the line between being a self-identified gay man and just a man who sometimes has sex with other men is so blurred in Uganda and many other countries, any progress against AIDS there could well be reversed when it starts transmitting back into the heterosexual community.

(cross-posted from Canada's World)

Watch This Space For My 'Dare to Remember'!

2009-11-29T12:56:00.003-05:00

At 1:00 pm today I will be following through on my 'Dare to Remember' - to blog for two straight hours on global health issues. However, as there are limits to my multi-tasking abilities, you'll have to go over to Canada's World to watch it all happen in real time. Once I'm done, I'll cross-post everything here.

See you over there!

The Blind Side

2009-11-27T16:05:00.002-05:00

I was a little concerned when Murray picked 'The Blind Side' this month. I'm not keen on sports movies, especially those about football - a game I understand just slightly better than cricket.

Happily, 'The Blind Side' isn't really a football movie, and what football there is is explained in a very helpful "Football for Dummies" voice-over.

In most ways this is a pretty conventional feel-good movie, but a few things save it from becoming too saccharine. One is the understated but intense performance of Quinton Aaron as "Big Mike" Oher, whose gentle introversion makes for a startling contrast to his massive six foot ten inch frame.

Another is the careful attention paid to the relationships which develop between Mike and each member of his new family, giving us four unique stories of how disparate lives can intersect in unexpected ways.

For avoiding at least some of the expected stereotypes and leaving me with a smile at the end, I'll give it three and a half stars.

(Murray liked it even more.)

My Message for Stephen Harper

2009-11-27T15:57:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to leaving that phone message for Stephen Harper today about the importance of taking serious action on climate change.

Unfortunately, I'm having some trouble uploading it to David Suzuki's website. I tried several times to register, but for some reason their email verification isn't getting through to me. I even tried a different email address - no luck. So if anyone has an account over at the David Suzuki Foundation, please upload my video for me. Thanks!

Please sponsor me for 'A Dare To Remember'!

2009-11-27T15:40:00.000-05:00

Some of my blogging colleagues from Canada's World and I are taking on 'A Dare to Remember' for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

We have each pledged to blog for two hours straight (at least!) on global health issues before World AIDS Day on December 1st.* The result will (hopefully) be a week-long blog burst of compassion, support, and education about health issues around the globe - but we need someone to dare us first!

The money we raise will go directly to African grandmothers, children, and women – ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things to turn the tide of AIDS in Africa.

To donate online now, please select a donation amount from the "Sponsor Me" section on my Personal Page. It’s simple, fast and totally secure and will make such a difference to the incredible men and women transforming lives and restoring hope to communities in Africa.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Thank you!

* UPDATE: Time has once again gotten away from me, and I won't be able to put in my two hours until Sunday. But that just leaves more time for more people to sponsor me! I'm already up to $50 - let's bump that up, shall we?

I'll make you a deal - I'll make a commitment now to start blogging at 1:00 pm Sunday, and update the blog post live so you can watch my convoluted writing process in action. Now THAT'S worth a Dare!

PMO Calls High School to Shut Down Environmental Protest

2009-11-23T09:49:00.001-05:00

I posted a link on Facebook last week to a fun little contest/action that David Suzuki had set up:

1) Call Prime Minister Stephen Harper at (613) 992-4211
2) Leave a message about what you'd like to see Canada accomplish at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference
3) Videotape yourself doing it, and
4) Post the video to the David Suzuki Foundation.

The best video gets a personal call from David Suzuki and a $400 MEC gift certificate. Cool, huh?

Well, it seems that some environmentally-conscious students at the Woodlands School in Mississauga heard about this and decided to give Mr. Harper a call - all at once. At which point someone at the PMO, who has apparently been getting sick of all these calls, actually phoned the school to ask them to stop.

The school's office manager, Gurpreet Bassi, says someone identifying themself as being from the PMO called urging her to "please have (the) students stop calling -- they are jamming up the switchboard."

The caller continued to inform her that they had "other important issues that could fall behind because these kids are calling and for the principal to go on the P.A. system and please don't make any more phone calls."

Because really - there are so many other people waiting to be ignored by Stephen Harper.

I think there's really only one thing we can do about this: everyone reading this, call Stephen Harper today (November 23rd). The number is (613) 992-4211

With a Little Help From Our Friends

2009-11-22T10:10:00.004-05:00

Not sure how I missed this one: a full page ad in Friday's Milton Champion denouncing Lisa Raitt and her recent U.S. 'Tar Sands Promotional Tour' - and it's not even one of ours!

Thanks, ForestEthics!

A Fair Country No More?

2009-11-22T09:31:00.000-05:00

The always insightful Rick Salutin of the Globe and Mail has joined the chorus of criticism about our government's response to Richard Colvin's testimony this week. But he also goes a step further, drawing a rather uncomfortable line between our possible complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees, and the Americans' behaviour at Abu Ghraib prison.

[caption id="attachment_2499" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Abused prisoner at Abu Ghraib, Iraq (from Wikimedia Commons)"][/caption]

Yes, I know - stay with me.

While we might object (and rightly so) that our people didn't torture anybody themselves, that distinction is likely to be lost on the streets of Kandahar. We may see ourselves as The Good Guys, but whether that perception is accurate or not is irrelevant - what matters is how the people of Afghanistan see us. We can help them and protect them, but only as long as the average Afghani trusts our soldiers to have their best interests at heart. As soon as they start seeing us as the enemy, or in collusion with the enemy, we may as well go home.

It's important to remember just how much of Canada's success as peacekeepers has been dependant on the reputation of our country and our military as fair and honest brokers on the world stage. Regardless of whether that reputation has always been truly justified or not, it has allowed both the governments and the people of the nations we enter to see us as, if not friends, then at least unbiased arbiters.

That reputation and that trust, built up so carefully over decades, may now be irreparably damaged. And just as it was with Abu Ghraib, the knowledge of what we have allowed to be done will only inspire more Afghanis to take up arms against us, thus putting our fighting men and women in even greater danger.

Some may be tempted to blame Mr. Colvin for this, but don't - he is only stating aloud what everybody in Afghanistan apparently already knew.

The difference is that now we know it too, and are therefore compelled to act. If we do not, then the damage really will be irreversible.

(cross-posted from Canada's World)

I'm sure Monica was just "working constructively" with Bill Clinton, too

2009-11-19T10:55:00.000-05:00

John Baird was in full 'Duck-and-Cover' mode today when confronted with the accidentally un-redacted correspondence between his Ministry and the major airlines.

Baird said there's nothing nefarious about the relationship, adding "we're been working constructively with the airlines."

Really? Is that what you call it? Because I can think of a couple of other terms for it, John.

But that's not even the best part. The best part comes later in the article when they start into the Conservative government's third favourite default position - right after "We didn't do it!" and "The Liberals did it first!":

"We did that already!"

In the House of Commons, Baird confirmed Wednesday he doesn't support the [NDP passenger rights] bill, but defended the Tory record on the file, saying the government has "put forward new public policy" in the area of passenger rights.

His office later pointed to the Flight Rights campaign to educate air travellers of their rights. The promised rollout last September of "prominent signage" at key airports has never materialized. Transport Canada confirmed $3,640 has been spent on the initiative, limited to information posted on the departmental website.

I guess all the "prominent signage" got used up for "Canada's Economic Action Plan".

Conservative Hypocricy (#147 in a series)

2009-11-17T00:23:00.000-05:00

In tonight's episode, it is revealed that the Conservatives publicly supported and voted in favour of a Passenger Bill of Rights that was sure to win them votes... all the while secretly working behind the scenes to encourage the airlines to lobby harder so they could kill it.

Wow. I'm shocked. No, seriously. Shocked and appalled.

.
.
.

You're not buying it, are you?

(The real kicker: the only reason this has come to light is that somebody forgot to redact the document before turning it over to Canwest. Oops!)

The Gun Registry Post I Wasn't Going to Write

2009-11-09T22:35:00.002-05:00

I wasn't going to say anything about the gun registry on this blog. Because seriously, who needs that kind of abuse?

Of course my reticence didn't stop me from spending the past week leaving comments on every blog post and media article I found on the subject. And it wasn't like I actually thought I was going to convince anybody one way or the other.

I just got fed up with seeing the same old misinformation making the rounds.

The problem is, there really is an urban/rural divide on this issue, but it has nothing to do with who does or doesn't benefit from the long gun registry - it has to do with who has firsthand knowledge of our firearm licensing and registration system. City folk, by and large, do not own a lot of rifles or shotguns. So even if they support the long gun registry, their arguments tend to fall apart when those against it start pulling out authentic-sounding facts and figures. They have no way to contradict these people because they have never themselves registered a firearm.

I have. So let me clear up a couple of things for you.

1) There are three categories of forms we're talking about here: the gun registry (which is for the gun but connects it to the person), the hunting license (if that's why you want a gun), and the firearm license, which is either a Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) or a Possession Only License (POL). You need one of those last two in order to purchase, own, or temporarily possess a firearm, and you need to take a firearms safety course before you get one.

2) There are no 'intrusive questions' on the gun registry form, unless you consider the length of your barrel to be nobody's business but your own. The only questions that might be considered intrusive are on the two firearms license forms. These are questions like, "Have you recently ended a long-term relationship?" and "Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness?" Personally, I think these are important things to know, but they have nothing to do with the gun registry.

3) Registering a non-restricted rifle or shotgun is FREE. I'll repeat that: there is NO CHARGE for registering a non-restricted long gun. Anyone who tells you different has obviously not registered a weapon since 2006 when the fees were eliminated.

4) The elimination of the registration fees was the direct result of complaints from people who owned multiple guns. It is also one of the main reasons why the gun registry came to cost so much to taxpayers.

5) You do not need to renew the registration on a long gun unless it's modified in some way. You do have to renew you PAL or POL - there is a fee for that, but it has been waived until next spring.

6) You cannot have a gun for 'home defence' in Canada. Legally. You can have one for hunting, sport shooting, or as a collector, but you aren't allowed to have one just so you can pull a Clint Eastwood on your front lawn. If you write in anything except hunting, sport shooting or collecting under 'reason for applying' on your PAL or POL form, they will not give you a gun license.

There are lots more facts and statistics at the RCMP's Firearms Program website, which you can browse at your leisure. The same website has all the licensing and registration regs just in case I've missed anything.

I did want to say something about this notion that 'criminals don't register their guns'. Frankly, I don't worry so much about criminals, or at least not the kinds of criminals most people are thinking of when they make statements like that. Even when I lived in some of the worst neighbourhoods in Toronto, I knew that when there were shootings it was generally just the bad guys shooting at each other.

But here in Milton, we just don't have a lot of gang-bangers or drug dealers or bikers or Mafia-types, or any of the sorts of scary career criminals you see on American TV (well, we do, but most of them are locked up in Maplehurst up the road).

What we do have in this quiet little town are drunks, abusive spouses and bored teenagers. Some of them have access to firearms. Most of them are upright, law-abiding citizens - right up until they're not. So for me as well as for all those other people trying to defend their 'rural lifestyle', the odds of getting shot by a previously law-abiding spouse, or a drunken neighbour, or some kid showing off his dad's .22 to his friends are much, much higher than the chances of getting shot by a gang member with an illegal handgun.

In other words, the people who tend to be the most vocal against the long gun registry are also the ones who potentially benefit the most from it.

As for exactly how effective the gun registry is in preventing domestic crime, protecting police, or keeping illegal guns off the street... I don't know. I'm just a gun owner, not a police officer, so I'll let the police themselves answer that question for you.

There. I've said my piece. Have at it.

UPDATE: Here's a chart based on homicide stats since the homicide peak of 1991, from the Department of Justice. The firearms registry was started in 1996. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

When I say 'Puffy', I'm not just talking about his weight

2009-11-06T13:11:00.000-05:00

Watching Senator Mike Duffy's disgraceful performance on CBC yesterday, it's hard to imagine how he managed to keep all that bombast and vitriol in check for all those years as a journalist. It must be such a great relief for him to finally be able to let loose and tell us what he really thinks.

This is, of course, only the latest in a long series of embarrassing episodes since the appointment of His Puffiness to the Upper Chamber. From his crude and belaboured musings on the imaginary bedtime antics of the Premiers of P.E.I. and Newfoundland, to his participation in a fake 'town hall' promoting his Glorious Leader's political policies, Mike Duffy has probably done more to damage and denigrate the institution of the Senate in his few months tenure than years of attacks by those dedicated to its abolition.

And that, of course, is why he was appointed in the first place.

Meanwhile, Liberal MP Glen Pearson tells us about the real Peter Stoeffer, and points out exactly who is the faker here.

Prescription Drug Ads Come to Canada

2009-11-06T01:03:00.001-05:00

I saw something rather disturbing this evening: an ad talking about erectile dysfunction. Hardly an uncommon sight in itself - except this one was on a Canadian station. I believe it was CTV NewsChannel.

Unlike those endless, annoying American drug ads, this one didn't mention any specific drug - just informed the viewer that (apparently) 40% of men over 40 suffer from E.D. and referred them to a website: www.40over40.ca. But when you go to the website and dig through the fine print, you discover that the whole thing is the work of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly - makers of Cialis, an E.D. drug.

The whole thing is pretty subtle. After you get through all the information about how common E.D. is and rate your tumescence with their handy self-diagnostic tool, you get to a chart detailing the pros and cons of the three major oral treatments - with Cialis listed first, of course, and highlighting the fact that it's the only one you can take once a day. There's also a chart of the considerably less appealing non-oral treatments such as 'vacuum therapy' and 'transurethral insert'.

Still, it all seems pretty balanced. Right?

The trouble is, Eli Lilly has pulled this before - in England. Like Canada and almost everywhere else in the world, the U.K. doesn't allow 'Direct-to-Consumer Advertising' (DTCA) for prescription drugs. Ever. So Eli Lilly tried to sneak these '40 Over 40' ads through as 'disease awareness' campaigns.

The British weren't buying it.

Eli Lilly is to be reprimanded by the UK pharmaceutical industry watchdog for “unbalanced” promotion of its anti-erectile dysfunction drug Cialis, in violation of ethical rules.

The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority has ruled that the US-based company “brought discredit” on the industry through a marketing campaign on television, the internet and in brochures in GP surgeries in the UK.

It said the company had presented information on its medicine that failed to cite the side-effects or risks, and in a way that would have encouraged patients to seek a prescription for Cialis.

The judgment, triggered by an FT article highlighting the campaign, is to be released shortly and has been accepted by Eli Lilly, which stopped using the criticised aspects of its campaign last month.

Interestingly, the British version of the campaign was even more subtle than the Canadian version. Prohibited from naming the drugs in question, they were listed only as Product A, Product B and Product C. Of course, those anonymous products were identified by name in the brochures supplied to doctors' offices by the company.

Canadian law is a bit more lax than that, and has unfortunately been getting even more lenient in recent years. Despite years of lobbbying by both the pharmaceutical industry and Canadian broadcasters, no actual changes to the law have been made. However, loopholes in the Canada Food and Drugs Act have led to an increasingly broad interpretation, as pointed out in this Canadian Medical Association Journal article:

There are 3 types of prescription drug advertisements aimed at the public: product claim advertisements, which include both the product name and specific therapeutic claims; reminder advertisements, which provide the name of a product without stating its use; and help-seeking advertisements, which inform consumers of new but unspecified treatment options for diseases or conditions. All 3 forms of advertising are permitted in the United States. In Canada, although all 3 forms appear to contravene the Food and Drugs Act, reminder advertisements and help-seeking advertisements are now everyday events in broadcast and print advertising, with little or no regulatory response.

... In 1996, a policy statement that set out to define the boundary between information dissemination and advertising suggested that Health Canada was ready to relax its interpretation of the Act.4 It stated that Health Canada "recognizes the importance to the pharmaceutical industry and to the general public of being able to disseminate and access nonpromotional information regarding drugs for human use." The effect of this statement was tacit approval of help-seeking advertisements for serious diseases. A policy paper released in November 2000 suggested an even more liberalized reinterpretation of the Act.5 It explicitly stated that help-seeking and reminder advertisements, but not product claim advertisements, were legal.

I guess it's surprising that we haven't seen even more of these ads, although I'm sure with the uncertain future of health care profits in the U.S. and all the whining the Canadian broadcasters have been doing over their financial situation lately, the pressure will only increase to have even more American-style ads hitting a TV screen near you.

I must say, though - the elephant is pretty cute.

(for all the many reasons why Direct-to-Consumer prescription drugs ads are worse than annoying - and especially bad for women - there's some great information here.)

This Could Get Ugly

2009-11-05T10:58:00.001-05:00

The Star's Linda Diebal is beginning a series of investigative articles today on Toronto's beleaguered Port Authority. Today's piece includes some pretty specific accusations by former TPA board chairs against former TPA president Lisa Raitt.

Raitt accused of expense abuse

Federal cabinet minister Lisa Raitt signed off on her own expenses on at least one occasion – more than $3,000 spent on a trip to London, England – when she was president and CEO of the Toronto Port Authority.

Raitt signed on the line reserved for the board chair on the February 2008 claim, according to correspondence with the agency's auditor, Deloitte & Touche LLP, obtained by the Star.

"(The London trip) was not pre-approved and she signed off on it when I would not," Toronto lawyer Michele McCarthy, who was in her second term as chair in February 2008, said in an interview.

She says port authority policy requires the chair's signature, adding: "I was waiting for a justification of the expenses. ... Expenses are either right or wrong."

... Documents also show nobody signed off on $50,000 spent at Harbour Sixty Steakhouse in the port authority building, including a $9,000 lunch for about 50 people, and another for $1,000 at a Sept. 11 "internal management lunch."

Other expense claims appear to bear Raitt's signature, and two unsigned claims for February 2008 have notes attached: "Chair refused to sign. No reason given."

Raitt's tenure at the TPA has been the subject of no end of accusations of misconduct over the years, from constant attacks by the anti-Island Airport group CommunityAIR to attempts during the last election to raise the issue. Up until now, however, it's been nearly impossible to make anything stick because the specifics of Raitt's expenses have been a closely guarded secret, and because those making the accusations have had their own reasons for doing so.

The only reason these specifics are coming to light now is that four former TPA directors have been trying to get Auditor General Sheila Fraser to take a look at Raitt's expenses. An earlier, internal audit had uncovered these and other irregularities, but failed to conclude that anything was amiss. That wasn't good enough for these directors, so they took the documents to Fraser and to John Baird, asking them to investigate.

Fraser insists that the AG doesn't have a mandate to conduct such a specific investigation. Baird just refused to answer.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

The Never-Ending Conservative Obstructionism Over Climate Change

2009-11-01T15:24:00.000-05:00

Last week, the TD Bank and the Pembina Institute came out with their report on the cost of achieving Canada's climate change goals - both those that would meet the government's somewhat lax standards, as well as the more stringent ones that would bring us in line with our Kyoto commitments.

This is important information to have if we are going to know where we stand going into Copenhagen in December. And yet, our own government immediately condemned the report - apparently without having actually read it.

“The conclusions [the report] draws are irresponsible,” said Mr. Prentice in an interview with The Globe and Mail from Kingston, where he was meeting with provincial and territorial environment ministers. Specifically, he said Canadians will not accept the report's advocacy of emission targets for 2020 that would reduce Canada's gross domestic product by 3 per cent nationally and 12 per cent in Alberta from business-as-usual estimates.

That sure does sound like a very bad thing, aside from the fact that it is a complete misrepresentation of the report's conclusions. Despite the rather alarmist headline on the Globe & Mail story, the report itself is quite clear that the effect on the economy under either scenario would be to slow growth. Not reverse it. Not stall it. Slow it.

Canada’s GDP is projected to grow 23 per cent between 2010 and 2020, or an average of 2.1 per cent annually, while meeting the 2°C emissions target. By comparison, under business as usual conditions, Canada’s GDP is projected to grow 27 per cent between 2010 and 2020, or an average of 2.4 per cent annually, with GHG emissions in 2020 rising to 47 per cent above the 1990 level.

Got that? They're not talking about crashing the car or putting it in reverse - just slowing it down from 27 kph to 23 kph. And since Alberta is the worst "speeder" by virtue of having both the highest rate of projected growth and the highest percent of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, under any scenario they are going to have their growth slowed the most.

And so the shrieking from the West begins.

“We would be extremely opposed to any kind of a carbon tax or some other kind of tax that would result in a significant wealth transfer from our province to any other province or area of the country,” said Saskatchewan Energy Minister Bill Boyd.

Listening to this sort of petty, obstructionist attitude from our poltical leaders is unbelievably frustrating, especially given the sort of forward thinking coming from other world leaders and economists. Almost every day, otherwise sane, buttoned-down publications like the Financial Post are taking about the economics of carbon reduction as a given - and a potentially profitable one to boot.

Even the Americans are starting to get it.

Several countries are plowing significant portions of their stimulus packages into "greening" their economies. In the United States, US$94-billion of the United States' $787-billion stimulus package qualifies as green spending, according to a UN study.

The U.S. is pouring stimulus cash into everything from helping states use more renewable energy, to modernizing the electric grid and developing batteries for electric vehicles.

On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama compared the development of clean technologies to the space race of the Cold War era: "From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to [produce] and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. . . . And I want America to be that nation," he said.

Canada is spending roughly 8% of its stimulus package on green measures, placing it 10th among the 13 countries reviewed by the UN. South Korea led with 79%, followed by China, with 34%, and Australia, at 21%.

Europe, of course, is leading the way. But while they're all about innovative economic incentives and cutting edge technologies and finding ways to prosper in a post-carbon world, the Canadian government is still putting all its eggs into two highly discredited baskets: carbon capture and storage, and corn ethanol.

This isn't sound economics. It isn't even cautious pragmatism. It's like watching your parents put off buying a DVD player long after everyone else starts switching to Blu-Ray, knowing you're going to be stuck with their collection of VHS tapes.

It's a complete denial of reality, and it will come at a devestating cost to not only the planet but our economy as well.

Paranormal Activity

2009-10-30T12:53:00.001-04:00

Scary movies aren't what they used to be.

Sure, the body count is higher, the gore is gorier, and the special effects are better at showing you exactly what the inside of a human body looks like. But while all this has made horror movies more horrifying, they have somehow become less scary. And less fun.

Paranormal Activity is the perfect antidote to a decade of vapid 'dead teenager' and 'torture porn' sequels: an old fashioned ghost story that reminds you just how much fun a good scare can be.

Shot on a budget that could have been financed with a couple of credit cards, the movie has a cast of four and takes place entirely within one house. There are no visible monsters, no serial killers, and very little blood. And it's the scariest movie I've seen since The Blair Witch Project.

Four and a half stars out of five.

(I told Murray I'd try to find something he'd hate this time. It worked.)

What are they, twelve?!

2009-10-30T01:34:00.001-04:00

I remember an episode of some 'Law & Order'-type show in which the prosecution (or maybe the defence) requests documents under discovery, and the opposing side responds by dumping box after box after box of paper in their office.

It seems John Baird saw that episode too.

The Harper government has dumped three boxloads of information about its efforts to stimulate Canada's sputtering economy on Parliament's independent budget watchdog.

Kevin Page had asked for more information, complaining that the sketchy data provided up to now made it impossible to tell whether $12 billion in stimulus spending is having any impact on the economy.

But rather than provide an easy-to-analyse spreadsheet listing infrastructure projects and how much money has been spent on each of them to date, the government flooded Page Thursday with 4,476 pages of documents.

...[Baird] made no apologies for not delivering the information in a more user-friendly form. He said 200 officials at Infrastructure Canada have been "working flat out" to get 7,600 projects up and running and that has to be their "first priority."

"The parliamentary budget officer has asked for a significant amount of information. We've given him a significant amount of information," Baird said.

Tell you what. Next time Canada's Not-So-New Government asks for you to pay your taxes, why don't we all drive up to Jim Flaherty's office in Ottawa and dump it on his desk. In pennies.

That'll show 'em!

Colin Horgan on 'Canada's Frozen Political Waste'

2009-10-25T09:09:00.001-04:00

I have nothing to add to this, other than to delight in the fact that it comes to us via The Guardian:

Down is the new up: Canadians suddenly like Stephen Harper, but for the wrong reasons.

Michael Ignatieff's announcement on Monday that his Liberal party will not "actively seek to defeat" the Conservatives "by proposing their own confidence motions," was an almost direct contradiction to his resounding cry in September that Harper's "time is up". The Liberal threat to dismantle the Tory government is now effectively dead, and many Canadians couldn't possibly care less. We like Harper now. Unfortunately, it will get us nowhere.

The biggest political story of October hasn't been Ignatieff's troubles or the widening poll gap between the Tories and Liberals, or even some Tory MPs slapping their names or their party logo on government (read: taxpayer) stimulus cheques. Instead, it's been Harper's performance of the Beatles song With a Little Help From My Friends at a gala benefit at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. It sparked an immediate response and softened some of his harshest critics. The media cooed, and Harper – formerly known for his wax-like public persona – became a YouTube hit.

'Wax-like persona'. Heh.

Really, go read the rest. The last three sentences are the killers.

Three Perspectives on the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

2009-10-24T17:40:00.004-04:00

Environment Minister Jim Prentice is going out of his way this week to lower expectations for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December.

Citing Canada's "faster-growing population and energy-intensive industrial structure", Prentice is continuing to insist that Canada should not be held to the same standards as, say, Japan or the E.U. when it comes to emission targets. Moreover, he is presenting something of a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum regarding Canada's plan, or lack thereof:

... Ottawa will not release its detailed climate-change plan, including its proposed emissions caps on large emitters such as oil sands and power plants, until there is more clarity on how the United States intends to proceed in global climate-change talks in Copenhagen in December, and on what an international treaty would look like, the minister added.

“Copenhagen is a very significant factor in how matters will be approached continentally, and how matters will be approached domestically,” he said.

Meanwhile, former Environment Minister Stephane Dion is also weighing in on Canada's situation going into Copenhagen. He acknowledges Canada's dependence on U.S. policy, but while Prentice sees looming U.S. environmental legislation as an impediment, Dion sees it as an incentive for us to catch up with the rest of the world.

Canada fears that environmental protection might serve as vehicle for U.S. trade protectionism. But at the same time, Canada’s interest in protecting trade with the U.S. is becoming a tangible incentive to curb GHG emissions. And Canada has a lot to do to reduce its carbon footprint.

Three years away from the 2012 Kyoto deadline, Canada’s emissions are well above target. Canada has no effective carbon regulations yet. The government’s announced target is to reduce emissions by 20% from 2006 levels by 2020 – the equivalent of a 3% reduction below 1990 levels by 2020. As weak as this target is, the government failed to present a credible plan to reach it. Every independent expert says that the government’s plan is much too weak to reach its own target.

Per capita, Canada’s new green energy investments will be six times less than those in Obama’s first budget – 14 times less for renewable energy. The Conservative government’s focus is on such controversial and potentially problematic policies as carbon capture and storage (CCS) for oil sands and subsidies for foodstuff-based bio-fuels.

As the day approaches for the Copenhagen Conference, I'm looking forward to hearing another perspective on the proceedings: that of youth delegate Ashley Bigda.

I've had the pleasure of working with Ashley a couple of times now as a volunteer at Liberal Party events here in Halton, so I was tremendously excited to learn that she had been selected by the International Federation of Liberal Youth to travel to Copenhagen to attend the Conference as their delegate. She's agreed to send me dispatches for my blog(s), so come December we'll have the benefit of her first hand reports.

Something tells me she's going to be a breath of fresh air.

(cross-posted from Canada's World)

Ethics to Lisa Raitt: "As long as you promise to never, ever do it again!"

2009-10-21T21:27:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: This story actually made it to the front page of the Milton Champion today! No mention of yours truly of course (or of Impolitical, who graciously tossed me the original link). But given that there's been no mention of Lisa Raitt's 'Compliance' anywhere else, and given that the writer peruses this blog on ocassion, it's not outside the realm of possibility that he found out about it right here.

Yep. I'm just your friendly neighbourhood muckraker. You know... in a good way.

_____________________________

Big H/T to Impolitical for embarrassing me on Twitter (in an entirely friendly way) over my recent lack of Raitt-related blogging, and for pointing me towards this fascinating little document, signed on October 9th by Lisa Raitt:

Conflict of Interest Act

AGREED COMPLIANCE MEASURE

I, Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources, have agreed not to participate in matters involving the Cement Association of Canada (CAC), or Mr. Michael McSweeney acting on behalf of the CAC, in order to prevent any conflict of interest, and in particular not to give preferential treatment to Mr. Mc Sweeney or the CAC. Any dealings between CAC and the Department of Natural Resources will be addressed by the Deputy Minister or such other person as may be designated by the Deputy Minister.

Signature Original signed by
Name: Lisa Raitt, P.C., M.P.
Date[YYYY/MM/DD]:2009/10/09

That would have been... lessee... eight days after the story broke and the NDP first asked the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to look into allegations that both the Toronto Port Authority and the actively lobbying CAC were involved in promoting a purely partisan Lisa Raitt fundraiser.

Horse. Barn door. You get the drift.

I still want to know what she paid the Toronto Port Authority $354.93 for under her election campaign 'Other Office' expenses. Business cards? Party room? A teeney-tiny severance package?

Runesmith, Girl Detective, is on the case. Never fear.

Canada's 'Buy American' Negotiations: The Devil's in the Details

2009-10-19T16:22:00.002-04:00

Mayor Rick Bonnette of Halton Hills has become something of a local hero in my neck of the woods, ever since he started his 'mouse that roared' campaign against 'Buy American' provisions shutting Canadian companies out of bidding on U.S. stimulus projects.

It all started with one business owner complaining to Bonnette and the Halton Hills Town Council. Instead of patting him on the head and saying there was nothing they could do, Council took the unlikely step of starting a tiny trade war with the U.S. government by passing their own 'Buy Canadian' resolution on municipal contracts.

A similar resolution was later adopted and passed by the much larger Halton Regional Council, then endorsed by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and finally taken up at the federal level where, it seems, they are now dropping the ball.

International Trade critic Scott Brison sheds some light on what is really going on with the government's efforts to gain a Canadian exemption for U.S. 'Buy American' provisions:

According to U.S. ambassador David Jacobson, Canada and the United States are using the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules for government contracts as the basis for these negotiations.

Currently, Canadian provinces and municipalities aren’t covered by such rules. Under the deal, this would change. And in exchange, Canada would get access to U.S. contracts under existing WTO rules.

This seems fair, until you read the fine print.

Buried in the WTO rules are more protectionist policies for the United States, including a separate Buy America clause and additional U.S. safeguards for a large number of U.S. projects and states in important areas such as transportation and construction. On top of this, American municipalities are completely protected under the WTO rules.

In other words, holding the U.S. feds to WTO rules doesn't change a thing because individual states and municipalities - which do most of the 'buying' for these projects - can still discriminate against Canadian suppliers.

I've never been a big fan of free trade agreements in any form, mostly because they are designed to protect business interests without any consideration for what benefits the society or its citizens. But on the rare occasions when such agreements work, they work because both sides are treated fairly, with equal rights and equal protections. Such has rarely been the case in the long history of U.S./Canadian trade deals, and from the looks of it, that isn't going to change any time soon.

I guess Mayor Bonnette is going to have to go back to throwing stones at Goliath.

(crossposted from Canada's World)