Resolving the Internal Contradiction?

Here is a "totally radical" thought. Maybe we are about to stop being the parasitic kingdom when it comes to national defense. Maybe.

It may well be that the logic of opposing Missile Defense in Canada (in the Rest of Canada -RoC) will bring us back to the realization that we need to defend ourselves. No, I am not saying that this is what the Liberals were themselves thinking, nor am I saying that it is now their conviction (we all know that Liberals have no convictions).

Allow me to dream for a moment or two. The National Post today reports from a COMPAS poll suggesting that Canadians are opposed to MD, but support the principle of it. This would suggest to me that there is support for the notion of defending oneself, but perhaps Canadians are not so willing to rely so much on Americans (for a whole variety of reasons but I am not suggesting that it is out of some virtue like courage) to do it for us. Maybe, to speak in Marxian terms, the internally contradicting stupidity of our anti-americanism is beginning to resolve itself.

The Post says: "There is also a dwindling belief the United States would help defend Canada against an international attack, the poll suggests." Well, if there is support for a defense strategy, and no desire to enter into one with the Americans, we may be saying that we are going to do it ourselves. Could it be that Canadians are re-entering the land of the vertebrate?

Here, I separate (uh, that word) Quebec and the RoC because in Quebec, the logic goes the other way (if logic one can call it). There, there may be support for a defense strategy but to their minds that is all one actually needs to be defended. In Quebec, it goes from the need to having a defense strategy (so that more bilingual bureaucrats can be hired at DND), to realizing that the US is not going to do it for us, to the final conclusion, perhaps, that Hockey needs to return pronto. One does not need to do anything tangible about defense (see poll results for Quebec below).

Mr. Dithers' statement about American "intrusion" into our sovereign space may well be a calculated result of their reading of similar data in the RoC. Closing the democratic deficit may have come to mean governing by public opinion poll. And here the problem springs. The poll has different results in Quebec than in the RoC.

Only in Quebec is the opposition to missile defense unshakeable, according to the COMPAS poll. In that province, respondents reject the program by a ratio of three to one. Mr. Winn suggested Quebec has a long history of opposing military programs, dating back to the Boer War.

There we go. And more than just numbers support this reading of La Belle Province's disposition.

So, here is where I awake from my dream, alas. The whole thing's just plain ol' political opportunism. A case of the minority government in power positioning itself to get more support in Quebec in preparation for the next election; a case of a Liberal leader unwilling to face the Quebec caucus' whining about adoption of an "unpopular" policy.

As much as I would like to see a national shift here, there is mostly only continuity. But if we separate the country [for analytical purposes in this case], we are still left with the question: Is the RoC developing a spinal cord about defense? Maybe!

Whither Europe

Mark Steyn, about whom yesterday morning's post "An Irrelevant Backwater," has entered into a lively discussion with Austin Bay about the future of the West. Austin Bay wrote a blog commentary to Steyn's piece, disputing the notion that Europe will whither. Bay is optimistic that Europe can renew itself. Bay's retort to Steyn has prompted Steyn to reply to Bay's Blog. Steyn further clarifies his thoughts in the Chicago Sun-Times of this weekend, where he advances that it is not the West that will die but Europe as part of the West.

I owe this one to powerline.

Undithering Hypocrisy

On two separate ocassions, we have written here in the past month or so about the mounting inconsistencies of our Prime Minister regarding human rights. John Crosbie also takes on Martin for the same reason.

DART follow up

DART is back.

Les Lafleurs

- Ooo?

- Jean Lafleur! Eric Lafleur!

- Connais pas! Est-ce que c'est les gars qui ont invent� les Michigans?!

If you never have heard of Jean and Eric Lafleur, you will tomorrow and thereafter. Jean is scheduled to appear before the Gomery Commission tomorrow.

The Globe reminds us that "The inquiry has already heard about the vast business dealings between Mr. [Jean] Lafleur and the federal government: $37-million from 1995 to 2001, plus millions more from Crown corporations such as Canada Post and Via Rail. (In one case, Eric drove a federal cheque from Ottawa to Montreal, earning a $100,000 commission for Lafleur Communication Marketing.)"

Also, Lafleur's company is the one that earned the now infamous $8,200 commission for the neckties bought by the PMO.

In the Ottawa Sun we read today:

ONE OF the key ad executives at the centre of the sponsorship scandal was paid more than $15 million in expenses over four years by the federal government, the Sun has learned. Jean Lafleur and his company, Lafleur Communications, earned the millions between 1998 and 2002, documents obtained under Access to Information that detail additional cash the feds paid out to Lafleur.

Let the Games begin...

In the Eye of the Beholder

In Alberta, and in most other places, we might call it Black Gold but in Venezuela, some call it The Devil's Excrement. This is quite the expression. There even is a blog that bears the name. Here is the description:

Observations focused on the problems of an underdeveloped country, Venezuela, with some serendipity about the world (orchids, techs, science, investments, politics) at large. A famous Venezuelan referred to oil as the devil's excrement. For countries, easy wealth appears indeed to be the sure path to failure. Venezuela might be a clear example of that.

Some blame it on the Americans, and some blame it on the oil itself. Is it ever anyone's responsibility?

One More, One Less

BBC just announced that Saddam's half brother has been caught.

An Irrelevant Backwater

Mark Steyn's column today in The Chicago Sun-Times analyzes the Bush Tour in Europe as a visit to an old folks home (no disrespect to the elderly intended). He figures that "there's no point picking fights with the terminally ill."

Here is a jewel from it:

The new EU ''constitution,'' for example, would be unrecognizable as such to any American. I had the opportunity to talk with former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing on a couple of occasions during his long labors as the self-declared and strictly single Founding Father. He called himself ''Europe's Jefferson,'' and I didn't like to quibble that, constitution-wise, Jefferson was Europe's Jefferson -- that's to say, at the time the U.S. Constitution was drawn up, Thomas Jefferson was living in France. Thus, for Giscard to be Europe's Jefferson, he'd have to be in Des Moines, where he'd be doing far less damage.

A Braggart Who is All Talk

Indeed, if we are to apply Mr. Pettigrew's formulation that foreign policy "expresses the personality of a country," then Canada might well be described as a braggart who is all talk, no action. Consider this past week's grandiose promise by the Prime Minister to do "whatever is required" to end the humanitarian crisis in Darfur -- as if Canada had the capacity to do even a small fraction of what is needed in war-torn Sudan. A similar boast from Hungary or Latvia would have been more credible.

If

If, and it is a big if, the Liberals were going to do something about their commitment to the bogus claims of Kyoto, they will have to eviscerate jobs in the Canadian auto industry. And that may be okay, since Buzz and all those guys vote for the NDP anyway.

Cars and trucks on Canadian roads account for 26% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the country, compared with 19% from the electricity sector and 17% from the fossil fuel industry.

More on the Flight from Reality

I wrote yesterday about Mr. Dither's laughable but potentially dangerous musings. Paul Wells is still calling to attention the chaotic nature of how decisions are being made in Ottawa (or Europe, or Morocco, or wherever).

No Tips Allowed

Castro has outlawed gratuities in Cuba, the major source of income for people who work in the tourist industry. When in Cuba, you will be often served by doctors and engineers; people who cannot make enough to feed their families doing what Cuban training centers (one should not call those institutions universities) have given them. So, they resort to pouring drinks, driving tourist buses, waiting on tables and making beds. A waiter would make three times the monthly salary of doctor in one day. But not any more.

The new measure will have an impact on the people who serve tourists since it is likely that the doctors will have to go back to state clinics, and the engineers to work for the army. Waiters will again be less educated than the average German and Canadian they serve.

Cuba's "opening" may be coming to a stop, or the banning of tips may even signal a return to the Stalinist old ways of Castro. Interestingly, the announcement comes after the EU has relaxed its trade restrictions, having judged that Cuba's human rights situation has improved. Doctors should be doctors. Anything else is a violation of their human rights, right?

Paul Martin's budget this week will leave Canadians with about $16-34 more dollars a year in their pockets --next year. The higher figure is about the equivalent of three months salary for a Cuban doctor. Puts into perspective Mr. Dithers' largesse, does it not?

Dithers in Wonderland

Prime Minister Paul Martin has resorted to tough talk, emboldened, it seems, by his announced 13 billion on future military expenditures. There even seems to be a veiled threat to the US in reply to American comments about our relinquishing of sovereignty. He has been quoted as saying:

This is our airspace, we're a sovereign nation and you don't intrude on a sovereign nation's airspace without seeking permission.

A few of things jump at me from this jewel:

1. Sounds a lot like a Soviet apparatchik ready to shoot a Korean plane, doesn't it?
2. A nation? A sovereign one? Which nation in this state is the sovereign one? The English-speaking one? The French-speaking one? Or is it the archipelago of aboriginal nations?
3. Sovereignty can be asserted with words and with policy statements, but that is a world far different than the one in which sovereignty needs to be defended.
   
4. Let us assume for a second that the US do not seek permission to "intrude" into our air space to take down a threatening missile. Does Martin understand where things go next? To say that an unauthorized violation of our air space is a violation of our sovereignty is just short of saying that such violation is akin to an act of war.
5. An act of war is usually met with some force (unless one wants to run in the opposite direction and wish to set up a government in whatever our equivalent of Vichy might be. Alert, anyone?). What does Martin think we are going to do? No disrespect intended to our armed forces, but how in G-d's green earth will we defend our state sovereignty? With new helicopters? Will the French, the Germans, and the Secretary General come to our defense?

The Americans will likely laugh at such talk from Martin. And that is the point! Martin may get through with his first Budget fairly okay, but on the issue of sovereignty he is following the example of one Joe Clark. Clark simply expected that verbally asserting Canadian sovereignty over the northern passages would be enough for others not to "intrude." He still thinks that way. What does that tell you?

PS (11:55AM). See also Proud to be Canadian, and Tom Cerber at The Politic.

Who's on First?

When it comes to Missile Defense, Paul Martin was outted by Frank McKenna this week, and Martin then ran back in. Or did he run back in before he was even out? To read about Mr. Dither's defiance of the space-time continuum in the outting and reentry (or was it reentry and then outting?), read Paul Wells irreverent humor.

Newsflash for Paul Cellucci

A National Post article today brings us breaking news: "Canada has given up control of its airspace: U.S. ambassador."

Hellooooooo, Your Excellency!! How long have you been in Ottawa? We did that a long time ago. John Diefenbaker was in power when we started to do that. Please, tell us something we don't know.

Jihad on the Lake

John Ibbitson writes this morning in the G&M (subscription required):

There's help for farmers, help for the textile industry, help for geologists, help for the very poor, help for the disabled, help for immigrants ? help for any citizen who might otherwise be tempted to vote for the NDP. The overall political strategy appears to be to do nothing actively to anger the West, pour billions into Quebec and Atlantic Canada, bolster support among the poor and minorities, and hope that the middle class, especially in Ontario, is happy enough with the economic good times not to notice.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty should be waving the budget papers in the legislature and declaring a jihad on Ottawa.

This is quite the revolutionary rhetoric. He goes on to end his piece in saying:

But one of these years, the people who produce, as opposed to those who mostly consume, are going to say, "Enough."

Who might these people who consume be Mr. Ibbitson? Can you name a few? You will need to promise the young "producers" some kind of heaven with scores of virgins awaiting to make your jihad work. The problem is, they are mostly pacifists.

Ibbitson has been among the first to say that Albertans are radicals. Some Chuzpah!

The Few, The Humiliated, The Betrayed.

I am officially surprised. When I looked at the election results back in June 2004, I figured that the Liberals would have to follow the desires of the Bloc Quebecois in order to avoid Joe Clark's end. Most people, journalist and pundits included (for they are people too), were betting on the NDP to fill that role. Joe might have been too. That Paul Martin would choose to depend on the man who accused him of killing homeless people in Toronto seemed silly to me at the time. But politics is sometimes silly, and there is a greater chance of that when Layton is involved.

I had figured that the Bloc would hold the balance because of their numbers (54 seats) and because the proximity of their social and political agenda to that of the Liberals on most major issues then on the horizon: childcare, the Iraq war, security, military spending, Kyoto and the environment, gay rights, money for urban centers, and sending large contracts and substantial amounts of federal money to Quebec. The exception was/is Quebec separation (and only recently transfer payments). Conversely, the gulf between the Liberals and the Conservatives on these issues was and remains significant.

I am surprised to hear Duceppe say that the budget "is totally unacceptable." I am also surprised that in his rejection, he did not allude to the humiliation of Quebec. Clayton, of course, was "disappointed" and felt betrayed. He wants a couple of days to figure out whether he likes it enough, which is fair enough. Prudence is good. It beats saying something stupid right away.

With all that ideological proximity to the Bloc, Martin was not able to get Duceppe to move. The Bloc wants the "fiscal imbalance" to be fixed, which essentially means that the feds should give more and more money to Quebec. Martin has created, and it continues with this budget, some serious expectations to please too many people. The logic of granting more to Quebec (or to any one for that matter) has always been the same. Is there an amount that would satisfy the Bloc? Probably not.

Martin managed significantly to satisfy Harper on the right, it seems, while not inciting the open ire of the NDP and the Bloc: Seven new billion for the military, some modest tax cuts, and a balanced budget in spite of the Liberal spending spree over the next five years. Harper declared himself "happier" than expected. In reality, the Bloc and the NDP should be too.

Unable to count on the Bloc, and considering that the Liberals have lost three of their 135 seats of last Summer (one death, one expulsion, and one as the Speaker), the NDP's 19 seats are not enough to bring the government to the needed 155. Even if the Liberals also enlisted the two Independents (one of whom is an infamous Liberal reject), the 19 NDP are not enough. Too close, too volatile. Canadians and the Canadian military can give thanks to G-d for that.

So, the Liberals have turned to the more stable and more pragmatic Harper to hold the balance. Harper is not eager to go to the Polls again without a party constitution, without defined policy, and with having to go through a party policy convention just around the corner. Wisely, he is not eager to bring down the government over small things. We can also be grateful that even in his pathological desire to please everyone, Martin seems to grasp the important notion that there are various degrees of pleasing.

Clever strategy just the same, even if dictated by necessity. By relying on Conservatives for support, Martin somewhat neutralizes the influence of the independents, the Bloc and the NDP: the few, the humiliated, the betrayed. Expect these to be more vocal about their opposition to the budget. But with issues such as homosexual marriage, Kyoto, and childcare on the agenda, their side lining will not go on for the duration of this parliament. The Liberals will be back to court them, and the Conservatives will be marginalized then.

Harper should also be pleased because this Liberal budget vindicates his electoral promises to raise spending by about $50 billion, a pledge that the Martinistas had mocked and labeled a "black hole." Whether Harper will be able to translate this vindication to his advantage in the next campaign is a different matter. Boasting that he knew the finances more than a year in advance better than the Liberals (who have been in power for more than a decade) may not have much of an impact with the amnesia-ridden Canadian voter.

Blogging Infections

I switched to the Mozilla Firefox web browser weeks ago, and I have not looked back since. Don't get me wrong. I am not a Bill Gates hater. I have nothing against Bill Gates just because he is Bill Gates or because how successful he has been. I simply tried Firefox out, and it worked much better. Faster loading and better security were the best selling points for me.

Firefox also offers better protection against blogging infections. Spyware and viruses can be acquired through blog visits. In particular, visiting blogs right off the Google Blogger (such as this very blog) by clicking on the corner right hand side button that takes you to a random blog can land you in trouble. The "next blog" button activates a script that may leave your machine vulnerable to spyware and to some trojan viruses. MS Internet Explorer tends to be particularly vulnerable, though they are already working on counter-measures.

Experts advise the public

to switch to the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox Web browser for reading blogs. Either do that, or change IE security settings to deactivate ActiveX or JavaScript in the Web browser.

Mozilla Firefox is available for downloading for free.

Cash and Ship

Just ran into this one as I was posting "Biting the Hands that Feed Him." No credit for Castro. Sales are cash and carry, so to speak.

U.S. Clarifies Rules on Agricultural Sales to Cuba 02/23/05 15:00 (Farm Page) OMAHA (DTN) -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ruled February 22 that U.S. agricultural and medical exports to Cuba must be paid for in cash before the goods leave U.S. ports.

Biting the Hands that Feed Him

Fidel Castro's verbal attacks against the United States have slowed down commercial exchanges and Cuban imports of US products in the last three months. But in spite of that, and in spite of Cuba switching to the Euro instead of the US Dollar, Cuba has become a major importer of US agricultural goods.

Fidel has used very tough talk, launching many insults against president Bush. He has called GWB a tyrant and a lunatic. (He has also called the then Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar a Hitler, and the EU's president Silvio Berlusconi a fascist). All that notwithstanding, Cuban imports of US agricultural products since 2001 have more than doubled, going from $144 million to $391.9 million in 2004. The new figures have thrusted Cuba to the 25th place among consummers of US agriproducts. Since 1993, Cuba has beneffited from 145 million Euros in European aid.

Yet another example of why, in politics, one must always compare the talk to the walk.

Source.

RCHA

I just got back from British Columbia, where I spent two days visiting an old high school friend who works with the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (RCHA). There is a small group of RCHAs stationed at the "Summit" on Roger's pass, half way between Golden and Revelstoke on the Trans-Canada Highway. Their job? To shoot artillery rounds at the side of mountains when there is danger of avalanches. In other words, they provoke controlled avalanches in order to save lives.

The downside to the job is that they have to live in this awful quiet and serene place for six weeks of excruciating sacrifice. My friend had to leave Petawawa to come to these awful mountains. He is heart broken; he cannot wait to get back to the Ottawa Valley.

The cannons (155s) that they use are Korean War vintage with replaced recoil mechanisms. They remain remarkably accurate. Here are a couple of pictures of the WMDs.

In this one, you can see the unknown visitor and the proud Sergeant Diaz standing next to one of the cannons. Diaz tells me how much he prefers these old guns to the newer ones we later purchased from the French. Yeah, I know! I'll have to pass up the opportunity. That is a story for another day and post.


Here, one can see a bit more detail of part of the gun's mechanisms. I'd love to spread rumors that I took it out for a spin and fired a few rounds into a few mountain summits. But those rumors are all false. In reality, once I found out that a shell would not reach Ottawa, the whole magnetic thing with the gun sortta went away.


Here you can see the only four highly-trained experts in the whole country who are authorized to drive the trucks that haul the guns to the shooting sites.



And in this one, one can see the irreverence of the trained transport people for the might and power of the WMD. Ah, the embarrassing pains of the division of labor.

As an aside, but an important one, we need to pass the country's hat to collect some money to send to Premier Campbell for the repair of BC roads. We are spoilt in Alberta, and we don't know it. Here, the secondary and tertiary roads are in better shape than the stretch of highway (Did I mention that it is the Trans-Canada we're talking about?) between Field and Roger's Pass. The bumps and potholes there made me quite nostalgic for the roads in Quebec.

Maoists in Nepal

No one would have thought possible for me to dislike Maoists any more than I do now, but I just found another reason in Nepal. Messing with people's beers? Jebus!

Oh, and the blog where I found that gem is my new favourite one. Mmmmm. Beer.

Radio Free Nepal

Here it is. I should have googled it before I wrote the piece on Podcasts: Radio Free Nepal!

Belinda

Stronach seems to be the new darling of the department of foreign affairs, Paul Wells writes. Good for Belinda. Any bets on where this is going?

O Canada

My friend Neil Wilson, a thoughtful and patriotic Western Canadian send me this analysis of our national anthem. I asked him if I could post it here, and to my delight, he has agreed.
Thanks, Neil.

+++++++++++

A friend and I were discussing various documents that contribute to the structure of any given society, i.e. constitutions, written law, philosophic essays, The Bible, religious documents etcetera. To be effective, this intellectual property needs to be written in absolutes and held in distinguished regard. These documents are to be written in truth and in the positive, reflecting the ideals aspired by the citizenry in majority.

Authors that have enthusiasm to generate thought provoking text that reflects the passion of a nation are scarce these days. I think of C. Lavallee and R. Stanley Weir, responsible for the lyrics and melody of our National Anthem; the intent and vision that they wished to see sustained in perpetuity.

?O Canada! Our home and native land!? ?Our home,? as defined by our fore-fathers and ?our home? as defined by our current orders of government and its interests, is quite contradictory. ?Our Home? is the exclusive home of the state, and we are tenants; the control of it is out of our hands! ?and native land?, after many generations and counting, Canada is not considered our native land. How long do people have to live here to be considered native to Canada. The state definition of ?native? needs a revamp.

?True patriot?s love in all thy Son?s command?. The patriots living here today that fought tyranny and oppression to keep Canada free from such, are wondering why they did it; their patriotism wanes as their sons lose command of their country. We have autocracy and oppression by different means. The ?Son?s ?command? referred to in this line has lost influence while we socially engineer the ?new age Canada?.

?With glowing hearts we see thee rise?, Watching Canada rise within the values of a welfare state, does not make hearts glow. There is solace that we are fed and have the creature comforts that much of the world does not enjoy; for that, we are grateful, but that acquisition is the product of the hands and hearts of those before us and our continued assured welfare will be the burden of following generations. We have risen? to government dependency, which is not a glowing attribute.

?The true North Strong and Free?, North? Certainly. Strong? The Canadian Military, commendable in ability, is token compared to what we had proportionately in the late 1800?s. The ability to defend our borders has been peddled to our national neighbours much to the chagrin of our veterans and reserve components. ?O Canada we stand on guard for thee? is then not our line to use.

The newer revised version of ?O Canada? uses the next line ?God keep our land, glorious and free?. The mention of ?God? in parliamentary circles gives many of its members the ?willies?. Rather than be the basis of reference to societal development, God is considered an impediment to government agenda. It is only those respectful of God within our orders of government that are keeping an even keel. Government/man increasingly believe that the ailments of society can be cured by compromise and appeasement to deviate behaviour with little regard to Godly/Christian Principle. We are concerned that Canada is not held favourably in the eyes of God.

The last repeated lines, ?O Canada, we stand on guard for thee?, indicates that WE are responsible for the preservation of this country and if WE do what is necessary to preserve and further maintain it, one day, OUR National Anthem written to pronounce the true spirit and intent of the common Canadian, will be sung in truth.

Neil E. Wilson (chair) The Canadian Constitution Committee.
March 20, 2001. reopened, February 10, 2004.

Blog-o-cracy and Podcasting

A friend asked me what a blog was. I was explaining it to her when she seized on the fullness of the medium's capability in mid flight and she interrupted me by saying: "The democratic potential for this is enormous!" Yes, she had it.

Today, I came across a burgeoning blog network of political dissidents, and it is a wonderful thing, truly a thing to behold. Anyone with access to a keyboard and a web connection can become a self-publishing machine in a matter of minutes (right Tim?) to do all kinds of things. We have seen the impact of powerlineblog.com on the willful fibs of Dan Rather at CBS, for example, in their "Sixty First Minute."

Fighting tyranny is a whole other ball game, though. These dissenters are no mere rebels. In fact, a dissident and a rebel are not the same thing. You can see the potential for this network of a few to grow. There are already Syrians, Chinese, and Nepalese in the group. It will likely not be long before there are Palestinians and Zimbabweans, Cubans and Indonesians there as well. Having been at the receiving end of the disorder of tyrants myself, I am delighted that those who stand up against them have at their disposal yet another tool.

But the potential for the medium keeps growing. The man who taught me Soviet Politics, a Hungarian dissident who was imprisoned and tortured during the Hungarian Revolution came to the United States into exile (and later to Canada). While in the United States, he worked for Radio Free Europe. Today, a Canadian friend of Lebanese origin alerted me to the new edge of this medium (Thanks, Samerah). I can already picture our dissidents in Cuba or Iran having their own little Podcast Free Iran, Podcast FreeCuba, and so on.

Podcasting is the new rage. Well, not really. It's still too cutting edge to be a rage. But there are already thousands of podcasts on the web already. They consist of recording "radio shows" on Ipods, which are then uploaded to a website or a blog, and which people can download right into their pods to listen at their leisure. People are producing daily shows of all kinds. It does not take much to see how this is also going to change a few things, and propel a dozen or so people into fame and fortune. It is probably far away for its popularity to be exploited by dissenters, but the day will come, likely soon. People travel, and if someone were to organize a money collection for our friends in Iran or in Cuba, my guess is that the money would rain for them to have Ipods.

It will not be all peaches and cream. Blogs, already a dime a dozen, add to a very busy world of ideas, information, chatter, ranting, etc. It's about to get busier, and that is not always a good thing.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mother's birthday.
Here she is, groovy hair and all, at the tender age of 30.

Surprise!?

Months ago, during the US Election, some Toronto guy in the Globe and Mail made the asinine argument that Canadians should have a vote in the US election because what they do affects us here in Canada. It's an idiotic idea, I wrote to the Globe in the always unpublished letter to the editor, for more than one reason. First, the argument of affecting others would qualify the entire world, even the French and the Germans. More importantly, because if we vote in their elections, they can make the same demand when we have elections. We might end up with an actual Army, if that were the case!

Some gravitationally-challenged guy who made a movie using the wrong temperature scale for Canada also came to our country and lectured us about how we should vote. And many Canadians thought that it was great. Apparently, they needed all the help they could get.

Should we now be surprised that hundreds and sometimes thousands of letters are reaching MP offices from the United States trying to influence their vote on homosexual marriage? Frankly, I thought a movie from the gravitationally-challenged guy from Michigan would come out first.

Hockey Blues

Last week, it was reported that the NHL season had been cancelled. For a moment, I imagined that there had to have been a season for it to be cancelled, but I guess that a show can be cancelled before it even starts. So, hockey is cancelled (though I read in this morning's paper that more talks are going on). Yawn!

The truth is that the news of its cancellation does not much matter to me. I skipped right over to the next headline the morning that I read the news about that. I hardly have missed it, really, as much of a sacrilegious thing this is to admit for a Canadian.

And, what is more, I am finding it hard to be sympathetic to a bunch of greedy millionaires. They are not all like that, you might say. True, I suppose that I am exaggerating. They are not all millionaires.

But then I thought about everyone else. Well, not really everyone else. Not the hockey fans. I don't give a rat's tuchez about the "fans." Hey, it's Lent, I stopped smoking back in January (I gave up a few of my addictive vices in January), and even though I already feel better and younger, I am still not at all in the mood to be sympathetic to other people's withdrawal symptoms. It's callous, I know. But that's the way it is. One day, soon perhaps, I will regain my sympathy for that category of humans.

In the meantime, I think about the people whose livelihood depended on the game being played (and whose families and children depend on them) in the many different cities. I think of the beer and pop vendors, the people who make the cheesy souvenirs and those who sell them, the ticket sales folks, the zamboni drivers, my friends who normally sell more take-out food or my other friends who sell more beer at their bar during a game night (in Calgary, in Edmonton and in Montreal). I think of the pizza delivery guys, of the bartenders and waitresses. I think of the baggage handlers, the cooks and busboys, the techy guys, the chambermaids, the taxi drivers.

One thought stays in my mind: Damn those greedy millionaire bastards!

ATA Levellers

Dave Miller, a guidance counselor with the Calgary Catholic School District, says Alberta Education marks Grade 12 achievement tests so that only a certain percentage of students get above 80 per cent.

"And so now we are faced with a situation where a student works very hard, gets a mark in Alberta, it's not the same as the one in British Columbia," Miller said. "Therefore, they don't get into a school or get the scholarships that they might otherwise deserve."

ATA [Alberta Teachers' Association] president Frank Bruseker, who sat on the panel discussing standardized tests, said the marking rules mean more students from other provinces receive higher marks.

Is Alberta Education standardization, as a matter of policy, keeping students from getting grades above 80% --and therefore harming them? The immediate question is why? The accusation demands evidence because conspiracies will simply not do.

ATA teachers may have their heart in the right place. They care for their pupils, no doubt. If Alberta is doctoring the grades, they would be right to complain. But the argument is misplaced. Grades should not be doctored, not because the children will have lesser access to scholarships, but because it is wrong.

The teachers' concern betray what precedes it. ATA teachers don't like the government to be undoing the high grades that they distribute to their students. High grades, to their minds, are in the best interest of the students. Teachers inflate the grades for their pupils to access money going into university, and the government should not interfere. It is a competition for power in which the children's interests are now secondary. If pedagogy was the central concern, there would be a pedagogical argument in defense of the "grade doctoring." The concern about scholarships is secondary to education. The purpose of education is not to get money.

So, who is doctoring what? It appears to be a case of the government undoctoring grades. And if so, it's the pot calling the kettle black. In fact, it may be that the government has the best interests of the children at heart.

The ATA spokespersons may need to take a basic university-level economics course. Those who sometimes have wanted to erase poverty have resorted to giving everyone money. If lack of money is the condition of poverty, giving them money supplies the want and levels the problem. That makes apparent sense. How much to give them? Well..., lots. If we are going to print extra dinero for all people, we may as well not be stingy --that's what the scroogey kapitalists who cause poverty would be. But not us. Let us give them mucho money. Give them enough so that we'll all be millionaires. Why not? When we wake up in the Weimar Republic or in Sandinista Nicaragua, we'll think that reality is the nightmare.

Those who are earnestly worried because Alberta is not giving marks away are hoping for a variation of the money pumping solution. They may be concerned that the students are getting hurt by tougher marking because they might not receive scholarships in other provinces, but in the long run the temptation of relinquishing to grade inflation will hurt the students even more. Grade inflation hurts students. Interestingly, I do not see the advocates of higher grades saying that students are getting hurt by the easier marking.

The useful CBC reporters even called universities to confirm their suspicion that universities do not consider anything other than grades in the admission process. One has to wonder how many universities they called finally to get the "right" answer from Simon Fraser.

But why only keep the scheme to a selected few? If we are so concerned why not just simply give any student in the general vicinity of a 60-70% mark a 100% mark, and the problem will cease to be a problem. People who get a 70% work hard, I am sure, and sometimes some of them work as hard as those who get 90s, and perhaps even more. So they would be deserving as well.

We're trying to compete in the Olympics with the same fighting spirit, by the way, and then we wonder why even Costa Rica gets [per capita] more medals than we do!

Considering the argument that universities do not look at the particulars of where the students come from with low or high grades, if we give A's of all kinds to all the B- students and above, they will get into the Simon Frasers of the country (and into the good universities too). No one will know. No one will ever think to question that so many Alberta students have As (just like at the faculty of Education at the University of Calgary). They will all think that we are just inordinately bright and genius producers in Alberta --and we are.

That way, the ATA cannot complain that students are getting hurt. And when universities everywhere stop taking Alberta high school graduates altogether, the ATA and CBC geniuses of Education might perhaps revise their notion that no one looks at where people come from. They might come to the understanding that grade inflation, like real inflation, hurts those it is supposed to help. All will have A's but no one will take them. A little economic theory from the real world might dissuade the egalitarian levellers that we should make all people equal by making them all equally "deserving." And, let us not forget how much that will boost their self-esteem.

More Unintended Consequences

A report about the pioneering Alberta program aiming at taking child prostitututes out of circulation from the streets says that in some circumstances, it has had upsetting unintended consequences.

The report also points to a disturbing side-effect of safe houses - some younger clients are learning the wrong things. "It has definitely happened that girls are being recruited, because they pass on phone numbers of friends, pimps and drug dealers," one staffer said.

The Only Thing to Fear...

Cubans are slowly losing their fear of the Castro regime. Convalescing with a multiply-fractured knee, the bearded elderly man in olive green uniform can still stand and deliver a "speech" for five hours in the scorching heat of Havana. Still, Cubans are quietly (but not silently) beginning to defy him more and more.

For more than a year, a group of women whose husbands have been sent to prison for no other reason than to oppose the Castro regime's ideas and for demanding greater openness, have been walking the streets collecting signatures in protest. They are Cuba's version of the heroic Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina.

Leal and the other women walked about 45 minutes from Central Havana to Revolution Square without incident. Most of the women represented 75 dissidents sentenced to long prison terms in 2003 on grounds that they conspired to destabilize the socialist system. Human rights organizations, the Vatican, the European Union and U.S. government have requested amnesty for the political prisoners. So far, the Cuban government has granted 14 dissidents probation for health reasons.

About 1 000 people have had the courage to sign the petitions, providing their names, ID numbers and addresses. One thousand brave souls who dare not to be intimidated.

Elsewhere, Oswaldo Paya, who organized a group of dissidents since last year has been pushing for greater opening and greater freedoms for the islanders. Most of the dissidents arrested, whose wives are collecting signatures, were part of Paya's movement, known as the Varela Project.

These Cubans are models of courage. They are defying a 44-year tyranny, one of the world's longest. Like Pierre Trudeau, many Canadians still come to the island for relaxation and refreshment, to be served and waited on by people with medical and engineering degrees who lack basic political rights. Lately, even the Europeans are demanding that Castro relax his iron fist and open the country to greater human rights for Cubans, but Canada dances around Castro's ego, worried not to offend him.

Canada and Canadians should be ashamed of their active and tacit support of Castro's tyranny.

Una rosa blanca

The great Cuban poet Jos� Mart� (1853-1895) wrote this poem called Una rosa blanca (A White Rose). It is my favourite of his poems. It also happens to be his best known. He lived most of his life in exile, and here he shows that he also knew a thing or two about forgiveness.

Cultivo una rosa blanca / I cultivate a white rose
En julio como en enero / In July as in January
Para el amigo sincero / For the sincere friend
Que me da su mano franca. / Who gives me his honest hand.

Y para el cruel que me arranca / And for the cruel one who rips out
El coraz�n con que vivo / the heart with which I live
Cardo ni ortiga cultivo / Neither needle or thorns do I cultivate
Cultivo una rosa blanca. / I cultivate a white rose.

On Wolfowitz

My buddy Tom writes on Wolfowitz at The Politic.

Healthcare Reality

Reality has caught up with medicare rhetoric, says The Gazette

The Tyranny of Feelings

I am pleased to see that Adrianne Clarkson has corrected the situation with the young boy who got evicted from Rideau Hall for asking a question. To my knowledge, she never has apologised to the disappointed children at the Museum of the Regiments in Calgary.

But it is Lent, and if WK can forgive, so can I. I am now amazed that the principal at John Dryden School was already willing to hand a three-day school suspension to the young man, instead of defending the boy against the over-zealous staff member at Rideau Hall.

After all, all of the other children from the school were also evicted right along the "offending" inquisitor. Even if the question had been truly offensive, was there need to condemn the entire school party?

I am also glad that Rideau Hall has apologized to the school, clearly in recognition that the over-reaction did not only affect the one boy but all of the visiting children. Obviously, the school principal did not get it.

We should be concerned about the power of apparatchiks at both ends of this silly incident. They show themselves all too willing to hand out punishments to children because they feel an offense taking place without having much of a prudential capacity to consider things in the appropriate perspective. They are too worried about offending or being offended. It is a tyranny of feelings without much of a compass to guide them.

PS: Someone tell that kid to stop apologizing, and to stop saying that it is HER house!

Run, Warren, Run!

It was nice to see that WK tucked his tail between his legs and moved on after his tantrum against Andrew Coyne. WK may dress his courageous withdrawal up as Lenten magnanimity (As if...!), but everyone who can read understands that he got his rear end seriously kicked here.

The Most Welcoming GG

On the heels of her appointment as Governor General in the Fall of 1999, Adrianne Clarkson went to the Museum of the Regiments in Calgary. There were lots of people at hand to meet and greet the new GG. The Museum has long been a favourite of many children, and some brought their children with them.

I am told that Her Excellency Clarkson refused to shake hands with the children because it was "flu season." Some parents and children were apparently offended.

Today we learn that the lack of friendliness toward children may now permeate the culture at Rideau Hall. A young man and the rest of his young friends were "kicked out" of Rideau Hall for asking a question about the Viceroy's expenses. A staff member found the question offensive. At Rideau Hall, children should have to leave, like their germs, their inquisitiveness at the door.

This is the CTV report:

The office of the Governor General is in damage-control mode, following a decision to cut short a school tour of Rideau Hall -- all because of one curious student's question.

Jeremy Patfield, 15, was touring the Governor General's official residence, Rideau Hall, when he actually spotted Adrienne Clarkson -- and wondered aloud about her spending habits.

"I said, 'Is that the woman that spends the money on the Queen when she comes?'," Patfield recalled in an interview with CTV News.

Considering the controversy Clarkson's budget has spurred in the past, the question was not that unusual. But, in light of the fact it was uttered within earshot of the Governor General herself, it was particularly ill-received.

A tour guide who overheard the teen's comment took swift action.

"Our group got kicked out for my comment towards the Governor General," Patfield explained. "It was supposedly my fault that we got kicked out."

According to the Governor General's press secretary, Randy Mylek, Clarkson didn't actually hear the remark. But he nevertheless defended the tour guide's spur-of-the-moment decision to cut short the class tour.

"People definitely have a right to their opinion -- wherever they might be in this country -- and that includes at Rideau Hall," he said, characterizing the decision as "the type of judgment call Rideau Hall employees must make everyday."

"Our bottom line here always is keeping the house open, but being respectful and courteous," he said, noting that thousands of members of the public visit the Governor General's official residence each year.

Rideau Hall remains the most welcoming place in the country, he said. [Ed.- It may be the most charitable and magnanimous of places in the country as well].

According to Jeremy's father Dan, his son was simply stating a fact. "The Governor General is the lady who spends our tax money," he said. "To me I don't see a real problem with that."

Reflecting on his experience, Jeremy Patfield says he's learned a valuable lesson.

"I feel I shouldn't have said something in her house because it was her house... but I do think they're somewhat overreacting." [Ed.- Er... Actually, kid, it is NOT her house; it is HRH the Queen's House. The current occupants just act like they own it].

And he's still left without an answer to his question.

"We sort of do have a right to know why how she would spend all her money on that when we have other things we could use."

I am really beginning to think that in the last five years the staff at Rideau Hall have come to believe precisely what Adrianne herself believes: that she is Canada's Head of State.

PS: No sightings of the Viceregal consort were reported.

More Derfel

Aaron Derfel at the Montreal Gazette continues his series on the seemingly peculiar and not so peculiar cases of Quebec clinics and hospitals. One piece on cataract operations and another on medical imaging appeared today.

Red Ensign: My Flag on Flag Day

It has been declared that today is Flag Day. So, here we go.
I salute the Red Ensign, my flag (and I don't beat up on welfare recipients while doing it, Jean!).
God save the Queen!

Aaron Derfel

Derfel continues to write his series in the Montreal Gazette on the peculiar nature of private clinics and hospitals in Quebec.

Happy Valentine's Day

Greetings and Salutations to all of you on the day that we celebrate romance and friendship. One of these is overrated.

Bomb Voyage!

Third Quebec Wal-Mart receives bomb threat

The unions and union sympathizers in Quebec will not likely rest until they force Wal-Mart to leave the province. Then, they will heap scorn on them for leaving, of course.

Even Le Devoir, once upon a time temperate voice in Quebec, entitled Gil Courtemanche's piece on the weekend edition "Le terrorisme capitaliste." Courtemanche's pen is poisonous (if it were only his tongue that was short instead of his sleeve, we'd be alright). Shame on Le Devoir for publishing his inflamatory rhetoric. He has accused Wal-Mart of being "brutale et sauvage." There is a little blood in all the store's merchandise, he concludes, because they buy from China.

In the same article, Courtemanche wonders if Wal-Mart will leave the Saguenay region in Quebec, and not just Jonquiere. It sounds more like an exhortation or a threat than the musings of an irresponsible writer.

The rearrengement of the language that Courtemanche and others have done will require whole new terms. If closing a store is brutal, savage, and terroristic, what words will we need in reference to three bomb threats? What words will we need to describe those who plant bombs in coffee shops because the store's name is in English? What words will we need to refer to Quebec politicians from St. Maurice and from Ville-Emard, who go to China to keep the blood-dripping Chinese products coming to Canadian stores?

For now, the bombs are only threats (and let's hope that it will stay that way). The Second Cup was not as lucky when the French Self-Defense Brigade planted bombs in three of their coffee shops in 2000.

Fair is Fair

Ontario is complaining about being shortchanged by the deals that Ottawa is cutting with different provinces regarding variations on transfer payments. McGuinty is speaking about anger and battle with Ottawa. He's a lion!

He is also a master of logic, if you ask Paul Wells.

Alberta is okay with the whole thing, for now. But when Alberta has complained about such things, the retort has been that Albertans are whinning. Now that it is Ontario, however, the headlines speak of unfairness.

Perhaps Ontario should lower all the Canadian flags in the province. How about doing that next Monday. The time is right. Hey, it worked for Newfoundland.

Kinsella @ Gomery via Coyne & Spector

A rather fiery exchange began yesterday afternoon in the blogosphere as a spillover from the Gomery Commission. Norman Spector's column in the Globe and Mail brought Warren Kinsella's name (mentioned here last week regarding his undermining campaign against the Commission) to the fore. "It was Mr. Kinsella who wrote the letter to the deputy minister that landed Chuck Guite his job, an act that the present Clerk of the Privy Council said was "not appropriate." The assertion appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and the Toronto Star last September.

Considering that Chuck Guite was part of what Le Devoir's Alec Castonguay calls the "political triumvirate of the sponsorship program," the link may be significant, if not just interesting. Also, in Saturday's National Post Andrew Coyne launches a series of questions. The question concerning Kinsella reads as follows:

We are asked to believe, likewise, that Mr. Chretien was so concerned to remove any partisan taint from federal advertising practices that he assigned the task to David Dingwall, his first Public Works minister; and that Mr. Dingwall and his executive assistant, Warren Kinsella, were so seized with non-partisan zeal that they went to unusual lengths to ensure Chuck Guite was put in charge of the program. Mr. Guite has testified that Mr. Dingwall explained his decision to keep him on, notwithstanding similar activities on behalf of the previous Conservative government, with the words: "You won't rat on them, you won't rat on us."

Kinsella, who has already testified before the Gomery Commission, seems concerned about the connection between his name and Chuck Guite. He has sent a terse letter threatening to sue Andrew Coyne.

Guite was placed in charge of sponsorship, as I understand, by Ran Quail and Diane Marleau, around the time that I was living in Vancouver. If you had bothered to pick up the phone to speak to me, or done the barest amount of research, you would have known that. Instead, your partisan rage about golf balls, I suspect, persuaded you to publish a lie. That was a big mistake.

In addition, Kinsella has written in his blog a series of intemperate insults against Coyne.In language not approved by the Canadian Bar Association, here is part of Kinsella's reply:

I will give Andrew Coyne the benefit of the doubt, and not immediately conclude that he is a goddamned liar. I will merely assume, at this stage, that he is goddamned sloppy, lazy and blindingly partisan. You need to pay to link to the offal he passes off as an opinion column in today's (fabulous-looking) National Post. So my column below, invited by Coyne's editor seconds after I objected to what Coyne wrote, will have to suffice. Am I sick of the bullshit? Damn straight. And me - along with plenty of others - are going to start hitting back harder, starting right frigging now.

Coyne wrote a polite reply in his blog, citing the documents that linked Kinsella to Guite from reports in the Star and the Citizen.

Elsewhere in the Shotgun, Kinsella was being taken to task for his (mis)understanding of democracy. But the Monger was much less diplomatic, referring to him as a "bore" and a "flea." If what one of my friends says about publicity is true, that all that matters is if they spell your name correctly, Kinsella has had a good last 24 hours in the blogosphere.

Kinsella has a healthy reputation for being a bully, but he is not likely to intimidate the likes of Coyne or Spector. Spector seems to be having some fun with this thing. In his post to the Shotgun yesterday afternoon, he said: "Anyone who hasn't already should dash post-haste over to his site to see a celebrated kick-asser in full meltdown." The story will continue.

In the meantime, the Gomery Commission will resume with its phase B at the end of the month. This time it will be looking at the trail of money out of the government "program" leading to the agencies in Quebec and the boomerang donations to the Liberal Party of Canada.

State-Regulated Leisure

Alberta's Minister of Health Iris Evans wants to make Albertans healthier while reducing healthcare costs. She has been "thinking outside the box," Premier Klein said. The effort to cull new ideas should be commended. She reckons that a population with healthier living habits will cost less in the long run because fit people will visit doctors and hospitals less.

Generally speaking, it makes sense for the state to promote healthy living and to provide fitness incentives that will reduce costs. Evans envisages tax deductions for gym memberships, for recreational activities, and tax credits to healthy individuals, as determined by a doctor.

The practical application of these ideas raises significant questions, however. Fitness does not only happen in gymnasiums. We may include the use of swimming pools and skating rinks, and those who take dance lessons, judo, karate, fencing, etc... Dealing with fitness and recreational activities where one does not have to register is more problematic. Many Albertans love to hike, run, cycle, cross-country ski, and so on; and there are those who prefer the privacy of their home to do yoga, to use a wind-trainer, or a treadmill? How will the state keep track of these?

For the non-yuppie, fit citizen who does not require going to a gym, a clean bill of health from a doctor will qualify her for tax credits. Sounds good in principle, if we don't think about questions of age and genetic constitution, or how one objectively determines what a clean bill of health is. Will second opinions count?

More importantly, we may further pervert the already precarious relationship between Albertans and their doctors. The doctor-patient relationship is impaired by the fact that doctors profit from frequent visits from patients but are rewarded by a third party. The patient is likely to visit the doctor more when requested and to be less demanding of the care received because he or she is not paying directly. If Evans' proposed ideas are implemented, doctors will still depend on frequent patient visits to make more money, but patients will also depend on doctors to get tax credits. Given the symbiosis in pecuniary interest while a common third party is paying, it will increase the potential for significant abuse.

Many more healthy Albertans who normally would not go to a doctor very often will now have to go just to qualify for the tax credit. They will add to the already long lines at the doctor's office. The more so around the time when the paper work will be due to government for tax credit. If the expectation is that healthcare reforms should be reducing line ups, these ideas are bound to have the opposite effect.

The Minister has also come out in strong favor of mental health. What kind of incentives will Alberta offer to promote good mental health? Will we get tax credits for engaging in relaxing the symphony, the theater, or reading books? Will we get credits for a relaxing glass of wine or beer at the local watering hole? After all, the healthy benefits of these have been widely extolled. Necessarily, the state will have to decide which sport or leisure activities qualify for this scheme. Those decisions will benefit those with higher income and more time for leisure and sports. In other words, it will benefit those who are already healthier and fitter.

How, when, and to what extent will these activities be regulated, what amounts of money will it involve, and what levels of bureaucracy will be required to administer it? Will the cost of doling and administering the incentives be greater than the savings in healthcare?

The lines will need to be defined with some clarity. How far is the state prepared to go to promote health and wellness? Premier Klein announced that he was not in favor of a province wide ban on smoking because it would hurt businesses, and perhaps kill jobs. Unemployment likely does not promote wellness, but how does lung cancer become the superior collective choice to unemployment?

The Premier did not say that the choice to smoke is a private choice, and that the state should not be in the business of telling people what to do with their lives. He could have said that, but he did not. If mental health is a priority and individual choice does not have much of a place in the government's scheme, Ms. Evans should also be considering a province-wide ban on wallet-depleting, anxiety-causing casinos and VLTs (but like a ban on smoking, it would deprive the state of significant income).

The assumption that the state should provide economic incentives for people to have better health only makes sense because we accept the premise that the state should be in the business of caring for the bodies and minds of all its citizens. The moment that we placed comprehensive decisions about our health in the state?s hands, we did so at the greater expense of some personal freedom and autonomy. How much more of these do we wish to relinquish?

Considering how much of our lives and actions ties in to our health, where will the state?s involvement stop? Jean-Marc Fournier, Iris Evans' Quebec counterpart, declared this past week that the Quebec government may begin taxing junk food. Imagine for a moment all the questions that idea brings! One does not have to be an enemy of public health care to see the point. To what extent do we allow government to influence our choices and regulate more of our lives in search of an elusive standard of health for each of us?

The response from Albertans to Ms. Evans ought to be clear: "Thanks, but no thanks!" We do not want state-regulated leisure. If the Minister wants ideas on how to promote health and wellness, spend less money on healthcare and save money to the provincial treasury, she should go back and re-visit the Mazankowski Report's more substantive parts. It leaves room for her to practice her maternalistic approach, to keep the public system that most Albertans want, and to give some of us some autonomy in our lives: give us Medical Savings Accounts.

One Party, Two Standards

Aaron Derfel's story in The Gazette shows Montreal to be the country's "mecca of private health." It confirms what many suspected, and Ottawa has refused to recognise. During the last election, Paul Martin declared himself the defender of medicare against the brutes from Alberta (Harper and Klein). Even "Landslide Annie" got into the fight. Ralph Klein was threatened with the withholding of millions in transfer payments if Alberta violated the Canada Health Act.

As a doctor from BC points out: "The federal government and (Prime Minister) Paul Martin will never hit on Quebec in the way that he will hit on Alberta and British Columbia."

Derfel's piece recounts instances of all sorts of different colours and sizes, which if they were taking place in Alberta they would be denouced as gross violations of the Health Act. But the defender of medicare is absent from the scene.

"The federal government and (Prime Minister) Paul Martin will never hit on Quebec in the way that he will hit on Alberta and British Columbia."

Montreal is home to probably the country's only truly private orthopedic hospital, where patients pay up to $12,000 for a hip or knee replacement - surgery requiring overnight stays and a 10-day convalescence.

The Duval Orthopedic Clinic is a hospital on two sites - in north-end Montreal, where Dr. Nicolas Duval performs the operations at a private plastic-surgery centre, and in Laval, where patients recover in a former nursing home.

Duval has opted out of medicare and his hospital receives no government funding. In contrast, the Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver, where Day works, carries out partial knee replacements but the surgeons there still bill medicare.

Montreal is also home to Canada's first private emergency clinic. Since opening in October, the MD Plus Medical Clinic has tended to nearly 500 paying customers. About 30 per cent of the cases are emergencies - from patients complaining of chest pain to a woman with flesh-eating disease

Private MRI clinics have existed in the Montreal area since 1992, and, despite proliferating, have not reduced waiting lists in hospitals. That might be because the radiologists in these facilities also practise in the public system. They have more of an incentive to do the scans privately.

Spooking the Multiculturalist Borg

There are four major articles on homosexual marriage on the Globe and Mail's website today. There may be more on the printed version. Three of them have Stephen Harper's name in the title. The fourth one is by Roy McGregor, who writes from the Texas Lounge in Calgary. If you believe McGregor, there is some sort of civil war going in Alberta between the cities and the rural communities. It's very clever.

Much of the hoopla started with the Conservative ads about homosexual marriage directed at ethnic Canadians. I saw the Conservative Party ads before they hit light. A friend called me and asked me if I could check some of the translations from the English to other languages, to make sure that the translators had not missed the spirit of the original English wording.

There was and is nothing offensive about the ads. They ask a very simple question as to where the line should be drawn. Most people I have talked to, and I do confess to have Liberal friends, would acknowledge that there is nothing offensive in the question. One of them, not understanding the language in the ad, wondered if the ad was a Liberal or a Conservative ad on account of the "neutrality" of the Harper and Martin portraits.

A couple of liberals did object to the part in the ads that says that Paul Martin is "imposing same-sex marriage." This is a debatable issue, to be sure. They pointed out that Martin has called for a free vote, which is only partially true. Cabinet members are required to vote for the bill. So, it is "free" for some and compulsory for others (Confused?). If we look at what the majority of Canadians want, however, the imposition statement is not the objectionable point that Liberals would make it out to be.

Pundits have said, including some Conservative "nervous nellies," that the ads are going to split the party. Split the party, split the party, split the party!!! If I had a dime for every time that someone in the Globe and Mail or in the Toronto Star said those words, I would be brunching at a fancy hotel this weekend. Flogging "split" has become the standard attack on the Conservatives, considering that in reality Liberals and New Democrats are experiencing some rifts of their own. The Liberals, especially --and they are the Government and it is their bill-- have more faultlines on this than any other party. The Bloc not so much, but it is the Bloc!

The Globe's Reinhart seems prototypical of the angst that Liberals are experiencing at the possibility that significant portions of traditional ethnic communities in the country are willing to turn their backs on the Liberal Party over homosexual marriage. Reinhart paints it as a Conservative "tactic," culled in secrecy. The inference is that the Conservatives don't really care about minorities and they are using them for dirty political purposes. Elsewhere in the Globe, the editors tell us that the whole thing does not matter to ethnic Canadians (What planet are they on?).

Stephen Harper has become the object of attack because he is driving a wedge between Liberals and those they consider to be family members. So Reinhart sets out to expose the clever "tactic." To undermine it, Reinhart interviews half a dozen urbane, ethnic Canadians in order to make the point that the Conservatives are overestimating their possible gains because these ethnic communities are not monolithic, that there are generational gaps as well as issues of assimilation that divide them. Suddenly the presence of difference of opinion and variety of viewpoint acquires the mark of a virtue.

One of Reinhart interviewee's says: "There's a huge gap in the [Chinese] community. First of all there's the gap between the young and the old. But there's also a gap between the early immigrants and the late immigrants." The generational gap argument is easy to follow and to accept, especially when you are a Liberal. Society "evolves," they claim, and the old foggies from the Old Country always lag behind the times, don't get with the program, and eventually are left behind when it comes to hip things. They're old!

The other category is more problematic for liberals. It exposes the farcical policy and the claims that have been made in the name of multiculturalism for decades. From the Heritage Department we learn that multiculturalism "ensures that all citizens can keep their identities, can take pride in their ancestry and have a sense of belonging. Acceptance gives Canadians a feeling of security and self-confidence, making them more open to, and accepting of, diverse cultures." Yet, what Reinhart finds is what most of us would find when we have our eyes open, and what multiculturalism Canada would not care to admit in the open (although it does in a veiled fashion). Immigrants get assimilated, and the ones that have been here for a while lose their identity, and eventually embrace the "values" of urban Canada (that's where the majority of them go. Not that there is anything wrong with city folk. I am compelled to say that I have several friends who live in cities, and they are all fine people [For a view of how the G&M apocalyptically paints the rift between city and country in Alberta, go here]).

But our federal programs are nothing if not Orwellian. On the same page quoted from Multiculturalism Canada, and just a few lines later, we read this: "Through multiculturalism, Canada recognizes the potential of all Canadians, encouraging them to integrate into their society and take an active part in its social, cultural, economic and political affairs." At the same time that multiculturalism enables immigrants (and refugees) to keep their identity, it enables them to integrate into Canadian society. Really! Who has really been using ethnic minorities in this country to advance their electoral position? Who tells them that they can have all kinds of money to celebrate and keep their heritage and identity while stating (and knowing) that they will be assimilated?

The bottom line is that immigrants do integrate. The realization that comes with it is what we have known all along. Multiculturalism, independently of having become a sacred cow, is all about the natural party of Canada buying votes from the ethnic communities. The lie may not be fully exposed (Neil Bissoondath can keep trying), but the rift is showing and the Grits are worried.

There is an almost natural affinity between conservatives and ethnic minorities in Canada. To one who looks, it has long been there. Ethnic minorities are traditional in many ways. And now that the Liberals, the Bloc, and the NDP have gone perhaps too far in their projects of social engineering of the Canadian polity, immigrants may more readily recognize the affinity. And this is surely what worries Liberals.

Given that "resistance is futile," old immigrants and more recent immigrants will have to make up their minds about what kind of society they want their grandchildren and their children to be assimilated into.

Adscam Memorial Golf Balls

Talk of balls continues in Canadian politics as the National Citizen's Coalition spoofs JC with their own volley of balls

Salut, les mecs!

This paragraph from Colby Cosh really needs no commentary.

My brain is drowning in WTFs here. Bernard Landry, for instance, offered this pearl of wisdom: "Quebec is an advanced and progressive society [you can tell by its 1960s labour legislation -ed.] and when you invest here you must obey our laws and the spirit of those laws. Anti-union attitudes are not welcomed here." So what am I missing? Quebec has certain laws, and Wal-Mart closed the store rather than operate in conformity with those laws. Isn't that what they should do? Doesn't Bernard Landry want Wal-Mart to respect the rules and mores of Quebec? The mayor of the Jonqui�re region called Wal-Mart a "bad corporate citizen." Then why aren't you celebrating the closure of the store, you crazy idiot? The bad citizen is leaving! Wave bye-bye!

"Something That Has Ambition"

If polls are any indication, a significant number of Canadians want child care. And as product of their political ignorance, they expect the federal government to deliver it. These might be the same people who phone MPs offices complaining that the lighting on their street is not working, or that they need their sidewalk repaired. The federal government has become the level of government expected to do almost everything for Canadians.

If confronted with BNA 101, they will typically say that they don't really care, as long as someone gives them what they want. This attitude validates Dostoevsky insight that some people are willing to trade their freedom or autonomy for a piece of bread --or in this case, for a $10/day child care. We are once again sacrificing significant provincial jurisdiction to expediency and convenience. Power tends to growth and expansion. So it is not a surprise that the Liberals want to grab the opportunity to incur into provincial power. Provinces like it because they will get money for it: five billion of our tax dollars in the next five years!

Childcare is the newest instrument of federal intrusion. Quebec has seen the writing on the wall for a while and started its own heavily-subsidized childcare system several years ago charging $7 per day per child. They will resist the federal dictum, and will likely opt out of any deal, but they will take all the money that they can get: they already anticipate they will receive 250 million from this year's federal budget, and $1.2 billion in total in the next five years, for their version of distinct homogeneity.

Alberta is another of the hold outs, but not as one would expect in defense of the principle of provincial jurisdiction and autonomy. Instead, Alberta wants to make sure that Ken Dryden will accept private delivery of the service in his proposed national standards. So-called child advocates are pressuring the minister to grant federal funding to non-profit operations only. Since so many of these child advocates work for such operations, they would like to receive more of the federal largesse to do what they already do. If Dryden caves in, we will all feel better in the knowledge that we are leaving our children in the care of strangers that have no desire to profit from their own labor and efforts.

Statscan tells us that the number of children being cared for by strangers has increased significantly in the last decade. But that does not mean that parents necessarily want more government intervention, as the child advocates claim incessantly. Of those interviewed by EKOS Research recently, 67% did not find favor with the prospect of an expansive program, it seems, if we aggregate the numbers of those who do favor such program, 30%. Nearly half of the respondents, 49%, agreed that the parents should receive "direct financial assistance" or some form of "tax breaks." The majority of respondents are satisfied with their present arrangements, EKOS found.

Like a nineteenth-century Comtean acolyte, Minister Dryden wants a centrally-inspired national monument: "We are looking to create a system, and a system is something that has ambition," he declared. The homogeneization of our children is their ambition. Systems are inanimate things; they are sets of relationships created by humans. Systems do not possess will and they do not possess ambition. Ambition is a human quality (some would say a vice). So, whose ambition is exactly the Minister referring to? We can only guess.

So far, the Conservatives are the only ones that come close to the sentiments of this half of the respondents. Conservatives want to offer tax breaks to parents, which will not discriminate against nor punish those who wish to care for their own children. The Liberal way will have stay at home parents pay tax to subsidize the care of other people's children while they receive no help with the care of their own.

The Liberal policy will also make the numbers of children in day care swell, as it economically encourages people to leave their children in the care of strangers.

A child born in the Fall of 1993 or shortly thereafter, when the Liberals defeated Kim Campbell, is now more than 12 years old. If you voted for the Liberals back then on the basis of their child care policy, you are in luck. It may be finally coming, except that by now your child is now able to be baby sitter. S/he will get a chance effectively to profit from the new ambition.

Education in Alberta

Last Tuesday, February 8, Premier Ralph Klein announced new plans to invest in students and in post-secondary education in Alberta. This is welcome news for Albertans and for Alberta, even if the premier's plan does not have many details. The details of the plan will be presented in Bill 1 on March 1, the day that the Assembly will open its new session in Edmonton. But the fact that it will be the first bill introduced by the government sends a signal of the level of commitment of the government toward it, placing it even ahead of health.

In his announcement, Klein described a freeze in tuition for post-secondary students for the next school year, as well as the addition of 60 000 new places in Colleges, universities and technical colleges as well as in apprenticeship positions in the next 15 years, bringing the total number of places to 240 000, nearly one quarter of a million. These measures will likely take Alberta out of the Canadian basement in terms of investment per capita in post secondary education among the provinces.

Universities should not get too excited, however. It is possible that the lion's share of the 60 000 places announced will be allocated on the basis market imperatives, and therefore will have to be created in training institutes and technical colleges. I am not expecting too many new classrooms in the departments of anthropology or sociology, for example. Will there be anything for the arts? We'll have to wait to see what the criteria for the allocations will be.

One thing that is patently missing in the government's announcements is a plan to deal with elementary and high schools. Something will have to be done there too, beside the purchase of flashy technology for the classrooms. New computers and projectors will not be able to teach the students how to read and write propoerly. In the last decade, the quality of students coming into post secondary institutions has declined significantly. If the government refuses to tackle the erosion of education in the schools, much of the investment in post secondary education may be wasted as the problems that will be transferred from the schools to the universities and colleges. There is need for a more comprehensive strategy.

"Small-Town Cheap"

Oh! Another Gomery commentary. In my defense, when a (former) prime minister appears before a commission of inquiry for the first time in more than a century, it commands attention, even mine. To say nothing of a sitting PM.

Small acts are often more defining about the character of a man. "Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of [men's] characters and inclinations, than the most famous of sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever," said Plutarch in his examination of remarkable historical lives.

We got a glimpse of one of these small acts at the Gomery Inquiry this week. Jean Chretien could not resist jabbing Justice Gomery with his charade about the golf balls. The golf ball stint had a dual purpose: it was simultaneously an instrument of revenge against Gomery and a distractor in the inquiry. In the strategic sense, it was a rehearsed action to distract attention. It was not coincidental. Clearly, one does not carry sets of golf balls of that sort in one's briefcase, just for the fun of it. It must have taken some amount of time to gather those balls for the show. And if they were easy to find in the collection of prime ministerial souvenirs, that also reveals something about the former PM.

It was a distractor because the affair of the golf ball was about $1200 dollars, a sum that pales in comparison to the mismanaged and the misdirected funds, to use polite language, that the Liberals funneled out of public coffers to reward some of their friends in Quebec. Suddenly, our minds were redirected to an issue worth twelve hundred dollars when there are hundreds of millions at stake. The question of golf balls was hardly the most serious of issue with which the inquiry has been dealing. And at the end of the day, the news media played the clip of the golf balls because it made for good theatre, even if it is a clown on stage. As Chretien said to reporters, refusing to answer questions on his way out: "I gave you guys enough stuff" in there. And he did, indeed.

The strategy was working but the performer was visibly overplaying the part. Chretien's lawyer realized that and tried to stop him, but Chretien could not help himself. He was enjoying the petty revenge aspect of the activity. He could hardly hide his glee in "sticking" it to Gomery, who had referred to the golf ball expense as "small-town cheap." He was having "too much fun."

Later, he could not again help himself, taking a shot at his successor, when he said that all PMs, from Macdonald to him (excluding therefore PM Martin) had worked hard to keep the country together.

Chretien's delight in the show-and-tell of the golf balls, his petty exclusion of Paul Martin in his comment about national unity, truly confirmed Gomery's comments about Chretien's high cheesiness factor. Most of us did not need further evidence, however.

Non, merci

I used to think that American politics had an almost monopoly on generating the most interesting one-liners. You know the ones...

• "...that depends what the meaning of the word is is," or
• "Read my hips," or
  
• "Wouldn't you like to kiss it," and so on.

But I have had to reassess that position after reading the text of Jean Chretien's statement to the Gomery Commission. Here is one gem:

So, somebody said [to me]: We should have balls with your name on them.

What is Responsibility?

I regret any mistakes that were made in the course of this program, or any other government program.

As prime minister, I take ultimate responsibility for everything good and everything bad that happens in the government.

---Jean Chretien, Former Prime Minister of Canada, to the Gomery Inquiry.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow (Tuesday) will be a busy day. Jean Chretien is scheduled to appear before the Gomery Inquiry. Expect him to come out swinging, and to try to use his time on the stand as a soap box to tell us that we almost lost the country in 1995. Something needed to be done to counter the separatists. He will fail to reminds us, however, that for most of the referendum campaign he and his government did not do a heck of a lot to combat the separatists in Quebec. Largely, this was because the federalists forces in Quebec did not want him there; they saw in him a liability.

He will likely regale us with his version of "yes, there may have been a few million stolen here and there, but we saved the country," style of defense.

Elsewhere, Premier Ralph Klein will appear on province wide television, some say, to promote festivities for the province's centennial celebrations, and to unveil his vision for Alberta's education.

The Governor General, Her Excellency the Right HonourableAdrianne Clarkson will also have a very busy morning. She will receive credentials from Ambassadors-designate from Kuwait, Japan, Syria, and Panama at Rideau Hall, at 15-minute intervals each, all between 9:30 and 10:30AM. The Government's press release does not say whether the Viceregal consort will be in attendance.

Fundamental Right, eh?

Jack Layton has threatened with disciplinary action one of his MPs, Bev Desjarlais from Manitoba, for wanting to vote the wishes of her constituents and her conscience (assuming that these coincide, one supposes) on the homosexual marriage bill.

The London Free Press now reports that a group of ND MPs is challenging Layton for "whipping" them into voting along rigidly defined party lines. One can only imagine that these MPs are now feeling the pressures from voters on both sides, and are reading the polls about the wishes of constituents occupying a central role in voters minds. Less than a quarter of those recently polled are keen supporters of MPs voting their conscience. They want representatives to represent them.

Last month, Layton made his party's position very clear: "The same-sex marriage legislation is a question of human rights and that's why it's a fundamental question of principle in our party and we won't be able to accept members voting against the party position." Layton is uncharacteristically consistent in his argument. One cannot hold the position that Homosexual marriage is a fundamental right, and then commit to the rule of the majority. Those two principles are not compatible.

Layton's position sharply underscores the untenable position of the Liberal Government. On the one hand, they insist that homosexual marriage is a question of fundamental Charter rights mandated by the Courts, while at the same time they annouce a free vote so that Parliament will decide. Which one is it?

A Master or A Prentice

Jim Prentice, Conservative MP for Calgary-Centre North announced last week that he would vote in favor of the Liberal Party's bill redefining traditional marriage. He calls it an issue of conscience. But he may have been worried about what other people thought for he felt compelled to declare that he has been married to the same woman for many years. Why would that be an issue?

Prentice is a calculating man. Three years ago he withdrew from a race in Calgary South West to extend an olive branch to Stephen Harper. Understanding that the Tories and the Reform/Alliance would not get electorally far as two different parties, he campaigned for long to bridge the gap between both groups. In the public eye, he did well in that role. Prentice is slick, and has tried to paint himself as a conciliatory man. He has demonstrated patience and discipline, both vital virtues in politics.

Prentice has been in politics because he wants to go all the way. Wishing some day to become leader of his party and one day Prime Minister, he does not wish to be constrained by geography. He would like to continue to be elected in the West, but wants to build and consolidate support in the East for when the day comes. He figures that as a Western candidate, he is much better to shed the redneck image that westerners (and Calgarians, specifically) tend to have in the corridors of power over there. He wants to appeal to the other side. In short, Prentice wants to be selected to high office, and for that he needs to be electable. But he wants to distance himself from his electors here, and from the hickish image that the rest of the country has of them.

Jim Prentice may have misread the winds, however. If the polls keep showing what they are showing of lately, he could end up in some trouble in the near future. Bill Rodgers in the Toronto Sun cites results from the latest SES polls.

More than 54% of Canadians say they want their MP to vote based on the views expressed in his or her riding. Only 21.8% would respect an MP voting with his or her conscience and slightly more than 16% would agree to their MP voting the way their party tells them to.

More than half the electors are not looking for an issue of conscience here. They want their representative's vote to reflect their views. And these are aggregated figures. In the foothills of Calgary, where the populists winds tend to be a little blustery, that figure is likely much higher.

What is more, the split between supporters of homosexual marriage and their counterparts is close. But it has been close during a time in which there was no debate, and no one had stepped up to the plate to make arguments against homosexual marriage. Now that several leaders of the religious and secular communities are making the arguments in the public light, the numbers will likely change against homosexual marriage, even if only marginally. And when things are as tight as they are, "marginal" is typically significant.

Prentice may end up in a lonely corner of the debate, in a lonely corner of his party, and in a lonely corner of his riding.

Oh, yes! He can be consoled in the knowledge that he will have much support in progressive places such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Surely, among them he will be regarded as a Master, but among his own, he may remain a Prentice.