Russ Campbell’s Blog

A good night for Israel

2012-01-27T12:22:00.001-05:00

This video shows Mitt Romney giving a terrific speech in support of Israel. One of the best I’ve seen from an American leader in some time. Newt Gingrich also add his support. The statements came in answer to a question from the audience of last night’s debate.

Romney sets Gingrich back on his heels

2012-01-27T12:08:00.001-05:00

The GOP’s former House speaker failed to fire up the audience and allowed his chief rival Mitt Romney to land some solid blows in last night’s Republican presidential nomination debate on CNN. The two are locked in a neck-and-neck race for Florida’s GOP delegates in next Tuesday’s primary, and Gingrich tried to duplicate the success he has had in earlier debates.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, parried Gingrich’s rhetorical thrusts and showed that, on that night, he was the better debater. Romney caught Gingrich— who had displayed a mastery of debating skills in previous debates—flat-footed on several occasions. Romney’s attacks hit their marks as he attempted to regain momentum after losing in South Carolina last Saturday.

Gingrich has fared well with support from hard-right conservatives among the audiences of earlier debates by attacking the moderators. In fact, these attacks seem to have been the best thing he had going for him in South Carolina.

He did try the tactic again last night. His effort to chastise CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer over a question about Romney’s tax disclosures, however, fell flat. Blitzer stood his ground, insisting Gingrich explain a comment he had made. Moreover, unlike in other debates, the audience did not seem to warm as easily to Gingrich.

At one point, Gingrich was mocked by Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul for saying on Wednesday that if elected president he would build a permanent colony on the moon.

From where I sat: no knockout punch perhaps, but Gingrich clearly had a bloody nose and Romney had bruised knuckles.

Straight goods on green energy

2012-01-26T16:30:00.001-05:00

Lorrie Goldstein tells us, “If Canada’s ‘green’ media—especially in the Parliamentary Press Gallery—demanded the same standards of accountability of themselves as they do of politicians, they would be killing entire forests right now apologizing to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.”

PM Harper, of course, didn’t jump onto the “green energy bandwagon” when large numbers of the media, especially among progressives, told him he should.

And he looks pretty good for not having done so, for, as Goldstein tells us, “Today, so-called ‘green’ energy is in retreat all over the developed world.”

This is a terrific article well worth the read.

Dutch democracy in action?

2012-01-26T16:06:00.001-05:00

Is this what so many decent, brave young Western women and men risked life and limb for in places like Iraq and Afghanistan? Some died so Muslims could live free, and then this? Irshad Manji was in Amsterdam to promote her book, Allah, Liberty and Love, when 22 Muslim extremists stormed her book launch, ordering her execution and threatening to break her neck. See video below:

Police arrested two men and found a third with a loaded machine gun at home.

These troglodytes are, apparently, members of “Sharia4Belgium,” an international network with cells in many Western European countries.

While so many of us in the West bend over backwards to avoid even the appearance of bigotry, others among us flaunt their hatred, intolerance and contempt for our modern culture of fairness, open-mindedness and tolerance. These Muslim extremists are poisoning the rich open cultures of Europe. Is it only a matter of time before their intellectually bankrupt, medieval creed makes it to our shores?

Some insist it’s already here, with only the lack of sufficient numbers stopping it from reaching the clear and present danger it represents to Western Culture in Europe.

Let’s pray our immigration authorities wake up before it is too late.

Great shot of Earth

2012-01-26T14:48:00.001-05:00

NASA on Wednesday released “Blue Marble 2012,” a view of the home planet that the agency calls the “most amazing high definition image of Earth.”

Nice to see the UK actively cheering on Canada

2012-01-26T14:40:00.001-05:00

The British Prime Minister David Cameron told delegates at the World Economic Forum that free trade pacts are key, and that quick completion of a EU trade deal with Canada will help Europe regain some of its competitive edge and help stem its financial crisis.

His UK counterpart’s speech will resonate well with our Prime Minister Stephen Harper who is focused on the domestic economy and looking to preserve Canada’s well-earned economic stability. “… we’re continually looking at ways that we can improve our performance and create jobs for Canadians,” he reportedly told a small group of businessmen this morning.

Elimination of the deficit remains a priority for PM Harper’s upcoming budget in which we can expect to see wide-ranging cuts in government spending. To offset potential negative consequences of the expected cuts, government and Canadian business officials are seeking other ways to encourage domestic growth.

And PM Harper’s approach seems to centre on opening international doors with free-trade deals with as many countries as possible.

Libyans lash out at new “monster” in power

2012-01-26T13:00:00.001-05:00

The quagmire that is Arab politics is beginning to emerge in Libya. Only three months after deposing dictator Moammar Gadhafi, some Libyans are accusing their new rulers of corruption, secrecy and nepotism. Unrest across the North African nation threatens their National Transitional Council (NTC), an interim body formed by anti-Gaddafi rebels during the 2011 uprising.

The Washington Times reports that on Tuesday, “hundreds of armed men thought to be still loyal to Gadhafi seized Bani Walid after easily defeating the local pro-NTC revolutionary force in the city… . Bani Walid was one of the Gadhafi regime’s last strongholds.”

Many pundits who questioned Western intervention in Libya from the beginning will be saying, “I told you so.”

Libyans themselves accuse NTC chairman Mr. Abdul Jalil, a former justice minister in the Gadhafi regime who switched sides early in the revolution, of running a one-man show. Many also are worried that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to hijack the country. And, apparently, the transitional government and local councils are packed with Islamists, so they very well could be right.

“These are people who are trying to hijack the revolution, and anxiety is spreading fast in society,” Hakeem Gadi, a Tripoli-based pro-democracy activist, reportedly said in a phone interview. “Having a Muslim Brotherhood leader in the committee responsible for putting together the electoral law makes everybody worried about the outcome,” Gadi said.

I predict the situation in Libya will get a lot worse before it gets better. Canada should mind that it does not become embroiled in the mess that’s unfolding there.

Michele Bachmann to seek 4th term

2012-01-26T12:02:00.001-05:00

The former GOP nomination candidate, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, announced on Wednesday that she will be seek a fourth term in Congress. “I’m looking forward to coming back and bringing a strong, powerful voice to Washington, D.C.,” Bachmann told the Associated Press.

Bachmann jumped to the head of the queue of Republican presidential nomination candidates after winning the Ames (Iowa) straw poll in August 2011. She finished a disappointing sixth, however, in the more recent Iowa Republican caucus and abandoned her presidential bid.

So far, apparently, no one from either party has declared an intention to oppose her. Minnesota Democrats have said they will wait for a court to finalize their state’s redistricting process before deciding on a challenger for Bachmann’s seat.

The redistricting process that will be unpredictable, however, and she may still face challenges from those Minnesota Republicans who have complained that the congresswoman abandoned her district in order to pursue an Iowa-focused presidential bid, often reminding voters that she is a “Hawkeye State” native.

Bachmann’s announcement must have surprised those Republicans referred to in this quote from Politico:

Some Republican officials question whether Bachmann would want to return to the House after firmly establishing herself as a national figure who, for a time, sat atop the GOP presidential field. Bachmann could decide to pursue book deals and TV offers that will inevitably pay far more than her annual House salary, they contend. Making a return to Congress even less desirable for Bachmann is the reality that she has no place in the House leadership.

Well, she fooled them, and I say good for her for continuing to serve. Sarah Palin, by contrast, quit her post as governor of Alaska without completing her first and only term. But then Palin is no Michele Bachmann.

Put not your faith in unions

2012-01-26T10:55:00.001-05:00

Sooner or later unions turn against their benefactors, they always do. Ontario politicians should know this from the many object lessons we have close to home: most recently, former Toronto mayor David Miller and more famously Bob Rae, former NDP premier of Ontario.

Both men were sympathetic towards unions, and, in Rae’s case, initiated legislation that strengthened unions’ position in the province. Yet, both politicians came a cropper when they tried to manage their governments’ finances to the benefit of all residents, and not just to the benefit of those few who belonged to unions.

Premier Dalton McGuinty seems next in line to learn that lesson. So far, in the contest between government and public sector unions, the score must be something like 10-nil in favour of the unions.

Public sector union contracts with increases above inflation have become commonplace in Ontario—with some deals even made in secret. Remember last year when we learned McGuinty had authorized a new contract with OPSEU in 2008, providing 2 per cent wage increases for four years, and then signed a separate, secret, agreement with the union, granting an extra percentage point in 2012.

McGuinty did receive a big “thank-you” in the form of support in the 2011 election from Ontario teachers’ unions whose members have received billions of dollars in additional wages and benefits during his last two terms in office.

However, since rating agencies started taking a hard look at Ontario’s Aa1 rating—the second-highest grade available—McGuinty is beginning to understand his government’s generosity towards unions is not sustainable, and he’s looking for public sector unions to receive his message of restraint with an open mind. Good luck with that.

More likely he’ll get the sort of reception David Miller received: a particularly antagonistic garbage strike. Or the push-back Bob Rae’s Social Contract received in the early 1990s. The unions turned on their former fair-haired boy and his New Democratic Party, vowing to defeat the government in the next election.

The Bible advises, put not your trust in princes. I’d advise Dalton McGuinty to put not his faith in unions.

Now that’s funny…

2012-01-25T16:47:00.001-05:00

Really funny editorial cartoon at Small Dead Animals blog, Free Ethical Oil! (Jan. 25, 2012). Serious subject, but nice to get a laugh out of it.

Some failed politicians never seem to fade away or shut up

2012-01-25T15:42:00.001-05:00

Iwish failed politicians would fade away or, at the least—when they have nothing good to say—shut up about public policy. Former prime minister Paul Martin is a case in point.

Canadians repudiated his policies to the point where he left politics in 2006. But the old bore continues to snipe away from the sidelines.

Martin was a very able finance minister, but an abject failure as a political party leader and as a prime minister.

During elections he became a strident demagogue and truth-shaper. And now Martin attacks the current prime minister who has already proven to be twice the prime minister and political party leader Martin ever was. Whereas Martin’s record can be characterized as, promise much; do little, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has complied a solid political record of accomplishment.

Instead of Martin offering to work with the present prime minister, he chose to refight old battles, and attacked PM Harper on the First Nations conference. The former prime minister has done some good work on the First Nations issue, and, had he been a Canada-first sort of guy instead of an old fashioned, party-first partisan, he could have made a solid contribution to this file.

I agree with Keith Beardsley who said, “First Nations issues should cross party lines, solutions not scoring political points should be the end game.” It is too bad Martin isn’t man enough to be able to put aside party politics for the sake of Canada.

Everyone wants high-paying jobs and low-cost goods

2012-01-25T14:30:00.001-05:00

An old boss of mine used to say: “Don’t look for logic in this world.” He was also fond of repeating a version of a Bible saying: “As you sow so shall you reap.” I thought of this when reading a recent article by Tavia Grant in the The Globe and Mail regarding a new CIBC report that says the composition of the Canadian labour market has tilted towards lower-paying jobs.

Apparently, CIBC maintains an index on “employment quality” that—while it’s above levels seen through the recent recession—has fallen by more than one percentage point in the past year.

The bank’s index incorporates three measures: full-time versus part-time work; the mix of paid and self-employment, and wages among full-time jobs. And, although the first component rose in 2011, the other two components weakened.

Not surprisingly, the biggest drop in quality was in Ontario, while Alberta continued generating high-quality jobs.

Here is what I find illogical.

For the past several decades, Canadian consumers have demanded the lowest prices possible from retail stores like Sears, Walmart and others too numerous to mention. Some Canadians even will drive several miles to cross the border and shop in the United States so they get even lower prices.

Retailers, in turn, demand lower prices from manufacturers and wholesalers, which then source their products from faraway places where labour and operating costs are far lower than they are in high-wage Canada.

Without manufacturing work to perform, therefore, relatively high-wage manufacturing jobs are lost and the lower-wage service jobs become a greater percentage of our economy. And as we have transitioned into a service economy, part-time and self-employment have become more prevalent.

Yet, even as Canadians continue to demand the lowest price possible, they lament the deterioration of employment quality.

Illogical.

Reference: The Globe And Mail, More Canadians in low-paying jobs

Steyn shines on Coren’s Arena

2012-01-24T16:11:00.001-05:00

The Renaissance Man, Mark Steyn, did two segments with Michael Coren on Sun News Network’s The Arena last night. Best TV of the day.

Good riddance to Gilles Duceppe?

2012-01-23T16:24:00.001-05:00

The Canadian Press reports former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe has ended speculation that he wants to replace Pauline Marois as leader of the Parti Québécois, saying he can’t imagine a return to political life. Apparently, however, Duceppe didn’t say his decision was permanent.

The former Bloc leader reportedly said Sunday that he will devote his time to clearing his name after a Montreal newspaper reported he mishandled public funds while he was head of the federal party.

Duceppe has denied any claims of wrongdoing; however, the allegations are certain to have hurt any chances he had to replace the beleaguered Pauline Marois.

Mitt Romney’s ratcheting up the heat on Newt Gingrich

2012-01-23T16:00:00.001-05:00

By all reports former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is turning up the heat on former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Romney suggested Gingrich will lose the election, saying he’s not only “erratic,” but “a pinball machine” who will bring “an October surprise a day” and decimate the Republican Party as he does.

According to Romney, Gingrich didn’t just have questionable ties to companies like Freddie Mac, he engaged in “wrongful activity.”

As both candidates try mightily to discredit each other’s claim on the GOP nomination, and ruin their already sullied political and business reputations, observers are left to wonder if enough will remain of either man’s worthiness to serve in the highest office in the land by the time the Republican National Convention at Tampa rolls around.

Thinking ahead to this summer’s Convention, I wonder: will either candidate have enough going for them that is not in tatters to attract respect and enthusiasm of the sort necessary to launch a credible presidential campaign?

Sure, most Republicans will claim that either man will be an improvement over President Barak Obama—and I can’t say I disagree with that assessment—but, as the mud-slinging continues between the candidates, that claim will begin to sound rather hollow and resonate only with committed Republicans, leaving independents and undecided Republicans open to President Obama’s rhetorical charm.

So, do GOP insiders organize stalling tactics to delay the process and allow some fresh talent to enter the race. Will we see, for example, favourite-sons popping up to contest individual primaries to syphon off enough delegate to cause an open convention.

I gather there hasn’t been an open or “brokered” convention since 1976. Back then, President Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan went to Kansas City without either candidate holding a majority of the delegates.

This time around, there exist several former and current governors able to lead a conservative agenda against the president; perhaps one will emerge in Tampa.

Burka policy winning widespread support

2012-01-23T15:00:00.001-05:00

The banning of Muslim women from covering their faces during Canadian citizenship ceremonies has won widespread support, according to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. The minister said polling shows eight out of 10 Canadians agreed with the policy while only 14 per cent disagreed.

The new policy also has support within the Muslim community. Farzana Hassan of the Muslim Canadian Congress said:

The niqab or burka is a political tool by Islamists who wish to segregate Muslims into religious ghettos, cut off from mainstream society. Islamists consider women who do not cover their heads and faces, which constitutes the vast majority, as sinners and lesser Muslims.

Mr. Kenney reportedly recalled a meeting with Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, who is said to be Egypt’s top Muslim authority, and said Sheikh Tantawi told him face coverings were not a religious requirement. Mr. Kenney said:

He [Tantawi] clarified for me that people in the West who think this is a religious obligation do not understand Islam law. So I am not going to second-guess the most pre-eminent Sharia authority in the Sunni world.

From where I sit, covering one’s face in public, maybe someone’s democratic right, but it’s also an insult to Canadians and their traditional culture and values, which emphasizes gender equality and inclusiveness. How does one practice inclusiveness when in a group that includes persons draped from head to foot in an inverted sack with only small slits for their eyes? In short, one doesn’t.

Moreover, allowing this Arab-style garb in courtrooms, at election polling stations or in offices that provide government services goes well beyond reasonable accommodation to groups who follow these foreign cultural practices.

It is an anti-Canadian cultural practice to hide one’s identity when interacting with one another or with our institutions. If one wants to dress in this manner in places of worship, then that’s all well and good, but not while carrying on business or otherwise interacting in public spaces.

Johnny Otis, rest in peace

2012-01-23T13:11:00.001-05:00

Another brilliant talent dies.

CTV’s Question Period: Liberals’ proxies at work

2012-01-22T13:13:00.001-05:00

Ispend most Sunday mornings watching political talk shows on television: Face the Nation, Meet the Press and The McLaughlin Group from the U.S. and CTV’s Question Period from this side of the border. Of these, CTV’s offering is by far the weakest and least engaging.

The CTV.ca website promotes Question Period as, “… the program is a must-see for political junkies,” as having “two of the strongest political journalists in the country,” and “as the authoritative source for candid discussion and debate about Canadian politics.”

This is pretty well all hype and little truth. What the viewer gets instead of “candid discussion and debate” are biased interviews and progressive-liberal journalists having a congenial chat while bashing the Conservative government, and more especially bashing PM Stephen Harper.

This morning, co-host Kevin Newman led a panel discussion on third-party political ads, centred around the recent National Citizens Coalition’s attack ad “defining” interim Liberal leader Bob Rae. They also briefly covered U.S.-based attack ads run during the GOP nomination campaigns.

Nothing at all was said, though, about the expensive anti-Hudak television attack ad campaign that trade unions ran during Ontario’s fall election. No, Question Period stayed well clear of mentioning any political attack ads run by third-parties supporting progressive parties. They only talked about those attack ads run by conservative groups, as if conservatives were the only ones doing that sort of thing.

It seems to me that once Sun News Network went on air with their right-of-centre-bias, CTV dropped all pretence of balanced journalism and went all-in for their Liberal and NDP friends.

I concede the discussion about the ads is a relatively small point, but I thought it said volumes about the political bias so evident on CTV these days. And that’s really too bad for we could do with a balanced Sunday morning show on our side of the border.

Warren’s wisdom

2012-01-22T07:34:00.001-05:00

One Liberal we Tories love to hate [grin] is Warren Kinsella, so it is refreshing to read that he’s not joining the chorus of contrived bombast and outrage from the opposition and Liberal-cheering media over the National Citizens Coalition’s recent ad “defining” interim Liberal leader Bob Rae.

Kinsella’s advice to the Grits and the Dippers is to stop bellyaching and beat the Tories at the game, i.e., “Make your own attack ads, fast, and make ’em nastier.”

(More at WK’s blog and Toronto Sun column.)

Ill winds in Green energy sector

2012-01-22T07:06:00.001-05:00

Joanne at the Blue Like You blog is ticked off at “how callously the McGuinty Government treats rural voters.” Can’t say I blame her.

Hamas and Iran have fallen out

2012-01-22T06:53:00.001-05:00

Michael Weiss reports at The Telegraph that the affair between Middle East terrorist group Hamas and Iran has come to and end. Apparently, in retaliation for Hamas abandoning its headquarters in Syria and looking at other Arab states as alternative location for its political command center, Iran has reportedly cut some or all of its funding to Hamas, forcing that to seek funds elsewhere.

Here Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club has an excellent run-down of this important story.

Maleficence in Ottawa?

2012-01-22T06:28:00.001-05:00

The BC Blue blog has a story and links about former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe apparently misusing tens of thousands of dollars of his tax-funded Parliamentary operations budget. Read more here.

MP pension scam

2012-01-21T15:24:00.001-05:00

The federal Tories have promised to reform the MP pension plan, and such reform cannot come too soon to suit me. The current plan amounts to little more than a scam if recent reports can be believed—and I’m convinced they are believable, coming as they do from The Taxpayers Federation and Lorne Gunter of the National Post.

CAUTION: Readers may want to hold their noses before continuing.

No MP could get elected in any riding in Canada if he or she ran on a platform that stipulated a tax-funded pension for MPs based on the following formula: for every dollar an MP contributes, working Canadians must contribute $23.30. Just imagine the reception such a candidate would receive at virtually any voter’s door in the land.

Yet, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation calculates that is precisely the case with the current MP pension plan. The federal government officially claims the taxpayer-to-MP ratio is much lower at $5.80-to-$1.00, but, apparently, this is not the case. Here’s the explanation offered by the CTF:

The hidden contributions are due to the government adding “interest” into the MP pension accounts at a rate of 10.4 per cent per year—even though MP pension funds are not invested into the market like other pension funds (e.g. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund).

According to the CTF, taxpayer-funded “interest” the government pays into the MP pensions results in an incredible $248,668 each year to each MP’s pension fund, while each backbench MPs may contribute a paltry $10,990 a year. Is it not a shameful scam for MPs to receive annual payments towards their retirement of nearly a quarter of a million dollars when their base salary $157,000?

As astonishing is the fact MPs are eligible to receive pensions of 50 per cent of their $157,000-a-year pay beginning at age 55, provided they serve at least six years in Parliament.

One reads about this sort of rip-off in banana republics run by dictators, but here in Canada…?

Read more from the National Post here.

Gingrich support surging in South Carolina primary

2012-01-21T12:45:00.001-05:00

In South Carolina, six of seven surveys done this week indicate former House speaker Newt Gingrich is now running slightly ahead of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. This doesn’t guarantee Gingrich victory, of course, but it shows he stands a good chance of winning today’s primary. Few would have thought this after his poor showing in Iowa?

Many voters in South Carolina are still undecided, some are trying to factor in Thursday’s events of which one report said:

A plugged-in toaster was dropped into what had been the relatively placid waters of the South Carolina presidential primary Thursday, scorching one candidate’s prospects to a crisp and roiling the campaigns of the others left in the race.

The $64 question: Will South Carolina voters turn on Gingrich because, as one pundit put it, he talked the family values talk, but failed to walk that family values walk?

A Clemson University Palmetto Poll, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, has Gingrich ahead of Romney by 32 to 26 per cent. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are shown as running far behind at 11 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively.

Certainly looks good for Gingrich, but this one’s just too close to call.

Etta James, rest in peace

2012-01-21T10:29:00.001-05:00

What a great talent. Etta James will be missed.

The golden years of Mike Harris

2012-01-20T16:36:00.001-05:00

As I consider the mess in which Ontario now finds itself—bloated, ineffective government; out-of-control deficits; dependant on federal hand-outs—I find it somewhat comforting to recall the, by comparison, golden years Ontario enjoyed under then Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris.

Those deluded progressives who defend and justify Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government record like to remind Ontario residents of the Mike Harris era. But, to hear them tell it, those were dark days filled with labour strife and cuts to the education and health care sectors.

Revisionist history, folks.

Mike Harris’s terms ran from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He assumed power after 10 years of inept, ruinous Liberal and New Democrat government rule—similar to the predicament in which we now find ourselves.

The Harris government immediately set about implementing its election promises: a much needed agenda considering that the provincial deficit had reached a record $10-billion under the now-Liberal but then NDP, Bob Rae. Unlike most, the Harris government could be counted on to fulfill its promises—not something of which any thoughtful person could accuse the Dalton McGuinty Liberals.

Harris’s promises had been outlined in “Common Sense Revolution” platform—no hidden agenda from him. It focused on tax reduction, balancing the budget, reducing the size and role of government, and emphasized individual economic responsibility thereby significantly reducing government hand-outs. An agenda that even a decade later sounds fresh and reasoned, not to mention it remains as relevant now as it was then.

The Tory political ads back then spoke in terms of working for welfare, scrapping affirmative action and cutting taxes to promote more employment. In other words, common sense. And the public loved it, giving Harris and his PC team a solid majority government in 1995, with the PCs taking 82 of 130 legislative seats at Queen’s Park.

Opponents of the Harris government like to dwell on the cuts they claim were made to health care and education and the downloading of certain provincial costs to municipalities. But they disingenuously ignore the roll Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government had played in Ottawa.

Chrétien along with then finance minister Paul Martin had launched a program of deep cuts—tens of billions of dollars worth—to provincial transfers after winning the federal election in 1993. Those cuts, though necessary, were having a dramatic effect on Ontario’s already strained finances, especially since the province had traditionally relied on federal transfers for a substantial portion (about 40 per cent) of its health care budget.

So, yes, there were cuts under Harris’s government—much needed cuts. And, yes, nurses were laid off, a mistake openly acknowledged and for the most part corrected later in his term. The Harris government actually increased Ontario’s health spending to record levels to offset transfer cuts from the federal Liberal government.

The Harris government also took on the teachers’ unions by insisting on badly needed reforms. The unions balked, of course, at anything and everything the government did that weren’t designed specifically to benefit the teachers themselves or their arrogant, confrontational trade unions. But the Harris government held fast, refusing to cave in to the demands of greedy teachers. (A lesson Dalton McGuinty could well heed.)

This confrontation came to a head in 1997 when Ontario’s teachers walked out on our kids in an illegal strike that the Harris government roundly condemned and to which it refused to knuckle under. The government prevailed, and, in the end, the teachers got little in the way of significant changes to government policies.

The Harris PCs had won a legal, democratic election and had received a major mandate from the voters of the province. The unions, though, weren’t having any of that. They participated in work stoppages and several large protests—some near-riots—on the grounds of the Ontario Legislature. Those demonstrations stand out as some of the most shameful attacks ever on Ontario’s democratic political system.

Under the Harris government, economic indicators in Ontario—for the first time in years—improved dramatically. During its first term, Ontario’s economy expanded faster than almost all other North American jurisdictions. Notably, such has not been the case under any Liberal or New Democrat government in Ontario in over a half century.

During his premiership, Mike Harris was able to manage prudently enough to eliminate the record high deficit run up by Bob Rae’s reckless NDP government. Moreover, Mike Harris so thoroughly proved himself to be an effective economic manager that Ontario’s voters gave him a second majority government.

Those were golden years indeed, not the dark days we hear about from progressives.

Oh, how I yearn for the return of those good old days. Over to you Tim Hudak.

A similar version of this article appeared in this blog in early 2011.

SOPA and PIPA bills hit the rocks in US Congress

2012-01-20T13:58:00.001-05:00

The protests by online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, and thousands of other websites, which went “dark” for 24 hours earlier this week, has apparently had the desired effect. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delayed a vote on the PIPA, Protect IP Act, that had been scheduled for Tuesday.

Also, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith said his panel would not consider SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, until a compromise could be reached.

Both bills address online piracy like illegal copying of movies and other media. They would also outlaw websites from telling visitors how to access “illegal” websites that would have been blocked under the legislation.

Thousands of e-mails and phone calls to congressmen followed the online protests, and more than seven million people signed a petition on Google, which claimed the legislation would result in censorship of the Web and impose a regulatory burden on online businesses.

The protests on Wednesday seem to have prompted some of the 40 or so co-sponsors of PIPA to withdrew their support of the bill.

The proposed legislation is over the top: it’s harsh and over-reaching. There already exists strong legislation to protect Americans’ intellectual property rights, including copyright and patents. SOPA and PIPA are simply more cases of big-money buying off big government. It is not a coincidence these legislative initiatives were scheduled to pass in an election year when so many politicians are looking to top-up campaign funds.

Protests can work, folks, so long as the cause is just.

Gingrich hits debate home run

2012-01-20T12:10:00.001-05:00

The GOP nomination debates had their most dramatic opening on Thursday night when Newt Gingrich verbally spanked CNN’s moderator John King after King chose to open the event with a question about the former House speaker’s relationship with an ex-wife.

It was a question about Marianne Gingrich’s accusation that the Newt Gingrich asked her to take part in an “open marriage.”

Gingrich’s reaction came in the form of a stern rebuff of the moderator. He said:

I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. … I am, frankly, astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate.

I say, here, here! CNN reminded me that it is the closest thing on American television to the trashy British tabloids. ABC News had held the offending interview with Marianne Gingrich and King tried to weasel-word himself off Gingrich’s rhetorical skewer by saying CNN had not been the first to report the story—but to no avail. Gingrich retorted:

John, it was repeated by your network. You chose to start the debate with it. Don’t try to blame somebody else. You and your staff chose to start the debate with it. … The story is false. Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false.

Seldom have I heard a politician so aptly put a media operative in his place over shoddy questioning, and seldom have I seen a media operative handle a verbal rebuke so lamely.

A candidate’s personal principles and background should be considered by voters. But Gingrich’s infidelities are well known to Americans. Marianne Gingrich said much the same things in an Aug. 2010 Esquire article, giving GOP voters full opportunity to factor Gingrich’s marriage problems into their choice.

So this recent media attack did not originate from the moral high-ground, but from somewhere closer to the sewer.

Israel Defense Forces gearing up for action

2012-01-19T16:19:00.001-05:00

I would want to start something with these guys and gals.

U.S.-based environmentalists have declared economic war on Canada

2012-01-19T16:08:00.001-05:00

The environmental movement in the United States has, in effect, declared an economic war with Canada. U.S.-based environmentalists are spending millions of dollars and large doses of political capital to prevent Canadian bitumen from reaching American domestic markets, and they have every right to do so.

But, when they couple these anti-Canadian efforts with the millions of dollars more they are spending here in Canada to prevent our oil from reaching our coast from which it can be exported elsewhere, they are, in effect, waging and economic war on this country.

President Barack Obama has shown, once again, that the U.S. is only a real friend to Canada when it suits its purpose. Former president Bush made that clear more than once in his eight years in office, but our leaders don’t seem to get the message.

Now we find ourselves behind the eight-ball: loads of Canadian oil in the ground + loads of worldwide demand for oil = loads of Canadian oil in the ground. Go figure!

“Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports,” a statement from the PM’s office said. Too little, too late. “If at first we don’t succeed, we’ll try again,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Baird. Well, good luck with that. And Alberta Premier Alison Redford wasn’t much more helpful.

We elected leaders to lead and govern, not to substitute platitudes in place of effective management and leadership. The Conservative government has been in office for some six years now, what tangible steps have they taken to establish other markets for our oil? Precious few, as I see it.

I’d be crying if this weren’t so ridiculous

2012-01-19T15:34:00.001-05:00

The Stephen Harper government has to start walking the talk. Greg Weston, no Conservative supporter he, must be really enjoying himself today—and so he should. In a piece at CBC.ca, Weston tells us that the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board, a federal agency created by the Harper government in 2008, is costing taxpayers millions of dollars," but achieving, he says, “pretty much nothing.” Oops!

The agency was formed for three purposes: first, to set the annual employment insurance contribution rates; secondly, to invest any surplus EI funds; and thirdly, to manage a $2-billion EI contingency fund the government promised to set up.

Sounds okay so far, right?

The first catch is, though, Weston says “in all three years the board has been in existence, the Harper government has simply capped EI rates to spare Canadian workers from potentially huge premium increases.” The second catch is the agency hasn’t invested any surplus EI funds. And, you guessed it, Weston says the government never did set up the promised $2-billion EI contingency fund. Oops, oops and double-oops.

Does this sound like a deficit-cutting government to anyone out there?

I hope Weston is wrong on this one, because he reports that the new agency “has spent over $3.3 million for new offices, computers and furniture, well-paid executives and staff, travel budgets, expense accounts, board meetings, and lots of pricey consultants.”

Thanks, Mr. Weston.

Over to you Treasury Board.

NDP leadership candidates faced off in Toronto

2012-01-19T15:01:00.001-05:00

The eight candidates bidding to replace the late Jack Layton as the federal leader of the New Democratic Party debated their visions for the future of their party in a Toronto school hall on Wednesday. As expected, there was the obligatory Prime Minister Stephen Harper bashing, and much blue-skying over expensive big-government programs.

Not a single “big-idea” policy was heard, and certainly not a single way to cut cost of government that is now at a record high. Play safe and play to the crowd was the strategy. Here’s a sampling.

British Columbia MP Nathan Cullen said that eight months of Stephen Harper “looks like a bad dream.” Really? Where has he been? Canada has been viewed all over the Western world as doing pretty well in the past year or so. That’s reality, if not the wishful thinking of a few progressives who crave political power.

From the front-runner, French citizen and MP from Montreal Thomas Mulcair, we heard that he intends to “to bring the [political] centre to us,” in answer to the question of whether he would move the party to the centre if he became leader. Obviously he’d have to move the Canadian centre quite a bit to the left, but will Canadians move with him? I doubt it.

Brian Topp, the former party president and another front-runner told us that Toronto was “Layton’s town,” and threw in an insult to the “town’s” mayor, calling him Stephen Harper’s “pet mayor.” Cute, but not much statesmanship here—Topp’s strictly a backroom guy.

Ottawa MP Paul Dewar evoked Layton’s name and his second form of cancer. “We have to take better care of each other,” he added. Is he implying that some imagined shortcoming in our current health care system led to Layton’s death? Get a grip, man.

Toronto MP Peggy Nash talked about the failure of governments to invest in cities. “As leader, I can unite progressives right across this country so that we can defeat the agenda of Stephen Harper,” she said. Right. Sure she can. Nice lady, but a light-weight candidate with a less than even chance of winning the leadership.

The race seems to be among Mulcair, Topp, Dewar and maybe Nash, with Mulcair likely to win in March, the way I see it.

Future debates will be held in Halifax on Jan. 29, followed by others every two weeks ending with the March convention.

No more Rick Perry to kick around

2012-01-19T12:16:00.001-05:00

Texas Gov. Rick Perry today ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsed Newt Gingrich. According to The Washing Post, Perry said, “I have come to the conclusion that this [sic] is no viable path forward for me in this 2012 campaign.”

Gov. Perry made his announcement at an 11 a.m. press conference in North Charleston, only hours before the GOP nomination candidates will face off for their 16th debate of the 2012 Republican race, and just two days before the important South Carolina primary.

I believe Perry’s weak performance in his early debates torpedoed his campaign. And with him polling at just four per cent in South Carolina (NBC/Marist survey), there really was no way forward for him.

We now need former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum to pull out so the race can centre on Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney—I don’t see Ron Paul as the eventual nominee. If Santorum continues for much longer to split the conservative-alternatives-to-Romney vote with Gingrich, Romney will win going away.

And, by the way, I learned today that Rick Santorum actually beat Mitt Romney by 34 votes in the recent Iowa caucuses. In a reversal of preliminary tallies that showed Romney winning by eight votes, Santorum has been declared the official winner.

Regardless, Rick Santorum still needs to drop out so Gingrich can give Romney a real challenge for the nomination.

Keystone XL oil pipeline dead?

2012-01-18T15:27:00.001-05:00

The U.S. State Department will apparently deny a permit for the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border. According to The Huffington Post, “a source who had been briefed on the matter confirmed on Wednesday.”

The news follows White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s announcement on Tuesday that President Barack Obama cannot approve the pipeline by the Feb. 21 deadline imposed by Congress.

It probably is no coincidence that this news also comes after House and Senate lawmakers made clear their intention to introduce legislation calling for approval of the pipeline, even if the Obama administration rejects it. According to The Huffington Post:

“That bill, drafted by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), would have shut the White House out of the Keystone decision-making process, leaving Congress with full authority to approve the pipeline, which would stretch an estimated 1,700 miles from tar sands in Canada to oil refineries along the Gulf Coast.”

Looks like the pit is all set up for a real old-fashioned dogfight, and we can expect political fur to fly and some political bloodletting before this is over.

Personally, I no longer care if the Keystone XL oil pipeline is approved: given the worldwide demand for petroleum products, Canadian bitumen will get sold one way or another.

A Canadian with divided loyalties as leader of the opposition?

2012-01-18T14:31:00.001-05:00

Iagree with Prime Minister Stephen Harper who made it clear where he stands regarding political leaders holding dual citizenship. The Prime Minister reportedly said, “In my case, I’m very clear: I’m a Canadian and only a Canadian.” The PM’s words came after Quebec broadcaster TVA revealed MP and NDP leadership contender, Thomas Mulcair, holds joint Canadian-French citizenship.

According to TVA’s report, Mr. Mulcair was born in Ottawa, but became eligible for French citizenship when he married his wife Catherine who was born in that country. TVA said his two children are also dual citizens.

Like so many other Canadians, I am very uncomfortable with the idea that the leader of a major federal party, who could some day be prime minister, would hold allegiance to another country. I felt that way in 2008 when I learned former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion held dual Canadian-French citizenship, and I haven’t changed my mind.

I have retained a great deal of affection towards the two other countries of which I was once a citizen. When I became a Canadian, however, I went all-in—no divided loyalties for me.

It’s a bit like marriage, isn’t it? You say “I do,” and forsake all others.

Wikipedia goes dark for 24 hours

2012-01-18T10:57:00.001-05:00

The online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, one of the Internet’s most popular sites, began a 24-hour “blackout” at midnight Eastern Standard Time. It is protesting against proposed U.S. anti-piracy legislation that many leading websites say will significantly impede their ability to operate.

Several Internet content providers such as Google, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Yahoo! and others have publicly come out against the legislation. They say the legislation would turn the Internet into a police state.

Wikipedia’s blackout will last until 12:00 a.m. eastern time on Thursday (5:00 a.m. GMT).

The anti-piracy legislation being protested is known as SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act, which is a piece of legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. And a separate companion bill in the U.S. Senate, which is called the Protect Intellectual Property Act or PIPA. These acts target online copyright infringers through a series of harsh penalties.

The National Post’s editorial today has a caution for Canadians:

Canadians should be especially concerned about this, since the legislation treats all dot-com, dot-net and dot-org domains—as well as all North American IP addresses—as “domestic Internet protocol addresses” that would be subject to U.S. law. The bills would employ the same practices used by authoritarian regimes, such as China and Iran, to censor information and quash dissent. Ironically, they would also outlaw the technologies that foreign activists use to evade censorship, including those developed by the U.S. government.

The legislation is receiving strong support from the Motion Picture Association of America, the Business Software Alliance and other industry groups with deep pockets. Opponents, however, believe the U.S. already has copyright legislation on the books in the form of laws which heavily favour the rights of content producers over those of consumers, and that the new laws represent a serious threat to the Internet as we know it.

Politico reports this morning that SOPA is “on life support in the House” and “is now in serious doubt in the Senate.” Let’s hope Politico is right on this one

It’s a bad time for ordinary citizens when big money interests and big government collude to bludgeon them with heavy-handed, over-reaching legislation.

Are they crazy? I’m not tipping 20%

2012-01-17T15:11:00.001-05:00

The National post has a piece by Nida Siddiqui and Tristin Hopper about The Westerly and The Ace, two new restaurants in Toronto’s west end, prompting their customers to pay a 20% gratuity when paying on handheld electronic terminals. Wow!

The Westerly’s co-owner Tom Earl reportedly allowed, “Nobody’s demanding that anybody tip anything.” Sure, right, so long as you don’t plan to go back there any time soon—somebody is likely to spit in your soup if you do. But it’s nice of him to tell us, don’t you think?

As the Post’s article points out:

… 20% tips are ‘customary’ in large U.S. cities such as New York. But while Toronto servers earn a minimum hourly wage of $8.90, waiters in the Big Apple only earn $4.65 per hour ‘because their total compensation includes expected tips,’ according to the New York State Department of Labour.

Time was when 10% was considered generous. Now 15% makes you a cheapskate? Well I beg to differ and refuse to pay more than 15%. Besides, the whole tipping thing has gotten out of hand.

Some patrons tip 20% on top of the tax on their bill: that’s a whopping 22.6% of the basic food and beverage charge. And what about smaller establishments where owners sometimes serve at the tables? Since when did the owners decide they should get tipped? About the time they found out that owners of barber shops and hair dressers were collecting tips like they were taking their due, I guess.

When menu prices in restaurants go up, dollar amounts of tips go up also, though service staff don’t give any better service or work any harder.

Nor is the expectation of a tip in any way proportionate to the quality or level of service in many establishments. Regardless of wait-time, amount coffee slopped into saucers, lack of timely beverage refills, the main course appearing on the table well before the appetizer, salad or soup has been consumed, you’re still considered a deadbeat if you don’t leave a decent tip.

Some places now add the tip (gratuity) to your bill automatically—that’s the height of cheekiness. An especially galling practice when you have had to endure the pathetic efforts of poorly trained, sloppy service staff.

I spent many years in the hospitality industry and never liked the tipping tradition. Perhaps it’s past time service staff were paid a proper wage and prices were adjusted accordingly, then we could just pay the bill as tendered.

Until then, I’ll continue to carefully calculate 15% on the pre-tax bill, but only if service was, at least, satisfactory. For bad service, expect about three cents.

That’s the way I see it.

Next Winter Games and the 2016 Summer Games not on TV?

2012-01-17T13:00:00.001-05:00

The prospect of no Canadian television coverage of the next Winter Olympic Games in Russia and the 2016 Summer Games in Brazil is not a pleasant one, but I could live with it. I say this even though I have watched virtually every broadcasted minute of most Olympic games, and would do so again if given the chance.

I do, however, sympathize with the Bell-CBC folks whose joint bid of about $70-million for the Canadian broadcast rights to the 2014 games at Sochi, Russia and 2016 games at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was rejected by the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC reportedly received an astonishing $153-million for the Canadian rights to the Vancouver and London games from, primarily, Bell Media and Rogers Communications. And, although Bell and Rogers sold a reported $190-million in advertising for Vancouver, the deal was a money loser—losses are estimated at $20-million to as high as $80-million. Furthermore, the London Olympics scheduled for this summer are also expected to lose money.

For rights holders in Canada, the biggest money maker of the Winter games, apparently, is the hockey tournament, but only so long as NHL players participate—not at all a certainty for the Russian games.

And, since the IOC will not accept a two-offer bid: one with NHL players participating and one without, the Canadian broadcasters, believing NHL participation is only a 50-50 proposition, decided to bid about half what they paid for the Vancouver-London games.

A group of Australian broadcasters, apparently, offered $35,000 for rights to the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul and another low-ball bid for the Winter Games in Calgary. They were turned down flatly by the IOC. It is clear, therefore, that the IOC is rich enough to forgo the $70-million Canadian low-ball bid to protect its market.

Frankly, I hope our TV people stand fast and play tough on this one. We can always watch the NBC feed.

Dirty tricks: NDP stock in trade

2012-01-17T10:59:00.001-05:00

Those who see the New Democrats as squeaky clean should read Elizabeth Thompson’s piece at iPolitics, NDP behind dirty tricks campaign in Lise St-Denis’ riding. According to Ms. Thompson, NDP spokeswoman Sally Housser confirmed this in a telephone conversation.

I’m not surprised. Dirty tricks are the stock in trade of the Dippers. Remember when in Oct. 2009 the NDP snuck environmental activists into the House of Commons so they could hold a noisy demonstration in the visitors gallery, against House rules of course. (You can refresh your memory here.)

The New Democrats lied—first defence of blaggards—about not being responsible, but Conservative House Leader Jay Hill officially complained that before the demonstrators came into the Commons, they were organizing and rehearsing chants in a room that had been booked for them in Parliament by the New Democrats. And one protester was listed as political events coordinator for NDP MP Paul Dewar’s riding, Ottawa Centre.

Busted!

According to the iPolitics report:

“The New Democratic Party was behind a mysterious robocall [sic] campaign that deluged Quebec MP Lise St-Denis’ offices last week with phone calls from constituents upset with her jump from the NDP to the Liberals, iPolitics has learned.”

NDP spokeswoman Sally Housser reportedly said the script used in the calls didn’t say the calls were being made on behalf of the NDP, and that the tactic is one that the party has used in the past.

The “robocall” campaign caused hundreds of calls to tie up phone lines at Lise St-Denis’ offices on Wednesday and Thursday. One may not approve of Ms. St-Denis’ decision to cross the floor from NDP to Liberal, but surely this is a deceitful and underhanded manner in which to express such disapproval.

As I said, dirty tricks are their stock in trade.

Video: Rae’s back!

2012-01-16T14:11:00.001-05:00

Beware the second coming!

He’ll do to Canada what he did to Ontario.

Thanks to the National Citizen’s Coalition for this video.

Consequences: when abortion-on-demand meets multiculturalism

2012-01-16T13:53:00.001-05:00

The Canadian Medical Association’s Journal (CMAJ) published today a rather disturbing editorial, “It’s a girl!”—could be a death sentence. The editorial highlights one of the tragic consequences of the intersection of multiculturalism and abortion-on-demand.

The editorial points out that many in countries like India and China have a preference for having sons and, as a consequence, sometimes abort daughters simply to control their numbers. A practice referred to as “female feticide,” the termination of the life of a fetus within the womb on the grounds that its sex is female, is an evil that devalues women and should be curbed.

The solution, according to the CMAJ, is not to disclosure gender information to women until after about 30 weeks of pregnancy. Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

A pregnant woman being told the sex of the fetus at ultrasonography at a time when an unquestioned abortion is possible is the starting point of female feticide from a health care perspective. A woman has the right to medical information about herself that is available to a health care professional to provide advice and treatment. The sex of the fetus is medically irrelevant information (except when managing rare sex-linked illnesses) and does not affect care. Moreover, such information could in some instances facilitate female feticide. Therefore, doctors should be allowed to disclose this information only after about 30 weeks of pregnancy—in other words, when an unquestioned abortion is all but impossible.

In a nation like Canada where morality is pretty much left to individuals, is it really surprising that some will use unfettered access to fully funded abortion to discriminate against women in a most egregious fashion?

As repugnant as the practice of female feticide is to me, I am foursquare against withholding information about the gender the unborn from pregnant women, most of whom hold healthy, moral, Canadian attitudes regarding the equality of males and females.

This smacks of penalizing the majority of families because a few have barbaric practices. We don’t outlaw marriage because some immigrants practice polygamy—nor should we.

The editorial means well, I’m sure, but a better, more democratic solution needs to be found.

Please read the CMAJ’s editorial, it’s informative and deals with a very important social issue.

High crime or misdemeanour?

2012-01-16T11:38:00.001-05:00

There was quite a fuss in the media last week over a video showing American Marines urinating on the corpses of recently killed combatants. A lot of outrage expressed, of course, and even suggestions the young men had committed a war crime.

For many, such behaviour is inexcusable and should be punished harshly. I’m not a member of that group.

This sort of behaviour, while it falls short of what is ideal under the circumstances, is more of a misdemeanour than a high crime and should be dealt with as such. I acknowledge that the Marines’ actions probably violate the Geneva Conventions, and they should be punished for their breach of discipline.

Let’s consider, however, that the enemy has proven to be barbaric in their cruelty—throwing acid in the faces of schoolgirls and hacking the heads of prisoners are examples. In enemy hands, those Marines’ bodies would have been treated to far greater indignities than a shower of urine, and that fact is not lost on the young Americans.

I’d, therefore, recommend leniency when disciplining these Marines.

War is hell, folks. Things happen.

LPC: A party in search of an identity

2012-01-16T10:22:00.001-05:00

The Liberal Party of Canada seems to be a party in search of an identity. Ordinarily, one expects those with specific identities and sets of ideas to form a party to implement or otherwise further their ideas, much as anyone with a problem might search for a solution.

The LPC is, however, like a solution looking for a problem—a readymade political party, with all the trappings, shopping in the marketplace of ideas, hoping to pick up something, preferably at a discount, that fits their leadership’s view of what will appeal to enough voters to regain top spot.

Some Liberals want to hug the centre much like the old Progressive Conservatives. You know, liberal on social issues; conservative on fiscal ones. To do so, however, they’d have to elbow the Conservatives in the ribs to get them to move over a bit and make more room in the centre.

Other Liberals want to be social democrats, and occupy the position where high taxes and big government are the answers to everything.

Still others just want power, and it really doesn’t matter to them what ideology they adopt to get it. This is the old guard who seem to have taken charge of the party once again.

These are neither progressives nor conservatives, but political Chameleons, opportunists looking for a way back.

Is Bob Rae trying to make interim role permanent?

2012-01-15T10:35:00.001-05:00

There is a lot being made about the Liberal party’s interim leader Bob Rae (MP for Toronto Centre) using his current post to “leverage” his chances against other leadership contenders if he decides to run for the permanent position. I have no way of knowing if Rae intends to run for the permanent job, of course, but prominent Liberals like Warren Kinsella and Gerard Kennedy certainly seem concerned that he will.

Kinsella says flat out, “Bob Rae is running for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada,” in his blog and in his Toronto Sun column. And Gerard Kennedy seems concerned enough to give voice to his fear of unequal treatment in an interview with The Hill Times.

Others among the 3,000 Liberals at the Ottawa Convention Centre this weekend apparently have picked up on a growing sense that Rae will find a way to wiggle out of his promise not to seek the full-time leader’s job.

Heaven help the Liberal Party of Canada if it does allow Rae to compete. For one thing, he’s likely to win and continue internal divisions that have badly hurt the Grits since the Chrétien-Martin feud began the great divide in the party.

For another, Rae’s too old to be leader of a party that needs to reinvent itself. Ronald Reagan won the U.S. presidency at about the age Rae will be when next he gets a chance to be prime minister. But Rae’s no Ronald Reagan. And, lets face it, Reagan’s age was a negative factor during his final years in office.

As I see it, should Bob Rae become leader of federal Liberal party, and I think he well might, he’ll lead that party into a merger with the NDP—it may take a while, but it will happen—and the far left of the NDP will form a new social democratic party. The left will still be divided, but far less so.

The upheaval will keep the Grits-NDP out of office in the next election, and by the one after that Bob Rae really will be too old to continue as leader.

We all need a healthy Liberal Party

2012-01-14T16:20:00.001-05:00

By this time, the grits will be well into their policy convention at Ottawa. I gather from Warren Kinsella’s blog that the weather is pretty bad up that way, though attendance doesn’t seem to be suffering. And that’s a good thing, for Canada does not need a permanently crippled federal Liberal party, no more than it needs a crippled Conservative party.

Yes, I spend a lot of my time bashing the Liberals and hope they stay out of office for the next two or so federal elections. But not permanently. None of the Western democracies have benefited when a political party stays too long in office. Three full terms seems about the limit for political parties to remain effective. After that, frankly, they all begin to stink. Of course, we don’t know for sure what the political shelf-life is for the federal NDP; I suspect its about 10 days.

When the Liberals discipline themselves enough to govern from the centre, they do okay. It’s when they chase after Dippers and give in to the Bob Raes, Martha Hall-Finlays, et al in their midst that they go offside.

Of course, the Grits need a leader that has the courage to take the centre and hold it. And that’s NOT Bob Rae. Rae may tell us he is of the centre–left, but that’s only after he’s shifted the marker so that the centre-point shows somewhere about one-third the way from the left end.

Canadians, as a whole, seem to be most comfortable with a party governing at the centre—whether a little bit to the left or to the right does not seem to matter much. I personally like centre-right for a government on social policy and more right than that for fiscal policy. I also like to see provincial jurisdictions respected—better to make the policies closest to where the implementation and maintenance will occur—and not have the feds duplicating effort. That’s why I like the current Conservative party.

But back to the Liberal party.

Canadian Liberals seem to cover the broad span of the political left, so, if we lose a party on the left, I’d rather we lose the Dippers with their hard-left elements.

Hard-left governments have failed everywhere they’ve had the opportunity to govern. It’s only when they bring in elements of free-market economics that they stay above water. And, once they do that, their citizens begin to ask for more individual freedoms, human rights, etc. And hard-left parties can’t bare to operate that way, so the inevitably fail.

A healthy federal Liberal party will not guarantee a healthy democracy for Canadians, but I don’t like our chances without it.

National Post’s Coyne sets the record straight

2012-01-14T11:36:00.001-05:00

Andrew Coyne at the National Post has a terrific column in this morning’s paper, in which he sums up the “phony crisis” the media has created over the legality of some or all same-sex marriages performed in Canada. This is the best I’ve read on the subject.

Coyne writes:

“This week’s media meltdown over same-sex marriage for foreign tourists was one of the more disgraceful episodes in the long history of phoney controversies in this country: a toxic mix of shrewd lawyering, shoddy reporting and partisan opportunism, all without the slightest reference to the relevant, and easily obtainable, facts.”

He points out that the notion that the marriage laws of the jurisdiction in which the participants live is very pertinent to the validity of marriages performed in Canada. For this he uses an authoritative legal source, basing his article on a 2006 piece by Jeffrey Talpis, professor of law at the University of Montreal. That is to say, “the government lawyer was right on this point.”

No, folks, the Stephen Harper government was not engaged in skulduggery as claimed or implied by so many progressives in the media, led on by the Globe and Mail and the CBC.

You can read Coyne’s piece, here.

I guess I’ll never be a member of the 416 sophisticates

2012-01-13T15:34:00.001-05:00

Membership as a 416 sophisticate has never been a goal of mine. As such, I can’t really relate to Bob Rae’s admission that he showed contempt for our laws by smoking marijuana. I prefer to remain an abstainer and obey the law of the land.

“I don’t think anybody of my generation could be regarded as an abstainer,” Rae reportedly told 680News. Well, I along with millions of law-abiding Canadians did abstain, Mr. Rae.

And, yes, we were of your generation, more or less. We were not of the intelligentsia, though, we were just plain folks. We studied hard, worked hard, played some, and along the way we married and raised families. And we didn’t find it necessary or clever to flaunt the law and get high. We left that to those special folks who felt entitled to do as they pleased.

Why do NDP leaders believe they are above the law? Bob Rae has admitted that he smoked pot; the late Jack Layton apparently used a whorehouse—at least, he was found naked in one by the police, with virtually no coverage by the Toronto press, by the way.

These transgressions might not have come while either man was a party leader, but I believe it says volumes about their characters and their idea of moral behaviour. And it probably would be indicative of how they would have run our country, had they been given the chance.

Laws, I guess, are for lesser Canadians: the vast majority of us who believe one has an obligation to be law-abiding.

Gay marriage brouhaha

2012-01-13T12:07:00.001-05:00

The current word-storm in the media over the status of same-sex marriage in Canada doesn’t raise much concern at my house. Seems to me, our legal system and marriage law is intended for residents of Canada and should not be overly concerned about those who use it to circumvent marriage laws in their own countries.

Canadian couples cannot dissolve their marriages (divorce) without satisfying Canadian residency rules—currently 12 months for at least one spouse. Similar residency rules apply in most North American jurisdictions, though, I am not certain what the rules are in Quebec. Lack of residency rules in Nevada is frequently the reason some Americans go to Las Vegas for so-called “quickie” divorces.

But here we go again with one more example of a specific community wanting special consideration under our laws. A lesbian couple, who do not live in Canada, want our laws changed to suit their circumstances. Well tough!

Apparently, the couple got married in Canada when same-sex marriages were not recognized in their home jurisdictions, Florida and the United Kingdom. So, as I see it, they came to Canada to circumvent their countries’ own laws. And now they want Canada to turn itself into a quickie divorce jurisdiction to suit their lifestyle. Why, then, should I—or any other Canadian—waste any sympathy on these people?

I see no reason to eliminate Canadian residency rules to make it possible for foreigners to obtain divorces in Canada. No reason at all.

While we’re at it, same-sex marriage in Canada is in no way under threat. It is there now, and will continue to be there in the future, for Canadian residents who want to make use of it. And shame on the media members who have irresponsibly reported on this issue in a way that frightens those gay/lesbian Canadian residents who have been married here.

And CBC and CTV news channels, many in the media at large and in the gay/lesbian community should be ashamed of themselves for such callous and completely unfair criticism of Prime Minister Stephen Harper over this silly tempest in a teapot.

Liberals remaking party or just more of the same?

2012-01-12T17:39:00.001-05:00

The Liberal party is trying to remake itself, or so we are told. But is this not just more of the same old Liberal rhetoric? I believe it’s the latter, and I say this because everything new they plan on doing seems like pretty old stuff they’ve talked about and/or promised for decades.

Among proposals to be debated at their convention in Ottawa this weekend are (thanks to Andrew Coyne at the National Post for the list): a national food strategy, a national housing strategy, a national infrastructure strategy, a national home care plan, a national mental health plan, a Supplemental Canada Pension Plan, a “comprehensive post-secondary education funding plan” and a “comprehensive integrated transportation system,” including high-speed rail lines from Quebec City to Windsor and Edmonton to Calgary, and a national child care program.

Why would a federal party have a policy debate on proposals which are predominantly in the provincial domain? What is it with these guys? Oh, they throw the word “national” in front of everything and pretend that gives them jurisdiction. For decades the Grits in Ottawa have been meddling in education, and health care and threatening to do so also in child care. Why can’t they stay the heck out of provincial jurisdiction and stop meddling?

By Coyne’s account, the Grits also want “… to ‘triple investment in northern scientific research,’ implement a ‘vast and robust’ renewable energy program, pay every undergraduate’s first and last year’s tuition, restore the Canada Wheat Board’s monopoly.”

While I actually like the idea of paying two years’ post-secondary tuition for every student, I see this as a provincial initiative. And restore the Canada Wheat Board’s monopoly? Really? Are they really planning to bring back state-mandated monopolies? And do the Liberals plan similar monopolies in Ontario and Quebec? And, if not, why not? If it’s the best way for the West, why not for the East? And how about other commodities—do we set up monopolies for them too?

As to the rest, there’s nothing new here: just the same old stuff we heard—using different words perhaps—from every Liberal leader going back to, at least, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. And it’s all adding up to more big-spending, big government.

But what more could one expect from a party run by the likes of Bob Rae and Sheila Copps? Sheila Copps has never really run anything of substance in her life. Being a minister of the crown is not a COO-like job—there’s little or no day-to-day responsibilities such as a chief operating officer has. The deputy ministers (civil servants) have that job. But Copps wants to run the Liberal Party—good luck with that. Bob Rae failed miserable when he won the job of running Ontario, now he wants to run Canada?

Has war with Iran already begun?

2012-01-12T15:57:00.001-05:00

Is the West at war with Iran? Not a cold war—for I think that is clearly the case—but a “hot” war? Judging from what I see in the media, I have concluded Iran and the West are engaged in a deadly struggle. The struggle might be a covert one, but one hot enough to have already claimed casualties on both sides.

It is not easy to identify all combatants, for much of the war is waged in secret. One can be sure, however, that Israel and the United States are in the forefront.

Above the surface, we have Washington, European Union and others, including Canada, stepping up efforts to impose wide-reaching sanctions on Iran and threatening to shut down its oil exports. And Tehran has countered by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz through which Persian Gulf oil is shipped to energy-hungry markets world-wide. It has also claimed it wants to wipe out the state of Israel.

Below the surface, there is Israel’s covert actions against Iran’s nuclear program that has been going on for years, including (most likely) the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, cyber-war and a campaign of sabotage within Iran. And less known has been Iran’s push-back in Iraq and Afghanistan, where its special-unit Al Quds Force has attacked U.S. troops using improvised explosive devices. I have little doubt the Americans have suffered casualties directly from actions directed from Tehran. And this from the National Post:

In November, a huge explosion ripped through a Revolutionary Guard Corps’ base outside Tehran, leveling [sic] most of the buildings and killing 17 people, including a founder of Iran’s ballistic missile program, General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam.

Two weeks later, another large explosion damaged a key uranium enrichment plant at Isfahan [in Iran].

On Dec. 11, seven people were reported killed in an explosion at a steel mill linked to [Iran’s] nuclear program in Yazd.

Moreover, American officials have alleged Al Quds’ operatives planned to hire members of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington. Today, the National Post wrote that Monday Iran sentenced former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati to death for allegedly spying for the Central Intelligence Agency.

In coming weeks and months, we can expect more tit-for-tat on both sides.

This war may be a covert, low-level one, but a war nevertheless in which lives are lost.

Israeli citizenship for Palestinian spouses?

2012-01-12T13:28:00.001-05:00

There is a law in Israel that prevents Palestinians who marry Israeli Arabs from obtaining citizenship in the Jewish State. Sounds very reasonable to me, especially considering most of the Arab nations of the region—and by extension the Palestinians—have been in a real or virtual state of war with Israel since the day the modern version that nation was formed in 1948.

To my knowledge, no modern nation has had a practice of issuing citizenship to citizens of nations with which it is at war. I can find no president for such a practice.

I could just imagine the reaction here in Canada if one of our citizens had brought a German spouse home in 1940 and expected citizenship to be awarded to that spouse. The German expat would far more likely have ended up in a determent camp, there to reside until a formal peace agreement had been signed.

Since no equivalent peace agreement exists between Israel and the Palestinians, I’m not surprised to read that Israel’s Supreme Court recently upheld (six judges for; five opposed) that nation’s law preventing Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs from obtaining Israeli citizenship.

In 2003, Israel’s Knesset adopted (for one year) a law limiting the right of non-nationals to residence in the Jewish state, blocking citizenship for Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs. The law was extended later for security reasons.

Far from being “discriminatory” and “racist,” as critics have branded the law, I see it as practical and necessary.

Time to rethink Alberta’s oil sands strategy?

2012-01-10T16:04:00.001-05:00

Suncor Energy upgrader and tailings ponds. Fort McMurray, AB. | Photo by Edward Burtynsky

The minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, is being flogged by the CBC’s Evan Soloman for saying, “there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade.” Apparently, Soloman has seized onto the word “radical” as being some sort of epithet that disparages all environmental groups.

From where I sit, many environmentalists do seem radical in their belief that we in the West can remake our economies to replace the use of fossil fuels, and to do so virtually overnight and without beggaring ourselves into the bargain. And on that basis, I see MP Elizabeth May, for example, as holding radical beliefs. (By the way, The Iceman blog is hosting a survey on this very question here.)

It seems to me, Soloman all too frequently, and I believe purposely, misinterprets or takes out of context remarks made by conservatives. Other than the radical elements in environmental groups themselves, does anyone truly believe Joe Oliver meant all environmental groups are radicals? I doubt it. But Soloman seemed to build most of his show around that premise.

The discussion on Power & Politics, though, did start me thinking about the struggle we seem to be having as we try to expand markets for bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands. And I began to wonder whether—in our apparent haste to diversify our markets by shipping bitumen overseas or down the coast to California in super tankers—have we fully explored the option of refining Saskatchewan and Alberta’s bitumen in Canada, thereby developing a whole raft of secondary industries around by-products such as gasoline, heating oil and plastics (polypropylene).

Have we fully explored the option of turning our prairie provinces into an industrial heartland that would market petrochemical-based products that are well along the value added chain, thereby retaining more of the spin-off in jobs and investment right here in Canada?

There is nothing really new about this idea. The concept has been debated for years. (Over a year ago I read about a very promising campaign, “Refine It Where We Mine It.”) I wonder, though, why Alberta-Saskatchewan is not a greater rival to Texas as a North American giant in petroleum products manufacturing. We have the raw materials and there are U.S. and other world markets for the products. So why ship bitumen at all? Wouldn’t refined products be more practical to ship by rail to either coast for shipment to Europe and Asia? Right of ways already exist.

Imagine what adding an additional 25 to 40 per cent of GDP—by adding value to our existing resources—would do for the wellbeing of our country.

NDP MP Lise St-Denis becomes a rat and joins the Liberal caucus

2012-01-10T13:49:00.001-05:00

The NDP’s representative for former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s old Saint Maurice-Champlain riding in Quebec, has announced that she, MP Lise St-Denis, is joining the Liberal caucus. In some political circles this is known as “ratting”, and, although I agree with Liberal leader Bob Rae who is reported to have said that jumping to the third party from the Official Opposition can hardly be seen as opportunism, I find the practice lacking in respect for democracy.

How can a candidate spend an entire campaign telling voters her party best serves their aspirations then within a scant three months or so defect to another party?

This is unconscionable.

We all know that many politicians change sides. Some even change, then change back. But only three months after an election?

True, the New Democrats’ leadership is in a state of flux, and a poll done in late December shows NDP support in Quebec is sliding. But this hardly sufficient to justify an MP switching sides.

Lise St-Denis’s defection leaves the Dippers with 101 MPs in the Commons, 58 of which are from Quebec, and gives the Liberals 35 seats, only eight of which are from Quebec.

Romney seems sure to win N.H., but who’ll be best of the rest?

2012-01-10T12:03:00.001-05:00

Mitt Romney seems assured of victory in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary. All polls have him running well ahead of his competition though some do show him slipping somewhat in the past few days. The latest polls have Romney leading Ron Paul and the rest of the candidates by margins of 15 to 24 percentage points.

Romney’s victory in Iowa last week coupled with a victory in New Hampshire will make him a pretty safe bet to win the GOP nomination—not a certainty, but I’d not bet against him.

While I’m not an avid fan of Mitt Romney—I prefer Jon Huntsman, or maybe even Newt Gingrich over him—I am bowing to the weight of polling evidence that places him so far in front, his nomination seems almost inevitable.

For what it is worth, here’s how the candidates will score tonight, as I see it.

Mitt Romney at 37 per cent, Jon Huntsman at 19 per cent, Ron Paul at 19 per cent (but with fewer votes than Huntsman), Newt Gingrich at 12.5 per cent, Rick Santorum at 11.5 per cent and Rick Perry at 1 per cent.

I believe Huntsman has the momentum to catch Paul, though who of those two will will finish second is really anybody’s guess. Although fourth and fifth place is also a toss-up between Gingrich and Santorum, I favour the former Speaker to edge out the former senator.

Romney leading in New Hampshire, followed by Paul and Huntsman

2012-01-07T13:00:00.001-05:00

Likely GOP voters in New Hampshire are favouring Mitt Romney for the GOP Presidential nomination at 37%, followed by Ron Paul at 19% and Jon Huntsman at 16%. Rick Santorum fell to fourth with 14% and Newt Gingrich is polling at only 9%. This according to new polls released by Watchdog.org, a project of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

Rick Perry, of course, has taken a pass on New Hampshire so we won’t hear much from him until the candidates move on to South Carolina for its primary on January 21.

I expect Jon Huntsman to do better in New Hampshire on January 10 than this poll suggests—say, second place behind Romney with 20-22% of the vote. And I expect a poor showing from Rick Santorum whose messages seem not able to resonate with New Hampshire voters nearly as well at they did in Iowa.

Santorum seems far too interested in turning the nation into a theocracy, official or de facto. The United States is swimming in government debt and under-employment, and is bogged down in a decade-long war which it seems unlikely to win, and he appears more interested in making sure abortion is outlawed and gays can’t marry. In voters minds, the economy will trump social issues.

I can’t see the former senator taking the lead from Romney or even placing second. I look for Santorum to finish fourth behind Ron Paul, who I expect to hold down third place.

As to Gingrich, he seems to be in the race now solely to hurt Romney’s chances, and he will not likely do much in New Hampshire other than splitting-off some of Santorum’s support.

Sheila Copps opens her eyes… finally

2012-01-06T16:01:00.001-05:00

The former politician Sheila Copps is running to be president of the Liberal party. Copps was in provincial and federal politics for more than two decades yet seemed not to notice or, at least, do much about the many faults she now finds with the Liberal party.

In today’s National Post, Copps tells us, “It is time to give the Liberal party back to its members and, most importantly, to all ordinary Canadians who share the principles and values that have made this country great.”

She also wrote, “This old-style back-room management has meant top-down controlled nomination meetings and top-down controlled party elections—decided before they are held.”

Odd, isn’t it, that while she served as a Liberal member of parliament for all those years, Copps didn’t seem to worry much about her party’s “old-style back-room management” or the “top-down controlled nomination meetings and top-down controlled party elections” it held?

I do remember her complaining that former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin was trying to drive her and other Martin opponents out of the Liberal caucus. And she did once suggest she could campaign for the New Democratic Party in the then upcoming 2004 election should her Liberal rival Tony Valeri win the nomination for her riding of Hamilton East-Stoney Creek. (A threat she later retracted.)

For the most part, however, she seemed very much part of the Liberal party faithful and inner circle, even serving as Deputy Prime Minister in the 1990s.

To use her words, “We all now have the benefit of clarity that comes after a bitter defeat.” Too bad she had not the benefit of such “clarity” while she drove about in her minister’s chauffeur-driven Limousine for all those years. Back then, she told us poor voting shnooks how wonderful the Liberal party was.

Little did we know her “beloved party” had “become a party layered with bureaucracy, resistant to change, at odds with … party members.” Or that it was “out of touch with Canadians.”

David Frum closes FrumForum and moves to Daily Beast and Newsweek

2012-01-06T12:46:00.001-05:00

The former President George W. Bush speechwriter, conservative journalist and political commentator, David Frum, has announced he’ll fold operations of FrumForum and join the The Daily Beast website and Newsweek magazine, where he’s expected to write a blog and contribute features for the weekly magazine.

Frum wrote in his farewell post:

“Starting Monday, my work will shift to the Daily Beast/Newsweek site. The FrumForum URL will forward readers to the David Frum page at Daily Beast/Newsweek. FrumForum itself will continue to exist as an archive site, preserving three years of debate—the brilliant insights of our writers–and the passionate comments of our readers.”

Personally, I’ll miss FrumForum, a website I visited most days. I’m not sure whether Frum will continue to contribute columns to the National Post—I hope he does. It is encouraging to know that the Republican Party includes conservative voices like Frum’s, which act as a counter balance to the rather strident rhetoric we’ve been hearing from the likes of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

Some conservatives view Frum as somewhat of a traitor to the cause; I see him as voice of reason and wish him well.

Iran, sabre rattling or hollow bluster?

2012-01-06T11:14:00.001-05:00

Those in power in Iran must be feeling the pinch from sanctions imposed by the international community. Talk about closing the Strait of Hormuz—one of the busiest international oil shipping routes in the world and critical to many Western economies—and a warning to the United States not to return an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf is no more than an empty bluff.

These are just the sort of bluster and bombastic utterances we became accustomed to hearing from the late Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, and his underlings as they attempted to persuade the Americans that they were stronger militarily than they actually were.

As it turned out in the Iraq War, Saddam Hussein’s army was known more for retreat than for victory, and its air force hardly ever got off the ground.

I believe—as do some Middle East experts—that Iran does not have a nuclear program nearly as advanced as they’d have the West believe. But Iran got itself in a bind because of repeated boasts about destroying Israel, and must now reinforce its charade with inflated claims of military might to discourage the use military force against it.

Unfortunately for the ordinary people of Iran, their leaders’ reckless rhetoric may have already set in motion a sequence which will lead inevitably to military confrontation with the United States and Israel.

A nuclear-armed Iran is such a frightening prospect, even a 50-50 chance of that nation being close to having nuclear weapons could lead to military intervention to downgrade the threat it poses to the region and to global security.

Why pick on CEOs?

2012-01-05T16:04:00.001-05:00

The media is full of stories about the gap between the salaries of chief executive officers and those of average workers. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, since the most recent stories are prompted by leftist, union-financed/supported “Occupy” protests and a think tank study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), which claims to be an independent, non-partisan, policy research institute, but more than “leans” to the political left.

The CCPA may claim non-partisanship, but I very much doubt its authors support any of Canada’s conservative parties or their basic principles. So when the CCPA claims to be for “policy alternatives,” it pretty much means policies that are alternatives to conservative policies. CCPA policies are those one would expect to be espoused by progressives like socialists and social democrats. These folks are usually anti-profit and for big government and a cradle-to-grave welfare state.

Since the CCPA began in 1980 with funding from trade unions, it has largely been true to its colours. Its Facebook page states it was founded by “a group of largely Carleton University professors who wished to re-create something akin to the League for Social Reconstruction…” [emphasis mine].

The LSR’s views were regularly articulated in the pages of the New Commonwealth magazine, which was a publication of the United Farmers of Ontario, whose party platform included nationalization of railways and legislation that would facilitate co-operatives. The LSR is also responsible for two books, Social Planning for Canada (1935) and Democracy Needs Socialism (1938).

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF)—which merged with the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and became the New Democratic Party—had some of its roots in the United Farmers of Ontario party. So it should come as no surprise that the CCPA should be advocating against a pay structure that generously rewards CEOs. Heck, these folks advocate against the capitalist system in general.

Non-partisan indeed!

If one is genuinely concerned with the gap between rich and poor, why pick on CEOs? What about the difference between the hockey star and the ticket-taker at the arena? Or the usher at the door of a cinema and the blockbuster star on the screen. For the year 2008, Forbes listed Jennifer Aniston’s earnings as $27-million—how much does an usher make?

How about the progressives’ darling of letters, Margaret Atwood? I bet the old dame makes a pretty penny and many, many times the earnings of the average Canadian writer. Why aren’t the progressives calling for a cap on her earnings?

I have sympathy for those who complain about U.S.-based investment bankers who contributed to the 2008-2009 financial crisis, then accepted tax-funded bailouts, then paid themselves millions in bonuses. But wasn’t that as much the fault of politicians who did not properly protect the interests of taxpayers?

We live in a free society and shareholders should be free to pay their CEOs whatever they believe their “super-stars” are worth.

Michele Bachmann does the right thing

2012-01-05T12:46:00.001-05:00

Ihave waited a day before writing about Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses. I wanted to see the winnowing brought about by this, the first of the “real” electoral events in the 2012 presidential election process. The Iowa caucuses may not be the most reliable predictor of the eventual GOP nomination winner, but they do separate the political chaff from the grain.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney who won, former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) who lost by just eight votes and third-place Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) all emerged as the “grain”. They will go on to further tests in New Hampshire and/or South Carolina later this month. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, with a mediocre 10 per cent of the vote, and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), who put in a particularly dismal showing with only five per cent, must surely be considered the “chaff”. I’m not sure whether to classify Newt Gingrich, with 13 per cent, as chaff or grain. Apparently, he does plan to continue—if only to give Romney payback for the rough going-over Gingrich received in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote.

Of the two big losers, Bachmann is the only one to step aside; Perry has decided to stay in the race to, at least, contest the South Carolina Primary.

I, like many Republicans, had high hopes for Rep. Michele Bachmann. She had, we hoped, the makings of an American Margaret Thatcher. Clearly, we were wrong. Being female and tough and anti-Gay are not enough to be legitimately compared to the Iron Lady of Britain. One also needs to be knowledgeable, worldly and statesmanlike. Clearly Bachmann is none of these. She’s an improvement over Sarah Palin, but falls short of being presidential material, at least, at this stage of her life.

Her apparent willingness to use nuclear weapons on Iran as a first strike is appalling. And her grasp on geography, international affairs, American history and popular culture is deeply troubling:

Bachmann seemed not to know that Libya was in Africa and that the American Embassy in Tehran had been closed for thirty years.
She famously said: “But we also know that the very founders [of the U.S. republic] that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States. … I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forbearers who worked tirelessly—men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.” Really? On what planet did the Founding Fathers work to end slavery? And John Quincy Adams was not one of the Founding Fathers—he was 11 or 12 years of age at the time.
While campaigning in Iowa, she told an interviewer that they were near the birthplace of John Wayne. It was not, as apparently she believed, the cowboy star, but the serial killer, John Wayne Gacy who had lived nearby at Waterloo, Iowa.
She once invited a crowd in South Carolina to honour Elvis Presley’s birthday on what was actually the anniversary of his death.
Her child-like solution to unemployment is to abolish the minimum wage. Do that, she says, and everyone would have a job.

This is not a candidate with any chance whatsoever of taking the White House from President Barack Obama. So, bye, bye, Michele.

Richard Ciano says it’s “Time to Win”

2012-01-03T12:08:00.001-05:00

Today Richard Ciano released his campaign platform for president of the Ontario PC party. I met Mr. Ciano when I had the good luck to sit beside him at a brunch that preceded the Burlington PC Riding Association’s annual general meeting last November.

He made a speech that morning from which I was able to tick-off each of my pet peeves over shortcomings and/or mistakes made in the PC’s last general election campaign. Shortly after that meeting, I wrote:

It is said often that at crucial times in history, the “right” person seems to emerge. Well, Mr. Ciano’s emergence as a candidate to lead our party at a crucial time may well be one of those.

It is encouraging to see that Mr. Ciano has now expanded on the points he made here at Burlington. (See here for the full text of his platform.)

Mr. Ciano reminds us that it’s been about 13 years since the last PC victory in Ontario. And I’ll add the we now have to wait another four years before we can again try to win the hearts and minds of this province’s voters. So, for the better part of two decades, we’ll have stood on the sidelines while the Grits make hash of Ontario’s economy—under the Liberals we have gone from Canada’s healthy economic engine of growth to a sick sister that relies on handouts from the federal government.

I agree with Mr. Ciano when he says, “We [party officials] have become an increasingly centrally controlled top-down regime, tone-deaf to our members and supporter base, and blind to our shortcomings.” And I especially applaud his conclusion summarized by these words, “To win elections we need strong riding associations, engaged members, and enthusiastic volunteers who buy into, and are proud of, the central campaign because it’s their campaign.”

No other candidate seems to quite get it. We did not lose because our leader was not good enough. We did not lose because our candidates were not good enough. We lost because party headquarters had forgotten how to win.

There are times when an especially charismatic leader can carry a party to victory on his/her coattails, but such leaders are seldom found. Most general elections are won, riding by riding, by popularly, locally selected candidates supported by engaged volunteers and a central party office that offers financing, training, advice and other support, without insisting everything be centrally managed and without substituting edicts for advice and support.

Mr. Ciano is saying all the right things, at least, as far as this writer is concerned.

Happy New Year!

2011-12-30T11:48:00.001-05:00

Have a happy and prosperous New Year, everyone.

War in Iraq far from over

2011-12-28T13:11:00.001-05:00

There was a time when Americans could boast of never having lost a war, but such a boast would ring hollow in the wake of a string of U.S. defeats broken only by a victory in the 1990/1991 Gulf War. Americans may not have won the War of 1812, but neither did they lose it. And while they may not, as often claimed, have won the First World War—they did tip the balance in favour of the Allies and played a pivotal role in the final two years of that conflict—they certainly were on the winning side.

Since the Second World War, however, America’s war record has been spotty. Did they win in Korea in the 1950s? Not really—that war ended pretty much in a stalemate. The Vietnam War ended in a miserable defeat for the Americans. The Afghan war, which began on October 7, 2001, is still not settled, and many claim it will end as the Iraq War has with the Americans “claiming” victory and pulling out their troops.

Which takes us to the recent withdrawal of U.S. military personal from Iraq and President Barack Obama’s pronouncement at Andrews Air Force Base that the war is over. Of course, President George W. Bush famously claimed victory in Iraq on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln way back in 2003—in the twenty-first century’s most unfortunate display of braggadocio by a world leader.

Might President Obama’s claim of victory be just as premature as was President Bush’s? I fear it might.

As journalist Michael Harris recently wrote, “By every rational measure, the war in Iraq was an abject failure.” I will add that it was also a miserable, avoidable, mistake in the first place. According to Harris, the butcher’s bill included:

Forty-five hundred dead soldiers on the American side, another 30,000 wounded. On the Iraqi side, somewhere between 650,000 and 1,000,000 civilian and combatant deaths, depending on whether you believe the prestigious British polling agency Opinion Research Business or the Lancet Report.

There is more to come. President Obama had barely declared victory when Iraq’s Shia-dominated government started going after its rivals, starting with Iraq’s Sunni Vice-President. And last Thursday, opening salvos in a civil war between the minority Sunni—former rulers—and the governing Shia majority were fired: 16 bomb blasts in Baghdad (72 people killed, 217 injured).

Iraq’s Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi has taken refuge in the semi-independent Iraqi region of Kurdistan. Iraq’s Kurds have rejected Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s authority over them. They are mostly Sunni Muslims, like the Sunni Arabs whom Hashemi represents—while Maliki, like most Arabic-speakers in Iraq, is Shia.

In short, the “Iraq War” may be over, but war rages on in Iraq.

I close with these prophetic words from Michael Harris, “the true political legacy of the Iraq War will [now] unfold—a bloody battle for supremacy between the fighters of the Sunni Awakening and the Shia majority with its new taste for power and its longstanding ties to Iran.”

How serious are Tory intentions in the high north?

2011-12-27T11:42:00.001-05:00

The Royal Canadian Air Force has considered expanding operations and facilities at Resolute Bay, Nunavut to make it a main operating base for Arctic operations. According to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen and reported on in the National Post, “The construction of a 3,000 metre paved runway, hangars, fuel installations and other infrastructure has been proposed as part of an effort to support government and military operations in the North.”

The RCAF, apparently, is also considering a forward operating base on Ellesmere Island, which would require the expansion of current facilities at Eureka, Nunavut. In so doing, our Forces could rebuild the existing facilities at Station Alert on Ellesmere Island, which is currently used for the interception of communications.

I’m all for paving and lengthening the runway at Resolute Bay—it currently has a 1,981-metre gravel runway—to allow fighter aircraft to operate in the far north and search and rescue operations to be centered there. And expanded operations at Resolute Bay would also be a key element in any Arctic development we undertake as we reinforce our sovereignty over this strategically important region.

I hope this is not just another Arctic proposal with more to do with attracting votes than enforcing sovereignty in the North. This has been a speciality of Conservative governments for far too long. It is unacceptable that Canada, which owns so much of the Artic, has virtually no effective naval, military or aerospace presence in that region. In this respect, we lag behind other countries that claim strategic interests in the Artic.

I’ll not feel comfortable with the level of our Conservative government’s commitment to the Artic until I see high-sounding words turn into action. Our leaders talk a good game, but are they really players?

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

2011-12-23T16:24:00.001-05:00

I’ll be doing less blogging over the Christmas and New Year season. I’ve had another wonderful year blogging about politics and such. When I started Russ Campbell’s Blog it never occurred to me that it would receive tens of thousands of visitors and page views, with several of you taking the time to leave comments.

It’s not much fun writing if no one reads your stuff, so a big “thank you” to all you readers, and I hope you’ll return next year. This is the season for concentrating on family, so I’ll be doing just that.

To all, good cheer and good health.

Have a Merry Christmas,
Happy Hanukkah and
a Happy and prosperous New Year!

Debating the unmentionable?

2011-12-23T15:55:00.001-05:00

The Tory MP for Kitchener-Centre Stephen Woodworth said in a recent media release that Canadian laws governing human rights of the unborn need to be re-examined because they are out-dated. Now I read that his fellow Conservative, Essex MP Jeff Watson, supports Woodworth’s call for a debate on whether to give human rights to the unborn.

It’s about time this debate was held in parliament and each and every member stood up and stated his position on the subject.

To be clear: no government can give anyone a “human right.” Human rights are ours whether or not our government recognizes them. Furthermore, life begins at conception, period. This is a reality of biology and no man-made legislation or lack thereof is going to change that.

Our government, however, could (and should) redefine what Canada considers a “legal person” to include, at least, some of the unborn. Currently, one has to be independent of the mother’s body to be a legal person—i.e., a person has to have been “born” to be a legal person under the law. So we are not talking about biology, but legal distinctions.

In my view, an unborn baby who could survive outside the womb as, say, a premature baby can, should be considered a legal person and receive all the protections, rights and privileges the rest of us Canadians enjoy. This is probably around the end of the second trimester of a pregnancy, and terminating a child’s life after that point should be illegal.

I also believe in a woman’s right to choose. But like every other Canadian right, there should be reasonable restrictions.

A mother could still have the right to chose whether she wishes to terminate her pregnancy, but—assuming no medical reason to do otherwise—the state should assume responsibility for the child’s life, if viable, at that point. The state provides housing and other necessities of life to murderers, pedophiles and others guilty of the most horrible crimes, so why deny life to these vulnerable, parentless babies.

Just because a woman decides she does not want her pregnancy to go full-term, that does not mean her unborn child should not be given a chance to live out its life. For a woman to decide not to have her child is one thing, it’s quite another to “kill” that child.

For the record, I am not a religious person. It’s been decades since I believed in the Christian concept of God, belonged to a religious denomination or attended any church or other place of religious worship. I do believe, though, in human decency. And, to me, claiming a child is less than a human being just because it has not been “born” is barbaric and nonsense.

If a mother allows a child to be removed through Caesarean section before the 39th week it is considered “born.” But if a woman demands an abortion before the 39th week the child is legally not born and can be destroyed. We really should be ashamed of ourselves.

Bring on the debate.

Dust-up on Sun News Network: Lilley cuts off Kinsella’s mic

2011-12-23T11:26:00.001-05:00

Avideo posted at the BC Blue blog shows the dyed-in-the-wool Liberal Warren Kinsella and Sun News’ Byline host Brian Lilley having a verbal dust-up until Lilley asks that Kinsella’s microphone be cut off. Yes, really. They cut off Kinsella’s microphone.

I am a regular watcher of Sun News, though I find programs like The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News better than anything Sun News offers. I thought, however, that Sun News prided itself with bringing both sides of an argument to the table. The Byline show’s Webpage boasts, in part:

The Byline showcases irreverent journalist Brian Lilley as a cultural warrior, a connected journalist who is on the side of Canadians who value their individual freedoms and responsibilities over intrusive government. … Tune in for insight, opinion and long-overdue discussion of topics that matter to average Canadians.

Apparently the “insight” and “opinion” referred to is subject to the host’s censorship. Well, I suppose all TV shows reserve the right to censor when a guest becomes extremely unmanageable or says things that could cause legal problems for the network. Lilley’s censorship seemed not to have been prompted by anything like that, however. In fact, it was Lilley who seemed to be losing his cool. I thought Kinsella handled himself with restraint.

This episode reminds me of an interview I saw when Krista Erickson, another of Sun News’ hosts, rudely bullied a guest. I’ve also heard Erickson berate the CBC—not such a bad thing of itself—but she happily pocketed her paycheques from the CBC for several years. Hypocrisy, it seems, is alive and well at Sun News.

As I see it, if one hosts a show with guests, one needs to be sure one can take as much as one gives. Bullying guests or turning off their microphones doesn’t seem to fit the image Sun News seems to be trying to project.

Warren Kinsella doesn’t need me to defend him, but I believe he held the high ground on this one.

PM Netanyahu's Christmas Greetings 2011

2011-12-22T16:11:00.001-05:00

How encouraging it is to see that there is one democracy in the Middle East which does not hate Christians. By contrast, According to FoxNews.com, in a textbook for ninth-graders in Saudi Arabia, the students are taught the annihilation of the Jewish people is imperative: “The hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. ... There is a Jew behind me come and kill him,” it reads. [Source]

Merry Christmas! and Happy Hanukkah! Israel.

Score 1 for provincial rights, 0 for federal overreaching

2011-12-22T14:53:00.001-05:00

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled unanimously against the federal government’s attempt to create a national stock market regulator, because the legislation presented to it “overreaches” into provincial jurisdiction. Thursday’s decision should end Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s plan, which called for the dismantling the current system under which the 13 provinces and territories regulate securities under a “co-operative passport system.”

The government had argued financial markets are now so critical to our economy and so interwoven with the world’s economy that Canada needed a single voice to more effectively represent its interests. The government also maintained that a single regulator would be more effective in detecting and policing fraud.

To help his case, Flaherty used examples of fraudsters such as Earl Jones in Montreal and the perpetrators of the Bre-X gold mine swindle suggesting they might have been caught sooner had single-regulator policing rules been in place. Critics, however, have rightly pointed out that a single regulator did not prevent Bernie Madoff, Enron and other stock manipulation scandals in the United States.

The court, however, left Ottawa room to continue playing a role in securities trading regulation, such as in setting minimum standards, and in guarding against systemic risk whereby a failure of one player creates a “domino effect” setting off a chain reaction affecting the greater financial system.

Hat’s off to Canada’s top court for reinforcing that we live in a federation and that provincial jurisdictions are to be adhered to. We have a constitution which lays out the boundaries of federal and provincial jurisdiction. If such boundaries are no longer in our national and provincial interests, then change the constitution. Until then, respect the boundaries.

Ontario minister whines about Flaherty’s ‘imposed’ health care deal

2011-12-22T12:27:00.001-05:00

The minister of finance for Ontario was one of the provincial representatives who whined most to the media after hearing details of a plan for how much federal health care money will be transferred to the provinces in the future. “It’s no present at all; it’s a lump of coal,” Dwight Duncan is reported to have said.

I’ve learned not to expect better from this blowhard of a politician. All bluster and truth shaping; not much substance. Duncan’s idea of getting the province’s finances back in balance is to make sure he picks a timeframe ending well outside his term in office. Under his and Dalton McGuinty’s leadership we’ll never see a balanced Ontario budget unless, of course, outside pressure forces their hand.

On TV, Duncan went on about how “tradition” called for the federal government to negotiate with provincial ministers over health care transfers. But how much negotiation went on when the Chrétien-Martin Liberals slashed health and education funding to balance the federal budgets in the 1990s?

In the past decade, Billions of dollars have been transferred to the provinces at rates of increase far exceeding either inflation or the growth in our economy—i.e., at unsustainable levels. Now federal finance minister Flaherty has said health transfers will continue to flow at the same six-per-cent increase rate they have been, but by 2018, the increase will be tied to the rate of nominal GDP, which is the measure of economic growth including inflation. Sounds both prudent and generous.

If Duncan wants more money, he could raise Ontario taxes to get it—he has nearly as much taxing authority as the federal government. That’s the adult way, but it’s easier to puff himself up and blame the feds.

Better still, the Ontario government could show the courage and gumption to insist the federal government backs off and stays out of provincial jurisdiction. Our constitution gives Ontario the right and obligation to provide for the health of its residents. Ontario’s political leaders know that this means funding as well as delivery. If we governed within the constitution, Ontario would not have to depend on Ottawa for these sorts of handouts.

Beware the wakened giant

2011-12-20T15:56:00.001-05:00

The passing of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, last Saturday reminds us of how dangerous a place the world is. One had hoped the end of the Cold War might have given a peace-dividend of a more lasting nature, but clearly, that is not the case.

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Islamist terrorist attacks on the United States, Spain and the United Kingdom, musings of nuclear attack from leaders of North Korea and Iran, sabre rattling from Russia and China, and internal conflicts in the Middle East have made the opening decade of the twenty-first century no less than a bloody mess.

Kim Jong-il was not even in his grave when North Korea conducted a missile test, signalling that nation’s commitment to continue its late leader’s policy of threatening to wipe out Seoul, the prosperous South Korean capital, or the Japanese economy, not to mention millions of their people. With some 1.19-million men under arms, North Korea possesses one of the world’s largest standing armies with a massive arsenal of conventional weapons, supplemented by nuclear weapons, while its people are forced to endure a permanent famine.

China Military 2011

Perhaps even more worrying, though, is North Korea’s primary (only?) international sponsor, China. While most in the West focus on the very real threat posed by Islamist extremists, China has poured ever-increasing billions of dollars into its armed forces.

Here’s an excerpt from a story USA Today published last summer:

For two decades China has been adding large numbers of warships, submarines, fighter jets and—more significantly—developing offensive missiles capable of knocking out U.S. stealth aircraft and the biggest U.S. naval ships including aircraft carriers.

At the same time, China has announced that its territorial waters extend hundreds of miles beyond its shores, well into what its neighbors and the United States consider international waters. It has installed more than 1,000 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan, a democratic island nation and U.S. ally. Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan all have complained to the United States about confrontations on the high seas with China.

Much of China’s new military and naval build-up is in offensive weapons like its first aircraft carrier—and there are unconfirmed reports of China also building two nuclear powered aircraft carriers. Such warships are not generally considered defensive.

Tensions run high in the South China Sea where China and others have unresolved differences.

Few remember that China briefly invaded Vietnam in 1979 with combined casualties of over 60,000. Furthermore, China and India have had disputes over their borders, resulting in three military conflicts: the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the Chola incident in 1967 and the 1987 Sino-Indian skirmish.

Moreover, the relationship between China and Japan is increasingly strained despite their deep economic ties and a doubling of their bilateral trade in the past five years. This has dangerous implications for the United States and the world at large. Eric Calder, writing for Foreign Affairs a few years back, had this to say:

Some liken current Sino-Japanese relations to the Anglo-German rivalry prior to World War I. As with the United Kingdom and Germany a century ago, the contest for regional leadership between China and Japan today is creating new security dilemmas, prompting concerns over Chinese ambitions in Japan and fears of renewed Japanese militarism in China. Both states are adopting confrontational stances, partly because of rising popular involvement in politics and resurgent nationalism exacerbated by revived memories of World War II; mutually beneficial economic dealings alone are not effectively soothing these tensions. Fluid perceptions of power and fear, Thucydides observed, are the classic causes of war. And they are increasingly present in Northeast Asia today.

Canada too could find itself at odds with China. As I wrote in August, China feels entitled to a share of the Arctic’s natural resources and wants to see as much as possible of the region remain international territory. And, if the U.K.’s The Telegraph is correct, Russia plans to “increase naval patrols in the Arctic Ocean to defend its interests against nations such as China seeking a share of the area’s mineral wealth.”

Should Canada be any less concerned than Russia apparently is?

Moreover, the Vancouver Sun reported earlier this year that a “massive” cyber attack was launched against the Canadian government by a foreign government, and that the infiltration of computer systems of two Canadian agencies were also likely perpetrated by a foreign government.

Which “foreign government” might that be? Why, China, of course.

Napoleon Bonaparte once famously said of China, “Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.” Methinks the giant has awakened.

Imbeciles too can own TV stations

2011-12-19T12:45:00.001-05:00

The video that follows is an example of the truly stunning ignorance of what passes as intelligent discourse in the Arab World. In it, an Egyptian presidential candidate, Tawfiq Okasha, describes Michael Coren as a Freemason and Coren’s Sun News TV show as “the leading channel in America” and says Coren’s show “is one of the most famous in America.” Coren, as most readers know, is a Roman Catholic and would unlikely be a Freemason. And clearly the man lacks even a basic level of knowledge about North American geography and international affairs.

As to Okasha’s imbecilic comments about Jews, I’m left without words to fully describe the extent of his idiocy.

Tawfiq Okasha has no excuse for such a display of ignorance and blatant anti-Semitism for he is and educated man and the owner of Al-Faraeen TV. Surely this is a further evidence a cultural war is being waged against us in the West when a prominent citizen of a significant country like Egypt openly displays such bigotry and misinformation.

Watch the video and decide for yourself.

Politician of the year: Stephen Harper

2011-12-19T11:43:00.001-05:00

Stephen Harper gets my vote as best politician of the year 2011, despite the success of the late Jack Layton and his New Democrats in Quebec. Stephen Harper has had a terrific record since he became leader of the united “right,” and proved that he can garner enough right-of-centre votes to form a majority with little or no support from Quebec.

Jack Layton seems to be the sentimental favourite of many for politician of the year, but I don’t see it. True, he improved his party’s fortunes in last May’s election, but his best efforts still left the New Democrats short of victory.

Prime Minister Harper’s Conservative Party is decades younger than the NDP, yet has grown from a modest prairie movement in the mid-eighties to the governing party of Canada and has replaced, some believe, the Liberals as Canada’s natural governing party.

Jack Layton’s political record pales by comparison to Stephen Harper’s.

The prime minister has led our country through some of the most trying economic times and nearly a decade of war. He is well into a program of rebuilding our armed forces—Canada now has the finest small army in the world—and under his leadership Canada has assumed a prominent position among mid-size nations. Canada’s relationship with the United States has been better under PM Harper than under any previous prime minister in over half a century—except, of course, for Brian Mulroney.

During 2011, Harper’s government has won an election and initiated a transformative agenda, especially in the areas of international trade, immigration reform, criminal justice and U.S.-Canada relations. Canada’s economic record and international profile far exceeds that of other countries of similar population size: Canada has the 35th largest population, but is ranked 9th in GDP by the CIA World Factbook (10th by the International Monitory Fund and the World Bank). Given the tumultuous and uncertain economic times of the past three years, Prime Minister Harper’s prudent management must be given much of the credit for keeping Canada hitting well above its weight.

Leading up to the May 2 election, here’s what the Globe and Mail—an openly Liberal newspaper—said when it endorsed the Conservative Party:

He [Harper] has built the Conservatives into arguably the only truly national party, and during his five years in office has demonstrated strength of character, resolve and a desire to reform. Canadians take Mr. Harper’s successful stewardship of the economy for granted, which is high praise. He has not been the scary character portrayed by the opposition; with some exceptions, his government has been moderate and pragmatic.

High praise indeed from what amounts to an “opposition” newspaper. By a wide margin, Stephen Harper is Canada’s best politician of 2011.

Is poor NDP performance allowing the Bloc to recover?

2011-12-16T14:07:00.001-05:00

The abysmal performance of the federal New Democrats seems to be giving the demoralized Bloc Québécois room for hope of making a recovery in Quebec. So Jack “The Bloc-slayer” Layton’s hard work in Quebec could soon be for naught after the lacklustre performance of his party under the interim leadership of Nycole Turmel.

As reported by The Canadian Press, a recent “Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey indicates the NDP’s support in the province [Quebec] has plunged to 26 per cent—tied with the Bloc Quebecois and down 16 points since the NDP swept 59 of Quebec’s 75 seats in last May’s election.” The Bloc, Liberals, Conservatives and Greens all seem to have made gains since May.

Harris-Decima chairman Allan Gregg explained that support for the New Democrats has been in decline in Quebec since early October and that the downward trend has accelerated in the last few weeks, notwithstanding the fact a leadership race to choose Layton’s successor is underway. Gregg said that he can’t recall a party ever losing so much ground during a leadership contest.

Nycole Turmel may be the least effective leader of the official opposition in memory, but I expected the NDP leadership campaigns would offset her poor performance. Apparently not.

With this poll as a backdrop, its amusing to read Nycole Turmel’s prediction that her party will defeat the Conservatives in the 2015 election. Doesn’t she know this is the Christmas Season, not April Fool’s?

It is disappointing, though, to see the Bloc on the rebound.

More than poverty inflicts victims of Attawapiskat

2011-12-15T16:36:00.001-05:00

The NDP member of parliament for Timmins-James Bay, Charlie Angus, has done Canadians a great service by bringing the plight of residents of Attawapiskat First Nation to their attention. Mr. Angus is the local MP for the Attawapiskat First Nation reserve and responded quickly by getting the word out about, and the spotlight on, Attawapiskat after that community declared a state of emergency earlier this fall.

For many (perhaps most) Canadians that was the first indication some of the 2,000 or so residents of that Northern Ontario community were living in such deplorable conditions. And we can all applaud the Canadian Red Cross for its prompt response to the crisis, and be grateful that our federal agencies too are getting directly involved.

I believe also that Prime Minister Harper himself is now on this file and will have a role to play in the long-term solutions that will presumably be found in the coming months.

There are, however, troubling aspects to this story that seem to have been ignored by Mr. Angus and the rest of the official opposition and, perhaps, even been somewhat distorted.

How, for instance, did Mr. Angus arrive at these figures he wrote about when he pointed out “that $50,000 per person [federal transfers] divided over six years, works out to about $8,300 per person per year”. The $50,000 seems to refer to the prime minister’s statement that we [federal government] have paid $50,000 to “every man, woman and child in the community.” Fair enough, but why divide the prime minister’s figure by 6 (years) to arrive at a misleading $8,300 per year for each individual?

Would it not have been more sensible to have used the community’s own figures contained in their audited annual financial statements? According to these, Attawapiskat First Nation had revenues for the year of $34.3-million and spent $31.1-million leaving a surplus as at March 31, 2011 (about nine months ago) of $3.1-million. Most of these revenues, I might add, came from the federal (50%) and provincial (13%) governments. There is not enough financial details in these statements for anyone to assess how well these revenues are being deployed on the reserve, but I believe it is safe to say that this is a lot of money for what amounts to a small town of about 2,000 residents.

These unfortunate people do need our help and will get it, but it is quite fair for Canadians to ask whether they are doing enough to help themselves—financially or otherwise, for far more troubling than the housing crisis, are the allegations by a former resident of Attawapiskat of substantial wrongdoings in the community, including child molestation, sexual abuse and incest as outlined to CTV.ca on Tuesday.

“The most frightening part is people know,” Jocelyn Iahtail told CTV’s Daniele Hamamdjian. According to CTVNews.ca, “Iahtail alleged the abuse began when she was only four, and continued until she was 13. She says the abusers were people that she trusted, including relatives of some council members.”

And this shocker from Ms. Iahtail, “I would become so overcome with nausea and vomiting. Just the simple act of brushing my teeth, because of the oral sex that I was forced to perform.”

Social worker Sylvia Maracle, from the Ontario Federation of Friendship Centres, is reported by CTV.ca to have said, “Sexual violence and sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities affect 75 to 80 per cent of our girls and women,”

The CTVNews.ca article concludes with this:

Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said that the abuse issue is one of the reasons why the entire system of reserves needs to be dismantled.
‘This is why First Nations are calling for transformative change—to smash the status quo,’ he responded.
According to [social worker Sylvia] Maracle, school officials have cautioned her about the issue, hinting that the abuse is so widespread that resources simply aren’t available to deal with all the cases.

These allegations are distressing in the extreme. Sounds to me like we have a far more serious set of social issues at Attawapiskat First Nation than a housing crisis.

I can hardly wait to hear how the NDP turns this into another political issue and blames the federal government for the apparently rampant sexual abuse and incest.

In Canada we jail peaceful grandmothers and lionize “occupiers” who destroy public property

2011-12-15T08:17:00.001-05:00

The current Supreme Court challenge undertaken by Linda Gibbons highlights how uneven and mean-spirited the Canadian justice system can be at times. Ms. Gibbons is a 63-year-old grandmother who has been arrested about 20 times and spent more than nine of the past 20 years in jail for protesting peacefully in front of abortion clinics. On Wednesday she appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada in a bid to have her most recent conviction quashed.

Six years after Canada’s abortion law was struck down in 1988, authorities in Toronto sought a court-ordered “temporary” injunction ban against protesting directly outside an abortion clinic. There had been incidents of intimidation, including violence, near abortion clinics and the ban seemed reasonable as a temporary measure until things cooled down a bit. That was almost 18 years ago, however.

Since then the Alberta-born Torontonian and anti-abortion crusader has been arrested about 20 times and has spent some eight years behind bars for protesting too close to abortion clinics—though she has never been accused of threatening or abusive behaviour.

Time and time again we have sent this woman to jail yet we have allowed the “Occupy” Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver protests to violate city laws, damage public property and disrupt nearby businesses. The Occupiers we politely leave alone for weeks on end; Ms. Gibbons we arrest and lock up.

Doesn’t sound fair to me.

Iran confirms its status as a rogue state

2011-11-30T14:47:00.001-05:00

The Iranians have again demonstrated they deserve the status of “rogue state.” They earned that status by sponsoring terrorist organizations, especially Hezbollah and Hamas, and by implementing a project to develop nuclear weapons so they could fulfil President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s dream of wiping Israel off the map.

On Tuesday, Iranian protesters shouting “Death to England” stormed the British Embassy in a protest against the U.K.’s new economic sanctions against Iran’s nuclear energy program.

After defying Iranian security forces to illegally enter the British compound and a diplomatic residence in Tehran, an angry mob tore down the British flag, smashed windows and defaced walls. They also set a vehicle on fire and detained briefly six members the embassy’s staff.

Iran has a clear duty under international law to protect foreign diplomats and their offices on its soil. According to a New York Times report, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said it was “fanciful” to imagine that these attacks could have taken place without “some degree of regime consent” from the Iranian authorities.

I agree. There’s little doubt in my mind that this latest outrage was state-sponsored—Ahmadinejad is an odious little man.

Within hours of the incident, Britain closed its vandalized embassy, deepening Iran’s international isolation. Britain has also withdrawn its diplomats and ordered the Iranians to do the same at their London mission.

Iran still has friends of a sort, though. China, Russia and Syria—possibly some other Arab and former Soviet “–stan” republics—in the East and certain South/Central American nations such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, perhaps Brazil, seem still capable of finding common ground.

One can’t help noticing the poor human rights records of most, if not all, these nations—truly, birds of a feather flocking together.

Herman Cain’s campaign overshadowed by allegations of impropriety

2011-11-29T14:46:00.001-05:00

Herman Cain, Republican presidential candidate and former businessman, CEO and radio show host, is facing yet another charge of impropriety, this time from an Atlanta businesswoman who claimed she had a 13-year affair with the former pizza company chief executive. The woman, Ginger White, said that she had been aware at the time Mr. Cain was married and that their relationship was “inappropriate.”

Ms. White said Mr. Cain ended sexual relations with her eight months ago, when he began his run for the Republican nomination.

According to reports, Ms. White produced mobile phone bills showing what she said was Cain’s number. She said he had called her dozens of times over a period of several months. According to her, she decided to go public with her allegations after receiving calls from journalists, and she was bothered by the way Mr. Cain had “demonised” other women who had accused him of sexual harassment.

This surely must end what has been, until lately, an entertaining political campaign. According to Robert Costa at the National Review, “Herman Cain told his senior staff that he is ‘reassessing’ whether to remain in the race. He will make his final decision ‘over the next several days’.”

Mr. Cain is reported to have denied the “charges unequivocally.” He said, he had known “this lady” for “a number of years.” And that he’d “been attempting to help her financially because she was out of work and destitute, desperate.”

I believe, sadly, this candidate’s time in the sun is at an end. Even in these everything-goes days, marriage fidelity is expected, demanded, of a man who aspires to be the president.

Kyoto Accord losing steam

2011-11-29T10:57:00.001-05:00

There is quite a bit of coverage of climate change in today’s National Post, all of which seem to echo the same theme: the Kyoto Accord has lost its appeal and will not likely be replaced with anything more effective when the current agreement expires at the end of 2012.

Canada—which has had an ambiguous relationship with the Kyoto protocol, first signing and ratifying it, then virtually ignoring its obligations—is rumoured to be planning to formally pull out of the international treaty before the end of this year. “Kyoto is the past,” Environment Minister Peter Kent is quoted as saying recently. Mr. Kent also described a previous Liberal government’s decision to agree to the protocol as “one of the biggest blunders they made.” The minister, however, declined to confirm the rumour that Canada will formally pull out by year’s end.

That Kyoto has not worked should not come as a surprise to anyone; it was flawed from the start. Countries that are sources of the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions either never signed the agreement (the United States) or were not required to make reductions (Brazil, China, India, Russia) under the protocol. Japan, the world’s third largest economy, voted to “accept” (but not ratify) its Kyoto reduction targets, then passed a law making those targets not legally binding. And several major economies have made it clear they’ll not sign a new agreement without the signatures of all major emitters, both from the developed and developing worlds.

Consequently, the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa will not likely see much progress in its objective of replacing Kyoto.

To too many observers, Kyoto is seen to be less about climate change and more about massive (hundreds of billions of dollars) income redistribution from the developed world to everyone else. And for many, this is a non-starter.

Here’s a quote from Tasha Kheiriddin’s piece in the National Post:

Environmental policy analyst James Taylor noted recently in Forbes magazine that while global carbon emissions have soared 33% over the past decade (according to the U.S. Department of Energy), global temperatures flatlined over the same period—and rose merely 0.2 to 0.3 degrees Celsius during the past third of a century.

Is it any wonder I remain a man-made climate change sceptic?

Ontario PCs choosing new president: take a hard look at Richard Ciano

2011-11-28T18:27:00.001-05:00

One of the highlights of my attendance at this past Saturday morning’s Burlington PC Riding Association’s annual general meeting was meeting one of the candidates to be the Ontario PC party’s next president, namely Richard Ciano. I had the good luck to sit beside Mr. Ciano during the brunch preceding the meeting and exchanged a few words.

It is said often that at crucial times in history, the “right” person seems to emerge. Well, Mr. Ciano’s emergence as a candidate to lead our party at a crucial time may well be one of those.

The brief speech Richard Ciano made at the AGM resonated with me—music to my ears, one might say. As I listened to him I mentally ticked-off each of my pet peeves over what I consider shortcomings/mistakes in the PC’s last general election campaign that had the unhappy consequence of Liberal Dalton McGuinty returning for his third term as premier of Ontario.

For the first time in years (probably since the early days of Mike Harris’s leadership) I heard a PC party insider “preach” the sort of things I’ve advocated as success factors for our party. Here’s a highly summarized list of the points highlighted by Mr. Ciano:

returning to open, fair and locally controlled candidate nominations;
restoring a grassroots policy development process to the party; and
re-establishing the principle of local control of local campaigns giving flexibility to local ridings to customize campaign literature, etc., based on local issues and circumstances.

It’s early days yet in the campaign for party president, but Mr. Ciano is saying all the right things, at least, as far as this writer is concerned.

Burlington PC riding update

2011-11-28T17:18:00.001-05:00

The Burlington (Ontario) PC riding association held its annual general meeting this past Saturday. As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been critical of my local riding association from time to time, but I’m happy to report that I was encouraged—heartened in fact—by what I saw and heard on
Saturday.

Bert Radford, the out-going association president, ran the meeting in a tight, efficient manner, and with the right touch of humour. And once we’d finished our brunch, Ruth Roberts expertly guided us through the nomination process and election of next year’s slate of executive and general board members.

There was a sense of energy and optimism in the room that I have not noticed at riding events since former MPP Cam Jackson retired from the Ontario legislature in 2006.

Recently elected MPP Jane McKenna—Critic of Children and Youth Services and Deputy Co-Chair of Ethnic Outreach—was present, of course, and made an excellent speech. Ms. McKenna and her “team,” in my view, are fully responsible for the improved atmosphere. I left the meeting thinking, We’re back!

The Burlington riding association was once the envy of many ridings in Ontario and retains the core elements to be so again. I have the sense that incoming president Mark Fedak and his new board members have the enthusiasm, smarts and talent to build the association membership and its profile in the community and, as importantly, to lead us through the next election.

Let’s hope the central Ontario PC party apparatus agrees and backs off so the new Burlington PC team can get on with their jobs. It’s one thing for the central PC office to offer much needed and appreciated training, advice and other support, it’s quite another for it to insist on managing everything centrally and substituting edicts for advice and support.

Time to put Canada’s house in order

2011-11-25T16:27:00.001-05:00

With the economic crisis in Europe going full bore, one might expect we’d have near unanimity around the idea that Canada and its provinces should get their houses in order and begin addressing public debt. Instead we continue to hear the call for more economic stimulus.

Granted, Canada’s debt at the national level is not close to that of the worst European nations in terms of percentage of GDP. It is, however, growing at a concerning rate and will consume a significant percentage of annual budgets once interest rates return to historical levels. And this could come sooner than many think as investors around the world are already beginning to drive up borrowing costs for indebted governments—Germany this week managed to attract bids for only 65% of the 10-year bonds it offered for sale.

If not now, then when should we get our spending under control, and by that I mean limiting spending increases to a level at or below the annual rate of inflation and trimming government programs and initiatives that are not a priority or do nothing for the economy. And we need to cut spending enough to generate a budget surplus that we can apply against the debt.

Time is of the essence. The next economic crisis could come at any time, requiring temporary deficit budgeting. By lowering our debt now, we will create room to make future deficits manageable and thereby avoid the mess they’ve created for themselves in Southern Europe.

The situation in Quebec seems most worrying of all, with Ontario not so far behind. Quebec has the highest debt burden in the country, a staggering 61.7% of its gross domestic product—according to an Oct. 7 estimate by debt rating agency DBRS Ltd. Ontario’s debt ratio is not as high, but at 37.2% it will quickly become unmanageable with annual double-digit billion-dollar deficits piling one on top of another.

Quebec is playing a dangerous game by ignoring the time-bomb that is its debt. Perhaps Premier Jean Charest expects the rest of Canada to rescue his province should they be unable to handle debt repayments at some future time. Charest could have pledged the $2-billion windfall his province will receive from Ottawa for their recently announced tax-harmonization deal directly as a debt reduction. He has, instead, used this “found” money to avoid having to make spending cuts.

The Quebec government may not be oblivious to its fiscal situation, but it seems reluctant to make tangible moves to address it. Take, for example, their $7-a-day daycare program. Does this not say all one needs to know about that province’s head-in-the-sand approach to economics?

Video: week in review

2011-11-25T11:25:00.001-05:00

Here’s a video of the U.S. week in review… politically speaking.

Video – Obama pardons turkey for Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T13:15:00.001-05:00

Video – Obama pardons turkey for Thanksgiving—very cute …

CBC ordered to hand over papers

2011-11-24T11:39:00.001-05:00

The CBC has once again been told by a court it is legally required to turn over papers to Suzanne Legault, Canada’s information commissioner. This time it is a unanimous decision by the Federal Court of Appeal, which upheld an earlier Federal Court decision.

The national broadcaster has been refusing to hand over 16 requests for information, claiming it is allowed to protect its journalistic, creative and programming material. It also refused to allow Ms. Legault to review the material in order to assess its decision. Ms. Legault took the case to court in 2010 and won, but the CBC appealed to a higher court. It was that appeal the went against the CBC in yesterday’s decision.

So here we have a semi-public agency, the CBC, defying a law it insists other public agencies follow diligently, for which defiance it is sued by a public official, loses its case, appeals to a higher court and loses once more—all with public money. There’s something seriously wrong with this picture.

So long as the CBC has access to ever more of taxpayers’ money, they’ll never act in a financially prudent manner. It’s time to trim its wings.

GOP debate: no leader emerges to challenge Mitt

2011-11-23T15:34:00.001-05:00

The Republican candidates’ debate hosted by CNN, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute Tuesday night was all about foreign policy and national security, and what each of the eight GOP nomination candidates would do differently should he/she win the White House. I thought CNN’s anchor Wolf Blitzer did a good job of keeping candidates on topic and of allowing all to have their say.

I noticed three flubs of a minor nature. The only one that seemed to get any notice was Herman Cain calling Wolf Blitzer, “Blitz” instead of “Wolf”. Two others, though, were interesting from a Canadian point of view.

First there was Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator, calling Africa a “country.” A minor slip perhaps, but it speaks volumes about how American politicians see the world. Also seemingly unnoticed was Rep. Michele Bachmann’s reference to the United States achieving “oil independence” if the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline had been allowed to proceed. Keystone XL is being built be a Canadian firm to transport Canadian-sourced oil. How can that contribute to the U.S.’s “oil independence?” But I quibble.

Jon Huntsman, former Utah governor and former ambassador to China, seemed in his element in this debate that focused heavily on foreign policy. His performance was the best of the night, followed closely by Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich. By contrast, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and businessman Herman Cain did not impress.

Newt Gingrich showed political courage by sensibly calling for a limited amnesty for long-time illegal immigrants. Amnesty, of course, is not at all popular with many in the Republican base. The former House Speaker said:

I don’t see how the party that says it’s the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families which have been here a quarter century. And I am prepared to take the heat for saying let’s be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship, but finding a way to give them legality so as not to separate them from their families.

This was one of the few times I have seen glimpses of statesmanship in this crop of presidential hopefuls.

Jon Huntsman also showed us he has the making of a statesman, at least, when it comes to foreign affairs. He’s arguing for drastic cuts in U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, even though it may be contrary to the advice of military advisers. His assessment of the Afghan scene seems the most dogma-free and realistic. He called for “an honest conversation in this [U.S.] country about the sacrifices that have been made over nearly 10 years.” He explained:

We need a presence on the ground that is more akin to 10,000 or 15,000. That will serve our interests in terms of intelligence gathering and special forces response capability. And we need to prepare for a world, not just in South Asia, but, indeed, in every corner of the world in which counter-terrorism is going to be in front of us for as far as the eye can see into the 21st century.

Michele Bachmann was at her best with perhaps the sagest advice of the night when she warned about the instability of Pakistan’s nuclear sites:

They also are one of the most violent, unstable nations that there is. We have to recognize that 15 of the sites, nuclear sites are available or are potentially penetrable by jihadists. Pakistan is a nation, that it’s kind of like ‘too nuclear to fail.’

“Too nuclear to fail,” I like that line a lot. But slogans, regardless of how true they are, are not of themselves, statesmanship. This was probably Bachmann’s best debate in quite awhile, but I’m far from being sold on her ending up in the White House.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum did well enough, I guess, but I just can’t see him in the role of the leader of the free world—not sufficient gravitas.

I agree with Michele Bachmann, who said Rick Perry’s position on the more than $1-billion U.S. aid sent to Pakistan is “highly naïve.” She disagrees with the Texas governor who sees aid to Pakistan as a blank cheque without any return on the U.S.’s investment. Perry is far too parochial for my liking. His jingoism—he wants the U.S. to consider unilaterally applying a no-fly zone over Syria (an overt act of war), for example—may excite the very right of the Republican base, but lacks depth and nuance. I like to see a more sophisticated approach to foreign policy from a presidential candidate.

Businessman and former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain missed a golden opportunity to show he had the necessary grasp on foreign affairs. He sounded like he was reading from seminar notes when he chose phrases like, “number one, secure the border for real” and “I would first make sure that they had a credible plan for success, clarity of mission and clarity of success.” His answers sounded pedantic rather than astute.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has his supporters and likely did not disappoint them. His appeal to a broader segment of the American public probably took a hit, though, when he called humanitarian aid to fight disease in Africa “worthless.” I know his comment was prompted by a belief widely shared that foreign aid money gets syphoned off by foreign despots before it reaches the people who need it. There are countless examples, however, of aid to prevent disease being effective—saving millions of lives. Certainly foreign aid should be more effective—there’s plenty of room for improvement there—but it’s hardly worthless.

So there you have the candidates not named “Mitt.”

As to Mitt Romney himself, I thought he had a mediocre performance. But this man has been running for president for five years and he has learned a great deal. None did a better job of turning questions about foreign policy into answers about domestic issues. And Romney shows best when his positions are matched against those of President Obama. For that reason alone, the former governor of Massachusetts held his own.

So, the GOP race continues to be between Mitt Romney and the best of the rest.

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.

The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

Politico Playback …smile

2011-11-23T11:28:00.001-05:00

Will labour unions stand down and let Toronto’s agencies evict the occupiers?

2011-11-22T16:09:00.001-05:00

Ibelieve it is a dangerous sign that all too often when there is civil disobedience and breaches of public safety, there are labour unions, principally public sector unions, at the core of the illegal activity. We saw it the 2010 G-20 Toronto summit and we see it again at the recent “Occupations”.

Workers belonging to public sector unions are among the most privileged in the land. Their paycheques, vacation allowance, sick-leave and pensions are the envy of the private sector, and yet they seem determined to cast themselves as victims, and more particularly, victims of the capitalist system. And I wonder how many of the union leaders are themselves—by virtue of their income—in that detested 1% we hear so much about.

It will be interesting to see what, if any, role they’ll play in the eviction of Occupiers from St. James Park at Toronto. Will the unions stand down and allow the city to take control of its public space, or will they join the—as Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington phrases it—“urban warriors mustering and recruiting to put up a massive battle to prevent this?”

As Warmington rightly says:

Toronto Police, the bylaw people, the fire department, as well as the mayor’s office, have been very respectful toward the occupiers. There has been patience shown, discretion, integrity and, if anything, too much leniency. No one can say there has been an over the top response because there hasn’t been. There has been no pepper spray, rubber bullets or unnecessary kettling or arrests.

Now that the court has ruled if police do go into and remove the tents and structures from the park, as well as anyone not complying with bylaws, they will not be deemed unreasonable if these tactics are used, should they become necessary.

Surely, at some point, the rule of law must prevail. Let’s hope our public sector unions see it that way and let the city agencies get on with their jobs.

Ontario ranks 49th of 60 North American jurisdictions in economic freedom

2011-11-22T14:58:00.001-05:00

So many of us have bought into the myth that governments create jobs in the private sector, even governments themselves have come to believe it. In the United States, President Barack Obama claims to have added back 2.6 million private sector jobs as of September 2011; in Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty boasts of his government’s job creation record, claiming nearly 300,000 jobs since the last recession.

If one means only public sector jobs, one can credit governments with job creation or job losses, otherwise our political masters should not take or be given either the credit or the blame.

Governments, however, can, and too often do, take actions that cost private sector jobs. Unfortunately for the poor souls residing in the province of Ontario, Premier McGuinty and Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan are past masters at poking their political noses into the province’s economic affairs. Under their leadership, the province has lost its way.

Ontario, once the economic engine of the land, now finds itself on the receiving end of hand-outs from the federal government in the form of equalization payments. Ontario, that is to say, has become a “have-not” province under the Liberal watch. And is it any wonder we have fallen from “have” to “have not” status within the federation?

Ontario ranked fifth among Canadian provinces—and a disappointing 49th when U.S. states are included—in economic freedom, according to a new report released today by the Fraser Institute. The report, Economic Freedom of North America, rates economic freedom on Size of Government, Taxation and Labour Market Freedom. On a ten-point scale, Ontario scored a measly 5.8.

The report shows an interesting contrast between Ontario and British Columbia:

Between 1993 and 2000, economic freedom in British Columbia was growing at a slower pace than that in Ontario at both the all-government and subnational levels. During this period, British Columbia’s economic growth was just 11%, compared to Ontario’s 23%. British Columbia suffered from relatively weak economic freedom growth while Ontario benefited from relatively strong growth. In the most recent ten-year period, 2000 to 2009, economic freedom in British Columbia has increased while Ontario, which had escaped from the bottom 10, has now slipped
back. As economic freedom grew in British Columbia, so did its economy, by 26%; in Ontario, economic freedom declined during this period and the economy grew at just 11%, the lowest rate of growth of all Canadian provinces. [Emphasis mine.]

In further contrast to Ontario’s weak showing, Alberta ranked highest among the 60 North American jurisdictions with a score of 7.9. The three other provinces that outscored Ontario are: Saskatchewan (32nd – 6.5), Newfoundland & Labrador (37th– 6.4) and British Columbia (43rd– 6.1).

Ontario’s mediocre record is significant because there is a direct correlation between economic freedom and prosperity of citizens. According to the report, the North American jurisdictions having the highest levels of economic freedom had an average per capita GDP of $54,435, which compares vary favourably to the average per capita GDP of $40,229 in the lowest-ranked jurisdictions.

Ontario is failing because of its government policies. Among provinces with high levels of economic freedom there is a commitment to low taxes, small government and flexible labour markets. These are the conditions that foster job creation and greater opportunities for economic growth. Ontario leads in none of these critical areas.

Moreover, Ontario is one of five provinces that have shown declines in economic freedom between 2000 and 2009. And more’s the pity for with the premier depending on Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats to keep his job over the next couple of years, economic freedom in Ontario is not likely to increase any time soon.

Staying the current course and maintaining low levels of economic freedom will see Ontario residents experience lower standards of living and reduced opportunities.

The really sad part is that the Grits probably do get it and understand only too well the mess they’ve made. But they lack the wits to make the necessary changes without losing their precious jobs and perks and those of their cronies.

Hudak ready to pull plug on McGuinty’s government?

2011-11-21T15:22:00.001-05:00

Ontario’s Liberal minority Parliament is hardly settled in and already Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak is threatening to pull the plug on them. Apparently, Dalton McGuinty “shot down” Mr. Hudak’s ideas for a public-sector wage freeze and a reformed apprenticeship system, and this triggered the threat and a fundraising letter to PC supporters calling for support.

From where I sit, this looks too much like an empty threat intended only to fire up the PC base and, perhaps, collect a few bucks for the party coffers. Unfortunately, it will take more than good ideas and brave words to defeat the Grits. On what topic and on what timing would there be a meeting of minds between the PCs and Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats?

If there is such an issue, it’ll have to be a bigger one than the charging of HST on home heating bills. Any such vote is not likely to be one of confidence in the government, so win or lose the Grits will remain in power.

And, frankly, I don’t see the Grits putting anything in their next couple of annual budgets that will give the opposition something to rally round and vote the Liberals down.

Furthermore, can any of the three parties really afford another election in the next 24 months or so? Surely they need at least that much time to build up their war chests. Though the thought of listening to these guys huffing and puffing at one another for the next two years is a dismal one.

My advice would be to sheathe sabres and dispense with the empty threats. Take the fight to the committee rooms at Queen’s Park, there to influence Liberal legislation as best as can be done.

Liberals will be in a bind:

On one hand they have to rein in spending or see the budget deficit grow out of control. That’ll be hard to sell in the next election. On the other hand, spending restraint will be tough for public sector unions to swallow and that might dampen their support for the Grits in a future return to the polls.

The Queen’s Park Liberals are a spent force; in 18 months, they’ll be wanting to do almost anything to stay in office. At that point, they’ll likely turn first to the Dippers for help, and the resulting compromise legislation will sink them in the next election—probably Oct. 2015.

Are days numbered for Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act?

2011-11-19T11:23:00.001-05:00

In what must be much to the chagrin of leftists across our land, Rob Nicholson (left), the federal Minister of Justice, rose in the House of Commons this week to urge MPs to vote for the repeal of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act because it is an affront to free speech.

Section 13, of course, is the controversial provision than bans communication that is likely to expose identifiable groups to hatred or contempt. The section has been pretty widely condemned over the past few years, with several national media organizations—including the National Post, Maclean’s and the Toronto Star—calling for it to go. And recently, Alberta MP Brian Storseth has put forth a private members bill that, if passed, would see the offensive section scrapped, leaving the criminal code to deal with charges of hate speech in Canada.

According a report in today’s National Post Mr. Nicholson congratulated Mr. Storseth “for his commitment to the promotion and protection of free speech among all Canadians.” The Post adds that the minister said:

Our government believes that Section 13 is not an appropriate or effective means for combatting hate propaganda. We believe the Criminal Code is the best vehicle to prosecute these crimes, therefore I urge all members to support [Mr. Storseth’s bill] and our government’s forthcoming amendments to strengthen the hate provisions of the Criminal Code.

Conservatives voted almost unanimously at a policy conference in 2008 in support of scrapping Section 13 so the minister’s support of Mr. Storseth’s bill is no surprise. And I’m fully expecting accusations from the opposition benches and elsewhere that the Conservative government seeks to protect hatemongers. Be that as it may, though, I support the move to scrap Section 13.

With government support for its repeal, Section 13 could finally be gone by early next year—better late than never, and Bravo! to the Conservative government.

Liberals on Commons seat redistribution: What are they thinking?

2011-11-18T17:58:00.001-05:00

One really has to wonder where Liberal heads are these days. I guess to retain some semblance of relevance on the political scene, the Grits’ brain trust feels it must take controversial positions on issues that will find their way into media reports and commentaries.

The latest case in point is a Liberal Party proposal made by Stéphane Dion, the Liberal critic for democratic reform. The former party leader suggests we save money by not increasing seats in the House of Commons as proposed in the Fair Representation Act. The Fair Representation Act is legislation before the House that would add 30 seats to the current 308 in response to Canada’s population increase in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, and would also add three seats to Quebec, to maintain a ratio of its seats in the House equal to its proportion of the population.

Mr. Dion proposes redistribution of the current seats while keeping the seat count at 308—Ontario would gain four seats, B.C. would gain two and Alberta would gain three. And, to offset these increases, Quebec would lose three seats, Newfoundland and Labrador would lose one, Nova Scotia would lose one and Saskatchewan and Manitoba would each lose two.

I’m all for saving taxpayers’ hard-earned money, but let’s be realistic. Redistribution is already overdue and would be delayed indefinitely to make the legislative and constitutional changes necessary to implement the Liberal plan, especially if the changes were to stand the test of time.

Under our Constitution, no province can have fewer seats in the House of Commons than it has in the Senate, and current legislation provides that provinces cannot lose seats as a result of redistribution. Surely Mr. Dion and Interim Leader Bob Rae know this, as must Liberal MP Marc Garneau, the sole opposing voice on the parliamentary committee reviewing the proposed legislation.

An surely they must know the furore and delay any change in the status quo would cause. So why make the suggestion? I see this as a not so clever ploy to see their name in print and to get invitations to explain themselves on TV.

I say, let’s pay the $86 million (Liberals’ estimate of the cost over the course of the next election cycle) and add the 30 seats so Canadians across the nation can be more fairly represented in their parliament.

(A version of this article was also published at
Postmedia Network’s Canada.com.)

Is Canada prepared to go to Israel’s defence should the latter be attacked?

2011-11-17T17:28:00.001-05:00

Given heated anti-Israel rhetoric emanating from Iran’s leadership, it may be well to ask whether Canada might sign a mutual agreement that would oblige it to go to Israel’s defence should the latter be attacked? As a strong believer that Israel has a right to exist, I’d welcome such a pact.

“The steps that we’re taking today are in fact bringing our countries closer together, and they are also allowing us to further build on a strong foundation of co-operation that will build tangible results, not just to our two militaries, but to Canada and Israel more broadly.”

– MP Peter MacKay
Defence Minister

A mutual-defence agreement, apparently, is not at all farfetched, for, as reported by the National Post, “Canada and Israel are about to complete a number of defence co-operation agreements that will significantly tighten military bonds between the two countries as tensions grow over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.” And Defence Minister Peter MacKay refused on Wednesday to rule out such an agreement.

Under the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada has dropped all pretence of neutrality in Arab-Israeli dealings. And, as it’s become clear through positions taken at the United Nations and elsewhere, Canada is an Israeli ally. The Conservative government, in fact, has been criticized here and abroad for its unambiguous pro-Israel policy.

With war between Israel and Iran becoming a real possibility—the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency released a report last week detailing Iran’s alleged efforts to build a nuclear arsenal—Israel’s allies need to take tangible steps to confirm their support of the Middle East’s only Western-style democracy. It’s nice to see Canada front and centre in this regard, as Mr. MacKay seems set to cement the bi-lateral relationship with the mortar of international defence co-operation agreements.

Mr. MacKay and his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, said in Ottawa they expect to complete negotiations by the end of the year.

NDP Pat Martin tells Twitter users “F--- you” and to “Eat my shorts.”

2011-11-17T14:37:00.001-05:00

There’s a lot being written about Winnipeg MP Pat Martin’s use of foul language in a Twitter outburst over several Tweets (details here, here and here, if you missed the story). Wouldn’t you think a New Democrat front-bencher would understand that at least 25-30% of his Twitter followers would be offended by the use of such language.

It saddens me to see that normal discourse has deteriorated to the point that gratuitous use in a public forum of synonyms for fornication and human excrement is now acceptable, especially when used by a member of parliament.

I suppose we should pity the dolts among us who apparently lack the wits to express themselves without resorting to four-letter-words referring to sex or excrement.

Or perhaps the feelings of 25-30% of Canadians who find profanity distasteful is of little importance to Mr. Martin. But, wait: Isn’t that about the same level of support the NDP gets in a national election and boasts how popular they are?

What “being a conservative” means to me

2011-11-17T11:33:00.001-05:00

Most writers have biases of one sort or another, and I don’t pretend to be any different in that respect. My opinions reflect my core values and beliefs. Readers of this blog may therefore find it instructive to know more about my political philosophy, such as it is.

My journey, politically, to the point of publishing this blog has taken some five decades. I consider myself to be old fashioned: I believe in honour, basic decency, individual rights and civic obligations and responsibilities, which, perhaps, is why I lean to the right politically. There was a time when I saw myself as modern and progressive: I voted Liberal federally and provincially—though, sometimes, Progressive Conservative provincially.

Soon after my thirtieth birthday, however, I realized progressivism offered a false promise, and I joined the Progressive Conservative Party (such an unfortunate name) at both the provincial and national levels. I have voted conservative ever since. I have canvassed in support of candidates at all three levels of government, have sat on my local riding’s board of directors and served on a regional committee of the provincial party.

When the federal PCs brought back the ineffectual Joe Clark to lead their fading party, I shifted my allegiance to the relatively new Reform Party and followed it through its attempts to remake itself into a political party Eastern Canadians would feel comfortable supporting.

I now consider myself a Blue Tory, aka, a Mike Harris Tory or a small “c” conservative.

As general principles, my moral compass, so to speak:

I believe in the supremacy of the rule of law—secular law.

I believe in equality of rights under the law for every Canadian man and woman, including Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Canadians.

I believe in equal opportunity for all Canadians, but am suspicious of affirmative action programs (based on race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin) since they too often lead to unfair levels of discrimination against other Canadians.

I believe in freedom for the individual in both the economic and social spheres and that human and civil rights and obligations attach to individuals rather than to groups.

I believe all religions should be tolerated, but need not necessarily be considered equal or even be respected.

I believe Canadian citizenship, though a birthright, is also a privilege that confers equal rights and demands obligations—such as the duty to vote—from all recipients. I also believe Canadians who are serving in federal penitentiaries should have their citizenship and right to vote suspended for the duration of their term of incarceration. And those who take up arms against Canada or a Canadian ally (on the battlefield or in an act of terrorism) should forfeit their citizenship, as should any Canadian convicted of treason.

I believe in lower taxes and smaller governments, with limited government regulation of every-day life, business and investing. I do believe, however, that while individuals should retain primary financial responsibility for personal needs—including housing, childcare, retirement income and health-care coverage—there is a role for governments to provide funding in these areas.

I believe in a mixed economy based on economic liberalism with limited, prudent state intervention and regulation—i.e., a largely free-market economy based on a free price system, free trade and private property.

I am anti-supply management (or other economic planning schemes) and government sponsored or owned monopolies, as for example alcohol and gambling.

I believe the federal government should vacate areas of provincial constitutional responsibility and cease duplication of taxation and costs and other interference in provincial jurisdiction.

Canada should have a Canadian head of state, cutting formal ties with the British monarchy, and an elected senate.

I am pro-life. Though I’d not ban abortion, I’d place restrictions on those performed in the later months of pregnancy and de-fund abortion when it is used as just another form of birth control.

I believe certain crimes are so de-humanizing—extreme cases of premeditated murder, terrorism resulting in loss of life, violent rape and molestation or extreme cases of gross neglect of a child—they should forfeit the perpetrator his or her life. In repeated offences of pedophilia and rape, I’d reluctantly settle for surgical castration.

I believe gays and lesbians should be treated like anyone else and have the same individual rights under the law. I do, however, believe the traditional institution of marriage should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman. Same-gender unions should be provided for and offered similar but separate legal status.

I believe provinces should fund for every Canadian child a minimum of 13 years of schooling (including one year of kindergarten) plus a two-year employment-related post-secondary college or apprentice program. I also believe Canadians should have greater choice in primary and secondary education, and for this reason, I favour allowing “charter schools” as is done in Alberta, or something similar.

Unions should no longer be allowed to represent workers in the public sector, including teachers. Public sector workers, however, should have the right to form non-union-affiliated “employee associations” to represent them in matters of common interest, but should not have the right to withhold labour. And the government of the day should have the final say in all matters of public sector employment, including payroll and benefits.

Public sector departments should only be allowed to perform work not reasonably available from private sector sources, i.e., contracting-out should be the norm, not the exception. Defence and national security departments and police services should be the only exceptions.

Bilingualism (in official languages) should be encouraged, but not mandated unless all provinces accept equal treatment of English and French. Unilingual labeling of products should be accepted in any Canadian province that is not officially bilingual.

Free speech protection should be strengthened in our constitution and criminal code, and only a court of law should be allowed to adjudicate cases of abuse relating to hate speech. Hate speech should be defined legally to specifically exclude “hurt” speech.

I believe immigration should be encouraged, but only so far as it is a net benefit to Canada, both economically and socially. Immigration to meet Canada’s economic needs should be promoted over family unification. And immigration policies should stress obligations as much as rights.

I believe immigrants should assimilate and become Canadians, not remain in economic, religious or social silos. While multiculturalism in diet and generally accepted cultural practices should be tolerated, it should not be officially promoted. Reasonable accommodation of foreign cultural practices should be applied with caution so as not to adulterate Canadian norms, values and practices.

Canada should be able to protect itself militarily at home and abroad, and should have the wherewithal to project power internationally when our vital national interests or international treaty obligations require it. To do so, Canada should allocate an average 2.5% per annum of GDP in every ten-year cycle.

Veterans of Canada’s wars should be treated with respect and dignity and be given the benefit of doubt when dealing with government agencies—better ten veterans get more than they are entitled to than one veteran be denied her or his due.

Canada should maintain a policy stance that recognizes that the science on man-made global warming is not yet settled.

Russ Campbell

Tories don’t quite beat the in-and-out rap

2011-11-15T10:02:00.001-05:00

The Conservative Party’s dispute with Elections Canada over what has been dubbed the “In and out scandal” has been settled with the Conservatives paying a $50,000 fine and admitting to technical breaches of election spending rules. And charges against Conservative Senators Irving Gerstein and Doug Finley, and party officers Mike Donison and Susan Kehoe of wilfully violating party spending limits have been dropped.

So much for, a “scandal” that at least one Liberal blogger promised would be:

…a story of massive proportion. If it should turn out that they did break the Canada Elections Act, it would be, by far, the largest political scandal in Canadian history. … if the allegations are proven, it could result in the deregistration of the Conservative Party of Canada and the liquidation of its assets.

Once again, we see Liberal hyperbole for what it is: partisan hokum with more fizzle than sizzle.

The Tory election spending scheme was discussed by a panel on Sunday’s Question Period on the CTV network. Neither of the co-hosts, Craig Oliver nor Kevin Newman had the good graces or journalistic objectivity to remind viewers that the issue was a technical breach of election law rather than a “scandal.” After all, the Conservative Party’s position was upheld in an earlier court decision suggesting that Elections Canada had overstepped its mandate, a ruling that was later overturned on appeal. So the issue was never as clear cut as many in the media or the opposition would have us believe.

In fact, it is quite well known that opposition parties have in the past successfully used similar interpretations of election law. And it’s disingenuous of their spokespersons to pretend otherwise, to say nothing of what is says about Question Period’s co-hosts, Craig Oliver and Kevin Newman. Near the end of their discussion of the “scandal”—after spending several minutes trashing the Conservative Party—Kevin Newman did mention that Robin Sears, senior partner with the PR, lobbying and public opinion research firm Navigator Ltd. and former NDP national campaign director, had said on CTV’s Power Play (link here to see Sears at about the 3:30 mark) that other parties had been doing this sort of thing all along.

In a March 2008 report, The Hill Times quoted Mr. Sears as follows:

I piss off all my Liberal and NDP friends when I say this but you know, I’m sorry guys this is a little bit like a piano player in a brothel saying, ‘I had no idea what was going on upstairs.’ As early as the late 1970s, early 1980s when I was involved, we would regularly move money from ridings that were close to their limit and had more money that [sic] they needed and were willing to be helpful in return for whatever kind of political kudos, to ridings where we thought we had prospects in and had less money, or money from the centre to poorer ridings, or money from richer ridings to the centre. All the parties have done that since the Elections Expenses Act was created and probably going back to Sir John A. Macdonald.

I do not think that Elections Canada has been even-handed in its handling of this case. Consider the media frenzy when they had the RCMP assist them in a raid of Tory party offices in April 2008, with TV cameras, reporters and opposition party members looking on. Apparently, Elections Canada decided to make an example and they have succeeded.

This stands in sharp contrast to the leeway Elections Canada has allowed to the 2006 Liberal leadership candidates (from the convention that elected Stéphane Dion) who had outstanding campaign loans for years after they received them. Their deadline was extended last year to the end of 2011, some five years and three new Liberal Party leaders since they incurred the loans for their campaigns.

The really bad news here is at the expense of the hapless Liberal Party whose spokespersons tried valiantly to make a big deal of this issue. Its Interim Leader Bob Rae finds himself in charge of what is still the reigning champion of Canadian political party corruption: remember the Sponsorship Scandal?

The in-and-out practice falls in a grey zone of elections law and can be confusing—obviously, it “confused” the court that originally found in favour of the Tories. I’m glad to see it resolved and the loophole closed.