Pettigrew and the Church

A little bit over a week ago, we wrote that Prime Minister Martin's crusade for rights should have raised its flag in China and India, while he visited those countries, instead of being so selective. Martin lambasted all those who oppose his plan to redefine marriage, but would not raise his voice against those who violate the rights of billions of people. Today, the National Post's Raymond De Souza eviscerates Pierre Pettigrew, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, for attacking the Catholic Church on very similar grounds to what we wrote just yesterday (Pettigrew's Pettiness). De Souza does not mince words. His analysis of the minister's understanding of the church-state divide is excellent, and reminds us of much of the government's hypocrisy.

It was not ironic, but simply obscene that the Prime Minister would denounce opponents of gay marriage as opponents of human rights, as he did in China, while ignoring the massive human rights abuses perpetrated by the very men he was meeting with. To have that compounded by the Foreign Minister trying, by some kind of reverse authoritarian alchemy, to convert religious liberty into a silencing of democratic debate was scandalous.

He also called the Minister "arrogant and ignorant." Kudos to De Souza! Not enough people have the courage to point out the Cabinet's inconsistencies on this question with such strength and ability.

Hasta la ganancia, siempre!

An anonymous commentary to the post Globalization? Ch�!, written yesterday, made the point that the "Korda" image of Ch� Guevara can be used for "revolutionary" purposes without infringing on copyright. This is an interesting claim. If it means that people carrying makeshift posters of Ch� while kicking the windows at a GAP store are likely not paying copyright dues, he is probably right.

My point in the posting was that Guevara's "Korda" image (see Globalization? Ch�!) is now copyrighted, and the rights are owned by Fashion Victim, a company out of Atlanta, Georgia. There are several layers of irony here. For one, the very idea of copyright is a capitalist concept, considering that bona fide communists do not believe in private property. To copyright something is to lay claim to it as one's property, even if it is an idea or image, even when one distributes it as sharewear (pun is intended)! For whatever the purpose, the very fact that the image is branded, bought and sold, is antithetical to Guevara's life and to his beliefs. How would Comandante Guevara judge his image being printed on underwear and then sold by the shiploads?, we will never know. But his daughter objects to the notion.

Alberto Korda, the Cuban photographer who took the famous image in 1960 exercized his property rights when he sued Smirnoff's advertising agents. Fashion Victim has already exercised its propietorship muscle to threaten people selling T-shirts with Ch�'s image. See Northern Sun vs. Fashion Victim. The former bought the rights from the Estate of the deceased Alberto Korda, who died in 2001. Fashion Victim acquired the rights in 2002. So the point is that those wearing Ch� shirts and banners in university and college campuses, or at the latest anarchist, or antiglobalization window smashing march, are buying from "private owners" or are paying indirect royalties to them. Where it used to be "viva la revoluci�n!," now at the cash register it sounds more like "viva la globalizaci�n!"

And what is more, in another twist of irony for Guevara's legacy, Fashion Victim has admitted to having their Ch� T-shirts crafted in sweatshops in Honduras, the second poorest country in the western hemisphere. Ch� did have a greater preference for the poor in Guatemala.

Economists say that demands need to be supplied. And when the demand is so large that there are large amounts of money to be made, someone is bound to stake a property claim in a big way. What is a wonder is that it took as long as it did. It seems that Korda had principled beliefs --and one can admire that-- but, alas, he appears not to have effectively transmitted them to his beneficiaries.

Guevara's well-known battle cry was "hasta la victoria, siempre!" [Until victory, always]. Considering the issues here, we may now modify it a little for the sake of the image's owners: "Hasta la ganancia, siempre!" [Until profit, always].

Pettigrew's pettiness

On Thursday (Jan 27), Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pierre Pettigrew, jumped into the homosexual marriage debate to suggest that the Catholic Church must be silent and not get involved in the affairs of the state.

But, church members, and people with religious beliefs, like any Canadian citizen, enjoy the same rights under the Charter, whatever their religious persuasion or lack thereof. Pettigrew calls himself a proponent or supporter of the division between church and state. But he does not seem to recognize the subtleties of the "division." It was never meant to silence peoples of religious beliefs as the minister rather ignorantly suggests.

Bishops are not speaking as simple individual citizens, said a friend of mine who supports the redefinition of marriage in favor of homosexuals. They are advertising the position of the Church, they are not neutral and they are in an influential position of power. This is true. But is there any sort of neutrality on the issue? There might be. Some people say not to care one way or the other.

Most, however, do. If members of institutions such as churches are not permitted to pronounce their preference or express their opinions, if all institutions are expected to be neutral, that injunction must also cover government. In other words, why is minister Pettigrew allowed to use his powerful position: his seat in the House of Commons and his seat at the Cabinet table to promote his opinion in favor of one side over another?

Prime Minister Martin said that he is calling a free vote on the question. This means that Members of Parliament can vote according to their conscience or according with the wishes of their constituents --but there is no party compulsion. Cabinet members must vote FOR the bill, however. That is not freedom, and that is not neutrality.

And if neutrality is the requisite for people to participate in discussions on this issue and to express one's opinion, then the proponents as well as the opponents of homosexual marriage should be silenced. What kind of a democratic debate would that be? Surely, the minister would not be in favor of such an extension of his oppressive crooked logic.

Pettigrew is attacking the Church because he recognizes that their position is appealing to Canadians, whether they are Catholic or not. He sees the Church and Catholics as a threat. Why, for example, does not the minister attack other religious leaders in the country who have explicitly opposed the government's plan to change the traditional definition of marriage? Why is the Minister not attacking those who oppose him in his own caucus? The ministerial pettiness and intolerance are clear. In some sense, it is fortunate that no one is about to see Pettigrew attack the Moslem Council, or Sihks, or Buddhists, or Jews.

In the end, what Pettigrew proposes is not a tight division between religious ideas and political imperatives. What he proposes is not even to silence all voices who speak from religious convictions, for his intolerance knows some bounds. What he is advocating is the silencing of the Catholic Church, and he got away with such bigotry.

Globalization? Ch� !

At every antiglobalization parade or protest, one can always see the mandatory Ch� Guevara banners and T-shirts. Ch� Guevara has for long captured the imagination of those who will fight the markets; now he captures the imagination of those who profit from them. So, when Smirnoff used Ch�'s "Korda" image (above) to promote their elixir, Alberto Diaz Gutierrez, the photographer who took what became Ch�'s most famous picture, sued Smirnoff's advertising agents and won. The change of millennium bode well for Ch�.

A couple of years later, a company called Fashion Victim bought the rights to Ch�'s "Korda" image. Now, for every T-shit and sticker, banner or poster sold, some capitalist pig is making a little royalty money each time. Considering the globalizing presence of Ch�'s image, it amounts to mucho, mucho money. The antiglobals do not seem to be informed of market developments concerning Ch�, as they diligently continue to don the image as uniform. Now, the globalizing trend in Hollywood seems once again to be working against Ch�.

It seems that the Academy could not find a way to nominate The Motorcycle Diaries, a rendition of Ch�'s autobiographical book, for the foreign film Oscar this year. The culprit is that the rules have not been changed to reflect the globalizing, international outsourcing in which Hollywood now engages. The Claremont Institute reports:

No, the problem for the Academy is not the subject matter of the film; it is simply that the Academy has not kept up with "globalization." Academy rules for the best foreign-language category require that a film be submitted by the country in which it originated. Motorcycle Diaries, however, was filmed in five different countries with international financial backing and an international cast and crew, and is thus ineligible for consideration. How Oscar's heart must break. The quality of the production alone should certainly qualify the film for serious consideration for any cinematographic award, while its content earns it honorable mention in the growing catalogue of leftist Hollywood propaganda.

One needs to savor this paradox: the very forces of globalization that gave impetus to the production of Ch�'s movie now turn against it, just like all those years ago the globalizing forces of socialism turned against him in Cuba, in Congo, and, ultimately, in Bolivia.


PS. I have made some editing changes (1 February 2005) to clarify points about which image and which company. My thanks to the anonymnous writer who brought the lack of clarity to my attention.

Coren on Stronach

Michael Coren's column in the Toronto Sun today draws attention to a possible rift in the Conservative Party over Belinda Stronach's preference to support homosexual marriage. He reminds his readers that the divide between red tories and the rest of the caucus is still real. Coren is not too apprehensive about it. He is right. One should not panic. Parties have these sorts of tensions all the time. The Liberals and even the NDP have tensions over the same issue. Conservatives may also take comfort in that Stephen Harper has got to be the leader of a federal Canadian party who is the least likely to become Grand Marshall of any sort of parade.

Ignorance is Blix

There is no lack of people in the media and in academe heaping scorn on the current US administration for not finding the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. I say "the" because simply to refer to them without the specificity of the article leaves room for doubts that should not exist. The conclusion, which has now become an assumption for many other purposes, has been that the whole WMD thing was concocted by the United States

and used as an excuse to invade Saddam and (from the Michael More school of conspiracy) seize his country's oil. It was a deliberate fabrication of the record, they claim. However, there is an enormous fallacy in assuming that because they have not found any WMDs, that there never were any. One does not logically follow from the other. As Karl Popper tells us, we must either verify or falsify the hypothesis.

Saddam used WDMs repeatedly against Iran, and against his own people in Iraq. The best documented example of these atrocities is probably the Kurdish village of Halabjah. Saddam first used mustard gas (a blistering agent) and Tabun (a nerve agent) against Iranian troops. A group of UN inspectors verified in March 1984 that these agents had been used against Iran. From March through to the summer of 1988, Iraq used hydrogen cyanide against more than 65 Kurdish villages, killing thousands. It is clear that he used them; he must have had them, therefore. Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, the man in charge of Iraq's weapons development program did not acquire the nick-name chemical Ali for nothing.

It is easy, in hindsight, after the still fruitless search for WMDs, to argue for all sorts of conspiracies. The captivating thing about conspiracies has always been the same. It appeals to a certain type of mind. One that is prone to dispense with evidence, for they are convinced that the utter lack of evidence is in itself the proof that there is a conspiracy. Those who are prone to hear voices in the wind will hear voices in the wind no matter what.

Hence the trouble remembering (or accepting) that even the United Nations was convinced that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs at the time, among which were included France and Germany. There would be no point whatsoever for UN weapons inspection teams to go to Iraq risking their lives if they were all convinced that there were no WMDs. The UN has a reputation for the superfluous sometimes, but that would not explain 16 different resolutions of the Security Council over a period of more than one decade, many of which demanded that the Saddam Hussein regime submit to scheduled and unscheduled weapons inspections, and to destroys his WMDs.

One does not send people to play cat and mouse with a man like Saddam, to look for something that does not exist, if one were convinced that the something did not exist. Of necessity, the UN weapons inspection program after 1984 correctly presupposed the existence of WMDs, among others. In hindsight, and in light of the oil for food record of the UN, it would be all too easy to conclude that the UN was in on the conspiracy. Would that then mean that president Bill Clinton and the UN were in on the conspiracy years before George W. Bush and his team arrived in the White House and decided to invade Iraq?

And what do we make of Hans Blix? Was he also part of the plot? Was he duped with the rest of us? Or was he not a man convinced that he was looking for something that existed. Why were he and the UN asking for more time? Does not the request for more time also assume their own belief that had they had more time they would have found something? Why is it that the absence of WMDs to this day is an indictment on the Bush administration and not an indictment on Hans Blix, the United Nations and the Security Council?

Finally, if Saddam Hussein once had WMDs but destroyed them, why would he not show that he had destroyed them? Why would he not produce evidence that they had been disposed of, and why would he not advise the weapons inspectors and the UN so that they would witness the weapons' destruction or disposal. Why would he not want to have the UN relax the embargo? Why would he not want to avert another war? Or was he in on the conspiracy to oust his own self? Was he really looking forward to having his sons killed and to living in a spider hole?

It is much too easy to omit or forget all of these things. It is much too easy not to ask questions. It is much too easy to criticize GW Bush without having to remember the not-too-distant past, the chemical massacres of the Iran-Iraq war and the murder of so many Kurds. Why does there have to be a conspiracy to explain that for which there is ample evidence. In reality, it was never unreasonable to think that Hussein had WMDs. Considering the record, it was completely unreasonable to assume the opposite.

Ignorance of things past offers the comfort of not having to think about them. When memory is willingly placed on sabbatical, when there is no remembering what preceded today's actions, we are ignorant. Then, we see the events of today as having no connection or relevance to yesterday, the judgments of today are aimlessly floating. The collective memory of what took place not long ago dissipates. Lacking in context and accretion of experience, we come to live today for today in contentment, and all that we now see, we see for the first time.

Picture courtesy of http://www.cockeyed.com/hansblix/hans_first.html

Gay Rights and Commercial Gain

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin says that his government's desire to impose same-sex marriage on the country is a question of human rights, and a defense of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Martin is the paladin of minority rights. He has hinted, therefore, that those who oppose him are enemies of the Charter and enemies of human rights.

Interestingly, he made these comments while standing on Chinese Communist soil, where the deficit of rights of any kind is rather severe, to say the least. If the prime minister is in the mood to lecture people about human rights and about homosexual marriage; if he were really interested in promoting human rights at all, one wonders how he would pass up the opportunity to pontificate on the issue to more than one billion Chinese citizens and their government. Earlier, Martin was in India, where millions of people are left out social functions, politics and the economy by virtue of their birth as "untouchables." He seems to have passed up the opportunity there as well to pontificate about their rights, or about marriage rights for homosexuals in that country, forfeiting an audience of nearly one billion people.

It would seem that human rights and rights for homosexuals to marry are only worthy of imposing on Canadians. The $21 billion worth of goods that we are expected to purchase from China this year, and the $7 billion that they are expected to buy from us, of course, are in no way factors in the equation.

Making CEGEPs more (ir)relevant?

The recent announcement made by the Quebec government that the standard for acceptance into CEGEPs ought to be scaled down should not shock anyone. "High school students who don't pass all their classes should be allowed to attend college anyway," the education minister has said. Well, why not? Why not drop the pretension once and for all that the majority of these places, the public ones specifically, actually serve much of an academic purpose.

Dropping the standard in CEGEPs would actually not be a bad idea, if CEGEPs had more clear standards within them. Such a policy truly would offer students that may have done badly in high school a second academic chance. But usch is not the case. The result is likely to be a deferral of the high school drop out problems that the minister seeks to avoid with the new policy right to the CEGEPs. How exactly this is advantageous to Quebecers is not clear. Except that it removes a whole segment of drop outs from the high school stats. Politically, not a bad way to improve the numbers.

Government proposes changes to CEGEP programs

Deception or Naivete?

Tamil Tiger representatives have told Paul Martin, the Prime Minister of Canada, that the (humanitarian) aid that they have received from Canada to Sri Lanka is being used well. "The prime minister praised their work, saying Canadian aid is going exactly where it's needed." How a visiting tourist like Martin would know where the aid is exactly needed in order to make that call is not reported.

In light of the recent and ongoing debate in Canada about monies alleged for humanitarian purposes being funneled out of this country for Tamil Tiger fighters, that can only mean that the PM is sure that they are not buying weapons with the aid. He has also been assured that children are not being forced into the guerrillas ranks, in spite of many reports to the contrary.

How is Martin sure? Well, because they have told him so! Now, the credibility of some of those the prime minister has met, and from whom he has received answers, raises some serious questions about the PM's judgment, and about the actual usefulness of the visit. As the CBC has said:

Two of the MPs Martin met with have been denied visas to Canada on the suspicion they were intending to raise money for the Tigers.

Martin has sold this part of his trip as a fulfillment of a promise he made to Canadians to verify that the aid was being delivered properly. Which raises other questions: How exactly is the prime minister going to determine that this is the case? What else would the PM expect them to say but that the aid is being distributed, that no child soldiers are being recruited among the orphans, and that no weapons or explosives are being bought with the money? Would they really tell him, if they were doing all of these other things?

One should not be surprised that the Tiger representatives have said what they said. Either because they truly are not terrorist, or precisely because they are. They could not say anything else, no matter what. What is baffling is that the PM would uncritically come out and repeat it for all to hear, however.

Ronald Reagan once reminded Gorbatchev about the "old Russian saying: trust, but verify." Paul Martin is doing a great deal of trusting and not nearly enough verifying. It shows emptiness for the promise he made and about his intent to fulfill it; it shows a rather naive lack of judgment or a desire to deceive.

Old Wine, Old Skin and...er..., New shiny Labels

Ralph Klein's Speech last Tuesday (Jan 11) before the Canadian Club at the Palliser Hotel in Calgary had been, given the heralded topic of healthcare, much anticipated. Back in June of last year, the premier had promised that his "new" plan to reform provincial healthcare in Alberta was going to shake things up; it would challenge the status quo and the Canada health Act, he said. Some were excited and some were already quaking in their Birkenstocks; most were curious. Then, during the provincial election campaign in the fall of 2004, he pulled a Kim Campbell (you know, same political party) by saying that his healthcare plan was far too complex to be addressed during an election campaign. It would be announced (and discussed) only when it was good and ready, after Albertans re-elected him. Brian Mason had the right instinct, it seems, when his party published a healthcare for dummies pamphlet, hoping that the premier might read it and figure out some of the basics. We are not sure whether he did or not. Lucky for the premier, his reluctance to talk about policy during the election may be all that he emulated from Kim. So, when it was finally announced this week that the much-awaited, earth-shaking healthcare reform plan would be unveiled, much was expected. It proved to be a serious disappointment.

First, there is nothing earth-shaking in his new proposal. Simply put, Klein's health reforms are a repackaging of the existing status quo. It is an illusion. And not even the strategy is new. It seems to be more focused on rehabilitating the premier's battered political image than in offering substance about healthcare. In the Calgary speech (and the same is true for the subsequent speeches in Ontario and Quebec), Klein tries to paint himself as the man that will break the ideological, sterile, deadlocked healthcare debate in this country.

From Klein's eyes, there are two clashing positions that compete for attention. One he sees as the status quo position where the state controls and funds all delivery and decisions of delivery made in the system. The other is the position that wants the whole of the healthcare delivery be turned into private, for profit, hands. In reality, neither of these positions exists in Canada in any degree of political significance anymore. The present status quo, in addition, already offers non-government controlled areas; for-profit pockets, as it were. In some cases, it is a mixture of private and public services like some laser eye surgery, MRI clinics and radiology labs. And although there are private for-profit segments such as most dental services and most cosmetic surgery, not many serious souls really expect that the entire system be given entirely to the private sector. In short, Ralph is creating straw men so that he can then launch against them to defeat them, so that he can position himself as a moderate.

Once the rigid imagined dichotomy is presented, Klein is able to paint himself as the man whose ideas and actions are going to transcend the tidy ideological division for the sake of Albertans, and should others heed his call, many Canadians as well. Ralph is the future and savior of healthcare, if you must know. He has become not just the conciliatory pragmatist who shuns ideological constructs, but the man of new ideas, and the new man of action at the same time. He calls the new packaging, his "third way." In his newly-conceived world, public finding and control will remain while a not-yet determined type (and number) of procedures will be delivered by private, even for profit, operations that will be compensated by the public purse using roughly the same pay scale as the public system. In other words, Ralph will create a hybrid system, a whole new system, that will be different from the one we now have, and different from the demonized American system, a "third way."

There is precious little new in the third way, however. The emperor has no clothes. As a matter of fact, it is worth repeating it, the "third way" is the status quo in newspeak. There are, to be sure, elements of new in the promise of a new symposium of medical experts to take place in the spring of this year. More money will be spent on medical research. Greater emphasis will be placed on children. A new electronic record system, which was recommended by Mazankowski three years ago, will finally be adopted. But neither of these will change the decaying character of the present system, and will likely not address the most fundamental structural problems of Alberta's (or Canada's) healthcare.

There can be no guarantee that a symposium and more research money will translate in meaningful results on the ground for waiting patients. Farming out services to private operations may indeed relieve some of the pressures on the existing public system, but there is nothing new or innovative about that approach. Ralph did not invent it. It is already being done, and it has been done in Alberta and elsewhere in the country for years now. Contracting out will not change the status quo, nor will it solve many of the more fundamental problems that the public structure brings by nature. Simply contracting out abortions to the Kensington abortuary in Calgary has not erased the problems of the system. The "third way" is a smoke screen. Most of us know it. Ralph knows it too!

The Calgary speech is clearly a public relations campaign. Klein carelessly relinquished space in the public sphere and abandoned the discourse on healthcare to his opposition during the last election. Now, he has gone on the offensive, trying to claim it back, repositioning himself, and trying to make all the others look like ideologues while he peddles an image of the pragmatist and wise statesman for himself. And it may just work, as far as image is concerned. But the strategy goes beyond reclaiming the discourse by way of newspeak. It is also designed to improve (or restore in some cases) the premier's image in the few months before his retirement. Like all good populists, Klein likes to be liked.

Ralph has been one of the most successful politicians in Canada in recent memory, even if in the last year or so his popularity has declined. He needs a gimmick to improve his battered image, a whole new gimmick. The fiscal issues about which he was rather successful are no longer new, and he has become less popular in spite of his record there. His rhetorical repositioning on healthcare may be just the ticket. In addition to his image as a slayer of debts, eraser of deficits and reducer of taxes, Klein may be looking for more to add to his "legacy." And healthcare reformer may be just it. But he would be sorely mistaken, if he thinks that he can get there by simply blowing hot air. Most of us in southern Alberta are well used to those warm Pacific winds coming above the Rockies, Chinooks!

As Kim Campbell was fond of saying, "charisma without substance is a very dangerous thing." Words and appearances alone do not beget new legacies. It will take a lot more than shiny new political labels for old existing realities.

When the Peaceniks are in Charge

According to Friday's edition of The Globe and Mail, Brian Lagui ("Debate delayed DART") the DART team was ready to go 24 hours after the tsunami struck Asian shores. But military readiness was not the problem. They even had the foresight of contracting a plane for their transport right away. The politicians and governments departments arguing over money, and trying to protect their turf, seem to have been the source of the delay at the expense of lives in Sri Lanka, no doubt.

As CTV news reported:

An unnamed military source told the Globe that a political debate kept the team grounded. In a teleconference Friday from Phuket, Thailand, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said the Ottawa was right in taking the time to make the decision. "Some military said it should have gone on the 27th and just a defense observation team. We preferred to send a team led by foreign affairs with defense and CIDA people that would be multivocational, multifaceted," he said.

The political debate took place between Foreign Affairs and CIDA, the two branches of government under whose budget DART lives. Multifaceted and multivocational, indeed. Pettigrew's stinginess, as well as a lack of ability in the PMO to make a final decision, seems to be at the root of the deadlock. All of this betrays yet another weakness in the policy structure surrounding DART. Emergency decisions cannot be made by committee.

There is an interesting and ironic role-reversal here. The harsh warriors, those who are typically trained to kill, are caring enough to want quickly to jump to the rescue of the disaster victims; the supposedly peace-loving, softbellied and soft-power peddling bureacrats and politicians dragg their feet, pinch pennies and blame victims for their paralysis in the face of all the suffering. It is not hard to see that more have ended up suffering longer when the peaceniks are in charge.

There is serious need to reconsider a more direct chain of command. DART should not be so tied to indecisive cabinet ministers and bureaucrats, whose principal worry is their political or administrative careers. It is time to give DART an effective place within the military structure.

Flag-elation!

Last week, Danny Williams, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, chose to express his disappointment with the federal government's double-talk about oil royalties. Paul Martin, our spirited national leader, is accused of going back on his word. The protest involves a provincial order to remove all Canadian flags (yes, the wretched Maple Leaf designer flag) from all provincial facilities and buildings in Newfoundland and Labrador. What an idea! Now, and finally, the Prime Minister has awaken and has gone on the attack, climbing up on some sort of federal moral high horse, if one could imagine the existence of such a creature. It is "disrespectful of all Canadians," the PM said. Lowering flags is sinful; going back on one's promises is apparently not at all an affront. It does not seem to meet the same criteria of disrespect (This is, after all, the same man who paraded for more than a year promising to cure the country's "democratic deficit," to make government more open and more transparent, but now refuses to divulge the salaries of his protectors (or is it his protectorate?) in the Prime Minister's Office. We want openness, do we not? Perhaps going back on one's promises does not count at all for those who get to the PMO. Should we say "scrap GST"? Perhaps we will not).

But let us get back to the flags. Let me say that while the whole thing is patently silly, it is also indicative of the frustration of the Premier. He had been trying to get the attention of the feds for months on the oil and gas royalty-revenue issue. The reasons for the protest, even if not the means, are serious and we should uphold any Canadian's choice to protest in that manner. To my mind, there is nothing disrespectful about it. Surely, it is reminiscent of the sort of folly we have seen in Quebec City, and with the Bloc Quebecois in Parliament, etc. There have been similar protests involving flags in Canada before, however, and this one will likely not be the last one. Also rearing its head again is a version of the "enemies of Canada" tactic that was most popularized by PM Mulroney during Meech (yes, all the way back to 1990). Martin would be surprised to recollect that he is in good Conservative company on this one.

HOWEVER, this Canadian, Mister Prime Minister, is not at all insulted or feels disrespected for or by what our brothers and sisters in Newfoundland are trying to communicate to you. If only you would get it, prime minister!! Reneging one's word has got to be more serious than lowering flags. I am perfectly okay with Newfoundlanders lowering all the Maples Leaves in sight. Oh, but if it were the Red Ensign, on the other hand, then there would be blood!

Change in Intent; Change in Rhetoric

An interesting development has been the possibility --and given the government's record on these issues, the likelyhood-- that some of the money being collected for the Tsunami relief effort may be going to Tiger Tamil terrorists. It is unfortunate that we should be talking about this at all for it may dissuade some from giving more or from giving to the victims of the disaster all together. But it would not at all be an issue if the Liberals had dealt with the organizations that have been collecting for humanitarian purposes in Canada and then buying weapons and explosives to wage war at home with the monies that they collect right here. The Post wrote:

There is no evidence that recent tsunami aid has been used to buy arms in Sri Lanka, but Canadian officials are concerned because the RCMP is currently investigating several Tamil Tiger front organizations across Canada to determine whether charges are warranted under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Some of the Tamil groups now collecting for victims of the disaster have been linked to terrorist financing in the past. Last week, some Liberal MPs raised concerns about aid ending up in the hands of terrorists (National Post 7 Jan 05).

Elsewhere, the Minister of Defense seems to be standing down a little, and has adopted a more reasonable disposition. He admitted to the TV cameras that the government's response has been slow, and that there are lessons to be learned from all of it. This is a welcome attitude from the blame-the-victim position of last week. He and the Prime Minister, who last weekessentially accused Sri Lanka's infrastructure for DART's slowness, will be visiting the devastated areas very soon. It's time to tone down the rhetoric. Graham said to CBC:

We could be quicker with it [DART] and we could be lighter on our feet. We learn from every experience.

We will see what exactly is the lesson that the federal government will draw from it.

A rose, by any other name

The first rent-a-plane Antonov (picture above) has arrived in Canada and has now left for Colombo. A second (and smaller) plane will arrive tonight, and is expected to make the trip tomorrow morning, it has been reported. The bold and ever-decisive Minister of defense, the Hon. Bill Graham, will be at hand at 8 Wing Trenton tomorrow morning to see the second plane take off. It is estimated that each of the four return trips undertaken by the Antonovs carrying DART equipment and personnel will cost about $1.6-million US.

The Liberal government has gone on the offensive, it seems, to redefine the terms of the discourse, continuing to hide its responsibility in the slowness of the process. In order to save some face from the embarrassingly slow response of DART (largely provoked by the federal government's indecision), the military has been given new talking points. Canadian Forces officials are now at the forefront of the public reinterpretation of the purpose and mission of DART, calling the Sri Lankan mission now "non-traditional." It has been admitted that

normally, DART is deployed quickly, to provide aid before non-governmental aid agencies arrive on the scene (See CTV Story).

However, these clearly are not normal times. The inference can be made that there has been an abnormal rate of response, which has made DART arrive pretty much after everybody and their grand-mother instead of before most NGOs. The National Post reported yesterday (5 January: "A Slow Moving Dart") that a rapid response unit from Italy arrived and set up in the devastated area after five short days. The difference, beside a committed and decisive political leadership in Italy, is that the Italian unit has its own transportation. They do not have to rely on, and wait for, aircraft traveling to their country from a foreign country located almost as far as they are supposed to be going. The painfully ironic part for Canadians in all of this is that the Italian unit's aircraft are Canadian-built --and made by a company heavily subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer.

Mr. Alberini said there is some Canadian content to the Italian effort in Kinniya: The two cargo aircraft his team is using to ferry medicine and other supplies were built by Canadair.

Not that the central issue is about competition between countries. It's not the Olympics of disaster relief. However, the Canadian taxpayers, in some twisted sense, have helped the Italian rapid response team beat the Canadian DART team. Yes, I have acknowledged that it is not about competition; it is about helping many others in need and saving lives. Well, same thing then. The Italians have been helping others and saving lives in Asia for more than a week longer than our team, and one of the central reasons is that they own their planes, fabriqu�s au Canada.

But rather than owning up to say that the snail pace of the canucks is the result of faulty policy in the lack of an integral airlift ability to the unit, and of stiff government indecision, the operation is now quickly being dressed as non-traditional. This is an interesting Orwellian euphemism. It is used to hide the reality of the government's incompetence, and even more so when one considers the Forces' affinity for tradition. Swiftness, efficiency, and success are no longer part of the new tradition. It seems evident that the redefinition is being driven by the liberal propensity for dispensing with tradition and with proper military readiness. Still, it seems rather daring to speak of tradition when this is only the unit's third deployment ever. At least the Cabinet has stopped blaming its incompetence on Sri Lanka itself, and the lack of that country's adequate landing facilities. Surely, the next move is likely going to be the re-naming of the DART unit to reflect the new non-traditional (glacial) nature of its response speed. Without meaning any disrespect to the brave men and women of the DART, one might also propose that the government rename its Cabinet the FART (Frustated Assistance and Relatively Tardy) unit. A new logo will be needed to accompany the new moniker.

Either way, the federal government once more has soiled the brave men and women in uniform in this country. Either way, the actions of the liberal government smell foul.

Hercules and the (previous) column

In relation to the question asked in the previous post, Canada has 36 Hercules transport aircraft, from which 8 are on a maintenance rotation almost at all times. That leaves 28 Hercs available for the entire country. So the likelyhood of committing 24 of the 28 planes to a single operation across to the other side of the world is non existent. We have something that we call a "rapid-response" team for disaster situations, but we do not have the capability to put them in the disaster area on our own. This is not just false advertisement. There is a lot wrong with this scheme that is begging to be asked.


The news release from DND (Department of National Defense) yesterday provides the schedule for the Antonovs to arrive in Colombo. The last one is set to arrive in the Sri Lankan capital on the 13 of January. How long will it take to deploy the equipment? They do not say. This is not at all the 48-hr response anticipated by the Department.

DARTing to help or to blame Sri Lanka!?

Days and days after the Tsunami disaster in Asia, the Canadian government has finally decided (not before sending a team to assess the situation to help in the decision as to whether to send people to the area) to deploy DART, Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team. But even though Prime Minister Paul Martin made the ultimate decision on Sunday (Jan 2 --one week after the disaster), DART will not get to Sri Lanka until Saturday --not for another week. How come? Well, we have no wheels and no wings to do the job. We have to rent planes!!! We have a great team of people willing and able to provide help, excellent equipment, but no effective means of rapid transport. The state medium reports: "Canada will rent two huge Russian-built Antonov aircraft to transport the team and its equipment overseas. It is expected to take four trips" (CBC Link) The count of four trips, of course, does not include the initial trip that the Antonovs will have to make from Russia to Ontario to pick our guys/gals and their equipment.

All told, it will take nearly two weeks for what is supposed to be a "rapid-response" team finally to get to the disaster area (CBC Link on DART). Rapidity, in a disaster situation, is presumably a virtue. The Department of National Defense claims that DART "can bridge the gap until members of the international community arrive to provide long-term help" to a given disaster area. But we are the gap when we are only capable of getting there two weeks after the fact, and more than a weeek after others have already arrived with help. The disaster here is also in our governing leaders' paralysis and indecision. Twenty federal figures were sent to the region to assess the damage, and they left Canada by commercial airliner. But that was not enough technocrats. Now, the politicians will follow. CBC informs that "Three senior cabinet ministers will travel to India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia to visit disaster sites and talk about relief efforts." We excell at rapidly sending people to see and to talk. Do we not have diplomats, consular officers and/or military attaches there? Fortunately, by the way, it would likely not take any longer to get DART from one end of our country to the other, if it ever came to that. So, it is not like we are discriminating against the Sri Lankans. I feel good about that.

The defense minister (Graham) seems to be shamelessly blaming the size of the airport in Colombo for the rental of the Russian aircraft. How does that work? Well, it would take more than 24 trips in our largest cargo planes (the Hercules) to get all the equipment and personnel DART needs to get to Sri Lanka. To transport the lot would take more than one month on our Canadian planes (Canadian rapidity as its best). But the minister's point is that it is more efficient to rent two Russian planes (duh!) because they will only take two trips each, otherwise all our planes (in 24 trips) would tie up the puny Colombo airport. Graham pointed out that their airport can only handle two planes at the same time. He seems to be suggesting that all of our 24 planes would arrive at once, which is not at all possible because we could not commit 24 Hercules to fly at once, all the way to Asia. Do we even have 24 Hercs? We simply do not have that kind of capability. So we best send two Antonovs (twice), which is all the Sri Lankan airport can handle. That makes so much sense.

In the Toronto Globe & Mail (G&M Link), the Prime Minister joined in the blaming of the victims, when "He said [that] part of the difficulty is landing in the affected region because the airfields are not available. " Imagine that!? There are no conveniently located airports in the disaster area of a developping country. How dare they don't make it easy for our guys to get in there to help them. They are making us look bad! They should build airports that withstand any and all kinds of natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, volcanos, hurricanes, etc) , and they should have the foresight to build them as close as possible to the area(s) where the disasters will take place.

And blaming the victims, we need, badly. Our federal government simply could not admit that we do not have the necessary capability, in spite of the the boisterous name of the darting unit, and in spite of all the Liberal hot air about helping peoples of the world in time of need, Canadian pride and all the usual propaganda. As Jack Granatstein has pointed out in his book about the killing of the Canadian military, our federal leaders have emasculated our military because they believe that we do not need them to fight wars (coz we're Canadian, eh! We're nice!!). Instead, we left ourselves with only a few over-worked and under-paid soldiers (boy scouts, in Chretien's language) so that we could help others in distress --peace-keeping, and disaster response (which includes shovelling snow in Toronto). But clearly, we can't do much of that either, as a Calgary Sun columnist makes the point rather well (Sun Link). We have no hard power, and we have no soft power! So, notwithstanding our best national intentions, unable to deliver immediately and effectively, and unwilling to face the self-inflicted reality of our armed forces, all that the federal governing politicians are left with is crassly to blame the victim.