Centrerion Canadian Politics

Support The Throne Speech: 300 Million Reasons

2007-10-16T23:30:00.001-04:00

There are 300 million reasons - highly important reasons to Canadian citizens - for which the Official Opposition should not vote against the Speech from the Throne.

The 2006 general election cost taxpayers between $250 million and $300 million dollars. This, only a year and a few months after the 2004 elections. And we're to have elections again??? We're to spend another QUARTER of a BILLION dollars? So that we can have another minority Conservative government and shuffle some seats around?

There are $300 million reasons for Stephane Dion and his Liberals, Gilles Duceppe (use your amendment to get something for the environment, but don't be a fool and go for Kyoto) and the Bloc, and Jack Layton and the NDP to support the Speech from the Throne. The Throne Speech being defeated would bring us from the Kingdom of England to, as Camus might put it, le Royaume de l'Absurde.

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Here are some related articles:

Stephane Dion
Liberals Create Renewal Commissions
China to Emit 470 Million Tonnes of Greenhouse Gases

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian politics, Conservative Party of Canada, Liberal Party of Canada, NDP, the environment.Go back home

CSIS memo on Islamic radicalization in Canada

2007-04-15T01:44:00.000-04:00

I recently stumbled on a declassified CSIS memo online about Islamic Radicalization in Canada. I found it to be very nuanced, academic-style. It was interesting to gain a glimpse of how our government and CSIS "thinks", by reading this initially-classified document, addressed to the Prime Minister. Our friends south of the border have been lucky enough to have online access to HUGE amounts of declassified government documents, especially ones from the CIA, for years now.

The link to the CSIS memo is: http://www.mooselim.ca/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/pm_brief_new.pdf
I could be wrong on this, but credit belongs to the National Post who got this memo declassified through an Access to Information request.

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This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canada's foreign affairs, Canadian national security, terrorism.

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40 Terrorist Organizations in Canada

2007-04-12T01:40:00.000-04:00

Do you know how many terrorist organizations and individuals are currently on Canada's terrorist list?

40 of them. Enjoy the reading!

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Here are some related articles:

Canadian National Security and Immigration
French Apathy Towards Iran; Basij
Mohammed the "Moderate" Abbas

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian national security, terrorism.Go back home

Canadian National Security and Immigration

2007-04-06T14:20:00.000-04:00

Irwin Cotler's approach to Canadian national security and immigration is expressed beautifully in a news release on his site. In the debate over two clauses of the Anti-Terrorism Act, Cotler kept a cool head and showed that the security and human rights are not mutually exclusive. Of particular interest is Cotler's commentary on immigration, in light of a recent speech by David Harris, formerly of CSIS. CSIS is Canada's intelligence agency, and it is part of Canada's national security apparatus aimed at fighting terror.

Here's what Cotler had to say:

"All this now assumes a particular importance because this debate on the extension of these two provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act is not the end of the story, but only the beginning. For what is needed now is an informed -- and principled -- parliamentary debate and review, particularly in light of recent events. The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously invalidated provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that denied persons named in security certificates a right to a fair hearing -- the right to know and be able to rebut the information against them. The court has suspended the impugned provisions for a year pending parliamentary review.

"But the unsatisfactory Hobson's choice in the security certificate regime still remains -- the deportation to a country where there is a substantial risk of torture or prolonged detention with all that implies. Parliament needs to legislate middle-ranged, and principled options."

To understand where security certificates come from, you need to understand Canadian demographics. Canadians do not have enough babies for the population to grow, so Canada relies on immigration for population growth. According to Harris, the former CSIS section director, Canada absorbs over a quarter of a million immigrants a year. The problem this poses to our security services is that screening 250,000 people's histories is not feasible with the resources that are available to them.

To compensate, we rely on security certificates, which allow our national security apparatus to detain without charges those immigrants that are deemed threatening to Canadian national security.

While I don't have Harris' words verbatim at my disposal, I do have notes from his speech that paraphrase what he was saying. His point on immigration follows. (Note that at another point, Harris expressly said he didn't think that a bigger police/military/security apparatus was the [best?] solution to the problem. Here are my notes:

Q: Didn’t address how to tackle terrorism...
A: We need to figure out what we’re about. How we achieved as a civilization, one of the most progressive living environments and economically privileged that our world has known. Gets into pluralism, respect for others opinions. Also, encouraging self-confidence in the West. To say [criticism can go - filling in from memory here] so-far, and no further.
Interconnected with immigration and refugee situation. Done very well by “artistry”[?] of immigration. But we can no longer manage the way we are going, based on numbers. Need to bring them in line with our ability to screen people.
Exposure to the other has civilized all of us.

So what do you think? Let's hear your ideas and solutions on balancing national security with a

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Here are some related articles:

Are Extremists Logical? Can we negotiate?
September 11th 2006 Tribute
Bernard Lewis, Middle East scholar
The State of National Security in Canadian Politics

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories immigration, Canadian national security, terrorism Liberal Party of Canada, Canadian politics.Go back home

Boisclair's Constitutional Dyslexia

2007-03-07T18:17:00.000-05:00

Andre Boisclair just doesn't understand our Constitution. The man reads things the way he wants to see them, in a sort of Constitutional dyslexia, if you will. The PQ leader makes a ridiculous argument that in the event of a referendum favourable to separatism, Quebec's territorial integrity would not be compromised. Basing an argument on the Constitution cuts both ways...

According to article 43 of our Constitution, the boundaries of a province could not be modified except in accordance with the that province's legislature. Well and good in normal circumstances, but when Mr. Boisclair tries to apply this to the situation that would exist post-Yes-referendum, his argument falls apart.

By turning Quebec into a separate country, Canada's Constitution would no longer apply. Therefore, it is irrelevant whether article 43 requires provincial consent to a change in borders, because that article would not be applicable.

Second, even if somehow the Constitution could be found to apply, separatism violates its fundamental purpose. That purpose is the federation of the provinces into a single polity. When courts interpret a law (and if Boisclair is arguing for 43, then there would obviously be a Constitutional reference for the Supreme Court of Canada to decide), they consider the legislator's intention, as for example in the famous Oakes test. Clearly, the SCC would not rule in favour of a violation of the fundamental aim of the Constitution.

Third, one part of the Constitution can't be used to argue against another part. So even if interpreting the aim of the Constitution was disregarded, the aim could be considered as a part of the Constitution. Thus, article 43 would be working in opposition to another part of the Constitution, and could not be relied upon. I'll edit this once I find the case where the SCC stated this principle.

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Here are some related articles:

Senate Reform and the Constitution
Canadian Constitution Quiz
Let's all do the Charter

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian politics, Provincial politics, Quebec politics, Canadian national security,separatism.Go back home

Al-Qaeda: Kyoto Friend or Foe

2007-02-26T14:36:00.000-05:00

While we're on foreign affairs (see post below: Rethinking Foreign Aid), what's al-Qaeda's position on Kyoto? ChuckerCanuck says that al-Qaeda missed Dion's memo on Kyoto:

"
Its frustrating that Al-Qaida didn't get the memo from Liberal party headquarters: the whole terrorist business was so 5 years ago, its time to sunset all the silly paranoid stuff and move on to other business, like global warming. Actually, maybe they did get that memo and their call to attack our oil industry is only to help us meet our Kyoto commitments.
"

Chuck's being sarcastic, but the post ends up making a good point: How do the "Liberals [...] argue that the tools they crafted after 9/11 are now suddenly useless?" (Couldn't they be useful the environment from massive oil fires?)

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This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Liberal Party of Canada, Canada's foreign affairs, Canadian national security, terrorism, the environment.Go back home

ReThinking Foreign Aid

2007-02-26T14:02:00.000-05:00

Blogroll partner Xavier Dube of Keep Right has an interesting post up called Three Strikes for Foreign Aid. While Xavier makes a good critique of foreign aid's (FA) problems - mainly that most FA dollars don't work to alleviate poverty and instead go to enrich dictators and despots - I have to disagree with his conclusions. I was writing a comment and decided instead that it would make for interesting reading for Centrerion readers. Here's my reply to Keep Right's author.

Ironically, Xavier, you oppose the "blanket solution" of foreign aid yet support a blanket solution of capitalism and globalization. While you're right that those two forces have worked in some places, they've been miserable failures elsewhere.

Consider the case of Bolivia, where the water system was privatized with disastrous consequences. That's part of what got an extremist coca grower like Evo Morales elected. Capitalism with little government intervention.

Craig Kielburger, founder of Save the Children recently spoke at a conference I was attending. He cited this story of a Kenyan village where this child had to walk miles to fetch water, then carry it back in heavy containers - a real burden if ever there was one. Yet his village had a well! Some western company had made a deal with the government that they'd have exclusive access to the water in the region so they could grow flowers (for export to the West). So the government capped the well. Here you have investment and jobs created for kenyans. But it was clearly not a conscionable solution - une solution equitable, as we say in French.

So while I agree with you that lots of aid dollars do get wasted on despots, and I also agree that we should focus on economic development rather than charity, I draw a different conclusion from you. We shouldn't just "end" foreign aid.

Foreign aid needs to be carried out in a smarter manner, with a focus on encouraging local entrepreneurship and SMEs/PMEs. Making the businesses responsible to the communities in which they exist and to their employees (employee stock ownership plans might be particularly useful) will help not only the founders escape from poverty, but will also help the community. "Let me help you help yourself," in other words. Note: I can't claim the idea as my own, it really comes from a book I just finished called Small Giants, about financially succesful companies that are also helping their communities prosper.

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This article and related articles are archived in the categories Canada's foreign affairs and economics.Go back home

Cow Farts and Global Warming Quip

2007-02-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

So La Presse reported not too long ago that cow farts were a major cause of global warming. So here's what we do.

Harness the cow farts and figure out how to burn them. Then BAM! We've got a renewable energy source.
The ethical dilemma is that farmers will breed their cows to create the biggest farters in their herds. And that's just animal cruelty.

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This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories the environment and and Quip of the Day.Go back home

Regulate Management and Business Conduct

2007-02-16T11:31:00.001-05:00

This is a call to governmental actors to regulate management and business conduct.

In the Olymel saga here in Quebec, a factory's workforce was threatened with layoffs unless they accepted paycuts, and management was simulatenously promised raises. This is just a most recent and local example of business ethics and management conduct run amok.

I've come to the conclusion that government needs to intervene once again to regulate managerial ethics and business conduct.

Management guru Henry Mintzberg recently gave an interview to La Presse. In it, McGill's world renown expert discussed Quebec's lower productivity level as compared to the rest of Canada and the US.
Mintzberg's view was that this was the result of Quebec not generally adopting the same abusive and short-term views as are prevalent amongst management elsewhere. The problem isn't in Quebec, Mintzberg said, but with business practices elsewhere.

For example, the practice of laying of thousands of workers creates short-term productivity gains. Managers tend to be remunerated for those. Yet these cuts leaves the firm bare for the long term.

Professor Mintzberg expressed himself - rather eloquently - as follows:

"Je dis simplement que la productivité n'est pas la seule mesure pour évaluer la santé d'une entreprise, d'une économie et d'une société.

Si c'était le cas, le grand modèle à imiter serait Wal-Mart. Avec ses salaires, son antisyndicalisme et les économies de bout de chandelles qu'elle réalise aux États-Unis dans l'assurance santé de ses employés.

On ne construit pas une économie saine et équilibrée de cette façon. Tout ce que l'on réussit à faire, c'est de gonfler la richesse de quelques-uns et augmentant le nombre de laissés pour compte. Malheureusement, le modèle Wal-Mart, son organisation «lean and mean» fait des ravages."

I couldn't express it any better myself. Here's a translation:

"What I am saying is simply that productivity is not the only measure with which to assess the health of a company, an economy and a society.

If that were the case, the great model to follow would be [the] Wal-Mart [model]. With its [minimium-wage] salaries, anti-union philosophy and corner-shaving savings achieved at the expense of its employees' health care benefits.

We don't build a healthy and balanced economy in such a manner. All we really accomplish is to increase the wealth of a handful of people while increasing the number of people left out by the wayside. Unfortunately, the Wal-Mart model and its "lean and mean" organization is creating havoc."

Here are some ideas for our MPs, MPPs and [in Quebec] MNAs to consider:

1. A professional code of ethics for managers. We have workers' rights, but something more is clearly needed. That something more is managerial obligations. Positive obligations setting out things that must be done, in addition to workers' rights concerning what cannot be (e.g. discrimination).

2. An explicit stipulation that management's salaries fluctuate on the same level as those of the average worker. COLA raises only for the sales staff? COLA raises for the sales VP and managers. (COLA: Cost Of Living Allowance; managerial slang for raises tied to inflation.)

2.a. Similarly, the number of executive level managers laid off should be proportional to the number of workers laid off. Don't need that factory? Guess you'll have to drop the assistant VP of Production.

3. Make having a chief ethics officer (CETO) and department mandatory for publicly traded companies and companies over a certain level of revenue. Make these executive level managers responsible for specific tasks and areas such as ensuring fairness in human resource management.

4. Consider some of the ideas of the Complete Guide to Ethics Management.

5. Look at the great reasons for why managers should be ethical at this forum and see what legislative initatives can be implemented. The forum thread looks at "why managers should be ethical" and considers many interesting points, including notable the environment.

It's time for our politicians to step up to the plate and legislate some strong ethics into our increasingly laissez-faire business environment.

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This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian politics, Provincial politics, ethics, and economics.Go back home

China to Emit 470 Million More Tonnes of Greenhouse Gases: How Bloggers Can Fight Back

2007-02-11T21:19:00.000-05:00

Gay and Right has an interesting scoop from the Financial Post. While I disagree with his conclusions (see the comments), Ottawa's gay right-wing blogger cites some interesting material from the Post:

China's going to emit 470 million more tonnes of greenhouse gases next year. It's the sort of thing that really disgusts you and gets you frustrated with corporate Canada and the rest of the corporate West for helping them out. Like Bombardier for example. So what can bloggers do?

As longtime readers likely know, this blog is #1 on Google for some select keywords. The most important factor to rank on Google is the number, quality, and text of links pointing to your site. For example, the Bombardier link above will help increase that site's ranking for the search "Bombardier". Bloggers can link to that page above and to others (preferably with the sole word "Bombardier").

The result will be that people looking up Bombardier on Google (and also on Yahoo and MSN) will see negative press for these companies. Hopefully this negative PR will discourage companies from doing business in China, or at least from taking on such clearly problematic projects.

If anyone has other environmental concerns that can be affected with similar linking projects, I wouldn't mind keeping a list and linking to them here. Just post in the comments.

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This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canada's foreign affairs, economics,the environment and China.Go back home

Tanning in Quebec's AntiSemitic Heat

2007-02-07T18:01:00.000-05:00

Anti-Semitism and intolerance towards Jews is doing just fine in Quebec, thankyou very much. Just when you thought antisemitism was under control and La Belle Province was becoming more tolerant... Three antisemitic events in the past few days have troubled me deeply, including one direct, personal experience with antisemitism. My opinion on the majority of Quebecois' respect for minorities as being nonexistent has been reinforced exponentially.

Story 1. "Jews Control the Media," says ignorant Quebecois.

Yesterday afternoon, I was meeting a pair of Quebecois (Harper's definition of Quebecois) acquaintances at a cafe to talk business. For about 45 minutes we were relaxing around the table, talking about potential contracts and advertising. The woman in the duo was pretty focused, and when she talked it was clearly relevant to the discussion. When the guy spoke, he kept going off into tangents (somehow it was essential to share his interest in the old Mission Impossible television shows).

In spite of the pointless asides, the discussion was moving forward.

Then, out of nowhere, the guy made a 180 degree sweep with his head, checking that nobody besides myself and his partner were in earshot. He leaned in and told us that the Jews control the media, which explained, he said, why you couldn't get the news that mattered from the media. He mentioned how it had been done in France, with the Jews placing a number of them in the high ranking management positions. He fixes his posture and continues, saying something about the CRTC. (With the background noise, I can't hear it properly.)

(As he's saying all this, I'm feeling my blood starting to boil and my brow getting sweaty. Somehow I'm controlling myself from exploding and lashing out at this incredibly ridiculous, patently false and slanderous assertion. But I'm iiiitching to answer back...)

At first I was shocked and in disbelief at what I was hearing, thinking perhaps I hadn't understood. So I tried to suss him out and have him explain what he meant. Perhaps sensing my anger, he nuanced himself to say that of course it wasn't that all Jews controlled the media, but they had gotten a lot of their people into the important positions.

"Je suis juif," I said, expecting him to turn purple. He tells me he doesn't have a problem with that and says something about how it's not all the Jews who control the media.

To make a long story short, I ended up

pointing out some basic facts,

telling him that I'd never heard such a filthy antisemitic thing in my life (being tactful enough not to call him an antisemite himself, though that's certainly what I felt),

adding that furthermore, he was associating with Nazis old and new, plus antisemites of all sorts and all politics by saying Jews control the media, and that

cutting the meeting off moments later

Amongst the things I pointed out were that (a) Jewish people don't control the media in France, nor the CRTC here in Canada. That (b) if we did, there'd be no chance that a network like al-Jazira that plays pro-terrorist videos, antisemitic propaganda and so on would have gotten a license for Canadian distribution. (c) Further to (b), reports on Israel and Jews and "accomodements raisonnables" would be much more balanced.

Somewhere in there I also pointed out the crucial fact that for his far-fetched theory of media control and disinformation to be even mildly coherent, all the Jews in the media world would have to have the same [right-wing, in his theory] views. Not only is there diversity of thought (can you imagine??), but people in the media tend to be left-leaning, and that also goes for Jews.

2. "Pay $10,000 to someone who violated your freedom of religion," says Quebec Human Rights Commission. "I agree," says Andre Boisclair.

So that was one antisemitic event that got under my skin this week. Now, as you may have heard, the debate on "accomodements raisonnables," or reasonable accomodation of minorities' religious practices, is all the rage here in Quebec.

Literally. La Presse's "letters-to-the-editor" editor recently wrote about how the huge majority of mail he's been reading is saying that reasonable accomodations have gone too far. Reading some of those letters, it's evident that the Pure-Laine Quebecois are reeally ticked.

Now the whole issue's been flipped on its head. The Quebec "Human Rights" Commission is telling the Jewish General Hospital that it should pay $10,000 to an ambulance driver by the name of Yvon Verreault for asking him to eat his lunch elsewhere. Verreault's spaghetti wasn't kosher (kosher-ness, or kashrut, is determined by Jewish dietary laws written in the Torah, or what Christians call the Old Testament). For the hospital to maintain its kosher ceritifications, it has to ensure that some designated eating areas follow the laws of kashrut.

As the Suburban puts it so accurately in "More Intolerance":

Ironically, by siding with Verreault, the commission is going against the very reasons why the hospital came into being, to fight discrimination. It wasn’t so long ago that Jewish doctors were not allowed to practice in hospitals in Montreal. That’s why the city’s Jewish community raised the money to build their own institution, and did so in 1934.

Now, for some bureaucrat confused about the role of the Quebec Human Rights Commission (protecting them, not attacking them) to say something like that isn't altogether shocking. Like I said, a large swath (probably the majority, IMHO) of French-Canadian society is openly hostile to Jews. But for the leader of the Parti Quebecois to say he agrees??? Looking back, I now remember blogging about how the separatists were bad news.

3. "Teach Kids Religion," says Quebec Ministry of Education.

Finally, in yet more high-quality news coverage by the Suburban, Tommy Schnurmacher lets the English-reading population know that the Ministry of Education is forcing religious education back into schools. As Tommy writes:

"We are not dealing with a single course that’s an overview of world religions.

We are not talking just theory.

We are talking about hands-on participation in mandatory class projects on Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and, of course, aboriginal spirituality."

[...]

"It also forces schools to teach religious views which are anathema to their own beliefs.

Devout parents, be they Jewish or Muslim, may not wish to see their children drawn into another belief system that, in many cases, is a direct negation or contradiction of their most deeply held beliefs."

[...]

"As part of the pilot project at the Solomon Schechter Academy, kids were taken to visit a nearby church where they were addressed by the priest who taught them about Christianity.

I heard about this visit from a concerned parent who only found out about the trip after the fact.

His nine-year-old son said he had not wanted to go, but had been told by his teacher that he had to. [Lecentre: Doesn't speak very highly of the teacher, incidentally, if he/she can't use a little judgement and let the kid out.]

In other words, he was forced to enter a house of worship against his will.

This is not freedom of religion. This is forced religion.

Now, if you know anything about Quebec society, the civil service is French. That may not be politically correct, and I'm certain there are some solitary anglos with desk jobs, but the reality is that our government's day-to-day affairs are run by Quebecois. Which brings me back to my main point: most of Quebecois society is deeply intolerant.

(As an aside, has anyone else noticed that the outrage tends to be at its highest when its a case of reasonable accomodation involving Jewish people, yet when Muslims are involved, the accomodation is considered fine and dandy? My theory is that those Quebecois showing their intolerance know that the accomodations being given to Muslims AND to Jews are fine, but it's an excuse to be antisemitic in a socially acceptable way, so why not?)

Others discussing the reasonable accomodation debate:

Multiculturalism under attack
Adam Daifallah on Herouxville's code (scroll down)
Racism v Reasonable Accomodation

Here's some on Quebecois Antisemitism and Racism
A piece reflecting my sentiments on Quebecois Nationalism and Racism
A survey where 59% of Quebecers (note, not only Quebecois were polled, though I'm sure their percentage was up there as well): 59% of Quebecers say they're racist.

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This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories provincial politics, Quebec, antisemitism and media.Go back home

French Apathy Towards Iran: Remember the Basij?

2007-02-04T12:20:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. It seems to me that French sources tend to be a large source of apathy and even sympathy towards Iran, besides that regime's traditional support from other admirable countries like China and Russia. Two anecdotes come to mind in particular:

Soon to be ex-President of France Jacques Chirac recently came out on record with an appalling complacency towards Iran getting the bomb. Chirac essentially said that there was no big deal about Iran acquiring nukes because if they tried to shoot one at Israel they'd be destroyed themselves moments later. Not only is this disgusting coming from the President of a country that closely collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust, but it shows amazingly poor understanding of Iran's leadership.

During the Irak-Iran war that lasted from 1980-1988, Iran sacrificed tens of thousands of children to clear Iraki minefields . They were known as the Basij, or Basiji. (See also MEMRI's Inquiry and Analysis Series on Basij Week, as well as Global Security's piece on the Basiji.) Ahmadinejad glorifies the Basij and associates himself and the regime with them at every opportunity.

Does France's President actually believe hundreds of thousands of dead would deter the Iranian regime? Why would this time be any different? This isn't the Cold War: MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) isn't a viable theory against an enemy who isn't concerned about incurring casualties.

The second point about French inertia regards an article I read in La Presse, by the dogmatically close-minded, blindly anti-American and anti-Israeli left-wing writer Jocelyn Coulon. Coulon wrote about how Iran was daring to defy the US and Israel. The 'daring to defy' language gives a despicable regime the appearance of being some poor oppressed darlings. In addition, it obfuscated the fact that a nuclear-armed Iran would be
(i) against nuclear non-Proliferation, which movement the left started and continues to supports, and
(ii) in defiance of the UN, another institution the left considers absolutely crucial. I hate hypocrites.

Here's the text of another letter La Presse refused to print:

Jocelyn Coulon ne cesse de montrer à quel point la gauche tient un discours incohérent. Alors que Coulon n’hésite pas pour critiquer les Etats-Unis en matière de droits humains, il ne trouve rien à dire au sujet du bien pire rendement de l’Iran. L’Iran, meurtrière de Zahra Kazemi. L’Iran, qui appelle au génocide du people Juif et à la destruction d’Israel.

Ainsi, Coulon a de la misère à comprendre pourquoi on traiterait ce pauvre minou de régime de «démoniaque» et pourquoi on voudrait l’empêcher d’obtenir la bombe atomique. Par ailleurs, on m’a enseigné au CEGEP que la lutte contre la prolifération nucléaire était une lutte amorcée est soutenue par la gauche!

Le discours incohérent de M. Coulon, représentatif de la gauche moderne, est de ceux qui me maintiennent dans le centre, alors que j’ai bien des sympathies en matière sociale avec la gauche.

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This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canada's foreign affairs, Canadian Iran, terrorism, media.Go back home

Mohammed "The Moderate" Abbas

2007-01-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

The ever-mediocre media have just reported a bombing in the city of Eilat, in Israel. Besides their traditionally ridiculous ab-use of the word 'militant' to refer to terrorists, the media have in the past few months been destroying a word I hold dear: "moderate." Palestinian Authority President Mohammed Abbas and the al-Fatah organization he leads keep being called "moderates."

The al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, who claimed responsibility for today's bombing along with Islamic Jihad, are part of Abbas' al-Fatah. Their gangs of gunmen rove around Palestinian areas engaging in gunfights with Hamas gunmen and killing civilians in the process - when they aren't busy plotting how to explosively embed nails in Israelis. These are not moderates.

A moderate is someone who isn't blinded by ideology and dogma. A moderate is someone who acts based on the objective value and reasonableness of his action. Who can see the other side of the story and sympathize, even if he isn't necessarily convinced by its arguments.

"At his family home in the northern Gaza Strip, Siksik's brother Naeem told reporters: 'We knew he was going to carry out a martyrdom operation. His mother and father prayed for him to succeed.'" (The quote is from Reuters, but as they did such a terrible, mediocre job reporting the story, I won't be giving them the benefit of a link.)
Killing himself is success? Killing random strangers in a bakery is success? What objective criteria in the world could possibly be taken to view death as something to value? How is this in the least rational? The Siksiks and other Fatah supporters and members are not moderates.

Here's a rational response from a real moderate. Ms. Parvinder Sandhu was Dawson shooter Kimveer Gill's mother. Here's what she had to say to the victims of her son's atrocity at Quebec's biggest CEGEP. "He was a little bit sad this year, but we never, never thought that this could happen," Ms. Sandhu told the National Post yesterday. "The person who would never hit or hurt -- even with words -- someone, how could he do such a big thing? This is the shock we have now. It is out of the question, what he did."

She went on:
"The girl, I feel so sorry for her parents. If you want to give them the message, tell them that the parents are feeling very, very sad and very, very mad about what happened there, and we never expected that," Gill's mother said.

"My sympathy is with them, and they should forgive us because it's not our fault. We did not raise him that way."

That is a normal moderate action. If you're a journalist and you read this, please stop calling Abbas, al-Fatah and company 'moderates'. (And if you could use the more accurate description "terrorist," instead of militant, that would be great too.)

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Here are some related articles:

Hamas Plan to Kill Abbas
Background to Palestinian on Palestinian violence
Mediocre Media 6

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canada's foreign affairs, terrorism, and media.Go back home

Layton on ATM Fees - nobody is holding a gun to your head

2007-01-29T01:39:00.000-05:00

NDP leader Jack Layton has been making headlines with his proposal to ban all "ATM fees" in Canada.

More specifically, he is talking about banning the charges you pay if you use another bank's ATM. Normally those fees are about 1.50 to the owner of the ATM you use and about the same to your bank. Why do the banks charge said fees.

1) Say the Royal Bank has a popular ATM location. ATM's are not "free" to operate, there is the receipt paper, someone has to load the cash, cleanup the machine. Why should the Royal Bank be subsidizing the customers of other banks?

2) When you use an ATM other than your own bank's there are interchange fees paid to the cash dispensing bank. While those fees may not be $1.50, they are for sure not 0.00. Why should your bank be paying those fees when you could use their own ATMs and save everyone the hassle.

One could never walk into a branch and get cash from from a branch of the competition - let alone for free. Why are ATMs any different.

If you don't like the selection of ATM's your bank offers, switch. Personally my bank gives me access to a network of over 6000 ATMs across Canada that I can use without paying a penny in fees. You chose to use the bank that you did. Don't expect their competition to allow you to use their ATMs.

Interac may be paid for, but the recurring costs still exist. ATM's cost around 50,000 each. The banks wouldn't install as many ATMs if they couldn't recoop their investment.

You have that choice. If you want to use that ATM, it's your money, it's your choice. Governments have no role in regulating free enterprise.

Sharing Quip of the Day

2007-01-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

A friend wrote this piece of brilliant advice recently:
"At a wine and cheese the trick is to position yourself in advance next to the good wine and the cheese that's available in the smallest quantity (this usually means it's the most expensive). Stay there, loiter, and only speak when confronted by others who are also loitering. Seriously..."
To which another acquaintance responded (partly my contribution):
"Excellent advice on the wine and cheese. The only thing I would add is to bring a bag from the SAQ (Societe des Alcools du Quebec; Quebec's liquor commission) and a bag from one of those small-cheese-selling-pastry-shoppes: that way, once you get positioned in the good loitering spots, you can nab the products in the bag and act like you're an employee doing a recall of expired goods."
Sharing is for people who are afraid to use their elbows in line.

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Costa's Canada

2007-01-26T14:51:00.000-05:00

I was talking to a friend of mine in school, Costa, who happens to have been a longtime member of the BANPAC (Blogging Alliance of Non-Partisan Canadians). Of course, we had to trade blogroll links.

Costa's been blogging for a while and he's had some good material in the past (I remember it being one of the first blogs I visited when I started bouncing through my blogroll to comment on other blogs). More recently, he has an in-depth post on what he'd do if he was Prime Minister.

Check out Costa's Canada, CCP's new blogroll partner!

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CCP Anniversary Contest: $355 in Cash and Prizes to be Won

2006-12-25T10:46:00.000-05:00

Centrerion Canadian Politics (CCP) turned one a little earlier this month, and I didn't really celebrate in any particular way. So on the occasion of the blog's anniversary, I thought I would sponsor a contest with cash and prizes for the winner(s). All in all I'm giving away $355 in cash & prizes*. The contest is really quite easy to enter, and open to just about anybody with a blog on Canadian politics. Here's how the contest will work.

The contest's goal is to see who are the most engaging writers in the Canadian political blogosphere, and hopefully discover new talent in the process. At the same time, I obviously hope to gain some publicity for CCP.

Rules for the Anniversary Contest:
1) An entry to the contest will consist of a blogpost linked to in the comments of this post.
2) An entry will review a post or series of posts from CCP's archives, preferably one that affected you or which you found was really well (or poorly) written.
3) Minimum length for an entry is 200 words. Given the depth of some of the posts in this niche of the blogosphere, that shouldn't be a problem.
4) Blogs with less than 3 months history or less than 60 posts are ineligible to win. You can ask for an exception in the comments if you've been blogging on someone else's blog and just branched out on your own, or for other logical reasons. I of course reserve the right to choose who I'll consider for the contest.
5) Contest entries must link back to both Centrerion Canadian Politics's homepage at http://centrerion.blogspot.com, as well as to the post or series of posts (each of them) being reviewed/critiqued/discussed.

Criteria for Contest Judgement:
1) Quality of writing: The main point is to show how engaging and/or thought provoking you can be in your writing. Maybe you agreed with it but thought it ignored a particular aspect of the question. Maybe you disagreed with the reasoning(no ad-hominem attacks, please). Maybe you just loved the piece (I know, it's a stretch of the imagination, but humour me) and thought you'd say so. Write well.
2) Grammar: If you write like you speak, take a few minutes to proofread your post. That will increase the quality exponentially.
3) Seeing the bigger picture: If you can link ideas in my post/series of posts to an authoritative, scholarly article on the topic and look at the bigger context of the issue, you're really going to impress me. Note: When I say link, I mean conceptually, but also with a hypertext link to whereever the article is on the web. You can use Google scholar to help you out, as well as Scirus, CiteSeer, Proquest or any of the other academic databases you have access to. The article must also be freely available without a subscription.
4) Thoroughness: Your review should show that you put some thought into it, that you really looked at as many of the facets as possible. I'll be more lenient if it's a discussion of a series of posts, since that's inherently more work (but also more opportunity to impress) and it would be tough to give each the same level of attention as if you were critiquing a single post.
5) Humour and other discretionary criteria: Can you make me laugh? Can you be relevant to the current political context? Can you be original? Show you're worth the attention of the Canadian politics blogosphere!

Note: You can review one of my posts or one of Centrerion Canadian Politics' other contributors. This is obviously somewhat of an ego-centric contest though, so you can guess whose writing I'd prefer you to review ;).

Prizes:
First place prize: $60 Canadian in cash, payable through paypal; a link in CCP's blogroll, worth $50 annually; and writeup and link in the "And the Winners Are..." announcement post, worth $20. Total: $130.
Second place prize: $20 Canadian in cash, payable through paypal; a link in CCP's blogroll; and a writeup and link in the announcement post. Total: $90.
Third place prize: a blogroll link and an announcement post link with a short write-up. Total: $65.
4th-10 place prizes: links in the announcement post under the subheading "honourable mention" with a quick line or two about the blog and the blogger behind the entry. Total: $70.

As a further incentive, I'll be making badges that you can post on your blog to show that you won.
The first place badge will read: "Best online insights and analysis in Canadian Politics."
Second place's badge will read: "Second best online insights and analysis in Canadian Politics."
Third places' badge will read: "Third best online insights and analysis in Canadian Politics."
4th-10th will get badges the same sizes as places 1-3, and will read: "Up-and-coming Canadian political pundit: worth the read."

If someone has a better idea as to what the badges might read, please let me know in the comments section. Also, if you have questions about something I didn't address here, leave a comment and ask the question! Don't be shy.

*I reserve the right to give away more or less prizes, and to alter the giveaways. For example, if only a handful of people participate, there'll probably be a few prizes, and less cash given away. Or I may just give a fixed amount per entry to charity, like $1 per entry.
~
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Would Electing the Senate Require Constitutional Change?

2006-12-14T14:22:00.000-05:00

Would electing the Senate require Constitutional change? That's what Stephane Dion, Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton are all alleging, according to this (obviously biased in favour of the opposition) CTV piece. While I'm not sure the proposed Conservative legislation is a good idea (discussed further down), Dion et co. are mistaken on the facts if they think passing a law that provides for electing the Senate requires Constitutional amendments like the heart-wrencher that was Meech Lake.

Technically speaking, the Senate is part of the Canadian Constitution and would thus require Constitutional change if it were to become an elected Chamber. The problem is that when people think Constitutional change, they think of Meech Lake and Charlottetown. Actually, those failed accords were addressed to one specific formula for amending the Constitution, one which requires the provinces' unanimous consent.

In this case, the amending formula that would apply would only require the general amending procedure, known as the 7-50 procedure. It requires the federal Parliament to pass the law in order to amend the Constitution, as well as the consent of 7 provinces (two thirds of the provinces, officially) representing at least 50% of the population. The formula in question can be found at section 38 of our Constitution, in Part V. Section 38 is titled "General procedure for amending Constitution of Canada" and it reads:

"38. (1) An amendment to the Constitution of Canada may be made by proclamation issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada where so authorized by

(a) resolutions of the Senate and House of Commons; and
(b) resolutions of the legislative assemblies of at least two-thirds of the provinces that have, in the aggregate, according to the then latest general census, at least fifty per cent of the population of all the provinces."

Section 42 reads:

"Amendment by general procedure 42. (1) An amendment to the Constitution of Canada in relation to the following matters may be made only in accordance with subsection 38(1):

(a) the principle of proportionate representation of the provinces in the House of Commons prescribed by the Constitution of Canada;
(b) the powers of the Senate and the method of selecting Senators;
(c) the number of members by which a province is entitled to be represented in the Senate and the residence qualifications of Senators;
(d) subject to paragraph 41(d), the Supreme Court of Canada;
(e) the extension of existing provinces into the territories; and
(f) notwithstanding any other law or practice, the establishment of new provinces."

Italics mine. The point is that the trauma over Meech Lake and Charlottetown was largely due to the use of the unanimous amending procedure in section 41, and therefore the problems might be avoided by having recourse to section 38.

Another possibility is that "the method for selecting Senators" has a restrictive definition and goes to their appointment process. This would allow for the use of section 44, rather than 42 and 38. So if the Prime Minister is still the one carrying out the selection in concert with the Governor General, we could have a situation like the case of Nat Bell Liquors.

Nat Bell Liquors fought an Albertan alcohol law during Prohibition. NBL said that it was unconstitutional because Alberta's legislature abdicated its powers. Legislatures can't abdicate by virtue of the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty. The basis for the abdication claim was that the Albertan legislature acted in accordance with another law that said it would have to pass anything Albertans approved of in a referendum. A referendum had approved the alcohol law and the legislature acted accordingly.
The ruling of the court (Alberta Appeals, if memory serves) was that the law wasn't unconstitutional. It would be quite strange, the justices remarked, to say that the legislature's role was to legislate in contradiction with popular will ....

Here we would have a similar "people's choice" situation where the executive acted in accordance with the will of the voters. The method of selecting Senators remains with the Executive.
Furthermore, if the referendum is made out to be only a consultational one, it would be possible to get around 38/42 entirely and use section 44. Section 44 allows amendment of the parts of the Constitution relating strictly to the federal executive and Parliament. Therefore, it only needs House and Senate approval (plus the rubber-stamping Royal Assent of course).

Why have the elections to begin with if they're only consultative? The point then would be to create a binding Constitutional convention, similar to those that govern the role of Prime Minister (the PM is only mentioned twice in the Constitutional Act of 1982, in fact). According to the Supreme Court's ruling in the first Patriation Reference (1981), a Constitutional convention arises based on three criteria: (i) precedent, (ii) others following the precedent because they feel bound to (iii) a reason for the convention.

So you could get future Prime Ministers to be bound on a so-called "manner and form" requirement for selecting Senators by a convention. This would avoid going through the soul-wringing of a section 41 amendment or even the moderate challenges of a section 38 amendment.

The question then is whether it's a worthwhile thing to do. Given that the Senate would be better off abolished (would require unanimous consent, again according to the SCC) because it doesn't fulfill its function of regional representation, this reform would be counter-productive. Jack Layton's comment that it would make the Senate even more dysfunctional is accurate (I'm quoting Jacko with approval! It's Armageddon!) in that electing the Senate would reinforce party lines there.

Stephane Dion pointed out that you might end up with the Senate being redundant as a second elected Chamber, which is true. Except that it's already redundant, so there's no big difference there.

IMHO, Harper and Justice Minister Toews need to modify their law to aim for the Constitutional convention and section 44 amending procedure. In addition, if the Conservatives' want to make the Senate more representative of Canadians (a noble goal), make it representative of Canadians on a regional basis, as the Senate was intended to be. [The Fathers of Confederation sought to have the less-populous provinces interests protected at the federal level by these means of regional representation.] Jacko could probably play a helpful role here and earn some points in winnable rural ridings by suggesting such a regional emphasis for the law.

Electing the Senate will require Constitutional change, but it can be easy and painless. With some tweaks, it can even be useful to Canadian democracy.

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Stephane Dion's Victory: Quip of the Day

2006-12-02T18:25:00.000-05:00

It's just been announced that Stephane Dion has won the Liberal leadership race.

The iggy-nation won't be constitutionalized after all.

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Mediocre Media: BBC Admission!

2006-11-30T22:34:00.000-05:00

The BBC finally admits it. I definitely did not see that one coming.

An earlier investigation into impropriety was brushed aside and its tough findings relegated to bureaucratic doldrums, being criticized to avoid implementation. But now:

"Andrew Marr, the former BBC political editor, recently stood before an audience and said that "the BBC is not impartial, or neutral. It's a publicly funded urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party political bias: it's better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.""

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Stephane Dion

2006-11-30T10:17:00.000-05:00

Other Candidates:
Michael Ignatieff
Bob Rae
Gerard Kennedy

(Cross-posted at Clear Grit)

It is obviously impossible for me to claim that I am unbiased in writing about any candidate, but this is especially true for what I write about Stephane Dion. Obviously, he is the candidate who I believe should lead the party into the next election. I believe he would be Stephen Harper's most formidable foe, in both official languages. Therefore, since this is basically going to be an exalting of Dion's better qualities, I will spare you from long-windedness.

Dion was not one of the candidates who could count on front-runner status. Unlike the other top-tier candidates, Dion had to work hard to get where he is today. Fourth place - a strong fourth - is impressive given that when he began his bid for leadership he wasn't given much of a chance by most observers.

The reason that Dion has experienced this momentum is because people realize that he is the true intellectual voice of liberalism in Canada, not Michael Ignatieff. People realize that Stephane Dion is the only candidate among the front-runners who has served in a federal cabinet, and who has paid his dues to the party.

Dion is the candidate most likely to win Quebec for the Liberals. The Liberal party can't win the next election without a strong come-back in Quebec, and Stephane Dion, I feel, is the only candidate well-positioned to defeat Stephen Harper in Quebec. The only other candidate who I feel could compete in Quebec is Michael Ignatieff, but I fear he is too gaffe-prone to win a general election.

That being said, what sort of chance does he have?

Well, history is certainly on Dion's side. Every single Liberal prime minister save for Alexander Mackenzie (the first one) has served in the cabinet of a previous Liberal prime minister. Kennedy is the only other front-runner who can claim experience in a Liberal cabinet, though provincial politicians do not historically do well federally.

But, this convention isn't about the past. In many ways, it is going to be a historic convention in its own right, which means all bets are off.

So, can Dion win? He certainly can, but it will be tough. Dion is in perhaps the hardest position of any candidate - he has to squeeze up past Gerard Kennedy, and replace Bob Rae as the not-Iggy candidate. Dion has many potential paths to the leadership; an endorsement from Ken Dryden, an endorsement from Gerard Kennedy, and an electrifying convention speech would all help, and are likely essential. Dion is in fourth; he has to wow the delegates with a powerful, passionate speech.

I don't know if he can do it. But here's hoping he does.

Gerard Kennedy

2006-11-30T01:54:00.000-05:00

Other Candidates:
Michael Ignatieff
Bob Rae

(Cross-posted at Clear Grit)

What can I say about Gerard Kennedy?

Scratch that. What can I say about Gerard Kennedy that won't result in his cult-like supporters attack my intellectual integrity? The answer is, not much that's all that interesting.

I don't want to knock Gerard. He's an impressive guy and I have not a word to say against him. But I do have to say right now, before I give my assessment of him, that I don't think a noticeable contingent among his supporters helped his case. Not all, not even the majority of Kennedy supporters are like that, of course, and there are many I respect among his supporters. But he has generated some strong feelings among certain members, and I have seen many unfortunate attacks by Kennedy supporters directed at their fellow Liberals that were hardly constructive. I do hope that if Kennedy loses, which is quite likely, especially now that he has taken a principled stand against the nation issue, these supporters will not go about creating divisions within the party.

It's hard to argue against Kennedy's credentials. Ten years as an elected MPP and three as a cabinet minister is certainly more political experience than Stephen Harper had when the Conservatives elected him their leader, and far more than Michael Ignatieff. Sure, he didn't graduate from university, but instead of that he started a successful food bank and ran another one. How do you run an attack ad against that?

I've warmed to Kennedy a great deal. I have been hoping for a Dion-Kennedy alliance going into the convention because if Dion can't take it, Kennedy would be a very close second choice for me. I agree with him on virtually every issue, and he has a charisma about him that is indeed Trudeau-esque. In fact, were it not for one fatal flaw, he would probably be my first choice.

The fatal flaw is - I don't think he can win in Quebec. And here is why:

Kennedy is an English speaker from Ontario. Of the four front-runners, he is the weakest in French. He has only 2% of the Quebec delegates to this convention on his side, and he is unlikely to pick up more than that because of his stance on the nation question. That stance, in itself, is the final stake in the coffin.

I support Kennedy on the nation question. But the optics of him, an Ontarian with hardly any support from Quebec Liberals and hardly fluently bilingual, arguing against it could easily guarantee the Liberal party's failure in Quebec. I was hoping that Dion would oppose that motion, because frankly as the truism goes, "Only Nixon could go to China." Only Trudeau and Chretien could fight those referendums. Only Dion could introduce the Clarity Act. Kennedy would simply have no credibility to the people of Quebec arguing against a Quebec nation.

It's a tough call. If Kennedy can't win an election against Stephen Harper, though, then what is the point of electing him leader? His supporters argue that this doesn't matter. Kennedy has inspired some strong feelings in people precisely because he represents something so fresh, so hopeful, so young. Who cares if he can win?

Actually, his supporters would be done a bit of a misdeed if I didn't point out that most of them believe that he can beat Stephen Harper in an election. Fair enough; I disagree, but that's fine.

But it's a bit of a moot point, because I don't think Kennedy will take this one. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this convention will come down to either Ignatieff v. Dion, or Ignatieff v. Rae, likely the former, because the Quebec delegates are likely to regard Kennedy as anathema. His best chance to win is to score the endorsement of Stephane Dion. If Dion can bring his Quebec delegates with him to Kennedy, Kennedy will gain both a powerful Quebec ally and a sizable contingent of Quebec delegates.

But it is thought that Dion's Quebec delegates will bleed heavily to Ignatieff if he is knocked off the ballot. That could make it hard for Kennedy to win this convention. If Dion doesn't endorse him, he will almost certainly go down, so whether or not that happens will be one of the turning points of the convention.

I wish Kennedy all the best. If he wins this convention, I will be proud to say I'm a Liberal.

Bob Rae

2006-11-29T21:10:00.000-05:00

Other Candidates:
Michael Ignatieff

(Cross-posted to Clear Grit)

As the political veteran of this race, Bob Rae's appeal has been obvious - he is the most experienced of any candidate in the realm of public policy and governance, and at the same time, he is free from the burden of ugly sponsorship mess, at least as free as Michael Ignatieff and Gerard Kennedy. Rae is one of the four candidates with a serious chance of winning the leadership, and given that just a year ago many people dismissed him out of hand as too controversial in Ontario, he has come a long way.

Bob Rae is positioned well, about as well as could be expected. In stark contrast to Ignatieff's gaffe-ridden campaign, Rae's campaign has been absolutely flawless. This is to be expected from a 30-plus-year veteran of the political world; anything less would have been unacceptable. Rae is arguably the only other candidate besides Ignatieff who has a strong base in every region of the country; Stephane Dion has a recognizable base in every region, but not as large as Rae's. Rae is at the top of the not-Ignatieff contenders, and he and his team have been trying to get the idea out that he is the only one who can stop an Ignatieff victory.

They may be right, though many people still question the wisdom of a Rae-led Liberal Party, but many - including myself - underestimated him. Of course, people are starting to wisen up. Arrogant Tories love to dismiss Rae out of hand, citing his term as premier of Ontario as proof that he will be easy to eviscerate in an election, but a lot of Tory insiders and even the rank and file are starting to fear a Bob Rae Liberal party. Remember, the people who hate Rae's Ontario record the most tend to be conservatives and Tory partisans, not exactly the best indicators of the mood of predominantly middle-of-the-road Ontario. And a flawlessly executed campaign is nothing to sneer at.

Of course, critics are quick to point out that the reason Rae has been gaffe-free is because he hasn't actually said anything. It's not an unfair criticism. Rae has essentially been running on his experience in contrast to his main rival and former roommate, who has none. Rae has been choosing his words carefully, trying to appeal to a broad spectrum of Liberals, the latest example being that he "won't oppose" recognizing Quebec as a nation. Carefully chosen words, those are. None of this is too surprising - Rae's campaign is being managed by his brother John Rae, the architect of Jean Chretien's three middle-of-the-road-appeal victories.

There are some significant knocks against Bob Rae. Unlike Ignatieff, Rae was actually scouted to run for the party in 2006 and 2004, and he refused both opportunities. If Rae had run in 2004, he almost certainly would have served in cabinet, thus giving him the Liberal credentials he would have needed to mount a more credible bid. I have no doubt that if Rae had run in 2004, he would be the front-runner today. The fact that he refused two opportunities to run for the party he wants to lead is a bit of a sore point for many Liberals, and understandably so.

What Bob Rae's candidacy comes down to is this: he's an experienced and formidable political veteran who ironically is the least Liberal candidate of the field. Say what you will about Ignatieff, he didn't donate money to NDP candidates in the last election. These are the two factors delegates considering him will have to weigh. How well Rae does will depend on how many delegates are willing to overlook his past, both recent and from the last century.

Michael Ignatieff

2006-11-29T05:34:00.000-05:00

(Cross-posted at Clear Grit)

Hailed just last year as possibly the next Pierre Trudeau, it has been quite the year for Michael Ignatieff. In its span, he has gone from being an acclaimed international academic, to a Member of the Canadian House of Commons, to the front-runner in the race to lead one of the the most electorally successful political parties in history and just a hair's breadth away from a position which would almost guarantee him a spot in history as either Canada's 23rd or 24th prime minister.

The stakes couldn't be higher for Ignatieff. At 58 years of age, he very likely isn't going to get another chance at this. Oh sure, he could run again six, eight, ten years from now. But it just won't be the same. He'd be yesterday's news. Ignatieff's candidacy is built on a wellspring of hope for a new direction in the party that is particular to this moment in history.

It was supposed to be different. Paul Martin was supposed to eke out another minority government in this year's election, and Ignatieff was supposed to receive the requisite experience in government. Conservatives have occassionally opted to choose an outsider for leader (most notably Brian Mulroney), but the Liberal Party has historically not been kind to leadership candidates who haven't spent time in cabinet. Every Liberal prime minister in history (save for Mackenzie, the first one) has served in the cabinet of a previous Liberal prime minister. That the outsider Ignatieff is even the front-runner in this race is phenomenal.

Ignatieff has certainly shown himself to be an impressive personality, and agree or disagree with him on particular issues - and there are many, chief among them Quebec's status within Canada, a carbon tax, Canada's role in the world - he must at least be credited for taking clear positions on controversial issues. Is that not what politicians are, ideally, supposed to do?

He's had some gaffes. Not surprising, as rookie politicians tend to make them when they are put in the spotlight. Brian Mulroney's famous "no whore like an old whore" quip was actually a gaffe of its own, as he was basically flipantly excusing patronage. Some say these gaffes have been too frequent and too damaging, and they prove that Ignatieff is not ready to face Stephen Harper in an election. Some make a good point; if a couple of these stumbles had come during a general election, they would have sunk him. (Most notably, Michael saying that he did not lose any sleep over the deaths of innocent Lebanese civilians.)

There are those who say that Ignatieff is too much an honest academic to compete in the world of politics. His positions are not informed by political calculations, but rather by intellectual whimsy, and they make him vulnerable to attack. Others contend that these are precisely the qualities that make a leader - he does not back down from controversial positions.

The thirty-something members of parliament hoping to occupy positions in an Ignatieff cabinet have probably, more than the MPs who support any other candidate, chosen Ignatieff because they sensed he was the front-runner, and they wanted to be on the winning side. Many of them are also supporting him on principle, of course, but the number of MPs who declared their support for him so early on does raise my eyebrow.

So what are his chances? Going into the convention, Ignatieff is in a very enviable position: first place. However, one has to question his growth potential on later ballots. There are a lot of anybody-but-Iggy delegates, and they will certainly unite behind one of Bob Rae, Gerard Kennedy or Stephane Dion before the end of the convention. How many of these delegates there are is hard to say, but judging from Ignatieff's reception in the Liblogosphere, there are probably a healthy number of them. Then again, it has been pointed out that all he has to do is pick up about 1/4 of the bleedoff delegates from the candidates who drop off in order to win. He could theoretically win the convention without a single endorsement from any other candidate - endorsements he is not likely to get.

Ignatieff's easiest chance for victory, of course, would be the surprise endorsement of one of the other big four. Such an endorsement would almost certainly put him over the top. Will it happen? Not likely. But then again, David Orchard endorsed Peter MacKay at the last PC convention. It could happen, but I wouldn't count on it.

Private Health Clinics - What's the big deal

2006-11-27T21:45:00.000-05:00

Recently a private emergency room, I mean "urgent care center" opened in Vancouver at the Fraser Health Clinic. The facility offers many services that one can receive at a public hospital for free for a price.

Let me think.

a) Nobody is forced to use the private health center, everyone can use the public system for free.
b) The system will relieve pressure off of the public system. It's like getting a new hospital of capacity at no cost to taxpayers.

And yet, the TURKEYS in Ottawa and almost everywhere oppose our "two tier" health care system.

What is the BIG DEAL?

It's lowering waiting times in the public system. That's a good thing. People can still get the health care.

Canada needs to get a clue on health care. The Canada Health Act is a massive step backwards for Canada and needs to be scrapped ASAP.

Promote Your Politics Blog! Blogroll Spots Available

2006-11-21T12:32:00.000-05:00

I was going through my blogroll recently and I've dropped one fellow Canadian who stopped writing in favour of another job, and two moderates who left the sphere/are redirecting their blogs to someone already on my blogroll.
So if any of you have a good blog on Canadian Politics, let me know: email me a blogroll request to shplarz at hotmail, and include blogroll in the subject line. Or just leave a comment below with your blog's address

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Canadian Constitution Quiz: Increase Your Constitutional Knowledge 64%!

2006-11-21T09:58:00.000-05:00

Constitutional law can be a real bore sometimes, so to spice up the topic for myself and others, I created a Canadian Constitution Quiz! Besides, with Iggy sounding the separatist clarion and going on about recognizing the Quebec nation, it might be time to re-examine our good old Constitution's contents.
Much thanks goes to the late Senator Eugene Forsey's text, How Canadians Govern themselves, freely available from the Library of Parliament.
This also relates to this old boring text I wrote on our Canadian Parliamentary System, for those of you who want some background reading...

Answers to the quiz are at the end. It's late and I haven't proofread this thoroughly, so if you see any direct quotes from the Forsey text that are uncredited, please let me know and I'll correct the error.

Question 1) If a minority government is defeated on a motion of censure, the Cabinet then has the following option:
a) ask for a motion of confidence b) attempt to defeat the motion in the Senate c) resign in favour of the opposition d) Sunbathe in the buff at 24 Sussex drive

2) The Constitution Act, 1867 (aka the British North America Act, 1867 or BNA Act), guaranteed separate schools for:
a) Atheist minorities throughout Canada b) the Protestant minority in Acadia c) Protestant and Roman Catholic minorities in Ontario and Quebec d) Atheist minorities in Ontario and Quebec

3) The Constitution Act, 1867 did which of the following with regards to French-Canadian law?
a) Guaranteed the Civil Code of Quebec b) Imported the Napoleonic code to bring French Canadian law up to date c) Guaranteed Quebec could maintain its civil law d) Agreed to long-standing requests to incorporate Roman Catholic dogma into the civil law

4) The Canadian Constitution is composed of, amongst others:
a) the BNA Act and the Clarity Act, 1996 b) the Constitution Act, 1982 and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms c) the Constitution Act 1982 and the Act Respecting Canadian Prime Ministers and the Privy Council of Her Majesty, the Queen in Right of the United Kingdom, the Dominion of Canada, the Dependancy of Gibraltar and of the British Commonwealth d) the Constitution Act, 1982, the Charter, the CCQ, plus other texts and unwritten conventions

5) True or False:
a) The Prime Minister's position was created by the Constitution Act, 1867
b) the Federal Parliament can legislate to enforce an international treaty on education
c) Canada's Constitution recognizes two types of aboriginal people: Indian and Metis

6) The main formula to modify the Constitution requires:
a) Parliament to spend at least 6 months debating the proposed amendments b) the Queen to be present during at least 51% of the debates in the Senate c) 50% of the Provinces to agree to the amendment, and these provinces must account for at least 70% of Canadians d) 70% of the Provinces to agree and these provinces mst represent 50% of Canadians

7) The reason why Canada originally chose to have a Senate was:
a) to give an equal voice in Parliament to less populous provinces b) to placate Quebec, which wanted something similar to the Chambre Haute the French had instituted c) John MacDonald was caught drunk with George Cartier's wife and had to make amends d) to placate Upper Canada

8) The ex-Attorney General of Canada whose signature is on the repatriated Constitution Act is:
a) Sir Denning b) Jean Chretien c) Claude Ryan d) Irwin Cotler

9) Our Constitution guarantees that a certain number of Supreme Court Justices will be from Quebec. How many?
a) 3 b) 2 c) 1 d) None, that's not actually part of the Canadian Constitution

10) "Certain limited rights," to use a phrase from Forsey's text, are guaranteed equally to the:
a) English and French procedural systems in Parliament b) English and language and Roman Catholic Sistine civil tradition c) English and Garlic languages in Parliament and the courts d) English and French languages in Parliament and the courts

Answers: 1) c 2) c 3) c 4) d 5) F It's really a sort of convention F this sort of thing has been ruled beyond the scope of its powers, or in fancy constitional legalese, ultra vires F (Indians, Inuit and Metis are recognized) 6) d 7)a 8) b Yes, Jean Chretien was our Attorney General at one point, believe it or not 9) a 10) d

For those of you who paid attention to the introduction, I'd like to point out just how strongly our Constitution already defends Quebec's particular nature. There are provisions on religious rights, language rights, education powers for the provinces, protection of the civil law tradition. Recognition of Quebec's distinct character is definitely there in our Canadian Constitution. It's just being outside of the country for 30 years doesn't give you the chance to really appreciate it...
As to the 64%, well, I didn't make any claims as to my math skills! (64% is an arbitrary number I picked.)

Edit: Anyone else notice an FLQ cell sending a communique to the newspapers that it would act on February 15th? Quebec's leading separatist magazine says it gets them twice a year and dismissed it, according to La Presse, but it seems a little worrisome to me personally. Probably 'cause I'm what Jacques Parizeau's dirty "ethnic voters." (The 15th is important to Quebec separatists in commemoration of the Patriote rebellions in 1838-39

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In Darfur's Fields

2006-11-10T10:44:00.000-05:00

In Darfur’s fields, Red blood does flow
Irrigating stones row on row,
That mark black deaths in blackest night
Children and wives shot by white light
Unheard cries emerge from afros

We are the Dead. Some years ago
We lived, let live and were left alone,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Darfur’s fields.

Northern Lights, give no rest to our foe;
Illuminate their nights with the torch!
Who knows? Some of us may yet survive.
If ye break faith with us who die
What worth your War memorials?
- Darfur’s fields

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Understanding the Income Trust Move

2006-11-07T20:48:00.000-05:00

In the wake of Finance Minister Flaherty's income trusts move and also as a result hearing about real estate income trusts, I decided to get a professional's appraisal of what just happened on the federal financial scene. Here's another fine piece by Concordia University and Dawson College Economics professor Phil Ghayad. Prof Ghayad addresses which income trusts are really affected and why Flaherty had to move. This is an excerpt of an email he authorized me to publish here.

The move last week by Flaherty was quite reasonable and predictable. Income Trusts are mostly mature firms that pay practically no tax on their profits, contrary to other firms that also have shareholders. This permits the Income Trusts to give higher dividends to their shareholders (by the way I was one of them!). The shareholders will of course have to be taxed on these dividends. These large dividends, however, make the Trusts more interesting than regular firms to potential investors.

What the government realized was that these Trusts created a loss in terms of Government revenue. Mainly for two reasons: 1) there was a loss that stemmed from the non-taxation of profits, and 2) investors receiving these large dividends were not necessarily in Canada (e.g. international investors who obviously do not have pay Canadian taxes). These losses for the Government were assumed to be between 500-1000 million a year.

In the end, this was a good decision because it creates greater taxation equity between firms that have shareholders. This might even be a good thing for the Trusts since instead of passing their profits to shareholders they might decide to reinvest part of them in capital or research and development. The Trusts were simply too focused on short term gains, attracting investors with their large dividends, and sacrificing long run profits, by reinvesting part of their profits in projects that would make them more productive.

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Ad Space

2006-10-18T01:40:00.000-04:00

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Denouncing Ignatieff

2006-10-17T18:05:00.000-04:00

I had hope in the Liberal leadership candidates there for a moment. Really, I did. Turns out front-runner Ignatieff is just a pandering buffoon like so many others. What's sad is that it so often works!

Incidentally, here's what the mainstream media didn't want you to hear about Qana:

As to Harper saying they're all anti-Israel, Scott Brison is explicitly pro-Israel (but then he's a progressive conservative at heart). Findlay and Dryden are certainly no friends of Israel, while the rest avoid making their position too explicit, which allows both sides to delude themselves into believing they've got a friendly attitude.

That makes two political scenes I'm fed up with. The Liberal leadership scene and the Quebec political scene, where none of the leaders are worth.

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Here are some related articles:

I thought Iggy had potential...
Co-blogger Clear grit analyzes the minor players
Ex-terrorists advocate for Israel

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian federal politics, Liberal Party of Canada, Canada's foreign affairs, terrorism.Go back home

Political Questions: Bullying, Suicide, Smoking, Liberal Leadership

2006-10-02T22:27:00.000-04:00

Politics is never far from my mind, and the last little while has given me ample opportunity to reflect and it's got me asking some questions.

Question 1) When will our politicians give bullying in schools the tough treatment it deserves? Shootings in schools and the countless suicides that aren't reported in the media (to avoid copycats) are often authored by victims of bullying. Teachers and school staff currently don't have the means or the will to deal with this fact of daily life in school which plagues so many people's lives. I know I had my own very dark period in grade school due to severe bullying... Any of you readers been there too?

If I can say anything to people who're experiencing bullying or their own serious difficulties, it's that there's always a tomorrow, and that a better day will come. I know that sounds cheesy, but having learnt that, I've found I can persevere through tough times knowing things will be better eventually.

If it's urgent, I encourage you to go to http://suicidehotlines.com/canada.html.

Question 2) Why don't we just ban smoking outright? Smoking is unhealthy, hurts children, burdens our health care system, stresses relationships, and provides absolutely no benefit that couldn't be replaced by more worthwhile alternatives. I don't mean just getting rid of cigarretes in our province, but all sorts of tobacco.
On a related note, the town of Pueblo in Colorado, USA has seen a 25% reduction in the number of heart attacks since banning smoking outright. The study was covered in La Presse.

Question 3) Who's better for the Liberal leadership? Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae or Stephane Dion?

I was talking with friends from university (one of whom was an organizer for Ignatieff up until school began). The consensus seemed to be that while Rae might be the front-runner, Ignatieff might be more likely to beat Harper in an election. Then, Dion is most likely to be able to revive the party in Quebec where it sorely needs it, and Rae would likely cause further losses to the CPC in Ontario.

Of course, Ignatieff's stance in favour of fighting terror in Afghanistan isn't so popular with the Liberal rank-and-file, where a vociferous element seems to prefer cutting and running, leaving the broken country behind. Rae is most likely to promise to leave Afghanistan just like NDP leader Jack Layton would. Dion might offer a free vote but he'd more than likely be swayed by his party's general opposition to the war.

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Liberal leadership: Why the bit players will be important

2006-10-02T16:26:00.000-04:00

(Cross-posted: Clear Grit)

In 2003, the Progressive Conservatives held their final leadership convention, electing Peter MacKay as leader. The first ballot results saw MacKay with a commanding lead (41%), David Orchard in second place (25%), Jim Prentice in third (18%) and Scott Brison in fourth (16%).

The second ballot was a bit of a surprise; every candidate except for Brison lost support. Yet Brison, the only candidate to actually increase his support, still fell off the ballot. The spread between himself and Jim Prentice was 466 to 463, just three delegates. Prentice remained on the ballot, and Brison was dropped. The rest is history - Prentice scored Brison's endorsement, moved to second, Orchard was dropped and endorsed MacKay in return for MacKay agreeing to never merge with the Canadian Alliance. (AHEM.)

But the results could have been quite different, were it not for a pompous blowhard by the name of Craig Chandler. Chandler distinguished himself at the convention by using his speech to launch into a homophobic tirade that actually got him booed by the Tories in attendance. He then withdrew his name from the ballot and endorsed Jim Prentice (with Prentice looking none too eager to accept that endorsement - imagine Volpe, only creepy.) No one thought that Chandler's endorsement would mean anything, but he did have about a dozen delegates there loyal to him, and they followed him to Prentice's camp. In other words, it was Chandler's endorsement that kept Prentice on the ballot instead of Brison.

A quick look at the results thus far; as of Monday afternoon, with 409 of 469 meetings reporting, they look like this:

Michael Ignatieff - 29.8%
Bob Rae - 19.2%
Gerard Kennedy - 16.8%
Stephane Dion - 16.6%
Ken Dryden - 4.6%
Joe Volpe - 4.6%
Scott Brison - 3.9%
Martha Hall Findlay - 1.0%
Undeclared - 2.8%

While this does mean that Dryden, Volpe, Brison and Hall Findlay don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning, it doesn't mean that they won't be players at the convention.

Now, I'm aware that the ex officio support is unpredictable, but let's just assume that, when it's all said and done, the ex officio delegates don't cause those numbers to change too much. Let's also assume, for simplicity's sake, that the convention speeches don't have a huge impact on the numbers, either.

What this means is that the endorsements of lower-tier candidates are absolutely crucial to Rae, Kennedy and Dion, especially the latter two. It won't be as important for Ignatieff, but if he somehow managed to win endorsements from all four of them, he would be very close to the 50% mark. This seems unlikely, however; one assumes, based on nothing but conventional wisdom, that the only lower-tier candidate who is likely to endorse him is Brison.

For Rae, winning the endorsements of the bit players will be important for two reasons. First, it will keep him on the ballot, preventing him from slipping to third place behind either Kennedy or Dion. And second, it will help to level the playing field between himself and Ignatieff, making it a much closer race between the two.

Kennedy and Dion find themselves in almost identical positions to each other. They are locked in a fight for third place, much like Brison and Prentice were in 2003, and whoever wins will get to remain on the ballot and take on Ignatieff and Rae. Likely, their best hope for victory is to try to take and hold third place, and then be endorsed by whichever of the two is dropped. Another way to victory would be to inflate their numbers enough with lower-tier support that they are able to move into second place ahead of Rae, making the contest between one of them and Ignatieff.

The bit players may not have a lot of support, but they will be players, nonetheless. And the Rae, Kennedy and Dion campaigns are going to need them to win. Not to win a quick victory, but to stay on the ballot.

Carnival of the Insanities

2006-09-17T14:01:00.000-04:00

Doc Sanity's posted another excellent Carnival of the Insanities.

Featuring:
Social Engineering
Religius Debate (esp. re: Islam)
Humour
A film festival about killing Bush and Blair

More on Valery Plame
Reflections from Queerspawn (Is that Queer's Pawn or Queer Spawn?)
Some Little Green Footballs commentary

and more.
Go check out the good Doc's carnival!

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Dawson College/CEGEP Shooting Thoughts

2006-09-14T08:26:00.000-04:00

I was walking around today during my lunch break when I ran into a childhood friend who I happened to go to Dawson College/CEGEP with. We walked down McGill College (the street) where some other old Dawson friends we ran into told us there had been a shooting at the CEGEP.

From what friends who are still at Dawson tell me, and from what I saw on the news of a distraught girl, the shooters (or the one who came through the De Maisonneuve entrance anyways) were members of the goth community. The girl on TV answered a question as to what they looked like almost apologetically. She said that she knew it sounded stereotypical, but that the shooter she saw was in the big black clothes and metal studs [associated with goths, though she didn't use the word herself].

From my time at Dawson College Radio (CIXS), I met some of those goths, and people in big black robes, studs, all black makeup etc. Most of them were generally nice kids, noticeably different from others only in their dress. Their taste for heavy metal (and playing heavy metal LOUD) wasn't my own taste, but I came to appreciate it somewhat through their explanations of the music.

However, I also saw a truly frightening side of these fellow Dawson students: a simmering hatred for those who were different. Black jokes abounded and the n-word was used profusely. A cartoon of "the Spades" (various black rappers/generic black characters) was posted in the club hangout. Jew jokes were also common, and while this was covered by the "just kidding around" excuse, it felt more like half-joking. By that I mean the sort of joke that has a hint of what someone really thinks in it.

These culminated one day with the "I wish this was Marc" cartoon. A picture of a seal being clubbed (the club atmosphere was very reactionary ... gays, rap, the Italians (there's a strong representation of Italians in the student body) animal rights, etc. were all put down) had a kippah/yarmulke drawn on it and the caption "I wish this was Marc" was added. The Marc being referenced in the cartoon was/is an orthodox Jewish student. I can understand that the cartoon may have been motivated by Marc's being annoying, but it's also obvious from the association with the kippah that there was a religious aspect to things.

Yet other times I was treated with respect, as were black DJs and staff at the station. Which suggests to me that the people there at least knew what society expected of them, what social norms are. I think and hope that it goes beyond this too, though, and that this respect is the basic relation the goths I've met have with other members of society, the other behaviour simply being an aberration.

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Here are some related articles:

McGill means fewer editorials on Canadian Politics
Are extremists logical?
Ex-terrorists advocate for Israel

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September 11th Tribute to Richard Ross

2006-09-11T09:41:00.000-04:00

Today, September 11th 2006, I'm paying tribute to September 11th 2001 victim Richard Barry Ross as part of the 2996 project. Richard B. Ross of Newton, Massachussets, USA was a caring 58 year old father who'd met with success in both his personal and public lives. 5 years ago today, on September 11th 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists fueled by fanatical hatred hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which Richard was flying on. It crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

The Boston Globe published an editorial obituary for Mr. Ross. It turns out that while the September 11th terrorists may have killed a man, much of Ross was left intact that terrible day. Ross' family, The Brain Tumor Society that he founded, and several other groups and organizations he was a part of carry on his work.

The September 11th Legacy website describes the establishment of The Brain Tumor Society:

"When his youngest daughter, Alison, developed a brain tumor as a child, Mr. Ross and a friend formed a foundation, the Brain Tumor Society, to provide information and support. 'He lived his priorities,' Ms. Ross said. 'He always told us that we were the most important things, and he always showed us that.'"

In business, the Boston community remembers Richard Ross for being the "principal of management consulting firm The Ross Group," which in everyday language translates to "President and CEO."

Perhaps most touchingly, Ross was a family man. He coached his children in sports and never missed a game in spite of many other significant commitments.

I encourage you all to drop by the September 11th: 2996 tributes website.

I remember September 11th......

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September 11 Tribute

2006-09-10T14:51:00.000-04:00

As part of the 2996 project, I'll be one of several thousand bloggers posting a tribute to a particular victim of the September 11th attacks. My assigned person is Richard Ross, of Newton Massachussets, co-founder of The Ross Group and a devoted father.

Some blogs that signed up to participate have since gone AWOL (away without leave - they're no longer being updated or no longer around) and more bloggers are needed.
Please go and sign up to post a tribute to one of the victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks.

It would be shameful if we couldn't muster enough energy to honour all of September 11th's victims. It would be shameful to forget...

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This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canada's foreign affairs, Canadian national security, terrorism, media.Go back home

McGill Means Less Canadian Politics

2006-09-06T19:18:00.000-04:00

You'll be seeing less Canadian politics, foreign affairs, environmental issues and all that other good stuff I tend to write about here, over the next few months. I've just entered McGill University. So this is to let you guys know my posting frequency will be down, though I don't know yet how much.

To make up for it, I'll try and highlight interesting things from the archives you may not have known about. Also, I'll be doing linking to blogroll partners and others in the political blogosphere in order to showcase material elsewhere. I welcome suggestions either in the comments or by email.

You just won't see lots of fresh writing on Canadian politics here, as I focus on my studies.

If you want to read more/follow our coverage of Canadian politics, consider our free newsletter, though that too won't be going out as frequently.

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Are Extremists Logical? Are Negotiations Possible?

2006-09-04T14:12:00.000-04:00

Are extremists logical? Answering that helps determine if negotiations are possible, according to new blogroll partner My Conservative Dreamworld.

It's a valid question that's important to ask.
If they are reasonable, perhaps there is hope for achieving peace. If not, we need to place our hopes in the next generation. Ultimately, though, it's really a question of educating people to respect each other.

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Here are some related articles:

Canada's "Provocation" of Islamist Extremists
Why Islamic Extremists Hate the West
The Pattern of anti-Semitism

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories: Canada's foreign affairs, Canadian national security, and terrorism.Go back home

Ex-Terrorists Advocate for Israel

2006-09-02T23:44:00.000-04:00

Incredible.

Consider our free newsletter for more.

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canada's foreign affairs, terrorism, and Israel.Go back home

Mediocre Media Contributor Yisrael Medad in Jerusalem Post

2006-08-31T23:33:00.000-04:00

Frequent Mediocre Media contributor Yisrael Medad has had an op-ed published in yesterday's Jerusalem Post, concerning the poor quality of journalism exhibited in much of Israel's media. Yisrael asks: "Do Israel's Media Know Their Place?"

For four weeks this summer during the second Lebanon War, Israel's media provided consumers with more publicity and spin than hard news.
[...]
True electronic media consumers did not lack for breaking news. The three main television stations - Channels 1, 2 and 10 - all provided live continuous coverage of the war.

Then Yisrael gets to the heart of the matter:

With the war over, however, recriminations are being openly voiced about media partisanship and recklessness. Letters to the editor columns are full of complaints about how the media handled itself. Oversight authorities have received hundreds of complaints from consumers about television coverage particularly.

People are mostly angry that television stations seemingly provided information that could have been helpful to the enemy, and that too much time was spent airing personal opinions cloaked as news. I share many of these concerns.

It seems that media, no matter where they are, or what country they're from, make an effort to put their country's troops in danger. For them, it's a very simple equation: higher casualties sooner means more pressure to end hostilities. Conclusion: let's help increase the casualty count. The New York Times expose on the weak points in American troops' body armour comes to mind...

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Here are some related articles:

Mediocre Media Morons
Mediocre Media 5
Media Monitoring: Photo Scams

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Open Letter to Prime Minister Harper

2006-08-30T09:21:00.000-04:00

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

I am writing you to express my thanks to you for your principled stand on the Israeli-Hezbollah war. In spite of polls which showed that it would have been politically expedient to criticize Israel for "disproportionate or unmeasured force," you took the moral high ground and stood by Israel.

While Bloc, Liberal and NDP MPs were marching with anti-Semites, supporters of terrorism, and other assorted criminals advocating for violence against Jews, your government stood out. The media lied to make you look like a jerk, and the editorial pages were very harsh. Nevertheless, you stood your ground, and as a Jew and as a Zionist, I appreciate that and am grateful to you and your party.

In the past, I've identified strongly with the Liberals. In high school, I thought I would study finance, partly as the result of seeing Paul Martin rise to the top through the Finance portfolio. (I didn't know he was also involved in dirty infighting and was sketchy about Ad Scam.) Furthermore, a man I hold in the highest respect, Irwin Cotler, is a Liberal who embodied what I saw as justice and a values-based approach to politics.

Recent years have seen me get more involved in political life. That means I've been informing myself through lots of reading, and trying to share those things I do know or believe by my writing. That's how, amongst other things, I've come to understand that Paul Martin's government started to change the disgusting trend in Canada's anti-Israel UN voting. I applaud your continuation and development of Martin's break with previous Liberal voting. And while I disagree with Stockwell Day on a variety of issues, such as the gay community's civil rights, I am again genuinely grateful for your Minister's support of Israel.

However, I have difficulty associating myself with a party known for its poor environmental stance (and whose Minister of the Environment is from the oil industry). With a party too closely associated with big industry, with opposition to gay rights and abortion rights (though I recognize the important step forward the party's taken in dropping abortion from its agenda).

To conclude, I'd like to thank you again for your support of Israel and of the Jewish people in our time of need. You've earned yourself and your party a strong supporter, even if I can't bring myself to join it, for the reasons stated above. As a Jew, I feel that the issue most pressing for me in Canadian politics is our foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel. I'm proud to say that my vote for the Conservative Party last election was justified, and equally proud to say that I will vote Conservative again should the Opposition topple your government this fall. (Incidentally, I wish you'd recruit Irwin Cotler to the Conservative Party of Canada, though, so that I could vote both for the party and the person, as opposed to just voting for the Party. Neil Drabkin is a decent guy, and he debates well enough, but he's kind of generic.)

If you want to read more on the Conservative Party, Canadian politics, Israel, or the Prime Minister consider our free newsletter (scroll all the way down for the sign-up).

Here are some related articles:

Jason Cherniak on the PMO
Lebanon Ceasfire: Israel gets Shafted
Canadian Politics' Jo McNair on Canadian Politics

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian federal politics, Conservative Party of Canada, Canada's foreign affairs, Israel, and the environment.Go back home

Comment Moderation!

2006-08-28T13:09:00.000-04:00

I just realized comment moderation's been on for a while. I turned it on then forgot about it, with the result it looks like no one's been commenting. Sorry about that. Those comments presenting logical arguments will be allowed through. Those offering ad-hominem attacks and dogma will be deleted. Those adulating me will be saved for my "I'm the greatest ever wall." Thanks Mom.

Jason Cherniak: Canadian Political Blogger Interviews

2006-08-28T09:39:00.000-04:00

Jason Cherniak is a popular Canadian political blogger, and with good reason. The erudite writer and chair of Stephane Dion's blogging campaign for the Liberal leadership has a sharply analytical pen. He argues with a precision appropriate to top legal talent - which he is (a lawyer).

Beyond his debating skills, Jason is a really genuine guy. He has the courage to share his emotions publicly on his blog. He answers emails in a friendly fashion and doesn't have the ego you might expect from someone with his resume. When he disagrees with what others in the party have said, he'll come right out and say so, rather than flip-flop and try to avoid controversy (Liberal leadership candidates, are you catching this?).
All in all, Jason's an up-and-coming star of Canada's federal political scene, and is certainly one of the blogosphere's actual stars. Those of you interested in the Liberal Party of Canada need to pay attention to this fellow! (Jack Layton might also do well to pay attention...)

That having been said, I proudly present to you my interview with Canadian political blogger Jason Cherniak.

1) Describe the state of Canadian politics, preferably in regards to one of
the 10 key issues in today's political scene.

If you will forgive me, I would rather give a general overview [of Canadian politics].

Right now the Tories set the agenda. They decide what issues matter and the
media follow along. When the Tories do not get what they want, they
complain about media bias and try to warp the story to suit their interests.
So far this has worked. However, in trying to obtain a majority the Tories
have put forward a number of policies that sound good while offering little
in long-term solutions. As a result, the longer they go without an election
the less likely they are to win again.

The Liberals don't know what to do. Sometimes they respond to the Tories
and sometimes they try to do their own thing. Unfortunately, they are still
not used to opposition and have many in caucus who do not really know how to
be Parliamentarians. Until the Liberals have a new leader, there is no way
to know where the party is going in the short-term. However, if the
Liberals pick the right leader then they have a good chance of winning next
time.

The NDP has screwed up royally. At a time when the Liberals have been
adrift, the NDP should have been attacking the Tories and proving that it
the "real" opposition. Instead, the NDP have attacked the Liberals and
gained nothing from it. Indeed, if they were smart they would want the
Liberals to have no airtime at all. For missing this opportunity, Jack
Layton should be considered the political goof-up of the year.

2) Do you believe there is an educational/social/career path to the
Premiership? If so, what is it?

No. I think there are many different paths to take. However, there are a
few key things that any person needs to do:

1) Be trustworthy;
2) Keep your friends close and your enemies closer;
3) Think before you speak;
4) When opportunity arises, take it;
5) Before taking action, consider the consequences and the possible results
of failure.

3) What should be the [ideal] path to the PMO?

1) Get a university education.
2) Be involved in politics.
3) Hold lower party positions to prove your value.
4) Work at something outside of politics.
5) Run to be an MP once you have a family around 35 or 40.
6) Be a good Parliamentarian for a few years.
7) Be a good cabinet minister.
8) Run for party leader around 50.

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Elizabeth May: Canadian Green Party Leader!

2006-08-27T12:29:00.001-04:00

Elizabeth May has won the Green Party's leadership, beating out other Green leadership candidates David Chernushenko and Jim Fannon. May's campaign was better run, and I'm entirely unsurprised she won.

I asked all three candidates for an interview. May and Chernushenko responded and each agreed to be interviewed. May answered my questions and emailed me her replies. I saw Fannon at the Montreal leadership debate, where he told me he had a number of these requests and felt I asked too many questions, so that he wouldn't have time to answer them all. I sent another email selecting which questions would be key for him to answer... and still got nothing.

Furthermore, throughout the campaign, it was evident May is/was the media's darling. In part, this is because she knows what to give them, and has in fact written a book on activism in which she discusses getting the media's attention. Anyways, the importance of this, in my opinion, was to generate awareness and interest in May's campaign, and generally to get positive attention.

(On a related note, I've recently purchased said book by Elizabeth May. As a political activist, I find myself very excited by the prospects of what I can do with the knowledge I gain from this book...)

So reading today that May beat Chernushenko hasn't got me surprised in the least. Congratulations to Elizabeth May!

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UNIFIL Quip of the Day

2006-08-24T14:47:00.000-04:00

News item: UNIFIL will have 15,000 more troops.

Hezbollah reaction: Great! We were just running out of human shields...

I know this is a little thin for those of you who are regular readers, accustomed to more meaty posts. I intend to post an open letter to the PM later today or tomorrow with more in-depth political discussion.

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UNIFIL Helped Kidnappings

2006-08-22T12:19:00.000-04:00

UNIFIL participated in the 2000 kidnappings of three Israeli soldiers along the Lebanese-Israeli border. Indian UNIFIL troops were bribed by Hezbollah to let Hezbollah use a UN jeep and UNIFIL uniforms. This of course resulted in the total surprise of Israel's troops, who were subsequently kidnapped, then eventually traded back, along with kidnapped Israeli businessman Elchanan Tannenbaum, for terrorists Israel had imprisoned.

I recently decided to read Complicity, by Elliot Kramer, which is a book concerning the mediocre media's complicity with terrorists. That's where I learnt about this not-so-surprising bit of UNIFIL history. Kramer describes the kidnappings, UNIFIL's involvement (and the UN's subsequent attempt at a cover-up) and of course, the media's spin doctoring of the whole affair.

UNIFIL isn't part of the solution, it's part of the problem.

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Bernard Lewis: Middle East Scholar

2006-08-21T11:43:00.000-04:00

La Presse recently mentioned Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis in its pages. I wrote them the following letter, extolling Lewis' insight on the Middle East.

Lorsqu’il était ici à Montréal, en automne 2004, pour donner un discours, M. Bernard Lewis a dit que le plus pressant problème et le plus grand danger au Moyen-Orient était le régime Iranien. Ma mère et moi étions rentrés chez nous perplexes des paroles du vieux sage. Le terrorisme en Israel et en Iraq constituaient des problèmes bien plus pressants aux yeux de Monsieur Tout-Le-Monde, ma mère et moi-même inclus.

Deux ans plus tard, il est évident que M. Lewis est l’éminence grise de l’Occident au sujet du Moyen-Orient. S’il y a bien quelqu’un à qui il faudrait prêter l’oreille en ce moment, c’est M. Lewis.

Je conseille d’ailleurs à tout le monde les livres, de M. Lewis, tels que « What Went Wrong?» et «The Middle East». Ce sont à la fois des lectures passionantes et des œuvres de référence, œuvres qui éclaireront certainement les yeux de plusieurs au sujet du Moyen-Orient.

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Harper Asserts Sovereignty in Canadian North

2006-08-20T17:48:00.000-04:00

According to the Conservatives, Stephen Harper has launched an operation to assert our sovereignty in the North.

“The North is poised to take a much bigger role in Canada’s economic and social development,” the Prime Minister said. “We must ensure the unique ecosystem of the North, and the unique cultural traditions of the First Peoples of the North, are respected and protected.”

Translation: We expect to be mining there and/or exploiting other natural resources. So we're making sure the Greenlanders and the Dutch (of which Greenland is/was a colony) don't get any ideas that these are their resources. Furthermore, we expect the First Nations are with us on this one.

Question: Is this really such an important issue? Developing/destroying the Arctic more than it already is? Wasting our troops' energy on some ifs and maybes?

This is useless posturing, where I'm concerned. Harper is an intelligent man who knows what he's doing on foreign affairs, but I see no particular use for this.

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Halftime Assessment of the War in the Middle East

2006-08-18T14:51:00.000-04:00

Halftime Assessment is an article graciously provided by Elliot Chodoff, of Middle East on Target.

Halftime Assessment
by Elliot Chodoff

Having just today been released from reserve duty after 37 days, there hasn’t been much time to reflect on the events that took place this summer, but one thing is clear: the war with Hizbullah is not over, it has only paused for the halftime show. As the UNIFIL based international force (farce?) takes the field for a short interlude, now is the time to assess the results of the first part of the war that we have fought over the past six weeks.

Israel neither won the war nor did it lose, but a halftime tie with Hizbullah does not represent an impressive performance by the IDF. True, the IAF inflicted heavy damage on Hizbullah targets throughout Lebanon, IDF special forces executed a number of operations that were breathtaking in their daring, and the regular and reserve IDF ground troops generally performed very well, outfighting Hizbullah’s best guerrillas in every encounter. Nonetheless, the result was not a battlefield victory, and in guerrilla warfare, if you are not winning, you are losing.

A number of subjects (beyond the general question of quality of leadership) bear scrutiny in analyzing the outcome of the war, and we will elaborate further on each next week after catching up on some much needed sleep.

First, the over reliance on airpower to provide a quick, clean victory over Hizbullah proved to be a gross error. The reasons for this are many, including the high representation of air force generals on the IDF general staff. Air forces have been dreaming of making ground war obsolete for 80 years, and the image of winning a war without committing ground troops to the battlefield is enticing. Once again, the dream has not turned to reality.

Second, the ground forces were not mobilized or deployed quickly enough or in great enough concentration to gain a decisive battlefield victory. In the early stages of the war, small units were inserted and extracted from Lebanon, often having to fight repeatedly over the same real estate, as Hizbullah utilized the interim period to reinforce its fighters in South Lebanon. Infantry and tank forces were sent into battle with insufficient ground support, and with great hesitation. The result was often that Hizbullah enjoyed local firepower superiority, especially having equipped its forces with an enormous quantity of antitank missiles, which took a heavy toll of IDF tanks.

Third, the katyusha missile attacks against Northern Israel were not prepared for seriously by the government, despite the fact that the IDF was well aware of the threat, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. For years, Hizbullah has amassed a missile arsenal of some 15,000 rockets, some with ranges adequate to reach Tel Aviv. Outside the IDF, the general attitude was that they would never use them, or that they would be destroyed by the IAF within a few days. After a month of fighting and aerial bombardment, over 200 rockets were fired into Israel on the last day before the cease fire.

The government and the IDF leadership have the rest of the halftime break to assess the errors of the first half and to make as many changes in the game plan as they can to assure that the score at the end of the next half leaves nobody in doubt as to Israel’s overwhelming victory.

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Lebanon Ceasefire: Israel Gets the Shaft

2006-08-15T23:14:00.000-04:00

The ceasefire in Lebanon is total garbage. Kofi Annan's UN has conspired to protect a terrorist, genocidal group, once again. (Recall that Kofi was in charge of the UN's force that was supposed to peacekeep in Rwanda; he prevented Canadian general Romeo Dallaire doing his job.) Israel has gotten the shaft, as it neither destroyed Hezballah, nor succesfully disarmed it, and assuredly neither the Lebanese army nor the cynical joke that calls itself UNIFIL will disarm Hezballah either.

Furthermore, Israel hasn't gotten its soldiers back. The oft-repeated 'we just destroyed the last bridge to Syria' suggests, unfortunately, that the terrorists had the ability to get them out of the country for a while.

Iran and Syria are undeterred. Israeli soldiers have died. Israel's military might has been shown to be useless in the hands of wishy-washy leaders (whom I sincerely hope lose the next election to Bibi Netanyahu).

It feels to me that the US pressured Israel to stop fighting, in order to repair its own relations with France. Furthermore, the useless UN resolution is a symbol of acknowledgement to an institution that deserves no such recognition. Its only purpose in life is to serve the interests of regimes like those in the Middle East and in China, and to give an entirely undue feeling of self-importance to buffoons like the French. (How else do you describe a group whose foreign minister called Iran's terrorist regime a stablizing force in the region? Before retracting himself a few days later? )

The only marginally positive things I see in the whole episode are that
1) Civilian populations will have got the message that they'll suffer if they support and protect terrorists, and
2) Stephen Harper is a courageous, pro-Israel leader, whose stance will hopefully help the CPC win this riding, come next election.

I was speaking to my friend AbbaGav and he made the very valid point that this whole thing is useless. What it was all about from the start, namely disarming Hezballah and assuring Israel's safety on its northern border, has come to naught.

I can't wait for Kofi Annan to resign (December). This Lebanon ceasfire is real nonsense, and Israel got the shaft.

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More Mediocre Media: Photos and Horror Stories from the Mainstream Media

2006-08-10T12:37:00.000-04:00

YNet News service has a great roundup of various photo frauds and other bias in the mediocre mainstream media. There appears to be a shockingly high number of photographic forgeries going on. Besides that, the mainstream media is showing its usual bias against Israel.

For example, Ynet points out how the BBC published a photo editorial on the war with a majority of pictures covering Lebanese suffering, while Israeli pictures showed hardly recognizable humans shadows, in an obvious effort to avoid generating sympathy for Israelis.

I've just gotten an email with pictures of Israeli troops in more humane settings than the media would like to portray. Here are a few.

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Canadian-Politics on Canadian Politics: Jo McNair Interview on the Environment

2006-08-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

Canadian-politics.com's Jo McNair recently granted us an interview in which we discussed the various aspects of Canadian Politics. This is the concluding segment of that interview, covering Jo's opinions on the state of Canadian politics' debate on the environment.

The Environment

It's time to stop ignoring the issue of climate change. So the Liberals were all talk and no action - that's no excuse to continue the trend. There are countries that are not only meeting their Kyoto targets, they're surpassing them. Sweden is going a step further by aiming to completely wean itself off oil within 15 years.

We need a government willing to start making tough decisions. Whether or not they believe in the whole global warming thing - another reality we can't ignore is the fact that oil is a finite resource and we're probably already past peak oil. We have to find alternatives - now.

I'd like to see a government introduce environment-friendly tax measures. For example, smart cars and other hybrid vehicles should be tax-free, and i'd even throw in a substantial tax credit. On the flip side of that, SUVs and other gas guzzlers should be nailed with massive green taxes that would go to fund green ventures. Contractors who use green technologies such as solar panels, geothermal heating, etc. should get major tax credits, as should people who buy such homes or renovate existing homes to use these technologies. The tar sands projects in Alberta should be stopped - the environmental impact their having is serious.
These are just a few off-the-top of my head examples - I'm certain there is plenty more that can be done.

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Tax Carnival Posted

2006-08-09T10:22:00.000-04:00

For those of you interested in tax legislation, politics, advice, and so on, the tax carnival has been posted! Check it out :).
~
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Mediocre Media 7

2006-08-08T14:51:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Mediocre Media 7! As always, we're taking submissions for the next issue, due out in a week and a half. Here's the info on the carnival. You can submit via the Cat's carnival page (scroll down, and select Mediocre Media).

Stikguy at Stiknstein has no mercy presents CNN HEADLINE 13th day of fighting....wait a minute.

Don Surber at Don Surber presents LAT: They do such lousy work, give them a raise.

Kiril, The Mad Macedonian at Sneakeasy's Joint presents The Jabberliberal. It's an unusual poem about the mediocre liberal media, and about how a new right-wing radio group is going to set things right.

And here's my own contribution: LeCentre at Centrerion Canadian Politics presents Israel, "Restraint," "Proportionality" and "Measured Response". It blows up the mediocre media's argument for a "measured" response and "restaint."

Since submissions for this issue of the carnival are admittedly a bit thin, I decided to roundup some other interesting articles and posts around the net. Also, I want to make some comments on the media.

First, I've been so sickened by the anti-Israel bias in Montreal's La Presse, that I've actually stopped reading the news in the morning. For someone like myself who loves reading, that's really saying something.

Besides that, I'd like to mention some great places for political commentary, and that also comment on the media. These include Shark's Blog, New York Times Watch, Robert Stevens on Reuter's doctored photos, News Busters (who got hate mail from a CNN anchor!), Biased BBC (who comments on their incredible use of language) and Ace of Spades, who was involved in outing Reuter's photographer.

Last, but perhaps most importantly, I need to acknowledge the work of Charles Johnson. The Little Green Footballs blogger exposed the use of Photoshop on some pictures of a bombing raid on Beirut. Reuters has since pulled the image and issued something of an apology.

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Que les médias prennent modèle sur les prostituées!

2006-08-08T14:45:00.000-04:00

Qu'ils [les médias] prennent modèle sur les prostituées !

Par Guy Millière

Guy Millière est un homme en colère. Chercheur de vérité, il hait le mensonge, l'hypocrisie et l'injustice. Pour toutes ces raisons, lui qui n'est pas Juif prend fait et cause pour notre peuple et son Etat. En ce qui me concerne, j'ai lu ce texte courageux avec émotion et reconnaissance. J'en recommande chaudement la lecture et la diffusion. (Menahem Macina).

31/07/06

Mis en ligne le 31 juillet 2006, par M. Macina, sur le site upjf.org

[En nous confiant ce texte, G. Millière, dont la réputation n’est plus à faire, témoigne de l'estime et de la confiance qu'il a pour notre site. Le moins que nous puissions faire, en retour, est d'assurer la plus large diffusion à cet article. Qu'il soit donc clair que notre copyright conjoint ne constitue pas un embargo, qui limiterait indûment la diffusion de la pensée de l'auteur. Nous invitons donc les sites qui le désirent à reprendre ce texte, sous réserve de sa reproduction à l'identique et sans coupures, et de la mention : "Texte en ligne sur www.upjf.org.]

• Je ne peux pas penser, une seule seconde, que les journalistes qui travaillent pour les grands médias en France et en Europe ignorent tout du discours haineux et génocidaire des dirigeants du Hezbollah.

• Je ne peux pas penser qu’ils ignorent que Al-Manar, la chaîne du Hezbollah, est le média le plus antisémite que le monde ait connu depuis la fin du Troisième Reich.

• Je ne puis pas penser qu’ils ne savent pas que le Hezbollah est une organisation totalitaire qui endoctrine et soumet par la violence les populations civiles dans les zones qu’il contrôle. Je ne puis pas penser qu’ils ne savent rien du fait que les miliciens du Hezbollah utilisent les populations civiles du Sud Liban comme des boucliers humains, empêchent délibérément la fourniture de vivres à ces mêmes populations, de manière à disposer de victimes à exhiber devant des caméras.

• Je ne puis pas penser qu’ils ignorent que des immeubles, tel celui qui vient d’être touché à Qana, sont des dépôts d’armes dans lesquels le Hezbollah place, de manière ignoble, des femmes et des enfants pour les sacrifier à des fins de propagande.

• Je ne peux pas penser que ces mêmes journalistes ne savent rien ou presque de ce que subit en ce moment la population du nord d’Israël.

Je ne peux, dès lors, que me poser une question : pourquoi tant de mensonges et d’ignominies ? Je trouve peu d’explications. Je ne veux pas aller jusqu’à dire que l’antisémitisme, sous de nouveaux oripeaux, est de nouveau omniprésent en Europe, mais il m’arrive de penser que c’est le cas.

Bien sûr, vous répondront les intéressés, ils ne sont pas « antisémites », mais, poursuivront-ils, « regardez ce qu’ils font aux civils libanais ». Et si vous leur rétorquez que les Libanais sont victimes du Hezbollah, ils se transforment immédiatement en avocats du Hezbollah, en précisant qu’il « mène aussi des actions sociales » et que c'est un mouvement de « résistance ».

Certains concéderont, à la rigueur, que le Hezbollah doit être désarmé, mais ils ajouteront que cela doit se faire par la « négociation », voire, peut-être, par l’envoi d’une « force internationale », avec l’accord du « gouvernement libanais ».

Sachant qu’ils ne sont pas complètement idiots, je serais tenté de leur dire qu’Hitler, à sa manière, était très « social », et j’aurais envie de leur demander :

• Résistance à quoi ? A l’existence d’Israël ?

• Négociation avec qui ? Des fous furieux ?

• Force internationale pour faire quoi ? Protéger le Hezbollah ?

J’ai eu, parfois, ce genre de discussion. Je les évite désormais. Je sais qu’il y a pire que des gens complètement idiots, à savoir : des gens qui font cyniquement les idiots, en pratiquant le tri sélectif des faits. Et je sais, hélas, que nombre de journalistes, en France et en Europe, font cyniquement les idiots et pratiquent le tri sélectif des faits. Je sais aussi, et c’est pour cela surtout que j’évite ce genre de discussion, qu’il y a davantage à l’œuvre : une forme de haine viscérale qui ne dit pas son nom.

Pour ces centaines de journalistes français et européens, Israël, désormais, est détestable par essence. Des réactions instinctives ont été incrustées dans leur cerveau et, quoi que fasse Israël, il a tort.

• Des discussions s’engagent pour un processus de paix et s’interrompent ? C’est la faute d’Israël qui n’a pas fait assez de concessions dans la négociation.

• Des ennemis d’Israël font des attentats terroristes ? Ils sont « désespérés » et utilisent « l’arme du faible ».

• Israël riposte ? C’est le « cycle de la violence », qui va entraîner encore davantage de « désespoir ».

Israël n’a pas encore été accusé du récent épisode de canicule en France, mais, au train où vont les choses…

Cette haine, qui ne dit pas son nom, a des relents antisémites, incontestablement. Aucun Etat sur la face de la terre ne subit autant d’incriminations verbales et de calomnies qu’Israël. Aucun, sinon peut-être les Etats-Unis - qui ont, peu ou prou, autant d’ennemis haineux qu’Israël, mais sont la première puissance du monde.

Cette haine a aussi d’autres causes et, entre autres, une conception - totalement pervertie - de la repentance, dont implication est que quiconque semble faible et opprimé est digne d’éloge et de soutien. Or, aux yeux des Européens, les Arabes sont faibles et opprimés, en général, alors qu’Israël est « fort ».

A cela s'ajoute l’idée que le « rêve européen » est celui d’un monde dans lequel il n'y aurait aucun conflit qui ne puisse se régler par la diplomatie : un monde où personne ne veut le mal, où il n’y a pas de totalitaires, pas de méchants, et où, quand un « faible » ou un « opprimé » se montre agressif, c’est qu’il a raison et qu’on n’a pas fait assez d’efforts pour le « comprendre ».

Le fait qu’il y a plus de trois cent millions d’arabes, plus d’un milliard de musulmans et seulement six millions d’habitants en Israël, joue vraisemblablement un rôle aggravant. De même le fait que l’Europe soit toujours davantage une terre musulmane.

La peur du terrorisme entre en ligne de compte également : il n’y a rien à craindre si l’on crache sur des juifs ; par contre, critiquer des islamistes, c’est autre chose.

Adopter vis-à-vis d’Israël la position la plus communément adoptée dans le monde arabo-musulman fait sens, dans ce contexte, même si c’est très lâche.

On peut noter aussi un point rarement évoqué : l’islam radical - tel qu’il a cours tant dans la mouvance d'al-Qaida, que dans celle du Hezbollah, en passant par la nébuleuse Ahmadinejad -, n’est pas l’islam, mais un dogme politique dans lequel entrent bien des ingrédients empruntés aux idéologies totalitaires nées en Europe : national-socialisme, fascisme, communisme.

• Il n’est pas étonnant que des intellectuels européens d’extrême droite débordent de mansuétude envers les islamistes - les uns et les autres lisent Mein Kampf.

• Il n’est pas étonnant que des intellectuels d’extrême gauche débordent, eux aussi, de mansuétude envers les islamistes : en effet, on peut négliger le fait que les islamistes lisent Mein Kampf, lorsqu’on apprend qu’ils lisent aussi Lénine. Des journalistes pleins d’égard envers l’extrême gauche européenne peuvent voir, dans les islamistes, des lointains cousins de l’extrême gauche.

Quoi qu’il en soit, que les mensonges se répandent et soient pris pour argent comptant par les populations européennes, prouve qu’il existe, sur ce continent, une pathologie mentale collective préoccupante. Le fait que quasiment tous les dirigeants politiques européens, Chirac en tête, contribuent à cette pathologie mentale collective, est extrêmement inquiétant pour le futur de ce continent.

La guerre que doit mener Israël est âpre et douloureuse. Au plan international, Israël ne peut compter que sur le soutien des Etats-Unis de George Bush.

Israël est plus que jamais traité comme « le juif des Etats », selon l’expression d’Alan Dershowitz.

Quand bien même je serais seul à le dire encore en langue française, je le dis :

• Le Hezbollah est un mouvement totalitaire et fanatique, aux buts génocidaires, dont l’objectif est tout à la fois de transformer le Liban en république islamique satellite de l’Iran des mollahs, et de détruire Israël, si possible en exterminant sa population.

• Le Hezbollah ne peut avoir de place sur l’échiquier politique d’un pays démocratique. Israël ne peut vivre en ayant sur son flanc nord une armée de terroristes dont le but avoué est de détruire Israël. Toute issue autre que la destruction du Hezbollah serait, pour ce mouvement, une victoire aux conséquences très délétères pour l’avenir proche d’Israël.

• Toutes les victimes civiles libanaises, y compris les femmes et les infortunés enfants de Qana, sont des victimes du Hezbollah et non de l’armée israélienne. Le fait de prendre des civils pour boucliers humains (fût-ce avec le consentement de ces civils) constitue un acte d’une cruauté et d’une lâcheté absolues, mais, hélas, logiques de la part de terroristes. Tout gouvernement occidental digne de ce nom devrait dénoncer les crimes du Hezbollah.

• Ceux qui, dans la population libanaise, soutiennent le Hezbollah, subissent aujourd’hui les conséquences de leur choix et n’ont à s’en prendre qu’à eux-mêmes. Soutenir une organisation terroriste constitue un risque. On ne peut souhaiter l’extermination d’un peuple voisin et s’étonner, ou se lamenter quand ce peuple se défend. Le gouvernement libanais n’est pas innocent. Si des pays comme la France voulaient du bien au Liban, ils auraient dû, depuis longtemps, agir pour que ce pays soit une démocratie à part entière.

• Les Libanais qui ne soutiennent pas le Hezbollah sont aujourd’hui ses otages, et ils le sont depuis longtemps, avec la complicité de pays, tel la France. Ils ont été abandonnés non pas face à l’armée israélienne, mais, bien avant, face à la prise d’otage opérée par le Hezbollah qui, comme toutes les prises d’otage devra connaître un dénouement. Le seul dénouement concevable est la punition ou la mort du preneur d’otage.

• Demander un cessez-le-feu immédiat à Israël, comme le font le gouvernement français et l’Union Européenne équivaut à demander que la prise d’otage se prolonge, et à assurer une victoire au preneur d’otage, qui pourra ensuite repartir en quête de son double objectif. La France et l’Union Européenne se conduisent en complices de la prise d’otage et de la tentative d’assassinat d’Israël. C’est au Hezbollah qu’il faut demander non seulement un cessez-le-feu, mais une capitulation sans conditions. Et que nul n’évoque l’argument humanitaire pour demander un cessez-le-feu à Israël : c’est le Hezbollah qui, par sa prise d’otage et sa violence, crée un drame humanitaire, non seulement pour les Libanais mais - faut-il le rappeler ? - pour les Israéliens aussi.

• Le Liban ne pourra vivre en paix que s’il est débarrassé de ceux qui, en son sein, rêvent d’exterminer un peuple voisin. Vouloir vivre en paix tout en ayant en son sein une forte minorité qui rêve d’exterminer un peuple voisin est impossible et contradictoire.

• Israël ne pourra pas, à lui tout seul, parvenir à éradiquer le Hezbollah. Il y faudra non seulement le soutien des Etats-Unis, mais aussi celui des hommes et des femmes qui veulent que la liberté et la dignité de l’être humain soient préservées.

• Si, comme on peut le craindre, Israël ne peut ou ne veut aller jusqu’au bout de son action, si l’ONU, organisation corrompue et d’un antisémitisme avéré, se voit confier le dossier et la mise en place d’une force « d’interposition » de type Finul, ce sera une victoire pour le Hezbollah et une défaite pour les valeurs de liberté et de dignité de l’être humain. Ce sera aussi, dans ce contexte, une défaite pour ceux qui souhaitent un Liban libre. Israël devrait alors s’attendre à des jours amers.

• La victoire du Hezbollah serait aussi une victoire pour la dictature syrienne et pour la république islamique d’Iran, dont les dirigeants ne pourraient que se sentir encouragés dans leur course à l’armement nucléaire, vers la déstabilisation de l’Irak et de la région, et vers la destruction d’Israël.

• Alors même que leurs populations débordent de haine envers Israël, elles aussi, les pays arabes sunnites de la région ne veulent pas d’une victoire du Hezbollah, et c’est un atout qu’il ne faut pas négliger.

• Les dirigeants européens, en général, et les français en particulier, qui croiraient, dans ces conditions, que donner une victoire au Hezbollah leur gagnerait les bonnes grâces du monde arabe se trompent lourdement et gravement. Les dirigeants qui, comme Chirac et Douste Blazy, disent que c’est pour éviter un « choc de civilisations » qu’ils font tout pour sauver le Hezbollah - contribuant ainsi à la destruction d’Israël -, sont des irresponsables dangereux : le Hezbollah, le régime des mollahs, Al-Qaida, la famille Assad, ne représentent ni la civilisation arabe, ni, au delà, une quelconque civilisation musulmane, mais sont la caricature hideuse et monstrueuse de l’idée même de civilisation. Le monde arabe et, plus largement, le monde musulman ont besoin d’être délivrés de cette caricature multiforme. Préserver la caricature et dire qu’elle incarne une civilisation fait courir un danger mortel non seulement à Israël, mais aussi à l’Europe.

L’un des enjeux décisifs auxquels l’Europe doit faire face est l’intégration de ses populations musulmanes. Apaiser ou conforter la caricature ne peut qu’inciter les musulmans européens à se reconnaître non dans les valeurs de liberté et de dignité humaine, mais dans les valeurs de Ben Laden et de Nasrallah. Peut-être Chirac et Douste-Blazy souhaitent-ils que tout le Proche-Orient devienne une « république islamique », dont divers pays d’Europe, et parmi eux la France, seraient les provinces. Peut-être souhaitent-ils que, dans vingt ans, la France ressemble au Liban aujourd’hui pris en otage : dans ce cas, qu’ils aient l’honnêteté de le dire. Sont-ils capables d’un instant d’honnêteté ? Rien qu’un instant ? J’en doute.

J’ai laissé ici de côté la « question palestinienne ». Délibérément. Les producteurs de mensonge sur les opérations israéliennes contre le Hezbollah ont acquis leur art du mensonge en couvrant le « conflit israélo-palestinien ».

Nous sommes engagés dans une guerre mondiale qui oppose l’islam radical, totalitaire et génocidaire à la civilisation. Les tenants de l’islam radical, totalitaire et génocidaire font la guerre aux pays qui leur résistent : Israël et les Etats-Unis surtout, mais ils agissent aussi ailleurs, de l’Argentine au Royaume-Uni, de la Turquie à l’Indonésie, ou à l’Arabie saoudite. Ils ont des compagnons de route et des complices : journalistes européens, politiciens français, Nations Unies, gauchistes américains. Ils mènent la guerre sur tous les fronts, du front militaire au front médiatique.

• S’ils parviennent à l’emporter, Israël disparaîtra.

• Ce que je puis encore aimer dans l’Europe et la France viciées d’aujourd’hui disparaîtra.

• La cause palestinienne, qui a toujours eu pour objectif une seconde shoah, l’aura emporté.

• Il y aura un monde islamique, chaotique, pauvre, violent et dangereux, qui s’étendra de l’Océan Indien jusqu’à Brest, peut-être jusqu’à Londres.

• Il restera un monde civilisé qui inclura les Etats-Unis et diverses contrées d’Asie, mais pas l’Europe. Dans ce monde islamique, chaotique et pauvre, on pourra dire que la « cause palestinienne » n’aura été qu’un outil pour parvenir à la victoire en détruisant Israël, en détachant des millions de musulmans des valeurs de l’Occident, et en prenant en otage, non les Libanais, mais les arabes de Cisjordanie et de Gaza, quitte à les sacrifier, au passage, pour « la cause ».

L’idée que des Occidentaux aient pu croire, un instant, que l’objectif était un Etat palestinien, libre et prospère et vivant aux côtés d’Israël, fera beaucoup rire ceux que fait rire, dès aujourd’hui, la mise à mort d’autres humains, femmes et enfants compris.

Si, comme je le souhaite, les tenants de l’islam radical, totalitaire et génocidaire finissent par être vaincus, Israël vivra ; l’Europe décadente d’aujourd’hui connaîtra peut-être un second souffle ; les Etats-Unis resteront le cœur du monde civilisé, mais il n’y aura pas, en face, un monde en proie à la barbarie. Au Proche-Orient, il y aura non seulement Israël, mais un Liban sans Hezbollah, où les gens penseront à prospérer plutôt qu’à faire la guerre ; une Jordanie, un Irak, une Egypte et une Arabie saoudite prospères ; un Iran sans mollahs, ni Ahmadinejad, où l’art de vivre persan, que j’ai pu connaître avant Khomeiny, aura retrouvé sa place ; un Irak démocratique sans attentats ; une Syrie sans parti Baath. Les arabes de Cisjordanie et de Gaza feront des affaires, construiront des entreprises, des casinos, des stations balnéaires. Ils vivront fraternellement et parleront business avec Israël. Et lorsqu’on y parlera encore de l’OLP, d’Arafat et du Hamas, ce sera comme de monstruosités archaïques, dont il est heureux qu’on se soit débarrassé.

Ceux qui veulent haïr, mentir, tuer, devront se trouver d’autres chevaux de bataille. Je ne doute pas qu’ils en trouveront. Mon objectif, aujourd’hui, mon seul objectif, est qu’ils ne gagnent pas la bataille aux côtés des terroristes du Hezbollah.

J’ai choisi le métier de penseur et d’analyste pour contribuer à ce qu’il y ait plus de connaissance, moins d’obscurantisme, moins d’oppression dans ce monde. Je préférerais ne plus exercer du tout ce métier que de l’exercer en devenant un faussaire. Si je n’avais plus le choix, je deviendrais cireur de chaussures, chauffeur de taxi, ou je ne sais quoi d’autre.

• Une prostituée se vend au plus offrant et elle l’avoue sans barguigner.

• Elle vend son corps, le temps de la passe, mais elle ne vend pas son âme.

• Elle est payée pour mentir, mais elle sait qu’elle ment et son client aussi.

• Ses activités apportent du plaisir et non des désirs de meurtres ou des pensées racistes.

C’est pourquoi, à mes yeux, elle fait un métier plus digne et plus respectable que celui qu'exercent la plupart des journalistes des grands médias français et européens d’aujourd’hui.

© Guy Millière et upjf.org

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Canadian-Politics on Canadian Politics: Jo McNair Interview part 4

2006-08-07T13:39:00.000-04:00

Canadian-politics.com's Jo McNair has been answering our questions on Canadian politics over the past few days. Today, Jo presents her opinions on foreign affairs and national security.

I'd just like to make a few comments before presenting Jo's answers.

First, the Canadian government does not offer "unquestioning" support for Israel. Neither do the Americans. There is no proof to this effect regarding the current governments, and when one reads up on the history between Israel and North America, it is even more evident that this is not so.

Second, supporting a fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism makes us safer and stronger. It's a myth that this endangers us, because we've been targets of international jiahdis since day 1.

Third, I have to disagree with the suggestion that what Ben Laden presents as his casus belli - US support for Israel, US involvement in the Arab world, etc. - is the honest truth. That would mean accepting a terrorist's word as being honest, and it would also mean having a total disregard for jihadist ideology.

That said, here are Jo's insights on

Foreign Policy/National Security

I think these two items can be treated as one since it is our foreign policy that may well impact on our national security.

With the new government's unquestioning support of Israel (which in all fairness, started under the Martin Liberals), Canada is placing itself in a more dangerous area in this post-11/9 era. Given that we are largely inconsequential players internationally, I don't think it's the wisest move to align ourselves so strongly in one camp or the other. The US's foreign policy with its unconditional support of Israel, support for despotic regimes in the Middle-East (and need for oil of course) - is why they are the main target of Bin Laden and his ilk. If we are going to echo this position, we must also be prepared to face the consequences.

Contrary to what many like to argue, Canada wasn't previously neutral or pro-Palestinian in the past. We voted on UN resolutions on a case-by-case basis based on the merit of the resolution being put forward. Sometimes we voted in favour of Israel; sometimes we voted for measures that favoured the Palestinian side. This is how it should be since, as in all things, no one side is 100% right all the time.

I think a much better role for Canada would be to work with other countries such as the Scandinavian nations to try to broker peace agreements (and now ceasefires) between the various parties. Canada's strengths include our ability to seek compromise between various groups, and that is something that this region needs. This country has (or at least had) a reputation for being fair-minded and principled, we have no colonial baggage, we don't have the overwhelming national interests in the region that the US does (oil), for example, we've done an extremely good job of building a truly multicultural country - these are the principles that must guide our foreign policy stances.

The mission in Afghanistan also must be properly debated. Is our presence there really going to have any impact? And what sort of impact are we trying to achieve? We natter on about defending "freedoms," we seek to impose democracy and western-styled legal systems - but what if the majority don't really want that? Has anyone asked - really asked? The Pashtuns are largely very conservative, strongly islamic people. If they want an islamic state based on shariah law, that is their right. If we're in Afghanistan to try to help them achieve the type of country that THEY want, fine. But if we're trying to impose a regime that we want, we have no business doing that any more than we'd have any business being in the US trying to get the US administration to adopt policies we want.

We do need to beef up our military, but first I think we need a national debate on what the main goals of our military should be - mostly domestic (protect our own borders and sovereignty) or a combination of domestic and international. We need Canadians to stop viewing our military as "peacekeepers" only.

It all comes down to a need for a serious debate to 1) define what are our national interests, 2) what are our strengths, as a nation - what can we contribute to the rest of th world, and 3) how to combine and build on our strengths in order to achieve and defend our national interests.

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Mediocre Media and Israel Rant

2006-08-07T12:49:00.000-04:00

The coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah war in Quebec's principal French media outlet, La Presse, disgusts me with its horrendous anti-Israel, pro-terrorism bias.

Their front-page the other day said that the war was really tough on "everyone," meaning both "Muslims and Christians." In other words Jews aren't suffering of course.

In the same issue, there was a major feature on Hezbollahland, or Hezbolland, as they chose to mistranslate the English. After a line or two about how they're restricting the media's access to information, the rest of the piece was a sympathetic portrayal of a "resistance" movement (resisting peace, I suppose) that is working in the best interests of the forgotten-by-the-world Shiite Lebanese. You'd think a profile of them would give some significant coverage to their terrorist activity. But no, that might not earn sympathy for the terrorists.

I really hate the mainstream media.

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Canadian Politics Interview: Canadian-Politics' Jo McNair part 3

2006-08-04T13:07:00.001-04:00

We're running a series of interviews with Canadian political bloggers regarding their opinions on the state of Canadian politics. Canadian-politics.com's Jo McNair has been sharing her thoughts with us over the past couple of days, and today she tackles

Separatism

This issue is normally couched in the old "Quebec vs Canada" discourse, but I see a new form of separatism growing in this country. Perhaps separatism isn't the right word - shall we call it "separateness"? And again, it has its roots in regional disparity.

Over the past few years, there has been a growing attitude among Canadians in certain provinces to really bunker down and give a collective finger to the rest of the country. This is especially prevalent out west - namely in Alberta. You see it in discussion forums, on blogs, letters to the editor - comments from readers from the west discussing their fellow Canadians and the "have-not" provinces and essentially dismissing them as lazy bums who have only themselves to blame for not being as prosperous as Alberta and complaining that it's time these people stop living large off the fat of Albertans.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has fanned these same flames in Ontario with his constant complaints that Ontario is getting screwed over by Confederation - his famous $23-bn shortfall. The result of this is very evident on forums such as Globe and Mail reader comments, for example. More and more Ontarians wanting to wash their hands of the rest of the country, or at least, wanting an end to programs like equalization since it would be best to let the poorer provinces "fend for themselves."

I'm not implying that these attitudes are held by the majority of people out west and in Ontario, but they are more and more common and while they might not hold the same level of threat as yet another Quebec referendum on independence, in some ways, I think they're a bigger threat. In the past, had Quebec separated, what would be left of Canada would have been, arguably, a much more cohesive, unified population. The old French-English divisions would be, for the most part, gone. Consequently, I never really believed those who argued that if Quebec separated, the rest of the country would quickly fall apart. However, the new sort of separateness, or retrenchment, with people in one province concerned only about their own little fiefdom and showing little, or no interest in and concern for, their fellow Canadians in other provinces, is something else - and far more dangerous.

If Quebec separated today, I can see the rest of the country falling apart - or at least Alberta and maybe even Ontario deciding to go their own way as well. How can any national government hope to formulate national policy when there is no sense of nation left? How can we introduce changes that the country needs, if people ( i.e. the provincial premiers) aren't at all interested in what is best for the country as a whole?

Of course, my dream of no provinces would solve this problem as well...

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Canadian Politics Interviews: Canadian Political Commentator Jo McNair - Part 2

2006-08-03T18:50:00.000-04:00

Canadian-Politics' very own Jo McNair gave us an interview, presenting her opinions on the state of Canadian politics. Today's section of the interview sees Jo considering Canada's problem with

Regional disparity

All of the above leads to one of, if not the most important issue in Canadian politics right now, and that is the problem of the growing regional disparity between the provinces.

If you've paid even the slightest bit of attention to the news the past few months, you may have read something about the growing divisions between the provinces on the issue of the equalization program and/or the matter of the "fiscal imbalance." I know these issues tend to bore people to tears, but personally, I think we may well be approaching a crisis situation on these fronts.

For those not in the know, equalization is a federal program that seeks to ensure that the poorer provinces (the "have-nots") get additional funding in order to better be able to provide the services they are supposed to provide. It's a complicated system, and a grossly misunderstood one, and this is not the forum to start explaining the key ins and outs. I will resort to a bit of self-promotion, however, and refer you to a section on my website that provides a primer on equalization.

The "fiscal imbalance" on the other hand, is no less complex, but somewhat more nebulous. Essentially, the provinces claim that Ottawa has too much money while they don't have enough - a vertical fiscal imbalance. The Liberals, when they were in power, always denied this was the case. The Harper Conservatives campaigned on a promise to "fix" it - however, they seem to have come to the same conclusion as the Liberals - there is no fiscal imbalance. I agree with the Liberals (and now the Conservatives) - there is no vertical fiscal imbalance for the simple reason that it's completely debatable that Ottawa has 'too much money' given our $500-bn debt and grossly under funded military. They're maybe not spending the money they have in the right areas, but you can't really say Ottawa has too much money.

There is a horizontal fiscal imbalance, however, and this is the most important one. I've referred to it in the previous section on health and education - the gross imbalance between the provinces and their ability to raise revenue. We have one province that is 100% debt free, has no sales tax and the lowest personal and corporate taxes in the country, not to mention billion dollar surpluses, and then everyone else. All the other provinces are grossly in debt. Most may well have budget surpluses (only Ontario and PEI don't), but they - with the exception of Ontario and Saskatchewan - don't raise enough revenue on their own to meet national standards and thus qualify for equalization. The pressure Alberta is exerting on the economies of the other provinces cannot be overstated. The growing division between the "have" and "have-nots" cannot be ignored. Anyone who fails to understand just how big a problem this is will be in for a rude shock.

In my opinion, this issue will only worsen over time. There is no easy solution. And again, the more I study this issue, the more I've come to believe that the true cause is, again, our constitutional set up. And I see only one real solution, but it's radical.

In a nutshell, we need to completely reorganise the country. Have one national/central government, get rid of the provinces completely, and replace them with hundreds of much smaller LMAs - local and municipal authorities. All programs would be run and funded by the central government, but administered locally by the LMAs. There would be room - plenty of it - for tailoring said programs to meet local needs - truly local needs (far more local than most provinces can ever offer). I told you it was radical, but seriously - if you sit down and really start thinking about it, the advantages of this are so obvious, you'll find it difficult to argue against it. There is no need for provinces. None. Their existence cannot be adequately justified. I've put the challenge to many and the "reasons" they come up with to justify the existence of and need for provinces can easily be counter-argued.

It will never happen, of course, but at least I'm encouraged that I increasingly see letters to the editor and comments on forums from people proposing something similar. There is hope!

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Montreal Heat Wave, Global Warming

2006-08-02T13:09:00.000-04:00

The weather here in Montreal has been very hot and humid for days now, with a serious but lesser measure of humidity having been around for weeks. I get the impression that after it rains in buckets, the water is immediately absorbed back into the ambient air. Thus, it needs to rain again for the air to 'dry out.'

Personally, I think this humidity is gross, and probably the result of global warming. After having seen Al Gore's excellent movie on global warming, I've ome to understand that odd weather is part and parcel of global warming.

Edit: this was written yesterday, August second. The air is clear today, after it rained yesterday in these weird spurts, three times. I still think it's got to do with global warming.

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Canadian Politics Interview: Canadian-Politics.com's Jo McNair

2006-08-02T12:36:00.000-04:00

What is the state of Canadian politics? I asked that question a little while ago, and promised interviews on the topic. The first interview answers have come in from Jo McNair, the very well spoken writer of Canadian-Politics.com. Here's the first part of what Jo wrote.

I've been asked by Centrerion Canadian Politics to chip in my two cents' worth on the current state of Canadian politics, specifically in reference to 10 key areas: national security, foreign affairs, health, the environment, the economy, post-secondary education, separatism, the judicial system, social equality and innovation.

The missing issue

I will start off by explaining that I don't entirely agree that these are necessarily the most important issues in Canadian politics today. Some of them, while currently problematic, I believe to be symptoms of a larger issue that isn't mentioned here - namely our current constitutional organisation.

Simply put, it is my belief that while the way the country was organised in 1867 might have made sense back then, it is completely unsuited for the realities of our country today and is in fact causing more problems than it is solving.

Let's look at two of the items on that list: health and post-secondary education. Firstly, I wouldn't include these as key issues in Canadian politics, if we mean "Canadian" to be federal, or national, since both fall under provincial jurisdiction. Because they are provincial issues, there really isn't any point in trying to formulate a "national" approach since the provinces like to protect their little spheres of responsibility and don't appreciate Ottawa's "interference" - unless said interference comes in the form of a large cheque with no strings attached. This is probably the only issue on which I'm in complete agreement with Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois - health and education should not be issues in federal elections.

However, it is clear that the state of both healthcare and post-secondary education in Canada are important issues to Canadians - which is why every federal party has a position on these issues and why these issues tend to dominate political debate at the federal level. The real root of the problem here is constitutional. In 1867, there was no national healthcare program. There weren't any social services to speak of - no welfare state as we know it today. Health and education were handed over to the provinces in part because they were considered "local" issues best left to a more "local" level of government, and in part because they weren't considered to be important enough for the federal government to bother with since it was mostly private organisations and religious orders who supplied those services - not government. If you read the actual section in the Constitution Act (1867) that deals with health, the provinces are only obligated to build and maintain hospitals, asylums and the like - infrastructure - not provide actual healthcare services. No one foresaw the welfare state system that we have in place today, never mind the exorbitant costs of government-funded healthcare. Consequently, provinces now find themselves saddled with a huge financial burden. Healthcare costs alone average about 40% of provincial budgets, and it is estimated that by 2025 or so, that percentage will rise to 70% of provincial budgets. How on earth will provinces be able to fund anything else?

Simply put, health and education should not be provincial responsibilities because the provinces, while constitutionally bound to provide them and to provide them at comparable levels of service, aren't starting off on a level playing field. We have very rich provinces - OK, one very rich province, and a lot of fairly poor ones. Does it make sense to burden economically disparate sub-national entities with the costs of programs that most Canadians hold so dear, and expect them to provide fairly equal levels of service at that? Not to me, it doesn't.

Ideally, we should be looking at moving health and education out of provincial jurisdiction and hand them over to the federal government. There would be so many advantages to this, it truly surprises me that no one seriously discusses this option. For one, I think Canada is one of, if not the only Western nation that doesn't have a national education curriculum. Canadian kids should be learning the same things to the same standards from coast to coast to coast. I'm not saying there isn't room for some "regional" component to what is taught, but the varying degrees the quality of education provided by the provinces - if we use measurements such as the results of international tests - is unacceptable - at least to me. I don't think kids in some provinces are less intelligent than kids in Alberta (who regularly score the best results on these tests), I think Alberta simply has far more money to put into building a quality education system. This isn't something that should be left to the provinces and their grossly-divergent ability to fund these programs. And these same points apply to healthcare as well - even more so.

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Arab & Muslim Honour Mentality: Civilizational Honour Problem

2006-07-31T12:38:00.000-04:00

The clash of civilizations between the West and the Arab-Muslim world is characterized by one over-arching problem with the Arab-Muslim mentality: the exaggerated importance given to honour, and the peculiar interpretation of honour in the Arab-Muslim culture.

First, following the news will show that the almost paramount concern of Arabo-Muslim culture is defending your honour, or the honour of the clan. There are honour killings, "arguments" for terrorism in the name of national honour, and so on. The nation is an extension of the clan here. The point is that actions are taken to "defend" honour that are totally unreasonable. It's as if the culture was stuck in the 18th century where people were challenging each other to pistols at 10 paces...

Second, the importance given to honour is greater than that given to life. It's as if the Arabo-Muslim culture saw it better to be dead than dishonoured (and if you die dishonoured, well you just plain suck). By contrast, life is much more important in the West, as in the saying, "He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day." Ironically, Hezbollah keeps running away from the IDF so that civilians can be killed, but that's another post...

For this reason, amongst others, the West and the Arabo-Muslim world just don't see eye to eye. And it'll take some development in Arabo-Muslim culture whereby life is placed at a higher premium before the two can better understand each other.

Here is a great video reflecting what can be:

~
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Arab World Heroes

2006-07-31T12:09:00.000-04:00

Arab World Heroes

By Yisrael Ne’eman of Middle East on Target (reprinted with permission)

After yesterday’s catastrophe at Kfar Kana in south Lebanon where civilians were mistakenly killed in an IAF bombing, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah’s popularity has soared to new heights in the Arab world. After having fortified terrorist positions inside south Lebanese villages, Nasrallah then initiated the conflict with the full knowledge of endangering the same villagers along Israel’s northern border. Furthermore Hezbollah continues to launch rocket attacks from within those villages in an effort to hide behind the human shield of civilians. The idea is to enjoy the best of both worlds; either Israel will not bomb the launchers and rocket arsenals and Hezbollah can continue firing unhindered or eventually there will be civilian casualties. For Nasrallah both options are excellent, as the first affords him freedom to fire at Israel and the second gives him a media victory. Furthermore the second option brings Lebanon (and Hezbollah) world sympathy due to civilian suffering.

Despite the destruction he reigns down on Lebanon, Nasrallah is now an Arab World hero. Some compare him to Gamal Abdul Nasser who led Egypt from 1954-70. Other great Arab heroes of the last decades include Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, PLO leader Yasir Arafat and of course the elusive Osama bin Laden. Heroes embody the highest values of a society and are to be emulated. None of the above ever led a democracy, nor was such a form of government ever desired in the Arab world. All of the above preferred war and military might over the betterment of their societies, and where monies for social welfare were distributed, it was done as a means to gain adherents and not for the objectives of closing economic gaps or working for social harmony. This is obvious when reading the hate filled textbooks, covenants and charters published by these leaders and their followers. All were viciously anti-West (even if the French had some influence and connections) and rejected universal human rights as a value.

All initiated unnecessary wars (Nasser – 1967 Six Day War and War of Attrition 1967-70, Saddam – War against Iran 1980-88 and First Gulf War with the invasion of Kuwait 1990-91, Arafat – Continuous terrorism from the 1960s, War in Lebanon 1982 and Conflict against Israel 2000-04 and bin Laden - War against the USA on 9/11/2001, brought another war to Afghanistan and terror attacks world wide while massacring Shi’ites in Iraq). None particularly developed their societies and although both Nasser and Saddam did make efforts in that direction, military glory and modern weaponry were always a greater priority. Their own people suffered terribly and all repressed any possible opposition. In general they were quite beloved by many in their own societies (except possibly Saddam) but all are seen by the vast majority of the Arab world as authentic heroes.

On the other hand, leaders like Anwar Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan who made peace with Israel and worked to bring economic prosperity and a bit of democracy to their peoples are reviled and seen as traitors by many. For aligning themselves with the West they are branded as American lackeys.

Nasrallah now joins the Arab Pantheon after many in the Arab world initially distanced themselves from Hezbollah’s ideology, terrorist activities and initiation of hostilities with Israel. The Shi’ite neighborhoods of Beirut containing Hezbollah’s security complex and its Baka’a Valley strongholds and villages in south Lebanon are in a shambles as is the Lebanese economy, after 20 days of confronting Israel. However, a rising number of Arabs and Moslems throughout the Middle East and the world display his picture prominently, showing great reverence.

Similar to those before him, he is seen as restoring honor to the Arab/Moslem world in his never ending battles against the West (in this case Israel and even the US). Although following an Iranian Khomeinist Shi’ite line, the man in the street sees him as one who will never relent, even if it means total destruction for Lebanon. After Kana his opposition in that country must remain mute for the foreseeable future or be deemed traitors. Even the pro-West Lebanese PM Fuad Seniora and his government have lined up with Hezbollah’s demands for an immediate unconditional ceasefire with no concessions made by Nasrallah.

Lebanon was on its way to a more prosperous, democratic lifestyle until Hezbollah initiated its war against Israel. Today Lebanese society faces destruction and dislocation as Hezbollah enjoys full official support. When Nasrallah and the above mentioned are no longer presented as heroes to Arab children there will finally be hope for permanent peace and development in the Middle East.

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Here are some related articles:

Hassan Nasrallah Biographies, Profiles
UN "Force" Exists in Lebanon
North American Jews raising money to save Israeli Children

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories terrorism, foreign affairs.

Hassan Nasrallah: Biographies, Profiles, Who Is...

2006-07-31T02:24:00.000-04:00

Middle East Intelligence Bulletin's analysis of Hassan Nasrallah's political/military leadership.

Wikipedia on Hassan Nasrallah (Which I've discovered is mostly ripped off/plagiarised from an al-Jazeera article, so be aware the bio is very biased...)

The UK's Guardian has a mini-biography of Nasrallah, published in June 06.

The Washington Post also has an interesting profile of Hassan Nasrallah, with interview bits.

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This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories terrorism, foreign affairs, leadership, national security.

Green Party leadership roundup

2006-07-30T22:43:00.000-04:00

There are exactly four weeks left in the Green Party leadership race and things appear to be as intense as they’re going to get. A few debates have taken place; a few more are on the way. The candidates are still making the rounds, meeting with supporters, publicizing their endorsements and hoping for the best.

While Jim Fannon has run in several Green leadership campaigns, most would agree that the main contenders here are Elizabeth May and David Chernushenko. Chernushenko was deputy leader under outgoing leader Jim Harris; May was the president of the Sierra Club. Chernushenko is advocating a grassroots-based approach to campaigning; May is extolling the virtues of activism.

In the end, there isn’t a world of difference between the two. They have different ideas for party policy but both recognize that policy is determined by the party and not the leader. They both want to put ordinary people at the centre of the party – Chernushenko with grassroots action and May with activist endeavors. One might argue that there isn’t much of a difference. They both want to get beyond the “one-issue party” stigma that’s surrounded the Green Party for years. They both want to see the party leader included in federal leadership debates, increase its share of the popular vote and elect MPs.

With the many varied issues surrounding this campaign, one might not think that one of the most publicized is whose French skills are better. Chernushenko is purportedly fluently trilingual (he speaks Ukrainian in addition to Canada’s official languages). May speaks English and French, and isn’t doing most of the talking about the languages themselves. Chernushenko maintains that his French skills are among his main selling points. The majority of the testimonials (and even blog entries) posted on his website are about why he feels it’s important to have a leader who can communicate as effectively in French as in English – and speak comfortable, conversational French. One of his blog entries even received a comment from a reader that asked whether this was the only reasons why he felt he should be elected leader.

Another key difference is in their general presentations of themselves. May appears to want to come across as well-connected, which she undoubtedly is. Her website features photos of her with such easily recognizable figures as Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill Clinton, David Suzuki and the Dalai Lama. Those endorsing her include singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer and author and poet Margaret Atwood. In contrast, Chernushenko appears to present himself as more of a ‘man of the people’-type. The photos on his website are of him posing with party supporters and volunteers at meet-and-greets and potluck dinners. He says that he “know(s) this party” and goes on to say that he’d be the kind of leader who wouldn’t hesitate to get into the trenches with candidates and volunteers, put up signs or knock on doors. And he says that this, not “a star candidate,” is what the party needs. If that’s not a direct shot at May, I don’t know what is.

Nonetheless, the overall tone of the campaign has remained extremely civil. Even the perceived left-right split within the party doesn’t seem to be a substantial issue; May’s supporters include former Conservative volunteers despite the fact that she is perceived as the more “left-wing” candidate. Similarly, Chernushenko’s reputation of being more “right-wing” hasn’t stopped a wide range of party members – including those who were critical of outgoing leader Jim Harris’s rightward push – from rallying behind him.

At this point in the game, only two things are certain: the final showdown will be very interesting, and the Green Party will be able to choose a new leader in two years if the next one doesn’t work out.

Here are some related articles:

The one issue party by Larry Zolf

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories federal politics, Green Party

Media Monitoring: Mediocre MacKinnon on Israel

2006-07-27T14:04:00.000-04:00

From Honest Reporting Canada comes this monitoring of the evidently mediocre Mark MacKinnon's media/journalism skills. MacKinnon is amongst the hordes of anti-Israel journalists who've never met a black libel they didn't like.

Globe and Mail Reporter Leaves the Facts Behind

July 26, 2006

Dear Honest Reporting Canada subscriber:

In April 2002, Israel's military operation to root out terrorists in Jenin showed what happens when news media report unproven claims. Many journalists repeated false claims that over 500 Palestinians were "massacred" by Israel. Even "chief Palestinian negotiator" Saeb Erekat promoted this lie, which was later exposed in a follow-up interview. Watch the clips, courtesy of Global TV's "Jenin: Massacring Truth", by clicking on the before-and-after images below:

Manufacturing A New Myth?

In response to this kind of media manipulation, the only safe course for journalists is to stick to the facts. Reporters who file stories based on unproven allegations are doing their readers a disservice.

But the Globe and Mail's Mark MacKinnon did just that. MacKinnon filed a story today (July 26) entitled "Toll higher than stated, civilians say," replete with unproven charges against Israel by people who have no credibility with Canadian readers.

Reporting from the Hezbollah stronghold of Tyre in south Lebanon, MacKinnon quoted a Red Cross worker, a mortician, a medical student and a motorcyclist who collectively implied that Israel intentionally targets civilians, killing many more civilians than reported by the Lebanese government.

Some of the claims MacKinnon printed include:

"'Israel has failed on the ground, so they're hitting civilians.'"
"Of the dead he's seen, Mr. Shadi says, 'maybe 3 per cent' were men. The rest were women and children. 'They're not targeting fighters.'"

"They're just hitting civilians. I don't think there's a reason for it."

MacKinnon paraphrased Israel as saying "its aim is only to uproot the Islamic militia's infrastructure in south Lebanon." But he immediately cast doubt on Israel's claim by presenting unnamed "medical staff" who speculated that "most of those killed and wounded to date have no apparent link to Hezbollah."

But exactly who were these individuals whose claims MacKinnon published? Were they random people he encountered? Did his Lebanese translator take him to them? Or did a "Hezbollah press officer" make the introductions? MacKinnon didn't say. But considering that Tyre is home to Hezbollah loyalists and rocket crews, MacKinnon should explain why he took its residents at their word.

How You Can Make a Difference

In your own words, tell the Globe and Mail that Mark MacKinnon's article, "Toll higher than stated, civilians say," was unfair and misleading because it:

Printed claims that Israel is intentionally targeting civilians -- without evidence
Implied Israel has killed many more Lebanese civilians than reported -- without evidence

Send letters to: letters@globeandmail.com

Pointers for writing letters:

Read the article before composing your letter

Focus on your main point and state it clearly

Keep your argument rational and avoid being abusive

Keep your letter under 200 words and include name, address and daytime phone number

Forward a copy of your letter to action@honestreporting.ca

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If you want to read more/follow Centrerion Canadian Politics' coverage of Israel and the media, consider our free newsletter.

Here are some related articles:

Mediocre Media: World Press Federation
Mediocre Media 6 blogging carnival
"Restraint," "Proportionality," and "Measured Responses"

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories media, foreign affairs, Israel.

UN Force Exists in Lebanon!

2006-07-27T02:13:00.000-04:00

Anyone reading the mediocre media would here plenty of impassioned calls for the UN to send a "peace-keeping force" - what peace they would keep, I do not know - to establish a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon. The problem these impassioned (inebriated, rather?) speakers are unaware of is that such a force actually exists, and obviously has been a total failure to date.

As a matter of fact, a kidnapping of an Israeli civilian once took place while the UN's force (UNIFIL) did nothing. Which just reminds us that kidnappings are unfortunately one of the Lebanese terrorists' favourite provocation tools...

This website has more info for those who want to read up on Israel and Lebanon (though I object to their name which references an non-existant entity).
Israel's foreign ministry also has some useful reading on the past of Israel and Lebanon's relationship.

On a related note, the UN is remarkably adept at allowing violence to take place. Current UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was head of the UN's peacekeeping division at the time of the Rwandan massacres in the mid-90s. He closed his eyes and limited the UN's forces there - forces whose Canadian leader, General Romeo Dallaire, would later criticize Annan bitterly - which inaction and criminal negligence has been documented in "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998), a book by Philip Gourevitch.

The current genocide in Sudan's western province of Darfur is unsurprisingly getting the same treatment at the UN. That is, none. For more on Darfur, check out Students Taking Action Now: Darfur.

If you want to read more/follow our coverage/ of keyword, consider our free newsletter.

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Israel, foreign affairs.

Israel, Lebanon News

2006-07-26T14:42:00.000-04:00

Hezbollah's Bint Jbeil Scene of Heavy Fighting:

"IDF sources reported heavy gun battles between soldiers from the Golani Brigade and Hizbullah guerrillas, and said that some of the shooting was taking place at point-blank range in homes and courtyards."

Iran's Ahmadinejad Opens his Fat Mouth, Prepares for Fat Lip:

"In addition to a cease-fire, Ahmadinejad called for talks on the Lebanon crisis without conditions, and demanded Israel compensate the country and apologize for its actions. He also denied US claims that Iran provides military support for Hizbullah, saying it only supports the movement politically and morally."

"The IDF presented a weapon seized during fighting with Hizbullah operatives in Lebanon: an RPG marked with the logo of the Iranian military industry."

Lebanese President and Syrian Stooge Emil Lahoud supports Hezbollah. With leaders like that, who needs enemies?

Dry Bones makes a good point about the French.
"There'll be an international fighting force... led by the French.
- Which will it be?"
I.e. a force, or the French wimps who'll probably let hell continue...
On a related note, Lebanese blogger Raja has some pictures of what Lebanon was like before Hezbollah decided it needed more political capital and chose to attack Israel. On

More calls are taking place to have Hezbollah comply with UN resolution 1559. Which we all know won't happen, because the UN is a helpless organization, and because the Arab/Muslim voting bloc controls it anyways, and will just have this one blow over in time.

Finally, only a few more months of tolerating Kofi Annan, until the UN's Buffoon in Chief (guess the acronym that makes for) ends his term, in December 2006. Hopefully the next Secretary-General will be a bit more efficient and intelligent, especially vis-a-vis Israel and Darfur.

If you want to read more/follow our coverage of the Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, consider our free newsletter.

Here are some related articles:

Israelis Capture Rockets, Explosives
Saving Israeli Kids from Katyushas: North American Fundraising
Nasrallah's Miscalculation

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Israel, foreign affairs, terrorism.

Mediocre Media: World Press Federation

2006-07-24T01:37:00.000-04:00

Yet more news that the most of the mainstream media really are irresponsible idiots. From the Jerusalem Post comes this story concerning the Mediocre Media of the week, the World Press Federation. The WPF have taken a "principled stand" to defend Iran/Syria/Hezballah's call to exterminate the Jewish people. (Which reminds me of that time I encouraged fellow bloggers to remove their links to Al Jazeera.)

These buffoons at the WPF obviously don't understand that with any freedom inevitably comes responsibility. There are limits to any freedom, and the World Press Federation would do well to understand this.

Israel will leave the World Press Federation if the organization does not retract its comment regarding the IDF's attacks on a television station belonging to the Hizbullah Al-Manar TV, Army Radio reported Sunday.

The Federation stated that Israel's attacks were against the principle of the freedom of the press.

[...]

An official letter written to the Federation by Israeli reporters states that the condemnation of Israel's actions represents overt support for terrorism.

If you want to read more about the mediocre media and/or follow our coverage of Israel's fight for survival, consider our free newsletter.

Here are some related articles:

Mediocre Media 6 blogging carnival
NYT gets Israel right for a change
Start of the fighting; updates: Hezballah websites down

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories media, foreign affairs, Israel, terrorism.

Israelis Capture Rocket Launchers, Explosives

2006-07-20T13:48:00.000-04:00

From the Jerusalem Post comes word that Israel's Army has captured rockets, explosives and other equipment. The munitions were found in a mosque.

This is yet another example of Hezballah intentionally mingling with Lebanese civilians and civilian institutions to provoke collateral damages. My question is this: How can Hezballah claim to protect Lebanon and Lebanese civilians when it intentionally draws fire at them?

If you want to read more/follow our coverage/ of keyword, consider our free newsletter.

Here are some related articles:

North American Jews Fundraising to Save Israeli Children
"Restraint" Is an Idiotic Idea
Suicide Servers

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories federal politics, foreign affairs, economics, national security.

North American Jews Fundraising for Israeli Children

2006-07-19T16:10:00.000-04:00

Canadian and American Jewish federations are raising funds to help move children in Israel's north further south, so that they may be out of range of Hezballah's Katyusha rockets.

I'd like to ask all my readers to make a donation to this crucial emergency fund to save the children. It takes 3 or four minutes on a 56 k modem, closer to 2 minutes on broadband. I've already made my pledge of $180, or 10 times the numerical equivalent of the letters in the hebrew word Chai, which means 'Life'.

For my Jewish and Christian readers, I'd like to remind you of the religious duty to give charity (and of the fact that these donations are tax deductible, for those of you to whom that's important). In Judaism it's called Tzedakah, and is fixed at 10%, or Ma'aser. Christianity calls it the tithe, and also fixes it at 10%.

Please, donate today.

Regionally, you can donate via the following communities websites. If you want to find your local community's site, try this "Jewish [Fed] Finder."

Atlanta

Baltimore

Boston

Broward

Central New Jersey

Chicago

Cleveland

Colorado

Delaware

Detroit

Greensboro

Kansas City

Los Angeles

Louisville

Metrowest, New Jersey

Nashville

New York

Omaha

Palm Beach

Pinellas County

Pittsburgh

Richmond

San Diego

San Francisco

Sarasota

Silicon Valley

South Palm Beach

Southern Maine

Southern New Jersey

Tampa

Toronto

Tucson

Vancouver

Washington D.C.

Update: Feel free to copy this image my sorry photoshop skills put together: Danny Carlton of BlogAdSwap put it together in some simple javascript code you can copy and paste into your blog's template (remove the space between < and script, and again the spaces in the closing tag): < script src="http://resourceshop.net/lifesaver.js">< / script>. The script will display the smaller banner image/button lower down.

You can also post a button on your site.

To add either image to your site, you can copy the appropriate html code and change the parentheses ( ) signs for bracket < > signs. The pictures will link to UJC, and the optional text will link back here as credit for the design. Or you can do things the easy way and grab the javascript Danny created, and which I posted above. Here it is again for your convenience: < script src="http://resourceshop.net/lifesaver.js">< /script>.

To add the larger image, copy the following code: (a href="http://www.ujc.org")(img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4611/1938/1600/Israeli%20Lifesaver.jpg" border="0" alt="Israeli Fundraiser Lifesaver" /)(/a)(br)(a href="http://centrerion.blogspot.com/2006/07/north-american-jews-fundraising-for.html")Design Credit: (b)Centrerion Canadian Politics(/b)(/a)

To add the smaller image to your site, copy the following code: (a href="http://www.ujc.org")(img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4611/1938/320/Israeli%20Lifesaver%20Button.0.jpg" border="0" alt="Israeli Fundraiser Button" /)(/a)(br)(a href="http://centrerion.blogspot.com/2006/07/north-american-jews-fundraising-for.html")Design Credit: (b)Centrerion Canadian Politics(/b)(/a)

The end result works like this (click it to go to the UJC donation site):

Design Credit: Centrerion Canadian Politics

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Israel, foreign affairs, Judaism, charity.

Rightfaith: Where's America's Resolve?

2006-07-19T15:23:00.000-04:00

Rightfaith asks, "Where's America's resolve?" It's a great short piece asking why America isn't totally committed to fighting terrorism, which Newt Gingrich and others have dubbed WW3.

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories foreign affairs, terrorism.

Israel, "Restraint," "Proportionality" and "Measured Responses"

2006-07-19T14:14:00.000-04:00

-Welcome Carnival of the Insanities readers! If you want help regaining your sanity, I recommend this post on how you can help move Israeli children out of rocket range. On with the destruction of the insanities of "restraint," "proportionality," and other nonsense!

According to the mediocre mainstream media (here in Canada, at least) Israel's a great big meanie for using "disproportionate" force, for fighting without regard for a "measured response." It's amazing the ridiculous ideas the media's self-appointed luminaries will come up with sometimes in order to vilify Israel! In the following lines, I will proceed to blow up - pardon the pun - the incredibly stupid ideas that are "proportionality," "restraint," "measured reactions" and so on.

There are three problems with the media's call for Israel to restrain itself.

First, it's illogical for anyone to defend themselves with one hand tied behind their back. The purpose of having a defence force is to dissuade enemies from attacking, and to respond when they do. The point is that the myth of "disproportionate" force rests upon the idea a defence force is only there to intimidate enemies and dissuade them. This is simply not the case.

Second, the media's suggestion that Israel should measure its use of force is just another example of the ludicrous hypocrisy the media treats Israel with. The double standard essentially holds Israel to a different code of conduct than others. Where are the media when the Canadian forces are fighting the Taliban? Are we to expect our Canadian troops to "restrain" themselves and use "proportionate" force?

Third, there is no such thing as "proportionate" force, so there can't be something such as "disproportionate force." Should Israel have killed a dozen Hezballah fighters and captured two more in response to Hezballah's provocation? That would have been numerically equal. Should they count the number of shells, bullets, ball bearings, nails and other junk Hezballah fires at Israeli citizens, and then respond with an equivalent amount of munitions? Would a 2:1 ratio be acceptable?

I recall former US President Bill Clinto trying what might be called a "measured response," back when al-Qaeda bombed US embassies in Africa. He sent a few cruise missiles at Ben-Laden camps in the area. Look how effective that was...

The Lebanese government has failed to disarm Hezballah and put an end to its military power. Instead, Hezballah is a sovereign power unto itself in Southern Lebanon, and the Lebanese government's incompetence in restraining Hezballah has cost Israeli lives. The only possible meaning for restraint in the current conflagration of the Israeli-Arab conflict if for Hezballah to be reigned in and its military wing destroyed. The onus is on the Lebanese government to restrain Hezballah and put an end to its terrorism.

If you want to follow our coverage of issues in the Middle East of keyword, consider our free newsletter.

Here are some related articles:

Mediocre Media
NY Times gets Israel right! There's a pleasant surprise.
Nasrallah's Miscalculation
Suicide Servers When Jihad goes copyright, the next step is...
Israeli Soldiers kidnapped; Lebanese Ministers Refuse Responsibility -How it started.

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Israel, foreign affairs, media.

Great Media! NY Times Gets Israel Right!

2006-07-19T02:16:00.000-04:00

Now, fans and readers of the Mediocre Media carnival here will know that the New York Times is often one to get the story wrong, often pathetically so. But this time around, I'm going to give credit where it's due, and recognize the Grey Lady's great coverage of the pro-Israel rally in NYC.

What was so great? Well, for one it was unbiased, and for another, it had the honesty to show the Russians and French for what they are: Dhimmitude promoting hypocrites.

"If your cities were shelled the way ours were,' he said, as if directly addressing those countries, 'you would use much more force than we are or we ever will.'

Mr. Gillerman did not name any country. But then, he didn’t have to. Everyone understood he was referring to France and Russia. Both have used "disproportionate" to describe Israel's latest actions — Russia, which has killed thousands in Chechnya to suppress a separatist movement, and France, which in 1985 blew up a ship owned by Greenpeace (killing a person in the process) because that group of environmentalists had the temerity to protest French nuclear tests in the Pacific."

Later today, I'll be destroying the idiotic idea of "Proportionate" and "Restrained" response.

Read the full piece at the Times.

If you want to follow our coverage of the Israeli struggle against Hezballah and other terrorists, consider our free newsletter.

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Israel, foreign affairs, terrorism.

Canadian Politics: Google Trusts US

2006-07-18T15:01:00.000-04:00

Where Canadian Politics are concerned, Google trusts the US. I get Google Alerts, for Canadian politics, and somehow, this came up. Ignoring the repetition (highlighted with pink exlamation marks) of some Aurora Ohio analyst's piece, how is it Google trusts Americans more than Canadians to analyze Canadian politics?

Consider our free newsletter.

This article and related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian federal politics, foreign affairs.

Canadian Political Blogger Interviewee List

2006-07-17T09:37:00.000-04:00

I've invited some Canadian political bloggers to share their views on the state of Canadian politics. So far, here is the list of Canada's online politicians who have replied in the affirmative:

Jason Cherniak, of Cherniak on Politics and Liberal Blogs (Liblogs)
Joanne McNair, of Canadian-Politics.com and Vues D'Ici
James Bow, of the Blogging Alliance of Non-Partisan Canadians (BANPAC) and his own sites

This list will be updated as more people respond.

If you want to follow these interviews on the state of Canadian politics, consider our free newsletter. It's sent out twice a month.
Here are some related articles:

Canadian Politics: National Security
Canadian Politics: Health
Path to the PMO

Related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian federal politics.

Foreign Affairs: Nasrallah's Miscalculation

2006-07-16T13:29:00.000-04:00

Nasrallah's Miscalculation

By Elliot Chodoff of Middle East on Target

Wars are all too often started as a result of a minor miscalculation, and the current violence in the Middle East provides an excellent example of this fact. Wednesday's Hizbullah attack on an IDF patrol that left three soldiers dead and two captured was an attempt by the Lebanese Shiite terrorist organization to achieve a number of strategic objectives at a limited price.

With one assault, Hizbullah hoped to improve its position in Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world, show its support for Hamas as it battles the IDF in Gaza, and divert attention from Iran as the world pressures that country to cease its efforts to develop a nuclear arsenal. In order to accomplish all of the above, Hizbullah executed a bold ambush on the Israeli side of the border, with a quick escape back to Lebanon with its IDF captives.

Having accomplished its mission, all that remained was to hunker down and outlast the anticipated weak Israeli response as Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced that he had no interest in an escalation of violence and was prepared to negotiate to exchange the IDF captives for terrorists held by Israel. Nasrallah miscalculated. Big time.

To be fair, Israel contributed its share to the miscalculation. In a day of fighting last month, Hizbullah initiated an unprovoked attack against Northern Israel, and the IDF responded with heavy fire against the terrorists' positions across the border, destroying nearly all within sight. Late in the afternoon, Hizbullah requested a cease fire, and Israel responded immediately in the affirmative. Nasrallah understood that he was capable of igniting the violence and extinguishing it at will. On that assumption, he launched last Wednesday's attack. Israel's response was significantly harsher than he anticipated.

Despite Hizbullah's ability to launch multiple barrages against civilian targets in Israel (as of this evening, over 760 rockets have landed in Northern Israel, killing four Israeli civilians and wounding dozens), the IDF has devastated Hizbullah targets with attacks from the air, land and sea, as well as inflicting significant damage to Lebanon's national infrastructure. Nasrallah himself was apparently trapped in the bunker beneath his destroyed headquarters, and has not been heard from since another IAF air strike on the same target late this afternoon.

The message being transmitted to Lebanon and Hizbullah as well as the rest of Israel's enemies in the Middle East is a clear one: anyone can easily start a war with Israel, but that adventure may be a costly one, and ending it can be a far more complicated affair. The issue is not simply the return of the captured soldiers and retaliation for the deaths of their comrades; it is whether Israel's sovereignty can be violated with impunity by an organization with aspirations to annihilate the Jewish State. Hizbullah and Lebanon are currently learning the answer to that question and the lesson will likely continue for at least the next few days.

Consider our free newsletter. It's sent out twice a month.

Related articles are archived in the topical categories foreign affairs, terrorism.

Mediocre Media 6!

2006-07-14T19:35:00.000-04:00

Hello and welcome to the 6th issue of Mediocre Media! As always, you're welcome to participate: here's the information you need.

Our excellent repeat contributor Don Surber brings us "The Vicious Silence of the New York Times."

Says Don: "Some journalists even demanded an investigation. The NYT called for an special prosecutor. This was madness. This was political payback because Novak dares to be a conservative voice. If some lefty crackpot like Robert Scheer were under attack by a federal prosecutor, you bet your boots NYT would be wrapping him in the First Amendment."

Fellow regular and quality contributor here at Mediocre Media is Muse at Shiloh Musings, who presents Don't trust the NY Times!

Seems like the NY Times ain't all it's cracked up to be, after all. Says Muse: "They have their agenda, and it's too easy to prove them wrong." What I like about Muse's posts is that she submits them under the category of ethics and morality, pointing out the weak ethical standards in the media.

Another familiar, friendly face is Joerg at the insightful Atlantic Review. He brings us the slightly misnamed What? Germans Sing Nazi Anthem in World Cup Stadium? It actually concerns increasing German sympathy for Israel!

Joerg also criticizes the media for presenting a German minister as a Nazi. The National Review labels Joschka Fischer as Nazi Propaganda Minister

Yet another repeat contributor is Ashok Karra, who brings us Is Democracy Feasible? For this carnival, Ashok's also sharing some other posts. Consider his "On Iconography," and "Thomas Jefferson on the Nature of the News."

As you can imagine, Ashok's got a penchant for history. Ashok [vaguely] describes his posts thus: "They can be taken to be symbolic of an age when media was less
technology driven, and more about attempting to communicate that which was
highest."

Unfortunately, that's all we have for this carnival. There would probably be more, but the thing is that I was lazy around the posting of the last carnival and didn't bother trackbacking, so people who might otherwise have submitted again didn't share their criticisms with us this time around.

If you want to read more about the mediocre media, consider our free newsletter. It's sent out twice a month.
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Suicide Servers: Quip of the Day

2006-07-13T13:01:00.000-04:00

-Welcome to the carnival readers who are here for some laughs at the int'l jihad's expense. I'll get to the humour in a moment. Just before though, if I might, I'd like to point your attention to how you can save Israeli children by donating to a campaign moving the children out of Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket range. I've donated, and I hope I can thankyou ahead of time for your own generosity.-

So apparently, the terrorists have protected their jihad with the almighty shield of a Creative Commons copyright (scroll down towards the bottom). You know where the marketing of this is going, right?

"Coming soon, to a Holy War near you... Suicide Servers! They explode at peak traffic times to reach their 72 blue screens of death! Run on powerful 'in-Jail inside' processors, these little martyrs will kill large numbers of infidel java scripts! Of course, they come with a lifetime satisfaction guarantee. For a limited time only, get your Sword of Jihad mainframe at the low, low price of 2.99 wives!"

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Israeli Soldiers Kidnapped; Lebanese Ministers Refuse Responsibility

2006-07-13T00:40:00.000-04:00

Fighting in Israel has erupted again as terrorist group Hizballah attacked and kidnapped 2 Israeli soldiers, while killing 8 others. Lebanon's Council of Ministers has denied responsibility.

Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has said the kidnappings will be treated as the acts of a sovereign country. The Jerusalem Post quotes Olmert as saying it was an "act of war."

Then, what do you make of Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah's denial that the government even knew? Nasrallah said in a press conference that this was solely Hizballah's act.

The question is, can it be considered an act of war when the government's Council of Ministers refuses responsibility for the act? (Though, in contradiction with Nasrallah, the Hizballah ministers and a Cabinet ally opposed the statement...)
Can you not consider it an act of war when the perpetrating group (Hizballah) is part of the government?

The answers to these questions will naturally be of key importance to how Israel reacts.

The paramount question, though, hasn't yet been asked. What does the international community do with the real Axis of Evil? Namely, what is to be done with Syria, Iran, Hizballah and Hamas?

I knew the media were being mediocre in their coverage of Lebanon and Hizballah.

Information is based on the Jerusalem Post and the Lebanese Bloggers, especially Raja.

If you want to follow our coverage, consider our free newsletter. It's sent out twice a month.

Update: Katyushas fired from Lebanon have killed a person and injured a dozen others, in what is apparently the first attack using a 25 km range version of the missile.

Update 2: Apparently, some of the terrorists involved in the Shalit kidnapping have been injured in an assassination attempt. Additionally, Hamas has fired more Qassam rockets at Israel.

Update 3: In what may be payback for the recent hacking of Israeli servers, it appears Hizballah's Al-Manar is offline. Google search brought me to the channel's website, which could not be found. In fact, upon further investigationg, BOTH of the almanar websites are out. Great!

Update 4: Oh, but apparently islamic digest is still running. What I find absolutely hilarious is that even the terrorists use Google ads! Not only that, but Dairy Salami (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where the Hizballah webmasters are stationed) also has bandwidth problems! Of course, lest anyone plagiarize their jihad, the lot of it is protected under a Creative Commons copyright.

Ah yes, the wonders of technology breakdowns truly are great.

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Canadian Political Bloggers Interview Series

2006-07-12T15:03:00.000-04:00

Following the success of my interview with Elizabeth May, a candidate in the Canadian Green Party's leadership race, I've decided to run a series of interviews with fellow Canadian political bloggers.

The interview will have three questions (including follow-up questions):

1) Describe the state of Canadian politics, preferably in regards to one of the 10 key issues in today's political scene.
2) Do you believe there is an educational/social/career path to the Premiership? If so, what is it?
3) What should be the [ideal] path to the PMO?

If you want to follow our interviews, consider our free newsletter. It's sent out twice a month.

Related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian federal politics.

Canadian Green Party Pics, Interview & Green Carnival

2006-07-11T12:10:00.000-04:00

Recently, the Green Party of Canada and its leadership race have been given lots of press here. I had promised pictures from the Green Party's leadership debate here in Montreal that took place in June, and I've finally transferred them to the computer.

For anyone who missed it, I interviewed the Green Party's leadership candidate Elizabeth May. The interview filled over a dozen pages in word, so it's broken up into parts
1,

2,

3,

4,

5,

6,

and
7.

I also have two posts worth of notes on the Montreal leadership debate, and links to video of the debate (pictured above). The people in the pictures are, from left, the debate moderator; David Chernushenko, Green Party of Canada leadership candidate; and Elizabeth May, Green Party of Canada leadership candidate. Absent from the debate was Jim Fannon, the Greens' third leadership candidate.

On a related note, I encourage everyone to go check out the Green carnival at Ester Republic.

If you want to read more about the environment and green politics, consider our free newsletter. It's sent out twice a month.

Related articles are archived in the topical categories Canadian federal politics, Green Party of Canada, leadership.

State of Canadian Politics: Health Care

2006-07-08T15:34:00.000-04:00

Canadian politics in the matter of health care revolve around two debates. The first debate on health care concerns waiting lines and their public/private solutions. The second debate on our political scene revolves around the integration of immigrant doctors into our medical system.

Canada's Debate on Waiting Lines

From what I've understood, Canadian politicians present two models of waiting lines, which is where the fundamental disagreements lie. Public or private solutions to the problem depend on which model you believe in.

Some Canadians argue for private health care as follows. When waiting for the public health care system to serve you, quitting the line to go to a private doctor speeds things up both for you, and for the people behind you in line, who move up one spot.

Other Canadians argue for public health care. They say that doctors operating privately, as mentioned above, actually slow things down for everyone who can't afford their services. These people argue that if these doctors were working in the public domain, the public waiting line would move faster.

There are subsections to the debate. These include ethical questions. For example, people debate whether only those able to pay for them be able to obtain what are termed 'luxury health care services' such as teeth braces. Others point out anecdotal evidence that private care treats patients faster than public health care, measuring time from the moment the patient's turn arives to the moment they leave the hospital/clinic.

One of the most interesting opinions on the issue comes from Dr. Michael Rachlis, who suggests traffic management techniques might solve the waiting lines problem. He argues that we have the capacity to treat people, but are just creating traffic jams through mismanagement.

Personally, I think this debate in Canadian politics could be put to rest simply and easily by running experiments. First, these would determine exactly what model is actually functioning and which functons best (probably somewhere in between the models named above). Second, experiments should be run to find out what exactly makes turnaround times faster in the anecdotal evidence named above.

Canadian Politics on Foreign Doctors

Every federal party is officially in favour of integrating foreign doctors. Except that all the talk doesn't seem to amount to much.

In part, this is because the jurisdiction for health care is provincial. The federal government can't exactly legislate on this. However, it can provide incentives.

For example, the federal government could offer tax incentives to doctors here in Quebec. In return, the medical order would facilitate the entry into its ranks of foreign doctors who've recently immigrated. As the order is partly a lobby group, this sort of collective tax break would obviously be in its members interests and would be hard to refuse.

So the state of Canadian politics on health care is one where important challenges are facing us concerning waiting lines, how health care is provided, and who is to provide it. Solutions do exist. However, they will require courage from Canada's politicians, and a willingness to try new things rather than to keep up the rhetoric.

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Alternately, consider some suggested posts (links below) or pick your own reading from the archives.

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State of Canadian Politics - National Security and Foreign Affairs

2006-07-07T03:55:00.000-04:00

What Is the State of Canadian Politics? I was recently asking myself this in an effort to determine where I stand on things, and how Canada's political scene is doing.

The following is the first installment in my issue by issue breakdown of the state of Canadian politics, covering 10 key areas. As I see things, the ten most important dossiers to the Canadian political arena today are:

national security,

foreign affairs,

health,

the environment,

the economy,

post-secondary education,

separatism,

the judicial system,

social equality (of opportunity), and

innovation.

National security - As the debate in Parliament and throughout civil society shows, national security is at the forefront of everyone's minds. Luckily, this importance is commensurate with this issues' importance (as opposed to the exaggerated attention given to the Prime Minister's waistline).

Where politics are concerned, the essential issue here is to legislate sufficient powers and budgets to the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (Canada's spy agency). This also relates to co-operating with our allies abroad in order to prevent terrorist attacks.

Sharing and circulating the information gathered by CSIS and its foreign counterparts is of course essential, but we should not limit ourselves to this. The Canadian Forces' role is to defend Canadians (hence the political responsibility for them falling to the Minister of Defence). In that capacity it is entirely logical and reasonable for them to be sent abroad to fight terrorists.

This isn't to say that Canadian troops are misused as peacekeepers. Canada's defence is served when we help foreigners maintain peace and quiet in their countries, not least because our peacekeepers share liberal values with the people they meet. (Note the use of the word share; the Canadian Forces do not coerce foreigners to adopt liberal values. They don't threaten to quit their duties abroad unless locals adopt liberalism, for example.)

However, the role of the Canadian Army, Navy and Air Force is not limited to peace-keeping, and it is important to understand that (especially in many capital-l Liberal camps, and in some Green circles...).

Here, the state of Canadian politics is improving, but still vulnerable. Prime Minister Harper and his Conservatives are honestly interested in stopping terrorists away from Canadian soil, and have deployed Canadian troops accordingly. (The Toronto arrests can't be attributed to Harper's government, though. That investigation was ongoing prior to his taking power.)

Unfortunately, a large number of politicians are disgustingly hypocritical and duplicitous, or perhaps simply plain naive about this. Thus you have politicians who will acknowledge that Canada is threatened by terrorists - and then will object to any measure aiming to parry the threat!

Ironically, these politicians think that they are gaining the Arab vote by such a "principled stand for civil rights," yet Canadian Arabs have strongly condemned terrorism and have stated that they want to be defended from terrorists just like the rest of the Canadian electorate!

Foreign Affairs - For much of the past decade, mostly under the aptly named Lloyd Axworthy and his predecessors, Canada consistently voted against Israel at the United Nations. All-too-frequently Canada voiced support for motions that picked on and singled out Israel while whitewashing the terrorist crimes committed against it.

Under ex-Prime Minister Paul Martin, positive change was beginning to be seen in this dossier (prior to which, Chretien's government was awful). This trend is being continued by Canada's current Conservative government. The reason this example is cited is to highlight the shift in Canada's foreign policy. It used to be head-in-the-sand and is now openly recognizing challenges abroad and who our real allies are in that regard.

Here, as with Canada's discussion of national security, terrorism, Afghanistan and al-Qaeda dominate our political discourse. For good reason: Islamic fundamentalism (the ideology uniting Islamist terrorists, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Iran's Ahmadinejad, Hamas and others) is the greatest challenge of our times. Having discussed Canadian national security above, I will consider the economic component of our foreign politic.

Trade and aid are the most important areas here. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been strongly criticized for allowing companies to sue governments over laws they perceive as harming their trade interests. The result of this has been to make politicians hesitant about legislating on trade, even though they may be legitimately defending citizens' interests.

That being said, Canada has a strong fair trade movement and an equally important movement aimed at increasing our foreign aid.

The foremost consideration our government's legislators should have in mind when making Canada's policy in this regard are to advance Canadian economic interests while respecting other nations. In effect, it is the foreign trade parallel to the judicial concept of limits to freedom.

The state of Canadian politics is here improving too, because of the growth of the collective Canadian social consciousness. Here, NAFTA's environmental success has been mixed, and the rise of maquiladoras in Mexico that provide poor working conditions is nothing our Foreign Ministry should be proud of.

On the other hand, Canadian activists are at work in almost any forsaken corner of the world you could thing of that could use a helping hand. Granted this isn't government foreign policy, but I think it's a grassroots foreign policy that deserves to be taken note of. It's part of Canadian culture, and that is reflected in the pressure Canadians are placing on politicians to increase aid to 0.7% of GDP.

In Stephen Harper's shoes, I would compromise with the national security hypocrites who acknowledge a problem and try to prevent solutions. I would grant them influence on foreign trade policy in exchange for a freer hand in foreign affairs-related considerations of national security.

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Mediocre Media Morons?

2006-07-06T19:55:00.000-04:00

I got a tip from media critic Yisrael Medad about some fool newsman in the US who may have incited kids to ride their bikes across a flooded bridge.

TV newsman accused of enticing kids to ride bikes in floodwater

Associated Press
Jul. 5, 2006 08:20 AM

NORWALK, Ohio - A television news cameraman paid a $145 fine after police said he enticed three teenagers to ride their bikes through waist-high floodwaters.

Of course, he denies it.

"Abrahamsen denied coaxing the two 13-year-olds and one 14-year-old to ride through the water, and told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer that paying the fine was cheaper than fighting the citation."

The point isn't so much whether or not it happened, but the fact that the mainstream media today are so mediocre they can credible be accused of idiotic behaviour such as this.

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