The candidates they run

Now that all the noise has died down about former Green candidate John Shavluk, who once made a remark that reportedly "could be construed as anti-Semitic," revelations about Liberal and Tory candidates and their dubious comments and connections indicate that the two largest political parties aren't exactly above criticism themselves.

First it was Tory candidate Nicole Charbonneau Barron, from the South Shore Montreal riding of St. Bruno-St. Hubert, who, thanks to Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, has been exposed as a member of the extreme-right Opus Dei Catholic sect.

Did the Tories dump her? Not on your life. Conservative Ryan Sparrow lost no time in denouncing Duceppe as anti-Catholic.

And now we find out that the Liberals are running a pair of anti-Native racists in Quebec: Simon Bédard, running in Québec-Centre, and Ricardo Lopez, formerly a Mulroney Tory, now a candidate for the Liberals in Beauharnois-Salaberry.

On the Oka crisis in 1990, this is what Bédard, a radio commentator, had to say:

Tu rentres là avec l’armée pis tu nettoies tout ça. Cinquante morts, 100 morts, 125 morts, ça vient de s’éteindre. On enterre ça pis on continue à vivre. [You go in with the army and you clean things up. Fifty dead, 100 dead, 125 dead, that will end this. We bury it and life goes on.]

A Liberal spokesperson, Robert Boulay, said that these remarks go back a long time. As reported:

Ce n’est pas un gars qui a la langue dans sa poche, souligne-t-il. Mais il a maintenant 18 années de plus de vie. Il a une évolution intellectuelle extraordinaire et encore plus de bagou. Mais ça va être dit différement. [He's not shy about opening his mouth, [Boulay] stressed. But he's eighteen years older now. His intellectual development has been extraordinary; he still runs his mouth, but he'd say things differently now.]

Well, not so, as it happens. As reported by the Montreal Gazette today, Bédard is unrepentant:

"On a été scandalisé parce que j’ai dit : 'Allons-y avec l’armée et nettoyons ça une fois pour toutes!' Mais peut-être qu’on aurait dû le faire parce que 17 [sic] ans plus tard, c’est encore la même chose. Et s’il y a de quoi, c’est pire." ["They were scandalized when I said: 'go in with the army and clean this up once and for all.' But perhaps they should have done it , because 17 [sic] years later, it's the same thing. In fact, it's worse."

Bédard still wants armed intervention to stop smuggling in Kanesatake:

Il demeure convaincu que la contrebande qui sévit à Kanesatake mérite une intervention fédérale musclée et s'il est élu, il comptera sur son chef, Stéphane Dion, pour l'appuyer dans ses démarches. [He remains convinced that the rampant smuggling in Kanesetake demands a forceful federal intervention, and if he is elected he will be counting on his leader, Stéphane Dion, to support him on this.]

For his part, ex-Tory Lopez preferred forced exile to mass murder: during Oka, he just wanted all Natives deported to Labrador, although he now claims this remark was taken out of context. (In what context would such a remark be acceptable?)

How many more of these folks are going to be exposed once all the political rocks have been turned over?

In the meantime, will Stéphane Dion give these two the heave-ho? Stay tuned. This one ought to be interesting.

(H/t Dust My Broom, Robert Jago, Marie Ève)


UPDATE: (September 11) Stéphane Dion does the right thing: Simon Bédard was chucked today. Now, about that Ricardo Lopez guy...is Norm Spector on to something here?

UPPERDATE: (September 13) Indeed he was. In fact, Ricardo Lopez was never a candidate: the Party says so (shades of George Orwell). H/t Paul Wells.

The Conservative culture of obscurantism

Though it's likely that few of the CPC faithful would be familiar with the term, it seems that obscurantism is woven deeply into that party's culture.

An article in yesterday's Le Devoir offers up evidence of many instances where the Conservatives' New Government has reined in the release of information and willfully promoted a culture of obscurantism.

A brief look at the succinct entry for obscurantism in Wikipedia takes you from the familiar ("the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known") to the hermetic (Derrida, Lacan et al). Ever pragmatic, Le Devoir provides examples of the Conservatives practices of obscuring information from the public by making it unavailable. Two major scientific studies commissioned by the federal government, the first about global warming and its effect upon public health and the second, a rigorous analysis of the social costs of our current transportation systems, were released in the dead of summer.

The article also mentions that immediately after the Conservatives came to power in 2006, all information and links regarding the Kyoto accord were removed from the Environment Canada website. An allusion to the SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) tactic for silencing critics did not reference the Chuck Cadman affair, but I will.

"Though often associated with religious fundamentalism, obscurantism is a distinct strain of thought: Fundamentalism presupposes a sincere belief in religion, while obscurantism rests on the deliberate manipulation of faith by an enlightened few."

Which segues perfectly to a rather arcane species of obcurantists: Opus Dei members. Thanks to La Presse and its diligent reporters, a Con candidate in a riding south of Montréal has been outed as an adherent of that extremist orthodox sect within the Catholic Church.

Fortunately, black hole production is not yet available to the Cons' overactive web designer geeks otherwise there might be more major 'unsanctioned' obscurantism.

CPC kids - don't play with the anti-matter machine at Conservative Party Headquarters without adult supervision, okay?

Debates

Well, I don't know what I'm going to watch on the evening of October 2: it seems, as Kelly McParland writes in an amusing column today, that the "reigning geniuses in debateland" have scheduled the second all-except-Green leaders' gabfest at the same time as the US Vice-Presidential debate.

So it's a choice: watching Sarah Palin being wolfed down by Joe Biden, or listening to our carefully-prepared, on-message leaders deliver scripted lines and try to look spontaneous. Who knows, a ray of emotion might even be detected in the latter--the mere possibility of that should keep us all on the edge of our seats, yawning.

I think I'll probably take in the political cannibalism down south. It promises to be viscerally entertaining, as unequal contests always are (come on, let's be honest here). And I can always pretend that giving in to my dark side is motivated by principle, even if the same establishment nonsense shut out the Nader/Gonzalez ticket. Yes, a boycott of the leaders' debate. Just the thing. I feel my virtue being restored as I type this.

Canadians love principle. It's something we can grasp, and feel good about. And, I hasten to add, that's a good thing. I'm not being cynical. In the past few days there has been a torrent of bitter criticism of the TV consortium for backing down on the Elizabeth May participation issue. 66% of Canadians want the right to see her in action, even if they don't exercise it: most, in fact, wouldn't vote for her no matter how brilliantly she performs.

But we're fighting for the underdog. That's what we do (unless we're Conservative, in which case we kick the underdog and say it's all the underdog's fault). Most of us have a deep sense of fairness in this country. We think people should get a shot. We don't like bullies. In the words of the famous New York PM Magazine, we 're against people who push other people around.

We're standing up, in other words, for the right of a person most of us wouldn't dream of voting for, a person with all the finger-wagging, sententious charm of a schoolmarm on steroids, to take part in two evenings of talking heads whose words have been anxiously assembled by assorted backroomers and handlers and popped in their mouths like breath mints just before showtime.

Kind of makes me proud to be a Canadian. I mean it.

Unbelievably, Jack Layton, the leader of the party whose card I carry, is still defending the indefensible. Someone must have told him that changing one's mind, even for the better, doesn't look decisive and leaderly. But he's managed to observe only half of the old adage, "Never explain, never apologize." He's still explaining, and he just won't stop digging until he emerges somewhere in China.

Just look at this report from yesterday:

Layton was asked how he can cast himself as the champion of the anti-establishment, a leader who would bring change to Ottawa, while at the same time defending the status quo when it comes to the debate.

"I'll tell you what the status quo is," the NDP chief fired back -- successive Tory and Liberal governments that represent the old-school establishment.

"We have someone else who wants to be in the debate who actually supports the leader of one of those parties," he said of May.

"I don't agree with that position. I think what we want to do is take on the same old same old, which is the Conservative and Liberal governments in power year after year."

Layton also tried to shift responsibility for the decision to exclude May to the consortium of television networks that will host the event, which takes place Oct. 1-2.

Shorter Layton: "Keep May out because I don't like her politics, but hey, I had nothing to do with that decision." Good grief. It's downright embarrassing.

The reality is that Liberals stand to lose some so-called battleground ridings because rising Green support is eating into their base. The Greens are, in other words, seriously running against them, not collaborating with them. But as the leader of a party that has no chance of forming a government, May has every right to indicate a preference for what she regards as second-best.

Never mind all that, though. None of the arguments against her appearance hold water, because there are no principled arguments to be had. It's all about exclusion and power. You want to "take on the same old, same old," Jack? Look in the mirror and start right there.

Yup, I guess it's Palin v. Biden for me, all raw meat and attack dogs. That sort of thing is banned up here, I think. But you can call my choice a boycott, if you like. Hell, the way I'm feeling right now, I might even boycott the election.

UPDATE: I can't leave my house on business even for a few hours without being overtaken by events. Jack Layton and Stephen Harper have reversed their positions this afternoon and cleared the way for May's participation. Nothing like a groundswell of popular protest to produce a "change of heart." Bravo, Canadians!

Huffin' and puffin on the campaign trail

The case of the disappearing puffin and Stephen Harper's gritted-teeth apology for the incontinent bird has overwhelmed the media today.

Am I the only one who scratched his head when this story first broke, having quite forgotten that Stéphane Dion's rival George Michael Ignatieff had once extolled the fastidious nature of the bird in question? What would the general public have made of this hastily-withdrawn TV clip?

This campaign is going to be about substance, dammit. No, no, not that one. Well, maybe that one.

Green exclusion: an anti-democratic travesty

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. --Margaret Mead, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935)

We are not looking at a fringe group here. They look a lot like Canadians as a whole. --Steven Brown, Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy

I'll likely never vote Green. It's a petty bourgeois party whose appeal is more to small business and disaffected Tories than to socialists. But I'm mad as hell about the news today: the goalposts have been moved, and the Green Party has once more been excluded from the televised leaders' debates.

The Greens are currently at 10% in the polls. They have a sitting Member of Parliament. During the last election, they took 4.5% of the vote. Based upon voters' preference rather than our creaky, undemocratic "first past the post" system, that should have meant 14 seats or so in our 308-seat House of Commons.

The corporate media have tamely gone along with the major parties. This time, not having the excuse of "no MPs" to fall back on, they have stated--and I have no reason to disbelieve them, in fact--that some of the other parties blackmailed them into excluding the Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, with the threat of a leaders' boycott.

Democracy is about representation, accountability, transparency--and choice. From the perspective of the people, democracy means maximizing options, alternatives and competing visions. Governments, in fact, should be facilitating this as part of their mandate, although some (including governments) find this counterintuitive. Grants to such diverse organizations as the Canadian Labour Congress, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and the Court Challenges program, as well as to counter-cultural artists and "left-wing" television personalities, help to foster debate, allow new ideas some oxygen, and improve social and cultural discourse in general.

Political parties and governments, however, for which power, not democracy, is the immediate goal, seek to narrow options and exclude possibilities. It is in their interests to do so: every squelched alternative represents a pool of votes that could go to them, or one less perspective opposed to them.

The same anti-democratic thinking lies behind the major parties' strong opposition to electoral reform.* Think about it: if around 40% of the vote is enough to deliver majority power to parties again and again and again, why would the beneficiaries of "first past the post" support a democratic alternative where the preferences of the people are duly represented in the House of Commons? And that 40%, by the way, is only about 8 or 9 times the popular Green vote in the last election.

The arguments against Elizabeth May's participation, as they are reported, are ludicrous and false. Stephen Harper claims that May is just another Liberal, because the Liberal Party stood aside for her in Central Nova. But as the Globe & Mail pointed out last Thursday, this is not a principled reason to exclude her from a leaders' debate. And the NDP's Michael Byers calls the Greens a "single issue party," which makes no sense at all and is demonstrably untrue: the Greens have positions on all of the major issues before us. Certainly the party looks at those issues through a green lens, but why is that any different from the NDP doing so through a pink one?

Those of us who value principle over party expediency need to be heard on this. We should let our respective party brass know, and quickly, that power cannot be permitted to trump our democratic values. This is, or should be, a non-partisan issue. So far, only the Liberals have stood up for our right to hear what Elizabeth May has to say, but, Liberal readers, there's no harm in reinforcing that position. Call or send politely-worded messages to the leader of your party of choice (follow the links):

New Democratic Party
Liberal Party of Canada
Conservative Party of Canada
Bloc Québécois

UPDATE: NDP veteran Gerald Caplan weighs in:

I'm dismayed at the decision to keep Ms. May out of the debate. It's contrary to democracy, common sense and civil decency. I'm hugely disappointed that the NDP is party to this exclusion. I'm shocked that the Conservatives and NDP apparently have threatened not to participate if she had been included. I'm incredulous that Mr. Layton would use the Liberal-Green deal in a single seat to argue that they're virtually the same party. I can hardly believe Mr. Harper's brazenness in saying, without an iota of proof, that Ms. May intends to endorse Mr. Dion.

Now we are left with the spectacle of four men babbling to each other, while another man moderates. Nice work, boys.

Make no mistake: Ms. May is being excluded for no reason of principle. This is all about exploiting an opportunity against a potentially dangerous opponent. Another word for this is opportunism. This is a decision that may well come back to haunt both the Conservatives and the NDP. And they'll have no one to blame but themselves.

Testify, Brother!

UPPERDATE: The Bloc backs off, and the backlash begins. (H/t Saskboy and JimBobby)
_______________
*In fairness, the NDP has stood up for proportional representation, with feisty Ed Broadbent leading the charge. But prominent BC NDPers like Bill Tieleman were outspoken in their opposition during a reform referendum in 2005, where 58% of the voters cast ballots in favour. The BC NDP has, in the past, won majorities with FPTP.

Line! Overheard during the 2008 federal election.

Gilles Duceppe is the leader of the Bloc Québecois. While many in the so-called RoC - rest of Canada - wonder what role (or political game) the BQ plays in Ottawa and in federal politics, Duceppe reminded me today how refreshing it can be to hear an outsider's perspective.

The so-called "In-and-Out" accounting practices of the Conservative Party during the last federal election, also known as Adscam, were in the process of being scrutinized by the House of Commons Ethics Committee during August. The behaviour of the Con MPs who attended this committe proceedings were observed and live-blogged by Kady O'Malley, a reporter for MacLean's. This issue is important for the BQ because it may involve high-profile Con candidates that Duceppe's party wants to defeat at the polls on October 14th and so Gilles raised it today, when he spoke in Trois-Rivières.

The 'money quote' (pun intended) was Duceppe's response to the Cons grumbling about keeping their eyes on Elections Canada this time. He likened that tactic to criminals who threaten to watch the police for illegal activity.

Meanwhile, in news that remain relevant to the election campaign even though released before the writ was dropped, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation calculated the cost of pre-election spending announcements made by Stephen Harper’s New™ government. Total amount of promised spending as of September 5, 2008: "$8.8-billion, roughly $94-million a day or about $3.9-million every hour ..."

Updated to add: Oh, I forgot to mention this other important money fact. When byelections are cancelled, all the candidates' expenses not covered by donations have to be reimbursed by Elections Canada. So taxpayers will be stuck with a bill for close to $3.5 million. Additionally this election will cost us about $300 million. Just saying.

The Dion-Harper coalition

Back in March the Ottawa Citizen published some disturbing figures about party voting records in the House of Commons. At that point there had been 76 votes in the House during the current session of Parliament. Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe cast 73 votes. PM Stephen Harper cast 49.

Stéphane Dion voted 33 times. The Liberals participated in only 49 of the 76 votes. When they did bother showing up, they supported the government 60% of the time. They supported the budget. They supported extending our involvement in the Afghanistan quagmire. They gave the government a de facto majority.

As I lamented at the time:

What's left of parliamentary politics in Canada? The pun is intentional. Stéphane Dion's Liberals have gutted almost everything that remained of a legitimate political process in the House of Commons, which, under Chrétien and now under Harper, admittedly wasn't much.

It is bad enough that two successive Prime Ministers have concentrated so much power in the PMO that even the Cabinet is little more than a focus group. But until Dion came to power, there has been, at least, a noisy and sometimes effective opposition. The last nail in the coffin of parliamentary democracy has been the neutering of that opposition by Dion. The Liberals are so deathly afraid of the electorate that they have simply abdicated. Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition? More like Her Majesty's scared rabbits.

The Liberals are so so white-faced, pants-crappingly frightened of facing the voters that Harper is pushing the envelope beyond all reasonable bounds, attaching bits and pieces of his agenda to unrelated omnibus bills and daring the Liberals to bring him down. And it's getting easier and easier for him, as he (and we helpless onlookers) discover that there is no line in the sand for Dion, there is no Rubicon, there is no point of honour. Dion's strategy, if you can call it that, is to keep propping up the Conservatives until his prayers for a miracle are answered. But there are no miracles in politics. The voters are unimpressed, and the numbers prove it. Why vote Liberal when you can vote for the folks that the Liberals support?

Jack Layton calls this "truancy." But that's a word reserved for kids who skip school. This appalling behaviour by the Liberals is a threat to the very core of parliamentary democracy, which is all the national democracy we've got. Nothing less. 'Truancy?" Let's not mince words here, Jack. What about "collaboration?" What about "subversion?"

I've seen nothing since to alter my thinking. Indeed, one of the worst Liberal betrayals was yet to come: Liberal support (by more of its trademark "truancy") for the anti-immigrant Bill C-50.

Mark Collins called my attention in March to a provocative article by Paul Wells in Maclean's. I wish I'd paid more attention to it, because it seems to explain, at least to some degree, the Liberal perfidy we have been observing with horrified fascination these many months.

Essentially, says Wells, the Liberals and the Conservatives have been governing in coalition. Truth be told, I can't tell whether Wells is writing this tongue-in-cheek or not, although I suspect that he may be, but it's worth thinking about. Whether the coalition is a deliberate construction of behind-the-scenes operators or just fell into place accidentally, a coalition it has been. Dion and his caucus have done almost as much to advance the Harper agenda as the Prime Minister himself.

Harper is gambling that a sufficient number of Canadian electors are fed up with Conservatives in Liberal dress, and will now vote for the real thing. He may be right. With a no-nonsense campaign, though, articulated with passion and clarity, the New Democrats could present themselves as the real Opposition in the House. Rightly so: it's a matter of record. Perhaps enough voters, disgusted by the seamy, duplicitous politics of the Conservatives and their Liberal allies, might be persuaded to support an alternative.

Otherwise, of course, it's just back to business as usual. Whether it's Harper's Liberals or Dion's Conservatives, we'll get the same old, same old, much of a muchness politics that has been driving voter turnout down for years.

If Parliament is to regain its relevance, we need something entirely different, and not in the Monty Python sense. To borrow a phrase, we need change we can believe in. Real change. A change for the better. Can Jack Layton's NDP make the case for it?

Stephen, we hardly know you … and likely never will.

On Sunday morning I watched as the current prime minister of Canada held a televised press conference in Québec city and wondered out loud: Who is this? Absent was the familiarly churlish, arrogant, sneering, hostile, contemptuous man that many Canadians knew from past scrums with reporters. So who, or what was this incarnation of Stephen Harper taking questions from the judiciously assembled media?

Soft-spoken, smiling, polite, charming and almost shy as he gazed away and back to the camera, this seemingly diffident version of Stephen Harper was a performance designed to disarm the eager, possibly aggressive probes from the press corps and to capture the hearts of women watching.

The Conservatives know, from polling results, that their leader has a “female” problem. The majority of Canadian women do not trust Harper to defend their rights. To redress this situation, a cleverly crafted persona was created: a gentle and even sweet Stephen.

This was the Harper on display Sunday morning.

I found his performance riveting. Like most Canadian women, I have experienced in the course of my lifetime at least one intimate relationship that was abusive and based on power imbalance. It matters little who that particular individual was: parent, teacher, friend, coach, lover, boss or spouse.

It is the habitual pattern of behaviour that is significant: an ingratiating phase followed by angry, authoritarian actions that are intended to control. Faced with the loss of a relationship (or control over someone) a bully has to resort to a display of tenderness (recriminations, tears, pleading, cajoling, and charm) to seduce the target of his attentions, to convince her that he deserves a second chance.

Since I’ve never let Stevie even get within view of first base with me, his display was intellectually fascinating but did not strike any of the emotional notes that it was meant to do.

As for the men who were watching, there was nothing in Harper’s demeanour that shrieked out ‘girly man’ or weakness. In fact, if any of the guys caught on to his little charade, they probably chuckled to themselves, in solidarity and self-recognition. It likely reminded them of the time their mom caught them downloading porn from the internet or the moment their wife accidentally opened the envelope with the $300 fine reminder for a speeding ticket and the subsequent grovelling they had to do to set things right.

Surely it’s no secret the CPC had extensive, in-depth surveys done to establish how to spin the announcement of an election that, based upon legislation presented and passed by their New™ government, should have been held in 2010. Focus groups results likely determined that the unfavourable ‘gender gap’ factor vis-à-vis their leader could best be overcome by getting Stephen to wear a different face.

And what a stunning performance piece that was. One does wonder what emotional trigger Harper accessed to provide such a convincing act. Raindrops on roses? Whiskers on kittens? Whoever coached him has a brilliant future in Hollywood.

However it should be interesting to see whether the polls conducted by the Cons immediately after Harper’s performance demonstrated that this display was successful in soothing the concerns of Canadian women. I found Stephen Harper’s act amusing yet ultimately, alarming.

Whatever is concealed inside that blue paper package tied up in string, remain wary and vigilant.

What this place needs...

...is a woman's touch. In the James Thurber sense, of course.

Welcome, please, my co-blogger for the duration of the election campaign: Marie Ève. Bilingual, witty, forthright and as feminist as they come, she knows her way around the Canadian political terrain, and takes no prisoners. Her touch is, in fact, somewhat subtler than that of the fencer in the illustration--but just as deadly.

Marie Ève has a bone to pick with so-con meddlers, authoritarian Con leaders, sexists, racists and pretenders of all stripes, shapes and sizes. She doesn't suffer fools gladly, but they suffer if they give her any back-chat. Or fore-chat, or side-chat, come to think of it. Or even if they just happen to get caught in the headlights of her gaze.

Move over, Sarah Palin--progressive women can kick ass too. Just watch her. I'm going to enjoy this.

Liberal anti-labour record

If there is one lesson that I hope voters might take to heart during this election campaign, it's not to think in binaries. There are not two, but several options on the table, including the New Democratic Party and the Green Party. It's not Harper = -Dion::Dion = -Harper.

For those already plumping for Dion simply because he isn't Harper, I challenge them to compare his record on labour--I'm talking about ordinary working Canadian men and women--with that of Jack Layton and the NDP.

Dion opposed anti-scab legislation in the House of Commons, joining with the Conservatives to defeat Bill C-257. 29 Liberals flip-flopped on the final reading of the Bill, including Dion himself and his aristocratic rival Michael Ignatieff, cravenly joining ranks with the Conservatives when the chips were down. In fairness, this was one of the few times that Dion took a decisive stand on anything, even if it required a flip-flop to get him there.

Dion remains deeply unpopular with ordinary Canadians, and despised by trade unionists. He simply lacks the common touch. His aloof arrogance, while of a different type from rock-'em-sock-'em Stephen Harper's, is no less ingrained. He has an upper-middle class contempt for working people, and it shows.

But putting this all on Dion himself would be a mistake. He's merely reflective of the anti-labour party that he leads. Both the Liberals in office and the Conservatives have not even been able to bring themselves to proclaim basic health and safety legislation for Parliament Hill workers, for many of whom exposure to asbestos is a daily hazard. They have each brought in a plethora of anti-labour measures while in power. From a worker's point of view, Liberals in office are indistinguishable from Conservatives: allow the wonky, soon-to-retire Canadian Auto Workers' prez Basil Hargrove his delusions to the contrary.

The NDP, to be frank, has a mixed record vis-à-vis Canadian workers. But it has been unwavering in its support for pro-worker legislation in the House of Commons. Unlike the Liberals, it hasn't flip-flopped on vital labour issues. Unlike the Liberals, it hasn't abstained from crucial votes in the House of Commons. Unlike the Liberals, it has not betrayed immigrant workers. Unlike the Liberals, it is not a party of Big Business, endemic corruption and patronage.

There will be many other issues--and non-issues--in this campaign. But it behooves progressives with memories to highlight the shameful anti-labour record of the Liberal Party. The party will pretend to be the friend of the working man and woman, as they always do while in opposition. Ottawa Lib MPs Marlene Catterall and Mac Harb showed up for photo-ops at my own union's picket lines, whispering sweet nothings into our ears: when they gained office two years later, they and their party extended federal public sector wage freezes, continued the suspension of collective bargaining, fought pay equity tooth and nail, and kicked out 75,000 workers from 1994-1998.

Indeed the record shows that Liberals, once they come to power, turn on Canadian workers like wolves. In the past two decades, they've slashed the public service, stolen pension funds, torn up signed collective agreements, and imposed wage controls. Caveat suffragator: on the election catwalk this Fall, Stéphane Dion and his colleagues will be strutting their stuff, but it's only their latest collection of sheep's clothing.

"I anticipate a very nasty, kind of personal-attack campaign"

...says Stephen Harper, and so do I. The Conservatives, borrowing from the worst of US attack-ad smear politics, can be counted upon to deliver a vile, dishonest campaign that's about everything but the issues.

This, after all, from the leader of a party that mocked Jean Chrétien's Bell's palsy, a party whose followers make ceaseless fun of Stéphane Dion's imperfect English, and are now trying to suggest that the Green Party is anti-Semitic. A party so keen on negative campaigning that it risks copyright violations. A party that attempted an Orwellian "fuelcast" propaganda blitz at the gas pumps. A party that gave us the memorable "evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet" to describe the now Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.

But to hear Harper tell it, it's the Opposition that plays dirty: no one can claim that the man doesn't have chutzpah. So he says, with a straight face:

That's just what I'm anticipating; that's what the opposition has done in the past. I think that whether Canadians agree with what we're doing or not, I don't think they're going to believe the kind of personal attacks and scare tactics that we've seen in the past.

I hope he's right, if not in the manner that he intends. He is clearly setting his party up to excuse any and all mudslinging by its candidates and operatives as merely defensive. Are voters benumbed enough to swallow this nonsense?

Be prepared, in any case, for a bloody, un-Canadian campaign by the Maximum Leader and his small army of shock troops and flacks, who will lower the level of political discourse in this country to as-yet unplumbed depths.

Est-ce que tu connais le mot "covoiturage"

...espèce d'ignorante?

(La campagne de niaiseux commence par un bang.)

Torturing animals no big deal--Alberta judge

This one nearly got me to join PETA.

An inexperienced Alberta provincial court judge, Shauna Miller (appointed just last year) has delivered a judicial wrist-slap to two teenaged sadists who microwaved a cat to death for pleasure. The beast was cooked alive, screaming in pain for ten minutes. Afterwards, the killers scrawled "You had a nice cat" and "Look in the microwave" on a wall for its absent owners to see when they returned.

A year's probation. A few hours of community service. They can't have violent video games for a while, but they can keep their cellphones. And, oh, yes, they aren't allowed to have pets for two years. One of the families who raised these monsters had just acquired a dog. Defence counsel thought the sentence was a bit extreme in that respect, because they now have to get rid of it.

One of the young convicts, according to a report filed with the court, lacked guilt, remorse and empathy, but "is capable of understanding his act." So, unfortunately, he can't be held in an institution for the criminally insane at the pleasure of Her Majesty.

Animal rights activist Tove Reece had been gulled by someone when she told the press that the judge had her hands tied with respect to imposing jail time. Untrue. After the passage last April of the much-maligned Bill C-203, ample opportunity for jail is now spelled out in the Criminal Code:

445.1 (1) Every one commits an offence who

(a) wilfully causes or, being the owner, wilfully permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal or a bird;

---

Punishment

(2) Every one who commits an offence under subsection (1) is guilty of

(a) an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years; or

(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable to a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term of not more than eighteen months or to both.

The stark horror of the act would certainly allow judicial discretion in this respect, even given the strictures of the Young Offenders Act. This case, in fact, cries aloud for appeal by the Crown, but Crown prosecutor John Laluk hasn't exactly put his shoulder to the wheel so far. He didn't make the slightest effort, for example, to have these young men tried as adults, and he claimed before sentencing that they "have expressed extreme remorse and would like to apologize to the cat owners before being sentenced." This is a flat-out contradiction of a court-ordered psychiatric assessment, which determined, as noted above, that one of the young men lacked any remorse at all.

Now, here's the truly creepy part:

Laluk said in court yesterday that the teens were relatively normal kids who showed no signs of mental illness and were not intoxicated during the incident on Dec. 30, 2007.

and

"Chris Milsap, the defence lawyer for one of the teens, says the boys are good kids who did something wrong.

"'It's an appropriate sentence,' he said. "I know that's difficult for some people to accept."

Why, yes--it's difficult for decent people to accept, you patronizing twit. And I suspect that there are more than merely "some" of us around.

Tove Reece was the only one to get it right, although I can't admire her understatement:

You have to wonder how these kids listened to that and not done something. I mean, a clear signal of distress. To me, it shows that something is amiss that these kids are lacking compassion at some level.

The names of the "kids" have been suppressed. Given that they should have been tried as adults in the first place, this is plain wrong. Communities have a right to know what manner of dangerous and unstable individuals are living in their midst. You read it here first: there's a distinct possibility that at least one of these young men--the one without guilt, empathy or remorse--will kill again. And this time, the quarry will be human.

White elephant?

The US may no longer be "white" by 2042...but it seems that nobody bothered to tell the Republican Party.

Presidential race

That "uppity" Barack Obama and his wife just don't know their place, says a Republican Congressman. But it's better to have it out there in plain English instead of the nudge-nudge, wink-wink routine we've been getting, says this WaPo columnist.And at least one Canadian conservative blogger appears to agree:

"I love, love, love this!! We are going to kick Obama's butt all the way back to Kenya!!!!!!" ...

Friday bits and bites

Just a few snippets I find worthy of mention today:

• John Robson, someone I've always regarded as a fringe conservative, offers a decent column this morning on political civility. He chides, gently but firmly, those who have been over-indulging of late in the Manichaean politics of righteous Us vs. evil Them.
  
  
• Dan Gardner, a libertarian I respect (and with whom I frequently disagree) delivers a stylish smackdown of apocalyptic Christian politics in America. He thinks, as do I, that VPOTUS hopeful Sarah Palin's political evangelism is of far more import than tawdry gossip about her family. Belief in the Rapture coupled with access to the launch codes may not be healthy for children and other living things.
  
  
• The two Alberta kids who tortured a cat to death in a microwave--it took ten minutes for the creature to die--got off with a few hours of community service and some probation. One of them, apparently, has no feelings of guilt, remorse or empathy but "is capable of understanding his act." Such sick individuals often graduate from animals to people: too bad in this case that his identity cannot be revealed under the Young Offenders Act.
  
  “This shows a lack of respect for societal values, you both knew your actions were wrong ... the reports indicate that,” said the judge, before giving them a pass. Which reminds me, somehow, of a dreadful little rhyme I learned many moons ago:
  
  Little Willie, with a shout
  Gouged the baby's eyeballs out,
  Stamped on them to make them pop:
  His mother cried, "Now, William! Stop!"
  
  
• After a precipitous plunge of stocks in all sectors since Labour Day, the director of research at MacDougall MacDougall & MacTier, one Ian Nakamoto, had this to say: "It seems to be a loss of faith in the economy." Not being an economist, I make no further comment.
  
  
• Pachyderms are news around the globe. An elephant on heroin. An elephant on crack. A musical elephant in the room. Canada, meanwhile, may have had the last woolly mammoths.
  
  
• What a friend we have in CSIS:
  
  "With out-of-control immigration numbers, goodness knows what kind of (Hezbollah) influx we have experienced and then what sort of influence those interests have (generated) within the country in radicalizing individuals already here," said David Harris, a former senior CSIS operative and a man on an obvious mission.
  
  Could this kind of attitude explain the agency's dicey involvement in the Maher Arar case?

American politics: the whiter shade of Palin

It was all Republican image politics yesterday evening. I forced myself to listen to the speeches leading up to Sarah Palin's make-or-break debut, beginning with Mitt Romney's embarrassingly stupid one.

He slammed "liberal" Washington: you know, the place where George W. Bush has ruled for two terms, where all but two Supreme Court justices have been Republican appointees, and where both houses of Congress have been controlled by Republicans for six of the past eight years. The crowd lapped it up. There's one born every minute, and it looked like all of them were cheering in the Xcel Energy Center last night.

The personable Mike Huckabee was next, much of whose speech consisted of a bizarre tale about missing desks finally returned to perplexed schoolkids at the end of their first day of school by a squad of veterans. I guess this was what the Red State folks, when they aren't pushing creationism, prayer and flag-waving, call a "teachable moment."

Rudy Giuliani followed, with a jabbing and forceful speech, mocking Obama's "cosmopolitanism," and actually taking several minutes--I was on the edge of my seat--before he mentioned 9/11.

And then The Moment.

It must be said that Sarah Palin performed well. With an army of spinmeisters at work, she might even stay on the ticket. She knows how to deliver a speech. She had her timing down, and she clearly enjoyed every minute of it. She connected with the audience, which is precisely what these events are all about. It was a polished performance. All the Repub talking points were there. She was impossibly, dazzlingly white, addressing a sea of white faces, the very model of Kinder, Küche, Kirche, right down to the moose stew whose main ingredient she shoots herself.

She soft-pedaled some of her more controversial positions, talked at length about what a mensch John McCain is, took the obligatory shots at Obama, spoke of her family, and generally made herself look like the champion of the little guy/gal, bravely going up against Big This and Big That. As John Ibbitson put it, "Ms. Palin blithely melded the media and Washington's power elites into a single, malignant foe, and then declared war on them, or it."

Which is, of course, what Republicans do. There must always be an enemy. It's Us vs.Them, and "Them" is a sticky amalgam of everything they don't happen to hold dear. It's a shambling monster composed of gummint, terrorists, the media, and the latte-sipping, surfboarding, immigrant-loving, pro-abortion, sex educating, soft-on-crime, Godless, anti-war-protesting, arugula-munching, anti-gun, polar-bear-hugging, anti-offshore-drilling liberals.

And that behemoth, its coat stained with blood and soy milk, shedding nuts and seeds in its wake, is slouching once again towards Washington to be born. It must be brought down. Sarah, get your gun!

I never thought I'd offer Margaret Wente praise, but she wrote some fine lines in the Globe and Mail this morning. Subject: the unbearable lightness of American politics.

This was deft:

"The media doesn't understand life membership in the NRA; they don't understand getting up at 3 a.m. to hunt a moose; they don't understand eating a mooseburger; they don't understand being married to a guy who likes to snowmobile for fun," said Representative Adam Putnam, a Florida Republican. [emphasis mine]

And she concludes:

I think we're witnessing the Republican Party in meltdown. The soap opera is sort of entertaining, in its way. But it makes American democracy look fundamentally unserious. Vladimir Putin is probably in stitches. And somewhere, Osama bin Laden is grinning in his cave.

Soap opera? Not totally. John Doyle makes a convincing case that we have been watching another instance of that currently fashionable oxymoron, "reality TV."

This is So You Think You Can Be Vice-President? A sequel to the Alaska-only reality TV show So You Think You Can Govern? See, the reality-TV genre can be defined loosely as "shows featuring ordinary people instead of professional actors." Here we've got ordinary people instead of professional politicians.

He can't avoid the soap-opera meme entirely, but he makes a good case for the non-non-fiction of the Palin choice:

Look at the Palin clan - a moose-hunting, snowmobiling couple with a bunch of kids who have soap-opera names: Track, Willow, Bristol, Piper and Trig. There's the knocked-up teenager daughter, the gun-totin' mom and even if it seems the teenagers are at it like rabbits, there's the declaration of deep conservatism and the assertion - later withdrawn in a sort-of manner - that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. They're straight out of Survivor, Big Brother, Wife Swap, Love Cruise, Temptation Island, Married by America and Are You Hot?

But Doyle hits the nail on the head here: "Over the past few days, it has been striking to see so many pundits try to explain the Palin phenomenon in the context of TV."

Precisely. Because, in this era of the hyperreal, the "real" is always inflated, expanded, varnished, polished and transformed into saleable images and carefully-crafted "narratives." In Jonathan Freedland's words,

A race that began as the West Wing now looks alarmingly like Desperate Housewives. Six months ago, you couldn't help but notice the striking similarity between Barack Obama and Matthew Santos, the fictional but charismatic ethnic minority candidate who promised to heal America's divide. Now, you can't help but feel you're watching an especially lurid episode from Wisteria Lane, as the real-life Sarah Palin fends off rumours of a fake pregnancy - and the accusation that her son is actually her grandson - by revealing that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter is expecting a baby and will soon marry the father, a young hockey player. Meanwhile, Palin has hired a lawyer to beat back a state investigation into claims that she abused the power of her office to remove her sister's ex-husband from his job as a state trooper, a man who has admitted tasering his own 10-year-old stepson! Would even America's trashiest daytime soaps dare squeeze that much action into just the first four days of a new storyline?

This is all, quite frankly, a post-modernist's picnic. The fantasy, the realer than real, illusion masking only further illusion. "Life imitates art," says Noah Richler, "and the message is frightening."

We are on the brink of a dangerous, philistine age. The Sarah Palin story is not about gender but about all sense of refinement and propriety having been lost. In these most difficult of times, in which the greater human lessons of the last century have already been forgotten, content and intellect matter not one bit. We have been reduced to vacuous idolatry of telegenic images, whether in Williams-cum-Costner-cum-Palin, or in Barack Obama ("not since the Sermon on the Mount has so much been promised by one man," my mother said), or in our host of vapid reality shows that masquerade as culture.

But this is not a case of life imitating art, pace Richler. The two are now one: welcome to The Matrix. Feeling a mite uneasy? Relax, pass the popcorn, and prepare to be entertained.

The gender card [updated]

Sarah Palin's family is off-limits as political campaign fodder--most folks agree with that, on both sides of the political spectrum. But for some, Sarah Palin is off-limits too.

How to wall her off from criticism? Just call any critics of her meagre political qualifications "misogynist" or variations thereof. Easy-peasy.

But here's a thought: why not attack critics of John McCain as "misandrist?" Let's not have any double standards here, hmm?

H/t.

UPDATE: Leftdog reminds us in a comment of all the charming things conservatives had to say about Belinda Stronach when she crossed over to the Liberals. Lessee, now: there was Ralph Klein's distasteful joke, and ex-paramour Peter MacKay's reference to her as a dog. Norman Spector called her a bitch. Bob Runciman called her a dipstick. Tory MP Maurice Vellacott called her a prostitute and Tory MP Tony Abbott called her a whore.

Funny--I don't recall any concern on the starboard side of the blogosphere at the time. Lots of conservative bloggers defended the perps and went even further, though.

There really has to be a stronger word than "hypocritical" to describe these political psychopaths. Words fail me at this point.

Leave family out of it!

...quoth the conservative hypocrites.

Take your own advice. And I'm addressing you, Dick and Kate, not your ventriloquist's dummies.

Enough said.

Palin death watch

How long now before Sarah Palin goes the way of Thomas Eagleton?

This email from a resident of Wasilla, the tiny Alaskan town over which Palin rode rough-shod as mayor, may end up being the final nail in her political coffin--should McCain choose to cut his losses.

Sarah Palin: book-banner, incompetent manager, vengeful ideologue, power junkie. Mean-minded, narrow, rewarding loyalty over ability. She bought votes with tax cuts, then had to borrow to get the job done. She left the debt-free town she inherited with a debt of more than $22 million. She went on to become governor of Alaska, and is presently under investigation for abuse of authority in that office. A career politician in the narrowest and crassest sense, she's left a smoking trail of ruin in her wake.

All this, one heartbeat away from the presidency? John McCain is already looking, more than ever, like the foolish, impulsive man he's always been for choosing her as a running mate without proper vetting. Count on rapidly increasing nervousness among the American electorate and a media feeding frenzy. His window of opportunity is already closing: watch for major developments in the near future--or his utter obliteration in November.

H/t Dave at Galloping Beaver

UPDATE: Great minds think alike. But don't listen to the pols--check out the bookies.

Crushing dissent in America

Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?
--Jack Kerouac

The ugly face of the American police state is on full view in the Twin Cities, host of the 2008 Republican National Convention.

State attempts to block lawful protest was in evidence even before protests began, as police goons raided private homes and rounded up protest leaders. There's a video here and some further details here. Local "law enforcement" was joined by state and federal police agencies, as violence against peaceful protesters, journalists and lawyers became the order of the day.

During those protests, respected senior American journalist Amy Goodman was arrested and roughed up by the Twin Cities' finest, along with two of her news team, and an Associated Press journalist photographer was snatched by the cops for good measure. Goodman and her colleagues have since been released: she's been charged with "obstruction."

There's a video of her arrest here, and some simply excellent coverage by Glenn Greenwald of the on-going police-state repression, with links, photos and updates. The local sheriff, Bob Fletcher, a thuggish Republican cop facing an FBI corruption probe, has been claiming "conspiracy to riot" for everything from possession of common household items to attempting to cover the protest.

Meanwhile, the major news outlets are operating under the usual cone of silence, even though an AP reporter was one of the victims. This is the sort of coverage we have learned to expect from the corporate media. (Note: urine confiscated by police turns out to be part of a gray water recycling system.)

But this video (h/t Glenn Greenwald) sums up, better than any words could, the casual, savage, brutal reality of the American state.

H/t Chet Scoville and Dr.Prole.

Tsk!

Married for just over two months, and already flirting.

In this corner...

...a NAMBLA-enabling racist who warned his readers against praising Rosa Parks. And a bottom-feeder who has never met a violent crime involving beige people that he doesn't shriek about at his blog.

And in this corner, a team of bloggers who were put on this earth to excoriate racists, bigots and assorted other evil malcontents with outrageous snarkery, humour and blunt truth.

The Canadian Cynic approach is not mine. I don't like the c-word or the n-word. CC tosses the first around a little too freely. He placed the latter, though, in the scum-encrusted mouth of the aforementioned violent crime guy, to sum up what likely underlies that fellow's racial obsessiveness. Just as he recently summarized, in characteristically snarky fashion, Stephen Harper's apparent unconcern that his anticipated election date will fall on a Jewish holiday.

All in a day's work for the CC team. They have their own unique stylings--edgy, off-centred, cutting brutally to the heart of the matter, crude and sometimes funny as hell. Bigots cringe in their caves, holes and sewer-pipes when they hear the CC folks coming. And well they might, because it's never long before the halogen beam finds their squirming, blind, white bodies and a copious dose of RAID is dispensed.

Enter the NAMBLA-enabler at this point, who calls me out in a laughably disingenuous fashion, claiming that CC himself is a racist and bigot. Um, no. The Canadian Cynic truth squad does more to skewer racism and assorted other bigotries than any other blog I can name, including my own. Yes, they unkindly caricature their enemies. So what?

And then my friend Darcey Jerrom gets into it over at Dust My Broom, demanding that I denounce them or get tossed from his blogroll. I didn't, and I was. But guess who are still proudly displayed on the DMB "Friends of the Broom" list? Yeah, right the first time.

Meanwhile, the consistent, unrelenting enemies of all that is smug, trite, phoney, wrong-headed and intolerant are happily hammering the keyboards, not to mention their hapless quarry of the day. I can hear the music and laughter from here. Rock on, CC, and damn the torpedoes.