Surprise

Machiavelli wrote that when things go badly at home, one should travel abroad.

Denis Coderre must have been thinking the same thing lately as he’s just revealed he’s “heading on an unauthorized fact-finding trip to Afghanistan after having his request to visit the troops consistently ignored by the Harper government.”

Surprise, surprise!

La laïcite au Québec et dans le ROC

Lors du plus récent forum public de la commission Bouchard-Taylor sur les accommodements raisonnables au Québec, M. Alain Chouinard, père de famille de deux enfants, a affirmé : «On ne doit pas faire d'accommodement pour les groupes religieux, que ce soit dans les endroits publics, les écoles, les édifices gouvernementaux. Je pense que la population du Québec vient de sortir de l'emprise de l'Eglise catholique et je ne pense pas que les gens sont prêts à recommencer à embarquer pour les autres religions».

Peu après, un autre citoyen disant s’appeler Carlus a plaidé pour que la societé quebécoise refuse le port de tous signes religieux jugés discriminatoires envers les femmes, comme la burqa ou le niqab. Sa remarque a suscité l’attention du coprésident Bouchard, qui est alors intervenu dans le débat. Celui-ci a relaté avoir rencontré plusieurs femmes musulmanes disant porter le voile de façon volontaire. Mais un membre de l’auditoire a alors lancé à Bouchard « vous en avez rencontré combien? ».

Dans le ROC, on marche dans le sens inverse.

Récemment, le Chef du Parti Progressiste Conservateur en Ontario, John Tory, a proposé de financer les écoles religieuses avec l’argent du trésor public. L’idée a été plutôt mal accueillie, mais le simple fait qu’il ait cru pouvoir en tirer du capital politique en dit long.

De plus, les milieux médiatiques se sont immédiatement rangés de son côté dans des articles comme « make room for the spiritual in educating our young » de Sheema Khan du Globe. Dans La Presse, les titres sont plus du genre « le droit de dire que c’est nono » comme une chronique de Patrick Lagacé que j’ai lue aujoud’hui. Pour vous en donner une idée, le journaliste Québecois affirmait entre autres choses que « Je crois qu’une musulmane a le droit de le porter, son hijab, son niqab. Elle peut même porter la burqa, si ça lui chante. Mais je revendique le droit de dire que c’est nono. »

Quand on parle d’une divergence...

Referendum

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." (Winston Churchill, from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947)

Since Paul Martin’s election victory in 2004, our country has been governed exclusively by minority parliaments. It was foreseeable; there are too many parties. With the right now united, the Greens grabbing 10% of the vote and the Bloc still guaranteed half of the Quebec seats, no party can hope for more than a third of the vote.

Of course, this will all change soon enough. It isn’t the first time that we’ve had successive minority parliaments, and they’ve always eventually been replaced. It could be the Bloc that dies –though I doubt it-, or the Liberals take a new drop in the polls. But rest assured, something will give.

At the moment though, all I can say is: get moving!

I’m just so sick of Minority Governments. They’re useless, confrontational parliaments that make for never-ending debates and force parties to play cheap politics to keep themselves alive. They make governments unresponsive and indecisive. And with reason. How can anyone expect a majority consensus to be reached between members of a team that each cultivate completely opposite and irreconcilable views.

What we need now is a strong majority government that can target a few specific issues with the full support of the house. And if this government is not appreciated, it can be replaced in the next election.

Do we believe in democracy because it’s right, or because it works? We embrace democracy because it works; because it consistently produces successful countries.

The next provincial elections in Ontario will also contain a referendum question about changing the current first-past-the-post electoral system. I have already compared the Westminster system to proportional Rep. so I won’t go through the arguments once more. I just wanted to advise my dear Ontarian readers, when making their voting choice, to think with their brain rather than their heart.

Dion

There’s nothing like a major screw-up to look good by bouncing back.

Two days after seeing his handpicked candidate suffer a humiliating defeat in the Outremont by-election to the hands of the NDP, Stephane Dion has regrouped his party and started over again from January with a new breath of life.

This morning, after finishing my usual session of violin practice, I decided to pick up the computer and spend a few minutes reading the Globe and Mail online. While waiting for the page to load, I had trying to guess the day’s front page story. “The Lonnie nearly reached parity with the Greenback yesterday,” I told myself, “so there’s bound to be something on that topic. Maybe there’d also been something about the Ontario elections, they seem to be generating a lot of excitement.

Well it was neither the Loonie not McGuinty. The headline read “Dion wants Khadr Tried in Civil Court.” That was certainly a surprising. “Dion, in the newspaper? ” All the more astonishing that he had already had a good mention on the previous day. What was he doing to deserve such publicity,” I asked myself again.

But the answer is actually deceivingly simple: Dion’s finally decided to break out of his shell and become a real leader. He’s always been in total command of his files, and decisions such as the handpicking of Foreign Affairs expert and academic Jocelyn Coulon demonstrate this very well, but he’s never actually gone off to sell thesis idea to Canadians. Stephane Dion has no charistma, and no communications skill, but he does his homework and understands his files. Now he needs to demonstrate that to Canadians.

Liberal Nightmare

I’d hate to be Stephane Dion at the moment…

After eighty years of nearly uninterrupted rule, the Liberals have lost power in their traditional Montreal stronghold of Outremont to the charismatic NDP candidate Thomas Mulcair. The final results have yet to be announced, but the latest tallies show the NDP gathering nearly 50% of the votes with the Liberals trailing nearly twenty percent behind.

This by-election in Outremont has long been considered a sort of referendum of Stéphane Dion. A strong victory was required to strengthen his leadership and give the Liberal party a new breath of air heading into the fall sitting of the house. But instead, he has seen his hand-picked star candidate and academic get trounced by a charismatic Teacher and ex-Quebec environment minister.

The party is going to be furious. If they can’t win in Outremont, what proves that they can still win in Toronto, is Vancouver? Is there any such thing left as an impenetrable Liberal bastion.

Dion has a lot of work ahead of him. A by-election is only a by-election, and Outremont has already gone once to the Conservatives when Brian Mulroney came to power. But as Bette Davis once said "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride."

Port du niquab - Centième message

Une décision d’Elections Canada en vue de permettre au femmes musulmanes de voter le visage couvert a provoqué une petite polémique dans le pays. Comme les chefs des quatres partis politiques principaux se sont tous immédiatement prononcés contre la decision, le directeur général d’Elections Canada est revenu à la charge en affirmant encore une fois qu’aucune loi n’obligeait à se découvrir pour voter. Les médias se sont évidemment régalés de l’affaire, et on a eu droit à un échange d’idées assez stimulant.

Le Canada est un pays pragmatique. Un pays qui sait tracer la ligne entre l’application stricte de la loi et l’accommodement raisonnable. Le jugement de la Cour Suprême permettant le port du Kirpan à l’école en est un parfait example : 0 incident + présence d’autres armes facilement accessibles dans des écoles (battes de baseball, batons de hockey) = accomodement.

Pour le port du Niquab aux urnes, il faut faire preuve du même état d’esprit. Y a-t-il vraiment un risque de fraude ? Pourrait-il vraiment y avoir un complot capable de modifier les résultats d’un scrutin profitant du droit des femmes musulmanes de voter le visage couvert ? Bien sûr que non. Que les femmes aient le droit de voter le visage couvert ou non, le resultat du scrutin sera le même. Alors, choisissons l’accomodement.

Income Trusts

Fresh from a four day caucus retreat in St. John’s, NL, Stéphane Dion’s Liberals have hinted that their party would consider scraping a moratorium on the creation of new income trusts if they win office – but perhaps only for a limited number of industries including the oil sands.

Income trusts are investors’ greatest friends. By allowing firms to pass profits down to shareholders, thereby avoiding most forms of corporate taxes, they allow for monstrous dividends that easily outperform those of traditional publicly trades corporations. The decision to proscribe them was a good one. A tax system with a loophole of that size is by definition inefficient, and, in the case of income trusts, encourages firms to pass pay dividends instead of reinvesting profits.

But the Liberal proposal still has some merit, provided that it only apply to certain industries like the oil patch where the government already makes profits from drilling royalties. It’s a matter of keeping Canadian capital markets competitive. In the globalising world, we must increasingly ask ourselves the question: why would foreigners choose to invest in Canada over another country? At the moment, they have no particular reason for doing so. Canada has its stock exchanges, but they are of the conventional sort that can be found in every developed country. As one investor pointed out: “we really don't have a Canadian capital markets story. We don't have an AIM [London's Alternative Investment Market], we don't have a Nasdaq. What is particularly distinct about the Canadian capital markets?

There’s well publicised court proceeding going on in the States involving an angry stockbroker who sent Finance Minister Flaherty death threats after he announcement the moratorium on income trusts. He had invested millions on his clients’ money in stocks of Canadian income trusts, and had seen their value plummet. But let me ask you this: if these trusts hadn’t been allowed, were would these millions have gone? Not likely to Canada.

Tant de signes ne mentent pas

Kyoto : La majorité des pays européens prévoient d’atteindre leurs objectifs de réduction d’émissions. Le Canada a déjà renoncé.

Productivité : D’après une étude de l’Organisation Internationale du Travail, la productivité est en baisse constante au Canada.

Passage du Nord-Ouest: Les Russes multiplient les missions militaires et les démonstrations de force. Les Danois lançent une série de missions scientifiques importantes. Le Canada n’a toujours pas de navires capables de le traverser en hiver.

Competitivité : Une étude du Conference Board of Canada trouve chez nous un peuple « plongé dans un état de médiocrité » et « qui a peur du succès».

Tant de signes ne mentent pas.

History Is History

During the night of Febuary 13^th 1945, the allies led by the Royal Air Force Bomber Command and Marshal Arthur “Bomber” Harris, destroyed the historic city of Dresden, taking between 35 and 60 thousand lives. Among the participants in the bombing raid were Canadian airmen who, acting upon the orders of their British superior, dropped thousands of tons of incendiary bombs onto innocent civilians and refugees. These are historical facts.

The bombing of Dresden first made it into RAF military plans in early 1944 because of nearby railway yards and an intelligence report pointing to the city as a point of passage for Axis troops. In fall of that year, American flying fortresses from the 8^th USAAF eight air force targeted and razed the yards, so the initial RAF plan to bomb the city heart was dropped. It was only reactivated in 1945 on the advice of Winston Churchill who wanted to give Stalin a demonstration of Allied strength. RAF briefing notes justified the bombing as a way of showing "the Russians, when they arrive, what Bomber Command can do." These are also historical facts.

Last Wednesday, the Canadian War Museum succumbed to pressure from Veterans of the Canadian Bombing Command who wanted the 67-word description of the bombing of Dresden changed. The text had been written by a group of historians, but the veterans objected to it saying that "the value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested," and contrasting the 600,000 German civilian deaths with the statement that "the raids resulted in only small reductions of German war production”. The Museum has agreed to adjust the wording in the panel to reflect the veterans’ demands, and has promised to have the new panel installed by October.

The Veterans of the Canadian Forces who risked their lives as part of the British led Bomber Command are heroes. They obeyed the orders of their superiors faithfully and acted in the name of their country and in the name of freedom and human rights. That they participated in the bombing of Dresden, or of other European cities, takes nothing away from this immense courage and heroism. Canadians must never forget the incredible sacrifice made by these veterans who, in the name of their country and of human rights, risked their lives on every sortie.

In their name, Canadians have erected a number of war memorials across the country for new generations of Canadians to acknowledge and remember the sacrifice of our Second World War heroes. But the Canadian War Museum is not one of those places. In the words of great Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan “a museum is not a war memorial. It should allow the public to make up their own minds."

The mandate of the Canadian War Museum is “Educate, Preserve, Remember”. When the museum gives in to pressure from angry veterans and manipulates history to suit their view, it does not educate –it misleads-, it does not preserve -it manipulates- and does not remember –it forgets-.