Le Parti libéral maintenant dirigé par Michael Ignatieff a choisi d'appuyer le nouveau budget conservateur. C'était une décision évidente, qui satisfait à la fois les objectifs politiques du parti et les intétêts supérieurs du Canada.
On remarque cependant que c'est exactement la même décision qu'avait prise Stéphane Dion plusieurs fois l'année dernière. Les médias y avaient alors vu une preuve de faiblesse et d'un manque de leadership.
La superficialité des médias est quand même flagrante: leur réaction ne dépend pas du message mais du messager.
Et encore, parfois, ils parviennent même à se passer du messager pour se fier uniquement à leur imagination. C'est le cas d'Alain Dubuc, le ô vénérable et respecté journaliste de la presse qui écrivait ce matin que les déficits ne sont pas dans les «pas dans les gènes» des Conservateurs. Quelqu'un devrait faire remarquer à M. Dubuc que, hormis les budgets flaherty
des deux dernières années hérités de Paul Martin, le dernier surplus conservateur remonte à l'année 1912.
Bien sûr, ce surplus était lui aussi hérité... de Wilfrid Laurier. Il n'avait fallu que 18 mois aux Conservateur de Robert Borden pour le gaspiller.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Part 3 - Mediocrity
Continued from part 2
The Waterloo region is a shining example of the virtuous circle of success: excellence spreading from the classroom to the R&D department, to average citizens and maybe even soon to the hockey rink. It’s an example for everyone to follow and its an example that everyone can follow. Because really, the development of modern Waterloo was very simple: businesses feeding off world-class talent research from a nearby university. Unfortunately, it’s the exception rather than the rule, and this doesn’t look to be changing any time soon.
But why can’t it change? What is stopping Canada from funding world-class universities and fostering excellence like they do in other parts of the world?
I sometimes feel that we confuse excellence with elitism, and thereby make excellence into a negative thing. We can all see how Michael Ignatieff is still having to convince Canadians that his Harvard pedigree does not stop him from understanding the concerns of ordinary citizens. Why did Tony Blair not face the same questions about attending Oxford, or Clinton and Bush about attending Yale? It is exactly the same problem that affects Pinchas Zukerman, the Artistic Director of the NAC Orchestra, who despite being revered around the globe as one of the greatest violinists of his time, still has to put up with perpetually negative reviews in the Ottawa Citizen and Globe and Mail. Why do Canadian reviewers have to attack Zukerman for being the best, when the rest of the world has only good things to say?
I think it’s fair to say that many Canadians are not only uninterested in excellence, but actually hostile towards it. I’d love to know where the mental block lies, because objectively, excellence can only do us good. Maybe we’re intimidated by the pressure of our neighbour to the South and prefer to define ourselves as “different” rather than risk loosing in a race for excellence. Maybe we’re a country that likes to claim “we could be the best if we wanted to be” so as never to face the humiliation of trying hard without winning the prize.
At any rate, Canada’s general mediocrity makes it a very unattractive place for ambitious people –most importantly young people who dream of innovating and changing the world. I will certainly admit that given the choice between studying in a top Canadian University or an Ivy League, I would still pick the Ivy League any day. It’s not that I don’t like my own country, but Ivy League Universities offer something better. In the same way, when it comes the time for the NAC to find a new Artistic Director, potential candidates could easily be put off by the negative press reception that Zukerman had to deal with over his whole tenure.
This will only hurt Canada in the long term, and we can call it the vicious circle of mediocrity. It has to be broken and it can be broken, because Canadians have no less brains that Swedes, Germans or Americans. Canada and excellence aren’t friends, but it’s time for them to get back together again.
The Waterloo region is a shining example of the virtuous circle of success: excellence spreading from the classroom to the R&D department, to average citizens and maybe even soon to the hockey rink. It’s an example for everyone to follow and its an example that everyone can follow. Because really, the development of modern Waterloo was very simple: businesses feeding off world-class talent research from a nearby university. Unfortunately, it’s the exception rather than the rule, and this doesn’t look to be changing any time soon.
But why can’t it change? What is stopping Canada from funding world-class universities and fostering excellence like they do in other parts of the world?
I sometimes feel that we confuse excellence with elitism, and thereby make excellence into a negative thing. We can all see how Michael Ignatieff is still having to convince Canadians that his Harvard pedigree does not stop him from understanding the concerns of ordinary citizens. Why did Tony Blair not face the same questions about attending Oxford, or Clinton and Bush about attending Yale? It is exactly the same problem that affects Pinchas Zukerman, the Artistic Director of the NAC Orchestra, who despite being revered around the globe as one of the greatest violinists of his time, still has to put up with perpetually negative reviews in the Ottawa Citizen and Globe and Mail. Why do Canadian reviewers have to attack Zukerman for being the best, when the rest of the world has only good things to say?
I think it’s fair to say that many Canadians are not only uninterested in excellence, but actually hostile towards it. I’d love to know where the mental block lies, because objectively, excellence can only do us good. Maybe we’re intimidated by the pressure of our neighbour to the South and prefer to define ourselves as “different” rather than risk loosing in a race for excellence. Maybe we’re a country that likes to claim “we could be the best if we wanted to be” so as never to face the humiliation of trying hard without winning the prize.
At any rate, Canada’s general mediocrity makes it a very unattractive place for ambitious people –most importantly young people who dream of innovating and changing the world. I will certainly admit that given the choice between studying in a top Canadian University or an Ivy League, I would still pick the Ivy League any day. It’s not that I don’t like my own country, but Ivy League Universities offer something better. In the same way, when it comes the time for the NAC to find a new Artistic Director, potential candidates could easily be put off by the negative press reception that Zukerman had to deal with over his whole tenure.
This will only hurt Canada in the long term, and we can call it the vicious circle of mediocrity. It has to be broken and it can be broken, because Canadians have no less brains that Swedes, Germans or Americans. Canada and excellence aren’t friends, but it’s time for them to get back together again.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Obama reste le chef des USA
L’inauguration de Barack Obama est un moment historique. Pour la première fois, un pays démocratique a élu comme chef suprême un politicien issu d’une minorité visible. C’est un symbole puissant, et c’est aussi une bonne nouvelle pour la planète puisque Obama semble semble à la fois plus progressiste, plus internationaliste et plus intelligent que son prédécesseur.
Mais ça ne veut pas dire qu’on devrait faire de Barack Obama le messie, et encore moins le messie de la planète. Car c’est avant tout un politicien américain. Cet engouement international, cette obsession pour un chef d’état étranger est un phénomène étrange et complètement déplacé.
Ce n’est pas nous, Canadiens, Kenyans ou Européens qui élisons Obama, et lui ne nous représente pas. On peut l’admirer, certes, pour ce qu’il incarne et pour ce qu’il a fait, mais il ne faut jamais oublier qu’il défend des intérêts autres que les nôtres. Par exemple, son pays refuse de reconnaître la souveraineté du Canada sur le passage du nord-ouest. À la table des négociations il ne nous fera pas de cadeaux, et qui sait, même, s’il ne donnera pas suite à sa promesse de renégocier l’ALENA.
L’idée que les Canadiens s’investissent davantage dans la politique d’un état étranger que dans celle de leur propre pays est à la fois triste et inquiétante. C’est le comportement classique du colonisé, et c’est aussi un signe du rayonnement culturel des États-Unis. L’Amérique, malgré tout ce qu’on lui reproche, reste le pays qui fait rêver. Obama est en la preuve vivante.
Mais ça ne veut pas dire qu’on devrait faire de Barack Obama le messie, et encore moins le messie de la planète. Car c’est avant tout un politicien américain. Cet engouement international, cette obsession pour un chef d’état étranger est un phénomène étrange et complètement déplacé.
Ce n’est pas nous, Canadiens, Kenyans ou Européens qui élisons Obama, et lui ne nous représente pas. On peut l’admirer, certes, pour ce qu’il incarne et pour ce qu’il a fait, mais il ne faut jamais oublier qu’il défend des intérêts autres que les nôtres. Par exemple, son pays refuse de reconnaître la souveraineté du Canada sur le passage du nord-ouest. À la table des négociations il ne nous fera pas de cadeaux, et qui sait, même, s’il ne donnera pas suite à sa promesse de renégocier l’ALENA.
L’idée que les Canadiens s’investissent davantage dans la politique d’un état étranger que dans celle de leur propre pays est à la fois triste et inquiétante. C’est le comportement classique du colonisé, et c’est aussi un signe du rayonnement culturel des États-Unis. L’Amérique, malgré tout ce qu’on lui reproche, reste le pays qui fait rêver. Obama est en la preuve vivante.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Part two
Here is the continuation of this particularly long post:
The great thing is that success works the same way: it spurs itself on. Knowledge leads to more knowledge, good ideas lead to better ideas and the ones to benefit are average citizens like you and me who become wealthier, better educated and generally happier people. It’s not for nothing that they talk about the “culture of success”. Excellence takes time to grow, but once it arrives, it spreads like the flu and drastically improves everybody’s life.
Canada is making progress towards achieving excellence, but it’s very slow. One success story is the Waterloo region which has become a Silicon Valley of the North thanks to the world-class computer science department at the University of Waterloo. The area’s crown jewel is Research In Motion and co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have already started to give back by donating 300 million dollars together to research institutions around town. Over half of that went to the Perimeter Centre for Theoretical Physicis whose latest coup was to hire Steven Hawking as a Distinguished Research Chair. Balsillie also tried to bring in an NHL franchise, though he has so far been unsuccessful.
The Waterloo region is a shining example of the virtuous circle of success: excellence spreading from the classroom to the R&D department, to average citizens and maybe even soon to the hockey rink. Unfortunately, it’s the exception rather than the rule, and this doesn’t look to be changing any time soon.
The great thing is that success works the same way: it spurs itself on. Knowledge leads to more knowledge, good ideas lead to better ideas and the ones to benefit are average citizens like you and me who become wealthier, better educated and generally happier people. It’s not for nothing that they talk about the “culture of success”. Excellence takes time to grow, but once it arrives, it spreads like the flu and drastically improves everybody’s life.
Canada is making progress towards achieving excellence, but it’s very slow. One success story is the Waterloo region which has become a Silicon Valley of the North thanks to the world-class computer science department at the University of Waterloo. The area’s crown jewel is Research In Motion and co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have already started to give back by donating 300 million dollars together to research institutions around town. Over half of that went to the Perimeter Centre for Theoretical Physicis whose latest coup was to hire Steven Hawking as a Distinguished Research Chair. Balsillie also tried to bring in an NHL franchise, though he has so far been unsuccessful.
The Waterloo region is a shining example of the virtuous circle of success: excellence spreading from the classroom to the R&D department, to average citizens and maybe even soon to the hockey rink. Unfortunately, it’s the exception rather than the rule, and this doesn’t look to be changing any time soon.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Excellence, part 1
“Canadians are uncomfortable with success”. We’ve all heard that line before. It’s a long standing favourite of lazy political journalists and it also makes a habit of invading the pages of our annual identity-crisis paperbacks. It’s a nice phrase, and it certainly has an element of truth. Whatever way one puts it, we clearly have a problem: Canada and excellence just don’t click.
Let’s take for example, our Canadian universities. They’re considered good by most people, sometimes very good, but they’re never the best. In the widely followed Academic Ranking of World Universities, the University of Toronto ranked as Canada’s best at 24th in the world. It’s a very good showing, but hardly outstanding. Consider that in the top ten of that ranking, the U.S had eight Universities and the U.K. had two. That’s an average of about one top ten university for thirty million people, which means that judging strictly by population, Canada should have one. Instead we simply make excuses. “History is not on our side”, we claim. Fair enough, except that McGill had an international reputation in the early 20th century that was sacrificed to chronic underfunding. “Our universities are public whereas theirs are private”. Yes, but we still spend less per-capita on our public universities than Americans do on their state schools.
It’s no coincidence that Canada was recently ranked by the Conference Board as the second-least innovative country of the G7. If we don’t sustain world-class universities, we can’t expect to produce cutting-edge research. The Conference Board wrote that Canada’s “failure to innovate” is sinking us into "a mediocrity that is hampering what we can do and what we can be." Our lack of research is spilling over into other areas of society like health care, environmental protection and the economy; in other words, mediocrity is contagious.
Let’s take for example, our Canadian universities. They’re considered good by most people, sometimes very good, but they’re never the best. In the widely followed Academic Ranking of World Universities, the University of Toronto ranked as Canada’s best at 24th in the world. It’s a very good showing, but hardly outstanding. Consider that in the top ten of that ranking, the U.S had eight Universities and the U.K. had two. That’s an average of about one top ten university for thirty million people, which means that judging strictly by population, Canada should have one. Instead we simply make excuses. “History is not on our side”, we claim. Fair enough, except that McGill had an international reputation in the early 20th century that was sacrificed to chronic underfunding. “Our universities are public whereas theirs are private”. Yes, but we still spend less per-capita on our public universities than Americans do on their state schools.
It’s no coincidence that Canada was recently ranked by the Conference Board as the second-least innovative country of the G7. If we don’t sustain world-class universities, we can’t expect to produce cutting-edge research. The Conference Board wrote that Canada’s “failure to innovate” is sinking us into "a mediocrity that is hampering what we can do and what we can be." Our lack of research is spilling over into other areas of society like health care, environmental protection and the economy; in other words, mediocrity is contagious.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
L'électricité pollue aussi
Magna International et Ford ont annoncé aujourd'hui leur intention de collaborer dans la production d'une nouvelle voiture électrique prévue pour le printemps 2011. Cette voiture aura une autonomie d'environ 200 km et pourra être rechargée en moins de huit heures.
Le projet est évidemment louable et témoigne de l'importance croissante du facteur vert dans l'industrie automobile. Il est toutefois légitime de se demander si les voitures électriques constituent vraiment un net progrès pour environnement. L'électricité, une fois qu'elle est emmagasinée dans la batterie d'une voiture, ne pollue pas. Mais il fuat tout de même la créer. C'est là le problème. Pour créer de l'électricité, il faut habituellement polluer, alors même si les voitures électriques ne relâchent plus de gaz d'échappement, elles continuneront de polluer indirectement.
L'électricité a sans doute un rôle à jouer dans la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique, mais il ne faut pas y voir la solution miracle. Cette solution miracle, à mon avis, serait plutôt l'hydrogène.
Le projet est évidemment louable et témoigne de l'importance croissante du facteur vert dans l'industrie automobile. Il est toutefois légitime de se demander si les voitures électriques constituent vraiment un net progrès pour environnement. L'électricité, une fois qu'elle est emmagasinée dans la batterie d'une voiture, ne pollue pas. Mais il fuat tout de même la créer. C'est là le problème. Pour créer de l'électricité, il faut habituellement polluer, alors même si les voitures électriques ne relâchent plus de gaz d'échappement, elles continuneront de polluer indirectement.
L'électricité a sans doute un rôle à jouer dans la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique, mais il ne faut pas y voir la solution miracle. Cette solution miracle, à mon avis, serait plutôt l'hydrogène.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Where's Blair?
As special envoy of the EU-US-UN-RussiaQuartet to the Middle East, one would have expected Tony Blair to be extremely active in the past few days given current state of chaos in the Gaza strip.
For all I know, he may have been working hard... though I would have expected him to generate a little more media coverage. What I can say with certainty, is that he currently isn't in Tel-Aviv, but in Washington where he is receiving the Medal of Liberty, the highest American civil award, from George Bush. He's receiving the award in a joint ceremony with Australia's John Howard, Bush's other ally in the Iraq war.
George Bush, incidentally is also supposed to have gotten Blair the nomination as Middle East peace envoy.
Draw your own conclusions.
For all I know, he may have been working hard... though I would have expected him to generate a little more media coverage. What I can say with certainty, is that he currently isn't in Tel-Aviv, but in Washington where he is receiving the Medal of Liberty, the highest American civil award, from George Bush. He's receiving the award in a joint ceremony with Australia's John Howard, Bush's other ally in the Iraq war.
George Bush, incidentally is also supposed to have gotten Blair the nomination as Middle East peace envoy.
Draw your own conclusions.
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