Posts Tagged ‘Stephen Harper’

Why Trudeau’s Alberta Comments Just Don’t Matter

- November 24th, 2012

Justin-Trudeau-handout

It was nice of Justin Trudeau to apologize for comments he made two years ago in a Quebec TV interview that “Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda. It doesn’t work.”

 

Of course, he wasn’t actually apologizing to Alberta (which wouldn’t really accept an apology from a guy named Trudeau anyway). He was apologizing through Alberta to voters in B.C. and Ontario and elsewhere who were hurt that nice young Justin would show any signs of divisiveness or latent (or not-so-latent) regional bigotry.

 

So he had to apologize if only to show everybody outside Alberta that he’s really a good guy and just sorta misspoke himself, saying “Alberta” when he meant to say “those rednecks in the Harper government (and their supporters).” I know, I know — it’s just a semantic difference (a third of Albertans don’t vote Conservative), but words hurt and Justin Trudeau had to show he’s not that kind of intolerant bully, kicking oil sand in poor little Alberta’s face.

 

Ostensibly, Trudeau’s apology (made in B.C., not Alberta, of course) was supposed to recoup some of the damage done to the supposedly surging campaign of Liberal candidate Harvey Locke in the Calgary Centre byelection being held on Monday.

 

Despite the little-engine-that-could storyline being promoted, it was doubtful Liberal Locke could pull off an upset over Conservative candidate Joan Crockatt — even before Dalton McGuinty’s evil brother David put the shiv in by telling oil-sands-shilling Tory MPs they should “go back to Alberta” and stop pretending to work for the interests of all Canadians in Ottawa.

 

Such towering tempests. Such tiny teapots.

 

Look, even if Liberal Locke managed to pull off the upset, it would give the Grits a grand total of ONE MP in Alberta. Couple that with the ONE MP the Liberals currently have in Saskatchewan and the ONE MP they have in Manitoba and you understand how completely irrelevant the Canadian landscape between the Ontario and B.C. borders is to the Liberal Party’s hopes of climbing out of the parliamentary root cellar in the next federal election (tentatively scheduled for Oct. 19, 2015).

 

No matter what happens over the next three years, the Liberals will be hard pressed to win more than five or six of the 56 parliamentary seats up for grabs in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in that election. The future of the Liberal Party of Canada will be fought for and won or lost on different battlefields than on those Plains of Stephen.

UPDATE: Because of redistribution based on the 2011 census, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba will have 62 seats up for grabs in the 2015 election, not the 56 in play in the last federal election. More about this a little later, but the redistribution doesn’t change the basic electoral landscape.

 

It’s pretty much the same situation faced by the federal NDP, which I described in a blog post at the beginning of the summer entitled “Why NDP Leader’s Oil Sands Attack Is Smart Political Strategy.”

Tom-Mulcair

Thomas Mulcair had come under vicious political and media attack at the time for daring to suggest that the Harper government was mollycoddling the Alberta oil sands industry, was giving it an easy ride on carrying the full financial burden tied to the environmental legacy of oil sands development and was hurting other elements of the Canadian economy with an unrealistically strong Canadian dollar caused by the Alberta oil industry’s thusly discounted production costs.

 

All those points sound like the screeching of satan’s spawn to Albertans but could well find a receptive audience in other parts of Canada if the economic benefits of the oil sands are not felt strongly enough in non-Alberta regions of the country come October 2015.

 

Did I mention that the NDP currently has a grand total of THREE MPs in all of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba? The socialists have almost as little to lose as the Grits in the Prairies.

 

Given the audiences Mulcair will actually be trying to reach during the 2015 election campaign, an all-out attack on rich, arrogant, selfish, isolationist, unneighbourly Alberta and its  swamps of oil is probably an excellent strategy. With polishing and refinement, it will certainly be some part of the NDP election arsenal.

UPDATE: Electoral district redistribution based on the 2011 census will increase the number of ridings in the 2015 election to 338 from the 309 in last year’s election. The redistribution will give Ontario, Quebec, B.C. and Alberta more seats while leaving Atlantic Canada, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the territories with the same number they currently have. Ontario gets by far the biggest upward bump; Quebec the least. B.C. and Alberta each get six more ridings. I’ll give you the new numbers — with the current numbers in brackets — but the changes don’t affect the main thrust of the next few paragraphs which use the old numbers: 1.) The Liberals and NDP would like to increase their representation in the Prairies but both could still theoretically form a majority government without a single seat from Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba, and 2.) Ontario, more than ever, will be the battleground where the 2015 federal election is won or lost.

Here are the numbers: Atlantic Canada 32 (32), Quebec 78 (75), Ontario 121 (106), Manitoba 14 (14), Saskatchewan 14 (14), Alberta 34 (28), B.C. 42 (36). The three territories will continue to have 1 MP apiece.

 

When push comes to shove, Alberta’s 28 federal ridings will have absolutely no impact on how either the Liberals and the NDP fare in the next election.

 

B.C., by comparison, has 36 seats. Even if you add Saskatchewan’s 14 seats and Manitoba’s 14 seats to Alberta’s 28, the combined Prairie total of 56 seats hardly compares to Quebec’s 75 seats and is barely half of the 106 seats in Ontario.

 

The 32 seats in Atlantic Canada will likely split much as they did in the 2011 election (14 Conservative, 12 Liberal, 6 NDP) but even a strong surge one way or another won’t make a significant difference to the final standings.

 

The real battle for control of the Canadian government and for the future of Canada (and the future of the Liberal Party of Canada, for that matter) will be fought in Ontario, Quebec and B.C.

 

So you can comfortably ignore the doomsayers proclaiming that Justin Trudeau has (perhaps) fatally wounded his Liberal leadership hopes by insulting Alberta. Alberta is meaningless to Trudeau’s fate in either the party leadership race or the general election of 2015. As I said before, he just has to make nice with people who hate his family name for the optical benefit of his real supporters elsewhere in Canada.

 

What Trudeau was actually doing in that 2010 Tele-Quebec TV interview was not Alberta bashing but sucking up to Quebec. Don’t forget: in 2010, Justin had only been an MP for two years, was still generally thought of as a green, elitist, protected boy by many political pros and voters inside Quebec and elsewhere.

 

That interview was part of Justin’s low-key, folksy campaign to prove himself a real Quebecois, a native son of Quebec and a regular guy able to joke around and take a tumble down a flight of stairs without missing a beat. Here’s another bit of that same interview on YouTube. It worked: Trudeau is now one politician most Quebecers would like to go out and share a beer and bowl of poutine with. After establishing his bona fides in Quebec, Justin took his genial charisma show on the road and has done an excellent job of charming the rest of Canada … even Alberta (or at least the third of Alberta that doesn’t vote Conservative through thick and thin).

 

The Liberal party machine is still in terrible disarray in Quebec, but Les Rouges have a much better chance of bouncing back with Justin Trudeau as their leader than with anyone else. They do have such a long way to go, though, with a sad little rump of only eight Quebec MPs now — almost as few as the Conservatives and Bloc (and the Bloc’s disastrous finish in the 2011 election just shows how quickly political fortunes can change).

 

Quebec is also going to be a major test for the NDP. It will be impossible for the socialists to hang on to the 58 Quebec seats that miraculously fell into their laps in 2011. How far they fall there will determine whether the NDP can challenge to be seen as a party capable of governing or whether they will be thrust back down to perpetual third-party status.

 

But (of course) Ontario is the greatest battleground with the greatest prizes to be won — or lost. With only 11 MPs in Ontario now, the Liberals fell the furthest but also have the most potential for making a huge rebound in 2015.

 

The real problem for both the Liberals and NDP is the vote-splitting that allowed the Conservatives to come up the middle in so many Ontario ridings.

 

So don’t worry about Justin Trudeau and his Alberta “problem.” He’ll do just fine, whatever Alberta thinks of him.

 

 

As for apologizing, I don’t recall ever hearing Stephen Harper apologize for his 2001 open letter to Ralph Klein urging the then-premier “to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.”

Stephen-Harper-Grey-Cup

The future prime minister of Canada had so many nasty things to say about the federal government back in 2001:

 

In our view, the Chretien government undertook a series of attacks not merely designed to defeat its partisan opponents, but to marginalize Alberta and Albertans within Canada’s political system.

 

If the government in Ottawa concludes that Alberta is a soft target, we will be subjected to much worse than dishonest television ads. The Prime Minister has already signaled as much by announcing his so called “tough love” campaign for the West.

 

… a misguided and increasingly hostile government in Ottawa …

 

(T)he government in Ottawa will be tempted to take advantage of Alberta’s prosperity, to redistribute income from Alberta to residents of other provinces in order to keep itself in power.

 

Now read Justin Trudeau’s 2010 comment again:

 

“Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda. It doesn’t work.”

 

I really don’t see why Justin Trudeau should be apologizing for his remarks (he also said Quebecers make better prime ministers than Albertans — a funny, funny line) if Stephen Harper never apologized for his much harsher attack on All Parts Of Canada That Aren’t Alberta.

 

But then Justin Trudeau is a genuinely nice guy  — and knows some fights are just a complete waste of time and energy. Trudeau, me’thinks, has bigger fish to fry.

 

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

Here is the full text of the open letter Stephen Harper and five other Alberta academics and policy wonks sent to Ralph Klein demanding “firewalls” to protect Alberta from the heathen hordes of Other Canadians at the gate. I’ve boldfaced the sections from which I took the previously used quotes

“An Open Letter To Ralph Klein”

(published in The National Post on Jan. 24, 2001)

 

Dear Premier Klein:

 

During and since the recent federal election (Ed.: Jean Chretien won his third majority in the Nov. 27, 2000 election), we have been among a large number of Albertans

discussing the future of our province. We are not dismayed by the outcome of the election so much as by the strategy employed by the current federal government to secure its re-election. In our view, the Chretien government undertook a series of attacks not merely designed to defeat its partisan opponents, but to marginalize Alberta and Albertans within Canada’s political system.

One well-documented incident was the attack against Alberta’s health care system. To your credit, you vehemently protested the unprecedented attack ads that the federal government launched against Alberta’s policies – policies the Prime Minister had previously found no fault with.

However, while your protest was necessary and appreciated by Albertans, we believe that it is not enough to respond only with protests. If the government in Ottawa concludes that Alberta is a soft target, we will be subjected to much worse than dishonest television ads. The Prime Minister has already signaled as much by announcing his so called “tough love” campaign for the West.

We believe the time has come for Albertans to take greater charge of our own future. This means resuming control of the powers that we possess under the constitution of Canada but that we have allowed the federal government to exercise. Intelligent use of these powers will help Alberta build a prosperous future in spite of a misguided and increasingly hostile government in Ottawa.

Under the heading of the “Alberta Agenda,” we propose that our province move forward on the following fronts:

• Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan to create an Alberta Pension Plan offering the same benefits at lower cost while giving Alberta control over the investment fund. Pensions are a provincial responsibility under section 94A of the Constitution Act. 1867; and the legislation setting up the Canada Pension Plan permits a province to run its own plan, as Quebec has done from the beginning. If Quebec can do it, why not Alberta?

• Collect our own revenue from personal income tax, as we already do for corporate income tax. Now that your government has made the historic innovation of the single-rate personal income tax, there is no reason to have Ottawa collect our revenue. Any incremental cost of collecting our own personal income tax would be far outweighed by the policy flexibility that Alberta would gain, as Quebec’s experience has shown.

• Start preparing now to let the contract with the RCMP run out in 2012 and create an Alberta Provincial Police Force. Alberta is a major province. Like the other major provinces of Ontario and Quebec, we should have our own provincial police force. We have no doubt that Alberta can run a more efficient and effective police force than Ottawa can – one that will not be misused as a laboratory for experiments in social engineering.

• Resume provincial responsibility for health-care policy. If Ottawa objects to provincial policy, fight in the courts. If we lose, we can afford the financial penalties that Ottawa may try to impose under the Canada Health Act. Albertans deserve better than the long waiting periods and technological backwardness that are rapidly coming to characterize Canadian medicine. Alberta should also argue that each province should raise its own revenue for health care – i.e., replace Canada Health and Social Transfer cash with tax points as Quebec has argued for many years. Poorer provinces would continue to rely on Equalization to ensure they have adequate revenues.

• Use section 88 of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Quebec Secession Reference to force Senate reform back onto the national agenda. Our reading of that decision is that the federal government and other provinces must seriously consider a proposal for constitutional reform endorsed by “a clear majority on a clear question” in a provincial referendum. You acted decisively once before to hold a senatorial election. Now is the time to drive the issue further. All of these steps can be taken using the constitutional powers that Alberta now possesses. In addition, we believe it is imperative for you to take all possible political and legal measures to reduce the financial drain on Alberta caused by Canada’s tax-and-transfer system. The most recent Alberta Treasury estimates are that Albertans transfer $2,600 per capita annually to other Canadians, for a total outflow from our province approaching $8 billion a year. The same federal politicians who accuse us of not sharing their “Canadian values” have no compunction about appropriating our Canadian dollars to buy votes elsewhere in the country.

Mr. Premier, we acknowledge the constructive reforms that your government made in the 1990s – balancing the budget, paying down the provincial debt, privatizing government services, getting Albertans off welfare and into jobs, introducing a single-rate tax, pulling government out of the business of subsidizing business, and many other beneficial changes. But no government can rest on its laurels. An economic slowdown, and perhaps even recession, threatens North America, the government in Ottawa will be tempted to take advantage of Alberta’s prosperity, to redistribute income from Alberta to residents of other provinces in order to keep itself in power. It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.

Once Alberta’s position is secured, only our imagination will limit the prospects for extending the reform agenda that your government undertook eight years ago. To cite only a few examples, lower taxes will unleash the energies of the private sector, easing conditions for Charter Schools will help individual freedom and improve public education, and greater use of the referendum and initiative will bring Albertans into closer touch with their own government.

The precondition for the success of this Alberta Agenda is the exercise of all our legitimate provincial jurisdictions under the constitution of Canada. Starting to act now will secure the future for all Albertans.

Sincerely yours,

Stephen HARPER, President, National Citizens’ Coalition;

Tom FLANAGAN, professor of political science and former Director of Research, Reform

Party of Canada;

Ted MORTON, professor of political science and Alberta Senator-elect; Rainer KNOPFF, professor of political science;

Andrew CROOKS, chairman, Canadian Taxpayers Federation;

Ken BOESSENKOOL, former policy adviser to Stockwell Day, Treasurer of Alberta.

 

* This letter represents the personal views of its authors and not those of any organizations with which they are or have been connected.

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Categories: General | 5 comments

Why Trudeau Is The Smartest Man In Canada

- September 27th, 2012

justin-trudeau-reuters

 

I swore to myself I wasn’t going to write about Trudeau — probably ever, certainly not now in the run-up to his coronation as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

 

So many other people are writing so many words about him right now — hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people writing millions of words — that I felt there was no need for me to write any words at  all. All would have been said before I got my two cents in.

 

I lied. To myself, of course, because I never actually told anyone else I wasn’t going to write about Trudeau. But it’s just too hard to resist. Everyone I’ve talked to in the past two days has some opinion — usually strong and sometimes multiple, contradictory opinions — about Trudeau.

 

So I’m writing about him for the same reason that everyone is talking about him at the moment — he’s interesting. His (unannounced) candidacy for the Liberal leadership is the most exciting thing to happen to Ottawa since St. Jack Layton led the NDP to the Promised Land — the Official Opposition — in the last federal election.

 

There is a buzz and electricity about Trudeau at the moment that no other politician in Canada currently has. You can’t buy that or manufacture it or negotiate it or finagle it. It’s there straight-up or it isn’t. And Trudeau has it in spades.

 

He hasn’t always had it (at least we haven’t been aware he’s had it). It’s something that has grown and developed in the past 17 months since the May 2011 federal election put what seemed like the final nail in the coffin of the old, worn-out Liberal Party of Canada.

 

Even during that election, Trudeau was seen by most people as the charming and handsome but lightweight and inexperienced heir to the most polarizing political family name in Canada.

 

Of the many disparaging tags tied to Trudeau since he first ran for Parliament in 2008, my personal favourite is “Teenage Jesus.” It nicely summed up the whole package of negative opinion about him — young, privileged, earnest but a little goofy, shallow and basically just a slacker getting an easy ride because of his family name and connections.

 

But things have changed.

 

If, in May 2011, I had written the name “Trudeau” almost anyone reading that word would immediately think of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the 15th prime minister of Canada. His sons and his ex-wife might trail along as afterthoughts.

 

In this entire piece I have not so far used the name “Justin” once, only “Trudeau.” And I’m willing to bet the mental image that most people have had in their minds when seeing the word “Trudeau” is now Justin, the son, not Pierre, the memory.

 

Justin Trudeau has come of age. He’s taking over the family business — and name.

 

Win or lose in the next federal general election on (theoretically) Oct. 19, 2015, he’s making the right decision by running for the leadership of the fading, confused, broken Liberal Party of Canada now.

 

Why?

 

Because now is Trudeau’s time. Because there will be no Liberal Party of Canada left to lead after the next election if the Liberals don’t turn the tide of decline that’s gutted them in the past decade. (If the Liberals flatline again in 2015, the NDP will eventually take them over much as Reform took over the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada after the PC debacle of the 1990s.)

 

And because Trudeau has nothing to lose either. Most people (even his ardent supporters) expect that Trudeau will be chewed up and spit out in parliamentary debate by that heartless, steel-eyed Machiavellian schemer Stephen Harper. Whether they verbalize it or not, most people expect that a Liberal Party led by young, green Justin Trudeau will be outmanoeuvred, out-organized and out-dirtied by the well-oiled, ruthless, veteran Conservative Party war machine.

 

Don’t count on it — in either case.

 

A big step in the changing public perception of Justin Trudeau came with his surprise victory in a charity boxing match against Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau on March 31 of this year.

 

We learned that he could take a punch and also dish it out. He won on a TKO in the third round. It was an unexpected conclusion and elevated many people’s assessment of Trudeau’s guts and stamina even though it was just a charity punch-up.

 

More telling than the outcome, however, was Trudeau’s analysis of the situation going into the confrontation.

 

Here’s what Trudeau told Maclean’s magazine writer John Geddes back in February 2012  as he was preparing for the fight against Brazeau:

 

“We actually weigh pretty much the same. My reach is significantly larger than his. The way things have been set up is everybody is convinced that this black belt in karate (Brazeau) with massive arms is going to clean up the pretty boy (Trudeau), because he grew up in the mean streets of Maniwaki and I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, you know? That’s what everyone says, right? So as it stands I can’t lose. Even if I do actually lose I know I will have gone in and people said, ‘Well, there wasn’t a chance anyway.’

 

“Neither of us have ever actually been in a boxing match before. I’ve trained in boxing all my life, my dad taught me how to box early, and through my twenties I trained at various sorts of rough gyms in Montreal, mostly as just a way of keeping in shape. I even boxed out in Vancouver for a while. But I never stepped it up to full-on sparring, or even a real bout. Pat’s been talking quite openly about the fact that he plans on taking me down early. I expect him to come in very hard, very fast. I plan on allowing him to, because I can take a lot, and use my jab to try and keep him at a distance, and out-think him.”

 

All in all, it was an astute assessment of the situation and a game plan that ended in an upset victory. Perhaps even more tellingly, it’s a good indication how well Trudeau is served by his opponents underestimating his ability, determination and intelligence.

 

Justin Trudeau freely admits that he doesn’t have his father’s ferocious intellectual fire: He acknowledges that he often leads with his heart. But he is smart, perceptive and engaged.

 

He’s also been in Parliament substantially longer than his father was before PET became Liberal leader and prime minister in 1968. As with many other aspects of his resume, Justin Trudeau’s “inexperience” is overplayed by his condescending critics — including me.

 

And he really does have charisma. Not the flukey brand of Trudeaumania his father rode into the PMO in 1968, although that could come over the next two years.

 

Justin Trudeau is a genuinely warm, appealing and very likeable person. People are drawn to him and enjoy his company immensely, no matter what their party affiliation.

 

He has decided that now is his time, despite the daunting odds facing the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Much like his fight against Brazeau, Trudeau has decided he has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

 

And it’s a very freeing position to be in. The various factions and power bases of the Liberal Party of Canada know they are probably screwed in the next federal election without a major dynamic shift. The disasters of the Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff eras have ensured that Trudeau will pretty much get to call his own shots once he wins the leadership.

 

It’s probably impossible that anyone named Trudeau can ever again become prime minister of Canada, given the undying animosity against the family name in Western Canada and the divisive legacy of his father’s fight against separatism in Quebec.

 

But a Trudeau as leader gives the Liberal Party a fighting chance in Ontario and the Maritimes and a solid base in Quebec, all things that might not be true if a Trudeau wasn’t leader.

 

If he continues to surprise his friends and confound his enemies, Trudeau could actually pull off some kind of Rocky triumph. If that happened, I think Justin Trudeau would probably be an unmitigated disaster as prime minister. But that’s so far away from happening, I think we should just enjoy the ride for a while and see where it takes us.

 

The biggest pitfall that Trudeau has to face is the length of time until the next federal election in 2015 and the length of time until the next leader of the Liberal Party is formally chosen in April 2013.

 

That’s a long time in which we can all get mightily bored of Justin Trudeau.

 

The good thing is that I think Trudeau can stand up to the scrutiny and mind-numbing repetition of a long-haul political process, whether it be a leadership race or an actual election as leader.

 

The more we see and hear of Trudeau, the more he steps out from his father’s shadow, the more he takes chances and pushes boundaries, the more I think we’ll like him.

 

He may not be the saviour of the Liberal Party of Canada, but he’s no longer “Teenage Jesus.”

 

And Trudeau as Liberal leader makes the whole political process fun to watch again. It was getting kinda grey and monotonous. I can’t wait for the first time Justin Trudeau calls Stephen Harper a “piece of sh–” in the House of Commons.

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Stephen Harper Is A Druid

- March 25th, 2011

Of course he isn’t (he’s not, is he?) and that’s the point I’m trying to make.

I don’t know Steve’s religious affiliation (although I’m going to take a wild flyer and guess some Protestant denomination, maybe with a whiff of evangelism, maybe not). I doubt most Canadians know — or really care — what religious hook Harper hangs his hat on either.

Same goes for Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe and Elizabeth May.

Unlike the United States, politics and religion are not irrevocably intertwined in Canada.

A U.S. politician could never be elected president without espousing a deep and abiding belief in (some form of) a Christian God, although a surprising number of Americans seem to believe Barack Obama´s Christian church-going is just a beard for his inner Muslim.

I can’t place my hands on it at the moment, but I know a survey was done in the past decade that determined a majority of Canadians would vote for a proclaimed atheist as prime minister if they supported his or her socio-political agenda. Would not, could not happen in the U.S.

Here´s where this whole thing is going:

A study presented this week to a meeting of the scientific body American Physical Society looked at a century´s worth of census data from nine countries — including Canada — that have been collecting information on residents´religious affiliation during that time frame.

Along with Canada, the other countries examined in the study by researchers from the University of Arizona and Northwestern University are: Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.

The point of the study was to use a mathematical model to determine the role religion played/plays/will play in the social dynamic of those countries´past, present and future.

The conclusion: God may not be dead, but organized religion is certainly dying in all those nine countries.

I think we all sensed that, to one degree or another, but this APS study draws an even more dramatic conclusion, mathematically speaking:

“The model predicts that for societies in which the perceived utility of not adhering is greater than the utility of adhering, religion will be driven toward extinction,” the study said.

The driving force in all this is, apparently, “What´s in it for me?”

The more important role religion plays in society (the broader and deeper its reach into the daily practices of society), the more people see a real personal benefit in belonging to that religion and publicly identifying with it.

Historically, political, social and religious power have always intermingled.

The Egyptian pharaohs found it useful to declare themselves gods on earth; medieval European nobility saw  little difference in being princes of the church or of the court (and both left just as many children behind them); rulers have always said that God made them kings or told them to kill the kings; and 100 years ago you couldn´t do business on Bay Street, Main Street or in the mayor’s office unless you were also doing your business, so to speak, in the church presbytery, synod, Knights of Columbus or Masons. Let´s not even get into Iran´s current theocracy.

As the temporal benefit of religious affiliation has declined over the past century, so too have the numbers of people declaring a religious affiliation on their census forms in the nine countries studied. And as the overall numbers — and influence — decline, there is increasingly less inclination among the unaffiliated to join the crowd. Or more inclination to join the unaffiliated crowd: “No, no, I´m hip, really. Religion? Wot dat?”

That’s the thesis, anyway, and it seems to be borne out in the study.

“We tried to quantify . . . that the perceived utility of non-affiliation is greater than the perceived utility of belonging to a religion,” said Richard Weiner, one of the chief authors of the study. “That effect is enough to start driving people to the group that’s non-affiliated, and then as more people become non-affiliated, that makes the (non-affiliated) group more attractive … People no longer see the slate of benefits as being as great as they probably did 100 years ago. It’s become less socially useful.”

So religion is dying on its feet — at least in the nine European and Western countries examined in the census study.

I like the comment posted by one reader of the BBC’s online coverage of this story:

“I don’t see the decline of religion to be a particularly bad thing. And I say this as a Born-Again follower of Jesus. To me, relationship with God is so much more.

“Religion implies strict rules and rituals which must be followed in order to gain some kind of benefit or reward at the end. This may appear a good thing but history has proven all too often that religion is an excuse to fight.”

Personally, I don’t  think religion is so much dying as it is diffusing and defusing (despite the incindiary nature of fundamentalism, which ebbs and flows in different religions at different times).

Human beings need — and enjoy — ritual and, within bounds, rules. Whether it’s a Santa Claus parade, a royal wedding, a new dance move or texting etiquette, we like to have some formalized structure in our lives, something bigger than ourselves but still a part of us, something expansive that we can understand, practice (and practise) and can share with others.

For my part, I think it matters far more that God — if there is one — believes I exist than it matters whether I believe He/She/They/It/Thou exists.

God bless and good luck, earthlings.

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Expect hard line on Tamil boat people

- August 14th, 2010

Well, the headline sums up my entire thesis.

The rest of this is just … Why?

First of all, let me backtrack a little bit.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post about how the whole mandatory long-form census crisis was essentially a smoke-and-mirrors sideshow put on by that master manipulator Stephen Harper to (successfully) distract the opposition (and, unfortunately, the media) from real issues during the summer doldrums.

I was travelling at the time and couldn’t connect with the www.torontosun.com site, so it became the blog post that was never posted. But I could connect with Facebook and posted it there (my life  — and Facebook page — are more or less open books, so you can look it up if you want).

I don’t want to clog/blog things up now by repeating the whole piece, but I’ll add it later — without change from two weeks ago — as a comment at the end of this piece.

I said then — and say now — that Harper will easily and expeditiously backtrack on the long-form census edict in a month or so, after having wasted everyone’s valuable vitriol time for the summer.

The only thing Harper didn’t count on is just how much of an impact the red-herring census issue would have on the Conservatives’ standings in the polls.

After all, David Cameron’s Conservative-Liberal (“Liberal Democrat”) coalition (concept!?!) did the same thing in Britain a few months earlier with hardly a whimper.

The backlash in Canada has more to do, I think, with a general dislike of Harper than a specific love of the mandatory long-form census questionnaire.

The issue gave a focus to that dislike, but the idiot Liberals have not been able to capitalize on that general antipathy, even though they swallowed Harper’s bait and surged after the census issue at the cost of hitting him where he was more vulnerable.

Now Harper has another issue in which he will set the terms of national political debate instead of the opposition: The good ship Sun Sea.

I’ve already said the Harper government will take a hard line on the mainly Tamil refugees/terrorists/freedom fighters/TB carriers aboard the MV Sun Sea.

Why? Because the Canadian people, in general, want him to.

Why do they want that? Because, for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is the Vietnam-like experience we are currently going through in Afghanistan), Canadians are tired of being seen as international patsies.

Whether they will admit it publicly or not, most Canadians have now developed a gut instinct that the rest of the world sees us as easy-going pushovers — “marks” in the con-game vernacular — and they are tired of it.

The MV Sun Sea — like the NHL’s Kovalchuk deal — is the straw that broke the camel’s back and the people aboard the Sun Sea — pregnant women and ailing children as well as Tamil Tiger terrorists/freedom fighters — will be the ones who pay the price.

(By the way, I’m not saying a crackdown on the whole refugee boondoggle isn’t a good idea — I think it is. I’m just appalled by the political cynicism that seems to be driving the issue at the moment.)

The PR campaign has already begun.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is leading the formal government charge, but a more telling sign is the interview Canada’s former high commissioner to Sri Lanka gave to CTV on Thursday.

Canadian diplomats — even retired ones — don’t go public unless someone high up in Ottawa says it’s OK.

Here’s part of what Martin Collacott had to say to CTV’s Canada AM:

“We accept about 50% of people who manage to reach our soil and make refugee claims. The average for other countries is around 15%, so your chances of getting accepted in Canada are much greater.

“And even if you’re turned down, the chances are we won’t be able to remove you. We remove a few, but we’ve had people who have been turned down 20 years ago, but are still appealing….

“We took 37,000 refugee claimants from Sri Lanka over one 15-year period, more than from any other country in the world.
“Our acceptance rates were much higher. In 2003, for example, Britain accepted 2% of claims from Sri Lankan Tamils; Germany, 4%; Canada, 76%. So, if you can get to Canada to make your claim, it’s like winning the lottery.”

Collacott said refugees are given state-funded lawyers, welfare and health care, which leaves the Canadian system as “the Rolls Royce of claiming refugee status.”

Good stuff. All true (as far as I know), all valid — but, boy, does it play well for what the Conservatives will do in the next few weeks and months.

I guarantee you Martin Collacott will be on the VIP invitation list the next time Stephen Harper gives a dinner speech in Vancouver.

So the 400 men, 60 women and 30 children (roughly) aboard the MV Sun Sea — sounds like a cruise ship, doesn’t it? — who have been surviving in appalling conditions in a small boat in the Pacific Ocean non-stop since at least May will pay the price for the 37,000 other Sri Lankan refugees we — as the collective Canadian people — let into the country over a 15-year period (according to Martin Collacott, anyway; I don’t know the real number and the fact that Collacott said it doesn’t make it true — just quotable).

Vic Toews is already saying “intelligence reports” indicate the Sun Sea was a test vessel, with several others ready to invade our shores as soon as the 490 people (or so) aboard the Sun Sea are granted refugee status.

Yeah, right.

“Okay, you Tigers — let’s send out a test ship in April or May and see how Canada reacts when it reaches B.C. in August.”

Keep in mind the Harper government couldn’t even keep its “intelligence reports” straight enough to announce the correct time the Canadian navy boarded that sad, stinking ship off the B.C. coast.

So, to sum up, my position is that a hard line is probably a good line. It doesn’t make up for the monumental lapses of the past 30 or 40 years, but it’s a start.

But don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Give these people on the Sun Sea a chance — the same chance you would want for yourself if you had survived three months of terrible conditions at sea to escape what you considered certain — or at least probable — death in the land of your birth.

The number of people aboard the MV Sea Sun is statistically about the same number of people who arrive in Canada by commercial air carrier and claim refugee status in any given week of the year.

But, also statistically speaking, we beat up more on people who arrive by leaky, rusty boat than we do on people who arrive in a sleek airliner.

Beat ‘em up all the same, I say, or — at the very least — don’t beat up the boat people more than the jetliner people.

Fix the system. Don’t screw the people who are running for their lives.

Terrorists? Freedom fighters? They’re all the same thing.

If you had a boatload of republicans trying to escape fascist Spain in 1936 or 1937, what would you call them?

If you had a boatload of Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany in 1939, what would you call them?

Oh, right, you’d call them the MS St. Louis — the Voyage of the Damned with 900-odd German Jews aboard who were rejected for asylum by the Canadian government in Halifax harbour.

Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King said the fate of the MS St. Louis was “not a Canadian problem.”

Bastard.

Most of the Jewish passengers were eventually accepted as refugees by other European countries after all the nations of the Americas denied them safe haven, but it is estimated that about half of them died in Nazi concentration camps.

I’m not saying present-day Sri Lanka is Nazi Germany, but I am saying that if I was a Tamil Sri Lankan who had been fighting for independence/separatism, I would be running for my life right now.

I still want the buggered-up Canadian refugee system to be fixed, but I don’t want to be standing in Mackenzie King’s shoes, waving goodbye to the MS St. Louis.

July 30: The Great Census Crisis Con

For starters, the whole kill-the-long-form-census kerfuffle is a fraud and a complete non-event.

The mandatory long-form census form will still be a part of the next national census in 2011.

Why am I so sure? Because large corporations and municipalities across Canada absolutely NEED the in-depth information the long-form questionnaire provides.

Stephen Harper, of course, does not give two hoots about what Canada’s largest municipalities want — they all vote Liberal or NDP or BQ anyway. But he very deeply cares about what the biggest corporations in Canada think.

He needs them more than they need him — and they need that deep-core information from the census more than they need him.

So, rest assured, the mandatory long-form census form is not dead.

The census thing doesn’t really matter to Harper, anyway. The idea of killing it was idealogical and sprang from the heartland of Harper Nation — Alberta. But he’s not politically committed to killing it and he knows it’s really just a red herring.

So why did he force Tony Clement to walk into that hailstorm of abuse to announce the imminent death of something that mattered deeply to various other people but not particularly to the PMO?

Well, first of all, Clement owed Harper big-time for all the G-8 money that flooded Clement’s riding over the past 18 months. Harper is a bit of a bully, so he made Clement sing for his supper — and bow to the Boss.

Of course Harper wouldn’t pull a stunt like that just to humiliate Tony Clement, who was known to favour keeping the long-form manadatory blah blah. That was just a manipulative bonus side effect.

Harper created this tempest in teapot because he has become a master at setting the agenda of national debate and baiting the opposition — and, sad to say, the media as well — to chase whatever red cape he waves in their faces.

Just stop and think: What were the major issues of contention in Canada’s political forum before the whole census stinkeroo started? Well, it was mmmmm, hhhhh, let me think, errrrr, but that damn census decision! Grrrrr!

There were actually quite a few important issues on the go, from the Afghanistan mission to the G8-G20 fiasco to environmental issues in the Alberta tarsands and the Arctic. There were also some serious personnel issues within the Harper cabinet that the opposition was dogging him on. But pouff! Up in smoke as soon as Harper dragged the baitbag of census “reform” in front of their quivering noses.

The opposition thought Harper had made a bad blunder and they suddenly had a sexy (yet important) issue to hammer him on and score big with the Canadian public.

How many times will Harper be able to pull this bait-and-switch manoeuvre on the opposition until they catch on to the fact that HE is the one setting the debate agenda — and it’s an agenda that is far less threatening to him than the debate agenda that preceded it.

The Liberals, especially, will lose any summertime traction from hammering Harper on real issues where he is vulnerable. Instead, Harper will play possum through August and suddenly announce that — by gosh — there really is a strong impetus to keep the long-form mandatory blah blah … and although he, personally, thinks it’s a massively flawed and hugely expensive intrusion into the private lives and businesses of Canadians, he is prepared to put his own feelings aside in favour of the general concensus. After all, he, Harper, is a true democrat and the man Canadians elected to be their prime minister … unlike those loser whiners over in the opposition who just wasted the summer chasing their tails.

And by the way, we’ll just slide through this new $6-18-billion stealth fighter-bomber acquisition while you’re chasing same-said tails. Nice timing.

Canada really does get the government it deserves. And unless the Liberals can start setting the national debate agenda instead of chasing Harper’s decoys, we’re in for a long, long spell of Conservatives in power — whether they deserve to be there or not.

It feels like deja-vu all over again with Harper playing the Jean Chretien role this time around.

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