Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Harper's fixed term

It's just too rich, isn't it? A year ago, Stephen Harper was harping on fixed election dates. October 19, 2009 was set to be our next election date. Here's what the Conservative party had to say about it:
"Fixed election dates will improve the fairness of Canada's electoral system by eliminating the ability of governing parties to manipulate the timing of elections for partisan advantage. Establishing fixed election dates fulfils one of this government's key campaign commitments. It is an important step in improving and modernizing Canada's democratic institutions and practices."
- Rob Nicholson, previous Minister for Democratic Reform
"This important piece of legislation will ensure fairness in the electoral process by eliminating the power of the governing party to call an election to capitalize on favourable political circumstances. The previous Liberal government repeatedly abused the power to call general elections and this legislation will strengthen accountability and provide certainty by setting October 19, 2009 as the date for the next general election."
- Peter Van Loan, current Minister for Democratic Reform.
Of course everybody knows now that Harper is likely to call an election a year early. According to the article, "Mr. Harper said he would not be breaking his word by disregarding his own fixed-election-date law that schedules voting day in October of 2009. He argued that opposition parties want to bring down the government before then, so it is up to him to remove doubt about who will govern."

Yet, there are a lot of bad things in store for the Conservatives in their near-future, between the party's election funding scandal, a slowing economy, and Julie Couillard's upcoming book that will presumably hang MP Maxime Bernier out to dry on his NATO-briefing-paper-indiscretion. It's highly likely that this is a better year for the Conservatives than next year will be. But this isn't an attempt to "manipulate the timing of elections for partisan advantage", nor "capitalize on favourable political circumstances". Nobody will be able to claim that they "abused the power to call general elections", right?

Accountability, you say?

P.S. What did the fixed term bill actually accomplish if both the PM and the opposition can still force elections?

Monday, August 18, 2008

Canada's Ministry of Truth

Oh, I mean the Department of Canadian Heritage. Typo, sorry. More details here, but I'll summarize the juicy bits:

Bill C-10, currently before the Canadian Senate, would deny important tax credits to artistic productions deemed “contrary to public policy.” With no guidelines for what that means, exactly. You can read the left-leaning summary, or the right-leaning summary (the thesis of this article seems to be that it's the Liberal Party's fault - quelle surprise).

Without knowing the guidelines, any discussion of what it entails will be speculation, I suppose, but let's consider some evidence. When the federal government announced its cuts to the PromArt program (among several others) which promoted Canadian art abroad (left version, right version), a leaked Conservative Party memo complained that the funds were being spent on "left-wing" artists. The National Post asks "Why, for instance, is it the duty of Canadian taxpayers to fly left-wing anti-war journalist Gwynne Dyer...." Let's not get into a discussion of all the bad ways in which tax dollars get spent, because that's not so relevant. What's relevant is why it should be the government's business to single out left-wing (or anti-war) art/journalism. Is that what they mean by "contrary to public policy"? At this point, what little evidence we have indicates as much.

So bill C-10 seems to be about letting the federal government moderate art on a political basis. Whether it's harming "left-wing" art, or right-wing art, that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. My brother-in-law grew up in a Communist country, and that was how they ran things there. "It sounds like something they do in Beijing," said Canadian director David Cronenberg. To have it enacted here is a terrifying prospect. The fact that it was even proposed (and then passed by the House of Commons) is disturbing. It has no place in a democratic country.

You can blame the Conservatives, as most do, or you can blame the Liberals, as the National Post does. I don't really care, because I don't think you should vote for either of them. I don't think you should support any party or MP that lets bill C-10 through without a fight.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Why are Canada's Olympic athletes so fat and lazy?

Yesterday's Toronto Star offers up some poll results:

68% of Canadians "find our athletes' performance moderately or completely unacceptable."
50% of Canadians "were disappointed at our athletes' failure to win medals before today."
30% of Canadians "feel the government is to blame for our athletes' performance so far."

Here, one of my (presumably) countrywomen asks "Why are Canada's Olympic athletes so fat and lazy?" I had hoped it would be satire, but it doesn't appear to be.

1. Meanwhile we've had (as of today) 24 top-8 finishes. How awful and shallow to consider that failure and focus on pointing fingers, while sitting safely here on our couches in front of CBC Television. Mike Brown was reported as nearly in tears after his 4th-place finish in the 200m breaststroke. Since when is a 4th-place finish bad? This obsession with medals is hardly sportsmanlike, in my opinion. Hey, Canada, let's stop blaming and start supporting.

2. B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell wants Canada to fund and foster a "culture of sport". Meanwhile the federal government is hacking away large blocks of arts funding. How about a culture of art? A culture of intellect? Let's not devalue the natural talents of all the millions of Canadians who aren't athletes. How about funding social or environmental programs? Is it more important to win Olympic medals than to reduce carbon emissions, provide good health care, home the homeless, etc?

3. What are the Olympics all about, anyway? Sometimes there seems to be a disturbing undercurrent of measuring national or even racial superiority. It's a show of strength, a flexing of national muscles. Why, after all, are governments so intent on pumping money into it at the expense of their own citizens, many of whom live in poverty? Not naming names; the guilty are legion, in varying degrees.

* * *

Michael Phelps has a genetic oddity that causes his muscles to produce half as much lactic acid as other athletes, which means that he recovers more quickly from exertion, and which should be helpful in almost any sport. To me, this points out that success in the games isn't just about effort and spirit. Not to disparage his effort, I'm sure it was Olympian, and I know that he's trained from a young age. But so did many other competitors, and he crushed them (though only emotionally in the case of Milorad Čavić).

A larger population increases the probability of finding such tailor-made athletes, more money makes for better training, and having athletes raised in appropriate environmental conditions can result in beneficial adaptations. In light of the superiority of Kenyan runners who'd trained in natural low-oxygen conditions all their lives, moneyed countries began building hypobaric training chambers for their aerobic athletes. Pretty soon I'm certain that genetic engineering will be involved (if it hasn't begun already).

What does it mean to win or lose an Olympic medal under such conditions? As the science and technology evolve and become more difficult to regulate than drugs, the spirit and effort will be increasingly marginalized we'll be left with a highly-televised sham. Is it avoidable? I don't see how.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

There are other parties, you know

Here, Stephen Harper tells us,
"In the past few months, and particularly over the summer, we have seen increasing signs that this Parliament is really not working very well any more. It is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. Quite frankly, I'm going to have to make a judgment in the next little while as to whether or not this Parliament can function productively."
Let's see how far back our political memories go: In 2007, which party was caught red-handed distributing 200 pages of Parliament-disrupting-dirty-tricks to all of its MPs? Which party is systematically evading or ignoring Parliamentary summonses? Who answers pointed ethical questions in Parliament with lawsuits? It's pretty clear that this entire scenario has been brought about deliberately.

The Conservative party simply doesn't want to make do with a minority government. They don't want discussion or compromise. They want their majority. Increasingly it appears their strategy is to bring Parliament grinding to a halt, blame the Liberals, and call a new election before their funding scandal from the previous election really hits the fan. And then blame the Liberals some more. I'll bet you $100 (I'd bet more, but I'm only a student) that they've got an ace in the hole for election time, they're going to produce something newly scandalous about the Liberals at a key moment, to try to secure their majority.

I've asked it before, and I'll ask it again: How long should we go on picking between two corrupt parties on the basis of who was less corrupt in the last 4 years?

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Openness and Accountability

That was the Conservative platform, yes? Sorry, Stephen, but there is no way you can mash words together so as to make that compatible with having your party members systematically evading and ignoring ethics committee summonses. Calling the committee a kangaroo court doesn't explain why members of your own party quit and accused you of dirty tricks. Obviously you did something wrong, and you're making it impossible for us to learn the details. That's pretty much the definition of closed and unaccountable.

I've decided to start making a list of all ways in which your party is open and accountable. I'll be fair and keep both positive and negative examples, and I'll do it for the other parties as well. Then when it's election time I'll ignore the attack ads from all sides, and just consider my list.

I think everyone knows that one of the underdog parties will win in that case, though, right? They simply haven't had the chance to sully themselves in public. Which reminds me of an argument I keep hearing for why we shouldn't elect the New Democratic Party: "They have no administration experience." Well no wonder... you never elect them. By that logic we should just switch to the two-party system, and spend the rest of our elections trying to decide whether the Conservatives or the Liberals are less corrupt.