For Your Consideration

In a time when reflexive rather than reflective responses are elicited by some of our politicians, a little food for thought from Patrick Corrigan. Axe the tax, spike the hike, bring it home and other such mindless slogans may never be quite the same again.

Lifeblood For A Moribund Democracy?

By any measure, I think it is safe to say that ours is not a healthy and vital democracy. One only has to look at election turnout statistics to see ready proof.

In the last two elections, barely half of Ontarians bothered to cast a ballot — an embarrassing 48 per cent voted in 2011, and a dispiriting 51 per cent turned out in 2014.

Federally, the last election saw increased turnout, but that was only due to the lofty but ultimately largely empty rhetoric of Justin Trudeau, who attracted the youth vote, a topic I will return to momentarily.

While the virus of demagoguery is most readily apparent in the United States, Canadians are hardly immune. One has only to look, for example, at the Toronto mayoralty of the late Rob Ford, the crack-smoking bad boy who many voters could not get enough of.

And of course now, in Ontario, many are predicting that his brother, Doug, will be the next premier, despite the fact that he will not allow media on his campaign bus and is skipping out on the first leaders' debate on April 11. His strategy seems to be to speak in generalities (finding new efficiencies - where, oh where, have we heard that one before?) promising everything to everyone, and at a very attractive cost - none. And on top of that, he promises to lower taxes.

What is the cure, or at least an effective treatment, for this rash of nonsense? Perhaps it lies in lowering the voting age to 16. Lance Copegog, one of those 16-year-olds, writes:

It is a shame that voters in Ontario do not cherish their democratic right to vote.

Liberal MPP Arthur Potts, who represents the Toronto riding of Beaches—East York, introduced a private members bill that proposes the voting age be lowered from 18 to 16 in provincial elections.

His arguments have a compelling quality as he looks at youth activism:

First Nations-led youth councils are holding the government to account on its promises to Indigenous people in Ontario, young activists involved in the Black Lives Matter movement are advocating for systemic change, and many others are making a difference in their communities.

Most young people do not deny that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time. The action that we take now will determine our very survival.

As well, Copegog takes encouragement from what young people are doing in the U.S.

The activism of the survivors of the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting demonstrate that today’s young people are articulate, courageous, and passionate. Their activism saw them go head-to-head with the National Rifle Association and Senator Marco Rubio, a darling of the gun lobby.

I can see additional advantages to lowering the voting age. At 16, most are still in school, a wonderful venue to engage meaningfully on today's vital issues, promote discussion and foster some critical thinking amongst peers.

Voting at 16, whether through peer pressure or increased awareness, would likely further the chances of electoral participation as a lifelong habit.

Finally, such youth engagement might shame their indolent, disengaged parents into the same participation.

In his column today, Tim Harper offers sundry reasons for increased participation by young people who already have the right to vote, millenials:

They prefer government spending over balanced budgets (understood by Justin Trudeau and Kathleen Wynne), don’t believe corporations pay their fair share of taxes, don’t believe income inequality has been properly addressed and are more comfortable with big interventionist government.

They also want to see action on climate change, policies to lift people out of poverty and they back a more open immigration system.

Those very issues resonate with younger people as well. Theirs is a broken world that they will have to contend with far longer than someone of my generation will.

Why shouldn't they have a voice?

Well-Said!

Sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I find myself thinking about the sad state of the world today, a state infinitely exacerbated by the current politics of the failed American Empire. Indeed, I had planned this morning to discuss at some length some of its spillover effects into our own country, not least of which is evident in the current incompetent and decidedly demagogic direction of the Conservative Party under Andrew Scheer. To suggest that Trump is responsible for this would be inaccurate and facile, but the permission the Orange Ogre has granted to the bigoted and the simple-minded to trumpet and revel in their ignorance is undeniable.

Although I am not really developing that theme today, I want to take a moment to make the following observation before getting to my purpose. That there was plenty of gutter politics under the old Harper regime is unquestionable, but I was initially a bit surprised that the Con Party under its new leader, Andrew Scheer, has embraced such a robust continuation of the same divisive themes; currently, the Omar Khadr compensation is the subject of his demonization. But then I realized that the kind of political 'narrowcasting,' the playing to the base at the expense of any pretense of representing Canadians in general, has gotten new life, given that Trump is making an art of it in the U.S.: Galvanize the base, ensure their blind, reflexive loyalty by appealing to their worst instincts, and make certain their hatreds and prejudices are so stoked that they vote.

What is, however, missing from the cynical calculations of Team Trump and the Scheer Stooges is the assumption that other people on both sides of the border, people of sanity, deliberation and a highly-developed sense of fair play, will sleep while the rabble have their way.

The following letters from today's Star give me hope for that quieter, but very potent, segment of our respective populations:

Re: Justin Trudeau had a choice on Khadr settlement, Opinion, July 26

In answer to federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s emotionally overwrought attack on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to make a payment to Omar Khadr in respect of the heinous behaviour of several Canadian governments responsible for his illegal incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, I can find agreement with one statement: “Principles are worth fighting for.”

Principles set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply to all Canadians. That is indeed a principle worth fighting for.

Sadly, Mr. Scheer and his like-minded followers believe they have a right to apply those Charter rights selectively. This emotional response is the same as that exhibited by the government of the day’s delegitimization/incarceration of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, and the denial of entry to Jewish refugees prior to the war, to name just two examples of demonizing, hate-mongering behaviour of Canadian governments.

Nevertheless, there are many Canadians, I believe a majority, who reject that past behaviour and agree with the current government’s payment to Mr. Khadr.

Indeed, the former Conservative government led by Stephen Harper approved a similar payment to Maher Arar. I do not recall Mr. Scheer sanctioning interviews to discredit the Harper government with U.S. news outlets or writing columns to the Star to evoke hatred against Maher or Harper.

That he engages in this behaviour now reveals his need to mimic the political rants so disgraceful south of the border. It demonstrates that he will make self-serving political decisions that benefit only some Canadians, but not all. Who is next to lose their Charter rights? Be careful, it could be you.

Liz Iwata, Pickering

Andrew Scheer says the Supreme Court ruled that Omar Khadr’s rights were violated and that the Conservatives recognized and accepted that finding.

His inconvenient truth is that the Supreme Court issued its finding in January 2010, and Khadr was repatriated in September 2012. It appears to have taken the Conservatives 2-1/2 years to accept the finding. Khadr then spent a further 2-1/2 years in prison before being finally released on bail in May 2015, after the government failed in a last-ditch attempt to deny bail.

Yes, the settlement was a Liberal decision. But the actions of the Conservative government were a large part of the decision.

Cheryl Adams, Toronto

Although Andrew Scheer has some counterpoints to the Omar Khadr debate worth discussing, he unfortunately leaves out one pressing detail to his entire argument: Khadr was a child soldier and his rights as a Canadian were violated, period.

No matter how much the Conservative Party spins this debate, it’s a strong and valid point that will always rise to the surface.

Bobby Leeson, Brampton

One Thing Is Clear

The older I get, the more I realize that there are no simple solutions to problems, be it world hunger, war and conflict, climate change, or something as seemingly straightforward as getting along with that difficult guy down the street. And while I have cast aside most of the facile answers I thought I had in my youth, one thing remains, for me, an immutable truth: the power of education.

In a world beset by extremism and creeping demagoguery, some of it very close to our doorstep, the only real inoculation, although hardly a foolproof one, is that which is conferred by being as well-educated as possible. Had I not believed this, I doubt that I could have managed 30 years in the classroom.

Knowing things, especially how to think critically, provides tools that can help prevent people from falling into an insularity that ignores the larger world and allows for the construction of a world based, not on reality, but rather the prejudices and values that appeal to the lowest instincts of humanity.

A well-considered letter in today's Toronto Star addresses this issue quite nicely, I think:

Re: Fear of Donald Trump is overblown, Dec. 18

Wondering why Donald Trump has so much support for his racist views?

Two anecdotes: In 1941, when I was four, my parents moved from Chicago to a suburb that had good schools. So by 1941, long before the documented flight of whites from U.S. cities, some U.S. school systems were in trouble.

Fast forward to the mid-1960s when I was the manager of Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Ky., the local professional theatre company. In an attempt to sell tickets, I visited an official at the Jefferson County Board of Education, responsible for Louisville schools. When I suggested that the board consider buying play tickets for their students, the official told me that they had trouble finding dollars to buy chalk, paper and pencils, and couldn’t think about theatre tickets. He said that any increase in school funding had to be approved in a plebiscite, and citizens always voted “no.”

In addition to poor investment in education, many U.S. citizens have no experience outside of their country. In the far west and far east, near the coasts, people do travel, but in most of the U.S., including the giant midwest, people don’t even have passports. Plus, their slimmed-down, dumbed-down media are mostly controlled by big corporations whose civic responsibilities are thin.

So who better to respond to a demagogue’s simple, angry answers to complex questions than people who have been poorly educated, don’t know the rest of the world, are poorly informed by media, and have been fed a diet of myths about U.S. greatness. All this while their higher-paying union factory jobs have gone to low-wage countries.

Little was learned from the loss of the Vietnam War, other than learning not to allow the media unfettered access to what is really happening in U.S. wars. Little has been learned from the 1940s and 1950s McCarthy “Red Scare” blacklisting of supposed Communist sympathizers, another time in which politicians deliberately stoked U.S. citizens’ fears, ruining the lives of thousands.

And, most people are unaware that, beginning in the 1930s, large corporations deliberately and successfully courted U.S. Christian leaders in an attempt to counter Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The message was, and is, that Christianity and capitalism have similar goals.

We in Canada, my chosen country, can’t be smug. We are the people that elected Rob Ford, and Stephen Harper three times, and “the base” in both countries is angry for real reasons, but instead of real solutions being offered, “the base” is fed fear and hatred of others by cynical opportunists. Unfortunately, hate boomerangs.

The solutions lie in better education and more opportunities for all, and in setting strict limits on how much wealth or power any person or corporation can amass.

A long, dangerous path is ahead of us. The enemy, and our better selves, are within each of us. In the words of W. H. Auden: “We must love one another or die.”

Douglas Buck, Toronto

How Much For That Bauble In The Window?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Today, on our national holiday, most will be giving thanks for what they treasure in their lives, whether it be a loving family, good friends, a solid roof over their heads, good food on the table, etc.

I suspect a sizable number will also be giving thanks, indeed perhaps even salivating (giving much-needed competition to that clichéd turkey) over the announcement that the upcoming throne speech will see the Harper cabal transforming itself into a 'consumer-first' government.

Apparently, one of the first crumbs it will toss to the masses is greater freedom to customize their bank of cable channels. According to Industry Minister James Moore, soon the misery of having to include unwanted channels in your cable selection will be a thing of the past. Say goodbye to the Shampoo Network, the Dog Grooming Channel, the Party Favours Channel, etc. (unless you really want them) and prepare to watch only what you choose to watch, thus ensuring that your hard-earned and increasingly scarce dollars (thanks to the abysmal record at job creation of our self-proclaimed economist Prime Minister) are spent on your viewing preferences.

Says our bespectacled savior, James Moore:

“We don’t think people should be forced to buy bundled television channels when they’re not interested in watching those channels and those shows”.

It is good to know that this regime has its head screwed on right. Bread and circuses, all day, every day, seven days a week. A fine strategy as a lead-up to the 2015 federal election where the newly-empowered may be coached off their couches to cast a ballot for a government that is finally giving the people what they want.

Can the legalization of other opiates be far behind?

How much for that bauble in the window? Too much, is my dark and pessimistic suspicion.

More Reflections on Leadership

The other day, in my post on political leadership, I chose Toronto Mayor Rob Ford as the figure to contrast what I consider to be the much more mature and thoughtful approach of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. My exclusion of the more obvious figure of comparison, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, was intentional, given that I have written so much about him in the past, each post essentially observing the same thing: his addiction to ideological bromides as substitutes for real policy.

That dearth of vision was much in evidence in Hudak's fundraising dinner in Toronto the other day. Saying all the 'right' things to those for whom real thought on policy issues is not an option, young Tim trotted out the usual 'solutions' to all of Ontario's woes, including:

...bringing unions to heel, getting rid of “expensive gold-standard” public pensions, new subways, introducing performance levels for bureaucrats, freezing public-sector wages for two years, and giving tax breaks for employers.

“We will modernize our labour laws so that no worker will be forced to join a union as a condition for taking a job. And no business will be forced to hire a company solely because it has a unionized workforce,” he said.

To regard Hudak as anything more than a tool of the business agenda is difficult, and I am only taking a bit of time to even refer to him here because of a column in today's Star by Judith Timson on how we crave what she calls authenticity in our leaders, which she describes in the following way:

Authenticity does not seem to be about being someone voters want to have a beer with, or even one with whom people always agree. It is about being a leader who comes across as authentically in his or her own skin, not spouting platitudes or panaceas, but one whose words and actions, in a very cynical age, people can believe.

While I don't agree with all of the candidates she cites for their authenticity (Rob Ford, Margaret Thatcher, Justin Trudeau), her other choice, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, resonates with me, for the reasons I gave the other day.

Here is what Timson has to say about her:

Ontario’s new premier, Kathleen Wynne, has brought a different kind of authenticity to her office. For one thing, she has an extraordinary voice — one that is intimate and knowledgeable. Asked about public transit during a CBC radio call-in show not long ago, Wynne first launched into an affecting anecdote about riding Toronto’s brand new subway system back in the 1950s with her grandmother, wearing her “little white gloves.”

It was not only touching but brave, because Wynne dared to come across first as an ordinary person with memories others might share and not as a politician with a spiel about transit. Mind you, she’s also not afraid to deliver the bad news — if citizens want better transit, they will have to pony up in taxes.

So while others are content to talk about gravy trains, union bosses and the need for the euphemistic workplace democracy in their appeals to the passions and prejudices of the masses, Wynne is trying to set a higher standard for political discourse based on reason, fact and guilelessness.

Let's hope she succeeds.

'Master of the Universe' Tim Speaks Again

And, as usual, has nothing to say to anyone with the capacity to think.

H/t Kev

Villagers With Pitchforks

Looks like these folks need some direction:

I suspect young Tim Hudak would like to provide it for them.

Do You Have What It Takes To Write For Sun News?

Please note: no journalism degree needed or wanted.

YOU'RE CONSCRIPTED! JOIN THE SUN NEWS TEAM

Do you think differently? Have you dreamed about working in the media but couldn't stomach the thought of the group think therapy sessions? If you're on a relentless pursuit of the truth, we might have just the opportunity for you.

As we grow and expand Sun News Network, we need people like you to make it all happen. People who are independent thinkers, strong writers and communicators -- black sheep who have a genuine passion for the real news.

No need to have a journalism degree (in fact, we'll view it with a healthy dose of skepticism). Journalism 101 isn't where you learn to find the truth.

Coming up with the right stories for Ezra, Adler and Brian isn't rocket science...but you can bet your average CBC producer wouldn't be able to deliver that magic.

So, if you think you've got what it takes (only a select few do)...send us your resume. Send us your demo reel. Send us a must-read e-mail on why we should hire you over that stuffy, know-it-all from Columbia University with nine degrees in advanced journalism studies.

We're always looking for the right people, so if you'd like to join the team submit your resume here or email SunMedia.Careers@sunmedia.ca.

Sun TV - A Blight On Critical Thinking

Personally, I think we all give far too much attention to that parody-of-news-organization known as Sun TV. From the puerile rants of Ezra Levant to the sanctimonious pronouncements of religious hypocrites like Michael Coren, Sun TV is an egregious insult to anyone with a modicum of critical-thinking skills.

Yet here I am, adding to the cacophonous denunciations of this propaganda wing of the Harper Conservatives. Oh well, I will blame my lapse on the oppressively humid weather outside (now 41 degrees with the humidex). That, and this blistering article from Rabble.ca exposing the organization for what it is.

The Sun: Demagoguery, Not Critical Thinking

As a contrast to my earlier post about the Star and critical thinking, take a look at this poll and readers' comments about Omar Khadr from Sun readers.

h/t Norm Spector

The Politics of Education

After I retired from teaching, my first blog was devoted to matters of education, including the institutional politics that frequently deform it. Now, more than five years into retirement, I spend most of my writing energies on this blog. However, today I would like to write a post in which the two subjects are very much intertwined, the politics of education.

Since the announcement of the Ontario provincial budget, Premier Dalton McGuinty and his Minister of Education, Laurel Broten, have become fascinating studies into what Orwell called the political use of language. It is language frequently involving demagoguery, fueled in this case by the knowledge that teachers are widely envied and despised, despite the vital role they play in society.

Take, for example, the Premier's call for a 'voluntary' pay freeze and elimination of the retirement gratuity. How 'voluntary' can it be when the province promises to legislate it if teachers don't capitulate? (BTW, although I suspect that no one really cares, the retirement gratuity is usually seen by teachers as partial compensation for the fact that they have no benefits in retirement and must purchase expensive private coverage).

My own former federation, OSSTF, has had a very muted reaction to these ultimatums, not surprising since it has essentially devolved into an opportunistic political entity itself. The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, on the other hand, has shown real spine; it walked away from the 'negotiating' table. After all, since government by fiat seems to be McGuinty's choice, what is there to negotiate?

It is this principled move that has led to the government's use of some of the demagogic arrows in its quiver. Designed no doubt to both shame teachers and inflame the public, Laurel Broten, Dwight Duncan and Dalton McGuinty has all very publicly proclaimed they will not sacrifice full-day kindergarten and smaller class sizes to the implied greed and selfishness of the teachers.

The latest escalation in this campaign of intimidation is reported in today's Star, as Broten threatens elementary teachers with 10,000 layoffs unless they accept a pay freeze..

So can a government really have it both ways? Can it claim to be negotiating while very clearly telegraphing that there is nothing to negotiate? Are McGuinty and company afraid of the loss of support from the education sector, or do they feel that loss will be more than compensated for by a public that sees teachers as rather tiresome and perhaps even disposable commodities?

Time will tell.

Conservatives Insult Canadians' Intelligence Once Again

While the Harper government has repeatedly shown its contempt for facts and statistics as it treads its demagogic path with abandon, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has achieved a new low. In language almost identical to that of George Bush after the terrorist attacks in New York, the Harper minion has told those who fear the erosion of privacy rights through the expansion of online monitoring, ostensibly to catch child pornographers, that they are either with the government, or “with the child pornographers” prowling online.

This shocking affront to logical thinking, known as absolutism, is a tool frequently used by the right-wing to advance causes that can't withstand scrutiny. People may recall the sobriquet that Jack Layton earned (Taliban Jack) for daring to ask questions about Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, or recent rhetoric about those opposing the Gateway Pipeline as 'enemies of the people.'

Once more, these kinds of cowardly tactics amply demonstrate why the Harper government is both unfit and unworthy to govern.

Harper Government Identifies A New 'Enemy Of The People' - ForestEthics

Now this is just getting outrageous to the point of surrealism. The latest story in The Star reveals that the PMO has allegedly labelled an environmental group an “enemy” of Canada for opposing a proposed west coast oil pipeline and threatened retribution if its funding was not cut off, according to the affidavit of a former employee.

According to Andrew Frank, a former communications manager with ForestEthics, a group receiving funding from Tides Canada, a charitable group that funds initiatives that address poverty, climate change and social problems, senior federal officials referred to ForestEthics as an “enemy of the government of Canada” and an “enemy of the people of Canada” in a private meeting with the president of Tides Canada, Ross McMillan.

In that meeting, government officials apparently gave McMillan “a set time period … by which to ‘cut loose’ ForestEthics, or the government would ‘take down’ all of Tides’ charitable projects,” Frank said in his affidavit, which was accompanied by internal e-mail correspondence and transcripts of voice mails.

This kind of paranoid and demagogic bullying is unworthy of any democracy, even Harper's.