Scraping bottom in Saskatchewan

A tot of priggish pecksniffery, anyone?

Here. And, oh yes, here.

The latter deconstructed here. And here.

Anyone going to take on the "NDP is encouraging underaged drinking!!!!1111!!" alarum?

Good grief. Is this all they've got? Never mind that poll back in April, then--Lorne Calvert's in no trouble at all. Sure a lot of growling and yapping coming from that neck of the woods, though.

Peace, violence and activism

Rick Salutin has a good column in today's Globe and Mail to mark the upcoming Labour Day weekend. In it he gently admonishes Dave Coles, the union leader who spotted and confronted the three undercover cops in Montebello, for a tad too self-consciously placating the unseen audience out there by roaring, "This is a peaceful demonstration."

Of course it was peaceful: and Salutin wasn't arguing for violence. But he noted that we lose our edge when we reassure the public that we really aren't any threat to the established order. We need what he calls "a sense of implacable determination that takes [us] beyond any desire to seem respectable."

Well put. Binary thinking makes us choose between peace or violence, and categorize all protests as one or the other, but there are other positions. Gandhi's implacable non-violence led to many deaths. As Salutin points out, it's "relentless determination" that counts, that brings about change, that makes all the difference. And he raises the case of Mohawk activist Shawn Brant.

The column was evidently written before Brant's release from jail after two months, under strict, and some might argue onerous, bail terms. He may not participate, for example, in any demonstrations or protests: bail conditions, it seems, trump Charter rights. But Salutin (and Brant's spouse Sue Collis) makes the point that Brant's actions, in-your-face though they have been, were less disruptive than the anti-Harris labour-led Days of Protest, and no one jailed the labour leaders. Why did he spend two months in jail, effectively for acts of civil disobedience?

I'd say there was an implacability in his expression; he cut his opponents no moral slack. He didn't threaten, but he didn't try to mollify, either.

In its heydey, the labour movement had this kind of single-minded, almost stoic conviction. Its main weapon, the strike, was non-violent but aroused feelings comparable to those during war, toward scabs or bosses. In that frame of mind, there is no need felt to placate the other side and none at all for respectibility. What would you want it for?

I think a society benefits from this kind of challenge. It clarifies choices and discourages endless avoidance. Sue Collis writes that, after the Mohawk blockades in June, polls showed "71 per cent of Canadians wanting actions on land claims and 41 per cent of Ontarians prepared to acknowledge rail blockades as justified." There's also a social loss when fierceness and passion vanish almost entirely from movements such as labour and the environment.

I think Salutin is spot on, and I say this as a former labour leader who, at least on occasion, played the respectability game as the labour institution currently demands. Ken Georgetti, President of the Canadian Labour Congress, calls himself a "CEO," for crying out loud, and wears the suits to match. We all fuss too much, I think, about public opinion, keeping the public on our side, causing minimum disruption to the public--as though being successful in any of this has moved our cause forward one centimetre.

I don't necessarily hold a brief for Shawn Brant. As a wise co-activist once said to me, "The labour movement is no place for heroes," and the same goes for any social activist movement. I shall leave internal Mohawk politics to the Mohawks--there are, I suspect, countless wheels within wheels there--but Brant does strike this outsider as somewhat of a loner. Be that as it may, however, his actions (like those of John Clarke of OCAP fame) force us all to re-evaluate what we're doing.

One could hear the audible sighs of relief from all quarters after the coast-to-coast protests during National Aboriginal Day passed without "incident." I may even have made some of those noises myself. Once again, Native activists had performed on stage for the masses, entertained us all for a day, and quietly left the stage without an encore, with muffled applause. Suppose they had, in the true spirit of audience participation, mingled with us, forced us to "dialogue" with in-your-face drill-sergeant histrionics, and not only made us listen--but made us talk? Might that have helped us to understand a little more, even want to do something (or explain why we don't), about the landless Lubicon, one-third of whose members have TB? The mind-numbing poverty and hopelessness on reserves? Indian Affairs policy, which veers wildly between paternalism and neglect? Racist crap like this?

Instead we all clapped politely and made our way to the exits and the rest of our lives. Another day of peaceful protest. Thank you, First Nations. And thank you, labour movement, environmental movement, anti-war movement, for not really upsetting us or inconveniencing us or challenging us in any way. You behaved yourselves. And so you'll have our support and even our respect, and your decorum will be noted in news stories, columns and editorials. Just don't go trying to change anything.

Victor Rabinovitch has to go

The photograph above is of Dresden during WWII after Bomber Command got through with it. Here is what Arthur "Bomber" Harris, commander-in-chief of Bomber Command, had to say about the massive allied bombing initiative:

[The aim] was the destruction of German cities; the killing of German workers; and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany. It should be emphasized that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives; the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale; and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.

And here are the words on display at the National War Museum (I count only 66, not 67, incidentally) that have some lobbyists upset:

The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command's aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 600,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions of German war production until late in the war.

As historian Randall Hansen suggests, a new plaque could be made that contains even more information, such as the fact that precision bombing was available at the time, and indeed contributed to ending the war through the destruction of oil targets. But if the veterans don't like such changes to the existing panel, he says, perhaps Harris' statement might be substituted for it.

Letter-writers had their say today as well:

The exhibit should simply state the facts: "Bombing of civilian targets in Germany left 600,000 civilians dead and more than five million homeless."

Let's just rename the museum, which now has the horrendous three-letter word "war" displayed so prominently. I suggest the more modern "Support Our Troops" and redesigning the building as a massive yellow ribbon. [Globe and Mail, August 30, behind subscriber wall]

The current controversy, certainly, may give the wrong impression of what the practice of history is all about. History is a series of accounts, not a truth dug out of something called "the past" like a dinosaur skeleton. There are many "pasts" and many "truths." But history is also a discipline, and one vital aspect of that discipline is empirical adequacy: statements don't get made, to put it crudely, unless you can back them up. The odd thing about this controversy, however, is that the "67-word" statement at issue is not being criticized so much for factual inaccuracy as for its alleged "disrespect."But since when has the question of respect been part of the historical enterprise? In the words of Margaret MacMillan, one of the historians hired to go over the exhibit, "A museum is not a war memorial."

Which brings us to the Museum's president, Victor Rabinovitch, and his craven response to the lobbyists.

On the one hand we have this:

We are not seeking to whitewash history. We are not becoming historical revisionists....

The fundamental objective is to ensure that the panel text has proper context to it and that it has properly and fully represented the historical record in a brief and summary fashion.

Every public museum engages not only with the public but engages with specialized interest groups. That's normal. Do those groups dictate what the museum says? Not if it's a good museum, not if it's credible.

Sound good? What he really meant, it seems, is this:

The Canadian War Museum has bowed to pressure from veterans and agreed to change a controversial exhibit critical of Allied bombing of German cities in World War Two.

Now this isn't the first time that Rabinovitch has "bowed to pressure." Those with reasonably long memories might recall that, immediately after 9/11, he cancelled a scheduled exhibition by Arab-Canadian artists at the National Gallery. This pusillanimous bit of racism could not stand: he was finally directed by then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to restore the exhibit. Senator Marcel Prud'homme had some choice words to say at the time about Rabinovitch's shocking decision. He noted that the entire House of Commons rose to applaud M. Chrétien's reversal of that decision, except one man--why, it was Stockwell Day, it turns out, and he's still crazy after all these years. (Rabinovitch, as it turns out, may have had the last laugh.)

Nothing less than the integrity of our national museums is at stake here. Their contents simply cannot be dictated by lobby groups, however sincere or offended or political those groups happen to be. They cannot be dictated by current world events or the danger of hurt feelings or who has the ear of the president. What is needed at the helm is leadership: a CEO who can guarantee the integrity of the process by which exhibitions are assembled and shown, and by which Canada is represented. Rabinovitch has now, on two occasions, shown a simply stunning lack of professional judgement and courage. The current exhibit should stay--and he should go.

UPDATE: (August 31) Pample the Moose provides some historians' responses. One cites a media blog that sums up the matter perfectly, in my opinion: "The Wikipedification of the War Museum."

Scratch a conservative...

...who throws around the "anti-Semitic" label a tad freely, and underneath you just might find a genocidal psychopath (h/t) or a racist-enabler:

Mark my words - the moment is approaching when a bandana [sic] prowling these police protected barricades will end up in the crosshairs of someone's high powered rifle.

And Happy National Aboriginal Day to you too.

Meanwhile, to offset to some mild degree the destruction of some grape vines by anti-occupation protesters on the West Bank (did the settlers actually plant those vines?), here are a few reports to tickle the hearts of the pro-occupation set (you know, the ones who refer to Palestine as Judea and Samaria):

Settlers attack Palestinian olive harvesters, kill one

Gazans reclaim destroyed farmland

Policy of Destruction: House Demolition and Destruction of Agricultural Land in the Gaza Strip

Question of the Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, Including Palestine

Thousands Displaced by Israeli Demolitions in Gaza

And don't forget to check out the story behind the picture above (click on it).

Ontario election: multicultural flip-flops

I wasn't going to touch the faith-based school controversy that, instead of electoral reform, appears to be the defining issue of the Ontario provincial election campaign, but I find that I must. There is only so much perplexity I can stand before I have to start talking about it.

Let's review. The McGuinty Liberals are out of the gate as firm supporters of a public school system--except for the Catholics. The Greens want to abolish the separate school system and have one public system for all, and they have United Nations backing as well as popular support for this move. The NDP is exactly nowhere on the question, offering this tepid nonsense:

NDP critic Peter Tabuns said the New Democrats also support maintaining the status quo in public education, but with one key proviso.

"We need to put money back into the system to deal with the fundamental problems that teachers and students are dealing with," Tabuns said.

This was the party, remember, that strongly supported full funding for the Catholic Separate School system in the 1980s.

And the Conservatives? Why, let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend, as some grumpy old Tory somewhere once mumbled.

What on earth has happened to that good old multiculturalism debate? You know, the one where the sides have lined up for years: the Right opposed, the Left in favour (supposedly), pushing its charming vision of a brightly-coloured mosaic of peoples, faiths and languages? All the players have switched sides here, and this onlooker, for one, is getting a little curious, not to mention confused.

Of course, it never has been as simple as that. As a progressive, not to mention a student of anthropology, I've had my own problems with official multiculturalism, and I'm not alone. But Liberals created the policy, affirmed it and promoted it. Conservatives have supported cultural integration, but of the kind where "they" simply become "us." Just let it all happen naturally, I say--culture isn't a thing, it's what people do. "Canadian culture" is a living braid of many different world-views, traditions and practices. It changes all the time--it's not a sea that eventually swallows immigrants, nor is it a collection of pretty little boxes containing cuisines, folk-dances, exotic religious rituals and costumes.

But I digress. Back to the Ontario election campaign. What is emerging on the cultural front? Liberals, stout defenders of those little boxes, suddenly want one system for all (well, two), and start talking sensibly about public education. (To give McGuinty credit, he earlier dealt in Solomonic fashion with the "Shariah law" non-issue by completely secularizing the Ontario Arbitration Act.) And Conservatives, who once talked about "Canadian values," and saluted the good burghers of Hérouxville as cultural heroes, now want to fund a whole bunch of different school systems on the taxpayers' nickel--identity politics at its absolute worst.

This is a wedge issue, all right, but what an odd turn of events: the Liberals promoting educational integration and the Conservatives pandering to the ethnic vote. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

Calling all constitutional lawyers [updated]

The news that Canada's Already Shopworn Government™ is effectively replacing New Democratic Party MP Nathan Cullen in Skeena-Bulkley Valley, blogged with searing commentary here and here and here and here and here and here and here, raises a fundamental legal question in my mind. Is the appointment of Sharon Smith, the Conservative candidate in the riding, as "liaison" with the federal government, constitutional?

Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:

Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.

A member of the House legally represents the constituents of his or her riding. It isn't merely high-handed of the Harper regime to appoint someone else--a political partisan of the regime--to carry out these tasks. It may actually be illegal. These questions, asked over at Galloping Beaver, are pertinent:

1. Does Smith get paid and who pays her?
2. Does Smith have access to caucus?
3. Does Smith have access to cabinet ministers ahead of the duly elected member of parliament?

To which we might add a couple more:

4. Does Smith perform her role for all constituents, or only Conservatives?
5. Does this appointment interfere with the sitting MP's performance of his duties?

Under (4), if her doors are open to all as appears to be the case, she would seem to be supplanting the sitting MP. Under (5), there may be a question of Parliamentary privilege at issue.

Legal opinions from Constitutional scholars are probably being crafted as I write this, but it would be good to have some commentary here on the subject from those with constitutional expertise. As the other bloggers have noted, there's a lot at stake here--even if not a single Blogging Tory has seen fit to comment.

UPDATE: (August 26) Call me stuffy, old-fashioned and prudish (none of which I happen to be), but am I the only progressive getting a little squeamish about the "naked mayor" pics of Sharon Smith floating around the blogosphere in connection with this story? Are they necessary to our argument? Remember that they were not intended for anyone but her partner and herself: they were stolen and circulated, to her no doubt considerable personal humiliation.

This has nothing to do with politics. Privacy is a right, folks, and we'd be the first to yell and stamp our feet if that sort of thing was done by some Blogging Tory to one of us. This all seems a little too much like pulling some kid's pants down in the schoolyard and running away. Verb. sap.

UPPERDATE: (August 27) Well, not really. Not a peep out of the media about this, except three interviews on local CBC. Only one new blogger, and Garth Turner, bless 'im. It's enough to make someone buy a roll of tinfoil, stat. No story here? Good grief.

In the meantime, listen to Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch on the apparent violations of the House of Commons ethics rules by Conservative MP Dick Harris. The latter's self-justification can be heard here. And here's Nathan Cullen: "pretty poisonous politics." (h/t Frank Frink via Unrepentant Old Hippie)

UPPERDATE: (August 27) Looks like Skeena-Bulkley Valley may not be the only place where the Cons have installed a "liaison." Nice catch over at POGGE? (still waiting for a primary link). Meanwhile, some new bloggers have piled on, and the media may be doing something on the story in their own sweet time.

UPPERDATE: (August 28) Frank Frink of Creative Revolution has updates. Is there a pattern developing here? The substitution appears to have already happened to Vancouver North MP Catherine Bell.

UPPERDATE: (August 29) The blogswarm continues--and, mirabile dictu, there are some signs of life from the media. And a good letter to the editor.

UPPERDATE: (August 29) Three more blogs enter the fray. Kuri, of Thought Interrupted by Typos, is right on: we bloggers left the media in the dust on this one.

UPPERDATE: (August 29) And still more. And more and more. And here is Nathan Cullen. And a post from Alison that I'd missed yesterday, confirming the pattern that's emerging. And an open letter to the comatose Blogging Tories. Nice to have one major media story, though.

UPPERDATE: (August 29) A fine bit of snarkery from the Canadian Cynic. Canada's New Government: "Nice riding you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it." And another small newspaper picks up the trail. (H/t Creative Revolution)

UPPERDATE: (August 29) At last! There's a CP wire story--seems the Tories are now "vigorously backpedalling." Lovely. (H/t the indefatigable Frank Frink of Creative Revolution) So what's going to happen to all of those other "liaisons" now?

And thanks for the h/t, Impolitical, but the chief credit here, I think, is to Blogging a Dead Horse and to Frank Frink for riding this beast into the ground.

The carriage of justice arrives--48 years late

The long, shameful saga of Stephen Truscott is over.

UPDATE: Good commentary here: how the Charter of Rights played a role in the acquittal.

And a little child shall lead them

I need to get out more. Stories like this can produce odd, unpleasant sensations.

In India, a three-year old child, Raj Kumar, has been charged with leading a riot. No, not in a daycare centre--relax, Arnie--but in the streets of Bihar province. He was also accused of throwing stones and firing on troops. His family, however, claims that he has an alibi--he was at his grandmother's house. Oh, sure he was. A likely story. (H/t Reason Online.)

DawgNews has learned that the Sûreté du Québec is now hiring enfants provocateurs.

Upside-down world

The topsy-turvy, upside-down world of the Right continues to spin in its retrograde fashion. The very latest sighting: an article by one Andrew Anthony in The Observer (UK), gleefully pounced upon by Kate McMillan and her winged monkeys over at Small Dead Animals. "It will be a tough read for our friends on the left here," she says. Well, not for me. I found it clinically fascinating.

The article is long, and the book from which the article is distilled is no doubt much longer, so let me home in on one set of examples provided by the author as illustrations of Left-fostered social decline, with accompanying commentary. But, to preface that, readers will note that an almost pathological condition frequently found on the starboard side of the values-spectrum (from which flows the politics) is projection. As I have noted before, not a few conservatives live in a mirror-world in which the Left is racist, the Left is anti-Semitic, women oppress men and Blacks oppress whites and workers oppress bosses--or so they argue. I never thought, however, that I would see the day that selfish individualism was laid at the door of the Left, with the bizarre, almost surrealistically conjoined claim that collectivism, or at least liberalism (not the same thing, of course) is to blame.

Anthony raises a number of terrible incidents in which innocents in the UK have been brutalized and some murdered while onlookers did nothing. But what conclusion does he draw from this? Why, it's multiculturalism, or bleeding-heart sympathy for miscreants, or too much passive reliance on the state, or Black culture (it's hard to know, and in fairness I probably ought to read the book, because the article wanders all over the place and simply fails to cohere).

So here are some of the lessons this disillusioned liberal, who has been mugged by "reality," offers us:

Evidence both statistical and anecdotal suggests that in a 'community of communities' there is not enough social glue to create a sense of shared responsibility. Studies show that bystanders are less likely to come to the aid of someone of a different ethnicity from their own. The girl I saw stabbed was of Asian appearance. Her attackers were Afro-Caribbean. And nearly all the onlookers were, for want of a better phrase, white. Difference is all very well but it is with sameness, a common humanity, that we most pressingly need to reconnect.

And this:

In the 10 years between 1995 and 2005, serious woundings rose by 50 per cent in England and Wales. And it is estimated that up to 70 per cent of violent crime goes unreported.

But when it came down to it, the girl was stabbed because her assailants felt able to do it. The ringleader was inhibited neither by the community nor her peer group. In the first instance, the community turned away, and in the second, her peer group joined in the assault. These were problems of attitude that were not simplistic functions of environment.

In truth, I find it rather hard to argue with Anthony about the underlying social malaise here. Yes, there obviously needs to be a reconnection to a common humanity. Certainly the perpetrators of the crimes he describes were "inhibited neither by the community nor [their] peer group." But why certain conservatives would take comfort in such analysis--check out the SDA thread for the usual smug commentary and belches of self-satisfaction--is a mystery to me.

The author attempts to racialize the incidents he describes, although not all of those incidents appear to be interracial. Such indifference, or fear, in fact, is far from unknown in situations where race cannot be so easily, and conveniently, highlighted. What prevents us from realizing our "common humanity" and showing a little bit of what us leftists like to call "social responsibility?" Actually, the answer is rather simple: a selfish, atomistic individualism, fostered by the far Right, in which the "I'm all right, Jack" attitude is held up as a pristine virtue, and empathy for the less fortunate is seen as a weakness.

Who, for goodness sake, in her put-on, plummy, revoltingly priggish manner of speaking, famously informed us that "There is no such thing as society"? Here's the quote in context:

They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.

Please note the time-frame here. The UK, by 1995, has suffered a decade and a half of radically conservative government, and under it the kind of irresponsible nonsense just quoted, spouted forth by Maggie Thatcher and her panting acolytes, and put into policy and practice with a flinty-hearted vengeance. And now, suddenly, we are being told that those who took this guff seriously, who looked out for themselves first, who didn't get involved in matters that did not concern their immediate individual interests, are the bad guys--and it's all the Left's fault?

Here is the comment of a smirking bystander, who had just witnessed the brutalizing of a young girl and done nothing, after the author remonstrated with him:

Don't have a go at me, you pompous prick. Why should I get involved? It had nothing to do with me.

Is there any more fitting apotheosis of Thatcher's dream than that? For indeed it came to pass that Andrew Anthony's dystopic Britain was given its form and substance in the crucible of Thatcher's dog-eat-dog conservatism. It was a Britain where the social was disparaged at every turn, and where crass selfishness was extolled, leaving its festering mark. It is no surprise, then, that even today it is a Britain where society exists, all right, but in a critically weakened state. And Anthony's flailing should, perhaps, be taken as a symptom of just how badly things have gone wrong.

Montebello: an invitation to be heard

Feel like firing off a few letters to the powers that be? RightOnCanada makes it easy for you. Follow the link above. (H/t Larry Hubich)

Meanwhile, a few choice quotes that stand out from the week's events:

When protesters are yelling at undercover police officers to "put down the rock!", something’s clearly amiss. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Lord Kitchener's Own

In this case, [the SQ officers] didn't defuse conflict, they provoked conflict. Martin Courcy, conflict management expert

They won't be winning any Oscars for their performance. Senior Sûreté du Québec officer.

I'm sure the RCMP will get to the bottom of this. In fact, I'm sure they've been there all along. Caroline Fram, commenter at the Globe and Mail

The SQ officer was carrying the rock to blend in. No, wait, a protester gave him the rock to throw. [paraphrase of SQ spokesperson Marcel Savard's two stories]

Readers are invited to submit their own.

Les policiers Keystone: leur conférence de presse

Every time I think I've heard it all, and I've heard quite a bit at my age, someone comes along to prove that the world is still fresh and new after all. The Sûreté du Québec, bless 'em, have had their little press conference, and I'm still not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Remember that rock, carried by one of the "anarchists?" Why, says spokesperson Inspector Marcel Savard, it was given to the officer by a demonstrator who wanted him to throw it--but of course he would never do such a thing. I wish someone had asked him about the beer bottle.

The three officers, he said, were on the lookout for lawbreakers, and it was just by accident that they bumped up against the peaceful group of demonstrators where their cover was blown. Such infiltrators, said Savard, unncecessarily, always run the risk of being unmasked.

The SQ, he said, would be reviewing its procedures ["La Sûreté du Québec est à revoir ses procédures"]. I just bet they will. New instructions: "When we want to provoke a riot, let's be sure not to use strapping, well-groomed young men with police boots. Getting caught makes us look really bad. Maybe we can hire some pierced, long-haired, weedy types as special constables."

As I say--I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Anyone?

[BigCityLib has just posted on this as well.]

UPDATE: (August 24) The YouTube video cameraperson, Paul Manley, has surfaced. He was disturbed by what he saw, and wants an inquiry. H/t Bene Diction.

UPDATE: (August 25) Inspector Savard just can't seem to make up his mind. First, the officer with the rock was given that rock by an "extremist." But now the officer was carrying it to blend in. Which is it, M. l'Inspecteur? And you never did say anything about that beer bottle--was it a gift from an "extremist" too?

Was it a beer bottle? Readers, you decide: blow-up here. Was it a "projectile?" Here's a description of a clash between riot police and protesters elsewhere in Montebello on August 20:

Dozens more tear gas canisters exploded as the crowd began retreating east toward the village. In response, protesters in gas masks, goggles, and balaclavas hurled rocks, tomatoes, and stone-filled bottles at the police, who blocked Highway 148 and an adjacent cemetery.

Day of the Dinosaurs

That absolute ass, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, is now claiming that Sûreté du Québec officers were outed because they were not committing violence, reiterating the SQ's earlier claim to that effect. Is he out of his mind?

Go back and have another look at the infamous YouTube video. Who is being peaceful? Who is being violent? Who is insisting on peaceful protest--and who is carrying a rock?

I might have my own differences with Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti on occasion, but he's right on the money this time, asking a lot of the right questions and demanding answers. So should we all.

Day isn't very happy with Georgetti, asking aloud whether he knew that the protests would turn violent. Given what the rest of the country now knows, perhaps that question might be better asked of Day himself, who would appear to be in a position to have had distant early warning directly from the instigators. Is he worried what a public inquiry might turn up--about his own office?

Questions for the Montebello Inquiry

The Globe and Mail had it right this morning, and the Ottawa Citizen shamefully wrong. First, from the Globe editorial:

If the Sûreté is telling the truth, its ineptness was staggering. Sending agents posing as violent anarchists into a crowd of middle-aged unionists seems straight out of a film parody of police tactics. But could the force really have been so comically inept? Or were the infiltrators there, as Mr. [Dave] Coles [the CEP union President] has alleged, to stir up trouble so police could move in?

Neither scenario is appealing. But if it is the latter, this is a scandal on the level of the Mounties' pepper-spraying of protesters at the 1997 APEC summit. And given that the RCMP was working alongside the Sûreté at Montebello, it must also be asked whether it was complicit in this plan.

Whatever the strategy, the summit will be remembered for police behaving badly while demonstrators remained peaceful. Now, a full investigation is needed to determine just how bad this really was.

Now, from the Citizen editorial:

A violent confrontation would have served only the demonstrators' ends. The police would have been negligent if they hadn't had some kind of plan to watch the protesters from within. Someone like Mr. Coles knows that just about every anti-globalization protest has seen real demonstrators trying to provoke the police. Rock-throwers hide behind Raging Granny types and teenagers flashing peace signs--if the riot police want to get at the dangerous protesters, they're guaranteed to be filmed and photographed pushing their way through the meek ones. Better if the police have an officer or two behind the protesters' lines who can identify troublemakers later, or step in immediately if the situation gets seriously out of hand.

If the officers were just supposed to keep an eye on things and then accidentally found themselves standing with a mere few dozen demonstrators and looking like the most militant types around, they should have put down their rocks and gone back to the command post. Truly, there was nothing to see, or to be gained, by sticking around in disguise.

Still, democracy and the right to dissent are safe if our police forces' undercover operations are run as ineptly as this one was.

Mr. Coles, Maude Barlow and the rest need to find victories where they can, but if this was a win, it was a small one indeed.

I have never been a fan of bloggers' dismissive "MSM" shorthand, but if all newspapers were as singularly inept as the Ottawa Citizen, I might have joined those ranks. While the Globe rightly calls for an inquiry, the Citizen tries to make the whole thing look like the protesters' fault. The police were just doing their duty, but weren't very good at it. And their very ineptness is a democratic safeguard.

Here's one observer who isn't laughing. Whatever the police were up to, the Keystone Kops explanation is plainly insufficient, and doesn't make me rest any easier. Certainly those of us following this story enjoyed watching the mask, both metaphorical and literal, gradually slide off this week. Police denials, following a lengthy silence, were obviously hedged. Pictures of two of the "anarchists" were all over the place, and it was only a matter of time before the truth was discovered. But that truth, partial though it is at the moment, has uncovered a genuine threat to democracy. If the only thing keeping our fragile freedoms alive is police incompetence, then I, for one, fear for the future.

Now, in any case, we get more police hedging. To quote from the Sûreté du Québec press release yesterday, their officers "avaient le mandat de repérer et d'identifier les manifestants non pacifiques pour ainsi éviter les débordements" ["had the duty to spot and identify non-peaceful demonstrators to keep things from boiling over"]. "[Les agents étaient] repérés par les manifestants au moment où ils ont refusé de lancer des projectiles" ["The officers were spotted by the demonstrators when they refused to throw their projectiles"]. That last bit was too much even for the Citizen, which found this a "questionable claim."

It is important, for those of us who believe in the right to public dissent in Canada, to take the Citizen editorial very seriously. We shall see echoes of that nonsense on the starboard side of the blogosphere, as those who ridiculed the original claims of the protesters scramble to do damage control. The best way of picking this nonsense apart, and to get at the truth of the matter, is to ask questions--lots of questions. One of my commenters, Nbob, starts us off nicely with the first two in this list:

1) Until the SQ statement, were there any reports of "projectiles" being thrown in the area at the time?
2) If some were, was an SQ incident report filed, and is it now available?
3) Was anyone except an undercover SQ officer* spotted with a "projectile?" (The SQ was doing its own video surveillance, h/t Gazetteer. Will this recording be kept?)
4) Were the "anarchists" urging violence, as members of the crowd alleged?
5) Were they "taunting union members" as stated in the Globe and Mail's front-page story today?
6) If the "anarchists" were spotted by protesters because they didn't throw "projectiles," and their job was to maintain order as the SQ claims, does this mean that others were throwing things? Were any arrests made? If not, why not?
7) Why was a peaceful crowd of demonstrators targeted by the SQ? Were they not in the so-called "Green Zone?"
8) Was the RCMP involved or complicit in this action?
9) Was there police involvement at Montebello in some other clashes that took place? Were those clashes initiated by agents provocateurs?
10) How high up the chain of command was the decision made to use the "anarchists" in this fashion? Were the tactics allegedly employed (provocation to violence, carrying a rock, taunting the union folks who were trying to keep order) approved at that level?
11) Is this SOP for the SQ and RCMP? Is there a paper trail?

We won't get this kind of questioning from the ideologically hidebound Ottawa Citizen, of course. Its agenda is all too clear. But perhaps more professional journalists--and, ultimately, an inquiry of the kind called for by the Globe--will get to the bottom of it all. In the meantime, readers are invited to pose additional questions of their own, or to provide information that can be compiled here.

______________
*The YouTube video showed one undercover officer with a rock in his hand. Is this the same officer shown here, with a beer bottle in his back pocket? H/t CUPE, and Mark (comments 6 and 7) at Stageleft's place. Close-up of beer bottle here. Better one here, h/t Joe Blakesley. Note the "SQ" written on one undercover's forearm in Joe's Flickr gallery.

[Footnote UPDATE August 24] Commenter "riles" notes that the beer-bottle officer is not the same one who carried the rock. The commenter also draws our attention to splashes of yellow paint on the three infiltrators, visible on the YouTube video--the first time, to my knowledge, that this possible identifying sign has been caught by anyone.

Flushed with success

Sheesh. What can I say? Bastards. "Service, Integrity, Justice," eh? Mon oeil.

"Gentlemen, get the thing straight once and for all — the policeman isn't there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder." —Mayor Richard Daley, Chicago, 1968

Cop spotted in Montebello, protesters allege

Two police forces are denying that an aggressive man caught on film at the recent Montebello protest was a police agent provocateur, DawgNews has learned. Sergeant Sue E. Flic, of the Sûreté du Québec, stated, “We don’t use agents provocateurs. We are quite provocative enough without that.” Captain R.C. Bunker of the RCMP, echoed her denial. “We don’t do that sort of thing,” he said. “Pepper-spraying infants and so on? Sure. But not sneaky stuff.”

The man, followed to a police line by a number of protesters after allegedly shoving one of them, was wearing riot gear, a police ID badge and Vibram-soled boots identical to those worn by police officers. He was also carrying what looked like a standard-issue pistol, pepper-spray and a pair of handcuffs, witnesses said.

“We just knew he had to be a cop,” said labour leader Dave Coales. “He stood out like a sore thumb. Nobody knew him. And he wouldn’t take off his mask.”

“He might have been a protester pretending to be a cop pretending to be a protester pretending to be a cop,” said D'Arcy Jerrom, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “He certainly wasn’t given direction by the PMO.”

According to several protesters, the man passed easily through a police cordon, and into a cemetery. Police apparently did not place him under arrest. The two police forces refused to release his name, stating that this is never done unless charges are laid. Asked if it was standard operating procedure not to arrest and charge a threatening individual deliberately penetrating a police line, Flic and Bunker each refused comment, citing security concerns.

Retired Ottawa police officer and security consultant Doug Kirkwood questioned the allegation. "Police dressing up as police and hanging around the protest movement? That seems a little far-fetched to me. I hope it isn't true."

"Now we have proof positive that this sort of thing is going on," said Maude Georgetti, one of the Montebello protest leaders. "In fact, this fellow and others like him have been coming to our planning meetings all along, banging on their shields and asking a lot of questions. One of them even arrived on horseback. It just didn't feel right."

Protest organizers have vowed to pursue the matter with an official complaint.

APEC Enquiry II, anyone? [updated]

Judge Hughes, we may be needing you again.

The following is a news and progressive blog round-up of the growing Montebello "agents provocateurs" scandal. Were police caught, er, flat-footed?

Red Tory
Art Threat
Exile Infoshop
Brian's Thoughts
Exposé Skateboard Magazine
Pacific Tribune
Canadian Cynic
HawkEyeNews
LiveJournal
Goudaille
Cent Papiers (boot shot)
CUPE (boot shot)
O'Neil Brooke
Cathy from Canada
Stageleft
Bene Diction
Gazetteer
Gazetteer
Rusty Idols
Larry Hubich
Galloping Beaver
Climate and Capitalism
Big City Lib
Welcome to 1984
blogx
Your Dirty Answer
Impolitical
A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land
This Canadian
Unrepentant Old Hippie
Vanity Press
Getting It Right
Dodosville
Far and Wide
The Last Minute Blog (good hi-res pic of one of the "protesters")
Les Enragés.org
Voice of Grant
Drinking Liberally in New Milford
Matthew Good
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Paulitics (interesting boot analysis)
Audette-o-Blog
This Can't Be Right
Kate Hermelin (good flikr photos, with commentary)
YaYaCanada (comprehensive photo essay of the Montebello events)
Torontoist
Daily Kos
AOL Newsbloggers
CTV
Ottawa Sun
Harper Index
Ottawa Indymedia
National Post (if you can believe it)
Yoni Goldstein, National Post
Toronto Star
CBC
CBC As It Happens (interview with David Coles)
Maclean's (columnist Kady O'Malley calls for an enquiry)

If you freeze the YouTube video at 2:22, you will see a side face shot of one of the provocateurs, momentarily unmasked. That picture should be given wide circulation (I don't have screen capture software--anyone?). As has been noted, had the three masked fellows been arrested, there would be no story. Instead, they were not, even though these "dangerous anarchists" edged right up to, and penetrated, police lines--and the RCMP and Sûreté du Québec have suddenly become coy:

Neither the RCMP nor the Surete du Quebec would comment on the video or even discuss generally whether they ever use the tactic of employing agents provocateurs. "I cannot answer your question because I don't have the information,'' said Const. Kane Kramer, a spokesman for the RCMP at the summit.

Sometimes silence does indeed speak volumes.

UPDATE: (August 22) Dave Coles, President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (and hero of the moment on the infamous YouTube clip), will be holding a press conference today at 1:00 at the Chateau Laurier, to unveil proof that the three "anarchists" were members of the Sûreté du Québec. Stay tuned.

UPPERDATE: (August 22) My old buddy and sparring partner, former police officer Doug Kirkland, weighs in.

UPPERDATE: (August 22) CTV's David Akin, who attended the CEP press conference about the agents provocateurs, reports. The money quote: "They won't be winning any Oscars for their performance" --senior Sûreté du Québec officer. Meanwhile, Caroline Fram, a commenter over at the Globe & Mail, has my vote for best quote of the day: "I'm sure the RCMP will get to the bottom of this. In fact, I'm sure they've been there all along."

UPPERDATE: (August 22) Who were those masked men? A hat-tip to Dana for this:










and also for this, a second "protester" who shoved David Coles at one point:









And a higher-resolution shot thanks to CUPE:














And here's another high-resolution shot, h/t Last Minute Blog, photo by Kate Hermelin, apparently of the same fellow:

And another h/t to Michael Cowley-Owen, StraightGoods.ca webmaster, for this clear shot of the first man (more pics and coverage in StraightGoods here):








Perhaps a little wide-circulation, people, to help identify these guys?

UPPERDATE: (August 22) A former police officer makes some interesting comments over at Dust My Broom about the provocateurs' body language on the YouTube video.

UPPERDATE: (August 23) Stageleft has the last word on the boots angle.

UPPERDATE: (August 23) The Sûreté du Québec confesses. H/t Stageleft.

UPPESTDATE: (August 24) And finally--the agents provocateurs' identities revealed? :)

Terry Glavin's hysteria

Has Terry Glavin's "progressive" mask finally fallen off entirely? Not content to slander the Canadian peace movement, or suggest that someone is an anti-Semite for referring to him as a "neo-con" (Glavin is Irish), we now have this wretched little piece of yellow journalism.

Try to follow the logic. It's a little sketchy, but here it is: Maude Barlow and her fellow progressives oppose the so-called "Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)," because talks are talking place among senior politicians, bureaucrats and corporate leaders out of sight of the public, and because this likely heralds a new phase of what has been called deep integration. Bulk water exports from Canada to the US are on the table, despite official denials; unrestricted and unaccountable information exchange amongst security agencies, which has already led to the rendition of Maher Arar and the stupid (thankfully temporary) refusal to allow a mild-mannered labour relations professor to teach at Carleton University, will be heightened; Canada's environment and sovereignty, already threatened by NAFTA, will be under even more pressure.

But some far-right America Firsters are also against the SPP. They think it will lead to unrestricted immigration, amongst other things, and world gummint, probably run by the Jooooos, if not the Illuminati, which will impose socialism, race-mixing and God knows what else, sending the patriots off to the hills (if they aren't there already) to chow down on C-rations and pick off ZOG agents at their leisure. Yee-haw!

Now, because there happens, for whatever wacky reasons, to be an alignment of concern about the SPP--not an alignment of views, mind you--it is all too obvious, to Glavin at least, that there is some kind of sinister ideological convergence. So, in his classic fashion, he links to an earlier post connecting the left with--well, what else, he's hipped on the subject--radical Islam. See, it all fits together--Maude Barlow, terrorism, Pat Boone, the John Birch Society, anti-Semitism, environmentalism...a "subtle pattern," as Glavin puts it. Subtle indeed.

The odd thing about this foolish fantasizing is that it has all the earmarks of the very wingnut theorizing that he complains about in his post. Somehow the same people who go to the wall fighting homophobia, sexism, racism, and (let's call a spade a spade) American imperialism, are really in bed with fascists and Islamists and anti-Semites and terrorists and homophobes and woman-enslavers....not to mention turtles and Teamsters. It's, well, a conspiracy.

We defeated the MAI and the FTAA--so far--simply by exposing those multi-legged white grubs to the bright light of day. There are more grubby deals in the offing, though, and the SPP is just the latest of them. Progressives will continue to research, write, publicize and protest, thank goodness--more power to them. And those living in their closed delusional universes will continue to spin bizarre paranoid theories: "It's the One Worlders! No, it's the Islamic-socialist axis! It's the Jews! No, it's the Council of Canadians!" Terry Glavin and Pat Boone, in fact, have far more in common than either of them might imagine.

_____________
UPDATE: (August 22) Just caught this comment by Glavin about the policing of dissent at Montebello: "Pick a fight with a riot squad, you deserve to get your ass kicked, I reckon."

Bits 'n' pieces

I couldn't title this post "ephemera" without compromising my warm relationship with blogger David Thompson, but ephemera these are.

Item: Jason Cherniak comes clean on MMP

Although they might not admit it in public, the reality is that the NDP supports MMP because it will give them more elected politicians. Am I allowed to suggest that MMP is a bad idea for precisely the same reason?

As I said at his place, of course he is. Refreshing honesty, in fact, which might explain the Liberal troop surge against MMP going on at the moment.

I wonder whether you think it is right to have a referendum of the population on electoral reform, when at least 90% of them know even less about political systems than me. [Comment]

And, of course, he is absolutely right. But let's not stop there. I know a bit, but not much, about economics, maybe a little more on foreign affairs, not a great deal about Aboriginal issues, and very little about the federal-provincial relations thing. But I know more about this stuff than a lot of other people do. Why should we have general elections when so many people know even less about these matters than I? Democracy, as I never tire of pointing out, is far too precious to waste on just anyone.

Alas, Jason didn't stick to his admirable candour for long:

For the record, the number of NDP MPPs is not so much my reason for opposing MMP as it is a symptom of MMP that highlights my more principled concerns with it.

Darn. I kind of liked the guy when he went off-message for a moment.

Item: book panned, authors banned

A couple of American academics have run into a buzz-saw before their book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, has even gone on sale. As reported by CommonDreams, some of their fellow academics have reacted swiftly to diss the book and shut down discussion:

The subject will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Jewish cultural center in Washington and three organizations in Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled events with the authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the format.

As a sometime literary critic myself, I was most impressed with the critical methodology employed by Aoibheann Sweeney, director of the Center for the Humanities at City University of New York. “I looked at the introduction," she said, "and I didn’t feel that the book was saying things differently enough [from an article written previously by the two authors].”

(H/t Carson's Post)

Item: Protest TV at Montebello

This intrigued me. Politics is always theatre, but now it's TV. After a peaceful demonstration at the APEC summit in Vancouver was crushed by thuggish RCMP officers in 1997, the judge who later investigated the matter, Ted Hughes, stated that protesters have a right to be seen and heard in Canada, and that visiting leaders shouldn't be immune to lawful protest. So the Montebello demonstrators will be held in a couple of those infamous "free speech zones," but the summit leaders can watch them on closed-circuit television.

Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association thinks that having the zones next to the hotel is "progress," but in fact the holding pens (as protester Jaggi Singh rightly calls them) are more than a kilometre away. Nevertheless, he's nailed it: as reported, he understands the concerns of protesters who want to "generate an atmosphere of political tension and disapproval." That, after all, is what protest is really about: not something somewhere else that one watches on TV. How effective is dissent if it's sequestered in special areas patrolled by police, and mediated through a glass screen?

Item: But on a lighter note...

Since we shouldn't spend our Friday fussing about our mutual funds, Hurricane Dean and the listening devices planted in our houses by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, here's a cheery little story about spreading peace in the Middle East. Enjoy!

(H/t Dymaxion World)

UPDATE (August 18): Agence France-Presse points out the "virtual" nature of the planned Montebello protest. For some reason this reminds me of Jean Baudrillard on the first Gulf War.

Dawg vs. man: third bite

The MMP wars continue. David Graham is back, with reiterated arguments, and not a little indignation. He was unhappy with my restatements of his position in my previous post, although I think I did a pretty good job summarizing them, and I linked to his article in my very first sentence. Nevertheless, this time I shall simply quote his responses in italics, under the original headings, although it will make for a very long article.

1) MMP will create unstable coalition governments.

I never referenced PEI's population, I referenced its size. The diversity needed is regional diversity. Our MMP proposal has no provisions for this, allowing parties to create lists of indentured MPPs from any area, with little to prevent them from concentration on vote rich urban areas.

There are a number of things that divide voters in Ontario and in Canada as a whole. Canadians, certainly are divided by region, each with its specific issues and concerns. But we are also divided by ethnicity and by values, the latter asserted in various political positions. FPTP has done an abysmal job of representing the political views of Canadians, excluding many of them while distorting the support given to others. And it has done a poor job of representing our diverse peoples (e.g., Aboriginals). Further divisions--rich/poor, urban/rural and so on--do find their political expression under FPTP, but that is not threatened by MMP.

Some issues, in other words, are geographical; others are cultural; still others transcend such boundaries and are national, or, in the case before us, Ontario-wide. As noted earlier, FPTP emphasizes a narrow, local view, sometimes to the point of exaggeration. MMP offers the opportunity of a politics that is not solely regional, while retaining the regional component with 90 ridings.

The fear that parties will concentrate their list MPPs in urban areas is mere speculation. Let me offer some counter-speculation. Any party foolish enough to ignore Northern Ontario by choosing all of its list MPPs from Toronto will suffer devastating results in the next election. Not only the party, but also local candidates, will be punished for such a move. Rival party strategists will have a field day pointing to the narrow, divisive Toronto-centrism of the party in question, and will ensure that their own lists have proper geographic balance.

In order to achieve the diversity that MMP proponents inexplicably assert will magically happen under our proposal, there either needs to be a law mandating diversity on the party lists, or the parties need to create their lists in a manner that is not completely and openly democratic. For a party to disqualify anyone from any list entry based on their race, sex, religious background, or number of toes, is completely undemocratic and will be necessary to create diverse lists.

We shall have to agree to disagree on this one. No truly democratic system ignores questions of representation. A legislature without Aboriginals, or without women, or one that is lily-white, however elected, cannot be said to be democratic. It's that diversity of perspective again, which FPTP has failed so miserably at achieving. MMP is not a panacea here--the complex question of Aboriginal representation, for example, is not addressed by it--but it offers at least the possibility of better representation over-all. Don't consider this "disqualification" of beleaguered white males, Graham's subtext here: consider it qualification of many other groups and interests presently shut out. Ultimately, the voters will decide in any case.

MMP is inappropriate because it replaces the last vestige of independent representation with another layer of party oversight, breaking away from the core tradition of the Westminster model of representatives representing their ridings to the government. That's key. It should be noted that every country that uses MMP uses FPTP to select at least half its representatives, so while more than four European countries may use MMP, every country that does uses FPTP and all the problems that entails for riding elections. To say that FPTP is bad and retain it in our proposal is hypocritical.

This is somewhat self-contradictory. How would the system proposed for Ontario "replace the last vestige of independent representation" when it retains the riding system for two-thirds of the seats in the legislature, ridings in which anyone can still run? And to argue that a mixed system retains elements of FPTP is a truism--it does so by definition. Why this is "hypocritical" is a mystery, given that the objections to "pure FPTP" are what we are supposed to be discussing. MMP offers a cure for the worst ills of pure FPTP, without killing the patient.

[Dawg: the Ontario threshold is relatively low--5% rather than 3% is more common. But that can be fixed if it proves to be a problem--it's hardly an argument against MMP as a whole. Ditto for the lack of overhang provisions (addition of extra seats after an election if required to preserve proportionality), which could indeed result in rare majority governments with minority support. Far from being rare, though, such false majorities have been the rule in Ontario under FPTP.]

This is, of course, more a matter of opinion than argument, but I do not share MMP proponents' hatred of majority governments, even when they are held by a party other than one that I would support. My ideal, as long as we are condemned to a party system, is to have a mixture of majority and minority governments, where when all parties misbehave with majorities we can return to minority, but when minority gets too dysfunctional we can return to majority. Both types of government have their strengths and their weaknesses. The system of purgable majority is what we have as demonstrated by the minority governments in both Ottawa and Quebec City with no return to majority in sight in either case. The issue of "false majorities" is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, majority governments happen with, in some cases, less than the plurality of the popular vote, but I believe this owes more to a democratic failing in a lack of accurate, regular redistribution of ridings and of our lack of a preferential ballot than to any inherent weakness in the riding system.

Of course, this disingenuously misrepresents the supporters of MMP. What we have been saying all along is that stable government based upon coalitions has been the experience in European jurisdictions: that's majority rule by another name.

In Canada, false majorities are not "some cases," but the rule. They have nothing whatsoever to do with poor riding boundaries or the lack of a preferential ballot, but with the plurality system that characterizes FPTP. Indeed, even when on rare occasions a genuine majority government is formed, the results can be exaggerated: for example, Frank McKenna's victory over Richard Hatfield in New Brunswick, in which the Liberals won every single seat with 60% of the popular vote. How would redistribution have affected that one?

There are likely to be two classes of caucuses. The first is what we have now, with caucuses made up of riding representatives. The second is likely to be dominated by list MPPs. The Liberals and Conservatives will likely be the former, with the NDP and Green more of the latter. Within the parties where MPPs are dominated by representatives of ridings, current levels of internal discussion are likely to continue. In parties where the current party line is more important than the party principles, as in the NDP, the party-appointed members are likely to be the dominant voice within caucus and will not be as inclined to barter.

This is simply wild speculation, and caricatures the NDP--Graham's non-partisanship once more in evidence. What would the bartering consist of? Usually it has two axes, the first being contending regional interests, and the second being regional vs. national/provincial interests. In the case of a caucus where list MPPs predominate, why would the "party line," which seems to come out of nowhere in Graham's scenario, lead the caucus to electoral disaster by ignoring the regional interests that could be addressed to their advantage in the riding races? I submit that the discussions within such caucuses would not differ much from those in caucuses where riding MPPs predominate.

In Germany, everyone's favourite example, a 1996 study of MMP MPs found the following rather interesting bit of information:83.2% of German constituency MPs felt that they should represent all citizens in a constituency. By contrast, only 55.6% of list MPs in Germany felt the same way. This discrepancy goes to show that even German MMP MPs do not share this crazy notion that there is no second tier under MMP.

I'm not certain what it shows, frankly. As one of Graham's own commenters points out, how will a list MPP know how a constituent voted? So, in practical terms, when that MPP is doing constituency work, how would their private preferences (if that is what Graham's cited study indicates) find any real expression?

We have had numerous minority governments in the country's history, and extraordinarily few formal coalitions. Without a requirement to form a coalition before taking office, which is not something that I would support anyway, there is no obligation for a party to form a coalition with another if it feels it can govern on an issue-by-issue basis.

This is apples-and-oranges reasoning. Under pure FPTP, coalitions have of course been rare--who needs them, if you can get a majority in power with 40% popular support or even less? Under MMP, coalitions will become necessary, and the political culture will have to change from narrow partisanship to a more cooperative, win-win approach to governance.

Based on the last election, the Liberals should have had 62 seats with 2% popular overhang which is 3 seats short of the 65 seats needed for majority in a 129-seat house, still within the 3%/4-seat allocation margin for a fringe party balance of power.

I'd be interested in Graham's method for demonstrating this. As noted, the Fair Vote Canada analysis was that, in a 103-seat legislature, the Liberals (winning 46% of the vote) would have achieved around 48 seats under a proportional system. Extrapolating to a 129-seat legislature, a proportional system would have yielded 60 seats--ten short of a majority.

2) MMP will allow small fringe parties to call the shots.

No other jurisdiction has a comparable MMP system to that proposed in Ontario for the reasons stated elsewhere here, such as an asymmetric list/representative set, low margin of entry, completely closed list, and the underlying political traditions and culture. What would happen here can best be described as "undefined behaviour" and my contention is that fringe party control will happen sooner or later, though not continuously.

That's simply speculation. In any case, as I noted earlier, MMP is not the Israeli "pure PR" system with its multitudinous parties and one electoral district: coalitions are more likely among parties with similar interests. Why would the NDP and the Liberals, for example, allow the Christian Heritage Party to call the shots with one or two seats? Better that the two parties join forces, swallowing hard, of course.

3) MMP will elect members who represent no one, and whom no one's ever heard of.

A party with pure motives and a completely democratic list, which may or may not come to exist, will challenge the list of another less perfect party in the election, without doubt. Where I have doubt is that any party will be sufficiently uncorrupt in its party list creation to be able to make such accusations without losing more than they gain. Even a party that has its membership in a party-wide vote select its list members is no less of a corrupt procedure than the already tainted party nomination procedures already in place in ridings across the province. Parties are made up of its members, and party memberships make up a tiny fraction of the province. Barely enough Ontario voters hold party memberships to achieve the MMP minimum threshold for being granted list seats were they all to vote themselves into their own party.

The notion of a balance of corruption is unsupported in any country with MMP save Russia. I suspect that, once voters who currently waste their votes feel that they have a real stake in an electoral outcome, party membership will increase. Much will depend, of course, on how the parties deal with the list question--we can agree on that. But Graham's equivalence--that the party nomination process under FPTP is "tainted," and so will the list process under MMP be--is hardly an argument for FPTP.

[Dawg: Graham goes on to display his fundamental misunderstanding of the MMP proposal by arguing that the 39 list MPPs will lighten the load in only 39 of the proposed 90 ridings, leaving 51 MPPs to do more work than their riding colleagues. But no one has claimed that a list MPP would be available only to the electors in a single riding. They could, and indeed are far more likely to, work in regions, not single constituencies.]

This is not my misunderstanding: it is based on Dawg's assertion in his original "lies" piece. What I wrote is, "if this were to be the case [...] with 39 list MPPs and 90 overgrown ridings, a maximum of 39 ridings will get additional representation from list MPPs seeking an alternate way into Queens Park." The case I reference is in his quote from Louis Massicotte, where he quotes: "Typically, a list member starts out by running unsuccessfully in a constituency. To run, he or she has to become familiar with the local issues. The person tries again in the next election. If his or her party comes to power, its number of list seats will decline noticeably and the only way to get elected will likely be by running in a constituency. For this reason, such a person will remain active in the constituency during his or her term of office and give such activities almost as much effort as a "directly" elected member." Massicotte, not I, is suggesting that a list MPP is only going to be interested in representing a riding in which that person has a chance of getting elected should the need arise, which in our imbalanced MMP proposal, means that fewer than half of constituencies would get a second representative, by Dawg's own argument.

Massicotte is, of course referring to MMP in Germany in which 50% of the members are list MPs. There is, of course, a riding-to-list fit there. Nothing in the Ontario proposal will prevent a list MPP from working regionally rather than in a specific riding: if he or she eventually runs, one assumes that it would be in a riding in that region.

Using European examples is not necessarily an applicable comparison to Ontario, whether it is Russia or it is Germany. If he would like to compare Ontario to Germany, we could just as easily compare it to Russia where the lists are openly corrupt. The system with which we will be creating our party lists is closer to that of Russia than of Germany anyway, as at least Germany has laws mandating that lists be created in a democratic way, something not part of the Ontario proposal and objected to by MMP's proponents.

The latter is simply not the case: here's one MMP supporter who would have had no objection to specific laws to ensure a democratic process, although the devil would assuredly be in the details. The view of the Citizens' Assembly was that the political process itself, including a legal requirement for transparency in list-formation, would accomplish that aim.

4) MMP is less efficient than Single Member Plurality (First-Past-The-Post)

[Dawg:Graham cites a frustrated Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand, who said in an interview, after trying to get her way on monetary policy, that it's hard to make tough decisions under MMP. This isn't an argument, but an anecdote. One would hope, in any case, that under a democratic system, tough decisions would be made with majority legislative approval.]

Tough decisions are always hard to get as party interests seldom match up with provincial or national interest. The party system, not the voting system, is my number one enemy in our democracy.

That's another debate. The party system itself is not under review. Maybe it should be, but, whether it's FPTP or MMP, the party system is what we have.

[Dawg: He continues his response to this point by claiming that reducing the number of riding MPPs reduces the effectiveness of riding representation, blithely ignoring the fact that there will now be list MPPs in the regions to shoulder the load. (While I can agree that Ontario, and Canada, have diverse regions that require region-specific attention, the same cannot be said of ridings. As an urban Ottawa voter, for example, I would be hard-put to name differences of interests between, say, the electors of Ottawa-Centre and of Ottawa-South.)]

I agree with the Ottawa example, which is why I suggested that MMP is less inappropriate for jurisdictions smaller than PEI, which Dawg interpreted as population, but I meant as physical size. When regions are as wide and diverse as Ontario, it is necessary to have regional representation. When our largest of over a hundred ridings is 50,000 square km, or around 10 GTAs, larger than the entire country of New Zealand, our issues are bound to be very diverse. That we will have list MPPs who will represent these sparsely populated vast regions of the province rather than the vote rich urban centres, like Ottawa, is not at all clear.

Nor is it unclear. See my response under [1]: there would be serious political risks entailed by ignoring the diverse regions of Ontario. But the geographical size of a riding is a bit of a red herring, in any case. People vote. Rocks and trees do not.

5) MMP does not require parties to explain how their lists are put together

[Dawg: Here, once again, Graham claims that list-formation will be a non-issue. See my response under (3).]

This is addressed under (3).

Indeed.

6) MMP will make contact with your representative more difficult

Voters votes will have put their parties into the legislature. Parties will have put the MPPs there. Try not to overlook this critical fact. The result is that list MPPs represent their parties to the voters and to their government, and not the voters to the government and their parties. In Germany, studies show that barely half of list MPs believe representing voters is high on their priority lists.

I'd like to see these studies, which run competely against Massicotte's findings, cited earlier. As he notes, list MPs today can be riding MPs tomorrow, so that list MPs do pay attention to their constituencies.

Tom Wappel is a disgrace without doubt for his handling of his constituency request from the supporter of another party. MMP takes Tom Wappel's behaviour and makes it the norm. MMP list MPPs especially will be expected to treat voters the way Tom Wappel did. The comment that MPPs tend to support the party line is a matter that needs addressing as part of democratic, rather than electoral, reform. One of my key objections to our system that is retained and even strengthened in MMP is the existence of whipped votes, which I find completely contrary to democracy. As I have stated in the past, if you need to tell your MPs that they have confidence in you, you do not deserve their confidence.

Again, as noted above, list MPPs will usually have no way of knowing how a person voted--the Wappel case is, in that respect, a bit of an aberration. The question of whipped votes has nothing to do with either FPTP or MMP: either system could exist without it.

7) MMP is confusing.

Dawg again takes what I wrote and only looks at a small part of it. I expressed a preference for Condorcet, but as I stated in my submission to the assembly, I believe that, for the sake of simplicity, Approval Voting would be the optimal. In between is Instant Run-Off, variants of which nearly every party uses for its own internal elections (whether instant run-off or just run-off).

That said Condorcet is not as complex as it is made out to be. I have fought three elections under variants of Condorcet, most recently last month and the voting is the simplest of any form of preferential, while the counting system is rather complex and more or less requires computer assistance. The results, however, are the most democratic of any voting system I am aware of.

I guess Graham concedes my point about the Scottish MMP balloting confusion. With respect to the Condorcet system, which, as he notes, requires computer assistance to perform the count, I don't believe that voters choose among candidates by imagining an endless number of person-against-person races. Voters like me are simple folk, who vote for the person or the party they like, and hope that both do well. Any system that encourages an array of second, third and fourth-best choices, and results in the election of (for example) everyone's second choice, is not one I would personally favour. As for the various run-off schemes, they produce a simple majority instead of a plurality of support for the winner, but they still result in large numbers of wasted votes for voters' candidates of choice.

8) MMP will produce two tiers of political representative

The point is that some MPPs directly represent ridings, while others do not. This is, by definition, two tiers. My question that he ignores completely is whether the two tiers is a good thing. It could be argued that it is, but at that point we should be considering a return to a bicameral government in which the proportional seats become a senate and so at least recognise the two tiers for what they are. I would argue that it is not a good thing, as all representatives should be equal.

9) MMP is undemocratic

Whether the party selection process for the lists are under scrutiny is clearly a matter of conjecture for both sides in this debate. Dawg believes they will be, I believe they will not be. That he would assert that either way is a fantastic assertion and that therefore the other is obviously right is more than a little conceited. I do not believe that the 39 names on each of the 4 major party lists and the several other lists that show up as additional parties join the fray will be under any serious scrutiny, nor do I believe that the process itself will be under serious scrutiny. Each party will have its own way of doing things, and short of selling off lines on the lists, I don't see the media caring enough to keep it on the front burner and make it an election issue. Parties may challenge each other, but in a sufficiently corruptible process, each party will adopt the same corruptible procedures.

See my note about the "balance of corruption" under (3).

Preferential balloting would be a meaningful form of electoral reform as it keeps what is good about FPTP and eliminates what is bad about it. It is no more wrong to say that voters will not make the "Natural Governing Party" their first or second choice than it is to say that voters will punish parties that have questionable entries on their MMP lists. Preferential balloting, except some forms like Borda, severely reduces strategic voting. It gives the advantages of the two-sided vote MMP gives us in spades, without the disadvantages of party lists. That all said, having everyone's second choice govern is still better than having everyone's fifth choice hold the balance of power.

Preferential balloting, as already noted, favours the Liberals because NDPers are unlikely to choose Conservatives as second-best, and Conservatives are unlikely to do the same for the NDP. It also forces second or third-best choices, when what we really want, I hope, is a system that favours first choices. I have already dealt with the "fringe party holding the balance of power" argument, and will not repeat myself.

Under MMP the FPTP's strategic voting model remains unchanged. The notion that it will not be suggests that MMP proponents believe the riding representatives are completely irrelevant which belies an agenda of pure Proportional Representation, an extraordinarily dangerous destination. Who wins in the riding will be just as important as who wins in the list seats to the overall outcome of the election. MMP also creates, on top of the FPTP strategic voting, a second layer of strategic voting as described.

Graham is right to point out that, so long as we have a riding system, strategic voting of the old kind will continue--I concede that point.[Not so fast--see UPDATE, below]* But there will be less concern about it, given that (for example) the NDP can now win list seats under MMP. Hence, the Hargrove solution--"NDPers, vote Liberal to keep out the Conservatives," will not threaten the political viability of the NDP, as it does under FPTP. Admittedly, though, a one-ballot MMP system (in which a single vote is for both party and candidate) would do more to reduce this kind of strategic voting--although that system has its own flaws, including the virtual elimination of independents.

10) MMP is divisive

A regional party will be able to leverage far more power with far fewer seats than is now the case under MMP. If the MMP proponents' prediction of near-constant minority governments comes to pass, which I don't believe is in doubt by anyone, a regional party with just a handful of seats will have far more power than a larger regional party would have today. That said, I don't see Ontario as particularly vulnerable to regional parties as compared to Canada as a whole and therefore am not terribly concerned about geographic-regional parties, at least in the short term, although I could definitely see a GTA-vs-non-GTA rift forming with myself being firmly in the latter, especially with the likely further GTAification of Ontario politics with the advent of MMP. My counterexample, as Dawg puts it, if he had cared to read it, was addressing the overall culture of cooperation within parliament, or lack thereof, and had nothing to do with regional parties.

Here, at least in the Ontario case, we appear to have some agreement about regionally-based parties. On the national scene, I don't agree that the same need for regional parties exists under MMP. I addressed this point already in my "Ten Lies" piece under point (10).

Graham's counterexample--the opinion of a retired police officer in New Zealand--is, as I said, not an argument but an anecdote. And I don't agree with it. MMP creates pressure for cooperation in the legislature, and against narrow partisanship, which would no longer be in the parties' best interests.

[Dawg: MMP, Graham asserts, will push us further away from such basic reforms as a legislatively elected Premier. It is not at all clear why this should be so. If the electors vote in MMP, they will see for themselves that the existing system is not part of the natural order of things, like gravity, but a structure subject to change. The debate around other reforms will be likely to grow, not dissipate.]

It might, but the debate is not exactly out of sight and out of mind at the moment. What passing MMP does is start us from further back when meaningful democratic reforms are next discussed. Having a legislatively elected Premier would be nice, but giving parties more power to create their own representation and weakening independent representation will only serve to weaken any efforts to make it ever happen.

I'm afraid that this doesn't follow. The parties have no vested interest in awarding the premiership to the winning party--the case under the current system, where the premiership is decided by that party and by one riding in the entire province.

I would welcome progressive change, but I do not consider MMP to be that progressive change and as I have said before, changing to MMP is not better than not changing at all. Changing to a preferential ballot and retaining a full or increased slate of representative ridings, and/or removing direct party control over the legislature would be progressive change.

I think we should try to demystify the notion of "party." Yes, they do become institutions, but they are really people who have agreed on common approaches to the issues of the day. That grouping will happen whether Graham gets his legislature of independents or not. One thing that MMP does offer that his preferences do not, by the way, is the ability for some MPPs to take the province as a whole into account in their political calculus. That can only be a good thing, and it militates against divisive, parochial politics.

Another concern of mine with the untimely passage of MMP is the probability that MMP will meet the "good enough" test of electoral reform and with previously ostensibly under-represented parties now holding a near-permanent balance of power, the issue will simply never be allowed to be re-opened unless it can be further modified to their benefit, which real democratic and electoral reforms will not be, as they would not be to the benefit of any party.

On the contrary, it will open up the debate. A Premier and Cabinet appointed by the legislature, for example, is in the interests of all parties. But, more than that, the electors themselves will be encouraged by their success in winning MMP to be active in this respect, and grassroots proposals for reform will not necessarily be ignored by the parties--they could, indeed, become political issues in election campaigns, now that the electors have sensed that they can actually change the natural order of things.

I maintain that MMP has no merit as an electoral system for Ontario, and nor do the arguments of the MMP lobby who have a great deal to gain at the expense of the province as a whole. One key point that proponents of MMP deliberately fail to grasp is that the representatives we send to Queen's Park actually have to govern the province through good times and through bad, and not just sit pretty.

I fail to see the logic or the point here. Under any system whatsoever, the problems of governance will remain. What does this have to do with the relative merits of MMP and FPTP?

I will leave out Graham's last paragraph, which consists largely of character assassination, and end here. There is only so much trouser-leg I can rip at one go.

_____________

*UPDATE (August 18): My friend Wilf Day of Fair Vote Canada reminds me not to concede this point after all. Under a proportional system, unless there is overhang, such voting is not "strategic"--you're just voting for the candidate that you prefer. If you go on voting for NDP candidates, rather than voting for your second-choice Liberal in a riding where the NDP has no hope, the electoral outcome (riding seats plus list seats) will still be the same, decided by the second (party) vote. Say there's a 40% party vote for Conservatives: they'll still get 40% of the seats, whatever NDP voters do for the Liberals in the ridings. If more riding Liberals are elected with NDP help, the Conservatives will simply pick up more list seats. So, unless there's a specific Conservative riding candidate that he or she simply can't abide, where's the strategy for an NDP voter in voting for a Liberal riding candidate?

Paranoia: are the Liberals trying to defeat MMP in Ontario?

John Hollins, head of Elections Ontario, has stated publicly that referendum regulations require the political parties to stay out of the electoral reform fray. Is this happening?

I'll be the first to say that I dunno. But a glance, admittedly brief, at the "NoMMP" campaign does raise some questions in my mind.

Take the website itself (please). It's registered to David Graham:

Status:         EXIST                                 
Registrar:      eNom Canada Corp.                     
Registrar-no:   505567                                
Registrant-no:  638983                                
Domaine-no:     1946336                               
Subdomain:      nommp.ca                              
Renewal-Date:   2008/07/19                            
Date-Approved:  2007/07/19                            
Date-Modified:  2007/07/19                            
Organization:   David Graham                          
Description:                                          
Admin-Name:     David Graham                          
Admin-Title:                                          
Admin-Postal:                                         
    Guelph ON  Canada                     
Admin-Phone:    +1.5197639692                         
Admin-Fax:                                            
Admin-Mailbox:  cdlu@pkl.net                          
Tech-Name:      David Graham                          
Tech-Title:                                           
Tech-Postal:                                          
    Guelph ON  Canada                     
Tech-Phone:     +1.5197639692                         
Tech-Fax:                                             
Tech-Mailbox:   cdlu@pkl.net                          
NS1-Hostname:   asteria.debian.or.at                  
NS1-Netaddress:                                       
NS2-Hostname:   moo.cdlu.net   

For good measure, Mr. Graham has registered "nommp.org" as well.

Graham runs his own blog, these days devoted pretty well to anti-MMP propaganda. His alleged non-partisanship is perhaps revealed by this recent statement: "Stéphane Dion has my full and continued support" (scroll to the end). But in any case, let's take a look at the two head honchos of the "NoMMP" campaign.

The Chair, a Mr. Michael Ufford, is a Liberal who recently donated $100 to the Gerard Kennedy leadership campaign. What of his Director of Communications, Joseph Angolano? Why, he's another Liberal, a McGuinty Liberal at that, who expressed support for the Ontario Citizens' Assembly process, giving it as a reason, in fact, for voting for McGuinty in the last election!

The "NoMMP" website directs our attention to a Facebook "No" group. After an admittedly cursory look at the names there assembled, these jumped out at me. I ran down their provenance for readers (although, to be fair, there is a smattering of Conservative activists listed there as well):

James Janeiro, University of Toronto Liberal Club vice-president;
Andrea Micieli, member of the same club;
Matthew Jurczak, ditto;
Joanna Murrell, ditto;
Ian Widgett, member, Liberal Party of Canada;
Mark Kalzer, Ajax-Pickering Young Liberals;
Nadia Bedok, Ajax-Pickering Young Liberals;
Jonathan Pinto, Peterborough Federal Liberal Youth Association;
Al Maghnieh, Liberal Party contributor and Susan Whelan campaigner;
Holly Ann Garnett, President, Nipissing Young Liberals;
Justin Tetrault, President, Algoma Young Liberals and northern Young Liberal coordinator;
Rachel Chertkoff, Liberal contributor;

and some guy named Jason Cherniak, who's probably a Liberal too.

Now, there was a Young Liberal Conference last weekend, in which two-thirds of those attending gulped down the anti-MMP Kool-Aid. Networking happens. But how do we explain the hidden Liberal face of the allegedly "non-partisan" "NoMMP" campaign, apparently run by party apparatchiks? Why hide that face?

Against all of this, of course, is the noble "Liberals for MMP" group, which is a blogroll inviting Liberals with pro-MMP interests to get on board. Nothing sketchy here--everything is above-board, affiliations are out in the open, a common purpose is identified. But as for the other bunch--Elections Ontario, are you doing your due diligence?

UPDATE (August 15): Joseph Angolano, a self-described "Liberal friendly-voter" [sic] who will be supporting Dalton McGuinty in the October election, would like it recorded that he is not now, and has never been, a member of the Liberal Party or a financial contributor to it, much less a Liberal "apparatchik." DawgNews hence retracts any suggestion to the contrary, and offers apologies to Mr. Angolano for any embarrassment caused. With the further information now at our disposal, the phrase "fellow traveller" would have been more appropriate.

UPDATE: (September 14) Mr. Angolano has taken down his blog, so the link to it, above, no longer works. For the record, this is his comment about McGuinty and the Ontario Citizen's Assembly:

Firstly, let us look at the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. McGuinty took one very important issue, that of electoral reform, and said that he would leave entirely up to the people of Ontario to decide what kind of electoral system they want. Political elites did not get involved. This, folks, is called true empowerment of the citizens. By creating this assembly, McGuinty has done more to advance democracy in Ontario that any other premier before him. I think he should be re-elected for this act alone.

Another kick at the MMP cat

David Graham has been at the "No MMP" thing for a while now, and he's decided to have a go at my "Ten Lies" piece. Let's see how well he does.

To help the reader, I'll use my original headings: he does as well. Here are the original misconceptions/ misapprehensions/lies once again.

1) MMP will create unstable coalition governments.

Graham doesn't stick to the question here, but takes a scattershot approach. He argues, or rather asserts, that an MMP system is "inappropriate to represent the diversity needed" in a population larger than that of PEI. He claims, after noting that we Canadians aren't European and have separate political traditions, that only four European countries have MMP--Scotland, Wales, a province in Serbia and Germany. (Alas, this is only the first of his factual inaccuracies: I shall correct them as we go along.) He notes the relatively low Ontario threshold (3%) required to obtain a list seat, and the lack of overhang provisions, in the current model. The internal caucus horsetrading that goes on now will be reduced under MMP, he asserts, because list MPPs will have no incentive to barter--they will just follow the party line. He suggests issue-by-issue agreement will be more likely than coalitions under MMP. Finally, Graham claims that had the 2003 Ontario election been run under MMP it would have resulted in the Liberals being only one seat shy of a majority.

I feel like the proverbial mosquito in a nudist camp, but here goes:

• How does FPTP accommodate diversity as opposed to MMP?
• How do our political traditions differ from the Westminster system from which they arose, and why does this make MMP inappropriate?
• With respect to European MMP, is Graham forgetting about the forms of it to be found in Hungary, the Ukraine, Russia and Italy (which recently abandoned its chaotic pure PR system)? Other European countries use a variety of other forms of proportional representation. Indeed, the only European country that uses FPTP is Great Britain. Most of the other countries where it's still in force are former British colonies.
  
• the Ontario threshold is relatively low--5% rather than 3% is more common. But that can be fixed if it proves to be a problem--it's hardly an argument against MMP as a whole. Ditto for the lack of overhang provisions (addition of extra seats after an election if required to preserve proportionality), which could indeed result in rare majority governments with minority support. Far from being rare, though, such false majorities have been the rule in Ontario under FPTP.
  
• List MPPs will be unlikely to keep their heads down and toe the party line, for a variety of reasons. First, they will very likely have to run as MPPs at some point, if the German example is any guide. Secondly, that "party line" itself evolves within a party caucus, and they will have their say like anyone else: it doesn't just fall from above. Finally, they will have to debate the issues with riding MPPs, who outnumber them two to one.
  
• Coalitions, like parties, are built around a constellation of political values. The notion of political governance based upon issue-by-issue agreement seems unlikely, based upon experience of MMP in other countries, none of whom have that hypothetical form of governance.
• Finally, under MMP in 2003, the Ontario Liberals would have fallen five seats short of a majority, not one, according to Fair Vote Canada's analysis: I'd be interested in how Graham arrived at his result. Incidentally, with a mere 6% increase in the popular vote, the Liberals doubled their seats in the legislature.

2) MMP will allow small fringe parties to call the shots.

Graham simply argues that it's a hypothetical possibility, based upon his erroneous account of the 2003 Ontario election. Perhaps, however, we should actually look at how MMP functions in the real world. Would Graham provide us with examples, or is he counting upon us conflating MMP with the Israeli pure PR system where, indeed, his scenario has been frequently observed?

3) MMP will elect members who represent no one, and whom no one's ever heard of.

Here Graham first argues that list-formation will not be an electoral issue, because the media will only cover controversial choices. With respect, I think he's missing the point. It's not just who end up on the list, but how they do. Rival parties will not be slow to point out weaknesses--if, for example, Party A's list is stuffed with party insiders whom nobody in the electorate has ever heard of, a smart Party B strategist would take full advantage of yet another wedge issue for the campaign.

Graham goes on to display his fundamental misunderstanding of the MMP proposal by arguing that the 39 list MPPs will lighten the load in only 39 of the proposed 90 ridings, leaving 51 MPPs to do more work than their riding colleagues. But no one has claimed that a list MPP would be available only to the electors in a single riding. They could, and indeed are far more likely to, work in regions, not single constituencies.

Finally, having chided me for using European examples, Graham himself indulges in silly fear-mongering, pointing to Russia where some parties sell list positions to raise funds.There is "no reason this couldn't happen here," he says. To which I can only reply, citing examples closer to home, that there is no reason it would.

4) MMP is less efficient than Single Member Plurality (First-Past-The-Post)

Graham cites a frustrated Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand, who said in an interview, after trying to get her way on monetary policy, that it's hard to make tough decisions under MMP. This isn't an argument, but an anecdote. One would hope, in any case, that under a democratic system, tough decisions would be made with majority legislative approval.

He continues his response to this point by claiming that reducing the number of riding MPPs reduces the effectiveness of riding representation, blithely ignoring the fact that there will now be list MPPs in the regions to shoulder the load. (While I can agree that Ontario, and Canada, have diverse regions that require region-specific attention, the same cannot be said of ridings. As an urban Ottawa voter, for example, I would be hard-put to name differences of interests between, say, the electors of Ottawa-Centre and of Ottawa-South.)

5) MMP does not require parties to explain how their lists are put together

Here, once again, Graham claims that list-formation will be a non-issue. See my response under (3).

6) MMP will make contact with your representative more difficult

As noted originally, the German electorate make no distinctions between list and riding MPs: list MPs are accessible to citizens and do their share of constituency work. Graham insists that it is "brain-damaged" to claim that list MPPs in Ontario would represent voters; I would say that it's a little odd to argue otherwise, since voters' votes put them into the legislature.

He goes on to produce that oft-heard canard that riding MPs, once elected, represent everyone in the riding, not just those who elected them. In some rarified, theoretical sense (never mind Tom Wappel) he might be right: in practical terms, our elected representatives tend to support their respective party lines on legislative votes. On a constituency basis, of course, their offices are open to anyone, but as noted the same would be the case for list MPPs.

7) MMP is confusing.

The best Graham can do here is to point to a Scottish study that showed considerable confusion among the voters when MMP was introduced. True enough--which is why in future elections the single-ballot system proposed in Ontario will be used there as well. It is profoundly insulting to the electors, in any case, to assume that giving them both a vote for a riding candidate and a vote for a party will reduce them to sobbing incomprehension.

And, at the end of his article, Graham, without a hint of embarrassment, expresses his support for one of the most complex voting systems of all time--the Condorcet system. (See for yourself.)

8) MMP will produce two tiers of political representative

Graham merely reasserts this--and then segues into the Speaker's alleged difficulty in recognizing members who wish to address the legislature! Members are now recognized by their riding name, he points out--whatever will the poor Speaker do when there are list MPPs as well? How will he address them?

Good grief.

9) MMP is undemocratic

Graham continues to argue that lists are undemocratic, and hence continues to evade the point that the electors will have the final say--and that the party selection process will be under scrutiny (he claims it won't be, which I have already indicated is a fantastic assertion). He would prefer a preferential ballot, which would, whether he supports this outcome or not, inevitably put the Natural Governing Party in a majority position, since the Liberals are everybody's first or second choice. (Conservatives will prefer Liberals over NDPers; NDPers will, as Buzz Hargrove illustrated, choose Liberals over Conservatives.) I don't see this as serious electoral reform. Under MMP, on the other hand, NDPers will support their first-choice NDP, and Conservatives, their first-choice Conservative Party.

Graham argues that strategic voting will still occur. He is not entirely wrong on this, but it would be quite a different kind of strategic voting--apples and oranges. Currently, as I noted, strategic voting means voting for a party you don't want in order to keep out a party you want even less. Under MMP, strategic voting, if it occurs, would mean splitting your vote between your party of choice and a likely coalition partner. What's wrong with that?

10) MMP is divisive

Graham argues that MMP will do nothing about regionally-based parties, but he doesn't really come to grips with the issue. Currently, a party facing a national (or provincial party) with a national (or provincial) base of support is tempted to exacerbate regional differences, as I noted before. Under MMP, regional differences will not go away, but there is less incentive to blow them out of proportion, because a party can gain seats by appealing to a broader constituency rather than having to concentrate its support in a few regional ridings. Graham's counter-example uses a retired New Zealand police officer as an authority, and it doesn't bear upon the regional issue at all.

Concluding Note:

MMP, Graham asserts, will push us further away from such basic reforms as a legislatively elected Premier. It is not at all clear why this should be so. If the electors vote in MMP, they will see for themselves that the existing system is not part of the natural order of things, like gravity, but a structure subject to change. The debate around other reforms will be likely to grow, not dissipate.

"MMP has no merit," Graham baldly concludes. I'm afraid that I have to say the same about his arguments. Readers--and, more important, Ontario electors--will of course decide for themselves. But I can only hope that they aren't swayed by such specious reasoning.

Our national disgrace: disband the RCMP now

Enough is enough. What does our national police force have to do to be reined in--launch an abortive coup d'état? Now it actually has the face to defend its negligent and possibly criminal actions against Maher Arar, and its subsequent sorry efforts to cover it all up. How much more are Canadians and the gutless political "masters" of this out-of-control police force willing to take?

Over the past few months we've watched Mounties execute shoot a young man under dubious circumstances and do their best to hide the trail, assault a group of Native people celebrating a soccer victory in their own village, lie to Parliament, and now shamefully rationalize their cover-up in the Arar case, a cover-up that turns out to be based, not upon questions of national security, but on protecting assorted asses, not excluding their own.

How many more civilians will be shot under suspicious circumstances? Taxpayer dollars mismanaged to the tune of billions? Natives brutalized? Whistleblowers punished, with the complicity of Canadian courts? Peaceful demonstrators and infants pepper-sprayed? Citizens sent to other countries to be tortured, based upon false information? Mass-murderers uncaught because of bungling incompetence? Civilian "review" scoffed at?

A new Commissioner won't do it--it turns out that he's into this muck up to his neck. Reforms won't do it--the corruption has by now extended deep roots into the culture that has been allowed to fester in this police force for years. It's a sick culture, one in which sexual harassment runs rampant, where young Native girls are seen as an occupational perk, where racism is the order of the day.

The "horribly broken" RCMP doesn't need to be reformed. It needs to be disbanded.

It's 2007 and it's time for a clean slate. Are you listening, Prime Minister Harper? Stéphane Dion? Jack Layton? Gilles Duceppe? Canadians have a right to--and we must have--a new national police force, one not only sworn to uphold the law rather than break it with impunity, but under a civilian review board with the power to ensure that the oath is kept: one that can actually bring errant officers, and indeed the Commissioner if need be, to account.We need a new police discipline and a new police culture, and they need to be rebuilt from the ground up. We're long, long overdue. Which political leader will have the courage to step up to the plate first and demand it?

Not straight enough: deportation looms

An American man who fled San Francisco for Canada and claimed refugee status is facing deportation, DawgNews has learned.

Skip Tracey, 26, who left his home city last year claiming persecution because he was heterosexual, has for a second time had his refugee claim denied. Refugee Board adjudicator Ida Knowe issued a ruling yesterday that Mr. Tracey "just doesn't seem straight enough," noting that for the past several years in Canada Mr. Tracey has not had a girlfriend, and describing his wardrobe as "flaming."

"That's complete nonsense," said Biff Bomber, a spokesman for the Canadian Straight Arrows advocacy group, after the ruling. "If straight people have to have girlfriends all the time to prove they're straight, where does that leave Roman Catholic priests?" As to his attire, Bomber says, "He's not homosexual, he's metrosexual. If the Refugee Board hasn't got that one figured out, they're living back in the 50s. I mean, come on, get with the program."

Bomber, who says he is "between marriages," claims that Tracey faces serious reprisals if he is sent back to San Francisco, noting that Gay Pride Parade attendance is mandatory, and that forced pedicures are not uncommon. "They think it's funny to paint straight men's toenails," Bomber says. "Straight-bashing is an ever-present possibility."

"Tracey loves Canada," Bomber went on. "It's a safe place for heterosexuals. They can cruise public parks with baseball bats all night without fear," he said, noting with regret however that police still harass them on occasion. "But we've come a long way. We make almost as much as gay people, and some of us are even doing well in the fashion business."

Refugee Board spokesperson Mitch Tanner rejected Tracey's claims of persecution as "fanciful." "Tracey doesn't have to go back to San Francisco, just back to the U.S.," she said. "He can settle down in Montana if he wants," she continued. "But he's going to have to wear denim. Like that'll ever happen."

There has been no word as yet on Tracey's last-ditch appeal to Immigration Minister Diane Finley. His current whereabouts are unknown, but it is suspected that he is seeking sanctuary in a well-known Toronto breeder bar.

QOTD: the new Arar revelations

John Ibbitson in today's Globe & Mail:

National security my ass. Foreign Affairs, CSIS and especially the RCMP were simply trying to keep hidden their incompetent, duplicitous, disgraceful handling of the Arar case. And they're still at it.

Why should anyone trust anything that our government says about Maher Arar any more?

What could anyone add to that?

Ten lies about MMP

1) MMP will create unstable coalition governments.

This is not borne out by the record. Germany, for example, has had an equivalent system in place for decades, and has had the most stable governments of any democratic country during that time. The many other European countries with MMP have experienced no such instability either. Canada is one of the last holdouts in the world for Single Member Plurality (SMP), commonly known as First-Past-The Post.

We should look at the nature of a coalition, in any case. Many of the existing parties are coalitions in all but name; caucus bartering goes on all the time, attempting to reconcile varying interests across the country. Backroom dealing, which representatives of some of these very parties now profess to be afraid of, is an everyday fact of life in those parties, both inside and outside the legislature.

The necessity of forming formal coalitions will require a change in political culture, which is not a bad thing--more openness to compromise, more emphasis on win-win solutions. This is an attractive proposition on all sides of the political spectrum, but is frowned upon by those who simply want to impose their will on the province or the country with minority support.

In terms of public policy, MMP produces far more stability than does the present system. Under SMP, even a modest shift in the popular vote can result in massive policy changes, as one party or another acquires the necessary plurality to form a false majority (a majority of seats won with a minority of the popular vote). Under MMP, a modest shift in the popular vote simply produces an equally modest shift in the seat apportionment in the legislature.

2) MMP will allow small fringe parties to call the shots.

False. A threshold of 3% of the popular vote will keep out many of the single-issue extremists. And even if some achieve that threshold, it is far more likely that a major party will want to make coalitions with other large parties where compromise is both possible and more agreeable. There is no history of fringe parties holding the balance of power in European countries with MMP.

3) MMP will elect members who represent no one and whom no one's ever heard of.

False. Those members represent those who voted for their party. They are in the legislature because electors put them there. They are accountable to those electors as a whole.

Experience indicates that the vast majority of list members have also run in constituencies. In Germany, as Quebec scholar Louis Massicotte explains,

Typically, a list member starts out by running unsuccessfully in a constituency. To run, he or she has to become familiar with the local issues. The person tries again in the next election. If his or her party comes to power, its number of list seats will decline noticeably and the only way to get elected will likely be by running in a constituency. For this reason, such a person will remain active in the constituency during his or her term of office and give such activities almost as much effort as a “directly” elected member. . . the phenomenon is recognized in official literature for the public and some parliamentary websites even explicitly indicate the constituency in which each list member works. (Federal Parliament, provincial parliaments of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony.) [74] For example, the 1998 federal election saw a major constituency shift. Victorious in 221 constituencies in 1994, the CDU/CSU won only 112 in 1998. Meanwhile, the SPD went from 103 to 212 direct seats. No fewer than 124 members changed category: 73 incumbent list members (all from the SPD, except 2) became constituency members, whereas 51 incumbent constituency members (all from the CDU/CSU) held their seats thanks to party lists. [76]

4) MMP is less efficient that Single Member Plurality (First-Past-The-Post)

This frequently-heard claim is really code for, "We worked the system, we got our majority, and we can do what we like until the next election." If strongman politics is preferred, then SMP/FPTP is the system for you. Governments can rule with only minority support, and impose their policies upon the unwilling majority until the next ballot, when all that is needed to keep doing what they're doing is to get another minority share of the vote.

The ruthless efficiency of a minority-supported dictatorship-between-elections is less preferable, however, than a system where nearly every elector's choice translates into seats. If these choices produce a variety of representatives, the democratic approach is to look for compromise and consensus. The latter is not make-the-trains-run-on-time efficient, but it works best in the long run, and is more conducive to citizen involvement in their governance.

5) MMP does not require parties to explain how their lists are put together.

This claim, made recently by Jason Cherniak and others, is simply wrong. The Ontario Citizens' Assembly specifically recommended that parties be required to make public their method of list creation by submitting their selection process to the non-partisan Elections Ontario, which would then publish that information widely. Electors could see, for example, if backroom party hacks or cronies of the Premier have been awarded the list positions, or if, on the other hand, the parties have a more democratic and open process, that does something, for example, about the representation of women and minorities, geographic balance, and so on.

6) MMP will make contact with your representative more difficult.

It is worth noting that at present the vast majority of citizens a) never contact their political representative, and b) vote for the party, not the candidate. But MMP will not make contacting one's MLA more difficult--indeed, the reverse is true.

For those with short memories, Ontario had 130 ridings until Mike Harris sliced that back to 103 in 1996 with the Fewer Politicians Act. The current MMP proposal would restore almost all of those seats (129). The number of ridings would be slightly reduced (to 90 from the current 107). The rest would be apportioned to create a legislature that actually reflects the way people voted.

Under MMP, citizens who want to contact their representative between elections now have a choice: to go the riding MLA, or, if that person is not to their political taste, to approach a list member from their party of choice.

7) MMP is confusing.

Wrong. What's confusing is the welter of lies, distortions and misapprehensions emanating from the special interests who oppose MMP. MMP is in fact simplicity itself: an elector gets two votes, one for the party of choice, and one for the riding candidate of choice. Once the riding contests are decided, the popular vote determines how list seats are handed out. End of story. Not rocket science, but common democratic sense.

8) MMP will produce two tiers of political representative.

Once again, this has not been the case in Germany, with its long history of MMP. As Eckhard Jesse, cited by Louis Massicotte, points out,

The assumption, that the two-vote system produces two kinds of MP, the constituency MP and the Landesliste MP, is empirically refutable. Contrary to widespread opinions, it is of absolutely no importance whether a mandate is obtained through the constituency and the Landesliste. Double candidatures are the rule. The voters do not perceive the difference at all. [61]

9) MMP is undemocratic.

"MMP gives parties too much power!" This is a bit rich, coming from those who represent parties that prefer to go on ruling with minority popular support, whose candidates can be shoehorned by the party leader into constituencies over the objections of the local riding associations, and all of whose riding candidates in any case are selected by the party.

So now the party lists will also be selected by the party--no change there. And the parties, as noted, will have to make the public aware of their process of choosing list candidates. Any Ignatieff or Anders shenanigans on a list-wide basis will almost certainly meet with elector resistance.

A system that produces majorities in Ontario that since the early 1930s have had only minority support is not democratic. A system that allows the party that gets fewer votes than their rival to form a majority government (as happened recently in New Brunswick) isn't democratic. A system that prevents political views held by a substantial number of electors from being represented in the legislature because they aren't concentrated in a handful of ridings is undemocratic. A system that produces wide swings in policy when only a minor shift in public opinion has taken place is undemocratic.

MMP, on the other hand, is a significant move in the direction of democratic governance. An elector's vote will make a difference: even in a solid Liberal riding, a vote for the Greens or the NDP will count. The legislature, as noted, will come much closer to reflecting the range and the relative strengths of the political views held by the electorate. So-called "strategic voting," in which electors are tempted to vote for a party they don't want to keep out another party they want even less, will become unnecessary, and they can vote for the party they do want, knowing that their votes will be counted. Now, that's democratic.

10) MMP is divisive.

This claim is based upon the false notion that a large number of parties will create chaos in the legislature--something not borne out by actual experience. But let's look at the divisiveness created and fostered by the present system.

First-Past-The-Post encourages a narrow regionalism rather than national or provincial consensus. In order to have a chance against an established, entrenched party like the Liberals, another party will lean towards a strategy of concentrating its riding votes by exaggerating regional differences. We have seen this clearly on the federal stage in the case of both the Reform Party and the Bloc Québécois. In the former case, a coalition came into being, but the Conservative Party of Canada still trades on Western alienation. In Ontario, we have northern vs. southern and urban vs. rural; even in Toronto we have the "905" folks vs. the "416" people.

MMP, on the other hand, will yield roughly proportional results that make riding concentration unnecessary. The efforts of political parties could be re-directed towards the actual issues and towards consensus instead of division. None of this is to say, of course, that genuine regional differences and interests will disappear--only that they will be less likely to be opportunistically used and abused by parties vying for seats.

Concluding note:

MMP is not a panacea, and will not produce a democratic utopia. There are far too many other aspects of our system of governance that would have to be looked at--for example, why should the Premier be chosen by the party instead of by the electorate? Why should the Cabinet be appointed by the Premier instead of by the legislature as a whole? How can Aboriginal interests be effectively represented in the legislature under either the current system or MMP? These are other questions, for other debates, but in the meantime MMP is clearly a step in the right direction. To let this opportunity slip through our fingers because of the deliberate prevarication of entrenched special interests would be a tragedy. Let's not let that happen.

Canada-US Stupid Border Policy

The fellow on the left is named Tom Juravich. On the right is his partner, Teresa Healy. Declaration of interest: Teresa lives a couple of blocks from me. I know and like them both. Teresa is a researcher for the Canadian Labour Congress. Tom is a respected professor of labour studies in the United States, the director of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst Labor Relations and Research Center. The two of them are also accomplished musicians. I had the pleasure of listening to a porch concert at their place a few weeks back when we had a neighbourhood garage sale and fair.

Tom was invited by Carleton University to teach graduate courses this coming term. This may not happen. He has been denied a work permit--because he was arrested 26 years ago for participating in a non-violent sit-in against "replacement workers." Charges were dropped the next day, and he has no criminal record. But, so far as Canadian immigration officials are concerned, he has to prove it. That may not be easy, because the documentation in the US apparently no longer exists. He had hoped to have Massachusetts state officials confirm that the charges had been dropped, but they told him to submit an application and wait.

Now, as the meat in a binational bureaucratic sandwich, Tom is waiting for his clearance so that he can take up his duties at Carleton. He and Teresa are worried that all of this will tell against his eventual application for permanent residency in Canada.

Is there a whiff of politics in the air? I'm not certain at this point, although the potential for a chilling effect on legitimate protest is obvious, and the academic community is already on the case. But I have been asking myself this: suppose he had been convicted of sitting in after all. So what? That's usually a trespass offence or something of that nature: a misdemeanor, not a felony. Would this mean, were the man still alive, that Martin Luther King, not to mention too many civil rights activists to count, couldn't teach at Carleton because they once did a lunch-counter protest?

Smart border? Not so long as it keeps intellectuals of Tom's calibre out--and lets drunk drivers of dubious intelligence in. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: (August 4)

Tom got his work permit! Here is his open letter:

This morning at 11:00 am (Friday,August 3) I entered the Canadian Border Services office at Cornwall and am delighted to report that I was allowed back into Canada and received my work permit to teach at Carleton University. I presented a court document indicating that all changes had been dropped against me (which turned out very difficult to obtain because my official court records were no longer available 26 years later).My file on both sides of the border now indicates I have been "rehabilitated" – from being innocent! There is much more to say about this, but not today. Teresa met me at the border and there was never a more joyful reunion.

As I stood at the border this morning, it was very clear that I was not alone. So many of you were standing there next to me. I don’t know how I can ever thank everyone who wrote letters, sent emails, faxes, and made phone calls on my behalf. These, along with all the press it generated, were instrumental in changing how I was treated at the border today, as opposed to 9 days ago.

In all my joy today, I am mindful of all those who don’t have funds for lawyers on both sides of the borders, and letters of support from universities and unions. We must stand for them as well. And we must speak publicly about the dangers of the unregulated exchange of information that the government is pushing so hard. As Teresa and I sang today, "Ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around…"

Solidarity,
Tom Juravich