A bit of catch-up

Hi everybody. Sorry for the long absence from posting to this blog. A lot has happened in Canada and Canadian affairs that I should catch up on.

First up, the timing of the federal budget. This is the most transparent federal interference in a provincial election that I can recall. The budget (which is sure to be full of goodies for Quebec and claims to have resolved the "fiscal imbalance" between Quebec and the federal government) is a manipulative attempt by Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada to influence the outcome of the provincial election and create the conditions for the Conservatives to grow in the next federal election. It is simply disgusting that the federal budget would be timed for a week before the provincial election. Now, I know some people out there are going to be thinking to themselves: "but the election was called after the budget date was announced, so there can't be collusion." Those people are either willfully deluding themselves or idiots. It's frank, but it's the truth. Anyone who doesn't believe that Harper and Jean Charest were consulting each other on the timing of the budget and the election is seriously gullible. Shame on Harper, shame on Charest and shame on the media who are doing nothing to make this known to Canadians.

Second, the Supreme Court ruling on the security certificate regime. For those that don't know, security certificates are documents signed by the ministers of Immigration and Justice that allow for non-citizens to be held in indefinite detention, with the evidence behind their detention is heard in a sealed court room by a judge of the federal court in the absence of the detained person or their attorneys. These documents have, in recent memory, been used to detain a number of men who, it is suggested, are tied to al-Qaida, though the evidence against them is clearly insufficient to bring them to trial or that is where they would be, rather than rotting in a detention centre in central Ontario. The Supreme Court recently ruled that it violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (specifically section 11[d]) for detainees to be denied the opportunity to confront the evidence against them. The court gave the government one year to alter the law in order to ensure that it complies with the Charter. This is a good ruling. It does violence to the concept of justice that a person could be imprisoned for the rest of their life without being granted a fair trial and without being able to even know on what grounds they are being imprisoned. Unfortunately, the Court, in it's ruling, suggested that the government adopt a "special advocate" system, similar to what is in place in Britain in which security-cleared lawyers act for the defendant and are able to challenge the evidence on his or her behalf. The key problem with such a system is that the special advocate is prevented from discussing the evidence with his or her client and as such can not bring forward alternate facts or explanations to dispute the arguments of the government. As such, a fair trial is denied and the burden of proof is reversed. In essence, the defendant must prove that he or she is not guilty, rather than the state being forced to prove that the defendant is guilty.

Finally, I come to Afghanistan. The occupation rumbles on, though Stephen Harper has now launched an effort to convince Canadians that we are doing more in Afghanistan than propping up a puppet government made up of misogynistic and homophobic drug dealers while blowing Afghanis in the south into little teensy bits. Now let me be very clear on this point: the Taliban were, are and likely will always be, a nasty group of people committed to making the lives of the people under their rule very, very difficult and generally living in the word of 1007 as opposed to 2007. I do not want to see the Taliban return to power, but it has to be recognized that the Taliban are a potent force in Afghan society and cannot be crushed by force of arms. Ultimately a political, negotiated, solution is the only possibility in Afghanistan. There is still time to end the occupation with a political settlement, but in not that long the occupiers in Afghanistan will cross the same threshold that was crossed in Iraq years ago: the point where the only possibility for withdrawal is a Saigon-style evacuation under fire. Yet Harper is spending $200 million on "development" work in order to convince the Canadian public to back the continuation of the occupation, and (though he won't admit as much) to back the next extension that Harper wants to pass to the mission, namely to 2011. By itself, $200 million in aid to Afghanistan is a good thing. But this aid will be tied to the existing government and will be delivered by agencies that are irrevocably tied to the occupation. If we want the insurgency to stop blowing up schools, we have to stop having them built by the armed forces. The insurgency will rightly see anything built by occupation forces as being a tool of the occupation. I don't know another way to get it done, but funding local groups indirectly through international NGOs might be a good start.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 699