NDP -- socialist now a dirty word?

Barring a huge shock, it's almost certain Justin "Not Ready for Prime Time" Trudeau will become the leader of the federal Liberal Party, tomorrow.   But the one I'm watching this weekend is the NDP convention, and their mulling over whether to eliminate or significantly tone down references to its being a democratic socialist party.    Some of the delegates are saying to get rid of the word would make it a paler shade of the Liberals.   Others are saying that it needs to be more middle of the road if it has a chance not just to become the government, but to permanently displace the Liberals as the alternative to the Conservatives.

What does this remind me of?   The battle between New and Old Labour in the UK.

When Tony Blair took over the party after the unexpected death of John Smith, he and Gordon Brown understood that Labour had no chance until it became more pragmatic.   And the biggest challenge wasn't making a U-turn and taking on a tough on crime approach -- or more famously, "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime."

No ... it was Clause IV.

This was, and is, the key underlying statement about what the party was.   The original Clause IV, dating from 1917, was an unabashed demand for nationalization of just about everything -- that its goal was:

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

After a decade and a half in the wilderness due to the huge strength of Margaret Thatcher (RIP) to 3 straight majorities, and then an upset win by John Major in 1992, much was said about what approach the party should take going forward.    After much back and forth, a new Clause IV was created in 1995.   It says:

The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.

In layperson's terms, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but everyone should have an equal shot at getting to the top.    What is remarkable is that in one fell swoop, the party dropped its demand for nationalization and formally accepted free enterprise; while declaring for the very first time what everyone already knew -- that it's a democratic socialist party.    The strategy worked, helped by a very lackluster (albeit competent) rule by Major -- Blair managed to pull off a three-peat of his own.


Tom Mulcair is no Jack Layton, but he does have a lot of credibility stemming from his long time as a public servant and later member of the Québec National Assembly.   He comes off to me as a competent man who knows what he's talking about and where we as a country should be going.

Frankly, as a Liberal but one who could be persuaded to switch his vote, I think it would be a mistake to pretend to be something that you are not.   The only way and plausible chance the NDP has to beat the Cons in the next election is to say on the one hand, yes they are socialist, but on the other hand it would be pointless to dismantle the free enterprise system we have.   The nuts and bolts is for the party itself to decide of course, but presenting a honest but pragmatic foot forward would win many voters over.

Pragmatism is what has always served Canada best -- not ideology.   And the best ideas often become accepted planks.    Take public health care -- as late as the early 60s when it was first implemented in Saskatchewan, people in most other provinces thought it was not only ridiculous, but even Satanic.  Ditto public pensions, and even national parks.    Imagine a Canada without them.   We can't.

If the three candidates for PM -- well four, including Elizabeth May -- all put forward their real platforms rather than posture with nibbles that attract hidden by realities that hit us with a sledgehammer, we'd have a real election for once.    Don't we wish, though.

Gay marriage getting closer in States -- hopefully

After two days of hearings at the US Supreme Court it's not for certain whether gays and lesbians will finally win their hard fought for right to marriage equality across the States.  The transcripts don't in my opinion give too much of a clue, at least in the first case.   But I have a couple of observations.

The first day concerned California's Prop 8, the gay marriage ban that was shockingly approved the same day Obama won his first term as President -- and obviously, many who voted for him on the economy also voted for the ban for ethical reasons.    While it was 52-48 yes, then and polls now indicate that people would remove the ban 63-37, it's still not clear what this court will do even though the Ninth Circuit struck it down.

Gay marriage is now legal in Washington DC and nine states; two more recognize gay marriages contracted in other states.   But from the hearing on Tuesday, some suggestions were made the court may decide not to decide and throw the case out all together.

This strategy would be known as a DIG -- a denial for improvident grant of certiorari (cert means the court grants leave to appeal and issues a certificate ordering the lower court to send up transcripts, docket books and the decision itself for review before oral arguments, about 80 to 100 cases per year).   Leave granting is rare, about 8000 or so applications are tossed out for lack of a "federal issue" while another 300 to 400 are decided on summary judgment based the merits of the case and without a hearing.

Why a DIG?   Such a strategy is used when after leave was granted the court decides it wasn't ready yet to even to hear such a case.   But if that's true, then why all this thumb twisting?   The court really does need to decide.   That 12 jurisdictions have affirmed gay marriage,  and the other 39 ban the practice all together is bizarre.

This isn't worker's compensation which rightfully is a state issue.   This is about families.   And even if the state bans are upheld, the court needs to make clear that the full faith and credit clause means if you're marriage in one state or territory you're married in all of them -- in other words, you have to enforce custody orders from other states and have to give the same fringe benefits and entitlements to gay couples as well as straight no matter what your state laws otherwise say.

The court has to do the right thing.   Strike down Prop 8 and say marriage is a union of two people regardless of the sex of the partners.

***

The second day of hearings on gay marriage dealt with DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act.   Interesting that Obama decided to demur the appeal to the Tea Party.    That will help the case go against the act, actually.   But more important is that the court wasn't so much concerned with gays and lesbians collecting federal benefits as it is with the fact the 1996 law was so encompassing.    According to some justices, 1100 statutes were amended.   If the law was just one sentence -- that a marriage is one man and one women to the exclusion of all others -- it might still be on shaky ground especially given how so many people have changed their minds and now support gay marriage and a court can't necessarily ignore public opinion while deciding.  But the fact so much was covered in the law may bolster the case that rights were trampled on multiple times even if inadvertently.

However as Chief Justice G. Roberts pointed out on day one and reemphasized on day two the Constitution requires a President to defend laws on the books even if he or she disagrees with it, and that they "faithfully execute the laws".   This is certainly also a shot at numerous Presidents who sign laws symbolically but then issue a signing statement they won't enforce it in whole or in part.

He's got a point.   Even if the President favors gay marriage and thankfully he does, he should have tried to come up with some kind of plausible way to defend the law rather than throw the hot potato to Sarah Palin and company.

This one looks like it is definitely going down and it should.   But a void for vagueness argument would be unacceptable too as much as an overreach decree.   Just say it's wrong and give all families the same rights to benefits as well as access to hospitals for family visits.   How hard is that really?

***

One last thought.   At least a few of the intervenor groups against gay marriage say that they are against it because to allow it would infringe on their freedom of religion.   Seriously.   Wasn't that the same argument men made a century ago about why women shouldn't have the vote?  Or people of colour shouldn't have equal rights?  Or women active personnel shouldn't be allowed to live on military base housing like male officers?

And let's not forget restrictive covenants against Jewish people which lasted in many neighbourhoods especially wealthier ones well into the 1970s.

Even people who identify with a religious group don't necessarily practice it, they just want something to belong to.   If people are offended they can just look the other way inside and stew inside their hatred.   Being opposed to something is one thing, actively denying that something to someone else is another.

The ship has weighed anchor from the harbour.   We should all be on that ship.  It's all of us or none of us -- straight, gay or otherwise.

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Let the "muzzled" speak

As disgusting the comments are from several MPs from the far right of the already right-wing and ruling Conservative party, I think they have a point about being muzzled by PMS, and should have the right to speak their minds in the Commons unimpeded.   After all, several MPs from the Liberal party said things on the floor during the 90s that were just as repugnant -- Rosanne Skoke for one -- and Chrétien didn't stop them.

Why should they have free reign?   Because they will help bury their own party at the next election.  Canada has taken pride in being a pragmatic country, not a doctrinal one.   And the more people know what the backbench stands for the more Canadians will wonder if the Cons really do "stand up for Canada" ™.

Gender identity wins, and Justin proves he`s a loser

What a pleasant surprise to hear that the House of Commons gave third reading to an opposition bill, C-279, that would include gender identity as an aggravating circumstance in determining if a criminal act was motivated by hate and therefore deserved an extended sentence.   More astonishing is that 18 Conservatives, including 4 ministers (John Baird, Jim Flaherty, Lisa Raitt and James Moore), broke ranks from the party and voted against the Whip.   C-279 is simple enough and does nothing more than add to the already existing suspect classes -- race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, or mental or physical ability.   This is a no brainer piece of legislation and the Senate would be wise to pass it as soon as possible.

Not too surprised Harper voted against.   We all know who butters his bread.   And Rob Anders calling it the "bathroom bill" and a licence for pedophiles?   Give me a break.

But I am angered that Justin Trudeau couldn't even be bothered to show up.   Not even to "pair" with another member (i.e. abstaining).    If this is a future Prime Minister, then he lost much of what little respect I had for him in the first place.   You are not your father's son, sir.   Even Alexandre and Sarah have more common sense than you.   Would it have been so hard to take one hour out of your tour to show up into the House on a matter of principle?   Shame on you!

Weekly roundup (ending Mar 16 / 13)

First and biggest news of the week was the upset election of 76 year old Jorge Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, who interestingly has taken the name Francis I.    No sooner was he elected, and leading up to his investiture next week (since 1978, new Popes have refused to take the three tiered crowned during a coronation, preferring to be inaugurated instead like pretty much every monarch in Europe, save the UK, is) comes the news that Bergoglio may have had a hand -- or at the least said way too little -- in the so-called "Dirty War" in Argentina from 1976 to 1983, when 30,000 political opponents of the military junta "disappeared" and thousands more were tortured.

The bigger problem, though, is that because the junta was also Roman professors, the Catholic Church of Argentina made a deal with the devil in an attempt to stop insurgents who were against religion all together, as well as those who supported "liberation theology" -- the Catholic parallel to the Protestant "Social Gospel".   The code of silence, even if voluntarily self-imposed, had incalculable consequences.

(I can only think of Oscar Romero of San Salvador who paid the supreme sacrifice for speaking out against the five member joint presidential junta -- and the funeral thereafter when at least 50 mourners, maybe more, were murdered at the funeral.   Imagine if the new Pope came from there or another Central American country.   Then a lot of heads would have been rolling!)

I don't know what to make of this news.   Heck, the now retired Pope, Joe Ratzinger, had a lot of questions to answer about his membership in the Hitler Youth.   And while he was extremely complicit about child abuse during Wojtyla's time as Pope and only started doing baby steps after he became top of the heap, it was way too little, too late.

Let the good times roll.   We're stuck with this guy for another 10 years, if he follows Ratz' lead and quits at 85 -- which is actually a good precedent to follow.

******

Patrick Brazeau.    My God.   He really takes advantage of the $22,000 housing allowance by claiming he lived with his father, even though he didn't.   He claims he got a status card from the organization that represents non-reserve First Nations and that he used to run -- but the group doesn't have that ability, only bands do.    He allegedly beats his girlfriend (allegations before the courts at this time).   And so forth.   It's almost a relief he took a leave of absence from the Senate.

But for all that, comes an act of stupidity -- or fraud, depending on one's point of view -- and it wasn't even Brazeau.   It was someone I least expected and used to respect; MP Peter Penashue who also served as Harper's hitman dealing with the provinces and territories.    Once a respected leader of the Innu nation, in fact one of the people who created the autonomous region of Nunatsiavut in Labrador, Penashue was forced to resign this week over 28 illegal contributions he took for the 2011 election, including $10,000 from a regional airline and an additional $27,000 in "in-kind" donations from the same airline -- the latter, apparently unreported.

If the money was actually spent, then he would have been way over the spending limit for the district -- just over $84,000.   If the campaign took corporate donations then handed out receipts to individuals to get around the individual spending limit -- that would be even more illegal.

And the best part:   He wants to run in the by-election to replace himself; just as Sheila Copps did over the GST (although that was really a stupid promise to make anyway).

Yes, he did give the money back, but only because he got bailed out by the Conservative Party.   But that really isn't the point.   Taking money from whom you shouldn't knowingly and / or overspending beyond the limit is illegal.   It's illegal because it gives you an unfair advantage.  An illegal practice is punishable by up to five years in jail, and a concurrent ban from voting.   If the practice was motivated by corruption, it's five and seven respectively.

Besides, if you have any question at all about where the money's coming from you should put it in sequester until you get an answer.   And if you spent it and find out after the fact to try to give the amount back to the contributor, or if not possible, to the federal elections commission.

To wait more than a year after the election, though?    That's just wrong.   If I was running Elections Canada, I'd press charges.   And the law should be changed so that you can't run to replace yourself!


******

Finally things are really heating up again on the Korean Peninsula.   About 10 days after the Security Council passed Resolution 2094 against North Korea, the toughest sanctions ever in the history of the UN and even more draconian than those against Saddam Hussein during the Kuwait crisis, the North has engaged in one provocation after another, they said (again!) that the 60 year old ceasefire is over.    After a week of belligerence, today North Korea again test fired some missiles.

Many have said this is another "disarmament for aid" attempt.   It's time for the blackmail to end.    I said it before, and I'll say it again:    It's time once and for all to demand the Commies start feeding its people again, using its own resources to keep people alive instead of starving them for the purposes of militarization.   It must end its nuclear arms program once and for all.   And until the island is unified, it must begin the process of democratization and human rights including dismantling all of its prison and slave labour camps.

Even Mainland China has gotten fed up which is why they agreed to the resolution.    But they need to take the final step -- turn off the power to the North.    Nearly all of is used to run the nuclear weapons program anyway and if you do that, I think that then the North's regime's raison d'être will cease to exist or at least begin to.

Out of fear can come hope.   It's time to stop fearing the Kim clan and their posse of genocidal maniacs.

Devolution for NWT -- a start

I cannot agree too much with PMS' agenda, but today he took a huge step forward in signing a tentative devolution agreement with the Northwest Territories and five of the region's First Nations.   It could come into effect as early as next year.  Basically speaking, the territory will be able to operate more or less like a province in everything but name.  I think that in some respects the charter doesn't quite go far enough -- unlike a province which gets to keep one hundred percent of royalties from resource extraction and power production the NWT will get only half.   Even more ominous, the feds are still refusing to give up its one-third interest in the Norman Wells gas and oil fields.

Still this is quite a long ways from the period 1905 to 1970, when the NWT was a police state directly governed from Ottawa and the elected "council" was a joke.   Other than electing an at-large MP to the Commons, the residents there really had no rights at all other than habeas corpus.   And it wasn't until 1975 that all MLAs were locally chosen, or until 1980 that all the members of the Cabinet were directly elected MLAs -- until then and in both cases Ottawa still appointed hacks to make sure things stayed its way.

Compare this to the Yukon which immediately won home rule back in 1898 upon its secession from the NWT and with it a real legislature, although devolution did not come there until 2003.   (Nunavut, created in 1999 when it itself was partitioned from the NWT is in the process of devolution talks at present.)

Still, the principle that people should govern locally and not be governed from afar appears to be entrenched in this agreement; and while the feds could theoretically recede those powers back to itself unilaterally, practically it will be even more impossible than the status quo is now.   And as I've mentioned before, the NWT's consensus form of government (i.e. no parties, and the Cabinet has to present legislation that can command broad agreement up front) is a model for the "South".

Why is it a model?   Because somehow, out of all the diversity in the region, they've figured out a way to maintain the kind of sanity that the increasingly polarized Commons and provincial legislatures don't even want to broach -- including the kind of respect that existed through the 1980s that ensured more than 80% of government bills got unanimous consent.   Good luck with that today!

Having seven First Nations and nine native languages, besides English and French, as official languages helps in that direction but so does the climate and a sparsely populated land mass twice the size of Texas.   It only makes sense to keep it local as well as to get along or try.   Besides, why should Ottawa unilateraly decide, for example, if a winter only ice road should be replaced by an all-weather one, especially if it will drive down the huge cost of living up North?   Shouldn't that be a local choice?  (In that vein, the NWT is saying some of the upfront money will likely go to extending the Dempster Highway from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, on top of $150 million Harper pledged earlier.)    Perhaps the agreement is in part a reward for having had make it work for so long.

I have never been able to figure out why we can't even try that.   Many local city councils in Canada, if not most, have no parties -- although councillors' affiliations are not really a state secret.   Would it be so hard if say a quarter to a third of a legislature were composed of true independents (with no current or past affiliations with any party and therefore no axes to grind) elected at large by regions within a province, and who could set terms that make proposed laws more reasonable and acceptable to all?

Maybe it's because that provinces' positions are fixed in the Constitution there is nothing further to devolve.    That doesn't mean they can't develop better ways to have a democracy.   Our brothers and sisters up North didn't need devolution for that -- and thankfully today's agreement doesn't change that.    Maybe there's a lesson there -- especially as all the territories eventually move their way to becoming provinces which will now be a much faster process than before.

And it will be a good thing when they truly and finally become part of the sisterhood of the provinces, and not the colonies they still officially are now.

Métis wuz robbed sez Supremes

Finally, one of the three pillars of Canada's aboriginal peoples -- the Métis -- have won justice.   They are owed a lot of money -- perhaps ten billion or even more.  And it's because of one thing.   Our constitution.

There's one thing about constitutions.   The way they're drafted can leave a lot to interpretation.  Some insist on an originalist viewpoint, that is interpret it only considering when it was written.   Others say that clauses have to be viewed with a broad focus in mind as time passes by, that nothing is set in stone -- the "living tree" concept.    Canadian justices have tended to look at the big picture, unlike some other countries.   But sometimes they focus on the original intent -- and it comes back to bite even the framers.   And for the second time in the last three decades, the court has set its sights on the Manitoba Act, 1870.

Many of us remember in the 1980s the then decades long battle between the province and the small French-language community and the province's official language act which proclaimed that English language to be the only official language and prohibited the government or cities from providing any services in French.   It took almost forever but in 1985, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the "Manitoba Language Reference" (as "The Court", never revealing who wrote the opinion) that the province had no right to unilaterally repeal section 23 which required laws to be in English and French.

As a result, everything that the province ever did between 1890 to 1985 was illegal.   Not just the statutes and executive orders.   Every birth, every marriage, every death, every highway and house and building built during that time, all driver's licenses, all hunting and fishing permits, every parking ticket and moving violation -- the whole enchilada -- were all invalid because the contracts and documents were in English only too.   In effect, Manitoba was in a state of anarchy.   The high court offered a way out, giving the province three years to repass the laws -- which it did -- in a Canadian twist to the "doctrine of necessity."

Today, in a 6 to 2 decision (one Associate Justice, Marie Deschamps, apparently recused herself after oral arguments), the Court ruled in Manitoba Metis Federation v. Attorney General of Canada that a strict reading of section 31 of the Manitoba Act would make it clear that the province's Métis were deprived of a promise to get the best land in the province when the Red River Settlement agreed to be annexed (retroactively) by Canada.   While the descendants of the blending of natives and white settlers thought their children would keep what we now know as Winnipeg and the surrounding area, about 5700 square kilometres or 1.4 million acres, instead they got scrips for much less desirable land.   Over the ten years after the province was created, they were literally run out of town by the Whites.

Much more to the point, to the argument the feds made that the statute of limitations would have run out decades ago, indeed just a few years after Manitoba was created, the Court said that the fact that the feds' role in the deceit, intended or not, only came out well after the fact, effectively reset the clock to file a lawsuit, and that too was a deciding factor that tipped things in favour of the plaintiffs.  And in any case, the Métis' rights were in the Constitution before those of the Inuit and North American Indians were included in 1982 -- and the government's duty to carry out the "honour of the Crown" had been present all along and it had not done so.

Of course, the Métis don't want Winnipeg back, anymore than the Mississaugas want Mississauga.   But it's the principle that matters.   If we made a commitment to our First Nations then we had better damn well stick by them.   Which means we'll have to start land claims negotiations.   Let's just hope it doesn't take even more decades as it did with the Haida, the Nisga'a or the Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en alliance.    The settlement needs to be fair and just, but it needs to wrap up in a way that satisfies all and in a reasonable period of time.

At the same time we need to settle the remaining land claims with the North American Indians.   If the Six Nations disgrace is any indication -- and remember, there are still 26 claims from that one band and by the elected council -- we could all be spinning in the wind unless this government, indeed all political parties, finally band (pardon the expression) up and say we'll get this taken of; so all Aboriginals feel they are truly part of the country we illegally occupied in 1497.

Arkansas: Crossing the line of decency

Arkansas has finally gone too far when it comes to women.   Really.   This is a new forward advance in the war against women and it's awful.   And it's on abortion.

If you've followed my entries here you know that I think abortion is absolutely despicable and that Canada should have some kind of line drawn at when restrictions kick in (Canada, of course doesn't have any) provided the debate is truly honest and not disingenous as the really out to the right Con backbenchers have attempted.

I reluctantly recognize that it is a right, though, and further to that right women should be given as many options as possible.   To deter abortions, I have also argued for sustantial increases in the child tax credits, making adoption expenses fully refundable (currently it's just a 15% credit with a cap) and ensuring that women have full access to as many pre-natal support programs for free or at very low cost.

The legislature in Arkansas has passed a law overriding the governor's veto banning abortions at just twelve weeks, in many cases past when many women even find out they are pregnant.   Further, it would ban an abortion if a heartbeat is detectible which can happen even before twelve weeks.  This is well short of the US Supreme Court's sense on this more than twenty years ago, when in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision it allowed states to put restrictions at viability, between twenty and twenty-eight weeks (and many states merely enforce its laws at the median, twenty-four).   Medically viability means the baby has a chance in the incubator if there is a premature delivery -- and while medical progress may have pushed the line to an earlier point I doubt very much we've pushed it back even to a median of twenty.

There're only two reasons to do this.   One, to take away women's freedom to decide for themselves when to get pregnant or not.   Two, if they're the victims of incest or a rape, to legally eliminate the process which would allow women to try to purge the shame of being victims.

This isn't a game.   Women's lives and integrity are at stake.   And until real solutions are implemented that make abortion so socially undesirable that it's eliminated by choice (pardon the expression), it should remain a right.   The courts should strike this down.  The law is misogynist.  Plain and simple..

Free choice in communications? (Competition Tribunal says no)

To my surprise and dismay, the Competition Tribunal has approved Bell Canada's takeover of most of Astral Media's assets.   This comes some time after a similar buyout attempt was rejected.  Yeah, Bell will have to divest several cable channels -- namely  Family Channel (Read:  Disney Channel Canada), Teletoon (English and French), Teletoon Retro (English and French), Disney XD, the Cartoon Network, Disney Jr. (English and French), Historia, Séries+, MusiquePlus and Musimax.   The consent decree also forces Bell not to require cable and satellite companies to force them to carry other channels as a condition of carry premium networks TMN and SE.  

Big hairy deal -- especially since it means Canadian Regulators Totally Clueless will almost certainly approve the marriage (such that it is) now.

True, none of the channels show any news content per se except the French music channels.   But it is still a very sad day. Because it looks like CTV gets the radio stations -- and their news content; and that means less choice.   We shouldn't go back to the situation from even recently when FM stations were forced to play classical music on Sunday nights -- even heavy metal ones.   But where does national ownership lead us?

Because it was impractical for solely local outlets to provide the kind of programming that requires a national focus, even when affiliated as part of a loose network, local media meant just that -- local.      Close to the people.   Diversity of viewpoints, too, even locally.  Were it not for some rules which are more strictly enforced in Canada than in the US, there would be no local DJs.   And that can be crucial in case of a crisis.

We've seen in some cities in the States six or seven radio stations owned by a faceless corporations.   Remember about ten years ago when one town (Minot, North Dakota) had a gas leak, the Emergency Broadcast System was supposed to have been activated with orders for residents to clear the town but this didn't happen -- and years later the faceless corporation still hasn't apologized?  (Guess shareholders are more important than 6000 people in the sticks -- who gives a fudge if they died?)   No one did die, because the police got on their asses and told people to leave, door to door, but it was a close call.   And why did this happen?   All six stations were remotely programmed from head office -- just preprogrammed music, six different formats, on a remote control loop -- no DJs, just local commercials.  And no one even thought about breaking in for a special bulletin.

Can we expect that in Canada?   It's just a matter of time, really.

Maybe we do need a second national radio news broadcast every night to compete with CBC One's World at Six.  But having CTV News, or Rogers or Corus program it, would be as welcome as a shot in the head.    And besides, this arrangement allows Bell to sell package deals for advertising, on radio and television, while those who would want only one or the other would have to pay more per unit.   Shouldn't that be as illegal as not setting limits on carrying the movie outlets?

It's also worrying because in the areas where Bell has its incumbent telephone territory, it's rolling out fibre optic television, which as DSL internet uses phone wires, and introducing it in more and more cities -- my guess is that they're trying to get people off its satellite service.   Reports are its library of on demand programs is more vast than even cable.   But if you control the content of the on demand channels you already own, and you set conditions on competitors to put on their content, isn't that also anti-competitive?

Don't forget when the anti-Canada Quebecor bought the rah-rah Canada Toronto Sun, there was supposed to be a firewall between the two companies.   That lasted a month or so.  When ToSu bought the joke station "Toronto One" the agreement was the paper's newsroom wouldn't encroach on the station.   It took a couple of weeks for the station to start having its newscasts from the floor of the paper -- and that station quickly became SunTV and then Sun News.

This is pathetic.   And the CRTC should call the bluff.   Annul the marriage, all together.  Astral is worth selling, and Ian Greenberg deserves to cash in for building a company from nothing to a power player.   But surely someone not currently in the national game should get a chance.   Another voice would be welcome.   It's about choice.   Otherwise, the exodus to alternate online media and on demand content will continue unabated -- and if they're almost all American outlets, our voice will be gone all together.

For what it's worth, we're headed in that direction anyway, merger or no merger.

Charles McVety vs sex ed

I really have to hand it to some social conservatives who are so sexually repressed they recoil at the word sex.   I don't know if Charles McVety of the Canada Family Action Coalition is quite that regressed, but his playing on people's worst instincts would be comical were it not for what's at stake -- the kind of country that we want Canada to be.  Especially when it comes to personal choices.

Chuck, a televangelist, has make himself look like an idiot several times over.   He is certainly entitled to his opinion that gay and lesbian marriage is wrong.   He is definitely allowed to say that, too.   But it wasn't that long ago -- like, 2010 -- that he went on TV repeated the oft repeated lie that gays and lesbians prey on minors,  as if to say that only homosexuals are pedophiles.   Of course most reasonable people know that not to be true.  But you can't convince some people about that.

Two years ago, McVety railed against the idea of "gay-straight" alliances in schools, claiming they would force students to hear about oral and anal sex.   Of course the problem is, most kids know about it already.   They go on the Internet.   They talk to their fellow students.   Heck, in a lot of cases, their own parents have talked about their escapades into the back door, openly!

And what is so wrong with standing up for open discussion about sex, or about standing up for someone who is bullied because of their choice of lifestyle?   Some kids figure out they're gay by the time they're five or six even if they don't yet  know the word for it.

Now, the latest front.   Kathleen Wynne, the Premier of Ontario and the first openly gay chief executive of the province since its founding in 1791 as Upper Canada, now may finally do what should have done decades ago; updating the province's sex education curriculum.   Something that Pointy Head, Dalton McGuinty, should have done already while he was still Premier.  And naturally, McVety and his fellow regressives are whipping up a firestorm saying once again that this shouldn't be in schools, or if it is, that parents should have Power Of Veto ™
.
Why:   Three words.   Ignorance is bliss.

Where does that take us, though?

We only have to look in the States to see where abstinence only programs go when it comes to heterosexual sex amongst teenagers.   Higher rates of genital, oral and anal sex, higher rates of disease, higher rates of pregnancies.   In States where there is a frank discussion of the consequences?   Lower rates of disease, lower teen pregnancies.   And counter intuitively, the rate of people delaying their first time is actually higher than in the regressed states.

Because oral and anal contact inherently can be so much more dangerous, since there is often a lesser use of protection and in turn a much higher risk of exchanging bodily fluids through cuts, there needs to be education on reducing the risk.

Look, even the most progressive of progressives -- and I'm nowhere near there in the political spectrum -- would have to acknowledge that abstinence is the only way to stop the spread of venereal disease or a pregnancy.

But this is not an ideal world.   Kids have sex.   And they have it at younger and younger ages, because both boys and girls are starting to develop at younger ages -- mainly due to changes in our diets and in environmental factors.  Matter of fact, many girls are starting to develop at age 7 and boys at 9.   And their "first time" with someone of the opposite sex will probably be by the time they hit 13.  If they experiment with someone of the same sex, maybe earlier.

Even thirty years ago, which gives away my age (!), my classmates and I -- both sexes -- didn't start to develop until 12 or 13 and the median for losing the cherry was 16.   But we did talk about sex in the schoolyard.   Straight and gay sex.   And then as now, some of the chatter was based on facts but the rest on misinformation.   But the discussion in class, such as it was, was only about heterosexual sex.    For those in my class who were gay or lesbian and there were a couple, some use that did.

The rate of gays and lesbians in this country has likely stayed at the same rate for decades -- the difference is that now there's greater tolerance of the practice, more people who are LGBT feel comfortable in saying so.   They're not about to go back into the closet.   And as I have said previously, their families are just as valuable, just as vital, as "straight" families.

I have always thought that teaching kids values starts at home, but if those values are based on prejudice and misinformation there has to be a forum to present a more balanced view and without parental interference, so the kids can decide for themselves.  And practically the only place that can happen, is at school.

If one had to ask McVety, one would have to suppose he might say we should go back to the days when a "troubled" teenage girl had gone to an aunt -- i.e. the homes for unwed mothers -- and the father of the baby was not allowed to even have access to what he had a part in creating, let along being told where his girlfriend disappeared to.

Knowledge is power.   And the more we empower people, especially at a young age, the more we can push back at the holier than thous who claim they know better.   And even turn back the tide on disease and unwanted pregnancies -- as well as bigotry.  Premier Wynne should push forward, and not be bullied.   Straight people like me, who have an open mind, have "gotten used to it."  It's time those whose minds stubbornly closed, to get used to it as well.

Ratinzger quits

As suprising (not) as Joe Ratzinger's resignation today as Pope Benedict XVI may have been, he did the right thing.   The Catholic Church is so dysfunctional that it'll take years to begin to fix it (and although he was an insider for decades, it got to be too much even for him) -- and the fact he's had to have Midnight Mass for Christmas at 10 pm four years in a row was warning that this was going to happen.   One has to wonder if he's much worse than he's letting on.   Alzheimer's, perhaps?    We now know that Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) was diagnosed with Parkinson's as far back as 1989 and he thought about quitting.

Matter of fact the last time a Pope resigned was Angelo Correr (Gregory XII) in 1415 in a bold move to end the impasse between the Roman and Avignon churches and later even that of  Pisa, all of which claimed to have the real Pope.

Was Ratz health the issue?   Was he shoved out?   Who knows, but he did the right thing by walking away before becoming so incapacitated that no one would know who was in control.   Catholics, including disaffected ones like me, would need that like a shot in the head.

Doing the right thing.   How refreshing.

Too bad Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau haven't figured out how to do the honourable thing for themselves and their country.

Stuff from Duff ™ (with apologies to Hilary and Hailey)

Mike Duffy, a supposedly neutral journalist and Ottawa pundit for nearly 30 years for both CBC and CTV before he became transparently neo-con and did everything he could on air to make Paul Martin Jr kick the political bucket was rewarded for his total lack of journalistic integrity with an appointment to the Senate from his supposed home province of Prince Edward Island.

Here's where it gets interesting.   As we all know, after years of benignly ducking the issue, the Senate Board of Internal Economy (the committee that cuts the paychecks and spending allowances of Senators) is now demanding proof of residency to justify whether a Senator lives outside the 120 kilometre circle around Ottawa - Gatineau and thus get the second residence allowance for living within the National Capital Region (NCR), which can run up to $21,000 per year.

The Duffster it seems has been rushing to get the PEI Department of Health to issue him a health card even though like anyone applying for a new card there is a three month hold, just as there is for new residents.    The Senator also claims to live in the resort city of Cavendish even though no one there has ever seen him there to shop, fill up for gas, hold a meet the constituents barbeque and so forth.    In fact he has been living in Ottawa for over forty years and as far as anyone knows that has been his factual residence (ergo, his province of residence should be Ontario).

Why is this important?   Because in addition to a minimum age of 30, Schedule V of the 1867 Constitution provides for the following oath from newbie Senators:

I A.B. do declare and testify, that I am by law duly qualified to be appointed a Member of the Senate of Canada, and that I am legally or equitably seised [sic] as of freehold for my own use and benefit of lands or tenements held in free and common socage [sic] in the Province of [insert Province] of the value of Four Thousand Dollars over and above all rents, dues, debts, mortgages, charges, and incumbrances due or payable out of or charged on or affecting the same, and that I have not collusively or colourably obtained a title to or become possessed of the said lands and tenements or any part thereof for the purpose of enabling me to become a Member of the Senate of Canada,and that my Real and Personal Property are together worth Four Thousand Dollars over and above my debts and liabilities.

Simple enough.   The $4000 floor was put in in 1867 because J.A. Macdonald believed the rich needed their own voice as they would always be a minority (seriously) and in those days $4000 of debt-free property would be like $400,000 today.   The problem of course is that in those days the vote was male suffrage at 21 and only if you owned any property.   Most Canadians did not, they were in effect still serfs of the Sovereign.

Today however, you can own side by side burial plots and that would be enough to qualify to be in the Senate.   As long as it is in the province you are summoned to represent.

It's simple Duff.   Prove you own any property in Prince Edward Island, and you're off the hook.   If you can't you must resign.   And a health card isn't good enough because other than for health care it's not even legally acceptable ID.

Is it too much to demand a REAL Parliament?

As the House of Commons is now back in session, I have the following questions:

Is it too much to ask that titles of bills and acts are as neutral as possible so as to state the purpose -- eg. "Criminal Law Amendment Act No. 1, 2013" rather than propaganda such as  "Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act"?

Is it too much to ask that our Members of Parliament be allowed to ask real questions and expect real answers rather than talking points -- especially answers that don't even answer the question but reel off propaganda about something totally different?

Is it too much to ask that there are no standing ovations for the delivery of the most mundane of answers?

Is it too much for MPs from one party to stop "unaccepting" letters of condolence from MPs of another party, for the loss of a family member -- just because they don't want to be tainted with the stain of "evil"?

Is it too much to demand that we stop those stupid media events where a minister stands in front of a backdrop giving talking points -- rather than making those speeches where they belong, in ministers' statements after Question Period and introducing the bill right there and then?   I thought introducing or even discussing the possible content of bills outside of the legislature constituted contempt of Parliament.

Is it too much to ask that we stop the personality of cult around the Prime Minister that we see in dictatorships, like Russia and North Korea?

Well, yes.   It is too much to ask.  After all, this is Canada.

Whose'  the rednecks now?

Even Westminster and the national assemblies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have way more respect for the people than this.

Guest post: The Trudeau Paradox (Part Three)

In Part I of this essay, we discussed the origins of Quebec nationalism and how it developed into a desire by Francophone Quebecers to have their province recognized as a distinct society within Canada. In Part II, we saw how Pierre Trudeau sought to counter this as Prime Minister of Canada, how he fought subsequent attempts to recognize Quebec’s distinctiveness, and how the Trudeau Paradox emerged from it. In Part III, we’ll see a possible way around the Trudeau Paradox, as well as the fact that there’s a lot more common ground between Francophone Quebecers and their fellow Canadians than most people realize.

The Trudeau Paradox, Part III: Towards Reconciliation

Is there a solution to the problems raised by the Trudeau Paradox? Currently, we’re stuck in a polarized situation. Either one supports Trudeau’s vision and the reforms associated with it, or one supports the separation of Quebec. There doesn’t seem to be any room for the middleground anymore, one that recognizes the unique challenges Quebec faces and supports the recognition of that province as a distinct society, while also recognizing that the province is part of Canada and shares common values and challenges with the rest of us.

This middleground, so well described by the likes of Henri Bourassa, André Laurendeau and Claude Ryan, may in fact be the key to resolving the seemingly endless debate. Unlike Trudeau, none of these men, federalists one and all, saw any contradiction between constitutional distinctiveness for Quebec and the idea that it could be part of the larger country. As we’ve seen, this belief has extremely deep roots in Quebec, roots that continue to endure today, with continued strong support for Quebec’s language laws.ⁱ Newer immigrants to Quebec have also tapped into these roots, as evidenced by the presence of the “Children of Bill 101”ⁱⁱ or people from multicultural groups that have supported or even run for the Bloc or Parti Quebecois as candidates.ⁱⁱⁱ While it’s obviously not feasible in the current political climate, it may be an option that we as Canadians should seriously consider for the future. Nor is Quebec the only part of Canada that would be recognized as such-New Brunswick, for one, deserves to be praised for being recognized in the Constitution as the only officially bilingual province in Canada.

For the last three decades, we have been doing things Pierre Trudeau’s way when it comes to the Quebec question, and all we’ve done is end up in a polarized, embittered situation. As we’ve seen, what Trudeau advocated was not what most Francophone Quebecers have been looking for, so maybe it’s time for a fresh approach. As Claude Ryan has pointed out, Quebec’s distinctiveness has been recognized implicitly already many times, ranging from Quebec managing its own pension plan and collecting its own taxes to as far back as the Quebec Act of 1774. Formally recognizing it in the Constitution would not exactly be breaking with tradition.^iv

As we have seen, Pierre Trudeau had to make a number of concessions to the realities of language and disadvantaged groups in Canada, and justified such actions as a means of ensuring that everyone had an equal chance to exercise their talents, even if they were in a disadvantaged situation. If anything, this could just as easily apply to Quebec, the only province with a Francophone majority on a continent dominated by Anglophones. Stéphane Dion, the man who passed the Clarity Act so fiercely condemned by Quebec separatists, also noted that, if a province like Alberta or Saskatchewan were the only province with an Anglophone majority on a continent dominated by Francophones, it would probably have the same concerns about its Anglophone heritage and identity that Quebec does with its Francophone identity.^v

Aboriginal leaders like Elijah Harper and Phil Fontaine have also indicated that they do not have any objections to Quebec’s distinctiveness. Although he helped derail the Meech Lake Accord, Elijah Harper has specifically stated that he was not saying “no” to Quebec. Rather, he was saying “no” to a constitutional process that, yet again, ignored Aboriginal peoples’ concerns and left them on the outside looking in.^vi Fontaine, for his part, pointed out that his people were looking for much the same recognition as Quebec was.^vii

Nor is this a new trend in Canadian history. The Americans constantly refer back to their country’s founding fathers for wisdom, and we could benefit by doing the same thing. We have already seen how Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Charles Tupper acknowledged the need for a federal system due in no small part to the presence of Francophone Quebecers. Richard Gwyn notes that Macdonald said if that if Francophone Quebecers are treated “as a nation, they will respond as a free people-generously. Call them a faction and they will become factious.”^viii Macdonald also fiercely condemned the repression of Francophone language rights on the Prairies and the attempt to eliminate or assimilate the Francophone communities in that part of the country. He asked his fellow Anglophones if they would be less supportive of the Francophone communities than were the earliest Anglophone communities, words that led Henri Bourassa to speak glowingly of him as the man who “best understood the spirit of Confederation.”^ix

What’s often overlooked, in the claims that the differences between Quebec and the rest of the country cannot be reconciled, is in fact how much common ground there really is between Quebecers, both Francophone and Anglophone, and other Canadians. For one thing, while many Francophone Quebecers may not like the way the Charter was patriated, they share other Canadians’ strong support for the actual content of it. A 2002 poll found that 45% of Quebecers “strongly agreed” with the statement that the Charter had a positive effect on the protection of the rights and freedoms of Canadians, and 41% of Quebecers “somewhat agreed” with that statement.^x Five years later, a 2007 poll found that 61% of Quebecers had a favourable view of the Charter, as compared to 67% of Atlantic Canadians and 54% of Western Canadians.^xi Even in 1991, at the height of the Meech Lake/Charlottetown debate, Stéphane Dion pointed out just how much the values of Francophone Quebecers meshed with those of other Canadians.^xii In 1995, less than a year before the fateful referendum, Claude Ryan noted that Quebecers were just as devoted to universal rights as were other Canadians.^xiii

Nor does the Parti Quebecois’ re-election suggest that separatism is making a comeback. The PQ was elected with just under 32% of the popular vote, lower even than it got in 2008, when the Quebec Liberals were re-elected.^xiv A poll released during the election campaign suggested that support for separatism had fallen to 28%.^xv As Stéphane Dion notes, the PQ’s victory can most likely be attributed to voters being tired of Jean Charest and the Liberals, and voting for the PQ as an alternative.^xvi The PQ was also likely seriously hurt by abhorrent policy positions such as its Charte seculaire, which drove longtime separatist Jean Dorion away from the party. As Dorion noted, chickens tend not to want to vote for Colonel Saunders.^xvii Some Anglo-Quebec commentators, including those who are exceptionally vocal in advocating for Anglophone rights in their province, have specifically noted that the vast majority of Francophone Quebecers are no more bigoted or racist than the vast majority of Anglophone Canadians.^xviii

Critics might reply that this is all well and good, but Quebec continues to mooch off the rest of Canada via transfer payments, receiving more money than any other province. What many people don’t realize, however, is that the main reason Quebec receives so much money is because its population is so much larger than most of the other “have not” provinces. On a per capita basis, Quebec actually receives less money than smaller provinces.^xix If Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island had the same population as Quebec, they would be receiving far more money than Quebec would. And for a province that’s supposedly content to leech off the money provided by things like Alberta’s resource extraction, the province has an active movement to develop its own natural gas resources. No less a figure than Lucien Bouchard, former Premier of Quebec, now serves as president of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association, and has sharply criticized the Marois government for not taking steps to develop the province’s natural gas.^xx

Things like equalization and the Constitution attract a lot of attention, but they distract from the more common, everyday ways that Quebec interacts with the rest of the country. As a former Quebec Liberal Cabinet minister, Claude Ryan described the many positive interactions the Quebec government had with the federal government and the other provinces even during the constitutional wars of the 1980s and 1990s.^xxi While the province is typically seen as leaning more to the left, in classic Canadian fashion it’s moved back to the centre when necessary. Both René Lévesque and Lucien Bouchard showed themselves capable of cutting provincial spending to balance the provincial budget, moves that reduced their support among their own political base.^xxii

More generally, programs like “J’Explore” and “Encounters With Canada” give young Francophone Quebecers the opportunity to interact with other Canadians, to say nothing of the countless regular interactions Quebec Francophones have every day with other Canadians in business, tourism and just general friendship. Historically, Quebec has also played a significant role in the development of Canada itself as a nation, from its role in ensuring that Confederation gave us a federal system of government to its contributions to Canadian democracy and identity, helping to give Canada its own unique character as we adapted British institutions to suit our own needs.^xxiii

The Trudeau Paradox has led us into a polarized situation with no apparent solution. Either one supports Pierre Trudeau’s approach to Quebec, or one supports Quebec separating from Canada. Neither approach is or has been capable of solving the seemingly endless dilemma we now find ourselves in. These approaches overlook a very long and rich tradition of Quebec thinkers who’ve striven for the middleground in their province’s relationship with Canada, most of which are sadly unknown to Canadians in other parts of the country. They also overlook the common values Francophone Quebecers share with all other Canadians, Quebec’s own efforts to balance its books and develop its resources, and the unique challenges Quebec faces in trying to maintain its Francophone majority on an Anglophone-dominated continent while also supporting its own Anglophone minority.

Quebec and Francophone Canadians in general have often been accused of perpetrating a double standard in demanding that French be given what they consider “special treatment” in other provinces, even as Anglophones in Quebec are supposedly stripped of their rights. What this overlooks is that such an argument could easily be turned around. One could ask why Quebec should be the only province that has to be bilingual and provide support to its linguistic minority. Couldn’t that, in itself, be considered a form of double standard? If Quebec’s Anglophone minority receives particular treatment, based on its own unique situation in Quebec-as well it should!-what is the basis for not doing so for the Francophone minorities in other parts of Canada?

This is the positive role that bilingualism can and should play in Canada. Rather than simply being used to try and fight Quebec nationalism, it can and is an extremely useful tool for Canadians to communicate with one another, and build understanding across the country. More practically, it also serves as a useful way to attract a larger variety of immigrants. Not all our immigrants speak good English, but some of them do speak good French, and they often integrate into Francophone communities across Canada.

Pierre Trudeau’s vision of the country has much to offer Canada. Bilingualism and the Charter of Rights have immeasurably enriched our country and provided a solid foundation for our future development. Trudeau was quite right when he pointed out that Quebecers have a government in Ottawa as well as in Quebec City, and that their interests are closely tied to Canada’s as a whole. He was also right when he noted that secession would not solve Quebec’s problems.

However, his vision is by necessity incomplete. Samuel La Selva perhaps put it best when he noted that Trudeau and a separatist leader like René Lévesque each only understood what the other did not.^xxiv Because of the Trudeau Paradox, many Francophone Quebecers now feel like they’re forced to choose between being Quebecers and Canadians.^xxv It’s not something that they particularly want, and it’s undermined our national unity. Many Quebec thinkers, ranging from Cartier to Bourassa to Laurendeau to Ryan to Dion, have shown that there’s a better way, one that’s deeply rooted in Canadian history. This way, one that takes Quebec’s unique situation into account while also recognizing that it is part of a greater whole, may well be the solution to the Trudeau Paradox.

Of course, there are some serious questions that would have to be answered. If Quebec’s distinctiveness were to be recognized in the Constitution, exactly what form should it take? If we’re going to change things to better reflect Quebec’s place in Canada, we obviously also need to know how this won’t simply lead to separation. What areas would Quebec continue to participate in with the rest of the country, and follow along with the rest of us? However, we won’t know unless we actually ask these questions.

Recognizing Quebec’s distinctiveness is not simply a matter of “appeasing” that province. If that is the reason for recognizing Quebec’s distinctiveness, then it is not worth doing. Rather, it should be to acknowledge the very real challenges Quebec continues to fact because of its unique situation. It can and should be part of a larger effort to address many of the longstanding problems facing Canada today. My own home province of Alberta has long criticized the current form of the national equalization program. Perhaps, even as we’re addressing the issue of Quebec’s distinctiveness, we should also be re-examining equalization to make it fairer for “have” provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan!^xxvi

Changes like these may well be the key to reconciliation, providing a stronger basis for Canadian unity and building mutual understanding between the various parts of Canada, one that does justice to the spirit of Macdonald and Cartier and the wonderful legacy they have left us.

i Licia Corbella, “Lougheed’s Greatest Legacy Is Canadian Unity.” Calgary Herald, September 15, 2012. Available online at http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/Corbella+Lougheed+greatest+legacy+Canadian+unity/7247717/story.html

ii Wikipedia article on the Children of Bill 101. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Bill_101

iii Jean Dorion, “Quand un séparatiste se sépare: La Charte de la laicité.” Le Devoir, September 22, 2012. Available online at http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/359768/quand-un-separatiste-se-separe

iv Ryan, pages 229-233.

v Straight Talk, pages 141-142.

vi Elijah Harper, “A Time To Say No”, in Justice For Natives: Searching For Common Ground, edited by Andrea P. Morrison. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997. Pages 219-226, quoted on page 225.

vii Quoted in Olive Patricia Dickason and David T. McNab, Canada’s First Nations: A History Of Founding Peoples From Earliest Times. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pages 399-400.

viii Richard Gwyn, Sir John A. Macdonald, His Life, Our Times: Volume II, 1867-1891. Toronto, Ontario: Random House Canada, 2011. Page 13. See also Gwyn, “Canada’s Father Figure.” Canada’s History Magazine, Volume 92: 5, October-November 2012. Pages 30-37, especially pages 36-37.

ix Sir John A. Macdonald, His Life And Times, pages 550-552.

x Jack Jedwab, “Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms Seen As Having a Positive Impact On Rights and Is A Positive Symbol of Canadian Identity.” Association for Canadian Studies, January 1, 2002. Available online at http://www.acs-aec.ca/pdf/polls/Poll1.pdf

xi Graeme Hamilton, “At 25, Charter Is Misunderstood.” National Post, February 8, 2007. Available online at http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e3f9a1dc-7622-4fb4-96cf-b3c3cac13939.

xii “Le nationalisme dans la convergence culturelle”, page 305.

xiii Ryan, pages 174-178, 227.

xiv “The Nanos Number: The PQ’s Slim Victory.” CBC News, September 5, 2012. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/09/05/pol-nanos-number-sept-5-quebec-election.html

xv Denis Lessard, “L’appui à la souveraineté recule.” La Presse, August 31, 2012. Available online at http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/elections-quebec-2012/201208/31/01-4569904-sondage-lappui-a-la-souverainete-recule.php

xvi Stéphane Dion, “The PQ’s Secessionist Agenda Cost It A Majority.” IPolitics, September 6, 2012. http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/09/06/stephane-dion-the-pqs-secessionist-agenda-cost-it-a-parliamentary-majority/

xvii Jean Dorion, “La charte de la laicité: Quand un séparatiste se sépare.” Le Devoir, September 22, 2012. http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/359768/quand-un-separatiste-se-separe

xviii Author by the screen name of “Anglo Montreal”, “Xenophobes And Racists: If The Shoe Fits…” No Dogs Or Anglophones, September 24, 2012. http://nodogsoranglophones.blogspot.ca/2012/09/xenophobes-and-racists-if-shoe-fits.html See also a blogger by the screen name of “OlmanFeelyus”, “How To Be A Successful Journalist In Canada Today.” Briques du neige blog, September 5, 2012. http://briquesduneige.blogspot.ca/2012/09/how-to-be-successful-journalist-in.html

xix Author by the screen name of “Radical Centrist”. “Equalization Questions and Misconceptions.” On Procedure and Politics blog, April 24, 2012. http://thoughtundermined.com/2012/04/24/equalization-misconceptions/ See also Michael Holden, “Are Albertans Really Paying For Quebec’s Social Programs?” Canada West Foundation website, April 20, 2012. http://cwf.ca/commentaries/are-albertans-really-paying-for-quebec-s-social-programs

xx Canadian Press, “Lucien Bouchard Criticizes PQ On Shale Gas.” IPolitics website, September 21, 2012. http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/09/21/lucien-bouchard-criticizes-pq-on-shale-gas/

xxi Ryan, pages 15-112.

xxii Couture, Cardin and Allaire, pages 284-285.

xxiii David Watts, “Canada’s Unlikely Champion of Federalism.” Edmonton Journal, October 29, 2008. Available online at http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/ideas/story.html?id=f92b8bd9-8ff2-4a71-9538-9a07cf073215.

xxiv Samuel La Selva, The Moral Foundations of Canadian Federalism. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996. Page 118.

xxv Dufour, pages 61-67, 71-79 and 96-99.

xxvi “Equalization Isn’t Equal.” Calgary Herald, October 16, 2012. Available online at http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/editorials/Equalization+equal/7390204/story.html.

Guest post: The Trudeau Paradox (Part Two)

Part I of this essay discussed the origins of Quebec nationalism and the desire of Francophone Quebecers to have their province recognized as a “distinct society” within Canada. This desire was fiercely opposed by Quebec political thinker Pierre Trudeau, who became Prime Minister of Canada in 1968. Trudeau was seen as speaking for Francophone Quebecers, and his critics would claim that he was just the first Prime Minister from Quebec to impose that province’s agenda on the rest of Canada. However, in this part we’ll see that Trudeau’s agenda was quite different from what most Francophone Quebec thinkers were advocating.

The Trudeau Paradox, Part II: Trudeau, Mulroney and the Constitution

Trudeau’s reforms, including the way he implemented bilingualism across Canada and advocated for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, were meant to undercut any sort of claim by Quebec to its distinctiveness. He supported bilingualism on a strictly individual basis, believing that if French was further reinforced across Canada it would undermine Quebec’s claim to be a distinctly Francophone majority province. Similarly, multiculturalism would make Francophone Canadians just one of many communities of many different backgrounds that exist in Canada. Enshrining the rights of all Canadians in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would further cement an overall Canadian identity, over and above any provincial identity.[1] He justified his support for government intervention such as social programs as being a way to help everyone get an equal chance to make the best use of their talents, as their circumstances were not all the same.[2]

These reforms proved controversial in many circles. However, by and large many Canadians outside Quebec came to accept them because they felt that it was what Francophone Quebecers wanted, as Pierre Trudeau claimed.[3] Many people outside Canada considered actions accepting bilingualism and French immersion as what journalist Paul Wells called the rest of the country “bending itself into pretzels” to accommodate Quebec.[4] When the Quebec government began passing legislation to enshrine French as Quebec’s official work and education language, and Quebecers voted the Parti Quebecois into office, people in other parts of Canada saw it as an action of bad faith. They were angered that, despite their willingness to accept official status for French in their provinces and enrolling their children in French immersion programs, Francophone Quebecers didn’t seem to respond to the rest of the country’s efforts to accommodate them.[5] They didn’t realize that Trudeau’s efforts were part of his attempt to undermine Quebec nationalism, particularly as advocated by the Quebec government.

The irony, as Richard Gwyn pointed out, was that Trudeau’s opposition to distinct status for Quebec put him more in line with his predecessor John Diefenbaker’s line of thinking, including Diefenbaker’s advocating the idea of “One Canada”, which was obviously far more popular outside than inside Quebec.[6] Gwyn noted that Trudeau’s individualist beliefs also meshed quite well in some respects with those of many Western Canadians,[7] as did the results of Trudeau’s 1982 constitutional reforms, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[8] John Diefenbaker had also advanced his own Bill of Rights, which he considered an essential element of his ‘One Canada, One Nation’ philosophy.[9] Trudeau’s message came at an opportune time for many Anglophone Canadians, who had previously based much of their conception of Canada on its connection to Great Britain. With the decline of Canada’s British connections after World War II, these Anglophone Canadians were now looking for a new vision.[10]

Despite his ideas not meshing with those of most other Quebec thinkers, Quebec voters still steadily supported Trudeau throughout the 1970s, in no small part due to the fact that he was a native Quebecer, and ‘one of their own’, as former Le Devoir editor Lise Bissonnette put it.[11] However, the first referendum on Quebec separation, held in 1980, despite being decisively won by the federalists, had the Francophone vote nearly split down the middle.[12] During the referendum, Trudeau had promised Quebecers a “renewed federalism”, but patriating the Constitution without recognizing Quebec as a distinct society was seen by many Quebec Francophones as a breaking of that promise.[13] In many ways, the 1982 reforms fell short of the major suggestions for change, heavily influenced by Quebec Francophones, that Trudeau had mentioned during the campaign,[14] and were certainly not what many Francophone Quebecers were expecting.[15]

As Claude Ryan and Guy Laforest would later point out, the way in which Trudeau went about patriating the Constitution was fiercely opposed by many Quebec federalists and separatists alike, contrary to Trudeau’s claims that the majority of Quebec’s elected politicians supported what he’d done.[16] Francophone Quebecers turned against Trudeau after that, voting overwhelmingly for the Brian Mulroney Conservatives in 1984.[17] Historian Will Ferguson, who was living in small-town Quebec at the time, recounted just how strong the support for Mulroney was.[18] Several years later, at the height of the Meech Lake controversy, a long series of polls noted just how much Trudeau’s influence had diminished in Quebec, and just how little most Francophone Quebecers, including ordinary citizens, thought of him.[19]

Mulroney subsequently tried to address the anger many Francophone Quebecers felt by negotiating the Meech Lake Accord with the provincial premiers. It was fiercely opposed by Trudeau and his supporters outside Quebec, although most Francophone Quebec federalists, including many of Trudeau’s former political colleagues, supported it.[20] Trudeau’s opposition to Meech Lake helped rally the opposition of many other Canadians, such as then-Premier of Newfoundland & Labrador Clyde Wells, and proved instrumental in the Accord’s failure.[21]

In Quebec, Meech Lake’s failure was viewed with great disappointment[22] when it wasn’t seen as a rejection of the province altogether.[23] Of course, that was not what most opponents of Meech Lake meant to say. Clyde Wells, for example, was in fact quite supportive of bilingualism, although most of his supporters didn’t realize it.[24] As previously noted, many Francophone Quebecers who were Trudeau’s former colleagues had come out in favour of Meech Lake. Even a young Stéphane Dion declared that Trudeau’s defeat of Meech was “the worst constitutional error in the history of the country.”[25] As recently as 2007, as the leader of Trudeau’s former party, Dion would state that subsequent changes in Canada had given the country the “practical” advantages of Meech Lake, but without the “symbolic” advantage these changes would have had if they’d been passed as part of the Meech Lake Accord.[26]

In the Meech Lake debates, Trudeau and his supporters outside Quebec ran up against the desires of Francophone Quebecers.[27] The fallout from Meech Lake led to the 1995 referendum, and by that time most Canadians outside Quebec were fed up with the whole issue. Many Francophone Quebecers had also come to support separatism, because they felt like the rest of Canada opposed their efforts to maintain their Francophone character. It’s been suggested that Francophone Quebecers were duped by their provincial elites, but as Jeffrey Simpson pointed out that’s a dangerous argument to make when you consider the disputes other provinces, such as Alberta or Newfoundland & Labrador, have had with Ottawa.[28] Were the people of those provinces duped by their elites? Of course not!

Other factors played a role as well-many Western Canadians were frustrated by what they saw as the federal government’s exclusive concentration on Quebec’s issues, which led to the rise of the Reform Party. Quebec was also seen as greedy and spoiled, due to the belief that it was getting the most federal spending and transfer payments. The controversies over Quebec’s language laws, and the Oka crisis of 1990, furthered the image of Francophone Quebecers as racist and intolerant. Of course, as Jeffrey Simpson observed, not much was made of the fact that most of the rest of the country didn’t always do much to uphold the rights of their Francophone minorities.[29]

All of this created an ugly, self-perpetuating cycle. Francophone Quebecers saw the rest of the country’s opposition to Meech Lake, recognition of Quebec’s distinctiveness and its language laws as a rejection of Quebec itself. Meanwhile, many other Canadians who saw Trudeau’s and Mulroney’s reigns as part of an unbroken effort by Quebec to impose its agenda on the rest of the country. They also saw Quebec nationalism as tantamount to not wanting to be Canadian, or only staying in Canada for the financial benefits.

At the root of it all was the Trudeau Paradox, that perception that Pierre Trudeau’s ideas were what Francophone Quebecers were looking for, and that he was part of Quebec’s attempt to impose its own agenda on the entire country. In fact, Trudeau sought to impose his own agenda, one that he thought could defeat Quebec nationalism, and one that ended up being accepted far more outside Quebec than within it, except among perhaps the province’s Anglo-Quebec minority. Trudeau’s efforts to defeat Quebec nationalism only left many Francophone Quebecers alienated, and when Mulroney tried to change the situation with Meech Lake, Trudeau and his supporters outside Quebec rallied to defeat it. When support for separatism increased up until the 1995 referendum, many Canadians outside Quebec simply came to conclude that nothing would ever satisfy the province.

As I previously noted, the last few decades have made it clear that Trudeau’s efforts to turn Francophone Quebecers away from their nationalism, and by extension to wipe out the appeal of separatism, have not succeeded. While Trudeau claimed during the Meech Lake debates that the younger generation of Quebecers did not want or need any kind of distinct status in the Constitution,[30] the results of the 1995 referendum, as well as the continued support among Francophone Quebecers for the province’s language laws, show that Trudeau was probably wrong about Francophone Quebecers’ opinions on their province’s distinctiveness. Guy Laforest has pointed out that, while it might have been easy for someone like Trudeau to maintain his Francophone character no matter where he went, but many other Francophones might not have had such an easy time of it.[31] In his days as an academic, Stéphane Dion also raised this point in support of Quebec’s language laws.[32] Nor are Quebecers the only Francophones concerned about language. Justin Trudeau got into trouble with New Brunswick Acadians when he suggested that New Brunswick should abolish its separate English and French school systems and simply create one bilingual system.[33]

It’s not hard to understand why there’s been so much misinterpretation and confusion among other Canadians as to why Francophone Quebecers have acted and voted the way they do. In an extremely insightful observation, Alan Cairns noted that many Canadians outside Quebec, both then and now, have a hard time understanding the whole concept of “two founding peoples”, particularly when one of them is primarily based in Quebec. Anglophone Canadians are the majority in the nine other provinces, in addition to being a minority in Quebec itself. This makes it a lot harder for many Anglophones to accept the whole idea of Quebec as a distinct society, particularly since they tend to view the federal government as the only one capable of speaking for all Canadians.[34]

The contradictory elements of Trudeau’s policies, particularly the ones that tied into collective group rights, also make it easier to see him as supporting a collective rights agenda. While he supported bilingualism on a strictly individual basis, the very nature of Trudeau’s efforts to enshrine bilingualism meant that he was favouring the English and French languages over others. In building support for the Charter and the 1982 reforms, Trudeau also reached out to other groups that would have particular provisions for them in the Charter, including women’s groups, multicultural groups and Aboriginal peoples.[35] People from these groups opposed the Meech Lake Accord out of concern that any recognition of Quebec would diminish the recognitions they had gained in the Charter.[36]

One can also point out just how confused the Trudeau policy was regarding Francophones outside Quebec. Francophone minorities received a greater amount of federal funding for cultural activities than did other cultural groups, something that caused an understandable resentment among the latter, particularly when the expectation among immigrant groups would be that they would have to learn English and assimilate.[37] When Trudeau came up with the idea of multiculturalism as a way of undermining the idea of biculturalism so popular in Francophone Quebec, he had to fuse it with bilingualism so that it became “multiculturalism in a bilingual framework.” This was at odds with Trudeau’s efforts to establish bilingualism across Canada, and was criticized by Francophones both inside and outside Quebec.[38] On a more basic level, the poor job Trudeau did of explaining bilingualism to Canadians and his blunt indifference to Canadians’ concerns also undermined its acceptance by the rest of the country.[39]

Thus, the Trudeau Paradox emerged in full force. Many people thought that the differences between Quebec and the rest of the country were irreconcilable, and that there’s simply no way to resolve the impasse. In Part III of this essay, we’ll see that this is not necessarily the case, and in fact Francophone Quebecers have much more in common with other Canadians than most people realize.

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[1] Laforest, pages 130-139. See also McRoberts, pages 176-177, and Russell, pages 80-81.

[2] Pierre Trudeau, The Essential Trudeau, edited by Ron Graham. Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart, 1998. Pages 15-16.

[3] Jeremy Webber, Reimagining Canada: Language, Culture, Community and the Canadian Constitution. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994. Page 160. See also Simpson, page 266, and McRoberts, page 112.

[4] Paul Wells, “Franchement: PM Stephen Harper and French Canadians.” Inkless Wells blog, December 20, 2012. Available online at http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/12/20/franchement-stephen-harper-and-french-canadians/

[5] McRoberts, page 112.

[6] Richard Gwyn, The Northern Magus: Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Canadians. Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart, 1980. Page 231. See also Cairns, page 51.

[7] Gwyn, page 277.

[8] Roger Gibbins and Loleen Berdahl, Western Visions, Western Futures: Perspectives on the West in Canada. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2003. Page 61.

[9] McRoberts, page 46.

[10] McRoberts, pages 111-112. See also Simpson, pages 265-266.

[11] Romney, page 285.

[12] Couture, Cardin and Allaire, page 184.

[13] Laforest, pages 15-37. See also Couture, Cardin and Allaire, page 185, and McRoberts, pages 174-175.

[14] McRoberts, pages 161-163. See also Russell, page 109.

[15] McRoberts, pages 174-175.

[16] Ryan, pages 134-138, and Laforest, pages 138-142.

[17] McRoberts, pages 178-179.

[18] Will Ferguson, Canadian History For Dummies. Mississauga, Ontario: John Wiley & Sons Limited, 2005. Page 386.

[19] Simpson, page 171.

[20] Ibid., page 170.

[21] Ibid., pages 159-162.

[22] Ryan, pages 147-148.

[23] Simpson, pages 294-296 and 302.  See also Webber, pages 179-180.

[24] Simpson, pages 169 and 173.

[25] Quoted in Robert Bourassa, Gouverner le Québec. Montreal, Québec : Fides, 1995. Page 277.

[26] Quoted in L. Ian Macdonald, “Interview With Stéphane Dion.” Policy Options Magazine, June 2010. Page 10.

[27] Laforest, pages 115-118. See also Ryan, pages 147-148.

[28] Simpson, pages 168-169.

[29] Simpson, page 166.

[30] Cited in Laforest, page 116.

[31] Laforest, pages 116-117.

[32] Stéphane Dion, “La nationalisme dans la convergence culturelle:  Le Québec contemporain et le paradoxe de Tocqueville,” in L’engagement intellectuel : Mélanges en honneur de Léon Dion, ed. by Raymond Hudon and Réjean Pelletier, pages 291-311. Sainte-Foy, Québec : Les Presses de L’Université Laval, 1991. Page 305.

[33] Alexander Panetta, “Trudeau Apologizes For Language Remarks.” Toronto Star, May 7, 2007. Available online at http://www.thestar.com/news/article/211381--trudeau-apologizes-for-language-remarks.

[34] Cairns, pages 41-43.

[35] Couture, pages 90-95. See also Cairns, pages 79-81 and 110-115, and Russell, pages 113-115.

[36] Russell, pages 134 and 143.

[37] Simpson, pages 245, 246 and 257.

[38] McRoberts, pages 129-135.

[39] Charles Taylor, Radical Tories: The Conservative Tradition in Canada. Toronto, Ontario: House of Anansi Press, 2006. Page 187.