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

Conservatives Create Green Smokescreen

All through this week, the Conservative government has been occupied in busily painting itself Green. But like most slapdash jobs, they have done a bad job of it. The government seeks to convince the people that it is truly concerned about global climate change, and is taking action to fix it. That is just a bit difficult to swallow, because these are the same people who just a few years ago were denying that global climate change was occurring at all.

This week, the Conservatives announced three new measures:

1. $230 million for clean energy research over the next four years.
   
2. $1.5 billion for the construction of renewable energy projects over the next ten years.
3. $300 million for home and business energy efficiency incentives over the next four years.

This might be all well and good if it wasn't backloaded to hell and gone. None of this is going to be done now. And now is when we need it. These projects are clearly not going to accomplish much of anything. On the clean energy research, we already have commercially viable clean energy technologies, most prominently wind power. On the second, the funding will be backloaded into the final years, when the Conservatives will no longer be in power. They will not do anything, beyond pointing to this plan. The third part of the plan is the best part. Unfortunately, the Conservatives canceled a Liberal programme exactly like this one when they got into office and we have lost a year's worth of progress. Most importantly, none of these proposals include regulation to ensure that our greenhouse gas emissions continue to go down.

These proposals stink of voluntary measures. We have seen that these don't work. The previous Liberal government set voluntary targets for industry to cut emissions, and the emissions went up instead. What we need is immediate hard-cap targets for industry. If we really work at it, I believe that we can still meet our Kyoto Accord commitments. But of course, the Conservatives don't want that to happen. They are too beholden to the oil and gas industries to ever do anything that would threaten the profits of those industries. All the Conservatives want to do is bamboozle the Canadian people into believing, even for a minute, that Conservatives care about the environment. It simply isn't true.

What is equally true is that the Liberals are no better. They had years, and years, in government to make the decisions, enact the regulations and fund the programmes that would have allowed us to reach and surpass our Kyoto Accord targets. And now they cry crocodile tears for the environment, using it as a cynical means to regain power. As environment minister, Dion presided over some of the most dramatic growth in Canadian CO2 emissions in our history. People should know better than to think that the Liberals will take any action on the environment that is more than mere window dressing.

What we need to do is change our way of life. In Canada, we are one of the most dramatically wasteful societies in the world. We have per capita CO2 emissions higher than the United States. We need to use less energy and live in a much more sustainable manner. This means using energy efficient light bulbs, improving insulation, not driving nearly as much (instead choose to walk, bike or take public transit) and a whole host of other changes. Combined with that, we need to help the developing countries of the world to develop in a clean manner. We need to provide help to China and India to develop an economy driven not by fossil fuels but rather by renewables like wind, solar, tidal and geothermal power.

It is not to late, but we have got to do something soon.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 733

Winter! Finally!

Winter has finally come to central Canada. Last night we got 15cm of snow here in Peterborough. It was a total 0-60 moment when I looked out my window this morning. Up till now, we have had very little snow, and it never stuck around for more than a few days. This snow looks like it will hang around for a while. And it is about bloody time.

This is the weirdest "winter" that I have ever experienced. No real snow until January, and then it all comes in one eight-hour period. Global climate change anyone?

The lack of cold weather and snow in central Canada, and the volatility of the weather in BC have helped to put the screws to the federal government to finally take some real action on reducing our carbon dioxide emissions. I hope that the advent of winter weather is not going to stop the momentum that has been building. After all, when there is no meaningful snow until January in Peterborough, something is deeply wrong.

I really, really, hope that when Parliament resumes in two weeks they can get past partisan bickering and get some real work done on the rewriting of the so-called Clean Air Act. I am deeply afraid that Conservatives will use Cabinet powers to try to scuttle any changes that are made (because most of them don't really accept that global climate change is happening) and that the Liberals will scuttle any attempt to make real progress on the bill because they don't want it to be something that the Conservatives can campaign on in the next election. We need action and we need it now. Ultimately, it will be up to the NDP and the Bloc to keep this issue in the public eye and shame the other two parties into taking real action. What has to happen is that the bill must be given real enforcement teeth, and the targets to be met (which must include the Kyoto targets) must be written into the act, not left to Cabinet to enact (or not enact). Minority Parliaments present a wonderful opportunity for the Parliament to control the power of the Cabinet, and this Parliament must seize the opportunity to do precisely that.

If I have children, I want them to believe me about winter. I want them to know what snow is, and what winter is. If we don't work fast, climate change will be beyond our power to fix, and if that comes to pass, we are all in very deep trouble.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 738

More on the Explosion in Athens

It seems that the explosion at the American embassy in Athens was the result of a rocket (presumably a rocket-propelled grenade) that was fired at the embassy. The Athenian police are saying that the intended target of the attack was the American logo at the front of the embassy, but that the rocket missed, and instead went into a third-floor bathroom and blew up a toilet. No injuries are reported. More information is available from various online news sources, for example an article in the International Herald-Tribune.

Cheers,

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 742

Breaking News: Explosion at the U.S. Embassy in Athens

According to what cbc.ca is calling a "senior police source" a rocket was fired at the U.S. embassy in Athens, Greece this morning at 6 am local time. Apparently the rocket shattered glass and struck near the toilets in the embassy building. No one is reported hurt. The story is still developing and I will have more to say when more details are known.


Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 742

Gordon Brown Plans "Independent" Foreign Policy

According to an article in the Guardian (available here) Gordon Brown, the likely successor to Tony Blair as Prime Minister of Great Britain, is planning to have an "independent" foreign policy. According to the article, Brown acknowledges that "mistakes had been made in the aftermath of Iraq" and plans to initiate a round of "frank" talks with the U.S.

Riiiiiight.

Unless and until he is willing to admit the entire war in Iraq was an enormous catastrophuck (to use Jon Stewart's word) I will not have any sympathy for him. He was a part of the government that actively lied to the people of Britain and to the people of the world. He needs to apologize for the lies of the government before he is likely to gain any traction on that front.

As for frank talks with the U.S., I won't believe it until I see some good solid evidence for it. Brown has not earned the benefit of the doubt, and to the people of the world, he will continue to bear the odium of the British government's active participation in a gargantuan scheme of lies and armed robbery.

If Brown forges a good, truly independent, foreign policy for Britain, then I will applaud him. Until then, the U.K. sadly remains a puppet for Washington's village idiot.

Cheers
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 746

Wajid Khan Crosses to the Conservatives

Wajid Khan, the MP for Mississauga-Streetsville has crossed the floor from the Liberals to the Conservatives. Isn't it wonderful how little respect these floor-crossers have for the people who elected them? It is so dishonest to seek election under the banner of one party, and then cross the floor to sit as a member of another party, which campaigned on a different set of principles. Mr. Khan ran under the Liberal banner, and did not seem to have any qualms with the LPC's platform. Yet now he is prepared to endorse the platform of the most right-wing government in Canadian history? It just doesn't figure. How the Conservatives can accept him in, after the stink that they raised over Belinda Stronach's crossing to the Liberals is beyond me. And how the Liberals can have the nerve to protest, after they accepted Belinda Stronach in is beyond me too. Just goes to show that in those two parties (at least in the Parliamentary leadership) political expediency is more important than principle. If you feel this is wrong (be you an NDPer, a Liberal, a Greenie, a Conservative or what have you), I urge you to sign the petition that can be found here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/khanout/. What Khan has done is undemocratic and totally disrespectful of the will of the voters who elected him. For shame.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 748

Harper's Cabinet Shuffle

This morning, Stephen Harper shuffled his cabinet. Seven senior ministers had their portfolios changed. The changes are as follows:

• Rona Ambrose moves from environment (as everyone expected) to Intergovernmental Affairs
• John Baird moves from the Treasury Board to Environment
• Vic Toews moves from Justice & Attorney-General to Treasury Board
• Rob Nicholson moves from being Government House Leader to Justice & Attorney-General
• Peter Van Loan moves from Intergovernmental Affairs to be Government House Leader
• Monte Solberg moves from Immigration to Human Resources and Social Development
• Diane Finlay moves from Human Resources and Social Development to Immigration
  

If Harper thinks that this shake-up is going to fix anything, he is sorely deluded. What the environment needs is new policy, not a new face for the old, bad policy. Perhaps Harper thinks that because Baird had so much success moving the Accountability (HA!) Act through the House of Commons, he will have similar success moving the so-called Clean Air Act along. Fat chance. The opposition is going to essentially re-draft the Clean Air Act, and the oil barons will be apoplectic (and thus so will be their stooges in the Conservative Party of Canada and Canada's New Government^tm).

The one move that is in any way encouraging is the move of Rob Nicholson into Justice. He is not nearly as extreme as Mr. Toews and will hopefully have the sense to scrap the insistence on draconian penalties and theatrics that Mr. Toews was so fond of.

This is not a team that will win Harper a majority in the next election, thank goodness. Frankly, I would be surprised to see Harper win the next election at all. He has not learned the lesson of Rona Ambrose's failure at Environment. Canadians do not want empty rhetoric and blaming previous governments that failed to act. They want action, and they want it NOW! All Harper is doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 748

Saddam's Death Sentence

Saddam Hussein has lost his appeal of the sentence of death that was handed down to him last month. He will likely be executed within the next thirty days.

I do not believe that Saddam should be executed. In the first place, my disagreement with the sentence stems from the fact that I disagree with the death penalty in general. I do not believe that executions solve anything, and killing only leads to more death. In the second place, I do not believe that Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. Among, other injustices, Saddam's lawyers were not allowed to make closing statements at his trial, and had their microphones summarily cut off when the presiding judge did not like what they were saying. The presiding judge himself had reason to be biased against Saddam because his family had suffered in the crushing of the Shiite revolt that followed the First Gulf War. Saddam simply did not receive a fair trial.

There will be those who say that he has no right to a fair trial because he denied that right to so many others. But to say such a thing reduces the rest of the world to his level, the level of a murderous dictator. Every person has a right to due process and no act can strip a person of that right. Personally, I believe that Saddam was guilty of the crimes of which he was accused, but a free trial should have been held. Saddam could likely have been convicted on the strength of the existing evidence. I would have liked to have seen Saddam convicted in a fair trial before an impartial judge and sentenced to life imprisonment. That is the appropriate punishment for what he did. To rot in a jail cell for the rest of his life.

In all likelihood, the execution of Saddam will spark off yet another wave of violence in Iraq, that will result in the deaths of yet more innocent Iraqis. The civilian population of Iraq is not a legitimate target for the insurgents, only the occupying forces. The bombs set off by insurgents that kill Iraqi civilians are just as detestable as the American bombs that kill Iraqi civilians or the Canadian artillery shells that kill Afghani civilians. Violence can not bring about a better world, it only leads to more violence.

This will be my last post of the year, and to everyone reading it I wish you a happy new year, and a healthy and prosperous 2007.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 756

UN Security Council Proclaims Sanctions Against Iran

On Saturday, December 23, the UN Security Council proclaimed trade sanctions against Iran intended to prevent it from aquiring the materials needed for its uranium enrichment programme and missile programme. It seems to have escaped the notice of the members of the Security Council that these sanctions are patently in violation of international law. As a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Iran is entitled to persue nuclear power for peaceful purposes. As the NPT states:

Convinced that, in furtherance of this principle, all Parties to the Treaty are entitled to participate in the fullest possible exchange of scientific information for, and to contribute alone or in cooperation with other States to, the further development of the applications of atomic energy for peaceful purposes... (text available at this page)

No evidence has to date been presented to prove that Iran is seeking anything other than peaceful nuclear power. Iran has not attacked any of it's neighbours since before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 which is a marked contrast to other states in the region like Israel, which is in fact armed with nuclear weapons.

Now let me be very clear. I don't believe that any state has the right to nuclear power or nuclear weapons because both pose an unconscionable risk to the people of this small world. What I am opposed to is the blatant hypocrisy and disregard for international law being displayed by many, many western states that either have nuclear weapons (US, UK, France, Israel) or have the capacity to produce such weapons through a domestic nuclear energy programme (most of the rest of the west, including Canada). These states claim a right to nuclear energy but are unwilling to allow such to their geopolitical adversaries. Such blatant hypocrisy is sickening.

Not until every other state abandons its nuclear energy/weapons can the west claim a moral prerogative to stop Iran from building up nuclear energy capability. Someday, I hope this will be the case.

May the holiday season find all of you who may read this well and may you have a prosperous 2007. May you enjoy whatever activity you undertake at this time of year, be it a religious observance or simply spending time with family.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 760

A Christmas Tempest in a Teapot

Christian fundamentalists have decided to brew up an enormous controversy over the decision of judge Marion Cohen to remove a Christmas tree from the lobby of a provincial courthouse in Toronto. Judgee Cohen ordered the removal of the tree saying that it is not appropriate to have a Christian symbol in the foyer of a secular building. That is entirely correct and right. We have a theoretically secular state here in Canada, and it is anathemic to such a secular state to display religious symbols of any religion in government buildings.

The Christian fundies are trying to turn this into an enormous issue, though they are trying to get at it through the back door. The fundies are trying to insist that the Christmas tree is not, in fact, a Christian symbol. The fundies claim that the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol, a symbol of nature religion predating Christianity. The roots of the use of trees at the time of Christmas is certainly pagan, but the tree has been whole-heartedly adopted as the symbol of Christmas. If you show any person living in the western world a picture of an evergreen tree covered in ornaments and lights and ask them what it makes them think of, they will tell you Christmas. The Christmas tree is a symbol of Christmas (the Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ) in the modern context. To claim otherwise is to be at least preposterous and at worst disingenuous.

Good on Judge Cohen for making a stand to advance the secularism in Canada, and shame on the fundamentalists of this country who are lying to the people. We should be putting our theoretical secular state into action.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 766

In Memory of the Montreal Massacre

On December 6, 1989, 14 women were shot dead at the l'Ecole Polytechnique by Marc Lepine, simply because they were women at the school. We must always remember what happened there, and that it remains the duty of all people (but particularly of men) to work to end violence against women and to end the misogyny that lies at the root of such violence.

May we always remember the names of the victims:

Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department.
Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.

May they rest in peace.

Dion Wins Liberal Leadership

Well, this is about the best that could have been hoped for. And in less time than I expected. Congratulations to Stephane Dion for winning the leadership of the most ideologically bankrupt party on the Canadian political scene. No, scratch that, the second most ideologically bankrupt. First place has got to go to the Green Party. At any rate, a rant about the Greens is a topic for another time. Everyone pretty much knew that Dion had won after the third ballot, when he moved ahead of Michael Ignatieff with the vast, vast, majority of Gerard Kennedy's delegates. It was certainly exciting, though the high-point of the tension was actually waiting for the third ballot results, rather than the fourth ballot, because it had to be seen how many of Kennedy's delegates would follow his lead.

This outcome is probably the best that could have come out of the convention for Canada considering who the top four were. Stephane Dion can likely win the next election, but it will (in all probability) be a third consecutive minority government, a string unprecedented in Canadian history. This means good things for the NDP, even if a Dion led LPC does horn in a little on NDP territory in Ontario and British Columbia. It is much better to have a minority governing party with whom the NDP shares at least some principles rather than an ideologically anathemic party whose arm must be twisted through threats in order to achieve the very smallest gains, or no gains as the Bloc proved this year. Additionally, the Dion-led LPC (and to an extent the Green Party) may draw environmentally conscious prairie voters who would never vote NDP away from the Conservative Party in seats that are NDP - CPC contests. This could very well result in seat gains for the NDP in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Obviously as a New Democrat I would have loved to run against an Iggy-led LPC, but as a progressive I could never wish that on Canada. Iggy was a menace, and it is good that he has been stopped. I hope he decides not to run in the next election. Because if he does run, and the Liberals win, Dion will feel a need to appoint him to Cabinet. And what an ugly thought that is.

A Dion-led LPC can still be made to wear the Liberal record of the 1990s: massive cuts to healthcare and education transfer payments, major corporate income tax cuts and most importantly reducing EI benefits while increasing premiums to create a surplus in a programme that was never meant to have one.

All in all, it will be an interesting next few months, and an interesting next election, which I will go on the record as predicting will be called in late-February or early-March, before the next budget comes down.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 782

The Liberal Leadership Convention

It's going to be an interesting weekend. Tomorrow, Liberals will choose a new leader for their party. The hope that this new leader will be the one to defeat Stephen Harper in the next election. Personally, I think that whoever is elected Liberal leader will be the next Prime Minister, but not because of anything that the Liberal Party will have done right, but rather because of what the Conservatives will have done wrong. What this means is that Liberals have to think very carefully before selecting their new leader. Do they want to be led by a man who has turned out to be the most anti-peace leadership candidate in decades, Michael Ignatieff, who endorsed/supported the war on Iraq, endorses torture of detainees, "didn't lose sleep" over the massacre of Lebanese civilians in Qana and is really an American? Do they want to be led by a man who has proven time and again that he has no principles, Bob Rae, who still bears the baggage of governing in Ontario during the worst recession since the Great Depression? Do they want to be led by a personally detestable unknown from Toronto, Gerard Kennedy, who has yet to prove that he has any significant traction beyond southern Ontario?

I want to see Stephane Dion as the next leader of the Liberal Party, because of the four front-runners he is the one who will do the least damage to Canada. He is committed to greenhouse gas reductions, reducing atmospheric and water pollutants and a United Canada. He has experience in a successful government at the federal level which is lacking in all three other front runners. Dion is also on the centre-left of the political spectrum, and will support universal medicare remaining sole-payer and sole-provider. I say that I want to see Dion win, despite the fact that he will likely damage the NDP's prospects to expand in the next election. And that is because in the next election removing Stephen Harper and his paleo-cons from office is so important.

Having said that I will never, ever, vote Liberal, because they are the party that allowed social programmes across Canada to go down the tube with the massive cuts made to the transfer payments to the provinces. They are the party that created a surplus in the Employment Insurance programme by cutting benefits and raising premiums. They are the party that would prefer to cut corporate income taxes rather than spend money on affordable and supportive housing, despite the fact that some of the most powerful people in the party recognize that there is a desperate shortage of affordable housing. No, I will never vote Liberal.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 783

An Admission of Disaster in Iraq

It's about time. Tony Blair has admitted to al-Jazeera that the occupation of Iraq has been a disaster. When veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost said that the war in Iraq has "been pretty much of a disaster", Blair agreed that "it has." It is refreshing to see some honesty from the leaders of the aggression in Iraq. Attacking Iraq and brutalizing it's citizens wasn't a good idea in 2003, and it is not a good idea now. This follows hard on the heels of revelations that a U.S. soldier formerly serving in Iraq has admitted that he and three other soldiers had premeditated the rape of an Iraqi girl, and the murder of her and her family. One of the four rapists and murderers, SPC. James P. Barker, plead guilty in order to avoid the death penalty. The reason that Barker gave for what he did: "I hated Iraqis, your honour." So by his logic, it is okay to gang-rape and murder a 14 year old girl, then murder the rest of her family because he hates the entire citizen-body to which they belonged? The details of the story can be found in a Washington Post story here. This is an absolute attrocity. And the Americans and British wonder why they are so virulently hated in Iraq, and around the world.

Foreign troops should be immediately withdrawn from Iraq. The current rationale for why there are there is to stabilize the country and provide the groundwork for a democracy. Well guess what. That isn't happening and isn't going to happen. Eventually the Americans are going to have no choice but to fall back on the true reason for the war, to get American hands on the oil taps. Eventually the argument will be made that if America pulls out then the supply of oil to the economy will be jeopardized. And on that day, I hope that the majority of people in the United States, who cursed anti-war protesters in 2003, will realize, we were right. War is not an acceptable means by which to settle international disputes, let alone to manoeuvre for economic advantage. In 2003 we said, "no blood for oil." We say it still.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 797

The Democrats Win the Congress and Rummy Resigns

Oh, it is a good day. The Democrats have won control of the House of Representatives and they have won control of the Senate (all be it with the slimmest of margins). On top of that good news, Rummy has "resigned." Ding dong the witch is dead. It is going to be a glorious two years, watching the investigations into the shenanigans that the Emperor and his team got up to. I am upset that Nancy Pelosi has promised not to impeach the Emperor, but it is only a minor tarnish on the glory of this day.

Hopefully the Emperor will take a message from this election that it is time for the United States to withdraw it's occupation forces from Iraq. Iraqis don't want them there, and Americans clearly don't want them there. You would think that the Emperor could take a hint.

Also good, the Emperor will not have an easy time appointing new justices to the federal bench in the States, and this is only just in time. Many justices are reaching the age when they could die any time, and if the Emperor got to appoint even one more justice, then the Supreme Court would have been skewed for years.

Hopefully, Canada can take a lesson and kick our own corrupt neo-cons to the curb as the Americans have done. I live in hope.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 813

Ontario Plans Referendum on Voting Reform

The Ontario government has announced legislation that will see a referendum on the recommendations of the Ontario Citizens' Assembly on voting reform. This is a good thing, because the Assembly will likely recommend a system of Proportional Representation. There are a number of problems however.

First, the Assembly does not report until May 15 of 2007. This leaves less than five months to educate the people of Ontario on the option chosen by the Assembly. The BC experience shows that five months is not enough, especially if one of the more complicated PR systems is chosen, for example single transferable vote.

Second, an artificially high bar has been set for the success of the referendum. The government will require that 60% of voters province-wide, and 50% of voters in each of at least 60% of ridings, vote in favour of the referendum before it is considered passed. It is the height of hypocrisy that a government elected to a massive majority of seats with a total of less than 50% of the vote and won more than 50% of the vote in less than 60% of the ridings. By their own standard, they do not have a mandate to govern.

Taking these two issues together, this bill needs major tweaking. It is good that we are being given a chance to vote on our electoral system, but we need more time after the report is made. I would much prefer to see a special referendum vote on the issue, perhaps in the spring of 2008. This would mean there would be time to have a proper debate and to make sure that everyone is educated on the pros and cons of the proposed new system. There would also be time to take to implement the new system before the subsequent provincial election, presuming that the next Ontario government is not a minority that falls prematurely. The requirements for success of the referendum also need to be lowered. Much more realistic is a simple majority of province-wide votes along with a simple majority of voters in a simple majority of ridings.

At least the Ontario government is on the right track here, and I hope they are willing to tweak the law to take into account the concerns that I mentioned above.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 828

"Clean Air Act" Tabled

The Conservative "Clean Air Act" was tabled today. What a waste of space. On the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, easily the most important environmental issue facing Canada today and one of the most pressing issues period, the Conservatives have basically said wait 44 years and we might do something. The plan calls for emissions to be reduced 45%-65% below 2003 levels by 2050. By that time, I will be a senior citizen! This plan is a joke, but a joke in very bad taste. This is like telling a patient with a terminal heart condition that they face a 45 year wait for a transplant!

What we need to do is get started on reducing emissions now! If the government had the intestinal fortitude to face down powerful industries such as oil/gas, petrochemical and automotive, there would be a chance to do something. We simply do not have 44 years to wait.

All that the Conservatives have accomplished with this proposal is to shift responsibility. They know full well that they will not be in power when any of the deadlines come up. For shame on Harper and Ambrose.

As another factor of this, they claim that the programmes will harmonize with U.S. standards on such things as pollutant controls. So much for the made-in-Canada plan. As Gilles Duceppe put it, this is a written-in-Washington-and-Xeroxed-in-Canada plan. Harper should be ashamed of himself for so blatantly selling Canada and Candians down the river.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 834

Garth Turner booted from Conservative caucus

Garth Turner, the maverick MP from Ontario, has been given the boot from the Conservative caucus. He says that he will be sitting as an independent.

The Conservatives claim that Turner's booting came as a result of concerns that his blog was breaching caucus confidentiality. But what seems more likely is that he was booted for criticizing the leadership of his party, for example over the defection of David Emerson.

I will be very interested to see what Turner does over the next while. He has generally been seen as a red-Tory on social issues while being a fiscal conservative. In this regard he would seem to be a good fit for the Green Party. It would have profound political ramifications if Turner were to decide to sit as a member of the Greens. Such an action by Turner would provide much more impetus to the demands of the Green Party to be included in the televised leaders' debate.

Should be an interesting next few months.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 835

Stevie's Hypocrisy on Arrar File

So, Stevie Harper is going to send a diplomatic note to the US government demanding that they come clean on the Arrar affair. I would have more confidence in this if Stevie was actually willing to apologize to Arrar. Until the Government of Canada issues a formal apology to Arrar, this country is in no position to demand anything from the US.

The government must apologize, because what happened to Arrar is Canada's fault. The RCMP sent false information to the FBI, leading directly to Arrar's deportation and torture in Syria. Until Stevie is prepared to offer an unconditional apology on this, there is no reason to expect the US to do anything at all. Stevie has no moral authority on this issue. His Public Security minister, Stockwell Day, expressed a belief, while Arrar was in Syria, that Arrar was a terrorist and chastized the Liberals for "siding with" an al-Qaida terrorist.

For shame, Stevie. Put your own house in order before demanding that anyone else do the same with theirs.

Cheers,

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 847